And twitter to basically advance a message that would and posts and ads that would exploit the racial tensions that exist in this country effectively as part of the larger russian goal of undermining american dem kraszcy. Sowing political discord, contributing to an atmosphere of partisanship and incivility. And they were doing this at a time during a campaign when race was at the forefront or at least one of the major issues going on in america at that time. Still is today, if you couple this with the reporting we had last night, that one of the ads, a black lives matter ad, was targeted at the cities of ferguson, missouri, and baltimore. You begin to understand how sophisticated the russians were in terms of understanding the pressure points for american politics and american culture. Did this group have a big following online . In fact they did. If you look at the facebook account now suspended for blacktivits. They had over 360,000 likes, that is more than the 300,000 likes that the verified black lives matter Facebook Page has today. Its not just a question of the russians being able or intending to influence american politics, that level of following suggests they may have actually succeeded in doing so. Were these accounts also promoting events . Yes, they were, and thats another area where you can measure the influence that these accounts actually had. There are at least seven events we found that were promoted or broadcast by the blacktivists account. They range from a 50th anniversary from from the black Panther Party to the anniversary of the death of freddie gray. And real events. Events that were actually attended by people, covered by some media organizations. So what were learning tonight begins to sort of help us understand and certainly help congressional investigators understand how facebook how russia was able to use facebook and twitter to influence american politics. Thank you, fascinating. Joining us now, steve hall. Is this sort of classic kgb stuff from the cold war . Back in the day, didnt they fund groups they felt would sow discord or have a certain political agenda . Its sort of classic russia kgb 2 pn. 0. The russians beginning in 2007 when they authored a significant cyber attack against estonia, really began to experiment and see, how far can we go, what exactly can we do, using the time honored traditions of active measures, which theyve done for decades inside of russia, inside the soviet union. Now theyve learned to leverage the social media atmosphere in which we all live. Now were really beginning to see the sophistication, the depth, the spread of what theyre able to accomplish. And really the sort of deep understanding of our society. I mean, put yourself, if you reverse the situation, if i were the american intelligence officer, i was told, look, you have to somehow understand Russian Society to the point where you know the kind of people that live in each town and try to figure out a message from those people, for those people. Its pretty complicated stuff. You still have to do a lot of research. The russians threw a lot of resources at this. Do you think that requires presence in the United States . Sort of understand that, or is it the kind of thing, you know, anyone whos reading anything online can know, ferguson missouri is a flashpoint or freddie gray. I mean, if youre following the news, you can learn an awful lot on that. The difference between an analyst and operations person. Yeah, you can read newspapers, you can read the target language. You can read russian or in the russians case, you can read english and go through all of this stuff and try to figure it out. Theres nothing like having somebody on the ground who understands what propaganda themes. What covert action measured themes are going to resound best in a particular town or in a particular community with the different groups. Its always better if you have somebody on the ground. Thats one of the reasons you have a lot of russians in the United States. Its also why you need to get out and talk to the target audience that youre trying to get at. Its better to have people on the ground. You can do some of it remotely. Its best to have people right there in the middle of it. Russian intelligence people have People Living in the United States who arent directly connected to the Russian Embassy or in d. C. Or the consulate in new york. Just to understand american society, am i wrong about that . No, theres lots of different ways to skin that cat. What youre referring to is russian illegals, who are basically russian Intelligence Officers who are not under official cover. Whether or not you would use a person like that directly in support of this type of thing, that would depend on what other resources the russians have. Thats certainly a way to do it. Another way to do it is through the official presence. Russian diplomats going about their business and talking to americans. Its also possible there are americans who have agreed to work with the russians, perhaps in the immigrant community. People who are from russia, who speak the language and would be willing to talk to russian government officials. Theres a lot of different ways to get at it, especially if youre in an open society like the United States or really anywhere why europe. Thanks very much. New breaking news. Health and Human Services secretary tom prices costly flights on private planes and air force jets. The tab tops 1 million of taxpayer money. Thats not all. A spokesperson said secretary price would reimburse the treasury, he isnt really doing that. He plans to only reimburse taxpayers for the cost of his seat on many of the private plane flights he took. 52,000, not the fuel or the plane or the crew. Which is a lot more. As if the seats could fly themselves. Renee marsh has more, she joins us now. So im clear, taxpayers are picking up a tab of roughly a Million Dollars for secretary prices travel since may, he only plans to reimburse 50,000. Did he think that