The Jack Hopkins Show Podcast
The Jack Hopkins Show Podcast; where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who lived those stories
Jack Hopkins has been studying human behavior for over three-decades. He's long had a passion for having conversations with fascinating people, and getting them to share the wisdom they've acquired through years of being immersed in their area of expertise, and overcoming the challenges and obstacles that are almost always part of the equation.
The Jack Hopkins Show Podcast
Security Expert Juliet Kayyem on America's Greatest Threats
What's the number one threat to America today? According to national security expert Juliette Kayyem, it's not what you might expect. "Violence, or the threat of violence, as the accepted extension of our policy differences," she explains, pointing to a troubling shift in our political landscape where violence has become normalized and even state-authorized.
As former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, Harvard lecturer, and CNN's go-to disaster expert, Kayyem brings unparalleled insight to today's most pressing security challenges. She delivers a masterclass in understanding the complex interplay between democracy, security, and power in our rapidly changing world.
Our conversation explores how billionaires like Elon Musk have accumulated unprecedented control over global communication systems, creating new kinds of national security vulnerabilities. "He controls information in a way that we've never seen before," Kayyem warns, highlighting how commercial interests now intersect with critical security functions traditionally managed by governments.
Perhaps most compelling is Kayyem's candid assessment of where Democrats have failed, particularly on immigration policy. "Democrats tend to convince themselves that border security is a mythology of Fox News," she says, explaining how this blindspot has consistently undermined progressive messaging with voters. Her refreshing honesty cuts through partisan talking points to offer a clear-eyed view of what effective homeland security truly requires: managing the secure flow of people, goods, and ideas rather than simply building walls.
Whether discussing the strategic failures of political messaging, the reality of cartels, or the path forward for rebuilding democratic norms, Kayyem's analysis is both sobering and surprisingly hopeful. Join us for this essential conversation about securing America's future in an increasingly complex threat landscape.
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter https://wwwJackHopkinsNow.com
My guest in this episode is Juliette Kayyem. Juliette is a national leader in Homeland Security, crisis Management and Public Policy. She's currently a senior lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School and a national security analyst for CNN, where she's been called their go-to expert for disasters. Her recent book, the Devil Never Sleeps, explores disaster preparedness and response. She served as President Obama's Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security and has held senior roles in Massachusetts government. She's a Pulitzer finalist and a award winner and an expert on security, resilience and crisis planning. In the private sector, she's the CEO of Grip Mobility and a senior advisor at Tenio, consulting with top companies on security and cybersecurity. She is also a frequent speaker, consultant and board member with a background in law and a passion for public service. She's married to First Circuit Court of Appeals chief Judge, david Barron, and is the proud mother of three children. Let's dive right into this episode with Juliette Guy. What's the number one threat to our country in terms of homeland security right now?
Speaker 2:I would say right now. I think it is violence, or the threat of violence, as the accepted extension of our policy differences. It has entered our dialogue, it has entered our public space. Questions about even elections happening, the free and fair elections happening, the restrictions on a president running for a third term, the use by elected leaders and their billionaires of targeted dismay at judges and their families, congress people and their families All of it surrounds our discourse in a way that I've never seen before in my lifetime.
Speaker 1:You answered the next question as well. I was going to ask if you've seen, if you had ever seen, this many variables.
Speaker 2:No, look, look, you know, in the both sides worlds, I'm supposed to say left wing violence and blah, blah. Look, you know. Oh, look, look at people on the street and looting during the George Floyd riots. The difference now is that it's state authorized, permissive, from the government. You cannot compare an activist or a nihilist during the George Floyd riots who wants to break windows, or even someone who's destroying Teslas. Now, all wrong, all wrong. Violence is wrong, destruction of property is wrong To a political endorsement of violence. January 6th and its forgiveness, like, let's not forget, it's not just that January 6th happened. They've now all been pardoned. So you've created this permissive structure, let alone the ability of these guys to go out again. It's apples and oranges and people will demand both sides-ism, but you can't compare them. I mean, you know so.
