[00:00:00] Announcer: Due to the themes of this podcast, listener discretion is advised. Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies. Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics, and intrigue. This episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr. [00:00:38] Matt Fulton: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Secrets and Spies. Donald Trump returned to the White House just over a month ago and his national security team is now in place. Pete Hegseth is running the Pentagon. Marco Rubio is at State. Kash Patel is at the FBI. John Ratcliffe is at CIA. Tulsi Gabbard, long skeptical of US intelligence and sympathetic to adversaries like Assad and Putin, now oversees US intelligence. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has embedded itself across federal agencies, gaining access to sensitive systems with little oversight. Many officials are resigning or being purged, allies may limit what they share with Washington, and inside these agencies, the question looms: What happens to those who aren't personally loyal to Trump? To break it all down, I'm joined again by Shane Harris, a staff writer at The Atlantic who's been covering these seismic shifts for the intelligence community. Today, we look at what's changing, who's in charge, and what happens next. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy our conversation. [00:01:37] Announcer: The opinions expressed by guests on Secrets and Spies do not necessarily represent those of the producers and sponsors of this podcast. [00:01:58] Matt: Shane Harris, welcome back to Secrets and Spies, sir. It's good to have you on. [00:02:02] Shane Harris: Hi, Matt. It's good to see you. Thank you for having me back. [00:02:04] Matt: Yeah. How, how are you doing? [00:02:06] Shane: You know, it's just, it's, it's a great adventure. We're all living through it together. It feels familiar, and yet in some ways it's so new. [00:02:13] Matt: Yes. You know, I, um, I, I sort of adopted my, my mantra, uh, for the year is, um, the horrors persist, but so do I. [00:02:22] Shane: I like that. [00:02:24] Matt: You know. [00:02:25] Shane: I like that. There's a, there's a sort of like zen quality about that perhaps. I, it's, I like this very much. [00:02:30] Matt: There is. It's sort of like, it's sort of like acceptance. It's zen, but there's also like a faint hint of, of menace to it also. It's like, I mean, for some folks you and I are the horror and I think there's power in that. I think there's, you know, [00:02:41] Shane: There you go. [00:02:41] Matt: we got, we got, we got something going for us. [00:02:43] Shane: And yet we persisted. [00:02:44] Matt: And yet we persisted. Yes. Alright. Anyway, uh, moving on to our happy subject for the day. [00:02:51] Shane: Yeah. [00:02:52] Matt: Um, so I, I pitched this, uh, as sort of, I think I said as like a vibe check for the intelligence community. Um, we're a month and some change after the inauguration. Things are, settled is not the right term, but you know, all the principals are kind of in their offices and stuff. So I figured we could sort of look at the breadth of your reporting since the, uh, inauguration and, um, you know, kind of see how things were going. [00:03:17] Shane: Yeah. [00:03:18] Matt: So to, to start us off, um, let's kind of put this in context with the, with the first term. So Trump's second term national security team -- so that's Hegseth at DoD, Rubio at State, Patel at the FBI, Ratcliffe at Langley, Gabbard at ODNI -- all Senate confirmed and in place now. Um, compared to the first term's lineup, that national security team, uh, what strikes you most about this team? And now that they've taken command and are getting classified briefings, are they adjusting to the day-to-day pressure of confronting real national security threats? Or are they still sort of chasing the shiny objects from campaign season? [00:04:00] Shane: Well, I think that the, the most striking example to begin with of what's different in Trump 2 versus Trump 1 with the people he's appointed, is all of those individuals that you mentioned have one thing in common, which is that they all are political loyalists to the president. Um, and I don't just mean, you know, they're on his side with policy or they supported him in the election. I mean, you know, most people presumably who are picked for cabinet positions are, [00:04:24] Matt: Yeah. [00:04:24] Shane: are willing to work for the, the president. Um, these are people who have in many ways made their careers out of being, uh, a, a kind of, uh, um, water carriers for MAGA um, for Trump's positions. I mean, you know, Pete Hegseth was literally a television personality who, you know, kind of, uh, made his career pushing these kinds of ideas. You know, he famously persuaded President Trump to go to bat for people who'd been committed of war crimes. Um, you know, you could kind of go down the list of these individuals. John Ratcliffe, I mean, very much pushed conspiracy theories about the origins of the FBI's Russia, Russia probe while he was a member of Congress. It's one of the things that got him on the radar of Donald Trump when Trump picked him as the DNI in the last term. So all of these people have that in common. The other thing that, and, and we should say in Trump 1, that's not to say again, that there weren't people who might have had conservative bonafides, or who might have been inclined to support a Republican president, um, but these were not people who had gone out, like waving the MAGA flag for Trump and the campaign. Um, the other thing that, that, that strikes me is that I think, you know, if you're looking across the spectrum, none of these people have any experience running a large organization. At all. [00:05:39] Matt: Right. [00:05:39] Shane: I mean, Pete Hegseth, who is now in charge of the massive bureaucracy of the Pentagon, was on TV. Tulsi Gabbard was an elected official, never run a major organization. Marco Rubio was a senator. I mean, he'd run the Senate office, but never a major organization. Um, uh, I guess you could say with, with, you know, Ratcliffe, I mean, he had been DNI, so we should, we should cabin him in a different category. [00:06:01] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:06:02] Shane: But these are not people with significant managerial depth either. Um, it's not to say they don't have relevant experience. You know, Rubio has actual foreign policy experience. Um, you know, uh, but, you know, does Kash Patel have real experience in federal law enforcement? I mean, he worked in the National Security Division. You know, there are accounts that he wasn't such a, a, a stellar performer there. These people just don't, they're out of their depth organizationally, by and large. And I think that is showing through in some of the, um, the, the early weeks as well. [00:06:33] Matt: Well, that's true. I mean, to think of Hegseth, especially. You, you and I have talked about this offline once that, I mean, I think it was when he was first nominated. Yeah. Fox weekend host now running the largest corporation on Earth. [00:06:47] Shane: No. [00:06:48] Matt: Yeah. [00:06:49] Shane: Yeah. And there and there's just, there's no, and there's no, you know, this is also, it's not to say that to be the secretary of defense, you need to be like an expert in the military or in defense issues, but you do need to be pretty well versed in running large organizations. [00:07:03] Matt: Yeah. [00:07:03] Shane: And it was very telling to me that when Hegseth was nominated, his supporters in, you know, in the administration kept pointing to his military experience. Uh, you know, like, oh, he's been a soldier, he's served, et cetera. And I kind of made a joke to somebody, to somebody at one point saying, like, saying that because Pete Hegseth served in uniform and therefore is qualified to be the secretary of defense, is