they eventually become cabinet members first to the constitution and then to the legal authority of the president. they will stand up for the constitution. and all of these gentlemen who have gone through the military training and education process will know that personal courage is paramount in these kind of conditions and they need to stand up when they see something wrong or something that is contrary to what they know is the best aspects of the american government. general, thank you for your perspective. i hate that you called me phil. phil mudd, thank you very much. alisyn? it never ends with those two. donald trump says that he s getting some guidance for some of his cabinet picks from president obama. what is president obama telling mr. trump exactly? that s next.
a senior transition official says that to cnn. that s the basis of the reporting. trump now has three retired generals that could potentially serve on trump s administration. is he hiring too many generals? let s bring in cnn military analyst and retiring general and seventh army mart hertling and counterterrorism and counterterrorism official phil mudd. general, let s first start with the irony here. which is that during the campaign one of trump s power lines was, i know more about isis than the generals and it kind of met with some controversy and also some kind of pushback against what the establishment knows versus an insurgent like then trump. now he s putting them around him. is there is a hypocrisy in that? i was probably the only general that he was talking about that he knew more about. but i think he s hiring generals for a very good reason. i ll steal a page out of phil
we are engaged in afghanistan. we re engaged in iraq and syria. all these are military engagements where diplomacy and intelligence sometimes are secondary. i think this is a broader issue about where america is headed overseas and how it deploys power. general, there is an assumption being made when it comes to someone like general mattis there will be a loyalty to trump as kind of an extension of chain of command. but what happens with gentlemen like this in your knowledge. if trump wants something, hey, they just did something horrible to us overseas. torture is back and bigger and better than ever. doesn t general mattis have the back bone to stand up to the commander in chief in that regard or would he just respect the word from above automatically? i don t believe that s the case, phil. i think a lot of americans have a mispersonification of the military on that that we just obey orders robotically. when they put their hands on the bible and swear their oath when
security should be subordinant to the larger purpose of the government. i mean, mr. trump kind of came down hard on the play hamilt hamilton. in the papers talked about where the military s proper place was. we are not talking about that. these are not uniformed service commanders any more. what do you say to that, phil. the baseline suspicion is the this militarization of our government? i don t agree with that overall in terms of concerns about where the government is headed over the course of years. i do think if you look at american foreign policy in the last 15 years, like it or not on the intelligence size the cia is more militarized and it has been deployed for longer than i can remember in my lifetime and longer in the vietnam campaign. i think you re looking at the overall character and american foreign policy over the last 15 years is the reason why these people might be put in place.
do not have enough experience with the variety of leaders the president has to use. so, that s the question i think we should ask. not the credentials of the individuals. their credentials are terrific. the plus side is the strength, the orgizational and the narrow tool box that these gentlemen would have served in service. i went around in a minor role in europe dealing with other governments, i understood as i went into embassies and talked with other governments and agencies i understood the trade and the commerce and the other issues of society as you get from that country team. guys like john kelly who commanded south comm, i know him well. he was literally leading a lot of initiatives not only from a military perspective, but a governmental and an economic perspective in south america when he was the south comm commander. they do know a lot more than just the military tools. but i take phil s point that