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- [00:00]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
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- [00:43]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
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- [01:01]
Ben
very special episode of Command Post. I'm joined, as always, by our very own Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. And General, we've got a special guest this week.
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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
We do, and we've been looking forward to this for a long time. Ben. We asked Senator Alyssa Slotkin to join us and talk about the state of affairs. And interestingly enough, it comes on a day when the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Agriculture are testifying before Congress. That's why I'm so dressed up. I was narrating some of that for one of our partners. And to have Senator Schlatkin on is a special joy. I know her from her time as a CIA analyst. We ran into each other quite a few times in Iraq during our two different tours. And I think asking her some key questions about the state of play in Iran and the state of play across the board in the US Senate and is going to be very interesting. What do you think?
- [01:58]
Ben
I think it's absolutely right. And without further ado, let's welcome Senator Slotkin. I wanted to start off by asking you about a little bit of spicy testimony that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave today during his hearing. I'm not sure if you've seen this yet, but we have a video of an exchange he had with Senator Jack Reid.
- [02:17]
Senator Jack Reid
The Department of Defense has been planning for potential operations against Iran for many, many years. And one of their obvious assumptions was that the three of homose could be closed. Were you unaware of that?
- [02:37]
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
Senator, you are correct. Nobody plans more and looks at more contingencies than our department. And so of course undertaking a historic effort like this, of this scope and scale, of course the Strait of Hormuz was front and center in every single aspect of that. Hence why one of our key objectives to begin with was to sink the entirety of Iran's navy, which its conventional navy was sunk. Now you can't get rid of every single fast boat and every single machine gun and a fast boat or every single coastal cruise missile. So we acknowledge that if the state decided to become a terror state, shooting at commercial shipping, that would be an ongoing and contested part of the battle to include their willingness to mine international water. One side weaponized the strait and we've
- [03:17]
Senator Jack Reid
been fighting completely aware that the Strait of Hormuz could be closed. And obviously sinking their ships has not affected their ability to effectively close the straits.
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Ben
Senator, was that a convincing answer to you?
- [03:30]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Look, it is literally Middle East 101 to talk about the Strait of Hormuz. I can remember being in college and taking my first Middle Eastern classes and it was like there is a strategic choke point in this area. So I think that's a very well known thing, or at least in military planners it's well known thing. And obviously it's true that we took out a huge chunk of their navy. We have incredible firepower that has done incredible work over there. But their definition of winning is different than our definition of winning. Their definition of winning is keeping us on our toes and unable to process ships through the Strait of Hormuz. And they can do that by drone, they can do that by mine, they can do that by fast boat, they can do it by boat, drone now. So I, I, it's not that we didn't do important things to their navy. We did. It just wasn't enough. And for them just kind of ankle biting in the Strait of Hormuz is their definition of winning. And right now I don't know how you can say anything other than they continue to have veto power over the straits.
- [04:36]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Senator, first of all, thanks for joining us. I'll echo what Ben said. We've been hoping to get you on for a long time. But I'm going to start off with perhaps a softball question to you. We know each other. You served as a Middle Eastern analyst at the CIA and during your work you spent several tours inside of Iraq where I think we first met in Baghdad, you have a better understanding of the region than likely all of your Senate colleagues and a lot of other people, too, by the way, given what you know about the culture, the dynamics of the Middle east, how does that shape your questioning of what's going on right now? And specifically when people appear before you in the sask, how do you approach them when they try and give you answers that are just, let's just say, uninformed?
- [05:27]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah. I mean, look, I think we're all prisoners to our own experience. And for me, I mean, just the most formative thing that shaped my adult life was 9 11, and, you know, I was in New York City that day. It was my second day of grad school. I had just moved there, and by the end of the day, you know, when the smoke was clearing, I knew I was going to go into national security and, you know, got recruited by the CIA. And within a year starting there was off on my first of three tours in Iraq. So my defining experience, along with a lot of other people I know, was stepping up to serve after 9 11, and then watching our country that we love get embroiled in very long, very difficult wars in the Middle east, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and obviously beyond those places, in the greater Middle East. And so it's impossible for me to hear testimony about what's going on in the Iran war and not pull those lessons forward from these other two wars that I engaged on and to take a really critical eye to things like not having an end game, not being able to tell us the cost of a war. You know, we now have coffins coming back to Dover Air Force Base tomorrow, another three, at least, young men and women who lost their lives in this war. So it's very real, I think, for people who served over there in previous wars. But all those things that we didn't do the right way, I think in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you're trying to, like, help your country not make the same mistakes. So I think that's. That is my overwhelming lens that I bring to it. And then just being a CIA officer and then serving for years at the Pentagon, like, you know, sort of, you have a decent BS meter when someone's in front of you and saying, well, of course, you know, we couldn't possibly do that. I was like, we do that every day.
