Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America offer three good martinis. CENTCOM declares no major mistakes were made in the Yemen raid. Rebels are preparing to lay siege to the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. The February jobs report looks strong. And we have fun with the kids who stole the show in the BBC interview.
The leaking of CIA methods and the ongoing debate over whether the intelligence community is trying to undermine President Trump have thrust a part of our government into the spotlight that greatly prefers to operate in the shadows.
In the first few weeks of the Trump administration, much attention has been paid to the litany of unnamed sources offering information to the media that casts the president in a negative light, possibly even in cahoots with Russia. In addition, Trump has accused President Obama of keeping him under surveillance during the campaign.
The latest headline material for the intelligence community centers on Wikileaks releasing CIA documents which reveal methods of spying on subjects, including the use of smart phones, televisions and other devices.
When it comes to the exposure of CIA secrets, there is the immediate and the long-term fallout.
“Our intelligence service may no longer be able to access information they need to prevent an attack. So that’s as serious as it gets,” said Herbert E. Meyer, who served as special assistant to then-CIA Director William Casey during the Reagan administration.
Meyer also served as vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. Most recently he’s founder of Storm King Press and the author of the updated booklet, “Why Is the World So Dangerous?”
The long-term damage of CIA secrets and methods being exposed is also sobering.
“This discredits the CIA and the intelligence service. We’re living in an age when rumors go all over the place and news is unchecked. You can never tell the difference between a fact and an allegation. So once again, the idea is out there that the CIA is spying on everybody,” said Meyer.
“That does an enormous amount of damage to our credibility as a country and to citizens. So it’s really very, very damaging, whatever the facts (in the Wikileaks case) turn out to be,” said Meyer, who says rooting out leakers at the CIA isn’t very difficult.
Meyer admits there are endless new ways to track people than when he was serving at the CIA, but he says the agency always adhered to strict privacy policies unless it had good reason for surveillance.
“There was obviously a clear line. We looked overseas. If it was something here in the United States, the FBI dealt with it, said Meyer. “So the line was a little thicker, a little brighter then. But in all fairness to everyone, it’s a different world now.”
But even worse than the leaking, according to Meyer, is the intelligence community’s obsession with simply gathering information.
“Since 9/11, our intelligence service has been making a fundamental mistake. They came to the conclusion that 9/11 happened because they didn’t have enough information. To some extent that was true, but you know, it’s never enough. It’s a trap. If you’re not careful, you try to know everything about everything and you wind up knowing nothing about nothing,” said Meyer.
Meyer likens that approach to constantly shopping for groceries to make a dinner but never actually making the dinner.
As for the intelligence community regularly leaking sensitive material to a media eager to paint the president in a bad light, Meyer says that happened all the time during the Reagan years.
“About twice a week,” said Meyer. “There’d be a conversation on the seventh floor of the CIA and the next day it would be in the Washington Post. Absolutely amazing (and) that’s nothing new,” said Meyer.
But while Meyer says there are certainly intelligence personnel who do not like the president, there is not a grand conspiracy to bring down the president.
“It’s not ‘deep state.’ That’s sort of an overdramatic version of it. The same thing is happening at the EPA. It happens at the agriculture department. The people like us don’t pay as much attention to that,” he said.
When it comes to whether the Obama administration spied on Trump or his campaign, Meyer is mystified by the drawn-out intrigue.
“This is a classic case of what’s wrong with Washington, D.C. You can never get to the bottom of anything. You can never get anything straight. It’s like trying to read a book while someone throws sand in your eyes,” said Meyer.
He says Trump could resolve this quickly.
“The president has access to every document in the executive branch. There’s nothing that you can keep from a president. So why doesn’t President Trump simply call the directors of the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA and say, ‘Get in here with everything you’ve got on this and let’s take a look,'” said Meyer.
“The president also has the absolute authority to declassify anything. If he wanted to, he could declassify the nuclear launch code. So why can’t we get our hands on this stuff? Why can’t we just see it? If there was a FISA request that was denied last spring, somebody wrote the requests, somebody signs it. The document exists. Let’s see it.
