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- [00:00]
A
I am joined by Democratic Congresswoman Abigail spanberger of Virginia's 7th congressional district. Congresswoman Spanberger is also running for governor in the great state of Virginia. Congresswoman, you also spent your career working at the CIA, so you're uniquely positioned to answer some of these questions that all of our viewers are having, especially with Donald Trump's recent appointment. So I just want to get your take on his nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence.
- [00:35]
B
It's a shocking but not wholly surprising nomination. And I say that as an issue of national security. That is not a partisan issue. That's not a political issue. That's not a, you know, it's a Donald Trump nomination issue. It is objectively a problem that he has nominated her to be the dni, and it is a dangerous possibility that she might be confirmed for that role, full stop.
- [01:06]
A
So let's talk about what that role is. A lot of acronyms. What does the DNI do? What are the oversee. What type of intelligence do they have?
- [01:17]
B
Well, that's an excellent question, because I think that, you know, we've seen a lot of people react publicly to some of the other nominations, because, frankly, you know, some of the other folks, some of the other roles, they're far more public. And so people know what an Attorney General is. They're used to seeing one on television, et cetera. But the DNI is a very unique and very important role. So in the aftermath of 9 11, when the 911 Commission came together and said, what were the shortcomings? How did we miss this? What, what, how did this happen? That we had this massive attack on U.S. soil. And one of the recommendations moving forward was to create the odni, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and to have the dni, the Director of National Intelligence, be the person overseeing our nation's intelligence community. And so every function of it, that, of course, CIA and nsa, but the elements of intelligence collection or intelligence work that happens across all agencies that do any intelligence community work, and the purpose was to ensure that there was a central office and a central person that was responsible for ensuring that, you know, if, if one entity receives reporting on this, that it's followed up on, that it's incorporated into intelligence reports that analysts at, you know, CIA are getting some of the reports that might be really timely and really important, but might be coming from a different agency. And in this role, the DNI has to have an extraordinary understanding of the intelligence community. They are given, like, the absolute access to every intelligence effort that Our nation is undertaking all of our sources, all of our methods, all of the secrets that help keep the United States safe. This one role sees it all, sees everything. And so it's an extraordinarily important job, but it's an extraordinarily kind of behind the scenes job. Usually, the DNI annually will have what's called the Worldwide Threats Hearing. And so that's a hearing when the DNI comes before Congress, typically with the Director of CIA and the Director of the FBI, sometimes other members of the intelligence community, and they will testify before Congress about the threats that exist to the United States, to our interests on the worldwide stage. And there's a public element of that. And it is the kind of one notable public hearing that happens annually related to the intelligence community and the threats facing the United States. And so there's one public portion, unclassified, and then there is a classified portion before the Intelligence Committee where, as a current member of the Intelligence Committee, we dig deep into the threats that face the United States of America. And it is the DNI who is the one answering question after question after question about what the threats are and how we as a nation are addressing them, and how we as a nation are going after the answers to some of the questions that we need to answer in order to be able to keep our country safe. And so it's a role that's very much out of the public limelight and the kind of public purview, but it is extraordinarily important. Important. And this role has extraordinary access, certainly not just to the secrets that help keep the United States safe, but also the secrets that our partners and allies share with us.
- [05:11]
A
Now. Tulsi Gabbard, she was once a Democrat. Just interesting side note, when she first ran, I remember that she threw a fundraising event in Los Angeles when I was a new lawyer at one of these hotel rooftop bars. And everybody was telling me that, you know, she's an up and coming star in the Democratic Party. I remember it vividly. I remember meeting her, I want to say, 2011 and 2012, when some of these Democratic consultants out here said you just got to meet her, and they were trying to introduce her to the legal community. But over time, you mentioned the threats to our nation. People like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others were saying that there's someone in the Democratic Party who seems to be being groomed by Russia, who seems to be compromised by foreign adversaries. And to say that they were intimating it was Tulsi is giving a lot of stress on the word intimating because a lot of people have said that she's compromised. Now I've seen her posts, they're very pro Russia. I've seen her statements, their word for word Russia propaganda. We could pull up some right here where she goes the unlawful invasion. She doesn't call it that. She goes the war and suffering in Ukraine could have just been avoided if Biden administration and NATO acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns. So it was NATO's fault. She blamed NATO and then she spewed the lies about Ukrainian bio labs and the stuff that Putin was putting out there. But tell us though about this, about the threat that she specifically poses, because I don't want to be hyperbolic when I say I think she's compromised. I really want to know, and I think our viewers want to know why is she specifically a threat? What is it about her?
