November 19, 2024 • 43 mins
DAN PROFT COUNTERCULTURE PODCAST: Watch the latest episode with KT McFarland, and don't forget to like and subscribe today!
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Election, KT McFarland, Dan Proft, Donald Trump, DOGE, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, JD Vance, FBI, CIA, NYT, DOJ, DOD, NSA
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
McFarland (00:03):
The government's no longer being run by common sense. I mean, I've been in the
government, in and out of government since the1970s. And for example, in the Pentagon, there
was in the Reagan administration, Peter Graceleading Wall Street guy did a grace commission,
kind of similar to the Doge, you know, Elon Musklook at government, and he had all these great
recommendations. None of them were followedbecause, you know, the bureaucracy doesn't wanna
(00:25):
follow 'em. And when you get to the point wherewe now are, where they, the, the people in the
bureaucracy, they can leak selectively to theirfriends in the Democrat media. They can slow
walk any recommendations from a president. Theycan really do whatever they want. It's, it's
gone beyond the point of, of, of takeover go bygovernment.
BANNON GUEST (00:53):
They should be panicked, they should be fearful, they should be crying because
they have politicized and weaponized our justicesystems at every level. They did this with the
Intel agencies, with Crossfire, hurricane, andthese people who participated in this
unprecedented Republican in law, fair andelection interference against President Trump.
(01:14):
His top aide like you, Steve Bannon and PeterDevaro who went to prison, his supporters on
January 6th, who were politically persecutedunder the Supreme Court's Fisher decision
parents getting targeted by the Biden FBI for,for raising hell about gender chaos in schools
and the resulting rapes in high schoolbathrooms. They, they sent pro-life, Christians
(01:39):
including a 75-year-old Christian Christian forto prison under the Face Act because of this
corrupt civil rights division by the BidenHarris Justice Department, Kristin Clark, who's
corrupt, who perjured herself to get the jobright. There has to be accountability for what
happens. So I'm glad that they're fearful, I'mglad that they're crying. They should lawyer up
(02:00):
because nobody is above the law as they alwaystold us. And if they didn't commit a crime, they
have no reason to be fearful. They have noreason to be crying. Right. Because of course,
you, you don't prosecute for Noncrime, do you
SpePROFTaker 3 (02:12):
Welcome to another episode of Counterculture, the show that stands at the
intersection of reason and faith in the Battleagainst Sentimentality. That clip was Article
three, project founder Mike Davis on SteveBannon's podcast, ably representing what appears
to be the Trump's perspective on the federalgovernment. Those who use their substantial
(02:33):
police power in agencies like D-O-J-F-B-I-C-A-Aand the intelligence community to tear their
political opponents as sunder for the sole crimeof being political opponents. Our infra
reckoning and Trump and company will not bedissuaded by tears gates for Ag gabbard for DNI.
And if the rumors are true, Dr. Jay Bach forNIHA pattern emerges here where he can. Trump is
(03:00):
putting loyalists in place who were targeted bythe agencies. They will now head the hunted,
become the hunters. It's life imitating the 2020movie, the Hunt, at least metaphorically. And
where he doesn't have a directly aggrievedperson to nominate, he nonetheless is putting
loyalists who share the belief thataccountability as the predicate to culture
(03:20):
change is the order of the day.
Think John Radcliffe at CIA is Trump'sperspective, the proper one in these times. Can
agency leaders with perhaps a little outsidehelp from Doge change the culture within, while
fulfilling their charge from the American peopleto protect us from threats foreign and domestic,
(03:40):
to jumpstart the economy and to restraingovernment from its unconstitutional and often
ugly overreaches. And based on his cabinetselections to date, is he putting together the
right team to give himself the best chance toaccomplish these complimentary paradigm shifts
within a two year horizon to provide answers andinsights on these topics? We're pleased to be
(04:02):
joined again by KT McFarland. KT is the formerfirst deputy national security advisor to
President Trump and the author of the bookRevolution, Trump, Washington. And we, the
people kt welcome. Thank you for joining usagain. Appreciate it.
McFarland (04:17):
It's always a pleasure and an honor. Thanks.
SpePROFTaker 3 (04:20):
So just give us your, I mean, let's start with the National Security Team.
You're bailiwick, so Rubio, secretary of StateWaltz at NSA Radcliffe at CIA, your perspective
on the team he's put together.
McFarland (04:36):
I
SpePROFTaker 3 (04:36):
Think these are all Kelsey Gabbard,
McFarland (04:38):
Pete Hex at the defense. I think these are all just terrific appointments. First
of all, they're all smart, they'reknowledgeable, they're tough, they're
principled. I mean, they don't, you know, theydon't back down from a fight any of 'em. And not
only do they share Donald Trump's worldview and,and the national security sense, but I think
they also share his opinion that the federalgovernment has just gotten way out of control,
(05:00):
way out of control, particularly in, in there's,this is, there's no constitutional role for the
fourth arm of government. The, you know, theadministration is supposed to be, the executive
branch is supposed to run the executive branch,not the other way around. And I just keep going
back to, there was a statement that ColonelBinman made. He was an NSC staffer. When I was
(05:21):
the Deputy National Security Advisor, I tried toget him fired.
I found out you can't fire anybody ingovernment. But in the, in the impeachment
hearings when he was asked, well, why do youthink Donald Trump should be impeached? And
Vidman said, well, it's because Donald Trump didnot go along with the agreed interagency policy
towards Ukraine. Bingo. The light bulb went outin my head, these guys don't think the president
(05:47):
of the United States should be making thedecisions. They think they should be making the
decisions. They think presidents go, presidentsgo. But they're the guys in charge. And to me,
having been in government, having been out ofgovernment, having seen the abuses of the
federal government to average citizens, butcertainly to people of the opposite political
party, this has gotta stop. If you don't get ahandle on this, and Donald, as you point out,
(06:09):
Donald Trump probably has two, two years to doit. If you don't get a handle on this, then
forget it. These guys are in charge forever.
SpePROFTaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, it's interesting. That's a great aha moment. The idea that they think the
president is accountable to them rather thanvice versa. But I Now what about those
legitimate criticisms, you know, people thatwant Trump to succeed but are a little taken
aback, surprised by some of the appointments andquestion whether or not, for example, hegseth at
(06:36):
DOD or even TSI Gabbard at DNI might be out overtheir skis. Why, why not bring somebody that is
similarly loyal, similarly disposed, but hassome time in the State Department of the
Pentagon?
McFarland (06:49):
But they're not. I mean, when pe, when Pete, Pete, who is a good friend of mine,
and I've known him since he, you know, wasbasically got outta college when Pete was
appointed, there was a def defense, a leadingdefense lobbyist, said, who the heck is this
guy? I've never heard of him. And I thoughtanother light bulb moment. And I said, yeah, you
know why? Because you haven't bought him. Hedoesn't, you don't own him. He's an independent
(07:12):
guy. He's gonna work for President Trump. Look,I think these are the only people who can do it.
If you start getting people from in the thinktank world or who are, you know, been in and out
of government over the decades, you know,republic, even Republicans, they're not gonna be
loyal to this new vision, this populous visionof taking power out of the hands of all these
(07:32):
federal agencies that you never hear of, butseem to control everybody's lives, who don't do
audits, who just spend like mad take over allthe, of the functions that they're supposed to
be in the executive and legislative branch, thissilent, you know, deep state if you wanna call
it that.
The thing is, it's not so deep. It's rightplain, front and setter. They're not trying to
(07:53):
hide anything. They just think they should be incharge. And unless you have somebody with Donald
Trump's, I don't know, tenacity, strength, youknow, sharp elbows, these guys are gonna find a
way to, in every single case, smother thisnational mandate that has been delivered by the
American people.
SpePROFTaker 3 (08:13):
Well, in those, those establishment bulwarks, I mean of course our,
our living in glass houses, I mean all thiscriticism of HEGs and he's never run a, a big
agency like this. I mean there's, you know,nobody's ever been able to really get their
hands around the Pentagon, especially in itsmoderate iteration. But I mean, this is against
the backdrop of the news out just the other daythat the Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a
(08:39):
row. So I mean, the idea that Hsif is notprepared for this, it doesn't seem like
anybody's prepared for this. And it speaks tosort of going back to the Doge boys, the need to
sort of rethink what's going on under the roofat the Pentagon and everywhere else in
government.
McFarland (08:55):
Yeah, it's not, government's no longer being run by common sense. I mean, I've
been in the government in and out of thegovernment since the 1970s. And for example, in
the Pentagon, there was, in the Reaganadministration, Peter Grace leading Wall Street
guy did a grace commission, kind of similar tothe Doge, you know, Elon Musk look at government
and he had all these great recommendations. Noneof them were followed because, you know, the
(09:16):
bureaucracy doesn't wanna follow 'em. And whenyou get to the point where we now are where
they, the, the people in the bureaucracy, theycan leak selectively to their friends in the
Democrat media. They can slow walk anyrecommendations from a president. They can
really do whatever they want. It's, it's gonebeyond the point of, of, of takeover go by
(09:39):
government. And even in the Pentagon, you know,the Pentagon hasn't had a full top to bottom
audit probably since before you were born, Dan.
And the reason they don't do it is every timethey try and congress legislate it, a president
will ask for it. But you know, it gets kind ofput on the back burner and the guys at the
Pentagon say, well, you know, it's really hardbecause we have really old systems of
(10:03):
communication and the army system doesn't talkto the healthcare system and then, and the Navy,
I mean it's just, they always come up with anexcuse. It's usually a technical excuse, but
they never do what they're supposed to do. Wedon't know how much money is in there sort of
sloshing around. We don't know how much of it islost. We don't know how much of it's going to
corruption. We don't know how much of it is evengoing to the defense contractors. So I would
(10:26):
start, I sure hope Elon Musk and DOJ and Vivestart with the Pentagon. That's the biggest,
hardest nut to crack. Once you do that, all theothers fall into place.
SpePROFTaker 3 (10:36):
By the way, just for the record, you mentioned you were in and outta government
since the 1970s. KT started in government at theage of 12. So that's explains the,
McFarland (10:46):
Actually man I was 18, so Okay. It was the Nixon administration.
