liberal. it sums up what this book is about, and it is the people. i wanted to honestly profile the people on the left and on the right. voters i profiled workshop voters, but i profiled some who were not. to me it was capturing the sentiment that growth the electorate to deliver one of the most astonishing electoral defeats that we have seen, certainly in my lifetime and in modern history. it is a profile on american people given issues of terrorism to poison water in michigan. >> watch on c-span2. cia director mike pompeo today discussed intelligence and national security issues. also spoke about global threats that the u.s. faces and what president trump expects from the cia.

this is one hour. >> good morning everybody. i am the senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at aei, and it is an honor for us to welcome the director of the central intelligence agency, mike pompeo, who i think for the first time is in his current role. i am going to read your bio. this is something i don't always do. i have sat down and look through the directors bio and i was enormously impressed. so i am going to read it and embarrass you. sworn in as the director of the cia in january of 2017, mr. pompeo was a congressman on the committee on intelligence and the committee on energy and

commerce prior to that. he served on the benghazi committee, but he wasn't in business for himself, he was the head of his own company and was a graduate, number one in his -- and along the iron curtain, when we had an hiring, although we are on our way back. he graduated from harvard law school. that is pretty impressive. an honor to have you serving in our government, and delighted to see what. i would give you a rundown of what he is going to say, but i have absolutely no idea. no leaks from the cia of what happens. director is going to come up here and speak for a while and then sit down with aei's own with a conversation and then questions from the audience.

without further a do, mr. director. [applause] good morning everyone. today is exactly one year, and in a few hours it will be one year to the minute as i was sworn in as director of the cia. i got held up across the weekend. for the, i can introduction and ask for having me here. i will spend a few moments talking about that your. a year from the central intelligence agency's perspective. roles been a different than i had, although i served in the house oversight committee, so i had a chance to see the cia as a member of congress. i have told my friends were still on the committee, it is not possible to gain a full

perspective of what the u.s. intelligence services collectively can do until someone gets the privilege that i have to lead one of those organizations. prepare youpossibly for this scale, the skull, the magnitude of the efforts that we undertake agenda every day as the nation's first line of defense. back to the president's inaugural speech being the hour for american action. at the cia, i have tried to live that and have my team live that. we are doers and cia. sidey to stay on the right of decorum, which is to get stuff done. havenk the american people the capacity to see that each and every day, and they can't for good reason. they too would beep out of the men and women who joined the cia

as i am. i can to quickly understand that i wasn't going to improve the courage of our officers, the skill set of our officers, although we are working diligently to take it to even the next level. to small businesses and having been a leader of the military, i could see that there was a bureaucracy that was preventing them from being unleashed from doing the very things they were directed, commanded, and american needed them to do. i wanted to be a part of changing that understanding, i want to make sure our officers appreciated the fact that we have are going to have a next dictation nearly every day. that we are going to steal secrets, it is what espionage services do. we ask that they risk their lives to steal secrets to protect america. we will never shied away from it, and we do so aggressively

and without any apology. that, one of to do the things that we have done, never all seen this in every organization have been a part of. it is true in government, but was true in the private sector as well. bureaucracy slow stuff down. government is worse than the private sector because services are misaligned. i lead by example. 40% of the decisions previously made by the director of the cia are no longer made by me. you might say, wow, that is reckless. i would tell you it would be reckless to do it the other way. we make careful decisions of what pieces to keep if it had civic at risk that if it had .ignificant risk if the director brought special knowledge to bear, if i had an

experience, if it needed full input from all intelligence community or the broader u.s. government, then i would keep that decision. came to me because i was the next chain of command, then that is a mistake, because i would inevitably slow it down and not be in a position to be of any value in that decision-making process. talking aboutte that, my role, i try to impart that same thing everywhere in our organization. i have asked every leaders to power the people that work for them, and i encourage the people that work for them to go grab the authority. if we do that, will be as fast as our adversaries. sitting in a long meeting with senior officials and i was what our we did x, adversaries do? i said sure as fact they wouldn't have a meeting like

