Frank Figliuzzi

Hell & High Water with John Heilemann

In which John Heilemann talks with Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, author of The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence, and current MSNBC and NBC News national security contributor. Heilemann and Figliuzzi discuss the upcoming “Justice for J6” protest in Washington by those who consider the January 6 insurrectionists "political prisoners" and why, especially in the wake of President Biden's vaccine mandate, law enforcement and intelligence officials are bracing for violence in the capital and elsewhere around the country; far-right domestic extremism and the central role of white nationalist movements in fomenting it; how Donald Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election and the culture wars he ignited over Covid have created an especially toxic and volatile atmosphere in America today; Figliuzzi's views regarding the need to regulate social media platforms to curb their role in spreading mis- and disinformation; and how Figliuzzi recognizes a similar pattern in the radicalization of the far right at home to what occurred abroad around the spread of Islamic fundamentalism before and after 9/11. Figliuzzi also reflects on his 25-year career in the FBI, and the ways in the which the bureau has—and hasn't—adapted to the new threats the United States faces from within.

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