Concerns Over Intelligence Appointments

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Mount Sinai is proud to answer the call. announcing our new Carolyn Rowan Center for Women's Health and Wellness The future of women's healthcare in New York City, one destination where leading specialists, evidence based medicine, and a whole person approach come together under one roof to support your health and wellness at every stage of life No more fragmented care, no more dead ends, just seamless transformative women's health carere designed around who you are and where you're going We at you and we've got you The Carlyn Rowan Center for Women's Health and Wellness at Mount Sinai We find a way reccommendations can be amazing I mean, maybe someone recommended that TV show you've been obsessed with lately But when it comes to home projects, it's different If you don't like a show, you might lose a few minutes. If you hire a friend, of a friend of a friend to fix a leaky ceiling, you could end up with a flooded kitchen Maybe I know a guy just isn't enough for your home That's why thumbtack works so well They'll match you with a top rated local Pro, and you can see photos of past work, credentials, and reviews all right in the app For your next home project, try Thumb tack Hire the right pro today Episode four hundred three four hundred three zero cooes serving the Canadian provroince of Alberta. In two thousand three, MySpace launched just. When I was on Myyspace, I used to get a lot of overtures from ladies asking me if I wanted to come over and blockbuster and chill G go go Welcome to the Fth and third episode of the Prop GPod. I was just in Can. Gan, Gone. I used to go and actually work, meetings all day. There's something about being in C where you feel as if you're in a room with people more important than you, it makes you more important. It's like you're the average of all the people around you. So when you go to Cannes, I used to try and get in rooms with people more important than me, which was basically any room. And something about being in the south of France. U It's I wouldn't never go to cann for can. I would never go to Lions just for Lions, but can and Lions together, That's chocolate and peanut butter. Now I just hole up at the hotel. I hire a guy a Zodiac all week who manages to drive a speedboat. a rubber speedboat constantly smoking. I've never seen them lightide a cigarette but it always seems to be you seems to be smoking. anyways And I feel like James Bond and I roll up and I crash. I'm like an American invading Normandy for the second time. Mus the courage. And I was trying roll up to Meta Beach and I walk through the cosette with a flashing the bird in the air. Wha are not a rebel Oh my gosh What a what an intense hero I am. Anways What did I notice about Can this year Creator economy, pretty basic. It's went from four hundred people to five hundred creators It used to be that the creators were invited to the after Party. now they're hosting the afterfter Party. It's now more than half of marketing spend is on some sort of creator or influencer platform, whether it's YouTube or an individual showing you how to cook using, you know whatever Crisco or, you know, or how much fun it is to use whatever it might be. Um, Other insight, AI has gone from being this magic trick to the plumbing. People are talking about the boring workflow and how you integrate AI and start to talk about ROI and there's also less fear around it and that is there's a recognition that creativity is as in demand, maybe even more because essentially Creative or marketing is chip and Salsa. You need a platform, you need the product, and then the Salsa is the creativity and the design that makes it stand out. And AI can produce a bigger chip, but it's desperate for Salsa. Remember Sora and how the first Coke ad that was all AI, That shit is just so fucking boring and anodynee that it doesn't break through or grab anyone's emotion And if you think about AI, it takes everything to the median, which is the exact opposite of what creative is supposed to be. And as a percentage of their total employee base, tech firms now have more designers and more creatives than they did pre AI. So I think there was a bit of a sigh of relief and an appreciation for creative thirteen thousand people from ninety different countries. Crazy expensive, inflation. I'll come back to that. let's talk about it now about twelve thousandars new millionaires in the Bay Area because of the AI and space boom Or as I call it, the douchebag wave or army that's about to descend on Europe this summer. If you're a thirty four year old and didn't have a lot of social capital in high school and you got a CS degree from Carnegie Mellon, and then you wake up at the age of thirty four after graduating working your ass off and you're worth eleven million dollars, you're going to a Bitha I'm going to a visa Anyways That's going to happen. And then the other thing, sports. When I first started going to Cann, there was no sports. Now it's everywhere a sports beach That's kind of the cultural religion. It's still the only programming that where you for the commercials. and I think World Cup is the biggest story playing out culturally and economically, culturally The world needed to feel better about itself. I would describe the World Cup as cousins who really like each other doing a sleepover without despite the fact their parents keep arguing And also what's happening on Calcium polymarket. I think we're going to find out that more gambling or more money was being wagered on the World Cup than any sporting event, anything in history. I think you're going to see that way more money was bet on the World Cup by young men, mostly young men uh, during the World Cup then was was wagered in all every gambling mecca, whether it's, Macau or Vegas or Reno or Atlantic City. Anyways, why go to the casino when the casino's in your pocket I think those are the biggest stories of what I took away from Can and also just a recognition of I still think I think Europe's going to boom I think it's going to reco, I should say in the next few years. and every time I'm in France I look at the economics and I look at how hard it is to start a business and then I end up spending a crazy amount of money just to be surrounded by that culture and that beauty, somethingomet in the water there goes all the way back to the time of Marie Antoinette when essentially the head of the treasury said that their luxury goods which they spent at peak five percent of GDP was going to be the equivalent of their Chileilan gold mines, and that is He saw that wigs and powders and makeup and incredible dresses were in fact going to be an economic engine and it has been, whether it's Chanel or LVMH or Clarence. I