CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Mark warner
Interview
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BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Senator Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Senator, how big of a threat are the Russian attacks?
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): I think the threat is huge. And we have Mr. Trump's own FBI director. His director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, we have head of the NSA, National Security Agency, and others, saying Russia will be back because they were effective in 2016.
And what is flabbergasting to me is that this president still makes jokes about it with Vladimir Putin when that G-20 meetings rather than holding him accountable. And the fact we have a series of bipartisan legislation we can't get to the floor of the Senate because the majority leader, Senator McConnell, won't allow us to bring it forward.
So, common sense things like if a foreign agent tries to interfere, there ought to be an obligation to tell the FBI, trying to make sure we paper backpack for any polling stations or trying to put in place rules of the road for social media.
[19:50:02] This should not be partisan. But, unfortunately, this president's unwillingness to grapple with it, we are not protected as we should be.
BURNETT: OK. So, to your point, I want to play what former Special Counsel Robert Mueller said at the end of his public statement about release of the report. It was perhaps most important line. Here it is.
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ROBERT MUELLER, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL: And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American.
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BURNETT: At least one American has not seemed to take the central allegations seriously. Here is who Trump has blamed for the Russian attacks on.
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TRUMP: There could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.
It might be just a hacker, some guy with a 200 I.Q. that can't get up in the morning.
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BURNETT: He also said, Senator, it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.
Does it matter what the president says if the director of the FBI is fighting the Russian attacks or not?
WARNER: It matters when the president dismisses and belittles this kind of attack because it sends a signal to a lot of Americans that maybe this is not something that's important.
At the end of the day, the Russians supported Trump in 2016, but the real goal is to divide us as a country. And when every one of the presidents appointees are trying to do their job and the president continues to belittle this, you know, it just doesn't make our country safe, and that's one of the reasons why I hope and pray that whatever Bob Mueller says tomorrow, that he reiterates the importance of this national security threat and hopefully we'll then break down some of the resistance allowing us to bring bipartisan legislation to try to put some rules in place.
BURNETT: So, you know, I want to read a section of the Mueller report to you. You're familiar with it.
The special counsel writes that Russian intelligence targeted, quote, voter registration software and electronic polling stations and then goes on to say, while the investigation identified evidence that the Russian targeted these individuals and entities, the office did not investigate further. Mueller says more than 24 states were targeted millions of Americans compromised.
Now, he says, look, we stopped investigating and handed it off but are you confident, Senator, in this? Is it possible the Russians now got enough information from all the hacking, to have the ability to acutally change election results in this country?
WARNER: I think that in 2018, Department of Homeland Security and others, we were much better than 2016. But what we don't have assurance is we don't have assurance that every state and every polling station has a paper ballot backup, God forbid, in case we were hacked into. We don't have appropriate, I believe, controls over three private companies that control over 90 percent of the voter files, because if you really want to mess with our election, you don't need to change voter results if you simply move 5,000 folks from one set of precincts to another, you will create chaos on Election Day.
BURNETT: You certainly will. And as we all know, as Russians themselves learned this week, the easiest path in is through contractors.
Thank you very much, Senator Warner.
WARNER: Thank you, Erin.
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