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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone. It's Michael Lewis here. When this feed gets

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Speaker 2: a little quiet, it means I'm working on a new book.

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Speaker 2: And now the book is here. It's called Blockers, Rebels

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Speaker 2: in the Deep State. I'm going to share a chapter

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Speaker 2: of the audiobook with you. But first, let me tell

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Speaker 2: you how this one came about. I've become engrossed with

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Speaker 2: the U.S.

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Speaker 3: Civil Service.

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Speaker 2: And I've written about it before in my books, The

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Speaker 2: Fifth Risk and Who is Government? There are hundreds of

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Speaker 2: thousands of employees of the federal government. who just go

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Speaker 2: to work every day and take on really big problems

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Speaker 2: and don't expect fame or fortune. They cure incurable diseases.

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Speaker 2: They rescue people lost at sea. They collect taxes. They

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Speaker 2: figure out how to wage peace instead of war. I

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Speaker 2: already thought civil servants, who get dismissed as bureaucrats or

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Speaker 2: deep state, made for interesting characters. They tend not to

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Speaker 2: tell their own stories and are modest to a fault,

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Speaker 2: so that leaves a kind of vacuum for a writer

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Speaker 2: to walk into. Then came the re-election of Donald Trump

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Speaker 2: in 2024 and a huge escalation of attacks on the

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Speaker 2: federal bureaucracy. You've no doubt heard about it. Job cuts,

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Speaker 2: grants rescinded, careers ruined, whole agencies shut down. Years of

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Speaker 2: institutional knowledge, of risk management, blowtorched in a matter of weeks.

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Speaker 2: So I really wanted to write about the civil service again.

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Speaker 2: It was a new story and I knew the characters

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Speaker 2: were great. I found six of them. who give us

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Speaker 2: a sense of what these past few years have been like.

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Speaker 2: Each person comes from a very different place in government,

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Speaker 2: performs a very different function, and each has a unique

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Speaker 2: take on what's happened. So here comes a chapter. I'm

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Speaker 2: not going anywhere, though. Over the next few weeks, I'll

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Speaker 2: bring you some moments from my book tour, some behind-the-scenes

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Speaker 2: insights into the making of the book, Blockers, and some

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Speaker 2: great conversations I've been having. Meanwhile, you can get the

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Speaker 2: Blockers audiobook at blockers.fm. or wherever books are sold.

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Speaker 4: And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties

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Speaker 4: of the office on which I am about to enter.

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Speaker 3: So help me God.

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Speaker 2: Civil Service Oath of Office, Title V, U.S. Code, Section 3331.

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Speaker 3: From At Amuse, Doge. The Doge team fought for days

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Speaker 3: to gain access to the United States Institute of Peace. Eventually,

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Speaker 3: with help from the FBI and Metro Police, Doge was

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Speaker 3: able to access the agency and discovered massive fraud, waste,

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Speaker 3: and abuse, including payments to Taliban in Iraq.

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk. Any government institution is most likely to be

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Speaker 1: the opposite of its name. Elon Musk. They deleted a

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Speaker 1: terabyte of financial data to cover their crimes. But they

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Speaker 1: don't understand technology, so we recovered it.

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Speaker 2: Colin O'Brien was the chief security officer at the United

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Speaker 2: States Institute of Peace. Mostly that meant keeping the Institute's

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Speaker 2: 400 employees scattered across 28 difficult countries, safe from harm. Mostly,

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Speaker 2: it succeeded. There'd been close calls in Haiti, and Colin

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Speaker 2: himself had been with a group that had come under

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Speaker 2: rocket fire in Kiev. But no one had been killed.

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Speaker 2: No new doves to add to the five already on

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Speaker 2: the Wall of the Fallen. Now, on this late afternoon

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Speaker 2: of March 14, 2025, the threat was right here, in Washington, D.C.

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Speaker 2: Three young men from the Department of Government Efficiency were

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Speaker 2: trying to argue their way into the Institute building. Once inside,

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Speaker 2: it was game over. Just as it had been at

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Speaker 2: the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, and the African

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Speaker 2: Development Foundation, and a bunch of other places. During the

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Speaker 2: presidential campaign, he hadn't taken Doge seriously. Trump's promise to

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Speaker 2: create a Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk, felt,

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Speaker 2: to Collin, like his promise to make Mexico pay for

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Speaker 2: the wall, or to end the war in Ukraine in

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Speaker 2: 24 hours. It was not something that would ever survive

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Speaker 2: contact with reality, said Colin. Watching Musk do various weird

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Speaker 2: things on various political stages only reinforced his sense that

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Speaker 2: Doge was pure theater. His views had changed only after

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Speaker 2: they'd busted into federal agencies to shut them down, and

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Speaker 2: Congress had failed to respond. If that could happen in

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Speaker 2: broad daylight with no response... then no organization was safe,

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Speaker 2: he said. He had left work early on the 14th,

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Speaker 2: a Friday. His daughter needed help with her math homework,

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Speaker 2: and he assumed nothing would happen late in the afternoon

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Speaker 2: before a holiday weekend. Then came the call from one

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Speaker 2: of his guys, saying that these Doge kids were out

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Speaker 2: on the sidewalk and asking to be let in. Colin

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Speaker 2: immediately sent a text to his IT people that said simply,

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Speaker 2: shut it down, and had instantly thrown the building into lockdown.

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Speaker 2: After the magnetic lock snapped shut, No one on the

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Speaker 2: inside could get out, and no one on the outside

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Speaker 2: could get in. By the time Colin arrived to spring

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Speaker 2: the staff from the building, the three Doge guys had

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Speaker 2: given up and left. Two hours later, they returned with reinforcements,

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Speaker 2: a rare Doge female and two FBI agents. This time,

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Speaker 2: Colin went out to meet them. He'd been tracking Doge's

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Speaker 2: movements through the federal bureaucracy. He'd created files on each member.

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Speaker 2: The security guys who had called Colin had spotted them

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Speaker 2: from the photos Colin had provided. But this was the

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Speaker 2: first time Colin had seen any of them in the flesh.

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Speaker 2: Skinny jeans, T-shirts, and little backpacks. Tech bro wear. The

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Speaker 2: FBI agents, like Colin, wore suits to work and were

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Speaker 2: clearly uneasy in their new role as Doge Muscle. The

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Speaker 2: Doge trio didn't have a warrant or a court order

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Speaker 2: or really anything else except attitudes. One of the FBI

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Speaker 2: men told Colin that he was just hoping to facilitate

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Speaker 2: a cordial conversation. But the lead Doge guy, Nate Cavanaugh,

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Speaker 2: was not cordial. He was expecting me to jump too,

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Speaker 2: said Colin. Colin wasn't really built to jump too. His

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Speaker 2: appearance was deceptive. He looked like the sort of guy

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Speaker 2: who could fix your car, but he was more like

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Speaker 2: the guy who noticed what your choice of car said

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Speaker 2: about you. He was big and broad like an offensive tackle,

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Speaker 2: with an army haircut and a polite attentiveness. that suggested

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Speaker 2: he was just here to take orders. What he was

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Speaker 2: really doing was watching you closely and figuring out just

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Speaker 2: how full of shit you were. He knew what little

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Speaker 2: was public about Nate Kavanaugh, that he'd dropped out of

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Speaker 2: Indiana University to start some not-obviously-world-changing tech company in Los Angeles.

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Speaker 2: His authority came entirely from his personal association with Elon Musk,

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Speaker 2: whose own came from his personal association with Donald Trump.

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Speaker 2: By night, he and some other 20-something Doge guys were

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Speaker 2: bunking with Musk on the sixth floor of the Government

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Speaker 2: Services Administration, like it was another tech startup. By day,

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Speaker 2: he was marching into other executive office buildings and telling

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Speaker 2: everyone that he was now in charge. And they were fired.

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Speaker 2: While the young Doge guys tried to talk their way

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Speaker 2: past Colin and into the front of the building, the

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Speaker 2: young Doge woman, Laken Rapier, ran around at the back

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Speaker 2: and pounded on the door, and asked to be let

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Speaker 2: in to use the bathroom. When the guards refused to

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Speaker 2: open the door, she shouted at them that as she

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Speaker 2: was a government employee and this was a government building,

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Speaker 2: she had a right to relieve herself inside of it.

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Speaker 2: She didn't seem to understand that the Institute wasn't a

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Speaker 2: government building. Even the FBI agents seemed to get that point. Eventually,

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Speaker 2: they gave up and left. Colin unlocked the building, let

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Speaker 2: out the few employees who remained inside the U.S. Institute

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Speaker 2: of Peace, then waited for Doge to return. You never

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Speaker 2: know what's going to catch your eye and become a story.

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Speaker 2: Back in 2016, the first time Donald Trump collided with

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Speaker 2: the U.S. government, it was a throwaway line, something Trump said.

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Speaker 2: In the months before the election, well-meaning people tried to

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Speaker 2: prepare Trump to govern. Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor

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Speaker 2: and close Trump ally, assembled a transition team of 500

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Speaker 2: or so people. many of them with government experience. The

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Speaker 2: idea was that if Trump won, his team would rush

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Speaker 2: into the federal government, not just into the White House,

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Speaker 2: but into all the federal agencies, from the CIA to

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Speaker 2: the Department of Agriculture, and figure out what was going on.

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Speaker 2: They'd teach the president-elect whatever he needed to know about, say,

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Speaker 2: the Iran nuclear deal or the plight of the American farmer.

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Speaker 2: Trump might not know or even really care about this

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Speaker 2: complicated machine. But all was still well. Chris Christie's transition

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Speaker 2: team would study the machine and teach him how it worked.

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Speaker 2: That never happened. Instead, right after the 2016 election, Trump

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Speaker 2: fired his entire transition team. Chris, you and I are

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Speaker 2: so smart that we can leave the victory party two

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Speaker 2: hours early and do the transition ourselves, he'd told Christie.

