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Net Assessment Assesses the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment · Net Assessment

• 0:08
  Melanie Marlowe: Hello, and welcome to Net Assessment, where we debate the hard choices facing America's national security and foreign policy communities.
• 0:15
  Today, we're going to talk about the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, as well as issues about intelligence leadership reform.
• 0:21
  Does the United States intelligence community get the threats to America and prioritization of them correct in the 2026 Threat Assessment?
• 0:28
  Does Trump administration policy reflect a wise understanding of our greatest threats?
• 0:32
  And is it time to reform or eliminate the Office of Director of National Intelligence?
• 0:37
  I'm Melanie Marlowe of CSIS, here with Chris Preble of the Stimson Center and Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute. How are you?
• 0:44
  Chris Preble: Hello again. I'm back.
• 0:47
  Zack Cooper: Welcome back.
• 0:48
  Chris Preble: Tanned, rested, and ready. Look at me. You can't see me, but you two can see me, and you can see how tanned I am.
• 0:53
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah, I know.
• 0:55
  Chris Preble: Yes. Very grateful to my colleague, Emma Ashford, for filling in for me.
• 0:59
  I know she said on the pod that I volun-told her to do this, but I swear that I didn't.
• 1:03
  It was very kind of her to pitch in, and it was kind of you two to let me come back on the show and not sub me out permanently. So, I'm grateful to you two for that.
• 1:11
  Zack Cooper: Chris, I just assumed that you auctioned off this opportunity to your colleagues at Stimson.
• 1:16
  Chris Preble: Right. Yeah. Definitely would be worth-
• 1:19
  Melanie Marlowe: Dollars?
• 1:19
  Chris Preble: ... dollars. Maybe dollars, probably more like loose change, coins that we no longer mint, those kinds of things. So, yeah.
• 1:28
  Melanie Marlowe: Do you want to tell us where you were? Do you want to say anything about your 250th?
• 1:32
  Chris Preble: We had a great trip. I was very pleased to not be in the United States of America on the 250th anniversary.
• 1:39
  We were flying in on the Fourth of July, so I missed all that fun. I remember where I was for the bicentennial, the 200th.
• 1:46
  I guess I was nine years old or something like that. But I don't think I'm going to make it to 300. So, you know, that's all I got.
• 1:54
  Melanie Marlowe: You need to get on all of these things Silicon Valley gurus are selling.
• 1:58
  Chris Preble: I know. I'm just not that fired up about being that old.
• 2:03
  Zack Cooper: Life maxing?
• 2:03
  Chris Preble: No. Not doing it.
• 2:04
  Melanie Marlowe: No.
• 2:05
  Chris Preble: No. Definitely not.
• 2:08
  Melanie Marlowe: Zack, how about you?
• 2:10
  Zack Cooper: Well, the 4th is my son's birthday, that was enjoyable. We did not stay up until after midnight to watch the fireworks. Thank you, Mr. President.
• 2:18
  So, he was a little disappointed by that. But we did hear the sound of freedom flying over our house about every 15 minutes for six hours, and my son loved it.
• 2:27
  I liked it.
• 2:28
  Melanie Marlowe: That's pretty cool.
• 2:29
  Chris Preble: Awesome.
• 2:30
  Zack Cooper: Many Washingtonians apparently complained that it was too loud, but come on, it's wonderful.
• 2:36
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah, come on. Yeah.
• 2:38
  Well, I was out west where there's been a drought, so we couldn't have fireworks this year, but there may have been a few illicit sparklers in my sister's backyard.
• 2:47
  Not going to confirm or deny that. It's today 106 degrees and 6% humidity, so very dry heat, and it's been like that the entire time.
• 2:55
  The only thing I can think is at least it's not Washington in the swamp. But it was a great 250th.
• 3:00
  Lots of family around, and the best part was my brother-in-law, who's been stationed in Jordan, came home a few days after the 4th, but it's been really great to have him
• 3:10
  home, and I've been at Deer Valley the last couple of days at a family reunion. He came up for a bit of that, and lots of other kiddos running around.
• 3:19
  I got to take my five-year-old niece on the Alpine Slide yesterday and on the better Alpine roller coaster, where we had to wait in that heat for an extra 45 minutes
• 3:28
  because there was a moose on the tracks. But it was awesome.
• 3:32
  Chris Preble: I love it.
• 3:34
  Melanie Marlowe: And actually, when I was going up the tram to the slide, there was a massive...
• 3:37
  I wish I could have counted the points on the antlers…. a massive deer that was running through the field, so.
• 3:42
  Zack Cooper: You do not want to mess around with a moose.
• 3:44
  Chris Preble: No.
• 3:44
  Melanie Marlowe: Oh, no. No, they'll kick you to death. They are not cute and cuddly creatures.
• 3:50
  Chris Preble: This is not a petting zoo, people. It's not a petting zoo.
• 3:52
  Melanie Marlowe: Yes, exactly.
• 3:53
  Chris Preble: I love alpine slides. When I was a kid, we had alpine slide in Concord, New Hampshire. We used to go there. Very, very cool.
• 3:59
  And then they had one, we went on our trip. We were on this mountain outside of Lucerne.
• 4:04
  You take a gondola all the way to the top, and about halfway up there's zip lines and alpine slides, and I saw that. I'm like, "Oh man, I want to do that again.
• 4:12
  That's so cool."
• 4:13
  Melanie Marlowe: That is fun. Zack?
• 4:15
  Zack Cooper: I have done one from the Great Wall, I guess, but that's, yeah.
• 4:20
  Chris Preble: That's just so ridiculous. I just...
• 4:23
  Melanie Marlowe: It couldn't have been better than Park City?
• 4:25
  Zack Cooper: To be clear, you don't go down the Great Wall.
• 4:28
  Chris Preble: Listeners, he just one-upped us by like a factor of, I don't know, a thousand or something like that.
• 4:33
  Because, you know, we were both just on the alpine slide in...
• 4:37
  Zack Cooper: I bet your slide was better.
• 4:38
  Chris Preble: You know, I don't know about that. Maybe not.
• 4:40
  Melanie Marlowe: I literally said to somebody yesterday, do not ask a question you don't know the answer to. Okay.
• 4:45
  Speaking of China and all of our increasing threats, today, as we said, we are discussing the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, the ATA, as we'll probably call it, which the
• 4:54
  introduction says, "Reflects the collective insights of the IC, which is committed to providing nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers,
• 5:02
  warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and America's interests around the world.
• 5:09
  This assessment focuses on the most direct, serious threats to the U.S., primarily during the next year.
