In this episode, I sit down with a man who has worked in the federal government for decades, and who understands the relationship between the Constitution, the statutes that govern how Congress does or doesn t limit executive authority, and the people who are hired to safeguard them. His name is Vivek Chakraborty, and he s been a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for over 30 years. He s been in multiple Republican administrations, and served in senior roles in the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and Justice Department. He understands both sides of the argument, because he understands both the Constitution and the laws that govern executive authority. And he understands that the best way to solve a problem is not through incremental reform, but through a quantum leap of reform. And that's why he thinks the US military should be used to protect Americans on American soil, even from a foreign threat, like the Mexican drug cartels, who we share a border with whom we have a shared a border. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about why this is a good idea, and why it s not only good policy, but also why it should be done in a more effective way than what we ve been doing in the past and what we should do in the future. I hope you ll join me in this conversation, and that you ll agree with me that it s better than what I ve been able to do in this podcast, because it s time to get serious about protecting Americans here in the United States, not just in Washington, but across the border, and across the country. Thank you for listening to the podcast! -Vivek and I appreciate your support. -Jon Taffer, and I m looking forward to working with you, and talking about it, and coming back to you, in person and in podcasting, and on social media, and in the podcast and on the ground, and we ll do it in 2020, in 2020. I hope that we can do it again. -Jon and I can't wait to do it better next year. -VIVEK CHEERS, Jon TAYLOR, and Jon Taffer. -- Jon -- -Jon, and his book, and much more! -- Tom, and -- and much, much more. Jon, -- in the next episode, coming soon, Tom, Jon, and Vinny, and a lot more -- Jon
Transcript
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00:00:02.000So much of what I've pledged to do as U.S. president is, to say the least, amongst people who have actually worked in the federal government, quite controversial.
00:00:41.000to protect our own border and to potentially go the further step of using it to even annihilate the Mexican drug cartels and thereby solve a fentanyl crisis that's responsible for 100,000 deaths of Americans here on American soil.
00:00:57.000Now, to most Americans across the country, including in places where I've traveled, Iowa, New Hampshire, my home state in Ohio and elsewhere, this is an intuitive idea.
00:01:05.000The idea that you would use the US military to protect Americans on American soil, even from a foreign threat, even to a neighbor or especially to a neighbor with whom we share a border.
00:01:17.000But it turns out that in the national security establishment, that is actually the very reason why it is unthinkable to use the US military in that context.
00:01:27.000Another pledge I've made is that the way to reform the national security establishment and the police state at home starts with, for example, shutting down an institution like the FBI, just closing the keys, saying that that agency ceases to exist, but to create a new one to take its place.
00:01:45.000Obviously, we do need a federal law enforcement function.
00:01:47.000But when the police arm of that function becomes so rotten, so politicized, so corrupt, as it has not only in recent years, but actually for this institution, in a way that dates back decades, the right way to solve that problem isn't through incremental reform, but through a quantum leap of reform, the right way to solve that problem isn't through incremental reform, but through a quantum leap of Again, as you might imagine, this is a controversial idea, not just within the national security establishment.
00:02:14.000But in the minds of anyone who works in the federal government, and the things I'll hear is that you legally can't take these steps, that you're constitutionally or statutorily prohibited from shutting down the FBI because of, you know, let's go down the list, civil service protections, impoundment prevention, boring stuff, but real stuff that relates to statutory provisions that Congress has passed, despite the fact the Constitution says, Article 2 says that the U.S. President runs the executive branch of the government.
00:02:40.000On the military side, they'll say, no, no, no, protecting the border is a...
00:02:43.000A law enforcement function, not a military function.
00:02:46.000Solving the drug crisis is a law enforcement function, not a military function.
00:02:52.000Most Americans across the country understand, I believe, these constitutional principles more deeply than even the people who are hired to safeguard them.
00:03:05.000Having the guest I have on the podcast today is he's somebody who understands both sides here, because he has worked in the US federal government under multiple Republican administrations and senior roles, somebody who understands the relationship between the Constitution, the statutes that govern how Congress does or doesn't limit executive authority.
00:03:26.000And we're going to roll up our sleeves and get into the meat of that today because I think it's a pretty special opportunity that I've been looking forward to, to sit down with somebody who I've spoken to many times over Zoom and on the phone over the last year, but somebody who I'm sitting down with for the first time in person.
00:04:02.000And then even if we hadn't connected through that, I know you found me.
00:04:05.000I would have found you after having read that Wall Street Journal op-ed that you more recently published.
00:04:13.000I'm using the US military to solve the Mexican drug cartel problem, which stood out to me.
00:04:19.000But before we get into the specifics and the meat of those issues, maybe we could start with the Mexican drug cartel issue as an example.
00:04:26.000Who makes the call on whether or not it is a legally permissible use of, say, the U.S. military to actually solve a problem that the U.S. military previously hasn't solved, like protecting the border, the U.S. military to actually solve a problem that the U.S. military previously hasn't solved, like protecting We'll get to the merits of that in a second.
00:04:49.000But the thing I'm interested in is, look, I'm looking to occupy the White House as the U.S. President in January 2025. Let's say that's a mandate I set into motion.
