Episode 705: the Opportunities With Trump's Return, with Jerry Dunleavy

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there waiting for you. And now let's just go ahead and roll on in today's show, what we're going to look at is, as everybody knows, unless you're in I think it's California and Arizona, maybe a couple of other states are still counting votes for some reason everybody. The election is behind us. So we know that former President Trump will be President Trump again, the forty seventh president of the United States, and he's already starting to put

together his national security team. And whenever you have a new commander in chief coming along, he's going to pick new people, the better aligned with his philosophy and his business and there'll be some opportunity and some pratfalls. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today with our guest, Jerry Dunlavy. He's the author of Kabul, which we had him on before, and he's the former investigative journalist for the Washington Exammer and former senior investigator for the House

Foreign Affairs Committee. And it's just a couple of weeks after the election. So for those out in the provinces, how are things in the Imperial City?

to is going to look like. Obviously, in this first term, President Trump faced an inordinate amount of what we would call lawfair. The Trump Russia collusion hope, I would say, largely dominated the first half of his presidency in his first term. What do they have in store this time around, I don't know yet. But what I do know from the sort of the issues that I've been working on very intently the last number of years, is I hope that the incoming Trump administration is ready for what they're

going to face. Because when it comes to just the narrow issue of accountability for the tobacco in Afghanistan, Pentagon brass and top officials and generals have managed to escape any and all accountability. That's because the Biden Harris administration didn't want them accountable for anything. But it's also because there was some complicity from the people in Congress who

are supposed to be overseeing at the military. You know, I worked on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican led House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the chairman, I'm chairman McCall by design wet the military brass off the hook for their mistakes. It's my sense that President Trump, on this issue and on many, many, many issues, is looking for

accountability and is frankly looking for some scalps. And the pushback is going to be tremendous from the entrenched bureaucracies, like the entrench bureaucracy at the Pentagon, and also from the media. It is going to be an intense battle every step of the way. And so I just I hope that they're prepared for that because they're going to need, uh, they're going to need to be ready for what's facing them.

the Arlington Cemetery and with them. So, you know, how how how how deep do you think his commitment is to keeping some of those promises that he was making to people like the gold Star families and to other people who were very concerned about the ability of senior officials, both the military and otherwise, to to sidestep I was being held accountable for the abilities they either messed up or didn't get at all. Yeah.

culminating in a defeat after a two decade war. I traced the proximal cause for why the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August of twenty twenty one to President Biden's unilateral withdrawal announcement in April of twenty twenty one, because that withdrawal announcement meant not just the pulling of US troops, but if US troops were leaving, that meantal native troops were leaving. It also meant the pulling of US logistics, US support, US ISR, everything that we had built the

Afghan military round. So that was the proximate cause in twenty twenty one. However, it wasn't just President Biden made big mistakes in twenty twenty one. The State Department made every mistake that they possibly could. The White House National Security Council did a terrible job, but the military brass and the intelligence community also failed in twenty twenty one, and they have managed to escape.

held for the state mistakes that they made. When it comes to the Abbeygaid attack in particular, there are still questions that that remain that have not been pursued related to that attack, and the military sentcome in particular has done everything that it could to shield itself from any real inquiry into what happened and into whether that attack

could have been preventable. And so I I, you know, I have a lot of hope that the incoming Trump administration is able to use the awesome powers that they will have to pry those answers out of of the deep recesses of the d O D and to obtain some some accountability for everyone that fought in that war and for everyone that that lost someone in that war.

last that the last election, the the Intel officials who signed off saying that they thought that the Hunter Biden laptop was a was a Russian thing, which you have been totally disproven. And then but they they've suffered no consequences as far as I know, for for making such a an interesting claim.

