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tv   Director of National Intelligence at Security Conference  CSPAN  April 25, 2024 3:14pm-4:06pm EDT

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>> next, the director of national intelligence highlights security challenges facing the u.s. and its allies. the director takes questions about her responsibilities in overseeing 18 intelligence agencies and organizations in the current global climate and this is hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. >> all right. thank you all so much for joining us here today.
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i am emily harding and i run the intelligence national security and technology program here at sis. my program seeks out the hardest problems with what the future of intelligence work might look like given the challenge and opportunities it presents. how do we open up to allies and build trust with the american people? today's keynote speaker has been a true visionary leader for the ic on these issues and also one of my most favorite former bosses. also, the first woman to be deputy national, deputy director of cia. she has a long and it has a resume including found out she was a physics major in college. what can this woman not do? more impressive, she is a wonderful human being. she works hard, she really listens. she is decisive but also unfailingly kind. she is a steady hand on the wheel in the gathering storm. our moderator today is another trailblazer and a woman i deeply
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admire, suzanne spaulding, senior director of the defending democratic institutions project here at csis. many times in her career, she has looked around corners to prevent catastrophe. as undersecretary and legal counsel to cia -- with that, over to you. >> thank you very much, emily. we are really excited about your new project. looking forward to hearing more about it as time goes on. >> thank you. >> exactly. >> thrilled to have you here. i was thinking about the first time that i ever heard about you was from our mutual friend, mary derosa who was on legal director at the time and she was telling me about this amazingly impressive woman she had worked with at the state department who was wicked smart and worked so
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hard and just incredibly decent person and lo and behold, she brought you over as the deputy. surges great to have you here. thank you for taking the time. the theme, as you know, of this conference, is gathering storm, gathering strength. so let's start with the gathering storm and give us a sense not just of the threat landscape but particularly in the context of coalescing which is the gathering of various adversaries as a result of technology. how do you see that storm gathering? >> that me start by saying how much i appreciate the excuse to get out of my office but also to be here and to have the opportunity to talk to you. you are one of the most remarkable people i have had the chance to work within the work you're doing is so important.
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i cannot tell you how much we rely on the expertise on the papers come on the thinking that goes on in this institution. it is really an extraordinary gift to the country, quite frankly, from a national security perspective, so in terms of the gathering storm, which i have to say it is really -- it feels like the right moniker for today's moment. in so many respects. we do our annual threat assessment and one of the challenges is trying to capture the breadth of the frankly increasingly complex and interconnected threat landscape we are facing today and you know, as we are trying to think about how to capture it, we talk about three sets of challenges that we are facing in today's landscape that kind of get to this question i think. the first is strategic competition with authoritarian powers that are trying to undermine the rules-based order
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and ultimately undermine the sort of open international system that the united states has been such a part of ultimately crafting and we and our allies quite obviously rely on that system and on the rules-based order and our partners really for trade, for commerce, for open information flow, for all of the things that we see as being critical to actually prospering in today's world in many respects and that is sort of the first set of challenges that we talk a fair amount about and we are talking about china and russia in that context. iran, north korea, etc., and then the second set of challenges we describe our really kind of intensifying and rapidly shifting transnational threat, many of which interconnect with that sort of broader strategic competition landscape, whether it is in the context of cybercrime or climate change or terrorism or health security or transnational
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organized crime and there is a whole range of things that we try to sort of lift up in that context. often, cybercrime can be -- interested in making money but it also is true that some of those same institutions can be actually proxies for state actors under certain circumstances to go after and there's all kinds of interconnections between these different landscapes. the third set of challenges that we focus in on now are really localized and regional conflict or potential conflicts that have the potential for cascading were are affecting cascading impact, not just for neighboring countries in the region but having oversight impact and the conflict in the middle east in the context of gaza is an example of this but there are many others we are watching and there is the interconnectedness and is against the landscape
