Pod Save the World - Chief of Staff Stuff with Denis McDonough

Episode Date: April 19, 2017

Tommy talks with former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about the Bin Laden operation, Iraq, Syria and Russian hacking of our election.

All right, welcome back to POTSave the World. Today on the line, we have White House Chief of Staff, Dennis McDonough, former White House Chief of Staff. He was also the Deputy National Security Advisor in the Obama administration. He is the pride of Stillwater, Minnesota, who got prepared for politics by being one of 11 kids. But most importantly, Dennis is Kari's husband and Teddy, Liam and Addy's dad. Dennis, it is a joy to have you on the show, man. Thank you for doing this today. Happy to do it, Tommy. And you just gave me a big smile on my face talking about Kari and the kids, I'll think. Well, I mean, look, man, we all know what your better half is here. So I get to do a trigger warning to POTA of the World fans because there's some people I interview who are colleagues, but you were a mentor to me and so many other people who worked with you and for you at the NSC. So if it's not a little over the top, you know, you guys know why you've been forewarned. But so I wanted to start with the bin Laden operation because, you know, as much of it has been written about this, I don't know that America will ever stop being fascinated by the story. It was a cathartic moment for so many people who lived through 9-11. And it was an extraordinary example of a bunch of people in the intelligence community and the military and the White House working together.

You know, party lines didn't matter. Politics didn't matter. It was just, you know, getting an important mission done. And so you were one of the few people at the White House who worked on this operation, who was briefed on it, who was read in and helped develop and advise the president along the way. What was it like for you when you first heard about this intelligence for this first time? what did you guys do after? Did you guys run into John Brennan or Tom Donald's office and, like, lose your minds? Well, I would have been when I first learned about it, I would have been sitting with John.

And, you know, you know he's a consummate professional one. And I do recall being quite enthusiastic about it, but also being tempered by Brennan and many of our colleagues from the IC who, while they thought they had very good stuff are not people who are prone to excitement. They're very steady, straightforward, cool customers. So we just kept working it for a while before we rang any bells or anything. You know, sometimes I've said Tommy that I feel a little bit like Forrest Gump on that, on that thing. I basically happen to be in the right place at the right time, guys like John Brennan and then a bunch of people, you know, Bill McCraven, I guess, has been talked about, but a bunch of these people will forever be known only to their colleagues.

But these, you know, I just happen to be, you know, the right place of the right time to get a chance of work with these guys who are just unbelievably capable. And so there's a big, lucky opportunity for me, but it didn't have anything to do with luck with the hard work that those guys put into it, just painstakingly going through this. The other thing I remember about is John talking about how basically this is something he had been working on. really since, you know, early in his career, the mid-90s. So it's a culmination of a lot of hard work for a guy like him and a lot of people throughout the U.S. government who were similarly dedicated.

I don't mean to sound overly sappy here, but it is truly an honor to work with those people who are so dedicated, who get no credit. They're like the offensive line of the national security operation. They get beaten down when they miss a block, but no one really gets to sing their praises. Half of them are anonymous or covert, working behind them. the scenes, but they're extraordinary people. These are some of the most are amazing people, too. I mean, the skill that they have and just take remuneration for a second, you know, the pay

that they've given up to have a life and career in government with some of the skills that they bring to the table is really remarkable. So I'll join you. If this is being sappy, then I'll join you. Yeah, and work very far away from their families. So when you guys briefed President Obama on this intelligence, what was his take on the news. Well, he similarly is not one prone to over-excitement, but this was something that he, you know, Tom Donald has talked about this. This is something that the president made very clear

to Director Panetta and others from the first days of the administration. That was a major priority for him, staying on top of it. So I think his reaction was one of great pride in the work of the people who put this together. But the other reaction he had was making sure that we were tight and that we basically developed this thing in a way that didn't add any additional risk to the people or to the information. And so kind of a traditional Obama reaction, Tommy, you know what I mean? He said, okay, this looks good. So let's get on it and don't screw it up. Yeah, work it. Go get to work. So along those lines, I remember you guys took incredible pains to prevent anyone else outside a very small circle from learning about this news.

