Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows welcomed the efforts of foreign governments to influence the presidential election for Donald Trump.
Transcript of Meadows on ABC’s This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: The intelligence community put out a stark warning this week about possible foreign interference in our election, Iran, China and Russia. Did the president bring this up with Vladimir Putin in his last phone call? And what is he doing to prevent it?
MEADOWS: Well, he’s — he’s doing a great deal to prevent it. You know, as we saw the previous administration, they talked about election interference and did very little to address it, George.
Not only have we seen hundreds of millions of dollars that have been invested but two different legislative actions that this president has signed off on to make sure that election integrity is — is important.
We’ve got not only the Department of Homeland Security but the intel community, the Department of Justice, and others trying to make sure what we do is — is again that foreign interference in our elections does not happen.
Now, there’s a big difference between foreign interference and foreign influence. They continue to try to influence, as everyone does across the globe. But in terms of actually affecting the vote totals and interacting, I think we’re in a good place. We’ve been willing to work with secretaries of states of every — of all 50 states as we look at that and the territories to make sure that their systems have the needed resources for the integrity to be there and so that we can count on that.
Video:
"They continue to try to influence, as everyone does" — Mark Meadows dodges a question about whether Trump brought up election interference during the call he just had with Vladimir Putin (it appears he didn't and Meadow's comments suggest he's open to some help) pic.twitter.com/0rYZJKqezw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 26, 2020
Meadows felt the need to distinguish between foreign election interference and foreign efforts to influence the election because Trump wants foreign governments to influence the election to help him win as the Russians did in 2016. Trump has been asking other governments like China and Russia for election help since he took office.
Foreign election influence is the same as foreign election interference. Trump and Meadows are signaling that they would welcome help from any foreign government if it would win Trump a second term in office.
The White House Chief of Staff wants foreign governments to commit crimes against democracy because that is the only way to keep Trump in the White House.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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