• 5:14
  All these threats require a robust intelligence response, including those where a near-term focus may help head off greater threats in the future." And I want to read
• 5:22
  that bit, which is basically how all the recent ATAs have laid out their statutory purpose, because in my view, the exact words are going to be important in the
• 5:31
  discussion, perhaps more so in the second part.
• 5:33
  Now, we are a little bit late covering this as it came out mid-March, but there were a couple of other things that were keeping us busy in our discussions at that time,
• 5:42
  which actually have resumed. So, maybe we'll be discussing those other things.
• 5:46
  Zack Cooper: Or never stopped.
• 5:47
  Melanie Marlowe: You're exactly right. We didn't.
• 5:49
  But other recent incidents, including questions about imminent threats, the use of intelligence in the Iran War, the tenure and departure of DNI Tulsi Gabbard, the
• 5:58
  placement of Trump ally Bill Pulte in that role, they've all caused us to give this a hard look.
• 6:03
  And to that end, we will also discuss our friend Andreas Kluth's recent Bloomberg article, "If the U.S. keeps messing with this spy agency, it'll pay a high price." Now,
• 6:12
  Gabbard, I have to say, is or was the second, kind of, unconventional DNI in a row.
• 6:16
  I was thinking back to Avril Haines, and I've got to say, I was a bit skeptical of Haines, but I liked a lot of the things that she did.
• 6:23
  Now, I was also skeptical of Gabbard, and frankly, I'm glad that she's gone, although I'm sorry that it is under the circumstances that she has a family member that is
• 6:32
  extremely ill.
• 6:33
  But starting off with the ATA, it covers three broad topics, homeland, including border security, terrorism, homeland defense, and the Arctic as subtopics, technological
• 6:41
  challenges, including AI and quantum computing, and diverse threat vectors, and these include military, space, cyber, and WMD, as well as regional challenges divided into
• 6:50
  the usual subcategories. Now, this looks a little bit different.
• 6:54
  I went back and looked at ATAs from like 2012, 2022, 2024, just, kind of, trying to get a sense of what were we thinking before Ukraine and what were we thinking again
• 7:02
  during the Biden administration.
• 7:04
  And those, especially the ones during the Biden administration, obviously, as people would guess, talk a lot more specifically and have headings, you know, about climate
• 7:13
  change, about health, disasters, things like that, where this does not. But they are actually not entirely omitted from this document.
• 7:20
  It does talk about extreme climate emergencies and things like that that might cause immigration to pick up.
• 7:26
  Now, the foreword does note many of the dangers facing the U.S., but it also lays out our assets, among them our military and geography.
• 7:33
  And importantly, at least on paper, it cautions us against thinking that every problem in the world directly threatens us or is of equal importance to the United States.
• 7:42
  In our complex world, it says, it is especially important that we think prudently and prioritize our efforts.
• 7:47
  And boy, did that ever come back to me with Chris reading it in my head as it went on and on and on about all the terrorism in the Middle East.
• 7:55
  Now, we can't talk about everything, so we're going to each pick and choose a couple of our favorite or least favorite, scariest, most overblown, whatever parts to
• 8:03
  mention. But first, I want to ask what you think about the report in general.
• 8:08
  I certainly think that it reflects, as ATAs do, the priorities and concerns of this president.
• 8:12
  In fact, it mentions President Trump by name, intervening in the Pakistan-India conflict last year, which is a little suck-upy, and I was a little surprised to come
• 8:21
  across that specifically, but then I maybe wasn't really that surprised.
• 8:25
  It does mention concerns about the changing demographics of allies, but it's not as hard as the national security strategy documents are.
• 8:32
  China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea downplayed a little bit more than I imagine some hawks would like, but it is a constant claim from Trump.
• 8:39
  And then it takes a big victory lap on immigration and the good results that are coming from the president's policies, like lower drug fatalities.
• 8:47
  It ends abruptly with Africa as the national security strategy does, but I... In looking back over at the other ATAs, they do just end.
• 8:54
  So, it's not that unusual that there's not a big conclusion. So, with that, Chris and Zack, what do you generally think?
• 9:01
  Chris Preble: Well, I'm so glad to hear, Melanie, that when you read that passage in the document, you thought of me because I also highlighted that passage, the passage
• 9:12
  that says we should be cautious about thinking that every problem in the world threatens the United States, and we have to prioritize.
• 9:20
  Because after having read that passage and then subsequently reading the entire document, I did find myself many times asking the question, how does this threaten the
• 9:31
  United States of America and Americans' interests?
• 9:35
  So, even though they set that out at the beginning, I was not consistently convinced that they had identified things that were an urgent threat.
• 9:44
  And again, I mean, I think about threat in a very particular way.
• 9:48
  It is, what are those things that would cause me, or my family, or my friends, or, frankly, the entire United States of America, you know, people in this country,
• 9:59
  premature death, injury, harm to their property, and loss of their freedom? What are those things that pose a threat?
• 10:07
  And I felt like, in the case of, you mentioned two already, Melanie, I think the case of the fentanyl crisis is clearly a threat to many people here in the United States.
• 10:18
  Tens of thousands of people have died from fentanyl overdoses.
• 10:22
  The document notes that those fatalities are down, and it credits the decline in fatalities to the supply disruptions, but that's not the only explanation for why
• 10:33
  fentanyl deaths are down. But I think most listeners to this show will know someone who knows someone who has died from fentanyl.
• 10:41
  That's how many tens of thousands of people have died in this country from that. So, they had me at hello with respect to that passage.
• 10:50
  But I felt like they tried way too hard to convince me that Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other so-called supposed transnational terrorists were a grave threat to me or to the
• 11:01
  United States.
• 11:02
  They cite one fatality-inducing incident and one other incident involving a 16-year-old person who managed to not kill anyone, as best I could tell from the way it was
• 11:13
  described.
• 11:14
  And also, I'll just say that for as much time and attention as they pay to the terrorism threat here in the United States, they reference it only very belatedly at the
• 11:25
  very end of the paper when they talk about Africa being the new epicenter for Al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorism, Al-Qaeda in particular, and yet it seems very much an
• 11:35
  afterthought. So, you know, I think it was a mixed bag.
• 11:39
  I think that there are certainly things that they identified that I agree are actual urgent threats and deserve to be prioritized, but I felt in other instances they were
• 11:50
  just trying too hard.
• 11:52
  Zack Cooper: So, I have mixed views on this piece.
• 11:55
  So, I think when I picked it up, I would have expected there to be more of a political slant to this document, in part because Tulsi Gabbard was quite a unique figure as
• 12:06
  DNI.
