Pivot - We're not the only ones obsessed with Preet Bharara. Plus, the vaccine mandate divide and Friend of Pivot Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Guest host Preet Bharara reacts to getting in Team Cuomo's crosshairs. Friend of Pivot Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman on the phone call that changed his life, and his new book, Here, Right Matters: An American Story. Also: Apple's new child safety measures pique privacy advocates, while Chinese giant Tencent faces a lawsuit for not protecting children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. uh we're so happy to have you here he's so jealous wherever he is and visa or wherever the heck it's got wait so you don't know where he is i don't i don't he you know he's got a plane he's irresponsible on someone's part he gets i know that you know but i just let him go and have this buck and all kind of thing for august does he check in yeah yeah yeah he sends texts and if you notice he's been like saying how close he is with anderson cooper online and stuff like that

i've seen that well you promoted that too. I did, but I... You've done some ego boosting, I've seen. I know, I know, but I'm trying to make him feel better for not being here and him being bad about you being here. Wait, so he's bailing on the job. He's on vacation and you're trying to make him feel better. Yes, I am.

Because he's got to come back all fresh and stuff. And he's got a real issue with you. He's obsessed with you. Just like, for example, Andrew Cuomo, Governor Andrew Cuomo. You see how I did that? That was a good segue. He issued an 11-page letter on Friday attacking special investigators who wrote a damning report in his office. The letter claimed that investigator June Kim had, quote, unwarranted skepticism of the governor because of Kim's ties to Preet. Me? Yes. Can you explain, please? I want a little bit of your thoughts on this situation.

What a hot mess. So I can explain. Okay. It has been suggested to me that in this letter sent by my former friend, Paul Fishman, who was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, in which I mentioned 33 times. Yeah, 33, an 11-page letter. 33 times. 33 times.

I'm a podcaster now. Yeah. And a commentator. Commentator. I have no public office. I have no subpoena power. I have nothing to do with this investigation. And yet my name is invoked again and again and again. And I guess the premise is that once upon a time, I was the US attorney and we did some investigations and June is a really good friend of mine. And so as they say in the letter multiple times at various junctures, Andrew Cuomo seems to have done things to harm my career, among other things.

It's reported that he told Trump to fire me. On another occasion, he readily admits that he called up the Obama administration and told them, don't make me the attorney general. Oh. And so therefore, because he tried to screw me in various career ways, June Kim, my friend, is in some ways biased. It makes no sense. By the way, he didn't make any of these objections. This is an episode of Billions. I get it if it's an episode of Billions, but they're always cross-doing each other.

But this is ridiculous. Does it make any sense? So I'm a little close to the matter. Does it make any sense? If I'm watching Billions, yes. But otherwise, no. This is the harebrained. Can I read you my favorite sentence in the letter?

Yes, go ahead. Please do. And I want to know if ordinary people understand this argument. Okay. All right. Okay. So in the letter claiming bias on the part of Mr. Kim, they refer to me and say, quote, during speeches and interviews, back when I was his attorney, during speeches and interviews, Mr. Barrera repeatedly articulated his deep distrust of politicians in Albany and his intent and eagerness to probe deeply to find evidence of wrongdoing. It is reasonable for our client to question whether Mr. Kim shared those views. Well, I hope he did. Don't you hope that prosecutors care deeply about corruption?

A thing or two about probing deeply. But in any case, do you have any problem with him? No. Did he get you fired? No, probably not. Trump didn't. I don't. You don't care. I don't believe so. I mean, look, I don't think he's going to be the government for long. I don't think you like him. No, very few people do it, from what I can understand.

Well, this idea also, just on the substance for a moment. So narcissistic, yeah. This idea that someone has investigated someone once, and by the way, in connection with that investigation, was involved in the decision not to bring charges. Yeah, he didn't. Andrew Cuomo was not charged. Other people were. He was not.

Yes. And the idea that you can't investigate again would mean that no prosecutor could ever investigate somebody or prosecute somebody twice, which happens all the time, which Andrew Cuomo himself did because he was the attorney general and a line prosecutor at some time. So, look, it's a distraction like a lot of people do. And I'll stand by the other complaint they make about me. I'll stand by my comparison between Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump, and maybe I'll appear in another letter. Yeah, that's right. You are. And you have said that. Can you illuminate me on that? By the

way, June isn't your guy, right? That's the plan here. You're using him to get back at him. He's your guy. He's my guy. We don't have guys. I know. I know. It's ridiculous. Maybe that's how it works with Andrew Cuomo's world. Oh, he's his guy. I know. That's how it works. Maybe that's how it works in Andrew Cuomo's world. Oh, he's this guy. I know he's screwing me. I can see him saying it. So what do you think is going to happen here from a legal point of view? So the important news, we're recording this on Monday afternoon. His chief aide, as people refer to her as the most powerful non-elected person in New York.

His guy. His guy. She's a woman. I know. Melissa DeRosa stepped down yesterday. And you know, from what I can tell, and having lived in the state for a while and understanding some things,

that is a terrible sign for Andrew Cuomo. All these arguments that he and his lawyers are making tend to be distractions, tend to be cherry picked. The one thing they're correct about is there is no formal adjudication of this report, right? It's just a report. And then other bodies can decide what to do with them, like a DA's office or like private civil lawsuits, or most importantly, the state legislature. And they can do with this information what they will. And so it's really a political argument now.

