Bulwark Takes - Bill Kristol & Ryan Goodman: How Trump Could Weaponize Surveillance

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

NYU law professor Ryan Goodman joins Bill Kristol to discuss how surveillance powers could be used—and abused—by the Donald Trump administration. Plus, a broader look at Trump's escalating clashes with the rule of law and what, if anything, Congress can still do to push back.

Hi, Bill Crystal here for Bullwork on Sunday. Very glad to be joined again by Ryan Goodman, Professor of Law at NYU, formerly at Harvard, and editor, co-editor, I guess, of Just Security, the Indispensable website on national security and the law, which is what we're going to talk about today. So thanks for joining me, Ryan. I'm looking forward to the conversation. Thanks for having me on.

So I think one will begin at least, and I spend most time on this very interesting, I think, discussed debate, which is happening on the Hill, and which right now is a live debate on Section 702 of, I'm sure what, it's Section 72 of some piece of legislation. You know, you short-hand these things. Someone like me is not really an expert. And then you just, you know it's Section 702.

You're not quite sure. What is it, Section 702 of, but with respect to the foreign intelligence court and surveillance, and it's been reauthorized in the past, and now there's an effort to insist on some reforms. And maybe you should begin by, as you can tell, that I'm not fully cognizant of. all the complex cities here are said the least. Why don't you begin by explaining briefly what is Section 07.02 and what's the debate about? On Thursday, the House crashed in a sense unable to find a resolution on it.

So it's a very live issue going forward for this next week and for the next, more than a week, perhaps, in both House and the Senate. So Section 702, what is it? What is it? Okay, great. So Section 702 is a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that Congress created in 2008 after, it's kind of a post-9-11, authorization for the U.S. intelligence community to engage in an enormously powerful surveillance tool. And what it does is the authority is that the U.S. intelligence community can go into the backbone of the Internet and the like and collect the emails, texts, and phone calls, the content,

of them of a foreign national who is outside the United States who in a foreign country if they are discussing and it's about foreign intelligence information. So foreign national, foreign country discussing foreign intelligence information, then they can just collect all of that information. And under the U.S. Constitution, for a long time, it's just well understood. Those individuals abroad do not have constitutional rights. And the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to them. The problem is, that that huge database that is collected also soaks up a lot of Americans' communications because there might be Americans communicating with the foreign national.

The foreign national might be forwarding email correspondence. That's between just two Americans, all sorts of things. So the database has the contents of emails, texts, and phone calls of Americans. And you would think we can talk about this in more detail that the Fourth Amendment might apply to them too. So that's the big issue. So civil libertarians, regardless of party, for example, a very concerned, concerned that the FBI has the authority, and this is what they've been doing now for years, to go in the back door. The backdoor means that all this information being collected in the

database, and then the FBI can go in and query, that's the term that's given for it, the database of U.S. person information. And there are some rules that apply to the FBI as to what they have to satisfy to go into the back door of the Section 702 database, but none of that is really regulated by the courts when they go on individual hunts for U.S. persons' information, so American citizens and legal permanent residence in the United States. And that's the biggest issue because the Freedom Caucus and Democrats on the Hill, not all of them, but the supermajority, are very concerned that that is a privacy interest of Americans, and that's also like a First Amendment interest as well in terms of protest,

protest activity, free speech, etc., that people might be targeted for that. And they haven't, over the last, I guess it's more than 15 years now, had to have a warrant to do those things, the FBI, which they would for a normal, if you and I were having a conversation, and the FBI wanted to

investigate what we had said to each other, they would need to go to a judge and, right? Exactly. So if the FBI wanted to access our communications, they would need to go to a judge and prove that there's probable cause to believe that X, Y, Z is happening in our communications. The reason I say X, Y, Z is if we're talking about in a criminal setting, they'd have to prove that our communications have evidence of a crime. And if we're talking about in a counterintelligence

setting, they might have to prove probable cause that it's related to some intelligence threat, some national security threat. So this is the issue. And this has been going for, as you say, since 2008. And national security people whom I trust, I mean, I think it's been a very useful national security tool and there seems to be some consensus on that. But also, as you say, civil libertarians have been concerned. Well, A, that it's been useful. B, that it doesn't seem, we don't know, of course, to have been abused or to have been abused much.

