Loading summary
Transcript83 lines
- [00:00]
Boost Mobile Advertiser
This back to school. Hear your teen say something you never thought possible.
- [00:06]
Ben Wittes
Thanks Ma.
- [00:07]
Boost Mobile Advertiser
Come to your booth store and take home iPhone 15 with its amazing camera and all day battery for only $99.99. Perfect for back to school.
- [00:16]
Ben Wittes
Thanks Ma.
- [00:17]
Boost Mobile Advertiser
You won't get tired of hearing it. Visit your nearest Booth store. Requires ID verification, port in and activation on $60 per month plan and $35 device setup fee. Taxes extra.
- [00:30]
Lisa
I finally committed to getting back in shape. Hit the gym, ate clean, did everything right. But after two days, I felt drained. My body just couldn't keep up. That's when I found Stem Regen. It supports the release of my own stem cells to repair, recover, and actually rebuild from the inside out. Now I'm not just working out, I'm bouncing back. I feel stronger, more energized, and more like myself every single day. Stem Regen didn't just change my routine, it changed my recovery. Empower your body to recover from within. Whether you focused on recovery, longevity or just overall wellness, Stem Regen helps your body feel the best. It can release the best version of you. Try Stem Regen today at Stemregen co. Use code pod25 for 25% off your first order. Again, that's stemregen code pod25.
- [01:20]
Joanna Coles
I'm Joanna Coles and this is the Daily Beast podcast where we say the quiet part out loud three times a week. I pull back the curtain on the scandals, the spin and the sheer madness that we're living through. And we ask the questions others are too afraid to pose. So when Trump melts down again, I call the author, Michael Wolff to break it down. When the DC Circus rolls into town, I get the unvarnished truth from Anthony Scaramucci. And when the Epstein files resurface, Tina Brown joins with the memory of when he confronted her. No fluff, no flattery, just fearless conversation every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday morning. Find the Daily Beast podcast wherever you get your audio drama. I mean, sorry, wherever you get your news.
- [02:16]
Charlie Sachs
I'm Charlie Sachs. Welcome back to another episode of to the Contrary podcast. And there is so much going on. Well, there's always so much going on, but I wanted to focus, focus in on what's going on with Ukraine. While we are recording this, the leaders of the free world are gathering in Washington, D.C. the leaders of the free world, minus Donald Trump, trying to provide some solidarity for Volodymyr Zelensky so he doesn't get bullied, doesn't get steamrolled by Donald Trump. And we're gonna find out exactly how Far Trump is willing to go in switching sides. So to join me to parse out some of this, our good friend Ben Whittis from Lawfare. Thanks for joining me, Ben. I appreciate it.
- [03:01]
Ben Wittes
Hey, Charlie, it's great to see you. I saw you the other. I saw you the other day at a conference, and we were both polite enough not to interrupt the sessions to greet each other. And so I sort of felt like we had seen each other without seeming seeing each other.
- [03:18]
Charlie Sachs
We did, but we. But we texted with one another. I want to ask you about some.
- [03:21]
Ben Wittes
Of the things across the table.
- [03:23]
Charlie Sachs
I want to ask you about some of the stuff we heard. So before we get into the big stuff, so you actually, to mark this shameful summit in Alaska, you went to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and you tried to chalk a Ukrainian flag. Can you just briefly tell me about that little episode?
- [03:42]
Ben Wittes
Yeah. So I found this very upsetting, to be honest. I joke about these protests a lot and I, you know, but this one actually really bothered me. So a year ago, I had decided to chalk a Ukrainian flag on the sidewalk in front of the Russian embassy. I was pretty sure it was entirely legal, but my relationship with the Secret Service, which protects embassies, is good enough that I thought I would walk them through it and make sure they didn't have any problem with what I was going to do, because the embassy is, you know, they have to protect the embassy. It's a tough job, and I didn't want to make their lives any more difficult. So there's actually video of me walking a Secret Service officer through exactly what I intended to do. And I believe his exact words were, as long as it's all chalk, you know. And so I did this under the watchful eye of the Secret Service. And I think, like, my view was, it's kind of like a kindergartner drawing a hopscotch thing on the sidewalk. How could anybody think it was illegal? And the Secret Service didn't? Well, that was last year. This is Trump's America. And federal law enforcement is now policing the D.C. streets. And so when I went back to do it this time, I figured, well, I'm fine with this, because I know they vetted this operation specifically. I've talked to them about it. I don't need a permit. I'm just going to go do it. So I started doing it. I was live streaming, streaming it on my sub stack, and I even had a Ukrainian translator for the occasion. And all of a sudden, five Secret Service vehicles show up with lights flashing five Vehicles, at least five.
