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- [00:00]
Anna Bauer
It's 2026, and if you're still paying rent without Bilt, it's time for a change.
- [00:05]
Shane Harris
BILT is a loyalty program for renters.
- [00:07]
Anna Bauer
That rewards you for your biggest monthly expense, rent. I don't like paying rent, and I bet you don't either, but BILT makes.
- [00:14]
Scott R. Anderson
It feel a little better.
- [00:15]
Anna Bauer
BILT is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you monthly with points and exclusive benefits in your neighborhood.
- [00:20]
Scott R. Anderson
Let me explain.
- [00:22]
Anna Bauer
With bilt, every rent payment earns you points that can be used towards flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so much more.
- [00:30]
Lauren Voss
And more.
- [00:30]
Anna Bauer
And here's something I'm really excited about. Starting in February, BILT members can earn points on mortgage payments for the first time. Soon you'll be able to get rewarded wherever you live and unlock exclusive benefits with more than 45,000 restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies, and other neighborhood partners. Personally, I'd use my BILT points for travel. Turning rent into flights feels like a win.
- [00:52]
Scott R. Anderson
It's simple.
- [00:53]
Anna Bauer
Paying rent is better with bilt, and soon owning a home will be better with BILT too. Earn rewards and get something back wherever you live. Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbuilt.com acast that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com acast make sure to use our URL so they know.
- [01:13]
Scott R. Anderson
We sent you Amazon One Medical Presents Painful Thoughts I've been on hold to make a doctor's appointment for 23 minutes now. The automated voice has told me 47 times that my call is very important to them. Hmm. I'm starting to think that they don't think my call is important at all.
- [01:33]
Shane Harris
With Amazon One Medical 24.
- [01:35]
Scott R. Anderson
7 Virtual Care, you'll get help fast.
- [01:38]
Shane Harris
Without having to remain on the line.
- [01:39]
Scott R. Anderson
To make an appointment.
- [01:40]
Shane Harris
Amazon One Medical Healthcare just got less painful.
- [01:47]
Scott R. Anderson
Shane, I don't know if this is the first time rational security listeners have gotten to see the inside of your sound bunker, but it's really got like a complex vibe. It's got an MC Escher sort of feeling going, a lot of cross hatching, crossing direction, and then the stars give it a vaguely patriotic vibe like you're trying to cater to the powers of the moment. What's going on here?
- [02:06]
Shane Harris
Shane, you know me, I'm always pandering.
- [02:08]
Scott R. Anderson
And that red hat you took off right before we hit record. Really? Really?
- [02:13]
Shane Harris
I almost wore a hat? No, this is my sound booth that Joe, my husband, built for me. Kind of like after the pandemic you've heard me in this booth before, but you might not have ever seen the.
- [02:25]
Scott R. Anderson
I think I might be right.
- [02:26]
Shane Harris
It reminds me a little bit of a padded room.
- [02:28]
Scott R. Anderson
There you go. Which we need these days. It's a healthy.
- [02:30]
Shane Harris
I know somebody I could put in here.
- [02:31]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, exactly. This is why Shane sounds so velvety. In the real life, Shane is a shrieking harpy. But here in this chamber, he has the perfect radio voice on this screen.
- [02:40]
Shane Harris
Screaming queen in person. Just can't. Yeah, exactly.
- [02:43]
Scott R. Anderson
It's amazing.
- [02:44]
Anna Bauer
Do you ever go in there to just chill?
- [02:46]
Shane Harris
You know, I haven't, but it actually is. It would be a great meditation room. It's like a chamber. But I do feel very relaxed the minute that I step in.
- [02:54]
Scott R. Anderson
What is the top like? This is what I envision. I like to think it's either like a skylight viewing to the night sky to complement the stars, or just a sad overhead light. Oh, it's really tall.
- [03:03]
Anna Bauer
Oh, wow.
- [03:04]
Shane Harris
See?
- [03:05]
Scott R. Anderson
Wow. Joe. Joe has outdone himself. Impressive.
- [03:08]
Shane Harris
He really is quite good. This is the only time you will see me get back in the closet.
- [03:12]
Scott R. Anderson
Was it original?
- [03:14]
Anna Bauer
Was it originally a. It was. It was a closet.
- [03:18]
Scott R. Anderson
Straight.
- [03:19]
Shane Harris
It's a laundry closet. Like, there is a laundry attachment, like right here. I could hook up to, like, water and gas and put a washer dryer.
- [03:25]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, that could be very convenient.
- [03:26]
Shane Harris
What was here?
- [03:27]
Scott R. Anderson
Espresso machine Cocktail. Something I should do.
- [03:30]
Shane Harris
Thank you. Scott, come over. Get over here right now.
- [03:33]
Scott R. Anderson
Take the laundry shoe that you can just throw your notes in when you're done and toss them completely.
- [03:36]
Shane Harris
It's a burn room. Burn bag.
- [03:43]
Scott R. Anderson
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Rational Security, the podcast where we invite you to join members of the lawfare team and some of our friends and family to join us as we try to make sense of the week's biggest national security news stories. It is, as they are all these days, a very big week for national security news and. But I'm thrilled to be joined by two of my colleagues and one good friend and former host emeritus of the podcast joining us to talk them over this week. First up is said post emeritus, none other than Shane Harris of the Atlantic. Shane, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. Always a pleasure to have you.
- [04:13]
Shane Harris
Hello. It's great to be back.
- [04:14]
Scott R. Anderson
I think last time we had you on, we were both in the, you know, low oxygen levels, slightly euphoric. Aspen, Colorado. Now we're beer. Now we're back at sea level here in Washington, D.C. it's good. A little more stable minds a little less obscenities. That podcast got a little inappropriate, if I recall.
- [04:30]
Shane Harris
I don't know how stable our minds are right now, but.
- [04:33]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, yeah, exactly. Well, that's why we have you in your padded room.
- [04:35]
Shane Harris
Exactly right. Exactly right.
- [04:36]
Scott R. Anderson
Also joining us, thrilled to have with us lawfare's public service fellow, one of Lawfair's public service fellow recently returned from family leave. And we really appreciate her joining us in spite of her having a new little guest alongside her, none other than Lauren Voss. Lauren, A, congratulations. We're so excited for you. And B, thank you so much for coming back and joining us.
- [04:53]
Lauren Voss
Thanks. Thanks for having me. This is number three, so I feel like I'm an old hat now.
- [04:58]
Scott R. Anderson
No kidding. Yeah, you've got the experience down pat when you start podcasting while feeding a baby a bottle, which is what you're doing right now. You know, you really are really an expert at this thing. So we'll see how it goes. And so far, not a peep. It's really quite impressive. I can't keep any of my kids off the podcast when I do it at home. And joining us as well is Lawfare senior editor and trial correspondent par none, Anna Bauer. Anna, thank you for joining us today.
- [05:20]
Anna Bauer
Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. I think this is my first time on a Rational Security episode with one of the OG Shane. Cause Shane, you're one of the O Rational Security team, right?
- [05:31]
Shane Harris
I'm the OG host.
- [05:32]
Scott R. Anderson
He's the OG host. I've based my whole personality on Shane.
- [05:36]
Anna Bauer
Well, there we go. This is exciting.
