CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Chris Murphy

Interview

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SCIUTTO: Fourteen days to Election Day, millions of Americans have already voted. And my next guest says that Russia is right now actively trying to help President Trump win and doing it more so than in 2016.

With me now, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Murphy, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Good morning.

SCIUTTO: So first of all, you spoke earlier this month about reports of "a multi-layer Russian effort to help Trump in 2020, bigger than what they did in 2016" -- I'm quoting you there from Twitter. How exactly? MURPHY: Well, let me just first be clear that it's not an allegation

being made by me or any other partisan that Russia is attempting to manipulate this election on behalf of President Trump, that is the assessment of the intelligence community, that is the DNI's assessment, the (INAUDIBLE) assessment.

And while, you know, they have not, you know, put a lot of meat on those bones to try to protect sources and methods, I can confirm that their campaign of misinformation and propaganda, interference is bigger, it's broader and it's more problematic than it was in 2016.

In particular because the Russians, this time around, have decided to cultivate U.S. citizens as assets. They are attempting to try to spread their propaganda in the mainstream media rather than just relying on, you know, bots and Facebook posts, as they largely were four years ago. And they've been successful. Rudy Giuliani's effectively a Russian asset at this point. (INAUDIBLE) I think, you know, made some significant ground above and beyond what they were doing four years ago.

SCIUTTO: That's a significant charge. And I do know -- and it is a fact -- that Trump's own Treasury Department has designated a person, a Ukrainian politician, who Giuliani has met with and contacted more than once, Andriy Derkach, they -- the Treasury Department -- has described him as a Russian agent for over a decade. But are you saying, in effect, that Giuliani is cooperating with Russian disinformation here?

MURPHY: Well, listen, I certainly can't, you know, say whether Giuliani knows that he has been put in the position of spreading Russian misinformation except that Derkach has been labeled a Russian agent, right? It has been fully disclosed that he is on the payroll of the Russian government.

And as recently as a few days ago, Rudy Giuliani is quoted as saying he's not sure if that's true, He said it's 50-50, whether Derkach is a Russian agent. No, no, no: It's not 50-50, it's 100 percent. Our own intelligence agencies have said it, our Treasury Department has sanctioned him.

And so the fact that Rudy Giuliani is still providing excuses to keep Derkach and the Russian FSB as a conduit to him of information that can harm President (ph) Biden, I think should make everybody a little bit suspicious about his motives.

SCIUTTO: OK. I want to talk about recently published e-mails purporting to document business dealings of Hunter Biden. And there are questions about this. The FBI, we know, is investigating whether they are or are not tied to Russian disinformation. I want to ask you directly, you have called these e-mails part of, quote, "a Kremlin- constructed anti-Biden propaganda campaign." Have you seen intelligence that backs that assessment?

MURPHY: So the very fact that these e-mails come into the public sphere from Rudy Giuliani, the fact that Andriy Derkach seems to know more about these e-mails than almost anybody else, tells you where they're coming from. I mean, at some point you sort of have to believe what you see, which is that --

SCIUTTO: Right.

MURPHY: -- when individuals who are either identified Russian agents or are conspiring with Russian agents, are providing the information upon which mainstream media are reporting, you have to understand what the deal is here. And again, I'm not alone here. Fifty high-level intelligence agents, people who have worked in the intelligence agencies, came out and said this is most likely Russian propaganda.

SCIUTTO: OK. There's the disinformation aspect of Russian interference, both in 2016, 2018 and 2020. There is the greater fear of Russian interference with actual voting systems. And in 2016, we knew that there were probing attacks into voter registration systems for instance, but -- and Obama warned Putin directly about this, saying don't mess with the voting systems, and it appears Russia did not.

[10:45:00]

In 2020, how concerned are you, how concerned is the intelligence community that Russia will take that next step and interfere with actual voting systems, registration, et cetera?

MURPHY: I believe that we are going to have a free and fair election. I don't believe that any American citizen should be worried about whether or not their name is going to show up on a voter list on Election Day, or whether their vote is going to be counted. And that's in part because we have spent significant money from the federal government and through states to beef up protections of our voter lists and of our voting systems.

So we certainly have less evidence that Russia is trying to manipulate the voting systems than we do that they're trying to manipulate the media narrative. And so I have pretty good confidence that we're going to be able to rebuff any attempts that Russia does make to try to compromise our voting mechanics.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you a final question just about the vote, because there's a continuing legal battle under way about what is, in effect, voter access, right? How long absentee ballots will be counted, you know, do they have to be postmarked before Election Day, a whole host of things -- signature confirmation, witnesses, et cetera.

And a consistent dynamic of this is that Republican Party in states is for greater restrictions, and Democrats are voting -- are pushing, rather -- for broader access here. Why is that, in your view?

MURPHY: Well, I think Donald Trump and his acolytes know that if everybody votes, Donald Trump loses. And Republicans lose the Senate.

It's pretty extraordinary, Jim, when I came to the Senate not long ago, about, you know, eight years ago, Republicans and Democrats were for the Voting Rights Act. We all disagreed on plenty of stuff, but we agreed that we should help people vote. It is pretty amazing that voting has become a partisan issue, that

Democrats want people to vote and Republicans don't want people to vote. But that is what is playing out in dozens of courts all across the country. And the explanation is simple: If everybody in this country has the ability to vote, Donald Trump's not going to be the president for (ph) four years. But if the president is successful in keeping people from voting -- especially those people who may be antithetical to his candidacy -- then maybe he has a shot.

SCIUTTO: Senator Chris Murphy, thanks for joining us this morning.

MURPHY: Thanks.

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