- [05:36]
Charlie Sachs
Yeah, Okay.
- [05:37]
Ben Wittes
I mean, it was. And a fire engine, you know, with. In case there were. And it turns out that the Russians or somebody had called in my chalk as lighter fluid and were complaining to the Secret Service that I was pouring lighter fluid. And the Secret Service said, well, the containers look like they could be lighter fluid. And so you. And you can watch all this on. On the. I posted the whole video of it. And so it took them a good long time to verify. First of all, they had to verify that it was. Was in fact an inert substance, which is to say chalk. Secondly, that, you know, I was who I said I was and that there I have no outstanding warrants and that my partner in what turned out to be according to the Secret Service crime, had no outstanding warrants. And so it takes about half an hour. And then the. During which the Russians were complaining about a whole bunch of other things. They claimed we had spray painted something on the visitors entrance which was completely false. They claimed that there was something improper about a camera that I had installed across the street on private property with the permission of the landowner. That was completely false. So finally we get down to the fact that all I was doing was spreading chalk. And the Secret Service, to my surprise, took the position that this was defacement of a public sidewalk. And defacement of public property is a misdemeanor under a D.C. municipal statute ordinance. And they asked me to stop and made clear that if I didn't, they would enforce the law. So we desisted and I went home having painted only a small Ukrainian flag when I meant to do a big one. And with a lot of unused chalk in my trunk.
- [07:44]
Charlie Sachs
It'll come in handy.
- [07:45]
Ben Wittes
It'll come in handy. And very worried about all the kindergarteners around the city who don't even know they are criminals when they draw in sidewalk chalk on. On the sidewalk. And so that is the story. I. I wish it had a happy ending, but it does not. And then, by the way, when I came back an hour later or two hours later, the somebody, I can't imagine who had hosed away the. What a surprise. So it is illegal for me to draw in sidewalk chalk, but it is not illegal for the Russians to hose down the sidewalk and wipe away the sidewalk chalk.
- [08:31]
Charlie Sachs
So this seems like a perfect segue, America in 2025 to what happened on Saturday. Now, by the way, shortly before we began taping this, I noticed that Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Washington, D.C. and he was not greeted with the red Carpet or with an applauding Donald Trump, he did not get that. And also, even though the White House apparently had told him that he needed to wear a suit today, he did not wear a suit, which I thought was a good omen. But let's go back to Saturday. Okay, so you probably saw this. Boris Johnson, former British Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, just, I mean, Boris Johnson wrote, well, that was just about the most vomit inducing episode in all the tawdy history of international diplomacy. Now, the man has many flaws, but he understood the historical context of what we saw. So what was your reaction watching this bizarre, humiliating, no deal summit in Anchorage?
- [09:32]
Ben Wittes
Well, I made a point of not watching it and because I thought that my capacity for holding down my food might be tested by it. And I, I actually find it really humiliating as an American to be put in that position of being represented by somebody who is, you know, sucking the intestines out these contents of the intestines of a pre. Not a, not just a dictator, but a premeditated mass murderer of that scale. I. Look, there is no reason for Trump to be meeting with Vladimir Putin at all. Two weeks ago, Putin, the position of the United States was either there needs to be a ceasefire or we're going to impose secondary sanctions on Russian oil. Right. And that lasted as long as it took. Exactly. Nothing to happen. Right. Nothing changed, except that Trump decided that, you know, it's easier to put pressure on the weaker party than the stronger party. And he for some reason likes Putin or wants Putin to like him. That, that psychology is indecipherable. And so a summit was planned. Now, there are times when you need to have summit meetings with genuinely evil people. Mao was a mass murderer of the highest degree. And we think of it as a good thing that the Nixon administration opened the United States to China. And that did involve a certain amount of palling around. Right. And of course, Roosevelt had meetings with Stalin. Right. Where I'm, I don't. Some of those meetings produced really bad outcomes, but I'm not, but I'm not opposed in principle to the idea that sometimes you need to do business with some of the worst people in the world, particularly when they might be the second worst people in the world. Right. You never, ever, ever need to prostrate yourself before them. You never need to prostrate America before them. You never need to. You, you always need to think seriously about whether this is something we should be doing, whether you're giving them legitimacy. And in this case, what Putin gave was nothing. Nothing, Absolutely nothing. There is literally no identifiable change in position on the part of the Russians. There is a dramatic change in position on the part of the United States. And, you know, I spent the weekend with a lot of Ukrainians because that's one of the things I do these days. And there is a, you know, that is a. Something that Americans who are unsure about. This policy of appeasement is even a generous word for it. I, it actually, Neville Chamberlain. Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy actually was a coherent theory. It turned one that turned out to be disastrously wrong. But there was a theory there. This is, There is no theory. The theory is, well, if I'm very nice to Putin and give him everything he wants, maybe he'll like me. And, and I can. And I don't care what happens to Ukraine. I think that's. And so I urge Americans who are. I urge Americans, whether, irrespective of this, to spend a little bit of time talking to Ukrainians just because the, the damage we are doing to people's understanding of what the United States is, what it stands for, what our international posture is, is really, it is a no joke, sea change in the way an entire generation is going to understand the United States, and we are going to be paying for this for 50 years.
