robert mary. he'll talk about presidential history, congress, the current state of american politics and answer your questions. i'm full schedule information online about tv.org, or consult your program guide. now we kick off the weekend with former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence frank figliuzzi and his insights into the bureaus standards and operations. >> good evening everyone welcome. the fbi's way. when share little bit of history about the strand. started in 19207 by benjamin basch on book roper stretching from union square 48 bookstores. until after 93 years the strand is the sole survivor now run by third-generation owner nancy bass white. want to thank all of you for your support.

we have a little community of book lovers, and authors and like frank we would not be here today. we are so very appreciative of all of you. so tonight we're thrilled to have with us frank figliuzzi for the launch of his newest book the fbi way. the special egypt rising to be assistant director is held senior fbi positions major american city and was appointed the fbi's chief inspector to oversee sensitive internal inquiries. and he holds certificates from harvard, john f. kennedy school of government and northwestern kellogg school management. today's national security analyst for nbc news on leadership and risk management

during an information in conversation is natasha birx ran to purchase a national such correspondent, previously should a staff writer. worked as a politics report from insider after graduate from vassar college in 2014 the dual degree in political science and philosophy msnbc news contributor. so without further ado, please join me in welcoming the tosha and frank. >> hello natasha. >> hi everyone think it's much for joining us virtually part obviously wishes to be in person but this is the next best thing. i'm so excited to be here with frank for his book launch. it is an amazing book, everyone should definitely give it a read it. a lot of incorruptible

anecdotes. it's really important lesson and values that he learns will he was actually at the bureau. so there is a lot of news, a ton of news, but unfortunately only have about 35 or 40 minutes to talk to frank about the book before he opened it up to all of your questions which we will definitely do. so please do submit your questions when you can. but i think where i am going to start with frank is just why did you write this book? i know in our conversations previously i think you made a deliberate decision to not publish this until after the election. and so i wondered if you want to open it up and talk about why he wrote this? in the whole take away from it? >> of course the tosha. first let me thank you for taking a chunk of your friday night and helping me out to

get the word out about the fbi way. and then to everyone who is joined us, thanks for sharing the start of your weekend with us. so, i have done something i never thought i would do. i am the guy said i would never read a book about my fbi career placement 25 years in relative obscurity working counterintelligence. i did not want to be that guy. but i've written a book with this timing because i could not take the bureau bashing anymore. i could not take the damage to the institution that i dedicated 25 years of my life too. the damage to the men and women who come to work every single day simply trying to protect america. so i decided it was time to counter the public's perception of the fbi. at least the perception of some is driven by the highest authorization and the land he decided to lash out at a critical institution. now, the fbi is not without faults. but here's the deal. as you learn in the book, the

fbi operates at the highest level of excellence when the stakes matter the most. and often you only get a portion of the story or no story at all when the bureau succeeds. iceman 25 years inside that organization. for parts of my 25 years i actually led internal affairs functions in the fbi. including becoming chief inspector of the fbi in terms of audits, programs, sensitive internal investigation. so i absorb how the fbi does it. how it preserves its core values. and jaisol a need to tell folks how to preserve their core values, the nation's core values, their business core values under stress. in the fbi's under stress every single day. and the good news is you don't need to spend 25 years inside the fbi to figure out how they do it. i have distilled down to seven key chapters of the book. i called the fbi way.

>> so the fbi is under a lot of stress right now. a lot of stress trying to bring everyone that attacks the capitol last week to justice. it is all hands on deck for the bureau at this point is what we are told. so i am just want to forget your thoughts and your reactions to the insurrection frankly that we saw last week. and whether you think the fbi was prepared enough for it. where you think it has responded appropriately and what you think needs to be done now moving forward, not just in the short term for inauguration security but the long-term domestic extremism terrorism and related. so i guess there's a lot there, that will keep me going for a while. so, i'm already having flashbacks in this past week of what it was like in my career during 911 in

particular. in the book details with the stresses like for an fbi agent when something of that magnitude happens. and the impact it has on you personally and your own health. you need to understand that every one of the 56 fbi field officers, every single employee in the fbi is undergoing the most extreme stress in their entire lives while the nation is undergoing the extreme stress it's had in modern history. so look, right night got a couple things happen simultaneously. firstly fbi is in a race against the clock to wrap up hundreds if not thousands of those people who breach the security and create an insurrection at the capitol. and to lodge the most serious charges possible against them. not taking so much time to do it that they don't let someone off and allow them to get to the inauguration or to your statehouse or to your capitol building where you live. there is truly a race against the clock.