SpePROFTaker 3 (10:52):
So I wanted to get your perspective on Tulsi Gabber though too, because,
you know, this is a pick from, you know, on theother, from the other side of the aisle, at
least until recently. But again, somebody thatwas very curiously targeted by the intelligence
community, the, the Open Skies program where shewas on essentially a watch list because, well,
(11:14):
because of her views on international affairs,it would seem, and, and you know, what we know
about Gabbard from her time in Congress and howaligned you think she is with, you know, more of
a paleo con perspective on the world that Ithink you have. And I, and I certainly have too.
McFarland (11:32):
Okay, so we asked, so I'm on the board of cpac, which is this national
organization, it's like the mothershiporganization for all the other conservative
organizations in the country. And we have a bigevent every February 10,000 people come from all
over the, all over the world. And we asked Tulsito speak a couple of years ago and it was a
pretty, wow are we having a Democrat come to themost conservative Republican conference and
(11:56):
she's gonna speak. And she came and she gave aspirited argument in favor of a limited
government and talked about the constitution andhow the federal bureaucracy had grown way beyond
the, the anything that any of the foundingfathers or even even FDR had thought that they
should be. And I, at that point, and I've gottento know her pretty well since she is principal,
(12:20):
she has a lot of common sense.
And I don't think she cares what the label is,Republican or Democrat. She and President Trumps
see eye to eye. And the irony of someone likeTulsi Gabbard who is a lieutenant colonel in the
Army Reserves, who was a, a stellar combatrecord. Somebody who was a member of Congress
and somehow some faceless, nameless governmentbureaucrat decided to put her on a watch list.
(12:45):
So when she tried to travel abroad, it madealmost, it made it almost impossible for her to
ever catch her plane because they had to gothrough many, many more checkpoints than they
should. And we would never have known about thatunless it was for a whistleblower who I believe
is now being punished by that agency. So youneed somebody like Tulsi ga. And I love the way,
Dan, that you framed this as we went into itsaying, you know, the hunted have now become the
(13:08):
hunters and that's why only those people canwork. You can't get same old, same old because
if you get same old, same old kind of people,you're gonna have same old, same old policies
SpePROFTaker 3 (13:19):
And the same old, same old is coming from the left now. So Trump and everybody
in term one were Russian assets. And thatallowed the Russian collusion hoax to go on for
two plus years. Adam Schiff's still sticking toit. And now you have people like Debbie
Wasserman Schultz calling Tulsi Gabbard, aperson whose record you described, somebody who
(13:39):
served our country honorably. She's a Russianasset now too.
McFarland (13:44):
You know, when they don't, when the Democrats kinda run out of arguments, which they
run out of pretty clearly and pretty quickly'cause everything they've done has been a
disaster in the last several years. What do theydo? Well they usually say it's a sexist, can't
do that against a woman. So they can't workthere. Usually it's a racist. Well Chelsea
Gabbard is a mixed race, so you can't call her aracist. Well what are you gonna, what's left to
(14:05):
call her? Oh I know, we'll call her a Russianagent. You know, it just makes no sense. It
didn't make any sense. First time around doesn'tmake any sense now. And then you have to look at
the people doing the name calling and saying,really, is that the best you can do? Do you have
to go there? Why don't you tell, why don't youmake a good argument for why your policies
should work? Why do you have to just go right tocharacter assassination and name calling? It
(14:28):
makes me think that maybe they don't haveanything they can brag about if they're on
record
SpePROFTaker 3 (14:33):
And, and they just like character assassination, I mean that just have
an affinity for it. Maybe that could be part ofit too. You know, I wonder, since you were, as I
mentioned, first Deputy NSA Trump 1.0, what, youknow, everybody's talking about what he's
learned 1.0 to 2.0 as somebody who's on theinside your perspective as you, you see this
team taking shape, the difference between Trumpin 2017 versus Trump in 2024, soon to be 25.
McFarland (14:59):
Okay, so I was on the transition team at Trump 1.0 and we were starting from scratch
because a lot of establishment Republicans andnever, Trumpers didn't wanna work for Trump and
frankly Trump didn't want them. 'cause those arethe people that, all the losing policies. So we
were kind of starting from scratch and DonaldTrump wasn't a creature of Washington. I don't
think he'd ever even spent, he'd ever, I don'tthink he'd ever even stayed overnight in
(15:20):
Washington before he moved into the White House.So it was starting from zero. And I think he
trusted the recommendations of people to apoint, this person, that person, it turned out
this person or that person didn't wanna work forTrump. They wanted to work for themselves and
they thought they were smarter than Trump. Andthat Trump didn't know enough. And so that's why
it was all this stern and drawn this timearound.
(15:42):
And I was just, I just returned actually fromMar-a-Lago. I was there during the weekend. I
saw the president saw almost all the seniorcabinet picks, all the national security team.
And they know what their job is, they know whatthe job is, they know what the mission is, they
know who's the boss. They don't think they'resmarter than the boss. They're not gonna fight
the boss. What they wanna do is work with theboss, Donald Trump to reform the government. And
(16:07):
it was really exhilarating because these peopleare not fools. They know that they're gonna get
beaten up and sabotaged and torn through. Imean, as Steve Bannon said, this is like every
day is gonna be stalingrad during World War IIwith Hitler at the gates. They know it's gonna
be really, really tough. But they also know thatif not now when, 'cause if you don't do it now,
(16:29):
you'll never be able, you'll never catch thattrain.
SpePROFTaker 3 (16:32):
You know, the, just the accountability piece. I know that the left is
referring to it as vengeance, but, but you know,accountability and vengeance are not synonyms
despite what they think. The accountabilitypiece. I mean, and thinking about Gabbard to
some extent, gates definitely Jay Bachar, if heis indeed named NIH as I mentioned at the
(16:53):
outset, these are people targeted by agenciesthat now Trump wants to put on top of those
agencies, which I think is really a nice messageto send. But you were somebody who was targeted
in the first administration among many as partof the Russian collusion conspiracy that the
left fomented and perpetuated for years as weknow. And I just wonder like what your
(17:15):
perspective on accountability and the necessityof it, that there has to be some reckoning in
order to send a message that there is going tobe a paradigm shift and people will be held
accountable professionally and perhaps legallyfor what they do under the color of law.
McFarland (17:33):
You know, I think, and I think you're right to distinguish like what is revenge and
what is accountability? 'cause they're two verydifferent things. Trump's not a revenge guy in
the first transition when everybody around himsaid, let's let's prosecute Hillary for
whatever. And he said, ah, leave her alone.She's, you know, she'll never be president. She
spent her whole life wanting to be president.Just leave her alone. Let's do our thing this
time around, there's gotta be someaccountability. And I don't think that the
(17:57):
people, certainly the people like Tulsi Gabbard,Rick Grinnell, if he has a position defense, all
these different people that they're appointed,they don't want vengeance. They just wanna fix
it. And so for example, one of the first placesto start, there were 51 former CIA agents
intelligence who signed a letter saying thatthat Hunter Biden laptop was Russian
(18:19):
disinformation.
Now that was election interference, it wascoordinated by the CIA at the time by active
duty CIA people with former people. And theythrew the election, they know they, it was right
before the f the last debate, many people havesaid, well, if we thought that Hunter Biden
laptop was real, we might not have voted for JoeBiden. And so that was election interference.
(18:42):
But those people have never been held toaccount, they've never had to testify, they've
never had their, they still have securityclearances, they're still making money as
defense consultants when in fact they theyreally don't deserve it. What did they do for
this country? They tried to, they tried to electtheir own guys president. That's, that's
accountability. And that's taking those 51people who think they're, they're not, they're
(19:06):
untouchable taking those 51 people and callingthem to account, find out who in the CIA was
coordinating the former officials who was doingthe election interference on American elections.
Hold those people to account
SpePROFTaker 3 (19:20):
Because if you don't, then you're sending a message that to the, to the
establishment, to the IC community, to the, theadministrative state that we can wait him out.
There may be a lot of tough talk, there might besome finger wagging, but he is not gonna make
really an example of anybody. And so we'll justcontinue the way we've always operated and we
(19:40):
can wait 'em out. I mean, you, you, you have to,I mean, I don't wanna get too Machiavellian, but
literally thinking about Machi, Machiavelli, Imean you have to bring overwhelming
accountability to people who have engaged in badfaith and bad actions to send a message that you
never wanna do this again. And that's the onlyway, it seems to me you reestablish the balance
(20:02):
of power between the government and the citizen.
McFarland (20:06):
And, and the other thing is you wanna do it with complete transparency. Yeah. The way
these, the way the deep state works is thatthey, they do it in the shadows. They the Russia
gate for example. And if you think, if you'repart of the intelligence community, what
happened during the first Trump term? Well itwas the FBI accused Trump of all sorts of
crimes, had the Mueller investigation, launchedthe impeachment, and yet nobody was ever held
(20:28):
accountable. And then if you fast forward to2020, well these CIA was involved that time and
there was a CIA senior officials who've ininterfered with an influenced an election, they
were never held accountable. So unless somebodyholds those people accountable, and they're big,
they're big names, they're people that you knowwell, all their household names until they're
(20:48):
held accountable and have to say what they didand why they did it, and then take the
consequences of their action, guess what? It'sgonna keep happening time and time again because
they don't wanna lose power and they'll doanything to, to stay in power, including clearly
election interference.
SpePROFTaker 3 (21:07):
Well, that transparency point is such a critical one because the other thing you
do, and it seems to me when with respect tochange in the culture is we're not going to
tolerate the FBI director coming before Congressfor years after the fact. Like for example, in
the case of J six and telling us, I don't knowif there were FBI assets on the mall on January
(21:29):
6th, if there were, I don't know how many, it'san ongoing investigation. There are ongoing, the
ongoing investigation cover story to never levelwith the American people about anything that
happened or is happening. It seems to me likethat's another piece of the accountability. It's
a professional piece that cha but it it's justas important to change the culture.
