Ask the question, how do we strengthen not only the quantity of time with people but even more importantly the quality of time . Watch book this weekend on cspan2. Good evening, everyone. And candace, one of the event managers here at town offered on behalf of townhall seattle im welcoming you to tonights lifestream with investigative journalist david wrote an conversation with podcast and radio host [inaudible]. As we get underway at like to acknowledge there are institution stands on the unsuited traditional territory of the [inaudible] people, [inaudible]. We thank them for their uses of their Natural Resources from their ancestral homeland. Were thrilled to be able to present this event virtually with concerns surrounding public health. Were proud to be unity focused organization and where we can sustain ideas and creativity. Like to think david and steve for appearing tonight to help make that happen. 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If you are interested in supporting local independent bookstores by purchasing a copy of tonights books we are partnering with [inaudible] books tonight and you can purchase through the button that is just at the bottom of this page. Tonights conversation will be about 45 minutes, followed by a q a portion. Our moderators select questions from those cemented in the ask a question field at the bottom of center of your screen. You can vote on which questions you would like us to answer first by clicking the arrow next to the question to up loaded. We can carry guarantee that will get to all questions but we will get through as many as we can. Please keep them concise and in the form of a question. Gentry our civic series is supported by realnetworks foundation, Richard Brown foundation, the winco foundation. Finally townhall is member supported organization so id like to think the members watching tonight. Now onto our speakers. David road is an executive editor of new yorker. Com. He is a former reporter for raiders, New York Times, Christian Science monitor but he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1996 for stories that helped expose the massacre during the war in bosnia. In 2019 he shared a Pulitzer Prize with the team of time supporters for the coverage of afghanistan and pakistan. The author of beyond war, reimagining americas role and inventions in the new middle east. Also, a robe and a prayer, the story of a kidnapping coauthored with his wife and endgame, the betrayal involved of [inaudible] the worst massacre since world war ii. He [inaudible] he is a former host of ku w fm weekdays and interviews at the interview of washington since 2009. His indepth interviews with awardwinning authors, political leaders, scientists, artists and activists citizens are noted for their intelligence and sensitivity. Thank you, candace. Thank you, candace. Very nice. Thank you, david. Its good to see you through the magic of tis technology. Thank you, and thanks to everybody who is watching. Theres a message that said steve rocks so were off to a great start thanks to you. Host thats my flipped and neighbor and former journalist. Chris. We walk our dogs together when we can. I guess not right now. Not walking the dogs together right now. Guest have to take any support you can get. Host amen. Amen. Where are you right now . No im in my parents innages in house in kennebunkport, med. I usually live in new york city. My wife has asthma and reduced lung capacity so we left the city at the covid outbreak was spreading. So we are here in maine, and were safe and well. Talk to my friends in new york who are thrill and im very worried about them but looks like things are getting better. Seattle set a good example for the country in flattening the curve. Host in many ways it has, thats true. Im glad you guys got to be in a place where youre more comfortable in all the ways you need to be more comfortable. Guest were lucky. Host funny what you said about seattle. We could start with this. When the protesters yesterday, day before yesterday, came to olympia, to complain about the infringements on their personal freedoms because of the restrictions from social distancing and others, one of the signs more than one of the signs that they were holding up as they gathered together, much closer than six feet, was now no more from the deep state. How do you suppose in their thinking the response to covid19 is a symbol or a not a symbol but an action by the deep state. Guest so, the conservatives that have i will ruck different people use the term deep state in different ways. Thecrest conservative i guess the appropriates rue of the deep state is the administrative state, and thats this kind of evergrowing federal government, state government, relentlessly encroaching, they feel, on americans lives, on their rights to vaccines, gun control, education, curriculum, and so they feel that the deep state, the warnings but coronavirus are exaggerated and its another example of unelected government officials, elitists in washington, dictating to average americans how they should live their lives. Host i see. Well, lets define it. Lets take all the definitions of deep state. When did that term first dom be prevalent . Guest so, one of the reasons i wrote the book is to try to come up with a clear definition of the deep state, and ive actually come to the conclusion i dont like the term. Its used in a lot oft different ways, pejorative tomorrow but started out as a term that political scientists used to talk about the military and the country of turkey, and the dynamic in that country of the military Intelligence Service block eggmer generals of democracy in turkey, and the same thing in egypt, and it wasnt really used or applied to the american government, the earliest example was a book written in 2007 by a university of california uc berkeley professor named peter dale scott. I tracked hem down and interviewed him for my book. His view of the deep state, if this more of another dish mentioned this earlier another view of kind of an oppressive government the way liberal its view it they dont use the term deep spate but talk but the military industryial complex and thats generals and defense contractors who push the country into endless war. Peter dale scotts defendant mission was mobile like that. He was suspicious of 9 11 and suspicious of wall street and their power. So, until 2007, he did some interviews on info wars, Alex Jones Show and that was an example of the left and right coming together in their suspicion of the federal government, but before 2016, the term deep state just really wasnt i think widely in use among average americans. Host did you talk to any conservative deepstater ill use that two saw who wreck noised the concern of the military Industrial Complex . , historically or currently. Guest there is unity. One person that has brought this up and comes to mind is senator rand paul of kentucky, the libertarian republican and he is very nervous about the u. S. Being drag into wars overseas, extremely skeptical about the National Security agency and surveillance, and then his Kindred Spirit is senator ron widen of oregon, the liberal who is very concern about eavesdropping and theres too much spying going on in this country. So, there is growing distrust of the federal government. There was a pole i read in 2018 that set me off into writing the book which found that 70 of americans think that theres a group of unelected officials and military officials who secretly manipulate u. S. Government policy in washington. Host you know issue always think but when the runup to the campaign, donald trump was asked about his support for russia, given all the negative things russia had done in the world and trumps response, i thick it was to bill oriley, was you think were so great . Were not so great. Were not so innocent. We have done a lot of things, too. I always thought that was an interesting response and i wonder if do you think that resonated with some of of the people who came to support donald trump. Guest i think it did. Theres people who mock donald trump and question his mental stability. He is extremely good at messaging, very, very good at consistently presenting a