up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. russia's interference in the twenty sixteen u.s. political campaign and what it says about america's electoral vulnerability on this edition of policy. the politicking and matthew cook sitting in for larry king how vulnerable is america's election infrastructure what exactly have we learned from interference in the twenty sixteen presidential election and what's being done to halt future meddling by foreign governments let's get insights from cyber security expert roderick jones he's a former member of scotland yard special branch and founder and c.e.o. of aruba a cyber security firm roderick joins me from san francisco. so

a lot of words are being used these of the russia and the twenty sixty election meddling interference attempt to influence based on your professional expertise and experience how would you describe russia's intentions and actions. well matthew put it this way i think if you're running for office in the united states and the next to you whether at a local level or a national level you're going to be hacked it's as simple as that i think you know the russians had such success with the attacks they created against the united states and twenty sixteen that absolutely will do it again so that's how vulnerable we are when you mean they'll absolutely do it again what did they do did russia actually influence the outcome of the twenty sixteen election yeah i think it's there's only one possibility that doubts that russia influence the twenty sixteen election now and that's the president himself. head of national intelligence and

most commentators who have had a good look at the evidence of clearly stated the russians influence the election through hacking the e-mails democrats operatives. and playing with media and even actually down to technically interfering with the voting process itself so let's talk about the voting process itself voting machines why do we use voting machines does the rest of the world do other modern western democracies use voting machines how vulnerable are we. i mean i think part of it is america's still running a nineteenth century voting system in a twenty first century so it's this hybrid system of electronic systems and old systems that are run by the states and the united states and it just simply hasn't caught up with the demands of the twenty first century for example nobody really

thought that election hacking would be a thing when they were putting voting machines into place and you know ten fifteen years ago and it's just that that is that is the reality of politics now so isn't is there not some mechanism by which we can find out if election hacking has taken place is there any evidence. hacking has taken place well from what i understand least twenty two of the fifty states were interfered with their electoral process was interfered with homeland security has that information they simply haven't released it out to the states themselves yet so we really know that elections were interfered with in twenty sixteen we just simply haven't communicated that information to the people responsible for securing the system so is there a way to prevent machines from being hacked is there such thing as an. voting machine yes there are always ways to prevent these systems being hacked.

there's been attempts to hide machines in different parts of the world and you can secure them it's very similar it's a windows x.p. it's a kind of that's a legacy system and that was attacked by. various people during the last series of attacks because it's an old legacy system and that's basically the problem of the voting machines that old legacy systems running all world software in some cases and they need to be updated and the money needs to be create. those systems so they can be secured it's just a question of finding the will to do it but isn't it just like any computer or you know any any any digital system where there's a will there's a way and then once hackers you know find find some weakness then the security experts plug that weakness and then the hackers find another weakness i mean isn't isn't the the safest way to have an election to have paper ballots well you make a very good point there about paper ballots and i think that's one of the recommendations being made about a fully digital voting system is you still want

a paper record so you can do a risk analysis after the event to see if there was any interfering so a hybrid system that involves paper and digital means is probably the most safest way to go about this right now who are the other countries what are the other countries doing and what does britain do what is. how do you how is voting taking place in scotland ireland the u.k. right right well just on the topic of other countries i would say there's been definite interference in ukraine bulgaria there was an attempt to damage the french election by hacking the campaign of the eventual winner the german campaign is now being interfered with by the russians and the iranians so i think the lesson from that is that because there was no real penalty for the russians from hacking the american election then other countries is seeing this and basically want to try and undermine our process in the democratic west and i think that's an important point that is that even though this election benefited one candidate over another that

wasn't the aim of the russians had the aim was to cause doubts about the system itself and to throw doubts about democracy and i think that is really what we are the point we need to spend the money and the time to rebuild trust and faith in the system so that we can continue with representative democracy so what's the result of that objective achieved so do does the united states do that can do the populace of the united states believe that election hacking took place where they say i think us well yeah i think i think you know most secretaries of state in the united states who are responsible for running the elections understand some interference happened in the election so they understand some interference happened do they believe that the outcome would have been different had it not happened. i think that's a that's a harder question and so i think you can say that without the hacking of democrats e-mails that's a different a different election so there's

a number of different aspects to influencing an election is hacking the politicians themselves and this hacking the infrastructure i think we can make some strides towards protecting the infrastructure but what is quite startling right now is that we haven't made any improvement in defending our. politicians our representatives themselves are very vulnerable right now senator congress people simply don't have a lot of security digital security around them to protect themselves and again this comes back to my point about where running a nineteenth century physical protection system in a twenty first century walled and those people are very vulnerable right now so there's a lot of issues that affect electoral integrity there's this new presidential commission that's under fire recently because they've requested all kinds of private information from voters to be turned over and most states have refused to comply what what would be the potential security implications of u.s.

