What are the repercussions of what he wants to do and the way he and the administration has done it?

And I think, Charlie, that's a good way to frame it.

First is the impact of what the administration has done here.

They say they're trying to make America safer.

I really believe that what they've done is going to make us less safe.

Let me walk through that.

First of all, there was already significant, I wouldn't say extreme, but significant vetting of individuals from these countries.

Where do you, on torture, and where is the, where is CIA people whose consideration is the national security of the United States? Where were they in this argument that, gained some conversation last week about black sites, about water boiling and about extreme measures.

Who was the first person to learn of the attacks?

attacks?Yeah.

So the first time I learned of it, um, so when, when, when the briefing was done, I went down to the motorcade and my assigned vehicle was called the senior staff van.

So I got in there.

I was in there with, um, Karl Rove, the president's political advisor.

I was in there with, um, um, Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary.

And then at the last, very last minute, the president's photographer jumped in.

"I have nothing to say."

How much discussion was there that summer leading up to 9-11 around the threat that bin Laden posed and the potential for a domestic attack?

Sure.

So the previous previous nine months and I started briefing the president in early January before he was sworn in.

So it really was nine months.

There was an awful lot of discussion with him about Al Qaeda.

And I put that into kind of two buckets.

The first bucket was educating him on Al Qaeda.

And you're in the situation room with President Barack Obama.

Stephen, uh, I know you wanna jump in, and then I have a follow-up.

We...

Those measures that John and Michael talked about, they were kept secret because if we... they're disclosed to the enemy, they would be... their purpose and usefulness would be lost.

They were kept secret, and we knew at the time that we were gonna authorize and do things and establish programs that when the m- the crisis of the moment and the concern of the moment had died down, the American people might be, uh, at the safe space after we'd gotten... after Al-Qaeda, after we reduced the threat, the American people may be uncomfortable with them.

We knew that was a, a possibility, but we thought these were measures we had to do to get on top of the threat to prevent the country from being attacked again.

And I think that was the right trade-off.

And, uh, ultimately, those measures became public.

How confident are you with current administration's focus on terrorism?

You're gonna get last word on this.

Um, we briefed the senior leadership of Congress.

Um, I remember one Democratic senator who would later become an opponent, a vocal opponent, um, his response when he was briefed on EITs was, "Is that all you're doing to protect the country? My constituents would expect you to do even more." 'Cause he knew the context of the moment.

And then fast-forward to Dave Petraeus' confirmation hearing, which John McCain attended as the ex officio member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and, and Petraeus and McCain had a soliloquy about EITs.

And at the end of that, they talked about the ticking time bomb situation.

There's a nuclear weapon in New York, and you've got the guy who knows where it is, and he won't tell you.

What do you do? They agreed, they agreed that in that moment you would do extraordinary things.

How confident are you with current administration's focus on terrorism?

How much discussion was there that summer leading up to 9-11 around the threat that bin Laden posed and the potential for a domestic attack?

Sure.

So the previous nine months, and I started briefing the president in early January before he was sworn in.

So it really was nine months.

There was an awful lot of discussion with him about Al Qaeda.

And I put that into kind of two buckets.

The first bucket was educating him on Al Qaeda.

And then fast forward 10 years, nearly 10 years, and you're in the Situation Room with President Barack Obama.