00:04:58.000Someone from the Joint Chiefs or from the military, you know, more broadly says, no, no, no, Mr. President, that's not something that we can do.
00:05:11.000It's the President's call as to what tools to use in dealing with an external threat.
00:05:18.000A lot of the confusion today, and it's a confusion that exists in Western countries and unfortunately in the United States, is the confusion between law enforcement and national security.
00:05:30.000Law enforcement, the constitution essentially gives two powers to the federal government.
00:05:36.000One is to deal with internal errant members of society who flout the rules and have to be punished, violating the rules of the body politic here.
00:05:47.000And there, the power is law enforcement and it's hedged in with all kinds of safeguards so the government doesn't oppress the people, meaning the American people.
00:09:12.000H.W. Got it, but not W. Not W. So here's one of the things that I've understood from national security establishment folks who, I think helpfully, even if they disagree with me, have been helping me advance my plan to do this.
00:09:30.000And I think it's got to be a first six months kind of thing.
00:09:33.000What I've said is, we'll call whoever the president of Mexico is, let them know for a fraction of what we spent in Ukraine, here's the plan for how we can help you solve your Mexican drug cartel problem.
00:09:44.000Right now they say silver or lead is the two choices for how the cartels deal with their own government.
00:09:48.000Well, we'll help you with silver and lead to overcome that.
00:09:53.000Not because we love Mexico, but because we love America.
00:09:56.000100,000 people dying from fentanyl crossing the southern border.
00:09:59.000We're going to help you solve that problem.
00:10:01.000But if you don't do it, we're going to do it anyway.
00:10:03.000We're going to solve it one way or another.
00:10:05.000Now, what I hear tactically is that the NSA was pivotal to the success in Syria and Iraq of ridding ourselves of the ISIS problem there.
00:10:18.000That in principle, it could be Much easier to gain the intelligence needed to do that in Mexico, but we just haven't done it.
00:10:28.000And that there's some basic time horizon it'll take for intelligence operations to make sure that those strikes are as targeted and as effective as they possibly can be while minimizing civilian casualty and actually getting to the heart of the problem.
00:10:41.000How familiar are you with this dynamic and what do you think that time horizon looks like just from the standpoint of executing this?
00:11:38.000We're getting into their financial dealings and so.
00:11:41.000Yeah, I mean that's – we're taking some steps in that direction.
00:11:44.000That's what the designation – if we did succeed in designating them as terrorist organizations, that would ease the freezing of their financial assets.
00:11:53.000But back to the original question of just – The dynamic is interesting to me, right?
00:11:59.000I guess here's a question I ask is, it's a little bit surprising to me that President Trump didn't already, towards at least the latter half of his term, take steps in this direction.
00:12:12.000He was focused on the fentanyl crisis.
00:12:18.000I assume, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I assume what the dynamic is, is that he would say from a policy perspective, this is something that he wanted to do.
00:12:27.000And then he would get resistance from the people who were in the Pentagon or elsewhere that would be charged with effectuating it.
00:12:34.000And then he would be persuaded out of it because, you know, an expert class told him that was something he couldn't do.
00:12:43.000So tell me what the actual dynamic was.
00:12:46.000Well, AMLO, the current president, López Obrador, got into power in December 2018. And the first thing the president did with him was threaten to use tariffs against Mexico that would bring their economy down, essentially, unless they helped us with immigration, the immigration issues.
00:14:26.000And I believe what he basically enunciated and what he wants to do is really a modus vivendi with – Sharing sovereignty with the cartels.
00:14:52.000The murder rate is still extremely high.
00:14:54.000And in fact, fewer people were killed under the Mexican president who was actually going after the cartels, Felipe Calderon.
00:15:02.000So, you know, so he backed off completely helping us with the drug war.
00:15:09.000The problem is the Mexican government, during my experience, and I started dealing with this when I was Attorney General the first time, is fundamentally corrupted.
00:15:18.000Whether or not it goes up to the very top, people have their different opinions on that.
00:15:24.000I think the top levels of his administration have been compromised based on my experience and from what I saw.
00:15:31.000But the problem is that there's so much money and the cartels are so violent going after judges and police officers who are trying to do their job that any government, they've gotten, the cartels are so strong that any government down there is going to be corrupted over time.
00:15:49.000And it's impossible to work through them because all the information goes to the cartels.
00:15:54.000So if you try to do joint operations and clue the Mexicans in on everything, the cartel finds out about it.
00:16:01.000And so it's a terrible situation because the country is, as I said, it's like being wrapped by a python.
00:16:09.000They're in the grasp of these groups that have grown stronger and stronger and stronger.
00:16:14.000A lot of law-abiding Mexicans want to get rid of the cartels.
00:16:19.000What's dangerous, I mean, AMLO is basically, you know, waving the leftist populist flag like, you know, these are the gringos to the north that want to come and intervene and so forth and whipping up sentiment there.
