to hear shortly from president trump speaking outside the white house. we're going to bring to to you live as soon as it does. some reports saying there could be a possible end to the shutdown, and as border security talks continue, we're going to bring that to you live as soon as it happens on c-span. in the meantime, some of today's "washington journal." yoe provider. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us is jamil jaffer, from -- a former senior counsel. thank you for being here. guest: thank you for having me. host: i want to begin with the news around roger stone -- about roger stone. what do you think about this, him lying to the house intelligence committee? how do you get arrested for that? guest: it is not a good sign. in order for congress to do

this, people have to tell the truth, so the real challenge is how do get people to be honest in committees? we know there have been concerned about people cheating the truth when it comes to testimony, and that is a crime, right? you can be held in contempt of congress and giving false information to a federal efficient -- federal official. when people are being investigated coming often are indicted by the crime of lying instead of the crime. the cover of a crime is often punished for the crime itself -- more than the crime itself. host: what sort of training do they have to take official testimony from someone like roger stone? guest: the committee has lawyers. chairman rogers worked well with

other members doing effective oversight. forave seen a real trend the former you're required to tell the truth. host: what's the punishment? guest: you can go to jail. host: how long? guest: i don't recall exactly what the statutes require in this case. it depends on your criminal history level. the federal sentencing guidelines that evaluate you on your prior conduct, conduct you are accused of. there are statutory minute mums

and maximums. i don't know what the penalty is. very often in these type of investigations, both congressional and f.b.i. investigations when people don't tell the truth, that trips them off other than the line. you look at mike flynn. what he got indicted for, pled to was lying to the f.b.i. investigator. host: you said this doesn't look good. why did you say that? guest: obviously when you're lying the question is, what is it you are lying about, not clear about? who knows why roger stone chose to go down this road. there are claims that other individuals lied to congress, too, same testimony -- not obviously mr. stone's testimony -- but their testimony. what is the underlying issue people are trying to avoid? it seems embarrassing to themselves, people they are working with, or it could be a crime. we don't know what it is, right? but the question is, why are you lying to federal investigators instead of being

upfront if what happened was not wrong? host: do you make of this move by robert mueller? does it tell you something as a trained lawyer, investigator? guest: oftentimes you'll tight people in part based on the effort to get them to talk. you talk about mike flynn. mike flynn was ultimately pled to lying to federal investigators. but we know he got out of that plea deal was cooperation. we know for months mike flynn has been talking to the mueller team what he knows. now, we don't know what mike flynn has told them. we've seen michael cohen. he's been pressured and pled to some counts, right, but he's now giving testimony. what investigators try to do, whatever tools are available to them to indict folks, pressure on them to get more information and try to work their way up the pyramid in any sort of investigation. doesn't matter whether they're investigating russian influence, corruption, you know, a mafia case, murder.

you're always trying to work up to the person you think was highest involved by indicting the lower level folks and getting them for whatever you can. whether it's lying to an investigator. host: why do you think the house intelligence and senate intelligence committee are investigating in this in the first place? what does this go at, in your opinion? guest: well, look, what we know for certain, without any question, and there may be some based on -- it seems fairly certain to me that the russian government engaged in a long-term aggressive effort to affect american politics. whether they tried to elect the president or tried to get involved in the actual voting process is highly unclear. it's highly debatable. what we know for sure they tried to create dissension in america. they tried to undermine our confidence in the electoral process, in our institutions. they have been highly successful. i mean, there -- this is probably the most successful, both overt and covert influence operation in the history of mankind. there are people in the kremlin

today clinking glasses of vodka. whether it's the house intelligence committee, senate intelligence committee, whether it's on news stations, it's highly debatable. they are not particularly influential in the world but they have magnified this influential operation. we are responsible because we haven't been able to come together as a country and recognize what's happening here is not about one president or one party. what's happening here is an effort by a foreign nation state to influence our politics against one another. they were on both sides of the black lives, blue lives matter just to create dissension and chaos. we've seen ads. those are adds designed to influence -- ads designed to influence american voters. congress has been shut down for 40 days. it's chaotic. makes no sense. instead of recognizing a foreign threat we are at each other's threats. that's sadly true in it the committee, both the new

