panet panetta and others. this is a different white house and i think the president views white house differences as personal differences. he brings it inside a little more than he should have. clearly there are significant differences between tillerson and the president on a lot of foreign policy issues. the one to watch is going to be mattis. because he has stayed sort of under the radar. he s still considered very, very strong and influential inside the cabinet but he s losing in rex tillerson a real compadre in how to handle foreign policy and sticky issues like north korea. he calls it a small race, but today s election in western pennsylvania is a big test for the white house and the republican party. applebee s to go.
then he had to try to clean it up. i m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. this is what i don t understand about washington. is it true? did you call him a moron? jake, i indicated earlier when i was asked about that, i m not going to deal with that kind of petty stuff. this is a town that seems to relish gossip, rumor, innuendo. why didn t you deny calling the president a moron? that s a really old question. you understand that by not answering the question, some people thought you were confirming the story. i think i ve answered the question. of course, he s never answered the question. actually, i think he did, john. i think he did answer. forgive me, yes. and i do think that this was certainly a nail in the coffin for rex tillerson. you re always going to have disagreements between cabinet officials and cabinet officials and the president. i saw that working for secretary
terrorist who s responsible for the suicide bombing at host, killing seven cia officers. panetta calls the white house, they have a conversation, and as panetta put it, we have women and children in the shot. ordinarily when you have women and children in the shot, they don t do it. the white house said to leon, this one is on you, leon. he said great. they hand back the decision. they said, as leon put it to us, they said this one you re going to have to make a judgment here, leon. i m the one who s saying the hail marys here. panet panetta, devout catholic, fingering his rosary beads, saying his hail marys makes that decision to take the strike and take out this terrorist, knowing that women and children were in the shot. and what did they get as the result? the after report is
this documentary? surely you went in with a set of expectations, a lot of surprises, a lot of confirmations of what you already thought. what was your biggest surprise? it s hard to choose. one of the stunning things i think that we discover ed is th extent in which they make decisions on the job. the wlous chief hite house chie had no idea he was going to become a battlefield commander. i think of the cia director as somebody who basically goes to the white house and reports, here s what we know. tactical decisions are made by people other than the cia director. not true. here s a perfect example, and it s a riveting story that panetta tells moment by moment. he s at a funeral in arlingtonington cemetery when he gets word they have a major
if you could pick one of these 12 to go back in there today and do the job, who would you pick? who impressed you the most, in other words? that s a great question. panetta, he s impressive. the most interesting complicated character and this is a spaks peerian cast of characters. michael hayden, fascinating guy. it s a fascinating cast of characters. and i would say that tennet might be the most shakespearean. he was the one with the slam dunk on weapons of mass destruction. thank you very, very much for joining us. spy masters premiers on show time. coming up, laura haim has been a critical part of our coverage of the attacks on paris. she s here and will join us on set. a rare onset appearance for