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- [00:01]
Scott Anderson
The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad free version of the Lawfare Podcast. Become a material supporter of lawfare@patreon.com lawfare that's patreon.com Lawfair also check out Lawfare's other podcast offerings, Rational Security Chatter, Lawfare, no Bull and the Aftermath.
- [00:32]
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- [01:27]
Mark Goldberg
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- [01:59]
Shane Harris
It's 4 o' clock local, 6 o' clock on the East Coast. Thursday, July 17th. No big story is about to break right now.
- [02:06]
Alex Ward
There's totally not going to be like a major potentially game changing story that posts while we're sitting here recording. No, no one would do something like that.
- [02:15]
Shane Harris
It was inconvenient. We couldn't talk about anything else. It'd be a big problem.
- [02:20]
Alex Ward
Somebody might be about to have a big problem. Biggest problem.
- [02:24]
Shane Harris
I don't know why you would bring up that impression at this point.
- [02:26]
Alex Ward
Would you say the problem starts with the letter E? Oh my God.
- [02:41]
Shane Harris
Hello everyone and welcome back to Rational Security, the podcast where we invite you to join members of the lawfare team as we try to make sense of the week's biggest national security news stories. But not this week because I am flying solo here at the Aspen Security Forum, the premier event for the foreign policy blob establishment. Thrilled to be here. It is like kind of that scene in Ghostbusters 2 where they lower into the river of ooze. I'm just immersing myself in the blob and enjoying every minute of it. It's been a very stimulating conference and to talk about the conference, the forum, some of the things we've learned, some of the things we've heard, I've assembled an all star panel of, of journalists here covering, talking about veterans, I believe of the forum. This is my first time. I don't believe this is your first time for any of you. And thrilled to have you all here. First up, of course, we have host emeritus. Most importantly, whatever your job is now, you will always be host emeritus of national security and staff writer of the Atlantic Shane Harris show. Oh, that magazine somewhere there. I definitely am not furious at them for stealing another one of our contributors. That's fine, Jeff, do whatever you gotta do. But thrilled to have you here back on the podcast show. Great to be back.
- [03:46]
Alex Ward
Thank you, Scott.
- [03:48]
Shane Harris
Also thrilled to be joined by Mark Goldberg, who is the host and editor, or editor and host, whatever order you prefer, of Global Dispatches, the, I think premier global affairs podcast. A premier global affairs podcast?
- [04:00]
Jeff Hegseth
No, no, the premier, the There you go. Global affairs podcast. The longest running in the longest running. Doing it for 13 years. Two episodes every week without fail for 13 years.
- [04:11]
Alex Ward
That is grueling.
- [04:12]
Jeff Hegseth
Let me tell you how relieving it is not to be the host of, of this particular episode. I'm gonna just sit back, hang out and have fun.
- [04:19]
Shane Harris
It's the dream. I'm three years into this one, I gotta tell you. I have about one more week in me. But that's okay. We'll get this episode out, then we'll deal with that next week. And finally, finally, thrilled to be joined by our last special guest, national security reporter extraordinaire, author of the Internationalists. Recently, I think late last year, it came out phenomenal book on the Biden administration, Alex Ward of the Wall Street Journal. Alex, thank you for joining us.
- [04:43]
Mark Goldberg
Oh my God. Happy to be here.
- [04:44]
Shane Harris
So we have had a couple of days of conversation. We're not quite at the end of the Aspen Security Forum, but we have heard a lot of conversations, a lot of panels featuring a lot of officials, not necessarily from this country. We'll get to that in a second. But a lot of former officials, a lot of premier academics, industry leaders talking about the state of national security and international security in the United States, in the world. The United States role in it. I wanted to pull out and talk about a couple of those themes with you guys, stuff that jumped out at me and get your sense about what it tells us about the direction foreign policy, policy and international affairs is headed in this country. First topic for today, putting the ass in Aspen. 24 hours before the Aspen Security Forum was set to begin, the Defense Department barred more than a dozen officials who had been publicly set to participate for months, for the record, from participating on the grounds that the forum promotes, quote, unquote, the evils of globalism. What does this event tell us about how the Trump administration, or I should say at least some people in the Trump administration, because it's really more of a Defense Department thing necessarily than a government wide thing. We can get into that in a second. Tell us about how it views its relationship to the foreign policy establishment and what that means for the trajectory of that foreign policy establishment and its impact and its ability to influence actual policy. Topic 2 Rolling alone while US officials were in short supply at the forum, foreign officials were not. As foreign ministers and other officials from Europe, Asia and other corners of the world had a heavy representation on panels and different elements of the events. And while those panels and events often address different topics, at least one common theme tended to merge across them. The challenges in this new era of major power competition, especially at a moment when the United States seems especially skeptical of traditional alliances and multilateral institutions. What do we learn about the challenges these countries are facing and what does it mean for the United States ability to strategically compete in the years to come? And finally, topic three, deuce Ex Machina. If there's one topic that was represented at almost every panel at this year's forum, if not every panel, it is the question of artificial intelligence. How important it is, what it will do to solve the world's problems, what new problems it will cause the world, and what it will all cost to win the race to perfecting it? What should we make of how ubiquitous the conversation about AI is in a forum like this, touching on nearly every aspect we're discussing? Is that outsized, right sized or not making enough of what is the seminal technology potentially of this coming generation, at least according to some? So our first topic. Let's talk about exactly what happened in the Aspen Security Forum in the day, really the day before we all got here. On Wednesday, it was announced the Defense Department, which had had, I believe, over a dozen officials coming to the forum to participate in a range of panels on a range of top polled, their officials on Monday. On Monday. On Monday. Thank you. Pulled people out, said essentially, look, we are not going to let people participate in this forum. We object to it as spreading the evils of globalism. Statement from the Defense Department. And while this was a Defense Department action, for a while, it looked like other US Government officials may end up still participating eventually. We saw other members in the executive branch, career people, political people who have been scheduled to participate, wind down their participation. In the end, we had a conversation with Special Envoy for Hostage affairs, which is an interesting conversation. Believe that is the only conversation we had with any current executive branch official over the course of the weekend. And for folks who don't know, that's weird for Aspen because Aspen is known as a place where the incumbent administration has, for the last 20 years at least sent a ton of officials. And it's a place where industry, academia, journalism, all intersect and have conversations with current officials in a way that doesn't happen in many other forums. So, Shannon, I want to turn to you first on this. I saw you. You were actually the person who broke the news to me that this had happened because I saw it on.
- [08:21]
Alex Ward
Oh, you read it.
- [08:22]
Shane Harris
Blue sky first. In my blue sky. Yeah. Or somewhere else.
- [08:25]
Alex Ward
Hot tweets.
- [08:26]
Shane Harris
Exactly. I get my alerts and it comes up when Shane Skeets or Blue Skies talk to us about what you made of this. When it comes out like, you know, this seems to me like a calculated move to do it. So short, so short before the release of this for a participation that was already publicly advertised. Is it malicious? What does it tell you about how at least some people in the Defense Department seem to view institutions like the Forum and the people participating in it, including us.
