Making Sense - Sam Harris - #231

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:23.300 This is Sam Harris.

00:00:24.420 Okay, just a brief housekeeping to tie up some loose ends from the last podcast.

00:00:33.340 I got a fair amount of pushback, which to my eye rests on a misunderstanding.

00:00:39.960 I'm slightly embarrassed that I didn't see the grounds for this misunderstanding when

00:00:44.480 I recorded the last podcast, but it really does seem like a misunderstanding, so let me

00:00:49.760 clear this up.

00:00:50.740 And I've gotten a fair amount of grief for my claim that the police response at the

00:00:57.340 Capitol would not have been much different had that been a BLM protest that became a

00:01:04.660 siege.

00:01:06.200 I was pushing back against the claim that the behavior of the cops at the Capitol was a sign

00:01:12.220 of white supremacy, white privilege, you know, the general racializing of the interpretation

00:01:17.960 of the failure to protect the Capitol, which was happening everywhere and, you know, from

00:01:24.080 Biden on down.

00:01:25.840 And I stand by everything I said there, but I didn't recognize that this concept of police

00:01:31.600 response was open to two meanings.

00:01:36.300 And many people took it to mean something that I would call police presence.

00:01:43.340 Rather than the behavior of the cops who were actually there, many people allege that there

00:01:49.900 simply would have been more cops there had this been a BLM protest, and that the fact

00:01:55.000 that there weren't is a sign of racism.

00:01:58.820 Racism because they were assuming that white people would be well-behaved, and they would

00:02:05.260 have assumed that black people would have gone mad and attacked the Capitol.

00:02:11.180 That's a very different claim.

00:02:13.120 It's not one I was responding to in the last podcast.

00:02:15.800 I think a racial interpretation of that assumption is also unfounded, but I don't think the assumption

00:02:22.980 itself is obviously wrong.

00:02:25.080 So let me just clarify that.

00:02:27.260 I think it's quite possible that many people would have assumed that a pro-Trump rally would

00:02:34.720 also be by default pro-police.

00:02:38.340 That would not have been a crazy assumption, given all that has preceded us.

00:02:43.980 So therefore, the idea that maybe they don't need a massive show of force from the cops to

00:02:51.340 prevent an insurrection, because these people are generally pro-cop, maybe that factored into

00:02:58.540 the decision-making around how many cops should be there in the first place.

00:03:02.820 That seems entirely plausible to me.

00:03:05.300 Again, I don't know what's true there, and I don't know that there aren't other more

00:03:10.360 nefarious reasons why there was such a weak police presence there.

00:03:15.120 Again, it could have been something that Trump ordered.

00:03:19.100 We will find out if there's any true conspiracy there, or if it's just negligence, or negligence

00:03:25.700 based on bad assumptions.

00:03:28.040 I do touch upon this topic in today's podcast with my guests.

00:03:31.900 But there's no necessary racist implication from that difference in assumption.

00:03:38.660 And you can see that if you just imagine what the cops would have assumed of an Antifa protest.

00:03:46.200 Had there been the biggest Antifa rally in human history, massing at the Capitol, what would

00:03:52.360 have been the posture of the cops?

00:03:54.440 Well, I would bet, more or less everything, that it would have been every bit as risk-averse

00:04:01.180 as it would be in the case of a BLM protest.

00:04:04.920 Which is to say that the obvious animosity of Antifa to law enforcement would have dictated

00:04:13.000 exactly what people are claiming would have happened in the case of a BLM protest.

00:04:18.540 And this strips away the variable of race almost perfectly.

00:04:22.620 Antifa certainly seems to be an almost entirely white phenomenon.

00:04:28.340 So anyway, that's a counterfactual we just have to imagine.

00:04:32.120 But I think viewing any part of this failure at the Capitol in terms of race is just deeply

00:04:40.020 unhelpful, in addition to very likely mistaken.

00:04:44.600 And this would not change if we found, as we almost certainly would if we went looking,

00:04:50.600 that some of the cops or some of the decision makers are avowed racists and Trump supporters,

00:04:58.780 none of that changes the general picture of what happened here.

00:05:02.540 In the same way that finding a few Antifa goons among the insurrectionists will not change

00:05:08.940 our basic understanding of what happened there.

00:05:11.880 This was a pro-Trump insurrection, even if you can find some anti-Trump, far-left, BLM-loving people in the crowd.

00:05:24.380 So I hope that is clear.

00:05:27.720 This is not at all to suggest that we don't have a problem with white supremacy and a larger movement here.

00:05:36.140 We obviously do.

00:05:38.120 And 100% of those people, for all intents and purposes, are part of the MAGA cult that we now need to deal with.

00:05:45.980 So I am not saying that racism isn't a variable, generally speaking.

00:05:51.080 But to view what happened at the Capitol specifically, the level of force that was marshaled and used or not used

00:05:59.280 by the people who were there, this notion that, again, seems to have been endorsed by more or less everyone on the left,

00:06:08.820 from Biden on down, that what we saw at the Capitol was proof positive of white supremacy.

00:06:17.720 The fact that the insurrection wasn't put down better than it was, was a symptom of racism.

00:06:23.420 That there is just no way to look at this where that conclusion seems reasonable, from my point of view.

00:06:31.400 And as I said last time, even if reasonable, I would argue it's the wrong point to be making now.

00:06:37.920 And everything else that is racializing this moment is also the wrong thing to be doing now.

00:06:43.900 The fact that Joe Biden just announced that his COVID relief package would be targeted to non-white people

00:06:53.220 suffering the economic effects of the pandemic.

00:06:56.900 Many of you have probably seen that video.

00:06:59.720 He stepped before the cameras and said that this aid would preferentially go to people of color, Latinos.

00:07:08.080 He threw Asians in there as though Asian Americans were an especially beleaguered bunch.

00:07:12.920 Even though, in the aggregate, they're doing better than anyone.

00:07:17.200 This was an act of breathtaking political stupidity.

00:07:21.900 Given the political needs of the moment.

00:07:25.060 Given the need to figure out how to build a bridge right of center.

00:07:31.840 At a minimum, given the need not to confirm the paranoia of everyone right of center.

00:07:38.580 That there's a tsunami of wokeness now breaking over all of society.

00:07:43.640 And the future for people who want to get beyond racializing every question in American life

00:07:50.940 will be one of re-education by pink-haired lesbians.

00:07:55.660 There is a culture war that needs to be won here.

00:07:59.020 And racializing everything isn't the way to win it.

00:08:02.220 And I defy anyone to justify a skin color preference in the doling out of COVID aid

00:08:12.300 when the only ethical basis really is economic need.

00:08:19.220 And if you don't think there are white people who suffered the utter destruction of their economic lives

00:08:24.960 during the pandemic, you're living in some kind of malignant fantasy world.

00:08:29.420 Again, it's the own goals that we should find absolutely unacceptable.

00:08:35.680 And judging from how this went off on social media,

00:08:39.320 this was a Lionel Messi style bicycle kick into the wrong goal.

00:08:45.220 It's just incredible.

00:08:46.760 Why do it?

00:08:48.580 And finally, I want to further contextualize my support for the Twitter ban of Trump,

00:08:54.640 about which I have absolutely no misgivings.

00:08:57.480 There's nothing that has happened in recent days that has given me cause to rethink that.

00:09:03.480 But obviously, the banning on social media has preceded apace.

00:09:07.460 There are many, many accounts that have been purged.

00:09:12.500 And there was the seemingly coordinated dismantling of the Parler app.

00:09:19.340 Parler as a social media, or was a social media platform, favored largely by conservatives,

00:09:26.860 and no doubt some conservative lunatics.

00:09:30.600 Let me just say that all of those further iterations of deplatforming seem far more complicated to me

00:09:38.000 and merit serious debate about the role that social media companies play in our lives

00:09:44.000 and the power of these platforms.

00:09:47.200 And in the case of Parler, it's not just social media companies.

00:09:50.260 Here we have the very infrastructure of the Internet,

00:09:53.440 in particular Amazon's cloud services,

00:09:56.340 deciding to disgorge a whole platform

00:10:00.920 and a business that was probably valued at a billion dollars at that point

00:10:05.800 from the Internet itself.

00:10:07.840 This is a kind of digital exile,

00:10:11.100 which may or may not have been warranted.

00:10:14.380 A surprising number of erstwhile libertarians

00:10:17.000 seem very comfortable with the idea that private corporations

00:10:20.940 should be forced to keep people on their servers

00:10:23.960 so as to not show any political bias

00:10:27.580 and be forced to provide tools for people

00:10:30.000 who are avidly spreading misinformation

00:10:32.800 that is fragmenting our society.

00:10:35.680 This kind of thing has to be argued for.

00:10:38.540 And there's no straightforward move to make from the First Amendment

00:10:41.480 to enforcing the behavior of people who run these businesses.

00:10:48.500 This is just to say that my mind is really not made up on many of the specifics there.

00:10:53.160 I think it's going to be a fascinating and consequential debate to have.

00:10:57.440 But as to whether or not the various digital platforms

00:11:00.160 are justified in trying to contain the damage

00:11:04.100 that Trump may yet attempt to do

00:11:06.240 by essentially regurgitating him and his digital life into the abyss,

00:11:13.020 given what's at stake here

00:11:14.620 and given what a bad actor he has been,

00:11:17.380 that just seems to me to be a very easy call.

00:11:20.520 And it's not made more difficult

00:11:22.040 by the apparent inconsistency

00:11:25.740 of not being able to close all the other accounts

00:11:28.460 that arguably should be closed

00:11:30.980 at the same moment,

00:11:32.840 whether it's the Chinese Communist Party

00:11:34.580 or any other malicious source of misinformation.

00:11:39.540 There's an enormous mess to clean up,

00:11:41.600 but Trump was an all-too-identifiable piece of that.

00:11:45.080 So, in any case, those are my two cents.

00:11:48.280 As I said, there's much more to talk about,

00:11:50.300 generally, about the power of big tech.

00:11:52.980 And I'm sure I'll pull together

00:11:54.960 several conversations on that topic in the future.

00:12:00.020 Okay.

00:12:01.320 Well, today I'm speaking with General Stanley McChrystal

00:12:03.960 and his colleague Chris Fussell,

00:12:07.060 both of whom have been on the podcast before.

00:12:09.860 We spoke last year,

00:12:11.320 just as the pandemic was beginning to get rolling.

00:12:13.920 And what a quaint conversation that was

00:12:16.980 in light of all that's since happened.

00:12:19.660 General McChrystal is a retired U.S. Army four-star general

00:12:22.980 who served more than 34 years in the military.

00:12:26.300 And he was the commander of all American

00:12:28.100 and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

00:12:30.480 That was his last assignment.

00:12:32.920 He's written several books,

00:12:34.700 including a memoir titled My Share of the Task,

00:12:37.680 which was a New York Times bestseller.

00:12:39.720 And he's a senior fellow at Yale University's

00:12:42.020 Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.

00:12:44.720 He's also the founder of the McChrystal Group.

00:12:47.640 And his partner, Chris Fussell, also teaches at Yale.

00:12:51.140 And he and General McChrystal wrote

00:12:52.840 Team of Teams, New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World,

00:12:56.800 which was also a New York Times bestseller.

00:12:59.500 Chris was a commissioned naval officer

00:13:01.300 and he spent 15 years in the Navy SEALs

00:13:03.580 at various points around the globe.

00:13:05.860 And he served as an aide-de-camp to General McChrystal.

00:13:09.540 And Chris is also on the board of directors of the Navy SEAL Foundation.

00:13:13.160 And he's a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

00:13:17.200 And both of these guys have a podcast they do together

00:13:19.860 called No Turning Back.

00:13:22.140 And that should be available wherever you get your podcasts.

00:13:25.020 And given the gravity of today's topic,

00:13:29.360 this podcast is yet another episode that is not paywalled.

00:13:33.540 It's a PSA of sorts.

00:13:35.200 But if you want to support the podcast

00:13:37.280 and you want to get full episodes in general,

00:13:40.780 you can do that by subscribing at samharris.org.

00:13:44.200 And as always, if you can't afford it,

00:13:46.340 you can request a free account through the website.

00:13:50.060 And now, without further delay,

00:13:51.600 I bring you General Stanley McChrystal and Chris Fussell.

00:13:55.040 I am here with General Stanley McChrystal and Chris Fussell.

00:14:05.420 Gentlemen, thanks for joining me again.

00:14:07.800 Thanks, Sam.

00:14:08.200 Thanks for having us.

00:14:09.720 We were on the podcast nearly, I guess it's 10 months ago.

00:14:16.600 We were about a month into the pandemic.

00:14:20.160 So this was the beginning of April.

00:14:23.160 And I remember being quite sheepish,

00:14:27.220 even asking you guys about the possibility of civil unrest.

00:14:31.440 I think I framed it as something that we would have a responsibility

00:14:35.140 to at least touch on, given your expertise.

00:14:38.780 But I think I hasten to say something like,

00:14:42.300 obviously, I don't expect this.

00:14:44.600 We don't want to be scaremongering, right?

00:14:47.180 And I look back on that conversation, and I think,

00:14:50.760 oh, how naive I was.

00:14:54.520 It's hard for me to even reclaim that view of the world,

00:14:58.780 given all that's happened in the intervening months.

