Trump lashes out at Biden in TV interview

President Donald Trump and Republicans are launching a broad election-year attack on the foundation of the Russia investigation, including declassifying intelligence information to try to place senior Obama administration officials under scrutiny for routine actions.

"He was one of the unmaskers," Trump said of Biden in an interview with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo, labeling the Russia investigation as "the greatest political crime in the history of our country."

Trump moved further to lay the blame on his predecessor and would-be replacement. "The president knew everything," Trump said. "President Obama and Vice President Biden, they knew everything."

Names of Americans are routinely hidden, or minimized, in intelligence reports that describe routine, legal surveillance of foreign targets. U.S. officials must make a specific request if they want to know the person's identity, or "unmask" them.

Trump and his Republican allies are pushing to reframe the Russia investigation as a "deep state" plot to sabotage his administration, setting the stage for a fresh onslaught of attacks on past and present Democratic officials and law enforcement leaders.

Trump says the coronavirus pandemic showed he was "right" about the importance of U.S. manufacturing and moving supply chains out of China, as he blamed that country anew for not doing enough to slow the pandemic.

"Everything I said turned out to be right," Trump said in the interview. "We should have them all in the United States."

The president has signaled a willingness to deliver aid to state and local governments — funding that is a core demand of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., but in the Fox interview Trump said Democratic-led  states are using the COVID-19 pandemic to make up for "over twenty five years of bad management."

Trump's comments came before the president traveled to Allentown, Pennsylvania Thursday to highlight a U.S. medical equipment distributor. It's his second trip in as many weeks as he tries to convince the American public that it's time for states to begin to reopen, even as the virus continues to spread.