Biden over the finish line, and it was successful. And you know, what we have learned and what we now know is that this Hunter Biden laptop letter that was signed by these fifty one former intelligence officials, including four or five former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, is that this letter was written with the express purpose of giving Joe Biden a talking point in his debate with President Trump. And so this was a by design a

political document. And Mike Morrell, former acting CIA director, who was the main author of this letter and the main recruiter of this letter, recruiting the signatories for the letter, he says that it was actually conversation with Anthony Blink, who was then on Biden's campaign but obviously went on to be a fairly disastrous Secretary of State. But it was it was the Morel's conversation with Blincoln that prompted

him to write this letter in the first place. And so this was a This was former intelligence officials who had the highest clearances and that held the highest levers of power in our intelligence community, signing on to a political document with the purposes of influencing a presidential election, and with the purposes of influencing a presidential election, by the way, with claims that had no basis, that the claims that the Hunter Biden laptop was somehow a Russian

information operation, that the Russians were behind it, never had any basis, and yet you know, they leaned on their credentials to claim it anyway. That is a great example

of the politicization of intelligence that we have seen. And you can see that not just with that, not just with the Hunter Biden laptop letter, but you could see that with the efforts to push this Trump Russia collusion saga.

I would call it the Trump Russia collusion hoax. The deployment of Christopher Steele's dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, but then was used by the FBI not just to dean Fiz awards and surveillance, but was also used and placed in an annex to the Intelligence Community assessment on Russian election influence in the twenty sixteen election. And then Christopher Steele and his main

sub source. They were given credibility to allow the FBI to continue an investigation for years, which then transformed into the Muller investigation and on and on, an investigation that never really had a proper predicate or proper basis to begin with. And so the politicization of the intelligence community is a huge problem. We've seen it in dramatic ways the past years, and so that is going to be a big focus of the incoming Trump administration as well.

And there will be a lot of pushback by the media and from inside of the bureaucracy of the intelligence community. But look, the intelligence community has earned scrutiny that it's going to get because look, I am someone that believes in the importance of our spy agencies. We have serious adversaries that we're facing, and we need spy agencies that are not just effective, but that also have the trust

of the American people. And they've lost that trust and it's not going to be regained without real scrutiny and real reform.

the what kind of impact won't have? I mean, as you say, there's you know, I'm always thinking of resistant circuits with electricity out of theres a lot of resistance in the in the circuits.

they are going to face a lot of resistance. It's going to be what the media is going to raise hell about this, and the entrench bureaucracies are going to raise hell as well. And so it's going to take commitment. It's going to take real commitment to get it done. I mean what does accountability look like. I can say

with the start of accountability looks like on some of this. Obviously, when it comes to Hunter Biden laptop letter, I think that pulling the security clearances of the fifty one former intelligence officials who signed on to this letter as a no brainer. They deployed their credentials for the sole purposes of impacting a presidential election, inserting themselves into a presidential

race with baseless claims. They didn't just change an election potentially, But what I think that you know, another thing that that's overlooked here is they did a stream damage to the credibility of the intelligence community, and they did damage the American people's ability to trust that intelligence officials are going to be a political just the facts, rather than inserting themselves into, you know, juring themselves into presidential races

with political agendas. And so I think pulling their clearances is a no brainer. And that's that's that's an easy start. When it comes to Afghanistan, as I mentioned, there's a lot of accountability to go around for what happened in twenty twenty one. The State Department failed, the NSC failed, but the military and the IC failed too. And I've spent a lot of time over the past few years

really focusing in on the military piece of this. And it is just a fact that a Chairman Millie presented incorrect, wildly incorrect information about the facts on the ground in twenty twenty one in Afghanistan, and he claimed that the Afghan military was five thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand strong, which was never true, a wild inflation of the size of the Afghan military, because look, the Afghan

military had well known ghost soldier problems. It was never at three hundred and twenty five thousand or three hundred and fifty thousand, It was never at three hundred thousand.

It was always smaller than that. But it was especially true in the summer of twenty twenty one when after we had pulled our troops and our logistics and our ISR and our air support and everything that we had built the Afghan military around, combined with a massive Taliban offensive, a very effective, one very smart Taliban offensive, the Afghan military was falling apart. And so he was promoting this fiction about the size and strength and capability of the

Afghan military that he knew was not true. And on top of that, he was testifying about the speed and scale of the Taliban advances and if anyone ever was following the Long War Journal at the time, the Long War Journal was a tracking district by district Taliban control, largely using open source and Millie's claims about the speed and scale of the Taliban advance were way behind where the Long War Journal was and so he either didn't know how quickly the Taliban was taking over or again

he was just misleading about this Taliban advance. And the reason why I'm harping on this is that the military brand and military generals have done a very good job of avoiding their piece of the accountability for what happened in August of twenty twenty one, Milli especially, And so accountability is going to be looking at all of those military commanders and military generals and this and and and

really holding them to account for what they did. We need a real accounting of the decisions that they made and uh, you know, a real public accounting of the of the mistakes that they made, because the military needs to embrace we need to embrace the reality that the war in afghan And was a defeat and that in twenty twenty one. The military brass unfortunately was a part of why that defeat occurred.

