Sputnik: So mainstream media is already talking about the hacking of the upcoming midterm elections, how do those reports sound to you? Are you concerned about that kind of interference?
Stephen Ebert: I guess to the extent that hacking goes on all over the world, and if we're not hacking, then I would have to say to my deep state — that's a joke — why not.
I think over time, or maybe a decade at least, we've heard North Korea, we've heard China, we've heard Russia, we've heard Iran. There certainly is a lot of coverage of that in the media, and certainly the general population… I'd have to say they're concerned, but honestly, I don't think people take it very seriously, to be quite blunt.
So each state very much controls their own elections. So no matter what anybody says, I was Minnesota and no doubt we would say in Minnesota we're not stupid and no one‘s going to hack into our system, but in Alabama, a Minnesotan would say, they're kind of backwards and they'll probably get hacked, so that's about the level of belief in that.
But the interesting thing is I think the belief now is, I don't want to say there's a decline in belief that Russia did something or would like to do something, I don't think there's a decline. I think the good news for Russia is that now China is becoming the whipping boy.
Sputnik: US security advisor John Bolton did say that the main issue for the US currently now is China, the FBI has seen China as a bigger threat to the US then Russia, I'd like you to talk about that a bit.
Stephen Ebert: That makes sense from two perspectives, one is, it makes sense. China is a growing world power, certainly technologically. I'm not in a position to rank them, but are they in the position to do that? I think clearly they are.
There is no doubt personally that if he could nuke Russia today he would, but he works for Donald Trump. So the statements by Bolton one has to take with a grain of salt, if you will, if only because he works for Trump and he's not really in a position to say, even if he felt it, that Chinese is a threat but Russia is a bigger threat.
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That man is crazy, he's absolutely crazy, and he would nuke Iran, he would nuke North Korea, he would nuke China, he would nuke Russia if he thought that at the end of the day we'd come out ahead. So I think one has to temper his remarks, in particular, to say even if he honestly, personally believed that Chinese is becoming a threat, I think realistically even if he believed it, he couldn't say that Russia is the number one threat.
The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
