[Music]

From Democratic congresswoman to staunch

Trump supporter,

>> both loved and heavily criticized for

her independent thinking. She won't be

bought. She won't be bullied. The

director of national intelligence,

>> Chelsea Gabbard.

>> Aloha. It's just BS. I've always been a

very fiercely independent-minded person.

I know exactly what I need to do here

and how deep the rot is within the

intelligence community. that has to be

rooted out.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

Tulsi Gabbard.

>> Hello. Nice to see you, Chelsea. Thanks

for coming.

[Music]

>> Thank you for being here. Thank you.

>> Aloha, everybody.

>> Aloha.

Um,

we were all clamoring to kind of frame

this and then Sach said, "I really just

need to do the kickoff because he really

wanted to tee this up. So, I'm going to

seed my responsibility in introducing

you because everybody knows who you are,

but David just there's just too much red

meat. David's been frothing."

>> Tulsi doesn't need a a big introduction,

but everyone knows she's a director of

national intelligence. And um in the

words of President Trump is the the

hottest member of the administration. I

think he means in the the sense of

having released the biggest news story

of the year and specifically files. Uh

you declassified and released a series

of files related to the whole Russia

gate hoax and many of the documents are

just stunning. I'll I'll let you speak

to it. But I think you know there's

still maybe a few holdouts out there in

the world. Not that many who still don't

>> Who are you looking at right now?

>> Who are you talking? in particular, but

uh who don't seem to understand what

this Russia gate hoax was about. Can you

just maybe this is the place to start

and then we can drill into some of the

details. But just at a very high level,

what exactly happened? I mean, I think

we saw for years there were all these

accusations that somehow that that Trump

was a agent of Putin of Russia. Was that

all just made up? And who made it up?

How did that happen? Yeah, I think just

just setting the baseline of like why

should you care? Why should people at

home care about this? And this really

speaks to the power of the intelligence

community and the power of quote unquote

uh intelligence is that as you know

these these headlines were turning out

about you know Trump is a Putin puppet

or he is colluding with Putin in order

to get elected. We're going back to the

2016 election here. You know, if you're

just watching the headlines from home,

you got to believe that there's some

credibility here, that there's some

intelligence that's actually driving

this. And that really is the

significance of the documents that we

uncovered, uh, declassified, and

released that shows how intelligence and

information can be actually manipulated

intentionally so that it shows something

that is not reflective of the truth at

all. Uh, and how it can be done. um in a

deeply impactful way politicizing it and

what we essentially saw throughout

President Trump's candidacy in 2016

and throughout his four years in office.

uh the documents we uncovered really

served as the foundation for the weapon

that was used to undermine his

presidency to try to undermine the

outcome of that 2016 election and really

uh usurp the will and the voices of the

people who elected Donald Trump. So,

I'll try to run through this timeline uh

in the top lines

>> just to paint the picture of as you

asked David like where and how did this

start when we go back to that 2016

campaign. President Trump went through

what was a very crowded primary at the

time. Almost no one thought that he

could win. He became the Republican

nominee going up against Hillary

Clinton. And during that time, Hillary

Clinton kind of seated the um allegation

that there was some collusion happening

between Trump uh and Putin and Russia,

that Putin was somehow trying to get

Trump elected. What we saw then play out

was now known as

>> What does it mean she seated? How did

what does that

>> There there were a lot of different ways

um that that occurred. If you go and

look at some of the documents that the

FBI declassified

um uh that Durham uncovered is now known

as the Durham annex, there were a lot of

different ways um that it happened, but

we saw early signs of the weaponization

of this when the FBI under Comey um

basically got illegal, they got warrants

through the FISA court to illegally

surveil Americans. Carter Page uh in

Crossfire Hurricane and others around

President Trump and his campaign at that

time. November 2016, President Trump

shocks the world and wins the election.

the intelligence community and the

assessments and all these documents

we've made public already throughout

this period of time during the campaign

leading up to the general election. The

intelligence community almost uniformly

assessed that uh Putin did not have

either the intent or the capability to

hack the outcome of the US election.

