Preet Bharara:

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

David Ignatius:

We’re moving at incredible speed towards robotic warfare, completely autonomous systems where you give them David Ignatius’s DNA, and that they will find and kill David Ignatius. That technology basically exists today.

Preet Bharara:

That’s David Ignatius. He’s a longtime foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post and a best-selling spy thriller novelist. Ignatius has been covering international conflict for decades and has observed the way it’s changed with new technologies. Space weapons, he says, are taking over the world of warfare. His novels bridge the gap between imagined realities and real-life dangers. Ignatius joins me this week to talk about the themes of his book and the space war technology hovering over Ukraine. We also discussed the space arms race with Russia and China, Israel’s strategic failures in Gaza, and the importance of strong national defense. That’s coming up. Stay tuned.

Q&A

Now, let’s get to your questions. This question comes from Larry, who asks, how likely is it that Judge Merchan will actually send Trump to jail for future gag order violations? Well, that’s a great question. If you’re keeping a score, you know that so far the judge has found Donald Trump to be guilty of criminal contempt in connection with nine plus one violations of the gag order. Most recently, he found an additional one, a 10th one, and warned Donald Trump in fairly sharp words. So, as many people have been commenting, myself included, over the last number of weeks, no judge, including the one in the New York case, is excited about putting a former president of the United States in jail for any period of time for violating a gag order. What’s interesting about the case in Manhattan as it’s unfolding is that Judge Merchan actually said so, and put it in so many words in a pretty extraordinary statement.

He said essentially, I really don’t want to do that. There are lots of issues with it. There are logistical problems, who knows what the reaction will be. But, he said all those things I think to make clear a record that even though he’s reluctant to do so, even though he would prefer not to do so, even though Donald Trump keeps violating the gag orders, at some point, I don’t know when that will be, if Trump continues to gallop over the line, the judge will have no choice but to jail him for some period of time. Some people have asked a related question, well, maybe it’s the case the Trump wants to go to jail and he’s jarring the judge to send him to jail for a violation.

I’m not among the people who believe that to be true. I think Donald Trump for various reasons, including a lot of pragmatic reasons relating to grooming, relating to his germaphobia, relating to his attachment to comfort and convenience in no way, shape or form wants to spend a day or two days or three days in jail even if great care is taken to treat him well and even if he has a Secret Service detail around him. I think in this regard, when Donald Trump suggests he’s willing to go to prison and be in his mind, in his words, oddly another Nelson Mandela, it’s a complete and total bluff in the same way he engages in complete and total bluffing about his interest in testifying at his own trial.

I think it’s worth noting that one peculiar aspect to this is the way in which the judge is handcuffed. On the one hand, he can fine as many violations of the gag order, fine criminal contempt again and again and again, but under New York statute, the maximum fine he can levy against Donald Trump is a thousand bucks. In many cases, if not most cases, the specter of a thousand dollars fine repeatedly imposed again and again and again is a pretty good deterrent. That’s a lot of money for people to pay, and your average criminal defendant is going to be deterred by that kind of prospect of a fine. Not true when you have somebody of Donald Trump’s means, even if he’s exaggerated his wealth and his means and his properties. And the problem is that there’s no graduated additional fine under New York law.

The choices are basically a thousand dollars fine again and again and again or jail for up to 30 days, and there’s no in-between. That’s a little bit why this judge is between a rock and a hard place. He has a binary choice between fine and jail, and doesn’t have the possibility of calibrating some punishment in between. The direct answer to your question is, I think it’s a remote likelihood, but it is possible. We’ll have to stay tuned. This is a question that a lot of people asked about the testimony of Stormy Daniels this week, and the basic question is, what did you think of her testimony? Was she credible? That’s a great question. There was a lot of speculation and a lot of anticipation of Stormy Daniels’ testimony I think for reasons other than her central importance to the actual elements of the crimes that have been charged against Donald Trump.

She’s a sensational witness. She’s an ebullient witness. People were wondering what the cross-examination would be like. There was a lot of anticipation, and I think the overall effect of her testimony, which is not yet completed, there’s more cross-examination to come and perhaps redirect examination as well. I think the overall effect of her testimony was a net positive for the government, but not necessarily by that much in my view at this point. As a threshold question people have asked, was it necessary to call Stormy Daniels at all? And as Joyce Vance and I discussed on The Insider podcast, that’s not as dumb a question as it sounds like. She does not have detailed direct knowledge of the central allegations in the indictment, about the method of payment, about how Michael Cohen went about doing it, about what was in Donald Trump’s mind when he made the payments, all of that stuff, which goes to the core of the criminal case and what the government has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt is not the kind of stuff that’s within her expertise.

On the other hand, the prosecution likely, understandably believed there would be a very odd gap not to have Stormy Daniels testify at all. She is after all the proximate cause for the case in the first place. The entire falsification of documents arises from payments made to her that were disguised as legal payments or payments for legal services rendered in connection with the retainer and was really not that. As you’ve heard, they’re really a reimbursement to Stormy Daniels so that she wouldn’t talk about the alleged encounter, sexual encounter with Donald Trump. So, on balance, it’s totally understandable why the prosecution thought they had to call her. There’s also an argument that they didn’t absolutely have to call her.

So, as lots of people have commented on, her testimony was, what’s the word I could use? Was rather lurid. And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say probably we would’ve preferred not to hear about, read about, see testimony about all the details of that encounter, including testimony about satin pajamas, about rolled up magazines, about who did or did not use a condom. I could have done without those images and without that detail, and it turns out the judge could have done without some of that detail too, and that’s where a potential problem arises from the nature of Stormy Daniels’ testimony. I think ultimately it won’t be a problem, but there’s a possibility of it, and that is because Stormy Daniels was a little bit of a difficult to control witness for the prosecution, she sometimes went beyond the question that was asked and provided as I just said, sordid details about her interaction with Donald Trump.

The defense understandably and appropriately objected again and again and again and went one step further, actually called for a mistrial on the ground that the testimony was more prejudicial than probative, and I think there’s a decent argument for that. Because, as Todd Blanche said, it’s hard to unring the bell. Now, when something comes in that’s beyond the scope and shouldn’t be permitted, and by the way, the judge here said himself in his own words, some of this stuff was better left unsaid, and he said he would strike some of the testimony. The question is, is it really possible to unring the bell? Can you give a curative instruction to the jury? Can you tell them to ignore certain testimony and trust and believe that they will actually ignore the testimony, or will they be prejudiced by what they heard? Because, it’s impossible to unhear something once you’ve heard it.

