Ex-CIA Insider Breaks Silence: What He Revealed About America’s Fragile Future Will Leave You Stunned (And Furious

When career intelligence professionals break their silence to warn about threats to democracy, we should all pay attention. Steven A. Cash, Executive Director of The Steady State and former CIA operations officer, prosecutor, and senior congressional advisor, shares insights that will send chills down your spine.

Cash reveals how the intelligence community operates on a fundamental assumption rarely questioned until now: that leaders at all levels, including the president, agree America should be a constitutional democracy. That assumption is being shattered in ways that remind these professionals of authoritarian takeovers they've witnessed abroad.

Throughout our conversation, Cash explains why over 280 former national security officials from across the political spectrum have united to sound the alarm. "Most of our careers have been spent focusing on Trump equivalents in various countries overseas," he notes. "We've seen this play before, and we know how it ends."

The warnings are specific and concerning: politicization of intelligence, intimidation of officials, pardons that encourage violence, and the cultivation of paramilitary support. While these tactics mirror what Cash and his colleagues have observed in places like Hungary and Russia, America's guardrails weren't designed to withstand them.

Despite the gravity of these warnings, Cash offers perspective and resilience. He believes in American institutions and the integrity of those serving within them. The challenge lies in educating citizens about how their government operates and finding common ground beyond partisan divides to preserve what Cash calls "post-partisan" values of constitutional democracy.

This conversation is essential listening for anyone concerned about America's future. The steady professionals who've spent decades protecting our national security are speaking up – their message deserves our attention.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast.
I'm your host, jack Hopkins.
Today on the podcast, we arejoined by someone who has worked
at the highest levels ofAmerican national security.
On both sides of PennsylvaniaAvenue, stephen A Cash is the
executive director of the SteadyState, a nonprofit made up of

(00:21):
over 280 former senior nationalsecurity officials who are
fighting to protectconstitutional democracy and the
rule of law.
Over his career, stephen hasserved as a prosecutor, a CIA
operations officer, a senioradvisor at the Department of
Homeland Security and a seniorstaffer in both the House and

(00:43):
the Senate.
He helped shape some of themost important national security
laws after 9-11 and hascontinued that mission in both
government and the privatesector.
Today we're going to talk aboutthe state of American democracy,
how national securityprofessionals are stepping up
into the civic arena and what ittakes to defend the rule of law

(01:05):
in an age of disruption.
I've got to tell you this isthe most chilling podcast
episode I've ever done, so let'sget right into it with Stephen
Cash.
All right, stephen, welcome tothe show.
Happy to be here, jack, youknow, I think especially with
someone with the veryinteresting and kind of

(01:25):
interwoven background thatyou've got.
Before we dive into the steadystate, let's just talk a little
bit about your background, andI'll kind of let you start where
you want.
Your background is fascinating.
It was a pleasant read and I'msure that anybody listening is
going to enjoy it as well.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, I'm happy to tell you and it's been more than
a pleasant read, it's been apleasant life.
I'm a happy guy and I've beenvery, very lucky from the very
beginning.
I grew up right outside of NewYork my dad a lawyer, my mom a
teacher in the city universitysystem.
I thought I'd be a lawyer mywhole life.
I thought I'd be a lawyer mywhole life and that didn't
happen.
And let me shut off the phone,oh, that's quite all right.

(02:06):
But I started at the ManhattanDAs.
I went to law school at Yale.
I knew I wanted to be either aprosecutor or a defense attorney
.
I knew that from the get-go.
I wanted to be in courtTemperamentally.
I realized pretty quickly thatI was more of a pitcher than a
catcher and if you're aprosecutor you're the pitcher.
And I also felt that, like I'dworked as intern for a public

(02:27):
defender and you work reallyhard as a public defender to
make sure that an injustice isnot done and it seemed to me I
could accomplish much morejustice by being the prosecutor.
I just have to do justice.
And I ended up at the ManhattanDA's office under Robert
Morgenthau, a legendaryprosecutor.
It was perfect office for mebecause it was an office that

(02:48):
really emphasized do the rightthing Pretty much.
That was always the answer toalmost every question you can
ask and I loved it.
But at the time New York seemedto be falling apart.
I was burning out a little bit.
I'd been seven or so years as aprosecutor, ended up in the
Rackets Bureau, got married andwe're thinking like how are we
going to manage, like havingkids, and my wife and I put

(03:11):
together a list of the cities wewould want to live in and there
was only one city on both listsand it was Washington.
I applied my memory is Iapplied to almost every
government agency that had anoffice of general counsel.
In alphabetical order, thereused to be something called the
yellow book, you knowagriculture, blah, blah, blah,
sure.
All the way I got to the C'sCentral Intelligence Agency I

(03:31):
put in an application.
Next thing I know I'minterviewing down in Langley.
I had never, to my knowledge,met an intelligence officer.
I don't think I'd met amilitary officer in my whole
life.
Knew nothing about it.
Basically I'm not even a bigmovie watcher, so I guess I
watched James Bond.
They made me a job offer Toillustrate how ignorant I was

(03:53):
about the whole process.
They actually give you aconditional job offer which is
we're going to give you a job ifyou pass the polygraph.
I don't even know if I readthat paragraph I was like okay.
I got a job offer.
So I gave up my rent controldepartment and my job and then
took the polygraph which thankgoodness I passed.
But I had no idea and I showedup at the agency and I fell in

(04:14):
love with the place.
I wasn't sure what it was goingto be like.
I remember that first day youknow I'm a sort of slightly
lefty, maybe civil liberties guyand I remember telling my wife
I have no idea what's going tohappen today.
It may be terrible, in whichcase I'm going to resign before
I start and you will probablywant to strangle me and we'll
move back to New York.
But that's not what happened.

(04:34):
I really fell in love with theplace, intellectually
stimulating, really consistentwith the values that I brought
to the table.
It was very different from theManhattan DA's office and it's
just do the right thing, but itwas resonant with that.
And the one problem was I'd beena prosecutor and I didn't like
being a lawyer at the CentralIntelligence Agency all that

(04:56):
much.
It was a flexible time.
I told my boss that I was likethis is not for me and I didn't
know what to do.
And he said go talk to this guy.
He sends me down to thebasement.
Talk to this guy.
He sends me down to thebasement.
Talk to this guy.
It sounds like a movie.
And I talked to this guy, whoturned out to be a very senior
operations officer, who saidlisten to me.
He said you don't want to handout towels at the basketball
game?
I said yeah, that sort ofcaptures it.

(05:18):
He said I need you to talk tothis guy.
So I go talk to the second guywho is the chief of the
counterterrorism center,although I didn't know that when
I was walking into his officeuntil I saw the sign and we
talked for a half hour.
He basically says so, sunni orShia?
And I said what do you mean?
He says which one are you moreinterested in?
And I said well, actually Iknow a little bit about it Shia.
It's the most legalistic,probably part of a religion in

(05:40):
the world.
Part of a religion in the world, and I'm a lawyer at heart and
I find Shia Islam reallyinteresting the rule of the
juror consult and the like.
And next thing, I know I'mworking in the counterterrorism
center.
I burnt a few bridges with theOffice of General Counsel.
I didn't do a good job oftelling them what I was doing,
as I was finding myself in thedetail and you know, I sort of
ended up getting the training.

(06:01):
I am certified as a caseofficer.
I never served overseas.
I was at headquarters based.
I don't call myself a caseofficer.
I'm very close with many peoplewho I do consider real case
officers.
They've recruited peopleoverseas.
I didn't do that, really lovedthe agency, was there till 2001.
And then had a chance to go upto the Hill.
The Senate Select Committee onIntelligence was looking for

(06:22):
somebody to be the terrorismreferent that's the term they
use and the designee for SenatorDianne Feinstein of California.
If I knew nothing about CIAwhen I joined the CIA, I knew
even less about California whenI ended up as the designee to
the.
You know I'm from New York.
You know America ends at theHudson River.
I don't know anything aboutthis California thing, but she

(06:44):
turned out to be the hardest andperhaps the best boss I ever
had A brilliant, wonderful woman, really, really tough.
And I got up there right before9-11.
All hell broke loose, andpretty quick.
We were drafting the USAPatriot Act.
We were drafting the creationof the Director of National
Intelligence.
We were creating the Departmentof Homeland Security.
Wow, it was an amazing time tobe there.

