Transcript: Antony Blinken talks with Michael Morell on "Intelligence Matters"

And it's very hard for people to be grounded and have a sense that they're going to come out okay on the other side.               MICHAEL MORELL:So with this historical understanding, are...

I came to D.H.S. saying that counterterrorism was the cornerstone of the Homeland Security mission. And by the end of my three years, I was saying that cyber security should be the other...

And I asked him what percentage of Chinese operations like this is the FBI aware of, and he said, if we're lucky, one in ten; 10%. MICHAEL MORELL: Wow. JIM SCIUTTO: So, for every Su Bin,...

It actually just sounded like fun, and I thought, "Well, we'll do this for a couple of years and then I'll move back to Annapolis and I'll have my boat and my house and my golden retriever...

have territorial claims on each other.To get the Central European countries to be in an alliance where they accepted the other ones' borders and worked together.

RICE: --than the other way.

And it's not just data; it's labeled data.MICHAEL MORELL:What does that mean?CHRIS DARBY:What that means is if I've got a picture of a cow, I've got to know it's a cow. Somebody's got to...

And so we had that capability that is in-theater. And so the DNA actually comes back to D.I.A., and we had the ability to make the positive identification on Baghdadi.

Seems the Chinese are being very aggressive in that area. Is that your sense? BILL PRIESTAP: Yeah, I guess I think of it this way. That they're certainly getting more aggressive in that...

I do think that the esprit de corps of the cadre of leaders across the intelligence community can operate more swiftly, which I think to me time so that the bureaucracy doesn't kick in and...

So I think that also offers the American public a glimpse into the world that you know so well, that I had a taste of for just eight years but became so impressed by.

And the message is what Rahimi, the Chelsea Bomber, was going off of. It's what Saipov, who ran people over on the West Side Highway in the bike path, was going off of.

In the case of Earl Pitts, the first spy that I met with, he-- and this is a quote-- said, "I'll be your guinea pig."

It was not a perfect deal.00:08:44;29In my experience as a diplomat over many years perfect is rarely on the menu. But it was a good deal in the sense that it applied sharp constraints on...

I was eating breakfast at college, and I can still tell you, you know, the precise chair in the dining hall that I was sitting in when I first heard about the attack.

And we saw that prominently on North Korea, where he essentially said, "I don't want to brook any criticism from you, Bolton, or anyone else on my course of action." We've seen it with...

And so as we roll into some pretty critical dates at the beginning of 2020 I think it'll be harder and harder for the administration to do something really seminal in Venezuela. And by the...

But he got enough grief about it that he decided to take it that day, and so he was delayed in meeting me.We had a perfectly pleasant meeting. He made it clear that he had heard about the...

He said that not all the armies of Europe and Asia and Africa combined with all the money in their world, even if they had Bonaparte for their leader, could cross the ocean, invade our...

We also organized support flights to air drop supplies that they may need, everything from food to ammunition, and began to pave the way for the U.S. military to come into theatre.       ...

Bob, from my perspective, C-Post is a national security research center housed at the University of Chicago.But, to me, it's a special type of national security research center. It does...

And he was and is one of my favorite people on the planet. And it was partially the issues. But less the issues. The learning was more from the process, to watch the way Brent ran the...

And we also know the legal system in Russia, it's not really known for meaningful judicial review, the balance and checks and balances that we have here in the US.

And most important, thank you for your 38 years of service to our country. SEAN ROCHE: Thank you, Michael. I just want to double double down on saying that, again, it was an honor to...

MICHAEL MORELL:Eliot, thank you so much for joining us.              ELIOT COHEN:Thank you for having me.              * * *END OF TRANSCRIPT* * *

We were watching very carefully as he turned the power off in a few places, but we weren't watching what he did in the election system.MICHAEL MORELL:So, David, I'm going to ask you maybe...

The first time that I went to the Emirates after I retired, he asked to see and a car was sent to pick me up and I was taken to a small restaurant. And I had no idea where I was going, but...

If you look at, for example, what Reed Hastings has done as the strategic leader of Netflix, you recognize that he's reinvented Netflix four times. There have been four sets of big ideas....

Today, that diplomatic isolation is frankly ours, not theirs. And they have, you know, some economic support that they can --MICHAEL MORELL:As long as they stick to the deal.

All right, and then the N. which is--LAURA HOLGATE:The N. Now we're back to The Day After.MICHAEL MORELL:Yup, and this has been your central focus.LAURA HOLGATE:Yeah.

You know, sort of a freeze-dried orange juice that you could stir into a glass of water, which had been originally produced for astronauts.I mean, so a lot of commercial aviation grew on...

And then they'll come to the table.

I mean, one of the key challenges that we're facing is that if there's a flaw in our strategy, whether it's Ambassador Lighthizer on the trade side or previously, John Bolton on the...

Elian in the arms of his father Juan Miguel.

And you can see that they've kind of figured out what pushes his buttons.It's no coincidence that Kim Jong-chol, the emissary arrived in the White House Oval Office with this huge...

CHRIS COSTA:It's in L'Enfant Plaza, which overlooks the wharf area.

And the thing that I describe most vividly because it's the thing I never forgot was seeing, among the bones and the dirt, this pink parka of this little girl, probably six years old, who...

And when I graduated from undergrad, there was a bit of a recession in the U.S.; not a lotta jobs.MICHAEL MORELL:What year was this?NADA BAKOS:This was in 1991. And I started a grad...

One was, "I wouldn't want to get in a street fight (LAUGH) with this guy."TAMIR PARDO:Right.MICHAEL MORELL:And then the second reaction was, "I wouldn't want to get into a chess match with...

Given the view of the necessity of a near-term caliphate, which is very much in ISIS's view, Al-Qaeda was much more long-term about this.

I can't go to the White House as a man. I can't walk it. I can't talk it. Looks great." He said, "Make another one."So we did. And a young woman who worked for me, basically, gave me her...

MICHAEL MORELL: So Michael, maybe we can just shift gears here at the last couple of minutes and let me get your perspective on the big challenges facing the intelligence community. And...

And the analogy I used to use is, "The last thing I need is more people coming out on the street with guns and starting to shoot."

Two years later, Saigon falls. People often make this comparison. I've heard Bob Gates make it. I've heard others make it.