As The Post’s Abby Phillip reported, “a virtual army of accounts identified as having ties to a Russia-backed disinformation campaign targeting the U.S. political system zeroed in on efforts among Trump’s supporters to attack his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, over the firing of two Trump loyalists.”
That’ll teach the national security adviser to cross Trump’s Kremlin cohort.
Phillip noted that Trump, on his golf vacation, retweeted with thanks a tweet Saturday from the subtle handle @Protrump45, an account that “bears a lot of signs of a Russia-backed disinformation campaign.” Though there are conflicting reports about the nature of this account, there are undoubtedly many Russian “bots” that boost Trump’s line and blast his critics, often with misspellings and odd grammar.
But while it’s generous of Putin to put his bots to work for Trump, this White House is perfectly capable of importing Russian-style propaganda without help from Moscow.
Trump’s White House has been churning out so much that it literally overloaded the system. Rapid-response director Andy Hemming had been sending out positive stories about Trump to so many journalists that, Politico reported, “the White House IT system could not handle an email going out to such a big list, and all of his emails were being blocked by a firewall.” The glitch was fixed.
This week, meanwhile, saw the debut of Trump TV: a Web-based broadcast of “real news” by Kayleigh McEnany, a pro-Trump pundit formerly of CNN. In the first installment, she announces, in front of a Trump-Pence campaign backdrop in Trump Tower: “President Trump has created more than 1 million jobs. . . . President Trump has clearly steered the economy back in the right direction. . . . President Trump is finally putting the American worker first. . . . President Trump is dedicated to honoring these men and women who fought valiantly for our country.”
Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted: “Wow. Feels eerily like so many state-owned channels I’ve watched in other countries.”