(07:04):
It was a terrifying time.
One of the things I've done inrecent jobs is I give talks to
new people coming into the intelcommunity and it's sort of
striking the people now comingin.
You know we always ask so, whatdo you remember of 9-11?
And they're like I don'tremember anything.
I was one Really, and in factthis last group that came into
the Department of HomelandSecurity my last job a bunch of

(07:25):
them weren't born yet.
Yeah, wow, which is really hardto get my arms around because
part of me it feels likeyesterday.
Yes, I came out of the agency.
I worked in thecounterterrorism center.
We were scared, we were angry,we were, you know, there was an
element of guilt, guessingourselves.
Did we screw up?
Is this our fault?
I mean, it's a pretty solemnresponsibility.

(07:45):
So I was up on the Hill for anumber of years.
I ended up as chief counsel toSenator Feinstein.
I left, went into the privatesector, probably important from
a family point of view, but I'ma govey at heart, which is why
what's happening now is soprofoundly disturbing, and we'll
talk about that in a second.
I'll come back to myinvolvement with the steady
state.
But when Senator Biden won andI thought there'd be an

(08:06):
opportunity to go back in, I didand I came in to be senior
advisor to Ken Weinstein, who'sthe undersecretary for
intelligence at DHS A differentera Ken had been.
He's a mainstream Republican.
He was a Democratic senator'sstaffer.
I had worked with Ken when wecreated the DNI and we created
the, the Patriot Act, and wecreated DHS.

(08:28):
He worked for Bob Mueller.
He was his chief staff,opposite spectrum on the
political opposite ends of thepolitical spectrum.
But the chance to work for Kenjumped at that.
He's a true patriot, a greatAmerican, and I don't care if
he's a Republican, I'm an intelguy.
Sure, which leads me tothinking about the steady state.

(08:52):
Well, just quickly to round thatone out, I ended up going to
the Department of HomelandSecurity.
I was senior advisor toUndersecretary Weinstein and I
helped him run thecounterintelligence functions of
the department, helped him runthe counterintelligence
functions of the department aswell as what's called the
intelligence enterprise, whichis the intelligence parts of the
different components of thedepartment, such as customs or

(09:13):
ICE or Coast Guard and the like.
Frustrating DHS is a difficultplace to work, as a number of
people said to me.
You know, steve, it's not theCentral Intelligence Agency,
things don't work that way here.
But we had this election and Iresigned on the 20th and I made
public my resignation letter.
I went back in for that jobbecause I think helping create

(09:36):
an appropriate domesticintelligence function in a rule
of law democracy is the hardesttrick in the intel book.
It almost never works.
We are generally the bad guys.
I tell people that if you lookat the old videotapes or films,
I guess, of dictators takingpower, they're standing on a
balcony or yelling at the crowdpicturing Mussolini.
Behind the dictator are alwaystwo guys it's the chairman of

(09:59):
the Joint Chiefs of Staff ortheir equivalent, and it's the
domestic intel guy.
And the domestic intel guy putsdictators on the balcony, keeps
them on the balcony.
But we needed a domestic intelfunction in the face of a very
complicated world in whichoverseas threats are no longer
just overseas, and I wanted tobe a part of trying to do that

(10:19):
and I was grateful for theopportunity to come back in
Faced with a presidentialcandidate who was making it
absolutely clear, among otherthings, that he was planning on
using the tools of nationalsecurity, including domestic
national security and lawenforcement against his enemies.
I couldn't in good consciencedo that.
I couldn't sleep at night.
And you know, I know it doesn'treally fit with the movies In

(10:44):
the movies, the CIA guys sort oficy water.
You know, I know it doesn'treally fit with the movies and
the movies are CIA guys, sort oficy water.
You know, hard guys.
Sure, we don't care about rules,we don't care about laws, we
don't need no stinking badges,different movie reference, but
you get what I mean.
It's just not true.
Cia people, nsa people, fbipeople they really do care about
the rules.
They really do care about therules, they really do care about
the Constitution.

(11:04):
And I got to tell you, up untilI resigned I've been doing this
for almost 30 years.
I never lost a minute of sleepthinking we were doing something
that was wrong, that was notconsistent with our values as
Americans and with theConstitution, thought about it a
lot.
In fact, people inside talkabout that, like, what do I do?
What do I do?

(11:25):
When do I resign?
Well, I hit it when do I resign?
And I went into my boss.
I said I can't do this and heunderstood.
Let me stop there and see ifyou have questions for me.
But I'll come back and whatit's for.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
You were on a beautiful roll there, I didn't
want to stop you.
Would it be safe to say therewas no quote-unquote rule book
or playbook for a Donald Trumpto come along?

Speaker 2 (11:52):
That's a great statement, that is absolutely
safe to say, and I think youknow the structure of our
safeguards on the intelligenceand law enforcement community
have an underlying assumptionwhich we never, never really
questioned, which is that thepeople at the top, including the
president, agree that we shouldbe a rule of law,

(12:12):
constitutional democracy.
So we're really set up for theidea that, while we may have
disagreements within our bubbleof democracy, none of us are
questioning whether we shouldhave democracy, whether we
should have a constitution,whether people like me and my
colleagues, some of whom havesome pretty scary skills, should
abide by those rules Neverquestioned.

(12:33):
So we're not set up for it.
And it is.
You know, it's funny I'm goingto steal your quote there
because it's one of the reasonsthere is a steady state, because
up until now we were we meaningnational security veterans,
people who have spent theircareer don't want to get
involved in domestic politics,don't want to be.
You know, maybe we go off andteach, some of us go off and

(12:54):
play golf, but basically we'repretty confident that the system
will continue puttering along.
The CIA will do its thing, theFBI will do its thing, all
within a ecosystem in whicheverybody's sort of buying the
rules, and that doesn't existanymore.
I don't even remember when we Iwas at the agency when we
switched from Bush to Clinton,no, clinton to Bush.

(13:15):
It was like a non-event, likeyeah, there's a new president.
Okay, I do remember like Bushapparently had a different
schedule for his PDB briefing.
It was going to be eitherearlier or later.
Like the big issue was like,are we going to be able to
accommodate going down to thehouse at a different time?
We have to change all the carschedules.
Yeah, that was it.
So it was a little bit.
You know, you put you reallyput your finger on it and that's

(13:38):
one of the reasons the steadystate was created.
So it dates back to 2016.
It wasn't even called thesteady state.
There Trump gets elected and Iwas out.
A lot of people had been out,we'd aged out, but there was a
core group of people who hadworked together.
A lot of us had worked EasternEurope and the Balkans, and that
happened to be a period of timewhere the agency and the State

(13:59):
Department and NSA workedtogether really well.
I think it's a proud period ofAmerican history in terms of the
sort of how the apparatusworked and we were really
concerned and we decided to gettogether and offer our help.
And it was strange because,first of all, most of us never
even thought of doing this.
I mean, if we get involved inpolitics after we retire or
leave, it's sort of like we runfor school board.

