As revelations over the Chinese spy balloon flying over U.S. airspace continue to dominate headlines and Vladimir Putin plans his next move, the greatest threat American faces hides in plain sight.
That’s according to The Daily Beast columnist David J. Rothkopf, who tells this week’s The New Abnormal podcast that despite the balloon bombshell, the real enemy is hiding inside the gates.
Rothkopf, the author of American Resistance, the Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation, points to Donald Trump and the party around him “that are aligned with our enemies and support movements within our country that will attack our system of government, make us weaker, and put us on a track towards the kind of authoritarian regimes that Trump and those around him emulate.”
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“When Trump last week reiterated what he had said in Helsinki in 2018, where he said, ‘I trust Putin more than I trust the CIA or the FBI,’ it was outrageous as it was before, but it was perhaps doubly or triply outrageous because in the intervening period, in the five years since he first said it, Putin invaded Ukraine,” Rothkopf says.
“He (Putin) has identified himself as the great villain on the international stage. He was a principal, imminent enemy of the United States. And where is Donald Trump on this? He supports him over our own intelligence community and law enforcement community. And where is the Republican party on this?”
Also on the podcast, Spencer Ackerman, who writes the newsletter Forever Wars, discusses China’s spy balloon and how it may turn out to be an intelligence collection opportunity for the United States.
“There may be some tactical intelligence gaps that the United States might have about Chinese balloon-born surveillance capabilities,” Ackerman says, adding that despite the overreaction to the balloon, there is a “tremendous risk” over the next several years of the United States and China finding themselves at war.
Plus! Andy and Danielle discuss their thoughts on Texas’ cold-weather power outages and the lack of response by Gov. Greg Abbott—as well as a Republican New York congresswoman who wants to protect school milk.
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