- [14:35]
Charlie Sachs
Well, I obviously agree strongly. Well, let's break this down. What happened on Saturday, there were the optics in the substance, and we'll get to substance in a moment. I'm sorry, On Friday, you know, this is the problem. You and I were at this conference. I'm totally disoriented in terms of timing. Okay, so on Friday, the optics of rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, who flew to Alaska in part because he wouldn't have to go into the airspace of another country that might have actually inflicted the international arrest warrant for him being a war criminal. So he didn't fly over anyone else's airspace. In many other jurisdictions in the free world, he might have been arrested upon landing. Instead, the President of the United States greets him. He gets a hero's welcome. There's the back patting, there's the laughing, there's the joking. And you could just see just from the optics that Vladimir Putin had won the moment that he got into the car, that he was no longer a pariah. And, of course, that's the way it was played in Russian media. That Russian media was delighted by what they saw as their mobster in chief now being given this hero's welcome in the United States. You had pictures of American soldiers on their knees, rolling out the Carpets. So there's the optics there and then there is the substance. So apparently Donald Trump, when he's flying there, is talking to Fox News and says, if I don't get a ceasefire agreement, I'm going to walk out of there. He goes in and is flattered and fluffed by Vladimir Putin and he completely pivots. He comes out of there with nothing. And you know that it wasn't great because they had the press conference afterwards. He steamrolled by a preening. Vladimir Putin doesn't take any questions whatsoever. And then the next day he basically says, yeah, forget about that ceasefire. So talk to me about what's happening today. It feels like all of NATO in Europe was so shocked and so alarmed by that that they canceled all their plans and said we have to go with Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House. I mean, when has anything like this ever happened before?
- [16:46]
Ben Wittes
Right. So a few things. Let's talk about the optics first. And, and so the optics are even worse than what you just described. And the reason it has to do with the history of Alaska vis a vis the United States and Russia. So the word Alaska comes from the Russian word aliaska, which was the name of the province when it was part of the Russian empire. It was purchased by Secretary of State William Seward, who was of course most famous for having. It was called Seward's Folly. Seward was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State and famously said when Lincoln died, now he is for the ages. Right. There's two things that William Seward is known for also. He was one of the most prominent Republicans of his time and clearly thought he was going to be the presidential nomination, not this huckster, Abraham Lincoln, but becomes Lincoln's most loyal and important non military member of his cabinet. So William Seward is a serious guy. He is. There's a park in on Capitol Hill named Seward Square that I happen to walk through with some Ukrainians. While this was happening by coincidence, every Russian knows that Alaska used to be part of Russia. And so Russians, we don't, we forget, we forget. But Ukrainians know and Russians know. And so there are big billboards in Russia that say Alaska is ours. Alaska, Nasha. And so when the President of the Russian Federation goes to Alaska and doesn't have to cross any borders of other countries in order to get there, and he gets the royal treatment. I mean, red carpets into a limo and he is with US troops bowing down for them. This is an enormously significant symbolic thing in the Russian cosmology. It's a real, and I don't know if anybody in the Trump administration is sophisticated enough about Russian imperial history or current Russian politics to have any sense of the, of the symbolic valence of this. But, you know, Russians understand this in symbolic terms, Ukrainians understand this in symbolic terms. And we should not overlook the degree of, you know, us, the symbol. It's a little bit like, imagine that, you know, you met with Osama bin Laden in Spain, right? Who, who Al Qaeda still thinks that Spain is, should be part of a caliphate, right? This would be very symbolic. And imagine that you. And yes, I'm comparing Osama bin Laden to Vladimir Putin. They're roughly morally equivalent, except that Osama bin Laden didn't kill nearly as many people. And you know, you do that with, you do that blindly at your peril. So that's on the symbolic side. And by the way, if you tell you, if, if, if you ask a Ukrainian or Russian what's the significance