- [08:52]
Alex Ward
Yeah, I think it's tempting to conclude because it was done one day before, that it was intentional. I think it's also entirely possible that some people just even realize it was happening, which, let's just take the first possibility. Let's say they knew. They understood that all these senior military officers, flag officers, and we had commander in chief of, you know, India Pacific Command was going to be here. You had the Defense Intelligence Agency director scheduled to be here. These are not low level people. Those schedules are vetted months in advance. That gets approved. I can't imagine that Pete Hegseth's office did not know that they were coming. So pulling them a day ahead of time or the White House telling them to pull them makes that seem pretty malicious. Maybe the White House wasn't clued into it. If they didn't know in the Pentagon that all these people were going to be physically in one place for the next three days, that's also a problem. But, you know, they don't want these people coming here, I think for a few reasons. I mean, one, it works for, I think, this administration to attack the foreign policy and intelligence establishment. The President of the United States is literally doing that all the time. His own director of National Intelligence is attacking the intelligence community on a regular basis. So I think that if all of these people were to show up and sort of do what you always do at Aspen, which is have these very sober, frank conversations about policy, maybe the administration would look like there was some somehow endorsing that establishment that they're trying to tear down. I have to say, though, too, the agenda was pretty thin already on people from the executive branch. I mean, there really were only two administration officials, I think, and the rest were all career military. That's unusual. This is a conference at which secretaries of state have spoken, CIA directors, directors of national intelligence. It's not unusual at all. The fact that those people were never coming to this, I think, was also a signal of the low esteem and low opinion that the administration has of the forum. So it's not surprising that it happened the day before. And not that the administration really cares, but there are a lot of people who spend a year trying to put this thing together, and they screwed them at the last minute, let's just be honest about that. And they had to scramble and try and put together meaningful conversations for people who just came out here. And it's not an easy place to get to. And I'm sure that the administration delighted in inconveniencing them in that way.
- [11:18]
Mark Goldberg
Yeah.
- [11:18]
Shane Harris
I mean, even if this was a mistake, it's totally possible the news of the scale of participation hadn't trickled up to somebody in DOD until Monday. So the announcement came out. The fact that you have this kind of cancellation, last of them, and it has seems very unlikely people didn't understand how inconvenient that would be, people organizing it. And if you were worried about your relationship with the entities, with the people participating, maybe you wouldn't want to do that. You'd find a softer way to kind of roll back. Just career people limit talking points like other administrations do do that. Whether you find out about an event that maybe somebody did over their. And signing up for this is a little different than that. And then you see a press statement saying the evils of globalism. Right. Like that is a pretty damning statement.
- [11:57]
Alex Ward
And also, by the way, A forum at which they have sent Trump administration officials before in the first term. And, you know, and famously the most famous one was when Dan Coats was here, I think in. Was it 2017 or 18?
- [12:10]
Mark Goldberg
I don't remember. I remember it was Andrea Mitchell.
- [12:12]
Alex Ward
Yeah. And in fact, Andrea talked about this in a panel she moderated today. But, like, it's like Dan Coates up there being interviewed by Andrea Mitchell. And then somebody hands Andrea a piece of paper letting her know that Donald Trump has just tweeted that he has invited Vladimir Putin to come to the White House in the fall. And she asks for the DNI's reaction to that. And he makes no attempt to act like he knew in advance about this. He goes, come again? And the audience just erupts in laughter. And then he says, well, that's going to be special. And I was here for that. And the White House was flipping out. They were furious at him. He nearly got fired because of that. So they have a history of people coming here and, you know, being chummy and cordial with people, and that is just not the optic that they were going to go for this year at all.
- [13:00]
Shane Harris
So, Alex, I want to come to you in particular, your perspective, writing your book on the Biden administration, because I think it's fair to say, I think the Biden administration leaned in the Aspen Forum and the kind of broader set of institutions it kind of reflects and represents. Right.
- [13:13]
Mark Goldberg
This is their jam.
- [13:14]
Shane Harris
Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, I haven't gone back to compare the agendas from prior forums. My recollection, you know, watching developments, catching the videos and little snippets of media coverage, is that high level people, even now, we have fairly high level Biden administration now, former officials here today. Jake Sullivan's going to be here later tomorrow, I think, having a conversation, lots of other formers from the Biden administration. And they did this not just for. Well, who knows why this. I'm curious. My sense is that they did this as a strategic choice. They saw an advantage to being able to have conversations, to be able to make their pitch and their appeal to this audience of elites. I think there's no other way to describe it. This is elites from a variety of different sectors. Industry, journalism, academia, kind of not really, but a little bit, and actual policy circles. So what was that theory of power the Biden administration's working under, and why is it so unpersuasive to the Trump administration?
- [14:05]
Mark Goldberg
Well, I think this will be the third or fourth year in a row that the conference will end with Jake Sullivan he's always seems to be the guy who's in the position to be the last one to make a case. He will be with others this time. Last time he was on his own because he was the national security advisor then. Now he's just some professor, although an important one, but just some professor. Look, I think, you know, yes, there are people who pay to come here and there are sponsors and whatnot, but really it's the most captive an administration can have of us. Not to pat ourselves in the back, but like, of journalists, like, we're here, we're on the mountain with them. We're in this, we're in the events. We're like in the tent. We can listen to them and then we file stories and like, there are tons of great outlets here that are just going to file stories of what officials say. And sure, we're going to get a Dan Coates moment once in a while or we're going to get a flub once in a while or some official coming crosswise with administration talking points. But 80% of it is an administration getting their talking points across and letting us know. And they're therefore, you know, the country that reads us a sense of where they're coming from, of how they're trying to solve certain problems. And yes, this does have a bit of a blobby, you know, elite tableau about it. But like Trump, people go will probably go to the Reagan forum, right, In California. It has Reagan in the name. They will go to other events like it's it. There's something about Aspen that, and I don't know what it is in particular that seems to get their goat that said, you know, it's interesting, you know, in Trump won, Trump was surrounded by a bunch of establishment figures in his administration and he railed against them and tried to pursue a magafied foreign policy. Now he's surrounded by MAGA type people and in many ways he's pursuing a more establishment foreign policy. Right. We're bombing Iran or we're for the moment, tough on Russia. You know, there's like, oh, it's interesting, right? I mean, the trade stuff is its own thing. But there was a case for an administration to come here and be like, hey, six months, you know, we gave Putin a shot, now we're turning this corner. Or, you know, we gave Iran a shot. We had a successful, relatively successful military mission. Here's where we go from here. Like, this was actually a decent moment in time for them to make some pretty strong cases about where they were and where we are now and where they were going. And the fact that they pulled out I actually think will be a detriment to them because in one sense they're, you could make the case they're running scared. In two, as Shane pointed out, they look disorganized or at least malicious. And three, like, they passed up a genuine opportunity to inform the public that, like, hey, Trump support policy has some wins here. And sure, again, there was going to be an official that was gonna get pushed on, you know, the success of the Iran mission. There's gonna be an official that was gonna be pushed on the Trump Putin relationship, like, of course, but also you're big boys, you're four stars. You are, you know, senior executive officials, you are in the White House. You can answer these questions. And if media questions or questions from the well heeled here scare you, then maybe the government isn't for you. So this is the kind of thing that I find very odd for them to pull out because their whole thing is we're tough, we're the new guys, we understand strength. And when you run away from a conversation, it doesn't project that. What it projects is that we don't feel we can defend ourselves when we're pushed on our foreign policy. And truly, again, not to beat this horse, but they have a decent story at this point in time to tell, and it's a shame they didn't get to tell it.
