■á services and government protections of american consumers. that's a 3:30 p.m. eastern online here at c-span and c-span now and online at c-span.org. >> tune into c-span's live coverage of the 2024 national political convention starting with the republican full day in milwaukee on july 15. next up, democrats convene in chicago on august 19. stay connected to c-span for an uninterrupted and unfiltered glimpse of democracy at work. what's the republican and democratic national conventions live this summer on c-span, c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back.

we are talking about foreign interference in campaign 2024 with the managing direcdemocrac. talk about how it is funded. guest: it is an initiative supported predominantly by private foundations based here in the united states, family foundations and like. we receive small grants from some democratic governments for one-off projects. we receive a tiny bit of money from microsoft back in day but predominantly funded by private philanthropists. host: one we talk about foreign interference in our elections, which countries are we talking about, not just with the intention but the cab to interfere in elections? guest: we are predominately

talking about russia, china, and iran and that is the intelligence committee and the bipartisan consensus of government. we forget about with all the noise that democrats and republicans believe there is a foreign threat to how americans view political they vote and russia, china and iran are the three primary threat factors that we face. host: why would they do that? what is our motivation? guest: let's talk about russia, democrats and republicans would believe. i watch the intelligence hearings a couple weeks ago and it was a bipartisan consensus that russia is our primary threat in the 2024 election. her overarching interest is to foment further instability and chaos in the unid states. it is not specifically about trying to elect one particular candidate. sure, it is clear that vladimir putin has a preference for

donald trump's presidency over joe biden. that is not my opinion, he has said that but the russian were on ukraine relies on american support. he is banking on that if there is a change. there is theí#oal is if american democracy is in order that only plays to the advantage of an authoritarian regime like russia. there are geopolitical reasons why that is advantageous to russia. that is the russia perspective. we could get into china and iran but the kremlin really is the primary adversary. host they are the primary adversary why, is the capability much better than china? guest: capability is better and tactics refined and they have

been doing this for a long time. player and they have not attempted interference operations on an election to the same extent russia has. in the 2020 election, the intelligence committee concluded that china thought about but ultimately did not try to wage any sort of interference campaign, using cyber tactics, disinformation, money. they focus on the micro level, so specific candidates and races. can they shape of the chinese american diaspora thinks about american issues? can they target politicians they think would be sympathetic to the chinese communist party's world on issues like taiwan. they are looking much more localized and less on the macro democratic disorder perspective that russia does. host: is that still the case for this year? guest: it is largely the case.

china has refined tactics in places like canada and australia where they have infiltrated the diaspora of conversations online and chat groups to try to message to them about which candidate they should support and how they should think about certain issues. they are doing this covertly. they are not doing it under the banner of the chinese communist party but they are doing it covertly. they are trying to target specific areas of the26 sector. it is more like how russia purchased the campaigns. host: what other tactics being used? is it about a cyber attack, disinformation? how do they go about doing it? guest: it is all of the above. russia is using cyber tools to try to give americans the impression have confidence in the integrity of

the vote. back in 2016 even, russian state sponsored actors probed the voting infrastructure i believe in all 50 states. it doesn't mean they changed vote or work successful but even giving the impression that they are able to penetrate information, voting systems online, voter rolls, databases, that creates doubts in americans minds that a foreign actor can perhaps manipulate the result of the vote. that did not happen but it is the impression of using cyber tools to undermine confidence in the vote. it is the same motivation driving information operations. if you go back to 2016, yes, even then the kremlin preference was almost undoubtedly that donald trump the election. but they were wagingamonline, ps against each other on both sides

of issues. they were buying ads on facebook &÷in support of black lives matter. they were also doing that on blue lives matter accounts. they were simply trying to instigate more chaos, strife between americans than there already is an out on the street protesting against one another. they are more insidious goals that russia has tried to create greater institutional and societ you wrote the u.s. is a soft target for foreign emissaries. how? guest: by nature of our open transparent system. we are an o government information state and there are simply more vectors for state-sponsored actors like russia with bilons rces to use l try to amplify disorder in our