of Alaska here, they will say it used, it's that it used to be part of the Russian empire, right? Like it was bought by the United States. And Russian nationalists are still burned up about that. Not the same extent to which they're burned up about the fact that Ukraine exists. But when you're talking about the Russian imperial imagination, there is US Territory that is counted as this is ours and that's Alaska. And so understand where this, why this is. It's not just that there was a red carpet, it's that there was a red carpet in, in Alaska. So on the substance, yes, this is a five alarm fire for the Europeans and it is a five alarm fire for, you know, Americans of conscience. Not that there is anything we can do about it save protest. But look, the, the American position up until now, even under Trump, has always been in lockstep with the Ukrainian position on the need for an immediate ceasefire. So first you get a ceasefire and then, I mean, Trump has said some terrible things about, yeah, there may have to be land swaps. He's, you know, he's made stupid comments, bad, bad comments about, you know, where what the basis for a deal could be. But there's always been an understanding that first you have to have a ceasefire. Now he has just adopted the Russian position, which is you can go directly to final peace deal terms. And, and Russia doesn't even have to stop, stop bombing Ukrainian cities first. Well, why does this distinction matter? It just matters for two reasons. One is the first and most important reason is that the only thing, you know, it puts right up Front as the first things in the negotiations, the concessions that Ukraine is going to have to make, right? So now instead of saying, okay, first you stop killing people, then we'll talk about the final status arrangement, the peace deal, and by the way, we can't reach a final status peace deal because Russia's demands are so extravagant. So now we're, we're going to say, you don't have to stop killing people first, let's just focus on the things Ukraine is going to have to give up. Well, Ukraine's not going to give those things up, nor should, by the way. So we've back, we've pushed to the back of the line all of the most important questions, like, what about those 20,000 children that you stole and deported to Russia and have scattered around with Russian families and you're now raising to hate their country? What about those, what about that war, that set of war crimes? What about the fact that there are nightly air raids, bombings of Ukrainian cities, including the capital, that are targeting civilians? What about the fact that there is a front line, that you have no entitlement to have troops in the country at all? So the entire front line is an act of aggression. We're not going to talk about any of those things. First, you can keep killing civilians, you can keep killing, you know, deporting children, stealing children. You can keep engaging in a very brutal occupation of these illegally seized lands while you make your demands for a final peace deal. And so the entire European NATO sector has responded to this by saying this burden shifting is completely unacceptable. And having seen what happened the last time Zelensky was invited to Washington, which was this humiliating dressing down in the White House by Trump, they did, I think, the responsible thing, which was to say we are all showing up and we are going to be the adult super.
- [25:55]
Charlie Sachs
Were they invited or they just, they said we're going to be showing up. I mean, you know, I don't, I.
- [26:00]
Ben Wittes
Mean, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. I think, you know the, but these are people, national leaders, who said, okay, we have an independent commitment to Ukraine. And by the way, we thought we had an understanding with the United States, which was, you weren't, we were going to buy the weapons. You weren't going to provide another $60 billion, but you were going to okay it if we bought the weapons and gave them to Ukraine. So we thought we had an understanding. Now you are, and we were all on the same page about a ceasefire. Now you are like, you know, you're just, you're just shilling the Russian position and we're going to come and be the united front. And so that is what is happening now. And you have to all have to.
- [26:56]
Charlie Sachs
Go out and yet. And by the way, by the time people hear this, we will have known what have happened. I'm guessing that there will be a lot of, you know, ego stroking and praise of Trump, because what else are you going to do? Otherwise you infuriate him. But your bottom line is that Ukraine and Europe will not agree to the massive land swap that Vladimir Putin has proposed. And apparently it's not a land swap. Okay, I'm sorry, that was a terrible.
