April 22, 2025 • 28 mins
What's the number one threat to America today? According to national security expert Juliette Kayyem, it's not what you might expect. "Violence, or the threat of violence, as the accepted extension of our policy differences," she explains, pointing to a troubling shift in our political landscape where violence has become normalized and even state-authorized.
As former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, Harvard lecturer, and CNN's go-to disaster expert, Kayyem brings unparalleled insight to today's most pressing security challenges. She delivers a masterclass in understanding the complex interplay between democracy, security, and power in our rapidly changing world.
Our conversation explores how billionaires like Elon Musk have accumulated unprecedented control over global communication systems, creating new kinds of national security vulnerabilities. "He controls information in a way that we've never seen before," Kayyem warns, highlighting how commercial interests now intersect with critical security functions traditionally managed by governments.
Perhaps most compelling is Kayyem's candid assessment of where Democrats have failed, particularly on immigration policy. "Democrats tend to convince themselves that border security is a mythology of Fox News," she says, explaining how this blindspot has consistently undermined progressive messaging with voters. Her refreshing honesty cuts through partisan talking points to offer a clear-eyed view of what effective homeland security truly requires: managing the secure flow of people, goods, and ideas rather than simply building walls.
Whether discussing the strategic failures of political messaging, the reality of cartels, or the path forward for rebuilding democratic norms, Kayyem's analysis is both sobering and surprisingly hopeful. Join us for this essential conversation about securing America's future in an increasingly complex threat landscape.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My guest in this episode is Juliette Kayyem.
Juliette is a national leaderin Homeland Security, crisis
Management and Public Policy.
She's currently a seniorlecturer at Harvard's Kennedy
School and a national securityanalyst for CNN, where she's
been called their go-to expertfor disasters.
Her recent book, the DevilNever Sleeps, explores disaster
(00:22):
preparedness and response.
She served as President Obama'sAssistant Secretary for
Intergovernmental Affairs at theDepartment of Homeland Security
and has held senior roles inMassachusetts government.
She's a Pulitzer finalist and aaward winner and an expert on
security, resilience and crisisplanning.
In the private sector, she'sthe CEO of Grip Mobility and a
(00:46):
senior advisor at Tenio,consulting with top companies on
security and cybersecurity.
She is also a frequent speaker,consultant and board member
with a background in law and apassion for public service.
She's married to First CircuitCourt of Appeals chief Judge,
david Barron, and is the proudmother of three children.
(01:07):
Let's dive right into thisepisode with Juliette Guy.
What's the number one threat toour country in terms of
homeland security right now?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I would say right now .
I think it is violence, or thethreat of violence, as the
accepted extension of our policydifferences.
It has entered our dialogue, ithas entered our public space.
Questions about even electionshappening, the free and fair
(01:47):
elections happening, therestrictions on a president
running for a third term, theuse by elected leaders and their
billionaires of targeted dismayat judges and their families,
(02:15):
congress people and theirfamilies All of it surrounds our
discourse in a way that I'venever seen before in my lifetime
.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You answered the next question as well.
I was going to ask if you'veseen, if you had ever seen, this
many variables.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
No, look, look, you know, in the both sides worlds,
I'm supposed to say left wingviolence and blah, blah.
Look, you know.
Oh, look, look at people on thestreet and looting during the
George Floyd riots.
The difference now is that it'sstate authorized, permissive,
(02:55):
from the government.
You cannot compare an activistor a nihilist during the George
Floyd riots who wants to breakwindows, or even someone who's
destroying Teslas.
Now, all wrong, all wrong.
Violence is wrong, destructionof property is wrong To a
(03:17):
political endorsement ofviolence.
January 6th and its forgiveness, like, let's not forget, it's
not just that January 6thhappened.
They've now all been pardoned.
So you've created thispermissive structure, let alone
the ability of these guys to goout again.
(03:37):
It's apples and oranges andpeople will demand both
sides-ism, but you can't comparethem.
I mean, you know so.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No, you can't.
Where does Elon Musk fit intothe picture in terms of a
national security risk?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, oh, interesting , OK, so I mean there's a couple
of pieces to it.
I mean one is he controlsinformation in a way that we've
never seen before.
In particular, it's not justTwitter, because people can get
off Twitter, Starlink hecontrols the capacity for
nations to communicate, inparticular, in times of crisis,
(04:18):
as we've seen with Ukraine, andthen has the ability to threaten
it, and then has the ability tothreaten it.
Now, what you're seeing withElon, though, is that it's very
hard to manage national securitywith commercial interests,
because the market will turnaway from you if they don't like
what you're doing.
So what you're starting to seewith Tesla and even Starlink, as
some countries move away fromit, is that the fact that we do
(04:45):
not know who the members of DOJare, what their security
clearances are, who's payingthem, what foreign countries are
paying them?
I have no doubt and I'm willingto say this because they're
young, because they'reunsophisticated, because they're
cocky, one or more of them willend up in jail in my lifetime,
because there's no way that youcan have that kind of power and
(05:08):
access to information and notdisclose it, get paid for it and
all that stuff.
Their cockiness is going to getthem in jail.
So I mean, I don't like them,but I, if I were their mother,
because I'm old enough to betheir mother, I would say one of
you is ending up in jail and Idon't want it to be you.
The third is, of course, who ishe and why does he get to make
(05:34):
these decisions?
So that gets to the Democraticnorm side of this.
