Biden dismisses reports about son's business interests as 'smear'
Trump 2016 deputy campaign manager Rick Gates joins Martha MacCallum to weigh in on 'The Story'
This is a rush transcript from “The Story with Martha MacCallum” October 21, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: And in the meantime, good evening to you good evening everybody I'm Martha
MacCallum, live in Nashville, Tennessee, tonight, the sight of tomorrow's
final presidential debate. An important face-off is now just 24 hours away,
candidates will take the stage right behind me here at Belmont University.
We understand that they will be muted for the first two minutes of each
question session of the six breakdowns, it's kind of raises a lot of
questions each campaign saying they didn't hear about it beforehand a lot
of that. So we will speak with a Co-Chair of the Debate Commission tonight.
They have been on the hot seat throughout this election season and we are
going to ask him some questions about all of that. Also tonight in the home
stretch of the campaign, Joe Biden brought in the is heaviest header,
President Barack Obama stood before voters in a huge parking lot in the
most win State of Pennsylvania, here's part of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You'll be able to go about your lives
knowing that the president is not going to re-tweet conspiracy theories. We
aren't going to have a president that goes out of his way to insult anybody
who doesn't support him. Or threaten them with jail. You wouldn't tolerate
it from a coworker. We wouldn't tolerate it in our own family except for
maybe crazy uncles somewhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: So you heard some of those beep, beeps in the audience that was
a car rally as I mentioned and that happened in Philadelphia, a very
important spot as we get this closer to the election. So four years ago,
President Obama did essentially the same thing at around the same time he
drew 40,000 people for Hillary Clinton back in the days when we saw that
kind of crowd.
And that's a little bit of that scene on the right-hand side of your
screen. So that move though failed to secure Hillary Clinton a victory in
part in the end when everybody looked back, it was due to low turnout from
black voters, a group that Joe Biden hopes the Former President Barack
Obama can help him deliver 13 short days from today.
Another crucial group is suburban women, we have got brand-new Fox News
polling tonight shows the president is far behind with them in Pennsylvania
I should say and also in these other battleground states. Take a look at
those numbers double - Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin a lot of
ground to make up in 13 days for the president with this group of voters.
Here now is Deroy Murdock, National Review Online Contributing Editor and a
Fox News Contributor and Austan Goolsbee President Obama's Former Chief
Economist and Professor at the University of Chicago. Gentlemen thank you
both for being here, great to have you with us this evening.
Deroy let me start with you, your thoughts on what we just saw from
President Obama in Philadelphia tonight, he was the reluctant supporter of
his own vice president, didn't come out for him early in the game at all
but now he is all in with 13 days to go and giving everybody all the
reasons he can to vote for his Former VP, what do you think?
DEROY MURDOCK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: It's a little bit of Barack come
lately I suppose. I kind of felt actually sorry for Joe Biden on the
primaries and he was sort of looking back at Obama and saying don't you
remember me? We spent years together where are you?
And he finally came out and endorsed him. Did a couple of Zoom events and
that's about it. Now he's come out within the last fortnight. But I think
people will really need to look beyond sort of the glamour of Obama and all
that other stuffs.
And think about the economy that they left behind. Austan is very much
involved in this. And economy up until COVID-19, we have had record
unemployment ever. We had huge increase in adjusted median national income
that is median average income, household income so I mean to say. And the
lowest poverty rate ever.
So I think people will look back at the Obama days with some sort of
fondness and rose colored eyes and eye glasses that sort of thing. But you
look at the economy at that time versus where it was before COVID-19 struck
us.
And I think if people focus on that, they really ought to be thankful for
what Trump economics has been able to do for our economy. What it seems to
be doing now as we bounce back and what will do over the next four years if
President Trump is reelected?
MACCALLUM: Austan it's hard for presidents to recreate the magic for other
people, we've seen that over time. We saw that with Bill Clinton, we'll see
with Barack Obama last time as I pointed out, he had 40,000 people in the
crowd in Philadelphia and yet she was not able to pull across the finish
line with the victory in Pennsylvania. Why will it be different this time
if you think it will with Joe Biden?
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, CHIEF ECONOMIST UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: I don't know that
it makes that much difference. I know Barack Obama is very popular with the
Democratic voters and with independents, not so much with Republican
voters.
A lot of people almost 40 million people have already voted. So I think the
last minutes, we're going to trot out and give speeches of why you should
vote for our candidate? I don't know if the normal rules apply this year.
We can't have big rallies, a lot of people already voted and a lot of
people are already decided. So this is going to be a game of turnout I
think.
MACCALLUM: Exactly.