- [17:31]
Alex Ward
They sent Sam Paparo, the admiral in charge of indopacom, to the Sedona forum. He was fantastic. I mean, it was great. It was a terrific discussion that they did. They sent the US Ambassador to NATO to a conference in Estonia that I was at a couple of months ago. He held his own on a panel of fellow European ministers who were all asking the question, are you staying in NATO? And actually delivered the message, we intend to stay in NATO. So to your point, Alex, these are just obvious places for you to show up and say, this is the policy, here's what we stand for. And like, no one's gonna throw tomatoes at them, for crying out loud. This is a very well heeled, respectful kind of environment. And it's just like I think they were just trolling by pulling these people out. It's really a shame.
- [18:19]
Mark Goldberg
And actually you make a good point. Like on NATO, you could say we did the 5%. Yeah, another good case. Like I myself heard NATO Secretary General.
- [18:27]
Alex Ward
Called him Daddy, right?
- [18:28]
Mark Goldberg
Like there are three at least right now, cases they could have made and just hit that, hit that, hit that, and it would have been fine if anything actually would have been positive for them. I just find this to be a very odd decision. And actually, I think it speaks more about, you know, their, their. It might speak to their feelings at this conference, but it speaks to their feeling of their abilities to defend and explain their policies. And we should know. I mean, I want to be fair, like, you can't really get crosswise from daddy, right? If Trump gets wind that you've said something like a Dan Coats, you get in trouble. Like there is a risk to them. But again, if a conversation scares you, don't do this job well.
- [19:04]
Shane Harris
And it's been pretty exceptional. I mean, tell me if you guys disagree with this. Well, my sense is actually the Trump administration, setting aside this incident, actually has come across kind of well in a lot of the panels. We've saw panels that complement the NATO meeting that we just had shift in Ukraine policy viewed positively. We had an Israel panel that, frankly, more than anything emphasized continuity between the Biden administration and Trump administration's approach. Very complimentary, several people there to the Trump administration's relationship with Bibi. There was a space panel that was fairly complimentary to the Trump administration's policies. Some of the more complicated messages have come a little bit from foreign officials who have expressed some reservations that we're going to talk about in a minute a little bit more. But they had not just a good story to tell. I think it kind of would have been a friendly audience. And even if you're going to do political people, you could have the career military giving that valence of credibility that comes with being military to a policy, to a friendly audience. You can see the advantage of that. But it seems like they have a different audience. Mark, what do you think of this?
- [20:03]
Jeff Hegseth
I mean, look, we have in shorthand referred to the audience here and the conveners here as the foreign policy establishment. In reality, in my view, it skews like pretty Republican. This is the Republican foreign policy establishment. You have Condoleezza Rice, you have Robert Gates, you have Stephen Hadley. This is not some lefty forum. And at key critical moments in this administration when there was the potential of a fissure between the Donald Trump movement, between the MAGA side, the American firsters and the neocons, the conventional Republicans. The administration has opted for the foreign policy choice most favored by the conventional Republicans who are gathered here today, whether that was the bombing of Iran, whether that was eventually coming around to support Ukraine and any other of those key decisions that at one point threatened to expose a fissure in Republican Foreign policy and Donald Trump's foreign policy, he sided with the kind of crowd that would agree with him here in Aspen. And so to Alex's point, it sort of was an own goal. This could have been an opportunity in which the Trump administration could have demonstrated its bona fides to the establishment here, which agrees with it on many, many issues. This is not some lefty forum. The framing of many of the conversations here that Israel panel that you referenced earlier, this is very conventional Republican foreign policy stuff.
- [21:39]
Mark Goldberg
Actually, one thing that we don't really talk about in forums like this, but this one in particular, it's immensely industry heavy.
- [21:44]
Alex Ward
Heavy.
- [21:45]
Mark Goldberg
Immensely industry heavy. And for an administration that like, is very industry, is industry friendly and wants private solutions to public sector issues, another potential way for them to ingratiate themselves here and like, genuinely deals could have been like, crafted under the tent, you know, in the shadow of these mountains. Like, this is the place for that kind of stuff. I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it a Republican established Mark. I take the point. I think a lot of Republicans here, I think it is probably more on the bipartisan edge. There's definitely some Democrats here, but like it. It is certainly our point of agreement. It is certainly not like a lefty only Democratic place. It is like truly that Israel panel was, let's put it this way, the former IDF chief was the dove on the conversation.
- [22:28]
Shane Harris
So we kind of came in this conversation. The way I've been thinking about this is that the Aspen Security Forum has played a certain role and administrations have engaged with it the way they have in the past because they have a theory of power. They have a theory of why it benefits them to do so. What is the theory of power by maybe not the whole Trump administration, but clearly someone in the Defense Department about how so publicly rebuking it advances their policy goals or political goals, perhaps. Do you have a sense of that, Alex?
- [22:57]
Mark Goldberg
No, I'm not sure they do either. I mean, one thing that I think is a through point is this administration. I mean, I've actually was at an event, oddly enough, with Hegseth, in which he said, I we pride ourselves not on doing. On not doing the D.C. thing. And while we're in Aspen, Aspen is very much a DC thing, right?
- [23:14]
Shane Harris
Fox and Friends, also a DC thing. For the record.
- [23:15]
Mark Goldberg
Sure.
- [23:16]
Shane Harris
Fair enough.
- [23:17]
Mark Goldberg
I mean, I mean, you guys have been reporters a long time too. Like, one of the things that I find funniest about this line of work is that people that I cannot meet in D.C. are so available to things like this. Like I have to leave my country or my city in order to talk to officials that I cover on a regular basis. And like, that could be challenging, and that can be frightening. And I get that a lot of officials come here and, and run to that possibility. But at the same time, you come here again, you make your case in public. But then they've also hosted like, private briefings for reporters and others. They have their own side briefings. Like, a lot of stuff can get done, A lot of narrative can be formed. And so I just don't. The theory of power here. I think it's just, I think, you know, Shane alluded to it like it's at. If it was intentional, it's just trolling. It's solely just trolling. And it. It now do I think, like, the MAGA base cares deeply that Pete Hegseth cancel 12 DoD officials from coming to. I don't think they do. I mean, I think they'll look at it, be like, sure, yeah, right on. And then they move on with their lives. Like, I don't. I just don't think. I just don't see like, what the actual real political benefit is in the cost benefit analysis. It's just, it's a. It's a moment of trolling at best, I think. Or a deeply flawed understanding of what that they were like, going to get themselves into.
- [24:32]
Alex Ward
There's another angle on this too, that Tulsi Gabbard, of all people, kind of articulated in this Turning Points USA conference that she was at which spare a moment to acknowledge that a sitting director of National Intelligence spoke at a just overtly partisan organization. I mean, that's where just. I mean, and that seems quaint now, but that's just kind of where we are. Right? That just never would have happened in a Republican or Democratic administration ever. You know, she got up there and told the crowd, I know you're all waiting for these big changes that we want to make and to root out the people who've been doing, you know, the corrupt deep staters, but the deep state is big, everyone. And it takes time. And basically like her getting up there and saying, like, I know we haven't done all the things that we promised to do, but it's the deep state. Like they have this narrative that even though they are the ones who run the executive branch of the government, that there is some shadowy sinister force that is keeping them from doing that, which is absurd, but that is the political narrative. And I think that this administration looks at the Aspen Security Forum and says this is like the deep state gathering in the mountains, right? That it's. It's this. It's this. These people who've been career national security types who have been steeped in this stuff. So for them, that is a. That is a villain that they like to, you know, kind of portray as stymieing all of their efforts. And so to kind of pull out of this forum, in a way, is sort of them sucking it to the deep state a little bit. And I just find this, like, just so baffling because, you know, when Hegseth does this a lot as well, and Kash Patel does this and Dan Bongino does this, they act as if they're not actually running the government. Like that there's some other thing that group of people that are keeping them from doing it. Like, you know, Dan Bongino coming in and, like, threatening to resign over the Epstein files because they won't release the files. It's like, no, you just have found out that being deputy director of the FBI is really fricking hard and you'd rather be podcasting, right? It's a lot harder on the other side when you're the one in charge. And that narrative is just, we can't do our jobs because people are, you know, stymying us. I mean, give me a break.