There were different assessments that

said this but but this trend was there.

President Trump wins the election.

members of the intelligence community

then go and brief members of Congress

post election and their briefing was

consistent with the intelligence reports

that basically said there's no evidence

that

>> nothing to see

>> there's that Russia or Putin had any

kind of impact on the outcome of the US

election. Fast forward to December 8th.

Uh, one of the organization, one of the

elements that's under my oversight in

the intelligence community creates this

product for the president every day

called the president's daily brief. The

numbers of people who within the cabinet

even who are uh able to access this

brief is a pretty small number. This is

built for the president and it's it it

is a product of contributions from

across the intelligence community. This

December 8th president's daily brief was

consistent with all of the other

assessments, essentially saying there

was no interference in the outcome of

the election by Russia. That brief was

pulled. It was never published. It was

pulled back from publishing uh hours

before it would have hit then President

Obama's desk. The next day, December

9th, the Obama administration calls a

National Security Council meeting. all

the senior leaders within the Obama

administration. The topic of discussion

was Russia.

The tasks that came from that meeting

that were delivered to then Obama's DNI

James Clapper and we have the emails

that we declassified around this said

this is a pus tasking on Russia meddling

with the election. And what you'll see

in those documents was not President

Obama asking

uh look into the intelligence and see if

Russia meddled the election. It was

provide me with an assessment saying how

Russia meddled in the election.

John Brennan, James Clapper, uh Comey

and the FBI, they all got their folks

together then to start building this

document that was an intelligence

community assessment

>> that would and so just to be clear, was

this in the sort of that lame duck

window between the election and then

President Trump taking office that like

two or three month period. Okay.

>> Right. Post November 2016, President

Obama's last day, January 20th of 2017.

So this document was being created by a

very very small group uh of people

within these three agencies. They got

the NSA involved and ultimately that

document

would state what President Obama wanted

it to say which was that Russia and

Putin aspired to help President Trump

win the election and did so through uh

cyber means. and and the briefing doc

you mentioned the daily the president's

daily briefing doc you can see that

there was a draft written that then got

pulled back

>> yes

>> and that still sits somewhere so we know

that that's what was written and someone

said pull that back we don't want to

have evidence of this in the on the

going going into the over

>> exactly and the these were the docu some

of the documents that we released it's

all it's all on odni.gov gov where we

have the draft finalized president's

daily brief from December 8th and then

the email saying pull this back and it

was never published until we

>> Oh, that was pull it back.

>> Yes.

>> Oh, so there my So they're also stupid.

>> Would you like to apologize like

>> No, no, no. I mean,

>> no. There there's a there's a few more

pieces here.

>> No, no, no. I mean, I'll have the

receipts. We'll go to those in a moment.

>> Okay.

This January uh 2017 assessment was

published on January 6th. It was very

quickly leaked out uh to different uh

members of the media, Washington Post,

New York Times, etc. Then it was briefed

to Congress. But the key thing here is

that the most classified and and

compartmentalized

pieces of intelligence they used as the

basis for this total 180 uh intelligence

assessment that was basically

contradicting what the intelligence

community had assessed leading up to the

election. They hid those sources even

from the vast majority of members of

Congress uh because based on

intelligence community tradecraftraft

standards they were deemed even at the

time to be not acceptable.

We had senior officials in the CIA who

were tasked to work on this who objected

to then CIA director John Brennan using

these as sources because they were not

credible. One of them was the steel

dossier. this manufactured political uh

document that was filled with

falsehoods.

