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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Noel King: And I'm Noel King.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today, Dan Coats is resigning as the director of national intelligence. The Washington Post's Shane Harris joins us to explain what this means for the US intelligence community.
--:-- Shane Harris: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, was it a surprise to hear that Dan Coats is leaving?
--:-- Shane Harris: Definitely not a surprise. Dan Coats had been a dead man walking for some time, really more than a year. It had been clear that he had had some pretty public points of friction with the president.
--:-- Noel King: What kind of points of friction?
--:-- Shane Harris: Well, they didn't always get along. The president found him a bit annoying in some instances. And there had been stories percolating over the past several months that Trump was about to get rid of Coats.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, did he get fired?
--:-- Shane Harris: He did not get fired. If you read the resignation letter that he wrote on Sunday and our initial reporting, I think, bears this out. He and Trump had discussed this previously. They had come to an agreement that it was time for him to go.
--:-- Noel King: That's interesting. So, it was a mutual decision?
--:-- Shane Harris: That's right. The backdrop to all of this is that the president wasn't particularly thrilled with Dan Coats as the DNI. So the writing had been on the wall.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Why did Trump pick Coats in the first place?
--:-- Shane Harris: That is a great question. It sort of gets to the point of why does Trump pick anyone for some of these jobs? When Coats was tapped for this, and it was back in January, I mean as the new administration was just taking root, he I think was seen as someone who had the gravitas of kind of an elder statesman.
--:-- Noel King: What do you mean by elder statesman?
--:-- Shane Harris: He had served twice in the Senate. He had been the U.S. ambassador to Germany at the time of the 9-11 attacks, which was a really important job because Germany became a very close partner with the U.S. in going after al-Qaeda and there had been – remember, al-Qaeda cells there in Germany.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, when was the first time this relationship showed signs of wear?
--:-- Shane Harris: I think the first time was after President Trump met in Helsinki back in June of 2018 with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He stood famously up at this press conference with Putin and essentially disavowed a lot of the U.S. intelligence community's findings about Russia and its interference in the election.
--:-- Noel King: And how did Dan Coats respond to that?
--:-- Shane Harris: He came out with a statement reaffirming what the U.S. intelligence community position was regarding Russia and regarding election interference. And I think that that was seen as him obviously trying to set the record very straight so that there was no ambiguity about what the intelligence community had actually concluded.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And how did their relationship progress after that?
--:-- Shane Harris: I think you could probably describe it as hot and cold. The next really big public rift we saw was a few months back when Coats testified at what's called the Global Threats or the Worldwide Threats Hearing, which is this annual meeting of all the intelligence chiefs who publicly testify before Congress about all the big global hotspots.
--:-- Noel King: And what did he say in that testimony?
--:-- Shane Harris: He essentially came out and said, you know, Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement not to build weapons. We don't think North Korea is going to give up its nuclear weapons. These were things that were running very contrary to positions that the president has taken.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, why is this happening now?
--:-- Shane Harris: It's still not clear to me exactly why right now. It's not the best time, actually, necessarily for the president to propose a nominee, I suppose, because we're heading into an August recess.
--:-- Noel King: And what about the job of director of national intelligence? How important is it?
--:-- Shane Harris: It's not that old position, right? It's not a very old position. And it's important to remember that the whole notion behind it grows out of the 9-11 attacks and this understanding that one of the causes of the attacks was this failure of the intelligence community and law enforcement to connect the dots about the attacks because they weren't communicating with each other.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And how does a James Clapper compare to say John Ratcliffe, President Trump's pick to replace Coates?
--:-- Shane Harris: Night and day. Congressman Ratcliffe doesn't have a background in intelligence. He was for a short period he was the US attorney in the Eastern District of Texas and held a position in its national security division out there which is kind of adjacent to intelligence issues.
--:-- Noel King: And what about the concerns about politicization of the intelligence community?
--:-- Shane Harris: Oh, it's going to be enormously awkward. You know, people within the intelligence community are, you know, very sensitive to this allegation that the president has been making for some time and that many of his allies have that there was some kind of deep state conspiracy against candidate Trump and continuing into his administration.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what about Mitch McConnell's statement on this?
--:-- Shane Harris: Mitch McConnell, obviously a very stalwart supporter of the president, you would think would probably be someone who'd be voting for whoever he nominates as DNI. But in this long statement, praising his friend and former Senate colleague, Dan Coats, for the great job he said he did, there's this last bit in here that I thought was interesting.
--:-- Noel King: What's that?
--:-- Shane Harris: He said, the U.S. intelligence community works best when it is led by professionals who protect its work from political or analytical bias and who deliver unvarnished truths to political leaders in both the executive and legislative branches.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, thanks for breaking this down for us, Shane.
--:-- Shane Harris: Thanks for having me on the show.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher, and we are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
--:-- Noel King: If you want to learn more about your ad choices, visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if you want to support our show, you can become a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network at vox.com/join.
--:-- Noel King: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And thanks for being part of our community.
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