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Elon Musk speaks next to U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 11, 2025.
Trump, Musk sow election interference controversy in India - and Europe
The fallout: India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP,accused Congress Party Leader Rahul Gandhi last Thursday of having solicited foreign interference at a speaking engagement in England in 2024, before that year’s Indian elections. Congress denied the allegations and asked the government foran investigation of Trump’s claim.
The findings. On Monday, the Indian Finance Ministry reported that in 2024,USAID gave $750 million to seven projects related to agriculture, renewable energy, and health care, none of which was related to elections. Indian mediaalso reported that the funding was designated for Bangladesh, not India, to support youth civic engagement initiatives there before that country’s January 2024 elections – and that $13.4 million was utilized. Congress General Secretary in-Charge Jairam Rameshthen accused the BJP of spreading “fake news” about Gandhi and called the party “a procession of liars and illiterates.”
More than just India? While Russia has long been the focus of foreign interference allegations, the United States’ role in foreign elections is under the microscope as well. Musk stands accused ofelection interference in Romania and also was fiercely criticized for his interventions in the German election campaign by new Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who compared them to interference from Russia. “The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow,” Merz said. “We are under so much pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe.”Opinion: What do we mean by “election interference”?
On Tuesday, in the first inning of Game 4 of the World Series in New York, the Yankees second baseman hit a towering fly ball down the right field line.
As thousands in the Bronx began screaming “Drop it! Drop it, you f&$king bum! Drop it!,” the Dodgers’ right fielder Mookie Betts settled under the ball and caught it, right up against the fence. Just then, two Yankee fans in the front row grabbed his arm and wrenched the ball out of his glove. It was a mugging, live on national TV, meant to help the Yanks. (As it turned out, a day later, they were beyond help — but I digress.)
This play can tell us a lot about a certain kind of fan but also about a big problem we have in America: “election interference.”
With just days before yet another installment of “the most important election of our lifetime,” many are worried that foreign agents will influence our votes in ways that make the outcome illegitimate.
In the past two weeks alone, Donald Trump has complained about British Labour Party volunteers campaigning for Kamala Harris, US officials have said Russia was behind a video falsely accusing VP candidate Tim Walz of unspeakable crimes, and Iran and China have reportedly hacked Trump’s phone. There is no shortage of examples.
But let me make a radical suggestion here: None of this is election “interference,” and calling it that misses the point.
Ever since the 2016 US election, in which Russian troll farms tried to sow discord and sway voters away from Hillary Clinton, we have focused a lot on foreign meddling. I get the logic: Voters make choices based on information. If the information is untrue, or biased, their choices will be illegitimate. Garbage in, garbage out, as data scientists say.
But this is too limited and utopian a vision of what an election is. Candidates always do their best to convince or manipulate people into believing that complex problems come down to simple choices. Activists on both political teams are always bending or even breaking the truth to help their “side.”
The idea of an election where everyone is a well-informed voter, making choices based on pristinely fact-checked information that comes only from honest people living within the borders of the United States, is a fantasy.
A better way to think about this? There is only one thing that is truly interference: efforts to change the outcome of the election by altering the vote tally, destroying ballots, or illegally preventing people from voting. Those mysterious ballot-box fires in Portland this week? That’s true election interference.
To illustrate, let’s go back to Yankee Stadium …
In the fly ball story, the play is the election, and the Dodgers right fielder is the voter. The thousands of fans screaming are one of the many factors — swirling wind, blinding lights, roaring crowd — that Betts has to negotiate as he tracks a fly ball through the night sky and into his glove.
A fan trying to rob the ball out of his glove to keep the Yanks from losing an out, however, is a direct attempt to alter the outcome of the play: interference. (And this is, in fact, how the umpires ruled it.)
Are there lots of actors in the crowd, both here and abroad, trying and lying very hard to manipulate your understanding of the election to influence your vote? Yes. Are some of them breaking US election laws by failing to register as foreign lobbyists or by hacking private information? Surely, and we should prosecute when laws are broken.
