Katie’s One-on-One with Admiral William McRaven

00:00:05
Speaker 1: Do you believe the president has a fundamental understanding of how military power actually works and how it should be used.

00:00:14
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to look into the mind of the president to be able to make that.

00:00:17
Speaker 3: Statement, but well you've seen enough.

00:00:19
Speaker 2: I guess what i'd say is after, you know, this being his second term, he has certainly wielded military power effectively in some areas. So if you take a look at Venezuela, an incredible operation on the part of our Special Operations Forces, and I'm afraid that gave him maybe an over sense of confidence that well we could just whisk in and you know, countries would fall as a result of that.

00:00:47
Speaker 3: Hi.

00:00:48
Speaker 1: Everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric, and this is next question. Admiral mcgraven. I know you told me to call you Bill, but honestly, you really deserve to be called out. I'm going to start by reading your official biography, because let's face it, you're such a badass.

00:01:06
Speaker 3: Here we go.

00:01:07
Speaker 1: William mcgraven, former University of Texas System chancellor and retired US Navy four star admiral, joined the school as a professor in National security in twenty eighteen. As chancellor, he oversaw fourteen institutions that educate two hundred and twenty one thousand students and employed twenty thousand faculty in more than eighty thousand healthcare professionals, researchers, and staff. As the Commander of US Special Operations Command, Admiral mcgraven led a force of sixty nine thousand men and women and was responsible for conducting counter terrorism operations worldwide. He is a recognized national authority on US foreign policy and has advised Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and other US leaders on defense issues. Admiral mcgraven oversaw the twenty eleven Navy seal rate in pakis Stand that killed al Qaeda leader Osama vin Laden. His book Special Ops Case Studies and Special Operations Warfare Theory and Practice, published in several languages, is considered a fundamental text on special operations strategy. He has received the Republic of Francis lejon d'naire. I wanted to include that so I could show off my French accent, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association's National Award, and the National Intelligence Award. In twenty sixteen, he was named the recipient of the Ambassador Richard M. Helm's Award by the Central Intelligence Agency Officers Memorial Foundation, and not in your official biography, but because so many people know you this way, and as is mentioned on the back of your new book, Admiral mcgraven's famous twenty fourteen make your bed speech at the University of Texas went viral with over one one hundred and fifty million views. That book is a collection of other speeches and writing, and it is called Duty, Honor, Country and Life, a tribute to the American spirit. It is out now and in it you will find wise, stirring words. These are my words, not yours, from a true American patriot. So Bill mcgraven, welcome, well, thank you.

00:03:25
Speaker 4: It's great to be with you.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: Let me start by asking you about the mood of the country and the war in Iran, which I'll get to in a minute. But I was struck by one particular passage in your book. You write, for all our missteps in the past two hundred and fifty years, we are still the nation that the world looks to for help. We are still viewed as the good guys. Having served for thirty seven years in the military, I can tell you from experience that soldiers fight for this country because they believe we are noble and honorable and decent and good people, and we are respectfully admiral. I think a sizeable number of Americans feel that this country has lost its way and may sincerely question whether we still really are the good guys.

00:04:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think you can say that parts of the country have lost their way. I'm clearly not a fan of this administration. But having said that, tens of millions of people voted for this president, the president is the duly elected representative of the country and the commander in chief. That being said, again, I'm not happy with the direction the administration is going. However, I travel around the country all the time. I travel around the world, and so when I have an opportunity to spend time with the young students at the University of Texas or traveling on the speakers circuit, this is where you get your inspiration. This is where you realize that Americans maybe not Washington, DC. They politicians, but Americans are still good people. They want to get out and do good things. In one of the speeches in there, I talked about the fact that when you look at the world giving index that takes a look at all the countries in the world and who gives the most in terms of just general philanthropy, we rank number three. Only two small countries are ahead of us just from a per capital standpoint. Russia is in the low thirties and China's in the low forties. So we still are, I think the good guys. It's just unfortunately we're not projecting that as a nation because of you know, some of the things I think this administration is doing.

00:05:39
Speaker 1: More than one year into this second Trump administration and almost two months into the war with Iran, there are increasing signs of strain within our military's ranks. NPR reports a sharp increase in service members calling hotlines to explore leaving the service. Some troops express how moral discomfort for with how this war is being conducted, along with serious concerns about retention rates. How concerned are you, BAIL about the morale of the military at this moment in time.

00:06:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean.

00:06:13
Speaker 2: You're always concerned about the morale of the young soldier, sailors, Aaron marines. But what I can tell you is the leadership they have, the senior leadership that I know that I know personally are remarkable men and women, and they will do everything they can, everything in their power to make sure that they are taking care of their troops. And you know, the war issue is always something that comes up. I mean, when I went to Iraq in two thousand and three, I realized I had a job to do. Whether I agreed with the decision or not. My job in the military was to follow the directions and the orders of the commander in chief. And this military still has a responsibility to do that unless it is an illegal order. And so I don't think the President has issued any illegal orders. But the fact of the matter is the young men and women in the military. They're smart. They read, they read everything that's going on in the press. They hear the back and forth, and I'm sure it concerns them, but I can tell you that they will do their job. They will make the American people proud. They'll do whatever you know, they are asked to do, and they'll do tremendous courage and integrity. And that is because the senior leaders and the officer ranks and the noncommissioned officer ranks will ensure that they do so.

00:07:33
Speaker 1: I have unending respect, Admiral for our men and women in uniform. And I imagine you speak to a lot of people just by virtue of your service, who are still active duty, who are still working at the Pentagon, who are still at bases all over the world. I'm sure you're pretty plugged into that network, still, am I correct?