- [26:39]
Shane Harris
Oh, we can all say podcasting is a pretty sweet gig, if nothing else.
- [26:42]
Mark Goldberg
I get that it's harder than FBI Director, though.
- [26:47]
Shane Harris
So let's go to our second topic, because this has actually been a surprise to me coming to this forum. I anticipate a lot of it, especially once we got the news on Monday that the officials were dropping off. That wasn't a surprise. Some of the stuff talked here, a lot of conventional topics. You can look at the panel topic of the panelists and you get a sense about what the general through line is going to be. But there's been an interesting message communicated by the wide range of foreign officials that are still here, still participating in a variety of panels addressing a wide range of topics. We had a whole panel on India with some officials and a bunch of experts. We had a kind of trans European panel talking about Ukraine with an American as well. So transatlantic, I should say. We have had Europeans, Ukrainians represent on a couple of different panels. But a kind of through line, and we heard it most expressly, I think, on a panel yesterday about major power competition, is the stress. These foreign governments, many of which are conventional allies of the United States or certainly partners in a variety of regards are feeling at this particular moment of both major power competition, a different system than we were in five years ago, 10 years ago, or at least one we're much more open about acknowledging now in a moment where not only do you face this new competition, the United States has come out being more openly skeptical of conventional alliances and multilateral sort of relationships, maybe not overly hostile to them. Again, we just saw this big rapprochement between Trump and NATO. Not that many big changes have actually happened yet in the broad global posture of the United States. Maybe they will in the next three and a half years, but not yet. Nonetheless, though, there's still clearly the skepticism in the rhetoric and the past statements. So, Mark, I want to come to you because I think you probably more than any of us, engage with the broader international community that is present here, that has these voices, I would say mostly through these foreign governments. I don't think there's too much of an NGO presence or international organization presence here, but a lot of foreign officials. So talk to us about the opportunities forums like this present to them and how they seem to be using it at this moment and who their intended audience is, given that the Trump administration and didn't show up.
- [28:51]
Jeff Hegseth
So you have seen, I think, an opening of space for the fact that the Trump administration officials abandoned this conference for many foreign officials. But many of the foreign officials featured were former foreign officials who, in my view, I prefer to hear from because they're able to speak more freely and without constraint for having to represent the views of their government. And the panel you referred to earlier offered something of a global perspective on geopolitical shifts underway. And you heard from, for example, the former foreign minister of Pakistan, who very bluntly said that the sort of daily onslaught of images coming from Gaza is constraining in making her government's ability to cooperate with the United States far more difficult and is doing far more damage to the United States and to American soft power than we would realize. And she was telling that again to an audience here in Aspen who is elite, who's not, I think, potentially as sensitive to many of those images that are coming out of Gaza. So that was, I think, a helpful corrective. But let me kind of push back on something you said earlier, Scott, which is that we've not seen a wholesale breaking of Trump from the broader international system. So the big story today, potentially, potentially, the other big story was that overnight, earlier this morning, the Senate passed a rescissions package. This is about $9 billion that Congress approved back in March, eight of that $9 billion was for foreign aid. One of that $8 billion in foreign aid was for funds related to the United Nations. So as of today, and I'm sure the House will vote on this soon, the United states will contribute $0 to UNICEF, $0 to the United Nations Development Fund, severely cut back on UN peacekeeping around the world, and a host of other accounts and funds that support the multilateral system that the United States has championed for so long. I think what you are seeing and hearing from many of these foreign officials is their attempt to grapple with a world in which the liberal international order, such as they knew it, they came up in their careers, really no longer exist. I believe it was the Singaporean foreign minister who said, this is the end of an era. And you saw a punctuation of that as well this week.
- [31:31]
Shane Harris
Yeah, I think it was Singaporean foreign minister, although it may have been something else. I'm confusing the line meant that it's the end of an era and we don't know what's coming next.
- [31:39]
Jeff Hegseth
Precisely. Yeah.
- [31:40]
Shane Harris
This idea that we're in a transitional phase and everybody's struggling to figure out what that realignment looks like. Let me come to you on this, Alex, because obviously you're a close follower of foreign policy, foreign policy engagements. And with these foreign governments, who is their audience they're trying to reach with this sort of message in forums like this. Now, maybe these were remarks they thought they're going to get the Trump administration here, but as Shane pointed out, Trump administration was never really going to be here in meaningful numbers. We're talking about career military people, important interlocutors, but not the people at the apex of kind of decision making for these big policy questions. What are the levers and avenues of power and influence that people are trying to speak to on behalf of foreign assistance, which we really haven't heard discuss that much at this particular forum, or the international institutions which also haven't really featured that prominently except in these occasional references by mostly former foreign investors. Where does that enter into the picture? And is that a big departure from past years? And has the topic list kind of pruned itself because of who's in power already?
- [32:44]
Mark Goldberg
Let me jump on my nerd horse and take us back a little bit.
- [32:48]
Shane Harris
This is why I like the institutional memory of Aspen here. Exactly.
- [32:52]
Mark Goldberg
So, okay, but let's Trump won. They start the export control games on Huawei Zte and basically start saying, hey, this era of globalization where China is able to really integrate with us seamlessly and no more. But they took an important but a smallish bite out of that whole game. The Biden administration comes in and even though they call it small yard, high fence, basically just went bananas in this realm and said, and effectively was like, globalization is over. I mean, I think Jake Sullivan almost said that explicitly. Globalization is over. We're in the post, post Cold War era. Like, we're in a new phase, and we are just trying to, right, size our own economics and our own alliances and right, sizing all these things, pulling out of Afghanistan, et cetera, to prepare for what's next. Like, we don't know what's next, but we know it's not the same, and we're going in that direction. Trump comes in a second time, and it's kind of that same mentality as Biden. They're kind of ratcheted up, like 4 degrees ratcheted up. And then there's sort of a caring less about allies. And now you've got this removal of, you know, support for institutions for which the Trump administration says, like, these don't serve American interests or Americans. And therefore, you know, as we prepare for what this new era is where we're trying to basically preserve resources or prioritize or whatnot. So that's where we are. We're in this prioritization phase. And I think when you are a foreign official and you're struggling to make inroads with the Trump administration, part because there's no National Security Council and you have Rubio having four different jobs, literally, you know, you are trying to make any and all cases to the administration, hey, look at me. Hey, I matter. And slash, hey, this is how I'm thinking about things. Can we align in some way? And these are sales pitches, like, we call it diplomacy, but these are sales pitches. It's sales pitch by the Singaporeans, or if the Tanzanian foreign minister could have been here, would have done the same. They are trying to make a case through us reporters, but also the people here who have the ears of some people in the administration of, hey, the Singaporeans are thinking this way. They think a conflict with China might actually happen. You know, the Europeans are really happy about this pivot. Maybe one will want to continue doing that. Like, they are trying to do diplomacy in public. It's a public relations campaign. And coming to Aspen is a really good place to do that. If you're bang for your buck, like, literally, it's probably the best place you could do. So that's what this is really all about. And the hope was, if you were say the foreign minister of Singapore. You were hoping to talk to San Paparo, the admiral of Indo Pacom. You were also hoping to talk to other DoD, you know, maybe the intel officials, maybe Singapore is like, hey, hey, we can help. And tracking the Chinese in certain ways, like, I don't know, those have been private conversations. But that's what, that's what coming here does. And that's why they always attract a decent foreign audience. Because this is again, it's also not only is it a beautiful place to be, but it's where you can really make your case to the broader public.