Congress passes budgets,programming policies, and Elon
Musk, under the guise ofefficiency though he's given up
that guise is basically goingafter progressive, not even
progressive, like the post-WorldWar II entitlement state, and
(06:03):
entitlement makes it sound bad.
I'm talking about SocialSecurity, I'm talking about
Medicare, I'm talking about yeah.
So in that way he's becoming anArticle 1, which is the
legislative, you know figure.
But only Congress can fix thatand they can fix it.
I mean, you know tiny, tinyviolin for these guys Like you
can fix it tiny violin for theseguys Like you can fix it.
(06:28):
Do you have any?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
hope, because we hear rumblings from within the GOP
that some are starting to feellike Trump's pushing is way too
far or Musk and Trump.
Do you have any real hope thatCongress will?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
It's interesting Like I've been thinking a lot.
I mean you mentioned I'm on TVand I'm with the Atlantic and
I'm, you know, on NPR a lot likelike I've been thinking a lot,
as I'm sure you have, with a arein now not as a resistance,
with a capital R and I thinklike that was Trump 1.0.
(07:09):
Part of it was he didn't winthe popular vote and there was a
lot of evidence that he hadgotten support by the Russians
to help him win.
I don't know what that lookslike, but at least in the
investigations that was true, sothat it seemed like this was an
illegitimate president in a waythat he may seem is going to be
(07:33):
.
How do you get the GOP to assertits constitutional checks and
balances?
We're not seeing it now.
We might see it in the days tocome.
(07:55):
I mean, I'm, I look at this.
I'm not in the political space,I'm in the security space, but
I look at it, I go.
What's the theory?
And you know, I know everyonewas mad at him and we're not
allowed to speak well of him onthe Democratic side.
But maybe Chuck Schumer'sstrategy is right, which is
Democrats shouldn't own anything, let this administration fall
(08:18):
on its own sword, and when hegets below 40 percent he will
lose his party, and you knowthat's interesting because I've
been particularly hard on ChuckSchumer for that decision.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And yet, you know, there are some things we just
can't know until we know.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
He had a strategy.
I mean, I will give him thisright, like he's getting.
You know, everyone's mad at himand, like you know, my kids and
I was sort of annoyed at it too, because you wanted the
assertion.
But if you're thinking of thestrategy, as the Democrats are
unpopular enough, we need tobuild we.
I'm a Democrat, I'm more moremore center than left of center,
(08:56):
but we need to build a party.
We don't know what that lookslike.
You can't fight someone with noone right which is a challenge
we have right now but the partycannot own his demise or be
blamed for his demise.
You cannot, with a straightface now say that the Democrats
have anything to do.
(09:17):
What's happening now?
And that was Schumer's strategy, and you can think it was risky
, but I don't know, on Monday,april 7th, you know, I mean
there's no one saying ChuckSchumer owns this right.
I'm talking on a day in whichthe stock market is responding
to the tariffs.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
In terms of like.
When you are looking athomeland security issues, how
much does that involve foreigninvolvement or the ratio in
terms of what's going on withinthe borders of the United States
and what's going on inconnection to Other countries?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, look, I mean there is adifference between risk and
impact.
So there's there's lots ofthings that are going to have a
tremendous impact in the UnitedStates that we need to view as
you.
We're just going to haveclimate disasters.
We have to be better ready forthem.
We have to do all sorts ofthings that are responsive to
(10:18):
that.
But, you know, homeland securityis really about borderless
threats.
It's about, I mean, we'll havedomestic threats but we'll also
have, you know, eggs coming infrom Canada or who knows.
You know, measles probablystarted in Mexico, or the
(10:40):
measles outbreak now, orradicalization starting, you
know, with ISIS, let alone thestate sponsored attacks like we
see with with cyber.
So I don't really think aboutit in terms of like interior
exterior, terms of like interiorexterior.
(11:05):
I mean, this is the thing aboutthe border that's so absurd
about the way I think Trumptalks about it is because the
borders, given our society, areabout secure flow.
You have to have both of themright.
You have to have flow.
I mean, whether it's people,goods, ideas, resources, what
things, whatever.
So and the security part, ifyou just talk about that in
isolation, doesn't make anysense, and we're about to see
(11:26):
that, and so the way to thinkabout homeland security is more
about how I describe it as thissecure flow of people, goods,
ideas and networks, so thatyou're putting an emphasis on
our connectivity rather than thewalls, and it's just a
different way of thinking aboutit than, say, than than I think
(11:48):
the Trump administration has.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Interesting.
You know, I know a couple ofpeople who were former tier one
operators in OK and on thediscussion of going after the
cartels, they both tell me thatwill not work out well for the
United States in terms of theythink we will see a sharp spike
(12:13):
in violence within the UnitedStates.
You have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, I mean I think that's.
I mean like we don't knowwhat's going to happen.
We know there's going to beelections in well, tier one.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You mean like critical infrastructure function
in that world and know in depththe devastating power and
tactics of the cartels and howmany of them are here in the
United.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
States.
Yes, I think that's right.
I mean, I think, and that's atraditional law enforcement
effort.
I mean, I don't, there's almost.
I mean, think about it.
The reason why we use SEAL Team6 tactics is either because the
host country is unable orunwilling to eradicate the
(13:11):
threat.
That's hard to say about Texasor Oklahoma or California, like,
like, everyone's interestsalign here and so I'm all for
lethal power in places thateither.
