Former DNI John Ratcliffe: The Chinese Interfered in the 2020 Election and Will Again in 2024

… I’ve got the intelligence community assessment in front of me right now. Is China getting ready to interfere in our elections in 2024?

John Ratcliffe: Very clearly they are, Maria. But what the report also tells you is what you outlined there, which is that the intelligence community has to grudgingly walk back the erroneous assessment that in 2020, China was sitting on the sidelines.

Look, I was very vocal that we had collected specific intelligence of a specific plan or campaign by China to interfere in 2020 for the specific purpose of helping Joe Biden become president and – to harm President Trump in his reelection efforts.

And what this report acknowledges is that that’s exactly what happened. And they had to walk it back because the independent ombudsman came forward and said, look, there were analysts for China that were suppressing intelligence deliberately because they feared it would help President Trump. And so now you have Joe Biden’s own Director of the NSA and head of cyber command, acknowledging that China is going to intensify those efforts in 2024, that our greatest geopolitical foe has and will continue to want Joe Biden to be the president for the next four years because, stating the obvious, he’s been very good to China. China wanted him in the first place because Donald Trump had been so tough in terms of trade and tariff sanctions against China.

China correctly believed that Joe Biden would be more pro-China and frankly thought that he would be weaker as a Commander in Chief. And clearly, those things have played out.

Maria Bartiromo: And now we know that during their cakewalk in the park, when Joe Biden met with Xi Jinping in San Francisco, Xi Jinping was very clear to Joe Biden, telling him, yes, we are taking Taiwan, and we are expecting you’re not going to do anything about it. Your thoughts on what was said during that meeting in the park?

John Ratcliffe: …You know, the same Joe Biden and the administration that won’t confront China on Covid wouldn’t confront China on the spy balloon. All of these are the reasons why Joe Biden is, in many ways, the dream candidate for China to continue for the next four years. They’ve advanced so much, they’ve undermined us in the Middle east. They’ve gained footholds further in the Asian Pacific regions. Everything has gone well for China from their foreign policy standpoint, and it’s gone poorly for us…

… And so what, Maria, they’re going to do and what the acknowledgement is, is they’re going to intensify their efforts, meaning they’re going to deploy cyberweapons to try and influence election infrastructure. It means they’re going to engage in social media influence campaign to influence American voters, and they’re going to do the things that they can to help Joe Biden continue to be president because it is good for China if he is.