Why Russia Is Rooting for Both Trump and Sanders

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is the Daily.
0:08.0	Today, US intelligence officials have concluded that the Russian government is
0:14.0	supporting two very different candidates in the 2020 presidential race.
0:20.0	David Sanger, on why Russia is rooting for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
0:28.0	It's Wednesday, February 26th.
0:34.0	David, tell us about these intelligence briefings.
0:38.0	Well, the first one, and in some ways the most interesting one, is shrouded in a lot of mystery.
0:44.0	We know that about a month ago, the FBI went to Bernie Sanders.
0:49.0	The FBI frequently comes around to give general warning stick, all the candidates,
0:55.0	but that's not what this was all about. This was about a very specific finding.
1:01.0	And their message was, we have reason to believe that the Russians, through their own calculus,
1:08.0	have determined that you're their favorite candidate among the Democrats in the primary.
1:14.0	And that they may well already be intervening on your behalf.
1:20.0	And David, what was Sanders reaction as both a senator and a presidential candidate to this piece of information?
1:32.0	The only reaction that we know about, Michael, is that he decided to keep it secret.
1:37.0	He hasn't said very much about what he thought about it.
1:41.0	He just decided to say nothing about it, which itself is a really interesting choice.
1:48.0	I mean, well, he said that because it was classified, and he hasn't talked about classified briefings, he just stayed silent.
1:55.0	But there are lots of political reasons for him to stay silent as well.
1:59.0	Like what?
2:00.0	He doesn't want to appear or be portrayed by President Trump as Russia's favorite or Russia's dupe in the election.
2:09.0	And your Bernie Sanders and your thinking ahead to the general election, you only want one Russian puppet to be in this election,
	...

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