Interview with former director of US CISA Chris Krebs on being fired by Trump via tweet, why paper ballots are key to ensuring election security, and more
Chris Krebs, a lifelong Republican, was put in charge of the agency handling election security by President Trump two years ago.
CBS NewsScott Pelley
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here runs from warning to ouster to platform: in mid-November, sources reported Krebs told associates he expected to be fired after CISA refused to delete content debunking election misinformation, and days later Trump dismissed him by tweet, baselessly branding his assessment of the 2020 election's security "highly inaccurate" (the firing itself). This interview is Krebs' first extended public response — a lifelong Republican appointed by Trump himself two years earlier, now arguing that paper ballots are the load-bearing element of election security.
It matters because the person who ran the federal election-security apparatus is using civilian media to make the case his agency could no longer make from inside government, and because the confrontation did not end in 2020 — five years on, Krebs resigned from SentinelOne to challenge the White House more freely after Trump directed the DOJ to investigate him (that resignation).
First-order effects
CISA loses its Senate-confirmed director immediately after the agency certified the 2020 election as secure, leaving the election-security mission without its appointed lead during the post-election dispute period.
Krebs converts his dismissal into a public advocacy role, using the interview to press the specific technical remedy — paper ballots — that his agency's debunking work had defended.
Second-order effects
Career officials at CISA and similar agencies absorb the lesson that refusing to delete accurate content at a president's request can end a directorship, raising the personal cost of publishing findings that contradict White House claims.
Krebs' move into the private sector shows the pipeline this creates — ousted officials land at security firms like SentinelOne, which then inherit the political exposure, as the later DOJ investigation directed at him demonstrates.
Third-order effects
If certification of election integrity becomes a loyalty test rather than a technical judgment, the durable safeguard shifts from individual officials to infrastructure — auditable paper trails that survive the removal of whoever vouches for them.
The pattern of firing, then investigating, critics inside the security establishment points toward a structural chilling effect on how federal agencies publish findings that conflict with political narratives.
The trend: Election and cybersecurity leadership is being pulled into a loyalty-versus-evidence conflict, where officials who publicly certify facts against a president's claims are removed and pursued beyond office.
“We can go on and on with all the farcical claims alleging interference in the 2020 election, but the proof is in the ballots. The recounts are consistent with the initial count,” says Krebs. “The American people should have 100% confidence in their vote.” https://www.cbsnews.com…
The Biden team should take a page from @C_C_Krebs and his @CISAgov team and open https://t.co/..., posting detailed refutations of the day's misinformation with links to primary sources. This was very helpful around the election, could host content from all agencies. https://twit…
“It's... a travesty what's happening right now with all these death threats to election officials, to secretaries of state,” says Chris Krebs, former director of CISA. “They're defending democracy.” https://www.cbsnews.com/... https://twitter.com/...
After the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a joint statement with election security partners saying the 2020 presidential election was “the most secure in American history,” President Trump fired Chris Krebs in a tweet. https://www.cbsnews.com/... https:/…
“What I saw was an apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people,” says the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency about Rudy Giuliani's unsubstantiated election claims. https://www.cbsnews.com/... ht…
“If there was an algorithm that was flipping votes or changing votes, it didn't work.” - Fmr. DHS Cybersecurity Chief, Chris Krebs on 60 Minutes. #Election2020 https://twitter.com/...
Krebs is great here but it is frustrating how credible people are forced to answer for and explain Trump's baseless, unhinged smears. https://twitter.com/...
“It's not just @CISAgov it's the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop 18 hour days for months, getting death threats, for trying to carry out one of our core democratic institutions.” @C_C_Krebs https://twitter.com/...
It's very likely more than 10 million viewers tuned in for the @60minutes segment on the security of the 2020 election. Keep this in mind as Trump attempts to use Twitter to discredit the longest running and most trust news magazine on television. https://twitter.com/...
Just watched the CBS 60 Minutes interview with Chris Krebs. So grateful for civil servants like Chris who stand up for election integrity and our institutions of government. https://www.cbsnews.com/...
With additional funding, e.g., there might have been paper records of 100% of votes this year vs. 95%. Here's more on how CISA and @C_C_Krebs successfully protected the election largely by flying under Trump's radar: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
.@60Minutes never asked us for a comment about their ridiculous, one sided story on election security, which is an international joke. Our 2020 Election, from poorly rated Dominion to a Country FLOODED with unaccounted for Mail-In ballots, was probably our least secure EVER!
A reminder that Trump held only one cabinet meeting on election security and Republicans blocked billions of dollars that could have made the election more secure, at least partly out of fear of irking him. 1/2 https://twitter.com/...
Watch my man @C_C_Krebs absolutely eviscerate the false claims about election security being shared by his former boss @realDonaldTrump https://twitter.com/...