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TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
Sun Aug 9, 2020, 04:52 PM Aug 2020

Pelosi says election threats from Russia, China aren't equal

Source: MSN

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday the threats of interference in the U.S. presidential election from Russia and China are not equal, pointing to a more serious risk with Moscow's efforts to boost President Donald Trump’s reelection bid.

“They’re not equivalent,” said Pelosi, D-Calif. “Russia is actively 24/7 interfering in our election. They did so in 2016, and they are doing so now.” She urged intelligence agencies to “put more information out there” on the specific nature of the threats.

An intelligence report last week said Russia was already using a “range of measures” to undercut Trump's Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, and promote Trump with misinformation on social media. The statement Friday by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, also said China does not want Trump to win a second term and has accelerated its criticism of the White House, and that Iran is also hoping Trump will lose.

Pelosi said trying to equate China and Russia on the threat of foreign election interference doesn’t tell the story. “The Chinese, they said, prefer Biden — we don’t know that, but that’s what they’re saying, but they’re not really getting involved in the presidential election,” she said.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pelosi-says-election-threats-from-russia-china-arent-equal/ar-BB17L5wc?li=BBnb7Kz



While the Trump administration tries to push a false equivalency between all foreign actors, what Nancy Pelosi is saying is matching up with what former FBI official Clint Watts has been saying since last year.

In addition, under Trump, the U.S. has largely ceded leadership in the Pacific Rim to China, so it questionable whether China prefers Biden to Trump, since Trump's isolationist approach allows China to supplant the U.S. in Asia:

https://www.fpri.org/fie/election-2020-russia-china/

Former FBI Official Clint Watts: "Election 2020: Russia Cares, China Doesn't"

In anticipation of Chinese interference claims ahead of Election Day in November, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s (FPRI) Foreign Influence Election 2020 (FIE 2020) project included Chinese outlet the Global Times alongside its analysis of the Kremlin’s Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News. Our analysis of Global Times content from January 1, 2019 to present day shows China has published significantly less English-language content than Russia regarding the presidential election. Chinese state-sponsored articles about the 2020 election, either observed by the FIE 2020 team or viewed on the Alliance For Securing Democracy’s Hamilton 2.0 dashboard, hardly travel into the U.S. audience space when compared to RT and Sputnik News.

Furthermore, an examination of the paltry Chinese election coverage shows they spend remarkably little time seeking to elevate one candidate over another. The trade war, Huawei, COVID-19, and the Hong Kong protests dominate Global Times headlines—not the 2020 election. Of 1,211 mentions of the 2020 candidates over a 15-month period, more than 85% discussed President Trump. Trump’s mentions were far more negative than positive, and most always in the context of China’s foreign policy goals vis-à-vis the U.S. rather than the presidential election. When China discusses the 2020 election, it’s not about capturing a victory, but undermining the integrity of the American democratic process.

Conversely, Russia’s outlets talk about internal U.S. politics and the election all the time, with their state-sponsored news outlets authoring a high volume of stories and mentioning the candidates more than twice as much as China. It is clear the Kremlin prefers a second term for President Trump heading into the fall and strongly opposes the election of former Vice President Biden. Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly said he wanted Trump to win in 2016, and Russia’s overt propaganda portrays Trump far more positively than Biden. Although they’ve soured a bit on the president in recent months, taking the opportunity to bash him with respect to America’s failed COVID-19 response and the administration’s authoritarian response to racial justice protests in D.C., nothing Russia says negatively about Trump compares to how derogatory the Kremlin is toward Biden. Headlines trash Biden continuously, and Russian derision of Biden will hit full swing this summer when a curiously timed movie out of Russia-occupied Donetsk, Ukraine, titled “Alpha R” hits theaters warning of a “New Cold War” if Biden wins the election.

The Kremlin’s strategy since 2016 has remained consistent—“secure the base, split the opposition.” Facebook takedowns of the Kremlin’s troll farm in 2019 showed Russian content promoting President Trump, denigrating Biden and elevating Sanders. In March of this year, Facebook closed a Russian troll farm cutout operation in Ghana that sought to infiltrate American minority groups on Facebook and Instagram, presumably hoping to divide the political left and influence voters headed into Election Day.
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Pelosi says election threats from Russia, China aren't equal (Original Post) TomCADem Aug 2020 OP
K&R 2naSalit Aug 2020 #1
I was wondering about that. BigmanPigman Aug 2020 #2
"Even it out?" PSPS Aug 2020 #4
This message was self-deleted by its author BigmanPigman Aug 2020 #3

Response to TomCADem (Original post)

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