00:16:43.000They're the ones at fault and now they want to come down and And, you know, attack our country and blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:16:49.000And regular Mexicans, I mean, other Mexicans who don't respond to that kind of, you know, populist pandering, basically saying, how are we going to liberate ourselves from the grasp of these criminal organizations?
00:17:03.000And there is no answer in Mexico without a leading American role working with the Mexicans.
00:17:10.000And I believe, at the end of the day, as Trump showed, both the economic cost to them of not cooperating with us, if we employ tariffs and so forth, and the practical fact that we do have the capacity to go down and act unilaterally, You know, they will come along eventually and we'll have to structure it in a way that keeps our information secure.
00:17:36.000But together, we can dismantle the cartels.
00:17:43.000Very brave Colombian leaders, many of whom were assassinated by the cartels, one after the other, joined with the United States and we eventually destroyed the Medellin and the Cali cartels.
00:18:48.000But they took over the business with the demise of Medellin and Cali.
00:18:53.000And they were allowed to take root and really be unhampered since then, with one minor exception.
00:19:02.000But the basic problem is this, when local countries, when the United States is ready to go in and do something against the cartels, the local companies generally aren't.
00:19:14.000And when the local countries are, America has, our attention is elsewhere.
00:19:20.000Do you think that there's something – I think that was definitely true in Mexico too with Calderon.
00:20:23.000You know, I'm wondering if there's just like a first principles reason why both in Colombia and in Mexico and other places, it can't be a coincidence, right?
00:20:31.000I think it seems to me that the US posture would be – Well, if they're taking care of it already, then we need to less because presumably the country is itself making some incremental progress, which means there's less of a justification or need for us to go in and do it.
00:20:52.000I think it's not an accident that we see this pattern in history, whereas whenever you have a friendly administration is precisely when we don't partner and engage because we begin to see early positive signs and signals that they're going to deal with it themselves.
00:21:05.000When in fact, that probably is actually the window we should or should have seized on to actually say that it's when you have a friendly that we actually need to seize that opportunity because otherwise you get stonewalled by the likes of an AMLO. Fair to say just from a first principles reason, it's not a coincidence of history.
00:21:22.000That it happens this way, there's a reason why.
00:21:24.000But I also think there's another pathology at work and that is for the modern frame of mind, you manage problems, you don't solve problems.
00:21:33.000And so there's this tendency, I don't know whether it's the over-education of the, you know, going to get their master's degrees and PhD and diplomacy or whatever.
00:21:46.000But it always becomes a question of managing the situation instead of saying, how do we actually solve this problem?
00:21:54.000You know, a decisive resolution of this problem.
00:22:00.000It's kind of something about the… Yeah, and I see it across the board.
00:22:08.000And so I have this image of all these pots boiling on the stove that we've allowed to simmer for years.
00:22:15.000And the problems are mounting, our foreign policy problems are mounting, our domestic policies.
00:22:20.000And that's in part because no one has The orientation of let's deal with it and let's take the slings and arrows and the cost of dealing with it.
00:22:30.000And so they'd rather just sort of manage things along.
00:22:35.000You know, I'm a big believer that language sometimes reveals a reality of the underlying thing that you otherwise would have missed.
00:22:43.000And so anyway, one of the things that I often rail against is the managerial class, the rise of the managerial class.
00:22:49.000You've seen what that looks like firsthand.
00:22:51.000The managerial class is certainly more empowered in American institutions, including government, but corporations to universities is also true.
00:23:01.000We live in a moment of the managerial class.
00:23:03.000And I can't help but notice that at least the linguistic parallel of the rise of the managerial class occurs at a point in our history when we've also grown more accustomed to managing problems rather than actually solving them.
00:23:16.000And I think there's probably something to that.
00:23:19.000So, I mean, even as early as H.W. Bush's administration, before the War on Terror emerged, you know, the military was spending a billion dollars a year on intelligence collection against the cartels in Colombia and Peru and so forth.
00:24:11.000I mean, you had like 35 agencies involved and you had coordination meetings and all that stuff, but they never get to the essence of the problem and what the strategy is.
00:24:21.000It is this idea of managing problems, not addressing problems.
00:24:26.000Where do you think Trump fell on that spectrum?
00:24:29.000Trump was much more of the type, let's solve the problem.
00:24:34.000In discussing the drug issue with him, he said something that I give him a lot of credit for and it's one of his good qualities.
00:24:45.000I said, look, It's gotten to the point and the size that this cannot be solved with going down and arresting people and putting them on trial one by one, bringing them into the United States and trying them.
00:24:59.000This is more of a national security threat.
00:25:13.000And I think we would have – but for COVID, I think we would have collected a lot of intelligence and in a second term we would have taken more definitive action.
00:25:22.000So you think that actually Trump and broadly you guys in the administration really were on track – To potentially follow through and use military force, maybe after a year of intelligence groundwork.
00:25:58.000We understood it was coming, but it didn't make the priority list.
00:26:01.000Once it made the priority list, you're saying the administration did actually take certain steps and but for COVID and but for the change in administration, you think it's actually quite likely it would have happened.
00:26:47.000Now, I see this from professional politicians all the time.