I mean what I saw was when you resigned from the from the commission that was looking into the Afghan thing, the the you had a Republican that was a Republican as you said, Republican group led group, and and they were they were reluctant to get into that stuff that you've you've pointed out. Now, I mean, what is is there? I guess my question is is that is that resistance there because they get what they do what they do to get along with with the bureaucracy and everybody else.

Is it or is it just is it possible to have bringing enough people of the nature of proposed Secretary of Defense that are you know, they're they just had enough of this stuff and they're not going to put up with with that kind of nonsense.

The what that that the House Armed Services Committee should be the committee that is doing real oversight of the military and the military piece of this, but that was just not not the case. The House Intelligence Committee should have done real oversight of the intelligence failures in Afghanistan twenty twenty one, but that was really not the case. The House Foreign Affairs Committee took on sort of the entire breadth of the investigation, the State Department side, the

military side, all of it. But there is institutional capture there. There was a desire to sort of put all of it, all the blame on the State Department and let the military off the hook. What Chairman Millie is a very talented politician, and I think that sometimes maybe people forget that to get to be the chairman of the joint chiefs. You often have to be a politician as well as a you know, person with a long history of military service, and he's a very effective politician. He did a very

good job of getting the househorn. The Republican led House worn Affairs Committee, specific Lee Chairman McCall to let them off the hook by design, because we had General Millie and General McKenzie in front of our committee, testifying in front of Congress on TV, and that was a great opportunity to really hold their feet to the fire about

the mistakes that they made. The mistakes that Millie made, I mean, I mentioned just a couple of them, the inflation of the Afghan military size and strength being totally behind the eight ball, on the speed of the Taliban advances. General McKenzie as well. I mean, people forget this, but McKenzie, as the commander of Central Command, flew out to Doha around August fifteenth of twenty twenty one to me with

the Taliban and the Taliban's leader there. Broader offered to keep the Taliban out of Cobble and to let the United States bring in as many US forces as we wanted to to secure the city to conduct our evacuation, and McKenzie turned that down. That offered down on the spot, and that was a green light for the Taliban to

come in. And that meant the US was relying on the Taliban to provide security outside of Kabo Airport, and that I think is a big reason why isis K was able to clack off an ied and kill thirteen US service members. But the point I'm making here is that these generals escape that accountability in part because a Republican chairman let them. I don't think that, for instance, a Secretary of Defense Pete Hagseth would let that fly.

And so I do think that there's going to be a real accounting of the mistakes that not just the White House National Security Council made and State Department made, but also a real counting of the mistakes that the military brass made in Afghanistan in twenty twenty one. When it comes to Ratcliffe at CIA LOO, he's gonna have his work cut out for him as well for restoring the American people's trust in the institution of the Central Intelligence Agency. Does he have the commitment to do what

needs to be done. I do think that he does.

I can talk just a little bit about covering him when he was the director, the Director of National Intelligence in twenty twenty, look he raised the alarm in a very significant way about the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party, the threat posed not just militarily but also the foreign influence efforts that the CCP was carrying out, and in fact, in the twenty twenty election, there was an assessment that was done by the intelligence community about

a foreign influence and foreign interference in the twenty twenty election, and the consensus was that Russia tried to influence it to help Trump, that Iran tried to influence the twenty twenty election to hurt Trump. But then there was a division inside of the intelligence community about what China did, and a big swath of the IC tried to make the argument that China did not try to influence the twenty twenty election. But the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber was joined by.