Speaker 1:No, you can't. Where does Elon Musk fit into the picture in terms of a national security risk?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, interesting, OK, so I mean there's a couple of pieces to it. I mean one is he controls information in a way that we've never seen before. In particular, it's not just Twitter, because people can get off Twitter, Starlink he controls the capacity for nations to communicate, in particular, in times of crisis, as we've seen with Ukraine, and then has the ability to threaten it, and then has the ability to threaten it. Now, what you're seeing with Elon, though, is that it's very hard to manage national security with commercial interests, because the market will turn away from you if they don't like what you're doing. So what you're starting to see with Tesla and even Starlink, as some countries move away from it, is that the fact that we do not know who the members of DOJ are, what their security clearances are, who's paying them, what foreign countries are paying them? I have no doubt and I'm willing to say this because they're young, because they're unsophisticated, because they're cocky, one or more of them will end up in jail in my lifetime, because there's no way that you can have that kind of power and access to information and not disclose it, get paid for it and all that stuff. Their cockiness is going to get them in jail. So I mean, I don't like them, but I, if I were their mother, because I'm old enough to be their mother, I would say one of you is ending up in jail and I don't want it to be you.
Speaker 2:The third is, of course, who is he and why does he get to make these decisions? So that gets to the Democratic norm side of this. Congress passes budgets, programming policies, and Elon Musk, under the guise of efficiency though he's given up that guise is basically going after progressive, not even progressive, like the post-World War II entitlement state, and entitlement makes it sound bad. I'm talking about Social Security, I'm talking about Medicare, I'm talking about yeah. So in that way he's becoming an Article 1, which is the legislative, you know figure. But only Congress can fix that and they can fix it. I mean, you know tiny, tiny violin for these guys Like you can fix it tiny violin for these guys Like you can fix it.
Speaker 2:Do you have any?
Speaker 1:hope, because we hear rumblings from within the GOP that some are starting to feel like Trump's pushing is way too far or Musk and Trump. Do you have any real hope that Congress will?
Speaker 2:It's interesting Like I've been thinking a lot. I mean you mentioned I'm on TV and I'm with the Atlantic and I'm, you know, on NPR a lot like like I've been thinking a lot, as I'm sure you have, with a are in now not as a resistance, with a capital R and I think like that was Trump 1.0. Part of it was he didn't win the popular vote and there was a lot of evidence that he had gotten support by the Russians to help him win. I don't know what that looks like, but at least in the investigations that was true, so that it seemed like this was an illegitimate president in a way that he may seem is going to be.
Speaker 2:How do you get the GOP to assert its constitutional checks and balances? We're not seeing it now. We might see it in the days to come. I mean, I'm, I look at this. I'm not in the political space, I'm in the security space, but I look at it, I go. What's the theory? And you know, I know everyone was mad at him and we're not allowed to speak well of him on the Democratic side. But maybe Chuck Schumer's strategy is right, which is Democrats shouldn't own anything, let this administration fall on its own sword, and when he gets below 40 percent he will lose his party, and you know that's interesting because I've been particularly hard on Chuck Schumer for that decision.
Speaker 1:And yet, you know, there are some things we just can't know until we know.
Speaker 2:He had a strategy. I mean, I will give him this right, like he's getting. You know, everyone's mad at him and, like you know, my kids and I was sort of annoyed at it too, because you wanted the assertion. But if you're thinking of the strategy, as the Democrats are unpopular enough, we need to build we. I'm a Democrat, I'm more more more center than left of center, but we need to build a party. We don't know what that looks like. You can't fight someone with no one right which is a challenge we have right now but the party cannot own his demise or be blamed for his demise. You cannot, with a straight face now say that the Democrats have anything to do. What's happening now? And that was Schumer's strategy, and you can think it was risky, but I don't know, on Monday, april 7th, you know, I mean there's no one saying Chuck Schumer owns this right. I'm talking on a day in which the stock market is responding to the tariffs.
Speaker 1:In terms of like. When you are looking at homeland security issues, how much does that involve foreign involvement or the ratio in terms of what's going on within the borders of the United States and what's going on in connection to Other countries?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, look, I mean there is a difference between risk and impact. So there's there's lots of things that are going to have a tremendous impact in the United States that we need to view as you. We're just going to have climate disasters. We have to be better ready for them. We have to do all sorts of things that are responsive to that.