like saying that because I am an avid home cook, I'm qualified to run the McDonald's corporation. Um, you know, these are not, these are these, these, these qualities might rhyme, but they really are not, you know, part of the same verse here. I mean, and this is I think a real, uh, uh, uh, fallacy when we talk about people's credentials. Like, oh, well they were, you know, exposed to the military. Well, that doesn't mean you're gonna be a successful, you know, CEO of a, you know, a hundred, multi-hundred-thousand, million-person organization. [00:07:59] Matt: The DOGE crew -- um, Elon Musk's company of child soldiers, lobotomizing federal agencies -- um, has already gained access to personnel files, sensitive financial systems, and intelligence-adjacent databases. There's real worry about the, the vetting of these, um, folks and their ability to handle -- if they're, I, I don't know how aware of this they are -- that they're becoming arguably the biggest foreign intelligence targets in the world, some of these guys. Have there been any serious efforts to mitigate their reach into the national security apparatus? Or are we kind of waiting for Musk to fly too close to the sun and get purged himself? [00:08:36] Shane: Yeah, I don't think there have been any serious efforts. Certainly none that I have found in my reporting and none that the administration has advertised. All the risks that you say are, are there. Um, you know, one would hope that someone has pulled aside these DOGE employees, and as you put it said, you are now like gigantic targets for Russia, uh, China, Iran, North Korea. I mean, underscore it, and, and, and really in the, in the cyber domain. [00:09:02] Matt: I'd put Israel on that list, too. [00:09:04] Shane: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you know, and, and so like, and I don't know whether or not, you know, and we're seeing reports all the time of like, you know, of how leaky they are. I saw one the other day that like one of these people was posting information that he'd found in, in the federal agencies on his GitHub page. I mean, this is just kind of mind blowing. I mean, this is, this is absolutely behavior that would never be tolerated in a functioning security apparatus. It just wouldn't. Um, so I hope that they are getting some sense of this, of the risks that they're taking. I doubt it. Um, and you know, and you mentioned, you know, Elon flying too close to the sun. You know, I thought a week ago, and, and, and I think I was wrong in this assessment, that when he had sent out that email from OPM saying, send me your five bullet points justifying your existence this week, or else I'll take it as your resignation, and you immediately saw all the national security agencies push back on that. That struck me as, okay, well maybe these people are really flexing and they're going to essentially say, this is our territory. Elon, you stay out. Well, then yesterday Pete Hegseth put out a video of himself saying, I'm directing all civilian DoD employees to comply with this email. Um, just be careful that you don't say anything too sensitive or classified in it, which is just again, I mean, it goes back to the just, you know, abundant counterintelligence risks that these people are creating, the not, you know, for themselves. Um, so I don't think that Elon's star has, uh, uh, dipped or dimmed with Trump. He, you know, he, he appears to be, you know, incapable of doing wrong in the president's eyes. They were at Mar-a-Lago together over the weekend, making an appearance at an event there at the club. Um, so, you know, I, I look for these signs that somebody is pulling in, you know, putting a leash on people or putting up guardrails. I just don't see it in any meaningful way. And, you know, my concern is that we're heading for a severe breach or you know, some kind of, you know, really seeing, um, the material risks kind of manifest of these vulnerabilities that people are creating when they're poking around in data and sending classified information over unclassified systems. Uh, uh, you know, I hope that doesn't happen. I suspect it probably already has. [00:11:19] Matt: In your reporting, there's one database that you mentioned. Um, so I mean, DOGE's like sort of three primary beachheads are the US Digital Service, OPM, the Office of Personal Management, which for listeners abroad especially, are like sort of the universal HR office for the whole federal government. [00:11:37] Shane: Yeah. [00:11:37] Matt: And GSA, um, the General Services, uh, Administration. You mentioned one database, um, as part of the IC, it's called Scattered Castles. [00:11:46] Shane: Yeah. [00:11:46] Matt: That previously was kind of presciently, you said kind of, uh, firewalled off from OPM. I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about that. [00:11:53] Shane: Yeah, so Scattered Castles is the database that contains the, the personnel records of all people who have security clearances. So that's gonna include your intelligence agency personnel. It's also gonna include, you know, even non-IC people who have a clearance will be logged in Scattered Castles. And contractors, you know, people who are not government employees but who have clearance to do their work for the government, they'll be logged in this system. And, and you're right. You know, more than 10 years ago there was this push to take that database and integrate it with essentially the OPM main database and kind of put everything together to make it more ostensibly, to make it more efficient, to speed up the process of, um, um, vetting security clearance applications, which take a long time. And people in the intelligence committee at the time said, No, hold on. You're talking about taking a, a system that contains really sensitive personnel information. It's kind of like a roadmap to here's all the people who work in the intelligence community. I mean, you could take data like that and, and, you know, and kind of cross-pollinate with other data sources and potentially figure out who are the intelligence officers in the US government, right? Who are the people who are working in US embassies that are ostensibly there as quote unquote diplomats, but actually are CIA officers. Um, this is absolutely bread and butter material that any foreign intelligence service is trying to get all the time. And, uh, you know, folks, presciently, as you said, said, let's not please put that data into a system that is even more vulnerable to hackers. Let's leave it firewalled from the main internet, uh, onto in a classified government system. And, and those fears proved correct in 2015, you know, famously China breached the OPM system. And you know, I think the presumption is basically made off with all of the personnel records, not just for the moment, but the ones that went back years. [00:13:41] Matt: Yeah. [00:13:41] Shane: Um, and, and we still do not understand the, the bounty of intelligence information that that gave to China, although it's presumably profound. So, you know, as these DOGE kids are knocking around in personnel systems. You know, uh, this is the kind of thing that we worry about, right, is that, um, you know, that they might stumble across information that they could expose either deliberately or because they could hack that is useful then to a foreign intelligence agency. As far as I know, the Scattered Castles system remains segregated. Um, which is a good thing. Um, now whether or not eventually the DOGE people might get access to that, we don't know. Um, but I think this kind of gives you a feeling for just how vulnerable the system is when people who really don't need to be poking around inside of it start rooting around in the files. [00:14:31] Matt: I believe this was in the second week of the, uh, administration. There was, um, a big flap, rightfully so. Um, a list of probationary employees at CIA. Their names were sent, I