we're working hard to ensure that either liberal western democracy and democratic systems were going to evolve and emerge or communist systems. so i think the success of us administrations engaged in a lot of activities whether it be propaganda or whatever to try to boost the prospects of governments and both parties and politicians were sympathetic to the western democratic model. i do think us administrations and the us government has matured and respects as well in terms of seeing that this

exploitation of the electoral system and process is antithetical to democratic values and certainly when i was in the government and when i was in those circles in a white house situation or anywhere else i really believed and argued strenuously against doing anything that is inconsistent with all those democratic values and ideals that we espoused globally. and i do believe that the truth is more powerful than misrepresenting the facts. i believe, now talking about what the situation was until i left january government in january 2017 i don't know what the trump administration is doing and how it's operating on the global stage but certainly during the obama and bushadministrations those discussions that i was

involved in , there was never an effort to try to influence the outcome of a free andfair election . we tried to strengthen the ability of government to hold elections. that's certainly true and trying to increase voter turnout but not trying to advance the interests of a potential outcome of one candidate or another. i do think the global situation has changed now compared to the post-world war ii climate and i'd like to think that again until january 2017 the administrations i worked with and for saw that it was best to allow these electoral policies to play out >> thank you sir and i think it's interesting, david writes one of the comments you made is something david

quotes from you in his book as well about the truth being more powerful and that you were among several who were staunch opponents of the idea of using disinformation to counter russia's own efforts and i think it's an important concept because in a lot of conversations on the policy side that we hear about countering foreign interference or countering disinformation, i think sometimes the tendency because it's a natural want it to say why don't we do the same thingback ? and i think you made a very eloquent and critical point about how the values and principles of democracy need to be guiding not only our response our entire approach to engaging foreign democratic processesand principles . >> yes, i think it's important for the united states to remember that we are fighting for our principal and the democratic foundations that this country was built upon and we should never stoop to using the

tactics of other countries. where whether where fighting the russians or fascism, modern day, whether where fighting authoritarian ethics i think we have quite a few quivers in our bow that we can use and not sway from those basic principles and ideals that i think makes this country truly what it aspires to be is a beacon of freedom and liberty and one is built on ideals and that's why being dishonest on the world stage, being dishonest anywhere is so counterproductive and that's why i'm particularly dismayed by what i see happening recently . >> i think david talks in the book about the russian goal in sowing discord in the social media space and the

information worker space, what we cease from russia attempts not only to so false narratives and so discord undermine the very idea of truth and i think that's an important point that you just made about the need for us to double down on truth as something that we are seeking to protect and advance and not allow it tobe undermined . david, on a related point one of the things you discussed in your book is why us democracy promotion efforts are different from election interference and in previous work that i've done i laid out three key distinctions and i'd be interested in your reactions. the first is that promotion engages in other countries openly and transparently and secondly democracy support is made available to parties across the political spectrum if their debt etiquette into the democratic process and us policy tried to give people a

voice in determining their country's future so us democracy promotion is about strengthening the democratic process while foreign interference is about subverting it. does that match up withthe conclusions from your book and your findings ? >> it does and it marks our evolution of foreign-policy in the sense that as director brennan said during the cold war the existential threat was an ideology so the strategy was to contain ideology and using covert action to prop up anti-communist candidates or democratic candidates so there was a logical caseto be made that that was what we should be doing . in the post cold war period evolved to strengthening them democracies and one of the people i interviewed was president bill clinton who said he'd much prefer using organizations like nbi, us democracy promotion to shore up electoral processes over electoral action for a couple of reasons, one being that

which is public can be dramatically outed . it's open so there's no failure of cost and the point is it visible. you know what america is doing, you know what america is doing to achieve its objectives which is to make sure countries can hold able, free and fair elections which contrasts with the russian objective which is to degrade my pursuit, undermine democracy and there is that parallel between our objective of strengthening versus theirs of undermining it which is an important point that other folks i was able to interview were the president of montenegro who they attempted to assassinate as well as the former president of columbia who said his elections are under siege to two undermine democracy so the reason why from my perspective promoting democracy makes sense in our current environment as it helps to mitigate the