Speaker 2:But, you know, homeland security is really about borderless threats. It's about, I mean, we'll have domestic threats but we'll also have, you know, eggs coming in from Canada or who knows. You know, measles probably started in Mexico, or the measles outbreak now, or radicalization starting, you know, with ISIS, let alone the state sponsored attacks like we see with with cyber. So I don't really think about it in terms of like interior exterior, terms of like interior exterior. I mean, this is the thing about the border that's so absurd about the way I think Trump talks about it is because the borders, given our society, are about secure flow.
Speaker 2:You have to have both of them right. You have to have flow. I mean, whether it's people, goods, ideas, resources, what things, whatever. So and the security part, if you just talk about that in isolation, doesn't make any sense, and we're about to see that, and so the way to think about homeland security is more about how I describe it as this secure flow of people, goods, ideas and networks, so that you're putting an emphasis on our connectivity rather than the walls, and it's just a different way of thinking about it than, say, than than I think the Trump administration has.
Speaker 1:Interesting. You know, I know a couple of people who were former tier one operators in OK and on the discussion of going after the cartels, they both tell me that will not work out well for the United States in terms of they think we will see a sharp spike in violence within the United States. You have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think that's. I mean like we don't know what's going to happen. We know there's going to be elections in well, tier one.
Speaker 1:You mean like critical infrastructure function in that world and know in depth the devastating power and tactics of the cartels and how many of them are here in the United.
Speaker 2:States. Yes, I think that's right. I mean, I think, and that's a traditional law enforcement effort. I mean, I don't, there's almost. I mean, think about it. The reason why we use SEAL Team 6 tactics is either because the host country is unable or unwilling to eradicate the threat. That's hard to say about Texas or Oklahoma or California, like, like, everyone's interests align here and so I'm all for lethal power in places that either. Or I guess the third is they either welcome it, they won't do it, or they can't do it, and in those three cases you then have an alignment of the kinds of force that you might want. But without those three, I think the three, I think the governor of Arkansas, ms Huckabee, governor Huckabee, would be more than willing to eradicate the cartels, and you don't need the kind of force that you're talking about on the response, let alone because the cartels are manageable no one wants to say that are manageable through a variety of means that do not require extra authority or extra, honestly, extra judicial activity.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. Let me be. I was too vague in that. Let me be more specific regarding Trump. Vague in that.
Speaker 2:Let me be more specific Regarding Trump's previous threats of going after the cartels in Mexico with possible military assets and the relationship between, if that happens, and then what the cartel framework within the United States? Would we see a terrorism-type?
Speaker 1:response to that? Oh, you mean by us? Well, by the Mexican cartel. In other words, in response to us taking targeted military action?
Speaker 2:Oh right, yes, I think it would be. I mean, I agree with you. I mean, I think the, the, the cartels exist because of our insatiable appetite for drugs and guns. Honestly, that's the market. What do cartels do? We're the market, we're the we're the demand side. We're the market, we're the demand side. And so the long term solution to the cartels is something that you know we may not experience in America, but I very much worry, especially as Trump becomes more unpopular, of what he might do with lethal force, in particular in an allied country. Lethal force, in particular in an allied country. If Mexico does not welcome the use of military assets in their country, we abide by it. Otherwise it's an invasion, and people can have all sorts of theories about why it's the right thing to do and we need to do it against a war against drugs. It's an invasion, and the president who told us America first better be able to defend that.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you something. I've done the research on it to my satisfaction, but you're smarter than I am, so I'm going to ask you the question. I see on social media quite often people posting things, and I realize a lot of this is just out of desperation. You know we are looking for a superhero, but I'll see comments where people say you know it's time for the United Nations to step in, or NATO and arrest Trump.
Speaker 2:It's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:Right, right, it's just this ends.
Speaker 2:Look, the haters of Trump can pretend that there's like a single solution. If only we got this case. If only there were. You know it's not going to happen. He's a singular phenomenon.