Again, I think appropriately and expectedly, the judge denied the motion for a mistrial, but that’s now an issue preserved for appeal. I think at the end of the day, based on what I’ve seen so far and what I’ve read, that that is not going to be the linchpin of a successful appeal if Donald Trump gets convicted in the meantime, but it’s a real issue, and depending on what other things happen in the case and if there are other opportunities to make a mistrial motion, those things in combination, an appeals court could possibly find, depending on how it unfolds, in combination cause an unfair trial. By the way, one of the arguments that the prosecution has made and would make again in the future is part of the reason for the need for all this testimony was that Donald Trump and his lawyers themselves opened the door to this testimony, maybe not the particular details, but to the fact of the relationship and the veracity of the encounter.

Remember, Todd Blanche in his opening statement said, on behalf of Donald Trump, the sexual encounter never happened. And when you have a conspicuous witness like this or any witness at all at any trial, their credibility comes into question. So, you have a witness taking the stand who has been accused of lying about a central fact. Obviously, you are entitled to and must elicit testimony in some detail about that fact about which the opponent is saying she’s lying. So, some of this was bought and paid for by Donald Trump’s team themselves. There are other ways in which the defense landed some punches. Among other things they pointed out again and again and again, that Stormy Daniels has defiantly refused to pay attorney’s fees that she owes to Donald Trump in connection with a failed defamation case in another state. They got her to admit, which is think is not insignificant, that she hates Donald Trump and she wants to see him held accountable.

It’s pretty strong language for a witness and they can argue that Stormy Daniels had reasons to lie or embellish or make up things because of her hatred of Donald Trump, but the prosecution scored points too. They elicited from Stormy Daniels I think very important testimony that reinforces their position and their narrative and their argument that these payments were not about sparing his wife from embarrassment or his family from embarrassment, but were related to wanting to win the election. Her testimony about the timing of the payment, and the negotiations about the payment, and their proximity and time to the election, and the concern that Stormy Daniels had that as they neared the election she might not be getting the payment, because there would be no reason to pay her after the election, even though if you believe the Trump argument, personal embarrassment or family embarrassment would persist. The thing that wouldn’t persist anymore is an effect on the election. So, I think that was important testimony for the prosecution side.

So, for all the anticipation and all the salaciousness of Stormy Daniels’ testimony, I think that earlier testimony in the week was even more centrally important, even if not as dramatic. So, as I said, Stormy Daniels is not yet done testifying. There’s further cross-examination on Thursday and the opportunity for the government to correct some things or improve certain things or mitigate certain things in their redirect examination, which I expect they will do. Finally, I want to call back to a question I got a week or two ago from a high school teacher who wanted a recommendation for what legal movie he should show his law class. He originally wanted to screen My Cousin Vinny, but he thought that it was rated R and inappropriate. So, I thought not too long and hard, but my suggestion was a movie that influenced me a lot, a play that influenced me a lot from which a movie was made black and white back in 1960, Inherit the Wind. And we’ve gotten some comments and I solicited other thoughts from people and I got some.

Somebody wisely suggested and recommended 12 Angry Men. Another person recommended and suggested Anatomy of a Murder, but there was one missive in particular that struck me the most. It’s a 10 paragraph email from a legal colleague of mine. I’ll read you a part of it. Hi Preet, I hope you’re well. I was listening to your podcast episode with David Sanger while walking to work yesterday and I was absolutely devastated, that’s in italics, devastated that you did not consider the greatest, funniest and most overlooked legal movie of all time, Legally Blonde, rated PG-13 in response to the teacher’s question about a good movie to play for his high school law class. The email goes on, Legally Blonde is particularly profound for young lawyers, especially young women lawyers or high school students taking a legal class. It is the story of an outsider, Elle Woods, who gets into Harvard Law School.

Elle Woods:

What? Like, it’s hard?

Preet Bharara:

Feels imposter syndrome and fights against it.

Elle Woods:

Wait, am I on glue or did we not get into the same law school, Warner?

Preet Bharara:

Learns that being a lawyer means listening to people and advocating for what’s right and that she really likes doing so, and it goes on and on and explains why, how like the lawyer in My Cousin Vinny, Elle Woods improves her litigation skills throughout the movie, and many examples are given. And the email recommendation has a strong finish, “Most importantly, Legally Blonde turns Aristotle on his head in asserting that law is not reason free from passion, but that passion and courage of conviction are essential to the practice of law. Elle learns that to do this job, you must trust your instincts, understand what you do and don’t know, and above all, believe in your work, your friends and colleagues and yourself.” Sincerely, Reese Witherspoon. No kidding, it wasn’t Reese.

All points well taken. Thank you for all the recommendations. And I have seen Legally Blonde, I’ve seen the sequel as well. Terrific movies. I will be right back with my conversation with David Ignatius.

THE INTERVIEW

Space warfare isn’t just closer than you think. It’s already here. David Ignatius is a foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post and a best-selling spy thriller novelist. David Ignatius, welcome back to the show. Great to have you.

David Ignatius:

Great to be back. Thank you, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

I should note for the audience that we are recording this on the afternoon of Monday, May 6th. I guess, we should note that two days ago was May 4th. Do you celebrate May the fourth be with you?

David Ignatius:

I do not.

Preet Bharara:

Not at all?

David Ignatius:

No, I’m sorry, I don’t.

Preet Bharara:

You’re not really a science fiction-

David Ignatius:

Should I?

Preet Bharara:

Well, I don’t know.

David Ignatius:

I’m not a science fiction guy.

Preet Bharara:

You’re a spy thriller guy and it’s a distinction.

David Ignatius:

It is. It’s a different genre of literature. There’s a lot-

Preet Bharara:

Do you look down on the other genres, sir?

David Ignatius:

No, I don’t. There are people who like Graham Greene and there are people who like, I don’t know, Freddy Forsyth. They’re both good authors.

Preet Bharara:

That’s fair enough. So, I mentioned that you were a spy thriller novelist. You have a number of books. You have a new one out this week called Phantom Orbit. Congratulations. You want to tell folks what this one is about?

David Ignatius:

So, this is a book that’s about space weapons which are taking over the world of warfare. I think the Ukraine war has evolved into what’s really our first space war, and I can explain that in more detail later. The book is about a Russian space scientist named Ivan Volkov who finds evidence that makes him believe that Russia and China have developed a system kill switch, is what he thinks of it as, that can turn off the GPS, Global Positioning System, on which every aspect of U.S. communications, transportation related, our economic lifeline depends, and feels that he has a responsibility to share that information with the CIA.