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Speaker 2: That was the throwaway line that caught my eye and

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Speaker 2: invited me to reach out and pull on it until

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Speaker 2: a story unspooled. The United States government was arguably the

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Speaker 2: most complex and powerful machine ever designed by man. Trump

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Speaker 2: had no personal experience inside it, and had made no

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Speaker 2: effort to educate himself. Handed the task of managing it,

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Speaker 2: he was just going to wing it. And that's what

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Speaker 2: he did. Right after the election, all these experts across

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Speaker 2: the federal government, people who managed the nuclear stockpile in

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Speaker 2: the Department of Energy, people who ran pandemic preparedness at

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Speaker 2: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who ran

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Speaker 2: the National Weather Service in the Department of Commerce, and

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Speaker 2: on and on and on, put out finger sandwiches and

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Speaker 2: sparkling water and sat around waiting for someone from the

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Speaker 2: Trump administration to turn up just to let them know

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Speaker 2: what they were working on and what they might need

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Speaker 2: to do to prevent various horrible things from happening. In

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Speaker 2: most agencies, no one showed, or they showed up months

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Speaker 2: late without questions. But, and here was the happy news,

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Speaker 2: mostly that didn't seem to matter much. Or, if it mattered,

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Speaker 2: it was hard to see why. Total neglect didn't result

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Speaker 2: in immediate catastrophe. I wound up writing a short book

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Speaker 2: called The Fifth Risk, the gist of which was that

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Speaker 2: inside the federal government, there were lots of public-spirited people

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Speaker 2: dealing with an insane number of big problems that the

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Speaker 2: private sector would never address. The entire system was screwed up,

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Speaker 2: budgets changing wildly year to year, bosses coming and going

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Speaker 2: like Tinder dates. But the people working in it often

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Speaker 2: were not. Their stories were often inspiring. But those stories

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Speaker 2: were seldom told. American civil servants, as a group, have

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Speaker 2: learned that any attention they receive tends to be negative attention.

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Speaker 2: And in any case, the sort of person who goes

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Speaker 2: to work for the government isn't usually looking to be

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Speaker 2: the life of the party. The federal bureaucracy wasn't exactly

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Speaker 2: out of touch with the society it served, but its

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Speaker 2: society was out of touch with it. But that, too,

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Speaker 2: seemed okay. For better and worse, the United States government

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Speaker 2: has a crude autopilot feature that, like a Tesla's, works

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Speaker 2: well enough to lull you into a stupor. You can

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Speaker 2: play the Battle of Polytopia while doing 75 on the

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Speaker 2: interstate and after a while feel that you don't even

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Speaker 2: need to look up. But there will come a moment

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Speaker 2: when something happens that requires your attention. And in that moment,

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Speaker 2: if you are wholly absorbed with the decision of whether

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Speaker 2: to attack to kill or attack to wound, you'll wind

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Speaker 2: up not only dead, but trending on X. That's sort

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Speaker 2: of what happened at the end of 2019, when a

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Speaker 2: virus in China leapt from either a lab or an

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Speaker 2: animal and raced towards an unprepared American population. The United

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Speaker 2: States government's shockingly poor performance in the global pandemic is

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Speaker 2: another story. I wrote a book about that, too. though

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Speaker 2: it may partly explain why Trump's second collision with the U.S.

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Speaker 2: government felt so different from the first. This time, Trump

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Speaker 2: kept at least one eye on the road. Instead of

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Speaker 2: firing his transition team after the election, he created the

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Speaker 2: most energetic and empowered transition team in history and put

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Speaker 2: the world's most famous businessman in charge of it. The

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Speaker 2: stated ambition of the Department of Government Efficiency was huge,

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Speaker 2: from annual federal spending just shy of $ 7 trillion to

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Speaker 2: Elon Musk claimed he could cut $ 2 trillion. And from

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Speaker 2: the moment his minions began their hunt for waste, fraud,

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Speaker 2: and abuse, his tweets, subtweets, and reposts came thick and fast.

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Speaker 2: In his first two months on the job, Musk averaged

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Speaker 2: more than 100 posts every day on X. And every day,

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Speaker 2: he generated new material to tweet about. In just the

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Speaker 2: first couple of months, his team had either closed or

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Speaker 2: shrunk beyond recognition entire federal agencies. the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

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Speaker 2: the Department of Education, USAID, and more. Then, in mid-March,

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Speaker 2: they invaded the U.S. Institute of Peace. Odd as it

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Speaker 2: might sound, that's what finally grabbed my attention this time.

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Speaker 2: In the year I'd spent wandering around the first Trump administration,

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Speaker 2: I thought I'd seen or at least heard about most

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Speaker 2: of our government. I'd spent weeks wrestling with what seemed

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Speaker 2: at the time like pressing questions. Which is inherently more thrilling,

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Speaker 2: the Department of Energy? or the Department of the Interior? Or,

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Speaker 2: why is an agency that spends three-fifths of its budget

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Speaker 2: collecting and analyzing and disseminating weather data called the Department

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Speaker 2: of Commerce? I carried around with me a U.S. government

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Speaker 2: org chart and reduced every federal agency to a file

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Speaker 2: on the floor of my office. And yet, I'd never

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Speaker 2: even heard of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Not so

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Speaker 2: much as a faint whisper about it. That's why what

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Speaker 2: might seem in context like a trivial event pulled me

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Speaker 2: up short. I couldn't begin to guess what the U.S.

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Speaker 2: Institute of Peace actually did. It sounded like a front

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Speaker 2: for a drug operation. And so I asked around and

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Speaker 2: learned that the reason it never wound up in a

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Speaker 2: file on my office floor with the federal agencies is

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Speaker 2: that it wasn't a federal agency. It was a private corporation.

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Speaker 2: Its employees weren't civil servants, but ordinary workers.

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Speaker 1: The U.S.

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Speaker 2: Institute of Peace wasn't a thing the president was supposed

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Speaker 2: to control. Donald Trump had gone from paying no attention

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Speaker 2: at all to the federal government to paying more attention

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Speaker 2: than any president ever. He had become so interested in

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Speaker 2: running the federal government that he was now trying to

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Speaker 2: run even the parts of it that he wasn't meant to.

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Speaker 2: The effect was to create a kind of negative space.

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Speaker 2: The story to tell about Trump's first term was all

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Speaker 2: about the price of ignorance and the risk of radical neglect.

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Speaker 2: The story to tell about his second term was different.

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Speaker 2: It was about all those people in roles— in and

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Speaker 2: around the United States government, once taken for granted, that

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Speaker 2: were now gone. The second Trump administration was a bit

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Speaker 2: like a meteor strike or some other massive environmental shift.

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Speaker 2: It killed off entire species and made room for new ones.

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Speaker 2: That different species had died in different ways and for

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Speaker 2: different reasons only heightened the story's interest. It enabled you

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Speaker 2: to cobble together the various wiped-out species into a portrait

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Speaker 2: of the new environment. That new environment needed to be

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Speaker 2: understood not merely by the new life forms it sustained,

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Speaker 2: but by the old ones that it didn't. If you

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Speaker 2: ask Colin O'Brien what made a person a good security officer,

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Speaker 2: he'd start by telling you what didn't. The problem in

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Speaker 2: the security field is that there are so many asshats

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Speaker 2: in it, he'd say. Either they're Paul Blart the mall

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Speaker 2: cop and just mailing it in, or they're the Navy

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Speaker 2: SEAL who wants to tell you what a badass Navy

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Speaker 2: SEAL they were. If you pressed him a bit, he'd

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Speaker 2: tell you that when he was hiring someone for a

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Speaker 2: security job, he looked not just for the protective instincts

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Speaker 2: of an offensive lineman and a taste for work, those

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Speaker 2: were a given, but for an extreme sensitivity to the environment.

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Speaker 2: To be any good, you had to notice things that

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Speaker 2: most people didn't. It might be that the landscaping or

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Speaker 2: the lighting created possibilities for concealment, or that the wrong

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Speaker 2: type of screw in a door frame caused it to

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Speaker 2: fail faster under force. You have to see all the

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Speaker 2: little things, said Colin. And you have to have a

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Speaker 2: passion for it. The other quality Colin looked for was

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Speaker 2: an ability to improvise. You can't war game out whatever

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Speaker 2: shit is going to happen, he said. There's no checklist.

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Speaker 2: When shit happens, nothing you think you know is going

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Speaker 2: to work in the moment. Interviewing people for security work,

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Speaker 2: he'd always try to surprise them. Have it come out

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Speaker 2: of left field and see how they respond. How did

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Speaker 2: they adapt to an uncomfortable situation? One time, after an

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Speaker 2: applicant had sat down for what he assumed would be

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Speaker 2: the conventional interview, Colin had simply tossed a tourniquet at

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Speaker 2: him and said, What is this and how do you

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Speaker 2: use it? I didn't care if he knew how to

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Speaker 2: use a tourniquet, said Colin. I just wanted to see

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Speaker 2: how he'd respond. For as long as Colin could remember,

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Speaker 2: he'd wanted to be a cop. It is such a

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Speaker 2: badass job. I love the idea of law enforcement. I

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Speaker 2: love the idea of serving something bigger than myself, and

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Speaker 2: I love catching bad guys. His parents hated the idea.

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Speaker 2: They thought it was too dangerous. If you would have

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Speaker 2: asked my parents, they would have told you I was

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Speaker 2: going to grow out of it, said Colin. He didn't

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Speaker 2: grow out of it. As he approached his high school graduation,

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Speaker 2: his mother insisted he go on to college. Colin loved

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Speaker 2: playing for his high school football team, offensive line and linebacker,

307
00:18:40,106 --> 00:18:43,296
Speaker 2: but hated the classroom. He thought college would be a

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Speaker 2: waste of money, and he didn't want to spend another minute,

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Speaker 2: much less the rest of his life, behind a desk.

