‘It went from Russian hoax, to damn right we are colluding’: Nicolle Wallace on Trump and Russia

there is a history here in presidential elections uh by the Russian Federation by its intelligence services and there's plenty of Reason uh to be concerned and this is not about politics this is about National Security it is about a foreign country a foreign adversary seeking uh to manipulate the politics and democracy of the United States of America we are going to be vigilant about that and we will Engage The Congress on a bipartisan basis because this should be above and beyond politics he's

right and he's wrong because for Republicans it is their politics now of course efforts by any foreign power even an adversary used to be and should be above politics but they're not Republicans are at this moment wittingly or unwittingly assisting Russia Big Time case in point former FBI informant Alexander smyrnov has been charged with lying to the FBI about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden he was in court today where a judge ordered him remanded pending his trial prosecutors have

argued that he was a serious Flight Risk given his tithes to Russian intelligence H wonder where he'd go it's an allegation that would be alarming enough on its own add to that the fact that House Republicans used him they touted sovs endlessly his testimony on the airwaves and on Capitol Hill it's all part of a very explicit and deliberate permission structure created by Republicans around Russian disinform 8 years ago Donald Trump asked Russia to hack his Democratic opponent call in response a

gain they did two years later he took Russia's denial of election interference at face value from a Podium and now in just the last month as he marches toward the Republican nomination without any resistance from any Republicans he refuses to condemn the murder of Russia's most prominent opposition leader in prison Alexi naly and he actually invited Russia to attack our NATO allies according to NBC News quote the potential rewards for Russian President Vladimir Putin are high one expert says thi

s quote not that they didn't have an incentive to interfere in the last two presidential elections but I would say that the incentive to interfere is heightened right now joining our conversation former assistant director for Counter Intelligence at the FBI Frank FY clar and Andrew are still here they here for the hour Frank someone said to me that if you saw what Putin was willing to do and green light and look the other way for in 16 and 20 what he's willing to do with soldiers on the battlefi

eld dying in 2024 will make those things seem like games first welcome back Nicole thanks for having me yeah I mean to quote uh New York Yankee Hall of Famer Yogi Vera it's like deja vu all over again here we are again talking about As Trump says frequently Russia Russia Russia but we say Russia Russia Russia for a reason the party and Trump are absolutely linked to Russia and Putin and that's now what they stand for so um yes as NBC News has reported out today experts are saying that they are a

lready seeing the Bots and trolls and that are attributed to a Russian signature as we say in the business and yes exhibit a of a non-cyber uh attempt would be alander smof in court today in California who prosecutors assert has absolutely strong ties to multiple Russian intelligence Affiliated persons if not actual Russian ios's themselves who are been have been passing him disinformation and he's lying and he has said I got this from the Russian intelligence services so here we are what's goin

g to be different and I would assert worse this time around than than 16 couple of factors first technology artificial intelligence AI um is going to allow deep fakes already we've already seen this in a phone call a robo call pretending to be Joe Biden up north um but we're going to see it in drop we're going to see fake deep fake videos and deep fake images we're going to see targeting of it to specific precincts and swing States it's going to be very laser focused it's going to be very hard t

o get out in front of second Factor related to how hard it is to get out in front of is the the social media platforms today seemed far less interested and and the poster child for that would be Elon Musk far less interested and far less capacity to do anything about it Elon Musk at Twitter now known as X has essentially fired the Reams and teams of people responsible for looking for foreign fake accounts foreign government accounts who's buying the ads where are they adjacent to they they're th

ose people are gone that would vet all of that so it's going to be un fettered and then the other platforms seem to be gunshy31 he knows there'll be no push back from Trump this makes the situation far worse potentially for this election when you investigated and prosecuted um the intersection of Russia and Trump's campaign last time um just tell me how how smurov happens and and what it says how much worse off are we that he got as far as he did um so before I answer that direct question I just

want to make sure people understand something that um Frank said which is the the foreign president's really good at at trying to just by using this phrase Russia Russia Russia to sort of be like oh that's behind us and nothing was there and so move on that's just some democratic Ploy um when as Professor Snider Yale said that is like a tactic to not have us look at what are the actual facts that was that investigation 2016 was about whether there was a criminal proof beond A Reasonable Doubt o

f a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign up to an including Trump and the Russian government that is a very different thing than what we're talking about which is um is was Russia then and now trying to interfere in the election there is no question it was doing that then and there is no question it is doing it now and it no question it is going to continue doing that that is a given and as you pointed out not only does Putin need it because if Donald Trump wins Ukraine is over let's j

ust call it what it is and Trump needs it because if he wins the federal cases are over and the state cases are on ice so the Confluence of interests is couldn't be stronger um and then how does an informant happen if an informant let me let me ask you your first point though I mean if it because it feels like we're we're we're we went from you know the Russia hoax to damn right we're colluding and it's not illegal we'll prove it I mean it went from like I didn't do it to yeah I did it and watch

us do it again couldn't agree more so when we were looking at this there was sort of a given that this was like a third about his manhood like I didn't need Putin I went all by myself now he's bring it on EX exactly that is exactly right and and the other thing that's changed is if you remember there was the Muller report but there was also a bipartisan was worse for him on the Russia stuff it was about being it was about hookers it it was terrible for him it by a Republican and it was bipartis

an why am I saying that because that was when there were there were some people in the Republican Party who actually view this as the clip you played as the way it should be which is this is a national security issue this is just so not a political issue no foreign country should be helping either side it doesn't matter if they were doing this for Biden or or for Trump um and that is another another thing that's changed it's not just Trump saying yeah bring it on we know he did that the Trump To

wer meeting in 2016 when it's like oh Russia you have disinformation on Hillary Clinton great you know that's what you say it is I love it