McFarland (21:47):
Yeah. So here's how they, they get out of having to testify is they launch an
investigation, even a fake investigation. Sothen every time C-C-I-A-F-B-R, whoever they are,
ask well, a direct question. Oh no, no, can'tnot, not at liberty to talk about it because
it's an ongoing investigation. What I wouldsuggest, and this is just me talking, but I've
certainly suggested it to some of the peoplearound President Trump just declassify it all.
(22:10):
Yeah. Just, you know, the problem withgovernment, the government people, they, they
don't have the fortitude to do anything on theirown. There. There's gonna be a huge paper trail
of who gave me permission to do this, who gaveme permission to do that. And in the past, I
mean, I asked John Radcliffe once you were DNI,why didn't you declassify all that stuff about
Russiagate? And he said, well, you know, theytell you their sources and methods and if you
(22:32):
declassify it or you release it to the public,people are gonna get hurt, people are gonna die.
And I, I've said, look, I've been, I've been atthis game for 50 years. That's always the excuse
they give you when they don't wanna, when theyknow they've screwed up and they don't want you
to see what they've done. I think just open upsunlight is the best disinfectant if we find out
what all those people were doing because werelease what they were saying at the time, let
(22:54):
'em take the consequences. And then, as you say,never again, is the deep state gonna have the
nerve to do it because they know they won't getaway with it next time.
SpePROFTaker 3 (23:04):
Well, and, and the whole sources and methods and people in the field, okay, I'll
tell you what, we're gonna pull whoever youthink is vulnerable out of the field, bring 'em
in house right now, release everything and soeverybody's protected and we get the truth
right?
McFarland (23:17):
Yep. Sunlight is always sunlight, best disinfectant.
SpePROFTaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah. Brandeis was right. The other ideas that you have or maybe suggestions
you've offered, just thinking about theintelligence since you, you know, you mentioned
you've been a part of this for so long, what yousee in terms of angles and opportunities that
may inform what some of Trump's secretaries do
McFarland (23:42):
You mean the opportunities for government reform or for policies? Yeah,
SpePROFTaker 3 (23:46):
For go for government reform specifically. So the inside cultures.
McFarland (23:51):
Okay. So, you know, the threat of budgets makes the whole difference, right? And
Elon and Vivek, I saw Vivek over the weekend andthey're talking about they're gonna,
government's way too big. Too many people, toomany pension plans, too many gold-plated
salaries and all those people just keep spendingyour money. They're printing your money and
spending your money. But what about if youreduce, what does Elon Musk say? He thinks she
(24:13):
can reduce government workers by 25%. What's agood first start? And in addition to that, then,
then once you get rid of those people, then youcan start cutting those programs because every
one of those people has some crazy program.Whether it's, you know, what was the latest one
about whether vodka helps fish do somethingstrange and make some more aggressive in the
(24:36):
water. Yeah. I mean, just crazy stuff we'respending American taxpayers money on. But once
you start going after the people who areproposing this stuff, it's much easier to cut
the budgets. So if you start cutting the budget,then everybody's gonna get a lot more nervous
about, yikes, again, I can't get away with itanymore. I guess I better show what I'm really
doing and it better be something that canwithstand scrutiny,
SpePROFTaker 3 (24:56):
Right? I mean, it's one, it it's a, it's, it's an an important dot connector here
because people look at it and say, well, federalgovernment salaries only account for about $110
billion of spending in a $6 trillion spend lastyear. But, but you start to connect the
personnel to the programs and you eliminate thepersonnel so you can eliminate the programs and
you get that multiplier effect, right?
McFarland (25:18):
Yeah. I mean, but they talked about that this weekend when someone asked him, well
you're talking about furloughing or, or retiringse civil servant and you're gonna give them two
years of pay if they quit, if you can get rid ofhim and that's terrible. They should only have
two weeks notice of severance pay. And he said,he made your point. He said, well, it's
(25:39):
annoying. And as it is that you're paying thesalaries of these people who aren't doing
anything to help you, the money that theycontrol is so much bigger than their salaries.
Yeah. So you, you gotta get both of 'em. You'vegotta get the individuals and you've gotta go
after the programs
SpePROFTaker 3 (25:53):
And you have to get some weak need Republicans in the House and Senate to go
along with all this as well, because everybodyhas their idiot nephew in a particular agency
and their pet programs that they wanna bringpork home. And so that's, that's another layer
of complication, which I'm sure Musk and andVivek are going to have to navigate.
McFarland (26:11):
Look, Musk went into Twitter and he cut it by, he goes in and says to half the
people, what are you doing here? What's yourjob? I don't get it. And he cut the workforce by
75% and it made it a better product and now he'smade money on it. So he knows how to do this.
And I think that especially fave and, andparticularly Elon Musk, they, they're original
(26:32):
thinkers. Like they go back to the beginning,what's our purpose here? What's our function?
They don't just look at, well, we've always doneit this way, we should always do it this way
again. But, and whether it was with Twitter,whether it was with Tesla, with cars, whether it
was with the SpaceX, Elon Musk has shown, hegoes back to the basics and said, just 'cause
we've done it this way, done doing it the waywe've always done it, it's not working.
(26:53):
Let's do some, let's rethink the mission and thefunction. So I think there's gonna be a, a huge
shake up coming, I mean, huge shake up. And it'snot just going to be the little bit nibbling
around the edges. I think that they're lookingat eliminating whole agencies or taking out,
maybe taking something like, and again, this isme talking, not the president, but taking
(27:14):
something like the, like the intelligencecommunity. They're 18 different agencies. What
are they all doing? Why do we need them all? Orif you look at the fbi, I, what is the FBI's
job? Well it seems to be going after Catholicsuburban housewives who go to school board
meetings. Aren't they really supposed to belooking for criminals? Aren't they supposed to
be looking for, you know, pedophiles or childmolesters? Why are they doing that? So maybe you
(27:37):
take the FBI and chop it up to a bunch ofdifferent parts and send it back to the
appropriate agency. If it's, if it's an agencythat's dealing with crime, financial crimes, it
shouldn't be in the FBI, it should probablyshould be over in treasury. If you're dealing
with somebody who's doing commerce stuff wherethey're cheating about exporting things, does
that really belong at the FBI? Maybe thatbelongs at commerce. So these kinds of
(28:00):
fundamental rethinks, I, you know, these are theguys who are very comfortable doing that. So go
for it.
SpePROFTaker 3 (28:07):
I wanted to get your take on a couple of active theaters here, because part of
the Trump promise is essentially to get us outof foreign entanglements. If I can borrow from
sliced alone, channeling George Washington andso Eastern Europe. And the interesting, the
signals that we're already getting from bothZelensky and Putin with the prospect of, of
(28:31):
Trump's inauguration, Zelensky seeming, seemingto indicate that he's willing to negotiate as he
suggested that he thinks Trump has the, thepromise to bring an end to the hostilities.
McFarland (28:47):
Yeah. You know, the terrible thing about the Biden administration, they would not
let Zelensky negotiate. They wanted to keepfighting because their attitude was, well, we
have to punish Russia, and Russia should not berewarded for invading a country. Okay? Right.
But then how do you stop it? What, I mean,what's your plan? What's your practical common
sense plan here? And the, and the, you know, theDemocrats, whether it was the Obama, Obama
(29:09):
people or the Biden people, they, well, we'llgive 'em, we'll give 'em a little bit more
weapons or we'll do a little bit more, a littlebit more. But Ukraine's never gonna win a war of
attrition. Not with Russia. Not with Russia,which is rich with oil revenues thanks to the
Biden energy policy. Russia's flush with cash.So how do you figure this one out? And if an
administration like Donald Trump, I mean, hesaid, so the thing I love about Donald Trump is
(29:32):
he's pretty straightforward.
So he says, here's what we're gonna do on dayone. We're gonna drill a baby drill. We're gonna
become not just energy independent again, butwe're gonna become energy dominant, which means
the US has the energy capabilities and resourcesto power the world with our own oil and natural
gas for hundreds of years. Cheaper, safer,cleaner, faster than anybody else. So if we
(29:54):
unleash that ability, what does that do to theglobal market? Well, it pushes the price of oil
and gas down. And what does that do at bas Iranand bankrupts Russia has to bring them to the
negotiating table because they can't fight. Youknow, these guys may wanna fight forever, Russia
and Iran, but if they don't have the money to doit, they can't do it. So Trump understands the
economic weapon, hit 'em where it hurts, takeaway their ability to fight or to pay for wars.
(30:20):
And then he says, and but he also is gonna like,get on the phone. This will be a long day, one
day, and he is gonna get on the food and say,you go to the negotiating table, or I'm giving
you crane everything to, to just blow you toSmither marines. And then he is gonna say to
Zelensky, you go to the negotiator and you gonegotiator, I'm not gonna give you a darn thing.
And so then he is gonna force a negotiation. Andthen they, the terms of it, well that's up to
(30:40):
them, but you gotta get 'em to the table. AndBiden's people have refused, even when Zelensky
has asked, could we please go to the table? Theysaid, no, no, no, you keep fighting, keep
fighting.
SpePROFTaker 3 (30:51):
And the other, the piece of this too, I mean, you saw the signal from the EU
right after Trump's election from, from the,the, the president of the EU saying, you know,
maybe we should buy a little bit less of ourliquified financial gas from Russia and a little
bit more from the United States. So now, youknow, energy, independent energy exporter taking
ex taking markets away from Russia too. I mean,so Putin clearly sees those signals as well in
(31:17):
terms of what you're talking about, reducing hiscapacity to, to prosecute wars,
McFarland (31:23):
You know, I mean the, the foresight of Donald Trump and he gets, they're
intuitively, he doesn't like read foreignaffairs magazines all day long, like you and I
probably do. But he understood that theEuropeans, especially Germany, would become so
dependent on Russia and subject to blackmailfrom Russia if they, if they bought all their
oil and natural gas from Russia. So he, hewarned them, you know, eight years ago, don't
(31:45):
buy that stuff. Don't do buy American stuff, butwhatever you do, don't, don't get yourself in a
position where Russia can blackmail you onenergy. And they didn't listen. They said, no,
no, no, we're much smarter than you are. We knowit's all gonna be good. Russia would never use
the economic weapon to blackmail us. 'cause theyneed our, they need our money. And of course,
Trump was right. And so now the Europeans aregonna walk that back and, and great, you know,
(32:08):
so glad we're getting there because Americanliquified natural gas, again, cheaper, safer,
cleaner, Europe should no strings attached andEurope should just buy from us. Everybody should
buy from us.
