Is the US intelligence community at odds with President Trump?

close

Video

Is the US intelligence community at odds with President Trump?

Intelligence chiefs assess national security challenges; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," January 29, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GINA HASPEL, CIA DIRECTOR: A big focus for us is finding out how our adversaries are using big data against us.

DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: I think China writ large is the most significant counterintelligence threat we face.

COATS: The underlying political and economic factors that facilitated the rise of ISIS persist.

LT. GEN. ROBERT ASHLEY, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY DIRECTOR: There is still a substantial military capacity that Kim Jong-un wields.

HASPEL: The Iranians are considering taking steps that would lessen their adherence to JCPOA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, HOST: It's always interesting, the threat assessment, the intelligence leaders for the Trump administration talking about threats from around the world, at sometimes varying with the president's description of some of those areas.

But what about all of that? Let's bring in our panel, Byron York, chief political correspondent for the "Washington Examiner," Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for National Public Radio, and Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist." Byron, I was struck by the election focus, there was a lot on election interference. Chris Wray saying that not only did Russia try in 2018, but they believe that Russia and China are really going to try to step it up in 2020.

BRYON YORK, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": I think perhaps the scariest sentence in the whole report was the one that said China and Russia are more aligned than at any point in the mid-1950s. That is not good at all.

And you are right about the election interference. On the other hand, I think we have been expecting this for at least for four years now. One of the things I thought was really striking about this report was that a lot of it just wasn't very surprising, given the news. When the report comes out and says that North Korea wants to build nuclear weapons and wants to build missile delivery systems to attack the United States or somewhere else, the shocking thing would've been if they weren't. So there is a lot of news in here that we really already knew.

BAIER: Mara, it gives it context. The Trump administration, the president, may point back to North Korea and say, listen, they haven't fired missiles over Japan. We're still talking, and they haven't tested any nukes. Are they developing more stuff? That is what the intel people say.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: That is quite different than him tweeting North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. But I thought that was a pretty serious warning. They not only said that North Korea was doing all those things, but they said that North Korea would not give up its nuclear weapons. So that is setting the stage for these upcoming meeting between the president and Kim Jong-un. It is going to be a lot harder I think than maybe Donald Trump thought to get North Korea to make the kind of deal that he wants.

But I think you heard the intelligence committee say this before. Remember right after Helsinki when they all came to the briefing room at the White House to say how seriously they took a Russian and other countries efforts to intervene in elections? So they have been clanging the alarm bells for quite a while.

BAIER: Mollie, what did you see?

HEMINGWAY: I read the report as well, and I thought it was interesting how frequently Russia and China were linked together as the same threat. It would've been nice to see what percentage of the threat comes from China, what percentage from Russia, because it's hard to determine which one is the greater threat. But historically speaking, what the U.S. has always tried to do is make sure that Russia and China are not in cahoots together. It is way sometimes you are friendlier to China and sometimes you're friendlier Russia, knowing that when they work together, that is a combined adversary that is very, very difficult.

BAIER: Here's the FBI director on China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have economic espionage investigations, for example. That is just one piece of it in virtually every one of our 56 field offices. And the number of those has probably doubled over the last three or four years. And almost all of them, not all of them, but almost all of them lead back to China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Which is pretty substantial, Byron.

YORK: That was really striking, and it's one of the things that, contrary to a lot of the headlines, there was not a lot of difference with the president's position on that. So here again, there was this emphasis on the intel chiefs coming out and disagreeing with the president on all these fronts. And yes, there was some of that --

BAIER: Here is one that was clear. The ISIS depiction and how it's talked about was a lot different.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have won against ISIS. We have beaten them, and we have beaten them badly.

DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The group has returned to its guerrilla warfare roots while continuing to plot attacks and direct it's supporters worldwide. ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY., SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: I would acknowledge the plain fact that Al Qaeda, ISIS, and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Mollie?

HEMINGWAY: This is one of those areas where the president is speaking about what the orders were for the Pentagon for our involvement in Syria. They were told to make sure that ISIS doesn't control all the land that it had, 40,000 square miles. And in fact, as we saw tonight, it is down to one town that is surrounded. Now if people want to change what the determination is for why we are there, they are more than welcome to do that. Congress is more than welcome to make a case that we should be at war in Syria for up to 18 years, which is what we are currently in Afghanistan for and make the case that that involvement makes sense and that that expense of money and lives is something that is in the U.S.'s interests. But as far as the question is whether we achieved what we set out to do, there is no question that we did defeat ISIS as a landholder.

BAIER: And let's just make clear, there is not a lot of nuance in the president's Twitter feed when he says these things. And there is a lot of detail in those testimonies.

HEMINGWAY: Actually, is this case, when it comes to holding land, to go from 40,000 miles to one town that is currently surrounded by fighters, that is the objective we set out to do, that is what we did, and it's this creep of mission that enables people to be in areas for decades or more that has changed the idea about what it takes to achieve victory.

BAIER: Yes. We didn't have time to talk about Venezuela, but Cuba, Russia, China propping up Maduro, another focus as well. Panel, thank you very much.

When we come back, we will go with where the long lines were really worth it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, a community comes together in a final show of support for one of America's heroes. The Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery posted a request online for the public to attend the funeral for Joseph Walker, an Air Force veteran whose family could not be reached. They weren't sure anybody would show up. The post went viral over the weekend, and people came out there in droves Monday to honor him. Thousands came to show their support, including Air Force unit from Fort Hood, and the line of traffic you can see for miles.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight.

Content and Programming Copyright 2019 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2019 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.