Speaking to CNN host Pamela Brown on Sunday, Fiona Hill, the former Russia expert at the U.S. National Security Council under President Donald Trump, explained that she is far more concerned about the ex-president than Vladimir Putin.
"What Russia has been doing for quite some time, and especially since its intervention in the 2016 elections, is actually using material and those kinds of statements to exploit them and to basically come to some sort of division," she explained."I think the most disturbing thing for anybody watching American politics for the last several years has been the fact that it's our own president, our own former president, Donald Trump, who has been talking down U.S. democracy. In many respects, the Russians don't have to do very much but sit back and watch as he does this. It was President Trump who told everybody the election would be stolen."
Trump began talking about the "rigged" election weeks before any votes were even cast. It was the same kind of tactic that Larry Elder used in the California recall election where here claimed, before the election, that Gov. Gavin Newsom stole it.
In 2016, Trump claimed that the election was rigged and fraudulent even though he won. He told supporters that there were 3 million illegal votes in California or he would have won the popular vote. He tasked Republican Kris Kobach to uncover the so-called fraud, but Kobach was unable to do it.
In 2020, Trump tried a different tactic, telling his supporters, "The Democrats are trying to Rig the 2020 Election, plain and simple!" As far back as June 2020, Trump was claiming that voting by mail was a conspiracy to let China throw the election to the Democrats.
"Before when it happened in 2020, it was President Trump who told people not to rely on the postal service," said Hill. "President Trump has been accusing other Americans, including members of his own party who have been the electoral officials in many of the states for somehow stealing the election. This is really happening from a foreign adversary. It's frustrating this is disinformation, especially when it's coming from the top."
In an earlier interview with Sunday's "Face the Nation," Hill said that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a "dress rehearsal" for future right-wing political violence.
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