Susan Glasser is POLITICO’s chief international affairs columnist and host of its new weekly podcast, The Global Politico.

Subscribe to The Global POLITICO on Apple Podcasts here. | Subscribe via Stitcher here.

Susan Glasser: Thank you. I’m Susan Glasser, and welcome back to The Global POLITICO, where this week we’re with retired General Jim Clapper, who was our director of national intelligence until January of this year.


You have had, I think, sir, one of the most surprising metamorphoses I’ve seen in public life. You’ve gone from famously not loving the press, not speaking out very much in our most senior intelligence position in the country, to being perhaps one of the most visible public critics of President Trump and commentators on just the extraordinary events that are happening right now. Was there a particular moment that it changed for you?

James Clapper: No, I don’t think so. I think the reason I started doing this more public presence, I guess, is that I recall when I was in government as the DNI, particularly in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, it’s rather difficult when you’re in the position to speak as freely and candidly as you might like. So, we had some very crucial surrogates for the intelligence community, notably Mike Hayden, for example, who is a great, articulate spokesman for the intelligence community and defending the programs and all that, and he could do that in a way that those of us still in those positions couldn’t to.

So, I remembered that example and decided that perhaps I could be a helpful voice, particularly in speaking for the rank and file men and women of the intelligence community.

Glasser: So, was it Donald Trump’s early attacks on the intelligence community that first prompted you to speak out?

Clapper: Well, that certainly, I think, was a factor, certainly, and his disparagement of the community which, of course, started before he became president, and particularly, his reference to the community as Nazis, which occasioned my attempt to call him, and amazingly, he took the call.

And I attempted to impart to him what a national treasure he was inheriting in the form of the U.S. intelligence community, that was standing by to do everything it could to help him and support him in the very difficult job he was taking on, where information—and specifically, intelligence—was going to be invaluable in helping him make decisions and gauge risk. And so, I, again, felt I couldn’t let that pass, and I needed to attempt to defend the community.

Glasser: Okay, so, flash-forward nine months, and we’ve gone from just having rhetoric from President Trump, obviously, to now there are people in place, there’s personnel in place, there are policies being undertaken. Do you believe that there has been a specific harmful effect, that the intelligence agencies have, in fact, been politicized? What are the consequences of Trump?

Clapper: Well, I think what perhaps relieved the pressure—if that’s the right term—is that the particular people he had in mind as Nazis—meaning John Brennan, Jim Comey and myself—are gone. And now he has people in place that he selected in those positions, and so I think that has actually served to the benefit, again, of the rank and file in the intelligence community, whom I believe will continue to do the right thing. They will convey truth to power, whether the power listens to that truth or not.

Glasser: So, let’s get more specific. You are also a general in the Air Force, and we’ve been having a really fascinating national debate over the last week, since General Kelly made his comments about the nature of sacrifice of Gold Star families, and it was clear from his comments that there was a real divide in how he sees the world, between civilians, between those who are aware of the military sacrifice and those who aren’t. Do you think those comments reflect your view of the reality?

Global Translations A new podcast series from POLITICO. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Clapper: Well, I think first, the whole episode with the tragic death of the four Special Operations soldiers and the aftermath of that and the politicization of a Gold Star family, I just thought it was terrible. And yes, there is a difference. General Kelly pointed this out. When you have the 1 percent that are defending the other 99 percent, and I think there is an insulation to a certain extent that increasingly people don’t understand the sacrifices that men and women in the armed forces make, sometimes the ultimate sacrifice.

I thought it was a searing thing—a searing experience for me to watch General Kelly talk about his own experience because it’s pretty well known in military circles how hard he protected his own situation, his own privacy and the privacy of the profound loss of his own son, and he’s never made a big thing of it, didn’t want disproportionate attention paid to him because of it.

But I do think that once you’re out of uniform and you’re in a political position—which he’s in—people do listen to that, but I don’t believe that entitles any of us to being unquestioned. It would have been great for me in the 16 years that I served in civilian capacities after I left the military if, well, I got a pass. No one is ever going to question anything I said or did. Well, they certainly did, and that is appropriate in our system. So, as a press spokesman—

Glasser: Sarah Sanders.

Clapper: Press spokeswoman tried to assert that just because he’s a four-star retired Marine general, anything he says should not be questioned is absurd.