(14:21):
I didn't even know what thepolitics of most of the people I
worked with at the agency.
I couldn't tell you what partythey were in.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
You don't talk about it at work that's fascinating to
me and I think it is probablyto most people.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, and it's just not discussed.
I think a lot of people backthen they also didn't vote
didn't even get registered.
I always, when I first joinedthe agency, I remember meeting a
really a legendary case officerwho, like he's this kind of guy
and he served in country X,country Y, and you ask him any
question about country X, hecould, like, give you the
intricate politics of the, theparliament would do this and

(14:55):
this person and that person, andthen we're talking and it was
like it was pretty clear he wasnot quite sure who his Senator
was.
Like I don't do that, I've beenliving overseas for 12 years
and I don't focus on this.
So we created the steady state.
We didn't even have a name yet.
We offered our services to thenew incoming administration,

(15:16):
first to Michael Flynn, whodidn't respond, then got fired,
and then to McMaster, who didn'trespond, and then we sort of
faltered a little bit becausepeople started hearing that
there were blacklists of peoplewho were not supporting the
president and our people werestill young enough so some of
them were thinking of going backin at some point.
Some wanted jobs and we hadsome who were old enough, that

(15:38):
had kids who were now working inthe national security community
and we sort of ran out of steamuntil the breaking of the
Ukraine scandal and that hitclose to home with a lot of our
people.
We worked all.
All of us had focused on thatarea of the world, many
specifically on those countriesand the outrageous behavior that
was becoming public essentiallyextorting a foreign leader for

(15:59):
political gain within ourdemocracy Right Just unheard of
and we sort of decided that wehad to pull up our big boy and
big girl pants and take somerisks and we went really public.
We created a website, weendorsed candidates, we spoke.
We were just coming in, so wedidn't do podcasts.
It was podcasts were weird andstrange, yeah, but we did.

(16:21):
It was COVID, middle of COVID,during the election.
So we did do a lot of sort ofpanel discussions, spoke at
schools, wrote op-eds and thelike, and then Biden wins.
What had gotten us to actuallycome out of our shells was the
concept that there was thisexistential threat to America
that, coming in the person ofDonald Trump, it was enough to

(16:44):
get us out of our safe space and, by the way, a safe space that
in general, is good for America.
You don't want people withtradecraft skills involved in
American domestic politics.
You want us to stay as far away.
We think about clandestinity.
We think about covert action.
We think about all the thingsthat the statute lets us do in

(17:06):
covert action, includinginvolvement in political doings
overseas.
You don't want us anywhere nearthat.
So this was hard for us to say.
This is bad enough that we'regoing to step out of the space
where we normally should be anddo some.
We're still nonpartisan the termthat I am increasingly using is

(17:26):
postpartisan because we're back, and we're back because the
existential threat has returnedworse than ever, more
significant, and because wethink we bring something
specific to the table.
First of all, we know whatwe're talking about, and we know
what we're talking about fromthe perspective of what budding
autocrats look like overseas.
Most of our careers have beenspent focusing on Trump

(17:48):
equivalents in various countriesoverseas.
So, as we like to say, we'veseen this play before and we
know how it ends Right, and thisis tracking exactly what we've
seen in places like Hungary andin Serbia, in Russia and so on
and so forth, and so that got usmotivated and we sort of came

(18:08):
back.
We were able to obtain some muchneeded resources, so we have
staff.
I'm the executive director now.
We have around 280 members.
I'd say a third of them areformer agency, a third of them
are former State Department,mostly former chiefs of station
and division chiefs and orambassadors and for your

(18:28):
listeners who don't know, theambassador leads our mission
overseas.
He's the president's personalrepresentative to a foreign
country, and ambassadors in thatworld is a big deal.
The country team includes the,if there's a CIA presence, the
chief of station in that country.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
So this is a 280 people with an immense amount of
knowledge and experience thatis relevant to this moment.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
It's straight on, relevant, and so we can bring to
bear that expertise in a coupleof very important ways.
One is that we can say from ourexperience that what we're
seeing here is not just politics.
This is what we've seen.
You should be scared, isbasically our message.
This is the big time, this isit.
The balloon is up.
Second, we can help educatebecause and this is look I'm

(19:18):
really happy to be here with you, jack, but I have an ulterior
motive.
People listen to you and theseare people who may not have
intricate knowledge of thenational security community and
the 18 elements of the IC andambassador and country team and
agent and officer, blah, blah,blah.
Well, they got to learn this.
This is the president, who is.
The only good thing he's donethat I can think of is he's

(19:41):
forcing America to go back toschool and learn about our own
country and learn how it works,and the media and, increasingly,
people like you.
You have an awesomeresponsibility here.
It's not the old days where theNew York Times and Washington
Post just printed a story.
Here's what happened in Germanyor in Italy.
You are the people who areresponsible for that last mile

(20:02):
of knowledge to get intopeople's heads so they
understand what's going on andcan be good citizens and,
hopefully, save us.
My hat's off to you.
There's a reason we're alldoing this and there's a reason
why this president is looking atyour industry too, and I'm
lumping you with all of thejournalists in the media.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but both you and I have to

(20:23):
worry about what we say on thispodcast, and we're both taking
risks, and if you'd asked meabout that five years ago, I
would have said are you crazy?
You can say anything you want,you know.
You know, call Joe Biden names,call him anything you want.
Nothing's going to happen toyou.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
But that's not where we are now, and if I may, if I
may interject there, I just wantto say that's something I'm
always very much aware of, and Ithink it's important for a
couple of reasons.
One, though, that I think maybesome people don't think about
the reason it's important for meto be mindful of that each day

(20:57):
is because I want to reinforcethe idea that, even though I'm
mindful of that and feel thatapprehension, it's important to
do our job anyway.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yep, yeah, look, you're saying it perfectly.
It's more than important to doour job.
It is our obligation ascitizens.
This is we're in very troubledwaters and they're going to get
rougher.
The risks are going to getworse, I think, and I'm hoping
enough people hold fast, right,and that's what we're looking
for here.
What we could do is we can helppeople with knowledge and help

(21:30):
people know that there arepeople out there who know
something, who care, and I thinkit's reassuring when you see,
it's certainly reassuring to me,because everybody must think am
I crazy?
Am I the only one who thinksthis is nuts?
What's going on, right?
And then when you see a bunchof people who are former

(21:52):
ambassadors, former flag-rankedofficers, former senior CIA,
people who disagree with youknow we don't agree on almost
anything in terms of domesticpolicy, I think you couldn't get
any consensus with us.
We're all saying the same thing.
It's reassuring, it gives you,it lets you hold fast, because
other people are holding fast.
So that's why this is important.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
So what are we now?
We're around 200, as I said,280 people, and we are using
social media to get the word out.
We're on Substack, we're onBlue Sky, we're on Twitter
unwillingly, because it's sounpleasant there.
We are reaching out to peoplelike you, and I hope this will
not be the only time that youreach out to us.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Not at all.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
And take a look at our list and tell me what you're
interested in.
Absolutely, we.
You know.
Just this morning we did aonline press conference in which
we had a former very senioragency person, we had the former
director of the NationalCounterterrorism Center, we had
a former ambassadorial rankState Department person, all

(22:50):
talking, and we had the formerchief of staff to the DCIA, all
talking about politicization ofintelligence, one of the
symptoms of the sickness we'reseeing, and one near again, near
and dear to our hearts and wecould speak to.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Do you think right now, as you look from the lens
that you, with your background,would look from at our current
intelligence services, do youthink that it's anything that
even resembles the structure andprotocol, ethics, moral
guidelines that you operate fromand I'm not so much asking from

(23:26):
the position of what Trumpwants, but just within the ranks
, how much of that do you thinkremains or does not?

Speaker 2 (23:34):
I'm ever the optimist .
I'll tell you what does remainand add a cautionary and then
talk about what I'm not as sure.
What does remain is thestructures.
Basically, the rules are stillthere.
The National Security Act of1947, still there.
Executive Order 1-2-3-3-3,still there.
The basic structure of the IC,the CIA.
Go on the website.

(23:55):
Not much has changed andthey've gotten rid of all the
DEI stuff.
I'll come back to that in asecond.
But the structure is there.
Why a cautionary tale?
One of the things we've seenwith autocrats overseas is they
keep those structures.
The words, the laws, theterminology of the state stays
the same One.

(24:15):
It ends in an element ofsurrealness.
So you have this civil rightsdivision at the Department of
Justice.
It's going to keep that name,except, as far as I can tell,
it's not really doing civilrights anymore.
So it's a sort of Orwelliandoublespeak.
Keep the structure.
The optimistic part of that isthat something for people who
are hanging on for dear life canhang on to.

