attorney general, not on that particular matter that i believe the "washington post" reported on, but that is a common recurring theme. every time, these are national security secrets. you know what, they are right. that is exactly the reason why we have an intel committee. it is the whole reason why we set that committee up, so they could see those types of documents, not all of congress. we have actually given that authority to some of our colleagues. there is no plausible reason for the doj to not share it with the intel committee. >> newsmakers with congressman mark meadows airs this sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. it is also available to stream at c-span.org.

former white house counterterrorism adviser lisa monaco, former cia director john brennan, and former director of national intelligence james clapper discuss national security at a forum hosted by the aspen institute. the moderator is msnbc's nicole wallace. this is an hour. clark: all right. we're ready. good evening, everyone. i'm clark irvin, the chairman of the aspen homeland security program. and i'm delighted to welcome all of you to our preview event for the 2018 aspen security forum.

our major support comes from amazon web services, lockheed martin, p.w.c. and in addition to support from american airlines. and an old friend, nicole wallace, will be one of our moderators. nicole is an nbc political analyst and also the host of the must-see tv show deadline white house. which airs week days at 4:00 p.m. and director brennan tells me that he rushed over right from that show. before joining nbc, nicole was a co-host of "the view." she served as the communications director in the white house for president george w. bush and was a senior advisor for the 2018 -- 2008 mccain-palin campaign.

she's a graduate of u.c. berkeley and a school of journalism and the best-selling author of no fewer than three books. 18 acres, it classified, and a clearly fictional work called madam president. with that, please join me in welcoming nicole wallace. nicolle: thank you so much. [applause] wow. that's too much. the stars and the people you're all here to hear from are the people who are going to do most of the talking. i have always cared about what all three of you have to say about everything. but i think it's fair to say the people with your jobs throughout history have never been must-see tv the way you are now. and nothing less than people's sense of what kind of country we're living in and what happens next hangs in the balance. so thank you to all three of you for being contributors at television networks that put you on tv and get your voices out. i want to ask about your thoughts and all the things that

are living side by side for first time. the tremendously joyful occurrence of seeing three detainees return from south korea, along with a president talking about the ratings will it garner at 3:00 a.m. james: a time like this, if you can't be good, look good. it was actually very gratifying to me personally to see that. since last time we did that was when i went to north korea in november of 2014 and brought out two citizens who were incarcerated in hard labor conditions. and we should celebrate no matter what or how it happened. getting our citizens out of a place like north korea. in less than ideal conditions. so, felt good about that.

i got a text from my son, his high school teacher down in southwest virginia, he said, gee, this was a little different than when you brought the two back. the arrival at andrews. of course i did take note of the reference to high tv ratings at 3:00 in the morning or something. in our case, tried to stay invisible. we dropped -- we landed at the air force base in washington state and dropped off the two detainees because that's where their families were and that was the main objective, to get them reunited with their family. get off the airplane, stay out of the lights. i did go up the cockpit, though, and watch the reunion of the families, which was really heart-rending. it was certainly the highlight of my time as d.n.i.

a lot of lowlights, but that was clearly a highlight. nicole: i asked the question the way i did because i think that what you just described is the norm. the way you removed yourself from the event. you watched from the cockpit. so much of what we feel as reports covering this white house is to not allow the obliteration of norms to go unremarked. let people make up their own mind. people vote for whoever they want. but let's not let the obliteration of norms -- this was a dignified and formal way to handle an occasion like that. that's not what happened last night. can you speak to any thoughts about where we are in this moment and about this sort of -- every time, every event, whether it's the most sort of sensitive and urgent national security imperative, or, you know, bringing extra marital affairs into the briefing room, whatever it is, there seems to be a norm obliterated every day.

lisa: so, first let me agree with jim on this issue of the return of the u.s. citizens last night or early this morning. we should give credit where credit is due. it is absolutely an accomplishment that we should credit and we should praise and we should be joyful for the return of these citizens to their families, regardless of politics. i think that the norm issue, whether it's in this instance, and all the other things you avert to in your question, those are the things i'm most concerned about when we think about the moment that we're in. right? so, there are policy differences that -- some things the administration does that i agree with. many that i disagree with. but the biggest concern i have aside from policy differences, which is why, you know, you have elections. elections matter. and that's appropriate. right? to have these differences.

