Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Understanding US Intelligence Failures with Hamas, Russia & Ukraine and Defeating the Deep State--One-on-One w/ Ric Grenell

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Understanding US Intelligence Failures with Hamas, Russia & Ukraine and Defeating the Deep State--One-on-One w/ Ric Grenell · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson
0:04
Speaker 1: with you and Senator it is always fun to be
0:07
Speaker 1: able to do this show and talk to people that
0:10
Speaker 1: are experts in certain areas. And a dear friend of
0:13
Speaker 1: ours is going to be with us for this show,
0:15
Speaker 1: and it's so important the timing when we're dealing with
0:18
Speaker 1: such major issues on national security. We're dealing with what
0:22
Speaker 1: happened with Hamas and Israel, what's happening now between Russia
0:27
Speaker 1: and Ukraine, and also the intelligence failures that seem to
0:31
Speaker 1: be happening on a daily basis at our southern border
0:34
Speaker 1: with terrorists coming across our southern border. And I want
0:36
Speaker 1: you to introduce to the audience our special guests.
0:40
Speaker 2: Well, it is Thursday night, it is nine thirty eight
0:43
Speaker 2: pm Pacific time, and I am out on the West coast.
0:47
Speaker 2: I'm in La just landed not too long ago. Tomorrow
0:51
Speaker 2: I'm going on Bill Maher. So that's going to be
0:53
Speaker 2: wild and willy and should be fun. And so we
0:57
Speaker 2: are doing a special podcast here tonight that'll come out
1:00
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning with your and my mutual friend Rick Grinell.
1:03
Speaker 2: Now Rick Rick has had a storied career. He was
1:08
Speaker 2: ambassador to Germany under Donald Trump. He was the special
1:13
Speaker 2: the Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo for the
1:17
Speaker 2: peace negotiations again under Trump. And and then he was
1:21
Speaker 2: also the acting Director of National Intelligence under Trump, which
1:25
Speaker 2: is an incredibly important and difficult job, and I think
1:29
Speaker 2: he did an extraordinary job at it. And and so
1:32
Speaker 2: we're going to talk a lot of foreign policy. We're
1:34
Speaker 2: going to talk a lot of challenges facing the world.
1:37
Speaker 2: And and uh and and and Rick is a California native.
1:42
Speaker 2: So so we are in La La Land together. Rick,
1:44
Speaker 2: We welcome to Verdict. And welcome to Los Angeles. Senator,
1:47
Speaker 2: thank you for coming all the way out here. It's
1:49
Speaker 2: a long way, isn't it. It is a long way.
1:51
Speaker 2: I flew from Dulles straight out here, and that that
1:54
Speaker 2: is a long flight. It is longer than an iPad charge.
1:57
Speaker 3: It's also for you East coast, you can think about
2:01
Speaker 3: either flying to Europe or flying to California. It's about
2:04
Speaker 3: the same amount of time.
2:06
Speaker 2: You know. I got to say that may be the
2:07
Speaker 2: cruelest thing anyone has ever said about me. You just
2:10
Speaker 2: called me an East coaster. I'm in Texas and from Dulles,
2:15
Speaker 2: but from DC.
2:17
Speaker 1: On top of that, you couldn't be in Paris right now,
2:19
Speaker 1: but instead you're in LA So it's like a double
2:22
Speaker 1: whammy there.
2:25
Speaker 2: Well, look, as you know, it's it's it's one of
2:28
Speaker 2: my dirty little secrets that I have a soft spot
2:30
Speaker 2: in my heart for California. I married Heidi, who was
2:34
Speaker 2: a native Californian and her whole family are Californian, so
2:37
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time out here, and it's
2:39
Speaker 2: it is an absolutely gorgeous state that has been cursed
2:42
Speaker 2: by idiot politicians.
2:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And you know we we do not
2:46
Speaker 3: have a US senator that represents us at all on
2:49
Speaker 3: the conservative side, So you can be our senator.
2:53
Speaker 2: I am proud to be. And a point I make offense.
2:56
Speaker 2: So when I'm out here, regular people will will will
3:01
Speaker 2: stop me in the street and they'll say that they'll say, ted,
3:06
Speaker 2: I am the only conservative in California. And they're almost
3:09
Speaker 2: like they almost have like PTSD like they that they
3:13
Speaker 2: will sort of scrape the shape of a fish with
3:15
Speaker 2: their foot in the sand like they're in the coliseum.
3:19
Speaker 2: And I tell them all the time, look, no you're not. Yeah,
3:23
Speaker 2: And a point that I make frequently, Uh, what state
3:28
Speaker 2: has the most Republicans in it? Yeah, and the answer
3:31
Speaker 2: is California by far. They're more Republicans in California than
3:35
Speaker 2: there are in Texas. Now they're even more Democrats. You are,
3:38
Speaker 2: in fact outnumbered, but there's still a ton of strong
3:42
Speaker 2: conservatives in California. They're just besieged.
3:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's no question about that, and we're really
3:46
Speaker 3: trying to get more. I have an organization called Fixed California,
3:50
Speaker 3: which is literally doing the un sexy work of registering
3:55
Speaker 3: people who are not involved, sitting on the sidelines, uninspired, apathetic.
4:01
Speaker 3: Maybe they think that there's no way that they need
4:03
Speaker 3: to vote, that they should vote because it doesn't matter.
4:07
Speaker 3: But we're trying to empower people to say, get off
4:10
Speaker 3: the sidelines. And with that a little bit is to
4:14
Speaker 3: try to take some of the Sacramento types who are
4:18
Speaker 3: our friends, who are doing the good work, and highlighting them,
4:22
Speaker 3: raising them a little bit of money, giving them a
4:24
Speaker 3: little profile. So we're doing good work, but it's going
4:28
Speaker 3: to take us about four or five years to catch up.
4:30
Speaker 2: Well. The hard thing also in California is even though
4:33
Speaker 2: there are a lot of Republicans here, none of them
4:36
Speaker 2: believe it's possible to win statewide, and so turning Republicans
4:40
Speaker 2: out of an election here is insanely difficult. And I
4:44
Speaker 2: think there's a tipping point that if people believed it
4:47
Speaker 2: was actually viable and possible, you would see dramatically higher
4:53
Speaker 2: turnouts among Republicans. But a lot of folks stay home
4:56
Speaker 2: because they say, what the heck difference does it mean?
4:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly why we still arted fixed California is
5:01
Speaker 3: because we thought if we can start changing the numbers
5:04
Speaker 3: every month and give people a little bit of hope,
5:06
Speaker 3: we think it will pick up. We think then there'll
5:08
Speaker 3: be a self fulfilling prophecy of hey, maybe I should vote,
5:11
Speaker 3: maybe I should get other people to vote. It's not
5:13
Speaker 3: a waste of time type of message.
5:16
Speaker 2: Well, and Republicans certainly have been able to pick up
5:20
Speaker 2: congressional seats in California, and without the California Republicans, we
5:25
Speaker 2: would not have a majority in the House. And so
5:28
Speaker 2: they're parts of California that are winnable, but they are
5:31
Speaker 2: parts that are just irredeemably blue. Yeah.
5:35
Speaker 3: Well, we were trying, and we're so pleased to have
5:39
Speaker 3: people like you come through and speak and charge us up.
5:45
Speaker 3: We really are so thankful when we get some superstars through.
5:49
Speaker 3: So thank you for being here.
5:50
Speaker 2: It's great to be back. Rick.