Or I guess the third is theyeither welcome it, they won't do
it, or they can't do it, and inthose three cases you then have
(13:35):
an alignment of the kinds offorce that you might want.
But without those three, Ithink the three, I think the
governor of Arkansas, msHuckabee, governor Huckabee,
would be more than willing toeradicate the cartels, and you
don't need the kind of forcethat you're talking about on the
(13:57):
response, let alone because thecartels are manageable no one
wants to say that are manageablethrough a variety of means that
do not require extra authorityor extra, honestly, extra
judicial activity.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I couldn't agree more .
Let me be.
I was too vague in that.
Let me be more specificregarding Trump.
Vague in that.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Let me be more specific Regarding Trump's
(14:45):
previous threats of going afterthe cartels in Mexico with
possible military assets and therelationship between, if that
happens, and then what thecartel framework within the
United States?
Would we see a terrorism-type?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
response to that?
Oh, you mean by us?
Well, by the Mexican cartel.
In other words, in response tous taking targeted military
action?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Oh right, yes, I think it would be.
I mean, I agree with you.
I mean, I think the, the, thecartels exist because of our
insatiable appetite for drugsand guns.
Honestly, that's the market.
What do cartels do?
We're the market, we're thewe're the demand side.
(15:22):
We're the market, we're thedemand side.
And so the long term solutionto the cartels is something that
you know we may not experiencein America, but I very much
worry, especially as Trumpbecomes more unpopular, of what
he might do with lethal force,in particular in an allied
country.
Lethal force, in particular inan allied country.
(15:47):
If Mexico does not welcome theuse of military assets in their
country, we abide by it.
Otherwise it's an invasion, andpeople can have all sorts of
theories about why it's theright thing to do and we need to
do it against a war againstdrugs.
It's an invasion, and thepresident who told us America
first better be able to defendthat.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I want to ask you something.
I've done the research on it tomy satisfaction, but you're
smarter than I am, so I'm goingto ask you the question.
I see on social media quiteoften people posting things, and
I realize a lot of this is justout of desperation.
You know we are looking for asuperhero, but I'll see comments
where people say you know it'stime for the United Nations to
(16:29):
step in, or NATO and arrestTrump.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
It's not going to happen.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Right, right, it's just this ends.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Look, the haters of Trump can pretend that there's
like a single solution.
If only we got this case.
If only there were.
You know it's not going tohappen.
He's a singular phenomenon.
I don't, I don't think it'sreplicable.
I mean I do think you know.
(17:00):
So this ends with withelections and this ends by
ensuring that we have free andfair and it ends by him losing
big time.
I mean this is why I think hewon't run for third term.
And then Vance will lose, andhe will because Vance owns all
(17:20):
of this and he will becauseVance owns all of this.
I mean Vance is out there onthe tariffs, all that stuff.
Vance will lose and then he cansay see, you know, it's only me
, right?
So when I'm not, I think, Ithink Trump throws out the third
term thing because he wants todistract.
(17:40):
But if you're, trump is manythings.
He's very, very politicallysavvy.
If you're him, you are, you'renot running again, you're
letting Vance lose and then youwere the greatest thing ever,
right?
If Vance loses, that's betterfor Trump in a weird way, in his
weird ego way.
(18:00):
Anyway, don't think any outside.
I mean, I always tell likepeople, that's like you, in a
weird way, in his weird ego way.
Anyway, don't think any outside.
I mean, I always tell people weneed to be out there.
You know what I mean?
Yes, go out on the streets,protect students, have your
institutions fight, be moral, beengaged, be in the arena and
(18:22):
singularly focus on 2026.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
And that's refreshing to hear, because not too many
people are just coming out andsaying that, and I think one
reason is it scares people rightTo think oh my God, it comes
down to that where it's iffy andit could go either way, because
again, everybody wants thatsuperhero overnight fix look, I
mean right, no, no, I thinkthat's right.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
the overnight fix, that's exactly like and we
thought this in trump 1.0, likeyou know, remember, like people
would be on tv and my network, Imean people would be on tv and
they'd be like this is the case.
He's going to jail, like youknow, like one one court ruling
is going to do that, or theMueller report, and it just it's
.
Look, we realize that the normswere breakable.
(19:09):
Right, we've got a lot to learnfrom this.
But you know, the eradicationof, of parts of MAGAism the
MAGAism is going to always exist.
I don't agree with itsubstantively.
I don't know if it exists afterTrump exits the public stage or
passes away, but what I do knowis that the violent,
(19:34):
destabilizing elements of MAGAhave to be eradicated in the
ballot booth, and that's on theDemocrats to figure out who's
our messenger and what's ourmessage.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, and I know, in reference to the issue we were
just talking about, you said youknow it's not like just a
single issue.
So I know that you think, interms of the full picture and
the complexity, what two orthree issues, looking back to
the 2024 election, yeah, whattwo or three issues do you think
(20:07):
could have been addresseddifferently that might have?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
made a difference.
I have three Immigration,immigration, immigration Bingo
it is.
And this is where I got on theother side of my party, right on
the other side of my partyright For three and a half years
.
Democrats tend to convincethemselves that border security
(20:35):
is a mythology of Fox News andwe still don't know how we want
to talk about it.
But we better start talkingabout asylum.
