July 21, 2025 • 48 mins
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson examines Trump’s failure to divert attention from his Epstein ties.
Author Tim Weiner details his new book The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and the price of ground beef has
hit a new high of.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Six dollars and twelve cents. We have a great show
for you today.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The Lincoln Frod dictsonn Rick Wilson joins us to discuss
Trump's failing to get the attention off.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
His Ebstein ties.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Then we'll talk to Tim Weiner about his new book,
The Mission the CIA in the twenty first Century.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
But first the news.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So, Mali, the Democrats are doing one of these autopsies.
You know, the Republicans famously did this when they lost
to Obama. But there's a glaring omission happening in what
they're looking at here, and it's disturbing a lot of
people who want the Democrats to step up their game.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I think that I'm going to read a quote from
Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic chairman. She told the New York Times,
and I think this quote really does explain this autopsy
must suck. We are not interested in second guessing campaign
tactics or decisions of campaign operatives.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
That's the whole point in the fucking autopsy.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The whole point is to second guess campaign tactics and
decisions of campaign operatives.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Don't do it. That is the point of the autopsy.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, don't do an autopsy if you're going to let
people off the hook for any reason. Like this is
this idea that we're the nice guys and we don't
want to hurt anyone's feelings, so we won't second guess.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
The campaign tactics.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Let me tell you about the campaign tactics incinerating cash
for seemingly no reason. The person who put her on
the sphere, that person probably should not have a job.
I want to just read to you what the term
autopsy means. Okay, An autopsy is a detailed examination of
(01:59):
a body after death, typically performed to determine the cause
of death and other factors to relate it to the
deceased health.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Eir go, you have an autopsy to find out what
went wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So not second guessing the tactics is the point of
the fucking autopsy. And I'm gonna read the rest of
this Jane Cleve quote because if she's trying to tell
in herself she's done it. We are interested in what
voters turned out for Republicans and Democrats, and how we
fix this moving forward. I'm sorry, but there's plenty of
(02:38):
blame to go around, and we know why they turned out.
They turned out because Trump talked to them. They google
searched who is running for president on the Democratic side
on election day. We talk about this all the fucking time.
You guys, whatever you use that money for, don't do it.
Just give it to me and I'll go shopping with it,
because honestly, like I do a better job just me
(03:01):
shopping and talking about Kamal Harris. So there are words
and there are none. There are no words that do
not include profanity in this story. And he says folks
might be better off holding their applause or criticism until
we've had a chance to complete our work and actually
read it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Nope, nope like that, No, no.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No no.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Also, by the way, whoever is paying for this, you're
wasting your money.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
My sister in law is a mortician who performs autopsies.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
She often finds numerous reasons somebody died because they're comorbidities.
You look everywhere, you find it all.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But also, I'm sorry, but like the days of US
spending millions and millions of dollars in traditional ads TV
ads are over. Wait, you were spending millions and millions
of dollars in traditional advertising, and this is why Democrats lose.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well, Molly, I have a counter opinion for you about
why Democrats win because, according to Tulci Gabberd, Obama did
everything he could to undermine Trump in twenty sixteen, and
yet mister Trump was so strong and he still won.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
According to her, you know, we've.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Gotten to a point here where the sick evans in
the Trump cabinet are just saying whatever, we'll make Trump happy.
So you know, Trump hates Obama because Obama made fun
of him at the White House Correspondence Standard, which is
his like origin story. But even before that, I do
want to point out that Donald Trump started the racist
(04:26):
lie that is Birtherism, right, the idea that Obama, whose
mother has been in this country longer than the fuck it,
you know, is a daughter of the American revolution, O guy,
So she's more American than any of us. That because
he had a black father, he was born in Kenya.
There is no evidence to support this. But if you're
(04:47):
a racist, maybe you think such things.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So this is really something from the Trump administration while
they're trying to pretend that Trump doesn't have ties to
a pedophile that's very famous Trump in the Catholic Church
are fighting a law of requiring clergy to report child abuse.
And there's a loophole in there that the Trump administration
is fighting even harder than the church to have so
that pedophiles get away with sexual abuse.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
It's pretty gross.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Washington Sentive Bill five three seven five in the Washington
State Capitol. So basically the Attorney General has I'm a
Catholic and this is clear and important legislation he's saying.
But the reality is it's just a way to give
the Catholic Church more power and to not protect children.
(05:34):
And again this is everything in this administration is not
to protect people like the law is. You know, they're
constantly and you see this with the with what the
attorney general. The attorney general is supposed to protect people.
Now the Attorney General basically just protects Trump. And that's
why he has Pam Boondi there right, because this is
(05:54):
all about just doing whatever he wants, protecting him, getting
him free staff and skryptocracy.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
This is what cryptocracies do. This is how they work.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yep So, speaking of this administration and Republicans covering up
sexual abuse, last week we had Eva Werner on who
directed a documentary on Jim Jordan's handling of sexual abuse
at the OSU, and it looks like mister Jordan's finally
going to have to face a deposition after avoiding it
for many years.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Basically the point of this is that Eva made this
movie about surviving Ohio State, and had she not made
the movie, just like this is like at every point
we see artists who make these movies and all of
us are always like, nothing breaks through.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
What are we fucking doing? Are we talking to people?
Nobody's listening.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
But here's a great example of something where it is
abso fucking breaking through. And this is the same thing
with Epstein. You'll remember Epstein was about to get away
with it. Remember he was about to get away with
it when Julie Brown got these girls to come out
and because he was on you know, he was like
basically just in the sex offender registreet, but living in
(07:02):
his fabulous townhouse in Manhattan. I mean, it was not
and he was going to get away with This is
a great example here, Jim Jordan has been just ignoring subpoenas,
being like fuck you. And now all of a sudden,
because of this movie Surviving Ohio State, which was number
one on HBO Max and a couple of million people
(07:23):
saw it, and now it is in the zeitgeisten. Now
he's going to face some accountability for this, and they're
going to get him to testify. And that's what you
have to remember about all of this. And that is
the thing about autocrats. And I've really read a lot
about this, so you know, while I was not alive
during World War Two, I've certainly seen this, and I
saw this with my grandfather McCarthy. The autocrat is able
(07:46):
to do it as able to do the crimes until
they're not right. Nothing matters until something matters. So don't despair,
like there's so many of us who are so in
despair about what's happening to our country. And I telling
you that this stuff works until it doesn't, okay, And
autocracy is crumble all the time because they are reliant
(08:07):
on the autocrat. And there is only one autocrat here.
And I just think everyone has to have faith that
eventually America has had many many dark moments, right we
in turn the Japanese during World War Two, we have
done this post reconstruction stuff where they just absolutely did
all these terrible things to people who had already been
(08:30):
through so many terrible things. We will get through this,
just like everything else, and we all have to remember
that everything matters, that things break through. That we're seeing
this polling. Trump's polling is horrendous. He's underwater on immigration.
Let the process happen. But keep doing what you're doing.
There's no reason to believe that it's not working, I mean,
(08:52):
except for the Democratic Party leadership, which is absolutely just
time for.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
A tea party, folks.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project in
the host of the Enemy's List. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Rick Wilson, Hey, Mali, drunk Fast.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It's another week of Epstein.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Katy Yes, and it's all Epstein. It's all Epstein, all
the time, for the rest of all time. Because he
has lost control of the narrative. He keeps trying to
throw boob bait out there for the Rubs, and they're
not even picking it up. They're not taking it. They
don't want it. They're angry with him, and I'm here
for it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So let's talk for a minute about why what this
looks like we have Trump is truth's truth thing. It's
funny because it's like you really do see, like, you know,
so much of the media narrative is like Democrats didn't
get involved in culture war issues, but actually what it
is is like you just should ignore all of this,
(09:54):
Like everything that Trump is trying to do, all the
culture war bullshit, it's just ignore it and talk about stuff.
You know, he's saying, we're gonna switch it to the
Washington Redskins. We must have them be called the Washington Redskins.
They can no longer be called anything else but the
Washington Redskins. So basically, what we're learning here is that
(10:18):
everything Trump is doing is bullshit to get the base excited.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
That's correct. And if this is the next Democrat who
takes who says anything about the Washington Redskins except to say, no,
we should rename it the Washington Epstein's, because that's it.
You know, stay on this thing. Do not let him
off the mat, do not let him, do not let
him recover, do not let him get a moment of peace.
(10:45):
In this do not let him play his game, and
so far, not only if his base not letting him
play his game, but Democrats have done a great job
at not let him play his game.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So explained, we should.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Keep pounding him on the Epstein issue, the lawlawsuit again,
Burnoch will blow.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Back on him.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
That's it. A thousand FBI agents to review Epstein material
has created a thousand new witnesses, a thousand new sources
for stories. And the fact that he did that is
an overt in my mind, signal that he feels like
there is incriminating and compromising material inside the Epstein files
and the Epstein legal materials, and it has caused him
to be completely off his his autopilot for the last
(11:29):
ten days. I do not want to let up on
that for two reasons. One, it's an important issue where
they for years have blamed every Democrat right and claim.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Right.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
It matters.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Nothing else matters to them.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
They don't care about all the stuff that makes the
rest of us horrified, but this, for whatever reason they
care about.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
They spent ten years molly telling themselves we're saving the children,
and Donald Trump will help us save the children from
from Hillary Clinton and George Soros and John Podesta and whoever.
