to the worst stay in cia history which is the plumbing of the beirut embassy which killed so many cia officers and other americans at the time. subsequently this was probably an operation and that was the beginning. it was a little time and from that day forward having israeli blood on his hand than anyone it was the operational genius. the operational chief because he is so elusive and that he read where disguises and to pioneer and those sophisticated ied that drove israelis out of lebanon and then to trigger the israeli withdrawal and in short the most wanted guy and the other two most wanted were general qassem soleimani and the iranian general named qassem soleimani whose name a ring a bell sense he was killed january of this year. in any event of the caa tried to track down medea and i told the story of an operation on bill clinton's watch with cia director and actually they tracked him down to beirut and discovered he was discovering his mistress and word was at her and beat her as it turns out and then enlisted her to bundle him down to the dock and then to a battleship offsho

, old-school cia director. i spent a lot of time with her, right the summer before she was 95 and she was full of terrific untold stories about her husband and she said you know chris, they were all asked to do things they shouldn't have done. and i said like what? and we got into it and we talked about the fact that helms was a flawed character, he was smooth and he was you know, i loved the stories about him holding his own on the dance floor, fred astaire, this 1975 station over the shah of iran. helms was dancing with cynthia and fred astaire was dancing with the shah of iran . quite the character but flawed. he is relationship was always fascinating because he admired lbj for his domestic achievements and the great society, he was exasperated by the vietnam war. but he wanted lbj to succeed and lbj leaned on him very hard as only lbj could do. and told him in no uncertain terms he wanted intelligence showing that domestic protesters against the vietnam war were being controlled by foreign communist powers.

bush cia director and there was no greater defender of the cia. he loved that job as a think everybody knows. but one of the things that strikes me having gotten know a lot of people out there is that at the end of the day, almost everybody, they are human beings, they have political opinions. there are vast differences between the analysts who tend to be some deprived, geeky, intellectuals who are stuck doing the work on paper, and the covert operatives who are out breaking laws in countries all over the world. but the vast majority of them really are very good at keeping their heads down and trying to do their jobs and produce on his intelligence, and the don't pay a lot of attention to whoever is in the oval office at any given moment or any of the bluster that is coming their way. that may sound pollyanna-ish and a little bit corny, but you do take some hope away from that when you just see how dedicated most of them are. >> so institutional integrity doesn't have to rely on the person on top? >> well it helps, and you know there's a question

they send in the cia. cia just got bored in 194747. they didn't know the first thing about covert action. the russians have been at the since peter the great. they have been added for centuries. so our lack of knowledge of how to do these sorts of things, and then a distaste because of the secrecy of the cia who are coordinating things with policymakers, secretaries of state, secretaries of defense, led to a series of cascading failures. what the cia had in the 20th century in the cold war of the kgb didn't was money. lots and lots of lovely money. if it wanted to sway an election as it did in its very first covert operation ever to steal the italian election in 1948, suitcases full of cash. if you wanted to reverse the results of an election, as it did in chile in 1970, it could create the conditions for a true. true. if you wanted to buy the allegiances entire political parties, create entire political parties, it created the ruling party in japan in the 1950s, the liberal democratic party, which is neither liberal nor democratic nor

the cia did not like that. but it took 15 years for it to move through declassification and with the history of the cia. and on the record. twelve years have passed since then. and slowly and it is revealed. a chapter in the book of two disastrous operations it disastrous and the successful operation 30 years apart. the successful operation and from solidarity. and kept alive in the eighties with solidarity wound up being a domino to overturn the soviet empire. when the nightmare of the soviet system was revealed as a proletariat against the system. the 20th century stories in this book that nobody has ever heard of. not just you, it is a story of the cei support of the congo. it is the story of how the united states try to fight back from misinformation in the eighties. and then to be in the sixties and seventies and the leader of the soviet union. >> soviet russia and disinformation. now there was three goals undermine the state of the national security institution fbi and cia. and with mlk ma have this infor