- [05:40]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, for me too. It's always a joy. And we have some of our best episodes with Shane. I'm sure this will, this is no pressure, guys, but there's high bar to match, so we'll see how it goes. But we have a lot to talk about this week. A lot is happening in the news, so let's jump to our topics. Topic one for today. Minnesota. Nice. That's I, C E. All capital letters for those not reading along the show notes at home. Amidst ongoing tensions over the Trump administration's hyper aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota, the Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least five state Democratic officials, including Governor Tim Waltz, in regards to allegations that they are conspiring to or may be conspiring to obstruct federal efforts there. This is, of course, all happening against a backdrop about concerns that the President may invoke the Insurrection act to deploy the military to Minnesota, something the President said is not necessary yet, but he's willing to do at some stage, and that many people feel both these actions and other statements by Justice Department and other administration officials may be laying the ground for what should we make of these recent developments of these investigations and the threat of the Insurrection act being invoked in Minnesota? Topic two Fed UP Last week, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Jerome Powell announced in a video that the Federal Reserve had received two subpoenas from the Justice Department as part of a criminal inquiry into congressional testimony he gave regarding cost overruns in a renovation project at the Federal Reserve headquarters here in Washington, D.C. many are calling, including Powell himself, the probe an attempt to undermine the Fed's independence. But of course, the Justice Department is suggesting otherwise. And this is all happening against the backdrop of a Supreme Court case in which oral argument is happening as we record regarding Lisa Cook, another board member who the President Trump tried to remove in regards to other allegations against her. And so this is all raising the same standard, saying what is the standard that a president can remove a member of the board for alleged impropriety that certainly hasn't been proven in a court of law is based on allegations and investigations by the Justice Department. The treatment of Powell has triggered a pretty strong political response, a response in the markets, but it's not clear any of it has the Trump administration backing down as of yet. What should we make of the Justice Department's actions here, the response by the Federal Reserve, and what will it all mean for the oral arguments and the Supreme Court decision pending regarding Lisa Cook? The Sound and the Fury Media reports came out this week with a pretty bombshell break in the Havana Syndrome story, which has revolved around a set of anomalous health incidents that different US Diplomatic and intelligence and military personnel have had in various corners of the world, which have been in some corners tied to alleged government activity by foreign governments while under prior administration. The intelligence community concluded this was unlikely. We've seen those assessments change. And recently a report has come out that the US Government has in fact, or at least has reportedly purchased a device that may be able to cause some of these incidents, which reportedly has some Russian components, although it wasn't purchased directly from Russians, that they are now testing that may be able to recreate some of these health effects, suggesting this was in fact the result of deliberate state action. We've now got a bit of a split view among the different intelligence agencies. At the same time, it is renewing the uproar among many affected by these syndromes who have argued that Havana Syndrome is the product of targeted state action needs to be taken more seriously by the federal government. What should we make of these recent breaks in the story? What does it tell us about the role this technology may be playing global affairs? And what does it say about this ongoing controversy about how it should be approached by the executive branch? So, for our first topic, let me turn to you first, Anna. We have this pretty substantial development in Minnesota regarding these investigations. Minnesota has been in a state of a fair amount of unrest for the last several weeks. It's been the focus of one of these very targeted kind of roving immigration enforcement efforts that the Trump administration has been pursuing, where they are using very aggressive tactics, targeted and certain cities, certain areas, particularly focused in Minneapolis as kind of a inkblot method. Sit down. Really aggressively enforce immigration tactics in particular areas. We saw this in Chicago a few months ago. We've seen a few other areas, and this seems to be the latest endeavor that's caused lots of controversy, particularly since the killing of Renee Goode by an ICE agent, I think, two weeks ago now, give or take, which we talked about previously on the podcast. The subpoenas the Justice Department has released is a pretty major development in the overall arc of the story, which has lots of legal and policy intersections. There's also a legal challenge to what the Trump administration is doing by the state Attorney General, Keith Ellison, alleging essentially that's something like an unlawful invasion by the federal government or infringement upon state rights. We have this investigation happening. There's concerns about the Insurrection act that of course, intersect with the Supreme Court's case that came out just before December. So it's really inserting itself into this really complicated legal and policy environment. So talk to me what the Justice Department has done here and. And what sense we should be making of it.
- [10:30]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. So, I mean, look, Scott, I'll say that there' swe don't know a whole lot other than that these subpoenas have gone out to people like Governor Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey, some other Democratic officials, and that it seems to relate to an ongoing investigation that the DOJ is conducting related to who knows what. It's hard to even say what the possible criminal predicate could be, because there just doesn't seem to be any kind of real basis for a criminal predicate. You know, putting aside my kind of sober, analytical mind for a second, I just kind of look at this and think, what are they doing here? The conduct here in terms of investigating these state officials truly just seems baseless. We've seen this before as a pattern of behavior. We're going to talk in a few minutes about the Powell investigation, the Cook investigation, these seemingly pretextual, politicized investigations that serve a kind of larger goal, potentially that doesn't go to the federal government's interest in criminal justice. And so here the question is, what does a potential pretextual criminal investigation of these state officials serve? You know, I would turn that to you guys and see what your thoughts are, because I'm really not sure. You know, obviously there's the Insurrection act, threats of invoking it that are lurking in the background. There's been a lot of rhetoric as well from senior administration officials like Stephen Miller, who have accused Governor Walz and Jacob Frey of. And other local officials of telling local cops to, quote, surrender and stand down and kind of don't enforce the laws. That may very well be related to some type of pretextual rhetoric surrounding, you know, failures of the state government to enforce the law in Minnesota. So it all seems to be pretext, but to what end? I'm not entirely sure right now. What do you. But what do you guys think? I mean, can you make more sense of this than I can if I.
- [13:05]
Shane Harris
Look at it through kind of like the political lens, which is generally the safe way to look at most things with this administration? You know, Donald Trump has a fixation on the state of Minnesota. I mean, he talked yesterday, I think, publicly about, you know, the elections that are being rigged, which is another one of his favorite themes. He talks about Somali immigrants there. We remember things that he said in the campaign about these communities. You know, I think it is, it seems to me to be a pretty obvious case of him trying to intimidate state officials and make it look like they're the ones who can't control their state, which potentially creates a pretext for the Insurrection act. Deploying troops. There's reports that about 1500 troops from two battalions in Alaska are preparing to deploy to Minnesota to sort of get things back on track. Just in talking to colleagues, though, who've been clovering this the past couple days as well, it does seem to me, and these could be famous last words, but the White House seems to have a sense to me that they know that they're losing the public opinion battles here. People do not want to see whether they're in Minnesota or, I think, elsewhere, ICE agents roving the streets, beating people up, shooting people in the face with tear gas. I mean, the killing of Renee Goode was sort of the apex of this tension. I think the image of, you know, and this is very much Lauren's domain, and Expertise, but of us, like regular forces on the ground, you know, beating up protesters. I mean, I think maybe even this White House knows that that's a bridge too far. You know, Stephen Miller is kind of, I think, off pursuing his own agenda and his own aims. And sometimes you get the feeling that Donald thinks that maybe Stephen Miller's going too far, even for the Trump administration. But this just all seems deeply pretextual to me. And, you know, and I don't even know, I mean, to your point, Anna, but, like, to what end? I mean, what would they even be charging here? I mean, it sort of feels, in the spirit of the Mar A Lago election, grand conspiracy investigation, which is personally my favorite grand conspiracy. And I appreciate that you guys did a whole podcast on that this week. But it's just sort of like, you know, using the threat of investigation as a kind of cudgel. And, you know, I just. I don't think it's going to work. I mean, Governor Waltz has his own problems that he's dealing with and has decided he's not running again. But, you know, if you're these other state and local officials, I think you're kind of looking at the White House and DOJ and saying, bring it on.
- [15:32]
Anna Bauer
There's also an element to this that putting aside, you know, the fact that it's obvi. It seems obviously to be pretext, it is kind of pretext at the peril of the popularity of some of these officials who are. Who are promising big things to the MAGA base. You know, Pam Bondi is in Minnesota today. There's lots of talk amongst people who are big supporters of Trump and of this weaponization of the Justice Department, people who've been calling for months and months for, you know, arrest of Democratic officials or people who they perceive to be enemies of Trump's policy agenda. And over and over and over again, Bondi and her allies, Trump's allies, seem to make these big promises about how, oh, people are gonna be arrested. It's coming, it's coming. There's gonna be indictments, there's gonna be this, there's gonna be that. And then it doesn't happen because there's not a sufficient basis for it to happen, because we have checks in the criminal legal system that include things like grand juries. And here that grand jury will be a grand jury that sits in the very city where federal officials are, you know, beating up people and in some instances, killing people on the streets in it to enforce a deeply unpopular in that city policy agenda. So it's really going to be interesting to see how many times this Trump Justice Department can say justice is coming to its supporters and then not be able to follow through on that.
