-- television for serious readers. >> next, the of osama bin laden -- with the weekly standard's editor in chief stephen hayes. an hour.ust under >> i would like to introduce to gentlemen, one of them is a brilliant writer and incredibly keen thinker. one of the most important intellectuals in america. the other is steve hayes. >> i saw that coming the moment you start of the sentence. >> one of the great things about working at the weekly standard is you get to meet a lot of people with high influential power. that who i'venown

known for 15 years, is one of the guys whose intellect i find genuinely intimidating. i can't overstate how smart this guy is to say he is an expert in counterterrorism does not begin to cover what he is. he has trained members of the fbi's counterterrorism division, advised presidential candidates, analyzed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from terrorists. without his work, the government would never have released the bin laden documents. he is a brilliant writer, his stuff is fantastic to read and i don't mean to embarrass you, i think america owes the sky a tremendous debt for the work he has done over the years. [applause] with that, please welcome tom joslin and steve hayes. >> i'm going to break two rules. it will start talking about ourselves and we will read something to you.

doesn't that sound riveting? it is fun to talk a little in the beginning about how tom and i got to know each other because it is such a great story. i was hard at work back in the days before and shortly after the iraq war, i was reporting on iraq and some of bin laden's support for jihad terrorists. saddam was supporting them, despite what the mainstream media said. i would write these articles and occasionally get and you mail the sky i never heard of, from a hotmail account. tom: which i still have, by the way. stephen: which you still have, although it has been hacked and compromised a few times. these emails said, i read your articles. lo and behold, it advanced the argument. i would do reporting and right another story. it would appear in the magazine and i would get another email, it is interesting what you wrote. have you looked at this?

this part on and on. i got to know who tom was. i'm glad you followed up on this, have you looked at this? out follow-up. this went on and on. i got to know who tom was. he was a trained economist. we started working together. i said to him, why don't you write some of this? he said i'm not trained, i am not a writer.

i said, write something and he did. it came in clean and it was smart. he started writing more and more. i know, we are writing pieces together and collaborating on anything having to do with national security. tom: much to my employer's puzzlement. my employer was wondering, why are you publishing articles on terrorism with steve hayes. stephen: i learned the lesson quickly that tom is smarter than i am and he works harder than i do. i had him write the stuff and i put my name on it. it was a perfect arrangement. we had been doing this for a

long time and tom started to get a claim writing things elsewhere and everything they said about him is true. his writing is generally regarded as one of the nations top security experts, certainly in the field of jihadism and terrorism. he has briefed fbi, down in four bragg, nypd folks. secretaries of state, cia directors. i don't think i would violate any confidence if i disclosed what mike pompeo told me, tom is the smartest analyst on these issues of anybody i have ever come across. he said that at the time that he was running the cia. he said, i want to be clear, we have brilliant people working here, but tom is the best.

i tell you that so you have some idea of what you're getting. tom, a second on why you moved from being an economist into this field. tom: i was reading steve's stuff. after 9/11, i wrote an algorithm that downloaded every article referencing al qaeda and dumped it into and a million bucks. i get it every morning at 4:00 in the morning. i get up and read everything. steve's articles came up and i thought they are much smarter than the average article. he is able to put together details that other writers were not able to. he can put together a composite case where others could not. steve is out on a live saying the regime in iraq was providing support to al qaeda and the first article he mentioned was

one i wrote because they head of the cia's bin laden unit in 2002 wrote a book anonymously. in that book, he had page after page explaining how saddam's regime colluded with al qaeda. in 2004, in the middle of a contested presidential election, he became publicly known and claimed it was only warmongering neocons who would say that iraq was working with al qaeda. in addition to my nerdy endeavors, i get hotheaded and that ticked me off. i was the only person who actually read his book in which he made the case himself. so i wrote a simple article called, now you don't tell us and steve got it published. steve sent it to a producer at meet the press and he was one of the most honest journalists in washington. we miss him to this day. he took my article and on-air impeached michael sure your. not a single other journalist

pointed out that he had been saying the opposite of what he was saying. steve is not giving himself nearly enough credit. he is the only journalist in washington who will take on the system. that is a big thing. you have a lot of people invested in protecting the bureaucratic turf, often at the expense of truth. that is what journals and is about. steve deserves a hand for taking the weekly standard and fighting these fights. stephen: we better stop this. we're going to lose everybody. [laughter]

we're getting in the weeds. i'm going to read you the beginning of a piece that tom and i wrote. some of you who have been with us before, we have talked about this several times. this will be a timely update. in the early morning hours of may 2, 2011, a team of american military and intelligence professionals landed in the walls of a compound in pakistan. the teams and mission had two primary objectives, capture and kill osama bin laden and gather information about his network. a bullet to bin laden's head accomplished the first, the quick work of the team accomplish the second. it was quite a haul, 10 hard drives, 100 drives and a dozen cell phones. there were dvds, audio and videotapes, newspapers and magazines.

