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The Tom Woods Show
Ep. 2622 The Foreign Policy War in the Trump White House
00:49:25
Kelley Vlahos discusses the conflict inside the Trump White House between interventionism on the one hand and realism and restraint on the other, with the recent rejection of Lt. Col. Daniel Davis as a case in point. Sponsors: & Guest's Twitter:...
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- [00:02]
A
Get ready to take a flamethrower to the official narrative and learn what the elites don't want you to know. You're listening to the Tom Woods Show. Hi, everybody. Tom woods here. It's episode 2622 of the Tom Woods Show. And Kelly, I think you've been on the show with me before, but I think it's been quite a while, so. It is long time. Yeah. So when I say welcome back, I mean, it's like the. The whole world is different from the last time you were here with me.
- [00:37]
B
Sure.
- [00:37]
A
You are senior advisor at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, I think may be the full title, and your editorial director of the publication, Responsible Statecraft. So I think I get that right. I do want to say very briefly, as I said a couple of episodes ago, I realize that my background here is not what people have come to expect. I look like I'm in, you know, like a Senegalese prison and I'm about to dictate a ransom note or something. But this is what New York hotel rooms look like. You know, they. They're barren. Terrible. So. All right, so. But that's not.
- [01:14]
B
And you're paying for the privilege, too.
- [01:17]
A
Exactly. I. The money is going for the. The privilege to be in this great city at this. At this moment. Well, let's talk about some things that have been going on relating to foreign policy. And I want to start with an issue from last week involving a Daniel Davis. And I have to admit I now realize I should have known about him. I should have known who he was, and it's my fault that I didn't. But he is, let's say, the latest example of somebody who had opinions on foreign policy that are entirely defensible, that I myself would defend, but that are considered absolutely beyond the pale by the bipartisan. The bipartisan foreign policy establishment, rumors of whose death are greatly exaggerated, which is still very, very much a presence in American life. And he was up for consideration to work alongside or under Tulsi Gabbard. And that was scrapped when apparently Laura Loomer and Mark Levin started publicizing his unacceptable views, which are not, you know, I think, by a normal person, unacceptable at all. Do you know him?
- [02:30]
B
Yes, I know him because back in 2009, he had come out and he was active duty army lieutenant colonel at the time. And here comes this guy who writes an article for Armed Forces Journal basically saying that he just got back from Afghanistan and the generals are lying to you. They're testifying on Capitol Hill that victory is right around the corner that a few more troops and more resources and more time for training will do the trick. He comes back from Afghanistan, he says, I didn't see a scintilla of proof of that, and it is my job as someone who swore an oath to the Constitution to tell the truth, and that's what our generals should be doing. And he had sent a classified report to Congress. So he went through proper channels. You know, he briefed Congress on what he saw. He was there on an inspection tour and had served in the first Persian Gulf War. So this was a guy who'd been around the block and close to retirement and had been a loyal soldier and every definition of. But he came back and he says, I just can't believe what our senior officers are telling us. And then he went and he published this article. And I said, wow, I love these guys, these truth tellers. As a journalist who had been covering the war, I've been very critical of it. I've been writing for Antiwar.com and the American Conservatives since 2007. These guys were gold because they were coming from the inside. They were struggling with what they saw in the hypocrisy, in many cases, corruption, the politicization of the senior officer corps. And he was willing to put his career on the line to tell the truth. And it caused all sorts of mayhem. And I think, you know, it was people like Danny Davis who allowed other people to come forward, allowed other people who had recently been retired, for example, a lot of lieutenant colonels out there who basically said the same thing. But you needed people on the inside to take that first brave step. And he retired and he absolutely paid for it. There was no cushy contractor job for him afterwards. There were no boards of directors that he was asked to sit on. He certainly didn't get a job working for Raytheon or Booz Allen or any of that. And he was kind of a pariah among the, the insular military community for what he had said. But much like Doug McGregor, who I believe you're familiar with another Pershing Gulf one veteran colonel, he decided that he is going to spend all of his time and energy basically trying to change the system. And so this was in 2009, and I've kept in touch with them. He's written many good articles. He's. I've interviewed him many times over the years. He has a podcast now. He's at Defense Priorities, which is a right leaning, realist foreign policy organization that is dedicated to righting the wrongs of our national security and foreign policy orthodoxies here in Washington. So, yeah, this was the easiest column I ever wrote. Is writing about how he was smeared out of this job. Because you're absolutely right, he's not outside the mainstream. If anything, he's closer to where the conservative base is today on foreign policy than any of the neocons and all any of these war party denisons are. He's not about denigrating the military. He's very proud. He's a conservative. He's a Christian conservative. He's just saying how corrupted the institution has gotten because of our failure wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the continuing policies that we have in Ukraine and Gaza. And he's been very vocal about it. And guess what? That. That ended up being his demise in this job because he was such a truth teller, particularly on Gaza and Iran, that these pro Israel outlets decided they were going to smear him. And sadly, it worked.