this would quiet the discussion about it in. I dont know. But youre right, hes paying nearly 52,000. He wrote that check today. All of the flights were talking about here, includes domestic and international flights. He flew 13 domestic flights, which translates to more than 2 dozen individual flights within the United States on private planes to conduct government business. He flew on military jets with his wife in mid may, he flew from Andrews Air Force base to liberia, germany and switzerland before returning to the d. C. Area. And then again in midaugust, he flew to alaska, china, vietnam, japan and seattle before returning to the d. C. Area. The use of military aircraft for a cabinet member is sometimes justified. Especially if there is a need for secured communications when they are traveling. At this point its unclear if that was the case for price on these trips. The agency did say, though, that price reimbursed the government for his wifes flight. And some of those flights were approved by the white house, correct . That is correct the white house telling us, this evening. Our producer that they do review all of these requests, and that they limit this sort of travel to trips that are in line with the white houses greater mission. And clearly they believe these two trips, these two International Trips were talking about tonight fell in that category. Some of these i mean, these flights were, flights were i think early on the excuse from price and his people was, well, hes so busy, he cant wait to take commercial flights, hes got to get there. Some of these were places where commercial flights were readily available. I think politico reported there were two flights from d. C. To nashville. The day he flew that, and where he was going to have lunch with his son, in addition to attend one or two meetings, there were commercial flights. And sometimes he went days earlier to a place that he needed to be for an official purpose. A lot more to look into. Theres even more late reporting, what the president makes of all this, and well bring that to you next. Well get the panels take, and ask them how they like their flight up here. Later, reality check from our team of reporters on the grounds in puerto rico. My dell Small Business advisor has gotten to know our business so well that is feels like hes a part of our team. With one phone call, he sets me up with tailored products and services. And when my advisor is focused on my tech, i can focus on my Small Business. A dell advisor can help you choose the right products with powerful intel® core™ processors. Are upgrading their watere filter to zerowater. Start with water that has a lot of dissolved solids. Pour it through britas twostage filter. Dissolved solids remain what if we filter it over and over . Oh dear. Thank goodness zerowaters fivestage filter gets to all zeroes the first time. So maybe its time to upgrade. Get more out of your water. Get zerowater. New reporting just in on the president s reaction to his hhs secretariess pricy flights and plan to reimburse the taxpayers for a fraction of the cost. This partial repayment is not helping his case. He wants this matter resolved. Prices decision to pay only part of the fee is sparking more fuel. I dont understand from a Public Relations standpoint. Well offer to pay a tiny fraction of these flights, thats going to put this story to bed. That seems to defy logic. Its an insult. The bill is a Million Dollars, hes paying 52,000. Whos picking up the rest. We are, the taxpayers are. Hes looking for frequent flyer miles. Hes dishonest. It is consistent with the president s own style. He visited a site where he wanted to build a golf course in scotland. Decided he would barter a photo of himself for dinner for his entourage. In this case, it makes it look bad for the president. Hes not going to tolerate someone else doing it, he understands the motivation. As i said earlier. A lot of republicans railed against this behavior. A lot of people who im sure voted for donald trump. Tom price voted for it. There are legitimate reasons why he may fly military. Some of his travel was legit. He was going to things you would expect the hhs secretary to go to. That being said, i think you can go to the fridge and get the butter and jelly, tom price is toast. This has taken on a life of its own. What do we know about the president . He hates bad press. He doesnt like it when his people are giving him bad press. Hes motivated by this, as well he should be. Somebody in the white house approved these trips, theyre going to have to answer for it too. My suspicion is, price wont survive it. This is one of those things, i would fast forward to the future. If democrats control either chamber of the congress. These kinds of issues right here, lead to investigations, which lead to more investigations and more documents and more stuff. The administration has to be very careful with these kinds of things. I want to play what tom price said when he was in the congress, about fanly flights and nancy pelosi. I want to say to the speaker. Dont you fly over our country in your luxury jet and lecture us on what it means to be an american. The hypocrisy is the biggest problem here. To scotts point, yes, there are legitimate times where you need to take these kinds of jets, he would take military flights. He was subcommittee chairman. Those things had a budget, they had to be approved by the full committee chairman. Sometimes he was denied because of the costs. In this case, though, its not only tom price, now theres a report out that the interior secretary was taking private jets to his home in montana, and coupling that with work, and to the caribbean islands. Youre going to see a can of worns opened up, seeing how many people have done this, from the treasury secretary to see the eclipse, he was checking on the gold in fort knox, this is a problem. The epa, thats right. When youre supposed to be, and as a conservative, we were always champion being stewarts