SpePROFTaker 3 (32:19):
And in the Middle East, you know, obviously he has been supportive of, of
Israel's prosecution of the war on terror there.And he has a good relationship with Netanyahu,
which distinguishes himself from the currentadministration again. But how should we conceive
the, the administration's approach to the MiddleEast now? Is this to sort of restart the, a
(32:41):
Abraham Accords angle of trying to build betterrelationships between moderate or moderating
Arab countries and Israel? Is it to just backIsrael's play against Iran? Is it to do a
combination of the two? What what's the, what doyou think the thinking is there?
McFarland (33:01):
Well, I think President Trump's brings back the maximum pressure campaign, which
is one of the things I helped organize againstIran and against North Korea. And that's, you
bring all sorts of pressures to bear economic,military, diplomatic, et cetera. But what
President Trump has said is to say, he said toIsrael, finish the job, just do it quickly, but
finish it. And then what he also said to Iran inthe closing days of Trump 1.0 is that we knew
(33:28):
that Iran was on the ropes. You know, Trump hadput, when Trump walked into office on day one in
2017, oil was at $120 a barrel. That was Obama'soil price. Trump leaves office. And because he
had encouraged the US energy industry, it was$40 a barrel. So for countries like Iran and
Russia, which rely on us exclusively on the saleof that oil and natural gas, they were broke.
(33:53):
When President Trump at the end of the Trumpadministration, we knew that the Iranians were
having real trouble feeding their people. And wecould see that the Hezbollah, Hamas, and maybe
not the Houthis, 'cause they weren't really inthe mix at that point. They were complaining to
say, wait, you guys have been paying for us fora long time. Where's our money? And Iran didn't
(34:13):
have the money to pay them. I thought Iran wasvery close to the point where they'd either need
to do a deal on America's terms. If not, thenthey would face domestic unrest against them.
But fast forward, so Biden comes in undoesTrump's energy policy. Sure enough, oil goes
from 40 back to a hundred dollars a barrel. It'sa little bit less than that now. And what did
that money do? It gave a windfall to Iran. Andthat's the money Iran has used to make war
(34:38):
against Israel. So take that money away. Israelhas done us all an enormous favor by hurting
and, and really degrading Hezbollah and Hamas.And let's just see a new Middle East. Let's
reinvigorate those Abraham Accords and, and putIran in a box where it either has to accommodate
peace and if not a bankrupt Iran, those mullahsare gonna have a very angry and rested
(35:04):
population that may decide to have anotherIranian revolution.
SpePROFTaker 3 (35:07):
And so if Trump is able to diminish the capacities of both Russia and Iran,
what does China do? Does China prop them up ordoes China leave them behind?
McFarland (35:17):
Big question. What China may wanna do, and I'm not gonna sort of second guess
China, but they could sort of go in twodirections. One, they could say to the Russians,
let's buy, we're gonna take all of EasternSiberian oil fields. We need, we need to import
energy. I mean, China's one of the most energyneedy countries in the world and they don't have
oil, they don't have natural gas, they havedirty coal, and so they have to get it from
(35:38):
somebody. But if they're not being able to getit from Russia or Iran, which is where they get
it from now, because we'll, we'll reimpose andenforce those sanctions then Russia has, I mean
China has a a choice. Are they gonna maybesomehow annex part of Russia and take the oil
that way, or are they gonna buy from us? Now ifChina wants a good economic relationship with
the United States, which they've come out in thelast three days and said, well, maybe they
(36:03):
should buy our energy because the other thingabout the Chinese relationship with the US is
that, and again, Donald Trump, 'cause he's not athink tank guy, he's not a business as usual
Washington guy.
He understood one fundamental fact that nopolitician had understood China needs to sell
stuff to us more than we need to buy cheap stufffrom them. We can buy cheap stuff from a lot of
(36:26):
different places. China has to sell stuff to us.So that gives us enormous leverage in any trade
agreement or any kind of relationship betweenthe United States and China.
SpePROFTaker 3 (36:37):
Last one, the border, of course, the prospect of using military as part of the
effort to do, you know, mass deportation is theword that's used, but it's really surgical,
deportation by category. That's the way TomHolman has laid it out. And you know, some of
the tools that Trump used the last go aroundincluded sort of using foreign aid as a leverage
(37:00):
point for central for Mexico and central andsouthern American countries to not be pushing
their people to our southern border. And, and,and now that runs maybe a little bit into the
Doge boys who want to reduce this, the spend,but you know, what your, what is your assessment
of that board of security team starting with,you know, no, and obviously Tom Holman is
(37:24):
Central and Steven Miller and the, the, theapproach, if it's gonna be any different this
time around than it was the first go aroundwhere Trump was, you know, was and did make
significant progress in border security.
McFarland (37:40):
Well, there's the problem obviously is much worse because now we have, who knows how
many millions of illegals in this countrythey've gotta go. So that'll be a law
enforcement issue of how do you, how do you findthose people and how do you send them back? And,
and who do you start with? And you know, I thinkit's a no brainer to start with the people who
are convicted criminals as President Trumppoints out, a lot of those people are hardcore,
(38:02):
convicted rapist, murders, et cetera. Get rid ofthem first. But the other part of the problem is
to prevent more from coming in. Now thatinvolves foreign policy and our relationship
with Mexico now, the Mexican government, the newMexican government has said, no, we're not gonna
cooperate. No, we're not going to. And yet whatPresident Trump did to get the Mexican
(38:24):
government to cooperate in 2017 was then thepresident said, I'm no, no, no, we're not gonna
cooperate.
We're just gonna send them through from CentralAmerica through Mexico and on into the United
States. And President Trump said, no, you'renot. And he said, no, no, we are. And then what
did he do? He slapped a 25% tariff on allMexican goods coming into the United States.
(38:46):
That phone ranked so fast of the Mexicanpresident saying, Mr. Trump, Mr. President, we
have reconsidered. We wanna help you seal thatborder. And I think he does it again, because
again, Trump understands the trade weapon andthe economic weapon more than think tank
Washington guys just 'cause he is a businessman.
SpePROFTaker 3 (39:05):
And you know, the other side, I mean, it's been proposed. I wonder what your
thought is too, the, the, the remittances frompeople in this country illegally back to family,
friends, whatever in their home countries. Youcould tax that as well. Transaction tax and, and
you know, encourage some self deportation too.
McFarland (39:23):
There are many ways to, to peel this onion. And I, I have full confidence, especially
at, when you look at the team that PresidentTrump has put together, especially somebody like
Tom Holman, man, that guy has been, you know,screaming until he is horse in the throat and
people won't listen to him. And for years he'sbeen making the case and nobody has paid him
(39:44):
attention except for Donald Trump. And now tohave that guy in charge of the border, I'm
sleeping easier at night.
SpePROFTaker 3 (39:51):
Well, and the whole thing in Holman is representative of this. It seems that
this sort of replete throughout the team is, youknow, they're all pretty good communicators and
Holman is a little bit gruff. He's not, youknow, the polished kind of windblown guy, but
he's so knowledgeable on the topic and hi, his,his distillation of the border has is as good as
(40:11):
anybody's talking about, you know, look, thepeople that want to enforce the border, they're
the ones on the humanitarian mission. We'retrying to protect people on both sides of the,
of the border. Because when you don't, then bothsides, people on both sides of the border get
hurt or killed or grossly exploited. And, and Ithink, I mean that is the perfect way to
(40:31):
elucidate what they're doing and why they'redoing it and bring people along to going back to
what we were saying about transparency, and Ilike the idea that, you know, sort of across
these agencies, Trump is installing people thatare good at making the case good at, at
developing the argument so that you can bringAmerica along as you pursue these policies.
McFarland (40:53):
Yeah, I mean, and I would start with Trump himself obviously, but JD Vance for
example, he's thinking, he's thinking wayoutside the box when he was asked, well he have
to have these illegals in the country becausethey'll work for cheap wages that Americans
won't work for, so we need them. And he said,well, let's rethink that. Maybe if we paid those
people, those Americans, a little bit of abetter wage, instead of paying them not to work,
(41:16):
maybe we should pay them a little bit more for adecent wage and then they would work and then we
wouldn't need to import these, the, theillegals. So the case he was making is we're,
we're importing the illegals to do the cheaplabor that Americans don't wanna do. 'cause they
don't, they're not adequately compensated. Andso as a result, we're paying those people not to
work.
And again, and he makes a really good case verysimply. Matt Gates is a really terrific
(41:42):
communicator. He is tough as males obviously,but he's as smart as could be and he'll make
that case. I remember once being on with MariaBar Romo on Fox Business, and I don't even
remember what the issue was. And she walked intothe interview really critical of him, and he was
making, and then he said, no, let me make thecase. And boom, boom, boom, boom. He laid it out
at the end, Maria Bar Romo, who's knowsEconomic, the economic Wall Street world better
(42:05):
than anybody. She said, you know something, Ithink you've changed my mind. So he knows how to
negotiate and argue. They're all, every one of'em is articulate and every one of 'em is
fearless.
SpePROFTaker 3 (42:17):
All right. On that happy note, as we watch confirmation hearings, play
themselves out in the public arena for twomonths before the actual confirmation hearings,
KT McFarland, former first deputy NSA underTrump 1.0. Kt, thanks so much for joining us.
Again, appreciate your insights and your time.
McFarland (42:34):
It's always an honor and a pleasure and especially because you always have such a,
you elevate the conversation. We always have areally good, thoughtful, pro thought provoking
conversation. Thank you.
SpePROFTaker 3 (42:44):
Thank you so much. I I enjoy talking to you. It's great. Really, really
helpful. And for people to get an, anunderstanding of everything that's going on.
