Something is changing in our country, and most
people feel it before they can explain it. Today's
guest is David Korn. David is one of the country's
best -known political journalists and a longtime
Washington reporter who has covered presidents,
scandals, national security, and the rise of
the modern right for decades. He's now the Washington
bureau chief for Mother Jones. And his reporting
is consistently focused on power, corruption,
disinformation, and the health of American democracy.
So, David, welcome to the podcast. Good to be
with you, John. Yeah, it's good to see you. God,
it's a crazy time and there's almost too much
to talk about. But let me start with some of
the stuff you've written about lately. You've
been writing about the schisms in Maga land for
a while. And so what has been the impact of the
Iran war on these various Maga? Because I see
like various odd conspiracies being spread by
folks like Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens and
Tucker Carlson, Mark Levin, Laura Loomer, you
know, Megyn Kelly, Joe Kent, all this kind of
stuff. And a lot of them seem to have changed
and are turning in different ways. What do you
see happening based on what's happening in Iran?
You do not have the time to get a full explanation
of what's going on in Magalan on this. But there
are cross, you know, I say that movements often
end up with circular firing squads. We know that
in the past, movements of the right, movements
of the left. This has turned into a Mobius strip
of firing squad with incoming and outgoing coming
from all across different directions in Trump
land. And you see people like Mark Levin, the
Fox News host, who's very pro -Iranian war. and
very pro -Israel and attacking Lebanon and all
that, you know, getting into a fight with Megyn
Kelly, who campaigned for Trump. I mean, she
went to campaign rallies and spoke for Trump,
who's now opposed to the war in Iran. And they've
got to the point where she was making fun of
the size of his penis, and he was literally calling
her a slut. I mean, I'm not characterizing, I'm
quoting. This is how vicious it's gotten. Tucker
Carlson has kind of led the way. And we saw this
before the Iran war broke out. You might remember
last year, he got into a tiff with Ted Cruz,
in which he had Nick Fuentes, who's a white nationalist,
Hitler fanboy, far right figure, on his show
and was talking to him respectfully. And Ted
Cruz then... said you know that was wrong to
do he was platforming an anti -semite and and
um tucker you know attacked him for being a pro
-israeli warmonger so you saw the split kind
of beginning between american firsters who are
anti -israel in terms of the current regime and
what's happened in the last few years and pro
-israel hawks who are you know maggot types and
so this tension has been building and the iran
war seems to have just burst it wide open, where
you now have Tucker breaking with the president
and saying, even accusing the president of maybe
suggesting that he was literally the Antichrist,
that he wouldn't put his hand on the Bible when
he was inaugurated in 2025, a year ago, because
he feared something about doing that, and that
he's working with the neocons and Mark Levin
to... basically set up a nuclear war against
Iran. And he has a whole conspiracy theory about
that, while at the same time making a moral argument
that people on the left and middle and others
who you agree with, that Trump's remarks about
destroying civilization, particularly putting
them out on Easter Sunday, the holiest day of
Christianity, are profoundly anti -Christian,
immoral, and anti -American. So, you know, with
Tucker, you have him making an argument that
will resonate with a lot of people of all political
stripes and moral grounds, and at the same time
promoting this very bizarre theological conspiracy
theory, which he's suggesting Trump is the anti
-Christ. And then you have people like Laura
Loomer. who's now attacking Tucker Carlson for
his attacks on Donald Trump. You have Roger Stone
and Laura Loomer feuding with each other. You
know, Bannon seems to be feuding with a bunch
of different people as well. I mean, I wrote
about this in my newsletter, Our Land, which
people can subscribe to at davidcorn .com. But
I only just did a small piece of it because it
really would take thousands of words. I mean,
this is a wire diagram that not even Carrie Matheson.
The Homeland Show could figure out how to set
up. But yes, it's happening. It's real. It's
not going away. I think this is, you know, bad
news for Trump and the Republicans. I'm not sure
it's going to have a direct impact on the midterms,
but it shows that this movement, and if you're
thinking about 2028 or, you know, Trump's support.
over the next few months as he tries to figure
out what to do with this dumb war he started,
it's going to impact that. There will be consequences.