And if Andrew has lost, and it was a very sort of tight and terse statement that she made with no reference to him, no gratitude to him. All right. What's going to happen to him? So, Lieutenant Governor, I want to move to another topic. Kathy Horschel is reportedly going to take over. Hogle, Kathy Hogle. Hogle, excuse me. What do you think is going to happen here? I think nobody thought anything would happen for a while until the assembly impeached, which would cause him to have to step aside during the pendency of the trial in the Senate. I think he's not going to wait. I think the good money is that he will finally see the writing on the wall and step down sooner rather than later. Oh, interesting. I don't think so. I think he's a narcissistic prick. Want to take a bet? Okay, I will. But you probably know,

you probably know because you have all the guys. don't know anything i just i just observed i'm just such a narcissistic prick i think that is really where i stand and go he reminds me of a lot of people i cover you know he's just not going to stand down anyway speaking of not standing down chinese giant hensan faces a lawsuit from beijing prosecutors who say the wechat messaging app does not comply with laws protecting minors now apple just we're going to talk about that in a second. But, you know, WeChat's youth mode limits young users' access to some games, which is astonishing. They can do this in this country

when people go mad. And the filing did not specify how WeChat youth mode broke Chinese law. But they're really pushing hard from a legal point of view on tech giants. They can just do it, right? I mean, compared to here. As someone who is-

They can do whatever they want. Yeah. What do you think about this? As you mentioned, I don't know enough about it because as the reporting suggests, there's no basis. Right. Usually, when you bring actions like this on the part of the government, you have to

have some specificity, like you allege. Yeah. I didn't spend a long time being a prosecutor in Beijing, so I don't know a lot about this. Would you like to have power like this, just to do what you wanted? No, I like democracy better, such as it is at this moment. And we'll talk about that too, obviously. But what is interesting about this, I think, will be the relevance to our later conversation about what Apple is doing with iMessage.

And one of the arguments that we will discuss is even if it's all well and good here in the United States where we have rules and we have some accountability, once you allow, you know, a certain kind of surveillance in other countries like China, that's where the problem lies. And so I think this is important for that. Yes, that's a very good point. All right, time for the big story. Companies and governments around the world are weighing vaccine mandates, but citizens and employees are voicing opposition even as the death toll from the Delta variant grows. United Airlines will require its 67,000 U.S. employees to get vaccinated by October 25th. This is a day after I did an interview with the head of American Airlines who said he wasn't going to.

He got a lot of heat for that. In France, citizens must be vaccinated or have a recent negative COVID test to enter cafes or ride inner city trains. The requirement has prompted four weeks of protests and drove almost a quarter million people to rallies this past Saturday. Amazon has no COVID-19 mandate yet. What vaccine mandate? The tech giant reportedly fears an employee walkout and labor shortage. The mandate is implemented. That said, other tech companies absolutely have mandates.

I think Google and some others. New York City has mandated all of its 300,000 municipal workers get vaccinated or agree to weekly testing by September 13th. The move has been opposed by several of the city's unions. Preet, explain this to me with the lawsuits. Go for it. Lawsuits. Well, the lawsuits seem weak. And frivolous lawsuits are brought all the time.

We see that in the course of the prior administration as well. in the course of the prior administration as well. And it seems to me the nub of the lawsuits is the distinction between something being a permanently approved vaccine versus something under emergency youth authorization. Now, I think the better lawyers who have examined this and will be defending these things understand that even emergency youth is strong enough

and tested enough that it can be required. And so I think those will fail. But what was interesting to me about this debate is at some point, we're going to have permanent use authorization. Very soon. Right. So that to the extent these lawsuits

are relying on that distinction, that will soon be gone. And what are the arguments going to be there? Right. Who knows about these vaccines, but they'll have been approved. Right. But the motivation of the people

who are bringing these suits, I think some of them care about the distinction between temporary and emergency and permanent. Some people do. But some of them just don't want anybody to give them a jab ever. And so those legal arguments are maybe relied upon too heavily.

The other thing is, you know, some of these businesses are saying that there's this mandate, but not tomorrow. You don't have to finish by tomorrow. Sometime in the future, in many cases, likely after they will have permanent use. And I wonder if that's intentional. So that argument is taken away from them

in the coming weeks. Yeah. So what do you make of all the resistance? I mean, there's all these incredible stories. There's a story in the Wall Street Journal about a nurse whose parents died and then she doesn't want to take the vaccine. And she's like,

it's almost like people want to blame us for this. I'm like, yeah, I want to blame you for this. And then there was a guy in Texas who was a very anti-vax person. He died of COVID in five days after getting it, I think, something like that. Obviously, there's a lot of Facebook stuff where people are saying, I should have taken the vaccine. Can I have it now? And they're like, no. There's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of politicizing, which I don't get, right? Because all the people who supported Trump and say he should get credit for Operation Warp Speed don't want to take the vaccine. There's a very sad story by a doctor in Alabama who talks about patient after patient who gets sick and said,

now I wish I could take the vaccine. I think we should spread those stories more, not in a judgmental way, even though I understand the urge to be judgmental. Yeah, really? It's interesting because I think fear does more than coddling, honestly. You know, let's give someone a beer or $5 or whatever the heck you want to give them to $50. I do think fear does, is what causes people to do things. It is.

