And bring back cnns evan perez for just to kind of go deeper into this. Evan, if you can just talk about this what came out of this evan, hey. Can you hear me . Apparently yep. Okay, we are on the air right now. Can you just go in some detail about what we heard now from the dni and from chris wray of the fbi . We heard from Jon Ratcliffe, that both iran and russia have gained access to voterRegistration System. And appeared to to at least have access to that data. Now, the question is what can they do with that . With the iranians, according to ratcliffe, they were behind a series of emails that have been received around the country. Democratic voters were getting these emails. Right. Florida, alaska, and i think at least one other state, in particular. Right. And they were being threatened to say you have to change your registration. Were going to be watching you. And if you dont, were going to come after you. And so, the implication was that these people, whoever these hackers were, could perhaps see you how you voted. And so, that was a concern that i think the Intelligence Community, the fbi, had about these emails and these threats that voters were getting around the country. And so, thats reason why you saw this rushed press conference. Ive never had ive never seen the fbi do a hurried press conference, like this. You know, its a very unusual situation. But it gives you an indication. Its an indication of how worried they are about the next couple weeks about the potential for Foreign Countries to try to do influence operations that could cause chaos in this country. So, evan, i want to read something that Jon Ratcliffe said at this press conference because i find it a little confusing. He said, to that end, we have already seen iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump. You may have seen some reporting on this, in the last 24 hours. Or you may have even been a recipient of one of those emails. Individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas. This video in any claims about allegedly allegedly fraudulent ballots are not true. This is a transcript. Im sorry. Its got a little inaccuracies. He is saying the those emails that people received, that democratic voters receive, saying we know youre a democrat. You need to vote for trump. Were going to be watching you. Threatening democrats to vote for trump. Hes saying, somehow, that is designed to damage President Trump . Isnt it designed to damage, also, joe biden . Yeah. I mean, look. Its a little bit confusing to see that. But i think what he is going after, and again, im trying to figure out exactly how hes sort of rationalizing this. But i think because these threats were being purported to come from the proud boys who are, of course, associated supporters of President Trump, that it would be seen as Trump Supporters threatening democratic voters. And in that way, trying to essentially undermine President Trump. I think the larger point that, perhaps ratcliffe is not capturing is, this is about sowing chaos in this country. The iranians dont really care. They want this is what the Intelligence Community believes. The iranians simply want to divide americans. Want to exploit the divisions that already exist. And use some of these these messages that people are are are getting because they know that this is a very divided country. People are going to amplify some of these things and perhaps set people up against each other. And, evan, did did ratcliffe or Christopher Wray, and we should point out, chris wray is, you know, a straight shooter. He is not a poll tilitician. He comes from a legal background. His entire career has been as an attorney. And hes been criticized heavily by the president. Ratcliffe comes from the world of politics. He is clearly an idea has he said anything or did chris wray say anything about what, actually, russia has been doing, if anything . They know that russians have gotten into the system. They havent seen any activity from the russians about you know, to see what they are doing with that information that theyve obtained. Now, this is the same activity that the russians had back in 2016. We know that they were into some systems. They ended up not actually doing anything. At least, thats the assessment of the Intelligence Community. So, its possible that its a repeat of that. They were simply getting in to see what what how the systems work. And, of course, we cant rest easy. We understand that, today, some of the states were told to try to patch off some of their systems. To make sure that these countries cant get in there. But i think youre right. I mean, one of the things that people like ratcliffe have tried to emphasize is, you know, the activity by countries that are trying to damage President Trump. Not so much the activity that the russians are doing. And we know that they are doing it to try to support and prop up President Trumps campaign. They want President Trump to win. Thats the assessment of the Intelligence Community. We didnt hear so much of that from this press conference, today. And i think you heard from chris wray. His point his point his point is simply that, you know, president president the the American Voters need to be careful about what information theyre getting online and what theyre spreading. All right. Evan perez, appreciate it. Evan, stick around and i am sure you will be getting more information as we talk. Joining us now, former fbi director Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccabe. Cnn election analyst. And juliet. What do you make of this . Again, i did not see this press conference. So but it