The Dispatch Podcast - Mark Esper on ‘A Sacred Oath’

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

Joining this week’s Dispatch Podcast with Sarah is former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Esper was also secretary of the Army during the Trump administration, and in his new book, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times, he talks about the challenges that came with working under President Trump. In the podcast, Esper and Sarah discuss life on the inside of the administration, Esper’s infamous “Four Nos,” and what he sees as the greatest threat to the United States today. Hint, his fears are more about things happening inside the country, not outside.    Show Notes: -A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times -Esper Paints Chaotic Picture of Trump Administration’s Middle East Policy, by Charlotte Lawson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isgher. And this week, we are talking to former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, about his new book, A Sacred Oath, memoirs of a Secretary of Defense during extraordinary times. And I think it's worth just running through a little bit of Secretary Esper's bio before we jump into the conversation. He is a West Point graduate, joined the United States Army as an infantry officer with 101st Airborne Division. He joined the Trump administration. as the 23rd Secretary of the Army and then was confirmed as the 27th Secretary of Defense with a 90 to 8 vote. He was fired on November 9th, 2020 by the president. Let's dive right in. This is going to be an interesting conversation because you and I, in some ways, have had very similar experiences. In other ways, I'm very confident we haven't. But we share an experience of going into the Trump administration. And I'd like for at least the first part of this conversation to try to allow our listeners to understand what that was like. You know, you've written a book

about it. And I think that goes a long way for folks to understand the struggle and the tradeoffs and what that felt like day to day. And so that's my hope for this conversation. Let's see if we can do that. You go into the administration. You have a lucrative career. You're doing just fine. You're at Raytheon. You've served already in the Bush administration. why did you say yes, given everything you'd seen in 2016, for instance? It's a great question, Sarah. And first of all, thanks for having me on your show today. Look, I've been doing public service since the age of 18 when I decided to go to West Point

and become a cadet and eventually serve a career in the United States Army. So for me, it's been about public service and serving my country. And most of my career has been involved in public service, either in uniform or out of uniform. So the chance to come in and become Secretary of the Army for somebody who, you know, who saw the Army from all angles, not just active duty, but Guard and Reserve as well, and not just peace, but wartime, I thought would be an incredible opportunity for me to give back to my country once again. And, you know, so as I've been saying recently, it wasn't about serving Donald Trump

or serving the Republican Party or serving a conservative philosophy that I believe in, by the way. It's about serving your country. And that's why myself and I think many others, I'll throw you in as well, kind of decide to serve in 2016 and for me to take the next promotion up to become Secretary of Defense. So look, when your country calls, I think we have an obligation to answer. And some people decided not to. I respect that. But many others decided to serve in the Trump administration. I would always expect reciprocal respect for that as well.

And so you joined at the nearly the beginning of the administration. and what at that point were your hopes and fears for a President Trump? Because that's something that I had thought a lot about. I hadn't voted for him in 2016. I had in fact worked for a campaign against him. And at the same time, he had won. And as you said, right, I felt a duty to serve if I thought that I could be helpful to my country at that point. And at the same time, I think I was fairly realistic about the unknowns, the known unknowns, about. a Trump presidency? Well, you have to go back to 2016.

You know, look at the choices we had. And not many Republicans, at least, were enthralled by the opportunity to vote for Hillary, Robin Clinton. So you had that on one hand. But look, President Trump came into office advocating traditional Republican policies, lower taxes, deregulation, rebuilding the military, securing the border, conservative judges on the bench. And you can't deny the fact that he delivered on many of those things.

And I think that's what many Republicans today wrestle with, right? They see Trump policies on one hand, but they see Trump behavior on the other. And I think that's what many of us wrestle with. And my argument has been, I think we can get all of that in the future going forward without the coarseness and divisiveness that Donald Trump gave us for four years. I think there's a whole other cadre of Republican leaders out there who can deliver on those same promises without going as far as Donald Trump did on so many issues. So for me coming in in 2016, the kind of the prospect of Donald Trump promising to rebuild the military, increased defense spending, a more muscular approach to foreign policy, those things made sense to me. And for me to have a chance to go back into my old service and launch what I eventually describe a renaissance when it comes to rebuilding the military, you know, training, organizing, the equipping, modernizing the force, was just a chance again for me to do my duty. So you're serving as Secretary of the Army. And the, um, the actual becoming Secretary of Defense was a little messy, right?