It was all a lie, It was all all made up,
but they bought into it, and it became a central
part of their political character, their personality. They couldn't stop
themselves from internalizing it because it was a ucy, compelling
(12:17):
story and to many of them it explained in their
heads that the Democrats had this giant blackmail system that
Epstein ran for them, and that it was this cohesive worldview.
But it was all bullshit, right and and the and
a monkey could have figured it out. It was all bullshit,
(12:39):
but they couldn't. And now there I think it's twofold
right now, Well, they the dog got the car and
they can't figure out what to do. They just can't
figure out what to do, and that it's driving them crazy.
And two, the ones who really believe it, because look,
Jack Postobic and Steve Bannon and and all these other
(13:00):
Alex Jones. They knew it was bullshit, but the bass
swallowed the bullshit hole and they believe in one hundred percent.
And now all the SCA influencers and the bullshit artists
are being punished by the base because they're you know,
they're like wait, you told us this was the most
important thing. You told us this was happening. You told
us we had to help save the children. And you
(13:21):
know it was part of what created QAnon. It was
part of what created a lot of the attacks on
Hillary in twenty sixteen, part of what created attacks on
Joe Biden throughout his administration in this campaign.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I think that's right, and I also wonder if there's
something else right, Like, clearly the base is upset and
the bass feels betrayed, but there's something else happening here,
which is this sort of like they're seeing behind the
curt in a way that I think they've never done before.
(13:55):
We've never seen this sort of the base see through
the cracks. And then also I just think this sort
of it's created a panic. We're also seeing how much
MAGA world is influenced by Trump, right, that the media
complex is really created by Trump. Right, because we saw
Charlie Kirk was all was.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Like, release the Epstein files, and then he was like, hey, guys.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
I'm done talking about the Epstein file.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Right, Donald Trump says, stop talking about the Epstein files.
I think that is very There has to be a
sense in which the base is putting together that they
are being really controlled by Trump, that all of this
is controlled by Trump too.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I think I think that's right. And I think there's
also another part of this that I think even the
mainstream media has after ten years, some people have woken
up to, maybe I shouldn't chase the rabbits that he
puts out there every single day. Maybe I shouldn't chase
the bullshit that Caroline Levitt says every single day. Maybe
I shouldn't always run with the next thing X shiny
(15:00):
object he throws in front of me. Maybe I should
dig in a little harder on the assertions that he
makes and the stories that he tells, and the lies
that they that they intuit frequently are lies or distractions.
Maybe they've realized you don't have to play the same
game over and over again with this guy, because he
is essentially, you know, his own his own narrative, his
(15:23):
own story has fallen apart in front of them. And
I think a lot and I had a couple mainstream
reporters in the very beginning of this like, well, you know, yeah,
they were. They They're on video a couple of times,
but there's no real evidence they were ever like close friends,
I was like stuff. For all the evidence that they
were close friends. I think there's one more thing here
that's happening with his bass. And I think that, like
a lot of authoritarians, the grip is so strong for
(15:45):
so long that when it starts to loosen, when it
starts to get shaky, even they have a moment like
oh damn. And I do think while the while the
Trump controls a lot of the MAGA influencer media, right,
he doesn't, as we've seen now in control the Wall
Street Journal or.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Right, he doesn't control Rupert Murdoch, the ninety four year
old who created him.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
He does not control.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Correct the original doctor Frankenstein, who created the Trump monster.
It still still has the power. And I think we're
probably about to witness a very interesting dynamic at Fox.
Fox's lawyers are notoriously litigious, notoriously aggressive, notorious dicks. Right,
but you've once in a blue moon seen Rupert tell
(16:32):
even the Night side of Fox. Okay, this is our message. Now,
I don't know that Rupert at ninety four years old,
doesn't want to go out with a bang. He has
broken he has broken governments around this world. He has
broken prime ministers, he has broken kings, he has broken banks.
Rupert may want to go out with one final hurrah.
(16:54):
Trump's submersion in a scandal of this magnitude is not
just breaped for Rupert personally had to have revenge on
Trump for trying to sue him for ten million dollars.
It's also great content for the network. It's also great.
It's also a great storyline.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
But it's a huge rating thing.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
And now even Trump couldn't resist the deep state. Who
will be the next true hero of conservatives? I mean,
there's a way I could see Rupert having a very
profitable experience from this, and you know Rupert, he does
love money.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I also want to point out that there is now
two things. On Tuesday, Vice President Jadi Vance made a
trip to Montana to meet with Rupert and Lochlan discuss.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
If I'm Donald Trump, I worry that the twenty fi'th
the mimic drum beat will get louder sooner. Rupert and
Laughlin could get along just fine with Jada Vance, Well,
a lot of people couldn't I'm Trump. I'd be very
worried about I worried about stories not just appearing on
Fox about his Epstein matter, but more stories of about
his health. That'll be the tag, that'll be the giveaway
(18:02):
from Fox. If they're going to really turn the machine
on their own creation, they'll have to start having doctors on,
like what about the president's health? Is he okay? Can
he still lead? And they might even couch it to
keep their audience around, Like, while we love Donald Trump,
we worry about his health. It's an interesting moment.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I mean, I mean, Maria Barbarola, I mean, I just
want to point out, so far we have seen no
evidence on the opinion shows. Well, certainly the Wall Street
Journal is running this story and it has but the
opinion shows are still very much.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Trump's they are, but once again, a finer point on it.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Once again, let's remember one thing about all those people.
Unlike any other network, those people are employees of Rupert Murdoch,
who will if he says John, heanity, I want you
to go out on stage and I want you to
say that Trump is a jackass and a fool. He
may resist it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
But somebody will eventually.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Doll will exercise itself. He has editorial control, unlike the
head of any other network, right by far correct, So
and look, I think again, there there's a very dangerous
moment for Trump coming up. There is a confluence of
rupert in this fight and what Elon must does behind
(19:21):
the scenes at Twitter. If he algorithmically decides, because Elon's
back up on the Epstein wagon again beating Trump on it,
he's been, He's been mentioning it all week last week.
But if Elon decides he wants to elevate Epstein content
and mute the maga troll armies that keep Trump keep
Trump's message, like keeping the base in rigid order. There
(19:43):
are two ways that the base gets information. It's Fox
and it's Twitter.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Right, if Elon.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Wanted to play fuck around, even behind the scenes, he
could have a really bad impact and amplify any any
of these things about Epstein. Actually, I saw someone ask
that question the other day in a pro mogue Alive,
like they were worried, like, is Elon going to to
make this Epstein stuff bigger? I'm like, yes, Elon, you should.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Right, right, I mean, and it is worth it is
worth wondering about. Like Elon is out, so Elon may
want to get back in, but so far there's zero
evidence that Elon is is going to be invited.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Back in so far there's no evidence of that. I
think that Trump and the Epstein problem has probably delayed
Trump trying to screw Elon over like SpaceX contracts and
Starlink contracts and things like that with the government. But
I do believe, I do believe that Elon still has
a weapon in his hands, right. I think I think
(20:50):
even Trump understands if tomorrow and look, Elon knows what
they over at Twitter. They know what all the bought information,
all the bought armies are. They know they know who
they have boosted on the MAGA influencer side over and
over again. You know, why is it the MAGA influencers
get eighty thousand likes and twenty five thousand retweets on
(21:13):
posts that say Trump is cool and everyone else's voices
are sort of like at a baseline, you know, one
controls that machine if he decided to use it to
put pressure on Trump, to elevate Epstein, to elevate the
crisis of Trump's health, to elevate the fight with with Rupert.
He's got enormous power, you know, and as I always
(21:35):
tell people, power doesn't exist unless you use it. But
Rupert also enormous, enormous power, and Rupert is accustomed to
using that power right, and he is accustomed to presidents
calling him sir, right and asking how they can gain
his favor.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Republican president, Democratic president, yes, correct, correct, don't have a.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Chance do it.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
But you know, look, Trump files a ten billion dollar
lawsuit against you. You're going to wake up in the
morning and go, huh. You're not going to say, how
can I make his presidency better? You're not going to
say how can I make him how can I get
him out of this horrible pr trap that he's put
himself down with Jeffrey Epstein. You're gonna say, well, I
have lawyers, guns, and money, as the old warre and
(22:20):
Zyvon Song says, and he's going to deploy at least
a couple of those. And I think, I really think
that one of the things Fox has always been great
at is amplifying a really important Trump narrative that Trump
always wins, that Trump is always the winner, the guy
who always beats the libs, always beats, the media always beats,
(22:44):
the rhinos always beats the never Trumpers, And right now
Trump is losing, and all of those groups weirdly for
the first time in history and probably the last, are
pretty much in alignment that the Jeffrey Epstein cut because
let's remember, this is a government cover up. Now It's
not just Trump's past, it's the cover up that's happening
(23:07):
while we are speaking about this. And look, we talked
about this last time. Stusey Wilds called Pam Bondi and
said something to the effective you got to clean this up.
We also now know that this call came earlier than
we thought, and the call came with Bondy ordering the
FBI to put a thousand people on analyzing the Epstein
(23:29):
documents and case information, specifically to discover any references to
Donald Trump. They did not do that to make the
case clear to America. They did not do that to
help the victims. They did not do that to bring justice.