the thing i'm most concerned about, though, is this obliteration of norms. is this erosion of norms and many democratic principles that we've seen. whether it's attacks on the justice department or f.b.i., those are the things i think will far, you know, they'll transcend all these individual policy differences. as concerned as i am on some of those, the much greater impact is this chipping away and this erosion of norms that we're seeing. and that's the thing i think we should all be focused on. nicolle: dr. brennan, we talked about this at 4:00, but one of the other things that co-exist around any objective analysis of the president's approach to north korea is that obviously everybody hopes when an american president goss a summit in singapore, as this president plans to do in june, with the leader like kim jong un, that america comes out on top. you're worried that he's been duped. john: i think kim jong un, who

is not honorable, nor nice, he is a bloody, murderous despot, fortunately has been master envelope terms of how he's handled the situation with -- masterful in terms of how he's handle the situation in the united states. i think it was intentional as far as the escalation and the acceleration of their ballistic missile testing, as well as saber-rattling. as a way to ratchet up the tensions between the united states and korea, and then to make the adjustments and then to be seen as much more accommodating in terms of saying, i'm going to sit down, i'm going to negotiate, i'm going to release these prisoners. i think his objective and intention is to bring it down to a level where the tensions are reduced significantly and everybody is breathing a sigh of relief there and hoping that that's going to be sufficient so that he can maintain his nuclear arsenal, which they have worked

so hard for so many years. while at the same time getting its national pressure and sanctions relaxed. so i think he really has been quite masterful and i think mr. trump, who happens to like flattery and so the nice things that kim jong un has said about him, he has returned in kind. so in getting the world stage with the president of the united states is a tremendous coup for kim jong un. and what has he given up? well, thankfully we do have those three citizens back. great on that. he says that he is going to retire the nuclear test site. by all reports it has already collapsed. but he has had six nuclear tests already. so he doesn't need to test more. i don't believe that he is going to denuclearize. i don't think he's going to give up the stockpile or the capability that he and his father and grandfather worked as a deterrent against some type of military aggression against north korea. what i think he's going - he's getting a lot out of this. and i think mr. trump, quite frankly, is going to use the summit to say that it's been a success. even if it's not a success. he will portray it as such. he'll say, well, we've gotten

them to agree to. this there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes. and kim jong un's strategy is to draw it out over time and relax the international pressure, get some economic benefits, but retain that nuclear capability. james: two points. just sort of key on what john said. i do think that one difference, in contrast to some of the history of our engagement with the north koreans on things nuclear, is i believe the north koreans actually achieved whatever they wanted to achieve in the way of a nuclear deterrent. they don't use the same standards for validating and testing weapons as we might. but in their mind they achieved whatever it is they wanted. and that puts them in the position for the fist time of not being supplicant. which is the case in our previous engagements with them on nuclear matters. i give a lot of credit as an orchestrator here to president

moon of south korea. you want to give somebody a nobel peace prize, give it to him. i think he managed his two respective accounts very astutely. the one up to his north and the one here. and he figured out how to influence them. kim jong un's case, the north koreans really wanted to be present and represented at the winter olympics and i think president moon exploited that. and of course he knows how to flatter our president. by appealing to his ego. nicolle: kanye west figured that out. [laughter] james: he's done that very well. i think there's a difference here. when i was there, my first, ms. monaco, first white house issue talking point was, you must denuclearize. that was a nonstarter. [laughter] lisa: you're welcome. james: i was very obedient. [laughter]

they went to school with gaddafi and he brought up that. he negotiated away his weapons of mass destruction and it didn't turn out so well for him. so i just think -- i do think it's a good thing that they're going to talk. but i hope the president would do something that doesn't comport with his character, would be going on a listening tour. i think it would be very useful to get it straight from the horse's mouth so, to speak, from one of the family, you know, north korea's a family-owned country. exactly what they say they want in the -- what is it that would make them feel secure so they don't have to rely on nuclear weapons? that price might be very high. like withdrawing all u.s. forces from the peninsula, which of course not a good thing to do and not just for the peninsula, but it has huge regional implications. nicolle: lisa, why don't you pick this up and then introduce your analysis on what pulling out, unilaterally pulling out of the iran nuclear agreement, what impact if any you think that has on the conversations to be had in singapore in june. lisa: the first thing i was

going say, is just to buttress john's point about the shrewdness of kim jong un's positioning here, two of the individuals who returned early in the wee hours of the night last night were detained in the last 15, 16 months. during the trump administration. so to the point of, you know, creating a chip that then could be used to position kim jong un, whether -- same deals with the olympics. coming in from a position of strength or high ground. you know, on the nuclear deal, look, this has been described as the most consequential decision that the president has made in his presidency. and, you know, the analysis and these two, long-time intelligence officials are probably better to speak to this but the analysis that it hurts our credibility with the north

