Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Michael Morell:

Do I believe that there is life out there in the universe on other planets capable of sustaining life? Absolutely. Do I think we’d be lucky enough to bump into somebody who’s advanced enough to come this far, here, at this moment in the history of the universe? Yeah, I’d be really surprised by that.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Michael Morell. He’s a former career intelligence officer who rose to become deputy director of the CIA, twice stepping in to serve as acting director. Since retiring from the agency in 2013, he’s become a prominent voice on issues of intelligence and national security. He hosts the Intelligence Matters podcast and serves as a national security analyst for CBS News. Morell joins me to discuss the subject on everyone’s mind, the recent spate of UFOs shot down over North America. He also explains why he thinks the US has entered a cold war with China and what new technologies like AI and deep fakes could mean for national security. That’s coming up. Stay Tuned.

Now, let’s get to your questions. This question comes in a tweet from Twitter user: KeepitStands. “Thoughts on releasing parts of the Georgia grand jury report before indictments are made?” So that’s a good question. As we’ve been discussing on the podcast for the last few weeks, there’s been a proceeding in Fulton County, Georgia in which a special grand jury was convened, has apparently prepared to report relating to election interference by Donald Trump and others, allegedly. Now the question is in the face of motions from a broad media consortium: should that report be made public? Now to be clear, the judge in Georgia has ordered only a small portion of the report to be made public. Specifically, according to the opinion, “These three portions include the introduction and conclusion to the final report as well as section eight in which the special purpose grand jury discusses its concern that some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony to the grand jury.”

What that tells us is, the great majority of facts and witness testimony and all sorts of other material will not be made public, at least not immediately. So for the most part, the report will remain under seal. What’s sort of interesting about the decision and may be interesting to you if you’ve been following it, was the law in Georgia basically provides that if a recommendation is made by the special grand jury to release the report, it shall be released. That’s the mandatory language in the relevant Georgia statute: shall be released. And the judge in this matter essentially acknowledges that, citing to the provision saying, “If a grand jury recommends publication, the judge shall order the publication as recommended.”

In fact, the judge notes, facially the final report should be published in toto pursuant to the statute. And then in my favorite sentence, in the opinion, the judge, acknowledging reality and other principles of justice and fairness says, “But as with many things in the law, it is not that simple.” And the judge basically sides with the arguments made by the DA herself, which is that the process would be impeded and undermined and fairness to potential targets, those as yet not indicted or who may never ultimately be indicted, have not had the ability to defend themselves. As the judge says in the opinion, “There was very limited due process in this process for those who might now be named as indictment worthy in the final report.” I think also, he may have been moved by the fact that the DA made a representation that indictments were, in her words, imminent. So the harm to the public of non-disclosure will be limited in time and duration. So all things considered, let’s see what’s in the intro and the conclusion and section eight of the report, but I think it was the right decision.

This question comes in an email from Anthony, “I’m one of George Santos’ constituents, can anything be done to remove him from Congress?” This is of course the congressman who’s on everyone’s mind who is a lead story in all the talk shows in the evening, people are making fun of him, but he remains one of the 435 members of Congress, notwithstanding multiple investigations into his campaign activities, his financial activities, and notwithstanding the documented lies and lies and lies that he has told to the public. If you can believe it, there’s almost nothing that can be done to remove George Santos from Congress unless he leaves voluntarily, other than one mechanism. He can’t be impeached, he can’t be thrown out by the caucus leader, he can’t be thrown out by the Speaker of the House, but there is a provision in the US Constitution, it’s Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2 that says as follows, “Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior. And with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

Even a criminal charge or a criminal conviction does not automatically or necessarily remove a congressman like George Santos. There is, by the way, a resolution pending in the House. It’s House Resolution 114 that says, “Resolved,” that pursuant to that article and clause that I just mentioned, “Representative George Santos be and hereby is expelled from the House of Representatives.”

In the entire history of the House of Representatives, it has only expelled a total of five members ever. So if you look at the slim majority in the House, and that’s probably what’s keeping George Santos safe, because power is the most important thing to Kevin McCarthy it seems, two-thirds of the members of the House is about 290. There are, at this moment, 213 Democrats, you would need all of them, plus 77 Republicans. So I think the likelihood that that will happen and there will be an expulsion is low and at this moment zero. Should there be allegations of fraud and perhaps a criminal indictment from the federal authorities, maybe some of those 77 could be won over. Whether we get to 77 plus 213 remains to be seen and is a long way off. And as always, Stay Tuned.

This is an email from a couple, from Phil and Anna, who write, “Dear Preet, my wife and I were debating, given the great rapport you seem to have with your guests, that you perform a pre-interview session or conversation before an actual long-form recorded chat to build a comfortable dynamic. I think she’s wrong and you’re just a good interviewer. Who’s right?” Phil and Anna. Well, I don’t make it a habit of settling disputes, even good natured disputes between husband and wife, but thanks for the compliment and thanks for the question. I appreciate it.

So putting aside whether or not I’m a good interviewer, you are correct, we do not do pre-interview sessions or conversations. We don’t give our questions in advance to any guests and I don’t think there’s ever been a guest I’ve done a pre-interview with, with the possible exception of one government official who I was interviewing on stage at a conference who for purposes of confidentiality and national security wanted to be sure that I wasn’t going to venture into areas that this person was not permitted to talk about and get in trouble for. But that’s five and a half years, no pre-interviews.

Now, in fairness, with respect to the rapport I have with guests, with respect to some of them, I know them, I’ve known them for a long time, they’re friends of mine. Adam Grant, Ian Bremmer come to mind, but many others. So I come into the interview knowing them, having socialized with them, having been friends with them, and have a feel for how the conversation will go. Not everyone may think about it this way, my view about an interview with someone, even someone I’ve interviewed before, but I’m interviewing them on new topics and new developments in the news and the world, is I think spontaneity is lost if you go through that once before the interview.

In fact, in the few minutes before we press the record button every week, when I’m talking to a guest through my laptop, we’ll sometimes venture into the topics that are going to be discussed and the guest will start talking about something, whether it’s UFOs this week or something else, and I actually have started to cut them off and say, “I don’t want to talk about it unless we’re recording.” Because to do it a second time, I think, takes some of the excitement and energy, and as I said, spontaneity out of the conversation. It’s got to be fresh and heard for the first time and the interactions that happen live in that context, I think, are always best.