So, he reaches out to the CIA through its website. Anybody who goes to the CIA website will see an invitation to foreigners to spy for us, sends a message, waits, and there’s no response. And the question of why nobody’s answering and nobody answers in different ways as the story evolves is part of the mystery of the book. The book pulls back to look at how his obsession with space shared with two other main characters began in the mid-1990s in Beijing, and how the stories of this Russian, a Chinese who’s his mentor, and an American woman who works for the CIA, become entangled in ways that take them right to today, to the shadow of the Ukraine war, which is happening as the concluding action of the book takes place.

Preet Bharara:

How long did it take you to write and research this one?

David Ignatius:

So, I researched it for about a year. The writing was maybe, I don’t know, six or eight months. I had certainly an idea that I wanted to write about space weapons. It was obvious to me that this was the next big thing in the world of defense technology. I also wanted to write about a Russian who was compelling, who was emotionally powerful character at a time when we were as a country, and I personally was really hating Russia, the nation. I wanted somebody who would remind me and readers of what’s lovable and wonderful about the Russian spirit.

Preet Bharara:

Before we began recording a few minutes ago, you and I were commiserating over the fact that we’re both banned from Russia, and you were bemoaning that a little bit. Explain why?

David Ignatius:

So, I was banned. I had planned, worked with the Russian embassy in Washington to get a visa to travel to Russia to do research for this book. This was before the Russians invaded Ukraine. I wanted to go to Magnitogorsk, which is a city in the Urals, hundreds of miles east of Moscow, which is kind of Russia’s Pittsburgh. And I wanted to go there because I wanted to see what people who had been crushed after the fall of the Soviet Union looked and felt like, and I wanted my character to be of that world, people recovering from this catastrophe. So, I was all set to go, was thinking about what hotel to stay in this Magnitogorsk faraway place when, boom, Russia invaded, and I was think in the first big chunk of people who were banned. I was I think the only or one of the few journalists.

To this day I don’t know quite why I was on the list, but it meant that my visa was gone, obviously, and my chance of going to Magnitogorsk and Moscow had vanished. And it made me sad just because in many trips, I’ve probably been to Russia six or eight times over the years, as much as I hated Soviet communism, as much as I hate the system, authoritarian system that Putin has evolved, I do find Russians interesting, soulful, compelling, super complicated. So, if it’s true that this is a ban for life, which is the claim when the sanctions were announced, I’ll miss going to Russia.

Preet Bharara:

So, let me ask you a question. Do you think we’ll be able to go back one day?

David Ignatius:

So, I think the Russia that follows Vladimir Putin will be different. I’m not sure that it will be-

Preet Bharara:

Will be worse.

David Ignatius:

It may be worse. Bill Burns, the head of the CIA suspects it may be worse, that it may be more fragmented, that it may be a place where you have competing warlords as opposed to strong central rule. Whether it’s a place that will be comfortable going as tourists, I don’t know. This idea that I had the last time I visited Moscow and St. Petersburg, that they were increasingly European cities. St. Petersburg is as pretty a place as you can see anywhere in Europe.

Preet Bharara:

I’ve been.

David Ignatius:

Magnificent architecture, well-preserved, love for the city among its residents. But, that city and the whole country I think are moving east. Russia’s always, a symbol of Russia is this double-headed eagle facing east and west at the same time. I think it’s moving east, it’s moving toward closer alliance with its Eurasian partner, China, in which it’s very much the subordinate partner. So, the Russia you and I visit and I hope we will, will not be as congenial a place as it was the last time I was there.

Preet Bharara:

You mentioned now both space and Russia. I want to talk about both of them in the real world with you, start with Russia. We’re now two years on from the commencement of that war. How’s it going?

David Ignatius:

So, if you’d asked me a month ago, I would’ve said it was heading toward disaster for Kyiv. I was in Kyiv a month ago, talked to President Zelensky, and he outlined for me what would happen if he didn’t get the weapons that Congress was debating giving him. And he drew a little map of the front and he said, we have 2,000 artillery shells a day. The Russians have 8,000 this part of the front, and the only thing we can do in that situation is to reduce the area we have to defend. I said, what do you mean by that? He said, well, what I mean is we’ll have to retreat. If we don’t get the weapons, we’ll have to retreat. So, you couldn’t be more straightforward than that. Today it’s different. The weapons are on the way. Some of them are already there. I think Ukraine’s chances for holding on through this year and being stronger next year in a way that it might mount a new counteroffensive against Russia are pretty good.

I think Russia felt it was on a roll. It had some breakthroughs in the east. We got to watch the next couple of weeks. The Russians may gain some significant additional ground, but I feel as if the momentum shift that was going against Ukraine a month ago is now reversed. Tragically, we’re still in this bloody stalemate. The cost in lives, I see it in Ukraine, about the terrible cost in Russian lives too. That’s just going to continue. I don’t see grounds for a settlement of the war for many months. I think Russians have to really bleed out more before they think it’s worth their while to negotiate.

Preet Bharara:

Let’s talk about Western support generally for Ukraine, and American sport in particular. You opened up a recent column in the Washington Post saying this, “The approval of more than $60 billion in new military aid for Ukraine feels like the cavalry riding into town to save the day for the good guys. It’s a moment to savor for a briefly bipartisan Washington and even more for the embattled troops in the front lines in Ukraine.” Was that a real victory or should we be embarrassed and should grin that it took that long, and will it last?

David Ignatius:

So, I’d say some way both. It took way too long. I applaud the Biden administration for not giving up for pushing and pushing and pushing. I think the Republicans should be ashamed that it took so long. Mike Johnson was a hero for a moment and finally having the guts to risk his speakership to get this through. But, how many thousands of people were killed or wounded in the six months that it took the Republicans in Congress to get their act together? That’s on Mike Johnson. So, should have been done much earlier. There were moments when I really despaired, Preet, that I really thought we had become the country that was so screwed up politically that we would let Ukraine down, and it turned out that we weren’t quite that screwed up and that Johnson managed to do the right thing. But, it should have happened a long time earlier.

Preet Bharara:

We may yet screw it up, no?

David Ignatius:

We may. The 60 billion is a lot of money. It’s enough to keep the weapons flow going well into the next administration. I think that’s one of the important parts is it’s a signal that even if Trump is elected, the weapons flow continues. The Europeans are beginning to rev their engines, factories to build 155 millimeter ammo are being built in Norway and other countries. Three European countries are delivering F-16 jets soon in the next few weeks. The Brits have just said, you can fire our long-range missiles into Russia, President Zelensky, we’re fine with this. So, I think it’s not just the U.S. and the 60 billion. It’s a broader effort to shore-

Preet Bharara:

That won’t be affected by Trump’s reelection if it happens?

David Ignatius:

Yeah, Trump I’m sure will come in and want to settle the war the next day. He’s already said as much. I don’t think he’s going to be able to, and I think there’s a lot of pressure from Europe not to make a deal that leaves Europe as a whole weaker.

