Global Elections, Foreign Affairs, and National Security — with Admiral James Stavridis

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1:12Episode 307. 307 is the area code serving the state of Wyoming. In 1907, the first traditional metered gasoline-powered taxi cabs were introduced in New York City. True story. One night rolling out of Lotus, my favorite night spot in the early aughts, I was incredibly drunk, and the taxi cab driver said, You throw up on my seats, it's a fine. So, I immediately threw up everywhere else. Why does that make me happy? Go, go, go!

2:08East and Ukraine. I would love to have Admiral Stavridis on the ticket. I find he's just incredibly measured, reasonable, thoughtful, relatable. You know, he joked to me, I could never run for public office because I'm five foot, I think he said five foot seven. I thought when you're standing on the bridge of an aircraft carrier, you're seven feet tall. This is someone who has made a huge difference and obviously is able to command the respect of thousands of people. Okay, what's happening? I am in München. I'm in Munich, where I'm taking my son to see the semifinals of Spain versus France. Got to go with Spain.

2:43Got to go with the Spaniards. Hola, Española. France wins too much in football. So I'm rooting for the Spanish, but mostly I'm excited about tomorrow flying to Dortmund and saying England beat the Netherlands. Go team England. And of course, of course, I will be in Berlin and my favorite Soho house, best gym in Europe, in my view, and going to go see the final, which I'm super excited about. And I'm hoping that it's team England versus, I don't know, versus someone. Anyways, Germany and football. What could be better than that? Beer. Beer. They also have that here. Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

3:19Okay, what else is happening? So the thing that is dominating the news cycle day after day is whether Biden should drop out of the race or continue. After July 4th weekend, the president sent an open letter to Democrats saying that despite all of the speculation, he is committed to staying in the race to the very end. On MSNBC, the president said he's getting so frustrated by the elites. What we've had here is that wealthy donors are reportedly threatening to withhold donations until Biden exits the race. I think the way I would describe it is if you bucket the donors into three buckets, the whales, the dolphins and the minnows, the small dollar donors.

3:56I think the big donors, although I just spoke with Reid Hoffman and he says they're concerned, but I think they're just sort of at a standstill, whereas the dolphins, I would consider myself a dolphin, somebody who gives thousands or tens of thousands, but not hundreds of thousands or millions, that we're sort of an open revolt that we're calling very explicitly for a change in the ticket. And one of the things that frustrates me is that the amount of incendiary pushback you get, you know, shut the hell up or just focus on Biden. We need to unite. It's almost, it feels almost like we accuse Republicans of being cultish when they have this knee-jerk reaction of being devoted to Donald Trump, regardless of the situation or how insane his behavior is.

4:38And I would argue there's just, the cult is just as strong on the far left where you get this immediate pushback of sign up or shut the hell up. And the notion that there isn't enough time, which is sort of their go-to, and also the only brand positioning right now around a path to presidency is I'm not him, specifically I, Joe Biden, I'm not him, Trump. And I don't think that's a compelling value proposition. And the notion that we don't have enough time is just, in my opinion, fucking ridiculous. Britain had an election start to finish in six weeks. France basically turned back the far right and changed the entire complexion of the race in about seven days.

5:15By By the way, I think that's going to be very interesting to see what happens because the far left, in my opinion, can sometimes be almost as dangerous. They're well-meaning, but they can be bad, maybe not as bad as the far right. I'm going to be very curious to see what happens in France over the next couple of years. Anyways, I think we could turn chicken shit into chicken salad here. What would you do? The president obviously needs to step down. It's got to be him. There's no kind of viable way to ask those delegates to go somewhere else. They've already committed to Biden, but let's assume that he decides to drop out of the race with enough pressure, enough voices, senators, congresspeople, donations come to a halt.

5:51Finally, his wife says it would not be fair of me, my dear Joe, to put you through this or to have you go through this. And I think a lot of this comes down to scenario planning, right? So let's talk through the scenarios. By the way, scenario planning is not a means of trying to predict the future, but trying to imagine possible futures and then run a strategy or a course of action through all of those futures that has the best outcome. And there's some basics here. One, or basic scenarios. One, he stays in the race and wins. Good for him. I think actually that's the worst possible outcome for Joseph Biden.

6:27As someone who has been very involved in their parents' life as they have gone into their 70s and 80s, I think President Biden, based on what I have seen in terms of his cognitive decline, is going to have a very difficult four and a half years ahead of him, much less trying to experience that decline in what is the toughest job in the world. I think this would just be a series of small private and public humiliations with people hiding him. Keep in mind the last three presidents to be reelected, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, were 52 when they were reelected on average versus 82. The worst thing that could happen to his family and reputationally for Joe Biden is if he stays in the race and he loses.