There's nobody better. So kt, thanks again.Appreciate
McFarland (42:55):
It. Thank you very much. Dan,
Please like this video and subscribe to thischannel if you haven't already. And please leave
a comment in the comment section. We'd love tohear your thoughts.
McFarland (00:03):
The government's no longer being run by common sense. I mean, I've been in the
government, in and out of government since the1970s. And for example, in the Pentagon, there
was in the Reagan administration, Peter Graceleading Wall Street guy did a grace commission,
kind of similar to the Doge, you know, Elon Musklook at government, and he had all these great
recommendations. None of them were followedbecause, you know, the bureaucracy doesn't wanna
(00:25):
follow 'em. And when you get to the point wherewe now are, where they, the, the people in the
bureaucracy, they can leak selectively to theirfriends in the Democrat media. They can slow
walk any recommendations from a president. Theycan really do whatever they want. It's, it's
gone beyond the point of, of, of takeover go bygovernment.
BANNON GUEST (00:53):
They should be panicked, they should be fearful, they should be crying because
they have politicized and weaponized our justicesystems at every level. They did this with the
Intel agencies, with Crossfire, hurricane, andthese people who participated in this
unprecedented Republican in law, fair andelection interference against President Trump.
(01:14):
His top aide like you, Steve Bannon and PeterDevaro who went to prison, his supporters on
January 6th, who were politically persecutedunder the Supreme Court's Fisher decision
parents getting targeted by the Biden FBI for,for raising hell about gender chaos in schools
and the resulting rapes in high schoolbathrooms. They, they sent pro-life, Christians
(01:39):
including a 75-year-old Christian Christian forto prison under the Face Act because of this
corrupt civil rights division by the BidenHarris Justice Department, Kristin Clark, who's
corrupt, who perjured herself to get the jobright. There has to be accountability for what
happens. So I'm glad that they're fearful, I'mglad that they're crying. They should lawyer up
(02:00):
because nobody is above the law as they alwaystold us. And if they didn't commit a crime, they
have no reason to be fearful. They have noreason to be crying. Right. Because of course,
you, you don't prosecute for Noncrime, do you
SpePROFTaker 3 (02:12):
Welcome to another episode of Counterculture, the show that stands at the
intersection of reason and faith in the Battleagainst Sentimentality. That clip was Article
three, project founder Mike Davis on SteveBannon's podcast, ably representing what appears
to be the Trump's perspective on the federalgovernment. Those who use their substantial
(02:33):
police power in agencies like D-O-J-F-B-I-C-A-Aand the intelligence community to tear their
political opponents as sunder for the sole crimeof being political opponents. Our infra
reckoning and Trump and company will not bedissuaded by tears gates for Ag gabbard for DNI.
And if the rumors are true, Dr. Jay Bach forNIHA pattern emerges here where he can. Trump is
(03:00):
putting loyalists in place who were targeted bythe agencies. They will now head the hunted,
become the hunters. It's life imitating the 2020movie, the Hunt, at least metaphorically. And
where he doesn't have a directly aggrievedperson to nominate, he nonetheless is putting
loyalists who share the belief thataccountability as the predicate to culture
(03:20):
change is the order of the day.
Think John Radcliffe at CIA is Trump'sperspective, the proper one in these times. Can
agency leaders with perhaps a little outsidehelp from Doge change the culture within, while
fulfilling their charge from the American peopleto protect us from threats foreign and domestic,
(03:40):
to jumpstart the economy and to restraingovernment from its unconstitutional and often
ugly overreaches. And based on his cabinetselections to date, is he putting together the
right team to give himself the best chance toaccomplish these complimentary paradigm shifts
within a two year horizon to provide answers andinsights on these topics? We're pleased to be
(04:02):
joined again by KT McFarland. KT is the formerfirst deputy national security advisor to
President Trump and the author of the bookRevolution, Trump, Washington. And we, the
people kt welcome. Thank you for joining usagain. Appreciate it.
McFarland (04:17):
It's always a pleasure and an honor. Thanks.
SpePROFTaker 3 (04:20):
So just give us your, I mean, let's start with the National Security Team.
You're bailiwick, so Rubio, secretary of StateWaltz at NSA Radcliffe at CIA, your perspective
on the team he's put together.
McFarland (04:36):
I
SpePROFTaker 3 (04:36):
Think these are all Kelsey Gabbard,
McFarland (04:38):
Pete Hex at the defense. I think these are all just terrific appointments. First
of all, they're all smart, they'reknowledgeable, they're tough, they're
principled. I mean, they don't, you know, theydon't back down from a fight any of 'em. And not
only do they share Donald Trump's worldview and,and the national security sense, but I think
they also share his opinion that the federalgovernment has just gotten way out of control,
(05:00):
way out of control, particularly in, in there's,this is, there's no constitutional role for the
fourth arm of government. The, you know, theadministration is supposed to be, the executive
branch is supposed to run the executive branch,not the other way around. And I just keep going
back to, there was a statement that ColonelBinman made. He was an NSC staffer. When I was
(05:21):
the Deputy National Security Advisor, I tried toget him fired.
I found out you can't fire anybody ingovernment. But in the, in the impeachment
hearings when he was asked, well, why do youthink Donald Trump should be impeached? And
Vidman said, well, it's because Donald Trump didnot go along with the agreed interagency policy
towards Ukraine. Bingo. The light bulb went outin my head, these guys don't think the president
(05:47):
of the United States should be making thedecisions. They think they should be making the
decisions. They think presidents go, presidentsgo. But they're the guys in charge. And to me,
having been in government, having been out ofgovernment, having seen the abuses of the
federal government to average citizens, butcertainly to people of the opposite political
party, this has gotta stop. If you don't get ahandle on this, and Donald, as you point out,
(06:09):
Donald Trump probably has two, two years to doit. If you don't get a handle on this, then
forget it. These guys are in charge forever.
SpePROFTaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, it's interesting. That's a great aha moment. The idea that they think the
president is accountable to them rather thanvice versa. But I Now what about those
legitimate criticisms, you know, people thatwant Trump to succeed but are a little taken
aback, surprised by some of the appointments andquestion whether or not, for example, hegseth at
(06:36):
DOD or even TSI Gabbard at DNI might be out overtheir skis. Why, why not bring somebody that is
similarly loyal, similarly disposed, but hassome time in the State Department of the
Pentagon?
McFarland (06:49):
But they're not. I mean, when pe, when Pete, Pete, who is a good friend of mine,
and I've known him since he, you know, wasbasically got outta college when Pete was
appointed, there was a def defense, a leadingdefense lobbyist, said, who the heck is this
guy? I've never heard of him. And I thoughtanother light bulb moment. And I said, yeah, you
know why? Because you haven't bought him. Hedoesn't, you don't own him. He's an independent
(07:12):
guy. He's gonna work for President Trump. Look,I think these are the only people who can do it.
If you start getting people from in the thinktank world or who are, you know, been in and out
of government over the decades, you know,republic, even Republicans, they're not gonna be
loyal to this new vision, this populous visionof taking power out of the hands of all these
(07:32):
federal agencies that you never hear of, butseem to control everybody's lives, who don't do
audits, who just spend like mad take over allthe, of the functions that they're supposed to
be in the executive and legislative branch, thissilent, you know, deep state if you wanna call
it that.
The thing is, it's not so deep. It's rightplain, front and setter. They're not trying to
(07:53):
hide anything. They just think they should be incharge. And unless you have somebody with Donald
Trump's, I don't know, tenacity, strength, youknow, sharp elbows, these guys are gonna find a
way to, in every single case, smother thisnational mandate that has been delivered by the
American people.
SpePROFTaker 3 (08:13):
Well, in those, those establishment bulwarks, I mean of course our,
our living in glass houses, I mean all thiscriticism of HEGs and he's never run a, a big
agency like this. I mean there's, you know,nobody's ever been able to really get their
hands around the Pentagon, especially in itsmoderate iteration. But I mean, this is against
the backdrop of the news out just the other daythat the Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a
(08:39):
row. So I mean, the idea that Hsif is notprepared for this, it doesn't seem like
anybody's prepared for this. And it speaks tosort of going back to the Doge boys, the need to
sort of rethink what's going on under the roofat the Pentagon and everywhere else in
government.
McFarland (08:55):
Yeah, it's not, government's no longer being run by common sense. I mean, I've
been in the government in and out of thegovernment since the 1970s. And for example, in
the Pentagon, there was, in the Reaganadministration, Peter Grace leading Wall Street
guy did a grace commission, kind of similar tothe Doge, you know, Elon Musk look at government
and he had all these great recommendations. Noneof them were followed because, you know, the
(09:16):
bureaucracy doesn't wanna follow 'em. And whenyou get to the point where we now are where
they, the, the people in the bureaucracy, theycan leak selectively to their friends in the
Democrat media. They can slow walk anyrecommendations from a president. They can
really do whatever they want. It's, it's gonebeyond the point of, of, of takeover go by
(09:39):
government. And even in the Pentagon, you know,the Pentagon hasn't had a full top to bottom
audit probably since before you were born, Dan.
And the reason they don't do it is every timethey try and congress legislate it, a president
will ask for it. But you know, it gets kind ofput on the back burner and the guys at the
Pentagon say, well, you know, it's really hardbecause we have really old systems of
(10:03):
communication and the army system doesn't talkto the healthcare system and then, and the Navy,
I mean it's just, they always come up with anexcuse. It's usually a technical excuse, but
they never do what they're supposed to do. Wedon't know how much money is in there sort of
sloshing around. We don't know how much of it islost. We don't know how much of it's going to
corruption. We don't know how much of it is evengoing to the defense contractors. So I would
(10:26):
start, I sure hope Elon Musk and DOJ and Vivestart with the Pentagon. That's the biggest,
hardest nut to crack. Once you do that, all theothers fall into place.
SpePROFTaker 3 (10:36):
By the way, just for the record, you mentioned you were in and outta government
since the 1970s. KT started in government at theage of 12. So that's explains the,
McFarland (10:46):
Actually man I was 18, so Okay. It was the Nixon administration.
