i called in the expert to help us understand this, david sanger, a cnn contributor, correspondent ford author of "the perfect weapon" david, welcome. >> great to be with you again, fareed. >> when you look at what they did in the united states, what do you think? you've talked to so many experts, seen some of the raw intelligence, what can we say with confidence that the russians did? >> you've seen the facebook ads. >> right. >> so we know that they went through the internet research agency and now thanks to an indictment that came out a little over a week ago, we know that the gru, the russian military intelligence, worked hard to try to influence individual americans by pretending to be their neighbors instead of being a group of russians. we also know that they went into the voter registration systems of a number of different states, arizona, illinois, but many others, in an effort to see whether or not they could actually fiddle with the registration. remember, voting machines are offline by and large and hard to mess around with, but the voting registration systems are a differe

we're back with david sanger.here is a tell here. >> yes, the way he keeps tweeting and blurting out, and saying over and over and over again. we know, as you said, the president was briefed in august about russian interference. he was also briefed again in jan before he took office, this is just true form. he doesn't in his heart of hearts, we keep seeing evidence of that. it shows he was recruited by foreign sources, and the president keeps trying to say something that is the opposite. >> did it feel to you like something shifted last week when the president blamed america on the internation naal stage? yesterday, as you know, trey who has been a supporter of the president, or fallen in line, it sounds to me like some people are starting to -- their language is starting to shift a little bit. here is what they said about russian interference yesterday. >> the evidence is overwhelming. it can be proven beyond any evidentiary burden. the president either needs to rely on the people that he has kro chosen to advise

david sanger, guess who wrote that. that was john bolton. >> let me guess it was john bolton, yeah. >> yes! john bolton invited put on the the white house d. the views change or grin the teeth, bear it and make the invite the president wanted? >> we have seen a lot of grit his teeth and bear it out of the john bolton. one point few weeks ago he said he wasn't commenting on all of his previous writing. well, i can imagine why john bolton wouldn't want to comment on the previous writing. you could have reached for a great essay about how the president should go meet kim jong-un, explain to him where to mail the nuclear weapons, not getting into a lengthy conversation with him and only after the weapons were turned over to then do much. well, what did we hear from secretary pompeo the other day and the president? this is going to be a long, drawn out process. i think that's reality. but it's certainly isn't the reality that bolton thought he was signing on for. >> really quickly, shawn, before we go, angela merkel today, n

david sanger is national security correspondent for the "new york times" and the author of "the perfect weapon, war, sabotage and fear" in the cyber age. david, good to have you. >> great to be here. >> you have talked to so many experts, you have seen the war on intelligence, what do you have confidence that the russians did? >> you have seen the facebook ads, we know that they went through the internet research agency and now thanks to an indictment that just came out a little over a week ago, we know that gru, the russian military intelligence, worked hard to influence individual americans by pretending to be their neighbors instead of being a group of russians. we also know they went into the voter registration systems of a number of different states, arizona, illinois, but many others. in an effort to see whether or not they could actually fiddle with the registrations. remember, voting machines are offline by and large and pretty hard to mess around with. but the voting registration systems are a different thing. and they are online. and so of course if you can go in and say that

let me bring in lieutenant general mark hertling and political and national security analyst david sanger. let's listen to this exchange back and forth between president trump and jan stolenbeens stolt the breakfast. >> despite our differences we have been able to unite around our past to protect and defend each other. we are stronger together. two world wars and the cold war shows we are stronger together than apart. >> how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against. >> because you understand that when we stand together and in dealing with russia, we are stronger. >> you're just making russia richer, you're not dealing with russia, you're making russia ri richer. >> david sanger, to you. leaders in brussels are concerned about how the president came out so strong at this breakfast. what's his goal out of nato? what does he want to leave with. >> poppy it seems clear the president is doing in person what he did on twitter. he's wrong on the contribution issue. he has a point to make about the dependency on gas. while the united sta

he knew where the order came from. >> that's the "new york times" reporting this morning from david sanger two weeks before inauguration he was told putin ordered this. >> so there's been a sense of bewilderment over why the president continues to equivocate and deny the facts here. but on this issue of what we were talking about in terms of the numbers, the president has been critical of a lot of different groups, the intelligence community, immigrants, our partners and allies but what the president did when he was in helsinki is he stood on the stage next to vladimir putin and he was critical of the united states. so for most of us in national security, we thought if there's anything that's going to cause people in his base to take a step back and say stop, i can't get behind you, it would have been when he stood on the stage next to vladimir putin and was critical of the u.s. but the poll numbers indicate not even that had an impact. >> he called the united states foolish. and kyung lah was in wisconsin in a state trump won. it has made some trump supporters turn but it doesn't look lik