GOOLSBEE: I think the Trump Campaign from these polls, probably the thing
that should scare them the most is that his strongest weapon, his strongest
issue has been the economy and for the first time this week, he's actually
underwater on that issue where more people think--
MACCALLUM: Which poll are you looking at there Austan? I saw that you said
that and I don't see the ones that we have do not show that.
GOOLSBEE: I can get it for you, it was 48-46.
MACCALLUM: OK. All right, so we got a new Fox News Poll, trust a better
handle the economy, likely voters in this poll October 17 to 20 so it ended
just yesterday. Michigan is a tie, 47-47, Ohio 41-52, President Trump
Pennsylvania 45-50, President Trump in that regard with speaking about the
economy specifically, Wisconsin 43-50. And that Deroy I know that is an
area that you think he needs to really focus on in a big way come tomorrow
night.
MURDOCK: Absolutely, I did a piece for Fox Business website last week and I
pointed out some really incredibly dramatic figures and I really hope the
president focuses on this for the next 13 days, for example black
homeownership at the end of President Obama's term, fourth quarter 2016
41.7 percent, second quarter 2020 47 percent, that's a huge increase in
black home ownership.
The poverty rate as I mentioned fell to a record low beginning in 2019, the
first time in U.S. history the black poverty rate has been below 20
percent, that's again a very positive thing for people who may not have had
much education. People with no high school diploma - median household
income under Obama between 2010 and 16 went up just 1.7 percent over the
first three years of President Trump up 9 percent.
So we are seeing that people sort of those who are considered overlooked or
not the Wall Street crowd, are really the people who have seen the biggest
gains under Trumponomics. And he needs to talk about that tremendous
progress that's been made. Unfortunately COVID-19 sort of derailed that and
now we're going to - with any luck continue the growth we've seen and
continue it even more dramatically over the next four years.
MACCALLUM: Well, that's the big issue. I know that Austan was going to jump
in on this. But that's the big issue, all of that has a caveat, before
COVID-19 and obviously any presidency can be hit with an enormous
unexpected event that rocks their presidency and rocks the country.
It's really a question Austan is whether or not people see who can fix it
now. You know I think that - even though it feels like we're going to live
in this situation forever I don't believe that we are. And when we do get
on the other side of it, it's going to have a huge enormous impact on the
economy and these voters have to decide who they think is better at doing
that fixing it.
GOOLSBEE: Yes, I agree with that. I do think there is also the element of
holding people to account for what happened under their watch? So it's more
than just who do you think will do a better job from this point forward?
The fact that repeatedly and in all the polls, people believe the Trump
Administration mishandled the crisis, continues to mishandle the crisis and
that COVID crisis created and accentuated these economic problems, that's a
big albatross for the president to get out from under and that's hard for
him.
MACCALLUM: Yes, it absolutely is.
MURDOCK: I want to just note a quick point.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
MURDOCK: I think just this quick point, there is no - to whatsoever in this
but if you see the lockdowns go on in Europe, England, France and I think
in Israel and other places, this is awful thing. I mean, this shows that we
are being hit and struck around the world by this terrible virus. Nobody
wanted this, nobody asked for it, nobody deserved it.
And all sorts of leaders, not just President Trump have had to grapple with
this and you know you're seeing sort of a second wave coming. And I think
it shows that this remains a challenge not just for President Trump but for
almost every world leader and I would just wish the Chinese government let
us get in and fight this early rather than cover up and lie about it and
then let this become a global pandemic that still continue to haunt us
today.
MACCALLUM: Deroy Murdock and Austan Goolsbee, thank you very much
gentlemen. Good to have you with us tonight.
MURDOCK: Thank you.
GOOLSBEE: Thank you.
MACCALLUM: So Trump 2016 Deputy Campaign Chairman Rick Gates knows about
corrupt politics in Ukraine. He was sentenced to prison for charges
stemming from Robert Mueller's investigation into election interference,
admitting to efforts to conceal millions earned lobbying there. His
thoughts on the Hunter Biden story as it have emerged in recent days,
coming up next stick around for that after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: Fox News Alert, we've learned that the FBI is about to hold a
"Major election security news conference", that is going to happen in about
15 minutes and we have been alerted to it so we will definitely carry that
to you. We're going to go to live to it as soon as it gets underway dealing
with election interference and election security.
So that from the FBI at about 30 minutes after the hour, we will take you
there lives. So also tonight Senate Democrats say that they will boycott
tomorrow's vote of Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett at the Senate
Judiciary Committee, a short time ago Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said
this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Because this has been the most rushed, most
partisan, and least legitimate process in the history of Supreme Court
nominations, judiciary members will boycott the markup tomorrow and not
provide the quorum that is required because it is a bipartisan quorum.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: Chairman Lindsey Graham responding to that, he said that the
Judiciary Committee will push ahead. He says Judge Barrett deserves a vote
and she will receive the vote. It's our understanding that the larger
Senate rules allow for the majority to put that through if all of the
majority members are there and vote yes.