SpePROFTaker 3 (10:52):
So I wanted to get your perspective on Tulsi Gabber though too, because,
you know, this is a pick from, you know, on theother, from the other side of the aisle, at
least until recently. But again, somebody thatwas very curiously targeted by the intelligence
community, the, the Open Skies program where shewas on essentially a watch list because, well,
(11:14):
because of her views on international affairs,it would seem, and, and you know, what we know
about Gabbard from her time in Congress and howaligned you think she is with, you know, more of
a paleo con perspective on the world that Ithink you have. And I, and I certainly have too.
McFarland (11:32):
Okay, so we asked, so I'm on the board of cpac, which is this national
organization, it's like the mothershiporganization for all the other conservative
organizations in the country. And we have a bigevent every February 10,000 people come from all
over the, all over the world. And we asked Tulsito speak a couple of years ago and it was a
pretty, wow are we having a Democrat come to themost conservative Republican conference and
(11:56):
she's gonna speak. And she came and she gave aspirited argument in favor of a limited
government and talked about the constitution andhow the federal bureaucracy had grown way beyond
the, the anything that any of the foundingfathers or even even FDR had thought that they
should be. And I, at that point, and I've gottento know her pretty well since she is principal,
(12:20):
she has a lot of common sense.
And I don't think she cares what the label is,Republican or Democrat. She and President Trumps
see eye to eye. And the irony of someone likeTulsi Gabbard who is a lieutenant colonel in the
Army Reserves, who was a, a stellar combatrecord. Somebody who was a member of Congress
and somehow some faceless, nameless governmentbureaucrat decided to put her on a watch list.
(12:45):
So when she tried to travel abroad, it madealmost, it made it almost impossible for her to
ever catch her plane because they had to gothrough many, many more checkpoints than they
should. And we would never have known about thatunless it was for a whistleblower who I believe
is now being punished by that agency. So youneed somebody like Tulsi ga. And I love the way,
Dan, that you framed this as we went into itsaying, you know, the hunted have now become the
(13:08):
hunters and that's why only those people canwork. You can't get same old, same old because
if you get same old, same old kind of people,you're gonna have same old, same old policies
SpePROFTaker 3 (13:19):
And the same old, same old is coming from the left now. So Trump and everybody
in term one were Russian assets. And thatallowed the Russian collusion hoax to go on for
two plus years. Adam Schiff's still sticking toit. And now you have people like Debbie
Wasserman Schultz calling Tulsi Gabbard, aperson whose record you described, somebody who
(13:39):
served our country honorably. She's a Russianasset now too.
McFarland (13:44):
You know, when they don't, when the Democrats kinda run out of arguments, which they
run out of pretty clearly and pretty quickly'cause everything they've done has been a
disaster in the last several years. What do theydo? Well they usually say it's a sexist, can't
do that against a woman. So they can't workthere. Usually it's a racist. Well Chelsea
Gabbard is a mixed race, so you can't call her aracist. Well what are you gonna, what's left to
(14:05):
call her? Oh I know, we'll call her a Russianagent. You know, it just makes no sense. It
didn't make any sense. First time around doesn'tmake any sense now. And then you have to look at
the people doing the name calling and saying,really, is that the best you can do? Do you have
to go there? Why don't you tell, why don't youmake a good argument for why your policies
should work? Why do you have to just go right tocharacter assassination and name calling? It
(14:28):
makes me think that maybe they don't haveanything they can brag about if they're on
record
SpePROFTaker 3 (14:33):
And, and they just like character assassination, I mean that just have
an affinity for it. Maybe that could be part ofit too. You know, I wonder, since you were, as I
mentioned, first Deputy NSA Trump 1.0, what, youknow, everybody's talking about what he's
learned 1.0 to 2.0 as somebody who's on theinside your perspective as you, you see this
team taking shape, the difference between Trumpin 2017 versus Trump in 2024, soon to be 25.
McFarland (14:59):
Okay, so I was on the transition team at Trump 1.0 and we were starting from scratch
because a lot of establishment Republicans andnever, Trumpers didn't wanna work for Trump and
frankly Trump didn't want them. 'cause those arethe people that, all the losing policies. So we
were kind of starting from scratch and DonaldTrump wasn't a creature of Washington. I don't
think he'd ever even spent, he'd ever, I don'tthink he'd ever even stayed overnight in
(15:20):
Washington before he moved into the White House.So it was starting from zero. And I think he
trusted the recommendations of people to apoint, this person, that person, it turned out
this person or that person didn't wanna work forTrump. They wanted to work for themselves and
they thought they were smarter than Trump. Andthat Trump didn't know enough. And so that's why
it was all this stern and drawn this timearound.
(15:42):
And I was just, I just returned actually fromMar-a-Lago. I was there during the weekend. I
saw the president saw almost all the seniorcabinet picks, all the national security team.
And they know what their job is, they know whatthe job is, they know what the mission is, they
know who's the boss. They don't think they'resmarter than the boss. They're not gonna fight
the boss. What they wanna do is work with theboss, Donald Trump to reform the government. And
(16:07):
it was really exhilarating because these peopleare not fools. They know that they're gonna get
beaten up and sabotaged and torn through. Imean, as Steve Bannon said, this is like every
day is gonna be stalingrad during World War IIwith Hitler at the gates. They know it's gonna
be really, really tough. But they also know thatif not now when, 'cause if you don't do it now,
(16:29):
you'll never be able, you'll never catch thattrain.
SpePROFTaker 3 (16:32):
You know, the, just the accountability piece. I know that the left is
referring to it as vengeance, but, but you know,accountability and vengeance are not synonyms
despite what they think. The accountabilitypiece. I mean, and thinking about Gabbard to
some extent, gates definitely Jay Bachar, if heis indeed named NIH as I mentioned at the
(16:53):
outset, these are people targeted by agenciesthat now Trump wants to put on top of those
agencies, which I think is really a nice messageto send. But you were somebody who was targeted
in the first administration among many as partof the Russian collusion conspiracy that the
left fomented and perpetuated for years as weknow. And I just wonder like what your
(17:15):
perspective on accountability and the necessityof it, that there has to be some reckoning in
order to send a message that there is going tobe a paradigm shift and people will be held
accountable professionally and perhaps legallyfor what they do under the color of law.
McFarland (17:33):
You know, I think, and I think you're right to distinguish like what is revenge and
what is accountability? 'cause they're two verydifferent things. Trump's not a revenge guy in
the first transition when everybody around himsaid, let's let's prosecute Hillary for
whatever. And he said, ah, leave her alone.She's, you know, she'll never be president. She
spent her whole life wanting to be president.Just leave her alone. Let's do our thing this
time around, there's gotta be someaccountability. And I don't think that the
(17:57):
people, certainly the people like Tulsi Gabbard,Rick Grinnell, if he has a position defense, all
these different people that they're appointed,they don't want vengeance. They just wanna fix
it. And so for example, one of the first placesto start, there were 51 former CIA agents
intelligence who signed a letter saying thatthat Hunter Biden laptop was Russian
(18:19):
disinformation.
Now that was election interference, it wascoordinated by the CIA at the time by active
duty CIA people with former people. And theythrew the election, they know they, it was right
before the f the last debate, many people havesaid, well, if we thought that Hunter Biden
laptop was real, we might not have voted for JoeBiden. And so that was election interference.
(18:42):
But those people have never been held toaccount, they've never had to testify, they've
never had their, they still have securityclearances, they're still making money as
defense consultants when in fact they theyreally don't deserve it. What did they do for
this country? They tried to, they tried to electtheir own guys president. That's, that's
accountability. And that's taking those 51people who think they're, they're not, they're
(19:06):
untouchable taking those 51 people and callingthem to account, find out who in the CIA was
coordinating the former officials who was doingthe election interference on American elections.
Hold those people to account
SpePROFTaker 3 (19:20):
Because if you don't, then you're sending a message that to the, to the
establishment, to the IC community, to the, theadministrative state that we can wait him out.
There may be a lot of tough talk, there might besome finger wagging, but he is not gonna make
really an example of anybody. And so we'll justcontinue the way we've always operated and we
(19:40):
can wait 'em out. I mean, you, you, you have to,I mean, I don't wanna get too Machiavellian, but
literally thinking about Machi, Machiavelli, Imean you have to bring overwhelming
accountability to people who have engaged in badfaith and bad actions to send a message that you
never wanna do this again. And that's the onlyway, it seems to me you reestablish the balance
(20:02):
of power between the government and the citizen.
McFarland (20:06):
And, and the other thing is you wanna do it with complete transparency. Yeah. The way
these, the way the deep state works is thatthey, they do it in the shadows. They the Russia
gate for example. And if you think, if you'repart of the intelligence community, what
happened during the first Trump term? Well itwas the FBI accused Trump of all sorts of
crimes, had the Mueller investigation, launchedthe impeachment, and yet nobody was ever held
(20:28):
accountable. And then if you fast forward to2020, well these CIA was involved that time and
there was a CIA senior officials who've ininterfered with an influenced an election, they
were never held accountable. So unless somebodyholds those people accountable, and they're big,
they're big names, they're people that you knowwell, all their household names until they're
(20:48):
held accountable and have to say what they didand why they did it, and then take the
consequences of their action, guess what? It'sgonna keep happening time and time again because
they don't wanna lose power and they'll doanything to, to stay in power, including clearly
election interference.
SpePROFTaker 3 (21:07):
Well, that transparency point is such a critical one because the other thing you
do, and it seems to me when with respect tochange in the culture is we're not going to
tolerate the FBI director coming before Congressfor years after the fact. Like for example, in
the case of J six and telling us, I don't knowif there were FBI assets on the mall on January
(21:29):
6th, if there were, I don't know how many, it'san ongoing investigation. There are ongoing, the
ongoing investigation cover story to never levelwith the American people about anything that
happened or is happening. It seems to me likethat's another piece of the accountability. It's
a professional piece that cha but it it's justas important to change the culture.
McFarland (21:47):
Yeah. So here's how they, they get out of having to testify is they launch an
investigation, even a fake investigation. Sothen every time C-C-I-A-F-B-R, whoever they are,
ask well, a direct question. Oh no, no, can'tnot, not at liberty to talk about it because
it's an ongoing investigation. What I wouldsuggest, and this is just me talking, but I've
certainly suggested it to some of the peoplearound President Trump just declassify it all.
