This is one hour. Good evening everybody. It is wonderful to be with you again on this 27th program at the crossroads series. Tonight we are especially honored to present not one, but two extraordinary heroes, Lieutenant Colonel than men and journalist. They will be in conversation about the price paid by the military man in the era of trump. The program tonight is being recorded by cspan whom we welcomen, into our room. The series was created as a joint venture between uniteday r the democracy and justice and community advocates. Started after President Trumps first muslim man which we found to be a portent and in violation of our understanding of american democracy to the jejewish value. As a vehicle to site for civil discourse and protection of our democratic ideals. It is a Great Partnership that has been able to bring 27 outstanding programs with americas a list of thinkers. We are all volunteering your time and greatly appreciate the audience support and expressions. I welcome you tonight on behalf ipof the leadership team. Thank you to the many wonderful cosponsors the center for justice and Holocaust Museum la. A remainder next week we protect the chief advisor and outstanding David Axelrod at the regular time and then on november 2nd from 5 to 7 we have an Amazing Program with a rotating cast of six brilliant panelists. They will tell us what will happen and what will it mean. And in november we will host bill kristol and george will on three separate wednesdays to help us understand what has happened and then december with congressman adam schiff. Want to conclude my welcoming remarks with a comment about the guests tonight. No doubt many others at the town hall tonight spend much of our early life fighting for the relief in the soviet union and throughout the night was a national activist leader. In addition to the political advocacy activism, we traveled to the soviet union to visit and bring back their stories to void the movement. It gives us time to be able to host two incredible men born in the soviet union and whose families were able to emigrate to the efforts of that movement. We are so grateful to have you here with us tonight. To introduce the speakers please welcome the community advocates, a great leader and partner and friend. I am pleased to welcome you all to the virtual town hall with a record of nearly 5500 registers. The audience is now bridging oceans. Last Nights Program had visitors from mexico to columbia. Tonight we offered the analysts and i can help but mention he stands out in todays america as the hero. Hes one of the few individuals that have exhibited courage in the face of tyranny and wrongdoing. When confronted though they had a little to lose they spoke up when he witnessed the wrongdoing knowing full well that his career was in jeopardy. He took a stand when countless others did nothing though they knew the consequences were to the nation. You are about to hear from a brave man and the right tim at e for all the right reasons. Making a third appearance of the ppseries hes a respected historian, bestselling author and Foreign Policy activists. He is the senior fellow on the foreign relations, womanist for the Washington Post and analyst for cnn. He will introduce his friend and guest speaker to discuss the era of trump, paying the price. Thank you very much. I echo everything that you said about alex being a hero. And now very briefly, alex was born in 1975 in the soviet union in ukraine. He and his family came here and he grew up in new york city where im speaking to you from. He graduated and joined the u. S. Army as a Second Lieutenant of an infantry. He subsequently served in a variety of assignments. In 2008 he specialized in the former soviet union and eastern seurope and he spent time at te u. S. Embassy and got an ma from harvard and then was an assistant army attache from 2012 to 2015. Then he was a political military adviser to the chair man of joint and 2018 he was assigned to the National Security council was the director for Eastern European caucuses and Russian Affairs and of course this is where he achieved worldwide fame. It was almost a year ago on november 19 alex testified before the Senate House Intelligence committee about what transpired on a phone call between President Trump. As he testified he thought it was deeply troubling and he reported that of his chain of command and he did so truthfully and honestly but at a great personal risk to himself and my first question is did you have any idea what would happen when you referred your concerns and when you agreed to testify, did you hesitate . You must have realized you were going against the most powerful man in the country. You would be deeply unhappy about your testimony. Is there a lot of military officers who would choose to stay out of the line of fire but you advanced. Was that a hard decision for you ask. Thank you for being part of this discussion. Im privileged to have you be my interviewer. Thank you for hosting. Its a unique opportunity to join this group of guests youve had working through and its an opportunity to kind of share whatth transpired. There was little to no concern making the initial report to the proper authorities in the council. You have tors understand from my perspective, i had been watching this kind of slow moving car crash for several months. It became clear that there were some oddities as early as march when the former mayor of new york city, Rudy Giuliani started to advance a sort of narrative about ukrainian interference and corruption on the part of the exceptional ambassador. That continued over the subsequent months all the way to president zielinski and the inauguration i attended in the may timeframe really all the way through it started to come to head early june about two weeks before when the National Security advisor