CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Congressman Jason Crow
Interview
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BLITZER: Tonight, President-elect Joe Biden is sounding the alarm about the danger from a huge cyberattack on U.S. agencies and slamming President Trump's efforts to downplay it. Listen to the President- elect speaking to reporters just a little while ago.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: It is a grave risk and it continues. I see no evidence that it's under control. I see none, heard of none, the Defense Department won't even brief us on many things. So I know of nothing that suggests it's under control.
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BLITZER: Let's get to more on that. Congressman Jason Crow, Democrat of the Armed Services Committee is joining us right now. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.
[17:40:07]
You just heard the President-elect say this hack poses a grave risk of the current President earlier in the week. He said everything is well under control. He says he was fully briefed, a major contrast right there. You suggested last week, when that the breach is the cyber equivalent in your words of Pearl Harbor. As we start to learn more and more about the scope of this hack, do you stand by your initial assessment?
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Absolutely, Wolf. You can't overstate how critical and dire this is. Fortunately, in less than 30 days, we're going to have in a President-elect Biden, somebody that actually understands the issue, knows how to respond to something, while the President continues to hide his head in the sand. You know, we are undergoing the most severe cyberattack in our nation's history.
And it's ongoing, you know, same here right now. We don't even know the full extent of this. Nor do we know that whether or not it stopped. It probably has not. There are gaps or backdoors, open in some of our most critical systems and infrastructure that haven't even been identified and close yet. This is a real crisis, and we need leadership to get our arms around it.
BLITZER: The President-elect promised today to respond to this breach, saying the U.S. will probably respond in kind. So what should an in- kind response look like?
CROW: Well, first of all, you know, what's happened over the last four years with President Trump is there's been a lot of chest pounding, a lot of bluster without anything to back it up. So the situation we're facing right now is we have in Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, they don't think there are going to be any consequences. They think they can do what they want, in particular, Vladimir Putin, that he can do whatever he wants with impunity. And that has to change.
So we have to make sure that we send a very clear message and we have the capability to do this, that if you're going to attack the United States, and make no mistake, this is an attack on the United States, there's going to be very severe consequences. And until that consequence is laid on those who are going to attack us, we're going to continue to see more and more and more severe attacks in the years ahead.
BLITZER: President-elect Biden also said today that he agrees with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Bill Barr that Russia is behind this hack. Of course, the President Trump has yet to condemn Russia. He even suggested that China may be to blame for it. Why do you believe the President, the current president, once again is contradicting U.S. intelligence officials, the top U.S. State Department official, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, when it comes to Russia, why is he reluctant to blame Russia?
CROW: You know, I continue to ask myself that question, why, right? When you have the intelligence community, the DOD, the senior advisors, the people that he have -- he has hand-picked to guide his agencies, guide our government and give him advice that are all saying, this is Russia.
And by the way, I'm receiving many of the same briefings that they're all receiving. And this is coming from Russia. So the President obviously, has some hang up regarding Russia, whether it's a financial interest, whether there's something going on between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump that we haven't been able to figure it out yet. I don't know.
You know, I'd like to know the answer to that. I don't know whether we're going to get the answer to it. But nevertheless, none of that explains the lack of action right now. I mean we are under attack right now. And we can do all the investigation in the future on that issue and try to figure out, you know, why the President is reluctant to actually point to the facts and divert from Russia.
I'm more concerned with the next couple of days and weeks and making sure that we actually stop an going to attack. The doors are open. We have one of our nation's riskiest biggest adversaries that has access to very critical national security systems, infrastructure, and our financial institutions and it has to be stopped.
BLITZER: Yes. Congressman Jason Crow thanks so much for joining us. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
CROW: Thank you. You as well, Wolf.
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