But also, you know, I think the carrot works better than the stick, according to some things that I've read, right? Yeah. If you were told you can't fly, you can't go to a concert without getting vaccinated, that's maybe going to be worth more to you than a hundred bucks. Well, is that a carrot or is that punitive? That's a stick, right? Well, let's call it a carrot through our rhetorical magic. Look, you get this vaccine, you get to go see Springsteen on Broadway. Honestly. I am all out of fucks, I have to say about this. I have to, I just am like, I cannot say, I have a young child and I'm like, oh, he, she, you know.

By the way, got in a little bit of trouble yesterday, hit her head and we were in the hospital and I was like, oh, great. We're walking into COVID soup and ended up wearing the mask all the time. But it was sad. I was, she was real good at it. And it was really, I just am like, no, this is not something I want for my children. Essentially, I don't want this to happen. But what do you imagine is going to happen? Will the Biden administration have a vaccine mandate? Is there any possibility of that? Well, you know, what's interesting about that is, to put the lawyer hat on again for a second,

there's a division within the Department of Justice called the Office of Legal Counsel, which was asked to develop an opinion basically saying that governmental entities and private entities can issue mask mandates. They don't call them a mandate because they say, we're not sending people to your home and holding you down, but it's a conditional requirement. If you don't get the vaccine, then you can't participate in certain things. You can't come to your work as a police officer. You can't come to your work at the Justice Department. And so I think that's a signal that they have strong legal grounds, which goes to your question about lawsuits, for proceeding. I think the balance for them is

the people who are pro-Biden are getting the vax. And the people who are not have to be persuaded in some way that works. Because Biden's numbers are slipping. Not that this should be described in a political context, but it is. And the irony is that it's the people who are against Biden who don't want to get vaccinated who are causing a problem for everyone else. But that is reducing his numbers among independents also. It's a big catch-22. Yeah, 100%. Well, last question on this.

When they're trying to do this, when you're a company, what do they do? You see more activity from companies than you do from governments. And obviously, you see some resistance from governments like in Florida and Texas and other places, not just that mask wearing and vaccinations. Those are sort of two separate things, but they're together in some way. I never thought vaccines would get dragged into the mask fight, essentially, but that's what's happened. Look, there's a combination of things you can do. You can ask for vaccinations, but then in the alternative, you can have religious exemptions. There are people who don't get faith, and there's a lot of people in bad faith who don't get the injection. You can mandate testing.

The problem population are the people who don't want to get vaccinated, don't want to get tested, and don't want to wear a mask. Yeah. And that's a trifecta for disaster yeah um look but in your experience i'm sure you've seen over and over again that sometimes it's businesses who take the lead yeah on issues of public health and social justice too and they don't mind being sued either they don't they're like come at us like walmart were you surprised by walmart no i know no i don't they have they're a forward-facing company they have to do that you know when i was interviewing the American Airlines CEO,

he was talking about it, and I said, I'm not getting on your airline. That's my consumer decision. You know what I mean? Like, one of your flight attendants coughs on me? I can still get COVID. I don't want to get it. So you're going to just use Professor Galloway's jet? Yeah, I'm going to use his jet.

Scramble the jets, Galloway. He definitely has his pilots vaccinated, right? I don't know. I don't know what he does when he leaves the area of this squad cast. I don't know what he does, Preet. Let's go on a quick break when we get back. Apple doesn't about face on privacy, like you said. Stay with us.

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they're uploaded to iCloud. Apple says the program is designed to detect and prevent the sharing of child sexual abuse material. It's called CSAAM, I believe. The privacy advocates warn that this effectively nullifies Apple's previous commitment to user privacy. EFF, not surprisingly, has criticized the move, saying it's impossible to build a client-side scanning system that can only be used for this type of content. The move will include scanning iMessages of users younger than 13, as well as updates to Syrian search that will intervene when users search for prohibited material. Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, voiced concern on Twitter. He's a really interesting guy and said the popular chat app will not adopt the system. So what do you think? What is going on here?

So, you know, this is just the latest example, the latest iteration of a debate that we've had even before modern technology, going back to the founding of all republics, since we first started talking about the social contract, right? The balance between liberty and security. And I think on both sides of this debate, there are people who too often belittle the other side so i think there are privacy advocates um no offense to them who who i think are not as concerned about things like child pornography and the manufacturer of child pornography which well they think the blocking of it hurts other

things i think they're they're willing to yeah no i see but yeah you kind of can't have everything yeah you know as soon as you start talking about a balance, you have to figure out where that's struck. And some people advocated for it in one direction versus the other. And I think they have to take seriously this issue of so many people being exploited in the most horrific way possible. I think it was the most awful crime that I ever oversaw the prosecution of. On the other hand, you have knee-jerk folks in law enforcement all over the country who poo-poo the need for privacy. And they'll say in every circumstance, no matter what the possibilities are, we need a backdoor. So the backdoor issue came up in San Bernardino some years ago.

Apple stuck to its guns on that one. And so I don't know where the balance is properly struck. I don't love arguments that rely mostly on slippery slope rhetoric. Slippery slope gets used too often. It does. It's too easy. It's slope rhetoric. Yeah. You know, the slippery slope gets used too often. It does. It's too easy. It's too facile. Yeah. Which is not to say that there may be some problems.