- [17:19]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, I think there's one aspect of this I generally agree with what you all are saying. There's one aspect of this that jumped out at me as really kind of interesting and may hint a little bit at what they're trying to do, which I think is that. But maybe something slightly different in this case. One is that the information requests we have mostly allege penetrate or kind of get information regarding conversations about cooperating or not cooperating with ICE and other federal law enforcement. And so it seems clearly premised on some sort of conspiracy theory about exactly what this would be, some sort of conspiracy kind of nexus. A There's a deep tension there around again, a lot of the criticisms of allegations against President Trump and those around him, including that a lot of the defense of those is that Jack Smith and others intruded on political speech. And this is very clearly political speech in a lot of these regards, particularly public statement by Waltz and Ellison and others. But one thing they also ask for is a decline to affirmatively help federal law enforcement. That particularly jumped out at me something to ask information about because of course there is no legal obligation for state officials to affirmatively help federal law enforcement at all whatsoever. Maybe there are sometimes MOUs or obligations or there may be there are narrow cases where certain federal legislation provides funding or condition, but there's generally not something that you can commandeer state level law enforcement to proactively help a federal law enforcement agenda. That's just not something not way federalism works in this country. So that strikes me as saying that this is really maybe less inclined to actually reach an investigation, like you said, but maybe more inclined, particularly because it's fairly broad reaching to a lot of officials and a lot of offices around the state to maybe steer people in those offices to say, well, maybe I better cooperate with federal law enforcement more, or maybe I better not say anything about not cooperating with federal law enforcement because there is this investigation happening and I have to be worried about at least the reputational harm, if not the other harm. It's a little bit of a cudgel that we've seen in other cases where this administration likes to use investigations and other things as pressure tactics to steer people in a particular direction, even where the viable criminal case at the other end seems very unlikely. Here, though, there is the other factor that there is a viable criminal investigation happening to some extent that touches on Governor Waltz and other people, not directly, not in a way that I think would expose them to criminal liability. But you could see the Justice Department seriously ramping up that investigation in response to non compliance online, these other things. And frankly, I don't think there's anything that would stop them. And that's a case where you could end up getting charges in prosecution. I don't think any of these people who are being targeted are specifically worried about it. But it does mean maybe the Justice Department feels like and may actually have a little more leverage than they would over a bunch of people for whom there was no legitimate federal law enforcement investigation happening kind of alongside some of these charges. Then again, the prosecutors in charge of that investigation did just resign over their refusal to investigate Renee Goode's partner. So that investigation probably not on track, to say the least. But let's go to the Insurrection Act. Lauren, I want to come to you on this because this is obviously the big issue hanging over this case. We had a Supreme Court case that we really, frankly didn't really get to talk about because it happened right over the holidays where the Supreme Court came out and said 12406 the statutory provision the Trump administration used 10 USC 12406 in Los Angeles, tried to use in Chicago and Portland, did use a little bit, but neither operation really got underway in a serious way. That legislation is supposed to be only allow for the use of or the federalization of National Guard troops, where regular forces are not able to do the underlying task when enforcing federal law. Supreme Court said that means regular military forces, not regular law enforcement forces, which is how the state and to some extent a lot of the plaintiffs have been interpreting it in the lower court litigation. And then the Supreme Court went one step further. They said, and by the way, if you're going to enforce federal law, you have to have a federal legal basis for doing it. And in this case, all of these deployments were premised upon the protective power, which is specifically not enforcing federal law under the executive branch's own conception of the protective power. It's protecting federal property, but it's not enforcing federal law. So it's not clear how that would qualify for 1246. Anyway. Justice Kavanaugh wavered on that, but the other five justices were on board on that point. So what does this tell us about how the Insurrection act now fits in? Because that disqualifying 12406 does seem to put the onus on the Insurrection Act. If the president wants to use federal military forces or federalized National Guard forces in Minnesota or anywhere else. So how does that intersect and what do we see happening on the ground that might lean in the direction of an Insurrection act invocation?
- [21:37]
Lauren Voss
Yeah. So a lot of people are saying now that 12406 is off the table, that that will push the President to do the Insurrection act, that he's just lost one of his tools. But I don't think that's necessarily true because I think the president has been wanting to use the Insurrection act since day one. And previously in his last administration, you have a number of former, whether it be Millie Esper, Miles Taylor coming out and talking about his first administration and his desire to use the Insurrection Act. Right. And so he did threaten it on the 15th, and then on the 16th, kind of walked back and said, oh, I don't think I need the Insurrection act yet. But it does look like 12406 is somewhat off the table if he wants to do law enforcement. But he could actually just make the call and say regular forces can't be used and he could still deploy under 12406. Right. There's a whole bunch of decisions and things that haven't been decided under using 12406. It's just that he couldn't use it to do law enforcement. So we will see what happens on that front. But I think what you see in Minnesota is a case being built. Right. They picked a location. As we talked about, the President has something against Minnesota. This is deemed unsympathetic to a large portion of the population because of the immigrant fraud that they'd been discussing. Granted, I will say, you know, the scope of that fraud has not been proven at the level that's claimed right now. They've brought in a massive amount of barely trained Department of Homeland security agents. Right. Like 3,000. They're taking aggressive actions towards peaceful protesters. Sometimes those protesters are bystanders, just people passing by. Right. Like they're American citizens, they're children. And then they're waiting for that to foment into some type of protest and unrest. And that makes the argument then that you need to bring in the military. We were talking about these subpoenas that were going out, and one of the questions allegedly being around, like, are you helping the DHS agents? And I think what that gets to is helping build this case for the Insurrection act, that state and local officials either are unwilling or unable to deal with the problem, and that's why you have to bring in these military troops. I think he's going to Try and make a civil rights era argument that this is, oh, just like that time period where you had governors and local officials trying to stop the enforcement of law and judicial decisions. That's why I have to do it here. And there's only one judicial decision right now, the Tensure Venom preliminary injunction. And that goes against the ICE agents. Right. And says that they were violating first and fourth amendment rights. And I'd say that this is closer to like the invocations that we saw, like the great railroad strike of 1877, other times where the military sent in forces to end strikes and protests. And that's more of the scenario thing here. But it seems like this is an on purpose trying to escalate the situation right now. There's been, you know, the rumors that troops are ready to go. The Pentagon chief spokesperson didn't deny it, but he just said they're always ready to prepare to execute on orders. I think what we need to be thinking about here though, is what would this mission actually look like? Like, why would the President want to use troops here? I mean, the DHS agents, the ICE and CBP ones are already doing a lot of very aggressive tactics. So what do you get from the military here? And I'm worried about what the mission would actually be. Right. So it could be law enforcement at protest locations, but it could also be things like tracking down agitators. Right. Or actually conducting immigration enforcement directly. And if we think it's not really about protests impeding the enforcement of the law, you won't just see them deployed at main protest sites. Right. And deescalating, you could see them then actually doing things like trying to track down those that are deemed agitators that aren't temporally located at protest sites. So looking at online social media type stuff, there's not a lot of case law on this, on the military actually doing these types of law enforcement functions. I mean, the Constitution would still apply, so you'd still have to follow the same bounds that civilian law enforcement follows, like getting warrants and things like that. But the military isn't trained in this. This isn't things that they normally do. Right. When they're doing that type of intelligence collection and, and making those types of nodes and network analysis. They're not used to the constitutional rights that apply in those scenarios because they're used to doing it in a wartime scenario. And you could also have them doing immigration enforcement directly. Right. Like military members on the street asking people for their papers, arresting immigrants, those types of things. We don't know what that mission could be, but potentially that could be what the President's envisioning on the ground here.
- [26:40]
Shane Harris
There's also, isn't there a risk, Lauren, in all of this, that, like, not only is the military not trained for that kind of mission, but a lot of the military is composed of first generation Americans and people who I would suspect are not really inclined to want to go into communities and do immigration enforcement and beating up their fellow citizens. I wonder if there's a downstream recruitment problem that this starts to have on the military. These are people who did not sign up for this mission and who are potentially being asked to go into communities and hunt down people who look like them and who look like their relatives. And I think that this administration on a fundamental level, including the Secretary of Defense, doesn't really understand a lot of parts about the culture of the military. And I wonder if you think that there is kind of a risk that not that he poisons that entire culture, not that they would disobey him, but that there's a real damage he could do to just, you know, the sort of the willingness of people to do this job and to sign up to serve in the future, if this is what we're asking them to do.
- [27:49]
Lauren Voss
Yeah, I mean, I think you saw some rumors around this, around the LA deployments that there was concern on morale and the mission that the military felt like they were doing. Both the Marines and the National Guard deployed there, that, you know, this isn't what they're trained for, this isn't what they thought they were going to do. I think that you could see recruitment efforts on that go down, but you could also see then, just over time, the fundamental shift in who joins the military. Right. And get a different kind of people. Just as how recruiting for ICE has gone and you're getting different kinds of people for ice, you could see the same thing happening in the military. You've seen a number of people leave at the end of their terms. People retire early. I think you're already starting to see that kind of shift in the military. I mean, I think on the ground. I will just say, though, that I do really trust our military to follow orders and to do what they're told within the bounds of the law, of course. And so what you might actually see, though, is that the military would be less willing to do things that you've at least heard accusations of ICE doing that seem to be beyond the bounds of the law, whether it be aggressively tackling peaceful protesters that aren't impeding law enforcement or arresting People without judicial warrants, out of their houses, those types of things. I don't think you would see that from the military, at least not purposefully. So there's a lot of different factors that would go into, should you use them, how would you use them? But I think using them in this way will have a profound impact on the military long term.
- [29:29]
Scott R. Anderson
So we now have this body of case law around the invocation of the prior provision that we saw the Trump administration relying on, that was cited and linked to case law from 100, 150 years ago about the Insurrection Act. We've seen courts kind of apply some of these standards before. What does that tell us about the degree of deference that the Trump administration will get in invoking this? That's an issue the Supreme Court, of course, didn't reach. But actually, federal courts, I will say, as somebody who has studied this stuff for a long time, were more incredulous of a lot of the Trump administration's conclusions about this than, frankly, I was expecting. I think a lot of people were expecting, given the highly deferential language, you can at least pull out of some of those earlier opinions. Although I will say I think there's logical ways to distinguish them. Do we think that carries over to the Insurrection act context, or is this a case where the Insurrection act stands on different grounds than those cases? For various reasons, there are differences in the statutory language, including at least in one provision of the Insurrection act, you know, the level of deference or how it relates to executive branch assessments of certain conditions. Do you have a sense of that, Lauren? Where do you think that falls out?
