Why does Trump want to tear down Harvard?

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And the president is more interested in giving that taxpayer money to trade schools, in programs, in state schools, where they are promoting American values, but most importantly Educating the next generation based on skills that we need in our economy and our society. Apprenticeship.

Electricians, plumbers, we need more of those in our country and less LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University. And that's what this administration's position is. To be fair, I don't think you do qualify from Harvard University. with an LGBTQ degree. But that is Caroline Levitch. The President's press secretary saying Oh screw Harvard at a time of quantum computing, AI, the battle for the greatest scientific mind.

What we need are more painters and decorators. Why is the Trump administration so determined to tear down America's greatest academic institution? Welcome to the NewsAgence USA. It's John and it is a riddle. Why is President Trump so determined to go after Harvard University with such venom and such aggression? That you are more or less.

Tearing down the single greatest academic institution in America that has been the recipient of Umptee Nobel Prizes, but has also provided the scientists, the brains that have started some of the most innovative companies in the United States. Which attracts the brightest and the best from around the world that leads to things like Silicon Valley happening, which leads the world in terms of the technology and IT and all the rest of it.

Donald Trump is withdrawing federal funding from Harvard University because it will not accept the imposition of rules and regulations that effectively would mean That Harvard University would be under the control of the White House or a board sympathetic to the White House. So that more or less MAGA would be deciding who could serve as an academic, a professor, or teacher in the faculty of this

or that. Harvard is saying that's a line we cannot cross and a holding firm. And so Donald Trump keeps on turning up the heat because the one thing that Donald Trump hates more than anything else is people who say no. And so overnight we hear that US embassies around the world are being told to stop all visa applications.

Of foreign students who want to come and study in the United States. So if you have been that extraordinary academic 17, 18-year-old who's managed to garner an offer for a Harvard or Princeton or Yale or wherever it happens to be. You now don't know whether you're going to get a place there because you might not get a visa. What will your visa depend on? Well, what your social media posts have been. Now, frankly.

I don't know many seventeen or eighteen year olds who haven't posted something that they probably now would think That may not have been as smart as I would have liked it to have been. But they posted it nonetheless. Are we really going to an age of Puritanism now in America where if you've said anything untoward, you can't go and study in that country? That is going to starve the United States of a lot of talent and seems to be an enormous act of self-harm.

On the other side of that equation, you're going to see academics thinking, if this is the rules of engagement, for me being a professor at an elite institution in America. Then why the hell do I want to stay in this country? Why don't I go somewhere else? And I guess if you're Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, LSE, the Saw Bonne, Sions Po, wherever it happens to be You're licking the lips at the prospect of getting some of the brightest brains. In America.

coming over to Europe because they can't stand it in America any longer. Now As I said at the start, there is a riddle about why this has happened. It's even gone from Baron Trump applying to Harvard and not getting in, and that is why Donald Trump is so fixated on punishing Harvard. There are others that maybe he'd been rejected himself from going there. Who knows? But the attack is in full force.

And the question is, how long does Harvard stand firm? How long does Harvard continue to resist the onslaught that is coming from the White House?

Well let's speak now to Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard University, where he's the Professor of Government and Director of the Centre for American Political Studies. I talked about in the introduction there what Caroline Levitt said saying, you know, we need more kind of plumbers and electricians. We don't need more LGBTQ graduates.

What did you make of that? Yeah, you know, I saw this statement by her and it was uh shocking in many respects,'cause let's think about what she did here. So I think without knowing it, she managed to insult electricians and plumbers. to act like that was some pawn um in her political pandering rather than a profession that one would take on and contribute to society.

She managed to insult LBGTQ people to say there was something wrong with them in society, and she managed to insult um Harvard grads. all in the same statement. And i in many ways I don't know what the point of it was, but I think that American society, the thing to be clear on, and world society more generally, has benefited tremendously from the people that come out of Harvard and not only Harvard, but the uh higher education system in the United States more generally.

Um, you know, it's been a model for the world in many things. It's something that Americans are justifiably proud of. and these attacks on it, somehow turning this into some kind of petty political game where they're trying to create class warfare between plumbers and Harvard grads if that's what they're trying to do.

does nothing for American society, it does nothing for the world. And frankly I think they should be ashamed of making statements like that. So wh why do you think they are? Because Ask anyone around the world, name me a great American institution and I suspect the first one that they will name. And you know, I I think that unfortunately Donald Trump doesn't have that kind of world vision, you know, where he looks and

says how do we see things um from a broader perspective like that. He cares about his own political grievances and this is what he's pursuing right now is his own political grievance.

