“Real Time” host Bill Maher is concerned that Russia will again interfere with U.S. elections in 2018 and 2020 and, according to counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, Maher should be worried.
“The Russians will be back,” Clarke said with certainty on Friday night’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
“After what happened in the last election, the U.S. government should have instituted a very comprehensive program to make sure the Russians never get involved in our democracy again, and we’ve done nothing. Nothing at all. … They will certainly be back trying to re-elect this guy,” he added, referring to Donald Trump.
Clarke, who has worked in the administrations of both Republican and Democratic presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — said the larger picture is how Russia influenced voters.
“They had thousands and thousands of Facebook and Twitter accounts, and they were micro-targeting individual voters in individual swing districts, shaping their opinions. [It was] psychological warfare on a grand scale. They conducted the largest psychological warfare campaign in history.”
The President and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be meeting face-to-face for the first time next week at a summit in Germany, but Clarke doesn’t think Trump will bring up the topic of Russian interference in the U.S. election.
“This is the 21st-century equivalent of having the Russians landing Marines on the New Jersey shore. They invaded our country, they invaded our political system… and they won,” Clarke added. “And [President Trump] doesn’t care because he won.”
Watch the video above for Maher’s entire interview with Clarke.