CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Election Security

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And Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, joins me now for more on that.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

You said today that your committee's classified report would -- quote -- "terrify" anyone who read it. Why?

KING: Because what it -- it sort of makes the point, Jake, that this was a very sophisticated, conscious, deliberate, persistent, comprehensive strategy to undermine our democracy.

I'm sort of in the process, after working on this for the better part of a year, of putting the dots together. And when you put -- you have the DNC hacking. You have the efforts to get into 21 different state election systems.

You have got the misinformation on Facebook. All of these things together come as a really serious threat. And I just don't think we're adequately dealing with it.

Here's the biggest problem that I see, Jake. We don't have any kind of announced doctrine or strategy or policy of responding to this kind of thing. The Russians and the Chinese, everyone else knows, if they send a missile into New York, they know what's going to happen as a result.

In this case, if they try to take down our democratic system through the Internet or through computer systems or even through people coming in, there's no consequence, there's no result, there's no punishment.

And one of our admirals testified the other day there's nothing that we're doing now that will make them change their calculus. So they will be back.

TAPPER: You referenced how in 2016 Russians tried to hack into election systems in 21 states. They succeeded in Illinois.

You said that seems like a test. Is the Russian capability to hack into those machines, as well as all the other things that they did in 2016 -- and there's no evidence that in 2016 they changed any voter tabulations -- but I'm wondering, is their capability greater now for the midterms and then for 2020?

KING: Well, what I keep saying is, they weren't doing it in 2016 for fun. It was -- they were -- it was a practice. It was a test.

And not only -- Jake, it's not necessarily voting machines. It's things like registration rolls. But it's also things like the communication links between the counting of the votes and putting them up on your network are on another network.

Imagine, for example, all the votes you have with John King and the magic board and everything turn out a day-and-a-half later to be all wrong. It would be chaos. And one of their purposes is to undermine the confidence of the American people in their election system.

And they're doing a pretty damn good job of it.

TAPPER: And so, Senator, you talk about how there's doctrine, no warning to China, Russia or others, if you do this, the United States will retaliate in such a way.

In fact, beyond that, when President Trump called Vladimir Putin yesterday, he either ignored or did not read an all-caps warning from his national security team telling him -- quote -- "Do not congratulate" -- unquote -- the Russian president on the election.

What message do you think President Trump sends by congratulating Putin?

KING: Well, I think the message was just what you said. It was a congratulations. And they talked about other things.

And I don't want to judge one phone call. But what bothers me is, I keep hearing that these meetings that we go to about a whole-of- government effort. And I'm tired of that term. I said today, I don't want to hear that anymore. Whole of government means none of government.

I want some specific leadership on forming a cyber doctrine or a strategy, so that our

[16:45:00] adversaries know if they strike us, they're going to be hit back. Because if we, all we're -- all of our hearing was about patching and protecting the state election systems. If all we're doing is trying to be defensive, it is like being in a boxing match with your hands behind you. You know, can bob and weave and duck but eventually, you're going to get knocked out. And we are -- the best way to protect ourselves is deterrence that people have to understand they're going to pay a price if they strike us.

Right now, we're a cheap date. There's no -- there are no consequences, there are no results and you know, I'm a sort of broken record on this. My poor colleagues on the Armed Services and Intelligence Committee are saying there goes King again about this doctrine but we've just got to do this otherwise they're going to keep hitting us and they'll always find a way to get in.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Senator Angus King of Maine, thank you so much, sir. I appreciate your time.

KING: Yes, sir.

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