But I think more seriously, more darkly in many ways, and this is me speaking as a political scientist, what we see Donald Trump doing is attacking pillars of civil society in the way that authoritarians do. So authoritarians across the world um in places like Hungary and places like Turkey and places like Venezuela, when they wanted to dismantle democracy, they attacked in addition to law firms and the press, which is what Donald Trump has also attacked.

They attacked universities because they see universities as places of descent. And Donald Trump has come up with a lot of pretexts for why he wants to attack Harvard, things like, saying it is um, you know, in league with the Chinese Communist Party or is anti Semitic or things like that that have no real basis in reality.

And he's doing it because he wants to attack Harvard to take apart segments of American civil society to further his authoritarian agenda. Well let's just kind of dig into that a bit. There was a lot of anti Semitism. on campuses in the US Isn't he right to raise this as an issue and therefore to demand that there are certain things put in place so that the academic faculty is not encouraging

This sort of behavior. I would challenge somebody to find academic faculty at Harvard or anywhere else that has encouraged anti Semitic behavior. I I I would never say that there is not anti Semitism at American universities because there's anti Semitism everywhere in the world. And of course that's a problem that people should deal with and people should think about how to solve.

But it would be wrong, and I will stand by the statement and I would encourage anybody that um disagrees with me to come and actually spend time at Harvard and to talk to the people here, it would be wrong to say that Harvard has an acute problem of anti-Semitism, that it's some kind of crisis

that has to be dealt with, that the president of the United States has to come in in a heavy handed way and take control of a university to stop something that is rampant anti Semitism. That simply does not coincide with reality. And I don't think a reasonable person that has actually spent time at Harvard would think that it represents this reality that Donald Trump has tried to sell to the world.

I started off by asking you about the Caroline Levitt quote, and I just wonder whether there is an anti-intellectualism that maybe is always been in America, in certain places. That frankly you distrust academics and also they're unlikely to garner much public support because they live in their ivory towers, they research irrelevant subjects.

Who cares about them? Yeah. Well that's a really good question. And you know, you put your finger on something that I think is a powerful current of American society. You know, uh America has always sort of had an anti intellectual and you know, anti elite um vein in it, right? This is uh, you know, the great democratic experiment of the United States in some ways is always um

uh has always sort of compared itself to the British and thought, you know, we don't have these sort of we don't have elitism, you know, we don't have a a monarchy and so therefore, you know, we we don't like these things. And that runs through a lot of what we see in American politics. Nevertheless, you know, we've built these elite institutions like Harvard and we have, you know, extreme wealth inequality and all these things we claim we don't like.

And so I think that unfortunately there's a powerful current of American politics that can be tapped into in this anti intellectualism and a and part of that is what Donald Trump is doing. But what's remarkable about that, and it's interesting because myself and one of my colleagues who wrote a lot about this over the past several months.

We said that if Harvard takes a stand for democracy and takes a stand against Trump, that America will rally to its side. And in some ways we weren't sure about that. We were kind of getting out over our skis a little bit, if you appreciate that expression. And we weren't sure if we were right. And I think in many ways it turns out that we were.

Because remarkably, American society has really embraced Harvard. As a political scientist, I actually have polling data on this where we've looked and said, you know, how favorably do people find Harvard? And the popularity of Harvard has gone way up. where people once, you know, sort of didn't like it, maybe for understandable reasons, and I've really rallied to its side. And I think what that shows is putting aside all the anti-intellectualism or whatever runs through American society.

What that shows is that Americans, when it comes down to it, do appreciate democracy. And we can talk about all the reasons we have Donald Trump. But when he attacks institutions of the United States and attacks civil society, Americans don't like that and they see this for what it is. And even if it's an attack on Harvard, they ultimately don't believe that the government should be doing those things.

