The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House

by Ben Rhodes

It was worse than I’d previously known, more expansive, more clearly designed to aid Trump. In the weeks to come, nearly everything I learned reinforced this dreadful reckoning. In Germany, Merkel’s spokesperson told me about how fake news impacted their politics. He gave an example. At the height of Merkel’s political vulnerability over the refugee issue, there would be stories about crimes committed by Syrian refugees. A rape, for instance, caused a huge outcry in a community. For days, there were protests, political fallout. “And then?” I asked. “And then we investigate this story and learn that it never happened,” he said. “And we trace the story, and it started with a social media user with a German-sounding name, but something is not exactly right. The name is a little off. And the server, it is not German.” “It’s probably in eastern Ukraine or Moldova,” I said. “Yes, this is right,” he answered. “Russians.” I thought about all the made-up stories about Hillary—her ill health, her corruption, her crimes. It seemed impossible to know where they all began; which ones came from the American right wing and which ones came from Russians; how they spread; whether this flood of content was coincident or coordinated with the Trump campaign. I’d run into different staffers who worked on Russia in the government, and they all had the same message: It’s even worse than you think. Always, the suggestion was that there was more to the story. Trump, one told me, is exactly the kin...