00:07:55
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:07:55
Speaker 3: Of course, what are they saying to you?

00:07:58
Speaker 2: I want to frame this a little bit of a broader context because I can tell you, again, without naming certain presidents, I can tell you there were times in my career where I didn't think presidents were performing as presidentially as they should have been. But you still go do your job, and you still find out a way to keep the morale the young men and women around you as high as.

00:08:20
Speaker 4: It can be.

00:08:21
Speaker 2: And so yes, there is some concern coming from some of the senior leaders because they see a lot of their fellow senior leaders being cast aside. Chief of Staff of the Army, Randy George was just asked to resign. I know Randy personally. He is a phenomenal officer, was a great Chief of Staff of the Army, and of course seek Brown when this administration came in, he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was told to step down these Franchetti, who was Chief Naval Operations. I know both of them very well, tremendous officers, But this isn't the first time that's happened in the American military.

00:08:55
Speaker 4: Other secretaries have.

00:08:56
Speaker 2: Come in and said, you know, you're not the man or woman I I want in this role, and they've been asked to move on. So I think when you put it in the broader context, I won't say that there's not more angst now than there has been in the past. I do think there is more anxiety on the part of the senior leaders. But I also look back over again my thirty seven years in the military and probably looking at this for close to fifty years, and this is something we've been through before, maybe not to this magnitude. We'll get through it again. The troops will continue to do what we ask them to do, and they'll again they'll maintain the integrity I thinks that the American people need them to maintain.

00:09:36
Speaker 1: From the outside looking in, because I covered the Pentagon for a short amount of time and got to know obviously a lot of the leaders, and I'm far removed from that world now, But from the outside looking in this seems very different than previous administrations. It is different, and you're being very nice and diplomatic, and I shape that, but well, I'm not trying.

00:10:02
Speaker 2: To be diplomatic though, but I am trying to put it in perspective.

00:10:07
Speaker 1: Right, okay, But when you put it in perspective, you make it sound is if it's business.

00:10:13
Speaker 4: Is used, right, it's not businesses us.

00:10:14
Speaker 3: So can you elaborate on that?

00:10:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is not business as usual, and you know, I'm not fooling anybody by implying that it is. But what I am saying is whether it's business as usual or not. And no, I don't think it's business as usual. But the American military will stand firm and do their job. That's the point I'm trying to make sure. Are senior leaders concerned about, you know, some of the tweets that they see.

00:10:40
Speaker 4: Are they concerned about.

00:10:42
Speaker 3: Some of the firings.

00:10:44
Speaker 2: The firings, absolutely, and the proclamations of the Secretary and the President. Sure they are, absolutely they are. You know, today this world which is a little different than maybe my early years. You know, you didn't have social media, you didn't have the twenty four hour news it just inundates the young soldiers and the senior leaders. So yeah, it is much more concerning. The only point I'd make is whether it's at a level ten or a level five, the military is going to do their job and the military will find a way to get through this and maintain their integrity. I'm not saying it's it's business as usual. What I'm saying is the military will find a way to work through this.

00:11:22
Speaker 1: Let's talk about sort of how this is impacting certain situations, specifically this war with Iran. You know, I think with the military infrastructure and sort of figuring out how to prosecute a military action like Iran. Previous presidents have really talked to people in leadership positions to get different perspectives, points of view, to talk about sort of the ramifications or repercussions of certain actions right before they engage in a military action of this sort that we're seeing right now in Iran. Are you concerned that that kind of debate, that kind of conversation, that kind of dialogue is being stifled and eliminated in a Pentagon that doesn't want to hear from people who may disagree with a way of doing business.

00:12:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm absolutely concerned. So just to talk to your audience directly here. So again, I spent two years on the National Security Council staff, and then you know a lot of time obviously in the Pentagon, and so within the executive brands, we have the interagency process, as you understand, and the interagency process brings together all of the kind of three letter agencies and the State Department. And so if you have an issue, and let's say the issue is we're thinking about.

00:12:43
Speaker 4: Going to war and Iran.

00:12:45
Speaker 2: So under a normal administration, you would have a Planning Coordination Committee, which is kind of think of the one star level, but from State Department, from the Department of Defense, from Energy, from Treasury, you bring from the CIA and the other intelligence organizations, and they would begin to staff the issue and they would come up with some approaches. If the President said I want to know what my options are in Iran, they would work it. Then it would go to a deputies committee, and this is the deputy of the organizations, so the deputy Secretary of State, the deputy Secretary of Defense, et cetera. And they would look at it and maybe they like it, maybe they don't. And then you know, it gets revised, then it goes up to the Principles, and then it goes to the National Security Council. But every step along the way, there are experts that have a deep understanding of the military, of the Iranian culture, of the ramifications they've got, you know, people that have been through the straits of horror moves, They've been to carg Island. They have these people that are writing thoughtfully and trying to provide the president and options that are well thought out.

00:13:53
Speaker 4: I don't know for a fact.

00:13:54
Speaker 2: Because I'm not in the White House on the White House staff anymore, but from everything I understand, this president doesn't operate that way. It's a very small group of his kind of senior advisors that come together and they provide him what they think are.

00:14:09
Speaker 4: Their best approaches.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: Now, on the military side, you are certainly getting the benefit of a lengthy process. I guarantee you that Genel Dan Kaine, who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is a close friend. He's a terrific officer, you know. I know he is going to use a central command Brad Cooper down there and working through all the issues. The problem is, you don't have all the other experts that are I think need to be in the discussion. And therefore, when he gets to the president, he's got some military options, but he may not understand the full scope of the other options that are available.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: I guess the follow up is, how concerning is it to you Bil that that process may not have taken place? And in fact, if you read Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swans reporting in the New York Times, this decision was made largely on instinct, not intel.