- [27:20]
Ben Wittes
That's a land. It's a land swap. The way the US conquest of Wisconsin was a land swap. Right.
- [27:29]
Charlie Sachs
Swap requires going both ways. It's not going to happen. Right. So, yeah, this is this massive concession. So that's not going to happen. You're saying, you're saying there's no way that Zelensky is going to agree to that. No way that Europe is going to say, yeah, give a. Give the Donbas away.
- [27:43]
Ben Wittes
Correct. And so the, the question is whether Trump will now be dug in on this idea that it's perfectly reasonable to discuss all this stuff before there's a ceasefire or, or whether there will be a breach of. Between, you know, a breach that lasts more than two or three days between the Ukrainian position and the US position. Ukraine has made some mistakes in its deals, dealings with the United States. I think most Ukrainians think the Oval Office, the last Oval Office meeting reflected, you know, the. A less than deft handling of the president, of our president by Zelensky. That said, there's no doubt in anybody's reasonable minds that Zelensky was the victim there.
- [28:44]
Charlie Sachs
Yeah.
- [28:44]
Ben Wittes
And I think the Ukrainians have been very skillful over the last six months in making sure that there is zero public daylight between the United States position and the Ukrainian position. And that was an important success. They got the mineral deals done, minerals deal done on terms that were bad but not terrible. And then they got the US to back this ceasefire first position, which they've always been aligned on. And, and they maneuvered Putin very skillfully into being the bad guy, even in the eyes of Donald Trump. And that was the state of play until about a week and a half ago. And now, as all things with Donald Trump, it has fallen apart.
- [29:47]
Charlie Sachs
Yeah. Okay, so let me just brief before we move on to something else, since obviously there's a lot going on even as where you and I are speaking here, this should be a footnote to the whole thing. But I'm not sure that it's just a footnote is that apparently one of the things that Vladimir Putin did to soften up Donald Trump and to, you know, to manipulate him was to go, you know, to go to his favorite subject to play to Donald Trump's obsession about the 2020 election. And so there you have one of the world's greatest, you know, figures of election integrity, right? Vladimir Putin, who has destroyed democracy in his own country and is notorious. He's telling Donald Trump, oh, you know, you won big, you won big. It was fraudulent. You should eliminate mail in voting. Mail in voting is terrible. At least that's what Trump is now saying afterwards. So what does Trump do? First of all, he's flattered. He's repeating what Putin said. Obviously it worked, as you point out. And then Monday morning he puts out a truth social tweet that he's going to lead the campaign to abolish mail in voting in the United States. So not only did Vladimir Putin manage to soft soak Donald Trump, suck up to him then that particular way, or manipulate him, now Trump is in effect taking a cue from Vladimir Putin about how to run elections. I mean, for fuck's sake, Ben. I mean, I feel, yeah, I mean.
- [31:16]
Ben Wittes
Look, this part of it isn't new. Trump has long talked about the Russia investigation as though it were this injustice that he and Putin had gone through together. And it's definitely one of the things that bonds them or at least bonds Trump to Putin. I don't think Putin actually does bonds. He believes, I mean, he has talked about it this way for a long time, that there's this, you know, that he and Putin, the liberal media, the Democrats, Jim Comey, Jim Clapper unfairly engaged in this hoax and the victims of it were Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
- [32:04]
Charlie Sachs
Share the pain with one another.
- [32:06]
Ben Wittes
They share this pain and co victims has learned to manipulate that. And you know, not that that would take a lot of learning, but like Putin, whatever el he may be, he's not stupid, unlike Trump, and he is actually capable of having a poker face. And so he has played on that. And because the weight of opinion in the Republican Party believes this, at least as to Trump, when Trump says these things, it actually does matter to, you know, the, the conventional way that a lot of right wing media refers to the Russia investigation now is the Russia hoax. Well, if it's a rush, if it's a hoax, it's not unreasonable to think of Putin as a victim of it. Right. And if you. The thing is, it's not a hoax and Putin did try to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump's behalf.
- [33:18]
Charlie Sachs
And there's so much evidence, and the.
- [33:20]
Ben Wittes
Evidence of that is overwhelming and remains essentially uncontested to this day. And so I think it's a, you know, I don't know what to say about it except, you know, don't vote for presidents who are self involved, narcissistic conspiracy theorists.