chairman and old one can't work together on intelligence oversight. host: the house side? guest: the senate side is where they can work together. they are working together effectively and that's a good side, there can be opportunities. one hopes that that works out but on the house side. now i do worry -- we've seen reports in the last couple days that adam schiff, the now new chairman, might be considering a run for the presidency. that obviously will not help the partisanship on the committee if that turns out to be true. apparently he's been in south carolina, new hampshire. that's concerning. one hopes, you know, people sort of made fun of devan nunes' recusal, jeff sessions' recuseal. if you run for president you probably shouldn't investigate the guy you are running against. host: on the senate side, "usa today," michael cohen. the senate intelligence committee on thursday

subpoenaed him -- subpoenaed michael cohen. president trump's former lawyer and longtime fixer, to testify about his dealings with the president. they are investigating russian interference. cohen refused to testify voluntarily because of threats from trump and his personal lawyer. lanny davis said he received a subpoena to testify february 12 before cohen is set to go to prison. that in "usa today." where you left off brings us to the topic and that's national security threats. is it russia that tops our national security threat to the united states or is it the tools that they use in the 2016 election? guest: so russia is obviously very capable and showing real capability in influencing operations. they are not the only actor in this space. the chinese are active. they have been working to steal intellectual property. they're an economic -- we've seen that play out in the trade war we've seen with the

president and china. to be fair, we are -- we do need to make strides and efforts in that we have to get access to the chinese market in order to have this a fair fight. they can't expect to get away it. it cuts right at the heart of our economic interest which is at the end of the day a national security threat for us too. so china's another big player. then we see players with capabilities and they are less sort of influenceable, typical deterrence. north korea. come off from the economic world largely. so they can take actions with little penalty because they are isolated. north korea is aggressive when it comes to the cyber arena. we have seen the malwear, ransomwear. we've seen iran be aggressive. destructive cyber attacks here in the united states and against our allies around the world for iran, particularly in the middle east against saudi arabia and the like. so that's a real problem. we see other kinds of disruptive technologies, right?

as amplete becomes a real thing and it's -- a.i. becomes a real thing and it's becoming a real thing, computer leveraging information to make assessments. humans will be in the loop. the robot overlords won't control us anytime soon. that being said, that gives individual actors and these states will act fastor and more aggressively -- faster and more aggressively. that being said, we're also in the world as the d.n.i. points out where western ideals, the institutional democracy is weakening. the international order stay together and be consistent is weakening. isolationism is a problem both here in the united states and around the globe in the western countries. and so those things, when you take them together with the ability of the nation states to be more aggressive, raises the concern we are under increasing threat. of course, the constant background threat of isis and al qaeda which notwithstanding the president's views has not been defeated, are still very

interested in attacking us here in the homeland and europe. host: we are talking with jamil jaffer, a new report, a new national security report that's out and we ant to get your questions and comments on it as well. 737-0001., 202- republicans, 202-737-0002. nd independents, 202-628-0205. jamil jaffer, what you were just talking about, the technological threat, does that top the list for this new national security report? where is it? guest: it's right in the top ranks. the sort of -- i think their senses the weakening of the institutions can contribute to larger problem but cyber attacks are at the top. they're a point of leverage for oth criminal groups, hac tivists. nation states have the ability to deliver the most destructive actions. you look at the attack by russia against ukraine.

directed at ukraine. accounting software used by ukrainian companies. problem? number of international companies use the same software. the base impact of that targeted attack on ukraine was lt by companies like merk, largest shipper. a candy manufacturer. they lost hundreds of millions of dollars in an attack that wasn't directed at them. what you see is collateral damage in cyberspace not intentional. a huge problem for international problems and countries that the united states might have connections in the global connected world. you look at the number of devices in the world. 21 billion devices connected to the interset expected by 2021. three devices per person everywhere in the world no matter where they live. that's a tremendous explosion in the rate of communication. the d.n.i. is reporting notes cyber defenses are getting better. no matter how much better they

get we are at risk. you have to invest in behavioral detection. government working with companies. and defending an ecosystem. host: what are some other notable threats from this report, before we get to calls here? guest: we have the background threat. terrorists. we talked about russian influence. talked about intellectual threat. weapons of mass destruction. that's a remaining concern. there are all these things. they'll come together to tell you we remain in a very concerning, raw threat environment where people are gunning for the united states and for western countries. and we seem to be in a place at a time where we are withdrawn. we are looking increasing at our own domestic situation which by the way is not unfair for us to do but you have to understand -- at least my sense is you have to understand when we've done that in the past historically and felt like we have a peace dividend, the world is less important than us, that's when we've been hit by our enemies because they see

