Chuck Todd

In March of 1960, he's still president, and he directs the CIA to develop a plan to remove Castro.

Why do suburban sort of squishy Republicans, why are they willing to cross the aisle against Trump?

So by the time John F. Kennedy takes office, this is already a presidential approved operation.

It's usually for character and style, not necessarily for substance.

And the CIA?

Well, this isn't the CIA of today.

This is the CIA of then.

A much different CIA than we had now.

It's coming off what appears to be a winning streak in 1953 Iranian coup, something that the time machine tackled a few weeks ago.

Guatemala 1954 was a successful CIA-inspired coup.

Small operations, weak resistance, quick wins.

So it created a bit of a trap.

Success becomes confidence for the CIA.

Confidence becomes assumption, and assumption becomes strategy.

They think they've seen this before.

Well, they hadn't, and they were fighting the last war.

So Kennedy walks in.

He's the youngest elected president in American history at the time, 43.

So he's new, he's unproven, and he's under pressure.

And this plan, it was already moving.