(24:36):
And so again, ever the optimistthere.
You know I hate to use thisword, but if there is a deep
state, the deep state, and Iprefer to call it the steady
state, obviously.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Deep state is there because it's people who share
the basic democratic values anddon't care who the president is
and if the people in the agencyand in the rest of the community
or anything like the people Iwork with when I was there or
did oversight of when I was upon the Hill, we got this
president's going to have areally hard time in destroying
it and destroying those ethicsand that approach.
That said, he's moving quickly.

(25:10):
He's done a lot of damage.
He is very, very dangerous.
One of the things we talkedabout this morning at the press
conference was, you know, sortof what's the implications of
the way we are seeingpoliticization here?
In my view, we haven't seenbefore.
Yeah, people complain.
Did Dick Cheney yell at peopleto try to come to his view of
Iraq and Al-Qaeda?
Yeah, but you know, suck it upuntil analysts get yelled at a

(25:33):
lot.
Right, it's part of the game.
You know, maybe he went overthe line.
This is different.
They fired people and you knowyou have to imagine how that
plays out and I admit I'm lucky.
We started off by me saying howlucky I am in my career.
I'm lucky.
We started off by me saying howlucky I am in my career.
I'm okay.
I don't have to have a job, Idon't have little kids or a
mortgage.

(25:53):
I'm not a 32-year-old analystwho's terrified of getting fired
or getting fired publicly andthen having the proud boys look
up their house.
It's a lot easier for me.
I get it and that is going tohave profound effects that are
going to take years to fix.
When I'm hearing people areafraid who can you talk to?

(26:16):
Can I trust the person in theoffice next to me or in the
cubicle next to me?
Can I talk to my boss?
You know, the first thing theytell you it's not unusual to.
The agency is like if you'reworried that something is off
the rails, hitting the guardrails, however you want to say
it, go talk to your manager.
Go talk to your colleague.
Go talk to the inspectorgeneral.
Go talk to the officer generalcounsel.

(26:38):
They give you a bunch of stuff.
I don't know if I would do thatnow.
Is the person in the officenext to me doing what?
And looking to get my job orkick me out?
So it's going to have profoundeffects on those basic ethics in
there.
Quick story when I started theagency, they put you through the
EOD enter on duty, which isbasically filling out insurance

(27:01):
form.
The CIA sounds sexy, butthere's a hell of a lot of eh
not?

Speaker 1 (27:05):
so sexy.
You know the insurance form.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
And you're sitting in this auditorium.
That part's sexy, it's calledthe bubble.
It's this mid-century modernrounded top auditorium.
It's like out of a James Bondmovie At one point.
Between the various 50, 60people in the world in the room
going to all the differentplaces in the agency, everybody
goes in through and in comeswhat appeared to me to be an old

(27:29):
, hard-bitten case officer, whoI realize is probably 10 years
younger than I am now, so itmakes me feel bad.
He opens up, introduces himselfand he says and this is my
memory of it he says right nowin Moscow they're doing an EOD
just like this, probably lessinsurance forms, but a bunch of
people sitting in an auditoriumand they're getting lectured to

(27:49):
and they're, you know, you'reall going to leave tomorrow and
go out to your first assignment,so you're going to get training
as an analyst, training as anoperator, training as a
logistician, training as a commoguy, whatever it is you're
doing, training as a lawyer, hesaid.
And then he stopped and he saidso those people, your
colleagues, they're all going tolearn basically the same thing.
The tradecraft's pretty muchthe same, logistics pretty much

(28:11):
the same.
Are they your colleagues?
And there's dead silence.
Nobody's going to talk to thisguy and he lets that sit for a
while and then he says let metell you this they are not your
colleagues.
You just swore an oath to theConstitution.
You're going to keep that oath.
This place is going to help youkeep this oath.
This place wants you to keepthat oath.
You're going to follow the lawand you're going to protect

(28:33):
America In Moscow.
They're going to protect theleadership of the party.
And then at that point we weresort of amidst it.
They don't care about theRussian constitution, they don't
care about the Russian laws.
Never forget these people arenot your colleagues.
That obviously stayed with meover 30 years, you bet.
I don't know if anybody wouldsay that now as an example.

(28:55):
It's a little out of the intelworld, but I can't help it.
I still am a lawyer at heart.
The president just announced whohe's going to nominate for the
circuit court.
He's a personal attorney Bove Inever know how to pronounce his
name and the president saidthat his primary objective will
be to carry out what isnecessary and good to protect
America.
That's not the job of judges ina constitutional democracy.

(29:18):
It just simply isn't.
And he has said similar thingsabout the intel community.
Tulsi Gabbard just yesterday putout a whole bunch of stuff
excoriating analysts for beingdeep state treasonous.
I don't know if it's deliberateor not, but that isn't what we
do.
I wasn't an analyst but I'vedone a lot of oversight of
analysts and worked closely withthem.
It's not what we do.

(29:38):
We try to report the truth.
Our collectors try to collectpieces of truth.
We hand it over to the analystswho try to assemble it into a
coherent package that apolicymaker can understand.
So a policymaker has thatelement to inform them.
It's our best effort todescribe reality to people who
have to make policy decisions.
That's not what this presidentand this DNI is asking.
Is it safe to say?

Speaker 1 (30:00):
that, throughout the classified document scandal,
that we'd be remiss to not thinkthat some of America's most
sensitive secrets are now in thehands of some of our most
lethal enemies.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
We certainly should be thinking about it.
I want to go back to somethingyou said at the beginning, which
is are we set up for this?
I thought it was a veryinsightful question and I
answered it first in terms ofcivil liberties, but as somebody
who's worked in CI for a bunchof my career, we're not set up
for this either.
Expectation is that we set upvery elaborate mechanisms to

(30:40):
protect, to compartmentalize, tovet people coming in, to
continually vet them.
I mean, I don't know how manypolygraphs I've had now, all
designed to keep those secretswhere they should be, which is
secret.
When you have senior people inthe chain of command, including
the president, who's apparentlycontemptuous of all this, it
sort of pulls the rug out fromunder the whole mechanism.

(31:02):
Now, do I know whether and whatsecrets have gone to who?
I don't know.
Have I seen anything that wouldmake me trust this president to
keep them safe?
No, I don't.
He's casual at best, hostile atworst to the idea of protecting
these secrets, and that is notsomething I ever thought about.

(31:23):
I mean, I don't care if youwere George Bush or Bill Clinton
or Barack Obama.
Not even a thought about that.
We do our best.
We've been penetrated.
But when we are penetrated,it's an Aldrich Ames, it's a
Hanson, it's somebody that theRussians have run against us.
You know, are we sometimescareless with our camo and

(31:43):
somebody gets something?
Yeah, there's spills all thetime.
This is different.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
This is really different.
How much of this, to the bestof your knowledge, is the result
of years, perhaps decades, of,for example, vladimir Putin or
Russia laying the steps forwardto Donald Trump appearing on
scene?
How much of it is closer tothat, rather than just this

(32:09):
radical New Yorker who burst onthe scene and then starts the
wrecking ball and the?

Speaker 2 (32:13):
short answer is I don't know.
Let me make both arguments onthat.
Yeah, yeah, the Russians havebeen very, very aggressive since
the revolution and before, infact, in what they call active
measures, what we would callcovert action.
And, unlike us, I think theRussians are pretty good at
having really long views.
They're very much aware ofhistory and sort of the long

(32:35):
game.
So just sort of no question.
We have plenty of unclassifiedstuff that knows what the
Russians before them, theSoviets I'm not sure if there's
a meaningful difference betweenthem at the moment did to change
the environment in the UnitedStates.
And they weren't the only oneswho did it.
The Germans did it during theSecond World War, italians did
it, the Japanese did it,everything from Lord Ha Ha and

(32:57):
the Brits and sort of radioGerman radio into the United
States to talk about racialdisparity and the like, always
been done.
So you can't discount that.
I mean, we have an actor thatknows how to act and we've seen
situations that appear to bewhat that actor would want.
So are they responsible for it,Maybe?
On the other hand, the Sovietsand now the Russians are also

(33:20):
very good, and always have beenvery good, at sort of taking the
ball on the half mounts.
When something happens, theymove, and they move quickly.
And you know, in part becausethey're free from a lot of the
restrictions we are, and that'sa good thing I don't want those
restrictions lifted.
So when somebody like Trumpcomes along, who's facilitated
by a whole host of things thelack of civic education in the

(33:42):
United States, increasingeconomic disparity, a hostility
to science there's so manyfactors that contribute to this
that's not one that the Russiansare going to miss.
They're going to, they're on it.
Now, what will they do with it?
It's hard to know.
You know Hunter Biden, laptop,the you know indications of the
kind of things the Russianswould do.

