Going Deep On "The Deep State"

WAMU 88.5

Published September 10, 2018 at 10:06 AM EDT

TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump walks to Marine One for his first trip as President.

By now, you surely know about the anonymous New York Times Op-Ed.

But there was a curious line that attracted a lot of attention.

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

What did the author mean by the “deep state?”

NPR’s Mara Liasson described it as “supposedly shadowy cabal of opposition bureaucrats buried deep within the government.”

President Trump has called the deep state a threat to democracy.

But does it even exist? Or is this another conspiracy theory altogether?

Produced by Bianca Martin. Text by Gabrielle Healy.

GUESTS

Tim Weiner, Pulitzer prize winning journalist; author of “Enemies: A History of the FBI” and “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.”

Michael Caputo, Former Trump campaign advisor;

@MichaelRCaputo

Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer, public policy, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and co-author of “Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror;

@juliettekayyem

For more, visit https://the1a.org.