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On this episode of The David Frum Present, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with a warning about President Donald Trump’s determination to close down the dialog across the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Frum explains why Trump’s transfer has triggered backlash from elements of his personal base and why it reveals a deeper political fracture contained in the MAGA motion.
Then Frum is joined by the previous FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who shares his insights on what’s occurring on the bureau throughout Trump’s second time period. Strzok, who continues to be engaged in a lawsuit with the federal government over his 2018 firing, explains how Trump loyalists such because the FBI’s director, Kash Patel, and its deputy director, Dan Bongino, are dismantling the company’s national-security capabilities: purging specialists, sidelining investigations, and leaving america dangerously susceptible to terrorism, international espionage, and cyberattacks.
The next is a transcript of the episode:
David Frum: Hiya, and welcome to a different episode of The David Frum Present. I’m David Frum, a employees author at The Atlantic. My visitor this week will likely be Peter Strzok, an FBI agent who has grow to be a sufferer of President [Donald] Trump’s marketing campaign of retribution towards those that tried to use regulation towards him. Our subject was the hollowing out of the FBI within the second Trump time period, and my unique plan was to have a monologue that will tackle that very particular topic.
However there have been some dramatic occasions this previous weekend on the FBI, together with threats of resignation or reported threats of resignation by each the director and the deputy director to protest the lawyer basic’s directive to close down the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
Due to that, I’m altering plans and recording this monologue late on Sunday night, earlier than the discharge of the present, which can clarify to these of you viewing on YouTube a sure stepping-away from the standard excessive aesthetic requirements we attempt to preserve for the visuals of The David Frum Present.These dramatic occasions caught me between planes, and I’m talking to you from an airport resort and never one among our common venues.
I wish to provide some ideas in regards to the Trump-Epstein matter. Let’s have a look at this for a second from the viewpoint of a MAGA supporter, a MAGA believer. Now, in case you are such an individual, you may have refused to take significantly and accepted President Trump’s excuses for an extended array of surprising occasions—together with confirmed findings by a civil court docket of sexual abuse, large self-enrichment, the tried overthrow of an American election in 2021—and you’ve got agreed to just accept the president’s phrase on each one among these issues till now.
Instantly, with the Epstein case, there’s been a mutiny in MAGA world the place they’re abruptly now not accepting, or a lot of them are now not accepting President Trump’s orders to step away from an investigation that’s embarrassing to him. They’re now not believing the issues that Donald Trump tells them. And the query that these of us who will not be in MAGA world should ask is: Why now? Why this?
Now, clearly, the Epstein matter is very critical: many, many circumstances of sexual abuse of underage girls and women, with overlays of economic corruption and lots of different allegations, together with a extremely suspicious account of the loss of life of the determine on the heart of the case, whether or not by suicide—even when the official story is suicide, and even in case you settle for that, there does appear to be one thing very flawed with the logs. And there are only a lot of questions. So it’s a grade-A scandal. I’m not in any manner denigrating that scandal to say different scandals that have been additionally essential have been shrugged off by MAGA world. What’s it about this one?
In spite of everything, supposing you have been somebody who actually needed to resolve the Jeffrey Epstein matter, wouldn’t or not it’s that Donald Trump could be in regards to the final politician in America you’ll belief to guide the investigation? He and Epstein have been mates for a very long time. However President Trump, in interviews and different statements, made mild of Jeffrey Epstein’s connections to underage girls. They spent a variety of time collectively. They have been good mates, and there’s increasingly proof, a few of it in a brand new ebook by Michael Wolff, of an excellent nearer relationship than that.
And in spite of everything, if it’s the loss of life that’s regarding you about—the suspicious circumstances of Jeffrey Epstein’s loss of life—that occurred not throughout the Invoice Clinton presidency, not throughout the Barack Obama presidency, not throughout the Joe Biden presidency. The loss of life occurred within the Donald Trump presidency in a jail supervised by Trump administration officers.
So in case you are desirous to get to the reality of this, why, ever, would you may have trusted Donald Trump to do it? And but so many individuals in Trump world seemed to Donald Trump as the person who would convey this story to fact, and now profess to be shocked and shocked when an individual who was so near Jeffrey Epstein on the final minute says, You already know what? We’re closing the ebook on this matter. No extra investigation. Why are they shocked?
I feel the reply to that’s that MAGA world, or the individuals in MAGA world who’re actually excited in regards to the Epstein matter, thought they’d a cope with Donald Trump. And the deal was they’d look away from the extremely particular Trump-Epstein relationship, the connections between—they’d make excuses or faux to imagine them or say Donald Trump and Epstein broke off relations in some unspecified time in the future up to now, over enterprise issues. Some individuals will even let you know that Donald Trump found late that Epstein was an abuser of girls and was so shocked and offended that he broke off his relationship with Epstein. Let these imagine that who will.
However they thought they’d a deal. Bracket Trump, depart Trump out of the story, and Trump in flip would license them to go on a searching expedition towards all of the individuals they actually hated. An extended listing of liberal icons, individuals like—individuals whom they dislike for different causes who have been within the Epstein community. If Trump would simply—they’d stand again from Trump and he would then ship to them justice towards their ideological and different kinds of opponents. They’re mad, these individuals, as a result of Trump reneged on that deal. With a view to shield himself, he ended up defending a variety of different individuals, too, or so individuals in MAGA world who’re enthusiastic about this challenge imagine that this has been taken away from them. And for a few of the people who find themselves the loudest influencers, dropping the Epstein file, having Donald Trump say, There aren’t any data, there’s nothing to see right here, everyone stand down, that’s not only a risk to their perception system. For a lot of of them, it’s a risk to their livelihoods. For lots of influencers, Epstein was central to their engagement methods, very profitable engagement methods, and so they now have the selection: In the event that they settle for the Donald Trump edict—if they are saying, Okay, we’ll stand down, as President Trump says—then what do they do for engagement?
And the Epstein engagement got here with an extra-special spicy sauce as a result of for many who actually bought into this, it was not simply an unlucky coincidence or a happenstance that Jeffrey Epstein’s identify occurred to be Jeffrey Epstein. For a few of the individuals most enthusiastic about Epstein, the truth that Epstein had a Jewish identify and a Jewish background opens the door to a complete world of conspiracy that they deeply imagine in: a type of anti-Semitic model of QAnon. Keep in mind: The accusation that Jews are youngster molesters is among the foundational myths of conspiratorial anti-Semitism. From Hugh of Lincoln and the assumption that Jews have been murdering English youngsters to get blood for matzo to Fagin within the Oliver Twist novels, this has been an extended line of conspiratorial suspicion and accusation, and Epstein appeared completely to suit the invoice, particularly since Epstein had some relationships with some individuals within the Israeli authorities.
