>> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation". i am john dickerson, we are joined by two men who each ran the central intelligence agency, michael morell served as the acting cia director in the obama administration and advised hillary clinton's campaign, ambassador james woolsey was cia director in the clinton administration and served as an advisor to president-elect trump's campaign until last week. ambassador woolseyly start with you, you advised the trump campaign for months, he is skeptical about this idea that russia mid meddled in the election, prince reince priebus says president trump, donald trump beliefs in what everybody else believes, russia meddled with the election. >> i worked a bit on the campaign, but i was not an advisor on the transition, because the they were not comino me for any advice so i came off the list. i didn't want to fly under false

colors. i think that the evolution of his views is really quite clear. i think he started out with one set of views and they have evolved as he has learned more. i think a lot of people were enlightened by the 25 page memo that the intelligence committee put out, and made it a lot clearer how involved the russians have been. i have been saying for some weeks that disinformation, otherwise known as lying is more or less a permanent fixture of the russian propaganda system, and that is something that they have now transitioned over into using it -- or adopting that technique with cyber, not just with publications and so forth as that's have for the last 50,

60, 70 years. >> dickerson: how should people understand the level of certainty here? i mean, with this report as they think about how to interpret this and donald trump has been skeptical, so how tight are the findings here? >> when you read the report, it seems thin in evidence. it is mostly the assessment. here is what we think. the evidence isn't there because it is classified. so the declassified report has caht my attention was thewhat intelligence community saying they have high confidence in these judgments. and we don't attach that label to just any judgment. to have high confidence you have to have multiple sources. you have to have direct evidence, more than circumstantial case. so i think the case that the russians meddled in the election broadly, not just hacking the dnc, but broadly in all the ways

jim talked about is solid. >> dickerson: ambassador woolsey let me ask you this question, you mention donald trump's evolution on this issue. when he has been -- when it was first announced that there were these findings he didn't just -- he wasn't just skeptical about the information but made a broader claim about the intelligence agencies, remember this is the crowd that got weapons of mass destruction wrong in iraq, donald trump has said that in his view as the worst blund never american history so he has tied the findings to what he thinks is the worst blund never american history. we have heard reporting that that has not been well received is that right? what is the fallout from that larger claim he seems to be making about the worthiness of the work the intelligence agencies are doing? >> well, it is a complex set of issues. i think probably the .. press and much of the public does think that the weapons of mass destruction characterization was

a very -- was very wrong. the problem is that it is an old soviet hatchet prop phrase and covers biological and nuclear and there were chemical and biological weapons in iraq, quite clear, what there was not was nuclear, and people really need to get into that in order to explain thoroughly what their views are and i don't think we haven't seen that yet from donald trump. >> so, john, the president-elect has done two things, right? he has questioned the capabilities of the intelligence community publicly, but the other thing he has done which is actually more damaging, i think, is he has questioned the intelligence community's integrity by implying that their assessment was politically motivated and that is a gut punch to people who go to work every day, nonpartisan, apolitical trying to call it like they see it. so there are

two different issues here. the president-elect is wrong about the capabilities question. the cia, for example, looks at every single judgment they make a year later and they say did we get it right or did we get it wrong and the batting average is very high. it looks like a free throw percentage in basketball, and on the intelligence question he is just as wrong. this is the most apolitical institution i know, they actually, it doesn't have a political bone in its body so he has both of those points wrong and it has undermined morale in the intelligence community and the cia, and that is a big issue. >> i think you are going to find that the 140 character rule of tweets, that basically governed a lot of the behavior during the campaign is looked at differently as one moves into governance. one can conduct and donald trump

showed successfully a campaign for president on largely 140 character statements. but you can't really govern that way. and he is in the middle of several transitions. i think that he is tending in a positive direction. we will see. >> there have been a lot of tweets this week. there is no signs of slowing. >> he is not governing yet. >> dickerson: what is the practical effect of the morale and the challenge -- help people explain how this can create chajts for the new president. >> so the first is, i think, that the men and women of the cia don't believe a president is listening to what they have to say, the facts they put on the fact based information they put on the table. their interest in working there is going to go way down. and if this continues, i think the president-elect took an