citizens providing all that information to this electoral commission well there's two things there i think when you create a big database of information you're allowing one had to get lots of information in one go but actually the secretaries of state of the states have rejected handing that information to the federal government in order to look at this issue because you know they don't feel it's appropriate so in that case the device the device political system is actually doing its job but really there needs to be some federal oversight of the election process as well so the homeland security can unleash money to the states to defend the electoral system so it's a it's a it's a double edged problem railing and what what do you think that this presidential commission is really trying to do this is this comes from a president who claimed that millions of people voted illegally so is that

what this commission is setting out to do to try to find millions of people that went from state to state to vote more than one time which seems like a pretty out there presumption right well i think that's a very political move to say that three million people voted illegally and the problem with that. it's damaging the actual security discussion about ensuring elections are held up in an honest way without interference so while there's all this noise going on about a fake. vote system we're missing the real larger point that the system is actually quite insecure and can be interfered with in a variety of ways and that's where the attention should be that's what a presidential commission should be on not on three million voter fraud that nobody else can really prove or understand one of the fascinating arguments from the conservatives is that well the u.s. messes with other people's democratic elections all the time do we is that ok

should do two wrongs make a right here what do we actually interfere with other people's elections is there any evidence of that and what should we do about it if it's the case i think this historic evidence of the united states getting involved in elections famously or more should i say the political process i mean famously iran. during the monarchy in iran and you know obviously and chill a there's been there's been historic examples of that but i don't think it's a common practice by the american intelligence community to damage democratic process i think it's entirely appropriate for all american intelligence to be involved in the political process that so it benefits the united states but not actually damaging elections i think that's a misreading of what the intelligence community is there for and so you don't think that that's something that we're still even capable of doing or or do you think that that's something that we have an apparatus that could do that if we were interested in doing it i think there's possibly an apparatus of doing it but i

think it's a sophisticated problem i would take it would take away resources from real national security challenges that the united states faces supporting democratic groups inside russia would probably be a be a very good idea and the united states have tried that in various means through all . odds are different channels but i don't i don't think we would we're not we're not doing clandestine activity as far as i know. so let's go do the comparison with other countries who has the strongest electoral integrity who's who's voting the machine system or lack of voting machine system is that is the model that we should look toward that's very good question i think the problem with answering that is none of the systems of being stressed and quite the way that the american system is being stressed by an external adversary so we simply don't know us about the united kingdom that hasn't been. the same level of questions about the elections that have

happened in the united kingdom over the past two years because i think that that's a defended i think that is more central resources given to running those elections so it's a very different system but we'll see how the germans do in the french we'll see how the germans do basically. how they deal with a very tough agressor in the russians and somewhat rhetoric thanks so much for joining me today thank you when we come back what matters to millennial voters and what that means to american democracy stay right there more politicking after the break. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you were a south and taken your last term. drought caught up to us we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath. but then my feeling started to change you talked about war

like it was again still some marshawn to feel those that didn't like to question our arc and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one different person i speak to now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. the plumber. called the food we don't need to. everyone in the world should experience freedom and you'll get it on the old role in. the world according to jeff. deck of mad world cup i am sure there are. trafficked.

thank you again this is how it works now the economy is built around corporations corporations run washington washington the media. the media over the voters elected the businessman to run this country business equals power you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. welcome back to politicking i'm matthew cooke sitting in for larry king before the break i asked what matters to millennial voters and what might that mean to our democracy are the efforts of the major parties to connect with this group really anything more than generational pandering and will that work for them in the end john idol joins me to talk about this he's the host of think tank and co-host of the young turks to be here again so let's talk about the money for that topic there

what are they connecting to what it's turning them off ok well look i think generally and this has been true for a long time in american history politics generally turns them off because very often the topics that politicians choose to focus on and campaign on seem to have no direct bearing on the lives of millennia and i would say that especially recently the entire thing just looks so dirty and lacking in any forward movement accomplishing so little it's a wonder that as many as do want to pay attention to politics but i do think that since we're coming we're not that many years out of the great recession we're a decade out if that i think that economic issues are affecting in a way that wasn't necessarily true of previous generations of particular when it comes to the housing market i mean the idea that you can get a job you can go to college and you can someday buy your own home is more and more an american dream in a reality and not just a metaphor and so i think the economic issues are increasingly salient to millennia

