Hunter Biden laptop letter signer was top adviser for ‘House of Dynamite’ film critiqued by Pentagon

A signer of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter was a key adviser for Netflix’s House of Dynamite film on a potential nuclear war, which aimed to raise questions about the danger of atomic weapons and which has earned critiques from the Pentagon.

The movie is about an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) of unknown origin, presumably armed with a nuclear warhead, being launched at the U.S. out of the blue and heading for Chicago. The film depicts a chaotic response by U.S. civilian and military leaders as U.S. interceptors fail to stop the incoming ICBM. Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior director of the White House Situation Room and a prominent signer of the Hunter Biden laptop letter, was brought in to consult for the film.

The open letter, signed by 51 former senior intelligence officials, stated that the laptop "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." However, no evidence had publicly surfaced to support claims the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation scheme.

Kathryn Bigelow, who also directed The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, said she did not seek cooperation from the Pentagon in making the movie, implicitly critiqued Trump’s presidency in an interview, and made it clear she was critical of nuclear weaponry.

Pfeiffer, also former chief of staff to then-CIA director Michael Hayden (who also signed the laptop letter), has continued to suggest, without any credible evidence, that “the Russians played some role” in Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop. He made the claim during a SpyTalk podcast episode in August amid a broader discussion in which the former intelligence official also sought to downplay the revelations from recent declassifications made by CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Pfeiffer, the director of the Hayden Center at George Mason University, repeatedly told the podcast hosts – journalists Jeff Stein and Michael Isikoff – that he and other signers still believed the Russians may have been behind the Hunter Biden laptop, which first emerged publicly in mid-October 2020. The New York Post stories detailing the shady business dealings of Joe Biden’s son in China and Ukraine were censored on social media. The letter Pfeiffer signed was designed to give Joe Biden a “talking point” in his debate against Donald Trump.

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency reportedly argued in response to A House of Dynamite that its missile interceptors have shown “a 100% accuracy rate” during testing for more than a decade.

The film comes as President Donald Trump has proposed greatly expanding U.S. missile defense through his “Golden Dome” plan and says the U.S. will begin to test its nuclear weapons again.

Pfeiffer did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him through the Hayden Center, and Netflix also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Film depicts a doomsday scenario and incompetent U.S. defenses

During the film, the Defense Support Program satellite system’s sophisticated infrared detection somehow fails to detect the launch of an ICBM at the continental United States.

The U.S. missile defense system in the movie then fails. Two ground-based interceptors (GBIs) are fired at the incoming ICBMs. A kill vehicle for one of the interceptors fails to separate from its booster rocket, and then the other interceptor misses the incoming ICBM. When the interception fails, the military officers break down.

The defense secretary in the movie is told that the odds of intercepting the ICBM were only 61%, lamenting, “So it’s a ... coin toss? That’s what $50 billion buys us.”

The fictional commander of U.S. Strategic Command advises the president, played by Idris Elba, that “If we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies now, we will lose our window to do so.” He recommends a massive nuclear strike against Russia, China and North Korea, despite not knowing who launched the ICBM.

“This is insanity,” Elba’s president says.

The general argues back: No, sir. This is reality.” 

The naval officer carrying the nuclear football – briefcase containing the tools for the U.S. president to authorize a nuclear strike – also attempts to pressure the president into a massive retaliatory nuclear strike, saying his options fall into “select, limited, and major” — or “rare, medium, and well done.”

“We can hit their command centers, silos, and bombers while they’re still on the ground, eliminating their ability to take further action against us,” the naval officer tells the president.

The fictional deputy national security advisor argues that to do massive nuclear strikes against China, North Korea and Russia would be “suicide” and argues that the president should “hold back” even if that means “surrender.”

The movie also depicts officers in the White House Situation Room breaking basic protocol by bringing their cell phones into the classified space and also depicts the defense secretary committing suicide by jumping off a building ahead of the ICBM hitting Chicago.

Pentagon pushes back

The Missile Defense Agency reportedly produced an internal memo pushing back on the film last month, arguing that its interceptors “have displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade.”

