In a wide-ranging exit interview, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly asks Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns about Russia, a potential ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, and the resurgence of ISIS.
Mary Louise Kelly: I will say you have been generous in giving interviews to the media as CIA director, and on behalf of my profession, thank you. And thank you for taking our questions one more time as you prepare to transition out.
Bill Burns: No, it's a pleasure to see you. I remember we did; I think it was my first extended interview in this office almost four years ago. And I really have believed that, you know, in an era in our society when trust in public institutions runs pretty low these days, it is important to get out and try and explain as much as you can, at least if you know what this agency and what the remarkable men and women who animate this agency do.
Kelly: Well, with that a starting point? May I invite you to start by explaining Russia and Ukraine? I know you're fond of joking that most of your gray hair came from dealing with Vladimir Putin. I will note your hair is entirely gray as we speak today. You're about to leave government service. Vladimir Putin is still running Russia, is marking a quarter century doing so and shows no signs he's going anywhere. So what's your best advice to your successor for how to handle him?
Burns: Oh, you know, I've had a couple of conversations with my successor, with John Ratcliffe, and I don't, I'm not sure he needs my free advice.
Kelly: But you must have picked up a tip or two along the way.
Burns: Yeah, I know. I certainly have in my long experience dealing with and interacting with Putin. I mean, I think, you know, he's not a big believer in the better angels of the human spirit by both professional training and experience. He's a big believer in control and intimidation. He's deeply suspicious of people around him and always looking for vulnerabilities that he can take advantage of. And so, you know, as the new administration thinks about the prospect of negotiations over Ukraine in this year, in 2025, you know, I think it needs to think about the reality that negotiations don't happen in a vacuum. I mean, most, most conflicts do end in negotiations. This one probably will, too. But the issue, I think, is going to be how do you help President Zelenskyy and Ukraine sustain enough leverage to ensure that those negotiations are not just on Putin's terms. And how do you continue to inflict costs on Russia so that Putin understands that time is not necessarily on his side, which is what I think he believes today?
Kelly: Well, no one can predict the future, but your track record, Bill Burns, in that part of the world, in Russia, is not bad. Last year, right after the mutiny in Russia led by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, I interviewed you, you told me and I quote, "If I were Prigozhin, I wouldn't fire my food taster. And also, Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback." And a month after that, Prigozhin was dead. What was your takeaway?
Burns: Oh, I think, you know, Putin is someone who gets even. And I think Prigozhin had crossed a pretty significant line when he led a mutiny that had gotten two-thirds of the way up the highway from Rostov in southern Russia toward Moscow before he was stopped. And I think Putin was determined to demonstrate that, you know, he wasn't going to allow that. The other fascinating thing about that episode, though, is if you remember the 30-minute video that the Prigozhin did the morning of the mutiny, on Telegram, to a lot of Russians watched. It was the most scathing indictment of Putin's rationale for war in Ukraine that I've seen from anyone. He essentially said it was a war of choice, that there was no threat from Ukraine to Russia ahead of time. He said that the generalship on the Russian side was deeply uneven and incompetent, and thirdly, said it was the corruption at the heart of Putin's Russia that help explain a lot of the missteps that were made. And so, you know, with Prigozhin's death, you know, a lot of that critique has receded. But I think the truth is that as Russians begin to think through the consequences of this war, 700,000 killed and wounded, which is 10 times what the Soviets lost in Afghanistan in a decade of war. The fact that Putin has rebuilt the Russian defense industrial base, but he's done that at the expense, you know, of the medium term future of the Russian economy with inflation rising again. So, you know, I think Russians are going to have a lot of questions about, you know, the cost of (crosstalk)...
Kelly: What's the leverage for getting Putin to end this war?
