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good afternoon and welcome to the policy center here at hudson institute. i am ken weinstein, president and ceo of hudson institute. hudson is a policy research organization dedicated to international leadership and international engagement for secure, free and prosperous future. i'd like to welcome our audience and our c-span viewing audience and i'm truly honored to welcome a remarkable public servant and a truly good friend of hudson institute to be with us. director of national intelligence dan coats served with great distinction as a member of the house and senate from indiana as well as the u.s. ambassador to germany during a long career in public service, he has twice failed

retirement once returning to the u.s. senate for a second time in the senate after his term as ambassador to germany and then becoming director of national intelligence. along distinguished career focused both on domestic policy and the compassionate conservative agenda and true leadership on national security issues. before he left for germany he and his wife transferred the governance of their foundation for american renewal to hudson institute. now, in the trump administration they been entrusted with the job of deep responsibilities and challenges. it serves as the head of the intelligence community.

[inaudible] he is in town and when he's in town to do the presidential daily brief with senior members of the intelligence community, we are truly honored to have him with us. he's going to make remarks on a number of critical issues including russian cyber security in the u.s. and abroad and do so on the eve of the historic summit in helsinki between president trump and vladimir putin. the order of the business will be offering remarks from the podium and engaging in a discussion with hudson institute with walter russell mead and he needs to introduce introduction.

[inaudible] without any further ado let me welcome director coats to the hudson institute podium. [applause] >> can, thank you very much. it's nice to be here. we enjoyed hudson presence in indiana for a time, the former omb director mitch daniels became governor of indiana. in the meantime bailey word hudson to come to the middle of the country to get a different perspective perhaps somewhat we get on the coast. you were there for a number of years and had the privilege of working with people. we understand why you came back here and a lot of that is what happens here.

some of your employees might be missing the ease of living and cost-of-living, not to mention the commute to work. nevertheless it's very nice to be able to be here with you and lay some groundwork for one of the top challenges we face in terms of threat to our country. our people and processes. before i sit down with walter, i'd like to focus on the growing threat to our nation's security. i think to put it in the context of the current cyber

threat in terms of the threats we've had in historical context and define who is most responsible and what are they attempting to do and then discuss the intelligence community's response to that. each morning when i get up i'm given a roundtable of news of what happened while i was asleep or what happened yesterday from around the world. almost without fail the longest section of this news roundup is on cyber issues. detailing multiple reports of cyber attacks and alerts. this issue affects all of us and is increasingly affecting numerous aspects of our daily lives. all you need to go back less than two decades ago to put the current cyber threat into proper context. in 2001 it was heightened because of these approaches of

our intelligence and law enforcement communities that produce what they call silos of information. at the time intelligence and law-enforcement communities were identifying alarming numbers that suggested an attack was coming, potentially in the united states. it was in the months prior to september 2001 when according to then cia director the system was blinking red and here we are two decades, nearly two decades later and i'm here to say the warning lights are blinking red again. today the digital infrastructure is literally under attack. every day foreign actors, russia, china, iran, north korea, every day they are penetrating our infrastructure

and conducting a range of cyber intrusions and attacks against targets in the united states. the targets range from u.s. businesses to the federal government including our military, state and local governments, academic and financial institutions and elements of our critical infrastructure just to name a few. these attacks come in different forms. some are tailored to achieve very tactical goals while others are implemented for strategic purpose including possibility of a crippling cyber attack against our critical infrastructure. but all of these desperate efforts share a common purpose to exploit openness in order to undermine our long-term competitive advantage. in regard to state actions russian has been the most aggressive foreign actor, no

question. think there may have been some confusions on what we were seeing now compared to what we saw in 2016 because the department of homeland security noted we are not yet seeing the kind of electoral interference in specific states and in voter databases that we experience in 2016. we are just one click of the keyboard away from a similar situation repeating itself. we are seeing aggressive attempts to spread propaganda focused on hot button issues intended to exacerbate sociopolitical divisions. despite public statements by the kremlin to the contrary,

we continue to see individuals affiliated with the st. petersburg -based internet research agency creating new social media accounts, masquerading as americans and then using these accounts to draw attention to divisive issues. we have learned just before this meeting the indictment of 12 russian military intelligence officials relative to their role in 2016, but focusing on the potential impact of these actions and they are meant to undermine democracy on a daily basis whether it's election time or not they are exploring vulnerabilities in our infrastructure as well. dhs and fbi, incoordination