- [06:49]
A
So it was definitely that which was considered because these people live in a bubble. Yeah, this is considered to be crazy talk. No one thinks this way. Actually, they do. A lot of people think this way. You know, like a lot of perfectly normal people think this way. But then beyond that, apparently he was on with Colonel McGregor, who's been on my show, too. And apparently Colonel MacGregor was talking and saying that it's wrong to think of China as an enemy. And he was listing places we should not think of as enemies. And the criticism of Daniel Davis was that he sat there nodding. You know, he was supposed to interrupt and say, no. I'm pretty sure. I read in the New York Times that that country's an enemy. I mean, to me, it'd be refreshing to have one person somewhere in the foreign policy establishment who isn't a China hawk. Like even the best people we run into on foreign policy when it comes to China. Well, we have to make an exception for China. Why? Nobody knows why, because. Well, we just do because everybody does. And I don't go for that. I think there's excellent reason not to have this crazy posture toward China. But. So that was not allowed. Absolutely not allowed. Because they ain't never heard anybody take that kind of position.
- [08:06]
B
Yeah. And I go back to the 2016 campaign when Trump came out and he said that Iraq was a failure and he stood on the debate stage with his fellow Republicans, that include Jeb Bush, and he basically called George W. Bush a liar and said the Iraq war was a failure and that if he was president, he's never going to send American troops over for regime change. Wars we're not going to be the world's policemen. And he opened the floodgates for conservatives to talk about and think about and pursue non neocon foreign policy. It was liberating because I do believe that there were many conservatives and folks on the right who had real misgivings, if not out and out anger about our failed wars in Iraq, particularly those military families and certain pockets, red states that had allowed their children to be used basically as pawns and really bad strategy in both of those places, Iraq and Afghanistan. And it's seen them deploy in and out of these places because people who are National Guardsmen who had been deploying forever in and out of foreign countries, they were tired of these policies. But it wasn't until Trump came along and made it okay to question this. You're not going to be unpatriotic if you don't support this war, that war going to Ukraine. And for these people in these magazines who had smeared Danny, they're acting as though he is so out of the mainstream as to be like some sort of allergen in the system that needed to be like, you know, expunged. It's like, no, he's actually speaking for a lot of people in the conservative base, in the MAGA base, when he advocates us getting out of Syria, for example, that was another thing that they accused him. Oh, he's advocated getting US Troops out of Syria. What are we doing there? He's advocated against not going to war in Iran. Well, not everybody wants to go to war in Iran. You know, he questioned our tax dollars going to Israel so they can drop 2000 pound bombs on children. Not everybody agrees with that. I mean, not everybody agrees that that's a good use of our tax dollars. So please, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. I really feel like they've completely missed the boat. They want it to be 2002 all over again. We're talking about axis of evil, when Trump has already made it okay to say some of the things. And that's what bothers me. I do think that Trump has tried to put in people in his administration who are more of a restraint voice or more realist. And they are contending now with that old guard, that old neocon guard that's just kind of. They don't want to release that grip. And all they know is smear tactics. And we saw this back in, you know, during the global war on terror. And they're doing it again. And like you said, Danny is like the latest victim of that. But we have to keep being loud and proud about this. We have turned a corner since that global war on terror. And I sure as hell not going back to the days where I have to be quiet. You know, I never was quiet, but, you know, where I felt like I was outnumbered. You know, we're not. We. You know, there's a Washington establishment that's very powerful, very influential. They got a lot of money. They invest in a lot of think tanks and a lot of lobbying shops and, you know, and they want us to go to war with China and Iran and build up our military industrial complex. But I don't think the American people want that anymore. We do outnumber them.
