Robert Hunter & Brad Johnson - Examining the US Government Policies Abroad

Robert Hunter & Brad Johnson - Examining the US Government Policies Abroad - Ambassador Robert Hunter and Brad Johnson join Pete A Turner to discuss national policy statecraft and intelligence. Each guest Brad a former CIA station chief and Robert, an ambassador to NATO, have played pivotal roles in the nation’s overseas interests.

Get more about Brad at Americans for Intelligence Reform

This is a fascinating discussion featuring nationally recognized experts in their respective fields. Despite disagreeing politically, these experts tend to agree on our failure as a nation to act in its own best interests; and what might have worked instead.

What we learn in shows like this is, we let people far removed from the ground have too much influence on our decision making. Also, we see that politics are subordinate to professional expertise. We also learn that two smart dudes can have a chat that gets past personal and truly has national interests.

Haiku
We rely on pros
Plus their field experience
Then we ignore them

Similar episodes:
Brad Johnson https://youtu.be/GUHyhngF-6w
Robert Hunter https://youtu.be/dTg_7lWob-Y
Erik Kleinsmith https://youtu.be/z-wJxxMdMxI

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Executive Producer/Host/Intro: Pete A. Turner ​​https://youtu.be/mYoUxRJzXcA
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev ​

​​​The Break It Down Show is your favorite best, new podcast, featuring 5 episodes a week with great interviews highlighting world-class guests from a wide array of topics. Get in contact with Pete at www.peteaturner.com www.breakitdownshow.com ​

Transcription

Pete Turner  0:00  
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show just doing the live introduction for today's episode featuring two people who've been on the show before, but I thought it would be fascinating to have them come on and talk jointly about the United States. So one is Doctor ambassador, maybe it's ambassador, Doctor, you pick how you want to do it.

Pete Turner  0:00  
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show just doing the live introduction for today's episode featuring two people who've been on the show before, but I thought it would be fascinating to have them come on and talk jointly about the United States. So one is Doctor ambassador, maybe it's ambassador, Doctor, you pick how you want to do it. Robert hunter who was the ambassador to NATO during the Clinton era, so he's on to talk about the role of the state, and how it works abroad and the things that we do well and don't do well. And then with us is former CIA station chief Robert. Brad Johnson. So Brad and Robert are talking from two different purposes, the CIA version, and then of course, the state itself and how we do policy abroad. I think it's a fascinating conversation. One of the things I think it's important to note especially right now because everybody's just so mad at each other. Brad leans to the right has the words maga on his Twitter account. Dr. Hunter leans to the left talks about how he worked for Jimmy Carter for LBJ for President Clinton, obviously, as his ambassador, these guys agree more than they disagree on how we should work things abroad, you're not going to hear a bunch of crazy dissent. You're not going to hear people get mad at each other because of politics, you're gonna hear two pros talking about pro shit. And that's why I love this episode is they're trying to tackle big heart problems, and they tend to agree more than they disagree. So I think you'll dig it. By the way, this show gets a little long, but got because we hit a new gear in the last like 10% of the show. So if you're into it, hang in there, it will get even better towards the end. All right, so here's another thing to support the show by buying shirts, sharing the show can participate in conversations that we have on different things. I'm going to try to do more commentary on Facebook, about the episodes themselves, hopefully to catch some new people listening as always sharing helps all these things are beneficial to what the show does and helps us to keep the lights on and keep going forward. Okay, one last thing, say The brave browser brave.org. Right now we're talking about By the way, I'm enjoying the Coors Light because it's Thursday evening, and I think it's fun to have a beer every now and then. So, as I have a course light, I want to tell you that, hey, save the brave, save the brave.org. They're an institution, an organization and a charity that I support deeply and believe in so if you are interested in helping support veterans who have PTSD, that's a good place to go. Hey, All right, here comes Dr. Ambassador Robert Hunter, and of course my good friend station chief from the CA Brad Johnson.

Unknown Speaker  2:35  
Lions rock productions.

Unknown Speaker  2:40  
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Stewart COPPA This is Mitchell SS handy

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somebody there's a skunk Baxter. Gabby Reese is Rob bell. This is john Leon gray

Pete Turner  2:51  
and this is Pete a Turner.

Unknown Speaker  2:56  
Hi, this is Brad Johnson.

Unknown Speaker  2:58  
Hi, this is Robert Hunter. And this is Break it down Show.

Pete Turner  3:03  
Hey fellas, this is great. I love having these conversations that otherwise would be basically impossible to have. I've got ambassador, Dr. Robert hunter on the show has been on several times in the past. And he's going to sort of hold down the state the the us as a nation and how we work abroad, whether it's foreign policy or anything else, then Brad is going to sort of hold down our intel community side of things, because these two, these two policy level interests often disagree when neither was right. And sometimes they agree and it's like, how do you solve these big problems? So I thought, fellas, we might have a chat as we all sequester and quarantine ourselves during the Coronavirus. It's interesting. We were talking about a route off Mike, and about how the rules changed after Mr. Ames was was blown up and approaching problems from we worked gonna kill each other station chiefs and we weren't gonna kill each other's ddo heads. But here we have this thing and it sort of changed how we did things. Brad, how do you see that transition point?

Brad Johnson  4:11  
Well, I think what you're describing there is essentially the advent of terrorist terrorism in the modern sense and how they began really just killing for political points and their willingness to do pretty much anything to anyone. So certainly through the period, there have been threats at this very senior levels of government, including up to and including various presidents have been received credible threats. And I think that's kind of what brought that home and we've seen that all the way through to what I think we would all consider fairly modern times what with the 911 attack and nearly 3000 people being killed all in one single attack. So it's it's it is an evolution of essentially the same problem and that is, terrorists are people who are willing to kill pretty much anybody where before You just didn't see it at least as a as a large, organized effort well funded and that sort of group just didn't exist precisely in that way. You'd see regional things like say the Basque group that were separatists from Spain and those sorts of things, but not not the large world scale attack on anyone for just political motives.

Robert Hunter  5:23  
A couple of things to follow up. I was out of government at that point at 911. But my understanding from people I talked to in the intel community was one of the things that shocked them as they watched the ongoing terrorist efforts was people willing to kill themselves suicide bombers, that prior to that, he incidents of people willing to kill themselves or be killed in the process, suicide this and that sort of thing. Was was fairly minimal. And that had to lead to a to a different assessment. Just one little item on 911 was showing how terrorism can have a huge impact is none. 11 was essentially a mom and pop operation didn't cost a lot of money. didn't have a lot of people involved. Unless, of course you do believe and I don't know what the facts are, that the Saudi government knows a lot more than it's ever admitted to. It means, in fact, with the response to that in the world, the Global War on Terrorism, the trillions of dollars, we spent, something I just try to catch people's attention with the most consequential person in the world in this century, was Osama bin Laden, because without one event, which cost three times in our lives, which is still three times more than we were willing to see lost. His hand is to manage impact. And part of it therefore is how do you find To this kind of putting in to everything else you want to do in the world and once you feel need to do it's a tool of what do we call it non statecraft, for some of statecraft that has acquired a quality and importance that it never had to this degree before.

