2020 election. Democrats, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independents, 2027488002. You can send us a text. That number, 2027488003. Otherwise, catch up with us on social media. On twitter it is cspanwj. On facebook it is facebook. Com cspan. A good friday morning, you can start calling in. Here is the front page story from the New York Times. Warnedgence officials lawmakers russia was interfering to try to get President Trump reelected. Five people familiar with the matter said to the New York Times. A disclosure that angered mr. Trump who complained democrats would use it against him. To the front page of the Washington Post, here is how they report the story after learning about the analysis provided to house lawmakers, President Trump grew angry at his acting director of National Intelligence joseph maguire. Seeing him and his staff trump possible serious response ruined his chances of becoming the permanent intelligence chief according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the. Ondition of anonymity President Trump announced wednesday of this week he was replacing mcguire with a vocal , Richard Grenell. Wall street journal with a few more details about the capitol Hill Briefing conducted last week. Deliver theon information on election interference in a classified hearing before bipartisan members of the house panel, the Intelligence Committee the wallficials street journal noting the chairman adam schiff, california democrat who led the impeachment case against the president. Mr. Ident trump mentioned schiff during his Oval Office Meeting with mcguire as a reason he was irritated that lawmakers were briefed first. Wasking of adam schiff, he tweeting yesterday in the wake of the revelations of this story. This is what he said. We count on the Intelligence Committee to inform congress of any threat of foreign airfare ands. If reports are true and the president is interfering, he is jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling. President trump mentioning adam schiff in his rally last night in colorado. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] we have the swamp, that dirty, rotten swamp, crooked politicians and bad people, but we are getting them out, one by one. Like little adam schiff. What a crooked politician. He is a corrupt politician. He will lie and the next day get caught. He will be sorry he got caught. The next day he will say the same thing. He has no shame. He is a liar. I think he is a sick person. Heads to lassident vegas tonight ahead of the nevada caucuses which take place tomorrow. The Washington PostEditorial Board weighing in on the replacement that happened earlier this week of mr. Maguire with Richard Grenell, the german ambassador. The political purge continues. Mr. Trump installs a loyalist as acting National Intelligence director. A little bit more on richard drenell, the president tappe the american ambassador. He agreed to hold the post for a. Imited period of time federal law gives the president a great deal of flexibility to appoint whoever he chooses to the position on a temporary basis while his official nominee for the job awaits confirmation from the senate. Late thursday, President Trump traveling on the west coast told reporters he was considering an ally of collins, his running for senate as senate as the permanent director. That appointment expected soon. Getting your reaction to all of us all of this and asking how concerned you are about russian interference in the 2020 election. Allen first out of scottsdale, arizona. Caller a republican. Good morning. Good morning for cspan and i have two questions, one for the democrats regarding Climate Change and regarding the russian interference. Host lets stick with russian interference so we can stay with the story. Statisticere is one regarding Climate Change. At 24 of the earth is inhabitable host we are going to have a Climate Change discussion another day caller okay. Regarding russia, here it is. Trump has five major sanctions notnst russia and there is anyway he is going to be involved with host any way he is going to be involved with what . Caller there is no way the republican electorate is ever trump is ever going to be involved with russia or china or any other government outside this. He does not need any help from anybody. He is on his own as an independent president and thriving. You look at all the people alling up and the polls are skewed, who cares about the polls, there hasnt really been a nominee for the Democratic Party to go against trump at this point. Until we get to that point, then we can have a discussion about where the polls really are. Host this is ed out of california, independent. Good morning. Aller good morning, sir i am very Ross Perotian in my politics. Originally, i did not give credence to this russia thing or anything like that until i watched a tv show called homeland and it showed how simple it is for one russian operative with a cell phone camera to take a picture of wackoe of a right wing in a bed saying the kid is dead is how simple it is and how really stupid people can be. You have some people believing wont leave. I am thinking they believe what the media says. I go for walks in the morning. What annoys me is people do not think it through when somebody says something and just like the , trump is ae businessman. What he says in public and what he says in private are separate things. I said listen to the man when he talks. Everything he said is a bargaining position. He got 21 . Host this is clarence out of myrtle beach, south carolina. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I think the whole thing is a canard. Considering the corruption we party,hin the democratic republican party, and ifandering, the money russia interferes, it is minimal and on top of that, it is hypocritical for the United States to complain about russian interfering when we interfere in every election around the world. Host this was the top Election Security official delivering the conclusion of multiple at thegence agencies february 13 meeting. You think all of that all of these intelligence agencies are conspiring together . Caller absolutely. Did toted to invade invade iraq. What makes you think they would not do it again. I am not a trump fan, but he has state, that we have deep people who want to make decisions on their own outside of the authority of the president. I dont agree with that. Host dorothy is a democrat out of florida. How concerned are you about russian interference in 2020 . Pays off the posters and the way russia is interfering, they are making is risingssor bernie in the polls because donald trump is paying off the posters pollsters to his advantage. Host how do you know that. Where have you heard or seen that . Caller where i heard that was his personal attorney in prison. Ow his personal attorney under oath, i heard him on tv said donald trump did pay off the posters. Host the New York Times noting as part of the intelligence briefing last week, intelligence officials have previously told lawmakers russias interference campaign has been continuing and the briefing included what appeared to be Additional Information russia intended to interfere in the 2020 democratic primaries as well as the general election. That on the front page of the New York Times. They dig down a little bit more on the history although the intelligence conclusion russia intrying to interfere is new the 2019 report of robert mueller, there is a reference to russian desires to help Bernie Sanders in that campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016. President trumps allies in the congressional briefing pushing back against some of the charges arguing President Trump has been tough on russia and they specifically note representative chris stewart, member of the Intelligence Committee, here is what they say about him. The republican who has been considered for the director of National Intelligence post in the past was among republicans who challenged conclusions. Providedrt insisted antitank weapons and strengthening the Nato Alliance with new resources according to people briefed on that meeting. He declined to discuss the briefing, but said moscow had no reason to support mr. Trump and pointed to the president s work to confront iran. I challenge anyone to give me a realworld argument where putin would rather have President Trump and not Bernie Sanders. Chris stewart also tweeting yesterday, keeping his statements confined to the appointment of Richard Grenell to the acting security post, this from the day before, so wednesday evening this is what he said after the news came out Richard Grenell was being appointed to the acting position. Congratulations for being named acting director of National Intelligence. He has been a fantastic ambassador and i am confident he will do a great job in his new role. Getting your comments, your thoughts, set aside the first hour of the washington journal. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. Stephen in kentucky, you are up. Ext caller i voted for trump in 2016 and i will vote for him again and russia did not have anything to do with me voting for the man. Host when we talk about concerns about russian interference, concerns in 2016 for paidsian efforts social media advertising, impersonating americans, you dont pay any attention to social media, is that what you are saying . Caller no, i dont. Host do you think we give too much credit to how much influence a paid social Media Campaign or fake twitter account will influence americans. Caller i absolutely do. Host anything more you want to add . Caller no, sir. That will be good. Thank you. Host this is mike in illinois, good morning. Aller good morning, john good morning, cspan. There is a saying in chicago, you cannot hustle a hustler. Were led around with the carrot and stick by israel for years and years and now we will be led around by the carrot and the stick in russia. Host what is the carrot and what is the stick for russia . Caller the carrot and the stick thepower vacuum, power vacuum that we were supposed supposedly freeing syrians and other countries like south korea, tokyo, people we kind of looked out for. There is a power vacuum now that office and they are front man for the antichrist, which i feel is kushner. Host we will move on. Caller good morning, cspan. Good morning morning, john. How are you . Host i am doing well. Caller my feelings on it is when they talk about interference, they have done it before with all the. Isinformation they planted people over here long before this election and the last election and got their operation together. People are forgetting what putin really is. This guy is not your average politician. He had his own legislature resign so that he could rewrite their constitution so that he can stay in power. It doesnt necessarily have to of not justform giving people dirt on a political opponent, but misinformation. It also comes in the form of doking groups that actually like proxies for them. For example, you have certain hate groups in america that have linked they have said this before, they wanted to link with the groups in russia and now you look at these hate groups that have come into more prominence, especially now they are saying boysgroup the boogaloo talking about wanting to wage civil war in