mean, these companies are just absolute Juggernauts, ton of margin, ton of ton of economic growth. Anyways abbsolutely love Can. I don't know if there's any enormous like overriding theme there other than I love just my life has changed so much. It used to be Getting up so early, trying to have as many meetings with people as possible, now I wake up late and try to avoid meetings. I like that Anyways, U In today's episode talk about an altitude shift. We speak with Representative Jim Heimes, the U. S. Representative of Connecticut's fourth congressional district I really enjoy Representative Himes. I think he's fearless and very knowledgeable about foreign affairs and our defefense deepartment. He brings clarity to these issues and I'm a big fan of Representative Himes. So with that, we hope you enjoy our conversation with Representative Jim Himes Representative Himes where does this podcast find you I'm s in my office here in Washington All right, let'sus right into it. We signed a memorandum with Iran two weeks ago, but this weekend, the U. S. and Iran exchanged direct strikes. Iran hit Bahrain and Kuwait U. S hit Iranian military targets, and Trump is now threatening that Iran will no longer exist if it continues How How would you describe the state of play here? Yeah, well,, you know, this memorandum of understanding by by any standard is a catastrophe. You know, it gives orders of magnitude more money to Iran than the Obama deal in twenty fifteen did It, uh you know, it empowers this regime. It recognizes this regime as as the legitimate rulers of Iran. That has implications obviously for what the president told the people of Iran, which is that help was on the way and they should plan on Rejecting those rulers. The one thing I can say about the memorandum of understanding as catastrophic as it is is that it's better than going back to war Um, which of course, was crushing the global economy passing you know, people here in the States to pay a buck fifty a gallon more for gasoline And look, the Iranians know that you quoted the president on his, you, weekly threat to obliterate Iran. The Iranians know that's a bluff You know, they they're saavi people. They understand the president's political imperatives and the fact that he's not going to go back to war And so we find ourselves in a really tough spot, which is instead of fighting with Iranians, which, you, at least as a tactical matter, we can win, we're negotiating with the Iranians. There's about four thousand years of Persian history to suggest that that's not A happy place to be Do we have any leverage in these negotiations at all Well, not really, at this point. The regime now knows they can survive the worst that we can throw at them They now know something they didn't know a year ago, which is that they can control or at least have a profound impact on the global economy simply by flying a bunch of drones over the Strait of Hormuz And what do we have? We can you know, bloviate the way the president is. That has no impact. Or yeah, we could we could go back to war U we could cause a lot more damage. We've kind of played that card twice in the last year But that's the one card we have to play. But again, the Iranians know what that means. The Iranians know that that means a heightened risk that, you know, bodies are being unloaded from a Transport aircraft at Dover Air Force Base, which is, you know, unacceptable to most Americans who despise this war or that you know the all important gasoline prices will once again skyrocket. So we at this moment in time, we don't have a lot of leverage Yeah So Trump promised or claimed that he would deliver unconditional surrender. and it feels like he's made good on that promise, but it's unconditional surrender on our part Are't we coming out of this just much weaker and they're coming out of this much stronger? Well, I certainly agree with the second part. again you know They always wondered whether we could knock over their regime. They always wondered whether the people of Iran would finally get angry enough to overthrow them. We know the answer to that question now And the answer is no. that regime is not going to get overthrown or taken out by the United States or Israel And again, they know that they with minimal technology can control the flow of energy and Pium and fertilizer out the strait of Hormu. They're obviously Hugely empowered. You know, whether whether that weakens us, I don't know. That's a more complicated question. You know,, all of the president's military adventures have shown how spectacular our military is. and I include Venezuela in that Uh, that's got to cause pause amongst people like Vladimir Putin and , you know, President Xi and China. It is a slow bleeding, right? There's requests to the Congress for, you know, eighty billion additional dollars. That's dollars that didn't get spent on infrastructure or education. So probablyrobably a slow bleed associated with u these crazy wars that we keep getting into in the Middle East. But I'm not sure it makes us obviously weaker the way our attacking NATO does. You know, when we attack NATO Vladimir Putin says, Huh, that's interesting. My chief objective of breaking up the Western alliance seems to be working. I'm not sure that that's happened in this case You're on the intntelligence commommittee. You're the ranking member on House Intelligence So going believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction That felt like a pretty big intelligence failure. isn't the inability to predict what would happen with the Strait of Hormuz and effectively hand handing the IRGC what is arguably more powerful than a nuclear weapon. Isn't this arguably one of the greatest intelligence failures in recent history You know, I don't I don't necessarily see it that way, Scott. And the reason I don't necessarily see it that way is because we see a syndrome similar to what happened with the George W. Bush Dick Cheney administration. The intelligence was on, uh, you know, on weapons of mass destruction back then in Iraq. U The intelligence was at best ambivalent. In fact, if press reports are to be believed Four months ago, John Radcliffe, the director of CIA told Trump flat out. U, the regime was not going to fall. in Iran and that you know, there would be very real dangers associated with them closing the straits of Hormuz. So in both cases, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and reccentently with Donald Trump, you could argue that the intelligence commommittee sorry, the intelligence community didn't get it wrong, Maybe they didn't get it right enough, but that the president and the president's people ignored it Um So I'd contrast the two examples you gave maybe with september eleventh, two thousand one, where That was obviously a