• 12:07
  Her views on Russia, on Syria, were way out of line with the consensus views in Washington, and frankly, I think even within the Trump administration were an outlier.
• 12:17
  And yet only in certain areas could you maybe see some of those ideas coming through. You know, there are some lines that clearly are political.
• 12:27
  So, for example, towards the end where they talk about the Middle East, they say that the U.S.-led operation Epic Fury, launched at the end of February, is, quote,
• 12:38
  "advancing fundamental change in the region," end quote. I doubt that the National Intelligence Council sat there and came up with that framing.
• 12:48
  I bet some politico inserted that to try and make sure that this didn't upset the president.
• 12:54
  But in other areas, you know, the conversation about Russia in the document says Russia views itself as a key geostrategic competitor of the United States and seeks a
• 13:05
  multipolar world order in which Russia reaches and maintains a privileged position equal to that of the United States.
• 13:13
  The language about China I broadly agree with, and actually, some of the changes made from the last threat assessment to this one, I think, are an improvement on the
• 13:24
  China issue.
• 13:25
  Lastly, I think it's pretty notable that if you consider the order of items that this threat assessment goes through, it starts with the homeland, and look, there's
• 13:35
  nothing wrong with that, right? I think we can all agree that the homeland is, sort of, where you should begin with any threat assessment.
• 13:45
  But it's notable that it goes through border security, drugs, transnational criminals, migration, terrorism, homeland defense in the Arctic, and then technology
• 13:55
  challenges from AI and quantum computing. The regional challenges are at the end. Literally, Iran is the second-to-last page of the document.
• 14:05
  So, to the question of prioritization, maybe this document is not intended to be a prioritization document, but I think it's hard not to read it that way, right?
• 14:16
  It ends with Africa, which is absolutely the lowest U.S. priority today, and we saw that in the national security strategy.
• 14:24
  But the fact that the second-to-last thing in this document was Iran, and yet that's where we're spending most of our attention since this document was written, I think
• 14:35
  it's notable and somewhat problematic.
• 14:38
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. In the 2022 assessment, all those countries were at the very beginning, and each was its own category.
• 14:45
  And in the 2024, they were all under state actors but at the very beginning.
• 14:49
  I will say, and I really do recommend that people listen to the Senate hearing that Gabbard and other intelligence officials participated in, I think, on March 18th.
• 14:58
  But the final edits to this document were made on March 14th. It does say, and they testified right after that.
• 15:04
  She does note, as they all do, but I really took it seriously this time, that these are not her views, these are the views of the IC.
• 15:12
  So, I was also a little surprised, like I would give this like a B, maybe B plus even, and especially as you said, Zack, compared to some of the Biden administration
• 15:21
  ones. I remember I really did not like I think it was the 2023 one, “the space capabilities of China and Russia were overblown” and these kinds of things.
• 15:30
  And I'm glad that they're taken seriously here because space is really important, and this document confirms that.
• 15:36
  So, I will also say, not just on the Republican side are these things worth listening to, but Senator Mark Warner is an extremely thoughtful person.
• 15:44
  I may not agree with him on everything that he does, but on the intelligence side, he's very good and does say that we are in a time of increasingly complex threats with
• 15:54
  a deteriorating situation, and I think that he takes all that very seriously. So, okay.
• 15:59
  Well, let's do some of the greatest hits, whether that means because you thought they were right or wrong or whatever. Chris, give us something you thought.
• 16:08
  Chris Preble: Sure. Well, I mentioned a couple that jumped out to me as one where I agreed with them and another where I thought they were trying too hard.
• 16:17
  I do think that the references to Iran were... I'm sorry, laughable. Zack has already cited the one where it says it's transforming the region.
• 16:26
  Now, in their defense, and the ODNI and those who are responsible for this report, you know, they barely had two weeks to adapt to the war that it seemed that even they
• 16:37
  did not know was coming. And so, I don't want to hold them too much responsible for that.
• 16:42
  Again, what I liked about this document is there are many, many statements that are just statements of fact, right?
• 16:50
  That this thing is true, and then there are statements that are assessments of trying to gauge other countries' perceptions of the world.
• 16:58
  And that's where I found myself asking, "Are they right to feel that way?" So, for example, there's a reference to how China is responding to the possibility of a
• 17:08
  deployment of a Golden Dome, which the Chinese might interpret as lowering the threshold for the United States to use force.
• 17:16
  And I say, would the Chinese be right to think that way? Like, this is an observation.
• 17:21
  But that's where I am, sort of, hungry for an assessment that goes beyond merely a statement of fact or a statement of how others perceive reality to be and say, "No, as
• 17:32
  a matter of fact, you know, this is a problem we need to..." And because if it's based on misperception, then what are we, or what can we do to correct those
• 17:42
  misperceptions? That's what I would have liked to have seen more in the document.
• 17:47
  There's another, you know, reference to, with respect to Russia, Russia sees the United States as a threat. Is it right to see Russia as a threat?
• 17:56
  Is that assessment a correct one? I did think that the North Korea section struck me as almost perfunctory.
• 18:03
  I read the entire North Korea section, and then there are call-out boxes to each of the four major adversaries.
• 18:10
  And at the end of reading and marking up the North Korea section, I said, "How exactly is North Korea a threat to the United States?" That part I just wasn't convinced
• 18:20
  by.
• 18:21
  Zack Cooper: Yeah. So, a couple of thoughts. So, one, as I said earlier, I think the China section, the strategic overview, is actually pretty good.
• 18:31
  And in particular, it questions whether 2027 is the moment that we should be watching for a Chinese action against Taiwan.
• 18:40
  It says that in 2026, Beijing will continue seeking to set conditions for eventual unification with Taiwan short of conflict.
• 18:48
  But it then explicitly says that the IC assesses that Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline
• 19:00
  for achieving unification. I think this is good. I think we should have said this a few years ago.
• 19:07
  As listeners of the show have known, I have always been frustrated with this 2027 date because I don't think it accords with reality.
• 19:16
  And I think, actually, 2028 and 2029, for political reasons, are much more likely to be challenging than 2027.
• 19:24
  So, I think there's some stuff in here like that which is valuable and clarifying.
• 19:30
  On the other hand, just to stay on Asia for a minute, there's a bunch of other portions on Asia which I found disappointing.
• 19:39
  So, the discussion on Japan seems to blame Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae for inciting China to be angry against Japan by saying that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan
• 19:51
  would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan. I don't understand why we're giving Beijing the out here.
• 19:59
  Melanie Marlowe: It would be.
• 20:01
  Chris Preble: Yeah.
• 20:02
  Zack Cooper: I mean, yeah, Japan has islands closer to Taiwan than the main island of Taiwan is to China.