and the fact is the cia that they are allowed to see what works. and then from the cia in the 19 fifties that change dramatically. but that is what we are fascinated by but then you mention burke. he lived in new york from world war ii and then he heard the story before at one point he gets a call out of the blue from a guy he was our conversation and will identify what agency he is with. the loss of coordination with the cia. the name of that alone was over 25 years. so he meets with the two guys coming up from washington and new york so then they talk about albania. and in the southwest corner of greece and south eastern europe we want you to go start a revolution so they are thinking where do i sign? but then has to come up with a cover story albanian americans in rome and then he turns run a loses the money. and the story were to come up i didn't really do much so with this whole movie theme. >> but as it turns out they are just as self-absorbed. >> and then sit around smoking and then a difference god is thinking your sources have to clear any

>> not summits the cia but the russians, yeah. watching how much vladimir putin's government have taken up the playbook of the old kgb, the game of disinformation and deception that america was him bartered with. i don't see that going away. one thing i will say talking with people in the cia, they are bit annoyed with the talk of the trump administration about the deep state and everything but they understand that is politics. when we see russia as an adversarial relation, they are not our friend and everyone i have talked to is deeply concerned and suspicious as to why our president refuses to see it. so i kind of answer your question in a roundabout way but that to my mind is what jumps out at me insane parallels from that to the period i was writing about. >> host: i listened to the interview fresh air today and i -- if it didn't come up, the story about the woman getting killed. i forget where you were. i was wondering if you could tell that story as well. >> guest: in el salvador in 1984, by 1984 the so-called dirty war in c

he was so successful that by 1954 when vietnam was occurring, the cia sent an up famously and the cia director said just go do the same thing youdid . so he goes out there and he actually tries and he comes close to being successful. like he did in the soviets, the kind of hand-picked the president to come in. he had a prime minister in vietnam and he kind of had his whisper and stuff like how to be a communist, how do the bureaucracy and unfortunately it got to be in vietnam it was this kind of small hearts and minds psion's idea that got stuck away by this huge military and military drop. so in 1954 he had it up the first american military mission to south vietnam. and as they were fully in balance of power for two years. that course eventually would be followed by aryan culture. >> you talk about that as sort of a an intervention of what could have been an intervention in vietnam and how that might have led out of the crisis. you mentioned several other possible exit plans that could have used the coldwar , tell us about those. these moments where things could have gone much better

cia, there were and we learned that cia learned in the united states is lord through experiences of failure that if he did things on a small scale the butterfly effect is more effective than spending or sending billions of dollars of weapons out. we did that because of that short-term success. the afghan rebels drove out the soviet army. but they watched weapons without any follow-through the united states. and we have this through al qaeda. and we had a consequence to the afghans. the race problem today garrett, is that political warfare. the full spectrum, not just covert operations. economic support, and intelligence operations, we don't do it anymore. where after the game. the war on terrorism consumes everything. counterterrorism is a first and last goal of the cia and the fbi. we took it out of traditional espionage which is really just gathering information need and created the conditions for the russians to launch. is the political equivalent of 911. the attacks our democracy. nobody died. american democracy had an unexpected attack from an expected direction. this will be stand tod

and the fact is the cia, the early cia, they're allowed to see what works. in a way that was not true with the cia back in 1960. it is really changed quite dramatically. sosa. before the things become your offer ties. decisions are all made by guys behind the desk rated this what i am fascinated by. but when you mentioned the brooks, i wrote about him. he moved to new york and he wanted to be a writer. this was after world war ii. they was penniless. before the story before. he so down on his luck that at one point, his things had been stolen. he gets a call out of the blue from a guy who was have a conversation with him. he must offer him a job. but he won't identify with agency he is with. in fact, the coordination the unit of the covert operation of the ca is the name and it's an incredibly boring name. it was classified for 25 years, his name, you could enter the name out loud. so with these two guys to come up with from washington and met him in new york. they were sitting around at one point he said will what are you going to do for work. and he didn't

