The New Yorker Radio Hour - John Brennan, Former C.I.A. Director, on Being Targeted by Trump

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

In Donald Trump’s first term, he was furious that people were investigating his connections to Russia—“Russia, Russia, Russia,” he complained. Now, as Trump fulfills a campaign promise of retribution, his Administration has put the Russia “hoax” back into the headlines. They claim to have opened investigations into the former F.B.I. director James Comey and the former C.I.A. director John Brennan. A career C.IA. officer, Brennan served nearly thirty years, holding senior positions under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama; his tenure included the controversial drone program, as well as the infamous Steele dossier on Trump during the 2016 election. David Remnick speaks with Brennan about why Trump officials are re-investigating old business. Are there real issues, or is this an attempt to direct the news cycle away from Jeffrey Epstein? “I've seen reports in the press that I’m under investigation,” Brennan points out. “But I’ve not heard anything from the Department of Justice, or the F.B.I., or the C.I.A., or the Office of Director of National Intelligence. No one has contacted me about anything.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. John Brennan is or was a career CIA man. He did daily intelligence briefings for Bill Clinton. He held senior CIA positions under George W. Bush, and Barack Obama made him director of the agency. Brennan's tenure included the controversial drone program, as well as the infamous steel dossier, on presidential candidate Donald Trump. We first went through Russia, Russia, Russia.

It was all bullshit. At the very end of his tenure, the CIA compiled a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. And after that report came out, Donald Trump revoked John Brennan's security clearance. Now, as the Jeffrey Epstein controversy is roiling this administration, the Russia investigation is back into the headlines. Trump's Justice Department has opened up a criminal investigation of John Brennan, and James Comey, the former FBI director, is also being investigated. The FBI is investigating Brennan for allegedly lying to Congress.

James Comey and John Brennan, now under criminal investigation related to the Trump-Russia probe. Do you want to see these two guys behind bars? Well, I know nothing about it. other than what I read today, but I will tell you, I think they're very dishonest people. I think they're crooked as hell. And maybe they have to pay a price for that. I believe they are truly bad people and dishonest people. So whatever happens happens.

I reached former CIA director John Brennan last week, and he was speaking from a hotel room. Are you on the road somewhere? Yeah. I'm in an area that you are very familiar with and grew up. I'm in Saddlebrook, New Jersey, right now. Because I think you have roots in... I'm a Hillsdale boy. Hillsdale, Pramis.

I guess we're born in Hackensack. I would... Somebody slipped you a little Wikipedia or something. No, I'm an intel officer. Yeah, I was going to say you know more than that. Well, I grew up in Hudson County, so this is the area where I'm from. Did they use Wikipedia in the CIA? I'm sure they do.

I see. I see. You've been having a hell of a week. I've been having a hell of a life and career. This is all very interesting. Yeah. Do you feel under the deluge of the press of the United States in a very direct way? Well, it's hard not to when he routinely throws out your name in these various press conferences and other settings.

So, yeah, I know that I am somebody who he focuses on a fair amount. So I never expected this to happen. Here I am, eight years removed from my professional career. in retirement. Well, let's begin with the election interference case of 2016. This has been litigated, investigated, discussed ad nauseum. But now you're under investigation by the FBI, and you're being accused of lying to Congress.

Accusations include claims that information about Russian election interference that people say was unverified was included in a 2017 intelligence assessment. Why is this being brought up again? again now in the year of our Lord, 2025, almost a decade later? Well, simple answers, I don't know. It's up to the individuals involved here to say exactly what is motivating them. But I will point out that, yes,

I've seen reports in the press that I'm under investigation, but I've not heard anything from the Department of Justice or the FBI or the CIA or the Office Director of National Intelligence. No one has contacted me about anything. So I know there are a lot of assertions and allegations that have been put out there publicly. And over the course of my career, and including since I retired from the government on January 20th of 2017, I have very willingly appeared before congressional committees, both in open and closed door hearings. I've answered whatever questions individuals might have.