country. we are softest by virtue of the fact of our values, our openness and transparency in free information and freedom of the press. that is great and doesn't mean we should change that. that was not the point of calling target. it means we have vulnerabilities in democracies that authoritarian regimes want to exploit. this isn't new. this goes back to the soviet times. the soviet union was using similar tactics in■= the print press. the tactics aren't new. the technology has allow these operations to happen at warp speed in real time. that is the main difference over the decades. host: if you want to ask a question, you can call us. the lines are by party about foreign interference in the campaign 2024. democrats (202) 748-8000,

republicans (202) 748-8001, an independents (202) 748-8002. earlier this month the senate tellig■aence committee meeting you mentioned, senator marco rubio asked the director of national intelligence who is interference. here it is. [video clip] >> the kitty -- the video, you may not be able to attribute it to a foreign entity but maybe it was designed by some guy in a basement or by a nationstate. at a minimum we have to say, this thing is not real and it could be the work of a foreign adversary. whoould be -- would you be the one to stand up? is it the fbi? who will stand before the american people and say we are not interfering in the election and want to know the video is not real. who would be in charge of that? >> i could be the person who

nation. i will give you an example, there was fact that there is a e video that was basically promoted and it is a russian affiliated group and that video purports to show a whistleblower in a former ukrainian employee of a made up cia supported troll farm tasked with interfering in the upcoming presidential election. the cia came out with a statement that basalindicates an the article that this is fake and i am here to say caterically that this claim is false and there is no such thing. it is disinformation and that is the kind of approach we continue to take across the board. >> you said you could be the one. i don't want there to be any gray area, someone needs to be in charge of interfacing the

american people and say we will be responsible for notifying the american people. has that been established? >> the only hesitation you hear for me as there may be certain circumstances where a state or local official or other public authority is in a better position to make a public statement initially and for the rest of us to come back behind. it is a question going through the process in determining what exactly is the issue being raised, what is the information being put forward, who is going to be the best official to immediately come out. that is through the notification framework. host: what do you think of that? guest: i appreciate senator rubio's question. i think it is the right one. right now i don't think the american public understands who is communicating to the american pe election and it 1 -- and in

what circumstances that would happen. i also appreciate the response because there is no one-size-fits-all answer. there could be a foreign threat to the election and in that case may she, herself, would come up in the notification protocol she mentioned and would declassify intelligence and that would get paid -- conveyed to the blalso e community they are not the right ones and a state or local official may binon. this is both a blessing and curse of the american electoral system. we have thousand electoral jurisdictions and an adversary like russia n target these specific jurisdictions. it did in 2016 even. it may be that she is not the right person to go to maricopa county arizona and message to arizonans about interference in the election. it may be a local election

official in arizona. i appreciate senator rubio's question because he wants to identify who is that spokesperson for the american people and the ansr is, it depends. and that is not a satisfying answer. i think in many instances it will be her that says we have information about another nation state actor targeting the american elections but also has to be careful to not be perceived as tipping the scales. there are all of these decisions inside of the intelligence community and administration to ensure itng intelligence and make sure the right messenger is getting out in front of the american people. i am not sure we are fully aware oft there is an article from a publication called the recordabl

intelligence appoints new security leader of the presidential race. this was from earlier this year. it is a director of the foreign maligned influence center. her name is jessica brandt. i believe you know her. can you tell us about her background and what she will be expected to do? guest: you couldn't ask for a better leader. she is a true expert in this has been studying these issues since they came l years ago. the center is designed to collate intelligence across the intelligence community on diverse threats facing our electionsracy. this is the type of threat that transcends any one agency's jurisdiction. you have financial threats, cyber threats, information

threats, different agencies handle differe threat people system -- ecosystem and that will bring all the intelligence into one place and make sure policymakers had the best intelligence at their disposal when they are evaluating what russia, china, iran is it doing to try to influence surreptitiously american voters ahead of the election or just to try to destabilize american democracy more broadly. that is the goal of the center and she is leading. host: we haven't talked about artificial intelligence which will play a huge role and is already playing a role with deepfakes and others. what do you do about that when an average voter can't tell if the video israel real of the audio is real? -- the vid real or the audio is real? guest: we have already seen this.

