CSPAN - Discussion on Current Events in Law at Fourth Circuit Conference

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July 6, 2025 16:53-17:48 - CSPAN

54:56

Discussion on Current Events in Law at Fourth Circuit Conference

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo Source

Participants

Main

david petraeus

11:58

donald j trump

admin 05:40

john bolton

10:47

susan rice

06:56

Appearances

fareed zakaria

cnn 01:29

Clips

karen bass

d 00:15

Large

Voice

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Audio Only

Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
Iranian Dissatisfaction and Regime Change 00:07:05
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Large.
		Hezbollah has been dramatically degraded by this brilliant supply chain operations with the pagers all blowing up.
		So the Hezbollah leadership wasn't just decapitated, it was decimated.
		And then their command control communications were all destroyed.
		The Walkie-Talkies blew up the next day.
		And they are literally not the force in Lebanon, much less the threat to Israel that they were before.
		And now the Lebanese armed forces are actually deploying between the northern border of Israel and the Latani River, taking that area away from Hezbollah.
		Hamas is obviously dramatically degraded as well.
		To be sure, Israel has not achieved its three objectives of destroying Hamas, keeping them from governing again, getting the hostages back, much less a fourth objective, which I felt they should have had from the very beginning, which is to provide a better future for the Palestinian people without Hamas in their lives.
		And the strategy they're embarked on will not enable them to achieve that.
		They're doing counterterrorism.
		They need to do counterinsurgency.
		The Shia militia in Iraq, they're sort of taking a knee.
		You saw a few little responses to the attacks on Iran, but by and large, they're lying low as the elections approach in the fall there.
		And then the Houthis are a bit quieter as well.
		Very importantly, Syria is no longer an ally for Iran.
		When the murderous Bashar al-Assad regime was there, there were lots of forces on the ground.
		They had bases, all kinds of manufacturing facilities to support Hezbollah.
		Now, Hezbollah, which is again dramatically degraded, cannot be reconstituted by Iran traversing the Syrian ground to go into southern Lebanon, and that is going to make that vastly more difficult.
		Not that Iran has a lot to spare at this moment in time.
		So that's also, and then you have Israel really as the preeminent military power in the region, but with a very different strategic outlook.
		We have to really appreciate how significant 10-7 was in terms of convincing Israel that they can never allow a threat to develop, not just on their border, but in the region as well in the face of Iran.
		The Gulf states are dramatically and much more important.
		They're hubs of innovation, developing sectors beyond fossil fuels.
		They're anticipating the India-Mideast corridor, and then the U.S. is still there.
		Try as we might, leaving the Middle East for the United States is like Michael Corleone trying to leave the mafia.
		You just keep getting sucked back in.
unidentified		All right, let's hold on that for a second and let's drill down on the big subject, which is, of course, Iran.
unidentified		John Bolton, when you have had a complicated relationship with Donald Trump.
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		It's not complicated.
unidentified		And on the days when you guys weren't getting along, he would talk about crazy John Bolton.
		All he wants to do is bomb Iran.
		But then he ended up bombing Iran.
		Did you do the right thing?
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		Partially.
		You know, Trump doesn't follow strategy or policy.
		What he does at any given moment is always up in the air.
		His decisions are like a vast archipelago of dots.
		You can try and draw lines between them, but he can't.
		So I can only say what I think, and that is what Dave said is about the situation in the Middle East post-October the 7th is exactly correct.
		To me, this is the moment to finish off the Iranian nuclear weapons program, which I think we have the capacity to do.
		And most importantly, the key that has to take place before there's going to be real peace and stability in the Middle East long term, regime in Tehran has to be overthrown by the people of Iran, and I think it's doable.
		I think the regime is weaker than at any point since the 1979 revolution, which I'd be happy to go into at length.
		But I think we will never have an opportunity this good to remove not just the nuclear program, but the Iranian support for terrorism, which dates back to 1979 when they seized our embassy employees and it went downhill from there.
unidentified		How would you do regime change in Iran?
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		I think the people of Iran are extremely dissatisfied along several vectors, not all of which coincide, but do focus on opposition to the Ayatollahs.
		There's enormous economic discontent in Iran.
		There were riots in 2018 and 2019 that were brutally suppressed by the regime.
		It was a countrywide effect.
		I'm not just talking about Tehran.
		It was all around the country.
		What it proves is you don't put your economy in the hands of a bunch of medieval religious fanatics, but the economy has not improved since then.
		The young people are enormously dissatisfied.
		They know they can have a different way of life.
		They can see it across the Gulf.
		People under 30 are roughly 60% of the Iranian population.
		That's a big number.
		The ethnic groups in Iran are very dissatisfied, depending on your estimates.
		They constitute between 40 and 50 percent of the population, Kurds, Azeris, Balukis, Arabs.
		And the female part of the population is extraordinarily dissatisfied, as reflected in the response two years ago to the regime's murder of Masi Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was accused of not wearing a hijab.
		And I just stress this is not an issue about a dress code.
		It's a fundamental challenge to the legitimacy of the regime.
		Because if they don't speak the word of God on dress codes, they don't speak the word of God on anything else.
		And it's also different in kind from all of the other tensions and discontent.
		Every Ayatollah, every general in the Revolutionary Guard, every general in the regular army has a mother.
		Most of them have sisters, wives, and daughters.
		And they're hearing it from all of them.
unidentified		Susan Rice, regime change in Iran?