- [30:35]
Lauren Voss
Yeah, so a lot of the history that they were looking at for 12406 in these cases is the same history that you can trace the Insurrection act back to. So they were looking at the militia Acts of 1792, 1795, they were looking at the same constitutional provisions. So I see a lot of the conversation being the same on the level of deference. Obviously, though, there's no answer to that yet. But you're right, there was a lot of surprising questioning going on. Some of it even just about, like, the good faith piece of it, and whether or not these claims that were being made were actually being made in good faith by the government. And so I think there is a door open there. But as you point out, like 252 of the insurrection act, it says whenever the president considers right, that unlawful obstructions, blah, blah, blah, make it impractical to enforce the law. So that's written into there. And Usually when the Insurrection act is invoked, it is usually they'll do that provision along with 253. Right. The interference with state and federal law. So I think that will just make it very hard not to give extreme deference to the President. So I think the history analysis is the same, but when you get to the textual reading here, you get extra deference in the Insurrection Act. I'm hopeful that there will still be a conversation though around just some of the, the good faith piece of it because it seems like the courts have shown that some of the evidence as provided. I think they just said it was just not accurate, not trustworthy, those types of things. And so you can say that maybe that would come up again. But I mean this is national security type stuff where this deference is usually given and then the text of the statute itself explicitly gives it as well. So I'm not optimistic is the bottom line. I'm not optimistic that there would be a lot of oversight here. And I think that instead there would be a significant amount of deference as the statute's written.
- [32:38]
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Scott R. Anderson
Grainger for the ones who get it done. Well, there's no invocation as of yet. President Trump said as of yesterday he does not think it's necessary yet, although he reserves the option. So we have to wait and see. Maybe they're waiting for the results of these subpoenas so they have some testimony and records to cite as to the intent of the cooperation with federal authorities or to obstruct them by state officials. But we will no doubt have reason to turn back to this topic in the future. For now, Let us go to our second topic, and that is, of course, this strange confluence of events. Over the past week. We have seen, on the one hand, the Justice Department apparently issue a pair of subpoenas to the the Federal Reserve, where Chairman Powell has said, this is about an effort to impinge upon the independence of the Federal Reserve. But it's also specifically about testimony he gave about cost overruns and the renovation of the Federal Reserve building and whether he misrepresented things to some extent for Congress. And notably members of Congress have made allegations about this for a while. Representative Luna, I know, has been very public and vocal about this, is finally following up on her request for an investigation from several months ago, mostly an ally of President Trump most of the time. At the same time, it's all lining up in a way that doesn't seem great for me for the perspective of the Trump administration, the Justice Department with oral arguments in the Lisa Cook case for the Supreme Court, where it's this exact question of saying, okay, what is the basis for for cause removal of board members? What is the standard we have to apply here, and how worried do we need to be about it being abused by the executive branch? Lisa Cook case already kind of put that issue front and center because it was not a super strong case there. And now you see this exact action coinciding against Powell. It's kind of extraordinary. Anna, talk to us about these two cases, what we know about, and we should be making sense of them happening kind of at the same time.
- [38:16]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. Scott, I share your sense that the optics of this regarding the investigation of Jay Powell and his very public video statement that he made in which he kind of defended the independence of the Fed and talks about the federal government, you know, threatening criminal charges by sending these subpoenas does not seem to come at a good time considering that the Lisa Cook case is being argued before the Supreme Court today. And as you mentioned, that very case deals with this question of to what extent does the president have the power to remove governors of the Federal Reserve for cause? What does that mean? And beyond that, you know, here it seems very clear, you know, even though, yes, Anna, Paulina Luna over the summer did submit a criminal referral regarding Powell's testimony about these renovations to the Fed. If you read that criminal referral, it is so clear that there is absolutely no basis for a criminal investigation based on that testimony. I mean, it is laughably bad in terms of the analysis that Anna Paulina Luna walks through. It's things like, you know, Powell says that the renovation plans or that the renovation did not include things like a VIP dining room or new marble things that some members of Congress had suggested that the plans did include. And at one point they did, but the plans changed. And Powell explained the fact that the plans changed. So he says this. And in the criminal referral, Anna Paulina Luna then says that that's a false statement and cites the older plans before, you know, there were changes to the renovations, which Powell explained in his testimony. You know, that explanation is also on the Federal Reserve's website. And this has been, you know, ground that's been covered over and over and over again. And yet these statements that he's made are being called false in this criminal referral. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's just. There's nothing. It seems like the further we go with the weaponization of the Justice Department, the sillier some of these bases for criminal investigation get. And this is honestly the silliest of them all. You know, I just. What I don't understand is the strategy here. This is all happening as, as we've discussed when the Cook case is before the court, and Powell has now said that he's going to show up in person for the Supreme Court oral arguments, which itself is kind of a statement, because previously, throughout the pendency of the Cook case in the lower courts, the Fed has not taken a position in which they've really, you know, thrown themselves in support of Lisa Cook. They filed a brief in which they said, we're not going to take a position, but we're just going to follow whatever the court says. But I think because Powell was kind of put in this position of finding out that he himself is being investigated on these really baseless grounds, he publicly made this statement, and then now he's making this kind of public symbolic gesture of supporting Lisa Cook by going and attending this Supreme Court oral argument. You know, I think it all to the justices will send a message, but for them, the big question is just how to carve out the Fed as a unique institution, as they've put it in previous orders, when in other similar cases, they've made it very clear that the President's power to remove federal officers is incredibly broad. So I don't know, what do you all make of this, and what does it say to you?
- [42:35]
Shane Harris
I've been curious as to why the markets have not been or did not react more negatively to the news of this investigation. I mean, I guess it's implied that it's an impossible indictment, but he hasn't been indicted for Anything yet. Right. And, you know, I thought when Jerome Powell spoke up, I mean, I thought it's like suddenly Jerome Powell's the bravest man in Washington because he seems to be the only person in a position of high authority telling the President to back off and saying it won't stand for it. And I thought, you know, the markets were gonna start really reacting to this, and they didn't. And I wonder if one of the reasons is. Can you put your finger on it now, Anna? Is that people are looking at this and saying, like, this is nonsense. Like, if they're trying to weaponize the Justice Department, they really suck at it. Right? They're just really like, maybe they're not very good lawyers. It's like there's just like, I think in all of this, it's sort of like an Epstein problem, right? Which is that, you know, people in the Magaverse who are just deeply paranoid and conspiracy theorists practically to a person, and who have been able to make a living out of turning this into entertainment when, you know, they're off hosting a podcast instead of trying to quasi run the FBI or something, spin people into this. And when they, they get into these positions of authority where their followers say, okay, great, you're the Attorney General, now, give me the goods, and she literally hands them binders with nothing in it. I mean, to use the Bondi example, I think they're running up against the reality, right, that in the criminal justice system we require facts, and that the system for as vulnerable as it is and as much as it's under assault, at least maybe in the Powell case, we can see where you can't just concoct something and claim that you now get to, you know, indict the chairman of the Fed. And, you know, I do even wonder if Trump, like, you know, you can never read into his mind. And, you know, I don't think anybody wants to try, but, you know, is sitting there hearing about this and thinking, like, you know, like, wow, Jeanine Pirro, like, you know, really, you didn't do me any favors here. Like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna shoot at the King, you better not miss. And it just seems like this was just a massive whiff, to borrow the word that Susie Wiles used to, to criticize her very good friend Pam Bondi when she was talking to Vanity Fair about this. So I just, I do wonder how much a lot of this comes down to these people not being very smart.
- [45:02]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. And I, and I think that's right, Shane. I also though, will add that in the context of this, what's at stake with the Lisa Cook case, for example, it actually doesn't really matter if they're bad at doing a criminal investigation or securing a conviction, because on the government's interpretation in that case, as long as you have a pretext that the President can articulate, that's enough. And that courts can't review that decision.
- [45:35]
Shane Harris
Yeah.
- [45:35]
Anna Bauer
As long as the President says the magic words of like, this person did this, I think maybe, and I'm firing them for cause, then that's, that's sufficient. And so, and, and that's what's the problem here for the Supreme Court is that, you know, they have to face the reality of that. And I think that, you know, we are not where we were a few months ago when the Lisa Cook case was first being litigated. We have many more examples that show just how willing this Justice Department is to make up pretextual bases. And, and I think the court, I mean, John Roberts at least can maybe not ignore that now in a way that the court likely could a few months ago. Scott, was, what are you. Do you have thoughts on this?