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Speaker 2: He cut a deal with his mom. If she signed

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Speaker 2: the papers that allowed him to enlist in the U.S.

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Speaker 2: Army at the age of 17, he'd serve on active

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Speaker 2: duty only the required five years. After that, if she

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Speaker 2: still wanted him to go to college, he'd go to college.

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Speaker 2: And then, this part he didn't tell her, he'd become

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Speaker 2: a cop. He loved his mom and dad, but he

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Speaker 2: was always his own guy. And in any case, the

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Speaker 2: best way to show you loved your mom and dad

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Speaker 2: was to insist on being who you were. He'd scored

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Speaker 2: so high on the aptitude test that they told him

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Speaker 2: he could pick his first assignment. He chose the place

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Speaker 2: he knew the least about, South Korea. There he wound

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Speaker 2: up assigned to the elite SWAT team as a sniper.

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Speaker 2: He did well enough that they pulled him to work

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Speaker 2: on the security detail of Leon Laporte, the four-star general

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Speaker 2: who ran the region. I loved it, said Colin. When

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Speaker 2: his five years were up, Laporte's successor, Burwell Baxter B.B.

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Speaker 2: Bell III, another four-star general, called him into his office

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Speaker 2: and told him that if he agreed to re-enlist, he

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Speaker 2: could have most any other job at his pay grade

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Speaker 2: that he wanted in the U.S.

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Speaker 5: Army.

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Speaker 2: Colin found himself nervously explaining to General B.B. Bell how

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Speaker 2: his mom had raised him to keep his promises and

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Speaker 2: that he had made a promise to his mom. But

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00:20:05,636 --> 00:20:10,136
Speaker 2: he'd never lost his original ambition. After studying constitutional law

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Speaker 2: and graduating from the University of Maryland, he joined the

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Speaker 2: Montgomery County Police Force. He was as suited to the

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Speaker 2: job as he'd imagined. but it beat the hell out

340
00:20:19,686 --> 00:20:22,826
Speaker 2: of him. In a police boxing class, they tossed him

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Speaker 2: into a ring with a guy even bigger than him,

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Speaker 2: who with a single punch broke Collins' neck. Another time,

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Speaker 2: he found himself racing after four kids, speeding in a

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Speaker 2: stolen car. The kids ran the car off the road

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Speaker 2: and into a tree, where it caught fire. As Collins

346
00:20:39,016 --> 00:20:41,436
Speaker 2: sprinted into the wreck to yank the kids out, the

347
00:20:41,476 --> 00:20:45,276
Speaker 2: car exploded into flames ten feet high. He extracted the

348
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Speaker 2: driver before grabbing a second kid, who was on fire.

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Speaker 2: I had one of those weird moments, said Colin. I

350
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Speaker 2: just remembered the phrase, drop and roll. I dropped on

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Speaker 2: top of him and rolled him down the street and

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Speaker 2: the flames went out. That boy survived. The other two

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Speaker 2: burned to death before he could get to them. The

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00:21:03,806 --> 00:21:05,086
Speaker 2: driver died later.

355
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Speaker 3: In the hospital.

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Speaker 2: Colin emerged with burns and a broken shoulder that never

357
00:21:09,566 --> 00:21:12,846
Speaker 2: again felt right. He'd spent eight years as a cop

358
00:21:12,886 --> 00:21:16,306
Speaker 2: before leaving in 2016 when his body couldn't take it anymore.

359
00:21:17,596 --> 00:21:19,716
Speaker 2: He'd gone from wearing a gun every day to reaching

360
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Speaker 2: down only to realize he didn't have one. It took

361
00:21:23,156 --> 00:21:25,416
Speaker 2: me a little bit before I was like, I don't

362
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Speaker 2: have to have a gun to be safe. He'd gone

363
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Speaker 2: from chasing down people who had done bad things to

364
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Speaker 2: preventing the bad things from happening in the first place.

365
00:21:34,716 --> 00:21:37,996
Speaker 2: You can't really measure prevention, he said. When something bad

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Speaker 2: does not happen, there's no clear way to prove why.

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Speaker 2: Did it not occur because you noticed and fixed a

368
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Speaker 2: problem no one else saw? Because you were good at

369
00:21:47,366 --> 00:21:50,606
Speaker 2: your job? Because you were lucky? Or because nothing was

370
00:21:50,686 --> 00:21:53,976
Speaker 2: ever going to happen in the first place? That ambiguity

371
00:21:54,006 --> 00:21:57,336
Speaker 2: is part of the work. It's about noticing small details,

372
00:21:57,636 --> 00:22:01,256
Speaker 2: understanding human behavior, and acting on things that feel just

373
00:22:01,376 --> 00:22:06,676
Speaker 2: slightly out of place. When it works, nothing happens. His

374
00:22:06,716 --> 00:22:10,116
Speaker 2: first encounter with Doge, on that Friday in March in 2025,

375
00:22:10,116 --> 00:22:15,596
Speaker 2: had felt mostly like luck. They were the Keystone Cops,

376
00:22:15,676 --> 00:22:19,156
Speaker 2: he said. They'd shown up with a dubious-looking document on

377
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Speaker 2: Institute of Peace letterhead signed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth,

378
00:22:24,056 --> 00:22:28,526
Speaker 2: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Pete Garvin, head of

379
00:22:28,566 --> 00:22:32,726
Speaker 2: the National Defense University, the three ex officio members of

380
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Speaker 2: the Institute's board. It announced that they were firing the

381
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Speaker 2: Institute's acting president, George Moose, and replacing him with a

382
00:22:40,336 --> 00:22:43,616
Speaker 2: Doge guy. But they didn't have the legal authority to

383
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Speaker 2: do it. Colin, and for that matter, the FBI agents,

384
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Speaker 2: could see the document was fake. The letterhead had been

385
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Speaker 2: photocopied from some genuine institute stationery, probably from the letter

386
00:22:53,996 --> 00:22:56,916
Speaker 2: George Moose himself had sent to the Doge people to

387
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Speaker 2: explain the law. That law wasn't complicated.

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00:23:02,486 --> 00:23:06,866
Speaker 4: It is the purpose of this title to establish an independent, non-profit,

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00:23:07,026 --> 00:23:11,046
Speaker 4: national institute to serve the people and the government through

390
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Speaker 4: the widest possible range of education and training, basic and

391
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Speaker 4: applied research opportunities, and peace information services on the means

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Speaker 4: to promote international peace and the resolution of conflicts among

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Speaker 4: the nations and peoples of the world without recourse to violence.

394
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Speaker 2: That was one of its nine big bullet points. Passed

395
00:23:36,186 --> 00:23:40,316
Speaker 2: by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan in 1984, the

396
00:23:40,356 --> 00:23:43,876
Speaker 2: law stipulated that the U.S. Institute of Peace would be

397
00:23:43,936 --> 00:23:47,176
Speaker 2: run by a board of 15 people, only eight of

398
00:23:47,236 --> 00:23:51,416
Speaker 2: whom could belong to a single political party. All served

399
00:23:51,516 --> 00:23:55,076
Speaker 2: longer terms than the president. The president could appoint board

400
00:23:55,136 --> 00:24:00,186
Speaker 2: members but not remove them, except for extreme malfeasance. The

401
00:24:00,226 --> 00:24:04,026
Speaker 2: White House had no control over its spending. The money

402
00:24:04,066 --> 00:24:06,426
Speaker 2: for the new institute would come from both Congress and

403
00:24:06,506 --> 00:24:11,016
Speaker 2: private donations. The land for its building would be leased

404
00:24:11,176 --> 00:24:15,846
Speaker 2: to the institute for free in perpetuity. The building wound

405
00:24:15,886 --> 00:24:19,226
Speaker 2: up being paid for with $ 100 million from Congress and

406
00:24:19,226 --> 00:24:23,246
Speaker 2: $ 70 million in private donations, but it was wholly owned

407
00:24:23,566 --> 00:24:27,646
Speaker 2: by the private corporation. The whole point of the structure

408
00:24:28,026 --> 00:24:31,386
Speaker 2: was to remove the U.S. Institute of Peace from day-to-day politics.

409
00:24:32,266 --> 00:24:35,086
Speaker 2: There was a long history of these congressionally bred mongrels,

410
00:24:35,746 --> 00:24:39,496
Speaker 2: institutions that both received help from and gave help to

411
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Speaker 2: the federal government while remaining privately controlled. the first of

412
00:24:44,216 --> 00:24:48,296
Speaker 2: which had been the Red Cross, back in 1900. In 1935,

413
00:24:48,276 --> 00:24:52,676
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court upheld, by unanimous vote, the right of

414
00:24:52,736 --> 00:24:56,976
Speaker 2: Congress to breed mongrel institutions, and Congress had since bred

415
00:24:57,016 --> 00:24:59,696
Speaker 2: more of them. But in a funny way, the U.S.

416
00:24:59,756 --> 00:25:03,016
Speaker 2: Institute of Peace predated them all, even the Red Cross.