• 20:09
  Of course, that would be a highly threatening situation for Japan. And you know, I think I would have liked to see that be more explicit.
• 20:18
  As you noted, Chris, the North Korea section, I don't think, is particularly deep. You know, it's, sort of, tossed in because it has to be in there, I guess.
• 20:28
  But same on South Asia broadly.
• 20:30
  The bulk of the South Asia discussion is about how President Trump de-escalated the most recent nuclear tensions, which, oh, by the way, he did not do.
• 20:41
  Chris Preble: He did not do.
• 20:41
  Zack Cooper: And then it talks about ISIS-K and Pakistan's delivery vehicles for ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Then it talks about Pakistan and the Taliban.
• 20:52
  There's like nothing in here about India, which, you know, in a 33-page document about the national security interests of the United States, you'd think there might be
• 21:03
  something about the largest country in the world by population, which is pretty important.
• 21:10
  At the same time that I think there's a bunch of areas in which they get a lot right, there are just some oversights here that are hard to explain.
• 21:20
  Melanie Marlowe: Zack, I think that that's especially important, the omission of India, which was one of the things that I thought was a big glaring miss, especially
• 21:28
  because they talk about Pakistan and the danger of Pakistan and it becoming an increasing threat, which the way that Trump talks about Pakistan is that it's, kind of, one
• 21:37
  of his buddies, you know, that he likes it.
• 21:39
  And so, this is one of the areas where I think I'm looking at this document that often seems reasonable and that, again, I give a decent grade to, and then the policy
• 21:48
  that is derived from it seems a little bonkers.
• 21:51
  Zack Cooper: Can I give one more quick example? Which is the Europe section?
• 21:56
  The Europe section it starts out by basically talking about how weak and feckless Europe is and vulnerable to Islamist radicalization.
• 22:05
  The bulk of the section is really about immigration and Islamic movements in Europe. And then it slowly turns to Russia.
• 22:14
  But I think it's so telling that this is how the administration thinks about Europe, it doesn't talk about the virtues of having 30-plus countries that are allied with
• 22:26
  the United States in the advanced industrial world. It just sees this as, like, a den of dangers from immigration.
• 22:34
  Which, sort of, aligns with how the document starts talking about homeland defense in the United States, which is about immigration and drugs and the like.
• 22:45
  Chris Preble: Can I ask a quick question? I'm curious if you two, I flagged the very first sentence, and it's bold in the Europe/Eurasia section.
• 22:53
  Under Europe, it says, "As the primary economic and military partners of the U.S., the strength and resiliency of European countries have clear implications for U.S.
• 23:02
  interests and national security." That struck me as odd. Do they actually believe that Europe is the primary economic and military partner of the United States?
• 23:12
  What about Asia? What about the pivot? Was that striking to you? I mean, I'm curious.
• 23:17
  Melanie Marlowe: It is striking because of the way that they talk about it and the way that they started talking about it, again, last week.
• 23:24
  Like, there were a lot of parts of the NATO Summit that I thought went very well, but then there were some of the irresistible hits, I will continue to say, I think that
• 23:34
  the immigration problem is a real problem for Europe, and I mean that in the sense that they are going to elect a lot of crazy right-wing governments that are going to be
• 23:43
  pro-Russia if they don't get that under control. Because you know what? That may not matter to you, but that matters to a lot of people over there.
• 23:51
  And there are segments of society that are not integrating.
• 23:54
  There are things that are close to blasphemy laws getting passed in some of these countries, and that is a real problem in terms of those countries' domestic politics.
• 24:03
  And it could be eventually a problem in terms of, I think, some of the foreign policy.
• 24:08
  In the same way, I'm very worried about things like how the Gaza situation is going to affect lone-wolf terrorism in the United States, the Boulder incident, that was
• 24:17
  real. The Holocaust Museum, that was real. Those are things that are happening, and there needs to be some discussion about that.
• 24:24
  And so, I am not dismissing what is going on all over Europe right now because of the immigration problem.
• 24:30
  I don't like how it gets talked about by the administration, but that is a real problem these governments are facing, and some of the character of society is changing.
• 24:40
  Zack Cooper: Yeah. Can I just say on that, though?
• 24:43
  Like, this is about how you prioritize concerns in Europe, and the fact that the document spends more time, I think, on immigration and radicalization in Europe than it
• 24:55
  does on Russia-Ukraine...
• 24:57
  Melanie Marlowe: Yes, and that we see this in every document.
• 25:00
  Chris Preble: Yeah.
• 25:01
  Zack Cooper: Like, the Russia-Ukraine item in the Europe section is the last thing.
• 25:06
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah, exactly.
• 25:07
  Zack Cooper: It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
• 25:09
  Chris Preble: I think that there are references to how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gaza, et cetera, there are references to how they might increase threats here in
• 25:19
  the United States from radicalism and domestic terrorism. They reference it, too, in other places, not just in the United States. So, they don't ignore it.
• 25:28
  And they also, with respect to Iran, they acknowledge the concern that anger at the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei, for example, or the attacks on the Iranians, et cetera,
• 25:38
  could lead to attacks against Americans, increasing the threat from Iranian terror. Again, knock on wood, that hasn't happened yet.
• 25:46
  The incidents that you are citing, Melanie, were not in any way attributed to Iranian-backed terrorists.
• 25:53
  Melanie Marlowe: No, no. These other issues. Okay, so a couple of things.
• 25:57
  One thing that I liked was the emphasis on the Arctic, and I thought that they largely got the Russia-China relationship right, that Russia really is building all this
• 26:06
  stuff, and it is a very important region for them.
• 26:09
  And I'm extremely alarmed at what is going on, although as the document notes, some brakes have been put on Russia's enthusiasm in the region because of what's going on
• 26:18
  in Ukraine. And then they talk about the icebreaker fleet and, you know, how Russia's building, building, building.
• 26:25
  And I was actually surprised there wasn't a line about what Donald Trump is doing now with our icebreakers because we need to be doing that, and I think that that's
• 26:34
  right. So, I thought that was all spot on. But again, when I look at the policy implementation, I'm worried because the president is again screaming about Greenland.
• 26:43
  Like, he gets pulled back for a little bit, and then he starts screaming again and making people mad.
• 26:49
  But I do want to compliment them on that section on trying to, I know Marco Rubio is trying to work a little bit behind the scenes on coming to an agreement with
• 26:58
  Greenland, and I think that's a very good thing.
• 27:01
  I also thought the part on chemical and biological weapons was interesting, especially the emphasis on states that don't have nuclear weapons trying to gain more and more
• 27:11
  dangerous types of chemical and biological weapons, and the kinds of things that China might be looking into.