at a briefing days later, officials described it as the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever. the united states had gone its hand on al qaeda's playbook, its recent history, current operations and future plans. a team at but by the cia got a first look. a small sliver of a document collection looking for actionable intelligence. according to the director of national intelligence, the team produced more than 400 reports based on information in the documents. just a small sliver of the documents. in six weeks. it was keyword searches of what happened next is truly stunning. nothing. the analysis of the materials came to an abrupt stop. according to five senior u.s. intelligence officials, the documents said untouched for months, perhaps as long as a year. that is the beginning of this project that has turned into something of an obsession for me and tom.

our view from the beginning is talking to intelligence professionals, military leaders, this contained valuable information that our war fighters should have access to and after the first scrub, the cia had executive authority of the documents. the cia and only the cia had access. the creation of the directorate of national intelligence was supposed to stop that and contribute to broader document sharing some other parts of the intelligence community could perform analyses. without important that people in the defense intelligence agency

get their hands on it because they were applying the information to people on the battlefield. the dia was for a long time a blocked. there were not given access in the cia said, you do not get it. they did not have to give much of an explanation. there was a long, protracted bureaucratic turf battle and i will not for you with the details. actually, the details are anything but boring. but we don't have enough time to go through them. the details in most cases are not boring, they are interesting. skipping forward, we pushed extensively to get these documents released. they were ultimately -- a provision requiring them to be released was required in an intelligent authorization act, which required the director of

national intelligence to start releasing these products. the dni at the time, james clapper, was reluctant to do this. they put out 40 documents here, 50 documents here. some of them included interesting material, some were sort of silly things. the entire time, the argument from the obama administration was, there is really nothing to see here, no one is interested in this, it doesn't tell us anything. by the way, al qaeda is decimated, we don't have to worry about them anymore. the more we talked to our sources, the more we understood how wrong that was. when you hear people today saying there was no scandal in the obama administration -- first of all i can muster that 10 others -- this is the biggest

one in my estimation. they hid the biggest body of documentation about al qaeda, its overlap with state network, how it adjusted to the war, and they held it from lawmakers from the time, from the intelligence community, and the american people. they did this in a time when we were engaged in a debate about these issues. some documents have been released, some of which we have and have written about, some of which we don't even have relating to the relationship between al qaeda and iran, and to the support the iranian regime gave to al qaeda, despite their theological differences. those documents would have been helpful to see in the debate of the iran deal. what is the iranian regime up to? what does that tell us about their broader approach, how they treat us? these are the issues we dove into. this is why we pushed as hard as we did to get these documents released.

i will turn it over to tom to go from there. this i think will be a rather compelling presentation as to what it was we ought to have known earlier, and just how big a scandal this is. mr. joscelyn: so we are going to play it a few clips -- of obama administration officials characterizing the files. we have the actual files, so i can see what they were citing and how they were mis-citing the files, and politicizing intelligence in real-time to justify their ideology. this is john brennan. >> is indeed the ticket before 9/11 before -- if indeed the decade before 9/11 was the time of al qaeda's rise, i believe this one will be the one that

sees its demise. mr. joscelyn: this speech was on april 30, 2012 at the wilson center. this clip starts by showing you what this was all about. during the 2002 election in particular, the obama administration wanted to say, it is all over folks. barack obama gets on the campaign trail and says he brought a responsible end to the iraq war. not true. he says he will do the same thing in afghanistan. that he will end the war -- not true. if you saw how the terror master himself so the world, that can complicate your arguments greatly. remember this is before the rise of isis, and this has to do with isis too, by the way. john brennan says in the next decade, jihad terror is done, over with. let's play the second clip. pay attention carefully to what

he says, because there are multiple lies built in here. >> with its most skilled and talented commanders lost so quickly, al qaeda has trouble replacing them. this is one of the conclusions we have drawn by documents seized at bin laden's compound, some of which will be published by west point's combating terrorism center. bin laden worried about, and i quote, "the rise of lower leaders who were not as experienced, and this would lead to the repeat of mistakes." al qaeda leaders continue to struggle with subordinate and affiliates.