effectiveness of the russian effort to teardemocratic systems down by subverting their elections . >> really interesting and director brennan, the point that david raised about other countries , they are also facing russian tactics . i think in the us we have a tendency in our american exception list ways, i think the challenges we face are exceptional to us but in fact this is not a challenge that is acceptable to us whether putin's russia has been engaging in these tactics across the european stage as well as in other parts of the world, i think just like david noted at the top he felt that we needed to understand the history in which russia's operation was occurring and it's also important to understand the broader global context in which these tactics are playing out. and so i'd be interested in your reflections on both what you've seen in terms of russian interference in other

countries as well as its, if we need to be doing more to work with our partners and allies just as we would on any traditional security threat to actually put together more of a coalition effort aroundprotecting the sanctity of our democracy . >> just like the russians and soviets before them try to influence elections for many decades been similarly engaged in that effort on a global scale, the global stage and i would argue there in fact more active in other countries and they are in the united states and that's one of the things, for many years i was looking at attracting because the russians really would like to effects the outcomes of elections and political challenges in other countries so that they can have in those countries governments and politicians and individuals who would be

more sympathetic to russian policy goals and objectives. i don't think the russians like to roll over borders with tanks and troops. the ukraine is a different case but to the extent they can influence the outcome of elections so that they have sympathetic politicians who are going to be in government so that they can get them to support maybe a lessening of sanctions against russia , and to support areas russian initiatives at the un or other places, this is a very active russian effort. whether or not you're talking about europe or africa or asian, to influence the outcome of these political elections or political struggles so that people will rise to the top who are going to either by design or just by happenstance be the ones to support russian initiatives.

so russia uses a lot of different tactics whether it's money that goes to their preferred candidates, sending out propaganda, this information. to denigrate the process for candidates they want tolose an election so it's very active . we have talked with a lot of our partners over the years and i was involved in a number of discussions with my foreign counterparts about the tactics that the russians use so i think there needs to be greater awareness. i know i'm focused on russia right now i would say it's not limited to russia as far as the opportunities for a number of foreign countries, governments and services to try to influence the outcome of those electoral systems. >> that actually is a point i want to come back to. but we're seeing from other actors, particularly i think

authoritarian regimes to find this toolkit to be particularly appealing. whether it is the outcome of an election or simply to undermine and weaken the democratic foundations of their competitors as a means of weakening us from within. it seems to me this is a toolkit that is proliferating although i think there are distinctions among different actors based on their long-term strategies which i'd like to unpack that we will come back to that in a moment . sort of sticking with the history point of this for another couple minutes, one of the interesting conclusions for me that you reached is that even during the cold war there was a difference in the us and soviet tactics when it came to covert electoral interference.

that us tactics were more rooted in the democratic process itself even when seeking to pervert it when the soviet approach was about corrupting activities that had little to do with the democratic process . he wrote this covert electoral tactics reflect the states that execute them and in particular you point to the different domestic experiences of intelligence agencies so i'd be interested if you could talk a little bit about why you found that to be the case and then doctor price, given your background i'd also ask you to reflecton this particular point as well . >> sure, so i would say there are sort of two key differences in the soviet and russian and american approach to covertelectoral interference . the first as you've been talking about is that russia's move towards this practice in the coast cold war period is america has moved away from it with certain exceptions and the second core experience has to do with the systemic objectives and tactics underlying them and across

time soviet systemic objectives and russian objectives of covert electoral interference is to tear down democracy. the first soviet operations to do this sort of thing in 1919 were with the express purpose of vladimir lenin to topple democratic systems and abolish national borders and create some sort of communist international utopia. the idea was to undo democratic system through lies and deceit and disinformation, through blackmail and distortion, those kind of methods that extend across decades . the genesis of ci covert action to interfere in elections was to preserve a democratic system. it was in italy because eastern european states had fallen to communism as winning rigged elections undid their democracy so harry truman authorized the cia to help christian democrats win in italy and prevent those operations and in those operations you saw things like orchestrated

voter registration drives, get out the vote efforts. making sure campaigns new how to influence the masses in effective ways. in campaigning and tactics that mirrored what campaigns do in the united states. the point is the cia's and was hidden whereas interviewed a former kgb general and what they described was figuring out how to figure out what someone's vulnerabilities work and to blackmail them into doing what they wanted in relation to an election and that's different in what i found the cia's approach to be so even when we were in this game the systemic objectives differ which is just one of the reasons why anyone who in my opinion is to say there is an equivalency between america and russia here is totally missing the ball in various respects, one of which being that we approached this idea in pretty different ways and the lines we've been willing to cross differed across time . >> doctor brennan, i'd invite