narrative that appeals to people and in terms of what the u. S. Has done around the world, hes right. I start my book in 1977. There was a huge investigation by the senate, called the Church Committee, frank church, the senator from idaho, chaired it and they investigated fbi and cia activitied throughout the cold war and they exposed assassinations, the cia was spying on americans inside this country. They were surveilling john lennon when he protested against the vietnam war. The fbi is famous for wiretapping and harassing Martin Luther king jr. And trying to defame him. J. Ed guard hoover had a list of 27,000 americans who were subversives in miss view at that time would be rounded up through in case of emergency. Norman mailer was on the list. And it was amazing number of scandals, but what has changed and what trump didnt mention is there was this whole system was created in the late 70s. President ford did after watergate, president carter as well to try to control the fbi and the cia, and current members talked to a lot of people, current and former member offered the fbi and Central Intelligence agency and claim they operate differently since all these protections and oversight mechanisms were put in place in the late 70s. Host i guess until the abu ghraib and watergate. The iraq war. Guest you got me. Thats true. And so theres host well guest go ahead, keep going. Host well, did you interview rand paul for this book . Guest i did not. He i tried to speak with him but he declined to speak with me. Host i wonder what he would say. In some ways his politics might look back on the 70s reforms and say, yes, these were concerns. I mentioned that i grew up in chicago where a bunch of black panthers were killed by through very, very underhashedded means. How is that. So underhanded means. Do we come around . You mentioned alex jones, he goes around like this but is there a coming together of the concern about the deep state . I was going to say brig brother. Guest not among mainstream republicans and mainstream democrats. There was a lot of look, these systems were put in as a federal court that supposed to the fisa court which well talk but that approves warrants for eavesdropping. Theres new committees were created in congress, the intelligent Oversight Committee, ronwideen is on them and the idea was to have courts overlooking eavesdrops you had to have a warrant to do that if youre a member of the fbi. A pan on assassinations abroad that ford signed for the cia to carry out a covert action in other countries it had to be written and then the president had to sign a covert finding, copies of that finding went to the leading members of congress from both parties. Cia directors were supposed to fbi directors were supposed to serve no longer than ten years to prevent j. Edgar hoover from emerging and all these Congressional Committees have subpoena power and this more extensive that other kin true. No committees in he england or germany or france that can subpoena those countries Intelligence Services. All that said, i know theres a bunch of people out in who say, this is a joke, theyre out of control. Just to go to 9 11, the detention and torture practices that went on were approved by the Bush Administration. The Justice Department wrote famous legal opinions saying this was legal, cia officers who were involved in that said they were following the orders, they were lawful orders that by a duly elect president. It wasnt rogue operations. That is the difference, the cia and fbi were doing things on their own during the cold war. I get it. People dont believe it. In terms terms of a assassinati, barack obama cared out a Record Number of drone strikes that were in essence assassins and one of an american citizen, alaulaqi was killed in yemen by a u. S. Drone strike. No proceedings, no presentation of evidence and a u. S. Citizen was killed by the u. S. Government. Host remarkable numbers on that, reading again in your book. Well come back to that. Let me circle back to the beginning. These 1970s Church Committee reforms, postwatergate reforms more broad limit did they curtail president ial power . Did they shift power from the executive to congress . Guest they did and then the broader question in the book is how do you control the cia and the fbi, and also like prevent them from carrying out abuses and then how do you prevent president s from doing that, and there was a school of thought, and bill barr, the current u. S. Attorney general, is part of this group, but when ford agreed to changes two member offered the staff, dick cheney and donald resumes field, worked in the ford white house, apposed this. Antonin scalia who was a conservative legal scholar, thought that after watergate the creation of the Oversight Committee and the creation of inspectors general in terms of spending of the emergency funds for coronavirus. Those were independent, apolitical positions, created by congress, and they were supposed to investigate intending and abuse and corruption in the executive branch, and there was a school of thought, and bill barr is a big member of this, that essentially the presidency was being weakened. To much oversight by congress. Too mach subpoenas from the Congressional Committee and bill barr gave a peach to the federal society and felt there was too much active jim from judges, too many liberal judges, an opponent oft abortion rights. Saw that as the courts go too far but in term odd the president s power he complain recently under President Trump, the immigration orders stopped by federal judges, there were several on the west coast that stopped things trump was trying to carry out and i think the muslim ban, and he just said thats overreach. We need a strong presidency, to protect this country in moments of disaster, pandemics like today and moment offered war and barr argues the presidency more than the legislative branch or the Judicial Branch has performed the best when the country is under threat and favors a strong presidency that cant be encumbered or slowed down in it actions by other branches. Host two questions on that. One, is there any evidence in your reporting, in the world, that we have seen a this is a little bit like evidence by we dont really have the example but there is any evidence that a strong president has done a better job than the legislatures or the legislature here in congress over during times of crisis . Guest barr would argue that post 9 11, that the president needed to detain suspected terrorists and put them in guantanamo bay. That was the president opening up the prison and running it as he like. The Bush Administration ran a warrantless wire tapping program. They did not go to the federal court and ask for warrants. They again felt that was needed and most americans sported it after 9 11. But this is a big debate. And if you fast forward to today, you have this belief among barr and other conservatives in a strong executive and then donald trump who welcomes that power, and says he wants it at times and we can get into the Coronavirus Response but he sort of gone back and forth on, i am the ultimate authority as president , to, its up to states to decide. But ill just these are central questions about how should our democracy function. Should all three branches be equally powerful or do we need a strong presidency. So, were sort of living through an amazing moment in american history. Host i had thought that the founders wrote the constitution and n such a way there were three coequal branches of government which would put checks and banned on wasnt another. What would bill barr say to that. Guest article 2 of the constitution describes an executive branch that has full authority over the carrying out, executing the laws and running the government as the chief of the executive branch sees fit. That is his view of the constitution and there are conservative scholars who agree. Congress has struggled. Its 0 divided plate okay. Its not that i cant thing of a big legislative package that ementioned where congress was leading the way. A sense that since 9 11, the presidency has kind of regained whatever power lost port of postwatergate. When donald trump says im the president