Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster says efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election have harmed the United States’ ability to speak out about authoritarian governments’ actions.
Host Jake Tapper asked McMaster on Sunday how President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election have affected the country’s credibility when it denounces the actions of authoritarian governments around the globe.
“Our reputation is harmed,” McMaster said. “There are celebrations across the world among authoritarian regimes, and despots feel as though they’re emboldened and justified.”
He continued, “This isn’t new. This is what they’ve been doing for years… What you’ve seen is that they’ve portrayed their system, their authoritarian system, as superior to our democracy.”
“But what I would say to Americans is, ‘Hey, we ought to be confident.’ As I mentioned, we were stress-tested in the worst possible way with the president of the United States actively undermining our confidence in our democratic process,” he added.
Watch the video below:
Gen. H.R. McMaster, former National Security Adviser to President Trump, told CNN's Jake Tapper that Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election have hurt the reputation of US democracy around the world. #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/5mbA268Vk0
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) January 17, 2021
Since the election, Trump has made baseless allegations that there was widespread fraud, which tilted the results in President-elect Joe Biden’s favor.
His campaign filed dozens of lawsuits seeking to challenge the results in battleground states he lost. Then he turned to pressuring local officials to appoint electors to the Electoral College who would vote for him. He also pressured state officials to “find” votes for him. Finally, he urged Vice President Mike Pence to throw out electoral votes — which he does not have the power to do.
McMaster is not the only one who has raised concerns that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and sow doubts about the results.
In a speech on the Senate floor in November, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) blasted Trump and his Republican allies for advancing their false claims, as IJR reported.
“What President Trump is doing and what our Republican colleagues are doing by their silence is aiding and abetting these authoritarian leaders,” he said, adding, “These guys are smiling. You’re an authoritarian leader you want nothing more than to see democracy fail, to see that model fail.”