because he was in the cia, had to go in front of the cia review board. all the best parts had been excised. the cia official says i have been to know him censored manuscript at boston university, sure enough, went to boston university. i could fill in all the details that were taken out. >> there are a few others could have made for great characters to focus on. in the case of peter sichel, he spoke to one other 90-year-old but to get him to agree to talk about this or was he waiting for somebody to ask? >> probably somewhere in between. guys who are still around live under a lifelong, not a band but until the day they die, they can't talk about it but what i wanted to talk with peter sichel about was he was the station chief from the end of world war ii to 1952. berlin was ground 0 of the confrontation during those years. i wanted him to tell me war stories. what was it like? he told me amazing stories. one thing he was clear about was how clueless americans were going against the soviets, deception and disinformation down to a fine art. the other thing

you cannot live in a country cia lead andke a put it in the garbage can and nobody does anything. that is just not fair to this country. that's got to stop. nobody took allegations from the cia people on this side of the aisle believe when it came to clinton and trump to change the narrative trump was being involved with the russians and ignored every stop sign about carter page. mr. chairman, what you've just said is so alarming that we should have had somewhere along the way a thorough nonpartisan investigation of this whole crossfire hurricane. it turns out we did. then inspector general in december of 2019 found that the fbi's crossfire investigation was open for an authorized purpose and had actuall predication and wasn't influenced by bias. the fbi director agreed. that isn't what president trump or the attorney general or members of the committee wanted to hear, so they tried to reopen that independent investigation in every partisan way imaginable and this is the fourth time in the committee. enough. >> with all due respect, senator, does it not bother you at all that the

did you know that the cia had told the fbi that in august of 2017? >> no, sir. >> the reason that's important, that would explain why mr. page was actually talking to people he claimed to be talking with. did you know -- i.d. you havedi conversation about the reliability of christopher steele? >> i had a conversation in october of 2016 about -- with mr. orr about his interactions with mr. steele. >> did he tell you you should be concerned and be careful? >> i don't remember him saying i should be concerned or be careful, no. >> in the fall of 2016, this is his testimony to the committee, you put mr. mccabe on notice, you need to watch this and verify. i gave him the same caveats and the caveats were that steele hated trump. what did he say when you told him that you were concerned about you need to be careful for lack of a better term? i think he understood because he also worked on russia criminal matters. we have mr. orr under oath saying that he expressed concerns to you, strzok, and others about the reliability of mr. steele. you don't remember t

the cia warned the fbi that it's internet rumor. so this is a situation where if the clinton campaign, in fact, created this impression that trump was working with the russians through christopher steele, who was on the payroll, that, yeah, maybe that makes it all make sense. maybe that explains that this dossier was prepared by a political person, by a person on the payroll that was used to get a warrant against an american citizen. this is the first time i know of that opposition research winds up being used by the fbi to get a warrant against an american citizen, a member of the other campaign. i am very sad that the cia's information about hillary clinton signing off on a plan to link trump to russia wasn't looked at, because if you had looked at it, that may have explained christopher steele and the dossier. senator lee. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. according to bill prestep's handwritten notes from the june 24, 2017 meeting, a meeting mr. mccabe attended, the fbi's strategy with general michael flynn was to, quote, ge

and i don't believe the cia was a cia program and you have these discussions, you and i before. the torture program even the cia inspector general defined it as a cpc program that is a unit within the cia and a lot of people a lot of officers who were not under cdc and you will see it now in the book were against this program more than i was. so, that is why so many people from the field went and complained to the inspector general and the inspector general with the investigation in their investigation or in his investigation he made it clear that he cannot find the right to be eminent in number two basically said yes, the interrogation program worked, traditional irrigation worked but it's a subjective matter and very difficult and we are so it's very clear but he defined it as the cdc program. the second mistake of a lot of people made that it was every versus every cia. i'm glad the book has now been unredacted because it shows was not i versus cia but washington hiring a contractor to oversee a program bigger than him and bigger than basically the cdc at the time and how now