(22:10):
Yeah. Just, you know, the problem withgovernment, the government people, they, they
don't have the fortitude to do anything on theirown. There. There's gonna be a huge paper trail
of who gave me permission to do this, who gaveme permission to do that. And in the past, I
mean, I asked John Radcliffe once you were DNI,why didn't you declassify all that stuff about
Russiagate? And he said, well, you know, theytell you their sources and methods and if you
(22:32):
declassify it or you release it to the public,people are gonna get hurt, people are gonna die.
And I, I've said, look, I've been, I've been atthis game for 50 years. That's always the excuse
they give you when they don't wanna, when theyknow they've screwed up and they don't want you
to see what they've done. I think just open upsunlight is the best disinfectant if we find out
what all those people were doing because werelease what they were saying at the time, let
(22:54):
'em take the consequences. And then, as you say,never again, is the deep state gonna have the
nerve to do it because they know they won't getaway with it next time.
SpePROFTaker 3 (23:04):
Well, and, and the whole sources and methods and people in the field, okay, I'll
tell you what, we're gonna pull whoever youthink is vulnerable out of the field, bring 'em
in house right now, release everything and soeverybody's protected and we get the truth
right?
McFarland (23:17):
Yep. Sunlight is always sunlight, best disinfectant.
SpePROFTaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah. Brandeis was right. The other ideas that you have or maybe suggestions
you've offered, just thinking about theintelligence since you, you know, you mentioned
you've been a part of this for so long, what yousee in terms of angles and opportunities that
may inform what some of Trump's secretaries do
McFarland (23:42):
You mean the opportunities for government reform or for policies? Yeah,
SpePROFTaker 3 (23:46):
For go for government reform specifically. So the inside cultures.
McFarland (23:51):
Okay. So, you know, the threat of budgets makes the whole difference, right? And
Elon and Vivek, I saw Vivek over the weekend andthey're talking about they're gonna,
government's way too big. Too many people, toomany pension plans, too many gold-plated
salaries and all those people just keep spendingyour money. They're printing your money and
spending your money. But what about if youreduce, what does Elon Musk say? He thinks she
(24:13):
can reduce government workers by 25%. What's agood first start? And in addition to that, then,
then once you get rid of those people, then youcan start cutting those programs because every
one of those people has some crazy program.Whether it's, you know, what was the latest one
about whether vodka helps fish do somethingstrange and make some more aggressive in the
(24:36):
water. Yeah. I mean, just crazy stuff we'respending American taxpayers money on. But once
you start going after the people who areproposing this stuff, it's much easier to cut
the budgets. So if you start cutting the budget,then everybody's gonna get a lot more nervous
about, yikes, again, I can't get away with itanymore. I guess I better show what I'm really
doing and it better be something that canwithstand scrutiny,
SpePROFTaker 3 (24:56):
Right? I mean, it's one, it it's a, it's, it's an an important dot connector here
because people look at it and say, well, federalgovernment salaries only account for about $110
billion of spending in a $6 trillion spend lastyear. But, but you start to connect the
personnel to the programs and you eliminate thepersonnel so you can eliminate the programs and
you get that multiplier effect, right?
McFarland (25:18):
Yeah. I mean, but they talked about that this weekend when someone asked him, well
you're talking about furloughing or, or retiringse civil servant and you're gonna give them two
years of pay if they quit, if you can get rid ofhim and that's terrible. They should only have
two weeks notice of severance pay. And he said,he made your point. He said, well, it's
(25:39):
annoying. And as it is that you're paying thesalaries of these people who aren't doing
anything to help you, the money that theycontrol is so much bigger than their salaries.
Yeah. So you, you gotta get both of 'em. You'vegotta get the individuals and you've gotta go
after the programs
SpePROFTaker 3 (25:53):
And you have to get some weak need Republicans in the House and Senate to go
along with all this as well, because everybodyhas their idiot nephew in a particular agency
and their pet programs that they wanna bringpork home. And so that's, that's another layer
of complication, which I'm sure Musk and andVivek are going to have to navigate.
McFarland (26:11):
Look, Musk went into Twitter and he cut it by, he goes in and says to half the
people, what are you doing here? What's yourjob? I don't get it. And he cut the workforce by
75% and it made it a better product and now he'smade money on it. So he knows how to do this.
And I think that especially fave and, andparticularly Elon Musk, they, they're original
(26:32):
thinkers. Like they go back to the beginning,what's our purpose here? What's our function?
They don't just look at, well, we've always doneit this way, we should always do it this way
again. But, and whether it was with Twitter,whether it was with Tesla, with cars, whether it
was with the SpaceX, Elon Musk has shown, hegoes back to the basics and said, just 'cause
we've done it this way, done doing it the waywe've always done it, it's not working.
(26:53):
Let's do some, let's rethink the mission and thefunction. So I think there's gonna be a, a huge
shake up coming, I mean, huge shake up. And it'snot just going to be the little bit nibbling
around the edges. I think that they're lookingat eliminating whole agencies or taking out,
maybe taking something like, and again, this isme talking, not the president, but taking
(27:14):
something like the, like the intelligencecommunity. They're 18 different agencies. What
are they all doing? Why do we need them all? Orif you look at the fbi, I, what is the FBI's
job? Well it seems to be going after Catholicsuburban housewives who go to school board
meetings. Aren't they really supposed to belooking for criminals? Aren't they supposed to
be looking for, you know, pedophiles or childmolesters? Why are they doing that? So maybe you
(27:37):
take the FBI and chop it up to a bunch ofdifferent parts and send it back to the
appropriate agency. If it's, if it's an agencythat's dealing with crime, financial crimes, it
shouldn't be in the FBI, it should probablyshould be over in treasury. If you're dealing
with somebody who's doing commerce stuff wherethey're cheating about exporting things, does
that really belong at the FBI? Maybe thatbelongs at commerce. So these kinds of
(28:00):
fundamental rethinks, I, you know, these are theguys who are very comfortable doing that. So go
for it.
SpePROFTaker 3 (28:07):
I wanted to get your take on a couple of active theaters here, because part of
the Trump promise is essentially to get us outof foreign entanglements. If I can borrow from
sliced alone, channeling George Washington andso Eastern Europe. And the interesting, the
signals that we're already getting from bothZelensky and Putin with the prospect of, of
(28:31):
Trump's inauguration, Zelensky seeming, seemingto indicate that he's willing to negotiate as he
suggested that he thinks Trump has the, thepromise to bring an end to the hostilities.
McFarland (28:47):
Yeah. You know, the terrible thing about the Biden administration, they would not
let Zelensky negotiate. They wanted to keepfighting because their attitude was, well, we
have to punish Russia, and Russia should not berewarded for invading a country. Okay? Right.
But then how do you stop it? What, I mean,what's your plan? What's your practical common
sense plan here? And the, and the, you know, theDemocrats, whether it was the Obama, Obama
(29:09):
people or the Biden people, they, well, we'llgive 'em, we'll give 'em a little bit more
weapons or we'll do a little bit more, a littlebit more. But Ukraine's never gonna win a war of
attrition. Not with Russia. Not with Russia,which is rich with oil revenues thanks to the
Biden energy policy. Russia's flush with cash.So how do you figure this one out? And if an
administration like Donald Trump, I mean, hesaid, so the thing I love about Donald Trump is
(29:32):
he's pretty straightforward.
So he says, here's what we're gonna do on dayone. We're gonna drill a baby drill. We're gonna
become not just energy independent again, butwe're gonna become energy dominant, which means
the US has the energy capabilities and resourcesto power the world with our own oil and natural
gas for hundreds of years. Cheaper, safer,cleaner, faster than anybody else. So if we
(29:54):
unleash that ability, what does that do to theglobal market? Well, it pushes the price of oil
and gas down. And what does that do at bas Iranand bankrupts Russia has to bring them to the
negotiating table because they can't fight. Youknow, these guys may wanna fight forever, Russia
and Iran, but if they don't have the money to doit, they can't do it. So Trump understands the
economic weapon, hit 'em where it hurts, takeaway their ability to fight or to pay for wars.
(30:20):
And then he says, and but he also is gonna like,get on the phone. This will be a long day, one
day, and he is gonna get on the food and say,you go to the negotiating table, or I'm giving
you crane everything to, to just blow you toSmither marines. And then he is gonna say to
Zelensky, you go to the negotiator and you gonegotiator, I'm not gonna give you a darn thing.
And so then he is gonna force a negotiation. Andthen they, the terms of it, well that's up to
(30:40):
them, but you gotta get 'em to the table. AndBiden's people have refused, even when Zelensky
has asked, could we please go to the table? Theysaid, no, no, no, you keep fighting, keep
fighting.
SpePROFTaker 3 (30:51):
And the other, the piece of this too, I mean, you saw the signal from the EU
right after Trump's election from, from the,the, the president of the EU saying, you know,
maybe we should buy a little bit less of ourliquified financial gas from Russia and a little
bit more from the United States. So now, youknow, energy, independent energy exporter taking
ex taking markets away from Russia too. I mean,so Putin clearly sees those signals as well in
(31:17):
terms of what you're talking about, reducing hiscapacity to, to prosecute wars,
McFarland (31:23):
You know, I mean the, the foresight of Donald Trump and he gets, they're
intuitively, he doesn't like read foreignaffairs magazines all day long, like you and I
probably do. But he understood that theEuropeans, especially Germany, would become so
dependent on Russia and subject to blackmailfrom Russia if they, if they bought all their
oil and natural gas from Russia. So he, hewarned them, you know, eight years ago, don't
(31:45):
buy that stuff. Don't do buy American stuff, butwhatever you do, don't, don't get yourself in a
position where Russia can blackmail you onenergy. And they didn't listen. They said, no,
no, no, we're much smarter than you are. We knowit's all gonna be good. Russia would never use
the economic weapon to blackmail us. 'cause theyneed our, they need our money. And of course,
Trump was right. And so now the Europeans aregonna walk that back and, and great, you know,
(32:08):
so glad we're getting there because Americanliquified natural gas, again, cheaper, safer,
cleaner, Europe should no strings attached andEurope should just buy from us. Everybody should
buy from us.