00:14:59
Speaker 2: You know, when you're thinking about Iran, there's a number of things that Again, the senior military officers are going to always provide the president their best military advice. They're not going to opine on the political environment, They're not going to appine on diplomacy. They are going to a pine and give their best military advice. But I have no doubt that when this was being discussed, somebody in the military told the president, one, regime change is going to be very, very hard. We've not had a lot of success in that.

00:15:32
Speaker 4: No.

00:15:32
Speaker 2: By the way, the Iranian regime is not just the Supreme Leader and the head of the RGC and the Urgency Goods Force.

00:15:39
Speaker 3: It's integrated, integrated throughout the country.

00:15:41
Speaker 2: It is deep, and so you can take out all the top leaders and you're still going to have the clerical regime. Right and now, if you believe Israeli intelligence, the regime that's in place now it is more hardline than the previous regime. So they would have said regime change is going to be hard. They would have told him that we're we've never had a war where we have bombed our way to victory. That just doesn't happen in war. Trying to get the you know, nine hundred and forty pounds of highly enrisked uranium out of wherever it might be will be very, very challenging. And you never ever ever talk about Iran without talking about the straights horror moves. Somebody would have told the president, mister President, as soon as we strike her on, they will look at the straits of horror moves and figure out a way to close it, and it will be very difficult for us to reopen it. So all of that would have been provided to the President of the United States and his senior team from the military. Now again because obviously, you know, Secretary of Rubio is the Secretary of State, So my guess is he would have had you know, people on his side as well, giving him, you know, whatever they thought were the appropriate diplomatic advice, et cetera. But it isn't the process that we think about that happens in most administrations.

00:16:58
Speaker 4: Now.

00:16:58
Speaker 2: Candidly, I think this is important for your listeners as well. Sometimes just because you have a great process doesn't mean you have a great outcome. You know, there were a lot of things that happened in the Bush administration the Obama administration that I think they went through the process and the answer wasn't always correct.

00:17:16
Speaker 1: Well, it's a fog of warol war, it's just the best laid plans, et cetera, et cetera.

00:17:22
Speaker 2: But I do think a process, you know, a thorough process, certainly gives you a better chance of success than Again, as Maggie's reporting that maybe this was just the intuition of one man and you know, trying to figure out how best to approach this.

00:17:38
Speaker 1: Well, given as how we've seen this war unfold, do you think that President Trump listened to all the things that you described he should have heard prior to making this decision.

00:17:52
Speaker 2: When I first started getting concerned was when the President said, I don't understand why the Iranians haven't capitulated already. Don't they know we have a couple of carry battlegroups off the coast of Iran, which to me indicated he really didn't understand the nature of the Iranian culture. He thought he could, you know, pressure them into into just capitulating and say, yeah, we'll agreeed everything because we know you're going to strike. Well, if anybody looks through the culture of Iran just for the last fifty years, they would find out that the Iranians were going to fight. I mean, they had a ten year war with Iraq that where they lost a million men. This is not a group that just decides are going to give up because you threatened them. So that to me was a warrisome statement on the part of the president that I think he really believed that he could again pressure them enough they just say, Okay, we don't want you to, you know, attack us, so.

00:18:47
Speaker 4: We'll give up.

00:18:48
Speaker 1: Well, that leads me to my next question, because I think we've seen a pattern of Donald Trump's use of military force, treating it at times as a tool to which quick political outcomes, as we saw, for example, in Venezuela, but the situation in Iran clearly is much more complex and unpredictable. So my question to you is, do you believe the president has a fundamental understanding of how military power actually works and how it should be used.

00:19:22
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to look into the mind of the president to be able to make that.

00:19:25
Speaker 3: Statement, but well, you've seen enough.

00:19:27
Speaker 2: I guess what i'd say is after you know, this being his second term, he has certainly wielded military power effectively in some areas. So if you take a look at Venezuela, an incredible operation on the part of our special Operations forces, and I'm afraid that gave him maybe an over sense of confidence that well, we could just whisk in and you know, countries would fall as a result of that. But Iran is not Venezuela, So I do not believe he had a full appreciate for how challenging it would be in Venezuela. But again, you can go back and look at a number of other presents in the past that probably thought something would be a little easier than it was and it didn't turn out that a way either.

00:20:10
Speaker 1: President Trump has also used the military, as we've seen as an extension of domestic law enforcement Minneapolis other cities across the country. Aside from the serious constitutional questions at play, what does this do to the integrity and a political nature of the US military if these lines are crossed.

00:20:31
Speaker 2: This is an area where under title and a certain title, title theory two and others, he can and you can bring the National Guard in. He can do things that do not put us in a situation where he's invoking the Insurrection Act or something like that. The military is very, very sensitive about being on the streets of the country. And I've had a chance to talk to a bunch of young soldiers and various locations that are kind of patrolling the streets, and they're they try to be as deferential to the population as they can because they, i mean, they feel uncomfortable about doing it. Again, It's a little bit different with the National Guard because they are used to being in a very helpful position. You know, when there are disasters, the National Guard gets called up and they go down and they do great work, whether it's you know, Hurricane Harvey or down in Katrine or a pick someplace. So the National Guard is a little bit more used to being on the streets than the active duty military. I can tell you the active duty military does not want to find itself on the streets of America because that's we haven't been trained to do that. And I think, you know, most young men and women that are serving the military know that that's just not a place they want to find themselves.