You're acting, and then because of the Vacancies Reform Act, when then you eventually get nominated, when the other person who had been nominated withdrew his nomination, then you have to step down. That's all to say, like there's sort of this interstitial period between being Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Defense. In the run up to becoming Secretary of Defense, did you feel like you knew what you were getting into?

Well, in many ways, yes, because within the building, within the Pentagon, I knew all the players, right, from my fellow service secretaries to the joint chiefs, the office of Secretary of Defense staff, the joint staff. I kind of knew all the players. Of course, I had been working with all the key members on Capitol Hill, with the Armed Services Committees and Defense Appropriation Committees, and many of the media, I'd gotten the nose. And I knew what was going on, if you will, within the mid- military space. So yeah, I think in that regard, I had a very good handle on what was happening within the building. The two things that you're not prepared for when you move up from Secretary of the Army to Secretary of Defense is you take on a much more of a diplomatic role as Secretary than you do as a service secretary. And I had a pretty deep background in foreign policy. So that wasn't hard, but it was new. It was a different aspect of the job. And then, of course, you are in direct contact on a daily basis with the President of the United States. get to see him up close in a way that you never do as Secretary of the Army or as a service

secretary or rarely do. I mean, I had my engagements with the president, but not on a daily basis, not in cabinet meetings, et cetera. So those, for me, were the two big differences that you quickly come to learn and realize, you know, you have to deal with on a daily basis. So this is something I actually want to spend some time on because I think it's hard for folks to understand what a day in the life of a Trump appointee was like. Because, there was a lot of normal stuff going on, hard, normal stuff, big decisions, some wrong, some right, but the way that any administration would work, you know, as the sort of public, you know, face and public spokesperson for the Department of Justice, a lot of my time was spent

on sort of those crises that you see on the news. A lot of my time was spent on the Russia investigation, you know, things that everyone was watching. But, But in terms of the Attorney General's time, very little of his time was actually spent dealing with those sort of things as compared to the opioid crisis, what was going on at the border, illegal gun prosecutions, and how to emphasize those. So talk a little bit about most of your time, Secretary of Defense, and what you were most worried about? What kept you up at night? So I used to tell people that 95% of my job did not garner the attention to the White House for interest. It was the day-to-day tasks of any

Secretary of Defense. For me, I came into office committing to the Senate and, of course, outlining to the Pentagon that my top party would be implementing the national defense strategy, which meant that we recognized this new era of great power competition. China, then Russia would be our top adversaries. We would improve the lethality and readiness of the force. We would build our allies and strengthen our partners. And we would reform the building. And that became my agenda.

We eventually get down to these 10 objectives, which was everything from identifying China as our strategic pacing threat, to updating war plans and new operational concepts, all the meat and potatoes of making sure our nation is protected. And so for the most part, that's what I worked on. And, you know, the biggest probably political issue that I can recall on the spot that that really involved the White House was the military's involvement, specifically the Corps of Engineers, building the barrier on the southwest border.

And look, I believe we need to have a secure border. And I believe we should know who is coming in and out of the country and what they're bringing. So while that was a political issue, I had no problem. I supported that. And by the way, that used to be a bipartisan policy until just a few years ago. So anyways, that was, you know, most of my job on a daily basis. And then it's, you know, taking care of your service members and families. I always enjoyed going out on the road

and talking to, talking to the troops and finding out what was on their mind and making sure they were getting the message with regard to where I was going. So all those important things that are a day-and-day job of a sect, which, again, was largely out of view of the White House. And then 2020 happens. COVID hits in March of 2020. There are, protests covering the country after the murder of George Floyd, you really mark June 1, 2020, as a change in your book as a watershed moment. Describe a little bit about what happened that day, why you saw it as the moment versus anything you'd seen before that from the president. Because at that point, you had seen whether firsthand meaning you were in the room,