417
00:25:04,016 --> 00:25:08,086
Speaker 2: In his final address to Congress in 1796, George Washington

418
00:25:08,106 --> 00:25:12,586
Speaker 2: had proposed creating two private but national colleges, one to

419
00:25:12,646 --> 00:25:17,636
Speaker 2: train warriors, the other to train peacemakers. Six years later,

420
00:25:18,136 --> 00:25:21,496
Speaker 2: Congress agreed to fund West Point, but not the Peace College,

421
00:25:22,096 --> 00:25:25,116
Speaker 2: whose merits were the subject of an on-again, off-again debate

422
00:25:25,496 --> 00:25:29,516
Speaker 2: for the next 188 years. The idea got a massive

423
00:25:29,616 --> 00:25:32,496
Speaker 2: push after the Vietnam War from a handful of United

424
00:25:32,516 --> 00:25:36,216
Speaker 2: States senators who'd served in combat and emerged from the

425
00:25:36,276 --> 00:25:39,516
Speaker 2: experience with the conviction that the best war was the

426
00:25:39,556 --> 00:25:42,736
Speaker 2: war that never happened, and that one way to prevent

427
00:25:42,796 --> 00:25:45,996
Speaker 2: war was to invest a bit more in the art

428
00:25:46,016 --> 00:25:48,906
Speaker 2: of peace. Yeah, you can have a Department of War,

429
00:25:49,316 --> 00:25:50,926
Speaker 2: but what you really want to do is stay out

430
00:25:50,946 --> 00:25:53,746
Speaker 2: of war, said Colin. How do you stop people from

431
00:25:53,786 --> 00:25:57,206
Speaker 2: blowing other people up? These were people who genuinely want

432
00:25:57,226 --> 00:26:00,626
Speaker 2: to make the world a less shitty place. Of all

433
00:26:00,646 --> 00:26:04,366
Speaker 2: the mongrel institutions created by Congress, the Federal Trade Commission,

434
00:26:04,686 --> 00:26:09,746
Speaker 2: the Inter-American Foundation, the Legal Services Corporation, and others, the U.S.

435
00:26:09,786 --> 00:26:12,926
Speaker 2: Institute of Peace was was legally the most removed from

436
00:26:12,986 --> 00:26:17,926
Speaker 2: presidential control. If Elon Musk, acting on behalf of Donald Trump,

437
00:26:18,486 --> 00:26:21,216
Speaker 2: could send Nate Kavanaugh in to just take the building

438
00:26:21,276 --> 00:26:26,536
Speaker 2: away and fire everyone inside, he could take anything and

439
00:26:26,616 --> 00:26:33,646
Speaker 2: fire anyone. The Federal Reserve, for example. Or the Kennedy Center. Plus,

440
00:26:33,686 --> 00:26:39,036
Speaker 2: of course, the entire two-million-person civil service. This attempt to

441
00:26:39,076 --> 00:26:42,116
Speaker 2: strip a building from its rightful owner was a pure

442
00:26:42,316 --> 00:26:45,396
Speaker 2: assertion of power, an attempt to change the way the

443
00:26:45,436 --> 00:26:48,536
Speaker 2: government had been run for more than a century, to

444
00:26:48,576 --> 00:26:51,856
Speaker 2: reduce it to nothing more or less than a servant

445
00:26:52,096 --> 00:26:55,676
Speaker 2: of whoever happens to be president. Holding the building meant

446
00:26:55,736 --> 00:26:59,876
Speaker 2: more to Colin than just holding the building. I knew

447
00:26:59,896 --> 00:27:02,556
Speaker 2: what I was fighting for, he said. I knew what

448
00:27:02,596 --> 00:27:05,576
Speaker 2: I was trying to protect. By the time he ushered

449
00:27:05,616 --> 00:27:08,656
Speaker 2: Nate Kavanaugh back into his big black car, Colin had

450
00:27:08,696 --> 00:27:13,276
Speaker 2: a fully formed opinion of him. It wasn't favorable. He

451
00:27:13,316 --> 00:27:15,426
Speaker 2: had these white Converse sneakers that make you want to

452
00:27:15,466 --> 00:27:18,226
Speaker 2: scuff them with whatever you have, said Colin. Had this

453
00:27:18,606 --> 00:27:22,246
Speaker 2: air of superiority. You could feel him looking down on you.

454
00:27:23,306 --> 00:27:26,366
Speaker 2: Whatever he was up to, Colin could see. It wasn't

455
00:27:26,506 --> 00:27:30,526
Speaker 2: deficit reduction. More than 80% of federal spending went to

456
00:27:30,586 --> 00:27:34,346
Speaker 2: national defense, entitlement programs, and interest payments on the federal debt.

457
00:27:34,986 --> 00:27:38,326
Speaker 2: Doge wasn't even pretending to touch any of that. Anyway,

458
00:27:38,566 --> 00:27:42,656
Speaker 2: Congress controlled federal spending, and Doge was making no effort

459
00:27:42,816 --> 00:27:46,316
Speaker 2: to engage Congress. What was happening felt to Colin less

460
00:27:46,376 --> 00:27:50,936
Speaker 2: like cost-cutting than total destruction. The people who ran the U.S.

461
00:27:50,976 --> 00:27:54,406
Speaker 2: Institute of Peace were less fatalistic than Colin. They believed

462
00:27:54,426 --> 00:27:57,046
Speaker 2: they could survive. They thought they could hide in the

463
00:27:57,086 --> 00:28:00,486
Speaker 2: tall grass, said Colin. He heard them talk about the

464
00:28:00,526 --> 00:28:04,926
Speaker 2: traits that the Institute possessed, lacked by other quasi-government institutions,

465
00:28:05,286 --> 00:28:10,446
Speaker 2: that enhanced its likelihood of survival. Number one, they were tiny.

466
00:28:11,326 --> 00:28:17,716
Speaker 2: The Institute's $ 55 million annual budget was. 0007857 % of

467
00:28:19,116 --> 00:28:23,636
Speaker 2: the federal budget. Number two, they had nothing inside it

468
00:28:23,696 --> 00:28:28,716
Speaker 2: labeled diversity, equity, and inclusion. Their workforce was diverse, but

469
00:28:28,756 --> 00:28:30,626
Speaker 2: they came by that without making a point of it.

470
00:28:31,756 --> 00:28:36,136
Speaker 2: Number three, people close to Trump, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham,

471
00:28:36,646 --> 00:28:42,426
Speaker 2: had long supported the Institute's work. Number four, Trump's obsession

472
00:28:42,606 --> 00:28:46,446
Speaker 2: with the Nobel Peace Prize. Destroying something called the United

473
00:28:46,506 --> 00:28:50,256
Speaker 2: States Institute of Peace would look bad on his application.

474
00:28:51,396 --> 00:28:56,256
Speaker 2: Number five, the actual importance of their work. Though how

475
00:28:56,336 --> 00:28:59,896
Speaker 2: many Americans, let alone the Americans who had just moved

476
00:28:59,936 --> 00:29:02,456
Speaker 2: into the White House, could tell you what they did?

477
00:29:03,796 --> 00:29:09,126
Speaker 2: Number six, their legal independence. Even as the Doge people

478
00:29:09,186 --> 00:29:12,806
Speaker 2: drove off, and even as his bosses made hopeful noises,

479
00:29:13,806 --> 00:29:17,916
Speaker 2: Colin was almost sure that the Institute was doomed. These

480
00:29:17,956 --> 00:29:21,556
Speaker 2: people I work for are eternal optimists, and they believe

481
00:29:21,576 --> 00:29:25,156
Speaker 2: in the rule of law, he said. I'm thinking, you

482
00:29:25,196 --> 00:29:28,096
Speaker 2: can't fight an army with a piece of paper. His

483
00:29:28,136 --> 00:29:32,276
Speaker 2: goal was now simple. As he said, to keep possession

484
00:29:32,296 --> 00:29:34,526
Speaker 2: of the building until we can get in front of

485
00:29:34,566 --> 00:29:40,396
Speaker 2: a judge. but the situation was moving fast. The next day, Saturday,

486
00:29:40,436 --> 00:29:44,216
Speaker 2: March 15th, Colin received a phone call from a retired

487
00:29:44,296 --> 00:29:48,986
Speaker 2: former employee of the private company Intercon that the Institute

488
00:29:49,006 --> 00:29:52,736
Speaker 2: of Peace hired to guard the building. The guy told

489
00:29:52,796 --> 00:29:55,816
Speaker 2: Colin he'd just gotten this weird call from the FBI

490
00:29:56,316 --> 00:29:58,516
Speaker 2: asking him if he was still in charge of the

491
00:29:58,596 --> 00:30:03,436
Speaker 2: Institute's security guards. These fucking kids just ran it through grok,

492
00:30:03,636 --> 00:30:06,986
Speaker 2: said Colin, and they think he's still in charge of security.

493
00:30:08,096 --> 00:30:09,856
Speaker 2: That's when the light bulb went off in my head.

494
00:30:10,736 --> 00:30:13,196
Speaker 2: They're going to use Intercon to get into the building.

495
00:30:14,336 --> 00:30:14,756
Speaker 3: The U.S.

496
00:30:14,796 --> 00:30:20,436
Speaker 2: Department of State alone paid Intercon $ 460 million a year

497
00:30:21,076 --> 00:30:24,956
Speaker 2: to guard its properties. If forced to choose between that

498
00:30:25,416 --> 00:30:28,276
Speaker 2: and the $ 2. 7 million they were being paid by the

499
00:30:28,316 --> 00:30:33,356
Speaker 2: Institute of Peace, Intercon wouldn't think twice. I realize that

500
00:30:33,396 --> 00:30:35,386
Speaker 2: we need to get rid of the guards, said Colin,

501
00:30:35,966 --> 00:30:38,066
Speaker 2: that the way to make us safer is to get

502
00:30:38,146 --> 00:30:41,086
Speaker 2: rid of the people protecting us. When he was done,

503
00:30:41,406 --> 00:30:44,466
Speaker 2: there was only one outstanding key to the single mechanical

504
00:30:44,546 --> 00:30:48,276
Speaker 2: lock on the entire building, held by Kevin Simpson, who

505
00:30:48,396 --> 00:30:53,256
Speaker 2: oversaw Intercon's security guards. Colin couldn't find him, and in

506
00:30:53,316 --> 00:30:55,616
Speaker 2: any case, he was an old and trusted friend of

507
00:30:55,676 --> 00:30:58,896
Speaker 2: several people who worked for the Institute of Peace. Colin

508
00:30:58,916 --> 00:31:01,736
Speaker 2: hoped that if Doge found him, Kevin Simpson would just

509
00:31:01,796 --> 00:31:04,646
Speaker 2: keep mum about the key. Of all the people out there,

510
00:31:04,666 --> 00:31:09,136
Speaker 2: he said, Kevin is the person I can trust. On Sunday,

511
00:31:09,556 --> 00:31:12,206
Speaker 2: Colin had another phone call, this one from a senior

512
00:31:12,336 --> 00:31:16,486
Speaker 2: FBI agent named Doug Silk. Silk told Colin that he

513
00:31:16,546 --> 00:31:20,446
Speaker 2: was under investigation by the Department of Justice for the

514
00:31:20,486 --> 00:31:23,626
Speaker 2: events of March 14th and asked him to come in

515
00:31:23,666 --> 00:31:26,566
Speaker 2: that day for questioning. I said, yeah, that's not going

516
00:31:26,586 --> 00:31:29,626
Speaker 2: to happen. Then, because he was not home when he

517
00:31:29,686 --> 00:31:32,786
Speaker 2: received the threat, Colin called his wife and told her

518
00:31:32,806 --> 00:31:35,046
Speaker 2: to lock the doors to their house and not let

519
00:31:35,106 --> 00:31:38,456
Speaker 2: anyone in, no matter who they said they were. He

520
00:31:38,496 --> 00:31:41,236
Speaker 2: got to work at five the next morning, St. Patrick's Day.

