CBS News contributors on President Trump’s primetime address

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - Two CBS News contributors, Chris Krebs and David Becker, spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about President Donald Trump's primetime address to the nation.

In his address to the nation Thursday, President Trump said he declassified heavily redacted documents to fuel his claims about interference in the 2020 election, particularly from China.

However, the courts and members of the president's first administration said there wasn't any widespread fraud that would've changed the 2020 election's outcome.

The address comes ahead of this year's midterm elections, taking place in November, prompting Brennan to ask Krebs, whom Trump appointed to be Director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) during his first term in office, but was fired for saying the 2020 election was secure, if he read or heard anything from the address that changes his assessment, to which he said:

"Not at all. In fact, I would say that it further bolsters my confidence in the security of the 2020 election between what has been released, disclosed last week, and all the information and the results of court challenges and other things in the intervening six years...But it's also, I think, a good opportunity to reflect on the good work that the...hundreds of thousands, if not million or more, election workers that helped execute the 2020 election, the tens of thousands of federal government employees that worked to protect the 2020 election, that was not something that came together a couple weeks before 2020. That was years in the making, and that work was solid."

Brennan then spoke with Becker, who is the executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation, about Harmeet Dhillon, who is the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, sending a letter to states "saying any election official who knowingly retains non-citizens on voter registration lists or facilitates non-citizens in casting ballots will be held criminally liable."

She also brought up DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin's speech describing the consequence of refusing to participate in their program saying election officials will be "held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time."

When asked if they're concerned about Secretary Mullin's words, Becker said:

"Hardly a week goes by where someone in this administration doesn't threaten election officials with arrests. This week we had at least two prominent administration officials doing that. It's become almost a running joke. They've been into this administration 18 months now. The total number of election officials who've been arrested for wrongdoing is zero, and that's appropriate because not only have they committed no crime, they've actually acted heroically and patriotically to support and facilitate our democracy through a pandemic and in the aftermath with disinformation. What Secretary Mullin's talking about there, he's trying to pressure states to surrender sensitive voter data to the federal government, and the DOJ has filed over 30 lawsuits about that, and they are 0-16 in those lawsuits so far. He's threatening them with arrest for following the law, and so I think the election officials in the states feel very confident that they are following their state laws, they're following federal laws. They're doing everything they can to make sure this election is going to be safe, convenient, and secure."

Later in the interview, Brennan said Republican officials in West Virginia and Utah have no "outreach from the White House about election threats" adding, "You got them, bring the."

Brennan also said Utah actually wants election security resources to "be restored and to have the federal government stop filing frivolous 'lawsuits that consume our precious time and taxpayer resources.'"

This led Brennan to ask what should be happening to make sure the officials have what they need, and Krebs said:

"First off...If there is intelligence that needs to be shared with the states, get it to them. And typically, you share the intelligence with the affected parties prior to making a public announcement. So, if there was something net new in the Thursday night address that needed to get out to election officials, that should have gone out Wednesday or Thursday morning, and as of Friday, it had not, you know, trickled down to West Virginia. In 2020, we conducted 33 classified briefings with election officials, 2020, 33. As far as I can tell, there have been no classified briefings with election officials since the beginning of this administration. So, number one, we need to start the partnership and engagement with election officials, get them the intelligence they need. We need to recapitalize CISA, rehire CISA, stand up the election security initiative. We need FBI task forces. We need the DNI mission centers all around election security, and we need to give them the funding and the resources they need to modernize their security systems and get the people there that conduct these safe, convenient, secure elections."

Brennan then asked Becker what he's hearing from the officials about what kind of federal help they want, and Becker said:

"In the first few months of this administration, they dismantled all of the work that the first Trump administration under the leadership of Chris, had built, and the Biden administration continued. It took a long time to build trust and credibility and expertise, so that states would welcome federal assistance. That's not their normal status, and they built that up admirably. And starting in February of 2025, almost on day one, they dismantled all of it. And so all of those things that Chris was talking about that are so essential to push back on foreign influence campaigns, they're gone. On the bright side, and this is a pretty limited bright side, that happened early in the administration...So the states have been able to prepare for that. They have been working and networking amongst themselves to fill that gap. And at the end of the day, they have paper ballots. They audit those paper ballots to make sure that they're counted properly. They've hardened their systems, their voter registration databases. It's going to be a secure election."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Krebs and Becker, click here.