ELECTION SECURITY AT THE DEBATE

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang on Tuesday night said that the U.S. has “tampered with other elections” in calling for action to be taken to deter Russia from interfering in the 2020 election.

“We have to let Russia know, look, we get it, we’ve tampered with other elections, you’ve tampered with our elections, and now it has to stop, and if it does not stop we will take this as an act of hostility against the American people,” Yang said during the Democratic primary debate.

Yang described Russian hacking efforts ahead of the 2016 U.S. elections as “an illustration of the 21st century threats” such as cybersecurity and climate change, vowing to help “pull us forward” in addressing these issues.

Democratic candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), one the main Senate Democrats to push for action on election security over the past several months, pushed back strongly against Yang’s assertion that the U.S. and Russia were equal in terms of election interference against other nations.

“I don’t see a moral equivalency between our country and Russia,” Klobuchar said, adding that Russian interference in 2016 was “much more serious” than “meddling,” and that Russia’s actions constituted an “invasion” of U.S. elections.