I remember they actually turned off. People would be surprised to learn that there are cameras in the White House situation room so you can see when meetings start and end and break up and sort of who's in there. But those were turned off during some of your deliberations. Were you guys meeting on this regularly? Or did you have to go to regular business and hurry up and wait and focus on other stuff? Yeah, we were meeting pretty regularly on it, but they did go to great lengths. We did go to great lengths to make sure that we handled it appropriately.

I remember the night that it all happened. I called Kari when it was about to get announced on the news, and I said, you should watch the news at 1030. And she said, well, why? And I said, well, maybe it would give you a sense of why I've been such a jerk for the last, you know, seven months. And then, of course, it was late. It didn't happen at 1030. It didn't have until like 11.

So she thought I screwed everything up because nothing was on TV. She didn't know what to expect, but all she thought was perhaps I screwed it up. Turned out okay. When did the team start creating options for how to capture Kilben-Ludden? How long was that process? Geez, the dates run together, Tommy, but there are kind of parallel efforts

to develop the understanding of where we thought he was and then to develop some options. And so it's hard to remember, frankly, if that's weeks or months or days or what. but I do know that these guys went to work on it and they came back with a lot of really well-developed options that were, you know, that as you referred to a minute ago were by necessity to develop in very tight quarters and with very necessarily limited access to these things.

So it was a remarkable bit of business, but I think you also remember that our guys have been doing stuff like this now, Tommy since, you know, 9-11. Right. And these are unbelievably capable, committed, patriotic guys, men and women. And so what they're drawing on was not only this particularly good and important intelligence, but they're drawing on an amount of experience that just boggles the mind when you think about how much our guys have done and how many bad guys they've taken off the field.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you remember this, but I think a couple days before the operation, and Ben was working on some big speech that I don't think ever got delivered. And so he was off in the EEOB in the executive office building somewhere, not in his regular office. And you kept dropping by the lower press office trying to find him. And I remember saying to you kind of getting annoyed, like, Dennis, you know,

if there's something you need to work on with national security comms, like, I can help you out if you want to read me in. You're like, I remember you kind of looked at me and laughed. And you're like, I would love to read you in on this. But I got to find Ben first, and then, you know, we'll talk later or something like that. I don't remember that. I do remember being quite even more my anxious and, shall we say, nervous self in those days. Yeah.

So did you go to the White House Correspondence Dinner that night before the operation? And then did you have to go in that? Like, did you just go in the next day and sort of watch this all unfold? I didn't go to the Correspondence Dinner. I went to Mike Leiter's wedding. Oh, that's right. And it was terrific. And, you know, Carrey tells funny stories about that.

But first of all, I was drinking club soda like you read about it. And she's like, what is happening here? I said, oh, you know, I just really like club soda. Yeah, me too. So anyway, and then if memory serves time, I don't think I went until the next day. Got it. But it was a beautiful night the night before for Mike's wedding. And, you know, talk about a good man and somebody who did a lot in the name of the CT fight.

And in the name of one of the other things that you and I will talk. about, which is CVE over the years. I mean, this is just a terrific guy. Same thing. I wouldn't know if he's Republican or Democrat. I never asked him. And I don't really care. But he, just a remarkable guy. Yeah. He had the NCTC former, was he a Navy fighter pilot? I think he was in the Navy. I don't know if he's a fighter pilot. Got it. And then he was a U.S. attorney. And then President Bush appointed him as the director of the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center, after John Brennan,

which when it was initially stood up, it was called the T-TIC, the terrorist threat information center. So, guys giving a lot to the country. Yeah. And then a great example of an individual who served under Republican and Democratic administrations. And again, like you said, no idea what his politics are. But I'm glad his wedding was fun. So the Bin Laden operation was a huge blow to al-Qaeda and set them back. We got incredible intelligence.

but I think attention in government and I think in the public consciousness quickly shifted to ISIS. And President Obama and the national security team were ramping up efforts to go after ISIS in Syria and Iraq long before the election and ended up, you know, sort of handing that effort off to the Trump administration. So I'm wondering from where you sit now, do you have a sense of how that effort is going or an assessment of progress that's being made or not made? Yeah, it's a fair question, Tommy. I want to go back on one story real quick about lighter. which I think just speaks to this, the importance of transitions and the difficulty of transitions. And I remember that Josh Bolton said to Rahm, Emmanuel and to John Podesta, Rom being the incoming chief and John being the head of the transition in 2008.

