Speaker 1: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
Speaker 1: CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
Speaker 1: in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2: And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East,
Speaker 2: and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
Speaker 2: our adversaries.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories large and small.
Speaker 2: Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1: This is mission implausible. So here in Washington, Jerry, you
Speaker 1: get to avoid it because you're hiding out there in Hawaii.
Speaker 1: But here in Washington it is still every day there's
Speaker 1: new information about Trump nominees.
Speaker 2: Only somebody would write an our editorial in the New
Speaker 2: York Times.
Speaker 1: Well I did. I went on a PBS news hour
Speaker 1: to talk about this the other day, and today an
Speaker 1: article just came out in the New York Times called
Speaker 1: running Spies is Not a Game for Amateurs that I
Speaker 1: wrote along with former CIA and NSA Director General Michael Hayden,
Speaker 1: who we both respect as a great long time intelligence
Speaker 1: professional and was it a really excellent director at this CIA.
Speaker 1: So this happens to be a lot about what we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about today, it's really Jermane Now I
Speaker 1: got to reread it.
Speaker 3: I've wanted to talk to you about this for a while.
Speaker 3: Telsea Gabbard being nominated to be the Director of National Intelligence,
Speaker 3: it freaking a lot of people out, even a lot
Speaker 3: of Republicans out. Can we start with it?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: Was there a Director of National Intelligence but when you
Speaker 3: were still in CIA or did that come after it happened?
Speaker 1: If you remember in two thousand and four, after the
Speaker 1: nine to eleven when President Bush was running again and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of back and forth about how
Speaker 1: they were going to respond from nine to eleven, and
Speaker 1: a new law came in to create the Director of
Speaker 1: National Intelligence, and it was meant to be a way
Speaker 1: of making sure that the intelligence community works better together
Speaker 1: and all those other kind of things. And so it's
Speaker 1: a fairly new, I guess maybe twenty years old now,
Speaker 1: organization which is meant to deal with the budgets and
Speaker 1: the bigger picture issues about the intelligence community.
Speaker 2: Yeah. She would oversee eighteen intelligence agencies, different ones that
Speaker 2: the US has, and she has a budget of about
Speaker 2: seventy billion dollars and she serves as the principal advisor
Speaker 2: to the President on intelligence matters.
Speaker 1: It includes the intelligence community parts of the military. Now
Speaker 1: it's a little different because she doesn't control them, because
Speaker 1: they're controlled by the Secretary of Defense. So the NSA
Speaker 1: is essentially a part of the Defense Department, as are
Speaker 1: the intelligence services in the Marines and Army and Navy
Speaker 1: and such, and so the DNI has that role of
Speaker 1: working over all of those different eighteen organizations, some of
Speaker 1: them directly under the DNI and some of them jointly
Speaker 1: with the military, and also the FBI, which is part
Speaker 1: of the Justice Department as well.
Speaker 2: And scarily, she, at least in theory d or the
Speaker 2: DNI sets like folk guy, what it is we're going
Speaker 2: to be focused on. And she can do that through
Speaker 2: budgets too, by controlling budgets, So you increase the counter
Speaker 2: terrorism budget, so you go after counter terrorism. But if
Speaker 2: you've got a conspiracy theorist, anyone who says I want
Speaker 2: to spend ten billion dollars dollars saying did the US
Speaker 2: support secret bio labs creating pathogens in ukrain which we
Speaker 2: didn't complete, lie, you could still spend ten billion dollars
Speaker 2: searching for a snipe that doesn't exist. Right, that's where
Speaker 2: the danger comes in. And so you still put the
Speaker 2: focus on something that either isn't true or doesn't exist or.
Speaker 1: Well, in theory that should be done in coordination with
Speaker 1: air Security advisor and in a state department and all these
Speaker 1: other types of things. But yes, person has quite a
Speaker 1: bit of influence. And what's interesting is I think a
Speaker 1: lot of these Trump folks that are coming in, they
Speaker 1: have such misperceptions about the agencies they're meant to run,
Speaker 1: whether it's the FBI or the DNI, the CIA, And
Speaker 1: I think they're going to come in like toilsa geber'
Speaker 1: is gonna come in and thinking she's going to be
Speaker 1: able to find some deep state thing or some fascinating stuff,
Speaker 1: so she's gonna be able to immediately deal with it.
