Summer Lee: 'The Stop The Steal MAGA Party' Are 'Willing To Undermine' America

6 months ago

At a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) spoke about the Republican Party.

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Transcript

00:00 Back chair now recognizes miss Lee from Pennsylvania. Thank you. Mr. Chair

00:03 Earlier this month the Institute for strategic dialogue an independent nonprofit team of disinformation researchers

00:10 Reported its evidence of the Chinese Communist Party's evolution and influence operations

00:15 Their research showed how the CCP has begun using Russia and Putin's propaganda playbook. Here is a perfect example

00:22 RT

00:25 Russian propaganda outlet puts out a lie that lie is picked up and amplified by a CCP disinformation

00:31 operation posing as a Trump supporter and

00:34 Then Alex Jones a star of mega world echoed and amplified the line to his millions of followers

00:40 Professor Snyder. Are you aware of the CCP adopting Russia's propaganda playbook and even working hand-in-hand with Russia to push out disinformation?

00:47 Yes, very much so at many levels

00:53 Thank you

00:54 Understanding the threats posed by the CCP requires understanding the context and where disinformation is concerned

01:00 That means examining Russia's playbook professor Snyder in an interview with PBS frontline program in September of 2022

01:07 You said and I quote so what the Russians became very effective at doing by way of their international propaganda

01:13 Then later by interfering in elections is messing things up

01:16 Taking the worst of other societies and bringing the worst tendencies to the fore finding by digital means and otherwise

01:22 Our weaknesses and making those weaknesses greater and greater professor Snyder. Have you observed Russia using this playbook against the United States?

01:29 That that is the Russian playbook and interestingly

01:33 I believe it's also a scholarly consensus that Chinese information operations are moving in that direction

01:38 There is a good empirical evidence since

01:41 2023 that precisely what China is trying to do on social media is what Russia did in previous elections namely

01:46 Disrupt and favor the candidate they regard as most disruptive

01:51 Thank you for sharing that there have been numerous official warnings

01:54 Not only that Russia has worked to interfere in US elections

01:57 But that it did so specifically to boost Donald Trump's candidacy

02:00 The Mueller report warned that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and did so to support Donald Trump's candidacy on March 10th

02:07 2021 the National Intelligence Council issued a declassified intelligence assessment regarding Russia's efforts to interfere and the 2020 US

02:15 Presidential election which said and I quote we assess that Russian President Putin authorized and a range of Russian government

02:21 Organizations conducted influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party supporting former President Trump

02:29 Undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the US professor Snyder

02:36 Why has Vladimir Putin sought to boost Donald Trump's candidacy and to be clear have Vladimir Putin's reasons for boosting

02:44 Trump's candidacy changed over the years

02:46 This is why it's so important that this discussion is framed in terms of political warfare

02:51 Because political warfare by definition involves someone else trying to get you to do something that you probably ought not to do

02:58 It's not personal and no one should take it personally

03:01 It's the judgment of the Russian state that Donald Trump is the more disruptive

03:06 Candidate and the one most likely to make the United States more like Russia and more accommodating to Russia

03:13 Professor Snyder, do you believe Russia is seeking to interfere in the upcoming elections in 2024? Of course

03:19 Finally professor Snyder you recently wrote and I quote

03:24 Trump presents himself as an admirer of Putin and had been his client in one form or another for a decade

03:31 He has succeeded in conditioning the media by teaching his followers to shout Russia hoax

03:35 Whenever the subject comes up, but all the same Russia has backed him in every campaign that's backing him in this one professor Snyder

03:42 What are the consequences for our democracy if Donald Trump and his allies in Congress continue to shout Russia hoax?

03:49 Even as they echo and amplify Russian propaganda and disinformation

03:53 If we have a hearing on political warfare

03:56 Then we must be concerned with political warfare which includes Chinese operations

04:02 Russian operations and operations where the two come together

04:05 What's interesting about?

04:07 2024 is that China is using memes that it gets from Russia and methods which are very similar to Russian

04:13 The the the thing that one has to worry about is the trend is is the American part, right?

04:19 It's not political warfare unless there's an American part in it unless our minds and our mouths move

04:26 It's not political warfare

04:28 And so if our minds and our mouths are replicating things that come from China or from Russia

04:33 Then we are probably doing things which are not in our interest to repeat that is the essence of political warfare

04:39 Which is meant to be our subject today. Thank you

04:41 While the stop the steal MAGA party claimed to love America and democracy so much

04:47 They've shown they're willing to undermine it every step of the way even by courting our adversaries to ensure their permanent role

04:55 I yell back

Summer Lee: 'The Stop The Steal MAGA Party' Are 'Willing To Undermine' America

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