now to insight in what jeff just outlined for us, cnn political and national security analyst david sanger, national security correspondent for "new york times," and thomas countryman, former state department official pushed out by the trump administration. gentlemen, welcome. david, i want to get to your great reporting in the paper this morning, but tom, let me begin with you and this whole americans, russians proposal exchange. there are american diplomats as you know all around the world that trust and depend on their government's support and this idea even for just a minute that they could be served up to russia, the white house now saying it was an incredible offer monday, now saying no, no, no, we disagree. what must diplomats be thinking? >> i think many of them would agree with me that if president trump ever read the u.s. constitution, he would have rejected mr. putin's idea in two seconds and not taken 72 hours to think about it. it is fundamental to the u.s. system. and i think it was well established during the nixon, watergate era that the president cannot use the u.s. legal

david sanger, steve hall, thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us. >>> there was alsol arrested, accused of conspireing -- >> it can't be. this would be too much irony. >> there's too much actually. there's too much happening. and this is one of them. so we'll tell you the back story of this alleged spy. we do whatever it takes to fight cancer. these are the specialists we're proud to call our own. experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com well, it'sonce again.eason >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a

. >>> all right, let's bring in now cnn political and national security analyst david sanger, and sce and sean turner. david, you have very interesting reporting that you're here to share with us. two weeks before the inauguration, the intel chiefs went to donald trump and they opened their files, and it was highly classified. so highly classified it could not be in the daily presidential briefing, and they revealed to him their evidence of how vladimir putin personally directed the cyber attack on the u.s. election. can you tell us what specifics they showed the president elect and what his response was then? >> sure, this meeting was not only well known, it was fairly public and we reported at the time that four of the intelligence chiefs, all of whom were at that time working for president baobama, they went to trump tower. at the end, comey showed the president elect, or at least told him about, the steele dossier and it's salacious accusations about his behavior in moscow, which the president denied. but what they did in this meeting was run through the intelligence that first al

joining me now is a co-author, david sanger, the national correspondent with a brand new book, very timelyrfect weapon, war, sabotage and fear in the cyber age, david, you know the story today, michael cohen having taped trump. what is robert mueller's interest in that issue, if any? >> i not clear how interested he is in that. clearly, if you look at what mueller has done of the past couple of months, he did an dime of the people that ran the internet research agency. they're the ones in russia who put out those ads and commentary on facebook and social media. then, ten days ago, he indicted 12 officers of the gru, the russian intelligence unit that broke into the international democratic committee and then work with wiki leaks, created falls personas, created gucifer 2.0. what is missing from it is wlrpt they got help from any americans, and that people who clearly, the mueller is trying to press for information on that is paul man a forkts go es to trial soon. rick gates, his associate. of course, gem michael flynn, the national security adviser, briefly under president trump. and you'd

him to do and the fact that they are meeting alone with no agenda, no reason for this summit, david sangersmarter guy than i am. he can explain what's going on. >> brother david or uncle david. what do you think? >> right. i'm not quite sure how to take that. a few things, not only is it a historic indictment for legal purposes, if you are president trump or any of the people around him and you read into that indictment and you read the conversations that are going on that could only have come out of british american or dutch intelligence being deep inside the russian military systems, you've got to think what else do they have? what else did they pull out of those systems? >> what are those conversations? >> if there were conversations between the gru and americans and you saw a little bit of it. we wrote about some of this in the times today, about guccifer 2.0, the russian military intelligence. the specificity of the conversations between wikileaks and the gru, makes you wonder what else do they have including how deep were they in inside wikileaks system. >> wikileaks hasn't been indi

obviously can't get into classified matters, but the r l reality is, and one of your colleagues david sanger said that cyber is the perfect weapon, it's actually the omnipresent kind of weapon, so, yes, i seriously have questions about our country's capacity to deal with the array of threats and particularly troubled about the fact that every single time you saw what happened in -- the question of monte negro, which is a nato ally. the reason we support the efforts of nato and monte negro is that makes it less likely that our soldiers will be in harm's way, putin made light of it and i think that reflects the conflict there even more widely. >>> next, where does the president stand on russian election meddling and interference. it depends on where he's talking and who he's talking to. >>> will democrats get the chance to question him? ordinar. it's single-origin kenyan coffee from the nyeri highlands, 6,000 feet above sea level. but how do you really know that the beans journeyed to the port of mombasa and across the pacific? that you can trust they're 100% authentic? ibm blockchain. a smart

david sanger, our contributor has a fascinating piece saying essentially the russians have moved on,ll meddle in elections but now going after bigger fish. russian hackers feel far more interested in interested this year in demonstrating they can disrupt the american trick cal utility grid. >> the confidence is not super high. i do think that on the policy, they have been far better than his words. there's always going to be this die very generals. the president, of course, when you're president of the united states and the leader of the free world, your words matter. your policy can do a lot. your words also shift the game. putin felt that when they met. so if they continue to meet, trump's words will sort of change the game even if the policy is very solid which it has been in many cases. i am gratified they at least had this meeting about specifically russia and election meddling. that's been the place. >> you have the ranking democrat asking the secretary of state what did the president discuss with vladimir putin in private. didn't get much. >> did the president discuss relaxing

