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AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Moments Away: Trump Holds Press Conference. Aired 11-11:30p ET

Aired January 11, 2017 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: I think it's been more than 168 days since he had that last press conference, in which, you might remember, he invited Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's e-mails. But moving along from that, he has said that he will introduce the standards by which he will wall himself off from his global business empire.

And then of course in the last day, CNN and other media organizations, "The Washington Post," "The New York Times" and others, have reported that on Friday at a briefing with the top intelligence officials of this country there were materials included, a two-page annex to the intelligence committee report suggesting that Russians claimed to have damaging information about the president-elect.

And also that Russians claim that there were communications between emissaries of both the campaign and the kremlin throughout the election. It's a lot to ask about, a lot to dive into. In addition, of course, there are so many issues that President-elect Trump has yet to address in terms of not just Russia, but Syria, tax reform, and much more.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We are told he will have an opening statement. We assume it is on effort to eliminate conflicts of interest with his business empire. That's what the original news conference which supposed to take place a month ago was delayed until today, and then he will answer reporters' questions.

We don't know if it will few reporters' questions or a lot of reporters' questions. Certainly this subject will come up. He reacted very angrily on Twitter today.

TAPPER: That's right. Well, we had reached out to Trump transition team to get a comment, a response to the facts that we had laid out with multiple, multiple government officials talking about the intelligence committee report and the briefing on Friday.

We did not get a statement from the Trump transition. But President- elect Trump did issue a statement later on, talking about fake news and a political witch hunt. We weren't sure if he was talking about our report or the fact that other news organization had printed I think fairly irresponsibly an entire dossier on which some of the annex that we referred to had been based.

But we now await President-elect Trump's response not only to the stories of the last day, but also questions from reporters. He has not faced questions from potentially adversarial press in quite some time, after that July press conference, he pretty much stopped, with a couple of exceptions.

Pretty much stopped to say spaces reporters, who wanted him to be elected president, anchors of channels that were rooting for him openly. We're hoping that there will be some challenging questions at this press conference, respectful but challenging, about this report, this allegation, and also much, much more going forward in terms of what kind of president he's going to be, what kind of administration he's going to have.

BLITZER: Jim Sciutto, among the latest tweets, once again, he seems to be at bitter odds with the U.S. intelligence community.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No question. And let's be clear. He has tweeted a lot of things, he's alleged fake news, et cetera. He and his team have not answered the essential question of our report which was that he was briefed on this, he and the president, President Obama, that the FBI is investigating this, as are Republican and Democratic lawmakers. He has not answered that essential question yet in any public comment.

TAPPER: And also, just to add, the question about the underlying charges and the two-page dossier, the two-page synopsis provided by the intelligence community is very different from this 35-page dossier which is full of all sorts of uncorroborated and unsubstantiated reports that we did not report on.

But this two-page dossier, this two-page synopsis which we understand to have been fairly broad in terms of its descriptions, the basic questions for President-elect Trump are, were there contacts between anyone related to his camp, emissaries, surrogates, whoever, and anyone related whatsoever to the Russian government, and do Russians have any damaging information, financial or personal, as they claim to have.

BLITZER: You know, Gloria, this news conference taking place only a few days before the presidential inauguration, the stakes clearly for the president-elect to do well, to explain what he understands is going on, these stakes are enormous.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, initially this press conference seemed to be just geared towards the question of how Donald Trump is going to divest himself and how he's going to deal with the conflicts that arise between his company and -- which is all over the world, and his job as president of the United States.

And it seems very clear that we learned in the last few weeks that his sons are going to run the company effectively, and he's going to try and separate himself. So we'll have to see how he can do that.

I mean, it's very difficult for somebody like Donald Trump to just put everything into a blind trust, because we've never had this kind of a situation where you have a multi-billionaire real estate investor as president of the United States.

But having said that, that was going to be the main topic of this. Now, given the reporting of CNN and others yesterday, I think this is going to turn into questions about just what the relationship was between the Trump campaign and -- or emissaries from the Trump orbit.