- [33:43]
Charlie Sachs
What you get, on the other hand, if in fact, Donald, assuming that we do know that Vladimir Putin did interfere in the 2016 election, you have to acknowledge that the return on investment is rather extraordinary from his point of view, whether or not Donald Trump is a winning agent. And of course I am not going to offer an opinion about that or whether there's kompromat, because I certainly do not know. Just a thought for everybody to keep in their mind. If he was in fact a Russian agent or an asset, a Russian asset, how would he be behaving differently than he is right now? I'm just going to leave that question out there without getting into it.
- [34:19]
Ben Wittes
Okay, I will go, I will, I will go further. Okay. There is, in the common parlance there is a phrase, you're either a foreign agent or you're not. Yes. But in the FBI there's another phrase that is an important one, and that phrase is a co optee. And a co optee is somebody who may not have an agency relationship with a foreign intelligence service but is being used by that foreign service. Now, you can be a willing co opti or an unconscious, unknowing co opti, but the point is that a foreign intelligence service or a foreign government is using you for some covert purpose. I just.
- [35:09]
Charlie Sachs
Yeah, yeah. Well, is it sort of a term about a nice way of saying useful idiot?
- [35:16]
Ben Wittes
So a useful idiot can be a co opti. Can be a useful idiot. But sometimes a co opti, for example, is you are unknowingly sleeping with a person who's working for us. Right? And so we are through your, your girlfriend slash boyfriend getting you to do things that would be not, you're not an agent, you may not even know, but you are functionally working for us. It can be softer than that. It can be, you are, you publish a newspaper that is super sympathetic to us, like say Benny Johnson, right? You publish, you do make substack or, or YouTube videos. We can create an organization to pay you to make those videos. And it's a media organization. And you may know you're getting Information, getting a large amount of money from a Russian backed company. But you're expressing your First Amendment rights. You're not an agent. Exactly right. This is classic co opti stuff. And so I want to say that I don't have an opinion about whether Trump is an agent of a foreign power. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a co opti of the Russian Federation.
- [36:50]
Charlie Sachs
Fascinating. Okay, so in the time we have left, I wanted to ask you about actually the panel that over the weekend at this conference on the future of liberalism in the world, really small liberalism, you were the moderator of a panel, all star panel that included Francis Fukuyama, Ruth Marcus, former columnist for the Washington Post, and Jack Goldsmith, who now teaches at Harvard and of course key executive in the Department of Justice. Now, I mean, he was, what, what was his title?
- [37:21]
Ben Wittes
He was the head of olc.
- [37:23]
Charlie Sachs
Yeah, he was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel.
- [37:25]
Ben Wittes
Right. So he was the one who withdrew the torture memos and stopped the warrantless wiretapping program. So he is a. He was the head of OLC for a brief period of time, 10 months. But they are 10 very fateful months in the history of that office.
- [37:42]
Charlie Sachs
Okay. So there was a moment, and I wanted to get your reaction to this, where the question came, you know, how bad, badly damaged has the Department of Justice been? We all read about this. We know what Pam Bondi has done, we know about the purges, we know about the various threat. So just talk to me a little bit about this question came up. And the thing about Jack Goldsmith that's always struck me is that he's very careful and he's very moderate in his positions and the way that he phrases things. But when he was asked that question, you do. All right, let me tell you this.