came through and offered a kind of quid pro quo transaction at which point i reported a lot of people dont necessarily remember or recall. But what was troubling is i tried to associate may be because my military training and high regard of the office i try to do associate the president was personally involved but that apwas apparent in that call on july 205th. Nobody in the United States is above the law. I shared my concerns in the hope that the proper authorities could write the ship and get us back on course. Ultimately with regards to the testimony itself, i would say i obviously knew the consequences but hoping i wouldnt be a victim of retaliation, but i had a suspicion that this was going to be highly problematic potentially ending my career but what were my optionsd really . I could have reversed course somehow and basically went back on my initial concerns. I could have shirked my responsibilities as a military officer and not appeared. I never really considered unless the president gave me a direct order to play out in the courts, i never considered not appearing before congress and testifying. Thats not the country i lived in as far as im concerned and there was no chance that i wasnt going to do my duty in this case. The most memorable part of your statement is when you addressed your father and his concerns. Im sitting here in the u. S. Capitol talking to elected professionals thats proof youou made the right decision 40 years ago to leave and come here to the United States of america in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth. Do you still feel that way because you have suffered. Youve had to retire early as ad Lieutenant Colonel. You were not promoted as you deserve to be. Your brother was fired along with you. Do you still feel like you are fine and the experience is a vindication of the american system . In a lot of ways, there was certainly the failure of congress as a whole to enforce accountability and pursue justice. My role was pretty straightforward. I was a witness called to testify on what i observed. Going into the closed door testimony and public testimony on the 19th of november, there was little doubt i was going to face retaliation. At that point i had faced retaliation. I was already ostracized by the kind of senior Political Leadership and excluded from certain activities having proven myself as either disloyal or unreliable to the president. The president we swear in oath to the constitution. I knew what i was getting into. Every word in my statement was very carefully reviewed. I wish i had reversed it because i meant to say not elected professionals but i said elected. I couldnt get it out. I knew what i was saying. The fact we live in a different country than we came from where the stakes were much higher. I was eluding to ske the fact tt ultimately in the long run i would be fine. There were fewer misconceptions it would be a rocky road in the foreseeable future. I did ultimately end up leaving due to a campaign of bullying and retaliation and intimidation. My dad came here at the age of 47 with 750. 3 young sons and a motherinlaw and he managed to do fine with much, much harder load at him and thats where i trust i will be fine. How does itee feel to have bn rocketed so quickly to so much fame and notoriety and in particular it was watching your testimony that was evidently truthful, to see the way you were vilified by so many republicans, having republican members question the loyalty which was sickening for somebody like you whos earned the purple heart for the country, having the White House Press secretary calling you a junior employee and the president of the United States attack you. But also when he fired you sending out a tweet about how you are supposed to have been given a horrendous and you wouldnt adhere to the chain of command and allul these lies, te kind of stuff we are used to seeing from internet trolls but this was the president of the United States saying this, the president that at the same time was your commanderinchief. This was a surreal experience i cant i imagine what thats lik. Did you feel personally threatened, like your life or your familys life was at stake . I just cant imagine what that experience is like. Ive been through tough situations. Ive deployed through combat, three years in moscow in one of the more highstakes geopolitical games are played and an entire Security Apparatus ordered against you as an attache. My wife and i have been through our own challenges. She spoke about those recently with regards to trying to have a bigger family. In the big scheme of things, i tend not to focus on the bad things. I separate the office from the person. I hate referring to him as President Trump because he doesnt deserve that title in my mind. Yes he won the election but you have to prove respect and hes done the opposite. So, i have little regard for him and little regard for the officials he put in high office because they are unqualified and frankly often times incompetent. So, in a lot of ways i take it as a badge of honor when i get attacked by these folks you know, with other completely specious claims about me and my character because i have little regard for them. People i do hold high regard for like the chair man in his last days in uniform he basically put out some, he made it a point to speak to put information out for cnn, testing my qualities. And i can generally hold my own. But it is quite disconcerting to come to the house meaning that people know how to find us and that was a problem and we were prepared to potentially move and increase resource protection and do Due Diligence for safety. But we try to live a life as much as we could normally in a stressful situation. Its great you have to endure all that but what you think of people like john bolton of all the republican