The media has long missed the boat on Russia's election meddling goal: Russia does not care who wins, as long as the results are doubted, according to former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on Newsmax TV.
"This is really important for Americans to realize: I don't think the Russians care who wins the election," McMaster told Monday's "Spicer & Co." "They don't care, as long as we doubt the results.
"They didn't care in 2016."
McMaster told host Sean Spicer, who was the White House press secretary during McMaster's time as national security adviser, the Russian election meddling was designed to discredit whoever won the election.
After releasing his book "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World," McMaster, who was ousted as NSA for John Bolton, did praise his former boss, President Donald Trump, for dramatically improving election security after 2016.
"The Trump administration – I wish President Trump would take credit for it – he did a lot to secure our elections between 2016 and 2018," McMaster told Spicer. "That was night and day. We're even better at securing our elections now, based on big changes in the administration, looking at our cyber infrastructure, working with the states, you know, it's a very decentralized system to secure the physical elections.
"But also our cyber arms of our government are much more agile now, because we have new policies in place that recognize, 'hey, to have a good defense from a cyber perspective, you also need to have a good offense.'"
Important: See Newsmax TV now carried in 70 million cable homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, CenturyLink 1209, Mediacom Ch. 277, Frontier 615 or Find More Cable Systems – Click Here.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.