I mean, we don't have thousands of cases that have emerged of people being persecuted by stuff that was gathered, I don't think, under 702 of Americans being sort of harassed by the federal government for that. So maybe that gives one some reassurance. But of course, then the third question is how much more guarding do we need to have of the henhouse here with the current administration and the current FBI, right? Yeah. So there's a, I agree with you on the idea that there's a consensus on the part of national security experts, people who have served in the government and are serving in the government that are deeply concerned about and focused on threats to U.S. national security. For them and for me, I think of it as a vital tool, essential. Without it,

the United States would be in a completely different posture vis-à-vis foreign threats. and that includes things like dealing with potential assassinations of foreign leaders, al-Qaeda, ISIS, doing mass casualty events and being able to intercept their communications to stop them, and things like that. And I'm relying on public reporting to identify those kinds of instances in which it's proven successful. And the Biden administration, when the reauthorization came up again in 2024, had a very powerful letter submitted by several incumbent national security officials to Congress describing how vital all of that is.

Now, I've been careful to describe how essential and vital it is for dealing with foreign threats. I don't know how vital it is for the FBI to access the back end, the back door, and how important that has been. There is some reporting. There's a recent report April 2nd from the, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is just kind of like independent watchdog group inside the executive branch. And it's a staff report because the Trump administration has fired people so they don't

actually have members as a quorum. But the report also then starts to detail what are the, what's the value being of U.S. person searches? It's a little bit, it's not as strong. Let's put it that way. And there's also this big question of even if the information in that database has been important for the FBI to go in the backdoor. maybe they'd surely have gotten the same information if they had a warrant, just had approved to a court that they needed to be there in the back door.

So that's part of it. And then on the noncompliance, there is a version of noncompliance that has been taking place. But it's, I think, the way I look at it, and others would disagree with me on this, but I look at it as it's noncompliance that's not about intentional abuse of the system. But there is a federal court opinion that details the FBI, for lack of a better word, really screwing up and using the Section 702 database when they should not have. And that includes going into the database to find information on January 6 rioters, to find information on Black Lives Matter protests, protesters. and you can see that has no necessary political valence to it, but the problem with it is it was noncompliance because their system

was messed up. Their system actually had them just go into the database by default rather than that they had to justify going into the database. It was almost like a website interface problem and it's a form of noncompliance and as some of the people who served in the government would say, look at that, we also at the FBI

at the time reported our noncompliance, such is part of the system working. And then that has been brought into check. So if you look at their recent privacy, civil liberties and oversight board report, you've looked at the recent Department of Justice Inspector General report, they say based on FBI reforms and congressional reforms that were implemented in 2024, compliance is where it should be according to them,

that those issues have been resolved. Also, they've resolved their website and a face problem. Yeah. Yeah, so that's somewhat reassuring, I guess. Anyway, so it's up for reauthorization. I think they set it up, so it had to be reauthorized every two years, I think, to kind of make sure this wasn't, you know, that people took a fresh look at it, and so they're taking a fresh look.

And I think pretty much everyone wants to reauthorize something, the foreign, you know, the core program, so to speak. But the debate is, should there be stricter standards for when an American citizen gets swept up or in America, or somebody in America, I guess, not necessarily a citizen, gets swept up in this. in this search and should there be a warrant of some kind and what exceptions could there be? So talk a little bit about that. So what's the current actual debate? So that is the heart of it. Because it's such a powerful tool, that's why this particular

national security legislation has always had this kind of sunset clause so that it forces the question of, you know, is this is the equilibrium, the correct equilibrium? And now we're at that cliff again. So if Congress does not act, by the end of this month is the new extension of a couple-week extension. If Congress does not affirmatively act, the entire Section Cemetery 2 program goes away. There's a little bit of a grandfather clause element to it. Some of the current investigations and use of it can continue for a little bit after. There's a bit of a tale, but that's it.