- [46:29]
Scott R. Anderson
No, I entirely agree. I mean, look, this is a classic example of the Trump administration, left and right hand, unable to coordinate and talk to each other like, and it is getting worse. It has become more of a problem later in the term because Trump administration can't win as easily as he used to be able to. Right. I've said on this podcast a million times, this is like, this is my pocket line. But it's true. Trump was at his maximum powers on January 21 and has been a gradual decline since then. And once you hit November 5th, it becomes a very steep decline and is going to keep declining until midterms and probably past that, because I don't think midterms are going to go well. And so now, as he fractured, he can't necessarily get Congress on board as easily with his agenda. People are finding reasons, push that back on him. He doesn't look invulnerable. He is grasping at these straws, and he's looking for more leverage. He can get the things he wants, and he has yes men who will do it for him in chunks of his government. And everybody knows you can't say no if he really, really wants something. So you say yes, but then you try and soften it, curve it, make it a little less damaging, find ways around if you don't think it's a good idea. But this is just such a fundamentally bad Idea like, it's astounding to do this so stupidly this week. You could have done it next week, you could have done it several weeks from now. And remember, this is mostly about the Pals. Chairmanship is over in. He could hang around until 2028. A lot of chairmen don't. He could have resigned. And you're antagonizing him in a way that I think runs a risk that he's going to try and hang around until 2028. So you could lose this case and then lose a vacancy that otherwise would have been available to you. Maybe their logic is that the more you bully people, the more unpleasant you make it, the more likely they are to leave. And that actually really does work. I think it particularly works with, sadly, career civil servants. You see a lot of people who have been around in. In lots of senior roles for a long time under multiple administrations, but finally they get to this and they're like, look, I'm not going to stick around under this sort of oppositional environment. I'm here to work and help people. If I can't work and help the President, I'm going to step out there. That is not the way the Federal Reserve thinks. That's just not the institution. It's not the background of the people who are there. It's just not however they conceived of their role. And so I think the idea that you would, in engaging in the sorts of bullying tactics, actually make someone dig in much more likely in that context, as it is with foreign governments, as we're seeing in Greenland and other contexts. Right. So it's just a classic example of President Trump is increasingly grasping at straws for things he wants. He sees moments of a little advantage. He wants to leverage them, but it's contrary to the broader strategy that's ultimately there. And unlike in his first administration, where he had people more well equipped and positioned to rein him in a little bit, it just seems like there's a lot more cracks in that system. There are still some people there trying to do it to some extent. They're not in the Justice Department, though. The Justice Department is rolling over and it's really hurting the Solicitor General, who is a smart man and a good advocate and knows what it takes to persuade the Supreme Court of something and knows that this doesn't help. So it's just. Yeah, it's astounding.
- [49:18]
Shane Harris
Scott, you used a word, too. If I can jump on one thing, you decline. And as we've been talking, Trump has been giving his speech in Davos and I've just been keeping an eye on.
- [49:26]
Scott R. Anderson
The reality for like an hour now because he started before we started recording.
- [49:30]
Shane Harris
Yeah, right, exactly. And I will say, I mean, you know, even just judging by the comp, you know, expect a certain kind of level of unhinged address. Just judging by the comments, this one was extraordinary in that regard. He confused Greenland and Iceland three times, apparently, in the speech. Top line, saying that he's not going to use military force against Greenland. To your point, I mean, there is clearly a critique, and I think it's growing louder and louder and louder that maybe the president has lost his fastball to just, let's be charitable about it. And I think that world leaders see this, and it is on the one hand, deeply troubling that the leader of the most powerful country in the world might not be completely with it enough to confuse the name of the country that he's talking about trying to annex. And on the other, it makes him look profoundly weak and flailing and unstrategic. I don't believe there's a strategy in any of this. And I think there are a lot of people around the president, Jeanine Pirro being one of them, who are going off and doing things because they think it will help. And what you really want is, Susie Wiles should probably say, that's great. Can you please just go sit in the corner and color and stop helping? And there's no control of this president, including by his chief of staff. And I think what you're seeing is just this chaos machine. It's like the top has come off the blender and it's just splattering food all over the kitchen or something. And that can be reassuring if you think it's ultimately maybe harmless and really terrifying because this is still a guy who controls, you know, the United States military in a nuclear force. So it's, you know, but we're seeing all of these things we're talking about, it seems to me, speak to this kind of chaos and this lack of coordination. That is what is the animating force of this government right now.
- [51:22]
Scott R. Anderson
It's just astounding. Yeah, absolutely.
- [51:25]
Lauren Voss
So I agree. It seems like this is a blender right now and things are just getting thrown every which way. And, you know, there's been comments that, oh, it's like throwing spaghetti at the wall. But I think if we look at some of the things that have been able to be accomplished and the conversations we're having today on what's feasible and what the president can do with presidential power, that would have been unrealistic a year ago. Right. We have moved incredibly fast, incredibly far. And so not everything is working. But I don't think that the administration needs everything to work or thinks that everything will work. Right. It is. It is a whole bunch of stuff at once. And we'll see what works and what starts to work. We'll push on that more, and so we can be critical on the things that don't work. But I think when we take that step back and look, there's been monumental shifts in the ground just in this last year, and we have to recognize that as a success for the administration and for those that are concerned about executive power, the reaches we've made in the last year there, to me, are also monumental. I think what makes it scary for people is with this kind of strategy of just throw everything out, we don't know what's next. There's just so much happening at once. Right. But there has been some pretty extreme success in certain areas that I think that we need to recognize.
- [52:48]
Shane Harris
Agreed.
- [52:49]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah. I definitely don't want to disagree with that. What I do think is extraordinary about this moment, though, is. Is the at loggerheads nature of the administration's own actions. Right. Like the administration could do its own agenda more effectively. And I think we're seeing more and more of that. I think it's because there was a genuine game plan, Project 2025 game plan for the first, you know, 60 to 90 days and probably the first six months to a year, because they knew that's when the President's at the height of his powers and he's gonna have the most influence with Congress, the most influence with everyone else. We're gonna hit everything as hard as we can hit, shock the whole system, flood the zone. And now that strategy is out there. They've done that. It's had some successes. It's had a lot of not successes, but it has influentially changed things dramatically. For the better. I don't know. I know. I do know. Not for the better at all, but even fully to the extent they want it, we'll see where it comes out in a certain extent. But now they're stuck in this awkward moment saying, well, now we have a president who isn't as full power, and it's harder to get things, and you have to negotiate, you have to leverage. And that's not. Not this administration's strong suit right now. And I do think it's showing a little bit now. I do think that's problematic, because what do you get when you get somebody who is angry and egotistical and is fed narratives about being the most powerful man in the world by people around him all the time and he can't get what he wants the easy way. Sometimes he's going to take the hard way. And that is really scary. I second that entirely and the unpredictability of it, especially as somebody who has told himself and has people around him who tells them, yeah, being unpredictable is good because it makes people afraid of you and more likely to commit to you. And there is some truth to that, although it can be easily overstated. There are costs to it too, that lean into that even more. So it's definitely a risky moment. But I do think there's a characteristic difference in the trajectory, the way the administration is pursuing and it's peaking out more and more as that defined strategy of the initial first year of the administration winds up to the extent it can or is in long term litigation in a lot of cases. And they're facing these new challenges. And look, that's the real test of a president presidency, I will say, is the hard part about working the executive branch, particularly in foreign policy, national security. It's reactive. You don't know what's going to come. You're a fireman putting out fires. You're not there executing strategy. That's why I'm very skeptical of everyone who comes in with the theory of grand strategy. And that becomes the basis of their whole foreign policy establishment.
- [55:05]
Shane Harris
Right.
- [55:06]
Scott R. Anderson
Because it's foolish to pretend like you know what's going to come out. You have to be adaptive and responsive. That's the real challenge. That's not something this administration is super well poised to do, I don't think. And you're seeing in all sorts of areas where it's just breaking down a little bit more. But.
- [55:21]
Shane Harris
Well, they're really good at setting fires, Scott.
- [55:23]
Scott R. Anderson
Yes, exactly. And it's part of the strategy and maybe that's enough. Who knows? You want to burn the world down, that might be enough.
- [55:28]
Lauren Voss
Yeah, I think that they do things differently than we're used to executive doing things, but sometimes it's still effective. Right. And I just want to make sure that we recognize that and see what they've accomplished up to this point and what the dangers of that might be, especially with this reliance on, on military power in a way that we didn't necessarily suspect originally. But we've got Venezuela, we've got domestic, we've got Iran, Syria, Nigeria, conversations over Greenland, Mexico. Right. There's a lot at stake right now.
- [56:07]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, that's a different topic for another day. But yes, fair point. Not Jerome Powell and the Fed.
- [56:12]
Lauren Voss
Fair. If you're an H VAC technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that.
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Scott R. Anderson
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- [56:45]
Scott R. Anderson
Okay, I have to tell you, I was just looking on ebay, where I go for all kinds of things I love.
- [56:50]
Shane Harris
And there it was. That hologram trading card. One of the rarest.
- [56:54]
Scott R. Anderson
The last one I needed for my set. Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams.
- [56:59]
Lauren Voss
One of a kind.
- [56:59]
Scott R. Anderson
Ebay had it.
- [57:00]
Anna Bauer
And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you.
- [57:03]
Scott R. Anderson
Get your windshield wipers?
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Lauren Voss
Easy. Ebay has all the parts that fit my car.
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Scott R. Anderson
No more annoying, just beautiful. Millions of fines, each with a story. Ebay things people love. Amazon Pharmacy presents painful thoughts. 20 more minutes to kill in the pharmacy before my prescription is ready. Maybe I'll grab some deeply discounted out of season Halloween candy.
