And by. Corporate funding provided by. Welcome back to firing line, senator angus king. Margaret, great to be with you. Looking forward to talking about some pretty important stuftoday. Well, its a privilege to welcome you back for this special edition of firing line senator, you were recently quoted in the New York Times as saying. As we sihere right now, are foreign adversaries trying to interfere in our election . Yes, absolutely. Theres no doubt about it. Russia in the lead. Iran seems to be doing something. Were not sure exactly what. I dont think china is really engaged at this point. G iran is workound the margins, but russias in, in a serious way. So what is the motivati, thensenator, for these foreign actors . Well, theres somethingtw in common n iran, russia, and china. None of them like democracy. Putin hates democracy. The idea of a free and open election terrifies him. They very much want to undermine our democracy and show the world that it doesnt really work. I think thats really the intent here. Foreign actors is not a new theme. Elections i would like to show you a clip om william f. Buckley jr. s original firing line. And youll see that this the has come up before. Take a look. The soviet union is devoting 2 billion a year to propaganda activities primarily dicted against the United States. They broadcast in 83 languages, 2,000 hours a year. This is 19. For that whole yr, 2,000 hours. Thats radio moscow alone. They have another transmitter p called radce and progress, which assumes a more strident tone. Something has to be done. Okay, so there you see, senar, the russians, the viets have been waging influence campaigns for roughly a century, interfering,o accordxperts, in the elections of 1960, 1968, 1976, and the 1984 eleions, russiahen again interfering in the 2016 election. This is nothing new if we look at history. Correct, senator . Its solutely nothing new. What mr. Staar was talking about is absutely whats going on today. The difference is the availabilityhe ofechnology to do it in a much more insidious t and im afrasay effective way than just, you know, distributing fliers on the streets of new york or, you know, radio moscow, that kind of thing. T what they can ay with with the internet platforms, with hacking into emails orys votingms is far beyond the dreams of stalin. But its certainly in thedi puiew of vr putin. But, senator, one thing is people seem to be moret today vulnerable to being nipulated because there is already distrust that exists within the electorate the integrity of our elections. Do you agree that crea an increased vulnerability . I think it does, and i think its a real concern. And what were talking about, theres a new term j thatt sort of come up in the last few weeks. Its called a perception hack. And what it means is is creating a perception of the unreliability, the distrust and thats reallyprocess. All they have to do. If you think about it, this isnt much of a challengefo the russians. They dont have to change votes. All they have to do is convince a number, a lot of americans that they can do it or maybe that theyre trying to do it. And thats enough. And thats what theyre doing. Theyre trying to raise doubts about the validity and the protection of our election. And thats a challenge for us. You know, inovernment, we want people to be aware of whats going on, but we dt want to we dont want to do their work for them by undermining confidence in the electoral process. Well, let me ask you then about President Trumps maaims about voter fraud, particularly witin voting. Does that contribute toaising the kind of doubts youre talking about . Unfortunately, the answer to that is an unequivocal yes. He is saying exact what our adversaries are also saying and what they would want him tsay. He has the biggest megaphone of all. He has 30 or 40 million followers in the country, at least, who believe everything he sa. And if he tells them the election is rigged or its going to be rigged or you cant trust mailin voting or all of those kinds of things, thats exaly unfortunately, i hate to say this but thats exactly what the russians and the iranians are trying to convince americans of. So he out to be reassuring people about the integrity of our system, not himself talking about undermining it. Listen, ive disagreed with a lot of things hes done over the past four y but this to me is the most serioubecause our whole system rests upon trust. And when you undermine that, thats a profound disservice to the people of this country. Russian News Services currently are telling stories that americas mailin voting syem is sceptible, particularly susceptible to voter fraud. So the russian News Services are saying the same thing that the presidenhimself is saying, to your point, is President Trump being briefed by the Intelligence Community about the risk that he is posing, as you describe it . The answer to that. Of course, hes, from the very beginning of his administration, expressed nothing but disdain for the Intelligence Community. And the director of National Intelligence now is a guy with not much experience in intelligence, t a lot of experience in supporting the president as a member of the house. So whether hes beg told this, hes certainly not ltening because everywhere he goes, he talks about, you know,i ise, the election is going to be rigged. Its really disturbing. I mean, hes got tknow that this is also what the russians and