- [12:07]
A
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- [13:29]
B
Now.
- [13:29]
A
Maybe Jacobin feels that way, but they had an article about the civil war going on within Trump's foreign policy circle. So they're not all the same brand of Nazi. At least, you know. So they're making this distinction. They're saying that there are some who advocate more foreign policy restraint. So again, more than this is more than you would get acknowledged by Whoopi Goldberg, who thinks they're all the same. They're all Trumpians. No, that's not an interesting thing to say. Much more interesting thing to say is that there are neocons in that circle who are very uncomfortable that Trump has gotten cozy with people who Would, you know, and, you know, the usual propaganda shrink from America's leadership, responsibility, whatever it is, you know, all the crazy kind of way they talk, and that the Daniel Davis matter was simply a manifestation of this ongoing civil war. So, of course, the big, big question is, which way is that seesaw ultimately going to come to rest? Which side is going to be triumphant? There's an awful lot of money on the neocon side.
- [14:33]
B
I wish I had an answer for you. I mean, if you had asked me several months ago, when Trump won, I think I was part of a very optimistic coterie of people who really thought we at last had turned a corner, because there was this feeling that it was the realism and restraint faction of MAGA that really pushed things. And obviously, there are so many different reasons why Trump won the election, but there was this spirit that there was this intellectual firmament that he could draw from and that had been growing over the past 10 years or so, and that he was going to pluck these people. And J.D. vance is right there at the top. I mean, J.D. vance had vocalized from the start a skepticism of U.S. foreign policy. And he had the bona fides of being a veteran who served in the Iraq War, came back with some really clear, sharp perspectives about the US War strategy, the policy, what went wrong. The. The idea that the United States could go and remake countries in its own name and sort of push its values out onto the rest of the world. That hadn't worked. And here was a guy again who'd been there, done that, and now he was going to be the Vice President of the United States. So there was a spirit that. That was a prevailing approach to foreign policy. And what Trump has done has created yet another mixed bag where he's incorporated many of those voices, or at least tried to, but tempered it with people who don't seem to either have a clear foreign policy view or are more traditionally hawkish or neocon. And so it's not altogether discernible what a Trump foreign policy doctrine would look like. It seems to be, you know, one way for Ukraine, another for Israel, yet another for Latin America, yet another for Africa. We're already bombing Somalia again. So I couldn't answer you with any confidence that, like, one point of view is going to prevail over the other, or one faction is going to prevail over the other. I am hopeful that at least there are Republicans and conservatives who are out there and they're pressing and. And they're pushing and they're offering clear alternatives to what we've seen over the last 30 years. And yes, they are being smeared, but I do feel like there's more of them and we are not so dominated by neoconservatism as we were, say, 25 years ago. There's a real battle going on. I just don't know who's going to win it.
- [17:33]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the question. Now, I think Trump has genuine sympathies for the non neocon faction. And I think what the non neocon faction has, even if it doesn't have the money, is it has the popularity with the base. Tucker Carlson is extremely popular and Trump cares what he thinks. And when Tucker makes a statement on X, you know, like, here are the problems that would come from a war with Iran. That's a memo to Trump. Like, there is no doubt in my mind because when Pat Buchanan was writing some of his last newspaper columns, those were intended as memos to Trump. Because this is somebody who can be persuaded. That's the thing. It's precisely because he can be persuaded that people try to persuade him. And what I keep saying on this show is that I feel like if it were Don Jr. I'd have fewer headaches because I would feel like I already know where he stands.
- [18:28]
B
Exactly.
- [18:28]
A
He's good 88% of the time, 90% of the time. But, you know, and I'll take my chances on the rest. But here it really is a matter of which person spoke to him last. It's true, there's a lot of Trump can do no wrong out there in that corner, in his corner. But surprisingly, there is a much, much larger group than you would have thought of, people willing to say he got this one wrong. Like the attack on Thomas Massie, which was absurd.
- [18:57]
B
Yes.
