NBC’s Dilanian: ‘The Russians Are Flooding the Internet with Deep Fake Videos Designed to Discredit Kamala Harris’

Tur: “13 days out from the election and Russia is trying to disrupt our collective consciousness again. U.S. intelligence officials say Russian influence actors created and amplified a false online video alleging Tim Walz abused a former student. The four-minute video, filmed with an actor posing as a real person, was filled with just enough biographical details The Washington Post was able to find the actual man who denied ever interacting with Walz as a student. Joining us now, NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian. Let me play a little bit of what the Washington Post found. This is the fake video and then the real man.”

[Clip starts]

UNKNOWN: “I was a student at Mankato West High School in Minnesota. Well, I’m gay and I realized this when I was 14 years old.”

METRO: “Oh, it’s obviously not me. It’s — the teeth are different, the hair is different, the eyes are different, the nose is different, and the accent is definitely an off throwing thing. I obviously don’t have a foreign accent.”

[Clip ends]

Tur: “All right, joining us now, Ken Dilanian. Ken, good to see you. What is the deal with this? What exactly are officials saying is going on?”

DILANIAN: “They’re saying this is part of a vast Russian disinformation campaign. Really, one small example. The Russians are flooding the internet with deep fake videos designed to discredit Kamala Harris because they want Donald Trump to win. And then you have Iran also trying to interfere. They want Donald — Donald Trump to lose. And what officials are even more concerned about, though, Katy, are attempts to try to prevent people from voting in swing states by putting out false information about time and manner of voting, say, your polling hours have been extended when actually they haven’t, or things like that, using deep fake videos to do that. So — and this is based on a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment that was issued in the last 24 hours and there — there’s a lot of private analysis of what’s going on as well. So the good news is we know that this is happening and we can try to inoculate people against it. The bad news is, it’s continuing to happen.”

Tur: “All right, so watch out for deep fake information on voting. Be careful about things like extended voting hours, et cetera. Ken Dilanian, thank you very much. Always double check.”