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Sen. Mark Warner slams Trump's primetime speech_ Incredible lies · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner is with us now. He
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  Speaker 1: is Vice chair of the Senate Intel Committee. Senator Warner,
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  Speaker 1: did you hear anything that, to your ears was new tonight.
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  Speaker 2: No. As a matter of fact, before I start, I
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  Speaker 2: just as an American, not as luck an official. I
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  Speaker 2: was embarrassed that the president of the United States went
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  Speaker 2: before our whole country, and networks like yours carried this
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  Speaker 2: as news as opposed to a rehash of falsehoods. And
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  Speaker 2: it is incumbent upon you, in any responsible journalists to
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  Speaker 2: push back on these falsehoods. I've been either chairman or
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  Speaker 2: vice chairman or Intelligence Committee.
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  Speaker 1: If I mistake, if I may on that point, you.
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  Speaker 2: May just finish, sir. If I may finish, sir. If
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  Speaker 2: we don't call into question these falsehoods this president is
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  Speaker 2: trying is going to lose a free and fair election,
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  Speaker 2: and un less responsible journalists and the American people step
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  Speaker 2: up and say our system, which has stood the test
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  Speaker 2: of time, is not going to be undermined by this
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  Speaker 2: kind of falsehoods, then you know, we all will have
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  Speaker 2: to live with those responsibilities.
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  Speaker 1: Senator, what I wanted to interject is you are calling
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  Speaker 1: for context and analysis and pushback. You are on the
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  Speaker 1: show right now giving it and acting as though it's
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  Speaker 1: not happening. So I just want to underscore that the
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  Speaker 1: reason you're on is because we agree, you and I
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  Speaker 1: that this is a vitally vitally important topic and the
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  Speaker 1: president has a terrible track record on it. As we
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  Speaker 1: said at the top, and as we've been trying to
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  Speaker 1: buttress and fact check and give context and announceis for throughout.
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  Speaker 2: Where would you like me to start on the level
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  Speaker 2: of falsehood, you know, just incredible lies. Let's start with
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  Speaker 2: the initial comments about China and twenty eighteen twenty. All
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  Speaker 2: of this took place under Donald Trump's administration. His current
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  Speaker 2: CIA director was the director of National Intelligence. We have
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  Speaker 2: eighteen intelligence agencies. They all collect information from thousands of
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  Speaker 2: sources every day. Their job is to do an honest
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  Speaker 2: analysis of what's true or false. They came to a
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  Speaker 2: complete conclusion that there was While there's efforts by governments,
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  Speaker 2: he mentioned China, lot he didn't mention Russia, wolks wanted
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  Speaker 2: him to win, or Iran, which was against him. They
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  Speaker 2: try to dissemble and put out propaganda. They try to
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  Speaker 2: amplify on social media in many ways that did not
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  Speaker 2: change any votes. The efforts to try to actually interfere
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  Speaker 2: did not change any votes. That was the conclusion driven
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  Speaker 2: by the Trump administration national intelligence leaders that was presented
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  Speaker 2: to Donald Trump on January seventh. Now five and a
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  Speaker 2: half years later, he's making these baseless claims. Virtually every
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  Speaker 2: document he has cited. The Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan way,
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  Speaker 2: has seen and reviewed. If there are individual analysts talking
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  Speaker 2: to each other that were not part of a conclusion,
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  Speaker 2: we'll look at those. But the whole notion, as I
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  Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, you get thousands of inputs. The job of
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  Speaker 2: the intelligence communities put these together and come up with
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  Speaker 2: a conclusion. And what has been so just makes me
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  Speaker 2: crazy is that we've seen in this administration over the
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  Speaker 2: last year, when people speak truth to power and tell
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  Speaker 2: the truth. For example, the general that was in charge
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  Speaker 2: of the Defense Intelligence Agency and he said that, hey,
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  Speaker 2: when we first bombed ran their nuclear sites, we did
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  Speaker 2: a pretty good job, but we didn't obliterate them. As
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  Speaker 2: Trump said, he spoke the truth, he got fired. We
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  Speaker 2: obviously didn't obliterate him. Since we're still at war with Iran.