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with key emerging trends that make this even more complicated. new and emerging technologies, economic strain in various races and environment changes. what this all kind of boils down to in a sense is first of all, it is creating a fair amount of instability. this is one of the -- in that sense of this gathering storm of what will happen next and how significant will it be, and the second piece is just from a parochial perspective, it makes it especially challenging for us in the intelligence community to actually provide you with the indication and warning that you want and expect for what is about to happen. how is it about to happen? how should we better prepare ourselves for these moments? the systemic effect of so many of the things we are looking at makes that actually quite difficult to do and the final thing i would say is that it's putting a lot of burden on our institutions which need to be increasingly agile and really have the extraordinary talent and expertise that is needed to
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address so many of these issues and understand the implications between them. at the same time, it is also prompting i think an increasing need and all of us have seen this over the years but just for u.s. leadership, trying to manage all of these issues with our partners and allies because there really isn't an issue we are facing that we don't need partners and allies to help us address so that is sort of the -- it's too long. >> [indiscernible] >> we will have an opportunity for questions from the audience when we are finished with the interview. so please submit your questions online and i will get them up here and we will ask them when we have finished our interview. >> shame on all of you. >> i do want to ask you about
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the information environment. in which we find ourselves. and what a challenge that is. >> [indiscernible] -- israel is not the way. >> so we are living in a really highly charged time and are adversaries are leaning into these divisions that are such a prominent part of our society today and using information operations as a way to exacerbate these tensions and it is a huge challenge, i think,
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both because we have kind of atrophied, my sense is, our capabilities in the information space over years, and because it is so politically charged now. what do you see in that space as we are in this run-up to an election in 2024? you know, how big a deal is this? what do you see? and what is your sense of how well-positioned we are to address it? >> that is a lot. obviously an area that you are an expert in as well and have worked on for some time. obviously, we spent a lot of time looking at what foreign actors are doing in the space and you know, how we publish in particular in relation to the election security threat, intelligence community assessment on an annual basis, and in relation to particular elections are coming up and
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things like that. and what we see, i mean, russia is obviously sort of top of mind in this area. russia has been engaging in information operations against the united states for decades. this is not something that is new but nevertheless, continues to focus in on effectively narratives that are intended to ultimately denigrate the united states global standing in the world and also to undermine democratic institutions, democratic processes, undermining democracy as a general matter, looks to sociopolitical and socioeconomic divisions in our culture and in our society and then goes after also specific policy arguments such as for example western support for ukraine. we see these as sort of major initiatives that they support. they are quite sophisticated when it comes to using new
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technologies in this space. they use generative ai and other tools to try to make themselves better at their messaging in this area to become more sophisticated and they are increasingly able to exploit in a sense commercial firms that are engaging in certain information, you know, activities globally, using platforms and so on. and it makes it much harder for us to really attribute, in a sense, some of the information, specifically to russia, and in a way that we are able to disclose without hurting sources in these spaces. and that is kind of a generic, you know, kind of sense of this is what we see across the board and we will come back to the impact of this in a moment and how we are positioned to deal with it. china is slightly different in the sense that they are also engaging in influence operations as we see it and they also have relatively similar narratives
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that they are focused on. so also about undermining democracy, also about certain grading u.s. leadership and so on. they are more focused than russia is in promoting what they see as pro-china policies and the ccp, the communist party efforts and so on in their space. and they are not quite as sophisticated as russian information operations in terms of their use generative ai and things like that. >> -- palestinians -- a war crime. 15 thousand palestinian children. 15,000 deaths. yes, sir. [indiscernible] genocidal -- you can't hide, you are committing genocide.
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director, director, you can't hide, you are committing genocide. director, director, you can't hide, you are committing genocide. >> dr. haynes, you said -- >> i'm sorry. there are a lot of questions. there are a lot of people here who have questions for the director. and we have a process for that. >> [indiscernible] targeted strikes on aid workers -- the government has killed u.s. citizens. are you speaking truth to power? do your job. >> the biggest threat to the whole world is the climate crisis. the genocide in gaza is ecocide. what are you doing to protect people and the planet, whether they are in gaza, here, or in the global south? the pentagon is thethe pentagont polluter in the world.
