Listen to this article

On Sunday, President Trump criticized his national security adviser tweeting H.R. McMaster “forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians”. On Saturday, McMaster said that it is now “incontrovertible” Russia interrupted the 2016 election. McMaster spoke a day after a federal grand jury indicted more than a dozen Russians in connection with the interference. He was addressing an international audience at the Munich Security Conference and a number of Russian officials also participated in the event. He said that as you can see with the FBI documents that the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain, as it was difficult in the past.

The remarks of McMaster were also important due to they appeared to fly in the face allegations against his boss regarding the investigation as now being a phony witch hunt. On Sunday, Trump powerfully rejected the involvement of Russia, in a separate tweet. He said in another tweet that he never said that Russia didn’t interfere in the election 2016, but said that it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400-pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer. McMaster used forceful language to convey American strength on Saturday against a coordinated Russian disinformation campaign. He emphasized the need for the West to come together to defend itself against such terrors. McMaster also said that the U.S is already improving its ability to defeat these pernicious threats. McMaster seemed to dismiss the notion in response to a question from a Russian politician regarding the U.S and Russia potentially working together on cybersecurity.