Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Newsmax on Friday he expects American adversaries to do what they can to interfere in the presidential election.
The FBI and other federal agencies said Wednesday that Iranian hackers sought to interest President Joe Biden's campaign in information stolen from Donald Trump's campaign. Emails were sent in late June and early July, before Biden dropped out of the race.
The emails "contained an excerpt taken from stolen, nonpublic material from former President Trump's campaign as text in the emails," according to a U.S. government statement. The agencies said that no recipients responded, and a Kamala Harris campaign official said Thursday that "the materials were not used."
Appearing on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren," Taleblu said he expects the next 45 days to be very messy.
"America's authoritarian adversaries, whether that's Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, you name it, they're learning from one another," Taleblu said. "The playbook that they have involves using the cyber domain, the freedom of speech that we have here, the digital freedoms that Americans have against Americans. The Russians are looking to prevent a Kamala victory. The Iranians are looking to prevent a Trump victory."
Taleblu said these countries want to see chaos.
"When Americans fight each other, whether that's from the left to the right or the right to the left, it's not the other side that wins," Taleblu said. "It's the nation as a whole that loses, and it's the ayatollahs, it's [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, it's [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping], it's the [North Korean] Kim dynasty that wins."
Taleblu said Americans end up serving as proxies of authoritarian adversaries.
"Our partisan divides have become more public and more vitriolic," Taleblu said.
"Unfortunately, we don't have cultural immunity. We are more likely to fall for this stuff. We are more likely to inadvertently propagate this stuff. And that's why this is a big fear for me."
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