And so for the individuals who wish to blow aside the U.S.-Israel relationship, or who wanna imagine that Israel is by some means masterminding america, Epstein was good. And once they see Donald Trump closing down the investigation, that ignites a variety of their fears that Donald Trump could also be suspiciously near Israel too. I gained’t say the names. You’ll know the names. You may simply discover the names of the MAGA influencers who’ve made a really particular level that Epstein is being protected by Trump as a way to shield Israel. So that is an important risk to all of them: an financial risk, an ideological risk. Donald Trump broke the deal. They shield Trump; he provides them Epstein. He’s not giving them Epstein.
Now, all that is to say, Epstein was a real, critical sexual and possibly monetary prison, and many individuals do appear to have been concerned on this community, and there’s a variety of stuff right here to search out out. And Donald Trump’s actions over the previous days have made it all of the extra pressing to search out—to resolve this.
However this break between Donald Trump and conspiratorial and the conspiratorial model of the Epstein story might transform of nice political significance in addition to ethical authorized significance. The Trump world consists of many, many alternative factions, and so they’re not all conspiratorial and so they’re not all anti-Semitic, however the conspiratorial, anti-Semitic group is essential. They’re not negligible. Till now, they’ve had nowhere to go. However who’s been an enormous hunter-down of the Epstein story? That’s Elon Musk. Now, when Elon Musk introduced the formation of his so-called America Social gathering, I’ve to confess, I used to be originally very skeptical that this social gathering would go anyplace. Now, third events have been essential within the American previous. The Free Soilers within the nineteenth century; free-silver and Dollar events within the nineteenth century; Prohibitionist events, socialist events within the twentieth century—these have been essential events. However third events grow to be essential within the following manner.
There is a matter—slavery, alcohol, the coinage—that the 2 large events, for some motive, don’t wish to contact. So it stays, it stays outdoors the social gathering system, however it’s essential and lots of people care about it, and lots of people care about it greater than they care about anything. And so individuals with many essential political variations can sink these variations—they’ll say, We’re uniting round the reason for free soil. We’re uniting on the reason for dollar cash. We’re uniting on the reason for socialism or temperance and sinking earlier disagreements.
In order that’s how third events work. The place third events fail is when they’re only a seize bag of people who find themselves sad with the prevailing two events. That’s Ross Perot’s Reform Social gathering within the twentieth century, or Andrew Yang’s Progress Social gathering, or Ahead Social gathering, I feel it was referred to as, within the twenty first century. They have been dissatisfied, however dissatisfied for tons and many totally different causes. In order that they discovered it very troublesome to agree and to work collectively, not like the individuals who united across the single challenge: third events which were profitable.
So Elon Musk’s America Social gathering seemed to me at first lots just like the Ross Perot or Andrew Yang model of a celebration. He’s bought a variety of grievances, extremely idiosyncratic to him. He’s searching for different individuals with different grievances. They could or might not agree with him. It was going to be a large number, and it was going to sink. However all of a sudden, there’s a chance for him to create the type of single-issue, outside-the-party-system social gathering that has been profitable up to now—like Free Soil, like Dollar, just like the others. If he turns the America Social gathering into the “resolve the Jeffrey Epstein case, irrespective of how a lot it hurts Donald Trump” social gathering, that’s one thing that may unite lots of people who would possibly in any other case disagree. And it’s an actual challenge—and as Donald Trump signifies day-after-day, a lot realer than anyone thought earlier than this weekend. It’s a actual challenge. There’s a secret there now; precisely what the key is, we don’t know, however it appears very value attending to the underside of.
I quoted on X, Twitter, an outdated Scooby-Doo cartoon, with its message, “If the very best pal of the deceased villain tells you, Don’t look in that locked closet, that locked closet is the place you should look.” And if Elon Musk desires to guide the search expedition, he’s going to search out lots of people prepared to observe him, and he might be able to make an effectual, damaging third social gathering, in spite of everything, one thing that appears much more just like the profitable third events of the previous. If he merely subtracts from the Trump coalition, its most conspiratorial parts—once more, that’s not a majority of American society, that’s not tens of thousands and thousands of individuals, however it’s an essential a part of the Trump coalition. Essential sufficient that Trump gave away Well being and Human Providers and medical security as a way to appease the conspiratorial anti-vax faction. Now he’s alienated the conspiratorial Epstein faction, and which may be expensive to him in the event that they all of a sudden uncover they’ve a spot to go.
And now my dialog with Peter Strzok.
[Music]
Frum: I’m very grateful to welcome at present Peter Strzok to The David Frum Present. I think about that Peter will want little or no introduction to a lot of the viewers and listeners to this program, however simply in case: Peter Strzok had nationwide fame thrust upon him towards his will. A profession FBI officer who specialised in counterintelligence, he was a senior member of the group that investigated each Hillary Clinton’s use of a non-public e mail server and Donald Trump’s tangled connections to the Russian authorities. When non-public messages of his have been revealed, he grew to become a goal of intense private assault by then-President Trump and by the pro-Trump media. Peter is now combating a lawsuit for reinstatement and again pay. He teaches at Georgetown College and is the writer of the best-selling ebook Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Risk of Donald [J.] Trump. Peter, welcome to The David Frum Present.
Peter Strzok: David, it’s nice to be right here with you. Thanks.
Frum: If I could—and don’t go into any extra element than your attorneys will permit—however might you give us a way of the state of play of the litigation you introduced towards america authorities and the Trump administration?
Strzok: Certain. So there have been two broad elements of it. The primary was that the federal government had illegally launched textual content messages that I had despatched, and that case settled with [the Department of Justice] final yr for $1.2 million.
There’s an ongoing side—which, as you indicated, I wish to watch out to respect the court docket as a result of it’s an ongoing course of—however basically, sued below two broad, type of, elements. One: that the FBI violated the First Modification by participating in viewpoint discrimination, notably that as a result of the issues I stated about Trump led to my termination fairly than something that was outdoors of protecting First Modification exercise. After which some procedural elements to employment regulation.
However that case continues to be ongoing. It’s nonetheless, , after we filed in 2018, so we’re seven years later, however I’ve hopes that that will likely be resolved later this yr, and favorably.
Frum: Let me ask you at present about your former company. Donald Trump and the individuals round him malign the FBI as a part of a deep state. And I usually assume in case you do not forget that once they say the deep state, they imply the rule of regulation, that’s very clarifying. However there’s some consolation since you assume deep state, I suppose it’s actually stable. It should go deep. It should be laborious to wreck or take away.