00:26:50.000I was to some controversy even yesterday, you know, pointing out some issues in Ron DeSantis' fight against woke capitalism in Florida.
00:27:00.000Again, I think that one of the problems with our system, it's not specific even to Ron DeSantis or any other individual, is that when you're in elected office, And you're up for a re-election, you're rewarded by the surge of media wave and voter response more than you are in actually seeing the thing through, actually.
00:27:21.000And the problem in this pattern is I can imagine seeing the same thing in the Mexican counterpart version of this, but even in dealing with the self-proclaimed problem that Ron wants to address of woke capitalism is – The companies at issue or the actor at issue or the nation at issue presumably understands that dynamic, understands that about us and so knows that all they need to do is, okay, we're going to weather the storm.
00:27:43.000Once you've gotten what you needed out of it, then we'll work it out behind closed doors.
00:27:47.000And, you know, that's when the Black Rocks of the world excel at that game and I think are excelling in plain sight.
00:27:52.000That's a discussion for another day, but presumably Mexico – Yeah, that's the world I know really well, but presumably Mexico can view it the same way too, is okay, we're going to let your cycle of rhetoric play out, gesture what you need to to your base, and then presumably you'll move on and we'll work out the details in a way that's actually favorable to the status quo.
00:28:11.000And one thing I just want to stress is that in my mind, it's – the Mexicans will eventually agree to a much more aggressive US posture against the cartels.
00:28:25.000Because they really don't have an alternative.
00:28:35.000What does the dynamic look like of who the candidates would be to take his place?
00:28:38.000I mean, I'm not sure polling data matters.
00:28:40.000It might be who the cartels want that actually get the job anyway, but like what are the possibilities there and is that something we should be paying attention to?
00:28:48.000Well, we should be paying attention to it, but I think it's so murky right now, I couldn't tell you.
00:28:52.000Yeah, I mean, if you had a Calderon-like figure or even someone from that orbit, That would be presumably very good for us.
00:29:17.000And just like, I guess, very practically, this is like a random aside, but suppose you were- More open about the policy posture you're going to take against the cartels.
00:29:31.000Like is that even just from a personal perspective from a travel – like is that even a safe trip to make, you think, from a Mexican government perspective or not?
00:29:40.000I just wonder even about the practicalities of this.
00:29:43.000Well, I guess, you know, I would have been – maybe brought more security with me if I was going to take that openly.
00:29:49.000But what I was going to say is, this is an important thing, which is I said to the president that no Mexican government, even if they're willing to help us and want to get this finished once and for all, they're not going to go in until the beginning of a new administration.
00:30:06.000They're not going to poke the bear and start a death match with the cartels if there's an administration there with only one more- You mean like Obradors, for example?
00:30:19.000Yeah, you're not going to poke the bear unless you're- Because that could itself change because somebody could pull the rug out from under you.
00:30:22.000Right, somebody comes in and pulls the rug out from under you.
00:30:25.000It's why it has to be done at the beginning of the term.
00:30:26.000Yes, it has to be done at the beginning of the term.
00:30:28.000I've identified this as a first six-month item for a big part of that reason is you can't get into the miring of it.
00:30:35.000And probably even the military side of this, the tactical side of this is once you're past the intelligence gathering phase, you probably get one cycle.
00:30:42.000You don't want cycles of adaptation here.
00:30:44.000Well, I heard you had said, I mean, I listened to what your statement was, and I thought that was a great point, one I totally agree with, that any move has to be done swiftly and with decisive force because otherwise they just adapt to it.
00:31:01.000And so, you know, these people are not 10 feet tall.
00:31:05.000They can be dealt with, but they haven't really met their match.
00:31:12.000We'll see what we can do on that front.
00:31:14.000I want to ask you about the legalities, right?
00:31:19.000Did you get any legal challenges to this plan?
00:31:22.000I mean, you guys, the authority stops with you in the administration or the attorney general, but what was the current thinking with respect to legal authorization to be able to follow through and see that through?
00:31:35.000Because that's an objection I've heard a lot when I've presented this one.
00:31:36.000Well, using the military outside the United States, it's a national security judgment by the- U.S. President.
00:32:29.000You know, it's the president's decision.
00:32:32.000Under international law, the principle of international law is commonsensical, as you would expect, which is, if people are using your territory as a launchpad to conduct predations against a neighbor, You have the – if you're going to claim sovereignty, right, you have to take care of that yourself.
00:33:02.000And that's an international norms-based argument.
00:33:04.000But under US law, your point is if it's on the national security side of the house, the president has authorization, period, to basically do whatever.
00:33:11.000As long as you're – I mean, as long as you're not Going after people in the United States and transgressing constitutional safeguards.
00:33:18.000So, the other question you asked about is using the military to secure the border.
00:33:22.000You know, under the posse comitatus statute, which was passed after reconstruction in the Civil War, where we used federal troops to police the South, a law was passed that says you can't use American military for law enforcement purposes in the United States.
00:33:39.000And the reason for that was to prevent the clash of American military with its own citizens.
00:34:17.000And what do you think about the – you know, the way the federal government is set up is you do have law enforcement over here and military over here.
