After concluding Russia has used social media campaigns to sow discord in the U.S. elections —while failing to hack the vote counts — the goal of Congress is now to assure Americans our elections are "sacrosanct" and make Russians aware "there will be hell to pay" if they continue to meddle, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said Sunday.
"We have to make sure the integrity of our elections is sacrosanct – that it is not up for any kind of concern on the part of American people," Rounds, a member of the Senate's Armed Services Committee, told John Catsimatidis on Sunday's "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y.
The U.S. has to send that message to Russia, as it is now, to assure Americans and keep the meddling attempts, specifically the hacking of state and local voting system, from happening again.
"We have to have the ability to keep track of and to prove to people that these are honest elections and that an outside power didn't do it," Rounds told host John Catsimatidis. "Part of the way we do that is to let the Russians know that if they mess with that stuff there will be hell to pay."
Rounds added Congress is "in the process of preparing" against future Russian social media campaigns and election systems hacking, but step one was recognizing the problem.
"There is a difference between putting out lots of propaganda, which they did, and using the Internet to disseminate it, which they did," Rounds said.
"We are in the process of preparing now. And part of it is convincing people that it is actually happening."
President Donald Trump ripped the United States' own role in the Russian election divisiveness via Twitter on Sunday morning.
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