Pete Turner  7:20  
The question of Okay, so now what do you do? And we can look back I was just at ground 02 weeks ago in New York, and I went to the museum and I got I got up really mad, I got angry, you know, at making people stand on the edge of their life and a fire. And you know what, you know, watching the images of them jumping, I just got so mad at at that whole situation and what that meant to my personal life and the sacrifices I've made. And I just wonder, like, what else? Robert, what else could we have done on 912 to have a response that was, I mean, we killed way more of our own people in the response. Wait, we More than 3000 people died as we went after this. And I hate to even think of all of the people who weren't US citizens that were killed as our response. But do we? I mean, we've sort of learned from World War One we've sort of learned from World War Two. But have we learned from this? What's the better, more sane response?

Robert Hunter  8:17  
I think that is one of the core questions. And I'm a very good Monday morning quarterback, as somebody from New England. Right now I'm very angry at Tom Brady from departing from the Patriots. Just signing with Tampa Bay. It's a Monday morning quarterback on that should have done it. Okay. I was one of those people. Who is I guess, as shocked as almost all Americans and what happened on on 911. At the time, I was working at the RAND Corporation, and it's Washington office, which is actually the first building The Pentagon. And we couldn't get to work that day because by the time we were ready to go to work, the plane had crashed into the Pentagon. But when they let us back into the building the next day, the Pentagon was still burning. And we could say, from my window on the seventh floor of that particular building, where the plane is slammed in, we'd had a dozen of our people in the building at the time on the opposite side. And one of my colleagues had been driving on Route 127, which goes right by the Pentagon, coming to work late and as he drove his cars, a plane that the airliner went right over the top of his car slammed into the Pentagon, so it was all very, so we weren't like people in New York, etc, etc. We did have a certain experience. And my response was, let's do whatever the hell we can to get these ambitious. We then did what we did. But Monday morning quarterbacking I was looking say, going into Afghanistan. Well, we had a respond, we had a national requirement to respond. But whether we should have done it as we have done in Afghanistan, the last one is at 19 years, I think you're going to look back, calmed down, analyzed with a certain amount of coolness, rather than what we all felt. We might very well, I think, I hope we would have done things in Afghanistan quite differently.

Pete Turner  10:39  
Brad, when you look at this problem from an Intel collector point of view, you know, we realize I mean, I remember, I'm an Intel guy, I was the first guy to respond to my reserve unit. I didn't even know anything at all about Islam. I'd spent time in Bosnia, but they're not the world's greatest, you know, Islamic folk and they weren't. They weren't flying planes into buildings. I hadn't the first clue on how to even do my job in this context. What does the nation do in terms of its intelligence community when they find itself so not even flat footed, but like sitting on the couch focusing on the wrong game.

Brad Johnson  11:12  
From the Intel officer perspective doing operations overseas, I was already involved in counterterrorism. And so for us, I would say, for the operations Qadri, particularly in the military and in the CIA and a few others, certainly some of the counter terrorist units and law enforcement, basically all of the operations World War involved. We all knew it was coming. I mean, we didn't know that it was going to be airplanes flying into buildings, but everybody

there was chatter out

they wanted to do and big, big things coming and that there was going to be some sort of attack and I remember personal commenting maybe of three to six months before the actual 911 attacks. talking with somebody I was overseas posted as a chief of station at the time. And I remember common to some that someone that, you know, we were not really allowed to go after terrorism full, full bore, we kind of were very limited as to what we were allowed to do. And I remember specifically making the comment that once American blood runs in America street still let us take the gloves off, and we can go after these guys. And in hindsight, being 2020, and or the armchair quarterback, whichever phrase you prefer, after the 911 attack, we basically took one hand out from behind our back and I left one hand tied behind our back. And for me, it culminated in the 911 Commission now the in the beginning stages of where something was done. I, in having thought about it, we would have done some things differently. I believe that's true. And in fact, one of the things I would have suggested is that we we really knew that the the center of the problem was Iran. Afghanistan, and we would have been better off going into a situation, but it would have had more positive results with regime change in Iran rather than a relatively small problem in Afghanistan. But that aside, I mean, what happened was what happens, so there's no going back and changing it. But what the real tragedy out of all of this came next and the 911 Commission, from my perspective, because as an operator, I mean, I've forgotten more about, you know, how to solve counterterrorism problems than anybody on the commission knew. And these were all guys that were politicians and academics and lawyers and these sorts of people. Great, you know, I have no criticism of them, per se. But if you could pick a bunch of people that are consummate bureaucrats, I mean, those are the that's the list of people you would go to. So if you go to a list of very prominent bureaucrats and say, create solutions to this terrorism problem, what do you get and of course, what you got was bureaucracy, bureaucrats, beget bureaucracy. And that's what we have a DNI, a director of national intelligence that DHS Department of Homeland Security, we created more layers of bureaucracy and what did we do to fix terrorism? Nothing, nothing. It didn't improve anything whatsoever. I would have loved to seen in the solution that should have been done. And the solution that can still be implemented, probably will not be but it could still be implemented would be to create that same Blue Ribbon Commission. But instead of a bunch of bureaucrats, a bunch of operators get a bunch of military guys that have decades of experience working in counterterrorism operations, get a bunch of CIA operations with officers that have decades of experience in counterterrorism. Get a bunch of law enforcement guys with decades of experience in law enforcement activities against terrorism, you take those guys which is the core of our operators and our operational experience in United States, put them together in a Blue Ribbon Commission and you watch what comes out of that what comes out of that is gonna stop terrorism dead in its tracks. That's what should have been done. And was not that, Robert?

Robert Hunter  15:05  
Well, I think we may have here, if not the first virtustream is certainly different perspective. I have never heard anybody, though I will defer to Brad on this because you are an insider, you got access to the Intel and I classified information. And I didn't in that era to point the finger at Iran, implying that it was behind 911. I've never heard any credible information on that. What is it 19 of the 20 hijackers were Saudi nationals, the Iranians. In fact, for a lot of this were on the opposite side. They were for the people, Taliban al Qaeda or al Qaeda people. The Iranians were their deadly enemies. And you guys think that we have over the years candidates Because of our history with Iran, the hostage crisis, one thing I did serve through, I was in charge of Middle East affairs in the Carter White House throughout that, in that particular period during the hostage crisis, go out a colleague, a Gary stick, it was an Intel officer from the Navy who has lead in a particular account. So we all understand what the bitterness or the feelings towards around our politics was. This was a Sunni operation, not a cheer operation. If there was anybody that one wanted to point fingers at, it was Saudi Arabia. In fact, I think it is clear that over the last x years now almost two decades, the vast majority of terrorism has not been done by Iran or by sheer it's been done because of the stimulus and a lot of funding that comes out of Saudi Arabia, but because of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, no political leadership, I'll leave to go ahead and talk about the Intel people. No political leadership has had the guts to take on the Saudis. And then we saw one tiny little example of the arrogance that came with that of the slaughter of Mr. Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. So I think we've got to get that kind of issue sorted out. Now, as for stopping terrorism in its tracks. I can understand from an operational perspective, one can argue that, I wonder if this is something we don't like talking about. How do we dry up the swamp, I'd say drain the swamp of people who have an incentive to get involved in terrorism and that I'm afraid is much more than what even the best US military are. The best operational people in the info business could achieve. In all that, I'm afraid we have not been very effective. And in fact, looking at it from a policy point of view, the worst possible thing we did in regard to counterterrorism was the invasion of Iraq. Which is that all hell right click with regard to people who want to get the job as a tourism business, we would not. I suspect, I've had an ISIS if it hadn't been for invasion of

