a lot of information that's coming your way, but make sure that you attend the next session as we are going to talk about eSports being the number two Indian sport of the next decade. Is that true? We will find out by our speaker, Vinit Karnik, Business Head Entertainment Sports and Life Events at Group M. Very warm welcome to you, Mr. Karnik. Thanks, Khyati. Thanks, exchange for media. Nauvallahuja, in particular, to have put this fantastic forum together. And what a way to start a fabulous journey in the entire available gaming ecosystem that we have. So great, I mean, absolutely grateful to be here. Thanks a lot for the invite. Let me try and share my screen. Can you see my screen? Yes, we can. Great, Khyati. So thanks again, once again. So I think the topic is pretty straightforward and a bit provocative. And I actually wanted to be provocative today because we have been talking about the eSports, the gaming landscape for a while in India. But now it's the time for us to really scale this up and take it to the next level is the feeling and the sincere point that I wanted to make through this forum. And that's the reason why I thought of a very, very provocative topic today, saying that can eSports be the number two sports in India? And I have lots of data through the next 10 minutes to support the provocation actually and see directionally which way do we go in terms of data versus reality. So let's take a deep dive into some of the key aspects. So in 2019, Mr. Mukesh Ambani said that gaming will be bigger than music movies. I mean, imagine Mr. Ambani making a statement like that is absolutely fabulous, isn't it? I mean, that's a great segue into what we want to eventually achieve in this business. Looking at some of the hard-coded data, we have seen a 14X kind of an exponential growth in the Indian online gamers since 2010. Yeah, so a 14X kind of a growth from 2010 onwards. India is basically all more India is ruled by the mobile gaming gamers. I mean, the numbers on the screen are absolutely sensational to talk the least. So we have 250 million mobile gamers in India looking at 22 hours of time spent weekly viewing eSports online. 123% growth in prize money in Indian eSports from 2016 to 2018. $35.8 million raised by the eSports startups in the last five years. Three average stream number of mobile games on most Indians' mobile phones. I mean, that's incredible, isn't it? With 80% India playing a mobile game on a daily basis. We have already seen Nazara's IPO doing extremely well this week itself. That itself is a great segue to the topic that we have today. Now, let's look at what COVID-19 has done in terms of exploration for the growth of the gaming industry to us. 11% increase in eSports users per week. 21% increase in time spent by each user on eSports. 61% increase in eSports live stream viewership in week one of lockdown. 45% of Indian gamers started playing mobile games during lockdown. 50% spike in daily active users on platforms like GameG during lockdown. I mean, isn't that an incredible segue? Why do we not believe that with looking at these numbers that we can't be a very, very competent competitor ourselves with a lot of live action that's happening in the sporting ecosystem around the world and in India? So therefore, if you look at it, the announcement of the Asian Games 22, recognizing eSports as a metal sport itself is a fabulous news for all of us. I think we should take that advantage of the momentum around it at an Asian game level and see how we can create magic around making it as successful as we all want it to be. So a couple of booster shots in addition to the Asian Games part in terms of the way we are seeing, me personally, and we at Gupemah are seeing in terms of how can all these things help grow the entire eSports market is by legitimacy. I mean, the entire Asian Games initiative and whatever we are talking in terms of federations, in terms of conferences like these, it basically brings legitimacy to the entire ecosystem. It brings acceptability as a metal sport. It builds careers. That's a very, very important point because raising the price money pool, growing the competitiveness of the entire business, it actually is going to be very, very important. We all know that 50% of India is below the age of 25. I mean, if you look at it, India is a young country with an average age of about 26.8 years and we all know that youth today is driving the eSports soft culture and I think we should spend significant time in making sure that this momentum is maintained for some time till it becomes a very, very established kind of a sector. Internet penetration in India we know arguably, I mean, we have the cheapest wireless internet in the world. The kind of increasing accessibility is driving the growth in eSports participation and consumption, I mean, that's a no brainer, right? Imagine the, look at the smartphone penetration. I mean, smartphone market in India is buzzing. I mean, whether it was COVID or lockdown, people were wanting to use various devices by those devices. So that's one sector which is buzzing with some really, very competitive smartphones access for Indians. Gaming and eSports start-ups. I mean, I just spoke about Lazara's IPO, right? I mean, the rising number of Indians start-ups in the gaming and eSports ecosystem is only growing and in time to come, I think it's going to explode if I have to see some of the data points that are available in the public domain. So these are some of the booster shots we believe are going to be catapulting the entire industry over time and a lot of effort from all of us from a marketing standpoint, from a publishing standpoint, we'll have to come together to make sure this becomes, that this dream becomes a reality at some stage, yeah? So let's look at eSports and while we're looking, while we're talking about consumer participation and while we're talking about all the numbers in terms of how consumers are embracing data, embracing mobile phones, embracing gaming, can we look at eSports as a media product? Okay, that's another provocation that I wanted to bring to all your notice. Can eSports become a media product and create a platform for itself to look at multiple layers of engagement within the consumer ecosystem, within the industry ecosystem, within the framework that we all operate in, yeah? So therefore, one of the examples I thought of taking is and possibly look at a comparison of eSports is with live action, okay? So can eSports as a media product, it mimics the traditional sport, right? In five ways that I would talk about, okay? Today we have seen significant amount of numbers for live eSports viewing, yeah? eSports is unique, yeah? So you look at any live sport in the real world, okay? It's unique to its fans, it's unique to its consumers. It's watched live in the stadium, it's watched live on television sets or on any streaming platforms. I think it's common, it's mimicking the traditional sports model. It's very seasonal, okay? Most of the sports around the world are seasonal from a timeline perspective, right? There's a fixed timeline, a calendar that operates. So most of the tournaments worldwide and maybe in India also it would take shape have got a seasonality, have some kind of a calendar that has to do it. The narrative itself is very, very similar, okay? So we have all seen the rags to riches story in the entire traditional sports ecosystem. We have seen a massive amount of grassroots talent coming right from the bottom of the pyramid from the rural areas to possibly become the poster boys of that country or around the world, okay? We see a similar sentiment echoing the entire esports and the gaming ecosystem, okay? The narrative is very similar to the rags and riches story tomorrow. I mean, nobody knew some of the top talent from India and around the world some years back, but today because of the entire ecosystem and the streaming platform that are showing the esports tournaments live, these guys have become stars, superstars, yeah? More importantly, we see top quality sport in the traditional ecosystem, okay? We see the best talent in esports as well, competing actually with their peers either on console, either on PCs or on mobile phones, right? So I think these five points are actually mimicking the traditional sport model, live, unique, seasonal, narrative and quality in terms of competitiveness. It's we are actually headed in the right direction towards making it one of the biggest consumable sporting properties worldwide. Just to give you some perspective in terms of the numbers from a YouTube point of view from March 2020 to January 2021, okay? Look at a comparison between sports and gaming, okay? The traditional sports and the gaming ecosystem. Monthly, average monthly views in the period from March 2020 to January 2021. 742 million for traditional sports against 3,338 million for gaming. Now, I understand one of the points that people may have in their mind that sports is normally watched live, right? But that's the case with esports as well. But today, even if you look at this chart as a comparison of content which is driving user interest, okay? Or a consumer interest. It's a great starting point to look at it for the increasing amount of interest the community is showing towards watching videos watching various different products on gaming on YouTube. Look at the average monthly subscribers, okay? Or to some of the top channels while sports is at 2.8 million, gaming is at 20.5 million, almost 7.3x of the life sports economy. Look at the average monthly downloads, okay? 8.5 K to 15.6 K. And that's the reason why I thought of making this more provocative in terms of can esports be the number sports for India in time to come. We spoke about the talent who's young. The whole philosophy is around catch them young and watch them grow. It's a very, very age-old theory. And I think it's very, very relevant to the esports ecosystem as well. So let's look at some of the advertisers worldwide who have caught the entire frenzy on esports quite early. We have seen significant amount of investors from Dell, Coca-Cola, MTV, Acer, Louis Vuitton, Airtel, Red Bull, Intel, worldwide. We have seen similar sentiments on some of these advertisers on the chart in India as well. They have taken positions in India already, okay? So the whole philosophy, the whole theory that I want to bring to the table is you need to write the esports bright wagon very, very early for you to reap benefits. Today is the time for you to evaluate various different opportunities and how can one relate to this target audience of the guys who are playing the esport and embracing this medium going forward and look at building your brand affinity with them all time. So if you look at what's on offer, the key stakeholders in this ecosystem being the streaming platforms, the game publishers, teams which are created through various different individual talent pool, talent themselves as one of those influencers or endorsers the way you want to look at it. And of course the esport tournaments. Or if you look at this five buckets, they're actually addressing multiple problems from advertising from a marketing perspective, okay? You can look at these five buckets from an endorsement standpoint. You