Karine Jean-Pierre suggests Russians are using online bots to help Trump by spreading damaging videos from the debate

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested that the Russians might be utilizing online bot-farms to spread damaging debate videos and help former President Donald Trump's campaign.

Jean-Pierre encouraged the speculation after a reporter's question on Tuesday during a media briefing.

'So, that's a very good question.'

"Do you have any concerns right now that this is the leading edge of any part of a Russian effort to interfere in the election? Has the president been briefed on this?" the reporter asked. "Have you seen any evidence that the Russians or other foreign powers have tried to seize on the debate performance and repeat some of the president's most embarrassing moments?"

"So, that's a very good question," she responds.

"I would have to talk to our team about those particular questions that you just had, there were multiple questions in your statement there. I would leave it to the Department of Justice as to what they announce. Obviously, that's for them to speak to," Jean-Pierre added.

"AI has always been a concern, that's why the president made some announcements recently to take executive action on how we can deal with AI," she concluded. "We want to see more fulsome action legislatively from Congress."

'Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation.'

Also on Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced that it had disrupted an online bot farm sponsored by the Russian government that was spreading disinformation on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The statement said that Russian intelligence had access to a "social media bot farm" with more than 1,000 accounts that pretended to be U.S. citizens.

“Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government," Wray added.

'They're going to blame Biden's debate performance on Russia.'

Critics of the White House criticized the attempt to connect embarrassing debate videos to a Russian disinformation campaign.

"This question may sound ridiculous now, but it will pale in comparison to the inevitable push by the mainstream media to actually blame Putin for Biden's rapid cognitive decline," read one response.

"They're going to blame Biden's debate performance on Russia. You can't make this stuff up," read another reply.

"So, clips of the debate will be regarded as Russian propaganda? One trick pony," another user said.

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