else and then i would say things like climate change i think that the youngest americans are those most likely to understand how much damage is going to be done to the world in the next hundred years and a lot of politicians they're going to kick it off in five or ten years so. it's not surprising that they don't care as much about the topic how does it skew break down millennial support donald trump appeases it doesn't even believe that i'm a change is happening or thinks it's a hoax perpetrated by the chinese there are some it's always amazing to me but it's not a very high percentage i think. it should have been lower than the normal republican nominee elections generally don't do well as you go into younger and younger age groups but he did ok amongst a millennial and part of that i think is non policy related it doesn't have anything to do with climate change or you know his tax plan or anything like that it has to do with the idea that this is a guy that at the very least is going to pretend to tell me like it is and he's not going to do the normal sort of politician roll up your sleeves and talk to me with

you know fake empathy he's going to be real i don't think he is actually real but he does a good job of faking reality and the let's parse tell it like it's a lot of trouble it's time to tell it like it is because oftentimes when i hear conservatives talk about tell it like it is they marry that political correctness and how much they appreciate it when people don't speak with political correctness and what does that mean well i think that that is to some extent true i think that a lot of americans feel like there are too many opinions that you can't express that it's wrong to express you know it used back in the day we used to be able to say whatever we want to what would we say back in the day that generally is offensive stuff about women racial minorities religious minorities sexual orientation minorities a lot of it tends to be stuff like that in practice now people who who purport to be defenders of the first amendment will often talk as if it's wider than that i think for a lot of americans it's about that wide and i don't think that millennial is that the group that cares the most about that i think that they are in favor of more

justice for more groups in america but every group has a certain percentage of people in the millenniums are not immune to that there are some i went to college ok there are parties where you will hear the most racist stuff you ever heard your life and i think for people like that i think that donald trump seems real he seems strong why not go for him so what are the two parties doing to reach out to monorails i honestly couldn't tell you at this point what the republican party is aiming to do i mean if we were to try to just stop your head one of their priorities and you've got repeal. obamacare which we know that young people aren't they're not big fans of the vote based on that tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires i don't see why a lot of college students would be in favor of that building the wall taking us out of the paris accords i mean none of those are issues that are going to get young people to vote for you i think that they have made the decision that young people are one of the groups that we can afford and not have support us and still win elections as this point so and what about the democrats are they what are they

doing to reach out to young voters you know almost nothing more. voted for bernie i mean millions wanted bernie yet what were the numbers they were like twice the amount or they were combined more millennialism one of bernie is exactly and i think to some extent there's a little bit of the same thing that drew people to donald trump i mean that's a comparison a lot of people have made now they are very different and i think that you can go too far in trying to draw those parallels but i think that bernie sanders is a real about the challenges that our country faces he's real about the failures of both parties to address those challenges and when you're honest in that way i think that a lot of people especially younger people will flock to that and it doesn't hurt that economically he understands how much americans are hurting and millennialism are part of that group he understands that like i said the american dream is largely it's becoming just a dream it's not actionable and donald trump tower from bernie sanders speaks to that in a way that other democratic politicians generally don't and so i think it's both a personality thing and a policy thing and when you combine both those things and you deliver the message

with with passion and with vigor as bernie sanders does i think that that is what young people want so last year says nearly as many millennia old self identified as nonpartisan as those who self identified as democrats one of the implications of that i don't find that particularly surprising i mean more and more americans of any age don't want to identify as a republican or a democrat because they see both of those parties as absolute disasters especially young people some of whom are just sort of discovering politically who they are i had. i had my political values before college but i didn't identify with the party before college and it's gotten worse since then in terms of wanting to identify those parties so i'm not surprised i think that a lot of young people are looking for massive reform of the parties before they commit to one or they're looking at third parties. i don't think that that's that different than in the past but there's more and more reason to see it today and what are the chances of us actually accomplishing major reform for example within

the democratic party are you optimistic i think that there are if you leave it to the current democratic party leadership in name id i think that they are doing everything they can to fight those reforms because their jobs depend on it if those reforms happen then they will view them from the outside sitting on the couch eating cereal and so they don't want that this is this is their party they see it as they've been in it for decades both those that you see the big names and then also the people in charge of the campaigns who spend millions upon millions of dollars on t.v. ads and things like that there's so much money and careers on the line that they're not going to want to give that up but they are fighting against people who are far more popular than them at the end of the day votes determine the path of the party perhaps not in twenty sixteen unfortunately because for a lot of reasons but i think that with bernie sanders and names like elizabeth warren and others i think that they are going to do whatever it takes to reform the party and i think that they're the people to do it a lot of the people that were supporters of bernie sanders or were upset with