massive failure. You know, the information was all there. It just didn't get knit together in a way to allow us to prevent it. What we're talking about here is powerful man in the world either having a political agenda the way George W. Bush did or not being particularly interested in reality the way Donald Trump is not And so you're saying it's a failure of leadership. You think the intelligence was there It just the president decided to ignore it. Yeah, I didn't I didn't and I look at an awful lot of intelligence, I didn't see a single bit of intelligence that suggested that the regime would crumble. In fact, much to the contrary you know, our people were watching pretty closely when those, um tests were set off, and ultimately the Iranians killed tens of thousands of Iranians The intelligence did not in any way, shape, or form, suggest that this was a a regime or a country that was just going to go belly up, you know after a couple of bombs. So My guess is the president got pretty consistent advice to go a different direction and just simply ignored it. some people got in his ear and just said, you know, what you know you need to say to Donald Trump to persuade him, which is you will be the greatest leader since Napoleon If you end this regime and painted a picture of you know, Trump as Conquering Hero and towers being built in Sharaz and Tehran and that sort of thing And let's talk a little bit about U. S. Israeli relations. There's a feeling that or among some people that Trump was co opted into this war or that And Netanyahu is now acting unilaterally. Can you give us sort of provide some color on the U. SS. Israeli relationship Look, I don't think there's any doubt at all that Netanyahu, who is a very wileily guy, probably the wildiest leader I have ever met, no doubt in my mind. and I wasn't in the Oval Office, but you know, in the many hours they were speaking prior to the decision to go to war No doubt in my mind that the Prime mininister was telling a little bit of that story of greatness and how quickly the regime would fall. Remember the press reported that Netanyahu made that case and that John Radcliffe, DCIA, said, it's fantastical. Anyway, you know I've watched now the Prime mininister try to get America to go to war under several presidents None took him up on it. You know, Obama didn't. Biden didn't, Trump didn't in the first term. Well, this time, this time he did. And, you know, we're paying the price for that now More broadly, u Because of Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision to cater entirely to the Republican Party in the United States to disdain the Democratic Party, starting with when he showed up in Washington to argue in front of the Congress against. The Iran deal that President Obama was negotiating and the examples go on and on, but you know, he was the first prime minister to decide that he would be partisan And then of course, more obviously You know, the plate of the Palestinians has always been For most people K kind of a slow burn issue. know, I think most people and by most people, I mean, just you know, folks that don't work inside the precincts of Washington, DC probably felt that the Palestinians have had a raw deal for some time. supportpp Israel strongly, the way there was a consensus in this country for a long time. But of course, a combination of the Gaza W with its tens of thousands of dead civilians with its, you know pulverization of all of the urban areas there the treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank, the brutal treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank. and then of course, the rhetoric of the more extreme members of the Prime Minister's government thinking of Smorich and Ben Gaver here who openly call for the commitment the commission of war crimes. I think that turned I think that turned a real corner for the way a lot of Americans, not just members of Congress, but certainly anybody under the age of forty in this country thinks about it. and if you're our generation, you know, you are more swayed by the story of survival of the establishment of the state and the survival of the state in the most improbable circumstances than you are if you're twenty eight years old and that seems like textbook history So It feels as if You were an investment maker, I was an investment baker. A memo of understanding was a business term that one party would issue to another party, perhaps in the context of an acquisition. I loosely estimate that somewhere between a third and fifty percent of memos of understanding actually resulted in a deal. I'd never seen that term used in a geopolitical context before. what do you think happens from here Look, the MOU is is what it is, right? It's a statement of intentions. It has no legal effect And even something that did have a legal effect in this case would have all kinds of outs, right? And we're seeing that. turnurn on cable news, right? I mean, all weekend long Though we have a ceasefire., the U. S. and Iran were trading munitions. you know, they attacked a whole bunch of our bases this weekend And you know, we undertook bombing raids along the strait there. So You know, No legal effect. It's a statement of intentions that was very convenient for both parties, right? The president absolutely positively needs to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And the Iranians obviously would like love to get their hands on a whole lot of money. Now, the Iranians are starting to get their hands on a whole lot of money The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz remains an open question, right? Every time I open up, you know my Twitter feed, it's either closed or open or they're saying it's closed, or're saying it's open. Behind this, of course, is two other huge things The nuclear negotiations, right U I remember watching Obama and his, you know, Merry band of two dozen experts negotiating this thing It's hugely complicated And you know, there's a saying about the Iranians, right? They never win a war, but they never lose a negotiation. and You know The idea that in sixty days, you know, Jared Kushner and, you know, a bunch of real estate guys are going to get a deal negotiated on the on the nuclear stuff is crazy. It's just not going to happen. And eventually Trump will forget about it and, you know, it'll be the usual neoc consons that remain angry about it, but Trump stopped talking about it. And then you have the other stuff, by the way that Obama was deeply criticized for not including in the deal, which is You know, the Iranians ballistic missiles. We've already heard President Trump say, well, everybody else has got them. What do you want me to do? So we know we're kind of done on that and the Iranian sponsorship of terrorists, right? Which again, Obama