Innovation through Incrementalism: Rep. Jim Himes, Ranking Member, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Lauren Bedula 0:00 Welcome back to Building the Base. Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula here with today's guest. We have Ranking Member Jim Himes with us, who joins us to talk about his role as ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee. He also has a very interesting background in the private sector. As our listeners know we care a lot about cross pollination between government service and private sector work, and also serves on the House Financial Service Committee, so brings an interesting perspective there. So Congressman, thank you so much for joining us today. Rep. Jim Himes 0:26 Thanks for having me, excited to be with you. Hondo Geurts 0:29 So we usually start out with kind of a, how did you get to being in this office building? Kind of routine again, you've got a everybody has an interesting background. You've got a really interesting background. You know, how does one become a congressman, and what got you involved in this line of work? Rep. Jim Himes 0:45 Yeah, well, the short version of the story is that I've, you know, I've always had an appreciation for policy, and this probably explains both what I do and maybe why I'm a Democrat, because I lean into the notion that government, when it does things in an intelligent way, could actually really improve people's lives. And I point from everything to the civil rights movement to the construction of the highway system to the development of the Internet. I could go on and on. Sometimes I'll wave my iPhone in front of a group of eighth graders and say, you know, just about everything that is cool about this got started in basic research and development that was done in places like DARPA. So anyway, that's where I come at this. And this is also Iraq War, where it's pretty clear that some bad decisions were made, the economic meltdown of 2007 2008 where some bad decisions were made. And I thought, Okay, I want to jump in the fray. Now, I'd been in the private sector for a little while, and I was always going to do like the executive branch, you know, like go to work for Treasury or something. And then I realized, you know, what's kind of cool about being a member of Congress is that you don't have a boss. Now, you got 750,000 people you got to pay pretty close attention to. But you don't have a boss. You make the decisions at the end of the day. So one thing led to another, and here, here I sit. Hondo Geurts 1:48 Wow. And, and was it what you expected? What anything surprised you? You know, day one, you're a new freshman member. And you're like, I made it. And then you're like, oh my goodness, what have I gotten into? Rep. Jim Himes 2:00 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess, I guess I'd say two things. Number one, I think, I think people fail to appreciate how incremental the software of their government is. And you got to go back 240, years and remember what the founders were thinking about. They were thinking about a king, right? And so they set up three branches of government to check and balance each other, candidly, until lately, a very weak president, by design. And so, you know, particularly people who are politically focused, their thing is, why didn't we fix climate change already? Or how come we have any environmental regulations, or whatever it may be? And the answer is that you live in a system in which, you know, incrementalism is very much a feature, not a bug. The other thing that has been pretty dramatic, and has been, if you think about it, I took office with, you know, three weeks after, three weeks before President Obama was inaugurated, and I would submit to you, and this would be true across the political spectrum, that that was a moment of unrivaled optimism. Even my Republican buddies were proud of this country because we had elected a black man as president United States. That didn't last that long. But anyway, I came here at one of the, you know, most aspirational, optimistic moments in our history. And of course, it was only a couple years ago that we were five years ago, I guess it was or four years ago that we went through January 6, 2021 and we're in a very darker, I'll try to not to characterize stuff overly in an overly partisan fashion, but we're obviously in a fearful, anxious, fairly dark time right now. So the swing from one end to the other was pretty dramatic. Lauren Bedula 3:27 I couldn't help but notice when you were talking about your interest and why policy is so important, you mentioned critical infrastructure, highways, roads and technology, phones, the combination of the two, that's a lot of what we think about the importance of the industrial base in the US from a national security perspective, and I know you also champion those issues in your role as ranking member on the House, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Can you talk a little bit about why you see that as so important, really a strong industrial base from a national security perspective? Rep. Jim Himes 3:59 Well, I think we've all had an education. I mean, since COVID, we've all had an education on this