“If there was a FISA request that was approved in October, let’s see that. If anything was approved and there are tapes, recordings [or] transcripts, let’s see them,” said Meyer.
Meyer says he expected obfuscation from the Obama administration but Trump should handle this differently.
“We have a president who is, in effect, on our side as opposed to the last president. So why doesn’t he just get his hands on it and says, ‘Here’s what there was’ or ‘There was nothing.’ I don’t understand why this takes more than 10 minutes to get straight,” said Meyer.
“Remember, we never got to the bottom of Benghazi, but that’s because the people in the White House were trying to keep us from getting straight answers. Why can’t we get straight answers now? That’s what I don’t understand,” said Meyer.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss the latest revelations surrounding former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and breathe a sigh of relief that he’s already gone. They also lament FBI Director James Comey’s admission that there is no longer any such thing as “absolute privacy” anymore. And they discuss Pres. Trump’s decision to nominate former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman to be U.S. Ambassador to Russia.
The first man to sue the federal government over the Affordable Care Act says Republicans are breaking their campaign promises to repeal the health care law and are instead abandoning free market principles with legislation that will make health care even worse and let the Democrats off the hook for the blame.
Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli III launched the first constitutional challenge to the law, widely known as Obamacare, in 2010. His efforts, along with others, ultimately ended in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision that saved President Obama’s most significant domestic policy.
Late Monday, House Republicans unveiled the text of the American Health Care Act and promoted as a means of getting Washington out of health care, reducing costs and regulations and setting the stage for market-based reforms.
But Cuccinelli says the bill is nothing more than a GOP version of Obamacare.
“This is a sloppy Democrat bill. The people who call this Obamacare-lite are wrong. It’s not lite. It’s just a Republican form. This is a really terrible piece of legislation on its own merits. It’s even worse when you realize this is what’s supposed to pass for keeping their promise to actually repeal Obamacare,” said Cuccinelli.
He says any members trying to keep their promise to repeal the law have to vote against it.
“The problem for conservatives is if it doesn’t really mean actually getting rid of Obamacare and all of the worst features of it, then it should be voted against,” he said.
“Otherwise, it’s an adoption by the Republicans of all the worst elements of Obamacare. They’re going to own the consequences. They’re going to own those price increases and health insurance increases, which will keep happening,” said Cuccinelli.
Cuccinelli says it will be up to congressional Republicans to get this right because President Trump has yet to wade into many specifics.
“Whatever bill gets to the president’s desk, he’s going to sign it. He was very unspecific in the campaign. They’ve been very unspecific in the last week or two. Clearly, they just want to check this box and ‘get it done,’ whatever that means,” said Cuccinelli.
Republicans ran on repealing Obamacare in the past four election cycles. The issue was largely responsible for the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. Cuccinelli says the promise resonated with voters, so it makes no sense to abandon that mission now.
“They’re all running around, at least leadership is, afraid that they’ll upset somebody. Well, I’ve got news for you. People are already upset, and it isn’t a question of whether people are upset after you do whatever you’re going to do. If that’s all you care about, what will they be more upset about: doing what you said you would or going in another direction?” said Cuccinelli.
“If you go in another direction to appease a constituency you didn’t rely on to get elected, what you’ve succeeded in doing is ticking everyone off. That’s the direction Republicans are headed right now,” Cuccinelli.
But Cuccinelli goes a step farther. He says Republicans are really abandoning a full repeal because they do not actually want a market-based health care system.
“They don’t want the regulations to go away. That’s their dirty little secret. They don’t want market-based health care. They want big government control, even though someday it’s all going to come crashing down just because of how bankrupt it will all be,” said Cuccinelli.
He says GOP leaders have gotten comfortable turning to government to address problems.
“Let’s take (House Speaker) Paul Ryan for instance. Paul Ryan has never done anything in his adult life except be in government. It’s his solution to every perceived problem. He doesn’t rely on the market. He doesn’t trust the one force in the history of the world that has raised more people up out of poverty than any other, and that’s free market capitalism,” said Cuccinelli.