any reflections on this as well. >> i guess we are all hostage to the prison we look at the world through and i'm sure there's a similar discussion going on right now in moscow about what's happened since world war ii in perspectives of who's right, who's wrong, who is the good guys or bad guys and i agree our efforts since world war ii have been trying to preserve and strengthen democracy. i do think the united states over the years as engaged in certain types of unsavory tactics or practices that were justified because the end justified the means in terms of disinformation or whatever but i do think that with the soviet union in dissolution and the real evaporation i guess of the ideological drives behind moscow in global activities is much more sort of realpolitik and vladimir

putin sees opportunities to massage what's going on in other countries and i don't think there's a real concern on the part of putin and others about engaging still in these very very unsavory tactics whether it be blackmail, intimidation, bullying or whatever or even sending money not just to the candidates who occur candidates who don't want and expose those monies as being tainted. so i think there's a lot of dirty tricks that russians have engaged in over years. i'm not saying only the russians but i like to think that these the main purpose behind a lot of the us efforts and that the cia and others were involved in was designed to ensure that democracy was going to survive and flourish despite that ideological drive that was coming out of the soviet

union. >> if i could add a quick thing because i think and i agree with what he said and i want to make clear it is not accurate to say the cia is only everorganized voter registration drives, that is not true . this information was spread in places like italy and chile and in chile failed electoral operation proceeded to couponing and there are votes were purchased or authorized to be bought again in pursuit of ends that were purported to be for democracy so as director brennan said a means versus ends calculation but this history is complicated and there are exceptions in which the cia did things that i would say americans they are lines we shouldn't be crossing and i agree. >> to be clear from your findings those are activities conducted in the past that are not as far as your research shows today precisely.

>> i want to ask you one other question that relates to a point you made earlier about how both in the past and doesn't, one of the goals of russia's operations in the soviet union had been not just getting particular candidates elected but actually underminingdemocracy itself . your book defines covert electoral interference and narrow terms as a concealed effort to influence the democratic vote of succession. i'm just wondering though even what you find in the book that a lot of the efforts that we see from russia are not on influencing the outcome of an election per se but our own making discord as an end in itself and undermining the very democratic process from

within. this is consistent with the finding of numerous reports we've seen from other research institutions and my own teamas well as the senate intelligence committee , from the intelligence committee etc. and franklin had an interesting theme to his recent cover story in the atlantic and in a quote from him he says the trump campaign was a tactic, hashtag democracy remains the larger objective. so i'm just interested in your reflections whether in some ways we actually tend to think about electoral interference or foreign interference in too narrow a terms. focusing just on the electoral outcome as the main goal so to hinder us from seeing some of the ongoing activities that we see happening. >> i would actually flip it. for argument which i agree with is the russian objective is to transform democratic systems into versions of themselves whichis why

electoral operations matter so much . i was struck when i interviewed a colombian who is a cave e.g. general for decades and he described elections as a one step every four years opportunity, as an irresistible opportunity to manipulate the future of a democracy. the sow doubt about the sanctity of that democracy and tear down democracy. there's a reason there's this phenomenon that has stretched across the century just to target elections, either kgb and russia has been engaged in it in such consistent and really well rooted ways to elections are the heart of a democracy. they enable progress and they enable order and when you target those processes and so doubt around whether the people who are elected reflect the will of the people, whether the people are elected are loyal to the people were loyal to the foreigners who put them in their chair, you're selling doubts about the very sovereignty of your state.

so if there's an influence operation not aimed at an election that's bad but it's not existential whereas if you are able to basically take away the future of the state, to show the world as well as the people of your state that there's a democracy back in half a process of succession in which you can believe that's how you destroy a democracy because in my opinion the way democracies die are corrupted versions of themselves almost all of the time and that is what russia is seeking to achieve and to me that his wife putin is so aggressively targeting our elections read donald trump is a means to an end. these chaotic disruptive and in many ways undemocratic nature is what putin likes because it helps them tear down our democracy which is why i believe he's been so actively supporting him and seeking to undermine candidates are harder on russia and more abide by the traditional lines of what it means to be the leader of a