- [35:50]
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- [40:22]
Shane Harris
So there is this. There's been acknowledgement on a lot of the conversations the last few days about the need for international cooperation. A lot of things like whether it's AI and setting standards and everybody has energy needs and trade needs and you have to deal with diffusion or whether something we're going to talk about in a minute or whether it is a variety of regional challenges countering China, like the need for multilateral, some sort of international Coordination is there, but we haven't heard much talk about the conventional approach to that. I haven't heard the United nations really mention once. I don't think I haven't caught all the panels. I've caught most of them.
- [40:52]
Mark Goldberg
No climate either.
- [40:53]
Alex Ward
Right.
- [40:54]
Shane Harris
I haven't seen climate mention at all. Maybe a little bit in the, in the energy panel, but only.
- [40:58]
Mark Goldberg
All right, fine, little energy, little energy climate.
- [41:01]
Shane Harris
I mean, like a lot of these big global challenges aren't there. And so we have this narrowed vision of international cooperation that's necessary, that's here. And maybe those issues are being narrowed because of the audience, because of who we're speaking to. People are trying to figure out how to arbitrage their time and resources. But what is the mechanism for international cooperation that's still on the table that people are pushing towards? Nobody is pushing for conventional, broad international institutions to work through this stuff. You still see a lot of nods towards conventional allies. That seems to be the one thing that, that while the Trump administration may be skeptical of, people are doubling down on here. Nick Burns really hit that really strong in his opening remarks, like, big thing we need to do is treat our allies well. And that is, I think, the one area he's most willing to criticize the Trump administration on. Have we heard other avenues about that sort of international cooperation? How this something that everybody seems to acknowledge needs to happen could still happen in this moment? I don't know if I've actually heard that much about solutions.
- [41:54]
Alex Ward
No. And I think that partly this reflects the fact that the President likes bilateral agreements. Right. He likes deals. Right. I mean, the tariffs are probably the most vivid expression of this, this notion that what we're going to do is we're just going to form arrangements one on one. And I mentioned that conference in Estonia where Matt Whitaker, the UN Ambassador was, and you know, the degree to which other ministers were trying to push him to say NATO is the effective place to have this kind of convening authority, this is the infrastructure, we are the post liberal order, et cetera, et cetera. And he was paying lip service to that. But everyone knows that those organizations, it's not that, I guess to say like NATO is being diminished, but when you have a president that likes to do things one on one, that likes that he is the deal maker, he is the decision maker, it's a much more personality driven kind of policy making. And so it feels like we can have a great conversation about NATO in the future. NATO, but like, even if you bring it back to like 5% commitments of GDP for NATO spending. That's like Trump wanting to spike the football on that and, and the NATO Secretary General even giving him credit for that. Like, it all just keeps coming back to Donald Trump as the center of the universe, which is, I think, very much what he wants and believes that he's the President and we're the most powerful country in the world. And, you know, that's how it should be. You know, he doesn't like these international gatherings. I mean, it was the G7 that he went to, right? And he basically like, like stormed out of the room and he goes, you know, I don't like these things. And you're mean to Vladimir Putin and you didn't invite them. He, like, has a kind of, you know, visible reaction to that. You know, I will say on the allies piece of this, I mean, what I focus on a lot in my reporting is intelligence sharing, partnerships, and particularly with the five eyes nations, they are very nervous and have been for quite some time, both in terms of this administration's demonstrated historical propensity to, you know, be loose with classified information, you know, to leak things that it shouldn't be, you know, to store boxes of classified documents in your toilet. You know, they pay attention to that. But they've also been watching the way that the White House has been interfering, for instance, with the selection of senior positions at the CIA that are normally nonpartisan positions, and wondering, like, are we tilting towards a world in which the administration is going to start just stalking the FBI and the CIA and the DOD with a bunch of political loyalists? And it kind of is feeling like it's moving in that way for them. So I wonder too, as we talk about, like, what are the big international cooperative organizations? Are the allies actually going to be the ones that start pulling back and saying, this thing is not working with you guys right now. We are nervous. We don't think you're good partners. And we got a problem here on the intelligence front. People are just very nervous and it's drifting and it's cautious is how I would say the allies are right now towards us.
- [44:54]
Jeff Hegseth
Yeah. For the last couple years, this idea of the fraying of international cooperation and the basically diminution of the United nations as a platform to enforce and support international security has been something that a lot of smart and forward thinking thinkers have grappled with. And the solutions that are kind of coming up, and this is one of my core beats, is that the future of multilateralism is what people sometimes call multilateralisms or mini multilateralism in which you have a coalition basically of the willing around a certain set of discrete issues which come together in cooperative forums and try to plot solutions to those issues. And this is kind of the vanguard of thinking right now on international cooperation. But to Shane point, the fact that Trump is such a destructive force in many of these conversations means that the evolution of this kind of multilateralism is not happening at a pace required to confront many global challenges which still require global solutions. You can't solve climate change on a bilateral basis. You can't do AI governance on a bilateral basis, or not even a bilateral basis, a basis that excludes industry and civil society. So you need to kind of rethink how we approach multilateralism. That's like the vanguard of the thinking here. But again, Donald Trump, the fact that he is so volatile on so many issues, I think precludes real meaningful conversation on these solutions.
- [46:34]
Mark Goldberg
Although I'm curious, especially since you follow so closely. One of the things I'm noticing, and if my impression's wrong, please correct me. But obviously Trump won very hostile to, to allies. Biden team almost bent over backwards for allies. And sort of in this era as not only Trump too is thinking about things, but even the Biden government in exile, they are starting to the way what I'm hearing from them is basically like, actually, you know, allies are good. They're not the be all, end all that. There needs to be a bit more sort of American unilateralism. Like, I hosted a book talk here for a guy who wrote a book, Eddie Fishman, who wrote a book called Choke Poor Points about the sanctions and export controls. And he.
- [47:15]
Shane Harris
Great book.
- [47:15]
Mark Goldberg
Yeah, yeah, Plug for Eddie.
- [47:18]
Jeff Hegseth
I have the book. I haven't read it yet.
