TONIGHT-01
Summit; Blaming It On Russia; Fed Hikes Interest rates; Trump's Expanding
Cabinet - Part 1>
Fraud; Recount; Technology; Computers; Security; Policies; Government>
LOU DOBBS, FBN HOST: Good evening, everybody.
President-elect Trump today demonstrating he is both magnanimous and gracious in victory! Mr. Trump hosted a technology summit at Trump Tower in New York with a group of Silicon Valley industry leaders, all but one of whom funneled millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats. The president-elect, however, was not only conciliatory but offered technology leaders his assistance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I'm here to help you folks do well. And you're doing well right now. And I'm very honored by the bounce. Anything we can do to help this go along, and we're going to be there for you. And you'll call my people. You'll call me. It doesn't make any difference. We have no formal chain of command.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Well, there you are. And gathering a who's who in technology -- Google's Larry Page, Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos among the dozen executives attending. And while those companies are undoubtedly happy with Trump's plans to cut corporate taxes, many of them have already taken issue with his proposals for balanced and equitable trade relationships, and of course, border security and enforcement of our immigration laws.
I'll be taking that up with two of the best minds in the political arena, former Reagan White House political director Ed Rollins, RNC committeeman Randy Evans. Also joining me tonight, one of those who may well be asked to join the Trump administration, Ambassador John Bolton. And the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, former congressman Pete Hoekstra joins us.
And a lot to talk about, a lot to cover here tonight. Fifty-five electors now pushing for one of those briefings on alleged Russian interference in the election. And yes, 54 of those 55 electors are bitter clinger Democrats holding onto their destructive dreams of subverting the will of the people, denying Mr. Trump the office he won by bulldozing the blue wall. He gained 306 electoral votes as a result. We'll have latest for you on that in just moments. You're not going to believe the next chapter of this story that's unfolding right now.
Trump also confirming two nominations we reported to you earlier, Rick Perry for the Energy Department and Ronna Romney McDaniel -- that's Mitt Romney's niece -- to chair the Republican National Committee.
And out top story, the House Intelligence Committee has abruptly canceled a planned briefing tomorrow. It was a planned briefing about those alleged Russian election cyber attacks or hacks. FOX News has been told that invited intelligence agencies -- that would be the FBI, the CIA, the office of the director of the national intelligence and the NSA, have all refused to provide briefers, a highly unusual move given this is the most senior committee with jurisdiction over intelligence.
And at issue, we're told, the conflicting reports from U.S. intelligence agencies over contested allegations that Russia in some manner, in some fashion allegedly attempted to influence to an unknown degree the outcome of last month's presidential election, perhaps in favor of one candidate or another.
As we reported to you here last night, there is great ambiguity and considerable conflict in these claims. The office of the director of national intelligence is not supporting nor is it endorsing nor is it agreeing with the leaked CIA assessment, an assessment that Moscow muddled in the election in a bid to help Donald Trump, an assessment that offers no reason, no sign, no evidence whatsoever of meddling, no suggestion of a specific alteration in any way of the outcome.
In fact, what the disappointed little daffodils of the left have brewed up here out of the thinnest ether is a case of, if you will, no crime, no weapons, no motivation, no evidence, but they do have a suspect born of their own pitiable and severely grotesque imaginings.
The true crime they lament, of course, is their candidate and their party beaten badly by Donald Trump at every level of the electorate, losing, losing, losing, the true crime that grinds their hearts and explodes their minds that they lost not only Clinton's race but ended the reign of Obama the dour.
The true crime is that Donald Trump crushed Hillary Clinton in the election and destroyed the left. Trump lead the entire Republican Party in the save election and sent the Democratic Party back in time to 1922, the last time that two thirds of the states had Republican governors.
The House Intelligence hearing, now canceled, would have absolutely ignored the massive Democratic defeat and instead focused on how the Russians came to be the featured fear of Democrats and of the entire left. And now more than 50 Democratic electors, led by none other than Nancy Pelosi's own daughter, demand that the director of national intelligence brief them on the matter that the left created from whole cloth before Monday's electoral college vote.
And the Clinton campaign continues to cling to its last bitter fiction. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta wrote this. Quote, "Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution, and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed."
They do have a solemn responsibility to be something more than fools and tools of the left. But of course, then Podesta and his like on the left would be out of work altogether.