Rules were being abused, thecaravans were real, that the
dysfunctional, permissive natureof a lot of our border
(20:58):
enforcement policies werecreating a magnet, and I know
this because once Biden realizedthat this was a real issue, he
was able to fix it six monthsfrom his election.
So we have to take on liberaland progressive groups.
We have to understand thatHispanic, arab, Asian
(21:21):
communities are not thinkingabout immigration in the same
way that white progressivesmight be, and we better figure
out what this policy is.
How are we going to talk aboutimmigration?
How are we going to talk aboutborder enforcement?
And then, how are we going toimplement it?
And there's some interestingDemocrats out there now who are
(21:44):
doing that, especially fromborder states, like the new
senator from Arizona.
Why did I forget his name?
Hispanic guy.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
You know I'm not lost for the name too, but yes, I do
.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So he's.
He's talking about what thecommunity thinks about, and it's
very different than than thetalking points of the liberal
elite in New England.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
It is, yeah, it is, when.
In this case, it was PresidentBiden, but with any president,
when it takes them so long toget on board with realizing, in
this case, the war, is that theresult of them getting bad
information, or is it the resultof their own resistance and
(22:28):
isolation?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I think it's the result of the whole groups
phenomenon.
I don't mean to blame thegroups, they have done good.
It's feeling that the groupsrepresented the issue in a way
that they didn't and I thinkthat ends up being the big
challenge, right, right, in away that they didn't, and I
think that that I think thatends up being the big challenge,
right, right, you know, I thinkit's.
It's the groups came to reallybe asylum groups, right, groups
(22:54):
that were focused on asylum.
Well, the border is much morecomplicated than that.
It's about flows andenforcement and right.
But if the democratic policyafter this is, you know,
enforcement, interiorenforcement has been horrible,
isis horrible.
No one's going to doubt that.
You've got to finish thesentence, which is ISIS.
(23:15):
Isis priority in a Democraticadministration is going to be
workplace enforcement.
Yeah, period.
We're not going to be workplaceenforcement.
Yeah, period.
We're not going to go afterschools, we're not going to go
after.
You know, we might eventuallyright, but it's going to be
(23:36):
workplace enforcement and realcriminals and it's not going to
be this BS of putting innocentpeople in jail in El Salvador
which they're taking up to theSupreme Court.
I mean, that's how you know,that's how scary it is about
what they think their authorityis.
They've admitted that they madea mistake with one of these
guys, one of the Venezuelan guys.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Right, I'm going to ask you this question.
Let me sink from left field andmy subscribers are probably
going to give me a hard time foreven posing this question.
But is there the chance asabsurd as it sounds is there the
chance that somewhere down theroad, that it's undeniable and
(24:21):
that some of these things Trumphas done actually have benefited
the country in any way?
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I think I mean I was accused the other day of being
too, I think.
I think Trump is a politicalgenius in the way in which he
can assert or capture adiscontent and in that way in
(25:02):
Right, I agree, and in that wayI think he was right about the
border.
I mean I think he's right aboutconditions-based disaster
relief.
Where he's always wrong is inwhat the solution specifically
should be Makes sense.
I think Trump was right about X, y or Z His solutions, though I
(25:26):
mean about exposing that weneed to fix this.
Here's my solution.
We cannot be on defense.
I mean this is.
I keep yelling who's doing?
I mean we've got to win theelections, but who's doing
Project 2029?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, and is that what Gavin Newsom is attempting
to do?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Maybe I'm not sure he's the one.
I mean he's getting better.
I mean I thought in the earlyones of his podcast I thought he
was like a little bit toodumbstruck by the pod boys of
the right wing.
I think he's getting a littlebit better, but I think I
(26:08):
applaud him, as I do others whoare trying to figure out, trying
to fill spaces and then alsotell the story of why government
matters.
We've got to tell that storybecause the Republicans are
telling that story and it's nota good one.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Right, I'll tell you somebody who will probably be in
the running, or I assume, whoseems to have a very balanced
way of talking about things andI'd like your feedback on that
JB Pritzker.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, I think Pritzker is good in that sense
is that he's tough but he'saction-oriented.
I like the governors, I mean Ireally do.
I like Bashir, I like I'm goodfriends with him, but I like
various'm good friends with him,but you know, I like various
governors throughout.
So there are there are a numberof governors, and maybe even
(26:53):
retired governors, who will jumpin.
But you know, I mean you knowwe can't.
Oh, sorry, that was Amara, thatwas that.
It was the time.
She's like did you find him?
Yes, I found him, sorry, I hadAmara, that was that.
She's like did you find him?
Yes, I found him.
Sorry, I had turned that off.
Ok, she's reminding me I have atwo o'clock.
I'm sorry that it gotinterrupted, but let me, let's
start that answer over.
(27:14):
Look, I like what Gavin Newsomis doing in the sense of he's
trying to fill spaces that we'veavoided, democrats have avoided
, and I think a lot, as I wassaying to you earlier, about
like, how do you want to engage?
Like you know, you know who'swatching these things, who's
listening to these things.
Do we need to engage on theirlevel?
How are our kids gettinginformation like YouTube, all
(27:38):
this stuff?
So I think that's good.
I may not always like thecontours of it and and I think
it's good that that's comingfrom governors, right.
And so if you think of someonelike JB Pritzker, bashir from
Kentucky, obviously, gretchenWhitmer from Michigan, you've
(27:58):
got the Joshes, josh Stein andJosh, josh Stein in North
Carolina and Josh in, oh my God,in Pennsylvania.