And also, I didn't mention Candace Owens, who
broke with the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, anti
-war, but now she's feuding with Erica Kirk,
Charlie Kirk's widow, believing... saying that
there's a conspiracy to kill him that came from
the U .S. government, the Israeli government,
the Egyptian government, the French government.
And then, by the way, Macron's wife is really
a man. But she has 7 million viewers of her YouTube
show. So a lot of this is, you know, these folks
are all wrestling with each other to lead the
conservative movement, but also to make money
with expanding their audience. They're competing
with each other for audience. And also, I think,
for influence for what's going to happen down
the road in the 2028 election. Is Trump weighing
in on either side? What's he trying to do here?
Is he sort of ignoring them now? I think he's
a little busy at the moment. I mean, I'm sure
he's paying somewhat attention, but he hasn't
yet taken on Tucker, who I think is... His turn
on Trump is the most significant. After him,
Megyn Kelly. After her, then maybe Candace Owens.
But he and Tucker are friends. They've talked
a lot together. They used to play golf together.
And Trump has not yet addressed Tucker turning
on him, which happened just a couple days ago.
He may get around to it. And certainly Laura
Loomer is out there on his behalf. But he hasn't
really weighed in on all this. He's too busy
trying to figure out how to set up a toll booth
in the Strait of Hormuz and share millions and
billions of dollars with the Iranian regime that
he wanted to destroy a few days ago. So he hasn't
weighed in yet. But I think this stuff is not
going to be patched up easily. It's going to
get exacerbated. particularly as Trump goes down
in the polls and Republicans keep losing elections.
So it's a very real, confusing dynamic that may
bounce in a couple of different and odd directions
over the next couple of days, weeks, and months.
That goes to a bigger question then. as we look
towards 2028, is MAGA more than Donald Trump?
It's not clear that MAGA is consistent ideology
or a set of policies, aside from cruelty, perhaps.
And RFK Jr., for example, anti -vax, that wasn't
part of the core belief in Trump 1. Like, so
yeah, what, is it more, what's MAGA? That's a
really good question. And I think that's what
part of this fight is about. What is MAGA? I
mean, I think it tends to be a personality cult.
It's a movement led by a demagogue. We've seen
in the past, Farther Coughlin, Huey Long, others.
And, you know, if you look at the polling, you
know, one of the key principles of MAGA seemed
to be America first and sort of isolationism
and no forever wars. And, you know, all the talk
that he's the president of peace. And if you
vote for Kamala Harris, you will be in a war
and your sons will be drafted. Well, the interesting
thing is, and I just wrote about some of this,
that the polls in the last couple of weeks show
that MAGA Republicans, people who identify as
being MAGA Republicans, are still highly supportive
of the war, 70 to 80 percent. People who call
themselves non -MAGA Republicans started at 70,
but they're now closer to 50. supporting the
war. So the traditional Republicans are peeling
off faster than the so -called MAGA Republicans
who before seemed to be supporters of an America
First position. So you're seeing the split that
we're talking about, this divide. There seems
to be a little bit of divide between what you
might call America Firsters, isolationists, and
MAGA people who are basically You know, whatever
he decides to do is fine. Now, these are vast
generalizations, but we do see, you know, so
I think in some ways, MAGA remains, was, remains
a political cult and will do whatever, follow
Trump in any which way. But as he veers to these
extremes, he's going to lose people along the
edges of that. And that's what's happening with,
you know, think of an ice flow with a huge chunk.
Breaking off. That's the kind of what just happened
with Tucker Carlson. And we'll see to what degree
this continues. It seems like it's going to make
it hard for someone like J .D. Vance who wants
to become the MAGA person going forward. It's
not clear what MAGA is and what is the next person
who wants to take up that mantle do. Because
it's hard for me to imagine that people are going
to, the real hardcore MAGA people are going to
say, yeah, J .D. Vance is exactly what we want.
I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, it's so
keyed into Trump. The idea that J .D. Vance could
just inherit this I think was always problematic.
And now it's, I think, going to be more difficult
because what there is to inherit is going to
be divided and split up. And if you saw the story
in the New York Times a couple of days ago about
the inside run -up to the war, I mean, you know.