Russian intelligence and Russian influence. And so Radcliffe kind of demonstrated his willingness to bought heads with sort of the IC bureaucracy there, and he also helped to declassify a lot of information related to the Trump Russia collusion hopes as well as DNI, and that was something that was

also unpopular within the IC bureaucracy. So I have a lot of hope with the potential to make some real progress in reforming the IC, depoliticizing the IC, restoring trust in the IC, and also in making the IC more effective in confronting our actual adversaries, which is not turning our intelligence inward targeting American political foes, instead making sure that we have the most effective intelligence services possible to address the very serious threats that we have, and to

fix the IC's ability to confront those threats. Because they they failed to see what was coming in Afghanistan, that they they failed to see how the war Ukraine was going to go, and so I really worried that they have not fixed this and that when it comes to a major power confrontation, whether it's with Iran or Russia or China, the IC has a lot of work that it has to do to make sure that they're ready.

in Afghanistan certainly influenced Pudin's decision to invade Ukraine. I think that Putin looked at the US and NATO as being in a shambles, and saw that as his best opportunity, his best chance to do what he's wanted to do a long time, which is due a full scale invasion of Ukraine. But another missing lesson here has been the failure of deterrence in twenty twenty one. In early twenty

twenty two, the failure to deter Russia. For all the talk that President Biden had about being tough on Russia, he failed to enforce sanctions against Nordstream two, which was a sort of Putin's geopolitical toy that the Trump administration had sanctioned so much that had ground its construction ground to a halt. President Biden refused to enforce sanctions there and refused to take basic steps to try to deter

Russia from its invasion. So I think a big lesson there is going to be a lesson about the importance of deterrence. I think that there is a similar lesson to be learned about Iran. There is no question that the Biden Harris administration unshackled Iran. I think from the shackles that the Trump administration had largely put the Iranian

regime in they removed, they did not enforce sanctions. There was an influx of cash to Iran that allowed the regime to greatly strengthen its funding and arming of its proxies. And hey, I mean we're talking about the Red Sea and the Houthis. One of the first things that the Biden administration did was take the Houthies off of the Foreign Terrorist Organization's list that the Trump administration had put

them on. And so a lot of this is just going to be about getting back to a serious national security policy that is serious about our adversaries and is serious about the terrens. So that's kind of the Russia Ukraine piece and the Middle East piece. When we're talking about our potential confrontation with China. We are in a

real world of hurt right now. Our defense industrial base cannot produce enough munitions at this time to even supply what the Ukrainian forces need to fight off the Russian invasion. The depletion would be almost immediate in a fight with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea. So there is going to be need to be a huge effort to reinvigorate our defense industrial base. Our shipbuilding capability is atrocious, especially when you compare it to the Chinese Communist Party's ability.

I mean, they are orders of magnitude better at building ships than we are. And so that is going to be there's going to be need to be a serious effort to strengthen our military capabilities. And for four years we've gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble and there's going to be a big hole to climb out of.

make sure that that stuff is weeded out under as President Trump has says he wants to get get it out of those out of the I don't think I mean he wants to get that ticket of programs out of the how of the government.

Within the Pentagon, there is there is no doubt that the military brass within d O D, in the military leadership, has allowed this DEI a critical race theory, sort of left wing divisive racial ideologies to take hold within how the military goes about deciding on placements and promotions, deciding what we teach cadets at our military can enemies. It's a real problem. It is a real problem. And you know, Chairman Milly famously sort of defended all of this in

the summer of twenty twenty one. People will remember his sort of you know, his defense of teaching critical race theory, and you know, his pronouncement that he wants to understand white rage. There was a there was a big effort in twenty twenty one that were still that has continued, but it really launched in twenty twenty one. Within the military. There was the stand down that happened in twenty twenty one. There were huge efforts to make the military focus on

climate impacts. There was the institution of sort of this this DEI stuff within the military and the military academies and all of that I think takes away from what the focus of the military needs to be, which is on having a cohesive and effective war fighting force. And I think that all of this DEI stuff, rather than helping people to embrace UH are you know, the incredible diversity that the United States has, I think that is divided people and has actually turned that diversity into a

divisive negative within within the military. I think it's a real problem. And there has been this effort within the intelligence community as well the UH. The intelligence community has a DEI office, for instance, and the de I office pushes out its newsletter and its pronouncements across the intelligence community. And one just instance of that was in an issue of this UH. This magazine, which is one of the few issues of the magazine that's been was released through

FOYA so people can take a look at it. The ode and ized de I on this told people to stop using phrases like Islamic jihad, jihadis, Islamic terrorism, Islamic extremism, extremism, Sunni extremism, Shia extremism. Told people to stop using these very helpful terms. I think for understanding understanding terrorist groups like al Qaeda, Hesbolah isis Hamas, and instead kind of crazily recommended that that people use the term curry Jites instead.

