Henninger, jason riley, and mary ogrady and bill mcgurn. Dan, i remember we had a visitor from the Counterterrorism Group in the white house a couple months ago telling us this person telling us on background that they were concerned about europe. Now we see it manifesting itself here at the christmas season. Absolutely, paul. I was thinking very much the same thing. It was just a month ago, recall, that the pentagon made it known that they were going to move on an invasion of raqqa which is the Islamic StateHead Quarters in syria. This is a time when the iraq army and the Coalition Partners were trying to retake mosul. I thought thats a lot to bite off at the same time. But the pentagon said back then that they were concerned that the Islamic State was going to try to project terror into europe and elsewhere, and clearly they were right. Not merely europe. Yemen and jordan have both experienced terrorist attacks in the last week. Obviously the west has to be on alert. The german situation raises the questions of if, in fact, some of these western societies are adequately sensitive to the nature of the attack. Well, and i think that in germany in particular, jason, you have a couple of problems. When is the migration issue. Angela merkel, the chancellor brought in a million refugees from north africa and syria. A your ago two years ago, and some of those terrorists seem to have slipped in. And then you also have the problem of the germans dont do very well from all reports on surveillance, and intelligence. So far germany had avoided the fate of france and brussels and some other places. But not this time. And this was the softest of soft targets. A Christmas Marketplace visited not only by native germans but tourists alike. This is a huge blow for the terrorists there. Angela merkel herself remains popular. Shes well above 50 but the refugee policy isnt popular. Around 80 of germans want more restrictions. Shes going to be coming up for a fourth term. Thats not until the fall. There is time for her to deal with this situation. Something like this does not help. And you have to think there will be pressure on her to reform this policy. For all her popularity, and its true, i think this is the sort of thing that could topple here, mary. She started back pedaling in the spring, actually, about the immigration policy. The fact of the matter is that these incidents happen with home grown terrorists as well as with migrants. I think the point about intel surveillance, yes, vetting migrants is important and germany took a huge number relative to the size of the country. But in the end, really, this is something that is going to have to be fought in the middle east. The wins of isis or the potential or the perception that isis is winning is very empowering for terrorists in the west, and i think thats what germany and the u. S. Have to work on is action in the middle east. And on that point, the ankara murder, thats really the one consequence of syria. Obviously the terrorist is responsible, but germany has not done very much at all to help us and help in syria or the middle east, because they just dont want to participate in any military operation. I think further to marys point, what were seeing in europe is the failure of middle eastern policy. Even the most generous country cannot take everyone from all the disruptions there. And we need a reasonable level of stability in the middle east. A lot of people have washed their hands of it. And syria is the best example. And to marys point, for the United States theres a lot of debate over whether we should let people in. I think the german example shows theyre not very good once people are in at separating the good guys from the bad guys. One of the problems in the United States is the people trying to do that with intelligence, remember, the Mapping Program in new york city and how much it was opposed. If were going to take people, we need good intelligence. The mapping of groups of people that they thought, particularly students, some came from Different Countries i think it was more fundamental. It was finding out pakistani neighborhoods. Youre trying to separate the lawabiding majority from the minority. And the left just has a war on the kind of intelligence that is correct what do you think about Donald Trumps reaction . Donald trump said, look, this proves i was right all along, and im going to, in fact, be as tough as i said i was in the campaign in blocking immigrants from muslim countries or terrorist muslim countries that have a terror problem from coming into the United States. Well, hes never been very clear about exactly how he plans to do all this. Hes spoken very forcefully, but very vaguely, and i think the one thing that makes everybody uncomfortable whether youre on the left as bill describes people who dont want this intelligence, the one thing that unites people is that we need the local, the muslim communities, the good muslims in this country to help us on the intelligence scene. So if he institutes a policy that alienuates all muslims, it will be counterproductive. You cant stop this problem unless you go to the source in syria and the middle east. If you think this is just an immigration problem, youre not going to solve. True, but this is one of the reasons he won. People are scared that what happened in germany will become a regular occurrence in this country. Theyve seen san bernardino. Isis sympathizers seem to be able to strike at will. President obama says this is this norm. Get used it. Donald trump says no. Well see how he decides to implement it. Law enforcement in the u. S. On high alert following the attacks in europe. How much progress are intelligence officials making in combatting the terror and cyber Terror Threat here at home . Credit karma . Why are you checking your credit score . You dont want to drive old blue