don't recall off the top of my head if it was, um, first name and last initial or the other way around, but their names were, [00:14:48] Shane: It was. First names and last initial, yeah. [00:14:50] Matt: Okay. Um, sent over an unclassified email system. Not in, uh, Intelink or JWICS or something. I haven't heard this question answered anywhere. I'm not sure if it's if, if it's, if it's out there. Do you know if that was just a, um, an administrative screw up or did the White House or DOGE or whatever sort of insist on, No, use that email system? [00:15:10] Shane: So, I don't know whether they said use that email system. In fact, I presume that they didn't. But my understanding from my reporting and talking to people about this is that the CIA was trying to comply with the White House's direction that every agency identify its probationary employees, which are people who've, uh, been in the job basically two years or less. And at CIA, it's two years or less. So you're talking about people who were quite recently hired and who have been spending that two years mainly in training. You know, we're talking about people who may have gone to the Farm, which is the CIA's training center, who have been training to be analysts. Maybe they were in language training. Um, and to comply with that directive, um, the Agency said, you know, well, the full names of these people are, you know, kind of sensitive. So we'll compromise by sending the first name and the last initial, and then it was sent over this un in an unclassified email. Um, there were ways to transmit that information more securely. [00:16:14] Matt: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:16:14] Shane: There, there obviously are. I mean, we could sit here and you could, you could literally send someone over to the, to the headquarters and give it to them if you needed to. [00:16:21] Matt: Yeah. [00:16:22] Shane: Um, I think I have yet to find out all the reasons why that was done, but my understanding is that that, and it was what we reported, was a kind of compromise. Why officials chose to then put it in an unclassified email, I do not know. Um, what I do know is there has been significant consternation about that decision, particularly by operations officers inside the CIA. [00:16:48] Matt: Right. [00:16:48] Shane: Who are rightly worried that if those names were ever exposed, those people could not go serve in their assignments. It is too risky. Um, you have to presume, and again, remember we're talking about sending this over to OPM, which was, you know, overrun by Chinese hackers 10 years ago. Um, if any of those people had assignments prepared to deploy to China, um, I would have to presume that there is significant chance that they will not be deployed. [00:17:21] Matt: Oh yeah. Never. I mean, not even as a diplomatic cover, to say nothing of like a NOC kind of situation. Like there's, there's, there's no way. [00:17:28] Shane: Right. [00:17:28] Matt: There's no way. [00:17:29] Shane: Right. Which, which, which, yeah. No, absolutely. Which, I mean, you're talking about millions of dollars and years of time invested in training every single one of those people that potentially just went up in smoke. [00:17:41] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that. Um, so, moving on to the FBI here. Um, Kash Patel, before his confirmation, assured the FBI Agents Association that, keeping with over a century of precedent, he agreed his deputy would be a career special agent. That didn't happen. Spoiler alert, we got Dan Bongino. Um, what, what happened there? Is it your sense that Patel lied to the FBIAA, or was Bongino forced on him by the White House? Much in the same way that Patel was almost forced on Gina Haspel at CIA near the end of the first term. [00:18:14] Shane: I think it, it seems to be the latter. Um, uh, Evan Perez wrote a really good story for CNN, um, where he covers the FBI, um, last week, uh, in which he had a line of reporting that, uh, there was resistance within this, um, kind of advisory panel that was set up to advise Patel that was made up of former senior FBI agents, uh, to kind of help Kash understand the highways and byways of the Bureau. Which traditionally remember, too, that would be a job of the deputy director. One reason why the deputy director throughout the more than a century history of the Bureau has been a, a, a serving senior special agent is because the FBI director sometimes is not a special agent, has never worked at the FBI, might be somebody who has other relevant experience, great manager, whatever. [00:19:12] Matt: Right. [00:19:12] Shane: But the deputy is there to be like, this is how this very strange bureaucracy works. Um, so there was pushback according to Evan by this advisory panel that was set up towards some of the things that Patel and others wanted to do, including, you know, large-scale firings. And essentially these people were saying, you know, no, like this is, we cannot advise this. And that prompted Trump to say, I'm picking Dan Bongino [00:19:40] Matt: Wow. [00:19:41] Shane: as the deputy. And I thought that was very interesting reporting that Evan had that almost makes it look like to me, presuming that Kash really did say what he said to the FBI Agents Association, and I've read the memo in which they say, he told us this and I believe them. [00:19:56] Matt: Yeah. [00:19:57] Shane: Then it looks like Trump kind of undercut his own FBI director, which sort of led me to, you know, remark to a colleague, uh, you know, Kash Patel is not the director of the FBI, Donald Trump is the director of the FBI. Um, and, and, and Dan Bongino, I mean, we, we can go into it if you want, but I mean, this is, [00:20:13] Matt: Please. [00:20:14] Shane: Uh, yeah, I mean, look, I think I associate myself with, with the, the critique that others have made too, that Dan Bongino as the deputy director of FBI is even more worrying than Kash Patel as the director of the FBI, [00:20:29] Matt: Yes. [00:20:29] Shane: if what you are trying to avoid is the politicization of the nation's top law enforcement agency. And, and you know, and we should say too, you know, people like Patel and Bongino, they're going in claiming that it was the Biden administration that quote unquote, weaponized and politicized law enforcement. Uh, uh, you know, well, okay, but you know, I happen to think that's not accurate. But now they're doing precisely the same thing, right? But at a, at an exponentially larger scale. And, you know, you can spend about five minutes on one of Dan Bongino's podcasts and understand where he's coming from. It is, he's a paranoid conspiracy theorist, extremely anti-government. Um, you know, uh, says, you know, really outlandish things about needing to seize power. Uh, you know, using power to crush your enemies. I mean, all of this stuff, and I mean, and it kind of is an almost even more extreme and weirdly caricatured version of Kash Patel, who himself is already extreme and says [00:21:29] Matt: Right. [00:21:29] Shane: kind of surreal things and writes children's books about, you know, Donald Trump as a king, you know, fighting dragons of the deep state and you know, all these other things that he's done. [00:21:39] Matt: Kash wrote himself in that book is like a wizard that was helping King Donald to fight the deep state. [00:21:44] Shane: He was the helpful wizard. Yeah. Wizard Kash, who they begged to come help the King Donald, you know, defeat the DOJ dragon. It's literally, I mean, this is literally true. You can go read these books. We're not making this up. [00:21:55] Matt: Wish we were. Um, like we said, the horrors persist. Um, so speaking of those, of those firings that you mentioned, um, a bit ago, uh, so in the first two weeks after the inauguration, again, there was, uh, as you said, a lot of reporting that, you know, hundreds or potentially even thousands of FBI personnel, um, anyone