It looked like it was planted by J .D. Vance.
Yeah, exactly. All the deliberations before the
war. He's the one raising the skeptical questions
and warning about what could go wrong. And it
seemed to be that he was positioning himself
to be able to say kind of like, well, I told
you so. I was loyal to Trump. But I gave my expert
opinion that this wasn't a good thing to do.
That's very early to turn against Trump because
he'll then try to destroy J .D. Vance. He's kind
of laying down a marker so that he can point
to this later when Marco Rubio presumably won't
be able to. But you still have Vance, you know,
officially in favor of the war, coming out and
saying that publicly, not quitting over this.
Joe Kent did. And Marco Rubio, obviously in favor
of this. So there's no, you know, so the one
question you might want to ask, I really don't
like thinking about 2028 too soon here. There's
a lot to happen and probably three more wars
between now and then. That, you know, who's the
anti -war candidate in, you know, going for the
MAGA slash American first? constituency within
the Republican Party. Some people think that
actually Tucker Carlson wants to run for president.
I don't think that's true. I do think he's a
little too much of a weenie to be a good national
candidate. But that lane seems open at the moment,
and I don't think J .D. Vance can inherit it
unless there's a true break, a very public break
with Trump, which would be very dangerous for
him. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So tell me a little
bit, you've written a lot about Kash Patel. What
should we know about his stewardship of the FBI
and where the FBI stands and morale and the FBI
and all those things? I mean, everything I've
heard and what's been written about Julian Barnes
and other people at the New York Times have done
good stories about. Kash Patel, is that morale
is just awful there. They've moved so many people
from the work they do and what they're passionate
about to immigration and street crime. So you
have counterterrorism, counterintelligence, money
laundering, crypto crimes, foreign influence,
all these other things that the FBI does being
tremendously short -shifted. In fact, There's
a story that came out just the other day that
there's a counterintelligence unit called CI
-12, which has like 20, 30 people in it. And
like half of them were just fired or cut or moved
to something else. And they're in charge of counterterrorism
operations involving Iran. So if we think Iran
might want to hit back in asymmetrical ways,
the FBI unit that's supposed to work on that
has... just been decimated. And also, think about
it this way, John. If you're an FBI agent, and
I have a lot of respect for FBI agents, and I've
been very critical of the national security state
at times in my career, but I understand the important
work that they do. But if you're an FBI agent
and someone comes to you and they say, I got
this great insider trading or cryptocurrency.
of scam, you know, $20 million stolen, whatever.
And here I have got all the memos. I got the
emails. I even got some transcripts and they
hand it to you. You go, okay, what's the first
thing you're going to do? First thing you're
going to do is going to Google the name of that
person. And then you're going to see, oh, he
attended an event at Mar -a -Lago. And you won't
even tell your supervisor that you got this package.
You would just, no, no, no, give me a drug lord
to go after. And I understand it. You've been
there 10, 15 years. You're looking at retirement.
You have two kids going off to college. You know
if you even raise the issue of this that you
will likely be demoted, transferred, or fired.
So I'm just thinking that there's all these guys,
cronies, Republican donors, members of Trump's
own family. that they all get out of jail free
courts. They can do whatever they like, and not
just the FBI, SEC, the FTC, Department of Justice,
ATF, DEA, you know, Pentagon inspectors general.
You know, they're all going to, no one's going
to take on anything that crosses, you know, that
has a connection to Trump or the Republican Party.
So I think they all realize that. And the one
thing, you know, one story that I wrote about
Kash Patel that got some attention, but not when
he came up for his nomination, that I'm very
proud of, is that my colleague Dan Friedman,
Mother Jones and myself, discovered that he had
received a $25 ,000 payment for being part of
this documentary series called... all the president's
men. It was all about the deep state conspiracy
against Donald Trump. And he was an executive
producer. He was the feature of one of the six
episodes. In it, he says, the FBI and CIA knew,
says this, knew there was no Russian interference
in the 2016 election. And they chinned this all
up and they're all crooked and corrupt. He worked
for Devin Nunes in the House Intelligence Committee.