(34:02):
That makes sense to me.
So you know there's aninteresting dynamic going on.
You know there's an interestingdynamic going on and when
you're talking leaders ofcountries it's overly simplistic
to think of.
You know is so-and-so arecruited spy or an asset, this
person or that person or theother.
You know everybody's trying toget ahead in their context.

(34:23):
You know Vladimir Putin is,donald Trump is, and everybody's
trying to.
You know Aretha Franklin, ifshe wasn't dead, would probably
hate me for using this, but Ialways call it the who's zooming
who issue.
You know everybody's trying tozoom everybody, but what we
don't have here is a governmentthat is buying into the rules as

(34:43):
we set them, not the Russiansas we set them.
Set them, not the Russians aswe set them.
So you know, and I think thatyou know, it's not accidental
that Trump has expressed hisappreciation of what he would
call the strength and efficacyof people like Viktor Orban or
Vladimir Putin, even our friendsin North Korea.
You know, if you go there andparticularly if you ally that

(35:07):
with a apparent completeunwillingness, and particularly
if you lie that with a completewillingness to lie.
That's sort of a superpower inour context.
And again, I go back to yourframing this whole thing with
that first question, which is weset up for this?
We're really not set up for ourpolitical players to blatantly

(35:27):
lie to us the way we're seeing.
Yeah, do politicians shade thetruth?
Yeah, are they imperfect humans?
Absolutely.
But we're not really set up.
The people aren't, the mediaisn't.
I mean, look how hard it is forour major media to say that is
not true.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yes, yes say, that is not true.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yes, yes, you know Donald Trump says sign this bill
into law, when in fact BarackObama signed that bill.
We have a picture of BarackObama signing that bill.
It's a bill, doesn't matter.
You know you go to journalismschool.
You know the paradigm forjournalism school probably
during my lifetime.
You know it's.
It's Watergate.
You know cultivate a source.
The source will tell you what'shidden.

(36:09):
You know you go down into agarage in the dark and they'll
hand you something.
Blah, blah, blah PentagonPapers.
Same thing.
All of the great stories ofAmerican journalism are
cultivating sources, doingreally good analysis, you know,
and explaining to the Americanpeople that what's going on here
is this, that and the otherthing we're not particularly
good at.
Like, what do you do if youknow the president just says

(36:32):
whatever he wants and his peoplesay whatever they want at any
time?
You end up.
You're not taught to write thatway.
You end up, you know, soundinglike you're running for Snopes
or something, and I've allreporters like doing
fact-checking all the time.
Yeah, so, but yeah, you askedexactly the right question.
It's going to come back all theway through everything that

(36:52):
happens.
Are we set up for this?

Speaker 1 (36:54):
What are your thoughts on, because we have one
coming up sooner than we think.
What are your thoughts aboutfuture free and fair elections?
What are your concerns?

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Well, I think it's concerns.
We won't have one, and I thinkthat's a real concern I don't
want to put percentages on it,but it is a not insignificant
percentage that in one way, thiswill not be the 2026 election
will not be free and fair, andthen 2028.
And that could come in any ofmany, many shapes and forms from

(37:29):
the dictator's playbook Destroycivil society, Destroy the
fundraising capabilities of youropposition, Bring, or threaten
to bring, criminal prosecutionsagainst your opposition,
Penalize media that covers youropposition or covers you
negatively.
All of those things arehappening now.
I have no doubt that the pollswell, I shouldn't say that I
have little doubt that the pollswill be open, but will it be a
free and fair election?
Now, I said little doubt.

(37:50):
I also think it's entirelypossible that the president
could declare some sort of stateof emergency.
We have seen a little bit of atryout on that, interestingly in
a different context, but acourt yesterday issued a
decision about AIPA and thequestion of what's an emergency.
The president is clearly toyedwith invoking the Insurrection
Act and has gone pretty far ininvoking the quote invasion

(38:13):
language in immigration law totake action against people that
he says.
Well, this is an invasion andthere's been talk I don't know
from who about suspending habeascorpus, all of which are cut
from that cloth.
So I think we have to worryabout that, and I think I think
we have to worry about that.
And I think one of the placesto worry is the various
declarations of extraordinarypower or emergency power, Again

(38:36):
right out of the dictator'splaybook.
I mean, that's the first andmost important law that Hitler
passes after he comes into power.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Do you see?
I know it's easy to see, forany of us it's easy to see what
we are looking for, right.
We can match patterns thataren't necessarily there but we
want them to be.
But it has appeared to meseveral different occasions that
there's just an ear pathwaythat Trump has been taking that

(39:03):
does very closely mirror that ofHitler's.
Mirror that of Hitler's.
And we know, or at least it'sbeen reported, trump has always
had this weird fascination withHitler, much like today Orban or
any of the other dictators orautocrats.
Do you see any kind of mappingthere that says look, he knows

(39:24):
how it's been done before and sothis is part of his fantasy?
Not so much that he's brilliantenough to think that this is
the way to do it, it's just thathe's naive enough to just say
you know my fantasy is to be.
What are your thoughts on that,because we hear it brought up a
lot.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
I have found every attempt that I've made to
understand Donald Trump as aperson has completely failed.
I've never met anybody like himin my life, yeah, and I don't
have a pattern to match him toGreat point, so I don't know
what I will say is the path heis taking and this comes.
This is a real steady statething, because I think what we

(40:04):
would say, and if you look atthe kind of analysis that our
people put together, if youdecide you don't want to be
bound by the norms and the rulesand restrictions and guardrails
of democracy, you inevitablytake this path.
This is where you go.
So it is not.
You know it's, it's.
There's not a lot of differentways to get to be a dictator,

(40:26):
it's not the same.
But once you start saying Idon't want there to be
opposition, you don't have tohave Hitler or Orban as a model
to say I would like my politicalopposition not to have money,
you don't need them to say youknow something?
You should shut up journalists.
I can't believe that.
That journalist I mean justfrom the podium in the White

(40:48):
House they talked about I'mforgetting his name from CBS,
who just gave the Wake Forestspeech.
You know he should be arrested.
Right, he should be arrested.
You don't have to be a rocketscientist or a great student of
history that you know.
Hey, I don't like these peoplewho are standing between me and
what I want to do, right, so yousort of inevitably get there.
Now are there people within theTrump orbit who have clearly

(41:11):
studied Orban, hitler, putin, Imean any good history major
who's done European history, hasspent some time in college
thinking about how did Hitlerget to be Hitler and how did
Mussolini get to be Mussolini.
So I don't know what to takefrom that.
Not quite sure there's aparallel in that one.
I think a dictator the path ofa dictator to want to be, is a

(41:32):
little bit predetermined.
There's just some things yougotta do to succeed.
But I also said that I havevery little ability to
understand donald trump in theway that I think I basically
understood george bush andthings that I understand anybody
who's a politician.
But this, this is beyondanything.
I don't understand the anger, Idon't understand the

(41:52):
willingness to lie.
I just I don't get it Right andthe element of shamelessness I
find when I see him talking Ioften wonder, like, is he
uncomfortable saying what he'ssaying?
Right?
Apparently not.
I mean he's calling.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Joe Biden a scum the day after he's diagnosed with
what will be terminal cancer.
Really only a certain path youcan take.
I suppose if we look at itthrough the framework of it's
the 1940s and you want to rob abank, it may look like you're
doing it like one of the otherbig names of the time, because