who touched January 6th or Trump-related investigations could be fired or face some sort of disciplinary action. Is that broad purge still on the table? [00:22:22] Shane: As far as I know, yes. Um, I, I think that what we are seeing happening is attempts by some of the agents to, uh, uh, use the courts to avail themselves their legal rights under the civil service protections that they presumably have. Although we're gonna find out, um, and that has been true in a lot of these personnel actions, is that the court kind of becomes the place that these people have gone to say, I am being, you know, illegally terminated. You know, I have rights, I have due process rights. Uh, the president can't just come in and fire me. Um, now what the president has done, and in some cases, you know, I think this happened with senior FBI officials as well, is put them on administrative leave so you can effectively remove them from their positions, which is not the same as firing them, but it does essentially neutralize them and, you know, even if the courts are, you know, the courts are gonna take a long time in some cases to, to adjudicate this stuff. And it also might just be that the courts say these are administrative personnel actions, this is better handled by something like the Merit Systems Protection Board or other organizations that have been set up to handle personnel conflicts. Um, and, and the remedy in those cases might not be reinstating the employee, but simply ordering that their back pay be given to them for all the time that they weren't being paid while they were working. So you can see all the ways that like the Trump administration can just navigate through this bureaucracy. And even if it isn't, quote unquote firing outright, these people can still achieve its aims of, of pushing them out, uh, uh, and making them, um, effectively making them non-players in the, uh, in the government. [00:23:59] Matt: Patel has also, uh, recently I believe, talked about reorganizing the FBI into sort of a regional command structure. Do you know anything more about the specifics of that, of how that would, how that would work? [00:24:11] Shane: He envisions, he thinks that the Bureau is too top-heavy [00:24:15] Matt: Uh-huh. [00:24:15] Shane: at headquarters. And that, that's a critique I think there are many people in the bureau who'd agree with. [00:24:20] Matt: It's fair. [00:24:21] Shane: Yeah. Yeah. And look, I mean this is something that, you know, there's always a question, an agency who's reach, it's geographical reach and its mission set is as broad as the FBI, you know, are you concentrating too much power in the sort of administrative nerve center? Um, and is it, does that slow down the pace of investigations? Does that become overly or unnecessarily bureaucratic, et cetera. So there's kind of an instinct that he has there about that, that I think, you know, many would share. His idea though is to push these people more agents out into the field. Um, the, the stated intention of that is he wants to focus more on law enforcement and on, as he put it, public safety and protecting the public. When he talks about that, it's never clear to me how he's distinguishing between what the FBI does when it ex, when it investigates violations of federal law and what local and state police forces do. That's what we talk about when we talk about community safety. [00:25:21] Matt: Right. [00:25:22] Shane: I mean, FBI agents aren't gonna be walking up and down the streets looking for burglars. I mean, that's not what they do. [00:25:28] Matt: It's specific violations that they go after. [00:25:31] Shane: Yeah, exactly. We're talking about different kinds of crimes or interstate crimes. You know, kidnapping is something that the FBI investigates. Um, but, you know, he talks about it almost as like cops on the beat. Um, which is a very strange way of describing what the FBI does. Um, you know, one question as well is if you push more agents into the field, and let's just say they're out there doing traditional FBI investigations, well, it's also the case that the, that the, that the really important and I think indispensable role that headquarters provides, is to coordinate all of those field offices to make sure that there is someone kind of playing air traffic control. Because those field offices do not do that job on their own. [00:26:15] Matt: No. [00:26:15] Shane: And what we don't want to happen, you know, is a repeat of the months before 9/11, you know, when the FBI Minneapolis Field Office, uh, without realizing it is on the trail of some of the future 9/11 hijackers, and that information's not being communicated effectively across the system. So you need a strong headquarters apparatus to do that. And I think that's, that's when I talk to people about the risks that they see and what Patel is proposing, that's one of the big ones that, that headquarters might become somehow less aware of what the field offices are up to. [00:26:47] Matt: Well, the field offices also very widely in terms of just their capabilities. I mean, if you compare like the New York Field Office to like Mobile, Alabama, it's just not even, it's like night and day. [00:26:57] Shane: Sure, sure. And, and that's with good reason. I mean, some of these places are just bigger nexuses of criminal activity or international terrorism or security issues. [00:27:06] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:27:06] Shane: New York being a huge one. [00:27:08] Matt: Yeah. Um, John Ratcliffe and, uh, Tulsi Gabbard are now leading CIA and ODNI respectively. Let's focus on Gabbard for a second, um, someone who has historically been skeptical of US intelligence and suspiciously sympathetic to adversaries like Russia and Bashar al-Assad's, uh, regime in Syria. Um, how are the rank and file at Liberty Crossing and other IC elements responding to her? Do we know how she's managed in her first few weeks? [00:27:34] Shane: Well, we can actually look at the things that she said. Um, John Radcliffe has comparatively kept kind of a quieter, uh, profile. Um, [00:27:43] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:27:43] Shane: but Gabbard has notably just in the past, um, four or five days, done two things, uh, publicly, um, that I thought were just striking and really will set the tone for how she's going to behave as DNI. One was after the, you know, now infamous, uh, blow up in the Oval Office on Friday with President Trump and Vice President Vance and President Zelensky. Um, she came out with a tweet, uh, that essentially said, and if you gimme a second here, I will grab it because I wanna get this right. So she tweeted this on, uh, Friday evening at around 6:30. "Thank you, Donald Trump, for your unwavering leadership in standing up for the interest of the American people and peace. What you said is absolutely true. Zelensky has been trying to drag the United States into a nuclear war with Russia slash W-W-III for years now, and no one has called him out on it." Okay? First of all, this statement is just not correct. Um, to start with, the president did not say that Zelensky was, quote, trying to drag the United States into a nuclear war. The president did warn President Zelensky that, you know, by his actions he was risking starting a nuclear war. Put that aside. The other part is there is no intelligence that I'm aware of, and I have been briefed as many other reporters have by the people who work for Tulsi Gabbard now, many times, on the war in Ukraine. There is no intelligence that I am aware of that President Zelensky was trying to drag the United States into a war. Okay? That is just that it, that is, that is not comport with reality and quite the opposite. If you go back to now, just over three years from, uh, ago when Russia was poised to invade Ukraine, the US intelligence community was trying to persuade Zelensky that a war was coming. And he resisted that