and i can do whatever i want, because im the president , they they point to article 2, theres nothing else in the constitution that i can point to that says, wait a minute issue thought there was some oversight that comes into play. Guest the many mechanism is an election. Barr primary thing, is that the executive will be held accountable in regular elections and impeachment are the two main mechanisms joy can hope they will always then respect the outcome of any election or impeachment. If they say their power is up encompassing they can also say, this impeachment proceeding is a fraud and we wont comply with it because we dont have to because were the executive. Isnt that part over the argument they make. Guest thats part of the argument and what want with the recent impeachment proceeding. Just a political proceeding. To be fair to bail barr there was a period where trump was pushing him to go easy on roger stones sentencing, and barr gave a very unusual interview with abc news and said the president s tweets and demand that the sentence that roger stone receives be less was making it impossible for bill barr to do his job. Think theres a red line. One thing that came out of the watergate thing and these scandals from the past was that the attorney general under nixon, john mitchell, was sort of punishing as attorney general the president s enemies and helps his friends. So attorney generals are supposed to apply the law equally. A good explanation i heard and didnt really forward this before was that if the president wants to say, lets go crack down on pharmaceutical companies, thats my priority for Law Enforcement and the Justice Department and the attorney general should absolutely do it. Thats the president s prerogative. President s are elected. They have democratic mandates from the American People to carry out their policies and Government Servants should carry out the policies unless theyre illegal or improper. What is improper is if the president says to the attorney general, hey, i dont like that one Pharmaceutical Company ceo because that person didnt give me a Large Campaign donation, go criminally investigate them. That is improper and barr has signaled that kind of activity is improper. But its all extraordinary what is happening today. Host what about his own approaches to investigating ukraine or investigating biden, investigating the fbi, whether their decision to investigate trump was legal . Are those political or are can they be seen as the duly responsible effortsed of an concern general is . This problem with barr record. Just today the republican controlled dish want to respeed that the Republican Controlled Senate still intense committee ruled that the cia assessment that russia intervened in the 2016 election to help donald trump was correct. Based on the evidence that they Intelligence Community collected and all these republican senators saw, they agreed that this wasnt some fake story to discredit donald trump. Wasnt some plot by the Intelligence Community to make up that russia helped trump. Russia in fact did help trump and right now, as part of the probe that you mentioned bail barr has had a u. S. Attorney, john durham, carrying out a probe of those rye cry rouge cia analystswas their assessment correct and the part of the separate investigation of the fbi, a big boost for these intelligence analysts who find it very extraordinary theyre being investigated by a u. S. Prosecutor for a report they wrote. It was their assessment of what russia did and so one of the most puzzling things and concerning things is this pattern of investigate the investigators. Anyone who kind of comes out with an intelligence assessment that the president doesnt like faces a criminal investigation. And thats had a real Chilling Effect on the Intelligence Community. But the head of the fbi, chris wray, and gina haspel of head of the cia are testifying less in public because when they do they are push into saying things that contradict President Trump. Hell tweet at them, attack them, dan coateses, the director of National Intelligence, said the assessment of the Intelligent Community was that north korea would not give up nuclear weapons. Trump mocked him, and he was sort of forced out of power. And the person trump is nominated is the new director of National Intelligence is much more political and much more likely to give intelligence assessments that align with the president s messaging. Host its difficult because the line of between political and neutral is so difficult. So, you mentioned the bbc comedies, yes minister and i forget the other bun about the Permanent Secretaries of departments who manipulated and maneuvered around the everchanging cast of political appointees and the prime ministers in the uk. And they were the power in that tv show, anyway. How much truth do you ascribe to that notion of with the sitting people in power in these various departments assassinated and then well get to the political appointment because thats part of that. Do those citizens have the power. Guest they have large amounts of power. 3 million american theres the uniform military 3 million americans who many of them spend years if not decades working for the federal government, that would range from the park service to the department of education, to social security, cia and fbi, and, look, they have biases, they every president has come in office has complained but the federal bureaucracy. Again, they are elected. They have a mandate, the new administration comes in and they feel that sometimes certain parts of the government are against their policies. When Ronald Reagan cam in the said he felt the state department was too liberal and wouldnt carry out his agenda in terms of countering communism. Barack obama felt that generals in the pentagon were floating these numbers for how many u. S. Troops obama should send to afghanistan and he film like he was getting booked in but no president has accused Government Servants, career Civil Servant of carrying out a coup again them and that is what so different but a the drum era. They have biases, they want their turf. They want their organization to do well. They might be slow to implement programs they dont like. They might want the budget to grow for their organization. But are they actively sitting in basements and secretly plotting to undermine dramatically elected president s. No theres a ton of Congressional Committees that would love to catch Government Servants doing that. They have subpoenas and can send fbi agents and can wiretap Government Servants. Laws, the hatch act that bars Civil Servants from engaging in political activity. Every federal Civil Servant swears to uphold the constitution. I spoke to many of them and they admit they have colleague that arent that great but they john dempsey is one of the characters in the book, worked in the Intelligence Community. She was juan of few women in the community and he wrote the rose to the number throw position in the cia over her generation, and dempsey said she saw motor of her colleagues as sort of dogooders. Very cautious and sort of ruleabiding and people who would like to work for government. That is her view. I know many people are very cynical but government workers. Host given trumps just setting trumps rhetoric aside, is there any evidence that the last four years have seen more activity by these supposedly neutral parties to undermine the policies of the Trump Administration . Guest i would say no in most parts of the government. I think many people have left. Theres a lot of depat tours at the epa. Michael lewis wrote a book about this and other departments. The biggest question focuses on the fbi and the trump russia investigation. James baker, not james baker the former secretary of state but a james baker who was the general counsel at the fbi, worked with jim comey throughout the summer of 2016, and then as the fbi was carrying out the trump russia investigation. So that is the big question, was the fbi undermining trump by investigating his campaign . I kind of agree with the findings of the again, an Inspector General, this independent position that was put together so the Inspector General for