521
00:31:41,996 --> 00:31:44,376
Speaker 2: They'd told the staff to stay home, so it was

522
00:31:44,436 --> 00:31:48,236
Speaker 2: just him and George Moose and their lawyers. I know

523
00:31:48,336 --> 00:31:50,976
Speaker 2: their objective was going to be to destroy us, said Colin.

524
00:31:51,816 --> 00:31:54,216
Speaker 2: And I know I was being asked to be the D.C.

525
00:31:54,276 --> 00:31:58,336
Speaker 2: version of Davy Crockett. And I know that the analogy

526
00:31:58,416 --> 00:32:01,356
Speaker 2: is not exact. He was looking out over the streets

527
00:32:01,416 --> 00:32:03,996
Speaker 2: from an upper story window when he saw them approach.

528
00:32:04,946 --> 00:32:09,956
Speaker 2: It's three vehicles. a dogemobile, a tinted-out black Tahoe or Escalade,

529
00:32:10,676 --> 00:32:12,096
Speaker 2: followed by a Tesla.

530
00:32:12,056 --> 00:32:12,516
Speaker 3: And a Jeep.

531
00:32:13,376 --> 00:32:15,896
Speaker 2: He watched as an intercom guy named Derek left one

532
00:32:15,916 --> 00:32:18,376
Speaker 2: of the cars and tried to open the front door.

533
00:32:19,236 --> 00:32:22,666
Speaker 2: His badge doesn't work, said Colin. The U.S. Institute of

534
00:32:22,686 --> 00:32:26,526
Speaker 2: Peace building hadn't been designed to repel an invading force.

535
00:32:27,386 --> 00:32:30,686
Speaker 2: It had been designed to admit light. It was all

536
00:32:30,766 --> 00:32:34,106
Speaker 2: clerestory windows topped by a roof of glass panels shaped

537
00:32:34,146 --> 00:32:37,466
Speaker 2: like the wings of a dove. The Valhalla of think

538
00:32:37,486 --> 00:32:41,206
Speaker 2: tank architecture, one critic called it. Colin had no idea

539
00:32:41,266 --> 00:32:44,006
Speaker 2: where the next assault would come from, but he knew

540
00:32:44,046 --> 00:32:47,916
Speaker 2: the most vulnerable point in his defense. The side door.

541
00:32:48,776 --> 00:32:52,256
Speaker 2: The door that still had the mechanical lock. Colin's hope

542
00:32:52,296 --> 00:32:55,156
Speaker 2: that the Doge people would never find Kevin Simpson, or

543
00:32:55,216 --> 00:32:59,126
Speaker 2: his key, faded 15 minutes after the Dogemobiles pulled up,

544
00:32:59,826 --> 00:33:04,426
Speaker 2: when Simpson himself appeared inside the building. Colin descended to

545
00:33:04,466 --> 00:33:08,066
Speaker 2: find him and three other intercom patrol people, in plain clothes,

546
00:33:08,506 --> 00:33:09,726
Speaker 2: just wandering around.

547
00:33:10,826 --> 00:33:11,186
Speaker 3: D.C.

548
00:33:11,226 --> 00:33:14,896
Speaker 2: Law banned the security officers who protected the courthouses and

549
00:33:14,956 --> 00:33:18,776
Speaker 2: agencies and embassies from carrying their weapons home from work.

550
00:33:19,656 --> 00:33:23,216
Speaker 2: The guns needed to be stored someplace. The only odd

551
00:33:23,296 --> 00:33:25,336
Speaker 2: fact about the gun room in the basement of the

552
00:33:25,376 --> 00:33:28,716
Speaker 2: Institute of Peace is that neither Colin nor anyone who

553
00:33:28,836 --> 00:33:31,526
Speaker 2: actually worked for the Institute knew the code to open

554
00:33:31,546 --> 00:33:35,986
Speaker 2: the safe. The 34 9mm Glocks were owned and controlled

555
00:33:36,306 --> 00:33:40,136
Speaker 2: by Intercon. The Intercon cops headed straight to the basement.

556
00:33:40,896 --> 00:33:44,536
Speaker 2: Colin had someone call the D.C. police to report trespassers.

557
00:33:45,536 --> 00:33:45,976
Speaker 3: The D.C.

558
00:33:46,016 --> 00:33:50,316
Speaker 2: Police didn't show. After the Intercon guards secured their guns,

559
00:33:50,856 --> 00:33:53,726
Speaker 2: they toured the building like they owned it, refusing either

560
00:33:53,756 --> 00:33:58,766
Speaker 2: to answer questions or surrender Simpson's key. The Institute, out

561
00:33:58,786 --> 00:34:01,886
Speaker 2: of the kindness of its heart, was still paying their salaries.

562
00:34:02,636 --> 00:34:05,996
Speaker 2: They were now an obviously hostile presence, but they didn't

563
00:34:06,096 --> 00:34:09,336
Speaker 2: really know how to play the new role. At one point,

564
00:34:09,376 --> 00:34:12,786
Speaker 2: they gathered all together in one place, the portico. Colin

565
00:34:12,826 --> 00:34:16,566
Speaker 2: seized that moment to throw the portico into lockdown. The

566
00:34:16,626 --> 00:34:20,386
Speaker 2: portico was self-contained. At the press of a button, Colin

567
00:34:20,426 --> 00:34:23,946
Speaker 2: turned it into a prison cell. He couldn't forcibly eject

568
00:34:24,006 --> 00:34:26,906
Speaker 2: a battalion of armed private security guys all by himself,

569
00:34:27,446 --> 00:34:30,036
Speaker 2: but he could stop them from leaving and others from entering.

570
00:34:30,996 --> 00:34:33,296
Speaker 2: For the next two hours, he watched the intercom guys

571
00:34:33,376 --> 00:34:36,066
Speaker 2: on the security cam pushing on doors that wouldn't yield

572
00:34:36,426 --> 00:34:39,126
Speaker 2: and making phone calls to anyone they thought might rescue them.

573
00:34:39,966 --> 00:34:43,566
Speaker 2: They were pissed, said Colin. With the guards all trapped,

574
00:34:43,906 --> 00:34:47,466
Speaker 2: Colin walked outside and removed the mechanical lock cylinder from

575
00:34:47,486 --> 00:34:50,066
Speaker 2: the side door so no one else could use a

576
00:34:50,106 --> 00:34:53,236
Speaker 2: key to enter. It's not a fire code violation if

577
00:34:53,256 --> 00:34:57,436
Speaker 2: you can't get into the building, he explained. That triggered

578
00:34:57,476 --> 00:35:00,906
Speaker 2: some irate phone calls to his boss, George Moose. whom

579
00:35:00,946 --> 00:35:03,946
Speaker 2: Colin had safely locked behind roughly 10 different doors on

580
00:35:03,966 --> 00:35:06,936
Speaker 2: the fifth floor of the building. The first call was

581
00:35:06,956 --> 00:35:11,376
Speaker 2: Intercon's CEO, angrily but more or less politely asking Moose

582
00:35:11,416 --> 00:35:14,416
Speaker 2: to tell Colin O'Brien that he needed to release his guards.

583
00:35:15,396 --> 00:35:18,556
Speaker 2: The final, less polite call came from the acting U.S.

584
00:35:18,616 --> 00:35:22,636
Speaker 2: attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin. At length,

585
00:35:22,776 --> 00:35:25,916
Speaker 2: Colin unlocked the outside door to the portico, and the

586
00:35:25,956 --> 00:35:29,846
Speaker 2: security guards exited the building. An hour later, there came

587
00:35:29,886 --> 00:35:30,986
Speaker 2: a knock on another door.

588
00:35:31,826 --> 00:35:32,306
Speaker 3: The D.C.

589
00:35:32,346 --> 00:35:37,046
Speaker 2: Police. Finally, Colin thought, the D.C. police are doing their

590
00:35:37,066 --> 00:35:41,366
Speaker 2: fucking jobs. Someone opened the door and in-streamed an army

591
00:35:41,386 --> 00:35:44,666
Speaker 2: of cops, followed by a bunch of intercom guys and,

592
00:35:45,046 --> 00:35:48,946
Speaker 2: trotting after them, Nate Cavanaugh, along with more Doge people.