Pete Turner  18:28  
Iraq, Brad, I want to put operators in a room to and collectors but you know, US Intel guys, our answer is gonna be more CIA more more of those things, who checks us up before we, you know, we create more problems than we're worth because that's certainly that's certainly the history of the US right? Again, as an Intel guy, the US doesn't trust a powerful ca we always want to rein them back. Yet oftentimes it is the right thing to do. What are your thoughts on how do we self check and keep from making every solution to a stronger CIA solution.

Brad Johnson  19:03  
Alright, let me make a comment on the previous conversation. I didn't mean to imply that I thought Iran was directly involved in 911 attack, merely that he ran is in the general sense, the big conversation is about terrorism. 911 is only one example of terrorism. and Iran is certainly extremely active in terrorism. And there is, although it's not greatly publicized, and not so much discussed in open source type of venues, there is cooperation between Sunni and Shia to conduct terrorism. So don't look at that as an absolute wall that exists. They'll fight each other and do lots of other things. But they also cooperate in different areas and there's heavy use of surrogacy and moving money and cooperation between them even though it may be sort of indirect in the sense of providing guns or training or ammunition one way, those sorts of things. So those things occur across the board and My point out of all of that is that the center of much of terrorism today, and I think the majority of our problems with terrorism would not exist today, if there had been regime change and Iran and Iran were of, say, a democratic type of government. Now, on the other issue of, say, CIA involvement in too much power in too few hands. This is a real problem. I think you've really put your finger on something that's extraordinarily important. And I think we're seeing a lot of the negatives out of that, out of that precise issue affecting us today. And if you look back at World War Two, this was all carefully thought thought out. And and, you know, the FBI wanted to take the CIA responsibilities to themselves and you would have this essentially a gigantic equivalent of the KGB, where you had both domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence in one organization, and that was deemed to be too much power in too few hands. And so you had these things Doubt initially, which was thought through and good. Now we have seen mission creep, where we have 17 agencies in the intelligence community, which is way too many. And there's been so much mission creep and overlap that essentially. I mean, it's a little bit exaggerated to phrase it this way. But essentially everybody does everything. And we've seen full blown intelligence collection out of the military, we see full blown intelligence collection out of the FBI, and their counterintelligence department, which is not as big as the as the Criminal Division, but it's still a very sizable part of the FBI. We've seen a lot of this this mission creep. And that, I think, a perfect example of that these abuses that we've seen with the FISA warrants were US citizens that were political adversaries were targeted, and they were targeted politically for political motives. And so what you saw was political corruption, take advantage of the FISA system, and then I would point the finger Having what was then the Department of Justice and the FBI, specifically the AI, division, acting in political conjunction? And so that that has created a lot of the problems we have today. And now what do you do? Should I think one of the things that needs to be considered is we need to look at the authorities that the FBI has now they're trying to do some, some amendments and changes to the Pfizer laws. But I think you have to look to the center of the actual problem. And I think the problem is what you're suggesting, which is too much power in too few hands, where you have a unit in the FBI doing intelligence and DOJ combined up to do this sort of clearly, horribly corrupt type of activity. And those are the things that need to be addressed systematically where you change the system, the fundamental systems so that it just can't reoccur so easily again, those are the changes. I'd like to see it Yes, it's a problem. I mean, you want intelligence and law enforcement and military essentially separate for very good reasons. You don't want so much power in to smaller group of people. And certain things like for example, under President Reagan, the CIA, Director of the CIA was made a cabinet level position. That's one of the things that President Reagan who I thought was a fantastic president. But that's one of the things he did do that I don't like. Because intelligence should not be part of policy. policy should be the decision makers should be making policy themselves. They should draw upon intelligence to make up their minds. But as soon as you have the CIA, be involved in Policymaking, they get wed to that policy. And so then there is a human tendency, it's a human nature thing where they begin to look for intelligence that fits that policy versus just finding information wherever you can get it. Find the truth with you know, no motive or connections to anything behind it. Play that forward, and then let the politicians sorted out, let the policymakers sorted out. So I those are the types of things I think we need to go back to take intelligence out of politics, take them out of policy, that is State Department, speaking of State Department, that State Department area where they need to be involved in making policy. And one of the I would say one of the criticisms we've seen in State Department is they themselves have that same problem becoming wed policy and then starting to find information to fit that, versus keeping a step back and making sure the policy is interested in United States and national security. So I think you've really put your finger on a very serious problem that needs to be looked at. And I think in today's political environment, it's just too, too hostile among the different political groups for that to take place.

Pete Turner  24:46  
Robert, the same kind of question, how do you keep everything from becoming a CIA problem and that the CIA or FBI or whatever organization becomes too, too big for what it needs to be?

Robert Hunter  25:02  
Well, leaving aside our different perspectives on harangue versus Saudi Arabia, which may be a separate issue for another time, but which I do think is very important. Everything else Brad said I totally agree with one of the things when you work at a senior level in the White House, is you have access to all the Intel you could possibly want. And as he says, when you now have 17

Pete Turner  25:28  
A this is Pete a Turner from lions rock productions, we create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear, the best plan to show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that's scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown, show calm, let me help I want to hear about it.

Robert Hunter  25:50  
And as he says when you now have 17 man. So as we know about different agencies in theory being brought to By the Director of National Intelligence, I think that is the overlay that's been stuck on top of the others to coordinate them. Whereas the CIA originally was supposed to do the coordination. As far as I know, that just gets you into trouble. Now, when I was in the White House, I used to read all this stuff, and look at all this stuff. And it would have and we're in a position where you have to advise the president united states as to what the best is, you got to make judgments about who over time tends to get in pride and who get tend to get it wrong. The first thing, which I think we're probably not going on, this is to separate out with a use a term that was current then can still use a Chinese wall between the Intel side and the operational side. So that people are the operators are not without tendency, or know instead of to kind of cook the Intel sort of or come up with a way so they can be the operators. Gotta keep them separate. And the best operational people I know have always wanted it that way in power, so they will get it right. In parts go somebody, as human nature won't point a finger at them and say, well, where did you get that from? And I found in giving rates that the Defense Intelligence Agency di a could be brilliant at tactical matters. A lot of which our is not capable of judging, and we didn't get to the White House level. But when it came to making judgments about things at the senior level, they tended to be worthless. You could go after what they were saying and then throw it away. The National Security Agency with it,

