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Today, Explained

Insecurity complex

Today, Explained

Vox

News, Daily News, Politics

4.310.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 August 2018

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The president has threatened to revoke the national security clearances for current and former government officials. The Washington Post's Shane Harris explains why this is a bad idea for basically everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for the program today comes from Google Play, where you can find lots and lots of audiobooks.

0:06.2

And for a limited time, you can get $10 off an audiobook when you log in with your Google account at g.co-play-slash-explained.

0:16.2

There are over a thousand titles to choose from.

0:19.6

We use the word unprecedented a lot, talking about President Donald Trump. But there are so many unprecedented things.

0:34.4

It's where that one sticks around that long before we move on to the next.

0:38.6

Late Tuesday afternoon, the president's campaign manager and personal lawyer went down as guilty in the same hour.

0:51.1

Unprecedented. But come Wednesday, there were still lots of people talking about an unprecedented thing the president did last week.

1:00.6

His press secretary, Sarah Sanders, was even asked about it at an otherwise mostly Manafort Cohen press briefing.

1:09.6

Last time that you were in here, you read off some ex-official and one current official who the president was considering taking away their security clearance.

1:19.3

I wanted to follow up on that and ask who was conducting that review.

1:23.0

I'm sorry, who's doing the review? That's a number of people involved here at the White House.

1:29.0

Last Wednesday, President Trump revoked the security clearance of the former CIA director, John Brennan.

1:35.4

Again, unprecedented.

1:39.4

He gave a number of reasons and it's important to say that none of them had to do with John Brennan violating the terms of his security clearance.

1:46.4

Shane Harris covers intelligence and national security for the Washington Post.

1:50.4

So there was no allegation that he illegally disclosed classified information or improperly handled information or did something wrong in that respect, which is kind of what your clearance governs.

2:00.8

Got it. Basically, he said in a statement that Sarah Sanders read last week.

2:04.7

Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations,

2:16.0

wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration.

2:19.5

And it is true that John Brennan, I think more than any other former intelligence official has gone farther in his critiques at the president.

2:26.0

He is, I think, the most divisive president we've ever had in the Oval Office.

2:31.2

He is feeding and fueling hatred and animosity and misunderstandings among Americans.

...

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