However you’ve usually defined that that’s not true, that the FBI is a way more fragile establishment than outsiders might perceive, extra damageable than outsiders perceive. What’s it? Might you clarify the vulnerability of the FBI to malign management on the high?
Strzok: Completely. And it’s fascinating; I take your level that there’s some, , this concept of the deep state really in my thoughts may be very a lot, as you stated, the rule of regulation is and stands for an expert forms with a capital B that may be a skilled civil service that we’ve constructed up over a whole bunch of years that isn’t immune from corruption, however is notably totally different from a variety of locations you’ll see within the growing world and even in locations like Russia and former Soviet states.
However I feel what individuals—, relating to the FBI, and we will speak about it perhaps just a little bit later as effectively, that, , the FBI actually has a troubled historical past, a checkered historical past. Should you return and also you have a look at a few of the abuses of the Hoover period, significantly with regard to the civil-rights motion, significantly with regard to offshoots of the battle towards communism, and , there’s, to be clear, there was a Soviet effort to infiltrate the U.S. authorities.
There was a Soviet effort to steal the secrets and techniques of the atomic and later hydrogen bombs, so the risk from the Soviet Union was actual. Nevertheless, there have been actually below the McCarthy period and type of the intersection between the Soviet Union and civil society within the U.S.—there have been abuses and I feel most notably, actually with a few of the bureau’s actions associated to Martin Luther King.
However in case you have a look at the reforms that have been put in place following the ’70s—and a few of that was a part of the civil-rights motion, a part of that was the institution of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] and the creation of legal guidelines to type of rein in and govern what the FBI was doing—these led to, once more, beginning within the early, mid-’70s, a long time upon a long time of type of guardrails being put up round what the FBI might or couldn’t do, and separating the FBI from—and the Division of Justice—from the political winds popping out of the White Home.
Having stated that—and I feel lots of people say, Sure, we’re all conscious of that. We’re very—, there’s this custom within the FBI and custom within the DOJ that we’re separated. There’s this wall between DOJ and the White Home, and I don’t assume individuals perceive that whereas that’s true, a variety of that isn’t due to regulation. Lots of that’s due to settlement. And in case you have a look at the time of the Church and the Pike Committees, Congress may be very a lot engaged not solely in doing investigations, however creating laws of how are we going to control what the IRS does or doesn’t do relating to issues that the course of the president are, , concentrating on sure taxpayers or defending that data? How are we going to control what the CIA and different members of the intelligence group, what they’re capable of do domestically and never do domestically? And legal guidelines have been written—not government orders, however legal guidelines out of Congress—limiting and placing type of an infrastructure round what these organizations might do. When it got here to the FBI and DOJ—then I feel it was Legal professional Common [John] Mitchell, if I recall accurately; I is perhaps flawed about that—stated, You already know what? We don’t want Congress to cross any legal guidelines. We are able to police our personal home. We’re going to create these. I feel it was Legal professional Common [Edward] Levi, really—
Frum: Legal professional Common Mitchell, John Mitchell went to jail, went to jail, let’s not neglect.
Strzok: Sure, he did. He’s removed from the one who created reform throughout the bureau, so yeah, type of the Levi tips, proper?
Frum: These are the start of the trendy period of the FBI, which is, okay, there’s the Hoover period with many abuses. There’s a interval of speedy chaos below President [Richard] Nixon, however then after, within the Ford administration and afterwards, there was an try to put the FBI for the primary time on the idea of a sound authorized footing with clear delineation of what they might do and what they couldn’t do.
And though for me, perhaps for you, the Nineteen Seventies appear to be yesterday, in truth, it’s now half a century that these legal guidelines have been in place, and people are the legal guidelines that are actually in query. And my query to you is, I feel lots of people assume, effectively, there’s a restrict to what a Kash Patel can do. However as you’ve defined to me up to now, really both a variety of casual levers that he’s bought, and after we hear, for instance, that he’s saying, Nicely, we’re gonna redeploy brokers to different cities from Washington—that’s not only a administration determination. That’s a device of energy.
Strzok: Yeah, completely. And so a few factors to that. One, there’s a great quantity of discretion relating to the FBI director as a result of these tips weren’t ever type of enshrined in regulation. They have been issues that have been internally adhered to by the FBI and by DOJ. However the draw back is, they may very well be simply modified and also you see them—Pam Bondi, one of many issues she in a short time did is say, We’re going to alter, type of, the foundations and laws about what we do with members of the press. And a few of the restrictions relating to issuing subpoenas or the method, we’re going to have a look at these in a special mild.
However relating to, significantly—any director, however Kash Patel, particularly, a few of the issues we’ve talked about—the bureau may be very small. I imply, sum whole might be roughly 35,000 individuals. The variety of particular brokers is roughly 13,000. Your listeners would possibly say, Nicely, that’s really actually giant. If there was an organization, that will be an enormous firm. However in case you evaluate and distinction that to the Division of Protection, the Division of State, the Division of Homeland Safety, actually it’s a really, very small group. And in case you have a look at the quantity of energy that the FBI has, and then you definitely type of create a ratio of variety of individuals in comparison with the quantity of energy, it’s an awfully highly effective group. And so for any person like Kash Patel to have the ability to are available and say, We’re going to shift all of those sources, he has an enormous quantity of leeway to try this.
Now, a few of that—and final level I’ll make on this—a few of that’s cheap, proper? Donald Trump ran on immigration. Folks knew that he separated youngsters from their dad and mom on the border within the first administration, and a plurality of the voters went out and voted for extra of that. And so I feel we should be cautious on this debate to have the ability to say a few of the prioritization of using the Division of Justice, using the FBI, there’s a presidential prerogative that elections have penalties. However I feel what we’re seeing is not only a shift of Hey—I need you to concentrate on immigration, however a large, large reorganization on the expense of different wants.
Frum: You made the purpose in one among our conversations that once you hear the FBI director say, We’re going to maneuver 500 brokers from Washington, D.C., to Birmingham, Alabama—effectively, I don’t know if that’s the quantity, however a sure quantity—we consider that as, Oh, okay. Nicely, perhaps try to be nearer to the totally different elements of the nation. What individuals don’t perceive on the level you made is, FBI brokers have spouses with careers, they’ve youngsters in colleges. They’ve properties and mortgages. While you give the FBI director the ability to maneuver a sure variety of individuals from one place to a different, you get—and he has discretion over which to select—you’re giving him a capability to drive individuals out of the bureau as a result of a few of the persons are advised, It’s important to transfer. The partner will say, Nicely, honey, I can’t transfer. So I feel in the very best curiosity of this household, you’ll need to search out new work. Or, Now we have a baby with a studying incapacity. There isn’t any college in Birmingham that may assist our youngster. So our household can’t transfer. And if the director is aware of that and he says, Aha, there’s an agent I don’t like and that agent has a partner with an essential job or a special-needs youngster and so they can’t transfer. If I give that agent the order to maneuver to Birmingham, it’s nearly as good as firing that agent.