but you certainly saw on TV with the rest of us. The Donald Trump president. for the time up to June 1st, 2020. So why was that day different? So there are actually a few things that change in 2020 that kind of create the atmosphere that leads us to June 1st. As I write, that after the president beats impeachment in January of 2020, he feels, my sense is he feels unhinged from the Republicans or doesn't need their votes anymore. So he feels more free to do what he wants to do. He brings in what I call the fresh troops, right, more loyalists. And that includes the Rick Brunelles, the Mark Meadows, and others. And then, you know, we're still kind of dealing with the aftermath of the Iran strikes. There's some tension there as well. And then COVID hits,

right? And it begins in mid-January, at least from the time we, I was tracking it, but picks up in March. And it's doing big damage to what's a great economy. And so you can see the president kind of calculating what this means to his election. And so, you know, you keep building up to this point where come June, June 1st, you have in the week prior, George Floyd is tragically murdered. And so we have protests spreading out in streets across America, cities across America. And in D.C. itself, you have several nights of violence, which are marked by officers getting hurt, National Guard getting hurt, fires lit, whatnot. And we reached this point where on the morning of June 1st, the president calls us in, us being myself, General Mark Millie, attorney general

bar, others who are in the room such as Vice President Pence, and is really upset. I mean, he's in a fit about the violence in the streets and how weak it makes him look or makes the country look. And he wants something done about it. And he wants to basically the protesters suppressed. And that's where we get into this long discussion about use of the military active duty troops, 10,000. We get to this, you know, awful discussion about should we, can you shoot protesters. And so we kind of just go to this new level, a new low, if you will, in terms of, you know, how the president is reacting to what's happening in the streets. Talk about the four nose. Yeah, so we go through this, you know, difficult day of June 1st.

And by the end of the day, you know, given all that's happened, the protests, we eventually bring National Guard into the city to reinforce the law enforcement. And myself and General Millie make our share of mistakes during the day, but we realize now General Millie and not that the game has changed, that we have to recalibrate politically, that all that's been building up to this point becomes this watershed moment, sir, as you describe it. And the forenows, we basically, in a succeeding day, kind of map out that there's four lines we cannot afford to cross between then and the election. And that becomes no unnecessary wars, no strategic retreats, no politicization of DOD, and no

abuse of the military. Can I just ask the question? I've seen you talk about the four knows before. When I first heard you say no strategic retreats, I, again, from sort of this Department of Justice angle, thought you meant something that we would see throughout the administration where political appointees would say yes to something they thought was less important to be able to keep their political capital, their credibility with the president, so that they could say, no, to particularly dangerous things that they thought were going to come down the pike. I don't think that's what you meant by strategic retreat after reading. So will you just explain each of those and what you feared, why it was a foreno?

Yeah, for me, a strategic retreat would be withdrawing from NATO or pulling our forces out of Korea. So that's a strategic retreat. An unnecessary war gets to the point that we had folks within the administration, within the White House, who were pushing for some type of military attack on Venezuela, where at times Iran would come up, and those were things that I consider an unnecessary war. A politicization of DOD would be, again, getting the United States active duty, at least, involved in terms of dealing with protests in the streets of America or other ways. We could talk about parades and whatnot.

And then the misuse of the military would be, again, using the military for what could be political purposes, but for otherwise unnecessary purposes. And there are a couple examples I talk about in the book. So those were kind of the red lines I had drawn and wanted to make sure that I could get through, get to the election, let the American people decide who would be their next president. But it was key for me to draw those lines a lot more sharply

and make sure that I could hold out for the next six months. And when you say they were the four noes, they were things you were going to say no to, i.e., not that you would ignore the president's order, but that you would resign if asked to do them. Is that correct? Yeah, I think in terms of dealing with the president, frankly, throughout my career or any principle, you know, you always owe your best advice. You owe the chance to bring back better options that improve on what the principle, the president wants to do.

And if it's a hard line for you, certainly if it's, as I told the Senate, if something illegal, immoral or unethical, if I reached that point, I would resign. And what I added to that task was, or that set where these four knows. And so, yeah, in all these cases, in all these cases, I would want to make sure I had the opportunity to come back to the president and present my options and be still pushed and I couldn't reconcile the issue with my beliefs, then it would be incumbent upon me to resign. I think it's an interesting point because we, the public often heard during the Trump administration of what I'll call sort of three groups of people, right?