5:52
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question, and this goes
5:54
Speaker 1: to some of the big breaking news that's happening right now,
5:57
Speaker 1: and it deals with the massive intelligence failure. This is
6:02
Speaker 1: your wheelhouse, obviously, being in the intelligence area and working
6:07
Speaker 1: under the Trump administration. This reporting that's coming out is
6:12
Speaker 1: shocking that photographers that were working for the Associated Press,
6:16
Speaker 1: for CNN, for the New York Times and Reuters were
6:20
Speaker 1: embedded with Hamas on ten to seven and accompany the
6:25
Speaker 1: terrats into Israel. It's pretty clear that they knew the
6:31
Speaker 1: attack was coming. They've been accused by Israel now of
6:34
Speaker 1: not just being involved in the attack, knowing the attack
6:37
Speaker 1: was coming, but participating in it. And yet there was
6:40
Speaker 1: such an intelligence failure. We didn't hear anything about this,
6:44
Speaker 1: neither did Israel. How on earth did we get to
6:48
Speaker 1: a point where we missed the boat? Israel missed the boat,
6:52
Speaker 1: and yet these photographers working for APCNN, New York Times,
6:56
Speaker 1: Reuters were embedded with Hamas and accompany the terrorist group
7:00
Speaker 1: and then photograph the atrocities.
7:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, a couple of great questions there. Let's start with
7:05
Speaker 3: the second part, which is really about the intelligence failure.
7:09
Speaker 3: I actually don't believe that we didn't know that Iran
7:16
Speaker 3: and Hamas were planning. There's just no possible way that
7:20
Speaker 3: we didn't have pieces of raw intelligence. I think one
7:24
Speaker 3: of the crises that we have within the intelligence world
7:28
Speaker 3: right now is we have too many people playing politics
7:32
Speaker 3: that are analyzing the information. We have great collections process,
7:38
Speaker 3: but the people who are writing the analytical work, who
7:41
Speaker 3: are taking the pieces of raw intelligence and making assumptions,
7:45
Speaker 3: those people are two partisan. And imagine if you had
7:50
Speaker 3: the New York Times delivering opinion pieces every day, but
7:54
Speaker 3: nobody signed the opinion pieces, you wouldn't have any idea
7:59
Speaker 3: who these pieces are coming from, whether they're an expert,
8:01
Speaker 3: or whether they're just kind of bloviating. And that's what
8:05
Speaker 3: we have within the intelligence community right now. My first
8:08
Speaker 3: intelligence briefing was in two thousand and one. I am
8:12
Speaker 3: an expert on receiving intelligence as a public policy official
8:17
Speaker 3: and knowing whether or not it's useful. Many times it's
8:20
Speaker 3: not useful. I can't tell you how many. How do
8:22
Speaker 3: you tell the difference in your experience, Well, first of all,
8:25
Speaker 3: when the briefer tells you something and they say this
8:28
Speaker 3: is you know, top secret, and you say, well, I
8:29
Speaker 3: just read that in the newspaper today, it obviously is not.
8:34
Speaker 3: So we have an overclassification problem. A lot of the
8:38
Speaker 3: information is public, or maybe not as distributed as you
8:43
Speaker 3: would think, but still it's in the public domain somewhere.
8:47
Speaker 3: I can think of a million examples during COVID where
8:49
Speaker 3: that was happening, where people were pretending like this is
8:52
Speaker 3: top secret, but it had been published in some virologist magazine,
8:57
Speaker 3: you know, three months before. So we really do have
9:00
Speaker 3: a problem. But what I found is the overclassification problem
9:05
Speaker 3: was a pr strategy. When they didn't want something to
9:09
Speaker 3: get out, whether it was embarrassing or just a program
9:13
Speaker 3: that they didn't want anyone to know, they would literally
9:16
Speaker 3: classify the whole thing and then when you read it,
9:19
Speaker 3: you would see this is not something that should be classified.
9:24
Speaker 3: We now have you know, the information that is unclassified
9:31
Speaker 3: but you know sensitive, and you're like, wait, what if
9:35
Speaker 3: it's unclassified, then don't tell me that it's something that
9:40
Speaker 3: is supposed to be sensitive or not distributable. I do
9:45
Speaker 3: believe that the partisan nature of those who are writing
9:48
Speaker 3: the intelligence is really the key fundamental problem. When I
9:53
Speaker 3: was there, I brought in the Russia team and I said,
9:55
Speaker 3: you're way too political, you're reading into everything as a
9:59
Speaker 3: political I told the China team your way too slow,
10:04
Speaker 3: you're too thoughtful, you're slowing down because you don't want
10:08
Speaker 3: to cause anybody to make a move. And then the
10:12
Speaker 3: Israeli team was just completely wrong all of the time.
10:17
Speaker 3: So we need to be able to fix that system.
10:21
Speaker 3: And some of that is just cycling people out so
10:23
Speaker 3: that there's fresh eyes and fresh minds.
10:25
Speaker 2: Well, I will say, being a consumer of intelligence in
10:28
Speaker 2: the Senate, and I've been in a lot of classified briefings,
10:32
Speaker 2: my experience very much comports with yours. That ninety plus
10:37
Speaker 2: percent of what they tell you in a classified briefing
10:40
Speaker 2: you can read in the newspaper you knew already, And frankly,
10:43
Speaker 2: they want it classified because it's embarrassing and they don't
10:46
Speaker 2: want to admit it. But it's not. Look, there are
10:48
Speaker 2: times in a classified briefing where they say, you know,
10:51
Speaker 2: we intercept it such and such, and it's and you
10:54
Speaker 2: understand why it's classified. I mean, where there's sources and
10:58
Speaker 2: methods and there's certainly things that are included in it.
11:01
Speaker 2: But I do think there's a big overclassification problem because
11:06
Speaker 2: it's a way to insulate the administration from criticism for
11:12
Speaker 2: their foreign policy failure.
11:14
Speaker 3: So there's also another problem that when we go to
11:16
Speaker 3: brief members of Congress, they are just giving you the
11:20
Speaker 3: analytical pieces, so you're only getting what a group of
11:26
Speaker 3: people say, well, this is what we should give Congress
11:28
Speaker 3: on our thoughts about raw intelligence. What would be so
11:32
Speaker 3: much better if we could trust the members of Congress
11:35
Speaker 3: to keep it private, would be to give them some
11:39
Speaker 3: of that raw intelligence. Is to ask people to say, well,
11:43
Speaker 3: you know, what do you think actually when you see this, that,
11:45
Speaker 3: and the other. Don't wait for an IC wide agreement,
11:50
Speaker 3: which a lot of times is garbage because it's the
11:53
Speaker 3: lowest common denominator of what so many intelligence agencies kind
11:59
Speaker 3: of agree on. But to give some of the raw
12:02
Speaker 3: intelligence and let other people make some analytical choices about
12:06
Speaker 3: what's going on, I think that that's where we need
12:08
Speaker 3: to go. The other thing that I have to say
12:11
Speaker 3: is this Gang of eight idea is blooney, and this
12:16
Speaker 3: is the idea that the Senate and the House leadership
12:19
Speaker 3: are the only ones that get briefed. If it's good
12:23
Speaker 3: enough for the Gang of Eight, we should be briefing
12:25
Speaker 3: every member of Congress who is interested.
12:28
Speaker 2: Let me ask you one question, Ben asked, but to
12:30
Speaker 2: go back, are you surprised that the Israelis didn't know
12:35
Speaker 2: about this attack before it happened.