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A
Which probably had an ulterior motive other than simply this obscure budgetary dispute. I think we can speculate on what that might be. But that response by people like a Matt Walsh who has millions of followers and many others saying, no, look, Massey's the real deal and he's a great guy and we shouldn't be attacking him. Those are some of the same people who are warning about don't keep going to war. And unfortunately, we have to kind of cross our fingers and hope that those memos get reached and take root in his brain.
- [19:29]
B
Yeah. I mean, he made some great points about Tucker Carlson. He's. He's been so consistent. And it worked before. I mean, when the first Trump administration assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the IRG, the Iranian general, top Iranian general in 2020 there was some retaliation for that. Obviously it was very limited. I'm not denigrating the TBI or the traumatic brain injury that some of the soldiers on that outpost that was attacked had incurred, but it was limited in that there wasn't some like a multiple airstrikes over several days. It was very, it was sort of like, hey, you hit us, we're going to hit you back. And there was immediately a demand for Trump to hit them back hard. Like you, now you have an excuse now you could take out their nuclear facilities. Now you could do the bunker busting bombs. And Tucker Carlson came out there and he's like, don't do this. You made your point. You took out their top general. They did their limited response. You have a choice now. Do you want to go to war with Iran? I advise you don't. And he had Danny Davis on, he had Colonel McGregor on. I was even on the one and only time that I was on Tucker Carlson's on Fox News. And he set up one conservative restrainer after another to say, Mr. Trump, this is not a good idea. And he did. And Trump listened. And Tucker has been consistent, whatever you want to say about Tucker Carlson, he's been consistent on foreign policy restraints. And he has a very effective personal argument for the way he thinks on these issues. And it doesn't vary from country to country and conflict to conflict. You know, he's one of the few people that have come out and say, this is, it's not in our interest to keep fueling this war in Gaza with our bombs and our weapons. It's not. Tell me what the interest is. And that's very brave because he got killed for that. And advertisers supposedly were pulling out and conservative groups were like, you're not our man anymore. But like, he's like, hey, this is who I am. And I don't pick and choose which conflicts I think that we should be supporting or not and that we should just, yeah, this isn't an a la carte situation. And I'm afraid there are a lot of people in Washington where it is a la carte on both the left and the right, but they see as a good war or a bad war or a moral intervention and an amoral one. You know, it's, that's Washington. And I'm grateful for every voice out there that remains so because I feel like in these fraught times, people could turn on you on a dime because of partisan politics or personalities or, you know, they have a preferred country that they'd like to see intervened in or a government overthrown. And then a lot of fickle friends, but a fair weather friends in Washington again.
- [22:32]
A
This is another thing I said recently, but I think he. Well, I don't just think, I know he was pleased because he boasted about it when he heard that. I don't remember the exact details, but there was some area of the country where the demographics were such that Arab Americans were slightly going Trump. And he was very proud of that. And so there's a part of him, I think that if he could figure out some way to come up with some grand deal that would satisfy both them and obviously the Zionist side, he would do it. It's just that, you know, everyone has kind of wanted to do that. The problem is it's very hard to come up with a solution like that.
- [23:17]
B
I mean, okay, and that's such a sticky wicket there. But I feel like if he won in part by promoting an America first foreign policy, which he did, then he needs to stick to that. And I note that when he first announced his, we're talking about Trump here, he first announced his plan for Gaza, which would be to uproot 2 million Palestinians, move them somewhere, reconstruct the whole place to be a Riviera on the Mediterranean. And I remember there were plenty of people in the conservative and libertarian camp that were like, this is not what I voted for. This doesn't sound America first to me. What are you doing? You promised to do XYZ in this country to get us out of wars. No more these entangling alliances that are bringing us down the rabbit holes of violence and mayhem. What are you doing here? And I was heartened to see that because, and it might be just my own timelines on X, but there was a lot of pushback and I think Trump needs to take note of that. Like, what is America First? What isn't America First? And I have to say a lot of the things that we're doing overseas, particularly in the Middle east, doesn't seem too America first to me. It seems that we're doing the bidding of other countries and he's great at going out to Europe and telling them to take more share of responsibility for their own defense. You know, no free riding. We're not going to be uncle sucker. A lot of people agree with that. They're like, yeah, this is what we voted for. But he seems to have a different approach to Israel and we know why. We know that some of his biggest donors come from a very hard pro Israel perspective. But you know, he works for us, not them. And I do think a lot of his supporters are trying to remind him of that right now. They want Trump to succeed, but they also want to keep him to his commitments. And that was for America first policy. And it's not that hard. I mean, I say that because he's just sleeping. You know, if you have a line, okay, and it's very realist. This isn't America first, this is not in the best interest of our country, then maybe we shouldn't be doing it.
