Former CIA acting director Michael Morell interviews intelligence veterans on Iran, China, and Ukraine.
Intelligence Matters treats national security as a discipline, not a talking point. Michael Morrell leads long-form conversations with intelligence, diplomatic, military, and policy figures about how decisions are made under pressure.
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Intelligence Matters is produced by CBS News and hosted by Michael Morell, who served as acting director and deputy director of the CIA before the show began. Every episode follows the same structure: Morell interviews one guest for 40 to 50 minutes, often opening with the guest's career background before turning to a current security question. Recurring guest types include former CIA regional analysts such as John Culver and Dennis Wilder (both focused on China and Taiwan), former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, CIA clinical psychologist Ursula Wilder, and senior State Department officials like Derek Chollet and Catherine Ashton. Subject matter clusters around a small number of ongoing threads that recur across episodes: Iran's uranium enrichment and regional deterrence calculus, China's military and coercive options toward Taiwan, the trajectory of Western support for Ukraine, and North Korea's expanding nuclear arsenal. The show also periodically turns to the mechanics of intelligence work itself, including open-source intelligence collection and how analysts psychologically assess foreign leaders. Guests frequently reference their own memoirs, prior government roles, or institutional affiliations (Atlantic Council, AEI's Critical Threats Project, Washington Institute for Near East Policy) as the basis for their views. The tone is conversational rather than confrontational, with Morell probing for analytic judgment rather than headlines. Production carries CBS News branding and occasional cross-promotion of other CBS programs. The show is best suited to listeners already following foreign policy and national security coverage who want added context from people who worked inside the system, rather than breaking-news analysis.
Made for: Listeners who already follow foreign policy and national security news and want added context from former CIA officers, diplomats, and policy analysts.
What sets it apart: Guests are drawn almost entirely from former CIA, State Department, and intelligence-community ranks, and the host himself is a former acting CIA director rather than a journalist.
Former acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell speaks with top leaders of the U.S. intelligence community as they reflect on their life, career and the critical roles they play in shaping national security policies. As a central figure in the most significant U.S. counter-terror efforts of the past two decades and a former CIA intelligence analyst, Morell is uniquely skilled at taking industry leading knowledge to make connections that provide deep insight into complex security events – helping decode intelligence officials’ key priorities and providing perspectives on how to achieve national security objectives. Morell is the author of “The Gr...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Intelligence Matters makes government decision-making legible by asking officials and specialists to explain the evidence, constraints, and uncertainty behind national security judgments.
Michael Morrell conducts focused, question-led conversations that turn national security policy into an account of how judgments are made. Intelligence Matters moves between current decisions and institutional retrospection: Derek Chollet discusses support for Ukraine and…
Michael Morrell gets past the threat ticker, so you can see how intelligence judgments are actually made.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sober, practical look at how CIA psychology helps policymakers understand foreign leaders in context.
CIA clinical psychologist Ursula Wilder offers a disciplined account of how leader psychology can inform intelligence work. Her authority comes less from mystique than from the range of a 26-year CIA career that has moved through medical, operational, and analytic assignments,…
A sober Iran policy discussion centered on nuclear escalation, Saudi-Iran rivalry, and the danger of a wider regional war.
Iran's nuclear program gives this Intelligence Matters conversation its urgency. Michael Morrell frames the issue with concrete markers: enrichment reportedly reaching 84% once, sustained 60% enrichment at Fordow, stockpiles at 20% and 60%, and uranium metal work that raises…
A sober CIA-side reassessment of Iraq intelligence, strongest on the contested Zarqawi and Iraq-Al-Qaeda question.
Michael Morrell uses the 20-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq for a measured reassessment of CIA performance, emphasizing a mixed record rather than a simple institutional defense.
A grounded case for why open source data now matters to intelligence work.
Kristin Wood and Michael Morrell treat open source intelligence as a practical government capability, not a buzzword. Wood, a former CIA officer who worked in operations, analysis, and open source innovation, is strongest when she moves from definition to use case.
A clear, policy-minded conversation on Russia, China, Taiwan, and the risks of assuming adversaries are already deterred.
Michael Morrell's conversation with Fred Kagan is a sober tour of current national security risk, anchored less in headlines than in how adversaries judge power and leverage.
A clear inside-policy account of how Ukraine aid decisions move through intelligence, battlefield need, training demands, and coalition management.
A year into Russia's war in Ukraine, Intelligence Matters gives a useful look at how senior U.S. officials describe the machinery behind Ukraine policy.
A sober China-Taiwan briefing that turns balloon fallout into a sharper look at coercion, military risk, and escalation.
Michael Morrell's conversation with John Culver uses the Chinese reconnaissance balloon as a way into the larger question of China, Taiwan, and crisis escalation.
A measured, practical look at Iran diplomacy through Catherine Ashton's account of trust, sanctions, and security calculations.
Catherine Ashton gives a useful account of diplomacy as practical work: the dinner before formal talks, the slow reading of counterparts, and the need to understand how the other side sees its own pressures.
Galen Druk and the FiveThirtyEight team parse Harris-Trump polling data debate by debate.
Ursula Wilder brings clinical psychology into intelligence work, without making it sound like parlor-room profiling.
Dennis Ross sees the basics staying put.
Twenty years later, Iraq is back under the microscope.
Open source intelligence gets a working audit.
Fred Kagan begins with open source intelligence and deterrence.
One year in, the help keeps changing.
John Culver opens on pessimism.
Catherine Ashton comes in with a long diplomatic record.
Dennis Wilder rejects the easy version of the case against engagement.
Section 702 is at stake.
China may be peaking, not just rising relative to the United States.
Putin is treated as a power problem.