[11:05:10]Even if they weren't members of the campaign, and people in Russia. And I think questions have been raised about whether there was any communication, whether that was done to effectively undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

And I think that reporters are going to want to know answers to these questions. We have an idea of what Donald Trump might say. But I do think that there's going to be an awful lot of questions about what did you do and when did you do it or when did people in your campaign do it.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: If you take a step back and think about how extraordinary it is that we are a week and two days away from him being right back there, becoming the 45th president of the United States, and heading into that pretty remarkable moment, he is at war with the intelligence community, which is only escalating after your report.

Instead of taking a step back and perhaps trying to think about, well, maybe this is an example of why it's not the greatest idea in the world for a president to be openly berating the intelligence community, he doubled down, tripled down on it.

And it's really, really remarkable, given the fact that, you know, Jim, you cover these guys every day, the intelligence community, they're not perfect, they have flaws.

SCIUTTO: They've made some big mistakes.

BASH: They've made some big mistakes. But at the end of the day, when he becomes the president, they are there to work for him. They are the ones who are going to be -- he's going to be sending out on secret clandestine missions that no one else is going to know about.

They are the ones he's going to have to rely on about a missile on North Korea and a whole host of other things. The fact that he's coming into the presidency, way beyond odds, really at war with these people, is unbelievable.

SCIUTTO: They're going to inform every key national security decision this president has to make. Does North Korea have a nuclear missile?

BASH: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: Is there a terrorist attack pending on the U.S. homeland? Is Russia violating nuclear agreements? The list -- where to send U.S. forces into danger's way. They're going to be inform him. So the question becomes, the way the relationship is starting, not just for him and his political fortunes, it is fundamentally dangerous for the country.

RICK SANTORUM (R), FORMER U.S. SENATOR FOR PENNSYLVANIA: I want to take issue with this because you're suggesting he's at war with the intelligence community. He's at war with the leaders of the intelligence community. He's at war with the people who have presented this assessment. These are political leaders. I mean, these are people appointed by Barack Obama. To say he's at war with the person in the bowels of the CIA or the -- wherever it is, is ridiculous.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: Because there is a lot of controversy within those agencies right now about the assessment --

SCIUTTO: That's not true. There is broad and confident agreement in the agencies. Early on there were some reporting about disagreement between the CIA and FBI, we've debunked that. In fact, it is the confident assessment and those assessments don't come from the political leaders. Those assessments come from the analysts who --

SANTORUM: I worked as a board member of a cyber-security company and I do talk to people in that field and in that area, and I can tell you they're talking to people in the bowels of that organization that don't feel that way.

TAPPER: What are they specifically objecting to?

SANTORUM: Well, first off, to suggest that this was a hack. It was not a hack. It was a phishing.

TAPPER: Was phishing on John Podesta a hack on the DNC?

SANTORUM: Well, that led to the opening up of those --

SCIUTTO: They call it an influence operation. That's what it's called.

SANTORUM: The bottom line is that the idea of pointing to things that you say clearly points to Russia, if you know anything about this area, the bottom line is if Russia did this, you wouldn't know it because it would be five steps removed. They wouldn't leave breadcrumbs to say this is obviously Russia. If it was obviously Russia, it was probably the intent to show that it was --

BASH: Aside from the specifics, maybe you're right that there is a disconnect between some of the leadership in the intelligence community and some of the rank and file. But to Jim's point, the fact that this is so public right now does put in danger the rank and file, the officials who are out and trying to interface with assets and officials and counterparts in very dangerous parts of the world. And they're going to go back to the officials and say, why should I trust you, why should I believe you, your president-elect doesn't even believe it.

SANTORUM: That will be resolved in two weeks. When new leadership of those organizations, and those leaders will actually do the work and give the president I think what he will see as a more --

BORGER: Are you saying that James Clapper and James Comey and John Brennan, Mike Rogers, are completely partisans?

SANTORUM: I would say that the document they had was more of a political document than I've seen in a long time.

(CROSSTALK)

[11:10:07]BLITZER: I want to get Symone in a moment, but Senator, Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, tweeted three hours ago, "Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to leak," quote, leak, "into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?"

SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's what I was going to say, Wolf. So Donald Trump has literally not only has he disparaged women, people of color. He is now attacking the intelligence community. So how will they do their jobs out in the streets? Are you saying in two weeks all of a sudden Donald Trump will feel better about the information he's getting. I don't think that's how works.

