And what did that say to you?

Well, he, he get back, he got back in the car and said, "We have a truce with the Pakistani army," and under the truce, when it's a Taliban vehicle, only the driver has to get out, and everyone else can stay in the car.

Uh, if it's a civilian vehicle, everyone has to get out whenever the Pakistani army shows up.

So the truce allows Taliban vehicles to have people in the back seats who remain hidden, kidnap victims like myself, foreign militants can all hide in the back seat.

On that same drive, I saw numerous Pakistani government checkpoints all abandoned.

Uh, instead there were Taliban checkpoints on the road.

It's a Taliban government in North Waziristan.

Tell me finally about the escape.

Like, the Hatch Act is the thing that makes the government-funded campaign ads illegal.

And it w- and the only body that can enforce that, in my understanding, is Congress, and you have no, none of that.

So is this something that the Democrats might look into if they win a majority? I would assume so, but that's the problem right now.

With our, I think, extraordinary healthy system, three co-equal branches, it's very hard to get anything done, you know, and people explain, you know, complain about that.

But this is a democracy, division of power checks on each other, and there's no check right now.

So weeks before the midterm election, the President of the United States is personally choosing these ads.

They cost, right, I think 2.5 million, and he's got hundreds of millions of dollars in his PAC, but he's using Americans' taxpayer dollars to pay for the, so far it's been 2.5 million to have the ads of his personal choice air in the middle of an election season.

Well, Trump came out and blamed Ukraine for the price of diesel a week later.

So obviously, David, questions about the attacker's motive, the attacker's background, whether Iran had anything to do with this.

So we don't know the motive.

We don't know if it had anything to do with this.

And I just want to take a minute to talk about the heroism here.

It's extraordinary.

I either at least the first pilot is stabbed and there's reports that he tried to maybe open a door so that people could get in the cockpit despite being stabbed.

And then there's a great bit of reporting here for our colleagues, Felicia Schwartz and Ariel Reshef.

And again, if these ads are so important to the White House and they want to remind people to love their country and to be patriotic, why is the president starring in all of them?

But on the other hand, we keep hearing reporting that they're gearing up for bigger strikes after the midterms.

Well, it's what was said by the Iowa voter.

You know, look what people do, not what they say.

One great flag today, our colleague at MSNOW, Julia Jester, noted this.

Another aircraft carrier departed Sunday.

This is an American aircraft carrier for the Middle East.

This is the Theodore Roosevelt that left San Diego.

David, what else do we know?

It's a confusing situation right now, to be honest, in terms of the fact that they were released on bail suggests that maybe the explosive devices they have weren't actually functional or there may be some other reason that they were released on bail.

What it does suggest is that they weren't close to carrying out a sort of mass casualty attack.

That's what I'm hearing for experts.

You can imagine if this had happened in the U.S., it would be unusual if people were released on bail.

That's the best-case scenario.

You brought up the scenario of them being influenced.

Is there a concern now about self-radicalization, David?

What do you what do you make of that?

Oh, there's definitely an effort by the White House, really by the president himself to get to punish certain outlets that he doesn't like.

And the point is to make us change our coverage.

I can speak for myself.

It's not going to impact my coverage, which I always try to make fact based.

And and and so now he's sort of this is a signal to CNN and all of us.

But what struck me about this attempt by the president, the sort of unprecedented, was the way the press unified, that there was, you know, everyone agreed that they would not carry, you know, any video, any live images of the summit.

Do you how can you square them or do you with the national security argument?

So when we're looking ahead to November, is it fair to ask if this was a test run, if maybe conversations were had behind the scenes about the consequences for fully defying this order?

It could be a test run.

I don't know.

I haven't heard of specific conversations, but the scenario you're talking about is what's so concerning.

And the scenario is that federal agents arriving at polling places in heavily Democratic areas.

We were very worried about this when Bill Pulte was the acting director of national intelligence.

Jay Clayton hopefully is less apt to do this, but would maybe show up at a polling place.

The significance there, help me understand why that's so important.

Why is it dangerous?

Because I think the American public has a right to know in terms of national security when American troops that are fighting Iran don't have enough interceptor missiles to shoot down Iranian drones that are coming to kill them.

And that's more important.

I mean, some of the administration wouldn't want that to get out because it's embarrassing.

But it's our job to inform the public.

It's confidential.

Congress's job to oversee the executive branch.

Do we have one we can put up on the screen? I hope so.

How much fuel does he have to Donald Trump's desires any longer? The United States has not been on Ukraine's side and Ukraine is still fighting.

He doesn't have much fealty.

He's it's Europe that's given them a huge loan that's helping them.