He said, look, if you keep one person in the government, you should keep Mike lighter. Wow. And, you know, that wasn't lost on Rom and John. And you think about what, like you just said, the public consciousness was much more focused on al-Qaeda in those days. And we were very focused on that as we went through that transition period. And so it turned out to be a very good piece of advice from Josh, the first of many, by the way. But I think it does speak to this question that you talk about both. The professionalism of the people will operate in this space, but also then making sure that you don't leave a seam

in that transition period. You know, on the counter-isol fight, you know, there was a good bit of reporting this week because of the trip that Jared Kushner took, I thought the reporting was useful because it gave us everybody a look into it again after, you know, it's obviously throughout the papers every day, but it doesn't push to the front page as much as it used to. And so obviously the progress in Mosul looks very solid, continuing to make. good progress if I understand the paper, the press reporting on this, pretty good progress in the effort on Raqa in eastern Syria. So those being the kind of the bookends of what they

call the caliphate for ISIS, I think that's making very good progress. We've not only the, those being kind of the eastern end in Mosul and then Raqa, the western end of what ISIS considers it's caliphate or its geographic state. We've made a lot of good progress in the middle over the course of the last 18 months or so, connectivity between those two places. And now it's just a question of whether we can close out their presence in those two cities. Seems to be progressing pretty good, Tommy. Then the big question is going to be what is the political strategy coming in after that?

How do we make sure that locals there, which are in the main, These areas are dominated by Sunni. That Sunni locals there feel sufficiently part of the national polity, the national state, for example, in Iraq, that they don't become subjected to or don't become beholden to Sunni extremists who, you know, sing some siren song about some future Sunni state rather than a multi-ethnic state based throughout Iraq with a capital in Baghdad. and that is going to require a lot of diplomatic heavy lifting. That's complicated, obviously, by the situation in Damascus and ongoing tension throughout the region. But our guys have been planning on this for a long time. One guy who did stay over the course of his second transition

is a fellow by the name of Brett McGirk. I know all your listeners know him well. I know you know him well, Tommy. This guy's unbelievable talent. And he's been working very hard at keeping that cold. coalition together and then working very hard at what the political strategy looks like once Mosul and Raqa are cleared so that, as I say, Sunnis see a future in that region that has them part of a multi-ethnic state in Iraq and a multi-ethnic state in Syria.

Yeah. You know, I thought of you when I started reading those reports about Jared Kushner getting out into the field, you know, I think it's rightly mocked. The size of his portfolio is absurd. His lack of experience does not prepare him for this. job. That said, you were a guy who got out in the field a lot and took a bunch of trips to Afghanistan and Iraq and places. And, you know, you would do it. Like, I would see you with a packed bag on a Friday night and you would show back up Tuesday morning and we were like,

where the hell was Dennis? Oh, he was in Iraq again. So I do think there's some value to that and I respect that. But you're right. I mean, I agree with that. I agree with that. I mean, I think, I think that it pushed these questions back. That is to say, Mosul, the anti-ISO coalition, you know, the good work of Joe Dunford and all of our guys, I pushed it back to the front page of the paper. I think that's good for the national interest. And then the fact that you get out of that building and go see what's happening around the country, not because you're trying to micromanage around the world,

but because you want to try to get a sense of what the impact is of the decisions that you make inside that building is very powerful. And I know that's why President Obama wanted to get out as much as he did, Tommy. You know that as well as anybody, because he wanted to see what the impact was of the decisions he is making. And then, very importantly, if not most importantly, make sure that the people that are carrying out the policies that he's put in place

and carrying them out at great risk to themselves and, as you said earlier, at huge distances from their families, have what they need to get the job done. So I think it was really a good thing that he got out there. There's no doubt about that. Me too. More nerdy foreign policy coming up on Podson. save the world. So you mentioned this earlier with respect to Mike Leiter, but you spent a lot of time

at the White House starting early on administration working on efforts to combat violent extremism back in the U.S. I remember you would do a lot of trips locally. You'd go to Minnesota and meet with local officials and community and religious leaders. I'm wondering what takeaways you had from those that work, what strategies work, what worries you about this growing trend of people who are being radicalized online and at home without ever going to Syria, just because of ISIS's propaganda, you know, and without sort of the traditional hallmarks of someone who might be easily identified as radicalized. Yeah, I mean, this is the, I think this is a big challenge for us. And the fact is that the ability to move the propaganda and the information and this remarkable