12:38
Speaker 3: I actually believe that the United States and the Israelis,
12:41
Speaker 3: of course had the raw intelligence that the analytical people
12:46
Speaker 3: just didn't put it together. They didn't want to assume
12:48
Speaker 3: that Hamas was going to make such a jump. But
12:53
Speaker 3: look at what's happening.
12:55
Speaker 2: Now.
12:55
Speaker 3: We've got the White House in John Kirby saying we
12:57
Speaker 3: didn't have any direct intelligence that Americans were being targeted.
13:01
Speaker 3: At the same time, they're confirming that we're doing strikes
13:06
Speaker 3: in Syria because they're coming at us. They're shooting down
13:10
Speaker 3: a drone. A drone, by the way, that costs thirty
13:13
Speaker 3: five million dollars of tax.
13:15
Speaker 2: The Mall Street Journal has reported that more than five
13:18
Speaker 2: hundred Haimas terrorists trained in Iran in September, the month
13:22
Speaker 2: before the attack. Now, mind you, I'm repeating what I
13:25
Speaker 2: read in the journal because nobody's bothered to give us
13:27
Speaker 2: an intelligence briefing. Actually, telling us if that's true or not.
13:31
Speaker 2: Other than the last intelligence briefing we had, there was
13:34
Speaker 2: a whole lot of cya of no, no, no, are
13:37
Speaker 2: giving them one hundred million dollars that had nothing to
13:39
Speaker 2: do with that. Ye don't blame that at all.
13:42
Speaker 3: And of course it did. You cannot give money to
13:46
Speaker 3: Iran and trust Iran, because that's really what they're doing.
13:50
Speaker 3: They're trusting Iran to somehow play like a responsible member
13:54
Speaker 3: of the international community. Bloomberg reported in August. There's a
13:59
Speaker 3: piece in Bloomberg whereby the Biden administration was very proud
14:05
Speaker 3: of the fact that they had unleashed the international sanctions
14:11
Speaker 3: and that it was working, that they were having great
14:15
Speaker 3: conversations with the Iranians. There was a trust factor there.
14:20
Speaker 3: But at the same time, Iran is making billions off
14:23
Speaker 3: its oil. It's getting more money from the Americans, from
14:28
Speaker 3: the Europeans and others, and we shouldn't be surprised that
14:33
Speaker 3: when you're feeding them and you're trusting them, and you
14:36
Speaker 3: were telling them, hey, let's have some conversations about moving
14:41
Speaker 3: you forward into a better nuclear agreement, that they are
14:45
Speaker 3: going to burn you. They've lied about heavy water, they've
14:48
Speaker 3: lied about the number of centrifuges. They've lied to John
14:52
Speaker 3: Kerry about so many things that he just assumed that
14:55
Speaker 3: they weren't lying on. Don't This to me is just
14:59
Speaker 3: the Democrats key trusting Iran and hopefully now they see
15:03
Speaker 3: that they can't.
15:03
Speaker 2: And let me go back to a topic we've covered
15:05
Speaker 2: on a previous verdict, which is what do you make
15:08
Speaker 2: of Rob Malley and why you got a security clearance yanked?
15:14
Speaker 2: And what do you make of the three Iranian operatives
15:17
Speaker 2: that were in his inner circle and how the hell
15:21
Speaker 2: did that happen.
15:23
Speaker 3: Look, I think Abril Haines has some questions that she
15:27
Speaker 3: needs to answer. She's not getting pushed at all. You
15:31
Speaker 3: look at all of the d and I's under Trump.
15:33
Speaker 2: All right, right, So tell tell our listeners who Abril
15:36
Speaker 2: Haines is.
15:36
Speaker 3: Abral Haines is the director of National Intelligence.
15:39
Speaker 2: So that's the role you had under Trump.
15:41
Speaker 3: Correct, and John Radcliffe had and some others. Look, we
15:45
Speaker 3: were under incredible scrutiny, constant pressure from the media to
15:50
Speaker 3: do this out or the other. And Abral Haines literally
15:54
Speaker 3: the last I checked, like, her last tweet was about
15:57
Speaker 3: Diane Feinstein's death, and she made a statement about Diane
16:01
Speaker 3: Feinstein's death, but she hasn't made a statement about all
16:04
Speaker 3: of these other things. And she gets away with it
16:06
Speaker 3: because when the media are not asking her the questions,
16:11
Speaker 3: then she wakes up every single day thinking, I don't
16:15
Speaker 3: have to answer these questions. I'm going to go and
16:17
Speaker 3: continue ignoring or continue hiding. She needs to answer what
16:22
Speaker 3: did we know and why did we not act? Was
16:26
Speaker 3: it an analytical failure? Was it an intelligence gathering failure?
16:30
Speaker 3: And then on Rob Malley, which is incredibly interesting. I
16:34
Speaker 3: want to know who approved his security clearance. I want
16:37
Speaker 3: to know which FBI agents signed off and what did
16:43
Speaker 3: they actually raise some concerns and red flags and got overruled.
16:48
Speaker 3: Did he even have a security clearance? Maybe he never
16:52
Speaker 3: had one and his time ran out where they said,
16:55
Speaker 3: you know what, we couldn't approve you, and so now
16:58
Speaker 3: you're out. That is a bit very real possibility that
17:01
Speaker 3: he was working in this job didn't have access to
17:04
Speaker 3: intelligence because he couldn't get a clearance. They're not answering
17:08
Speaker 3: these questions, and the media is not pushing we need.
17:12
Speaker 2: And in the Senate when we ask, they just give
17:14
Speaker 2: us the heisman. They completely stiff arm us and answer nothing.
17:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's unacceptable. And if we had more media pressure,
17:22
Speaker 3: if we had more people just insisting, why isn't April
17:26
Speaker 3: Hanes being hounded to answer these questions? Why are we
17:29
Speaker 3: not camping out at dan I There are so many
17:36
Speaker 3: times that they did that to us, where CNN was
17:40
Speaker 3: watching when you were leaving, and they knew where you
17:42
Speaker 3: lived and they would follow you. But that just doesn't happen.
17:45
Speaker 3: So she wakes up every day and thinks, I don't
17:48
Speaker 3: have to answer these questions.
17:49
Speaker 2: Do you think there will be any reckoning, any accountability
17:54
Speaker 2: for the intelligence failures that led to a failure on
17:58
Speaker 2: the American part to anticipate the October seventh attack and
18:02
Speaker 2: do anything to prevent it.
18:04
Speaker 3: It's a really interesting question. I think that there will
18:08
Speaker 3: be a CYA strategy to say, well, we did see
18:16
Speaker 3: some raw intelligence, we didn't have enough time to write
18:20
Speaker 3: the analytical piece, so we didn't share anything with Israel.
18:25
Speaker 3: But that's unacceptable. What was in the PDB, What was
18:29
Speaker 3: the president briefed on? What was Jake Sullivan briefed on?
18:32
Speaker 3: If we had raw intelligence that said Hamas is working
18:37
Speaker 3: with the Iranians on an attack somewhere and somebody poo
18:41
Speaker 3: pooed it. You know, the same team remember that told
18:45
Speaker 3: us that if you moved the embassy from Tel Aviv
18:48
Speaker 3: to Jerusalem, there would be World War three. That same
18:51
Speaker 3: team was watching what Hamas was doing with Iran. Think
18:55
Speaker 3: about that. They completely got it wrong. Not only did
18:58
Speaker 3: we not have World War three, but we actually ushered
19:01
Speaker 3: in the world peace.
19:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I will say that there has been no
19:05
Speaker 2: accountability for number one, the military failures and intelligence failures
19:12
Speaker 2: on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was absolutely catastrophic, and
19:16
Speaker 2: no one's lost their job, and there's been no inquiry.
19:19
Speaker 2: The Senate Democrats have zero interest in even finding out
19:22
Speaker 2: what went wrong. They just want to sweep it under
19:24
Speaker 2: the rug. And there's also been no accountability at all
19:28
Speaker 2: for the dramatically wrong intelligence assessment of the Ukraine War.
19:35
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean I sat in Senate wide briefings
19:38
Speaker 2: where the Defense Department, the State Department, the entire intelligence community,
19:42
Speaker 2: every one of them told every senator this war will
19:45
Speaker 2: be over in a matter of days. It will last
19:48
Speaker 2: less than a week. Putin will roll in, he will
19:50
Speaker 2: conquer all of Ukraine and it'll be over in just days.
19:57
Speaker 2: And we're now years into the world, and that intelligence
20:03
Speaker 2: consensus because there was no disagreement. Every single briefer, everyone agreement,
20:08
Speaker 2: you know, and it was wildly wrong. And there hasn't
20:10
Speaker 2: even been a minute of reflection or assessment. How did
20:14
Speaker 2: we get so wildly wrong? And how do we prevent
20:18
Speaker 2: that from happening the next time?
20:19
Speaker 3: There's one more angle to that. As you know, I've
20:21
Speaker 3: worked at the State Department for twelve years. I'm really
20:24
Speaker 3: a diplomat, and I care deeply about the State Department.
20:27
Speaker 3: And we messaged, we heard the US government, the Biden
20:32
Speaker 3: administration messaged for three straight weeks, putin is coming. A
20:37
Speaker 3: war is around the corner. It's going to be bloody
20:40
Speaker 3: and brutal. A war is coming. Why didn't the Secretary
20:45
Speaker 3: of State immediately get on his plane and go to
20:49
Speaker 3: Kiv with all of the foreign ministers in Europe and
20:52
Speaker 3: say no before if we know for sure that a
20:56
Speaker 3: war is coming, the Secretary of State has an obligation
21:00
Speaker 3: and a responsibility to try to find a peaceful solution.
21:05
Speaker 3: I believe that they've shoved b. Lincoln right off the stage.
21:08
Speaker 3: They just don't trust him.
21:10
Speaker 2: It's weird. He doesn't act like a Secretary of State.
21:13
Speaker 2: He's a staffer. Yeah, I've never seen a Secretary of
21:17
Speaker 2: State as diminished as Tony Blincoln is in this administration.
21:21
Speaker 3: I completely agree. And by the way, all of my
21:24
Speaker 3: friends of the State Department. I have a ton of
21:26
Speaker 3: friends who are not even really conservatives, but they're just
21:30
Speaker 3: good foreign service officers who salute. They're horrified. We're the
21:34
Speaker 3: first ones that are being evacuated from everything. The foreign
21:37
Speaker 3: service officers, many of them are They join the Foreign
21:41
Speaker 3: Service to solve problems. They don't want to cut and run.
21:44
Speaker 3: They want to be there, except they're pushed off the stage.
21:47
Speaker 3: They were pushed off for Afghanistan. No one has come
21:51
Speaker 3: up with even a peace idea. Now. Look, I want
21:54
Speaker 3: to have peace through strength. I think the President of
21:57
Speaker 3: the United States, when they're in the Oval Office, needs
21:59
Speaker 3: to have two strong voys. The Secretary of Defense that says,
22:02
Speaker 3: move over, because I'm going to kill everybody and we're
22:04
Speaker 3: not negotiating, and the Secretary of State that says, you
22:07
Speaker 3: wait a minute, because we need sob diplomats at that table.
22:12
Speaker 3: And the Democrats keep mocking tough diplomats. But if you
22:16
Speaker 3: want to avoid war, you better have and sob as
22:21
Speaker 3: the diplomat pushing and saying, wait a minute, we're going
22:25
Speaker 3: to try to negotiate. It's not weak need, it's not
22:28
Speaker 3: culinary diplomacy, it's real diplomacy.
22:31
Speaker 2: Well, and I will say peace through strength, which which
22:34
Speaker 2: you and I both agree with strongly. Look, it's worth
22:39
Speaker 2: remembering that during eight years of his presidency the biggest
22:43
Speaker 2: country Ronald Reagan invaded was Granada. That when you have
22:49
Speaker 2: a strong commander in chief, people don't want to screw
22:53
Speaker 2: with you.
22:53
Speaker 3: Exactly.
22:55
Speaker 2: I think if Trump were still president, we would not
22:58
Speaker 2: have a war in Ukraine. This would not have happened,
23:01
Speaker 2: among other things, because Nordstream two would never have been completed.
23:06
Speaker 2: You and I worked very closely together on Nordstream two.
23:09
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you for all your work. You were the
23:10
Speaker 3: one of the only ones pushing really hard. When I
23:13
Speaker 3: was in Europe. I was so thankful that you were there,
23:16
Speaker 3: and I agree with you. If Merkle had not gone
23:22
Speaker 3: to Joe Biden and said, look, you want to be
23:25
Speaker 3: nice to your allies or do you want to push
23:27
Speaker 3: us aside? Because we're asking you, we will applaud you.
23:31
Speaker 3: You will be able to come to Europe and everybody
23:32
Speaker 3: will love you if you drop these sanctions on Nordstream too.
23:36
Speaker 3: They did it, The Senate Democrats did it. And there
23:39
Speaker 3: are some atrocious speeches from Senate Democrats on Nordstream too,
23:44
Speaker 3: and why they were dropping those sanctions. I keep pushing
23:47
Speaker 3: the media to say, go pull Chris Murphy's speech, go
23:51
Speaker 3: pull these other speeches. They were one hundred percent wrong
23:55
Speaker 3: about Putin and the war, and it signaled when they
23:58
Speaker 3: dropped those sanctions. It's signaled to Putin, now's the time
24:02
Speaker 3: to come back and finish the job that you started
24:04
Speaker 3: under Obottom.
24:04
Speaker 2: I'll tell you something that you may or may not know,
24:07
Speaker 2: but it was a very revealing aspect. So Nordstream two.
24:12
Speaker 2: I authored the first sanctions legislation in twenty nineteen. We
24:15
Speaker 2: passed in December twenty nineteen. Putin stopped constructing the pipeline
24:20
Speaker 2: from Russia to Germany literally the day Trump signed my
24:23
Speaker 2: sanctions legislation into law. I authored a second sanctions legislation
24:29
Speaker 2: in December of twenty twenty that signed into law as well.
24:34
Speaker 2: Biden becomes president January twentieth, twenty twenty one. Putin resumes
24:39
Speaker 2: deep sea construction of Nordstream two. Four days later January
24:44
Speaker 2: twenty fourth, because Biden foreshadowed weakness, and several months later
24:49
Speaker 2: he formally waived the sanctions that gave a multi billion
24:51
Speaker 2: dollar gift to Putin allowed him to finish the pipeline.
