Michael Hayden

George Tenet from 1997 to 2004.

Mike Hayden from 2006 to 2009.

Robert Gates from 1991 to 1993.

Director of the CIA since 2006.

For example, in the 2016 campaign, when he was briefed on nuclear weapons, He said, if we have them, why can't we use them? And he repeated this in the briefing three different times.

The briefer, who was no less than Michael Hayden, General Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, Trump came back to this three times.

And then there's the report of General Kelly.

of Trump in office in 2017.

Of course, during Trump's first term, they all broke that and called him Hitler, Mussolini, a liar, creep, Auschwitz.

General Hayden, I thought, was the worst.

He drew pictures – he put pictures on the Internet of Auschwitz and put Trump's name on there as if he was – the cages he said were like Auschwitz.

But anyway, to make a long story short, nobody thought he would be reelected because his polls were so low.

He did a

Michael Hayden, huh? Except with glasses.

Put up my fingers, you know? This is...

As I was thinking about asking this question about a lasting image or a lasting memory, a lab scan, I think this lab scan, I was kind of coming around to this notion of the value of... in-person-only TLP talks.

And just the overall threat level that exists in the world right now is just unprecedented.

You know, General Michael Hayden, it was at the first or second threat conference back in 2017, said a phrase that we have just recycled over and over again at the Cypher Brief.

He said, the world has been more dangerous, but it's never been more complicated.

And so I think every year that phrase has just grown in its relevance.

And then I was then I voted for Ralph Nader because, you know, Obama was running around saying the Democratic Party needs to get over Vietnam.

I'm not a Michael Hayden Democrat.

Michael Hayden, Tom, not Michael Hayden.

God, Michael Hayden was the NSA chief.

Tom Hayden.

I'm not a Tom Hayden Democrat who's skeptical of military authority.

They were supporting Free Press.

But you've got Michael Hayden.

That's who they're talking about.

Don Baer.

This in a war that began under an intelligence failure, that a whole generation of us were, were dragged into a debacle in the, in the Middle East by no small part in the failure of the IC to correct the record with the, with the White House that had a preferred narrative.

And I walked in the door, and in January of 2007, Michael Hayden made us raise our right hands, and in this Old headquarters entrance, which has on the wall, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." And then in front of you are stars on the wall for every CIA officer killed in the line of duty.

And it is a shrine, and you, you can't leave that experience unchanged.

And it may sound hokey, but, but we really believe in speaking truth to power, and it was instilled in me from my first days as a baby analyst that the country, the president, is counting on that.

It begins on day one of a person's career.

I remember very clearly the day that I swore the oath in CIA's Marble Auditorium with Michael Hayden, the director at the time, demanding that we as junior new officers We'll tell him what we believe and we'll give him our best judgment.

And he related it to his own military experience and how much he valued junior officers being willing to tell him, not in front of everybody, not necessarily, but being willing to tell him what they really believe and that that's how organizations make good decisions.

And so it's a structural feature of the intelligence community that it should not be of great individual courage to speak truth to power.