The Daily - Why Russia Is Rooting for Both Trump and Sanders

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the Russian government is attempting to interfere in the 2020 presidential race — but it is doing so by supporting two very different candidates. So why is Russia rooting for both President Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders? Guest: David E. Sanger, a national security correspondent and a senior writer at The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Mr. Sanders was briefed on potential interference, and when details of the attempts emerged, he ratcheted up his attacks on Russia, warning President Vladimir V. Putin to stay out of the presidential election.Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get the president re-elected. Mr. Trump was angry the intelligence briefing was held at all.What exactly do intelligence officials mean by “interference”? We don’t know, and officials can’t seem to agree on the scope of the meddling.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the Russian government is supporting two very different candidates in the 2020 presidential race. David Sanger on why Russia is rooting for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. It's Wednesday, February 26th.

David, tell us about these intelligence briefings. Well, the first one, and in some ways the most interesting one, is shrouded in a lot of mystery. We know that about a month ago, the FBI went to Bernie Sanders. The FBI frequently comes around to give general warnings to all the candidates, but that's not what this was all about. This was about a very specific finding, and their message was, we have reason to believe that the Russians, through their own

calculus, have determined that you're their favorite candidate among the Democrats in the primary, and that they may well already be intervening on your behalf. And David, what was Sanders' reaction as both a senator and a presidential candidate to this piece of information? The only reaction that we know about Michael is that he decided to keep it secret. He hasn't said very much about what he thought about it. He just decided to say nothing about it, which itself is a really interesting choice. What do you mean? Well, he said that because it was classified, he doesn't talk about classified briefings,

he just stayed silent. But there are lots of political reasons for him to stay silent as well. Like what? He doesn't want to appear or be portrayed by President Trump as Russia's favorite or Russia's dupe in the election. If you're Bernie Sanders and you're thinking ahead to the general election, you only want one Russian puppet to be in this election and you want it to be Donald Trump. right away that Trump would use this as an effort to try to equalize what the Russians were doing on behalf of President Trump in 2016 and what we think they will be doing with what they're doing with Bernie Sanders. Because if the Russians are backing both of them, it's like the Russians are backing neither of them. Okay. So that's intelligence briefing number one. What about the second one? Well, the second one is bigger, a lot more formal, and we know a lot more about it.

It was February 13th. And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. We are live from Las Vegas. We're in less than an hour. Our Democratic presidential town halls will begin, and we have more on that in just a moment. But first, the breaking news. And the director of National Intelligence Office, Shelby Pearson, has the unenviable job of being the mission manager for election interference for the director of National Intelligence. Goes in to brief the House Intelligence Committee. And so the first thing she says is there is Russian interference underway. says is there is Russian interference underway. The second thing she says is the Russians had and still have a preference for Donald Trump as president. So unlike the Sanders briefing,

this one does leak. This is not a four year ago flashback, folks. This is 2020. Well, Democrats are rekindling an old flame. Russia collusion. Yes. I mean, this is so idiotic. And you notice how when they win elections, the Russians didn't do anything. And a few days after that leaks out, we learn about the Sanders briefing a month before. And of course, as soon as these leak, everyone's furious. And if this came out a month ago, how do you think it came out now, if you had the briefing a month ago? I'll let you guess about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out?

Was the Washington Post? Good friends. Sanders is furious that the news of his briefing came out just before the Nevada caucuses. Right. And blames, among others, corporate media, because the Washington Post had, I think, first broken this story. President Trump is furious that it's back in the ether again, that the Russians are involved in the election and behind him. Here we go again. Did you see it? A story. Aren't people bored? And so at a rally in Las Vegas, he says, this is all fabrication. It's all coming from the Democrats.

I was told that was happening. I was told a week ago. They said, you know, they're trying to start a rumor. It's disinformation. That's the only thing they're good at. They're not good at anything else. They get nothing done. Do nothing, Democrats.

No, actually, it was coming from his own office of the director of national intelligence, all of whom work for him. These people are crazy. So regardless of how this became public, and it seems like both Sanders and Trump are very unhappy that it did become public, it is public now that Russia is supportive of both President Trump and Bernie Sanders. So how did the intelligence community come to that conclusion? What are they seeing out there? Well, we don't know exactly how they came to it because this is wrapped up in their sources and methods. The one thing that they protect more than anything.

We think they have human sources inside Russia. They certainly did in 2016, a unique human source who had access to the Kremlin. They certainly have lines into Russian networks. That's what the National Security Agency does. And finally, they get to see some of the product as it shows up on Facebook or Reddit or something like that. And here, the differences from 2016 are really fascinating. Like what? Well, in 2016, you'll remember that there were Russians who were posing as Americans and putting out Facebook ads or going into Facebook posts. They got booted off for inauthentic behavior. They weren't really Americans.