Strzok: Yeah, that’s completely proper. And I imply, there’s a soft-power, sub-rosa component to in case you perceive that these issues will be carried out, that you should utilize that ostensibly below the thought of, We’re simply shifting sources investigatively. However in case you perceive full effectively that, no matter proportion of individuals aren’t going to try this, or very particularly to your level, if any person that you just’re making an attempt to do away with, or a bunch of individuals that you just’re making an attempt to do away with, you should utilize the prospect of reassignment to extend the price of staying. And I feel we’ve seen that. I imply, I don’t know that it, it’s not particular to, We’re going to maneuver you to a discipline workplace to assist out ICE with rounding up immigrants. However we’ve got seen—or no less than it’s been reported, and I’ve heard by the type of chain of present and retired brokers—a lot of brokers who not directly, form, or kind have been linked to causes that Kash Patel doesn’t like, and Donald Trump doesn’t like, and Pam Bondi doesn’t like, and so whether or not they have been engaged in investigations surrounding January 6, whether or not they have been engaged in Trump’s alleged upkeep, unlawful upkeep of categorized paperwork at Mar-a-Lago, whether or not they have been engaged manner again—and you continue to see John Ratcliffe on the CIA releasing issues about 2016, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and Russia’s affect on and assaults towards the 2016 elections—all of these individuals you see having these differing types of formal and casual stress positioned upon them to maneuver them out of the best way, both by resignation, retirement, regardless of the case could also be.
Frum: And the particular advantage of a Kash Patel—and once more, I solely know this as a result of I realized it from you—so, the restraint on perversion of the FBI is that the majority FBI administrators actually have cared deeply in regards to the FBI as an establishment. And so they’ve made, typically—even those who weren’t very Trumpy made compromises to guard the FBI from Trump. So in case you had an institutionally minded however pro-Trump director, once they bought the order, Transfer individuals to locations, not as a result of there’s an actual must have them go, however as a result of that’s the best way you’ll be able to do away with the individuals investigating the president, there are lots of people who could be pro-Trump however would have correct credentials [and] would say, However I’ve to guard—these are a few of my greatest individuals. Like, The individual you need me to fireplace is my main knowledgeable on forex fraud, my main knowledgeable on counterterrorism. I’m not ready to lose that individual, although I don’t agree with that individual’s politics.
The particular genius of Kash Patel is he simply doesn’t care. He has no regard for the FBI as an establishment. No, I imply, if we are saying there’s a particular Nobel Prize for Bobby Kennedy Jr. as perhaps the worst Cupboard secretary, not simply of this administration however of all time, probably the most inappropriate, probably the most “who shouldn’t have the job,” Kash Patel might not fairly match a pro-polio secretary of Well being and Human Providers, however he’s an honorable point out, proper?
Strzok: Completely. And it’s not solely malevolence and lack of care; it’s additionally lack of competence. Like, I imply, he couldn’t—one, he doesn’t care and he’s simply going to go and do regardless of the president—and I feel they, what the fascinating query is all of the individuals, like, clearly Donald Trump is the driving force and on the FBI, it’s Kash Patel and to a sure extent Dan Bongino who’re driver, however there are individuals round them who’re taking good care of the particulars or informing them of the particulars to be acted on.
However for Kash, it’s not only a lack of caring; it’s an utter lack of expertise. And to my level earlier, like, the FBI is tiny. There will not be sufficient, issues we confronted day-after-day or that there will not be—and the FBI’s not alone on this—the FBI doesn’t have sufficient personnel and investigators to cowl the threats on his plate. There will not be sufficient FBI brokers and analysts and investigators to counter all of the threats of terrorism, counterintelligence, white-collar crime, public corruption, gang—all of it. You identify it, there’s not sufficient. So it is extremely a lot, one, you’re having to prioritize which threats you do work, and it’s basically very a lot a zero-sum recreation. Should you take individuals off of 1 subject, you’re placing them on one other, however you’re dropping some place else. However for Kash Patel, as a result of he by no means labored within the bureau, as a result of he had no expertise in DOJ to talk of apart from some line headquarters prosecutor, he wouldn’t be capable of inform Pam Bondi or any of the individuals on the White Home, Look—if we transfer these individuals to work immigration, you’ve bought to grasp we’re going to not be engaged on this or not be engaged on that, and your publicity and your risk in these areas, your name on the finish of the day, however in case you do that, that is the associated fee that you just’re gonna must pay in the best way that trickles out down the road.
And my hope was he could be so incompetent and so uncaring, he’d be pleased to only benefit from the posing and images and let the skilled careers run the place. However I feel he’s confirmed to be just a little bit extra malicious than that.
Frum: Yeah. Nicely, additionally they’re taking the precaution of creating certain that he has the same deputy, that he doesn’t have some by-the-book individual. However with the shortage of background, the traditional response could be, Okay, let’s have a steely, competent, schooled deputy. However as an alternative, they’ve somebody who could also be much more dedicated to Trump. And who does have—I imply, I’ve seen Dan Bongino throw a water bottle at any person’s head. He does have some impulse-control points.
I wish to ask you about one of many areas the place issues will not be being secured whereas different priorities go to the fore, and that’s particularly the issue of counterterrorism. America below President Trump has now struck Iranian nuclear websites. We hope that that may be a decisive end result and we hope it’s the tip of the U.S.-Iran battle, however it will be unwise to imagine that. So Trump retains insisting it’s throughout, however the Iranians get a vote. One apparent transfer that they’d have—they’ve used it earlier than—is to strike targets by terrorism inside america and targets of curiosity to america world wide. What’s the state of our counterintelligence services? There are a variety of experiences that counsel there have been essential resignations, that there are much less certified individuals operating counterterrorism. How does that look to you?