Bloomberg reported that the memo was put together to ensure that military leadership has “situational awareness and is not ‘surprised’ by the topic, which may come up in conversations or meetings.”

The memo was prepared to “address false assumptions” and to “provide correct facts and a better understanding,” and argued that while the film “highlights that deterrence can fail, which reinforces the need for an active homeland missile defense system,” the doomsday scenario depicted in the movie underestimates U.S. missile defense abilities.

“The fictional interceptors in the movie miss their target, and we understand this is intended to be a compelling part of the drama intended for the entertainment of the audience,” the memo said, arguing that the results from its missile defense tests “tell a vastly different story.” The memo said that “the cost is high” for missile defense, “but not nearly as high as the cost of allowing a nuclear missile to strike our nation.”

The Pentagon told the outlet that it wasn’t consulted for the film, and that the movie “does not reflect the views or priorities of this administration.” The Pentagon said that its missile defense system “remains a critical component of our national defense strategy, ensuring the safety and security of the American people and our allies.”

A U.S. military official reportedly defended the capabilities of U.S. missile defense to Deadline, telling the media outlet that “the numbers tell us what is occurring, and we need to know” and that “the results are very, very good, with the program scheduled to grow over the next decade.”

The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance has produced a “U.S. Missile Defense Test Record” database that shows that the last few U.S. military missile defense tests from 2017 to 2023 resulted in successful intercepts of ICBMs in test conditions.

“We are our own villain”

The movie’s director made it clear that the movie was made to prompt policy discussions and changes.

Bigelow told Awardsline, “I feel like nuclear weapons, the prospect of their use, has become normalized. We don’t think about it, we don’t talk about it. And it’s an unthinkable situation. So, my hope was to maybe move it to the forefront of our lives.”

She told The Guardian that “our world is combustible, and it’s extraordinary to me how that ever became normalized.” She argued that “our nuclear armory is a fallible structure.”

“We are our own villain,” Bigelow said of the creation of nuclear weapons. “Of course, the challenge is this is a global problem. Climate change is the same. But we have to act. And I would say a first action is to see this issue as your main responsibility when you vote.”

When asked whether she was worried about the Trump administration deploying the National Guard to some cities, she replied, “Well, I did just make a movie about nuclear war. So that may say it all.”

Bigelow told CBS Sunday Morning, "We did not seek that out" cooperation from the Pentagon. … "I felt that we needed to be more independent.”

She told The Hollywood Reporter, “We had extraordinary tech advisers on this film, and then they were our North Star.”

Noah Oppenheim, the former president of NBC News, was the writer and producer for the film.

"It’s safe to say that folks who are not currently serving in government are often more free to speak their minds and to give you an accurate picture, as opposed to trying to advance any particular agenda” when defending not consulting with the Pentagon on the movie," Oppenheim argued to the outlet.

He also said that when putting together the movie he talked to people at STRATCOM, the Pentagon and the White House.

“We kind of reported it out as you would if you were reporting out a newspaper story. … What you see on screen is hopefully a fairly accurate portrait of the reality that exists,” Oppenheim said on MSNBC. “And yeah, it’s unfortunately somewhat scary to think about.”

When asked about the pushback from the Pentagon, he said, “We respectfully disagree. I am not a missile defense expert. However, I did talk to many missile defense experts, who are all on the record.” 

He added: “We did not seek the cooperation of the Pentagon at all or the current administration in making the movie, but it’s all out there in the public domain. And unfortunately our missile defense system is highly imperfect” and contended that “what we show in the movie is accurate.”

Movie critiqued by experts

Bradley Bowman, who serves as senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, was highly critical of the movie.

“Bigelow is interested in having a discussion around nuclear disarmament. The problem is, America’s adversaries in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea want no part of that discussion,” Bowman said in a video on X. “As entertainment, I think the movie succeeds, but as a policy prescription I think it bombs.”