(42:39):
there's really only so many waysto rob.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
That's exactly right.
There are only a few ways torob a bank.
That's a perfect way to captureit, I mean, yeah, so it's not
surprising that we are where weare, and I do think it's
valuable, armed with that ideathat you just outlined of the
bank is, if we're the bank,what's likely to happen next?
Yes, and we're seeing a lot ofit the ignoring of judicial

(43:05):
orders, the contempt for thecourts as well, the mobilization
, and this is important.
I know you had Juliette Kayyamaon the other day.
She's fabulous and somethingshe said to you really struck me
, which was you asked her aseries of questions and she said
I think the big change here isviolence, the possibility of
violence, and that is one of thethings that really strikes me

(43:27):
the pardoning of people, the useof the pardon as effectively, I
think, inevitably an advancedpardon.
Yes, it's not explicit, but ifyou pardon the people who, for
instance, conspired to kidnapthe governor of Michigan, you
sort of are saying you cankidnap the governor of Michigan.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I'm so glad to hear you address this in the way that
you are, because I think that'sone of the things at least on
mainstream media and I haven'treally looked for it on social
media.
But I think the thing a lot ofpeople are missing is that this
is not out of any heartfeltfeelings Trump has about the

(44:08):
people he's pardoning.
It's about the meta messagethat he is sending with the
pardons to the people he willneed in the event that he
invokes violence.
He's communicating in that mobboss way.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
It's exactly in a mob boss way, and you know who
knows whether he intends it ornot.
You know it could be as, andyou know who knows whether he
intends it or not.
You know it could be as simpleas you know there's us and them.
I pardon the people who are usand I don't pardon the people
who are them, and I don't eventhink about what the
ramifications are that are, andmaybe he does, but look it is.
You know there are a bunch ofpeople out there who

(44:47):
demonstrated an incrediblewillingness to use violence and
weapons on January 6th, thathave made a fetish of a certain
amount of paramilitary aspect ofwhich is not unknown, but
generally on the fringes butit's no longer a fringe in
American politics.
You know many of them.
You know sort of fetishizingweapons and a sort of quasi

(45:07):
paramilitary.
I mean the Oath Keepers, theProud Boys, the arm patches, all
that stuff.
You know they look more likethe Wagner Group people in
Russia than they do a civicorganization, right, and these
people are not to be trifledwith.
I think we're going to seepeople killed.
I do too, when they talk aboutpulling the security detail from

(45:29):
.
Uh uh, you know this person orthe other person I don't want to
mention specific names forobvious reasons.
I mean, I think that it's a.
You know, it's pretty close tobeing explicit and you know it's
exactly like.
You know it sounds like anepisode of the sopranos without
the north jersey accent.
It's a Queens accent, right, Iagree.
So a little bit different, butpretty much the same.

(45:53):
And again, I go back to yourpoint Are we set up for that?
I mean, we're not really set upfor our president to use the
pardon power as a sort offorward-looking mechanism to
encourage behavior.
We just don't.
I can't think of a singleinstance of a pardon that was
used for that purpose.
It is what constitutionally.

(46:13):
I know a lot of people madethese jokes, but one reason that
we're not set up to it I keepcoming back to that is I don't
think the founders ever thoughtthat there would be a president
who would be uncaring about that.
I think they understood theconcept Well.
I shouldn't quite say thatbecause there's a few that are
coming to fore now.
The emoluments clause isactually because they were

(46:34):
worried about a president whowas beholden to a foreign power
and so that whole clause doeshave something to do with that.
But the balance of powers thatcame out of the founders was
again based on an understandingthat everybody's playing the
same game.
You know, it's sort of like yougot rules of baseball.
You can come up with the rulesof baseball, you can tweak the
rules of baseball, buteverybody's playing sort of the

(46:56):
same game.
You know four bases, you hitthe ball.
If somebody shows up, you know,with a big knife or a sword or
decides like I'm not going torun to home base, I'm going to
give myself points if I tip myhat to the umpire.
The umpires are not set up toimpose a rule there.
I mean there's no rule thatsays you can't shoot the

(47:18):
opposite team's pitcher.
I mean I'm pretty confidentthere isn't Right.
And I don't think the foundersimagined they would have to say
explicitly I mean, the pardonpower is an interesting one
because it's almost the leastbounded within the constitution
of any of the powers, perhapsthe most they didn't feel any
necessary to say explicitly youcan't give one for a bribe.

(47:40):
I mean, maybe they sort ofimplied that in the high crimes
and misdemeanors part of theimpeachment clause.
But I think if you'd ask themlike, why don't you have a rule
that says he can't take a bribein return for a pardon, they'd
say, are you crazy?
Or that he can't pardon people,so they understand that he
wants them to violate the lawand hurt people in the future.

(48:01):
No president would ever do that.
Why would we put thatexplicitly in the Constitution?

Speaker 1 (48:06):
You know, there are a whole bunch of stuff we don't.
What you just outlined theremakes me think of a book I read
in the 90s.
It was a business book by agentleman by the name of Harvey
Mackey, and it was called how toSwim with the Sharks Without
being Eaten Alive, and a quotethat has stuck with me for this
entire time.
He had a principle if you don'tlike the rules of the ballpark

(48:29):
you're playing in, then changeballparks, because the rules of
the ballpark you are in, thoseare the rules.
Now, what we are looking at,however, is much to your example
, somebody who has come along inthe ballpark we are already in
and they've, by force, arechanging the rules, and yet we

(48:53):
are stuck in and bound to theoriginal rules of the park, and
we are trying to navigate andcounter this seeming takeover by
the original rules, and it'sintroducing some complexities
that are trying, at best.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, and we don't have the language even.
I'll give you the example.
I've started using the termpostpartisan to describe
actually the state state, that'sme talking, not the whole
organization there.
And what I mean by that is, upuntil now, to use your arena
stadium idea, your arena stadiumidea.
We all have different policyviews and we fight it out on

(49:38):
this ball field within the rules, and that's partisan politics,
because we organize ourselvesinto two teams.
So the partisan is like theYankees want to beat the Red Sox
, the Red Sox want to beat them.
That's partisan.
And so if you're rooting forthe Yankees or the Red Sox,
you're partisan because you'resaying I want the Yankees to hit
more home runs or I want theRed Sox to hit, but if one of

(50:00):
those two stop hitting home runsand start shooting the
opposition with guns, you're notreally being like hey, I don't
think the Red Sox should shootthe pitcher because I'm a
Yankees fan.
That isn't why you'd say that,right, right, right, you're not
being a Red Sox fan to say don'tshoot the pitcher.
So I think we're reallypostpartisan.
And again, we don't have thelanguage to talk about.

(50:21):
Within the steady state andwith others.
We've had a lot of discussions.
People have asked like what areyou guys doing?
Aren't you partisan?
Well, I would say no, we'repostpartisan.
We're not saying we want theRepublican Party to win or lose.
What we are saying is right now, many of the people in one
party seem to be arguing that weshouldn't be following laws, we
shouldn't be following theConstitution Not all of them,

(50:44):
and I suspect that the ones whoare not are.
There's a lot going on inpeople's hearts.
I would imagine.
This is a very tough positionthat I think Trump has.
The president has put his ownparty in and I hesitate to throw
till I've walked in their shoeskind of thing, because he has
the ability and willingness todo things to people and it may

(51:05):
not be just limited to, you mayget primaries Right.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
That's a great point, I think, without either one of
us stating what thosepossibilities could be, I think
anybody listening knows whatthey are, and so to be that
individual who, either directlyor indirectly, has had that
communicated to them, that's atight, tough spot.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
And it's not what they ran for office for.
So I have a certain amount ofsympathy.
On the other hand, they ran foroffice to have some courage as
Americans.
So I'd like to see themthinking about, particularly in
my area, national security, buteverywhere else, and thinking
about our system of dividedgovernment.
So the abandonment of theconcept of the Appropriations

(51:45):
Clause, the Impoundment Act I'mhappy to get a little technical,
but the idea that when we spendmoney it's the Congress that
decides to spend money, when thegovernment gets authorities to
do something it's a command fromCongress, that the president's
job is to take care that thosecommands be faithfully executed
and it's not that Congress justsort of says oh yeah, I guess
you don't have to have a USAIDor International Institute of

(52:08):
Peace or whatever it is.
These are fundamental.
Again, going back to thebaseball mentality these are the
rules, these are the rules ofthe game, so that's pretty
important as far as theframework of the steady state?