got brutally criticized for not including those two things in the nuclear deal Um, you know, good luck Good luck. Even if the Iranians do commit to stop funding Heizbollah and Hamas, which I don't think they will, how you're going to verify that you know I just I just think you just to end this long speech, you're you're exactly right to say an MOU, that doesn't seem like much because it's not. How do we ensure though? it feels to me that just by demonstration of their willingness to fly drones over the Strait of Hormuz and an inability for insurance companies to ensure vessels don't I mean, it feels to me like they've got total control And I don't see under what circumstance they give it back. The free flow of The freedom of navigation make recommments under, you know their terms. What is the scenario under which they do not control the strait of hormes Well, at one level is there is there is no scenario, right?? I mean, you could put treaties and you know, agreements and everything else on the table But when Push comes to shave and they need to againain, they'll just fly a bunch of drones. They don't need a Navy. you know, PetXh is in his testosterone fueled you know, orgasm of manliness is, you know, focused entirely on the Navy at the bottom of this. They don't need that Navy, right? Again, you you made exactly the point. You don't actually need to sink a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz to stop the flow of stuff. You just need to fly a bunch of drones, maybe fly occasionally fly one into a cargo ship the way they did last weekend in that into that Singaporean ship because at that point the insurers, Lloyds of London and all those guys say, you're not going anywhere near that place U, and so There's really nothing we can do to stop them from controlling it. Now the way I think this will play out is and I'll give you the sort of medium term in the long term in the medium term The presresident's going to make some kind of deal. And it's going to be ugly, right? The Iranians are going to reserve the right to provide services and insurance to trips to ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Well, the magic is going to be in the fees and services and insurance that the Iranians reserve the right to provide. So it's going to be a really crappy deal. And then secondarily, while while that is in place or not, you know, we'll be working like mad with the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to basically make the strait of Hormuz irrelevant to the flow of energy in particular. So we'll build more pipelines across The Arabian peninsula will figure out other stuff. And the reason I highlight that, is this is really important. The reason I highlight that is that the Iranians, again, they're very savvy, very, very savy and they know that They know that having played this card It runs out. bad metaphor, but having played this card, it's no longer valuable five years from now when we've built pipelines across. So guess what I think they're doing? to maintain the leverage they've acquired I think that over the next five years they're going to work like Mad to develop a nuclear weapon Bea they look at Pakistan They look at India They look at North Korea and they say, you know what doesn't happen to those three three countries? They don't get invaded. They don't get bombed And so one of the byproducts of this war, I think, is going to be taking an awful regime that was ambivalent about having a nuclear weapon and creating a regime more ideological, more extreme who now says, guess what? Now we have to build a nuclear weapon. because eventually the Strait of Hormuz is not going to be a point of leverage. And how does Israel respond as they get intelligence that My understanding is when we ripped up when President Trump ripped up the JCPOA The IRGC had nuclear material that was enriched at three point seven percent. My understanding now is that intelligence says it's around sixtycent If it gets to eighty or ninety and they get within you know, spitting distance of a nuclear weapon Do you think Israel most likely time preemptively strikes. I mean, aren't we just setting ourselves up for What could be a pretty ugly confrontation here. Yeah, yeah. you know, except for that period of time when the JCPOA, the Obama Iran deal was in place. you know, the Iranians have always had sixty percent. They always had little bits of ninety percent. There's no peaceetime use for ninety percent. U And that's probably where they are right now. Now it just so happens that all this stuff is at the bottom of a lot of rubble in three or four locations in Iran still there. But yeah, I mean, the answer to your question is one hundred percent clear. You know, the Israelis, you know, the Israelis and this isn't even a Netanyahu thing, they will do everything, literally everything in their arsenal to keep Iran from getting there. The question is can they You know, if this three hundred billion reconstruction fund gets set up, how many of those three hundred billion do get used to get used to build a you know, hardened, um, a hardened facility. even more hardened than the old ones that the Israelis can't get to. So Yeah, one level, of course, Israel is always going to regard a nuclear Iran as unacceptable Um But it's an open question about whether they'll be able to. I mean, look, if this rift between JD Vance and President Trump and Yeah you know, and the growing alienation of the American political apparatus, from providing weapons to Israel if that were to go further south be a real military problem for Israel after a quick break upport for the show comes from Nutrrafol, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growrowth supplement brand used by over one point five million people. We all have unique grooming routines. It's a normal part of upkeep for everyone's confidence. So if it ever takes a hit, you can always go back to the basics and revisit your routines, specifically your hair care That's where NutrFfulil can help. 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Propt G, code prop G For a free welcome kit, five travel sachets plus ten percent off your order, IMatehealth. com slash prop G code prop G. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat cure, or prevent any disease Randa your sky, so to speak. Let's talk a little bit about Ukraine and The sense or the thesis I would put to you is that this has been an incredibly pivotal or positive few months that Ukraine has gone from playing defense to playing offense, which is a victory for the West, specifically Europe and Ukraine itself What's your assessment of the situation there Yeah, I was just there three or four weeks ago and I'd been three times and I would I would completely agree with your assessment. I was in Kiv and Odessa and I'll tell you, it's a weird schizophrenic feeling there now because on the one hand, missiles are flying in and hitting schools and you know creating five, six, seven fatalities a day or whatever, really tragic stuff On the other hand, there's such a spring in the step of most Ukrainians because they now understand that they're winning this thing You know, they're taking the fight to Moscow They're imposing shocking. I mean, the brain doesn't process the number of Russians that the Ukrainians are killing every day I mean, between now, you know, between now and the weekend The Russians are going to lose the same number of men that we lost in Vietnam in thirteen years of war there U And so the Ukrainians really feel like they're winning. Now they're realistic, right? Winning doesn't mean that you know, all of a sudden the Russians are pulling back to the pre war borders But they do know two things. Number one, that anything gets negotiated is going to be a radical different radically better negotiation negotiation for them than it would have been a year ago. And number two, I think they think that there's some chance that the Russian people are going to do what they do every fifty years or so and decide we' got to get rid of the czar Um, and again, I wouldn't tell you that Anybody thinks that's a high probability thing, but it's certainly a heck of a lot higher now than it was a year ago. Do you think we're close to some sort of negotiated settlement or peace you know, I'm going to say something terrible, which is I hope not. and the reason I feel really guilty saying that is that so many people are dying. so I probably shouldn't say that. but You know, each and every day, the Ukrainians are delivering such massive punishment to a guy who badly needs punishment, right Um, you know, who five years from now may very well try this in Estonia with all of the implications that has for us as a NATO partner Um And so, you know, quite apart from my own belief, I think the Ukrainians feel the same way, which is we're on the march You know, let's let's let's position ourselves even better for an ultimate negotiation How insecure do you think Putin's position is amongst Russians right now You know, I'm not a I'm not a Russia guy And I listen to people You know, and there's the schoolool of thoughtought that says the Russians are the people that fought the battle of Stalingrad, right? You can never break them. You know, and then there's a school of thought that says, you know, the oligarchs that support this guy, you know are getting pretty tired of not being able to go to their houses in London and seeing their bank accounts emptied and their yachts confiscated and their, you know, kids denied addmission to Stanford and Oxford. So the honest answer to your question is I don't know. What I do know is that The situation for the for the average Musco vite or, you know, u middle class person in St. Petersburg is a hell of a lot worse than it was two years ago You're the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee and most recently the president appointed Bill Poltte as acting director of National intntelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation at the end of M And Bill Polter currently has a federal housing finance agency, no national security background. He's led many of Trump's legal crusades against opponents, including Lisa Cook and drrum Pal pushing for mortgage fraud charges Youve said it's open quote, probably the worst appointment into the intelligence committee you've ever seen Can you share more about your reaction and the intelligence community's reaction to this news? Yeah, I mean, you walked through the resume challenges there You know, you could have just pulled somebody off the street in Cleveland, Ohio with zero national security experience and you'd have you'd have Bill Polty The problem is, you know What did Bill Pulty spend his time doing at this obscure federal housing agency Almost no one's heard of. the FHFA What did he do? He dove into records to find, you know, to examine Adam Schififf's mortgage history, Letishia James, the attorney genereneral of New York's mortgage history So look at Lisa Cook you know, governor of the Federal Reserve's mortgage history and then he tried to get court cases built up against him. So we know who this guy is, right? And he's a hell of a lot worse than that guy off the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, because She's dedicated to being a servile, you know eunuch to u to Donald Trump And you know I mean, even when he gets elevated to a national security position, does he change his stripes? You know, Does the sort of seriousness of his office change him? No. Like look at his Twitter feed right now. You know, every fourteen hours, he's posting a loving Pyongyang like portrait of the dear leader. And there's a couple problems with that. One, you got a lot more tools in the you, in the intelligence community to go after Americans. None of them are legal or acceptable because they're all designed to be used against our enemies abroad You know, the intelligence community has surveillance authorities. It's got skills, it's got, you know, in the extreme guys who know how to repel out of helicopters dressed in black with guns. So it's just a much more serious thing. And I worry about that. And then secondarily You know, it's not a much discussed thing, but the intelligence community is comprised of Tens of thousands of extraordinarily capable patriotic people who could be making far more money in the private sector because they're mathematicians or linguists or you name it Wonderful analysts And you know, when they have to deal with sort of nonsense, it just that many more of them head for the doors And you know, there's serious threats out there. and I don't want those folks heading for the doors It doesn't, it feels as if filty has takakingen precedence over competence. Is this just at a senior level in the intelligence community or has it been How worried are you about the general corpus and confidence of the intelligence community? Yeah, it really varies by agency. And by the way, it's not uniform. I've been a little tough on Pulty But you know, the director of CIA, John Radcliffe, I know him very well and we used to serve together. And I wouldn't put him in the same category. Anybody who works for Trump needs to do lots of annoying North Korea geneniaflection U but I think differently about John than I do about Bill Polty I would say the same, by the way, for the president's original nomination of Jay Clayton. I happen to know Jay very, very well. And if I were president of the United States, would I appoint him DN I know I wouldn't, but in the Star Wars canantina of cabinet secretaries and purported leaders you