And even though they said that Putin wasn't trying
to help Trump, They did say that Russia intervened.
They did put out a report saying there was a
Russian attack in the 2016 election. And here
you're saying, no, they all made that up. And
so he was paid $25 ,000 to be in this series
and be executive producer. Who, you might ask,
made this series? A Russian -Ukrainian -American
filmmaker named Igor Lopatonic. He lives in a
very nice house in Beverly Hills. I knocked on
the door once. and um he produces films that
are russian talking points uh anti -ukrainian
films poor kazakhstan dictators uh he's been
doing this for a bunch of years sometimes he
works with oliver stone the famous film director
who's a putin fan um and he's also a kremlin
connected propagandist a few years ago after
the war in ukraine started um they created this
program in russia called to Russia with love.
It was trying to encourage people in the West
to move to Russia. They had a contest with bloggers
and video content creators to produce the best
content that would make people want to leave
the West and move to Russia. This was funded
in part by Vladimir Putin's office. Igor Lopatonic.
who gave Kash Patel $25 ,000. This is all on
Kash Patel's financial disclosure form. He was
the honorary chairman of the judging board for
that project. So he worked for a Kremlin -supported
propaganda outfit, and he's giving the head of
the FBI $25 ,000. I asked him where he got the
funding for his project. For that money, he also
gave $100 ,000 to Rudy Giuliani and maybe to
others who were involved. And he refused to tell
me. He chased me off away from his front step.
So, I mean, to me, this is kind of mind -bending,
should -be -front -page news that a Kremlin -connected
propagandist gave the FBI director $25 ,000.
And yet, I'm sure this is the first time you
and a lot of the listeners are even hearing about
this. Well, and the FBI should be investigating
people like that. You know, they're not doing
it. And your point's a good one about how the
FBI, DOJ and these places aren't looking into
things because they know they're going to get
attacked. That's what Trump learned. If you reach
down in the bureaucracy and you attack individuals,
you attack these organizations, they're going
to back off. And, you know, it's unfortunate.
And, you know, some people have the strength
to fight back, but then they get... cut off and
so let me tell you about because i'm running
into this all the time because i'm working on
a a book just finishing it up it's called how
russia won and it's about how um you know the
fight over what happened in 2016 and afterwards
you know how trump kind of won that messaging
fight about russia russia russia it's a hoax
it's a witch hunt you know and the democrats
and the media kind of dropped the issue And the
book also covers how after 2016 and every election
since then, Russia has intervened once again
to help Republicans or to help Trump. And that
also is unknown. But so in the course of doing
this book, I've been reaching out to people who
recently left the IA, the FBI, INR, state. to
talk to me about what they've seen and what's
happened to them, their jobs and their agencies.
And it's always hard to talk to people in the
national security world. I'm a journalist. I've
written a bunch of books on national security.
And it's always hard to find people inside or
who weren't inside even to talk. It got easier
after, you know, in the last 20 years. But in
this project, it got much harder once again.
I would go to people's homes. I'd get people
to, you know, phone numbers. They have people,
mutual acquaintances and friends and contacts
to reach out for people, people for me. And people
are scared to talk because they see that Trump,
you're right. He goes low into the low levels
or mid levels and he names people, calls out
people by name. If they're working for a company,
he calls out the company and he says, that person
shouldn't be working for you. If you have a government
contract, you have to. worry about that i i i
understand that i had one uh former colleague
of yours probably at the cia was there for a
long time this person left you know a couple
years ago not too long ago has a lot of contacts
there and i've asked them to you know introduce
me and put me to people including people who've
left and so far they've struck out they just
they keep going to be they go you know people
who still you know, want a career, want to find
a job in the private sector or who might want
to do contract work, which as you know, is a
big deal. Once you leave an agency, a lot of
people go back and they work on contract basis
and they don't want their, you know, they don't,
you know, I'm not going to, I won't name people
in my book unless they want to, but they don't
want to even take the risk of talking to a journalist,
reporter, a book author. Now, if anyone listening
does want to reach out to me. I'm at Signal at
David Korn, with a C, David Korn 99. You can
find me there. Let me ask a quick question on
this issue. Since Trump, I would think that more
people are willing to leak information. But you're
talking about going to people, and it's going
to be harder because they're worried about more
people stepping out? I don't think there's—no,
I've talked to other national security reporters
at some of the major news organizations. And
they are finding it harder to get sources from
people, people who are in or people who were
recently in. You know, a lot of national security
reporting is based on people who were recently
there inside. Not all of it, but a lot. And they
just, you know, people are just wigged out. I
mean, people are being subpoenaed. People are
being subpoenaed for what they did with the intelligence
community assessment about Trump and Russia from
2016. It's now a decade later, and there's a
grand jury in Florida subpoenaing Brennan, Clapper,
and other people who worked on this thing. And
that CIA person I just mentioned a moment ago,
they told me when subpoenas are flying, people
duck. They keep their heads down. And, you know,
and Trump is just so vindictive. I mean, it used
to be, I think, when you're out, you're out,
you take chances. You're working for a consulting
firm, a beltway bandit. No one knows what you're
doing. It's fine. But now they're so vindictive.