Speaker 1 (52:23):
what are pathways forward for dealing with some of
these new rules, if you will,that have been introduced into
the rule book that had existedfor 200 plus years, but now we
find ourselves with wait aminute, this was never in that.
What are the suggestions, theideas, concepts, philosophies of

(52:44):
the steady state to deal?

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Well, the first is to embrace and celebrate those
rules and explain them, not onlythe ones that particularly the
ones that are in our space, butacross the board.
Americans need to know what theImpoundment Act is.
Sorry, if you hated socialstudies in high school, you need
to learn this.
And that goes back to what wewere saying at the beginning.
It's why I'm here talking toyou.
In our world, we need toexplain those rules over and

(53:07):
over and over again to helppeople understand why they're so
important.
Second, we have to support andempower people who are trying to
take those rules and enforcethem.
You know your question leads tois there a third level of this
where we abandon the rules?
And you know, I think theanswer is no.

(53:29):
If we abandon the rules, ifAmerica abandons the rules, and
it's a free-for-all, I don'tthink we survive that, and you
know that is not worth evencontemplating right now.
I know in the movies that'ssort of what happens.
I think what we have to do isthe hard work of learning the
rules, enforcing the rules,explaining to people why it's so
important to have the rules.

(53:49):
And I would add something and Ithink it's happening which is
that remember up until now to gowith our big metaphor here of
rules not rules.
You know we have been fightingwith each other constantly over
policy issues.
You know, yankees, red Sox,yankees, red Sox.
We've got to put that aside fora little while.
One of the things we jokedabout is a lot of the people in

(54:10):
the steady state have been onopposite sides of tables on a
lot of national security issuesand, like sure, we really want
to go back to when we reallycould fight like hell with each
other.
Like I don't like this.
I mean, I really don't agreewith mr x over here on the
proper role of the dni.
Or should fisa be expanded?
Or was the usa patriot act?
Did it go too far or not farenough?

(54:31):
I'm happy, happy to have thosearguments.
I mentioned Ken Weinstein.
We argued over that stuff.
Stop In the early 2000s.
I want to go back to that.
Happy to do it, but it's goingto be hard and I think it's one
of the things that we've triedto do.
We're willing to talk to prettymuch anybody, both on the
political spectrum, to the leftof many of us, to the right of

(54:51):
many of us.
We did back in the 2020, we didsome things at schools.
And look, these are schools.
Some of them wouldn't let CIArecruit on their campus.
I get it.
First of all, why don't youmeet us?
I think we're not quite asbloodthirsty bad guys as you
think we are.
But even if you do think thatthe existential threat we're

(55:13):
facing is greater than any ofthe intermediate threats that
we're facing and this comes tofore in trying to figure out how
we deal with the Middle East,because the world is going on.
I mean, I don't care whatDonald Trump does.
The events in the worldcontinue and we need to respond
to them or not.
World continue and we need torespond to them or not, but

(55:35):
we're going to need to come upwith some sort of truce in right
and left, issue by issue.
And listen, I get it.
Everybody thinks their issue isthe most important issue, and
that makes sense to me too.
But I think we're going to haveto work across that.
In my world, I see the threat inthe national security context.
People close to me areenvironmental experts.
In their world, it's thedestruction of so much that
we've done to protect theenvironment.

(55:57):
I have other people who are inthe healthcare world.
From their world, it's thatwe're abandoning science in
healthcare, each of which couldhave catastrophic consequences.
By the way, we could destroythe world in a lot of different
ways.
So you know, we're human beings, we're really good at that, but
we're going to have to realizethat this is not about national
security, or the environment, orhealth or social services, or

(56:17):
social security or Medicaid orOb, and I think that's part of
if it's having any impact at all.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
I think it's only because it's generating some
pushback, meaning it's a radicalenough different way of
thinking in the moment that it'shaving a jarring effect.
And what I'm speaking aboutspecifically.
I've been taking theopportunity to call out people
within my own party, in theDemocratic Party.

(56:59):
The meta message there is look,we have a problem as a nation.
We are going to have to solveit as a nation.
If we limit where we arewilling to look for solutions or
who we are willing to borrowresources or intelligence from

(57:19):
not the type of intelligencewe're talking about, but just
prefrontal cortex analyticaltype intelligence, right yeah.
If we cut that off to only wesay, okay, we can only look here
, it can only be the steadystate, the 200 people, 280
people in the steady state.
I'm guessing if that were theapproach there, it would be a

(57:41):
much smaller group of peopleright now.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
If we only let in people that we agreed with on
everything having to do withnational security and other
stuff, it would be like it wouldprobably just be me.
I'm not sure I agree withanybody on everything Perfect,
but you are right and there's ahistory here too which I think
we should hearken back to,particularly appropriate right
now, at the beginning of June,which is, I mean, take a look at

(58:06):
the Second World War.
We were allies with Russia.
For God's sake, if you took theI don't remember if it's like
26 countries that made up theAllies totally, I mean, many of
those countries had gone to warwith each other not so far in
the past and some of them wouldgo to war with each other after
the Second World War not too farin the future.
But the idea that Germany andJapan and Italy presented an

(58:32):
existential threat to theplanet's organization, flawed as
it was.
We're still in the middle of acolonial era.
We can always talk about that,but we need to think about it
that way.
This is different and that youknow, the steady state is in
some ways, a microcosm, becausewhat I'm saying in a different
context is just as this came outof this.

(58:55):
The steady state came out of usfeeling there's an existential
threat.
We need to go to a non-safespace In the larger scheme.
We need to work with andcollaborate with people that
we're not all that comfortablewith sometimes because we're
facing this.
It's the plot of a lot ofdifferent movies, so we should
be able to watch some of thebuddy movies.
Any number of World War II oddgroup of guys, all of whom hit

(59:20):
each other, or melded together,or I guess the Marvel.
It's sort of the point of allthe Marvel movies.
So we've got to learn a littlebit from that.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
I don't know if you were aware, but within the last
couple of months I hadCongressman Don Bacon on yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
I saw it.
I wasn't able to listen to it.
I saw you had him.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Yeah, you know.
Look, clearly he's a Republicanwho has voted with Trump on
countless occasions, but he'salso someone who is not afraid
to post counter to Trump'sposition or to criticize Trump,
especially on Ukraine.
That's been.
Congressman Bacon is a bigUkraine supporter.

(59:59):
So, you know, when I havepeople like that on, I catch
some heat.
But it's important for me tosay, look, you know, this thing,
this little thing thatCongressman Bacon is doing.
If he weren't doing that,that's the one thing we would be
saying well, they could atleast, you know, do this or do
that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Somebody else.
Oh, I know what happened.
Hold on my computer, just cameback to life, gotcha.
But I'm staying on the iPad,which is okay, perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
I shut it off.
Okay, bingo.
So my philosophy is look, whenthere's somebody who actually
does something that if theyweren't doing we would be saying
, well, they could at least comeout and say this.
Or if they do it, then let'swelcome that aspect of them into
the fray and say you know what?
We don't agree on 95% of theissues.

(01:00:52):
Maybe I don't like you for thisreason, but look, the fact that
you're willing to do this much,it's important.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Yeah, it is important , completely agree with you.
And look, I mean within thesteady state I think we've
managed to live that.
I think it's a little bit moredifficult in the larger world.
Luckily I'm not playing thatmuch in the larger world, but
you're absolutely right, we haveto be willing to cross the
boundaries.
The strange bedfellows areimportant.
Sure, one of the things we'replanning we actually have we're

(01:01:28):
hoping to do we did it oncebefore, back in 19, and we're
going to do it again is we havea former senior Russia hand two
of them actually from the agencywho is willing to sit on a
stage with a former FSB guy andtalk about what they're seeing.
Interesting Opposite can't getmore opposite than that.
No, no, and I think that'simportant.
Now I have to say it hasn'tbeen that hard in the steady

(01:01:48):
state.
One of the great things aboutthe intelligence community is by
virtue of the fact that its jobis to describe reality People
tend to be.
You know, let me hear yourperspective because I need to
get as much information I seepeople just like to collect as
much information as they can,and we don't do it in a coercive

(01:02:10):
sort of way.
We're the opposite of lawenforcement.
You know we recruit people,sure sure.
I used to say when I was aprosecutor your relationships
well, your relationships in theagencies are based on holding
people's hearts and heads, whilewhen you're in law enforcement
it's holding other parts of thebody Right and it's a different
relationship.
So I think for us it's sort ofeasy.