Glasser: And that brings up, of course, the broader question of the role of generals in the Trump national security apparatus. You know, he often talks of them as ‘my generals.’ Conversely, people who are worried about his national security have persisted in seeing that there is some comfort in having experienced people like General Kelly, General McMaster, and of course, General Mattis at the Pentagon. Where do you come down on that? Do you feel that we’re safer because we have these generals, or that it’s a perversion of our civilian control system?

Clapper: Well, I say this as a veteran myself; I spent a total of 34 years in the military, counting my Marine Corps Reserve time. I’ve always been very respectful of the basic tenet in our system of civilian control of the military. So, on the one hand, I have sort of a visceral aversion to the prominence of the either active duty, in the case of General McMaster, or retired general officers filling these political, civilian positions.

But, having said that, yes. I’m glad they’re there. I think they represent a seasoned, wise, moderate, temperate judgment, and I think it’s particularly true with Secretary Jim Mattis, who’s a personal friend, and who I think carries perhaps a greater burden than any of his predecessors.

Glasser: So, let’s talk about that greater burden. Do you think that there is a serious chance of war with North Korea now?

Clapper: I’ll answer it this way. When I was a young intelligence officer, I was stationed at the Pacific Command in the Directorate of Intelligence then, in 1976, and went through the tree-cutting incident in the DMZ, where two U.S. soldiers were hacked to death by a Korean military contingent. And I recall that and I recall the atmosphere, and I thought the imminence of the prospect of war was more palpable then that it is now. Now, that said, I do worry about some of this intemperate, bellicose rhetoric that’s passed back and forth between President Trump and Kim Jong-un.

President Trump has the advantage of being surrounded by an excellent cadre of advisors. Kim Jong-un doesn’t have any advisors that are going to give him objective counsel. He’s surrounded by medal-bedecked sycophants, who dutifully follow him around like puppy dogs with their notebooks open, ascribing his every utterance, and pushing back against the great leader is not a way to get ahead.

And so I do wonder what Kim Jong-un’s ignition point is, when some insult that’s been hurled at him by the president will just ignite him. And I think it’s also useful to remember, as was made clear to me when I visited North Korea in November 2014, is that Kim Jong-un is not merely the head of state of the DPRK—the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea—he’s also their deity. So, when you insult him as the head of state, you’re also insulting the deity, which of course the regime plays to a fare-thee-well to the domestic audience there.

And the other aspect of this is that the president’s threats of fire and fury and destroying all of North Korea—well, there’s no way that if that were to happen that will be restricted only to north of the demilitarized zone. It will not be. It will spill into the south, where you’re putting in jeopardy about 15 million people, who live within artillery and rocket range of all that weaponry that’s lined up along the DMZ.

And I believe that if we—particularly, if we peremptorily attack North Korea—that without deliberation, that North Korea will reflexively unleash all that rocketry and artillery—which they’re pretty good at, by the way—on Seoul, and do as they vowed many times, to convert Seoul into a sea of fire. So, if we do something like this, this will have cataclysmic results.

Glasser: Well, you responded to Donald Trump’s fire and fury rhetoric in August and you said you were seriously worried about his having access to the nuclear codes as a result of this kind of intemperate rhetoric, and that earned you a sort of cryptic but famous Donald Trump attack tweet. I suppose you’re not really a critic of the president unless you get an attack tweet.

He tweeted at 9:15 a.m. August 24: “James Clapper, who famously got caught lying to Congress, is now an authority on Donald Trump. Will he show you his beautiful letter to me?”

Tell us about that tweet and what happened after that. What is it like to be attacked by the president?

Clapper: Well, an earlier tweet of his was right after the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the 8th of May, chaired by Senator Lindsey Graham, and after that he tweeted that Sally Yates and I had “choked like dogs.” And I remember thinking to myself—if I’d returned from a congressional hearing and met with President Obama in the Oval Office, and the president had said to me, “Boy, you really choked on that hearing,” I would have been devastated. But a tweet didn’t bother me.

With specific reference to the tweet that you mentioned, what he was referring to is an exchange I had with Senator Wyden in March of 2013, and I made a mistake, but I didn’t lie, which is that’s a more appealing narrative that the media’s stuck with. I simply wasn’t thinking about what Senator Wyden was asking me about. What he was asking me about in his rather euphemistic way, about the maintenance of dossiers—a famous word—and I thought he was—what came to mind was—what he was asking about was that which is governed by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, meaning the limited storage by NSA of business records—telephony business records.