So what does Cuccinelli specifically see s the biggest problems with the GOP bill?
“There were 24 major regulations with Obamacare. Under Ryancare, 22 and a half of those stay in place. And of course we get blessed with a brand new entitlement. I don’t know if anybody in the Republican leadership noticed, but we are bankrupt. They do nothing really to resolve that problem,” said Cuccinelli.
“They make no move toward a market-based approach to health care. There’s no expansion of freedom and there’s no reason for people to want to become a doctor any more than under Obamacare,” he added
Supporters of the GOP point out that this legislation needs to start the reform process because it can pass through reconciliation, meaning a simple majority in both chambers can get the job done. They also suggest Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price can tackle most of the regulations unilaterally. Then, they say market-based ideas can come in later legislation.
Cuccinelli isn’t buying it.
“I could swallow [all of that] a whole lot more easily if the first bill was a repeal bill. So if you want us to trust you, then you do what you said you were going to do. Is that really too much to ask? Just do what you’ve been promising for seven years,” said Cuccinelli.
“Don’t put it on Tom Price to get rid of the regulations. You do it in the legislation. You do it as part of the vote. It’s what repealing means,” said Cuccinelli.
Cuccinelli says Republicans had no problem passing a full repeal in 2015 so there’s no good reason not to pass it again.
“All of them have voted on that bill. Were they lying then when they voted on it? It sure seems like it now. Why not just pass a true repeal again?” he said.
“They were loudly speechifying back then. Now they’re using scare tactics to say, ‘Those of you people who want to hold us up for this repeal bill are for Obamacare,” said Cuccinelli.
“That is the worst kind of ducking of a debate on the substance of an important, important issue to every family in America. And it’s a dodge on their campaign promises. They’re all breaking their promises and making liars out of themselves,” said Cuccinelli.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to Howard Dean saying pro-life people have no home in the Democratic Party. They also wince as Republicans are divided about how to overhaul Obamacare and leaders suggest any opposition to the current bill is tantamount to supporting Obamacare. And they discuss how ESPN’s political agenda had led to a subscriptions free fall and the need to eliminate $100 million in on-air personnel.
Conservatives and liberals are savaging the House Republican health care plan, but one of the leading advocates for a market-driven approach says the bill is a good start to imploding Obamacare and setting the stage for additional conservative reforms.
The plan is getting hammered by conservatives for not fully repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, failing to allow the purchase of coverage across state lines, and for allegedly replacing one entitlement program with another. Liberal critics say the plan would knock millions of Americans off health insurance and leave them one illness from bankruptcy again.
So what about those claims?
Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner is a veteran of Washington health care debates and was a fierce opponent of the Clinton health care reform effort in the 1990’s and Obamacare since 2009. She is encouraged by what she sees in the American Health Care Act and says the realities on Capitol Hill force this kind of legislation.
“It’s a first step. They’re pushing as far as they can with the process they have to go through. They do not expect any Democrats, in the House or the Senate, to vote for this. That means they have to do this through a particularly difficult process called reconciliation that limits the kinds of things you can repeal,” said Turner.
“They can’t repeal everything in the law through this process because it has to have direct spending and budget implications. They’re doing as much as they can and they have plans to go forward with other pieces of legislation, for example, that will allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines. That’s not possible through this particular pathway,” said Turner.
She says this legislation is needed to gut the worst parts of Obamacare.
“There will also be follow-on legislation going forward, but not if this [doesn’t pass]. You can’t build change on the crumbling infrastructure of Obamacare. You’ve got to begin with changes that lead us in a new direction,” said Turner.
“It’s like a battleship or an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to turn this around ,” she added.
Turner also says a lot can be done to ease the burden on all Americans without involving Congress. She says Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price can accomplish a lot through the powers granted him in the original Affordable Care Act.
