House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is warning voters the decision over who the next president is may not be totally in their hands.
Pelosi said Sunday that Russia is a major threat to election security heading into November and differentiated the issue from threats posed by China and Iran, which reportedly do not want to see a victory for President Trump.
“Russia is actively, 24/7 interfering in our election,” Pelosi told CNN’s State of the Union. “They did so in 2016, and they are doing so now.”
She added that China is believed to prefer presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden to win in November, an election interference threat she called “not equivalent.”
Pelosi, who also appeared on Fox News Sunday, downplayed concernts that China is trying to interfere in the election.
“They try to blanket it with the Chinese, they said, prefer Biden — we don’t know that, but that’s what they’re saying, but they’re not really getting involved in the presidential election,” she said.
U.S. intelligence officials recently released an assessment dissecting the ways China, Iran, and Russia pose threats to the security of this year’s election.
The assessment said Russia is using a “range of measures” to try and denigrate Biden and what the country views as an “anti-Russia establishment.” Officials concluded that Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost Trump’s reelection chances through disinformation on social media and Russian television.
Iran, meanwhile, is thought to be seeking to undermine U.S. democratic institutions, Trump, and to divide the country ahead of the election, according to the assessment. Iran is expected to pose a threat by spreading disinformation on social media and engaging in anti-U.S. content online. Officials said China has been working to expand its influence on the election because of its preference that Trump not win reelection.
Pelosi said she believes Russia poses the strongest threat to this year’s presidential election and that more information about what it is doing to undermine security needs to come out.
“As long as they tell the whole story about Russia, then they can hide it any way they want,” she said. “This is our sacred right, this is our elections, and in every way, we must make sure the American people remove obstacles of participation and obstacles in terms of intelligence to make sure they know what’s at stake.”