00:21:41
Speaker 4: A little different for the National Guard.

00:21:43
Speaker 1: But what have these soldiers said to you about getting deployed in cities across the country to assist ice agents for example?

00:21:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I haven't talked to any of them that were directly assisting ice agents.

00:21:57
Speaker 3: What did they think of the idea of it?

00:21:59
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:21:59
Speaker 2: Again, I think from the standpoint of the idea of deploying active duty military, you know, on the streets of America, No, that's not something that you know, we would hasn't been done before. Yeah, of course it has, but it's it's never a place where the United States military wants to find itself unless it is truly truly a challenging, you know, situation on the ground and you know, the LA riots, those sort of things.

00:22:23
Speaker 1: Do you worry about the impact it has on the refutation of the US military as an a political body?

00:22:33
Speaker 2: Right, And this is the one area where I think you find today's military leaders are struggling. They want to make sure that they are following all the lawful orders that are given to them. They want to try to remain as a political as they possibly can, but you know, these are again challenging times for them. So yeah, they are not comfortable being tossed into a political situation. They don't like to be photo in situations where they appear to be a prop for the president. And again not that other presidents haven't done that before, but it makes them very uncomfortable. The military wants to remain as apolitical as they possibly can. They want to make sure that they are doing what they are expected to do in accordance with the Constitution to protect and defend the American people. I mean that sounds, you know, a little bit like an advertisement, but that's where we live every single day.

00:23:31
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Upcall by going to Katiecuric dot com. Over the course of this war, I'm curious to hear your reaction to the way President Trump has really explained or communicated to the American people his plans. He's repeatedly threatened to target Iran's civilian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, going so far as to post an explative laden missive if you will on true social on Easter morning, no doubt, demanding that Iranians quote open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. I wonder, for someone who has had your distinguished career in the US military, Admiral, what is your reaction to this kind of rhetoric from the President of the United States.

00:24:47
Speaker 2: Bill mcgraven's opinion is it's appalling, But it's not only appalling. It is both appalling just from a civility standpoint. Just you expect the president to be more civil, you also expect the president to be presidential. But I also don't think it's a good strategy. And I think you know, when you are trying to pressure you your enemy by coming out on truth social and you're changing that narrative every other day, then you look terribly erratic, and in some cases, I think the president looks like he doesn't have a full understanding of what's going on now. He may or he may not. But the problem is when it vacillates from you know, the close the straits your bastards to hey, we've got a plan. Everything's going to be fine. They're going to open up and we're good again. From a standpoint of the Iranians who are trying to maybe come to some negotiated settlement with the United States, or just from the standpoint of United States trying to pressure them in an appropriate manner, it's hard to understand the direction the president's going. So it is unpresidential. It doesn't reflect what I think are our American values and civility is important. And also again I don't think strategically it's working.

00:26:12
Speaker 1: What impact does that kind of rhetoric, in your view, have on the military, on the American people, on our standing in the world. In other words, what are the repercussions for expressing oneself that way?

00:26:29
Speaker 2: I mean, the repercussions are kind of going back to one of your first questions, you know again, and I'm not pollyannish about this. I'm not naive to the problems that we've had in the past, and we've had military adventurism We've had presence that have done horrible things in the past, but the fact of the matter is we still want to be the good guys. I can tell you the again, the soldiers I spent time with, they want to do good. Yes, sometimes they got to go out and take care of the bad guys. And that is hard, difficult, brutish, horrible work that has to be done, and sometimes it has to be done. But I will tell you what I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan as soldiers risking their lives to help young Afghan kids and families and Iraqi kids and families trying to do right. And they want their president to be a reflection of what they feel is honorable and decent and noble. And a lot of times presidents do it, you know, even if they're not those people. There's a performance that has to go along with being the president. This president has decided that he's not going to do that. And do I think it appeals to a certain segment of the military.

00:27:43
Speaker 4: It sure does.

00:27:44
Speaker 2: You know, you have some young soldiers that are that get fired up when the president or the Secretary of Defense, you know, starts to drop an f bombs and you know, trying to look man like a manly man. But but those that have been in the military for a while. Again, the senior n CEOs, the senior officers, it doesn't impress them, nor should it, And I don't think it again serves the country well when the president doesn't look or sound presidential.

00:28:15
Speaker 3: What do you think of Pete hech Seth.

00:28:17
Speaker 2: Look, I'm not going to opine on the Secretary of.

00:28:19
Speaker 3: Defense, Secretary of War.

00:28:21
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, Secretary of War.

00:28:23
Speaker 2: Look, what I don't want to do is the young you know, again, the young soldiers that are out there, they have a job to do. And I will repeat it here again. The President of the United States is the commander in chief, and we have an obligation. We have sworn an oath to the Constitution, and everybody raised their right hand and swore that oath. And so for all the soldiers that are out there, list and you have an obligation to follow the orders of the commander in chief and those in the chain of command.

00:28:50
Speaker 4: Period. That's it.

00:28:52
Speaker 2: And that includes the Secretary of Defense. So the fact that I'm not a fan of Pete heg Sas has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the soldiers should be doing their job. Go out, do your job, do it to the best of your ability, let the politicians handle the politics, and you go be good soldiers.

00:29:10
Speaker 1: Duly noted. But he is facing bipartisan backlash after abruptly firing someone who you say you deeply admire, Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, with no explanation. He has kept I know a couple of one star generals, two black and two women. He's blocked the promotion of them to one star generals. He's repeatedly said he wants to root out what he calls woke leadership. I know that there are many people who have well. House Democrats have introduced six articles of impeachment alleging abuse of power, war crimes, mishandling classified information, obstruction of oversight. So yes, I get it. You don't want to say something that gives the troops the wrong message. But surely, Amal mccraven, as someone who has been a leader of your stature for as long as you have, you must have some view of how Pete Hexseth is doing and the job he's performing.