00:34:24.000What do you think about the rising presence of cartels even on our side of the border?
00:34:30.000I mean, you see increasing evidence of that at least in places like California and even Oregon and Arizona and elsewhere.
00:34:37.000Well, that's the reason I consider this a national security threat to allow them to give them the sanctuary south of our border from which they're free to operate.
00:34:47.000And part of the consequence of that is not only the drugs, it's not only the human trafficking.
00:34:52.000It's not only the national security problem now posed by them becoming an entry point for over 100 people from over 100 countries around the world.
00:35:00.000It's also the metastasis of their tactics and their structure up into the United States.
00:35:07.000So in city after city, they're getting a stronger foothold and they operate through sort of subsidiary criminal organizations.
00:35:15.000And, you know, there was that case in California, which I'm concerned that where they wiped out a family including an infant.
00:35:23.000And I'm concerned that they're going to start taking their tactics, their extortion and terrorist tactics up north of the border.
00:35:50.000So the cartel problem, I think you want to solve it comprehensively.
00:35:54.000I'd like to take care of it, not just on the Mexican side, unless you really believe if the head of the snake dies, the tail in the U.S. automatically withers away.
00:36:36.000And what you need is clear direction from the president as to how this is going to be done and put people in charge that can manage it on a day-to-day basis.
00:36:45.000There are certain things that would...
00:36:50.000That's a military – that's largely a military operation, you know, using the Coast Guard and the Navy.
00:36:56.000There are other parts like the DEA would be involved and DEA is very skillful at certain kinds of things down in foreign countries.
00:37:04.000So – The DEA is – most people I've talked to at the DEA or either at the DEA or formerly – I'm actually pretty excited about this plan because they see firsthand the consequences of failing to actually address the root cause.
00:37:33.000But, you know, there's a lot of other things that go into it.
00:37:36.000The use of the treasury department to get involved in- Financial assets, yeah.
00:37:40.000Go after financial assets, sanctioning banks, Mexican banks that are involved in this.
00:37:47.000So in the law enforcement, let's say on the domestic side, it's not purely a military function, as you said, dealing with this fentanyl issue, including the cartel-driven side of it.
00:38:36.000And there's no overall sort of anaconda strategy of squeezing them quickly.
00:38:44.000Speaking of the FBI, maybe we want to shift gears to that in terms of Talking about managing a problem.
00:38:52.000Actually, I don't want to assert my premise without asking you about it.
00:38:56.000I think the politicization of the FBI is a problem in our country.
00:39:01.000I think that the agency has demonstrated that it acts with Often politicized motives that have both undermined public trust in the agency and have demonstrated that the agency is self not fully worthy of full public trust without the skepticism that many now have towards the FBI. But before I go to solutions, I don't want to just bake it on a premise that maybe you might have a different point of view on.
00:40:07.000And it's all the corruption of our institutions that's going on.
00:40:11.000And in some ways, what stands out about the- Actually, if I were to sort of rank them as how thoroughly- I'm not sure the FBI or the Department of Justice would be that high on the list.
00:40:24.000But as Shakespeare said, lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
00:40:30.000It's because of the sensitivity of the function they're performing and how much we really rely on these institutions that catches our attention about these failings, these institutional failings.
00:40:43.000But I think they all go back to the same thing.
00:40:49.000The Comey episode in Russiagate gave people the impression that the FBI was rotting from the head, that it was the leadership that was It's not my impression.
00:41:13.000And part of that, I think, was Mueller coming in and sort of announcing he was going to change the culture of the FBI. And that was carried out by Comey as well.
00:41:25.000What did they mean when they said that?
00:41:37.000Did they mean in the direction of depoliticizing it?
00:41:39.000Did they mean in the direction of making more results-oriented, like we said, I'm going to come change the culture of the FBI? Presumably, what did they mean?
00:41:47.000I think what they had in mind was that the FBI was a law enforcement entity with a law enforcement culture.
00:41:54.000And it recruited mainly from the military and from law enforcement, police officers who had had good careers.
00:42:01.000And so the people understood chain of command, and they approached things from a law enforcement standpoint, which is, you know, following the process is very important.
00:42:21.000And what they had in mind after 9-11 was that, well, we're no longer cops and robbers type agency.
00:42:28.000We're no longer going to react to crime.
00:42:31.000We have to prevent it from happening in the first place.
00:42:33.000And so we had, I think it was sort of a foggy concept that they sort of wanted, you know, we just want something, you know, we want more, you know, different kinds of people involved and so forth.
00:43:07.000And so the idea was we have to prevent this stuff from happening.
00:43:10.000And so – I think they've changed the intake process of the kinds of people coming in, you know, or kindergarten teachers and social workers and so forth.
00:43:24.000So there's a lot more different backgrounds that are attracted into the Into the Bureau, and they dumbed down some of the requirements early on.
00:43:36.000Nowadays, the physical requirements have been decreased by two-thirds, what they used to be.
00:43:41.000That has changed the culture in the FBI. You know, I've heard reports of, you know, the FBI has firearms instructors in various places around the country to make sure that the agents in that area, the city and so forth, keep care of their guns, have the right armaments, you know, stay qualified and so forth.