But in the wider conversation, when we blame “foreign interference” for screwing up our elections or helping the other side win, we are focusing on the wrong things.
The problem with American elections isn’t that trolls in Russia, Iran, or China are spewing lies into our social media. America has its own “Made in America” trolls, liars, and provocateurs as well.
The problem is that we have become so polarized and distrustful that a large number of American voters don’t seem equipped — or inclined — to discern what’s true and what’s not, no matter where it comes from.
Magically turning off the spigot of “fake news” from abroad — as if this were even possible — wouldn’t solve this problem. Blaming foreign actors for American choices, much less American vulnerabilities, is a comforting distraction. When two-thirds of Democrats believed that Trump won in 2016 because of Russian meddling, they were looking for an excuse, not an answer.
The good news? America’s top election security boss says our infrastructure is resilient and extremely difficult to hack or scramble. (For more on that, see our upcoming GZERO World interview with Jen Easterly, head of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.) In baseball terms, it will be very hard for a fan to rip the ball out of our glove.
The bad news? We are all increasingly vulnerable to the roar of the crowd, and a fly ball is coming right at us, alarmingly fast.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts at a Faith Leaders Roundtable at Zebulon, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024.
Labo(u)r of love or “election interference” from the UK?
Donald Trump’s campaign has accused Britain’s Labour Party of “blatant” interference in the US election after volunteers from the party traveled to the US to campaign for his opponent, Kamala Harris.
Campaigning while foreign isn’t necessarily illegal, but the Trump campaign’s complaint with US election authorities suggests the Labour Party funded the travel, which would be unlawful. A LinkedIn post by a Labour Party organizer had promised to “sort” (read: pay) for the volunteers’ “housing.”
This isn’t new. British volunteers have often campaigned in the US, with Labour supporting Democratic candidates, and Tories traveling for Republicans. Former UK PM Liz Truss has stumped for Trump in the US, as has far-right Reform Party leader Nigel Farage.
The incident raises two issues. First, if Trump wins, it could irritate relations between his White House and the UK’s current Labour government. Prime Minister Keir Starmer doesn’t think so, but Trump could well remember it.
But second, what’s “election interference” anyway? Beyond directly altering vote tallies or hacking the campaigns, are there gray areas between free speech and malicious meddling? Does posting polarizing lies about the candidates constitute “interference”? Is it only a problem if it comes from abroad? And how about the outsized impact of billionaires on our politics or the perception that media bias – on airwaves or algorithms – is its own form of tipping the scales?
This is something we’ll look at closely in the final days of the race – but first we want to hear from you: How would you define “election interference” and what would you do to stop it? Let us know here.
U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith makes a statement to reporters about the 37 federal charges returned by a grand jury in an indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on charges of unauthorized retention of classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, as Smith speaks at his offices in Washington, U.S. June 9, 2023.
Special counsel drops new Trump indictment
Special counsel Jack Smith filed a new superseding indictment in former President Donald Trump’s election interference case on Tuesday. Smith aimed to conform with the Supreme Court’s ruling granting broad immunity to presidents for official acts. The new indictment removes charges associated with Trump allegedly directing his Justice Department to conduct phony election fraud investigations and choose fraudulent electors, as the high court ruling protects them as official acts.
Smith filed the indictment just ahead of the DOJ’s “60-day rule,” which discourages filing politically sensitive cases near elections. He said in a written notice to the court that the indictment reflects the finding of “a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case.”
Smith will not seek to have Trump re-arraigned, and it’s highly unlikely that the case will be resolved before the election.
What does this mean for the campaign? It may not move the needle much, says Eurasia Group’s Clayton Allen.
“Voters will have a hard time keeping [Trump’s] different cases separate, and we've seen them recede as important factors in polling and public opinion,” he says. “Basically, the criminal stuff has been overshadowed by, well, everything that has happened in the last couple of months.”
