John A. Gentry

No, I don't think so.

But it takes understanding the situation.

It takes, I think, stopping the ongoing pressure.

So, you know, Russian influence operations are continuing day after day after day right now.

So you need to stop those.

And then you need to address the influence, the effects of the influence on Western people, on voters, on university professors, on journalists, and so on.

But we haven't begun to do really any of that.

Well, if it's really good, that's hard.

But I think sort of general things that people can keep in mind or be skeptical.

Conspiracy theories are usually made up.

Things that make something look like there is an international conspiracy or that the bad guys, whoever they may be, are going after your guys who are all good.

If you hear that kind of a message, it's probably wrong.

So I think some skepticism is a good thing.

We tried here in the United States, the Biden administration tried in 2022 to create this disinformation, some or other board.

The agency.

Yes, and it lasted just a few weeks before it was done away with.

It got enormous criticism from Republicans, especially in this case, because Nina Jankiewicz, the head of it, was said to be a purveyor of disinformation of the Biden administration.

And whether that's true or not, you know, let's leave aside.

But the important point here is,

that we've already reached a point here in the United States where we've got political division sufficient so that it's going to be hard to get any federal entity that can be trusted society-wide to be an arbiter of whether something is maligned foreign influence or not.