getting other people's mail, sometimes that was useful or sometimes not, but wasn't Central. They were two areas that I found most useful. If I was going to have to stick my neck out and Say to the President, this is worth going to school on four first, and not necessarily in the shorter the intelligence and Research Division of the State Department and with a Chinese wall between it and the individual regional girls, so they couldn't come around to INR as the initials were, instead Oh, by the way, can you cook me up a reason? So I can do x&y, right. And the other one, the other was a CIA. And there was a central point of collection, which I could get behind if I had to, which was a national intelligence officers. These are the was the when you're busy in the White House, you got to have a kind of single point of contact to start with. And these were the people in new ela players who you could go to and say, Can you answer the following question for me or what do I need to know today, and they come back at you and some very highly trained, competent She I experienced people who weren't about to mislead anybody. And certainly not to mislead those of us who are having to prepare stuff for the President to take. I came away with an extremely high regard. In fact, from that point on people use, you know, she I used to have a terrible reputation, and couldn't be it wasn't allowed to recruit on campus and all that. And people would say to me as they were looking for jobs out of college, and I saw one place you want to look at as a CIA, I said, Wait a second, I was a bad guy. I said, Ah, I don't answer for ddo, department director, Deputy Director for operations. As he was in the DDI Deputy Director for intelligence. I should see yourself with the best people around all dedicated, all honest folks. And if you're involved in that, you're going to learn a lot and contribute a lot to the nation. Now, we all know there were some bad problems that came along. Like before the invasion of Iraq. I remember being on outsider, when the vice president united states who clearly wanted to invade, went over to Langley to the agency. I said, Oh, we got a problem as a nation, because of Mr. cheney's over there talking to these people. He's probably dropping hints. What's gonna be good for your career? And then we had the head of the CIA. I think it was his name. I can't even remember who told the president at least publicly. We know. This is a slam dunk, Mr. President. Well, it wasn't a slam dunk. We lost a lot of people. We spent a lot of money. We're still involved there. A lot of Americans, people in the military, people in the agencies, intelligence agencies have paid with their lives. And with permanent crippling, because we had a few people at the political side at the top, who were perverting what the professionals were doing. We're just trying to do They're the best the nation. I have a very high regard for CIA people.

Pete Turner  31:07  
Let me stay on this side, because you do have unique experience in terms of what the audience ever gets to hear about when they're making those decisions at the White House level and things are being briefed. How common is it that you hear multiple sides from the problem come in from different perspectives and angles? And then you think to yourself, I wouldn't want to have to make this decision. You know, I have to say, like the president gets to pick from, you know, 15, horrible options, they're all bad that all result in people dying and, and suffering, needlessly have nothing to do with the problem. But you ultimately have to pick something, how often are you in that position where you just like there's a lot of work being done. There's not agreement and so at some point, you pick something that you think is the best compromise?

Robert Hunter  31:49  
You're asking me? Yes, that all happened. And the important thing was to get for the President has different views. Sometimes you can predict You could go in the Situation Room and a secretary of state's their Secretary of Defense, you know what they're going to say? They're going to say what their, their people have told them to say. I used to joke that as the Secretary of Defense came into the Situation Room, and he didn't say what his team had told him to, he come out and he find that the aired would let out of his tires. So when you're working for president, you have to kind of balance those out. Now. Also, there are things called National Intelligence estimates. Nowadays. everybody hears about them, again declassified or maybe they're never classified, they show up in the media and all that kind of stuff, which should never be done. These are the crown jewels. Now, if I'm sitting there in the White House, and one of those comes across my desk, I don't necessarily just read the NIH National Intelligence estimate, and look at one degree of under shelf agreement. Like I'd read the footnotes. I say, what a CIA take exception on this collective What is an air ticket? What does somebody else take? Because I want to find out, break apart the consensus. Because when there's a consensus, you know, who's probably going to be something wrong there. Yeah, you want to make sure that the President can be president. And he's not handed something on on a silver platter saying, Mr. President, you got to take this because no alternative. And he's going to look and say, I want an alternative. I want to know what the people down in the bowels are thinking I want somebody who's gonna do that. For me. I don't have time. And those of us in the White House, on the NSC staff, that was our job to make sure I can put to the extent humanly possible that the President wouldn't get blindsided because that's when you get in terrible trouble.

Pete Turner  33:49  
Brett looking at a station chief level when these decisions are made higher and you know, made, I guess from the point of view of a ground operator in a vacuum, but no reality to the ground. You get this tasking you get this this request to to create some kind of an Intel product or whatever or, or to shop for this product. How do you respond when it just doesn't make sense with your reality? I mean, obviously you've got a job to do and you're gonna do the damn job. But when it does come down and it's just so contrary, how much push up can you do? How do you deal with those situations where someone like the vice president goes to the Pentagon and says, we're gonna make this war happen? And now you get left with this problem?

Brad Johnson  34:33  
Yeah, they're, it's funny, initially, as a chief of station, I mean, your your authority was quite quite complete a little known fact. I mean, while the OSS, the army was sort of the father of the CIA, I guess you could say the mother was, was the Navy because Navy intelligence during World War Two is so incredibly successful and important. The majority of the rank and file came over from the Navy. So chiefest station, authorities were built on ship captain authorities. So they were complete now all of that has changed. That was all changed under the Obama years when when that when the director of the time did the modernization. So john brennan was the was the guy's name, who was the director at the time. So these authorities have changed a lot. And it's become more centralized back to headquarters. But at that time, you could look at the chief of station is many ways, or the intelligence parties. It was like a ship's captain. So there was quite a bit you could do. I do want to make one point on what Robert was saying, because it's so incredibly important. And that is he made reference to the clothes and one of the things even not as a chief of station but in the different stations where you're working on stuff that's kind of earner where I spent most of my time in areas of conflict. So I would meet new a bunch of the NIS and we deal with them quite often because they would traveled to get found out what they are. And my perspective on those guys is they were they were very senior really poised analysts and they were really good at what they did. But that aspect is one of the things that has been destroyed by the agency. This all began years ago in Clinton days when they joined up the operations and the analytical side. And that's where you started to see this infection take place. And the degradation that has taken taking place and capability and in their neutrality of information for those nio in iOS began, then, today, they're not like what Robert is discussing. The ideal would be to go back to what how Robert precisely laid that out, where there are these really elite, super sharp analysts that do not have ties to the operational side so they don't become wed in some way to information and his point about, you know, not being able to just walk down the hall and say, Hey, start digging me up information. So I can go do this thing I want to do. And that neutrality, that professionalism is what we, we need to re accomplish reacquire. And it's been destroyed and degraded. And, and that So, I would say that's something incredibly important. I'd like to see. But as far as pushing back as the chief of station, traditionally, it was something that's fairly Do you go back and say, Yeah, no, this is hogwash. And there's certainly been vice presidents from time to time that have asked for things that are just, you know, moronic and, and, you know, just not appropriate for the CIA to do and things like that. So it's pretty easy to go back as a chief of station, at least traditionally, not so much now. But it's pretty easy to go back and just say, Sorry, you know, it's not appropriate for people or there's this problem with that problem, and you're the guy in the ground. So what are they going to do say? No, I mean, that's not true. And if it doesn't matter if it comes from the White House, if it's inappropriate, if it's normal intelligence collection, well, then we go get it for him.