“Sec. Price has control of the regulatory mechanism. There were 20 million words of regulation written to enforce Obamacare. He has the power to undo a lot of those and to rewrite them but also to provide new guidance to the marketplace to engender much more competition and consumer choice,” said Turner.
Sec. Price outlined the very same strategy Tuesday at the White House.
Turner says the GOP bill offers important provisions like eliminating a trillion dollars worth of taxes on the economy and protecting coverage while the system transitions from Obamacare. She also says the bill takes a smarter look at Medicaid dollars that should mean less burden on the taxpayers.
“It begins the pathway to reform the Medicaid program, arguably one of the worst health care programs in the country that is bankrupting the states. At the same time, millions of people (on Medicaid) can’t find a doctor to see them,” said Turner.
And how would it do that?
“This legislation would begin the process of giving states a per capita allocation. A per capita allocation is very different from a block grant. It basically says we are going to make a distinction between moms and babies who are healthy and people who have multiple disabilities,” said Turner.
She also likes that states will have much more say over health care while Washington backs off.
“It gives states more power and more authority, not only to figure out how to take care of their citizens that are on Medicaid, but also to provide their citizens with more choices from the kind of health insurance that they want to buy, rather than have the federal government tell them the health insurance they have to buy,” said Turner.
But will the plan ultimately lower premiums and deductibles? Turner says that hinges on getting people to stay on insurance for the year once they’ve purchased it and getting more, young healthy people into the system.
“You need young, healthy people in the system. What do you do? You try to give them more choices, more options of more affordable coverage. So attracting people, giving them incentive to want to stay covered, by giving states more options to provide them with choices for health insurance – not just Washington’s three or four cookie-cutter policies,” said Turner, who also advocated for multi-year policies so patients could lock in rates for years at a time.
While acknowledging the fierce opposition to the plan from the right and left, Turner says the bill not only makes key changes but looks at health care in a whole new way.
“It’s a really different philosophy of giving people the market incentive to respond to consumers who are newly empowered and want to make responsible, good choices,” said Turner. “People want insurance but they don’t want insurance that costs more than their mortgage.”
This is one of multiple perspectives we will be sharing on this legislation as the debate continues.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss the Trump administration’s new executive order temporarily banning travel from six nations with major terrorism problems. They also react to North Korea announcing its latest missile tests were designed to strike U.S. bases in Japan. And they slam teachers in Alexandria, Virginia, for forcing the cancellation of school because 300 of them plan to attend the anti-Trump women’s march.
A former Justice Department official with experience before Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, courts says there are simple ways to determine whether President Trump is right about the government spying on him during the 2016 campaign, and she says President Obama would certainly have known about such actions by the Justice Department.
And she says it’s entirely plausible that Democratic political appointees who were later shifted to career positions in the intelligence community are working to undermine the Trump presidency.
Victoria Toensing served as deputy assistant attorney general and was also a federal prosecutor. In addition, she served as chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence while Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., was leading the committee.
The debate over whether the government conducted surveillance on the Trump campaign instantly caught fire Saturday after a series of early-morning tweets from Trump. The president ultimately compared Obama’s alleged actions to Watergate.
Later on Saturday, a spokesman for former President Obama issued a statement denying any involvement by Obama in any surveillance on Trump and his team.
“A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false,” the statement read.
Like other experts, Toensing noted the very careful language in the Obama statement that doesn’t appear to rule out other in the government from authorizing such activity, namely the Justice Department.
“Sounds like a non sequitur, doesn’t it?” said Toensing. “OK, you’ve never interfered, so if the attorney general said she was going to do this and gave you notice, you just said, ‘Go ahead.’ That’s not interfering. It’s a really carefully parsed statement. He’s gotten as good as Bill Clinton,” said Toensing.
Is it certain then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch would have informed Obama when taking such action?
“Oh yeah. I can’t imagine ordering surveillance of a political opponent in a political campaign (without informing the president). Loretta Lynch has shown that she’s been incompetent in many ways, but I don’t think communicating with the president is where’s she’s incompetent,” said Toensing.