sounds like they didnt really go into detail on russia. But but the dni is saying that this iran activity of threatening democratic voters was designed to hurt trump. I dont know if he spoke about the attempted effect on bidens campaign. Thats a great question. I think theres a number of things that kind of reach out to us here. I think, just provisionally, the fact that they held this press conference about election meddling by foreign powers, so close to the election, itself, shows you how far weve come from 2016. This is exactly the sort of thing that was considered, in 2016, and, of course, the administration opted not to go very forcefully, proactively, with the statement about russian meddling. And theres been a lot of criticism of that decision, in the aftermath. So, i think what you are seeing now is an Intelligence Community, certainly an fbi and joined by the dni tonight, trying to lean a little further forward to have that sort of inoculation effect on the electorate. To let people know that they should be skeptical consumers of information that they see online. Whether or not the the dnis comments about iran and the purpose of the iranian meddling and whether or not they were trying to help or hurt President Trump. Quite frankly, id like to see more about that. There should be really solid analysis underpinning that judgment. And i just dont think weve gotten enough of that detail from the from the information that was shared with the press, this evening. Juliet, i mean, the trump administration, particularly dni ratcliffe, who has been downplaying potential russian efforts. And i dont want to make this political. But it just it just jumps out at me, at this stage, right away, they are not really talking about russian efforts and theyre talking about the iranian efforts as being, somehow, against President Trump. When those emails that were sent out to democratic voters threatening them, telling them to vote for trump. I get, sort of, the threedimensional chess of it. People think its the proud boys and, therefore, link it to trump. But it is, also, just trying to scare democrats about voting for joe biden. That that would be that would what a rational person would believe. So i dont think we need to apologize for being politically skeptical about ratcliffe, at this stage. You know, he he doesnt deserve the luxury of apoliticalness, given what hes done over the last couple of weeks to make it clear they view some of the russian disinformation about biden as accurate. So im not so i sort of view ratcliffe as as different. I think the fact, as Andrew Mccabe said, you know, the fact that the Deputy Director of the fbi and others were there. My takeaway is this. Other countries are messing with us. They are getting caught easily. Lets remember this, now. They knew that they were going to get caught. This is a public Misinformation Campaign to mess with us. The purpose of doing it, clearly, was to go after democrats. I dont quite get how this hurts donald trump. And and, fourth, heres the good news. It was it was acknowledged. There was a press conference. Were preparing the American Public. Were preparing the state and locals. And there is no evidence that votes were changed. So i look at the good news, for the next two weeks. I do think that this was an important statement. And i think i think what we have to remember is the iranians and the and possibly the russians know theyre getting caught, at this stage. So this is just a little bit of mind games going on, right now, that we just have to fight back with with equal mind games, so to speak. Before i go to everyone else, i just want to bring back in evan perez. Everyon evan, i understand youve got something . No, anderson. I think what juliet is underscoring is is very important here because i think youre right. There is a lot of information that we dont have about what, exactly, the fbi and what the Intelligence Community has, that sort of explains more about what about this activity. And certainly, what the russians are doing. I think one of the things that i think i think the guests were pointing out was the fact the importance of having the fbi director there and some of the other officials. Simply because ratcliffe has been seen as such a politically partisan person. And i think this was to give confidence to the voters, especially democrats, that whats being heard here is the real deal. Rick, i want to play some of what we heard from director of National Intelligence ratcliffe. Lets listen. We have confirmed that some voterregistration information has been obtained by iran, and separately by russia. This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos, and undermine your confidence in american democracy. To that end, we have already seen iran sending spoofed emails, designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump. What weve heard, tonight, from the fbi, from dni . So this is, you know, if you listen to that word obtain, almost anyone can obtain voterregistration information. Its not clear to me, from this statement, that what we have here is the same as what we had in 2016. Which was, the russians using fishing activities to be able to break into state Voter Registration databases and sniff around and i think undermine voter confidence that our election systems are secure. This may have simply been buying or downloading from the internet, which you can do, voter information, including Party Registration information. And perhaps, the iranians took that partyregistration information, looked for democrats, and sent out these proud boy emails. So we dont know exactly whats going