bits of information and, you know, video footage and everything that, you know, extremists are using to prey on people will be susceptible to this is not the next big challenge, it's the big challenge for us. Because, you know, the same technology that allows you and me to talk just like this all the way across this country allows the bad guys to get right into, you know, smartphones and the laptops of susceptible people here. So look, I think what we think works is what's worked in this country's forever, which is when you come here, you become Americans. This is true for me as a, you know, the grandson of four immigrants as it is for anybody else. And one of the things we know that doesn't work is if we somehow try to break that tradition.

Because when you break that tradition, you end up with individuals isolated, isolated, feeling cut out, and then being susceptible to these bad guys. That's one. Two is we should be doing a better job, frankly, than we're doing. of keeping access to guns out of the hands of people who are demonstrating tendency to become extremists. You know, this is, you know, the Democrats used to say up on Capitol Hill, no fly, no buy. If you're on the no fly list, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. It strikes me as highly commonsensical.

Yeah, me too. But perhaps overly so. And then just making sure that people know families, community leaders, know what to look. for. I'm really proud of the work in Minneapolis for, you know, a variety of reasons, one of the biggest populations of Somali refugees is in Minneapolis. But there's also big Somali community in San Diego and big Somali community in Columbus. So one of the things that Mike Leiter and I did is we got together with the mayors of those three towns in 2010 and talked through with them what kinds of things they were experiencing as they tried to make sure that Somali,

immigrants were being incorporated into communities, into their communities, into their schools, and so forth, it's that kind of real-life experience that a mayor on the ground or the, you know, the sheriff in a particular county or a police chief in a particular city brings to bear that can really help federal policymakers because we're several layers removed from the kinds of interactions that are going to be able to identify people who may be at risk of being radicalized. And what we ought to be doing is making sure that we're learning lessons from those local experts and then supporting them to make sure that they're not confronted with this again. Yeah, I mean, that's why I want people understand when national security experts like you or Mike Leiter or others,

you know, when they're expressed concern about the Muslim band trumpet in place, it's in part because you're trying to engage with these communities and work with them and make people feel assimilated and welcomed so that we can, you know, prevent extremism or find it and deal with it before, you know, manifests itself in some sort of act that leads to a loss of life. I mean, there's a very common sense piece of thinking behind this process. Totally. Very common sense, Tommy, but also we have about 228, 229 years of experience on.

No, that's not right. More than 229 years of experience. Doing it because this is what happens in America, right? This is the melting pot. And it allows, you know, as I said, people like you and me who, come here by virtue of grandparents who emigrated this country too to get a shot. Yeah. And look, it's the secret recipe of America's success, the hunger and the opportunity and the clear rules of the game and rule of law.

It's unique like no other place in the world than any other time. Yeah. You mentioned earlier the very complicated sectarian political challenges we face in Iraq with sort of balancing power between Sunni, and Shiites and others and sort of creating a representative government. I actually reached out to you for this interview after reading a story about a coalition strike in Mosul, Iraq that killed an estimated 200 civilians. And you and I don't have all the details of what happened there, but, you know, it raised the issue of civilian casualties and the kinds of safeguards Obama put in place to prevent

those civilian casualties and why. And there are these critics out there who say Obama unduly constrained our military in our intelligence community and hurt the effort to defeat ISIS. because we couldn't take the gloves off and punch harder. But I'm also hearing you talk about the need to win hearts and minds and solve this political situation. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and how you guys viewed that issue when you were making these decisions in government. Yeah, it's really remarkable. But to be honest, Tommy, the best experience and advice we ever got was from our military leaders.

And the rules of engagement that they insisted on in their own operations, you'll recall that early in his tenure in Afghanistan. Stan, Stan McChrystal tried to institute a regime on rules of engagement that ended up being hotly debated and contested at the time, but which I think over the course of time people recognize was really important to winning hearts and minds. That's right. One of the most proficient terrorist hunters in the history of the world put in strict rules of engagement. Yeah, so it goes to show that, you know, one of the great things about working in the

White House is you have the ability to learn from people. have been doing any number of things, whatever the policy is, whatever the outcome is, people have been doing this for a long time and there's a lot of experience in the government and you've got to draw on it. But the second thing I think I'd say on this, Tommy, is we have a lot of force multipliers. You know, our training is force multiplier, our ethical practices, how we instituted changes, for example, in interrogation and detention techniques, those are force multipliers. Yep.