Well, our first guest says intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a significant, very significant, degree, that the agencies that make up our intelligence community are highly political. And joining me now, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow John Bolton. Ambassador, great to have you with us.
JOHN BOLTON, FMR. U.S. AMB. TO U.N., FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Glad to be with you.
DOBBS: Let's start with first, you have said this -- amongst many other things that you posit that it also could be a false flag operation -- that is, someone else claiming to be or leaving signatures of Russian hackers. What -- what do you -- what does your great intellect and that great gut of yours tell you?
BOLTON: Well, I think this is a remarkable development you've just reported, that the key agencies in intelligence community are now refusing to brief their oversight committee on the House side, the House Intelligence Committee. Maybe they're getting ready to brief the members of Electoral College on Russia, and mere members of Congress are not suitably important for them.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLTON: But I think what's going on here, by inference, obviously, is that there is disagreement within the intelligence community over a lot of issues relating to the hacking.
Let me just say I think that's fine. I think there should be disagreement within the intelligence community. This effort -- and this is where the politicization comes in -- to develop a smoothy (ph) that all intelligence services concur in I think does a disservice to policy makers.
So if I were on the House Intelligence Committee, I'd be saying nobody's canceling here. Bring it on. If you want a debate in front of us, that's fine. We want to hear it.
DOBBS: You know, if I were on the House Intelligence Committee, I would be curious about a couple of things first. How is it that 17 agencies have banded together to make a claim in the most ambiguous and abstract of forms, that an act, ill defined and utterly vague, took place during ours elections to what purpose, to what end, and in favor of whom, none of which is addressed by the claim, quote, unquote, "the election was hacked."
What was hacked? And what was the result and consequence? And why are these agencies talking about it in public instead of make their assessment, going ahead, seeking the approval of the chief executive of the country, namely President Obama, about how to respond, instead of this public charade that has been perpetrated!
BOLTON: Well, remember, the charade started even before the election, in early October, as I recall. General Clapper, the director of national intelligence, was the first one out of the box publicly to say the Russians are trying to interfere in the election. They hacked the DNC. Didn't say anything about hacking the RNC at the time. That's kind of interesting.
DOBBS: Right.
BOLTON: So I'm just worried that we've got here is that this politicization now is going to discredit the important and legitimate work that goes on in most of these intelligence agencies because this...
DOBBS: Well, you wouldn't...
BOLTON: ... is a performance that just has no parallel that I'm aware of.
DOBBS: I -- I have never seen the likes of it. I have also never seen the likes of the response by Congress, which is not to inquire first why the -- the president of the United States has not taken action in response. Remember, it was he who declared that a cyberattack affecting this country and its assets (ph), whether cyber of physical, would be treated as a physical attack upon the United States. He says the agencies that advise him say, reportedly, that they hacked -- the Russians hacked our election, and there's no response! There is just this calumny in our public discourse, and there are people who are wondering what in hell happened here and why hasn't action been taken, if, indeed, something important did happen!
BOLTON: And remember, when Barack Obama draws a red line, you better not cross it. I think we all know that.
DOBBS: Right.
BOLTON: The fact is there are occasions where the retaliation for a cyberattack, or some kind of cyber intrusion, should be done without public disclosure.
But I would argue there are also increasing grounds to describe publicly what we've done after it's over. And the reason for that is to create -- to have other countries, our adversaries around the world, understand what we're capable of doing and to begin to build structures of deterrence in the cyber universe that prevents this from happening in the first place.
DOBBS: Yes, I...
BOLTON: Which we have done nothing of that I can see.
DOBBS: Perhaps, Ambassador, you are, I think, perhaps not giving fair credit to this administration because it has done a magnificent job over eight years of withholding from public view its mighty responses to so many provocations that one doesn't have a clear understanding of the power that it brings to bear when in anger. I haven't seen even one incident of that nature, have you?
BOLTON: Well, it'd be nice to hear one. You know, if we were doing it and doing it successfully, my guess is that leakers from inside the administration would have told us.
DOBBS: Yes.
BOLTON: We haven't heard any of that. Look, we've got a month to go before Barack Obama leaves office, thank God.
DOBBS: Amen!
BOLTON: And that this says -- what this says to me is beginning at noon on the 20th of January, we need a serious reassessment of our capabilities, offensively and defensively in the cyber world. We've got to get an honest debate going about this.