- [07:26]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Day.
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
I mean, so I think it colors everything that I do, certainly in the Armed Services Committee.
- [07:34]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Yeah, it's interesting you say we can do that, but there's also a lot of times when you probably say yeah, we don't do that either. Ben, if you don't mind, I asked one more question and turn it back to you. But you know, if you can do this, Senator, put, put your senator hat away and go back to your military analyst, your CIA analyst hat, and, and you know, what, what kind of things are you looking for right now in this operation in terms of the state of the military campaign and connecting that with policy, the state of the political campaign and what we're hearing from people like Secretary Hegseth and President Trump and Secretary Bessant and others about how they are portraying what's going on and the overall strategic campaign, whether the US Has a defined end state and a path to get there. Is there going to be escalation or de escalation? And I know that's a lot of questions to answer in one tranche, but, you know, I want to ask you from a, from a CIA analyst viewpoint what you think about what's going on.
- [08:41]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Whether you're a CIA analyst or you are just talking to your neighbors in Michigan. They want to know how this ends. For me, as a, you know, putting on my analyst hat, there's basically three options as I see them, and correct me if you see more, but one is just to continue what we're doing and hope for a different outcome. Right. Significant military activity every night, tit for tat, significant capability coming back from the Iranians on allies like Jordan and other Gulf states. You know, kind of hoping that that changes the balance somehow eventually and we exhaust the Iranians. That's number one. Number two, you know, this escalate to de escalate. How do we change the terms of the negotiation that we ultimately have to get to? We bring in overwhelming firepower to punish the, the Iranians and get them to sort of feel compelled to go back to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, the minute you start thinking about that, you gotta start talking about ground troops. I mean, you know that that's in the ether and the President won't rule it out. So, so escalate to de escalate is number two. And then third is like just cut a worse deal with the Iranians where we accept that they have some sort of toll taking that they do for every ship, they get approval of every ship. 20% of the world's oil going through that very, very narrow area. None of those are great. None of those are good options. So whether I'm, I'm wearing the analyst hat or just talking to my neighbors, they. There is not great options on the table. And in the meantime, the American people are paying for it, Right? When you're a CIA officer, you focus on the strategic issues of protecting the country. You don't have to answer for the cost of gas or fertilizer, but people are, are feeling it. And when you know this, when the country, when the population is not feeling good about a war, when they are questioning it, when they feel exhausted by, starts to break down the staying power that the, the political cover that the military has to prosecute the war, I think this president is desperate to get out of this war. I think he wants it over. I think he doesn't want to talk about it. He's trying to distract us and talk about other things. And I guess that's good that he wants to get out of the war. But that's, you know, we, you know better than anyone it's a lot easier to get into a war than it is to get out. And I think that's the reality he's living in.
- [11:17]
New York Times Sponsor Narrator
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- [12:25]
Ben
So Senator, I want to ask you another question which is basically let's answer, right, how does this end if let's say there's a Democratic president in 2029 and they say, Senator Slotkin, I want you to be the Secretary of Defense. And the first thing I want you to do is tell me how do we fix the Iran? Where do we go from here? What does the solution look like?
- [12:45]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah, I very much hope that we're not still in a hot war in 2029, then we have a real problem and our, our economy and sort of the world's economy is in a different place. So I, I hope and I pray that we're not dealing with that issue. But I do think there's, there is some pretty different perspectives on Iran and Ukraine, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. And I think those two issues have to be dealt with. I think certainly on Iran, I mean, I would be putting every ounce of capital I have into that negotiating team and being creative and thinking long term. I think it's difficult to get the Iranians to trust us for a big deal. You know, we had a big nuclear deal back in 2015, wasn't perfect, but when we broke that deal a couple years later under Trump, it told the Iranians, like, we're not great at keeping to our word, so you're at a disadvantage. But I would put all my energy into the negotiating team. I'd maybe mix up that negotiating team. I'd put a few more military folks on that team, so that one hand was kind of talking to the other. And then I would figure out, frankly how we get back to the status quo ante, not having any Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, but then, you know, having a deal on the table that gives them some things that they want. And I think it's difficult, but I think that's where I would be putting my energy, on Ukraine, of course. I think that is a very important fight that continues to go on. I think actually there's been some interesting developments in the past 90 days in Ukraine. And if Russia does not hit steel, if they do not feel like the world pushes back on them when they invade other neighboring countries, they'll just keep doing it. It's just a matter of time. So those two things, I think we'd have pretty different views if I were, if others were put in charge.