They did it to protect Donald Trump and a thousand
people looking at those documents. That is now a thousands
(23:50):
of poenas in a case, either the civil case with
Fox or any case in the future about this. It
is now a thousand subpoenas in any congressional case when
the Democrats take power to take the House back over.
This has turned into something it's been a mistake. All
cover ups are a fuck up and a mistake. Every
time you try to cover up something in government, it fails.
(24:10):
Three people can keep a secret in government if two
of them are dead, and even minutes Reiki, I.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Think that's right. I also wonder if when you find
yourself in a situation like this, like there's all of
this material that went to Pambondi, right, right, that supposedly
went from the FBI, they've sort of narrated enough to
hang themselves, right, and so talk us through that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Right, They've said that they have this, Remember she.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Said, Well, first off, she said she had the Epstein
client list on her desk, and no matter how did
they say parse that interview, that's what she was responding to, right,
That's what she also said. Bongino and Patel said there
are thousands of hours of video material, some of which
is is is child exportation?
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Right.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
They also affirmed in that the FBI had seized thousands
of hours of video, thousands and thousands of photographs, all
kinds of other ancillary evidence from Jeffrey Epstein's homes in
Little Saint John and in New Mexico or is Arizona. Well,
out west what I think it's New Mexico and in
(25:26):
Manhattan they took all kinds of material. They have admitted that.
The g OJ has said, do we have this. We
don't know what that is. We don't have a full
we have we have some limited exposure to what it is.
We don't have a full catalog of what it is.
And the fact that they also had a vast probe
of material from the Florida case that Alice Acosta Frum
(25:50):
Labor Secretary Gabe Epstein the sweetheart.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Deal, which I mean, it's just they're so implicated this
even if like even if Alex cost it was just
like it's a rich white guy, we don't charge them
with crimes. The fact that this administration has been for
so long being like there's something here, we released the
you know, the reality is and you and I both
(26:15):
know this. The government is ineffective in many, many, many ways,
and often they're just lazy and sort of fuck up stuff.
I mean, most likely the most likely explanation with a
lot of this is just laziness and disorganization.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
That said, if.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You have been telling your base for months and months
and months and years and years and years, almost a decade,
maybe more that there's a secret birth certificate and that
there's child trafficking. If you have been telling them again
and again that something is coming and it turns out
that what's coming is you trying to protect your rich
(26:58):
friends or you trying to protect your then either answer
is infuriating to these people.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
And well, it looked part of this came from the
fact that the base was told that all the people
in this global pedophile ring, not just with Epstein, but
with the qwanon Pizzagate, Jack Pasobic Pizzagate stuff, all that stuff.
They were told that it was Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Bill
(27:25):
clemm Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George Soros, John Podesta, on
and on and on and on. They were told that
this was sort of the Rosetta stone to revealing that
the Democrats were all pedophiles, they were all child sex traffickers,
they were all involved in this horrifying, profoundly sick accusation.
(27:47):
And as you find more of these stories coming out
about this, it's like when Trump has a party of
enage models at his house and the only person on
the guest list is Jeffrey Epstein. When you see him
talk about their beautiful secret. You know, I don't see
a lot of notes revealed from Hillary Clinton saying, hey,
what a great party last night, Jeffrey. Those babies were delicious.
(28:08):
None of it. You see Trump connections more and more.
And look, as I've said over and over, if there
were powerful men, whether they are Republican, were Democrats, sexually
exploiting children, America deserves to know about it, and they
deserve to be punished. And I don't care, it doesn't
matter what I do.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
But they are if it's Phil Quinn and if it's
Donald Trump, nobody cares.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
They have to go to jail.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
This is not okay. Now, it's striking to me that
the base also agrees with that, and they're right. I mean,
like it happens to be that this entire controversy is
something where like the base often wants to do things
which are in fact based right to port grandmothers, separate children,
(28:54):
arrest students.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Students for writing op eds.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
That stuff is actually based locking up child sex predators.
That on both sides is you know, nobody cares what
they how they voted, just right, I mean.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
And look if you give if you and I'm not
often want to do this. If you take the MAGA
base at their word that one of their big issues
has long been the presence in the world of child
sex trafficking. If they find themselves in a position where
it seems like that the rich child sex traffickers, as
Donald Trump said on the record, well there are many
(29:32):
people in there. Maybe it would ruin their reputations. Maybe
it's fake. Right, they don't believe this is fake. And
the DOJ is pretty good at accumulating and processing and
understanding evidence. And this evidence so far that has been
published in the Wall Street Journal, that has been talked
about elsewhere has not been proven to be fake, as
the Florida case demonstrated. His abuse of Epste's abuse of
(29:56):
young girls and young girls and young women. I know
there's a distinction between the two folks, because there are
a lot of people say when you say young girls
are young women, like, no, no, those young girls. It was
in fact both it was young women and young girls, yeah,
who were horribly exploited by this guy. He is a monster.
If you look at a world where Donald Trump seems
to be defending both his relationship with Epstein by trying
(30:19):
to minimize it and by trying to underplay the evidence
against other powerful men in those in those materials. But
it's a perfect recipe for the base to finally, after
a decade, have a crisis of conscious about this guy.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Well, I think there really are.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
People who on the Mauga side. I'm gonna I'm gonna
give a brief piece of generosity in them. I think
there really are people on the Maga side who believed
in their hearts that there was a global child trafficking
and sex abuse ring and they wanted to do something
about it. And now they're finding out it was their guy.
I understand where they're at. It's hurt, It must hurt,
(30:56):
It must hurt a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Rick Wilson, will you come back always?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
My dear.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Tim Winer is the author of The Mission the CIA
in the twenty first Century and the Legacy of Ashes,
The History of the CII. Welcome to Fast Politics, Tim,
all right, So you've written this book about the CII
and really I think quite important the mission the CIA
(31:23):
in the twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Where the CIA needs to go.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
And I want you to talk to us first about
why you wrote this book.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So let's do that.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
First.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Eighteen years ago I published a book called Legacy of Ashes,
History of the CIA. That took the story from the
agency's inception in nineteen forty seven for the first sixty
years up to two thousand and seven. About three and
a half years ago, the CI told the world that
it had stolen Vladimir Putin's war plans for Ukraine. The
(31:55):
CI wasn't speaking directly, but scepturb of State and the
President did in the fall of two thousand and twenty one.
At that point, it was like lightning strike, and I thought,
oh gosh, after you know, two decades in which counter
terrorism has swamped everything, the CIA has returned to its
original mission, which is espionage. That's its unique mission. The
(32:18):
military can kill terrorists, the analysts at the State Department
before they were all fired last week, can do intelligence analysis.
But the CIA's job is espionage. That's recruiting foreigners to
be spies for the United States. And we'll talk a
little bit about that later. So I thought, let's go
back to the beginning of the twenty first century and
(32:40):
tell the story. You know, I set out to talk
to as many CIA officers, analysts, and veterans as I
could on the record, because that's how I rolled it.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And what did they tell you?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
Well, no one person, certainly not me, knows everything that
has happened in the history of the CI. But everyone
knows their own story, whether it was working counter terrorism operations,
being a station chief in places like Damascus, doing analysis.
And not only do they know of their own stories,
(33:11):
they are explicit about the strengths and failings of their coming.
And you know, it's all about developing trust between the
spy and the inkstained stride. And I've been at this
for thirty six years, and you know, we hang around
along that people start to trust.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Now, the CIA is under very different leadership than it
was even in Trump's first term, right where he sort
of didn't cannibalize those agencies quite the way he is now.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So what is the mood like?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
And also is the CIA able to perform its most
basic functions.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Donald Trump despises and disdains the CIA. When he speaks
of intelligence, he puts it in scare quotes. He has
called the opfice. There's nazis the stop book. He does
not read his intelligence briefings. He has put a MAGA acolyte,
John Radcliffe in charge of the CIA, and Radcliffe has
(34:12):
a track record going back to Trump's first term, where
he briefly served as Director of National Intelligence, of distorting
and twisting intelligence to please the president. He will tell
Trump what Trump wants to hear, and that is not
the job description of the director. Radcliffe has done enormous
damage in his six months in office.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So give me a second here on Radcliffe. He had
some national security background, right.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
He was a three term congressman who had briefly served
on the House Intelligence Committee.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Right, so very little.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And how is the way the CIA is being run
different than it was during Trump's first term? Or is
it not? I mean, you have a sycophant running it,
but are there structural changes or now?
Speaker 5 (34:55):
For most of Trump's first term, the CI was being
run by Gena Hassell in CIA Operations Office.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
More normal choice.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Yeah, And the only thing that people knew about Gina Hospitally,
the only thing the public was that she had been
present at the CIA base in Thailand where terrorist suspects
were tortured, and that as the chief of Stack to
the head of the Clandestin Service at the time, she
hit spand on an order that he mandated to destroy
(35:24):
the videotapes of the torture from Thailand. However, Radcliffe had
three decades under her belt as an operations officer and
a station chief in which he primarily ran operations against
for Russians. So when she took over CIA in twenty eighteen,
the agency's operations officers had launched what they call a
(35:45):
call to arms in response to the Russians monkey wrenching
of the twenty sixteen election delp Electro. And what happened
was that the chief of the Clandestin Service then called
in all his top operations officers, who at most of them,
if not all of them, had spent the previous fifteen
years running counter terrors operation, that is, targeting terrorists. And
(36:06):
by targeting Molly, I don't mean putting warheads on forehead,
I mean identifying, you know, spying on them. Who are they,
where do they live, who are they want when they're oh?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Who do they love?
