During CNN's “State of the Union” broadcast this week, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, downplayed so-called allegations that conservative media figures with ties to Tenet Media are influencing the 2024 election.
Tenet Media was allegedly funded by the Russian government, but Cotton argued that former intelligence officials who “lied” about Hunter Biden's laptop influenced the 2020 election.
BASH: I want to move on to a whole other topic, and that's something that the Department of Justice came out with this week, where they detailed how the Russian government is trying to foment division in the United States using front organizations and prominent right-wing influencers on social media like Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson, who are connected to Tenet Media.
According to the Department of Justice, the company was funded by Russian operatives. You're on the Intelligence Committee. How concerned are you that right-wing influencers with power over voters may be receiving funding, directly or indirectly, from the Russian government to try to influence this election?
Cotton: First of all, Dana, we haven't had the meeting yet, so I haven't seen any information on this. All I've seen are the allegations I've read in the paper.
We should not knowingly accept money from hostile governments like Russia, Iran, or China in an attempt to influence an election, but I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that a few memes and videos in a sea of political commentary aren't going to make a huge difference in this election, or in past elections.
What made the difference in the last election was the lie about Hunter Biden's laptop. Over 40 former intelligence officials lied during the height of the campaign, and most of the networks, including this one, bought it. That made the difference in the election.
But I think, and this is something you shouldn't do if you're in the business of election commentary, a few videos and commentaries aren't going to make a difference in the vast sea of commentary we see.
Bash: It sounds like you're downplaying the fact that Vladimir Putin is using people like Dave Rubin, the host of your show in February, as a propaganda tool.
COTTON: So I'm not discounting the plans of Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping or the ayatollahs to try to influence the election.
But spending money to promote a meme or a video on the internet doesn't necessarily make a huge difference, and I repeat, you shouldn't do it knowingly. We don't know if these people did it knowingly.
BASH: Do you know that some young people only get their information from memes and videos?
COTTON: But what would be really disastrous, Dana, would be if, say, a foreign government hacked into voter registration systems while the vote was being counted, or hacked into election machines and erased votes, or even shut off the power in a major city on Election Day.
These are serious threats. Some videos and memes…
BASH: Are those things a threat? Are you worried? It's…
(Crosstalk)
Cotton: Certainly, those threats are concerning.
BASH: Is that based on what you were briefed on?
Cotton: This is based on the vulnerability of infrastructure across the country. That's a lot more worrying than a few videos or memes.
Again, this is the kind of thing a foreign government like Russia would do, and that no one should knowingly and profitably participate in, but in the grand scheme of things it's really not that significant.
