Russia backs Trump and Iran supports Harris in efforts to influence the election, US intelligence says

Russia uses ‘influence-for-hire’ firms to affect US public opinion, intelligence agency alert says

Russia and Iran are likely looking to influence the presidential election, a US intelligence official said in a media call on Monday.

The intelligence community believes that Russia will support former president Donald Trump against Vice-President Kamala Harris and that Iran will continue its efforts to target Trump, according to NBC News.

While China doesn’t appear to have a preference, they may attempt to affect races on the congressional level, the official said.

The call was organized by the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which takes on foreign propaganda efforts.

In an alert sent out on Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said: “Of note for this cycle, we have observed foreign influence actors refining their tactics to better hide their hand.”

Foreign actors are hiring public relations firms, including marketing companies, to use their expertise in communications and technology to carry out their objectives, the notice said. These firms also face fewer bureaucratic limitations compared to governments.

Russia is using “influence-for-hire” firms to attempt to change US public opinion, including operations connected to the election. The firms have “directly and discreetly engaged Americans” using their influence platforms, the notice added. It has also used improved tools to create specific content for American audiences while shielding the Russian efforts from public view.

“Foreign actors continue to rely on witting and unwitting Americans to seed, promote, and add credibility to narratives that serve the foreign actors’ interests,” the notice stated. The foreign entities are looking to use these Americans to spread their messages via their own channels. For instance, Russian influence actors have made efforts this election cycle to build and use networks of “US and Western personalities” to create and share narratives friendly to the Kremlin.

Vice-President Kamala Harris (left) and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (right) (AP)

Russia, Iran, and China are all seeking to conduct these influence campaigns to “undermine US democracy and Washington’s standing in the world,” the notice said.

Russia is still the top threat to US elections, the agency said. The Kremlin is using a wide range of actors and tactics to “better hide its hand”, increase its reach, and create content that better engages American audiences as it seeks to affect presidential and congressional electoral outcomes, damage confidence in US elections, and worsen divisions.

The ODNI said that China is “probably” not planning on trying to affect the outcome of the presidential election but that it may target congressional candidates who threaten their interests. They did so in the 2022 midterms, targeting members of both parties.

The agency notes that the intelligence community is aware that Chinese “influence actors are using social media to sow divisions in the United States and portray democracies as chaotic”.

Meanwhile, Iran is looking to “fuel distrust” in American institutions and worsen “social discord”. The country is working to affect the outcome of the presidential election, ODNI said, “probably because Iranian leaders want to avoid an outcome they perceive would increase tensions with the United States”.

“Tehran relies on vast webs of online personas and propaganda mills to spread disinformation and have notably been active in exacerbating tensions over the Israel-Gaza conflict,” the ODNI said in the Monday alert.

At a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said, “China has never interfered, nor will it interfere, in US elections,” according to NBC News.

A spokesperson for the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York told The Wall Street Journal in a statement that “Iran does not engage in any objectives or activities intended to influence the US election”.

The spokesperson added that the allegations are “psychological operations designed to artificially pep up election campaigns”.

The ODNI previously found that Russian president Vladimir Putin greenlit a propaganda effort aimed at backing Trump and “denigrating” Biden and the Democrats in 2020. The report from that year also found that Iran made efforts to target Trump’s candidacy, a campaign authorized by its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but it didn’t back Biden or other competitors.

The Trump administration authorized a drone strike in 2020 that killed Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani.

The agency hasn’t named any specific candidates running in the current election in its statements, but in a call earlier this month, when Biden was the presumptive nominee, officials said Russia was still the top threat and that its candidate preferences remained the same as in the last election cycle. Officials also said on Monday that both Iran’s and Russia’s preferences had not changed.

The official on the call said Russia’s top issue is ending US aid to Ukraine.

“Russia’s core interest in this election is opposing candidates who want to offer further aid to Kyiv, and we expect Russia’s focus will remain on that,” the official said, according to NBC News.

Harris has met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on a number of occasions as vice-president and, according to the State Department, the Biden administration has given Ukraine roughly $53.7bn in military aid. Meanwhile, Trump hasn’t committed to continuing sending aid to Ukraine, and his running mate JD Vance has repeatedly criticized the practice of sending military aid to allies.