Good morning, you've got a lotof really interesting characters
, but we've got to learn how tosay the narrative of why
government matters and why it'smeaningful in people's lives,
(28:22):
because they're figuring it outright now.
They're figuring.
I mean, you know we're a lot.
You know everyone says the richget richer, everyone's getting
poorer.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Today, april 7th, yes , Well, listen, I agree that
it's good that they're talking,speaking out too, and I also
think it would be good if youmake your two o'clock
appointment.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I know.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
You're a sweetheart.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Sorry for the mix up at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Thank, you so much, Juliet.
Maybe we can do this againsomeday.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Okay, wonderful, you have a wonderful time.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Let us know when it's up Bye.
All right, bye-bye.
My guest in this episode is Juliette Kayyem.
Juliette is a national leaderin Homeland Security, crisis
Management and Public Policy.
She's currently a seniorlecturer at Harvard's Kennedy
School and a national securityanalyst for CNN, where she's
been called their go-to expertfor disasters.
Her recent book, the DevilNever Sleeps, explores disaster
(00:22):
preparedness and response.
She served as President Obama'sAssistant Secretary for
Intergovernmental Affairs at theDepartment of Homeland Security
and has held senior roles inMassachusetts government.
She's a Pulitzer finalist and aaward winner and an expert on
security, resilience and crisisplanning.
In the private sector, she'sthe CEO of Grip Mobility and a
(00:46):
senior advisor at Tenio,consulting with top companies on
security and cybersecurity.
She is also a frequent speaker,consultant and board member
with a background in law and apassion for public service.
She's married to First CircuitCourt of Appeals chief Judge,
david Barron, and is the proudmother of three children.
(01:07):
Let's dive right into thisepisode with Juliette Guy.
What's the number one threat toour country in terms of
homeland security right now?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I would say right now .
I think it is violence, or thethreat of violence, as the
accepted extension of our policydifferences.
It has entered our dialogue, ithas entered our public space.
Questions about even electionshappening, the free and fair
(01:47):
elections happening, therestrictions on a president
running for a third term, theuse by elected leaders and their
billionaires of targeted dismayat judges and their families,
(02:15):
congress people and theirfamilies All of it surrounds our
discourse in a way that I'venever seen before in my lifetime
.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You answered the next question as well.
I was going to ask if you'veseen, if you had ever seen, this
many variables.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
No, look, look, you know, in the both sides worlds,
I'm supposed to say left wingviolence and blah, blah.
Look, you know.
Oh, look, look at people on thestreet and looting during the
George Floyd riots.
The difference now is that it'sstate authorized, permissive,
(02:55):
from the government.
You cannot compare an activistor a nihilist during the George
Floyd riots who wants to breakwindows, or even someone who's
destroying Teslas.
Now, all wrong, all wrong.
Violence is wrong, destructionof property is wrong To a
(03:17):
political endorsement ofviolence.
January 6th and its forgiveness, like, let's not forget, it's
not just that January 6thhappened.
They've now all been pardoned.
So you've created thispermissive structure, let alone
the ability of these guys to goout again.
(03:37):
It's apples and oranges andpeople will demand both
sides-ism, but you can't comparethem.
I mean, you know so.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No, you can't.
Where does Elon Musk fit intothe picture in terms of a
national security risk?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, oh, interesting , OK, so I mean there's a couple
of pieces to it.
I mean one is he controlsinformation in a way that we've
never seen before.
In particular, it's not justTwitter, because people can get
off Twitter, Starlink hecontrols the capacity for
nations to communicate, inparticular, in times of crisis,
(04:18):
as we've seen with Ukraine, andthen has the ability to threaten
it, and then has the ability tothreaten it.
Now, what you're seeing withElon, though, is that it's very
hard to manage national securitywith commercial interests,
because the market will turnaway from you if they don't like
what you're doing.
So what you're starting to seewith Tesla and even Starlink, as
some countries move away fromit, is that the fact that we do
(04:45):
not know who the members of DOJare, what their security
clearances are, who's payingthem, what foreign countries are
paying them?
I have no doubt and I'm willingto say this because they're
young, because they'reunsophisticated, because they're
cocky, one or more of them willend up in jail in my lifetime,
because there's no way that youcan have that kind of power and
(05:08):
access to information and notdisclose it, get paid for it and
all that stuff.
Their cockiness is going to getthem in jail.
So I mean, I don't like them,but I, if I were their mother,
because I'm old enough to betheir mother, I would say one of
you is ending up in jail and Idon't want it to be you.
The third is, of course, who ishe and why does he get to make
(05:34):
these decisions?
So that gets to the Democraticnorm side of this.
Congress passes budgets,programming policies, and Elon
Musk, under the guise ofefficiency though he's given up
that guise is basically goingafter progressive, not even
progressive, like the post-WorldWar II entitlement state, and
(06:03):
entitlement makes it sound bad.
I'm talking about SocialSecurity, I'm talking about
Medicare, I'm talking about yeah.
So in that way he's becoming anArticle 1, which is the
legislative, you know figure.
But only Congress can fix thatand they can fix it.
I mean, you know tiny, tinyviolin for these guys Like you
can fix it tiny violin for theseguys Like you can fix it.
(06:28):
Do you have any?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
hope, because we hear rumblings from within the GOP
that some are starting to feellike Trump's pushing is way too
far or Musk and Trump.