the iranians are pushinfor. Heres an intereg point. And i hesitate to get people ini his administ in trouble, but there are people throughout the administration who are doing exactly what they ought to be ing and are doing a damn good job. They are warning the public about this. Director wray said thereso great threat to mailting. He said that last summer. So, interestingly, the sort of professionalhe level ofdministration is doing the right thing, and theyve done a really good job. S so its the ent pretty much everybodystep with ths studied this issue. Theres a report this week, senator, from axios that President Trump is eager to fire fbi director wray, cia director gina haspel, the defense secretary esper, as soon as he can. He would do it now, but forti the pol implications, and if he wins reelection, has communicated that he will turn over that staff. What do you make of that . Well, he hasa ndamental misunderstanding of who these people work for. Remember hearing him say, theyre not his generals. Theyre americas generals. And when you join the federalse ice, you swear an oath. The oath is to the constitution. Its not to the president. Its not to any particular president. D he doesnt get that. He thinks theyre like assistant managers at t Bedminster Country Club you can fire them, and in fact, he can. Heoes have that power. But over and over and over, people in this administration are being fired for doingin nomore than their job. In the administration,thers gina haspel, theyre committed to the mission of and theyre committed to telling the truth to the American People. The politicization of intelligence. Yes. Firg people for telling the truth is incredibly dangerous for the untry. Thats howe get into Bad International situations with cooked intellence. Vietnam, iraq, the bay of pigs. When the intelligence is cooked to meet the predilections of the executive of the psident or the secretary of defense or members of congress, thats when we get into real trouble. In thlligence communitys job is to seek the truth and tell the truth. And youve got to be able l ten to that truth. If you dont, youre going to make so big mistakes. In july, you wrote an oped for time, setor, and you said. Senator, is suight the best disinfectant . Absolutely, and thats why i said that. The best protection for the eric people from disinformation, for example, is to know its disinformation. I want the Intelligence Community to tell the American People what they know in real time in order to allow us to defend ourselves. I dont think theyve done as thorough aob of informing the American People as they could. E but theyne some. Ill give them two cheers, i guess. T youve been critical fact that the Obama Administration waited until october 2016 to tell the American People about russian interference in the last tial election when they had known about it at that point for months. Members of President Trumps the public multiplsave briefed since july on current interference attempts. You said youd give them two cheers. Are those two cheers better than at least four years ago . What was going onerstand in the Obama Administration. That was one of the things we looked at in detail on thena Intelligence Committee in our analysis of 2016. Obama was afraid that by fully informing the people ,out the russians activi it would undermine confidence in the election. Er in oords, the phrase i remember hearing was, we dont want to do the russians work for them. So they didnt talk about it until actually october of 2016. I think and i dont have any real firsthand information i think many of the people that contributed to that decision, perhaps including president obama himself, gret that decision. But that was thats the tension going on here, is you want to inform people about foreign activity targeted at our elections, but you dont want to make them feel that, well, you cant believe whats going on in these elections becyou know, weve got a pretty robust, strong election system, in part because its so decentlized. You know, its somee once described it as a hairball. Its thousands of electionst s all over the country in states and municipalities. Thatoesnt mean it cant be manipulated. The problem is you dont have to be a nius to know. All you have to do is target dade county, florida, for ample. And you can certainly screw up the reporting and also the the final results of a president ial election. So think we should feel mu better about how the states aret ted than than they were in 16. Theyre much more prepared, i believe. Lets take a look at what the directorin of nationalligence said in a press conference just last week. Take a look. Show you a clip. We have confirmed that some voteregistration information has be obtained by iran and separately by russia. Ha to that end, we ve already seen iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, cite social unrest, and damage President Trump. Now, dnratcliffe was referring to fe emails sent to democrativoters in florida and other states, purportedly from a white supremacist group, the proud boys, that said vote for trump or else. And as we heard dni ratcliffe said these emails threatening democraticer votersactually meant to damage President Trump. Can you explain how they were supposedo damage President Trump . Its a little bit of mental jiujitsu because tensibly, on the face of it, those emails were attempting to help President Trump. They were ying to