Look, and maybe, you know, Apple is, my understanding is there are two facets to this. One is they're going to match photos that are conveyed to an existing database of, you know, underage pornographic materials. Yeah. And then they're going to scan everything or look at everything for people who are registered as under 13.

Well, once they're uploaded, if they get uploaded to iCloud, if they bring it to the cloud, if they keep it on their phones by themselves. But the whole point is sharing this stuff, unfortunately. But go ahead. I mean, look, maybe there are possibilities of opting out, and parents can have a choice about some of these things. Maybe there can be ways to get people to not be as concerned by having outside oversight. I know these companies don't like that.

And sometimes when they do that, as we've seen, it's not done in a fair-minded way or in a way that people respect. Okay. You mentioned two things. One was with San Bernardino, which Apple was very strong pushing against James Comey on encryption. I don't know where you were on that issue. And then the second thing was when they took 230 protections away from sex trafficking and some other things. So that was sort of removing immunity from that.

Why do you think Apple's doing this? And what did you think at the time when Apple, they were vehement about that? So I wasn't involved in that, but my sense was it was a business decision and they're very smart. I understand that there are companies that have philosophies about freedom or about exercise or whatever the case may be, high-minded or low-minded, but it's through the prism of

business. My perception always was that in the marketplace, being very, very pro-privacy was important for Apple. There was a parallel controversy with Microsoft. And it's a long story, but we were in litigation with Microsoft over trying to get documents that were kept on servers abroad. And it was a ludicrous argument, in my view. They're drawing a distinction between servers abroad and the United States.

And my view, that was a business decision too. You want to come across as being very, very, very pro-privacy. And the question I have here is, did some research about their business prospects and the views of the public change to cause them to have a different point of view now than they did during San Bernardino? What do you think? I think they've seen, they realize, I think they're doubling down on this idea is we're not trying to kill humanity. You know what I mean? Like, that's their brand right now. We're not Facebook to sealing all your privacy. And at the same time, they're like, but we're going to protect

your children. It's a very difficult threat, needle to thread for them, I have to say, because it does sort of give me the creeps, right? I have kids who have these phones and are young enough. You know, I'm like, what are they going to do to those phones? And I definitely have to study it. But at the same time, I would trust Apple more than others. But at the same time, it couldn't, you know, speaking of a cliche, open the door for anybody mandating that Apple must search for lots of things. I mean, as a prosecutor, did you want to get your mitts on this stuff? Yeah. Look, there's a reason why this kind of technology comes into the debate and to the fore when you're talking about the most serious kinds of things, terrorism and the manufacture of child pornography. It's hard to come up with anything

worse than those two things. I think there would be a lot more pushback and even a lot more debate if we were talking about lesser kinds of crimes. Prosecutors will use whatever tools that they have. And if they understand that a private company has the ability to get certain kinds of information, they will use that from their perspective in good faith to protect the public and hold bad, violent people accountable. There'll always be someone, oh, let's get this guy. Oh, yeah, but this guy's bad too. You know what I mean? There's never stopping. Law enforcement folks will also tell you that the most private place that exists is your home. folks will also tell you that the most private place that exists is your home. And the Constitution has a Fourth Amendment, which says only that you can't have unreasonable searches and seizures.

What's a reasonable search and seizure? And I've heard law enforcement people, and I understand that point of view, and I also understand the other point of view. But to give the law enforcement perspective for a moment, again, if it is the case that our Constitution is recognized and the courts have recognized that even in the most private place that we have, you know, the bedroom in our home, that if there's probable cause to believe there are fruits of a crime, you can go look there. Why is a phone so much different than your bedroom? That's the argument. Yeah. I think ultimately, if it gets put in bad hands, I mean, these things, we've, listen, we've opened the door a long time ago

by using these things. And I think they're just too juicy for law enforcement not to want to do. And I suspect that Apple wants to be the privacy company, but not too private, right? I think they're, and they were going to be acted upon. This is something, let me just tell you, when I'm working on my book on Silicon Valley,

and one of the things that was memorable to me when the Communications Decency Act did pass, there was another part of it that declared unconstitutional. But I was at a lunch where, of all people, do you remember Fawn Hall? Yeah, of course. She was working on this stuff because she was obsessed with pornography on the internet, child pornography. Not obsessed, but she was concerned, but a lot concerned. And so, she had a lunch where she had an envelope that she gave out, but she was concerned and, but a lot concerned. And so she had a lunch where she had a, an envelope that she gave out and it was child pornography on the internet at the time. And I was like, oh, hello. Was she arrested on the spot? No, no, but it was really, it was really, you sort of get, you have the emotional side of it as a parent. You're like,

yes, get these people. Look how easy it is they have to use these tools. And then you want the companies also to protect you. It's really, it's a very difficult issue. Look, it's the hardest. And by the way, the other complicating factor in this is politicians in the middle in particular understand this. And they have constituents who are privacy advocates. And they have constituents who are law enforcement advocates. And during my time in the Senate, I saw most of the time they wanted to punt. Punt it, not deal with it. But as a prosecutor, you wanted this