Strzok: Nicely, I feel there’s very a lot a larger vulnerability than there was previous to Kash Patel exhibiting up. I imply, I feel the issue with Trump—and it is a microcosm—there’s a lack of information that each one these exterior actors have company, proper? We’re going to deal with our Western European allies like crap, not understanding in Canada, there’d be a 51st state, not understanding that, , that these are individuals and entities and states which might be going to reply in a sure manner. Nicely, the identical factor goes for a terrorist group. The identical factor goes for Iran, which, as is—when it comes to the dimensions and nationwide capability—is an financial drive from the Center East to South Asia, is a big, big, big nation, significantly once you line it up towards many different Gulf states. So once you take the double type of issue of 1, a direct bodily violent motion towards Iran and their nuclear capability. While you take what has gone on—no less than reportedly within the press and what I’ve heard—that a lot of individuals who have been being pressured out, whether or not as a result of they have been perceived to be loyal to [Christopher Wray or God forbid, Joe Biden. The sort of winnowing process as you move up the chain in the FBI takes a long time. I mean, you go—again, like many organizations, but at the FBI as an agent—the people who arrive, traditionally, at the senior level of the organizations have gone through a variety of assignments, both in the field as an investigator, as well as at headquarters doing a variety of things to gain expertise, to run larger programs, to interact with the interagency community and to understand, say, you’re a counterterrorism agent. You’ve worked as an investigator, perhaps against the IRGC. Maybe you’ve worked against a QAP; you’ve come back to headquarters—
Frum: What are IRGC and QAP?
Strzok: So the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. So Iran, in an intelligence and counterterrorism aspect, largely exercises external power through client terrorist organizations through either the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Quds force, in particular the IRGC, but also some activity through their foreign-intelligence service, which is the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS.
Frum: And what is a QAP?
Strzok: Al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula. So that’s a, you know, not necessarily, that isn’t, I wouldn’t call them certainly at all, an Iranian client organization. But in the terrorism context, as an agent, you’re going to work a variety of these different targets, both as an investigator and then back at headquarters. And maybe you’re supervising all these different cases across the FBI. Maybe you’re embedded at the CIA. Maybe you’re interacting from time to time with Congress helping to draft legislation. And you move up the chain gathering greater and greater experience.
And so by the time it gets to the point where you’re on that senior staff advising the director and deputy director what to do, you’ve had probably 20 years of various experience learning this and doing this. Well, when you come in with purges, and you’re Patel and Bongino and trying to get rid of everybody so you can bring in people—and again, director of the FBI largely, it depends, but typically is an external-facing figure. They interact with the Hill; they interact with the public; they interact with the White House. The deputy director of the FBI traditionally has always been an agent—Dan Bongino first in memory who isn’t—who has a deep understanding of how the bureau works and an accomplished track record within that organization.
So then they’re gonna rely on the next level down, which all go by the title of executive assistant directors, EAD. Well, they’ve forced all those people out. And in some cases, the level below that they’ve forced out—the assistant directors, the people in charge of the counterterrorism division, the person in charge of the counterintelligence division, the person in charge of the criminal division. Well, if you force those next two levels out, you’ve essentially got two people at the top who have no idea what they’re doing relying now on the fifth level down—not to say they’re not good agents there, but they just haven’t had the time to sort of gain that experience to be able to advise at the level that they’re suddenly being asked to do.
So that’s a very long-winded way to your question. When it then comes to—we’ve bombed Iran, we are supporting in many ways Israeli efforts against Iran—that when it comes to a potential Iranian response, whether that’s through proxies, whether they have sleeper personnel here, whether they have visitors capable of coming into the United States, whether they have established capabilities out of the Iranian intersection or the mission to the UN. The people who know that, the people who are on the street who have that knowledge, one, at a senior level may be gone; two, at a street level, may have gotten pulled to go work, to your point, immigration in Birmingham. So there’s a real—there aren’t sort of idle agents, the Maytag repairman just sort of sitting around waiting for a call. If you are moving somebody to work on a task, you are necessarily removing them from whatever they were doing before. And in some cases that’s going to be terrorism. And if you say, Okay, well, it’s true—we’re gonna continue our focus on Iran, well, then you’re gonna have to find your pound of flesh somewhere else. And so maybe you’re not looking at other, you know—
Frum: I want to get to the other thing; I want to say something more about counterterrorism. This is actually one of the anecdotes I did not learn from you about the FBI, but at the senior level of the FBI, it is a deluge of information about things, terrible things that could happen. And most of the information is wrong. It’s either false from the beginning or it’s exaggerated, or it’s tainted, and a lot of the bureaucracy of the FBI is a sorting mechanism to be able to rapidly to work through false positives—and by the way, this is not just tips from a concerned citizen. These are foreign governments that—sometimes the foreign government has information. Sometimes it’s imperfect. Sometimes they have an agenda. They want you to look at somebody for whom they’re mad at for some other reason.
But there’s this deluge and so a lot of what the FBI has set up to do is to sift—I guess you don’t sift a deluge—but to strain the deluge of information and with always the fear that you might miss a true positive, which would be, as happened, that’s 9/11, that all the information to stop 9/11 was present somewhere inside the United States government. It just was never connected in ways that allowed the government to act effectively and save all the lives that could have been saved. So you’re haunted by that memory, and so when you start breaking things, it’s not just that you’re not in the field sniffing for clues, it’s that you have no way of managing this onslaught of vast quantities of warnings, of terrible things that might happen.
Strzok: Right. I think that’s an excellent point. I entirely agree with that. Part of what you do is, there’s a continuum of that sort of lesson as a baby investigator, as a probationary agent learning to understand what things are worth doing and what things are kind of spinning your wheels. And that’s whether you’re working an individual case or whether you expand out and you’re running an entire program, whether that’s the entire terrorism program, the entire counterintelligence program, to have that sort of expertise that builds up over time to understand that if I’m faced with allegation one or element of information one, if it’s bona fide, one, I would expect to see all of these other things. And here are the people I can ask to inform me whether those things are present or not. Or ordinarily, if they were present, they would be telling me. And because I’m not hearing it from them, I’m going to question that and know, Hey—why aren’t we seeing this from this internal element? Or, Why aren’t we hearing this from the NSA? Whatever.
And it’s very hard to sit there and to explain to anybody in two minutes on a podcast or a four-minute answer at a congressional hearing, how complex those systems are. And it kills me—and I don’t want to turn this into a gripe session about the senior management of the FBI—Dan Bongino goes on Fox News and he acts astonished that everything we face is a 10 out 10, like the nines out 10, we don’t even hear it. And I barely get home to see my wife and it’s like we’re divorced. It’s like, Dude, what the hell do you think has been going on for the past 20, 30, 40 years by all the people at the FBI and you’ve been on the job for five minutes and you’re complaining? It’s like, yes.
And the problem is: If you don’t have that expertise, you are going to tend to flail. And if you’ve gotten rid of all the other people who can act as sort of wise consiglieres to tell you, Look, boss—it sounds bad, but this really is probably not what we should be focusing on. Let whoever run this out. Here are the things that you really need to focus on. Those people, those voices don’t exist anymore, and there’s only so much you can do to reach down and pluck somebody up—again, there are a lot of really great agents and analysts, but they just, they don’t have that benefit. You can’t suddenly bestow on somebody an extra five years of senior experience. You can’t do that. And that’s what they’re missing, if they care to begin with. And I’m not certain they do. Part of me thinks, there are things they do care about—child predators, I think they actually care about, violent crime I think they care about.
