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Obama Vows Retaliation over Russian Hacking. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 16, 2016 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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COSTELLO: NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. President Obama vowing retaliation against Russia for interfering in the presidential election. Sources now telling CNN the intelligence community has concluded Russian leader Vladimir Putin personally signed off on the hacking of the U.S. presidential election. And get this, they say the hacking is still going on, a sophisticated operation with hacking tools like the ones used by the NSA. And President Obama, as I said, is promising consequences.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action, and we will at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be. But Mr. Putin is well aware of my feelings about this because I spoke to him directly about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: Russia's message to the White House? Prove it. A Russian presidential spokesman says the United States, quote, "Should either stop talking or produce some proof at last." All of this playing out as President Obama gears up for one of his final news conferences, and as President-elect Trump continues to brush off the intelligence community.

We're covering every angle of this story with our team of reporters both here in the United States and in Moscow. But let's begin with CNN National Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux. She's at the White House this morning.

Hi, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Well, we actually saw President Obama talking about the fact that he did have a personal conversation with President Putin. That happened back in September, we're told. This was a sideline conversation in China at the G20 Summit when he made it very clear that the United States did not appreciate and would not tolerate the espionage that was taking place. It was back in October when intelligence analysts finally said, publicly, that Russia was behind this.

This is, Carol, part of a public and private shaming, if you will, of Russia to get them to stop, but the President also saying that there are other alternatives as well, some options which include economic sanctions and our own cybersecurity threats of our own. Now, the President is trying to really be conciliatory in a way and bipartisan because he does realize that when Trump becomes President, he might have to carry the mantle in terms of holding Russia accountable.

So listen to this part of the interview, Carol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: It's very important that we do not let the inner family argument between Americans, the domestic political differences between Democrats and Republicans, obscure the need for us to stand together, figure out what it is that the Russians are interested in doing in terms of influencing our democratic process, and inoculating ourselves from it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And, Carol, the President also making the case here that this is a different kind of hacking and spying. That this is not kind of your everyday, ordinary, big powers looking in, peeking in on each other, but this is to the tune of something like what the Chinese did when they're stealing trade secrets, trying to influence the U.S. presidential election. That this is something that is much more serious in nature.

And, Carol, maybe we'll get more of an idea in terms of what the President is going to do or is going to say at the press conference that's later this afternoon -- Carol. COSTELLO: We'll be eagerly awaiting that. Suzanne Malveaux live at

the White House this morning. So how exactly did intelligence officials decide that Vladimir Putin approved the hacking? Let's bring in CNN Justice Correspondent Evan Perez.

Good morning.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, we know from officials we've been talking to that Russian spy agencies deployed sophisticated hacking tools, the kinds that are used by the NSA to break into the U.S. political organizations in the past year. U.S. officials tell CNN that this is part of the reason why intelligence officials believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered the disinformation campaign that targeted mostly the Democratic Party organizations and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Investigators haven't found evidence directly linking back to Putin, but officials believe that because of the nature of the operation, that he would have had to give the orders on what to do with the stolen e-mails.

[09:05:03] In recent weeks, intelligence officials have collected more evidence, including from human sources, to back up their assessments that they first made in October, that only the most senior members of the Russian government could have ordered this operation. But in the meantime, the hacking has not stopped. Law enforcement officials tell CNN that the FBI is now investigating hacking attempts after the election that are targeting Clinton campaign staffers. These are former staffers. And one campaign official tells CNN that they've received security notices as recently as last week indicating attempts to get into their private e-mail accounts.

Now, officials say that despite the Russian expectations, Carol, that they're going to have a better relationship with the incoming Trump administration, they don't expect Russian hacking expense to die down. They expect this is going to continue.

COSTELLO: Oh, my goodness. OK. Evan Perez, thanks so much. We'll check back with you next hour. So accusations are flying everywhere, but Russia is not caving. The spokesman for President Putin essentially telling the U.S. this morning, show us the proof. Let's bring in Senior International Correspondent Matthew Chance with more. He's in Moscow.

Hi, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: My communications has gone down, but, I mean, I heard what you were saying there, Carol, and it's right. The Russian presidential spokesman -- he's name is Dmitry Peskov -- he called it indecent, the idea that the United States keeps making this allegation without any proof. Here's what he said, "They either need to stop talking about this or finally present some proof." He was speaking in Japan where he is on an official visit alongside Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Yesterday, we had a similar rejection, "complete nonsense" is what Dmitry Peskov called the allegations that Russia has been involved in hacking. The day before that, it was another denial. And it's been just like that every day, really, since the beginning of October when these allegations first surfaced at the height of the presidential campaign.