we have seen it with robo calls in new hampshire, a voice purporting to be president biden. this era is upon us and will make it easier for adversaries of all sorts to be able to manipulate information, manipulate content, to try to mislead the average american voter. there are some mechanisms in place, social media platforms have that they can try to detect what is manipulated content from what is fake. we are running a project to try to digitally watermarked content so that -- have a repository for content so voters can understand, this piece of content was originated on this date and has a stamp of approval . anything that derives from it is clearly manipulated. there are a lot of approaches being taken in the private sector and in positions like

mind to address the issue but we are doing this in real time as the technology is rapidly unfolding. host: will talk to■f john in sarasota, florida. caller:ello. i am glad i am the first caller. we know the united states america has interfered with more elections around the world than any other country. we are in everybody's elections. do you follow that also? guest: we don't follow that right now. i would agree with the caller to a point. i would say the united states has perhaps a history of meddling in other countries elections, particularly during the cold war. i think we learned from that. i don't think we do that activity the way we did in the 1960' and 1970's and for good reason. mostly because we are not good

at it. it backfires spectacularly when we do it. it is antithetical to who we are and our values. we have learned that the hard way and we have been as a nation willing to have a national mea culpa. it was not in our geopolitical inrei draw a really fine line between what we did then and what of the orient retouch -- regimes are doing to us now. we are not engaging in the same sort of activity that russia, iran and other authoritarian regimes are doing to us and other democracies right here in 2024. host: when you mentioned the foreign interference like slovakia, was it successful? did it give what they were looking for? guest: it is hard to measure impact in these types. it is hard to know whether that

deep fake video waselection unh. but it is the cascade effect. there is more of this manipulated content in the sphere, at some point will trust anything at all that we are reading and seeing and what are the effects of that? we are too early in this phenomenon to be able to measure tangibly what impact there is but from a russian state perspective, it doesn't matter whether the deepfake video actually swung the election because we are still dealing with the fallout of their operation in 2016. we have greater disorder, politicization, strife between americans now than we did eight years ago in the run-up to the 2016 election. part of that is directly attributedy$ to russia's ability to amplify greater divisions between americans.

that is the overarching objective. host: gym in bakersfield, california says what is the mission of the russian troll farm in . tersburg? are they trying to get trump elected? guest: the internet research agency which was the original has been rebranded and reconstituted. it is an overarching

these troll farms in russia are going to go across the social media platform landscape and try to amplify issues and accounts in groups that are friendlier to those issues. that's not to say that donald trump if he wins is because of russia. this is just a fact. it's the intention of the russian state. host: let's go to piedmont, virginia, republican line. caller: good morning. i just turned down my tv. i've been watching c-span religiously for months now.

the russian threat, the cyber threat in general, there have been so many c-span presentations from the senate and the house that it's over whelming information. is there anything being done right now to provide a backup system. for example, there is a commercial electrical power outage of a cyber caused that system like the old ballad box to cover it? the idea of postponing an election is something vladimir putin would love to see as you know for many reasons. guest: it's a great question.

i would say the overwhelming majority of questions -- of elections in the united states have backup. if there is some sort of cyber incident. it doesn't yet even have to be a nationstate attack. of ballots and manual procedures and places to tally and tabulate election ballots. trust me, our election officials on the ground are so much better prepared for these events than they were four years ago but certainly compared to eight years ago. iave the utmost confidence that our elections whatever they may face, we will be able to hold an election that americans can trust the results of. host: alex in minnesota, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call.