Frum: Why do you think they care? What makes you think that? Because they falsely accuse innocent people being child predators all the time.
Strzok: I think some of it, it plays into, they have this image—and you see it, whether it’s Kash Patel or Kristi Noem—all these people, and they’re playing dress-up, right? They’ve got their tactical gear on. Kash Patel wears this little badge around. I think they have an image in their mind’s eye informed by what they’ve seen coming out of Hollywood about what a sexy FBI or whatever it is they’re cosplaying. And so those things that they think are easy to articulate, they’re going to lean into that and say, We took this many child predators out of play. Good thing. But I would argue a lot of different things the FBI should be focused on in addition to that.
Frum: Yeah. I’m not going to concede that—I think if you’re attracted to crazy conspiracy theories about child predators, you’re not that interested in child predators. Someone who cared about child predators would say, You know what? I’m going to invest the time to learn about this issue and see where the threats are because, obviously, child abuse is a huge problem.
You’d learn about it. And if you can’t be bothered to learn about something, and if you instead get all your information from insane QAnon groups, that tells me, you know what? You don’t actually care what you, you care about pursuing tribal enemies and you want to accuse them of the worst thing you can believe that they might be guilty of, but you don’t care enough about the underlying issue to learn, how does it work? Where are the guilty? Where are the non-guilty? How do you apportion resources? How do you really chase this thing down in a way that actually will save children? If you can’t be bothered to learn, I don’t believe you really care.
Strzok: Yeah, and I think they’re fundamentally lazy, and I’m talking about Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. I think Kash Patel has spent the, you know, entirety of his life cozying up to political figures that he could hitch his wagon to, whether it’s Devin Nunes and then Donald Trump and otherwise selling God knows what on various podcasts, whether it’s, you know, I don’t know, but things that are not of substantive value.
And same with Bongino. You know, manufacturing and selling outrage for a podcast does not create a value add to society.
Frum: Hey! (Laughs.)
Strzok: It is selling outrage, not informing. (Laughs.) There’s informing with informed reasonable expertise. And then there’s just selling outrage that—I don’t think they care.
And some of it—I mean, again, you know, one of the built-in good things I think about the FBI is it’s too big for them to have a role in field officers out there investigating crime. And so sometimes when you get successful investigations leading to arrest, I’m willing to grant the argument that they’re not truly interested in whatever it is. But when they’re presented with the fact that the Miami Field Office just arrested these 12 people for topic X, if that makes for a sexy tweet—and by the way, we can open for debate, I have never seen any FBI director, let alone deputy director on social media—But one thing that Patel and Bongino were doing, prolifically, are posting to Twitter/X, going on Fox News, going on Joe Rogan. They are playing like everybody in the Trump ecosphere; they’re playing social media in a fundamentally different way than has ever been done by the FBI. And we can debate whether it’s good or bad, but it has a different impact. And the question is gonna be: When we, God willing, return to normal times, should we maintain that? Or is that something we should try and put back in the box? But that’s an interesting phenomenon.
Frum: Let me ask you about a slightly different area of vulnerability from the counterterrorism file, and that is counterintelligence. Now, it didn’t have to be that the country’s chief federal-police force was also the country’s counterintelligence service. Other countries do not necessarily organize things that way. I’ve had a chance to put this to senior people at the FBI, and they have defended the duality of these missions and say it’s a source of strength to the United States that the FBI does both. I’m not well informed enough to have an opinion, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and other countries do it differently. But it is that way here, and so let’s talk about the risk.
First, tell us what counterintelligence is. Define that in case anyone’s unfamiliar.
Strzok: So I would say counterintelligence is—in the case of the U.S., the U.S. response to foreign nations who are engaging in clandestine intelligence activity in the United States. So whether that is trying to steal trade secrets, whether that is trying to steal our secrets of the CIA or the FBI, the Department of State, whether that’s trying to clandestinely influence public opinion, all of those things that, you know, China, Russia, Iran, Cuba’s version of the CIA would be doing, the FBI is the primary organization within the United States to combat that, to prevent it, to roll it back, to prosecute it where they can. But because it tends to be very classified, it doesn’t get talked about a lot traditionally, but it is—I think, again, a lot of your listeners would be very surprised to hear about the level of effort and resources that are put into protecting the United States against those foreign efforts.
Frum: Now, this is where you invested a lot of your career. Can you give us any sense of specifics about what the condition of that work is in the second Trump presidency?
Strzok: Well, I think it’s strained. I think you have what we talked about earlier, a huge loss of expertise, certainly on the counterintelligence side. You have a lot of emerging threats. And when I say emerging, these are things that because of changes in—changes in the world, in one case, you know, changes in the information space, and changes in social media, we’ve seen a proliferation of perception management, foreign influence–type activities, whether that’s, you know, people think about the Russian attacks on the 2016, 2020 elections, but also think about things that our team might be doing to influence public opinion about the war in Ukraine. Think about things that the PRC might be doing to influence U.S. perceptions about Taiwan, or about the Uyghurs or about the Dalai Lama. These sort of both traditional things like a Russian Soviet spy trying to recruit somebody in the CIA along with these influence-type operations along with, you know, China’s efforts to surpass the United States and the global economic sphere. Whether it’s like stealing the secret sauce of why American jet engines are so vastly superior to anything that the Chinese can make, whether it is looking at emerging AI models or supercomputing models or quantum technology and trying to steal that to then take it and incorporate it in the Chinese manufactured goods or technology.
All of those things are going on. And so when you say we’re going to take 30 percent of our workforce and move it over to rounding up immigrants, not even violent immigrants—we’re just going to round up immigrants so we can get our numbers up—those people come, not entirely, but one of the places they come from are all those folks who are doing it. So not only do you have, it’s a sort of a double whammy. You’ve got a brain drain, particularly at a senior level of people who are getting forced out because a lot of them, by the way, senior counterintelligence people happen to be involved with the investigation of Donald Trump allegedly maintaining illegally classified documents at his place at Mar-a-Lago. You have any number of people who were in some way, shape, or form looking at combatting foreign influence in our elections.