• 27:17
  Interestingly, talking about the tactical use on, I'm sorry, the day after Senator Graham apparently passed away and people are wondering, you know, he was just in
• 27:26
  Ukraine a few days ago. Did something happen? I think not. But I have seen some of that speculation.
• 27:32
  But very concerned about what could be being produced and what state and non-state actors might be getting their hands on.
• 27:39
  And to me, that's increasingly relevant because just looking at not just the health impact of COVID, but what it did to societies and how it affected trust in societies
• 27:48
  and polarization and increased division. So, I think that even on a lower level of health scares, that that would be relevant. Zack?
• 27:56
  Zack Cooper: Just back on a health issue in the United States, which is fentanyl.
• 28:01
  As Chris said earlier, I think it's really good that fentanyl is so directly discussed in the piece. It's really important.
• 28:09
  But this is one of the areas which you read the report, and then you read the policies coming out of the administration, and it's hard to square.
• 28:18
  So, the report notes that in 2025 alone at the Mexican border with the United States, the Customs and Border Protection seized 11,000 pounds of fentanyl.
• 28:28
  How much does it seize on the Canadian border? It was up. They note it was up from two pounds to 77 pounds.
• 28:35
  And you might think, "Oh, okay, so there's not a fentanyl problem from Canada." Oh, wait. If you go back a year plus, you may remember that we put tariffs on Canada.
• 28:45
  Specifically, we had a national emergency declaration, in fact, from the flow of illicit drugs across our northern border, for which we increased the tariffs on Canada to
• 28:56
  35%. So, there are parts of this that read as quite factual, but then when you try and square them with the administration's actions, they just don't make a lot of sense.
• 29:07
  You know, the one other I'll just point out quickly is there's a half page in here on Armenia, Azerbaijan. There's nothing on Thailand, Cambodia.
• 29:17
  Chris Preble: Right. Why?
• 29:18
  Melanie Marlowe: But do you know why?
• 29:20
  Chris Preble: I do know why, but it's absurd. It's just absurd.
• 29:22
  Zack Cooper: Look, I understand why, but people are going to be searching through this document and through the next year's document for any signs of politicization in
• 29:31
  the Intelligence Community, especially with Bill Pulte at the head. And this is the kind of stuff that they're going to be looking really, really closely at.
• 29:41
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. Well, I want to say one more thing, and then let's get to that.
• 29:46
  I was interested in the comments on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, USMCA, that is, as it says, scheduled for 2026 talks, and that “it will almost certainly increase
• 29:56
  uncertainty among Latin American economies, particularly those that rely on Mexico as an export destination for intermediate goods for manufacture and onward export to
• 30:06
  the United States.
• 30:07
  Some are being affected already by new Mexican tariffs.” And so, again, that's one of those places where they're very happy about the conditions that have been set at the
• 30:17
  border, and they're very happy to announce their decline, rapid decline, in border crossings.
• 30:23
  But here again is an issue that, you know, with the tariffs and USMCA review that could cause a resurgence of that if they aren't careful.
• 30:32
  Chris Preble: I flagged that same passage, Melanie, and what I would say is I hope sincerely that the president, or those, more accurately, those who are involved
• 30:41
  actively in the negotiations, read that passage as well and think about it and take it seriously, because I thought it was a really important passage.
• 30:50
  You know, this notion of creating uncertainty among some of our leading trading partners, and that does pose financial risks for Americans, but it also poses the risk
• 31:00
  you're trying to reduce the influence of foreign actors in our own hemisphere.
• 31:05
  And if you play your hand poorly, you are inviting greater involvement by U.S. adversaries in the hemisphere.
• 31:12
  Melanie Marlowe: And all of those things on the hemisphere, I'm extremely interested to see how things go in the next year, between, you know, now and the next threat
• 31:19
  assessment with this wave of conservative governments that have been elected in Latin America, and if they are able to work better with the Trump administration or if
• 31:27
  they are going to find it more difficult.
• 31:28
  Right now, it seems like on the big, showy things, they're happy to work with the United States, but we'll see about some other details.
• 31:35
  Chris Preble: Can I mention one other thing that I meant to flag? There are several passages in here about cybercrime, and ransomware, and things like that.
• 31:43
  And here again, that was an area where they didn't have to convince me that these are real threats.
• 31:49
  My colleagues at Stimson are doing a lot of work on scam centers, mostly in Southeast Asia. This is a real danger to Americans.
• 31:56
  Again, thankfully not mostly to our well-being health, but it is absolutely a threat to finances and, you know, this notion of ransomware and institutions being held
• 32:05
  hostage. So, I'm glad that they called that out, but here again, it's like, what exactly can be done about it?
• 32:11
  And you could argue, well, that's really not the job of the Intelligence Community to answer that question necessarily.
• 32:18
  Melanie Marlowe: But we've also fired so many people and eliminated so many of the agencies and personnel that are supposed to be dealing with that.
• 32:24
  And so, again, there's that misalignment with policy.
• 32:27
  Zack Cooper: Yeah, but Burma, Myanmar doesn't appear in the document.
• 32:31
  So, you want to talk about scam centers and all this kind of stuff, like, these strange oversights where just certain topics that you would have thought would have been
• 32:40
  included are just not mentioned at all.
• 32:43
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. Well, let's move along to the politicization part of the discussion, and what should we do about ODNI?
• 32:50
  This has been an issue since it was statutorily created in 2004, and then implemented and stood up in 2005 after 9/11 and the WMD issue, where the Congress and the
• 32:59
  administration at the time wondered if we needed, kind of, an overseer and integrator of national intelligence that, you know, we had all of these agencies, now we have
• 33:09
  18 that make up the IC, to take a big picture of what they're doing, prioritize, move things along, cut things, you know, have some direct communication with the
• 33:18
  president, be the president's principal intelligence point person, manage the bureaucracies and so forth.
• 33:24
  At the time, the CIA director was in charge of that, but the CIA director likes the CIA and may have had, you know, it's easy to favor your own agency and maybe not have
• 33:34
  a broader view. So, as they said at the time, maybe CIA didn't have the bandwidth.
• 33:39
  So, Senate Intel Committee Chair Tom Cotton has been concerned about this for a really long time, again, as have many on both the right and the left.
• 33:48
  And so, last year, he had proposed legislation that would cut the ODNI by about two-thirds, down to 650 people, and really realign some of the offices and missions and be
• 33:57
  more targeted and focused on what was going on. Tulsi Gabbard established ODNI 2.0, where she had this goal to cut 40% of personnel and slash the budget in half.