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you were talking about young people -- [inaudible] you all should be protecting the world's people, and 40,000 palestinians have been obliterated. >> we're just waiting to go live again, i think.
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one of the things we have seen, to give you the impact, we have tried to counter -- >> [indiscernible] dir. haines: sorry. >> how many kids have died in gaza? talk about that, talk about that. dir. haines: so we try to counter disinformation in the context of the invasion of ukraine, and one of the key aspects of it was really about basically russia was trying to promote a pretext for the
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invasion of ukraine, and we wanted to say, look, the kind of pretext they are trying to create in that context, and as we look back on how successful we were in trying to counter that disinformation, obviously, judge for yourself within the united states, but what we saw in europe was that we were actually pretty successful in countering russian disinformation in that scenario within populations within europe. we were not successful in the continent of africa or really in south america. it was very interesting as we sort of brought in a group of experts that were looking at, essentially, the polls, why weren't we successful here, the way it was absorbed, and a lot of it was based on the fact that, frankly, in many of the populations we were looking at in the continent of africa and south america, they started with a narrative that russia had been promoting, which is that nato
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was the provocatuer, that nato was escalating the conflict and was ultimately responsible for the actions they were taking and they were sort of defending themselves against a growing nato. that put them in the position where they were much more skeptical of what we were saying about, essentially, russian disinformation and most dollars, -- most scholars that work in this area will tell you it is easier to essentially -- to compel an audience or two of them information that they are going to think is compelling if it is relatively consistent with what they already believe to be true and no. so suggesting that russia was actually creating a pretext for their invasion of ukraine was so inconsistent with the narrative they had accepted about nato as the provocatuer that it made it much harder to get through, so a
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rather interesting discussion. ms. spaulding: so i think this is just such an important topic. i am sorry that you have been interrupted multiple times as we tried to discuss it. i really appreciate these insights. and i do worry a little bit that we tend to put things in boxes. you are presenting us with a comprehensive picture here on how these things relate to each other, right? so there can be multiple objectives from those who push information, operations, right, not just one. so information narratives around ukraine and the fact that nato was the provocatuer and the fact that we should not be supporting ukraine can have the effect both of denying, potentially, funding
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for ukraine, which was passed last night, but also then having an impact potentially on people's views on the outcome of the 2020 for election. -- of the 2024 election. it is the notion of gathering and looking at things in a holistic way. so let's talk about how we gather our forces together. dir. haines: yeah, we gather strength. this is a time when we really need all hands on deck. ms. spaulding: so you had the responsibility of gathering the strength of the 18 different intelligence entities. tell us a little bit about how that is going. what are your greatest challenges? particularly in terms of getting the intelligence community both to operate within joint nests that we heard, at least aspire to, by the wonderful panel, i
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think it is wonderful -- it was impressive to see all those uniforms up here. we had the entire intelligence community here. we did not need to bring 18 people up here. but talk to us about how you establish those priorities for the community, which is one of your key responsibilities, in a way that helps bring together the joint effort? dir. haines: and you are such a part of our founding in many respects. it is -- obviously, 18 is a lot of elements, including the odni, and it is an extraordinary intelligence community. it does highlight, to some extent, the need for having somebody who is responsible for ensuring we are actually talking to each other and integrating and ultimately serving the nation in a kind of cohesive
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way. and i think in many respects, counterterrorism is a place where we have really shined in terms of our capacity to do that. it really was born out of the crisis, obviously, of 9/11 in this country and the whole reason for the institution that i sit in, but it definitely continues to teach us lessons across a range of areas. that is sort of one aspect of this, is really, when you have a very challenging problem set like terrorism in the nation, you really do need this extraordinary effort that brings together the capacity of the entire u.s. government but certainly within the intelligence community, our capacity to work together on these issues. that is increasingly true today. one of the things i am really fascinated by is the fact that, even over the course of my sort of career within the intelligence community, i have seen how our different -ence,
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human intelligence, imagery intelligence, signals intelligence, all of these different -ence, they work together -- they work best when they are working together. so these are different types of intelligence that really need to cue and enable each other to give us a better picture of what is happening. and this is exactly the kind of not really very sexy or exciting things that people talk about when they think about intelligence, but it is so fundamental to us doing our job more effectively. and that is a big piece of what we try to do, actually bring together the different capabilities within the intelligence community so we are leveraging each other's capacities and we are actually producing what is needed, then connecting it to what the