in terms of whether they enter into a deal they think we might renege from later, i'm less compelled by that, just because i think it provides too much rationality to kim jong un and, you know, i think that's less of a concern than what it does to our credibility with our allies. right? so i'm more concerned about what the germans, the brits, the french, are seeing in terms of their efforts to work with us, to continue to impose sanctions. all of those things are going to crumble and it's just one more chink in the armor of our transatlantic alliance. i'm more concerned about that. john: john, can you pick that up? and then let's throw some examples out there. you know, taking i think two or three trips to europe to affirm our commitment to article five, pulling out of the paris accord, gleefully talking very joyfully about caring more about pittsburgh than paris, as though

the great united states of america can't do both. the message it sends to our allies. and then something that a form intelligence official, who admonishes me often not to be so emotional in my coverage of donald trump, who, me, emotional? [laughter] said the real loss in pulling out of the deal is we don't have the potential to know so much about what iran was doing than we did in the period we were in the deal. john: the iranian nuclear agreement was blessed by the u.n. security council resolution which we were a party to. and i think it's just mr. trump's following up on an inane campaign promise that was based on a very flawed understanding of the deal. and then intentional misrepresentation of what the deal did. jim and i and lisa were involved in that engagement with the iranians. i'm surprised at how much the iranians gave up. really am. in terms of getting rid of 2/3 of their centrifuge, 90% of their stockpile. a very invasive inspection regime. now, the other signatories to the deal are going to adhere to it. the europeans, as well as russia and china.

and i'm hoping that the iranians are not going to start to violate the terms of the agreement. but a lot of the european firms, airbus, total, and others are wondering whether the secondary sanctions are going to come in and penalize them for continuing to work with iran. so it sets off just a chain of events that, as lisa pointed out, what it does to our credibility around the world in terms of our word. the commitment of one administration can just be tossed aside by the next. but also this emphasis on bilateral deals. and dismissing the utility and importance in this globalized world of multilateral arrangements. whether it's the climate accord, the paris accords, whether it's the t.p.p., the trans-pacific partnership. even looking at things like nafta. and just dismissing that, this mantra of america first, america first, is being heard around the world by a lot of our partners and allies and some of the

smaller countries, that the united states is going to use its muscularity to advantage itself at the expense of others. and ever since world war ii, the united states has had a very well deserved reputation of trying to help all boats rise. yes, we're doing it to advance our national security interests. yes, we're trying to advance our economic geopolitical interests but we're not doing it at the expense of others. well, mr. trump i think is just sending a clear signal that all these deals are awful and why are they awful? because they were negotiated by his predecessors. that came before him. he doesn't understand them. he misrepresents them. and in his usual way of, you know, these rhetorical broad sides, he has convinced a lot of people around the world, because, give him his due, he's an amazing -- i think of the movie that's out, the world's greatest showman. a lot of rhetorical flourishes full of sound and fury, signifying nothing in my mind, if i might use my shakespearian dialogue.

lisa: the danger is true. this retreat from any multilateral work or cooperation. when you look at the major threats we spent our time in government dealing with, terrorism, global health threat, every single one of them requires a coordinated global response. the u.s. has been an effective leader time and again of those global responses and if you have an agenda that says america operates in isolation, it doesn't have the confidence of its former partners to address those threats, i think that is a huge concern. james: one issue here, in light of this, is what's the plan b? well, the plan b is a better deal. now, presumably that means or infers, since he never really said it, what that means is we want to not only induce iran to attenuate its moderated nuclear

behavior, but stop all its other nefarious activities in the region. but yet we're going to do that with less than what we brought to bear just for the one dimension that the iranians agreed to negotiate with, which was nuclear-only. we -- there was never the objective to create -- make iran a shining city on the hill. that wasn't in the cards at all. so they only agreed to do the one narrow thing. well, to this point about dropping out of our alliances, no one is going to join us to reassemble the international coalition of people, that is what really brought them to the sanctions regime, that brought iran to the negotiating table in the first place. so we're going to be hanging out there all by ourselves, trying to induce an even broader reform of behavior than the last administration tried to do with just nuclear. and of course for me, you know,

which would you rather have? a state sponsor of terrorism with a nuclear weapons capability or a state sponsor of terrorism without a nuclear weapons capability? i think i'd pick latter. yeah, the agreement was flawed. what i would have preferred is use that as a building block and leverage to get after this other nefarious behavior. we're giving up the leverage. the other thing that's bad about it is internally with iran. what this does is plays to the hard-liner narrative. there's a big upheaval underfoot there in iran. as exemplified i think by the nation-wide demonstrations. the frustration particularly on the part of the young people in iran, who want reform. and are tired of the corruption of the regime. so what we do here is play to that narrative of opposition to engaging with the united states. nicolle: someone said that this does just that.