One other observation about the level of rapport. For the first couple of years of the podcast, I thought it was incredibly important to be in the same room as the guest for purposes of building rapport and having a good and easy conversational style with the guest. When I had guests from out of town, my first guest, for example, Leon Panetta, I flew to DC to interview him. When I had the Pod Save America hosts on Stay Tuned, I flew out to LA to interview them. I would travel to people’s offices, including David Miliband and Samantha Bee.

When the pandemic happened and we all shut down, we had to move to remote interviews for every single guest. I think every single guest for almost three years has been remote. And you can be the judge better than I can, I feel that even though I’m not in the room with the guests, I think we still have a pretty good rapport. Maybe that’s because everyone’s gotten used to Zooms and telephone calls as opposed to meeting in person, but I’m sure as you’ve observed, if you’ve been a longtime listener of the show, everyone’s different. Some people are more forthcoming than others.

I find that often people are more forthcoming and more relaxed and more comfortable later in the interview than at the beginning of the interview, particularly if I don’t know them. Takes time for people to open up. And the one virtue of having a long form hour plus interview with people is it gives them an opportunity to warm up and to get comfortable and talk about things that are difficult and complicated, sometimes talk about things that are very personal to them. And I hope that part of the reason it goes well and you enjoy listening to the show is I let them talk at some length in their own words, often without much interruption. So Phil and Anna, thanks for your question. I hope I settled the dispute. Thank you both very much for listening to the show.

We’ll be right back with my conversation with Michael Morell. My guest this week is Michael Morell, former acting director of the CIA and one of the country’s foremost experts on spying. Mike Morell, welcome back to the show.

Michael Morell:

Preet, it is great to be with you again. Really looking forward to this.

Preet Bharara:

Me too. I should note for the audience for context, that we are recording this on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 14th, which happens to be Valentine’s Day.

Michael Morell:

Valentine’s Day. Yes. Which reminds me I need to go out and get a gift from my wife.

Preet Bharara:

Okay, let’s not put that in the episode. Let’s edit that out. My first question to you, and it’s an important one, does espionage tick up on Valentine’s Day?

Michael Morell:

I think it actually-

Preet Bharara:

That was a joke, but I think I’ve dumbfounded you.

Michael Morell:

No, I think you dumbfounded me. Nobody’s ever asked me that before. I would imagine that espionage-

Preet Bharara:

Honey traps-

Michael Morell:

… ticks-

Preet Bharara:

More honey traps.

Michael Morell:

No, no, no. I was going to say it actually ticks down.

Preet Bharara:

Oh.

Michael Morell:

Because you have all these intelligence officers who are 24/7 kind of people, but the love of their lives are pretty important to them. So that’s sort of the one day where they take a pause in the business.

Preet Bharara:

I’m sure Hallmark is very pleased to hear that. On this, some people call this the Hallmark holiday. So I’m very thrilled we have you because of recent events in the news. I also feel a little bit bad for you, as we were discussing before we hit the record button, I imagine a guy like you can’t not be asked about the balloon and the UFOs and whether they’re balloons. So I’m going to apologize in advance for making you talk about this a little bit a longer, but are you in fact able, over the last number of days, to go anywhere without being just harassed with questions about what’s on everyone’s mind?

Michael Morell:

I am harassed by my own family.

Preet Bharara:

But that’s good. Now they think that you’re important and should be listened to.

Michael Morell:

And I happen to be in a part of the country at the moment, in Florida, where there are a lot of people who watch the evening news and the morning shows and as you know, I work for CBS and so a lot of people down here in Florida recognize me and they say hello, and then they quickly move to asking about the balloons.

Preet Bharara:

Have you thought about just having something written up that you keep copies of and just hand it out at the grocery story?

Michael Morell:

I haven’t, I haven’t. But Preet, that is an excellent idea.

Preet Bharara:

Or going forward after Thursday, you can just point them to this podcast.

Michael Morell:

Absolutely. Let’s do that.

Preet Bharara:

So I’m going to try not to ask the over broad annoying questions that you get in the produce aisle. We’ve had the Chinese balloon, surveillance balloon that’s been identified, then we have three things that have been shot down in the last number of days that have not been specifically identified as balloons or otherwise. Do you have, based on your experience and your common sense, do you believe that the other three UFOs are also some kind of surveillance balloon or could they be something different?

Michael Morell:

I think they could be something different. I think it could be a mix, maybe one, maybe two are also some sort of Chinese unmanned aerial vehicle. But I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of them were not. The reason I say that is because after the first one, I’m certain that NORAD took the fine tuning so to speak on their radars and put it to the max, not wanting to miss another. And when you do that, you start seeing all sorts of things. And there are weather balloons that are put up and they do their service or they are in a storm and they break away and they start floating around the world. And that may explain some of these. It’s not impossible that after the first one, an individual or two or more, I guess you would call that a conspiracy in your world, wanted to put something up and maybe get some attention or have a laugh. And that’s not impossible either.

So where I am at the moment is: we know there is one balloon that belongs to the Chinese and that was the first one. We need to be patient and wait and see with regard to the other three.

Preet Bharara:

Further to what you said a minute ago about fine tuning, I guess, our aerial surveillance, the fact that three more objects were shot out of the sky does not necessarily mean there is a sudden and broader proliferation of these things. I think what you’re saying is, it’s just that we’re detecting them more and maybe there have been a lot before the last week, we just didn’t know about it. Fair?

Michael Morell:

Yeah. And I’d say yes, absolutely fair and Preet, what I would say is that my top concern here, particularly for a former intelligence officer whose entire job is knowing so that you can inform the president about what’s happening so that he or she can make decisions to protect the country, for me, the biggest concern is how little we know. We don’t know exactly what the Chinese balloon was doing, what its role was. We don’t know how many of them. We believe there is a program that the Chinese have of spy balloons. We don’t know how many, we don’t know how long. We don’t know exactly what countries they’ve flown over. And as I said, we don’t know what they’re doing. We don’t know, again, if the three shot down over the weekend are Chinese craft or belong to someone else.

And that, to me, is my fundamental concern, is how little it is we know. And I’ve read pretty closely the backgrounders that have been done by the White House and by the Department of Defense, and it’s very clear to me, and this doesn’t happen very often in our government, how little they know. It’s not that they know things that are classified and they’re not able to talk about them. They’re being very open about how little they know.