in pakistan, they have fewer places to train and groom the next generation of operatives. they are struggling to recruit. some members are giving up and returning home, no doubt aware this is a fight they will never win. in short, al qaeda is losing badly, and bin laden knew it at the time of his death. he confessed to disaster after disaster. he urged his leaders to flee the tribal regions and go places away from aircraft, photography, and bombardment. mr. joscelyn: so a few things about this. one, this is where we detected they were politicizing intelligence from the bin laden files. the people i were talking to on the inside say what brennan is saying here is skeptical at best. this is one of the files. he leads off this clip talking about how al qaeda is struggling

to replace its leaders. just a few months before bin laden was killed ,he received a memo talking about their current leadership status, and what they were doing to in fact replace the leaders being killed in drone strikes. his top manager at the time sent him a detailed memo saying, not only do we have these old generation guys who can fill in the second leadership tier, we have a new generation we have been grooming. we have a lot of talent coming up in this new generation. this was written just a few months before bin laden was killed on the early morning hours of may 2, 2011. some of the guys listed in this document, contrary to what brennan would have you believe at the time, are still in the game today. al qaeda knew we were trying to take out their leadership, and the obama folks never wanted to tell you that. they never wanted to say they are taking steps to counteract what we are doing. couple things about that clip. brennan claims bin laden was struggling to communicate with affiliates. you heard about that language.

that is flat-out false. one of the things we're working on is a week by week timeline of all the correspondence bin laden has been having. you will see he was a frequent pen pal to all sorts of terrorists across the globe. he was getting detailed memos like this one. this one is about 12 pages total in arabic. it summarized multiple communications across the globe, the exact opposite of what brennan said. why would he say that bin laden is not communicating with these

other parties around the globe? if you look at it through the obama administration worldview, they wanted to say it is all over. if these groups are connected and being groomed by al qaeda going forward, and this thing is metastasizing and going around the globe and is part of the al qaeda structure, your narrative about the 9/11 wars being over goes flat. what the obama folks did is they played disconnect the dots. when you have intelligence that connects bin laden to other entities around the globe, they downplay that because it does not fit their ideological worldview. play this next clip. this one is from president barack obama. this one i think is stunning. president obama: to begin with,

our actions are effective. don't take my word for it. in the intelligence gathered at bin laden's compound, he wrote" we could lose the reserves to enemy's airstrikes. we cannot fight airstrikes with explosives." other communications from al qaeda operations and from this as well. mr. joscelyn: so obama cites two lines from a 17 page letter osama bin laden wrote. he ignored all the context that contradicts what he was saying. there are two lines at the bottom that i have highlighted that are what obama cited. if you read the preceding paragraph, they all contradict the point he was trying to make. he said what bin laden wrote, we could lose the reserves to enemy airstrikes. correct. which is why bin laden said, we won't allow you to bomb the reserves to death. the whole point of the letter is the obama tactics will not work because they will not let them.

this is the worldwide community of muslims bin laden pretended to speak for "it should put some, but enough forces to fight america. in the meanwhile, we do not want to send the reserves to the front lines, especially where airstrikes are used to attack our forces. reserves will not be effective in these conflicts, because they are not on the frontline where we are getting bombed. it is then the two lines obama picks up on. what is amazing about this letter obama selectively cited from -- this is a may 2013 speech, one of his top four presidential addresses on the jihadist wars.

in a history books, this will be one of the three or four speeches that go down as a seminal obama speech. to give you the idea of how badly he politicizes it -- bin laden wrote "we still have a powerful force that can deploy. the preparation for deployment will need time." he then goes on to explain that the two main battlefields they will fight the americans on are iraq and afghanistan. well, what was the whole point of obama and brennan's speeches? we are out. we are going to do the same thing in afghanistan. in the same files the president himself is citing, the terror master himself is saying these are the two principal battlefield we are fighting on. bin laden wrote the reasons they are fighting is to create a new caliphate. john brennan called this idea an

absurd feckless delusion that we will not organize our counterterrorism principles around. if they had been listening to the enemy, maybe they would have stopped the rise of isis. isis was an offshoot of al qaeda, groomed by al qaeda in its early stages. let's show the last clip. >> how many al qaeda do you think are in afghanistan? >> think the estimates on the number of al qaeda is relatively small. at most we are looking 50 to 100, maybe less. it is in that vicinity. it is no question the main

location of al qaeda is in the tribal areas of pakistan. mr. joscelyn: now let me tell you about this assessment. this is leon panetta. that footage is from july 29, 2010. he says at the time there are only 50 to 100 al qaeda guys in all of afghanistan. lo and behold, one of the documents out of bin laden's compound includes a status update on their fighting in afghanistan, written just eight days before panetta: tv and said that. the white house did have this file later in may 2011, and it never changed that erroneous assessment. what panetta said there stands for about six years. the author to bin laden writes, "our groups in afghanistan have been the same as ever."

he goes on to list eight provinces. he says "we have very strong military activity in afghanistan. i americans and nato are being hit hard." he said one battalion has 70 fighters in it. just one al qaeda battalion had more than the low end of the estimate leon panetta is getting for the entirety of al qaeda in afghanistan. he goes on to explain how they are working with various taliban figures. that is a key point. several other things i won't get into here. very quickly -- there were a series of assumptions the obama folks made about the world which were disproven in the bin laden files. this will tie into current events.