So then you you see after that this

assessment again leaked to the media,

briefed to Congress. This was the

document that then led to everything

that happened in the four years uh that

President Trump was in office. What we

declassified and released

provided further reinforcement of how

politicized this document was. It showed

a few things. For example, that in those

sources that were hidden, uh, that Putin

didn't believe Trump would win the

election in 2016. He thought Hillary

Clinton was going to win. Uh, he thought

that, hey, we know who she is. We know

how she operates. we can try to figure

out a way to deal with a Hillary Clinton

presidency. Russia and Putin claimed

that they had extremely derogatory

information about Hillary Clinton, her

health, her state of mind, uh allegedly

um illegal bribery act, you illegal

activities going on.

If Putin and Russia were trying to help

Trump win the election, they would have

done so at a critical time in October of

2016 in order to try to push him over

the top. they didn't believe he could

win. There is so much evidence that

disproves this manufactured

uh politicized intelligence assessment

ordered by President Obama that was very

conveniently hid by John Brennan, James

Clapper uh and James Comey. So again,

why why does this matter? We have seen a

trend in some of the biggest

intelligence failures around politicized

intelligence. And I I'll just give this

one example because it goes back to the

creation of my this organization that I

lead, ODNI. James Clapper was an

intelligence community leader during the

time uh the before our country went to

war with Iraq.

James Clapper wrote in his book about

how Dick Cheney was telling the

intelligence community, I need you to

come up with intelligence basically that

will just create the narrative for us to

go to war with Iraq. that will give

Colin Powell what he needed to go to

bring to the UN as evidence of weapons

of mass destruction of evidence that

that Saddam Hussein is is colluding with

al-Qaeda. And in James Clapper's own

words, he said that he and his

colleagues were so eager to do what Dick

Cheney told them to do that quote, "We

created something that wasn't there."

This is as someone who served in the

Iraq war along with so many of my

brothers and sisters in uniform. You can

see the devastating consequences

of politicized intelligence,

the difference between war and peace,

the difference between in this case of

of President Trump with his first

administration. Uh this threatens the

integrity of our republic uh and the

voices of the people being shown through

an election.

>> Chelsea, you must position absolutely

enraged. Absolutely. Because we were

lied to then. We were lied to in 2016

and 2017 and over and over again. You

see how people in these positions of

power act with impunity, putting

themselves, their political interest,

their ambition ahead of the Constitution

of the United States and the the

responsibility

uh and trust that they have to the

American people.

>> Is the ambition this sensation that they

are puppet masters that they can sort of

control and shape outcomes yet they're

sort of in the shadows and they're not

accountable? Like what what is it? The

lack of accountability, I think, is what

drives

them believing that they can get away

with anything. Because if you control

information, you control intelligence,

>> then you can control an outcome.

>> Yeah. What was the incentive or the

objective to Chimat's question about

doing this after the election because it

seems so destabilizing?

I think that was I don't have paper

evidence of it, but one could surmise

that the intention was they all thought

Hillary Clinton was going to win.

>> President Trump won the election. That

was uh uh President Obama, you can

imagine the feeling amongst the

Democrats. I remember I was a Democrat

in Congress at the time. Absolute

devastation. What's the reaction to

that? Let's see how we can completely

them. How how could they completely

undermine and and destabilize and

destabilize and uh in in their minds

disarm of President Trump while he's in

office. And this is some of the twisted

thinking that I witnessed when I was uh

in Congress at that time was that they

believed many many of these Democrat

leaders really believed that they were

doing the right thing for our country by

trying to protect the American people

from the guy that they actually voted

for to be president of the United

States.

>> Right. I mean, I think part of it was to

undermine Trump and then part of it was

sort of um exculpatory towards the fact

that they had supported Hillary and

Hillary turned out to be a bad candidate

and they lost and they wanted to find a

reason why she lost that didn't blame

the Democrat party for choosing the

wrong nominee. I think that was like

part of the motivation as well. But just

to be clear, in in this um national

intelligence assessment that you know

you found in the documents, um the

career staff,

they said there's nothing to support

this theory of Russ of Trump somehow

being an asset or agent of Russia. So

they did their jobs. They

>> some of them did, some of them didn't.