So the war kept them alive.

Who's the influence worldwide? Donald Trump does not have the same influence that he had at the last UN General Assembly.

Like, I just think there's no no question about that.

Last year, again, in the speech, he specifically said, if Russia does not agree to peace soon, this is a year ago.

How much of the conversation between the two men will be about artificial intelligence and the threat it poses?

Where has he accomplished the most?

I would say Gaza in terms of stopping the heaviest fighting.

There's continuing to be deaths there.

More aid has gotten in there, but there's no long term solution.

You know, Ukraine, he's completely achieved nothing, to be honest, and that he misread the conflict and hasn't been able to deliver much there at all.

There's just a just on the broader theme of Ukraine.

His alliances, our colleague who runs our London, our international news operation, Ian Sherwood.

Is this part of the reason why? He's not a reliable partner any longer.

... of any of this?

No.

No signs at all.

Um, it seems to have come from the top, but w- we don't know for sure.

But they were all very professional.

We were asking questions about the UN General Assembly, a huge, you know, world gathering coming this week, the visit of, uh, Chinese President Xi later in the week.

That's an enormous thing.

I wonder how you heard all of that.

That's a mouthful.

mouthful.The GLP-1 pill you've been waiting for is now on Ro.

Yep, it's finally here, with the same clinically proven ingredient, now in a pill, and now on Ro.

It's the first FDA-approved GLP-1 pill for weight loss.

At the lowest price available, that's one daily GLP-1 pill for big results.

Now on Ro.

Go to ro.co/listen to see if you qualify.

Uh, Jordan is a stalwart US ally, but it's, this is, this is wearing on everyone, right? It, we're, we're complaining about gas prices, as well we should be, and food prices, but in that part of the world, our allies are getting hit by missiles and drones and having their actual livelihoods affected.

Can you tell us a little bit more about them?

Sure.

And I love that you, um, held up that paper.

Um, I was a reporter at The New York Times.

I was at, um, down on that day and, um, contributed to some of the stories in that newspaper, and it, it changed my life, and I just wanna be open about how personal this is to me.

Um, one of the people I talked about was it's Lieutenant Dan Sochi.

He was a freshman, uh, as you talked about, uh, from Villanova University, and he heard something about, you know, something happening in New York, so he and his roommate turned on their TV, and the next thing they saw was the second plane hitting, um, the World Trade Center.

Can you talk to us about your experience, what 9/11 meant to your life, where it led you, um, and what it's like to look back on all of this now?

David, are we safer today than we were 25 years ago?

I think we are safer from Al-Qaeda, core Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, who, and a good thing, is no longer on this earth.

I wrote a story today about a Marine.

He was a freshman at Villanova, and he turns on his TV when he hears about New York, and he sees the second plane at the Trade Center.

There he is.

Lieutenant Dan Sochi from Queens, Bayside, Queens.

He and his roommate make a pact.

What happened to him?

Does that track with the concerns of intelligence professionals that you talk to, especially given that we're looking tomorrow at the 25th commemoration of 9-11? Yeah,

there's real concerns.

It's the same brain drain in the intelligence community that Ken talked about.

But we're looking at new types of threats.

There are still these extremist groups that Ken said were out there, but now they have new tools like AI, like drones.

And then one major concern in the intelligence community is that Some countries now are nervous about sharing intelligence with the United States because there's been so much turmoil in the administration.

There's an amazing anecdote in Ken's story, which I recommend everybody, about an operative that was training in the Philippines to become a pilot.

So can you tease out that thread when you specifically focus on the Iran piece of this?

Why?

So, and this is more critical of the president, uh, my apologies.

But, um, I talked to six cur- current and former US officials, and the president, who started calling again for an uprising, it's, it's sort of a microcosm for the entire war.

It was completely rushed, and there was sort of no thorough planning.

These six officials called me.

This idea of an uprising and the way the US approached it, and the Israelis, to be fair, it was rushed, amateurish, not realistic, flawed from the beginning, uh, and a fantasy.

Mm.

And it's been a messaging problem with the president.

What are you hearing about that?

I'm hearing that negotiations are at a standstill.

The Omanis are actually frustrated with the Iranians.

Ayman Moyaldin, our colleague, had a tip that they were close to a deal, I would say, about 10 days ago or two weeks ago, and nothing came of that.

So I think there's a lot of posturing on both sides.

The bottom line to me is that the Iranians are going to try to block the Strait of Hormuz, I think, through the midterm elections in the U.S. You'll see these continued flare-ups between the two sides, but I don't think the Iranians are going to make any major concessions.

They see President Trump is under intense political pressure as long as gas prices remain high through the midterm elections.