- [47:20]
Mark Goldberg
Okay, it's fine. No, but my point, one of the things he said that struck with me was like, hey, sometimes you need to like, hey, us. This whole notion of multilateral sanctions work better than unilateral sanctions. Yeah, there's some truth to it, but like, just go move forward. And when I've talked to some Biden folks, they're sort of feeling the same way that there is some feeling that allies are good. Work with them when you can, but like, or, you know, but you can sort of move on your own. So I. This is a really long way of saying, I'm hearing lately that there's not that there's an anti. Anti ally sentiment, but there's a more of like, you know, pro unilateral sentiment, I guess. And I don't know if you're just sensing that as well.
- [47:54]
Jeff Hegseth
So, you know, you have a closer ear, obviously to the, you know, Biden administration and former officials, having written the book on it, plug for me. So what I am hearing from foreign officials and from people in the NGO community, civil society, is that it's more of a general despair. I would say that this system that for decades has been propped up by American leadership, and that leadership was, I think, premised on this enlightened notion that the United States, having become the Victorian of World War II, would tie itself, bind itself, not act unilaterally all the time everywhere, but indeed abide by a set of rules of the road and in so doing constrain themselves, but extend the American century in so doing as far as it could go. And again, it's also going back to that panel of the kind of middle power international leaders. You sense that despair as well, that again, this era is over and we don't know what will replace it.
- [49:09]
Shane Harris
So the one theme that I was surprised came out as expressly in that Singaporean foreign minister statement in particular and other comments in that panel, but also in the European panel before, is this idea of a third way, or maybe it's a fourth way in the new major power competition, right, this idea that countries are going to have to strike their own balance between the major powers. We heard it from several Asian countries in the context of China, competition, relationships, trade. The Europeans talk about it in the context of an independent defense capability. Obviously, that's something the Trump administration very much wants, but nonetheless lends into the idea of a more independent Europe potentially politically down the road? Is that something that's realistically being engaged in? Is that an endpoint vision people are actively working towards, in your sense, Marc, as somebody who speaks to the broader community a little more on this, or is this more or the idea that this is where things have to go if we're not able to get these sorts of conventional relationships back on track? Is this just the trajectory, the pressure everyone's feeling to go in a certain direction?
- [50:12]
Jeff Hegseth
I think the answer to your question is regional. I think in Southeast Asia, you're certainly seeing more hedging than you had in the past. And you've seen this charm offensive by Xi Jinping in the region trying to secure more trade partnerships in the context of Liberation Day style tariffs. Europe, I think, is just a little different. Yes, there is this notion that Europe ought to increase their defense capabilities. But when you talk to European officials about competition with China and whether they will hedge in that geopolitical game between the United States and China. They're still firmly in America's camp, principally for the fact that China is backing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And so long as that continues, I don't think Europe will kind of countenance the old way of getting back to cooperative trade relationships with China.
- [51:13]
Shane Harris
Well, talking about the old way, let's talk about the newest of new ways. The topic that I felt infused everything we talked about these days. Indeed, I feel like it infuses everything I talk about these days in a way I find borderline infuriating, as interesting as I find it. And that's this question of artificial intelligence. I literally did not hear, I think, a panel or conversation today that did not mention it, at least in passing, whether it's its impact on the battlefield potentially down the road, impact on misinformation, the inputs required to master it. Well, you know, energy chips, personnel, expertise, data, how you organize those, whether it is all the wonderful things it's going to deliver, all the problems it's going to cause, because it's just something we can't get away from these days. I feel like, particularly in the national security space, although it's broader than that. And I was a little surprised just how universal it was here, although maybe I shouldn't be because again, that's the sense of a lot of conversation the last six months. Alex, let me turn to you first on this one. What do you make of how ubiquitous AI is? Part of that is, frankly, a lot of conversations are driven by what people care about in the media and industry and industry. AI industry is booming. It's big. It's a business that a lot of people want a slice of.
- [52:26]
Mark Goldberg
And they're here.
- [52:27]
Shane Harris
And they're here exactly in force and talking and engaging in a very useful, interesting way to their credit. It is something that we have seen become such a policy priority for the Biden administration and the Trump administration in very different ways, but both trying to maximize US Competition towards AI, compromising lots of other policy priorities pretty openly to do that in other relationships. Relationships. Think of the AI diffusion bill and what that impact that had on Gulf countries and other relationships with people outside the 19 countries that were in the first tier the Biden administration carved out. Is it being over indexed? Is there a sense we're talking about it too much, we're overvaluing it too much? And is there that sense among parts of the policy community, the people who are working in this other industry? Or maybe they don't say it out loud because it is interesting to talk about. We talk about forums like this, but it's not really the thing driving or is it really the earth shattering force that it certainly sounds like from a lot of these conversations.
- [53:19]
Mark Goldberg
I mean it's the hotness, right? It's the hotness right now. So you got to talk about the hotness. But look, I mean I have always felt like if AI is everything, then AI is nothing, right? I mean it's in everything. And I always find AI conversations to be quite impenetrable because they always end up being like X sector is going to be changed forever by AI. How? Well, in every way. Well, okay, well that's not specific. Now I'm not, not denying that there's going to be changes and of course it's going to be disruptive. We should be talking about it because it is going to disrupt a lot of sectors. But like the specificity of it matters and you know, you know how exactly it's going to change government and business and whatnot. Like that actually leads to better analysis. That said, I still think we're somewhat in like the silent movie era of AI, right. Like this is only going to get better. Like 9 months ago when we were talking about a, we were really talking about having a decent chat bottle bot. Like now it's a pretty good chat bot and, and a lot of good things. You can do a lot of good things with AI and I've seen some demonstrations for intel and, and warfare stuff. So like it's astounding. Now it can, it's only going to get exponentially better and it is going to be everywhere. So we should be having that conversation. Doesn't mean that it's, it needs to be in every conversation. Doesn't mean that every conversation about security is AI. Of course a lot of sponsors are here. That's part of it. Aspen also has always been a bit tech forward and by its proximity to Silicon Valley and also just by virtue of like Aspen likes to. The conference itself likes to surround itself around the hottest thing. I mean if we were here a bit ago, it would have been counterterrorism. A couple years ago was great power competition and China's, you know, they actually have like the ambassador to China here. Like now. The thing is AI, AI is the new hotness. Maybe next year will be like AI and global, global competition. I don't know. But like this is the thing they want to talk about. But yeah, I mean what I, as much as we're talking about it to your, to your point about over indexing, I Haven't heard like a lot of solutions to anything. And that's always been my critique of these kinds of talk shops anyway. Like we're all identifying the problems. That's not the hard part. The Harvard is what you do and you can't really do that in a 45 minute, 30 minute panel where four people need to speak. It's just, it's just not conducive to that. And when we're talking about something as large and as nuanced and complicated as AI, you're just, and you're just like sprinkling into conversations actually does injustice to it. So I, in a weird way, I almost wish it were like the ass. There was an Aspen AI forum and like have that be that and then Aspen Security Forum doesn't mean you don't talk about AI. You should, but there's so many other things to be discussing and so many nuances that I kind of wish that, that those were somewhat separated. I know, I know I'm probably a minority view on that, but that's kind of how I've been feeling this week.
- [55:56]
Jeff Hegseth
Week.
- [55:56]
Alex Ward
Yeah, it has a feeling of how, you know, 10 years, everything was cyber.
- [56:01]
Shane Harris
I was just. There you go.
- [56:02]
Mark Goldberg
That's a better example.
- [56:03]
Shane Harris
I don't feel worse for anyone here than. We have a lot of common cyber friends, some of whom are here and delightful people doing very important work. They were so hot for so long. Cyber was so hot and sexy. They're the hotness for such a long. I feel like no one's even talking about cyber anymore.