stuff, right? Wouldn't you like, isn't it the best way to get information now or the easiest? With proper controls and a judge's supervision, you know, prosecutors have a view of their own magnanimity and believe that they won't abuse it. But we understand, and look, I have some perspective from that time. It's been four and a half years since I've been there. And I think I understand other perspectives better than I did, which doesn't make the decision any easier. It doesn't make the balancing any easier. And by the way, as you know better than almost anybody, this privacy debate is a little bit funny sometimes because at the same time that people are fighting tooth and nail to make sure that the government doesn't have access to certain kinds of things these tech companies do they do and they make claims they

make claims i guess that they can't see them that they don't look at them they do um but they can't but like right you think they can't but but they could change it i mean you know the same argument applies to them they could change it now you know we have given all this information then we've given access to all our information to them and yet we trust them i don't know yeah even the apple which is i think the most privacy conscious i can show you stuff on your phone that they've been saving there locally but still they are watching you and tracking you in ways that it's for use on the phone there it's always some excuse that they have it in any case what worries me and then we're now going to get to our friend and pivot is when you have this ability what if a crony gets into office what if that james clark guy and if you'd like to have a comment about him please do

did what trump said like if you get some president who feels like doing something jeff clark right if you get if you get someone who is willing to go along with it it's problematic like they could pick anything. You know, or Governor Cuomo. I think Preet. Let's investigate Preet because whatever. These are the pitfalls of a free society that sees an emergence of technology that we've not seen before. Yeah, exactly.

Well, speaking of which. Maybe Lieutenant Colonel can fix this. Yes, exactly. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Lieutenant Colonel can fix this. Yes, exactly. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot. He's retired Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army, who served as a key witness in President Trump's first impeachment trial.

He covers the episode and its fallout in a new memoir, Here, Right Matters, An American Story. Welcome, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. How are you doing? Hi, Cara. Hi, Preet. I'm doing okay. I actually was just thinking about your conversation on Apple and privacy and disruptive technology.

I wrote an article for The Diplomat on this topic about disruptive technology and understanding the future trends, including artificial intelligence and the need. I brought in Isaac Asimov and the three rules. We should have some guardrails to protect ourselves against this. So it's fascinating. I'm glad you guys are having this conversation. So in that vein, let's recap to our listeners. You were present for a telephone call between President Trump and the newly elected president of Ukraine. On that call, Trump suggested that Volodymyr Zelensky investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter in an exchange for U.S. support. The U.S. had at the time suspended millions of dollars of foreign aid to the Ukraine. And you reported this call up the chain of command.

This was just a regular telephone call. So you were not surveilling it, but you were on the call, as happens when the president talks to various foreign leaders, different people are on the calls. Can you talk a little bit about what we, you and I had a long interview post when you left and when you were leaving. Talk about where you've been since then, and then we want to talk about the book. Yeah, it's, I guess it's been about nine or 10 months since we last spoke. It's been an interesting trek. I think last time we spoke, there was a lot more ambiguity about what my future might hold. There's still an enormous amount of ambiguity now. There's some sort of wishful thinking about whistleblowers doing the right thing and then kind of landing on their

feet. I think Preet knows this maybe even better than most. That's not what usually happens with whistleblowers. Their life is turned upside down. They have to recover from a massive upheaval. In a lot of ways, I've had a similar experience, but I was just well-postured to recover. I think there's a breed of resilience that runs deep in my family based on a background and starting over and restarting over. It's a story I talk about in Hereite Matters that's allowed me to kind of land on my feet, but still with an enormous amount of ambiguity moving forward. You know, I haven't quite figured out. What do you mean ambiguity? It's like, people are like, oh, you, that kind of thing? Well, so, no, it's not like even external towards me, although there is some of that, you know,

towards me, although there is some of that, you know, it's internal about what I want to do. I mean, I made a declaration back then about staying active on national security, advocating for public service, accountability, and demanding values-based leadership. I've been active on those areas, but those are kind of conceptual as opposed to what is it that I'm going to do for a living moving forward. Right. You would have stayed in the army, correct? You would have stayed... I guess if I just stayed quiet, I would have been out of war college at this point in a kind of a high value critical assignment for US national security somewhere overseas at this point. But that's not the way things are. And now I'm trying to find my way, invested in completing my PhD at Johns Hopkins. I'm basically all but a dissertation

at this point. So coursework is done. So I want to ask you a question about the parallels between what you experienced in that July 25th call and some of the things we're hearing about now. And I'm struck by how similar they are. In your case, what you write about and what you experienced was a call between the president of the United States and the leader of Ukraine. And part of the message was, could you announce an investigation to Joe and Hunter Biden? Not necessarily open one, but announce one. And then he knew he could run with that. And literally the quote we have from the acting deputy attorney general's notes from the final weeks of the Trump administration was Trump saying, listen, all you have, I'm paraphrasing, all you have to do is say the election was corrupt and I'll do the rest

with the Republicans. Can you speak to how you react to that, given the experience you had and how similar they are and what it tells you about that administration? You know, it's interesting. I guess I'm past any point of shock having with these revelations just because it is it's almost exactly the same thing. He wasn't really even looking for dirt on Joe Biden. He just wanted an announcement of investigation by the Ukrainians into Joe Biden. So it's the same exact thing. And you would think that, you know, there would be a lesson learned from impeachment. that there would be a lesson learned from impeachment. There wasn't.

Part of that was because the Senate Republicans failed to do their job and live up to their oath and hold the president accountable, whether that was for removal or even something as simple as a censure. Instead, they went all in, basically encouraging the president to pursue. That's not a stretch.