analysis. [00:29:48] Matt: Yeah, right. [00:29:48] Shane: He was saying like, I don't think this is really happening. So the notion that the now nation's top intelligence official is promoting on Twitter is just false. I mean, there, or, or you know, as I reached out on Friday night to the DNI's press office, I said, Is there some new intelligence, or is there information that we have not been briefed on in the previous three years that officials have briefed us on this subject that suggests this? Or is she expressing her personal opinion? I asked that question on Friday evening. I have not heard back from them. Um, and then, uh, she was on Fox, uh, Tulsi Gabbard was on Fox News Sunday talking about, you know, uh, Zelensky risking an escalation. You know, making really just, you know, what amount to, um, political comments, I think, and policy statements that it's just not something that the DNI traditionally does. I mean, this is, you know, we, we, we, we talk, you know, a lot about how important it has historically been for intelligence officials to steer clear political fights so that the information they provide to policy makers can be seen to have an unvarnished, unbiased kind of a view. Um, instead, you know, Tulsi Gabbard is out bashing Zelensky, uh, uh, bashing the Ukrainians. And, you know, and she did this notably when she had an opportunity to actually criticize Putin. Uh, you could also argue that, you know, you don't even want your intelligence advisors out there criticizing anyone to just stay out of it. But she has really embraced this role as, um, a kind of, um, proponent for the president's policies on Ukraine. And considering that it is the intelligence community that is going to have to advise policymakers on things like Putin's willingness to come to the table to negotiate, what does Putin want from a negotiation? Uh, you know, it's, her agencies are gonna have to tell the negotiators, what is that information? And now she is out there and has clearly taken a position against Ukraine. [00:31:56] Matt: Yeah. Well, it seems like they, uh, so we're, we're recording this on, on, on Monday, March 3rd. Uh, this morning I believe it was, uh, Rubio went on, it was with George Stephanopoulos and had an interview and was, George was asking him, you know, like, what does, what does Putin want to come to the table? You know, like, what does, what does he want as part of the this deal? And it seemed like they didn't, I mean, I don't, I, I don't get Rubio's briefings. I don't know. But it seemed like Rubio didn't, like, couldn't answer the question of what does Putin want. [00:32:27] Shane: Uh, well, I think there's a reason for that, and this is something that is actually, is not, is not getting enough emphasis in the coverage. The US intelligence community and allied intelligence services, by the way, have been very clear for a while now, well over a year, if not longer, that Vladimir Putin is not ready to negotiate if that means giving something up. [00:32:50] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:32:50] Shane: And the reason for that is, is because he believes he is winning. He believes he is advancing in his strategic aim of dividing the West, of undermining the NATO alliance, and of ultimately weakening Ukraine. That is the actual assessment of the United States intelligence community. Um, and just because Tulsi Gabbard is now in charge of it does not mean the assessment has changed, even as she seems to be saying something different. So the reason I think that perhaps why Secretary Rubio is coming up empty asked, when asked, what does Putin want is because there's not really anything that he, I prob I, that I'm aware of, that he has said he's willing to, to negotiate for. Now, they may have said something in the meetings in Riyadh behind closed doors, but again, the fact that Rubio kind of can't offer one up might suggest that the analysis that I'm describing still holds true that Putin, you know, sitting at the table is nothing. [00:33:44] Matt: Yeah. [00:33:44] Shane: You've gotta make sure he's gotta give something up here and, and if all by all accounts, he's not ready to do that. [00:33:49] Matt: If Gabbard's briefing staff, you know, um, comes up from, what, the National Intelligence Council or something and, you know, says, Here's our assessment of what Putin, sort of, believes he's winning and is not ready to negotiate with us in good faith, what do they do when Gabbard says, No, I don't, I don't, I don't think that's true. What, like, how do you, how do you, how do you handle that from, from a, an intelligence professional's standpoint? [00:34:15] Shane: I think that there are, you know, there might be ways internally that they could try to prevail upon her. [00:34:21] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:34:21] Shane: Um, you know, they can't, they can't dictate what she's gonna tell the president. They can't restrain her from going on Twitter or Fox News and, and saying what she's going to say. Um, you know, there may be channels that they could alert members of Congress or the inspector general. I mean, if they genuinely felt that she was disregarding intelligence completely. Um, but, you know, I, I, I don't think that's likely how they're going to react. They're gonna try and do their jobs, these analysts and, you know, and where they can get across to people what the message is. And, you know, look, it's also possible that Tulsi Gabbard is briefing President Trump and saying, look, it's the view of the intelligence agencies that Putin is in no position to give something up. And that President Trump could be striking a different public posture, uh, for other reasons. Uh, you know, and, and, and there could be, you know, that's not, that's not necessarily a bad thing if he's saying one thing publicly and being briefed on something privately, as long as the negotiation is aimed towards, you know, what is best for our allies. The problem is, it is not clear that that is what this negotiation is aimed at. Um, and I think it's probably quite the opposite. I mean, there's always this tendency that people have, uh, you know, with, with Trump is, you know, you, you listen to what he's saying and what he is doing, and people ask, well, does he really mean it? You know, if by now people have not figured out the answer to that question is yes. [00:35:43] Matt: Yeah. [00:35:43] Shane: You know, that, watch what he says and what he does. Um, you know, I don't think anyone that I've talked to in the past, 72 hours after that fiasco in the Oval Office, their confidence level and their trust in the United States as an ally has not gone up. Right? [00:36:01] Matt: Yeah. [00:36:02] Shane: And, and, and these are not people, you know, in the security services of our allies who are prone to hyperbole, who are easily shaken. They have long known and understood. Donald Trump's um, a admiration for Vladimir Putin, his real hatred for people in Ukraine. I mean, this is something very real and visceral, and he is deeply paranoid about Ukrainians. Uh, and that is all coming to a head now. So what we saw happen in Friday, it's not that everyone kind of, their head explodes and goes, this changes everything. This is just like the kind of final exclamation point on what they've long understood, which is that, you know, when it comes to negotiating over the future of Ukraine, Donald Trump is, is, is more interested in what Vladimir Putin wants than he is what Ukraine wants. [00:36:49] Matt: We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with more. My sense of watching that, um, Oval Office meeting, I think that's, I think what was so sort of different and incendiary about that moment is that it happened in front of the TV cameras. [00:37:19] Shane: Yes. [00:37:19] Matt: I think, one, that's a function of turning the press corps into like a MAGA Greek chorus, and two, just having them