forever, do you . [brakes squeak] credit karma, huh . Yep, its free. Credit karma. Give yourself some credit. For over 100 years like kraft has,natural cheese you learn a lot about what people want. Honey, do we have like a super creamy cheese with taco spice already in it . Oh, thanks. Bon appecheese okay. Cities across the United States bolstering security following mondays attack on a Christmas Market in berlin. As officials deal with the ongoing Terror Threat at home, theres another danger with a growing number of Cyber Attacks including the russian hacking of the Democratic National committee this year. Mitch silver is the head of intelligence and the former director of intelligence analysis for the new York City Police department. Welcome back. Thank you. This german attack, is it the future were going to see not just in europe but here for these terror attacks which are basically people grabbing a truck, grabbing a car, grabbing a gun, and just making individual or small group attacks . You know, we saw a preview of this in israel where as Israeli Security forces were able to increase their intelligence and capabiliti capabilities, the type of attacks they faced in a sense become less sophisticated. People grabbing a truck. People grabbing a plow, driving into a crowd. Or knives on a bus. Exactly. So we saw last summer in france for bastille day and now a second example, relatively simplistic, grab a truck and plow it into a group of people. But does this mean the threat overall is getting better. Or is it, in fact, just changing in a way that actually spreads more terror because if youre walking down the street and you think you could be just grabbed by a knife or hit by a truck, in a way its more terrifying. It is because of the diversity of the threat. But i think what you are seeing is a dim you in addition of carrying out the massive threats. Thats a credit to intelligence and Security Forces being that much more advanced in their capabilities and having much better connections worldwide with other entities. What youre left with is is individuals or duos acting on their own who may or may not be inspired by isis or al qaeda. Theres a report the suspect in this case had been tracked in advance by german intelligence. Weve done that in the and then dropped it. Weve done that in the United States, the tsarnaevs were on a list of the boston bombing, and then the orlando bomber, mar teen was on it and fell off. Are the agencies that have to follow these people simply overwhelmed by the numbers . Its two things. One is that there are limitations in resources. You can follow someone you cant follow someone all the time for a number of years. Theres a vetting process. A priority list . Yeah. Even the 77 bombers back in july of 2005 in london were monitored by intelligence but vetted and put down on the list, categorized as less of a threat. Number one, theres limited resources. You cant track everyone all the time, and number two there are thresholds. If someone fails to cross a certain threshold after monitoring for a period of time, most investigations have to get shut down. I think that may have been the case in some of these other examples of tsarnaevs in orlando, waiting to learn about how this happened in berlin. Do we need to change our rules to allow for a more extensive monitoring instead of having expressed limited periods . We nigmight. For me personally, one of the most anxiety inducing events was closing down an investigation when you didnt have sufficient intelligence to keep it going knowing it could be a person that surprises you in six to 12 mon month . Did that ever happen . Was there an event after that . There wasnt, but its always a fear for any intelligence official. Lets talk about cyber. Its been in the news with the russian hacking of democratic politicians the Democratic National committee. They tried to get into the Republican National committee, apparently did not succeed in that. This is a growing threat generally, you would acknowledge, correct . Yeah, and i think that when were talking about cyber hacking, it takes a number of different forms. You know, one is intelligence gathering, but what we have seen here is not only the gathering of information but then the putting it out on social media. Right. Which is, you know, sort of a whole nother strategy. Which is a disruptive strategy theyre trying. What do you think the russians are really up to . You dont doubt that the russians did it, do up . No, i dont. What do you think they were up to, just to spread the misinformation and reduce confidence in the american electoral process. I think it was twopronged. One was to hurt the u. S. Electoral process. I think the second was to potentially wound Hillary Clinton as a president ial candidate. And then it morphed as things moved along to provide opportunity to assist donald trump. So, you know, as i followed the obama administrations response to this, they havent done much at all. They filed a couple of lawsuits, indicted some lower level chinesee officials. President obama said in his News Conference last week, well, i told putin to cut it out, and he did it. And i told the same to xi jinping and that seemed to do some good, the chinese president. Shouldnt we respond more forcefully . Its all about deterrence, right . Deterrence was such an important element during the cold war on so many different factors. Nuclear or otherwise. We have not established what our deterrence doctrine is in the United States. Theres been something that was released last year in 2015 that said we might do sanctions. We might do indictments. And we might do covert actions. But, you know, theres really no understanding as to what thresholds will trigger what reactions. Now the administration would say, listen, we want to maintain full flexibility, so we dont want to s necessarily lay it al out there. Thats understood, but, you know, if you go back to 2011 and iranian hackers attacking the u. S. Financial system, 2014, north korea and sony, and you say and then the chinese, weve got a couple of indictments. Weve got some sanctions on north korean officials. Whatof really have we done to demonstrate that there is a pricee to pay for hacking the United States . It doesnt seem apparent that there is a price to pay. Therefore, theres no deterrent. Well, and thats something that the next administration is going to have to face. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you. Much more to come as we take a look back at the year in politics. From the stunning brexit vote in the uk to Donald Trumps upset victory here at home. Whats behindd the populist wav sweeping the west . Take one. Directv now. Stream all your entertainment anywhere anytime can we lose the all. Theres no cbs and we dont have a ton of sports. Anywhere, any. Lets lose the anywhere, anytime too. You cant download onthego, theres no dvr, yada yada yada. Stream some stuff somewhere sometimes you totally nailed that buddy. Simple. Dont let directv now limit your entertainment. Only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. People want to take their country back. They want to have independence in a sense, and you sigh it with europe. All over europe, youre going to have, i think, many other cases where they want to take their borders back. They want to take their monetary back. They want to take a lot of things back. So i think youre going to have this happen more and more. I really believe that, and i think its happening in the United States. That was thencandidate donald trump in scotland this summer following the united kingdoms stunning vote to leave the European Union. The nowpresident elect predicting his own upset victory here in the United States as a wave of peep yew liz many sweeps across the west. Were back with dan henninger, jason reilly, mariana ogrady and bill mcgurn. What do you think is behind this . For one thing, people use populist a lot and no one really defines it. Its not always popular. I think there are a lot of different motivations for people going around. The one thing they have in common is it seems to be rebellion against the governing classes or what they consider the ruling elite. Right, its we, the people are pure, and these people are corrupt, and were going to sweep them out. But i think its very different. In britain, i think they had the sense they were chafing under the European Union rules and regulations and so forth. In germany, i think its a lot more about migration and so forth. In fran france, i think, is very interesting because you have lapin, but you also have the rise of a freemarket catholic that could be an alternative. I think, mary, a lot of this is economics. When you have growth of 3 , 4 , a lot of these anxieties go away. When it looks like the Political Class is failing to deliver peace and prosperity or failing to deliver security, thats when these tensions exist and populism rises. I think the populism were seeing is largely a pushback against decentralization. They feel Like Washington has failed them, and they want a return to something where they feel like they have some power. And donald trump is promising to return power to them. Now, whether he does that by, you know, centralizing power in other aspects, for example, industrial policy well see. Well see, yeah. But for sure people were rebelling against the establishment. Well, yeah. And it seems to me, jason, that if populism mobilizes people to break up the status quo that isnt working, particularly if it leads to faster growth or an economic reform, breaks up some of these special interest groups, it can do a great deal of good against elites that arent listening. Thats one way that populism can push things although in some of these european countries, i dont think its that kind of populism that is going on. When you look at france and the National Front movement there or even in germany with this alternatives for deutscheland or Germany Party you talk about an old right, paul, which you have going on there. So its different. It depends on the country. It depends on the type of populism. I think in your, youre dealing with a lot of ethnic nationalism going on. I dont think we have that in the United States to the extent they have that in europe. I agree. It depends. You have to define populism. But its also true i think that if you had faster growth, i mean, in both europe and the United States, youve had slow growth since the financial crisis, and i think when that happens, people look for scapegoats. They look for someone to blame. So it might be blaming immigrants, but it might be just pushing back against the existing economic policy. Bill mentions Francois Fillon in france. This coming election in france is a very important one because he is pushing the most aggressive free market reform that i have seen come out of a french candidate in my lifetime. You just never see that in france where they have socialists and the right is almost as socialist as the left. Thats an alternative to the blood and soil nationalism that marine lapin is pushing. It will be a key election in that respect, paul, because here is the paradox of populism. By and large it can be summed up as people saying, im mad as hell, and im not going to take it anymore except when the government starts suggesting that they pair back, say, labor regulations and rules that protect people. And at that point, a lot of these mad as hell people say, whoa, wait a minute. Im not giving up any of the stuff that protects me. Let somebody else take the burden. Im not giving up my entitlement payments. Spain, italy, france, it has been the same thing reflected. So that election will be very key in suggesting whether people are ready to bear that burden.