Speaker 1: And like the first day, she's going to be sitting
Speaker 1: in like a bunch of incredibly boring meetings going over
Speaker 1: the Tunisian plan for the next ten years and what
Speaker 1: did the analysts say about the economy and signing off
Speaker 1: on a variety of products and meetings and things. That's
Speaker 1: it's a coordination job. It's they don't run the secret
Speaker 1: operations that you think of with the CIA, with the
Speaker 1: NSA or the kind of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I spent some time with the National Economic Council
Speaker 3: Chair at the White House. And this is overstating it
Speaker 3: that it's a glorified secretary or administrative assistant, because it is.
Speaker 3: The person's views do matter, But it really is there's Treasury,
Speaker 3: there's the FED, there's the They do the work, and
Speaker 3: this is the person who convenes those bodies who know
Speaker 3: they do have a lot of access these like the
Speaker 3: D and I, the NSC, the National Economic Council Chair,
Speaker 3: and in a presidency like the one we're about to
Speaker 3: have where the last person in the room has outsized influence.
Speaker 3: From all reports, it's not nothing, but yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: lot of coordinating. So I want to go through a
Speaker 3: couple different things. So one thing is we did this
Speaker 3: when we had episodes on President elect Trump. Still hard
Speaker 3: to say those words and Russia, where I'd say, what
Speaker 3: we concluded is we're not in a position to say
Speaker 3: he is an active agent of Russian intelligence. In fact,
Speaker 3: we're skeptical that's the case. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: if you look at it through a national security lens,
Speaker 3: if he was applying for any job other than the
Speaker 3: job he happened to get, he would not get a
Speaker 3: national security clearance. That we talked about how in a
Speaker 3: prosecutorial way, if you want to arrest someone and put
Speaker 3: them in jail, you need beyond a reasonable doubt. But counterintelligence,
Speaker 3: it's more like, does this person give us the act? So, John,
Speaker 3: you tell me, because you spent time in Russia. This
Speaker 3: is a person who has pretty openly said she supports that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I just wrote an opinion piece for the
Speaker 1: New York Times along with former CIA in NSA and
Speaker 1: DNI Director General Michael Hayden. So Telsea Geerber is interesting
Speaker 1: because she really embraces conspiracy theories and she champions Russian disinformation.
Speaker 1: And it's not just me. The former Nation Security Advisor
Speaker 1: for President Trump, H. R. McMaster said it specifically that
Speaker 1: she parrots Putin's talking points and so you could talk
Speaker 1: her job. She has no significant experience directing or managing
Speaker 1: much of anything. And I'll let Jerry talk about her
Speaker 1: background in Hawaii. But in terms of the stuff that
Speaker 1: she's done, she's almost like anti national security. She's become
Speaker 1: this avatar for that. She's antagonized the intelligence community in
Speaker 1: person by writing a bill to protect Russian citizen Edward Snowden,
Speaker 1: who ill legally stole as much as two million classified
Speaker 1: defense and intelligence documents. She's went to Syria and met
Speaker 1: with Syrian Butcher Assad and completely tried to support the
Speaker 1: fact that the Russians weren't bombing children and hospitals and things.
Speaker 1: And so she's very not only is she not qualified,
Speaker 1: she seems to have gone further to be almost working
Speaker 1: against our general national security issues.
Speaker 2: If she were to get this job, she would oversee
Speaker 2: these eighteen US intelligence agencies who all have different ways
Speaker 2: of acquiring intelligences, intelligence and analyzing it. And for the
Speaker 2: Assad regime back in twenty seventeen, it and it's Russian
Speaker 2: ill is. We're dropping poison gas on civilian populations ile EPO.
Speaker 2: And despite the fact that all eighteen agreed that this
Speaker 2: was going on, she said, I don't believe it. So
Speaker 2: what happens when you gather intelligence, you analyze it. You're
Speaker 2: listening to the pilots drop it, You're listening to people
Speaker 2: on the ground screaming. You've smuggled out materials that show
Speaker 2: that siren gas or poison gas was used, And she says,
Speaker 2: I just don't believe it, Well, how do you deal
Speaker 2: with that as an intelligence organization? And I think the
Speaker 2: answer to that is we don't friggin know because it's
Speaker 2: never happened before. Right, This is where you get. There's
Speaker 2: intelligence and facts and when you can analyze the different
Speaker 2: and it can make you can make mistakes. But then
Speaker 2: there's just faith, and you can accept anything on faith.