the other thing that is going on is the next act of terror. in preventing that. and so not everybody in the capitol, even if you wrapped them all up is necessarily that group or organization or person is going to launch the next the statehouse. this isn't over. so to answer your question about really two-part question, did the fbi have valiance here? and are they capable of handling? there to different answers. i get to the fact, here's the good news. the fbi did have the intemperate i'm not calling this an intelligence failure on tv and many of you are watching, i sent the failure to act on available intelligence. it was a security point the finger solely at the capitol police that the national guard

it's not enough in this post 911 age to say we shared intelligence with our partners. i'm very deeply concerned that the white house played a role is in the stories when we told on this is a reason why the secretary of defense (a chunk running he was still left. i'm thinking going get some very ugly answers to some really hard questions. >> you believe if it were left up to the fbi director place now, christopher wray there should've been more efforts to prepare for this event.

but this seemed very unusual and out of place in your experience? >> i think that we cannot, and we would be remiss if we did not look at this from the 30,000 foot level at who controls national guard in d.c. and who controls the capitol police. ny this kind of an effective strategy, i don't like this thing about optics. i don't want our d-uppercase-letter iconic symbol democracy to look like it is a fortress. have out the optics right now? talk to people in the middle east right now saying you've got indigenous group welcome to the world. that's about optics i don't hear more about optics went free and open exchange of

ideas when you breach security during a transfer and ratification from an electoral college vote. you start beating and killing police officers that is not free-speech. then how to properly address that, which i think is probably something for another day. but i wanted to get back more into your book. and i just wonder if you can talk a bit about what you mean by the title of the book, fbi way. and why you chose the quote that you chose to open the book. which is that the only thing necessary is for good men to do nothing. i think that actually ties back into what we are seeing surrounding all of the

security preparation for this week and efforts being made to secure in d.c. just those two things. what does the title of the book mean to you? and good men stepping back and doing nothing why did that resonate with you so much? >> first well that's my favorite quote from edmund burke. it's governed my career and essentially my life. it is the concept that's in the book. membrane talks about the seven seas in the book, the first c is coded. i think it's they lost the code. they lost the code of conduct that reflects the core value of america. your journey in your life we ask you to examine your code. kind of corporate or organizational leadership

message if you are running anything from a classroom to a cub scouts group or a fortune ten company, you can take away the seven these are do need that code, ties back to the edmund burke quotes. the company and value in a country is about us. a team sport. so often i walked into companies and they did private sector corporate security after i retired from the bureau. the ascot employee who is responsible here for core values, ethics standards and compliance for the talk to an office demo and said that office down there for the fbi said yet we have that office but the core value preservation is all of us collectively. and they start in graining that code in you from day one

at the fbi academy. i tell stories about the fbi academy experience. moving forward in her fbi career, they still keep that thing going even stronger as you enter into leadership. because you must spend time conducting internal affairs. you're responsible for being the code keeper. you must do tough decision-making about your fellow employees conduct. and they teach you we are all accountable for each other. and for the greater good of the bureau. we lost that as a nation. those people who committed insurrection they are not playing by the same code. they are not conservatories of our national values. that is what the book is about. >> so, what do you do with the fbi's values and the code in the conservancy of credibility of the bureau's been directly undermined by the leader of the free world, the commander-in-chief?

