WTH is going on with Trump's cyberattack on President Episode #63 | July 16, 2020 | Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and Ellen Nakashima Marc Thiessen: Hi, I'm Marc Thiessen. Danielle Pletka: And I'm Danielle Pletka. Marc Thiessen: n? So, Dany, what the hell is going on? Danielle Pletka: Well, people may notice that there's a little bit of a role reversal here today, because I'm usually the one asking you what the hell is going on. Danielle Pletka: Anyway, and you actually have something exciting going on, which is that last week you went in and interviewed Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States, just you and he, sitting in the Oval Office. And you broke some pretty exciting news that we've heard about but that the President, for the first time, confirmed. Tell us. Marc Thiessen: So, I asked the President about news reports that he had carried out, in 2018, a cyberattack on Russia to defend the 2018 presidential election. And he confirmed it, on the record. Said he did it, said he was proud of it, and said it was part of a broader strategy of being tough with Russia, which we'll get into in a minute. But this is a big, big news item that I think is the biggest, under-reported story of the Trump presidency. Because, we spent two years of the Mueller investigation, right, investigating the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump and his campaign conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election. And it turned out that wasn't true. And then, going on in 2018, and the Russians tried to start their interference again and do the same things they had done in 2016 Barack Obama knew it was happening when he was in office, but he didn't use America's cyber capabilities to shut down the Internet Research Agency. Donald Trump did. Marc Thiessen: He launched a cyberattack that shut down the Internet Research Agency, took them offline, and kept them offline during the course of the 2018 vote a vote, by the way, which put Democrats in charge of the House. So he was defending an election in which his party lost control of one of the chambers of Congress. And Ellen Nakashima, my colleague at the Post, reported this in 2019 and it got a yawn, broadly, from Washington D.C., because, well, it didn't really fit the narrative. We don't want to give Donald Trump credit for doing something that Barack Obama didn't do, especially when our whole narrative is that Trump is a toady of Vladimir Putin. And so I confirmed it with the President, and he said it, in fact, happened. So I 2 think is huge news that the mainstream media wants to ignore because it doesn't fit their narrative about Donald Trump. Danielle Pletka: Sorry. I mean, look. I think that a lot of us have come to understand that the whole narrative about Russia trying to control American politics and putting their puppet, Donald Trump, in office is ridiculous. That doesn't take away from Donald Trump's defects. The problem here, I think, is that this was the sole focus of the first two years of his presidency by the Democrats. And they've kind of let it go by the wayside. Now it is that he's the bad coronavirus president, or he's the... What else has he done that's bad? I don't know. I can't even keep track... Marc Thiessen: Danielle Pletka: Everything, yeah. So I think that's the challenge. But what's interesting to me is that he went after the Russians. Did it stop the Russians, though? It slowed them down for a day or two, but they're back interfering in elections, from the United States, to Europe, to Asia, to wherever they can. Aren't they? Marc Thiessen: Well, he did protect the 2018 vote. I mean, he did stop them from interfering, and it was part of a broader strategy that the administration had. It involved a presidential national security directive that gave our cyber warriors new authorities to combat this. It was legislation that was passed by Congress that gave new authorities for Marc Thiessen: It was a part of a broader strategy that was done largely in the covert space. And they didn't take a lot of credit for it. But the Intelligence Committee sure knew that it was happening, and they continued to attack Donald Trump in 2018. And by the way, this was all happening during the Mueller probe and they weren't taking credit for it publicly, even though Robert Mueller was in the process of pursuing the conspiracy theory about Trump/Russia collusion. This was a great talking point for the administration to push back on that and they didn't because they took the threat seriously when it happened on their watch. Danielle Pletka: Okay. Wait. Wait. Oh, one second. So, I want to talk to you about 2020 and about the conspiracy theories as well. But that seems weird to me. I also want to point out that you brought this up with the President. He didn't bring it up with you. You asked him. Marc Thiessen: But he did it. That's the point, is that making my point, which is they actually took this threat seriously and did something. And even when it was in their political interests to talk about it, they really didn't do it. Danielle Pletka: Do you think they didn't talk about it because they were being reticent and because they felt like it was not appropriate? Or do you feel like they didn't talk about it because Donald Trump doesn't like talking about what a bad guy Vladimir Putin is? Marc Thiessen: Number one, they didn't talk about it because it was a covert operation, which they wanted to preserve deniability of. And there's a value to that. Danielle Pletka: So wait, wait. So he told you about it in the Oval Office, because that's a secure space? AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org 3 Marc Thiessen: I'm the first journalist who actually asked him about it. How many press opportunities have they had since 2018 and 2019 when Ellen Nakashima reported this, and it was in the public domain? He's had probably 1,500 press conferences since then or opportunities to talk about it and no one ever asked him. I was the first one to ask, for not reporting this. Shame on the media for not asking him about it. But again, it's because it doesn't fit the narrative, because this is a good news story for the Trump administration. This is Donald Trump, Commander in Chief, who we just had a whole John Bolton book explaining why he's incompetent and incapable of exercising the powers of Commander in Chief. Marc Thiessen: Well, this is a story where the President of the United States led the intelligence community to come up with a strategy to protect the elections. And then when the Russians were repeating their behavior of 2016, he pulled the trigger and launched a cyberattack on them that shut them down. No one wants to report that, because that ols, they came up with a strategy, they came up with red lines, Russia crossed them, he executed. Why would we want to report that, and let the American people know that Donald Trump is actually doing a at least in this area doing a pretty good job as Commander in Chief? Danielle Pletka: Now, I will say that, obviously, this had been out there. As you rightly say, there was a sort of dereliction of duty on the part of certain journalists, who didn't use the opportunity to ask about it. But, the journalists who covered this from the sort of technological side, were pretty nasty about how lame an attack this was, and how it didn't amount to a hill of beans, if I can coin a phrase. And there was a piece that said S Hackers Strike on Russian Trolls Sends a Message. But Marc Thiessen: Yeah. Well, it wasn't lame. And anybody who follows national security and understands it, and we can talk to our guest about that in a moment, it was pretty serious. And what it was was a demonstration effect. They said they sent a message to Russia that if you do this, we have the capability to shut down your internet access and to take you offline. And if you mess with us, we can do it again. So, it was a shot across the bow. But again, Barack Obama didn't do this. I mean, he was briefed on the Russian election interference and he took no action whatsoever. And as the President said in my interview with him, that's because he thought Hillary was going to win and he didn't want to mess things up. And it turned out she didn't win. But he took no action. Marc Thiessen: electoral interfe it when it was happening in 2016. But when Donald Trump was president, he did it. It's an act of war to launch a cyberattack on a foreign country. And he did it. So, I think the President deserves credit when he does the right thing. My view of the Trump presidency is that I give him credit when he does the right thing.