They come after you. They subpoena you. They
do whatever. Then your boss calls you in or the
person you're negotiating a contract with and
says, what's up, John? You're in the news. We
don't want people in the news. Let me ask about
another person who's in sort of MAGA land who
seems to be different. And you've written about
him quite a bit. He's RFK Jr. He spreads conspiracy
theories, obviously, about vaccines. And a lot
of his lies have led to a lot of really bad public
health consequences. So what's your take on him?
I mean, in his confirmation hearings, he seemed
to have made some specific promises to senators
to get the job. And it seems like he's gone back
on a number of those. Oh, yeah. I mean, he...
You know, I knew Bobby back in the day. We weren't
close friends. We had friends in common. And
I saw him occasionally in New York in the 80s,
I guess early 90s. And the guy, it sounds, you
know, I don't want to sound partisan or mean,
but he's a liar. He's a pathological liar. He
says things, you know, it's like Trump in that
way. What he says is very transactional. And
when he was testifying before Congress, he lied
again and again and again about his positions,
what he believed, and also what he would do.
He made all these assurances to the senators
about what positions he would take and how he
would handle his vaccine. He's not a vaccine
skeptic. He's a vaccine opponent. And he's broken
all those promises. And like he's cut back, you
know, half a billion dollars in funding and MRNA
research, which could lead to not just vaccines,
but to treatments for cancer and other things.
You know, he's just, you know, he's presided
over the devastation of the NIH and the CDC.
It's awful. And he is, I mean. You do a whole
podcast on conspiracy theories. He is an out
-of -touch conspiracy theorist, not just on vaccines,
on so many other things, whether it's COVID or
5G networks. I mean, again and again and again.
He said the CIA killed his uncle. The CIA killed
John Kennedy. And he's the only one in the family
who believes that there was conspiracy. Behind
the death of the assassination of his own father.
So, you know, before, before, you know, the election,
you know, I did a story about you don't know
how crazy he is. And I took one of his conspiracy
theories, which was that the CIA and others used
COVID to. unleash an anti -democratic regime,
and they had been planning to do this. They were
waiting for a pandemic to happen. And his key
thing was a war game that had been held in October
2019, I believe, with a bunch of corporate executives,
crisis management people, one or two government
officials, and Avril Haines, who had been DNI.
before this. And he was on this show, this podcast,
Theo Vaughn, who's kind of a mini Joe Rogan.
And he said, you don't have to listen to me.
You can go, this thing is online. This is online.
You can go and you can see how they have all
these plans to exploit a pandemic to basically
install an authoritarian one world government.
And so I did what he asked. I went online and
watched the damn thing. And nothing he said about
it was true. I mean, you watch him on these podcasts
and he'll cite reports, you know, YouTube videos
and this event happened and that event happened.