And so that's unique in the sense that it really empowers some members of Congress to be able to insist on certain conditions. Because if their conditions aren't met, as we saw, last week, late into the night, Mike Johnson doesn't have the votes in the House without some of these conditions being applied. And those conditions are the heart of the concern is Americans' privacy rights and First Amendment rights, and some kind of a warrant requirement placed on that. And then I'll just say that if people weren't watching this closely,

I was actually up throughout the night until 2.30 a.m., when they held this midnight vote and it was a shocker because Mike Johnson released this legislation, a bill that he wanted everybody to come back to the hill and vote on. And the shocker was also that the legislation that he provided, I'll just boil it down to one thing. He kind of, the legislation, the text of it describes a warrant. It's got nothing to do with everything we've just talked about. Nothing. It was about the front end of the collection. And the front end of collection is not about collecting on Americans.

it targets foreigners. So there's no issue of a warrant there. It's all about the back end. And it was just a ruse, is the way I described it at the time, and it did not do anything to resolve this core civil libertarian issue. So the Trump administration and Mike Johnson

and the bulk of the Republican Party want the thing, want to, quote, clean reauthorization, i.e. no new stipulations or limitations or hurdles to jump through. And the objections are, are, as you said, the core one is some form, a judicial, basically, you know, a court signing off on what's happening. And then there's questions of whether there be exceptions and emergencies, which I think most people do think there would be. And I think that's consistent with other laws and those kinds, right?

But anyway, so it's, that's the debate. So where does it go? And what, I feel to me, I guess I'm struck, it's a very in the weeds thing. It hasn't gotten a huge amount of publicity, though Thursday night was dramatic. So it got some. as Republicans defeated. I guess first the bill and then a rule to bring up another bill that would have been a version of a clean authorization.

So, but it's an interesting question of how to balance national, two things, I think, how to balance national security and obviously individual rights and checks on government exerting its national security powers, A, and B, is it right to have a slightly different view of this given that the current administration is of power? And does that make sense to say, no, you know, we might have been okay with this,

the past and they corrected their own abuses, as you said earlier, to some degree, or acknowledged them and then said they corrected them, but can't really trust this administration to do that, so we're going to adjust the legislation some. So how does that, what do you think of that? How does that play out? I think that the president administration acutely brings to the foreground issues of abuse, the ways in which the Section 702 could be used by an administration to really go after Americans' private communications and target people on the basis of First Amendment protected activities. And that surely has to weigh heavily in the balance. And I think it weighs

heavily in the balance in two ways. So I can describe what I, there's a lot of data points on the public record as to what the direction is that the administration is going and how they will, I would say, in all likelihood, abuse the Section 702 program to go after what they identify as left-wing groups, but they're even definition of left-wing and the like is whacked. But I think all signs are pointing in that direction. So that's one. This particular administration looks like it's ripe to abuse it. And to spell it out a little bit here, one, Yeah, I do spell the line out because I think some people might say, well, you guys are kind of anti-Trump, and you might have said in January 21st that this is a fear.

But I think we now have 15 months of experience with what this administration, how it understands what terrorism is, how it understands the links between domestic and foreign terrorism, what authorities. It's claimed in other respects, the use of the FBI and the Justice Department. So you follow that so closely, just security and then personally, obviously, walk us through a little bit why one comes to this judgment. in April of 2026. Yeah, so I think as a background matter, there are at least two variables that are important. One, that the administration has decimated

internal checks within the administration. Inspectors General's, the P-Club, the Privacy Civil Liberties and Oversight Board, and other internal watchdogs on Department of Homeland Security and the like. So you don't have those internal checks. And then the second is the government has definitely shown a penchant for violating Americans' First Amendment rights and Fourth Amendment rights in related context. So the way in which the administration has gone after protesters and judges have pushed back on this.

So it's not my interpretation if you just look at what the federal judges have said, especially, especially in the cases in which the administration has accused protesters are forcibly interfering with. immigration enforcement, because that's the key. Can they tie it to acts of violence or force? And the courts have said, this is not forcible interference with immigration enforcement and its First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights that are being violated. You've got those two things. Internal checks are missing, a pension for violating First and Fourth Amendment rights in their related domain. And now we have evidence coming from Reuters and the New York Times and others, is showing that the administration is on a campaign to paint, quote-unquote, Antifa as a foreign intelligence threat. Secretary Rubio has a summit that they're trying to plan in the summer,

June of this year, a global summit. There have been four designations of supposedly Antifa-related groups as foreign terrorist organizations. There's a great piece of just security by Tom Jocelyn, debunking that, showing that there are no such ties with three other four groups, etc. But what's that all about? It's about creating this notion of a left-wing violent groups, even though they define violence very broadly, and TIFA as being this global threat, an international threat. The New York Times report also shows that the foreign countries are, like, baffled by this.

