Transcript: Sen. Mark Warner on "Face the Nation," July 28, 2019
The following is a transcript of the interview with Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia that aired Sunday, July 28, 2019, on "Face the Nation."
MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee Virginia Senator Mark Warner, he joins us from King George, Virginia. Good to have you with us Senator, Mick Mulvaney says the White House--
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Thank you, Margaret
MARGARET BRENNAN: --has taken steps to improve election security. Why do you think that's insufficient?
SEN. WARNER: Well respectfully I disagree with Mick. We did do a better job in 2018, but don't take my word for it take Special Prosecutor Mueller who said the Russians are attacking us literally every day. Take the president's own FBI director, Chris Wray, take the president's own director of national intelligence who all warned that the Russians will be back and I think there's some common sense things that would get 75 votes if they could get to the floor of the Senate. For example, if a if the Kremlin or a foreign government tries to intervene and offer you dirt on an opponent, the obligation ought to be not to say 'thank you' as the president floated a month or so ago, but the obligation ought to be tell the FBI. Let's make sure, secondly, that every polling station in America has a paper ballot backup, so in case that machine was hacked into the integrity of your votes will still be counted. And third, let's make sure we've got some rules of the road for Facebook, Twitter, Google, social media so there's not the ability to have foreign agents and bots manipulate Americans let's have appropriate disclosure. Let's have privacy. And candidly this administration has stopped every election security legislation from coming to the floor and they've been supportive in that effort by the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to read from the Senate Intelligence Committee report that you were part of releasing and it was bipartisan. It said Russia likely targeted election infrastructure in all 50 states. The first known breach was in July 2016 in Illinois, where Russian cyber actors scan state election systems. They were in a position to delete or change voter data. The report does say some progress has been made, but the threat is imperfectly understood. Given the level of detail that you have seen, how secure do you think America's election actually is?
SEN. WARNER: Well, DHS has upped its game. I'll give them credit there. But what we're hearing from attorney generals and secretaries states across the country is they need more help. What we're hearing is that there needs to be that paper ballot backup. Well who could be against that? What we are hearing is the manipulation they're using through Facebook and Twitter and in the fake bot accounts i's something that pits American against American. And I just don't get why this president wouldn't be willing to say let's make sure that our elections are secure in 2020. We saw it with the Russians last time but this playbook is now out there and other adversaries Iran and others could use exactly the same tools going forward.
MARGARET BRENNAN: As you mentioned Special Counsel Robert Mueller did testify this week. He spoke about the threat from Russia. He also spoke about the entire report that he put together over two years. And now the House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler is talking about trying to get evidence that the Special Counsel had gathered. Some of this requires potentially going down the impeachment proceeding route. Well what do you think is actually achieved by getting a hold of some of this material? Do Democrats need it?
SEN. WARNER: Well I think the Speaker- Speaker Pelosi is actually managed this pretty well. I'm less focused on relitigating 2016, more focused on trying to make sure our elections are safe in 2020. But I- I- one of the things are- and I'm very proud of the fact that the Senate Intelligence Committee is the only bipartisan entity two and a half years later that has hung together, continues our investigation. And what we--
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you wouldn't want or need--
SEN. WARNER: --need is- what we need- what we need--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --this information from Mueller?
SEN. WARNER: What we need, Margaret, what we need is the counter intelligence evidence because our investigation is a counterintelligence investigation. The counterintelligence evidence that Mueller had so that we can better lay out to the American people how we can protect ourselves going forward because clearly the Russians track record in 2016, not only in America but in other nations where they've tried to intervene in the democratic process, is effective. It's cheap and they'll be back.
MARGARET BRENNAN What do you think was accomplished by having a Special Counsel testify this week? Do you think that it politically backfired for Democrats particularly those who want to go ahead with impeachment?
WARNER: I'll- I'll let the commentators make the judgment there. I think the more that- and I think Mueller was effective at laying out the four corners of the report. I think the report in many ways does speak for itself, particularly about the ongoing threat. I mean, Americans need to realize our- our democracy- again, I don't care whether you're a Trump supporter or a Trump opponent, but all of us across the political spectrum should be concerned when foreign nations try to tip the balance in our democratic process to whatever candidate. We all ought to be concerned when foreign government agents uses the internet to try to misrepresent- misrepresent them- themselves as Americans and pit each other against- pit one American against the other and we need to do more to be protected in 2020.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You repeatedly state in the report that there was no evidence that actual votes were changed but it also says that the committee and the intelligence community's insight is pretty limited. So how confident can you actually be- can America be that its democracy wasn't altered?
WARNER: Well I think what the Russians did in 2016 was they were basically trying to jiggle the windows or try to open the doors and they found when they went into our voting systems that we were horribly unprotected. And in- in many ways I think we were lucky that they didn't take advantage of some of the opportunities that we pointed out in our report. I don't think we can count on ourselves being lucky again in 2020 and in many cases what a foreign government can do, they don't need to change vote totals. If they simply move thousands of people from one precinct to another, you would have chaos on Election Day. And one of the reasons why I think we also need to go not only at the voting districts, but there are three companies that control 90 percent of all the voter files in this country. We need to make sure those companies have appropriate security in place as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you going to vote for this budget deal this week?
WARNER: I'm glad we're not going to have anybody trying to bring down the full faith and credit of the United States of America. I'm glad that the military and key domestic spending programs around education got some additional dollars. But I am concerned with a country with 22 trillion in debt that we've added another two trillion with this deal. And at some point leaving our kids with that kind of balance sheet doesn't make sense so I'm still evaluating it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No decision yet. Thank you very much, Senator Warner--
WARNER: No decision yet.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be back in one minute with Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro.