And we will have live coverage of the Amy Coney Barrett vote in the Senate
Judiciary Committee midday tomorrow, so stick around for that. Also tonight
new reaction from Joe Biden in response to the efforts to investigate
materials purportedly from his son Hunter's laptop, now in the hands of the
FBI.
At the moment there is no intelligence suggesting that the revelations are
the work of foreign intervention or Russian disinformation as we have
talked a lot about. And as Republican Senators asked the secret service to
hand over the records of Hunter's travel, the Former VP insists that this
is all "Garbage" watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This is the same garbage Rudy Giuliani,
Trump's henchmen - it's a last ditch effort in this desperate campaign to
smear me and my family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: My next guest is one of a handful of Trump associates who was
charged in Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, Rick Gates, Former Deputy
Campaign Chair was sentenced to 45 days in prison after pleading guilty to
lying to investigators and for a financial crime relating to his political
consulting work in Ukraine.
He is now the author of "Wicked Game" an insider story of how Trump won,
Mueller failed and America lost. Rick Gates, welcome to THE STORY. Good to
have you here tonight.
RICK GATES, TRUMP 2016 DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Thanks Martha for having
me. I appreciate it.
MACCALLUM: So just your introduction alone raises questions, people wonder
about your involvement with Ukraine, your involvement where you did not
register as a foreign - for doing foreign business in Ukraine, explained
everybody at home why they should listen to what you have to say about
Hunter Biden given the fact that you lied to federal officials and spent 45
days in prison.
GATES: Sure, absolutely Martha. Thanks for the opportunity. If you look at
the government censuring memorandum they stated I cooperated
extraordinarily, I was open, I was truthful and I was honest in all of the
investigations that they did through their interview.
So I would point to that and I think there are a number of other you know
compelling reasons why - with the whole Mueller probe itself why a number
of us were targeted and you raise FARA and that's a very, very important
issue because as you probably aware, the FARA law itself has never really
been enacted.
It doesn't really have sentencing guidelines associated with it and it was
a tool and a tactic that the Mueller team used to get a lot of us involved
in the investigation. It's very unfortunate, I use the term in my book
"Political Water-boarding", that's exactly what it felt like.
Just to give you a sense, there was a lot of opportunity that the Special
Counsel could have had other people with that law like Tony Podesta who is
on the Democrat side, they did not get charged, so not sure why the whole
standards didn't apply across the board?
MACCALLUM: All right. So explain to us why you think there is more to this
Hunter Biden story based on your own involvement and understanding of the
way that the government works in Ukraine and what happened in 2016? Boil it
down you know in very straight forward terms for people.
GATES: Absolutely. So the government of Ukraine in 2014 we were there
working for the ruling party at the time, President Viktor Yanukovych. The
CEO of Burisma and just to give your viewers a perspective you can be the
wealthiest businessman and also the speaker of parliament at the same time
with no apparent view of conflict.
And so what you look at it is when you look at the energy industry in
Ukraine, it's a very small circle of people. It goes all the way up to the
top to the sitting president at the time. In this case it was Petro
Poroshenko and if you recall much later in 2017, the Ukrainian parliament
held an inquiry about Petro Poroshenko's interference in the U.S. election
and his derogatory comments and intervention against Donald Trump.
And that's created this whole wave of change in Ukraine, not only at the
leadership level but at the business level where Burisma comes in. So while
you know we are focused in the U.S. on Hunter and Joe Biden, there's a
whole other element over in Ukraine that's still unfolding and there are
going to be more people involved and named in this whole business escapade.
MACCALLUM: So when you look at this laptop which is really just sort of a
piece of a larger group of questions about how these Ukrainians operate?
Why they would have wanted to build this relationship with Hunter Biden?
Obviously there's also relationships that he had, business ties that he was
forging and wanting to bring to fruition with China. James Biden with Iraq,
there's a number of involvements there, but what is the larger picture that
you think is at work here with regard to this laptop?
GATES: Yes, absolutely. I think the laptop is its Hunter's mistake of
leaving it at the store and you have all this information on it now that
fortunately with Director Ratcliff's statement a couple of days ago, we
know it's not Russian disinformation and that was a big argument on the
other side.
I think what you know is problematic however is the fact that you know if
the reports are accurate, the FBI had this computer for almost a year and
no action was taken on it. They did not give it to the Senate Homeland
Security Committee who was doing an investigation on the Bidens in this
regard.