the Justice Department, michael horowitz, put together a 5,000 word report about this, interviewed comby, dozen of fbi agents under oath, access to intelligence records, and horowitz found there was a legal justification for the launching of the fbi trump russia investigation, not based on the dossier which was full of untruths. We can talk but that separately. When it was launched during the campaign it was legally justified. After 9 11, the fbi with lots of support from democrats and republicans, lowered the amount of evidence you needed to carry out an investigation. That was to stop terrorism so the fbi could quickly investigate anyone they wanted. So the fbi didnt have a tremendous amount of investigation but a legally authorized opening of investigations and just the other point ill make is the biggest thing the fbi could have done the undermine donald trump in the summer of 2016 was to leak the fact that they were investigating trump and russia. That would have sabotaged his campaign. They didnt do that. We asked endlessly issue asked he questions to yates Department Officials about the dossier, was carter page we can talk about meeting with russian facials. They refused to comment and and wouldnt give me anything. Then one specific an neck tote, was doing a story on the cia and i interviewed john brenneman, the director of the cia, six weeks before the election. We were sitting in Directors Office inside the cia headquarters. You look out the windows and theres this canopy of green trees outside, and i asked him, mr. Brennan, can you tell me their are there these videotapes that russia has that are compromising of thenrepublican candidate trump, and brennan paused, sort of seemed surprised and he said, im not going to comment on this one way or the another. No confirm and not denying anything like that and he said, look, david, i just want to urge you, youll hear a lot of crazy things but donald trump in the last sick weeks of the election, a lot of crazy things about Hillary Clinton in this last six weeks and urged me not to wright about these allegations. He said, only write things you can really prove and you know are factually correct. So again, one of the current conspiracy theories is john brennan was give together dossier to everyone. Just the last plug for journalists we all had the dostie, it all came from we got from the head of gps fusion. Everybody major News Organization had the dossier throughout the 2016 election. None of us could prove it. Worked for reuters then. We didnt print a word of it. There was one oblique story that ran in the last dives the eelect that me a mentioned but if the press was out to get donald trump during 2016 we would have been writing but the dossier and none of is did. Host no we write ought hillarys emails and james comeys decision. Guest during the campaign, if the fbi hurt anybody it was james comey reopening the investigation days before the election. I talked at length to jim baker, the general counsel, he felt they had to do that. They had to be honest with congress, honest with the country, and but then thats another example of this idea of the fbi trying to sabotage trump being questionable. Theres questions about what happened after the election. Host also murky. Guest yes. Host also murky, right. Guest yes. Just to be fair host what happened after the election. Guest i mentioned carter page earlier, but what was found in the Inspector General resident report is that there were four warrants to this Surveillance Court, one created in the 70s. Two of the first two warrant were proper, they were legally sufficient to surveil carter page and the last two werent. That was wrong, carter page should have not been surveil that long and there was an fbi lawyer who changed an email. They way they were so suspicious of carter page he left the Trump Campaign and he was meeting with all these russian officials and this fbi agent had an email that said, page was talking to the cia as he was meeting with these russian officials. He was cooperating with the cia. The low level fbi letter changed the meaning of that im ohm to say page was not cooperating with the cia. I heard from someone sort of close to that fbi lawyer that was a mistake it and wasnt some nefarious thing. He misafford what the misordinary what pages status was with the cia. That lawyer is under investigation and should be. Those were improper surveillance warrants the last two. Theres a new report by the Inspector General found that the systemic sloppiness in the applications of the fbi puts the Surveillance Court then the Surveillance Court itself has become a rubber stamp. So i would say off all the institutions to created to control the fbi, the fisa court is the least effective. Its too secretive. The public should know more and should be rejecting many more applications to surveil people but it wasnt simply trump tower was never surveilled. It wasnt only donald trump. This is a real problem for many americans, many Muslim Americans after 9 11 were improperly surveilled. And its just a pattern i see of the president exaggerating things that happened and went wrong. Thats not a coup. He shouldnt have been surveilled that long, carter page, but that is not a coup. Host why is the fisa court not doing a better job at balancing its role . Guest i dont know. Id call on the judges to do better. Not an adversarial process. Literally government lawyers preparing evidence that the fbi put together why they need to surveil. They are primarily surveilling foreigners but in the process they pick up americans and they are theyll see i why is this american hanging out wife Russian Diplomats believed to be intelligence operates or chinese diplomats. That system needs to improve. Having these onesided preparations from the yates department and the fbi, just is not working. Host is there a reform that somebody might have in mind, ron wyden or rand paul. Guest bill barr said there should be a higher level of evidence needed before an investigation of a Political Campaign can be carried out, and i fully support that. That would be a great reform that would change, but again, under the standards of evidence that existed in 2016, it was legally opened investigation. So theres problems. Just the kind of the exaggeration that has again on by to frankly, by the president , that the he called the fbi agents who investigated him his several of his aides, lied to the fbi and were prosecuted for it. He called the fbi agents who did that investigation human scum. Thats a gross exaggeration, and we can talk more about his use of the term deep state to discredit institutions and people. Host well, how about that. For all our concern, it is just trumps political rhetoric. This is how he operates and how he gets his voters to stay in touch with him. So, is the deep state that he talks about a lie or is it as Trump Supporters say, its just his way of talking, and he is just trying to make a larger more metaphor cal point . Guest i would say its dish think the coronavirus moment shows us how dangerous this is. We sort of have to have a basic agreement on facts, and so is the coronavirus how dangerous is it . How what is the infection rate, the mortality rate. Is six feet enough, not enough . And we have to sort of rely on some kind of government experts, scientific experts, medical experts, if we was a society and as a democracy are going to respond to this kind of challenges. So, this we are in such a sort of fierce political era where its inwe are take all and constant attacks on trump, people say that i have relatives who are big supporters of the president and feel his is just savaged be the news media the democrats but i feel theirs cycle of disdain and division and kind of conspiracy theories and one that donald trump is a secret russian agent. Reasonablerobert muller did note inclusion, we must accept the results of the mueller property and nat say trump clouded with russia to win the election. That was a very thorough investigation and collusion was not found and lets move on from that. Its just a very dangerous kind of cycle of conspiracy theories and where we dont agree on facts and then you saw it in terms of the demonstrations