Russia Trying To Help Both Trump And Sanders
WHITFIELD: All right. 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 the 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 the 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 accused Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of leaking the information as a way to hurt Bernie Sanders.</s>TRUMP: I read where Russia's helping Bernie Sanders. Nobody said it 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 them.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. For more on this, let's bring in CNN's Jeremy Diamond at the White House. So Jeremy -- what more did the President have to say about this and how is Adam Schiff responding?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred -- there is no evidence to suggest that Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, leaked this information about Russian interference to help Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. But that hasn't stopped the President from accusing Schiff of doing exactly that. The President there accusing Schiff of leaking this information for some reason to damage Bernie Sanders' campaign for the Democratic nomination. And he is also essentially saying that Schiff ought to be investigated. Now, here's the answer that we have -- the response from Adam Schiff. He writes in a tweet, "Nice deflection, Mr. President, but your false claims fool no one. You welcomed Russian help in 2016, tried to coerce Ukraine's help in 2019 and won't protect our elections in 2020. Now you fired your intel chief for briefing Congress about it. You've betrayed America. Again." Now, the Sanders campaign for its part has suggested that it was the Trump administration in fact, now Adam Schiff, who was responsible for leaking this information. There's also no basis at this point to suggest that. As for the President he was asked what he thinks about this assessment from the intelligence community that Russia is interfering to help Bernie Sanders win the Democratic nomination. He would not say one way or the other. But what he certainly didn't do was offer the same kind of warning to Russia that Bernie Sanders said in the wake of this report. Bernie Sanders told Russia unequivocally, do not interfere in American elections -- Fred?</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Jeremy Diamond at the White House -- thank you so much. All right. President Trump's national security adviser Robert O'Brien is pushing back on information relayed to members of the House Intelligence Committee. Lawmakers say intelligence officials told them Russia is interfering in the 2020 election in order to help President Trump. Today O'Brien cast doubt on those reports.</s>ROBERT O'BRIEN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: So -- look, who knows what happened over at the House in the Intelligence Committee. But I haven't seen any evidence that Russia is doing anything to attempt to get President Trump reelected. And our message to the Russians is stay out of the U.S. Elections. We've been very tough on Russia and we've been great on election security. So I think it's a non-story.</s>ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, there's two things. One is the FBI director a couple of weeks ago said the Russians are interfering and will interfere. He said that in public. And the President is talking about a leak, in other words, classified information got out. So it's just disingenuous. Or there's the alternative is that the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence isn't briefing the White House about Russian assault on our elections. That's equally bad. I mean --</s>WHITFIELD: And if it were that -- if it were that, intentionally not providing, what does that say to you?</s>BAER: Well then, no one would. If you're in the CIA or the FBI and you get a Russian lead, the last thing you wanted to do is show up in the White House because you might get fired the next day. And that's the word among FBI and CIA agents.</s>WHITFIELD: Now, let's talk about what, you know, representatives have said. They were briefed on from intel with the reports you're saying that, you know, Russia was trying to help both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in this same election. You know, to some people that might seem rather confusing. To others that might infer a reassurance of an outcome. What do you see here?</s>BAER: Well, I think the way Moscow thinks, and they look at Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as two hand grenades. If you've got both of them to throw into the American electorate, throw them both. It means they're both disruptive, they both at the end of the day will undermine the legitimacy of our democracy because they're two ends of the spectrum and it serves Russia's interest. And they don't care. They just want to destabilize us politically and they're doing a wonderful job so far.</s>WHITFIELD: And sowing chaos is already happening.</s>BAER: They're doing a great job. I've never seen anything like it.</s>WHITFIELD: Bob Baer, thanks so much. Good to see you. 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.