i think the bar is very high for secretary pompeo, and high as well because, as david sanger said in "the new york times" this morning, he has to show that he can get a better deal than john kerry did with iran. >> and you of course you were the wing person, i won't say wing man, you were the wing person on all those trips, years of negotiations. >> yes. >> victor cha, the cheating record of north korea is well-known to all of us. but then the president declaring in minnesota a couple of weeks ago, we've already gotten 200 remains back. well, that created awkwardness for both the state department and the pentagon. they have coffins ready for all these long-grieving families wondering whatever happened to their loved ones. but there's no sign yet. this could be something they will deliver to mike pompeo, perhaps, because it's easier to deliver diplomatically than saying "we're ready for inspectors." >> the north koreans think if we give the secretary the 200 remains, that will be a nice deliverable to take back, and of course it's important to have them returned. on the other hand, as

david sanger's piece. "russian hackers appear to shift focus to u.s. power grid." that gets your attention. his lead sentence is "state sponsored russian hackers appear far more interested," that's what got my attention, "far more interested in year in demonstrating they can disrupt the american electric grid than the midterm elections," and he goes onto say u.s. intelligence officials and technology company executives. what do you make of that? >> they are trying to build essentially options, whether it's warfare or negotiations. a lot of times you'll hear people say, well, they didn't actually turn out the power, they're not doing an act of war. but this is actually leverage that you can have. so we know about this now. what do we have to do? we have to check all of our electric systems to make sure there isn't a foreign adversary in those systems and we to safeguard against that. that can be used as a tool. that's a negotiation tool they can use in terms of dealing with us. i think it's important to recognize that hacking is going to continue but the targets wil

also a big story that came out probably about 9:00 last night david sanger wrote in the "new york timesay's edition says the president was told directly right before the inauguration i imagine by john brennan, i imagine by james comey or i imagine by james clapper three people who have shown to be vehemently anti-trump that vladimir putin personally made sure they meddled in the election and he was personally responds cybil for it and the term is the president reluctantly agreed grudgingly convinced that putin ordered the interference. ainsley: the president has called out numerous times vladimir putin for meddling nut election and, russia, listen to this. >> as far as hacking i think it was russia. we also get hacked by other countries and other people. and i can say that you know, when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn't make a big deal out of that. that was something that was extraordinary. that was probably china we have much hacking going on. i think it was russia and could have been other people and other countries, could have been a

. >> clint, i have to read you a headline from "the new york times" tonight, david sanger's piece -- russian hackers appear to shift focus to u.s. power grid. that gets your attention. his lead sentence is, state-sponsored russian hackers appear far more interested. that's what got my attention. far more interested this year in demonstrating that they can disrupt the american electric grid than the midterm elections. and he goes on to cite u.s. intelligence officials and tech company executives. what do you think of that? >> they're trying to essentially build options, whether it's warfare or negotiations. a lot of times, you'll hear people say, well, they didn't actually turn out the power, they're not doing an act of war, but this is actually leverage that you can have. so, we know about this now. what do we have to do? in the united states, we have to go around and check all of our electric systems to make sure that there isn't a foreign adversary that's in those systems. and we have to them safeguard against that. that can be used as a tool. that's a negotiation tool that they ca

of what we wrote, the story called the perfect weapon when we went through this, eric lipton, david sangerott shane. >> i agree. >> the reason you know much about this and we knew about it so early was because of the reporting we did afterward and went through the entire narrative step by step. >> and we worked with your reporters and i appreciate the work that you guys did. i really do. >> but remember one other thing. that was all after the fact. but at the time you were playing this, the media was playing this at the time as if this was credible sourcing and what donna said is absolutely right. you had to know they didn't have all of her emails, they just took the most embarrassing ones and you can't assess the credibility of somebody with just part of a story but the media banged her and a lot of other people in the clinton campaign unfairly. >> we have to take a break. we have to take a quick break. we will be back with more of the roundtable plus democratic senator chris murphy joins us live in the studio to weigh in on the trump/putin summit and all this. with moderate to severe ulc

convinced himself in that meeting when he was shown that the russians, this is the "new york times" david sanger'sying to convince him the russians interfered in the election and putin was directly responsible for it. he seemed largely convinced. subsequent to that, he convinced himself this was a great conspiracy and plot to convince him that the election was illegitimate, he didn't win, and the russians interfered in a way. he has so convinced himself of that narrative, he's never been able to let it go. that resulted last week in the disastrous meeting with vladimir putin. >> i think that is a generous explanation. his obsequiousness with putin has predated that briefing. >> there remains two great mysteries, what happens in the meeting and what is on donald trump's tax returns and i think they're related. >> gene robinson, just to go back to the sanger piece, there was a briefing given on january 6th, 2017, inside trump tower that the highest ranking intelligence officials in the united states laying out chapter and verse in clear terms how president putin himself directed cyber attacks during