how do you maintain those values and keep doing your work? and have people making holding their faith in it when the present is costley attacking you in trying to convince people they should not work with you and should not trust you. that's the biggest test of the last four years but your advice this moment? my advice to be this same advice i get if anyone came to me and said my company core values are under attack. my family is under attack. i am under attack for doing the right thing. i would say this, their stories in the book about the fbi having to do the right thing when it is most painful. you know the old phrase comets preaching to the choir is easy. but converting the agnostic is difficult. so when you do the right thing you know there are severe consequences coming, that is what you do. i told the story in the book

of one of the most her redness things i've ever heard. in the book i tell how people frequently ask people in law enforcement what is the worst thing you've ever seen? i tell people please, please don't do that. you are asking that law enforcement officer to relive something that's horrific. and they're going to plant it in your head you're going to regret it. i seasoned the worst things i've experience or not have been what i've seen which was bad enough, but what i have heard. one example of a wiretap a microphone that was placed inside the home of a family in st. louis because they were part of a terrorism cell. will one day the translator came in to listen to the conversation from the previous day. she heard that husband and wife or drink their teenage daughter in the kitchen. it was an so-called honor killing.

now a lot of agencies around the world think policing and intelligence would have said that's pretty terrible. but we've got a super secret imports and were not giving up are classified fisa wiretap in that house were not doing that. we are going to find another way to pin this murder on the parents. the fbi didn't do that. they said we are prepared to lose our entire terrorism case because we have to bring that husband-and-wife to justice. we have to declassify this fisa intercept intent handed to the police. that's doing the right thing under severe stress when it matters the most. i think today in the news we are seeing christopher wray do that. here's what i mean by that. he knows that if he speaks out right now publicly and says entirely and specifically how severe the threat is, it's pretty much said that message already. but he gets out there and says who did this? with details about where they are finding this was funded, who they think actually enabled and facilitated this, he is facing likely firing.

you might say it will who cares about whether he has a paycheck or not. that's not motivating him. what is motivating him is how do you feel about acting fbi director for the next week with the name of josé rudy giuliani or sidney powell? we need him in place. he is doing this out of survival for the fbi, i say that is okay. >> almost back to the section of your book about consequences. and that obviously has left a very powerful reminder of the consequences of going against a president and commander-in-chief that does not want any kind of dissent in the ranks. so i wonder also though, the reason why so core to the fbi why the code is so important and this is so ingrained in your day one, also has a lot

to do with your ability. because of that credibility the fbi's essentially nothing. you would not have been able to tell the story of having to stop a plane from taking off and flashing her fbi badge gave you the credibility to be able to say stop this right now parts without that credibility the fbi is kind of rudderless. i just kind of wonder within that context if you can talk about recent events that are in the news, maybe not so recent now. but my examples are andrew mccabe and how one of them jeopardize your mind the credibility of the bureau. and how the other in a completely different way segment of the things come together for you. suspect that tosses mash fully working in the seven seas. she's already thrown out both

consequences and credibility. let me have both because really joined at the hip. there's a consequent decision going on right now the national discussion about whether president trump should be, number one impeached after he leaves but removed in band after he leaves office. or even prosecuted. here's where i disagree with former director jim comey who says they should be considering not going after traut because we need to heal the nation. in a chapter called consequences of the book, i address the need to act absolutely, preserve your values and messaging there will be severe consequences for not abiding by the most important collective values that pose an existential threat to your organization or your country if they are not abided by. credibility, look the fbi lives and dies by its credibility. and i tell the story early in

my career at a very young age in atlanta having to rush lights and sirens to the hartsville airport and stop a fully loaded with tons of airliner from taking off before an assassination occurred on the flight. that was the first real -- i flash my badge and a few routine matters as a new agent. i never flashed it at the gate of an international air terminal helping to god that the person looking at that would say okay we will stop the aircraft. i get everybody off the plane. at first it wasn't working. but then we pulled the captain out and it worked. so here's my points, right now today fbi agents as we speak, let me assure you 24/7 are knocking on doors flashing their credentials and send to the public eye need your help in stopping the next act of terrorism. if that citizen pauses for a minute and says you know what, i don't know efforts and bad things about the fbi, i think

trump is pretty much convinced me guys are bad. we are all in deep, deep trouble paired work experience and that credibility test right now. and i asked the leaders of the book to ask yourself give the kind of credibility and your family, your business, your organization, your community where people could look to you and say this person is going to preserve our values, i am trusting this person. that's what the nation has to ask of the fbi. >> at the same time they same critical of the fbi way they treat andrew mccabe. >> credibility internally to an organization is also about what you do with your people when it matters the most. and we are going to make a decision to fire in employee, that matters the most. so when i look at peter strzok, i went on tv. a lot of my twitter followers including some people in the skull nesn while while the