- [38:24]
Ben Wittes
Story as I remember it. I have not reviewed videotape of it yet. I don't think it's available yet. But you tell me if your memory is consistent with mine. So my, the two pieces of background that you need for this story is that first, Ruth is somewhat to my left. I am. And Ruth is more liberal than I am. We worked together for a long time on the Washington Post editorial page. We're were quite close, but she has a more alarmed view of a lot of things right now. Well, I'm very alarmed too. But then I do. The second is that Jack is a, is better sourced in the Justice Department than any journalist. And the reason is that an enormous number of people in the Justice Department trained at Harvard Law School under Jack. And so you have a lot of people, particularly in the national security space, the separation of power spaces, foreign relations law space, who are former students of Jack. And he knows things not merely that are happening there that are far beyond what journalists are able to access. And so in one of the final questions of the panel, I laid out what I thought was a provocation, which was that. And I stated it, I thought, intentionally in active, you know, in sort of alarmed terms, which is that the situation at the Justice Department is much, much worse than has become public, that particularly in the FBI, the damage is extreme, that, that a very large number of people in the litigating sections of the Justice Department are leaving or are looking to leave, and that the career ranks have been decimated to a degree that is far beyond what is been reported. And it's very hard to report on it because when people leave, they don't leave, they don't resign in protest. They kind of take up, you know, take the fork in the road thing, or they. But that the degree of devastation is more, is dramatically worse than is public. And I asked Ruth in so Ruth, who has just finished a Pam Bondi profile for the New Yorker, am I overstating this? And Ruth, Ruth's response was, no, you're radically understating it. And she went into a fairly extensive account of the degree of devastation that she had run across in reporting this piece and then asked Jack, because Jack is always the one who tells me and Ruth that I that were overreacting. And this was the stunning moment that this, that Ruth said to Jack, so what are your thoughts on this? And Jack's response is, no, Ruth, you are radically understating it. And then Jack went into a description from his point of view, and his point of view is much less alarmed as a general matter than Ruth and ir. And he's, he's a much more careful, careful to avoid hyperbole. He doesn't do rhetoric. And he often tells Ruth and me, oh, calm down, you know, blah, blah, blah. Right. And his account was not merely am I understating it, which was Ruth's point, but that Ruth is understating it. And this is probably the one of the five or six best sourced people in the, you know, with respect to the Justice Department career ranks, because he's one of the small number of people who has, it's got to be a hundred former students in the Justice Department. And so I'm, I actually found it an arresting exchange.
- [43:02]
Charlie Sachs
It was startling. I was in the audience and I was startled because, because as you Say, this is not someone given to hyperbole. This is somebody who had just gone through, you know, talking about the Supreme Court. It's not nearly as bad as you think it is. And he lays it out. And so when he basically said, no, actually they've dropped a nuclear bomb on the Justice Department coming from him, it was a genuinely startling moment.
- [43:27]
Ben Wittes
And, you know, I am used to being told by Jack that. That I'm overreacting to things. And he's one of the few people who I allow in my life to make these arguments to me because most people do it from a. What? You know, an anti. Anti Point of view. And I once when people tell me I'm overreacting to things, I often have the reaction. Actually, no, I'm. I'm. You're underreacting. And I have this visceral response to that. Jack and I are extremely close. We've been close friends. He founded Lawfare with me. We've been close friends and colleagues for 20 years. And he is extremely analytically rigorous. And when he's tail tells me I'm overreacting to something, I take that seriously. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I always take the time to go through his arguments and to have him say that Ruth, who is generally more alarmed than I am, is under reacting to this was a jarring moment. And I, you know, just one of many over the last several days.
- [44:53]
Charlie Sachs
Okay, we only have a few minutes left, but I would. We would be remiss if we didn't talk about the fact that there are troops patrolling the streets of Washington D.C. that the President has not only ordered the National Guard onto the streets, but now red state governors are sending National Guards troops to your city. Your thoughts on all of that? Because I feel that it feels like it's almost become now normalized to militarized law enforcement and that this is just a. This is just a precursor of something that we are going to see a great deal of over the next several months years. Troops in New York, in Chicago, more in Los Angeles. What are your thoughts?
- [45:38]
Ben Wittes
I will say three things about this. The first is don't confuse National Guard and other federal law enforcement agencies with ice.
- [45:51]
Charlie Sachs
Okay?
- [45:52]
Ben Wittes
These are not people who are out there willingly. These are people who signed up to be members of the National Guard to deal with things like natural disasters. Right. You know, real civil unrest like January 6th. And they have been. This is an abuse of them by the president and it is not their fault. I feel the same way about DEA agents, about FBI agents. Who've been given Tasers.
- [46:25]
Charlie Sachs
Yes.
- [46:26]
Ben Wittes
FBI agents should never be carrying Tasers and have been sent out for street patrol. If you see them doing something inappropriate, film is abominable, that they're there, but it is not their fault. And so if they are doing something inappropriate, it film it, put it out there. If they are just doing their jobs. The problem is with policymakers, not with these individual agents or these individual National Guardsmen, particularly not the National Guardsmen who, you know, can't just resign. Yeah, I feel differently about ice. ICE has been very aggressive in Washington and has been, you know, people who signed up to be ICE officers, particularly who signed up in this administration and who are making a choice. And I think it is legitimate to judge that choice and to express your anger at their choices to their faces. Don't throw sandwiches at them. Don't do anything that's going to get you arrested. Don't physically impede them. But if you want to tell them how you feel, I really think that is an appropriate thing to do. And as to the militarization of the city, look, every night at 8 o' clock, D.C. residents are going outside, sometimes individually, sometimes in groups. And for five minutes they are banging pots and pans together. They are playing trombones. They are, they're bringing their kids. I've been posting on Blue sky some videos of this. I would encourage anybody who lives in the District to do that. Just go outside your house for five minutes every day at 8:00pm when you're not doing something else and make some noise. And the slogan is Free DC And I think it is genuinely important to let people know that this is not okay with us. If you held a referendum in the District of Columbia about the federal takeover of our police department. The federal takeover, the deployment. This would not get 5% of the vote in, in Washington. And it is a function of, you know, and we need to be out there making that clear. And I do hope that people will participate in this.
