“We have been attacked,” Freeman says into the camera. “We are at war.”
The actor is talking about the coordinated cyber attacks that intelligence agencies believe Russia executed against the U.S. in an effort to elect Donald Trump. “We need our president to speak directly to us and tell us the truth,” Freeman says, as he sits behind a desk and delivers the message he and Reiner want to hear from Trump.
“My fellow Americans, during this past election, we came under attack by the Russian government,” Freeman says in his most presidential voice. “I’ve called on Congress and our intelligence community to use every resource available to conduct a thorough investigation to determine exactly how this happened.”
Joining Reiner on the committee’s advisory board are a bipartisan group of #NeverTrumpers that includes conservative radio host Charlie Sykes and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. George W. Bush’s speechwriter David Frum helped Reiner announce the project on CNN Tuesday morning.
Asked if he ever thought he would be sitting side by side in solidarity with a man who helped pave the way for the War in Iraq with his “Axis of Evil” rhetoric, Reiner, a lifelong Democrat, says, “Well, this is the funny thing about this. When it comes to our country being attacked, it would never cross my mind that I wouldn’t be sitting next to him. It’s only odd that I’m sitting next to him because the country is so partisan right now.”
It’s a dilemma that Hillary Clinton addressed as well this past week during the book tour for her campaign memoir What Happened. In the same interview in which she said she would not “rule out” questioning Trump’s “legitimacy” as president if more information about the Russian attacks is uncovered, Clinton told Fresh Air host Terry Gross that if, like Trump, she had lost the popular vote and won the Electoral College and intelligence officials were pointing to Russian interference, she “would've never stood for it.”
“Even though it might've advantaged me, I would've said, ‘We've got to get to the bottom of this,’” Clinton added. “I would've set up an independent commission with subpoena power and everything else.”
“She’s right about that,” Reiner says of Clinton’s comments. “As painful as it was for her to be at the receiving end of all of these negative and false campaign propaganda, there is a bigger issue here.”
“It has the capacity to be as devastating as a nuclear attack,” Reiner says of cyber warfare. “People just don’t get the severity of it, because it’s insidious, it’s clandestine, it sneaks in there.” Reiner compares this type of warfare to high blood pressure. “You feel fine and the next thing you know you’re dropping dead of a heart attack.”
When I spoke to Reiner at Politicon in Pasadena, Calif. over the summer, he said it was only a “matter of time” before Special Counsel Robert Mueller uncovered “crimes” committed by Trump in relation to Russia. But now he insists that his reasons for forming the committee have “nothing to do with Donald Trump,” explaining that it’s about “something much, much bigger than that.” While Trump’s fate will be determined by Mueller’s investigation, Reiner has decided to focus his efforts on the potential future threats to American democracy.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/rob-reiner-and-morgan-freeman-declare-war-on-russia