(01:02:32):
Yeah, it mimics a lot of whatwe know from our professional
life.
For me, one of the silverlinings of all this and I've
been working with the steadystate now for almost six years,
with a big jump gap in themiddle it's been a great
pleasure.
I admire these people, I likethese people.
It has been a really positiveprofessional experience for me.

(01:02:55):
So I have no complaints there.
I welcome it.
I'm sorry it's this.
I would have rather we had someother organizing principle
other than perhaps the end ofour lives as we know them.
But since we're there, might aswell enjoy it.
It's a great bunch of peoplesmart, patriotic, careful in
their thoughts, caring in theirapproach.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
I've got a question for you that you can either
answer from just your personalperspective or, as best you can,
from the perspective of thesteady state as a collective
unit that maybe get mentionedperiodically and very briefly, I

(01:03:36):
should add, in the media aboutthe threat that this crypto
situation represents to thenation and national security,
just because of the I guess fora lack of a better word the
secrecy or the inability to knowwhere what is going and when.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Yeah, I'm not an expert on cryptocurrency, but
I'll make two observations.
Certainly, because it obscuresownership and movement of funds,
it is going to complicate theability to observe the ownership
and movement of funds in orderto help put together that
picture of reality.
You know, I think that'sinevitable.
As societies change, economieschange.

(01:04:10):
That's always going to happen.
I mean, there was a time thateverybody dealt in just gold
coins, untraceable.
You could cut them up, you canmelt them, stuff like that.
So I'm not as worried aboutthat.
I am worried that it representssuch a radical change in how
the nuts and bolts of economieswork that a whole bunch of

(01:04:34):
societal guardrails and normsare not going to be applicable
anymore.
Right, you know, I said that'sone area.
The second area is I haven'tbeen convinced that it's not
just one big scam.
Still don't quite now.
Maybe I'm just missing it, butI don't quite understand why.
It is not magically, just nottrue.

(01:04:55):
But and this leaves I guess Isaid two points.
The third point the fact thatnone of us, I think, really
understand what's happening andthe whole thing may explode, the
bubble may pop at some pointdoesn't mean that right now the
movement to those funds cannotbe affecting things, including,
I mean, the president, had a,you know, at the White House

(01:05:17):
dinner in which peopleapparently paid him personal
funds to be able to have accessto the presidency to advance
crypto schemes, including onesthat he and his family have an
interest in.
I don't quite understand whatthey actually are going to do
with all that, but I suspectsome people are going to get
very rich quickly and somepeople are going to get very
poor quickly and you know, fiveor ten years.

(01:05:39):
It all may, you know, be like,you know, dutch tulips in the
sun, but you know it's real inthe sense that people are
affecting other people'sbehavior by the movement of this
cryptocurrency.
I'm emphasizing that it'scrypto.
Crypto it's still currency.
Right now, people are actingbased on it.

(01:05:59):
Um, and as long as people areacting based on it, as long as
people will change theirbehavior because you paid them
money, whether it's change yourbehavior like I'll take your job
, I'm willing to dig a ditch.
If you give me five bitcoins orsomething, then it's working,
even if it's magical, which Imean.
I guess in some sense, money ismagical, uh, paper money, but
that's that's a fundamentalshift there.
I mean, there's been someinteresting writing on how the

(01:06:23):
introduction of paper money sortof just rocked particularly
england, you know as it becameimportant because they just
didn't have the language and theconcepts to think about how
paper money works.
So maybe we're there too.
Yeah, that's an interesting ideaactually With this is the
absence of a sense that we haveleaders in the country who are

(01:06:45):
taking on what is, at the veryleast, an interesting
intellectual problem in goodfaith on our behalf.
I mean, I don't.
I mean, the White House saidthat the president's
participation in this is in hisoff hours, so who's he
representing?
Is he whose interests are beingrepresented, whatever he said
or did there?
Is he helping America navigatewhat inevitably is going to be

(01:07:05):
difficult areas?
Or is he helping the Trumporganization navigate those or
something else that I don't know?
That's really worrisome.
And again, going back to yourfirst statement, we've never
been in this position.
I mean, there hasn't been apresident who you know, even the
ones that I didn't agree withtheir policies.
George Bush really cared aboutAmerica.

(01:07:28):
Everything he did was to helpAmerica.
I may have disagreed with whathe did on some things, but
that's what he did.
Clinton wanted to help America.
I didn't agree with some of thestuff he did, but this is
different.
It's fundamentally different.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
It is Stephen.
I have one final question.
Sure, this is for you in thesteady state.
What do you need people to knowabout the steady state and how
can people find out more aboutthe?

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
steady state.
Glad you asked that.
So what you should know aboutus is other than the basics.
There are a bunch of us, and weare formers from a world that
you may not know a lot about.
We are in the business ofeducating and informing.
So look to us, I will the oneif you come, if your listeners
don't come with anything else.
You got 280 people who've beenambassadors and chiefs of

(01:08:11):
station and this and that for 40, 50 years.
They're all scared, and ifthey're scared, you should be
scared.
Yes, so more practically, whatcan you do?
Where can you find us?
Well, we have a websitethesteadystateorg.
We put up everything that we do.
This will be linked on ourwebsite I don't know, maybe our
YouTube channel, I haven'tfigured that one out yet on our
website, I don't know.

(01:08:31):
Maybe our YouTube channel?
I haven't figured that one outyet.
Fantastic One of the problemswith the steady standings we're
all a little bit on the retiredside, so all this computer stuff
is a little difficult for someof us Sure, I can see where that
is.
We're very active in socialmedia.
We're on Blue Sky, we're onTwitter, we're in LinkedIn,
we're on Substack All of thatthings and stack all of that

(01:08:55):
things.
And then, finally, an offer.
We have people all over thecountry, if you are in an
organization and I don't care ifit's a veteran of foreign wars
post or a college Democrat or acollege Republicans or the
ladies auxiliary or the men'sauxiliary of whatever who care
and would like to hear from us,reach out to me and we'll see
what we can do.
Wow, happy to do it.
The only other thing I'd leaveyou with is we're scared, but I

(01:09:17):
think there's an element ofconfidence.
We've been through bad times asa country.
We survived.
I think we can survive thistime.
I think this is as grave adanger as we've been in since
the civil war, but you got 280people who are in abandoning
ship and holding fast, and Ithink that's something to you
know.
If we start scurrying, then youreally got to worry.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
We're not abandoning ship.
Well, Stephen, on behalf ofthis country, I say thank you to
you personally and to the other279 people who are part of the
steady state, of the steadystate, and I want to say that
any of you have an openinvitation.
Anytime any one of you want tocome on and do a podcast episode

(01:10:03):
.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
You shoot me a message and it will happen.
Be careful what you ask for, itwill happen.
Jack, this has been a pleasureand you've really made me think.
Well good, I mean, I told youat the beginning one reason
we're doing this is because youare the last mile of that
education, getting to people andinforming people.
But there's another reason.
It's really good to havequestions thrown at me in ways
and in forms, and sometimes insubstance, that I haven't

(01:10:24):
thought about before.
And now I have to go back to mycolleagues in the study and say
, you know what this guy said,like what about that?
We haven't thought of it thatway.
So this is really helpful to me.
Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
You've made me think, and I know that anybody
watching or listening to thisepisode is going to do a whole
lot of deep thinking themselves.
So thank you it was an honorand we'll communicate soon.
You got it.