President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign manager says the 2016 campaign never got any help from Russia, calling those claims a "joke."
In an interview Wednesday on ABC affiliate WJLA, Brad Parscale was asked if the Trump campaign would accept aid from the Kremlin in the 2020 election.
"It's a joke," Parscale responded. "There was never any help from the Russians."
According to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, the Russian Internet Research Agency spent $200,000 to release about 3,500 Facebook ads. Facebook estimated the ads reached at least 146 million people.
Mueller didn’t uncover evidence to conclude that a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin took place. But the report noted the Russian government worked to secure a Trump presidency and the Trump campaign expected it would benefit from Russia's illegal efforts to influence the election.
Parscale said Trump's win was a matter of strategy, arguing the campaign got out more online ads than the Russians or Hillary Clinton combined.
"What we were spending per minute is what they spent in the entire election," Parscale said. "Hillary Clinton made 66,000 ads, I think the Russians made 3,500 ads. We made 5.9 million ads...It's not even the same ballpark."
He added the 2020 Trump campaign expects to spend at least $1 billion in its effort to get Trump re-elected.
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