while you cannot go after peter strzok. jumping in with the president. now i'm not jumping of the present prim jumping of the corvallis of the fbi in the public's need to view it as a credible agency. sit in the book you will read why i believe they did the right thing in firing peter strzok. what he did as a senior executive was exhibit horrific judgment. arguing most important case, the russian incorporates are texting and e-mailing about his personal partisanship and bias and desires that related to the case. was there any proof that affected the outcome or the conclusion of the need to spit it off to special counsel? no. the ag said it was not predicated were that's not the point. they can't fire peter strzok they can't fire the auto cleveland does some of violates the law. here's where credibility comes down to with the rules and

protocols or people will think the system is incredible. the problem with how they handed andrew mccabe, firing him within what 26 hours of retirement eligibility without the proper processes in place, i was in charge of the office of professional responsibility unit with discipline i was a chief inspector for a period in my time. i set on that disciplinary board, i know what they did for mccabe was not part of president protocol. it smelled political to me. and that is why i may not know whether and it mccabe lied to investigators, but i don't necessary care when it comes to how they handle this, which was outside the normal protocol which means that decision lacks credibility for me. >> a funny part of the book that i found interesting was

when he wrote that it was a common sentiment in the fbi to say that if you grow your whole career without ever being investigated by pr than you haven't done a good job. i think some people might be surprised by that. you're called to the principals office that's that's not necessarily good thing. right? you say actually in the fbi is a lot of testing boundaries. there's a lot of layers that are in place to make sure that everyone is acting correctly within the bounds. splaying that a little bit. whitey think that is so important. blood you asked that pretty goes back again to my desire to set the record straight with the public about how rigorous the enforcement of code and regulations are core values are. that's trooping the sentiment

the rules are so voluminous and control every aspect of investigative work we know if we screw up it's on the front page of the paper. you're really working cases, if you're really making arrests enjoying amazing double agent operations and counterintelligence weight check the metal to a jet correctly outside, so ivan calls the principal's office in my career in a very significant way. i have been in the office of professional responsibility. i told the story in the book when i became the number two official in the miami office. i learned a lesson about failing to communicate if you

go through your business. no one ever checks your standard or asks you why you did something that was a very good segue into the standards that are placed on fbi are not necessarily placed on the election of the united states. your contacts in your financial interests office and we level of scrutiny when it comes to one if you can tell the stories talk about being

compromise what should be put in place were they better that people people need to understand something. how did this member of congress ever get a security clearance. how did the present get a secure clearance? no one decides whether congress whether a president gets a security clearance but we elected them to office and it is automatic. i compare and contrast that to fbi employee. if that employee serves coffee at the starbucks shop and fbi headquarters goes through more of a background investigation

than the president of the united states would ever get. so here's the deal. we got to do this better. when i came out with this on one of the independent notes, certain parts of the evening, shall remain nameless. but to edit the clip and say look at this guy, he's calling for some kind of a russian panel like they do in the old soviet union to decide who the president is. no i'm not. here's what i am suggesting. if i had to fill out financial disclosure forms with the bin number on my card, the only income in my household, all the debt in my household, all of the foreign travel, then the president should disclose that to the country. a candidate for president his taxes as financial disclosures foreign entanglements with him and his family. let's do some betting here. the other thing i tell in the book which was cleared for the first time by the fbi to do,

which caused them some minor heartburn, as i told the story just to hammer home how frequent this is. how we've got to get better at betting our public officials. i tell the story of having to sit down as assistant director of the fbi across the table from a sitting member of congress and confront him with the fact that a foreign intelligence service considered him a source of theirs. an official informant for foreign intelligence service. i had to do the same thing for a minor presidential candidate previously in my career. lastly with foreign intelligence officers. if you think trump is a runoff employee he's the worst i've ever seen. he is not. your congressman should be involved in this. we've got to get better at this. that's in the book by the other thing i talk but as the vetting of the supreme court nominee. again it is a teachable moment.

