CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Congressman Jason Crow

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

[14:15:39]

KEILAR: We have new details today about the massive cyber-attack on government agencies and private entities here in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security's cyber arm says suspected Russian hackers used a variety of unidentified tactics and not just a single compromised software program.

In a statement, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says -- and this is a quote -- "CISA has determined that this threat poses a grave risk to the federal government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations. CISA expects that removing this threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for organizations."

Joining us now to discuss this is Democratic Congressman Jason Crow, he's also a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, I mean, first off, in general, I just want to get your reaction to this huge attack on the U.S.

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Brianna, I don't think we can overstate how dangerous this is for our country right now. Breathtaking is a word that certainly comes to mind for me, and that's why I referred to this earlier today as our modern-day cyber Pearl Harbor.

Both the depth and the breadth of the potential breach is incredible, we're still getting our arms around it but it seems to have been going on for much of this year undetected, and in fact we probably would not have even detected it had not a private cyber-security company almost stumbled upon the breach and was able to unravel what was happening.

But it looks like our own agencies probably wouldn't have been able to detect what was happening, so we have a major problem on our hands and the administration is not doing, right now, what needs to be done to lead us through this crisis.

KEILAR: So, look, as you mentioned, there's still a lot about this we don't know. But I think especially to laypeople out there who are trying to understand the magnitude of this, what could this breach do?

CROW: Well, there are 17 different critical infrastructure sectors within the United States. Just one of those critical infrastructure sectors is the financial industry. The financial industry has over 800,000 financial institutions, and we do believe the the financial industry was one of the impacted industries.

So what we believe the adversary did here was they created a backdoor in a widely used software system that was used to manage I.T. systems, and we think that almost 20,000 different entities, both private companies and government agencies, downloaded and used that software and might have backdoors into their system. And that backdoor would allow an adversary here to have complete, unfettered access to everything within their I.T. network. It's extremely dangerous, and it's going to be very difficult to even stop it.

We think that it's probably still ongoing as we sit here and have this discussion, which could be very dangerous not just for our national security and our troops deployed downrange, but for our intelligence community and of course our critical private infrastructure as well.

KEILAR: And right now the president isn't saying anything about this, right? He's been radio silent. What does that do to the situation?

CROW: Well, the president is still the commander-in-chief. Donald Trump still is the commander-in-chief for another few weeks. Instead of leading on this, communicating with the American people, directing resources, what instead is he doing? Well, let's take stock of that.

Number one, he has fired and gutted most of the senior leadership in the Pentagon. Number two, our senior cyber-security official was fired a couple of week ago for political reasons because the president didn't like what he had to say during interviews. And number three, he's threatening to actually veto -- and he probably will veto -- the defense bill, which actually has money and resources and authorities to address this very issue.

So the president is not just not leading on this, but he's actually creating barriers and standing in the way of dealing with this in the way that a commander-in-chief should.

KEILAR: CNN has learned today that the Pentagon has actually cancelled all transition meetings with the Biden-Harris team for a second day in a row. The Defense secretary says they're just being rescheduled for two weeks and that this was mutually agreed upon. The Biden team said today that that's not true.

Are you concerned about what's going on? What's your impression of what's going on?

CROW: Yes, I'm very concerned about that. I mean, listen, transitions are vulnerable in the best of times, when you're moving senior folks out of positions, putting new people in. Any transition, even when it's done very well, is a time of great vulnerability for our country.

[14:20:14]

But you insert a situation like we have right now, where the president is not cooperating, his teams are not cooperating, that transition was actually delayed by close to a month and they've cut off briefings for the folks that, in just a couple of weeks, are going to be in the driver's seat of dealing with this crisis? And it's a major problem.

I'm very concerned about the incoming administration's lack of access to information and how that's going to inhibit their ability to hit the ground running on day one. And it needs to stop. The president needs to lead, Donald Trump needs to step up and do the responsible thing for our national security and start doing these briefings so we can have a safe transition.

KEILAR: And speaking of, I want you to listen to something that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said about overturning the election results.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: He could order the -- within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. I mean, it's not unprecedented. I mean, these people out there talking about martial law, it's like it's something that we've never done. We've done -- martial law has been instituted 64 -- 64 times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, the secretary of the Army and Army chief of staff just issued a joint statement, so they felt compelled to respond to this. It says, quote, "There is no role for the U.S. Military in determining the outcome of an American election." What is your reaction to what Flynn said?

CROW: Well, let's just be real about this. Michael Flynn is a disgraced felon. Regardless of the president's abuse of power by pardoning him, he was convicted or pled to lying to the FBI, so he has no credibility in this debate.

And I think the other thing, if we're talking about real talk right here, is I think we just have to admit the fact that the president has senior folks around him that do not believe in democracy. They do not believe in enfranchising people and allowing them to vote and exercising their fundamental democratic rights. And Michael Flynn is one of those people.

So I don't put any stock in what Michael Flynn is saying, and I do think it's good that our military leaders, those who actually believe in our system and are upholding their oaths to defend democracy, are correcting the record.

KEILAR: Congressman Crow, thank you so much for being with us.

CROW: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source