So what are they doing now? propaganda and false charges on forums like Reddit, hoping that they will get picked up by real Facebook users who are real Americans and will be repeated on their posts. And of course, Facebook can't throw them off because they're real Americans expressing their political views. real Americans expressing their political views. They're protected by First Amendment rights. And it would be pretty unseemly if Facebook began tossing off Americans saying, oh, you heard that from a Russian bot. In the Cold War, the Soviets called these people useful idiots because they unintentionally picked up a Russian theme, a piece of disinformation

and repeated it until it became organic. Right. In the election, they might call them useful partisans because they're going to pluck this out of the political ether, repeat it on cable television, presumably in support of Senator Sanders or President Trump, or maybe someone else who emerges. So, David, how do you make sense of the fact that Russia is trying to help the two candidates in the race who are about as ideologically far apart as imaginable, Trump, Sanders, at the same time? Well, Michael, I've been trying to puzzle this out because at first it didn't seem to make any sense to me. And then the more interviewing

I did with more experts that I trust, they all said, you know, David, actually, it makes perfect sense. And it makes perfect sense for three reasons. So the first one is that both these candidates are at the outer extremes of their own parties. Not the far extreme, but they attract really partisan supporters. And the best way to create chaos is to have two polarized groups of political supporters going after each other. Now, the Trump supporters and the Sanders supporters, they don't leave a whole lot of space in the middle. And if you're the Russians, that's perfect. It's the equivalent of creating a drought in the forest just before you toss in the match. Remember, the Russians don't go out and create the conditions. All they do is go out and exploit the conditions.

Help me understand what the exploitation of a polarized Sanders and Trump electorate looks like. Well, you could take any of a number of issues that are hot-button social issues and use that to further divide Americans. We give hundreds of millions of dollars. You know what they give to us? Nothing. Nothing. They give us nothing. You can use immigration, right, on which they differ dramatically. Day one, we will rescind all of Trump's hateful and racist immigration executive orders. You can use Medicare for all all on which they differ dramatically. You could use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on which they differ dramatically. And just kind of pump up those issues

on social media, on your Reddit page and hope it gets picked up on Facebook and just generally make Americans angry at each other over it. Have the country screaming at each other. Bottom line is Donald Trump is dangerous and toxic for this country. For many reasons, I think Bernie Sanders is a dangerous man. But the thing that I thought, I do.

I mean, I think he's a very dangerous man. This is someone who is not stable. And I've been saying it from the beginning. And I will continue to say it until somebody looks into his mental stability. The socialist wing has completely taken over and is now in control, And why is chaos good for Russia? I can tell why it's bad for us. It makes the United States look like a place that can't get its act together. The United States look like a place that can't get its act together.

It helps lead to charges of election interference and election irregularities that bring American elections down to the level of Russian elections. It makes democracy look like a chaotic form of governance that can't really be trusted to make progress? Best of all, you're weakening the United States, keeping it consumed in some domestic furor, rather than thinking about pushing back against the Russians in Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East or in Crimea or coming to the support of your allies in NATO. We'll be right back. Okay, so that's theory number one, which kind of seems to see both of these candidates as co-equals in the creation of a chaotic American political life. That's right. What is theory number two for why Russia would be rooting for both Trump and Sanders?

Well, theory number two is truly cynical, Michael. It's that the Russians really do favor Trump, and they think that Bernie Sanders is the most beatable Democrat. Now, they may be wrong about that. There's lots of polling that suggests he could win. But the Russians' calculus at this moment may be that if you want to keep Donald Trump in office, Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to go do that. Gotcha. Now, that then raises the question, why would they continue to support Trump? And I think the answer to that is that Donald Trump is the only member of the Trump administration who doesn't sign on to the anti-Russian cast of American policy.

Official policy is we push back on the Russians from Ukraine to the Middle East and so forth. Donald Trump doesn't want to hear any of that. I think that we would have a chance to have a very good relationship with Russia and a very good chance, a very good relationship with President Putin. I would hope... Putin obviously likes that. That's right. Official policy is we continue sanctions on the Russians.