So I think there are still a lot of questions that have not been answered
but in terms of the overall scheme of things, it is going to have an impact
on the election it already is. You're seeing that based on Joe Biden's
response today which I thought he had a great opportunity to set the record
straight.
And the one thing he still cannot say, did not say - he did not deny any of
the reports that the emails are accurate, that the computer is real and
that they were involved in this business entanglement.
MACCALLUM: Rick Gates, thank you very much. Obviously there's a lot more to
dig into here and it's clearly a story that deserves some attention. In the
13 days leading up to the election and probably after as well. Rick Gates,
thank you very much, good to have you here tonight.
So moments from now, you see the podium at the FBI Headquarters in
Washington, we are going to get a "Major election security news
conference". We don't know what is about to be revealed here but we've been
given the alert, the pool reporters have all been brought into the FBI to
report on this story which is going to unfold in about 8 minutes. So we
will take you there live as soon as that happens.
And on the eve of the final face-off between President Trump and Joe Biden
which will happen on the stage behind me here, the president lashing out at
the Debate Commission and its decision to mute microphones on the stage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Look, these people are
not good people, this Commission; a lot of funny things go on with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: Exclusive reaction from the Co-Chair of the Commission of
Presidential Debates next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: Awaiting a news conference on election security at the FBI,
that's going to get underway in just a few minutes. So we will bring that
to you live, as soon as it does in the meantime, remember this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I'm not going to answer the question--
TRUMP: Why wouldn't you answer that question?
BIDEN: --because the question is--
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: --radical left--
BIDEN: Will you shut up, man?
TRUMP: Don't ever use the word smart with me. Don't ever use that word.
BIDEN: Oh, give me a break.
TRUMP: Because you know what, there's nothing smart about you Joe. 47 years
you have done nothing.
BIDEN: It's hard to get any word in with this clown.
TRUMP: Hey, let me just say to you--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: That was pretty ugly, remember that, so when President Trump and
Joe Biden face-off for the final time, final chance for the voters to watch
them together and the sum them up, each candidate will be muted during
their opponents two minute window to answer the initial questions in each
segment, the Former Vice President says that it's a good idea, the
president is not convinced, watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I think the mute is very unfair and I think it's very bad that
they're not talking about foreign affairs. They are supposed to be talking
about foreign affairs. And I think that the anchor is a very biased person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: So I'm joined now by Co-Chairman of the Commission on
Presidential Debates, Frank Fahrenkopf. Frank, thank you for being here
tonight, good to have you with us.
FRANK FAHRENKOPF, COMMISSION ON PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES: It's a pleasure
Martha.
MACCALLUM: So the president ticked off a few items that he is not happy
with in this environment here for tomorrow night. He doesn't like the mute
button idea. He thinks that it is unfair, what do you say to that?
FAHRENKOPF: Well, both of the campaigns agreed to going into the first
debate and this last debate which as you know are divided into 615 minute
spots. Different with the moderator naming what the subject matter of each
of those six segments are going to be?
And they agreed that the first two minutes of each would be uninterrupted
for each of them. Now it didn't work out that way in the first debate as
you know, there were interruptions. So we haven't changed any rules, we
just have put in a system where when one is talking just for that two
minute period, the other can't interfere.
So they both will get full two minutes in each of those segments to talk.
The rest of the time there is no muting. There is no buttons to push. They
will be able to go at each other the way they want to however they want to.
MACCALLUM: All right. So who is going to control the mute button?
FAHRENKOPF: It will not be the moderator. The moderator won't have that
capacity. It will be done backstage where we monitor the time. We're trying
to get the time as equal as we can over the 90 minutes so that each an
equal chance to present their case to the American people.
MACCALLUM: All right. So, in the six -- in the six segments, where you got
four minutes where they each to get to answer at the top and then after
that --
FAHRENKOPF: Right.
MACCALLUM: -- they are free to jump in and debate each other and cut each
other off in the rest of that period.
FAHRENKOPF: And if they want to. There are no mute buttons involved in it.
MACCALLUM: All right.
FAHRENKOPF: And the other thing, Martha, the president keeps talking about
it --
MACCALLUM: Yes.
FAHRENKOPF: -- was supposed to be foreign policy, it was never foreign
policy, and I told the campaign two weeks ago it wasn't a foreign policy
debate. I referred them back to 2016 where the president of course
participated in the debate, the first and last depend upon the subject
matter that the moderator presents for the six sections, it was not ever,
ever just on foreign policy.
MACCALLUM: But does it seem odd to you that there isn't a good chunk of
time devoted to that given how important foreign policy is and some people,
Frank, look at that and say that it's, you know, it's convenient for Joe
Biden right now given all these questions about his family's involvement in
China and in Ukraine, so are there concern that there won't be an
opportunity to ask about that.