But our precision is a huge force multiplier. That is to say when we can demonstrate the precision that we are hitting only what we intend to hit and that what we intend to hit is somebody that we know not only means harm to Americans and to American interests, but in a lot of cases, ISIL means harm to Iraqis and to other Muslims, including Sunni, not just Shia. Right. And so that precision sends a very clear signal to potential fence sitters. That is to say, people who are not sure if they should show their cards and actually stand up against ISIL

because they're worried that somehow maybe ISIL wins at the end of the day. We show very clear signal to fence sitters and to the rest of the population that we made business against those who would threaten us or who would threaten them. But we also mean business in defense of those who share. are the same interests as we do and the same values. And this goes to a big set of policy improvements that President Obama put in place as it relates to the use of a variety of forms of force at the end of the first term and which remained in place throughout the course of the second term.

And this goes to questions around the use of force against CT targets, both in areas of active hostility and otherwise. And for example, he required, and he gave a big speech about this down at the War College here in Washington, D.C., where he talked about requiring for any project to go forward for us to meet a standard that said there's near certainty of zero civilian casualties. So think of that standard. You have to go, if you're going to go in and make a proposal for an operation, you have to have near certainty, it's a very high standard, of zero, not few, but zero civilian casualties.

So that makes you run through a very aggressive planning operation, and that increases precision. And as I say, the more we increase precision, the greater impact we have in multiplying the impact of that force and sending a very clear signal to our opponents and a very clear signal to those who would stand with as our allies. You're listening to Pod Save the World. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. Okay.

Shifting gears a little bit. We're all reading about this Russian hacking stuff and wondering what the hell is going on. I know you can't get into great detail here. And I imagine a ton has been learned since you left the White House. But I was just wondering, what was it like for you guys at the end of the administration when you slowly started learning about Russian interference into the election? And what your response is to people who say? you know, that Obama should have spoken out and said more to sound the alarm before the election and before it was too late.

Yeah, so I think the most clearest indication of the level of concern that we had was the review that the president ordered early this year to ensure that, you know, we got into one place, everything we knew about what we thought they were doing. So that obviously was completed in the middle of January. and we thought it was, or I guess the IC thought it was so important, that they even produced an unclassified version of that report and made that available to the public to ensure that American people, by the way, whose institutions are at risk because of this activity, understand the nature of the threat. So I think that's the kind of the culmination of our concern

is when the president asked for that document to say, let's make sure that the next, team and here's why he asked for it he said let's make sure the next team here in this building in the white house in the executive agencies but also up on capitol hill has the our best understanding so that they can take the next step now which says okay here's what happened here's what we know about it we know also that it's going to continue so what are the steps that we have to take to put in place defenses so that we're not going to experience this again and so you know the There's a lot of kind of back and forth now on who's responsible for what and when, and I'll get to your question on that in the second, Tommy.

But we've never really spent a lot of time on those kinds of questions, right? My guess is all that stuff gets sorted out by the historians over the course of years and decades. Our job is to make sure that we arm the next set of policymakers with the best possible information so that they can make decisions about how to protect this country and its institutions because that's the name of the game. And I hope that, you know, the contra tops here in Washington can get beyond this kind of finger pointing and get back to what we do know, which is that the Russians try to interfere in our election. And there's things we can learn about how they did that and why they did that to ensure that we're better protected next time around. Well, yeah, I just think because I remember talking to Jake Sullivan about this, who, you know, was a colleague and friend of ours who worked in the Clinton White House and worked as Joe Biden's National Security Advisor and then went over the Clinton.

A great Minnesota. And he said... Twins are 2 and 0, by the way. And he said he felt like he was wearing a tinfoil hat for months. And I can't imagine being you guys in this information slowly coming in, being like, what the fuck? I mean, how is this bad spy movie becoming real? But every day, it's like we learn another piece of the puzzle here. Yeah, it is...