Speaker 5 (36:18):
Who do they hate, with the aim of recruiting them
to service spies for the United States. And so the
head of the Class Plant Distant Service told these guys,
I want you to take the talents that you have
developed in targeting terrorists and turning on the Russian I
want you to recruit Russian spies, diplomats, oligards. And the
end result of that was that in twenty twenty one,
(36:38):
the CIA Anne traded the Kremlin instole Putin's war plans
for Ukraine. A remarkable accomplished Passpel in Trump's first term
protected the CI from Trump's rat She left this operation flourish.
Despite Trump's obvious authentity for Vladimir Putin, it is highly
likely that Trump never knew much about it, if anything
(36:59):
so in the last year of Trump's first term, first,
Trump put John Ratcliffe as the intelligence Star, the head
of the bureaucracy, as the Director of National Intelligence that
overseas all sposters. He also tried to kill Haul Gena
Haspell and put Cash Battel in charge of the CIA.
The craft Pot lawyer Sidney Powell, he may recall.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
From season one, is and.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Convinced Trump that Gena Haspell was part of the international
conspiracy to steal the election from him. In twenty twenty
Haspell stood up to him and Trump back down, as
police will often turned coward. Now, in the second term,
Trump is utterly unleashed. The Supreme Court has ruled that
he cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed that office. And
(37:45):
he's put John Ratcliffe in charge of this PIA. He's
put Pete Hegseth in charge of the Pentagon, Telseby Gabbard
in charge of the Intelligence Directorate, and Cash Battell at
the FBI, who is dismantling the national secut and intelligence
direcords of the bureau. Bradcliffe at CIA has done half
(38:06):
a dozen things that are extremely destructive. Always some of
them he ordered the CIA's diversity policies Keel Hall. Diversity
in spies is one of the CI's superpowers. It's how
you don't get caught if you want a spy in
China or Iran or Sudan. You know, it would be
(38:29):
nice to have spies American spies who look like the
people that they're trying to recruit, who speak the languages,
who know the culture of the country, and don't look
like you know, they just got off the bus from
the national meeting of the Association of Student Council Presidents.
You know, they don't look like white guys. To put
it bluntly, this was nuts. He is forcing out the
(38:51):
most experienced and senior officer. He fired everybody the CIA
hired in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four on
account they were Biden hunters in the name of the
Doge Chainsaw massacre. He has instituted ideological purity tests of
the CIA people who are being considered for senior ready
(39:13):
oras who really won the twenty twenty election. How do
you vote in the last election? What did you think
of the January sixth insurrection? This is crazy. Ideology is
the enemy of intelligence. You're an ideolog, Your mind is
made up. You don't need backs. The consequence is that
the CI is bleeding talent, and people who remain there
(39:34):
trying to do their jobs, are keeping their heads down
unless they get chopped off.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
What does this mean for intelligence right now? Is there
intelligence collecting going on?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Oh yeah, okay, but it may not be getting to
the right people, right? Is that more of the issue Trump?
Speaker 5 (39:49):
When the US bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities, he immediately
declared that around his nuclear weapons program had been completely obliterated.
In this the intelligence finds, uh huh, that didn't happen.
They set them back in months, maybe a year or two,
but nothing was destroyed in totality. And when asked about this,
(40:10):
Trump says, I don't care what the intelligence says, and
when asked about it, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said,
forget about intelligence. Well, you could print forget about intelligence
on a banner and it from the walls in the
White House. Their minds are made up. This is a
very dangerous state of affairs. Molly. You've got amateurs and
toadies in charge of all the instruments of national security,
(40:31):
foreign intelligence services, foreign diplomats are very wary of sharing
intelligence with the United States, and CIA depends on its
liaisons with its foreign partners to be a global intelligence service.
The risks of a catastrophic intelligence fill, the risks of
a surprise attack are I think as high as they
(40:54):
were in the months before none, and god forbid if
the United States were struck again in some way at Homer,
what do you think Trump would do if that happen?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Nothing good? So is there anything that these people can do?
And also, do you think this means that members of
the intelligence community are going to be more likely to
leak to the media because it strikes me that the
government is so against them. But this information is clearly
very important. So do we find ourselves in a moment
(41:25):
where they obviously are doing actual important work. I mean,
they're sort of without choices.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
Right above the surface, Trump is destroying, dismantling America's alliances
and the architecture of American foreign policy that has been
erected since World War Two in large part to stop
Russian aggression. Right below the surface, station chiefs all around
the world will preserve, try to preserve their liaisons with
(41:56):
their foreign partner, regardless of what is happening, you know,
in public. The ideological courage at CIA and the subsequent
brain drain creates a number of problems. One is well,
I'll give you an example. The chief of the Clandestine Service,
the top spy, stepped down after traditional two years did
and unanimous choice of the spies to replace him was
(42:20):
a very talented operations officer named Ralph Goff. Sitstown station
chief had spent most of the past decade working for
Ukraine and against Russia. In retirement, he had been very
vocal in his supportive chief. When his nomination went to
the White House, Trump at sed it within hours. That
is a very dangerous state of affairs, Molly. The job
(42:41):
description of the CI director in the CIA is it's
a cliche, you know, to speak truth to power, But
if the man in the White House isn't listened, the
CIA has no purpose in an intelligence service in the
hands of an auto craft is a very dangerous thing.
Past presidents have ordered c I'm thinking of primarily of
(43:02):
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, have ordered the CIA to
spy on Americans. That is illegal. It is outside the
CI's charters. A foreign intelligence agency, it has no police powers.
Past presidents have also ordered the CIA to overthrow democratic
elected governments that the president didn't like, and to attempt
(43:23):
to assassinate foreign leaders. It is all within the president's
hour to order the CIA to do that, despite edicts
against political assassinations and edicts against spying and Americans. If
God forbid, we were hit again, what would stop Trump
for erecting secret prisons for American political enemies on our soil,
(43:45):
or declaring martial law for canceling elections. That is the
catastrophic internal threat that would happen from a catastrophic foreign
intelligence bility.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah, no, it seems very likely.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Well, you have all these people who have spent their
risk their lives trying to protect America. They are now
considered to be enemies of the state by Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Are they leaving like this is?
Speaker 1 (44:13):
They find themselves in very much a situation like many
federal employees.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
So what are they doing?
Speaker 5 (44:20):
The CIA doesn't exist in total isolation out there in
the leafy excerps of Langley, Virginia. The CI is part
of the American national security establishment. It works with the
State Department, which is being decapitated by the Secretary of State.
It works with the Pentagon, which is being run by
(44:41):
how can I put this politely Vale, a white Christian
nationalist with a history of abusing women and drinking way
too much, who is incapable of running what is now
a trillion doctor a year organization. This guy couldn't run
a cocktail party for twenty Telsea Gabbard at the Director
(45:01):
of National Intelligence, who's in charge of the President's Daily brief,
among other things, is a conspiracy nut. And the CI
also works with the FBI on stopping Russian spies. They're
all being eaten away from within by the President of
the United States.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
One of the bright spots I think is that there
has been reporting that Trump doesn't actually read the PDB,
so she could put anything she wants in there right.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
The bright spots is that for all its flaws, the
CI still has thousands of people who are good at
their jobs of spying, collecting intelligence, and analyzing intelligence. If
they put out the most stellar intelligence reporting based on
expert espionage, so the president and doesn't read it, that's
a real problem. The bright spot for me is that
(45:52):
god willingness will be over in three and a half
years and the next administration, if there is a next administration,
can we build the things that Trump has destroyed? It
will take years. I like to point out we're coming
up on our two hundred and fiftieth birthday in this country,
and I like to point out that no pre republic
in the history of civilization has lasted longer than three
(46:14):
hundred years, and that was the Roman Empire. I do
not wish to see the ball of America, but the
corruption of American intelligence would hasten its decline.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:28):
Sorry to be all gloom and doom, but it's not pretty.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Everybody, that's everybody.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
No moment.
Speaker 6 (46:37):
Pfecly Jesse Cannon Smiley convicted felon denesh Tsuza, who's a
right wing agitator at best. Yeah, best does not really
concern himself with facts and anything but partisanship.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Usually. He shared an AI meme of Obama getting arrested
by the FBI and has captioned it, We're getting past meantime,
this act needs to happen.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Yeah, crazy whatever. I mean.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
It's just this is the same as Trump being like
they have to rename it the Washington Indians is the
exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
It's like the bait. We've got to get the base excited.
We have to get them jazzed up for fascism. Look,
leave Obama alone. Okay.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
One can only imagine how horrendous it was being the
first black president in this country and he serves his country.