with international partners detected russian government actors in the nuclear, water and critical manufacturing sectors. the warning signs are there. the system is blinking and that's why i believe we are at a critical point. today, unlike the status of our intelligence community in 2001, we are much more integrated and better at sharing information between agencies, but the evolving cyber threat is illuminating new daily challenges in how we treat information. we are dealing with information silos of different kind, including between the public and private sector, but here's the good news. as i previously mentioned, the intelligence community today is more integrated than it has ever been and we are sharing

information across agencies at all levels. in regard to the midterms, were partnering with dhs and fbi to provide support, information and grants to state election officials from all 50 states. we will continue to look for opportunities to support this effort. in regard to the larger cyber threat issue, the president has signed an executive order and critical infrastructure. the task of whole of government risk authorized the use of all available tools of state power including attribution, criminal indictments economic levers to punish malicious cyber actors. our leaders at the national security council consider this is a top priority. we are continuously pursuing actions on this issue. as you know we are in a transition. with the nsc, but i've had

numerous talks with our new national security advisor and members of the nsc relative to the importance of raising this to a top issue and they are doing so. within the government we are working continuously to detect, warn and when necessary, respond to cyber threats. we have a multi agency cyber threat intelligence integration center that builds in the understanding to inform decision-makers. the department of homeland security and the fbi are demonstrating leadership on the threat and of applying a more federal response as we have just seen today. my former colleagues in the house and senate are bringing significant attention to the threat from cyber and expressed strong support for legislative action. having said that, we have to do better and what we deliver to our customers, how we get it to them in the speed by

which we receive it. to today those cost-cutting threats have been eliminated, how rigid we still act when it comes to public discourse. respected self-interest of the government, the private sector and the public have created independence rather than complementary lines of effort and awareness. as a result we need to think differently about our customers. in many ways the nature of the threat requires that we, the national security community treat the private sector and american people as intelligence customers. that is why you will see us talking about this threat more vocally and why you will continue to see us publish unclassified assessments and statements to inform the american people. everyone, if we are to succeed in dealing with this threat, must take ownership of the challenge. it will take the government, the private sector and the

american people all doing their part to better position our country for the future. as a government, we are having a more open dialogue about this threat. in particular, we in the icy need to provide the information available to us to the private sector into the public to better inform their decision-making and we need the private sector to see the public good in developing greater protections in the software, information systems and applications on the market. we also need the american people to verify the credibility of the sources of information upon which they base their decisions. whether those sources are social media reports, cable news, or newspapers, it is essential that we all apply critical thinking to all sources of information. this evolution is part of the transformation which we are

driving throughout the icy in coming years. we have brought together experts and leaders from across the intelligence community's to take stock of where we are and what we must do to reach the next level of effectiveness. the results of this effort which brought together the heads and deputies of all the intelligence community agencies, all 17 is a new vision for the future of the intelligence community. we call it intelligence community 2025. where we need to be. what kind of capabilities do we need to have. in terms of the threats that we face. we are putting together significant efforts to stay ahead of the game, head of the curve to deliver to our customers starting with the president, working through his policymakers for both the

private and government sector. with that, what i would like to do is, at this particular time, thank you for the invitation, we hope you and jen we know we will have hopefully will have a good discussion about this that need to be addressed, and i would much rather do that than continue to talk appear even though as a former senator, we love to talk. thank you all very much. i have to say, that is one of the most dramatic comparisons i've heard a senior leader make thing the warning indicators now are comparable

to what they were in the months leading up to 911. different threat, but it's there. presumably we are looking at anything from major attacks on infrastructure to massive attacks on the electronic communication. >> we are and it's not just from the states that identified. we see this from the organizations for nefarious purposes are using cyber. we see this from nonstate actors from terrorist groups and criminal groups, we see this from hackers around the world, we see this as a game or just for the hell of it take something down and break into defense break into wall street, on and on to kids in

the basement or sitting in a dorm, it is pervasive. the real threats, sophisticated threats come from the states that have the capabilities and resources to be able to create great damage. >> in terms of having the resources to develop the new tool, to have the ability to adapt with agility, to up their game, in a sense of the game of whack a mole or chess where you put, you see a threat and you put in a prevention but the threat then moves over, the source moves over here, you stop it there and try to get over here and you see that across the board.