Preet Bharara:

So let me ask you this question then. Explain to us behind the scenes what is happening, what’s the role of the CIA? What’s the role of other intelligence agencies? What’s the role of the Department of Defense? Who are the people who are scrambling right now to figure out what in the hell is going on because the president every day is wondering when he is going to get answers?

Michael Morell:

Exactly. So the debris from the first has now been recovered. I don’t know if it’s been fully recovered, but at least a significant portion of it has been recovered. Its first stop, my understanding, will be with the FBI, because this is a counterintelligence issue and that is their purview when somebody is caught conducting intelligence in our country. I don’t think the FBI is going to be able to discern the types of collection systems that are on this thing. So I think at some point fairly early on, it’ll be turned over to the intelligence community and that will primarily fall into the realm of the Defense Intelligence Agency. They’re the ones, with some help from CIA, they’re the ones who are going to be expert at taking this thing apart and deciding exactly what’s on here, how does it operate, what were they collecting, is there any data still on of what they collected so that we can look at it or was all of that erased when it was sent back to Beijing?

So it’ll be the intelligence community’s job to figure all of that out and to put together a report for the president and for Congress that’ll say, “Here’s what we know from what we’ve picked up, and here are the questions that are still unanswered.” And I would suspect, given my experience, Preet, that that process of analyzing and writing would take at least two months. So I think it’s going to be a while before any of us hear an authoritative answer to the question, “What is this balloon and what exactly was it doing? And, how valuable was it to the Chinese given their other capabilities?”

Preet Bharara:

What role, if any, would you suspect that human intelligence is playing here? Do we have spies or would you expect that we have spies on the ground in China or other places that might shed light on this? Or is it mostly going to be an excavation based on what remains of the balloon and these other flying objects?

Michael Morell:

We have an aggressive intelligence collection effort as a country, not just as CIA, but as a country, against China. They are our main adversary. Nobody should be surprised that we are spying on China. It includes all of the tools of our intelligence community to include what we call HUMINT, which is recruiting Chinese to spy on behalf of the United States, spy on their own country on behalf of the United States. I don’t know what our source base looks like in China. And obviously if I did, I couldn’t say. I hope it’s robust, but I doubt that that source network, if it exists and if it is robust, I doubt that it would be able to help.

And I say that because if it exists and it is robust, it would’ve already told us all about this program, what they were doing, what their capabilities were, and we would know already. And I don’t think we do. My sense is we don’t. So I think it’s going to come down to an excavation process of what we pull out of the water from the Atlantic Ocean and then hopefully what we find in the other three sites.

Preet Bharara:

I want to go back to something you said at the outset, that based on the backgrounders and the briefing materials you’ve read, you think our government doesn’t know that much as opposed to a situation in which they know some or they know a bunch, but as is understandable, don’t want to reveal it to the public. How can you tell the difference between when our government says little, when it’s the case that they don’t know or they know and they don’t want to say?

Michael Morell:

Well, part of it is just what they say. John Kirby yesterday actually said, “We don’t know,” a couple of times. So that’s the telltale giveaway, right?

Preet Bharara:

That’s pretty good. You’re good. You’re good, Mike.

Michael Morell:

That’s pretty good. I’m a trained analyst here, Preet. So that was the real cue to me, obviously. But it was also just the tone, was not one of being careful about how you talk. They seemed to be open about being willing to talk and you can kind of feel the difference a little bit. I’m sure you’ve experienced that in your own life too interviewing somebody, you can sense when somebody’s open and when somebody’s closed. And I just had this strong sense that they were being open and telling us as much as they knew, it was a feeling more than anything.

Preet Bharara:

Is it fair to say, and I don’t mean to cast aspersions, is this an intelligence failure on our part?

Michael Morell:

Could be. Could be. I’ve heard, by just reading the paper, watching the news, that the Chinese put this program in place in 2010, created this program in 2010. I was the deputy director of the CIA from 2010 to 2013. I didn’t know about this program, I never heard about it. And then clearly we now know that they’ve been flying a number of these things over the United States, several during the Trump administration and now several during this administration and we don’t know much about it. So I’m careful to throw around the word intelligence failure because the very nature of intelligence is extraordinarily difficult because you’re trying to put together a puzzle with very few pieces of that puzzle. And failure somehow sounds like you got all the pieces and you’re looking at it and you can’t tell what it is. So I don’t want to criticize here, but it really sounds as if-

Preet Bharara:

But, it’s possible.

Michael Morell:

… it sounds as if we’re coming to the party a little late in terms of understanding exactly what’s going on from an intelligence perspective, put it that way.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. So some people have been critical of Joe Biden on the Republican side, but I think there’s been some concern on both sides of the aisle that the president is not saying more. Is that a fair criticism or not? In part because of what you’ve been saying, that they don’t know that much. What’s the president really going to say? How do you assess the level of transparency here?

Michael Morell:

I would not, if I were in the White House, I would not put any president out if I didn’t have something for the president to say. And for the president to go out and say, “We don’t know very much,” and basically walked through the list of my things that we don’t know, that’s not being helpful.

Preet Bharara:

It’s a bad look also.

Michael Morell:

It’s a bad look and I don’t think it’s not in any way calming for the country. You want to send the president out and you want to have the president say, “Here’s what we now know and here’s what we’re going to do about it,” and exude confidence when you do that. And not knowing is not going to exude confidence.

Preet Bharara:

Well, could he come out and say, as some have said and others have not said, “That there’s no evidence these are extraterrestrials”? I think there’s a general who is quoted in the New York Post, it’s a little bit of a gotcha. I think the general was trying to say, “We don’t know and we’re not ruling anything out,” which a news outlet, I guess, can take to mean, “We’re not ruling out that these are UFOs that have come here from beyond the Earth.” You can break news here for the first time, Michael, any reason we can be assured that they’re not otherworldly?

Michael Morell:

Preet, when the general said what he said, I actually went back and looked at the transcript because I was interested, right?

Preet Bharara:

Right.

Michael Morell:

We’re interested.

Preet Bharara:

I’m guessing it was not a fair interpretation of the transcript.