Speaker 2:I don't, I don't think it's replicable. I mean I do think you know. So this ends with with elections and this ends by ensuring that we have free and fair and it ends by him losing big time. I mean this is why I think he won't run for third term. And then Vance will lose, and he will because Vance owns all of this and he will because Vance owns all of this. I mean Vance is out there on the tariffs, all that stuff. Vance will lose and then he can say see, you know, it's only me, right? So when I'm not, I think, I think Trump throws out the third term thing because he wants to distract.
Speaker 2:But if you're, trump is many things. He's very, very politically savvy. If you're him, you are, you're not running again, you're letting Vance lose and then you were the greatest thing ever, right? If Vance loses, that's better for Trump in a weird way, in his weird ego way. Anyway, don't think any outside. I mean, I always tell like people, that's like you, in a weird way, in his weird ego way. Anyway, don't think any outside. I mean, I always tell people we need to be out there. You know what I mean? Yes, go out on the streets, protect students, have your institutions fight, be moral, be engaged, be in the arena and singularly focus on 2026.
Speaker 1:And that's refreshing to hear, because not too many people are just coming out and saying that, and I think one reason is it scares people right To think oh my God, it comes down to that where it's iffy and it could go either way, because again, everybody wants that superhero overnight fix look, I mean right, no, no, I think that's right.
Speaker 2:the overnight fix, that's exactly like and we thought this in trump 1.0, like you know, remember, like people would be on tv and my network, I mean people would be on tv and they'd be like this is the case. He's going to jail, like you know, like one one court ruling is going to do that, or the Mueller report, and it just it's. Look, we realize that the norms were breakable. Right, we've got a lot to learn from this. But you know, the eradication of, of parts of MAGAism the MAGAism is going to always exist. I don't agree with it substantively. I don't know if it exists after Trump exits the public stage or passes away, but what I do know is that the violent, destabilizing elements of MAGA have to be eradicated in the ballot booth, and that's on the Democrats to figure out who's our messenger and what's our message.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know, in reference to the issue we were just talking about, you said you know it's not like just a single issue. So I know that you think, in terms of the full picture and the complexity, what two or three issues, looking back to the 2024 election, yeah, what two or three issues do you think could have been addressed differently that might have?
Speaker 2:made a difference. I have three Immigration, immigration, immigration Bingo it is. And this is where I got on the other side of my party, right on the other side of my party right For three and a half years. Democrats tend to convince themselves that border security is a mythology of Fox News and we still don't know how we want to talk about it. But we better start talking about asylum.
Speaker 2:Rules were being abused, the caravans were real, that the dysfunctional, permissive nature of a lot of our border enforcement policies were creating a magnet, and I know this because once Biden realized that this was a real issue, he was able to fix it six months from his election. So we have to take on liberal and progressive groups. We have to understand that Hispanic, arab, Asian communities are not thinking about immigration in the same way that white progressives might be, and we better figure out what this policy is. How are we going to talk about immigration? How are we going to talk about border enforcement? And then, how are we going to implement it? And there's some interesting Democrats out there now who are doing that, especially from border states, like the new senator from Arizona. Why did I forget his name? Hispanic guy.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not lost for the name too, but yes, I do.
Speaker 2:So he's. He's talking about what the community thinks about, and it's very different than than the talking points of the liberal elite in New England.
Speaker 1:It is, yeah, it is, when. In this case, it was President Biden, but with any president, when it takes them so long to get on board with realizing, in this case, the war, is that the result of them getting bad information, or is it the result of their own resistance and isolation?
Speaker 2:I think it's the result of the whole groups phenomenon. I don't mean to blame the groups, they have done good. It's feeling that the groups represented the issue in a way that they didn't and I think that ends up being the big challenge, right, right, in a way that they didn't, and I think that that I think that ends up being the big challenge, right, right, you know, I think it's. It's the groups came to really be asylum groups, right, groups that were focused on asylum. Well, the border is much more complicated than that. It's about flows and enforcement and right.