I fear we are just as weak in cyber territory as we are in the traditional hard world of nuclear and conventional warfare.
DOBBS: Yes, you know -- and I would hope the next president of the United States would not tolerate intelligence agencies having public expositions of -- and participation in political gamesmanship, which it appears all of this is. Ambassador...
BOLTON: You know, in a country -- in a country like Russia, if you saw what they euphemistically call the security services behaving this way, you would wonder what would come next.
DOBBS: And we have a pretty good indication, I think, that we'd like to -- we'd like to have a severe consequence, I believe, for such behavior and conduct, and elected officials, as well as the -- as well as the agencies.
Ambassador, always good to have you with us. We appreciate it. John Bolton...
BOLTON: Thank you, Lou. Glad to be with you.
DOBBS: ... thanks so much.
We're coming right back with much more. I mean, there is so much going on, much of which is some -- in some ways, there's no way in the world to imagine it, but it occurred and we're going to share it with you here next.
Stay with us.
The president-elect reminding America and Speaker Ryan that he will build that great wall on our southern border, beautiful door and all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have some amazing thing in store.
We're going to work on the wall, Paul!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Our all-star team tonight, Ed Rollins, Randy Evans leading the way. They'll be here next.
And the French taking Trump's advice, building their own wail to end their illegal immigration crisis, our president-elect's border security message resonating at home, of course, and the world. We take that up next.
Much more straight ahead. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: President-elect Trump offering both praise and a warning to Speaker Paul Ryan last night. Ryan disagreed with Trump or denounced his comments -- are you ready for this? -- once every week-and-a-half during the campaign. That's according to a recent analysis. But the president-elect put speaker on notice last night in Wisconsin. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, honestly, he's like a fine wine. Every day goes by, I get to appreciate his genius more and more. Now, if he ever goes against me, I'm not going to say that, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: And some breaking news. Two senior intelligence officials -- are you ready? This story just keeps rolling and has changed markedly in the last 18 minutes. Those officials telling NBC News they now believe with a, quote, "high level of confidence," end quote, that Russian president Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in our presidential election. Wow!
Joining me now to assess that and assess intelligence assessments, as well, former senior adviser to the Newt Gingrich campaign Randy Evans, veteran of 10 presidential campaigns, former White House political director under Ronald Reagan, Republican strategist Ed Rollins.
ED ROLLINS, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you. Nice to be (INAUDIBLE)
DOBBS: Good to have you both here, folks. Let -- let me start, Randy -- was the RNC hacked by Russians?
RANDY EVANS, RNC RULES COMMITTEE: Not to my knowledge, but I always find it fascinating where they're willing to pronounce all of these things, whereas on the one thing, we had a hammer, we had a sever with bleaching in it, we had videos, we had e-mails admitting lies, but none of that was good enough, and yet we have this rumor here where we can't find one fingerprint of one Russian hacker leaving a trail, and yet that's enough to prompt all of this furor over the Electoral College. It's just ridiculous. It shows you just how politicized the agencies have become.
DOBBS: Well, and to have all of these agencies out in public, and they're used like the props -- you know how they always used to have 500 economists to tell you...
EVANS: That's right!
DOBBS: ... that this candidate would be a disaster for the -- oh, wait a minute. That was Donald Trump and the market's already gone up more than 8 percent since he was elected.
(LAUGHTER)
DOBBS: So that's not working. What's working here?
ROLLINS: Well, I don't know what's working. That's what the president needs to find out. There are 11 agencies that gather intelligence. There's billions and billions and billions of dollars spent on intelligence. The whole idea of the Homeland Security, the biggest portion of that was to take them all, put them under one, make them work with each other, which absolutely has not happened.
So my sense is the president has to get in there, This is what I want, this is what I want you to give me every day and whenever I need it, and shake this thing up, shake it up big time.
DOBBS: What do you think of these -- I mean, this -- the devastated left in this country is playing out its last nightmare. They're complaining about a president who is the commander-in-chief saying he wants his damn intelligence briefing way he wants it! I mean, Randy, what in the world is wrong with that? Should he be some sort of a servile, you know, recipient of whatever the intelligence agencies wish to pass on to him at a regular hour, of course?
EVANS: Well, his intelligence briefers pulled exactly the same stunt as their voters did. They didn't show up, and they refused to show up.
