| THE DISINFORMATION LOOP — A Trump campaign video from 2022 about cracking down on federal disinformation work is recirculating as current news — creating exactly the kind of misleading information flow it claims to want to stop. — The big picture: Trump's proposed Day One executive order that Elon Musk shared on X over the weekend wouldn't just ban federal agencies from identifying domestic mis- and disinformation. It would also prohibit coordination with social media companies and authorize a purge of officials who've worked on these issues. The catch? The video now at more than 92 million views, that Musk is presenting as fresh, is actually from Trump's 2022 playbook — though the threat of its implementation could be very real. And for CISA, the now-$3 billion agency Trump himself put together in 2018, it's an existential threat. “This seems very targeted at the FBI especially, CISA secondarily,” one former CISA official tells MC. “It’s likely retribution for the FBI's involvement and investigation into Trump and associates over the last few years, also helps Elon with [X].” — Reality check: Legal experts have yet to weigh in with MC on whether Trump can simply fire career civil servants by executive order. In general, industry insiders hold that there should be a continued aggressive effort to curb influence operations from Russia, China and Iran. “I think there could be an EO that directs the USG to not be the ‘arbiter of truth’ and limits any domestic focused disinformation work undertaken by DHS and CISA,” CSC 2.0 Executive Director Mark Montgomery tells MC. “In reality these efforts are already limited by the Biden administration’s awful rollout, and subsequent dissolution of, the Disinformation Governance Board two years ago.” But there’s some irony in Musk, who’s positioned himself as a warrior against disinformation, sharing a years-old video as if it were breaking news. “What these guys say and what they actually implement tend to be very different,” former Principal Deputy National Cyber Director Jake Braun tells MC. — Where it gets messy: Modern cyber defense relies heavily on tracking how information — both true and false — moves through networks. And more than disinfo, CISA's mandate covers everything from pipeline security to hospital networks. The bigger problem: CISA's been trying to thread this needle since 2020, when Trump fired its leadership after the agency declared that year's election secure. The agency's grown notably more cautious, focusing almost exclusively on foreign disinformation about election procedures. “Any EO would need to direct the intelligence community, Cyber Command and DHS to continue their efforts to work against foreign interference,” Montgomery said. “The successful protection of the election infrastructure this cycle was a direct reflection of these efforts.” — One thing to watch: The private sector's reaction. As MC readers very well know, major tech companies and critical infrastructure operators rely heavily on CISA's threat intelligence. And in this case, they're watching an old video create waves all over again.
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