Pete Turner  37:57  
What are your thoughts on all of that,

Robert Hunter  37:59  
Robert? If your cheapest station out in the boondocks, somewhere, and you think something's really off base in terms of what you're being asked to do or report on or, or what you're supposed to say, you would hope two things would be possible. Number one, that you have some friends in Washington, in the intel community that you could come back and visit or you could talk on a secure line and say, you know, Charlie, this thing we've been instructed to do this, this is just absolutely stupid. And is that person if he was in Iowa or something like that, if he had somebody he dealt with on the NSC staff, National Security Council staff in the White House, if you had a good NSC staff, and for a long time, we haven't. The last really, I would say, first class National Security Council staff, with truly talented, non political people was under Brent Scowcroft. And that's been what 30 years now. It was also true under presents key and also under, under Kissinger, but that's decades ago, well, and then this particular person in the indo community would get ahold of his friend at the White House and say, Look, it's a problem there. And then this person on his own or her own initiative, we go back down and say, you know, I've been reading these Intel reports, and I won't even talk about what they're called, because that's probably classified. This doesn't make sense to me. How about going back and have another look or have somebody else look at it? That's a way to work around the system. I regret if that has to happen. But basically, Intel, as I'm sure Brad would say, is an in perfect science. You are never quite sure who's going you want. And that's why one has to try to collect a lot of stuff and evaluate it. And to the extent you can and keep prodding questions, Because what you know, as soon as the president united states opens his mouth and says something that is forever, incidentally, we have so far been talking about what do you do to make things better? One thing after 911 and other times, this is what the military would call a hot wash, or lessons learned. It's important not to get bogged down in that because the first thing you have to do is deal with a problem you'll have one thing you get I'm sure Brad says this experience have in mind, three senior government jobs twice in the Middle East and the White House wants is a key ambassador in NATO is you know, say How did that happen? His head How do I do when assemble once you want to say how did it happen? And you look at what are the failures, organizational policy, people, Intel that led us do this. For example, we now know we're told afterwards that there was a woman in the FBI And Minnesota from Peru pick up that there were people taking training on large body airliners. And all they were errors. And all I wanted to know is how to fly the plane, not how to make it take off or make it land. She reported this back to the FBI in Washington and they told her we're not interested. Well, you got to figure out, how do you keep that from happening in the future, but don't let that get in the way that would paralyze you and keep people from taking risks and to get in the way of what do I have to do right now?

Pete Turner  41:36  
Yeah, one of the coincidences that goes into that is right, the Midwestern knowledge gap that we had my, my company commander in Bosnia, 96, continued to be an Intel guy. And he and his crew had built some software to help them analyze and they had identified something fishy up there, but they were, you know, nowhere near the national radar. They were, you know, in the basement in annex room of some sub department. And so you can write all the reports you want. If no one if you if that report is 15 levels removed from where some action can happen, it can be pushed back down, you may as well not collect the damn intelligence, you know, so it's a, they weren't even a silo, they were a straw in a field of silos. And and who knows what happens if that lady's report, if their their analysis and their indication there was a problem in that area, you know, maybe then the FBI would be able to respond, but of course, because of because we like our intelligence kind of cloistered and not talking to one another and looking at us, we often we miss these things. Brad, I wanted to ask you, you know, we and I want to ask you follow up on this to Robert, but the the I gotta give you forget the title of the office, right, the Director of National Intelligence is at best a, a short term job we've had, I think, I don't know 10 of them nine of them in 15 years. They they don't stay around long. Is this a position that like we're because we get mad at everything President Trump does. He puts Richard Grinnell and try, but nobody has done that job for very long at all other than James Clapper for seven years. So what do we really think it was six and a half. Is that job important? Does that need to be rethought from an intelligence point of view at the national level?

Brad Johnson  43:28  
Well, just above I mean, yes, I think it is an important job although it's important in a quirky way it bureaucratically II, he does have a lot of saying where resources and intention within the intelligence community are, are aimed. So yes, he's he does have an important position. He is someone that would have a close relationship with the president united states and that's always important to very much like the Secretary of State in that sense, and kind of Intelligence Secretary of State, if you will. So it's political. But yeah, it's it's it's a funny, quirky, quirky job. And it's one of those things that again, I think is created. It was that position was created among, as I mentioned earlier out of the 911. commission. And so I personally, as I kind of indicated, I think it was poorly thought through decision to create that. And because of that, it's sort of this ill defined thing. And that's part of why we've seen the just runaway growth. I mean, it started out supposed to be a very, very small office just meant to coordinate and, and direct and things like that and emphasize the what, what needed to be the targets, those sorts of things where you'd have a staff of 40 or 50 people and then pretty soon it grew into hundreds, and now it's in the thousands. So it's just this creeping, changing mission. And that's, I think that is the simple core problem. I would give him the opportunity that would certainly be one of the things I would I would do away With I would like to see the as we've kind of all agreed, I'd like to see the operations thing be separated out, certainly from the political side and, and the political side in every way just to keep it pristine. So you're not, you're not contaminating the intelligence information. And I would, I would move the DNI over to the CIA and try to concentrate the analysis there. And I think then it could be a valuable position where that access to the President can be used to kind of control and keep the analytical side. You know, there's some, you know, there's competition and people become political and all of that, and, you know, some competition in the analytical side is good, but if they're all seeing the same information, and you're right, there's firewalls that are put up between that, as Robert mentioned, the lady that had found the report on the training of these pilots that that did the 911 attack, that that was that's absolutely true. That information was uncovered and it wasn't shared around because of the fact firewalls. So I mean, that whole thing has to be attacked. And the DNI is the person that could set all that up and bring it all under his auspices, so that you did have a central clearing house for intelligence, and her report should have gone into it. So an analyst there, who's looking at, you know, terrorist planning, those sorts of things would have been able to discover it, find it, and combine it up with all of the information that's out there. But every time you create new levels of bureaucracy that stymies that stuff, it doesn't, doesn't help it make it more efficient. So that's part of that has to be done. And I Robert and I are both kind of making fun of the 17 agencies thing and it's just it's just out of control bureaucratically, and it needs to be streamlined and made into an a more efficient protector of national security.

Pete Turner  46:48  
Robert, when you look at a position like the DNI that creates a lot of political problems, and is just typically a warm chair Advil by better next person. What do you Like to position doesn't need to change? Is it valuable? What are your thoughts on the DNI?