Think about it for a second, though. If you're the president, and in fact, there was a hacking, who's to blame? Who's the one who had ultimate responsibility to protect the integrity of the election? It would be the very one calling for the briefing. He can only get a document that is indicting of himself. Either it indicts his failure to do his job or it indicts his statement that, in fact, the election was somehow interfered with or hacked.
Either way it happens (ph), I guess what we're going to is we're going to get a sheet of paper that kind of -- I don't know. I don't know what it could possibly say. It's going to have both naughty and nice on it because what we know is there was no hacking. But there's no evidence of hacking. But they lost.
ROLLINS: I don't know whether it's hacking or not. All I know is the American public made the right choice, and they basically got through all this crap. But the key thing for this president, and for this Congress moving forward, which is the new Congress, is to make sure that (INAUDIBLE) ever-changing world in which you have story today of a billion people being tapped into in the Yahoo! accounts, cyber -- cyber...
DOBBS: Three years ago!
ROLLINS: Well, what...
DOBBS: Three years ago.
ROLLINS: The game -- the game...
DOBBS: We're learning about it.
ROLLINS: The game is now all about stealing everybody's information, and we have to protect ourselves at all times. The president...
DOBBS: But this is not a news break, Ed. I mean, this...
ROLLINS: I'm not saying it is.
DOBBS: ... is -- we've been talking -- well, I'm saying it isn't.
ROLLINS: OK.
DOBBS: And the fact of the matter is the Yahoo! thing happened three years ago. This administration still has not called out who hacked successfully into the Defense Department, into the Office of Personnel Management, but could tell you in three days, it was the Russians that went after the DNC!
ROLLINS: I don't care...
DOBBS: That's bull!
ROLLINS: I don't care about this administration. It's over, as far as I'm concerned. I care about the next one. The next one this president has a right to set it the way he wants it. He has a right to get the information he wants. And I think he will and I think his people will.
DOBBS: I think we're violently agreeing again. Randy...
EVANS: Well, but...
DOBBS: ... make an argument we can fight over.
EVANS: Well, mine is the challenge that's left on what Obama has left behind. Any time you have securities briefers who refuse to appear before the Congress, you have a fundamental breakdown. They have a duty to report. Even if their job was to only show up and say, There's nothing to report, there was no hacking, they still have a responsibility to actually do their job. And that's where I think the Obama legacy will be, which is to replace the personnel that he's populated the government with.
DOBBS: Well, if they...
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: ... Barack Obama wanted done today, and that is denying the oversight committee its proper role and authority, that is oversight, that's the result of one Barack Obama, the president of the United States. He is the guy, and whether we like it or not, for the next 30 days, a little over, he's going to be the president, and he's pulling these strings, I assure you both!
ROLLINS: There's one...
DOBBS: Randy -- I'm sorry. Go ahead. Get (INAUDIBLE)
ROLLINS: One significant power the Congress has, they control slots, they control money. And if they're not -- these people are not showing up to brief them, they ought to cut -- cut the budgets, cut the hell out of budgets, cut the hell out of the slots.
EVANS: That's right.
DOBBS: Who scares you most, Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan? Who would you be afraid of?
ROLLINS: Paul Ryan.
DOBBS: Apparently, this president isn't, and he's had some experience with it. Randy Evans, Ed Rollins, thank you both.
ROLLINS: Thank you.
EVANS: Thank you.
DOBBS: Be sure to vote in our poll tonight. The question is, do you believe Speaker Ryan is now beginning to at least dimly understand who's in charge now? Cast your vote on Twitter @Loudobbs. We'd love to hear from you. Follow me on Twitter @Loudobbs, like me on Facebook, follow me on Instagram at Loudobbstonight.
And on Wall Street, stocks for a chance moving a little lower after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. Who needed that? The Dow down 119 points, the S&P lost 18, the NASDAQ fell 27, volume on the big board, 4.3 billion shares. I'm kidding about the Fed. The fact is, they're only following the markets, they're not trying to lead them anymore. That's a good sign. The Federal Reserve today raising those rates by 25 basis points, the second rate hike since 2006, Janet Yellen also saying the Fed expects three interest rate hikes next year.
A reminder to listen to my reports three times a day coast to coast on the Salem Radio Network.