this strengthens the hardliners. this furthers the impression that america and israel do not want the best future for the iranian youth. and this is what put even the harshest critics, many in the republican side, of staying in the deal. do you think it's possible, i mean, you said that the trump message is to get a better deal, is it -- is there a better deal to be had? james: well, why on earth would they want to engage with us now at all? particularly since, you know, this was not -- as you all know, this audience, was not a bilateral deal between the united states and iran. there were five other countries involved. and they're not dropping out. so, ok, u.s. good luck. and the thought -- the prospect of trying to induce broader behavior change on the part of the iranians with less leverage to induce it, i don't get it. john: it was always seen as a building block. it was not going to mean that peace was going to break out in the region or they were going to change their ways but it was going to give us breathing room on the nuclear front and it would also help to encourage the moderates to continue along that

path. while we simultaneously then tried to attack them on the ballistic missile front, the military front, terrorism front, all the trouble making and nefarious activities there. but to try to do it in one swoop, i think we all agreed that would be a bridge too far. let's make sure we can put that nuclear program in a box for a period of time that's going to give us an opportunity to build upon it in that dimension, but also in the other dimensions. now you've taken away that building block. maybe they have a great and wise plan out there. nicolle: you think they do? john: no. james: hope springs eternal. nicolle: i want to keeps whizzing around the word and ask you about russia. do you believe now that much of what you knew when you testified, john, about a year ago, about he and she who maybe wittingly or unwittingly aided the russian efforts, do we now as a public know more that you knew and couldn't address then,

or is there still more we don't understand about what you all were dealing with in the summer and fall of 2016 in terms of russia meddling? john: i think i've learned a lot since inauguration day of 2017. about a lot of things. [laughter] but also about the extent and the nature of what the russians were doing. about how they were able to adopt all these personas in the social media environment. and present themselves and purported to be american citizens. i have to give the russians credit for their sophistication in that digital environment. their sophistication in terms of how they took full advantage of the freedoms and liberties that make this country great. in order to present their case and to try to undermine the integrity of the election. so i think there's a lot more that's out there. given that at least jim and i were involved in foreign intelligence collection, any incidental collection that we might have picked up something about an american person, we would immediately follow it over to the f.b.i. and it was their responsibility then to pull the threads.

but knowing the russians the way we do and also with great experience here, that just a half dozen years ago there were about a dozen russian illegals who burrowed into this country and became basically americans, that were then tapped by the russians to be able to facilitate russian intelligence objectives. i have no doubt whatsoever that the russians during this whole run-up to the campaign and to the election were utilizing individuals who were both witting and unwitting and some people who were just blindly ignoring what the standards, what the norms and what the laws are about consorting with foreigners. so, i think that bob mueller, who is a national treasure, is going to continue to uncover it. i think there's a lot of stuff that they know that we don't know. we're all eager to see what it is. but the russians are unfortunately very, very good. an insidious threat.

and i think they were able to dupe a number of people and get people to work with them in a very, very unfortunate manner. nicolle: do you think that includes people in the trump campaign? john: i wouldn't exclude anybody from that category. nicolle: same question to you but i'd like to add to my conversation. john mccain's excerpt today from his book leaked. and he said, putin isn't just at war with one political party or one president. or one candidate. he's at war with the west. do you agree with that? james: that's true. we're going to have at least six more years of him. nicolle: putin or trump? putin, clarifying. james: putin. well, maybe the other one too. [laughter] i would just say that i think we had a pretty good understanding of the broad outlines of what the russians were doing. i did not appreciate what we've learned, the details of what we learned about how they exploited social media.

which was the big difference. there was a long history of the russians interfering in elections. theirs and other peoples'. and certainly going back to the 1960's where they involved themselves in some way or another of trying to influence elections. but never as direct and aggressive and multidimensional as what they did in 2016. you have to think, they exceeded beyond their wildest expectations. first, just sewing discord and discontent and doubt in this country about our system. they had messages for everybody. black lives matter. white supremacists. pro-gun right, anti-gun rights. it didn't matter. they had message to exploit everybody. the russians deliberately targeted those states. we've since learned a lot, what's come out, about the details of all this. another thing about the russians, we have a tendency to

forget. they're sort of waging war against us, they're waging an active war in terms of information operations campaign, which is going on right now, and they're preparing for a kinetic war and they're modernization -- their modernization program, their strategic nuclear arsenal is impressive and scary. and if you paid any attention to putin's speech on the first of march, the russians only have one adversary in mind when they build those things. it's us. and putin, strong animus towards the west and toward what this country means and our system and our standards and all that. he is adamantly opposed to that. he characterized the collapse of the soviet union as the greatest geopolitical disasters of the 20th century. and he holds us responsible for that. so, he's not a friend.