hang out in the Oval Office with cameras for like 50 minutes or something, right? But that's something that could come out, that, that anecdote could be in a Michael Wolff book in like a couple years and it wouldn't be like, it would be very much a dog-bites-man story. But I think because it happened in front of cameras, that's the thing that has made it the moment that it is. I don't how, how you, how you feel about that. [00:37:45] Shane: I, I think that's right. And, and, you know, and, and to your point, I think it's what Donald Trump wanted. [00:37:51] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:37:52] Shane: I, I don't know, um, whether or not this was actually a trap that they laid out. Uh, you know, uh, uh, the writers at Saturday Night Live this weekend certainly thought that it was. I'm inclined to believe it probably was. Most people I talk to think it was. But the point is, is that to your point, Matt, that if, you know, those are the kinds of conversations that do take place when the cameras are off behind closed doors and then traditionally people go out and they do things, say things publicly that try not to create distance. [00:38:19] Matt: Right. [00:38:19] Shane: And that is perfectly reasonable negotiating, right? And that is, that is, that's how it's done, basically. I think that Donald Trump wanted this to happen. And to that point, all he had to do, if he didn't want this scene, was to when JD Vance started, you know, you know, throwing sand in Zelensky's eyes, to say, okay, all right. That's enough. Thanks very much for your questions. Everybody out. We're gonna take this private. And he didn't do that. He just kept going and they kept asking more questions. Um, and, you know, and you saw, you know, Marco Rubio sinking back into the couch and all the rest of it. Um, clearly the president wants this out there. Um, and, and, and that, you know, I don't think of that as a negotiating tactic so much as I think of that as just him telling us all what he thinks. [00:39:05] Matt: Right. Just after we were, we sort of got into the section here about the, about the allies and how they sort of feel and everything. And I do definitely think that Vance really blew up that meeting. I think he blew up the Munich Security Conference, too. I'm gonna ask you about that in a second, because you were, you were there, right? [00:39:21] Shane: Yeah. [00:39:22] Matt: Yeah. Um, I don't know. I, I think what's going on in Trump's neurons that are firing in his brain during that sort of meeting with Zelensky, it's "Russia, Russia, Russia hoax" and "Hunter Biden's laptop from hell," right? [00:39:35] Shane: Yeah. [00:39:36] Matt: Whereas Vance is, I think actually, you know, philosophically opposed to the Western small-D democratic experiment. [00:39:43] Shane: Yeah. [00:39:43] Matt: But Vance is not one of the two principles in that meeting and should not have been, you know, like you said, throwing sand in his, in, in Zelensky's face. Um, but, so yeah. Just after the election, I know you checked in with your European, um, intelligence sources. You were also at the Munich Security Conference last month. Um, what do you, I mean you, you sort of touched on this a bit already, but what, what are you hearing from them? I mean, you've reported that some services are considering limiting what they share with the administration. What would that look like in practice? Are we talking about withholding raw collection, limiting intelligence coordination or something else? [00:40:18] Shane: Kind of a little bit of all of that. But to put some meat on those bones, um, you know, there are different scenarios. Um, one would be, and I think this is the most extreme, would be just that there is a, an a, an acknowledged cessation of sharing intelligence. You know, you know. Uh, the Brits or the Australians or the Canadians say, you know, we're cutting you off from, you know, this stream. Um, I think that is very unlikely to happen, but it's certainly within, you know, the realm of plausible scenarios, although the least likely. What is more likely to happen from, based on people I've had conversations with, you know, throughout the Western alliance, not strictly limited to Five Eyes countries, is, um, being more careful and more thoughtful about very sensitive human intelligence that they put forward. Um, in some cases, maybe withholding certain information out of a report or information that they push forward. Certainly not putting source, identifying information in and reports that they share, although they don't customarily do that anyway. [00:41:22] Matt: Yeah. [00:41:23] Shane: Um, going to their interlocutors, their counterparts at the CIA or the FBI, who are career people at fairly senior levels, who are the ones who are routinely talking to our allies. That is what information sharing looks like when you're talking about human intelligence reporting and basically saying like, look, this is really sensitive. Can you please be extra careful with it? Could you maybe try not to brief it up to your bosses? Is there some way that we can kind of keep this between us at the working level and not send it up to the, you know, the, the higher executive floors. All of these things are, are being discussed. Um, not starting new projects that might require cooperation with the Americans. Thinking twice before, you know, you initiate one of those and go down that road with them. All of this, you know, I, I, I is not customarily the way things are done. Um, on signals intelligence, you know, the electronic data and the intercepts of, you know, text messages and emails and all the rest of it, that is like much harder to restrict, particularly because the two biggest collectors out there in the alliance is us and the British, really. Our, our gear, our technology is like physically intertwined in many locations. So you can't shut it off. [00:42:38] Matt: Yeah. It's one system. [00:42:39] Shane: But on the human level you can, and you know, we're gonna find out soon enough how this is gonna work because at the FBI, where Trump has eliminated or sidelined, however you want to call it, um, I think the number is now seven senior people, kind of at the executive assistant director level. [00:42:59] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:42:59] Shane: Those people are the ones who literally talk every day to the people at MI5, MI6, Canada, the Australians. They are the interlocutors for information around like international terrorism, international crime. Um, because the FBI, importantly does have a kind of a foreign component when it comes to tracking international criminal organizations. So already the people who are the ones that our allies talk to every day are not on the job. And if they're going to be replaced with, you know, the likes of a Dan Bongino, that is going to have a direct effect on the quality of intelligence sharing between us and our allies. [00:43:36] Matt: Chris and I answered, um, listener questions on a recent, uh, Espresso Martini episode. One asked if Five Eyes will survive. Um, I, I said that, going off of just my gut and understanding how the system works, the you know, degree of understanding of it that I, that I have, um, I thought that, you know, if you stood on the operations floor at like Menwith Hill or Pine Gap, where this cooperation and sharing really happens, like where you said where these systems are, are physically intertwined, that's, that's where it is, um, I don't know. These are professionals who believe in the mission, working together, hand in glove. Um, Five Eyes is constituted under a multilateral agreement. The threat of China looms over all and we need every eye we can get. So for now, I thought it's probably business as usual. How do you, how do you feel about that question, like at that granular level outside of the command deck in the C-suites? [00:44:29] Shane: Yeah, I think at the, for now it's, it's still stable. Um, but it is profoundly unsettled. Um, the Financial Times last week had a very interesting article that Peter Navarro, who is one of Trump's aides, who is known for saying outlandish things, by the way. [00:44:45] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:44:45] Shane: Even within the White House, they understand that's who he is, was tossing around the idea of kicking Canada out of the Five Eyes partnership. And it seemed like this was being bandied around as a potentially a stick to make them give us more favorable trade terms as we're going through this trade war with Canada now. Um, Navarro came out later and said, oh, there's nothing to it. But there's been other reporting and I've heard chatter from people that Trump has flirted with this idea of kicking out Canada from Five Eyes. Now query how you actually kick somebody out of a mutual pact like this when the other one other members don't agree to it. Um, but, you know, do I think that, so do I think that a member being kicked out like that is likely, maybe not, but is the fundamental trust that underlies that pact, is that being shaken? 