this. everyone knew i was right as well. we need to have a bias towards being examples of it adversaries, as if we don't, we would serve america poorly. our president and see her policymakers need and most challenging times. here is another good example. or by circumstances on the ground to close down one of our operations station. and said, here's what i think we are going to lose, we found unacceptable, and they gave the commander's intent. we are going to move out of that station, set the date, and we are not going to lose a thing. go figure out a way to do it, id remarkably, months later, can tell you that our intelligence equals to where it was. we did remarkable things, incredible things that

absolutely had real risk and continue to. subjects in a place and about an adversary that we simply couldn't afford to have a gap any larger than the one we had before that facility went away. remember, when assad used chemical weapons against his own people. the president called me personally and asked mike, i want to know what is happening there. it took a number of hours before we could deliver the president a real response that could answer the key questions. it was clear from when i heard from the president that he wanted to take action in response to the chemical attack, but he wanted to know if it was the regime, wanted to know if it was chemical weapons that were in fact used. everyone can see the open source material, but for a president to act, you need more than that. we put together a team that

amounted in the hundreds that work every intelligence channel. able toin a short order deliver the president the basic facts that he needed to know if the certainties i can stand in front of them and commit that would find that we were not wrong and acted in error, and we delivered it in a way that was the finest of what this agency does. leave one thing behind as director, maybe next year i can stand here and tell you we made even more progress. would be to be as agile sp be as we need to. the second thing is to make sure that we continue to keep the american people's trust. as i waslaw, and reading in preparation for my confirmation hearing, he to strike me how much power and authority are granted to the director of the central intelligence agency, and through that, to our remarkable officers.

we have an obligation to do everything we can to operate in a way that engenders the american people's trust, so those powers and authorities remain in place. if we don't and remain in ways -- behave in ways that are lawless, and which you see in movies, then american people would rightfully take those powers, that authority, that capacity away from us. that would be unforgivable for an agency to find themselves in that place. whatever target we are working. the president understands what is going on in north korea, whether it is our efforts throughout the world, work where doing against russia -- those authorities, the trust american people have provided to us are central to us in achieving our mission. a day like today, which is few and far in between i come out

and speak publicly. it is important for the american people to understand that we operate inside a democracy, that we respect the rule of law deeply, that we have processes in place to ensure that we and that wedo that, are working diligently to make sure that the people entrusted with ensuring that is happening -- our oversight committees ande are working diligently to make sure and executive branch of which we work, are fully informed of the things we are doing. everyone in the organization would note that it is imperative, and where doing that in a way that the american people are proud of. there are a handful of stories -- i may wait for mark to come up here, and i will tell a couple of them. should know that we are focused on the same set of is a secretary of state, secretary of defense, the president standing before you today.

we would be closely behind -- aligned. lester, it was remarkable to see the creativity, which has led to our capacity to materially impact shipments into north korea. we're quite night where we need to be -- we are not quite where we need to become a our mission is not complete, but we have officers around the world working diligently to ensure we are doing everything we can to pressurehe u.s. campaign and to tighten sanctions in such a way we have the opportunity to prevail and achieve the american presidents mission, which is the denuclearization of the peninsula. this is the kind of past the cia was designed for. it is the kind of test we're delivering against. about theast week fact that north korea is ever closer to being able to hold america at risk.

i said there was a handful of months. i said the same thing several months before that. i would want to understand that we are working diligently to ensure that a year from now, i can still tell you that they are several months away from having a capacity. there is not a static timeframe, it is an effort from the government to ensure that americans don't have to feel at risk. we saw what happened in hawaii, it is imperative that we as an intelligence agency deliver the information to our senior leaders and is way that works for the american people. will pause here and take questions from mark and others. into 2018, i want you all to know that we will continue to do remarkable things for the american people. focused on north korea and iran, we are working diligently to solve problems in venezuela and problems in africa.

set to fightet is counterterrorism -- it continues . making sure policymakers understand the threat and how best to attack it. frankly, i have to tell you, i came in looking at these albums, and realized that frankly, we have been whistling past the graveyard for decades on some of these. you should know that when i say decades, that is republican presidents, democrat presidents, republican congresses of which i was a member, and democrats who were members of our legislative branch as well. some of these need be taken off the table, we need to reduce this risk, and the cia is prepared to do its part to ensure those risks are reduced. and that we ultimately can stare at these problems with fewer resources consumed because we have actually resolved many of them. i look forward to our conversation, and thank you all

for being here today. [applause] >> thank you for being here today. yet been a longtime friend of the organization and where proud to have you here today. i see people i haven't seen for a long time. >> we have seen a lot of people without firsthand knowledge commenting and writing books about the presidents briefing practices. your brief the president almost every day -- how does someone with that firsthand knowledge take us inside the president's work,brief -- how does it what kind of a consumer of intelligence is he? day, i get up, read the material early in the

morning, and then traveled down to the white house. read present the president and any policymaker the privilege that we have the chance to read. that is the missionary day for the analyst that prepares the book. it is quality material. i am there, jim mcmaster is there, director coats is there, i have a brief are there as well -- an officer there as well. the vice president if he is in town, that is the gang. someone shouts, pompeo, your rn, and then i take a deep breath, and then i deliver to him. we try every day -- we tried to do something and talk about things that happened overnight, for instance today, you can imagine we talked about the

turks moving south out of syria. and it will talk about something that is coming up. for instance, preparing the president for his trip to davos, or a foreign leader who is going to visit. and then, we create some space as well. some space to do knowledge building for the team. things thatems, would be confronted or be in the news tonight, but things that are central to having a shared fact-based understanding across all of the agency. there are three types of information -- the president asks hard questions, he is deeply engaged. we'll have a rambunctious back and forth, all end to making sure we are delivering the truth as best as we understand it. differently don't have the answer to -- we weren't as complete as we need to be, will go back and within a couple of

hours deliver that information as best we can. -- the process we go through with the president every day is the process that i hope every policymaker is doing throughout the administration. i hope they are all consuming the information that we are delivering. we spent a lot of money on it, and the same way the president does. >> we talked earlier about things that are obsolete, things that have been discussed -- is there an example of times where the president has pushed back on you and pushed you to get more information than you been able to change the outcome of something? -- ow this is sensitive couple ofe you a examples. the president was concerned about humanitarian issues in yemen. he kept pushing us about what was really taking place, was the

layout, was happening in the port, was possible in the configuration of forces on the ground. we were able until to deliver to him a satisfactory picture you can make a decision of which of our friends to call to make sure that problem was at least diminished or mitigated. the second example that i remember was a little bit before that. it was on venezuela. the president was dissatisfied with the description of the situation as we hit -- we had laid out to him. there were financial issues he wanted more clarity on. there were multiple pieces, the he wanted toes, understand how it all came together so yet a complete picture. -- it couldng after have been the first or second sections the administration put

in place that were >> as you know, different presidents take the presidential daily brief differently. trumpmed like president was going to find the --follow the model of president obama and not do it in person. how often does he take the presidential daily brief and what are his breathing habits -- briefing habits? >> it will happen most today's. that's most days. it sometimes goes on for 40 minutes or so depending on the presidents's schedule.

have schedules job.let us execute our this president's pattern of taking information is different than president obama and different than president clinton as well. he finds value. we are able to convince him that the fact we are delivering impact his ability to perform his mission. the days we cannot deliver that is the date it starts getting. . as i tell my team about what we're going to substantively sure thathave to make the information we are delivering meets the threshold of the president of the united states and is delivered in a

manner which he can grasp sufficiently to actually be able to act upon, to provide real value, not just data, but real data he can use to formulate policy. if we do that, i'm convinced we will continue and i think that's serving america well today. how do you see him as a consumer of intelligence? ora sophisticated consumer what does your interaction with him in that setting tell you about him as a commander-in-chief? seen 25 yeari have intelligence professor of best --professionals get briefing and his ability to take in information is the same as theirs.

things move awfully fast in this world. he has the grounding for him to be able to grasp the situation city can ask sophisticated so he can ask sophisticated questions. we will be talking about a topic and he will talk about something i briefed him on months ago. it is not simply the case that in this is an exercise. i'm confident our team is delivering in a way that is delivering value to the president. it the fact that so many people underestimate him is a value in national security. the people that underestimate george w. bush and all the rest that he

wasn't that smart. he's actually a very smart man. is that a useful tool in national security? director pompeo: i don't know. lots of us have been underestimated many times. just keep plugging. >> let's talk about your leadership at the cia. you recently said your goal is to make the cia more vicious, more aggressive, more inclined to take risks against the threat that america faces. how are you make in the cia more vicious, more aggressive and less risk-averse? director pompeo: it's all about incentives. all about the things awarded. every organization i've been a part of, it is the human condition that your wrist onto the guiding that are laid out in an organization. so, you see an example. it's important if you set the priority you better mean it and that mean government just giving really good speeches about it.

if you care about something, you will apply resources to it. the agency that's money, people, technical skills. other tools that we have coming and he will take those and apply them against the problem set. when you operate a constrained environment, that is you have to de-prioritize something else as well. almost impossible to avoid that and we've done it. we have said, here are the things that matter most to us. reprioritize. we have reshuffled. people see that and people don't -- people than want to go to the the missionthey say is. they say officers are very much that way until we've done that. here are the things we are going to work to which only against them you are the outcomes we are going to deliver for the president, for the country and we have prioritized it. i know you talked about this a little bit. iran a company that sold equipment to the oil and gas industry before i came to congress. the last job that i had before i

ran. i worked with drilling oil and natural gas. best companies in the world, smartest engineers, most sound the people and they drilled dry holes all the time. they didn't punish the engineer who made the choice. but at the next morning tried to do a little bit better to make sure the next one returned something. i want to create the culture here at the cia, too. if we are going to do it right, we are going to have failed mission. it is inevitable. almost by definition, if you move out on the risk profile, you will increase the number of times you will have failure. we are going to do that and we are going to make sure that people are not punished for that but they are rather recognized for having been professional for having operated against the target sense in having done something incredibly audacious. and if it turns out that the coin is the tales instead of head, so be it. we're going to go the next day and crushed our adversary one

more time. crush our adversary one more time. >> last time you were here at aei when we have the conversation, the topic was guantanamo. you had just returned from guantanamo bay. you said instead of closing guantanamo, we should be feeling it with more people. director pompeo: from my perspective, this is what i can say. if we're going to take out networks, we need the opportunities to engage with individuals whom have been pulled from the battlefield. we need to make sure that time, the time, the , capacity to take on board the information these individuals may possess. and so, u.s. government policy if we are

serious about these fights, must reflect that. we have to make sure that not just the cia, the dod in all of part inrs who have a the counter air -- counterterrorism fight have that opportunity. i am working diligently inside the administration to make sure we have that. how congress will definitely has its say. we have a set of rules for interrogation purposes. we have detention purposes. dod has the authority. that seems fine to me, but the moment i have officers saying we miss an opportunity to conduct an interview on someone who i believe had information that could say that american life. we are going to begin to move heaven and earth to make sure something like that is not ever happen again. we have captured very few people but our capability has

been decimated by leaks and in an age of end to end encryption, from intelligence will be less content and more following. can we keep the country safe without content and doesn't that suggest we need to start getting human intelligence again in a way we have been? director pompeo: a lot of predicates in your question. i love the general hayden. he is a dear friend. we're still doing pretty good collecting signals intelligence. mostly our partner, not the ca not the cia but we have a role in that as well. that does not foreclose the imperative that we can today to improve our capacity to click -- to collect human intelligence. not the least of which is the capacity to interview those folks who have been polled for

cesspool from the battlefield. theho have been pulled from battlefield. we should not put ourselves in a position where we are, we're making decisions on the assumption that we can't detain and interview to improve america's information. >> the trump administration obviously inherited a mess in north korea. both democratic and republican administrations have kicked the can down the road and this is coming to a head. how does north korea nuclear missile program jump from a dozen unsuccessful test a year to the state it is now? is that alarming in the sense, are they getting at a build rate where they can overpower our ballistic missile capability and what can we do about that? director pompeo: they have moved at a very rapid level. they are testing capacity and it

has improved. the frequency that they have tests which are materially successful has also improved, putting them ever closer to a place where americans can be held at risk. i think that's a true statement. it is also analytically true that kim jong-un will not rest with a single successful test. the logical next step would be to develop an arsenal of weapons . that is not one, not a showpiece, not something to drive on a parade route on february 8 but rather the capacity to deliver from multiple firings of these missiles simultaneously. that increases the risk to america and that is the very missions that president trump has directed the government if -- to figure out a way to make sure it never occurs. >> does the cia assess that kim

an irrational actor. >> we do. 00:32:01 and do you think that he believes that the trump administration is actually willing to use military force? the only way you can have a successful diplomatic solution if he feels the threat. he seems to proceed these untouchable because what he can do to solve and what his conventional capability much less emerging merging nuclear capabilities. does he believe that we pull the trigger do something to threaten him? director pompeo: we are concerned he may not be receiving good information. it is not healthy thing to be bringing bad news to kim jong-un. try to get life insurance. i dare you. so we are doing, where taking -- we are taking the real world actions that we think will make unmistakable to kim jong-un that we are intent on denuclearization. we are counting on the fact he will see. we are confident he will.

and then we will continue to have discussions about how to achieve that denuclearization. >> can we live in a world where kim jong-un has the capability to destroy new york or washington with the push of a button? is that a world we are willing to go into? director pompeo: that'll will be a decision for the president ultimately. he is unambiguous on his view. the determinable -- deterrable? does he want it for regime preservation or does he do it because it gives them the freedom to do things that destabilize the region? director pompeo: it is more than just regime preservation that we're concerned he would use, we talk about the nuclear risk all the time. that gets to the brunt of the world's attention appropriately so, but his conventional forces

alone. close to a million under arms to bassett depending on how you count them is no small thing. and so we do believe that kim jong-un, given the toolset, would use them for things besides regime protection. that that is to put pressure on what is his ultimate goal which is reunification of the peninsula under his authority. so we do not think it is the use this he will toolset for self-preservation. the we think it will be in a way, call it what you will, call it coercive is perhaps the best way to think about how kim jong-un is prepared to potential that potentially -- potentially use these weapons. >> there seems to be a perception the options in north korea are nuclear war or letting, or going to a deterrent strategy. there are options in between that. if he is an rational actor and president trump decided to do something like a limited strike like the one he done in syria, actor nottional

respond the way the syrian regime didn't respond, right? in the sense that relate to -- that would lead to regime destruction. if you are a rational actor who wants to preserve your machine -- your regime are there options , to address his capability . director pompeo: i'm thrilled you ask. i'm equally happy not to answer. the american people should know we are working to prepare a series of options. we'll make sure the president of the full suite possibilities. the president is intent on delivering this with diplomatic means. it is of the focus. it has been uniformly that for now 365 days. it remains so today. we are focused like a laser on achieving that. we are equally at the same time ensuring that if we conclude that is not possible that we present the president with a range of options that can

achieve what is his stated intentions. >> let's talk about iran. one of the holes in the nuclear deal is the old-school come part civilization. the assumption all the nuclear program work occurs within the country. -- wet extent could iran know there was north korean cooperation with syria for example in building that facility that the israelis took out. usehat extent could iran cooperation to conduct illicit nuclear work like on warhead design that would advance the iranian, not just in north korea that could advance the program that necessarily our catching it or violating the agreement? director pompeo: that the real risk. we think we have pretty good understanding of what's taking place there today. having said that i am the first person to admit that intelligence organizations can miss important information. these are terribly difficult problems and an incredibly tight spaces, and when you're moving

information sometimes difficult to detect that information is moved. so someone asks me as the senior intelligence leader of the cia, can you guarantee this? i would say absolutely not. but we are working to make sure that doesn't happen. this goes back to previous question about one of the risk s of allowing north korea's regime to continue to add this nuclear capability. it is this proliferation risk. it is this technology that they have developed and then figured out how to manufacture at something beyond just a museum piece. but some form of production level capacity within the perforated -- proliferated elsewhere in the world. then secondarily it doesn't take too much imagination to understand that if the y continue to have that nuclear weapon system or the iranians make advancements in theirs, that many other the countries

around the world will decide me, too. right? that i want to have one of those things that that guy has. being very careful not to identify countries but you can go through the list of those would feel incredibly threaten and feel that they needed to have similar capacity in order to defend their own national security interests. >> let's talk about vladimir putin for a second. this is a guy who shows up a lot with his shirt off, right? there's a famous story where he told president bush that my dog is bigger and stronger. are these behaviors of someone who is a strong leader or a week -- a weak leader? director pompeo: our assessment of vladimir putin's intentions have not changed. he continues to view the greatest failure of the last century to be the dissolution of the soviet union. he is bent on richard newfarmer -- on returning the former soviet union to its former greatness and glory.

that is the first thing he thinks about you today. you might add being reelected as a second thing he thinks about each day. those are related in some ways. he moves about the world and is conveying to his audience the imperial power of the russian people. he hasn't changed. this administration is deeply aware that we need to continue to push back against the russians everywhere we find them. >> let's talk about a little bit about the recent news stories about possible mold within the ole within the cia that resulted in a loss of chinese assets and harkens back to losses we had, you were stationed on the iron curtain, losses of agents in the soviet union, dozen or so iranian recruits in the middle east who have been lost. the business of recruiting and running spies is hard but the records just with -- suggests we may not be as proficient as we all to be. is a something that needs to get fixed? how do you assess where we are? director pompeo: we are never

what we need to be. i actually saw this as a member of congress, i came in as the director a year ago intent on improving our capacity to protect our own information. we should make sure the secrets we steal are not re-stolen. we have an obligation to the american people to do that. i've made a number of changes, one of which is to make sure we're providing information so the department of justice can do it good work in bringing these traitors to heel in u.s. courts. the second of which is making sure our organization has the resources it needs to deliver on its counterintelligence mr., definition -- mission which includes ensuring we're doing offensive counterintelligence, that is, working against our advisory services in a way that prevents them from getting inside of our service. one of the first things i did, and woman who runs a counterintelligence mission and

reports directly to me now, was intentional, send a signal to two places. the cia will be serious about protecting our stuff, and second, to my workforce. the director was personally attentive to a mission that can fall too far down in the priority scheme. to me there are few things more important than protecting our officers, are assets and are assets and our information. >> it's also really hard to benefit groups like al-qaeda and isis. you have experience in serving on the front lines of the cold war, russian immigrants, was in -- was not a tribal culture in the same way. how hard is it, back before 9/11 with almost 1 million assets. -- we had almost no human assets. how hard is it to get intelligence on these terrorist networks? they: -- director pompeo: are difficult targets for sure, but as the u.s. government has been successful against them in

different places, whether it was a significant set of successes in the previous initiation against al-qaeda, as with a significant success taking the caliphate away against isis. provides real opportunities to reach in. there are more people who decide being part of team america might be better than being part of team jihadi. and so we are beneficiaries with the big disruptions that occur. they allow us to collective ways we can't when their force is united and we don't have any chance of to touch them. >> the success in syria against isis has been remarkable in terms of taking away their physical caliphate. but it arguably came at a little bit of a price because we did with kurdish fighters which is causing tension with turkey. we are perceived to lease by the sunni population in syria as being at least tacitly in an alliance with russian and iran in the fight against isis which pushes sunnis away from us and towards al-qaeda which is sitting there waiting.