And like they all nod, Joe Rogan, oh, wow, you
did your own research. If you go and look at
any of those things, they never say what he says
they say. I mean, not even close. So he's just
making shit up. And, you know, of course, that
doesn't bother Donald Trump because he does the
same thing. And, you know, so we've had this,
you know, the Lancet, you know, the medical journal
came out with a story in an editorial actually
in January saying that what, you know, Robert
Kennedy has done in one year has been. such a
threat, such injury to our public health system
that millions of people will suffer the consequences
in the years ahead. Oh, great. But this is happening
on economy, national security, you know, the
devastation is really something. But you're an
expert and you've been doing this forever with
the media. What's your take on, has the media
and reporters done a good job on? reporting on
Trump? And then even the bigger question is,
what's the state of the media now that Paramount
and CBS and more people moving to Substack and
stuff, what's happening and what's the impact
of it? You know, there's a New Yorker cartoon.
It's one of my favorite cartoons from many, many
years ago. And it shows Charles Dickens, you
know, in a desk and he's sitting at the desk
of his editor. He's like, editor. And he's like,
he's handing in, you know, there's a manuscript
sitting on the desk. And it actually says copy
editor. And the copy editor says, now, surely,
Mr. Dickens, it could not have been both the
best of times. I feel like there's been a lot
of really good journalism in the last year covering
Trump. And a lot of things have not gone well
in journalism. most fundamental level, there
are literally not enough journalists to cover
everything that's happening. I mean, all, you
know, the assault on, you know, every federal
agency, whether it's UID, the Consumer Protection
Financial, Consumer Finance Protection Board,
USDA, FHA. I mean, today I saw, you know, I haven't
checked. I don't know if it's true that Trump
is. going to eliminate the U .S. Forest Service.
I mean, there literally are all the, you know,
what's happened at EPA. All these are gigantic
stories that could take a team of reporters.
But as we know, most news organizations, and
you look most recently what happened to Washington
Post, have fewer reporters these days than they
had five years ago, if not longer. And so there
just literally are not enough bodies to cover.
all the stories happening. And then, you know,
and putting that aside, then there's this fire
hose of outrage and scandal and controversy and
extreme action that's happening. And it's very
hard to put those things in perspective. You
cover something one day, but there are 20 other
outrages and it doesn't necessarily get the attention
it deserves because it's competing with 19 other
things that also deserve, you know, front and
center. And I think there's less of this than
there was a year ago, that when we talk about,
and I don't use this as a pejorative term, but
the mainstream media, the conventional media,
the legacy media, there's a gravitational pull
in places like the LA, excuse me, the New York
Times, and I'd say the LA Times, Washington Post,
Wall Street Journal. There's a gravitational
pull to conventional and neutral language. They
like to think of themselves as being unbiased,
not skewed. And so if someone tells an obvious
lie, they don't like using the word lie or saying
that person is a liar. It seems like you're taking
a stand then, even if it's demonstrably true.
So they come up with a statement that was contradicted
by other evidence. Or they feel like with Trump.
You know, the first reports of him saying that
he was going to wipe out a whole civilization
and open the fucking street, whatever, you know,
it was like, you know, the initial social media
posts from all these places was Trump makes dire
threat against Iran. I mean, earlier in the administration,
they were talking about, you know, I remember
there was a piece in the New York Times saying,
you know, Trump has a muscular approach to the
presidency. Well, muscular sounds positive. We
all want to be muscular as opposed to Trump trying
to impose authoritarian measures, right? Or Trump
overstepping lines. I mean, they really want
to sort of tamp down, you know, they have a hard
time covering extremism because they're not trained
to do that. They have a hard time covering someone
who's lying all the time. And so I think, you
know, there have been times when that's worse,
times when they've overcome those inclinations.
But I think it's generally been difficult for
them to deal with someone who is attacking the
press itself, the notion of freedom of the press,
and also undermining democracy. They still want
to say, here are the Democrats, here are the
Republicans, they're fighting, da -da -da -da
-da -da, and we cover both sides of the story.
And why do people lie? You know, as an intelligence
officer, people lie to gain an advantage. That's
why people lie in life and almost in any situation.
And if you treat the lies too even -handedly,
you are therefore giving them the advantage they
seek. If someone is trying to use the freedom
of the press and your neutrality to undermine
democracy and maybe suppress... the press, you
are basically enabling them. So it's a very,
I mean, I'm not saying there are easy answers
to all of this, but I think that a lot of the
media did not fully, you know, confront the question
that Trump poses in terms of how he should be
covered and how his excesses, extremism, his
racism, his misogyny, his lies. should be contextualized.