people say the fbi did not go all both kavanaugh. they did not investigate all of the allegations from all of the women. you are darn right they didn't. you know why? there's a weird rule in place that says a reinvestigation of a nominee is driven by the client agency. guess who the client agency is in a supreme court nomination? the white house. the white house dictated the parameters of the reinvestigation of kavanaugh. only look at this, only talk to this woman. that needs to change on the long list of biden-harris administration things to change, that should be near the top. >> long list of change of the administration. obviously one that is going to be addressing the domestic terrorism threat more seriously. another one is going to be how they reestablish that distance between the white house d.o.j. and the white house and the

fbi. because while they are an investigative branch, and they are serving at the pleasure of the president has traditionally been a separation between the president and the justice department. and so i wonder if you think that chris ray, the current fbi director he should carry out his tenure term. because that might show a level of continuity. an distance between the white house and the fbi. or if you think there is just been too much baggage at this point? >> i do have some thoughts on this. and since i have a law degree, you're going to hear me say it depends. and here we go. i am a firm believer in keeping the fbi neutral and objective and apolitical part of art had an fbi director fired recently, jim comey by president trump for political

reasons. jim comey handed trump some political reasons to fire him. but here we are in the public's perception is awful in some corners of the country. the fbi director has a tenure term for a reason. he or she is supposed to straddle administrations and be apolitical and not serve at the pleasure of that particular president unless there's gross, biden says i get to pick a new fbi director. we are politicizing it again. we've got to sit to the tenure term for it here's where it depends. when a horrible thing happened to our country. ms. hearings on january 6, if we find out that chris ray was politically pressured, involved and deliberately decided to lay off of pressing

hard until they had of violence, that he needs to go. but until that happens i am a firm believer in keeping the tenure term. >> so i think that alters consistency. the weaving in that you talk about in your book, i know you don't want to give away all of the stories but there's really great one. [laughter] running out of the building of the importance of consistency in the fbi for you. >> the longer way much fbi agents particularly the higher they go on the organization even straight agents have to make life-and-death decisions and undercover operations late at night by themselves, the ability to think three, four,

five steps ahead, look around corners and strategize quickly. i go to some lengths to tell a very minor stories that illustrate decision making, sticking with consistency and being decisive. we had a very serious discussion. and natasha is inserting a fairly lighthearted story. although not for the possum. i recap my experiences of the largest hazardous crime scene in the history of the fbi. i was in charge at the site of the first anthrax murder in u.s. history, interesting happened to be at the america media inc. headquarters in bucca raton florida. we had to go inside a three-story 60000 square-foot building filled with microscopic anthrax spores, my team did. and one day as we are doing this grueling work, the team is inside. there is no ac in that florida

building. they are completely in tyvek suits. they are using positive air pressure respirators, it's unprecedented crime scene. out of the corner of my eye i see something, waddling out of the parking garage of the building. i ask an agent next to me, did you see that? he said yes, sir, it is a possum we have seen and he's got in the building and is coming out. i got we've got a problem. here's the problem, the problem is this city and country is on nerve by this toxic building. there's a child's playground down the street and i got a potential potentially poisonous possum waddling out of the building. the decision was quick, this possum has to go. we can't have them waddling around the city with anthrax spores. we found a veterinarian, he agreed to do it very humanely. and that possum was

dispatched. it's an example even in the middle of severe stress, you better divert, make a quick decision that makes sense and be prepared to act. >> so i guess i just wanted to close out by asking generally just what advice you would give to those thinking about public service. in such a small. what would you say? >> thanks her and the question because i tell the story in the book about an 11-year-old frank figliuzzi. his thinking about being an fbi agent to write a letter to the head of the fbi in connecticut saying i'm 11 years old i'd like to be an fbi agent someday. he wrote back to me explain

what's needed to be fbi agent, staff drugs et cetera. some young person reads it and says you know what i want to be on that front line the book has succeeded. i would love for all the fortune 100 ceos to read it as a leadership and i hope that happens for this some indication it is happening. but the best thing that could happen as a young person decides that the vocation and calling of public service, law enforcement and intelligence is for them. i'm encouraged right now to hear the recruiting numbers in the fbi today are strong. if you any hope in this conversation, people are raising their hands since sign me up for that >> that's a great way to end our discussion we have about 20