Witkoff and Kushner deciding to resume these talks and overall just how productive you think these conversations went.

David, I'm sorry for all the time that you spent covering this war that's not a war.

Um, it is a war.

And it was extraordinary, that one clip of the vice president saying that.

And what's amazing, he's saying it's not a war and there's flare-ups and all these kind of things.

Just Tuesday, CENTCOM announced that they carried out these strikes in Iran, and then the New York Times had an investigation.

And we haven't been able to corroborate any of this, but...

It looks like an American bomb hit a house, and I do believe it was unintentional, but there was a wedding going on inside.

Ukraine's now become the boogeyman for all of this.

When do they say it's a war and when do they say it's not a war?

they're talking out of both sides of their mouth.

This is a war.

50,000 Americans are now at risk there.

And I was just trying to keep track of all the false claims.

You know, the 40-year argument that no one else, no other administration, I guess Ronald Reagan as well, and others haven't won a war, that's just false.

People criticized it, but the invasion of Grenada, the invasion of Panama, retaking Kuwait, the Clinton administration had a successful intervention in Bosnia to help end that war.

And our intelligence assessments have always been that if we attack Iran, they will move to shut down the strait.

So, David, what happened to the economic pressure? It looks like we're back into a live hot war.

It looks like it.

I agree.

And there was a semblance of a new strategy here.

And it seemed like the U.S. in the last couple of strikes have been trying to attack any effort by the Iranians to close the Strait of Hormuz.

The first strike a few days ago was against an Iranian missile.

It was preparing to launch.

But I think many people are concerned this November that there's going to be a multifaceted push by the Trump administration to keep voters away.

Please, no, please do.

Um, well, [laughs] thank you, and I'm thrilled to be on the show 'cause there's time to talk.

So the first one was, uh, and I'll just try to keep it short, but annihilate Iran's, uh, navy.

To be fair, they partly achieved that.

They hit their larger boats.

There are still hundreds of smaller boats that they're using to slow down the, the s- flows of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as you mentioned.

Destroy their missiles.

Mm

So, David, lay out your reporting.

So I have tried to ask about the specific Wall Street Journal reporting, which is about people being kept in the dark in the White House.

I haven't been able to match that, but that sounds incredible to me.

That, to me, is a sign also of, I think, how desperate the Trump White House has become to try to get some progress in Ukraine.

And they keep a very close circle around the president.

That's many people say has led to bad decision making because he's consulting with so few people.

In terms of what Ratcliffe said, it's a combination of what you've seen in all the news reports.

Was there any intelligence that suggested Russia was going to potentially get more aggressive?

Right

... and he said, uh, he, he didn't say much himself.

So that could just be the style of this administration where everyone is sort of fears the boss, and everyone wants to let President Trump describe what happened in a meeting.

But, uh, no other news organization that I've been able to see has been able to get inside the details of the meeting.

One speculation about what happened is that he went in a way to warn Russia, that part of this was this announcement of sanctions against Iran that Secretary Bessent announced from the Treasury Department.

So then you send the CIA director to go to Russia, which plays a key role in aiding Iran with drones, and explosives, and other support, to cut it off.

And if you don't cut it off, you know, we're really gonna hit Russia with even more sanctions.

Hm.

David, you and I watched this earlier, Bessent, and think we got a little lost in the sauce on China, so I'm gonna try to zoom out here [laughs] which is if the purpose of these sanctions is to end the war in Iran, does it actually get us any closer to that end?

end?No, and I think it's fair to say this is not a game changer.

Um, again, this is, th- again, the power of this administration, this president and his marketing, so this D-Day, this is gonna be this enormous announcement that's gonna change the calculus for the hardliners that now run Iran, and I just think the answer is no.

I checked with diplomats from various countries and experts since we were on earlier.

They said the same thing.

There's no clear, you know, ah, threat to China.

B- but again, to focus on them because they buy 90% of the oil that Iro- Iran smuggles out, and that's a huge, you know, source of, of revenue for them.

Of course.

David, what did Donald Trump get out of Kim Jong-un the last time he met, which, by the way, was the first time an American president had met with him?

So there were three meetings between President Trump and Kim Jong-un.

And in short, the president got nothing.

There was a great interview with H.R. McMaster, who was the national security advisor in Trump's first term, when most of those meetings took place.

He tried to be fair.

He said, look, after the third meeting, Trump was offered a bad deal with North Korea by Kim Jong-un, and at least Trump turned that deal down.

But the bottom line from other experts I've talked to and McMaster himself was that President Trump will get virtually nothing out of this meeting.

Is that an expectation that's too big?