answering questions about the strategy to metal in us elections. kristin fisher breaks down what we have learned. reporter: two weeks ago vladimir putin promised donald trump that russia did not meddle in the election and would not meddle in the upcoming midterms but today five of the administration s top security and intelligence officials said that is a lie. russia attempted to interfere in the last election and continues to engage in malign operations to this day. reporter: the trump administration is sending up red flares. 100 days until the midterms. the threat is real, it is continuing and we are doing everything we can. our democracy itself is in the crosshairs. free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. reporter: they insist the interference never affected the vote count but it had an impact in terms of sowing discord and
americans heading to the polls hearing that? when director wray spoke he mentioned this isn t just about the election. this is a long term strategy to essentially erode the social trust that we as americans have in each other. sowing discord. making us fight against each other. making us lose faith in our institutions and the system. and this is where it ties back to what acosta said, which is that, you know, there are certain pillars that bind us together regardless where we are on the political spectrum. freedom of the press being one of them. liberty. tolerance. all of these fundamental values. and when you have messaging coming out from the white house that it s fake news, enemy of the people, that is actually aligned with putin s goals to erode some of these fundamental values. it s working. he said i m tired that s a part of the game. make you so tired you give up.
coats, the director of national intelligence, it s mike pompeo, the secretary of state, former cia director, james mattis, the secretary of defense. they all say russia is still doing exactly what they were doing in the 2016 election. it s ongoing. it s pervasive in their own words. and quickly, what do you think go ahead. let me very quickly on that. look, why would they not try to do this in 2018 and 2020 when they ve had remarkable success in 2016. i think their primary objective was to sow discord, break down the democracy and break down trust in our electoral system. they far exceeded their expectations in that. having that success, why would they not try to do the same thing and continue that same activity? yeah, they ve not only succeeded in sowing discord. a lot of partisan fighting but one of their objectives was to sow discord among the nato allies. there s a lot of tension between
vladimir putin? well, what s most distressing about it is that trump again seems to think that he can freelance this. there s no preparation, no set guidelines, and there doesn t seem to be any consultation from any of the reporting we got with the nato allies. this was always a core part of the way the united states negotiated with russia, even china, which is you first talk to your allies, come up with a kind of common position. the europeans are completely in the dark as to what trump is going to talk to putin about. we are all in the dark about what trump is going to talk to putin about. frankly i think some of his closest national security advisers are in the dark as to what he wants to do. well, max, what do you think putin is thinking watching all these shenanigans going on in brussels? i suspect that vladimir putin has a big cheshire cat grin on his face as he s watching this, and he thinks he has scored two major goals this week, one with the world cup, the other with th
the thought of expressing that or exposing that information never crossed my mind. folks, you have to view today s hearing in light of what s happened these last 36 hours. president trump did trash nato, he shrugged off putin s meddling in our presidential election and now his allies in congress are holding what some say looks like a show trial. all of it comes just days before the president meets one-on-one with putin. right now the president doesn t seem very interested in pressing putin about the attack on our democracy. so who benefits from everything i just mentioned? some might say just one person, putin. what does that say about today s hearing? well, here s one way to look at it. the honest truth is that russian interference in our elections constitutes a grave attack on our democracy. most disturbingly, it has been wildly successful sowing discord in our nation and shaking faith in our institutions. i have the utmost respect for congress oversight role, but i