>> But it was the leadership, the political

appointees who are obviously

hyperartisan because they're appointed

by the president. So, they're the ones

who overruled their own career staff.

Okay, just be clear.

>> That's right. And and just to sorry,

last point, just to put a bow on this,

uh we discovered some emails that were

printed out literally in the back of a

safe. I think they had been sitting

there since 2017.

that that showed an email exchange

between then Obama's DNI James Clapper

and then the head of the National

Security Agency, uh, Mike Rogers. And

the the DNI Clapper, he really wanted to

get the NSA to sign off on this

manufactured intelligence document. And

Mike Rogers at that point in his email

saying, "Hey, you're giving us too short

of a deadline. we don't have enough time

to vet what is in this intelligence

assessment in order to add our name to

this and if you don't want to give us

more time then we just won't be a part

of it and the response that James

Clapper sent and you can find this again

online uh was he essentially said Mike

this is a team sport this is the time

where you just have to say yes and sign

off on this

>> didn't didn't he say we're we're um

going to stand behind the support in the

a spirit of quote this is our story and

we're sticking to it. Exactly. So Tulsa,

um, while I don't believe Trump was a

Russian asset, is your position that the

Russians did not try to interfere in the

2016 and 2020 elections because the FBI

and the and Trump himself, they they all

conceded that they did try to interfere

>> the the intelligence documents and again

this is what we released was their

intent was to try to seow chaos.

>> Got it. So in the election and that that

that was throughout the assessments.

>> So just to parse this,

>> there was a group of people who believed

he was an asset. Trump asked on stage

during the election. Russia, if you're

listening, please hack Hillary's email

and send them to us and release it.

Donald Trump Jr. then met with the

Russians at Trump Tower hoping to get

that information. The FBI

proved and a DC court indicted Russians

for interfering in the election. So

interference occurred. The Trump family

engaged with the Russians, but Trump

himself was not a plant. We all agree.

He's not a manurian candidate, but the

Russians have been absolutely, you

agree, trying to interfere in our

elections. Correct.

>> That that has not been disputed.

>> Okay. at all.

>> I just want to be clear on level well

all of the other stuff you said I mean

about what happened uh that stuff has

all been litigated and and unfortunately

the reality is when we say oh the FBI

said this we were dealing with a very

highly politicized FBI at the time that

was so politicized they were willing to

use what they knew was false information

to obtain illegal surveillance warrants

from the FISA court to spy on members of

the Trump administration when you

actually look through it there was

Nothing actually there.

>> Okay. Now, if you put yourself in the

FBI shoes, Donald Trump Jr. says, "I

hope I can't wait to get what you have.

I hope it's what you're saying it is."

And Trump literally asks Putin to

release Hillary's email.

>> Would the FBI not

>> actually take a look into it? Would you

want them to Hold on. I'm talking to

Tulsi. You had your chance.

>> You think You think you can be quiet for

one moment, Sax, and let me finish.

Tulsi, would it not be the FBI's

absolute duty to look into that? Yes or

no?

>> An honest FBI? Yes. This was a dishonest

FBI. Hold on. FBI, you have to look at

things within within the bigger context.

Anyone who watches Donald Trump, he

makes jokes every single day. Should the

FBI look into serious issues? Yeah, of

course they should. But again, we're

dealing with an FBI that has been proven

time and time again during that period

of time to break the law. They are

supposed to enforce the law. They broke

the law because of their efforts to try

to undermine President Trump's

candidacy. So, they already had an

objective clearly in mind. So tell us a

little bit about what you learned about

Paul Maniffort and his conviction

subsequent pardon and what his role was

as the campaign manager for Trump the

first time and his giving information to

foreign

>> I'm I'm not familiar with the Maniffort

case.

>> Okay.

>> What I have laid out is the truth of

what has been uncovered uh through the

declassification efforts.

>> Let me ask them the generalized

question. The question is about

President Trump.

>> Quickly clean up and the question is

about the intelligence community.