This is dangerous. This is not a partisan issue. A foreign entity has meddled in our elections process. They are trying to undermine our democracy and that's something across the board we should all be concerned with.

Look perhaps Donald Trump is concerned that he's not a legitimate president. He needs to deal with those issues, but he is about to assume the highest office in the land. And he has to step into this and I'm just shocked that this is what's happening, disparaging our intelligence community.

TAPPER: I just want to bring in David Axelrod, who is joining us I believe from Chicago. David, you're one of our senior political advisors. I wonder if you can tell us more, I've heard this tale told, that when George W. Bush was handing over the reins to Barack Obama eight years ago this month, one of the bits of advice he told him was, and you'll pardon my language, don't piss off the intelligence community.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think your language was that offensive there, Jake. But yes, I think that was part of the message that he delivered. Look, Jim went over some of the issues. I would have another, which is North Korea and the threats that Kim Jong-Un has made in recent days towards the U.S. presidents have to rely on this intelligence.

Here is the issue. If in order to impeach what you find unfavorable reporting, you go to war with the intelligence community and try and undermine their credibility, and we've just heard some of that here, then how are people to react when you present them with intelligence and say you're going to make a decision based on that intelligence, after having impeached the intelligence community?

It is a very, very dicey proposition for the president-elect to be doing this and he may come to regret that down the line when he has to make some very sensitive decisions.

TAPPER: But Senator Santorum, I suppose what you're saying is this problem will go away when Dan Coats replaces James Clapper, assuming that happens, and he has the leaders he wants heading the intelligence community.

SANTORUM: Look, I think he believes that this was an over-politicized process, and that he is -- he sort of rejects -- he rejects that out of hand. Based in part, based on his own knowledge of what he saw and didn't see and the information he's been able to gather. So this is an issue right now, it's a big issue, I agree with it, but I think it will be not as big as issue once his people get in charge and you'll be able to see the facts behind it.

BORGER: Another parts of the really is the fact that senior Republicans in Congress, most notably John McCain, Lindsey Graham, you know, we heard Marco Rubio questioning Mr. Tillerson today about Russia and Putin, these people believe that there ought to be a special committee to just peel this back, layer by layer, take a look at this. Whether you have new people energy or not, they believe it is their job as Congress, why shouldn't they do that?

BLITZER: All right, here comes the president-elect of the United States. He's walking into this room at Trump Tower, the lobby at Trump Tower in New York City surrounded by his two adult sons and his daughter, Ivanka. Let's listen in.

SPICER: Morning. Thanks for being here (ph). (inaudible) days away from the inauguration of the next president and vice president of the United States. It's an opportunity to be here today to allow the president-elect to take your questions.

After the president-elect makes some remarks, he will introduce Ms. Sheri Dillon, a prominent attorney in Washington, D.C. with the prestigious form of Morgan Lewis who will -- who structured the agreements pursuant to the president's business arrangements and she will give brief remarks.

Before we start, I want to bring your attention to a few points on the report that was published in BuzzFeed last night. It's frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible for a left-wing blog that was openly hostile to the president-elect's campaign to drop highly salacious and flat out false information on the internet just days before he takes the oath of office.

According to BuzzFeed's own editor, there are some serious reasons to doubt the allegations in the report. The executive editor of the New York Times also dismissed the report by saying it was, quote, "Totally unsubstantiated, echoing the concerns that many other reporters expressed on the internet."

[11:15:05] SPICER: The fact that BuzzFeed and CNN made the decision to run with this unsubstantiated claim is a sad and pathetic attempt to get clicks. The report is not an intelligence report, plain and simple. One issue that the report talked about was the relationship of three individuals associated with the campaign. These three individuals; Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Carter Page.

Carter Page is an individual who the president-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign. Paul Manafort has adamantly denied any of this involvement and Michael Cohen, who is said to have visited Prague in August and September did not leave or enter the United States during this time. We asked him to produce his passport to confirm his whereabouts on the dates in question and there was no doubt that he was not in Prague.

In fact, Mr. Cohen has never been in Prague. A new report actually suggests that Michael Cohen was at -- at the University of Southern California with his son at a baseball game. One report now suggested apparently it's another Michael Cohen. For all the talk lately about fake news, this political witch hunt by some in the media is based on some of the most flimsy reporting and is frankly shameful and disgraceful.