Speaker 2: If you just say I don't believe it, that could
Speaker 2: be enough. So I live in Awahu and I know
Speaker 2: of through the locals and through the local scuttle but
Speaker 2: and people here, if you come to Hawaii and talk
Speaker 2: to the locals here and Kaylu on the windward side,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that we know where Colsey Gabord comes from.
Speaker 2: It's something called the Science of Identity Foundation, and it's
Speaker 2: like Harry Krishna. They were so crazy that that Harry
Speaker 2: Krishna's kicked them out. And they have this gurus named
Speaker 2: Chris Butler, although he goes with this long Guru something
Speaker 2: or other name now. And the sect that she is
Speaker 2: affiliated with is anti gay, stream, anti Muslim, which sort
Speaker 2: of shows why she's willing to reach out to almost
Speaker 2: anybody who's killing Muslims and Stream obedience. You know, there's
Speaker 2: really concern that is she loyal to Chris Butler and
Speaker 2: her Hindu Hari Krishna offshoot sect, or is she is
Speaker 2: she loyal to the Constitution? And it's unfortunately maybe not
Speaker 2: a rhetorical question.
Speaker 1: Famously, when she was in Syria after she saw Asad,
Speaker 1: she was taken by her minders to go see where
Speaker 1: the Russians and the Syrians had bombed civilians and a
Speaker 1: famous as she was talking to a bunch of children,
Speaker 1: and these children whose families and many of their parents
Speaker 1: have been killed and the bombing, were explaining what they'd
Speaker 1: been through. And she looked at them and said, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I believe you. How can you prove
Speaker 1: that this wasn't Isis that did this? And her minder
Speaker 1: just almost wanted to explode to say, Isis doesn't have airplanes, right,
Speaker 1: they don't have an air force. It's in the Russia.
Speaker 2: And when Russian television haul's her Russia's girlfriend, our adversary
Speaker 2: says that she's their Gael freaking take them at their word.
Speaker 2: That that makes me more than Leary.
Speaker 1: Culture really matters in our world. You've heard us say
Speaker 1: that before that culture is defined by mission, and culture
Speaker 1: is really important in an organization. And for example, when
Speaker 1: we describe the culture that's different between the CIA and
Speaker 1: the FBI, we say that the FBA are cops and
Speaker 1: we're robbers, and so we work together, but it's often
Speaker 1: difficult because we have a very different way of looking
Speaker 1: at the world. But when she's coming in and some
Speaker 1: of the other people in the Trump administrations and saying
Speaker 1: they won't take background checks, they won't let the FBI
Speaker 1: or others do investigations in background checks, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: that's failing leadership one on one, because your entire population
Speaker 1: of people who work for you have intrusive background checks,
Speaker 1: and they have polygraphs, and they have to report all
Speaker 1: your bank money and all the things you own, and
Speaker 1: you have to do this every year. You have to
Speaker 1: report on every foreigner you meet if you happen to
Speaker 1: be dating for and you have to report all those days.
Speaker 1: And she's going to come in and say, I don't
Speaker 1: need a background check, And that's just crazy.
Speaker 3: And that's true of any culture, right anyone can understand
Speaker 3: when everyone has to take a pay cut and you
Speaker 3: find out the CEO got a big stock option that
Speaker 3: that doesn't go over very well.
Speaker 2: So there's a law called the Pierce Blackledge Doctrine, and
Speaker 2: it prohibits the US government from punishing a defendant for
Speaker 2: exercising their legal rights right so in your First Amendment
Speaker 2: right to assemble or to express an opinion. And close
Speaker 2: to Tulca Gambert is also I think we need to
Speaker 2: discuss the elephant in the room, Cash Mattel, as well,
Speaker 2: because FBI also in a lot of ways more dangerous
Speaker 2: because internally it's law enforcement and its intelligence collect and
Speaker 2: Cash Prattel famously has said that he is. He has
Speaker 2: a list and he's published in his book of people
Speaker 2: he's coming for now back to CIA. Among that is
Speaker 2: former CIA director right, Gina Hasbell, and current CIA director.
Speaker 1: Ray FBI director right.
Speaker 2: And so this is without any evidence or anything. He's
Speaker 2: telegraphing vindictive prosecutions, which is illegal in the United States,
Speaker 2: saying he's coming after them, and it doesn't matter if
Speaker 2: there's evidence or not. He says, we'll do it civilly,
Speaker 2: we'll do it criminally. And I think for most Americans,
Speaker 2: CIA and the intelligence community is important, but almost more
Speaker 2: important is rule of law and what they're going to
Speaker 2: do about what Trump calls these enemies within and how
Speaker 2: our bureau brothers are going to respond to demands that
Speaker 2: they for the first time when American history, or certainly
Speaker 2: since the nineteen fifties sixties, that the FBI is going
Speaker 2: to go after select political and I think that's if.
