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Home , Marty Peretz, The New Yorker

For Immediate Release: February 27, 2017

IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE

What Lay Behind Russia’s Interference in the 2016 Election—and What Lies Ahead? In the March 6, 2017, issue of The New Yorker, in “Active Measures” (p. 40), in Washington, in New York, and Joshua Yaffa in Moscow report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and, through interviews with key government and secu- rity voices in both countries, examine this front in the new Cold War. For many national-security officials, the Russian hacks of the Dem- ocratic National Committee and members of ’s campaign were part of a larger picture: Putin’s desire to damage American confidence and to undermine the Western alliances—diplomatic, financial, and military—that have shaped the postwar world. Benjamin Rhodes, the deputy national-security adviser under President Obama, told The New Yorker, “The new phase we’re in is that the Russians have moved into an offensive posture that threatens the very international order.” The level of tension has alarmed experienced hands on both sides. Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense under both George W. Bush and , said, “I think the new Administra- tion has a big challenge in front of it in terms of stopping the downward spiral in the U.S.-Russia relationship while pushing back against Putin’s aggression and general thuggery.” Sergey Rogov, of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, in Moscow, said, “I spent many years in the trenches of the first Cold War, and I don’t want to die in the trenches of the second.”

Putin, in his first few years in office, was relatively solicitous of the West. But America’s invasion of Iraq, which Putin opposed, marked a change in his thinking. Gates recalls a security conference, in 2007, at which Putin angrily charged that the had “overstepped its national borders in every area” and that the expansion of NATO was directed against Russian interests. “People were inclined to pass it off as a one-off,” Gates said. “But it was a harbinger.” Putin also saw a straight line from the West’s support of the anti-Moscow “color revolutions,” in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine, which deposed corrupt, Soviet-era leaders, to its endorsement of the uprisings of the . Rhodes said that Russia’s aggressiveness had accelerated since the first demonstrations on Maidan Square, in Kiev. “When the history books are written, it will be said that a couple of weeks on the Maidan is where this went from being a Cold War-style com- petition to a much bigger deal,” he said. “Putin’s unwillingness to abide by any norms began at that point. It went from provocative to dis- respectful of any international boundary.”

In 2014, a hacking group known as the Dukes—believed to be directed by the Russian government—entered an unclassified computer system at the U.S. State Department before moving on to the computer network that serves the executive office of the President. In 2015, they turned their attention to the Democratic National Committee. On October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks released the first installment of what would be fifty thousand e-mails from the chairman of Clinton’s campaign, John Podesta’s, account. In Podesta’s view, the hacked e-mails did heavy damage to the campaign, because they revived the story about Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server: “It kept ‘e-mails’ front and center, even at a very slow boil.” He continued, “When you lose by a total of seventy thousand votes in three states, it’s hard to say if any one thing made the difference.”

In October, as evidence of Russian meddling mounted, senior national-security officials met to consider a plan of response; proposals in- cluded releasing damaging information about Russian officials, including information related to their bank accounts, or carrying out a cyber operation directed at Moscow. But Secretary of State was concerned that such plans might undercut diplomatic efforts to get Rus- sia to coöperate with the West in Syria, and, in the end, the Administration issued a statement declaring that it was confident the Russians had hacked the D.N.C. During the transition, when Obama was intent on an orderly transfer of power, Kerry proposed the creation of an indepen- dent bipartisan group to investigate Russian interference in the election. But, according to se- nior officials, Obama reviewed Kerry’s proposal and ultimately rejected it, in part because he was convinced that Republicans in Congress would regard it as a partisan exercise. One aide who favored the idea says, “It would have gotten the ball rolling, making it difficult for Trump to shut it down. Now it’s a lot harder to make it happen.” The Obama Administration’s reluc- tance to act too strongly, for fear of being seen as partisan, has embittered Clinton’s inner cir- cle. One of Clinton’s senior advisers said, “My attitude is that we don’t have the right to lay blame for the results of this election at anybody’s feet, but, to me, it is bewildering—it is baffling— it is hard to make sense of why this was not a five-alarm fire in the White House.”

By Trump’s Inauguration, the evidence of a wide-scale Russian operation had prompted the formation of a joint task force and led Senate committees to launch inquiries into Russian in- terference. But some Democrats worry that the Trump Administration will try to stifle these investigations. As for the unverified dossier claiming that Russia had personal and financial ma- BARRY terial on Trump that could be used as blackmail, one intelligence official said that members of the intelligence community “are continu- ing to chase down stuff from the dossier and, at its core, a lot of it is bearing out.”

Today, many Western Europeans fear that the West and its postwar alliances and institutions are endangered, and that Trump cannot be counted on. “Trump changes the situation from a NATO perspective,” General Sir Richard Shirreff, the former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, said. “The great fear is the neutering of NATO and the decoupling of America from European security. If that happens, it gives Putin all kinds of opportunities.” Strobe Talbott, a former adviser to , said, “There is a very real danger not only that we are going to lose a second Cold War—or have a redo and lose—but that the loss will be largely because of a perverse pal- ship, the almost unfathomable respect that Trump has for Putin.”