Preet Bharara:

You mentioned something else in that column, the potential game changer of certain long-range missiles. I guess, the question I have is, we’re now well beyond the two-year point in this war. Why are we only now seeing things that we can describe as game-changing weapons or deliveries or contributions? Have we been way too slow about all of this?

David Ignatius:

So, there’s certainly that argument. I have just a couple of cautionary points. I agree that looking with hindsight, moving more quickly to deliver every piece of weaponry probably would’ve made sense. But, you know that looking at history in reverse, first thing to think about is Ukrainian absorption capacity. It takes a while to learn how to use these weapon systems, to train F-16 pilots, to have the maintenance facilities, to know where you’re going to store them safely. Same thing with HIMARS. It took some months for the Ukrainians really to understand how to use them. With the tanks that we sent, it’s not clear to me that the Ukrainians really did master the arts of mobile warfare in a way that made those effective weapons. The ATACMS are game changers because they can penetrate so deep into occupied areas like Crimea, like the coastal areas along the Sea of Azov that I think they’re really going to disrupt Russia’s ability to stage its forces to have good command and control centers to have a logistic system that that’s close to the fight.

So, why didn’t we do that sooner? And I think the answer is there was concern about the escalatory risk. The Russians have drawn red lines on some of these weapons or at least signal that they’d be red lines. And I think you need to be careful about jumping boldly across what somebody says is a red line. What we’ve ended up doing is wiggling across them. We delay, we say no, and then finally we do it. In the end, Ukraine has gotten the weapons and is using them, and is using it to take the fight deep into Russia now. Reuters has reported that 14% of Russia’s refining capacity has been taken out by Ukrainian drones. So, it could have come sooner, but I don’t dismiss the escalation risk. When you’re involved in a confrontation with a nuclear-armed state, I think being careful is like job one.

Preet Bharara:

Does Putin bluff?

David Ignatius:

So, everybody bluffs.

Preet Bharara:

Even you, David Ignatius?

David Ignatius:

Yeah, I bluff, but I don’t bluff in my column. I only tell the truth in my column. But, the problem with saying Putin bluffs is that there were many people who thought that he couldn’t be crazy enough to launch an invasion of Ukraine against a unified Europe, and he was crazy enough to do that, and he’s crazy enough-

Preet Bharara:

He wasn’t bluffing

David Ignatius:

… to persist he wasn’t bluffing. And so, I think some people probably thought Biden was bluffing in saying he was going to support Ukraine with massive weaponry, and he wasn’t bluffing either. He didn’t supply the attackers on day one, but he supplied a heck of a lot of equipment. So, the problem with military escalation is the one that we all remember from our history books from August 1914, people end up getting on a progression of mobilization, commitments that they made that they then feel they have to fulfill, and then suddenly you’re in a very different place. And that’s what happened in the Ukraine war. I don’t think anybody could have imagined two years ago just how bloody this war in the middle of Europe would be, but it is. The Ukrainians do not want to settle. They want to fight on, and I think we have an obligation to keep supporting them.

Preet Bharara:

Have in mind a particular concrete goal to achieve by the time of the American election, or is there a goal that they should reasonably seek to achieve?

David Ignatius:

So, I asked that question of the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, General Budanov. He’s one of the great characters of this war. He’s 38 years old. He looks like a really scary guy in a James Bond movie. His office has the lights out. You walk in, it’s almost completely dark. He’s got a picture of a screaming owl eating a bat. The owl being the symbol of his service and the bat being the symbol of the Russian GRU.

Preet Bharara:

That doesn’t sound like a guy who bluffs either.

David Ignatius:

He is not a guy who bluffs. He’s sitting next to this desk in the dark. You see a 50 caliber machine gun, I think, what the hell is that doing there? And it’s there because he’s just going to take it out maybe this afternoon and go to the front. He does this all the time. He’s been shot, I think three times in combat, and one of them in the heart. It’s a miracle the guy’s alive. He’s famous. You’ll love this Preet. So, he’s famous for just glowering at you, which he did. I interviewed him for 90 minutes. It was like at least 60 minutes of glowering. And he had a video shot of him, known as the silent video, in which he just stares at the camera, doesn’t say a word for 33 seconds. That’s a long time. Think of just how long 33 seconds is. And then, at the end of this it says, to be continued, and that’s General Budanov. So, he’s in the fight. If I was Russia thinking about my problems going forward, he’d be top of my list.

Preet Bharara:

You know the context in which it’s very difficult I’ve found to glower?

David Ignatius:

What?

Preet Bharara:

Podcast.

David Ignatius:

No, I’m glowering right now.

Preet Bharara:

But, I can’t see you, sir.

David Ignatius:

Well, I’ll bet everybody can sense just how intense that I’m glowering.

Preet Bharara:

Should we do 33 seconds of silence?

David Ignatius:

No.

Preet Bharara:

We could try that, but the overlords would put an ad in there.

David Ignatius:

He has another wonderful thing that he’s posted, which is a little cartoon of little stick Putin coming up to him on a bench. He’s got his dog with him and Putin says, does your dog bite? And this General Budanov figure says, no. Putin sits down smiling. The dog takes out a gun and shoots Putin. So, he doesn’t bite, he shoots.

Preet Bharara:

I wonder how Kristi Noem would treat that dog. Do you have any comment? You both have books that came out around the same time. Is there an audio version of your book?

David Ignatius:

There will be. There’s somebody they hired.

Preet Bharara:

Are you the narrator?

David Ignatius:

No. So, my books, I am not an actor and-

Preet Bharara:

Well, fiction is difficult, because then you’ve got to do the voices.

David Ignatius:

You got to do the voices. And I’d rather have somebody, I’ll be frank, somebody confident do it as opposed to me, because I know I’m not.

Preet Bharara:

Since it came up, because I mentioned it, do you have any comment on the fact that you have a shortlisted vice presidential candidate for Donald Trump, former member of Congress, governor of a state who read her own book, at least for the narrated version for the audio version, in which she claimed to have met the leader of North Korea and that turned out to be false. What’s going on there?

David Ignatius:

So, people lie with impunity. It’s just, people do, they lie all the time. That’s one reason that good journalism’s going to have a future, is there are just so many lies to identify and decode. Now, what’s happening in general, I’m going to say on the right, but I’m sure this is a broader phenomenon. People live in a fantasy world. They see themselves as cartoon characters almost. And she seems like that kind of person.

Preet Bharara:

That’s all we need to say about that. People should not go out and buy her book. You should go out and buy David Ignatius’.

