The News Not Noise Letter: Russia’s Influence(r) Operation
The News Not Noise Letter: Russia’s Influence(r) Operation
Unpacking a Kremlin collab. Plus: father-sun murder charges in Georgia, and join our debate live-chat.
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It’s been another busy campaign week: Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign announced it raised $361 million in August, nearly three times as much as former President Donald Trump’s campaign haul; history professor Dr. Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted nearly every election since 1984, said Harris will win in November; Trump’s New York criminal sentencing was delayed until after the election; and former Rep. Liz Cheney said her father, former VP Dick Cheney, is voting for Harris. Oh, and the DOJ exposed multiple massive Russian-backed influence campaigns that deliberately aimed to manipulate public opinion and sway the US elections.
We’ll get into all that and more below, but first: the next presidential debate is Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific on ABC. We’re hosting a live chat for paid subscribers on debate night. Find instructions for how to access the live chat at the end of this newsletter below the paywall.
Here are your headlines:
Harris Campaign Updates:
Debate Prep: Tuesday’s debate could be the most crucial event of this campaign. VP Harris is in Pittsburgh preparing with two veterans from Clinton’s 2016 contest – Karen Dunn, a lawyer and advisor to top politicians, and Phillipe Reines, a former Clinton communications strategist who has studied Trump and is known for his uncanny ability to predict the former president’s words and actions. The test for Harris: build trust, explain her policy goals, and confidently fend off Trump attacks – while provoking Trump to get undisciplined. The test for Trump: be substantive and disciplined. The debate will move forward with mics muted between answers.
Walz on Gaza: Gov. Tim Walz was asked by a Michigan college radio station if he’d adjust the US’s role in the Gaza war. In some of his first policy-focused comments he said the 10/7 attacks were “a horrific act of violence against the people of Israel” and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, but also said that “we can’t allow what’s happened in Gaza to happen.” He said the protesters “are speaking out for all the right reasons.” Walz did not mention Hamas. Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff spoke at a vigil and said he’s “gutted” by Hamas’s execution of six hostages.
Trump Campaign Updates:
Sentencing Delayed: Today the judge in Trump’s New York hush money case postponed his sentencing until after the election. Judges tend to avoid actions that could be perceived as impacting an election. Also today, Trump’s lawyers argued that the defamation ruling in the E. Jean Carroll case should be thrown out. Trump later said he’s “disappointed” in his lawyers (while standing right next to them).
Fact of Life? Sen. JD Vance enraged many by calling school shootings a “fact of life” Thursday.
Georgia School Shooting: On Wednesday, a 14-year-old gunman opened fire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, killing four people and wounding at least nine others. He was charged with four counts of murder; his father was also charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty to children. These are the harshest charges brought against the parent of a shooter to date. The shooter was investigated last year for posting shooting threats online, but Georgia is not one of the nation’s 21 states with a “red flag” law allowing law enforcement to remove weapons from the home with cause. Read more from Giffords Law Center here.
Jobs Report: The August jobs report showed more new jobs added last month compared to June and July, but gains were still sluggish. The new data is likely to push the Fed to lower interest rates, but the impending cuts may be smaller than many had hoped. The stock market had its worst week of the year.
American Killed in West Bank: Turkish-American Aysenur Eygi was killed Friday at a protest in the West Bank. Witnesses say she was shot by the IDF. The IDF says they “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.” A White House spokesperson said the administration is “deeply disturbed” by her death and has requested the Israeli government conduct an investigation.
Hostages Killed: This week, six Israeli hostages shot by Hamas were laid to rest in Israel. We covered this extensively on Instagram. One of the killed hostages was Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents spoke at the DNC. Israeli media reports the starved body of hostage Eden Yerushalmi weighed just 79 pounds when recovered. The IDF released a photo of the tunnel where they found the hostages’ remains, which began in a children’s play area complete with murals of Mickey Mouse and Snow White.
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Russia’s Election Influence Campaign
This story is both shocking and entirely unsurprising: the Justice Department just charged two executives from the Russian media company RT with running an illegal $10 million scheme to get American social media influencers to pump out Russian propaganda ahead of the election. The DOJ says the Russians financed nearly 2,000 videos since last November, touching on topics like immigration and inflation in order to amplify existing divisions among the American public. They collectively hit more than 16 million YouTube views.
What is RT?
It’s a Russian state-owned media brand formerly called Russia Today launched in 2005. Since 2017, it’s been listed as a foreign agent for attempts to interfere with the 2016 election.