• 34:07
  But she's no longer there, and now we have Bill Pulte, as we've mentioned, actually on the last couple of shows. And he is acting. He can serve for 210 days.
• 34:16
  He came in and did exactly what President Trump wanted. He fired about 50 people, or moved them into other agencies, or put them on administrative leave.
• 34:25
  Among them, Will Ruger, the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration, and several other people.
• 34:32
  So, there have been claims throughout this second Trump administration that the DNI was very politically motivated, that the office had been politicized.
• 34:41
  I think it's hard to look at some of the things that have happened, in Georgia, with her being present at the time there were raids on...
• 34:49
  Chris Preble: Yeah, that's Georgia, the Georgia that's between South Carolina and Florida.
• 34:53
  Melanie Marlowe: America, Georgia.
• 34:55
  Chris Preble: Right, that's the Georgia we're talking about, just for clarification.
• 34:58
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah.
• 34:59
  When the FBI was executing search warrants regarding issues about the 2020 election, where the president is sure that he won the state of Georgia instead of losing it by
• 35:09
  12,000 votes. So, the story of why she was there changed over a week, several times. She said the president had wanted her there. The president said he wanted her there.
• 35:18
  Todd Blanche at the Department of Justice had said that he hadn't wanted her there.
• 35:23
  It became a big series of finger-pointing, but just one of a number of issues that made people stop and wonder about what was going on.
• 35:31
  So, I don't know if you have thoughts about what we should be doing.
• 35:35
  I hate to change something simply because of one bad actor, or two bad actors, or three, if it's a good idea.
• 35:41
  Kluth ultimately comes to the conclusion that the answer, “Then as now, is to instill an uncompromising culture of professionalism and integrity in the spy corps.” I
• 35:51
  don't know how you do that if you don't have someone at the very top that is demanding it. So, thoughts?
• 35:57
  Chris Preble: Andreas Kluth, a friend of the pod, I like his columns very much, and I think the problem that we're talking about here is not mostly one of the
• 36:06
  professionalism within the intelligence community. It's those who are appointed above the professionals and how they treat it.
• 36:14
  I think that's what we're really talking about here. And I'll confess that I've always been, sort of, ambivalent about the creation of ODNI, going back to its founding.
• 36:24
  On the one hand, I can see the value in some kind of an overarching organization to facilitate information sharing among the different communities.
• 36:33
  But in the end, and Andreas gets into this a little bit in this column, it is not apparent that that is actually happening, that ODNI is actually compelling that kind of
• 36:44
  sharing.
• 36:44
  And so, if it's not doing that, then you, sort of, go back to the original rationale for the office, and I, kind of, shrug my shoulders and like, what is actually the
• 36:54
  benefit?
• 36:55
  Because you could have a professional class of individuals in the 17 or 18, however we count, individual intelligence services without an ODNI, does the presence of an
• 37:05
  ODNI actually increase the danger of politicization? Or on the flip side, does it protect these institutions from politicization? I don't have an answer to that question.
• 37:16
  Zack Cooper: My sense, and I think this may be the way you're both leaning, is that the DNI experiment has run its course.
• 37:24
  And I was in government when it was created, and I thought there was a logic to it.
• 37:30
  But look, at this moment, if you talk to people within ODNI, there's a clear sense that the best people don't want to go there. It's a career risk.
• 37:41
  So, the best analysts are trying desperately to avoid those jobs, and some of the great people who were there have either been fired or left recently.
• 37:52
  And as a result, I think they're going to have a workforce problem. And this political issue...
• 37:59
  You know, when we created DNI, part of the logic was, as you all remember, that CIA and FBI, among others, weren't talking enough to each other.
• 38:09
  I think now the story, in my view, is it would be better if we had a stronger firewall.
• 38:15
  And I hate to say that, but, you know, when you see Tulsi Gabbard get directly involved in homeland issues that are very clearly not just outside her purview, but which I
• 38:28
  think the DNI was meant never to intervene in, I think these are really scary sorts of things.
• 38:34
  And look, this is not just the fault of the Trump administration, but I think it has accelerated the problems at DNI so rapidly that it's hard for me to see the logic of
• 38:47
  going forward with this institution. So, if it were up to me, I'd say let's draw this to a close. Let's return the power back to the agencies.
• 38:57
  That probably means CIA in particular gets a good deal stronger than it was when DNI was, sort of, put above it.
• 39:05
  But frankly, I would much rather have Ratcliffe as the head of the U.S. Intelligence Community at the moment than I would Bill Pulte.
• 39:15
  Melanie Marlowe: I would, but I'm not going to pretend that the CIA director is never political either.
• 39:19
  Zack Cooper: Fair.
• 39:20
  Melanie Marlowe: John Brennan was an extremely political CIA director, and I think that there were a lot of things that went wrong there.
• 39:28
  I will say a couple more things about Georgia and the elections.
• 39:31
  Mark Warner says, and I didn't go back and check every ATA since 2017, but he said that this is the first ATA since 2017 that does not talk about foreign influence in
• 39:41
  American elections. So, again, I ask you, what was she doing around the Georgia election sweep?
• 39:46
  Listening to her explain that, or not explain that, is extremely interesting.
• 39:51
  You know, that she was just there to praise and thank the agents who were executing it on the one hand, but that she didn't know that there was a warrant that was being
• 40:01
  executed on the other. It is-
• 40:03
  Zack Cooper: That's absurd.
• 40:04
  Melanie Marlowe: ... really quite an interesting and indefensible thing to be happening.
• 40:08
  And I'm telling you, if this were a Democratic administration doing this in West Virginia or Georgia, it would be a completely different scenario.
• 40:17
  So, that's a real problem. I got to say, I still want or would want something like this.
• 40:21
  Like, I'm not as ready as Zack is to throw in the towel on it, because I still think that it could serve a purpose, maybe 50 people, maybe something that's much smaller.
• 40:31
  But you have human beings running these organizations. You are always going to have a political angle. It's just really hard to take that out.
• 40:39
  But you want to structure things so that as little as possible, and I don't know how you can do that any better or any differently than this.
• 40:47
  Once someone has these kinds of responsibilities, which are not operational, then I don't know what else you can do. So, any last thoughts?
• 40:55
  Zack Cooper: I guess just one quick last thought on this, which is, whether we get rid of DNI or not, I think something has to change with DNI, and that's pretty clear.
• 41:06
  And so, you know, as you said, Mark Warner, I think, is a pretty responsible intelligence lead on the Senate side for Democrats.