FAHRENKOPF: I understand that greatly, but again from the time we went to
this format starting in 2012, the commission has nothing to say about what
the moderators decide will be in the six sections, though I do know that
one of the things that was mentioned that will be tomorrow night is
something our national security and leadership. So, it seems to me there is
an opening if the president wants to talk about foreign policy.
MACCALLUM: Yes. Yes, those seem to be the two spots where it could
certainly be brought up by either candidate and where there's an
opportunity to get some of those questions in.
You heard the president go after tomorrow night's moderator Kristen Welker
and he feels somewhat vindicated in terms of what happened with Steve
Scully, because he felt that the fact that he had been an intern for Joe
Biden was problematic, and then we had, you know, the hacking situation
which turned out to be an untruth that was told by Steve Scully that he had
interacted with Anthony Scaramucci who is a very, you know, vocal anti-
Trump person who used to be on the inside circle.
FAHRENKOPF: Well, it's not fair to paint her with that brush. And
particularly when Jason Miller who as you know is a senior advisor on the
campaign a week ago when she was named said that she an excellent choice,
she was a very fair reporter, she worked hard.
MACCALLUM: He did.
FAHRENKOPF: He knew -- he knew that she would do a good job -- in fact it
was on your show, I think on this very show.
MACCALLUM: That's correct. What about Steve Scully as you look back on
that? Obviously, it is -- it's not a great moment for the commission.
FAHRENKOPF: Well, we like most people, we believe him what he said and I
think on this very network, Karl Rove was on saying he was a man of
integrity, he believes him. Sean Spicer, many Republicans and Democrats who
had known C-SPAN and the great job he did over the years, we were all taken
aback by it and we were very surprised then it was not good. It was not
good.
MACCALLUM: Yes. You know, with regard to the framing of the questions,
once the moderator is chosen, that person has free reign to frame the
questions anyway they like. Correct? Because you know, there are people who
look at some of the questions and say that they are a bit loaded.
FAHRENKOPF: Well, again, like I said the commission is not involved even
when we go back all the way back to when we started back in the 80s and
90s, and always then and it wasn't -- it wasn't a format like this, there
was usually a moderator and free panelist. We never knew what the questions
were going to be. We trust, you know, trusted their journalistic integrity,
and you know, this time it worked out with these two, the first and last
that there wasn't more time spent on foreign policy.
But that's not something we as a commission can suddenly come in and
change. We trust their integrity and their journalistic ability to make
those decisions.
MACCALLUM: So, what about that? What -- what you -- as you look ahead and
obviously there's plenty of time between now and the next presidential
election but just given where we are so far in this, what would you do
differently in the next round?
FAHRENKOPF: Well, you know, I think a very, very fair question has been
raised how we do about -- how we do the moderators and how we choose the
moderators. And you know, the journalism fraternity has changed drastically
over the past few years particularly with social media and it's pretty hard
to just say all right, here is someone who is balance, who is not
prejudiced one way or the other.
We do our best and someone came up with a suggestion the other day, maybe
we ought to not strike someone with balance, we had to get one who is a
known conservative and one who is a known liberal and let them each take
turns. We're going to have a hard look at that because I think some of that
criticism is fair and we always try after we do a cycle to try to examine
what we did and how we did it and can we do it better next time?
MACCALLUM: I think that -- I think it's an interesting point as the world
of journalism continues to evolve and it is more polarized than it has ever
been before. There are many of us who try to stay in that middle lane but I
think it's interesting what you bring up.
Frank, thank you very much.
We have to go to the FBI as they are making an announcing on election
interference. Let's listen in to this.
They will be joined by Assistant Attorney General for National Security
John Demers and also director Chris Krebs for the Cyber Security and
Infrastructure Security Agency or CISA. There will be no questions.
Thank you. This is your two-minute warning.
MACCALLUM: All right. We got a two-minute warning here that we did not
anticipate, we thought they were coming into that room right away. But we
are going to hear from Christopher Wray as you heard at the FBI and we've
been given really very little information about what to expect here
tonight. We've reached out to people at the Department of Justice but all
we can tell you at this point is there is expected to be an announcement
about election interference,
I'm told that it's a significant announcement that we will be hearing from
the FBI this evening. Obviously, we are 13 days away from this election,
there's been a lot of questions raised about this process given that we are
in the middle of a global pandemic which of course has impacted our country
in a very big way.
So, we are seeing differences in the way that the election is handled, we
don't know if this election interference has anything to do with that with
the increase that we're seeing in mail-in ballots or absentee ballots. We
have no idea if that's the nature of this or whether it could be an
international issue, so we await.
Guy Benson standing by, as we get ready for this from the FBI this evening.