Throughout the weekend, very different narratives were presented as fact, from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper insisting that the no FISA warrant was ever issued in connection to Trump to conservatives highlighting a litany of liberal media outlets reporting on intercepts of key Trump officials for the past several weeks.
The New York Times has reported that the FISA court denied a request for a warrant back in June 2016 but approved one with a much narrower scope in October.
“What is this thing, ‘If it happened?’ There’s been reporting in the New York Times that the second time there was some computer in Trump Tower. Then, indeed, Trump was being electronically surveilled or wiretapped, depending on the technique that was used,” she said.
And Toensing says it is vital for lawmakers and reporters to consistently and repeatedly ask if wiretapping or electronic surveillance was used, since referring to one specific method could give witnesses unintended wiggle room.
Toensing fully supports the matter now going to the House and Senate intelligence committees. She says those panels, particularly on the Senate side, still enjoy a great deal of bipartisan cooperation and adds the key questions range from the existence of the FISA warrants to their scope and the length of time they were valid. She says FISA warrants are normally active for 90 days but can be extended to six months in some cases.
While FISA courts approve warrant requests in nearly all cases, Toensing says the rate is a bit misleading because the court does deny some efforts but then approves them after the government narrows the focus of the warrants.
Nonetheless, she says another good question for lawmakers to pursue is why the June request before the FISA court was rejected. And if reports of the second warrant request being granted is true, why Obama would allow such a thing to take place during the heat of a campaign.
“If it did involve Trump Tower or Trump people, I say what is a Democratic president of the United States doing even having anything to do with tapping Republican opposition during a political year? That just amazes me right there,” said Toensing.
The allegation from Trump and his allies is that partisan intelligence operatives sought to undermine his campaign and are now looking to bring down his presidency. Toensing says that argument is plausible, and point to recent events as evidence of a deep rift in intelligence circles.
“Do you remember when the Yemen raid took place and the [Navy SEAL] was killed? All of a sudden, a few days later, you saw headlines (reporting that) nothing came out of the Yemen raid. It was a loss. Then, about a week ago, I see hundreds of names were acquired during that Yemen raid,” said Toensing.
She says there are a lot of entrenched Democrats now serving in non-political positions.
“Democrats like to stay in government more than Republicans do. So Democrats tend to stay around after the political process goes. They’re given a job in what called a career position,” said Toensing.
She says one of the most controversial figures from the Obama administration is a good example of that transition.
“Lois Lerner, no better example than that,” said Toensing, referring to the former IRS official at the center of government harassment of conservative groups applying for non-profit status.
“She’s a political appointee and then they put her in career positions, where she could sit there and do all kinds of evil to opponents of President Obama,” said Toensing.
So while Toensing is unaware of any specific rogue elements of the intelligence community, she says the idea that some are working against their own president is not far-fetched.
“It would seem to me that the mechanism is there for the people to undermine President Trump. It would appear that that’s what’s happening,” said Toensing.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos break down the political surveillance debate in three different martinis. They wonder why Pres. Trump decided a late night series of tweets was the best way to lodge serious allegations against his predecessor. We also note Pres. Obama’s carefully worded statement denying any involvement in spying on Trump, the conflicting narratives on what actually happened – all leading to the dizzying Washington conjecture that Trump might not be correct but he’s probably right. And we unload on Delaware Sen. Chris Coons for claiming transcripts of Russians interacting with the Trump team would tell us once and for all if there was any collusion during the 2016 campaign – only to later admit he has no idea what’s in the transcripts.
Conservatives in Congress are increasingly frustrated by what has been leaked about the Obamacare repeal legislation and by what they see as a lack of transparency, even as House Speaker Paul Ryan insists Republicans are all on the same page and predicts unity on a final vote.
For most congressional Republicans, what they know of the repeal is what they read in a leaked report on the purported bill last week. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., made headlines by unsuccessfully trying to get a hard copy of the legislation.
Most Republicans don’t know what’s currently being put together.