just recently in washington. Host okay. Well, two last questions for men and then well open it up to get what you folks are thinking. But one of them, a little lit been ukraine. And what we learned from that. Because if im not mistaken, isnt bill barr even now investigating some of the folks who pushed forward the ukraine impeachment proceedings . Thats not they werent the impeachment proceedings pushed for an investigation into the ukraine events . Guest he has talk about it. He is much more aggressive on he called much more focused on the trump russia investigate the fbi launched and recently called it a travesty or one over the largest travesties in u. S. History. So, look, maybe john durham the federal prosecutor will fine this astonishing criminal conspiracy that horowitz the Inspector General, and dozen of interviews and thousands of pages of documents did not find. But i there is a pattern with the president of sort of using conspiracy theories discredit his enemies. Very effective communicator and then kind of keeping what he is doing secret and so you mixed the impeachment. What i worry about is that the president is thinks the is surrounded by enemies and all these Congressional Committees want to know what is going on and he is forming a parallel government with aides and in the white house who we eh will not allow to testify before congress, you have Rudy Giuliani carrying out a private Foreign Policy on behalf of the president , and so ironically this one of the concluding thought inside the book under the guys of guise of stopping a coup that doesnt excess, trump is creating a shadow government of his own filled with loyalist no transparency and no public proceedings and dont know what is going on inside the trump white house, and so ironically trump is creating a deep state of his own. Host yeah. Didnt i read i guess i read it in the New York Times, about president ial findings that may exist i believe the times is vague on actually how much they saw but may exist that essentially, again, gives the president the power that the president has given himself the power to do whatever he deems necessary for the public good or his own system, his own position . Guest executive orders. Host yeah. Guest covert action findings are different. Host theyre executive orders. We havent seen them. Theyre secret executive orders, then. Guest there is a certain this is dunow im getting outside of my depth here. I would think thy would at some point have to be made public. But i dont know. Do know this is again a reform of the 70s for covert action, they have to be written findings and they good to both parties. The chair and the Ranking Member of the intelligence commitees, the speaker of the house, and the minority leader in both the house and senate; so, the democrats would know about any if theyre actually written finding about covert action, but i would think executive orders would have to eventually be made public, but a lot of unprecedented stuff is happening, and there has never been an impeachment where the president successfully said, i reject your subpoenas. You cannot speak to mick mull vainy, the white house chief of staff, about what he knew about ukraine. You cannot look at any emails or any documents related to ukraine. And this is this theory is bill barr that the ultimate power is an election, or an impeachment and to have a president say, i reject your impeachment, this is shifting the balance of powers as we were talking about earlier. Again, an extraordinary moment in american history, how its a question i ask in the book, how powerful should a president be . Host audio difficulties. We should be up and again. Go ahead where you left guest lets take questions. I can talk about the press anytime. Were terrible. Theres bad reporters like in any profession. Lets good to questions. Host what are you thoughts 0 eric prince and his relationship to betsy devos with the Current Administration . Does that come in your purview . Guest it does. There were early proposalled by devos to try to use private security guards to kind of secure afghanistan. There were career officials in the cia and the military said this was a terrible idea given that some over black water guards in iraq has killed civilians in a famous shooting. One of the main characters in the book is an fbi agent who investigates the black party shootings in iraq, tom oconnor. An amazing guy who spends decades of his life he says investigating evil in all forms he investigates al qaeda and black water and white supremacies. That proposal was blocked and stopped and again, is that the deep state or are these people that have spent lot of time in afghanistan and stopping a bad proposal . From my time in afghanistan i would say that was not a good idea, black water was despised throughout the islamic world because of what happened in baghdad. Host what about the deep state being the powerful lobbies of which the industrial military complex is a part and wall street . Whats the evidence for that . Guest i think there are very large defense contractors that have sway. One of these thing but trump dish spoke to one aide, now very senior official in the administration. Trump personally is opposed to getting the u. S. Embroiled in more wars. And so if depends on at the privilege of the person but i would say both obama and trump resisted pressures fame newsily in syria, obama wouldnt go in and was criticized for that. Obama pulled u. S. Troops out of iraq. Dehid have the surge in afghanistan but obama ended that summer and then trump is an isolationist. He has resisted pressures, if there are, from corporate or defense contractors. He is spending a ton of money on the military but not engaging us in wars. So again this kind of my shtick as a journalist. The neat kind of theories dont always work out. I. E. Donald trump in the pocket of Corporate America and big defense firms, but he has not gotten us into a large war overseas since he became president. Host of course but the military Industrial Complex is about the money being spent, not necessarily about the weapons being used. Guest correct. Ate least Young Americans arent dying. And i mean, i point taken. Host yeah. We live in a state where theres a big military contractor that lobbies incessantly for its contracts and gets pushback from other places and other companies sometimes. So, maybe they dont have as much sway as the think. Guest theyre very powerful. Host barack obama, donald trump, post bush president s and bush, gw, through dick cheney and rumsfeld and that idea, became very powerful, had very many powerful tools. Did barack obama was barack obama continuing to expand that power using it at the same level or given what you said about the drone strikes or was he seeing ways to reduce the power of the presidency . Guest he ended up he was much more focused, obama, on obeying the law. So i think is a mentioned earlier, the well just jump right into the snowden example. What snowden revealed, every program he talked about had been approved by the federal the foreign intense gel Surveillance Court, the fisacourt. The Obama Administration it was secret and people didnt understand the extent of it but web web obama was very careful about following guidelines set up in the 70s, and the problem was that he realized that he did not want to get u. S. Troops forever in iraq and afghanistan and he embraced drone strikes as a way to protect the country would be very vulnerable politically if there there was another attack in the United States and the felt deadlock inside terms of congress, when he was president , the republicans were seen as an out of control congress that was been obstructionist and carrying out too many investigations of obama. So the republicans a feeling that obama was using more and more executive orders to carry out his policies if he didnt have the votes to carry them out in congress. So each president faced with this kind of deadlock as we get more and more divided and more and more partisan, they are using executive orders. That would use covert actions overseas to just try to get things done. But obama did he stopped waterboarding, stopped tour tour, tried to close guantanamo but