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Medical Workers Pushed to the Brink as COVID Hospitalization Surge; Security Officials Say Massive Hacking of U.S. Government Ongoing; Biden Vows to Impose Costs for Russian Aggression; Trump Missing in Action Amid Pandemic, Economic Crisis and Cyber Hack; Trump Tweets Support of Senator Who May Challenge Election; Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired December 18, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Thank you for that. Thank for that over and over and over again. Dr. Rob Davidson, have a good weekend, thank you, sir.

DR. ROB DAVIDSON, WEST MICHIGAN EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: Same to you.

BALDWIN: Every hour it gets bigger, a massive cyberattack against the United States. It is still ongoing. Russia is the main suspect and president Trump still silent. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will join me live next.

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BALDWIN: An alarming new alert from the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Security warning a massive cyberattack that has breached government agencies is ongoing and that the extent of the damage is still unclear.

[15:35:00]

Microsoft has identified more 40 companies, government agencies and think tanks that have these suspected hackers have infiltrated them.

And with me now is the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. And so Director Clapper, a pleasure as always to have you on. Welcome, sir.

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Nice, having me, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I was reading a ton about this obviously this morning and I loved how this one person at Axios put it, said it wasn't some cyber Pearl Harbor. Instead it's more like someone has been walking in and out of your home for months and you don't really know what they took. Can you help Americans understand just how worrisome this really is?

CLAPPER: Yes, first of all, as painful as this is for me to say, this is a huge intelligence failure. And secondly, the reason why this is of such concern is that we don't really understand the magnitude of it. To this point, as far as I know, this is strictly an espionage thing where the Russians, presumably, the SVR, their foreign intelligence service, which is very sophisticated, has gone through the entre, a conduit of one software company.

Well, one question that comes to my mind is how many other software companies might they be doing the same thing? And to this point, they haven't done any damage, which would really constitute a Pearl Harbor, and by that, I mean deleting data or, perhaps even worse, manipulating it to alter its fidelity so you can't trust it.

So this is hugely damaging and hugely disturbing. And, of course, not surprisingly, our president has been silent on this issue, and he has never in his four years as president, dimed up Putin or Russia.

BALDWIN: Two things. Number one I want to go back to what you opened with about how this was a failure. How so?

CLAPPER: Well, it wasn't detected. I don't know -- you know, has been said publicly is that this has been going on until at least last March. And, of course, we've been preoccupied with other things, the pandemic, election security, and so it was completely missed, apparently. And so that's very disturbing. And it proves a point though, about why Russia is such a profound threat still to this country, despite what you hear about China.

BALDWIN: Yes, which is exactly why, when you heard from Secretary Pompeo, you know, deflected all of this as one of the many daily attacks on the U.S. government and said emphasized precisely that, China. And as you said a second ago, you know, Trump has still said nothing. Director Clapper, what message does his silence send?

CLAPPER: Well, essentially the messages, you continue to get a pass for doing this without even being called out. Let alone what specific action might be taken in retaliation, which in itself raises all kinds of complexities. Principally because of not knowing if you retaliate in a cyber context, what will the counter-retaliation be? And that's what makes this complicated.

And you know, we're kind of out of "Schlitz" I think, with respect to sanctions. So this is a very difficult issue and the first problem is to get our arms around understanding the true magnitude of it, and I suspect it's huge.

BALDWIN: Just for Americans watching trying to wrap their heads around this, what kinds of information data would these hackers potentially have gotten their hands on?

CLAPPER: Well, even though -- I guess if there is a silver lining here, as far as I know and what's been reported publicly, this is only in unclassified networks. But I can tell you as an intelligence guy, that is potentially a gold mine. And there's all kinds of information that you can glean from that.

BALDWIN: Why? CLAPPER: Well, for example, if the NNSA, the NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY

ADMINISTRATION, which reportedly has been penetrated. Well that potentially, you know I don't know, but that potentially is quite serious if you can glean information about our nuclear stockpile, its condition, the state of repair, nuclear storage conditions, whatever that may be, well, you can glean a lot simply from reading e-mail traffic back and forth about that. And so that's just, you know, that's just one example.