Speaker 2: A bigger question is how law enforcement and intelligence will
Speaker 2: work together to either not do that or are there
Speaker 2: enough Quizzlings out there who will come forward and say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll do it.
Speaker 1: These are very powerful organizations and if they're turned against
Speaker 1: the American public, it really can be very dangerous.
Speaker 3: The other thing that's been on my mind, this is
Speaker 3: not the funniest episode we've ever done. You talked in
Speaker 3: an earlier episode about how much of the intelligence that
Speaker 3: is essential to our national security comes from allied powers
Speaker 3: and whether without a background check. I think, just based
Speaker 3: on her own utterances, I don't think I would risk
Speaker 3: my life to share information or even risk a sources
Speaker 3: life or whatever, knowing that Tulsa Gabbert might know who
Speaker 3: gave it to them and who gave it to CIA.
Speaker 3: So can you talk about that, like the chilling effect
Speaker 3: on collaboration with other nations, with other spy services.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Foreign partners are going to hesitate to share their
Speaker 1: most precious secrets with us, and not just because they
Speaker 1: think that the leader Tulsea Gabbert or even the president
Speaker 1: might not be trustworthy. That's certainly a real problem. But
Speaker 1: if these guys get their way, they talk about destroying
Speaker 1: these organizations, about putting their own people in these positions.
Speaker 1: They're talking about taking all the senior people in the
Speaker 1: FBI and CIA and make them take loyalty tests or
Speaker 1: pushing them out. Foreign partners are not going to work
Speaker 1: with people who aren't professionals but are the tool of
Speaker 1: one political party or another. In fact, the CIA has
Speaker 1: benefited for years and recruited many a spy who was
Speaker 1: disgusted by the corruption and cronyism in their own societies.
Speaker 1: So essentially, if we're creating this problem for ourselves, we're
Speaker 1: hurting ourselves in two ways. Our partners aren't going to
Speaker 1: share with us, and people might actually be able to
Speaker 1: recruit American spies to steal things from inside our places.
Speaker 3: And when you're recruiting an agent, you're making a very
Speaker 3: long term commitment. Right You're not saying, hey, trust me,
Speaker 3: I will do everything in my power for the next
Speaker 3: three and a half years to keep you safe. And
Speaker 3: then all bets are off right, Like there's an I
Speaker 3: assume implied. I don't know how explicit you have to
Speaker 3: be saying it doesn't matter the president is, doesn't matter
Speaker 3: who controls Congress.
Speaker 2: We've got you, I'll keep you alive. Period.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's no trauma after that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so recruiting and running spies inside the halls
Speaker 1: of places in Moscow or Beijing or Tehran, it's not
Speaker 1: an amateur's game. And it takes years and years. And
Speaker 1: that's another thing about the culture. The CIA and the
Speaker 1: intelligenmuti is hierarchical, like the defense department. So you're a privator,
Speaker 1: you're a colonel, you're a general, and those things matter,
Speaker 1: and it takes years to get from one to the next.
Speaker 1: When somebody comes in who's never done any of those
Speaker 1: things in that most senior position ahead was a very
Speaker 1: low level position, all of a sudden, now they're in
Speaker 1: charge of all of these people who put in time, experience,
Speaker 1: often in hard places, and now this person is the
Speaker 1: boss just because they have political connections. That creates another
Speaker 1: sort of cultural friction that's going to be it's going
Speaker 1: to be very difficult on allies.
Speaker 2: Famously, in twenty sixteen, George Papadopolos got drunk in London
Speaker 2: with the I Commission, the Ambassador, the Australian Ambassador to
Speaker 2: Great Britain. George Papadopolis was on Trump's national security team
Speaker 2: when he was running for president as an advisor, and
Speaker 2: he got drunk and he told him in great detail
Speaker 2: that he knows, through a Russian connection because he's talking
Speaker 2: to Russian intelligence during an intermediary, that the Russians have
Speaker 2: got the goods on the Democratic National Committee. They stolen
Speaker 2: the emails and these are the emails that they stole
Speaker 2: that both the GRU and the SBR fancy Bear and cozy.
