A grinning Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he supported Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. His remark came just hours after the Biden administration accused Russia of a widespread, sophisticated election interference campaign.
Two Russian women have been charged in an indictment unsealed in New York on Wednesday with funneling millions of dollars to a U.S. company that paid online influencers to push narratives favorable to the Kremlin.
"I said that our 'favorite,' if I may say so, was the incumbent President Mr. Biden. He was removed from the race, but he recommended that all his supporters support Ms. Harris. So we will do the same, we will support her," Putin said, smiling wryly at an economic forum in Vladivostok.
"She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her. And if everything is fine with her — then Trump has introduced so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia that no president has ever introduced before — and if everything is fine with Ms. Harris, then maybe she will refrain from such actions of this kind," Putin continued in what appeared to be a sarcastic tone.
Keir Giles, an expert on Russia at the Chatham House think tank and author of the book "Russia's War on Everybody," told CBS News that Putin's facial expression was characteristic of the Russian leader.
"It's not surprising that Putin said this with a smirk on his face, that is what he tends to do when engaging in the most blatant and overt trolling of American audiences," Giles said. "It is a burst of trolling, and he's done it before. We had the same excited reaction from some sections of U.S. and international media when he previously endorsed Biden, but of course it is meaningless. There is a clear preference from Russia because there is only one presidential candidate that is so much in favor of Russian interests and would be so inclined to pander to what Russia wants from Ukraine, from Europe, form the world and from the United States," Giles said, referring to former President Trump.
"Far more significant is this start, and hopefully it is just the start, of the U.S. Department of Justice starting to roll up the networks of influencers who have been operating on behalf of Russia to try to sway public opinion in the United States towards Russia's desired political outcome," Giles told CBS News.
The Biden administration accused Russia on Wednesday of attempting to interfere in the November election, including by creating fake news sites designed to covertly spread Russian propoganda among Americans.
At a meeting of the Election Threats Task Force, which included FBI Director Chris Wray and other top officials in the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Russia Today, known as RT, a media outlet funded by the Russian state, had implemented a scheme to fund a Tennessee-based company to create and disseminate content that was consistent with Russia's goals of pushing division within U.S. society and undermining support for Ukraine.
Garland said the Justice Department had seized 32 internet domains that pro-Russian actors and the Russian government had used to engage in a "covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our country's elections."
"This is deadly serious and we are going to treat it accordingly," Garland said.
According to documents submitted by the Justice Department, one of the Russian campaigns, called the "Good Old USA Project," aimed to reduce President Biden's confidence rating among Americans before he dropped his reelection bid. The document appeared to have been prepared in late 2023.
Targets for the propaganda included residents of "conservative states where traditional values are strong who more often vote for candidates of" an unidentified political party. Though redacted, the document appears to refer to the Republican Party.
Documents about another Russian campaign, called the "U.S. Social Media Influencers Project," described the Republican Party as "currently advancing a relatively pro-Russian agenda" that can be "exploited by posing as ardent [Republicans] and relaying the part of their agenda that coincides with ours."
In July, U.S. officials with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security indicated that Russia was working to boost Trump's candidacy in this election cycle, as it did in 2016 and 2020, though they did not directly name his campaign.
"We have not observed a shift in Russia's preferences for the presidential race from past elections, given the role the U.S. is playing with regard to Ukraine and broader policy towards Russia," an ODNI official said in a July 9 election security update.
Melissa Quinn, Robert Legare, Andres Triay, Matthew Mosk and Olivia Gazis contributed to this report.
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