Guy, good to have you with us. We are about 24 hours, a little more than 24
hours away from this big event here tomorrow night. Guy of course is the
host of the Guy Benson show on Fox News radio and political editor.
Any thoughts that you have as we wait for the FBI as they begin to file
into the room here and get ready to speak?
GUY BENSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's certainly intriguing, right?
Here is an announcement from the FBI late in the election cycle, with
everything on the line, it kind of feels strangely familiar to four years
ago, your guess is as good as mine, Martha.
(CROSSTALK)
MACCALLUM: Let's listen to John Ratcliffe here.
BENSON: Hopefully it's --
JOHN RATCLIFFE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Sacred in our republic
than the fundamental democratic principle of one person, one vote. It is
our duty to ensure the sanctity of U.S. elections, that includes ensuring
the security of voting systems.
The intelligence community's role is to identify threats and to assess the
intention, capabilities, and actions of foreign adversaries. Our duty also
includes empowering the American people to understand information or
perhaps more accurately disinformation that they are seeing particularly on
the internet and make informed decisions for themselves.
With that in mind, we would like to alert the public that we have
identified that two foreign actors, Iran and Russia, have taken specific
actions to influence public opinion relating to our elections.
First, we have confirmed that some voter registration information has been
obtained by Iran and separately, by Russia. This data can be used by
foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered
voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos, and undermine your
confidence in American democracy.
To that end, we have already seen Iran sending spoofed e-mails designed to
intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump. You
may have seen some reporting on this in the last 24 hours or you may have
even been one of the recipients of one of those e-mails.
Additionally, Iran is distributing other content to include a video that
implies that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas.
This video and any claims about such allegedly fraudulent ballots are not
true.
These actions are desperate attempts by desperate adversaries. Even if the
adversaries pursue further attempts to intimidate or attempt to undermine
voter confidence, know that our election systems are resilient and you can
be confident your votes are secure.
Although we have not seen the same actions from Russia, we are aware that
they have obtained some voter information just as they did in 2016. Rest
assured that we are prepared for the possibility of actions by those
hostiles to democracy.
The great women and men of the intelligence community caught this activity
immediately and our colleagues at FBI and DHS acted swiftly in response to
this threat.
We are standing before you now to give you the confidence that we are on
top of this and providing you with the most powerful weapon we have two
combat these efforts -- the truth. Information.
We ask every American to do their part to defend against those who wish us
harm, the way you do that is quite simple. Do not allow these efforts to
have their intended effect. If you receive an intimidating or manipulative
e-mail in your inbox, don't be alarmed and do not spread it.
This is not a partisan issue. I've had conversations today with members of
Congress from both sides of the aisle and there is complete unanimity in
the U.S. government, in our resolve to combat the enemies of freedom.
The president has instructed me to keep the public informed as appropriate
and you have my commitment that I will continue to do exactly that with
transparency and with candor.
We will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections, and we will
continue to work with our many partners to disrupt and to impose costs and
consequences on any adversary that attempts to interfere in our democratic
processes. The efforts of the president to empower us to put towards
election security over these last four years are working.
And I will now turn it over to my colleague Director Wray of the FBI to
address law enforcement's activities.
CHRISTOPHER WRAY, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Thanks, John.
The FBI is the primary agency responsible for investigating malicious cyber
activity against election infrastructure, malign foreign influence
operations, and election related crimes like voter fraud and voter
suppression or intimidation and that's exactly what we've been doing.
At the FBI we're working closely with our intelligence community partners
as well as our other federal, state, and local partners to share
information, bolster security, and identify and disrupt any threats.
We are not going to tolerate foreign interference in our elections or any
criminal activity that threatens the sanctity of your vote or undermines
public confidence in the outcome of the election. When we see indications
of foreign interference or federal election crimes, we are going to
aggressively investigate and work with our partners to quickly take
appropriate action.
We are also coordinating with the private sector, both technology and
social media companies to make sure that their platforms aren't used by
foreign adversaries to spread disinformation and propaganda. We've been
working for years as a community to build resilience in our election
infrastructure and today that infrastructure remains resilient. You should
be confident that your vote counts.
Early, unverified claims to the contrary should be viewed with a healthy
dose of skepticism. We encourage everyone to seek election and voting
information from reliable sources, namely your state election officials and
to be thoughtful, careful and discerning consumers of information online.
And if you suspect criminal activity, we ask that you to report that
information to your local FBI field office. As always, the men and women of
the FBI remain committed to protecting the American people, our democracy,
and the integrity of our elections. We are not going to let our guard down.
Thank you.
MACCALLUM: All right. There you have it a big announcement from Christ
Wray, the head -- the director of the FBI. We started with the announcement
by the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.