00:15:02.280 So I don't think we need to focus on it.

00:15:05.720 It just perhaps will be relevant to some part of the conversation

00:15:08.700 to acknowledge how much social unrest

00:15:12.260 and occurred over the summer around the Black Lives Matter protests,

00:15:17.560 many of which devolved into riots,

00:15:19.820 all of the craziness in Seattle and Portland,

00:15:22.760 all of the very weird political responses to that,

00:15:27.460 especially on the left,

00:15:28.780 the calls to defund the police as though that's what we needed at that moment.

00:15:33.520 All of that is just the context in which I want to talk to you about

00:15:36.540 what has now happened in Trumpistan

00:15:39.600 and what happened at the Capitol last week

00:15:42.980 and the prospects that we may be facing

00:15:45.300 some kind of insurgency in our society coming from the right.

00:15:51.720 So I guess let's just start with last week.

00:15:55.840 What were you guys thinking

00:15:57.400 when you saw what was unfolding at the Capitol on the 6th?

00:16:02.820 Yes, Sam, thanks.

00:16:04.040 I'll start by what I was thinking about

00:16:06.580 was an experience from my youth.

00:16:08.640 I grew up most of my school years in Arlington, Virginia,

00:16:12.100 right across the street from the Capitol.

00:16:14.700 And from Stonewall Jackson Elementary School, where I went,

00:16:18.580 a short walk away was an area now called Ballston,

00:16:22.200 which is a built-up shopping center.

00:16:24.280 But back in the mid-1960s,

00:16:26.880 it was also the location of the headquarters

00:16:28.660 of the American Nazi Party.

00:16:30.180 And you could walk to a white frame house

00:16:34.160 that had a porch on the front

00:16:35.720 and you could stand in front of it

00:16:37.940 and you could see a large painted sign

00:16:40.160 that was about 20 feet across that said,

00:16:42.560 white men fight, smash the Black Revolution.

00:16:46.800 And then periodically, a young man would walk out,

00:16:50.120 you know, early 20s,

00:16:51.660 wearing a brown stormtrooper uniform

00:16:55.180 with a swastika armband.

00:16:57.160 And I remember watching that.

00:17:00.640 And then as what I saw last week,

00:17:02.840 as I saw some of the activities around the Capitol,

00:17:07.200 I thought about,

00:17:08.500 we have a history in the United States

00:17:10.660 of extreme thinking.

00:17:13.880 And you remember in 1965,

00:17:16.060 you could have an American Nazi party,

00:17:17.480 but you certainly would not have seen that in Germany.

00:17:20.040 It was outlawed

00:17:21.020 because they'd had a bad experience with it.

00:17:23.560 And so as I watched what happened around the Capitol,

00:17:26.360 I thought about the danger of very radical thinking

00:17:31.100 and people who become energized

00:17:33.900 and in some ways consumed by very extreme ideas.

00:17:39.580 And so I started to think of,

00:17:41.460 you know, what's happened?

00:17:42.900 Why has it happened?

00:17:45.000 You know, what's going to happen next

00:17:46.780 and what we could do about it?

00:17:49.020 For me, it was a reflection on,

00:17:51.360 you know, experiences in the counterterrorism world

00:17:54.960 dealing with threats like Al-Qaeda, et cetera.

00:17:58.480 And it took me a while post 9-11,

00:18:03.100 being on the battlefield, et cetera,

00:18:04.160 to really dive in and say,

00:18:05.940 this isn't just,

00:18:07.100 this didn't start yesterday.

00:18:08.260 There's a decades long history to Stan's point

00:18:11.000 on to how these movements get to the point

00:18:13.900 where they've turned into something

00:18:15.260 that is extremely violent and dangerous.

00:18:17.840 And you've lost a lot of your other levers

00:18:19.740 by the time it crosses that threshold.

00:18:22.500 And so what I spent time doing then

00:18:26.600 was diving in and studying that history.

00:18:29.520 And what I saw when I was watching on the news,

00:18:32.460 et cetera, like the rest of us,

00:18:33.880 what I was seeing was we are danger close to that edge,

00:18:37.860 at which point the measures and responses

00:18:40.880 are going to reach a threshold

00:18:42.760 that we're going to be very uncomfortable with

00:18:45.240 as a free society.

00:18:46.400 And we have to work really hard

00:18:48.860 over the next six to 12 months

00:18:51.320 to pull it back from that brink.

00:18:54.520 Yeah, I want to talk about the underlying problem

00:18:56.960 of what people believe is true

00:18:59.560 about the nature of the world

00:19:01.260 and how unreachable certain people seem to be

00:19:04.820 at the moment by dialogue.

00:19:07.540 But let's just focus on

00:19:10.080 what actually happened at the Capitol

00:19:11.680 and everything that is still mysterious about that.

00:19:16.220 I mean, I think many people marveled at the fact

00:19:19.000 that there was such an inadequate police presence

00:19:21.640 and they're looking for reasons why that is so.

00:19:24.200 And some are conspiratorial

00:19:27.620 and seemingly fairly sinister.

00:19:29.940 Some are just, can be ascribed to bad assumptions

00:19:34.240 or bad luck.

00:19:36.500 I'm wondering what you think about,

00:19:38.320 let's just take that single variable

00:19:39.880 of why there was such an inadequate staffing

00:19:43.580 and just why there was a basic assumption

00:19:46.840 that more security wasn't required

00:19:50.320 given all that had preceded that day.

00:19:54.220 If you remember in the 9-11 commission report,

00:19:57.600 probably the most memorable line is they say

00:20:00.300 that it was a failure of imagination

00:20:02.460 of intelligence people

00:20:04.720 to imagine that an organization like Al-Qaeda

00:20:07.660 could do a plot, an operation

00:20:11.980 as detailed and as ambitious

00:20:14.120 as a 9-11 assault was.

00:20:16.300 I would say that if we spend a lot of time

00:20:19.040 worrying why there weren't enough Capitol police

00:20:21.780 or enough barricades around the Capitol,

00:20:24.500 we run the risk of missing the forest for the trees.

00:20:27.580 The thing that was difficult

00:20:29.420 for most Americans to imagine

00:20:31.120 is you would assemble thousands of people,

00:20:35.400 many of whom were very radicalized

00:20:37.720 in the nation's Capitol,

00:20:40.140 have the President of the United States

00:20:42.180 address them and invite and encourage them

00:20:45.200 to walk down and confront Congress

00:20:48.860 where it works.

00:20:50.460 I think it was difficult for most of us

00:20:53.400 to imagine that occurring.

00:20:54.720 And I don't think we could possibly imagine

00:20:58.200 that they would then try to break into the Capitol.

00:21:01.040 And so I think we need to,

00:21:04.140 we as a people and a government

00:21:05.500 need to avoid the temptation

00:21:06.900 to immerse in a lot of the details,

00:21:10.080 step back, blur our eyes a bit,

00:21:12.140 and say, now, wait a minute,

00:21:13.540 this is the big problem.

00:21:16.360 The fact that this could even

00:21:18.420 frame up as a potential situation.

00:21:21.100 Yeah, and watching the,

00:21:25.480 Stan and I spoke with us,

00:21:26.700 spoke with us during the day and afterwards,

00:21:29.740 and, you know, trained individuals,

00:21:31.840 trained units are less frightening

00:21:36.020 in many ways than a mob.

00:21:37.800 And that's what we saw.

00:21:38.580 A mob mentality is completely out of control, right?

00:21:41.820 It takes on a life of its own.

00:21:42.960 And that's what we,

00:21:43.840 that's what I witnessed that day,

00:21:46.280 coupled with lack of creative thinking,

00:21:48.140 why would you assume this would happen, et cetera.

00:21:50.060 And so as soon as they breached the front walls

00:21:52.740 and came in mass,

00:21:54.600 then it was,

00:21:56.080 the outcomes were completely unpredictable.

00:21:58.300 There's no way that that Capitol Police Force

00:22:00.860 could have reacted in a way to hold that back.

00:22:03.420 It was determined to get in, into the building.

00:22:05.880 Now, hindsight being 20-20, of course,

00:22:07.900 but we all remember the days

00:22:09.080 where we flew around the country,

00:22:11.780 around the world in aircraft

00:22:13.920 with an easily open and closed cockpit door, right?

00:22:17.660 And that would seem ridiculous in today's environment.

00:22:20.720 So that was a blink moment.

00:22:22.260 Well, we'll never look at those things the same.

00:22:26.220 Yeah, well, so one thing that's been said a lot

00:22:30.000 in response to this question

00:22:31.280 is that this is a sign of racism in our society

00:22:37.060 and white privilege and white supremacy.

00:22:39.740 The full allegation being that

00:22:42.240 had this been a Black Lives Matter protest,

00:22:45.540 there would have been much more

00:22:46.820 of a police presence there.

00:22:49.500 And this is often combined with a distinct claim,

00:22:55.360 which is that,

00:22:57.040 and one I addressed previously on a podcast,

00:22:59.420 that police presence aside,

00:23:01.560 the police would have behaved themselves differently

00:23:03.940 had this been a black or largely black mob

00:23:07.800 assailing the Capitol,

00:23:09.460 which is to say more people would have been killed,

00:23:11.400 more people would have been beaten up

00:23:13.660 and bloodied and certainly arrested at the end of it.

00:23:16.980 And I think that the first assumption

00:23:19.320 may have some truth to it,

00:23:23.100 but I think in both cases,

00:23:26.500 bringing race into this question

00:23:27.980 is profoundly unhelpful

00:23:30.240 and almost certainly misleading.

00:23:32.140 And I just want to just bounce my thinking off of you guys,

00:23:34.500 not to take the conversation far in this direction,

00:23:36.200 but I think this is a truly toxic way of framing

00:23:39.560 what happened at the Capitol

00:23:40.720 and it is making the people still in Trump's base

00:23:46.160 harder to reach

00:23:48.160 because, again, this is basically saying

00:23:51.140 that all of you are in the Ku Klux Klan

00:23:53.020 who have in any way supported this president.

00:23:56.520 And so on the first point,

00:23:57.840 the question of police presence,

00:23:59.380 the fact that there simply weren't more cops

00:24:01.720 called in advance,

00:24:03.640 I think it's easy to see,

00:24:05.660 and again, there could be many other explanations for this

00:24:08.920 and some of them could be totally nefarious, right?

00:24:10.880 I mean, it could be that Trump decided

00:24:12.280 he wanted to leave the Capitol unprotected.

00:24:14.680 You know, this is the kind of thing

00:24:15.860 people are thinking now,

00:24:16.800 but leaving all of that aside

00:24:18.460 and leaving aside the prospect

00:24:20.560 that we may discover

00:24:21.680 that some of the people in the police force

00:24:23.840 at the Capitol

00:24:24.500 were actually, you know,

00:24:25.680 quite sympathetic to the mob

00:24:27.060 and let them in

00:24:28.040 without, with just a wave and a nod

00:24:29.780 and some video suggests

00:24:31.680 that that was going on.

00:24:33.480 Leaving that aside,

00:24:34.240 just the question of

00:24:35.000 could it have been

00:24:36.020 that there was an assumption

00:24:37.020 on the part of people

00:24:38.340 who were deciding

00:24:39.140 to staff the Capitol

00:24:40.880 that a pro-Trump rally

00:24:43.640 would essentially be,

00:24:45.640 by default,

00:24:46.420 be pro-cop?

00:24:48.460 You know, these are people

00:24:49.160 who have been supporting

00:24:50.920 law enforcement by and large

00:24:52.800 and this can be obviously

00:24:55.200 contrasted with a

00:24:57.060 BLM rally

00:24:58.620 where, you know,

00:25:00.040 much of the animus

00:25:01.640 is explicitly directed

00:25:02.920 against law enforcement.

00:25:04.860 The reason why I would,

00:25:05.660 I think you can strip race

00:25:06.980 as a variable

00:25:07.620 completely out of that

00:25:09.000 problem is

00:25:10.560 that whatever assumption

00:25:12.840 would be made

00:25:13.540 about a BLM rally

00:25:14.980 would have been made

00:25:16.460 perhaps in triplicate

00:25:18.140 against an Antifa rally

00:25:19.760 and Antifa, you know,

00:25:20.920 is certainly mostly

00:25:21.960 a white organization, right?

00:25:23.680 So it's like the variable here

00:25:25.060 is the attitude

00:25:26.240 toward law enforcement,

00:25:27.580 not the color of people's skin

00:25:28.900 or at least that

00:25:29.520 that would be my claim.

00:25:31.360 But I'm wondering

00:25:31.980 if you think that

00:25:32.700 played a role here.

00:25:35.460 Just a few reactions.

00:25:37.620 One, on the,

00:25:39.500 I mean,

00:25:39.700 I'm not an expert

00:25:41.040 in this space at all,

00:25:42.360 right?

00:25:43.220 But there is

00:25:44.880 an equity discussion

00:25:46.340 that will be had

00:25:46.860 on the backside of this

00:25:47.640 and I've had that

00:25:48.160 like yourself

00:25:49.160 a few times

00:25:49.800 over the last week

00:25:50.660 with different friends.