in 2011, with the outbreak of the arab revolutions, there was this big meme across washington that said, that's it, that is the death knell for jihadism. it is all over, don't worry about al qaeda spreading. not only did al qaeda spread, it led to more virulent factions like isis. i could play you clips by the cia. what did bin laden say? "what we are witnessing is a great and glorious event, and it is most probable according to history that it will encompass the majority of the islamic world." he writes "we will take advantage of this" for our own ideology and organization.

here is another letter he gets from one of his top lieutenants, also on the arab spring. this is weeks before bin laden is killed. remember at the time, obama administration officials in early 2011 through the benghazi attacks in 2012 -- what are they telling the american public? al qaeda is gone, jihadism is not spreading. there are only local threats. here is the letter bin laden perceived explaining the jihadist threat and how they will take advantage of the arab spring. this was written in april 2011. if this file had been properly analyzed, people have understood what was coming in the months to come.

he says "take libya as an example. the latest we have heard from our brothers in libya is they have started to arrange their affairs. there is a jihadist renaissance in libya, especially benghazi." this is april 2011. the file goes on to say they are receiving communications from al qaeda operatives in benghazi at this early stage. i'm going to give you two other ones. i can nerd out like this for hours. mr. hayes: this is true. mr. joscelyn: i will do this in five minutes. under secretary of state hillary clinton, the big idea for the state department was we are going to negotiate with the taliban to get a peace deal that will pave the way for us to afghanistan. we will find a taliban emissary,

and he will deliver this peace deal to end the afghan war. well, the emissary, after several frauds were put forth to the state department, they found a guy who was the real deal. clinton and her people nicknamed him a-rod, as in alex rodriguez, because he would be their most valuable player for as emissary to the taliban. this is in her book. you can look at her memoir "hard him a-rod, as in alex rodriguez, choices," which i had to dissect. there are many laborious details that confirm what you would expect. who, pray tell, was he funding before he had talks with the state department? al qaeda. here is a file from bin laden's compound in early hundred 10 before the talks, in which he is

listed as the main fundraiser for them in the latest cycle. he raises the most out of anybody for bin laden's coffers, months before the state department embraces this guy as their a-rod. there are multiple correspondences back and forth with this guy. at the same time our diplomats are negotiating with this guy in the taliban, who is he also talking to? osama bin laden in his islamabad compound. he had previously been fundraising for them. i will give you another state department goodie. under the clinton years, there was this big tortuous debate about whether boko haram in

nigeria should be designated a terrorist organization. they kidnap little girls, they are psychotic. the debate hinged on this pseudo-intellectual idea that they may be an extremist group, but they are not really tied to al qaeda. we don't want to label them terrorists because it would lump them in with al qaeda and make them into a bigger threat and they are. let's turn to the bin laden finals. the head of boko haram had already written to bin laden, asking for unity under a common dinner. here is the official authorization for al qaeda in the islamic maghreb, saying they will give money, training, and weapons to boko haram. this was when there was a debate whether boko haram was part of the al qaeda organization or not. there was this ridiculous assumption they did not have any ties to al qaeda and the global network. meanwhile, smoking gun files were found in bin laden's

compound that should have told people that was not true. this is the one we have the most fun with because it really ticks off the guys in washington. despite how iran and al qaeda are at odds in various places, they have these curious deals, with the iranian regime allows key al qaeda personnel to operate on iranian soil. we referenced a file called the new generation of leadership al qaeda was grooming. guest where that number one guy is today? iran. in any event, some of the files forced out -- when the obama administration first released files, they did not want to release them all at first. they trickled out over time. one included osama bin laden dressing down his top leader in iraq.

bin laden says, what are you doing? you can't be threatening the iranians. the reason you can't be threatening the iranians is this -- we expected he will consult with us on these important matters, for as you are well aware, iran is our main artery for funds, personal, and communications. the main artery for the al qaeda organization according to bin laden himself is on iranian soil. i will give you one last file that cannot again in this last release. bin laden, much like myself, had research ocd, so he had everything compiled nicely. with them he would get are these personnel files. it listed his top facilitators. most of them were in afghanistan and pakistan. the number one guy, his name at the top in arabic.