can look at these buckets from a sponsorship standpoint, from programmatic advertising standpoint, from an exclusive content. So this is what it delivers to the marketing community, to the advertising community, to the media community, okay? Now look at it from a point of view of dramatic advertising which is a pipe through the digital ecosystem, yeah? Collaborative content is something which drives a lot of eyeballs and we have seen the numbers on the previous slide in terms of the kind of downloads and the kind of time spent people are doing on YouTube. A serious amount of money is also been channelized through the in-game advertising ecosystem, or streaming integration, experiential marketing. Now these are all important facets of our everyday life in the media, marketing and advertising industry. Can we look at gaming with the same lens the way we have looked at sports in the last two decades? Is the provocation that I wanted to possibly set on this platform, okay? Therefore, I remind one of the phrases that the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed at this point in time. And this beautiful quote comes from William Gibson who I have tremendous admiration for. Now I mean, look at it, the future is all set, the data is all there. We are all seeing the momentum, we are all seeing the kind of conversations on various different platforms in the right direction. Can we now embrace this as a business opportunity? Can we now embrace this as an industry in India and just take off from here and look at scaling the entire product offering in the gaming and eSports ecosystem? So on that provocative note, I wanted to thank you all for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts on this platform. And thanks a lot, thank you very much. Thank you so much, Mr. Karnik. It was a wonderful session. We'd love to hear more from you. And I want to ask all our audiences, what is your take on this? Will eSports become the number two sports in India? We know through statistics that India has taken 13% stake in the overall global eSports category. We are expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2022, and we have the youngest crowd in our country. So there is all the elements that require this industry to boom is already here with us in our country. So let us know what you think about it. We'd love to know and join our online conversation using the hashtag e4mgameon. We'd love to hear your thoughts as well. Thank you so much, Mr. Karnik once again.


We've got Keegan up next we've got Bishop or we're going to mark from arena cinderace and Okay, so a pretty standard looking team. You've got the three starters there And then your trick room mod which is primarily like outside of the cinderace. It's gonna be your primary primary mod Okay, what do we wanted to do here? I mean, I think we bring Do we bring? Typically, thank you so much for the following for joining us tonight. I hope you enjoy the stream of this all What are they gonna leave they're gonna lead cinderace? Sure, so we could maybe Got Talon black risk I don't know if I want to bring comfy here to be honest Comfy doesn't feel like the greatest Lead in all honesty. I do want to bring do I want to bring conch? I don't know I Definitely need in cinder all Maybe a moongus Hmm, maybe Moongus is decent against More stuff other than the cinderace and Malak to be honest. Yeah, we'll bring a moongus Let's go with this And see punk at all. I'm new to the competitive Pokemon. What kind of team is this? So this team right now is Gmax Lapras and the whole premise around it is really playing it with that comfy who's got triage ability So makes it gives any healing moves like priority I'd put some in it like a plus three priority bracket So and it means it's gonna go before anything like redirection like follow me or rage powder That would normally redirect your move so you can always prop the audience policy and even if they try and disrupt your play and So it's a really nice way to To always self-proc Your stuff if you want to You know here. I really want it. I really want to max talent blame, but then we're not Max and Lapras, which is kind of Feeding the point because we can max talent blame And just get rid of this really boom Go for an a stream and bring in I might be the better way to do this, you know go after the Rilla boom and Switching to incidental get the get the jewel and timid it on to both Both these physical attackers because we're probably gonna see We are probably gonna see Max apple from the center as it goes around in our high jump kick And route power. Thank you so much for the fallen for joining us tonight Love your vids. Thank you so much and thanks for joining us tonight. I hope you enjoy the stream And that's just as much a great to have you here with us all this evening We're black train of course always Should we do that? I think like I should make a blank train of course, okay? We're gonna get the fake out of bricks are girl wings, but fortunately we are faster than Cinderella So we are able to speed it doesn't max looks like it's gonna go for a high jump kick which could Come to bite if it misses if it misses for sure, but it's making it I jump kick You're gonna miss Wow and in see it's gone just like that Well, we bring in Lapras and then we can potentially double into the cinderaceous next turn Now like really booms gone. It's it makes it a little bit easier for us to go after cinderace From arena coming on to the field though. No idea. I Mean the cinderace switch out now. That's the thing I'm doing really worried about cinderace to be honest because There's always a play where we can go max airstream Into prim and thunder into that slot as well because it's Prim could potentially max although. I don't really mind if the arena does max to be honest Um You're gonna switch out. Are you gonna switch your cinderace out to organ to that's a question. I Feel like you would I feel like you're gonna you've gone to switch out So it makes more sense to go for play blitz even though we're not gonna do much damage And go for a breeze dry into for him double into it try and get damage there Yeah, so they like there's no way you keep cinderace in just to like allow it to go down here I'm gonna see Maruak. That's way better than the the p2 and there's the the marina gonna max so At least getting the sun up now means that if we do see a vortex Paladin at least is gonna be able to take it this turn It's like not the most conventional play but it means like talent flame should be able to kind of Unless this for marina's like like which then it may have a chance to take this down But I think the main thing after this is getting the speed boost for lackers so when Time film does go down at least Lappers can add speed the cinderace when it comes back onto the field. That's gonna be like the big deal for us Yeah, okay, talent film does take this So I think we need to spend this last turn going for An a stream and double into that for marina. I don't know if I really care about what the marks gonna do You can a stream and freeze dry My wife, what are you gonna do? Now? I'm not really close to go to my wife at this point I don't think it's gonna take down lackers And there's maybe the small chance that doubling up to prim we could take it down We could definitely see max god come out here from a bill Maruak's protected. Okay, if we can take down the prim here. I think we just win I Freeze rice should get it and I don't think they've got very many options now after this Okay, oh that changes things that changes things so much Okay, the citrus berry we don't get the print. Oh, it's so close. We'll get it the next time that it's fine Fine. We'll get the next set max strike. Oh That's not good That's not good. That's the one thing we didn't want to see a max strike That just resets our speed. I think we still out speed from arena so we can get Yeah, we got a moose. So this isn't the worst thing in the world because you can put the Maruak to sleep We can freeze drive from arena And then hopefully we still got rage powder to help us against that cinderace so That is Hopefully the game plan So the freeze try here it will take prim probably max guards and we could have used this turn to Double up into Maruak for sure Yeah, okay, this is fine and the Maruak I like it's not taken and then goes down in the ring Not all the clever It's gonna do it chunk massive chunk Wow, okay, that is too much too much damage I don't think cinderace has Protect I Has it got the tech lot of cinderace don't have Got life off so it might not we just need a hydra pump to hit And we need this Maruak to stay asleep come on We're gonna pyro ball is good. It's gonna bounce isn't it? This is the problem It's gonna bounce now. So this is a turn where we should have actually went for the Maruak. It's gonna bounce 100% gonna bounce and then this locks us a little bit because yeah, I think we needed to take this turn to go after the Maruak So the only thing that's really going to say if they don't bounce here, then we're fine But if they bounce here, I think we need Maruak to stay like asleep for three turns. Okay I'm gonna see cinderace It's gonna bounce the next turn so like whatever we do we need to target this Maruak this next turn And Because I think the only way it can like knock out the Amoongus is by gone for the bounce And I think the Maruak has to protect this turn. I Can feel my opponent So it has to wake up and protect Yeah, the grass to train leave in the field We have to rage powder. I don't think we've got like an option not to and we have to just have to pump hope it hits And Poltergeist Poltergeist is such a crazy strong move so strong It definitely has a drawbacks being like needing an item and To hit its opponent, but I mean if it didn't it would just be even more broken wouldn't it so Okay, Maruak gone for the protect there 100% so I mean making the play. I think cinderace has to go for the bounce I'm pyra ball. It's dangerous because it's not gonna it's got not gonna knock out Amoongus I don't think I think we take this in the rain Now the rain stops All right, what do you do what you do what you do? And I mean if you go sticky feet, thank you so much for the following for joining us tonight.   What options do you have we've seen pyra ball We've seen high jump kick. It's gonna have bounce for sure But does it take the turn to bounce? Or not and I think we did rage we just rage powder. We just go full I had a pump again We've seen protect as well. So I think it has probably got yeah Okay, the issue is whatever it decides to go for It's always gonna go before us and to hit Amoongus super effectively has to kind of changes typing and accordingly, so Think you have to go you have to go pyra ball here. I don't I don't know you might have iron head. It might be a better option Yeah, there's a bounce. Okay This is the turn where we could have potentially went for and We could have went for the pollen puff While we have to reach And what are we gonna do you're gonna freeze try a thunder Don't know if a freeze trial take it down, you know Freeze try with stabs probably stronger. So I'm just gonna do that. I'm gonna go for it. Let's see It's hope we can do it with the life hold blue coil. Maybe we take it down Come on. Come on laparous. You can do this for the team for the stream. Let's do this.  