This is I don't I actually kind of believe that
people should leave Obama alone.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
You know, both on the left and the right.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
He is a very popular figure, and it is extremely
helpful to have a popular figure like that. But I
also think that, like, there are a lot of popular figures,
and I think one of the things that people don't
totally understand about Obama, and I think about this moment too,
is that there really are there are a lot of
(47:58):
popular figures. There are people who breaking through and you
may feel they're too progressive, but they exist and they
are in fact breaking through.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
That's it for.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
This episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
make sense.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Of all this chaos.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a
friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and the price of ground beef has
hit a new high of.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Six dollars and twelve cents. We have a great show
for you today.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The Lincoln Frod dictsonn Rick Wilson joins us to discuss
Trump's failing to get the attention off.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
His Ebstein ties.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Then we'll talk to Tim Weiner about his new book,
The Mission the CIA in the twenty first Century.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
But first the news.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So, Mali, the Democrats are doing one of these autopsies.
You know, the Republicans famously did this when they lost
to Obama. But there's a glaring omission happening in what
they're looking at here, and it's disturbing a lot of
people who want the Democrats to step up their game.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I think that I'm going to read a quote from
Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic chairman. She told the New York Times,
and I think this quote really does explain this autopsy
must suck. We are not interested in second guessing campaign
tactics or decisions of campaign operatives.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
That's the whole point in the fucking autopsy.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The whole point is to second guess campaign tactics and
decisions of campaign operatives.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Don't do it. That is the point of the autopsy.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, don't do an autopsy if you're going to let
people off the hook for any reason. Like this is
this idea that we're the nice guys and we don't
want to hurt anyone's feelings, so we won't second guess.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
The campaign tactics.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Let me tell you about the campaign tactics incinerating cash
for seemingly no reason. The person who put her on
the sphere, that person probably should not have a job.
I want to just read to you what the term
autopsy means. Okay, An autopsy is a detailed examination of
(01:59):
a body after death, typically performed to determine the cause
of death and other factors to relate it to the
deceased health.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Eir go, you have an autopsy to find out what
went wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So not second guessing the tactics is the point of
the fucking autopsy. And I'm gonna read the rest of
this Jane Cleve quote because if she's trying to tell
in herself she's done it. We are interested in what
voters turned out for Republicans and Democrats, and how we
fix this moving forward. I'm sorry, but there's plenty of
(02:38):
blame to go around, and we know why they turned out.
They turned out because Trump talked to them. They google
searched who is running for president on the Democratic side
on election day. We talk about this all the fucking time.
You guys, whatever you use that money for, don't do it.
Just give it to me and I'll go shopping with it,
because honestly, like I do a better job just me
(03:01):
shopping and talking about Kamal Harris. So there are words
and there are none. There are no words that do
not include profanity in this story. And he says folks
might be better off holding their applause or criticism until
we've had a chance to complete our work and actually
read it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Nope, nope like that, No, no.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No no.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Also, by the way, whoever is paying for this, you're
wasting your money.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
My sister in law is a mortician who performs autopsies.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
She often finds numerous reasons somebody died because they're comorbidities.
You look everywhere, you find it all.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But also, I'm sorry, but like the days of US
spending millions and millions of dollars in traditional ads TV
ads are over. Wait, you were spending millions and millions
of dollars in traditional advertising, and this is why Democrats lose.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well, Molly, I have a counter opinion for you about
why Democrats win because, according to Tulci Gabberd, Obama did
everything he could to undermine Trump in twenty sixteen, and
yet mister Trump was so strong and he still won.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
According to her, you know, we've.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Gotten to a point here where the sick evans in
the Trump cabinet are just saying whatever, we'll make Trump happy.
So you know, Trump hates Obama because Obama made fun
of him at the White House Correspondence Standard, which is
his like origin story. But even before that, I do
want to point out that Donald Trump started the racist
(04:26):
lie that is Birtherism, right, the idea that Obama, whose
mother has been in this country longer than the fuck it,
you know, is a daughter of the American revolution, O guy,
So she's more American than any of us. That because
he had a black father, he was born in Kenya.
There is no evidence to support this. But if you're
(04:47):
a racist, maybe you think such things.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So this is really something from the Trump administration while
they're trying to pretend that Trump doesn't have ties to
a pedophile that's very famous Trump in the Catholic Church
are fighting a law of requiring clergy to report child abuse.
And there's a loophole in there that the Trump administration
is fighting even harder than the church to have so
that pedophiles get away with sexual abuse.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
It's pretty gross.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Washington Sentive Bill five three seven five in the Washington
State Capitol. So basically the Attorney General has I'm a
Catholic and this is clear and important legislation he's saying.
But the reality is it's just a way to give
the Catholic Church more power and to not protect children.
(05:34):
And again this is everything in this administration is not
to protect people like the law is. You know, they're
constantly and you see this with the with what the
attorney general. The attorney general is supposed to protect people.
Now the Attorney General basically just protects Trump. And that's
why he has Pam Boondi there right, because this is
(05:54):
all about just doing whatever he wants, protecting him, getting
him free staff and skryptocracy.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
This is what cryptocracies do. This is how they work.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yep So, speaking of this administration and Republicans covering up
sexual abuse, last week we had Eva Werner on who
directed a documentary on Jim Jordan's handling of sexual abuse
at the OSU, and it looks like mister Jordan's finally
going to have to face a deposition after avoiding it
for many years.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Basically the point of this is that Eva made this
movie about surviving Ohio State, and had she not made
the movie, just like this is like at every point
we see artists who make these movies and all of
us are always like, nothing breaks through.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
What are we fucking doing? Are we talking to people?
Nobody's listening.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
But here's a great example of something where it is
abso fucking breaking through. And this is the same thing
with Epstein. You'll remember Epstein was about to get away
with it. Remember he was about to get away with
it when Julie Brown got these girls to come out
and because he was on you know, he was like
basically just in the sex offender registreet, but living in
(07:02):
his fabulous townhouse in Manhattan. I mean, it was not
and he was going to get away with This is
a great example here, Jim Jordan has been just ignoring subpoenas,
being like fuck you. And now all of a sudden,
because of this movie Surviving Ohio State, which was number
one on HBO Max and a couple of million people
(07:23):
saw it, and now it is in the zeitgeisten. Now
he's going to face some accountability for this, and they're
going to get him to testify. And that's what you
have to remember about all of this. And that is
the thing about autocrats. And I've really read a lot
about this, so you know, while I was not alive
during World War Two, I've certainly seen this, and I
saw this with my grandfather McCarthy. The autocrat is able
(07:46):
to do it as able to do the crimes until
they're not right. Nothing matters until something matters. So don't despair,
like there's so many of us who are so in
despair about what's happening to our country. And I telling
you that this stuff works until it doesn't, okay, And
autocracy is crumble all the time because they are reliant
(08:07):
on the autocrat. And there is only one autocrat here.
And I just think everyone has to have faith that
eventually America has had many many dark moments, right we
in turn the Japanese during World War Two, we have
done this post reconstruction stuff where they just absolutely did
all these terrible things to people who had already been
(08:30):
through so many terrible things. We will get through this,
just like everything else, and we all have to remember
that everything matters, that things break through. That we're seeing
this polling. Trump's polling is horrendous. He's underwater on immigration.
Let the process happen. But keep doing what you're doing.
There's no reason to believe that it's not working, I mean,
(08:52):
except for the Democratic Party leadership, which is absolutely just
time for.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
A tea party, folks.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project in
the host of the Enemy's List. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Rick Wilson, Hey, Mali, drunk Fast.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It's another week of Epstein.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Katy Yes, and it's all Epstein. It's all Epstein, all
the time, for the rest of all time. Because he
has lost control of the narrative. He keeps trying to
throw boob bait out there for the Rubs, and they're
not even picking it up. They're not taking it. They
don't want it. They're angry with him, and I'm here
for it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So let's talk for a minute about why what this
looks like we have Trump is truth's truth thing. It's
funny because it's like you really do see, like, you know,
so much of the media narrative is like Democrats didn't
get involved in culture war issues, but actually what it
is is like you just should ignore all of this,
(09:54):
Like everything that Trump is trying to do, all the
culture war bullshit, it's just ignore it and talk about stuff.
You know, he's saying, we're gonna switch it to the
Washington Redskins. We must have them be called the Washington Redskins.
They can no longer be called anything else but the
Washington Redskins. So basically, what we're learning here is that
(10:18):
everything Trump is doing is bullshit to get the base excited.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
That's correct. And if this is the next Democrat who
takes who says anything about the Washington Redskins except to say, no,
we should rename it the Washington Epstein's, because that's it.
You know, stay on this thing. Do not let him
off the mat, do not let him, do not let
him recover, do not let him get a moment of peace.
(10:45):
In this do not let him play his game, and
so far, not only if his base not letting him
play his game, but Democrats have done a great job
at not let him play his game.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So explained, we should.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Keep pounding him on the Epstein issue, the lawlawsuit again,
Burnoch will blow.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Back on him.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
That's it. A thousand FBI agents to review Epstein material
has created a thousand new witnesses, a thousand new sources
for stories. And the fact that he did that is
an overt in my mind, signal that he feels like
there is incriminating and compromising material inside the Epstein files
and the Epstein legal materials, and it has caused him
to be completely off his his autopilot for the last
(11:29):
ten days. I do not want to let up on
that for two reasons. One, it's an important issue where
they for years have blamed every Democrat right and claim.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Right.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
It matters.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Nothing else matters to them.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
They don't care about all the stuff that makes the
rest of us horrified, but this, for whatever reason they
care about.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
They spent ten years molly telling themselves we're saving the children,
and Donald Trump will help us save the children from
from Hillary Clinton and George Soros and John Podesta and whoever.