at the 247, 365 day effort in terms of protecting your people. >> when you read the news and listen to what people say, it's one story after another one sensitive american database getting some of the real crown jewels of our community being taken over. that makes me wonder how defensive are we and are weakening some of the stuff ourselves and not talking about all of our successes? is the cyber universe simply a story of american secrets being stolen on a math basis to make its broader than that but we have capabilities, significant capabilities. i've been to a number of our cyber operation centers. we have the resources and the capabilities. i don't think anybody's better

than we are, nevertheless, the range of vulnerabilities is out there because the technology is advancing so rapidly and as i said, this game of chess, we make a move to protect us or to identify, they make a move to go around. we have to be aware of that and never be complacent about what we have now, where we are, because there's people out there trying to avoid where the offense enjoys defense. >> i've got a lifetime of watching nfl football games going to prevent defense, a field goal you're up on point and you go into prevent defense and opens up all kinds of holes and the other thing you know the other team kicks

the goal. it's so frustrating. if you just rely on defense to win. that's why when i was in the senate and now i continue, my job is different now, i don't do policy but i continue to support and encourage an offense of capability. anybody who knows what pushback is, more than donald trump, we need to approach punch back in the right way if were going to send the right signal to people. there is a price to pay. you come after us and there is a price to pay. the less you do that, the more people are encouraged to staff got nothing to lose. i think combining offensive measures with defensive measures is necessary to deal with this issue. the constitution does

expressly provide for letters of marque and reprisal. >> that's in the cyber seas. of these four countries that you mentioned, russia, china, north korea and iran, were you giving that in the order of their capabilities? >> yes, but maybe from different perspectives. china has different capabilities that perhaps russia doesn't have, but they don't have the same intense, what's serious about the russians is their intent. they have capabilities but it's their intent to undermine our basic values, undermine democracy, create wedges between us and our allies and we've seen this, the indictment today shows exactly what they're trying to do or what they have done to their military intelligence, relative to election. we see the ongoing efforts,

it's not, it's the strategy. china wants to steal our stuff. they want to build technology, they want to try to change our vision of china and its intention but not the same kind of means that the russians use. you have to put those two in context. iran and north korea, north korea, were sort of at a pause, were not a pause, but rather point where let's see where these negotiate engine negotiations go relative, with iran they just take all kinds of malicious activity with ballistic missiles and feeding terrorism and on and on.

cyber is somewhat limited because their economy is not doing well. they may be spread, probably in the order, but the top two, there there everyday. >> in cyber and in other things, have you observed any difference in north korea's behavior since the singapore summit. >> i can't get into the classified parts of what we see, it's always been a hard target, we have significantly upped our game for this purpose. reagan was trust and verify, that's what i came to congress with. right now i'm the verify guy.

it's the verify community. we are focusing on what is happening and now subsequent to the talks, but were at the beginning of this and we will continue to evaluate it. obviously north korea is probably trying to figure out, okay, were at the beginning of negotiations so i'm not just going to give up the ship right now. we will see how that plays out but it's too early to determine definitively that this is where they're going to end up. >> nothing really dramatic. >> there's been some reporting, some of it has not been accurate, some of it has been accurate. there are some continuing activities, but some of those that have been reported have not been verified.

>> let's get back to the election and operations. it seems to me that social media is one of the things, if we look at 2016 where disinformation -- >> i think i noted that in my remarks. it's very prevailing i and sophisticated. who would've thought that isis, using the seventh century barbarian measures of imposing physical harm on people would be so sophisticated and also using cyber to recruit and train and still inspire the defeat in the desert which has not a resulted in the defeat of

terrorist organizations. we see them spread around the world and it still remains a terrorist threat. social media is one of the ways in which they continue to raise money, recruit, train, inspire and we have to be aware of that. go to social media companies and you say your platform is being targeted and used by these different groups, do you get the cooperation you think you need from these companies? >> we have the obligation to learn and we do. we are in the process of working with social media companies in terms of taking responsibility to what they put out, we've had some successes, we've had some interactions which haven't been as successful as we would like. we will continue to do that,

but there's a lot of brand protection, if we do that in our competitors don't then were at a disadvantage. we tried it talk about the responsibility relative to their commitment to help us address these threats to keep our people safe. >> there's a real range in response, pretty solid positive. what's interesting to me, we only collect against foreign intelligence. we know a lot less than some of our social media outlets. >> google moses better than the federal government. >> in a way i feel good, in a way i feel bad, i'm not quite sure how i feel about that.