Still, the ongoing legal actions could have significant implications for Trump. “The dogged attempts by federal prosecutors," says Eurasia Group US managing director Jon Lieber, "make the stakes of this election clear: If Trump loses, he's probably going to jail.”
Russia and China benefit from US infighting, says David Sanger
On GZERO World, David Sanger, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author of "New Cold Wars," argues that while China seeks to become the top global power by 2049, Russia, lacking such aspirations, acts as a disruptor on the international stage. Sanger also notes how both countries have an interest in fueling instability in the U.S., amplifying chaos to distract American focus from their strategic ambitions. He tells Ian Bremmer, "China wants to be the top dog by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution and of Mao declaring the state. And they want to be the top dog of something worth being the top dog of. The Russians have no hope for that. So their only source of power is as a disruptor, and that's the friction between these two that may come into play."
Sanger also argues that both Russia AND China have an interest in sowing internal discord in the United States. "They have every incentive, both of them, Russia and China, to be subtle actors in the background of this coming presidential election. And that's one area where if they are not cooperating, it would pay them off considerably to coordinate."
Watch Ian Bremmer's full interview with David Sanger on GZERO World - Are we on the brink of a new cold war?
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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How to protect elections in the age of AI
Half of the world’s population will have the chance to head to the polls this year in dozens of critical elections worldwide. These votes, which will shape policy and democracy for years to come, come amid light-speed development in artificial intelligence. As Eurasia Group noted in its 2024 Top Risk entitled “Ungoverned AI,” generative AI could be used by domestic and foreign actors – we’re looking at you, Russia – to impact campaigns and undermine trust in democracy.
To meet the moment, GZERO Media, on the ground at the 2024 Munich Security Conference, held a Global Stage discussion on Feb. 17 entitled “Protecting Elections in the Age of AI.” We spoke with Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft; Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media; Fiona Hill, senior fellow for the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings; Eva Maydell, an EU parliamentarian and a lead negotiator of the EU Chips Act and Artificial Intelligence Act; Kersti Kaljulaid, the former president of Estonia; with European correspondent Maria Tadeo moderating. The program also featured interviews with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, and Benedikt Franke, CEO and vice-chair of the Munich Security Conference. These thought leaders and experts discussed the implications of the rapid rise of AI amid this historic election year.
The group started by delving into what Bremmer has referred to as the “Voldemort” of years surrounding elections, to look at how election interference and disinformation have evolved since 2016.
“This is the year that people have been very concerned about, but have kind of hoped that they could push off. It's not just because there are elections all over the world and trust in institutions is deteriorating, it's also because the most powerful country in the world, and it's not becoming less powerful, is also one of the most politically dysfunctional,” says Bremmer, referring to the US.
The 2024 US presidential election “is maximally distrust-laden,” says Bremmer, adding that it’s “really hard to have a free and fair election in the US that all of its population” believes is legitimate.
And the worry is that AI could complicate the landscape even further.
Hill agreed that there’s cause for concern but underscored that people should not “panic” to a point where they’re “paralyzed” and “not taking action.”
“Panic is not an option given the stakes,” says Hill, adding, “There are negative aspects of all of this, but there's also the kind of question that we have to grapple with is how when legitimate competitors or opposition movements that otherwise beleaguered decide to use AI tools, that then also has an impact.”
There’s no doubt that AI can be used for nefarious purposes. Deepfakes can fool even the most discerning eye. Disinformation has already been rampant across the internet in recent election cycles and helped sow major divisions in many countries well before AI tools — far more sophisticated than your average meme — were widely available.
“With new tools and products that use generative AI, including from a company like ours, somebody can create a very realistic video, audio, or image. Just think about the different ways it can be used. Somebody can use it and they can make a video of themself, and they can make clear in the video that this is AI generated. That is one way a political candidate, even one who is in prison can speak,” says Smith, alluding to ex-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent use of AI from behind bars.
