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security reporter David Rode, staff writer for The Atlantic and MSNOW political analyst Ashley Parker and host of the Bulwark podcast and MSNOW political analyst Tim Miller. David, most Americans aren't really dialed into who the head of ODNI is or what they do exactly. They're even less interested in a job in the special operations and low intensity conflict office. So explain to me why it matters that these two seemingly UNQUALIFIED INDIVIDUALS ARE NOW IN THESE KEY POSITIONS. WELL, THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE HAS A CRITICAL POSITION.
IT WAS CREATED AFTER THE 9-11 ATTACKS WHERE 3,000 AMERICANS DIED ACROSS THIS COUNTRY. it was to coordinate all the information. What you mentioned, there's 18 different intelligence organizations and a finding after 9-11 was that part of the tragedy that happened was that information wasn't shared between agencies. So that's this position. And it's extraordinary. There's been people put in that job since it was created roughly 20 years ago that have amazing experience in terms of intelligence.
Bill Pulte, as you said, has none. He's 38 years old. He comes from a family that runs a very large housing company. You know, he's made donations to the Trump campaign. So in terms of protecting the country and, you know, vetting. So in terms of protecting the country and, you know, vetting. I mean, intelligence, most importantly, in an apolitical way. What is actually a threat to the country, not what aids one part of the other? You know, he has no experience in that. So it's a really shocking appointment and a lot of Democrats at least are just dismayed on Capitol Hill.
It also seems like he's holding on to his job at the housing agency, two really important jobs you would think you would want one person very focused on. Tim, we've already heard from Senator Mark Warner, who is of course incredibly concerned about everything that you just heard David lay out there. I want you to take a listen to some of what he
in the White House that he has no clothes on this one. So would you deny the votes on FISA over Putin? Let's see how things, let's see how things happen. I'm keeping all the options on the table at this plan. So, Tim, do you expect Democrats to move forward with that move? What you hear that reporter asking about there is the fight over FISA set to expire in about nine days. A lot of lawmakers, although it's controversial, eager to make sure that it holds, doesn't go dark. It seems like it's kind of the only chip Democrats have to play here since he's just an acting ODNI and he's not actually going to go in front of the Senate.
Yeah. Well, I'm encouraged that they're considering playing this chip. This has been something over the first year and a half that a lot of those who are opposed to the administration have been frustrated at times with the way the Democrats in the Senate have not used their kind of limited power being in the minority. There have been some exceptions to this. I think it was the DHS shut down following the murder of Alex Petty and Renee Goode demonstrated very real results and positive results, I think, for the Democrats and make it much harder for the government to fund those agencies or acting inappropriately.
I think this is another case of that. If there are going to be a couple Republicans that for ideological libertarian reasons won't vote for the FISA reauthorization, then they need Democratic votes. And I think that it would be preposterous for any Democrats to provide a vote for this administration due to expand their spying powers when they put somebody like Bill Pulte in charge of DNI. And look, as you mentioned, Pulte is, you know, going to continue his job as head of the housing organization. I don't think anybody really believes He's even going there to do the job of director of national intelligence. When he was at the housing agency, he used the one tool at his disposal, access to mortgage documents,
to look at the mortgage documents of everybody that had ever opposed Donald Trump to see if they dotted all their I's when they signed those documents. And at DNI, obviously, they have access to a lot more oversight spying powers on Americans. And I think that is essentially the core reason why he's going there. He has no national security experience. He's not going to be, they're not going to be asking him for his advice on Iran. You know, Marco Rubio and others seem to be handling that portfolio. He's going to be there solely for revenge purposes.
Ashley, Roger Stone has played a key role in all of this. According to Semaphore, he helped basically push him to get into this post. A source they spoke to said, quote, he's like a bulldozer who'll bulldoze the bureaucracy and accelerate document releases and declassifications. What does that signal to you about what the purpose is of this appointment? Well, again, this feels like a very personal appointment.
