government knows about this. >> philip mudd, to you. some of these counterattacks. i mean, we know about some of what the united states is doing. we also know, pretty clear that there will be covert action, as well. can you walk us through what that could be? >> sure. if you're looking at what we were talking about earlier. back in the days of the cold war, you would see what we saw in the past 24 hours. expel their diplomats. they expel our diplomats and then you move on. in this case, the white house is announcing measures for this new age of cyber war fare where you're talking about the capabilities and the activities of the russians. the company can now say i can defend myself. behind the scenes the white house has repeatedly said, there is more to come. i want to know if they will start playing with russian intelligence computers and start playing with the i.t. infrastructure in the kremlin. my guess is that there is more behind the scenes that involves the digital world that is as general hertling. the man we call general hertling who talked about whether we s

joining us now is cnn counterterrorism analyst and former cia official philip mudd. cnn terrorism analyst paul cruickshank. and former state department official and u.s. ambassador to nato, nicholas burns. mr. mudd, we begin with you. if we look at this palette across the globe, you have switzerland, that was gunfire. turkey was gunfire, a targeted assassination. berlin a truck. these are all different methods, but they're all being lumped together by the president-elect as the same problem. is that the simple truth, or is this something missed in the subtlety? >> there's a couple things missed here. he's incorrect in lumping these together. i would agree with him initially, although we don't know for sure, that turkey -- pardon me, germany is a radical islamist attack. that's in contrast to what we see in turkey. i think we'll find that has to do with turkish politics and disputes within turkey about how much turkey should be aligned with the russians, especially as the russians are responsible for part of the humanitarian disaster in syria. two very different situa

we have jackie kucinich, david gregory, and philip mudd. here it is right from the transition office. the announcement that the nomineeill be rex tillerson. they highlight in big ways his business experience. >> job creation. >> that he spent most of his career, they say, protecting the jobs of his some 70,000 employees, that he knows how to manage a major organization, which is critical to running this secretary of state, his tenacity, broad understanding of geopolitics will make him an excelle excellent. and his contacts with leaders around the world are second to none. david gregory, his business acumen is going to be a big second to his business contact, specifically his relationships with russia and vladimir putin. the timing here alone suggests trump says i don't care about the russia meddling with the u.s. election, this is my guy. >> it's clear he likes him because what does donald trump want in a secretary of state? he wants a good negotiator, someone who's going to negotiate on behalf of america. he wants somebody more like himsel

philip mudd, i'm going to ask you as well, ambassador.involved in the hacks that took place during the election, do you believe, with your sources within the intel community, that is up for dispute? >> no. i think there's two questions. let's make sure we don't confuse them. the question of what happened. and the question of why. you started at the beginning. that is not the wide question. were they trying to intervene in favor of one party or the other? i think the question of whether they intervened is not in dispute. you talk to government officials. you talk to people who are briefed in the congress and you talk to technical professionals outside government, some of whom i worked with in the past, the fbi, unanimous, the russians hacked. that's it. >> the pushback is where's the proof? clapper came out, gave this statement on october 7th, said, it has all the marks, this is what they do, they've done this before. how come no names? how come no proof of who says that it was the russians? where is the proof? >> look, this is what we cal

also philip mudd former cia counterterrorism official. let me begin with you, philip mudd, because this is just -- no one expected this this morning. we expected tit for tat. we expected russia to do what the kremlin said they were advising putin to do, pull back, push out, expel these u.s. diplomats from russia. now putin comes out with this statement saying he's not going to do that. he's going to defer any action until trump takes over and not create problems for american diplomats. what do you make of this? >> well, this is remarkable. you can dismiss vladimir putin as sort of a tin pot thug. let's be clear, the man is smart, if not brilliant. let's go back over the past few years. annexing crimea, hugely popular in russia. putin's approval ratings in russia hovering at or above 80%. unthinkable for an american president to have ratings like that. when the americans pull back from syria, who moves in? the russians. now they've succeeded just over the past week, there's a cease-fire on thursday night, and potential peace talks brokered