7:07He then becomes this pariah, which is the ultimate example, historic example, of malignant narcissism that not only hurt a woman's right to bodily autonomy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, delayed a lot of judges getting appointed, Dianne Feinstein. But Joseph Biden becomes the malignant narcissist that let us slowly burn to fascism when almost anyone else probably would have staved off Donald Trump. What we aren't focused on is that Donald Trump had an absolutely terrible debate and that anybody else with a pulse, in my view, and I won't even say with a pulse. The Democratic bench is incredibly strong here.

7:42How do we turn chicken shit into chicken salad? You have an eight, six, and then four-member series of debates all held the two weeks before the convention. You have Julie Louis Dreyfus host the convention. It's a real convention where we nominate and select somebody. America gets to know just how incredibly strong our ballot is. And we mature a candidate that not only scares the shit out of Biden and tears him limb from limb in a debate, which any of these would. Whitmer, although publicly she said she's out. But can you imagine a Newsom on a debate stage with the president? Can you imagine the contrast in terms of height, youth, hair, how articulate he is, how compassionate he is?

8:23How many people and how many IHOPs across the nation, when interviewed by Fox, CNN, the BBC, PBS, would say, I'm going to go with that young, good-looking guy? A lot. A lot. We would go from being six points down, which, by the way, is the greatest margin to the upside that Trump has ever enjoyed since he started running for president in 2015, to being up probably five or six. We would see the greatest swing in presidential politics if we matured any one of these candidates. And even more powerfully, as we sometimes overestimate the power of the president, would be the down-ballot impact. Because if the nation got a chance to see, and they would, this would be the media spectacle of the last decade.

9:03If they got to see how powerful, smart, impressive Josh Shapiro is, you know, if they got to see Vice President Harris on the debate stage where she shines versus what has been a fairly mediocre tenure as vice president, if they got to see Raphael Warnock, if they got to see there's just so many governors, there's so many talented people. Let Amy Klobuchar back on stage to talk about antitrust. These are Pete Buttigieg. I mean, this is an impressive team and the team of the best players wins and Democrats would win up and down the ballot. It would basically be a two week long commercial. What do the voters who decide this election have in common?

9:42They don't give that much of a fuck about politics. They're like me in my 20s. Oh, it's the election this week. Maybe I should vote. And then they just start thinking about general perception of these folks. Folks, let's strengthen the perception of the Democratic Party from the top of the ticket all the way down and have a competition here, not a coronation. But I believe if President Biden decides to stay in the race, the strategy and the positioning of I'm the other guy, which is his primary foot forward, is going to not work as someone who's been in branding his entire life. I would love to be if I was a mendacious fuck and didn't care about our country and had somehow decided to develop a fondness for fascism and was advising the Trump administration to be pretty easy.

10:22It'd be a three point communications plan. One, run a video loop of the zombie apocalypse of useful idiots at our elite colleges and say this is what happens when institutions become 98 percent democratic, as many of the faculties are of these elite institutions. Two, run another video loop of what's happened in the downtown metro areas of some of the biggest cities on the West Coast that are democratically controlled and say this is what happens when Democrats get control of a city. And finally, three, run a series of edited videos that basically portray the president as a vegetable. And I just think I think Biden, as good a man as he is, as successful as a presidency as he's had, as better a president as he would be, I think he's going to get slaughtered against the media machine and the perception of a more vigorous former President Trump.

11:16I really hope that people who have influence over the president sit him down and convince him that, look, boss, you drop out of this race and this is scenario three. And every room you walk into for the rest of your life, you get a standing ovation and you are a top contender to be chiseled into the side of Mount Rushmore. This is the path to a better America, simply put. And that is the president who has done an amazing job needs to drop out and we need to mature, battle test and rally behind another candidate such that America continues to push back on the greatest threat to democracy and the greatest threat of the 20th century.

11:54And it's emerging again. And it's a threat we thought was going away. But similar to Jason, but just with a different hockey mask, fascism is rearing its ugly head and we need to push back on it. And this is not the guy to do it. America has been the front line against fascism. We will continue to need to be the front line against the gender apartheid that's taking place globally, anti-Semitism, polarization, divisiveness, extremism, climate change, an expansionary Russia, a China that has its eyes on Taiwan, income inequality. and let's be honest, America is the most impressive country in the world.

12:29We need to mature the most impressive person in the party to lead the Democratic Party and be the front line, and that is not the president. That's the bad news. The good news is we have a ton of people who could hold that line. It is time. We need someone else to enter the race. President Biden needs to step down. We'll be right back for our conversation with Admiral James DeBretis.