		Color me skeptical that the population will successfully overthrow the regime anytime soon.
		I think the conditions that John described are accurate, and of course, Dave's rendition of the state of play in the region I subscribe to as well.
		But ironically, Israel and the United States bombing Iran may have had the unintended consequence of dimming opposition internally because there's quite a bit of evidence that many regime opponents,
Iran's Nuclear Ambitions 00:15:28
unidentified		among the most outspoken, reacted, as one might expect when their country is bombed by an outside entity, not to rally around the regime, but to rally around the country and the national identity.
		And I don't think that advanced the objective of peaceful regime change or internal regime change.
		When I say peaceful, I mean not imposed from outside.
		But I think the bigger question, Fareed, is, you know, are we in a better situation?
		I think certainly Israel, from a grand strategic perspective over the last 18 months, is in a better position substantially because of the support that the United States has provided since October 7th militarily as Iran attacked Israel throughout the last 18 months.
		And that enabled Israel to dramatically diminish Iran's missile capabilities, its air defenses, et cetera, and we've talked about the region.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		But on the nuclear program, I think the resort to military action when diplomacy had not been exhausted was a strategic mistake.
unidentified		It has long been the objective of every American administration, Democratic and Republican, to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
		That has got to be our objective.
		The question in the debate has always been on how, how best.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And the reality is, and we're back to this point today, only diplomacy and a negotiated settlement can ensure the sustainable and verifiable dismantling of Iran's nuclear program.
unidentified		You need inspectors on the ground.
		You need verifiable constraints that are very significant.
		And you don't achieve that by ripping up the 2015 nuclear agreement and replacing it with nothing.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		Trump had an opportunity, I think, before military action of using the threat of military action and the continuation of sanctions to get potentially an even better deal than in 2015.
unidentified		And we lost that opportunity as a result of military action that I think preceded when it was necessary, when diplomacy had proved that it could not succeed.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And as a result, we're in a situation where even with the best execution and the military operation was obviously expertly executed using plans that Dave and I were familiar with going back to the Obama administration when we made the massive ordnance penetrator operational.
unidentified		They did a great job.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		But there have always been inherent limitations to what can be achieved through military force.
unidentified		You don't bomb the knowledge out of existence.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		There are materials that can be hidden in various places, and we have good reason to believe that beyond the three facilities that were targeted, Iran may have other places where it's hiding materials and where it may have operational centrifuges.
unidentified		So the bombing certainly degraded, severely damaged, set back their program in time.
unidentified		But the results are really not clear.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And we sadly may never know the truth about what was accomplished because the intelligence community is being pressured and manipulated to render the judgment that the president dictated merely hours after the attack when we absolutely couldn't know what the actual impact was.
unidentified		And so we have to worry about the nearly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium that has gone we don't know where.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		We have to be mindful of the fact, as I said, that the knowledge remains, that there are likely centrifuges and at least centrifuge components that could be reconstituted.
unidentified		There are hidden facilities.
		We don't know whether we are months away from Iran having the ability to resume enrichment.
		We don't know if Iran has the ability, if not to immediately weaponize in the traditional sense, but build a crude device, which some reportedly they had been working on potentially prior to the attack.
		What we do know is that the intelligence community assessed prior to the attack that Iran had not yet made a decision to weaponize.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		They also assessed that were Iran to be attacked militarily, in all likelihood that would prompt Iran to rush towards weaponization and a secret bomb.
unidentified		And I think that is the biggest concern we have now.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		We don't know, and we may not know, as we didn't in North Korea for many years, if Iran goes underground and rushes to try to create whether it's a crude device or a more sophisticated device.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And we may end up inadvertently with the outcome that we have long sought to prevent.
unidentified		So this is a precarious moment.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		We are back to a place where, again, only negotiations and a deal that allows inspectors in and on the ground and the verifiable dismantling of their program can give us the assurance that we, the United States, Israel, and the region needs that the nuclear program is finally demolished.
unidentified		Dave, I want to ask you on this specific issue.
fareed zakaria ▲ ● ▼		The history of bombing has always been one where when you do the when you eventually get the bomb damage assessments, the results were not as spectacular or effective as people thought, going all the way back to the strategic bombing survey after World War II that Paul Netzer and John Kennedy-Galbrain did.
unidentified		What do you think about this one?
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		I think this is a bit different.
		No one ever envisioned a 30,000-pound bomb that could penetrate rock as deep as it does, and then 5,000 pounds of explosive blowing up and not knowing what is inside.
		Again, I think the damage has been very, very substantial.
		We just don't know that the big unknown is, is there enriched uranium somewhere else?