I think it hasn't really been figured out yet,
and we're still stuck with what we used to call,
when we refer to Russia, propaganda, a firehose
of lies. You just keep blasting people all the
time, and it's very discombobulating, and it's
discombobulating for the media. You become numb.
And it's true. There's not two sides to a lie,
right? Right. Let me go back to think from my
old world. One more person I'd like to be interested
to get your thoughts on is Tulsi Gabbard. I knew
you were going to get there. She's got to be
in a weird spot, right? Because she's always
been anti -war and anti -war against Iran. And
she's got all these conspiratorial and strange
things. I wrote some stories about her last year.
I found some tapes from like 2019, 2020, in which
when she ran for president in 2019 in the 2020
campaign. He literally put out an ad saying,
we have to stop Trump from launching a war on
Iran. He's a warmonger. And I got tapes of her
saying that he wants to wage war in the Middle
East to make money for his friends. I mean, she
was as, you know, anti -war as one could be.
And she was also, you know, she went to see al
-Assad in Syria. And when no one else would see
him and she raised questions about whether he
was really using chemical weapons or that was
like a Western, you know, probably Israeli conspiracy
theory against him. And at the beginning of the
Ukrainian war, she was on with Tucker talking
about these false or this phony bioweapons labs
in Ukraine, which was a big Russian talking point
or COVID action to a degree to spread that false
story. So, you know, she's been anti -Trump.
She's been pro -Putin, pro, you know, quasi -pro
-Assad. And, you know, here she is in charge.
But the thing is, her powers of evaluation, of
judgment, her reading comprehension, all these
things that you'd want. to be strong in a DNI,
Director of National Intelligence. I mean, she
doesn't have any of that. She had no experience
throwing the intelligence field, let alone running
or overseeing something like 17 different intelligence
agencies. So just a terrible pick for the job.
And, you know, she comes from the same politics
that Joe Kent comes from. Yet we saw Joe Kent,
who himself is a conspiracy theorist, who's involved
in all the MAGA. that we talked about earlier
on the podcast, you know, she, you know, is not
resigning in principle the way he did because
she's outraged at this. You know, she is also
transactional, a careerist, you know, and we
have, and, you know, this is something that I'm
writing about for my book. Last summer, we see
her putting out all these memos and... declassifying
intelligence documents to make it seem like the
whole Russia story was a hoax and concocted by
Obama, Biden, and Clinton. And she even accused
Obama of committing treason, a crime still punishable
by death. And so if you actually looked at what
she put out, it was just so transparently...
I don't know what else to call it. I mean, she
was purposely confusing some of those basic elements
of intelligence to say that these documents showed
that there was this conspiracy. I won't get into
all the details. You can read my book when it
comes out. But it was one of the, I think, you
know, I've written histories of the CIA, but
I think one of the biggest acts of intelligence
gaslighting. and politicalization of intelligence
that we've seen in the history of the U .S. national
security community. I mean, it's just complete.
And John Ratcliffe also was part of this as well,
I have to say. It wasn't just her, the CIA chief.
But just atrocious and just showing that all
they care about is protecting Trump, not serving
the national interest, not protecting national
security. Just a little bit of inside baseball.
I saw that, yeah, they cherry pick and declassify
things that they hope fit their narrative. And
of course, as you know, in the CIA, there's millions
and millions of pages of stuff that comes out.
You can always find something. And I've saw that
they put out several what look like intelligence
reports to try to fit some narrative that they're
creating. And they're putting out, this is an
inside term, non -disseminated information. So
if I'm overseas and I have a source and he tells
me something and I send that in. It could be
an intelligence report, which would then go out
to the community of analysts. Headquarters looks
at it and says, no, this doesn't make sense and
doesn't stand up. And the other 50 analysis is
not disseminated. In other words, if I send 10
things in, like two of them might, they won't
even send them out. He's then taking non -disseminated
stuff and putting it out to the public, pretending
like that's... suggesting the story she wants
to direct, when in fact, years ago, we already
said this is so beyond the pale that we won't
even send it to our analysts. I mean, this is...