i will give the audience one guess where his personal file says he is based. inside iran, that is right, under an agreement with the iranian regime. a lot of energy has been put into washington to disconnect the dots on it, to say that it doesn't exist, that we are in the wrong for pointing out facts from bin laden's compound. these are not intelligence assessments based on second or third hand sources, this is from the horses mouth himself from his international enterprise. this absolutely has to do with isis as well. one of the common misconceptions is isis is a brand-new organization that talked out of nowhere -- no. what you see in the bin laden files -- we have processed

dozens and dozens of files involving reports from iraq. bin laden and senior leadership from afghanistan was managing the islamic state of iraq, which is the immediate predecessor to isis. a power struggle evolves in the dividing --in the jihadi world. emagin bin laden is the don of the mafia, and someone says, i want to be the don. we will take the framework al qaeda built and go our own way with it. if the u.s. government properly assessed these files, they would've understood the number of resources the jihadists put into iraq. they would have understood they would have had the ability to bounce back after the defeat in iraq. i will give you one recording

from bin laden. "even if we lose the islamic state of iraq, we will be able to wage jihad here for decades to come." that is something the obama administration did not want to hear. >> [applause] >> we've got lots and lots of questions, which is good. let me just add before we get to these, a sort of current state of play on the bin laden documents. we will touch on this in the next discussion i will have with michael anton, who was inside when these documents were released. the trump administration released these documents. in -- in january 19 of 2017, the obama administration -- these documents had not yet been

released -- the obama administration put out a press release that included a couple dozen additional bin laden files. then the press release declared that all of the files had been released, that was it. mr. joscelyn: hundreds of files had not been released. they released 282 files exactly at that point, out of the hundreds of thousands of files. you have the director of the office of national intelligence saying the only connection between iran and al qaeda is that they are at odds and they hate each other. mr. hayes: that january 19 document, it might be, in my two decades plus of covering washington, the the single most

misleading document i have ever seen. just one lie after another. the documents suggest iran and al qaeda are working together. that document says they don't like each other, they won't mess with each other. those documents are out. what is stunning to me is we are seeing much the same thing in the broader public and in the academic immunity as in the intelligence community as before. not a lot of people are taking the time to look at these documents. poor tom is going through these documents in arabic with all of these colleagues.

let's jump through the questions so we can get through a few of these. did government administration officials offer protection of sources and methods as a reason to withhold the bin laden documents? if so, was it valid? mr. joscelyn: they would sometimes float this. there was a retort to this they are well aware of. everybody knows we killed him, and the bad guys know we got him. we procured this in a well-publicized manner. our side was citing some of the files. for a period over a year, al qaeda was more transparent about what was in bin laden's files files than the obama administration. there would be long diatribes where he would list dates, why aren't you referring to this?

they are giving us a tell on that. the only thing you can worry about in the files, where their specific things to do with american agents -- were there specific things to do with american agents in the files? there may be some cases in iran where they have uncovered american agents, but the argument just doesn't hold water. >> in my expense talking to some of these people, including a guy named ned, who had been a spokesman for the cia. mr. joscelyn: a serial liar, by the way. mr. hayes: they would make contradictory arguments to me in a span of days. in documents that should be seen by the american public, we would get that argument.

this stuff is way too valuable to have people see, it's got all this valuable intelligence information, we've got to withhold it because people can't see that stuff. literally days later i would call the same person and he would say, there is nothing in the files, what do you think you are going to find? they would literally make those arguments within days of one another, which suggest a level of duplicity. mr. joscelyn: i will give you one more nerdy detail. do you remember the trump administration put into effect a controversial laptop ban on government flights? you could not stow it away? we found the final of the original report to bin laden. they said, we have devised and

perfected our laptop bomb, we can get it on the plane. this is on the files. this laptop ban became controversial because people thought it was motivated other than national intelligence. you could see this threat has been percolating for years. bin laden was perfecting this model of explosives that could be smuggled onto aircraft. mr. hayes: which organizations in the u.s. government can be trusted to give that he was people -- the u.s. people current intelligence? let me rephrase that - is there a deep state? mr. joscelyn: if there is, it is this -- one, bureaucratic interests protect themselves. they have to protect the bureaucracy at all costs. that may need your taking liberties with the truth. in that first sense, it is a

very important motivator for people. the second one is on policy grounds. there are a fair number of people in the intelligence community think they should tell us what we should think and how we view the world and what we think policy should be. it is your right as american voters to vote on the elective representatives of this country, not an unelected bureaucrat sitting somewhere in washington. >> [applause] mr. hayes: there are internal institutional biases at work. a lot of what we are talking about, to thought of the focus a bit, you have intelligence analysts who for years have provided assessments, this is what we think we know.

they would update these assessments. this is like the answer sheet to the test, right? you can correct your work, and they did not want to check their work. the intelligence community said for here's in assessment -- for years in assessment after assessment that there was no way that the sunni mullahs would cooperate with the shia. lo and behold we have this document saying they not only cooperated, but were essential to each other. you have the u.s. intelligence community saying on the one hand, we can work with the taliban, including taliban leadership. we can separate them from al qaeda, who are really irredeemable, work with the taliban to establish governing structure in afghanistan. again we get these documents. you can't separate them at all. the last one is on the demise of al qaeda.