		Is it particularly 60%, which with the centrifuges could be with one turn of the enrichment process at weapons grade?
		Keep in mind, though, that the Israelis and we also destroyed the Esfahan, so not just the two enrichment centers of Natansk and Fordo, but Esfahan, which actually takes this highly or weapons-grade uranium and then turns it into a metal so that it can actually be shaped into a device.
		I also would submit that I think, as opposed to North Korea, Iran is really, it's penetrated by Mossad to a degree that is almost inconceivable.
		Remember, they stole all of the nuclear program records one time, right from downtown Tehran.
		What Mossad did in the opening days of this is just, again, breathtaking, sitting out in the desert somewhere to get close enough for their drones to precisely take out all these.
		You and I were talking about the meeting that was convened beforehand, which they hit, and that delayed the response by the missiles and so forth.
		So we've always had quite good insights, as you say, in the intelligence world.
		And I think that in this case, we probably will get to the bottom of whether or not there is some enriched uranium and centrifuges left.
unidentified		Can I ask a quick follow-up?
		Sure.
		As a former director of the CIA, do you worry about the it certainly seems very unusual for the president to be essentially tweeting out his conclusions about the intelligence before he's even gotten the intelligence briefings?
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		You know, I think it's always wise for people, and Susan was a good, and John as well, you know, to hear the intelligence community view.
		And by the way, it's correct to say the DNI actually reported accurately the community view that the decision had not been made to make it to enrich the weapons grade, but they had done everything else way beyond what could ever be explained by civilian nuclear enrichment to be in a position to do that.
		And of course, they were arguably within weeks of actually being able to produce highly enriched uranium weapons grade, which then would have to go through the process of being metalized and then shaped into a bomb and so forth like that.
		So I thought, by the way, that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave a very sober, thoughtful, forthright assessment, and I thought the same out of the CIA, by the way.
unidentified		John, what do you think of the points that Susan Rice was making that we don't know whether this is going to cause them to rush towards a bomb?
		We don't know whether there's still weapons-grade uranium hidden somewhere.
		And at the end of the day, you're still going to have to negotiate to get clarity on those issues.
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's certainly the case.
		There's a lot we don't know.
		And it's certainly the case that Trump was completely wrong to make the statement that he did immediately afterwards.
		So there's no defense of that.
		That's not the issue here.
		The question is, you have to start somewhere.
		And we will find out more whether it makes us more happy with the result or less.
		We'll see.
		I mean, just for now, take what Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said.
		He said there was enormous damage.
		I'll buy that.
		That's a good starting place.
		What we need now is continuous surveillance so that we can see any efforts by the Iranians to move uranium or equipment around.
		And then we need the resolve to destroy that, too.
		The key point here, I think, is that all of this pushes in the direction of regime change.
		And Susan is correct when she says that the knowledge of how to recreate a nuclear program exists in Iran, as, by the way, it did in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein kept 3,000 what he called nuclear mujahideen, his scientists and technicians, who could have rebuilt the nuclear program there.
		The answer is regime change, but in the meantime, we want to make sure that there aren't any even possible successful efforts by Iran to do something with what they have.
		And let me just make one more point on all this uranium.
		From all that we can tell, almost all of it is still in gas form, which is very interesting.
		But until you can fabricate it into metal, it's just gas.
		And as David said, it looks like the Israelis took out the uranium conversion capability from yellow cake into gas and gas into metal.
		That's very important that the nuclear fuel cycle has been broken in so many points.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Could I have a two-figure really quickly?
unidentified		We do too quick, but I really want to move on because we've got the whole rest of the world to cover.
		Two couple quick points in response.
		Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director, also said yesterday that in his estimation, the enrichment had been set back by months, not more than that.
		So I think there is a lot we don't know.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And with respect to regime change, I mean, John, if it could happen the way you suggest in an organic uprising internally, I think all of us would be happy to see that happen.
unidentified		The likelihood is the question, and whether we can bank on that outcome is the question.
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		In the absence of that, let me just say for a quick two-second intervention, the supreme leader is 86 years old.
		He's been in power 36 years.
		He's not well.
		He's going to die at some point.
		They don't have a clear succession constitutional path.
		That is the moment when the regime could fracture at the top.
unidentified		Maybe, but we can all hope and wish for divine intervention there and elsewhere.
unidentified		Dave, very quick, too, because we really want to move on.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Let's remember the unprecedented position that the U.S. and Israel are in right now relative to Iran.
		Iran is defenseless.
		We could continue to do this as long as is necessary.
		If there is discovery of some enrichment capacity in HEU, then you go ahead and bomb it.
		But what should be done, I do agree there should be a diplomatic agreement, but it basically should not be much negotiation.
		It should be an ultimatum.
		You stop all of your enrichment.
		By the way, there should be something in there about missiles as well.
		And if you don't, we're going to continue to bomb you.
unidentified		Okay, I want to move on because you've got to, but I want to pick up on something you said.
		I'm sorry, Frank.
		I take it you don't want to get to the places like Africa that are dear to your heart, Susan, or your European allies.
