Richard Clarke is a lot more confident than President Trump that Russia meddled in the U.S. election. The national security expert and former adviser to President Reagan joined "Real Time with Bill Maher" this week to discuss the troubling state of cybersecurity, and Russia's involvement in Trump's election win.
"After what happened in the last election, the U.S. should have instituted a comprehensive program to ensure that Russians never got involved in our election again," Clarke said. "And they have done nothing. Nothing at all. And, as James Comey said, they will be back."
Maher said that details of Russia's hacking have gotten progressively worst — at first, Russia just hacked Hillary Clinton's emails; then, Russia tried to penetrate the voting machines; after that, American learned that Russia did access voter rolls.
Clarke said that wasn't even the worst of it.
“They were micro-targeting individual voters in swing districts shaping their opinions — its psychological warfare on a grand scale. They conducted the largest psychological warfare campaign in history and they won,” Clarke said.
"This is the 21st century equivalent to having Russians land Marines on the Jersey Shore," he later added.
At this point in the conversation, Maher was dejected from the hopelessness of the situation.
"That's crazy that so many of [Trump's] supporters think, 'Well, when you are dealing with Crooked Hillary and the Deep State, what's the big problem with having Putin help you out?'" the comedian said.
Maher noted that America might never learn what happened because the president was the beneficiary of the hacking so he has no incentive to solve the issue.
“That’s why he’s not investigating it,” Clarke agreed. “That’s why he’s not doing all the things we need to do to make sure it can’t happen again."
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