00:44:04.000And there's some reports there from there of agents coming in to turn in their weapons because they feel it's socially irresponsible to carry a gun.
00:44:12.000That would have never happened 15 years ago.
00:44:16.000Wait, wait, someone's- I'm sorry, I had to process that for a second.
00:44:19.000Someone's working at the FBI who's an agent saying that they kind of came in to turn in their gun because the member of a law enforcement community like the FBI- An agent comes in and says, I don't want to carry a gun anymore.
00:44:40.000That's another problem with the FBI which is – and this is a problem throughout government and probably throughout the corporate world which is the failure of middle management because they become careerists and they don't want to get into trouble and so it's don't rock the boat for the next two years.
00:44:58.000I'm doing this job, my next job is going to be this if I don't rock the boat.
00:45:03.000That leads to a whole career service within the agency that is geared more toward people, you know, careerists rather than the agents who are really doing the job out in the street.
00:45:15.000And so, you know, that's one of my concerns.
00:45:19.000And discipline has broken down in part because a lot of managers know that if they discipline certain employees, you know, a woman agent or a minority agent, they're going to get in trouble for that.
00:45:50.000And there's also, you know, in my mind, there's too much orientation toward Washington headquarters.
00:45:58.000And so, you know, there are people who become what they call headquarter rats.
00:46:04.000They sort of hang around and when they're required to do a field, they move to someplace, you know, they do it in Washington field office or someplace very close to Washington, then they rotate back into Washington.
00:46:16.000So there are a host of issues that are involved, but they're issues that are in every institution.
00:46:25.000And underlying it is a change in what I consider to be sort of a progressive mindset of younger people.
00:46:37.000Even if they don't wholly embrace the progressive agenda, they actually start thinking this way.
00:48:01.000You know, I mean, this is more familiar to me than I might have guessed in terms of the managerial rot of the FBI. It's not something foreign.
00:48:09.000It's actually something – Very familiar.
00:48:47.000You've kind of cast a light on a different dimension of this, which in some ways actually makes the case for my proposed course of action even more strongly and perhaps even more persuasive.
00:48:59.000than just the top-down politicized version that I have appealed to in certain of my speeches.
00:49:06.000But the proposed solution I've put on offer is, as U.S. President, I'll shut down the FBI and create a new agency, built from scratch, with a different fit-for-purpose culture that is not yet captured by a cancer that once it's taken a foot, It's very difficult to eradicate because it's more or less like a cancer and more like a virus that's embedded itself into the DNA of the organization itself.
00:49:34.000Shutting it down and creating something new is the easiest path or at least the most plausible path to solve that problem even if it comes at some transition cost.
00:50:03.000One is to just start a new one, which I come to the problem usually leaning in that direction because of sort of the history of the Catholic Church, which is when an order went bad, you just create a new order.
00:50:15.000It's much easier to do that and better in the long run than trying to reform something that's broken.
00:50:22.000In this case, I think right now I would come down a little bit more in the middle, which is this.
00:50:27.000After 9-11, there was this push to separate the foreign intelligence and intelligence aspects of the bureau from the law enforcement, pure law enforcement aspects.
00:50:37.000To say that that one coordinates more with the CIA and things like that, right?
00:50:40.000Yeah, and just separate them into two different agencies.
00:50:43.000And I oppose that at the time because there are a lot of good practical reasons to have them together.
00:50:49.000One is so that you don't have that wool of separation that led to 9-11, right?
00:51:01.000And what I think maybe the best approach would be is I do think you need some catalyst to actually make the kind of reforms within the FBI and law enforcement generally.
00:51:18.000And I think maybe splitting those apart now would provide you with the catalyst to accomplish other reforms.
00:51:26.000In other words, just sort of sitting back and saying, okay, we're going to start an agency from scratch or, you know, we're going to reform the FBI. You need some kind of systemic shock.
00:51:36.000You need like half the people moving out of the building.
00:51:38.000You need to break it into two and then use that to actually drain the yolk inside, break the egg and then drain the yolk or something like that.
00:51:44.000And I think they have a problem that all big institutions and especially governments, they've become highly bureaucratic and they try to do too much.
00:51:54.000And they have all their little processes.
00:51:55.000And the processes, you know, were well-intentioned.
00:51:58.000We have all these people running around with guns, right?
00:52:01.000You know, you want to keep things harnessed, and that's a good thing.
00:52:05.000But they've become extremely bureaucratic and risk-averse in many ways.
00:52:10.000So I think to change the FBI, I'd be more open now to splitting the FBI in two.
00:54:07.000I mean, people use this term and bandied around, but the essence of the worldview inherent in the Great Reset Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum type stuff.
00:54:17.000And now, if a conservative says the same word, they'll say it's a conspiracy theory, but put that to one side.
00:54:27.000Actually, dissolving the boundary between the private sector and the public sector, dissolving the boundary between nations, dissolving the boundary between different institutions so that each or leaders of each can work together towards address shared global problems towards the common good.