Bowman argued “the director was trying to make a case for reducing our nuclear arsenal, but she actually makes a very compelling case for strengthening our homeland missile defense – something not unlike what the Trump administration is after with its Golden Dome program.” 

He added: “That combined with modernizing our nuclear triad… will help keep Americans safe.”

Heather Williams, the director of the nuclear issues project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, critiqued the film in a recent talk.

“I hated” the portrayal of military leaders in the film, Williams said, arguing that “it just doesn’t gel with my experience of working with the military on strategic forces issues.”

“It’s not their job to convince the president to use or not use nuclear weapons,” Williams said. “I have never known any military leader who has been as hawkish as that STRATCOM commander was presented … They are the ones who are going to ask a lot of thoughtful questions, and their job is to give the president options, and to explain those options — not to force a decision on the president.”

Williams added: “I walked out of the movie saying we need more GBIs… It really does make the case for more homeland defense, for making that more of a priority.”

Jon Wolfsthal, the director of Global Risk at the Federation of American Scientists, had a criticism for the film in a piece for Defense One.

“There is one major flaw in the movie, and that is the stereotype that the military leaders will be gung-ho to launch, and only some plucky civilian will be able to slow them down,” he wrote. 

“This is neither how I have found the military leaders with whom I have worked, nor does the scenario painted in the movie justify the positions taken in the plot. Without giving anything away, the danger the U.S. faces is not one that would justify or likely even lead a gung-ho military adviser telling the president he needed to launch any immediate retaliation.”

Joshua A. Schwartz, an assistant professor at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology, wrote an article for the Modern War Institute at West Point criticizing the movie.

“The film’s core dilemma is a false one and disregards basic facts about America’s nuclear arsenal. Most notably, it ignores that the United States could easily (even if incredibly painfully) absorb an incoming nuclear strike—especially a single missile attack against a city like Chicago – and still retain an ability to retaliate with its own nuclear weapons.”

Schwartz contended that “the time pressure placed on the president and the recommendation by key military officials to conduct an all-out nuclear counterstrike are nonsensical” and that “A House of Dynamite delivers all the tension of nuclear war – just none of the understanding that might stop it.”

Pfeiffer played key role in Netflix film

Pfeiffer said on X that “I'm proud to have played a part” in the movie, “serving as technical advisor on the film's White House action.”

Netflix said that “Bigelow brought in a 32-year veteran of the intelligence community and former senior director of the real-life Situation Room” – Pfeiffer – “as a consultant.”

George Mason University said that “the producers reached out to Pfeiffer on the recommendation of another consultant” for the film. 

Pfeiffer said, "We did a Zoom call during which I asked if they’d ever visited the real Situation Room” and "when they said they hadn’t, I suggested I could ask the then-incumbent senior director if a tour could be arranged.” Pfeiffer added that “after a couple weeks of deliberation, they invited us in.”

Rebecca Ferguson, an actress who played a senior duty officer in the Situation Room during the film, argued to Vanity Fair that accuracy “was the entire pillar and fundamental for all of our characters” and that “with this film, there’s no need to play around with fictional accuracy because it’s all there.”

“So I was given Larry Pfeiffer. ... I got his number and Kathryn said, ‘Go to town, ask whatever you want. We just need it to be accurate.’ Then it was down to me to gather as much information as I could,” Ferguson said. “He was always there on set.”

Pfeiffer told the SpyTalk podcast that Ferguson “was meeting with me to discuss the character – what drove them, how did they act, how did they respond, what was their emotional approach to the job.”

Hunter Biden laptop letter signer defends the film

Pfeiffer defended the movie during an episode of the SpyTalk podcast last month.

When asked about the film’s accuracy, he said Bigelow “is all about gritty realism, and so she consults with experts and brings experts into the movie-making process to ensure that it is as real as possible.” 

He added, “Now that being said, it’s a movie, it’s not a documentary, so there’s some license taken here and there to make the movie flow better… But overall what I’m telling people is this is probably the closest the average moviegoer will ever get to being inside any of those rooms — be it the Situation Room, the STRATCOM command center, a missile base up in Greely, Alaska. It was a pretty darn close approximation of what that’s really like.”