Do you have any real hope thatCongress will?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
It's interesting Like I've been thinking a lot.
I mean you mentioned I'm on TVand I'm with the Atlantic and
I'm, you know, on NPR a lot likelike I've been thinking a lot,
as I'm sure you have, with a arein now not as a resistance,
with a capital R and I thinklike that was Trump 1.0.
(07:09):
Part of it was he didn't winthe popular vote and there was a
lot of evidence that he hadgotten support by the Russians
to help him win.
I don't know what that lookslike, but at least in the
investigations that was true, sothat it seemed like this was an
illegitimate president in a waythat he may seem is going to be
(07:33):
.
How do you get the GOP to assertits constitutional checks and
balances?
We're not seeing it now.
We might see it in the days tocome.
(07:55):
I mean, I'm, I look at this.
I'm not in the political space,I'm in the security space, but
I look at it, I go.
What's the theory?
And you know, I know everyonewas mad at him and we're not
allowed to speak well of him onthe Democratic side.
But maybe Chuck Schumer'sstrategy is right, which is
Democrats shouldn't own anything, let this administration fall
(08:18):
on its own sword, and when hegets below 40 percent he will
lose his party, and you knowthat's interesting because I've
been particularly hard on ChuckSchumer for that decision.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And yet, you know, there are some things we just
can't know until we know.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
He had a strategy.
I mean, I will give him thisright, like he's getting.
You know, everyone's mad at himand, like you know, my kids and
I was sort of annoyed at it too, because you wanted the
assertion.
But if you're thinking of thestrategy, as the Democrats are
unpopular enough, we need tobuild we.
I'm a Democrat, I'm more moremore center than left of center,
(08:56):
but we need to build a party.
We don't know what that lookslike.
You can't fight someone with noone right which is a challenge
we have right now but the partycannot own his demise or be
blamed for his demise.
You cannot, with a straightface now say that the Democrats
have anything to do.
(09:17):
What's happening now?
And that was Schumer's strategy, and you can think it was risky
, but I don't know, on Monday,april 7th, you know, I mean
there's no one saying ChuckSchumer owns this right.
I'm talking on a day in whichthe stock market is responding
to the tariffs.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
In terms of like.
When you are looking athomeland security issues, how
much does that involve foreigninvolvement or the ratio in
terms of what's going on withinthe borders of the United States
and what's going on inconnection to Other countries?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, look, I mean there is adifference between risk and
impact.
So there's there's lots ofthings that are going to have a
tremendous impact in the UnitedStates that we need to view as
you.
We're just going to haveclimate disasters.
We have to be better ready forthem.
We have to do all sorts ofthings that are responsive to
(10:18):
that.
But, you know, homeland securityis really about borderless
threats.
It's about, I mean, we'll havedomestic threats but we'll also
have, you know, eggs coming infrom Canada or who knows.
You know, measles probablystarted in Mexico, or the
(10:40):
measles outbreak now, orradicalization starting, you
know, with ISIS, let alone thestate sponsored attacks like we
see with with cyber.
So I don't really think aboutit in terms of like interior
exterior, terms of like interiorexterior.
(11:05):
I mean, this is the thing aboutthe border that's so absurd
about the way I think Trumptalks about it is because the
borders, given our society, areabout secure flow.
You have to have both of themright.
You have to have flow.
I mean, whether it's people,goods, ideas, resources, what
things, whatever.
So and the security part, ifyou just talk about that in
isolation, doesn't make anysense, and we're about to see
(11:26):
that, and so the way to thinkabout homeland security is more
about how I describe it as thissecure flow of people, goods,
ideas and networks, so thatyou're putting an emphasis on
our connectivity rather than thewalls, and it's just a
different way of thinking aboutit than, say, than than I think
(11:48):
the Trump administration has.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Interesting.
You know, I know a couple ofpeople who were former tier one
operators in OK and on thediscussion of going after the
cartels, they both tell me thatwill not work out well for the
United States in terms of theythink we will see a sharp spike
(12:13):
in violence within the UnitedStates.
You have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, I mean I think that's.
I mean like we don't knowwhat's going to happen.
We know there's going to beelections in well, tier one.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You mean like critical infrastructure function
in that world and know in depththe devastating power and
tactics of the cartels and howmany of them are here in the
United.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
States.
Yes, I think that's right.
I mean, I think, and that's atraditional law enforcement
effort.
I mean, I don't, there's almost.
I mean, think about it.
The reason why we use SEAL Team6 tactics is either because the
host country is unable orunwilling to eradicate the
(13:11):
threat.
That's hard to say about Texasor Oklahoma or California, like,
like, everyone's interestsalign here and so I'm all for
lethal power in places thateither.
Or I guess the third is theyeither welcome it, they won't do
it, or they can't do it, and inthose three cases you then have
(13:35):
an alignment of the kinds offorce that you might want.
But without those three, Ithink the three, I think the
governor of Arkansas, msHuckabee, governor Huckabee,
would be more than willing toeradicate the cartels, and you
don't need the kind of forcethat you're talking about on the
(13:57):
response, let alone because thecartels are manageable no one
wants to say that are manageablethrough a variety of means that
do not require extra authorityor extra, honestly, extra
judicial activity.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I couldn't agree more .
Let me be.
I was too vague in that.
Let me be more specificregarding Trump.
