Day: September 8, 2024

Former President Trump on Saturday dismissed findings from the Justice Department about Russia’s covert efforts to influence the 2024 U.S. elections and joked about whether he should be offended that Vladimir Putin had offered a tongue-in-cheek endorsement of Vice President Harris.

Trump held a rally in Wisconsin, where he referenced a Justice Department announcement earlier in the week that it seized 32 web domains Russia has used for its influence campaigns.

“Three days ago it started again. The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,” Trump said. “Russia. It’s Russia. And you know the whole world laughed at them this time.

“They said just the other day, the attorney general, ‘We are looking at Russia.’ And I said oh no. It’s Russia, Russia, Russia all over again,” Trump said, referring to the investigation into his 2016 campaign by special counsel Robert Mueller. “But they don’t look at China and they don’t look at Iran. I don’t know what it is with poor Russia.”

The Biden administration earlier this week condemned Russian efforts to influence the 2024 U.S. election.

The Justice Department seized web domains and targeted two employees of RT, formerly known as Russia Today, a Russian state media outlet with content available in English, charging the duo with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The indictment accuses the two of partnering with a conservative-leaning media company to help sow division in the U.S.

Collectively, the two actions are some of the strongest moves taken under the Biden White House to confront accelerating efforts by the Russian government the intelligence community has deemed “the predominant threat to U.S. elections.”

Trump has in the past cast doubt on the intelligence community’s findings that Russia was attempting to influence U.S. elections, including during a meeting he had alongside Putin in 2018.

The intelligence community determined Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election, which Trump won, and the Justice Department investigated the Trump campaign over possible coordination with Moscow. The final special counsel report found no evidence of collusion.

Trump on Saturday also quipped about comments from Putin, who earlier in the week joked that he is supporting Harris in the upcoming election, citing her “infectious” laugh and potential to change U.S. sanctions on Russia.

“He endorsed Kamala. I was very offended by that. I wonder why he endorsed Kamala. No, he’s a chess player,” Trump said.

The former president has repeatedly said Putin does not fear or respect the current administration, though Trump’s critics have accused him of cozying up to autocrats and dictators.

U.S. intelligence officials warned Friday that the Russian government’s covert efforts to sway the presidential election are “more sophisticated than in prior election cycles,” and that Moscow is using artificial intelligence to create increasingly convincing fake content that could aid Trump. Four years ago, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously endorsed the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in an effort to boost Trump.

But Trump, who has repeatedly described the probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election as a “hoax,” is dismissing them this time around, too.

“The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,” Trump told the crowd at his rally. “And, you know, the whole world laughed at them this time.”

The Republican presidential nominee’s comments appeared to reference the indictment Wednesday of two Russia-based employees of Russia’s state-run news site, RT, in an alleged scheme in which they paid an American media company to spread English-language videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X.

“It’s Russia, Russia, Russia all over again. But they don’t look at China and they don’t look at Iran. They look at Russia. I don’t know what it is with poor Russia,” Trump said.

Trump’s rally, at the airport in Mosinee, Wis., was billed as focused on “draining the swamp,” but featured a stump speech that meandered from familiar attack lines about inflation and jobs to falsehoods about sex-change operations for minors, conspiracy theories about government employment statistics and dismissals of Russian interference in American elections.

The indictments were part of the administration’s most sweeping effort yet to tackle what it described as Russian disinformation campaigns ahead of the November election.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Washington Post this week that the indictments were “nonsense” and denied Russian interference in the elections. And Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that he wants Vice President Kamala Harris to win the election, rather than Trump, in a tongue-in-cheek endorsement that was widely viewed — including by the former president — as an effort to undermine rather than support her.

“I knew Putin, I knew him well,” Trump said at the rally Saturday. “The other day he endorsed Kamala. He endorsed Kamala. I was very, offended by that … I think it was done maybe with a smile.”

Peskov said in an interview on Russian TV this month that Moscow views Harris as a more predictable opponent than Trump. “The Democrats are more predictable. And what Putin said about Biden’s predictability applies to almost all Democrats, including Ms. Harris,” he said.

But Russia, which is in the midst of a bloody, protracted invasion of its neighbor Ukraine, has other interests at stake in the 2024 election.

Trump, who has often boasted about his relationship with Putin and claimed without evidence that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he was president, has expressed deep skepticism about continuing U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

“I will have that war finished and done and settled before I get to the White House,” Trump vowed Saturday, repeating sentiments that the Kremlin has previously dismissed. “As president elect, I will get that done.”

Cheeseman reported from Washington. Azi Paybarah contributed to this report.