So what about the other thing that has kind of emerged overnight which is that US embassies around the world, here in Europe, have been told stop processing visa applications for Harvard applicants. Which I guess if you're eighteen years old. and you have won the golden ticket to a s place at Harvard University or Yale or Princeton or any other school in America, you must be thinking, Oh my god

What am I gonna do? Yeah, well I'll tell you, you know, if I were one of the elite universities in the UK, if I were at Oxford or Cambridge or LSE or any other place I'd be celebrating that because I would know that all of a sudden these students would be turning my attention to these other other wonderful universities in the world. And the reason I mention that is I think that this is um representing a tremendous self harm to the United States.

The United States has benefited so much. I mean, we we forget as Americans what a privilege it is that people want to come and study in the United States. The best and the brightest from all over the world come here. And it's not something that has to be that way. It's not something that was given down by God or something. It's because we built these great institutions. And if we all of a sudden turn off that spigot, if we do this self inflicted wound, they're gonna go elsewhere.

And I would think it would be wonderful. Let me tell you, if they all turn around and want to go to the UK, I think that'd be great. But what I'm worried about in the long term is that they're gonna eventually they're gonna go to China because that is the place that's tried to rival the United States in its higher education system.

And ultimately it can't because a lot of people don't want to go to an unfree society. They don't want to go to a place where they have to worry about freedom of speech and they have to worry about the other things that you have to put up with in Chinese society. But now we see international students being picked up off the street in the United States for their speech.

If I were an international student, I would think twice about coming to the United States. And I think the harm that we're doing with these current actions may be very hard and take a long time for us to undo. Yeah. And presumably the corollary of what you've just said. Is that If an academic feels that they can't follow research or their social media posts might get scrutinised by the administration.

They're gonna think, Screw this, why am I staying in America? I could go to Cambridge, Oxford, the Sorbonne, L S E, Imperial College, wherever. And do this and have a whole lot less hassle. Yeah, of course. You know, um we've already seen a little bit of this. Um, you know, there's b even um one of the most striking examples of this were the prominent scholars of America of fascism that actually left and went to Canada.

So, you know, that's a maybe should be a warning to all of us. But we see this in other cases as well. It's not only people having to worry about speech, but it's the pullback of scientific funding in the United States. Um, you know, Trump has turned off many much of the federal funding towards these um towards science and towards medical research.

And if you're a scientist and you look and you say, Well, where can I go and not have to worry about being harassed by the government and where can I get adequate science funding? At this point, you know, it's probably gonna be somewhere in Europe.

And if it's not, as I said in the long term, I mean China is trying really hard to court these scientists and I I think for democratic societies in the West, that's what we should really be worried about, is that Trump by doing this kind of thing is not only damaging American institutions, but he's sort of damaging what has been in many ways one of the great advantages of the democratic West, which is our leadership in education and science.

Ryan, do you think you're getting anywhere in making this argument? Do you think there are those in the administration? who are kind of quietly sympathizing with you and saying, Look, I've got your back here but you know, I've just got to raise it in a very subtle way'cause you know what Donald Trump's like.

You know, I mean ultimately I don't know. I I think it's uh not a good sign for American society when we spend a lot of our time trying to sort of psychoanalyze Donald Trump and decide what he wants because that shows that we have one person that's too powerful in the United States right now.

But I I do hear, you know, from people and when you work at a place like Harvard, you kinda know well connected people. And a lot of them say something similar to what you're saying, that a lot of people think this is kind of madness and it is something That ultimately they hope sanity will prevail, because they understand that you don't make America great by attacking America's great institutions.

I do think as I mentioned earlier that American society is largely on Harvard side and and they because they see that it's not just about Harvard, you know, they don't care about Harvard and I understand that, but they see this as something a larger principle around democracy.

And so I think that a lot of them are on Harvard side and ultimately what will probably constrain the Trump administration is the American people. Um, you know, public opinion matters even for free people that want to be authoritarians. And I think that ultimately this and we already see the data on this, this is something that's very unpopular for the Trump administration to do and will probably backfire. I think particularly this second term.

By the extent to which There seems to be a streak of vengeance. Where Donald Trump is going after anyone and anything where he feels he's been slighted, whether it be law firms that wouldn't touch his work because they thought he was kind of reputationally damaging, whatever it happens to be. D is there something personal about why th the manner in which he's going uh you know, look, there are plenty of Iv Ivy League schools, but it seems to be that Harvard in particular is in the crosshair.