important first step in the comments he made after the friday briefing in a positive direction, but if his disparagement the continues, people will walk, and that will do serious damage to the cia and the intelligence community. the other practical effect it maz is we tell people who are spying for us, who are actually putting their life on the line to spy for us that their information is going to the highest levels of our government and is being used to make the world a better place. so if we can't tell spies that, if they see that on tv, they are not going to spy for us. so i think there are significant effects here if the disparagement continues. i was going to say, one of the things that donald trump supporters say this is a part of his kind of run and gundies rupp if the chaotic approach that was so successful in the campaign and that's just the way he is. >> i don't think that is the way he is generally, i have been in a couple of meetings with him and he is reasonable and asks good questions and he makes smart comments .. his overall

conduct in small meetings, at least in my experience is different when he is standing up in a stadium before 40 or 50,000 of my fellow oklahoma-ans when he performs in front of big audiences. i think you are going to see growth and evolution on a number of these issues over the course of the next several weeks, and i think i would advise people not to hold him to a detailed support of everything he said on twitter for -- during the campaign. >> dickerson: all right. we will have to leave it there, gentlemen, thank you so much and we will be right back with our panel. >>

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don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. >> dickerson: and it is time now for our politics panel with susan page, washington bureau chief of usa today, ed o'keefe who covers politics for the "washington post", we also welcome back washington times columnist and fox news contributor tammy bruce and ezra klein, who is the founder and editor in chief of vox.com. tammy i want to start with you on this question of russia. donald trump according to what

mr. reince priebus said today had habit of evolution from his previous empty skepticism and he now believes what everyone else does, the russian it is hacked into the election. >> you have to, they hacked into the dnc, didn't hack into the election, and wha what we also w of course, and this is what is interesting is you have got james clapper who is advising of course, donald trump who just in 2013 when we talk about how seriously we can take this and why the american people want to know more about what happened and why president-elect wants to know more. james clapper lied about the spying on every single american to congress, was asked specifically about whether or not there was a program where americans were being spied on and he said no, still years later they are saying, well he said it was the least untruthful thing he could tell congress. so the american people for the last several years have looked at a system that hasn't take them seriously and has lied to them, first couped with of

course the iraq situation but ultimately right now americans want america to be first, of course we want a cabinet that is going to take russia seriously and he put together one that will, and also it seems like there is an interest in either having a new cold war or that there is an effort to gin up the problems even when hillary clinton one of the first things hillary and obama did is embrace the russians and wanted a reset, so this is not unusual, i think there is a difference between the narrative that the election was hacked versus, and i will remind you the first thing that was released when the podesta e-mails were hacked was a info dump on trump, it was the democrats opposition research on donald trump, so the entire notion that this was about to help donald trump, i think, is belied by that especially. >> i think susan, there are two things, there is the question of the russians in the election but also donald trump's reaction to, this which has now changed, it appears, although we are still -- that is still evolving, what

do you make of that? is this an effort to get this behind them? what is your take? >> well, i think what reince priebus and donald trump has pretty grudgingly gotten to the point where all of the intelligence agencies, republicans in congress and deposition, russia made this unprecedented attempt to affect our election, this report that came out this week, unclassified report is incredible and extraordinary and deserves to be read but this doesn't settle it because the issue is now what do you do about it? and you know that people like senator mccain and maybe even senator mcconnell want there to be repercussions for russia for this action against an american democracy, and the question is what will happen? what will the trump administration be willing to do? what steps will it be willing to take to punish russia for what it did? >> dickerson: and, ed, the president-elect tweeted that will not be friends with russia so it doesn't look like, while there is act acknowledgment, acknowledgment they hacked there doesn't seem to be the language we are hearing as susan said from the majority leader who

strongly condemned it and john mccain -- >> yes, he is going to have himself a pretty interesting time with his republican colleagues on capitol hill that want to keep this going, there is another hearing on tuesday that looks to russia and cyber security and other things and the issue isn't going away, but i thought it was important, as you pointed out that president obama came into office and said i want to talk to the pakistanis and talk to the iranians and talk to the cubans and those things were done. look, if there is a way to find a way to work with putin, great, but certainly republicans up on capitol hill are going to continue to express a lot of concern. >> dickerson: the majority leader said, disabused of any warm hearings he has of working with russians. >> that is fascinating, what was going to happen is donald trump is confused about russia coming in. i do want to note something, reince priebus came on and said what happened, the real story is how easy it was to hack the democratic national committee, and there is something to that, by the way, current currently the judgment of the cia is that