A lot of people say having Russia, which is a power, having them inside the room is better than having them outside the room. By the way, there were numerous people during the G7 that felt that way. And we didn't take a vote or anything, but we did discuss it. My inclination is to say, yes, they should be in. Donald Trump's been talking to the French about letting Russia back into the G8, the group of eight countries, and beginning to lift sanctions. Official policy is that we keep sanctions on as long as the Russians continue to annex Crimea. You know, the people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that also. Donald Trump's view is, why do we care

about Crimea anyway? Why don't the other neighbors care about that? So they have all kinds of reasons to believe that Donald Trump in the second term would be a continuation of the Donald Trump in the first term who wasn't going to give them a hard time about their territorial or nuclear ambitions. Okay, that's the Trump side of this. What makes the Russians convinced that Sanders is the most beatable Democrat? Because as you said, that's not exactly what the polling suggests. It isn't what the polling suggests, and it's an interesting question why they believe that. Remember, the Russians didn't think Donald Trump was going to win early in the last presidential cycle and really only came to supporting him in an active way in the very last months of the

campaign. So they may not know right now any more than we know. Why would they know? You know, when Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? But they look at Bernie Sanders and they see somebody who talks in ways that other American politicians rarely do. How many other American politicians have come out and said admiring things about Fidel Castro? You know what? I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing. How many other American candidates have proudly called themselves democratic socialists? have proudly called themselves democratic socialists. So they think that all of these things make Sanders vulnerable to the charge from President Trump

that Sanders is actually the Russian-loving socialist in the race. Okay, so what is the third explanation for why Russia would support both candidates? Well, the third explanation is life is uncertain and they could live with Bernie Sanders. And why? Today we are preparing to send soldiers to Afghanistan who were not even born on September 11, 2001. Because like Donald Trump,

he's got a real aversion to interventions around the world. We have got to stop endless wars. We have got to cut military spending. So that you can pay for Medicare for all and other social programs. So the thinking is that Russia would be quite happy, maybe even elated, with four more years of Donald Trump. But if they're going to have to live with a Democratic president, they're perfectly fine with Bernie Sanders. Especially because the Democrats have become the party of anti-Russia sentiment, right?

It's almost a flip from what we thought about in the post-Cold War era, where the Democrats were all about integrating Russia into the world community, making them part of the G8, coming up with economic packages, turning them into a European nation. Remember all that? You haven't heard a word of that from any of the Democrats now, except Sanders. And so you're now seeing Bernie Sanders just in the past few days. And what I say to Mr. Putin, if elected president, trust me, you are not going to be interfering in American elections. Begin to try to sound a bit tougher in his international relations views, precisely because he recognizes this is a big vulnerability.

Mr. Putin is a thug. He is an autocrat. He may be a friend of Donald Trump's. He's not a friend of mine. So right now, we still don't have the evidence. Remember, in the 2016 election, it wasn't until 2017, really after Donald Trump was about to be inaugurated, that we got a sense of the scope of the Russian effort. What we do know is that Bernie Sanders now has a Russia problem. And that problem,

if anything, is probably going to drive him to sound more hostile to Moscow than he naturally would be or he has been in the past. And how does that serve Russia? I'm not sure it does. Because once influence operations are exposed, it can drive the intended target, in this case Bernie Sanders and his supporters, to the opposite corner. So, you know, Donald Trump today

is the last politician in America who could actually get behind lifting sanctions against Russia because everybody would say you're in Putin's pocket. And they run the risk of driving Bernie Sanders from the candidate who wanted to go talk to the Russians to the candidate who could never talk to the Russians. Thank you, David. Thank you. Dear Mr. Judge, we want to bring you in this conversation. Why would the Russians want to be working on behalf of Bernie Sanders? During Tuesday night's Democratic debate in South Carolina,

candidates repeatedly invoked Russia's support for Trump and Sanders, with Mayor Pete Buttigieg saying that Russia favored them because they represent political extremes. I'll tell you what the Russians want. They don't have a political party. They want chaos, and chaos is what is coming our way. I mean, look, if you think the last four years has been chaotic, divisive, toxic, exhausting, imagine spending the better part of 2020 with Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump. Think about what that will be like for this country. At one point, Mike Bloomberg turned to Sanders and declared that the reason Russia supported Sanders was because its government believed that Sanders would lose to Trump.

Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United States, and that's why Russia is helping you get elected so you'll lose to him. Sanders, in response, denounced Russia's efforts to meddle in the election. And let me tell Mr. Putin, who interfered in the 2016 election, try to bring Americans against Americans. Hey, Mr. Putin, if I'm president of the United States, trust me, you're not going to interfere in any more American elections. For highlights and analysis of that debate,

listen to this morning's episode of The Latest. You can find it on the Daily Feed or by searching for The Latest wherever you listen. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Now, it's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will become infected. On Tuesday, health officials warned that the coronavirus

will almost certainly begin spreading across the United States and that Americans should begin preparations now. During a news conference, Dr. Ann Shookett of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that an American outbreak might require a wide range of actions, from closing schools to asking employees to work from home. We will be transparent with the public about these measures and the potential that these tools will be necessary.

There is literally a playbook for the use of these tools. As of Tuesday night, the U.S. had 57 confirmed cases of the virus, all of whom are in isolation in hospitals. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.