Okay, we've got an ex-opponent hat in center all indeedy primary net talk kiss and Oregon to okay, I mean This one is definitely where we can get a weakness policy proc With comfy. We've got trick room support as well. The only issue is here that the size bomb is a little bit is a little bit scary I think we have to bring in center all and maybe moongus because moongus doesn't do too bad Especially disrupting stuff and even if the the hat does max if we can get a moongus in full health in front of it Even life up with the the the payapa berry will take a mind storm in terrain. So Let's go for that. Let's go for that Alex, how are you doing? Can you check discord after the stream? No problem. My friend. I will do that dude I'm sorry. I haven't actually caught up with you already. Yeah, I submit. I like games Tooth and nail it makes a great review and I know right the nerves though, so They're great. I love those sort games I do love those sort of games because it's like Either way when you come out of it, you're kind of you've got that satisfaction where you're like right next time I need to make sure I can do it So you take it as a huge learning curve and you get so much from it Or you get like what we've just done and you kind of just clinch it that last second and you've got that life Good work good work sort of thing. So like either way. Yeah, those matches are awesome That's what like Pokemon's all about man. I love those kind of like slog fest matches. They're always great to play in nappy Fly or bounce isn't a guarantee here. Yeah. Yeah, bounce isn't I think bounce is like 90 accuracy, right? Comfy got giga drain. Yes, it did. Yeah, so now it's got priority giga drain Galarian slobber or good glaring slobber is very very good very good. Oh, it's 85 accuracy. It's even worse than what I thought Okay, so we've got Incinero We've got hat coming out. So this is fine We can max we can get a resonance up into the hat and we can go for that We can policy boosts because Incinero is gonna try and fake us out But it it's not gonna work because we are gonna be able to Get a good old giga drain up before and I think as well to be honest, I should probably be using a bulkier lacrosse and My original Team that I had. Oh when Gmax Lapras first came out, I had a really bulky weakness policy Gmax Lapras But then it changed it to this more offensive variant with the life hope that we were running on it and Which is incredible, but I think just having a little bit more bulk might be useful At least that's what I kind of feel in a minute. Okay, we're not gonna see fake out They must know. Can we take down? Can take down the hat. The hat is gone And G slowbrought is a weird one. I wish they gave it a max formula I also wish there was I know, right? I'm wondering if we get crown tundra, right? We're gonna get the crown tundra and I wonder when we get Galarian sloping which I'm presuming will if that's when we'll get potentially a G max of both Versions which would be so sick and I think they definitely deserve a G max especially for being like Kind of the the only real outside of worship to and cook the only new Pokemon that we've got in the DLCs Oh that we know about that we're getting in the DLCs and other than like legendary stuff like the ready new ready stuff in the birds So yeah, it would be kind of nice if we did get if we did get those This G max, but yeah, I'm looking forward to getting them glaring sloping. I think it's gonna be an awesome Pokemon Blue focale, thank you so much for the follow and I hope you enjoy the stream of this tonight Right, we've got prim and we've got in DD coming in next I mean Deck of Crackin thank you so much for the follow. I hope you enjoy the stream of this Hope you guys are all good and had a good day and Enjoy the Pokemon tonight with us. Do we set up I? Mean we could chase we could chase down. That's pointless. We need to go after the D&D. Let's go max guys to get the rain up and Just double into We just double into D&D. Yeah, I think you've got I think they have to follow me to be honest They've probably max for a marina right now But just double it because I kind of want to break a Sasha and indeed That's where backfires they might not be such though For society train stops that all those sort of shenanigans. That is super annoying Annoying because I've done that But no other reason We're gonna just see how the boys have been blessed don't like special it are they gone after the Comfy, okay Well, I think we use this turn to max lightning the frame and we'll go for a floral feeling just to make sure that lapis is in nice healthy State before we lose Comfy, which is gonna happen this turn and The psychic train doesn't stop us actually using priority attacks on our side of the field. She's good Lots how you doing mate? I hope you're well. Thanks for hoping and enjoying the stream tonight Hope you have had a great day my friend. There's a prim gone for the max now. I Think it's got a chase down Comfy like you want to get rid of it because like just the recovery support we've got It's so annoying and We go before the follow me. So that's okay. There's a helping hand. I'm past my bedtime Thank you so much for the follow and for joining us. I hope you enjoy the stream with us tonight It's kind of better for us.  So it means that Comfy will actually get to stick around another turn. It's nice We take that pretty comfortably and there's a mystery. So I mean we can get rid of the indeed the next day And I think we protect lapis here We're just draining kiss. How do we protect lapis? I don't know if we need to I think we actually just attack I think we use this turn because I think if you're primarini you probably go after I Think you've got the Comfy because I think it's obvious that you protect you this should take down a duty. Yeah I'm gonna say I hope the quit didn't matter. I don't think it did Now they go into lapis but not helping hand boost. So it means that we've still got access to floral healing this next turn So we can go floral healing and go. Well, they're probably gonna fake us out. They're gonna fake lapis out I don't know Comfy will be able to take a hydro vortex behind Lapis will take an attack. I mean We don't have no I don't think we can afford to do it. I think we have to just go We'll go after that incident although this turn and we'll go for healing but I mean if they go double into the lapis here Then it does mean that we've got Comfy around for the next turn so we just get another floor healing off So it's not like the worst thing in the world. Yeah, they're double in in our lapis.  So we are minus one. We're gonna actually under speed In snow and the prim now But the same time we've got our instant water coming. I think we're gonna be alright Think we're gonna be right because now the prim's done.  So I mean really like worst case scenario is we lose Incineroar here to The primarina But behind an aurora veil even though the reins up I think we may take a hyper voice to be honest But yeah smart place here going for this and then try and get the special attack drop Which they don't and we do hit so We are gonna be up. Yeah, this locks it up for us hundred percent. So that's fine Because now like I said like a moongus kind of just locks this game up for us Easy so We could be really cheeky you could be really cheeky and just go for a potting shot and get a moongus in and then just clean It up from there and think a dog you think the rude is gonna be legal and PG. No, I don't think it will be I think it's gonna be a Like it's definitely it feels like it's gonna be a legendary Pokemon or like a mythical anyway like Sarah Salami and Jarachi sort of type of Pokemon so I wouldn't have thought so but you can never see you can never say I thought the same about Urshifu when when the DLCs are coming out because of just how it kind of looked like kind of It kind of looked like what you would expect like a box legendry to be and And generally box legendries aren't really allowed in in BG So for that reason I would have been like that. There's no way but I mean it might be and rude you stand still I Hope I hope That that is the case. I'm gonna actually just play this super safe. We don't need to mess around I want to get lapras back in just in case But I mean it's fine It just so we can reset the speed drop Things go terribly wrong, but I think a moongus is gonna be able to do this all by itself And Yeah, it'd be nice to get rude. I would be nice like that's another Pokemon We were talking on Monday about oh, it's got a blizzard. We do avoid. Okay, do avoid that's helpful Wow, you very rarely see blizzard on on prim You see ice beam but not blizzard so much. I don't think it would have taken us out. Anyway, so I think we would have been all right And But Yeah, we're talking on Monday about the next and Dynamics Events raids that we can get the like the promoter raids and there's rude would be a great one We got Stanford up next though So we need to try and pick quick because they got tokes arcanine snorlax Lapras a really boom Okay, I think we go talent flame we go lapras I definitely won't conk in this one and I think it's in or off Yeah, we're going to Yeah, that feels like that feels pretty nice there Benji, how are you doing? I hope you're well had a good day. I hope you enjoyed the game Unfortunately, this is gonna be the last one of the stream guys, but I've had an amazing evening with you So I hope you've enjoyed it. I know we've had a few bumpy games especially early on with that time out and stuff but For the majority of the time, it's been pretty good. We had some good games, so Hopefully like I say this last one can be good Problem here is we've got to eat up and eat up shenanigans MRE buckle. Thank you so much for the follow and for joining us Here's the test your wing be in to women and It's whether or not we got tailwinds to match their tailwinds and then your wing be before they can beat up Because they could mark I'm gonna go red. I'm gonna double into the women here just to make sure But I'm really hope that the job will be picks up the knockout if they They got cobble a pretty screwed, but otherwise If it's just your standard women, you should get it But you'd imagine it will be Imagine just 2x2 2x2 with a sash may not be though You do hit. Oh, it's no one near enough We're so screwed. We're so screwed They go tailwind though. You need them to go tailwind. They do okay.  Oh, it's not even beat up it's finest one, isn't it? I'm just getting to I like this is why I need to pay attention To the chat. Oh my god Okay, well never mind never mind. I'm just talking away and not even looking at that Okay, we're all minus one that makes more sense I'm not really sold on the dual wing be I think it's good in situations I think intimidate just cripples it though, and I mean we've got Do we bring in so I don't know if we do actually I'd rather keep I think full health than anything else And let's go guys are into arc and I know you've got to start chipping that down because otherwise It's just gonna snarl and snarl and snarl us. It's going out. It's gonna retreat. It's coming in Ouija, how are you doing mate? Scissor wing beat is pretty good. Yeah, with that technician boost pretty nice pretty much like cypher Isn't it like what we're talking about? Oh, this is probably got a better type thing And I can't believe the DLC plug movies just the worst struggle bug. Yeah again another example like bug types It's getting totally like screwed like that like they could have given it decent They're gonna give it a good move. They're like, ah, yeah And then you bug types over there in the corner.  