David Ignatius:

Absolutely. And it makes a great gift too, folks.

Preet Bharara:

I will be right back with David Ignatius after this. A sort of segue from Russia-Ukraine to space by way of Starlink. What is the role that Starlink is playing these days, and how extensive is that role? And maybe you can begin by explaining to the uninitiated what Starlink is.

David Ignatius:

So, Starlink is a part of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It has today about 5,000 satellites in orbit, in lower Earth orbit. And with that incredible number of satellites, it’s able to provide broadband internet links just beaming down the broadband signal from lower Earth orbit, pretty much for the whole world. It’s an amazing piece of technology. Like so many things that Elon Musk does, it’s simply on an engineering basis, it’s an incredible achievement. So, in the beginning weeks of the war, Ukraine had a terrible problem of communicating with its forces. Ukraine’s a big country. At a time when the Russians were jamming many signals back in the initial conquest of the Donbas region in 2014, ’15, Russian jamming had been so severe, the Ukrainians basically just couldn’t communicate at all the front. So, the advent of Starlink was a tremendous opportunity.

The problem was that the Russians were trying to jam that initially too. And Starlink engineers and what I’m told was just a heroic piece of re-engineering their signal found a way to turn on the terminals that received the signal which had been blocked, that they found an incredible workaround and suddenly there was service. Why is this important? There are other satellite providers, commercial companies that can provide you with optical images, the kind of pictures that spy satellites from the NRO used to take that can provide you with thermal imaging, so you can see through clouds, that can provide measurement intelligence, so you can tell what an explosion is, a big piece of artillery as opposed to a car backfire. In other words, can give you through commercial sources almost every kind of intelligence that once only a superpower would have. So, that was available to Ukraine commercially. The information was downloaded from these providers. I’ve watched the screens where you’ve seen guys who say, I want six satellite providers for Kherson, not just the four that are currently available, bing, instantly it’ll show up.

And then, those signals are pushed along with targeting information, the specific coordinates of the targets you’ve identified through the AI program that used to run against the imagery you got from the commercial providers. That’s pushed out to the artillery, the missiles in the field, download it, and then the Ukrainians take out the Russian positions. It’s an amazing piece of what I said, called it algorithm warfare, the first time I wrote about it in 2022. So, Starlink and many other companies have kept Ukraine going. It was the secret advantage that Ukraine had, certainly for the first year and a half of the war.

Unfortunately, the Russians have turned out to be what I’d call a learning army. They’ve seen what their problems are. They don’t have the same commercial array of satellites to draw on obviously, but they’ve found ways to block them, to jam signals. It’s much harder, I’m told, for example, for the U.S. to use the HIMARS missiles that were so effective the first year and a half. A lot of those are jammed and don’t hit their targets now. So, there’s this electronic cat and mouse game going on in which U.S. companies weirdly turn out to be absolutely crucial.

Preet Bharara:

So, I guess, my question there is, should we be pleased and thrilled that this capability is there and has been able to be made use of in the way that you’ve described, or should there be trepidation that this particular technology is in the hands of a private company who has at the helm somebody who is not always consistent and can be mercurial at times? How do we feel about that?

David Ignatius:

So, here’s David’s answer. I’m grateful for Musk’s brilliance in devising the system, which gives an enormous advantage at present to the United States and its friends in warfare. But, in everything else, I just think of the kids in Africa who will get broadband internet connections. What scares me is that there could easily come a moment when Elon Musk decides, I’m sick of forever wars. I don’t think Ukraine’s going to end this anytime soon. And I have interest building Teslas in China and I’ve had it, and pulls the plug. So, for our national security or national interests to be that dependent on somebody who, as you say, could be capricious and could decide I’ve had it, I want to cut my losses, is a bad thing. The Pentagon has tried to lock Musk into a more permanent deal by doing a contract directly with him to give this more permanence. But, the basic problem you cite is true with him and all these high-tech entrepreneurs. There’s a whole range of super cool new things that are coming in space.

Preet Bharara:

But, it’s confusing. So, Elon Musk, we can stipulate, has a lot of money, correct?

David Ignatius:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

Does he have more money than the U.S. government? He does not.

David Ignatius:

No.

Preet Bharara:

So, the question, I guess, a listener might be asking is, over the course of time, as years go by, there’s this very important national security capability for us and as you say, our friends. Why doesn’t the U.S. government have or develop an equivalent technology so they’re not reliant on a capricious individual billionaire?

David Ignatius:

So, Preet, if our government bureaucracies could innovate and develop weapons or products as quickly, efficiently, cheaply as entrepreneurs do, we’d be a different country. But, when I look at Pentagon procurement, they’re pretty good at buying multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers.

Preet Bharara:

But, we don’t build.

David Ignatius:

Well, but they buy them from behemoths that are almost like the federal government. This entrepreneurial ecosystem totally transforms space led by Musk, but there are many other space entrepreneurs, did something amazing. 20 years ago, we couldn’t launch a rocket into space that would carry satellites, because we didn’t have the launch capability. We just lost that ability. And along came Musk and he drove down the cost of launch.

Preet Bharara:

Wait, I’m sorry, what do you mean we lost the capability?

David Ignatius:

It was too expensive and launch was more cheaply provided, particularly by Russia. And so, people went to Russian providers. We still had the capability. It was there but-

Preet Bharara:

Not efficient.

David Ignatius:

… it wasn’t efficient, it was too expensive. So, people did it more cheaply. And then, along came people who said, I can make a buck doing this. And I think what’s happening in space is happening more generally in defense technology. Some of this is scary. We’re moving at incredible speed towards robotic warfare, completely autonomous systems where you give them David Ignatius’ DNA, and that they will find and kill David Ignatius. That technology basically exists today. So, it’s not that I’m not worried about it, it’s just the idea that government could replace what these private entrepreneurs are doing every day, I just don’t believe it.

Preet Bharara:

Do we have proper laws, treaties, legal regimes in place to deal with burgeoning space technology in the war space area?

David Ignatius:

We’re trying to. So, in theory-

Preet Bharara:

Oh no, that’s not very [inaudible 00:42:34].

David Ignatius:

You’re a lawyer. You can imagine just how many years people would like to devote to precisely negotiating the terms. There is a treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons in outer space. But, as we’ve seen from a scare that began when Mike Turner, the head of the House Intelligence Committee said there was a severe Russian national security threat, which turned out to be Russian thinking about exploding a weapon in lower Earth orbit precisely because they don’t have another way to deal with Elon Musk’s proliferation of 5,000 satellites. And by the way, Amazon’s about to launch its Kuiper project, which will have another 2,000 plus. And by the way, there’s another British company with similar plans. The Russians and Chinese too simply don’t have any infrastructure like that in space. And so, the Russians decided, well, one way to get rid of it is just detonate a nuclear weapon and turn lower Earth orbit into a waste bin.