Robert Hunter  47:07  
Well, first I agree that too many agencies, I wouldn't kind of I would cut a lot of them. But one thing you want at the White House is competitive intelligence. So you're getting different points of view. Okay. I always wondered when Deanna was created what, what in heaven's name is that for? Originally, the director of CIA was supposed to be the guy, according everybody. So then you put somebody to coordinate the coordinator. And I do agree if you're going to have it, it should be a couple of dozen people in a dog. It shouldn't be 103,000. Just like the National Intelligence Council is a small group of people, highly respected, highly trained, who know how to pull out to me, material is required, and show where coordination is needed. But if you have a national DNI who's got all kinds of people hanging They're, they just become another layer and become virtually zero. It's like my criticism of the National Security Council. We had when I was there under Brzezinski, we had I think, 60 people, six zero, who were actually working on policy. That man and each area, not only we couldn't get into operations, we had to work on quote, coordinating what the agencies are saying. We also had to look at things at a strategic level, presidential level. Now when it jumped up to 400 people or 600 people, if you add in people from the Department of Homeland Security, then people only have a tiny little slice of the pie. And nobody thinks strategically. They tend to get into operations. Now I gather under the current national security advisor has been trying to cut it back down to size. You need people to have to do a job. Bring things together in order to make them effective, not just to have their own little rice bowl. And I think DNI is just a garden elephantiasis, that is judging, not from the inside is bread does, but from, from people. I know who, who worked there. One other little thing since it came up, I'm not going to name any names at this point, because I'm sure I would get in trouble with people like people, I would have member people who have occupies these senior jobs to take a lifetime of to keep off television. Because people tend to look at them in the media and elsewhere. Oh, this is so and so he was head of the CIA or something. He must know something or she must know something, even though they know or even have a security clearance perhaps, or certainly don't have access to day to day intelligence. Keep them off television, because there have been some I know enough about the issues and that part of the world. We are really You're focusing on the Middle East. When certain people say certain things I say, that person is grinding an axe. And God, I regret I even regret that person acts at a senior job in the government, because they were pushing an agenda. And I could name names, but I'm not going through. I don't even have to know the info to know who was pushing an agenda, and therefore, not serving the president or the country. Well.

Pete Turner  50:29  
Yeah, Brad, this is a point where I think you can provide some quality insight one of the things that I know from being in the Intel world is that we're all we're all part salesmen. And when we think we've got something unique, we work our asses off to sell something so everybody at every level is selling. And I can understand why the President would be like stop Shut up. I tired of having everybody so I'm a salesman quit selling me shit. How does a leader who's higher up like a president? How do they sort that stuff out from from what's, what's being sold and what's actual analysis?

Brad Johnson  51:03  
Yeah, the President had a very, very difficult job. And it's something I've commented on many times. And it's, it's one of those jobs where there's really no true preparation for it. There's some people that are naturally have more talents and abilities for it and others that have less, but it's still it's OJT. It's on the job training to get good at being president. And I think every single president, we've seen a learning curve, the first year or two, I would say the average is about two years and certainly having been on the inside a swamp dweller, if you will, in the intelligence world. Every time there was a new president, we'd see that learning curve as they as they started to figure out you know, what goes where and how to do this or that or the other and what it means when they're told this or that and, and about the two year mark, they really start to figure it out and kind of hit stride and I would say, as a job, but really, it's their second term where they can start to get a lot of stuff done. The first term is kind of figuring it all out and then head into election. So it's it. It's very difficult. I and, you know, I would say you Robert has hit on a lot of the the issues, I would agree with him completely on on on the politicization and some people not having the interests of the United States at heart and that that takes place at every level. I mean, you have people that are deeply personally ambitious, in very senior cabinet positions in every administration, they want to go on to become president or your or something. And, and so that kind of guides how they behave and what they do. And presidents, you know, they do in their first term, I have to think about re election. So they're, you know, that that also guides what they what they do. And so we've, with this professional political contract that we that we're faced with the United States, I would kind of bring it back to that and say, you know, gee, wouldn't it be nice if we could find a way to get around having a bunch of people who are professional politicians, because then I think we would see them be just far more interested in doing the business of the nation because they're coming in for their stamp. Getting out. And kind of like what you see in the military to some degree. I mean, a lot of people go in for a few years and then get out. They don't necessarily all stay as a career move. And it would be nice to see some of that element in the political field, but it just doesn't exist anymore. So yeah, it's I don't know that there's a solution. I don't know there's a way to train for presidents and I don't know how they they learn any other way. Then Aude it and kind of depending on their background and capability, how will they handle those powers and what they do with it? Just it's so individual?

Pete Turner  53:31  
Here, Robert, go ahead and comment on that.

Robert Hunter  53:35  
Well, I agree totally. The last, I'm gonna say this, I think I could defend it. The last four presidents we got came into office knowing virtually nothing about foreign affairs. You don't learn anything on Capitol Hill, even if you read some of the documents. We had one president who had when he became president has literally been out of the United States. Three times in his life, briefly to England to Israel and to China, except to go to Mexico, even though his father who had also been president, and occupied three or four of the very top foreign policy jobs, in fact, I would say we've had really two presidents since Eisenhower around or who really came into office, knowing what they had to know, in foreign affairs. And one of them was Richard Nixon, and the other was George HW Bush, because they had both had only been very intelligent, had used their time as Vice President, not only to understand how the job had to be done up to a point, but know who the good people were and who the jobs were, because everybody is clamoring for jobs. So what would I do? First, as President? I would understand, one, American foreign policy has to be bipartisan or is nothing. The outside world doesn't give a damn who the President is. The world doesn't change just because we change our chief executive, you face the same problems on on day one, as we say, number one, before you become president, hire somebody, get some close friend who doesn't want a job to go out and beat the bushes and try to figure out who the people know what they're doing and who the people are, don't. And then give the president a list. When he gets elected comes before he gets into office and say, I know what your transition team is telling you. And Joe was wonderful in Kankakee, he wants a job. There are people I think are and the President has to take it seriously, which means hire good people to occupy these jobs. And particularly, I hope I don't offend people, a good National Security Adviser because that's the level in today's complex world in which policy is not made, has to be coordinated. Nobody else can do it can't be done estate can't be done a defense and certainly not as an intel community, which if they're good They don't want to do it, it's not their job. And then that person, NSC advisor needs to hire really good people who can think strategically from within the intel community, Defense Department, State Department, outsiders, preferably people who also already served in government, because it's a it's a skill set. And then you these people effectively, some of the President will over time, particularly when he or she is on the learning curve, begins to build trust, trial and error. One thing happened for example, with the agency ay ay ay ay ay. Under Kennedy, is when he was sold a bill of goods, oh, with a finger became the Bay of Pigs. And it took a long time for Kennedy to build back trust in the Central Intelligence Agency, which is sold in this particular thing could have been somebody else who sold it, another another department, but that's what you have to do. And that's the President's responsibility. So, and unfortunately, this particular president has not taken that seriously. There's some others in our history who haven't taken it seriously. But that in keeping the nation state has to be job one, you're going to be the political guy. You make two political figures, but by God, you better hire the people who can tell you what's going on. What do I have to do? What are the alternatives? What are my choices? And what do you recommend? And I will then make a decision. And I gotta have that, and if I don't hire the people to do that, for Reagan, for example, I know that Brad's could shine a room had seven national security advisors. The first five wouldn't hack it. And the last two, Frank Carlucci and Colin Powell, were first class professionals, and they did a good job for the president united states.

