Hillary Clinton thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin will be eager to interfere with US presidential elections again in 2024.
During an appearance on “Inside with Jen Psaki” on Sunday, the former secretary of state said she was positive that Putin meddled in past elections and that she’s sure he is ready to sow discord during next year’s voting cycle.
Asked if people should be concerned about potential political interference from the Kremlin, Clinton told Psaki, “The Russians have proved themselves to be quite adept at interfering and if [Putin] has a chance, he’ll do it again.”
In 2020, a Senate investigation found that Russia led an aggressive effort to elect Donald Trump during his 2016 race against Clinton.
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The next year, US intelligence officials determined Putin interfered in the 2020 election by “denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the US.”
Clinton said she was confident Moscow would use the same tactics during Trump’s 2024 rematch against Biden.
“His modus operandi [is] that he hates democracy,” she explained. “He particularly hates the West, and he especially hates us.”
Clinton said she’s been worried about Putin’s influence for years and accused the Russian leader of a strategy to “damage and divide” the US from the inside.
The former Senator from New York also criticized Putin for his “barbaric invasion of Ukraine” and accused the Russian ruler of plotting to “expand his reach” and “restore the Russian empire.”
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Calling on Americans to take a stand against the “authoritarian dictator” and his “apologists and enablers,” Clinton told Psaki, “We have to reject a kind of creeping fascism of people who are really ready to turn over their thinking, their votes to wannabe dictators.”
Putin weighed in on US affairs earlier this month at an economic forum in Eastern Europe, where he described Trump’s current legal problems as political persecution. The frontrunner for the 2024 Republican Presidential candidacy is currently facing 91 charges in four separate cases.
Accusing the Biden administration of corruption, Putin said investigations into Trump revealed “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others democracy.”