National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster was grilled on Fox News Sunday about Donald Trump’s retweeting of three videos from British hate group Britain First last week. Let’s just say McMaster could not come up with a good rationale.

McMaster claimed Trump was "the best judge" of why he tweeted the videos that earned a rare rebuke of a U.S. president from British Prime Minister Theresa May. But then he quickly argued that it was Trump's "intention to highlight the importance of creating safe and secure environments for our citizens." Apparently, safety for our Muslim citizens, who may now face increased discrimination, doesn't count.

Also, without a trace of irony, McMaster said, that "the key thing is"  to "make sure that we never buy into or reinforce the terrorist narrative—you know, this false narrative that this is a war of religion."

Host Chris Wallace pointed out that Trump had done exactly that, made his tweets about Islam.

Then McMaster argued, "What we have to do is break that cycle of ignorance, hatred."

But ignorance and hatred is exactly what Trump re-cycled with his tweets.

Transcript via FoxNews.com:

WALLACE: The president retweeted videos this week from a fringe anti-Muslim group called Britain First that purported to show Muslims, in some cases, inaccurately, Muslim immigrants committing acts of violence.

[…]

General, why did President Trump send out those videos?

MCMASTER: Well, President Trump is the best judge of why he did that. But I know 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 is no return of terrorists and extremists who can pose a risk to the American people, or to our allies and partners.

WALLACE: But you know that, for instance, in the case of the Dutch video, it was not an immigrant that was involved. Britain First is a fringe, anti-Muslim group. The woman whose tweets that he sent out has been convicted of hate crimes.

Why is that useful for the president of the United States?

MCMASTER: Well, I mean, the key thing is, as you highlight the real risks that these terrorists pose to our citizens, that we make sure that we never buy into or reinforce the terrorist narrative—you know, this false narrative that this is a war of religion.

I mean, this is really a conflict that involves—

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: But his tweets were all about anti-Muslim—about Muslim violence, he was making it.

MCMASTER: Well, those who adhere—those who adhere to this ideology are really irreligious criminals who use a perverted—what the president has called, a wicked interpretation of religion in an effort to—you know, to recruit young, impressionable people to their cause, to foment hatred, and use that hatred to perpetuate violence.

And so, what we have to do is break that cycle of ignorance, hatred, violence at all points, and we’re defeating Daesh in its so-called caliphate, 95 --

WALLACE: ISIS.

MCMASTER: Or ISIS. Ninety-five percent of the territory that they have controlled has been taken back, and none of it has been regained by them.

But the other two things the president said we have to be able to do is cut off their financing, and to defeat their wicked ideology. And we’re working with allies and partners across the world, and especially in Muslim-majority countries, to do—to do this in really unprecedented ways.

Watch McMaster try and fail to defend Trump’s reckless and unpresidential behavior below, from the December 3, 2017 Fox News Sunday.