- [57:30]
Shane Harris
I never had a.
- [57:31]
Scott R. Anderson
A chocolate pumpkin with raisins before. Those were raisins, right?
- [57:36]
Shane Harris
Next time, use Amazon Pharmacy.
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Lauren Voss
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Shane Harris
And no, those were not raisins. Amazon Pharmacy Healthcare just got less painful.
- [57:48]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, let us now turn our eyes. I was gonna say to sunnier climbs, but that's really not exactly right in this case, despite the name. Let's go to, you know, the sexiest anomalous health named anonymous health incidents you could possibly ask. Which does sound like the Dirty Dancing sequel. Wasn't that Havana Nights, Right? Was it the Dirty Dancing sequel? It's a sequel to something I can't remember now. I should know this. I'm pretty sure it's the Dirty Dancing sequel. Havana Syndrome. This is a topic, Shane, you and I have talked about on this podcast. I think on the Lawfare podcast too, back in the day. I know you have been on this beat for years. This revelation over the last week or two now of that the United States may have acquired a device. Doing this really seems like a game changer. Talk to us what we know about this acquisition and what do you make of the reporting? In particular, somebody who watched this and knows how national security and national reporting intersect. And how we should be reading the meta around these reports. What do you make of this report of this backpack shaped device that may be causing some of these incidents acquired by all places the Department of Homeland Security and where it fits into this broader narrative.
- [58:56]
Shane Harris
Right, so this report came out, this relates in the past week or so, but it relates to events that took place at the tail end of the Biden administration. So like I think in the final months, the report is that the Homeland Security Department, and specifically Homeland Security Investigations, often known as HSI, paid an undisclosed sum, but equal to about eight figures, so I guess between 10 and $99 million.
- [59:21]
Scott R. Anderson
Narrow range.
- [59:22]
Shane Harris
It's quite a range, but not cheap for a device. They don't say exactly how they got it. That appears to some who have examined it to be capable of emitting the kind of energy or waste wave that could cause these debilitating symptoms, which are collectively known as Havana Syndrome. And to remind people, this dates back to the first supposed victims of this being people who were serving at the US Embassy in Havana. That's why it's named Havana Syndrome. There's a ringing in the ears followed by a sensation of intense pressure leading to long term chronic illness ailments including headaches, vertigo, nausea. For some of these people, they were so bad they had to get medical treat, they had to leave their jobs. So there's a long decade long history about this. So the story is that investigators think they have found a device that may have been able to do this, although there's still some skepticism now how to think about where this fits in, because it is a very big development. If you go back to the end of the Biden administration, the intelligence community led by the CIA did an analysis that was supposed to look at the available intelligence, look at the issues with symptoms that people were having, and try to determine what was the cause of Havana Syndrome. And the official assessment found that these symptoms were likely almost certainly not caused by some kind of global coordinated campaign using a weapon or another device. In other words, to put it bluntly, you know, it's not the Russians with the sophisticated ray gun that are going out and zapping people or some other foreign power, which is what the suspicion had been all along, that it was Russia with some novel weapon or device. And there were a number of reasons the intelligence community reached that, that conclusion. One of them, which was really kind of one of the pillars on which their conclusions rested, was that they found no evidence that anyone had built a device that was capable of doing this kind of damage. That was both Portable and could be concealed. Because given where people were reporting these incidents, including in some cases on the grounds of the White House, the presumption was that this was not some giant weapon or dish sitting on top of a van. This would have to be a really small device. And the intelligence community found, like, look, we just don't see any evidence that such a thing exists, and we're not sure you could even build one. An independent panel of experts outside the government, but convened at the government's request, found the opposite. They said, we think there actually is such a. That this could be possible. We see indications historically that governments have experimented with technology like this. So you have to leave open the possibility that, in fact, the weapon could exist. So this question of, like, whether the weapon, quote, unquote, was even buildable or theoretically could be collapsed down to such a size that it could do this damage. Intelligence community finds no. So along comes a device that looks like it might actually fit that bill. Now, the other thing to keep in mind with this, too, is that while the intelligence community found found unlikely Havana Syndrome is caused by a weapon or deliberately caused. That opinion began to change in the White House in the final days of the Biden administration and NSC officials who were looking at this and who had the intelligence portfolio actually brought a group of Havana Syndrome victims into the White House and met with them in the Situation Room and said in so many words to them, we believe view, we think this is real. They never told those people why they thought it was real, but they did make clear to them that new information had come to light that made them think that the intelligence community assessment was maybe wrong. I think when you put these two things together, it seems very likely that the thing that was the new development might be this device, or at least, you know, reports that this device could be out there in the wild. And we don't know for sure that it was those two things linked together together, but the timing fits very well. So, as I wrote last year, the consensus on Havana Syndrome is cracking. And I think that this device raises a whole host of new questions about what is technically possible. Where did this device come from? It said that it has Russian components. I don't really know what that means. And I have to admit, my skepticism antenna kind of went off around that particular one. He's like, well, what does Russian component mean? Is it like. Is there like, something in it that says Cyrillic writing in it? I don't know. But I do know from my own reporting that Homeland Security investigations, as part of its mission does go out and acquire novel technologies that they think could have some kind of purpose that would be detrimental to US national security. And they brought this one back and the DOD has been looking at it. The Defense Department, I should say elements within the Defense Department, by the way, have generally been a bit more inclined mind to think there may be something deliberate behind Havana Syndrome. It is, you know, roughly speaking, it's the CIA that takes the position that this is not being deliberately caused. So when we talk about the intelligence community assessment, that's true. It's really the CIA driving that ship. So I think this is significant. You know, it doesn't answer all the questions. It by no means proves Havana Syndrome was caused by a weapon, quote, unquote. But, you know, considering that the conclusion that it could not have been caused by a weapon or a device rested largely on the fact that there was no device, now there's a candidate device, apparently, and that's super intriguing.
- [65:12]
Scott R. Anderson
It is just an absolutely wild story. And so let me, let me ask you a little bit. Why would we have these different perspectives from the agencies? I have kind of an operating theory, but I think, you know much better than I do how they kind of view this stuff and why the CIA in particular would be more skeptical than maybe do to other places. And, you know, there's a couple different reasons. And like, there are people who will say, well, it's because CIA has had a problem with personnel affected by this and they don't want to acknowledge it because they've mistreated some of those personnel and there's maybe some truth to that story. That's a difficult thing that hopefully people will reckon with appropriately. But setting aside those sorts of more malicious explanations, which I have trouble attributing to, to the people at the Biden administration who made these conclusions, some of whom I should say I know and have utmost faith that they're good public servants and wouldn't do that without a reason for believing it. My suspicion is that the CIA, and to the extent that they may have had, it's an assessment as much of their confidence of their ability to know unknowns, right? They are more confident that they can prove a negative based off of their overall sense of what country's capabilities. So if you are the CIA and you say, I think we have pretty good penetration of Russia's emerging tech departments that would be developing something like this, we have no whisper of anything like this, then you may be a lot more confident saying, if we don't know of a device where this is happening, Odds are this isn't it if you're a DOD, where that's actually not really what. Well, I actually 100% know whether DIA is involved with that or not. I suspect they are in the Defense Department and Defense Tech, but maybe not this sort of thing that's deployed by, you know, intelligence agencies, at least at this scale. At this point maybe you're more willing to say, well, we don't know 100% what they have because we don't have as much visibility and confidence about our penetration of agencies, of our abilities, of other foreign governments, of our ability to say if we don't know it's there, it's not there. And that is part of the hard part of any of these assessments is like, how do you rule out the possibility that you don't know? How much do you know? You know, and what are the unknown unknowns? To borrow the terrible rumsfeld, you know, four point diagram that he carved out 20 years ago and haunts us to this day. Is that right to you, Shane? Or what else could contribute to these, like different agency perspectives that are still here? Here we still have different components disagreeing with each other. It's really difficult, I think for people on the outside. It's hard to understand how they could reach such different conclusions.
- [67:32]
Shane Harris
Yeah, look, I think that I broadly agree with that and to your point, about whether the CIA was acting in bad faith, I don't see any evidence of that. And I've sat down on at least two occasions with the analysts who wrote this document, this assessment. And you know, I both found them to be of, you know, seemingly high levels of analytic rigor. And they did not present to me as partisans in this. And I know the reputation from other people for being straight shooters. And one of them described this to me as the most challenging analytic problem of her entire career. And she's been in the agency for decades or had been at that time. It's also the case that the CIA and its chief medical office office treated CIA officers terribly who presented with these conditions and essentially told them it's all in your head or you're making it up. They didn't get the care they wanted. That's all public. Former CIA director Bill Burns has gone on the record about that and taken responsibility for that. You know, I think that the CIA approached this very carefully, number one, knowing, because this is such an explosive issue and it affected their fellow CIA officers, including people, people some of them knew. So there's a genuine sensitivity around, like we gotta do this right. But I think what also happened here is that they used very strong analytic tradecraft to say, okay, you know, let's look for the evidence that we would expect to see that this device existed, which, I mean, led them to that one conclusion on, we don't see any of someone who's building device, but we also don't see any evidence of anyone in a foreign government talking about building such a device, talking about the effects of such a device. All these reflections that they would expect to have picked up if there were, in fact, a coordinated global effort to use a novel device to injure American personnel. And they simply didn't see it. And I think that there was both the absence of evidence suggesting that it wasn't real and they could not be persuaded that you could build such a device. Again, separate panel of experts took a very different view on this and thought that you could. And I think that.