They encouraged the president to continue doing what he did. And subsequently we had a massive mismanagement of a COVID, of a pandemic, a global pandemic that in my mind, there is zero doubt had cost and hundreds of thousands of lives. If it was managed properly, we would have not had those kinds of casualties. The impact on the economy would not be huge in a parallel universe in which mike pence was the president because donald trump was removed

there was little doubt that they would the pandemic would have been handled much more effectively and having failed to learn a lesson there having inflamed protests in the summer of 2020 the president moved in to try to steal an election. And he's the one that obviously tried to steal an election. With the same tactics. With the same tactics. With the same tactics. Fortunately for us,

he's just not very effective. And usually he does as much harm to himself as he does to, you know, U.S. national security and so forth. And he wasn't able to pull it off. But we came pretty close in my view. Yeah, one of the things, I had George come in as a guest host the other night and he said he's just, he has all bad intentions, but not very effective,

which is, which is, I guess, good, but not, not good, not that good. That was my experience. One of the things you had is the book deals with your relationship with your father, who was a Trump supporter. I don't know if he still is. Can you tell us how you, my mom is a Trump supporter. I have relatives who are Trump supporters, especially a Fox News watcher. She was an anti-Trump person. I have tapes of her saying what an awful person he is, and then suddenly was not. It was really a shift.

I don't know what went on with your dad, but can you talk a little bit about that? Because here you're doing something that, you know, quote, hurts Donald Trump. Yeah. Talk about that experience, because it's disappointing to say the least. Sure. Talk about that experience because it's disappointing to say the least. Sure. It is. Although, you know, my dad, I'd never couch him as disappointing.

He's always back in my corner 100%, even during this where he thought the best thing to do would be to, you know, march into the president's office and seek accommodation and say, how do we work this out? But for my, yeah, I mean, this is the way he thought it could be. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And frankly, if I did do that, things could have worked out very differently. But for my dad, he's a product of his history, 47 years in living under communism. And in those 47 years, recognizing that communism was a failed enterprise and frankly, swing the pendulum swinging in the complete opposite direction towards you know conservatism unhealthy kind of conservatism

uh as a complete absolute rejection against communism this is not an uncommon phenomenon amongst no amongst you know cubans venezuelans and so forth and he was a product of that and then in addition to that he also kind of appreciated that maybe something like Donald Trump, a non-politician, a businessman could kind of shake up, you know, the swamp and take this country in a new direction. So that's his starting point going in. And that's his starting point, you know, with his counsel to me. And we had plenty of disagreements on what were kind of a harm or good the president was causing to the United States. But what you did, he supported you for that for what you were doing? Or did he say don't do it? Well, your brother also got

pulled into this. Yeah, when he didn't know any any better, when he kind of just saw when he was listening to Fox News and the president's rhetoric, he thought the president was on the right foot. But as he learned more, as my mom actually said, no more Fox News in the house. So once he stopped kind of getting that programming, he started to listen to the bigger context and understand what's going on, see my own contribution. He had absolute faith in the fact that I was being truthful and just kind of relaying the circumstances factually. He broke with the president. And then, of course, when the president attacked me personally for just simply telling the truth, this is one of the, you know, when we did the CBS Sunday morning interview, he was like,

in his view, I just did the right thing, and the president attacked me. That's something that he just couldn't reconcile with. It wasn't palatable, and he broke with the president. You know what he needed more of? He needed more of Vox Media and Kara Swisher and some others. Yeah. Can I ask you sort of a more fundamental question about what you've learned about character and judgment and personality and what it is about people, what qualities of personality cause a person to be more likely to stand up in the way you did and be courageous in the way you did than other folks.

I've talked about this with Michael Lewis, who identified for me the quality of self-possession, people who don't care as much about what other people think and are very, not arrogant or conceited, but are just comfortable with themselves. Do you have a view on the kinds of things that make a difference? Because I think it's important to figuring out how we educate people,

how we train future leaders as well. I'm going to start out with the kind of the more controversial characteristics and then I'll work to the safer ones. But I think there's a little bit of an irreverence that I guess I've always had. And I'd say with regards to the office of the president, I've always held that office in extremely high regard. Frankly, not until that phone call did I really fully kind of believe that the president was behind this enterprise.

I thought it was do-gooders, in quotes, trying to ingratiate themselves with the president, trying to advance the president's interests. But I refuse to believe that the president himself, no matter the fact that I've seen him in action, and I knew that he was kind of a corrupt, kind of transactional, self-serving individual, that I believe it because of the reverence of the office. But in my background, there is a bit of an irreverent streak that helps. And that's an interesting trait to have for an army officer that spent their career in the military. That's not on the checklist, right? It's not. Irreverence. It's right after it follows orders well.