the clips i played, obama, john brennan, they were leaning far forward beyond what the intelligence assessments were about how damaged al qaeda was. that does not mean there weren't such intelligence assessments. 50 to 100 fighters in afghanistan. that was totally and completely false. the documents showed it was false. we later found a training camp tom and others had identified.

mr. joscelyn: that is the punchline. the 50 to 100 they never corrected for six years. the reason -- we were disproven it from a variety of sources -- for five of the six years, they had this file to correct it. they did correct it, and why? our military and allies discovered the largest al qaeda training camp in afghanistan's history, 30 square miles. there was a town. they were churning out fighters every day. at a time when the u.s. government was saying the core of al qaeda was decimated, al qaeda had its largest training camp in history in afghanistan. if they had known that was

coming when they had primary source data at their fingertips, they would not do it. mr. hayes: a lot of why we are fighting al qaeda and jihadists is as a result of not learning about our enemy. the enemy is telling us, here it is. if mike pompeo is such a fan of yours, tom, why not work for the cia? with a huge contribution you could make. mr. joscelyn: imagine working or in workplace -- imagine working for a workplace where people hate you. once i get a security clearance,

they can tell me what i can say and can't say. i can do what i like to do public. 80% to 95% of what i do is public information anyway. i was briefing another senior white house official. he told me the assessments he was receiving from the top analyst from the director of national intelligence, it was like they were defective al qaeda apologist -- defacto al qaeda apologists, that there was no difference between what they were saying and an al qaeda press release. this was something he was not hearing at all from top the intelligence analysts. one of the guys mentioned in the bin laden files, a key ally in afghanistan is the number two guy overall. the warlord has been in al qaeda's pocket for years. mr. hayes: lightning round. we have heard a lot of talk about isis being defeated. we had vice president pence use speeches with language that sounds a lot like what barack

obama used against al qaeda. do you have thoughts on that? mr. joscelyn: i have thoughts on that. i told them not to use that language. president trump is dying to say isis is defeated. he just wants to say they are gone. we collect data every day on what they are doing in the world. they start to mimic some of the same sayings obama administration had, on the run, decimated. don't go down this route, because you are underselling. the american people need a clear assessment. don't go for the cheap political victory. obama deserves credit for

ordering the bin laden raid and taking out a few high-value terrorists, maybe, but don't oversell the picture. mr. hayes: that was good for lightning. how do you feel about waterboarding now in light of all this? mr. joscelyn: i revised my system on waterboarding, because what was said about waterboarding was inaccurate. some of the ways the cia explained was that it was no different than what navy servicemen go through in their training. that is not true. when you read the description, it was far more severe. one of the guys waterboarded went into seizures from waterboarding he experienced. he is not typical of someone

going through training. there are a lot of people obsessed with this issue. my view was, waterboarding was used on three al qaeda senior terrorists, all with blood on their hands. if we had bombed them to death, no one would have complained whatsoever. we got intelligence out of them. some of the methods where controversial, but at the end of the day that is better than not having any intelligence out of them at all. mr. hayes: i think gina haspel, she opposed the release of the bin laden documents. i still like her, but i disagree with her on that. i disagree with her on interrogation. i think it should be part of the toolbox. the united states should retain the ability to use enhanced interrogation techniques to extract information from these bad guys in exigent circumstances.

it worries me that she says they will not do this in the future, but that the cia should not be in the interrogation business at all. we ship them to dubious allies, and then you're taking information secondhand. then it is the fbi, crew are -- who are questioning these people for different, prosecutorial reasons. we don't have this system now, and we need one. we are going to get hit again. mr. hayes: what are the consequences for those who lied to us? mr. joscelyn: there basically are none, of us there is more accountability somehow at the ballot box.

i don't think there will be any accountability. it is a swamp in washington. there are great people, but they are drastically outnumbered. if you buy the narrative that obama was pitching, no matter how many files we throw at them to show that they are lying, they will not care. there are mainstream journalists in bank publications that know we are telling the truth because they saw these files firsthand, yet it will never be a full story at the new york times or washington post or any other of these places. mr. hayes: thank you very much tom, appreciate it. [applause] x live coverage today fighting crime and violence in el salvador hosted by counterpart international and inter-american dialogue, starting at 3:00 p.m. eastern. -- 3:30 p.m. eastern. >> on c-span, in prime time. from the atlantic conference in the american idea.

the media, silken valley, minorities but they don't care about real americans. >> a conversation on the millennial generation. schools,puses in high people are not reading certain books because they are triggered by them and all that, that is a fight worth fighting. >> wednesday, goldman sachs find centero would >> you can go to that currency and say, it is worth it because the government says it is, why couldn't you have a consensus me, i don'tt for know bit coin. goldman sachs has no bit coin, but if it does work out, i can

give you the historical path for why that could happen. >> thursday, racism in america. >> black views of what people are totally justified and white use of lack people are not. >> friday, actor and activist cameron, attorney jeff -- attorney general jeff sessions, speaking at the conservative summit in colorado. >> the criminals and violent groups especially the vicious gang, one of the most violent and inhumane groups in the kill, the motto is to rape, and control. c-span.org, and the c-span radio app. >> took -- book tv asked members of congress what they are reading the summer. >> a finished reading an incredible book, a pulitzer , by awinning book

vietnamese refugee himself and it is the perfect book to talk about for world refugee day. i'm now reading his second book. booksre just remarkable that capture the complexity of a refugee path his life but also refugees that end up in the united states so he does a really good job of capturing both pieces of that so those are front and center for me now. >> book tv wants to know what you are reading. listus your summer reading were posted to our facebook page, facebook.com/book tv. tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. state hartmanay, policy planning director announced the august and november dates for imposing u.s.

actions iran. cars,nctions target precious metals, crude oil, and iran's central-bank. >> welcome. i look forward to working with you. welcome and thank you for coming in. a lot of you have an interest in what we are doing with regard to iran and diplomatic efforts going forward. keeping that in mind, we asked the direct to policy planning and give you a few minutes re-think. welcome. i will call on you to take a few questions and we will go about our day. brian? >> good morning.

view on the to progress we're making to advance the iran policy. it has been almost two months since president trump announced our withdrawal from the iran deal. month sincer one secretary pompeo laid out a roadmap for achieving a better deal. the secretary line clear and for theng vision iranian people. this can only be realized if to be at 12 demands normal country. normal countries do not impoverish their own people. secretary on pale said the new strategy is not about changing the regime. it is about changing the behavior of leadership in iran to comport with what the iranian people really want them to do. a key part of the strategy is

maximum economic and diplomatic pressure. the first part of the sanctions will snap back august 4. trade and gold and other team metals. the remaining sanctions will snap act on november 6. they will include targeting iran's energy to band transactions central-bank and iran. after leaving, secretary mnuchin tried to create joint teams of senior officials for every part of the world. they launched june 4 and of already visited 13 countries in europe and east asia. a message of cooperation and coordination. worldountries around the sharing this encountering

terrorism and promoting he's and stability in the middle east. strong effort. the teams from treasury and state explain the full snapback of sanctions and the private sector of the risks of continuing to do business with iran. firms have announced their the iranianave market, particularly in the energy and financial sectors. we have been clear with countries around the world that we are bringing severe pressure with iran until the regime sanctions. in the coming days, treasury under secretary mandel and i are leading to the gulf as the global diplomatic efforts continue.

as i mentioned earlier on the energy front, sanctions are set to be imposed on the fourth. our focus is on getting as many countries of iranian crude down to zero as soon as possible. we are working with oil market participants, including producers and consumers to ensure market stability. thanking sanctions will step back november 4 and we will toressively enforce these lockup iran's assets overseas and deny the regime act fast to its hard currency. our sanctions do not now nor have they ever targeted humanitarian goods. our sanctions pressure the iranian regime and do not target the iranian people. the united states does not sanction exports or medicine to iran. in addition to building a

campaign of strong economic pressure, the qatari pompeo has made it a priority to stand with the iranian people who are victims of the iranian regime. the average iranian today is struggling to afford basics like water and eggs. at the same time, they are squandering millions of dollars abroad. they serve no purpose other than childreng pain and elsewhere in the middle east. foreign direct investment is falling and we hit an all-time high against the dollar last week. on june 28, it was trading at -- against the dollar in the unofficial market. that is twice the official exchange rate.

the initial and fall the regime received after the iran deal never benefited the iranian people. the iranian economy is too andorted by corruption pervasive presence in most key sectors. an economy create that works with the iranian people, they refused to meet standard international banking practices. iran accordingly remains on the black list. prevent money laundering and financing. the supreme leader seems all too aware that economic reform would expose just how much is economy facilitates war, terrorism, and crime. may a onepresident's --ng to the uae

the other network involve the iranian governor and the iraqi bank. it is no wonder that international banks and firms refuse to enter the iranian financial system. are rightlypeople frustrated with the regime and are expressing their frustration in nationwide protest and in smaller acts of defiance throughout the country. as the regime crackdown on these reform,te calls for more repression any greater violence, the united states stands with the people. since withdrawing, the united ,tates essential 53 individuals proliferation activities, or acts of terrorism. we will continue to do -- to do so. it demonstrates we must target