tell democrats, dont vote for biden or else. Now, the argument is, i think that they were so clumse thatintended to get caught like this was someng to look coming from a trump ally and therefore blowback against President Trump. Le but it is a liit of a strange argument. The other thing people of voter information is public. You can buy it. Ca yodownload it. Just because somebody has gotten that kind of information doesnt necessarily mean theyre in theystems. What is concerning me somewhat, though, margaret, th goround is that there is evidence that the russians are attempting to get into the actual voting infrastructure. To the point of manipulatg systems, the fbi and Homeland Security officials on october 22nd said that Russian Hackers had targeted dozens of vernment and aviation networks, retrieved from at least two counties. The Washington Post later reported tt those counties were in california andna. Your committee fnd that rusanaffiliated cyber hackers accessed stricted elements of election infrastructure four years ago any registration data. Now, is the current repoed activity, senator, the same as four years ago, or is thisifferent . Well, ive got to tell you that the finding of four yearso at they penetrated the election infrastructure of practically every state has always haunted me. The intelligence at the time was they didnt change any votes. They didnt mess up the registrationists or anything like that. But its always haunted mebe use what i said to myself is they werent doing it for fun. And now we know that theyre getting into a couple of co we dont know how many others. And my concern is that what they did in 16 was practice. It was pokg around, seeing where the vulnerabilities were, because, again, remember, p if tpose is to sow distrust of the election, what could be more chaotic than showing up to vote at your polling place and all of a sudden your name you dont know what happened . Or what if the power goes off . You know, we know the russians have poked around in our electric system. What if the power goes off in dade county on election day and all the sites go dark, all the compers are down . I mean, theres so many whopportunities, and that the danger is here. And so i dont know what theyre doing this time, but my instinct is it aint good and its something we should be concerned about. No the good news is the states have really strengthened their systems. So i think were frankly a lot stronger than we were in 2016, but were certainly not invulnerable. I want to be really clear. At this moment, is there any evidence of voter informion being changed . No. No. At this moment, is there any evidence that we should worry about votes being changed . No, i dont think so. Although, again, why are the russians going into voting systems . Are they just, you know, connoisseurs of software of voting systems . Again, you got to ask yourself, why are they doing it and are they doing it just for fun or for me nefarious purpose . I dont think theyre up to anything good. Has the intelligencey, communenator, told the public enough about russian interference up to this point . I dont think so. And that wremember i said two cheers. Mmhmm. The press conrence that you played a ip from, all the emphasis was on iran. And i think thre you know, im, you know, psychoanyzing here. But there seemed to be an effort or there has been an effort to downplay what the russians are doing and have done and try to say, well, china is doing it, too, or iran is doing it, too. The fact is the russns are the most active and the most skilled. And thmost dangerous. Are you aware, senator, from your position on the Intelligence Committee a thing e russians are doing that the public should be aware and hasnt been informed of yet . Youve just askeda e estion i cant answer. Maybe you can comment on, senator, one of your colleagues, senator chris murphy, a democratic senator from connecticut,weeted the following. Whats he talking about . I dont know. Ca t confirm that. Do you think its tt President Trump understands that russia is trying to help him an he is ing anything to stop it . Well, ive spent the last almost four years working on the massive report that our Committee Pro by the way, on a bipartisan and almost unanimo basis of whahappened in 2016, and particularly the last volume, which is over a thousand pages, of the relationshi between the Trump Campaign and the russians. He ans my conclusion, after looking at all of that material. I dont think there was ever a time where donald trump jr. Or President Trump orle corendowski or Paul Manafort sat down with vladimir put and signed an agreement. Youre going to do this. Were going to do that. Dont think there was that kind of agreement. The phrase that has suggested itself to me is one i remember from law school, from antitrust law. S the termnscious parallelism. Its when two paie working in the same direction and they know what the other doing. They accept the relationship, but theres not a specific agreement. Thats one of the reasons that mr. Mueller didnt find a criminal conspiracy because there wasnt this kind of a criminal conspiracy has to start with an agreement. I dont think there was an agreement, but i thinksort of evolved. The russians did this and the Trump Campaign welcod it. The russians want to sow discord, chaos, and distrust in our election system. And the president has overtly, or four months, being past three distrust and