Trump's Warning to North Korea; Trump Claims Intel Briefing on Hacking Delayed
COOPER: We began the program tonight with breaking news on the report that's expected to underscore the assessment from the entire U.S. Intelligence Community that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chief. Now there's more. President-elect Trump will be getting a very high- level briefing on it. He just tweeted, you can decide for yourself what to make of the quotation marks, "The intelligence briefing on the so-called "Russian hacking" was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange." CNN justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, has been on the story all night. She joins us again. So Donald Trump just weighed in on this, essentially confirming that he's still skeptical of Russian involvement and seemingly skeptical of the term intelligence for the Intelligence Community.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It's remarkable how this is playing out, because for months, Anderson, Donald Trump has questioned the veracity and the intelligence supporting the idea that Russia was behind the hacks. And essentially, Donald -- that President-elect Donald Trump is coming out and challenging the intelligence agencies that will usually be working for him when in fact he is officially the president. With this tweet here tonight, I've spoken to intelligence officials who are frankly perplexed by it, that there was some sort of delay with this briefing about that comprehensive report dealing with the election hacks, because all along, as far as I've been told by officials, it was supposed to happen as early as Friday and perhaps even later, because this comprehensive report hasn't even gone to the desk of the President. And when this high-level briefing does happen, Anderson, it will be the first time that Trump comes face-to-face with the leaders of these agencies that he has been challenging and questioning, Anderson.</s>COOPER: So it's not clear -- I mean, let me just be clear. Is it -- can we say definitively there was not a delay? Or do we know?</s>BROWN: The people I've spoken with in the Intelligence Community, a couple of officials, have said they're perplexed, because it was never on the leaders of the Intelligence Community's schedule to go up to New York and brief the president-elect before Friday, before --</s>COOPER: OK.</s>BROWN: So there may be some miscommunication or misunderstanding about the schedule, but I can tell you, that as terms of the leaders of the Intelligence Community that will be involved with this briefing, they were never on the schedule to do it before Friday. So there is some confusion about this so-called delay --</s>COOPER: OK.</s>BROWN: -- and, again, Anderson, it hasn't even gone to the desk of the President, and Trump would be briefed after that happened.</s>COOPER: All right, Pamela Brown. Pamela, appreciate it. Tonight's tweet was far from the only one making headlines. Tonight, he also used Twitter to break the tradition, had sent a sharp message to North Korea. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has details on that.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Nobody knows if North Korea's Kim Jong-un has seen Donald Trump's latest tweet. North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon, capable of reaching parts of the U.S. it won't happen. And nobody knows how North Korea's erratic leader will now react.</s>COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: This particular tweet is in essence telling the North Koreans, putting them on notice, that they are going to be watched very carefully by the incoming administration and that they don't have carte blanche.</s>STARR: This after Kim said --</s>KIM JONG-UN, NORTH KOREAN LEADER (through translator): Cutting edge arms equipment is actively progressing. An intercontinental ballistic missile test launch preparation is in its last stage.</s>STARR: It's not clear how soon Kim can be ready to launch a missile that could reach the U.S., but the prospect raises alarm. If a nuclear weapon exploded over a west coast population center like Los Angeles or San Francisco, tens of thousands could be killed. Even a non-nuclear North Korean attack into South Korea could also kill tens of thousands, including 30,000 U.S. troops based there. Trump, on the campaign trail, was open to talking to Kim.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wouldn't go there. That, I can tell you. If he came here, I'd accept him. But I wouldn't give him a state dinner.</s>STARR: Now Trump wants to pressure China to get Kim to roll back his nuclear program. China has been taking out massive amounts of money and wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but it won't help with North Korea, nice. But that message already largely brushed aside by Beijing.</s>GENG SHUANG, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN (through translator): We hope to see all sides avoid remarks and actions that would escalate tensions.</s>STARR: The Obama administration doesn't think North Korea can threaten the U.S. with a nuclear missile yet.</s>JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We do not believe that he at this point in time has the capability to tip one of these with a nuclear warhead.</s>STARR: The current U.S. military response focuses on defending against an attack with interceptors in Alaska and California and ships in the western pacific. But in the face of a sudden imminent threat, U.S. officials tell CNN President Trump could activate existing plans for preemptive attacks, so-called no-mercy strikes to destroy the regime and its weapons. A former Defense Secretary who called for a preemptive strike in 2006 now says it must not happen.</s>WILLIAM PERRY, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: A preemptive strike could bring about complete and total catastrophe to South Korea and to Japan. So that is not an option.</s>STARR: The person who also called for a preemptive strike against North Korea back in 2006, the current Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Anderson?</s>COOPER: Barbara Starr. Barbara, thanks. Lots to discuss. Joining me is Gordon Chang, "Daily Beast" columnist and author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World", also CNN national security commentator and former House Intelligence chairman, Mike Rogers. Chairman Rogers, let me just start with you. Before we talk about North Korea, I just want to ask you about the tweets from Donald Trump tonight about the intelligence briefing and Russian hacking being delayed. He puts quotes around the word intelligence and hacking. Is he setting himself up for a difficult relationship with the Intelligence Community, and is that a bad thing, or is that, you know, maybe a wise thing?