When asked about the satellites failing to detect the ICBM’s launch, Pfeiffer admitted, “I personally have never known it to fail. You see a hotspot on the globe, you know that’s where it’s coming from.”

He argued, however, that “the statistics they cite in the movie – I think you have the deputy national security adviser at one point saying it’s a 61% kill ratio – is the honest to God truth.”

Pfeiffer also said that current and former SitRoom officials who watched a film screening told him that the SitRoom officials in the movie “were a little too emotional.” 

He responded, “Yeah, but I get what you’re saying, but that was the absolute possible worst day you could ever have, and I’m not 100% sure everybody in that room would be able to maintain their composure completely.”

When asked why the president was portrayed as confused, unprepared and a deer-in-the-headlights, Pfeiffer said in part of his long answer, “You’re making a movie, not a documentary. … I think Idris Elba did a great job of the exhaustion the president often has. They’re going sun-up to well past sun-down. … I think we have to be very careful when we elect a president who we elect.”

Pfeiffer also claimed that missile defense “can be a destabilizing issue in and of itself.”

He also argued that the film’s depiction of the president’s options as being “surrender or suicide” was a reasonable one, adding, “There are lots of writers out there who do argue that our doctrine as currently written goes to suicide very, very quickly.”

Trump critics also defend the film

Retired Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, an adviser for the film who endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2019, argued that the events depicted in the movie are “both feasible and disturbing because I think it reminds us that this system of nuclear deterrence, which we've all lived under for more than 70 years, remains fragile.”

Tom Nichols, a Trump critic and professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College, wrote in The Atlantic, “I was invited to the set and asked for some of my input on the film while it was in production, but I was not formally a consultant to the production.” 

He penned an essay titled, “The Military’s Missile-Defense System Cannot Be as Good as It Says. Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, A House of Dynamite, is more accurate on this point than the Defense Department itself.”

Far-left Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., wrote an opinion piece for MSNBC arguing that “the film exposes a brutal truth that too many decision-makers and policy experts in Washington refuse to admit: long-range missile defense will not protect us” and that “our only real path to escape nuclear catastrophe lies in reducing global arsenals.”

Trump and the Golden Dome

Trump issued an executive order in January aimed at expanding U.S. missile defense capabilities, and in May he announced plans for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system.

“The Department of Defense welcomes President Trump's announcement regarding the Golden Dome for America, a next-generation missile defense shield,” War Secretary Hegseth said in May. 

“The Golden Dome will progressively protect our nation from aerial attacks from any foe. Within the last four decades, our adversaries have developed more advanced and lethal long-range weapons than ever before, including ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles capable of striking the homeland with either conventional or nuclear warheads.”

Trump has also said the U.S. plans to begin testing its nuclear weapons capabilities after a decades-long moratorium.

The president told 60 Minutes that Russia and China “are making them rapidly, and I think we should do something about denuclearization, which is gonna be some – and I did actually discuss that with both President Putin and President Xi.” 

But he argued that both nations are testing weapons and expanding their arsenals, and so the U.S. should test its own weapons “because you have to see how they work.”

“You know, you make – you make nuclear weapons, and then you don't test,” Trump said. “How are you gonna do that? How are you gonna know if they work? We have to do that.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency assessed in 2024 that China “is currently exceeding 500 deliverable nuclear warheads in its stockpile” and estimated that, by 2030, “China will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads – most of which will be fielded on systems capable of ranging the continental United States.”

The DIA also assessed that Russia “has maintained the largest foreign nuclear stockpile in the world” and that Moscow has “1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads on ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.”

General Xavier Brunson warned earlier this year that North Korea “has increased efforts to develop ballistic missile technology and WMD programs in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions.”

Despite the U.S. crippling of Iranian nuclear weapons facilities this summer, Tehran is reportedly receiving assistance from China in attempting to rebuild their own ballistic weapons programs.