Just nothing will be able to fly there. And they thought, apparently thought that was plausible because the U.S. depends on it so much more than they do. So, space is critical. Treaties that are enforceable to protect space are essential to building out all the wonderful new technology. The U.S. is pushing something called the Artemis Accords, which establish ownership rights to things as simple as who owns minerals that you take from the moon are entirely ambiguous in law. And issues like that will become very important in the next decades. So far the U.S. has had zero success as I understand it, getting Russia and the Chinese interested in this legal regime for space and what you build and do in space.

Preet Bharara:

I guess, the question is, given how wars are fought and the parties who’re involved in war, whether you’re talking about Israel and Hamas or you’re talking about Russia and Ukraine, what is the relevance of space war technologies in connection with the kinds of skirmishes and conflicts that we actually see in real life?

David Ignatius:

So, what I think the world learned back in 1991 with the Gulf War was that precision guided weapons that depended on links with space systems that would relay the signals that would allow precise guidance were a revolution in warfare. The world watched the same videos that I did of the rocky tank rumbling across a bridge and, poof, there goes the bridge. It’s just taken out. One thing in my book that drives the narrative after opening with this nightmare or fear that the Russian has about a kill switch dials back to 1995. And it really is said in Beijing, it really tries to imagine the Chinese in 1995, knowing that the world has changed, knowing that the powerful defense systems and also economic systems will depend on telegraph wires in space in effect, begin thinking, we don’t have anything in space, and the Chinese didn’t though. They had, that period was a little satellite that could play the east is red. It was just a tiny little piece of junk in space.

But, they thought even if we can’t be in space, we can figure out ways to interfere with the Americans and their plans. So, a lot of the first half of the book is about Chinese efforts to penetrate the American supply chain. And the Chinese were brilliant I think not penetrating the satellites or launch vehicles themselves, but the little things that go into them, the dishes that receive and amplify signals that communicate with satellites, the things that furl and unfurl covers for the solar panels that are on every satellite, the little servers and relay switches that are part of this whole architecture of space communication. I think the Chinese did do that in this period as my book hypothesizes.

And then, pretty soon the Chinese began to have satellites of their own and also the ability to kill our satellites. They famously launched an anti-satellite weapon from the ground, just a rocket that’s blew up a satellite in space in 2007 to demonstrate that they could do it. It was like a wake-up call. If you want to know why we have a U.S. Space Force now, a separate military service, it’s because the Air Force blew it. They just didn’t see this threat coming, and finally there was a decision made to have another service. So, I can’t remember quite how we started down this road, but it needs a legal regime, but getting one is going to be exceedingly difficult in this period. I don’t know how we’re going to do it.

Preet Bharara:

Is the U.S. on track to dominate in space or not?

David Ignatius:

So, I think we’re on track as we accelerate with the creation of the Space Force, with more attention to protecting what we’ve got in space to be entirely dominant. We’re certainly dominant in all of the commercial applications. Nobody has anything remotely like Elon Musk’s 5,000 satellites or Amazon’s plans for 2,000. Nobody has anything as sophisticated. They’ll have their own versions, but they’re not as good as our GPS system, which is crucial. Every time you take out your cell phone and it’s being located by four different satellites to position it precisely so that it can get the fidelity of communication that’s necessary. If that GPS system were taken out, yeah, there’s a backup, but that backup could be just as vulnerable. So, these systems are so magnificent, but they’re fragile. They’re like a spider’s web. You could begin to pull away parts of it and I’m not sure what would be left.

Preet Bharara:

If we could change gears, switch gears for just one second. You recently wrote about the threat of terrorism based in part on the warnings that were given by FBI Director, Chris Wray. You don’t hear a lot about that. There have been recent terror attacks in Russia and elsewhere. What’s the threat now? Should we be concerned? And if so, how concerned?

David Ignatius:

There is new concern in the government intelligence agencies but it hasn’t gotten much public attention. Maybe it’s because there’s so many other things going on. Maybe it’s we’re just so obsessed with the Trump, Stormy Daniels trial that there’s no bandwidth for thinking about terrorism threats. But, essentially Preet, the problem as described to me is this. In Afghanistan there was a super militant wing of the Islamic State known as ISIS-K that was the sworn enemy of the Taliban now running Afghanistan. So, the Taliban pushed them out of most of Afghanistan into the neighboring countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Once they got into those countries, it was much easier for them to operate and begin to plan operations against their enemies. Two operations that they planned were one against Iran in January that killed 95 Iranians in the city of Kerman. Another was the attack on the so-called Moscow Crocus City Hall in March that killed 144 Russians.

In both cases, the U.S. knew through its intelligence collection that an attack was coming. We actually tried to warn Iran and Russia, watch out. They’re planning to attack you using Tajik migrant workers. The fear is that that same thing could happen inside the United States. We have essentially, sad to say, an open border in the south, southern United States through which Central Asian migrants have been coming in increasing numbers. I asked the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, what’s your best estimate of how many Central Asian migrants in the last year have crossed the border? The answer is about 50 a day, which puts the number way over 10,000 in the last year. Most of those people just are coming to the United States for the same reason everybody does. They want a better life. Russia with the Ukraine War isn’t a good destination. So, they fly to Istanbul, and then they come to some jumping off point across the southern border.

But, some, the FBI now is certain have been in contact with ISIS-K facilitators and could be used in attacks inside the United States. This is serious enough that two weeks ago, a week before I wrote my article, the NSC held a principles’ committee meeting, meaning the big dogs, the secretary of state, director of Central Intelligence to talk about this threat. They concluded that there was no current operational plan, but that it was a very serious problem. Why doesn’t anybody know about this? I believe I’m still the only person who’s really written in any detail about it. I have no idea why that’s so. I think it’s really pretty scary and people should pay more attention.

Preet Bharara:

Well, you made reference to a potential reason. We’re just overloaded by so much other stuff.

David Ignatius:

Well, if that’s true, we got to worry about that. And the job of, White House shouldn’t be in the business of terrifying people. But, I think there ought to be more public awareness that this is a problem. Maybe one reason, Preet, you know this world far better than I, is that the FBI is conducting operations in these Central Asian diasporan communities that [inaudible 00:52:29] people didn’t focus on it right now because they’re trying to wrap up people or get inside their organizations, I don’t know.

