National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster on Sunday refused to condemn President Donald Trump for sharing anti-Muslim videos, including one that wrongly identified the perpetrator as an immigrant.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked McMaster why Trump would retweet unverified videos from a British "fringe anti-Muslim group."
"Why did President Trump send out those videos?" Wallace wondered.
"President Trump is the best judge of why he did that," McMaster insisted. "But I know that it was his intention to highlight the importance of creating safe and secure environments for our citizens, to make sure that we have the right laws in place, enforcement mechanisms in place, to ensure that at this critical time when ISIS is being defeated in the Middle East that there isn't a return of terrorists and extremists who can pose a risk to the American people or to our allies and partners."
Wallace reminded the national security advisor that Trump falsely claimed that an immigrant was involved in one video.
"Britain First is a fringe anti-Muslim group," Wallace continued. "The woman whose tweets he sent out has been convicted of hate crimes. Why is that useful for the President of the United States?"
"The key thing is as you highlight the risk that these terrorists pose to our citizens, that we make sure that we make sure that we never buy into or reinforce the terrorist narrative," McMaster opined. "What we have to do is break that cycle of ignorance, of hatred violence at all points."