the republican the and cia and dnc was hacked, they released the data from the dnc and not the republican committee and that means there is a lot of the information sitting in russian servers and putting aside the question of the election for a second we do have to think as a country in a world where cyber war and cyber espionage are going to be much more common how we are going the manage these kind of things going forward, particularly given from what we know russia is probably sitting on other embarrassing information that could be used for other purposes. >> if i could add something that was happening simultaneously to this, in 2015, we spent over 350,000 taxpayer dollars funding an organization in israel called one voice, which we learned once we gave them those grants they immediately began to build up an infrastructure to oppose netanyahu in israel, this is not a unknown, that's why we reported in the summer of last year it was an obama aligned group of people that worked with his campaign that were consultants to that effort to dislodge netanyahu, an active

campaign in israel. this was happening in 15, reported in the summer of 16, so it involved the same things we are accusing the russians of, trolling on the internet, but on the ground boots, developing a database, actively working against netanyahu, the "washington post" noted this was gross interference, enter fernandez with the only democracy in the middle east. i would assert that obama was limited in what he could say about russia, russia because he was doing exactly the same thing to israel and also when it comes to the issue about not wanting to touch the russians, we were in the middle of the syrian negotiations while this was occurring as welshes and the desire not to interrupt that, just like his red line disappeared for syria, because he didn't want to upset the nuke deal in ier iran. >> dickerson: but for an incoming president, now barack obama is in the rear-view mirror and have an incoming president now. >> let's hope barack obama is in the rear-view mirror. >> dickerson:. >> our new president -- donald trump does seem to have much

more, you know, open relationship and thinking about russia than we have seen before and certainly his republican critics -- >> he hasn't sat down and said i am going to be more flexible when i get in, and nothing has been transmitted to vladimir. so i am sorry. >> as obama -- >> exactly. forgive me. i mean, there have been clearly there is an interest in having a relationship as that is noted with a variety of nations. thinking it will be beneficial and russia, of course, the theye certainly taken over the middle east at this point w have an interest in dealing with them in that regard, at least getting our interests back in that region. >> >> dickerson: let's switch to obamacare and where do things sit now in terms of the repeal? >> the process begins wednesday, mark your calendar, votes all day on the senate floor on a piece of legislation that essentially gives instructions to get the ball rolling, and you are going to see votes on a host of what we call poison pill amendments basically, that won't pass but allow either party to

say things about each other. >> look, repeal is underway, the replacement remains to be seen there is no concrete plan, no one plan from the republican party yet to do something. there have been plans that have been constructive in the bowels of the building over in the dirk son building but have not seen the light of day and certainly won't find unanimous agreement among republicans on how exactly this should be tackled. it is going to be an incredible lift for the republican party alone to figure this out, let alone to get any democrats to go along with them and i think you will start to see democrats do a far better job of defending this law now that it might be taken away. defending it when their guy is in office and when they put it in place is one thing but when a government starts to try too take something away from people it is much easier to sell, i don't have you seen democrats do when it comes to social security, medicare, medicaid, this he will add obamacare to the list going into the midyear. >> dickerson: we set the thraibl and come back and talk about obamacare in a moment, but we need to take a short break. stick around and we will be right back with more from our

panel. >> ,,,,,,

father: here we go. we're gonna go out there in the rain. you're gonna get wet. alright, here we go! baby: [squealing with joy] father: oh, yeah. yes! so much fun! you're so wet. >> dickerson: we are back now with our panel ezra klein mentioned the democrats will be robust in their pushing back against this republican effort. what is their line of argument? >> president obama this week,

actually we had a long discussion about obamacare and his challenge to the republicans is simply, show me the plan, that gets more people covered at a lower cost than mine and i was thinking about that when i was with, saw senator mcconnell on the show this morning, the thing republicans are going to run into is what they dislike about obamacare and what are unpopular about obamacare is different, michelle bachmann said it doesn't cover everybody which is true, the deductibles in obama care are very high which is also true, i actually read the republican replacement plans floating around every single one of them to my knowledge has low levels of coverage than obamacare has and significantly higher deductibles so the thing mcconnell and others will run into and the things democrats are going to be making their central line of attack is, yes, everybody would love to see obamacare placed with something more terrific but if the replacement actually leads to 5 million or 7 million or more people losing insurance and deductibles at the 9,000, $10,00thousand dollars range are people going to like that