593
00:35:49,906 --> 00:35:53,006
Speaker 2: They're ordering the D.C. cops around like their own private army,

594
00:35:53,066 --> 00:35:56,276
Speaker 2: said Colin. I didn't see that coming. I didn't see

595
00:35:56,296 --> 00:35:59,696
Speaker 2: the police taking sides. It's like the cops showing up

596
00:35:59,716 --> 00:36:01,756
Speaker 2: at your house and saying, get the fuck out. These

597
00:36:01,796 --> 00:36:05,566
Speaker 2: people live here now. As the D.C. cops escorted Colin

598
00:36:05,586 --> 00:36:10,126
Speaker 2: from the building, the senior Intercon guy approached him and

599
00:36:10,166 --> 00:36:12,446
Speaker 2: said he was sorry that it had gone down this way,

600
00:36:13,126 --> 00:36:16,246
Speaker 2: but that Doge had given him no choice. They had

601
00:36:16,266 --> 00:36:20,746
Speaker 2: indeed threatened to pull Intercon's $ 460 million State Department contract.

602
00:36:21,586 --> 00:36:24,626
Speaker 2: Doge soon selected the next president of the U.S. Institute

603
00:36:24,646 --> 00:36:29,286
Speaker 2: of Peace, Nate Kavanaugh, who until that moment had exhibited

604
00:36:29,366 --> 00:36:33,186
Speaker 2: zero interest in, or knowledge of, the United States government

605
00:36:33,386 --> 00:36:36,746
Speaker 2: or its foreign policy, who promptly moved the title of

606
00:36:36,786 --> 00:36:41,106
Speaker 2: the Institute's building into the General Services Administration, swept its

607
00:36:41,166 --> 00:36:45,606
Speaker 2: money into government accounts, and fired nearly its entire staff.

608
00:36:46,566 --> 00:36:49,456
Speaker 2: A mere two days, Colin couldn't help but notice, before

609
00:36:49,496 --> 00:36:53,036
Speaker 2: their health insurance was set to renew. There was intent

610
00:36:53,096 --> 00:36:56,516
Speaker 2: to hurt these families, he said. It was, let's fuck

611
00:36:56,516 --> 00:37:00,346
Speaker 2: 400 families. and then they laughed about it. In his

612
00:37:00,406 --> 00:37:03,226
Speaker 2: time as a police officer, Colin had seen many different

613
00:37:03,256 --> 00:37:06,176
Speaker 2: kinds of anger. There was the fury of the drunk

614
00:37:06,236 --> 00:37:09,776
Speaker 2: NFL defensive lineman who bull rushed him and proved to

615
00:37:09,816 --> 00:37:13,276
Speaker 2: Colin that his taser worked. That was just the alcohol

616
00:37:13,316 --> 00:37:16,376
Speaker 2: doing its job, and the lineman apologized the next day.

617
00:37:17,276 --> 00:37:20,056
Speaker 2: There was the anger of victims after the law failed

618
00:37:20,076 --> 00:37:24,286
Speaker 2: to satisfy their need for vengeance. That felt more like frustration.

619
00:37:25,526 --> 00:37:28,256
Speaker 2: There was the general hatred of the police, but that

620
00:37:28,296 --> 00:37:31,596
Speaker 2: didn't really feel personal, and Colin never took it personally.

621
00:37:32,596 --> 00:37:35,116
Speaker 2: Police rarely meet people on their best day, he said.

622
00:37:36,196 --> 00:37:39,056
Speaker 2: Whatever was animating these doge people didn't feel like any

623
00:37:39,076 --> 00:37:42,716
Speaker 2: of those. They weren't reacting to an event, said Colin.

624
00:37:43,176 --> 00:37:47,856
Speaker 2: They were on a crusade. Their hostility didn't come from fear, loss,

625
00:37:47,996 --> 00:37:51,666
Speaker 2: and pain. It came from a lack of empathy and

626
00:37:51,706 --> 00:37:55,326
Speaker 2: an inability to deal with complexity. It was just fundamentally

627
00:37:55,386 --> 00:37:59,186
Speaker 2: different from anything I had encountered before. But in their

628
00:37:59,226 --> 00:38:02,386
Speaker 2: attitude to the world around them, they did remind Colin

629
00:38:02,406 --> 00:38:04,446
Speaker 2: of something that had happened back when he was a cop.

630
00:38:05,486 --> 00:38:08,386
Speaker 2: He'd responded to a home invasion in a poor black neighborhood.

631
00:38:09,446 --> 00:38:11,966
Speaker 2: His partner was a younger guy who had come from

632
00:38:12,006 --> 00:38:15,326
Speaker 2: a well-to-do family. They had arrived at the scene to

633
00:38:15,366 --> 00:38:19,356
Speaker 2: find a terrified and distraught single mother with two small children.

634
00:38:20,686 --> 00:38:23,796
Speaker 2: Her next-door neighbor was a drug dealer, she explained, and

635
00:38:23,816 --> 00:38:28,196
Speaker 2: these disturbed addicts kept mistaking her apartment for his. they

636
00:38:28,216 --> 00:38:31,696
Speaker 2: kept breaking in to steal drugs. Colin's partner had listened

637
00:38:31,716 --> 00:38:35,256
Speaker 2: to her and then said matter-of-factly, why don't you just move?

638
00:38:36,616 --> 00:38:40,266
Speaker 2: And Colin thought, this guy has no ability to imagine

639
00:38:40,306 --> 00:38:44,586
Speaker 2: himself into her situation. Why does that happen, he asked.

640
00:38:45,626 --> 00:38:48,906
Speaker 2: Because this is someone who has no worldly experience to

641
00:38:49,006 --> 00:38:52,706
Speaker 2: understand that she can't move. It simply didn't occur to

642
00:38:52,756 --> 00:38:55,666
Speaker 2: the guy. just as it didn't seriously occur to Nate

643
00:38:55,716 --> 00:39:00,596
Speaker 2: Kavanaugh to consider the suffering he was making possible. Once

644
00:39:00,656 --> 00:39:02,776
Speaker 2: Doge had control of the building, Nate and the other

645
00:39:02,816 --> 00:39:06,576
Speaker 2: guys went rooting around in the Institute's computers. Elon Musk

646
00:39:06,616 --> 00:39:09,856
Speaker 2: was given first crack at the fresh material. Then the

647
00:39:09,896 --> 00:39:12,676
Speaker 2: Doge account on X posted a list of their findings.

648
00:39:16,476 --> 00:39:21,126
Speaker 1: Each year, the United States Institute for Peace, UCIB, receives

649
00:39:21,126 --> 00:39:26,606
Speaker 1: $ 55 million in congressional taxpayer funds. Prior management would sweep

650
00:39:26,666 --> 00:39:31,756
Speaker 1: excess funds into its private endowment, zero congressional oversight. In

651
00:39:31,796 --> 00:39:35,786
Speaker 1: the past 10 years, USIP has transferred about $ 13 million

652
00:39:35,826 --> 00:39:39,496
Speaker 1: to its private endowment, mainly used for private events and travel.

653
00:39:40,666 --> 00:39:48,876
Speaker 1: USIP contracts, now canceled, include $ 132, 000 to Mohammed Qasem Halimi,

654
00:39:49,516 --> 00:39:53,356
Speaker 1: an ex-Taliban member who was Afghanistan's former chief of protocol.

655
00:39:53,356 --> 00:40:01,216
Speaker 1: $ 2, 232, 500 was to its outside accountant, who attempted to delete

656
00:40:01,396 --> 00:40:05,546
Speaker 1: over one terabyte of accounting data, now recovered, after new

657
00:40:05,586 --> 00:40:09,446
Speaker 1: leadership entered the building. $ 1, 307, 061 to the Al-Tadamun Iraqi League

658
00:40:09,466 --> 00:40:12,886
Speaker 1: for Youth. $ 675, 000 for private aviation services. The list was

659
00:40:12,906 --> 00:40:13,566
Speaker 1: both interesting and true.

660
00:40:25,936 --> 00:40:28,156
Speaker 2: But as it turned out, the bits that were interesting

661
00:40:28,356 --> 00:40:31,716
Speaker 2: weren't true, and the bits that were true weren't interesting.

662
00:40:32,576 --> 00:40:35,336
Speaker 2: For instance, the law that had created the Institute required

663
00:40:35,376 --> 00:40:38,656
Speaker 2: it to move any unused funds into its endowment, and so,

664
00:40:38,716 --> 00:40:41,876
Speaker 2: by law, for the past 40 years, that's what they'd done.

665
00:40:42,836 --> 00:40:45,816
Speaker 2: The Institute was also required by law to hire an

666
00:40:45,856 --> 00:40:48,876
Speaker 2: accountant to audit its books every year so that it

667
00:40:48,936 --> 00:40:53,066
Speaker 2: might report its spending to Congress. For those services, it

668
00:40:53,106 --> 00:40:58,146
Speaker 2: paid roughly $ 380, 000 a year. The amount that Doge accused

669
00:40:58,166 --> 00:41:01,106
Speaker 2: the Institute of Spending on its accountants corresponded not to

670
00:41:01,146 --> 00:41:04,856
Speaker 2: their accountant's bill, but to a six-year contract for legal services.

671
00:41:05,996 --> 00:41:09,096
Speaker 2: The actual sum paid to the Al-Tataman Iraqi League for

672
00:41:09,136 --> 00:41:11,856
Speaker 2: Youth was not more than a million dollars, but less

673
00:41:11,876 --> 00:41:15,596
Speaker 2: than half that. The money had funded a single project, which,

674
00:41:15,736 --> 00:41:19,596
Speaker 2: because it had such obvious value, had been explicitly approved

675
00:41:19,676 --> 00:41:23,386
Speaker 2: by Marco Rubio. Essentially, it was an attempt to reduce

676
00:41:23,446 --> 00:41:28,626
Speaker 2: extremism and anti-American terrorism. The collapse of the Bashar al-Assad

677
00:41:28,666 --> 00:41:34,106
Speaker 2: government in December 2024 had stranded thousands of Iraqis, mostly

678
00:41:34,146 --> 00:41:38,056
Speaker 2: women and children, in a camp in Syria's northeast. The

679
00:41:38,116 --> 00:41:41,756
Speaker 2: Islamic State had gained some traction inside the camp, which

680
00:41:41,796 --> 00:41:47,256
Speaker 2: back in 2019 had held 30,000 refugees, and the godforsaken

681
00:41:47,336 --> 00:41:50,436
Speaker 2: place had become a breeding ground for future ISIS fighters.

