Obama: I didn't underestimate Putin

Even after the U.S. intelligence community concluded Russia hacked Democrats during the presidential campaign, President Obama says he did not underestimate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC News' "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos reminded Obama that he mocked Republican nominee Mitt Romney four years ago for seeing Russia as a "geopolitical" threat.

"I don't think I underestimated him," Obama said of Putin. "I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age, it is possible for misinformation for cyberhacking and so forth to have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating."

During a debate in 2012, Obama accused Romney of calling Russia the U.S.'s top "geopolitical threat" over al Qaeda. Romney corrected Obama, saying he called the country a "geopolitical foe."

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