- [07:00]
B
Well, she's, I mean, unbelievably unqualified for this role. But let me, let me just walk through a couple examples of why, apart from having absolutely no background in the realm of intelligence and for those who may not be familiar, if I can just go on a little bit of a side discussion on this, for those who may not be familiar with the DI role, the DNI role, again it was created after 9 11. Those who have filled this role in the past, Negroponte career public servant across government, across roles within the national security and the defense space. DNI Clapper, who I once had the occasion of briefing, he was the director of dia, Defense Intelligence Agency. He was the director of nga, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. He was appointed to those roles. And then he was undersecretary at the Department of Defense. He was appointed to those various roles by George H.W. bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama. Right. Recognizing the breadth and scope of his lifetime of service and his deep knowledge of the intelligence community, the threats that face the United States, et cetera. Like that's the type of person and the type of biography that have previously filled this role. The current dni, Avril Haynes. Right. She has a long and fulsome background in the intelligence community. She was at CIA where she was, you know, had so much experience with her role at the agency. And so this is, this is the type of background. Right. So again, it's not about political party, it's not about somebody's political affiliation and it's not about President Elect Trump. It's about the fact that throughout the short history of this role, serious people have been placed in this role. And, in fact, the first CNI appointed under then President Trump was Dan Coats. So a former Republican senator who served for many years. So, yes, aligned with the president, but he served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he had been an ambassador overseas. A breadth of experience. He'd worked back and forth with foreign allies and partners. He had experience in the realm of intelligence because of the committee he served on. And so that's the type of person, even when they have a partisan background and a political background, that's the type of person who has historically been chosen for this role. Now, then, we have someone like Gabbard, who, as a sitting member of Congress, went to Syria and sat down with Bashar al Assad shortly after he used chemical weapons against his own civilian population, which is out of step and out of alignment with US Policy. First and foremost, out of step and out of alignment with the protocols that are in place to ensure that our ambassadors and our Secretary of State and all those who work in the diplomatic realm realm, let alone the defense realm, are not having sort of lone actors going to a foreign country, meeting with a authoritarian dictator who uses chemical weapons on his own people and then comes home and says, oh, if the United States would just meet with him, surely we could get this all worked out then. Gabbard is also someone who, time and time and time again has trafficked in conspiracy theories, has used almost word for word the propaganda put out by the Kremlin and Russian state tv. And so whatever the motivation is behind it, whether it is truly aligned with her belief system, whether she thinks it's comical to get people like me and, you know, and other folks riled up worrying about her being a national security risk, whatever the motivation is, it is misaligned with US Interests, and it is deeply, deeply dangerous. Because if she is willing to work against US Interests by going to Syria and meeting with Bashar al Assad, if she is working, willing to work against US Interests by. By. By legitimizing the. The Kremlin's propaganda, what sort of untold damage could she have with the title of Director of National Intelligence? If she's willing to do their bidding right, that is the role that is responsible for ensuring what is in the presidential daily brief. Is she going to put Russian propaganda in the President's daily brief? If she's willing to put it out on Twitter to millions of Americans and the rest of the world, what would stop her from not including it in the information and the advice that she's giving to the President? She has a very long history of just working against US Interests on the international scale. And she's an unserious, unfit, terrible candidate for this role, and one that it would be deeply, deeply dangerous.
- [12:49]
A
My final question is, what could Democrats do? Or what could people do? Because this is not a partisan issue, to get that message out in an effective way. We saw during the campaign, you know, Donald Trump parading people like, I'm not suggesting we do this. You know, his keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention was Hulk Hogan. Hulkamania is gonna come for you. And deeply unserious rhetoric that gamified life or death matters. I know people are now Googling, what's a tariff? Are bloody deportations going to be real? What does it mean if we don't help NATO? People are Googling that now. Too late. But what is it that you do now in Congress? What do Democrats do as an opposition party? Where I see some of your colleagues, colleagues, some of these Republicans wearing Donald Trump ties with Trump's face on it. And quite literally saying, while wearing Trump's weird gold sneakers, if he tells me to jump, I jump. If he tells me to dis. What do we do? Help us. What do we do right now?