Vague in that.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Let me be more specific Regarding Trump's
(14:45):
previous threats of going afterthe cartels in Mexico with
possible military assets and therelationship between, if that
happens, and then what thecartel framework within the
United States?
Would we see a terrorism-type?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
response to that?
Oh, you mean by us?
Well, by the Mexican cartel.
In other words, in response tous taking targeted military
action?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Oh right, yes, I think it would be.
I mean, I agree with you.
I mean, I think the, the, thecartels exist because of our
insatiable appetite for drugsand guns.
Honestly, that's the market.
What do cartels do?
We're the market, we're thewe're the demand side.
(15:22):
We're the market, we're thedemand side.
And so the long term solutionto the cartels is something that
you know we may not experiencein America, but I very much
worry, especially as Trumpbecomes more unpopular, of what
he might do with lethal force,in particular in an allied
country.
Lethal force, in particular inan allied country.
(15:47):
If Mexico does not welcome theuse of military assets in their
country, we abide by it.
Otherwise it's an invasion, andpeople can have all sorts of
theories about why it's theright thing to do and we need to
do it against a war againstdrugs.
It's an invasion, and thepresident who told us America
first better be able to defendthat.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I want to ask you something.
I've done the research on it tomy satisfaction, but you're
smarter than I am, so I'm goingto ask you the question.
I see on social media quiteoften people posting things, and
I realize a lot of this is justout of desperation.
You know we are looking for asuperhero, but I'll see comments
where people say you know it'stime for the United Nations to
(16:29):
step in, or NATO and arrestTrump.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
It's not going to happen.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Right, right, it's just this ends.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Look, the haters of Trump can pretend that there's
like a single solution.
If only we got this case.
If only there were.
You know it's not going tohappen.
He's a singular phenomenon.
I don't, I don't think it'sreplicable.
I mean I do think you know.
(17:00):
So this ends with withelections and this ends by
ensuring that we have free andfair and it ends by him losing
big time.
I mean this is why I think hewon't run for third term.
And then Vance will lose, andhe will because Vance owns all
(17:20):
of this and he will becauseVance owns all of this.
I mean Vance is out there onthe tariffs, all that stuff.
Vance will lose and then he cansay see, you know, it's only me
, right?
So when I'm not, I think, Ithink Trump throws out the third
term thing because he wants todistract.
(17:40):
But if you're, trump is manythings.
He's very, very politicallysavvy.
If you're him, you are, you'renot running again, you're
letting Vance lose and then youwere the greatest thing ever,
right?
If Vance loses, that's betterfor Trump in a weird way, in his
weird ego way.
(18:00):
Anyway, don't think any outside.
I mean, I always tell likepeople, that's like you, in a
weird way, in his weird ego way.
Anyway, don't think any outside.
I mean, I always tell people weneed to be out there.
You know what I mean?
Yes, go out on the streets,protect students, have your
institutions fight, be moral, beengaged, be in the arena and
(18:22):
singularly focus on 2026.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
And that's refreshing to hear, because not too many
people are just coming out andsaying that, and I think one
reason is it scares people rightTo think oh my God, it comes
down to that where it's iffy andit could go either way, because
again, everybody wants thatsuperhero overnight fix look, I
mean right, no, no, I thinkthat's right.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
the overnight fix, that's exactly like and we
thought this in trump 1.0, likeyou know, remember, like people
would be on tv and my network, Imean people would be on tv and
they'd be like this is the case.
He's going to jail, like youknow, like one one court ruling
is going to do that, or theMueller report, and it just it's
.
Look, we realize that the normswere breakable.
(19:09):
Right, we've got a lot to learnfrom this.
But you know, the eradicationof, of parts of MAGAism the
MAGAism is going to always exist.
I don't agree with itsubstantively.
I don't know if it exists afterTrump exits the public stage or
passes away, but what I do knowis that the violent,
(19:34):
destabilizing elements of MAGAhave to be eradicated in the
ballot booth, and that's on theDemocrats to figure out who's
our messenger and what's ourmessage.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, and I know, in reference to the issue we were
just talking about, you said youknow it's not like just a
single issue.
So I know that you think, interms of the full picture and
the complexity, what two orthree issues, looking back to
the 2024 election, yeah, whattwo or three issues do you think
(20:07):
could have been addresseddifferently that might have?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
made a difference.
I have three Immigration,immigration, immigration Bingo
it is.
And this is where I got on theother side of my party, right on
the other side of my partyright For three and a half years
.
Democrats tend to convincethemselves that border security
(20:35):
is a mythology of Fox News andwe still don't know how we want
to talk about it.
But we better start talkingabout asylum.
Rules were being abused, thecaravans were real, that the
dysfunctional, permissive natureof a lot of our border
(20:58):
enforcement policies werecreating a magnet, and I know
this because once Biden realizedthat this was a real issue, he
was able to fix it six monthsfrom his election.
So we have to take on liberaland progressive groups.
We have to understand thatHispanic, arab, Asian
(21:21):
communities are not thinkingabout immigration in the same
way that white progressivesmight be, and we better figure
out what this policy is.
How are we going to talk aboutimmigration?
How are we going to talk aboutborder enforcement?
And then, how are we going toimplement it?
And there's some interestingDemocrats out there now who are
(21:44):
doing that, especially fromborder states, like the new
senator from Arizona.
Why did I forget his name?
Hispanic guy.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
You know I'm not lost for the name too, but yes, I do
.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So he's.