- [69:50]
Lauren Voss
That.
- [69:51]
Shane Harris
I don't think that the CIA was trying to reach a conclusion. Like, I don't see any evidence of that. I know some people feel differently and have a much more skeptical and darker view of the Agency and what they were doing here. I think there's a fair criticism, maybe that the CIA was too definitive or the intelligence community was too definitive. You know, I've read a lot of intelligence assessments, and I've talked to a lot of analysts, and I even wrote this at the time. I don't think I've ever seen. Seen a document or group of analysts so confident, so declarative in their finding of, like, no, it's not a weapon, period. And it was almost. I remember. I remember when I was briefed on this at the time, being kind of struck by this. Like, you know, like, there's that scene in Zero Dark Thirty where they're going around the table, and the Leon Panetta character is asking everybody, like, what's your confidence that bin Laden's actually in the compound? They're like, oh, 60%. I don't know, 50%. And they get to the Jessica Kashayan character, And she's like, 100%, okay, fine, 90. Because you're not supposed to say 100, but it's 100. And it didn't quite feel like that. But I was like, whoa, we're getting, like, into real Jessica Chastain territory. Like, maybe you're wrong. Like, maybe you just haven't found the evidence yet. And they did say, look, we remain completely open to new evidence. If we should find it, maybe they found it. And I wonder if you went back and you. I don't know what those analysts would say if you went back and asked them. Again, I suspect that they are aware of this device and maybe they are deeply skeptical of it too. But it just always struck me that it was such an emphatic assessment and I never really understood why. And this is pure speculation on my part. But when you get down to the level of people talking about Havana Syndrome, people get very passionate in their arguments. And I wonder if sometimes analysts just kind of recoil, coil a little bit when the passion argument comes through. And I think a lot of people in the DoD camp were more inclined to, again I'm being very general here, believe it could be a device because of their operational experience dealing with the Russians and because they've seen things in the field. Do you know what I mean? That made them more inclined, more open to it. That's always been my suspicion is that there's something on the kind of gut level that separates these people into camps and maybe that has something to do with it too.
- [72:18]
Scott R. Anderson
No, it's super interesting. And the other factor that intersects, I do think it's worth touching on is the broader geopolitics because in some ways both these revelations are actually kind of inconvenient things for both administrations. Biden and Trump administration for these revelations. For the Biden administration, Biden administration was very focused on major power conflict. Now it wasn't like the hawkish you could be. And there are people trying to out hawk them in Congress in particular, who I think they were sensitive about around this issue. Because if you did have evidence that government were targeting your personnel for harm, I think you would feel a lot of political pressure to elevate the issue and pursue some sort of response. I doubt it'd be a military response, but something much more targeted. And so I suspect that may have entered into the equation. Maybe the CIA is a little more sensitive to that, DoD or other agencies where they will say, look, reaching this conclusion is pretty damning. It's the sort of conclusion that we should only reach confidently. Confidently if we actually have evidence to back it up. And we shouldn't suggest it's open if it's just a hypothetical possibility. For the Biden administration, that would have been a hard balancing act for them because they're like, yes, we agree Russia and China are serious threats, but maybe not that serious threats and we don't need to escalate it right now for the Trump administration, We've seen them over the last few months basically frame Russia and China as really not as much of a threat as they used to be, except around Greenland for whatever reason, but other than that, for the moment, biggest threat on Greenland, big threat in Greenland. There we have to worry about it. But everywhere else, they're kind of like spheres of influence. Asia, China, Russia. It's all about striking the right balance. A revelation like this would, under other circumstances, be really difficult for them to manage because it's harder for them to, as they try and cool down and kind of normalize or regulate or balance relationships. Russia and China. This is a big inflammatory kind of bomb in the hole if you really do get hard evidence that this was actually an attack on US Personnel, essentially. So I do wonder how that enters into in here. Do we have a sense from the Trump administration how they're framing the story of these revelations yet, or are they really still, at this point, still at the technical phase, or not entering into the kind of political discourse?
- [74:20]
Shane Harris
I haven't seen it come up and this report's only about a week old. But to your point, you're absolutely right that this administration is doing everything it can to, weirdly, to kind of de escalate relations with Russia. I mean, Trump still likes to talk about Russia as being a threat to Western hemisphere security and North American security, and that's where Greenland or Iceland, as he likes to call it, now comes in. But I don't think it, it's, it's helpful to them if, if it's then proven that, yes, Russia actually was engaged in a multi year campaign to, you know, use novel weapons. Oh, and by the way, it started in, you know, your first term, Mr. President, because this is, you know, it was in 2016 when the first cases started popping up. The policy aspect is so interesting to me because the CIA doesn't make policy. Right. The CIA advises policymakers. And there was a level of kind of, you saw that in the intelligence community assessment of like, look, we're just advising on what we see. But then when the National Security Council and the Biden administration, which is a place that makes policy, starts to take a different view. Did you see senior NSC officials coming out publicly or writing op EDS in major papers saying, we changed our mind on Havana Syndrome? No, you did not. You saw people like me reporting on what was said quietly in Situation Room and in other places. Because at the highest level, the Biden administration, I think, felt very uncomfortable confronting the fact that they were seeing a split between the intelligence community and the kind of the policy making body that was looking at the same information. And they did not want to go public about this. Now, maybe there were people in the White House who also didn't believe their NSC colleagues about it. But this thing has been Havana Syndrome broadly has just been something that multiple administrations have kind of tried to avoid. And I think that possibly it's because to your point, Scott, what are you going to do about it? Right? I mean, if you find out that the Russians are running around like giving people brain damage damage with a device like this, I mean, potentially life changing injuries, there has to be some response to that. And I agree with you. It wouldn't necessarily be military action, but it's going to have to be something that tells the Russians you're going to pay a price for this, you've gone too far. And it just seems like particularly in the Biden administration, but for so long, everything the US Posture has been is trying to de escalate conflict with Russia. But the Russians just keep coming and they keep hitting and they're interfering with elections and they're pumping out disinformation. And there's a whole other question of like what is it that we find so difficult to deal with when it comes to Russia? And that depends on if you're talking about Trump or Biden. But the Biden administration was just constantly worrying about provoking Russia, whether it be in Ukraine or elsewhere. And I think that this is an example maybe of why it would have been so very uncomfortable for them to come out publicly and say, actually some really smart people in the White House who've looked very deeply at this, yeah, they think it might be Russia. That was not something that the president and his top advisors were prepared to let happen.
- [77:46]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, it is a fascinating story. I for one am immensely grateful that we have reporters like Shane Harris on the beat giving us details about this as it continues to evolve. It's an important one. It's an important one for the personnel affected by these incidents. It's an important one for national security. It's important to understand the truth of it. And one day it will come to light and we will talk about it again here on National Security. But for now, we are out of time. That said, this would not be rational security if we did not leave you with some object lessons to ponder over in the week to come. Our colleague Anna Bauer had to leave us a little bit early this episode, but she sent in an object lesson. We'll edit in for you to listen to here.
- [78:19]
Anna Bauer
My object lesson this week is season two of the Night Manager, starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. It is on Amazon prime some of you might remember, remember this show from way back in the day, like 10 years ago. That first season of the Night Manager was based on the John Le Car novel of the same name. And for many years, there weren't any plans to make a season two because, as I understand it, John lecar was resistant to the idea of developing new stories around this character. But subsequent, right before he died, he, you know, changed his mind and gave the green light to his estate for this series to continue as a television show and to create new stories about Jonathan Pine, a British intelligence officer. And so this new season is out, and I think that many rational security listeners who are interested in spy thrillers or political intrigue will find it to be really interesting. Interesting. It's well acted, it's entertaining, and I am really enjoying it. So check it out.
- [79:31]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, Anna, I never thought you'd be into that. I guess this just goes to show you never really know your colleagues. Was that a generic enough response? I think it's generic enough. Whatever Anna actually might have said, I think we could edit that in there. That works. Lauren, what do you have for us this week?
- [79:44]
Lauren Voss
Yeah, so as the mother to a new newborn, I have one that is been a lifesaver for us, which is the snu. And I know that that is a controversial recommendation back and forth. Well, apparently, you know, it's a bassinet, so it might also flatten the back of the head. It might spoil, you know. Well, there's controversy. They're gonna get the helmet now. But I am a big fan of the snoo. That literally will rock your child back to sleep during and after a second child who would only sleep when touching a human being. We decided to splurge for the snoo. And we are two weeks in. And I can just say that it works. And I am a giant fan.