00:54:50.000And I think that you see it – I mean, you and I, I think it's probably what drew us together even, you know, some of my commentary on ESG maybe appeal to you for some of those subtextual reasons.
00:55:00.000I think the question is – it's a philosophical question about how you just think the world, humanity and its institutions should be ordered.
00:55:06.000Is it that these boundaries are inherently bad and that we need to break down and dissolve those boundaries so that – Institutional leaders can coordinate towards addressing a common good.
00:55:18.000Or is it that you believe in institutional integrity, part of true institutional pluralism, just because you say capital D diversity, it's actually an off-the-shelf agenda that dissolves the boundaries between different institutions and makes them less diverse.
00:55:30.000Do you believe in actually institutional pluralism, the diversity of different institutions to each carry out their respective functions?
00:55:35.000I know where you stand, play your damn position, pretty good quote.
00:56:04.000Because- There's a deeply, you know, you could say there's a Hindu worldview, but you could say there's a Christian worldview embedded in that distinction.
00:56:19.000Does the individual life have a target and purpose?
00:56:22.000Or is it the collective that has a target and purpose?
00:56:26.000The Western worldview that gave rise to the most successful system we've had, the Anglo-American system, It was rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, which views individuals as individuals.
00:56:49.000You have a destiny, now it's a transcendent destiny, but also it's an individual destiny.
00:56:57.000And the collective is, you know, we're worried about the collective in providing a stable environment in which people can live their individual lives.
00:57:06.000What we have now is essentially, you know, it's part of, you know, it's undergirded Marxism and other totalitarian ideas going back to the French Revolution.
00:57:42.000You know, this is the progressive idea, which is they've, you know, Buckley used to say they immunitized the eschaton, which is they've taken the final things, And they've immunitized it.
00:58:23.000To me, the Democratic Party, the progressive wing has moved outside The tent.
00:58:30.000They are, you know, their agenda is to tear down the system, not fight within the system, within the tent, you know, a right wing and a left wing.
00:58:38.000But they're now outside the system, and the great impediment to human progress and to building this just society are all our institutions and conventions.
00:58:49.000Specifically in rejecting this notion of individual purpose itself as just the teleology, just the whole rule of the game is written.
00:59:21.000We have an ideology which means we are going to use politics to shape society collectively according to some abstract vision of perfection.
00:59:34.000That's not what conservatism is about.
00:59:36.000We're about essentially muddling through to have a durable, stable society which gives the broadest vent possible, consistent with order, to individuals finding their destiny, both as individuals and in voluntary association.
01:00:01.000And that is what has led to the success of the United States and the West generally.
01:00:09.000And not the idea of, you know, that we have some kind of game plan to organize ourselves politically according to some abstract scheme of perfection.
01:00:21.000Because we're not dealing with perfection.
01:00:31.000Yeah, I mean, I think there is a secular account, and you go, John Locke on this, or whatever else, that'll get you still to that fundamentally American worldview.
01:00:38.000So it's not that religion is a precondition, but it strikes me that the recession of faith It plays a role that allows the collective purpose worldview to reign supreme.
01:00:59.000But I think the framers would have said, and this is what my speech at Notre Dame was about, which is our constitution was actually written- Of moral people.
01:01:32.000So, I mean, Burke, I used it in my speech at Notre Dame, so it's...
01:01:40.000Yeah, certainly I think the loss of faith in the West is what is generating a lot of the decomposition of society and providing the opportunity for these irsats, faiths, secular faiths to emerge.
01:01:55.000I mean, one of my views is you could either take faith, family, Patriotism, belief in nation, faith in a nation, you could say.
01:02:12.000America was built on a sort of civic religion for a long time.
01:02:15.000Hard work as a value of what you create, you know, pick a couple of them.
01:02:35.000If God doesn't fill it, something else will.
01:02:37.000But whoever, whichever, you know, philosopher triangulated on the same concept, that's, I think, that's the description of where we are in our modern moment in American history.
01:02:49.000This is part of the modern American experience is that loss of purpose and meaning and identity that allows that Siren song of collective purpose to then fill the void.
01:03:01.000Now, it raises an interesting question of whether the path to reviving that individual sense of purpose comes from restoring some sense of, you could say, collective purpose as Americans.
01:03:14.000I don't know what your reaction to that is, or if that's getting a little too philosophical for you.
01:03:17.000No, I mean, I think that that's, you know, one of the key questions.
01:03:20.000I do think this is something that can only be developed within coherent That is, genuine communities in some way, which you don't have just by being a manager of a welfare state.
01:03:38.000Okay, someone new showed up, okay, let's write a check for them.
01:03:41.000There has to be something deeper than that.
01:03:47.000I think we're losing our sense of that completely.
01:03:50.000As you say, this world without borders or without allegiance, There's a lot, it's a very daunting situation, but I think one way to, that's why I've always been a big advocate of school choice.
01:04:04.000I think there's no road back unless we have school choice in this country.