Yeah, you know, people have speculated all kinds of things like whether, you know, he uh you know, wasn't admitted at some point or something like that. And and I mean, who knows? I mean, we know that Donald Trump, remarkably, despite uh being the most powerful person in the world is a remarkably petty person and he seems to fixate on uh grievances that he has with individuals no matter how important or unimportant they they are.

And I I wouldn't doubt that some of it plays into that. I think that More largely, as I mentioned, it was natural and it was predictable, and many of us saw this coming, that Donald Trump would attack universities. And Harvard is the most famous university in the United States. And so when he singled out universities, eventually it was natural that he was gonna come for Harvard. I think if Harvard would have capitulated

then he might have moved on. When Harvard said no, which was the right thing to do, um, then that meant that he, you know, he doesn't like being told no and he is going to keep fixating on it. And I think that's the world we're in now. And I would imagine that within Harvard and on the various boards

There are those who think, God, we've got to go for easy life. Can't we settle this? Can't we come to some kind of compromise in the way that uh Colombia did, you know, Colombia sort of settled and said, Okay, we'll find a new way of living with you

Doesn't that make Harvard's position more difficult? Well, yes. And I'll tell you, um, you know, w the thing to be clear about with Columbia, of course, is that that didn't end the matter. They can came back with more demands and in many ways I think Columbia would still be under the spotlight if Harvard hadn't pushed back and now they've changed their attention to Harvard.

And and there were those people at Harvard, and I know there are because I've talked to them that thought, you know, we should settle and and many of us said no because, you know, it's like when you're settling with a bully saying, like, okay, I'll give you my money this one time and ex then expect you to walk away and never come back. And and that's not the nature of authoritarianism. And ultimately what Trump did Which I think made in certain respect the lack of settlement easier.

was that he made these outrageous demands that made it really hard for Harvard to say yes because it would have essentially taken away our independence as an institution. It would have ended the independence of the most prominent institution of higher education in the United States. And that would have been a shocking thing to see happen. Can I just ask you this finally? Yeah. Is it weird?

That here you are, an academic who has made a cold, desiccated study of these things from afar of authoritarianism of elites, and you now find yourself in its petri dish.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and and this is something we've reflected on a lot by we, I guess I mean people like myself, political scientists in the United States, because I think in many ways We always thought this was something we studied from afar, almost like an astronomer studying a uh, you know, a distant galaxy or something, and we'd say, you know, where

what happens, um, you know, in other countries when this happens. And and and I think in a certain respect, and I maybe I'm in this category, I don't know if other people are as well, I think this created sort of blinders for us in some ways, where we didn't know We didn't expect to see this coming in the United States and we all and sometimes didn't recognize it because we didn't know what authoritarianism would look like here.

Ryan Enos, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a real pleasure talking to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

I mentioned the riddle of Harvard a few moments ago. There is also the riddle of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. And we'll be talking in a moment to a former senior CIA field officer about all of that. The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and John Sopel. I'm not happy with what Putin's doing. He's killing a lot of people and I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known him a long time. Always gotten along with him.

But he's sending rockets into cities and killing people and I don't like it at all. Okay? We're in the middle of talking and he's shooting rockets into Kiev and other cities. I don't like it at all. Mr President, what do you want to do about that? And I'm surprised. I'm very surprised. We'll see what we're gonna do. What am I gonna tell you? You're the fake news, aren't you? You're totally fake. I'm totally surprised. Well

He shouldn't really be that surprised, should he? Because let's face it, Vladimir Putin has been doing that for hmm over three years now, of firing rockets into Ukraine. But Donald Trump does seem suddenly affronted by the behaviour of Vladimir Putin and by the Russian armed forces in continuing to prosecute its campaign against Ukraine. Of course, being pissed off with Vladimir Putin is a very different thing from doing anything about it.

Yet in his posts on Truth Social and when he's at the foot of Air Force One there does seem to be a very different tone. What Vladimir Putin doesn't realise he's written on Truth Social is that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean really bad. And he said that Vladimir Putin was playing with fire after the Russian attack on Ukraine. Does this mean

That Vladimir Putin is now likely to face sanctions from Donald Trump? Does it mean that President Trump is going to suddenly increase arms equipment going to Ukraine so that it can defend itself and attack Russia? I mean these are the huge questions that we don't know the answer to. The shift in tone is substantial towards Vladimir Putin. Whether there is a a matching shift in action is of course the bit we don't know yet. But let's speak now.

