On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov denied that the Kremlin had any plans to watch the presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. "No, we are not planning to watch… It’s not our business," he said in response to a question from a Russian journalist.
Apparently, however, the Russian media, which is almost exclusively controlled by the state, and the country's foreign ministry had different marching orders from Putin. As soon as the highly anticipated event ended in Pennsylvania, the Russian media exploded with detailed reportage and analysis of the Trump-Harris faceoff. Putin’s commentariat largely declared Harris the winner.
"Bad Night for Donald Trump" read the headline of an editorial run by business journal Kommersant, which characterized Harris as "being in her best form." The authors praised Harris for "taking control of the situation from the very start" by "stepping into the opponent’s territory" when in the beginning of the debate, she came up to Trump, stretched her hand and introduced herself saying, "Hello. I’m Kamala Harris."
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Kommerstant marveled at how "masterfully" Harris attacked and counterattacked, seizing the initiative "from the very first minutes" of the debate, putting Trump on the defensive.
Every major Russian outlet, including the official Russian state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, quoted Harris saying, "Putin will eat you for lunch" and "Putin would already be sitting in Kyiv," when she was portraying Trump for being soft on Russia.
Prior to the debate, Peskov was publicly expressing the Kremlin’s wish for Trump and Harris not to use the Russian president’s name during the debate. But the truth is that Putin and the Russians love it when American politicians and media portray Putin as a tough guy.
The Russian primary state TV network Channel One proudly announced that U.S. presidential candidates "mentioned the name of the Russian leader no fewer than 12 times." RIA Novosti, a Russian news agency, reported that Trump mentioned Putin’s name eight times and Harris four times, while Russia was mentioned nine times by Trump and "only" twice by Harris.
Predictably, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova used the opportunity to comment on the debate to attack the United States. Speaking to Sputnik Radio, Putin’s propagandist No. 2 (Peskov is No. 1) called the debates a "show," comparing it to arena events. "It is a match on the Titanic between two well-known fighters… who are boxers, kick-boxers or jiujitsu fighters."
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The Russian propaganda machine uses the Titanic comparison to spread the narrative domestically and internationally that the U.S. is on the verge of collapsing because the polarization within society along political lines, as well as religious, ethnic and others, has reached extreme levels, in Moscow’s view.
Komsomolskaya Pravda ran two pieces titled "Kamala looked convincing but one misstep could zero out everything" and then a highly speculative piece called "Spy jewelry: Harris seen wearing ear-rings with audio prompter." Both articles claimed that the reason for Harris’ victory in the debate was her being wired up with earphones disguised as pearl earrings, through which she was reportedly receiving prompts on "what to say and how to say it," presumably from her campaign consultants. The conspiracy theory about the jewelry went viral on social media, and in doing so served Kremlin interests.
The candid observation of lessons learned from the debates that is valuable for Moscow was published by Gazeta, which ran a piece titled "A political scientist pointed to the hidden meaning of Harris’ declarations during the debate." The author observed that the debates revealed "the fear of the American elites of the growing crisis in the United States," a claim that parrots the Kremlin’s propaganda points. Gazeta’s editorial concluded that the current state of internal discord in American society is good for Russia because "Washington will avoid direct confrontation with Russia," allowing Moscow to have "the space to maneuver, create new alliances and reinforce its positions."
Last week, at an economic forum in Russia's far east, Putin stated that Russia supports Harris to win the presidential elections and that previously he preferred President Biden to Trump because Biden is a more predictable "old school" politician.
Moscow does almost certainly favor Harris to Trump, its rationale being that she will place America firmly on the path to socialism, the system that led to the collapse of Russia’s predecessor, the USSR and that what’s bad for America is good for Russia. But the real lessons learned for Washington from Russia’s perceptions of the state of our politics and society are these. A divided America is good for our adversaries and bad for America. Unity is what our foes fear, and that is what’s good for America.
