Introducing ‘The Political Scene’ from The New Yorker

Summary

Master Plan x The New Yorker’s "The Political Scene": Chaos at the Top of U.S. Intelligence

Podcast: Master Plan (feat. The Political Scene from The New Yorker)
Date: July 14, 2026
Host: The Lever & David Sirota (Master Plan), Jane Mayer (The Political Scene)
Guests: Susan Glasser, Evan Osnos (New Yorker); Jeff Stein (SpyTalk editor)

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Overview

This episode shares a recent "Washington Roundtable" discussion from The New Yorker’s "The Political Scene" podcast, where Jane Mayer, Susan Glasser, Evan Osnos, and guest Jeff Stein (SpyTalk) break down the alarming shake-ups and dysfunction inside U.S. intelligence agencies during Donald Trump’s second term. The episode focuses on Trump’s controversial appointment of Bill Pulte—an unqualified political loyalist—as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI), following the tumultuous tenure of Tulsi Gabbard, herself under scrutiny for alleged ties to a cult-like organization. The conversation exposes concerns over the politicization of intelligence, America’s vulnerability, and the implications of installing leaders with no relevant experience or with opaque—and sometimes dangerous—agendas.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reflecting Pool Scandal and "Trump 2.0" Politics of Grievance (01:05–03:38)

• The hosts begin by jokingly framing the chaos as “Seinfeldian,” highlighting both the absurdity and gravity of the current scandals.
• The "reflecting pool scandal" is used as a microcosm—Trump's constant search for 'saboteurs’ and scapegoats, targeting political enemies.

Quote (Susan Glasser, 01:36):
"Green slime from the red peril."

2. The Crisis at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (03:38–06:17)

• Trump replaces outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard with Bill Pulte, who “has no national security experience whatsoever,” instead known for revenge campaigns against Trump’s perceived enemies.
• The current state of U.S. intelligence is unsettling: the leadership changes are not “a great concern to most Americans,” but would become so "if they were attacked tomorrow." (Jeff Stein, 06:27)
• Tulsi Gabbard claimed to have “cleaned out some 40% of ODNI staff,” with Bill Pulte poised to remove even more people, amplifying the sense of institutional chaos and vulnerability.

Quote (Jeff Stein, 06:27):
"Tulsi Gabbard already cleaned out some 40% people from ODNI or claim to have. And now we got this guy, Bill Pulte, with zero intelligence experience…walking in and cleaning out more. So I'd like to know who he's bringing with him… It's just. It's chaos."

3. Bill Pulte: Zero Intelligence Experience, Maximum Loyalty (07:17–08:05)

• Statutorily, the DNI must have extensive national security experience—something Pulte blatantly lacks ("0. He's never even been a private in the Army.").
• Pulte is described as an “heir to a housing fortune” whose main credential is fealty to Trump, particularly by targeting adversaries via financial investigations.

Quote (Jeff Stein, 07:33):
"0. He's never even been a private in the Army...what he's famous or notorious for is using [his agency] to go after Trump's enemies to investigate their mortgages."

4. The Job and Power of the DNI, and the Dangers of Politicization (08:05–10:18)

• The DNI role—created after 9/11 to coordinate intelligence and prevent failures—is crucial but badly undermined by political tampering.
• The office has a direct influence over budget allocations, intelligence focus (counterintelligence, AI, signals intelligence), and integration across agencies—including military intelligence.
• The lack of experienced leadership threatens U.S. capacity to respond to crises and increases risk of manipulation and error.

Quote (Jeff Stein, 09:10):
"It takes not only experience with intelligence, but bureaucratic experience, too, how to pull together all these horses...and make them pull the sled in the same direction."

5. Why Trump is Targeting the Intelligence Community (10:18–12:32)

• Trump sees America's intelligence agencies as both a threat (the so-called “deep state” that questions his legitimacy) and a weapon (to use for vengeance or leverage).
• He’s obsessed with narratives about “rigged elections” and distrusts agencies since their conclusion that Russia interfered in his favor in 2016.
• Trump and his operatives have used the machinery of intelligence to pursue internal political enemies, with catastrophic potential.

Quote (Jeff Stein, 11:12):
"What he has against the intelligence agencies is that they concluded that the Russians interfered in the 2016 elections to his benefit…He's now got a federal grand jury going after people who were involved in the reporting on Russian interference..."