I don't know the extent of the penetration of the Department of Defense. And bear in mind, I'll just repeat something I said before, this is just one software company that made a release or releases.

[15:40:00]

How many other software companies have been similarly invaded by presumably the Russian foreign intelligence service?

BALDWIN: I appreciate the tangible example when it comes to nuclear information. How about President-elect Joe Biden? He is about to inherit this massive problem. He has tasked his team to learn as much about that is humanly possible. He says he would be making cybersecurity a top priority. What do he and his team need to do about this on day one?

CLAPPER: Well, one thing is there is a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, which of course President Trump has threatened to veto, which calls for the establishment of a cyber czar or cyber director or coordinator in the White House, a position which used to exist, which was eliminated by, I believe John Bolton when he was the National Security Adviser.

So -- and the reason that's an important position is not -- this can't just be a whole government proposition, this needs to be a whole society. Because remember, 400 of the Fortune 500 companies have also been affected by this, which means in turn, defense contractors. So there needs to be a focal point at the White House that the president can point to, hold accountable for. First, ensuring that we're defended properly and then orchestrating what our response might be across the government.

BALDWIN: Speaking of former national security advisers, Director Clapper, let's talk about Michael Flynn. Right, this is a guy who President Obama even warned incoming President Trump of. So Michael Flynn has shared this ad, this video, that's called on Trump to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law so the military can hold a new election. And my question to you, simply, is, what is happening?

CLAPPER: Well, this is both crazy and dangerous. I mean, this is beyond the pale that suggests something extra constitutional about this. Let's have another election or elections until we get the result we want.

And the notion of the military running an election is crazy. And I would hope -- I would anticipate that if the military were given such an order that they would regard it as unlawful.

BALDWIN: Director Clapper, thank you for all of that, nice to have you on, sir, as always.

CLAPPER: Thanks Brooke, thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Listen, Donald Trump is still the president, so why is he playing golf a lot as thousands of Americans die every day? And staying silent, as the former National Intelligence Director just pointed out, why is he staying silent while the U.S. is under attack by hackers? We'll talk about what happens when a president refuses to do the job he's fighting to hold onto.

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[15:45:00]

BALDWIN: It has been 45 days since election day, and I want to just take a moment to recap what our president has or has not been up to?

So in the midst of a raging pandemic and economic meltdown and this Russian cyber hack that's been compared to a declaration of war, there have been 20 days with no public events at all.

Only 13 of those events were open to the press. There have been 30 official White House business events and more than half of them have been closed to the press. He has managed to do one on-camera interview for Fox News -- shock face. He has had only two public appearances where the press was able to ask questions.

And somehow, he has found the time to go golfing not once, not twice, but nine times at his own club. So what is next when he presumably leaves the White House. How about a reboot of The Apprentice? I'm not even kidding, there is a report out there that he is thinking about.

Let's discuss all of this with CNN senior political analyst Ryan Lizza and Laura Barron Lopez, national political reporter at Politico.

So welcome to both of you. And Laura, let me begin with you. What do you think Trump will do between now and January 20th?

LAURA BARRON LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: I think he's going to do what he's been doing, which is constantly tweeting about the election and upset that he's lost and repeating the false claims that he actually won the election and trying to push Republicans to help him in these efforts to overturn the election and subvert the will of the people.

There is no indication that the president is going to admit that he lost, so it appears as though from now until Biden is inaugurated, he's on the same path, which is to stomp his feet about losing the election.

BALDWIN: So what I'm hearing from you is that he will be tweeting. Ryan, this week with the Pfizer rollout and hopefully Moderna soon, why do you think we haven't seen him come out and take a victory lap?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He's tweeted a little bit about the vaccine, but you've seen Vice President Pence being much more public actually getting the vaccine with -- fully embracing it and trying to get Americans to get on board, especially a lot of people on the right where there is some skepticism about the vaccine.