do you get money from the u.s. government? guest: parts of the german marshall fund gets grants but usaid. my alliance does not. caller: you monitoring what information u.s. citizens have access to? host:caller: do you think it's a problem if the u.s. government is funding a group that is determining what information they get access to? guest: i think there's a miscraization of what we do. we don't monitor what information americans get access to. the only thing we are tracking is other state-sponsored

government and media accounts. these covert accounts. we track them and collate that data. we don't suppress it or filter it. i think there is a mischaracterization of what we do. host: bill on long island, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i was wondering about the domestic interference with specifically fox news giving misinformation pretty much constantly. . for an example, the crowd sizes a trump rallies, they do like 10 times the amount of people that are there. they continue to just lie and give misinformation. how do you control the domestic news? do you investigate that at all?g

them and fact checking the domestic people? guest: we do not sort of sensor or check domestic sources of information. we are not in the business of doing that. ■1it's obviously dangerous what domestic voices amplify this information about thteas far a's rally, we would not pay attention to that issue but you go back to the big lie in the fact that the allegation that the 2020 election was stolen, the fact that there are major domestic voices amplifying that narrative is dangerousdamaging . host: is that one of the tactics you saw among foreign adversaries to take domestic disinformation and amplify it?

guest: sure, that is their primary tactic. they are not always seating the information into our system but they are amplifying it. there goes to move from the■m tion and make it more mainstream. host: susan connecticut, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. my name is susan. i can't even begin to tell you how much in agreement i am with david salvo. the world needs to stop. for two weeks, everybody needs to calm down. that includes dictator vladimir 6putin, and he is a dictator, ho chi minh, i can't remember the head of china. in the united states --

president biden won the election no matter how you place it. as far as i'm concerned, donald john trump needs to go to jail. i have met the man. he is the most obnoxious person i have ever met in my life. everybody needs to stop. everybody needs to calm down for two weeks and then begin to negotiate and that includes the head of israel. host: any response there? guest: i would say that it's interesting she mentioned a two week cool down. in most democracies, there is a period in the days leading up to

the election, the media can cover the election. break for voters without the noise of media and other sources. i wish they would do that in the united states but that was an interesting observation. host: fredericksburg, virginia, republican line. caller: good morning. i remember 2016 after the election. they had meetings in the senate and the house. all the heads ofmeta and microsoft, google allhose facebook, google and twitter. all of them testify. there was like for people there. i have it taped. what happened is there was not one that said the information that russia was pushing was

equal to about 100,000 out of 360 million people? they counted it that way one million scrolled through it that's the disinformation from russia. i'm not a bot and i'm not a russian or whatever they call them. but i have seen all that i need to see to know that this is not a good idea. they are going to pull the same thing they did in 2016. i've watched c-span 24/7 practically because i'm retired and i saw hearings where china interfered the most in the election in the 1920 election. you said they didn't. wait one second, i've seen this

interfere everywhere. you talk about russia and you talk about russia as if it's the soviet union. they offered things. that people should have been able to have autonomous regions. job biden wanted autonomous reasons in iraq and they wanted it divided up to three people. host: we will stick with the foreign interference. is there a way to measure the impact? she talks about can social media companies not just stop it but can they tell how many people can see this? guest: there are metrics. the number of americans that countered either russian intelligence accounts that are masquerading as up then thick american voices or outright russian disinformation campaigns.

i think they hired 100,000 americans. doesn't mean millions of americans change their mind as they had the information but that's besides the point. the point is you have a fine government that wants to influence how americans view certain issues. that doesn't mean the results of an election swing on that but is nonetheless. there covertly campaigning. host: bill wood, illinois, democrat, good morning. caller: i should have called the open forum because the russian i have is the polls. how is the media influenced in these actions? i notice all of them are republican leaning. i listen to them because i want to decipher the difference.

we are being inundated all day long on all shows with republican leaning perspectives. even cnbc. they have republicans as they are and as they get all the time. same thing with c-span. we will have a lot of republican views. when you pose a question especially when it comes to open forum, i notice you always have republican commentators in the house of representatives and even at -- even what you had with the moore fred in brooksvi, florida, republican. caller: i was talk about the interference of the election. how are they going to stop that if they are not governing to be

if anybody is not government, anybody can do it. you have to be able to feel that the election is right somehow. you just can't say we are not going to do this or we are not going to control it. at the same time that was happeng, especially a buddy does not recognize to vote and the voter id cards have to be put in place. they have to be. it's no use voting if you are not going to require it. the last time he went to vote, some people don't have to have a voter id card. it's crazy.