6. The Tenuous Legal Boundaries (12:32–14:08)

• Existing laws restrict intelligence agencies from domestic surveillance, but Trump’s allies have sought to circumvent these for political aims (e.g., linking domestic opposition to Antifa, manufacturing conspiracies).
• “He has politicized the principal arm of counterintelligence and counterterrorism to go after domestic political enemies.” (Jeff Stein, 12:50)
• Gabbard reportedly enabled or gladly participated in these campaigns.

7. The Explosive Tulsi Gabbard–Science of Identity Cult Allegations (15:30–19:53)

• The Washington Post, and earlier SpyTalk reporting, reveal Gabbard received hundreds of encrypted memos from Chris Butler, the head of the “Science of Identity” cult, dictating her political actions and public statements.
• Direct, verbatim parroting of cult leader instructions was documented on cable news.
• Gabbard, on her way out as DNI, spread Kremlin disinformation, e.g., about U.S. biolabs in Ukraine and COVID’s origins.

Quote (Jeff Stein, 17:39):
"He was sending in the plays like the coach on the sideline in an NFL football game. So that's the really mind-blowing new discovery by the Post."

Quote (Jeff Stein, 19:53):
"She, you know, passed this off as a fact. And that was another goodbye gift to Donald Trump on the way out the door. So she's just manufacturing falsehoods on the way out the door."

8. The Playbook: Intelligence as a Tool for Political Vendetta (21:44–24:10)

• Gabbard and Pulte embody a new Trumpian model, using intelligence access to “dumpster dive” for information useful to Trump’s cause, even if it means fabricating or distorting intelligence.
• The danger is not only retaliation, but the injection of false narratives into public debate (e.g., imminent Iranian nukes).

Quote (Jeff Stein, 22:40):
"Pulte…has fired six immediate staff and sent 45 staffers home to their parent agencies…There's nothing in his background that would tell us that he would know who to fire and who to keep."

9. The Erosion of Trust and Reality (24:10–26:01)

• The politicization and manipulation are feeding public cynicism and skepticism.
• Trump has “ushered the intelligence community into this culture of disbelief…he has made it utterly unreliable with people like this.” (Evan Osnos, 24:10)
• The specter of foreign influence (Putin, Syria) haunts the discussion, as past behavior suggests troubling allegiances.

10. The Ripple Effect: Impact on National Security and Elections (28:29–36:46)

• Expiry of key surveillance powers (e.g., Section 702 of FISA) increases vulnerability.
• Staffing purges, elimination of expertise, and deliberate chaos within agencies compound risks—especially amid ongoing wars and threats (e.g., Iran).
• Trump’s stated mission for Pulte: “look into the rigged elections,” using intelligence to try to find or manufacture ‘proof’ of fraud, undermining future election legitimacy.

Quote (Susan Glasser, 36:46):
"The vastness of the American intelligence collection apparatus…it can be deployed in the effort to prove that Democrats are not legitimately winning elections this fall..."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the absurdity of the scandals:
  "Seinfeldian. Such a great word." (Susan Glasser, 01:19)
• On installing unqualified loyalists:
  "There’s no floor here...they're just looking to, you know, kind of cut the federal workforce." (Susan Glasser, 31:50)
• On the history of intelligence mismanagement:
  "For all of us who were seared by that history...this should be a blaring alarm for a country that is at risk." (Evan Osnos, 33:50)
• On the stakes of agency dysfunction:
  "They're just playing Russian roulette with American security." (Jane Mayer, 34:58)
• Quoting Sen. Thom Tillis’ assessment of Pulte:
  "Just another hot, steaming pile of Doge shit." (Susan Glasser, 32:44)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Seinfeldian/Reflecting Pool joke: 01:05–01:42
• Intro to the Trump intelligence crisis: 03:38–06:17
• Pulte’s lack of qualifications: 07:17–08:05
• Role and power of the DNI: 08:05–10:18
• Why Trump targets intel community: 11:12–12:32
• Legal boundaries and politicization: 12:32–14:08
• Tulsi Gabbard cult allegations: 15:30–19:53
• Intelligence as political weapon: 21:44–24:10
• Manufactured narratives & trust: 24:10–26:01
• Section 702 / National Security risks: 28:29–29:51
• Election interference and "dumpster diving": 36:04–38:49

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Tone & Closing Reflection

The hosts’ tone is conversational but urgently concerned. There’s biting humor (“Doge shit”), disbelief, and shared alarm at the institutional unraveling and the potential for real harm to American democracy. The episode concludes with an open warning: The politicization and incompetence at the top of U.S. intelligence isn’t just inside baseball—it could have dire consequences for the safety and legitimacy of the country.