thing that we didn't know much about, these supply chains, right? You know. I mean, before we get to aircraft carriers, you know, turned out we didn't have enough two cent masks around or whatever you want to pick during COVID. And so the consensus, which was a world in which, you know, half our stuff comes from China, and you know, 10% of our stuff comes from Bolivia or whatever. I'm just making stuff up here, but where supply chains extend everywhere, we didn't appreciate how vulnerable those supply chains were. And of course, that that is, you really double or triple or quadruple down when you're talking about defense supply chains. And again, the Ukraine war has shown the war in Ukraine has shown that what we thought was a very solid arsenal is actually pretty fragile, right? Because if we do start sending lots of patriots to Poland and on to Ukraine, all of a sudden we're saying, oh my god, we don't have enough of these things for our other obligations around the world. So there's a brand new appreciation and understanding of supply chains. And it's hard, right? It's hard because the most economically efficient world is a world where supply chains are perfectly driven by comparative advantage. You know, as much as the president wants people, you know, screwing little pieces of plastic together in Cleveland, Ohio, I'm a little skeptical of that. Why? Because wage rates are 10% of what they are in Ohio, in certain countries. So anyway, the most economically efficient world is one where comparative advantage drives everything. But of course, that's where we were when COVID hit and we realized, oops, maybe economic efficiency isn't everything. And by the way, I should mention too that a perfectly economically efficient world is also pretty devastating for states like Ohio and the industrial Midwest and stuff. So there's just a lot of thinking about that now there's more nuanced and thoughtful than it was maybe 10 years ago. Lauren Bedula 5:45 You've served in a leadership role during a very interesting time as we think about the relationship between the high tech sector and the national security community, specifically the intelligence community. You saw in 2018 Google actually pulling out of their work with DOD and Project Maven, just because in a post-Snowden and world, there really was divide between the tech community and national security community. Have you seen that change? Or do you think we have room for growth? We've had folks like Nand Mulchandani come on to talk about these issues, but curious for your take there? Rep. Jim Himes 6:15 Yeah, I think the Google Maven thing was a little bit of an aberration. I mean, candidly, we were kind of fat and happy, right? We didn't have geo strategic we did, but we didn't have existential geo strategic threats, right? We didn't. We hadn't yet seen a 19th century armored invasion of a European country, something that our parents didn't think they would see much less us. And so I think that caused a lot of people to sober up and to remember that while our history is full of mistakes, we talked a little bit about the Iraq war, that most of the time we're on the side, side of the angels, not always, and God knows, when you say that you that's who you are, instantly people will point out 10 areas where you're not but the point is, we're very different than the Russians and the Chinese, than the North Koreans, then the Iranians, in some pretty important ways. And I think a lot of people sat up and said, gosh, we can't forget that. We can't forget that we may be uncomfortable with drone strikes on terrorists in Yemen, but let's not forget the larger picture here, in the in a world where, you know, in my lifetime, it was hard to describe any geopolitical event as good versus evil. Not so hard with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hondo Geurts 7:28 Yeah, to go back to policy. And policy is really hard. I'm a doer person. Policy was way too tough for me. What is your sense working with the executive branch intelligence agencies on their willingness to one take the policies you give them and leverage them to the full extent. Or do you still kind of sense a risk aversion in the enterprise on how to leverage all these what I would say is available high tech solutions that are out there, maybe not from a traditional supplier. Do you sense them starting to wanna you know, leverage everything or still work to go there? Rep. Jim Himes 8:07 A lot of work to go there, lot of work to go there. And let's acknowledge another shift that has we haven't brought up yet, right? If we were having this conversation 50 years ago or even 30 years ago, we'd be talking about hardware, right? Go back in my world, the IC world, go back and look at old James Bond movies. The coolest stuff is all the toys that Q is providing. It's the exploding pen and the Aston Martin that has a machine gun. It was all hardware. Today, everything is software, almost, almost everything. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of heavy metal things around, but those heavy metal things are only powerful because of their software. And the thing is that unlike building a tank or an aircraft carrier a jet. Software is developed in iterations and through failure and through trial and error and through constant contact with the end user. That is not something that the primes, I think, in any way, were prepared to do in the hardware world of 30 years ago was kind of like, give me your list of characteristics and I'm going to build you something. It's not how you build software. So we should acknowledge that as a massive shift. And what I would say is that we've made good progress around the edges. And I'm speaking mostly for the IC, right. And frankly, to give the Pentagon credit, they've got some, you know, some, some, some really remarkable programs that haven't sort of gotten at the core of the institution. So, you know, the Defense Intelligence Unit is really creative. Kessel Run up in Boston, is creative. There's a lot of sparks of creativity where before there were none. But we're still not nearly where we need to be. You know, in a world where SpaceX or Palantir need to sue their way in with World beating technology, we are still not where we need to be. We're making progress. But, you know, it's a funny human problem, right? I mean, and by the way, you know, Dr heal thyself, part of the problem is that Congress loves nothing better than to take a failure. Think of what was the photovoltaic Solyndra. Solyndra and the Obama Congress loves nothing more than to find a failure in the address. Everybody responsible and to ream them, right? And that's not a good thing if what you're trying to do is create a more risk taking innovative culture. Hondo Geurts 10:10 And do you sense Congress? We were laughing before it started of usually in this building, I'm the one answering questions. It's nice to be the one asking, having gone through a bunch of those years. Do you think Congress is recognizes that, yet as something it needs to get more comfortable with that, or is that still also something to be worked through? Rep. Jim Himes 10:33 I think that there are, at the risk of pissing off some colleagues. I'll just say it. I think there are some younger members who you know, have seen the, you know, remarkable pace of innovation on their iPhones and in technology, maybe, who even spend time in the private sector, who are saying, oh my god, we got so much longer to go. But that's still a little bit of a niche point of view in what is a somewhat geriatric institution, both the House and the Senate. And so I think we have a long way to go. And even if you, you know, fill the House and the Senate with Ro Khanna, you know, Silicon Valley guy, you still have a profound cultural shift associated with the idea that we're going to at least not hammer failure, because we acknowledge that failure is a key part of success. We're a long way from that ethic in this building. And I'll tell you what, if you're a one star, you know, general officer looking for that second star, you are a very long way from embracing that idea. Lauren Bedula 11:37 Now we talked about your background in the financial services sector, and then the role you play on the committee as well. Curious for your take on we talked about the importance of the high tech sector and the role the US government has to play in facilitating some of that, but in driving private capital. Like, are you seeing any shifts on that front, where there's interest in defense tech, or how private capital is maybe being drawn towards these issues. Rep. Jim Himes 12:02 I think it's really hard for private capital. I think this is why you have niche firms in both venture capital and in private equity. There's probably three dozen of them that are really investing in companies whose mission is ultimately to sell to NSA or to the Navy or whatever. Because not only do you have the usual kind of commercial concerns. You've got massive strategic concerns. And by the way, you got to deal with us, which, you know, what? What did you do wrong in a former life? You know, you've got the uncertainty associated with the Congress. So it's very, very hard, and I think worthy of thinking about, you know, how can we attract more capital into the innovation? I mean, I'll give you an example. You know, there's, there's terrific, I'm not going to name the company, but there's terrific visual AI companies out there who have world beating technology who might go bankrupt because the elements of the intelligence community, which are pretty exciting about their projects, just can't get to a contract. So we need to think harder about how we have more and in some ways more flexible capital available for this stuff. The other thing, by the way, is that it's changing super fast, right? I'm not going to repeat the trope that drones mean we won't have tanks. I don't think that that's true, but it is absolutely true that if we're not radically rethinking what UAVs and swarms of UAVs might do to tanks or, dare I say, an aircraft carrier. Shame on us. And of course, that thinking involves potentially radical shifts in where we put our money and investment. Like, I mean, this is really crazy, but you know, shouldn't we have one multi billion dollar aircraft with an aircraft carrier with 6000 people aboard, or should we have 40 smaller ones? I mean, just fundamental things like that