Along these lines, there are many serious, valid concerns about the impact AI can have on elections and democracy more generally — particularly at a time when people are exhibiting rising levels of distrust in key institutions.
“It's very important to acknowledge a lot of the important developments that AI and emerging tech can bring to support our economic development,” says Maydell, adding, “but in the same time, especially this year, we need to be very sober about some of those threats that are in a way threatening the very fabric of our democratic societies.
As Maydell noted, this evolving new technology can be harnessed for good and bad. Can AI be used as a tool to protect candidates and the integrity of the electoral process?
A number of major tech companies, including Microsoft, signed an accord at the Munich Security Conference on Friday to help thwart and combat AI-related election interference.
“It's all about trying to put ourselves in a position, not to solve this problem completely, I don't think that's possible, but to manage this new reality in a way that will make a difference,” says Smith. The Microsoft president says the accord brings the tech sector together to preserve the authenticity of content, including by working to detect deepfakes and providing candidates with a mechanism to report any that are created about them.
“We'll work together to promote transparency and public education. This clearly is going to require a lot of work with civil society, with others around the world to help the public be ready,” says Smith.
But is enough being done?
“It's good that both politicians and the companies and society as a whole now has a better understanding where this is all leading us and we are collectively taking actions,” says Kaljulaid, but this is just a “first step” and “next steps need to follow.”
A balance will need to be found between legislating the challenges presented by AI and giving tech companies space to collaborate, innovate and address problems on their own.
“Democracy is always in jeopardy. Every generation has to answer the call to defend it,” says Smith, adding, “Now it's our turn. It's our turn as a generation of people to say that technology always changes, but democracy is a value that we hold timeless. So let's do what it takes to defend it, to preserve and promote it.”
The livestream was part of the Global Stage series, produced by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft. These discussions convene heads of state, business leaders, and technology experts from around the world for critical debate about the geopolitical and technology trends shaping our world.
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- AI vs. truth: Battling deepfakes amid 2024 elections - GZERO Media ›
- Protect free media in democracies, urges Estonia's former president Kersti Kaljulaid - GZERO Media ›
- Microsoft's Teresa Hutson on rebuilding trust in the Age of AI - GZERO Media ›
Live premiere today at 12 pm ET: Can we use AI to protect elections?
Today at 12 pm ET/9 am PT/6 pm CET, watch the live premiere of our Global Stage discussion at the Munich Security Conference, "Munich 2024: Protecting Elections in the Age of AI." 2024 is truly the “Year of Elections” with more than 75 nations heading to the polls, affecting roughly half the world’s population. But an ongoing decline of trust in institutions plus an explosion of AI tools and deep fake technologies could create a dangerous environment. Our panel will examine how AI can also be a way to protect consumers and candidates, helping to shore up the integrity of the electoral process. Can AI be used to quickly flag and even eliminate online lies and misinformation?
European correspondent Maria Tadeo moderates the conversation with an expert panel including:
- Ian Bremmer, President and Founder, Eurasia Group and GZERO Media
- Fiona Hill, Senior Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe, Brookings
- Kersti Kaljulaid, former President of Estonia
- Eva Maydell, Member of the European Parliament and lead negotiator, EU Chips Act and Artificial Intelligence Act.
- Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President, Microsoft
- Special appearances by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece, and Benedikt Franke, Vice-Chairman and CEO, Munich Security Conference
More about Global Stage:
Global Stage: Global issues at the intersection of technology, politics, and societyyoutu.be
China and Swift: Dual threats?
This is the year of elections, with half the world’s population set to vote in more than 65 elections, so it’s no wonder there’s a lot of urgency over one issue: election interference.
Right now, Canada is holding a critical independent inquiry into election interference from China and Russia and yet, they naively missed the most disruptive election conspiracy mastermind of them all: Taylor Swift.
Or not.