And essentially, the announcement tonight was that there have been efforts
identified on behalf of the Iranian government and also the Russian
government to interfere in the United States election. And the pathway to
that as I understand it -- we are going to bring in Guy Benson and get his
thoughts on this in a moment.
But what they said was that there have been voter registration information
that was collected by Iran and by Russia and that they use that information
to target certain voters in the United States to try to sway their opinion
and to try to flood their social media, flood their interactions online
with indications that the election could be fraudulent, that there could be
even violence involved.
And so, they -- these efforts by the Iranian government and the Russian
government have been made to sort of scare people into thinking that the
election might be fraudulent and they wanted to give everyone in the United
States a heads up and ask them to be confident in the United States
election system.
They said that they are on top of this effort by these two governments to
influence the election and they also said that a lot of the information was
targeted against President Trump.
Let's bring in Guy Benson once again. Guy, you were watching this along
with us, what was your reaction?
BENSON: Well, I can't say that I'm surprised that foreign adversaries are
trying to mess with us. Right?
MACCALLUM: Yes.
BENSON: We saw it four years ago with the Russians, now the Iranians have
joined this party. I have a sticker on that I voted today, I think it's
patriotic duty. I think seeing the DNI and the FBI director assure
Americans your vote will count, our system is secure, but giving us a heads
up that this stuff is happening, I think that's transparency, I think
that's helpful.
If I had to guess, right, based on what we learned four years ago, we know
the Kremlin has worked in the past to hurt President Trump's opponent in
Hillary Clinton, we know they have a similar preference this time around.
The Iranians have a very different preference and it sounds like they've
been sowing some of this misinformation, obtaining U.S. voter registration
information in such a way as to not only get us at each other's throats,
which seems to be one of the tactics foreign enemies are using against us,
but also to hurt President Trump and perhaps goose support and turnout an
energy on the other side in the Democratic side.
So, fascinating. If we knew that there was some stuff going on four years
ago, I guess a new approach was effort to this time to say, all right, are
we going to sit on this and reveal it after the election or do we want
Americans to know now to be vigilant and keep their eyes open. And
obviously the latter approach won the day.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
BENSON: And at least for this voter, I think that's reassuring.
MACCALLUM: Yes. They also really called on the social media companies to
play a proactive role in identifying this kind of misinformation as it gets
kind of pushed out into social media, which we all know can be just such a
dangerous place for bad information and it spreads like wildfire, they ask
people not to spread this information and to be clear eyed when they get
this kind of thing coming across the trend over social media.
So, Guy, thank you very much. I want to bring in Byron York, chief
political correspondent for the Washington Examiner and a Fox News
contributor. You are listening to this with us as well, Byron. What's your
reaction tonight?
BYRON YORK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, again, not a surprise that a
foreign government would try to do this but perhaps more for sophisticated
than what we saw in 2016. You know, we saw a number of examples in 2016 of
Russians using Facebook and other -- other platforms to try to influence
voters in some key swing states, it was very small, very limited, didn't
have much effect.
Now we've seen apparently an effort by some sort of entity in Iran to send
to Democratic voters purporting to be from the Proud Boys -- remember that
was the right-wing group that Joe Biden insisted that President Trump
denounce in their first debate.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: Purporting to be from the Proud Boys saying we've got your voter
information, you need to change your registration, you need to vote for
President Trump and this is coming from a Iranians. And they are clearly
worried that these Iranians got information from voter files which do have
a lot of information about voters --
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: -- and which are commercially available. They are not top-secret.
So, there's a lot of concern about this tonight.
MACCALLUM: So, Byron, what is the responsibility of social media, of
Twitter, of Facebook when they see these things coming across their
platforms to mark them, to alert people to take them down?
YORK: Well, they have -- they have a responsibility to do that very thing.
And to be fair to them, they have been trying since we first learned after
the 2016 election that some of this stuff was going on, they have been
trying to identify phony files, phony entities.
Remember, we learned after the 2016 election that some of these Russian
entities had been doing pro-Trump activities before the election and then
right after the election, they were trying to organize anti-Trump protests.
I mean, that's what --
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: -- Russians were trying to do.
(CROSSTALK)
MACCALLUM: Chaos, right? I mean, there's all about --
YORK: They were trying to sow discord --
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: -- in the United States.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: Exactly.
MACCALLUM: That's exactly right. And so, the social media companies do
have a responsibility to stop that.
MACCALLUM: Yes. I mean, it's a very difficult task in front of them
because there's so much out there. And with regard to the Iranians going
after this Proud Boys situation, it does obviously harken back to the last
debate. The president was asked to call the group out, he seems to be
unclear who they were and he told them to stand by and stand-down which got
a ton of negative attention for him.