What I thought about was Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Ac—Amendments Act, which governs the collection on non-U.S. persons overseas. And the fact that I said that if there were such a collection it would be inadvertent, is a comment that would make absolutely no sense in the context of Section 215—which is what he was asking me about—it only made sense in the context of Section 702.

And on its face, you know, I’ve been trotting up to the Hill for 20 or 25 years; I’ve testified many times; answered probably, either orally or in writing, thousands of questions. And then, the thought that, “Well, gee, just for a change of pace, I think I’ll lie on this one question, and by the way, do it on live television in front of one of my oversight committees,”—which is an absurd proposition. So yeah, I made a big mistake, but I didn’t lie, and there’s a big difference.

The ‘beautiful letter’ he referred to is a rather, I thought, pro forma courtesy handwritten note that I dispatched when both candidates were known, the night before the election. The intelligence community’s always done this—deployed two briefing teams who would be poised to brief whoever the president-elect was the next morning, should they win it, with the president’s daily brief. And so I wrote almost identical notes to Secretary Clinton and one to future President Trump, simply pledging the support of the intelligence community, and that we’d do all that we could to support him, and that I would hope that he would not only allow, but encourage, the practice of the principle of speaking truth to power. And that was about it.

Glasser: Truth to power. Amazing. So, it’s interesting that he did make a point of attacking you around this incident with Senator Wyden, and the criticism around mass surveillance. Trump is very skillful at identifying—even if he can’t quite get it clear, or precisely describe it—but that’s what he wants to do, is always have something to use against people, even if it’s distorted.

I found it very interesting that he brought that back up. I went back and read a profile of you that Wired magazine did—my former colleague Garrett Graff —a very good profile. It came out in November 2016, but it was almost like a report from a different era. I was so struck by how it talked about your legacy would be defined by this surveillance question, by the damage done to the intelligence community, by the Snowden revelations.

It talked about this world of proliferating threats and technology, and it’s just amazing to me that not quite a year later, it feels like we’re just living on Planet Trump; it’s just a different universe. We’re talking about things like what constitutional powers does the Executive have? We’re talking about nuclear war with North Korea. We’re talking about Russia—which you and I haven’t talked about yet, but we will—and wasn’t mentioned at all in that piece. Does it feel like the world has shifted? Are we all just in Donald Trump’s reality show now?

Clapper: Well, yeah, we’re in a different place, there’s absolutely no question about it. I think his presidency represents a completely different model than what we’re used to. And I think to your point, yes, he is a great communicator, you know? He uses Twitter to great effect. I just wish he could stick more to the truth, because it’s a very effective way of communicating directly with the American people.

But, the distortions and untruths that find a way into these tweets, I think over time are going to make him and his message less and less credible.

Glasser: Well, what do you believe the effect of these Republican senators speaking out about President Trump will be? They’ve made this point about truthfulness and how it undermines the United States internationally.

Clapper: I think, on the one hand I’m really glad Senator Corker and Senator Flake have spoken as they did. I thought Senator Flake’s speech was thoughtful, very compelling, and very eloquent. And I think probably what he and Senator Corker have said and the concerns they’ve expressed are emblematic of others who haven’t reached the ‘enough’ point to speak up.

Now, from the standpoint of the White House, the Steve Bannons of the world, this is a red-letter day. It was great, you know? Two more scalps, two more people that we’re going to get rid of who are not supportive of the president’s agenda. It’s not such much an agenda, as much as the uncompromising, complete support of the president, no matter what he says or does.

Glasser: So, one of the things that has obviously gotten under the president’s skin the most is continued criticism of his behavior on Russia, and the spiraling investigations. You joked in Aspen at the Security Forum that Trump wanted to make Russia great again as his foreign policy. Joking aside, he hasn’t yet succeeded really in reorienting American policy, but do you see long-term consequences in terms of our ability to deal with Russia?

Clapper: Well, I certainly do, and this is one of the reasons that I’ve felt the need to speak publicly, because of the profound threat posed by Russia, as they are committed to undermining our fundamental system, our values. And that is a very serious threat to this country. And I don’t quite understand this indifference to that threat, as exemplified by the failure of the Executive Branch to implement the additional sanctions that were not unanimous, but all close, on a bipartisan basis, that were voted on by the Congress. The administration has yet to implement those sanctions.

I also find it curious that we’ve got all excited about Iran’s alleged failure to live up to the spirit of the JCPOA—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—whereas the Russians are in abject violation of the INF Treaty—the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty—and have been for some time. You never hear about that.

