In the above clip from the almost defunct "With All Due Respect" (buh bye now, Mark Halperin's Trump Love Show) substitute host and foreign affairs correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin talks with security expert Malcolm Nance about the Russian hack and Trump's non-reaction to it.
Nance makes two essential points that most cable news coverage ignores.
One, that what Russia did to our election was an act of cyber-war. And that we should take that seriously.
People don't understand that cyberwarfare is a battle space. It's a place where we have many, many billions of dollars in resources. It will be determined whether we actually conduct warfare against the GRU or FSB, the former KGB, or whether we go after the oligarchies of Russia or the cybercriminals themselves, which Russia uses as subcontractors. You're more likely to see a cyberwarfare operation against that group of people, who have illicit funds than you would against the Kremlin itself.
...And that Donald Trump doesn't take it seriously.
Well, it's absolutely stunning, stunning, that Donald Trump is going to wait a week to be briefed by the US Intelligence community. He could demand a brief at any time, 24/7, 365, but to put this off a week shows he doesn't want to handle it. And it also shows, if we're physically attacked, is Donald Trump going to wait a week before he talks to intelligence? He needs to understand and perhaps he doesn't even comprehend what cyberwarfare is. And some of his past statements have shown that he really doesn't understand what's going on here.
But another part of it is, he doesn't seem to think that this is a great thing, that, you know, has happened, you know, to American democracy. He seems to dismiss it, out of hand. This is a fundamental attack on America's natural processes, which has never been done in the history of this nation. And for those people who are dismissing this as a leak or a rumor, then you don't understand that America has never had an enemy put their hand on the thumb on the scale of the American electoral process and it could just as easily happen to Donald Trump.
Here are the exact words Donald Trump spoke this week, regarding cyber security and the Russian hacking of our election:
"The whole age of computers has made it where nobody knows exactly what's going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I'm not sure you have the kind of security that you need."