		You know, I spent a long time on the nuclear agreement.
		All right.
		But let's move on.
		If we have time, we'll come back to Hausa.
		You said something about Israel in Gaza that I wanted to explain what you meant.
		You said Israel is engaging in counterterrorism, whereas it should engage in counterinsurgency.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		You said this from the very beginning.
unidentified		You said this from the very beginning.
		And I remember on my show, you said they will not succeed because of this mistake.
		So explain exactly what.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Three objectives.
		That's how you measure.
		Destroy Hamas.
		They have not.
		They've degraded them considerably.
		They're nothing like the company's battalions brigades combat effective.
		They're guerrillas now, but they're still the same strength.
		There's no shortage of angry, grievance-filled young men who will take up an AK-47 and can still kill Israelis.
		Seven were killed in a single United States.
		Starting to see improvised explosive device attacks.
		Hamas is still the guys with the most guns.
		They're not a formal government the way they were, but if the guns fall silent, they will be the predominant power, and they're still hostages.
		Yes, they've gotten a number back, but there are still at least 10 or more alive, as well as a number of others that are dead.
		And so that has not yet been fully achieved either.
		And then, frankly, as I said, there should be a fourth objective, provide a better future for the Palestinians without Hamas in their lives.
		The only way you can achieve all four of these is not by doing clear and leave operations, which is, by the way, what we were doing in the surge in Iraq, prior to the surge in Iraq, which was unsuccessful and violence kept going up.
Comprehensive Civil Military Campaign 00:10:15
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		It's by going in and conducting a comprehensive civil military counterinsurgency campaign.
		Start in the north, come a kilometer down, east-west wall, three north-south walls, four gated communities.
		You tell them it costs a lot of money for a gated community in Florida.
		We're giving it to you for free.
		You clear every building, floor, room, and block all the tunnel entrances.
		Let the people that belong there back in with biometric ID cards.
		And then you have an entry control point to the rest of Gaza.
		The minute you have security, everything is possible.
		They do not have security now, which is why contractors can't deliver humanitarian assistance, why those deliveries turn into riots and so forth.
fareed zakaria ▲ ● ▼		In order to have your solution, I mean, you're describing a situation where the fundamental objective is to make life safe and actually allow the civilian population to feel that they can thrive.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Exactly so.
unidentified		Israel seems to be putting almost the opposite, putting enormous pressure on the civilian population.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Again, there is no solution to this challenge, even hope, no hope at all if you don't do this and don't get Hamas out of their lives and keep them out by staying with them.
		But the minute you have security, then the Arab countries will come in, they'll take over, they'll do the humanitarian assistance, restoration of basic services, reconstruction, and you keep going down.
		It's going to get real complicated around Hamas around Gaza City.
		That's over a million people.
		But this is the only way you can actually achieve security.
		The famous John Paul Van in Vietnam used to say security may be 10% of the problem or 90%.
		Whatever it is, it's the first 10% of the first 90%.
		There has never been security established in Gaza.
		There's security in their three little combat outposts that the Israelis have, but not for the population.
		You have to separate the population from the enemy, the insurgents in this case, the extremists, and that's obviously Hamas and others.
fareed zakaria ▲ ● ▼		Susan, I know that under President Biden, you handled domestic policy, but this is a subject you know a great deal about, and you know that President Biden got an enormous amount of criticism from the left about not doing enough in Gaza and not pressing Israel to pull back and to be less ferocious in its response.
unidentified		Do you have any thoughts on whether the Biden administration could have done a better job?
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		I have lots of thoughts, but my job was, as you mentioned, in the domestic policy realm, and much of what happened came after I'd left the administration entirely.
unidentified		So I wasn't even indirectly privy to their decision making.
unidentified		And I think there are a lot of ways in which we did not do as we should have.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		We were right to support Israel after the horrific attack and its need to defend itself.
unidentified		But I very much agree with what Dave has said.
		I think this has been executed strategically in a short-sighted and ultimately failed way.
		You were saying when we were in Aspen together last summer, exactly what you just said about the need to clear, hold, and build.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And instead, we've got one more year of just utter destruction with enormous humanitarian consequences for the people of Gaza and for the hostages and their families, many of whom have been lost in the interim and continue to languish in the most horrific circumstances.
		So instead of doing learning the lessons that we learned the hard way in Iraq and elsewhere about how to conduct effective counterterrorism, which is through counterinsurgency strategies,
		the Israelis have engaged in a relentless campaign, which can only, as it goes on and on, result in more and more people with the undying anger and desire to revenge, which is not in the long term in Israel's security interests.
unidentified		I think the humanitarian situation is an absolute nightmare.
unidentified		And what we're seeing over the last several weeks is the ceasefire that was early briefly negotiated in January and February has lapsed.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		Is more and more people dying in a humanitarian architecture which is a cruel hoax for sites and people being shot and killed as they try to access very limited supplies.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		So we are long past the point where that conflict needs to end.
unidentified		We need to get the hostages home.