I haven't had to be subpoenaed. I've done all this voluntarily. I've spoken openly about what happened in the 2016 presidential campaign season, what we did when we pulled together the intelligence community assessment. So I feel very comfortable and confident that what we did was appropriate, consistent with our authorities. That's why I'm willing to speak out, including to you, about this. Why they have resurrected this, disinterred it, after eight years, I think is more, more than, more politically motivated than substantively grounded. This intelligence community assessment and the work that we did in 2016 when the Russians were interfering in the election

has been looked at and reviewed and scrutinized over the years by years-long investigations in terms of the Durham investigation, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Review. The Mueller investigation also looked at the Russian interference. And all of these have basically validated what happened in terms of Russian interference and validated the way we handled the production of the intelligence community assessment. In fact, as I recall it, and I follow this very carefully, as somebody who's very interested not only in American politics, but in things Russian, to say the least,

as I recall, some of the biggest criticism leveled at the Obama administration is that they took their time and were, if anything, overly deliberative about releasing information so as not to interfere with the election. Well, that's right. When I briefed Obama in late July of 2016 about what we had discovered about this very broad and worrisome Russian influence campaign, that was directed by Vladimir Putin. And in the subsequent months leading up to the election, he made very clear to us, he wanted us to try to uncover everything the Russians were doing, but also not to do anything that would in any way interfere in the election. So we took great steps, extraordinary procedures, to try to protect a lot of this information

and not have damaging reports released before the election. And including the reports, as the intelligence community says, that the Russians favored Donald Trump in that election. So we were very, very careful to do our job to make sure that we were informing the national security team and President Obama about what was happening. But at the same time, we didn't want to become involved in any way, even unintentionally, of having an impact on that election. When was the first time you became aware this time around that Donald Trump was going to come after you? And have you felt repercussions in terms of your personal safety? Well, I think pretty early on and maybe even before his inauguration, he was sending signals about what he was planning to do during Trump 2.0. And even before the inauguration, some of the professional affiliations I had evaporated because people were concerned that Trump was going to retaliate against me.

And if I was affiliated with their companies, that they would be hurt. That your presence would scare them away. Right. Or that would be a deterrent to anybody who would. wanted to, you know, remain on favorable terms with Donald Trump. So there has been professional impact, and I think this is intentional. Clearly, there's been reputational harm in terms of things that have been thrown out there, these specious allegations.

And unfortunately, I think a lot of the followers of Donald Trump who tend to be rather expressive and even using violent terms, it's a concern. But, again, I've been in the Washington arena for the last, you know, 45 years or so. I know that intelligence and intelligence officials can frequently be used as political footballs by those who really are, you know, not concerned about others. And this, I think, is the most unfortunate chapter. the most tragic chapter, I think, of the long history of, you know, the recriminations that somebody in the White House decided to engage in. These are very nasty and mean-spirited,

you know, allegations that can really have unfortunate resonance among certain quarters and potentially cause harm. You have been lumped in with James Comey as sources of these renewed accusations. Trump recently accused Obama himself of treason when it came to intelligence reports about election interference in 2016. All of these accusations fall well outside of the five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes. How is it possible to even launch this investigation now? And what do you divine is the purpose of it all? Well, for people who might be politically motivated making these referrals to the Department of Justice, I don't think they worry about statute of limitations or what is right and appropriate and consistent with the law.

And, you know, there have been, you know, some testifying that I've done within the past five years that they could point to. It's not lost to me that there is a real coincidence and timing between these allegations and the challenges that Donald Trump is facing right now related to the Epstein files and other things. So is the motivation to put something out there that the MAGA base will respond to because it's trying to, you know, show that the deep state was a real problem and they're finally going to have some accountability here? So, you know, unfortunately, right and wrong doesn't have anything to do, I think, with what's

going on right now. You know, I've pointed out a number of times that, you know, it appears that the Trump administration is doing, it's following the, I think, some of the political theories of Karl Schmidt, the German jurist and political philosopher in the 1930s that really served as the basis for a lot of thinking of the Nazi party, which is, you know, especially if you're going to go after the liberals and the progressives, don't worry about right and wrong, you know, or good and bad, whatever. You want to do everything possible that's going to vanquish your enemies. And so you lie, you cheat, you misrepresent, you push out disinformation, you push out

disinformation, you do everything possible because, you know, especially liberal progressives are not going to reply in kind. And do you feel that that is a fault of liberals and progressives that they don't fight back in kind? I think it's certainly a vulnerability. And I think, you know, some of the liberals and progressives right now are wondering whether or not they should continue to play by the market state Queensberry rules. You know, as the Republicans now are thinking about redistricting the congressional districts in Texas to be able to gain more seats. You know, now some of the Democrats in California and New York are saying, well, maybe we can do the same thing to offset that. It really is quite worrisome from the standpoint of trying to protect the foundations of democracy

when you have individuals who really don't care about doing the right thing. They're just going to do whatever allows them to, again, prevail and to win against their enemies. I'm speaking with John Brennan, former CIA director, and will continue in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking today with John Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Brennan served in the CIA for nearly 30 years and under six presidents.