guest:ut our voting infrastructure when we compare where we your eight years ago and today is there are so many more -- so much more capabilities at the state and local level we have to spot blind activities. if there is a cyber probe from a nationstate actor into the voting role or better -- or voter registration base, there are digital sensors deployed. is this is to ensure we have those protections in place. it's to make sure from a cyber infrastructure perspective, we are better protected than we have been. that gave us confidence that whoever shows up at the polls to vote is a registered voter in their vote is being counted. host: bobby has his question on x .

guest: that's a fascinating question. if you were to ask people sitting in the kremlin whose views they wanted to shape more, it would be the average american citizen. ultimately, our democracy is upon how they are consuming information and how they view certainnce they have r own system of government. certainly, if they can shape with policymakers or using certain issues but they understand that's probably a much tougher nut to crack. policymakers come in with the policy agenda. and they are not as susceptible to russian disinformation. they are mostly aware of what's happening. ultimately, the nationstate adversaries want to target you and me essentially. host: randy in broken arrow,

oklahoma, democrat. caller: good morning, nice to be on. god bless america. how do you determine what's real and what's fake? it hillary clinton payday foreign agent -- to come up with information to slander donald trump, is that foreign interference? guest: my view of the steel dossier is that it was a russian intelligence operation not necessarily that in american brought it forth. there was a lot of disinformation that dossier that has the hallmarks of a russian disinformation campaign. with russian interference in their elections, it knows no political affiliation. transitions boundaries and

targets democrats and republicans and independents. it is an actor agnostic operation. the ultimate goal is to■ have them lose confidence in our system of government and elections. the steel dossier is one component of a much larger operation. host: in new york state, democrat, good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. i live in new york and i want to say something about voter id. we use biometrics which is basically your physical signature that you bring proof of eligibility when you register and each time you vote, you show your physical signature. we have had no problems and i think part of this deal for picture id is voter suppression to because it discriminates against people

people have to move a lot in this whole thing about accepting nra cards or gun ownership cars but not college ids is just rife for voter suppression. i think biometrics is perfectly fine as a voter id. host: it's kind of a domestic issue but any comment? guest: i will admit it's beyond my area of expertise but as far as the threats, even back in 2016, we noticed that russian state-sponsored actors were trying to mislead people on how to vote, list as mislead americans. that is the way of disenfranchising segments of the electorate. there are attempts to try to sideline american voters from going to the polls. host: i want to ask you about

resources. this going to review and opinion published in the washington post by max boot. he said, even if china won't try to decide the u.s. election, it will continue spreading disinformation to underme counter chinese aggression. the u.s. needs to boost its own information game while russia and china spend billions to spread their lives, the state department's global engagement center, the primary government vehicle for fighting disinformation, has a budget of just $61 million. , primarily homegrown extremists and opportunists but their message is receiving an important signal boost from america's adversaries as part of their effort to weaken the most powerful democracy. russia was an early leader in the disinformation field but china is playing catch up. the u.s. had better boost its defenses, or else more elections

will be influenced by foreign interference. your thoughts? guest: i couldn't have said it better myself. in parts of the global south, for example, latin america, africa, middle east, russian and chinese state sponsored media is being consumed at i would say an alarming level. so citizens in those countries are getting prevalent propaganda, but they are not getting the culture-messaging. they are not getting factual information to the same extent that they are consuming state-sponsored from russia and china. its, these countries are sinking an enormous amount of resources into these media operations. what we spend to do our u.s. government messaging and media voice of america is peanuts, comparatively.

we are being outcompeted even in our own backyard, in even our in rt is being consumed. we are not competing. it is the most engaged with foreign spanish media outlet in the world. and we are not competing with that. it's really distressing. host: alright david salvo, senior managing director of the alliance for securing democracy, part of the german marshall fund. you can find them online at their website. david, thank you so much for coming in. guest: always good to be here. announcer: a live picture this afternoon from gerard college in philadelphia where president joe biden and vice president kamala harris are appearing before voters at a campaign event. a short time ago are we watched the president believe air force one to be greeted by pets senator bob casey, congresswoman mary gay scanlon, maryland governor wes moore, and others.