Burns: Well, I think the leverage is very straightforward. He is not a sentimentalist. Right now, he judges that he has the upper hand on the battlefield. You know, I've been to Ukraine 14 times during the course of the war. The last time I was there last month, just before Christmas, was another of the missile and drone strikes on Kyiv that he's launched. And so he believes he can grind down the Ukrainians. I think the best leverage is, as I mentioned before, it's to sustain support for Zelenskyy's Ukraine, help the Ukrainians to hold the line on the battlefield and in the process to can, to puncture Putin's hubris and make clear that time is not necessarily on his side at the cost to Russia are going to rise as well. I think that's, you know, the best basis that I can imagine for negotiations.
Kelly: Last one on Ukraine. As CIA director, I know you don't do policy, but you do assess what is working and what isn't.
Burns: Yes.
Kelly: Did the U.S. hold back too much in an effort not to antagonize Russia in terms of weapons it supplied, in terms of limits on what Ukraine could do with them?
Burns: I don't think so. I mean, I think there were some, you know, very careful choices that the president made over the course of this. And I think that enabled the Ukrainians not just to hold the line, but also to make some significant advances against the Russians, especially in 2022 (crosstalk).
Kelly: And there were in 2025. And they're saying morale is low. They're being decimated.
Burns: There are but I mean, the most recent supplemental assistance package, which, you know, was the subject of pretty intense debate in the Congress. I spent, you know, hours with the new speaker of the House talking to him about my experience on all those travels to Ukraine and what was at stake. And, you know, I think that's provided, at least in terms of, you know, weapons and ammunition and equipment, you know, a boost for the Ukrainians, too. But they do you know, they face a huge manpower challenge. Russia is a country four times the size of Ukraine, so it's difficult for the Ukrainians to deal with that. It's not a question of their courage or tenacity, which I don't doubt for a minute. But, you know, that manpower disadvantage is, is, is something that Putin's taking advantage of.
Kelly: The Middle East. Who or what is blocking a ceasefire on Gaza at this point?
Burns: You know, at this point, I still think there's a chance I mean, I've learned the hard way not to get my hopes up about the cease fire hostage negotiations. I do think there remains a chance to get a deal. And we'll certainly and this administration worked very hard at that right up until January 20th. And I think the coordination with the new administration on this issue has been good. And President-elect Trump has made clear his interest in trying to get a deal, you know, before his inauguration. So I think there's a (crosstalk).
Kelly: Basically said the hostages need to be freed or there's going to be hell to pay. I'm paraphrasing, but.
Burns: Right. And so I think the gaps between the parties have narrowed. There's an Israeli delegation in Doha right now working through proximity talks managed by the Qataris, with the support of the Egyptians and with our support. So, I think there's a chance. I mean, and the thing that I always remember is that this is not just an abstraction. I mean, this is not just about brackets in negotiating texts. It's about human beings. It's about hostages held in hellish conditions, you know, in tunnels beneath Gaza. It's about their families with whom I meet regularly, which is a heartbreaking experience. And I have nothing but admiration for their bravery and determination. And it's about Gazan civilians who are also in hellish conditions right now and suffering terribly, especially through this winter. So there's every reason for political leaders to recognize that enough is enough. That perfect is rarely on the menu in the Middle East and that, you know, it's time to make a deal. And I do think the negotiations that are going on right now are quite serious and do offer the possibility, at least of getting this done in the next couple of weeks.
Kelly: You just said coordination on this issue. The Middle East has been great with the incoming team, which suggests other issues it has perhaps been trickier.
Burns: No, it's just the only one that I was speaking to is on this one, too. And, you know, that's the one I'm most familiar with anyway, as well.
Kelly: Iran, which had a pretty lousy 2024, weakened internally, mounting pressures externally. We interviewed Jake Sullivan, the national security, the national security adviser at the White House the other day. He told me the big question on his mind is, given the losses Iran has sustained, will it make it more likely, more likely that Iran tries to go for a nuclear weapon? Director Burns, will it?