Even the countries in which these supposed organizations are operating, according to the state department, the countries are like, this is not our issue. year, and that's not an issue with this group, and what on earth is the U.S. doing trying to mount this campaign against so-called left-brain groups? Any expert in U.S. national security surveillance law can tell you that that seems to be a road to use of Section 702, because if you can have Antifa as a foreign intelligence threat as a counterterrorism matter, that's kind of opening up the, turning the key that opens up Section 702. The New York is a foreign intelligence threat. Times also reported, this is all a report, very deep report earlier this month, that the

U.S. intelligence community has placed Antifa in the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, the NIMF. The NIP. That's huge. That is the governing framework for also prioritizing Antifa, as though that's one of our major national security threats to open Section 702. And Antifa is a bogus. What they're articulating as they, the government is articulating as an Antifa threat. It comes along with what we've discussed in this show. You've discussed multiple times, Bill, which is the NSPM National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which suggests that there's these anti-fascist Antifa groups that are a violent threat,

but the actual NSPM 7 starts to drop out the definition of violence, and it just says, oh, including if they have a conspiracy against rights, which doesn't have a violent connection. The Attorney General, Bondi at the time, passed implementing memorandum on NSPM 7 to go after these groups. And in that, she lists a whole bunch of crimes, mail fraud, tax fraud, etc., that have no connection to violence. And that's what we're looking at, because I think that's, to me, the major concern that people should have, And I think a lot of people do have when they understand what this is all about, which is, this is all ripe for abuse. That is not the intent of Section 702.

And I would imagine super majority of members of Congress don't think that's the intent of Section 702. So to me, that's what makes it super acute that this is a different administration under very different circumstances. And it's a reason that you need a check. And the other piece that I think is really important to try to get across to people who are concerned about the preserving section 7702 in terms of the core of it for foreign intelligence threats, to me, if it is allowed for the Trump administration to go through the abuse of Section 702, and we have a major scandal for them doing that, so they don't apply a check like a warrant, I think it compromises the whole program. I don't think Americans parse all of these details so finely. And if the administration is allowed

to abuse Section 702 in such a grotesque way that looks back to it's like, it has a echoes of what happened in the 1960s and 70s in terms of abuse of surveillance authorities domestically, I think it compromises the whole program. The program has always been politically vulnerable. And if we have that kind of scandal, I'm very worried that American support for the core of Section 702 drops out. So I think even for the national security minded, they should support some additional checks that prevent that kind of future scenario. So let's talk about those checks in a second, but just to be clear, so the other there was that National Security Memorandum in September, I think it was,

and that was very much alarmed a lot of people, I think correctly, that suddenly, and the list of things that would tip you off, that they were, quote, domestic terrorist organizations was if they were anti-capitalist or anti-Christian or all kinds of stuff like this. So that seems to lay the groundwork for going after people here domestically. But then the foreign thing, if I understand what you're saying correctly,

sort of compounds the legitimate fear. because we do have more, the national security operators has much more authority to go after people to surveil and intercept communications abroad. And then if you can just tie that, even if it's very random, into some connection with someone back here, as you say, someone forwarding an email or forwarding an article they like a just security from, you know, foreigners sending it to an American or vice versa. Suddenly you've got a nexus, so to speak. And I guess that's what's, am I right, that that's kind of the one-two-step there is what's really. alarming. Exactly. It is the necessary condition that they need to trigger these authorities. That's the step. And then exactly what you say, which is the drag net of that enormous collection of emails, etc., can just ratchet up, especially if they expand the scope of Section 702,

to quote-unquote, left-wing groups abroad. And then they can just go fishing for U.S. person, emails, texts, phone call, conversations, the content of the conversation. based on this idea that there's this global and domestic tie-in with these groups. And that is all kinds of implications going forward, both in terms of harassing people here in the U.S. and investigating them, I suppose, even if they also don't go to court to convict them, also sort of make charges they could make about election, you know, related to elections in 2026 and 28, I suppose.