24:55
Speaker 2: As you know, I put a hold on every State
24:57
Speaker 2: Department nominee, which caused the State Department to lose their
25:00
Speaker 2: minds in order to try to force them to stop
25:03
Speaker 2: Nordstream two to avoid this war. Finally, at the end
25:08
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty one, I released a big tranch of
25:12
Speaker 2: State Department nominees in exchange for a vote on reimposing
25:16
Speaker 2: sanctions in January of twenty twenty two. Now here's the
25:20
Speaker 2: bit that you may or may not know, but it's
25:21
Speaker 2: very revealing. The day of the vote, Joe Biden personally
25:27
Speaker 2: came to Capitol Hill to lobby the Democrat senators to
25:32
Speaker 2: vote against sanctioning Nordstream two. It was the only time
25:36
Speaker 2: in his first two years in office that I know
25:38
Speaker 2: of that he came to Capitol Hill to lobby the senators.
25:41
Speaker 2: So think about the level of priority. And at the
25:44
Speaker 2: time we were voting, President Zelenski publicly begged the Senate
25:48
Speaker 2: passed these sanctions or else Russia will invade the Government
25:52
Speaker 2: of Poland begged us pass these sanctions or else Russia
25:55
Speaker 2: will invade.
25:57
Speaker 3: Most Eastern European countries.
26:00
Speaker 2: Forty four Democrats flipped. They had voted with me twice before,
26:04
Speaker 2: but at Joe Biden's personal behest they voted in favor
26:07
Speaker 2: of Russia, in favor of Putin, and four weeks later
26:11
Speaker 2: Russia invaded it.
26:12
Speaker 3: Well, it was an absolute moment. You are exactly right.
26:15
Speaker 3: I tell everybody this was the moment that Putin saw weakness. Yes,
26:20
Speaker 3: the opposite of America first is consensus with the Europeans.
26:25
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28:01
Speaker 1: Rick, I want to ask you a question about and
28:04
Speaker 1: you talked about Anthony Blincoln in just the diminished role,
28:07
Speaker 1: but when you look at these intelligent screw ups, and
28:10
Speaker 1: you talked about how you were managing things when you
28:13
Speaker 1: were in the Trump administration. How much of these failures
28:17
Speaker 1: may come down to the fact that Joe Biden just
28:20
Speaker 1: can't handle the job as being president, and they may
28:23
Speaker 1: be avoiding even briefing him or letting him make decisions,
28:27
Speaker 1: and that people underneath him are doing things so much
28:30
Speaker 1: on their own that everybody's basically a mini president in
28:34
Speaker 1: this administration because they don't know which way to run.
28:39
Speaker 3: So I have a slightly different thought and belief about
28:44
Speaker 3: Joe Biden because of my experience with him as the
28:49
Speaker 3: head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He loves to
28:54
Speaker 3: be loved, He likes to know all of the world leaders.
28:58
Speaker 3: He wants the appla from all of them. He wants
29:02
Speaker 3: the dude man bro moment with with world leaders. And
29:05
Speaker 3: so when people come like Chancellor Merkele come and they
29:09
Speaker 3: ask him to do something, he literally wants consensus with them.
29:13
Speaker 3: He wants to be loved, he wants the Europeans to
29:16
Speaker 3: like him. And so I have this great story of
29:21
Speaker 3: you know, sitting across from Chancellor Merkle, who I actually
29:23
Speaker 3: really liked and respected quite a bit, and you.
29:26
Speaker 2: Were ambassador to Germany for three years a.
29:29
Speaker 3: Little over two over two and I once in talking
29:35
Speaker 3: to Chancellor Merkele about some subject. She said to me,
29:39
Speaker 3: you know, Rick, one of the issues that I have
29:42
Speaker 3: with your president is that I just don't know what
29:45
Speaker 3: he's going to do. He's not predictable, and that creates
29:50
Speaker 3: a lot of problems for US in Germany. And I
29:53
Speaker 3: remember smiling and thinking, you know, don't smile too big,
29:57
Speaker 3: be nice here. But I said, you know, Madam Chancellor,
30:00
Speaker 3: with all due respect, this is exactly what I've been
30:02
Speaker 3: waiting for for a president. It is really important that
30:07
Speaker 3: you and others can't determine and predict what the US
30:12
Speaker 3: president is going to do. That creates a credible threat
30:15
Speaker 3: of military action. Not just a threat of military action,
30:18
Speaker 3: but it's a credible one. And when it's credible, people
30:21
Speaker 3: act differently.
30:22
Speaker 2: Absolutely right, all right, So here's an interesting question. What's
30:27
Speaker 2: the coolest part and the crappiest part of being an ambassador?
30:31
Speaker 2: An ambassador to a major country. You know, Germany is
30:35
Speaker 2: not some island down on the Caribbean. It is a
30:38
Speaker 2: major world Power's what's the coolest and worst part about
30:42
Speaker 2: that job?
30:43
Speaker 3: I think the coolest moment that I had I had
30:46
Speaker 3: two cool moments. One is when you present your credentials
30:51
Speaker 3: in Germany and you walk out of the President's house
30:56
Speaker 3: the German National band is playing the American It was
31:01
Speaker 3: so cool, and you know, as this little kid from
31:05
Speaker 3: Michigan who never thought that I could represent the United States,
31:09
Speaker 3: it was a moment that was pretty emotional. And then
31:13
Speaker 3: the second thing is is I'm a big MMA fan.
31:17
Speaker 3: I don't really like the opera or the ballet, and
31:20
Speaker 3: I think it was the first ambassador to not go
31:22
Speaker 3: to the opening of the Berlin Opera and the you know,
31:26
Speaker 3: fancy stuff in Munich. But I did bring the MMA
31:31
Speaker 3: and the UFC to Germany, and I got to go
31:34
Speaker 3: pretty regularly in Germany and really help that industry in Europe.
31:40
Speaker 3: Now the worst part, yep, I think the worst part
31:45
Speaker 3: about being an ambassador is having security. I hate it,
31:49
Speaker 3: to be honest. I'm somebody who likes to think about
31:52
Speaker 3: going to the gym when I feel it, not when
31:55
Speaker 3: I plan it. So I would plan to go to
31:57
Speaker 3: the gym in the morning because you have to tell security,
32:00
Speaker 3: and then you'd wake up and be like, actually, I
32:02
Speaker 3: don't feel like going to the gym right now. So
32:06
Speaker 3: I didn't like having to determine my whole schedule and
32:09
Speaker 3: having security. I'd much rather be you know, winging it now.
32:13
Speaker 2: How frequently are ambassadors doing the whining and dining thing?
32:18
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you have gazillionaires who go be
32:20
Speaker 2: ambassadors and you know, spend a bunch of money on
32:23
Speaker 2: a incredible wine collection.
32:26
Speaker 3: How much is that part of the job. I mean,
32:28
Speaker 3: it can be the whole part of the job if
32:30
Speaker 3: you want it to be. You can go and just
32:33
Speaker 3: have a lot of fun and pretend like you're an
32:35
Speaker 3: ambassador from America, but you're really doing a travelog of
32:39
Speaker 3: the whole country, and your Instagram is about how great
32:42
Speaker 3: the other country is. I find that to be pathetic.
32:45
Speaker 3: To be honest, I think if the American people are
32:47
Speaker 3: paying you, you should be the Office of America overseas.