Pete Turner  57:55  
Brad, what are your thoughts?

Brad Johnson  57:57  
Yeah, that would be solve a lot of the problems certainly picking good people is always the essence of everything. You can't run a any any sort of organization without getting the right people in them. The the super high executive levels usually you can find pretty good people there. And at the at the grunt level, if you will the guy, the working guy level, you can use pretty good people. It's that that range in between middle management between kind of managing the people all the way up to just below the senior executives. That's, that's always kind of hardest to fill. And I would say this president, certainly I agree that he has not done what he should have done. Being a non politician coming into the presidency. He didn't have this cadre of people. He'd been around politically for a long time. And so President Trump has has not done a very good job. I would say outside of how he worked with the Federalist Society, judges that were dedicated to the Constitution United States, I mean, that he, he was the model he should have been following if everything else That said, I think at this point, he's gone through that learning curve. And we've seen a lot of changes in se there's been a few articles out of about it, where he's sending a lot of these people back to their agencies and is now kind of revamping trying to bring in his own team, people that he trusts people that he thinks will do a good job. I think President Trump was kind of innocent in his ways. And one of them was, he came in and I think genuinely in his mind, he's trying to do what he sees is the best for the United States of America. And he, I think, genuinely believed that all of the people that were there in government, he would win them over. And he would, they would just kind of join his cause once they saw that he was genuinely trying to do the best he can do. And of course, in this day and age, that's not possible. Too many people are too political, and though they just it just doesn't work. Okay. So he's figured that out now at this point, and is now finally trying to put together a good team. So we'll see, I think, certainly between now and November, we're going to see a lot of those things start to form up and we'll see just who Who He picks how good they are. That remains to be seen. But he's at least gotten to the point where he's he now understands the importance of actually picking a good team of people who will work with him and try to get the things done that he wants done. And then that'll give him an opportunity for his policies to play. And we'll see just how good or bad he is. I think he's off to a pretty good start there. But, but this remains to be seen.

Pete Turner  1:00:27  
One more question for you guys. If you don't mind. Since Joe Biden is the apparent nominee from the Democratic Party, he's been a vice president. He's been out of the nation a lot. What are your thoughts? And I guess we'll start with with you, Robert, what are your thoughts on joe biden's capability to handle a job? You know, and not worried about politics, but just is he prepared is Is he still capable of doing it? He definitely has some interesting things to say at times when he's recorded live and it makes me wonder if If he despite his experience, if he's capable of doing the job, what are your thoughts, Robert?

Robert Hunter  1:01:06  
Well, that's a toughy for me being a Democrat, and I want to see him get elected president, all right. But at the same time, I have an age which I will not reveal, in which I don't want a job and I wouldn't be considered for a job. So I could probably a pretty good career. He has had all of that experience as vice president. Now, when he was in the Senate, he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But that is radically different from being in the White House or one of the agencies. We're where the rubber meets the road. I spent three and a half years on Capitol Hill, working for one of the most senior Democrats, Ted Kennedy. But the experience I had there is this foreign policy guy was totally different from working in the White House afterwards. And frankly, when you're a senator, you can say whatever you want, it doesn't have consequences. Now, one of the questions I have is whether Joe Biden looking at some of the people he appointed before when he was Vice President, can I get in trouble with him if I weren't already, I'm not quite support to the task. And I would think that the thing that I recommended earlier for him to cast the net widely, and to get people beyond those either had worked in farm before, or who want jobs and the clamor for getting jobs. It's really a

sight to behold. It is true, worse than being in a chicken run, you know, when they throw in the corn, but it's just fantastic. But the President's got a And incidentally, in terms of where they're buying the Fed has slips of the tongue and I think they all do, but we are now in an era in which everything that you say is like ordered by somebody. Yeah. Wasn't we was it romney who talked about 47%? Want to be on the dole? And that was recorded by a waiter on a cell phone and it damaged romney in that particular election. That's ludicrous. As to age, there is no question even if Bernie Sanders it's been two potential nominee, the next president united states is going to be an old white guy who went inaugurated will be the oldest person ever inaugurated president united states in our entire history. And I worry about obviously, health good questions. That's one reason a president in this circumstance needs to pick first and foremost, a vice president who can indeed have the qualities of temperament. intelligence to become president doesn't have to be an expert in foreign affairs is a common view nowadays. That Harry Truman was a pretty good forum for President hired a lot of good people. Some of them weren't so good like Jimmy burns. You hired a marshal and they had asked you to send in all of that. But Harry Truman knew nothing about foreign affairs, except what he had learned and company D. in the field. In the First World War, he did not even know about the atomic bomb. And tell Secretary Stinson two days after Secretary of War Simpson, two days after 200 became brothers that Oh, by the way, Mr. President Stuff You Should Know About. But he turned up because he had no judgment, good judgment about people about politics about ideas and about process, which he any question he has more time. And so in company D, a field artillery and the western proud to know World War One. So that's what we want. I want you vice president who's going to be a woman, the nominee, at least, whether they win or not, I have no idea. Who's got that kind of not necessarily foreign policy experience? Because none of them do. Even buys I don't think has enough. But who has good judgment about people to take over? if it comes to that, and I got, God forbid, either one of them dies in office. I'll try one other little story. We all remember how Richard Nixon had spider Wagner's device credited to consensus in this town and I was involved here at that time, cause Oh, god spire Wagner was president united states. So they looked into his background, and they found that he had some shady dealings. So they got rid of Agnew. And you're not going to believe this, but I believe it to be true, in part to make it safe to get rid of Nixon. So you wouldn't have asked him now, whether Mr. Pants will be a good would be a good president. I think frankly, I accept what he has to say all the nice things about the brand Lately, pence has shown a pretty credible side to his to his personality. Now, I'll say one last thing. I worry in particular, because the media, almost all of them are interested in stirring up trouble for national leaders. That's what they say to be their job, I think hurts me every night to see all the gasoline being poured on the fires of our current Corona virus scandal and that scandal but but threat by a lot of the media, they report every little thing that will will get people to be more afraid, which is terrible. So what is going to happen but in now and November 3, mark my words is that the Coronavirus issue will be at the center of questions of electing a president a democratic side. Number one is to try to make the case. Trump is really not competent to be president. The Republicans Aside are saying he is, of course, competent to be president. And I fear that we're going to have during the next several months, the debate about this fundamental crisis for the nation Coronavirus, played out day after day aided and abetted by the media in terms of part of political term. And that can be tragic for the country, whoever becomes president.

Pete Turner  1:07:28  
Brad, same question to you. When, when you look at the possibility of Joe Biden becoming president again, Does he still have the capability? And what about his experiential chops?

