CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Bennie Thompson

Interview

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BURNETT: All right. Kaitlan, thank you very much. And OUTFRONT now, the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson.

Chairman, I appreciate your time. Look, you are demanding President Trump get the same election security briefing that you get as Members of Congress and you sent a letter to the White House today saying you met with multiple agencies about this and, quote, none of the briefers could confirm that Trump has ever received a comprehensive election security briefing in advance of the 2020 Election. Why do you think that is?

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Well, it's partly not believing that Russia had anything to do with our election, tampering with our election. But more importantly, at the particular briefing, those individuals were asked, "Are you aware of any briefing?" No one was aware. It went so far as to say, give us the name of the person in the White House who's coordinating election security. Nobody could come up with a name.

And so a lot of people in that briefing were absolutely stunned that here we are, two years past election, and the White House still does not see it as a priority from their standpoint.

BURNETT: So they responded to your letter tonight. They just gave a statement to our Kaitlan Collins. I wanted to quote from part of it, Chairman. They say, quote, you think the Democrats would've learned to stop grandstanding and actually take election security seriously, especially when you consider it was President Obama who knew Russia was trying to interfere with our elections but did nothing about it? Your ball, chairman?

THOMPSON: Well, I'm not surprised at it. Three years ago, we tried to get the republicans to work with us on looking at election security. The Republicans refuse. So we produce the democratic task force report that talked about the critical infrastructure problems we were having. We produced a report, generated legislation and many of the recommendations that we put in that report ultimately came out in our legislation.

We have to put investment and in our election system, we have to coordinate with secretaries of state to make sure that our systems are as best we can have them in terms of being tamper proof. So we came up with the legislation and we passed it and now it's up to the Senate to do its work.

At some point, the White House had to get beyond its denial that the Russians did not tamper with our elections. And so here we are as late as two weeks ago, the entire House of Representatives was briefed that not only did the Russians tamper in the 2016 election but they are now looking for the next elections.

BURNETT: So the White House then, they add in response to your letter. "While thankfully, the meddling didn't affect the outcome, the Trump Administration has instituted the first ever whole of government approach with the FBI, DHS, state and local officials to protect the integrity of our elections." And here's the FBI Director Christopher Wray, the DHS Cybersecurity Chief Chris Krebs both talking about this today, Chairman. Here they are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WRAY: We have yet happily to see attacks manipulating or deleting

election and voter related data or attacks that actually take election management systems offline. But we know that our adversaries are relentless, so are we.

Christopher Krebs, Director, DHS cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency: We're not going to be caught flat footed again. We're ready and we're preparing for 2020.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Is it possible, Chairman, that despite the President's personal refusal to blame Russia public willingness to take it seriously that the United States is ready?

[19:10:05] THOMPSON: Well, we're not sure because we have not put investment in the election infrastructure that we need to. To the DHS' credit, they have said our system of election has been declared critical infrastructure, now we need to support it. A number of states don't have the type of machines to do to vote.

As you know, most of the way people get registered is using the internet.

BURNETT: Yes.

THOMPSON: The Russians did an awful lot of mischief over the last election cycle. So we've documented over 20 states that had problems with that election systems before. So we need to fix it and so for the President and his leadership role to still be in denial, that's a real problem.

BURNETT: I want to ask you before you go, because I know, Chairman, you've supported impeachment proceedings since late May. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said today, "I hope yesterday was an historic day, the failure of what they saw what they thought they would actually try is the final chapter of this book." Was Bob Mueller's testimony the final chapter? Is impeachment off the table?

THOMPSON: Well, as you know, I've been one of those individuals who feel that we need to go forward on it. When attorney Mueller said the President should be indicted if it had not been for the Department of Justice memo. That speaks volumes for me that he did something wrong. But as long as he's president, he's held harmless for doing wrong.

But as you know, we have the impeachment opportunity. I'm one of those individuals who want to do that. I'm convinced that the President has not been truthful and as long as he's there, he'll continue to not be truthful.

BURNETT: All right. Well, I appreciate your time. Chairman, thank you very much.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

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