00:30:15
Speaker 2: Of course I have a few, Katie, but the fact the matter is my voice carries weight. And if you think I'm going to sit here and undermine the Secretary of Defense or the president. Again, I don't agree with the president. I'm not a fan of the president. I'm not a fan of Pete Hegseth's But the American people elected the president and he is the commander in chief.

00:30:38
Speaker 1: But does that mean they should stay silent if he's doing things that they view as unconstitutional, no monethical and appropriate?

00:30:46
Speaker 4: They who they? The military?

00:30:48
Speaker 1: No, I mean people in general, people who voted for him for example.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, people in general. You bet every American citizen who isn't happy with the resident, who isn't happy with Pete Hegseth, ought to have their voices heard. I got no issues with that. But if you're in uniform, you better do your job, and you better as long as these are lawful orders. I know you don't like me saying that again and again, but the fact of the matter is it's important because if that breaks down, then morale gets even worse. If that breaks down, then somebody's going to get killed on the battlefield. So there have been other secretaries and presidents I didn't like, and again, as long as their orders are legal. Now again, if they're not legal, or if you don't like their orders, then certainly, as an officer, if you don't like their orders, you always have the option to say, thank you very much, it's been an honor to serve the country, and I'm stepping down.

00:31:48
Speaker 4: You can do that.

00:31:49
Speaker 2: You can do that anytime you don't like an order, whether it's legal or illegal. If it's illegal, you don't follow it.

00:31:56
Speaker 1: I guess there's a school of thought. I'm curious what you think about where people are wondering why certainly retired military individuals who have the stature like you or General Madis or other people have not spoken out more on some of the things that we're witnessing this administration do Is it just sort of an unspoken rule. I know a lot of former presidents will never criticize current presidents, But in any world, do you see it as a duty to point out some of the things that you're witnessing.

00:32:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you probably need to go back and see what I wrote in President Trump's first term.

00:32:38
Speaker 3: I remember, yes, well.

00:32:40
Speaker 4: I was exceptionally critical, but we weren't war. We weren't at war, and so things change.

00:32:47
Speaker 2: Now we're at war and kid's lives are at stake, And when kid's lives are a stake, then we all line up, we salute smartly, and we move out right when this war is over, rest assured, I will not hesitate to criticize whoever I think deserves to be criticized for the actions they took. And I was very critical of Donald Trump during the first term, and I heard about it from a lot of senior officers, and I said, I got it, And there is well, it's also a violation of the u CMJ. Technically, Mark Kelly is fighting that now and I think what we'll find is, as a retired senior officer, I think you have all the rights of an American citizen to be able to speak your mind. And I did, and I don't regret that at all. But I also understood the criticism. When you know, fellow senior officers would say, hey, you shouldn't be speaking out there's this kind of unwritten rule about that. I would say, no, I got it. I understand that that's fair criticism. But I also had to wake up every morning look myself in the mirror. But now it's different. Now we're at war, and you know, I will hold my criticism until things have calmed down a little bit and kids' lives aren't at risk.

00:33:53
Speaker 3: Will you come back and talk to me? Then?

00:33:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, you bet happy to do it.

00:33:58
Speaker 3: All right?

00:33:58
Speaker 1: We have it on tape. In addition to the rhetoric I asked you about on social media, which is certainly a departure from previous administrations, Secretary Hegseth and others have sort of positioned this as a holy war for Christianity, and I'm curious how you feel, Admiral about invoking religion in a way that seemed to frame violence as righteous or even divinely sanctioned. We're hearing a lot of scriptures being shared at the Pentagon to the assembled troops, where even if they might have come from pulp fiction instead of the Bible. I just I'm wondering how you feel when you see this war framed in those terms.

00:34:43
Speaker 2: It's not good, it's not right. This is why we have separation of church and state. And I'm Catholic. I just came back from Rome.

00:34:50
Speaker 3: Did you see the Pope?

00:34:51
Speaker 4: I did not get a chance to see the Pope.

00:34:53
Speaker 2: But the fact of the matter is, no, I don't believe that we need to frame any war in terms of Christian values.

00:35:01
Speaker 4: In this case, Christian.

00:35:02
Speaker 2: Values are you know, I mean Jesus Christ believed in it was peace. I mean he was the peacemaker. And again, there is going to be a certain segment of the military that that will appeal to. You know, I saw it on the battlefield all the time. You know, the great units that are out there, they all have chaplains, and you know, before they go out on a mission, the chaplains get together, they say a prayer, they give the kids a little bit of spiritual uplifting. And I'm okay with that. I think that's important that the young troops have got that available to them. But for a president or a secretary to frame this war as a holy war, no, I don't think that's right at all.

00:35:39
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about NATO because with this administration, we've seen a fundamental shift in our relationship with our allies. And you wrote a piece for The Atlantic, I know, reflecting on your time building NATO's Special Operations Forces command and fighting alongside Allied troops both in Iraq and Afghanistan, describing not just their courage and sacrifice, but the deep bonds and shared values that underpen those partnerships. I have to imagine watching President Trump treat our allies the way he has must call you.