682
00:41:51,336 --> 00:41:55,376
Speaker 2: The institute's local Iraqi staff, members of the League for Youth,

683
00:41:56,116 --> 00:41:59,276
Speaker 2: had been working successfully with the U.S. State Department to

684
00:41:59,316 --> 00:42:02,836
Speaker 2: persuade village elders in Iraq to accept the refugees in

685
00:42:02,856 --> 00:42:06,156
Speaker 2: their villages and provide them a path to a peaceful life.

686
00:42:06,976 --> 00:42:10,506
Speaker 2: Before they accepted anyone, the elders demanded evidence that they

687
00:42:10,546 --> 00:42:13,666
Speaker 2: have no connection to ISIS or any other terrorist group.

688
00:42:14,546 --> 00:42:18,146
Speaker 2: The Institute's staff arranged small conferences to walk the elders

689
00:42:18,186 --> 00:42:22,266
Speaker 2: through the personal histories of the refugees. The Institute footed

690
00:42:22,286 --> 00:42:24,996
Speaker 2: the bill for the venues, plus the tea and coffee,

691
00:42:25,156 --> 00:42:30,026
Speaker 2: and occasionally lunch. God knows the efficiency of that particular effort.

692
00:42:30,456 --> 00:42:33,226
Speaker 2: No one inside Doge seems ever to have bothered to ask.

693
00:42:33,866 --> 00:42:35,986
Speaker 2: Had they dug a bit, they could have found evidence

694
00:42:36,026 --> 00:42:40,366
Speaker 2: that similar sorts of programs had been wildly efficient. For example,

695
00:42:40,406 --> 00:42:42,566
Speaker 2: the work the Institute of Peace had done in 2007

696
00:42:42,566 --> 00:42:46,426
Speaker 2: in Iraq, in an area south of Baghdad, that had

697
00:42:46,446 --> 00:42:49,846
Speaker 2: become known as the Triangle of Death. A region of

698
00:42:49,886 --> 00:42:53,086
Speaker 2: a million people was riven by tribal warfare and and

699
00:42:53,166 --> 00:42:57,256
Speaker 2: laced with insurgents, who had killed 54 members of the U.S.

700
00:42:57,336 --> 00:43:01,876
Speaker 2: Army's 10th Mountain Division and wounded hundreds more. At the

701
00:43:01,916 --> 00:43:04,916
Speaker 2: behest of the Army, the Institute had brought together 30

702
00:43:04,916 --> 00:43:09,596
Speaker 2: elders of warring tribes. The Institute's structure, both an instrument

703
00:43:09,616 --> 00:43:12,896
Speaker 2: of the United States and removed from its political control,

704
00:43:13,516 --> 00:43:18,446
Speaker 2: created a useful ambiguity. It allowed it to facilitate conversations

705
00:43:18,806 --> 00:43:24,036
Speaker 2: that official government authorities could not. Years earlier, a scholar

706
00:43:24,076 --> 00:43:27,936
Speaker 2: named I. William Zartman, working on an Institute of Peace grant,

707
00:43:28,476 --> 00:43:33,586
Speaker 2: had framed the idea of the hurting stalemate. His big

708
00:43:33,646 --> 00:43:36,806
Speaker 2: point was the success of a peace initiative might have

709
00:43:36,886 --> 00:43:39,726
Speaker 2: less to do with the specifics of the proposal than

710
00:43:39,746 --> 00:43:43,296
Speaker 2: with its timing. So long as neither side saw any

711
00:43:43,356 --> 00:43:45,896
Speaker 2: value in moving away from their anger and their violence,

712
00:43:46,596 --> 00:43:48,836
Speaker 2: there wasn't much you could say or do to stop

713
00:43:48,876 --> 00:43:52,136
Speaker 2: them fighting. But when both sensed that anger and violence

714
00:43:52,356 --> 00:43:54,496
Speaker 2: weren't going to get them what they wanted, when the

715
00:43:54,536 --> 00:43:59,636
Speaker 2: status quo became sufficiently painful, they became vulnerable to peace.

716
00:44:00,576 --> 00:44:02,846
Speaker 2: The trick was to have trusted people on the ground

717
00:44:02,986 --> 00:44:07,146
Speaker 2: who could spot these moments and seize them. The Institute's

718
00:44:07,186 --> 00:44:10,266
Speaker 2: staff had started by handing out questionnaires for the warring

719
00:44:10,306 --> 00:44:14,496
Speaker 2: Iraqi tribal leaders to fill out anonymously. Each made his

720
00:44:14,546 --> 00:44:18,096
Speaker 2: list of grievances. The lists were then passed around for

721
00:44:18,176 --> 00:44:23,526
Speaker 2: everyone to read. and something happened. The collective realization of

722
00:44:23,586 --> 00:44:27,506
Speaker 2: how they'd all endured the same terrible losses took just

723
00:44:27,566 --> 00:44:30,416
Speaker 2: enough steam out of the room that they began to talk.

724
00:44:31,396 --> 00:44:34,736
Speaker 2: The talks led to peace that has lasted to this day.

725
00:44:35,856 --> 00:44:39,476
Speaker 2: Inside the Institute's servers, the Doge guys might have found

726
00:44:39,616 --> 00:44:43,196
Speaker 2: evidence of this triumph. For example, the letter of thanks

727
00:44:43,276 --> 00:44:48,276
Speaker 2: from General David Petraeus. In the Pentagon's view, the Institute

728
00:44:48,296 --> 00:44:52,736
Speaker 2: had saved both American lives and taxpayer dollars. Before the

729
00:44:52,796 --> 00:44:58,436
Speaker 2: Institute became involved, the U.S. Army had been spending $ 150

730
00:44:57,206 --> 00:45:01,566
Speaker 2: million a month to pacify the Triangle of Death. The

731
00:45:01,626 --> 00:45:05,866
Speaker 2: peace talks cost a million dollars. The savings they yielded

732
00:45:06,346 --> 00:45:08,886
Speaker 2: were likely greater than the entire cost up to that

733
00:45:08,966 --> 00:45:12,846
Speaker 2: point of the Institute of Peace. The most disturbing item

734
00:45:12,906 --> 00:45:18,836
Speaker 2: on Doge's list was the $ 132, 000 sent to Mohamed Qasem Halimi.

735
00:45:19,516 --> 00:45:24,046
Speaker 2: In the 1990s, Halimi, a religious scholar, had indeed worked

736
00:45:24,206 --> 00:45:27,946
Speaker 2: in the Taliban-run government as a liaison to foreign diplomats.

737
00:45:28,806 --> 00:45:30,526
Speaker 2: It was the only good job I could find, he

738
00:45:30,586 --> 00:45:35,146
Speaker 2: explained to ProPublica. But after the 9-11 attack and the

739
00:45:35,246 --> 00:45:40,086
Speaker 2: U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001, he'd quit the

740
00:45:40,126 --> 00:45:44,736
Speaker 2: Taliban and served American interests. the Taliban had tried three

741
00:45:44,796 --> 00:45:46,156
Speaker 2: times to assassinate him.

742
00:45:46,996 --> 00:45:47,376
Speaker 5: The U.S.

743
00:45:47,416 --> 00:45:50,636
Speaker 2: Institute of Peace had paid him $ 10, 000 a month for

744
00:45:50,676 --> 00:45:54,356
Speaker 2: a variety of services. Halimi had fled the country with

745
00:45:54,376 --> 00:45:57,766
Speaker 2: the U.S. military, but he maintained a network that reported

746
00:45:57,786 --> 00:46:00,886
Speaker 2: to him on the Taliban's treatment of women, information that

747
00:46:00,906 --> 00:46:04,006
Speaker 2: the U.S. State Department was unable to gather any other way.

748
00:46:04,866 --> 00:46:07,566
Speaker 2: He had earned the trust of religious scholars across the region,

749
00:46:08,166 --> 00:46:10,636
Speaker 2: so that he might point out when the Taliban's behavior

750
00:46:10,676 --> 00:46:14,766
Speaker 2: violated the Koran. and they, in turn, might pressure the

751
00:46:14,806 --> 00:46:19,606
Speaker 2: Taliban to modify its behavior. In Trump's first term, Halimi

752
00:46:19,626 --> 00:46:23,126
Speaker 2: had actually prepped U.S. negotiators for their talks with the Taliban.

753
00:46:23,936 --> 00:46:27,316
Speaker 2: He wasn't exactly an American spy, but he was certainly

754
00:46:27,356 --> 00:46:31,456
Speaker 2: an ally. By outing him on social media, Musk had

755
00:46:31,496 --> 00:46:36,476
Speaker 2: essentially exposed a U.S. asset to enemies of America. After

756
00:46:36,526 --> 00:46:40,006
Speaker 2: the tweet, the Taliban rounded up Halimi's relatives still living

757
00:46:40,046 --> 00:46:44,766
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan and for beatings and imprisonment. So much of

758
00:46:44,826 --> 00:46:48,706
Speaker 2: what Nate Kavanaugh and his doge pals claimed was obviously outrageous.

759
00:46:49,686 --> 00:46:53,026
Speaker 2: But what especially infuriated Colin O'Brien was the final item

760
00:46:53,086 --> 00:47:00,496
Speaker 2: on their list, $ 675, 000 for private aviation services. When the

761
00:47:00,516 --> 00:47:03,136
Speaker 2: United States finished pulling out of Afghanistan in the summer

762
00:47:03,156 --> 00:47:07,356
Speaker 2: of 2021, it imperiled the lives of every Afghan who

763
00:47:07,376 --> 00:47:11,746
Speaker 2: had helped, including the Institute of Peace's local staff, and

764
00:47:11,766 --> 00:47:15,386
Speaker 2: their families. The male staffers assumed that if they fell

765
00:47:15,426 --> 00:47:20,426
Speaker 2: into the Taliban's hands, they'd be summarily executed. The female

766
00:47:20,486 --> 00:47:24,706
Speaker 2: staffers expected to be enslaved and packed off into forced marriages.