Look, I think it's important to just make sure that we're focused on the facts as we have them and try to avoid turning this into some kind of political football, which is standard out here, sadly. Right. And get back to some muscle memory that says, okay, we can learn lessons from this. We can apply those lessons to ensure that it doesn't happen again. That's what's in the national interest. By the way, that's what taxpayers pay us to do. So let's get to work on it.

Then the question tell me really about, you know, why didn't we to some who have criticized us for not doing more earlier? You know, I think it's really important to focus on that October 7th statement from Jim Clapper and Jay Johnson, the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which was a pretty strong statement from them at the time. Yeah, it was. And the other thing that we thought was important is that we really wanted to make sure that there was bipartisan understanding of the nature of the threats. And so we went out of our way to be bipartisan and making sure people understood exactly what was happening. And my guess is those things will be debated for some time.

And you can imagine that we've all, I know I have sat and thought and debated my own mind, whether there's something different I could have done or said. But I think we worked this really hard and I think we thought about it really hard. And in retrospect, I can't think of anything else to do that. I didn't do. Yeah, I mean, not only was it a strong statement in its own right, but I know all too well how hard it is to get an unclassified statement vetted by every component of the intelligence community and then released to the public. That is not an easy process. And the fact that you guys were able to do that to begin with, I think, says a lot about the underlying intelligence and the

work that went into it. The last thing I wanted to ask you about, which is probably the toughest, which is, you know, the humanitarian situation in Syria remains incredibly dire. You have Assad using barrel bombs, targeting hospitals. There was even a chemical weapon strike recently. President Trump's response was to point the finger at Obama and say it's his fault for not enforcing the red line on chemical weapons. So I don't want to get into the politics of this because I think this issue is far more important than politics. But I did want to maybe revisit that period of time because you were one of the people in the White House that President Obama confided in during that process. And the thinking about whether or not to take airstrikes to hit President Assad's chemical weapons, it's one of the

You could take us back, you know, maybe to that walk you took during the White House grounds and how people understand the collective thinking of the government and the president as you guys work through the options on managing this enormous challenge in Syria. Yeah, so you're right that it's hard, Tommy, and it's really painful to see these pictures in the newspaper. And, well, painful. I mean, obviously it's sad. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. And, you know, so I haven't really talked about the walk and, you know, what I've said is the president gets first shot at that. And if he decides not to tell it, then my guess is I won't either. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or maybe I will. I don't know. But look, what I've said on this, Tommy, is the question for us was always force slash credible threat of force to what end? What's the policy outcome of that particular policy? And in that regard, I think events of this week and the depravity of the Assad regime in using these weapons against kids, men and women, innocent people, the wisdom of the steps the president took becomes clear. Because recall what the question was at the time was, how do we get Assad to stop using chemical weapons, which until then he had not acknowledged that he had, did not declare that he had, and we assessed that he had a lot of it. And so because of the credible threat of the use of force, Assad not only acknowledged and declared what he had, but then he gave up vast sums of it, right? I guess we believe for some time that he didn't necessarily give it all up and the depravity that he demonstrated just earlier this week

which according to press reports that's all I'm privy to points up the fact that had he had as large a stockpile as he eventually turned over the kinds of experiences that we are witnessing this week would have been manifold more Right. And so that's point one. Point two is, then the question becomes, what about extracting a cost from him for the use of these at the time? Well, the first policy goal was to get him to acknowledge that he had them and to get rid of them. Well, we got that.

Then the question becomes, well, extract a cost and when? Do you do it before he turns them over? If that's the case, then those things dissipate, and they're either in his hands or in the hands of even worse. actors, some of the terrorist organizations on the ground, or risking even more significant escalation from us as a result of the steps that we took. And so I've racked my brains, and I know the president has said this publicly many times, President Obama said this publicly many times, that, you know, we kept going back at this to find out if there were better options.

We assessed that there were not better options than the ones that we exercised. and maybe the next team comes up with better ones. But I do believe that this week points up the importance of having gotten rid of the vast sums of chemical weapons that he had because what we know is that his depravity seems to know no bounds. Yeah, I mean, his being Assad's. Yeah, I can't under, like, this may be a dumb question, but I don't understand why he would even use chemical weapons because he's not gaining a military advantage here. He's killing a hundred or so civilians, women, children.