And so whether it was 2016, whether it was things like the Biden laptop, whether it was whether or not the Chinese were or weren’t trying to influence our election, the people who had the expertise and knowledge to do that are getting forced out. Units are getting disbanded. In the case of foreign influence, there’s an entire task force that was disbanded with a corresponding set of folks at DOJ reportedly that were all reassigned somewhere else. And so you’ve got both expertise loss and on the ground you’ve got investigative-manpower loss. And so those things, there’s no question in my mind that we are more vulnerable than we were.
And this is a microcosm of Trump. Trump is very much, he’s, like, a day trader. At the end of the day, he just wants to be ahead, right? How do I look? How am I doing with the trade deal? There is no—strategic thought for him is four hours from now. It is not five, 10 years from now. And when you have an adversary like China who’s got five-, 10-year plans where they’re saying, Where do we wanna grow our economy? Where are we behind in the West? What are the technologies that we lack? Okay, we’re gonna recruit scientists. We’re gonna steal it if we need to, and we’re gonna go about it methodically for years and years and years and years.
You’ve gotta respond to that threat in a similar long-term way. And when you’ve got somebody in charge trickling down that just wants that big I just wanna close up my books ahead at the end of the day. I want a snappy tweet at 1 a.m. that I can say I’m the best, the biggest, the most awesome.
Frum: I would—my analogy is a little darker than the day trader. I have always thought that Donald Trump, before he became president, most of his business career since he took over the business from his father was as someone who was bankrupt a lot of the time. And so his job every day was keeping the creditors at bay for the next 24 hours. And any lie would do to keep the creditors at bay for the next 24 hours. And then you worry about Tuesday’s creditors on Tuesday, because that’ll be a whole different problem.
Strzok: It’s the con; it’s the con. That is the confidence-man MO, is exactly the same thing, right? It’s like, at some point, I’ve got to persuade you to give me the money. And when the shell isn’t there, I’ve got to distract your attention over here.
Frum: But there’s a bureaucratic problem. If you get the order from the top at an agency, like the FBI, we want to see you arrest or detain 1,000 suspected illegal migrants a day, everyone can see whether you got 998 or 1,002; that’s very visible. And tomorrow, if you got 996 versus 1,003, that’s very visible, and the agency can keep feeding resources to the challenge until it meets the numerical target. But there’s no—in the counterintelligence world, there’s no numerical target.
How do I know whether we’ve had a successful day, week, month, year of thwarting schemes? Especially since many of the operations are classified; many of the biggest successes are thwarting things before they really can get organized to happen. Like, the Chinese are trying to steal something. There’s a person at a company who has the knowledge they’re trying to steal. That person is under some kind of stress. You quietly alert the company. You’ve got an insecure person in this job. Maybe they need to be doing something else. Maybe you need to move them to accounting or move them to HR, put somebody more trustworthy in that place.
You’ve done enormous work, but how does anybody measure that day? Yes, we got north of a thousand detainees. Oh, today we fell, you know, below. You can’t. And so bureaucracies do tend to, even with the best will in the world, overinvest in things that are measurable at the expense of things that are important. And with the worst world will in the world, then it becomes even more of a risk and threat.
Strzok: Absolutely. I have a formative memory in the FBI; I was an analyst. I started out my career as an analyst working in domestic terrorism, and I had the extraordinary fortune of sitting next to Elliot Richardson at a dinner, and he asked, he was like, Oh, the FBI. He started talking about what I was doing and—
Frum: Past attorney general of the United States.
Strzok: Yes. One of the primary moral fiber during the mass firings, and resignations, during Nixon. But he said, upon hearing I was working terrorism, he said, You know, I’ve always been fascinated about how you measure something when success is not visible or measurable.
And I think that’s—again, you articulated it well. I think that is the challenge of every organization when you work in something where, when the bomb doesn’t go off, when the secret isn’t stolen, when somebody doesn’t do something, that is a result, in many cases, of resource expenditure and effort. But trying to articulate that is necessarily vague, is necessarily fraught with, Well, can you assure me that it was your efforts and your seven agents doing that, that caused this? And you can’t.
And so when it comes to somebody who is sitting there on the one hand getting pressure from Stephen Miller—You must arrest 3,000 whatever it is a day. You have to, you have to, you have to. And you get on a call with all the other field officers that the FBI, the special agents in charge, and Dan Bongino and Kash Patel say, What are you doing in your field offices? And one special agent in charge says, Well, we arrested and deported—we got 3,100 people over to ICE this month. And somebody else says, We got 2,700 over to ICE this month. And when it comes time at the end of the year to determine ratings and bonuses, your SEC bonuses based on performance, the easiest way to do that? Yeah. Well, okay. Yeah, so you did a bunch of, you threw a bunch of people at the Chinese intelligence threat, but I don’t really—yeah, China bad, but I don’t really know what it means. Yeah. But you add, you know, over the course of the year you add 25,000 folks arrested and given to ICE. Yeah, that’s great. And so I’m gonna—here’s your bonus. Here’s your performance appraisal, and you’re the kind of person we need back at headquarters for a promotion.
So if you are craven, if you are interested in career advancement, even if you’re not craven, but nevertheless want to advance, it’s clear that the metric that is going to be heavily weighted is that. And the same problem was out there with [J. Edgar] Hoover. One of many largest issues was he cherished, once more, similar challenge, like, oh, financial institution robbers, like actually interstate transported, stolen property, ITSP, these issues that the FBI first began doing, tangible, measurable, they appear horny. You went out and also you arrested a financial institution robber. You evaluate that to love, Nicely, we stopped, , the federal government of X from doing Y. It’s laborious to compete.
Frum: Or worse—we dissuaded the federal government of X from investing the sources to attempt Y.
Strzok: Sure.
Frum: As a result of they knew it wouldn’t work as a result of we’re there. It is a persistent—I feel, going again to the 9/11 analogy, one of many issues that occurred after 9/11 was the choice was made to harden cockpit doorways. What if any person, a yr and a half or two years earlier than 9/11 stated, You already know, why don’t we harden the cockpit doorways? Why don’t we try this? See how that perhaps that will be an enchancment. And so they did it. We’d in all probability now be finding out that hardening of cockpit doorways for instance of presidency waste. Proper?
Strzok: Sure.
Frum: We hardened all of the cockpit doorways. It value all this cash. Nobody ever tried it. Nothing ever occurred. Why did we ever try this within the first place? What a waste of money and time. Authorities overregulation hardening cockpit doorways. That is the nice injustice of presidency. Nobody ever is aware of what’s behind door quantity two, the factor that didn’t occur, the factor that you just prevented.