We it's not struggle bug though. We called it something else It's it's actually it's good. And they're just like Yeah, poor poor old bug types And the week you're doing pretty fine, man. Yeah, I'm doing okay, dude. Pretty tired tonight. Um, but Probably just a long day a long day being up early and yeah, that's it. But I'm good man I'm having a nice time tonight with all you guys. So yeah, I can't complain, dude. Um, but I am looking forward to kind of it Such an old mine Okay, we got big out pressure. We could go into the the talk is he ain't get rid of it. Um It's probably not a bad idea just to do that to be honest Um And I think just in case the alcanine switches back in I'm just gonna cover it with the the geyser Okay, we're just gonna see protect that makes sense We'll lose in sinorokia though, but I think this is the last turn of my phone. It's tailwind That means at least we could potentially get talent and then back into it and tailwind ourselves I think I'll one more turn the tailwind And then mine too. Yeah, let's Yeah, let's bring a conk now and they got one more turn the tailwind. So yeah, we need to bring a conk in right now Um I'm just brain punching. We need to try and keep conk on the tail with the cat And I think if they double into us, I think we'll be solved by sinorokia. We still probably take I'm hoping we still probably take both attacks That's lightning. Okay. If we only send a punch there But we'll definitely get rid of the total kiss now And we should get a decent amount of damage onto the elapser onto the lathras The issue is though, we kind of need to get tired of them onto the field like this next turn or soon There's back chunk of damage that does more than what I expected to be honest um Because really to get the most out of our lathras we need it to be outspeeding this alcanine Pressuring from that end. Uh, and and they're pausing lathras as well to be honest, and I guess if What's their last pokemon I don't know if we've seen it. I don't think we have seen it yet. Have we?  Okay. Um Hmm Okay, well, I think we just switch into townflame if they and I think we just protect lathras here Uh, if they take down townflame on the switch in That's fine because we get conkin back in not intimidated And I think we still probably are able to take this because a mack punch probably takes down that lathras Okay, that's ideal Doubling in and out. No, okay. Wait. Wait. Yeah, this is super super fun Uh, okay The tailwind we just go after the lathras here Let's go for thunder Lathras might protect No, we're not going to see that. So we are going to be able to close this one up, which is good Happy about this. So yeah, we need to go off the lathras here because the alcanine's not really posing a threat onto our townflame at all um Alcanine to attack snow maybe So I think that just puts us neutral with lathras. We should be able to just Knock it out with a double up with hydro pump Even though the rain does stop and a brave bird. So that's really good Jackie blackie. Thank you so much for the following for joining us tonight friend. I hope you're well um And that should take it. So that's a good way to end the stream with all you fine people. Ah, come on protect Stolen out the inevitable Alcanine come on I've really enjoyed playing townflame tonight. I've been apart from that one miss with the uh, the dual wind But I mean we can't really You can't help that. Um, but I have really enjoyed like every time I play townflame. I really enjoyed this format and Even though it's got terrible attacks that it still surprised me with the damage lathras Luigi, yes, we have comfy. We have comfy. Yeah It's not the easiest thing to bring now because a lot of the time if you see like rillaboom or um Things like venison stuff like that. You're kind of forced to Bring the talent fame Just for the the cover that you kind of need for lathras rather than the comfy So there's there are games where you can't use it, but there are games where it does a lot of work um But it's been good when we have brought it I felt at least yeah the floral healing like plus three is just crazy strong It's just so good especially behind a three-year-old veil Um, but yes good game to my opponent stanford and that's a nice way first to end the streams Like I said though, I did say I would get the rental team for all you guys So so there is a code. I will dodge duck out the way for all of you to get it Give you a minute to write it down. I'll actually type it in the chat so you can Get it two and five Okay, seven There we go Bebham you can offer up some slots. Thank you so much, mate. I will I will steal all the slots I can get 100 that might be nice. That'd be cool, dude And john did what and re if I oh five. Thank you so much for the follow And uh, I just want to say thank you so much guys for coming out to the stream tonight


So Karen, let's start with the title, Why Subtle and Why Tools? First of all, thank you for your kind words on the book and thanks for this discussion today. I'm really looking forward to it. Why Subtle and Why Tools? My basic sense of what went wrong after 9-11, and I'm always curious to hear your thoughts on this, is that so many of us have focused on strategic problems and tactical mistakes. And with the idea that if we sunset the policies, we're okay, or if like during Obama, we don't use some of these tools that I'm going to get to in a minute. But the fact is that the dangers are not just the policies. The dangers in this particular story that I'm telling are the way in which those policies came about. It's sort of the culture of governance that was redirected and compromised after the war on terror. And my argument is that these subtle tools that I mentioned in the book, there are four of them, really change the way we do business in Washington, in domestic and international affairs, and that we can revise the policies all we want. But until we make it not acceptable, not okay to use these tools, we're in trouble. And so that's the subtle part is that it's what we don't see that comes before the policies themselves and on the way to the policies. And we don't see them because we've just sort of adjusted ourselves over 20 years to them? Because they're behavioral. They're not necessarily named, although I think when you know you name them, they become like, you could say, how subtle is that? But you know, when you name them, you're like, yes, of course, but until you name them, you don't really see them. And so that's where the subtleties come in. Can you name them for us? I can try. And by that I mean many things because it changed over presidencies and over time, but essentially cloudy, fuzzy, imprecise language. And that was used, this is not the first time, but it was used in a very aggressive intentional and heightened way after 9-11, particularly with the first pieces of legislation, but continuing throughout the war on terror in a number of places. The idea was if, for example, in the authorization to use military force, you don't name an enemy, then the president has the power to go after whoever he wants, which is what we've seen happen over time. And I can go through many instances of this, but and it's lasted till this day, it became a powerful tool in enabling the executive to do what it wanted to because the category was so broad. This law is supposed to be the opposite. Something the founding fathers talked about a lot. It's supposed to be precise. It's supposed to be contained. It's supposed to be enumerated. And we just sort of got away from that in what I think is a very damaging way. The second one, this will be no surprise to anyone, but I'm still putting it as a subtle tool is secrecy, right. The secrecy that we know we have to have for national security matters in the classified setting, et cetera, et cetera. The secrecy that was embraced by Bush, and continually even during Obama, even after his proclamations about, you know, a commitment to transparency, and that was ramped up and transformed under under President Trump is really something that we need to address and that we need to have punitive responses to when it's used to the extent that let's say Trump used it where he didn't even create the record. Right, it was all on a continuum though from writing secret memos to just not creating the record itself, and many other things which we can talk about if we get into it.  And what I mean by that is institutional fuzziness and imprecision, and the best example of that but not the only example was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which basically took things from treasury and agriculture and defense and justice and health and human services and more and just sort of lump that together under the pretense that this is all about counterterrorism, which it quickly became about other things, largely the border which it has, you know, gradually morphed into today. But that kind of disrespect for institutional integrity, which also boils down to a disrespect that others have written about for professional integrity and professional professionalism is something that you've seen this administration actually try to respond to actually I would argue that this tried to respond to a number of these things or set out its intentions this administration being Biden, and the fourth is the willingness to bypass laws and norms and that these other three tools fuzzy language secrecy institutional porousness, basically allowed for to erase this notion that, if you needed to laws and norms could be pushed aside, national security war, and a couple of other concepts where they're keeping the American people safe, and you could just do what you wanted and and and these tools were used in tandem with one another in a number of instances throughout three presidencies and that and so these are the tools and and I think they need to be addressed and they need to be addressed. If for nothing else, then they sort of erase the notion of accountability. And if you don't name what the laws about well who could be held accountable for the fact that you created a law, you know, created a law that did XYZ if you, if you don't punish secrecy, if there's no, you know, correction that's immediate and if there's no, you know, accountability for the individual who writes memos that justify torture even though it's against domestic military and international law. Why would secrecy, you know, not be practiced. If the DOJ and the DHS are allowed to just operate as one organization, and it goes on for 20 years. What does that mean in terms of the size of the powers of the government in that sector. And in terms of bypassing laws and norms I think that's more of an, you know, obvious one which is how far have we come from a respect for the rule of law and constitutional principles since 911. That