With that, it is my honor to introduce the next vice president of the United States, Mike Pence.

(APPLAUSE)

PENCE: We are nine days away from the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

I am profoundly honored and humbled that I will take the oath of office to serve as vice president of the United States nine days from today, but I'm even more honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with a new president who will make America great again.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, the president-elect's leadership and his energy during the campaign was impressive. But as the Chairman of the transition effort, I can assure the American people that his energy and his vision during the course of this transition has been even more inspiring. To see the way he has brought together men and women of extraordinary capability at a historic pace in this cabinet.

Nineteen of the 21 Cabinet officials have been announced, nine committee hearings already scheduled, seven more soon to go on the books in the next several days and it is a -- it is a compilation of men and women with an unprecedented caliber of leadership and background to help this administration move our nation forward. Perhaps that's why there's been such a concerted effort by some in the mainstream media to delegitimize this election and to demean our incoming administration.

You know, I have long been a supporter of a free and independent press and I always will be. But with freedom comes responsibility. And the irresponsible decision of a few news organizations to run with a false and unsubstantiated report, when most news organizations resisted the temptation to propagate this fake news, can only be attributed to media bias and attempt to demean the president-elect and our incoming administration and the American people are sick and tired of it.

(APPLAUSE) But today, we'll get back to real news, to real facts and the real progress our incoming president has already made in reviving the American economy and assembling a team that will make America great again. And we'll hear from the president-elect about issues that are of paramount importance to the American people today.

So, it is my honor to introduce to all of you, my friend and the president-elect of the United States of America, Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

It's very familiar territory, news conferences, because we used to give them on a almost daily basis. I think we probably maybe won the nomination because of news conferences and it's good to be with you.

TRUMP: We stopped giving them because we were getting quite a bit of inaccurate news, but I do have to say that -- and I must say that I want to thank a lot of the news organizations here today because they looked at that nonsense that was released by maybe the intelligence agencies?

[11:20:08] Who knows, but maybe the intelligence agencies which would be a tremendous blot on their record if they in fact did that. A tremendous blot, because a thing like that should have never been written, it should never have been had and it should certainly never been released.

But I want to thank a lot of the news organizations for some of whom have not treated me very well over the years -- a couple in particular -- and they came out so strongly against that fake news and the fact that it was written about by primarily one group and one television station.

So, I just want to compliment many of the people in the room. I have great respect for the news and great respect for freedom of the press and all of that. But I will tell you, there were some news organizations with all that was just said that were so professional -- so incredibly professional, that I've just gone up a notch as to what I think of you. OK?

All right. We've had some great news over the last couple of weeks. I've been quite active, I guess you could say, in an economic way for the country. A lot of car companies are going to be moving in, we have other companies -- big news is going to be announced over the next couple of weeks about companies that are getting building in the Midwest.

You saw yesterday Fiat Chrysler; big, big factory going to be built in this country as opposed to another country. Ford just announced that they stopped plans for a billion dollar plant in Mexico and they're going to be moving into Michigan and expanding, very substantially, an existing plant.

I appreciate that from Ford. I appreciate it very much from Fiat Chrysler. I hope that General Motors will be following and I think they will be. I think a lot of people will be following. I think a lot of industries are going to be coming back.

We've got to get our drug industry back. Our drug industry has been disastrous. They're leaving left and right. They supply our drugs, but they don't make them here, to a large extent. And the other thing we have to do is create new bidding procedures for the drug industry because they're getting away with murder.

Pharma, pharma has a lot of lobbies and a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power and there's very little bidding on drugs. We're the largest buyer of drugs in the world and yet we don't bid properly and we're going to start bidding and we're going to save billions of dollars over a period of time.

And we're going to do that with a lot of other industries. I'm very much involved with the generals and admirals on the airplane, the F- 35, you've been reading about it. And it's way, way behind schedule and many, many billions of dollars over budget. I don't like that. And the admirals have been fantastic, the generals have been fantastic. I've really gotten to know them well. And we're going to do some big things on the F-35 program, and perhaps the F-18 program. And we're going to get those costs way down and we're going to get the plane to be even better. And we're going to have some competition and it's going to be a beautiful thing.