It's been pushed by people close to the president who have a lot of influence. And just to step back for a minute, Bill Pulte is someone who even earlier in this administration, a lot of or at least some of the president's top advisers were very frustrated with him. They said he would come in, he would feed the president a lot of ideas that were either not true or conspiracy theories, or that they viewed as simply bad ideas. But he would get in the president's ear in a way that made it harder for his team to control the president. And so now you are just elevating this person who in certain ways functions as, you know, President Trump's id. And it's worth noting that Trump himself is already pretty much pure id to begin with
into an incredibly powerful position. It shows you that Trump wants his people, his loyalists who are willing to do his bidding in a way that could potentially be quite political. David, how do you think our adversaries, I mean, China, Russia, Iran, how do they read a move like this? I mean, they cannot be taking Bill Pulte particularly seriously. No, China's thrilled. And China is our main rival here in terms of just AI and all the, you know, sophisticated ways that spying is going to be conducted in the future. So it's a win for them. And then for Vladimir Putin or Iran,
it's just more chaos and a more of a distraction in terms of, you know, a weak Washington where the president is dividing everyone. And look, we talked about it earlier on the previous hour. But, you know, my real concern is about what Bill Pulte will do in terms of the elections this fall. Tulsi Gabbard, before she resigned, had gone down and seized voting records in Fulton County. He carried out investigations in other states to prove the president's false claims of 2020 election fraud. And now you have Roger Stone pushing Bill Pulte. And, you know, there's real concerns among Democrats that he'll somehow claim to have intelligence
and try TO STOP VOTING IN BLUE AREAS AND KEY STATES, LET'S SAY GEORGIA OR TEXAS IN TERMS OF SENATE RACES OR AFTER THE VOTE CLAIM IT'S ALL BEEN HACKED, THAT ANOTHER ELECTION WAS stolen and so and that's more of a distraction that kind of division this country just helps our foreign rivals um so it's you know we'll see if he stays in his position and what the Democrats do. There's also just the day-to-day, the big picture and sort of the frightening landscape that you've spilled out there, David. But Tim, there's also the sort of day-to-day bureaucracy that seems to be crumbling here.
The New York Times has this big piece, taking a look at the purge of lawyers from all these different agencies. There are nearly 10,000 of the less. Department of Education lost 53 percent of their lawyers in just two years. Department of Justice about percent. Is this what draining the swamp actually looks like? And without them, what do we have? Well, obviously not. You know, look, I just THINK AT A GENERAL LEVEL, WHITE-COLLAR CRIME IS NOT BEING INVESTIGATED, BASICALLY, BY THIS ADMINISTRATION.
THEY'VE GUTTED THE PUBLIC CORRUPTION UNIT WITHIN DOJ, SO THAT'S ONE element. And then you have, you know, the counter-terror element and the other types of investigations that the folks in these offices should be doing to keep us safe. I mean, just to use one example, the Iran experts inside of the FBI all got fired right before we started the Iran war because they were pulled into the classified documents case. And they were pulled into the classified documents case not because they're going after Trump, but because Trump apparently had Iran war plans at Mar-a-Lago and was like showing them off to his foreign friends, you know, the Saudis and the cougars that show up there to hang out with him.
And so you bring in the Iran experts to look into that. So they all got fired. I YOU KNOW, WILL ANYTHING HAPPEN BECAUSE OF THAT? WHO KNOWS, RIGHT? I MEAN, SOMETIMES, YOU KNOW, YOU CAN NOT PUT A FENCE UP OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE AND HAVE YOUR HOUSE NOT BE ROBBED. WE DON'T EXACTLY KNOW WHAT THREATS THE COUNTRY IS FACING RIGHT NOW BUT WE CERTAINLY HAVE GUTTED A LOT OF THE PEOPLE THAT HAD EXPERTISE, YOU KNOW, THAT WERE THERE DOING THE WORK TO KEEP US SAFE AND, YOU KNOW, FINGERS CROSSED, I GUESS. ASHLEY, WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SOURCES, WHAT DO THEY SEE IN THE LONG-TERM picture here.
I mean, expertise, credibility, these are things that take decades to build for just one team, one individual, never mind entire agencies. So what happens if subject matter expertise, it gets replaced with ideologues, with demagoguery? Well, it depends which sources. So some of the people close to the president say that he is the president of the United States, and that it is his right to demand absolute loyalty. But you talk to the majority of people, Democratic, good government experts, Republicans, if they're being honest and they're not, for instance, up for reelection. And there is just tremendous, tremendous concern.
I mean, you asked if this is what draining the swamp looks like. The view is that this is a brain drain where you are losing, you know, tremendous, tremendous expertise. And as Tim pointed out, the concern is yes, something potentially catastrophic could happen tomorrow. Fine. But the real concern is that this institutional knowledge and expertise and know-how and years of nonpartisan bureaucrats, their knowledge is being lost in a way where the catastrophe may be something we can't predict right now and will happen in five years or 10 years or 20 years down the line. And it's very easy, as we've seen, to lose these people, but incredibly difficult to build back up.
Just to give one brief example, we're not talking about this now. But if you just look back to the beginning of this administration, the president and Elon Musk gutted USAID, right? We are now seeing there was the Hantavirus outbreak. There is still the ongoing concerns about an Ebola BLUET OUTBREAK, AND THOSE ARE RAMIFICATIONS THAT IN MANY WAYS CAN BE DIRECTLY PINPOINTED BACK TO SHUTTERING OR GUTTING A GOVERNMENT AGENCY THAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING WITH SOME of these things in a way that affects the entire planet.