As of this month, law-enforcement and intelligence agencies had accumulated multiple examples of contacts between Russians and Trump’s associates, according to current and former U.S. officials. Investigators are likely to examine Trump and a range of his associates for po- tential illegal or unethical entanglements with the Russian government or businesses. The working theory among intelligence officials in- volved in the case is that the Russian approach—including hacking, propaganda, and contacts with Trump associates—was an improvi- sation rather than a long-standing plan. One official said, “After the election, there were a lot of Embassy communications”—to Moscow—“saying, stunned, ‘What we do now?’ ”

It Looked Like a Pyramid Scheme That Preyed on the Poor. Could You Make a Fortune by Bringing It Down? In “Shorting a Rainbow” (p. 56), Sheelah Kolhatkar reports on what went wrong when the hedge fund Pershing Square tried to make a fortune—and do good—by exposing how Herbalife, a multilevel-marketing that sells weight-loss-shake powder, vitamins, sup- plements, and other products, preyed on the poor. Founded by William Ackman, Pershing Square is an “activist” hedge fund—it amasses major stakes in publicly traded companies, betting either on or against them. With respect to the latter strategy, Ackman told Kolhatkar, “I think short selling, and in fact public short selling, where you share your concerns in a public way, is an incredibly healthy thing, not just for the capital markets but because the regulators do not have the resources to find these things.” In 2010, Ackman began looking into Herbalife. Most of Herbalife’s recruits appeared to be low-income people, particularly native Spanish speakers; many were spending thou- sands of dollars to open “nutrition clubs” that would never turn a profit. But, given the effort and the expense that a campaign against Herbalife would entail, Ackman questioned whether he could craft a truly lucrative short. Then, in 2012, having been convinced that the company was a pyramid scheme, he started shorting the stock. Once regulators and the public learned what was really going on at Herb- alife, Ackman believed, its stock would go to zero—whereupon his fund would net a billion dollars in profit.

Pershing Square spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying state senators; it also met with the S.E.C., and with activists in the La- tino community, and its consultants met more than a dozen members of Congress or their staff. But Herbalife refuted Ackman’s claims, and the legendary investor —now an economic adviser to the Trump Administration—publicly lashed out at Ackman. By March, 2014, Herbalife stock had reached sixty-one dollars, representing a loss for Pershing Square, on paper, of about seven hundred mil- lion dollars. , a Pershing Square board member, told Kolhatkar, “I think other money managers would have long ago dropped Herbalife,” but Ackman “has a great sense of fairness, and that operated in his thesis, and it operates in his investing.”

Ackman felt vindicated when, in 2014, the F.T.C. announced that it was investigating Herbalife, and when, on July 15, 2016, the agency released a detailed report. “It was amazing,” Ackman said. “Confirmed every one of our allegations.” But Ackman’s expectations were con- founded. The commission’s findings, and its two-hundred-million-dollar settlement with Herbalife, could have been interpreted as a major setback to the company; instead, they were cast as a victory—a validation of its business model. Herbalife’s stock price continued to reflect a reality vastly different from the one the F.T.C. had described. When asked how he felt about all the people who had lost money trying to get rich through Herbalife, Michael Johnson, who will soon step down as the company’s C.E.O., said, “I’m sorry people lost money at a racetrack and at the lottery. Today’s Herbalife is about hard work and energy. I can’t go and fix anything in the past.”

The Director Behind Beyoncé’s Political Transformation In “Image Consultant” (p. 34), Alexis Okeowo profiles Melina Matsoukas, a director of music videos and television shows, whose work includes Beyoncé’s “Formation,” Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” and the new HBO series “Insecure,” and speaks with her about the chal- lenge of being a black, female director. There are very few women of color working as directors in Hollywood, and Matsoukas has some- times felt that she was not taken seriously. “People will challenge you and try not to listen,” she tells Okeowo. But, as a black woman in an industry dominated by white men, Matsoukas has a unique affinity with her most frequent collaborators. Beyoncé wrote in an e-mail to Okeowo, “I feel safe working with her and expressing or revealing things about myself that I wouldn’t with any other director, because we have a genuine friendship and I trust her artistry.” Okeowo also speaks with Beyoncé’s sister, Solange. “Her being a black woman being able to tell those stories in such a bold, unique way is really rare,” Solange says.