makes sense. Yeah, as much to unpack there. Some of these abuses were the work correctives made right I mean the secret prisons closed the coercive interrogations ended the universal surveillance of all American communications when it became public as a result of the Snowden revelations. Some of these things were fixed right. And the argument that the policies were sort of fixed like even in surveillance they weren't completely fixed and but the fact that they weren't rejected in a public way. The fact that they came into being this, you know, by under the guise of national security that's still out there. The fact that you can create. They talk about repealing and replacing the 2001 AUMF right. And that replacement because there are some very important things about this replacement that are these subtle tools and one of them is that it had we have to name an enemy. We have to name at least given indication that there is an end to hostilities that's in sight what it would look like, even if you just mentioned it which look, this is a contradiction to all the authorizations for force that preceded it, as well as to the declarations of war. So this this, we can't have a new one that just says something that's just as fuzzy. It doesn't matter if we sunset one if we place it with something that comes about in the, in the same way and the same thing about secrecy. If you can, if it if the policies were bad, what about the fact that we didn't know about the policies for how long, you know, the surveillance, for example, that in and of itself, to my mind has to be addressed. Otherwise, you can get away with whatever you want to get away with as as a government. Yeah. I mean one of the. How would you sort of assess me seems to one of the main impacts of 911 was to greatly increase the power of the executive and the presidency. I mean, as a. Is this to an unprecedented level I mean is there been any other, I guess, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus right and they've been. But how would you how would you score this in the broad sweep of American history. Yeah, I think this is unprecedented in that, first of all, there's more, more things to have power over. I would I include also the global the global network both virtual and physical. But I do think it's unprecedented that doesn't mean that other presidents, Lincoln being one FDR you could argue in some ways being another that just sort of, we're going to do what they were going to do the way they wanted to do it often in the war, right and war and security. And, but this is unprecedented in the sense that the emboldenment of the presidency by Congress, right by the courts, the absolute willingness to virtually eradicate checks and balances, and to violate the sense of the you know separation of branches of government that to the degree to which this was done in so many ways is unprecedented and there was no other than you know some pundits on the outside there was no counterbalance Congress fell down in its job and the courts. Definitely punted often saying in you know judicial opinions, it's not our job to second guess national security policy that comes out of the executive. That seems like a cop out. Yeah, it seemed like a cop out then and it seems like a cop out now which you know is, yes, that. I mean that the Supreme Court seems right differential to the president on matters of national security. Is that I mean is that been very static throughout the last 20 years or has it got worse better. That's interesting because we have so you know you look at Guantanamo right so and the detainee problem that the people could say and people have said, look that the Supreme Court weighed in on this detainee issue by saying they had to have, you know, they had to be able to contest their rights you know with habeas proceedings, etc. And, but that's very little in the scheme of things and right now I'm not sure the Supreme Court's going to make its next decisions, and, you know, just in that vein. So, what I would say is this, the 20 years has something to do with it well if you have a limited war that isn't going to go on forever, then you think you can maybe redress it there can be sort of a reset. It goes on this law, which is for a generation. Where does the reset exactly go to, and I think that's what's happened in the courts, which is that there's a, there's been a kind of knee jerk deference to the executive. During the Trump administration that that courts tried to stand up, but particularly on immigration matters in a variety of circuits across the country, particularly in the West in the ninth circuit but also elsewhere. And what did the Solicitor General's Office do it, it stepped in, and what did the Supreme Court do it allowed that it. What they did was they interrupted the proceedings that usually go from one court to a higher court right and pellet, and they just interrupted the court process. So this is during the travel ban issue during the travel ban issue and also in some of the immigration context cases but mostly in the travel ban, and it just gives you a sense of how once it's okay to violate process a little bit why not just do it. And without any idea that okay there needs to be some accounting for this right and it's, it's, it's not about punishments about wrong. Therefore we're going to redefine this position in this way. You know, you only get to interfere in the process X number of times and X something like that I'm not, you know, I'm sort of riffing here but something that's precise that's contained that understands that power given is power taken. You mentioned Guantanamo, you of course have written a very good book about the first year of Guantanamo. So, and you, that book came out what 2005 or I can't remember nine I think it was 11 years ago so 12 years ago. Did you have any idea that it would still be open. When you wrote this book did you have any idea that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was still the operational commander of 911 would still not be on trial or not being not be tried, not be tried. It's unfathomable to me as a citizen that we haven't tried the 911 co conspirators you know alleged 911 co conspirators it's on it's such a travesty to the idea of justice it's such a violation of the idea of justice. Seriously and we talk about why we can't get out of this era why well this is one reason trials are meant to explain to narrate to put an endpoint to to settle things. Talk about subtle to settle things we don't see so much and how it terms of it affects us and what it is. So I never thought that was possible in terms of Guantanamo itself and the detainees. I don't remember but I do remember that I was thinking wow it's going to be really great when I can write Guantanamo's last 100 days. That was like 12 years ago, and I still don't see it. I mean what is so let's just drill down a bit on that I mean you follow the issue very closely and it seems that there've been multiple changes of prosecutors and defendants and co vids intervene and I mean is there any prospect of a real trial. I read I think on your very very useful daily brief, something about KSM maybe going to trial next year. Yeah, even is that feasible. Yeah that's probably not remember that every time the judge and the prosecutor changes. The people in charge those positions have to educate themselves about the case that's the legitimate way to do it so they have to read through thousands and thousands and thousands and years of documents right these guys have been at Guantanamo for 15 years. So all of the documents that be created around the case. So it's not like they can snap their fingers and have it, however, and you and I both know, had they tried this in federal or you can disagree but I don't think you will. But had they tried this in federal court, like Eric Holder wanted to do like we tried terrorism cases prior to 911 and after 911. There is no case that would have lasted this long. It could happen. It's a deeper bench. And I mean bench in terms of just support staff teams prosecutors who understand and know al Qaeda and terrorism. You know that that's one solution that probably won't happen. Another solution would be to take the death penalty off the table and allow some some please some plea deals to go forward if defense attorneys we go for that. So there are options. But you and I both know that the Biden administration, you know, I mean obviously Eric in work for the Obama administration and there was a completely foe controversy that somehow you couldn't try terrorists in the Southern District of New York. And in fact, there have been multiple multiple trials of terrorists in the Southern District of New York since that without any, you know, problem. There was a completely foe controversy. You know, if the Biden administration really wanted to close Guantanamo wouldn't they try it again or all the political costs just so much that it's not even worth trying. I think they've made gestures to make it look like they want to close Guantanamo. You know, they cleared for release five additional detainees right, you know, I think it was at the beginning of the summer or sometime around then. But that doubled the number who had been cleared for custody the question is, will these review boards continue to meet and in a fast way think about. Look, a lot of this work was done before when they were thinking about this at the very end of the Obama administration so they know which countries they can work with and which countries they probably can't work with to resettle these individuals. They know what the conditions of security are that they want from certain countries, and what they need to what they need to insist upon to, to be able to present to Congress, they need to do it in a responsible way. They know the parameters in a way they didn't really know until they started to do it at the end of the Obama administration. So, and they've started, you know, all of the trials begin are beginning to take on a kind of momentum so isn't the trickier question just putting the trial at Fort Leavenworth or because I mean I presume there are still some sort of relatively innocuous people that can be shipped off to Kosovo or whatever. And then you have KSM and others who clearly have admitted their own role in 911. It's reasonable to have a Guantanamo military tribunal on a US military base in the continental United States where is that just too politically costly. Well that's interesting that you say that because the reason they can't do it is that for the past 10 years they, the appropriations bill for the Pentagon has said basically that you can't transfer any detainee here for any purpose whatsoever, right from Guantanamo. It was came out of committee this version that you know it usually passes in like December it came out of committee this year without that clause. Now, who knows how far that will get, but you know it's one of those glimmers of light you just want to hold on to so it's not impossible. I actually think it's more likely that it might go into the federal court system where, you know the idea is, to your point about the the faux narrative after, you know, when they tried to when Holder tried to bring the cases here. You know, there was a Guantanamo