- [25:37]
A
Wouldn't it be nice if it were as obvious as that and people would just hear that and it would be instantly intuitive and you wouldn't need to elaborate further. Well, first of all, I, I did want to ask you and I'm sorry, I, I, I waited so long. What is, tell me about, about the Quincy Institute. Explain what we need to know about it.
- [25:55]
B
Okay, so Quincy was basically founded in 2019 to do all the things that we, that I've been promoting on this podcast for the last half hour, basically wanting to see a radical change in US Foreign policy starting in Washington. For too long, the people who have promoted and supported more realism and restraint have been sidelined and marginalized. And we saw this at its apex during the global war on terror. And so we wanted to establish a real action tank, like a group of people with experts both on subject matter, but also in communications and strategy that could go toe to toe with the Washington blob. Basically, we don't want to be doing the poking and shooting of arrows and whatnot from the outside. We want a seat at the table and we want to actually change US Foreign policy root and branch. The Responsible Statecraft magazine is our publication. For too long we've seen people again, reporters, analysts, you know, former government officials who want to write and they want to write about foreign policy and national security. B sidelined and marginalized by mainstream media and magazine elite gatekeepers who have kept that point of view and any alternate point of view out. So we created our own magazine to give all those voices a platform. And the best part of a Quincy is we're transparisant. You might say, well, what the heck is transparency? It means that we, we need to harness the energy from the both left and the right to get any of this done. And so the same for the magazine. You're not going to get political talking points, you're not going to get partisan pablum, you're not going to get spoon fed Democrat or Republican perspectives on any given foreign policy issue. We're just Trying to inform people about what's going on in current events and Washington politics with independent like lens, fresh analysis, but all through a realism and restraint framing. Which means no neocons, no warmongers, no war party, no blob, which has been very successful because in the last like four years that we've been up and running, you know, and this is from a startup, we finally hit like, you know, 1 million views a month. Well, to some that might not sound like really huge, but for a small magazine that had maybe 70,000 views when I started in 2020, that's a big deal. What that tells me is that people are hungry for that kind of analysis. They're tired of Washington bubble speak and the echo chamber, which means we got great people, we got conservatives, we got libertarians, we got lefties, you know. But the rule is you're speaking to the broader American audience. You're not speaking to just people you agree with or your particular ideological tribe. No tribes. The only tribe is you don't want any more war for this country and you don't want to send our men and women overseas for, you know, some political lark or adventure in particular for war profiteering. And that's a whole other conversation. The military industrial complex.
- [29:27]
A
If you're a homeschooling parent, chances are you're working too hard. You've probably heard me talk about the K through 12 video based, self taught Ron Paul curriculum. I devoted two years of my life to creating videos on history and government for that curriculum. So your students will learn directly from me on those subjects. And we have all the traditional subjects, but we also teach things that you would think they would teach in the traditional schools, but for some reason they don't like money management. Think people could stand to learn that? Or how to run a home business or how to be an effective public speaker. How to be a well rounded person. In other words, the middle school science courses the kids absolutely rave about, a lot of times they finish them early and say, can I go on to the seventh grade? Can I go on to the eighth grade? Well, I also have some bonuses for you if you join the Ron Paul curriculum through my link, I'll give you $160 worth of free bonuses and you won't get those bonuses anywhere else. You gotta get them through my link only. And my link is ronpaulhomeschool.com head over there, get more information and sign on up and get those bonuses. It's Ron Paul homeschool.com I'm very bad when somebody Asks me, what's your favorite book or your favorite movie? I can never narrow it down. I. I don't know the answer to those things, so you don't have to tell me. Absolutely the best in your opinion, but who would be a handful of people whose opinions on foreign policy you are always eager to seek and that the rest of us would be well advised to listen to also?