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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
During the Iraq war, we both repeatedly heard the phrase planning for Phase four and how it was not part of what we did very well. You know, you just talked about the long term solution to combat and I'm with you. It is going to be delicate at best. I personally don't think that Iran will ever give up some type of control of the Strait of Hormuz now. But whatever happens there. Can you talk a little bit about from, you know, a policy standpoint, what do you see coming after combat? If, if for with some miracle combat does end and it de escalates what comes Next, what's, what's a long term vision that we should be looking toward?
- [15:34]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
I mean, I think the long term vision again is some sort of very thoughtful phased approach, trust building and phased approach in the negotiation. And look, the we, we got to a deal in 2015, it didn't include things like ballistic missiles and terrorism. That was a problem. We should have just added on like kind of stacked on top of the old deal, other deals and Trump had the ability to do that and that
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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
and I think that was the intent of the JCPOA was to start the process.
- [16:10]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Right. So we, we'd have to restart a version of it. And I think that in many cases there'd be some similar asks by the Americans and the Iranians. In other cases, things have changed. The Iranians I think knew that they could control the straits, but they hadn't really done it. Now they've proven to themselves and the whole damn world that they can do it. And I think they're feeling like good about that leverage point. So the negotiations are going to be different but I think a stair stepped approach where you build trust in the early phases because the Iranians are going to say why would we make a deal with you? A new administration is going to come in and you know, they could get rid of that deal. So we, there's some trust building. I don't think the Iranians want to be in a permanent state of war with us. So you know, I think there's a path out, but it takes very deaf diplomacy.
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Ben
I did want to ask you what can Congress do? I mean, let's say the world changes and you're able to get a few of your Republican colleagues who have a long history working with the Department of Defense and on defense issues, you're able to get them to come along and cooperate on a bipartisan effort. What can Congress do to make sure that the war in Iran has a clear vision of victory and a strategy behind it and that, you know, it is prosecuted. Well, whatever that means. You can't just defund the Defense Department and say you're not getting money back until you do better. So what tools are at your disposal here?
- [17:44]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah, well, first of all, like basic oversight. Right. My Republican colleagues have to be interested in basic oversight. So like the Secretary of Defense was up on the Hill today. We haven't gotten a briefing on the cost of this war since early May and we're now back in full scale combat operations. We haven't had a strategic briefing by senior level officials about the end game and the Scenario planning, how does this end? And I'm not saying all of that has to be in public. Right. We don't want to tell the enemy what we're, what we're doing. But basic understanding for the, you know, the Armed Services Committee, the Homeland Security Committee to make sure we're safe, those are things that if my colleagues wanted to engage on those things, they could. Many of them don't. And then I think frankly, there's coordination with the courts. The president has a tremendous amount of money unspent sitting at the Defense Department. Right. He has, I think the, the Secretary of defense acknowledged today that I think $75 billion from the big beautiful bill to the Defense Department on top of their trillion dollar budget last year, that is unspent. And because of the way they did that money up here, it's like fungible, meaning the Secretary of Defense can say, pay for things right now. So the idea that, that they don't have money right now today is just not factual. And he said that today if, if you won't use that money, we can help precipitate and push for him to show his math and make the math work. One of the things that I have certainly seen in real time as a new senator, freshman senator, is that this institution needs to change that. It does not exert its collective power in an effective way. And while the Senate like used to be a caterpillar and could one day be a butterfly, we hope right now it's like in the cocoon and it is nasty in there and it does not know what it wants to be. And I think, you know, the strongly worded letter that might have worked 20 years ago doesn't work, or at least not with this administration. And so how do we organize better with a strategic plan to use our collective power in the Senate? That is something a lot of senators are not used to doing. And I see very clearly as a freshman and also B, as someone who comes from the national security world where we do planning and you know, strategic planning, like just to go to the bathroom every day. I mean, we do it kind of just instinctively. So those are the things we could and should be doing.
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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
And Senator, you know, you have a great amount of credentials beyond your time in the Senate and, and I, and as I know you do, you listen to Ben and I on this show all the time and you know, we talk a lot about alliances from your perch in the Senate, what is the state of the alliances across the board. And I know you have more influence in the Middle east, but can you talk a little bit about what you see happening in regions of the world, specifically the Middle East, Europe and Asia?
