presentation like this. take care, everybody. thank you. announcer: maryland governor, larry hogan, will give a coronavirus response of a today set to start at 4 p.m. eastern. we will have it live for you when it starts here on c-span. on chinesew influence operations in the united states. our guest, a longtime national security correspondent for the washington times, author of the deceiving -- having those conversations anyway come out

>> i think this swalwell incident is the tip of the iceberg. i know the trump administration has been making an aggressive effort to try and identify these influence operations. just last week, mike pompeo gave a major speech at georgia tech, where he outlined how china has influenced and exploded the american academic community. for both getting people to support policies as well as stealing technologies. >> if you want to join this conversation about chinese espionage influence operations in the u.s., as usual, democrats andd dependence. you mentioned having this

conversation in the wake of that report, that included eric swalwell, along with other members of congress and politicians, but eric swalwell, responding to that report. thathat happened in situation years ago, in an interview with cnn. i want to play that and get your thoughts on this comment. this is eric swalwell. >> i was shocked. over six years ago, i was told about this individual. then, i offered to help. i did help. i was trained by the fbi for my help. that person is a lover in the country. i was surprised to read about my cooperation that story. because there was never a suspicion of wrongdoing on my part. all i did was cooperate. the fbi said that yesterday. is thatwrongdoing here

at the same time, the story was -- leaked out, i was working on an impeachment and the judiciary. i hope it is investigated as to who leaked this information. >> these operations are designed to build relationships, but also possibly to get sensitive information. are you concerned that you shared any information with this person before you were notified by the fbi? >> i know i didn't. i can't speak to much about the details of the case. i'm not going to violate mine. the story made it absolutely clear, no information was ever shared. >> congressman, eric swalwell, member of the house intelligence committee. your thoughts on his reaction to that story coming up? >> i think it is a typical defense by a politician. it was clearly a huge mistake on his part to allow a chinese

national to have a relationship. he has not answered a lot of questions. that just because of the fact -- this is a big deal. he was for a short time a democratic presidential candidate. in addition to that, he sets on the house intelligence committee. this is a select committee that only selects members -- only select members can sit on. even though he has this relationship, which again, he has not explained fully, whether he had intimate relationships with her or not, the staff has said that is classified information, there have not been a lot of answers as to whether or not this person may have influenced his views on communist china. in my column that came out last week in the washington times, i went back and looked over the challenged thee homeland security department official on election interference, saying there was

no intelligence indicating china had tried to influence the elections in the u.s.. which is simply false. the vice president said in 2018 the quoting of a senior u.s. intelligence official said that what russia has done pales in comparison to the kind of influence and operations being run by the chinese. >> longtime correspondent for the washington times, if you want to check out his work onli ne, bill gertz. he is with us to take your questions. plenty of callers for you already. first out of new jersey. a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i do have something to say about the government of china.

first, i'm happy to be talking to be talking -- i'm happy to be talking to somebody from the washington times. the washington post, new york times, the washington examiner, the washington post is a newspaper of over 100 years old, millions of subscribers, with 69 pulitzer prizes. the new york times -- host: can we get to the story about chinese influence operations? caller: i have waited for months to say this. the new york times, one hundred 30 pulitzers. the wall street journal, 37 pulitzers. the washington times, zero. host: we will go to alexandria, louisiana. a republican. do you have a question for bill gertz? caller: i just wanted to say, that guy was nothing. look, i wish you would put on a

show about the pardon board. this is my question for the times, because he's doing a fine job. i was a military police officer. i had top-secret clearance. in the 1980's, the russians tried something like this. weapon,e with this bio with this covid-19, to essentially destroyed president trump and the u.s. i would like to know, does he think this is a bio weapon engineered simply to destroy the west and stuff? have written extensively on this. i have interviewed senior officials with access to a lot of the most sensitive intelligence information. and i can tell you there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that this does link covid-19 outbreak to the chinese military. the problem is, the chinese government as it stonewalled the international community for nine

months now, trying to figure out the origin of desires. and on top of that, the chinese communist party has launched a massive international disinformation campaign to try and deflect attention on china's role in spreading this virus. i would point out, we are just p of getting vaccines to the american population. am china announced probably six months ago -- and china announced probably six months ago they had begun cereal production of a vaccine. you cannot do that unless you have intimate knowledge of the scientific makeup of this virus. know if that is the honest answer, but clearly there are a lot of circumstantial information. another the intelligence community has information about china's covert biological weapons program. i have reported on this extensively. theink hopefully, before jump administration leaves office, that we can get some

answers on what really happened and what the origin of the virus is. host: joan is a democrat. good morning. caller: i wonder about this gentleman that i wonder is a republican. but trump denounces china most of the time. but yes, his daughter -- but yet, his daughter was extensively in china, does a lot of business with china, and that never seems to come up. it seems to get covered up. and i think that china has always been there. we have an and be sometimes of how far they have advanced and we haven't. vy sometimes of how far they have advanced and we haven't. i think we have to focus on our country and other countries for other things and just work on ourselves. think that would be the good thing to do for the american people. thank you. st: this is the central thesis of my book.

we made a 40-year gamble that if traded with china, ignored their human rights abuses, ignore their arms proliferation, they have sold nuclear technology to a number of rogue states, and if we just ignored its aggressive activities in the south and other places, that this would somehow have a moderating influence and we would capitalist free market china emerge. it was an utter failure. a china thatcing is on the march, it is a longer biding its time and building its capabilities. they are on the march, and they are working against us. they are trying to sober the vert thetates -- sub united states. people really need to be educated about china. that is what i've been trying to do and a lot of my books in my reporting. host: explain the title, "deceiving the sky."

guest: a lot of people know about sun tzu and chinese strategy. the title basically means that , it is a story about an emperor who was full to buy one of his one ofs -- was fooled by his generals into going to war. enemy,want to see the cap to be to defeat the sky, the emperor, to achieve your hands. gertz, taking your phone calls. theseng to light some of influence operations targeting members of congress. i want to go to a senator for strategic intelligence set his report for the target of chinese espionage cases. the sort of put in perspective how much they are targeting politicians versus other sectors of the u.s. economy. reported chinese

espionage cases since 2000 sought to acquire commercials technologies. 36% of incidents saw to acquire military technologies. 14% sought to acquire info on u.s. civilian agencies are politicians. guest: you have to add the cyber attacks, as well. in my book, i interviewed a former cia counterintelligence official, high-ranking official, mark calvin. he described to me when he said was an intelligence assault on the u.s. by china. he compared it to the kind of assault that we saw on the soviet kgb back at the head of the cold war. it is across the board. it is not limited to just traditionalcrets, espionage from government. it is also going after corporate secrets. of course, darrell blended together. in my book, i talk about the

bin, a sue military hacker based on canada. 300,000ble for some smething thousand dollars, teal secrets with billions of dollars, the chinese turned around and build their own transport, which looks similar to the c17, called the y20. it is an across-the-board effort. on the influence front, we have seen it on college campuses. the trump administration justice department has been leading the way in prosecuting officials who pay of thein the chinese government for research. it's been covert. almost on a monthly basis, we are seeing academics and even chinese nationals being prosecuted for both influence

and technology theft operations. this is thomas, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to thank you for your show. i appreciate everything you're doing. i just want to ask two questions -- has china -- i mean, has the u.s. sold out to china? why is that spy in prison? st: on the first one, the issue is, we integrated our economy extensively with that of china's. it was this idea that trade with china will mitigate the threat from china. it was another failure. announcer: we will break away to continue our 40