Tomark Polymeropoulos, who is the co presenter of a new global podcast, The Crisis Room, which I'm very much looking forward to, but he was also one of the CIA's most highly decorated operations officers. Serving in multiple field and headquarters assignments.

for the US government and specialising in counterterrorism, the Middle East and South Asia. I always think that with Trump you kinda do you judge the words or do you judge the actions? Because It seems for years Donald Trump has never wanted to say a bad word about Vladimir Putin, which has caused a lot of people to scratch their heads.

Well I I think you're right, and you know, so many uh news reports right now are talking about this rhetoric from Trump. Tougher talk, he's upset, he's disappointed, he's angry, he's amazingly enough, surprised. that the the Russians kind of conducted these days of brutal assaults with cruise missiles and and ballistic missiles as well as of course uh drones and the decoys. This of course should surprise nobody. Uh that's a separate issue, but it's but I think you're right in the notion of

Trump is talking tougher now, but in reality he's done nothing. And for many of us in the national security world, particularly those who have been such proponents of assisting the Ukrainians, whether we did it when I was For example, in government, or now as I'm outside of government, You know, now's the time for action. You know, we need sanctions to the max, we need to arm Ukraine to the teeth, yet Trump has done frankly nothing.

And one thing that I that I think is important to note i in terms of US politics is at some point it's not only the Trump administration, but also the the Republican Party as as a whole, including the Republican hawks on Russia in the Senate, who are ending up complicit in the abandonment of Ukraine if we do nothing. Do you think that may be changing now?

you know, Vladimir Putin just ignoring Trump's pleas for a ceasefire, carrying on prosecuting the war in this brutal way as you've just described. Is emboldening those kind of hawkish Republicans to say, Mr. President, you must do something about this. Well, you know, the Wall Street Journal had a an editorial from Senator Graham today and Senator Graham is an important voice. This is Lindsay Graham, the senator from South Carolina, a Trump confidant, but also a big hawk.

when it comes to supporting Ukrainians. He has put together a sanctions package that apparently is veto proof in the US Senate, meaning it could it could get by with Republican and Democratic support and Trump would actually have to even if he vetoed it, it would become law. And that would put 500% tariffs on countries such as India and China, frankly, that do business with Russia in fields of oil and gas. This is what we need to have happen.

And so you do see the voices on the Republican side becoming more uh emboldened. The big question is: does it resonate with Trump? And he still seems hesitant to actually go down the line of actually putting sanctions on. That is even without the the idea of arming the Ukrainians further, which of course I and many others have really uh promoted, but I'm not even sure that's on the table right now. So we're talking about a sanctions package.

It's out there. Will the Republicans go forth without the okay of the White House? That's the big question in Washington now. Do you believe that sanctions will lead to a change in behavior? Of Vladimir Putin. I mean when the invasion happened, I remember everyone touting that this was the biggest sanctions package ever, this is gonna really hurt him. Well, since when the Russian economy of course has suffered.

But it's moved onto a wartime footing and still carries on. So you you bring up a great point, and it actually pains me that I'm here actually promoting sanctions because I actually believe you. I think that's certainly not enough.

I think that the the you know, the Russian economy has been able to weather uh the w already we're crippling sanctions. But the one thing that I believe And I'll be very just frank on this now, that would change Vladimir Putin's behavior is sending more Russian troops home in body bags. And that means more weapons.

And it's not just defensive weapons that the Ukrainians desperately need, these patriot missiles that would help with the ballistic missile uh attacks from Russia, but it's also offensive weaponry. It's the idea of

either the US transferring this like they did under the Biden administration, or even the US selling uh the Ukrainians under foreign mil military sales. Maybe that's something that we could do. And then most importantly, I think, or most likely, is The US allowing our European allies or or overseas partners

to transfer US origin kit to the Ukrainians. The US does need to approve that, but that is actually what has to happen in order to have real change. So we're talking about sanctions and weapons. Sanctions are our first part. I guess we're at the point where the bar is so low.

that if Trump did go forward with this sanctions package that Lindsey Graham has has put forward, we would be a bit encouraged. But I think you're right, there's more to it than just sanctions. We have to continue arming the Ukrainians.