Matsoukas’s work often sparks controversy. In 2012, she faced criticism for a No Doubt video in which Gwen Stefani donned a feathered headdress, danced around a fire, and writhed on a tepee floor with a wolf. “I like to create provocative imagery,” she says. “Sometimes it works and sometimes it goes awry.” Two years before the “We Found Love” video shoot, Rihanna’s boyfriend, Chris Brown, had assaulted her in a car, and pictures of her bruised face had filled the tabloids. In a similar scene in the video, Rihanna and the male lead, Dudley O’Shaughnessy, get into an argument in a parked car. Rihanna’s fans saw an uncanny resemblance between Brown and O’Shaughnessy. While Matsoukas has denied that the resemblance was intentional, the violence of the onscreen relationship can feel unsettlingly rem- iniscent of Rihanna’s real-life assault. “She was open to taking it there,” Matsoukas said, “and with being honest and showing what life really is.” The video earned Matsoukas a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video, making her the first solo female director to re- ceive the award.

When Matsoukas started working on the “Formation” video, mainstream black artists were showing unaccustomed interest in issues like police brutality. One of the most arresting scenes in the video depicts a black boy facing a line of white policemen, doing what Mat- soukas calls a “peace dance.” The camera cuts to a wall emblazoned with graffiti, which reads “Stop Shooting Us.” “I wanted to talk about us dying and us being killed, but do it in an artful way,” she said. The response to the video was immediate and contentious, draw- ing both criticism and praise. “I didn’t know the video was going to incite all those conversations,” Matsoukas says. “But I was very pleased it did.”

What Happens When You Phone Congress? In “Call and Response” (p. 26), Kathryn Schulz considers whether calling Congress—said to be the most effective way to petition the government—really makes a difference. In the weeks following ’s Inauguration, so many people started calling their con- gressional representatives that, in short order, voice-mail boxes filled up and landlines began blurting out busy signals. Members of Con- gress claim that January 31st, February 1st, and February 2nd were the busiest in the history of the Capitol switchboard. Unlike most political , the recent surge in citizen action has not been limited to a single issue, with calls regarding Cabinet nominations, the executive order on immigration, the proposed repeal of the , and ethical violations, among other areas of concern. Bradford Fitch, the president of the Congressional Management Foundation, tells Schulz that what is happening is “a level of citizen engagement going on out there outside the Beltway that Congress has never experienced before.”

Calling Congress works in a surprising number of cases. “I’ve written bills that became law because people called to complain about a particular issue I was unaware of,” Isaiah Akin, the deputy legislative director for Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden, told Schulz. If, how- ever, you want a member of Congress to vote your way on a matter of intense partisan fervor—immigration, climate change, gun con- trol, abortion—your odds of success are considerably slimmer. For mass protests, Schulz reports, phone calls are a better way of con- tacting lawmakers than via e-mail or conventional mail because they take up more —thereby occupying staff, obstructing business as usual, and attracting media attention. Republicans, meanwhile, are “struggling to figure out how to respond,” according to Schulz. Some G.O.P. legislators have allegedly been locking their office doors, turning off their phones, and, in general, doing what they can to limit contact with their constituents. Nevertheless, the effects of recent activism are already apparent. Most notably, Republicans have been stalling on the Affordable Care Act, which was expected to be the earliest casualty of the Trump Administration. Chad Chitwood, a former congressional staffer, told Schulz that Republicans “started hearing from people who did not realize they were on [the A.C.A.] or did not realize what was going to happen if it was taken away—I think that’s why we’re seeing the slowdown.” Schulz writes, “The telephone might not be a superior medium for participatory democracy, but it is an excellent metaphor for it, and it reminds us of the rights we are promised as citizens. When we get no answer, we can keep trying. When we have to, for as long as we need to, we can hold the line.”

Plus: In Comment, considers the complexities of our health-care system, and looks at how Republicans are confront- ing the reality that repealing the Affordable Care Act without replacement is untenable (p. 21); in the Financial Page, James Surow- iecki examines how Trump’s Presidency led to a stock-market boom (p. 25); in Shouts & Murmurs, Zain Khalid imagines mystery nov- els inspired by a co-working space (p. 33); Claudia Roth Pierpont reads a new biography of the poet Elizabeth Bishop, by Megan Marshall (p. 72); Hilton Als attends Branden Jacob-Jenkins’s new play, “Everybody,” at the Signature (p. 80); Emily Nussbaum watches HBO’s “Little Big Lies” (p. 82); reviews Jordan Peele’s “” and James Mangold’s “Logan” (p. 84); poetry by Mi- chael Hofmann (p. 31) and Hafizah Geter (p. 61); and new fiction by (p. 68).

Podcasts: David Remnick, Evan Osnos, and Joshua Yaffa discuss Russia-U.S. relations; Dorothy Wickenden speaks with George Packer about Donald Trump’s new national-security adviser, General H. R. McMaster; Mary Gaitskill reads ’s “The Five-Forty-Eight,” and discusses the story with Deborah Treisman; and Zadie Smith reads her “Crazy They Call Me.”

Digital Extras: Poetry readings by Michael Hofmann and Hafizah Geter.

The March 6, 2017, issue of The New Yorker goes on sale at newsstands beginning Monday, February 27th.

Press Contacts: Natalie Raabe, (212) 286-6591, Erica Hinsley, (212) 286-7936, Adrea Piazza, (212) 286-4255