100% yes. Absolutely. There's no question. I mean, I, I, and I've talked to people throughout the alliance on this question and everyone is very nervous. And what they keep turning back to is the career people, the, that they have the longstanding kind of those operational ties that you are talking about, the people who were there to do a job, those are the people who they kind of feel like if we can hold together at that level, we can make the alliance work. But of course, all of those people answer up to their political bosses. [00:46:04] Matt: Right. [00:46:05] Shane: Uh, and, and Trump's behavior lately is, is shaking confidence in a way that I've never seen in the two decades I've been writing about this. [00:46:14] Matt: Yeah, and it's interesting you brought up, uh, Navarro. I mean, he styles himself a rabid China hawk. And I think that, that sort of gag about kicking, as you said, you can't really do that anyways, it's a multilateral agreement, but kicking, uh, Canada out of Five Eyes, it's, it's definitely, it's a, it's a, to them, it's a dumb joke, it's, it's, it's wrong and thoroughly destructive, but it's a dumb joke about the 51st state thing, you know? [00:46:39] Shane: Yeah. [00:46:39] Matt: Like calling him governor, um, Governor Trudeau. Yeah. [00:46:43] Shane: Yeah. [00:46:43] Matt: Um, but I mean, yeah, this guy who thinks of himself as a rabid China Hawk wants to do this to a, um, First World power with a Pacific coastline and is one half of NORAD that the commander of US Northern Command recently said, China's a real concern up there now. Like, it just makes no sense. [00:47:00] Shane: It doesn't make any sense at all. It's so counterproductive. And, and, you know, and the administration has gone to great lengths to say Canada needs to do more to, you know, secure the border against, you know, illegal migrants, possible terrorists streaming across, and the flow of fentanyl. Okay, well, you know, Canada, which is collecting information on security threats inside its own country, we don't do that for them, and Five Eyes don't spy on each other. Well, if you kick them out of Five Eyes, so all the intelligence that would be useful for understanding the very threat you want them to do more to address, now we don't get that flow of information? [00:47:37] Matt: Yeah. [00:47:37] Shane: Why does that make any sense? And it doesn't, you know, and to your point, I mean there's an element of like gamesmanship and just like, you know, you know, the diplomatic equivalent of shit posting that a lot of these people like to do [00:47:50] Matt: Literally. [00:47:50] Shane: Um, and you know, everyone's kind of, you know, keeping a stiff upper lip and whatever. But this is not the way these allies traditionally talk to each other. This is not the way you handle your friends. Um, and this is, this is going noticed. And as these alliances degrade, you know, I hope that we are never in a position where we as a country need to depend on an ally to give us some really sensitive information or to help us protect our interests and our people from physical danger. And we've either shut that relationship off or they've kind of said, to hell with it, we don't trust you anymore. Uh, and that information doesn't get transmitted. I mean, there are real, you know, not to, again, not to get hyperbolic about it, but, you know, there are life and death stakes involved in some of this. [00:48:36] Matt: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, no. Yeah, I, I, I think it's totally warranted. Um, last, last couple questions here. Um, so some folks who listen to this podcast I know, aspire to a career in national security, whether that's with the IC as an officer or an analyst, um, the Foreign Service, FBI, et cetera. Uh, they're going to school for it or recently graduated. Um, a couple recently reached out to me concerned whether they can still get hired without being an avowed partisan executing Trump's, like, personal agenda. Or, even if they are hired, like are, are we now the baddies, you know? Um, will their mission be to support Ukraine and our traditional democratic allies or mold a world that's more in Putin's image? Um, do you think it's worth them, I mean, I'm sure they're gonna listen to this as well. Um, do, do, do you think it's worth them sticking it out, holding onto that dream, even if they need to hang out somewhere else for a few years? I mean, whenever this is over and I, I do in my bones, I think this will be over someday. Um, will there still be an intelligence community, a national security establishment that functions, that takes an oath to the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and speaks truth to power no matter how inconvenient for the president? Any thoughts there based on what you're hearing? [00:50:01] Shane: Well, there will be if the people who believe in those values, and cherish them, and will work to protect them are the ones working in the intelligence community. [00:50:11] Matt: Absolutely. [00:50:11] Shane: Um, you know, these organizations are just people. [00:50:14] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:50:14] Shane: That's all they are. They're people who are working every day and are governed by, yes, by laws and by regulations, but they're also governed by custom, by tradition, by cultures, um, by relationships. And all of that is what's being tested. That soft tissue is very much what is being attacked right now, um, by the political administration. And, you know, I can't tell a young person that they're not gonna face a questionnaire that says, you know, do you believe that Joe Biden actually won the election? You know, what's your opinion on January 6th? We've seen reports of people being asked this. They may be asked this. [00:50:52] Matt: Yeah. [00:50:52] Shane: And they're gonna have to decide, you know, how they, they answer. But my hope would be, and I know some, you know, quite young people who work in the intelligence community now, that they do stay in and they represent the values that I think have served this country and our allies so well for, you know, certainly in the post-World War II era, nearly on a century now. [00:51:13] Matt: Yeah. [00:51:13] Shane: Um, those are the foundations, and they're made up of people, and they're made up of shared values and traditions. They are not perfect institutions by any means. I am not saying that. They're not without flaws. They're made up of people. They're definitionally not flawless. Um, but the only way that you're gonna maintain those kind of values that I would argue have served our interests very well is if the people who adhere to those values stay in their jobs. [00:51:39] Matt: Yeah. [00:51:39] Shane: And I, I hope that many of them will make the