00:36:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the fact again, it's not only you know, not presidential, it's not smart, it's not strategic. The fact of the matter is we need allies. I mean, Winston Churchill said, you know, the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them. And the fact of the matter is, you know, we have had this long standing relationship with NATO, and as I wrote in the Atlantic article, I have tremendous, tremendous respect and admiration for the NATO soldiers that I've served with in Afghanistan and the Brits in Iraq. You know, they are tremendous soldiers that do each of their nation sprout. And again, it doesn't make good strategic sense to be undermining our allies and then expect them to come to our aid when you've spent your time humiliating them or undermining them. So our alliances, whether it is NATO, whether it is our alliances in Asia or anywhere else, are really truly important. You really can't fight any war today alone. And I think we're finding that out, But yeah, I'm a big fan of NATO, and yes, it hits hard when the President again talks about how weak NATO is and how ineffective they've been. And my point in the article was, well, then you didn't spend any time with them in Afghanistan like I did, because there were some great soldiers and we lost a lot of them.

00:37:38
Speaker 1: Do you think those relationships can be repaired?

00:37:41
Speaker 2: You know it's going to take time. I was just in Paris at an event right before going to Rome with the French and the brit Special Operations Forces, and I had an opportunity to talk to them that night. I was keynote speaker at an event, and I got very emotional because this was hard. This was hard because we have had such a great relationship for so long, and they know that they can trust the military, they know that our bonds are very, you know, long and deep. They don't know whether they can trust the administration to use the mill of the American military in a proper fashion and to continue to strengthen these relationships, and that that's just hard.

00:38:26
Speaker 4: Again.

00:38:26
Speaker 2: I thirty seven years in the military, but my father was an Air Force officer. I grew up in France. I spent a lot of time with Europeans over the years, so so that part was hard. But it's not again, not just the Europeans, you know, I'm concerned about our alliances around the world, and the presence certainly seems to be, you know, focusing more on our alliances with kind of authoritarian governments rather than those I think to share our values.

00:38:52
Speaker 3: That must be very disappointing.

00:38:54
Speaker 4: It is disappointing.

00:38:56
Speaker 2: And again i'll I'll say it's disappointing, but I I the bigger issue I think right now is that it's not strategic. It's not good strategic thinking. I teach a class at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and I teach class on national security decision making. I have about twenty five students in the class, graduate students. I put them in the White House situation room and they role play members of the National Security Council, and I give them a framework for thinking about how do you make difficult.

00:39:28
Speaker 4: National security decisions?

00:39:30
Speaker 2: And the first question they have to ask themselves is who are we? Because if you don't know who you are, whether you are the President of the United States, whether you are the CEO of a company, whether you are the president of the university. If you don't know who you are, if you don't know what your values are, then every decision you make after that is probably going to be wrong. But at one point in time, I tell them also, you have got to make sure that the actions you take are going to put you in a better strategic position when you're finished. So, if you're thinking about running a particular mission, you're thinking about an operation, you're thinking, are you going to be better off strategically if you take these actions and make these decisions.

00:40:14
Speaker 4: And so when the.

00:40:15
Speaker 2: President undermines our alliances strategically, I just don't think that puts us in a better strategic position.

00:40:30
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've been following me on social media, you know I love to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyke, Alison Roman and Ininagarten. So I started a free newsletter called good Taste to share recipes, tips and kitchen mustaves. Just sign up at Katiecuric dot com slash good Taste that's k A T I E C O U R I C dot com slash good taste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. I'm curious how you think this administration's systematic hollowing out of diplomacy and intelligence services has made the war in Iran more deadly, because I know in the Washington Post last July somebody did their homework. Here you wrote, this is no time to weaken any element of America's power. The dismissal of highly trained diplomats at the State Department and the dismantling of USAID will jeopardize national security and make the military's job much more difficult. Our national security has never depended on military strength alone. Rather, it relies on collaboration with the strong Foreign service and diplomatic corps. I've stood shoulder to shoulder with these dedicated public servants and some of the world's most dangerous places, and I've seen firsthand how they advance our national interests.

00:42:06
Speaker 2: Again, I'm a huge fan of the great men and women of the Foreign Service in the State Department. As I mentioned that article, I mean wherever I was around the world, there was a Foreign Service officer there an ambassador, a charge, a a young foreign service officer, trying to do right, trying to do good things. And so you know what you've seen over two administrations, the Trump administrations is, as you pointed out, a little bit of the hollering out of the State Department. And this is concerning I think my friend Jim Mattis once said, you know, for every dollar you don't spend on on the State Department, you know, I've got to buy more bullets. And his point was, Look, we can't win a fight just with the military. You need diplomacy. You need to make sure that you have great diplomats out there that are preventing us from going to war or that are shaping the way the outcome of the war might play out. So yeah, when you do not have a strong State Department, when you have a less than strong intelligence community, and maybe a politicized intelligence community, you begin to doubt whether or not the advice that you're receiving is going to give you the best results. So yeah, of course you'll worry about these things.

00:43:21
Speaker 1: And what about usaid, I think people really don't understand the importance of quote unquote so power Admiral and I wondered if you could explain from a military perspective. I mean, it's sort of very much what General Mattis said, which you quoted, But can you help people understand why USAID was, in your view, so important.

00:43:44
Speaker 2: I'm sure there were a lot of problems with you said. I can't debate that. I don't know the inner workings of it. When President Trump came in this time and he said, hey, look we need to take a hard look at all of our branches and decide whether they are effective and efficient, I'm all about that.

00:44:00
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

00:44:00
Speaker 2: Every president ought to come in and say, let's take a look at the Department Defense, let's take a look at the State Department's.

00:44:04
Speaker 3: CIA, or the US government writ large or US.

