CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Mark Warner
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Intelligence Committee member, ranking member, Senator Mark Warner joins me now.
Senator, thanks for taking the time this morning.
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Thank you, Jim.
SCIUTTO: I want to ask you a big-picture question for folks voting now. Four years after 2016, after Russia interfered in the election to help Donald Trump, it's the assessment of the intelligence community, they're doing it again, is our election any safer from Russian interference today than it was four years ago?
WARNER: Well, we are safer. We've seen dramatic improvement in the security of our election system. Most states have got a paper ballot backup, for example. We've seen our social media companies get a little bit better, not as good as they should be, but a little bit better on taking down some of the bots and some of the Russian misinterpretation and disinformation efforts. And, clearly, the intelligence community has got literally hundreds of people working on this. So that's all to the good.
To the bad, we still have a White House that refuses to acknowledge this threat, that it is ongoing, that it's not only Russia but it's China and Iran as well. And the Congress has not passed a single law to try to put common sense restrictions in place. And this is because the Senate couldn't -- we never got a chance to vote on anything. So even something as basic as saying, if a foreign government tries to intervene in a presidential election, there ought to be an obligation to tell the FBI.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
WARNER: We haven't passed a single rule of the road. So I'm -- I'm -- I think that legislatively we get a failing grade, but the other parts of our system have tried to improve.
SCIUTTO: To that point there about foreign help, you know, this report -- and, folks, if you're watching at home, it bears reading -- it documents high-level contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia repeated. This is Paul Manafort, the president's campaign chairman, and repeated sharing of internal polling data with Russia. A whole host of contacts.
Do you have any way of knowing if those contacts are continuing right now between members of the Trump campaign and Russia? How would we know?
[09:35:00]
WARNER: Well, you know, our report, which was completely bipartisan, five volumes, very proud of the work. And, you know, I do urge Americans to read it. It's 1,000 pages long the last one, but it's worth -- it's worth the review.
And, you know, I'm not sure it's going to change anybody's mind about what happened in 2016. But when you see the extensive nature of the contacts and then when you have, as recently as ten days ago, the American intelligence community saying that Russia is back trying to spread a disinformation campaign about Joe Biden, you know, I think we should all be concerned about that.
And what I'm trying to push the intelligence community is, you know, they need to obviously protect sources and methods, but they need to help educate the American public about this disinformation campaign so that we can be better on guard.
SCIUTTO: Yes. I get --
WARNER: Americans ought to be deciding this election, not foreigners.
SCIUTTO: I get that. But we're two months to the election. The president still refuses to warn Russia from interfering again. And your colleagues, Senator Ron Johnson, is taking information on Joe Biden, sourced from a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker, information that the intelligence community says is tainted and is, in effect, interference. By doing so, is the president inviting interference by not warning away -- is Senator Ron Johnson, are others aiding and abetting interference this time around?
WARNER: Well, -- SCIUTTO: I mean, that's the difference. You know, you have folks here who are welcoming it openly.
WARNER: I still think the president does a great disservice by not being willing to call out Vladimir Putin and his agents for not being friends of America. This guy, you know, Trump is willing to call out everyone other than Vladimir Putin. And people can reach their own conclusions on that.
And I do believe the intelligence community ought to fully brief -- fully brief, you know, members of Congress and others who I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, may at this point be unknowingly promoting Russian disinformation. Once they're fully briefed at least we'll know it's not unknowingly promoting what is a false narrative.
SCIUTTO: But we're two months away, right? I mean it's late. They're already pursuing it. they're advertising -- the president is retweeting to his tens of millions of followers, right, a recording of Joe Biden, again, information that is viewed by the intel community as Russian disinformation. I mean it's happening right now.
WARNER: Well, that's again, when you've got the president, you know, that's not very connected to the truth on virtually any level, that's where I think it really is incumbent upon the intelligence community. So it's not just another elected official of a different party, but the FBI, the CIA, the director of national intelligence office needs to put this information out in a clear fashion.
One thing that we learned from 2016, if the Obama administration had been more forthcoming, their intelligence community forthcoming about the Russian interference in 2016 we might have stopped it earlier in it tracks. The one thing we've learned -- and -- because Russia's intervention, it's not just in America. They do it in every democracy. Countries that have best defended against the disinformation, like Sweden --
SCIUTTO: Yes.
WARNER: Like Lithuania, like Estonia, they're neighbors of Russia, they do a good job of educating their public so that the public can spot that disinformation.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
WARNER: We need to do that same kind of job here in this country.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Sadly, it's being amplified in this country right now.
Senator Mark Warner, we do appreciate you joining the broadcast this morning.
WARNER: Thanks, Jim.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, really important interview.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source