So, we've been very, very much involved, and other things. We had Jack Ma, we had so many incredible people coming here. There are no -- they're going to do tremendous things -- tremendous things in this country. And they're very excited.

And I will say, if the election didn't turn out the way it turned out, they would not be here. They would not be in my office. They would not be in anybody else's office. They'd be building and doing things in other countries. So, there's a great spirit going on right now. A spirit that many people have told me they've never seen before, ever.

We're going to create jobs. I said that I will be the greatest jobs producer that God ever created. And I mean that, I really -- I'm going to work very hard on that. We need certain amounts of other things, including a little bit of luck, but I think we're going to do a real job. And I'm very proud of what we've done.

And we haven't even gotten there yet. I look very much forward to the inauguration. It's going to be a beautiful event. We have great talent, tremendous talent. And we have the -- all of the bands -- or most of the bands are from the different -- from the different segments of the military. And I've heard some of these bands over the years, they're incredible.

We're going to have a very, very elegant day. The 20th is going to be something that will be very, very special; very beautiful. And I think we're going to have massive crowds because we have a movement.

TRUMP: It's a movement like the world has never seen before. It's a movement that a lot of people didn't expect. And even the polls -- although some of them did get it right, but many of them didn't. And that was a beautiful scene on November 8th as those states started to pour in.

[11:25:16] And we focused very hard in those states and they really reciprocated. And those states are gonna have a lot of jobs and they're gonna have a lot of security. They're going to have a lot of good news for their veterans.

And by the way, speaking of veterans, I appointed today the head secretary of the Veterans Administration, David Shulkin. And we'll do a news release in a little while. Tell you about David, he's fantastic -- he's fantastic. He will do a truly great job.

One of the commitments I made is that we're gonna straighten out the whole situation for our veterans. Our veterans have been treated horribly. They're waiting in line for 15, 16, 17 days, cases where they go in and they have a minor early-stage form of cancer and they can't see a doctor. By the time they get to the doctor, they're terminal. Not gonna happen, it's not gonna happen.

So, David is going to do a fantastic job. We're going to be talking to a few people also to help David. And we have some of the great hospitals of the world going to align themselves with us on the Veterans Administration, like the Cleveland Clinic, like the Mayo Clinic, a few more than we have. And we're gonna set up a -- a group.

These are hospitals that have been the top of the line, the absolute top of the line. And they're going to get together with their great doctors -- Dr. Toby Cosgrove, as you know from the Cleveland Clinic, has been very involved.

Ike Perlmutter has been very, very involved, one of the great men of business. And we're gonna straighten out the V.A. for our veterans. I've been promising that for a long time and it's something I feel very, very strongly.

So, you'll get the information on David. And I think you'll be very impressed with the job he does. We looked long and hard. We interviewed at least 100 people, some good, some not so good. But we had a lot of talent. And we think this election will be something that will, with time -- with time, straighten it out and straighten it out for good 'cause our veterans have been treated very unfairly.

OK, questions? Yes, John (ph)?

QUESTION: (Inaudible) so much.

TRUMP: Thank you.

QUESTION: Appreciate it.

A couple of aspects of the intelligence briefing that you received on Friday that we're looking for further clarification on.

TRUMP: Sure. QUESTION: First of all, did the heads of the intelligence agencies provide you with the two-page summary of these unsubstantiated allegations? And secondly to that, on the broader picture, do you accept their opinion that Vladimir Putin ordered the hack of the DNC and the attempted hack of the RNC?

And if you do, how will that color your attempts to build a relationship with a leader who has been accused of committing an act of espionage against the United States?

TRUMP: OK, first of all, these readings as you know are confidential, classified. So, I'm not allowed to talk about what went on in a meeting.

And -- but we had many witnesses in that meeting, many of them with us. And I will say, again, I think it's a disgrace that information would be let out.

I saw the information; I read the information outside of that meeting. It's all fake news. It's phony stuff. It didn't happen. And it was gotten by opponents of ours, as you know, because you reported it and so did many of the other people. It was a group of opponents that got together -- sick people -- and they put that crap together.

So, I will tell you that not within the meeting, but outside of the meeting, somebody released it. It should have never been -- number one, shouldn't have even entered paper. But it should have never have been released. But I read what was released and I think it's a disgrace. I think it's an absolute disgrace.

As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. And I -- I can say that you know when -- when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn't make a big deal out of that. That was something that was extraordinary. That was probably China.

We had -- we had much hacking going on. And one of the things we're gonna do, we have some of the greatest computer minds anywhere in the world that we've assembled. You saw just a sample of it two weeks ago up here where we had the six top people in the world -- they were never in the same room together as a group. And we're gonna put those minds together and we're going to form a defense.

TRUMP: It's a movement like the world has never seen before. It's a movement that a lot of people didn't expect. And even the polls -- although some of them did get it right, but many of them didn't. And that was a beautiful scene on November 8th as those states started to pour in.

And we focused very hard in those states and they really reciprocated. And those states are gonna have a lot of jobs and they're gonna have a lot of security. They're going to have a lot of good news for their veterans.

And by the way, speaking of veterans, I appointed today the head secretary of the Veterans Administration, David Shulkin. And we'll do a news release in a little while. Tell you about David, he's fantastic -- he's fantastic. He will do a truly great job.

One of the commitments I made is that we're gonna straighten out the whole situation for our veterans. Our veterans have been treated horribly. They're waiting in line for 15, 16, 17 days, cases where they go in and they have a minor early-stage form of cancer and they can't see a doctor. By the time they get to the doctor, they're terminal. Not gonna happen, it's not gonna happen.

So, David is going to do a fantastic job. We're going to be talking to a few people also to help David. And we have some of the great hospitals of the world going to align themselves with us on the Veterans Administration, like the Cleveland Clinic, like the Mayo Clinic, a few more than we have. And we're gonna set up a -- a group.

These are hospitals that have been the top of the line, the absolute top of the line. And they're going to get together with their great doctors -- Dr. Toby Cosgrove, as you know from the Cleveland Clinic, has been very involved.

Ike Perlmutter has been very, very involved, one of the great men of business. And we're gonna straighten out the V.A. for our veterans. I've been promising that for a long time and it's something I feel very, very strongly.

So, you'll get the information on David. And I think you'll be very impressed with the job he does. We looked long and hard. We interviewed at least 100 people, some good, some not so good. But we had a lot of talent. And we think this election will be something that will, with time -- with time, straighten it out and straighten it out for good 'cause our veterans have been treated very unfairly.

OK, questions? Yes, John (ph)?

QUESTION: (Inaudible) so much.

TRUMP: Thank you.

QUESTION: Appreciate it.

A couple of aspects of the intelligence briefing that you received on Friday that we're looking for further clarification on.

TRUMP: Sure.

QUESTION: First of all, did the heads of the intelligence agencies provide you with the two-page summary of these unsubstantiated allegations? And secondly to that, on the broader picture, do you accept their opinion that Vladimir Putin ordered the hack of the DNC and the attempted hack of the RNC?

And if you do, how will that color your attempts to build a relationship with a leader who has been accused of committing an act of espionage against the United States?

TRUMP: OK, first of all, these readings as you know are confidential, classified. So, I'm not allowed to talk about what went on in a meeting.

And -- but we had many witnesses in that meeting, many of them with us. And I will say, again, I think it's a disgrace that information would be let out.

I saw the information; I read the information outside of that meeting. It's all fake news. It's phony stuff. It didn't happen. And it was gotten by opponents of ours, as you know, because you reported it and so did many of the other people. It was a group of opponents that got together -- sick people -- and they put that crap together.

So, I will tell you that not within the meeting, but outside of the meeting, somebody released it. It should have never been -- number one, shouldn't have even entered paper. But it should have never have been released. But I read what was released and I think it's a disgrace. I think it's an absolute disgrace.

As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. And I -- I can say that you know when -- when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn't make a big deal out of that. That was something that was extraordinary. That was probably China.

We had -- we had much hacking going on. And one of the things we're gonna do, we have some of the greatest computer minds anywhere in the world that we've assembled. You saw just a sample of it two weeks ago up here where we had the six top people in the world -- they were never in the same room together as a group. And we're gonna put those minds together and we're going to form a defense.

TRUMP: And I have to say this also, the Democratic National Committee was totally open to be hacked. They did a very poor job. They could've had hacking defense, which we had.