- [31:06]
B
Well, I mean, I'm just gonna, like, throw out people that I, you know, and current, like, the current issues of the day. I would say John Mearsheimer. I mean, I am just so grateful that we have somebody and he's on the board of Quincy, by the way. So this isn't just a plug for him because he's on the board, not the board, but he's one of our fellows. But just because he, you know, he's got a realist perspective that, again, is consistent. I'm a big sucker for, like, consistency. Like, I get it that everybody has. That people have their own opinions and perspectives, but I hate political waffling and putting the finger up to the wind. So I really appreciate people who are willing to have unpopular views once in a while because the political wins aren't with them, but they're out there sticking their neck out in their jaw. So I would definitely say Mearsheimer. I would say Jeffrey Sachs is out there saying a lot of great things. Again, people try to marginalize him. I'm sorry, but, like, he's making a lot of sense. A lot of this is common sense for people. And they. And they hear somebody like Jeffrey Sachs or Mearsharmer out there explaining, you know, the contours and the context of foreign policy and why we don't need to be in this war. We shouldn't be feeling that war. And they say, well, that makes a lot of sense to me. So why are these other, you know, nattering nabob saying otherwise and making me feel like I'm unpatriotic or anti Semitic for not agreeing. You know, one of our founders, Andy Basovich, another guy who's just been. Has been writing for a very long time on these issues. He was one of the few out there calling alarms on the surge in Iraq and Afghanistan 20 years ago. And, I mean, I just, I became an acolyte of his because I'm like, here's a guy who is a Vietnam veteran, a professor, Boston University, and he's out there saying, david Petraeus, you're not telling people the truth. David Petraeus, you're what's wrong with the US war policy today and the politics in Washington, I said, oh, my goodness. Everybody else was just going, oh, David, oh, David o' Connor and Serge and co Surge. And it's people like that who I feel like I am waiting to see what they're going to say next because they've proven not only right, but they've had such integrity. That's what means most to me, is when somebody of integrity is willing to put their reputation on the line for their point of view.
- [33:39]
A
I'd like to say what would you most want to see happen if you had your ideal candidate as president in terms of foreign policy? But let's be more modest than that. What do you think is the best we could realistically expect from Trump based on things he's said or positions he's taken in the past? Like, what would you at least feel like you were at least satisfied with? You didn't get everything, but you got something?
- [34:07]
B
Well, I do think that he will pursue the end of the Ukraine war. I don't know how it's going to happen. I don't know how quickly it's going to happen. I don't. You know, Putin himself is not utterly predictable. So I do think that he is focused and committed to ending that war. I want to see it done in a way that obviously doesn't, you know, is that deferential, so deferential to Russia that Ukraine is left super vulnerable and open to invasion again? I feel like we have some obligation to bring both sides to the table and create a situation where Ukraine is no longer destroyed, because right now it's on a bad trajectory, that Russia feels like it can be brought into some sort of European security architecture so that it doesn't have to lash out, that it feels that it's not backed into a corner any longer. I feel like if Trump can pursue that, which is going to take a lot of commitment, a lot of diplomacy, a lot of time and energy, that would be very hopeful. I think that that's been a festering wound, that relationship with Russia for too long. And we saw what happened on Israel and Gaza. I would love to see him take a step back and say, hmm, maybe aligning myself with Benjamin Netanyahu, who seems to be on a self destructive course and is really just in this war at this point to save his own hide, maybe I need to like, extricate from that toxic relationship and focus on what's best for my country. And maybe that means not giving Israel everything it wants so that it could do all the things that it apparently does want, like, annexing the west bank and getting rid of all the Palestinians in Gaza. Like, if at the very least, Trump cuts off the spigots in some way. It doesn't even have to be aid, which I wish, but it could be just, like, not the support for Israel to do whatever it wants. That would be good. But I don't know how hopeful I am at this point. I think the jury is out on how committed he is to Israel and whether or not at some point he might realize that what's happening is not good for us and that he has to shift. Course.
- [36:33]
A
Yeah. Yeah. What's been your assessment of Marco Rubio so far?
- [36:38]
B
I've never been a big fan of Marco Rubio.
- [36:40]
A
Who has? Like, no one.
