Congressional Republicans might want to say spasibo to the thousands of Russian bots working to make #SchumerShutdown a trending hashtag.
The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan project led by former top national security officials, says that on Sunday night, Russian Twitter bots and trolls were out in full force, and their No. 1 hashtag was #SchumerShutdown, HuffPost reports. The Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks the activity of 600 Twitter accounts that are linked to Russian influence operations, says these users are often spreading false information about U.S. politics and tweeting conspiracy theories.
Republicans are blaming the government shutdown on the Democrats, using #SchumerShutdown on Twitter as a way of pinning this all on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his demand for a compromise on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Democrats, meanwhile, say the shutdown is due to President Trump's shifting demands and other Republicans, who have control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, refusing to work together on a bipartisan bill.