need to be considered. Hondo Geurts 13:50 Yeah, it's challenging, particularly when we may be at a people disadvantage, right, smaller and smaller services, challenges, maybe finding the workforce. What do you hear kind of from the constituents you deal with every day about bringing onshoring, manufacturing and, you know, folks getting re interested in those kind of weeds, at the trades, kind of jobs versus kind of this road we've been on for the last 25 years of everybody should go to, you know, go to college, up service. You you sensing that we're valuing trades more than maybe we have and we can attract the workforce? We need to actually bring the manufacturing back at scale? Rep. Jim Himes 14:32 Yeah that's a super interesting question, and every member is going to answer that question a little differently based on their constituents, right? So I'm in Fairfield County, Connecticut, right? I don't have a lot of steel workers, you know, so, so my answer is not the answer you're going to get out of Ohio or Michigan, but, you know, my answer is that I've got a lot of companies that do some high end manufacturing based on lots of inputs that come from abroad. So for them, tariffs are a huge problem. Now that steel worker in Ohio actually really likes those. So it's a complicated conversation. What I would observe, which is sort of a no brainer, and it irritates me about this place where manufacturing, we're going to bring back manufacturing. The president says it all the time. Everybody says we're bringing back, bringing back manufacturing, because that's something that you say to ease the pain of the de industrialization of America. The problem with that statement, as comforting as it is, go to a manufacturing plant that was built two years ago. It's not your grandpa's manufacturing plant with 1000 men in overalls on the floor. There's probably six guys on the floor and lots and lots of automation. So we need to think hard about what exactly it is that we need. And by the way, I think I have one of the answers to that, because in Bridgeport, Connecticut, I've got an advanced manufacturing center inside a community college, which is teaching high school kids and community college kids how to do stuff with automated, computerized lathes that I can't even imagine. So, you know, whereas that individual's grandfather was, you know, standing there to, you know, in front of a very dangerous piece of spinning metal, this kid who's gonna work in manufacturing and make a good middle class wage is learning all about computers and lathing and all the stuff that is hard for me to understand. Lauren Bedula 16:06 So on that too. How are you thinking about our education systems as they relate to national security or trying to drive more talent towards tech or issues that you think are important? Is there anything you can offer there? Rep. Jim Himes 16:18 Yeah, you know you I think I'm tempted to come up with criticisms associated with the fact that the Germans and the Koreans and whoever else are beating us in math and science. I don't know. I mean, you know, there's a stat out there about the 100 top technology companies in the world, and something like 92 of them are in the United States. So clearly, we're doing something right. Oh, and by the way, I think one of those things that we're doing right, at least we're doing right, was drawing immigrants with unbelievable technological talent. I actually think that the anti immigrant stance the country has taken is going to really hurt our national security over time, because again, Andy Grove and Intel, or, you know, the South Asians who have, you know, done so much on software companies and some et cetera. So, you know, I think we're in a relatively good place, because we're still where technological innovation happens. But I do think that that's a that could be a vulnerability over time, if we're not doubling down on STEM training, and maybe even, and let me say something else too, which I think is really important my generation, our generation, you know, hey, four year college, get yourself into Stanford or Yale, if you can, if not, you know, whatever. But geez, oh man, it turns out that we actually radically under emphasize, as you could said, the trades, the plumbers, the age factor, people who can, you know, craft a piece of metal that goes in the, you know, tail fin of an F 35 and so we should sober up and say, Hey, there's a lot of high status jobs out there that don't necessarily require you to have four year college degree. Hondo Geurts 17:44 You know, one, one of the few things I think there is bipartisan activity on is, is really figuring out how to compete with China and make sure we've got, we've got our arms around that problem on the Intelligence Committee. I'm sure you see a lot of things about theft and cyber and a bunch of other things, is your sense we're doing enough there to protect our own supply chains and infrastructure, more that we could or should be doing there to make sure that we've got a strong foundation as we go, you know, continuing this global competition. Rep. Jim Himes 18:21 Yeah, let me not miss the opportunity, though, because I think it's so essential to say we have two huge