And I don't need to go into a big theological discussion with the audience here, but the curry Jites were a Islamic sect hundreds of years ago that sort of labeled anyone that didn't agree with their version of Islam as sort of apostates. And so the I see recommending that we refer to terrorist groups as carageites, and so we're sort of injecting ourselves into like a theological debate then.

And the problem is, of course that every different Islamic group and sect label each other as carageites, like al Qaeda says that Isis are carriageites. Isis as al Qaida or Caurageites, sort of a useless term. But this is this is the this is the intelligence community's de I office telling people that there's harmful terminology like jihadis, so don't use it anymore.

he is. And so this is what I'm trying to say here, is that this DEI stuff is not just problematic for I think, creating division within the ranks and for hurting recruitment, but is also problematic for the mission of the Pentagon and the IC, which is confronting our enemies. So whoever's leading these agencies is going to have to uproot this stuff. It's important and it will help with

the effectiveness of the force. I think that it will help with recruitment, and it will also help with confronting these very serious challenges that we have.

these programs. And I also would like to, you know, say, for the first time in a long time, we've got people who are being putting these offices who who were not you know, five star, four star, three star generals. Are these are guys are like he was a major. We get at the vice president was an E four, and we all know the power of the for mafia, but but his you know it, it's refreshing to be

to see people from the lower food chain. We haven't had that in a while since Nixon and Kennedy, who were I think lieutenant's uh and of course Lena Johnson was a lieutenant commander, but I refused to really accept his surface as being a much more of the p RCH.

You know, at the end of the day, after this sort of internal scrutinizing of ourselves, it turned out that out of the millions of people who are serving, it was the tiniest number of extremists that it was actually if it probably shocked the people that were well into it. How this is not a significant problem within the military. But you saw Hegseeth get targeted based on the most ridiculous stuff possible. I mean a you know, a Jerusalem Cross tattoo and as Daveu's vault a tattoo you know

God wills it is what that means. You know, this is an extremely baseless thing to use to target you know, a major in the Army Guard who has done two tours, has done tours in Afghanistan. I Rock has been awarded bronze stars. And but you see what can happen when this sort of mentality, this sort of you know, anything that I don't like, any anyone that I don't agree with, I'll find a way to target them and label them, you know, like a white supremacist or white nationalists based

on based on nothing. I mean, this does harm to the military, and it creates distrust among people when there shouldn't be It creates unnecessary friction when when there there shouldn't be any. And so, you know, I think that hag Seth has made it very clear. He wrote a book the The The War on Warriors, and he's made it very clear that this sort of stuff needs to stop and the military needs to get back to having a cohesive force that that can that can that can

win wars. And look, you know, Lloyd Austin had had a long and successful, uh military a career.

because of it. And so I see value in you know, a decorated Army major who's committed to to fixing things being given a shot at doing it, and and you know, I I hope he's I hope he's successful.

come to that firm conclusion. Part of it is that the US government, through the NIH was funding some of the groups who were working with the Wuhan Lab on these dangerous back coronavirus experiments. And so there are people implicated, there are salaries implicated, there are you know, maybe people's pensions might be at risk if we come to that conclusion. Within the intelligence community, the intelligence community has failed on this issue to hum to a solid conclusion about the

origins of COVID nineteen. Now, the FBI has assessed that with a medium confidence that COVID came from that lab in Wuhan. The Energy Department has assessed with low confidence that it came from that lab in Wuhan. And then you have a scattering of a small number of agencies that apparently believe with low confidence that COVID nineteen emerged

from nature, which I find highly doubtful. And then the rest of the intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency, has not come to an assessment after four or five years of being able to work at this issue. I think that's crazy, and it speaks to a I think a combination of a lack of capability and a lack of will within the IC. But that's that's a problem if the IC is unwilling or unable to figure something

like this out. And I think that part of it speaks to on the inability piece of it, I think part of it speaks to our intelligence community is not equipped yet to deal with the challenges emanating from China, whether it is Chinese, the Chinese military threat, Chinese for an influence, or a global pandemic emanating from there. They're

not They're not able to do it. I can I can say just from my experience as an destigated reporter, that Ratcliffe, for instance, is very passionate about getting the IC on the ball here in dealing with China, and that he has assessed himself as the former head of the Office of Director of National Intelligence, that all the evidence points to COVID nineteen coming from coming from a lab in Muhan. When it comes to fentanyl, look, this is just another area where the Biden Harris administration has

not done enough. Fentanyl is the number one driver of the drug abuse deaths in this country, and the Chinese Communist Party plays a significant role not just in the fentanyl precursor production, but also in the facilitation of the payments as well. Chinese banking and money laundering is very key to the Mexican cartel operations that are bringing this fentanyl across our borders making a big profit on it.