minutes left in them should be enough time for all of them. this is from tom. and tom is wondering the things that are being stressed online for example they took it upon themselves to write up this report sets among because not focused enough on domestic extremism might not be brought to the president's attention? i might have asset on the air

aspirational concerns probably would not get course we know we have a president who doesn't read. i don't know if it's even made it. having flashbacks to the 911 commission to the reported to headquarters, there are some guys learning how to fly pre-but they only want to learn how to take off right? that which the bottom of the pilot headquarters. even with all of the chatter at intel saying al qaeda's when to hit us somehow, we don't know how. no one could think about that black swan events. what human beings would crash planes? i'm having flashbacks of that. we need some answers on that. but the bottom line is, maybe

this is why chris ray is not going public. he's going to get that question. if you report in front of chris ray are going to say, excuse me, maybe he doesn't want to answer that right now because it is to run the fbi. select the really key question he's going to have to answer one way or another. so again on this theme, another question we have is whether you agree there needs to be a kind of domestic terrorism department, or let's say a dedicated office within the national security council for example, just focus solely on domestic extremism. so right now obviously the fbi , dhs, they coordinate it's very law-enforcement heavy, the response of domestic terrorism extremism. do you think there needs to be

more of a centralized effort to make this an issue that is coordinated at the highest short answer is kind of? there's plenty going on in the government against counterterrorism. it's currently the number one priority in the fbi. you're right it doesn't traction much out of the law enforcement side. tenant people correctly, excuse me we had a corrupt president. i hereby designate we'll have a system of a tour i would

focus i first want to see who is on law enforcement. treat the domestic terrorism the same way we treat still do not have a domestic terrorism on the books we do not even have a mechanism to designate a group domestic terror group. dni answerable official on the radicalization to counter red allies violent jihadists. some degree in that area. we need to do radicalize a huge portion of our population

virtually everything that comes out of joe biden's mouth and, harasses mouth has to have ratification messaging. or we are going to be stuck with it for a long time this is more of a more systemic issue at various levels complete leaving rome as the radicalization. even to think of. >> let me jump on that. because if you combine that concept of not falling until fake news, those people who breach the capitol, better start teaching our kids how to

think for themselves and fabrications is a lot of questions here about this court. of kavanaugh. one of the questions is you described how trumps administration blocked the investigation into kavanaugh and how the weather this anything to be done they cannot to an >> short answer? absolutely that's what i'm advocating. in advocating legislation or changes to the code of federal regulations. government has reinvestigation of nominees of federal nominees. let me be clear, this applies only to the reinvent

investigation for the fbi's free reign on the first crack of the investigation a background investigation. client agency. and it can change. going, foreign intelligence have have some interesting relationships. the car another question about the korea discussing they can medicate foreign policy about winning without fighting.

and so is there any question about winning those? >> okay a couple of things there. there is a painful part of the book for me which is the revelation a guy the number of robert hanson is fbi headquarters part as a young new supervisor first promotion to washington. only years later will driving down the fbi arrested one of its own for espionage but became to find out for ten years for one of these years happened to my unity. said where is that in the book? the chapter called credibility. you might ask, you have a frankly horrific fbi spy case

of the betrayal of the fbi and the nation and the credibility chapter. here's why i did it. the book is not about the fbi being perfect and your credibility of your family, your person, your team, your organization is not about that organization or nation being perfect, you're far from perfect right now. it's about owning up to the mistake she made, robert hanson should never been higher paid robert hanson should be detected as a spy somewhere in that tenure. of his spine on fbi agent.

we have to figure out a way to

win without fighting, and they are very skilled at it and that is the new battlefield for everyone. >> how worried are you about the solar wind pack? this is a very real problem for government agencies trying to get russian hackers out of the system. how big of a breach is it in your mind? >> the people i respect who are cybersecurity experts are the ones who are saying this looks like the worst compromise of cybersecurity in the history of the united states and what has donald trump told us? don't worry, it is handled, not that big a deal. it is a very big deal when an essay and doj and state department and others get breached and monitored and compromised by a russian