choice, if they can. Um, I think that's, that's, that's the way that these institutions persist, to borrow from your phrase. [00:51:50] Matt: Yeah. Yeah, no. Well, well said, shane. I mean, I, yeah, I think that's, that's sort of what, what I've said, too. And it's, it's, I, I haven't worked in the IC, I just, I read a lot and write a lot and, I don't know, run my mouth. Um, but, uh, uh, to me, that if someone is, is concerned about those things, that to me says that they're absolutely the kind of person that should be in that job. [00:52:11] Shane: Yeah, I agree. [00:52:12] Matt: We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back. So, we've covered a lot today. Uh, the intelligence purges, Musk's infiltration of federal agencies, the counterintelligence threat of all this, uh, the growing fractures with allies. Um, but if you step back, what's the deeper story here? Um, not just the day-to-day chaos, but the through line people might be missing. Like if there's, is there a real shift happening inside the US national security apparatus right now that in five or ten years we'll look back on and say, this was the moment it changed. [00:53:01] Shane: I, I think there is, I think what we're seeing here is the dissolving of historic alliances. Um, and they are under stress, there is no doubt. But, you know, these things tend to not just break in one fell swoop. They tend to, like, degrade and erode over time. They tend to rot. [00:53:18] Matt: Yeah. [00:53:19] Shane: The system of agreements and alliances and shared values and cultures and down to the level of the shared technology and everything we've been talking about, all of that is in question now. And you have an administration in the United States that does not value that, right? That's not to say that the people at the working level don't value. That they do. And there is going to be profound tension between the political leadership and the career establishment. Um, which will by the way, probably only serve Donald Trump's conviction, that there is a deep state that is resisting him. And I suppose in some literal sense, you know, there are gonna be career people who, who believe that this is wrongheaded. Um, some of them may go along with it, some of them may leave. Um, ultimately the political leadership prevails in most of these situations, I think, historically. So we're watching that dissolution, um, at the same time and, and our eye's not quite on this ball, but it's gonna need to shift. Um, there is this strategic pivot towards China that the United States has been trying in fits and starts to make for many, many years now, and that the Trump administration says it wants to make. The intelligence community, by the way, is on board with that. Uh, you know, the CIA's China Mission Center, which is now four years old, is the only organization at the agency devoted to one country. China operations consume 20% of the CIA's budget. It's a huge target and a huge priority for CIA. [00:54:44] Matt: Did they get rid of the Iran Mission Center? [00:54:46] Shane: No, I think it's still there, but it's got, it's got, it's gone back and forth as where it sits and what it's called. [00:54:51] Matt: Yeah. Okay. [00:54:52] Shane: Um, but it's no longer the, I think it's now the Iran Operations Center. [00:54:56] Matt: Okay. [00:54:56] Shane: Um, but it's not, it's not, um, a mission center in the way that those have been constructed. Uh, in the kind of post-reorganization of the CIA, which, which is a very divisive process that might get undone, but now we're getting really in the weeds of bureaucracy that even listeners of this podcast might not want. Um, but you know, I think that this, this, there is this bigger shift that's going on. But there is a way that I think people in the community wanted to do that shift up towards China, and a prioritization of that, and a building up of the military strength of our allies in NATO, and a kind of moving of responsibility over to their side that didn't involve just blowing up the alliances that have been the foundation of the intelligence community. [00:55:41] Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:55:41] Shane: I mean, the CIA was formed out of the Second World War, right? As an intelligence apparatus aimed at the security of Europe and our allies. [00:55:52] Matt: That's a great point. [00:55:52] Shane: Uh, it has become obviously much, much bigger than that as, as has the broader intelligence community, but these are the things that are the roots of, of our contemporary intelligence and security system. And the administration is just, from the tactical to the strategic to the philosophical level is just, you know, blowing it up right now. Um, and you see that in the Munich speech with Vance. You see that in the rhetoric. You see that at the operational level. It's all going in that direction at the same time that we're trying to pivot to China. [00:56:24] Matt: Yeah. You know, to to, to your point there about the fraying, is four years too long or just long enough? [00:56:33] Shane: Um, oh, I think it's long enough. Yeah, I think you can, you can change the system fundamentally in four years. Do you mean like, was that enough time for them to do it? Was that your question? [00:56:41] Matt: Well, no, I mean, is it, I, I, I guess either way. Yeah, no, that, that, that really wasn't clear on, on, on, on, on my part. Is four years, can it hold for four years? [00:56:53] Shane: Yeah, I think it can. It's the question of what is it gonna look like on the other side. [00:56:58] Matt: I guess that depends on who, who comes out on the other side. [00:57:02] Shane: Yeah. And look, could there be, you know, a massive event, like a terrorist attack or some sort of huge crisis that accelerates this, you know, schism between Europe and the United States? Yes. Could Donald Trump wake up tomorrow morning and say, we're leaving NATO? Sure. I mean, he could. But like, you know, absent some sort of really, you know, fracturing event like that, could the alliance kind of muddle through and hold together? I suspect that it could, but I'd also just think that four years is enough time to pull it to pieces and just basically end it. [00:57:35] Matt: Yeah. [00:57:36] Shane: I, I don't know. I mean, I, I, I, I wouldn't make a prediction one way or the other. [00:57:40] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we will, we will see. Um, anything else you would like to touch on our cover that we haven't gotten through today? [00:57:47] Shane: No, this is, this is a wonderful and, and dispiriting conversation, Matt. Thank you. [00:57:52] Matt: The horrors persist. The horrors persist. [00:57:53] Shane: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, but thank you for having me on. And I think it's important to, for people to really peel back, you know, the issues here and understand what's underneath this. Because I think that sometimes, you know, those of us in the press, you know, sometimes get a rap, bad rap for being overly pessimistic or we're not being rigorous in our analysis. But like, you know, like everything we're talking about here is, is you know, backed up by conversations I've had, things that people have said publicly. Um, you know, this is a real moment of profound anxiety and, um, I think it's important to talk about it. [00:58:22] Matt: Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Um, we will have, uh, links to your reporting since the election that we sort of covered here, um, in the show notes. Also, uh, Twitter, Bluesky, um, your page on The Atlantic. All those, all those good spots. [00:58:38] Shane: Thank you very much, my friend. It's always great to be with you. [00:58:41] Matt: Yes, of course. As, as, as always, sir. [00:58:43] Shane: Okay. [00:58:43] Matt: Thank you. [00:58:44] Shane: Cheers. [00:58:44] Matt: Cheers. [00:59:17] Announcer: Thanks for listening. This is Secrets and Spies.