There was the deep state, the people who were trying to undermine the president, secret I think most people thought they were civil servants who were thwarting the president behind his back. Then there's something I coined called the shallow state, people who were not disobeying direct orders, but trying to keep the trains on track. And as you said, giving the president their best advice and were willing to resign if they were given a direct order that they thought was illegal, immoral, that they had drawn some red lines for themselves personally and privately. And then I do think that there were some people who tried to, at various points, ignore a direct order, delay a direct order from the president. And I'm curious how you thought between those two, sort of the giving your best advice, having a red line versus when the president told you to do something.

And you were like, well, I'm not sure he was like telling me to do something. For instance, at the Department of Justice, we had to make a legal determination. that tweets were not orders from the president. Those type of decisions that were unique in the Trump administration. And maybe in the run up to June 1st, how you had thought about it before the forenose, before that watershed moment, where the president, often in meetings,

would say things that were weird or maybe a waste of your staff's time to come up with various plans to bomb countries he was annoyed with. You know, it's interesting how you lay that out. I frankly probably wouldn't put myself in any of those groups or states. I just felt like I was doing my duty. And my duty was to, again, first of all, obey my oath to the Constitution, hence the name of my memoir. But secondly, was to serve the president. And that means in providing him my best advice, whether it was pushback at times or other options to achieve what he wanted to do.

and have know what those red lines were for me. And as I outlined in my book, you know, all these discussions, I was very upfront with the president about how I felt, whether it's the June 1st, pushing back on deploying active duty troops to the into the city, whether it was his idea, if you will, of shooting missiles into Mexico. I was very upfront with either him or his chief of staff, whatever, about what my concerns or issues were. And so the other factor was the president rarely gave orders.

And so if I was unclear, I always could go back to him or the chief of staff and say, is this an order or is it not an order? Understand who is actually saying it. You know, sometimes you have people act on the president's behalf without the president's knowledge. And I think that was happening as well at times. So, you know, that's kind of how I approached the role was to, at the end of they'd do what I thought was best, consistent with. not just what the president was saying, but he also signed a good many documents that we followed at DOD. So he signed or he endorsed the National Defense Strategy. He signed out as president,

the national security strategy. Those are pretty much, you know, core foundational documents for the Department of Defense. And so that kind of gives you a whole lot of guidance as well as to what to do when it comes to the nation's security. And what about the call with Ukraine, the basis for the first impeachment? That's something that obviously you knew about at the time. And you allowed that deal, delay, however you want to describe it, to be made. The president said, I want a favor. You knew about that at the time. I assume you had advice that was the other way. I've heard you talk about it. But that advice wasn't followed. And so that wasn't a red line, for instance. How would you know the difference?

How did you think about the difference? Well, let me back up a little bit. I didn't know about it at the time. So I get sworn in July 23rd and the evening. First Day of Works, July 24th, and he has his call July 25th. I wasn't on the call, wasn't aware of the call. In fact, I don't find out about the whole call until it hits the newspapers, I think, in September. But between then and September, at times, John Bolton, the National Security Advisor, Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, and I go in individually or as a team and try to talk the president into releasing the security system. security assistance. I'm sorry. And for me, as I outlined in the book, I go through argument

after argument after argument about, you know, supporting a young democracy, reassuring allies, deterring Russia, to the point where I get to, hey, look, it's law, Mr. President. We have to do it. Congress appropriated the money. And between us, us being myself, Bolton and Pompeo, none of us could figure out why he was sitting on it. It just didn't make much sense. And then, you know, you have the aha moment when the story breaks out into the media about what happened. And, look, obviously, I supported delivery of assistance. And I actually give, you've got to give the president credit for approving legal assistance in the first place to Ukraine, specifically through the javelin anti-tank cells.