well-functioning democracy . >> these are important reflections you make an important case for why elections are the preeminent institution of a democracy . i know you're probably not the only institution that's important and is under attack and one of my colleagues has a phrase i will plagiarize is when it comes to foreign interference elections are not a starting point or an endpoint, there are flashpoint. direct or brennan, intelligence community, the report and others found russia's operations targeting the 2016 election started at least back in 2014, david in his book with agents that came to the united states but we also know in the aftermath of the 2016 election russia's social media activity from the internet research agency increase pretty substantially . in order to amend discord about the president election and about support for him. i'd be curious for your

question on how we should conceive of ongoing foreign interference in the context of elections as well asbeyond . >> i think political discord in the united states and increasing polarization in the country and the fighting among americans within congress and other places is something russia sees as an interest because if the united states is focused inward and trying to resolve these issues or fight with each other, our ability to carry out ourresponsibilities is undermined . so i agree with david. there's an effort to try to ensure that russians do whatever they can in order to the us ability to be that leader of the free world. to counter russian efforts globally and as we see in the last couple of years the americans are at each other's roads and you look at a

congress increasingly dysfunctional because of polarization and the political crisis that are taking place in 2016 we saw the russians were trying to so discord within the democratic party between bernie sanders and hillary clinton and the more they can agitate, more they can stimulate these political and social relations within the unitedstates , it is i think russia's objectives which is to try to weaken the americas ability to use its i think exceptional capabilities on a global stage so i do think over the last several years putin has just not influenced the outcome of the election looking at what's happening in the united states where there is this significant discord i think is just helping putin as he continues to move forward with his agenda.

>> david, picking up on one of those points, one of the themes in your book which is consistent with research on these other issues if the soviet union and now russia webinars and race in its efforts to so discord in the us, to suppress the black vote. i would just especially in this moment in time in which we are in i'd be interested if you do elaborate on that through line of the use of race as a weapon and if you have any thoughts on what that means for the national security community in terms of maybe taking on racism in a more serious waythan we have today . >> one of the things that i was most struck pipe and the hundreds of kgb archival pages that i went through was how often race came up. how often the operational objectives, the intelligence collective had to do with how to divide americans along racial as well as religious lines to further the goal that you alluded and

discussed is to divide the united states at home and to show the world abroad that the united states is a hotbed of hate that is dysfunctional and unenviable and therefore no other country should aspire to be and that the american model is flawed and what the russian tradition of interference in elections and otherwise is to pray upon pre-existing divisions and fissures and in racism in our society they see a glaring division that is so easy to exploit. to create discord and dysfunction again, not to embarrass america about abroad. there were crimes during the cold war and staged letters that purported to show extraordinarily racist behavior from americans contacted by the kkk as a live so what we need to understand and i really believe is that when people talk about how to defend our elections, one of the steps

we have to take is to confront racial injustice in our society, systemic racism and police variety because the less divided and democracy we have, the less opportunity there is for russia to not only so division but also to make us believe that they're not attacking us a divided society, a polarized society is easily manipulated and distracted and that again is what russia has been exploiting so in a lot of ways racism and racial issues we see in our society in a certain sense, they are domestic but in another sense there are real national security problems because they're so easy to 11 ice from a perspective of russia as the kgb did generations before us so i hope you're able to take steps toward mitigating that vulnerability in our society with the added benefit of creating a more equitable society for our own democracy but those issues

will hand in hand and this is not unique to putin. when the ira is on black americans it didn't surprise the people who knew things about russian intelligence and it didn't surprise the kgb general i was able to interview who said that the oldest trick in the book, that's your greatest vulnerability is the racism embedded in american society so this is a long-running issue i hope you are able to address. >> i think david thank you for that and i couldn't agree with you more and to me it also points to in this issue set, and encountering foreign interference in our democracy are typical stove piping between foreign policy and domestic policy really needs to be torn down. where so many of the steps we need to do to make ourselves more resilient and reduce our vulnerability darts within ourselves and at home and another area i think you point to is this historical fact and what we saw in the

ira and you did in 2016 is the use of the traditional media as a megaphone and amplifier for their weapon information and a weakening and it sort of hyper- partisan media that we see in the us i think at least i would argue and i'd see if you guys agree is another area where we are actually making ourselves more vulnerable and strengthening our media institutions domestically would also make it more difficult for russia to be able tosuccessfully use these tactics . just a couple of quick questions specific to 2016 before we turn audience question and answer. director brennan, david writes in the book that in 2015 focus on one interference tactic, the cyber manipulation of voter rolls or vote tabulation may have distracted from other threats or tactics russia was engaging in, email releases