Up next, the president-elect working hard to be the greatest jobs president ever.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Tomorrow, coming up to office, the true giants of Silicon Valley. We're going to talk about how to grow jobs. We're going to talk about how they can stay on top. We're going to talk about a lot of great things, but the real giants are coming up tomorrow, so it's going to be great.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: And the giants were there. The tech summit the subject of my commentary here next. You don't want to miss a word of it, either, I promise you.
We're coming right back. Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: A few thoughts now on Donald Trump's meeting with those technology leaders today. To put the ideological divide in that meeting in context, employees of the 10 largest technology companies donated a measly $180,000 to the Trump campaign. There you are! Employees of those same companies, however, donating big to Hillary Clinton, as you see there, donating some $4.4 million to Hillary Clinton.
It's an understatement to suggest there's some friction between Silicon Valley liberals and the president-elect. A letter from more than 140 technology leaders, you may remember from earlier this year, proclaimed Trump -- a Trump administration to be a, quote, "disaster for innovation," just yesterday, however, Microsoft founder Bill Gates proclaiming the president-elect could, quote, "lead through innovation."
Just yesterday, however, Microsoft founder Bill Gates proclaiming the president-elect could "lead through innovation." Gates further flattered Mr. Trump with comparisons to John F. Kennedy. And today, Mr. Trump with a number of his most valuable detractors leaders of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, until yesterday, Microsoft.
The president-elect bowing to help those companies do well to help them innovate. Of course Trump has already proven his administration is focused on jobs and he wants the technology industry to do their part as well in job creation.
Five of this country's most valuable companies are technology firms. Employing about 600,000 people. But they employ far fewer employees than less valuable companies like Walmart. But there are already signs that Trump magic is beginning to work even 36 days before taking office.
IBM before today's meeting announced it plans to invest $1 billion and hire 25,000 employees over the next four years. Trump has also pledged corporate tax cuts and a 10 percent repatriation tax which should be very attractive to technology in this country.
It certainly would be a boost to, for example, Apple that currently holds more than $200 billion overseas. It's time for Trump's detractors and technology to work with him. To create jobs, to boost our economy. Because he's also making it very clear he will be their biggest booster. Or he will be the sheriff. Either way, Trump is the right man for the job.
Our quotation of the evening, this one from former Apple CEO John Sculley. He said this, "The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious." The future is becoming more obvious very quickly. We're coming right back. Stay with us.
The now clearly preposterous claims that Russia hacked our election is the best the loser left can do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think it's ridiculous. I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Pete Hoekstra joins me here next.
And here's your chance for an extraordinary ride through the Norwegian sky. We'll bring these wingsuiters' phenomenal flight to you next. We advise you to hold on tight. A lot more straight ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Joining us now, former congressman Pete Hoekstra. He used to chair the House Intelligence Committee. National Security Advisor to the Trump campaign.
Pete, it's great to have you with us and good to see you.
PETE HOEKSTRA, FORMER UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE: Hey, thank you. Good to be with you.
DOBBS: Let's start with first this cancellation of the House Intelligence Committee. Suddenly briefers are unavailable for the purpose of finding out what's going on here. Your reaction to the withdrawal of these agencies.
HOEKSTRA: Well, I'm not sure exactly the whole backstory here, Lou. But what -- one of the options that Devin Nunes would have had, would have said, we're having a hearing on Friday. If the briefers aren't available. DBI Clapper, CIA Director Brennan, you're more than welcome. As a matter of fact, I expect that you will show up and brief us on what some people in your agency have actually been leaking to the media.
We will have a hearing. We expect you to show up, and if we -- if you don't, we will have a press conference announcing to the American people that you are not keeping congress fully informed of what the intelligence community is doing.
DOBBS: But their risk is a 36-day risk, really, isn't it? Because they're out after this new administration, the Trump administration is sworn in.
HOEKSTRA: No. It's more than that, Lou. It's more than -- what this does -- these people in these positions represent the institutions. And if they refuse to report to congress on all the stuff that's going out on the media, they damage the reputation and the integrity of the CIA and the DNI.
DOBBS: Don't you think that those reputations of the leaders of those agencies has been tarnished beyond repair? When you get 16 agencies lining up and saying, making nonsensical allegations like something happened, we're not sure what, but it represents apparently an initiative by the Russian hackers to intervene in the election in some fashion in behalf of someone, that is pretty thin gruel by any stretch of the imagination.