767
00:47:25,706 --> 00:47:28,866
Speaker 2: It fell to the Institute's security chief to extract what

768
00:47:28,886 --> 00:47:33,286
Speaker 2: in the end amounted to 256 people. That was the

769
00:47:33,386 --> 00:47:38,476
Speaker 2: only private aviation service the Institute had engaged. It was

770
00:47:38,736 --> 00:47:43,336
Speaker 2: one fucking flight, said Colin. A 737 from Kabul to Qatar.

771
00:47:44,216 --> 00:47:46,916
Speaker 2: To get them out before they were taken by the Taliban.

772
00:47:47,976 --> 00:47:51,456
Speaker 2: You said we have private jets. Fuck you. We had

773
00:47:51,496 --> 00:47:54,036
Speaker 2: a charter plane to rescue our people from a war zone.

774
00:47:55,196 --> 00:47:59,686
Speaker 2: He took pride in that exercise. Their final two Afghan employees,

775
00:47:59,706 --> 00:48:01,306
Speaker 2: who had been working in a remote part of the

776
00:48:01,346 --> 00:48:04,386
Speaker 2: country and were unable to make the flight, Colin had

777
00:48:04,426 --> 00:48:07,796
Speaker 2: arranged to be smuggled across the Pakistan border and kept

778
00:48:07,836 --> 00:48:11,796
Speaker 2: hidden from the Pakistani government for three years before getting

779
00:48:11,816 --> 00:48:15,456
Speaker 2: them to safety. A few weeks after the barrage of

780
00:48:15,516 --> 00:48:20,026
Speaker 2: distortions and deceptions, Musk gathered his team on Fox News.

781
00:48:21,006 --> 00:48:24,146
Speaker 2: The idea was to use host Jesse Waters' open sympathy

782
00:48:24,286 --> 00:48:26,446
Speaker 2: for what they had done to reveal to the American

783
00:48:26,506 --> 00:48:31,336
Speaker 2: people the specific waste and fraud they'd uncovered. As Exhibit A,

784
00:48:32,026 --> 00:48:35,756
Speaker 2: Musk introduced Nate Kavanaugh and his work inside the U.S.

785
00:48:35,896 --> 00:48:36,656
Speaker 2: Institute of Peace.

786
00:48:39,296 --> 00:48:42,416
Speaker 5: What has been the biggest resistance?

787
00:48:43,056 --> 00:48:44,296
Speaker 2: Is there one agency?

788
00:48:44,436 --> 00:48:47,546
Speaker 5: Is there one department that when you guys walk in,

789
00:48:48,746 --> 00:48:52,306
Speaker 5: they all start fighting you, start hiding things?

790
00:48:52,346 --> 00:48:57,546
Speaker 4: I thought you weren't going to talk. I'm sorry.

791
00:48:57,566 --> 00:49:00,206
Speaker 3: But I guess you can answer that question.

792
00:49:00,506 --> 00:49:06,126
Speaker 5: Sure. I mean, yes, we've certainly had some battles. Battles? Yeah, yeah.

793
00:49:06,976 --> 00:49:09,196
Speaker 1: I mean, who should talk about Yusuf?

794
00:49:11,496 --> 00:49:15,606
Speaker 5: The small agency called the United States Institute of Peace

795
00:49:16,526 --> 00:49:18,786
Speaker 5: is definitely the agency we had the most fight at.

796
00:49:20,066 --> 00:49:21,906
Speaker 5: We actually went into the agency and found that they

797
00:49:21,946 --> 00:49:24,646
Speaker 5: had loaded guns inside of their headquarters.

798
00:49:25,006 --> 00:49:25,646
Speaker 2: Institute for Peace.

799
00:49:26,186 --> 00:49:28,946
Speaker 4: I mean, any given company, any given organizational name is

800
00:49:28,966 --> 00:49:30,726
Speaker 4: going to kind of be the opposite of the title.

801
00:49:31,166 --> 00:49:31,416
Speaker 5: Right.

802
00:49:31,566 --> 00:49:31,796
Speaker 1: Yeah.

803
00:49:32,586 --> 00:49:35,216
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it was by far the least peaceful agency

804
00:49:35,236 --> 00:49:37,276
Speaker 5: that we've worked with, ironically.

805
00:49:37,296 --> 00:49:38,116
Speaker 1: Of course.

806
00:49:38,396 --> 00:49:40,136
Speaker 5: Additionally, we found that they were spending money on things

807
00:49:40,196 --> 00:49:44,236
Speaker 5: like private jets, and they even had a $ 130, 000 contract

808
00:49:44,296 --> 00:49:45,716
Speaker 5: with a former member of the Taliban.

809
00:49:46,356 --> 00:49:46,976
Speaker 1: This is real.

810
00:49:47,036 --> 00:49:48,336
Speaker 5: We don't encounter that at most agencies.

811
00:49:50,916 --> 00:49:54,756
Speaker 2: That is how Colin O'Brien had lost the building. He'd

812
00:49:54,796 --> 00:49:57,856
Speaker 2: expected to lose it, but still he was surprised by

813
00:49:57,916 --> 00:50:01,356
Speaker 2: how it had gone down. It really was true that

814
00:50:01,376 --> 00:50:04,136
Speaker 2: in security work, you could never war game out what

815
00:50:04,176 --> 00:50:07,886
Speaker 2: eventually happened. He had lost the building to its own

816
00:50:08,026 --> 00:50:12,146
Speaker 2: private security company after it was blackmailed by the Trump administration,

817
00:50:13,106 --> 00:50:16,226
Speaker 2: to the D.C. police, which for some reason were now

818
00:50:16,406 --> 00:50:19,606
Speaker 2: acting as a private security force for these random kids

819
00:50:19,706 --> 00:50:23,786
Speaker 2: Elon Musk had empowered, to the FBI, which had somehow

820
00:50:23,846 --> 00:50:27,886
Speaker 2: reconfigured itself as yet another battalion in the White House's army.

821
00:50:28,826 --> 00:50:32,246
Speaker 2: Thrust into this new environment, these people and institutions had

822
00:50:32,286 --> 00:50:35,506
Speaker 2: done what they needed to do to survive. All that

823
00:50:35,546 --> 00:50:40,736
Speaker 2: now mattered was power. Who had physical control of a building?

824
00:50:41,816 --> 00:50:45,976
Speaker 2: Who had the guns? an institution dedicated to the idea

825
00:50:46,016 --> 00:50:48,946
Speaker 2: that conflict did not need to lead to violence, now

826
00:50:49,026 --> 00:50:52,766
Speaker 2: found itself in a society in which might meant right.

827
00:50:53,926 --> 00:50:57,586
Speaker 2: Of course it had to die. Legally, the battle wasn't

828
00:50:57,626 --> 00:51:02,776
Speaker 2: completely over. In mid-May, U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell

829
00:51:02,816 --> 00:51:07,556
Speaker 2: of Washington issued a scathing ruling that required the Trump

830
00:51:07,576 --> 00:51:11,606
Speaker 2: administration to vacate the building. Colin had the brief pleasure

831
00:51:11,646 --> 00:51:14,526
Speaker 2: of rolling in with an army of off-duty Baltimore cops,

832
00:51:15,166 --> 00:51:18,886
Speaker 2: old pals of his, and taking it back. And finding

833
00:51:18,926 --> 00:51:22,436
Speaker 2: that the Institute's flags had been stolen, its logo had

834
00:51:22,456 --> 00:51:25,496
Speaker 2: been ripped from the wall, and that the Doge Boys

835
00:51:25,556 --> 00:51:28,356
Speaker 2: had left behind a pile of beer bottles and cheap weed.

836
00:51:29,576 --> 00:51:33,036
Speaker 2: A month later, a panel of Trump-appointed judges on the U.S.

837
00:51:33,096 --> 00:51:36,176
Speaker 2: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a stay,

838
00:51:36,936 --> 00:51:40,226
Speaker 2: and the building was returned to the Trump administration. And

839
00:51:40,246 --> 00:51:45,876
Speaker 2: in December 2025, it was renamed Donald J. Trump, United

840
00:51:45,916 --> 00:51:58,476
Speaker 2: States Institute of Peace. Against the Rules is hosted by me,

841
00:51:58,556 --> 00:52:02,636
Speaker 2: Michael Lewis. It's produced by Lydia Jean Cott. Our editor

842
00:52:02,976 --> 00:52:06,756
Speaker 2: is Julia Barton. Our theme was composed by Nick Bertel.

843
00:52:07,356 --> 00:52:10,876
Speaker 2: And our engineer is Jake Gorski. Our executive producer is

844
00:52:10,916 --> 00:52:15,836
Speaker 2: Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Kira Posey,

845
00:52:16,496 --> 00:52:22,416
Speaker 2: Jordan McMillan, Owen Miller, and Sarah Bruguere. Also to Nicole Optenbosch,

846
00:52:22,686 --> 00:52:25,946
Speaker 2: Jasmine Faustino, Pamela Lawrence, and the rest of the Pushkin

847
00:52:26,006 --> 00:52:31,126
Speaker 2: Audiobooks team. You can get Blockers now at blockers.fm or

848
00:52:31,186 --> 00:52:35,126
Speaker 2: wherever audiobooks are sold. Against the Rules is a production

849
00:52:35,146 --> 00:52:39,286
Speaker 2: of Pushkin Industries. To find more Pushkin Podcasts, Listen on

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Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 2: And if you'd like to listen ad-free and learn about

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Speaker 2: other exclusive offerings, don't forget to sign up for a

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Speaker 2: Pushkin Plus subscription at pushkin.fm slash plus or on our

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Speaker 2: Apple show page.