13:24Jimmy Fallon, series premiere Tuesday on NBC. I'm Christian McCaffrey, pro running back, and Abercrombie is an official fashion partner of the NFL. I'm not kidding when I say NFL by Abercrombie broke the internet last year, and I think this season's lineup is even cooler. And so does my wife, who keeps stealing all my hoodies. Stay fit for the season and Abercrombie's newest arrivals. Shop NFL by Abercrombie in the app, online, and in store.

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14:28Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Admiral James Stavridis, a retired four-star U.S. Naval Officer and currently Partner and Vice Chairman of Global Affairs for the Carlisle Group, a global investment firm. Admiral Stavridis, where does this podcast find you? I am in the northern part of Florida near Ponte Vedra Beach. It's one of the beach towns for Jacksonville. So I would just love to get your thoughts. As someone whose name was constantly floated as a potential vice presidential candidate for Secretary Clinton and other Democratic hopefuls, give us a sense for what you think is going on here.

15:07And if you were to attempt to speculate what might play out over the next week, this is, I don't know if it's the strangest political moment I've ever experienced. Maybe I'm just, I'm much more attuned to it now, but obviously a tremendous amount of doubt around the Biden campaign, but their camp says they're steadfast in their commitment to stay in the race. But there's sort of this drip, drip, drip of party elders coming out and suggesting that he stepped down. Give us a sense as someone who's been pretty close to this and somebody who thinks a lot about strategy, what do you think is going on here that the public does or does not see?

15:42And what do you think plays out? I'll give you the historical piece. And I at least am old enough to remember a similarly difficult moment to absorb. And that was, of course, Watergate and the resignation of a president in advance of criminal proceedings being brought against him, Richard Nixon. That's a long time ago. So, yeah, we're in 50 years of kind of uncharted territory by comparison. although we've seen now three impeachments, one of Clinton and two of Trump. So we're not complete innocents in this sort of strange season. But here's where I'm at on this one. As I watched that debate, I felt sad for the country.

16:30The choice we're being presented is, at this moment, a convicted felon with multiple, multiple character flaws on full display. And on the other side, an individual for whom I have a lot of affection, a lot of respect, but Father Time appears to me to have caught up with him. And he is not, from all that I can see, in a good place to be prepared for four more years. I think you could have a conversation if we were looking at it for a year in advance, but four more years when you look at the progression. So a bad set of choices. In terms of how it plays out, I can answer that in three words, I don't know, and nobody does.

17:19Literally nobody does. Not even Joe Biden, in my view, knows how this one's going to play out. So what I think will happen over the next week to 10 days, the Democratic Party is going to have to make a choice of either putting itself 100 % behind a president who seems physically frail and weak and hope for the best in the fall, or they're going to have to find a new path. And I'll conclude with this, Professor, There is nowhere in the Constitution where it says Republican Party, Democratic Party. Someone said to me the other day, oh, they have to go with Biden because the Constitution demands neither constitution nor law govern political parties.

18:07We've had a plethora of political parties in this country and they get to make up the rules. And so they have every opportunity to conduct a mini primary or they could pass the baton the Kamala. They've got a convention coming up. I think we are in extremely unpredictable waters. Does the military or the arms, do they have a voice here? No. And you ought to be very glad that they do not. Every military member at every grade raises his or her right hand and swears an oath as follows. I state your name to solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

18:52That oath is sworn to the Constitution. The military will resolutely avoid being embroiled in this, and that's the kind of republic we want to be. That's well said. There's a lot that's uncomfortable about this, but one of those things is, do you see our adversaries being more emboldened while we're in a state of chaos? Do you think they sense weakness and tumult and are more inclined to be more offensive or bold in their actions? I do. And that is a significant risk. And you can break it down, frankly, into two significant periods of high risk. One is from now through the election, I think there the risk is going to be a malactor deciding now would be a good time to launch a, for example, massive cyber attack against the United States.

19:47There's distraction. There might not be a resolute response to that. It's a little ambiguous. That period between now and the election, simply because malactors, Russia, China, North Korea, et cetera, will have a tendency to believe we're too distracted to respond. That's one package of time. After the election, Scott, unfortunately, I think we're going to have this inner regnum in which it would seem to me at least a better than even chance of one side or the other if it's a close election, which it appears it probably will be. There'll be a further series of legal challenges. There could be untoward events like January 6th.

20:35Who knows? That second period of time until the inauguration of the new president, I think, is a second and somewhat even more risky period. So yes, we need to be leaning forward. You asked about the military. The military is not looking internally, but I assure you, the intelligence agencies, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the combatant commanders in a position in which I served for eight years, two different combatant commands, they are looking outward to try and see any signs of risk directed against the country during these very, I think, concerning periods from now through the inauguration. Let's talk about the Middle East.

