Iran Plans To Interfere In 2020 Election To Take Down Donald Trump, Says Economist
During a Friday interview with On the Move that was published by Yahoo Finance on Tuesday, Nouriel Roubini, a prominent economist who is also known as “Dr. Doom,” predicted that Iran is planning to interference in the 2020 elections to take down Donald Trump.
According to Roubini, Iran’s primary goal is to remain in power. He notes that the country’s grip on power is currently threatened by the increase in coronavirus infections in addition to the actions of Trump.
“Four more years of Donald Trump, and between sanctions and military pressure they’re going to collapse,” he said.
According to Roubini, one path forward for Iran is to “escalate tensions” both regionally and within the United States, which would ideally increase oil prices and fuel a worldwide recession. Roubini notes that all of these scenarios would harm Trump’s chances of re-election.
“It is in the interest of Iran to provoke the United States, Israel and the allies, to create chaos, spike oil prices… crush the market, create a recession and then you get rid of Donald Trump.”
As reported by BBC News, Facebook removed two separate networks of fake accounts last month that were determined to be the work of Iran and Russia. According to the report, the systems were designed to engage in “foreign or government interference.” In particular, the Iranian operation used Facebook and Instagram accounts to post about U.S. politics, including topics related to the 2020 election.
A blog post by FireEye, a U.S. cyber-security firm, revealed that the personas in the Iranian network posed as liberals for the United States and promoted content that aligned with “Iranian political interests.” One account reportedly went under the name “Ryan Jensen” and promoted a video of a protest of the controversial U.S. assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
WATCH: Today’s panel discusses what the U.S. is doing to combat foreign election interference. #MTPDaily@dpletka: “We cannot downplay the threat to our electoral systems… from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea.” pic.twitter.com/PUAgYqnGyJ
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 25, 2019
Per CyberScoop, a report from the Atlantic Council think tank urged Washington to focus more on Iran’s digital interference operations to both combat them and inform the public about their existence.
“Iran has invested significant resources and accumulated vast experience in the conduct of digital influence efforts,” the report reads.
The Washington-based think tank urged the Department of Homeland Security to create an intergovernmental agency devoted to alerting both the American public and government officials of foreign influence operations.
Both Trump and his enemies have weaponized the topic of election interference. As The Inquisitr previously reported, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., recently took aim at CNN and claimed the network has engaged in election interference more than Russia allegedly did in 2016.
“CNN is so stupid they don’t even understand the irony of how they’ve done more damage than any ‘Russian operation’ could ever have dreamed,” he tweeted last month.