and social media and some of your colleagues are quoted in his book talking about how in fact the social media aspects of the campaign was really not identified until after the election much later on so i'd be curious from your perspective having lived through this, two-part question if i may.the first is as we approach the 20/20 election are we at risk from your perspective of having the blinders on in any way, of focusing on one tactic, in this case the last battle while missing what may be the next war. and then secondly, are there lessons that you took away from the experience and challenges that the obama administration face in dealing with russia's interference operations in real time that you think are instructive for how these kinds of campaigns should be

handled in thefuture . >> first of all you mentioned the ira several times and to make sure that listeners don't confuse the ira with irish militants, that's the internet research agency we're referring to and in david's book , it was always wonderful to hear from foreign colleagues against those who were in the government at the time of the 2016 interference and what they think should have been done and i don't think we were distracted by focusing on administration roles and other things, it gets the point that we were trying to preserve the integrity of the election by disabling voter registration rolls which we knew the russians could do that would cast doubt on the integrity of the election so there were a lot of things we were trying to do to prevent any kind of technical interference that we knew that the russians and the capability to do.

on social media to me it's really the most difficult challenge we face then and we continue to face. as we see now we're struggling with what is allowed in social media in terms of truth and fabrications and whatever else. it's very difficult to determine what is coming from abroad and what the russians are behind . and the russians i think have been really quite capable in terms of taking advantage of freedoms and liberties exist within the united states including the free media and press and whatever else and disguising their activities and masking their activities as being in fact from americans. as a herod head of the cia was focused on foreign intelligence , i take a look at what was happening in us social media platforms because that is not for intelligence but it's difficult for the fbi and law enforcement to do things because you have to respect

privacy and civil liberties and freedom of speech so this is something that i think the russians as well as others very very definitely taken advantage of and excluded. being able to use that very large chamber within the social media environment to be able to propagate its use. it's happening every day and it continues to happen every day and we see twitter and facebook and others continue to struggle with what they should allow or how they should intervene in these activities. and unfortunately i think there's just so much of false information coming out domestic sources as well as from foreign sources so i do think that although trying to second the technical systems within our electoral infrastructure is important and i think progress has been made to try to make it less vulnerable. but there's social media environment information and

ecosystems that people can play in so rarely and that the russian internal services again just develop a lot of different tactics and practices. that is one that i think we continue to struggle with and we need to come to grips with it. >> it's usually complicated issue and i think the issue you point to authorities and the different roles of the intelligence community is one that is often not understood in the public conversation on these issues and i think it's an importantone . david, do you want to authorities at all on this finding from your book and this piece that you write about ? >> i would say a core finding of my book as it relates to 2016 and i'm trying to explain this while talking to somebody who was at the table dealing with these issues one of the findings is that as director brennan discussed

there are two types of electoral interference. there are efforts to alter balance , to change boats and there are efforts to influence my, to spread propaganda which is what the dnc work, that's what the internet is research agency beads were and what i found is that the glaring vulnerabilities of our electoral infrastructure in this summer of 2016 and the access of russian military intelligence had to those systems were so glaring and so potentially explosive that the overriding policy objective of the obama team as explained by many of his aides was to just maintaining as director brennan said the psyche of the vote. to make sure the election was disrupted and that's why on election day itself the cyber security coordinator in the white house was running the crisis team waiting some sort of russian cyber because this was a real medical turn into a reality that president obama in each of the moves he made wasseeking to prevent , by reaching out to states, by

having the congressional space and considering a critical infrastructure designation. the other finding is in focusing on the threat the problem is there was no retaliation for the other or, it was easier to neglect or to assume, to say that this is an acceptable level of interference in some sense of the email releases and what was understood which was very little of the social media manipulation because of the concern if you hit russia for that or see to deter future action bulletin was would escalate, actually altering the boat and what i find in my book is to secure an election you need to secure both things and you need to prevent direct alteration and you also need to do what you can to reduce the ability of foreign actors to manipulate your people covertly. i would say the first bucket can be brought to zero if you secure your system but

something historyinstructs as you will never keep foreign actors out of your information environment . elections are penetrable. that's what vladimir putin sees so what you can do is you can manage these threats and see to deter bad behavior i think it's in allusion to say that if not for example donald trump we could get this problem under control because the attack happened when barack obama was president he tried to stop it but it still happened so the point of my book is in my book is that addressing those two avenues is what it means to secure an election and what putin achieved in the interplay between those two in showing what he could do to our vote while actually manipulating millions of americans put the obama team in a different position to how to respond to that interference at the same time . >> it was especially difficult since one of the major candidates was actively and publicly eliciting russian interference.