lisa: if you look at the indictment that was unsealed on february 16, it was page turner, february 16, russian entities, i urge you to read it. it was page turner, what we as a former prosecutor used to call speaking indictment, it really lays out a very thorough conspiracy there. so i think that is something obviously that we've learned since leaving government. and the 3,500 facebook ads that were released in the last day or two, exposing exactly what jim said. going after every division, every schism in our society. i think senator mccain is exactly right. putin is at war with the west, its leadership, its role in the world. its vision of itself and the u.s. as a shining city on the hill.

i think putin wanted nothing more than to say, you know, the americans, they're not all that. and i'm going to foment that discontent. john: and that d.o.j. indictment of the 13 russian citizens, and the internet research agency, never once mentioned russian government or russian services. those were just individual private russian citizens. i'm expecting that the next shoe that will -- one of the shoes to drop will be the russian officials are actually engaged in that type of activity -- attack against our election. and that would serve then as the basis for conspiracy. you can't conspire with a foreign citizen, but you can conspire with a foreign government. so i do think that we'll be see -- we've seen -- what we've seen so far is the tip of the iceberg. this was directed by mr. putin and it was something that the russian government was a matter of policy. which means that the russian government officials there -- nicolle: you've taken the turn

for me to the mueller investigation and i want to stay there. there's a debate that's probably morrow bust on the right that robust on there right than the left about special counsel in general. and one of the debates i have often with them is, well, it's not bob mueller, then whom? i mean, shouldn't the trump administration have been after the 13 people that bob mueller had to indict? i want to you speak to it the role bob mueller is playing in our justice system, in terms of punishing the people who meddled in 2016, and when you look at what bob mueller is doing and you look at what the current national security officials who have gone to capitol hill and under oath have testified to, you have christopher wright testify under oath that the president hasn't done anything to protect us from russia. you have admiral rogers testify under oath that we're doing nothing to disincentive putin from doing what he did in 2016.

you've had other intelligence officials up there under a -- -- under oath, not one of them has ever said that the president has asked them to do anything to protect this country or our democracy or our elections from russian intervention. so, speak to that fact. the predicament therein with this president and the importance of bob mueller right now. lisa: i quite agree with john brennan. bob mueller's a national treasure. having served as his chief of staff, you know, i think there's nobody better. we are very, very fortunate as a country, in my view, that he has answered the call once again. he signed up to go to vietnam and lead a rifle platoon and earn a bronze star and with a v for valor, he served his country in the justice department as a prosecutor and led the f.b.i. through the most tumultuous times up until now in its recent history.

so, we are very fortunate indeed that he is leading this investigation. and he will be driven and his team will be driven by the facts and the law. the white house ought to be rooting for his conclusion, whatever it is, because i still believe it has the best chance of having any legitimacy in our very riven politics. nicolle: do you agree with that, jim? james: yeah, absolutely. nicolle: what's the danger, if donald trump walks up and fires bob mueller? james: i hope he doesn't do that. it would be a fire storm. i think there would be -- not only on the hill, but in the streets. i really think that would be a bad thing to happen. john: i think rod rosenstein is probably more vulnerable and that's where i think devin nunes is trying to do. to find a pretext.

since the department of justice rightly is refusing to provide information about sources, very, very sensitive intelligence to the oversight committees. which is something we would never do of identities. -- do is share identities. you protect them jealously and vigorously. but i think devin nunes is looking for a reason to fire rod rosenstein, which would then pave the way for having someone to constrain bob mueller. and so i really am concerned about what's going to happen in the coming weeks and months. because i do think that mr. trump and others see that, you know, the circle is tightening a bit and bob mueller's investigation continues to move forward. mike pence just said, i think, in an interview that he hopes this thing is going to be brought to a conclusion very soon. james: wrap it up. john: that is not going to phase bob mueller one iota. he's not going to move any fast or slower than the situation requires. so, i think we're going to be facing some painful times ahead.

more painful. i think this is going to get worse before it gets better. it's really going to be a true test of our democracy. and institutions of governance and checks and balances within the system. the system. but i'm confident that this country is strong and we're going to be able to get through it. but it's going to be, i guess no pun intended, stormy weather before we get there. [laughter] nicolle: i'll leave that right there. i have a cable show. i get to do that all the time. i want to ask you because the last time we were together we were with general hayden and the topic was an assault on the truth. and before there was a war on the department of justice and the f.b.i., before the trump appointed director of the f.b.i. was rebuffed by men like paul ryan, when he begged, when he said he had grave concerns about a fisa application being shared with devin nunes, of all people, paul ryan said, eh, he went to the white house, the white house said, eh. they released it. but before that, before the war on the justice department and the f.b.i., this president, before he even became president, was at war with the intelligence community.