unidentified		We need to And the death and destruction, get rid of Hamas in a sustainable way and rebuild.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And that has not been achieved, and I think it's a huge catastrophe that prevents the wider opportunity to take advantage of the changes that Dave outlined at the beginning in the region, which are beneficial to Israel and to the United States.
unidentified		But we can't consummate and expand the Abraham Accords.
		We can't make progress in Gaza, in the West Bank, towards a two-state solution, and lessen until Gaza is dealt with and we take advantage of a newly reset table in the region that has great potential, but is being squandered at the moment.
		All right, let me again try to move around.
fareed zakaria ▲ ● ▼		John Bolton, one of the things that one of your, I think it was your predecessor, General McMaster, as National Security Advisor to Donald Trump, said, I think he says in his memoirs, I spent one year working almost every day with Donald Trump, and the one thing I could never figure out is why was he so partial to Russia?
unidentified		Do you have an answer to that?
		And if that's, can you use that as a way to talk about the Russia-Ukraine conflict?
		And the central question everyone has is: will Donald Trump ever actually put more pressure on Vladimir Putin?
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		Could I say a word first about Gaza?
unidentified		Absolutely.
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		I will be brief.
		I take a somewhat different point of view.
		I think the two-state solution is dead if it was ever viable.
		I think you can forget about it, given Israel's present circumstances.
		I would split the question of the Gazan people from the people of the West Bank.
		I would treat the Gazan refugees the same way every other refugee population in the world has been treated since 1945.
		And that is under the principles not of UNRWA, but of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR's humanitarian principles.
		They say refugees should either be repatriated to their country of origin, or if that is impossible, they should be resettled.
		That is the answer.
		And let's do one piece of history.
		In 1957, the UN had a plan to resettle the refugees that were in Gaza then.
		There were 300,000 people in Gaza then, of whom 100,000 were indigenous, 200,000 were refugees.
		The population that has grown in Gaza are not the native sons and daughters of the soil of Gaza.
		They're refugees.
		So UNHCR, and I'll conclude with this on Gaza, you can say two things about UNHCR.
		It has never forcibly repatriated anybody, number one, and number two, there are no permanent UNHCR refugee camps.
		So it can be done.
		Now, on Donald Trump and Moscow.
		Look, if I had seen any evidence in my time there that Russia had some improper influence over him, I think I would have noted it.
		I don't see any evidence of it today.
		I have said before, and I'll say it again here: I think Donald Trump performs a rule, a role for Russia, first articulated by Vladimir Lenin.
unidentified		He is their useful idiot.
		But why?
		Why?
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		Because I think he knows nothing of history.
		He sees international relations through the prism of personal relations entirely.
		He's transactional.
		He's ad hoc.
		He's episodic.
		He thinks Vladimir Putin is his friend.
		That's not his only friend in the world.
		He thinks Xi Jinping is his friend.
		When he met Kim Jong-un for the first time in Singapore to talk about the North Korean nuclear weapons program, he said, we fell in love.
		That's how he thinks, and that's what's motivating.
unidentified		So, but keep going from there.
unidentified		What happens in Russia-Ukraine then?
fareed zakaria ▲ ● ▼		Are you saying he just will not put the pressure on Putin that would be needed to get this resolved, to get Putin to the negotiating table?
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		I don't think he's been pushed to the point yet when he has flipped in his view of Putin.
		It is possible he has flipped on other leaders.
		He once was very antagonistic toward Erdogan of Turkey.
		Now he's another of his best friends.
		But it's not there yet.
		So I think the near-term situation for Ukraine is that the war grinds on.
		I don't think Trump is going to come back to negotiations soon.
		He didn't get it done in 24 hours, which was never going to happen anyway.
		It looks like a failure.
		He wants to win his Nobel Peace Prize somewhere else.
Deals and Controversy 00:09:55
unidentified		Dave, looking at it militarily, the Russians are gaining ground, but very slowly and at a very high cost.
		What do you think happens over the next year if John is right?
		And, you know, absent a huge American push that provides the Ukrainians with lethal weaponry.
		We'll leave this recorded program here.
		You can finish watching it, though, if you go to our website, cspam.org.
		Live now to remarks from President Trump.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Christy Noam has, as you know, been there and will continue to be there.
		And we're working very close with representatives from Texas, and it's a horrible thing that took place.
		Absolutely horrible.
		So we say God bless all of the people that have gone through so much and God bless the state of Texas.
		It's an incredible place.
		Any questions, Ms. President?
unidentified		Are you still planning to phase out FEMA?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, FEMA is something we can talk about later, but right now they're busy working, so we'll leave it at that.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		For the trade letters that you're sending out on Monday, Secretary Besson said that it would be a three-week extension and that rates could go back up to the April 2nd level on August 1st.
unidentified		Is that what we should do?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Sending letters out on Monday, having to do with the trade deals.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		It could be 12, maybe 15.
unidentified		You know, Secretary of Commerce, right here.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And I guess Howard, I would say it could be maybe as many as 15 or so.
		And they'll be going out on Monday, and some will go out on Tuesday and Wednesday.
		And we've made deals also, so we're going to have a combination of letters, and some deals have been made.
unidentified		They're not actually thinking about starting a third party.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I think it's ridiculous to start a third party.