Preet Bharara:

I had another David, David Sanger on the podcast last week and we talked about surveillance, and I wonder what you think about this. That on the one hand, arguably we have a better ability, not just the U.S. but other countries as well, to do surveillance, to engage in intelligence gathering. We have all sorts of data. We have all sorts of capabilities. On the other hand, we have so much capability. We have so much of a flow of information that we’re overloaded and we don’t process it. And obviously that has been listed as one of the causes for missing signs of 9/11. That’s 23 years ago now. Do you agree that that’s a problem and how big a problem is it?

David Ignatius:

I certainly agree that it’s a problem. As you look at the nightmare of the Gaza War, it is haunting how much it is like 9/11. It became a truism to say that every piece of information about the attacks on 9/11 was in the system. You just couldn’t connect the dots. People couldn’t see the pattern that was there in the information. That’s certainly true with Israel and Hamas. So much was known about Hamas planning by parts of the system in Israel, but it was dismissed, ignored, overlooked. They had the basic, as it’s been described in the New York Times, the basic operational plan for the attack that took place on October 7, and senior intelligence officers said, nah, we don’t think that’s going to happen. It was a failure of imagination. So, in that sense, I think there’s just a consistent human failure of imagination really, to see what’s in front of your nose.

On another level I would just note, the ability to process signals electronically is, I think astonishingly good. The example I would cite is Israel’s ability to take out 100 ballistic missiles that were approaching Israel in real time. You essentially have a minute in which to coordinate the telemetry tracking, targeting of 100 different ballistic missiles after you’ve faced a swarm of over 200 drones without the system crashing. Just keeping all those signals distinct, doing the targeting, and that is a non-trivial problem. So, what a paradox that you could do that and make it work, but miss the October 7 attack almost entirely, how extraordinary.

Preet Bharara:

So, that’s human failure, not technology failure?

David Ignatius:

I’d say that technology is more reliable than the humans, to be honest.

Preet Bharara:

How do we improve our human capabilities? Do we need to have smarter people?

David Ignatius:

So, presumably that’s probably a fixed, there’s a range of, hire the smartest among the people who are available. I think-

Preet Bharara:

I believe the phrase, David, is the best and the brightest.

David Ignatius:

Whatever it is, hire him. But, I think there needs to be more red teaming. I think people need to say, assume that we get attacked and tell me how it happened. In the case of Israel, apparently from what’s been published mainly in the New York Times, there was an intelligence analyst, I believe in the Israeli signal intelligence community who said, it’s a woman, who said they’re planning to attack us. They’re planning to come across the fence and go into our kibbutzim, and go into our military bases, and here it is. We picked it up. Here it is. And other people more senior who were red into the overall intelligence, meta-intelligence analysis, which is that Hamas was becoming less militant because they had more of a stake in jobs and economic growth said, no, we don’t think that’s true. And I think it’s often the meta-analysis that blocks you from seeing the actual signals, the information that’s in front of you.

Preet Bharara:

The problem it seems to me as a lay person on most of these matters is that it was not unreasonable or put it without the double negative, it was totally reasonable to think on the part of seasoned intelligence gatherers that a massive attack of the type that happened on October 7th was far-fetched. And the way I think about it is, and David Sanger and I talked about this also last week, on the one hand, very smart people thought that the Afghan military upon withdrawal would be able to stand up for a while, a year or two. And some of those same people presumably also predicted that the Ukrainian military would fall immediately, and it turned out it was the reverse.

David Ignatius:

Obviously, there are the human factor, the frailty of individual leaders. Psychological factors that are at play probably in the end are decisive. My argument would be that we need to have, I called it red teaming earlier, but just contrarian thinking that challenges the baseline assumptions that you have about the durability of the Afghan military to take the example you chose, or whether Hamas really had the imagination capability, desire to launch an attack of this scope. To repeat the formulation I used earlier, you need to think about how disaster, assume that the disaster happened and then think, how could it have happened? What would we have missed along the way that we would allow it to happen?

And the intelligence community tries to do that, but I don’t think, clearly they don’t do it well enough. And you just need to play, when you’re driving down the street, if you’re like me, you look at every corner, you think, what if that car didn’t stop? What if he’s drunk? What if he’s falling asleep? What if his brakes don’t work? What would I do? We do that in our personal lives. I think we’re actually pretty good at protecting ourselves, thinking the worst and try to make preparations. Our government does not do that adequately. And look at what’s happened to Israel. Offense simply isn’t capable at reasonable cost and a reasonable time period of making up for the failures of defense at the beginning on October 7.

Preet Bharara:

You mentioned Israel, you wrote an article a few weeks ago that was entitled The unspoken story of why Israel didn’t clobber Iran. And you write in the article, I think quite accurately, the quote, “Israeli deterrent is usually about massive use of offensive military force, a roundhouse punch that seeks to compel compliance through coercion.” So, I guess, my question is, why has Israel been restrained in connection with the response to Iran? You spoke of all those missiles that came in that were deflected and intercepted, and how does that square with the arguably completely unrestrained actions Israel has taken in Gaza?

David Ignatius:

So, part of it, surely is that the Gaza War began, the really wildly destructive phase began soon after the October 7 attack when Israel. I could see with my own eyes in my visit there at that time, was completely traumatized and destabilized by what had happened. Israel was really shaken. People had never imagined that something like this could happen, and people wanted to strike back. And the question of civilian casualties simply wasn’t high enough on their priorities. They needed to understand they were in an information battle for global support for a campaign that would last a long time. They didn’t think about that enough, and the ratio of civilian casualties to Hamas casualties in the beginning wasn’t adequate. I think over time, cooler heads and the IDF have prevailed. They’re doing a better job of having rules of engagement that reduce civilian casualties. Not enough, but better.

I think what happened in dealing with the Iranian missile strike was it played to what is Israel’s great strength, which is the Israeli Air Force and its missile defense system’s ability to use technology brilliantly. I don’t think there’s anything quite like the Iron Dome in the world. And the example I gave earlier of being able to process signals to track and target a hundred ballistic missiles at the same time, just extraordinary. They knew that they had to be ready to face something like that or worse, you’d have thousands of missiles coming perhaps from Hezbollah and Lebanon, and Israel’s been thinking about that for a long time. It tests the systems, the software doesn’t crash, it stays resilient. So, I think it’s-

Preet Bharara:

They keep updating their software.

David Ignatius:

… different kinds of problems, but that sense of traumatization. I had a senior Israeli commander say to me in those early weeks, we are shaken. It’s going to be hard for us to make good decisions because of what we’ve been through. You have to understand that. And it was so-

Preet Bharara:

The big difference between the two, as you pointed out, whatever you think about the reaction is in connection with the Iranian attack, Israel emerged virtually unscathed. So, they had arguably both political and strategic flexibility to be restrained. Does that sound right?