which was a stark difference from any previous election in the united states that i'm aware of where one of the candidates was encouraging that type of interference. >> you also had a candidate that was seeking to sow doubt about the integrity of the process as well. about whether the process may be rigged which of course was also an interest of the russians to cast doubt on the integrity of the process so certainly it's complicating they are to be sure. i want to take up a question from the audience . we've got a listener who asked what would a national strategy look like to address this information on social media by russia, china and other parties and i might add to that one of the analytic conclusions reached in my book is that the politicization of foreign interference is one of the greatestbarriers to

addressing it . and director brennan both touched on this in your point so i'm wondering what you think that means about any national strategy to address these issues going forward. regardless of who wins in november. how do we get the political aspects of doubt and how do we build a national strategy to counter these efforts. >> okay, so i would say in my study of history one of the most damaging things the current president has done as director brennan referenced is not only solicit foreign interference but convinced tens of millions of americans that foreign interference doesn't exist. that russia isn't doing what we know russia is doing because in doing that what he's done is made this a partisan issue. he said if you believe in this issue you're trying to help the democrats when in truth this is anything but a

partisan issue. again, what history shows, who does the kgb target in the 1960 and 60 elections? richard nixon, a republican. in the 84 elections they targeted ronald reagan, a republican. it just happens that they now like a republican but they don't like any particular political party, what they like is a candidate who advances russia's interests. in the future i hope this will not happen under our current president that is clear but the next president has to do what is possible to remind americans that even if russia is helping your person is a national front and its offensive and it's undermining the notion of what it means to be a sovereign democracy we need to come together to unite against it because any response to this threat has to have the and of the people because much of what it means to manipulate an election is manipulating people because if you release emails and focus on the gossip in the emails rather than the source your gameplay.

if you're on social media and not focusing on thequality of the content before you and taking in what you see , you're being played. other countries have come to grips with that like in france, their population when russia tried to call something similar was discerning but in america right now not only have we not figured out how to address the threat we haven't even agreed threat exists because of what's happening under our current president and that is so unfortunate in his alignment with the path whereby american presidential candidates during the cold war had an approach by soviet ambassadors offering to help them get elected and the immediate reaction of those candidates was get away from me, i want nothing to do with it . this is offensive and if i win i buy lose i donot want the help of your government . we need to get back to that attitude and i was so disappointed to see the congress poll out information that would avail campaign report offers of foreign help.

if we can't even do that i don't even know what it would mean todefend an election for saying we want foreign interference . >> i think the question to congress is such a dysfunctional cesspool of partisanship these days there's very little chance that is goingto be able to addresses and in a bipartisan , fair and significant way. so as to the 9/11 attacks and the standup of the 9/11 commission, an independent russian mandate to the commission, came forward with a number of recommendations that put partisanship aside because we recognize this was a serious threat to us national security. i have long argued and i've lost my arguments that some type of commission focusing on the cyber environment because i am concerned about how russians or chinese or criminals or whomever are going to be taken advantage of that environment to advance their interests and

and i don't think our government or nation is good at this and i'd advocate for there to be some knowable members in both parties as well as businessmen and democrats and futurists and engineers and others who are going to come together and look at what is in the realm of the possible and not have a partisanship lens really governing what they're going to advocate for . but this is something i think is going to take quite a while, maybe a two or three-year commission because it is so complicated. it was in my portfolio at the white house in terms of homeland security, the cyber march that was in that proposal and that is what is in my head most that we've talked to already, the russians and others are taking full advantage of that environment and we struggle as a nation to try to figure out exactly how we're going to deal with it and mitigate

those threats without trampling upon those principles of liberty and freedom of speech and privacy . it's a tough question. >> but a critically important one and it may be an area where if we can be humble enough to learn from our allies, we may be able to do some of that. the european parliament actually just established its own special committee on foreign interference and democracy that is just getting stood up right now. our allies in australia have had a special committee both on foreign interference and social media and disinformation so maybe our allies can do a little bit of legwork for us if we are humble enough to listen to some of their recommendations and learn some lessons from them. i want to turn to another question from the audience which is about on the question of actually cyber

