CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview with Angus King

Interview

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KING: Well, you have asked two or three questions there. I will take the last one first.

There has been some responses, both from NSA, the National Security Administration (sic), and from the Biden administration, in terms of things like sanctions. So there have been responses, but I think we need to step that up.

One of the problems is, over the past 15 or 20 years, as we have had these series of cyberattacks from North Korea, from Russia from China, we really haven't responded. We have been a cheap date. And you can't defend yourself simply by bobbing and weaving and patching. The adversary has to understand they will pay a price, there will be a cost for attacking the United States or for attacking our critical infrastructure.

And, thus far, they really haven't felt that. So I think that's a piece of this that we have to do. The other pieces, you mentioned in your intro. We keep getting wakeup calls, and we keep not waking up. And the problem is, this is a complex issue; 85 percent or 90 percent of the target space, Jake, is in the private sector. So the federal government can do everything right, and not that we

are. And there are a lot of things that we're working on. As you mentioned, the commission that I have been working on for almost three years, we have made a lot of recommendations, changed a lot of laws. We have got a national cyber director going into place hopefully in the next two or three weeks.

But it all depends on what happens in the private sector. If one person at one desktop in the operations center of a pipeline system bites on a phishing e-mail or opens an attachment they shouldn't, then we're sunk.

TAPPER: And...

KING: So, it's -- this is a -- it's a cliche to say all of government, but this is all of everybody has got to be in on this.

TAPPER: And just so people understand, as you noted, most of the -- what's threatened here is private sector.

And the former Director of National Intelligence under George W. Bush John Negroponte was on my show on Friday, and he sees -- he was basically voicing the opinion that, because the private sector has not risen to the challenge, there might be legislation needed to compel them to be better on this.

[09:20:15]

Do you agree?

KING: Yes.

One of the particular areas that we're talking about is SICI, systemically important critical infrastructure, the grid, the pipeline system, the financial system, transportation, water system, which, by the way, we haven't talked a lot about, but we're very vulnerable on in terms of our water systems.

I believe there has to be mandatory breach reporting, and they have got to subject themselves to what we call pen-testing, penetration testing, to see how -- just how good their cyber defenses are.

In exchange, I think they need to be provided with some kind of liability protection, if they're going to be forthcoming. We need essentially an entirely new relationship between the private sector and the federal government. And I realized the term relationship between private sector and federal government is kind of an oxymoron. But that's what we have to establish.

There has to be trust. And there has to be real time. I mean, the Colonial Pipeline, my understanding is, it wasn't reported to the government for four or five days. I think they'd already paid the ransom. And the federal government has a lot of resources and assets that can help on these things. But we have got to know what's going on. So, yes, I think some kind of mandatory incident reporting is going to

be necessary. And it's got to be burdens and benefits, particularly for these important critical infrastructure pieces.

TAPPER: Are you worried -- are you worried at all that President Biden's desire for a stable and predictable relationship with Russia is getting in the way of what is needed in terms of a response to the cyberattacks coming from Russia?

KING: Well, clearly, he's got to walk a tightrope here. He wants to have a decent relationship. They can be important in a lot of areas, the Arctic and other areas of the world. They can be either a stabilizing influence or a destabilizing influence.

But, on the other hand, I am positive that cyber is going to be on the table when they're discussing these things. And part of the problem is, it's one thing when it's a state actor, when it's Russia, the Russian government attacking us, as they did in the 2016 election.

It's a little more difficult when it's a Russian criminal organization based in St. Petersburg or Moscow. My belief is, we have got to get tough on that, too. They have got to quit tolerating this within their border.

If we had an international bank robbery outfit in Richmond, Virginia, that was robbing banks in Europe, we'd come down on them.

TAPPER: Yes.

KING: Our law enforcement would come down on them.

And that's -- we need that kind of reciprocal relationship. They can't just say, oh, we don't know anything about this. A sparrow doesn't fall in Russia that Putin doesn't know about.

TAPPER: Yes.

I want to turn to another issue here at home, voting rights. Senator Joe Manchin wrote an op-ed this morning and saying that he will not support the voting rights legislation called the For the People Act. You have been working on this in the Senate Rules Committee. Senator Schumer says he's going to bring it up for a vote this month.

As you know, it's not just Manchin. There are other Senate Democrats, there are Democratic state election officials who have concerns about the legislation as written. Do you support the bill as written?

KING: No, I think there are things that can be modified. And Chuck Schumer knows that and Amy Klobuchar. I have said that all along.

I -- it's a 800- or 900- or 1,000-page bill. There are clearly some things I think need to be negotiated. And I think Joe Manchin realizes that.

The -- but the guts of it, Jake, is voting rights. It has a lot of other pieces. It has -- for example, it has public financing of elections. It has a lot of other pieces in it. But the important part for me is protecting voting rights. And I think that's becoming more urgent by the day, based upon what's going on around in the states.

And, Jake, there's an important point here. There are two things going on with voting rights. One is getting a lot of publicity, the other not so much. The publicity is about things like limiting absentee ballots and the early voting and all of those kinds of things.

The other piece, though, Jake, that isn't being talked about is, a lot of states are considering changes that the legislature could essentially overturn the results of an election in their state. Remember, Raffensperger stood up in Georgia and said, no, we have certified these elections, the governor certified them.

We're worried that -- or I'm worried that they're going to turn that over and say, OK, a Republican legislature can say, we think there was fraud in Fulton County, and, therefore, we're going to certify a different set of electors.

That's really dangerous.

TAPPER: Yes.

KING: And that didn't happen in '20. But it could.

So voting rights is critical. And I don't know -- I haven't talked to Joe about it in particular. My belief is, we have really got to focus on what the most crucial issue is, which is protecting democracy.

[09:25:03]

TAPPER: There's a lot of legislation that has been stalled in the 50/50 Senate.

In March, you wrote that the fate of the filibuster and whether or not the Senate will continue to require 60 votes to proceed to debate, the fate of it depends on whether or not you believe Republicans negotiate in good faith or are just obstructionists.

What are they doing today? Are they negotiating in good faith? Do you support eliminating the filibuster?

KING: Well, it's kind of schizophrenic.

We have been negotiating in good faith for about two months on this competitiveness bill, the competitiveness and innovation bill that's designed to help us compete with China. That's been entirely bipartisan. It of stalled right before we left town last week. Hopefully, we're going to be able to finalize that. That's a good example of how we can work together.

But I was thinking about that bill. If the bill had had Joe Biden's name on it, we wouldn't even be talking about it, I don't think. I mean, it's -- that's sort of where we have gotten this. This bill bubbled up. It started with Chuck Schumer and Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, in the Senate gym, and it came up spontaneously, which is the way things are supposed to work, through committees, through regular order, with a lot of amendments.

But then, on other areas, it's been -- as you say, it's been pretty well stalled. I think the infrastructure bill is a good test, because, listen, there's not a lot of policy there. This is just numbers.

TAPPER: Right.

KING: It's helping the country. And we ought to be able to find a resolution on that. If we can't, that spells trouble.

TAPPER: So, we're out of time.

But just to get a yes or no, it sounds like you are not in a place where you are ready to get rid of the filibuster yet.

KING: Not in general. I'm very reluctant about it.

But if it comes down to voting rights and the rights of Americans to go to the -- go to the polls and select their leaders vs. the filibuster, I will choose democracy.

TAPPER: All right, Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

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