detainee who was transferred to federal court, Ahmed Gailani to the Southern District of New York, who had been at a black site and had been tortured, and the evidence in his trial, some of the most important evidence according to prosecutors came from a witness that had been identified during the torture of Mr. Gailani. And that case happened. All right, it didn't have a decision that everyone liked because even though he's serving a life sentence, he was acquitted on 284 of 285 charges but the fact is the case happened, it was resolved, there was a jury, there were all the security measures you should have seen what it took to get into the courtroom and the amount of procedures they had. And we can handle these cases and the idea that the federal judiciary can't handle these cases that the civilian courts can handle these cases. And the whole 911 question is so I think damaging to the sort of character and sort of legitimacy of the courts themselves, they have to handle, they have to be able to handle these cases and if torture is something that keeps coming up they need to be able to adjudicate that that's what it means to have an actual rule of law and not just one that you use when it's convenient. Yeah. So, I mean, presidents as different as Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W Bush kind of have a had a pretty similar approach on a number of issues. Being the judge jury and executioner and drone strikes Biden did suspend the drone strikes by it appears that he started again in Somalia so it's and of course he the two drone strikes in in Afghanistan which one of which was clearly a disastrous mistake. But there seems to be sort of a kind of unity of, you know, the differences of course but, you know, they, they all use drone strikes they always special operations, special forces, they all want a light footprint, at least, you know, you know, there's there's there's no more big conventional army so how do you sort of think about that since there seems to be sort of bipartisan consensus around many of the tools that you describe. Maybe not the subtle tools, but at least kind of the ones that work that are more obvious. I think, and this does go to the subtle tools. The idea that the President can the executive writ large can just decide who what when we're and why to attack with a drone strike, let's say, it cannot really be the case that why can't there be a process by which you have to bring it to, you know, Congress to some, you know, visible committee something where you say, this is who we want to attack where we want to attack them, not just the National Security Council it's it's broader than that and it's more balanced you know checks and balances. than that. And we don't have that now. And so, yeah, we've come to accept that just when the executive wants to bomb somebody, they do. It used to be that you have to sort of say we're bombing this person I'm not saying they don't say it to themselves, but we're bombing this person at this time for this reason. For example, you know, Obama used the word imminent, right for for killing, let's say on our lock in American citizen. So the idea was, he posed an imminent threat someday. It wasn't an imminent, we could say here's when where and why right or why we probably knew but here's when and why. The definition of imminence was sort of expanded in a sense but it was was was it completely wrong in the sense that because Marty laid him and then David Baron right wrote the opinion.  You know, I like he was training people to attack targets in the United States. He was doing so on a pretty consistent basis. There was no evidence that he was stopping doing that. He obviously tasked the underwear bomber to blow up an American plane over Detroit. And, you know, apparently Obama had no Obama didn't give us a second thought the constitutional law professor was like, you know, he didn't, he didn't give us a second thought over this one so what was, you know, what should have happened that do you think or what was this the right decision. Now I'm not a real fan of the memo that set this out but one thing in it also is that he couldn't be captured. That was one of the ideas that he couldn't be captured and and and therefore killing was the only alternative. We do have something called due process, which has to do with you know, the rights of American citizens. The only way you can renounce that right is not by somebody in the White House saying you've, you've, you've given up your right to be a citizen, you have to actually renounce it and you have to say those words, and one form or another. And so, you know, do we not trust ourselves to be able to, you know, capture and try somebody like this, do we need a system of being able to try to have people that we've captured in one country or, you know, look at Guantanamo that's a mistake. But, but I think it shows the weakness, again, of our distrust in the justice system which is kind of what road justice is about right I write about that kind of extensively there which is, we've just abandoned our trust in that system to work so that's one piece of it the other piece of it was and this is true about the Obama's administration writ large. They didn't think about someone else picking up these powers. They, they don't seem to have thought about the fact that once it was okay for people who thought they were acting within the Constitution within the rule of law, whatever that somebody like Donald Trump could came along and then the strike against Soleimani, right, which he uses in the same way right afterwards we hear was imminent. It was imminent attack. And then, you know, when journalists and others drove, you know, delve down and say well what was the resistance what was going to be attacked was it these bases was it what exactly these embassies. There was no they are there. And so, well you know that that raises an interesting question because you mentioned the Soleimani strike, I was surprised that Trump administration didn't will clearly articulate that that basically it was the same reasoning as the Alakie strike in a way the Alakie strike was much harder case to make because he was an American citizen Soleimani wasn't you didn't hear the Trump administration use this argument publicly. You know that's exactly well they did use the word imminent without you know compare actually one of the officials does, I think I write about it one of them does. But but there's a different reason for that, which is that and this goes to that the heart of the Trump administration. You really didn't vet as far as we can tell the strike in the way you would want a National Security Council, you know, procedurally working. And so as a result they hadn't come up with a legal rationale that they were going to use. In the week after there's a whole chapter on this in the book with a week after you have Esper saying one thing, you have bar saying another thing, you have banned and everybody's has a different legal procedural framework that they're using. In fact, there's a story about you know Esper going on NPR and having to come back on, because he, he said what he thought was the case but then when he got back to the office he was told no no no that's not the reason we're using today. So, you saw it they were confused they were conflicted which is what it means to bypass laws and norms if you don't follow the norms of how you make a decision of this magnitude. There are other consequences and this was one of them. So, it so it was just a complete confusion and that I that fell into the confusion what what we're there rationale. Okay, and just to remind viewers listeners, please use slider if you want to submit a question. And I'll just take the first question that just came up. It's an interesting one. Do you believe the lack of trials of 911 conspirators is to hide Saudi misconduct from Jack Keeland. What's interesting there's I was just going over some of the sound for a different reason some of the, you know, allegations that the press has made in in these four requests and trying to figure out about what the Saudi role is. I think I wouldn't say it was specifically that I do think that we've grown into a pattern where when they as a country where when things are just so complicated it's not worth getting into. We see it as not worth getting into. And I think the role of the Saudis how limited how precise, where it was, who was giving money to whom in the United States and what that actually means in terms of the royal family, where it was all coming from. It's so has been so neglected for so long and now to get back into it just seems like why what what is there to be gained from it. I still think I think that has a lot to do with what's going on Guantanamo. We seem to have gotten ourselves into a situation where when it's just too complicated. It's just not worth it. I want to turn to some specific quotes in the book that I found striking. Essentially, you say that without all the things we've just discussed the path to Donald Trump might never have been laid. So what what what did you mean by that. We have a few hours for me to tell you. Let's take. I mean Donald Trump is sort of the, the all of this burst onto the scene all at once. So for example, secrecy is one obvious one that I think people know about Donald Trump took secrecy that was already established right we can keep secret. We can sort of use that as a big rubric for them and he based and look we've seen it through Obama and in a number of ways, including with the torture report, but you know not releasing all 6000 pages of the torture report. But before Donald Trump decided not to create the record. And so what does that mean. That means, we don't let as John Bolton others have reported, we don't really know what was said at certain meetings with foreign dignitaries and others because Trump made it issued an order you can't take notes at this meeting. So there are no notes of it right. As you're saying that Karen it suddenly cuts me, you know, we don't know who is in the White House at any given time right I mean the, I think the White House sort of registration. The White House login, they said they exactly thank you for bringing that up. So you so you didn't have to sign in so no they did not didn't have to. There was no place to sign in right. Same thing with the border. Look what happened at the border when they separated you know sort of to switch categories here when they separated children and you know families. They did keep a record on purpose of who they had separated sound you want to know why we can't find parents why this has been such a hurdle to reunite families. Well if you don't create a record. There are lots of things that can happen afterwards, and a lot of things about the detention camps, haven't been recorded. That's a lot better than having to worry about for you. Things that'll come down the road and maybe these secrets you know how we're treating people Guantanamo or decisions to make to strike certain individuals might come out. There's just no record of it. And we see this in other ways I mean Trump really you know stymied the use of subpoenas by the White House and by the courts in terms of getting White House officials to testify in a way that's really amazing how