the cia warned the fbi that it's internet rumor. so this is a situation where if the clinton campaign, in fact, created this impression that trump was working with the russians through christopher steele, who was on the payroll, that, yeah, maybe that makes it all make sense. maybe that explains that this dossier was prepared by a political person, by a person on the payroll that was used to get a warrant against an american citizen. this is the first time i know of that opposition research winds up being used by the fbi to get a warrant against an american citizen, a member of the other campaign. i am very sad that the cia's information about hillary clinton signing off on a plan to link trump to russia wasn't looked at, because if you had looked at it, that may have explained christopher steele and the dossier. senator lee. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. according to bill prestep's handwritten notes from the june 24, 2017 meeting, a meeting mr. mccabe attended, the fbi's strategy with general michael flynn was to, quote, ge

about the cia's plan. nixon had been pushing for this operation for months. thatixon could not say because it was a covert operation, so he had to shut up and let kennedy pretend the was his. that is probably what he should have done, but that is not what nixon did. in the fourth debate, he lashed out at kennedy's statement, denouncing it was irresponsible and foolish. he gave a long explanation on why a covert military operation against the castro regime was dangerously irresponsible, as he said in the debate. some explained that this lie of hiswas painful, but it was uncomfortable and ironic duty. then he added, from that point on, i had the wisdom and wariness of someone who had been burned by the kennedys. i thought i would never again enter into an election at a disadvantage diving vulnerable to them or anyone on the level of clinical tactics. it is a lesson he learned well. a lesson that led him to watergate. that is a story for another time. john kennedy became the 35th president of the united state

our cia sends an iestigative lead over to the i. and they inform the fbi of u.s. presidential candidate hillar clinton's approval of a plan concerning u.s.residential candidate donald trump and russian hkers hampering u.s. elections as a mens of distracting the plic from her use of a pivate mail service. how many agents were assigned to instigate that? >>. >> senator, if you are referring to the memorandum,he raw intelligence memorand recently declassified by the ni -- >> yeah, yeah. >> i have read at memorandum and i don't understand itto be a request for investigative activity. i'm not aware that any agents were assigned to investigate the -- >> wait a minute. time-out. you get a memo, an investigative lead is what the cia calls it. alleging that hillary clinton had just signed off on a plan to tie trump to russia for political purposes. how many people looked at that, how many acts were assigned to see if it was true onot? did you know about it? did you kw about it? >> i was not aware of that merandum until -- >> time-out, time-o

, that's within the cia, a lot of publishers in the cia who were not under the cdc as you'll see now in the book were against this programmore than i was . so that's why so many people work and they complained that the inspector general and the inspector general's investigation and in their investigation, they actually made it clear that you could not consider any of these threats to be disrupted and number two that the enhanced interrogation program worked, yet i say well, it's this subjective matter and we really don't think it's evident . but if you can find the cdc program , the second thing that a lot of people make is versus the cia and i'm glad now the book has been on redacted because it shows it's not fbi versus cia, it was hiring a contractor to oversee a new program that became bigger than that cia at the time and now we look at everything that happened and we find that what they're talking about in 2002 and it had been redacted andnow people can read , now you can see it's happening in also examples, we could not prosecute any of these people for anything even though they

units in the cia. a lot of people in the cia, officers in the cia for not under cpc as you'll see it now in the book, or against this program more than i was, and in this program. so that's why so many people went and complain to the inspector general, and inspector general did an investigation and their investigation, and in his investigation he made it clear he could not find in of the threat that was disruptive to be intimate, number one, number two he basically said yes, the interrogation program worked, traditional interrogation worked. the i.t., welcome it's a subjective matter, very difficult, and really don't think there's anything. he defined as a cpc program. the second mistake that a lot of people make, fbi versus cia. i'm glad that the book has been unredacted because it shows it was not fbi versus cia. it was washington hiring a contractor to oversee a bigger program, bigger than him and big and basically the cpc at the time. and how that would look at everything that happened and we find