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For listeners new to the topic or following Master Plan’s investigations into political power and democratic crises, this episode is a deep, unnerving dive into how the machinery of American intelligence is being retooled for political gamesmanship, and what could go wrong next.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everyone, it's Jared Jukang Mayer. We're wrapping up the final episodes of Master Plan's second season. In the meantime, we wanted to share an episode of the New Yorker's podcast, the Political Scene. Three times a week on the political scene, the writers and editors at the New Yorker analyze the most pressing political issues of our time. In the episode we're sharing today, you'll hear from the Washington Roundtable. Staff writers Susan Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos are joined by the editor of Spy Talk, Jeff Stein. The group discusses Donald Trump's controversial pick of Bill Pulte as the acting head of the office that oversees the CIA, nsa, and the FBI. It's a role with huge responsibilities, but Pulte has no national security experience and is known for going after the president's perceived political enemies. It's a timely discussion about how America's spy agencies are being remade and what can go wrong. So if you enjoy Master Plan's investigations into power politics and the people shaping American democracy, we think you'll enjoy this conversation from the Political Scene. Be sure to go and find it and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Now, here's the political scene from the New Yorker.

[B]

Honestly, Jane, I feel like this reflecting pool scandal is maybe the perfect Trump 2.0 scandal. It's like a Seinfeldian.

[C]

Seinfeldian. Such a great word.

[B]

It's just the green monster that ate

[D]

the creature of the Green Lagoon, or whatever it is.

[B]

It made him mad. The madness of Donald Trump is encapsulated and like he's looking for the saboteurs

[D]

who he's going to start blaming it on. Communists. That's where this is going.

[C]

It's going there for sure. Green slime from the red peril.

[D]

That's pretty good, actually, Jane. You could have a future in that.

[C]

Welcome to the Political Scene from the New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. I'm Jane Mayer, and I'm joined by my colleagues Susan Glaser and Evan Osnos. Hey, Susan.

[B]

Hey, there. Great to be with you.

[C]

Hi, Evan.

[D]

Hey there, guys.

[C]

Well, this week, American intelligence agencies are in an alarming state of disarray, and it starts at the top. Trump has named Bill Pulte to be the new acting Director of National Intelligence, which, at least in theory, has some kind of purview over the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and 15 other agencies. Many have questioned whether there's really any serious power in the job, but on paper, it looks like he has authority over them. Meanwhile, Pulte has no intelligence background and no national security experience whatsoever. What he does have is a track record of carrying out Trump's campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies. Meanwhile, a blockbuster Washington Post investigation this week revealed that the outgoing Director of National Intelligence, who oversees America's vast spying network, Tulsi Gabbard, was secretly guided by an alleged cult leader through much of her political career. These developments raise bizarre questions few of us have ever thought we'd have to ask, such as who is actually running American intelligence and in whose interests? So, Susan Evan, what on earth is going on in the office of the Director of National Intelligence? And how bad is this?

[B]

You know, Jane, the truth is there's so many crazy things happening right now. It might be tempting just to sort of say, like, okay, it's another, you know, wacky person installed by Donald Trump to wreak some havoc temporarily. But, you know, one of the lesser appreciated scandals of Trump's second term is how much he has looked at this huge number of 18 different intelligence agencies of the federal government as two things. One, an instrument to wreak revenge and retribution on the deep state that he thinks has been undermining him, and two, as almost a vast treasure trove of documents and information just waiting to be revealed and released and used against his enemies. And I think the fact that he has essentially even temporarily withdrawn a kind of more acceptable alternative to succeed Gabbard as DNI and looks to put in this completely unqualified person as his acting DNI with a mandate to fire people and to quote, looked into the, quote, unquote, rigged elections, which is the mandate that he gave Bill Pulte. I think that's very much worth spending a few minutes of our time.

[D]

Yeah, I have to say, I mean, there has been a cascade of stories recently that as we're gonna talk about on this show, each one of them kind of is a bit mind bending. I mean, just to reiterate what you said a moment ago, Jane, we are dealing with a story that was in the Washington Post about the fact that Tulsi Gabbard, the now outgoing Director of National Intelligence, was being directed, according to this piece, by the leader of this cult that she was associated with growing up in Hawaii. We're gonna get into all the details, but a lot of this really makes you wonder what is going on inside the intelligence community. And I'm very glad we're gonna be talking about it, cuz it doesn't get a lot of airtime.