00:25:52.560 but I've always reacted

00:25:55.200 to it as like

00:25:55.800 there's a conversation

00:25:57.440 to be had there

00:25:58.140 but if two helicopters

00:26:00.520 go down on the battlefield

00:26:01.600 you don't walk

00:26:02.380 into the general

00:26:02.980 and say

00:26:03.520 I don't think

00:26:04.440 they had enough seatbelts

00:26:05.220 on the first helicopter,

00:26:06.120 right?

00:26:06.820 Get,

00:26:07.260 solve the problem

00:26:08.040 that's in front of you

00:26:08.880 and we'll solve

00:26:09.960 the bigger issues

00:26:10.680 behind that

00:26:11.160 on the backside

00:26:12.020 but the,

00:26:13.020 you know,

00:26:13.300 the house is on fire.

00:26:14.600 Let's,

00:26:14.880 let's,

00:26:15.400 let's save

00:26:16.300 the other discussions

00:26:17.180 for further down the road

00:26:19.240 which are

00:26:19.680 important ones to have.

00:26:21.200 I think

00:26:22.120 there's one variable

00:26:23.620 that isn't good

00:26:24.080 including this,

00:26:24.860 these conversations

00:26:25.700 which is

00:26:26.760 the,

00:26:27.580 an exposure bias

00:26:28.920 for,

00:26:29.420 from the Capitol Police,

00:26:30.700 right?

00:26:30.920 I,

00:26:31.980 up until six months ago

00:26:33.080 lived a mile from

00:26:34.120 the,

00:26:35.040 the front of the Capitol

00:26:36.020 building

00:26:36.400 and every

00:26:38.040 other day

00:26:39.440 there's some sort

00:26:40.980 of protests

00:26:41.680 surrounding the Capitol,

00:26:42.700 Supreme Court,

00:26:43.320 et cetera.

00:26:43.880 That's the,

00:26:44.620 the world that those

00:26:45.600 officers live in

00:26:46.460 day after day

00:26:47.260 and if,

00:26:48.840 if that was your exposure

00:26:50.020 and,

00:26:50.760 none of them

00:26:52.060 in your eight years

00:26:52.880 of working in the

00:26:53.500 Capitol Police

00:26:54.180 had ever

00:26:54.940 stepped through

00:26:56.060 even a simple

00:26:57.520 metal barrier.

00:26:58.580 You can understand,

00:26:59.540 I imagine in the

00:27:00.100 planning rooms

00:27:00.740 they're thinking,

00:27:01.600 okay,

00:27:01.800 it's going to be

00:27:02.220 a bigger crowd,

00:27:03.500 here's how we,

00:27:04.120 we respond to those.

00:27:05.800 Not saying it's right

00:27:06.940 but you get normal,

00:27:08.220 routinized into

00:27:09.040 how these

00:27:09.860 crowds react

00:27:11.080 and certainly

00:27:12.340 there was a moment

00:27:13.000 when they all realized

00:27:13.740 they got it

00:27:14.180 completely wrong

00:27:14.980 but I,

00:27:15.740 I would assume

00:27:16.640 there wasn't a

00:27:17.200 calculated discussion

00:27:18.380 in a planning

00:27:19.500 at the rank

00:27:20.720 and file level

00:27:21.480 about this group

00:27:22.940 versus this group.

00:27:25.620 Sam,

00:27:26.260 I think that

00:27:26.800 the bigger question

00:27:28.320 that Chris

00:27:30.200 hinted at there

00:27:30.840 was this is a group

00:27:33.080 that wouldn't be

00:27:33.900 expected to cross

00:27:35.500 a police line,

00:27:36.800 wouldn't be expected

00:27:37.780 to get violent

00:27:38.800 against people

00:27:39.980 that they've got

00:27:41.400 a lot of connections

00:27:42.220 to and wouldn't be

00:27:43.840 expected to storm

00:27:44.900 the Capitol

00:27:45.420 and yet they did.

00:27:47.840 A largely white

00:27:48.960 crowd of people

00:27:50.300 that the policemen

00:27:51.340 who've been

00:27:51.800 interviewed

00:27:52.940 have described

00:27:53.680 as true believers.

00:27:55.200 One used the term

00:27:56.060 rabid dog,

00:27:57.740 people who have

00:27:58.320 become so

00:27:59.500 fervent

00:28:00.820 in their outrage

00:28:02.460 and their sense

00:28:03.500 of

00:28:04.180 loss

00:28:05.880 that they have

00:28:07.340 got to take

00:28:08.100 an action

00:28:08.740 that theoretically

00:28:09.620 would be very

00:28:10.520 counter to a

00:28:11.560 law and order

00:28:12.180 attitude

00:28:13.360 in their part

00:28:14.500 of society.

00:28:15.320 So to me,

00:28:16.800 what is causing

00:28:18.000 this part

00:28:18.980 of largely

00:28:20.080 white population

00:28:21.040 to get to this

00:28:22.900 point and to take

00:28:23.860 these kinds of actions?

00:28:25.860 Yeah, I want to get

00:28:26.560 into the ideas here

00:28:28.160 but I just have

00:28:29.720 another question

00:28:31.520 about what was

00:28:33.060 happening at the

00:28:34.060 Capitol because I

00:28:35.180 think, first of all,

00:28:36.620 the video is so

00:28:37.660 varied but in

00:28:39.300 aggregate it is

00:28:40.880 kind of mystifying

00:28:41.840 and I'm left with

00:28:43.220 the feeling

00:28:44.420 that it is

00:28:45.040 something close

00:28:45.940 to a miracle

00:28:46.580 that more people

00:28:47.480 weren't killed.

00:28:48.880 What's surprising

00:28:49.440 to me is not

00:28:50.040 that five people

00:28:50.700 died but that

00:28:51.720 50 or more

00:28:53.020 didn't die

00:28:53.980 because, I guess

00:28:55.680 I just want to ask

00:28:56.160 you about the

00:28:56.520 rules of engagement

00:28:57.440 in a situation

00:28:58.340 like that.

00:28:59.280 Granted, the crowd

00:29:01.180 was so varied

00:29:02.060 that I could imagine

00:29:02.940 that the experience

00:29:04.040 of some cops

00:29:05.420 in various parts

00:29:06.700 of this siege

00:29:08.180 was quite unlike

00:29:09.720 the experience

00:29:10.240 of other cops.

00:29:10.940 I mean, they're

00:29:11.380 being confronted

00:29:12.020 with a weird

00:29:12.680 group of people

00:29:13.420 who are not

00:29:14.840 really looking

00:29:15.460 like combatants.

00:29:16.460 I mean, they're

00:29:16.780 dressed in weird

00:29:17.820 costumes, some

00:29:18.640 of them are

00:29:19.020 surprisingly old.

00:29:20.660 You know, you

00:29:21.560 have some footage

00:29:22.680 of a cop taking

00:29:23.420 selfies with one

00:29:24.740 group and that is

00:29:25.940 quite unlike imagery

00:29:28.220 of cops being

00:29:29.540 beaten over the

00:29:30.560 head with American

00:29:32.080 flags and being

00:29:33.040 crushed in doorways

00:29:34.160 and just kind of

00:29:35.320 the surging violence

00:29:36.620 that we see in

00:29:37.260 other videos.

00:29:37.760 But I guess my

00:29:38.940 question was,

00:29:40.620 once the Capitol

00:29:41.680 was breached,

00:29:42.960 once people were

00:29:44.420 breaking down doors

00:29:46.180 and climbing through

00:29:47.740 windows and the

00:29:49.760 cops were the only

00:29:50.580 thing standing

00:29:51.400 between them and

00:29:53.040 our nation's

00:29:55.680 leaders, and you

00:29:57.620 have some people

00:29:58.980 calling for the

00:30:00.100 deaths of Mike

00:30:01.920 Pence and Nancy

00:30:02.860 Pelosi, I'm just

00:30:04.560 amazed that there

00:30:06.020 weren't scenes where

00:30:06.980 every single person

00:30:08.140 who came through a

00:30:08.960 door got shot.

00:30:10.320 From the cop's

00:30:11.260 point of view, I

00:30:12.460 mean, I can see

00:30:13.200 that there's an

00:30:14.160 element of self

00:30:14.740 preservation here

00:30:15.480 because if you

00:30:15.900 start shooting

00:30:16.360 people and you

00:30:17.540 don't have enough

00:30:18.000 ammunition to

00:30:18.680 shoot everybody,

00:30:19.400 well, then

00:30:19.640 eventually you're

00:30:20.280 going to be killed

00:30:20.940 by a mob.

00:30:22.380 But to not have

00:30:23.880 shot people at

00:30:25.240 that point, I

00:30:25.980 mean, at some

00:30:26.740 point in the

00:30:27.300 inner sanctum of

00:30:28.060 that building, to

00:30:28.740 not have really

00:30:29.360 just said this is

00:30:30.600 actually war, is

00:30:33.340 to have placed the

00:30:35.840 safety of our

00:30:37.380 congressmen and

00:30:38.560 women in the

00:30:39.760 hands of a mob

00:30:40.740 that had just

00:30:41.400 shown a

00:30:41.760 willingness to

00:30:42.760 overwhelm police

00:30:44.220 officers and risk

00:30:45.080 their lives in the

00:30:45.780 process, that just

00:30:47.100 seems totally

00:30:47.560 untenable to me.

00:30:48.580 So I guess I'm

00:30:49.200 just, you know, it's

00:30:49.760 a very long way of

00:30:50.620 asking, are you

00:30:51.960 surprised from a

00:30:53.820 just a use of

00:30:55.180 force perspective

00:30:56.020 that more people

00:30:57.140 weren't killed by

00:30:58.460 cops?

00:30:59.840 I'm really not,

00:31:01.180 Sam, and it's

00:31:02.880 because, you

00:31:04.720 know, if I

00:31:04.940 learned anything

00:31:05.500 from my years

00:31:06.980 in the SEAL

00:31:07.320 teams, the

00:31:08.340 exposure that

00:31:09.740 even an

00:31:10.900 extremely well

00:31:11.840 trained individual

00:31:13.360 needs to that

00:31:14.920 level of violence

00:31:15.960 and uncertainty, to

00:31:17.300 be able to think

00:31:17.980 really clearly in

00:31:19.080 the moment is, it's

00:31:20.960 difficult, right?

00:31:22.520 And I think the

00:31:24.000 situation probably

00:31:24.860 changed on them so

00:31:26.060 quickly that they

00:31:28.600 were overwhelmed,

00:31:29.860 surrounded, and

00:31:30.720 from what I've

00:31:31.620 heard some of the

00:31:32.040 interviews after the

00:31:33.000 fact, made, several

00:31:34.680 made the right

00:31:35.160 decision, realizing

00:31:35.820 if I draw my

00:31:36.500 weapon right now, I

00:31:37.480 will shoot eight

00:31:38.780 people, and then

00:31:39.680 I'll lose my

00:31:40.140 firearm, I will

00:31:40.960 certainly die, and

00:31:41.740 then they'll be

00:31:42.140 armed, and they'll

00:31:42.620 have my other two

00:31:43.460 magazines, and now

00:31:45.460 I've armed the

00:31:46.380 masses.

00:31:47.360 So I think the

00:31:48.620 clearest heads were

00:31:49.280 trying to de-escalate,

00:31:50.680 which is extremely

00:31:51.300 difficult to do in a

00:31:52.980 mob.

00:31:54.060 And we run the

00:31:55.400 risk of sort of a

00:31:56.880 Hollywood image of

00:31:57.760 what it looks like,

00:31:58.600 you know, the

00:31:59.300 barrel-chested guy

00:32:00.920 with a gun who can

00:32:01.840 take on the big

00:32:02.500 crowd, but if they

00:32:05.480 hadn't been exposed

00:32:06.240 to that before, and

00:32:07.560 what happens to, and

00:32:08.640 there's countless

00:32:09.640 studies out there

00:32:10.380 about this, an

00:32:11.660 individual's white

00:32:12.680 space shrinks down to

00:32:14.200 survival in the

00:32:15.100 moment.

00:32:16.400 Now, compared to the

00:32:17.820 forces that Stan led,

00:32:19.840 I was part of, there

00:32:21.760 were operators that

00:32:22.540 had been in violent

00:32:23.540 situations hundreds of

00:32:24.980 times.

00:32:25.580 You know, I knew an

00:32:26.540 operator who pulled a

00:32:27.800 pin on a grenade in

00:32:28.680 the middle of a gun

00:32:29.520 fight, realized there

00:32:30.880 was a child in the

00:32:31.580 room, repinned the

00:32:33.220 grenade while getting

00:32:34.600 shot at.

00:32:35.340 Like, that's super

00:32:36.940 human mental behavior,

00:32:38.760 right?

00:32:39.000 And we assume and

00:32:40.500 expect that of a D.C.

00:32:41.740 police officer who's

00:32:43.300 suddenly surrounded by

00:32:44.220 400 people who's,

00:32:46.060 they're trying to crush

00:32:46.900 him to death, right?

00:32:47.680 So I didn't see

00:32:49.100 anything in there that

00:32:49.920 I thought was completely

00:32:51.140 irrational behavior.