SpePROFTaker 3 (32:19):
And in the Middle East, you know, obviously he has been supportive of, of
Israel's prosecution of the war on terror there.And he has a good relationship with Netanyahu,
which distinguishes himself from the currentadministration again. But how should we conceive
the, the administration's approach to the MiddleEast now? Is this to sort of restart the, a
(32:41):
Abraham Accords angle of trying to build betterrelationships between moderate or moderating
Arab countries and Israel? Is it to just backIsrael's play against Iran? Is it to do a
combination of the two? What what's the, what doyou think the thinking is there?
McFarland (33:01):
Well, I think President Trump's brings back the maximum pressure campaign, which
is one of the things I helped organize againstIran and against North Korea. And that's, you
bring all sorts of pressures to bear economic,military, diplomatic, et cetera. But what
President Trump has said is to say, he said toIsrael, finish the job, just do it quickly, but
finish it. And then what he also said to Iran inthe closing days of Trump 1.0 is that we knew
(33:28):
that Iran was on the ropes. You know, Trump hadput, when Trump walked into office on day one in
2017, oil was at $120 a barrel. That was Obama'soil price. Trump leaves office. And because he
had encouraged the US energy industry, it was$40 a barrel. So for countries like Iran and
Russia, which rely on us exclusively on the saleof that oil and natural gas, they were broke.
(33:53):
When President Trump at the end of the Trumpadministration, we knew that the Iranians were
having real trouble feeding their people. And wecould see that the Hezbollah, Hamas, and maybe
not the Houthis, 'cause they weren't really inthe mix at that point. They were complaining to
say, wait, you guys have been paying for us fora long time. Where's our money? And Iran didn't
(34:13):
have the money to pay them. I thought Iran wasvery close to the point where they'd either need
to do a deal on America's terms. If not, thenthey would face domestic unrest against them.
But fast forward, so Biden comes in undoesTrump's energy policy. Sure enough, oil goes
from 40 back to a hundred dollars a barrel. It'sa little bit less than that now. And what did
that money do? It gave a windfall to Iran. Andthat's the money Iran has used to make war
(34:38):
against Israel. So take that money away. Israelhas done us all an enormous favor by hurting
and, and really degrading Hezbollah and Hamas.And let's just see a new Middle East. Let's
reinvigorate those Abraham Accords and, and putIran in a box where it either has to accommodate
peace and if not a bankrupt Iran, those mullahsare gonna have a very angry and rested
(35:04):
population that may decide to have anotherIranian revolution.
SpePROFTaker 3 (35:07):
And so if Trump is able to diminish the capacities of both Russia and Iran,
what does China do? Does China prop them up ordoes China leave them behind?
McFarland (35:17):
Big question. What China may wanna do, and I'm not gonna sort of second guess
China, but they could sort of go in twodirections. One, they could say to the Russians,
let's buy, we're gonna take all of EasternSiberian oil fields. We need, we need to import
energy. I mean, China's one of the most energyneedy countries in the world and they don't have
oil, they don't have natural gas, they havedirty coal, and so they have to get it from
(35:38):
somebody. But if they're not being able to getit from Russia or Iran, which is where they get
it from now, because we'll, we'll reimpose andenforce those sanctions then Russia has, I mean
China has a a choice. Are they gonna maybesomehow annex part of Russia and take the oil
that way, or are they gonna buy from us? Now ifChina wants a good economic relationship with
the United States, which they've come out in thelast three days and said, well, maybe they
(36:03):
should buy our energy because the other thingabout the Chinese relationship with the US is
that, and again, Donald Trump, 'cause he's not athink tank guy, he's not a business as usual
Washington guy.
He understood one fundamental fact that nopolitician had understood China needs to sell
stuff to us more than we need to buy cheap stufffrom them. We can buy cheap stuff from a lot of
(36:26):
different places. China has to sell stuff to us.So that gives us enormous leverage in any trade
agreement or any kind of relationship betweenthe United States and China.
SpePROFTaker 3 (36:37):
Last one, the border, of course, the prospect of using military as part of the
effort to do, you know, mass deportation is theword that's used, but it's really surgical,
deportation by category. That's the way TomHolman has laid it out. And you know, some of
the tools that Trump used the last go aroundincluded sort of using foreign aid as a leverage
(37:00):
point for central for Mexico and central andsouthern American countries to not be pushing
their people to our southern border. And, and,and now that runs maybe a little bit into the
Doge boys who want to reduce this, the spend,but you know, what your, what is your assessment
of that board of security team starting with,you know, no, and obviously Tom Holman is
(37:24):
Central and Steven Miller and the, the, theapproach, if it's gonna be any different this
time around than it was the first go aroundwhere Trump was, you know, was and did make
significant progress in border security.
McFarland (37:40):
Well, there's the problem obviously is much worse because now we have, who knows how
many millions of illegals in this countrythey've gotta go. So that'll be a law
enforcement issue of how do you, how do you findthose people and how do you send them back? And,
and who do you start with? And you know, I thinkit's a no brainer to start with the people who
are convicted criminals as President Trumppoints out, a lot of those people are hardcore,
(38:02):
convicted rapist, murders, et cetera. Get rid ofthem first. But the other part of the problem is
to prevent more from coming in. Now thatinvolves foreign policy and our relationship
with Mexico now, the Mexican government, the newMexican government has said, no, we're not gonna
cooperate. No, we're not going to. And yet whatPresident Trump did to get the Mexican
(38:24):
government to cooperate in 2017 was then thepresident said, I'm no, no, no, we're not gonna
cooperate.
We're just gonna send them through from CentralAmerica through Mexico and on into the United
States. And President Trump said, no, you'renot. And he said, no, no, we are. And then what
did he do? He slapped a 25% tariff on allMexican goods coming into the United States.
(38:46):
That phone ranked so fast of the Mexicanpresident saying, Mr. Trump, Mr. President, we
have reconsidered. We wanna help you seal thatborder. And I think he does it again, because
again, Trump understands the trade weapon andthe economic weapon more than think tank
Washington guys just 'cause he is a businessman.
SpePROFTaker 3 (39:05):
And you know, the other side, I mean, it's been proposed. I wonder what your
thought is too, the, the, the remittances frompeople in this country illegally back to family,
friends, whatever in their home countries. Youcould tax that as well. Transaction tax and, and
you know, encourage some self deportation too.
McFarland (39:23):
There are many ways to, to peel this onion. And I, I have full confidence, especially
at, when you look at the team that PresidentTrump has put together, especially somebody like
Tom Holman, man, that guy has been, you know,screaming until he is horse in the throat and
people won't listen to him. And for years he'sbeen making the case and nobody has paid him
(39:44):
attention except for Donald Trump. And now tohave that guy in charge of the border, I'm
sleeping easier at night.
SpePROFTaker 3 (39:51):
Well, and the whole thing in Holman is representative of this. It seems that
this sort of replete throughout the team is, youknow, they're all pretty good communicators and
Holman is a little bit gruff. He's not, youknow, the polished kind of windblown guy, but
he's so knowledgeable on the topic and hi, his,his distillation of the border has is as good as
(40:11):
anybody's talking about, you know, look, thepeople that want to enforce the border, they're
the ones on the humanitarian mission. We'retrying to protect people on both sides of the,
of the border. Because when you don't, then bothsides, people on both sides of the border get
hurt or killed or grossly exploited. And, and Ithink, I mean that is the perfect way to
(40:31):
elucidate what they're doing and why they'redoing it and bring people along to going back to
what we were saying about transparency, and Ilike the idea that, you know, sort of across
these agencies, Trump is installing people thatare good at making the case good at, at
developing the argument so that you can bringAmerica along as you pursue these policies.
McFarland (40:53):
Yeah, I mean, and I would start with Trump himself obviously, but JD Vance for
example, he's thinking, he's thinking wayoutside the box when he was asked, well he have
to have these illegals in the country becausethey'll work for cheap wages that Americans
won't work for, so we need them. And he said,well, let's rethink that. Maybe if we paid those
people, those Americans, a little bit of abetter wage, instead of paying them not to work,
(41:16):
maybe we should pay them a little bit more for adecent wage and then they would work and then we
wouldn't need to import these, the, theillegals. So the case he was making is we're,
we're importing the illegals to do the cheaplabor that Americans don't wanna do. 'cause they
don't, they're not adequately compensated. Andso as a result, we're paying those people not to
work.
And again, and he makes a really good case verysimply. Matt Gates is a really terrific
(41:42):
communicator. He is tough as males obviously,but he's as smart as could be and he'll make
that case. I remember once being on with MariaBar Romo on Fox Business, and I don't even
remember what the issue was. And she walked intothe interview really critical of him, and he was
making, and then he said, no, let me make thecase. And boom, boom, boom, boom. He laid it out
at the end, Maria Bar Romo, who's knowsEconomic, the economic Wall Street world better
(42:05):
than anybody. She said, you know something, Ithink you've changed my mind. So he knows how to
negotiate and argue. They're all, every one of'em is articulate and every one of 'em is
fearless.
SpePROFTaker 3 (42:17):
All right. On that happy note, as we watch confirmation hearings, play
themselves out in the public arena for twomonths before the actual confirmation hearings,
KT McFarland, former first deputy NSA underTrump 1.0. Kt, thanks so much for joining us.
Again, appreciate your insights and your time.
McFarland (42:34):
It's always an honor and a pleasure and especially because you always have such a,
you elevate the conversation. We always have areally good, thoughtful, pro thought provoking
conversation. Thank you.
SpePROFTaker 3 (42:44):
Thank you so much. I I enjoy talking to you. It's great. Really, really
helpful. And for people to get an, anunderstanding of everything that's going on.
There's nobody better. So kt, thanks again.Appreciate
McFarland (42:55):
It. Thank you very much. Dan,
Please like this video and subscribe to thischannel if you haven't already. And please leave
a comment in the comment section. We'd love tohear your thoughts.
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