But he is focusing the attention of the world on the fact that he is such a depraved piece of shit, that he would gas families and kids. I just can't get myself to understand the calculus here. Do you guys have any sense of what he's thinking? No, I mean, I'm not privy to any particular sense of what he's thinking. But, look, I mean, Idlib is the last holdout. of, or one of the last holdouts of the opposition. He

employed these scorched earth tactics in Aleppo to force the opposition out of Aleppo. And he's doing the same thing now. I think, you know, we're talking here today on April 6th, I think it is, Tommy, and there's a very good column

from Tom Friedman in the New York Times today that points up the cynicism and depravity of the Assad strategy here, which is basically what he wants to do is to either force the Sunni into submission or to convince the rest of the world that all Sunni could not be separated from ISIL. That is to say, maybe all Sunni are ISIL, leaving him and his Shia backers in Iran, for example, in Hezbollah,

in a position where, you know, the rest of the world says, well, you know, we've got to take on ISIL, which is a little bit of the danger of the statements that we heard from Secretary Tillerson and UN Ambassador Haley last week, where we seem to leave the impression that because we could make common cause against ISIL, it would be okay for Assad to stay in power. I think the signal that sends to Sunni throughout the region who don't want to have anything to do with ISIL is very troubling. So bottom line is, Tommy, that it's very hard to get inside the head of Assad, given the depravity, which he's demonstrated, which appears to know no bounds.

Yeah. But he's just, he knows one tactic here, and his tactic is his own survival, and he believes that that's dependent on him, either forcing the Sunni into submission or making clear to the rest of the world that if these guys all become extremists, then, you know, that they ought to join him in the fight against extremists. And it's a very cynical ploy, that's for sure. Yeah. So my last question for you is a little bit of an annoying, open-ended one. But, you know, you read the newspaper. There's some big ticket items out there, right? You got Xi Jinping's here today.

You see North Korea testing ballistic missiles. You've got Assad gassing people. If you had one last meeting in the Oval Office or the Situation Room with President Trump and could give him one last piece of advice, is there anything you'd urge him to focus on or that, you know, the people listening should pay more attention to because it worries you most? Well, I never had any meetings with President Trump. So he would have benefited. It wouldn't be one last meeting with him.

But, like, one of the things that we did underscore when we were leaving is that technology is, it's a little bit trite, but that the government needs to up its technology game. And that's true from basically, you know, procurement, basic kind of common sense, you know, functional governance standpoint. But it's also true from cyber, you know, bio threats and proliferation standpoint as well. So it's a national security question as well. And so I think that we have to make sure that we're making decisions about technology and, and are you. use of it in a posture where we find ourselves better informed than, you know, some of our policymakers necessarily are.

And this comes, you know, this manifests in different ways at different times and different policy debates, whether it's, you know, from encryption to, you know, proliferation of new technologies like CRISPR, to any number of other questions. But we just have to maintain our leadership in technology that we, you know, we're basically a world leader in this. We have to be mindful, too, of the threats that come with it. We spend a good amount of time today, Tommy, talking about that as it relates to Russia and what we've just experienced. All these other threats manifestations are things that are, you know, we did talk to them about.

And we made our best case, you know, what I saw throughout the transition was people working overtime on top of their day jobs to make sure that their successors are going to be in a position to succeed. not because we thought they should do exactly what we said, but we wanted to make sure that they had all the information and preparation that they'd need to hit the ground running. And so all these other things we did talk about, North Korea, China, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and we got to just make sure we stand on top of it. Yeah, that is incredibly good, thoughtful, nonpartisan advice

for anybody working in government. Dennis, thank you for your time. Also, thank you, Kari, Teddy, Liam Maddie for Dennis' time. Thank you for everything you did for President Obama. And for me personally, as a guy I got to work with you along the way, from when you were shoveling driveways in eastern Iowa to the White House chief of staff during the caucuses, I should say that wasn't just your job. You weren't just shoveling driveways for fun.

It was for the Iowa caucuses. But thanks, buddy. It's great to talk about it. And the person whose driveway shoveled still caucused for Secretary Clinton and not for President Obama. So I'm still a little grousey about it. All as well that end well. That's right. All right,

Thanks, Tommy. Have a good day.