Have a lot to do before they can get qualified particularly in terms of the corruption that they have. that s what they want to do, become a part of nato and one of the reasons for the angst that putin has. he went into georgia to stop georgia from becoming part of nato and he was in crimea and also in eastern ukraine for the same reason. it is very much on the table from the russian s perspective in stopping ukraine from becoming a part of nato. harris: talk to me a little bit about leaving everything on the table because many presidents have done that until they make a decision. this president took off at least for now the use of unilateral troops. what does that tell our enemy? you have heard some like senator ted cruz of texas coming across weak to the russians. what is your take? well, the american people haven t been prepared to go to war over ukraine. the congress of the united states, there is not bipartisan support to go to war over
Prospered should pay a patriotic tax. so democrats are looking to converge on something that is by all accounts going to cost less than the original target and that s going to be funded somehow. they need all 50 votes and republicans remain very united against this including very concerned about something that really doesn t affect very many people. you can still debate what the right tax and spend policies are, but there may be a tell here that you ve got some senators concerned about a tax that would literally not hit anyone in their states depending on where they live. concern about the billionaire s tax. officially calling the shots. the multibill nars are going to look and say i don t want to invest in the stock market because if that goes, i got to get taxed. they are now proposing to tax money the american people haven t even made yet. maybe i ll instead invest in
In the media and you a retired general and they think you re the numbskulls that got us into this to begin with, we don t want our servicemembers dying over there for afghans who are not even willing to fight to defend themselves. that s a very prevalent view. what do you say to that? well, i would just say do you expect a president to lead or do you expect a president to as one of your panelists said meet the people where they are? i think it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of americans don t support the war because three presidents in a row have told him it s not worth it. and so i think that this fundamental misunderstanding of the war and a failure to communicate to the american people what they deserve to know, jake. hey, what is at stake there and what is a strategy that can deliver a favorable outcome at an acceptable cost. that s what the american people deserve to know. and i would say across the last three administrations, the american people haven t heard
Because of any place that the military s failed. obviously the military failed in the planning for this. but the fundamental problem we have is that the troops haven t failed over the last 20 years. politicians have failed to explain to the american people what we were doing in afghanistan and how we were being successful. there is this false choice that comes out in every biden speech right now when he just resurrects all these old talking points that we ve heard for months and months and months, this false choice of zero troops, immediate withdrawal, precipitous with no clarity, no planning and isolationist nonsense or we need 150,000 occupying ground troops. we haven t had 100,000 troops in afghanistan in a decade. the truth is what we had, not a month ago, but what we ve heard and why we ve been successful at decapitating terror organizations was a small forward-deployed asset light but impact heavy group that was sustaining intel and special
Result of that vladimir putin was on the world stage with equal billing with a leader of the free world and he made no concessions, he made no concessions about cyber attacks, made no concessions about political dissidents, about russian interference in ukraine or belarus. that s a political win for vladimir putin back home that he couldn t have dreamed about so it was a great a day for vladimir putin and the united states got nothing out of it. you re an intelligence guy. you re the former director of national intelligence. vladimir putin is also intelligence. he s a former kgb spy. from an intelligence standpoint, how do you view that meeting? what was putin looking to learn? well, you talk about things that vladimir putin gained. we talk about an economic win. we talk about a political win. he also got a strategic win. vladimir putin got something that the american people haven t gotten.