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policymakers, the war fighters, the operators really need to make decisions. one of the things you learn quickly in the intelligence community, and if you are part of this, you know this well, there are a lot of places where people are very excited about getting some exquisite piece of information that was very challenging to achieve and that you are very excited about, but it really means nothing unless you are able to deliver it to somebody who can ask take action on it. so this whole question of actually bringing together those capabilities in a way that allows us to deliver information to people who are making decisions so they can make better decisions is so much part of our sort of reason to live. and that is also fundamental to the type of integration that we do. we are also working on and in this moment of our history, it is challenging to imagine this,
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but so much of what we do, particularly when thinking about strategic competition, our long-term investments in our community that allow us to actually be more effective over time. these are the kinds of things that take years. programs. if you are building satellites, if you're thinking about really important platforms that will withstand the test of time, inking about investing in research and development, science and technology, really making us better over time, you need to make those long-term investments. that is a lot of what we do, which is bringing together the community to figure out what makes sense for the vision of the future we are all working towards. again, it is quite hard to do, but i have to say, to the point about the challenges, and i know we are all seeing them when getting a budget pastor other things like that, i will say that our -- getting a budget passed or other things, i will say that our committees work very well together on a
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bipartisan basis, and it is extraordinary to see that. they make it possible for us to do that kind of long-term planning to the extent we are able to. so really appreciate that piece of the work. ms. spaulding: yeah. and a key element of that, particularly with regards to the oversight committees, is tilting sustaining trust. dir. haines: yep. ms. spaulding: bringing all hands on deck. i want to as, in the international context in terms of our relationship with our liaison, vital elation ships for the intelligence community -- again, it goes back to the division within our country and some unraveling of traditional consensus, the fact that we did get a two-year reauthorization of 702, did get an aid package, but both of those were really hard-fought and very close --
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almost did not get over the finish line. do you see an impact on those liaison relationships coming from -- because they watch what is happening in this country and how politically charged we are and how the consensus is shifting, if you will. is that having an impact? are those relationships, much like i think of the morale of the intelligence community, getting the job done. what is happening? dir. haines: i think the relationships are actually quite good with our liaison partners across the board. but you are still raising a relevant issue, which is to say that -- one of the things i thought was very interesting was in a really wide swath of liaison engagements, people were asking me about the chances of 702 and whether or not we would be able to get reauthorization, and i expect a lot of you have had the same experience.
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also, again, not surprisingly, tremendous number of people were focused on whether or not we were able -- were going to be able to get assistance passed for ukraine and be able to support them. the degree to which folks outside of the united states watch our political system cannot be overstated. it is really extraordinary how detailed their questions are about how this is proceeding, chances of it getting to the house. there is a lot of sophistication in the way they are thinking about this, and part of that is because many partners throughout the world rely on our capacity to essentially provide the kind of global assessments that we provide on the kind of threats coming towards us. and our work together is fundamental to our capacity to do that. one of the things that -- with me, very public in the context of ukraine, but it happens across the board in a range of
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areas, if we were downgrading and sharing a lot of information with our allies and partners in that context but we were also enriching it by virtue of the conversations we were able to have with others, and it is not that every intelligence service agreed with us on every aspect of it, but rather, we had an opportunity to have a very good conversation and talked to folks who had expertise in different areas and who were able to say, well, i think this might be why this is happening, and so on. and it really does help us be better at our jobs as a consequence. so it is very much a two-way street in that respect. and i think those relationships are incredibly important in our capacity to actually then take action and address the threats we are facing. also, in that sort of gathering our strength way, we obviously have tremendous strength in this country and globally in partnerships that are with other states, as well, with the private sector, with
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universities, with research institutes, with other organizations that are nongovernmental, with state and city and local authorities, and so on, and increasingly, we are trying to effectively facilitate those partnerships in a way that allows us to both take better advantage of them. and maybe two words on that, i think there is one aspect of this, which is that, basically, the reality is, and we all understand this, there are many non sort of state entities, as we sometimes refer to them, that the geopolitical impact is separate from state actors. you can look at things like the state of california has something like the fifth largest economy in the world. there are other entities that are sub federal that are incredibly important.