It was all a lie, It was all all made up,
but they bought into it, and it became a central
part of their political character, their personality. They couldn't stop
themselves from internalizing it because it was a ucy, compelling
(12:17):
story and to many of them it explained in their
heads that the Democrats had this giant blackmail system that
Epstein ran for them, and that it was this cohesive worldview.
But it was all bullshit, right and and the and
a monkey could have figured it out. It was all bullshit,
(12:39):
but they couldn't. And now there I think it's twofold
right now, Well, they the dog got the car and
they can't figure out what to do. They just can't
figure out what to do, and that it's driving them crazy.
And two, the ones who really believe it, because look,
Jack Postobic and Steve Bannon and and all these other
(13:00):
Alex Jones. They knew it was bullshit, but the bass
swallowed the bullshit hole and they believe in one hundred percent.
And now all the SCA influencers and the bullshit artists
are being punished by the base because they're you know,
they're like wait, you told us this was the most
important thing. You told us this was happening. You told
us we had to help save the children. And you
(13:21):
know it was part of what created QAnon. It was
part of what created a lot of the attacks on
Hillary in twenty sixteen, part of what created attacks on
Joe Biden throughout his administration in this campaign.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I think that's right, and I also wonder if there's
something else right, Like, clearly the base is upset and
the bass feels betrayed, but there's something else happening here,
which is this sort of like they're seeing behind the
curt in a way that I think they've never done before.
(13:55):
We've never seen this sort of the base see through
the cracks. And then also I just think this sort
of it's created a panic. We're also seeing how much
MAGA world is influenced by Trump, right, that the media
complex is really created by Trump. Right, because we saw
Charlie Kirk was all was.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Like, release the Epstein files, and then he was like, hey, guys.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
I'm done talking about the Epstein file.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Right, Donald Trump says, stop talking about the Epstein files.
I think that is very There has to be a
sense in which the base is putting together that they
are being really controlled by Trump, that all of this
is controlled by Trump too.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I think I think that's right. And I think there's
also another part of this that I think even the
mainstream media has after ten years, some people have woken
up to, maybe I shouldn't chase the rabbits that he
puts out there every single day. Maybe I shouldn't chase
the bullshit that Caroline Levitt says every single day. Maybe
I shouldn't always run with the next thing X shiny
(15:00):
object he throws in front of me. Maybe I should
dig in a little harder on the assertions that he
makes and the stories that he tells, and the lies
that they that they intuit frequently are lies or distractions.
Maybe they've realized you don't have to play the same
game over and over again with this guy, because he
is essentially, you know, his own his own narrative, his
(15:23):
own story has fallen apart in front of them. And
I think a lot and I had a couple mainstream
reporters in the very beginning of this like, well, you know, yeah,
they were. They They're on video a couple of times,
but there's no real evidence they were ever like close friends,
I was like stuff. For all the evidence that they
were close friends. I think there's one more thing here
that's happening with his bass. And I think that, like
a lot of authoritarians, the grip is so strong for
(15:45):
so long that when it starts to loosen, when it
starts to get shaky, even they have a moment like
oh damn. And I do think while the while the
Trump controls a lot of the MAGA influencer media, right,
he doesn't, as we've seen now in control the Wall
Street Journal or.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Right, he doesn't control Rupert Murdoch, the ninety four year
old who created him.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
He does not control.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Correct the original doctor Frankenstein, who created the Trump monster.
It still still has the power. And I think we're
probably about to witness a very interesting dynamic at Fox.
Fox's lawyers are notoriously litigious, notoriously aggressive, notorious dicks. Right,
but you've once in a blue moon seen Rupert tell
(16:32):
even the Night side of Fox. Okay, this is our message. Now,
I don't know that Rupert at ninety four years old,
doesn't want to go out with a bang. He has
broken he has broken governments around this world. He has
broken prime ministers, he has broken kings, he has broken banks.
Rupert may want to go out with one final hurrah.
(16:54):
Trump's submersion in a scandal of this magnitude is not
just breaped for Rupert personally had to have revenge on
Trump for trying to sue him for ten million dollars.
It's also great content for the network. It's also great.
It's also a great storyline.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
But it's a huge rating thing.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
And now even Trump couldn't resist the deep state. Who
will be the next true hero of conservatives? I mean,
there's a way I could see Rupert having a very
profitable experience from this, and you know Rupert, he does
love money.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I also want to point out that there is now
two things. On Tuesday, Vice President Jadi Vance made a
trip to Montana to meet with Rupert and Lochlan discuss.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
If I'm Donald Trump, I worry that the twenty fi'th
the mimic drum beat will get louder sooner. Rupert and
Laughlin could get along just fine with Jada Vance, Well,
a lot of people couldn't I'm Trump. I'd be very
worried about I worried about stories not just appearing on
Fox about his Epstein matter, but more stories of about
his health. That'll be the tag, that'll be the giveaway
(18:02):
from Fox. If they're going to really turn the machine
on their own creation, they'll have to start having doctors on,
like what about the president's health? Is he okay? Can
he still lead? And they might even couch it to
keep their audience around, Like, while we love Donald Trump,
we worry about his health. It's an interesting moment.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I mean, I mean, Maria Barbarola, I mean, I just
want to point out, so far we have seen no
evidence on the opinion shows. Well, certainly the Wall Street
Journal is running this story and it has but the
opinion shows are still very much.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Trump's they are, but once again, a finer point on it.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Once again, let's remember one thing about all those people.
Unlike any other network, those people are employees of Rupert Murdoch,
who will if he says John, heanity, I want you
to go out on stage and I want you to
say that Trump is a jackass and a fool. He
may resist it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
But somebody will eventually.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Doll will exercise itself. He has editorial control, unlike the
head of any other network, right by far correct, So
and look, I think again, there there's a very dangerous
moment for Trump coming up. There is a confluence of
rupert in this fight and what Elon must does behind
(19:21):
the scenes at Twitter. If he algorithmically decides, because Elon's
back up on the Epstein wagon again beating Trump on it,
he's been, He's been mentioning it all week last week.
But if Elon decides he wants to elevate Epstein content
and mute the maga troll armies that keep Trump keep
Trump's message, like keeping the base in rigid order. There
(19:43):
are two ways that the base gets information. It's Fox
and it's Twitter.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Right, if Elon.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Wanted to play fuck around, even behind the scenes, he
could have a really bad impact and amplify any any
of these things about Epstein. Actually, I saw someone ask
that question the other day in a pro mogue Alive,
like they were worried, like, is Elon going to to
make this Epstein stuff bigger? I'm like, yes, Elon, you should.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Right, right, I mean, and it is worth it is
worth wondering about. Like Elon is out, so Elon may
want to get back in, but so far there's zero
evidence that Elon is is going to be invited.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Back in so far there's no evidence of that. I
think that Trump and the Epstein problem has probably delayed
Trump trying to screw Elon over like SpaceX contracts and
Starlink contracts and things like that with the government. But
I do believe, I do believe that Elon still has
a weapon in his hands, right. I think I think
(20:50):
even Trump understands if tomorrow and look, Elon knows what
they over at Twitter. They know what all the bought information,
all the bought armies are. They know they know who
they have boosted on the MAGA influencer side over and
over again. You know, why is it the MAGA influencers
get eighty thousand likes and twenty five thousand retweets on
(21:13):
posts that say Trump is cool and everyone else's voices
are sort of like at a baseline, you know, one
controls that machine if he decided to use it to
put pressure on Trump, to elevate Epstein, to elevate the
crisis of Trump's health, to elevate the fight with with Rupert.
He's got enormous power, you know, and as I always
(21:35):
tell people, power doesn't exist unless you use it. But
Rupert also enormous, enormous power, and Rupert is accustomed to
using that power right, and he is accustomed to presidents
calling him sir, right and asking how they can gain
his favor.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Republican president, Democratic president, yes, correct, correct, don't have a.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Chance do it.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
But you know, look, Trump files a ten billion dollar
lawsuit against you. You're going to wake up in the
morning and go, huh. You're not going to say, how
can I make his presidency better? You're not going to
say how can I make him how can I get
him out of this horrible pr trap that he's put
himself down with Jeffrey Epstein. You're gonna say, well, I
have lawyers, guns, and money, as the old warre and
(22:20):
Zyvon Song says, and he's going to deploy at least
a couple of those. And I think, I really think
that one of the things Fox has always been great
at is amplifying a really important Trump narrative that Trump
always wins, that Trump is always the winner, the guy
who always beats the libs, always beats, the media always beats,
(22:44):
the rhinos always beats the never Trumpers, And right now
Trump is losing, and all of those groups weirdly for
the first time in history and probably the last, are
pretty much in alignment that the Jeffrey Epstein cut because
let's remember, this is a government cover up. Now It's
not just Trump's past, it's the cover up that's happening
(23:07):
while we are speaking about this. And look, we talked
about this last time. Stusey Wilds called Pam Bondi and
said something to the effective you got to clean this up.
We also now know that this call came earlier than
we thought, and the call came with Bondy ordering the
FBI to put a thousand people on analyzing the Epstein
(23:29):
documents and case information, specifically to discover any references to
Donald Trump. They did not do that to make the
case clear to America. They did not do that to
help the victims. They did not do that to bring justice.