>> Trump asked the Russians to do

something. I would urge everyone who

actually believes that to go back and

watch the video of the rally. It's a

joke. This was the context was that

Hillary Clinton was being investigated

because she had used a private email

server and was supposed to be turning

over thousands of emails, but she didn't

because they destroyed the hard drive

and they broke it with hammers. They

bleached it and all the rest of it. and

he made a joke about if the Russians are

listening, I hope you can find the

emails.

>> Yeah.

>> And everybody laughed and you have to be

I don't know kind of dumb or or super

partisan or hate Donald Trump to think

that him telling a joke on stage was the

basis for a grand conspiracy with

Russia.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Let me let me ask this question.

>> No, I would think that the the FBI

>> investigating the Russians and us

convicting them by convicted,000 people.

He's going to say, "Hey, Vladimir, can

you do the following?" That's not how

conspiracies work. I'm sorry to break it

to you.

>> Let me let me let me ask the let me ask

>> what are you doing?

>> But Chelsea, what are you doing to to

clean it up?

>> She just told you she to release the

files and the

>> I want to look on a go forward basis.

>> Well, the first step really is and this

is an essential thing is is about

transparency uh and accountability. So,

we've we have referred all of the

documents that we've uncovered uh to the

Department of Justice because uh the two

have to go together in order for uh

there to be uh real real change.

>> Let me um build on Jason's question. Um

12 years from now, um there could be a

Democrat. Um maybe it's AOC, you know,

four more years of Trump and then eight

years of JD. But, you know, you know,

I'm getting to the point. Um

uh

and you know some people may not like

the AOC candidate but that doesn't mean

as you said that some nameless faceless

person can subvert the will of the

American people. So what needs to happen

so that there's checks and balances

here? How how do we make sure that

people can't just not like somebody and

then decide to try to basically destroy

them? How do we make sure that that

doesn't happen?

It it's a good and important question

and ultimately the the ultimate

accountability has to come from the

American people and who we choose to

vote for. Uh who we have in these

positions of leadership actually

matters. And so for the United States

Senate, for example, have the

responsibility of confirming people uh

to serve in the position that I hold and

and the CIA director, the FBI director

uh and so on. Uh we have to be very

cleareyed about the tools and the

tactics that are used that ultimately

fundamentally are undermining uh our

founding documents uh and the

constitution, the integrity of our

republic and ultimately our ability as

we the people to determine who we want

to serve uh in in our government.

um you know the the the weaponization

politicization unfortunately uh it

continues there there is a lot of um

there there is still rot within our

intelligence community and those again

who believe that they know better for

the American people uh than than we do

for ourselves and and that's really a

dangerous thing. This is not something

that's easily solved. It's not one

institutional change that that can

occur. uh we have to remain vigilant on

all fronts in order to protect ourselves

and to protect our democratic republic

uh from these kinds of uh abuses.

>> How do you how do you lead that change,

Tulsi? You're you're going into work and

you don't know who to trust. You don't

know who is part of the institution that

you were up against when you came in to

take this role.

>> How do you grapple with that and how do

you think about prioritizing and see

kind of filtering

>> the workforce, the people that report to

you,

>> the information? the information

>> uh by being vigilant.

>> Yeah.

>> Um you know, it's I I've I've made some

pretty big changes within uh the Office

of the Director of National Intelligence

itself.

>> Uh finding uh those pockets and those

places that have been weaponized and and

politicized

uh and and really ultimately bringing a

a mission focus uh to the organization.

uh trimming down and slimming down our

manning and personnel count so that we

have the right people in the right

positions who focus on the mission

itself. Um, ultimately every day it's

just about doing the right thing because

it's the right thing to do and setting

that culture of leadership that focuses

on our responsibility, the American

people, to the constitution and uh

holding people accountable when they are

not fulfilling that responsibility that

they have been entrusted with. When when

you were a a Congresswoman, um, you must

have had a different mandate. You were a

different political party. um when you

go back home, what's the conversation

like about the transition? I don't know

if you've talked about this publicly

much, but what's it like in talking

about your evolution changing parties

and and having this role today with the

people that you used to represent?