[C]

So in today's episode, what are the Perils of a dysfunctional dni. What happens when American intelligence is politicized, and why is Trump doing this? Now, to help us understand all of this, we have today a special guest, Jeff Stein, a longtime investigative journalist at Newsweek and the Washington Post, and the founding editor of SpyTalk, a Substack newsletter covering US intelligence, defense, and foreign policy. Jeff, welcome. So glad you can join us here today.

[E]

Thanks much. I'm pleased to be here. Thank you.

[C]

You've reported on the intelligence community for years. So what are people saying about the recent leadership shakeups and other dysfunction, and what are you hearing?

[E]

Well, there's a lot of dismay, but it's in the context of dismay about everything in U.S. foreign policy or the reflecting pole. I mean, there's one thing after another every day. I think, you know, changes at the top of the intelligence community are not of a great concern to most Americans, but there'd be great concern if they were attacked tomorrow. And Tulsi Gabbard already cleaned out some 40% people from ODNI or claim to have. And now we got this guy, Bill Pulte, with zero intelligence experience, or any national security experience for that matter, walking in and cleaning out more. So I'd like to know who he's bringing with him to the ODNI to tell him who should be cut and who should stay. It's just. It's chaos.

[C]

Well, under the statute by which the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created, it requires that the person leading it have extensive national security experience. Does Pulte have any?

[E]

0. He's never even been a private in the Army. He's never been near national security. He's an heir to a housing fortune in Florida who hung out at Mar a Lago. He runs a housing finance agency, which he's only used as far as we can tell. He might have done something good there, but what he's famous or notorious for is using it to go after Trump's enemies to investigate their mortgages. So he has zero experience, is the short answer.

[D]

Help us understand a bit about what the office of the DNI is, Jeff. People may remember that it was created specifically after 911 in order to address the kind of intelligence failures, particularly the failure to coordinate across agencies and things like that. But do you get the sense now, one, is this a meaningful job? If so, what is it? What do they actually have responsibility for? And to be clear, the Director of National Intelligence is formally in charge of $100 billion budget for the intelligence community. Right. But then does. Does that mean that that person actually has the ability to reach into the different agencies and direct them to do things. Or is it not that level of control?

[E]

Well, of course, Congress is in charge of the budget, but the head of the ODNI apportions the budget and can say we ought to emphasize more on this de. Emphasize that, put more people into counterintelligence or counterterrorism, less people into human intelligence. We should integrate AI into intelligence. That's a very big cutting edge field right now using AI. We should spend more on signals, intercepts, eavesdropping on foreign conversations. That's what the ODNI is supposed to do. And it's staffed by a lot of people from these agencies who lend their expertise to the Director of National Intelligence and say, well, this is working, but that isn't working. Also, the ODNI has some control or direction over the Defense Department covert programs, military intelligence and spending, and science and technology, which is very important. Wing has gotten some bad publicity recently because a senior executive in science and technology caught with gold bars in his basement and so on, and it was running a made up covert action program. So it's a big, big job. And it takes not only experience with intelligence, but bureaucratic experience, too, how to pull together all these horses. Pull together and make them pull the sled in the same direction.

[B]

So, Jeff, can I ask you, what is it that Donald Trump specifically seems to have against the dni? It looks like going back to his first term in office, he's become increasingly of the mind that there are enemies within to be rooted out there. He had a terrible experience, as he saw it, with his first director back in the first term, Dan Coats, a very establishment Republican former senator who, you know, according to reporting we did for our book, who looked at Trump's performance in Helsinki when Trump took Vladimir Putin's word over that of those intelligence agencies, Dan Coats turned to his deputies and he said, maybe Vladimir Putin really does have something on Donald Trump after all. Is that what's at the heart of Donald Trump's campaign against the DNI right now? What's going on there?

[E]

Rigged elections, right? That's the hot burner on his stove. And he pounds that theme day after day after day. And what he has against the intelligence agencies is that they concluded that the Russians interfered in the 2016 elections to his benefit. The overall aim of Russian intelligence was just to create chaos in U.S. elections. And that's always been their objective going back decades, but they've never really succeeded until 2016. According to intelligence community reporting, this really pissed off Trump because it cast doubt on his elections. He's now got a federal grand jury going after people who were involved in the reporting on Russian interference in the elections. And remember, he sent Tulsi Gabbard, or maybe she did it on her own initiative to please Trump. He sent her to Georgia to oversee the seizure of ballots in Georgia. So he wants to use the intelligence agencies to continue to cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections. And we're all just waiting for Bill Pulte to pull a similar stunt that Tulsi Gabbard did.