Speaker 2:But if the democratic policy after this is, you know, enforcement, interior enforcement has been horrible, isis horrible. No one's going to doubt that. You've got to finish the sentence, which is ISIS. Isis priority in a Democratic administration is going to be workplace enforcement. Yeah, period. We're not going to be workplace enforcement. Yeah, period. We're not going to go after schools, we're not going to go after. You know, we might eventually right, but it's going to be workplace enforcement and real criminals and it's not going to be this BS of putting innocent people in jail in El Salvador which they're taking up to the Supreme Court. I mean, that's how you know, that's how scary it is about what they think their authority is. They've admitted that they made a mistake with one of these guys, one of the Venezuelan guys.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm going to ask you this question. Let me sink from left field and my subscribers are probably going to give me a hard time for even posing this question. But is there the chance as absurd as it sounds is there the chance that somewhere down the road, that it's undeniable and that some of these things Trump has done actually have benefited the country in any way?
Speaker 2:I think I mean I was accused the other day of being too, I think. I think Trump is a political genius in the way in which he can assert or capture a discontent and in that way in Right, I agree, and in that way I think he was right about the border. I mean I think he's right about conditions-based disaster relief. Where he's always wrong is in what the solution specifically should be Makes sense. I think Trump was right about X, y or Z His solutions, though I mean about exposing that we need to fix this. Here's my solution. We cannot be on defense. I mean this is. I keep yelling who's doing? I mean we've got to win the elections, but who's doing Project 2029?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and is that what Gavin Newsom is attempting to do?
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm not sure he's the one. I mean he's getting better. I mean I thought in the early ones of his podcast I thought he was like a little bit too dumbstruck by the pod boys of the right wing. I think he's getting a little bit better, but I think I applaud him, as I do others who are trying to figure out, trying to fill spaces and then also tell the story of why government matters. We've got to tell that story because the Republicans are telling that story and it's not a good one.
Speaker 1:Right, I'll tell you somebody who will probably be in the running, or I assume, who seems to have a very balanced way of talking about things and I'd like your feedback on that JB Pritzker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think Pritzker is good in that sense is that he's tough but he's action-oriented. I like the governors, I mean I really do. I like Bashir, I like I'm good friends with him, but I like various'm good friends with him, but you know, I like various governors throughout. So there are there are a number of governors, and maybe even retired governors, who will jump in. But you know, I mean you know we can't. Oh, sorry, that was Amara, that was that. It was the time. She's like did you find him? Yes, I found him, sorry, I had Amara, that was that.
Speaker 2:She's like did you find him? Yes, I found him. Sorry, I had turned that off. Ok, she's reminding me I have a two o'clock.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry that it got interrupted, but let me, let's start that answer over. Look, I like what Gavin Newsom is doing in the sense of he's trying to fill spaces that we've avoided, democrats have avoided, and I think a lot, as I was saying to you earlier, about like, how do you want to engage? Like you know, you know who's watching these things, who's listening to these things. Do we need to engage on their level? How are our kids getting information like YouTube, all this stuff? So I think that's good.
Speaker 2:I may not always like the contours of it and and I think it's good that that's coming from governors, right. And so if you think of someone like JB Pritzker, bashir from Kentucky, obviously, gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, you've got the Joshes, josh Stein and Josh, josh Stein in North Carolina and Josh in, oh my God, in Pennsylvania. Good morning, you've got a lot of really interesting characters, but we've got to learn how to say the narrative of why government matters and why it's meaningful in people's lives, because they're figuring it out right now. They're figuring. I mean, you know we're a lot. You know everyone says the rich get richer, everyone's getting poorer.
Speaker 1:Today, april 7th, yes, Well, listen, I agree that it's good that they're talking, speaking out too, and I also think it would be good if you make your two o'clock appointment.
Speaker 2:I know. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:You're a sweetheart.
Speaker 2:Sorry for the mix up at the beginning.
Speaker 1:Thank, you so much, Juliet. Maybe we can do this again someday.
Speaker 2:Okay, wonderful, you have a wonderful time.
Speaker 1:Let us know when it's up Bye. All right, bye-bye.