have we been too focused on isis and not focused enough on al-qaeda? can we defeat the global jihadi movement with upbringing sunnis into our orbit? can we do this with kurds and russians and iranians or do we need a a sunni partner on the ground that's going to fight these guys? absolutelympeo: we need sunni partners. we are working to do that. in the eastern department, we have been working on bringing in the sunnis in alongside our kurdish partners in there as well. i think they've made real progress in there. this administration has broadly reached out to sunni countries all throughout the middle east to form coalitions against not only against isis but against iran as well. i think we've made some substantial progress there. if we're going to be successful in taking down the jihadist threat will actually need sunni partners aiding us in that effort. >> what worked in iraq during

the search was the sons of iraq. that the sunni tribes came over. we were in force enabler by sending additional troops but it was a sunni uprising against al-qaeda which was both a military defeat and ideological defeat because the jihadist claim to be the vanguard. when you are rejected by the sunnis, it sends a signal throughout the region. are we doing, making any progress in getting the sons of iraq equivalent in syria and some of these other places where we are fighting them? director pompeo: i'll let others talk about the progress we are making there. you should know that the cia understands that. our analytic assessment is much in line what you described. it is an absolute imperative that we achieve that. one last question and then i will turn it to the audience. this is a question i ask all national security policymakers when they come through aei. during the 1980 presidential debate, no one asked either candidate about iraq.

during the 2000 presidential debate, no when asked about al qaeda. -- no one asked about al-qaeda. both those cases those two elements became the crisis that dominated both presidencies. what is the threat that is out there and do you see threats none of the sea? session none of us -- that none of us see? director pompeo: we have things that could be in the national intelligence priorities framework and we would all know them. then there is a set of other things that others should not characterize as second-tier. certainly, the political risk in south america are one of them. to make sure we get that right. the united states is watching

what is taking place. border,y south of our central america and mexico. right that to get some of these threats are real but they are not nationstates. the threat to the united states with a country. against america doing the threat from yugoslavia or some other nationstate but today the threats are much more varied. whether it is from groups like hezbollah or al qaeda or threats to our information system or groups like wikileaks. they do not have a flag at the .n. and theyy -- u present real threats to the united states.

fix someo go back and of the rules and laws that are designed to fix the nation tape -- nationstate challenge. we need to make sure we are watching those actors in the same way we would watch a threat from a traditional nationstate. >> let's take some questions. microphone coming to you. >> good morning. good to see you again. one of the unconventional threats we're confronting as transnational organized crime. i've been talking with you about this for good long while. in the your human director, have -- in the year you have been director, has it been a priority of yours to the more

-- to put more intelligence resources in going after the financial network of drug traffickers and other forms of transnational organized crime, which is now playing an active role in the destruction of venezuela? and looking at influencing elections in colombia and mexico where drug traffickers have a , significant interest in mayhem and optimizing supply chain of cocaine to the market here in the united states? director pompeo: you could probably at others to the list and you could list the telethon as well, that's taliban as well uses drug revenue to foment so much pain around the world. we have bolstered our capacity, our collection capacity. we have done that jointly with treasury department, secretary mnuchin at his team, working together to take the tradecraft we have historically used against networks that look and feel very much like financial networks and apply them against those very networks. there is still a long way to go.

but what it delivers for policymakers is a set of options. part of what you would see is sanctions options but in other spaces, other ways we can disrupt because we know where the money is we have the capability to stop the flow. we're probably still not at the level we need to be but we are in a better place than we were just a short time ago. >> i just want to know, one of the challenges will be recovery of assets. the maduro region has lived hasegime has limited -- looted over $350 billion from venezuela, being able to recover those assets and reprocessing and giving them back to the venezuelan people to reconstruct the country would be our priority. director pompeo: there are more than a half-dozen places in the world where we are watching large amounts of wealth being stolen from the people of that country. and our effort is to identify them gained the capacity to take