they are expected to arrive here shortly. live coverage on c-span. ♪

[♪"signed, sealed, delivered, i'm yours" by stevie wonder plays ♪] announcer: again without president biden and vice president harris and the start of this rally to get underway. wpvi that event today will launch globalizing efforts for black

voters. the president is stopping here at girard college which is an independent boarding school in philadelphia with a predominantly black student body. there will also visit small businesses to speak to members of the black chamber of commerce. philph stops are the start of what the campaign aides describing as an eight figure semi-long efforts to engage black student organizations, community groups and faith centers. the gathering is expected to begin shortly here on c-span. ♪ [♪"signed, sealed, delivered, i'm yours"-stevie wonder ♪] what>> the fanfest defined as middle. here are the numbers. it says that income ranges from $30,000 to $90,000 a year. for a couple, it is between 42 and $127,000. a family of three, $60,000 to $180,000.

and a family of 4, 60 7000, 201,000 dollars per year. i kept that is from the census, the definition of middle-class from 2020. let's take a look at what president biden said at a campaign rally last month in scranton, he was talking about tax cuts and so-called trickle-down economics, how it hurts the middle-class. [video clip] pres. biden: but here's the deal, for more than 40 years, our republican friends have promised the best way to grow the economy is from the top down. here's what they don't tell you. it's never worked. the benefits don't trickle-down. end of the very wealthy pay less in taxes and we have to borrow more and invest less in think that families really need from schools, hospitals, health care, roads, bridges, so much more. think what happens when a factory closes in scranton or round the country. when a school is underfunded? when in equity grows larger?

it pushes the middle-class further out of reach and rips the dignity, pride and hope out of communities across the country, including here in pennsylvania. folks trickle-down economics , failed the middle-class. it failed america. and the truth is donald trump embodied that failure. he wants to a down on trickle-down -- he wants to double-down on trickle-down. host: that was president biden. here are the results from the poll i mentioned on class identity in america and how it has changed. from 2002 to 2006, 61% of americans considered themselves middle or upper middle class. then any 2008 at the start of the great recession, the number went down to 56 percent. since than it has stayed relatively stable, around 53%. meanwhile, the combined percentage of u.s. adults identifying as working or lower class has increased from an average of 37% before the recession in 2008 to around 45% currently.

and former president trump was at a rally in wildwood, new jersey earlier this month talking about tax cuts in america. [video clip] pres. trump: instead of a biden tax cut, i will -- tax hike, i will give you a trump middle-class, upper-class, lower-class, business class big tax cut. [applause] you are going to have the biggest tax cuts. we were sent to do that. we were all set to do it. its interesting, when we did the tax cuts, everyone said you can't do those. we took in more income after the tax cut. the tax cut was massive. everybody was affected by it. it created jobs, but almost more obviously, it was a great cut. vet at the end of the year, the country took in much more money. sort of amazing. in other words, people

individually paid much less tax, but we did much more revenue. it really does work. you know? it's called incentive. and the biden economic bust will quickly be replaced with a brand-new trump economic boom like we had. we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. host: that was the former president speaking about tax cuts. we are hearing from you about class in america and what it takes to be middle-class. diane in ann arbor, michigan, you are up first. caller: i would like to say the problem for being even middle-class, it is due to a theory by the gop. they are applying a theory. it sounds strange, but they are doing it to destroy social mobility in america. if you look at the daily cost, the daily kos, there is an article there, why the gop

deploys the theory to destroy social mobility. it sounds dry. but if you read it, it's an easy read. it explains everything, why everything is happening the way it is. project 2025 to take over the constitution. the supreme court, how they are holding back trying to get trump in office. and what is the reast they would not want social mobility? caller: because they want a slave class. they want an underclass, they are attacking thomas kean's, everything. they want to take away public schools where everyone gets a chance for an education, all of that. because they want an underclass. that is why everything -- i mean, birth control, all of that, they want women to have children so they have workers. host: and how are you personally doing, diane