And it opens up a lot of possibilities for misbehavior. by the administration if it's seeking to discredit, delegitimize, or just weaken and hamper and shackle, as it were, domestic critics. Absolutely. And I mean, who knows who can be put on their enemies list? So the way that former FBI Director Hoover abused domestic surveillance authorities was to also go after people that he was concerned might not be loyal to the president at the time. and if that's the kind of authority we're just giving over to presidents and this president in particular, I think that's the concern that one might have.

It's no holds barred at that point who they might want to just look into the communications of. And that power, especially if the Congress puts on a new sunset that's many years from now, is in the hands of whomever. But right now we know it to be in the hands of Cash Patel. point period, point blank, and Donald Trump. And that's the issue. And I think that if they wanted to try to connect it up with like Taylor Green, because she has said things that are sympathetic to the extremist views that are outlined in NSPM 7,

that would be the query that they could go into the database for. And I don't think that it necessarily has to tie up into, well, then will the FBI try to criminally prosecute her? It's just no, should the FBI be looking at? at her emails, phone calls, and texts without probable calls or a judicial warrant. It's just that simple, I think, in terms of how awesome the power is and how threatening it is to U.S. constitutional rights. Yeah, and Hoover didn't prosecute people necessarily, but he leaked material or had people or threatened people, obviously, and so forth.

And just on that, the Justice Department, which the FBI is part of, has been, despite or maybe because, despite Bonti's departure or maybe. apparently despite to Bonte's departure, under Blanche seems to be not moving ahead, and almost accelerating maybe even, the willingness to use the agencies of government of law enforcement to go after political critics and enemies. So I think, again, that's get,

if one thought, well, gee, maybe Bonte's gone and Christy Knoem's gone and back to a more normal, so to speak, Justice Department and National Security apparatus, or law enforcement apparatus even, that's not clear that's the case right? Not clear as the case at all. Like you say, it's either, you know, straight, same line or same trajectory or it's accelerating. Just one piece of evidence of it is just in the recent days, I think the last 48 hours,

there's evidence that they're ratcheting up what I think of as the omnibus conspiracy against John Brennan and others. The reason it's the omnibus conspiracy is that's the investigation that's happening in South Florida. and immediately for some people who are thinking about this, you should think, well, what on earth does John Brennan, the former head of the CIA, have to do with Florida, if there was any investigation, I would think it would be in D.C. or something. And it's because of the omnibus idea that, oh, everything's connected,

all of the efforts to prevent Trump from becoming president or serving out his term. It's all connected. There's this omnibus conspiracy, and it's all connected also to Jack Smith and in Florida. the classified documents investigation. So they're ratching that up to the point that a senior prosecutor in that office resigned because it sounds like they're trying to indict people on that. Seems like a crazy theory. I can't even imagine what it would look like on paper.

But that's Todd Blanche. He has total responsibility for that. There doesn't seem to be any daylight between what was occurring before he became the acting attorney journal and now. So it seems like it doesn't seem that hard to his. attached the kind of warrant, a reasonable version of a warrant requirement that wouldn't slow everything down if there were an urgent need to access an American's communications and so forth. What do you think happens?

I mean, is the administration going to insist on the, quote, clean reauthorization? And if they do, I hadn't realized the program. I thought there was some way which the program was sort of extended for another year, even though it's not really, even if it doesn't get, even if it doesn't get. even if nothing happens, it doesn't actually die in two weeks? Or am I, is that not quite right? No, that's right. There is an argument for that there's not as time-sensitive a deadline as the end of the month

because there is, if anything has been certified, therefore allowed or authorized by the foreign intelligence surveillance court, then that should be able to last the certification for a year. That's the idea as to why there's this grandfather clause, this tail. At the end, it's a little murky. If I were to think about the legal risks from a government perspective, I'd be a little worried about that. And also in terms of the private companies that are providing the information to the government

about what's on the internet backbone, et cetera, will they go along with that in the same way because they're not as protected legally and the like? But there's something there. I do think that the, I don't know if the administration will insist, if they see the writing on the wall that there really is a strong bipartisan view that is a majority view that there should be some constraint like a warrant. And I do wonder about people like Jim Jordan. So Jim Jordan, who's run points on this in many ways, used to be somebody who definitely