- [14:05]
B
Well, a couple of things. I think we focus on the reality for a member of the House of Representatives or for a member of the Senate. Like, I represent about 800,000 people, some of whom elected me, some of whom did not vote for me, but I represent them. I represent their interests, I represent their dreams, their goals, what, you know, the strength of the community that surrounds them. That's what I represent. And so I think that for people across the country, when looking at representatives, because if I take a vote or I say something that some of my constituents disagree with, we get phone calls, we get letters. I think that there needs to be a clear understanding that the American people should expect representatives to represent them and not just sort of march in line with the leader of their party or the president of their party. And I say that as someone who has not always marched in line with my own, because I represent my district and I represent the seventh District. And when, you know, when advocating for what matters to the people in my district, like, I make that plain. And here, what is deeply worrisome is that every person across the country will be less safe if there is someone like Tulsi Gabbard serving in a role that, frankly, the American people should. In your daily life, if you're busy, you got kids, you got a job. Who the DNI is should not even be a topic of conversation. It should be. I trust that we're putting good people who are committed to the US and our national security in these roles. What people should do is recognize that there are elements of unique threats here. And this isn't an issue of disliking. You know, in my case, I'm a Democrat, a Republican president's choice. It's not an issue of politics. And so making clear that we don't have. I don't have to like every nominee he puts forward, and I don't. But some of the nominees he's put forward, they have a background that at least is clear why they might have been chosen. They have a background that speaks to a certain skill set. Maybe it's not the one that I would want. Right. But it is a clear skill set. And so in what we should be doing and what we need to be doing, it's not objecting to every single nominee that he puts forward in every single action. There are some of his nominees I don't like, but at least they are serious people who hopefully will do a serious job. I might not like the job, but a serious job that is, you know, in keeping with the expectations of seriousness. And just to frame this one more time, like, I'm a former intelligence officer, former CIA case officer. I worked undercover during my time at the agency. And what that means is, you know, I. This used to be my life, and now it's the life of case officers who are serving throughout the world. They are out meeting people. They are out collecting intelligence to send intelligence reports back home so that incredible public servants can write reports, can understand the threats, can understand the challenges facing our country and can inform our country, can inform our nation's leaders. And we think of a very specific example that's now in the public view. We knew the United States knew through intelligence reporting that Russia was going to invade Ukraine, Right? This is now out in the public purview. We knew it. And we made our Ukrainian partners, particularly President Zelensky, aware that we knew that Russia was going to invade, right? The way that we knew that information is through what we called sources and methods, Right? We obtain information through sources and methods. Sources might be a person who's telling us something. Method. It might be a technology that allows us to know something, right? And we have to protect our sources and methods. We have to protect the people who provide information that allow us to avert a terrorist threat. We have to protect the technology or the resources that allow us to understand. I mean, here's a more recent example, right? The threats to the Taylor Swift concert in Europe, that was through intelligence reporting. Right. Sources and methods. And so the idea that we would have a DNI who not only traffics in conspiracy theories, who not only sort of works against US Priorities and uplifts people like Vladimir Putin and Bashar Al Assad, we also need to have a DNI who will protect the sources and methods, the ways that we know, the things that keep us safe. And so the. What can we all do about it? Understand the risks and make plain to our senators, to our House members that, you know, the opposition or the concern to this nomination. It isn't about party, it isn't about partisanship, it isn't about, you know, a president that, you know, I didn't personally vote for. It's about the fact that this is a serious job that have kept. It's a job that's role includes protecting our nation's secrets and keeping the American people safe. And we need someone who is solely focused on protecting our country. And anyone who would uplift Vladimir Putin's message to the detriment of the United States of America has no business serving in any cabinet, any president's cabinet, but most especially has no business serving as a Director of National Intelligence, like, full stop. And so making sure that we're not just being kind of over the top and saying everything's a problem in every appointment, it's okay to not like any of them, but recognizing that some are truly dangerous and some, you know, are exactly what we would have expected out of, out of this president. But the truly dangerous ones, that is where we have to make clear that risking our national security and risking the lives of Americans and the safety and security of our troops abroad, of our homeland here, that is where we have to draw the line and make plain the risks that come with her nomination and the dire circumstance it would be if she were actually confirmed.
- [20:55]
A
I want to remind everyone that Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is running for governor in the great state of Virginia. Virginia. You want to find out more about Congresswoman Spanberger and her campaign, you go to Abigail spanberger.com just so I get everyone to spell it right. A B I G A I L S P A N B E R G E r dot com. So check it out. You know, one of the things we'll do another interview, hopefully in a few weeks. This was such an urgent issue, and given your unique area of expertise working in the CIA for all the years you did, I wanted to make sure to get your voice there. But I want to remind everyone in 2018, you became the first Democrat since 1968, as well as the first woman ever to be elected to represent Virginia's seventh. So I'd love in the future to chat about flipping the seventh, the lessons that you've learned and have a deeper conversation there. But look, there's a lot going on. I know your time is right now. I get it. There's some urgent issues as well. But we're really grateful for you joining us and we hope you back.
- [21:58]
B
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for allowing me such a ample amount of time to talk about something that I very clearly have a lot of feelings about. But it's about our national security, and people need to know just how damaging and how dangerous of a nomination we are facing with Tulsi Gabbard. We need a DNI who will keep us safe and a DNI who will put the United States and our national security first in every single scenario.
- [22:26]
A
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- [22:56]
B
Thank you.
- [22:57]
A
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