		We have a tremendous success with the Republican Party.
		The Democrats have lost their way, but it's always been a two-party system.
		And I think starting a third party just adds to confusion.
		It really seems to have been developed for two parties.
		Third parties have never worked.
		So he can have fun with it, but I think it's ridiculous.
unidentified		Bolton Keyback from Elon.
		Go ahead.
		What's your message going to be to Netanyahu tomorrow?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		But we're working on a lot of things with Israel.
		And one of the things is probably a permanent deal with Iran.
		In other words, they have to give up all of the things that you know so well.
		The attack turned out according to every single Atomic Energy Commission.
		That was a complete and total obliteration.
		And we had the violence, as you know, at the White House on Friday.
		They were incredible.
		And they confirmed that.
		They know better than anybody, by the way, but they confirmed that every bomb hit its mark perfectly.
		And they would have to start all over again at a different location.
		This one is, as you know, the word I used was the correct word, obliteration.
unidentified		What will your message be on Gaza to Netanyahu?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I think we're close to a deal on Gaza.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We could have it this week.
unidentified		The Armacricks are planning more federal cuts for the debts over in Texas.
		Another district president.
		You'll have to go to the loss.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I think there's a good chance we have a deal with Hamas during the week, during the coming week, pertaining to quite a few of the hostages.
		You know, we've gotten a lot of the hostages out, but pertaining to the remaining hostages, quite a few of them will be coming out.
		We think we'll have that done this week.
unidentified		But, Mr. President, do the tariff rates change at all on July 9th, or do they change on August 1st?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		What are you talking about?
unidentified		Tariff rates.
unidentified		Do they change on July 9th or August 1st?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		No, they're going to be tariffs.
		The tariffs are going to be the tariffs.
		I think we'll have most countries done by July 9th.
		Either a letter or a deal.
unidentified		But they go into effect on August 1st.
		Tariffs go into effect August 1st, but the President is setting the rates and the deals right now.
		Are you investigating whether some of the cuts to the federal government left key vacancies at the National Weather Service or in the Emergency Court meetings?
		They did not.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		They did.
		I'll tell you, you look at that, what a situation that all is.
		And that was really the Biden setup.
		That was not our setup.
		But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either.
		I would just say this is a hundred-year catastrophe and it's just so horrible to watch.
unidentified		When Friday should visit Texas, Mr. President, probably on Friday.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We wanted to leave a little time.
		I would have done it today, but we'd just be in their way.
		Probably Friday.
unidentified		Mr. President, have you been briefed on the ship that was hit in the Red Sea?
unidentified		Do you know if the Houthis attacked that ship today?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We'll give you a report sometime tonight or tomorrow.
unidentified		The DC City Council has not approved a new stadium for the commanders.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		If they don't approve it, will you step in?
		Well, we see what happens.
		I've been looking at the deal, and, you know, I don't blame them.
		It's a very important piece of property.
		It's a great piece of property.
		So we'll see.
		But if I can help them out, I will.
		You know, ultimately, we control that.
		The federal government ultimately controls it.
		So we'll see what happens.
		I saw the plans.
		I saw the stadium.
		The owner's very, very successful and a very good man.
		I know him a little bit.
		And it would be a great place for the NFL to be there, I can tell you that.
		So if they want to negotiate a little tough, that's okay with me.
unidentified		Would you see the commanders change the name back to Redskins?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, you want me to make a controversial statement?
		I would.
		I wouldn't have changed the name.
		But that's there.
		It just doesn't have the same, it doesn't have the same ring to me.
		But you know, winning can make everything sound good.
		So if they win, all of a sudden the commander sounds good.
		But I wouldn't have changed the name.
unidentified		Why not help Ukraine the same way you help Israel?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Say it?
unidentified		Why not help Ukraine the same way you help Israel?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I am helping Ukraine.
		I'm helping it a lot.
		And it's a war that should have never happened.
		It's a war that should have never started.
		If I were president, if the election weren't rigged and it was rigged, rigged so badly, and that's come out.
		Read Miranda Devine in the New York Post today.
		The election was totally rigged.
		And if it weren't rigged, you wouldn't have a war with Russia right now.
		And you wouldn't have had inflation.
		And you wouldn't have had the horrible Afghanistan the way they left.
		Not that they left, we would have been out before them, but the way they left, I think the most embarrassing day in the history of our country, you wouldn't have had the October horror show with Israel and Hamas.
		You wouldn't have had any of it.
		You wouldn't have had the recent showdown with Iran.
		You wouldn't have had any of it.
		And you wouldn't have had inflation.
unidentified		You said you had a strategic goal with Zelensky the other day.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, strategy, did you do it?
		It was a good call.
		He's being hit very hard, as I said he would.
		He's being hit very hard, and I was very disappointed with my goal with President Putin.
		I was very disappointed.
unidentified		Mr. President, in light of the floods, do you think that the federal government needs to hire back any of the meteorologists who were fired in the last few months?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I wouldn't know that.
		I really wouldn't.
		I would think not.
		This was a thing that happened in seconds.