know, Jay would be very much on the good side. So it's it's a little bit of a mixed bag. but I think the most important thing I can tell you, Scott is that Th political types don't penetrate too far into the agencies, right? So you know, just down the road here at the Defense intntelligence aggency or up the road at the National seecurity agency You know, ninety nine percent of the people are real professionals who are steeped in a culture of objectivity, who are studiously non political. They're human, so they will from time to time boond to the incentives that come from the very top, but by and large, I think they're doing a good job. I have no doubt that if Bill Pulty ordered the CIA to hover a bunch of helicopters over Adam Schiff's house, that you would see mass resignations at the CIA rather than compliance to that. So You know, there are some safeguards in the system I want to speak more broadly. You chairred the new Democrat cooalition, the Centrist Caucus And that lane feels increasingly uncomfortable, even untenable in today's party Where do you think the center actually lives right now Yeah, I always object a little bit to the notion of the center. you know, this's not a mathematical thing. you know The way I think about it, I've been around this place for a while. The way I think about it is that there are people who are more inclined to do what the software of the Constitution in Washington demands. which is to make the compromises to actually get legislation passed. And look, it sucks, but if you don't have sixty votes in the Senate and you have a filibuster, you're going nowhere And it sucks that you have to pull together big coalitions to actually move something in the house, but the software of the system demands that. And there's some people who are really comfortable with that. And there's some people and I'm making no value judgment here because I think both instincts are important. There's some people who are kind of more activist in orientation and say, no, here's the North Star and there's where we need to go You know, so it's it's more which camp do you fall into rather than, you know, c centrists are trying to measure the extremes and get halfway between But let me put forward just a couple of principles quickly, Scott that I think are really important that are maybe get being lost here. First This country of three hundred fifty million people has two political parties, two Um, that means Both of those parties are going to have internal dynamics that are really, really hard. So the fact that I representing Fairfield County, Connecticut, don't have quite the same orientation You know, that Zoran Mandani does, it should not be a surprise and should not be a problem And I've argued this on the right side of the party before. I've lost enough elections and seen Donald Trump reelected enough times. I haven't personally lost elections, but I've seen the House lost. I've seen the Senate lost and the presidency lost to know better lean hard into including diverse viewpoints, right? So I've usually thought about it like, gosh, in the Democratic Party, could we tolerate somebody who's pro life? There are people who say no I would say, you know what? if you share seventy percent of the values, but you disagree on some, you know what you need to govern this country? a majority. So here's my take on the folks that just won primaries in New York First It's New York. right? You and I know New York, right? It ain't America in any way, shape or form Number two, thoseose candidates, including the mayor, topped into something really important, which is that people are pissed off and rightly so our lifetime financial crisis, Iraq war, catastrophic mistakes done by the establishment. and they are pissed off. You better grapple with that rather than what we all did in the Biden administration, which is to say inflation is transitory My God, right And so Number one, it's New York Number two, they've tapped into something important, not just on substance. And by the way, I'm not validating the substance. I happen to believe that rent control is not a good idea and every fact out there suggests that that is true. I think if you want to lower the price of housing, build a hell of a lot more housing. So I'm not validating the The the policy positions Um But again, back to what I said before, I appreciate that these folks that are far to my left are saying, shut up about everything except how are we going to make health care and housing less expensive. Now I may disagree with their prescriptions, but I think it's great that they're doing that. My one request to them, back to what I was saying about the majority is You're joining a team and'm not in I'm not on the Godheimer team that says that if you call yourself a socialist, you don't get to be on our team The The critical aspect of being on our team is acknowledging that you go nowhere without a majority. If got If you don't have a majority, you're just talking. That's all you're doing. You're getting paid one hundred seventy four thousand dollars a year to talk So you want a majority. and if you want to win a majority, say and do things Don't damage our ability to win seedats in North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, because if you put out crazy stuff that alienates those people. And in this era of social media, when you say something a little crazy in a basement in Brooklyn, it is about three milliseconds before it gets broadcast in Arizona and Michigan Port yourself in a way that is consistent with winning a majority. That's my one that's my one Ohh, and by the way, don't be anti Semitic. I'm cartooning things here Right now it feels as if the Democratic platform is, can you believe he said that? I would say that we need to move from indignance to ideas. As the Democrats think about their messaging around twenty six and twenty eight, what is representative Hes believe is the right message that moves just beyond the anti Trump message. I have one obvious thought and one non obvious thought for you. The obvious thought is that We need to be ruthlessly focused on the cost of healthcare, the cost of food, the cost of energy Um, and and Resist the temptation to chase the squirrel. Um, and that sounds like a No brainer, but we're terrible at it. We're terrible at it. You know, we're going to Some crazy immigration thing is going to happen in Houston and we're going to take three days. talking about affordability and talk about that crazy immigration thing in Houston. And then the next week Um, you know, something is some vile thing is going to happen to a transgender individual in the United States Marines or whatever it is, and we're going to chase that for a week and we're going to get to the end of the months and we're going to realize we didn't