you are saying that there is sort of trying to polarize us and magnify differences. this reminds us of what the communists used to do with the propaganda technique but i think some of our younger members of the audience may not know what this is all about. if you could explain to them. >> with no walking down we thought this would be a new reset. for a. of time it was a different relationship then russia reached out and said maybe we've gone too far, when we go as the guy who ran the key bg, kgb. that was a game changer. i described it as the russian

bear after the fall of the wall went into the cave into hibernation. he's out of the cave and hungry. he's clawing for more territory more influence and using same tactics that we saw in the cold war and more. the more results in a lot of that in cyber. >> it's interesting during the cold war they had the advantage of communist parties and networks of supporters around the world. they don't quite have that although they seem to be trying to rebuild boil parties and factions, but it looks like on balance with the cyber tools they've actually, they can actually do a better job than the soviet union could of this kind of information and propaganda. >> are good at lying, propaganda, deception, seating dissension among adversaries.

the president made some comments about nato and closing comments were ones i really thought were important because if nato comes unglued vladimir putin wins. he's trying to seize that potential opportunity and i think we need to stand up against that. >> the pattern is not so much that the russians are supporting one side or another in a political battle, sometimes it may do that with her trying to get both sides more divided. >> whether that's their method , that's what they succeeded in doing. it's really was designed as a strategy and they've had some success. >> what can we do to counter

this? >> transparency, i talked my colleagues in different nations, particularly in europe, the more we provide our people with what we know the russians are doing, the more we can inform our public not to just believe, take for granted what's put out in the media is truth, we need more critical thinking. we are barraged by media, by breaking news, by news outlets rushing to be the first because if we don't do it three others will do it in our ratings will go down in their ratings will go up. there's no filter between information that comes into the system, there's no editor as we used to have in the paper. there's no one sitting thing we need to run this by the

boss. it will be too late to do that. we want the news now. we want to access it on our iphone right away so we have to inform our people just don't believe everything you hear out there. we are agencies that seek the truth. we can't shaded. we can politicize it, but the truth is what it is. it's just the facts. i think our public needs to gain some ability to ask questions and seek verification before we jump to conclusions and rush to the camera to say i just heard this and the next day, on page 13, that was not exactly what should've been done.

>> if you had a chance to speak with mr. pruden at this sort of crucial. in u.s. russian relations, what would you say to vladimir putin? >> my message would be we know what you're doing and we know you know what you're doing and what we are doing so look, if your goal is to strengthen russia in the proper way, we can cooperate with you but if your goal is to strengthen russia and be a paranoid nation thinking anytime in the next 24 hours were to take over russia and is paranoia about democracy, were not going to get anywhere. isn't it best for both sides to a sickly say, instead of taking down, why don't we

build up, but the decision is up to you. we know you run the shots. we know you're making the decision. you can't pass it off to some hacker down somewhere where we don't know. we know what you do. you make the choice. if you want to stay in this, we will be used. >> that's ronald reagan basically saying you want to take a fun, okay, we will thriving we got into it. then you make a decision. they made a decision and outdid us. we have the capacity to do that. >> you get from the disinformation more information. you hear a lot of anxiety

about the american, whether it's voting machines or other elements of the voting process in the midterms, how confident can we be that were defending the security of our political system. >> we have to be confident because if we can have confidence, when you walk in to the poll, then undermines their democracy. >> it sounds like a strategic goal. it has to be solid 50 state, little what happen down to florida on one area of one county. that thrust into a constitutional crisis. think what happened today if we find out one state that

might've been the critical state. >> in control of the senate and house. >> we are providing grants, we are looking at those who provide the machines, were trying to back it up with paper so we have redundancy on it. we just need to throw everything added to ensure the american people were doing everything possible to make it a fair election and not massaged by anybody from the outside. as you look at the progress were making in the obstacles that remain, do you feel that on the whole were on track to have a safe and secure election. >> i think we can see in a bipartisan way in the house

and senate, we see the executive branch stepping up in time, we see the states reaching out for help, we have to ensure, do everything we can to ensure our public that their vote counts. >> has been some reports of different independent groups monitoring states readiness for the election. there seem to be a wide gap in some states where looking pretty good, some other states, including the state of the hanging chad seem to be a bit behind. >> we got to get them up-to-date before the election but we need to ensure. >> people we work with all 50 states and we are ready. >> are the laggards doing better at this point? >> i think they are. nobody wants to be, nobody wants to be the one that takes a down because they didn't have their act together. we are hearing that. we work with fbi, dhs, our

intelligence communities and we worked with all 50 states. it's ongoing, it's going to have to keep on going right up until the day of the auction. >> what you're hearing back from congress and others is your sense of, bipartisan basis, people in washington think the work you're doing is sufficient. >> and think were seeing that. republicans are teeing up with democrats both in the senate and house to ensure. >> this would certainly be a key. what really worries you most when you think about scenarios that might unfold based on the

