JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I want to stay on the subject of Putin in a way.

Trump's director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, this week, removed the security clearances for 37 former and current intelligence officials.

Obviously, we know that they've been firing a lot of people across the national security complex, especially people who have knowledge or involvement in monitoring Russian, Putin directed interference in American elections and other things.

We just saw John Bolton, the former national security adviser who turned against Trump, we saw his home being raided.

Give us a sense, Matt, to start, give us a sense of what's going on here.

Why are they seem to be cleaning house of people who are very suspicious of Russia?

MATT VISER: I mean, a lot of it is -- you know, Tulsi Gabbard came in early on talking about trying to depoliticize the intelligence community.

But this action among others sort of gives a sense of political retribution, that they're taking things out on agents, on the intelligence community who came to some conclusions around Russia's involvement in the 2016 election, she's mischaracterized some of that intelligence in some of this as well.

But I think it's aimed at political opponents or who Trump perceives as his political opponent.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Laura, are we seeing the next phase of the I am your retribution presidency?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I think we are.

I think today, seeing the fact that they raided and search John Bolton's house in Maryland is a step that we had not seen them take to this point, which is them going and taking an action very aggressively against someone that has been one of the most public in terms of speaking out against the actions taken by this administration and someone who was a part of the first administration.

But he, John Bolton, has not shied away from criticizing the administration and the actions that they've been taking.

And so it does look -- I mean, the pattern across all of it is retribution and it appears as though they're not going to stop with this.

They've taken actions against D.C. and they could very well take actions against other Democratic-led cities.

And a part of that is that retribution.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I want to come to what's going on in our city in a moment.

Jon, just stay on this subject.

What are the consequences of these actions being taken against intelligence officials?

JONATHAN KARL: Look I think that the threat of international terror is not over.

If America gets hit at some point again with another terror attack, I think there will be a lot of looking back at were we paying attention, not only the people that were fired.

And, by the way let's also mention earlier in the administration when basically the entire National Security Division of the Justice Department was cleared out, also the top ranks of the FBI.

The fact that you had -- as we talked about weeks ago on this program, you had some 1,000 personnel at the FBI and the DOJ spending a matter of months going through the Epstein files, who is kind of at the helm trying to anticipate what attacks America may be facing in the future?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's an incredibly important point that I just want to add to, because there are so many of these officials, be it FBI, be it people who need to track terrorism prevention within the Department of Homeland Security, who have either been entirely gutted, these task force have been gutted and gotten rid of, or they have all been moved over to work on civil immigration enforcement.

And that is something that we're increasingly seeing where they're working on that instead of what they were originally tasked with.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Go ahead.

MICHAEL SCHERER: There's one other thing I think that's happening in the office of director of National Intelligence.

It's not the Department of Education.

But there were discussions during the transition in which Trump was making clear that he wasn't sure ODNI made sense.

It wasn't clear what it did.

And that -- it's been sort of a controversial agency for more than 20 years now.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, it's a post-9/11 creation that people think is kind of a Frankensteinian -- MICHAEL SCHERER: And no one's really known what to do with it.

It's had different roles over time.

Whether it does a good job -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The CIA doesn't like it, obviously.

The C takes the central in Central -- MICHAEL SCHERER: So, I do think that what happened this week is also that, in that case, I think there is a way in which Tulsi Gabbard was chosen for that job to wind down parts of her own domain in the way that Linda McMahon is doing at the Department of Education.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And firing all the Russia experts is a pretty specific way of doing it.

MATT VISER: Yes.

And I think that gets at so much of Trump where there may be a problem that he's identified that people can agree needs to change, but they don't necessarily agree with his prescription for how he's carrying it out, which gets to the D.C. point as well.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Two more things I want to get to Jon.

The first is something that Laura mentioned, the National Guard and all these federal law enforcement agencies flooding Washington, D.C., or at least flooding the area around Union Station, our train station.

JONATHAN KARL: And the Washington Monument.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And the Washington Monument, high crime scene, obviously.

The trying to understand it, and I'm trying to understand whether this is actually just a pretty large ICE raid in disguise.

What's the motivation here?

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, it seems that right now it is largely for show.

I mean, that's why you see the National Guard humvees at Union Station and in front of the National Monument.

But there's been a serious stepped up activity.

The one category of steps of activity that we've actually really seen since this has started are the ICE raids in Washington.

That's not the way this has been sold.

It's been sold as, you know, this has become the most dangerous city in the world, and we need to get crime under control.

Now, Trump bragged that we haven't had a murder in a week in Washington, D.C., something he's not sure has ever happened before.

But, look, a lot of this is about show and it's about him getting ready for the 250th anniversary of America's founding.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Laura, what are they feeling inside the White House?

Like this is just the first city?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes, I think that they are, and they said that this week.

The president forecasted it again, so did Vice President J.D.

Vance.

They repeatedly said that D.C. could potentially become a model for other cities.

And one of the easiest ways for the president to do this to potentially replicate where he's able to put National Guard in cities, like Baltimore or Philadelphia or Boston, is to invoke the Insurrection Act.

That would be one of the easiest ways for him to do it, because it gives him such wide latitude to say, oh, people are protesting around a federal government building, I can send in National Guard troops.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

JONATHAN KARL: But as of now, they're not actually doing much, which is the thing.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Well, they're not in the areas where there's a high murder rate, for one thing.

I want to do one more subject before we have to go, and it concerns this phenomenon in American political life called Laura Loomer.

Michael, you are the table's reigning expert on Laura Loomer.

You just wrote a profile of her.

Explain who she is and how she has so much power in American politics.

MICHAEL SCHERER: Well, who she is is changing.

So, ten years ago, Laura Loomer was an online troll, conservative activist who had been eventually was kicked off all the major social media platforms for hate speech violations.

She said a number of very objectable things.

She continues to say things that are very offensive to many people.

But Trump adopted her during the last campaign as an outside adviser who would fight for him and who he could use to get the rest of his staff to do things.

And that's what -- she's sort of taken that place now.

She's responsible for dozens of people being pushed out of the administration, policy changes, you know, taking away Secret Service protection for Biden's children.

And she does it mainly through her Twitter account.

I mean, she talks regularly with the president.

She's met with him a couple times.

She talks regularly with senior staff.

There's a lot of distrust and dislike of her in the White House.

They would rather she go away, but they know they don't control that because she answers to the president, they answer to the president.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Do you consider her a genuinely important political player in Washington?

MICHAEL SCHERER: I think she has a -- yes, I think it's the position she holds.

She right now is the person that any industry group, political activist organization, deputy undersecretary at some agency can feed information to.

And if she decides that it's worthy of putting out to get rid of somebody, to get someone who fired to, you know, end a career, she puts it out and she can get action from it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

MICHAEL SCHERER: And so she has -- MATT VISER: She's powerful.

MICHAEL SCHERER: She's become an institution at the moment.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Tell us -- you interviewed her in the last few days.

Tell us one of the remarkable things that she told you.

MICHAEL SCHERER: I mean, she was going after Earl Matthews, one of the highest ranking African Americans of the Pentagon.

She opposed his nomination.

I said, but, you know, he was confirmed anyway.

And she said, well, I don't listen to anything he says.

Everything he says is just Ebonics, even though Earl Matthew speaks like anybody else speaks.

So, it was basically just a racial -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, just straight up racism.

MICHAEL SCHERER: Yes.

You know, she -- yes, I could go on with others, but, yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, I'm going to encourage people in five seconds to read your profile, so it's going to be great.

I wish that we can go on.

It's a great conversation, but we're going to have to leave it there.

I do want to thank our guests for joining me.

I want to thank you at home for watching all of us.