32:51
Speaker 3: And so everything that I did had a purpose. If
32:55
Speaker 3: we were going to try to squeeze a ron, I
32:58
Speaker 3: would bring in business lead to say, you know, I'm
33:01
Speaker 3: not going to tell you what to do, but you
33:04
Speaker 3: either are going to work in America or you're going
33:06
Speaker 3: to work in around but you're not going to do
33:08
Speaker 3: business in both, So choose which one. And we tried
33:11
Speaker 3: to be very social with a lot of different issues
33:16
Speaker 3: that matter, and not just things that I wanted to do.
33:21
Speaker 2: Well. I will say what Heidi and I brought our
33:23
Speaker 2: girls to Europe for a summer vacation several years back,
33:27
Speaker 2: but we were in Germany. You very kindly hosted us
33:30
Speaker 2: at your residence, which really cool.
33:32
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh that that residence was amazing, great history. It
33:37
Speaker 3: was the Nazi Party of Berlin's headquarters as well.
33:41
Speaker 2: That's kind of creepy.
33:42
Speaker 3: It was creepy and it had a long history. But
33:44
Speaker 3: the American military, the US Army, took it over used
33:48
Speaker 3: it as a guesthouse for military leaders for a while.
33:52
Speaker 3: And when Germany was reunited and they needed an American
33:57
Speaker 3: ambassador's residence back in Berlin, and the State Department stepped
34:02
Speaker 3: in and said to the military, we'll take this back.
34:06
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question about what it
34:08
Speaker 1: was like also being an ambassador in Germany. You were
34:13
Speaker 1: there from eighteen to twenty and it wasn't as hostile
34:18
Speaker 1: I think then as it is now politically, especially on
34:22
Speaker 1: the world stage, especially if you're connected to Donald Trump.
34:25
Speaker 1: What was it like early on in How were you treated?
34:29
Speaker 3: Look, I had a great experience. I have a lot
34:32
Speaker 3: of friends in Germany, there are a ton of conservatives
34:35
Speaker 3: in Germany, and the German business community is a lot
34:40
Speaker 3: like the American business community. You kind of can't tell
34:43
Speaker 3: the difference. I mean, Luftanza, for instance, has twelve thousand
34:46
Speaker 3: American employees, and you could do this with Dommler and
34:50
Speaker 3: BMW and you know whatever the German company is, so
34:56
Speaker 3: they act very much the same. I think the different
35:00
Speaker 3: is that the German business community will talk about the
35:05
Speaker 3: government in a negative way privately, but publicly they won't
35:09
Speaker 3: criticize the government, so there's a little bit of fear there.
35:11
Speaker 3: But I felt like I could completely say what I
35:15
Speaker 3: needed to say. I spoke to groups constantly, and I
35:20
Speaker 3: was brutally honest about Nordstream two and about defense spending,
35:25
Speaker 3: telling them just how Americans felt when they when we
35:29
Speaker 3: see the largest economy in Europe not paying their NATO
35:34
Speaker 3: obligation but feeding the beast with Nordstream two. And that
35:38
Speaker 3: really went over well, I think with everybody but the government.
35:42
Speaker 2: You know. One of the things I found remarkable in
35:46
Speaker 2: Germany is that when we went to the Brandenburg Gate,
35:50
Speaker 2: and as you know, I have in my office a
35:52
Speaker 2: gigantic painting of Reagan in front of the Brandenburg Gate
35:56
Speaker 2: with the words tear down this wall in German and
35:59
Speaker 2: the style the graffiti that was on the wall, and
36:01
Speaker 2: I think those are the most consequential words uttered by
36:05
Speaker 2: any leader in modern times. Well, when you go to
36:08
Speaker 2: the Brandenburg Gate and you go to where Reagan gave
36:10
Speaker 2: that speech, there's almost nothing from the German government commemorating it.
36:16
Speaker 2: There's a small little brass plaque on the ground that's
36:20
Speaker 2: maybe six inches wide that is where he gave the speech,
36:24
Speaker 2: and other than that, there's nothing. Yeah, and that that
36:28
Speaker 2: I found astonishing. Did that surprise you?
36:31
Speaker 3: It did? And to be honest, to the Reagan Library here,
36:35
Speaker 3: I have a lot of friends at the Reagan Library
36:36
Speaker 3: because of the California connections, and they all said to me, like,
36:39
Speaker 3: what's going on? Why is Germany giving Ronald Reagan his due?
36:44
Speaker 3: And when I got there, I decided to go straight
36:47
Speaker 3: to the mayor of Berlin, and he was a diehard socialist,
36:51
Speaker 3: and I said, you know, Mayor, what what's up. You
36:55
Speaker 3: have a lot of memorials to Russians and others, but
37:00
Speaker 3: there's nothing for Ronald Reagan. And he told me he goes.
37:03
Speaker 3: You know, you Americans, you always overplay Ronald Reagan. You
37:08
Speaker 3: pretend like he did a lot more than what he did.
37:11
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, we think that he was
37:14
Speaker 3: the catalyst. And so we were asking for a statue
37:17
Speaker 3: and he formally told me no. So, as you know,
37:22
Speaker 3: in the embassy, it's pretty amazing location. And I decided
37:26
Speaker 3: to take the terrace, the whole terrace of the US
37:30
Speaker 3: Embassy and turn it into the Ronald Reagan Terraces. And
37:35
Speaker 3: we put a seven foot statue of Ronald Reagan on
37:37
Speaker 3: top of the terrace looking out at that at the
37:42
Speaker 3: Brandenburg Gate. But the most amazing thing that we did,
37:44
Speaker 3: and it was a last minute thought, is you walk
37:48
Speaker 3: all the way out to the edge and you're looking
37:51
Speaker 3: down below where the wall was. You see the spot
37:54
Speaker 3: where Reagan gave the speech. And I put up a
37:57
Speaker 3: kiosk and you can press the button and you can
38:01
Speaker 3: watch while you're out on this little ledge feeling like
38:05
Speaker 3: you're just alone, and suddenly you're watching the speech right
38:09
Speaker 3: from where it took place. I have to tell you
38:12
Speaker 3: I've taken probably twenty senators out to do that. I
38:17
Speaker 3: always stop and let the moment be felt, and I've
38:22
Speaker 3: seen a lot of tears from the US Senators from
38:25
Speaker 3: US officials who say this is one of the most
38:27
Speaker 3: amazing moments. I do think that the US Embassy in
38:31
Speaker 3: Berlin is probably the best location of our embassies in
38:35
Speaker 3: the world.
38:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's I love that you put that statue up.
38:38
Speaker 2: That was long overdue. Do you know did the Biden
38:44
Speaker 2: guys leave it up? It's up.
38:46
Speaker 3: It's still up.
38:47
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I'm glad to I hadn't heard that it
38:49
Speaker 2: had been taken down, but I anchored it.
38:51
Speaker 3: Pretty pretty hard to the concrete and I made sure
38:56
Speaker 3: that it would stay. So it's there. But you know,
38:58
Speaker 3: the funny thing is, I let me just quickly say
39:02
Speaker 3: I invited Chancellor Merkle to the opening to the dedication,
39:05
Speaker 3: and she said, oh, you know, I can't come, but
39:07
Speaker 3: you will. You let me know when you do a
39:10
Speaker 3: Bush statue because Bush united Germany and that made the
39:15
Speaker 3: whole world difference.
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Speaker 1: before Congress was at yesterday day before saying that no,
42:00
Speaker 1: he doesn't believe we need a border wall. What is
42:03
Speaker 1: your reaction from an intelligence standpoint?
42:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ben's good question, because you know, I got to
42:10
Speaker 3: believe that all of the intelligence officials who are collecting
42:15
Speaker 3: raw intelligence see it on a daily basis. They're seeing
42:19
Speaker 3: I mean, how else do we know that someone from
42:22
Speaker 3: the terrorist watch list is crossing the border. It's because
42:24
Speaker 3: of raw intelligence. We're figuring it out. But I think
42:29
Speaker 3: that it's being hidden when they report it. It's not
42:33
Speaker 3: being analyzed and talked about, it's not being put into
42:36
Speaker 3: the president's daily briefing. All of that information is completely
42:40
Speaker 3: being suppressed. And once again we should be asking these
42:44
Speaker 3: questions of Avril Haynes. You know, what are you seeing
42:47
Speaker 3: at the border? What are you hearing at the border?
42:50
Speaker 3: And you know, she's just not getting pushed on it,
42:53
Speaker 3: but it's clearly extremely dangerous. Everybody knows that you're not
42:58
Speaker 3: going to have a country if you have open border.
43:00
Speaker 3: We all know that. But I find the most outrageous
43:04
Speaker 3: thing is that the media are complicit in this problem,
43:10
Speaker 3: because Democrats would have to face the music if they
43:14
Speaker 3: were hearing from the media in their home states, if
43:18
Speaker 3: they were being pushed and held to account like they
43:21
Speaker 3: used to when I would sit around and watch the
43:24
Speaker 3: news with my dad as a kid, the news was
43:26
Speaker 3: kind of holding both sides to account.
43:29
Speaker 2: Well, Rick, this is a point that we've made a
43:31
Speaker 2: lot on this podcast and that I make in my
43:34
Speaker 2: brand new book, Unwoke, which is that the corruption of
43:39
Speaker 2: the media and Donald Trump I believe broke the media,
43:43
Speaker 2: he shattered their brains. That has played a critical role
43:50
Speaker 2: in driving today's Democrat party to such extremes and go
43:54
Speaker 2: so crazy left because they never ever, ever get questioned
43:58
Speaker 2: on any of it. So there's no downside to giving
44:02
Speaker 2: in to the radical extreme in their party. They never
44:05
Speaker 2: fear that they will get a hard question at home,
44:07
Speaker 2: They never fear they'll get a bad story at home.
44:10
Speaker 2: And so I think the abandonment of any effort at
44:16
Speaker 2: journalism by the corporate media has been one of the
44:21
Speaker 2: most destructive developments in recent years.
44:24
Speaker 3: I totally agree because it's unleashed, right, there's no consequences,
44:28
Speaker 3: there's no downside, so they get to do and say
44:31
Speaker 3: anything they want. As I watch April Haynes and you know,
44:35
Speaker 3: she got into office and immediately in order to please Iran,
44:41
Speaker 3: one of the first things she did was manipulate past
44:45
Speaker 3: intelligence to pretend like it was real. And they went
44:48
Speaker 3: after the Saudis and the Kushogi issue all over again.
44:51
Speaker 3: They literally there was nothing new in that report. It
44:55
Speaker 3: was repackaged to hit the Saudis hard after we had
45:00
Speaker 3: basically looked at them and tried to make some changes. Uh,
45:05
Speaker 3: and we're trying to heal that relationship.
45:08
Speaker 2: She opened it up or on the verge of signing
45:10
Speaker 2: the Abrahamicord, Yes, and until Biden screwed that up.
45:15
Speaker 3: True, and and they I look back now, and it
45:19
Speaker 3: makes sense to me. The reason they did it is
45:21
Speaker 3: because they wanted to show the Iranians that somehow that
45:25
Speaker 3: they were going to play more fair and that they
45:29
Speaker 3: were going to be nicer to the Iranians by beating
45:32
Speaker 3: up on the Saudis. Right, and then why aren't we
45:35
Speaker 3: talking about the fact that they took the Houthis off
45:37
Speaker 3: the terrorist watch list, and the Huthis are the ones
45:40
Speaker 3: who just shot down the drone.
45:42
Speaker 1: Why were they taken off that list? To me explain
45:44
Speaker 1: the politics behind.
45:45
Speaker 3: That, Well, I think again it's a it's a gift
45:48
Speaker 3: to the Iranians. They're they're trying to please them because
45:52
Speaker 3: they want to get back, and you know they will
45:54
Speaker 3: spin that somehow the international sanctions was pressure, were pressuring
45:59
Speaker 3: the Iranians and therefore they were closer to a nuclear
46:03
Speaker 3: bomb because of the sanctions and the grip that we had.
46:07
Speaker 3: And again this is the same strategy that they had
46:11
Speaker 3: with Russia. When you go and you see Democrat senators
46:15
Speaker 3: making the case for dropping the sanctions on Nordstream too,
46:19
Speaker 3: it is in summary they keep saying, well, we don't
46:23
Speaker 3: want to stick it in the eye of the Russians.
46:26
Speaker 3: This pipeline in US, sanctioning it, making it not come
46:32
Speaker 3: online is creating problems. So we must therefore let the
46:38
Speaker 3: pipeline flow through with gas because things are going to
46:43
Speaker 3: be better if we don't stick it in the eye
46:45
Speaker 3: of Putin. This is this was the argument.
46:48
Speaker 2: Appeasement always, always, always fails. It invites bullies and tyrants
46:57
Speaker 2: to be aggressive to invade it causes war absolutely. I
47:01
Speaker 2: mean Joe Biden inherited peace and prosperity. We now have
47:04
Speaker 2: the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two
47:07
Speaker 2: and the biggest war in the Middle East of our lifetimes.
47:09
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean that is and and you know
47:12
Speaker 2: you're talking about the Saudis. Look, in my view, the
47:15
Speaker 2: dominant foreign policy objective of Joe Biden and his team
47:19
Speaker 2: has been to re enter an even worse Iran nuclear deal,
47:23
Speaker 2: and everything in the Middle East hinges on. Why do
47:27
Speaker 2: they go after the Saudis so ferociously For the same
47:30
Speaker 2: reason that I am largely pro Saudi, which is that
47:35
Speaker 2: the Saudis are the most important regional counterweight other than
47:39
Speaker 2: Israel to Iran. Now, look, the Saudis have lots of problems,
47:44
Speaker 2: so I described the Saudis as a problematic ally, but
47:48
Speaker 2: we want them to be an ally and we want
47:49
Speaker 2: them to be strong as a counterbalance to Iran. That's
47:53
Speaker 2: precisely why the Biden administration wants the Saudis to be weak,
47:58
Speaker 2: because everything is servient to getting in another deal with Iran,
48:04
Speaker 2: including in the middle of this Ukraine war. After Biden's
48:08
Speaker 2: weakness causes the war in Ukraine, it has now become
48:13
Speaker 2: the ultimate Democrat virtue signal to wear a Ukrainian flag
48:16
Speaker 2: and commit that we must be in the war until
48:19
Speaker 2: the end of time. And even while they say that,
48:24
Speaker 2: they continue to flow now roughly one hundred billion dollars
48:29
Speaker 2: into Iran, much of which goes into Iranian drones. That
48:33
Speaker 2: Iran becomes the top weapon supplier to Russia, and so
48:36
Speaker 2: Biden is funding both sides of the Ukraine War.
48:39
Speaker 3: Well, there's no question about that. And this goes back
48:41
Speaker 3: to what my original point on Iran. It sounds crazy,
48:45
Speaker 3: but they trust the Iranians. There's some belief Jake Sullivan.