Donald Trump posted the other day what Vladimir Putin doesn't realise is that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have happened already to Russia. And I mean really bad. Do you have any idea what he's talking about? So first of all I found that incredibly ironic because it's almost a it's a tacit admission that that Trump has been helping Putin.

So he's saying that in essence, I've been covering for you for so long to try to get to the negotiating table and now you're not listening. So, you know, what more could he be could Trump be talking about? I don't know. These these, you know, running foreign policy via true social posts.

You know, I had I think I have PTSD from the first Trump administration about this and now we're we're back to it again. So deciphering what exactly he means, I would imagine it's additional US weaponry, offensive weaponry. you know, I think this is Trump in in essence lashing out but not realizing that he's actually admitting that he has been covering for Putin for some time. And that's the way we all took it. We all kind of smiled and and

and and noted that wow that was kind of a very clear understanding where the Trump administration, where Trump in particular has been for the first what, a hundred plus days. Mark, I I was at that jaw dropping news conference in Helsinki between Trump and Putin. And that occasioned where Trump was asked about whether he took Putin at his words that there had been no Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election and he said I've got no reason to disbelieve Vladimir Putin's assurances.

Uh he just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but uh I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful Even though every intelligence agency in the United States of America said there had been election interference. Do you understand the relationship between

Trump and Putin. Can you explain it? I mean I know that the CIA thinks long and hard and tries to understand these things and does huge amounts of analysis on it. And I just wonder what your you know take is on it. Well, first of all, you bring up an event which I think will go down, you know, the annals of US diplomatic history as is one of the most disheartening and depressing that certainly I ever encountered. I was in government at the time and it was devastating.

for members of the intelligence community because the evidence was so overwhelming. It was you know known kind of on a bipartisan basis. how the Russians had interfered, and so that was a tremendous slap at the intelligence community, and I think that was just the beginning of a a very contentious relationship. The relations though between Trump and Putin have been studied and discussed and and talked about and

Where I come down on this, and I and you know, people can believe me or or they cannot, is someone in terms of Donald Trump who just admires an autocratic leader. He admires someone who has a strong hold on a country. that Trump wishes he had over the United States, which of course is a democracy. He's had an affinity for Putin since the eighties, or for Russia since the eighties, when of course he he visited with the whole Miss America

Pageant, but it's just, you know, I think it's a style of government that he wishes he could replicate in the US. And of course, that is not the case. You know, the there's been so much written about. you know, is there any kind of actual, you know, relationship, perhaps business ties, perhaps even something more nefarious. And I would say that, you know, history will judge that. You know, at some point the US or perhaps our allies in the UK will get a hold.

of the actual Russian intelligence files on what on their assessment of Trump. You know, there was a famous case decades ago where a KGB officer named Metrokin came out and actually gave the British government, gave MI6, Six in essence, cases full of their archives.

You know, that's what we'll need at some point to see exactly what the Russians uh are are thinking about Trump. But at this point I see someone, you know, who just shares an affinity for autocracy and unfortunately is taking the US down a path where, you know, the the tilt towards Moscow

is something that is is real, that is extremely depressing to a lot of us who worked in national security. And it's just it remains to be seen once again in Ukraine if if Trump is going to change course and actually confront Putin. He raised another issue of kind of you know, which if i if you're in the intelligence community, as you were and served your country for so many years, what you don't want to see is your politicians being compromised by foreign leaders.

What did you make of Donald Trump accepting the small gift from Qatar of an Air Force One? I mean uh the the best word I could describe this is preposterous. Um, you know, I I worked in the United States government and I have lots of great gifts that I don't have right now because I had to give them back. because they literally were worth more than about two hundred and twenty US dollars.

Uh I remember when I was in the Middle East one time a a Middle Eastern head of state gave me a beautiful watch engraved with the royal seal of that country. And I took it and I thanked him. And I wore it for several days and then I gave it back to the US government because I was not allowed to accept it. Accepting a a four hundred million dollar airplane is preposterous. It's I think it's embarrassing to the United States.

I can't imagine that United States Secret Service or the national security team thinks this is a good idea because of the potential not only the ethics part of it, but of The security compromises. They're gonna have to tear this airplane apart piece by piece. I think I saw estimates it might cost a billion dollars to refurbish properly. But it just it looks terrible as you know, as a as a former US official and just it's gonna go down again one of these pieces of history.