And to me, if you look at what Russia is trying to do to undermine us, and the modernization of their strategic nuclear forces—and they only have one adversary in mind when they do that—I just find it worrisome, bothersome, that there isn’t more focus on the threat posed by Russia.

Glasser: Do you think that there was enough focus on the threat posed by Russia during the Obama administration?

Clapper: I think that evolved. All administrations in our recent history—particularly since the demise of the Soviet Union—have thought it would be a great idea to reset the relationship and try to put it on a more positive footing. And certainly, the Obama administration was no exception.

But I think once the invasion of Ukraine, and their activity in Syria to help support Assad—I think the noble objective of improving relations with Russia was over, and saw it for what it was. And particularly, as we became more and more aware, as we gathered evidence of the Russians’ very aggressive and direct interference in our election in 2016, I think that was a wake up.

Glasser: Were we quick enough to wake up? I mean, do you feel like you were having to push internally?

Clapper: Well, look, you can always do the coulda, woulda, shoulda’s after the fact. There’s no textbook or template for what to do in a situation like this. And basically, the argument that we had—and we spent a lot of hours discussing this. It wasn’t like we were oblivious to what was going on, as evidenced by the statement that Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and I put out on the 7th of October

Glasser: And he’s been a guest on this podcast as well. We talked at length about that day—a very famous day, obviously.

Clapper: But the argument was, if we amplify, call attention to, what the Russians were doing, are we dignifying it, giving it more import than it merited? And even more important, if, for example, the president himself spoke about this, would he be seen as doing this as a political act, putting his hand on the scale in favor of Hillary Clinton, and in opposition to Donald Trump? And so, that was the countervailing arguments for why we didn’t go more public earlier.

Glasser: Have you learned things over the course of these last few months of revelations about the investigation that’s ongoing that you didn’t know at the time?

Clapper: Oh yeah, absolutely. We had a general awareness, for example, of Russian use of social media—Facebook ads, use of Twitter, fake news implants—we had a general understanding of that. But now, as time has elapsed and time has gone on, I’ve certainly learned a lot more about the depth and breadth of what the Russians were about.

Glasser: And what about that now-famous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower? Was that something that you were aware of the extent of the contacts?

Clapper: No. We had no idea about that, which I think serves to rebut the president’s absurd allegation about surveilling Trump Tower.

Glasser: Have you spoken with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, in the course of things?

Clapper: I have not.

Glasser: No. Have they asked you to appear?

Clapper: They have not.

Glasser: But you would do so if you were asked?

Clapper: Oh, sure.

Glasser: And, do you have a sense that there are still big revelations to come? This is one of the big things you hear from people all the time, like people are already sort of handicapping the investigation. And I wonder if that make sense.

Clapper: I don’t know. I can’t say.

Glasser: If you were running this investigation, who would you really want to hear from? What parts of the story do you feel like are most important for us to understand more?

Clapper: I think, from what I gather, and I have no inside baseball insight here—from what I gather, they are either engaging or attempt to engage all the right characters here. So, I don’t have any additional suggestions on—you know, I do think, regardless of the findings, that at some point this has to end, and there has to be a declaration of something, of findings, whatever. Because, as it is, this is going to continue to be a cloud, not only over the president, but the office of the presidency, the administration, the government, and the country. And I think it’s in everyone’s interest—Republican, Democratic, no matter—that this come to a resolution.

Glasser: What do you think about the congressional investigations? They appear to already be descending into recriminations and almost collapsing?

Clapper: Well, I think the only one that is still bipartisan and reasonably objective, and there’s some hope of something coming out of it is the Senate Intelligence Committee. I think the House Intelligence Committee is too riven with partisanship for anything useful to come out of it.

Glasser: You had a long experience, of course, in your role as the director of national intelligence with these congressional oversight committees. Do you believe that they are able to effectively play that role of oversight that was envisioned, really, as part of the post-Watergate reforms?

Clapper: No, I do. And you’re right, that’s is what—I was around then. I was a young officer stationed at the National Security Agency at the time, so I kind of went through all the Watergate and the aftermath.

Glasser: And you’ve said that this might be a worse crisis, by the way.

Clapper: And the reason is because of the backdrop of what’s involved here with a foreign adversary actively and aggressively and directly engaging in our political processes to interfere with them and to undermine our system; whereas, in Watergate you were dealing with a two-bit petty burglary, domestic only. So, to me, it’s the contexts that are dramatically different.

