andrea mitchell, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent and the host of the noon hour eastern time on weekdays on this very network. and jeremy bash, former chief of staff at cia and the pentagon, former counsel to house intel. and, jeremy, it is your past as someone who knows general mattis and someone who worked with him. how bad did it have to get for him to do this? second part of the question, where do you assess our risk right now? extremely bad, brian, because secretary mattis has told confidants over the past several weeks that he was not going to quit out of fatigue or frustration. he would stand his ground unless the president asked him to do something that secretary mattis believed was manifestly not in the interest of american national security.
again since april, again in september, the syrian plan would not work, the withdrawal would not work. this was abandoning the syrian kurds, abandoning them to whatever erdogan would want to do to them. this was hatched and finalized with a call to erdogan on friday. first brought up at the g20 in argentina about three weeks ago, and then again on friday. so he was ignoring all of the advice of mattis. and i have to tell you how extraordinary this is. i consulted with our historical guru, michael beschloss, ours particularly and yours and mine, and this has never happened. a defense secretary never in american history has resigned in protest. there have been two historic references where a foreign policy advisor sy advance covered that under jimmy carter and william jennings brian
strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. while the u.s. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies. well, with us tonight by telephone, former secretary of state john kerry. he served in that role under president obama from 2013 to 17. before that, a member of the u.s. senate representing massachusetts for 28 years. and, mr. secretary, where moments of peril in the modern era are concerned, how great is this one? well, it is an enormous consequence, brian, in terms of our own governance and in terms of the ability of other nations to miscalculate and to allow a vacuum to continue with respect to american leadership. secretary mattis, a united
senator corker, the chairman of the foreign relations committee, said that the white house is an adult day care center. people all through the congress know this, brian. people in our nation know it. they have read bob woodward s book. they read the wolff book. there is no secret about how chaotic this is. increasingly, there is no secret increasingly, there is no secret about how corrupt it is. and it s obviously not just corrupt on a question of criminality level. it s corrupt in terms of keeping faith with american principles, keeping faith with the direction of the country the way we need to go, and the way we need to govern ourselves. so i think this is not this is a continuation of a crisis that too many people have been too content to live with. and i think we have to be resolute ourselves about believing in the strength of our
and then listening to phil, we ve got the markets in the tank. we ve got a potential government shutdown. the whole world is watching. it reminds me of crimson tide with the exception that denzel isn t around to help us out of our current situation. but a key scene in the movie is they call a missile drill during a fire in the kitchen because it s all about being ready when you re vulnerable. are you convinced, given your years experience at the pentagon for starters, that no one tries any funny business, that the united states will present its usual muscular presence to the world? well, the problem, brian and this was illustrated not only on the uss alabama, but in real life when you have chaos and dysfunction and you have a government that actually cannot work, that gives a signal to our adversaries and i m thinking in particular about the russians, in particular about places like the baltics, like estonia, where they may want to test the resolve of the united states at this