Well, yes, it is. Yes, it is. That's not true. Look at Millie. No, I think people do. You're supposed to think for yourself. I do. But you take a critical eye and try to kind of look at the merits of a situation on both sides, juxtaposing views. And it's important. I had a chance to work for Chairman Dunford, who I thought was a superb leader. And he welcomed that kind of feedback. General McKenzie, who's now the CENTCOM commander, was a very, very strong supporter. And, you know, at one point called me in and encouraged me. One of the last conversations I had before I left the Pentagon was like, you're not our typical Lieutenant Colonel. You're doing great. Speak your mind. I had plenty of leaders telling me to do that, encouraged me and kind of nurtured that healthy, respectful irreverence. So I think that's

one trait. Another one is having a sense of yourself and having a bit of a, already having a moral compass as a background to build on. I think I got a lot of that from my father, who did not tolerate dishonesty. And that was made clear to us from an early age, and something that I certainly instilled with my subordinates in the military, with my daughter. It's just important, this concept of once you lose trust, it's nearly impossible to regain it. I too often maybe give people the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong. And then it's hard to kind of recover. But that's a starting point for me. Okay. So we've heard reports that military leadership worried about a coup in the waning days of the Trump administration. Do you

think their concerns were valid? This was General Milley and others. You said they wanted you to think for yourselves and it looks like they were doing some of that. Do you think the military would have resisted a more organized coup attempt on January 6th? I think the military was dead set on not being involved at all in domestic politics. And there was a... As they should. That's absolutely right. But we were in uncharted territory, and in a world in which the president was able to effectively rouse his constituency. I mean, frankly, already radicalized, deeply radicalized to violence. And they secured the Capitol building. They basically held the White House.

And really, law enforcement wasn't well positioned to respond. I don't know what the right answer would be, but it doesn't seem like the military could completely sit out on the sidelines as our democracy was being stolen. Let's say in a more effective world in which you had a competent president that was able to actually realize the enterprise sitting on the sidelines. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense. My, my criticism of the military is that they're too prepared to take half measures. I think that we we've seen that play out over a couple of decades of war. They took at best half measures. Maybe that's even a kind judgment with regards to, you know, defending somebody that was in a position to not defend themselves, me, in uniform.

I didn't have the ability to defend myself. I didn't have the ability to say anything. And they were willing to have me sacrificed. Encouraging the president to continue to pursue, you know, coercive tactics to kind of break the military like he did so many other institutions under his watch. Not break completely, but harm him and have them bend to his will with State Department, with defense. And I guess just to finish this idea very quickly, I'm concerned that the military in being weak-kneed with responding to each one of these different events, with responding to each one of these different events, me, the protests in the summer of 2020,

the president's rhetoric about stealing the election, whether he was encouraged to then potentially leverage the military, either actually have them to come out in support of him or to somehow indicate that the military was behind him as he tried to attempt his coup. I don't think the military did any favors to itself by completely sitting out on the sidelines. It's just not right. Interesting. Preet?

I wonder, Lieutenant Colonel, aside from President Trump, is there some person in this whole saga that you write about and that you endured who disappointed you the most, either in the way that they didn't support you or didn't speak up, or they turned out to be someone that you didn't think that they were? Yes. Yes, that is very much so. What are the last acts that Chairman Dunford did on his way out? I think it was his last day as he put out a statement to CNN, talking about, you know, recognizing that I was under attack, that he attested to my capabilities, my integrity, and so forth. And that's it. After that, it was crickets. And I don't, this is not a criticism against the Department of Defense or the Army as a whole. They're honorable institutions filled with tremendous public servants, selfless servants.

But the leadership, I think, frankly, failed both me and the nation in certain regards in not holding the line to the ethical standards and principles of the institution, the leadership, not the institution. And that's frankly an area that I'm increasingly more comfortable to talk about because it's a hard place to go to, frankly, for me as a career military officer. But we are in a place where we're not in a state of war. We are coming out of two decades of kind of the military failing to achieve the military and political objectives. And there's a moment of introspection as to why these things occurred and possibly for us to be able to address these issues and become stronger.

So that's where I would come in on criticism. And then house leadership, I mean, GOP leadership that has failed to live up to their obligations and their oath. They've moved on and disappointed us on other things. Yeah. So I have this question for you. It's a serious question, but perhaps frivolous. So I can only find one interesting omission from your book, Here Right Matters. And it's the lack of an index, which is interesting to me. You wrote a Washington book without an index. And I wonder if that was intentional to drive Washington people crazy, because how the hell do you expect Washington

people to read your book unless they can first turn to the index and find their name? Answer, sir. You know, that is an excellent question. Actually, 33 times in an 11-page letter. Anyway, sorry. This is beautiful because Jennifer Pritzker, my benefactor and my position at Lawfare, actually asked the same question, and I didn't have a good response. I'm writing a book about, I don't want people just to flip to the portion of the book that has their name in it. I've got the second book project that's a dissertation that's going to have plenty of index and bibliography. I guess I didn't even think about it, but it's a good point. I'll keep that in mind. Oh, great. I'm going to ask a better last question. What do you think is going to happen

to Trump? Like, look, you've been through the ringer with the right-wing media, but they've stuck with him. So has the GOP, who disappointed you. I'm sorry, we constantly get blamed by the GOP. They attacked you as un-American, citing your family's immigration history. What do you think is going to happen with Trump and his movement as you look at it? They toppled you. Well, I guess, you know, we're even. I got him impeached. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. But, you know, honestly, I'm less concerned about Trump in 2024. I'm much more concerned about his movement. The reason is that, you know, he's basically taking slivers out of his pie.