intrusions into election systems, what would be the resources really necessary to protect those systems and what are the impediments to getting this type of investment together and it really builds on some of what the rector brennan was saying on the gridlock in congress where we've seen some pretty significant battles over attempts to get additional funding for election systems, where we've seen numerous bipartisan bills that have been introduced whether the secure election act or others that would have put in place higher standards for cyber security in election systems but interested in your thoughts . to either of you on you know, what we really need to do on the investment side and how we actually get there. >> i think as we know, the voting systems are really the

preserve of the states and in 2016 we had a real devil of a time trying to ensure that some of these mistakes from governors and others were going to take the appropriate steps and the measures necessary to strengthen whenever possible the voting system. the electoral rolls and other kinds of things so again, this is something that ideally it would be the focus of congressional hearings and discussions and debates and looking at how we're going to resource as well as trying to strengthen those systems. one of the things i'm very worried about our i think the blatant efforts to suppress votes in a variety of states because of political objectives that an individual might have. and we really should be trying to facilitate to the greatest extent possible the ability of everyamerican eligible to vote to vote .

and a lot of the false narratives out there about how mail in ballots are going to be so manipulated. this is just an effort to suppress the votes that could be an advantage to some parties. it's difficult to see the way i had, i'm just hoping with a new administration and a new attitude that there's going to be an effort to try to bring bipartisanship to these very critically important issues and to not fuel these divisions that exist that i do think are really to address thesechallenges ethically . >> and just sort of on that note, another question from the audience is what should we be most aware of as we approach the election in november and director brennan , you highlighted some of those key issues .

david, i'd be interested if you have any thoughts on that particular question as well. >> i would say i'm watching for a couple of things between now and november first is out again, breaking these operationsinto those two tracks , the first is how russia would seek to manipulate americans. in two supporting donald trump, opposing joe biden or just into pitting them against each other. those tactics are always evolving and last time it was stolen emails was just the latest episode in a very long story you what's certain is if russia does try to manipulate peopleit will be updated tools , new means building on pre-existing ideas so we should watch out for. i think when we get to election day itself the question persists of whether russia will seek to disrupt about either to try to affect the outcome or perhaps more plausibly sold out around the legitimacy of the boat whether by causing chaos at

polling places or otherwise and i worry that we are more vulnerable to that sort of attack because of the coronavirus in which there's already so much you built into whether people will be able to vote safely securely and fairly that it makes it so that only the slightest disruption and again russia loves to take advantage of pre-existing weaknesses could provide one candidate, the incumbent with fodder to say this wasn't fair. the last thing i'd say i'm watching out for is contingency planning area electoral operations don't end with single elections. never really lines up historically. there's always continued interference in the nations you're targeting. as was mentioned russia started targeting the 2016 election to sow discord in hillary clinton and they intended to undermine hillary clinton after the election and she won so were joe biden

hypothetically to win i would be watching for how russia will continue to engage in our politics and i think it would be dangerous to presume without donald trump this sort of thing will stop because what histamine clarifies is that it started long before donald trump and russia will continue and other actors will continue to manipulate our information environments once donald trump is no longer a part of the american political system a real mess right now is this has everything to do with him and i think it's important to dispel that because this challenge isn't going away regardless of who wins in november . >> that's such an important point that we've got to remain focused on andfor all the reasons director brennan laid out how complicated these issues are . the thing that we all need to be very focused on that this is a problem that's not going away and that we need to focus and commit toaddressing it . we've reached the point inour program where there's time for only one last question .