He's talking about what thecommunity thinks about, and it's
very different than than thetalking points of the liberal
elite in New England.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
It is, yeah, it is, when.
In this case, it was PresidentBiden, but with any president,
when it takes them so long toget on board with realizing, in
this case, the war, is that theresult of them getting bad
information, or is it the resultof their own resistance and
(22:28):
isolation?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I think it's the result of the whole groups
phenomenon.
I don't mean to blame thegroups, they have done good.
It's feeling that the groupsrepresented the issue in a way
that they didn't and I thinkthat ends up being the big
challenge, right, right, in away that they didn't, and I
think that that I think thatends up being the big challenge,
right, right, you know, I thinkit's.
It's the groups came to reallybe asylum groups, right, groups
(22:54):
that were focused on asylum.
Well, the border is much morecomplicated than that.
It's about flows andenforcement and right.
But if the democratic policyafter this is, you know,
enforcement, interiorenforcement has been horrible,
isis horrible.
No one's going to doubt that.
You've got to finish thesentence, which is ISIS.
(23:15):
Isis priority in a Democraticadministration is going to be
workplace enforcement.
Yeah, period.
We're not going to be workplaceenforcement.
Yeah, period.
We're not going to go afterschools, we're not going to go
after.
You know, we might eventuallyright, but it's going to be
(23:36):
workplace enforcement and realcriminals and it's not going to
be this BS of putting innocentpeople in jail in El Salvador
which they're taking up to theSupreme Court.
I mean, that's how you know,that's how scary it is about
what they think their authorityis.
They've admitted that they madea mistake with one of these
guys, one of the Venezuelan guys.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Right, I'm going to ask you this question.
Let me sink from left field andmy subscribers are probably
going to give me a hard time foreven posing this question.
But is there the chance asabsurd as it sounds is there the
chance that somewhere down theroad, that it's undeniable and
(24:21):
that some of these things Trumphas done actually have benefited
the country in any way?
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I think I mean I was accused the other day of being
too, I think.
I think Trump is a politicalgenius in the way in which he
can assert or capture adiscontent and in that way in
(25:02):
Right, I agree, and in that wayI think he was right about the
border.
I mean I think he's right aboutconditions-based disaster
relief.
Where he's always wrong is inwhat the solution specifically
should be Makes sense.
I think Trump was right about X, y or Z His solutions, though I
(25:26):
mean about exposing that weneed to fix this.
Here's my solution.
We cannot be on defense.
I mean this is.
I keep yelling who's doing?
I mean we've got to win theelections, but who's doing
Project 2029?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, and is that what Gavin Newsom is attempting
to do?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Maybe I'm not sure he's the one.
I mean he's getting better.
I mean I thought in the earlyones of his podcast I thought he
was like a little bit toodumbstruck by the pod boys of
the right wing.
I think he's getting a littlebit better, but I think I
(26:08):
applaud him, as I do others whoare trying to figure out, trying
to fill spaces and then alsotell the story of why government
matters.
We've got to tell that storybecause the Republicans are
telling that story and it's nota good one.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Right, I'll tell you somebody who will probably be in
the running, or I assume, whoseems to have a very balanced
way of talking about things andI'd like your feedback on that
JB Pritzker.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, I think Pritzker is good in that sense
is that he's tough but he'saction-oriented.
I like the governors, I mean Ireally do.
I like Bashir, I like I'm goodfriends with him, but I like
various'm good friends with him,but you know, I like various
governors throughout.
So there are there are a numberof governors, and maybe even
(26:53):
retired governors, who will jumpin.
But you know, I mean you knowwe can't.
Oh, sorry, that was Amara, thatwas that.
It was the time.
She's like did you find him?
Yes, I found him, sorry, I hadAmara, that was that.
She's like did you find him?
Yes, I found him.
Sorry, I had turned that off.
Ok, she's reminding me I have atwo o'clock.
I'm sorry that it gotinterrupted, but let me, let's
start that answer over.
(27:14):
Look, I like what Gavin Newsomis doing in the sense of he's
trying to fill spaces that we'veavoided, democrats have avoided
, and I think a lot, as I wassaying to you earlier, about
like, how do you want to engage?
Like you know, you know who'swatching these things, who's
listening to these things.
Do we need to engage on theirlevel?
How are our kids gettinginformation like YouTube, all
(27:38):
this stuff?
So I think that's good.
I may not always like thecontours of it and and I think
it's good that that's comingfrom governors, right.
And so if you think of someonelike JB Pritzker, bashir from
Kentucky, obviously, gretchenWhitmer from Michigan, you've
(27:58):
got the Joshes, josh Stein andJosh, josh Stein in North
Carolina and Josh in, oh my God,in Pennsylvania.
Good morning, you've got a lotof really interesting characters
, but we've got to learn how tosay the narrative of why
government matters and why it'smeaningful in people's lives,
(28:22):
because they're figuring it outright now.
They're figuring.
I mean, you know we're a lot.
You know everyone says the richget richer, everyone's getting
poorer.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Today, april 7th, yes , Well, listen, I agree that
it's good that they're talking,speaking out too, and I also
think it would be good if youmake your two o'clock
appointment.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I know.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
You're a sweetheart.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Sorry for the mix up at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Thank, you so much, Juliet.
Maybe we can do this againsomeday.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Okay, wonderful, you have a wonderful time.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Let us know when it's up Bye.
All right, bye-bye.
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