This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross.

A few years back, we started hearing about a sinister, unseen,

force-threatening American progress.

It was the deep state, an unnamed group of officials within the U.S.

government that would always use their leverage in the federal bureaucracy

to oppose change, either because the deep

stateers were wedded to ill-advised policies of the past,

or because they sought to protect their own power, status, salary,

and pensions.

The menace of the deep state was an idea particularly

propagated by backers of President Donald Trump.

Our guest, David Rothkoff, says,

if there is a deep state, we should probably be thanking

rather than condemning it.

His new book recounts many instances

during the Trump administration when veteran government officials quietly

intervene to undermine some of Trump's most troubling

orders and policy initiatives, not because they threatened

the official's personal interests, but because they were illegal,

unworkable, immoral, or against the country's interests.

David Rothkoff is a former editor of Foreign Policy

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