Michael Morell:

Are we heading into a War of the Worlds, right? That would be an intelligence failure. But when I looked at it, it was a reflection of what we talked earlier. It was a reflection of his frustration in not knowing anything. And so what he basically said was, “Here’s all this stuff we don’t know, so we don’t know what this is.” And he took it to the furthest limit, right? “We don’t even know if these could be aliens.” So it was a reflection of a frustration in not knowing, that’s the way I read it.

Preet Bharara:

And a lack of press savviness.

Michael Morell:

Yeah. Look, do I believe that there is life out there in the universe on other planets capable of sustaining life? Absolutely. Do I think we’d be lucky enough, or not depending on their motives, we’d be lucky enough to bump into somebody who’s advanced enough to come this far here at this moment in the history of the universe? Yeah, I’d be really surprised by that.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Can we talk about your understanding of the efficacy and worth of that first Chinese balloon that we are told had a payload of about… that was the size of about three buses? And explain, I’ve heard some people talk about it, but I think you’d do a better job: If the Chinese have satellites and we have satellites, what’s the extra value of having this kind of a balloon that, by the way, can be seen with the naked eye and fairly easily shot down?

Michael Morell:

So it’s a great question. And I think that there’s been… And I even suffered from this early on, some lack of critical thinking. If Chinese satellites are as good as ours, there’s not much additional value. And I think some of the early statements out of the administration were based on that assumption. Now, if you know or suspect that Chinese satellites are not as effective as ours, not as good as ours, then they could be getting much more value from the balloons. I think the answer to the question is: we don’t know. This hit me a couple days ago when the administration actually said, “We don’t think there’s much additional value here.” And I started thinking about, “Well, how do we really know that? What’s that based on?”

And sometimes in the intelligence business, people make a big error called mirror imaging, which is believing that the other guys thinks the way you think or has what you have. So I don’t know how good our understanding is of Chinese satellites, but it is possible that either we don’t know or they’re not as good as we think and the Chinese are getting significant value out of this in terms of the precision of the photography that they can take as well as the signals intelligence, the electronic emanations that they’re able to pick up.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. So I’m going to ask you about that, because you did an interview recently where you said you believe that they were collecting electronic emissions from military bases, could be conversations between individuals. You don’t mean the actual conversations people are having in a room 50,000 feet below?

Michael Morell:

No.

Preet Bharara:

You mean electronic communications that they’re having?

Michael Morell:

Yes. So communications that are going between cell towers, for example.

Preet Bharara:

But how much of that communication is taking place of a sensitive nature at military bases?

Michael Morell:

Hopefully very little.

Preet Bharara:

Hopefully not any, right?

Michael Morell:

Hopefully very little. But look, people in the national security business can sometimes not be as disciplined as they need to be with regard to conversations that they’re having on open phone lines. And we benefit from that. The Ukrainians are benefiting from that right now significantly with Russian soldiers and Russian commanders talking on open phones because they’re more sophisticated communication systems aren’t working effectively and the Ukrainians are taking significant advantage of that. So it should not be that people are having sensitive conversations, but not impossible.

The other thing I’d say is, the other possibility in terms of what they’re collecting are what we call ELINT, which is electronics intelligence, which is just simply electronic emanations coming from a certain part of the base that might be interesting. And so you then task your satellites to look at that particular spot as opposed to the whole base. You kind of zero in on it. So we call that in the business tipping and queuing, where you collect some intelligence that allows you then to refine other collection systems to focus on it. So that’s another possibility here. But I have to say, Preet, this is total speculation, right? Total speculation at this point. We won’t really know until that analysis that I talked about earlier is completed.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Michael Morell after this.

What do you make of some people who are hypothesizing that the balloon is really not about surveillance, it’s about sending a message and/or testing the American response? Is that silly or does that make some sense?

Michael Morell:

Preet, countries seldom do things for just one reason and that’s probably the case here. So I think there’s probably three reasons. One is intelligence, right? If you’re going to do this for any reason, you might as well collect as much intelligence as you can along the way. Two is, I do think, I agree with those who say that there’s a political, or I’d say foreign policy reason to do this, not political, it’s not domestic, political in terms of the Chinese, but a foreign policy reason. What is that? The foreign policy reason is that we conduct aggressive intelligence collection flights, not over China, not in their airspace, but right on the edge of it, right on that 12-mile limit. And we do it, we do it often. We do it several times a week and we’ve done it for years and they don’t like it and they cannot do the same to us because they do not have military bases close enough to be able to do it on a routine basis.

So what’s one way of sending a message that, “If you can spy on us, that close to us, we can also spy on you,” is to have this balloon program. So I do think there’s a message sending here on their part. These reconnaissance flights that we do have always bothered them. So yeah, I do.

And then finally, I’d say I don’t think we can discount a military reason. They may not have one in mind at the moment. They may be considering one. When we first developed, we being the US government, when we first developed drones, they were for intelligence collection purposes. And at some point somebody said, “Hey, we can actually put weapons on these things.” So they weren’t designed as weapons, that they evolved to weapons. And that could be the case here. And in terms of a military purpose, they can be testing our ability to see them, they can be testing our reaction time, they can be testing our ability to deal with them.

Now, I want to be super, super clear here. I don’t think that they would ever use one of these balloons as a weapon during peacetime, right? But it wouldn’t be impossible for them to think about them as a weapons platform if we ever actually go to war with China. And I would remind people that Japanese during the Second World War sent, I think, a little less than 10,000 balloons to the United States with these small incendiary devices. And you could think about China in a war with the United States sending more than just incendiary devices if these things get more and more sophisticated. So I would imagine it’s a foreign policy reason to send a message. It’s intelligence collection and it opens the possibility of weapons use in the future.

Preet Bharara:

Do we have such a balloon surveillance program? And if we don’t, is it because of the reason you said earlier, that we have other means and methods?

Michael Morell:

So anybody who’s been to Afghanistan or Iraq during the time of the US military presence there, will note that there are a lot of balloons around US military bases. They’re on a tether, they’re there to collect tactical signals intelligence, right? People talking on a phone, they’re there for force protection reasons. You don’t want anybody getting too close to the wire. So we do use balloons in that context. During my time, we didn’t use balloons the way the Chinese are using them. I doubt that we’ve started since, and I think the reason is the one you just hinted at, which is we have very sophisticated spy satellites.