00:32:52.520 There will be, I think,

00:32:53.740 unfortunately, probably

00:32:54.560 some sympathetic

00:32:55.280 findings that people

00:32:56.900 were more on the side

00:32:58.740 of the protesters than

00:32:59.680 they, than they, than

00:33:00.880 on the side of the

00:33:01.560 members of Congress,

00:33:02.640 which will be terrible.

00:33:03.880 But to the person, I

00:33:05.340 understood the responses

00:33:06.920 that I was seeing for

00:33:07.660 the most part.

00:33:09.040 Yeah, Sam, I would add

00:33:09.980 there, I think Chris

00:33:11.000 nailed it.

00:33:12.100 I believe that had the

00:33:13.600 Capitol Police been

00:33:15.240 told to expect

00:33:16.460 violence, had they been

00:33:18.140 depicted as the 300

00:33:19.580 Spartans holding the line

00:33:21.020 against thousands of

00:33:22.220 Persians, that they

00:33:23.420 would have been much

00:33:24.100 more mentally focused

00:33:25.900 on responding probably

00:33:27.960 with lethal force.

00:33:29.500 But as Chris described,

00:33:30.740 they didn't expect this

00:33:32.120 crowd to do that kind

00:33:34.400 of activity at the

00:33:35.620 Capitol.

00:33:36.140 And so I think as it

00:33:36.980 came, and then they

00:33:38.000 were largely atomized,

00:33:40.100 you know, in many cases

00:33:41.060 police were in very

00:33:42.020 small groups, and it

00:33:43.420 was more difficult to

00:33:44.440 feel like you were part

00:33:45.900 of a cohesive

00:33:46.460 organization that could

00:33:48.060 effectively truly resist.

00:33:50.880 Yeah, so let's talk

00:33:52.440 about some of the

00:33:53.420 underlying causes of

00:33:54.940 this, which really, to

00:33:56.580 my mind, rests on this

00:33:58.520 seething cauldron of

00:34:01.160 ideas, most of which

00:34:03.780 are almost certainly

00:34:05.100 false and should be

00:34:06.420 easily judged false, and

00:34:07.840 yet we're dealing with

00:34:09.440 people who seem to have

00:34:11.120 kicked themselves loose

00:34:12.680 of the earth and are

00:34:14.720 now apparently unreachable

00:34:16.840 by argument.

00:34:17.580 I mean, we have a

00:34:18.160 personality cult around

00:34:20.180 Trump that seems to be

00:34:22.160 wrapped in uncountable

00:34:24.360 layers of conspiracy

00:34:25.820 theories and lies.

00:34:28.200 We have QAnon, which

00:34:30.460 is, you know, the kind

00:34:31.780 of crazy crystalline core

00:34:33.460 of this movement, and

00:34:35.620 you know, that has points

00:34:37.160 of contact with a much

00:34:38.520 older phenomenon of white

00:34:40.000 nationalism and Christian

00:34:41.540 identity, and we have a

00:34:43.540 kind of quasi-religious

00:34:45.520 commitment to the idea

00:34:48.260 that, you know, in the

00:34:50.300 proximate case, the election

00:34:52.280 of Joe Biden is a total

00:34:53.760 fraud, right?

00:34:54.640 We have this election

00:34:55.420 fraud fraud being

00:34:57.360 perpetrated by the

00:34:58.740 president and by his

00:35:00.080 enablers and by some

00:35:01.840 prominent people in

00:35:02.680 Congress, and so we have

00:35:04.160 people who are absolutely

00:35:05.440 sure that their country

00:35:07.460 has been stolen from them,

00:35:09.000 and that this is all now

00:35:11.820 just American history has

00:35:13.120 become a dangerous farce,

00:35:15.500 and there's no, there's no

00:35:17.780 institution that can be

00:35:18.940 trusted, right, except for

00:35:20.320 the personality of Trump

00:35:23.340 on some level, and then

00:35:25.180 just this tissue of

00:35:26.640 conspiracy theories that

00:35:28.060 spread over social media,

00:35:30.080 and now which, you know,

00:35:31.060 every effort to contain

00:35:32.580 this misinformation is seen

00:35:35.340 as, you know, yet another

00:35:37.340 sinister sign of global

00:35:40.080 control, right, by our

00:35:43.060 overlords in Silicon Valley,

00:35:44.740 or by a cult of crazy

00:35:47.180 liberal cannibals who

00:35:48.980 are molesting children.

00:35:50.920 Really, the sky's the

00:35:51.900 limit in terms of what

00:35:52.760 you can believe,

00:35:53.620 apparently.

00:35:54.920 So, I want to talk

00:35:56.920 about this general

00:35:57.640 phenomenon and what you

00:35:58.620 think we can do about it,

00:35:59.500 but I'm especially

00:36:00.460 concerned about some

00:36:02.580 reports we hear that

00:36:03.900 there are, for instance,

00:36:06.620 QAnon sympathizers, or,

00:36:09.060 you know, true blue

00:36:09.920 cultists in our nation's

00:36:12.440 military and in law

00:36:14.100 enforcement.

00:36:14.700 I mean, like, the ideas

00:36:16.000 are, you know, the call is

00:36:18.180 potentially coming from

00:36:19.340 within the House at

00:36:21.380 certain of these moments.

00:36:22.560 What do you think about

00:36:23.780 this, and how do we begin

00:36:26.660 to talk our way out of

00:36:28.420 this?

00:36:29.620 Great.

00:36:31.080 Chris and I had a

00:36:31.940 conversation before the

00:36:33.600 podcast, and one of the

00:36:36.320 things that he pointed out

00:36:37.840 that I thought was a great

00:36:38.900 analogy was, this isn't a

00:36:40.480 brain aneurysm.

00:36:41.460 This isn't a condition that

00:36:43.060 just suddenly appeared in

00:36:44.460 U.S. society.

00:36:46.080 In reality, this is a

00:36:48.000 lifestyle health problem

00:36:49.900 that we've had over time

00:36:51.500 that began decades ago.

00:36:54.280 And as we talked, there's

00:36:56.040 a history of periods of

00:36:57.680 extreme feminism in the

00:36:59.180 United States, such as the

00:37:00.900 rise of the Ku Klux Klan

00:37:02.080 in the 1920s, which a lot of

00:37:03.700 people don't realize.

00:37:05.680 But I would say that the

00:37:07.360 hardest part of this really

00:37:08.460 probably goes back to the

00:37:09.640 1950s.

00:37:11.120 We came out of the Second

00:37:12.120 World War, and we were in

00:37:13.320 the early stages of the Cold

00:37:14.560 War, and suddenly white men,

00:37:17.320 which were the predominant

00:37:18.400 demographic there at the

00:37:19.780 Capitol, white men started

00:37:21.460 losing ground.

00:37:22.580 They started losing their

00:37:23.660 privilege position.

00:37:25.920 And what that meant was they

00:37:27.300 lost some of it to the equal

00:37:29.260 rights movement for gender, for

00:37:31.160 women.

00:37:31.900 They lost some of it to the

00:37:33.900 civil rights movement.

00:37:34.700 They lost some of it to the

00:37:36.800 globalization of the economy.

00:37:38.360 So the relatively and maybe

00:37:40.420 undeserved privileged position

00:37:42.020 that a white worker had for

00:37:43.760 generations was suddenly under

00:37:45.800 threat.

00:37:46.160 And that caused great

00:37:47.020 frustration.

00:37:48.360 That caused a sense of loss.

00:37:50.740 And we've seen that for several

00:37:52.400 decades now.

00:37:53.440 It was also matched by fear.

00:37:56.060 Fear that they would be

00:37:57.860 displaced in society, in fact, be in

00:38:00.380 a position of the oppressed, vice

00:38:02.040 the oppressor, you know, such

00:38:04.540 as they had seen minorities

00:38:05.740 before.

00:38:07.000 And so when you put together

00:38:08.340 frustration and fear, you get

00:38:10.640 the combination of desperation, or

00:38:12.700 you get the output of

00:38:13.580 desperation.

00:38:15.020 And so suddenly they become

00:38:16.640 fertile ground for accepting

00:38:18.480 things that they want to

00:38:20.680 believe.

00:38:21.200 They want to believe that all of

00:38:23.380 this is the result of a

00:38:24.740 conspiracy.

00:38:25.800 They want to believe that there

00:38:28.380 are evil people doing the

00:38:30.360 business to them.

00:38:31.060 And they want to believe that

00:38:32.240 there are relatively simple

00:38:33.800 fixes to it, like a

00:38:35.860 demagogic leader who comes

00:38:38.340 and is able to say, I will give

00:38:40.840 you the solution to your

00:38:41.820 problem.

00:38:42.280 We'll build a wall.

00:38:43.040 We'll do various things.

00:38:44.680 And so what we've seen now, I

00:38:46.760 think, is a fairly evolved

00:38:48.820 radicalization of part of our

00:38:51.280 population.

00:38:51.940 And it's accelerated by things

00:38:54.080 like social media, the ability

00:38:55.840 to communicate so quickly, and

00:38:57.780 the ability to limit what you

00:39:00.280 hear of information sources to

00:39:02.380 those which you already agree

00:39:03.680 with.

00:39:04.040 And as you become more

00:39:05.300 radicalized, what we see is

00:39:06.900 you become more and more of a

00:39:11.000 tendency to listen to those

00:39:12.240 things, which makes you, it's a

00:39:13.940 self-reinforcing loop.

00:39:15.800 So I think what we've got now is a

00:39:17.540 significant part of our society

00:39:19.360 that believes what they believe,

00:39:21.620 and they believe it fervently.

00:39:23.020 And they believe it to the point

00:39:24.800 where they are willing to do

00:39:26.560 violence.

00:39:27.120 If we go back to the Turner

00:39:29.000 Diaries from the 1970s, which

00:39:31.480 Timothy McVeigh had a copy with

00:39:33.080 him when he, in Oklahoma City,

00:39:35.060 what we see is it's not new, but

00:39:38.060 it's been evolving in American

00:39:39.360 society.

00:39:39.960 And I think we've now got a much

00:39:41.700 worse physical condition in our

00:39:44.080 society than we have yet

00:39:46.080 admitted.

00:39:47.440 Sam, I'll just build on that by

00:39:49.240 analogizing to our, as our

00:39:53.180 understanding of Al-Qaeda deepened

00:39:55.040 and other extremist movements, we

00:39:57.240 started to look at it through sort

00:39:59.400 of a Venn diagram.

00:40:01.200 Imagine, you know, three circles on

00:40:02.900 a page.

00:40:04.100 The biggest circle, if they're

00:40:05.880 moving, say, left or right, the

00:40:07.320 biggest circle being those that

00:40:09.220 sort of can be broadly

00:40:11.240 empathetic.

00:40:11.920 I don't agree with their actions,

00:40:13.360 but I get it.

00:40:13.960 I understand.

00:40:14.820 I know why they're angry.

00:40:16.180 The middle circle being those that

00:40:17.860 are willing to donate to the

00:40:20.180 cause, somehow support it.

00:40:21.960 And oftentimes through, you know, a

00:40:23.940 third cutout charity, et cetera, but

00:40:25.640 they kind of know where it'll end

00:40:27.780 up.

00:40:28.320 And then for the final circle being

00:40:30.480 those that are willing to take

00:40:31.640 action.

00:40:32.320 And it goes, you know, big, medium,

00:40:34.620 very small.

00:40:36.180 And I would, for most of the fight

00:40:38.080 against Al-Qaeda and others, the

00:40:39.900 overlap between those three circles

00:40:41.520 was very much on the fringe, right?

00:40:43.080 Just a small overlap between broad

00:40:44.820 empathy and support.

00:40:47.040 And then very few of those

00:40:48.380 supporters actually willing to take

00:40:49.700 action.

00:40:50.980 What is scary now, and I think

00:40:52.900 social media has a huge negative

00:40:55.960 role in this, and they need to come

00:40:57.900 to account for that and talk about

00:41:01.260 how they're going to change and work

00:41:03.280 on the algorithms that drive those

00:41:04.720 circles together.

00:41:06.320 And the scene on the Capitol was a

00:41:08.480 physical manifestation of those three

00:41:11.040 circles overlapping.

00:41:12.760 You have the extremist action arm in

00:41:16.060 the mix with, you know, an elder

00:41:18.620 couple that drove from the middle of

00:41:20.560 the country because they thought they

00:41:22.020 were being told this was an important

00:41:24.000 action for them to take as good

00:41:25.160 Americans.

00:41:26.100 And that's a frightening place to be.

00:41:27.580 When those three overlap, you have a

00:41:29.440 much deeper problem on your hands than

00:41:31.060 you thought you did.

00:41:32.800 So what do you think we should do now?

00:41:36.060 I guess let's, before we jump into

00:41:38.280 that, let's talk about the challenge, the

00:41:40.620 immediate challenge that's before us, which

00:41:42.420 is securing the inauguration and, you

00:41:45.600 know, finally accomplishing a peaceful

00:41:47.660 or semi-peaceful transfer of power.

00:41:50.780 What are your expectations for the next

00:41:52.860 few days?

00:41:54.220 We're recording this on the Friday before

00:41:56.800 the inauguration.

00:41:58.160 We will release this almost certainly a

00:42:01.540 day or two before the inauguration, so

00:42:03.640 many people will be hearing us before the

00:42:07.160 final shoe has dropped and just simply

00:42:10.520 hoping that the inauguration is brought

00:42:14.560 off without anything terrible happening.