so i'm going to just turn to this question of other actors. we alluded to it several times and i would just love some final questions whether in the context of november or more broadly how you go starting with director brennan, speaking about other actors. david focused on russia in particular but whatare you seeing , we hear a lot from our administration about chinese interference operations, we've seen them do things in taiwan and australia. what are the things thatare most concerning to you about other actors ? >> i think the chinese and that there's others that have tremendous capabilities when you're talking about china interfered directly through social media influence operations but also i think there is if you look at some countriesaround the world ,

their very astute followers of us politics and it's not just at the presidential level but senators and members of the house of representatives also have strong views on certain issues and some of these poor actors, they may be aiming to try to get some of these individuals out of office as a way to enhance their prospects for better treatment by congress were most talking about iran or tariffs on china or whatever. but just to make a point since it a valid question, democracy is pretty messy and i think it's becoming messier over the past 240+ years and the founding of our country and there are a lot of things, aspects we've been talking about electoral interference and cyber but there are other things also that i think tend to fuel some of these problems whether you're talking about

campaign finance laws or gerrymandering or other things . and we want to make sure that just the way the national international ecosystems have really evolved and grown and changed we need to be thinking about the product principles, not to move away from what we need to do to strengthen and insure the principles of democracy are going to be able to thrive in this technologically driven 21st-century and i think too many people are holding on to past practices and it's difficult to change systems and when people look at the united states and all the problems we have now they compared it to many places that have an authoritarian leader whether it be china or whoever, in the strongman model there seems to be more attractive to some of those people who really are resistant to change . so i do think the types of things we're talking about in david's book and that's why i

think it's important david was able to put what happened into a historical context is kind of, we need to take a step back and look at what we need to do to ensure that this american experiment is going to continue to thrive and is going to be able to deal effectively with the challenges that we face or domestically as well as internationally and it's something that i think it can be our legacy for future generations to at least get back on a productive track as opposed to the one that we're on right now. >> i think that's so well put and in the context of the current moment where we're seeing globally democratic backbiting and resurgence of authoritarianism doubling down and updating and modernizing our democratic principles and practices is just so court winning the competition so again, at the great points from you to sort of and on. any finalthoughts here ? >> i think that covers it

thanks to you both. i can't imagine two people know more about these issues and who have studied these issues and this has just been so fantastic thank you both for reading my book for discussing these issues with us and for being here. it's just wonderful. >> ask you david, the author of rape, america russia and the hundred years of over electoral interference and to john redding, former cia director for joining us here today. that's all of our viewers for joining us here for this conversation. we encourage you to order a copy of david's book through your local independent bookstore and thanks again are joining us and have a great night. >> during a virtual event council on foreign relations president richard hot talk about the state of the world and foreign policychallenges facing the united states . here's a portion of that discussion.

>> i think the pandemic tells us first and foremost the world matters that perhaps an obvious thing for a member of the council on foreign relations but i don't think it's an obviousthing for everybody . the world matters and what happened around the world doesn't stay there and inthis case it was a small city in china and will on where a virus broke out . or worse openly spread through china and the united states . on 9/11 it was terrorists trained in afghanistan. the other various times it was what we've seen with climate change coming from everywhere, financial contagion from this or that country so what this should tell us is that these two relations on the atlantic and pacific are not boats, there's no drawbridgethere . sovereignty whatever else it is is not the same thing as security. , we're affected by what

happens in the world and on foreign policy intern is what we do affects the world and i think there's a but the most important message to take your is the world matters and isolationism denial, speaking our head in sand, whatever else you want to call it is simply aserious or viable strategy . >> you thought about the interconnectedness of the globe and the interdependence . how has the american response to this global crisis reflected some of the things that you bring up, the notable absence for example of the us and european convenient to tackle the vaccine. for covid-19. >> this is not a good experience or demonstration of us in this begin with the back are connected to globalization is many things, not to read how we respond with is the common globalization itself is a reality that is a, we chose not to participate in the european led efforts to pull

resources, intellectual and financial to work towards a vaccine. it seems to me that probably reduces the chance will succeed or succeed quickly. and it also means if itwere to succeed , we'd be very hard-pressed to make the argument we ought to be towards the front of the queue and i think a lot of europeans another with a work there when we needed you, now suddenly you need this, why should we paper you over others so i think hazardous and i also think even more was heard us as been the example we set. just it's an important part of foreign-policy is not what diplomats say or do . it's not what soldiers they or do as important as those things are, it's theexample we set . the functioning and vibrancy of our democracy when we have a equality for all americans. our economy grows at a healthy clip or in this case how we respond to a foreign challenge no one around the world i think it's up in the

morning and says i want to do this just like america, i respect howthey are doing it . inconceivable that that sentiment is being expressed. >> to watch the rest of this program visit our website and search richard hot for the, the world. >> training team. >> .. >> .. first, our first guest is our author, saikrishna, the james monroe distinguished professor of law at the university of virginia as well as senior