- [56:16]
Alex Ward
Well, and it's because it's just become sort of integrated into like it's just, it's just everything now.
- [56:20]
Jeff Hegseth
Right.
- [56:20]
Alex Ward
I mean there was a time where people were talking. I wrote a book about, you know, cyber warfare. Well, at war.
- [56:25]
Mark Goldberg
Very good.
- [56:26]
Alex Ward
Thank you very much. Plug. For shame. We're all plugging. Plug it around. But it's like, it's like sort of. Well, it's just, it, it is just integrated in how the military fights. And like at the time I was saying that like in the future this will just be part of how we fight. But when it's very new and it's novel, everyone is kind of reaching for, well, how's this going to affect what I do and how's it going to inflect my life? And I do think AI is one of those things. I mean people used to talk about. When I started my career, that was the Internet and E was put in front of everything. So like E government was the hot thing in 2000 or E procurement, you know, it was the E. E is going to change it. Well, it did. E changed everything. And so I think there's, there's an element of that I would like to see more focus on, really on the race of, you know, AI and getting to more sophisticated AI with China because that's the thing that really freaks national security people out. And I mean I was talking to a former Justice Department person about this at the forum who was really like bemoaning the fact that like the export controls around these kind of Nvidia chips and others, they can't quite get it. So like that China's not getting their hands on these things. Right. And that frustrates people who try to do export control because they don't want China to have those chips. And there's a real race. And I think there's a feeling that, that you know, the next big leap in AI is going to happen like real soon. And people are really scared in this national security community about China getting there before we do and what the implications would be for that. So that, that is like for me, that's the part of the conversation that really does, you know, fascinate me and I'd like to see more focus on, you know, it's interesting as a journalist, I mean, you know, dealing with AI. I mean we're all, if we're all wondering who is it putting out of business in the journalistic community. Right. So there's this all of us, soon enough. Well, right. I mean, I don't, hopefully AI won't be able to develop sources and cultivate and get classified information, but until AI.
- [58:21]
Mark Goldberg
Drinks as much as we do.
- [58:22]
Alex Ward
Yeah, exactly. AI doesn't have to sleep. But I've also started using it myself. I like to use AI as a high powered research assistant. I mean natural language web searching is way better than trying to Google things sometimes. So there are ways that I too have learned to embrace it. But I mean it's a kind of terrifying technology because it's rapidly advancing so fast and we don't know, know how it's, how it's going to affect things and that just anything that moves that fast and seems uncontrolled is going to make national security people freak out.
- [58:53]
Mark Goldberg
So he just said one thing that was really interesting that popped up. One person said to me here AI is actually what we don't know. And that, that is because if you know it now, it's not really AI anymore. It's like it's, it's you know, it's no longer E government anymore because you know it. So what you're using now isn't really AI. AI is all that other stuff. And, like, it's hard to have a conversation about all that other stuff when you don't know what all that other stuff is. Is. Anyway, sorry, Mark.
- [59:14]
Shane Harris
So I want to actually tease something up for you, Mark. I apologize for using you as our cipher for the broader international community.
- [59:20]
Jeff Hegseth
No, I think it's too awesome. Look, I am a globalist. I will admit it. Right here.
- [59:25]
Shane Harris
There we go. So here I am, I believe, is the term du jour. So I think this perspective Shane has channeled is 100% one that we hear from a lot of folks, which is the competition with China is the AI issue. When you hear AI discussed in the national security context, it is often about the race to AGI, artificial general intelligence, and how you basically have to go, United States should be going all in to beat China there, and nothing else really matters. And to some extent, the Biden administration's policies lean heavily in that direction. We saw them embrace an AI diffusion rule. AI diffusion being code words for essentially exporting AI technologies that was designed to keep it super, super contained in a small club of countries that are conventional allies. And not only that, like Western allies, Western values, democratic allies, Israel, Gulf countries not included, lots of other countries that are strategic allies, but no, don't fit those other criteria, not included in that club. And that's part of the reason why it ultimately fell. But it's not like it fell, because the Trump administration, I think, has a really clear vision, at least not one we've heard articulated yet, about how the rest of the world should benefit from AI, how AI intersects with our broader universe of policy. They just did it because they had strong pressure from Gulf allies. And there's a little bit of an abb, anything but Biden. How does the rest of the world view this conversation? Because I cannot imagine India is there being like, man, I really am worried about whether China or the us which one beats the other to AGI first. I'm sure they are a little worried about it, but not as the paramount issue. I imagine they're thinking, well, there's a lot of technology sub of AGI that's incredibly valuable for us, that we want to be able to access, and how easy is that becoming for us? And frankly, in my mind, you think Back to like, 3G, 4G wireless networks, all this other competition, the infrastructure that gets laid for that new technology to come. And I'm surprised I haven't heard more conversation about that. Among all the AI talk here or in the broader kind of nexus, is that the conversation that's happening in the rest of the world? Are they as obsessed with this China US races as we are in the United States?
- [61:31]
Jeff Hegseth
So to a certain extent I wonder whether or not our conversations on AI today if the natural endpoint as you just articulated it, the American kind of policy view is that we need to guard our AI so we get the best AI, the most high powered AI and no one in the world gets that kind of high powered AI is in some way almost mirrors to what's happening with the EV industry where yes, the United States, the West has the best EVs, the most technologically competent EVs, but China is winning the EV game because they're making a purse perfectly good EV that most of the world drives. And you could make the argument that China's approach to say EVs is something that is more in line with the global good than what the United States is doing. And you can potentially maybe replicate or mirror that argument to AI. If say the United States is pursuing AI at the expense of all others and China develops an AI in this race that is more widely accessible to more countries around the world, who really wins in that situation? Yeah, the United States might get the biggest and the best, but the rest of the world still has a pretty decent option and in so doing may more tightly align with China. And that to me at least seems to be the future of this conversation. But like directly to your question, to the point, I don't think that there has been a tremendous amount of thinking and research done. It is being done at the industry level, at civil society level, but it's not like the United States government is pursuing a policy of AI for good. How can we leverage artificial intelligence technologies to promote the social and economic development of people in the developing world or people in Africa? And I don't know if China has a wherewithal to do that, but the country, the entity that does that will I think win the kind of at least one aspect of the global AI race.
- [63:47]
Shane Harris
Well folks, that brings us to the end of our time together, our time in this wonderfully studio lent to us by the wonderful people at the Aspen Security Forum and Gabe, our wonderful professional engineer. Thank you Gabe. But this would not be rational greedy if we did not leave you with some object lessons to ponder over in the week or days to come until we are back in your podcatcher. Shane, what do you have for Us this week.
- [64:06]
Alex Ward
So I'm gonna, I'm doing a log roll today, baby.
- [64:09]
Shane Harris
Love it.
- [64:09]
Alex Ward
I'm gonna plug an article that I just published this morning in the Atlantic.
- [64:13]
Shane Harris
What's that? I've never heard of this.