actually talk about affordability. Now. Now let me be very clear here. I'm not saying that Immigration policy Cultural issues don't matter. On the contrary, you know, I'm enormously proud of my party that we fight for decency and immigration and equality for the transgender population. But how you sequence these things, again, back to winning the majority If you're not convincing people that each and this is what Mom Donnie did, right? If you're not convincing people that you are all over, the thing they care about most, which is expenses, the expensiveness of life, they're not listening to on the other stuff. So we got to get that right. Second thing, this is the non obvious piece We got to actually do it You know, I've been thinking a lot about why there are always these swings, right zero six zero eight, big swing to the Democrats under Obama, twenty ten. there's, you know, we get obliterated twenty eighteen. I think the way we stop that pendulum and actually gain traction as a party is not because we have a perfect housing policy becausecause we actually do something. I mean, I can't tell you how frustrated I am thinking back over the four years of the Biden administration, when I campaigned in twenty twenty four on, we passed the biggest infrastructure bill since the Eisenhower presidency, and we passed the biggest investment climate change, you know, ever. And you know what we actually did in the state of Connecticut? Nothing, not a zilch. And voters know that, right? They listen to some blowhard like me say, oh, we passed this incredible bill. And they're like, wait, wait, I'm looking around here. This shitty little bridge on the post road is still not built. And so anyway, the non obvious thing I have to say is that actually doing it is going to be as powerful as getting it right. So And I got nothing good to say about Donald Trump, But I do admire this administration's bias to action. Now half the time it's illegal But I'll tell you what, the Democrats better get a big infusion of no, no, no, no, when we allow for Medicare to neegotiate drug prices. It happens tomorrow morning, not five years from now because you know, Americans are just so sick of the rhetoric and the blow hardards in office and not seeing anything change We'll be right back Here's a question. 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Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responssees set upp required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus Looking for a simple way to thank your clients or recognize employees for a job well done? A Starbucks card is more than a gift. It's a pick me up, a break in their day, and a reminder that you appreciate them Whether you're shopping for digital or physical cards in bulk, Starbucks cards are the perfect gift to brighten anyoneed's day. Share the joy of coffee and connection when you give the gift of Starbucks. Shop Starbucks cards in Bulk now at Starbuckscard v twoB. com We're back with more from Representative Jim Himes. We were talking off Mike a little bit about our backgrounds. Can you provide us with your backstory Yeah. as I mentioned to you, it weirded me out a little bit because it's a lot like your own. single mom from age ten onward. my parents split up littleittle town in New Jersey. worked in the hardware store, the pizza place, the drug store, delivered papers, et ccetera, et cetera And then went off to college and I don't want to paint, I don't want to paint too much of an Oliver twist story here. My parents had good college educations. Ultimately wound up after grad school, like you in investment banking. Like you didn't love it, but I learned a hell of a lot. I got pulled in because the first ten years of my life were in South America. I was fluent in Spanish And so the bank said It doesn't matter that this guy doesn't know a thing about banking. He speak Spanish. so they hired me on that basis. U And now I'm doing what I sort of suspected I would always be reasonably good at doing. which is public policy and Crazy polarized times, but I'm very lucky to represent a thoughtful pragmatic constituency So you're a Goldman for twelve years. I imagine you were a VP or maybe an MD. I don't know where you were at that point And you're making really good money Uh, I know you didn't grow up with a lot of money or at least that's my sense. and What's the decision to leave a job and take a pretty substantial pay cut and go to work in public service. What led you to public service You know, the answer is I never really thought about it that way. In fact, I think I stuck around the bank too long, you know, like you. It didn't move me. It didn't sort of satisfy my soul in any meaningful way. It was great. I learned a lot, made a little money and you know got skills that I use to this day. But it didn't move me in any way, the way policy always had. And both my parents are were service oriented. And my dad was at the Ford Foundation with UNIF. My mom did a lot of education stuff. So that was always kind of my inclination. This comes through a little bit in your book too. The question is more, if you do go into a bank, you had the you had the wherewithal to say the hell with it after two years. I sometimes counsel young people G go to the private sector, go investment bank or be a consultant. Have an exit strategy because you can get pretty used to the lifestyle And you can get ten years in as I did and say, wow, I'm a little off track of what I thought I would be doing. And as you know, those organizations make it pretty hard to leave I was a little lucky in that I was doing technology banking when when the technology market went completely belly up. So I sort of looked around and was you wow, not much going on here. But yeah. so then I was able, you know, and the one thing I give, you know, a lifetime spent following following directions and decisions, the one thing I do give myself credit for was in two thousand seven I'd gotten pissed off about George W. Bush and Republicans at the time Little did I know I was coming But I, um In two thousand seven after helping a woman who ran for this seat twice And she lost twice I said, what the hell? I'm gonna run. I'm gonna lose. I know I'm going get my clock cleaned, but I'm at least gonna be proud of myself for having tried And I would have lost, but out of nowhere comes Barack Obama and man, I grabbed those coattails in zero eight and hung on for dear life And having served in public service for now seventeen years, is that right? Yeah,een coming on eighteen. ye. S eight ten Compare and contrast working in the private sector versus the public sector, and what surprised you most of the upside and the downside around serving in Congress? Yeah, you know, I get I get irritated with the, you know, the mantra that oh