That's something the Obama administration didn't do. So, you know, we learn all about it later. It should not have happened the way it did. On the other hand, I don't think it really had a material impact in Ukraine with what's going on today. That was three years ago at this point. So anyways, that's kind of, and I think John Bolton recounts similar circumstances in his book as well. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect

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Protect your family with life insurance from ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's ethos.com slash dispatch. Application times may vary, rates may vary. So from June to November and you're fired quite shortly after the election. So June to election day, you have the four nose with General Millie. you have concerns about the president's leadership, his ability to be commander-in-chief at that point. And you've talked about why you didn't quit. You didn't know who would be coming up behind you.

I think that was a concern of a lot of Trump appointees at various points in their tenure. I think that's a hard. I think that's hard. And I don't know that we give enough discussion to that always being right. because in some ways, the voters elected Donald Trump, not us. They had the right to see a Trump presidency full-fledged with all Trump loyalists and people who were on his agenda. And if that agenda was bombing cartels in Mexico, you know, there's some fine line there between giving him advice, sir, I don't think that will achieve your strategic goals, versus if that's what he wants to do, if that's what he thinks is in the national interest

of the United States, letting voters see that in real time, what the consequences of that would be. And I still struggle with that. I don't know where that balance should have been, would have been. And as we talk about the former president now potentially running again in 2024, I think it's a really relevant conversation to have. So you've talked about why you didn't quit. You've also talked about why you didn't say any of these things upon being fired. The election was already over at that point. I'm curious if you looked forward to another Trump administration. If the president ran again and won again in 2024, what types of people do you think should go into that administration, knowing what you know now?

Yeah, it's a good question. Before I get to that, let me go back just one step. You know, people have asked, well, okay, we understand why you didn't. you didn't resign or speak out before November 9th because you would have been fired and nobody would have been in behind you that you thought would have kind of done the right thing. Of course, it's the last six months of the administration possibly, and nobody's going to be confirmed in time, so you're going to get an Uber loyalist one way or the other. And so they say, why not after November 9th?

And as you say, I've been telling folks, look, the election was over. There was, nothing was going to change. Plus, you've got to remember, look, I'm bound by DOD classification policies. I cannot talk about many of these things unless it's cleared by DOD. And that's a whole other process that took me nearly 10 months to clear through DOD required me to file a suit against the Pentagon to talk about stories like the Mexico missiles or the idea is to launch strikes on covert actions against Venezuela. So those were other issues kind of circulating at the time, if you will.

But let's fast forward a little bit to your question. Yeah. So what does it mean for 2024? I hope President Trump doesn't run. I think there is a new Republican leaders up there that can advance the same traditional foreign and domestic policies that he did, traditional policies that I've worked on in the past and get work done, but do so in a way that's not divisive, do so in a way that grows the base because at the end of the day, you have to win elections.

and you have to govern. If you want to govern, you have to win elections. And in 2020, we lost the White House. We lost the Senate. We didn't capture the House. And so across the board, Donald Trump did not win for the Republican Party. So that's kind of my view as I look ahead to 2024. Look, he's not going to make the same mistake twice in terms of who he picks to serve in his administration.

He's going to demand loyalty. We see him doing it now as he endorses his candidates for Senate races, House races, you name it. And that's going to be the first, I think, witness test. What role did the White House play in some of the political appointees in the Department of Defense when you came in as Secretary of State? The office, the White House Office of Personnel notoriously run by someone who was a true sort of Trump loyalist fanatic looking for disloyalists throughout. I noted at one point that they re-interviewed the political appointees in the Department of Justice after I was fired and asked at least two of them whether there were any more Sarah Isgars in the building to find.

And I'm curious, you know, you're the secretary. You are Senate confirmed, but what was the White House's role for the rest of the political appointees around you? You know, my recollection is for the first three years, it was fairly normal. But then again, the president beats impeachment in jail. January 2020, and he brings back, he brings in the fresh troops. And one of those is Johnny McEntee, who is this young 29-ish, you know, becomes head of presidential personnel, has no background, as I'm aware, and personnel matters. And he begins bringing other people who see the world as he does and are loyalists. And yeah, then you have this, you have his people being dispatched to the various departments. State had its fair share. I think Department of Homeland

security suffered somewhat under the people they got. And eventually it eaks its way into DOD. And what we find out is that, yes, they are going around re-interviewing people, in some ways, settling scores. In other ways, they are taking names based on who folks in the White House doesn't think is supportive of the president simply because they propose a different policy approach. So you have these things going on. And strangely enough, it's, it's, it's, It's being conducted against people who were vetted previously in the Trump administration and confirmed by the Senate. So you can see this contrast between pre-impeachment folks and post-impeachment folks, but it does become this kind of loyalty vetting that begins spooking people. And I have, of course, in my department, what I'm trying to do is defend everybody, but particularly, you know, the really most senior people who also inevitably get caught up in the purge that happens on November 9th when I'm gone.