00:42:17.800 What are you guys thinking about and

00:42:20.100 expecting at this point?

00:42:22.500 Yeah, Sam, from experience, I would tell

00:42:24.120 you we need to lock it down.

00:42:26.580 We need to prevent violence and we need

00:42:28.780 to make it obvious to everybody that

00:42:30.700 there is not an opportunity for violence

00:42:32.880 and those who try to do it will be dealt

00:42:34.560 with, maybe with deadly force immediately.

00:42:37.980 We have to do that because my experience

00:42:39.960 back from Afghanistan, interestingly, taught

00:42:42.580 us that when there is violence in an

00:42:44.880 area, whether coalition forces caused it

00:42:48.680 or whether Taliban forces caused it, it

00:42:51.480 created more violence after it.

00:42:53.620 It created an atmosphere where it just

00:42:56.560 became easier for people to be violent.

00:42:59.880 And so in the near term, what we've got to

00:43:02.000 do is absolutely lock it down.

00:43:03.900 We've got to go after the perpetrators from

00:43:05.660 the last event.

00:43:06.460 We've got to make it clear.

00:43:07.540 Now, that's not a long-term solution.

00:43:10.540 That doesn't solve the problem of

00:43:12.220 radicalization.

00:43:14.140 But what you can't do is let the idea that

00:43:17.920 this is a, you know, a riot after a soccer

00:43:21.120 match that can go on with junk patrons doing

00:43:23.520 it.

00:43:23.960 You just can't let that keep going.

00:43:26.420 So what do you do with the unhappy

00:43:29.640 juxtaposition between our current security

00:43:33.460 concerns and the, again, it has a kind of a

00:43:37.840 quasi-religious status in our society, the

00:43:40.120 primacy of the Second Amendment such that in

00:43:42.960 many places, I'm not sure where D.C.

00:43:45.520 falls here.

00:43:46.020 I would imagine the laws are stricter.

00:43:47.500 But as you know, there are threats or at

00:43:50.820 least concerns around, you know, all 50 state

00:43:54.120 capitals as well in the coming days.

00:43:57.000 Many of these are states where, you know, open

00:43:59.880 carry is legal.

00:44:01.140 I mean, it's legal to walk down the sidewalk

00:44:03.600 with your AR-15, you know, proudly displayed.

00:44:07.220 The dysfunction of this seems fairly unignorable

00:44:11.780 given our current situation.

00:44:14.520 How do you view the gun rights issue and, you

00:44:18.800 know, gun safety issue in the current climate?

00:44:23.000 Well, to what we were talking about earlier,

00:44:25.760 there's a, we want to prevent the point of

00:44:29.660 no return here, right?

00:44:30.800 And I say that from experience.

00:44:32.660 It's the reason that a lot of military leaders

00:44:35.060 that I've known and respect when they go into

00:44:36.680 senior positions as civilians are the doves

00:44:41.440 because they know, look, at a certain point,

00:44:43.840 this is going to get out of control.

00:44:45.460 And if you send in those that are designed to

00:44:49.140 enact violence, it's going to get violent.

00:44:51.240 And so let's expend all means before we get there.

00:44:53.900 I don't think we're at that point yet,

00:44:55.440 but we are dangerously close.

00:44:58.520 And so to Stan's point, I think the immediate action

00:45:00.820 is to make it obvious and uncomfortable

00:45:04.180 for those that would want to show up armed.

00:45:06.700 Obviously, you can't do that in Washington, D.C.,

00:45:09.400 but in other states, if they feel that threat,

00:45:11.660 they have to make it a physical presence

00:45:14.000 obvious enough immediately to say,

00:45:17.000 this is going to be bad.

00:45:18.480 If you try to go down that road, it's going to be bad.

00:45:22.320 But that's only one of multiple levers

00:45:25.540 that have to be pulled.

00:45:26.840 I think the move that the big social media platforms,

00:45:30.320 AWS, have made to push folks off of those platforms

00:45:35.060 is the right one.

00:45:36.240 I think they have to start diving into their algorithms,

00:45:39.300 as I mentioned earlier,

00:45:40.340 to really stop aiding the coupling of these networks.

00:45:44.500 And in some ways, that is a digital manifestation

00:45:50.100 of that, make it physically difficult, right?

00:45:52.920 One of the things we had in combat zones

00:45:56.420 like Iraq and Afghanistan,

00:45:57.800 we referred to as T-walls.

00:45:59.260 You may recognize them from pictures of battlefields

00:46:02.800 and combat zones in urban areas.

00:46:05.540 And it's just, imagine a big concrete slab

00:46:08.500 that looks like an upside down T.

00:46:10.100 So we call them T-walls.

00:46:11.660 They're about six feet wide, 15 feet high.

00:46:14.500 And if there were two parts of the neighborhood

00:46:15.880 that were just going to kill each other,

00:46:17.280 no matter what, all rationality had left the scene,

00:46:21.500 you just ran a T-wall down the middle.

00:46:22.960 And you said, now it's physically difficult

00:46:25.180 for you two sides of the city to interact with each other.

00:46:28.200 That's not respectful of your civil rights.

00:46:30.420 That's not respectful of your freedom of maneuver.

00:46:33.100 That is simply there to prevent you from killing each other

00:46:36.080 because we think you're completely irrational at this point.

00:46:38.520 And we have to do that in the cyberspace now.

00:46:41.020 Separate these groups out,

00:46:42.080 make it really hard for them to connect and grow.

00:46:44.500 That will push the smarter, more sophisticated ones

00:46:47.420 into deeper encrypted platforms, et cetera,

00:46:50.140 as we're already seeing.

00:46:51.380 But that's a much harder task

00:46:53.340 than following someone on Twitter

00:46:55.580 or in a larger sort of public forum.

00:46:58.560 And so that is one step of many

00:47:00.440 that have to take place in the cyber world.

00:47:02.780 We have to do that in the physical world as well.

00:47:05.280 And the next 15 days, let's say, is critical to that.

00:47:09.320 Tamp it down aggressively, locally, nationally, et cetera.

00:47:13.320 Because if we tip that next wire

00:47:15.840 and we see suicide bombers, et cetera,

00:47:20.780 the escalation of things we saw in the battlefield

00:47:23.320 that we thought were unlikely,

00:47:25.580 then the levers you have to pull

00:47:28.000 get even more draconian.

00:47:29.920 And we don't want to see that.

00:47:30.740 The problem I'm perceiving here, though,

00:47:34.900 is that we have a kind of positive feedback loop,

00:47:37.800 otherwise known as a self-fulfilling prophecy,

00:47:41.660 which you could see in miniature

00:47:44.340 with something like the Branch Davidians

00:47:47.300 and the siege at Waco.

00:47:49.040 So you have a group of people

00:47:50.300 who are paranoid that the government

00:47:53.040 will one day come in and subjugate them

00:47:55.700 and, in particular, seize their guns.

00:47:59.840 And so they begin buying guns and ammo with abandon

00:48:03.200 so as to prepare for that eventuality.

00:48:06.340 And their very preparations put them

00:48:09.020 on the radar of the ATF and the FBI.

00:48:12.480 And so the feds do come knocking

00:48:15.200 out of concern that we have a crazy, radicalized cult

00:48:18.820 and a compound filled with children

00:48:21.080 arming itself.

00:48:23.120 And that very intrusion is viewed in,

00:48:28.720 is no surprise, in the most sinister way

00:48:30.800 as a perfect confirmation of prophecy.

00:48:33.900 And it's just, then it's spiraled out of control from there.

00:48:38.100 And so everything you're proving

00:48:40.060 that we have begun to do,

00:48:42.560 you know, kicking people off of social media

00:48:44.380 and trying to make it more difficult

00:48:47.000 for those platforms to be a medium of radicalization,

00:48:52.080 that is being viewed as not only an expression

00:48:56.540 of hostility to their cherished beliefs,

00:48:59.420 which it is,

00:49:00.460 but precisely the kind of Orwellian overreach

00:49:05.000 that their paranoia is the antidote for.

00:49:08.580 It's a confirmation of a worldview that we're seeing.

00:49:11.680 And it's so hard for people to parse this moment

00:49:15.260 that people who are miles away from this ideology,

00:49:21.200 but who just have, you know,

00:49:22.860 kind of basic, you know, libertarian attachments, right?

00:49:26.080 You know, Silicon Valley billionaires are worried

00:49:28.700 about the fact that Trump was kicked off Twitter,

00:49:31.620 setting a bad precedent for free speech, right?

00:49:33.880 That our free speech, you know,

00:49:36.080 the First Amendment has essentially been privatized,

00:49:38.500 given just the overwhelming importance

00:49:40.740 of having a digital town square where you can speak.

00:49:44.420 And if you start getting kicked off all the platforms,

00:49:47.100 what does it even mean to say

00:49:48.400 that we have a First Amendment?

00:49:49.500 So there literally are billionaires

00:49:52.020 who think we have already massively overreached

00:49:56.280 in kicking Trump off Twitter

00:49:58.480 and finding all the QAnon accounts

00:50:01.140 and closing those down as well.

00:50:03.300 And so it's, there's a war of ideas here

00:50:06.100 that has to be won.

00:50:07.200 And it's, I mean, we're still, you know,

00:50:09.780 cleaning up the crime scene at the Capitol.

00:50:12.160 And we're all, to my eye,

00:50:13.840 we're already losing this war of ideas.

00:50:16.200 Yes, Sam.

00:50:17.060 The reason this is so hard for security forces

00:50:21.060 or the government as we'll cause it

00:50:22.880 is because the aim of insurgents

00:50:25.720 or opposition or terrorist forces

00:50:27.680 is to get the government to overreact.

00:50:30.800 It's to get the government to come in

00:50:33.140 and do things that upset the population,

00:50:35.140 which then drives people toward the insurgents.

00:50:38.820 If we go back to April, 1775,

00:50:41.260 colonists gathered munitions west of Boston.

00:50:45.300 The British probably with an abundance of caution

00:50:49.000 wanted to go seize those munitions.

00:50:51.480 And of course it produced Lexington and Concord

00:50:53.540 with a lot of blood spilled

00:50:55.180 and a hardening of positions on both sides.

00:50:58.100 And it caused a tremendous number of people

00:51:00.420 to join the revolutionary cause.

00:51:03.020 You can't say that the British were completely wrong.

00:51:05.620 They were trying to prevent

00:51:06.920 the use of those munitions,

00:51:08.700 but their actions do that.

00:51:10.860 And this gets to the point of

00:51:12.780 what needs to be done now

00:51:14.780 has to be done with a very deft hand.

00:51:17.420 And that's what we found in Afghanistan and Iraq,

00:51:19.680 because many of the things you may do,

00:51:21.820 which makes sense from a very simplistic standpoint,

00:51:24.520 to go get the bad guy or blow this up

00:51:27.180 or to close this road,

00:51:28.820 actually make the disease work.

00:51:31.260 And so it's gotta be done

00:51:32.560 as part of a holistic campaign,

00:51:34.600 but you do have to stop the violence.

00:51:37.460 If you don't stop the violence,

00:51:39.380 the fire grows and it becomes uncontrollable.

00:51:43.240 So you've gotta simultaneously stop the violence,

00:51:46.000 but you've also gotta go after things

00:51:48.220 like the information sources.

00:51:49.840 You've gotta provide a counter narrative

00:51:51.960 that is in fact compelling.

00:51:54.280 You've gotta convince the average person

00:51:56.500 that it is in their interest

00:51:58.340 that peace and law and order be reestablished.

00:52:02.500 But it isn't easy.

00:52:03.860 There isn't a single solution that works here,

00:52:06.880 no silver bullet.

00:52:08.400 So let's again,

00:52:09.180 let's move from the Capitol outward.

00:52:11.920 What should be done on the basis of,

00:52:15.020 you know, now the hours of footage

00:52:16.980 we have of that crime?

00:52:19.500 Just how aggressively should people be prosecuted?

00:52:24.080 What's the scope for, you know,

00:52:26.340 forgiving more or less everyone

00:52:28.440 who wasn't, you know,

00:52:30.620 caught walking out with a lectern

00:52:32.560 or some other trophy

00:52:34.420 and saying,

00:52:35.600 okay, all of you seething multitudes,

00:52:37.920 get a mulligan here.

00:52:39.440 We're just going to prosecute,

00:52:41.420 you know, 75 people or whatever it is.

00:52:44.320 Just how would you deal

00:52:45.840 with the aftermath of that specific event?

00:52:48.020 Yeah, I think it has to be

00:52:51.900 aggressive across the board.

00:52:54.360 But I would expand my view on that to say,

00:52:57.040 as should video of rioting in Seattle

00:53:00.900 or pick your city.

00:53:02.380 Like if you, there are laws,

00:53:04.740 laws are laws.

00:53:05.760 And if you cross that,

00:53:06.720 you should be held accountable for it.

00:53:08.420 And so I don't isolate that just to the Capitol.

00:53:10.480 This is an extreme and front of mind case,

00:53:13.020 but that we need to send the message right now

00:53:17.360 that it won't be tolerated

00:53:20.020 regardless of political spectrum,

00:53:23.480 regardless of race, et cetera.