Preet Bharara:

There has been a bit of a political firestorm over the allegation made by people in the Biden administration that these Chinese balloon flyovers were taking place when Trump was in office as well. Trump officials during that time have come forward and have categorically denied it. Do you have any insight as to whether that’s true or not?

Michael Morell:

I don’t have any insight at all. I believe the Biden administration, when they say that they did occur during the Trump administration, I think the main point I would want to get across is can’t we please have a single issue that we don’t politicize? Please, please, please.

Preet Bharara:

We’re going to get to that in a moment when we talk about the overall policy towards China, and it seems pretty bipartisan and people are being pretty hawkish. But you said something in this interview last week that really struck me and I’m just confused. So the question you were asked was, “Are we making too much of this balloon stuff or is it really a big deal?” And you said, “We are not making too much of this. This was a very aggressive intelligence collection operation. And when you get caught collecting intelligence in a way that you shouldn’t be, that’s a big deal.” You’ve already said in the interview and we openly declare that we do all kinds of things including fly planes, and we have them… you said as a former acting director of the CIA in this podcast, “We have a robust human intelligence program. We have spies.” What’s the line that you’re talking about there? Are there norms? Are there rules? What did they do that they shouldn’t be doing?

Michael Morell:

Flying over airspace.

Preet Bharara:

Is that the red line?

Michael Morell:

Well, it’s not a norm. It’s not a norm. But people don’t do it. And people don’t do it because it’s very easy to get caught and it’s very easy to either Francis Gary Powers, right, shot down in the U-2 flying over the Soviet Union. There was a time that we did that and we got shot down. So that’s kind of the red line, not because there’s any norms in the collection of intelligence besides hopefully some pretty strict ethical rules that we follow that I’m not sure are our adversaries do, but besides that, the main point I was trying to make was the overflight of American territory.

Preet Bharara:

Is part of it also, is there an unwritten rule that a nation is not supposed to unduly humiliate or embarrass the other nation or not?

Michael Morell:

Yeah, it’s not an unwritten rule, it’s just being smart. One of the values of doing something clandestine is that it doesn’t force the other side to respond. If it’s secret and it stays secret, then the other side doesn’t lose face and doesn’t feel the need to respond. So in a lot of cases when folks are caught spying, it’s dealt with quietly. Why is it dealt with quietly? It’s because you don’t want to force the other side to react publicly.

Preet Bharara:

And it gives you more optionality. And in this case, are we going to now see a steady stream of F-22s and F-16s shoot down objects in the sky because that’s what is now expected?

Michael Morell:

We’ll see what these other three are. If they’re also Chinese craft, that takes me in one direction, I doubt it. If they’re all weather balloons, then I think we’re, at the moment… this is going to sound bad, but I think at the moment we’re a little trigger happy, probably for political reasons because the president’s being criticized for not shooting one down earlier. So how do you deal with that? You respond by shooting things down. And maybe some of these things didn’t need to be shot down. An old weather balloon does not need to be shot down. I think we have to be a little careful here and think through, we got to make sure that when we’re shooting something down, there’s a good reason to shoot it down. And that could be because it is collecting intelligence, looking for military advantage or because it is risking commercial airspace, it’s fallen to an altitude-

Preet Bharara:

It’s a hazard, right.

Michael Morell:

It becomes a hazard, right. But that we just don’t start doing that because we feel a need to politically.

Preet Bharara:

I know you’re not a commentator on culture sociology, but there are reports that suggest the number of UFO sightings are by far the largest in the USA by orders of magnitude. Do you care to comment on that? Does that tell you anything about-

Michael Morell:

Americans?

Preet Bharara:

… the country? Or that maybe all the aliens are more interested in the USA than another country?

Michael Morell:

Shopping is better here. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know Americans well enough. Americans love a good conspiracy theory for sure. People love conspiracy theories because they want to find easy explanations for things that are actually complex. But I know other cultures that are just as conspiracy laden, so I don’t know, I don’t know why Americans are more open to the idea of aliens than are other folks.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll have to wait and see on that. Can we zoom out a little bit and talk about US-China relations? You have said that we are in a cold war. That’s a pretty strong statement and it conjures up a lot of images and connotations. Do you stand by that, number one-

Michael Morell:

Yes. Yes.

Preet Bharara:

And number two, how does this recent series of events, how does it affect that Cold War?

Michael Morell:

So I do believe we are in, or entering at minimum, a cold war. It’s very different than the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. That Cold War was fought over ideology. Soviet Union really did want to spread communism. It was fought over nuclear throw-weights, who had the most nuclear weapons and who had the most capable nuclear weapons. And it was fought not directly between the parties, but there were proxy fights all over the planet, right? Africa, Latin America, Asia, certainly, Vietnam, where the proxies for both sides were fighting or a proxy for one side was fighting the other side directly. Think about the Soviets in Afghanistan. Think about us in Vietnam.

This cold war is different. This cold war is not about ideology. The Chinese do not want to spread communism or even their version of authoritarianism around the world. We’ll get back to what their interest is in a second. It’s really being fought over two things. It’s being fought over influence in the rest of the world, who can call the shots. And then two, it’s being fought over the future of high technology and who can make the most advances the quickest. So those are the areas of competition, and those two areas have become so intense and the policies of both sides have moved from not just positive steps, things that are acceptable under the rules of the international order, but are now negative.

So it’s the United States imposing tariffs on China. It’s the United States imposing technology restrictions on China. It’s the Chinese stealing intellectual property to advantage their country economically. It’s the Chinese using a coercive foreign policy to get what they want overseas. So that’s what I mean by a cold war. We see each other as each other’s fundamental challenge going forward, and we’re both reacting to that in efforts that are fully consistent with the international order, like building allies, particularly by the United States, but we’re also reacting to it in ways that undermine free enterprise and undermine free trade. And that’s the aspect of it that kind of worries me the most.

Preet Bharara:

I guess one of the reasons the use of that term is jarring to some folks is it invokes the period of time when we were in a cold war, the only other cold war in the modern era that is every described by using that term, the Cold War with the USSR. And for me as a child during that time period, the defining feature of that Cold War was the potential at any moment of complete and total annihilation of human beings on the earth through nuclear war. You’re not suggesting that there’s any threat of that magnitude in this cold war, are you?

Michael Morell:

Not at the moment, but let me say something-

Preet Bharara:

Not at the moment, Mike?

