Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / 'Slow rolling DISASTER' Trump CAUGHT dismantling CRITICAL post-911 counterterrorism protections

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'Slow rolling DISASTER' Trump CAUGHT dismantling CRITICAL post-911 counterterrorism protections · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: As you know, the Trump administration significantly cut the staff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: at CP three which you worked with, which led to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your resignation.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Is that true, Senator, There is no more office at all.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: The entire thing was dismantled on the final two people
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: left on September eleventh and twelfth, So.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The prevention efforts you're just describing to us is now
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: no longer funded.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: That is correct.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Are you concerned about the potential rise and attacks that
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we may see with a similar level of inquiries taking
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: place under this administration.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Senator, I've given my life to protecting American people. I'm
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: incredibly worried about the rise of targeted violence and terrorism
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: across the ideological spectrum, at the same time that we've
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: dismantled the very apparatus that can prevent it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Hi, Agen everyone, it's now five o'clock in the east.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: That man is William brann f He is a counter
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: terrorism scholar who directed that He was the director of
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships or CP three.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: It was a division of DHS established by the Biden
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: administration and then gutted by Donald Trump soon after he
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: became president for a second term, leading to Braniff's resignation
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: in protest. The cutting of CP three is among the
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: many actions this administration has taken that are the focus
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: of a new report by Democrats on the Senate Healthland
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Security Committee, which calls out the undoing of critical counter
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: terrorism infrastructure, leaving this country more vulnerable to threats. From
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: that report, released by Michigan Senator Gary Peters, quote, since
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: the first day of his second term, President Trump and
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: his administration have dismantled critical national security agencies and programs,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: and diverted significant resources and attention away from the fight
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: against terrorism. These actions are the result of a combination
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: of ideologically motivated firings and realignment of personnel, and the
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: wielding of government resources from grants to counter terrorism authorities
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: as a weapon against political opponents. The administration's action have
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: left Americans far more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: and left law enforcement officers and agents without the tools
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: to protect our nation. Ms now's reporting of the Senator's
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: examination makes note of this quote. The report says the
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Justice Department and the FBI have lost more than fifteen
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: thousand employees, including many experienced national security professionals. Others have
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: been reassigned, including the entire staff of the FBI's Domestic
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Terrorism Operations Section, which provided operational support to all fifty
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: five FBI field offices in investigating domestic terrorism threats. Ms
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: NOW has reached out to the White House, the Justice Department,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: the FBI, and DHS for comment. Meanwhile, this week saw
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: the confirmation of Jay Clayton as the Director of National Intelligence,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: and then we already know from his congressional testimony will
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: go to great lengths to tell Donald Trump what he
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: wants to hear, and the current DHS Secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: has a history of comments encouraging byolence. During his confirmation
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: hearing in March, he said dueling was still allowed in
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: the Senate, to which Senator Ran Paul quickly corrected, saying
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: it has been illgal for one hundred and seventy years,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: all fitting into a portrait of an administration that does
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: not prioritize safety or American security much at all. As
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: the report summarizes, quote almost twenty five years after the
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: attacks of September eleventh, two thousand and one, the Trump
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  Speaker 3: administration's misalignment of resources and ideologically driven decision making on
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: what counts as terrorism has created vulnerabilities in America's national
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: security preparedness and in this moment of great threat, ultimately
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: jeopardizes the safety of the American people. That is where
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: and friends. Ms NOW Justice and Intelligence reporter Candelanian is
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: with us. Also joining US senior political analyst, host of
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: the Runaway Country podcast and the author of the sub
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: stack How the.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: Hell With Out?
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Alex Wagner. Alex Wagner is here and former Deputy National
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Security advisor to President Obama, now co host of pod
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Save the World. Contributor Ven Roads is back. Kendal Any
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: and take us through your reporting, Nicole.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: You know, as everyone knows, the US government remade itself
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: after the nine to eleven attacks and just completely reoriented priorities.
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: The FBI was reimagined, put tons of resources into the
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: fight against terrorism. We made a lot of mistakes, a
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: lot of things we did were imperfect. But twenty five
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: years after nine to eleven, you look back on what
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: the US government did, there were many successes. The US
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: government essentially defeated al Qaeda and prevented another catastrophic terror attack,
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: and unraveled plot after plot, and the FBI and particularly
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: got very good at getting inside terror plots and stopping
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: them before they metastasized into something that was very dangerous.