[C]

Well, forgive me for a really naive old fashioned question, but aren't there some restrictions on using the US Intelligence agencies to spy on Americans and do domestic operations that might, for instance, make it look like there's election fraud when it doesn't exist?

[E]

Well, yes, there are. And that's not a naive question. It needs to be asked again and again today because he has six the FBI with his footman Cash Patel to establish links between this hazy thing called Antifa, which seems to be more of a move, anti fascist movement. And he has designated these people as sort of enemies of the state. And he just announced an arrest of several people and trying to link them to Antifa, even though the head of FBI counterintelligence, while in congressional testimony, couldn't name who the leader of Antifa is or where it was located. And the reason for that is there is no leader of Antifa and it isn't located anyplace. So that's the problem. He's politicized the principal arm of counterintelligence and counterterrorism to go after domestic political enemies. And Tulsi Gabbard, for one, was all too happy to, you know, earn Trump's trust in her by joining that campaign. So it's, it's very dangerous. But the short answer is yes, there are laws against this kind of activity.

[C]

Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to dig in a little bit further into the subject of Tulsi Gabbard and the Washington Post reporting on her that alleges that she has ties to a very strange cult that calls itself the Science of Identity Group. We will be right back. This is the political scene from the New Yorker.

[F]

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[C]

MP if you've been enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice. And while you're there, do don't forget to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. Thanks so much for listening. So Jeff, before Bill Pulte, the DNI was as we've been talking about, Tulsi Gabbard and her tenure is now under renewed scrutiny. A Washington Post investigation that came out this week, along with reporting in your newsletter Spy Talk back in 2024, unearthed hundreds of encrypted memos seeming to show that a man named Chris Butler, who for years has been some kind of reclusive and self aggrandizing religious guru in Hawaii, has allegedly directed Tulsi Gabbard's policy positions, basically dictating everything from her legislative agenda to her media talking points throughout her time in Congress. We don't know still whether this lasted on through her period at the dni. On many instances, Gabbard used language in the memos verbatim. Here's one of the quotes that's in the Washington post article. An October 12, 2015 memo labeled CNN Wolf Blitzer talking Points Final told her exactly what to say about reports that she'd been asked by Democratic leadership not to attend a presidential debate. She was told to say, it's not a boo hoo. I don't get to go to a party situation, Wolf. Now listen to exactly what she did say to Wolf Blitzer on CNN that same day.

[B]

The issue here is not about me saying boo hoo. I'm gonna miss the party.

[C]

There you go. It's just bizarre. So Jeff, I mean, are you surprised to hear that clip and her just word for word repeating somebody else's statement?

[E]

Well, it was an extraordinary piece of reporting by John Swain, I must say. The ties between Tulsi Gabbard and this rogue Hindu guru have been well known in Hawaii for a long time, not just her but her family, we reported, as you noted back in 2024, about her ties to this. What's new in the Washington Post reporting is the strong evidence that she took orders from this guy. He was telling her what to say and what to do. For years, going back to her congressional terms from Hawaii as a Democrat, as kind of a peacenik Democrat, a Bernie Sanders follower, he was sending in the plays like the coach on the sideline in an NFL football game. So that's the really mind blowing new discovery by the Post.

[D]

Do you suspect that there will be an investigation into what happened? Is there going to be any kind of scrutiny about how and what this might have amounted to? Or do people just begin to move on and say it's time to talk about Bill Pulte?

[E]

I think there's just a feeling of good riddance with Tulsi Gabbard. She left a couple presents for Trump on the way out the door, by the way. She reinvigorated a phony Kremlin propaganda campaign saying that the US had funded secret biological warfare plants in Ukraine, among other places. This was circulated widely during the 2022 invasion and it was picked up by a number of segments of the left who like these kinds of conspiracy stories. So there's no basis for it whatsoever.

[C]

Isn't that exactly the problem? I mean, that somebody in there can take what in this case was Russian fake propaganda and release it as something coming out of the American intelligence community, giving it a whole new life and making it look credible? I mean, it's just an unbelievable mess in terms of figuring out what's real and what's fake and spreading lies, basically.