01:04:09.000I'm an advocate of school choice too, but I don't believe in silver bullets because I think one of the things that we're now seeing – I don't think a lot of conservatives have woken up to this, but it's the direct extension of what we had in this conversation of the so-called long march through the institutions is now the accreditation bodies that accredit a private school that's eligible to receive funds from a school voucher program or a school choice or ESA program, educational saving account program.
01:04:35.000Is itself infected by some of the same dogmas that start with the Department of Education that create the cultural infection of primary education in this country.
01:04:45.000So it just kicks the – it's like a hydraulic – The battle shifts.
01:05:05.000Because then the fight is more transparent.
01:05:08.000But the other thing is people have completely missed what's going on here, which is Americans, when we founded our country, we would have said that the state has no business telling people what the good life is and You know, telling them how to live a good life and using coercive power to force them to do it.
01:05:50.000Now we were able to allow the state to play a role in that in this country because the country was 95% Christian and agreed on the values and public schools were run as essentially that way.
01:06:02.000But now there is no consensus and the government is affirmatively subversive of traditional values.
01:06:11.000So people have to step back and say, wait a minute.
01:06:14.000What power does a school board or the government have to determine what moral education is and shove it down the throat of people?
01:06:34.000It's one thing to read, write and so forth.
01:06:37.000And that's why I think actually you put your finger on I think the pulse of what I see a lot of conservatives across this country recognize when I've been traveling, you know, Iowa, New Hampshire, different places, South Carolina.
01:06:49.000It's not that actually the question is even where the sort of intellectual battlefront might have been in decades past of what role the state ought to have in inculcating traditional religion or not.
01:07:03.000The state is already inculcating modern religions more than it ever has in the history of this country, foist in Christianity or any other religion.
01:07:12.000It's our failure to recognize it as such is I think the – is actually what allowed it to happen.
01:07:18.000I mean the climate cult I think – You could – I wouldn't say in a strict sense make an establishment clause violation in a constitutional argument in court.
01:07:25.000But the spirit of it is we are – effectively have a government-established religion deciding that carbon emissions, that the anti-impact framework is itself – it's a form of a cultish belief as opposed to some other metric mattering for humanity like human prosperity itself – But we've decided that even every metric – and it's perpetuated through the government in every sense about what you even measure in terms of a carbon emission is itself the product of a cultish conviction that the anti-impact framework – meaning that
01:07:55.000the human being's impact on the environment is the thing we're supposed to measure as opposed to the environmental impact on humans.
01:08:00.000That's established as a sort of religion in this country and the idea that we were ever debating the establishment of Christianity or Judaism or whatever else is a farce compared to the modern reality.
01:08:19.000You know, it's completely incompatible with traditional religious belief and yet the government thinks it can force it down people's throats.
01:08:26.000Well, the thing that I just took away in this conversation that I'm so grateful for is – I've been entrenched in these issues for the last several years.
01:08:36.000And I don't know, have you read my books?
01:08:38.000Okay, you're familiar with where I come from here.
01:08:41.000Maybe that's why you set it up this way for me, which I appreciate, which is when I'm looking from the outside in, a daunting challenge like the bureaucratic cancer at the FBI or other government agencies, part of me feels like I'm ready to take it on, but that's got to be a daunting challenge because that's a new challenge.
01:09:01.000And I think one of the things you've done in this conversation, very helpful to me, maybe you intended to do this and you succeeded, it's very helpful, is open my eyes to the fact that that governmental bureaucratic challenge is not so unfamiliar with To me, even relative to the problems I've been tackling in other parts of our culture or the private sector, which is encouraging.
01:09:23.000But I still think some of the things you've been talking about, I mean, we do have to change the civil service laws and allow presidents much more latitude in managing their own branch of government.
01:09:40.000And the reorganization powers allow for that, I think, for the US president to do it.
01:09:44.000I think we should move, I mean, I would move agencies not to primary cities, not to cities that are already big and have their urban problems, but to other places in the country.
01:09:57.000I would have liked to move a lot of the FBI down to Huntsville, Alabama, where we already have a campus down there.
01:10:03.000But not just the FBI, but all the agencies.
01:10:05.000We don't need everything concentrated.
01:10:15.000I mean, I think there's a lot of things that are appealing about it.
01:10:17.000One of them is it's an easy way of getting a lot of people who don't want to move out of the system.
01:10:24.000So yeah, that's something I'm definitely working on.
01:10:26.000Maybe I'll be picking up the phone and calling you from time to time if you're okay with it as we set in place the plans of How exactly I think we're going to do that.
01:10:36.000I think, as I told you, I think you're a great voice out there, you know, so clear and saying a lot of things that have to be said.
01:10:44.000What we're going to try to do, thank you for saying that, is to translate that into action through national leadership, which hopefully comes with a mentality of not just managing the problems we have, but actually picking at least a few of them.
01:10:58.000You're not going to get one person who solves all of them, but pick a few of them and don't just manage them, you solve them.
01:11:12.000When we do this again, we have a lot to pick up.
01:11:14.000We didn't even touch the DOJ, which I want to get into.
01:11:19.000Let's say that, you know, we're talking right now in D.C. on a on-the-road edition of the podcast, but let's keep our plan to do one in Columbus intact.