And you know what? There is an element of truth in this in the sense that we don't have any concrete evidence that we can point to and go, look, that's definitely proof that the Russians did this, but there's a whole, you know, raft of circumstantial evidence.

For instance, it's only people who were opposed or seen as being opposed to the Kremlin that were targeted in hacking, Hillary Clinton in this case, and of course, a very powerful motivation on the part of the kremlin, as well, to try and tip the balance in the U.S. elections. They didn't want to see somebody come to power in the United States who was hardline and tough when it came to Russia. Clinton was that person. Donald Trump always spoke very sympathetically about the need to do a deal with Russia, and that's something they certainly wanted to promote.

So, you know, there are interests there. There was a motivation. But there isn't that concrete proof that many people, including Donald Trump, are looking for.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance reporting live from Moscow this morning. Thank you. So you heard what Matthew said. The President-elect Donald Trump continue dismissal of Russia's role in the election and helping fuel a very public war of words with the White House now, exactly what the Obama administration was hoping to avoid. CNN Political Reporter Sara Murray is following that side of the story.

Hi, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. Well, look everyone began by playing nicely with one another. Hillary Clinton said let's give Donald Trump a chance as president. President Obama said he wanted to see a peaceful transition of power and he would help with that. Things have evolved a little bit since then, and now we're seeing the President-elect trading very public barbs with the White House Press Secretary. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Although this foolish guy, Josh Earnest, I don't know if he's talking to President Obama. You know having the right Press Secretary is so important because he is so bad, the way he delivers the message. He can deliver a positive message and it sounds bad.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's just a fact. You all have it on tape that the Republican nominee for President was encouraging Russia to hack his opponent because he believed that that would help his campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MURRAY: Now, the rift that is emerging in this relationship, at least a new rift, are questions about Russia's meddling in the U.S. election. Now, Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning to weigh in on this. I'm going to read you what he said, "Are we talking about the same cyberattack where it was revealed that the head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?"

So this is Donald trump's attempt to sort of shift the subject from the role of Russia in meddling with the U.S. elections to talk about something that happened where CNN Contributor Donna Brazile provided questions to Clinton allies for a candidate forum. This is, of course, not illegal but it's also not acceptable by our standards under any means and Donna Brazile is no longer affiliated with CNN.

That gets us a little bit away from the root of the problem, but John Podesta, in the op-ed he wrote, gets us back to it. He's talking about how he feels like the DNC got very little warning about the hacks that lead to his e-mails being leaked. Listen to what he wrote, "When the FBI discovered the Russian attack in September 2015, it failed to send even a single agent to warn senior Democratic National Committee officials." He's essentially saying that the FBI dropped the ball in how they should've warned Democrats about the attacks.

[09:10:14] But sources are telling CNN that that's not the case, that, in fact, federal investigators reached out to the DNC repeatedly. And they reached out to senior officials at the DNC to warn them that there were hacking attempts being made. They even invited the DNC to a briefing which they declined to attend. All these warnings came months before the Democratic Party actually took steps to remedy the situation, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Sara Murray reporting for us this morning. Thanks so much. Let's talk some more about this. With me now, Republican Congressman Chris Stewart. He's also a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Welcome, sir.

REP. CHRIS STEWART (R), UTAH: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Should President Obama take action against Russia?

STEWART: Well, you know, if we have absolute proof that they tried to interfere. Let me say first that's not going to surprise anyone. I mean, for heaven's sakes, we know that Russia and China and North Korea and Iran, many of these nation states, have been actively trying to hack and to steal and to, you know, interfere in our commerce and in our politics but --

COSTELLO: But, sir, American intelligence agencies, they've all said that they know it's Russia. Russia hacked into the DNC and into John Podesta's e-mails. And the CIA. And now, the President of the United States says there's some evidence that Putin ordered it, ordered --

STEWART: Yes.

COSTELLO: -- the hackers to do that. So, again, should President --

STEWART: And I'm not disagreeing with that.

COSTELLO: Should President Obama take some action against Russia for this?

STEWART: Well, and I want to be careful in what I say there because, again, this is something that we see all the time from a lot of nation states and how we respond to that is probably best kept --

COSTELLO: But we're seeing it from Russia now. So we're just talking about Russia.

STEWART: Well, I know. I know and I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just saying how we respond, sometimes, is best done in secret. It's best done in private. And sometimes, I think we should announce that to disincentivize that type of activity in the future, but I think that's best done between the President and his national security staff, that type of decision.