Michael Morell:

No, not at the moment.

Preet Bharara:

It’s Valentine’s Day.

Michael Morell:

I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but I’m an intelligence officer.

Preet Bharara:

Talk about love.

Michael Morell:

I’m an intelligence officer, and you always go right to the darkest corner of the room. There’s this joke at CIA, and the joke is, “When analysts smell flowers, they ask where the dead body is.” It’s actually true that they do say that.

Preet Bharara:

We pause at this moment in the podcast to wish everyone and their loved ones a very, very happy Valentine’s Day.

Michael Morell:

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Preet Bharara:

Now people are literally thinking, “I shouldn’t have gotten flowers for my significant other.” I guess you don’t do that in the agency, people don’t give their spouses flowers?

Michael Morell:

You can’t, right? You can’t because it conjures up an image, particularly if your spouse also works there. So here’s what I would say. I’d say two things. One is the Chinese are aggressively building their nuclear weapons program. They are aggressively adding numbers of warheads and they are aggressively adding to the sophistication of the delivery systems of those weapons. For the longest time, the Chinese were satisfied with a pretty small arsenal. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say the number, where they used to be, so I’m not going to do that.

Preet Bharara:

Just say it. Just say it.

Michael Morell:

But small. Now, they’re in a different place now. Now, they believe that they need to have, not necessarily parity, but they need to be in a place where if we ever did find ourselves near a conflict or in a conflict, that we would have to think about the Chinese ability to attack our homeland in a nuclear war scenario. So they’re heading toward a much larger arsenal. That’s point number one. The second point I would make is, and this is really important, the second point I’d make is the United States and the Soviet Union, even before the Cuban Missile Crisis, but certainly it was reinforced by the Cuban Missile Crisis, and this was even true more after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we knew that we could never fight each other directly. And we never did, with one exception, which I’ll come back to. We both made that decision that we couldn’t fight each other directly because we were so worried about if that happened, there would be a significant risk of escalation to nuclear war.

And so we agreed that the only way we would fight each other is through proxies, and we never did with one exception. And that’s when a small number of Russian forces ran into a small number of US forces in Syria a few years ago and actually fought it out. And the United States was quite successful. But that was it in the entire history of the Cold War, actual combat between the United States and Soviet Union. And it was because we both understood the risks. And what’s striking to me is how openly we talk about coming to the aid of Taiwan in a scenario where the Chinese are attacking, how openly we talk about combat with China. And I think people need to start thinking about, “Huh, I wonder if that makes sense given where the Chinese are headed with regard to their nuclear arsenal.”

Preet Bharara:

I just want to make clear to all the listeners who may be curious, I also do all my fighting through proxies. That’s been my approach. Going back to the-

Michael Morell:

That’s been my approach ever since third grade, actually. It’s like, “Hey Tommy, can you come over here?”

Preet Bharara:

I have to keep my hands clean. Do we face, you think, even though these are low likely scenarios, a greater chance of a nuclear threat from China or from a rogue state like North Korea?

Michael Morell:

Great question. I think there’s a greater risk of the use of nuclear weapons by not a P5 member, so not China, Russia, United States, Britain or France. I think if someone were to use a nuclear weapon, it would most likely be a non-permanent five member, non-security council member. It would be a Pakistan or it’d be a India, it’d be a North Korea. And it wouldn’t probably necessarily be against us, in a Pakistan-India conflict, it could be between the two of them. But I just think it’s less likely that the major nuclear powers would have a nuclear war given that they can destroy each other and everybody knows that, which is hopefully the ultimate cap on this thing.

Preet Bharara:

Going back to the balloon for a moment, and the balloon program, given the fraught relationship between the US and China and the possibility of mistake and your description of our relationship being one of a cold war status, is there any possibility that the balloon situation was not known to or not authorized by Ji?

Michael Morell:

No way.

Preet Bharara:

No way, right?

Michael Morell:

No way. No way. Xi’s in charge, right? There’s no doubt about that. He’s the president of the country. He is the head of the Communist Party, and he is the head of the Central Military Commission.

Preet Bharara:

And there are no rogue elements there where they’re taking significant risks without telling the boss, or they think he needs plausible deniability. He’s in control, he’s in command of everything?

Michael Morell:

Yes. And in fact, in terms of the rogue elements, I have no doubt that that’s not the case here. When Ji took power, he removed many different individuals, both outside the military and in the military. He basically did a series of purges using corruption as a context, and he removed people that he was not confident in politically and he put in their place, including in the military, people he knew who were loyal to him. So I do not believe there’s any chance. Super small chance, never say never, that this is the military acting to undermine Ji. I think what’s more likely here is that Ji approved the program. The program’s been underway for a number of years. There’s never been an issue before, and the approval process for individual flights might not have reached his level. In the United States, when we do a aggressive intelligence collection operation, I’m not talking about flying over people’s territory because we don’t do that, but when the United States does a aggressive collection program, the national security advisor approves it.

So the national security advisor has an opportunity to mention it to the president. That may not be the case there. Possibly Ji has delegated approval for individual flights. One thing is certain, the PLA, the People’s Liberation Army, does not talk to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. There’s not a warm relationship there. There’s not great communication like there is in the United States between the Defense Department and the State Department. So it’s quite possible that the foreign ministry was working on the Blinken visit and the PLA didn’t know it. That’s quite possible. And they launched a balloon without needing to go to Ji and found themselves in this mess.

Preet Bharara:

Is there some possibility that someone in China is going to get in trouble over the balloon incident or at least be made to be in trouble for some face-saving purpose? Or do you think the Chinese don’t care that they had their balloon shot down? In other words, is there going to be a scapegoat here?

Michael Morell:

So I don’t think there needs to be, let me say that first. I think for two reasons. One is domestically, the Chinese are very aggressively, and I’m probably overusing that word aggressive here in this interview, but the Chinese domestically have been aggressively, since the balloon incident, have been aggressively selling the idea that this was indeed a Chinese weather balloon. This was indeed a weather balloon that was off course, and those terrible Americans shot it down. They’re selling that domestically. That’s the view in China. So it’s not like somebody needs to lose their job or the Chinese need to respond to the United States in order to satisfy domestic politics. That’s kind of point one. Point two is there’s value in the Chinese having gotten caught here. There’s value in the Chinese forcing the United States now to worry about these flights and to talk about these flights endlessly. And so again, really no need for them to find a scapegoat.