- [36:42]
B
Yeah. When he started out, he was in the capture of the neoconservatives, so he became a creature of their foreign policy, and he mouthed their foreign policy. And he was a reliable vote on all of their measures and for supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and continuing for 20 years. And he never really wavered from that. And then when Trumpism became all the rage in 2016 and beyond, you started to see him shift and start mouthing all of the rhetoric of the new Right and populism and, you know, national conservatism. And I. It never really came off as super authentic to me. But at the same time, that means that he seems to be less interested in military primacy and more overseas. So maybe that's a good thing. So, again, he was nominated. I wasn't absolutely thrilled he was confirmed. He's out there. He seems to be a reliable mouthpiece for whatever Trump is doing at any given moment. So. But people appears to me that people feel comfortable with Marco Rubio because he's a known quantity. He was a senator for so long, he has a sort of, like, establishment credibility. So he doesn't come off as crazy or unpredictable as some of these other picks like a Cash Patel or Pam Bondi. Where people, like, where did they come from? They don't seem very qualified. You know, Kristi Noem, like, he seems, like, the most stable in terms of, like, his presentation. And so I don't know, Tom. I think he's just reflecting what Trump wants him to be. And as an observer of Washington foreign policy, I'm not sure I'm in entire agreement with what Trump is doing right now. So I guess I'm not in entire agreement with what Rubio is doing right now because of that. Like, I'm a skeptic. I'm a Skeptic, but I'm not part of the resistance either.
- [38:51]
A
Yeah, no, understood. Yeah. It's interesting, I sometimes am wondering, is he making foreign policy more with J.D. vance than he is with his Secretary of state? Kind of like how Nixon and Kissinger, like, nobody even remembers the Secretary of State under Richard Nixon.
- [39:07]
B
So, yeah, it is interesting. I see Steve Witkoff being given more responsibility and more airtime and profile than any of these other guys. And I'm wondering, okay, what it is, what is it about Steve Wyckoff? I couldn't have picked Steve Wyckoff out of a lineup, you know, before, say, last month. And now it seems like he's the guy that's, you know, he's the envoy, he's the Russia envoy. Keith Kellogg sort of got demoted. He's more of the, he's on the Ukraine side. But I don't feel like he's really the guy that Trump wants to be, you know, enabling some of these meetings and conversations between Russia and us. I mean, he seems at the same time he's shuttling back to Qatar to, to engage in ceasefire talks with Israel and Hamas. So I'm like, who is Steve Witkoff? I mean, all I can think of is that he has the trust and confidence of Donald Trump. And that's not to say that Rubio doesn't have that same trust or Vance or any of these other guys. It's just I feel like Trump is like you say, he, even if it's unorthodox, he is. He's going to go. He's going to be working most closely with people he feels that are loyal to him. I don't know at this point if Steve Witkoff is an empty suit and he just had like a good deal when he brought about that, that Gaza cease fire right after or right before inauguration. But hey, maybe he's the real deal. But you're right. I don't know if you're going to have your. The, the traditional relationships here that Rubio would be the represent. Representation of the President's foreign policy. I think it's going to be diffused and somewhat non traditional.
- [40:56]
A
Now, given that the nature of what her position is, what are your hopes for what a successful tenure of Tulsi Gabbard might end up looking like?
- [41:07]
B
I'm not sure. Like, I think what people had hoped for is that she would really shake things up in the intelligence community. And we know what was wrong with the intelligence community. It became insular and highly politicized and used in many ways and cases as A weapon, a political weapon, whether it be against Trump during the 2020 election, whether it's been to get us into wars. So I feel like the baseline hope would that she would be somebody from the outside who would come in, would be able to diagnose what the problems have been with the intelligence community and start literally breaking it apart and putting better people and practices in place so that it wouldn't be so insular that the intelligence community could operate, and not in secrecy, but as a way to literally make our strategies for U.S. foreign policy and national security better and stronger and more reflective reality. I don't, I. Honestly, Tom, I don't know if that's possible because of the deep state. I don't know what she's contending with inside, but those various intelligence agencies are pretty fully entrenched. They are highly politicized, they are highly socialized in regards to that. They are territorial. And it's somewhat like the military industrial complex. You can't just go in there and fix it. And a day or even a term. And so I think she's got a lot to contend with, but then she's got all this outside pressure to also be reflecting a very mercurial Trump policy. You know, I heard her being quoted about, you know, how she foresees the call between Trump and Putin, and I'm wondering, well, you know, she's just going to be another spokesperson for, for the White House. Are they going to just let her kind of dig in and do what she's got to do? Plus, all this stuff with Doge, you know, I don't know. I honestly wish the best for her because I think she is one of the most authentic people that I have met in Washington in my time here. And so I only want the best for her. And I hope she's in the right role to do what she's got to do.
