[Whitfield:] Right now, President Trump is en route to India aboard Air Force One with the first lady. He will be making a brief 36-hour visit to India to meet with Prime Minister Modi, tour the Taj Mahal and attend a rally before departing. The president stirred up more confusion over reports from his own intelligence community that Russians plan to interfere in the 2020 election to help his campaign as well as that of Bernie Sanders. Today, Trump claimed he had not been briefed on the matter but still accuse Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of leaking the information as a way to hurt Bernie Sanders. The president's National Security adviser also cast doubt on reports that Russia wants to help Trump's re-election.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] I read where Russia's helping Bernie Sanders. Nobody said that to me at all. Nobody briefed me about that at all. I think what it could be is, you know, the Democrats are treating Bernie Sanders very unfairly, and it sounds to me like a leak from Adam Schiff because they don't want Bernie Sanders to represent him.
[Robert O'brien, National Security Advisor:] Well, there's no briefing that I've received, that the president has received, that says that President Putin is doing anything to try and influence the elections in favor of President Trump. We just haven't seen that intelligence. If it's out there, I haven't seen it. I would be surprised if I haven't seen it. The leaders of the IC have not seen it.
[Whitfield:] Matthew Rosenberg is an investigative correspondent for "The New York Times" a CNN national security analyst. And Matt, good to see you. So what do you make of these contradictory statements that reports are, you know, intel did brief these lawmakers that they're interfering in the elections but then you have the, you know, interim NSA saying, I don't know anything about that?
[Matthew Rosenberg, Cnn National Security Analyst:] Look, it's incredibly confusing. You know, we know that briefing took place. We know that a number of intel officials do believe the Russians are trying to interfere. I know because we've spoken to them. You know, me and two of my "New York Times" colleagues had a story over a month ago, a very lengthy story, about what the U.S. sees and what the intelligence is on Russian trolls and hackers and what they may be trying to do this coming year. Now, is that intelligence worked its way up to the White House? It's a big question. You know, throughout the Trump presidency we've consistently been told that the president doesn't want to hear it. That when it comes to Russian interference
[Whitfield:] Because it threatens the legitimacy of his
[Rosenberg:] Yes.
[Whitfield:] election?
[Rosenberg:] Yes, it when it comes to Russian interference, he doesn't want to hear it. When it comes to coming up with strategies to stop foreign interference, he doesn't want to hear it. There's no leadership from the White House on this. Is that what we're seeing here? Possibly. I don't know.
[Whitfield:] All right. So we've been getting, you know, new information from National Security officials telling CNN that the intel shows that Russia does prefer Trump but it's not clear the Russians are trying to help him get re-elected. I mean, what would be the real difference there?
[Rosenberg:] You know, this is it's hard to say. We're in February in an election year. We're quite a ways out. You know, I think in 2016 at this point we had seen nothing from the Russians. You know, knowing that there is a preference out there is a way to kind of predict, what might they do? Are they going to try to hack some material and then disseminate it like they did with the Podesta e-mails? Will there be simply, you know, taking American political discourse and the disinformation that comes up domestically and amplifying that through their own trolls, through their own bot networks? Will they be trying to tip the scales in favor of a candidate that they think might be a better challenger to Trump? You know, there are a whole range of options here. And we've seen kind of little bits of evidence and a few of them, but I think it's still I think, you know, it's still coming together and there's still some uncertainty and obviously, you know, attempt to try to figure out what is going on here.
[Whitfield:] Yes. With general election nine months away, is there a feeling that the U.S. is ready for the variation of degrees of interference that could come or that threaten to come?
[Rosenberg:] It depends on who you talk to. You know, there will be plenty of officials who say yes, we're working on it. We're ready for it. I think we can see it right now, every day on the news, when we go online, that there is a tremendous amount of disinformation, for lack of a better term, both domestically and foreign floating right out there. There's all kinds of crazy ideas. Are we, as a country, ready for that? Is our political discourse ready for that? It doesn't look like it. Because, you know, some of these ideas get picked up by mainstream politicians and pushed them out there. We've seen the Trump campaign push out messages that are just clearly an alter to the facts. You know, are we going to see more of this? Are we going to see it from both sides? Those are really big questions.
[Whitfield:] Yes. I spoke with one of our security analysts yesterday who said, you know, it's contingent upon people, regular folks, voters, everybody, to be a lot more discriminatory about what they read, you know, what they decipher or disseminate and look at the sourcing and that might tell everything about whether something is really true or not. Matthew Rosenberg, good to see you. Thank you so much.
[Rosenberg:] Thank you.
[Whitfield:] All right, still ahead, Mayor Pete Buttigieg now challenging Bernie Sanders' decisive win in Nevada. Why Buttigieg says a potential Sanders' nomination could alienate most Americans.