Which are not really proud moments for the United States. And and let let me also say one additional thing is for those who work in the US government who have to abide by ethic laws, like I did, having to d to give back anything over about two hundred bucks, it just throws the whole system into chaos. The thing that strikes me uh of comparing the first Trump term when I was in Washington to now when I'm back in London is that Trump does seem to have acquiescence

almost total control of all the agencies that he presides over. What are your fellow CIA officers who are still there thinking. Are they thinking it's a a new regime, new new sheriff in town, we've just buckle up and get on with it? Or do you think there is any kind of

pushback to some of the things that are happening. Well, you know, when when you take the oath that CIA did, I remember the day, January third, nineteen ninety three, you take an oath to the Constitution, not to the President. That's very clear. And so I think that what CIA officers do is they get up every day and they kind of put their nose to the ground and they and they just do their job and they do it to the best of their abilities.

And when what you have to have is a moral compass in which you're if you're asked to do something that is not legal, and there's a lot of things the CIA does that people may find unsavory, but it's legal, you know. So we operate actually under very strict regulations. But if something you know, if the administration any administration asks a CI officer to do something that's illegal, they have to have that kind of moral courage to say no and to speak out. And I think that's probably where

Most of my, you know, former colleagues who are still in are sitting on this because at the end of the day, the CIA is the nation's first line of defense. You know, we're standing on the ramparts. Intelligence community has an incredibly difficult job now with a very chaotic world. I would be lying if I said people are not concerned with this very kind of unusual president, but I think that at the end of the day, they're just trying to do their job.

One of the great things about when you work at a uh in the intelligence community is of course is that you're in secure spaces so you can't get on social media. You actually can't read any kind of tweets or true social posts. So ultimately, you know, there's a bit of a less of a distraction. And if you're of course overseas in the foreign field, you're doing a a far different job, you know, spotting, assessing, developing, uh, recruiting and handling agents, spies.

So you're a little busy to to be paying attention to this. But I but I would be lying to say that people are not uncomfortable with the current situation. I think they just want to do their job and do it to the best of their abilities. Mark Polymeropoulos, thank you so much for joining us and the very best of luck with your

New podcast, The Crisis Room, available of course on Global Player. Thank you very much. Thank you. And in a moment, could the great bromance of our times, Elon Loves Donald, be hitting the rocks?

The News Agents USA with One of the more arcane bits of US politics is getting spending bills. through both houses so that they can go to the President's desk for approval. And Donald Trump has been going on and on and on about getting a big and beautiful spending deal Passed through Congress that would pave the way for tax cuts, that would support some of his favourite projects, but would add massively

To the US deficit. And a lot of people who were part of the Tea Party movement, you know, have signed up to this because they want an easy life from Donald Trump. are sanctioning a massive expansion of US government debt with uncertain consequences of what it means for the US economy. Whether it gets through the Senate as easily is another matter, but one person is deeply, deeply unhappy about it, and that is the person.

who was brought in to bring government spending under control. None other than mister Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Doe. And whilst he was there with his chainsaw, Donald Trump has been out with his cheque book and Musk is not impressed. So You know, I was like r disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly. Uh

Which increases the d budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the Doge team is doing. I actually thought that when this big beautiful bill came along. I mean like everything he's done on Doge gets wiped out in the first year. I think a I think a bill can be can be can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don't know if it could be both. My personal opinion. That was Elon Musk speaking on uh CBS.

And wow, there is a quantum difference there between Donald Trump's position and Elon Musk's and you know, people have speculated that this relationship would have to implode at some point. I don't know whether this is the moment, but Donald Trump will hate overt criticism like that because that will fuel the unease in the markets right now.

And let's face it, the markets have been jittery up enough over the whole tariff policy. Well there is now a whole new front, which could lead I mean, you know, could not will, but could lead to some kind of sovereign debt crisis in America. Bi with people thinking that the size of the deficit is just unsustainable and you can't keep adding to it in the way that Donald Trump is.

who came in to bring some financial orthodoxy to the government affairs, metaphorically tearing his hair out at what Donald Trump is doing. We will watch this relationship closely. Thanks for being with us. We'll see you next week. Bye bye. Global player original