Glasser: But on the intelligence committees?

Clapper: Well, I believe they can be effective. I have felt they were. But it’s very much dependent on the leadership of the committees. So, when I look back at the Chairman Mike Rogers and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger era, here are two members of different parties who essentially put aside their partisan differences because they both recognized the higher cause that they had, which was to oversee the intelligence community, and what we’re doing was legitimate, legal, et cetera.

And at the same time, they were also effective voices to advocate and defend the community, particularly in the aftermath of Snowden.

Glasser: So, let me go back—

Clapper: So, it all depends on leadership.

Glasser: Okay. So, leadership is exactly where I wanted to go back to, as we’re finishing up. Tell us—you’ve seen it first hand—why does all this sort of turmoil surrounding the president and the White House and the process—why does it matter, fundamentally? I mean, we have a big infrastructure of professionals. What is it that the president can do that’s so disruptive? How much power does he have?

Clapper: Well, the president sets the tone here. He creates the atmosphere, and that can be enlightened, progressive, or it can be intimidating, depending on what the president’s agenda is. I think the other dimension of this that I worry about is impacts overseas with friends and allies, many of whom are very, very concerned about America’s position in the world and whether or not it’s going to continue its leadership, which has been the prevalent condition since World War II.

Glasser: Do you think Vladimir Putin thinks he’s winning?

Clapper: Why wouldn’t he? I mean, the Russians succeeded, I believe, beyond their wildest expectations. Their first objective in the election was to sow discontent, discord, and disruption in our political life, and they have succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They have accelerated, amplified the polarization and the divisiveness in this country and they’ve undermined our democratic system. They wanted to create doubt in the minds of the public about our government and about our system; and they succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They’ve been emboldened and they will continue to do this.

Glasser: Do you think--knowing what we know now what’s public—that it’s likely to have this Russia investigation lead to some sort of indictments, for example, of Paul Manafort or Mike Flynn?

Clapper: Well, it could for them. I think the real question is if there’ll be any legal action against the president, which in itself may or may not be a good thing for the country.

Glasser: Paul Manafort’s activities working with Russian oligarchs and Russian interests in Ukraine were pretty well known far before he got involved with the Trump campaign. Why do you think this never came to a legal head before? Was there any connection to U.S. intelligence?

Clapper: I’m not sure I understand your question. Was there a connection with U.S.—

Glasser: Were you aware of his activities?

Clapper: A connection with Paul Manafort and U.S. intelligence?

Glasser: Yes.

Clapper: No.

Glasser: No. So you were not aware of his activities, or—

Clapper: Oh, I was generally aware of them, yes. But, just remember, he’s a U.S. citizen and we typically avoid spying on U.S. citizens if at all possible.

Glasser: Do you think the Russians were also trying to influence the Hillary Clinton campaign? Were the Russians also trying to influence the Hillary Clinton—

Clapper: Well, I think their objectives shifted over time. Their first objective was—as I said earlier—to sow discord, discontent, disruption. And their next objective was—because of the very strong personal animus that Putin himself had for both Clintons, both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton—and he particularly held her responsible for what he felt was an attempted color revolution in 2011 to attempt to overturn him. So, he had very strong hatred—personal hatred—towards her, and that kind of led him to—if I’m opposed to her, who am I going to favor? And I think over time—I mean, the Russians didn’t take Trump seriously either initially, but then when he became the candidate, I think they figured he’d be much better to deal with because he’s a deal-maker, a businessman, and would go easier on, say, human rights abuses and this sort of thing. So, they found him the more appealing of the two candidates.

Glasser: Putin’s speech the other day in Valdai suggested that they’re right back to a form of anti-American rhetoric, that they’ve kind of written off Trump at this point.

Clapper: I don’t know that. They may have. They may have found that their hope for improvement in relations hasn’t come to pass. In fact, if anything, they deteriorated further. So, I don’t know if they’ve written him off or not.

Glasser: So, you spent your whole career really, as you said, 50 years in intelligence. Do you believe that there are going to be long-term consequences from attacks on the institution—from the president?

Clapper: That is a key question. I’ve expressed concern about the assaults on our institutions, both from external sources—meaning the Russians—and internal sources. And I think this will be a real test of the resilience of our system and its pillars.