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  Speaker 2: You know, when he talks about the idea that somehow
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  Speaker 2: these countries are gathering voter files. These are publicly available.
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  Speaker 2: You don't have to hack into them, you can buy them.
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  Speaker 2: So this was I've never seen a comments like this
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  Speaker 2: from a president. And I say, it doesn't matter what party,
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  Speaker 2: that's nothing to do with party. That is so less
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  Speaker 2: connected to true than this. And if we don't step
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  Speaker 2: up and you guys, as journalists and people across the
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  Speaker 2: political aisles, stand up and say our election integrity is
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  Speaker 2: too important to mess around with, then shame on all
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  Speaker 2: of us.
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  Speaker 1: Senator, what I hear you saying on the two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty million voter files that the President says China
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  Speaker 1: has accessed is that those are public documents, and that's
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  Speaker 1: not a big deal. I hear that answer.
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  Speaker 2: On this. I can tell you this, Russia has probably
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  Speaker 2: gotten more. Iran has been doing it. Russia has done
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  Speaker 2: this much more actively for years, and I mean for
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  Speaker 2: both twenty sixteen and twenty twenty. He forgets to admit
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  Speaker 2: the fact that Russia wanted Trump to win. Ryan, to
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  Speaker 2: his credit, was against Trump. China was kind of mixed.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, this is not some great breakthrough that
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  Speaker 2: other countries and virtually every American company that tries to
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  Speaker 2: reach out to Americans buys the voter files to contact Americans.
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  Speaker 1: Senator, on the other point, the president is pushing about
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  Speaker 1: non citizens on the rolls. He extrapolates out to two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand. The actual number was twenty eight thousand,
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  Speaker 1: whatever the number is. Do you think either one is true?
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  Speaker 1: And does it concern you?
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  Speaker 2: Do I think that when people are registered to vote,
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  Speaker 2: that people are not qualified to vote. Get registered at times, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but at any level the idea you're going to extrapolate
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  Speaker 2: a number across the country and many people. There was
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  Speaker 2: a review on one of these that said, some of
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  Speaker 2: the people said there are non citizens because the vote
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  Speaker 2: the national database they use at DHS is outdated. Most
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  Speaker 2: of them actually had become citizens. So this whole obsession
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  Speaker 2: about non citizens voting, This has been reviewed by your network,
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  Speaker 2: by independent groups I believe in by Fox that have said,
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  Speaker 2: you know, does anybody slip through? But is the numbers significant?
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  Speaker 2: Does anything a change or affect any election? Show me
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  Speaker 2: any legitimate group from left to right that says that
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  Speaker 2: takes place, and the idea that somehow this is the
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  Speaker 2: part that I just would ask you to please look into.
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  Speaker 2: There were so many things, and this is the irony
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  Speaker 2: that were set up in the first Trump administration to
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  Speaker 2: protect our elections, the form Align Influence Center, Cyber Security Agency,
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  Speaker 2: the Elections Assistant Assistants Commission. Donald Trump's team and his
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  Speaker 2: second administration has dismantled all of these. Recently took the
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  Speaker 2: Elections Assistance Commission and fired the Democrats, forced the Republican
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  Speaker 2: to resign, and that group was to work with all
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  Speaker 2: of these states and their local registrars on how we
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  Speaker 2: do better protections. One of the greatest strengths of our
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  Speaker 2: system is that our elections are not nationalized. They are
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  Speaker 2: local and state run and that goes back to the Constitution,
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  Speaker 2: and that has been a strength of ours, not a weakness.
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  Speaker 1: Senator, I appreciate you coming on. I think this interview
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  Speaker 1: has been a strength of ours. Thank you for your time,
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  Speaker 1: and I know you'll be talking more tomorrow and to
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  Speaker 1: Margaret on Sunday. I appreciate it.