Speaker 2: So the Australians came forward to the FBI and said, hey,
Speaker 2: not for nothing, but we got this guy saying that
Speaker 2: the Russians have stolen Democratic National Committee email and the
Speaker 2: FBI goes, oh my god, because they knew they had,
Speaker 2: So how did George Poppadopolis know this? This then opens
Speaker 2: up whole Russia Russia Russia quote unquote hoax. This is
Speaker 2: what kicked it off. And then Papadopolis does the right thing.
Speaker 2: He lies to the FBI leads his Facebook accounts that
Speaker 2: are incriminating, and he destroys his cell phone so that
Speaker 2: the FBI can't check on what he was saying. And
Speaker 2: so this and not the Steel dossier is what kicked
Speaker 2: off the whole What is the relationship between Russian intelligence
Speaker 2: and Trump World through Papadopoulos. I think this time around,
Speaker 2: the Australians would be sold, just keep your house shut,
Speaker 2: Let the Russians do whatever they want to The Americans,
Speaker 2: I think what's going to save us, if anything, and
Speaker 2: what I tell myself is their incompetence. If they are
Speaker 2: so incompetent and so corrupt and so unable to carry
Speaker 2: through cash, Hotel Tulsi, Gabbert Hags, all these guys they
Speaker 2: get confirmed. I think what's only going to save us
Speaker 2: is bureaucratic sloth and their inability to actually do the
Speaker 2: shit that they say they do.
Speaker 1: Also, I wonder populists traditionally often make up enemies to attack, institutions,
Speaker 1: to attack to get power, right, But now they're in power.
Speaker 1: These are their institutions, right, So now destroying the institutions
Speaker 1: that they rely on doesn't make as much sense now.
Speaker 1: In the past, obviously they were mad about the Russia
Speaker 1: investigations in Hunter Biden's laptop and all those kind of things,
Speaker 1: and that's because they were running for election and they
Speaker 1: wanted to use those as handy attacks against their political rivals. Well,
Speaker 1: now those things don't matter anymore. They're not running for election.
Speaker 1: They're in power. They should want these institutions to work
Speaker 1: effectively for them, So they should put their loyal people
Speaker 1: in charge. So that does it feels comfortable he's got
Speaker 1: people in charge, but they shouldn't look to destroy things further,
Speaker 1: Like Bannon has said, we're going to destroy the administrative state.
Speaker 1: Now that may not be the truth. They may actually
Speaker 1: believe these things. They may believe that there's terrible people
Speaker 1: working against the president there and they need to be
Speaker 1: destroyed and all these other kind of things. And if
Speaker 1: that's true, that really is dangerous. But perhaps they'll come
Speaker 1: around and realize, hey, like why are we destroying this
Speaker 1: thing that we rely on. There's going to be crisis,
Speaker 1: there's going to be international things that conceivably the administrations
Speaker 1: are going to want strong military and a strong counterintelligence
Speaker 1: service and a strong intelligence service.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to end on a funny note, and
Speaker 3: that John, you really found the funniest possible note that
Speaker 3: the entire Trump administration will come in on January twentieth,
Speaker 3: and by January twenty third, they'll be like, you know what,
Speaker 3: maybe we should just be super competent professionals who run
Speaker 3: this thing.
Speaker 2: Really well, let's keep the institution put weaponize them.
Speaker 4: All right, we're going to get right back into that,
Speaker 4: but first let's hear this, and we're back with Mission implausible.
Speaker 2: So may you live in interesting times? Is that a
Speaker 2: Yiddish curse? Is that a Chinese curse? Who's responsible for that?
Speaker 3: I have heard Chinese, I've never heard it in the
Speaker 3: Yiddish context. And there's a lot of conspiracy theories about
Speaker 3: US Jews. One thing I can say is if there's
Speaker 3: a Yiddish saying, I've heard it. So do you think
Speaker 3: President Biden should just pardon the enemy's list? And I
Speaker 3: want to make clear you to our enemies, you're on
Speaker 3: the enemy's list.
Speaker 1: So this is a.
Speaker 5: Very hard self you and John, Yes, you know I
Speaker 5: wouldn't take it because my understanding is the pardon is
Speaker 5: you have to admit your guilt before you get the
Speaker 5: and we haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 3: You haven't done this specific thing wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you've done plenty wrong. I feel fairly confident
Speaker 3: about that, But I don't know.