The image I have in my mind, Preet, I had to tell President Obama a couple times that something that we were doing that he knew about, that he actually knew about in advance, that didn’t go well, and he wasn’t the happiest camper in the world, even though he knew the risk going in, he wasn’t happy to hear that it wasn’t going well. And the image I have in my mind is a group of military officers in Ji’s office, and they’re talking about this one balloon, the one that was shot down, and they’re explaining what this collection operation was all about. And of course he approved it in the broader program, but not the individual flight. And then somebody says, “Oh, by the way, Mr. President, there are three more that are out there that you need to know about, that we’ve launched since.” You don’t want to have to be the person to say that, not that that person’s going to lose his job, but that’s not a fun moment for that person.

Preet Bharara:

We were talking earlier about the bipartisan hawkishness in America towards China, and here’s a phrase I’ve heard people both on the Democratic side and the Republican side say in recent weeks, that China needs us more than we need China. Is that correct?

Michael Morell:

I don’t think so. We both need each other. I don’t want to put a relative value on either side. We are huge trading partners of each other. We are dependent on each other for some very important products that we sell to each other.

Preet Bharara:

That’s another deeply distinguishing feature between this cold war and the last one, right?

Michael Morell:

Yes. Yes. And which is one of the reasons why you wouldn’t want to go to war, and they wouldn’t want to go to war with us. Not only the risk of nuclear escalation that we talked about earlier, but a major military conflict between the United States and China would result in a global depression, as trade shut down between the two largest economies in the world, and as trade shut down in most of East Asia because insurance rates skyrocket in the face of combat on the high seas and in the air over East Asia. So yeah, I don’t want to put a value on it. We both need each other. Interestingly, there’s this concept called decoupling, and both the United States-

Preet Bharara:

Was going to ask you about that next. That’s not realistic, right?

Michael Morell:

It is in a very narrow sense, that we can reduce our dependence in some particular area, but in a macro sense, no, it’s not realistic. But both sides still see value in reducing their dependence on the other for some very important products.

Preet Bharara:

I want to not ask you about classified documents and —

Michael Morell:

Sure.

Preet Bharara:

Because you know what?

Michael Morell:

Sure. Can I say something about these classified documents?

Preet Bharara:

Do you want to? If you want to, yes.

Michael Morell:

Yes, I do.

Preet Bharara:

I was going to talk about something that’s forward looking. But yeah, say your piece. I was going to spare you, but go ahead.

Michael Morell:

I do. So it’s now clear to me. So you’ve got Trump, Biden, Pence. It’s now clear to me that there’s a systemic problem here. This is not an individual problem. Trump didn’t pack his own boxes. Biden didn’t pack his own boxes. Pence didn’t pack his own boxes. Staff did. And clearly nobody who had any authority over classified information, who had any records keeping responsibility looked in those boxes before they left. And so let’s stop making this a political issue. Second time I’ve said that, and let’s start fixing the problem. And I actually tweeted about this. I actually said, “There’s a very simple fix. If a box is going anywhere but the National Archives, then a records person should go through it to make sure there’s no classified information. And then once that person’s made that determination, you put some tape on it that it can’t be opened again.” Period. Let’s move on to the next problem.

Preet Bharara:

Well, so now I have to ask you the follow up, based on how you just described the events and the situation with respect to those three former folks from the White House, does that mean you have a view that Donald Trump in no way, shape, or form is criminally responsible?

Michael Morell:

I’d be shocked. You’re the expert here, right? But I’d be shocked if the Justice Department brought a mishandling case against any of these three individuals.

Preet Bharara:

What about an obstruction case?

Michael Morell:

Obstruction case is different, right?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Michael Morell:

So that’s what’s different with regard to the three individuals is, once Trump knew he had them, he didn’t want to give them back. And people said some things that weren’t true, et cetera, et cetera. So I think if anybody’s going to be charged with anything, it’s going to be Trump in obstruction. It won’t be mishandling of classified documents.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. I want to move on to something that’s been on my mind and we’ve talked about in the podcast with various people, including our mutual friend, Ian Bremmer, and that is the way in which technology is going to affect the world. And since I have you on, I want to talk about the way that certain technologies, and I’ll name them in a moment, what the impact will be on the intelligence community, on espionage, on collecting intelligence. And those are: artificial intelligence, the rise of easily made deep fakes and quantum computing. You want to talk about deep fakes first, and you’ve written about this and talked about it, and I know you think about it, what does it mean for us to live in a world which deep fakes, meaning audio or visual representations of people doing and saying things that look real, but that are actually manufactured, what impact will that have in your line of work?

Michael Morell:

It creates a situation where disinformation is potentially much more powerful. If you can have the president or prime minister of a country say something, rather than have a third party say it, then that becomes a powerful tool. It would be a more powerful tool for our adversaries because we believe they routinely use disinformation. We, as a country, tend not to like disinformation because we think information, true information, is a more powerful propaganda tool. So it would probably, in a world of deep fakes, where deep fakes were effective, help the adversaries more than us. But I would say that as hard as some people are working on deep fakes, other people are working just as hard on the ability to identify them, and I know that a number-

Preet Bharara:

Who’s going to win?

Michael Morell:

It’s probably going to be a back and forth kind of thing, like cyber, right? So offense gets to move first and then defense has to catch up. And so offense will always be a little bit ahead.

Preet Bharara:

But it depends on who you’re trying… So let’s say you have the US intelligence community comes across a deep fake and they want to tell the world it’s a deep fake. And so they have their own computing ability, and as you describe it, maybe they’ll be able to definitively determine that that thing is a deep fake, but that only matters if people have confidence and trust in our intelligence community, right?

Michael Morell:

Mm-hmm.

Preet Bharara:

We live in a country of conspiracy theorists, in a world of conspiracy theorists.

Michael Morell:

Right, right.

Preet Bharara:

So I guess I’m wondering, what is even the value? Once you have the ability to make the deep fake, what is even the value of a government entity stating that it’s a deep fake? Maybe they’re lying.

