let s talk a little bit about this. how have the different 2020 campaigns been preparing for the threat of election hacking? it wasn t too long ago that i believe the office of the director of national intelligence actually created the position of an election security czar of sorts. the 2016 presidential election might have played out very differently if not for the fact that a senior official from the hillary clinton campaign and the dnc itself fell victim to the cyber attacks, phishing attacks that left them exposed, including wikileaks and we reached out to presidential campaigns and at the time we began, there were more than 20, to learn what kind of efforts they were taking to prevent that kind of attack from happening again and what we learned many if not all of the campaigns had been in touch with if not the fbi, dhs, through their headquarters in washington or local field offices but there is also a robust effort under way by the dnc to sort of undertake best practices, to le
including the threat of isis in syria, the possibility of north korea denuclearizing and whether iran cheated on the nuclear deal. and just earlier this month, coats appointed a new election security czar countering the president s apparent lack of concern on the subject. as the new york times puts it, to mr. trump, mr. coats had come to represent the disapproving republican elite that he scorned. so now dan coats is leaving and the person who trump wants to replace him with is pretty much exactly what you would expect. do you remember this guy from the mueller hearings? i agree with the chairman this morning when said donald trump is not above the law. he s not. but he damn sure shouldn t be below the law which is where volume ii of this report puts him. that s texas congressman john ratcliffe. it turns out it was basically an audition for the director of national intelligence job. ratcliffe met with the president a few days before the hearings and essentially went out and perfo
represented there by the soon to be former director of national intelligence dan coats. it s been both awkward and acrimonious to say the least, from the then president-elect compares u.s. intelligence agencies to nazis. literally. to trump s very first day in office when he stood in front of the cia s memorial wall and boasted about his intelect and inauguration crowd size. to most infamously taking vladimir putin s word that russia did not interfere in the 2016 election over his own intelligence community s assessment. in spite of all that, dan coats often said things the president didn t want to hear, like when he testified before congress earlier this year and contradicted trump on issues, including the threat of isis in syria, the possibility of north korea denuclearizing and whether iran cheated on the nuclear deal. and just earlier this month, coats appointed a new election security czar countering the president s apparent lack of concern on the subject.
attack. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is playing major defense right now after he blocked bills to protect our elections from getting to a vote. these pundits are lying. lying. when they dismiss the work that has been done. they re lying when they insist i have personally blocked when in fact i have championed and the senate has passed. but ultimately, who benefits from all of this especially as dan coats, the president s top spy, one of the men tasked with keeping this country safe, is on his way out the door. joining me is ken delaney covering intelligence and national security here at msnbc news. calling out americans or allies and blocking election security and losing our top intelligence chief who just appointed an election security czar? who does this serve? nobody.
things that president trump either actively worked against or served as a thorn in the side of national security professionals who were trying to push these things through. security clearances, giving it to people like jared kushner, whom career officials thought was unsuited for such a clearance. 702. the president got himself involved in that process at the last minute and started spreading conspiracy theories on twitter that this was what was used to spy on his campaign. and of course election security. something that by several accounts president trump s underlings can t even bring up in his presence because it makes him feel insecure. it makes him feel his electoral victory has been delegitimized. look, i think it is noteworthy that it was only several days ago that dan coats nominated and essentially appointed this election security czar and now all of a sudden he is out of a job. if people like dan coats are not