supported a warrant in 2024, et cetera, and he's flipped. And I do wonder about somebody like that because I would imagine that in the back of Jim Jordan's mind, it is not such a big deal to impose a warrant. It is not a big deal in terms of a constraint. U.S. national security interests. So how hard or soft the view is in support of a clean reauthorization on the Hill. I'm not so sure. President Trump is easily identified as being hypocritical because he's fluctuated over time over the years of saying like KIL-702 writ large or conflating it with the Carter Page, FISA Warrant, which is a different part of FISA. So I don't know

where the administration will end up on that. And there's also the Senate side. And on the Senate side as well, there's good bipartisan support for these reforms. Senator Mike Lee has been, on this one, he's being consistent. I think, unfortunately, the man is not being consistent on war powers. He's kind of dropped off the face of the earth on that under the Trump 2.0 administration. He was good in Trump 1.0. But here, he's a strong bipartisan sponsor of the Wyden Lee legislation, which would do, as you just described, impose a warrant requirement, but with exceptions, including in an emergency, also not imposing a warrant requirement. Also not imposing a warrant requirement. when they want to go in the back end of the database and just look for metadata.

So like twos and froms, who was that email to and from, but not the content. So it's very reasonable bipartisan legislation by people who are also supporters of the administration. So I think that this is really dynamic. It's one of the last areas where there's real bipartisanship on the idea of congressional reform. And I think it's very difficult to guess where this will actually. end up. It would be, I think, an indication if they could insist on this and if the administration gave in, the administration doesn't give in, and is willing to play real chicken on this and perhaps have the program laps or sort of lapse, as you said, with only limited authorities going

forward and worse, less reliable ones for the companies that cooperate to depend on and so forth. If the administration wants to play hardball, will show that they care an awful lot about, maybe more about getting access to this data for other reasons. than about pure national security, if they succeed, on the other hand, if the bipartisan effort succeeds to impose more constraints. It's not a, for me, it would be important also from a broader political point of view. I don't mean political in a partisan way, but from a, you know, policy point of view, that, yes, you know, it makes sense to, there are ways to constrain certain things.

Now, we don't know, it's not that we don't know for sure that they would obey these constraints, so let's just crack at that for a minute. But, I mean, there are ways to try to constrain this administration that, Congress, which Congress has not done much of, to say the least, over the first 15 months. But maybe there are other areas where you could do similar things. It's not as if Congress has no authority over a whole bunch of law enforcement and investigative and prosecutorial and DHS-type things, right? Yeah.

And it's been very hesitant to use those. But I don't know. That's why for me this is kind of an interesting moment. I don't know. I guess we'll see what happens. What's your sense of the timetable on this? just to be clear. So the House passed an extension to the end of the month, which I guess the Senate hasn't actually, everyone assumes the Senate will okay tomorrow, I think, right?

Yeah, they've okayed it essentially. Oh, they've okay. Yeah. So then, so we have a pretty interesting 10 days of negotiations coming up, I guess, in discussions. Absolutely. And the ball might change over to being on the Senate side. There's some indications that Senator Thune is going to try to run with it and try to form legislation on the Senate side because Mike Johnson has proven himself to be incapable on the House side, or it's just a royal mess on the house side. There's also some indications, this is not publicly reported, but for people have been telling me that Mike Johnson might actually want to stay with that fake warrant bill, which is, I think, would demonstrate to Senator Thune that it's a, you know, train crash

coming once again on the House side, if that's the case, because that is a deplor. It's just a ridiculous bill that's not going to win people over. I don't think anybody is confused by what the actual game is there. So I think the Senate might take responsibility for it. And there they need to move fast if they're going to do that, because 10 days is not a great amount of time to get that legislation up and running. And then, just to be clear, the House presumably would pass such a bill because even though all Democrats almost except for, I guess four, are voting against the Cleanville authorization. Many, many of them in the past have voted are clearly for reauthorizing the program,

the great majority, I would say. So you could get a pretty big vote ultimately. One of these ironies where they can't get it through right now, but if they got presented with a widened lee type bill, they could get 300 votes for it, I suppose, in the House. I completely agree. I mean, that's the other way I think about it. If you just like take the 10,000 foot perspective on it, Mike Johnson has a majority that will

vote in favor of a reality. authorization with some reforms, like a warrant requirement. He has that. That's in the House. It can happen. So if there's some slight change in that direction, this all gets done. And for all of the folks, which I also agree, super majority of the on the Hill, Republicans and Democrats think that Section 702 is a vital national security tool.