lack of confidence in our electoral syste so are they working together . I dont think you can say that. Are they working in the same direction . Yes. So youre saying the conscious parallelm continues in 2020 . Well, it certainly seems to. Their goal is to divide us. Their goal is to divide us and to sap our confidence in our system. Y, and unfortunathe president also doesnt seem interested in unifying the country. D he certainly has been overtly sowing distrust and a lack of confidence in our electoral system. I mean, i hate to say this, margaret. This is not you know, this is uncomfortable for me, but i just dont think you can i dont know how you can not talk about it. Its so obvious. Senator, you just menti the concern of a possibly devastating cyberattack on the grid. What do we do to pre ourselves against that possibility . Y well, i thi may be aware, margat, that i spent the last year and a half of my life working on that. Congress, in 2019, set up a National Commission to develop a strategy for defendingurselves in cyberspace, which we really havent had inny coherent way. So this commission, which was bipartisan, we really dug in on this issue. And theres a lot we he to do. We have to reorganize becausett cyber is sed throughout the federal government. We have to involve ourselves with the International Community to establish some rules of the road about cyber. Years to develop the law of war. Well, cyber is a whole new realm, and we havent we dont have the norms. And so there needs to some International Work on that. America has to bin the lead on that, it seems to me, and then finally and i think very importantly, margaret, we have to communicate to our adversaries th a cyberattack is an attack and that were going to take it seriously and that there will be consequences. The problem now is, if you look back to 2016,d obama t some sanctions on the russians after the election, but it wasnt really a very dramatic response. And if youre sitting in the kremlin saying, shall we attack the American Election aga . , one guy at the end of the table says, why not . Nothing happened to us last time. Its not very expe we can hire 8,000 hackers for the price of one jet aircraft. Lets go. Yeah. I want them to say, man, we bett not do this because we going to get whacked in some way. It may be sanctions, it may be something else, but one of our major commentions is the development of a deterrence strategy. To me, its the most immint threat against the United States. The next pearl harbor, margaret, will be cyber. Senator, its also widely expected that we wont know the results of the election on election night, t could take days or even weeks for us to know the results. How can foreign adversariesad try to takntage of this time period . Well, the first thing to say is we may not know the results of election night. That doesnt mean its rigged or its improp, theres anything wrong. Its just going to take a lot of t to count all those ballots. People havto be prepared for that. At ive been saying to peopleto is you neee prepared, and you ne to be patientto vote, and not expect all the resultst. On election ni we may have them, but we may not. The biggest concern, margaret, is that we dont have the results on election night. It drags on for two or three days. Ta people filing lawsuits and trying to stop recounts and that kind of thing. An people just get more and more uneasy about whether this is going to be a fair election. You know, senator, theres an old saying, as maine goes, so goes the nation. D maine, as you know, it splits its electoral votes, and its 2nd Congressional District went for trump four years ago. What are you seeing on the ground in maine, in that district in the north . Well, i think maine is very reflective of the country. And mary and i did an r. V. Trip a couple of weeks ago when we were in recess in washington and went around a lot of the rural areas. And there are an awful lot of trump signs. Thereno question about it. So i think its going to be a horse race in the 2nd district. But i think joe biden is going to carry maine, and i think that will be reflected around the country. And clearly, i dont think thers any doubt, margaret, that this is the most important election in our lifetimes. I mean, people often say that, but ive never seen one where the stakes are s, the passions are running so high, the number of voters, the energy in voting is running so high. So i think the most important thing for everybody is to vote. You know, its no accident that the very first words of the United States constitution, the first thrds of the United States constitution, are we the people. And every four years we, the people have an opportunity to speak, and thats whats going to happen next week. Senator king, thank you for joining me on firing linee for thisal edition on election security. Pleasure to be with you, margaret. Look forward to seei again. Firing line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by. And by. Corporatfunding is provided by. Youre watching pbs. Hello, everyone. Welcome to amanpour co. Heres whats coming up. We literally are going to change the course of this country for generations to come. Are going to win four mo years in the white house. What kind of america will emerge from this election . Political scientist norm ornstein and Heather Cox Richardson discuss this major stress test. 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