the weakness. they see us backing off from our allies. they see us pulling out of regions of the world like syria, europe, or be less inclined to go there. that's a problem. it began -- president obama was, to be fair, perhaps less aggressive than i think republicans would have preferred. less aggressive than president bush. president trump, while speaking more aggressively, has been on a similar trend which is pulling out of the -- talked about pulling out of afghanistan. now pulling out of syria. he's sort of told our allies we may or may not be there for you at all times. that trend of america becoming more focused at home has continued from the obama administration and to the trump administration, our actions have not matched the rhetoric. what do our allies make of that and enemies? at least historically, our enemies sees it as an opportunity and our allies have gotten more and more scared. host: liza is first in florida, independent. caller: hello. host: good morning. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: yes.

your guest talkses very fast. i'll try to slow down a little. the demoralization and the manipulation of our people. last night or the night before on cnn they had a show. they showed the patrol border officials 100 tunnels in southern arizona in nogales, 100 tunnels that were coming over into our country, bringing god knows what. i mean, the drugs, the opioid crisis. and this guy is -- he's a he gamony. george w. bush and company blew up the middle east. kept us in ongoing wars forever and trump is a continuation. guest: well, look, certainly the concerns of the border are legitimate, right? i don't think nobody debates the question whether we need to secure the southern borders better. they're bringing in drugs, illegal migrants, people relying on our social services. that's causing a concern in this country. there are a lot of people

clearly unhappy about that. the president's words and actions reflect that concern about our southern border. at the same time there are a lot of priorities in this country and the democrats recisent of building a $5.7 billion border wall reflects upon that. it reflects on our immorality. where do you find the balance? in most -- normally would you have seen a deal. come in at $2.3 billion for the wall, right, a bunch more for border security measures, the government would reopen and we would be moving on and moving forward. right now you have the president dug in because he feels strong about it. he's sort of gotten his entire -- his ego is invested in it. at the same time the same is true of nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. their ego is invested on the other side of the fight. nobody is ready to make deal. the problem is divided government. what people want is, move forward. get a -- whatever that deal is -- host: is this divided government a threat to our security? guest: it absolutely can be. it can be -- you look at -- a good friend of mine, monica

c.e.o. of a risk company that looks at cyber deep into our temmings. she wrote an op-ed in tech crunch that talks about the threat to cybersecurity. we have this new group, new cyber security agency. 60% of the workforce is furloughed. we see people not coming in, even at agencies like t.s.a., when they are supposed to be working, in calling in sick. why? because they are not getting paid. national security officials, those who defend our borders, they're doing their best by coming to work and not getting paid. you can only expect people to do that so long. when your family are going to soup kitchens to be fed, it's ridiculous. host: is the border, southern border in this report? guest: so the question of migrant flows, which is a worldwide problem in syria, right, as the caller noted, we've been in wars in the middle east for a while. that does create problems. it causes migrant flows. we have a migrant flow at our own border with illegal immigrants coming in.

that causes economic concerns among americans and should. we do know both legal and illegal immigrants do contribute to the economy in the sense some of you are agricultural economy, to be fair, depends on migrant workers. better they're legal. better they're paying taxes. depends on migrant workers. the question is how do you set that number? what's the right number coming in? how do you make sure they're doing it legally? look, immigrants built this country. my family came here as immigrants from africa. we're ethically indian but we came from tanzania. all of our forefathers. even the earliest founders came from europe. only a couple hundred years ago. it's not like we had this long history of thousands of years in this country. and so we're a nation built on immigration. that being said, we need to do it right. it needs to be done legally. is a border wall will fix that? who knows. what really matters most is getting our two branches of government, right now the house is divided from the senate, the house is divided from the presidency, getting those folks

together and make a deal. get the government reopened. figure out how to address border security. everyone agrees border security is a problem. the question is how much you spend on the wall. there is a deal to be had. they ought to make it and move on. host: peter, wyden, new jersey, a republican. welcome to the conversation. you. good morning to peter in wyden, new jersey, republican. you. eter in peter. one last call for peter. let me move on. william in cleveland, ohio. democrat. can i go to cleveland. caller: i am a republican. i think it's terrible what's going on with our country. yes, it is divided. unbelievably so. unfortunately, a lot of it is

in our low -- at our state levels with regard to our gislative and judicial officials that have been -- how shall i say it? oppressing its own citizens. in cuyahoga county, cleveland, ohio, the federal -- the federal constitution is not even recognized. the state constitution supersedes it which makes no sense. so with regard to the border wall, in my opinion, i think we need to -- why even worry about a border wall? let's establish a demilitarized station zone and allow the citizens of this continent to and d their own properties ove the ports of entry and adjust the daca.