[15:50:00]

So why? I mean he's obsessed with the election. He's obsessed with the fact that he lost, and all reports are he's spending his time on the phone badgering United States Senators to stage some kind of protest, you know, before the inauguration in direct contradiction to Majority Leader McConnell's instructions to Republican Senators to, you know, not engage in that kind of conduct.

So that, you know, that's where his head is. His head is how to shape the narrative about his loss into something other than a loss and sometimes farther than that. Sometimes with these legal cases and now trying to push Congress to do something. But just create an atmosphere of doubt about the election. That's all he cares about right now.

Your point about the vaccine is a good one, Brooke. He should get a lot of more credit than I think he did in the run-up to the election about the vaccine. There were a lot of skeptics that in terms of it coming out as fast as it did, myself included, but he's not a very disciplined person when it comes to messaging.

BALDWIN: Right, I mean, no. The fact is he did it. You know? It is December. Delivered this vaccine, potentially about to have another one, but I suppose maybe he doesn't want to have to answer the other questions about, you know, deaths and the failures, et cetera.

You brought up January 6th, the show that will be January 6th. So Laura here I'm going to pose a question to you. It's incredible. Because January 5th is Georgia. January 6th is what will be happening up on Capitol Hill.

And so President Trump actually lauded Tommy Tuberville after the Republican Alabama Senator-elect said he is not ruling out joining a House member to object to the election results when Congress meets in this joint session to accept the results of the electoral college. Now we know leader McConnell is discouraging anything that looks like this which as Ryan pointed out flies in the face of what Trump is encouraging. How so you see January 6th playing out?

BARRON LOPEZ: I think that we're going to see a number of House members do exactly what Trump wants and there is a possibility that Senator Tuberville will do that as well. I think the majority of Senators will probably fall in line behind McConnell and, ultimately, you know, they are going to accept the election results.

Now that being said, it still doesn't mean that what they are trying to do, the protests they are trying to stage isn't dangerous. Because it sends a signal to Trump voters, to Republicans across the country that the election wasn't legitimate. I mean the fact that the president, himself, repeats those claims

every single day doesn't help his voters accept that the election was actually run smoothly and that there was no widespread evidence of voter fraud.

BALDWIN: And Ryan, when Donald J. Trump leaves the White House, 60 seconds, what does he do next?

LIZZA: I think there is almost no doubt that he sets up a run for 2024. I don't think he will announce it immediately because that is not his style. He likes to be coy and create drama and have the press asking questions for, you know, one, two, three years. But everything -- all of the reporting I've read and done myself is that that is where his head is, as he leads the kind of anti-Biden resistance and runs again.

BALDWIN: Ryan Lizza, Laura Barron Lopez, thank you both so very much. Appreciate it.

Breaking news. That $900 billion relief deal going down to the wire. What will Congress do now?

But first, this year's CNN's Heroes, An All Star Tribute celebrating people fighting the pandemic and fighting racial inequality. Viewers also voted for the most inspiring moment of the year. Here is Anderson Cooper with your top choice.

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Sometimes a photograph can capture the mood and the attention of the world. In June, one image did just that. During protests on the streets of London, events turned violent. Black Lives Matter group was there to condemn statues of people with racist ties and many white protesters were there to protect the statues.

Things got heated. One man, Bryn Male, a white former police officer, wandered into the crowd and he started to get beat up. One of the Black Lives Matter protesters, Patrick Hutchison, saw that he was in peril. Patrick moved in, picked up the injured Bryn, carried him through the crowd to safety.

PATRICK HUTCHISON, CNN HERO: The biggest thing for me is making sure that no harm came to him because I knew if harm had come to him, then the narrative would just be changed and then the blame would fall on the young Black Lives Matter protesters. We made sure we got him out of the safely.

[15:55:00]

COOPER: Patrick, a father and grandfather, hopes that everyone who sees the image understands that the responsibility to do the right thing resides in all of us.

HUTCHISON: We just want equality for all races, for all people, but right now we are the ones who seem to be the oppressed ones and it's about time things were changed, you know, the world over.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: You can watch CNN Heroes, An All-Star Tribute any time on CNNgo.

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