advantages over China and innovation, and it's why we're the innovator and why they're stealing it and the and the two massive advantages that we have are number one, immigration number two, immigration number three, immigration, right again, you know, I'll, I'll defend this against Stephen Miller all day long. You know, we are innovative because, you know, all of the world's innovators want to, or wanted to come here. The other thing we have, of course, is a chaotic, a chaotic, entrepreneurial, innovative ecosystem. We were talking about this before, where failure is regarded as the as your as your graduate degree to the next successful thing. The Chinese don't have either of those two things, and we should be mindful of that. To the more narrow question you ask about protection. You know, look, the Chinese are very, very good at stealing our IP. And you know, we can, and we should rage at that. Maybe we also want to remember that we industrialized stealing British IP. But anyway, that's not to excuse Chinese activities. It's just what happens. So, you know, no, because we're an open country, it's actually pretty easy to steal. Look, the very, the very system of a patent office, the whole premise of a patent office, you're going to tell your secret to the world, and we're going to protect you. You know, this is not a society that is set up to keep its IP secret, and at the end of the day, it's a mistake to think that we can stop technology from diffusing, right? Look, in a world where Pakistan can develop a nuclear weapon, we're not going to stop technology for diffusing, which doesn't mean we shouldn't watch our most advanced chips and all that good stuff, but we shouldn't rely on that technology diffuses full stop. So let's put our emphasis on making sure. Where we're at the cutting edge of that technology, rather than trying to, you know, build a 10 foot brick wall, as opposed to a seven foot big wall, thinking that that's the solution. Lauren Bedula 20:10 Well, again, you play a very important role in leadership over our intelligence community. And as we've seen, that kind of evolution post, you know, the issues Hondo was really focused on counterterrorism wise to some of the threats you're talking about, near peer competitors, really, across the globe, excelling in innovation and tech. How do you think about bringing communities that speak very different languages or don't like to speak at all? Say, the intelligence community externally, very open about what, what they care about, what they do. How do you think about bringing communities together to get things done? You know that in your role where there are different stakeholders who have very strong opinions, what are some best practices to bring different communities together to get on the same page and actually accomplish things? Rep. Jim Himes 20:57 By different communities? Do you mean like political parties? Lauren Bedula 20:59 Really across the board, it's like you work this on the political side. But what we've seen is almost like a divide between the culture of the national security community being less comfortable being open about mission and needs, and if we're going to inform technology roadmaps, you've got to come together and have productive conversations. Any best practices in that sense? Rep. Jim Himes 21:19 Yeah, I think that, yeah, that's an interesting question, and it's a little bit of a frustrating question, because, you know, people are funny. We're not very good planners. You know, we respond, we react to things, right? So, you know, here we are having a national security conversation. If 10 years ago, I had said to you, you know, something is about to happen. It's going to kill 1.2 million Americans. You would have been you would have said, Oh my God, that's nuclear war, or a major land conflict with China over Taiwan or something. You wouldn't have said, it's going to be a virus that I've never heard of, right? And so it's only when there is a virus that kills 1.2 million Americans that we actually see the country come together to do the miracle of the mRNA vaccine, right? Climate change, of course, slow burn. Now that, you know, Miami is periodically underwater, some of my Floridians are saying, Yeah, this is a thing. So anyway, it's hard to plan for stuff that doesn't immediately impact you. But what are the things that that can help transparency and trust? You know, this is always a challenge in the intelligence community. We don't ever want our tactical secrets to get out there sources and methods, but we absolutely want the NSA standing in front of the American people, or at least proxies like me, standing in front of the people that's saying, you know, the NSA has unbelievable surveillance capabilities, but they are prohibited from using it against you as a US citizen. So that's what I mean by transparency. And there's always a hesitancy for the national security apparatus to offer up that transparency. Same, you know, same for things like, you know, there's a big fight, obviously, inside the Republican Party right now between those who say we, you know, traditional Reaganite, you know, like, we have a real interest in making sure Ukraine wins this war. We have a real