Transcript: David Becker and Chris Krebs on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Sept. 15, 2024

The following is a transcript of an interview with David Becker, Center of Election Innovation and Research executive director and CBS contributor, and Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and CBS News cybersecurity expert and analyst, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Sept. 15, 2024.

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MARGARET BRENNAN: For more on the upcoming election and the efforts underway to secure the vote, we turn to David Becker. He’s a former civil rights attorney at the Department of Justice who now leads the center of election innovation and research. He’s also a CBS contributor on election law. And Chris Krebs, the former director of the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, now an expert and analyst here at CBS Good to have you both. David, let me start with you. We saw this letter this past week from Secretaries of State in all fifty states and District of Columbia, issuing concern that we could see voters disenfranchised because of this increase in mail returned as undeliverable at higher than usual rates, even in cases where a voter is known not to have moved. And Donald Trump was tweeting about this this morning, you can’t trust the Postal Service. How much of a problem is this going to be for mail in voting?

DAVID BECKER: Well, it’s a potential problem. I’m hearing this from- from state officials and local officials, of course, there in the States, and we are seeing mail voting spread as an option around the country. I think we’re likely to see less mail voting than we did in 2020 because hopefully we won’t have a pandemic to deal with in 2024, but it’s a significant problem, and it really stresses the importance of voters to make a plan when they’re voting. Almost every voter in the United States has an option to vote early in person. 97% of all of them in every state except for Mississippi, Alabama, New Hampshire, 36 states and DC do offer mail voting without an excuse. But if you’re going to vote by mail, get your ballot early. Request it early. Make sure you get it and then return it early. If you’re going to return it by the mail, that’s fine. Just do it very early. There’s also options for drop boxes and dropping it off at election offices and vote centers. That’s going to be incredibly important for voters to self educate about those options, just in case there are problems with the Postal Service.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And it’s this coming week, right where it’s voter registration, voter awareness what is it? 

DAVID BECKER: So this coming week, on Tuesday, is National Voter Registration Day– 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Registration Day.

DAVID BECKER: There’s still plenty of time to register. As we sit here today, there’s three weeks left in every state. Some states go much longer than that, but no matter where you are, if you’re an eligible voter, you can go to vote.gov That’s a great place to start. Taylor Swift mentioned it earlier this week, and it’s a great place to start and get registered. Every eligible voter in the United States can still check their registration and get registered for at least three weeks. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Put it on your to do list. Chris, I want to talk about some of the information environment issues that we are in. It is not every face the nation that we begin talking about rumors of cats and dogs and geese in Ohio, the reason we’re doing it is because the Republican nominee on the debate stage repeated something that started as a Facebook rumor that got amplified that the senator from Ohio says resulted in calls to his office this you watch this kind of echo chamber and ecosystem of information, what do you make of a moment like this, and how frequently things like this get replicated now, like, how does someone at home navigate truth when we I went through fact check after fact check, the police chief, the mayor, the governor, and again and again and again, I was told, Nope, you’re wrong.

CHRIS KREBS: Yeah, I mean, the fact of the matter is social media, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, X, whatever, it’s not the real world. It’s not reality. And so it provides an environment where specious claims like this can catch fire, but they tend to be constrained to that platform. What we saw on Tuesday was the firewall between mainstream and reality in this extremely online ecosystem breakdown, and they crossed over. And keep in mind that these social media platforms, well, Facebook has a billion plus users on a monthly basis. X has much, much fewer. And so what happened Tuesday night was the vast majority of people. There were 57 million, I think, viewers of the debate, the vast majority of them had never heard about this cats and dogs being barbecued in Springfield, Ohio, and the, you know, I expected it because, you know, unfortunately, David and I have to live in this world to anticipate what’s coming. And so I had seen it going through social media for a couple days, and I fully expected it to jump, you know, into the conversation, go mainstream, and boom, there it is. So to your question, or to your point, how does one kind of introduce some kind of personal resilience here? And it’s exactly doing what you do. Go to mainstream outlets and trusted outlets and and do a little bit of fact check and verification, and listen to the public officials, listen to Governor DeWine, listen to the mayor and the city manager, who’s to know better than someone that’s actually willing to put their face in their name to a claim, rather than someone randomly on a social media platform. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: And this will become increasingly relevant as we get to voting and going to voting facilities, not Facebook rumors, the elected officials, the people who hold office. That’s who we as journalists cite. And that’s who people at home should look to.

CHRIS KREBS: Well, and to David’s point about vote.gov and having a voting plan, yes, that is absolutely critical. But when you do come across rumors online of registration dates changing or voting locations or precincts closing, there are ways that you as an individual voter can go confirm and that tends to go to the local election official or the Secretary of State trusted info 2024 that’s the campaign that the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State election directors have mounted now for three election cycles in a row. It’s go to the- the authoritative source in your jurisdiction, which tends to be your secretary of state, your state election director, or your local election officials.

MARGARET BRENNAN: David, in the last election, we saw some of those local officials stand up in a way that was it took a lot of guts to stand up to federal pressure. You saw that in the state of Georgia, you saw that in the state of Arizona. You speak to election officials in states around this country right now, where are you seeing that strength, and are there areas of concern?

DAVID BECKER: So I’m seeing tremendous strength from the election officials, despite the fact that they’ve been under pressure, stress, abuse and harassment for four years now that their work has continually withstood every bit of scrutiny that’s been applied, and the fact that since 2020 every election they’ve run has been run very well and similarly withstood that scrutiny, but they’re still exhausted this disinformation environment Chris is talking about, that has real world impacts on our Neighbors, on our fellow citizens who are working every day to give us all our voice. They are answering questions that are have no bearing to reality all the time, about importing voters, about problems with the voting process, and they’re having to navigate those, while they’re also still having to plan for an election that is likely going to be very high turnout, probably similar to 2020, perhaps even higher. People are very interested in this election, but they’re ready. But one of the best things we can do is support them. Is to support them by, as Chris suggests, listening to the actual information, going to the official sources for real information, getting information, and making a plan in advance about how you’re going to vote. And then finally, one of the things I always encourage, if you have any doubts or questions, volunteer to be a poll worker. You will learn so much about the process. You will find out how the process and why the process is so secure, how many redundancies and checks and balances and pieces of transparency are in place in that process that will really help your election officials out, because then you become an evangelist for our very effective election system out in the community.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So Chris, we are seeing more foreign efforts to meddle in this election. We expect in the coming days, federal officials to file charges related to that Iranian hack and dump campaign that seems to have been foiled thus far, but attempt to hurt Trump campaign. How much more of this is coming?

CHRIS KREBS: Well, my sense, and based on prior experience, particularly in 2020 where we saw the Iranians try to meddle in that election, the Russians, the Chinese going back to 2016 with the Russians, is that they tend not to just have a single effort or work stream. There’s an overarching strategy, a multifaceted, multi prong campaign that they’ve pulled together. We certainly know this with the Russians, that there are various work streams that they have launched against the US. The Iranians very likely have the same so perhaps this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I’ve said that before. Not all of these activities, these work streams, will be successful, or will break through. But the hack-and-leak campaign specific to Iran. But the main point, and what I am observing out of the United States government, is that they are looking to keep constant pressure, consistent engagement against the Russians, against the Iranians, against the Chinese throughout the course of this election and afterwards, remember, we have to run through the tape here, and that tape is inauguration.

MARGARET BRENNAN: David, quickly, it is illegal for a non citizen to vote in a federal election. In some localities, they can vote in municipal elections. Donald Trump is talking about this as a real concern.

DAVID BECKER: Yeah, and it’s not a real concern. And even Republican states that have looked into this have found incredibly small numbers of even potential non-citizens registered. We have found virtually zero non-citizens actually voting. Georgia did a full audit of its list and found zero non citizens voting. That’s because the protections in place are very effective. We- it’s illegal to- to vote as a non-citizen. Ideas required to register to vote, and if you’re a non-citizen and you register and you vote, you will go to jail and you will be deported. So it’s very important how effective those those deterrence mechanisms are. This is not a problem. You’ll hear that from Republican and democratic election officials across the country.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Gentlemen. Thank you both. 

DAVID BECKER: Thank you Margaret. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll be talking a lot in the coming months. We’ll be right back.