elizabeth warren for not endorsing senators really love the idea of a third party but mathematically because the way our system works there really isn't the opportunity for a third party to gain any real power. what do you think the chances are of a third party gaining any strength is there any merit of focusing one's attention on a third party i mean look i think if someone especially younger person is passionate about something in politics i don't think that almost any focus should be downplayed or should be disregarded or asked or are discouraged i mean the parties have changed. which parties have been in power historically have changed and have democrats and republicans in the country started and there have been third parties that have done well in the past i think that there are incredible structural hurdles to it i think of there's lots of reasons that it's unlikely to happen but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't fight for it i would say that if you want to see more third party representation across the country i think that working for one third party is not the best way to do that i think working to change the way we

run our elections to do things like rank choice voting or approval voting something like that will benefit a third party you support will also benefit other potential third parties in the future that's the foundational change that needs to happen so the rank voting let's just talk about that for a second so how would that work so basically right now like you have to choose a candidate and if one sort of mess of ideologies goes for six different candidates and each one gets five percent of the vote that's never going to be the party that sticks together and votes for one person but theoretically if you had to rank the different candidates and if one doesn't get you know a majority or whatever you go down to the next one so i could say i vote for bernie sanders is my first choice but if he doesn't get it then i want to have hillary clinton or whatever or whoever it is oh so in rank system voting you could have you do you know there'd be no day i want to support her knee and if bernie can't get it then why larry king if you can do that theoretically right now if you vote for a third party in a lot of states i mean in

a lot of states it's not going to elect that third party candidate and so you have to make the hard decision do i stand by what i consider to be my political integrity and support the candidate that i really support or do i start to factor in the likelihood that they'll win and why should people have to make that decision when there's a system you can set up where they can do both of those the right so if we had rank voting essentially it would allow everybody to vote their conscience exactly which would be incredible but i'm just thinking there's no way that that we would ever have the opportunity do that because would throw all of us. politicians could potentially throw them right out of power yet changing the voting system would be incredibly difficult and politicians on both sides would fight against it but that's nothing new i mean a lot of amendments to our constitution have been opposed by virtually everyone originally and it takes the people fighting together to get it passed. we have a sort of a spin off group called wolfpack that's working to get money out of politics and again at the national level there's a lot of democrats and republicans who have no interest in that whatsoever but it's

a foundational issue that will reap benefits and tons of ways that we've identified and probably even more that we haven't i think choice voting or something like it it's not the only alternative could do a similar sort of thing one of the things that people can do we're watching who are progressives and want to see reforms happen support besides just talking about it and agreeing with what they're hearing well look i think that there are groups like our revolution and a million other groups like that i'm not going to try to name all of them who are right now organizing around particular issues and around politicians i mean bernie sanders just finished this last weekend a series of rallies in red states to stop drunk air from passing i mean that is no small thing that is incredibly important it's going to impact most americans lives so you can get involved in the things like that lends support to politicians regardless of party that you support i mean if if a politician even a politician if you're doing a bipartisan approach here yes theoretically why would seem beyond bipartisan no

they try partisan or quadrate hardison or that i think that you need to to support the politicians to do the right thing susan collins recently went back to her district and she received a standing ovation at some sort of rally for opposing trump care and i disagree with susan collins on nine out of ten issues but if she does the right thing on this issue that people should give her incentive to continue doing that and the democratic party has done a lot of things that could cause right thinking progressives to have no interest in them but if a politician like bernie sanders or come on harris or something like. that if they stand up and if they support medicare for all or something like that if you do not support them when they do the right thing they will continue to do the wrong thing that's my opinion inside and outside of politics well again that's all the time we have to bet thank you so much for coming in thank you as always and thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking remember we love hearing from you join the conversation on larry's facebook page and as always you can share your thoughts

on twitter by tweeting at kings things and using the politicking hash tag i'm also inviting you to join me on my facebook page matthew cook official there you'll find articles links to videos on my website that's all for this edition of politicking. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you worry yourself and taken your last turn. to cut up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry suddenly i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath. but then my feelings started to change you talked about war like it was again still some are fond of you those that didn't like to question our archives and i secretly promised to never again like it said one does not leave a funeral the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one

different person to speak to now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. i'm a trial lawyer i've spent countless hours boring through documents that tell the story about the ugly side of. corporate media rich uses to talk about the current partners are nothing but i'm going to paint a clear picture about how disturbing palko blood corporate conduct is because mom these are stories that are no one else are into a market story or post the american or western. new. york during the break like the tales of tributes with. their lives to provide a safe. place to live whether they like you i doubt. it we.

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headlines on the international germany's foreign minister issues a warning against tourists traveling to turkey it comes off a human rights activist arrested by ankara and a row over job and companies supporting terrorism. exposed and vulnerable news agency publishes a map showing the location of american military bases in northern syria it is sparking concern and anger in washington. and to resolve may's approval rating. u.k. prime minister has been so unpopular in the months following a general election. with more news here in about.