</s>MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, I'd be a little cautious how you do it. If he's pushing the Intelligence Community on its analytical products and what they're finding and what they're recommending, I think that's perfectly OK. Where it gets a little dicey is if you're attacking the integrity of the officers who are out risking their lives right now trying to get information, that will backlash in a way that I don't think they'll anticipate. I hope they're not getting there, I hope that's not what this is. If he wants to challenge this, remember, in about less than, whatever it is, 16 days, he's going to get the keys to every Cabinet. He will have all of the information he needs to make his own assessments. He can have dissenting agreements, come to the White House and talk him through where he thinks he wants to be on a particular position. If you jeopardize the relationship between the executive and these intelligence agencies, I think that's really kind of a dangerous place to be, mainly, again, because these are almost living organisms. They're out doing things every day. They didn't care about the election, they didn't care who won. They're out doing their bit. They're out there trying to gather the information, some risking their lives to do it to bring it back, to formulate an analytical product that would inform policymakers. If you disrupt the trust relationship between that, and I'm not saying you can't push them or give them the wire brush treatment, as a matter of fact, I think they would thrive in that kind of an environment, but if you attack the integrity of these individuals, I think that's where the line gets crossed. I haven't seen him do it yet, but he has certainly has come close.</s>COOPER: All right, let's talk about North Korea, Gordon. Is there any way to know how North Korea responds to Donald Trump's tweets? I mean, this is uncharted waters where a president-elect is tweeting 140 characters, you know, messages to North Korea.</s>GORDON CHANG, AUTHOR, "NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN: NORTH KOREA TAKES ON THE WORLD": Yeah, well -- and when you look at what Trump said in that first tweet, it's clear that Kim Jong-un saw that as a declaration of war. At the very least, a threat of using force imminently. And we know one thing about Kim Jong-un. He's in an unstable regime. You know, he's executed 140 people during his first five years. He's purged 340 --</s>COOPER: 140 members of his own government.</s>CHANG: Senior -- yeah, senior leaders in his own government and regime. And also, when you put in the junior officers, that's maybe 500 or so when you total it off, because they've been sent to the camps, and we can't count that. So for Kim Jong-un, he has got to look tough, because if he doesn't look tough, he knows that he could die.</s>COOPER: Chairman Rogers, I don't know if the question is about the appropriateness of a president-elect, you know, tweeting to Kim Jong- un or tweeting something that can Kim Jong-un's going to read. What do you -- just what do you make of the -- what kind of impact has going to have if any?</s>ROGERS: Well, I mean, I didn't see anything that would directly threat an escalation. There's certainly convectional conflict. There's one thing for certain, we have to change the dynamic that we're having with North Korea. The way we have been handling it isn't working. Now I'm not a big fan of using tweets to engage, because it's, you know, 140 characters can be misconstrued in a way where people have large armies and react in ways that aren't anticipated. But I do think that it's OK for the President-elect to set out a path that says we're going to do things a little differently, including trying to engage China hopefully on the black market activities in the -- on their southern border, North Korea's northern border, that allows this regime to continue to flourish, and that really hasn't been dealt with. I think if that's the path that we're going down, I think it could be great. If we continue to use tweets after the President is sworn in on January 20th, I get a little concerned, because it is too easy to misconstrue those words, those 140 characters in a way that probably won't be helpful, and that's not a whole of government approach. You want a whole of government approach to try to rein in Kim Jong-un. And, by the way, it's too late. He has nuclear weapons. He has an intercontinental ballistic missile that has been fired. He has fired missiles from a submarine. All of those spell danger for the future of national security of United States. We're going to have to deal with that in a way that we haven't dealt with it before. It doesn't mean conventional action. It doesn't mean preemptive strikes necessarily. I don't think we should take those off the table, but I don't think you ought to lead with those.</s>COOPER: Gordon, I mean, do we know enough about what the impact of a strike against North Korea would be?</s>CHANG: Well, the thing that we know is that North Korea has chemical and biological weapons. It has nukes on short-range missiles, intermediate range missiles. They could basically take out any South Korean city they want. And, you know, when people start talking about the casualties from the first couple hours of war from Seoul alone, they're talking hundreds of thousands, and that's why the military strike is absolutely the last option. But we have a lot of things that we haven't done. You know, we've tried almost every policy. The one policy that we haven't pursued though is imposing cost on China. We know that Chinese entities have been selling uranium hexafluoride to the North Koreans, they've been selling other components for their uranium weapons program, and yet, we just stand back and we don't do anything about it. And so this has got to change, and I think it will. In the end of the Obama administration, we started to see the first sanctions on China. I'm sure that Trump is going to continue on that path.</s>COOPER: Interesting. Gordon Chang, appreciate your expertise. Mike Rogers as well. Thank you so much. Coming up next, can Republicans in the House nearly gutted the watchdogs who were keeping them and Democrats honest from where House Speaker Ryan stood on the move? Also perspective from admitted influence peddler Jack Abramoff, he joins us ahead.