And then you see the Iranians jump on that moment and kind of lean into it
hard -- can the president do anything, say anything to make that divide
very clear so that anybody out there who is seeing this online is quite
clear on where it's coming from?
YORK: Well, I think he can say it. I mean, after all the FBI, the
intelligence community and his administration has found this out. We have
official announcements, this is real, the president can say this tomorrow
night -- as a matter of fact. I mean, if you put it in political terms, you
can say Democrats are trying to exaggerate the right-wing threat in this
country and look, here are these things were coming from Iran, the
president might do something like that.
But the fact is these foreign countries, especially Iran and Russia are
trying to sow discord here. I don't think they are trying specifically to
elect one candidate for policy reasons, but they are trying to mess with us
and always have been.
MACCALLUM: But how can we quantify the amount of it -- as you pointed out
rightly, Byron, the last time around the sort of exaggerations of how much
of a player the Russians were on Facebook and Twitter got really blown out
of proportion. So, what's to keep -- how do we know how big this issue is
and how much influence it could even have? Because it's easy to sort of
fast forward and to see people pointing back to this moment and saying,
see, it was the Iranians, it was the Russians again.
YORK: Yes. Well, given the intensity of our political moment, I think it's
hard to actually keep any of this in proper context --
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: -- because if you remember in 2017 at the height of kind of Trump-
Russia hysteria, there was talk about how these Facebook ads turn the
elections --
MACCALLUM: Right.
YORK: -- and zillions of people had seen them and they change everything
and it just wasn't the case. And so, look, we are in a very, very
superheated time right now and partisans on both sides will probably claim
that. But I do think it is responsible, it's the right thing for the FBI
for the intelligence community to do to point this out and to say --
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: -- listen, if you get some e-mail like this, if you get a Facebook
posting, if you see something like this, it might not be what it purports
to be and be skeptical about it.
MACCALLUM: Yes. I think it's such an important message that everybody
across the country needs to be very savvy and very wary, consumers of
social media. And a lot of things get thrown out there. I get people
sending me things all the time. Is this real, is that real, and I'm sure
you do too, Byron.
So, I think that this is a call for everyone to, you know, sort of up our
game across the country and be very wary of the things that they see coming
through here.
I want to -- I want to keep you here with me for a couple more minutes
because I want to ask you about the election in general and your outlook
for tomorrow night, what impact it might have 13 days to go.
YORK: Well, this is debate week, I mean, there's just no doubt that this
is the most important week that we've seen until now. Remember back in the
summertime when Joe Biden had been leading for a long time, a lot of
Republicans were saying the debates are going to be the president's
opportunity to turn this around, to show the American people, you know,
side-by-side with Joe Biden that he is the one.
Well, obviously the first debate did not go too well for President Trump,
he was overamped. A lot of people thought he was too aggressive, he
interrupted Joe Biden too much, then there wasn't a second debate. So, this
is it. And clearly, the president is planning to have a different demeanor
tomorrow night and we'll see if that works. But this is an extremely
important moment for him.
MACCALLUM: Yes, indeed it is. And you know, I think when we look back on
all of this, we did have so few data points, Byron, given this coronavirus,
given the nature of the smallest amount of campaigning that we've seen in
the history of modern campaigns. It is, it's just a completely different
kettle of fish.
YORK: Yes.
MACCALLUM: You know, as you think about it 13 days out, if you look at
these trends with suburban women voters and black voters, you know, what
are you going to be watching as we sort all this out?
YORK: Well, I mean, this is, you're absolutely right, this is an
incredible election. Right now, the president is campaigning pedal to the
metal. He is going after it, he is going all around the country. You would
expect both candidates to be doing that right now less than two weeks out
from election day. And yet, Joe Biden went dark all week.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: And when was he last seen then -- over the weekend. He's not going
to be seen again until --
MACCALLUM: Monday.
YORK: -- the debate. And clearly, he's protecting a lead, he does have an
eight-plus point lead --
MACCALLUM: Yes.
YORK: -- in national polls and Real Clear Politics average of polls -- so
we are trying to see what is an election like when one candidate isn't
really campaigning that much.
MACCALLUM: It's a great question. Byron, thank you very much, weighing in
on two big stories tonight. The FBI Iran and Russia trying to meddle with
our social media and change your thinking on the election.
More of THE STORY after this. Stay with us. Live from Nashville, Tennessee.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: So that is THE STORY of Wednesday, October the 21st, 2020, but
THE STORY continues. And it will be a big night. Bret and I kick off
special coverage of the final presidential debate tomorrow night at 6 p.m.
Eastern. We'll see you then. Have a great night.
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