So they fired James Anderson, Joe Karnan, other names come out. All these people had served in the administration for a couple years, three years, and had been vetted and confirmed by the Senate previously. So again, it just gives you a sense of what was going on internally with these personnel actions that was really devastating for folks and even took a darker twist after the election when folks started thinking about doing transitioning, should they leave, should they go, and whatnot. You talk about if the president were to run again, were to win again,

then he won't make the same mistake twice. He'll pick even more loyal people than Bill Barr as Attorney General than you as Secretary of Defense, people who I take it from what you're saying, that maybe won't push back, won't provide that advice from experience that you and other secretaries

were giving the president, what would that mean for a Department of Defense? in a future Trump administration in your view? Well, in so many ways, the Department of Defense is unique. I mean, obviously, it's the largest in terms of people. Budget, maybe HHS is bigger through its medical programs. But it's the biggest budget. Obviously, we control the military and all that.

And I think for many of those reasons and more, it's absolutely critical that DOD remain an apolitical organization. came in day one saying that, I testified about that, I reinforced it throughout my tenure, and on my way out, I spoke about the importance of DOD remaining apolitical because of what it means and the important relationship between the military and the American people, the civil society that it supports and defends and protects. And so that would be my biggest concern coming from this department, that it not be politicized, that people not see the military as a means to advance political gain. And as I write in a book, that was one of my concerns leading up to

the election in early November as we moved from September and October, is might somebody try and do something, might the White House try to do something using the military against a foreign country as a way to gin up support and rally people behind the commander chief. And so I was very conscious of that and concerned as we headed into the election. Let's spend just a few moments talking about the foreign policy threats that the country faces now a couple years after you've left the Department of Defense. What keeps you up at night? And I'm thinking here specifically not necessarily what's happening in Ukraine today, but a escalation to nuclear weapons, potentially with Russia, what China has learned from the last several years, both the Trump administration and the Biden administration, frankly. And what American military leadership looks like a decade from now, two decades from now. Yeah, well, I may surprise you, but I see the biggest challenge facing our country today is not outside the country, it's inside the country. It's the extreme political partisanship on both sides of the aisle that is leading to dysfunction in Washington, D.C.

And so until we fix that, it's going to be hard to address the greatest external threats, which I think is China number one, as our greatest strategic adversary for us in the 21st. country, followed by, you know, Russia. And then you have your mid-tier threats of North Korea and Iran. So for me, we've got to solve that problem first. And if you can solve that, you can solve the budget debt, you can solve the deficit. You can address, you can provide increased defense spending for DOD that they'll need to deal with China. But when you start looking beyond the borders, yeah, China, because unlike the Soviet Union of the Cold War, China has the second largest economy in the world, 16 trillion. At some point, it's estimated that they will surpass the United States. They clearly stated that they want to have a modern military by

2035. They want to dominate the Indo-Pacific by 2049. They're technologically advanced. They're stealing our intellectual property. I think the FBI says every 12 hours, they're opening up an espionage case here in the United States. So look, we are not poised to deal with the Chinese in the 21st century, at least not yet. This is where the Trump administration, frankly, should get some credit for bringing together a consensus that China is that strategic adversary and getting all departments of government focused on that. But we have much more work to do. And it's not just DOD with budget and modernization, but it's building the diplomatic corps. It's how do we think about a use of foreign aid and assistance to kind of buttress our allies and partners around the

world? And so this is going to take a whole of nation, not just a whole of government. about a whole nation approach to deal with the Chinese. What happens if Russia launches nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Yeah, I mean, if they do, I think it's remote, but you see the saber-rattling by Vladimir Putin every now and then. We need to take it seriously. I think it changes the equation of the game. We would have to respond in a way that shows our resolve and that we would not be deterred as both the United States and as both a member of NATO. but I don't see him anytime soon taking that approach, but it would be crossing a threshold.