of the taxpayers money. The congressman i worked for, used to give back to the treasury every year. If you didnt use money for the budget money in the congressional office. How tom price after railing against this, and then the whole drain the swamp thing survives this, i dont know. Also what has tom price done as hhs secretary. Its been a failure with health care. He doesnt have any wins to point to. Why would donald trump keep him at this point . I think thats right, hes not going to. He knows his supporters will let him do anything. Which is why he made the comment about shooting someone on 5th avenue. He and his daughter have gotten three trademarks each from from the chinese government. He has not separated from his businesses. He is paying for his legal fees while his staffers go bankrupt paying their own legal fees. He doesnt like people embarrassing him with this stuff. He knows this will resonate with the people who put him in office. He can do no wrong. But all these names were talking about, a Million Dollars since may, its not going to fly. Its interesting to see people caught up in Something Like this. Initially, its im so busy, i have to take these flights. Lo and behold, i go to st. Simeon island two days early with my wife, because i happen to have land there. The idea that i couldnt get a commercial flight there, you have two extra days, you could probably find a commercial flight. And theres government negotiated rates. Theyre set for certain flights in certain areas, so often times its not exorbitant prices you would have to pay if you flew commercial. Not for nothing, but the Vice President of the United States, joe biden used to take the train to delaware. If the Vice President can do it and his entourage and everything that goes along with him, i think the secretary of hhs can take amtrak from d. C. To philadelphia. Right, he flew from d. C. To philadelphia. Its about an hour and 20 minutes to take the train to philadelphia. It does not pass the smell test. Does anyone think this has blow back . You talked about others, pruitt, others, do you think it raises then that issue. Pruitts building that sound proof booth . Yeah, hes maxwell smart. Hes built a sound proof booth for himself. And i do this this is a sort of thing thats going to shock him, anger him, ill tell you what he knows, he knows his brand. And this is completely contrary to the brand that got limb elected. Brand, but not the person, to michael. That may be, i think price is gone, and i think there needs to be if i were advising, id say, you have to protect that brand. Get a top to bottom review of all this wasteful spending your people have been doing and get rid of them all. We have to take a quick break, when we come back a family from puerto rico who returned home for the First Time Since maria hit. We are building new airports all across the state. New roads and bridges. New mass transit. New business friendly environment. New lower taxes. And new University Partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. Learn more at esd. Ny. Gov tmobiles unlimited now includes netflix on us. Thats right, netflix on us. Get four unlimited lines for just forty bucks each. Taxes and fees included. And now, netflix included. So go ahead, binge on us. Another reason why tmobile is americas best unlimited network. But he hasoke up wwork to do. In. So he took aleve. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. The Trump Administration had words about Hurricane Relief in puerto rico. I am very satisfied. I know its a hard storm to recover from the amount of progress thats been made, and i really would appreciate any support that we get. I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach power. The limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane. The pentagon named a threestar general to coordinate efforts on the ground. The entire relief effort is taking heat from Puerto Ricans. Dr. Sanjay gupta joins us from san juan. You reported on a clinic that was running out of fuel. What happened to them . They were able to get fuel with a couple hours left, from a local municipality. They werent sure if they were going to get it. The truck pulled up and was able to give them some fuel. A new problem, theyre not sure how long their water supply is going to last. Theyre rationing it and not accepting new patients. This is josephine in a alvarez reality. Look at what happened to us, she pleads. Nobody is taking care us. For two weeks shes been here in a shelter, an hour outside of san juan. May as well be an island separate. We have no hospital to get her, because all the emergency are closed. Because they have no electricity and we have no place to get her. Shes getting more complicated. Dr. Moralez has tried everything to get alvarez to a hospital. The ambulance we saw just left. They have no authorization from their bosses to get that seems ridiculous. Tell me about it. Were in the middle of a disaster, in the middle of a crisis, and youre waiting for paperwork . Yeah. This is a very treatable problem under any other circumstance. Yeah, sure. Get her to the hospital, put in an iv. What happens if she doesnt get this . She may get infection to the blood and complicated with sepsis, and even death. Theres no communication anywhere here we give letter our Satellite Phone to try to call for help. Puerto ricos secretary of health finds a hospital for alvarez, but then the same problem, how do get her there. We can take the patient. Im a doctor, we can take the patient ourselves. I know time is of the essence here. The secretary is there. He already accept the patient, so she we can do that. You cant even believe whats happening here, i mean, shes theres no power, theres no water. Shes a diabetic, she doesnt have insulin. She has an infection that could threaten her life. No ambulance will take her to the hospital. Thats whats happen iing here. Its okay. She wants to sit on this side. Because of the ulceration, yeah. Move the wheelchair up, p