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there are sub federal entities around the world that are critically important to what is happening in the landscape, and we have to understand that and engage with them and think that through. there are also many multinational corporations that are ultimately having an impact on our geopolitical landscape. an understanding that and trying to evaluate that is part of our work, it is critical. if you are somebody in the policy on climate, you are actually interested in what multinational corporations are doing, how they are approaching investments in these areas, and so on. we need to be able to understand that, and we need to have some access to the expertise and knowledge in the private sector, that is in technology companies where a lot of the cutting edge innovation is happening, and so on. we have been trying to create opportunities for that. we have a phenomenal rib of experts in science, engineering, technology, medicine that basically are available to us for studies and the board of the
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national academies of science that we can ask questions of and tap into that kind of knowledge and expertise. we have other types of mechanisms like that that help us. we have worked we do with universities where we have innovation. we think through hard problems. this is a part of gathering our strength in many respects to actually be capable with addressing some of the challenges that we are facing today. and getting into the talent, expertise, knowledge, the innovation, doing partner exchanges in different spaces, thinking through how we're going to promote innovation, whether or not we have the right connections with small and medium-sized enterprises around the country that may be coming up with things we need to better understand or research institutes that are working on health security or other things. or it might be if it is misused, another angle of it to understand so we can address that issue. it is fundamental to our work.
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i think you will see more and more of this. there has often been the talking point of we need to improve our public-private partnerships and so on, and i really do think we are making some big loops that will help us be more effective in this space, and it is fundamental to our capacity to be better in the future. ms. spaulding: absolutely. i certainly can attest to that through my role at dhs. we have talked about these public-private partnerships to the point where it means nothing, and now it is really essential that we operationalize those kinds of collaborations. part of what you are addressing is the need to make sure you reach out to a broad range of perspectives and insights. i think the university issue, which has been somewhat controversial across-the-board, for whatever reason in this country, but it is certainly in the intelligence community, and
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a criticism that emphasis on bringing diverse -- making sure that you are consciously bringing a diverse perspective does not mean it is making us less safe. i will give you just a minute to address that, then we will take a couple questions from the audience. we will go a little long. dir. haines: all right, sorry, i usually talk too much. ms. spaulding: everyone is here to hear you. dir. haines: here is how i think about this. i have been a civil servant in government for many years, serving different political parties at different times. it has been so fundamental to me the diversity, equity, conclusion -- inclusion, it is something that makes us better and something we should be promoting and government. i will give my own view on why it is so critical. it is critical to us doing our jobs. it is very hard to imagine an
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intelligence community capable of understanding the world without diverse perspectives, understandings, experience, and knowledge within the intelligence community. that is fundamental to our work. it is also true that we need the best talent, and the best talent resides across a diverse reflection of america. that is also fundamental, and when i go out and try to do recruiting at universities, they want to know, how is our diversity, equity, inclusion program? what do our demographics look like? are we reflecting the country and the people it serves in the intelligence community? i want to be able to tell them that we do and i want to tell them that. and when you have more of that, you are more innovative. that is part of the extraordinary knowledge that backs that up. it is part of being good at our mission. and to say a public institution
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in a democratic society, i think we should reflect what the country has to offer. i think that when people look at us and trust is an issue for the intelligence community, and this is a critical aspect of our work, i think we know that public institutions have lost some trust, and that is across-the-board. true in the united states, in europe. there are trend lines in these areas. in the intelligence community, we are more effective at our jobs when we are trusted by the public because then they listen to us when we say there is a threat and you should pay attention. it is fundamental to our work. there is no question, in my experience, that people trust institutions when they see versions of themselves in those institutions. it is something to actually bring together that kind of diversity that exists in the country that makes us stronger, to be more effective. that is part of why i see this as so important to our work. that is why. the second piece from our
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perspective is it is not a distraction, it is fundamental to actually creating this environment and the institution we think is most effective. it is also something for the way we work this is we are trying to make sure we have actually the data that tells us what we look like and how we are moving forward in terms of promotion, in terms of all the different things you might imagine that actually create equity within a community, and that we are then able to do barrier studies when we see issues and to discover what the challenges are that people are facing in different parts of the institution and then addressing them. those are the kinds of things we try to do in an extremely transparent way. it is much more transparent with congress because so much of what we do is classified, including the number of people in our workforce. we cannot disclose who they are, etc.. but this is the kind of work we are trying to do in making it as transparent, completely for