>> You know, Hawaii has um it's been a

strong democratic state for a very very

long time, but it's not uh it's a unique

state uh with a very unique culture. Um

people tend to be honestly a little bit

more just aloha live and let live. I

just want to live my life and you know

raise my family and and um it it's you

know mixed bag for me when I go home. Uh

but I've been pleasantly surprised at

times. I was waiting in line one day at

like a FedEx to go ship something and

there was an older Japanese American man

who was the manager and he came out and

he pulled me aside and he just said, "I

really really love everything you're

doing. Keep speaking the truth." Uh, you

know, there are others who um definitely

have Trump derangement syndrome and

can't wrap their heads around how, you

know, I represented Hawaii for eight

years in Congress as a Democrat and now

I'm President Trump's director of

national intelligence,

>> but it also

>> that's got to warp people's brains. It

is maybe on its surface, but the thing

is and look, I mean, I've listened to

your guys podcast for a long time. And I

think there's a lot of folks who are

having

>> probably not like the cerebral kinds of

conversations you have, but the

conversations around how the Democratic

party has drastically changed.

Drastically changed. I I hear you talk

about it as well. I mean,

>> for me, I I was, you know, 21 when I jo

I made a decision to join the Democratic

Party in Hawaii. uh I was running for

the state house and had to choose a

party and for me at that time the

Democratic party still represented uh

you know the the values of fighting for

the little guy, fighting for working

people, protecting the environment and

you know standing up for free speech

even if you didn't like that speech. And

to to fast forward from then uh to to

now it's um you know the party is is

unrecognizable

in just about every way. And um I I

ended up writing a book about why I left

the Democratic Party because

fundamentally and it's not about well

what do you believe about healthcare?

Should we take this approach or that

approach? It it really is foundational

how the Democratic Party has um

completely gone away from the party of

JFK and and Martin Luther King.

>> And the good news is you get to work for

somebody who's a former Democrat

himself.

>> Exactly.

>> President Trump.

>> There are there are a number of us.

It's all Democrats. That's how Trump won

his second term was he rallied all those

moderate Democrats like yourself to

become his cabinet,

but I think there's some truth to it.

And it was, you know, Bobby Kennedy and

I uh for the last few months of

President Trump's campaign, we went and

traveled uh all across the country

together. And the final event that we

did uh together was in Wisconsin, I

don't know, a couple weeks before the

election. And it was really incredible

because it was in a district that

normally votes pretty solidly Democrat.

We were in this big beautiful barn and

there were there were probably at least

a thousand people there, maybe more. And

at at a certain point I asked the crowd,

I said, you know, raise your hand

uh if you're a Republican. Whole bunch

of hands went up. Raise your hand if

you're an independent or a libertarian.

You know, a few hands went up. raise

your hand if you're a Democrat. And and

the reaction was so fascinating because

first there was like one or two hands

that went up very timidly and they're

kind of looking around and then more

hands went up and then more hands went

up and then the whole crowd got on their

feet and just started cheering and

looking at each other and and folks came

up to me after and just said like I felt

like I was getting a hug from everyone

that was there and that we there was no

separation difference between us.

>> You um

>> thank you for your service uh and you

spent a lot of time uh serving the

country. You had reservations about

bombing Iran and uh we did it anyway.

How do you reconcile that today? And uh

did we do the right thing?

I served in a medical unit in Iraq uh

back and I was there for um all of 2005

and was in a position where every day

was confronted with the high cost of

war. And ultimately that's uh what drove

me to eventually run for Congress to be

in a position where I could help to

influence and impact those uh those

decisions. And ultimately one of the

things that I found um to be true and

very detrimental to our country and our

own national interest is very rarely uh

did leaders in our country ask the

fundamental question of what is our

objective?