it worked. So, you know that to me is a kind of secrecy and what I would say with Trump was that he understood how if you combine secrecy with fuzzy language, we're going to put a lot of bad guys in Guantanamo, you know, we're going to take all all Muslim ban, you know, rather than, you know, eventually there were specific, you know, some specifics added to it but the idea that this was just carte blanche for these countries that what you end up being able to do is lie, much more easily, because there's there's nothing. There's both a lack of precedent for the language, which is something Trump did on numerous occasions and a lack of precedent and a lack of documents to be used to counter the lying people so just that's, you know, one kind of example. I think another example and how these tools morphed into tremendous abuse by Trump has to do with the institutional fuzziness the lack of integrity between institutions and what that meant or within institutions. The fact that the Department of Homeland Security created as a counter terrorism organization became a weapon against the southern border immigrants coming in in the southern border in such a massive and uncontrolled way, particularly during Donald Trump was built into the, you know, fabric sewn into the fabric of its creation from the start, and Trump used DHS as his law enforcement agency, and with with William Barr and sessions, helping him. You see the guards from the border being who many of whom were deputized without any real training which you know has been reported in many places, taken to Portland for the black lives matter protests again. What's the, what's the consistency between border guards, professionalism training legitimacy mission and, and, and Portland, it was who Donald Trump could send there. That was what, you know, a short experiment where 911 didn't really work out the way that al-Qaeda planned and that, you know, instead of free, almost 3000 people being killed. You know, a couple hundred people got killed and I mean how how it our Howard history of unfold that I know there's a kind of big what if question. Let's say there were a few dozen Americans were killed but it wasn't a catastrophic attack. The powers didn't collapse. I mean that's another way of saying that question. It's a really good question because it still would have been, you know, a significant thing that a terrorist attack had taken a place. I do think the Saudi connection at the outset here to the earlier question would have looked in been looked into like, what was the relationship between state power and non state actor. I do think the federal courts would have been handed the case, because that was how we tended to do it even after the 98 bombings of the two US embassies in East Africa. I also think it would have, you know, you speak more about this than me but the idea that bin Laden had more, you know, bin Laden wanted us out of the Middle East. But he also talked about how if he and I could be wrong but you tell me how if he attacked, you know, the financial capital world and the government institutions at the center of the United States, sort of the country would unravel via its response the democracy that we so embraced would unravel by our response. I don't think that that would have happened. I think it would have been because it would have been a more measured attack it would have been a wholly different response that doesn't mean that there weren't people looking for more powers at any excuse, right. And so that could have still, you know, that would have been another way that of looking at this question is like, were there did this, did this, the whole sort of subtle tools universe just suddenly emerge after 911 or their roots in earlier presidencies. 100% there were roots earlier. And you know, a good example of that is Attorney General Barr, right, and his experience. Many of them had come out of Reagan, you know people who are in the Trump administration had come out of Reagan but many of the people who were in the National Security apparatus early on were infused with people who would come up let's go back to the Federalist Society right, which had been pushing for more executive power for, you know, decades prior to 911. There were a number of legal. I'll ask you a question about that. What, why did they, why did they want that. And what's what's what's the, what's the purpose.  Some would say the levers of power lead to, it's such a good question, the levers of power lead to helping corporate interests and helping one's own personal interest. So that's one cabin thing. Another thing is that some just don't trust Congress to do to to adhere to principles that many think are very important. And those principles have to do with not going down the road of diversity. Right. There are many people we're seeing this now, you know, that don't really want the diverse sharing the sharing by so many diverse elements, you know, they are lingering and powerful trends of racism, among other things, and that the President can can outweigh Congress and therefore make it so that the country doesn't continue to go down this road of over inclusiveness, over flexibility. So that's, I think that's another reason I think there are people who there are factions in the United States that have always been uncomfortable with limits on government power through the fourth amendment, right, which involves the through the second amendment, which is first, I mean, first amendment, which is, you know, freedom of speech and assembly, and that discomfort has always been there that what will we have, we will have sort of, you know, a tyranny of a truly democratic country. And so, as I say, it depends on how cynical you want to phrase it but, and that was recognized early on, you know, particularly, you know, in the 60s and afterwards. And we're talking about the authorisation of the use of minimum course, you say in some ways it's going to be a law with either technical or geographical boundaries and lacking definitional limits when it came to the enemy. And we talked a little bit about that earlier. Walk us through kind of what the, do you think that was intentional? Was it just a heat of the moment or how did this develop? I think for many, it was the heat of the moment. I think for the White House, it was intentional. I think, but I don't, I don't think you could so easily separate them, which is why one of the things that I really wish it happened after 911 when we talk about all of this, this this trend towards, you know, untethered powers. Couldn't there have been a rethink at some point? You know, six months, one year, 18 months. Couldn't there have been a, okay, we know we reacted in ways that, you know, in our best moment we wouldn't have reacted. A truly understandable overreaction. All right. But just, but can't we, can't we rethink this? Can we rethink the authorisation of the use of military force and give it some specificity? Can we rethink some of the parts of the Patriot Act? Can we rethink all of the powers that have been mixed up with inside Department of Homeland Security? And that moment never happened. And, you know, in a way it's never, it hasn't really happened. It still hasn't happened. It's 20 years. So I had to write a book, that's why. Yeah, I mean, it's been laudan and being captured or killed that the Battle of Torah Borah in December of 2001, along with, you know, much of what remained of Al-Qaeda, that could have been an inflection point. Absolutely. And you've written about this and you've talked about, you know, you've made this point about the way in which, you know, the pivot from Torah Borah to Iraq, which was already underway by December of 2001, was, it wasn't just a missed moment. It was, like, a missed necessity, right?  So it led both to the war in Iraq and to the endless war in Afghanistan. So I think you've made that point really well. And I'm a student of yours. So I agree with it. Professor. What about this sort of another theme of your book is sort of the, I guess, the militarization of national security policymaking, which obviously became, I mean, you know, the CIA became a power military organization to a large degree after 911 and then the Trump administration hired a pretty large group of retired and serving senior generals. And can you reflect a bit about all that? Yeah, this is the one of more uncomfortable things that happened with that.  And so, both from the very top levels that have to do with, you know, changing the dimension of our agencies throughout more militarily, we sort of accept a kind of militarization, but I would have said something different. I just, just I want to add to that, which is that we say militarization this kind of is a counter to something you said but it's also the you come up with the term the intelligence of vacation of the country, which has military consequences, which is that the number of offices that were stood up across the executive with an intelligence mandate that could interface in some ways, some more or less with the intelligence community that thought of themselves and define themselves in their mission statements as intelligence departments, for example, TSA, but certainly not only TSA, the proliferation of that has really completely altered how government thinks about its functioning and it dovetails with the secrecy because if it's intelligence and national security, then, you know, that also is something we're not going to know about and so I would say it's this combination of militarization and the way you've described, and intelligence of vacation. And I don't know that there's a way. I think it's harder to come back from the intelligence one to wind it back than the military one in some ways. Yeah, you know, one of the things that when I was working on my book about Trump and his generals that struck me and I wrote a note to myself and I was reading your book. Yeah, I was struck by, you know, in Britain there is no written constitution. And of course we have written constitution in the United States. And Trump kind of showed how much we do have an unwritten constitution in the United States so we weren't really aware of and I wondered if, like, you sort of felt that as you were writing the book. Do you talk about norms a lot and. I think that's right I think I think that's a really smart way of talking about the erosion, you know what is the power of norms. The perception norm, rather than a law, you know how easily can it be broken and or redone so the unwritten constitution part would be the norms when you decide to kill an atop Iranian general that's a state actor and not just a non you know right that's a state actor. There are certain procedures and norms you have to go through. There's no law that says it actually has to be like that it's just it's kind of unwritten right how government functions. Sometimes it's written and sometimes it isn't you notice that one of the interesting things that Attorney General Merrick Garland has done is to create this document saying this is going to be the new norm for relationships between the White House and the Department of Justice. We're going to have independence in these ways. Here's where we're obviously going to have some kind of interdependence and intercommunication, but