David Ignatius:

So, I think that does sound right. So, there’s another lesson Preet, I think that’s really important to take away from this war and from the Ukraine War too, it’s the same lesson, which is that in today’s world, thanks peculiarly in some ways to technology, defense is stronger than offense. It’s more important than offense. If Israel had had adequate defenses on October 7 in place, it could have saved itself from a war that as we’re seeing, offense, it’s six months later, offense still hasn’t obtained total control of this tunnel network. So, in responding to the Iranian offensive strike, the Iranians thought we’re going to really give them a punch in the nose. Israeli defenses were so powerful that they essentially neutered the power of their enemy. I’d make the same argument about Ukraine. Russian offense didn’t get them to Kyiv. Ukrainian offense, didn’t get them to the Sea of Azov in their famous counteroffensive. Russian defenses have proved robust, so have Ukrainian defenses. So, that’s the new law of warfare, is its defense stupid. It’s not offense.

Preet Bharara:

When do you think the bloodshed will end in the Middle East?

David Ignatius:

I’ve been covering the Middle East for 45 years, so the answer is probably never. When will this war be stabilized in a way that Israelis and Palestinians can move to a better life? The precondition for that is Israel having a good plan for how to provide security and stability in Gaza. They still don’t have that plan. It’s the biggest mistake that Netanyahu has made. We have been pleading with them since the early days of the war. Work with the Palestinian authority, train them, make them accountable, get them to be more reliable fighters, but get something that when you finish in Gaza can go in and provide enough security that people can distribute food and humanitarian aid without worrying about getting shot and they still haven’t done it. And I think that’s the thing that bothers me the most is, there’s so much death and destruction.

You want something better to come at the end of this for the people of Gaza and for Israel. Something that’s more stable and more secure, but that takes planning. It takes a force that will be respected and have power in that poor messed up part of the world. Arab companies are queued up to begin the reconstruction of Gaza. They think they’re going to make a ton of money, but they cannot do it without security. And where’s that going to come from? And I still haven’t heard a good idea from this Israeli government about how to build that

Preet Bharara:

Is Netanyahu because of who he is and what his circumstances are utterly incapable of doing that, would you describe?

David Ignatius:

So, he’s had six months to focus on this, and he’s been pressed every one of those months by the United States to think more about it. And I think he just faces so much opposition from super right-wingers in his cabinet who oppose this approach entirely that he isn’t capable of it. And I think he’s unpopular in Israel according to polls. Israel’s ready for new leadership. I think it needs new leadership to be as strong and dynamic a country as I want it to be. So, I don’t have a vote there, but if I did, I’d think it was time for a new prime minister.

Preet Bharara:

David Ignatius, you’ve been very generous with your time. Thank you for your participation in this talk. Thanks for your insight. And congratulations on the book, which people should go out and buy, Phantom Orbit, available now.

David Ignatius:

Thank you. So, every time I talk to you, Preet, I wish you were back in government helping people solve the problem-

Preet Bharara:

Doing something else.

David Ignatius:

… so, we talk about it.

Preet Bharara:

That’s David’s way of saying, every time I talk to you in this field, I feel it would be much better if you were not doing this.

David Ignatius:

No, I’m happy that you could interview me. So, we do need creative people who think about these problems inside the government, and I sometimes feel a little guilty as a novelist because I’m thinking a lot about things that I think are important, but I’m doing it as a novelist, not in a way that really is going to help my country.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll leave that last line out.

David Ignatius:

Fair enough.

Preet Bharara:

David Ignatius admits lack of patriotism.

David Ignatius:

Thank you, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with David Ignatius continues for members of the Cafe insider community. In the bonus for insiders, we discuss the author’s favorite spy thrillers and why the genre persists throughout time.

David Ignatius:

I’m a junkie for traditional storytelling artfully done. I’m not so interested in the Shoot ‘Em Up, the typical Clancy or action spy novel has zero interest for me.

Preet Bharara:

To try out the membership for just $1 for a month, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

BUTTON

A couple of weeks ago I ended the show talking about the New York court announcing it would release transcripts of each day of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan. As I said, it was a win for transparency and a win for us, the public. I said in that segment, “I think it’s important for people to be able to read the witness testimony and the cross-examination for themselves and not have them always filter through the lens of pundits. That’s the best way to ensure people trust the court, trust the process, and trust the verdict that’s ultimately reached.” Well, one of our listeners did something even better. He went to the trial in person. We got an email from this engaged listener, Richard Robbins, who wrote in to share an op-ed he wrote for the New York Daily News called, “I Watched the Trump Trial; Everyone Else Should.”

In his piece, Richard details waking up at 4:30 AM. Arriving at the courthouse at the crack of dawn and standing in line to secure one of just six entry passes to the trial that are reserved for the non-press public, just six. A Bruce Springsteen fan, Richard often waited in long lines to attend concerts in his youth. This he reasoned, wasn’t much different. The trial was fascinating, he wrote. While many dedicated journalists are doing an admirable job relaying trial highlights, reading secondhand accounts and hearing talking heads discuss the day’s events is nothing like witnessing it in person. It’s the difference between hearing Thunder Road live and solely reading the lyrics to see how effectively testimony sways the jury. I noticed he said sways and not waves. The experience of attending the trial brought the gravity of the situation into perspective.

After describing his experience observing defendant Trump and his proceedings, he wrote, “The irony didn’t escape me that the court officer announced the case as the people of the State of New York against Donald. J. Trump, even though nearly all people are prevented from attending the trial happening in our name. It’s astonishing that this historic trial is not taking place in public, but nearly in secret.” He’s right. New York State, along with Louisiana, has some of the most restrictive courtroom video recording rules in the country. Richard went on to write, it amazes me that the only records of one of the most consequential trials in American history are transcripts and sketch artists’ drawings with no audio or video record. Allowing in six people to a trial in a city of more than 8 million does not make it public.

Richard goes on to argue, in order to comply with the judiciary law the court should open many more overflow rooms to ensure that as state law requires, every citizen can freely attend the trial. Richard, I want to thank you for your attention to this issue. Attending the first criminal trial of a former president may not be the same as a Springsteen concert, but both have unique importance in their own way. Thanks for listening to the show and for writing to us. Keep up the good work.

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, David Ignatius. 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. You can also now reach me on Threads, or you can call and leave me a message at (669) 247-7338. That’s (669) 24-PREET, 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 deputy editor is Celine Rohr. The editorial producer is Noa Azulai. The audio producer is Nat Weiner. And the CAFE team is Matthew Billy, Jake Kaplan, and Claudia Hernández. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your Host, Preet Bharara. Stay Tuned.