better? i think not. >> dickerson: susan i was interested the majority leader said there will be a gap between repeal and replace, it seemed to be some of his republicans, obviously senator paul says they have to happen on the same day, how does that gap get managed? >> there is going to be a gap, right? because they have been repealing it -- they tried to appeal it more than 60 times and finally going to go through that will happen but they don't have a consensus on a yes, sir placement, in fact, i think the trump team has set up a very difficult situation for themselves, which is to say they don't think anybody who has insurance now should lose it and said they want to keep the preexisting conditions provisions which is very difficult thing to guarantee, here the republicans are talking not about universal coverage, which is what obamacare talked about, they talked about universal access which is something different and presents a whole new set of challenges when it comes to healthcare policy. so there is going to be a gap. how long, rapidly, very quickly, we really don't know how long that gap is going to be, but i

would, i don't think it is going to be years -- >> i don' i don't know if they r get a replacement through, the hard part is not coming up with a plan. the hard part is actually getting the house and the senate to agree on a plan. it is getting into legislative language that can actually work this is very difficult stuff and i will say repeal and delay, the obamacare marketplaces will collapse in the interim, it doesn't just hold steady, the insurers will leave because they don't know what is going to happen next. they won't just manage the status quo but a collapse in the status quo. >> dickerson: why not have a little bit of a delay to get the ducks in a row and all of that? >> look, it is already collapsing, no, it really isn't. >> when it comes to the exchanges, but beyond that, you have got -- you don't need to have a delay at all, and we are looking at this, this is the other problem is, when government is involved. suddenly, this is only a conversation about the government replacing its own government plan, as opposed to maybe like as i am a seeing some people are suggesting an uber type model putting the marketplace back in charge.

but ultimately there is a lot of things, that are discussed, executive orders, there are things you can do to make a difference here and that includes from usa today, heather higgins op ed discussing having congress have skin in the game, removing their wave, but more importantly, making it possible through a one line of language in the bill that allows insurance companies to provide policies that don't adhere too the obamacare standards, so-so you can get a catastrophic policy and also tort reform. but i mean you have got to have a dynamic worthy, where insurance companies can once again go about their business without being constrained by the i are did louisness of having men pay for birth control they don't want, and as a result also risk pools in the state, grant block funds to states for risk pools for people who have preexisting conditions. >> dickerson: and time to man it -- >> these are not complaints -- you can do these in sections

that happen very quickly at the time. but just when it comes to not just legislation but also executive orders that trump can do within a week. >> dickerson: what do you think, susan, searching the confirmation question will happen, democrats want to delay them, it doesn't look like the majority leader is going to delay them. >> he is not going to delay the hearings to wait for the financial paperwork, but i thought he made news in the interview when he said the senate will not vote on nominating nominees on the floor unless the ethics paperwork is rushed. this has been the practice but it is not part of a law. there is nothing that requires it. this is something i think they had not committed to previously. so that means that this is just not a good deal. democrats say because it means when they are having those confirmation hearings they may not know everything they would want to ask a nominee about if they don't have all of the paperwork done. it does mean at least they won't be confirmed for their cabinet office until that work is done. >> dickerson: 15 seconds, ed.

-- i don't have time -- we will wait next week for that question. thanks to all of you. and we will be back in a moment. >> is signature move, the flying dutchman. poetry in motion. and there it is, the "baby bird". breathtaking. a sumo wrestler figure skating? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money heather saved by switching to geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

>> dickerson: that is it for us today. thanks for watching. until next week from "face the nation", i am john dickerson. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ,, listen to me. i am captain

of the track team, and if i'm late... she doesn't really think she's going to get out of here, does she? be nice. she's new. hello! is anyone there? rrr! wow. even from our standards, you look awful. oh, sweetie, what happened? girl: me? my friend becky got to talk to this super-cute boy, and i tried to act like i wasn't jealous, but i so totally was, and then, out of nowhere, this concrete barrier just popped up. maybe it was a semi. you mean you were driving? yeah. i mean, i know the whole "eyes on the road" thing. but this was a super important text. maybe you have to know becky. texting? great. but it was only, like, 5 seconds, and i'm a really, really fast texter, so it wasn't even a big deal. actually, has she texted me back yet? [squishing sound] wow, i get, like, no bars in this place. i wonder if they have wi-fi here.

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