- [64:14]
Alex Ward
It's a small magazine. It's a very old magazine. It's very old, publishes once a month now. No, I had a fun story today. Well, not fun actually. I think it's. Actually, it is a seemingly lighthearted, trivial story that actually I think has very dark import. But I'll just tell people and then you can go read it. So story is two years ago, James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, one of the serving intelligence officers in U.S. history, kind of a legend in the field, decides to adopt a service animal at this service animal training academy because he's a great dog lover, as was his then late wife who'd recently died. Named the dog after his wife Susan. The dog turns out to be a natural bomb sniffing dog and gets hired by the CIA, which Clapper thinks this is great. I mean, how wonderful. I worked for my whole career in the intelligence, intelligence community. I love the CIA. You know, his wife had worked in the intelligence community as well. So the CIA puts the dog through a training program and it's all set to go. Susan's gonna go become a bomb sniffing dog for the agency and there's going to be this like puppy graduation ceremony. It's gonna be really sweet and really, really nice. At a CIA training facility in Herndon. The day before that graduation, Clapper is informed via the CIA, you can't come because of the President's executive order stripping you of a security clearance which the administration interprets as you can't set foot on government property. So basically because of this order, you know, an 84 year old man who spent 50 years in public service to his country and named a dog after his dead wife doesn't get to go to a graduation ceremony. If you wondered what the depths of the pettiness of this administration is when it comes to attacking their foes in the supposed deep state, now, you know, it extends to dogs. So yeah, it's a sad story, but I'm glad we got it out there. Folks can go read about in the Atlantic. And Susan is an adorable 2 year old yellow lab and is going to hopefully have a very bright career protecting CIA personnel.
- [66:17]
Shane Harris
Fingers crossed for Susan.
- [66:19]
Alex Ward
And I think Susan's gonna be okay.
- [66:20]
Shane Harris
She did not land in the Department of Homeland Security, but we'll take that for my object lesson this week. I will endorse the Aspen Security Forum. This is my first time. I've really enjoyed it. Really interesting conversations. They have recordings of a lot of their panels, like all their panels online, except for a few book talks and everything. But I will say the part that's most interesting is, as Alex alluded to people you know in D.C. you occasionally get to interact with, it's hard to sit down with like 20 minutes or half an hour and have a serious conversation about. I've been able to have dozens of those and it's been great and stimulating, interesting. And I have tried to do a little favor for you, the listener where I've been able to I have asked people if they'll let me put it on tape for like 15 or 20 minutes or so over cocktails or coffee. I've endured more rejection the last 48 hours than I've experienced since I was single. But that's okay over drinks. I am nothing if not persistent. Just ask my wife. And so I've got a handful of those conversations I am going to hopefully release as a podcast or if the audio quality is not up and be some transcripts. Keep an eye out on Lawfare for that. I'll figure out some way to give them to you. Really, really interesting convers on everything from Arctic to European security. So check that out. Mark, what do you have for us?
- [67:24]
Jeff Hegseth
I'll also promote my own stuff. I mentioned at the outset that I started this podcast, Global Dispatches. You can find it on globaldispatches.org 13 years ago and it's an interview based show. I don't do a whole lot of talking on it. I ask people questions. However, a year ago I started a podcast specifically about the United nations called To Save Us from Hell. Hell. The name is derived from a famous quote by the second UN Secretary General Doug Hammarskjold who said that the United nations was not created to deliver us to heaven, but to save us from hell. And this is a chat show where I and my co host, who's a professor of International Relations at Fordham University, specializes in the UN named Anjali Dayal and I just every two weeks chat about news and happenings around the United Nations. And on my drive two to Aspen from Denver, where I live, I listened to the entire two and a half hour confirmation hearing for Mike Waltz as the new UN Ambassador. So our latest episode is about what we learned about Trump administration's potential approach to the United nations under a potential ambassador, Michael Waltz.
- [68:31]
Alex Ward
I'm just going to say he didn't get nearly enough signal questions.
- [68:34]
Shane Harris
Three.
- [68:35]
Jeff Hegseth
Three senators.
- [68:35]
Alex Ward
I do have a dog in that fight, but I'm just saying.
- [68:37]
Mark Goldberg
And the dog, his name is Susan.
- [68:41]
Shane Harris
Alex, bring us home. What do you have for us?
- [68:42]
Mark Goldberg
I have embarked on a fun little intellectual journey, which is I'm trying to read a book on every president in order.
- [68:53]
Shane Harris
Let me know about that Harrison book.
- [68:55]
Alex Ward
It's a pamphlet at most.
- [68:57]
Jeff Hegseth
Franklin Pierce, come on, that's soon.
- [69:01]
Mark Goldberg
So if you think it's a Hummel brag. Yes, it is. But two things have come out of this number one. One is I found an amazing sense of community because a bunch of people have done this and they have great recommendations on which is actually the right book, if you prefer biography or like a certain, you know, moment where the president dealt with a crisis. Tons of people have done this journey multiple times with different books on each president. But I found just a great group of people who have great recommendations and they're a bunch of fun folks and presidential nerds. And as someone who covers national security and especially, you know, the White House, I feel like I need to learn about president presidents. Which turns into the second point which I've really enjoyed doing this. I've always known this was true, but it's really true now. Presidents are deeply weird people. They are so weird. And I didn't recognize how weird, especially the first three were. Like, Washington would send like really meticulous notes about what fashion he wanted from London. He was really into London fashion at the time. And he would ask like, I want these specific buttons and I want this collar. And we know know there's a legend that he was 6 foot 4. We know he's 6 foot 2 because he put it in his, like in his requests for clothing. John Adams, like just sent an insane amount of letters to his wife, which we sort of know. But he also just like very quick to temper and in like really odd situations, not even high powered situation, just like quickly. Lots of stuff. The thing that sticks in my mind the most is Thomas Jefferson. And I'll end with here because we go to Madison. But I'll stop with Jefferson. Is as much as you know about Jefferson, you'll never think of him the same way again again after this. He had a bird that he allowed to eat food out of his own mouth.
- [70:32]
Alex Ward
Oh my gosh.
- [70:33]
Shane Harris
As a proud graduate of the University of Virginia, I was a. You did know this. And it is really weird.
- [70:37]
Mark Goldberg
It's a really weird fact. And honestly I had to read that page multiple times. But Thomas Jefferson let a bird eat food out of his own mouth. So anyway, as weird as all our presidents are, current and recent, past, whatever, they've all been weird and I and I can't wait to learn about the more weirdness in the books ahead. And if you're interested in joining the journey, get in touch. But there's also also like genuine like pages on Reddit and also just online of like recommendations. It's a whole thing. It's been a fun part to be a part of.
- [71:02]
Shane Harris
Oh that's awesome. I've thought about that myself. I had no idea the community behind it. That's really cool. I will check that out. Well folks, that brings us to the end of this very special episode. Rational Security is of course a production of Lawfare, so be sure to Visit us@lawfaremedia.org for our show page, for links to past episodes, for written work and the written work of other Lawfare contributors, and for information on Lawfare's own other phenomenal podcast series. While you're at it, be sure to follow Lawfare on social media wherever you socialize your media. Be sure to leave a rating or review wherever you might be listening and sign up to become a material supporter of Lawfare on Patreon for an ad free version of this podcast, among other special benefits. For more information, visit lawfaremedia.org support our audio Engineer producer this week was Gabe. Thank you Gabe. Thank you Gabe of the Aspen Security Forum. Very much appreciate the support on that end. Our music, as always, was performed by Sophia Yin and we are once again edited by the wonderful Jen Patcha. On behalf of my guests Alex, Mark and Shane, I am Scott Anderson and we will talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye.
- [72:00]
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