What is our objective? What are we

actually trying to accomplish? If we're

discussing a potential military

operation or an act of war or any policy

for that matter, what is our objective?

Is it achievable? Does it serve the best

interests of the United States? And if

it's a military operation, what's what's

our what is winning? How do you define

winning? What's our exit strategy? And

so, uh,

those are things that I've brought to

every foreign policy question and every

aspect of my professional life and

personal um, you know, kind of

considerations of these different

policies. And and this is where, you

know, I appreciate President Trump's

leadership in his approach to Iran. You

know, I my position has always been that

Iran cannot have a nuclear weapons

capability, period.

President Trump was very clear,

>> but the reports were you were not in

favor of the

>> reports. There were a lot of

reports out there. My job is to provide

the president with intelligence uh so

that he can make the best informed

decision. Ultimately, what we saw in

that operation, Midnight Hammer, was a

president who made a decision and

executed a very precise military

operation with a very clear objective

that was accomplished in the best

possible way and a very clear exit.

>> Seems to have turned out okay. But

Telsey,

>> don't worry because Sax also But by the

way, Sax also was against bombing

around. He was absolutely did not want

Nikki Haley to become president because

his fear was and he talked about it on

the podcast that he didn't want to start

up with Iran.

>> Just speak just use the precise words. I

didn't want a war with Iran. I still

don't want a war with Iran.

>> What is what is the condition that you

can share with us the public

um on the strength the fortitude

in Iran today with that that government?

What is the state on the ground that

that that you can share and what do you

think the paths ahead are?

Well, I mean, you know, their nuclear

capability was destroyed. Uh much of

their infrastructure destroyed, much of

their military capability destroyed.

When you look at Israel's actions, uh

throughout that 12-day war, uh their

economy is tanking. Uh their uh energy

sector is tanking. So it's it's a it

Iran is facing a very challenging

position.

>> Um what what we saw is that the Iranian

people

at least then and at this point have not

risen up against their own government.

But you can imagine and this is this is

uh openly talked about by a lot of

experts is when if you're facing a

failing economy, lack of basic

necessities, water, uh uh basic

infrastructure,

um there is there is legitimate concern

about how people will ultimately react

and how they will react to their own

government.

>> I um

>> and and what sorry do you have a point

of view on where that takes us? What

what steps into the void there? There

there are a lot of different factors. Um

>> such instability in the Middle East

historically has not gone as we thought

it would or hoped.

>> Exactly. Exactly. Which is which is why

it's so important to look at this from

from uh taking the uh regime change in

Iran kind of history lessons learned uh

into account. uh but but really

recognize that these things we we cannot

be simplistic as we look at this

challenge as well as any of the others

that we face because there are always

complexities

uh and so many different elements that

are involved that could turn things one

way

I was in favor

>> of that strike if it was strategic

because I do not think they should be

allowed to have a bomb. I was in favor

of it.

>> Great questions guys. Um

Go ahead.

>> I want to talk about the southern border

for a second. Very early into the

administration, you guys declared

cartels as terrorist organizations.

>> Can you walk us through the logic of

making that transition and what it

enables America to do and why we did it,

what the goal of that is?

President Trump saw, as you heard,

anybody who attended even a single one

of his rallies during the election, uh

he saw very clearly the devastating

effect that, you know, MS-13 and Trend

Ara and these other cartels were having

in our communities and on our streets in

this country, making the American people

less safe uh and and exacting a kind of

violence and um

criminal activity that that was only

getting worse.