Some of those profits, lots of those profits are going to the Mexican drug cartels, but a lot of those profits are also going into Chinese banks for money laundering as well. We have not done enough. It is a massive crisis. The Biden Herris administration has done a little bit,

but a little bit is not enough. And there is plenty of evidence, including from the Slight Committee on the Chinese Communist Party in Congress, that this is a Chinese Communist Party, a Chinese state sanctioned operation, this fentanyl operation, this collaboration with the Mexican drug cartels. And then whether China is responsible for a global pandemic because of the dangerous military linked virus research that they're doing, or whether

they're responsible for fentanyl deaths. I think that the CCP has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, probably into the millions now when you combine COVID, the COVID pandemic, and the fentinyl crisis, and we as a country are not treating that as the reality. I mean, we are not treating China the way that you would think you would treat a country that is so irresponsible and so callous with American life as they have been.

And so I do hope that there's a pivot here in the way in the mentality that we have on towards the CCP.

the Swallow instance. I mean that the CCP ran a very effective operation there with with Christine Fang, who is almost certainly was an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security targeting him at a young age, back when he was just on a city council, very close to him, and him only the FBI only briefing him on this reality when he was about to get a perch on the House Intelligence Committee. Credit to China for running an

effective op there. And and really when you look at Chinese influence in terms of specific co option, their real focus, and where they really can be effective is sort of on what's called this, you know, the sub national level, targeting local and state officials and getting them co opting them. They they're very effective at using their what China calls its Friendship associations, which are really just part of its

United frontwork department. That's kind of where they're effective, exploiting their sister city arrangements, exploiting they are even more soft power things like Confucius Institutes and that sort of thing. When it comes to US policy, I think it's a less uh, and I think this has been the case for for decades. Unfortunately, less of an instance of China specifically co opting individuals, although that does happen with some frequency. It's more that China did a very very very good

job of touting it as a peaceful riser. It's China's peaceful rise, that's what That's what they were they were all about, and did a very good job of getting businesses and politicians on the hook for a cheap money, cheap labor, cheap goods, a quick way to make a big buck in China, and uh huh. The fall of the Soviet Union and after the Tianeman Square massacre. There was no real reason for like geostrategic areas and whatsoever, for the United States to continue to offer China the

friendly hand that we did. But instead, the United States continued to help China build up its economy, which because the Chinese Communist Party sees all of this as interconnected, a growing Chinese economy meant a growing Chinese military and

growing Chinese intelligence services. And I just think that it is going to take a long time to turn the ship around to reverse that mentality, because I think it's really an entrenched mentality that has to you know, has to dissipate because we helped China in its rise for so long, reorienting the US government and the military and the intelligence services towards confronting China and seeing it not as a partner often not even just as a friendly competitor,

but as an adversary. That takes a long time, and it's going to take real commitment and structural change. And I hope that that is sort of the mentality that the Trump admin Is is coming in with, because that US sort of you could see during the Trump administration, because of a lot of you know, the good things that they did there, the US government started to reorient itself towards taking China seriously as a threat, and the

American public did as well. You can see that, and that was a big, real accomplishment of the first Trump administration. But there is so much more to do, and Trump has four years to do it, so we'll see.

check me out on Twitter at Jerry Dunleavy. Right now, I'm focused a lot on continuing to my my drumbeat about accountability for the military brass and the ic for the debacle in Afghanistan, and on talking about all of these issues really, these these are these are challenges that the Trump administration is gonna is going to face, but they're also opportunities for them to really do the right thing in depoliticizing the intelligence community, depoliticizing d D, holding

IC officials and DoD officials accountable for mistakes that they made, and forgetting the United States ready for the great power competition that that we are in whether we like it or not. So follow me on Twitter. That's what I'm up to and that's that's what I'm gonna keep working on.