allow amnesty for some people who came over with valid visas that may have expired and they didn't renew. and maybe now they should be able to renew them. and establish who they are, where they are. as they get back on the track of becoming citizens of this continent. host: ok. all right. william, we'll leave your thoughts there. we'll go to dan who is in georgetown, massachusetts, independent. dan, you're on the air. caller: hi. thanks for having me on. i'm wondering, i see a lot of he problem in our country. actually stemming from propaganda. and this propaganda is coming from our media and our government. national 0 -- in 2008

defense authorization to spend -- there was money slipped in called the propaganda american citizens domestically. this is what we've been witnessing. it's disseminated through our media to the citizens. host: ok. dan, we'll have him respond. are you familiar with it? guest: i am aware of claims that have been circulating around the internet about change to law that allow the government to engage in propaganda, to try to influence the american public. my understanding of the law is that it's illegal. the united states does not spend money and goes out of its way to avoid attempting to effect domestic politics. you can imagine all the reasons why we wouldn't do that. it doesn't make sense. that being said, there is a concern in this country that that's happening. and you can see that concern represented by the caller's

comments. you hear that concern coming from the president, too. when he talks about the deep state. and the concern his policies he was elected by the american people -- there might be a big debate whether he was elected effectively, whether the electoral college should be done away with. it has been here for 200 years. the president was critical of the electoral college because the fear he would win the popular vote and lose the electoral college. he won and here we are. what's interesting about that, the president himself says, look, there is the fake news media. fake news being propagated. the deep state is trying to prevent me to run my policies. people are concerned about the way politics work in washington for a long time. does that make the criticism relit jate? who knows. -- legitimate? who knows. government has been working effectively for a long time. the president represents that view in the white house. he's disrupting things.

does that put us in a place where we're better off or worse off? there is a big debate happening right now. there is very much a felt concern by a portion of the american population. the question is, what do you do with that? i think what you don't do is we're doing now is get at each other's throat and shut the government down. here it is. people can't seem to work together. they can't figure out a way forward, right, and they're not effective. and that's where we are right now, and that, unfortunately, plays right into the notion that government isn't being effective for the american people. host: let's get in larry who is in tulsa, oklahoma, republican. caller: good morning. mr. jaffer, i have a question for you. how serious a threat do you see foreign students matriculating in the united states at universities and colleges? and then, go back to their own countries and spill the beans, so to speak. guest: it's a great question. we've known for a long time foreign governments have lots of way to obtain intelligence,

select intellectual property in the united states. foreign students are one method foreign nations use to identify potential recruitment targets in the united states. professors. that being said, one of the challenges of our own immigration policy is we bring in some of the best and brightest students around the world, we educate them here in the best universities of the world with some of the best researchers and then we tell them you must go home to your own countries and do your advanced research there. build products there. and advanced technology. instead of saying we just educated you, spent a lot of our time and effort with some of the best and brightest minds, take that knowledge and economic knowledge and use it in the united states. in my view, one way to address the problem that larry rightly raises is to be more cautious who we let in, make sure they're doing the right thing. when it comes to educating people, we need to encourage

them to build economic success here. rather than pushing them all back home to china, to japan, to europe and saying, hey, we just educated you, go do your work there and make money for your countries there, it's crazy. host: jamil jaffer, we want to thank you for the conversation. people can learn more if they go to nationalsecurity.gmu.edu. thank you very much for the conversation. we appreciate it. guest: thanks for having me. >> and here live at the white house in the rose garden, the government shutdown in its 35th day, but some possible movement from the white house. president trump expected to make an announcement here in the rose garden. reuters reporting, congressional leaders and president trump agreeing to three-week stopgap spending deal to end the government shutdown. that's according to a senior house democratic aide. the deal may include arrangements for negotiations on border security and could be passed as soon as friday if republicans agree to hold a vote. the house also expected in in about five minutes for a brief

pro forma session. we are going to be waiting here for the president's remarks. we will take you live for gavel-to-gavel coverage of the house when they do come in here on c-span.