[E]

You're absolutely right. This report, this you put out was picked apart pretty quickly by experts on this subject who said, who noted that the map she put out didn't even have Kyiv in the right place. It didn't have this plant. There was a town that she just sort of made up or someone told her about in Ukraine where one of these plants was supposedly located. It doesn't exist. I mean, it was just shredded meaning. But how much of that filters down to the general public? This is not a big concern, I can tell you. I had a chat with a medical assistant at a doctor's office office yesterday, and she knew a little bit about my background. And I asked her, do you follow the news? She says, well, you know, a little bit. She said that reflecting pole thing, you know, I think that's landing, that's, that's breaking through before we leave. Tulsi Gabbard by the way, there's one other thing that she dropped on the way out the door. Another phony story about the Wuhan lab and Covid. She again cycled as a proven fact that the Wuhan lab manufactured this COVID virus that got out of hand and that Anthony Fauci somehow knowingly, deliberately, misreported, skewered intelligence to absolve the Chinese. I mean, it gets kind of complicated, but there's nothing to do with that. The fact is, and fact checkers have delved into this pretty deeply since he did this last week. It's inconclusive. We still don't know what exactly happened in Wuhan because the Chinese have not been transparent about it. But she, you know, passed this off as a fact. And that was another goodbye gift to Donald Trump on the way out the door. So she's just manufacturing falsehoods on the way out the door.

[B]

So it looks like Tulsi Gabbard has created a playbook for a Trump dni, Jeff, and that involves essentially dumpster diving in this trove of intelligence across these agencies and looking for opportunities to score political points. Now, she may have run afoul of the president because she doesn't have the same foreign policy views with him, clearly not on the same page when it came to the war in Iran, which he unleashed. Bill Pulte, tell us a little bit about where you think he might head with the revenge and retribution thing, as you pointed out, about rigged elections. And he's already shown this remarkable ability to get into the White House from this obscure housing position and sort of offer himself up as Donald Trump's man of vengeance. What do you think somebody who was more effective than Tulsi Gabbard could do in this job?

[E]

Well, she's fired some 40%, or she claims to have fired some 40% of the staff at ODNI already. And now Pulte, according to reports, has fired six immediate staff and sent 45 staffers home to their parent agencies. And he says that's it for now. I'd like to know where, you know, how did he decide who should go back to their agency? Who has he brought with him to the od because he doesn't know anything about it. There's nothing in his background that would tell us that he would know who to fire and who to keep. One thing I would look for, for example, and go, oh, of course he could find some raw reporting that said, say, Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. They were two weeks away. This is something that Trump is assertive forever, and there's no intelligence we know of that backs up that thing. I mean, there were so many steps away from developing a nuclear weapon, much less one that could be screwed atop a missile, an icbm, and fired at any length. So it's all a false notion. But he's in big trouble with the Iran war. I would not be surprised if somehow Bill Pulte comes up and waves an intelligence report, waves a piece of paper in front of the cameras, and said, we have found the real truth that Iran was right on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Would you be surprised? No.

[D]

What you're describing, Jeff, is a scenario in which you have an office that has the platform and the capacity to inject nonsense into public life, whether it's bogus allegations about Anthony Fauci or it's about Ukraine, or, as you just described, potentially trying to salvage Trump's rationale for the Iran war. And all of this seems as if it just contributes to the overall decline of American confidence in the intelligence community at a time when people already are saying, I don't know what I can trust. I don't know if I can trust the image. Is it by AI? I don't know if I can trust these tweets. Are they bots? So there is a way in which Trump has now ushered the intelligence community into this culture of disbelief, perhaps you can call it, because he has made it utterly unreliable with people like this.

[E]

Well, you've touched on a really good subject. It's one thing for him to manipulate the heads of national intelligence. It's another thing to discredit the intelligence community in general. Why would he want to do that? He must know at some level that discrediting American intelligence, which he began to do out loud, as you mentioned, before the Helsinki conference in 2018, in which he took Vladimir Putin's word over US intelligence on Russian interference in the elections. Now, why would he want to do that? I mean, that goes back to this larger question of what kind of relationship does Trump have with Vladimir Putin? Why would he risk US national security in line with what Vladimir Putin's aims are? I mean, that's gotta be a chief aim.

[B]

I was really struck in this new buzzy new book that everybody's reading this week, the Maggie Haberman Jonathan Swan Book. There's this remarkable scene on page six of the book in which Donald Trump is deciding who to put in the Cabinet. Tulsi Gabbard comes up, and Donald Trump literally says, well, what the hell? Let's give it to Tulsi, what harm could she really do, noting the book does she was being promoted by Roger Stone. And it's not just the mysterious cult. But, you know, one important thing to note for the listeners in context for this conversation is that Tulsi Gabbard, throughout her career, has taken positions like Donald Trump's that were remarkably soft on Vladimir Putin. She made that mysterious trip to Syria in 2017 at the height of the war, when Syria was essentially a client state of the Russians. I feel like your point is really well taken here about Gabbard and why the DNI matters to people.

[E]

Yeah, I mean, the important reporting of the Washington Post and John Swain was that there's no question now because of the evidence that was produced in that story. Thousands of emails showing this Hindu guru calling in the place and Tulsi like a marionette, you know, repeating what he wants her to say. The next question would be, was there any relationship between this Hindu guru and Vladimir Putin, the Russians, the Syrians? I mean, you have to ask, why would a congresswoman who later became oda, why would she be siding with Bashar al Assad, saying that it was the opposition that threw poison gas at Syrian villagers, when, you know, there was evidence that emerged long before that in fact it was the Assad regime? Why would she take take Putin's position on election interference? And she was on Russian TV a lot. They loved her in Kremlin. They crowed out loud in the Kremlin. Tulsi's our gal. So I think that's the next question for investigators. What was the relationship, if any? No evidence that there is any. But wouldn't we ask, was there a relationship between this Hindu guy and his businesses, by the way, which we delved into in 2024 is global businesses.

[C]

I had one more intelligence community question that's also somewhat alarming that's come out of this whole thing, which is this warrantless wiretapping law, section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, which has just expired. Does this mean we have blind spots around the world at a time when we are to some extent in a war with Iran?

[E]

I think the hawks would say that for sure. I mean, they say this is an irreplaceable tool. There are lots of concern concerns, and this is why it's been hung up for some time over its warrantless surveillance. They can listen to Americans, they can get their communications records from Google and so on from mail servers. So this has sidelined this surveillance tool, which is adherence, say is an absolute necessity for monitoring terrorist threats and influence operations against America. God help us if there's another terrorist attack. And you look at this absence at the top, someone any qualifications running OD9, plus all the cuts in counterterrorism and counterintelligence, including Iran specialists at the FBI. So put those two things together and it gives me the shivers.

[C]

Great. Well, well, this will be another sleepless night. Thanks so much, Je. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you so much for being with us and helping decode the intelligence agencies and the debacle at the DNI's office.

[E]

It's an honor to be on your show. Thank you.

[C]

The political scene from the New Yorker will be back in just a moment.

[F]

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[C]

So what did you think, Susan?

[B]

There's no floor here. I mean, you know, I referenced reading the Regime Change book and the reason is not just the crazy way in which Tulsi Gabbard was appointed, but both Gabbard and Bill Pulte in some ways are these very representative figures of Trump 2.0, right? They're people who whose agendas are opaque, who come from nowhere, who never ever, ever would have had these sensitive national security jobs if it weren't for Donald Trump, who seems to be on a mission to take a sledgehammer to the credibility and good faith of the government of the United States. I was really blown away. We didn't talk about it, but there's this amazing quote from Republican now unleashed, retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis, you know, who was asked about Bill Pulte the other day, and he said, well, my guess is based on his past experience, it's just going to another hot, steaming pile of Doge shit. But, you know, it seems to me having this conversation with Jeff Stein, who I should say is an old friend of mine, you know, and has always been a really great counselor to me on, on various matters and how to decode the intelligence community. But I think a pile of steaming pile of Doge shit is, is the best case scenario here. You know, that they're just looking to, you know, kind of cut the federal workforce. When I listen to Jeff, when I read this account of how Pulte got into Donald Trump's favor in the Oval Office by promising to take down Jay Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, he actually Pulte, according to Maggie and Jonathan's reporting, Pulte actually pre wrote a letter from Donald Trump firing Jay Powell. And Donald Trump was so taken with that. That was one of the ways in which he ingratiated himself with the President, United States. So this man having the keys to our intelligence community, I think is frankly terrifying in a way that goes beyond potentially firing people.

[D]

I think that one of the chilling reflections that Jeff leaves us with is the sense that if you go back to the history of the prelude to 911 in 2001, at the time, what you saw was to be concise about it, you saw a lot of professional intelligence work and a combination of political valence, and the result was diabolical. You had people that were blinding themselves to what was coming. You had ultimately then the run up to the war in Iraq in which the intelligence community was drawn into the political project of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and others. And this is a history which is now far enough in the past that I think a lot of particularly, you know, younger Americans don't really know some of this. But for all of us who were seared by that history, who I think know what can happen when an intelligence community is either misused or is dysfunctional and ineffective, this should be a blaring alarm for a country that is at risk in a way that it wouldn't be if it had real leadership in these positions.