00:44:07
Speaker 2: Government writ large. How can we do things better? How can we be more efficient? How can we be more effective? No issue at all with any of that, and USAID happy to have them take a look at that as well. And where we're probably spending too much money.

00:44:20
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:44:21
Speaker 2: You know people that know it better than I. But what I can tell you from being on the ground with USAID is when you saw AIDS show up at Oh, let's see the earthquake in Pakistan that devastated the northern part of Pakistan. USAID were some of the first people there, military helping move USAID aid in there. Tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons across the Pacific, it's always USAID that shows up along with the military helping to distribute it. And this soft power is what saves lives and frankly helps governments to align themselves with you know, what our values are and what our strategic goals are. So I mean again, I remember specifically the earthquake in Pakistan, and the Pakistanis were very concerned about US military being on the ground in Pakistan in large numbers, so you know, we had to do things a little bit at night. We tried to keep things a little bit quiet, but they knew that the aid that was coming in was USAID and that kept a tense relationship. And our relationship with Pakistan was always tense, but that kept it stronger. And you see this everywhere we go, This ability to leverage our great again foreign service officers and the diplomats that are out there, to be able to leverage USAID, to be able to leverage humanitarian aid that the military has all these sorts of things helped shape the again the battlefield, if you will, wherever that might be.

00:45:51
Speaker 3: And it's such a small percentage of the budget.

00:45:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, yeah.

00:45:54
Speaker 2: I mean again, could we have made USAID better? Absolutely, I'm certain of that. Were there inefficiencies? Absolutely, I'm certain of that. That's true of every government agency. So yeah, fix it, but don't kill it. I mean, it's too important to just go away.

00:46:10
Speaker 1: Let me wrap things up by asking you a couple questions if I could, about preparedness, because I think there's a growing argument that the war in Iran has revealed a fundamental shift in warfare and which relatively cheap drones and missiles can neutralize even the most advanced military advantages. So I guess my question is the US military investing in the wrong tools. Should they be changing their toolbox or adapting their toolbox to the ways wars are being fought today.

00:46:45
Speaker 2: The US military does this every single year. We always reevaluate whether or not the military strategy is the right strategy, not only for the moment, but for the future. Right, and sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. You know, the Navy went out and built the latoral combat shit. So the lcs. So the idea was, you know, more of the wars were going to be fought in the latorals, those kind of areas between you know, the shoreline and the deep sea where we had a great advantage with carriers and destorers and no sort of things, and the war would be in these kind of littoral areas.

00:47:16
Speaker 3: Well.

00:47:17
Speaker 2: It didn't turn out to be the case, but we spent a lot of money, but that seemed like the right direction to go at the time. And you can go back in military history and find this time and time and time again where we invest heavily in something submarines. So during the Cold War, submarines were the way to go, and the submariners kind of ran the Navy until all of a sudden the wallfalls and guess what, we don't need submarines anymore. And so you're always going to have this predicament. So now we're looking at autonomous systems. You're looking at these fifty five So a Sha had an Iranian Sha head drone I think fifty five thousand dollars, got about one hundred pound warhead on it can fly for like a thousand miles, and you're like, yeah, that's a heck of a lot better than an F thirty five. The problem is, as soon as you come up with a capability, somebody comes up with a counter capability. So before we go off and invest and decide that everybody in the military we need to have drones everywhere and autonomous of this, we've got to be very, very careful. The military moves slowly for a reason. If all of a sudden, you turn too quickly and you decide that, well, we're gonna do away with carriers, we're gonna do away with large armies, we're gonna do away with the marine corps because now we can do everything with drones and autonomous systems. And then all of a sudden that is no longer a viable weapons system because somebody's figured out how to jam them or how to defeat them in mass. Then you're, you know, you're in a difficult position. So the military is always always thinking about what's the next ridgeline, what's the next battlefield going to look like? Yes, I mean we go through extensive research and sometimes we get it wrong. But if you move too fast, you're more likely to get it wrong. So I think we'll watch how things are unfolding in the Ukraine. You know, we're learning a lot from the Ukrainian War. We're going to obviously see a lot from this war in Iran, and I think the military will pivot appropriately, but we're still going to get some things wrong.

00:49:11
Speaker 3: How worried are you about AI?

00:49:14
Speaker 2: You know, I guess I'm not as worried as a lot of people are. You know, as long as we have a person in the loop, which I hope the American military always will, then AI can be an important factor in helping to speed up our decision process to see targets before you know they come in range of you know, the eyeball or maybe even our radar systems. So again, I think AI will be a welcome addition to the tool chest. But there's always got to be a person in the loop on critical decisions. I try to explain this when I talk about Navy ships. So on a Navy ship, you have a close in weapons system called a sea Whiz, and it's got a radar that you know, picks up let's say a surface to surface missile coming at you right Well, the captain of that ship has to make a decision on whether or not he's going to have that clos in weapons system basically a gatling gun, whether he's going to have weapons free or weapons tight. If he says weapons tight, then somebody has got to push the button before that gatling gun goes off and hits that incoming missile. If he says weapons free, then he has made the decision that between the radar system and the weapons system, it can engage whatever target's coming is direction. If he happens to be wrong, then you know where the blame falls. It's on the commandian offship that made that call. So is the sea whiz and autonomous system it is if the decision is made to allow it to be autonomous. You have to have a person in the loop to be able to make these decisions.

00:50:47
Speaker 1: I think as you were talking, I was thinking about my dad, who's served in the Navy during World War Two and the Pacific Theater. If he were alive, would get such a kick out of me talking to you and listening about naval ships. Used to tell me the story and my siblings about how he had to help with the smoke machine sure of course, to obsqure these ships from the Kamakazi pilots, and how he did that one night in the middle of the night and had to and his ship was enveloped by smoke, and he saw another ship right next to them being attacked by Kamakazi's.