It gets preserved in its core. And you would think that's in the offing. And so I do think that that to me is probably the most likely outcome at this point, but it's difficult to say, really difficult to say, as to whether or not they're going to jeopardize the whole program or not, given especially this extraordinary, it seems like, mismanagement by Speaker Johnson. So there's that part of it. And it was a bit of a surprise that there are these four Democrats who did not vote for, sorry,

who voted in favor of the fake. warrant bill in the middle of the night. And that to me was a little confusing, but it does mean that gives a little bit more room to Mike Johnson if he can use it if he try to get through a clean reauthorization. But maybe that will change, because I think that came as a surprise to others, and maybe those poor Democrats might be convinced that they made the wrong call in the middle of the night. And it is so well, let you go, but close up here, but it is striking that in a normal situation, I would just say, you would have, of course, the chairs of the relevant committees, and those are pretty serious committees, some bipartisanship in their history, intelligence

committees, as well as the main foreign policy committees, talking to people from the administration, with DNI or CIA director or, you know, relevant people who know a lot about this, national security council types, and trying to work out what could be worked out. I don't know. Johnson may just have decided he was going to try to do it, but Johnson may have also talk to the Trump administration may have wanted to try to force it through this way. That is, I think everyone's talking about Johnson, but how often did Johnson do things without consulting with Trump, you know, or someone very senior in Trump world? Not that often, I think. So it's an interesting question, whether you can get a sort of, quote, normal resolution of this through normal discussions between the administration and Congress and within Congress,

or not, I guess. Yes. And I agree. I think there must be very close coordination between the White House. Johnson Johnson. And there is one thing in what you said that is also worth bringing out. In 2024, when reauthorization came up that time because of the sunset clause imposed inside the Section 702 authorization or legislation, the Director of National Intelligence was one of the main actors out there coordinating, communicating with Congress. And that was Averill Haynes at the time, explaining what parts of Section 702 are vital, et cetera, et cetera. Right now there's a total absence on the part of the Director of National Intelligence, or I think it's a total absence.

She's not really running point for the administration. And I think it's worthwhile noting that Politico has just recently reported that she informed Trump that she had reservations about a clean reauthorization without reform, and that Politico pointed out that they had earlier reported in her written response, to the Senate during her confirmation process, she had supported a warrant. And that makes sense. Tulsi Gabbard has, in fact, being on that side, like a Freedom Caucus person associated with Thomas Massey as well in terms of concerns about privacy interests with these kinds of domestic surveillance powers. And she's not, I would imagine she is not in favor of a clean reauthorization. She understands the

abuse that could take place. And I think it should give everybody pause that Cash Patel is a strong advocate of a clean reauthorization. Cash Patel, who has otherwise been against some of these powers in the past, why would he be so keen to have that authority? Well, that's a good question to end on, and a somewhat rhetorical question, but a real question that says that it really matters in terms of the legislation. So this has been terrific, Ryan. Thank you for explaining this complicated, but maybe not quite so complicated as it appears

at first kind of debate and issue, which will end. And we'll follow it together over the next 10 days and then maybe beyond. And then, of course, there's a whole question of compliance and so forth. But right now, the public, we're getting a rare in a sense public debate about these matters and not depending on leaks from the administration or discovering people being indictments, you know, being handed down or not being handed down or grand jury is refusing to hand them down. You know, the kind of ways we learn about what this administration is up to are mostly not through anything open. or transparent, whereas the big advantage of having an actual legislative process is, at least in

theory, it can be educational, right? Absolutely. I think it is kind of shows us, as you're just saying, like, this is a healthy part of democracy. And it really is a nice moment in which there's bipartisanship happening because I think people are really concerned about the immediate and long-term threats. Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time today, and we'll follow this over the next 10 days and beyond. Great to talk to you. Thanks so much. And thank you all for joining us on Billwork on Sunday.