She put out stuff like that, and she did this
very sort of like a stupid trick. You know, the
ICA, the Intelligence Community Assessment that
came out in early 2017, in the last days of the
Obama administration, said that Russia attacked
the 2016 election. They wanted to impede Hillary
Clinton. They wanted to cause chaos. And they
also wanted to help Trump. Those are the conclusions.
And they've been reaffirmed again and again and
again since. But they're going back to that report.
They want to try to wipe out the fact that this
was done to help Trump. They've given up on the
other conclusions. And so she put out – she found
these intelligence reports from 2016 that said
– Russia is not affecting the election by getting
into election systems and changing the vote.
And they had a couple because they were worried
about that because they had gone into election
systems, Russian hackers. And so what they were
looking at this, they said, well, we don't see
any evidence of doing anything inside the system.
So there were several reports saying Russia was
not doing that. And she said, look, these reports
tell us that Russia was not. working to help
Trump. Therefore, that ICA conclusion was completely
concocted to subvert Trump, and it was phonied
up, and that's an act of treason. Well, this
is apples and orangutans, because it's true.
There was no evidence they got into these systems
and changed votes or fucked with the systems.
But what the ICA was looking at was the hacking.
and leaking of information and the social media
campaign that they ran. And it was not to change
votes in voting machines. It was what's known
as an influence operation to cause chaos and
to sway the media and voters. And it did cause
problems for Hillary Clinton because for the
last month of her campaign, all these leaks came
out. through WikiLeaks that were stolen from
John Podesta by Russians. And it caused her campaign
a lot of, created a lot of headwinds and caused
a lot of problems and had an impact on the election.
So they're really, if you look at this stuff,
you know, it takes about 10 seconds. to say this
doesn't make sense. But yet they come out there,
they hold press conferences, John Ratcliffe is
part of this, Tulsi Gabbard, Caroline Levin,
and all of Fox, and all of One American Network,
and all of Newsmax, and Trump himself, of course.
And they go, see, here is evidence that this
was a conspiracy against me. It is, you know,
in some ways it's dispiriting that they can do
such or work, get away with it. I mean, it's
not even a good, you know, you know about conspiracy.
The public doesn't know all these details. It's
easy to fool people because it's complicated
and complex if you're not paying attention. But
yeah, they're just essentially creating false
narratives and spreading them. Yeah, and I think
in the years before Fox News, cable, and social
media, if someone had tried something like this,
the major news organizations would have looked
at it and said, Yeah. Not even reported or say
that these are phony documents and it would die
on the vine. But now, because the social media
amplification, right wing MAGA media amplification,
they can just put the stuff and have a veneer
of evidence and of officialdom and get coverage
for it. And that's what I mean when I say it's
dispiriting. I mean, I understand why it happens,
but it's just that, you know. they can get away
with what is really a pretty lousy con job. I
mean, John Le Carre would look at this and go,
come on, can't you guys do better? I don't think
they can. But listen, Dave, you've been gracious
with your time. Before we go, though, can you
tell us what you're working on now, a little
bit about your book and how people can find you?
Sure. Well, people can find me, Blue Sky, David
Korn. Also, if you bother with Twitter, it's
DavidCornDC or X, DavidCornDC on X. I have a
newsletter that you can get a free trial subscription
to and just go to DavidCorn .com, that's corn
with a C, to sign up for that. And you can find
my work at MotherJones .com. We have great stuff
up every day, as well as a magazine you can subscribe
to if you like. Right now, I'm still pursuing
some of the MAGA crack -up stuff, which I've
written about last week or so, and really trying
to put on some of the finishing touches to this
book. So if anyone out there is listening, I
have tips, advice, good leads for my book or
anything else. Again, davidcorn .99. I think
it's .99 or it's davidcorn99 at Signal. And you
can find me that way. And I appreciate any information.
Always can be anonymous and confidential. Beautiful.
No, you've been doing this for a long time and
you're a great reporter. I would encourage people
to follow your stuff. And I look forward to reading
the book. So for the audience, and if you like
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