- [43:41]
A
Yeah, me too. And even if the US could be treated to briefings relating to intelligence matters that didn't sound like they were written for an 11 year old. No, my 11 year old is actually here in the room with me. I apologize. She would understand this, no problem. But you know what I mean? Like, it just. They would treat us like adults and not speak to us in slogans and propaganda, even that would be an improvement. Even just the messaging would be an improvement. If we could hear something other than the predictable BS that we hear 24 hours a day, that would be something, because that would set our expectations such that, you know, maybe next time we might expect more truth telling. From official channels. I mean, again, not being treated like you're in third grade.
- [44:28]
B
Yeah. This is the problem with Washington, I feel, and everybody, you know, there are so many people who hate what they're watching on the news today. They hate Doge, they hope, they hate the whole idea of the disruption that's going on in terms of the agency to agency firings and aid being slashed and programs being shut down. But I do think Americans should just like take a step back and look and say, you know, I had an understanding of how Washington operates. That was unrealistic. What he is Trump is at least exposing is how massive this bureaucracy is, how insular it is, how territorial it is that for many of these agencies, they no longer exist to do the original missions, which was XYZ and helping the American people do this, that or the other thing, it's just staying alive. Meaning that they need to keep those budgets falling, they need to keep there that justify their roles. They have to keep their head down and not rock the boat because if they do, they won't get those budgets, their program won't be extended another year. So it's all about survival. And when you have that writ large over many, many, many, many bureaus and agencies and programs, what you have is like this and what they call it, it's a massive self licking ice cream cone. Money goes in, it flows around, it benefits certain people. And who gets lost? The American taxpayer. And I think what he's been doing is just exposing Washington for what it is. Now. You might not like his tactics. You might not be doing it as methodically as people would have hoped. The downside is that he only has a certain amount of time to do this and to fix something like the intelligence community and the military industrial complex. It just, the rock goes so deep and it's going to take a long time and you have some severely entrenched interests here because it really is about money and power and influence. And it's not going to be easy to rip that root and branch. You might get rid of people, but the real problem is going to be very difficult to upend. So I would just say stay tuned on all that.
- [46:55]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, you just, you have everything in the world against you and an entrenched problem that you have to uproot with many, many people who have worm their way into this thing and who are hoping to bring about your failure, you know, with everything they've got. So it is, I don't envy her or anybody else who might even remotely be trying to do the right thing in this situation. What's your website?
- [47:19]
B
So it's responsible statecraft.org all one word and I would love for your readers and listeners to go there and check it out because there is something for everybody.
- [47:32]
A
Very nice. I'll put the link tom woods.com 2622 which is our show notes page for today, also in the video description. So do check that out and do follow Kelly, by the way. You can find her in all the usual places. I'll have link links again on that page and beneath this video because she deserves to be followed. You will not say woods steered me wrong at all. So.
- [47:58]
B
Well, I appreciate that. I'm a huge fan, have always been a huge fan.
- [48:02]
A
Thank you Al.
- [48:03]
B
I love your audience. We're all in this together. And yeah, so I when I do say come to Responsible Statecraft, I mean it is like I said, we're trying to harness the energy from all over the spectrum. Which means that I'm hoping what we offer on the website are reviews and analysis of response of foreign policy rather that is going to animate different segments. And we have a big libertarian audience. And I think that's just because, hey, none of us are interested in centralized power and how it's corrupted the military and our foreign policy. And I think you can see that across the array of the intractable problems we have today in the world.
- [48:51]
A
Yeah, no doubt. Thanks so much, Kelly. Appreciate your time.
- [48:55]
B
Thank you.
- [48:56]
A
And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Make yourself and those you love less vulnerable to the regime, both mentally and physically. Get more forbidden information and tell tomsfree books.com and be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you listen. See you next time. Like the sound of the Tom Woods Show. My audio production is provided by Podsworth Media. Check them out@podsworth.com Most drivers overpay for
- [49:31]
B
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