Strzok: Proper. And, , that’s one of many critiques of DOGE, proper? Like, why does this operate, why does this entity exist? It’s like, effectively, it’s, , they by no means get used or it’s not essential. It’s like, effectively, in lots of circumstances it’s as a result of 5, 10, 100, no matter years in the past, one thing horrible occurred and we determined, what? The price of this to guard towards this occurring as soon as each 20, nonetheless rare it’s, is essential sufficient that we’re going to spend cash to place sources into doing it. And even the individuals doing it typically don’t perceive why they’re there.
And once more, have a look at all of the individuals who took the fork, proper, and resigned from the Nationwide Climate Service, and whether or not or not, , the impression that, , I don’t wish to get into debate about whether or not or not that impacted the response in Texas. However coming into hurricane season, the federal government just isn’t a non-public firm. The federal government effectivity and ruthless cost-cutting and return on shareholder funding just isn’t the analogy of what, essentially, authorities ought to do. And significantly within the counterterrorism counterintelligence context, ?
It’s one factor in case you’ve bought any person on the market who’s constructing a bomb, however to your level, any person who would possibly contemplate, Nicely, , I do wish to construct a bomb and there’s this synagogue over there, and I feel I’m going to attempt to get a few individuals to assault it. But when that, Nicely, God, however the FBI simply arrested a few individuals for making an attempt to do the identical factor. It’s actually laborious for me to attempt to get explosive materials as a result of the FBI’s throughout it. I’m not going to do it. That. Proper. You may’t—
Frum: Yeah.
Strzok: You’ll by no means know that.
Frum: A pal of mine had an instance that made this very vivid. He labored within the Air Pressure, and one among his assignments was he labored because the, no matter you name the actual officer who works the controls of an intercontinental ballistic missile. And day-after-day, his job was to drive throughout the prairie, go down a silo, sit on the backside—and there are numerous belongings you needed to do to maintain issues, , coaching workouts and upkeep, however principally your job was studying paperback novels since you weren’t allowed to take any electronics down there, studying paperbacks and arising. And also you’d come residence and your spouse would say, Nicely, honey, what did you do at work at present? And the reply was nothing. (Laughs.) It was a very good day as a result of we’re going to pay you, Mr. Ballistic Missile Officer, we wish to pay you for what we actually hope is on the finish of your 30 years, your productiveness was zero. You fired not a kind of suckers. Thanks very a lot on your non-service. We’re actually grateful for it.
Strzok: To your first query, the place can we stand—higher or worse? For my part, unequivocally worse. Yeah. As a result of there are individuals who don’t perceive it. They don’t care to grasp it.
In lots of circumstances, they couldn’t in the event that they tried as a result of they’re simply not—this isn’t even the B group, proper? These are the individuals. It’s like no one within the first time period desires to work for them once more. So that is just like the final of the—, they’re there due to loyalty, not due to competence, and that’s a part of what ensures their loyalty.
Frum: Yet one more level about techniques in that, I feel one of many issues that, when you consider america authorities over my lifetime, which started in 1960, right here’s the obvious instance. Consider what number of human beings did it require in 1960 to supply, course of, ship, and ship a Social Safety verify. Just a few, proper? You needed to, , preserve the data. What number of does it require now? Like, fractions of 1 as a result of it’s all carried out electronically. A corporation just like the FBI, assume how a lot effort went into data administration in 1960 versus how little has to enter data administration at present. So the company is that the federal authorities has been upskilling.
That is, I feel the factor that the DOGE individuals actually didn’t perceive is that they always evaluate it, the federal authorities, to the DMV—which, by the best way, is a slur on the DMV. However depart that apart. I don’t assume individuals perceive that the federal authorities is the most important purchaser of knowledge know-how on Earth. And the federal civil service has been upskilling at a blistering tempo with simply every kind of clerical capabilities ceasing to be carried out by human beings. And provided that company numbers have been, I feel in most locations, fairly static because the Kennedy administration, what meaning is that individuals who was doing jobs of data administration or mailing Social Safety checks are actually doing different issues. Now we have extra, and so their work turns into increasingly demanding, extra summary. Additionally just a little, typically just a little more durable to elucidate as a result of everybody knew what a file clerk did. Everybody knew what it meant. Okay? I’m the one who, , feeds the Social Safety checks into the postage-stamp-issuing machine. But it surely’s just a little laborious to elucidate that you just’re the individual in control of, , investigating how disabled any person should be as a way to qualify for a incapacity pension.
Strzok: A few ideas on that. One, it’s so a lot simpler to interrupt it than it’s to repair it, each when it comes to the sources to interrupt it versus the sources to repair it. And the opposite factor is, it’s like local weather change. There’s a delayed response. It’s like when the coyote runs off the cliff and he’s nonetheless type of operating, however he’s suspended within the air and he hasn’t fallen into the scribbling little puff of smoke. Now we have run off the cliff in lots of instructions at this level, and you may’t get again to the cliff.
Sooner or later, that backside is gonna fall out, and hopefully it’s solely a four-foot drop and never a 200-foot ravine. However once more—and it isn’t intuitive—these techniques have grow to be so complicated. It’s not, , the Jenga 20 stack of blocks the place you pull one out and it’s gonna fall. It’s this elaborate, complicated system the place you’re willy-nilly pulling. Nicely, it’s nonetheless operating. Yeah. However you simply, proper, you caught your self off the cliff six years from now, the subsequent pandemic from now, the subsequent hurricane from now, the subsequent terrorist assault from now. And also you’re not gonna realize it till you go to activate the radio or go to do one thing and it doesn’t work.
And then you definitely’re shit outta luck. Sorry—I shouldn’t swear in your present. You then’re outta luck.
Frum: Let’s depart it there.
Strzok: Yeah.
Frum: Let’s simply hope—I say, let’s simply hope we’re fortunate, as a result of luck could also be the very best pal america has lately as a result of it’s surrounded by enemies overseas and inadequate guardians at residence. Peter, thanks a lot for making the time. All the time such a—it was an informative expertise to speak to you. Thanks. Bye-bye.
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Frum: Thanks a lot to Peter Strzok. Thanks, all of you, who bear with me from the unusual backdrop. It does look unusual; we’re going to attempt to return to our common excessive aesthetic requirements—the flowers and so forth. However thanks for watching. I hope you’ll like and subscribe future episodes with the upper aesthetic values. And bear in mind: One of the simplest ways to assist this podcast and the work of all of my Atlantic colleagues is by subscribing to The Atlantic, and I hope you’ll please contemplate doing that.
See you subsequent week right here on The David Frum Present. Thanks for watching.
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Frum: This episode of The David Frum Present was produced by Nathaniel Frum and edited by Andrea Valdez. It was engineered by Dave Grein. Our theme is by Andrew M. Edwards. Claudine Ebeid is the chief producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
I’m David Frum. Thanks for listening.