00:53:25.400 If you are willing to be in that extreme

00:53:27.580 action-oriented edge of the bell curve,

00:53:31.180 you will be held to account for it.

00:53:33.460 That is the foundation of a nation

00:53:35.480 based on law and order.

00:53:36.480 Well, then what do you do with the messaging

00:53:39.600 that really is the underlying cause

00:53:42.760 of that radicalization?

00:53:44.660 I mean, it seems to me inescapable

00:53:47.220 that the claim in defiance of every procedure

00:53:52.700 used to validate it,

00:53:55.360 that the election was a fraud,

00:53:57.780 that we've had that Trump won in a landslide.

00:54:00.520 And yet, by virtue of incentives

00:54:04.160 that simply do not exist,

00:54:06.060 we had largely Republican election officials

00:54:09.980 and secretaries of state

00:54:11.620 and governors and judges

00:54:13.600 collaborate with the Democrats

00:54:16.260 to steal this election for Biden.

00:54:19.460 And a Supreme Court,

00:54:21.080 the character of which has been largely determined

00:54:23.280 by Trump himself,

00:54:25.020 didn't help for their own diabolical reasons.

00:54:28.360 All of this is a vast conspiracy

00:54:30.400 and this messaging has come

00:54:33.840 from, you know, explicitly and implicitly

00:54:37.140 from literally hundreds of congressmen.

00:54:41.180 Some congressmen and women

00:54:42.820 whose own election was won

00:54:45.380 on the very ballots

00:54:46.780 they're claiming were fraudulent, right?

00:54:49.500 I mean, it's like this is,

00:54:50.800 it's a patently insane position

00:54:53.260 to be arguing from

00:54:54.280 if you're a member of Congress.

00:54:56.340 And yet we still have people like Ted Cruz

00:54:58.640 who have tied themselves

00:55:00.600 to the mast of this sinking ship

00:55:02.720 and seem to be content

00:55:05.340 to disappear beneath the waves

00:55:07.460 with their last words

00:55:09.200 being that this election was stolen, right?

00:55:11.360 So, like, clearly there's responsibility there.

00:55:14.580 What do we do in the face of that?

00:55:16.100 It's an interesting problem

00:55:18.680 because we've never really held people

00:55:21.180 to account for lying

00:55:22.760 unless it was under oath for a legal issue.

00:55:26.500 And we've certainly not prosecuted people

00:55:28.480 for stupidity

00:55:29.540 or the presidents would be even more full.

00:55:32.540 So this is a unique period

00:55:34.420 where I think we have got to hold people

00:55:37.140 to account for their responsibility

00:55:38.920 as elected officials.

00:55:41.320 You'd like the election electoral process to do that

00:55:44.780 but the nature of gerrymandering

00:55:46.280 and different areas

00:55:47.700 doesn't make that possible.

00:55:49.900 But I think that that may be

00:55:52.020 the most difficult task

00:55:53.560 we have to undertake here.

00:55:55.180 How do we make it absolutely unacceptable

00:55:58.020 to do something

00:55:59.760 that is so cravenly opportunistic

00:56:02.740 and incorrect

00:56:03.980 and let people get away with that?

00:56:06.920 But I want to pass it to Chris

00:56:08.000 because there's an interesting longer-term thought on this.

00:56:12.240 Yeah, I think education of the population,

00:56:16.400 I mean, that sounds sort of Pollyannish, right?

00:56:18.680 But it has to be a deliberate effort moving forward.

00:56:22.280 You're never going to debunk the,

00:56:24.360 you know, if I have a cosmic view,

00:56:27.200 return to the golden era,

00:56:29.560 I'm at that 1% left or right on the bell curve,

00:56:32.500 you're not going to change my mind, right?

00:56:34.400 I'm hardwired to think like that.

00:56:37.420 When I think about us

00:56:39.500 deepening our understanding of Al-Qaeda

00:56:41.560 as an extremist network

00:56:43.060 that was expanding very quickly,

00:56:45.040 there was the temptation out of the gates

00:56:46.880 to Stan's earlier point to say,

00:56:48.560 this is a brain aneurysm

00:56:50.540 and we need to cut it out.

00:56:51.660 And it took us a long time to recognize,

00:56:53.780 no, this is diabetes

00:56:55.360 and it's been going on for decades.

00:56:57.720 And we're just the latest chapter in the evolution.

00:57:00.840 And there is that golden era

00:57:03.160 extremist inside their network,

00:57:05.460 but it's much bigger than that, right?

00:57:07.320 And so we had to study and understand

00:57:09.860 so that we could de-radicalize folks

00:57:11.840 that had gotten pulled into that,

00:57:13.440 but have an appreciation for where it started from.

00:57:16.280 And so with Al-Qaeda,

00:57:18.640 you had to go all the way back to

00:57:20.140 the post-colonial era

00:57:22.200 and the rise of Pan-Arabism

00:57:24.180 and the failure of Pan-Arabism.

00:57:26.140 And under the very draconian rule

00:57:29.160 of Nasser in Egypt,

00:57:31.140 the radicalization of the Muslim Brotherhood

00:57:33.460 and Zalihiri, who goes on to be the thought leader

00:57:35.520 in Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden,

00:57:37.320 they fight the Soviets.

00:57:39.180 On the backside of that,

00:57:40.540 Al-Qaeda is created as a rational,

00:57:43.340 I would have disagreed with it,

00:57:44.440 but a rational argument saying,

00:57:46.200 we need a global army

00:57:48.620 that can defend Muslim populations

00:57:51.660 wherever they may be.

00:57:52.760 And then the Gulf War happens

00:57:54.380 and they're not invited to the fight.

00:57:55.760 The US is.

00:57:56.800 And now we're in Saudi Arabia.

00:57:58.460 And his cause becomes,

00:58:00.940 we need to get the far invader

00:58:02.820 out of the Holy Land.

00:58:04.300 It's a rational argument.

00:58:06.440 But somehow,

00:58:07.860 in a matter of then 10 or 15 years,

00:58:10.900 a series of events take place

00:58:12.500 and Al-Qaeda turns into a death cult, right?

00:58:15.480 Zarqawi and other young leaders come in

00:58:17.600 and say,

00:58:18.620 like what you've done here,

00:58:20.440 9-11 was a great way to demonstrate

00:58:22.780 to how many people we can kill

00:58:25.000 around the world for this cause.

00:58:26.780 And you know what I'm going to do?

00:58:28.520 I'm going to start a civil war in Iraq

00:58:30.180 between Sunni and Shia

00:58:31.540 using the most barbaric violence

00:58:35.060 we can come up with.

00:58:36.140 And I think it's going to attract

00:58:37.320 like-minded sociopaths to this fight.

00:58:39.560 But that was when we showed up

00:58:41.760 and we wanted to see

00:58:43.120 this acute group of psychopaths.

00:58:46.760 And it took me personally

00:58:47.980 a while to recognize,

00:58:48.940 wait a second,

00:58:49.920 they are the last chapter

00:58:52.000 in a 60-year history.

00:58:54.100 And so if we don't understand

00:58:55.100 and appreciate that,

00:58:55.820 how can we possibly

00:58:56.860 de-radicalize the fringe

00:58:58.920 of that hardcore inner cell?

00:59:01.840 And we have to take

00:59:02.940 the same approach here.

00:59:03.760 We have to go back

00:59:04.320 in our own history

00:59:05.120 and say,

00:59:05.880 look, this is,

00:59:06.780 there's a hundred,

00:59:08.000 two hundred years of history

00:59:08.960 as to why

00:59:09.640 this group is willing,

00:59:11.520 this, you know,

00:59:12.180 middle circle

00:59:13.140 is willing to show up

00:59:14.360 and actually be part

00:59:15.180 of the action.

00:59:16.220 How do we keep them

00:59:17.080 from getting radicalized

00:59:18.480 and becoming the next

00:59:19.900 real violent threat

00:59:21.400 who's willing to put

00:59:22.540 their own life on the line?

00:59:23.560 I'm wondering,

00:59:25.060 do you think there's

00:59:26.020 anything Trump

00:59:26.800 could say

00:59:27.900 that could close

00:59:29.220 Pandora's box here?

00:59:30.980 I mean,

00:59:31.180 I'm not suggesting

00:59:32.500 that there's any chance

00:59:33.340 he would say it,

00:59:34.160 but if he got a

00:59:34.920 proper firmware

00:59:36.460 update to his brain

00:59:38.080 and had a full

00:59:40.300 mea culpa here

00:59:41.500 where he said,

00:59:42.360 listen, guys,

00:59:43.000 you know,

00:59:43.200 I'm a reality TV show star

00:59:45.160 and I'm, you know,

00:59:45.800 a bit of a con man

00:59:46.680 and I've been lying

00:59:47.880 all my life

00:59:48.540 and I'm sorry to say

00:59:49.440 I've been lying

00:59:50.360 about election fraud too.

00:59:52.320 And there really is,

00:59:53.120 you know,

00:59:53.420 there's every sign

00:59:54.600 that Joe Biden

00:59:55.220 really did win.

00:59:56.080 I mean,

00:59:56.200 I got the second most votes

00:59:57.840 in American history.

00:59:58.740 There's no doubt about that.

00:59:59.640 I am great,

01:00:00.300 but the truth is

01:00:01.480 I've just,

01:00:02.020 I fought long and hard

01:00:03.720 for this

01:00:04.240 and I probably fought

01:00:05.260 a little too long

01:00:06.120 and I wish Joe Biden well

01:00:08.080 and all of this QAnon stuff.

01:00:10.200 I'm not the guy

01:00:10.880 who's going to save you

01:00:12.360 from the pedophile cannibals

01:00:14.520 because as far as I know,

01:00:15.680 there are no pedophile cannibals

01:00:17.020 and I'm just going to go

01:00:18.100 play golf

01:00:18.800 and I'm sorry

01:00:19.480 I made such a mess here

01:00:20.900 at the end.

01:00:21.760 Some four-hour version of that

01:00:24.080 with appropriate weeping

01:00:26.100 and, you know,

01:00:27.160 the prospect

01:00:27.800 that he might commit seppuku

01:00:29.860 at some point along the way,

01:00:31.940 would that do any good

01:00:33.140 or would that all

01:00:34.100 just be wrapped up

01:00:36.080 in yet another layer

01:00:37.020 of conspiracy

01:00:37.740 where obviously

01:00:38.920 the lizard people

01:00:39.880 got to our dear president

01:00:41.380 and now we have to fight

01:00:42.380 all the harder?

01:00:43.320 Sam,

01:00:43.880 I have a feeling

01:00:44.340 you must have been

01:00:44.920 drinking early today

01:00:45.920 to even entertain that thought.

01:00:48.480 Here's what I think.

01:00:49.540 I don't think

01:00:50.020 it would make

01:00:50.460 one bit of difference.

01:00:52.520 I think Donald Trump

01:00:53.680 is an obese

01:00:55.480 New York developer

01:00:57.000 with funny hair

01:00:58.000 who has become a symbol.

01:00:59.880 I don't think

01:01:00.360 he's ever led

01:01:01.400 this group.

01:01:02.700 He got out

01:01:03.580 with a tuning fork

01:01:04.700 and he found out

01:01:05.880 that it resonated

01:01:06.960 with the existing

01:01:09.080 frustration

01:01:09.800 and fear

01:01:10.200 in this group

01:01:10.740 and so he became

01:01:11.880 a symbolic leader

01:01:12.960 for them

01:01:13.440 and he was convenient

01:01:14.620 for them.

01:01:15.120 In some ways

01:01:15.780 they helped him.

01:01:17.000 They were

01:01:17.600 something that gave him

01:01:19.700 a base that

01:01:20.620 caused other Republicans

01:01:22.340 to fall in line

01:01:23.340 but he was also

01:01:24.620 very much useful

01:01:25.800 to this group

01:01:26.860 because now

01:01:28.300 you had a persona

01:01:29.480 that was relatively

01:01:30.460 legitimate

01:01:31.040 as the position

01:01:32.000 of the president

01:01:32.880 of the United States

01:01:33.600 would be

01:01:34.080 who was saying things

01:01:35.880 that added legitimacy

01:01:37.440 to this radical movement.

01:01:39.980 I think at this point

01:01:41.060 were he to come out

01:01:42.100 and give a discussion

01:01:43.360 I think they would

01:01:44.520 simply say that

01:01:45.700 aliens have come down

01:01:47.600 and they've taken

01:01:48.220 the beloved leader

01:01:49.100 and he's no longer

01:01:50.340 himself

01:01:50.780 and what we've

01:01:52.760 got to hold true

01:01:53.520 is to the ideas

01:01:54.960 and they would

01:01:56.680 continue to go

01:01:57.500 their own way.

01:01:58.740 If he genuinely

01:01:59.660 tried to change

01:02:01.320 the direction

01:02:01.880 of this movement

01:02:02.580 now I don't think

01:02:03.600 he'd have any effect

01:02:04.580 on it.