Burns: It's something we watch very intently, because you're right, Iran has it's strategic position has suffered considerably over the course of the last six or seven months. You know, two failed efforts to launch significant ballistic missile strikes against Israel, the collapse of its leading proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the severe degradation of Hamas in Gaza, and then the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. All of that, I think, strategically puts the Iranian regime in a much weaker position. And so Jake Sullivan was right to express the concern that, you know, the Iranian regime could decide in the face of that weakness that it needs to restore its deterrence as it sees it and, you know, reverse the decision made at the end of 2003 to suspend their weaponization program. We do not see any sign today that any such decision has been made, but we obviously watch it intently. You know that that sense of weakness could also theoretically create a possibility for serious negotiations, too. And, you know, that's something the new administration is going to have to sort through. I mean, it's something I have a lot of experience with in the secret talks a decade ago, a little more than a decade ago with the Iranians. So, you know, that's that's also a possibility.
Kelly: Does the Iranian regime's top priority, is it survival?
Burns: Yes. Yeah, it's survival. And it's a regime that, you know, in a sense, who's purpose, who, which is animated by, you know, hostility and suspicion, not just of Israel, but of the United States as well.
Kelly: ISIS, which I was not expecting to come in and ask you about in 2025. But we have a terror attack, a horrible terror attack in New Orleans last week, which is raising fresh questions. The man who drove that truck into the crowd had an Islamic State flag on his vehicle. The FBI says he posted videos proclaiming support for ISIS. What is the state of ISIS?
Burns: Oh, I think, you know, we're quite concerned, as has been, you know, FBI and Chris Wray spoken to this publicly. I have as well about the rising threat posed by ISIS, especially ISIS-Khorasan based in South Asia.
Kelly: That's how you would describe it. A rising threat.
Burns: A rising threat. Yeah, I agree. We can see the external plotting that that particular branch of ISIS is engaged in. And, you know, we're very sharply focused as an agency on dealing with that threat, you know, supporting the FBI in the New Orleans case, where, as the FBI has said publicly, and their belief is that, you know, the man who perpetrated that horrific act was inspired by ISIS but operated alone. But we're quite concerned about other instances in which, you know, ISIS's doing external plotting. I mean, last summer we shared intelligence with our Austrian counterparts that helped protect tens of thousands of concertgoers at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna and resulted in the arrest of four ISIS operatives. We also under the duty to warn that we operate under provided the Russians and the Iranians with advance intelligence on plots we knew that ISIS was engaged in. And that resulted in, you know, a large number of deaths in Moscow, in a terrorist attack there, and in Iran. And we continue to focus, along with others in the U.S. government, you know, on the ISIS threat in Iraq and Syria, and over the last few years have, you know, had successful strikes against ISIS some years in that part of the world, too.
Kelly: So there are all these efforts and yet ISIS is still able to reach still able to inspire a 42-year-old realtor in Houston. Do you ,have any visibility into how?
Burns: No. I mean, I think it's a complicated story in that 42-year-old case of, you know, lots of other failures in his life, apparently. So it's always hard to understand how people were inspired. But the danger that, you know, ISIS can pose, even if it's not involved in the actual plotting or carrying out of an act through its ability to inspire people is a significant threat.
Kelly: When you describe it as a rising threat, is there a line you would draw? Would you trace any of that back to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the chaotic withdrawal which among other issues, reduced pressure on the ISIS chapter there you just named ISIS-K.
Burns: Less so, honestly, because I think the Taliban, you know, are mortal enemies of ISIS-K. And, you know, have been engaged in fairly significant conflict against them. The Pakistanis have also taken action against ISIS-K, as well. And I think, you know, we've stayed focused on Al Qaida, as well. I mean, the successful strike that, you know, that the United States took against Ayman al-Zawahiri in what turned out to be a not-so-safehouse in downtown Kabul in the summer of 2022 was, I think, evidence of our continuing commitment to deal with potential terrorist threats coming out of Afghanistan, in this case from Al Qaida.
Kelly: One or two on China, and the recent cyberattack by China into U.S. phone companies, the Salt Typhoon attack. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, has called it, and I quote, "The worst telecom hack in our nation's history by far." Is it?