Brad Johnson  1:07:40  
Well, experience wise, I think he's, you know, punched a lot of tickets. He does have a long history and politics as a senator and vice president. So, I mean, I think you'd have to look in the scheme of things as someone if he were to be elected president united states, he'd probably More to the table than the average president does as far as kind of political experience in the world. As for his makeup, I respect Robert being very gentle in the way he phrased it. If If Biden gets elected president, he would never consider me for anything, not even dog catcher. So I don't have to be too careful at all. I think I think there's there's some pretty clear signs of some mental and garden. Okay, don't get your baby. So I mean, a lot of the Democratic people that were running against him were were saying all of this sort of stuff. So I'm basically just repeating what the what his competition and the primary were saying. And I mean, I think those are going to be questions that are going to haunt him, he's going to have to be able to do well and stand up to the debates and a lot of the things running for president is very high pressure, and he's going to have to come out and speak at live events and bring people out and those are one of the things where he's done so poorly. Also, he's going to be looked at so I mean, just as far as the capability of doing it, I do question, just the mental health issue. I think if it becomes a question of who is more mentally capable, I think Joe Biden would have a very, very tough, tough argument to make there. Because he just doesn't do well. Even if it's just a slip of the tongue. He just makes so many gaffes that these things do add up. There's a cumulative effect. As far as picking people I think he could pick, it would be in a position that he knows enough people that would help him I think he'd be able to put together a cabinet and all that that would be, you know, respectable and realistic and those sorts of things. It would be sort of how he handles it, or does it handle him? I think that would be a question but also he's got some problems too. Now that he's the almost certainly the candidate. Barisan is going to be dusted off and looked at again, and there are all lots of questions there. I mean, at $3,000 a month for a son and and these sorts of things in him putting in a a making that prosecutor that was investigating charisma go away. And then you know what hasn't really been addressed yet is he also hand picked the prosecutor that went in to replace that guy that was that was ousted so and what they've been saying so far is that the whole thing about being a problem has been debunked, but the guy who debunked it was the prosecutor that he put into place. So all of this is bubbling up out there, and it's being discussed and starting to come up and we've seen a lot of these facts and he's the Ukrainians come out and talk about these things publicly. So as he becomes the candidate he's going to be faced with with that on the on the virus going around the who ham virus. I that is that's going to be very interesting. And I think that's the wild card. I don't know if that's going to be the central issue for the election or not. I'm less confident as to this. Just what that's going to mean because there's a little A lot of information coming out talking about how this, there's some interesting, I don't want to go too much into the technicalities of it. But there was a there were four insertions in the glycoprotein of this virus. Now that is, is very unusual to have these four differences between this uhand virus versus all of the other SARS types viruses. So, there's some interesting questions and the probabilities of this being an engineered virus are really starting to rise and the scientific community that's been willing to, to openly discuss it are have all been pretty much in agreement that statistically it's kind of impossible for this to be a natural occurring thing. That's not proof, of course, that the Chinese did it. But there's a lot of indicators out there that you know, who else would have done it if it wasn't them? So, it plays out that this was indeed there was more in Chinese involvement in this thing then is made apparent. I think it's just a complete wildcard how that would play out politically and all of these aspects as they start being uncovered, how many people are hurt and killed in it? All of this? I think it's just so hard, hard to predict exactly how this will play forward and just how political it would be versus kind of a national security thing. It's going to be interesting to see play out. I think we're going to learn a lot more in about two months.

Pete Turner  1:12:28  
Yeah, I think so. I wanted to add this note into President Truman was done being president at about the age of 69. Granted, he was born in the 1800s. And things were different than he also lived to be 90 plus years old. He also lived through, you know, several significantly challenging events to include World War One going broke several times. You know, surviving machine politics, World War Two, and being president for eight years holy. So maybe he was a very old 16 But now, you add in another 10 years on his life and say now be president and it's shocking how just how old you know you are when you're in your late 70s if he had had a year, years and years of service at this high level, like someone like Joe Biden has had or even President Trump. So it is. It is interesting to realize just just how seasoned I like to say seasoned. These guys are who are running anything in closing, Robert.

Robert Hunter  1:13:30  
This is to me, right? 

Pete Turner  1:13:31  
Yep.

Robert Hunter  1:13:33  
Okay, right, right or reply? I've been quite Canada, I think about what may or may not go wrong with a president. But I have been very disturbed over the last three years by President Trump and by his quality of judgment of some of which we've seen in the last three or four weeks. And I'd like to see him out of there because I don't think he is up to the job and I think it's been shown over and over and over again. But that That's another matter. I didn't want to get partisan. Yeah, the new national security adviser who's named nobody even knows a good thing. It certainly seems to be an improvement over one of the predecessors, john bolton, who everybody I know in the foreign policy community who's sensible thought that he shouldn't even be in charge of a dog pad. And fortunately, the President got rid of him. Now, what I would like to say is, we are only going to have one president, and I don't think the age thing in itself is going to be a problem. Okay. I am older, slightly. two candidates, and I'm all suited up and ready to be Secretary of State. But the problem is, I like I like my afternoon nap. And that's that's too much. I will believe in the President's judgement of the day he fires the current Secretary of State, who I think is is not a good example of what we need to be doing in the world. But there are a lot of good people out there he could appoint. I wish he would put won't happen between now and Election Day.

Pete Turner  1:15:10  
Brad, any closing thoughts?

Brad Johnson  1:15:14  
Yes. Well, I yeah, I guess this is one of our definite differences. I think a president is head and shoulders above anything Biden could ever do or become, but let me say also I am. If Trump is reelected, I am definitely suited up and have my boots on and ready to step into the dog catcher role at a moment's notice.

Pete Turner  1:15:36  
Yeah, same.

Robert Hunter  1:15:40  
As long as you look at my two cocker spaniels alone, they have all of their shots, all of their metal.

Pete Turner  1:15:46  
Yeah, but they don't behave when your podcast and they bark and try to cause a ruckus

Robert Hunter  1:15:51  
that may say that word. I would feel comfortable. Your bread were brought into either president administration, you know serious job and preferably Director of National Intelligence, unless we could abolish it and just have the head of CIA run things like he or she should.

Pete Turner  1:16:11  
There you go. I like that. And I like that we can have a nonpartisan conversation about complex stuff and not get so distracted by the, the left and the right because the problems aren't left and right problems. They're the US problems. From my experience, I've always seen that we are the biggest problem in terms of these things. I studied what the army did to confound its own success State Department all the time, because if we just got better at making less mistakes as an institution, you know, we would have more reliable outcomes on the other end of the of the machine, fellas, thank you so much for coming on and doing this. It's a those weren't easy questions and I really appreciate you guys digging in with being creating this. I know people are gonna love this episode because it is thought provoking and there's a lot of stuff that people just don't ever talk about it. So from from me and from all of us out there. Thank you so much for doing this with me.

Brad Johnson  1:17:01  
Pete. Thank you very much, Robert. Thank you as well.