COSTELLO: So do you think that President-elect Trump might be doing that in private? He has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin, so why isn't he picking up the phone and saying, you know, what's the deal with this? Tell me what you know about these hacks.

STEWART: Yes. Well, I think a couple of things. One is he's not the President yet and it's probably not appropriate for him to have that type of conversation. The second thing is he probably doesn't have all of the information yet that he would need, and we need to give him time to develop his national security staff to put them in place.

One other thing that I think is important to recognize, though, and that is, as I listen to your reporting this morning, it has become so politicized, and I don't think that's helpful. I don't think that's fortunate at all for us, you know, to have this division among Americans. And when I hear things, for example, when some reports say that the intelligence community has come to a consensus that Russia wanted Mr. Trump to win, I'm just telling you that's not true. That there isn't a consensus on most of these things.

COSTELLO: Well, we have not reported that. We have not reported that.

STEWART: Oh, no.

COSTELLO: We said the CIA came to the conclusion --

STEWART: Again, I'm not saying you have.

COSTELLO: -- not the FBI. There is a consensus when it comes in to Russia being responsible for hacking into the DNC and into John Podesta's e-mails.

STEWART: Well, and that may be true, but there isn't a consensus --

COSTELLO: Well, according to the FBI and CIA, it's true. So in your mind, you're on the Intelligence Committee, is it true or not?

STEWART: Well, again, I'm not disagreeing with that. And I'm not saying you've reported this, although maybe you have, what I'm disagreeing with is when they say there's a consensus that the Russians wanted Mr. Trump to win. That is an example of something I'm telling you, it just isn't true. And it's an example of what I'm saying, when we politicize this, it's not helpful.

COSTELLO: OK. So talking about politicizing it, on Fox News, Sean Hannity interviewed Julian Assange. He is the founder of WikiLeaks. That's the entity that published the hacked e-mails. This is what he told Fox News. He told Fox News that he did not get any of the WikiLeaks leaked information from Russia. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN ASSANGE, FOUNDER, WIKILEAKS: Our source is not the Russian government.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: So in other words, let me be clear, Russia did not give you the Podesta documents or anything from the DNC?

ASSANGE: That's correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Congressman, some conservatives are using Assange to paint Democrats as sore losers. So do you believe American intelligence sources or Julian Assange?

STEWART: Well, that's a great question. Look, I have to be kind of careful because of what my position on the Intelligence Committee. I'll let Julian Assange speak for himself. I think, as I started out saying, we have great evidence that not only Russia but other nations are continually trying to hack or trying to steal. They're clearly going to use that to their benefit.

And it could be, as well, that it's true in both cases. It could be that Russia did attempt to hack, that they were successful.

[09:15:02] It could be Julian Assange got some of his information from another source. They're not mutually exclusive.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, here's something that -- that I think many Americans are confused about when it comes to what the president-elect is saying about Russia and how it's kind of pooh- poohing these allegations. You know, many of them grew up during the Cold War when Vladimir Putin was KGB and President Ronald Reagan was in the White House. So, why isn't the president-elect not hammering Russia for possibly interfering in an American -- they did interfere in the American election we just don't know who ordered it within Russia.

But why isn't Donald Trump freely wanting to get to the bottom of this? STEWART: Well, I think he does want to get to the bottom of this. I

don't know any evidence that all that would indicate he's not serious about trying to understand the problem here. I do think he's made comments in some sense that said you know, again, the reporting on this may not be as accurate as we would hope that it would be.

COSTELLO: So -- so which part of the reporting in your mind should Donald Trump be taking seriously?

STEWART: Again, I'm going to let Mr. Trump speak for himself, he and his spokesmen.

I think we should take all of it seriously. I think we should do it in a bipartisan and a nonpartisan manner.

Let me give you an example of some concerns I have regarding that. Sitting on the Intel Committee, we have scheduled briefs with some of the agencies. This is something we take very seriously. It's not the first time we've had hearings on this over the last few months.

We want the American people to understand what it is we're facing. And yet some of the agencies wouldn't come talk to us this week, clearly under the direction of the administration. I don't think that's helpful.

I think this is something that we should move forward as quickly as we can and when the agencies apparently won't come and talk to the Intel Committee about these concerns so that we can understand it and help to fix that -- again, I don't think that helps move this forward.

COSTELLO: Right. And you're right about that, because they said that they're doing this special investigation upon the orders of Barack Obama. And they're too busy with that to go and talk to lawmakers. You're absolutely right about that.

STEWART: And that's nuts. Of course they can do that. They can talk to us while they're working with the administration.