21:21On MSNBC, you said that you believe there's a one in three chance at best for a ceasefire in Gaza. Talk us through how you landed there. Number one, the Israelis feel as though they have not yet completely dismantled the military capability of Hamas, but they're close. And you hear that even from Prime Minister Netanyahu, certainly from the Israeli general staff. So I think, temporally speaking, the Israelis are closing in on eliminating Hamas. And I believe I've said this to you before, Scott, but the military center of gravity is actually not Hamas. The military center of gravity is that tunnel complex.

22:09400 miles of tunnels, the Israelis are destroying those. When those are done, Hamas loses its opportunity to train, equip, organize, and launch attacks as they did in October. So that's a military equation that is coming to fruition. I think that's pretty close. So that gets me to still more combat opportunities and actions, but probably the Israelis are getting in a position to make an accommodation. On the Hamas side, what I see is a lot of pressure. It's been insufficient so far, but increasing pressure from both Qatar and from Egypt to get to the point of pressuring Hamas to take a deal. I feel both sides are kind of closing toward it.

23:04If you'd asked me three months ago, I think I was saying about a one in five chance. Now I'm up to about a one in three chance. The forces pulling against it are, in addition to the two sides we just discussed, Iran. Iran would like nothing better than to see Israel continue to be targeted, as resources drained, see this fighting go on in Gaza. So Iran is kind of pulling against it. But I'll conclude with this. Now the Iranians have had an election, elected somebody, I hate to use these two words in the same sentence, Iranian moderate, but by Iranian standards, a relatively moderate candidate, there might be a little loosening of some of those activities.

23:55So when you put all that together, it's not a slam dunk, but I think it's getting close to one in three, maybe even a little better than that right now. You referenced that one of the strengths of America, and I agree, is that our good men and women in uniform basically say, all right, good or bad decisions, it's the Oval Office's decision, and we respect the command and control structure here. I thought it was really unusual or extraordinary that the IDF publicly came out and said, we need to see an end of the war or calling for an end of the war. That struck me as if you at some point came out and said to Trump or Obama in a conflict, it's time to end this.

24:41I thought that was pretty bold. Your thoughts? beyond bold. And from a U.S. norm perspective, that officer, she or he would have been fired the next day. We do not want our admirals and generals, no matter how senior, opining publicly about what is, in essence, a political decision. Closest I can come to that, by the way, would be Douglas MacArthur, five-star general, a general of the armies, victor of World War II. Now he goes through and is in charge of Japan, all going well. He comes back in command for the Korean War and ultimately the president, Harry Truman, had to fire him for his insubordination because he advocated ramping up the campaign, possibly using nuclear weapons and attacking China.

25:36We're not paying the generals to opine about that in public. So, yes, I was quite surprised, verging on shock. And finally, I know the IDF extremely well. Spent four years when I was NATO commander. My other side hustle was I was in charge of U.S.-Israeli military-to-military relations. So I was in Israel quite a bit, became very good friends, for example, with General Benny Gantz, the former head of the IDF, General Gaby Ashkenazi, former head of the IDF. I can't imagine either of them, while in uniform, opining on that level of political controversy. Really shocking. Benchmark the IDF's capabilities and technology and personnel relative to the other fighting forces in the Middle East or even, say, for example, Russia?

26:33The IDF has advanced technology. I'll give you three very concrete examples. One, they reportedly have nuclear weapons. Two, the Israelis have among, I'd say, the top four, certainly top five cyber capabilities, offensive and defensive alike, and they have a superb Air Force that has the ability to conduct long-range bombing attacks, has fairly good refueling, although they're buying additional capability from the U.S. Nobody else in the region remotely is at that level with them. What they don't have is massive manpower. They're a nation of about 9 million, about 7 million Jews. So it's a limited manpower pool compared to Iran, compared to any other potential opponent in the region.

27:33They don't have the big pool of manpower to draw on. But if you ask me which hand of cards would you want to play as a general or an admiral, I'd grab the Israeli military. It's a jewel. You mentioned the tunnels, and it strikes me that every time there's a major conflict, out of it comes, not a surprise, but a piece of technology that played a bigger role. Like we saw tanks in World War I, but my sense is they really had their day when Hitler rolled his tanks into Poland and was met with the Polish cavalry. And we saw, okay, tanks are better, right? And then we saw aircraft and jet engine, you know, all sorts of stuff, radar.

28:17It's, you said, or there's two words, and you said one of them that struck me that we're going to hear a lot more about in terms of military strategy and technology and machinery. One is tunnels and the other is drones. I'd love your thoughts on that. And if I, if there are others that are coming out of this conflict. Yeah, tunnels actually have been with us in warfare for centuries, but the degree to which Hamas was able to build this underground complex, pretty striking given the restrictions on Hamas. Comparably, the North Koreans have a very sophisticated underground tunnel connectivity system.