unrivaled exposure you have on the threats that the country faces. what are the things that really keep you up at night. do you ever sleep? >> restless sleep sometimes. when you think about 911, two planes flying into another, if either one of those planes for all three of them had any kind of weapon of mass destruction we would be talking about depths in the 300,000 or 3 million or more. preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly in groups, terrorist groups under any

state control have a theology or an ideology that victory is killing the opposition, whether by its beheading or through nuclear device, that's one. the second is frankly in cyber 911, think about new england, in january, the grid going down those three days. a lot of people are going to suffer and die. think about taking away a hit on the banks, lifetime savings are wiped out we don't know where it came from. we don't know where the money is, and on and on.

you do toss and turn at night about scenarios that you hope will never happen. >> in your view, is the intelligence community as a whole getting the kind of resources and support that it needs to do the job it needs to be done? >> we are. thanks to this administration and the congress, we have really upped our anti- and we have been provided the resources we need to do and we have some terrific capabilities. we have some innovative people, we have some young people who come, i'm a liberal arts major. i should not be in the operational success of cyber or technology. fortunately, we've hired a lot of really capable smart people, a lot of young people coming in and have technological and stem capabilities that i never even dreamed of.

every visit i make and i make a lot to our various agencies and their components, so impressed with the technical capabilities we have. were an innovative country, democracy and freedom produces some great stuff if it's done the right way. >> thank you director. and of a chicago senator, and director, investor, thank you for the work we did been doing. i think every buddy here and on television appreciate the importance of what you do and wishes you every possible success. >> i would say something but i came across this article a couple days ago about what maybe people are thinking about donald trump's on otterbox foreign-policy and it ends with we should brace ourselves for a wild ride. guess who wrote that. walter russell mead, wall street journal a couple days ago. i highlighted it and cut it

out. it's a pleasure to be with you. great to be back and hudson. thanks for asking me too be here. i know the director has to get out quickly as you can imagine his schedule is packed so if the audience could sit while he leaves quickly to get on to whatever he's doing next, i don't think he can tell us what he's doing next, but thank you again for coming. we really appreciate it. [applause] as he leaves, i just want to thank everybody in hudson. meeting together, it's a terrific opportunity and an honor for us and we hope the folks watching this in streaming enjoyed it and were sorry we couldn't take questions from the audience, but i did my best to channel what i hope are the questions on most people's mind. thank you very much.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] earlier today deputy attorney

general rod rosenstein announced that special counsel robert muller has indicted 12 russian intelligence officers in the 2016 hacking. he is overseeing the special counsel investigation. you can see his news conference starting at eight eastern. the president will meet with vladimir putin. they are expected to meet privately with only translators present. watch c-span for updates on the u.s. russia summit and follow all our coverage online at c-span.org. current and former elected officials spoke to the group new democracy you can see this event tonight at nine eastern

on c-span2, online at c-span.org and listen with the free c-span radio app. bret cavanaugh, the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia is president trump's nominee for the supreme court. follow the confirmation process on c-span as the judge meet with key senators on capitol hill followed by senate confirmation hearings and the vote. watch live on c-span. watch anytime on c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app sunday night on "after words", cnn political commentator amanda carpenter discusses her book gas lighting america, why we love it when trump lies to us. she is interviewed by new york daily news at the cup. >> and then suspends. he hates suspense. >> i have investigators going to hawaii. there's a report coming soon.

he suggested that the videotape coming. let's see what he has to say. spoiler alert, and never comes out. >> then he selected the tractor to attack. >> yes productive.people come out to say we think implying. i'm not lying. other people are just talking about this but i'm just looking into it. he starts zoning in on anybody who pops up, loser, crazy, if you can find a target to start scapegoating and have a fight, that's when it really create that dynamic. >> finally he declares victory. >> wiki did with the press conference at the trump hotel, everyone command, i'm going to have a major announcement. he's about to look at my beautiful brand-new hotel and he essentially said yes he's a citizen, i cleared it up but

she started and i finished it. victory. >> watch "after words" sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2 put tv. >> former defense secretary and cia director leon pannetta and director of national intelligence spoke about the future of democracy around the world at an event hosted by the washington post. also foreign policy analyst talk about threats to democracy in countries around the world. >> good morning. thank you for joining us. i'm jennifer lee, director of events at the washington