Burns: Oh, I have great respect for Senator Warner, and I think he's right to highlight the seriousness of this concern at something that we're still in the process of, you know, understanding the breadth of it as well. That's a reminder not to underestimate the Chinese services and their determination in the case of Salt Typhoon and U.S. telecom companies, but also what's called Volt Typhoon, which was an effort to penetrate critical infrastructure in the United States. And so, you know, it's not in our interest to underestimate China's capability or determination on these issues.
Kelly: I mean, is is it the start of something new? Would you describe this? Because China, I think it's fair to say, has been seen as active in cyber attacks, but messier than some other actors, not the most sophisticated. Does this strike you as a new level of sophistication that they're able to do this?
Burns: This is pretty sophisticated. Yeah. And it's a reminder of what they're capable of. And it's a further reminder of one of the most significant priorities in this agency over the last four years, which is to been to then, you know, invest in long term priorities. The People's Republic of China being one, the revolution in technology being a second, because it's technology that's the main arena for competition with China. So, we formed a new China mission center, the only single-country mission center that we have at this agency. We've tripled the budget at CIA for the China target across the whole CIA. It's now about 20 percent of the overall CIA budget. And then on technology, we've taken significant strides with a new chief technology officer with a second mission center aimed at strengthening partnerships with the tech sector and the private sector. So it's a reflection of the fact that we realize the challenge ahead. And, you know, this is one of those moments of, I think, revolutionary change on the international landscape with intense major power competition with China and with Russia, but also a revolution in technology unlike anything we've seen since the Industrial Revolution. What that means, for us at CIA and has meant over the last four years, is that we have to begin to revolutionize the practice of intelligence.
Kelly: Mm-hmm.
Burns: What we focus on China and technology while we continue to deal with continuing responsibilities on counterterrorism, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. But at the same time, not just what we focus on, but how we do it. So, making better use of artificial intelligence for our analysts and our operations officers as well, so that analysts, for example, can digest the vast amount of open source information and clandestinely-acquired intelligence and offer a better analysis, better judgments for the president and for policymakers. And then to be more creative in intelligence diplomacy, how do we use the sharing of intelligence and sometimes even the declassification of some of our secrets, as we did, as the president did in the run-up to the war in Ukraine to help deny leaders like Putin the ability to create false narratives, as I've watched him do so many times in the past.
Kelly: A basic question, I remember four years ago when you started this job, you told me in an interview that you could use more Mandarin speakers. Did you get them? We have.
Burns: Yes. We both hired and trained more Mandarin speakers, and that's an essential part of long-term competition with China.
Kelly: So, I do want to ask about the transition because the last time this particular president-elect transitioned in, Donald Trump had spent the campaign ridiculing and attacking the leaders of the intelligence community, he was sworn into office having just compared U.S. intelligence agencies to Nazis. How's that going this time around? How would it compare to this time around?
Burns: Well, I've had, as I mentioned, a couple of conversations with my successor, at least the, you know, the CIA director-designee, John Ratcliffe. And I promised him that we would ensure the smoothest possible transition here. I stressed to him that this is an apolitical institution, that I was confident that, you know, my colleagues here, for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration, would show him what CIA was capable of, just as they showed me what CIA is capable of. And so we'll continue to work hard at that, because that's not only what I owe the women and men of CIA, but I think that's what's going to serve the American interests the best, too.
Kelly: I mean, I'm asking in part because the relationship, if anything, deteriorated from there and led to the famous moment in Helsinki where the U.S. commander in chief suggested he believed Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence community. Did you, Bill Burns, ever figure out why?
Burns: No, I didn't figure out why. And my hope, at least, is that in this new administration that people will understand, you know, the significance of good intelligence for any national security, you know, goals that the new administration wants to set and to understand the reality that this is an apolitical institution, you know, made up of men and women who are patriotic, who are deeply committed to the best interests of this country. And if you trust them and respect them, they'll produce amazing things.