can you talk about what has transpired and how they have had to adjust? he's their chief client. the intelligence product is delivered to the president. we understand from reporting that the white house has never pushed back on -- he doesn't read a p.d.b. he's, i guess they go through things verbally with him but they don't brief anything orally about russia so, that's just in the written version that he doesn't read. so talk to me about serving in america's intelligence community under donald trump. james: i think when the four of us went to trump tower and briefed the then president-elect trump on the 6th of january, 2017, it was pretty clear then, i mean, it was cordial, professional for the most part. and all that. but i think it was very clear that the great difficulty accepting any evidence that

indicates, that questions the legitimacy of his election. i think that is at the root of -- there may be other things at root, but -- and he's been very consistent about that ever since. and of course we sort of got off to a bad start. while we were still on the 10 days left in office, and calling the characterizing the intelligence community as nazis. i felt i couldn't sit still with that. i called him and amazingly he took the call. and i tried to at the time impart to him what a national treasure he was inheriting in the form of the u.s. intelligence community. he had thousands of dedicated men and women, some of whom serve in very bad places at great risk to their own lives. to support policymakers, to include him as policymaker number one.

and i wrote him a note accompanying his first p.d.b. but i hope he would embrace the notion of truth to power. because that's the fundamental tenant of the tense community. -- tenant of the intelligence community. it's my belief that the intelligence community, the men and women of the intelligence community are going to continue to serve up truth to power, whether power listens to truth or not. and not listening to the truth i think, over the long run, puts the nation in peril. nicolle: do you agree? lisa: absolutely. the job of the intelligence community is to give rigorous analysis based on facts, based on all sources of intelligence, to present it. look, i was present in many, many hours of situational room meetings when these guys delivered i think analysis that sometimes they thought the rest of the table didn't want to hear. they didn't shade it one bit. they didn't fuzz it. they didn't mealy-mouth it and

it helped inform policy decisions with rigorous analysis. nobody thought for one minute that these guys or the men and women that they led would tolerate such shading. and if you don't have the trust from the political leaders with the men and women of the intelligence community, that is a real danger for policy decisions. james: i will say, i think that period may have been the high water mark of the bond between director of the c.i.a. and the d.n.i. nobody can be prouder to have, as my fox hole buddy, john brennan. john: right back at you. the three of us spend a lot of time talking to young americans, students. at schools. the ones who want to enter those very noble professions of intelligence. law enforcement. and what we do is try to spend a

lot of time telling them, don't listen to all this craziness in washington. all this political commentary, whatever. what the men and women of c.i.a., n.s.a., f.b.i., department of homeland security, do on a daily basis is so vital to this country's security and to the future. and so the people who are in the trenches right now are used to this stuff. yes, it's dispiriting. but they'll continue to do their mission. the two constituencies i worry about, are the up and coming generation, the ones we need to rely on for our futures, but also the families of c.i.a. officers, f.b.i. agents and others, the ones who keep the home fires burning, the ones who actually make the sacrifices. the ones that have to juggle things when their loved one goes off to a place far away for extended periods of time and they're not there to help the kids with homework. those husbands and wives and mothers and fathers and others, they're the ones that must say to their loved ones when they come home, why are you doing this, honey? the president of the united states is denigrating,

disparaging your work. and your profession. as they're trying to make ends meet in a high-cost area like washington, d.c. i think those comments are despicable. james: if i could add to john's point about the importance of young people. we both spend a lot of time making the rounds with colleges and universities. i was in erie, pennsylvania, yesterday, middle america, you know, and i spoke at erie county bar association observance of law day. which i thought was very impressive. and before this, i spoke to about 125 high school and college students in erie proper or erie county. and i'll tell you, it restores your faith. these kids are wonderful. smart, thoughtful, ask great questions. and are interested in public service. and not surprisingly i'm pushing the intelligence community, trying to recruit. that's a geezer responsibility,

i think. it's really quite inspiring and uplifting. and i think that is an important thing for people, i guess, to do. reach out to them. because that is the lifeblood of the intelligence community, certainly. john: i just heard you were at a bar in pittsburgh. lisa: but it's harder to recruit when you've got, you know, a president making the words career civil servant a set of dirty words. right? and that is -- that's really dispiriting. we all spent our careers in public service. and to have career civil servant be seen as a nasty set of word or something to be critical of is really -- nicolle: i speak to journalism students and i spent a lot of time in erie, p.a. we can swap diner notes. it was one of the counties that flipped for the first time since reagan.

they have a lot of visitors. but one thing that i get asked all the time is can you imagine if when you were working in government and making $125,000 a year, as a white house communications -- a senior staffer at the white house, something like that, if the president had targeted you on twitter, influenced sort of your employment and resulted in a situation where you either had to hire a defense attorney to represent you in a special counsel probe, and let's face it, most people who have had to become witnesses in the special counsel probe don't make $125,000 a year. i hear you, young people are going to save us, but from what? what will be left? he is leaving so much carnage. he's firing people on twitter and the jobs go unfilled because

no one wants to go in there and have their reputation -- i just don't want to sugar coat the current state of affairs. i grapple when i'm with young people, yes, go do these jobs, but are they ever going to be the same? i don't know. james: i think the question you raised is the extent to which we are resilient. the resilience of our institutions. nicolle: but 40% are buying what he's selling, how many of us need to bounce back? james: well, yeah, that's precisely the issue. and how are we going to come out of this? just a shameless plug, my book's coming out on the 22nd of this month. i wrote it with a collaborator, otherwise i'd never get it done. lisa: you want to mention the title, jim? james: that's all right. [laughter] i'm not supposed to talk about it. lisa: oh, ok, sorry. james: the only argument my

collaborator and i had was on the last three pages. and we had a pretty heated argument about how end to the book. you know. so we wrote a happy-faced version and a very dark conclusion. and just ended up about saying, you know, the united states has survived traumas before. a civil war. a trauma i lived through, vietnam. that was my war, southeast asia. and in the end we came out in both cases the better for it. so, and that's which are stopped. i just left it there. john: this is a very large and painful national kidney stone. the relief we feel afterward is going to be just delivering. nicolle: i'm not going to let you go on that. [laughter] because i can't top that. especially since you're my colleague. this is what i would do to you on tv. when it's gone, what does the body look like? does it believe the truth? is there a truth? or do 40% -- i mean, in erie, a lot of trump voters who say, i don't know what to believe anymore. you seem nice, but i don't watch your network, i watch fox.

they say the f.b.i. has been taken over by the deep state and they don't believe the f.b.i. i think a lot of people are scared about what happens. what does the body look like after it passes this stone? james: that's a great question. this by the way is precisely what the russians do. they feed that. and what they want is people to doubt that there is -- that facts are not normal. they've done that in their disinformation, where they cast out that people are skeptical, cynical, will never know the truth, could be this, could be that. and what we've done is digress into reality bubbles. where people have their own sets of facts. and that's very scary. the question, you know, are we going to survive this? is the institution resilient or not? i'd like to think. -- think so.

lisa: i think that the answer to your question is, potentially we're less safe. right? so right down to brass tax. if the f.b.i. when they stand up and an agent raises his or her hand in court to swear to tell the truth in an investigation or a case where they have to be believed by that jury, by that judge, if somebody is not willing to report a crime to them and cooperate, that has real practical public safety consequences. i believe. so am i hopeful that we're resilient? i am. the data points that we are as follows. i think the courts are stepping up. i think the press is stepping up. and we have to continue to have faith in those institutions and to be engaged, whether it's young people or, you know, others who are engaged in public service, in political work, in running for office. because they are so concerned.

nicolle: i'll give you last word. and then this beautifully, elegantly dressed man has somewhere to go. john: very unfortunately i think mr. trump has been fueling polarization and partisanship in this country. and that is very much, i think, undermining what this country really is all about and what it needs to do in the future to confront these challenges oversees, as well as domestically. and we really do need to have the people who are in either elected positions or others, appointed positions, be able to speak openly, honestly and candidly. both to him, as well as to the american people. and stop apologizing, or making excuses, for really bad behavior. for unethical behavior. for things that lisa mentioned before, just breaking norms left and right. what signal is that sending to the young children of this country? what signal is it sending to the world? we need people like john mccain and jeff flake and others who have had the i think intestinal fortitude to speak out. but too many of those, i think, and speaking of myself, i'm not

a republican or democrat. i have friends and enemies on both sides of the aisle. and friends that i love on both sides of the aisle. i think if the republican party is going to salvage itself from the trauma of mr. trump, and that's what i think it is, they really need to be able to reach deep inside themselves and find their north star. and say, are they republican partisans first and trump loyalists first? really need to be able to reach or are they americans first? and are they going to do what's right for this country? that gets to the point jim was talking about, resilience. this country can get through this, but going to take some very good women and men to be able to stand up and be able to do what is right on behalf of this country and the future generation of americans. nicolle: ok. i think we have time for some questions, right? who wants to go first? questioner: i'm wondering how talking about national security to nonexperts has changed in the last year? nicolle: could everybody hear the question? questioner: i'm wondering how talking about national security

to nonexperts has changed in the last year, whether it's on twitter or going to erie, pennsylvania, or wherever. are questions changing or how people are receiving the information changing? is it totally the same? james: i think first of all in general, and this started before this administration, there's a lot more transparency. we've sort of driven to that. but that's a good thing. as a consequence, there's a lot more information out there and a lot of people do pay attention to it and i would, i guess the quick answer to your question i think is raise the level of sophistication, the questions that i get. i've been to a number of big universities and small ones in remote areas and i am always impressed with the level -- maybe these are just the people that are brave enough to ask questions and all that sort of thing.