it's a way of addressing the kind of unwritten constitution unwritten constitution idea that you're talking about like, okay, I can't rewrite the Constitution but I'm going to write a paper on norms and policies. This is Merrick Garland, right, I'm going to issue this paper on norms and policies that will address that and even in an unwritten constitution, the best practices should be on paper and not just invisible. Right. So, I think there's a sense of what you're talking about. I think this is a question from Davis Termin of New America. And essentially, it's a question about undercover officers, kind of weaponizing and juicing sentences and with particular reference to the Padilla, the Padilla plot because it supposedly surfaced through our missiles and undercover officers and of course you wrote rogue justice which reflected a fair amount on these issues. And what, I mean, is this still a big issue or is this sort of declining because the number of terrorist cases are declining or is this why do you come down. Okay, so it's a thank you for that question, David. And so, you know, it's very interesting I noticed that when journalists call these days they'll often confuse informing cases and entrapment. They see them almost as equivalent. And they're not. The idea is that you could have in theory robust robust contained responsible informant cases that's how the FBI works across a variety of sectors and has for a long time. What happened in a number of the terrorism cases was that the line between a legitimate inform informant case and a entrapment case began to get sort of, you know, blurred over. And there are a number of reasons for one wanting to have more and more cases I think you know and you could say it was to keep us safer. The reason was the lack of under covers and the use of informants right under covers who work for the Bureau who are trained to work for the Bureau, then you get these guys who, you know, are facing deportation, some facing jail time facing, you know, serious penalties who are asked, you speak Arabic, you know these guys you're Muslim could you please be our informant.  You know, it roads. The most, you know, notorious of these cases in my mind was the case of James Cromedy which had to do with the bombing of community centers in Riverdale. And, you know, just to give you an example of I can't even tell you what went on in this case it's it's it's at one end of entrapment. On the other hand, we see other cases where informants actually played a role in illuminating things that we might not have seen before that seemed, you know, more interesting and have more there there for example in the JFK plot at JFK to blow up the airline and the case revolved around kind of this terrorist network way beyond the defendant themselves. That was actually I think informative and interesting and so there's a whole range on this and I hate when they get all lumped together as if it's just one policy but you know when a policy goes awry like in Lodi another example, you know of a case when a case goes awry it's very hard to to bring it back to looking like a legitimate strategy. That's the point that no one has ever successfully argued an entrapment in these cases, because the, the, the, the info, you know the prosecutors are running these cases are very careful about making sure the informant gets the person on camera to say multiple times. Yep, I really want to go through with this and that's very persuasive for a jury right. Yeah, prosecutor turns to the, to the jury and says the following. So, I asked him if he would you know go through with this, you know after 18 months of not him not wanting to go through with it I asked him if you go through with it and he said yes, would you have said yes. That's that's how it plays out in court, and the jury says is not going to say yes I would have said yes right. So, it's a very hard it's very and you know the entrapment defense includes you know if you can if the government can show some predisposition it's kind of a two pronged case if the jury can claim some kind of predisposition. And you know they used anti Semitism as predisposition in the case I was talking about the Riverdale case. So all these ways you can pull on different strings which is, you know what the prosecutor's job is in and it's because of the way it's not just about terrorism cases the way the entrapment defense is set up or trap and prosecution is set up. It's bigger than terrorism cases I think it's just very hard to argue that there was real, even if there was entrapment in the way that anybody listening to this would think of it. It's a very hard matter to argue it. Correct. And in fact, in the chromity case you've mentioned I think the judge himself said that chromity was I think he used the phrase shake shake spearing in in his buffoonry. Yeah, basically. A woman judge. Yeah. So I didn't go through. And so she and she just, I mean, her hands were tied right because of guide guide sentencing guidelines. And that, you know, in fact judges have the authority to be able to do what they want within sentencing guidelines they don't but this is another thing you know to say, I didn't have the authority to do it a little more authority and one of her you know she gave all of them chromity and his three code defendants 25 years and her thing was just you agreed to go along with him so that's just as bad you know so there was no attempt to really, you know articulate this and that's because I think terrorism cases are very, very hard to, you know, if you're weak on to look what happened we lost the 911 trial because I'm a guy Lonnie, you know only got a life sentence. So, you know what I'm saying is it's like. So yeah, I don't love that when judges say that but she did say that. This is a question from the audience. I guess relating to your overall, I mean, the book overall. Don't you think this relates to the belief in American exceptionalism fear of being blamed for the next attack and the emotional reaction to a tragedy. Which is why I think there needed to be a reset or a rethink at some point in time.  But I think there's something about we need a commission into the response to 911 and how we learn things. And one of the things we learned was, you need to reconsider, not just, you know, little piece of legislation by little clause of legislation but reconsider in the aggregate what this was. So the answer is yes. I notice in the defense authorization bill, there is money for an independent commission to look at what happened in Afghanistan this, and this would not be, you know, it would really be independent they wouldn't, they wouldn't. That wouldn't be answer all your questions but it might might answer some of them right. Well, I think it could answer a lot of them I think focusing just on Afghanistan. Depends on how they define you know what they mean by but let's just say it's on the 20 years of the US presence in Afghanistan could tell us a lot among the things that could tell us is and this gets you know into the procedures and secrecy and bypassing you know what was and what wasn't reported correctly back to Washington. Right that's one of the things we've seen about Afghanistan is that how much you can get away with. I also think the question of that I tried to dodge before, but the question of who made money on this is going to that's going to be a large part of that Afghanistan report and I think that's going to be a very brave enterprise to take on. We have one another question and about four more minutes so I'm going to get to this question is a recourse outside organization or political strategy etc to hold accountable the various systems of checks and balances that failed. In other words what now I mean and you kind of suggested one what now. I actually think that's a really good idea which is there a assessment of checks and balances that we can come up with and therefore look at it and right now we don't have that but Peter think about all the different things that New America, you know, does in terms of looking at, you know, policies and weighing them and sort of, you know, giving numbers to them. I mean, it's doable. It's vast, but I do think there should be. Oh, when we get to the end of this, how do we know that checks and balances have been, you know, followed, there's no way to really do that to date, and we could set up new norms. Well, like something else I learned from your very useful daily brief which I read religiously every morning. It seems to be a movement. It's this is kind of a smaller part of the bigger thing but like a movement to really enshrine in law for the prevention of what happened with the waiver on Mattis and the waiver on Lloyd Austin for, you know, senior military officers that become Secretary of Defense. That seems to be a smaller part of the bigger question which is, you know, the kind of doing something about the authorization for the use of military force so maybe as you get as we end this can you talk about a the small question and be the big question and what you think is likely to happen and what will it look like. Yeah, well the small question on you know the waivers for Mattis and Austin were, that's again, you don't just push aside laws and norms that you have the idea of having civilian control of the military was real and it was put in place for a reason which was to have some kind of check and balance within the agency itself so that the, the militarization that you're talking about had some kind of reflection on what does it mean for the society what does this mean for our political identity what does this mean for the character of the country. I think we need to push that aside. First Trump, and then, and then Biden and for all of his wonderful characteristics pushing it aside in my mind was not pushing it aside was more important for sort of resetting the tone of just pushing these laws and norms that happened over this period of time. In terms of the larger issues, I think we need a serious rethink. I think it's the 21st century. I think that so many of the push and polls on government and the executive are so different than the founding fathers had them. I think you know you see these panels to think about rethinking the Supreme Court. No, I think we should have a calm, thoughtful this is what think tanks are for you know we could divide up among ourselves, you do most of the work I'll just take a little and just sort of be not be so scared because of the partisan moment we live in of rethinking certain things and saying maybe we need a little more here, maybe we need a little less here. Unfortunately live in an age where it just seems that the urge to power for personal political gain. It just stymies any real open minded thought so that's my kind of, I wish, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Well, hopefully will not be gathering on the 30th anniversary of 911 to discuss that nothing really changed in Guantanamo still. God stop. Thank you for a brilliant presentation. Thank you for everybody who listened to this and go out and buy Karen's book it's really should be any anybody interested in journalism politics and law over the last two decades will find the book very illuminating. Thank you so much, Peter was a pleasure, as always.