Welcome back to the Podforce One podcast. I'm Miranda Devine. Today I'm at the Eisenhower

Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. with the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsie

Gabbard. Thank you so much for joining Podforce One. Thank you.

Now, you're the Director of National Intelligence.

Can you just explain what that means?

What is that role?

Well, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created in the wake of the failures

around the horrific terrorist attack on September 11th and really was created out of a recognition of silos

that exists within the intelligence community.

One entity is not talking to the other.

They're not sharing intelligence with each other that unfortunately really led to the failures

that drove the lack of any kind of really early warning that this attack

was being plotted and planned for a significant period of time.

And so this office really exists to be an oversight element over the 18 different intelligence

elements that exist within the U.S. government.

It exists to serve as that integrator to get all of the different intelligence coming from each of

these different agencies and departments and put them together in a way that will provide, for example,

the president with an objective, apolitical, unbiased intelligence assessment to best help inform his decisions,

as well as cabinet members, members of Congress, and other policymakers.

So there are a few main functions, but really it is to serve as that oversight element

and that integrator to ensure that the best of our intelligence

is best informing really critical national security decisions that are made almost every day.

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