clinesmith's admitted activities over the report from the cia. i do not know any of those other errors have been proven to be intentional acts. >> senator. >> so we've established. >> senator hawley, your time is expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator black burn. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. mccabe thank you for being with us today. listening to you just answering senator hawley's question reminded me you are spending a lot of time on cnn these days and, of course, this is not a debate on cnn. this is a hearing of the senate judiciary committee. and i have to say, when did you go to cnn? >> i'm sorry was that a question -- >> yeah, yeah. i'll answer it for you. was it in august? was it in 2019? i think that may be right. i think you're pretty lucky. >> it might have been. >> to have landed. >> i don't remember exact dates. sorry. i'm sorry i don't remember the exact date. but that sounds about right. >> sounds right. i think you're pretty lucky to have landed a job pretty much anywhere after having been fired from the fbi and i think t

emerging frontrunners for the cia, according to multiple sources are tom donlin. he is not a career intelligence professional, but would not be the first to not be a careerist, to lead the cia. mike morell is very much a career intelligence professional, well respected in the rank and file by those at langley, cia headquarters. he had a three decades long career there. he was twice acting director. he was the deputy director. as you point out, there is a bit of push back from ron wyden on the senate intelligence committee. that's the committee that will have to vote on whoever is named by biden as director of the cia. morell was a senior official at the cia when they were using the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques which morell later admitted could be considered torture. like water boarding. he has also talked about their effectiveness and how it did work on al qaeda detainees. so morell, if named by biden, could potentially have a bumpy ride in terms of senate confirmation. brooke? >> thank you, alex marquardt in washington. good to see you. >>> texas i

joining us now, the former cia director john brennan. he's the auth r of the new book "undaunted: my fight against america's enemies at home and abroad." there you see the book cover. director brennan, thanks so much for joining us. did you ever think that here in the united states you'd see a presidential candidate lose the popular vote, already by more than 5 million votes, lose the electoral college, but still simply refuse to concede? >> no, i never thought i'd see it, wolf. i've watched these things happen overseas throughout the course of my intelligence and national security career. but clearly donald trump is refusing to accept reality, which is not shocking given what we've seen over the last four years. but again, this is something that as you pointed out can be very damaging to our national security because this period of transition from one administration to the other is critically important for our country but also it's when other countries are looking very closely at what we are doing here. >> because you make that point in

starting with the not one not one but 3 us backed coups that have been destroyed over the past a year or cia and state department they never go there why do they exempt for how they are all over most of the globe but this is a good news episode so let's focus on that we begin with the big one the big one that just happened the people of bolivia voted overwhelmingly to return able morales's mosque party to power one year after a us applauded coup and us applauded kid who is the plight way of saying us backed coup it's kind of like when you're in mixed company and you say your dog passed gas instead of a rift and gnarly one. the must party won over 52 percent of the vote destroying the other candidate in what's called a democratic election unfortunately here in the us we don't really have the option to vote out the oligarchy the pro corporate heads instead that the only 2 parties that get any media attention and easy ballot access both represent the oligarchy so the small country i believe the other did something that has proven impossible in america they voted out the ass. and it wasn't easy

so also with the cia and the leadership. for taking this amazing step of institutional transparency. in d classifying the black banners so the people now can read the truth. because what i said in this book back in 2001, my first-hand experience. i was in the interrogation rooms that i saw what was happening. and in any instances, i got the information from someone or i personally got it. when you look into this new say, okay, your account and be classified national security, what you actually are admitting is the truth. because you don't classify lights. if i was lying, in 2011. no, i would just say he was lying. so now, ironically, that helped the truth in the long run. now when people read what happened there, and what happened with different people. [inaudible]. partyware is now the truth. so any people who through all of the successes and mated as the result of these techniques. and that is why the decision to change the subtitle of the book to focus on the traditions in the torture, this is the first time we will read