government just needs to be more like business, right? It's a It's a fundamentally different thing, right? Every business H has us its objective to make money at the end of the day. They have lots of different ways of making money, but it's just a very clear objective. and Good leaders and CEO's, you know get rewarded for making lots of money Um Government is a fundamentally different thing. We don't have a bottom line. Government is the division of power and resources amongst a massively fractured population of three hundred fifty million people It's an exercise and compromise. It's how you bring The evangelicals in Idaho together with the Amherst graduates in Westport to have some sort of coherent national policy There's no bottom line and there shouldn't be. Now, by the way, government should be efficient, no question about it. and it makes me nuts that it's not But it's a fundamentally different exercise. So I really reject that My own view, Scott is that a life well lived and maybe in the service of our country should include a little of each. And obviously I'm talking my own book here. Maybe it's just me rationalizing and being self satisfied, but I do walk around the hallways here and see folks who have spent time in the military. or in law or in the private sector. and it tends to be those members who really bring the kind of perspective to legislating that I think is hugely valuable. You're a father of two girls and married. Any thoughts, A lot of young men listen to listen to this pod. Any thoughts or learnings on what you've gotten right and what you've gotten wrong in terms of being a dad and a good partner A couple of thoughts Number one, I got to I got way too old before I learned the power of saying I don't know. I mean, it's funny now that I'm a guy of some power, I guess, coming on sixty years old, I feel very comfortable saying I don't know But when I was in my twenties and thirties, I was uncomfortable saying that because I thought that it would indicate that I was dumb and that people would be like, oh, he's the idiot in the room. And as a consequence, I learned a lot more slowly than I might have Um, This lead bleeds into something that I think is denegrated by MAGa conceptions of manhood listening. you know, listening is a more general u characterization of what I just said about asking for help Um You know, I think good listeners, a good leaders listen more than they transmit U I was in a couple of I've been in the company both in the private and the public sector of of people and, you know, powerful people in rooms, boored Fward rooms,, you know, cabinet rooms And usually the individual with real influence, the real leader is the one who doesn't speak first who reserves his or her counsel and then, you know twenty minutes into the meeting says something and everybody just sort of turns around and says, wow And so you know, I think that's an attribute to be uh admired and and, you know, strived after A couple other things I just jotted down the notes Maybe it's elsewhere in your book. I think one of the most transformative things that a boy or man can do And and I don't mean this to be exclusive. It's probably true of women as well, but is to Develop competence in something Um You know, the discipline and the artistry and the commitment and All the things you need to do to become a great piano player or rower, or beekeeper or speaker of the Farsi language. I think the process itself you know, helps you become a I'll say a man in full since we're talking about men, but I would not in any way exclude females. It helps you become a person in full by pursuing something, really chasing competence. I think that can be transformative Jim Himes is the U S repepresentative for Connecticut's fourth Cgressional district, a CD he's held since two thousand nine. He's also the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee sererving as its ranking member, he joined us from our nation's Citol. Representative Himes very much appreciate your time today and your good service. Thank you, Scott. pleasure being with you Algebra happiness. My son's high school graduation was on Friday and it's been the fastest four years Uh A lot of mixed emotions And not all of them positive. Um someome of that is my depression and anger kicking in When my son and his mom decided it would be a good idea for him to go to boarding school I now look back and I kind of resent the decision and I feel like my son was taken for me early. I did not like having him at boarding school. He was sold to me to'd be home Friday and leave Sunday night. He comes home Saturday afternoon. He's gone Sunday afternoon. he's basically at home for just a day and I missed him terribly during those years And The first thing I remember when he got into these two boarding schools, I took him for a walk and I told him which boarding so I thought it would be better and he agreed or Anyway,'side here or there but. We're driving up to this school and this is a story of privilege. because he went to an amazing school and most people don't have that opportunity But the first thing I remember thinking is, I wish my mom were alive because she just it's a boarding school outside of London. She just wouldn't believe that Her grandson got to experience something like that and His first year was tough for him. I didn't realize how tough until later, but he didn't do well academically I think he felt a little bit ostracized as one of the few Americans at his school I thought that wouldd be a feature, it wasn't. I don't know. he did fine, but Not great. And one of the reasons he ended up getting into a great school was his momentum kept building. anyways The thing that just struck me And that it has made me sad. I was fine Friday night at a graduation celebration, but I got very upset Saturday morning or melancholy. is that there were all these things we were going to do, right We were going to planned I wanted to I wanted to buy an old car and try and renovate it with them. I think it would have been a ton of fun. I'm not handy, but You know, I wanted to You know, I wanted to go to Alaska with them for I had never been to Alaska. I thought you and I are going go to Alaska together. There was all these things I was planning to do with him And now he's gone and When he was a young kid and it was the right decision, I focused on work and economic security So I was there, but I was't I was gone a lot. I would sometimes be on the road for two or three weeks if I had speaking gigs or work in Europe, it just made sense to stay over there and I would come home and notice that my sons had physically grown So I missed a lot, kind of zero to eight. and then eight to twelve was great And then he kind of left when he was fourteen. and I just feel like There's this part.