members of congress who look at the evidence and then disregarded and voted to acquit even though the evidence was overwhelming he was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors of which he was accused . What i find interesting i could take solace in the fact people have to live with their decisions i could speak about myself and why i chose to do my duty i do the right thing to do and i would have to live with myself if i somehow didnt do the right thing and look my daughter in her eyes and i couldve made a difference and i was not going to dishonor our family by shirking my responsibility. Those that failed to do that will have to live the consequences with of their actions and not even feel bad about it some of these folks are selfserving and looking to and i guess they will be fine even if they are vilified by the public. But i think probably there will be enough people that will suffer consequences ass a result of shirking responsibilities and we will see that in the upcoming election in a coupleee weeks that they will lose their office and for the rest of them to have that basically for the rest of their careers we would just leave it at that. You mentioned the support you receive from the outgoing chiefs but i am curious in general the support you received from the army , secretary of defense and where general dunford was replaced did you feel you were being vilified by the president of the United Stateswh or did they leave that man on the battlefield. There is some nuance so i never felt i had any supporter backing so whos to blame i guess empire the defense officials and the joint chiefs as leaders to go back to the president and the environment for the past four years and our institutions that have kept us a strong as we have been have been under attack with the department of justice, Homeland Security the state departmenty, and the department of defense was drawn in and the officials we had to make a choice between catering to their fears and succumbing to concern what the president might do or are kept quiet and they decided to preserve their own positions , whether that is to be in an office as a guard rail but somehow they would be in the position to spend the most egregious activities for there is equal part at least these individuals were looking to secure o their own position and did not want to risk the vindictive backlash from President Trump. And i think its worth mentioning that it is a slippery slope with this president and if you dont stand your ground the president is likely to pursue an agenda more aggressively and we may have seen that play out frankly in Lafayette Park when the secretary esper and the chairman came to back him as he pushed Peaceful Protesters so they had stood their ground in my case the mayor may have may not. So traditionally the military republican group. I actually word say that to describe it as the military tendency to run more conservatives. There is a large continuum that tends to be representative of where they originate from and then it tends to run more conservatives the politics dont play a significant role frankly i had noon idea of that political affiliation of my subordinates and what that affiliationic was i guess they had no idea. My own background registering as a democrat at 18 during the course of my military career is not an active participant in politics. I took the concept very seriously and if the president had pulled me into politics i wouldve stayed in that space but he did attack me and i have actually seen behind the curtain and it was my duty to speak up and a test to the Foreign Policy failures the personal failures of the president. If ide have any constructive role to have any impact on the Upcoming Elections that i will do that and that is way outside my comfort zone are not interested in a lot of media engagements but i had to get comfortable with it pretty quickly starting in september and telling my story so the American Public could see for faithful Public Servants and any indication of the next four years would be better is misplaced if anything it will be significantly worse and people should just know that when they go vote. Those that are more senior general kelly or hr mcmaster those who clearly just as involved as you are as President Trumps misconduct but they are not speaking out were campaigning against trump or alerting people to the danger they have a lot less to lose than you do as retired generals and senators nothing can possibly happen to them they dont have careers to pursue but yet they choose to stay on stay silent what ha your view . Maybe i dont have time sentiments in this regard i see it as selfpreservation military officers their entire career they think about preserving options. You want as many options as possible and sticking to the notion to limit their opportunities and to improve a lot of their family and basically and maybe they have lost sight they have an opportunity to continue to serve and i see my role in Public Service continuing. Frankly i dont understand with that said of values for decades they know what right and wrong is the only thing that seems to suggest why they are not is selfpreservation selfenrichment differently thats how i see it the idea of the apolitical military once you hang up your uniform you are stillrm a leader. So what could be what is in question that people have been asking for a long time and to which ive not given a straight answer the question essentially beingat, what is it with the trump and rush in p particular with trump and putin . Dan coats was quoted by bob woodward saying that he thinks putin has something on trump. Is that something . How do you explain the fact that trump attacks pretty much everybody in the universe except Vladimir Putin . Why is that . It is a 64 milliondollar question. I have heard people specu