they were told about information from the cia and they ignored it. they knew that the christopher steele dossier and they give a briefing that any other candidate they weren't trying to protect trump, they weren't trying to protect this campaign from foreign influence, they were trying to undercut the president. and that's vastly different from that of candidate clinton and my democratic colleagues same let's move on. to this day, years later, i have yet to find one person to take responsibility for manipulating the fisa court. i didn't know, if i knew then what i knew now, i wouldn't have signed it. so who are we to blame? is that somebody at the bottom of the pyramid who had all this exculpatory information that for some reason didn't share it. blaming somebody at the bottom and taking responsibility in name only. they don't seem to appreciate the gravity of the fbi and investigative process. these are the people, comey and mckay become not rosenstein and gates that are in charge of the information. and the people in charge of this investigation we

i want to give this opportunity there to also think the leadership of the cia for taking this amazing step of institutional transparency and he classifying the black black so now people can read the truth. my first hand experience was -- right walking into interrogation rooms i saw what happened and saw that information in many instances when we got information or i personally got the information when you look into this and say okay, your account is being declassified on the national security and what you are admitting that is the truth. we don't classify lies. if i was lying then he was full of it but line but now ironically that helped the truth and our people read what happens or what happened with different people if we gave them illnesses and it was now the truth. [inaudible] that is why the decision was made to change the subtitle to focus on the torture because this is the first time you will read exactly what happened and have a front seat to the interrogation room. >> it's a rare occurrence for somebody to become declassified by a former official in the way that you declassif

let's talk about cia director gina haspel first. she is perceived by trump and his allies to not have done enough at the cia to release documents revealing what they feel are deep state plots against president trump's campaign and transition back in 2016. multiple sources tell us that haspel has pushed back on declassifying documents related to the fbi's investigation because doing that could reveal critical sources and methods, as they're known in the intelligence community. according to one former senior administration official and three -- i'm sorry, one current senior administration official and three formers, they do expect trump to remove gina haspel like secretary of defense mark esper was today. now, haspel, she's kept her head down. she's had very few public appearances. >> yeah. >> she's made very few public statements in her time as director. and that may be part of the problem, that she's not visibly supportive enough of the president. trying to balance doing her job with protecting her agency, which is fiercely apolitic

the cia director we're told is one of the key positions he is looking at. we're told tonight there are several final contenders for that position including mike morell former deputy acting director of the cia as well as david cohen a top official in the cia in the obama administration. jeh johnson was a homeland security secretary in the obama administration. lisa monaco a senior adviser for counterterrorism under president obama and sue gordon the principal deputy dni director so those are some of the picks for cia. we're also getting word there are three finalists for pentagon to lead the pentagon at the department of defense. we're told they are michelle flournoy, also jeh johnson as we just saw, and lloyd austin, a retired four star army general who was the head of the central command under the obama administration and left in 2016 in private, in the private sector right now. those are some of the names of the rest of the national security team the president-elect is settling on. so by the end of december which starts tomorrow we're told most of these c

within the cia. a lot of people at the cia you will see it now in the book. it was morgan said than i was. that's why some of the people went and they complained to their inspector general. in their investigation. they made it clear that you could not had any of this. the interrogation program works. it is a subjective matter. it's very clear. the second mistake that a lot of people made with the fbi versus cia. i'm glad that book has been unredacted. they were and bigger than the cdc at the time. and now we look at everything that happened and we find out what i was talking about in 2002. it has been redacted. now you can see it is happening. we could not prosecute any of these people because of what they went through. i believe there is a lot of new people. a lot of new people in the government that believe in what the inspector general concluded they believe and what i'm saying here in the book. those people are not involved in all of the problems of the past. those people left. i think a lot of people wanted to turn the page. and wanted to put everything

within the cia . a lot of people for officers and cia, were not under cdc is you will now see it in the book. so that is why so any people from this field went in and complained to the inspector general and the inspector general, began an investigation and actually made clear that you could not have any of this be discussed. a number two, yes this program worked traditionally interrogation marked per unit well, is a subjective matter. it's very difficult. we will talk about anything. lend the second mistake a lot of people made. [inaudible]. i am glad now the book has been unredacted afraid because it shows that was not was with the cia, it was them hiring a contractor overseeing a program for you because it is bigger the cdc at the time. and how now we look at everything that happened we find out that what i was talking about a 2002, and then in 2011 had been unredacted afraid now we can see it is happening. for example, we can do not prosecute any of these people for anything even though they have a