• 41:15
  Republicans have several senators who are also deeply engaged on intelligence issues and have been for a long time, you know, including Marco Rubio-
• 41:26
  Melanie Marlowe: Marco Rubio, yeah.
• 41:27
  Zack Cooper: ... when he was in the Senate.
• 41:29
  I think there should be space to try and come up with a solution here, that maybe it's going to be difficult the next two years.
• 41:37
  But I would think that this is the kind of task that a Senate three years from now would take up, and maybe the House as well.
• 41:44
  Melanie Marlowe: I hope. You know, it's just so interesting, again, how public they are about some of the things that they're doing.
• 41:52
  You know, firing people who were upset about some Venezuela analysis or firing Jeffrey Kruse when he said that he didn't think that the nuclear program had been
• 42:02
  obliterated, that it had been set back a bit, but not obliterated, in Operation Midnight Hammer.
• 42:08
  The things that they're doing to make it obviously political is really striking, besides that they're doing it at all.
• 42:15
  That is something that should give some big hooks to senators on both sides of the aisle that are interested in making changes because it's not just going to be
• 42:24
  Republicans, again, that are in power going forward. There's, you know, going to be Democratic administrations, and we should think national concerns as well. All right.
• 42:34
  Well, then, let's have some grievances.
• 42:37
  Frank Costanza: "The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you, people. And now, you’re going to hear about it!"
• 42:47
  Melanie Marlowe: Chris?
• 42:49
  Chris Preble: So, my grievance is with organizations that do not...
• 42:53
  This is going to come as a great shock to my libertarian friends, organizations that do not respect labor laws.
• 43:01
  And in this case, I'm talking about the epidemic of unpaid internships that are... Again, this is intern season here in Washington more than any other.
• 43:11
  You know, most of us in this community have at one time or another worked an internship. In one respect, I was extremely fortunate.
• 43:20
  When I was a summer intern at the Cato Institute in 1987, I was extremely fortunate to have been paid a stipend then.
• 43:28
  But that stipend was not enough to cover the cost of my truly dreadful apartment that I was living in.
• 43:35
  So, I worked, you know, I parked cars in the evening and worked, you know, whatever 17, 18-hour days and ate ramen and all that sort of fun stuff.
• 43:45
  But so many people are here in Washington now and working these ridiculously long hours for no pay and trying to live in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
• 43:57
  I learned that my alma mater, if this is not true, then someone can correct me, I heard that my alma mater, George Washington University, is charging $7,000 for staying
• 44:08
  in a dorm for two months. I lived in those dorms for four years, and I can tell you categorically they are not worth $7,000 for two months.
• 44:18
  But there's a serious point here, folks, because I think that for those institutions that made a principled decision to do away with unpaid internships and to say, "If
• 44:29
  you're going to be an intern at our organization, you're going to get paid," if they didn't have the funds to pay the interns, then they stopped having interns, and
• 44:40
  that's also not a good solution.
• 44:42
  And so, I guess my appeal to listeners who are in this community and who benefited from an internship somewhere along the way, you know, think back on how important that
• 44:54
  internship was to your career and consider making a donation to your institution, the institution that you worked to support their intern program.
• 45:04
  That's an easy thing that you can do.
• 45:06
  But for now, Congress in particular is just completely impervious to this, and other institutions haven't adopted that approach of having paid interns, and I think it's,
• 45:18
  frankly, I think it's unconscionable, and I think it should stop.
• 45:23
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay, Zack.
• 45:25
  Zack Cooper: Couldn't agree more.
• 45:27
  Well, on the topic of politicization of people who run intelligence agencies, Kash Patel was recently directed to oversee a leak investigation into reporting by The New
• 45:41
  York Times about security issues with Air Force One.
• 45:45
  He did this reportedly while at the White House, where he stayed for eight hours last Friday managing this investigation, and they're going after a number of reporters
• 45:58
  with The Times.
• 45:59
  And let's be clear, first of all, not only should they not be doing this for legal reasons, but the idea that The New York Times was somehow disclosing really sensitive
• 46:13
  classified information by noting that the random plane that the president got from Qatar didn't have the security protections that Air Force One had, come on.
• 46:25
  We talked about this on the show when it happened years ago. Why?
• 46:31
  Chris Preble: Be careful, we might be getting a knock on the door soon.
• 46:33
  Zack Cooper: Right. Why? Oh, that's right, because part of the reason that Air Force One is so expensive and complicated is because it has lots of security protections.
• 46:43
  And part of the reason that everyone objected to the president taking this plane and using it as Air Force One from Qatar was that, hey, they didn't have the same
• 46:53
  security protections.
• 46:54
  So, is it really the case that when The New York Times reports that the plane from Qatar doesn't have the same security protections as Air Force One, that the problem
• 47:04
  here is the reporters who said that? Maybe.
• 47:07
  Maybe the problem is the plane and the decision to accept the plane, and all of the massive corruption that comes around with it.
• 47:15
  Maybe that's what the FBI should have been investigating. But I'll just leave it there.
• 47:21
  Melanie Marlowe: That's just you.
• 47:22
  Zack Cooper: That maybe that's just me.
• 47:23
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay, very good.
• 47:25
  Well, my grievance goes to the leaders of countries who went to the NATO Summit in Ankara last week, and they were gifted revolvers by President Erdoğan.
• 47:35
  They're engraved and, you know, beautiful and special mementos of the NATO Summit.
• 47:40
  But they either had to leave them in Turkey, or they had to, upon their return, immediately turn them over to law enforcement because they don't have laws that allow them
• 47:51
  to have their guns in their countries. Now, I know I'm an American, and I go to the shooting range occasionally, so maybe it's just Melanie the American talking here.
• 48:02
  But that was so lame, and at a NATO summit where you are trying to prove that you are man or woman enough to defend your own country, the idea that you cannot bring home
• 48:13
  that gun with you. Fine, leave the ammunition, whatever. I don't care. It was just really on the nose for some of those people. Okay, attas, Chris?
• 48:23
  Chris Preble: Okay, I have one fun atta and one serious atta.
• 48:27
  My fun atta goes to my dear friend and podcast co-host, Melanie Marlowe, who tweeted the following, "A lot of gloating Republicans who used to care about leaders' morals
• 48:38
  and good behavior and then decided around 2017 it was in their interest not to care anymore should sit this one out." You can guess what the context of that particular
• 48:50
  tweet was, and I thought it was so spot on. So, atta girl to Melanie Marlowe.
• 48:55
  But my serious atta goes to the Simpson Center and the Weapons Threat Reduction Program of Global Affairs Canada, affectionately GAC, who on July 1st announced the launch
• 49:07
  of the Brian Finlay Innovation in Threat Reduction Award, an annual award that is established in Brian's memory.