Under Brennan, the CIA issued a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, which was quite a damning report to Trump and the people around him. But Trump was never indicted. Now, the Justice Department under Trump is. opening a criminal investigation into John Brennan. And this is while Trump is claiming that Barack Obama could be guilty of treason and more. I'll continue my conversation with John Brennan. I want to ask you a question about some of your decisions after being at the highest level of national intelligence.

And that is to some extent to become an overtly political person, to go on, in particular, a great deal. MSNBC and be overtly political and have quite firm opinions about Donald Trump and much else. That's not something that all past intelligence officers allow themselves to do. Tell me about your decision to do that. Why? First of all, I disagree with your characterization. I'm not overtly political. I'm overtly outspoken, certainly. Throughout the course of my career, and I'm not a Republican or a Democrat, never been registered with either party. While I was director of CIA, it was the Democrats in Congress

in the Senate who were calling for my firing and resignation. And ever since I retired, and even before retired, and before Donald Trump's inauguration in 2017, he equated CIA officers with Nazi Germany. To me, a real disparagement of the women and men of CIA. And I felt an obligation to push back against those characterizations. And, I've spoken out over the course of, you know, my retirement about things that I believe are important and a private citizen. Throughout my professional career, I defended and worked hard to defend Americans' right to freedom of speech. Well, I don't believe that just because I served, you know, as director of CIA in these positions, it means that I have to, you know,

bite my tongue when I see the foundations of our government, the democratic foundations of a government being torn down. And the six presidents I worked for, you know, I didn't agree with all policies of any of them. But I respected their integrity, their attempts to do what it was in the best interest in the United States. But Donald Trump, there are things that he has done. When he takes the side of Vladimir Putin against the considered judgments of the U.S. intelligence community, yeah, I speak out. When he continues to just misrepresent the facts and speak dishonestly, yeah, I speak out. So again, I know it's hard for people to believe that I'm not political. I'm not.

But I am someone who served in this government for well over 30 years. I've seen how government needs to function. I believe that the government is really in place to be able to serve the best interests of the people of the United States. U.S. intelligence has always had an extremely close relationship with Israeli intelligence, among other agencies, but extremely close. to the events of the past year, year and a half give you pause about that? I am just devastated by what I've seen happen over the last year and a half in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Israel. Obviously, the horrific, awful murderous attacks of Hamas for the trigger. But the Israeli response in Gaza has been way over the time.

top, intentional killing of civilians. Not that they're targeting civilians, but the disproportionality of the willingness of the Israeli military to kill innocent Gazans because they're going after Hamas operatives. That is wholly inconsistent with the laws of war. And I think it's just criminal in terms of what has happened and the starvation that is going on and the choking off of humanitarian assistance, again, it's a very complicated situation. I can understand how difficult it has been for the Israelis to work this and to try to free those remaining hostages

and every effort should be made to do that. But the devastating military operations the killing of 60,000 or so Gossans. I think that number, and there seems to be a lack of appreciation for that number of people. Can you imagine 60,000 Israelis killed? What the outrage, the uproar would be? But unfortunately, I think there are too many governments,

including our own, that have been willing to, you know, chastise, the Israelis and say, no, you shouldn't do that, but not take firm action. I mean, just sort of tut-tut-tut and then move on. Yeah, you know, not even a minor slap on the wrists. You know, okay, they might, you know, pause, you know, military weaponry. Those are, that's U.S. military ordinance that's being brought there. I mean, ordinance that's been, you know, manufactured United States.

It's U.S. weapons systems that are given. The critique you'd get, the critique, as you know, that you would get in Israel in some quarters anyway would be, you know, that's interesting. But what about the firebombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, even some of our actions in the Middle East in recent years against during battle against ISIS? Do you take that as legitimate criticism? I think it's legitimate argument about the appropriateness of dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki of the bombing of Dresden and other things. You know, in war, yes, war is hell.