He's done that repeatedly. He has his, you know, base of support is shrinking. I don't think he's going to be viable. he already lost by 7 million votes in the previous round i think what what i'm concerned about is trumpism and the fact that you have a bunch of sycophants uh in in political positions that are willing to go to any extreme to kind of continue to divide this country, double down on a shrinking base and thinking that that's a strategy to political victory and taking all sorts of extreme measures with regards to voting rights, gerrymandering, all sorts of other things. And that even if they fail, they do a lot of harm to this country.

So it's Trumpism that I'm most worried about. It's this idea that there is in fact kind of an absolute truth. It's in fact that we are one people united by far more than what divides us. And it's really kind of a culture war that's being inflamed for self-service. I criticized Tucker Carlson this week. He went to see Victor Orban and was touting authoritarianism over democracy. And the fact that there is no shame anymore with being anti-American on the right, that's what concerns me. Do you know what?

He never had shame. You can't shame the shameless, Lieutenant Colonel. Anyway, thank you so much. Everybody should read his book, Hear Right Matters, An American Story. Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

All right, Preet. That was great. Would you have turned President Trump in? That's a tough call that guy made. Boy. Well, I don't know if I would have turned him in, but I refused to take his call. Right. No.

I don't put myself in the category of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman right that's true i had enough sense not to talk to the guy yep yep yep he was always trying to play something but to but to take it up that was that took something to do that but you're right you all you both have that in common very much so all right one more quick break we'll be back for wins and fails do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

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To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash clawed. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Okay, Preet, wins and fails. I'll let you go first. Wins and fails. Okay, so aside from the very obvious fail that we've already discussed at some length, the defense job of Andrew Cuomo's lawyers and their invocation of me, fail. And then for my real fail and win, I have the same episode involving the same person. And it's a former acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, who was only attorney general for the final weeks of the Trump administration. And as we've been learning over the last number of days, has done something very

good. He's decided to come in and talk to congressional investigators, revealed information about how Donald Trump was calling him to try to get him to overturn the election, as we discussed with Lieutenant Colonel Minman, saying, hey, just call the election corrupt and I'll do the rest. He did a good thing in denying the request of the acting Civil Division Chief, Jeffrey Clark, to tell Georgia and other states that there were problems with their election because there was no proof of that. So that's all good.

That's a win. I also consider it a fail because it took him too long. This is information that he's carried with him for, you know, eight, nine, 10 months. And it might've been good information to have brought to investigators and congressional figures

during the time of impeachment. Because all of this is part of the same thing. It's this stuff that the president was doing at the time. Very John Bolton-y of him. Yes, totally. And I get that people are saying this is great, but I think you can't call it a win without also calling it a fail, because this information would have been very helpful in real time. Although he makes the argument that he couldn't have, he didn't have that.

There's always a way. You figure out a way. I mean, look, he's doing things that are part of the wind side of this. Knowing that there might be legal objection by Trump and his lawyers, he basically rushed in over a weekend this past weekend to talk to investigators, which is a good thing. So, you know, when there was a will to try to get the story out and not be stymied, he figured that out in recent days and maybe something happened that changed his view. I don't think he thought he was going to take that to his grave. And earlier would have been better. Yeah, very good ones. Okay, I'm going to say when the US military just, it's breaking, will mandate COVID-19 vaccine for troops

by mid-September. They're going to order 1.3 million active duty troops, even if the FDA has not issued full approval. Hopefully they will by then, but that's pretty quick. They can do things fast. Speaking, you know, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman just noted. And so that's going to be interesting and controversial, but they're going to have to be taking their medicine. They're in the military. They're going to have to do it, I think, unless they leave. The fail is this climate report that just came out,

and it's just devastating. The hotter future with this new climate panel that just, it's a major scientific report, and it's really disturbing. It's a United Nations scientific report. Humans have already heated up the planet by 1.1 degrees Celsius or degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century, and it's going to get even worse. And this is the intergovernmental panel on climate change in the body of scientists. intergovernmental panel on climate change in the body of scientists. And even if nations start cutting emissions today, which is a big if, total global warming is likely to rise about 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades.

A hotter future is now locked in. So that is a fail, and it will continue to be. So it's depressing, but it's so. Anyway, Preet, that is the show. On that note. On that note. On that note. This was a real treat. It was a treat. I really appreciate it. And everybody should listen to Preet, that is the show. On that note. On that note. On that note. This was a real treat.

It was a treat. I really appreciate it. And everybody should listen to Preet's podcast. Say when and where they can get it. Stay tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Come back on Friday when I'll be joined by guest host Baratunde Thurston. A heads up, that Friday episode will go out a little later than usual.

So if you don't see it in your morning commute, don't panic. But maybe listen instead to Stay Tuned with Preet while you wait. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the pivot podcast for that episode and others. The link is also in our show notes. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman and Evan Engel. Ernie Endredot engineered this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. Thank you. select few. Well, Clawed by Anthropic is AI for everyone. The latest model, Clawed 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Clawed Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. You can discover how Clawed can transform your business at anthropic.com slash Claude. In Alex Partners' 2024 Digital Disruption Report, you can learn the best path to turning that disruption into growth for your business. With a focus on clarity, direction, and effective implementation, Alex Partners provides essential support when decisive leadership is crucial. technology, industry insights. Available at www.alexpartners.com slash vox. That's www.alexpartners.com slash vox. In the face of disruption, businesses trust Alex Partners to get straight to the point and deliver results when it really matters.