but as a general rule, i think on a higher plane. lisa: i would add as a tv viewer, you know, foreign policy used to not be the sort of thing that would keep an audience from going outside to play with their kid. these guys are coming up next and that's a tease. nicolle: john brennan is going to speak in people have an insatiable -- and i worry that it comes from a place of fear, so i'm not saying this is a good thing, but people do have an intense interest in what people like all three of these public servants know. and so people are more interested, they are asking smarter questions and they're desperate for information and reassurance. john: i would say nicolle is one of the best anchors. you are. you're knowledgeable and balanced and sensible on these issues. thank goodness for the media in this country being able to get things out there. but i ideologues on the right -- but i must say that

ideologues on the right and the left who misrepresent the facts in order to espouse and advance political agendas i think do a disservice. i think we had to have more honest representation of what's going on out there and less of the ideological fervor that i think is just driving people on which ever side of the political spectrum to just become more convinced about the rightness of the right, or the rightness of the left. we need more people in the middle who are going to really talk about what this country needs to do together. nicolle: i think a microphone for you will help. >> former air force b-52 crew member and lawyer here in washington. in terms of what provoked vladimir putin, the obama administration had a reset with russia and they had this big plan for technological transfers and joint ventures and what have

you. it didn't work out. hillary launched a huge campaign the ukraine and led the west in a huge campaign to attack vladimir putin and the russians. it got very personal to hillary and putin, as you all know. putin decided, what i gather, it wasn't reported in the press of what was going on in the ukraine with hillary and her ngos to comment to the ukraine. it would be similar to russia going to mexico and trying to get involved in the clinical -- the political situation there. >> which they are doing by the way. >> and we are probably going to react.

do you have any insight on what has provoked the attack by roush and -- by russia on the united states and does this campaign in the ukraine play into that at all? john: let me try -- there is personal animus by putin for both clintons, and he intended to overturn the cold war situation in 2011 with this regime. -- fourfor peyton -- putin i characterize him as a throwback to the czars. he has this grand vision of great russia. for putin not to have a toe hold on ukraine, they used to call it little russia.

khrushchev give crimea to the ukraine, so now he is in a position, whether right or wrong, and there is general animus towards the united states and what we all stand for in our values and system. we saw this focused on hatred of both clintons, especially her. vladimir putin paranoid with some justification. john: the release of the panama papers, disallowing russian olympians because of the drug doping scandal, so many things.

and also the co-revolution. where it is legitimate paranoia is he sees the continued charge of democracy that is going eastward and was encroaching upon ukraine. the ukraine was in the middle of that and he didn't want ukraine to gravitate towards europe, and putin sees nato expansion and interprets everything as a move against him and our efforts to change the regime in moscow. i think the statements about hillary's ngos in ukraine is an overstatement. there were efforts to prop up nascent democratic initiatives inside of ukraine that treated that as ain saw direct effort to try to displace russian influence their. that animus towards both clintons goes back many years. nothing to add

beyond -- we ended where we began, this idea of the united states as this global validator and protector of the world order. and on that, being the shining city on the hill, and he wants nothing more than to knock us off that pedestal. nicolle: there is no greater honor than staring -- than sharing the stage with you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> on friday at 2:00 eastern time, president trump will give a speech about prescription drug prices. live coverage on c-span. a.m., the at 9:00 u.s. commission on civil rights host discussions about hate crimes. and on c-span three, the annual were -- the annual consumer federation of america meeting. and a discussion about modernizing the electric grid. live coverage starting at 9:00 a.m. ♪ c-span's washington journal,

live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up friday, a discussion of the u.s. withdraw from the iran nuclear deal with national iranian american council president and senior fellow michael pridgen. then georgetown university law professor david super discusses the budgetary process that president trump is proposing. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 is turn. join the discussion. >> sunday, the university of california santa barbara in this professor on his book. about the life and times of conjoined twins. couples are two married that cannot be in the same bed.

so when they set up these two separate households, a mile from each other, and they stick to this very to schedule. with one house for three days with one wife and , changthose three days is the master of the house and ng will give up his free well. three days later, they move on chang willuse and give up his free well. >> did it work? >> apparently. they had 21 children.

president trump and vice president mike pence were in elkhart, indiana campaign for senate candidate mike braun. the vice president is a former governor of indiana. this is one hour and 20 minutes. [applause] >> potus is in the house. fellow neighbors in north-central indiana. one in 2016,ident the first decision he made his who chooses his running mate. [applause] boy, did he make a great choice.