But so many innocent lives have been snuffed out. And I think without looking at really what the alternative would be. Now, there are arguments as to why we drop the bombs, you know, save the lives of U.S. forces and so on, and same thing in Dresden and so forth. But I think the tremendous capabilities of weapon systems these days, It makes it too easy to opt for that. You know, if the most powerful weapon you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And what is happening to the Palestinian people, you know, is just awful.

And this is the culmination of many, many years of maltreatment, mistreatment, of avoidance, of dealing with the underlying issue about Palestinian rights. So then I return to the question. Do you think the United States should have the kind of relationship that we've traditionally had with the Israelis, whether it's in terms of military cooperation, intelligence cooperation, and all the rest? Well, you know, the intelligence agencies and military services take their direction from the White House in terms of what they should or shouldn't do in terms of the boundaries. if I were the White House, if I were the President of the United States, I would sharply limit what it was that we were doing with the Israelis. I would also take very, you know, strong measures to get the Israelis to stop these just ruthless and brutal military operations that are leading, that have, you know, just destroyed Gaza. Gaza was not a good place to live even prior to all this.

It is now just rubble. And looking at those pictures of starving and death by starvation is exceptionally, exceptionally awful and painful. But, you know, Netanyahu just seems to be ignoring the reality of what's happening on the ground there. As we speak, he denied in front of a group of American evangelical Christians, I believe, the fact that starvation existed at all in Gaza. Yes, yes. And why do we treat Palestinian deaths and suffering so differently than we treat death and suffering on the part of Israelis or, you know, Europeans or Westerners? Why do we ignore basically what's going on in terms of, you know, in Sudan and other places? You know, it's just to me it's, I think a lot of our, you know, approaches are not taking into account that every life.

is precious. That's the reason why I really, and not just enjoyed, but I felt a great privilege to work for President Obama, who told us in our counterterrorism operation, anything, do everything possible to prevent the loss of innocent life. He recognized that, you know, lives are precious. And I think there is this, you know, sense among a lot of government officials, including Netanyahu, including others in the West, that just, Just look past the death, the destruction, the starvation, the suffering, the inhumanity that is going on in these locations. What's going to be necessary in your view as you try to look in whatever the intelligence version of a crystal ball is? What are you anticipating in terms of threats to this country that we haven't discussed so far in this conversation that are,

they're really bound to take us by surprise, even though we seem not to be discussing them. Well, we haven't talked about Ukraine, and Donald Trump just basically said that, you know, he's shortening the timeline for Putin to agree to ceasefire. Again, yes. Again, yes. And whether he does that or not. But, you know, Putin, as despicable personally is, he is a very clever and cunning chess player on that global stage.

And I think we're at a very dangerous time right now. in terms of how Putin is going to react to all of this. I don't think Putin is just going to say, okay, we're just going to give in to you and how he is going to somehow counter this. I don't know. So I just think the next several months on the Ukraine-Russia front are ones that may, in fact, we see new developments. Putin for many years has tried to kill Zelensky.

Zelensky, even though he is facing some domestic challenges. he's the glue that has held that country together. You remove him from the political scene, and who knows what's going to happen as far as a follow-on government leadership. Xi Jinping also is a very, very smart global chess player and thinks about things from a longer-term perspective. And so how is he going to play this chess game with Trump?

What is he going to do as far as Taiwan's concern, other things? So there are a lot of things that are going to on the world that I think are going to be challenging the United States and our interests. And what are the intelligence chiefs doing right now? They're focusing on, you know, an eight-year-old document and conspiracy theories. John Brennan, thanks so much. Thank you, David. I enjoyed it. Thank you. John Brennan served in the CIA for nearly 30 years, and he was director of the agency under

Barack Obama. The Trump administration recently announced an investigation of Brennan and also FBI director, James Comey. A quick word of thanks to everyone who wrote into us with legal questions for our correspondence, Jeannie Sogerson and Ruth Marcus. You sent a boatload of good questions and we'll answer as many as we can get to on next week's episode. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deccett. We had assistance this week from Samantha Simmons and Will Coley. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.