00:51:24
Speaker 4: And because the smokeashine, he wasn't going. Sure.

00:51:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've come a long way since smoke machineoy.

00:51:30
Speaker 2: But every time where you have a technological evance, there's technological events after that we continue to leap frog. And so once again back to your question, you have to be careful about putting all your eggs in one basket because things changed pretty quickly.

00:51:42
Speaker 1: I want to end by talking about the title of your book. It is taken from West Points motto and those Duty, Honor Country, which was adopted in eighteen ninety eight, and its opening pages you reflect on General Douglas MacArthur's invocation of these words in his last public remark, stating duty, Honor Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope, when hope becomes forlorn I'm curious, you know, when I think about this book, this isn't just for our soldier, sailors, airmen, and marines. This is really for people, I think, especially young people trying to forge their path. I think there's no mistake that this has come out around graduation, which I think would be a wonderful gift for people. Choc a block full of life lessons, and I'm curious what are some of the most important life lessons that all these writings and speeches might convey to people who are about to embark on a career or actually, you know, just need need a reason to believe again, honestly, not only in themselves, but in our country.

00:53:09
Speaker 2: What I've had a chance to talk to some other folks about the book is that, you know, if you are losing a little bit of faith in the country, if you're worried about the direction of the country, I hope you will take an opportunity to read this book, because as we started off, yeah, there's a lot of bad things happening in the country, but there is so much good going on in the people that I have a chance to spend time with, and that I've certainly spent time with over my life and my career that I'm eternally optimistic. I'm eternally optimistic because it is about the American spirit. And this American spirit, which I tend to think is like the it's the American it's the personification of the American character. It's this belief that we can do anything. I mean, we just sent a crew of four around the moon, and soon we're going to land back on the moon again. You know, we're going to cure cancer, We're going to figure out how AI is going to work for us. There is this kind of constant belief that as Americans, we can do anything and we can overcome whatever problems we've got right now. But the other thing I talk about in the book is our democracy. And we're coming up on two hundred and fifty years, but this is still the grand experiment.

00:54:17
Speaker 1: Many democracies die after two hundred years, right.

00:54:21
Speaker 4: That's right.

00:54:21
Speaker 2: So I offer a few ideas on how we can continue to keep this democracy strong in the next two hundred and fifty years. But the one thing I would add I gave a speech in twenty twenty to MIT graduating class of MIT twenty twenty, but of course it was during the pandemic, so I had to do the speech remotely. And at the time, we were seeing kind of heroes come out of out of everywhere. There were the delivery men and women that were showing up on your doorstep because you couldn't go to the grocery store. There were the nurses and the doctors that were taking care of the patients. But I told this class, and the title of this each was Captain America is not coming to the rescue. And I wanted to be very candid with them right up front, and I said, look, there is no Captain America. There's no Superman, there's no Batman, there's no Harry Potter.

00:55:12
Speaker 4: They're not out there. It's up to you.

00:55:15
Speaker 2: It's up to you, the students of MIT. It's up to us, the American citizens, to become the heroes we need to be. And I said, look, the first thing you have to do to be a hero is to be courageous. Churchill once said that courage is the most important quality because it guarantees.

00:55:33
Speaker 4: All the rest.

00:55:34
Speaker 2: You have to be courageous. You have to stand by your convictions, you have to speak truth to power, you have to stand up to the bullies. You have to do these things to be courageous, you need to be humble. I quoted the Plato's The Apology of Socrates, where Socrates says, I am the wisest man in all of Athens because I know so little. And his point was, Look, you're never going to grow, You're never going to solve problems if you think think you have all the answers. And of course you think about the young students at MIT. These are kind of the cream of the crop. They probably all think that they've got the well.

00:56:07
Speaker 4: No, be humble.

00:56:07
Speaker 2: Be humble when you look into a telescope, humble when you look into a microscope, Be humble when you spend time around people. So look, you have to be men and women of integrity.

00:56:16
Speaker 4: You have to be.

00:56:17
Speaker 2: Compassionate, I said, And this is one of the things that again I worry about sometimes that we have lost a little bit of compassion for our fellow man. You know, I believe in compassion. I believe you need to find a way to help people that are, you know, ill and infirmed. You need to be able to help people that are down in their luck, regardless of what political leanings they might have. So you know, if people are looking for something that I hope is uplifting, there are a lot of great Americans out there. We're going to be fine. This is going to be a tough time for us. We've been in tough times before. We'll be okay. But it is up to us. It is up to us. This is a democracy. If we don't like the way things are going, we can vote people in and we can vote people out. And until that changes, then the country is our responsibility. And if we want to last another two hundred fifty years, we better get to work.

00:57:16
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back and be able to talk freely.

00:57:20
Speaker 2: Oh I was talking freely, not No, all time, I was talking freely because again the reason is we are at war now.

00:57:30
Speaker 3: No, I get it. I get it.

00:57:32
Speaker 1: It's important, and honestly I respect and appreciate that. But what I was going to say is I hope in the future, Admiral mcgraven, you'll be able to come back and let me finish my sentence and talk freely about whether you believe the current leader of the free world embodies all the qualities that you just mentioned.

00:57:53
Speaker 2: I think you've figured that out in this last hour we've been talking.

00:57:56
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate it. I'm a huge admire of yours and I really appreciate your.

00:58:02
Speaker 3: Time my pleasure plans JED.

00:58:08
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katiekuric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.