Michael Morell:

So you can’t just state it, right? I learned this when I was a senior at CIA. You can’t just walk out and do a press backgrounder and say, “Hey, we believe that this balloon, the first balloon that was shot down, was a Chinese intelligence craft. Thank you very much. This meeting’s over.” You have to show some like… you have to give some reasons why you believe it to be an intelligence craft, you have to answer their questions. You have to be open to those questions or they’re not going to believe you. And so I think it’s not just a matter of standing up and saying, “Hey, this is a deep fake. We know this is a deep fake. Believe us.” It’s, we’re going to have to explain how we came to that conclusion and actually show some ankle.

Preet Bharara:

Not just leg.

Michael Morell:

Not just leg, maybe ankle’s good enough.

Preet Bharara:

What about artificial intelligence? I have this crazy vision of a general somewhere or a CIA officer somewhere asking ChatGPT to help come up with the approach to someone, to flip them into being a spy for the US or an asset for the US. What’s your sense of how AI is changing your former world?

Michael Morell:

Not as much as some other things. And the reason I say that is because human beings, particularly those making decisions that carry so much significance, possibly life and death, aren’t going to go with the answer that a ChatGPT gives them. So an analyst isn’t going to say, or some AI algorithm isn’t going to come to an analyst and say, “We think the Russians are going to invade Moldova in the next two weeks.” You’re not going to take that and run and show that to the president and say, “An AI algorithm gave this to us.” Right? Analysts will never operate that way. They’ll always want to understand: why is the AI algorithm coming up with that answer? What data has it identified? How is it putting it together? That is what will be valuable to analysts. The answer itself will be a guide to looking at what’s important and how that important data was put together. So I don’t think that will have anywhere near as much impact as some of the other things that are happening. The military side may be different, but I’m just talking about the intel side.

Preet Bharara:

And then finally, quantum computing. What is the effect of that race towards a finely working quantum computer mean for encryption?

Michael Morell:

It would make obsolete the kind of encryption we have today. And what’s important about that is not that it would make communications and data going forward easy to decrypt, because once you have a quantum computer, your ability to encrypt them to quantum standards will be much greater.

Preet Bharara:

And we have that technology now and aren’t we engaged in a process of encrypting going forward?

Michael Morell:

Yes. Yes. Quantum resistant. But here’s the big issue: Countries for some time have been sucking large amounts of data from their enemies, from their adversaries-

Preet Bharara:

And putting them in the freezer.

Michael Morell:

And putting it in the freezer.

Preet Bharara:

Right?

Michael Morell:

Right. And it’s encrypted and you can’t read it today, but once you have a quantum computer, because it is old crypto, you’re going to be able to read that stuff.

Preet Bharara:

That’s a huge deal that almost nobody knows about, that there’s going to come a time where there will be medical drugs, pharmaceuticals, other intellectual property secrets, including the formula to Coke, all of that is in a freezer somewhere in China, right?

Michael Morell:

Right.

Preet Bharara:

And it will all become publicly available at some point, right? That’s not a hypothesis, that’s a certainty.

Michael Morell:

That will happen. Now when it happens, I think, is really open to debate. There are some people who think quantum’s right around the corner. There’s other people who think it’s way off. I’m probably more with the latter group than I am with the former group. It is really hard. But yes, somebody will get there someday. Hopefully it’s us. We should have a Manhattan Project around this, I think. Maybe we do; I don’t know. But we should be going at this as hard as we possibly can because of the implications that we just talked about.

Preet Bharara:

Well, I’ve kept you a very long time. I want to get you back to all that reading that you do every day. Michael Morell, once again, happy Valentine’s Day. Thanks for being on the show.

Michael Morell:

Pre happy Valentine’s Day. Take care.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Michael Morell continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership for just $1 for a month, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

I want to end the show this week with a story about two American patriots. To my great delight, both of them have been guests on this podcast. They are in different fields, but both stand for good. One is Representative Jamie Raskin. He is, of course, the congressman for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. He was the lead impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. And of course, he served in the select committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. In 2020, Raskin lost his son, Tommy, to suicide. Tommy was an activist and student at Harvard Law School, who for years had battled mental illness. As if he hadn’t been through enough, last December, Raskin announced he was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, which he called a serious but curable form of cancer. He’s now undergoing chemotherapy. And as happens with this type of treatment, it’s caused him to lose his hair. So he’s been coming to votes and hearings, in Congress, donning bandanas around his head. They look quite nice, I must say.

However, there was a bit of controversy on Twitter after a user stated in a since deleted tweet. “Kevin McCarthy has insisted Jamie Raskin remove the head scarf he is wearing because chemotherapy has caused his hair to fall out.” But happily, it wasn’t true. A spokesman for Raskin debunked it. The spokesman clarified to the Associated Press that Raskin, “Had received nothing but support and encouragement from all of his colleagues and leaders on both sides of the aisle.” How quaint.

Now, I have to admit, when I saw this bandana look on Representative Raskin, I had one immediate thought. Many others did also. “Who is another American patriot who sports that iconic look?” Well, none other than Stevie Van Zandt, AKA Little Steven. Star of stage and screen, guitarist for the E Street Band, and actor who played Silvio Dante on the Sopranos. And then of course, it happened. Representative Raskin broke the news in a tweet on February 11th, the great Stevie Van Zandt had sent the congressman a gift. Yep, it was a bandana. A dark paisley patterned bandana. Raskin tweeted, “Look what I received from one of the greatest musicians on earth. A gift I will treasure almost as much as his song: I am a Patriot. You are about to see a step up in my chemo head cover fashions for the next few months. Rock on, Stevie. Keep spreading the light.”

And Twitter erupted with love and support for the congressman. One user said, “Jamie Raskin rocking the Van Zandt head scarf is all I needed to see today to complete my day.” Another said, “From a guy who rocks the house, a gift to a guy who rocks the House. Thanks for all you do, Jamie Raskin, Godspeed. Get well soon.” It was moving, this outpouring of support and well wishes for Representative Raskin. And this is another story that shows you how many good and empathetic people there are in the world. From all of us here at CAFE, we wish you a speedy recovery, Representative Raskin. Keep rocking those bandanas.

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Michael Morell. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the hashtag #AskPreet, or you can call and leave me a message at (669) 247-7338. That’s 669-24Preet. Or, you can send an email to letters@cafe.com.

Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. The CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azalai, Nat Wiener, Jake Kaplan, Nama Tasha and Claudia Hernandez. Our music is by Andrew Doss. I’m your host Preet Bharara. Stay Tuned.