america. Host when you say this is nothing new, russia has done this, the Intelligence Committee said this was like nothing that had ever been done before, this a brandnew effort in terms of scale by the russians to interfere in the u. S. Election. Caller may be on our side, but think about putins background, you dont just go into an operation like this half lit. Things like this take preparation and just because it showed up in 2016 the way it did doesnt mean it wasnt in the works prior to that. It could have been in the works as far back as 2008. Host should be should we be any less concerned . Caller we should be very concerned, especially with the data breaches that happened, we should be very concerned and people sitting here talking about russia did not convince me to vote for trump, if you were reading the stuff on social media, yes, they did. They dont have to come out with a megaphone. Host the same question i asked the other caller, do we give too much credit to how much influence social media has . Caller i am personally believing that is a no question. If you look at where people get most of their information today, it is not like it was back in the day when they had newspapers and objective writers. You have people on social media. You dont know who these people are. You have no idea. Like the one person they found. That sean hannity was referring to. That was one of the russian operatives that set up shop and was throwing out all this misinformation. As long as there is misinformation, the people who are not intelligent enough to look at things or dont want to look at things because they think it is a bunch of hogwash, they are the ones out here spouting everything out these guys put in. Chris is next in maine, good morning. I think this whole thing, they are trying to metal they are trying to throw a monkeywrench into the mess and they have been doing it for years and we have been doing it. We do it in israel with mr. Obama. It is not good. Since they came up with the computer and the internet, you have to deal with this stuff and i think mr. Trump is doing a pretty good job and i will stick with him that lady who said he is buying off the polls, i guess he did not do too good a job in 20 buying off the polls. Host this is victor out of florida, you are next. Your reaction to the stories and how concerned are you about russian interference in 20 20 . Caller very concerned. I think they will do everything they can to support donald trump. They were against Hillary Clinton because she was critical of putin and making critical remarks and he wanted to get even, so he supported trump. Even though there are sanctions on russia, he is building a military base in venezuela. He is in violation of the monroe doctrine. They are building a plant in kentucky. Mitch mcconnell is involved in it. Question, where do you get your information . Information,of my i go on the internet, i look at good sources like fortune magazine, forbes, i do more reading than going to facebook because you get a lot of lies and misinformation on facebook. Tv media has an agenda. I read the canadian newspaper because it is less bias and they dont have as big an agenda, so they will give you good information. Litifacts and get good information. Nothing is being done about it and basically, in this internet age, the Younger Generation gets their information from facebook know it, soians they can get into a computer easy. If you dont have paper ballots, they will Hack Computers and change elections. Host the New York Times diving in more to what russians are trying to do in the 2020 election. The russians have been preparing and experimenting for the 2020 election undeterred by american efforts, but aware they need a newplaybook as yet undetectable methods. They have made more creative use of facebook and other social media rather than impersonate americans as they did in 2016. They are working to get americans to repeat this information. To sayry goes on russians are working from servers in the United States rather than abroad knowing american intelligence agencies are prohibited from operating inside the country. The fbi and department of Homeland Security are allowed to do so with aid from the intelligence agency. Russian hackers have infiltrated irans cyber world cyber warfare unit. The national warned officials believe foreign powers including russia could use Ransomware Attacks like those that have debilitated local governments to damage or interfere with voting systems or registration and data systems. One of moscows main goals, undermine american confidence and that is what they told lawmakers, that russia looks to so doubts over close elections and recounts. This story being reported in several newspapers. This meeting last week with the house Intelligence Committee members and in the wake of that meeting, the ouster of the acting director of national security. We are talking about all of it in this first hour. Cecelia in illinois, how concerned are you about russian interference in 2020 . I am very concerned. That guy in new jersey made some valid points and i know in 2016 after the vote came through, i was researching in pennsylvania. A group on facebook had people in wisconsin and michigan and i know just in pennsylvania, i only did half of the county, but there wereee like supposedly12 120 turnout for republicans even if you factor in the fact you had a turnout in the democratic portion of the voters 10 , 20 ould factor in on top of that, which we know did not happen who voted for trump. It was still an anomaly. Host are you saying you are not confident in u. S. Election systems . Caller i like to vote early and i like to do a p