errol, maggie and philip mudd. when this came out last week i said she just gave them a gift because this was the second time from the beginning of the administration, michelle obama said i'm proud of my country and now here at the end she says this. what kind of fodder is this for trump? how does he use it and what does it mean? >> it depends if he means let's bring the country back together again. these tours for his supporters and ridiculing his opponents and so forth is not necessarily you try to bring things back together, again. michelle obama has sort of played right into that and saying, it is still a divided nation but i won. that is really what this thank you tour is about. saying it is divided, but we won. it is kind of a moral boost for him and his supporters trying to shore up some of these poll numbers that are floating out there. the reality is, they've got to be a little bit concerned that they come into, they come into power with their approval ratings very, very low. historically. and in some case

former cia counterterrorism official philip mudd, great to have you. "washington post" reporter abby philip and washington examiner and host of podcast examining politics, david drucker. when you heard sean spicer say if the cia is so sure, why wouldn't they come out on the record? >> i feel like jumping through the tv screen and taking this guy out behind the shed. about the service he received from the cia for eight years. talk to his father, one of the most staunch defenders in the republican party of the cia. this guy who doesn't know is telling me that the cia is political after all those years of service to republicans? i don't buy it. >> you're angry that donald trump, even, has said that how can the cia be trusted? they got the intelligence wrong with wraek. . >> if you look at the history of the presidential engagement with the cia, very mixed. sometimes they like to read things and sometimes they like to take in information through their advisors. my mom taught me something that maybe president trump can learn. if you have something negative t

i want to bring in cnn international reporter and philip mudd, former cia counterterrorism official., both, for joining us here on "new day." melissa, i will start with you because you have reported extensively on the increased security in paris. you are reporting that it was higher even before the berlin market attacks. give us a sense of the feeling on the ground there. >> i was at the french interior ministry yesterday, don, is it isn't a question of whether but how and when france will next be attacked. the mistake would be to become complacent. no attack on french soil since july. soon it will be six months. but that does not mean another attack is not due. they said the threat has never been higher. what has changed is france's ability to prevent attack. they point to the fact that 17 have been foiled in france this year alone. now, just behind me over my shoulder you can see there, down there already the crowds are pretty impressive. those crowds are nothing, don, in what we will see in a few days time on saturday night when hundreds of thousands of people will be out there. o

cnn counterterrorism analyst philip mudd. cnn terrorism analyst and editor paul cruickshank. gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. paul, do you have any reporting on why he went to italy? >> in that scenario, scenario number one he was trying to get shelter from contacts inside italy. after all he had spent a number of years there before moving to germany. scenario number two he wanted to go to italy to launch an attack there. he may have had some animus against the italians for putting him in prison. and scenario number three, he was going to italy as a way station to either go and try and join isis in syria. milan is a hub for the balkan route but milan is also a hub for getting down to southern italy and a possible way to get into north africa. i think those are the three scenarios they're going to be looking into. it's not clear whether we'll ever know why exactly he traveled south to italy, because he's now dead. >> yeah. general, we do -- his -- his -- this man's travels were notable. he started in tunisia. then he made his way to italy. he got into trouble in

joining me now, cnn counterterrorism expert and former cia analyst philip mudd. what did you think when you saw the release? >> this is really impressing for , depressing. on the campaign trail, you can create facts. he had to have the humility to say yes and the president-elect backed down. when the president-elect didn't like the facts from the department of justice and the fbi, the fbi director comey saying he would not pursue the e-mail investigation into hillary clinton, attack the messenger. now we're getting the same thing when we have a transition from the campaign trail. if i don't like the facts, if i want to cozy up to russia, let me attack the messenger. this is not just the president of the united states. this is the leader of one of the three arms of government, the executive branch. before taking office, two elements. the fbi and the cia that he doesn't trust them. this is unbelievable. >> what impact is this going to have on his relationship moving forward with that intel community on which he must rely? >> i think there's two elements here behind

let's bring in cnn counterterrorism analyst and former cia counterterrorism official philip mudd, andmer intelligence officer and daily briefer at the cia, david prius. let's talk about this. you used to help prepare people to give those briefings to the president. are these just kind of here's the obvious headlines? how intense are these? how important are these briefings? >> the briefings can't be taken in isolation. it's a steady stream of intelligence information that's constantly updating stories around the world. so getting a briefing now and then or reading the daily book of secrets now and then doesn't give the president-elect a full picture of what intelligence can do for him. it's a steady stream that updates him on situations with new and different information. not about how smart he is. it's about getting the information he needs to make those decisions. >> so beyond the information that is critical for the president to get and the president-elect to get, regardless of how often he wants to get it, what about what this does to the morale of these intelligence officers and