• 49:15
  Brian was a proud Canadian and a respected leader in our field, and so much of his work in his life was focused on dealing with threats, especially threats associated
• 49:26
  with proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And so, it's such an honor for our institution and a great way to remember Brian's legacy.
• 49:36
  So, I'm really grateful to our neighbors to the north and especially to GAC.
• 49:42
  Melanie Marlowe: That's wonderful.
• 49:43
  Zack Cooper: Yeah, that's great.
• 49:44
  Melanie Marlowe: Hard to top. Zack.
• 49:45
  Zack Cooper: Well, on another passing, just in the last 24 hours before we recorded the show, we had Lindsey Graham's passing.
• 49:53
  And look, I understand that listeners of the show may have different views of Senator Graham, and there are certainly some issues on which I didn't agree with him.
• 50:04
  But I do think the era of Republicans who are internationalists and committed to engagement around the world, Lindsey Graham was one of the few left in the Senate.
• 50:15
  Mitch McConnell, by the way, one of the others. And I think we're going to really miss Lindsey Graham.
• 50:22
  You know, just in the short term, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell on the defense and Senate Foreign side are the leading appropriators.
• 50:31
  And so, we're going to see just how hard things get in the Senate without those two leaders in their seats.
• 50:38
  And, you know, I probably wouldn't have followed the path that Lindsey Graham did on some of his support for President Trump's actions the last year.
• 50:48
  However, it's pretty amazing to watch President Trump, Stephen Miller, all these people in the Trump administration say incredibly nice things about Lindsey Graham after
• 50:59
  Lindsey Graham's brutal attacks on them going back 10 years ago.
• 51:03
  And I think part of what's interesting about that is that he actually did end up becoming a pretty close confidant of the president the last few years.
• 51:13
  And I wouldn't be surprised if President Trump ends up making some different decisions with Lindsey Graham gone.
• 51:21
  So, look, you know, as a man who spent 23 years in the Senate, sorry to see him go.
• 51:27
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. Well, my atta is for the Bayeux Tapestry that is going to London.
• 51:32
  I had a chance to go see the tapestry when I was in France a couple of years ago, and I just took a spontaneous day to go to Normandy, and then I ended up staying the
• 51:43
  night in Normandy and had a little time coming back and stopped and saw that.
• 51:49
  And as the AP describes it, "On loan from its home in France, the tapestry will go on display at the London Museum from September 10th until July 2027.
• 51:59
  It's a public homecoming for a vivid visual record of the 1066 Norman invasion, the last successful conquest of England.” And it describes this detailed operation to
• 52:10
  sneak it out of France and to get it into London, and the hours of the operation and how they had to contain that.
• 52:17
  And it will be a great exhibit, and I think it's so cool that it's going there. I'm going to go back and see it when I'm next in London, I hope in the spring.
• 52:28
  So, I highly recommend that to everybody.
• 52:31
  Chris Preble: Yeah, that's so cool. I also saw it when I was in Normandy. That is extremely cool, and for those of you who appreciate the history, it's worth seeing.
• 52:38
  Really, really awesome.
• 52:40
  Melanie Marlowe: I was with a couple of people, and I said, "Oh my gosh, we could stop and see this." And they were like, "What? What are you talking about?"
• 52:48
  Zack Cooper: Nerds.
• 52:49
  Chris Preble: Why?
• 52:50
  Melanie Marlowe: I know quite a few people that have a replica of it. Okay. Well, what do you have coming up?
• 52:55
  Actually, Chris, it's so convenient that you mentioned that tweet of mine because, you know, I know you have roots in Maine, and they're looking for someone.
• 53:03
  Chris Preble: Yeah. They are.
• 53:04
  Melanie Marlowe: Are you launching an independent campaign?
• 53:06
  Chris Preble: No, I've already had somebody reach out.
• 53:09
  I said, "I do not choose to run, and if nominated, I will not run, and if elected, I will not serve." So, there you have it.
• 53:15
  But I will say I'm very excited this week. about the release of a new movie, The Odyssey.
• 53:20
  And the last time I was this excited about the release of a movie was the other Christopher Nolan movie that we were all really excited about, Oppenheimer.
• 53:29
  I think of myself as, kind of, a film nerd, and I don't really think it's much of a contest.
• 53:34
  Christopher Nolan is, I think, the greatest filmmaker of our era, and so I am so looking forward to this film.
• 53:40
  And, we won't be there on the very first night that it's showing, but we will be there on the second night, and I'm really looking forward to it.
• 53:49
  Zack Cooper: How much of the IMAX tickets for that one, Chris?
• 53:52
  Chris Preble: No, I'm going to see it...
• 53:54
  The first time I'm going to see it at our local theater, the Alamo Theater, which I absolutely love, on the big screen, but I have already mentally decided I will
• 54:02
  subsequently see it in an IMAX theater. That one I'll probably go to by myself, so.
• 54:07
  Melanie Marlowe: Whatevs. Zack's probably seeing it in Tokyo, right?
• 54:10
  Chris Preble: It's going to be projected on the Great Wall, actually is where he's going to see it.
• 54:17
  Zack Cooper: I'm just trying to avoid this whole really nasty debate about whether Matt Damon looks Greek enough to be acting in the movie.
• 54:25
  Melanie Marlowe: I'm sorry. I can hardly imagine it, but people have said it is very good. It's hard to take seriously. Zack, anything important coming up?
• 54:34
  Zack Cooper: I'm here this week, just trying to get some writing projects done, and then I'm headed to Korea next week, so that'll be good.
• 54:41
  And then at the beach after that. So, I guess I'll be at the beach for our next recording, in fact.
• 54:47
  Melanie Marlowe: Oh, okay. Very nice. I'm quite jealous.
• 54:50
  Zack Cooper: You may have children in the background.
• 54:52
  Chris Preble: I think we should stipulate that you have to record on the beach. Actually, that should be the way we should do it.
• 55:00
  We'll run an extension cord from your Airbnb down to the beach.
• 55:04
  Melanie Marlowe: The audio will be great. Well, I'm facing the daunting task of getting back to the swamp, and I mean that literally, the humidity.
• 55:06
  So, everybody sure knows I am not a fan of that, but it's been a nice couple of weeks outside of Washington and coming back to a full email inbox.
• 55:08
  Thanks for listening to this episode of Net Assessment. If you enjoyed it, please rate us wherever you get your podcasts.
• 55:10
  Thanks to the Stimson Center for hosting us and to University FM for producing Net Assessment. Until next time, be well.