		Nobody expected it.
		Nobody saw it.
		Very talented people are there and they didn't see it.
		It's, I guess they said once in a hundred years, they've never seen anything like this.
		So I wouldn't, I mean, people are trying to blame the school.
		They're trying to blame the camp.
		They're trying to blame.
		It's just a horrible thing.
		But no, I wouldn't say that.
unidentified		Thank you, Mary Levin.
		Are you expecting any deals to be signed this week, and what countries are closest to that?
		Well, the president is right in the midst of discussing all sorts of deals with all sorts of countries, and the gentleman to my right is going to decide, and I'm going to be with him when he makes that decision.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, everybody.
unidentified		Those were the latest comments from President Trump.
unidentified		We returned now to our scheduled programming already in progress.
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		But there are people in the Republican Party who do make arguments along those lines.
		I think they remain a very small minority.
		Both parties have isolationist tendencies that rise and fall over time.
		The isolationist wing of the Republican Party is having a moment now.
		But in terms of people around the country, in terms of people in Congress, I still think what you could call a Reaganite or Reaganite-Bush approach is where they want to be.
		They don't speak up in Congress enough, in my view.
Hopeful Globalization Amidst Tariffs 00:13:00
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		I think that's unfortunate.
		I'm certainly doing what I can to change that, but I think they're intimidated by Trump.
		The intimidation is real.
		Ask Senator Tom Tillis what just happened over the weekend.
		It's a great loss to the party.
		It could cost Republicans the majority in the Senate if they're not careful.
		But I think fundamentally here, both parties suffer from an absence of leaders who can speak to the people about the threats we face around the world and what we need to do as a country to ensure our security.
		I think too many people said that we had reached the end of history after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
		For 35 years, we have not had enough politicians who can make the case for a forward American position in the world.
		It's true of both parties.
		We're suffering from that now, particularly in the Republican Party.
unidentified		Dave, I want to ask you about what does the world look like to you now?
		You've spent the last 12 years in the private sector.
		You spent the entirety of your life, before that professionally, in government, in the military, in government or in the military.
		How much has the world changed now?
		We talked about the Middle East, but if you were to what are the what do you do that what are view the dominant changes in the world today?
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Well, they've been also profound, and they continue, and they'll be amplified, I think, by the tariffs that are being discussed and still are not resolved.
		But when I left government and went to KKR, you could describe the world as one of benign globalization.
		All the barriers to trade, capital, investment, even movement of people and technology were being reduced.
		Globalization as measured by global trade was going like this.
		Twelve years later, we're in an era of renewed great power rivalries.
		Most of that, of course, about the further rise of China, the more aggressive stance of China in a variety of different activities around the world, but especially in their seas around them.
		All the barriers have been going up instead of down.
		The Trump administration put 10 percent tariffs in Trump 1.0.
		The Biden administration, I think, rightly kept those.
		But then 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, a number of different sectors.
		You can't invest in China in these.
		You can't sell to them these, especially dual-use technologies, but also AI, quantum, microchips, biotech, you name it.
		So now in this era, you see globalization, which is going like this.
		By global trade, it's now slobalization.
		And within that, you see regionalization.
		And along the way, international organizations, of which we were often the leaders, which were active 12 years ago, never decisive, but still relevant, I think they have been diminished further as well.
		The Singaporean foreign minister, the month before Liberation Day tariffs were announced, captured this beautifully.
		He said, the world is now shifting from unipolarity to multipolarity, from free trade to protectionism, from multilateralism to unilateralism, from globalization to hypernationalism, from openness to xenophobia, and from optimism to anxiety.
		Otherwise, everything is going great.
unidentified		And Susan Rice, you think that this shift, which I imagine you agree with, is largely produced by the Trump administration.
		We're not reacting to something.
		We're actually causing the shift to protectionism and nationalism.
		We're certainly accelerating it and doing it in a strategically, I think, stupid way.
		John Bolton.
		Sometimes less is more.
		John Bolton, tell us a little bit.
		You know, look, you're the only guy who has sat down for hours and hours with Donald Trump.
		And so we're all trying to, people sometimes ask me, what is the world going to look like?
		And I always say, we're in this strange moment where to try to answer all these questions is to try to get into the mind of one single human being.
		Because policy is not being made by the National Security Council.
		It's not being made by interagency processes.
		It's being made by this one guy.
		And so when you think about how he's looking at the world right now, we've got three and a half years to go.
		Sketch for us what do you think is going to happen.
		We know one thing, which you've talked about before.
		He wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
		But other than that, what do you think, how is this going to play out?
john bolton ▲ ● ▼		Well, I have no idea.
		And I'm not troubled to say that because I'm absolutely convinced Trump has no idea.
		It is really ad hoc and transactional.
		And we were told the story when I first started the White House that in the Trump organization, he never made a daily schedule.
		He would come into his office each day and say, well, what will happen today?
		Maybe that's the formula for success in Manhattan real estate development.
		It's not the way you want the U.S. government.
		I would say, though, that it's important not to overestimate the damage that Trump is doing.