Glasser: You know, Trump often, in his critiques of intelligence, basically brings up Iraq and the invasion of Iraq. And it was a long time ago, but he won’t let that go. That really is at the core of his assault on the sort of independence and objectivity of our intelligence institutions. Do you feel there’s any way to ever recover from a—

Clapper: Well, you know, it happened. It’s unfortunate that we don’t hear about all of the improvements that have been made to avoid a similar circumstance as occurred with the infamous weapons of mass destruction National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that was published in October 2002. I remember it well because my fingerprints are on that NIE, and I personally learned a lot and participated in a lot of the remedies to avoid a similar circumstance since then. It was a terrible mistake. We’ve acknowledged it and I think made a lot of fixes, starting with George Tenet, when he was still the DCI when that occurred, and the intelligence community has taken a lot of preventative steps to avoid a similar circumstance.

Glasser: So, do you think if the White House ordered up a report, for example, saying that Iran was not complying with the Iran deal—if the intelligence community found that it was, they would resist that conclusion?

Clapper: Well, I would hope so. That’s a great question, and I believe that that will be certainly the first instinct of the working-level analysts that are involved in this. Now, what happens after they come up with their assessments, I really don’t know. I trust that their findings will not be compromised.

Glasser: So, as a result of us all being caught up in the Trump Show and these Twitter wars and the like, what do you think—are there important things in the world that we’re not paying attention to as a result of it? In your sort of DNI hat, are there things that you worry about at odd hours of the night because we’re spending all our days on tweets?

Clapper: Well, that’s a good question. I don’t think the intelligence community itself institutionally is losing its focus; it will continue to do its job; continue to be vigilant on all these issues that are besetting us. I think the greater danger is just the preoccupation of the policy community, and how much attention they pay to what the intelligence community is telling them.

Glasser: Right. So, we’re spending our time, obviously, on North Korea, or on Iran. So, the question is, are there stories that you feel like you want to make sure we’re paying attention to?

Clapper: Not beyond the usual suspects. Obviously, what’s happening in China right now is crucial, in the party congress, which as someone said has anointed a new emperor of China in President Xi. So there’s the rise of China, and their active involvement in the United States internally in our business and financial realms. That certainly bears watching.

Obviously, what the Russians are doing, their continued violation of the INF Treaty—which, again, you don’t hear much about. We’re paying a lot of attention to North Korea, no question about it. Terrorism will continue to be a challenge, and acknowledging that we’ve had great success in reducing the physical accoutrements of the ISIS caliphate as a nation state-like entity—that’s all good. But what we really haven’t confronted or challenged is the ideology, the messaging, or the counter-messaging.

So, we have lots of challenges around the world, and I have no doubt the intelligence community will continue to watch them, monitor them, and report on them. The issue is, with all of our other distractions here in Washington, particularly, will the appropriate attention be paid to each one of these issues?

Glasser: Distractions is one of the more polite words people have used these days. So, one final thing. When you were talking in August after President Trump’s fire and fury remarks you said at one point on CNN, “How long is this nightmare going to last?” With your intelligence hat on, would you assess that the president has a strong likelihood of finishing out this term?

Clapper: I do. I think it would take a lot to remove him from office. The 25th Amendment that people bring up is a very, very high bar for removal, and appropriately so. And if that were to happen—and let’s just say for the sake of discussion there were an impeachment, even less likely a conviction—all that would serve to do is heighten the polarization and the divisiveness, because the base will never accept that, and that would just feed the conspiracy theories. So, I’m not sure that an outcome like that—a president’s removal—would be a good thing.

I have to say, there’s nobody that wants the president to be successful more than I. My father served for 28 years in the Army; he was an Army intelligence officer in World War II and I grew up in his shadow, followed his footsteps, and so it’s been instilled in me—and certainly that was my feeling for the 50-plus years I spent both in the military and civilian capacities that support to, respect for, and reverence for the president as commander in chief is uppermost. And it’s a very painful thing for me to be seen as a critic of this president, but I have those concerns.

Glasser: Our guest this week is James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence. I feel like that’s a really powerful note to end it on. I can’t think of anyone who’s had a more, in a way surprising reinvention in public life than you have over the last year, and your response to these extraordinary events and President Trump and his arrival in office.

I want to thank you for joining us on The Global POLITICO, and of course, thank all our listeners. You can listen to us on iTunes or whatever is your favorite podcast platform, and you can email me any time at [email protected].

For now, sir, thank you very much for taking the time.

Clapper: Thanks for having me.

Glasser: Thank you.