- [49:23]
Charlie Sachs
Ben Wittes, thank you so much. I see there you have DogsHirtTV. And of course we can find your work at Lawfare and your substack newsletter. So, Ben, it is always good talking with you.
- [49:37]
Ben Wittes
Great to see you, Charlie. And let's do it again soon. We will.
- [49:42]
Charlie Sachs
Because there will be more to talk about. Right?
- [49:44]
Ben Wittes
Yeah.
- [49:44]
Charlie Sachs
Thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. There's always more to talk about because we keep, we need to keep reminding ourselves. We.
- [49:53]
Ben Wittes
You can, you can bleep this out. I, I want. Can I amend your slogan?
- [49:59]
Charlie Sachs
Yes please.
- [50:01]
Ben Wittes
We are not the crazy ones and the keep.
- [50:06]
Charlie Sachs
You know. Yes.
- [50:08]
Ben Wittes
Thank you all.
- [50:21]
Lisa
Hello listeners. Meet Lisa.
- [50:23]
Ben Wittes
Hey there.
- [50:24]
Lisa
Lisa runs an online boutique specializing in sustainable fashion. With Acast, she found a whole new way to reach eco conscious shoppers.
- [50:31]
Boost Mobile Advertiser
Yep. I recorded a quick ad targeted listeners interest interested in fashion and sustainability using Acast's audience attributes targeting feature and set my budget. Before I knew it, people all over were hearing about my shop.
- [50:43]
Lisa
Now that's a smart way to grow your business. Hey Lisa, what's trending right now?
- [50:47]
Boost Mobile Advertiser
Shopping sustainably and my sales of course.
- [50:49]
Lisa
Start reaching your ideal audience through podcast ads with Acast. Visit go.acast.com advertise to get started.
- [51:04]
Ben Wittes
Listen up. You can get the new iPhone 16e with Apple Intelligence for just $49.99 when.
- [51:09]
Joanna Coles
You switch to Boost Mobile.
- [51:12]
Ben Wittes
We pulled so many all nighters to give you this deal. And hey, stop messing with the mic. I'm just helping this catch people's attention.
- [51:20]
Charlie Sachs
This is a great deal.
- [51:22]
Ben Wittes
Exactly. So it doesn't need all that. Fine. Head to your nearest Boost Mobile store right now. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store for full offer details. Apple Intelligence requires iOS 18.1 or later.
- [51:33]
Charlie Sachs
Restrictions apply.
- [51:34]
Ben Wittes
Now you can fly anywhere in the.
- [51:36]
Charlie Sachs
World and pay discount prices on your airline tickets.
- [51:40]
Ben Wittes
Book a flight today to London, Paris, Madrid or anywhere else you want to go and pay a lot less guaranteed. Call the international travel department right now at Low Cost Airlines, 8002-1551-4180-0215-5141. That's 800-215-5141.
- [52:08]
Charlie Sachs
Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
- [52:16]
Boost Mobile Advertiser
With so much uncertainty in the economy, we need to rely on experts we can trust. So Money, hosted by me, Farnoosh Tarabi, is a Webby award winning podcast now in its 10th year. The new York Times calls it one of the most respected personal finance shows out there. As a financial journalist for more than 20 years and best selling author, let me tell you it is a privilege to produce this show. And whether you want to save more, invest, or negotiate a better salary, I've got you covered with fresh episodes three times a week. And here's something extra. I'm giving away a free money call to one lucky listener every week. A chance for you and I to talk one on one and create a personal plan for your goals. Listen and subscribe to SEW money wherever you get your podcasts.
- [53:00]
Charlie Sachs
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [53:05]
Ben Wittes
Acast.com.