“I think it’s mostly members of committees with jurisdiction. You’re talking about members on Energy & Commerce and members on Ways & Means. That’s probably as far as it goes,” said Jason Pye, director of public policy and legislative affairs at FreedomWorks, which has endorsed the replacement bill authored by Sen. Paul.
“Maybe the broader conference knows the general discussion of what’s going on,” said Pye. “The actual legislative text is what matters. That’s where the nuances come into play.”
FreedomWorks shares the frustrations of Sen. Paul and other lawmakers clamoring for details.
“I think Sen. Paul has a point that this entire process is being done largely in secret. Americans deserve to know what’s going on. Are we going to see Obamacare-lite or are we actually going to see a real patient-centered alternative,” said Pye.
What would real transparency look like?
“We should be having hearings as the bill is going through. Why not have debates on C-SPAN while it’s being discussed and being drafted?” asked Pye.
On Friday, Politico reported that GOP leaders hoped to vote on repeal later this month and they were prepared to “steamroll” conservatives into backing the plan.
“They say they have no problem steamrolling conservatives by daring them to vote against an Obamacare repeal that their constituents have demanded for years,” reported Politico.
“‘Conservatives are going to be in a box,” said one senior Republican lawmaker. Trump, the source predicted, eventually will “go out front and … tell the conservatives … they’re either for this or for keeping Obamacare,'” the report continued.
That’s a far cry from the assurance of unity Ryan offered at his weekly press conference on Thursday.
“We’re all working off the same piece of paper, the same plan. So we’re in sync – the House, the Senate, and the Trump administration – because this law is collapsing. You can’t just repeal it. You have to repeal it and replace it with a system that actually works. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Ryan.
“I am perfectly confident that when it’s all said and done we’re going to unify because we all, every Republican, ran on repealing and replacing and we’re going to keep our promises,” added Ryan.
Pye says FreedomWorks is just as eager to scrap Obamacare, but he says how it’s done is vital.
“The speaker said that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare is entitlement reform. That certainly should be the case but the problem is we’re repealing one entitlement and creating a new one. You don’t do that as conservatives, especially one who claims to be a fiscal conservative,” said Pye.
He says if the leaked version of the bill is accurate, there is a lot to oppose in there.
“We were surprised to see the Republican version of the individual mandate included in this bill. We were surprised to see $100 billion in new mandatory spending over the next ten years in this bill. We didn’t anticipate that. We didn’t anticipate the new Republican version of the Cadillac Tax in this bill. We weren’t old those thing,” said Pye.
In the end, will leaders twist enough conservative arms to pass the plan? Pye doesn’t think so.
“Leadership is really who’s in a box right now. If the 70 conservatives in Congress stick together, if you keep 41 of those guys and maybe a couple more, [leaders] don’t 218 votes to repeal and replace,” said Pye.
“They’re going to have to listen to conservatives in the conference. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is. And right now, this Lee, Cruz, and Paul trifecta sticks together, [Republicans] only have 52 seats in the Senate. You’re going to get Democratic votes on either side. You have to listen to conservatives,” said Pye.
Conservatives are already explaining what they want, namely in bills offered by Sen. Paul and Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.
“It puts individuals on the same playing field as employers. It gives states the option for flexibility through Medicaid, allowing them to seek waivers from the Department of Health and Human Services. It expands [Health Savings Accounts] to the point at which you can pay your health insurance premiums out of that,” said Pye
“Those are patient-center alternatives and consumer-friendly alternatives that improve the health system and truly empower Americans to make their health care choices,” said Pye.
If conservative ideas are now adopted into the replacement bill, Pye suspects Republicans may abandon the effort to pass a repeal and replacement together. He says passing a repeal similar to the one President Obama vetoed last year might be where the GOP factions find common ground.
“I know everybody wants to get this over with now and I do as well, but there is no difference, fundamentally, between what we did in 2015 and what we should be doing now, other than the disagreements over replace. If we can’t figure out replace, let’s come back another day, but let’s go ahead and start the process on repeal,” said Pye.