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: And what this report says and compiles is what we've
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: been covering as a slow rolling disaster. But this report
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: puts it all together, is that the Trump administration has
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  Speaker 5: been systematically dismantling a lot of the counter terrorism tools
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  Speaker 5: that we've relied on. And it's not even clear that
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: they're doing this intentionally. It's a collection of policies that
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: is resulting in making, as Senator Peters, the author of
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: the report, said, making Americans less safe. And it starts
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: with the hemorrhaging of experienced counter terrorism professionals from places
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: like the FBI and DHS and the Justice Department. Thirty
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: eight percent of the lawyers in the National Security Division
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  Speaker 5: are gone. These are the people who presided over the
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: war on Terror, who learned how to prosecute these cases
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  Speaker 5: and how to handle FAISA warrants and do all of
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: the legal intricacies of prosecuting the war on Terror while
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: maintaining Americans' rights. And then the other part of this
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: report is it describes the way that the administration is
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: focusing almost entirely domestic context on left wing extremism, while
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: completely ignoring and not even mentioning in its latest counter
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  Speaker 5: terrorism strategy the very real problem of right wing extremism,
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  Speaker 5: and that actually has been the more acute terror threat
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: in recent years is home grown domestic violent extremists. And
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  Speaker 5: it really feels like we are leaving ourselves essentially much
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  Speaker 5: less prepared for potential threats, and we won't know it
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  Speaker 5: until it happens. That's the really scary part about this.
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  Speaker 5: We don't really know how bad this is and how
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  Speaker 5: unprepared we are as a government for the threats that exist.
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  Speaker 2: Cool tendal Ainian.
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  Speaker 3: It was Christopher Ray who testified before Congress in September
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  Speaker 3: or October twenty twenty that by far the greatest threat
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: to the homeland was domestic violent extremism, and within that bucket,
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: the largest group was racially motivated white supremacist. So did
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: they go away or are we just not tracking them anymore?
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  Speaker 5: They're not even mentioned. The white supremacist is not even
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: mentioned in the latest Trump administration counter terrorism strategy, and
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  Speaker 5: that just shows that this is more about ideology than
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  Speaker 5: anything else. And again, look, we all know it's not
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: in Donald Trump's interests as the president for a catastrophic,
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: horrific terrorist attack to happen on his watch, But the
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: sum total of the policies that his administration is implementing
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: is making that more.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: Of a risk.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: Professionals across the spectrum will say that, in part, it's
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: a blinkered ideology, the idea that government is always bad.
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: And you know, it started with Doge and coming in
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  Speaker 5: and just taking a meat axe to these agencies without
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: regard for the kind of people that they that they
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: were driving out, and then of course the ideologically motivated firings.
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  Speaker 5: A lot of the FBI agents who work the cases
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  Speaker 5: against Donald Trump happened to be some of the most
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: experienced counter terrorism and counterintelligence agents and they're gone now
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: and you can't replace that kind of expertise. So it's
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: a really bleak picture.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Nicole Alex, you've done some incredible reporting yourself on through
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: the militia movements. Let me show you what a little
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: bit more of what William Brannif said about our vulnerabilities
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  Speaker 3: on the extremism front.
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  Speaker 2: All of us have vulnerabilities, and if those vulnerabilities going addressed,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: we could wind up being manipulated into engaging in violent extremism.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: We did oney one hundred and seventy two interventions. Think
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: about that, one thy one hundred seventy two interventions for
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  Speaker 2: individuals who were exhibiting risks of violence, They were making
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: veiled threats of violence, they were socially isolated, and those
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: interventions were across the ideological spectrum. Some people were flirting
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  Speaker 2: with white supremacies, some people were flirting with anti government extremism,
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  Speaker 2: some people were just flirting with violence for violence sake.
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  Speaker 5: The point is we didn't wait.
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  Speaker 2: Until something terrible happened and then blame the ideology behind it.
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  Speaker 2: We actually did a therapeutic intervention, and in ninety four
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  Speaker 2: percent of those interventions, the individual got help and there
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: was no viole. In six percent, they had made a
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: threat to public safety that was imminent or they had
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: crossed the criminal threshold and they were referred to law enforcement.
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  Speaker 2: So we supported those individuals, averted nearly twelve hundred potential
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  Speaker 2: acts of violence, and never sacrificed public safety.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I think they described that as staying left of boom.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this suggests that we're all far far away
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  Speaker 3: from any sort of environment where that's even the government's aim.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, in the report from Mike Rogers today
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  Speaker 4: is not bedtime reading, because it will leave you a
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: freaked out, to say the least. In addition to the
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: hemorrhaging of qualified and I think key rules inside the
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: institutions themselves, they're also they've canceled or otherwise politicized a
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: billion dollars of federal money that's meant to shore up
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: public safety and national security at the state level, which
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: is often I mean, that's almost in terms of targeting
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  Speaker 4: and really zeroing in on homegrown terror and terror threats.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: State level monitoring is essential in all of that. And instead,
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: as you just discussed a second ago, they're focused on
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: Antifa and cartel organizations. Antifa as a domestic terror organization
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  Speaker 4: does not exist in law, something that the report points out.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: And their war against the drug cartels, which basically amounts
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: to public executions of fishermen in the Caribbean. According to
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Trump's own DEEA, has had no measurable impact on the
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  Speaker 4: cocaine trade. They've just killed two hundred and twenty six
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  Speaker 4: people in boats since last September and called it a win.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, not only are they destroying the institutions from within,
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: those foolish, idiotic, and misguided efforts that they do engage
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  Speaker 4: in are also failures. I mean, it's just like a
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  Speaker 4: catastrophic level of failure on every front.