They did it to protect Donald Trump and a thousand
people looking at those documents. That is now a thousands
(23:50):
of poenas in a case, either the civil case with
Fox or any case in the future about this. It
is now a thousand subpoenas in any congressional case when
the Democrats take power to take the House back over.
This has turned into something it's been a mistake. All
cover ups are a fuck up and a mistake. Every
time you try to cover up something in government, it fails.
(24:10):
Three people can keep a secret in government if two
of them are dead, and even minutes Reiki, I.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Think that's right. I also wonder if when you find
yourself in a situation like this, like there's all of
this material that went to Pambondi, right, right, that supposedly
went from the FBI, they've sort of narrated enough to
hang themselves, right, and so talk us through that.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Right, They've said that they have this, Remember she.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Said, Well, first off, she said she had the Epstein
client list on her desk, and no matter how did
they say parse that interview, that's what she was responding to, right,
That's what she also said. Bongino and Patel said there
are thousands of hours of video material, some of which
is is is child exportation?
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Right.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
They also affirmed in that the FBI had seized thousands
of hours of video, thousands and thousands of photographs, all
kinds of other ancillary evidence from Jeffrey Epstein's homes in
Little Saint John and in New Mexico or is Arizona. Well,
out west what I think it's New Mexico and in
(25:26):
Manhattan they took all kinds of material. They have admitted that.
The g OJ has said, do we have this. We
don't know what that is. We don't have a full
we have we have some limited exposure to what it is.
We don't have a full catalog of what it is.
And the fact that they also had a vast probe
of material from the Florida case that Alice Acosta Frum
(25:50):
Labor Secretary Gabe Epstein the sweetheart.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Deal, which I mean, it's just they're so implicated this
even if like even if Alex cost it was just
like it's a rich white guy, we don't charge them
with crimes. The fact that this administration has been for
so long being like there's something here, we released the
you know, the reality is and you and I both
(26:15):
know this. The government is ineffective in many, many, many ways,
and often they're just lazy and sort of fuck up stuff.
I mean, most likely the most likely explanation with a
lot of this is just laziness and disorganization.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
That said, if.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You have been telling your base for months and months
and months and years and years and years, almost a decade,
maybe more that there's a secret birth certificate and that
there's child trafficking. If you have been telling them again
and again that something is coming and it turns out
that what's coming is you trying to protect your rich
(26:58):
friends or you trying to protect your then either answer
is infuriating to these people.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
And well, it looked part of this came from the
fact that the base was told that all the people
in this global pedophile ring, not just with Epstein, but
with the qwanon Pizzagate, Jack Pasobic Pizzagate stuff, all that stuff.
They were told that it was Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Bill
(27:25):
clemm Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George Soros, John Podesta, on
and on and on and on. They were told that
this was sort of the Rosetta stone to revealing that
the Democrats were all pedophiles, they were all child sex traffickers,
they were all involved in this horrifying, profoundly sick accusation.
(27:47):
And as you find more of these stories coming out
about this, it's like when Trump has a party of
enage models at his house and the only person on
the guest list is Jeffrey Epstein. When you see him
talk about their beautiful secret. You know, I don't see
a lot of notes revealed from Hillary Clinton saying, hey,
what a great party last night, Jeffrey. Those babies were delicious.
(28:08):
None of it. You see Trump connections more and more.
And look, as I've said over and over, if there
were powerful men, whether they are Republican, were Democrats, sexually
exploiting children, America deserves to know about it, and they
deserve to be punished. And I don't care, it doesn't
matter what I do.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
But they are if it's Phil Quinn and if it's
Donald Trump, nobody cares.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
They have to go to jail.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
This is not okay. Now, it's striking to me that
the base also agrees with that, and they're right. I mean,
like it happens to be that this entire controversy is
something where like the base often wants to do things
which are in fact based right to port grandmothers, separate children,
(28:54):
arrest students.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Students for writing op eds.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
That stuff is actually based locking up child sex predators.
That on both sides is you know, nobody cares what
they how they voted, just right, I mean.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
And look if you give if you and I'm not
often want to do this. If you take the MAGA
base at their word that one of their big issues
has long been the presence in the world of child
sex trafficking. If they find themselves in a position where
it seems like that the rich child sex traffickers, as
Donald Trump said on the record, well there are many
(29:32):
people in there. Maybe it would ruin their reputations. Maybe
it's fake. Right, they don't believe this is fake. And
the DOJ is pretty good at accumulating and processing and
understanding evidence. And this evidence so far that has been
published in the Wall Street Journal, that has been talked
about elsewhere has not been proven to be fake, as
the Florida case demonstrated. His abuse of Epste's abuse of
(29:56):
young girls and young girls and young women. I know
there's a distinction between the two folks, because there are
a lot of people say when you say young girls
are young women, like, no, no, those young girls. It was
in fact both it was young women and young girls, yeah,
who were horribly exploited by this guy. He is a monster.
If you look at a world where Donald Trump seems
to be defending both his relationship with Epstein by trying
(30:19):
to minimize it and by trying to underplay the evidence
against other powerful men in those in those materials. But
it's a perfect recipe for the base to finally, after
a decade, have a crisis of conscious about this guy.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Well, I think there really are.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
People who on the Mauga side. I'm gonna I'm gonna
give a brief piece of generosity in them. I think
there really are people on the Maga side who believed
in their hearts that there was a global child trafficking
and sex abuse ring and they wanted to do something
about it. And now they're finding out it was their guy.
I understand where they're at. It's hurt, It must hurt,
(30:56):
It must hurt a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Rick Wilson, will you come back always?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
My dear.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Tim Winer is the author of The Mission the CIA
in the twenty first Century and the Legacy of Ashes,
The History of the CII. Welcome to Fast Politics, Tim,
all right, So you've written this book about the CII
and really I think quite important the mission the CIA
(31:23):
in the twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Where the CIA needs to go.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
And I want you to talk to us first about
why you wrote this book.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So let's do that.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
First.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Eighteen years ago I published a book called Legacy of Ashes,
History of the CIA. That took the story from the
agency's inception in nineteen forty seven for the first sixty
years up to two thousand and seven. About three and
a half years ago, the CI told the world that
it had stolen Vladimir Putin's war plans for Ukraine. The
(31:55):
CI wasn't speaking directly, but scepturb of State and the
President did in the fall of two thousand and twenty one.
At that point, it was like lightning strike, and I thought,
oh gosh, after you know, two decades in which counter
terrorism has swamped everything, the CIA has returned to its
original mission, which is espionage. That's its unique mission. The
(32:18):
military can kill terrorists, the analysts at the State Department
before they were all fired last week, can do intelligence analysis.
But the CIA's job is espionage. That's recruiting foreigners to
be spies for the United States. And we'll talk a
little bit about that later. So I thought, let's go
back to the beginning of the twenty first century and
(32:40):
tell the story. You know, I set out to talk
to as many CIA officers, analysts, and veterans as I
could on the record, because that's how I rolled it.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And what did they tell you?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
Well, no one person, certainly not me, knows everything that
has happened in the history of the CI. But everyone
knows their own story, whether it was working counter terrorism operations,
being a station chief in places like Damascus, doing analysis.
And not only do they know of their own stories,
(33:11):
they are explicit about the strengths and failings of their coming.
And you know, it's all about developing trust between the
spy and the inkstained stride. And I've been at this
for thirty six years, and you know, we hang around
along that people start to trust.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Now, the CIA is under very different leadership than it
was even in Trump's first term, right where he sort
of didn't cannibalize those agencies quite the way he is now.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So what is the mood like?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
And also is the CIA able to perform its most
basic functions.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
Donald Trump despises and disdains the CIA. When he speaks
of intelligence, he puts it in scare quotes. He has
called the opfice. There's nazis the stop book. He does
not read his intelligence briefings. He has put a MAGA acolyte,
John Radcliffe in charge of the CIA, and Radcliffe has
(34:12):
a track record going back to Trump's first term, where
he briefly served as Director of National Intelligence, of distorting
and twisting intelligence to please the president. He will tell
Trump what Trump wants to hear, and that is not
the job description of the director. Radcliffe has done enormous
damage in his six months in office.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So give me a second here on Radcliffe. He had
some national security background, right.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
He was a three term congressman who had briefly served
on the House Intelligence Committee.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Right, so very little.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And how is the way the CIA is being run
different than it was during Trump's first term? Or is
it not? I mean, you have a sycophant running it,
but are there structural changes or now?
Speaker 5 (34:55):
For most of Trump's first term, the CI was being
run by Gena Hassell in CIA Operations Office.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
More normal choice.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Yeah, And the only thing that people knew about Gina Hospitally,
the only thing the public was that she had been
present at the CIA base in Thailand where terrorist suspects
were tortured, and that as the chief of Stack to
the head of the Clandestin Service at the time, she
hit spand on an order that he mandated to destroy
(35:24):
the videotapes of the torture from Thailand. However, Radcliffe had
three decades under her belt as an operations officer and
a station chief in which he primarily ran operations against
for Russians. So when she took over CIA in twenty eighteen,
the agency's operations officers had launched what they call a
(35:45):
call to arms in response to the Russians monkey wrenching
of the twenty sixteen election delp Electro. And what happened
was that the chief of the Clandestin Service then called
in all his top operations officers, who at most of them,
if not all of them, had spent the previous fifteen
years running counter terrors operation, that is, targeting terrorists. And
(36:06):
by targeting Molly, I don't mean putting warheads on forehead,
I mean identifying, you know, spying on them. Who are they,
where do they live, who are they want when they're oh?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Who do they love?