Speaker 1: And the issue of pardons, I don't have a great
Speaker 1: take on that, Like that seems to me. When we
Speaker 1: are an intelligence we were focused on collecting the best
Speaker 1: intelligence we could for our policymakers, but we didn't get
Speaker 1: into policy ourselves. We didn't try to advise things that
Speaker 1: should be having. This seems to be very partisan political things.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole Justice Department, FBI checks stuff behind
Speaker 1: the whole pardon thing, and I just don't know enough
Speaker 1: to say yes, no, should they. We've gotten into this
Speaker 1: game where both sides are like thinking the other sides
Speaker 1: up to illegal stuff, and they're going to protect their side,
Speaker 1: and it just seems skeazy and I just as soon
Speaker 1: stay away from it.
Speaker 2: No one's above the law, and I think giving pardons,
Speaker 2: especially to relatives, it simply shows that there's one set
Speaker 2: of justice for them and another set of justice for
Speaker 2: the restless. So when President Trump, then President Trump hardened
Speaker 2: Jared Kushner's father who was charged with sixteen tax evasion charges,
Speaker 2: and then he was also charged and found guilty and
Speaker 2: pled guilty to making a sex tape about his own
Speaker 2: brother in law. He lured his own brother in law
Speaker 2: into a tryst with a prostitute, paid her twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, filmed it, and tried to blackmail his brother
Speaker 2: in law not to testify against him, and pled guilty
Speaker 2: to that. Trump pardoned him and has just named him
Speaker 2: ambassador to France. I think that's wrong, and I think
Speaker 2: it's also I'm sorry, Hunter Barden. I think it's wrong
Speaker 2: that he gets a pardon. Oh, and then he gave
Speaker 2: the film to the guy's.
Speaker 6: Wife, his mother, his sister. That's right, but he got
Speaker 6: pardoned for that. And I don't see that as any
Speaker 6: versus Hunter Biden. But I don't think either of them
Speaker 6: should have been pardoned.
Speaker 3: Agreed. I think it's you can understand as a dad,
Speaker 3: but we're not president.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree. More so if Tulsea Gabbard becomes d
Speaker 3: and I, would you expect a lot of CIA senior
Speaker 3: brass officers to quit? And for that matter, would you
Speaker 3: expect agents to say, we get work with you anymore?
Speaker 3: We're too afraid.
Speaker 1: In terms of people leaving. I saw that just recently,
Speaker 1: the Attorney General gave a talk to the Justice Farm
Speaker 1: people encouraging them to stay. The country needs experience, professionals
Speaker 1: and a lot of these jobs. Now, like I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: like if they truly are going to try to destroy
Speaker 1: these organizations and put just rank partisan people with no
Speaker 1: experience into these kinds of jobs, lots of people are
Speaker 1: going to leave. But it remains to be seen. Some
Speaker 1: of these things that people say a cash hotel, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go in and I'm going to first day
Speaker 1: close the FBI and send everybody else. That's just those
Speaker 1: are not realistic things. And oftentimes in the past politicians
Speaker 1: have said things that came in and once they realize
Speaker 1: what they have and that these people are professionals and
Speaker 1: they work for them, things change. So I think there
Speaker 1: be people who are at retirement age that we're planning
Speaker 1: to stay. A number of them will try to leave
Speaker 1: and others will try to stay. But I do think
Speaker 1: if the incompetence and the real sort of disdain for
Speaker 1: the institutions they run continues, you're going to see not
Speaker 1: as much people leaving, but a lot of more leaking.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be very interesting to be reading the newspaper
Speaker 1: over the next couple of years.
Speaker 2: I think people who followed through on threats like that,
Speaker 2: I'm going to defund the police, right. This is the
Speaker 2: FBI in this case, and the DOJ. It's people like
Speaker 2: pole pot In, like maw Right. They just shut down governments.
Speaker 2: It didn't work out well for them. So I don't
Speaker 2: think cash Hotel is actually going to follow through on this,
Speaker 2: but you can still cause a lot of destruction. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people just go into internal exile
Speaker 2: and just try to hang out for four years. I'm
Speaker 2: just really proud that I got Smoot Hawley, Senator reads
Speaker 2: smooth into a show, right. I've been wanting to do
Speaker 2: that forever.
Speaker 7: Mission Implausible produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Cipher,
Speaker 7: and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission
Speaker 7: Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable pictures
Speaker 7: for iHeart Podcasts.