- [80:32]
Scott R. Anderson
I wholeheartedly agree. We had got one for my son. We actually got a used secondhand one off some friends. They're very expensive. So we got one for like $250, which is astoundingly cheap. I think they're like $1,200 new or something like that. That. And we have lent it out to. I think we are on our seventh different couple using it right now. A Lawfare contributing editor is about to use it for their baby that's arriving earlier. Otherwise, I would have lent it to you, Lauren. But I'd already lent it out before it even occurred to me. Before you realized you might need it. So it's an incredibly valuable device. Some People, it doesn't work. Some babies, it doesn't work, but a lot of people really does. So I would say try it. If you have trouble, don't torture yourself letting your kid keep you up at night more inevitably you're gonna have to get up every three or four hours. But like, like, it's worth a try because some parents, I will say, have borrowed ours and it's been a life changer to the better immensely for them.
- [81:18]
Shane Harris
Do they make them adult size?
- [81:20]
Scott R. Anderson
I would welcome it to be swaddled and just stick it on.
- [81:23]
Shane Harris
This sounds like the baby version of like the therapeutic bed thing.
- [81:26]
Lauren Voss
They do make adult swaddles now if you're interested. Because based on my googling, I've been.
- [81:32]
Scott R. Anderson
Getting some ads on that. Something like that.
- [81:34]
Shane Harris
I mean, I wouldn't mind being swaddled right now and just like make me feel better.
- [81:39]
Scott R. Anderson
That's kind of what you are in your studio. That is have a little bit of.
- [81:43]
Shane Harris
You need just to chill out, kind of sink in. I feel very safe in here. I'm not leaving.
- [81:50]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, for my object lesson this week, I have another one from the parent of young children files. Lauren, I'm curious if you have heard of this. Have you encountered a little show called Grizzy and the Lemmings? Do you know what this is?
- [82:01]
Lauren Voss
No.
- [82:02]
Scott R. Anderson
It is a bizarre show. I don't know if this is an endorsement. I think this is more just a call to the universe to examine this very bizarre artifact of entertainment that my niece and nephew got my son hooked on. My son, who's just turned five, All I can say is it's a show about a bear and a group of lemmings that live in an abandoned ranger's cabin and are always competing over different things. Usually food that they want to eat. There are dozens, possibly hundreds of eight minute episodes out there. And it's so strange because I watched it once and none of the characters speak. So it's all just like grunts and noises and music. And I watch it once. I like, man, this really strikes me. It's really French Canadian. I can't figure out why something about this just seems so French Canadian. I looked it up and yeah, it's a French Canadian cartoon out of nowhere. Totally called it. It's just got some sort of vibe. It's all the maple syrup and trees. But then in like later seasons, they start transporting. The cabin gets like magically transported to different parts of the world and it gets weirder and weirder. One episode I watched with my son involved them being In a Scottish castle where they hit some switch where they all went to some sort of, like, Dungeons and Dragons type world where the bear was wearing a wizard's hat and had a magic staff, that blasted thing. And all the lemonade were like little galadriel elves and had little bows and arrows that were shooting things. And then all the sheep outside of the castle. Cause they were in Skyland got turned into, like, barbarian raiders with shields and swords and were attacking the castle riding giant chickens. It was utterly bizarre. It made no sense whatsoever. And that's how every episode just has spun out into complete mania. But it's really satisfying. If you watch a lot of kids shows like I do, and you are used to this arc where they run out of ideas. And usually they go the same three directions, which they're like, okay, this season's gonna be about. It's the old show Paw Patrol, but now they're dinosaur, and it's Paw Patrol, but now there are pirates, and it's Paw Patrol, but they're superheroes. Paw Patrol, but it's in space. And then they run through those four arcs, and then the show's dead. Cause they're out of ideas. Like every. Every kid's show has done this. This one's taking it some unique direction. So I don't know what's going on in Montreal and Quebec, where this show is presumably produced. Cause I don't know any other parts of French Canada to mention. But, you know, it's phenomenal. It's interesting. My kid is obsessed with it, and it's utterly bizarre.
- [84:00]
Shane Harris
Sounds like the writers are on some really good drugs.
- [84:03]
Scott R. Anderson
It really, really is. It's really astounding stuff. And they do this all again with no spoken words.
- [84:07]
Lauren Voss
How many hours have you spent watching this now more than I, because we.
- [84:11]
Scott R. Anderson
Just got off the holidays, so there's a lot more screen time than usual. So I've seen at least, like, 30 episodes. And they get really bizarre. I mean, it's like, really, really astounding. I want to know more about this series. So, you know, check it out if you're curious. If you've got young kids, I don't know if I would enjoy Watch it before you show it to your young kids. I don't know if I would say it's a great show to show young kids. There's no merit to it, but they love it. It's only eight minutes long, so you can turn it on and off pretty quickly, which is nice. Shane, bring us home. What do you have for your object line?
- [84:37]
Shane Harris
Well, longtime listeners will know Aidis that one of my favorite things to do is to recommend spy related movies and TV shows, which I'm gonna have one for you today, but maybe not in the kind of vein you would expect. This is not a new show. It's about a year old, but it's new to me, which is a man on the inside. Have you guys watched this show?
- [84:56]
Scott R. Anderson
I've heard of it. I haven't seen it.
- [84:57]
Shane Harris
So this is a show starring Ted Danson. And it is a show about a man who is a retired engineering professor whose wife has died and he's now living a alone. And when his daughter encourages him to get a hobby because he's just sort of, you know, staying at home all the time and annoying her by sending her like, he clips out newspaper articles and sends them to her in the mail. It's great. Decides to answer a want ad to go undercover in her retirement home to solve a jewelry heist. So he becomes a spy for this private investigator. It is utterly charming. It is completely delightful. Delightful. It reminds me of like, I feel like this is like a show that would have been like on network television in the mid-90s. Like, it's sort of like Matlock meets Magnum P.I. oh, that's like more 70s, but like it's got like a very, like, very genuine, like homey feel to it. And it deals with some heavy issues, but like in a very, a light enough way that it is certainly not a depressing show. It was created by this guy, Michael Shore, who is behind Parks and Rec. He was a writer for snl. He was on did the Office and he created the Good Place, which was this previous vehicle for Ted Danson, which I've not seen, but people rave about it.
- [86:10]
Scott R. Anderson
Oh, it's amazing. Maybe one of my favorite shows ever.
- [86:13]
Shane Harris
I'm converted now I'm going to watch it. But I mean, on the inside is just absolutely charming. And it is such a balm right now. It is such just like an antidote to all of just the craziness and the cynicism and just the general ugliness in the world. I love, loved it. And it actually has some really fun spy tradecraft in it. Like, it's like it's legit. I mean, in the sense that like he is an undercover operative in this retirement home. And it's also got like, you know, it's got a cast of characters including Sally Struthers who's in it, who just pop up and you're like, oh my God, that person. Oh, My God, it's him. So it's really kind of just. It's a fun, you know, way to spend, you know, 23 minutes. And, you know, you. You can watch three episodes in a sitting. It's. That kind of moves fast. So a man on the inside. Watch it. Feel better.
- [87:01]
Scott R. Anderson
That is exactly. Literally. My wife and I have almost turned on, like, three times. I think that's the endorsement. Push her to the edge. There's few actors whose third act I appreciate more than Ted Danson.
- [87:09]
Shane Harris
Totally.
- [87:10]
Scott R. Anderson
Which is amazing. He's so, you know, the man's like 78 years old. It's amazing. He looks great. I wish I looked half that good now. It's amazing.
- [87:17]
Shane Harris
He looks fantastic in this show. And he's just so. I love seeing him in a role where he's like, he's not Sam Malone. Like, it's a younger, older, younger audience doesn't remember when he was on Cheers and he was like, you know, the lothario, you know, sex symbol, kind of like in a bit of a heel. And it's just in his other roles, I mean, he is just like a charming kind of clueless grandfather in this and a great dresser in this show, by the way. Like, seriously, like, when I'm that old, I want to dress like this character just now. Natty and on point.
- [87:50]
Scott R. Anderson
I love it. I love it. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's episode. Rational Security is, of course, a production of Lawfare, so be sure to Visit us@lawfairmedia.org for our show page, for links to past episodes, for our written work and the written work of other Lawfare contributors, and for information on Lawfare's other phenomenal podcast series. While you're at it, be sure to follow Lawfare on social media. Wherever you socialize your media. Be sure to leave a rating review wherever you might be listening. And sign up to become a material supporter of Lawfare on Patreon for an ad free version of this podcast, among other special benefits. For more information, visit lawfaremedia.org support our audio engineer producer this week was Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo, and her music, as always, was performed by Sophia Yan. And we were once again edited by the wonderful Jen Pata. On behalf of my guests, Anna, Shane and Lauren, I am Scott R. Anderson. We will talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye. Guys. It's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh.
- [88:48]
Shane Harris
Is now Tommy John.
- [88:50]
Scott R. Anderson
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