48:50
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just a white paper intellectual exercise that if
48:55
Speaker 3: you're nicer to them, somehow they're going to give up
48:57
Speaker 3: a nuclear weapon. And they really believe that. In the
49:01
Speaker 3: NGO community totally supports that, and we call it a peacement.
49:06
Speaker 3: But they they're trying once again engagement. And this is
49:11
Speaker 3: one of my problems with the foreign policy community is
49:14
Speaker 3: that we should be able to try engagement, try sanctions,
49:18
Speaker 3: try all sorts of things, but we should quickly evaluate
49:21
Speaker 3: whether it's working or not. We could talk all day
49:24
Speaker 3: about Venezuela, because I think that's a failure of a policy.
49:27
Speaker 2: It is, you know, It's worth also underscoring that the
49:31
Speaker 2: Biden administration's top Iran diplomat, Rob Malley, who's been fired
49:37
Speaker 2: and has his security clearance pulled and is nonetheless than
49:41
Speaker 2: a cushy job at my alma mater at Princeton, which
49:43
Speaker 2: is really disgraceful. His inner circle included three individuals who
49:50
Speaker 2: were Iranian operatives recruited by the Iranian government, reporting directly
49:55
Speaker 2: to the Iranian Foreign Minister and advancing Iranian policy agendas
50:01
Speaker 2: within the United States government within the Biden administration, one
50:04
Speaker 2: of whom, as far as we know, is still a
50:07
Speaker 2: chief of staff in the Department of Defense to this day.
50:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they've been caught asking the Iranian diplomats for
50:16
Speaker 3: sign off, yes, for speaking engagements. It's really so outrageous,
50:21
Speaker 3: so treasonous. But once again, you don't see any of
50:26
Speaker 3: these national security reporters at the New York Times of
50:29
Speaker 3: the Washington Post or Politico or anywhere else putting pressure
50:33
Speaker 3: asking the questions. They get away with it.
50:35
Speaker 2: So let me ask you another question. So you were
50:40
Speaker 2: the Director of National Intelligence under Trump, you were acting
50:45
Speaker 2: DNI for how long it was a short period of time.
50:48
Speaker 3: A short period of time supposed to be three months,
50:51
Speaker 3: but it was about four and a half.
50:52
Speaker 2: So it's four and a half months. It was the
50:55
Speaker 2: most consequential tenure at DNI that I have seen, and
51:00
Speaker 2: you really shook that place up in a very short
51:02
Speaker 2: time period. And I guess what I would ask is
51:05
Speaker 2: number one, how did you do that? How did you
51:09
Speaker 2: take on the deep state, which, which is real throughout government,
51:14
Speaker 2: but especially in the intelligence community, is a persistent problem
51:18
Speaker 2: and lots of conservatives sometimes feel frustrated and say, well,
51:23
Speaker 2: you can't take on the deep state, And I think
51:25
Speaker 2: you managed to do it remarkably during that tenure. And
51:31
Speaker 2: what I would say, as a second part of the
51:33
Speaker 2: question is what advice would you give to the next
51:37
Speaker 2: Republican Cabinet member coming into office and facing career bureaucrats
51:44
Speaker 2: that are ideologically and passionately opposed to the next Republican
51:49
Speaker 2: president and the agenda of the next White House.
51:52
Speaker 3: Well, let me take the second part first. I think
51:54
Speaker 3: the reality is is you can't hire someone whose livelihood
51:58
Speaker 3: is Washington, DC. You're hiring somebody who needs a job
52:02
Speaker 3: later in the Washington system, where reporters go to church
52:08
Speaker 3: with politicians and lobbyists. They live in the same communities.
52:12
Speaker 3: They're never going to make big, bold decisions because they'll
52:15
Speaker 3: have the ire of their friends and their church acquaintances.
52:20
Speaker 3: What I believe that you have to do is hire
52:25
Speaker 3: people also who really don't care about their New York
52:28
Speaker 3: Times profile piece, who somehow have the ability to make
52:32
Speaker 3: the right decisions. I've told President Trump we're going to
52:37
Speaker 3: fix the personnel problem when he's president, and the first
52:41
Speaker 3: thing is is to look at every resume and if
52:43
Speaker 3: the resume has a Washington, d C. Address on it,
52:46
Speaker 3: throw it away. We can hire people from outside of Washington,
52:50
Speaker 3: d C. What happened with me at D and I
52:54
Speaker 3: is actually pretty simple. When I came into D and I,
52:59
Speaker 3: one of the first things they did is they gave
53:01
Speaker 3: me four reports that had been done over the last
53:05
Speaker 3: ten years of how to fix the intelligence system. I
53:10
Speaker 3: read the reports and I thought, well, a lot of
53:13
Speaker 3: this makes sense. We've got duplicitous programs, we've got people
53:19
Speaker 3: who it's supposed to be a coordinating body, and yet
53:24
Speaker 3: it's no longer a coordinating body. It's actually a competitive body.
53:29
Speaker 3: It ballooned to more than two thousand people. It should
53:31
Speaker 3: be like two hundred people. And so I just started
53:35
Speaker 3: sending people back to their home agencies D and I
53:39
Speaker 3: the OD and I had become the wasteland. If intelligence
53:45
Speaker 3: agency didn't like somebody, rather than fire them, they sent
53:48
Speaker 3: them over to OD and I. And so I just
53:51
Speaker 3: started sending people back and getting rid of every possible
53:54
Speaker 3: person that we could, freezing hiring. I did this in
53:59
Speaker 3: Germany well, and forcing people to rethink this. You've got
54:03
Speaker 3: to be able to play the system. But you got
54:05
Speaker 3: to know the system. And I've worked at the State Department,
54:08
Speaker 3: and I knew how the federal government works to where
54:12
Speaker 3: you can come in and manipulate it and start using
54:16
Speaker 3: its own rules against it. I do think though, that
54:19
Speaker 3: in order for us to make big, bold decisions, Congress
54:22
Speaker 3: is going to have to somehow change the way the
54:25
Speaker 3: labor force is legally allowed to be cut. As you know,
54:32
Speaker 3: and I'm preaching to the choir here, but when we
54:35
Speaker 3: come up with new technologies and we decide to spend
54:39
Speaker 3: on a different program, by definition, other things should fall.
54:45
Speaker 3: People should be fired, the program should be eliminated. And
54:48
Speaker 3: that's not happening. Rick.
54:50
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you coming on I know, the Senator,
54:53
Speaker 1: and I love having you here, and congratulations on an
54:58
Speaker 1: incredible career. I have a feeling that final chapter in
55:01
Speaker 1: your career is nowhere close to being finished, and there's
55:04
Speaker 1: a lot more to look forward to with your leadership
55:07
Speaker 1: in this country as well. And so again, thank you
55:10
Speaker 1: so much for coming on Verdict being a part of this.
55:12
Speaker 1: Don't forget every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we do this show.
55:15
Speaker 1: Make sure that follow that subscribe or auto download button
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Speaker 1: wherever you're listening right now. And on Saturdays, much of
55:24
Speaker 1: what you may have missed later in the podcast each
55:26
Speaker 1: week we put together in a weekend review, so makes
55:29
Speaker 1: you grab that on Saturday mornings or in Sundays, maybe
55:32
Speaker 1: you're in the car driving to and from the games
55:34
Speaker 1: or something makes you grab that as well. And the
55:36
Speaker 1: Senator and I will see you back here in a
55:38
Speaker 1: couple of days