Speaker 5 (36:18):
Who do they hate, with the aim of recruiting them
to service spies for the United States. And so the
head of the Class Plant Distant Service told these guys,
I want you to take the talents that you have
developed in targeting terrorists and turning on the Russian I
want you to recruit Russian spies, diplomats, oligards. And the
end result of that was that in twenty twenty one,
(36:38):
the CIA Anne traded the Kremlin instole Putin's war plans
for Ukraine. A remarkable accomplished Passpel in Trump's first term
protected the CI from Trump's rat She left this operation flourish.
Despite Trump's obvious authentity for Vladimir Putin, it is highly
likely that Trump never knew much about it, if anything
(36:59):
so in the last year of Trump's first term, first,
Trump put John Ratcliffe as the intelligence Star, the head
of the bureaucracy, as the Director of National Intelligence that
overseas all sposters. He also tried to kill Haul Gena
Haspell and put Cash Battel in charge of the CIA.
The craft Pot lawyer Sidney Powell, he may recall.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
From season one, is and.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Convinced Trump that Gena Haspell was part of the international
conspiracy to steal the election from him. In twenty twenty
Haspell stood up to him and Trump back down, as
police will often turned coward. Now, in the second term,
Trump is utterly unleashed. The Supreme Court has ruled that
he cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed that office. And
(37:45):
he's put John Ratcliffe in charge of this PIA. He's
put Pete Hegseth in charge of the Pentagon, Telseby Gabbard
in charge of the Intelligence Directorate, and Cash Battell at
the FBI, who is dismantling the national secut and intelligence
direcords of the bureau. Bradcliffe at CIA has done half
(38:06):
a dozen things that are extremely destructive. Always some of
them he ordered the CIA's diversity policies Keel Hall. Diversity
in spies is one of the CI's superpowers. It's how
you don't get caught if you want a spy in
China or Iran or Sudan. You know, it would be
(38:29):
nice to have spies American spies who look like the
people that they're trying to recruit, who speak the languages,
who know the culture of the country, and don't look
like you know, they just got off the bus from
the national meeting of the Association of Student Council Presidents.
You know, they don't look like white guys. To put
it bluntly, this was nuts. He is forcing out the
(38:51):
most experienced and senior officer. He fired everybody the CIA
hired in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four on
account they were Biden hunters in the name of the
Doge Chainsaw massacre. He has instituted ideological purity tests of
the CIA people who are being considered for senior ready
(39:13):
oras who really won the twenty twenty election. How do
you vote in the last election? What did you think
of the January sixth insurrection? This is crazy. Ideology is
the enemy of intelligence. You're an ideolog, Your mind is
made up. You don't need backs. The consequence is that
the CI is bleeding talent, and people who remain there
(39:34):
trying to do their jobs, are keeping their heads down
unless they get chopped off.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
What does this mean for intelligence right now? Is there
intelligence collecting going on?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Oh yeah, okay, but it may not be getting to
the right people, right? Is that more of the issue Trump?
Speaker 5 (39:49):
When the US bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities, he immediately
declared that around his nuclear weapons program had been completely obliterated.
In this the intelligence finds, uh huh, that didn't happen.
They set them back in months, maybe a year or two,
but nothing was destroyed in totality. And when asked about this,
(40:10):
Trump says, I don't care what the intelligence says, and
when asked about it, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said,
forget about intelligence. Well, you could print forget about intelligence
on a banner and it from the walls in the
White House. Their minds are made up. This is a
very dangerous state of affairs. Molly. You've got amateurs and
toadies in charge of all the instruments of national security,
(40:31):
foreign intelligence services, foreign diplomats are very wary of sharing
intelligence with the United States, and CIA depends on its
liaisons with its foreign partners to be a global intelligence service.
The risks of a catastrophic intelligence fill, the risks of
a surprise attack are I think as high as they
(40:54):
were in the months before none, and god forbid if
the United States were struck again in some way at Homer,
what do you think Trump would do if that happen?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Nothing good? So is there anything that these people can do?
And also, do you think this means that members of
the intelligence community are going to be more likely to
leak to the media because it strikes me that the
government is so against them. But this information is clearly
very important. So do we find ourselves in a moment
(41:25):
where they obviously are doing actual important work. I mean,
they're sort of without choices.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
Right above the surface, Trump is destroying, dismantling America's alliances
and the architecture of American foreign policy that has been
erected since World War Two in large part to stop
Russian aggression. Right below the surface, station chiefs all around
the world will preserve, try to preserve their liaisons with
(41:56):
their foreign partner, regardless of what is happening, you know,
in public. The ideological courage at CIA and the subsequent
brain drain creates a number of problems. One is well,
I'll give you an example. The chief of the Clandestine Service,
the top spy, stepped down after traditional two years did
and unanimous choice of the spies to replace him was
(42:20):
a very talented operations officer named Ralph Goff. Sitstown station
chief had spent most of the past decade working for
Ukraine and against Russia. In retirement, he had been very
vocal in his supportive chief. When his nomination went to
the White House, Trump at sed it within hours. That
is a very dangerous state of affairs, Molly. The job
(42:41):
description of the CI director in the CIA is it's
a cliche, you know, to speak truth to power, But
if the man in the White House isn't listened, the
CIA has no purpose in an intelligence service in the
hands of an auto craft is a very dangerous thing.
Past presidents have ordered c I'm thinking of primarily of
(43:02):
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, have ordered the CIA to
spy on Americans. That is illegal. It is outside the
CI's charters. A foreign intelligence agency, it has no police powers.
Past presidents have also ordered the CIA to overthrow democratic
elected governments that the president didn't like, and to attempt
(43:23):
to assassinate foreign leaders. It is all within the president's
hour to order the CIA to do that, despite edicts
against political assassinations and edicts against spying and Americans. If
God forbid, we were hit again, what would stop Trump
for erecting secret prisons for American political enemies on our soil,
(43:45):
or declaring martial law for canceling elections. That is the
catastrophic internal threat that would happen from a catastrophic foreign
intelligence bility.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah, no, it seems very likely.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Well, you have all these people who have spent their
risk their lives trying to protect America. They are now
considered to be enemies of the state by Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Are they leaving like this is?
Speaker 1 (44:13):
They find themselves in very much a situation like many
federal employees.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
So what are they doing?
Speaker 5 (44:20):
The CIA doesn't exist in total isolation out there in
the leafy excerps of Langley, Virginia. The CI is part
of the American national security establishment. It works with the
State Department, which is being decapitated by the Secretary of State.
It works with the Pentagon, which is being run by
(44:41):
how can I put this politely Vale, a white Christian
nationalist with a history of abusing women and drinking way
too much, who is incapable of running what is now
a trillion doctor a year organization. This guy couldn't run
a cocktail party for twenty Telsea Gabbard at the Director
(45:01):
of National Intelligence, who's in charge of the President's Daily brief,
among other things, is a conspiracy nut. And the CI
also works with the FBI on stopping Russian spies. They're
all being eaten away from within by the President of
the United States.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
One of the bright spots I think is that there
has been reporting that Trump doesn't actually read the PDB,
so she could put anything she wants in there right.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
The bright spots is that for all its flaws, the
CI still has thousands of people who are good at
their jobs of spying, collecting intelligence, and analyzing intelligence. If
they put out the most stellar intelligence reporting based on
expert espionage, so the president and doesn't read it, that's
a real problem. The bright spot for me is that
(45:52):
god willingness will be over in three and a half
years and the next administration, if there is a next administration,
can we build the things that Trump has destroyed? It
will take years. I like to point out we're coming
up on our two hundred and fiftieth birthday in this country,
and I like to point out that no pre republic
in the history of civilization has lasted longer than three
(46:14):
hundred years, and that was the Roman Empire. I do
not wish to see the ball of America, but the
corruption of American intelligence would hasten its decline.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (46:28):
Sorry to be all gloom and doom, but it's not pretty.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Everybody, that's everybody.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
No moment.
Speaker 6 (46:37):
Pfecly Jesse Cannon Smiley convicted felon denesh Tsuza, who's a
right wing agitator at best. Yeah, best does not really
concern himself with facts and anything but partisanship.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Usually. He shared an AI meme of Obama getting arrested
by the FBI and has captioned it, We're getting past meantime,
this act needs to happen.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Yeah, crazy whatever. I mean.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
It's just this is the same as Trump being like
they have to rename it the Washington Indians is the
exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
It's like the bait. We've got to get the base excited.
We have to get them jazzed up for fascism. Look,
leave Obama alone. Okay.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
One can only imagine how horrendous it was being the
first black president in this country and he serves his country.
This is I don't I actually kind of believe that
people should leave Obama alone.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
You know, both on the left and the right.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
He is a very popular figure, and it is extremely
helpful to have a popular figure like that. But I
also think that, like, there are a lot of popular figures,
and I think one of the things that people don't
totally understand about Obama, and I think about this moment too,
is that there really are there are a lot of
(47:58):
popular figures. There are people who breaking through and you
may feel they're too progressive, but they exist and they
are in fact breaking through.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
That's it for.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
This episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
make sense.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Of all this chaos.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a
friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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