it was a more lawful presidency but just as powerful. Host as donald trump has expanded or just continued at the level of gw and obama . Guest its a much more expansive interpretation of executive power. Theres never been this refuse cal to just flat out denying congressional investigations into what his administration is doing and theyre just stonewalling congress. Its a much more sweeping thing. Just again, this i have ultimate authority and decide when the stays reopen. You george w. Bush never said that. The using funds that were appropriated by congress for the pentagon, shifting the use of money that the legislative branch, the power of the purse, taking the money and using it to build a wall along the border with mexico, which congress did not want that money to be used for, that was the democratic vote of congress, so democrats, small d, into and to have a president say, nope, im taking that money and spend how i want no president has done that, no modern president since nixon. Host did mixon spend money that was not authorized. Guest slush funds and the famous more to burglarize the watergate stuff but its a very, very sweeping fire thing inspect youre general that will overlook the economic support funds in the wake of coronavirus, and appointing to replace him a white house lawyer who is seen as a real loyalist, versus an independent figure. Again, this is all getting rid of these powers that were created in the 7s to reflect president. A cumbersome system all these branches and its hard to get stuff done in washington. But it was designed that way, and we have seen that when you concentrate power, when there isnt transparency, it can lead to abuses and corruption. Host around the world. We americans prided ourselves on having a democracy that didnt fall victim to strong men, but apparently we dont have as much control over that as we thought, and the bill barrs of the world said, no, you dont, not until we have an election. Guest the argument is its paralysis and too messy and you need president s who again, its the. I you just go back to Obama Administration there was a sense that Mitch Mcconnell was blocking everything. And that was an abuse of congressional power. Enough its seen as good, democrats think its good that nancy pelosi and schumer are fighting back, but anyway, its this is an enormously important moment in american history. Trump is setting press dens that are going exist for future president s who theyre republicans or democrats. Host right. Another question, what happened to the quiet Resistance Group that had the anonymous oped in the New York Times . Are three groups covertly trying to push against trumps craziness to put it mildly . Guest i dont know who anonymous is. Worked for the New York Times for 15 years. Think theres an anonymous and i think its a fairly senior official. I think people are sort of gradually leaving government, just an anecdote, i mentioned tom oconnor, this fbi agent who wase a Police Officers in western massachusetts, he joined the fbi, he investigates the u. S. Cole bombing in yemen and recovers the bodies from the sailors. 9 11hes to in the pentagon. He and his fellow agents recovered 2,000 bag of human remains from the pentagon, and so tom oconnor retired recently on 9 11. He and his wife were both fbi agents. The retired on 9 11. He fought for these first responders, to get more rewards theyre all getting different cancers and he was with jon stewart. Jon stewart testified before congress and jon steur was very angry why congress wasnt funding these first responders, people that have been serving and working in government for so long, and so was tom oconnor. So he left the fbi and i asked him, what are you going to do . And i said would you want to run for office, maybe, so angry at congress and could you go in and clean things up. And he said, no. I want to do something that has some honor to it, or some meaning and thats a really dangerous thing for me to hear, that someone who is worked i think helped people, theres bad fbi agents no question, but this guy spent his career investigating he called it evil in all of its forms but i sense from him and others a kind of disgust with our political system. Disgust with both times the cia and the fbiing divided like the country. A chunk of fbi agent that would love President Trump and a chunk that dont like him. Same thing in the cia. This longterm government officials are not great, some are bureaucrats, some lazy, but theyre needed. We need a lean, effective government. We see that with coronavirus. That theyre just going to get sick of the scrum and the constant attacks and the media attacking them, politicians attacking them and we just wont happen people interested in Public Service anymore. Host are we seeing that . Are we seeing a decrease in applications at the federal level . Guest at the fbi, they say theyre consistent. During the shutdown which was about funding for the wall, that there a lot of fbi agents who were angry because they didnt get paid for two months the longest shutdown in u. S. History. They set up food pantries and fbi offices around the country. There were the staffers at fbi coming in in tears and asking their supervisors for help. Some agents were afraid they couldnt they wouldnt be able to make a credit card payment and then theyd failed their Credit History and i you have a bad Credit History your teen as vulnerable to blackmail by a foreign power, russian operatives. So they were very frustrated but some welcome angry at trump, some am democratted but that alienation from our democracy, from the democratic process is corrosive and dangerous for this country in the long term. Host corrosive and dangerous enough to allow somebody to say, these elects are falls, im not going to abide the ohm wore ear not going to have them. Guest i just this gets back to your media question. For conservatives or liberals, how die want to put this if youre a conservative and your seeing these incredible things on facebook and online, and theyre not being reported in the mainstream media, id urge people, the wall street journal, the new section of the paper. Not point section. One thing but newspapers and the new yorker where i work, when we publish a story, when i publish a story, a lawyer reads it. There are liable laws that allow me to get sued for defaming something, for something that is false. Thats true for the weapons Washington Post, the wall street journal, the New York Times, the local papers. Thats not true for twitter, for facebook, or google. They can put anything on those platforms. They have no responsibility whatsoever if what is online, whether its true or not, whether its slanderous, demeans people. The was written in actually ron wyden who put in the language to help the internet grow that gave them an exemption from the like laws that exist the liable lies that exist libel laws that exist for the media. Youre on the left and hear something about donald trump as russian agent, and its not in the New York Times, which leans left, its probably not true. So if youre conservative and its not in the wall street journal and the news pages its probably not true and i ask people to be skeptical but what youre reading online. If you can be skeptical as you want but the main stream media but eequally skeptic cat what youre reading online. Host david, i read in looking for the page but somewhere in here you say you tack date President Trumps misquote his lies, and that you used the Washington Post as the example of the media that is counting his lies and misstatements. Donald trump looks at the Washington Post and says, theres the example of guest the amazon Washington Post. Host the amazon Washington Post. The jeff bezos Washington Post. Theres the example of them reporting about things that are a disservice to the country and not true about me, i believe hell say that. So, why should i can see why somebody would say, why should i read a paper that tells me the president is lying counts the lies that the president tells after day, they claim are lies. Guest well, im biased because im a journalist. Theres hundreds of reporters who cover the white house. The Washington Post fact checker is edited and theyre always these checks into the work. So i did either the president is telling lies every day that sort of all the Fact Checking organizations like the post agree, that he is making false or exaggerated statements. I believe reporters. I believe in journalism. I dont get a memo every day telling me what to write. Im its not fair to invoke him. At the the new yorker ronin pharoh, im proud of the stores we did boat harvey wine sign. Vetted them care live in because he could have sue it. I believe most journalist want to get as close to the truth as they can get. They make mistakes, people have personal biases so i trust the Washington Post fact checker. Im biased as an establish. Journalist and they have the president having made 15,000 false or exaggerated claims since he came into office, its increased every year he has been in office, so if i have to guess its the problem hundreds of journalist, all being part of a plot to undermine donald trump, or is the problem donald trump repeatedly lying and exaggerating . I am going to believe those journalists. Have a bias. People can choose to believe the president over us but again, my investigation into his claim that there is adeep state carrying out a coup against him , i did not find evidence of that. I have members of the Trump Administration tell me that was an exaggeration. They agreed that was not a deep state coup against the president and it is a savvy political operator, donald trump using Conspiracy Theory and this is what hes done throughout his political career to discredit his opponents. Bertha risen and barack obama, using a Conspiracy Theory and yet he simultaneously looked at, controls information by blocking congress from getting information that prevents congress from being able to do its job correctly like calling the media fake news. Discredits and confuses people and he limits access to who hes meeting with in the white house. Who hes calling, less and less disclosure about those kinds of things and its very effective. Its a strategy, he knows what hes doing and hes brilliant at messaging but i come down on the side of most journalists and i think the president has a problem in terms of exaggerating facts and making claims that are exaggerated another question, is President Trumps complaints about the deep state due to his not replacing enough of obamas staff with his own people in 2017 . Again, at this point hes been president for three years. He can fire, he did fire the director of the fbi so all this talk of Hillary Clinton and the russia iranian deal and all her illegalities, the republicans had full control of the house and senate for the first two years, they still control the senate. The president has full control of the Justice Department so if he doesnt have control of the government after three years , he should be more effective in placing people who run these departments to his credit , hes done a tremendous amount of change to the immigration system he has an active sweeping environmental changes , so he has a lot of power. He has one house of congress so i question, i would just , in the first year, yes but hes had plenty of time to clean house at this point in my view. Were are jim comay and bob mueller part of the deep state or part of the solution . Good question. So i dont like the term deep state. I didnt find a deep state. Are our bob muellerand jim comay lets say part of the permanent government . Are they courier Government Servants . Those are more neutral terms, yes. That they work in government west and mark bob mueller spent his whole career as a federal prosecutor and as fbi director. He did things that were questioned after 9 11 in terms of surveillance of mosques. So i think they sit in the category of career government officials who may be of april washington viewpoint but they were not acting and carrying out plots against president george w. Bush or president obama. They operated within the confines of this system that was again created in the 70s. The book started out with a former cia operative. Hes a character in the book who complained to me also, he said that we didnt like all thisoversight and all these rules. When they came out in the cia but they came to expect them the cause there was like a rule of the road and if youre going to go signed a foreign country, if youre going to detain someone and how you interrogate them, there were ways to do it because cia operatives fear what happened after 9 11. They carried out these enhanced interrogation techniques, torture techniques. A new president was elected and there was an investigation that obama carried out. By john durham, the same person bill barr has investigated in the fbi but john durham looked at the torture that went on and decided their works criminal charges to bring because the sitting president of the time said it was legal so they say its the Political Class. The lifelong Justice Department workers, the lifelong cia people. They claim and i knowpeople will roll their eyes , their abiding by these rules. They manage congress and do everything, but they claim its the Political Class thats now exaggerating intelligence or burying intelligence depending on what helps them politically and its the Political Class and the president alleging these conspiracies and they claim theyre nottrue. And its just become to score political points in any way you can, scorched earth and its damaging these institutions. Its damaging the publics view of these institutions so the members , long answer, these career people, diplomats and others say the Political Class and the media have to turn down the temperature and stop this cycle of attacks. That reminds me when you brought up in the book about schiff and when schiff was proceeding with his charges. The republican representative from texas, he thought schiff was, i forget the words that he used but he said schiff was fair in his presentation. During the trump russia investigation and i want to get this right i think schiff said there was beyond circumstantial evidence of collusion between trump and russia. Robert mueller didnt find that and in fact how can Robert Mueller be a member of the deep state whose betraying Donald Trumpwhen Robert Mueller essentially exonerated donald trump of collusion with russia . There was the issue of trump trying to interfere in the investigation and thatthis idea , is bob mueller this kind of straight or is tony fauci doing the level that he has with the information that he has to come to conclusions about coronavirus. Neither are perfect but if we think, if we dont have some kind of a political belief in basic facts whether its the reported piece you see on the newspaper, the book you read or a government report , how do we govern . But that was the allegation from will heard against adam schiff, that the democrats knew there wasnt clear evidence of trump colluding with the russians but schiff has had it in the headlines and on tv every night because it was politically powerful and elastic thing about heard, he was actually a cia officer for about a decade. Ran for congress. Hes a moderate republican, one of the few African Americans in congress that are republicans but when it came to impeachment, became firmly down. He talks about and it was amazing, you meet adam schiff and adam schiff is getting Death Threats but the he thinks the president is a tremendous threat to democracy and a threat to the future of the American Republic as we know it and you talk to republicans like will heard and theyll say look, trump is unorthodox. Hes kind of amateurish, that was the term used for the call with ukraines president and he thinks that there were many moderate republicans feel democrats are overreacting to trump, its trump derangement syndrome and again, its dangerous the gaps in those two realities about what does trump represent . Where are you in that pendulum . I dont want to go too far. I think its really important for journalists to not im not going to sit here and say people should vote for and theres a lot of people bashing the president or saying the president is great and im sure people will say since i say i didnt find evidence of a deep state im therefore antitrump but im just trying to present my honest effort in dozens of interviews over an 18 month period that again, every president has been frustrated with bureaucracies. Yes it was a Great Television series but we have to be on the fbi and cia. Theyre very powerful. Its easier to survey all then ever but i think what i found is that the most proper way to do that is to have all three branches of government, all over the fbi and cia to have it all over them, to force more transparency. Itscumbersome, its chaotic but rather than more secrecy and concentrating power thats whats led us to abuses in the past. I found what i found but im not going to sit here and read the president s mind or call him names. Enough of that going on or call adam shifts names and i think its important for journalists to keep their mouth shut at certain points and talk about the facts. Maybe you answer this but existential threat to democracy or even by the policies that have unfolded, and ask essential threat to democracy . I worry about it appears to be the appointment of again, i step back and say i applaud every member, every senator on the Senate Intelligence committee and the chair, richard burr of North Carolina that sat there and voted for this report that affirms today that russia helped donald trump in the election. That is the opposite of the political messaging the president wants. God bless them for doing that today and so i do think the appointment of John Radcliffe as a member of the house who insists that thats false and there never was any help and the real issue was ukraine was interfering inthe election and not russia ,that makes me nervous. Your, there has to be people in government positions are trying their level best to get basic facts across. There are journalists that are doing that and you cant have every single position filled with a political player who will twist the facts. We cant function as a democracy and ill say it again and again, coronavirus shows we cant hope each other survive this pandemic if we cant agree on basic facts. Heres the last question from a viewer. Have you heard of three felonies a day . The idea is the typical american commits three felonies a day and they can be prosecuted and imprisoned for them but the government decided not to. The point is criminal law and regulations have gotten so bad that anyone can be gotten through selective enforcement. Anythoughts . I dont know if that is true but i think that again shows how we need more transparency and i guess i would just say i would hope that we would get a trial by jury. This goes back to our constitution and it would be wrong if prosecutors can bring you or me to trial. They have that power but we cant go to jail unless a jury of our peers and maybe they can take the evidence in the trial and think the judge would help us so i think thats possible but thats life we need a divided system where there are just prosecutors controlled by an executive branch and then theres juries. Theres legislators who will want to expose that that thats happening. Theres a press that wants to expose it, not for divided powers, lots of spite and chaos but hopefully that protects allof us, that was a great question. Id imagine there are people who are experienced part of the mass incarceration over the last 20 years who would say that already taking place. That is true. I just, its true and that raises a problem but its true. I guess at that rate, i dont have a good answerto that one. Thats really a cultural problem weve all had as a country through generations. And its inexcusable and versus a plot that was carried out secretly by government officials, if that makes any sense. Its a core structural psychological bigotry that runs up and down throughout americans versus a secret organization that carrying this out without all of us knowing what its a horrible problem and it continues today. Going to have probably a pretty rambunctious election in the campaign and an election. It may be partially like this. Does that concern you in any way shape or form or do you feel that theres still transparency and access taking place throughout this pandemic . The campaigns being waged online, id ask people to be more skeptical of what you read online than what youre seeing inyour newspaper or website. Those that you trust that are sort of established journalism and you can read to the right or to read to the left but try to be skeptical about where your information is coming from. Theres a ton of misinformation out there, misinformation is Bad Information spread by people who dont realize its Bad Information. This information is intentionally spreading false information to cause, distort and fear and theres going to be a lot of that. I think americans are very savvy and i think they will figure out this election there will be a lot of yelling and screaming, the float will happen and i think its healthy we have an election coming up and we should all accept the results of the election. We have this incredible system where local counties are carrying out the elections across the country. I dont think theres some vast plot to change the results of our elections. I could be wrong. Again, we have to believe in some basic facts and truths. And vote, yell if you want. Not violent. Vote and use your voicebut no violence. David rohde, we believe that as the last word. The fbi, cia and truth about americas deep state, thank you. Thank you steve and candace. Thank you folks. Thank you both so much for coming on tonight and talking to us journalists, its so important. And thank you to the viewers as well for joining us. Ifyoure interested in upcoming programming , follow us by clicking the follow button at the top right corner of your screen. Again, please buy the book. And if you are able and interested in more town halls , please donate if you can. But thank you so much for both of you again and have a great night, everybody. Tonight, former Federal Reserve chair then burn nike is interviewed about the coronavirus and the current economic downturn. Hes the author of the courage to act firefighting, the financial crisis and its lessons. After that conversation with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on the ongoing pandemic and National Security. It all begins at eight eastern here on cspan2. Sunday on book tv, author Tara Westover talks about growing up in the idaho mountains with survivalist parents in her book educated a memoir. I think my mother did a decent job of homeschooling. By the time i came along she had seven kids, she was a midwife. There wasnt a lot of homeschool going on so i never took an exam, there was never anything like a lecture. And at 10 pm eastern Surgeon General mosaic urgency with his book together on the impact of loneliness on health. I had many of the experiences of talking to friends on the phone but then finding myself scrolling through my email or through the rest of my feet or googling a question that came up. I dont need to do that, its just so accessible that i fall into it but it does i lube the quality of our conversation. We cannot multitask. When we think were multitasking were actually task switching between one thing and another very rapidly. This is why i think that its so important for us to ask the question how do we strengthen not only our communications with other people but the quality of time. What book tv this weekend on cspan2. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with white house briefings , updates from governors and congress and our daily call in Program Washington journal. Bring your thoughts about the coronavirus and if you missed any of our live coverage, watch anytime on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. The book is americas Expiration Date and you say based on the findings of soldier scholar sir john gloves that empires only last about 250 years which means americas time could be up on july 4 2026. Really . Im not a prophet or the son of one but the only thing we learn from history is weve heard the clichc that we learn from nothing from history and this is an exploration of eight empires and great nations. The average length of 250 years, some lasted longer like theroman empire at all foll