By MOSINEE, Wis. — A day after spending much of a 49-minute news conference revisiting — and denying — sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him, Donald Trump used part of a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday to discuss another subject that has bedeviled his campaigns for president: Russian interference in U.S. elections.
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.
Harris has vowed to maintain Biden’s stance as Kyiv’s ally and most important financial and military backer, while Trump has privately suggested pressuring Ukraine to cede territory to Russia to end the war.
“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.