Kelly: I'm just going to push you on this because you are a Russia expert and a past U.S. ambassador in Moscow. You never figured out why Donald Trump was so deferential to Vladimir Putin?
Burns: No, I mean, that's not something. And, you know, I've commented on that in the past before I was back in government, but it's not something I'm going to offer opinions on today.
Kelly: OK. On briefings, has Trump asked for daily intelligence briefings? Is he getting them?
Burns: There have been. I mean, these are these are, you know, managed by the director of national intelligence, by my friend Avril Haines. And there have been several briefings and certainly CIA officers contribute to them.
Kelly: Same format as Joe Biden gets?
Burns: Seem in terms of the PDB, at least the president's daily brief, which is, you know, what's the basis for the briefings for President-elect Trump as well?
Kelly: And you mentioned John Ratcliffe, who, if confirmed by the Senate, will succeed you in this office on the seventh floor of, of headquarters. What have your conversations with him been like?
Burns: Oh, very straightforward. I think he's been curious about, you know, what's transpired in the intelligence community since he was director of national intelligence in the last year of the first Trump administration. And, you know, very focused on what our priorities have been, especially on China and on technology issues as well. And I, you know, look forward to further conversations with him before the 20th of January.
Kelly: Might start to bring us full circle by asking a question I asked you when you started this job, because I'm curious if your answer has changed. Given everything we've just been talking about, all the threats that you have to be across at all hours of the day and night, what does keep you awake at night?
Burns: Hmm. That was a good question four years ago and still is now. I mean, you know, honestly, the thing that concerns me the most is risk to my officers. You know, I can and the senior leadership here can mitigate risk and can try to anticipate it and try to prevent it. But, you know, I have a lot of colleagues who are doing really hard jobs in really hard places right now, and I can't make risk go away. And every morning I walk by our memorial wall, you know, in the lobby of headquarters with 140 stars on the wall, which are a vivid reminder of the sacrifices that CIA officers make. And so that's something that is bound to keep me up at night. And the other thing that quite literally kept me up at night about a year ago, a year and a half ago, was I had volunteered to take part in the closing exercise for our special operations training course. What new case officers go through down in the dark woods of Virginia. This runs from like 8 p.m. until 6 a.m., and I thought it was a good idea at the time when I volunteered, about 3 a.m. I wasn't so sure. But it was a fascinating experience to see our newest officers, you know, understanding not only and beginning to learn the tools of the trade, but also understanding the importance of teamwork as well. So, I learned a lot. And what was especially fascinating was about five in the morning at the end of this training course overnight, a Delta team based at Fort Liberty in North Carolina came up to stage a hostage rescue exercise. They had been told that there was a small group of CIA officers led by someone impersonating a senior CIA officer who were being held by an adversary. And so it was worth the price of admission to see the look on the face of the very impressive young Army major from Delta team coming up the stairs and seeing a real-life CIA director tied to a chair.
Kelly: Uh huh.
Burns: That kept.
Kelly: Me up. Did it end well for you? Did they get out? Yes.
Burns: Yes, I was. I was. But it was that kept me up at night. And it was it was a reminder of how fortunate I've been over, you know, these last four years as CIA director. I've taken 84 trips overseas during that time, covered more than a million miles. And, you know, it's just deepened the pride that I have and the work of this agency and the, you know, the people who do that work.
Kelly: What do you have planned for the afternoon of January 20th?
Burns: No, probably sleep. I mean, there are lots of things that, you know, I haven't done over the last four years. I have three wonderful brothers. And we had a tradition for 20 years of going to the first round of the NCAA men's, you know, basketball tournament in March. And so this year, I'm determined to actually get there with the three of them.
Kelly: There we go. From the CIA to March Madness.
Burns: That's true. Yeah.
Kelly: Bill Burns for a few more days. He is director of the CIA. Thank you.
Burns: Nice to see you, Mary Louise. Thank you very much.
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