01:02:06.300 And you know

01:02:06.920 Sam

01:02:07.660 we saw something

01:02:08.900 similar

01:02:09.420 in the relationship

01:02:11.100 between

01:02:11.800 Bin Laden

01:02:13.220 and Zarqawi

01:02:14.720 the first real

01:02:15.540 violent actor

01:02:16.520 in Al Qaeda

01:02:17.580 in Iraq

01:02:18.020 who was able

01:02:18.480 to drive the movement

01:02:19.300 and you know

01:02:21.080 you would think

01:02:21.600 Zarqawi would have been

01:02:22.800 you know

01:02:23.360 you're the great leader

01:02:24.040 what should I do next

01:02:25.020 and as we were

01:02:26.460 just discussing

01:02:27.000 he went down

01:02:27.500 a different path

01:02:28.180 we saw the correspondence

01:02:29.940 back and forth

01:02:30.960 and Bin Laden

01:02:32.060 tried to do that

01:02:33.760 and it was

01:02:34.420 the sorcerer's apprentice

01:02:35.380 you know

01:02:35.800 the buckets are

01:02:36.960 running around now

01:02:37.680 and you can't control it

01:02:38.640 and Zarqawi's response

01:02:39.760 to Bin Laden

01:02:40.720 when Bin Laden

01:02:41.840 was sitting

01:02:42.260 in his home office

01:02:43.020 in Abbottabad

01:02:43.600 saying

01:02:44.100 hey

01:02:44.620 you're cutting heads off

01:02:46.660 you're burning people

01:02:47.500 in pits

01:02:47.980 this is not

01:02:48.700 the intent

01:02:49.180 of the movement

01:02:49.680 we are here

01:02:50.400 to fight the far enemy

01:02:51.920 that's over there

01:02:52.820 in the United States

01:02:53.480 that was a point

01:02:54.140 of 9-11

01:02:54.720 and Zarqawi's response

01:02:56.560 was essentially

01:02:57.200 come say that

01:02:58.420 to my face

01:02:59.000 we are the new generation

01:03:00.560 we own this

01:03:01.700 and you're no longer

01:03:02.820 relevant to what's

01:03:03.480 happening on the battlefield

01:03:04.240 what about

01:03:06.200 the relevance

01:03:07.360 of what could happen

01:03:08.380 to Trump

01:03:09.300 right

01:03:09.820 I mean like

01:03:10.160 what do you think

01:03:10.960 should happen

01:03:11.820 and what do you hope

01:03:13.420 would happen

01:03:13.960 in terms of just

01:03:14.480 the optics of

01:03:15.500 you know

01:03:16.740 the kind of unraveling

01:03:17.780 of his presidency

01:03:18.540 or just how

01:03:19.300 how we move forward

01:03:21.060 I mean he's been impeached

01:03:22.420 at the time

01:03:23.360 we're recording this

01:03:24.080 but there has not yet been

01:03:25.380 a schedule

01:03:26.780 of a trial

01:03:28.580 in the

01:03:29.000 in the Senate

01:03:29.660 it's almost certainly

01:03:30.800 not going to happen

01:03:31.540 before the inauguration

01:03:32.780 but you know

01:03:33.460 whether there will be one

01:03:34.720 has not been announced

01:03:35.440 is there any

01:03:37.180 emphatic

01:03:38.240 and ignominious

01:03:39.540 closure

01:03:40.300 to his presidency

01:03:41.880 that could make

01:03:43.300 this whole

01:03:44.360 collection of ideas

01:03:46.880 less attractive

01:03:48.960 to people

01:03:49.960 or is

01:03:50.580 do you think

01:03:51.280 it's

01:03:52.160 uncoupled

01:03:53.100 from anything

01:03:54.080 that's going to happen

01:03:54.700 in that space as well

01:03:55.700 yes Sam

01:03:56.740 I think the answer

01:03:57.520 is on two different levels

01:03:59.240 on the level

01:04:00.320 of the groups

01:04:01.460 that have been radicalized

01:04:02.900 Trump has already

01:04:04.160 been martyred

01:04:04.900 Trump is now

01:04:06.580 somebody who's had

01:04:07.660 the job stolen from him

01:04:09.440 so he serves

01:04:10.360 their purpose now

01:04:11.400 almost as though

01:04:12.640 he no longer is alive

01:04:13.940 and so

01:04:15.000 he is going to become

01:04:15.880 this symbol

01:04:16.420 and this idea

01:04:17.140 I do think

01:04:18.700 however

01:04:19.060 holding him to account

01:04:20.460 while it will give

01:04:22.060 a little bit of fodder

01:04:23.040 to those groups

01:04:23.740 is very important

01:04:25.020 for the other opportunist

01:04:26.400 politicians

01:04:27.560 I think

01:04:28.600 what we've got to do

01:04:29.640 is make it

01:04:30.220 very clear

01:04:31.120 that his kind

01:04:32.060 of behavior

01:04:32.660 the dishonesty

01:04:34.040 that we've seen

01:04:35.000 the leveraging

01:04:35.900 of radical ideas

01:04:37.640 and whatnot

01:04:38.100 for his own purposes

01:04:39.680 doesn't pay

01:04:41.020 and so I think

01:04:42.440 there's a generation

01:04:43.620 of existing

01:04:44.520 and up-and-coming

01:04:45.680 political leaders

01:04:47.180 who need that lesson

01:04:48.880 and they need to see

01:04:50.060 it very clearly

01:04:50.700 Do you guys have a sense

01:04:52.360 of how the military

01:04:54.000 in aggregate

01:04:55.140 views this situation?

01:04:57.080 I mean traditionally

01:04:57.660 I have assumed

01:04:59.780 I'm sure there's

01:05:00.520 polling on this

01:05:01.320 that the military

01:05:02.000 has skewed

01:05:02.740 Republican

01:05:03.740 and has been

01:05:06.400 I'm sure it was

01:05:07.580 sympathetic

01:05:08.000 to Trump

01:05:09.020 up until a certain point

01:05:10.980 and I'm just wondering

01:05:11.740 if

01:05:11.960 where you think

01:05:13.400 we are

01:05:13.880 with respect

01:05:14.380 to the perception

01:05:15.360 of the military

01:05:16.220 around what

01:05:17.560 has been happening

01:05:18.240 So based on my own

01:05:20.100 experiences

01:05:20.780 in the service

01:05:21.580 there inevitably

01:05:23.400 there's going to be

01:05:24.360 reports about

01:05:25.240 you know

01:05:25.660 this army sergeant

01:05:28.000 this special operator

01:05:29.900 etc.

