Trevor Aronson joins us. He is the director of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, the author of The Terror Factory, inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism, the producer of documentaries such as Al Jazeera's informants, and an investigative journalist for outlets such as The Intercept. He has won numerous awards for his work and has given an excellent TED talk on the subject.

Good to have you with us today. Of course. Thanks for having me.

Now, I recently taught a university course on 9-11 and terrorism and used your book as reading material.

We've got the Kindle version here. And I was reminded of your work last week when I read two separate stories, which

will talk about the first of a man who purchased a machine gun from FBI informants,

who urged him to carry out a mass shooting, and the second, a man who attempted to hire

an FBI agent undercover to carry out a hit.

This terror circus just never seems to stop. But before we get into those details, most people that we know, friends and family,

tends to believe the daily news cycle and the constant threat of terrorism that the government warns us about,

which in turn makes us fearful of each other, public spaces, airports, and so on.

But people don't seem to be aware of the deceitful nature of the terror threats issued by our

governments, which you call the terror factory.

It seems that more than 50%, you can correct me if I'm wrong, of terror threats or cases

are actually manufactured by the government itself carried out by agent provocateurs that the FBI is the single organization responsible for hatching and financing more terrorist plots in the USA than any other organization including al-Qaeda And you cite one defendant's lawyer who stated that

the FBI are creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim victory in the war on terror. So could

you please to start, give us a quick synopsis of what is the terror factory and the true nature

of the threat of terrorism to the public?

Of course, yeah. So, I mean, to address one thing, obviously there is a threat of terrorism in the United States and elsewhere.

Right now, the threat of terrorism in the United States is probably lower than it would be in, say, Europe.

But still, the threat of terrorism, including from Muslim terrorists, is a real thing.

What's happened in the United States, however, since 9-11, has been a very proactive

response by law enforcement to try to stop the next attack.

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