on. But, you know, its being portrayed potentially as hacking. Its not necessarily hacking, at this point. It is an attempt to try to sow discord. Im not sure why they needed to call a press conference so quickly and didnt want to just hit it in the next morning. David chalian, politically, any kind of impact, you think . Well, i think youre right to be skeptical around the Politics Around this. Im not sure why it matters, right now, in terms of these officials trying to communicate to voters and make them aware that these foreign entities are are trying to interfere with the election. Why it matters who theyre trying to help, politically, right now. What matters is getting that information out, so that voters are aware to be suspect when they see some fishy email or, you know, that is trying to influence their vote or create division. Thats whats important. Far more so than this notion that ratcliffe is putting out there about iran trying to hurt trump. I dont i just dont think we have enough information about that to understand whether theyre doing that, in some way, that actually has electoral impact. Yeah. I just found it interesting that thats kind of the spin, juliet, that he is putting on it, at this stage. But i think the point is absolutely right. The the whats important is not so much of the spin anybodys putting on it. Its just the facts of what actually happened. And we dont really know a lot of details, certainly on the russian side, at this point, juliet. Thats exactly right. But i want to just remind people. Why are the proud boys and why is a Foreign Intelligence Agency utilizing them as a proxy for donald trump . Foreignintelligence agencies watch our debates as well. They learn, they know about conspiracy theories, about groups the president supports about White Supremacy groups that the president aligns himself with and and takes days to sort of try to separate himself. So, there is a bigger story here, which weve all been saying. Is were not the only ones, you know, freaking out or disturbed by President Trumps behavior, National Security behavior. There are foreignintelligence agencies who know exactly, right . Heres this group that no ones ever heard of. A whitesupremacy group, presumably, aligned with trump. Were going to use their emails to go after, to scare democrats. That, to me, is you know, that begins with donald trump, in a debate, not condemning a whitesupremacy group that some democrats may be afraid of. We dont know who these democrats are. Are they africanamericans who are worried about a whitesupremacy group . Old women, who are worried about being alone . So, this is theyre playing theyre you know, if donald trump lives by disinformation, he will also be harmed by disinformation. And thats what were seeing. So im really im really glad that legitimate people on the Intelligence Community came out. I dont know if it had to be tonight. Im really glad that they came out and said stop messing around, and alerted us so that were just a little bit smarter. We were the audience. Andrew, just in terms of what the u. S. Has been doing the last several years, in the wake of 2016, to prepare for and try to stop russian interference and other countries interference. Obviously, there has been a lot of reporting over the last three years of President Trump not wanting to hear his people bring up russia. Briefers being told, dont bring up russia because russia, immediately, to him, equates to that, you know, it as an attempt to delegitimize him as a president. Theres reporting, i think it was kirsten nielsen, was told not to bring up russia stuff. So, what has been done . Because the complaint has been, if the president of the United States is not the one sending out the message that countering disinformation, you know, if its not coming from the top, its not you know, as what Vice President would call it, its not a wholeofgovernment effort to stop this stuff. Well, thats absolutely right, anderson. And and this is the this is a threat that is so significant that it should be led by the president of the United States. It should be championed by, you know, our leaders on capitol hill. It should have been supported with legislation and proactive measures, which it certainly was not. Nevertheless, im quite sure that the fbi and the rest of the Intelligence Community has been assiduously working it. You need to know that, in 2016, we were literally learning these things, as we went. You know, this was the first time we had ever seen interference, on this level. We stood by and watched, while the russians probed the voterRegistration Systems in every single state. And that is not an insignificant thing. Its not just about changing the vote tallies on election night. But if a foreign actor can get into the Registration System and actually eliminate records, they can shift the balance of whos able to cast a vote. So its it is still an insidious threat. And im quite sure that the fbi, dhs, and the rest of their partners, have spent a lot of time learning about how these systems work. Finding vulnerabilities in different state systems. Coaching states and companies that produce electoral infrastructure, on how to kind of bolster their ability to defend from a cyberattack. But we all know that cyberattacks change, every single day. The threat vector is constantly shifting. And if youre not on top of it today and tomorrow, youre behind the game and youre going to get burned. I want to play a bit of what fbi director, Christopher Wray, had to say. He did not echo these efforts were meant to damage President Trump. If anything, almost seemed to counter t