NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Nikki Haley, President Donald Trump\u2019s chief envoy to the United Nations, cast Russian interference in the 2016 election as \u201cwarfare\u201d on Thursday, breaking in tone, if not substance, from a president who has consistently downplayed Russian influence in American politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. Ambassador Haley lashed out at Russia\u2019s efforts to \u201csow chaos\u201d in elections across the world during a conference hosted by the George W. Bush Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Russians, God bless them, they\u2019re saying, \u2018Why are Americans anti-Russian? And why have we done the sanctions?\u2019 Well, don\u2019t interfere in our elections and we won\u2019t be anti-Russian,\u201d Haley said. She added, \u201cWhen a country can come and interfere in another country\u2019s elections, that is warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haley\u2019s comments were reinforced by former government officials from both parties, including former President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAmerica has experienced a sustained attempt by a hostile power to feed and exploit our country\u2019s divisions,\u201d Bush declared. \u201cThe Russian government has made a project of turning Americans against each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The comments come as Trump continues to question the intelligence community\u2019s determination that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Federal officials are investigating Russia\u2019s actions and the possibility of collusion with the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook recently provided three congressional committees with more than 3,000 ads they had traced to a Russian internet agency and told investigators of their contents. Twitter also briefed Congress last month and handed over to Senate investigators the profile names of 201 accounts linked to Russians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cForeign aggressions, including cyberattacks, disinformation and financial influence, should never be downplayed or tolerated,\u201d Bush said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Republican former president did not go after Trump by name, but he condemned some of the values Trump has championed during his rise to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism, forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America,\u201d Bush said. \u201cWe see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade, forgetting that conflict, instability and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added, \u201cWe need to recall and recover our own identity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nikki Haley, President Donald Trump\u2019s chief envoy to the United Nations, cast Russian interference in the 2016 election as \u201cwarfare\u201d on Thursday, breaking in tone, if not substance, from a president who has consistently downplayed Russian influence in American politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":10,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"coauthors":[604],"class_list":["post-14759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyber"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"K3ZOUKJCQJCUZJ6KWSK3QEMIII","arc_canonical_url":"\/critical-infrastructure\/2017\/10\/19\/trump-un-envoy-russias-election-interference-is-warfare\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n