		I think the tariffs in particular are shredding decades of American effort to build up credibility, good faith, reliance on us.
		It's going to be very hard to get them back.
		But I think it's possible.
		And I think, just remind everybody of my hero, Edmund Burke, who warned against overgeneralizing from insufficient information.
		And I remain hopeful.
		Look, in tomorrow's July, by the 20th, we'll be six months in, one-eighth of the way through.
		It's almost over.
unidentified		All right, I'm going to ask.
		I'm going to ask each of you then to close on a hopeful note that John Bolton has begun.
		Dave, what you read out, the Singaporean Foreign Minister, and I was struck by that speech as well.
		So if the world is the way you're describing, more unilateralism, more protectionism, more anxiety, more nationalist rivalries, how do you think the United States should navigate this, and what makes you hopeful?
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Well, by the way, and keep in mind that that was before the tariffs, and these tariffs are historic.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		The resting heart rate could be larger than the smoot-hawley tariffs were.
unidentified		We're essentially quadrupling to quintupling the tariffs that the United States has against the world.
unidentified		Yeah.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		So again, that will amplify a lot of this unless resolved.
		And of course, you can use this as negotiating leverage as well.
		And I hope that that's some of the thinking behind this with John's cautions ringing in my ears.
		What makes me most hopeful is that we do come to certain solutions that actually have been pretty heartening.
		The NATO summit, who would have ever dreamed, you know, give President Trump credit for achieving something that no previous president, Republican or Democrat, all of whom railed about the inability of the European countries to spend just 2% of GDP on defense, much less now 3.5, with another 1.5 that is other ancillary actions related to that.
		That is enormous.
		That's great.
		The real source of optimism, though, is the incredible productivity boom we're in the early stages of here in the United States.
		And obviously, GDP is workforce times productivity.
		Workforce is going to not grow at the rate it used to, given the measures against, again, immigration and so forth, many of which needed the southern border, especially.
		But this productivity is so extraordinary that it's going to keep us growing in GDP, I think, and keep us out of a recession despite what could be the effects of some of the tariffs if they end up at very substantial numbers.
		And that is truly amazing.
		That is the engine of growth and opportunity for the U.S.
		It's what's made us great again and again and again, and it continues.
		And that's, again, my source of optimism when I wake up in the morning.
unidentified		Susan, what's your source of optimism?
		And you can't say that we're going to run the clock out on Donald Trump because John Bolton run the clock out on Donald Trump because John Bolton already said that.
		I'll be honest.
		I don't have many sources of optimism.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		We haven't even touched on what's happening in our own country, where the rule of law and due process are under daily assault and rapidly evaporating.
unidentified		There's so much going on that I find enormously distressing.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		Dave, I hope you're right about productivity increasing, but we haven't also touched on the impact of artificial intelligence, not geostrategically, but just in terms of the domestic economy, we may have great increases in productivity and real consequences for employment, and no strategy or policy, it seems, to try to begin to address that.
unidentified		So I struggle to see any silver linings.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		I guess the best I can come up with is that Europe seems to be waking up and recognizing that it needs to do more to step up to ensure its own security that sadly, for the wrong reason, because it's concluded it can't dependably rely on the United States.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		But Europe stepping up, not just with its commitments last week at NATO, which are significant, but with an understanding that it is going to have to change its approach to its own security.
unidentified		And Canada, the same.
karen bass ▲ ● ▼		And Canada, you know, sadly concluding that the United States at the moment is more of a threat than a partner, looking to strengthen its ties to Europe economically as well as from a security point of view.
unidentified		Some of these dynamics are not bad outcomes.
		The catalyst for them concern me greatly, and I agree with John that it's going to be very hard to put many of these genies back in the bottle.
		We haven't even talked about the dollar falling 10% for the most since 1973 in the first six months of this year.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		I mean, we're just in a very precarious place where the reliability of the U.S. and our global economic strength has rested enormously on our adherence to the rule of law, our expectations that we were predictable and dependable, and made rational choices.
susan rice ▲ ● ▼		And when the President of the United States, if John is right, wakes up in the morning and doesn't know what he's going to do for the rest of the day, that's not predictability and stability.
unidentified		And the biggest beneficiary of all of this, sadly, is China.
		All right, we have to close on that slightly sober note.
		Thank you all.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		Earth birthday was really good.
david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		You're a throw.
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david petraeus ▲ ● ▼		The world has changed.
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		FCC Chair Brendan Carr spoke at the Commission's Build America event, focusing on telecommunications infrastructure investment and innovation.
Increasing Access to Spectrum 00:00:25
unidentified		He talked about rural access to high-speed internet, investing in 5G technology, and increasing access to the spectrum.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, thanks so much, Craig.

Chapters

00:00:00 Iranian Dissatisfaction and Regime Change
00:06:51 Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
00:22:04 Comprehensive Civil Military Campaign
00:32:04 Deals and Controversy
00:41:45 Hopeful Globalization Amidst Tariffs
00:54:30 Increasing Access to Spectrum