intelligence unit, the civilian intelligence unit, there's a different intelligence service than the military gr you that hacked into the dnc so here is the deal. for those who are into corporate security stuff, solar wind was one company with network management and had 300,000 clients around the world, who in god's name on it was the right idea to have the same provider, the same supplier across all be sensitive agencies. think about your own company and how reliant you are on one single source provider and whether or not there is continuity and crisis management effect goes down. >> it has a domino effect. really difficult to reverse. the experts i am speaking to say it could be catastrophic but we have more questions about last week since this did

involve the fbi. one person asked if you could describe the fbi watchlist process and how it is added to in the information shared in law enforcement. if you could elaborate on that. >> this is another teachable moment which is what the watchlist is and what it is not so i've seen some people screaming this was an fbi failure, these were not on the watchlist so obviously we need to talk about what the watch list is. it is not the no-fly list, not where you can't get on an airplane. you are confirmed terrorist. it is a tracking system that is only triggered when you cross a border or head to an airport and try to get out of it. my sources tell me two of the baddest of the bad actors at the capital actually flew,

okay? even if they didn't go to the airport, you will be put into secondary and your bags are searched. the officers will show up and pretend to play dog and say what are you doing? you want to see a ballgame? if you have clean luggage you are getting on that plane. i had people ask me are 224/seven surveillance? know. there are 100,000 people on the watchlist and most of them are islamic violence jihadists. i had to call some folks when i heard the news on the washington post that some of these knuckleheads were on the washington post, we are putting domestic terrorism suspects in washington? it wasn't done when i was in there but yes we are in the good news is the fbi tells me they disrupted a dozen domestic

terrorism subjects to dc, would have been much worse so that is the watchlist. it is not a panacea, it is not a magic thing and only pertains to crossing the border or getting on an airplane and even then you can still get on an airplane. >> the fbi has begun to deal with extremism on this list. what do you think? is that fair to say? >> guest: chris ray incurred the wrath of the president when he said this, the number one threat is domestic terrorism and went a step further and said the highest subset in that category is hate based domestic terrorism. the president flipped out at that and chris ray had the nerve to suggest that antifa was just an ideology, not so much organized group. he knows the deal, we know the

deal, we need the investigative tools in law enforcement to allow them to do their job. >> host: we have time for one more question but this is a good one to end it on and this, you -- the miami fbi office, second command or director of counterintelligence. anything you want to accomplish or achieve? >> guest: i lived quite an adventure and had a family who lived it with me for which i'm very grateful. i have done more than i ever thought i would do and did something i didn't think, i am talking to the public and living vicariously, and educating them about the national security threat. i feel i am still on the job in

some way and thankful for everybody for allowing me to do that. >> host: thank you, and i think -- if you read the amazing anecdotes. get a sense for what it is about. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you for spending your friday night with us. >> host: any time. >> guest: and the work you do, original reporting job on a daily basis. we are grateful. >> thank you for a fantastic

conversation. independent bookstores. >> thank you for joining us tonight, top of the event, you appreciate the -- if you haven't purchased a copy of the fbi way or the green button at the bottom of the screen which you can cook on, let us know. have a wonderful evening. >> take care everybody, stay safe. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. booktv on c-span2 created by america's cable television company. brought to you by these television companies who provide booktv to viewers as a public service. here's a look at publishing

industry news. pulitzer prize winning author lawrence wright will release a book on the covid-19 pandemic of the title the plague year, will be available on june 8th. after writing the last book that came out in 2020 the end of october for the official look at the response to the pandemic. the selling author malcolm gladwell's book will be about world war ii. according to the publisher the book will, quote, illustrate how differing ideologies, it will be on sale in april. to enlarge its holdings, provide minority groups with

greater digital access with library archives and support diversity in the next generation of archivists and librarians. the program will be rolled out over the next four years and made possible by $15 million grant provided by the andrew mellon foundation. and the authors guild sent a letter to the pilot of justice requesting random house, america's largest publisher not be permitted to complete their planned purchase of simon & schuster, the nation's their largest publisher. they will dampen competition for others work and reduce advances. when random house argue their market share with the addition of simon & schuster would fall below an antitrust investigation. booktv will continue to bring new programs and publishing news. you can watch all our past programs anytime online, booktv.org. >> hello, everyone. we are here today because helen andrews has been in the book of the year in my opinion, "boomers: the men and women who promised freedom and delivered disaster". i have known helen for 15 years now.