COSTELLO: Congressman Chris Stewart, thank you so much for being with me this morning.

STEWART: Thank you.

COSTELLO: President Obama vowing to retaliate against Russia at a, quote, "time and place of our own choosing." So, what exactly does that look like?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:53] COSTELLO: President Obama is vowing retaliation against Russia for hacking into the DNC. The president-elect accuses the CIA of undermining his election victory. And Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman is accusing the FBI of playing politics. Wow.

Let's talk about this. With me now, Larry Sabato, director of the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia, and CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem.

Welcome to both of you.

So, Larry, how did we get here?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Well, we got here because the election is still controversial after these many weeks since November the 8th. And it's pretty clear that President-elect Trump is interpreting this event that President Obama's talked about, that is the Russian hacking of the DNC and others, in political terms. He sees this, whether it is or not, he sees it as an attempt to delegitimize his election and therefore his presidency. And that's why he's reacting so strongly against it.

COSTELLO: Well, you can kind of understand that in a way, because the Electoral College, Juliette, right, some of its members are trying to get its fellow members to change their vote on Donald Trump. So, is he right? Is the investigation on the part of intelligence agencies politicized?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: No. I mean I think there's no evidence to suggest it's politicized. The only politics I think were that essentially the Russians were targeting the Democrats.

At some stage, President Trump, President-elect Trump is going to have to realize not everything is about him, and in particular, in the national security realm. People will insult him. There will be challenges to him. None of them should be taken personally.

When it comes to, right, the sanctity and integrity of our democratic process, it has nothing to do with him. And I think those of us in national security are watching this like the Russians hacked our electoral system -- or attacked the democratic process, like, let's -- let's view it as a national security issue, which it is, because as I've been saying, if you think the Russians are going to stop after 2016, dream on. There is 2018. There's 2020.

There are people and the idea that he'll always be with Trump, so to speak, is ridiculous. And it's foolish for Trump to believe so.

COSTELLO: So, is that why President Obama, Larry, has said that he's going to, you know, some form of retaliation against Russia when he's only got a month left in office and the guy who's coming in to office wants to re-establish relations with Russia. So, how does that retaliation exactly work?

SABATO: Well, you raise a very important question, Carol, because in my mind, the most important consideration is whether or not President- elect Trump and then President Trump will support whatever action President Obama's going to take before January 20th. And he has said that he is going to take some action. I assume we'll find out about I it. He's taking it before January 20th because clearly he does not have a lot of confidence that President Trump will take a similar action. He wants to do it before January 20th.

Look, there's a chance, a chance, that as Juliette was saying, that Trump will not view this quite as personally after Monday. Why? Because the Electoral College, as you mentioned, votes on Monday. I suspect, as everyone does, that all of these attempts to stop his election by the Electoral College will fail. He will therefore be without any question the incoming president.

Maybe at that point, he can pivot to the more important question, which is, as you all have been suggesting, do we allow the Russians or any foreign government or entity, to hack our elections, to hack our critical electoral and governmental institutions? I would hope everyone would say no. Whether they're Democrats, Republicans, independents, vegetarians or (INAUDIBLE)

COSTELLO: OK. So, let's say that's true, Juliette. And let's say President Obama does some retaliatory action. I just want -- what exactly would that be?

[09:25:01] KAYYEM: OK, so it is complicated. And let me just -- so first of all, and we're just reading the tea leaves here.

So, Josh Earnest has said it would be proportional. So people don't have to be worried that there's going to be a real war starting, cyber warfare both offense and defense look very different. Some of it will be overt.

And I think part of that will be just whatever we have on Putin himself. Now, that we know that he was likely tied directly to this, his financial dealings, his relationship, so to speak, and so sort of doing a sort of public shaming to the extent we can.

On the covert said that would probably involve critical infrastructure cyber networks. We have an incredible cyber attack capacity in the United States. We don't talk about it a lot. And if it was ever to be used, this would be the situation. So, a lot of it we may not know on the covert side. It would simply be a statement to Russia, which will certainly know we did it, that we are there and we are ready to pounce if they do this again.

And the question will be, will Trump continue those covert actions? But there might be, I don't want to say it's fun, but there might be some very interesting public disclosures that we have about Mr. Putin and his, you know, personal and financial dealings that will just be part of the shaming process.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll all stay tuned because we have to.

Juliette Kayyem, Larry Sabato, many thanks.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: guilty on all counts. The gunman in Charleston's church massacre could now face the death penalty. I'll talk to a victim's brother about his sister and what should happen to her killer.

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