HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said Tuesday he hopes Republican President-elect Donald Trump will use at least some of the $160 million included in legislation he co-sponsored to combat propaganda and fake news spread overseas by Russia.
The senator from Connecticut acknowledged the State Department under Trump could choose to spend the money elsewhere, such as combatting propaganda waged by the Islamic State group or China. But Murphy, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, said it has become crucial the U.S. also combat fake news narratives the Russians are using effectively. He said the U.S. is “woefully under-resourced” to fight back.
“There clearly is a danger that Trump will spend this money combatting China instead of combatting Russia,” said Murphy, who co-sponsored the legislation with Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. The bill, which President Barack Obama signed into law last week, does not specify how the Global Engagement Center at the State Department spends the two years-worth of funding.
Murphy noted, however, that the director of the center requires Senate confirmation. He said there is bipartisan agreement in the Senate that a “sizeable chunk” of the $160 million be used to battle Russian propaganda. Lawmakers envision the money will help fund independent and objective journalism abroad to counter fake news stories originating in Russia and other nations.
The law comes as U.S. intelligence agencies say Russian interfered in the U.S. presidential election with the goal of helping Trump, a claim the president-elect has questioned and the Kremlin has strongly denied.
Murphy, who appeared at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford to discuss the law, spoke about a recent fake story published late last month on several Russian-language news sites that attempted to wrongly show disagreement between the U.S. and NATO over Russian aggression in the Baltic states.
“A lot of people read those stories and believed them,” Murphy said. “We did not have, nor did our allies in the Baltics, the capability to very quickly turn around the true story.”
The law does not address fake news disseminated in the U.S. by foreign governments.
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