In the department of “Weapons of Mass Distraction,” Swift merits a brief diversion before we get to China and Russia. As we covered in the Daily this morning, there is a double album of MAGA paranoia around China and Russia – sorry, I keep doing that … around Taylor Swift – and her plot to tilt the US election to Joe Biden.
One-time Republican presidential candidate-turned-Trump Hype Man Vivek Ramaswamy courageously exposed how Swift and her beau Travis Kelce, the future Hall of Fame tight end from the Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs, have it all cooked up. Working alongside, um … Deep Football and the Democrats, Swift and Kelce have, apparently, hatched an anti-Trump football plot.
“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” Ramaswamy tweeted out knowingly, “and I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.” What? No way! Vivek doubled down on his doubters, with one of those cryptic-conspiracy bro things that sound smart but then you realize you have no idea what he actually means.
“What the MSM calls a “conspiracy theory” is often nothing more than an amalgam of incentives hiding in plain sight,” Ramaswamy tweeted. “Once you see that, the rest becomes pretty obvious.” To which Elon Muskretweeted, “Exactly.”
Exactly what is in plain sight? That there is a Super Bowl-Swiftian election interference plot? That a billionaire musician, her record company, the NFL, Travis Kelce, and Joe Biden all got together to fix the outcome of the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl in order to support the Democrats and undermine Donald Trump?
The Swift-Kelce-NFL-Biden fever dream has been widely repeated and reported on, but it has zero merit, as we covered this morning. Swift has a history of supporting Democrats in places like Tennessee in 2018. In other words, like millions of people, she supports a political party. That is not a conspiracy, that’s called “voting.” Many other celebrities support Trump and Republicans. That is also called voting.
Yes, Travis Kelce does vaccine ads for a pharmaceutical company. Again, not a conspiracy against Trump, but the choice of a man who, like hundreds of millions of people, believes in the science of vaccines – and in making a buck. It’s no more complicated than that. This isn’t a plot for election interference, as folks like Ramaswamy allege; it’s a paranoid new deflection from the very real act of attempted election interference that was the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
But foreign election interference is troubling, and Canada’s inquiry merits attention. The independent “Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions” – catchy name, I know, so let’s go with the “Hogue Inquiry,” after the commissioner Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who is overseeing it all — kicked off this week. It is looking into allegations that China and Russia interfered in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
Just this morning, Global News reported that it had obtained a secret briefing note from Canada’s spy agency CSIS that says China attempted to interfere with the last two Federal elections. “We know that the PRC sought to clandestinely and deceptively influence the 2019 and 2021 federal elections,” Stewart Bell writes in his superb story today.
That’s exactly why Canada’s allies are watching this case so closely, especially in the US. “Much of the attention about foreign interference in American democratic processes has focused on Russia and its malicious online activities,” Stephanie Carvin, a Carleton University professor and former CSIS national security analyst, tells me. “But Canada presents an important case study in how other state actors, namely (but not exclusively) China, conduct such operations. This includes the harassment of dissidents, alleged interference in electoral nomination processes, and targeting of politicians. Western countries need to observe and learn from the experience of other countries, which may impact them one day.”
Despite the recent assurances from President Xi Jinping to President Joe Biden that China will not interfere in the election, FBI Director Christopher Wraywarned a House Committee on China this week that Beijing has a very sophisticated plan to disrupt the upcoming election and also hack critical infrastructure.
Other countries, like Russia and Iran, are playing copycat. “Unfortunately, malicious actors are learning from one another, and Western countries should expect more foreign interference in the future,” Carvin says. “I am particularly worried about artificially generated content ‘deepfakes’ that may alter perceptions of current events and politicians.”
Canada, the US, and its allies are arming up for a war on the heart of democracy: elections. “If there is a good news story here, it is that countries are not going through this alone,” Carvin tells me. “By working together, states can better inform themselves about what is happening around the world, to make their democratic institutions more resilient.”
Big picture? It might be best not to confuse Swiftian halftime entertainment with political election interference. Both are worth paying attention to, but they play in very different arenas.