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congress, but as much as we can within our workforces so we can show this. and ultimately, we produce an annual demographic report to try to help the public to see the broad statistics we are operating under. i think it is very important. ms. spaulding: great. and part of what the challenge there is developing that pipeline of folks who come in and encouraging them and inspiring them to come in. and we have got a lot of young scholars here at csis and hopefully watching, and one has asked if you could talk about what inspired you to go into the national security world. but also, you were on the commission on public service military -- military and public service, and i know one of the key recommendations was to reinvigorate civics in this country, something i am very passionate about.
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that how do we inspire young people, particularly at a time when there is significant mistrust of the intelligence community? what inspired you? how do you think about inspiring others? dir. haines: yeah. honestly, i cannot think of a better job. and i am being totally honest, and i realize i am parochial in this respect. first of all, it gives you a sense of your contributing to something that is bigger than yourself and, ultimately, doing something with meaning. that is a high that is hard to accomplish any other way, in many respects. it is also working with some of the most extraordinary people i have ever had the opportunity to work with. when you talk to people about their time in government, almost across the board, one of the first things they will say is i miss the people. the people -- you do not join the intelligence community if you are interested in same proportion because you are sure not going to get it.
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the reality is, like, those people, despite the fact they are not going to make a huge paycheck like they could make someplace else or they are not interested in glorifying themselves but are really interested in getting work done and doing something with meaning and working on some of the most challenging issues that face us is what inspires them. and that is a lot of fun to work with. the third, for me, is i feel more alive when i am learning new things, and i find that that is true every day in the intelligence community. one of my favorite moments of the day, even if it can be deeply depressing, is reading through the intelligence that comes in overnight, the intelligence community pulling together the president's daily brief, and it is just extraordinary what you read about. because there is talent and thought going into so many different aspects of life. it can be about sort of how
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scarcity of certain resources in a part of the world is creating tension and may spill over to certain spaces, really understanding the details of that is what gives us that kind of insight into it. it can be something about technology that you never thought about before that someone has come up with that is deeply concerning. it is just an amazing wealth of intellectual food, in essence. finally, it is an adventure. for many younger folks, you come into the government -- look, when i came in, i remember thinking to myself as an intern, i definitely do not have the skill to do this and i do not know why anybody would put me in charge of doing something. even as like a first-year civil servant and so on, because it is an all hands on deck situation in almost every office of
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government and you are being asked to do things that have meaning because there is somebody else who is going to do it, so you better get with it. and that is very exciting. it is something that you do not often see, frankly, in the private sector and other spaces. there's a lot of reasons to join. i recognize that the trust issue and this question of, how do you see the intelligence community, when i talked to -- i try to get out to talk to usually high school students on what they are thinking about and how they perceive the ic, in my view is if you have concerns, that is completely rational. it is not as if i think everything works the way it should. i would like to change some things, and you should come into the government so you actually have a chance to affect it. and take responsibility for what our institutions look like, what the decision-making is made of. so i do hope you come with all of your integrity and ethics and
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views about what should be improved, because we need that, too. ms. spaulding: timothy snyder, in his essay on tyranny, talks about do not talk about our institutions unless you are willing to make them yours, talks about adopt institutions. dir. haines: yeah. ms. spaulding: you have managed to end us on a hopeful and inspiring note, despite the gathering storm, and i know i will sleep better tonight knowing the work you're doing and all the men and women in our intelligence community who are working so hard to keep us safe. so thank you so much for sharing with us today and being patient with, you know, the format. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> brief housekeeping
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announcement, thank you again so much, director and suzanne. i told you guys, these are cool customers no matter what. an additional thanks for those who make these discussions possible, the in-depth discussions, and the hopeful notes to end on. lunch is outside. you can walk outside and there are box lunches on the table. grab one. and then please ready to listen to the chairman of the joint chiefs starting at 1:00 p.m. thank you so much.