uh and I this was the main thing that

drove his decision to designate the

worst of the worst of cartels as foreign

terrorist uh organizations uh because of

their activities here uh within our own

country. Uh so this then opens up the

door for um uh the ability to use

different authorities to be able to

protect the safety and security of the

American people. Uh you look at the you

know obviously the trafficking of

fentanyl is a is a huge thing. So within

my organization uh we have the National

Counterterrorism Center who's you know

for the last 20 plus years has been

focused on Islamist terrorism, ISIS,

al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and others who may

be plotting against America and our

people and our interests. Now that has

been expanded to look at, you know, the

the counter narcotics effort, the

counter cartels effort. And what it's

doing is is actually bringing in and and

focusing on, hey, how are we engaging

with, you know, yes, it's the Customs

and Border Protection folks, it's the

DEA, uh, but it's also your local police

and your sheriffs who are on the ground

there working in these border states and

dealing with the very real effects of

these cartels. I remember I was in uh,

Texas visiting one of these border

communities with the vice president a

few months back and and the local

ranchers there came in and talked to us.

Secretary Huggth was there as well and

they were talking about how these

cartels are using such sophisticated

weaponry. The kind of stuff that yes, we

experienced some of IEDs. For example,

there was an IED that was planted on on

uh one of the roads on this guy's ranch

and one or two of in Texas and one or

two of his ranch hands were were killed

uh because of this. We're seeing that

these cartels um intelligence collection

capability, their counter intelligence

capability, their use of drones for both

surveillance as well as using armed

drones to go after those who are

threatening their operations. It's it's

a it's a serious uh adversary that is

highly adaptable uh and ultimately

will do what they feel is necessary in

order to continue um their illegal uh

activities at harm of the American

people.

>> We lost 3,000 people on 9/11 tragically

from al Qaeda. We're losing 100,000

Americans to fentinyl. If they're not a

terrorist organization, please tell me

what one is. I mean, I am 100% in favor

of you crossing the border and

immediately

with prejudice. I applaud the

administration for doing that. It's far

too many. When we talked about this

issue with Rick Caruso of the people who

are on the street over here, they're on

the street because of fentinel, not

because they don't they can't get it

home. I applaud you guys for doing that.

It takes true courage to do it.

>> Yeah. The the historical context of this

is, you know, if you if you look back at

what happened with Britain and China in

the 1800s, there was a period where, you

know, Britain wanted to desperately

weaken the Chinese. And what they did

was they started the Opium Wars. And

it's it's it's incredibly analogous to

this moment where you see all of these

foreign actors that are trying to weaken

the United States from within. And so

this is why I think the the cartel thing

is not talked about enough. Closing the

southern border was critical. But

designating these organizations as the

organizations that they are allows

exactly as you said a really 360°ree

view of what is going on because they

are sophisticated. They have incredible

capability. They have an unlimited

balance sheet. It turns out

>> bad intent.

>> Do you think this is a strategic um

issue at in China? Are they making this

decision to support fentinel supply

chains because it's destabilizing to the

United States?

I'm I'm reviewing in my mind what I can

say and what I can't say uh of with

regard to classified intelligence. Um th

this is a a point. Um

uh so so I have not seen intelligence

that that reflects uh the statement that

you just made. Um this the the the

precursor issue uh coming out of China

with regards to fentanyl continues to

obviously be a point of of negotiation

and the president's ongoing negotiations

uh with China. ultimately um you know

getting after and and China is not the

only one that's providing precursors,

but what we're seeing is a downstream

uh or or maybe like a down tick in

fentanyl coming across our borders as

well as the cartels in Mexico struggling

to create fentanyl because they're not

able to access these precursors as

easily as they have been over the last

uh several years. So when you look at

that, President Trump going after the

precursor issue as well as um uh secure

actually securing our borders, I mean

the the significance and the impact of

that really cannot uh be overstated in

how it's positively affecting again the

ability for people to um live here in

our own country more safe more safely.

Folks, on that I just want to thank

Telsey Gabbard,

director of national intelligence

people. Thanks, Telsey.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Got a lot of Tulsi fans out there.

>> You got to stay standing up. Standing

up.

>> Thank you. Well done, Telsey.

>> Thank you.

>> Appreciate you. That was awesome. Thank

you. Thanks everybody.

>> Absolutely incredible.