01:05:30.780 with a QAnon account

01:05:32.600 or who was in the mix

01:05:34.280 in the capital

01:05:34.900 protest

01:05:36.080 just the law of averages

01:05:37.920 tell us that'll happen

01:05:38.860 but it's important

01:05:39.700 to remember

01:05:40.160 a few things

01:05:40.960 that our military

01:05:42.140 as it stands

01:05:42.780 which makes it unique

01:05:43.600 around the world

01:05:44.220 is a cross-section

01:05:45.580 of our society

01:05:46.600 right

01:05:46.980 so you have

01:05:47.340 a cross-section

01:05:48.080 of opinions

01:05:48.620 it skews

01:05:49.160 conservative

01:05:50.180 historically

01:05:51.400 that's where

01:05:52.200 a lot of the support

01:05:52.860 for the military

01:05:53.400 comes from

01:05:54.080 and the economic

01:05:55.540 support for

01:05:56.260 growth in the military

01:05:57.200 so a lot of that

01:05:58.180 is understandable

01:05:59.060 but I don't think

01:06:00.560 we should get distracted

01:06:01.300 when those stories

01:06:02.000 come up

01:06:02.420 that says

01:06:02.780 that's what

01:06:03.520 the military

01:06:04.080 thinks

01:06:04.700 I get those

01:06:05.820 questions all the time

01:06:06.560 as does Tam

01:06:07.020 what does the military

01:06:08.160 think about that decision

01:06:09.380 like well

01:06:09.840 I don't know

01:06:10.780 the military

01:06:11.380 isn't a person

01:06:12.500 the military

01:06:13.000 is a range

01:06:13.680 of people

01:06:14.660 so you'd have to ask

01:06:15.900 a lot of them

01:06:16.660 to get a sense

01:06:17.260 just like you would

01:06:18.000 in the general population

01:06:19.680 I think

01:06:20.500 the amazing

01:06:21.720 thing

01:06:22.600 about the US

01:06:23.660 military

01:06:24.280 is

01:06:25.440 and the most

01:06:26.920 beautiful thing

01:06:27.660 about it

01:06:28.040 is that it doesn't

01:06:28.840 have a collective

01:06:29.640 opinion

01:06:30.080 it will

01:06:30.800 do what it is

01:06:32.160 asked to do

01:06:32.880 and its leaders

01:06:33.580 will come back

01:06:34.240 and you know

01:06:34.600 if we're talking

01:06:35.080 about just normal

01:06:35.880 international affairs

01:06:37.360 and say

01:06:37.760 here's the risk

01:06:38.380 calculus on that

01:06:39.280 here's the range

01:06:40.480 of your options

01:06:41.600 here's what it

01:06:42.280 will cost

01:06:42.880 here's how long

01:06:43.340 it will take

01:06:43.860 does this meet

01:06:45.120 the intended

01:06:46.320 end state

01:06:46.840 of our

01:06:47.340 civilian

01:06:48.000 elected officials

01:06:48.880 I learned

01:06:50.280 the most

01:06:50.880 about the

01:06:51.380 relationship

01:06:51.880 and that

01:06:52.520 the respect

01:06:53.940 for civilian

01:06:54.660 authority

01:06:55.140 that the military

01:06:56.100 needs to have

01:06:57.660 from the senior

01:06:59.020 military leaders

01:06:59.620 I worked for

01:07:00.840 when I was in the

01:07:01.380 service

01:07:01.700 it takes you a while

01:07:03.140 to get senior

01:07:03.600 enough to understand

01:07:04.160 there's a relationship

01:07:05.020 between four star

01:07:07.320 generals and admirals

01:07:08.460 and civilian

01:07:09.900 elected officials

01:07:11.240 even though that

01:07:11.980 elected official

01:07:12.940 might be you know

01:07:14.180 33 years old

01:07:15.360 there's a demeanor

01:07:16.180 to differentiation

01:07:17.540 to the civilian

01:07:19.580 side of the

01:07:20.480 constitution

01:07:21.000 and the military

01:07:21.720 will be the first

01:07:22.400 to stand up

01:07:22.860 and say

01:07:23.140 that's that's

01:07:24.300 the absolute

01:07:24.720 point

01:07:25.140 so it is

01:07:25.620 at its best

01:07:26.980 and collectively

01:07:27.620 very unbiased

01:07:28.520 in that view

01:07:29.480 and so I think

01:07:31.220 the biggest risk

01:07:31.840 is we'll get

01:07:32.300 distracted by

01:07:33.260 the story of

01:07:34.400 the former

01:07:34.780 special operator

01:07:35.480 that was somewhere

01:07:36.120 in the mix

01:07:36.760 and take that

01:07:37.580 as representative

01:07:38.240 of the

01:07:38.940 the broad military

01:07:39.840 in recent days

01:07:41.720 there's been

01:07:42.820 obvious concern

01:07:44.100 around what

01:07:44.760 Trump may yet

01:07:45.980 do in his

01:07:47.860 remaining days

01:07:48.460 in office

01:07:49.040 and I think

01:07:51.520 it's been reported

01:07:52.520 that there was a

01:07:53.320 a phone call

01:07:54.300 from Nancy Pelosi

01:07:55.200 to someone

01:07:55.940 in the Pentagon

01:07:56.500 trying to seek out

01:07:57.800 some assurance

01:07:58.320 that the nuclear

01:07:59.660 football is not

01:08:00.740 quite as available

01:08:01.700 to Trump

01:08:02.580 as it might have

01:08:03.600 been during the

01:08:04.440 rest of his time

01:08:05.040 as president

01:08:05.520 I wonder

01:08:06.920 this is the

01:08:08.280 the moment

01:08:09.560 that we ran

01:08:10.560 into at the

01:08:10.980 end of

01:08:11.440 the Nixon

01:08:12.360 administration

01:08:13.380 when you know

01:08:14.640 he was drinking

01:08:15.200 a lot

01:08:15.660 and I forget

01:08:17.160 who it was

01:08:17.680 it might have

01:08:18.220 been his

01:08:18.460 secretary of state

01:08:19.200 someone said

01:08:20.640 if you get

01:08:21.240 any calls

01:08:21.780 from the

01:08:22.300 president

01:08:22.640 in the middle

01:08:23.280 of the night

01:08:23.620 about initiating

01:08:24.720 a nuclear

01:08:25.140 first strike

01:08:25.760 on anyone

01:08:26.300 come to me

01:08:27.480 first

01:08:27.900 right

01:08:28.200 and I'm

01:08:29.840 wondering

01:08:30.020 what you

01:08:30.380 think

01:08:30.920 the posture

01:08:32.440 is of

01:08:33.760 the military

01:08:35.060 in this last

01:08:36.600 week of

01:08:37.180 Trump's term

01:08:38.600 with respect

01:08:39.640 to any

01:08:40.320 orders

01:08:41.640 that might

01:08:42.700 come

01:08:43.180 from the

01:08:44.000 White House

01:08:44.860 to engage

01:08:45.740 anything of

01:08:46.640 substance

01:08:47.260 militarily

01:08:48.100 I would say

01:08:50.260 Sam that

01:08:50.940 they are

01:08:51.740 thoughtful

01:08:52.260 I would say

01:08:54.060 they are

01:08:54.400 always thoughtful

01:08:55.320 you know

01:08:56.600 whenever you're

01:08:57.220 going to use

01:08:58.120 military power

01:08:59.000 if it was

01:08:59.440 something as

01:09:00.200 extreme as

01:09:01.120 launching nuclear

01:09:01.960 weapons

01:09:02.440 they're going

01:09:02.960 to be

01:09:03.600 extraordinarily

01:09:04.320 careful as

01:09:05.300 they always

01:09:05.960 are

01:09:06.300 I think

01:09:07.620 that the

01:09:08.020 conversation

01:09:08.620 between

01:09:09.160 the Speaker

01:09:10.340 of the House

01:09:10.820 and the

01:09:11.500 Chairman of

01:09:11.860 the Joint

01:09:12.200 Chiefs

01:09:12.760 was no

01:09:14.740 doubt

01:09:15.040 substantive

01:09:15.640 but it

01:09:16.100 was also

01:09:16.840 made public

01:09:18.020 and I think

01:09:19.060 it was made

01:09:19.500 public for a

01:09:20.260 reason that

01:09:20.720 people wanted

01:09:21.300 to know

01:09:21.800 that that

01:09:22.220 conversation

01:09:22.860 had occurred

01:09:23.380 and so

01:09:24.600 I think

01:09:25.160 that there

01:09:26.320 is a

01:09:26.900 always a

01:09:28.500 concern

01:09:29.040 for a

01:09:30.240 decision

01:09:30.620 which might

01:09:31.140 be made

01:09:31.560 in haste

01:09:32.080 or in

01:09:32.380 anger

01:09:32.720 by any

01:09:33.180 leader

01:09:33.460 but I

01:09:34.440 think

01:09:34.680 that

01:09:34.980 now

01:09:35.780 we are

01:09:36.720 close

01:09:37.220 enough

01:09:37.600 to the

01:09:38.560 end of

01:09:38.860 President

01:09:39.160 Trump's

01:09:39.780 administration

01:09:40.440 that

01:09:42.040 people

01:09:43.380 are more

01:09:44.200 thoughtful

01:09:44.540 than ever

01:09:45.060 and so

01:09:46.360 maybe not

01:09:47.000 Donald Trump

01:09:47.860 but certainly

01:09:48.520 the people

01:09:48.940 around him

01:09:49.640 are more

01:09:50.100 thoughtful

01:09:50.360 than ever

01:09:50.800 so I

01:09:52.020 don't think

01:09:52.800 the danger

01:09:53.500 of that

01:09:54.120 is one

01:09:55.440 of the

01:09:55.660 higher

01:09:55.940 risks

01:09:56.340 right now

01:09:56.840 so if

01:09:58.440 you guys

01:09:58.780 were advising

01:09:59.460 the Biden

01:10:00.960 administration

01:10:01.620 what should

01:10:03.320 their priorities

01:10:04.140 be in the

01:10:05.660 first hundred

01:10:06.120 days given

01:10:07.060 what's happened

01:10:07.720 let's assume

01:10:08.340 the inauguration

01:10:09.060 comes off

01:10:09.960 without a

01:10:10.720 hitch and

01:10:11.780 obviously

01:10:13.300 you know

01:10:14.020 he's got

01:10:14.860 massive

01:10:15.960 challenges

01:10:16.580 responding to

01:10:18.180 COVID

01:10:18.480 responding to

01:10:19.200 the economic

01:10:19.960 unraveling

01:10:21.060 born of

01:10:21.580 COVID

01:10:21.940 dealing with

01:10:23.660 an increasingly

01:10:24.980 aggressive

01:10:25.620 China

01:10:26.300 restoring

01:10:27.480 our

01:10:28.000 stature

01:10:28.720 in the

01:10:28.960 world

01:10:29.220 with respect

01:10:29.780 to

01:10:30.180 foreign

01:10:30.660 policy

01:10:31.080 generally

01:10:31.540 he's got

01:10:32.480 a lot

01:10:32.660 to do

01:10:33.100 but he

01:10:33.500 but it

01:10:34.060 seems to

01:10:34.640 me that

01:10:35.000 there's

01:10:35.620 some

01:10:36.060 post-mortem

01:10:37.440 on

01:10:38.000 this great

01:10:39.260 unraveling

01:10:39.840 we've

01:10:40.060 experienced

01:10:40.560 in recent

01:10:41.160 months

01:10:41.540 you know

01:10:41.900 around the

01:10:42.260 election

01:10:42.680 fraud

01:10:43.120 and just

01:10:43.740 having

01:10:43.960 half of

01:10:44.460 a society

01:10:45.240 believe

01:10:46.340 that their

01:10:47.280 government

01:10:47.660 has been

01:10:48.000 stolen from

01:10:48.540 them

01:10:48.720 this requires

01:10:50.340 some

01:10:50.600 tending to

01:10:51.160 what do

01:10:51.440 you

01:10:51.540 what would

01:10:51.960 you advise

01:10:52.560 Sam

01:10:54.420 I'll

01:10:54.900 I'll

01:10:55.700 beat the

01:10:56.060 drum

01:10:56.340 that I've

01:10:56.920 been beating

01:10:57.540 for nearly

01:10:58.300 20 years

01:10:59.000 now

01:10:59.300 which I

01:10:59.980 watched

01:11:00.380 happen in

01:11:01.120 in the

01:11:02.440 counterterrorism

01:11:03.480 community

01:11:03.940 really under

01:11:04.900 McChrystal's

01:11:05.960 leadership and

01:11:06.560 then generations

01:11:07.240 beyond now

01:11:07.840 I worked

01:11:09.100 underneath a

01:11:09.820 generation of

01:11:10.380 leaders who

01:11:11.040 were willing

01:11:11.640 they came into

01:11:12.720 a fight

01:11:13.240 when it

01:11:14.520 literally looked

01:11:15.360 like sort of

01:11:16.000 all is lost

01:11:16.740 right

01:11:17.160 we're not

01:11:18.300 going to be

01:11:18.540 able to

01:11:18.780 beat Al

01:11:19.100 Qaeda

01:11:19.300 just overwhelming

01:11:20.880 odds and

01:11:22.040 looking at

01:11:23.980 the brink

01:11:24.460 for the

01:11:25.100 force

01:11:25.420 right

01:11:25.660 and we're

01:11:26.460 in a

01:11:26.680 similar

01:11:26.900 state

01:11:27.240 right now

01:11:27.860 if I was

01:11:28.400 in that

01:11:28.680 incoming

01:11:29.000 administration

01:11:29.500 you know

01:11:29.960 things look

01:11:30.460 pretty bleak

01:11:31.040 every direction

01:11:31.740 you you

01:11:32.720 observe

01:11:33.040 and so

01:11:34.060 there was a

01:11:36.000 recognition at

01:11:36.720 that time in

01:11:37.160 the military

01:11:37.620 we need to

01:11:38.600 start doing

01:11:39.240 things

01:11:39.660 differently

01:11:40.580 we need to

01:11:41.340 communicate

01:11:41.860 in a

01:11:42.560 completely

01:11:42.880 different

01:11:43.120 fashion

01:11:43.540 with

01:11:44.260 honesty

01:11:44.700 with

01:11:44.920 transparency

01:11:45.380 don't

01:11:45.880 show me

01:11:46.240 what the

01:11:46.600 org chart

01:11:46.980 looks like

01:11:47.440 don't show

01:11:47.980 me

01:11:48.200 case studies

01:11:49.320 of how we

01:11:49.700 did it in

01:11:49.960 the 90s

01:11:50.460 we're going

01:11:50.780 to rebuild

01:11:51.220 this thing

01:11:51.680 on the

01:11:52.440 fly

01:11:52.800 because we're

01:11:53.700 losing

01:11:54.040 because we

01:11:54.760 are in a

01:11:55.120 lot of

01:11:55.420 trouble

01:11:55.680 and I

01:11:56.520 watched

01:11:57.040 McChrystal

01:11:57.580 and the

01:11:57.920 others put

01:11:58.320 themselves at

01:11:58.880 the center

01:11:59.380 of that

01:11:59.880 and communicate

01:12:00.920 with forces

01:12:02.360 civilians

01:12:03.280 host nation

01:12:04.560 allies all

01:12:05.300 around the

01:12:05.680 world on a

01:12:06.320 24-7 cycle

01:12:07.540 for years

01:12:08.460 on end

01:12:08.880 now I

01:12:10.220 wouldn't

01:12:10.560 put the

01:12:11.400 president in

01:12:12.060 that but

01:12:12.600 his team

01:12:13.380 needs to

01:12:14.220 start thinking

01:12:14.780 like that

01:12:15.360 who are the

01:12:16.160 people that

01:12:16.480 need to be

01:12:16.760 at the

01:12:17.100 table and

01:12:18.040 how do we

01:12:18.460 get honest

01:12:19.200 information

01:12:19.740 into that

01:12:20.980 mix so

01:12:21.700 that we're

01:12:22.000 all having

01:12:22.780 a dialogue

01:12:23.260 about how

01:12:23.840 we solve

01:12:24.240 these problems

01:12:24.920 what the

01:12:25.800 president can

01:12:26.380 do is

01:12:27.280 enter into

01:12:28.460 that mix

01:12:29.020 and reintroduce

01:12:30.480 ideas of

01:12:31.480 honesty and

01:12:32.260 competency and

01:12:33.620 fundamentals of

01:12:34.560 what it means to

01:12:35.140 be a servant

01:12:35.660 leader that's a

01:12:36.960 process plus a

01:12:38.620 cultural change

01:12:39.540 that was critical

01:12:40.500 for us and

01:12:41.080 it I think it's

01:12:41.980 absolutely what

01:12:43.300 is needed right

01:12:43.920 now a focused

01:12:45.720 interagency

01:12:47.520 whole of

01:12:48.360 government

01:12:48.740 effort that

01:12:51.020 breaks a lot

01:12:52.340 of rules

01:12:52.720 don't tell me

01:12:53.420 you can't

01:12:53.780 share in that

01:12:54.200 information

01:12:54.600 don't tell me

01:12:55.220 you work for

01:12:55.600 that person

01:12:56.000 we are all

01:12:57.200 Americans right

01:12:57.820 now and we

01:12:58.320 need to lean

01:12:58.840 into that

01:12:59.380 and the

01:12:59.860 president can

01:13:00.400 set the

01:13:00.720 tone

01:13:00.980 it's nothing

01:13:02.500 if not

01:13:02.840 interesting

01:13:03.240 there's a lot

01:13:04.480 of blue sky

01:13:05.100 if you want

01:13:05.680 to reinvent

01:13:06.500 civilization

01:13:07.660 at this

01:13:08.200 point and

01:13:09.020 we'll get to

01:13:10.160 a place where

01:13:11.160 we're doing

01:13:12.180 things differently

01:13:13.640 and better

01:13:14.380 and cutting

01:13:15.180 through just

01:13:16.300 bad assumptions

01:13:16.980 that have

01:13:17.520 led us to

01:13:18.500 the place

01:13:18.900 we're digging

01:13:19.600 out from

01:13:20.080 so I

01:13:20.460 I'm certainly

01:13:21.760 no one has

01:13:22.380 ever accused

01:13:22.880 me of being

01:13:23.200 an optimist

01:13:23.780 but you know

01:13:25.040 I have my

01:13:25.360 moments

01:13:25.760 but it will

01:13:26.860 be quite a

01:13:28.240 relief to get

01:13:29.020 to the other

01:13:29.400 side of the

01:13:30.640 Trump administration

01:13:31.260 and see

01:13:33.300 something like

01:13:34.380 a resurgence

01:13:35.240 of competence

01:13:36.420 and professionalism

01:13:37.680 and civility

01:13:38.480 and you know

01:13:39.120 all of the

01:13:39.560 qualities you

01:13:40.940 just enumerated

01:13:42.340 Chris

01:13:42.720 it's

01:13:43.060 I just want

01:13:44.800 to thank you

01:13:45.160 both for taking

01:13:45.780 the time to

01:13:46.500 help educate

01:13:47.280 me and my

01:13:47.760 audience on

01:13:48.580 the kinds of

01:13:48.940 things we

01:13:49.220 should be

01:13:49.460 thinking about

01:13:49.980 and looking

01:13:51.020 for going

01:13:51.620 forward

01:13:51.940 absolutely our

01:13:53.440 pleasure Sam

01:13:54.080 thanks for

01:13:54.420 having us

01:13:54.880 yeah great

01:13:55.620 discussion Sam

01:13:56.300 thanks and

01:13:56.800 thanks for

01:13:57.480 trying to get

01:13:58.340 the message

01:13:58.700 out there a bit

01:13:59.240 you

01:14:07.700 your

01:14:08.560 you

01:14:08.580 you

01:14:09.960 you

01:14:10.600 you

01:14:11.160 you

01:14:12.620 you

01:14:14.140 You

Making Sense - Sam Harris - January 17, 2021

#231 — Crossing the Abyss

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