- [21:04]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
We are seeing the erosion of the standing of the United States of America. I think people, at best, other countries, our friends, aren't sure about us. They're hedging their bets. You know, yes, we will always talk to the United States, but, you know, we better have a plan to do other things on our own or with other allies. Some of them are hedging their bets with our adversaries, like, huh. I'm not sure the United States is really going to be a good partner into the future, but I live in China's neighborhood, so maybe I should cozy up to China. I didn't like doing it, but, you know, before. But maybe I have to do it now because America's not trustworthy. Strategic choices are being made both by our adversaries and our allies based on this chaotic approach we have in this administration for sure. But also just the pendulum. You know, if you think about Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump, like they've been on like a nausea inducing pendulum swing for a while now. And it was never like that after World War II for, for decades. So I think the world is coming to grips with the fact that it's hard to understand what we're all about. And that pains me because I deeply believe in American leadership in the world, that we're not perfect, but I'd rather have American leadership over Chinese leadership or Russian leadership over any day of the week. So I think our allies are hedging. I think they're talking amongst themselves. It's kind of like when we're not around, they're talking with each other and trying to figure out how to form different alliances, different groups. I think in some cases are the fights we have with allies like the Canadians. It's just petty. I mean, what's gone on in the last few days? We were on the border, Michigan's a border state. The Canadians are our cousins. And the way we've kicked them in the teeth is wholly unnecessary and part of a pissing match rather than a strategic plan. And, and then I think there are adversaries are just absolutely enjoying themselves. I think our adversaries are like, this is great. All these other countries are finally talking to us in a real way. Trump doesn't know what his policy is like for China. I sort of understood it in the first term, what his policy was. I cannot tell you what his strategic approach to China is in the second term. So I think our adversaries are pretty thrilled that they have kind of the ability to do what they want to do and to make new friends and new partnerships.
- [23:48]
Ben
Senator, I want to ask you about a military issue closer to home relating to our elections, which is about a bill you proposed, the Protect Our Polls act, which is about the military not acting thousands of miles away, but right here in America for the coming midterms. What's that bill designed to do? And do you actually think you can get Trump to sign it?
- [24:07]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
So, look, this bill is in response to the president, including this past week, laying out a story culminating in the elections in November, where if he loses, he's built a case that the elections were rigged. He's telling us he's doing it. He's giving primetime addresses, he's suing for voter rolls, including in my state. He's talking about it at the State of the Union. He's trying to change the rules of the post office so that they won't mail mail in ballots unless it's on his approved list. I mean, in every category of the federal government, he is trying to skew the outcome of these elections or build the storyline that they were rigged. If he lost. As, as you know, has been sort of polled and predicted. What I'm worried about in that context, to me, the big problem there is the potential use of the uniform military or federal law enforcement in and around our polls. I think it's horrible for voter intimidation and disenfranchisement. It's straight up illegal for the uniform military to touch ballots or voting machines today. Like, that's not a, oh, you know, something we have to wonder about, and I think in the process completely disrupt our democracy, throw off our elections, and taint the US Military in the process. That's, that's, to me, the ultimate concern I had that led us to put out this bill which basically says if there's a security threat so important that you need to send uniform military, active duty, uniform military, or federalized troops to the polls, which, by the way, we've never done in our history. We didn't do In World War II, we didn't do in the election right after 9, 11, just a couple months when we're all worried about another terrorist attack, local law enforcement, state law enforcement have handled whatever security risks we've had. But if for some reason you think that we need to send in uniform military because of a, you know, armed enemy of the state, A, show your math, show us the threats, and B, get congressional permission, but you can't just be sending federal troops, uniform military, to our polls to have them play a politicized role in our elections. And, you know, I'm someone who barricaded myself in my office on January 6th. This is not a theoretical thing. The guy tried to dispute the 2020 election when he lost. So, you know, I'm not a sky is falling kind of person. But this guy is flagging on what he is going to do. He's telling us in his own words and it's just a matter of whether we hear him and we do something about it. So the bill is. I don't expect him to sign it. The bill was frankly, to help pop a flare and focus more attention on this. Being prepared with tabletop exercises which is happening in our states, having the legal framework ready if federal law enforcement or uniform military try and enter a polling location or surround a polling location. I mean, we are doing scenario planning a la the Department of Defense because this guy won't rule it out every time he's asked. So that's what that bill is in the context of.
- [27:29]
Ben
Well, that is a suitably dark note on which to end any episode of Command Post. Thank you so much for joining us, Senator Slotkin. I really appreciate it. Learned a lot.