[C]

Totally. I mean, as someone who covered those hijackers and the intelligence community's breakdown over it, what happened was the CIA knew that two of the hijackers for the 911 plane hijackings, for the plane that went into the Pentagon. Two of them the CIA knew had come into the United States and didn't tip off the FBI that they were here. And those two hijackers burrowed into the community in San Diego and then worked with Al Qaeda to plan the planes hijacking. And because these two agencies weren't speaking to each other, the FBI knew about these guys also, but didn't know their history before this. And the CIA knew the history, but not where they went afterwards when they came into the U.S. you know, these things matter. It was just a tragedy beyond tragedy what happened because of these problems. And then just to sort of recreate them so casually by putting people in who have no idea what they're doing. They're just playing Russian roulette with American security.

[D]

And I think to pick up on one other thing that Jeff drew our attention to is now looking ahead to the midterm elections. You've already got Donald Trump talking about a rigged election. And this is now gonna be the mantra over the course of the next few months, Susan, here he is now in a position to be able to, and your phrase is a great one, go dumpster diving to find whatever he wants across all of these different agencies and to put things out into the informational bloodstream, which has the effect of just undermining people's confidence in the system, diminishing their enthusiasm to participate. All of this ultimately can conspire to really create a political perfect storm, can it not?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, absolutely, Evan. And especially because Donald Trump said the mission for Pulte was to look into the rigged elections. He means both backward looking, that is to vindicate him from the charge that he is somehow upon of the Russians when he was elected to office in 2016, but also in a forward looking sense. And remember that one of the conspiracy theories that is circulated forever by Trump and people like Tulsi Gabbard has to do with somehow some vague nefarious foreign interference in the 2020 election which Donald Trump lost and refuses to admit he lost. And that goes back to this crazy conspiracy theory involving Venezuela and Dominion voting machines. And so when I think about what could Pulte do, I hadn't thought about Jeff's scenario, which is the manufacturer, or produce some kind of proof that Donald Trump wasn't just talking out of his rear end with his claims about Iran and a nuclear weapon. But what I have thought a lot about is how might they bring in foreign actors into their burgeoning conspiracy theories about the 2026. And that's where this enormous and I can't overstate this, I think the vastness of the American intelligence collection apparatus, it sees and hears an unbelievable amount of stuff and it can be deployed in the effort to prove that Democrats are not legitimately winning elections this fall, or

[C]

that opponents or critics of Donald Trump are antifa or whatever else you want to call them. As he pointed out, too, where you could sort of create domestic investigations and enemies, it's just all together. I'm even more appalled than when we started here today. I'm sorry, but it was great to have this conversation. At least we will have our antenna up to watch for false intelligence coming out of there.

[D]

We will. I have to say the stories we talked about today are stories that are jaw dropping. And I hate to say it, but this is the kind of episode that I think you need to bookmark and think about. Look back on it in a few months and see how much of this has become part of the news. Great to join you guys today.

[B]

Thank you very much.

[C]

Fantastic to be together as usual. This has been the Political Scene from the New Yorker. I'm Jane Mayer. We had research assistance today from Alex d'. Elia. Our producer is Nora Richie, mixing by Mike Kutchman. Steven Valentine Valentino is our executive producer and our theme music is by Alison Layton Brown. We're off next week, but please check into this feed for a special episode from our Friends at the New Yorker's Critics at Large podcast. It's an episode about America turning 250, told through the music that reflects America. Have a great 4th of July. Thanks for listening.

[A]

That was the Political Scene from the New Yorker. New episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Search Political Scene wherever you listen and subscribe for more. New episodes of Master Plan are coming in August, and we've published several bonus interviews for our premium subscribers. You can listen to those interviews and support our [e-mail] There are a bunch

[C]

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[F]

Wow, you made it all the way to the end. Want to keep going? The next episode is available right now for paid subscribers. They already know what's coming next, so don't wait. Become a paid subscriber [e-mail] upgrade. You'll get every episode of Master Plan early and ad free, plus exclusive bonus interviews, access to our research, and more. Again, that's Levernews.com upgrade. There's a link in the show notes.