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>> former president donald trump spoke to reporters outside a manhattan courtroom shortly before his seventh day of hush money trial. on the same day the supreme court considered his presidential immunity claims case. he called the trial a political witch hunt and commented on the state of the economy.
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fmr. pres. trump: when you look at 1.6 gdp, that is a real bad number. it looks like the projections are heading in the wrong direction, and that is what the stock market has done today. my constitutional rights have been taken away from me at this trial. every single expert, every legal scholar, every respected scholar has said there is no case here, this is just a political witchhunt. thank you very much. >> [inaudible]
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fmr. pres. trump: i think the supreme court has a very important argument before it today. this judge will not let me be there. i should be there, but he would not allow it to happen. i guess he puts himself above the supreme court, which is unfortunate, isn't it? the argument of immunity is very important. this has nothing to do with me. this has to do with a president in the future, 100 years from now. if you do not have immunity, you are not going to do anything. you're just going to be doing nothing, not going to take any of the risks, good or bad. you can make some great decisions, going to make some decisions which are unfortunate, but that is the way it is. but you're not going to do anything if you do not have immunity because otherwise you are going to be prosecuted for doing something like going into an area, doing lots of things
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that you would not be doing. can we do not want a ceremonial president. we have to have a real president. we have to have the right person to make a difference. i saw that for four years, respected all around the world, the best economy we ever had, had no wars, defeated isis, had no words, had no nothing. we were respected all over the world, and now it is a disgrace. we had the single best border ever in the history of our country, best border ever. build 571 miles of wall and were going to build 200 more. but we had a country that was respected, and now we have a country that is joke and being left at all over the world. universities, the only place that is locked down is this courthouse because they do not want any supporters here. they do not want maga here, do
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not want anybody. this thing is locked down like a buttoned up vest, and it should not be. if they would stay locked down at columbia and nyu and the colleges and universities, you would have no problem whatsoever. but there, you could put tents up and stay whatever you want. but this thing is locked down. those here, i called them new york's finest because that is what they are, and they do not want to be doing this here. they would like to be at the colleges and making sure they do not have what is happening, because what is happening at the colleges is a disgrace. all over the world, people are laughing at us. you do not get much worse. we have a president who was a disaster, a president who is the worst president in the history of our country. all you have to look at is the millions of people coming in from prisons, from mental
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institutions, like you have never seen before. i am going to go in now and sit in front of a case, this is the way they think you get elected, but i guess so if you are at my poll numbers. >> [inaudible] >> earlier today, the u.s. supreme court heard oral arguments on whether former from criminal prosecution forune his alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 elect results. tonight starting at:00, a discussion on the case and ial impact, and we will get your reaction. watch on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org.
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>> get information from members of government in the palm of your hand when you order your copy of c-span's 2024 congressional directory, with bio of every member. important information on congressional committees, the president's cabinet, several agencies, and state governors. the congressional directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit organization. scan the code on the right or go to c-spanshop.org to order your copy today. >> president biden spoke about the establishment of a semiconductor manufacturing plant in upstate new york after a presentation with the state's governor kathy hochul. he highlighted an agreement that provided billions of dollars to build the facility. ♪

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