them away from the person who has title to them today and then use them for u.s. foreign policy purposes. frankly, in both cases returned them to the people from which they were looted. director pompeo, how satisfied were you with the intelligence capabilities on north korea that you inherited when you came to langley? what do you see as the nobles? -- as the unknowables. see about the things that are unknown but should be known. director pompeo: so when i i came and there was insufficient focus on the problems. wasn't the case it'd been ignored. it wasn't the case we had missed material things, but clearly had not received the focus and attention that were going to be needed to deliver for what this administration is going to ask of the intelligence community. so we, within weeks of becoming director i created a mission stood it up with a

senior leader he was retired. brought her back to run the organization. i can see my information security people over here, a lot of folks working on it. we are in a much better place today than we were 12 months ago. we are still suffering from having gaps. part of it is not the intelligence community's fault. but it is inadequate for the state to say it is a hard problem. of course it is a hard problem, that is why you pay us. we are developing a global intelligence picture so we can understand rates of change and what is happening amongst the various leadership elements of north korea so we can see if the sanctions put in place are having an effect or sufficient effect. people areets of

being affected. there is enormous pressure that has been placed on me. we are trying to solve the riddle to close those gaps to the maximum extent. >> good to see you. i want to go back to what he's said in the beginning, that north korea is a handful of months away from having a nuclear missile that could reach the united states. he said you have that we are in the same position a year from now. is that good enough? that in a year from now they might be a few months away from developing that weapon?

director pompeo: that is inconsistent with u.s. policy. u.s. policy is that we're going to the nuclear allies denuclearize/ . it is a secondary mission that we keep them from getting that capability. timeline buts on it is not that simple. the way we think about it is ability - the aisle --reliability. it is one thing to say you could, if the missile flew in the right direction and if we got lucky we can do it, as opposed to certainty. this is the core of deterrence theory. you have to be certain that what

you aim to deliver will be successful. you have to make sure your adversaries believe it is certain. kim jong-un is trying to put in our mind the reality that he can deliver pain to the united states of america and our mission is to make the day he wants to do that far off. >> he said a couple of months away, we know the intelligence years, six months, two and he was much faster than you thought. do you trust, do you feel you have enough information in saying a couple of months away to be certain and also, you said there was a gap in sanctions. director pompeo: the impact of sanctions. do you see any impact they trust also on the missile timely? -- that you can trust also on

the missile timely? director pompeo: so i can't answer your second question so do my best to answer your first. it's not that i don't know. i do know. i just can't share with you what we know on the second question. the first one, the predicate is actually wrong. you said that somehow that intelligence committee got this wrong. we didn't see this come as fast, that's just untrue. i have seen the news articles that have written that. by the way, that is not me bragging. this happened before my time. the intelligence community understood the capability and testing capacity. we will never get the week and month right on something this complicated but we can get the travel and breath the rate of change right. we will continue to deliver solid information on the north korean missile testing program and all the information around it. >> let's take one more question. thank you.

recently north korean wants dialogue with south korea. on the other hand, engine on, kim jong-un nuclear threat on united states with nuclear and missiles. what is the u.s. final destination of north korean nuclear issues? and is it possible to preemptive strike to north korea if necessary? director pompeo: i will leave it to others to address the capacity or the wisdom of preventive strike from an intelligence perspective. we are trying to ensure that all the various options the president might want to consider are fully informed. that we understand what's really going on and the risks associated with each of those decisions as best as we can identify them for him. >> one more question. director pompeo: doing that in conjunction, too.

we should rumor we have partners that are working on this diligently as well, south koreans themselves, the japanese. we have partners throughout the region that share our understanding. that this is a global threat. we often talk about the threat here. this is a threat to the whole world. >> ok. ladies and gentlemen, we have to end it here. i ask everybody to stay seated while the director leaves. director pompeo, i know you don't do a lot of these things. we are hugely honored you came to aei and spend your time and your services with us. director pompeo: thank you. --ouncer: [indistinct conversation]

announcer: that event with cia director mike pompeo took place earlier today at the american enterprise institute. we'll show it again tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. and on c-span2, medical and bio security experts testify on the theic health threat of current flu outbreak. that starts at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. announcer: american history tv on c-span3, this week in primetime, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, more from the american historical association conference with a discussion on

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