It would be something that we have to really talk about with our allies and come up with a very firm response. Nobody wants to get into the nuclear game, but on the other hand, you can't let Vladimir Putin intimidate you to the point that he ends up not just seizing Ukraine, but starts having aspirations with regard to other countries on his periphery. What's the biggest lesson that you think we should learn militarily from the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Yeah, it's a very good question. I know DOD and others are taking a hard look at that, and I think it's warranted.

You know, the withdrawal was abysmal. We left Americans behind in the country. We had service members killed as a result of the plans or lack of planning. and it was a strategic retreat, right? We did not look good on the world stage. Our allies were unhappy with us. So what does that mean? Look, we went in with the noblest of attentions.

I think anybody who served there served honorably. We did a lot to advance that country. We gave them a chance. And I think the key thing is lack of leadership in Afghanistan. From the top down, from President Ghani, his predecessor, all the way down. If you don't have leadership that can deal with corruption and bring the country together and motivate the military, then it's hard to succeed. Contrast that with President Zelensky in Ukraine, where his extraordinary leadership has rallied his country to the point that, you know, Ukraine, small Ukraine is beating, you know, arguably a great power, a Russia. So I think it comes down to leadership.

And we have to, at some point, we have to assess whether, you know, whether we want it more than they do. And that's kind of where I came at at the end. I thought, you know, President Trump's instinct to get out was the right one, that we had been there 20 years, that, you know, we had done as much as we could. At some point, you've got to take the training wheels off. You've got to let them ride the bike on their own. And were they ready for it or not? I don't know. That's why I supported the peace deal, provided it was conditions-based.

And it's also why at the end, I opposed, you know, the president's plan for a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan without making the Taliban live up to their end. of their deal. And that's a whole other story in terms of my advice to the president. But that's kind of how I saw it playing out. If we hadn't spent 20 years in Afghanistan or Iraq invasion, would we be in Ukraine right now? No, I don't think so. I think the administration, on one hand, is taking the right approach by supporting Ukraine's with material, with weapons, with arms, and with training and should actually pick that up. I think their performance has been a little bit mixed, and I would fault it early on. I think President Biden taking the military option off the table early on was a mistake,

and I thought this talk about a minor incursion as compared to a major incursion was a mistake, but they've gotten better since then. But no, I don't think we would be in Ukraine despite that. I think, though, given the amount of focus we placed on low-intensity conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan during those 20 years and the amount of money we spent on that conflict, we would probably be in a better position today in terms of modernization and doctrine and training and readiness if we hadn't had, you know, two decades of conflict in the Middle East. Thank you so much for joining us, Secretary Asper. One last question. If Donald Trump

becomes the Republican nominee in 2024, what do you see as your duty to the country at that point in terms of your vote, in terms of who you will campaign for, in terms of what you will say to the country in addition to what you've already said in this book, and again, to our listeners, the book, A Sacred Oath, Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense during extraordinary times. Well, clearly, I hope Sarah doesn't come to that, that he's not the nominee. I hope he stays out of the contest, both in terms of his own running and who he decides to support or not support. I think he should just step back and enjoy retirement. But look, if he does run and if he is the nominee, I will not vote for him. I won't vote for the Democrat either, most likely, or at least

I won't vote for Joe Biden. But I think at that point in time, my voice will hopefully say those same things. And I'll have to just kind of take a look at it as we get there in terms of what we do. I'll probably do a write-in like I did in 2020. And because at the end of the day, day, I'm a Republican. I'm a Reagan Republican. And that's what I'm looking for in a candidate. And I think there are some out there. I hope some will emerge that can get us back to where we were, where you're advancing traditional Republican policies. You're doing so with integrity and under principle. You put the country first. And you can grow the base. You can unify the country. That's what we need to get to. We need somebody who can unify the country, bring people

together and Donald Trump just can't do that. He's already shown us that. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at MX.ca.ca.