the president has made -- i don't know how to say this, jeff -- allegations that china is trying to influence the u.s. elections but not in the way that we think russia has been trying to influence elections. what was he talking about? >> reporter: that's right, ali. when the president made that allegation today at the gathering of the u.n. security council, he made it without offering much in the way of details or evidence and it struck some people as an attempt by him to downplay the role that we know russia played in interfering not only in the 2016 election but it's the assessment of the u.s. intelligence agencies that russia is intent on interfering in the 2018 elections as well. here's the thing to know, u.s. intelligence officials have said in the past innocently that countries such as china and iran are intent and frankly in china's case are meddling in the 2018 mid-terms, although the director of national intelligence, dan coats, says that china's efforts haven't reached anywhere near the scale of what russia was doing back in