cia director invited to something like that. certainly when mike pompeo led the cia, he would have been someone invited to a briefing to something like this. whether or not it spells doom for her future is still another question, but people are not confident that the president is going to keep gina haskell around, because he has been complaining about her for months, so the question is does he actually bite the bullet and terminate her just as he did the secretary a few days ago. >> kaitlan, thank you. let's go to jason carroll. he's live in rehobeth beach where the president-elect has a home. >> reporter: it's just another sign that the trump administration needs to go ahead and acknowledge what the rest of the country has basically voted for and has mandated that president-elect joe biden is, in fact, the president-elect. and things need to start to move forward with this transition. as you know, the general services administration still at this point has not signed that much-needed paperwork to allow the biden administration

the cia has historically been a pillar of u.s. foreign policy, and one of the picks for cia boss is michael morrell, rose to prominence during the obama years. he's already familiar with the job serving twice as acting director, a man steeped in the cia's longest standing traditions. morrell would no doubt be successful, bringing his plans to fruition in the new biden administration. we need to make the iranians pay a price in syria. we need to make the russians pay a price. the only thing i mean, you make them pay the price by killing killing russians. yes. nothing highlights the agency's prestige better than a director, openly plotting covert assassinations around the world. and if you expect the adjustments to the world's largest military budgets with an economy heavily disrupted by a pandemic, those will probably only go one way. i've met with a number of my devises. and some have suggested in certain areas the military budget is going to have to be increased. the advice from boy his advisors is certainly clear. and with many

of his lawyers, after she claimed the election was rigged as part of a vast conspiracy involving the cia, the republican governor of georgia, and the former president of venezuela, who died seven years ago. for more on this, it's time for "a closer look." ♪ >> seth: you know, i hate to jump the gun here and prematurely call the election, but it's starting to look like donald trump lost by a lot joe biden's popular vote lead is now over six million, and in total he has more votes than any president-elect in history or, to put it another, i don't know, more fun way, more people came out to vote against donald trump than have ever come out to vote against any presidential candidate in the history of the united states and donald, if you ever get mad when you see president biden, know that it likely only happened because of you. joe biden ran for president a bunch of times before this and, like, never finished in the top tier but against you, it turns out he was the perfect choice biden was like that weird kid in school that nobody hung out with because he smelled like garlic, and then a va

i came into an administration when i was the cia director. we did it very efficiently. it didn't take as much time as some might be pretending that it's going to take. i am very confident. all the things that need to be done will be done in an appropriate way. we will deliver that. i wouldn't think for a moment if i was an adversary that this was the moment they might have an opportunity. it's not the case. president trump and our team are on watch. >> bret: back to my first question, is it improper for foreign leaders to be reaching out to joe biden? >> if they are just saying hi, i suppose that's not too terribly difficult. make no mistake. we have one president, one secretary of state, one national security team at a time. it's appropriate it will be that way. one of the things i have observed with almost four years in my time in this administration is that folks refuse to get off the stage. they talk about healing into additional things. i have watched ben rhodes, susan rice and john kerry and wendy sherman the active on the world stage in ways that weren't consiste

appointments for defense and cia director. >> i'm doing that. a piece at a time here. >> reporter: two women along the leading roles. flournoy and sue gordon. for the first time since becoming president-elect, biden receiving the presidential daily briefing on monday, classified information that he was denied access to for weeks as president trump declined to concede the race. the former vice president also paying a visit to the doctor's office over the weekend after biden's office says he slipped while playing with his dog major. the diagnosis? hairline fractures in his right foot, likely requiring a walking boot for several weeks. now as we wait for biden to name his future cia director, a cuff other names worth mentioning in addition to sue gorpedon. mike morrell and cohen and johnson and lisa monaco, former obama senior adviser. keep that in mind biden said over and over again that diversity is key as he begins to build out his future administration whether it is elevate are women to top positions or people of different racial and ideologica