those responsible for the ohio -- highest level responsible. culture as the iranian people and tweets them with dignity. i was traveling to europe at the and of this week for meetings for political -- that will continue with very close consultations you have had in regular touch with governments around the world to discuss the way forward and that will continue in the coming weeks and i will take any questions. >> thanks for the briefing. where the president on sunday one european allied sanctions, i'm sure they continue trading

with iran. was that the tenor of your discussions with european allies on the recent trip and have you heard back from any allies in response to this yesterday? >> we will not hesitate to take action when we see the activity. that is consistent with the policy of economic and diplomatic isolation against said,nd to work as i treasury and state officials, they have been to europe, part of europe and asia. those will continue. we are in very close consultation with not just europe but with all countries who are affected by the reimposition of our sanctions.

>> the president also said the weekend that came off to increase oil production by 2 billion -- 2 million barrels, number one,ve that, and number two, what you think and will iteaction make up for the shortage coming up and number 2, 2 million barrels per day? >> i refer you to the white house on the reaction the phone -- to the phone call the president had. energy, with respect to by reducing 20 the revenue from crude oil sales. for oil capacity.

we are not looking to grant licenses or waivers. substantially reduce pressure on iran and this is a campaign of pressure here we're not looking to grant licenses or waivers broadly because we believe pressure is theseal to achieve objectives. we are prepared to work with companies reducing imports on a case-by-case basis. we are other sanctions, not looking to grant waivers or licenses.

>> on cutting crude oil from iran, which countries have already read to cut oil imports from iran and what has been the reaction from countries? >> i can give you a more specific description later. >> if i may, would like to ask about diplomatic efforts, because china, and the government of china has .xpressed the u.s. position

thank you. >> our diplomacy has been focused around mostly andultations with europe germany, those are our allies and we work very closely with allies. speechetary pompeo's about a month ago, he listed all to worktries we want with come we believe china and russia and the other countries who are part of the air and iran are part of the deal how the vastupport proxy network of terrorism, we believe both countries around the world share our goals. of 12go through the list

a globals, those were consensus prior to the iran deal. you see china vote repeatedly in resolutions, stated objections that were perfectly consistent with the 12 objectives secretary pompeo laid out. beginning from a position of rot agreement wanting to deter iran's stabilizing activities in the middle east and in support for terrorism. no one supports iran's terrorism in the world except perhaps a side -- assad. we have enormous agreement around the world on what we need to do to deter iran's violence. >> case-by-case? it doesn't fall under the enormous agreement in europe about how to go about this. you mentioned you are not

looking to grant waivers but does that mean you're not now,ng now, does that mean what do you expect will be accomplished? that in the goal of moving forward and sanctions and europeans, is that just solidifying opposition to the way the u.s. is going about this? -- as you have seen in austria as part of ongoing efforts to work with europeans, it is interesting he will travel the iranian operatives using diplomatic cover ahead of the dissident group and to others. we will be in the near term iran and theple of violence and attacks and

assassinations, kidnap in, hostagetaking, hijack in, from 1979 to 2018, we will discuss that in every region of the world. going tohave someone europe to bring the europeans, it is a very sad history of violence that iran has committed against europe and it is important for europeans to remember the kind of regime. >> thank you. can we see any change since the agreement, especially for the >> if you look at iran in syria and in yemen, they are backing all of the wrong

people and by backing them, that has contributed to enormous violence in the region. we put out a number of statements that summarized what iran is doing in syria. theseave an backing iranian backed forces are perpetuating the assad regime's brutality against the syrian people and it is instability in , this isng countries the expansionist policy iran has been pursuing. a lot of the money they received under the iran deal has been used to fund activities and stabilize the middle east especially in syria and yemen. >> thanks, everybody. >> thank you.

>> and live now here on c-span, a discussion is about to start on fighting crime and violence posted by the inter-american dialogue and counterpart international. we will hear from human rights advocates and attorneys on past violence in el salvador and something called transitional government -- justice. two years ago, the supreme court struck down amnesty laws taking place in the civil war in 1993 and that opened the way for prosecutors to reopen cases of human rights abuses. shortly. be started you're watching live coverage on c-span.

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[indistinct conversations] >> just waiting for this discussion on fighting crime and salvador toel begin, hosted by the inter-american dialogue and counterpart international while we wait come we will let you know what is coming up on the c-span network here tonight at

8:00, a conference on the american dream being held at ucla exploring free speech, immigration, and education. tonight on the communicators come we hear from political reporters about their investigation into how china gets access to u.s. tech knowledge he or you can tune into that tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. this discussion dealing with crime and violence in el salvador after el salvador's supreme court struck down are thelaws years ago ruling opening the way for prosecutors to reopen cases of human rights abuses in el salvador. [indistinct conversations]