interest in an aggressive posture in the Middle East against terror, you know, counter against terrorism, and the more isolationist instinct. Well, let's have that conversation, right? There's a whole generation of people who, for whom World War Two in the 1950s Hungary Czechoslovakia is a total abstraction, right? So those younger people need to be be it's an abstraction, but they need to be told what the history of authoritarian invasion is, which is, you can ignore it for a little while, but eventually the tiger comes for you, right? So anyway, this is all stuff that we need to talk a lot more about, which is pretty darn hard in a Tiktok Instagram universe. Lauren Bedula 23:36 So clear transparency, particularly about the threat environment. Our listeners, we have a lot of founders, investors and professionals in the national security community, any anything in terms of a call to action, or what keeps you up at night on the threat landscape side? Rep. Jim Himes 23:53 It's hard to answer that question without sort of going into stovepipes, right? So, I mean, let's talk biosynthesis, right? You know, which is very different than what happens if the Chinese come up with a cryptographically relevant quantum computer in biosynthesis. You know, there's some really spooky stuff happening there, where we're basically making in whatever animal we want to make. And more frighteningly, because, you know, animals we can deal with you can make any virus you want to make. So imagine some bad guy deciding they're going to use a CRISPR machine to make a COVID which is resistant to the vaccine. Now all of a sudden we're talking about mass casualties, so that's a source of anxiety. So what's the answer to that? The answer to that is to make sure we're on the cutting edge, both of CRISPR and biosynthesis, but also mRNA research et cetera, as a predecessor to being on the cutting edge, we probably ought to get back to a shared empirically observable concept of truth. You know, as we have a Health and Human Services Secretary in the form of Secretary Kennedy, who is, let's just say, not necessarily rooted in empirically observable truth. But you know, we could go to quantum too, which is, hey, guess what, folks, if the Chinese come up with a, you know, quantum computer before we do, they'll crack all our codes. Now, maybe that doesn't scare you, but remember, our nuclear weapons rely on those codes, and so does your bank account. So these are, these are, these are conversations that are hard and scary to have, but we better have them. Hondo Geurts 25:10 So my guess is, you work pretty long day. You work a lot of frustrating, you know, topics which there may not be a clear answer. If there's a clear answer, there are certainly multiple opinions about what the answer ought to be. What's your what are some of your hacks to stay resilient? You know, you got a lot of energy, and you you come at this with a within a lot of passion. How do you keep that energy up when you're grinding through, you know, days and weeks and years at this, and not just kind of get frustrated and and just kind of say, Oh, I can't fix this. It's too hard. Rep. Jim Himes 25:43 Yeah, so there's a big picture answer, and then there's some more entertaining small picture answers, which probably involve largely cocktails. But the big picture answer that we should talk about in this venue, you know, as ugly in some ways as the world is right now. And as we're speaking, there's Marines deployed in Los Angeles, and then, you know, people burning cars. I stay even keeled because I'm a huge optimist on the country, right? And what I mean by that is, if you pick your timeframe, but if it's more than 10 years, if it's 30 years, this country does better over time, right? It does better by black Americans. We're still not where we need to be. It does better by gay Americans. It does better by economic prosperity. And yeah, I understand we're not where we were 50 years ago in terms of an industrial base, but, you know, we get better. We take few steps back every once in a while. And by the way, we've done some terrible things, right? We took a bunch of Americans of Japanese descent and put them into concentration camps, right? I mean, so I'm not saying we're perfect. I'm just saying over the sweep of time we do better. That's how I stay sane at a political moment where I sort of feel like we're backsliding on a lot of the stuff that we've achieved. So I don't know how you do this if you're not. First of all, I think that I can win that argument across any timeframe more than 10 years. But secondly, I don't know how you do this job if you don't believe that, right? And yeah. So the little stuff is, you know, exercise reading and the bottle of bourbon that I have in that bookcase over there. Lauren Bedula 27:08 We love for our listeners to hear that type of advice, because especially the we keep getting better, so we're learning and adjusting as we go. Congressman, we know how busy you are. Thank you for taking the time to come on and share some of these insights and thoughts, we really appreciate it. Rep. Jim Himes 27:22 Thank you. Real pleasure being with you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai