Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: We have a lot to get to, but let's start
Speaker 2: with breaking news on Gaza. There's reporting that Israel and
Speaker 2: mediators have agreed to a draft and are awaiting Hamas's response.
Speaker 2: It seems like we're close, maybe closer than ever. We've
Speaker 2: also been here before. What's different this time?
Speaker 3: Well, first, I think the accumulating pressure on Hamas has
Speaker 3: been really considerable. They have had their military formations destroyed,
Speaker 3: their top leader taken out, their main proxy allies badly decimated,
Speaker 3: and their sponsor Iran weakened and distracted. So I think
Speaker 3: the pressure is building for Hamas to come to yes.
Speaker 3: I think Israel also has achieved a huge amount of
Speaker 3: its military objectives in Gaza, and therefore they are in
Speaker 3: a position to be able to say yes. So there
Speaker 3: is a distinct possibility that we can get this deal
Speaker 3: done this week before President Biden leaves office. But as
Speaker 3: you say, we've been here before, We've been close before
Speaker 3: and haven't gotten across the finish line, so I can't
Speaker 3: make any promises or predictions. But just this morning I
Speaker 3: was on the phone with Brett McGirk, who has been
Speaker 3: basically camped out in Doha. He's been there for more
Speaker 3: than a week working the details within the framework President
Speaker 3: Biden set out last year. I spoke also this morning
Speaker 3: with the Cutty Prime Minister and with one of the
Speaker 3: key Israeli negotiators, and there is a general sense that
Speaker 3: this is moving in the right direction. The question now
Speaker 3: over the next short while is can Hamas get to yes?
Speaker 3: Can we get to a final agreement, and then can
Speaker 3: we begin implementing in the coming days.
Speaker 1: It's there for the taking.
Speaker 3: So the question is now can we all collectively seize
Speaker 3: the moment and.
Speaker 1: Make this happen?
Speaker 2: Vice President elect JD. Van said yesterday it will probably
Speaker 2: get done a day or two before you leave office.
Speaker 2: Do deadlines like this specific deadlines help or hurt them
Speaker 2: a botiations? And does rhetoric like the one employed by
Speaker 2: President elect Donald Trump? Is it useful to get Hamas
Speaker 2: to yes?
Speaker 3: I think deadlines can serve two functions in a negotiation.
Speaker 3: When they're imposed by one party, frequently a deadline can
Speaker 3: make the other party think, hey, if I just wait
Speaker 3: till the last minute, they'll give me everything. If they're
Speaker 3: imposed by the mediators, if the Americans, the Cutteries, the
Speaker 3: Egyptians all basically say let's focus the mining, get this
Speaker 3: thing done. I think they can have a positive impact,
Speaker 3: and so I think the pressure building here towards the
Speaker 3: end of President Biden's term has been considerable and that
Speaker 3: that will help contribute to a positive outcome if we
Speaker 3: can generate that final yes from both sides.
Speaker 1: At the same time.
Speaker 3: This has been a circumstance in which President Biden gave
Speaker 3: direction shortly after the election to me, to Brett and
Speaker 3: to others on our team. Work closely with the incoming team.
Speaker 3: Make sure we have a united front, we have a
Speaker 3: core native message, and we have tried to do that
Speaker 3: over the course of the last several weeks, as has
Speaker 3: the Trump team that's coming in. I think this is
Speaker 3: not a partisan issue. This is an American issue to
Speaker 3: get our hostages out and all of the hostages out,
Speaker 3: bring the fighting to an end, and surge humanitarian assistance
Speaker 3: into Gaza. And I think it's how a transition should operate,
Speaker 3: and it's consistent with President Biden's worldview about his stewardship
Speaker 3: of this country.
Speaker 2: So you don't think any of the fiery rhetoric coming
Speaker 2: from the incoming team has actually changed anything at the
Speaker 2: negotiating table.
Speaker 3: I have been struck by this phrase about all hell
Speaker 3: to pay or all hell will break loose, because if
Speaker 3: you're a Hamas fighter sitting in Gaza, I think it'd
Speaker 3: be fair to say that you have been seeing hell
Speaker 3: rain down on you for fourteen months. The total smashing
Speaker 3: of Hamas battalions, the killing of the top three leaders
Speaker 3: Sinwar dave Issa, among others, and all of the other
Speaker 3: ways in which your entire broader network has been badly
Speaker 3: degraded in your sponsor has been so badly weakened. So
Speaker 3: the amount of firepower and pressure military pressure brought to
Speaker 3: bear on Hamas has been pretty dramatic over the course
Speaker 3: of the past fourteen months. I think it's the accumulated
Speaker 3: effect of that, combined with this looming period of transition
Speaker 3: from one president to another, that has created a circumstance
Speaker 3: where we could get to a deal.
Speaker 2: You've spent the last year plus on the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Safe to say that's probably not the region that you
Speaker 2: thought coming in would be taken up taking up a
Speaker 2: lot of your time. How much has that taken away
Speaker 2: from your priorities? And that no Pacific and other regions
Speaker 2: in the world, or has it look.
Speaker 3: I really think one of the things history will look
Speaker 3: back on in the Biden administration and see quite clearly
Speaker 3: is that even as we've dealt with two substantial geopolitical crises,
Speaker 3: Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of this conflict
Speaker 3: in the Middle East beginning with Hamas's brutal massacre of
Speaker 3: Israelis on October seventh, that through all of that, we
Speaker 3: have never even for a second, taken our eye off
Speaker 3: the ball with the long term competition with China, and
Speaker 3: we have taken a series of actions in supporting alliances,
Speaker 3: protecting technology, investing in our sources of strength that have
Speaker 3: left us in a position at the end of four
Speaker 3: years where we have dramatically improved America's position in the
Speaker 3: long term competition with China. And we've done so while
Speaker 3: managing the relationship so it doesn't tip over into conflict,
Speaker 3: so it doesn't make the headlines every day the way
Speaker 3: the Middle East and Ukraine does. But the record and
Speaker 3: the reality of the US China dynamic in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five compared with twenty twenty one, especially against the expectations
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, I think is quite a remarkable
Speaker 3: record that president can take a great deal of pride in.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about China for a second. You guys announced
Speaker 2: a new rule this morning on new limits on sales
Speaker 2: of advanced AI chips. Can you explain to us where
Speaker 2: did that rule originate? How did you get here? Yeah,
Speaker 2: what's the backstory?
Speaker 3: So it originated from a basic reality, which is that
Speaker 3: the United States has to pursue two core objectives at once.
Speaker 3: The first objective is for the United States itself to
Speaker 3: maintain the lead when it comes to frontier AI technology,
Speaker 3: and that that technology should be developed in the United
Speaker 3: States and our closest allies and not offshore to the
Speaker 3: rest of the world. And second, we want the world
Speaker 3: to run on an infrastructure of American technology. We want
Speaker 3: data centers around the world that are powering AI applications
Speaker 3: with American technology and not with Chinese technology or any
Speaker 3: other technology. So how do you achieve both of those things?
Speaker 3: That was the question presented to the key departments and
Speaker 3: agencies of the US government, and so over the course
Speaker 3: of many months, we worked on a rule that could
Speaker 3: help us achieve.
Speaker 1: Both of those objectives.
Speaker 3: On the one hand, ensuring there were protections around the
Speaker 3: highest end compute capability, So we were building that out
Speaker 3: in America in our very closest allies, and on the
Speaker 3: other hand, making sure that we had predictable and clear.
Speaker 1: Rules for the export.
Speaker 3: Of high end computing capability so that other countries could
Speaker 3: reap the benefits of American technology without getting diverted to
Speaker 3: our competitors and adversaries.
Speaker 1: That's the rule that we produced.
Speaker 3: And it really stems from I think one of the
Speaker 3: most critical national security imperatives of the next generation, which
Speaker 3: is how we make AI work for us rather than
Speaker 3: against US and America Maintaining the lead in AI as
Speaker 3: opposed to seeding it to China is going to be
Speaker 3: decisive in making sure that it works for us. When
Speaker 3: we came into office in twenty one, there were a
Speaker 3: lot of people who said it's going to be China.
Speaker 1: Not the US who leads the world in AI. We
Speaker 1: are in the lead today.
Speaker 3: We're determined to protect, preserve, and extend that lead, and
Speaker 3: that's the hand we're going to pass off to the
Speaker 3: next administration.
Speaker 2: Right so you're on your way out. The deadline for
Speaker 2: this rule is very far in the future. So you
Speaker 2: punted that, what are the consequences if the Trump administration
Speaker 2: doesn't implement this rule.
Speaker 3: So I would take issue with the word punt. What
Speaker 3: we did is set out a comment period of one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty days. And why did we do that.
Speaker 3: We did that because a rule of this significance needs
Speaker 3: comment from industry, from civil society, from other stakeholders, so
Speaker 3: that we make sure that we get this balance I've
Speaker 3: just described right, And so we are rigorous and systematic
Speaker 3: and thoughtful about having a process that allows that comment
Speaker 3: to come in, allows the new team to digest it
Speaker 3: and then make whatever adjustments are necessary. Now, obviously it's
Speaker 3: going to be up to them how they want to proceed,
Speaker 3: and they may have internal debates the same way we
Speaker 3: had internal debates about exactly how to calibrate the rule.
Speaker 3: I would expect nothing less, but I would be surprised
Speaker 3: sitting here today if after one hundred and twenty days
Speaker 3: they looked at the landscape as we've looked at it
Speaker 3: and said, you know, we really don't need this at all.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to other things.
Speaker 3: Because the more you study this question, to me, the
Speaker 3: more critical it is that you have a rule of
Speaker 3: this kind. The details to be worked to be able
Speaker 3: to secure the objectives.
Speaker 1: That I laid out.
Speaker 2: Everything you've been doing on the China Tech competition has
Speaker 2: been under the umbrella of small yar at high fence.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's a very dynamic landscape. So how do you
Speaker 2: ensure that regulations stay up to date and you don't
Speaker 2: unnecessarily make the yard too wide or the sense too tall.
Speaker 1: Basically by showing our homework.
Speaker 3: I mean, we put out our first semiconductor rule in
Speaker 3: October of twenty twenty two, and when we did it,
Speaker 3: we said, the technology is moving very rapidly, the development
Speaker 3: of high end chips, their relative amount of power and
Speaker 3: compute capability is evolving. So we're going to have to
Speaker 3: update this rule, and we did. We updated it in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. We've updated it again in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: and we expect the Trump administration will keep doing that.
Speaker 3: So a degree of predictability that there will be constant
Speaker 3: iteration and update is part of it.
Speaker 1: And then displaying why it.
Speaker 3: Is that we chose the parameters that we chose in
Speaker 3: excruciating detail, which not that many people read. I know
Speaker 3: you do and some of your colleagues at Bloomberg do
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't, but we are putting it
Speaker 3: all out there in a totally transparent way, and we're
Speaker 3: not just being transparent publicly. I have spent hours, if
Speaker 3: not tens of hours, sitting across the table from my
Speaker 3: Chinese counterpart Onongi, talking through why we're doing what we're
Speaker 3: doing with respect to the small yard high fence approach,
Speaker 3: what we consider in the yard inside the yard, and
Speaker 3: what we consider outside the yard, and explaining the rationale
Speaker 3: and the logic behind it, because we've got nothing to
Speaker 3: hide here, We've got nothing to apologize for. This we
Speaker 3: believe is core to America's national security, and we are
Speaker 3: going to continue to have a degree of transparency on
Speaker 3: it through the end of our time here. And I
Speaker 3: would expect the incoming team will pick up where we
Speaker 3: left off because this very much has a strong bipartisan backing.
Speaker 3: It's the kind of thing that I think can be
Speaker 3: carried forward in a new administration, and I would hope
Speaker 3: that it would be on that.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously, all these rules take months and months
Speaker 2: to come up with. There's tons of lobbying from all
Speaker 2: sides to shape what the final rule or final outcome
Speaker 2: looks like. How worried are you when you say that
Speaker 2: the Trump administration will carry this forward? They might night
Speaker 2: not like the yards and fences that you put up,
Speaker 2: or they might also be more prone to negotiate with
Speaker 2: companies one on one. How worried are you that corporate
Speaker 2: lobbying could undo some of this framework that you set up,
Speaker 2: given how many tech billionaires are in the president elect's
Speaker 2: orbit might serve in the administration.
Speaker 3: You know, I think you'd expect that after four years,
Speaker 3: I'd be very hard bitten, maybe quite cynical, about just
Speaker 3: about every element of American politics and policy. I actually
Speaker 3: I have to tell you that my experience in working
Speaker 3: through our technology and national security policy has been pretty hardening.
Speaker 3: I've spent a lot of time with a lot of
Speaker 3: tech leaders, the CEOs of major technology companies big tech,
Speaker 3: the innovators and entrepreneurs in small tech. And there are exceptions,
Speaker 3: none of which I will name here, But by and large,
Speaker 3: people accept the basic proposition that the United States needs
Speaker 3: technology controls for the most exquisite technology Jesus national security applications,
Speaker 3: and the debate is over the details. So I have
Speaker 3: not found a deeply cynical game being played on this
Speaker 3: By and large, I think it has been a robust
Speaker 3: and rigorous give and take. But it's interesting to see
Speaker 3: that American technology leaders have publicly said we need a
Speaker 3: kind of small yard high fence, or we need something
Speaker 3: along these lines. So I think we've built some momentum
Speaker 3: behind this notion. I think it's going to be hard
Speaker 3: to entirely knock that off. Course, I think Congress is
Speaker 3: invested in it. I think the national security community across
Speaker 3: the aisle is invested in it. So can I say
Speaker 3: I'll go to sleep at night every night totally confident
Speaker 3: that this will be carried forward in the way that
Speaker 3: I'd like to see it.
Speaker 1: No, I can't say that.
Speaker 3: But among the initiatives that the Biden administration has really
Speaker 3: powered and pioneered over the last four years, this is
Speaker 3: one that it would come as some measure of surprise
Speaker 3: to me if the new team threw it.
Speaker 1: Out the window.
Speaker 2: Your colleague Common Secretary Gina Armando told my colleagues at
Speaker 2: the Law Street Journal that quote, trying to hold China
Speaker 2: back is a fool's Errand do you agree.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's the right way to think about
Speaker 3: what we are doing, The right way to think about it.
Speaker 1: For me, is just common sense.
Speaker 3: If we have a very high end technology that has
Speaker 3: deep national security applications, we don't want it to be
Speaker 3: sold to a country that can use it against us.
Speaker 3: That has been true throughout America's technology policy. Now in
Speaker 3: the Cold War, that meant basically a total technology blockade,
Speaker 3: indeed really a decoupling of the US and Soviet economies.
Speaker 3: That's not what we need today, which China we are integrated.
Speaker 3: We should continue to have trade, normal intercourse, even on technology.
Speaker 3: That's why we have a small yard high fence. The
Speaker 3: goal here is about meeting somewhere in the middle between nothing,
Speaker 3: no restraints, which has never been a part of the American
Speaker 3: form policy. We've had export controls for decades and the
Speaker 3: kind of Cold War style technology blockade we had. You've
Speaker 3: got to meet in the middle. That is not fundamentally
Speaker 3: about holding anyone back or containment or anything like that.
Speaker 3: What is about is common sense, the common sensibility to
Speaker 3: look at the American people in the eye and say,
Speaker 3: for certain critical technologies, we are not going to allow
Speaker 3: them to be in the hands of people who you
Speaker 3: use them against us.
Speaker 1: That's how I look at it.
Speaker 3: That can succeed, I would submit, is succeeding. But I
Speaker 3: think the other half of what Secretary of Romando is
Speaker 3: saying in that comment is our main purpose and the
Speaker 3: main thrust of our effort should be investing in ourselves.
Speaker 3: And that's been a core feature of the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: Investment in our industrial base, in our innovation base, in
Speaker 3: our supply chains, and in friend shoring. We have made
Speaker 3: I think substantial progress on that front. But that is
Speaker 3: a generational project, and I hope that in every dimension
Speaker 3: that is carried forward. I have some concerns based on
Speaker 3: the rhetoric I've heard about whether those investments will be
Speaker 3: carried forward, but I think they are profoundly in our
Speaker 3: national interest.
Speaker 2: Our investments without export controls. The right approach, though, is
Speaker 2: one really is our investments more important to leading.
Speaker 3: If all you have our export controls and that's it,
Speaker 3: and you're not making the dramatic investments in the sources
Speaker 3: of our own innovation and industrial capacity, then you're not
Speaker 3: going to succeed. And that's why President Biden has paired
Speaker 3: the two of them together.
Speaker 2: Your overarching approach on China, as you mentioned, has been
Speaker 2: to responsibly manage the relationships so that competition doesn't bear
Speaker 2: into conflict. Over the last four years, but also more recently,
Speaker 2: we've seen major hacks of US telecom systems, critical infrastructure,
Speaker 2: and of course there's still continued support by Beijing for
Speaker 2: Russia's war. Would you say that your approach to China
Speaker 2: has been successful or did Beijing take advantage of the
Speaker 2: US and your willingness to talk?
Speaker 3: So first, for me, the question is, in a long
Speaker 3: term strategic competition with China, are in a position of
Speaker 3: confidence and capacity? Are we in a stronger position in
Speaker 3: that competition than we were four years ago?
Speaker 1: I think it's not even a close call.
Speaker 3: The United States is in such a stronger position today
Speaker 3: than we were four years ago, and that is a
Speaker 3: mark of unalloyed success in the relationship. But then there's
Speaker 3: a second thing, is are we careening towards war with China?
Speaker 3: I think the last thing the American people want is
Speaker 3: a massive war with a nuclear earmpower. And we have
Speaker 3: also succeeded even as we have strengthened our position in
Speaker 3: the competition, in stabilizing the relationship, managing it so that
Speaker 3: it isn't tipping over into conflict. I think that is
Speaker 3: also an unalloyed success. When we came into office four
Speaker 3: years ago, the common prediction was that China's economy was inevitably,
Speaker 3: intelluctibly going to be going to surpass the American economy,
Speaker 3: maybe as soon as twenty thirty. Now there's a genuine
Speaker 3: debate about whether it will ever happen.
Speaker 1: When we came into office.
Speaker 3: People said it's going to be China, not the US
Speaker 3: who leads the world in AI. That's not the case today,
Speaker 3: and we should work to ensure it isn't the case.
Speaker 3: When we came into office, we did not have this strong,
Speaker 3: robust network of alliances and partnerships in the Indo Pacific
Speaker 3: that we have now built, which allows us to have
Speaker 3: much stronger deterrence in that part of the world. Again,
Speaker 3: another success China is hacking the United States. They were
Speaker 3: doing so in previous administrations, they're doing so today. And
Speaker 3: some of these recent hacks, the Salt Typhoon hack, are
Speaker 3: dramatic in their scope and scale, and we take them
Speaker 3: deadly seriously. There's the espionage part of that, like Salt Typhoon,
Speaker 3: and then there's the potential that China would actually use
Speaker 3: cyber means to physically disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure in
Speaker 3: the United States, and we've sent a clear message to
Speaker 3: China's leaders that if they did that, if they actually
Speaker 3: took a physically destructive cyber attack in the United States,
Speaker 3: that there would be severe consequences. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: go into the details of those conversations, but they have
Speaker 3: been consistent and sustained over time, and we're going to
Speaker 3: have to continue to deter China from doing that because
Speaker 3: we have seen them setting up or positioning to be
Speaker 3: able to do that in the future, and it's something
Speaker 3: the new team will have to continue to work on deterring.
Speaker 2: Let's move to the EU. Over the last four years,
Speaker 2: you've spent a lot of time trying to negotiate with
Speaker 2: them on some trade related issues like a global steel arrangement,
Speaker 2: something on large civil aircraft. None of these came to fruition.
Speaker 2: All have been now punted because the deadlines were long
Speaker 2: to the new administration, which is not you guys. Do
Speaker 2: you think the EU missed an opportunity to work with
Speaker 2: you guys on China trade given they're going to come
Speaker 2: in and have a much more adversarial counterpart in two weeks.
Speaker 1: Well, I think.
Speaker 3: To answer your question, we have to start from the
Speaker 3: beginning of the Biden administration. Just a few weeks before
Speaker 3: we took office, Europe and China signed a acid trade deal,
Speaker 3: a comprehensive agreement on investment that was right at the
Speaker 3: end of the Trump administration, and to me, that was
Speaker 3: a mark of not paying attention to the EU and
Speaker 3: working with them on a common approach to China. Today,
Speaker 3: that comprehensive agreement on investment is on the shelf, it
Speaker 3: is not enforce In fact, what the European Union has
Speaker 3: done is moved into a much more convergent position with
Speaker 3: us when it comes to China's economic abuses. You saw
Speaker 3: that in how we came together with the G seven
Speaker 3: to describe a common economic approach. You saw that in
Speaker 3: living color with the imposition of tariffs on Chinese electric
Speaker 3: vehicles just a few months ago. Now it is the
Speaker 3: case that we have our own pretty limited trade issues
Speaker 3: with the EU that we've tried to manage.
Speaker 1: On civil aircraft.
Speaker 3: We actually took a big step forward with the Boeing
Speaker 3: Airbus settlement on steel and aluminum. We have continued these
Speaker 3: tariff rate quotas, but have not come up with the
Speaker 3: comprehensive agreement we should have. Do I think there was
Speaker 3: a missed opportunity there.
Speaker 1: I do do. I think that's.
Speaker 3: Entirely on the EU. I mean that's two parties trying
Speaker 3: to come to agreement. We didn't quite get there. I
Speaker 3: think as we look forward, that's something we should drive towards.
Speaker 3: The single biggest thing though, that I think the US
Speaker 3: and Europe need to work together on in the next
Speaker 3: four years is a high standards critical minerals marketplace, so
Speaker 3: that we are not dependent on China and giving them
Speaker 3: the capacity to choke off critical minerals that are important
Speaker 3: to our national security. And that's something that I have
Speaker 3: made the case to the incoming administration to really work on.
Speaker 3: We took some modest steps in that direction, but I
Speaker 3: think we have a long way to go to be
Speaker 3: secure in our supply chains on critical minerals, and I
Speaker 3: would like to see the next team build on the
Speaker 3: work that we began.
Speaker 2: Without going into details of your conversation with your successor,
Speaker 2: do you think they're susceptible to working with the EU?
Speaker 2: We obviously know the rhetoric from the President elect, who
Speaker 2: has some strong feelings about the European Union. Do you
Speaker 2: think that there is look.
Speaker 1: I think that there is a kind of a.
Speaker 3: Inescapable logic to the fact that on critical issues relative
Speaker 3: to the competition with China, especially the economic and technology competition,
Speaker 3: that having a common strategy with the key market economies
Speaker 3: of the world just puts US in a much stronger
Speaker 3: position to deal effectively with China. And I think we
Speaker 3: didn't see as much of that play out in the
Speaker 3: first Trump administration. But I think that the experience of
Speaker 3: the last eight years, by the way, including COVID and
Speaker 3: what it meant for our supply chains, has had an
Speaker 3: impact of the thinking on both sides of the aisle
Speaker 3: about the centrality of working with allies and partners on
Speaker 3: supply chain resilience. And so I think there will be
Speaker 3: more opportunities to work with the EU in the coming
Speaker 3: years than maybe there were in the first two. But
Speaker 3: of course I can't predict exactly how they're going to
Speaker 3: rack and stack their priorities.
Speaker 2: One person that's obviously loomed large over the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four elections and will also do so in the incoming
Speaker 2: administration is Elon Musk. There's been a lot of reporting
Speaker 2: that the White House's failure to invite him to a
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one EV summit is what contributed to his
Speaker 2: shift against the Democratic Party. So they worked very hard
Speaker 2: to get Donald Trump elected. Looking back and knowing what
Speaker 2: you know now, was it a mistake to exclude him
Speaker 2: from some of these White House initiatives given he's trying
Speaker 2: to get far right leaders elected all over Europe.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not going to speak to another person's motives,
Speaker 3: and since motive is kind of at the heart of
Speaker 3: that question, it's difficult for me to respond to it,
Speaker 3: and also difficult for me to look back to an
Speaker 3: EV summit in twenty twenty one and who should or
Speaker 3: shouldn't be invited. All I can say is that, from
Speaker 3: the point of view of the Biden administration, what we
Speaker 3: have tried to do over these four years is work
Speaker 3: across the technology industry, as I described earlier, on a
Speaker 3: range of issues that would enhance our national security. And
Speaker 3: I think our record of working with technology leaders and
Speaker 3: the relationships that we built that I've built something that
Speaker 3: I'm proud of and want to carry forward.
Speaker 2: Your boss. President Biden last week said that he would
Speaker 2: have won against Prisident Trump if he had stayed in
Speaker 2: the race, do you agree? And could he have served
Speaker 2: four more years?
Speaker 3: So one of the nice things about being National Security
Speaker 3: Advisor is I get to not answer.
Speaker 1: Questions about politics.
Speaker 2: You're a person in.
Speaker 1: To day would be.
Speaker 3: One of the last few days where I get to
Speaker 3: answer a question about politics and say, hey, I'm national
Speaker 3: Security advisor.
Speaker 1: So I can't answer that. So like in a week,
Speaker 1: you can probably ask me that question.
Speaker 2: Let me phrase it differently. Obviously, there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of criticism from the American people about, you know, the
Speaker 2: lack of transparency about his mental decline as a national
Speaker 2: security ad One person that was in the room almost always,
Speaker 2: was there ever a concern to you from a national
Speaker 2: security standpoint?
Speaker 3: No, absolutely not, And I don't accept the term mental
Speaker 3: decline that you put at the heart of your question.
Speaker 3: I sat with President Biden this past year on April
Speaker 3: twenty sixth, when Iran launched one hundred ballistic missiles and
Speaker 3: two or three hundred armed drones at Israel in one
Speaker 3: massive salvo over the course of an evening. I sat
Speaker 3: with him as he coordinated and organized an unprecedented coalition
Speaker 3: of countries and directed the American military itself to help
Speaker 3: shoot down those projectiles, defending the hell out of Israel,
Speaker 3: and then I sat with him late that night as
Speaker 3: he spoke with the Prime Minister of Israel about how
Speaker 3: Israel would proceed from there. That's just kind of one
Speaker 3: example of many I could give about watching the President
Speaker 3: inaction in the situation room, equally sitting just yesterday in
Speaker 3: the Oval Office as he prepared to talk to Bbnet
Speaker 3: Yahoo about closing this hostage deal. This is a person
Speaker 3: who has stewarded American policy, both domestic and foreign policy,
Speaker 3: in ways that I believe are leaving this country much
Speaker 3: stronger than he found it. And the hand we are
Speaker 3: giving the next team is a good hand, and that
Speaker 3: is because of the leadership with President Biden.
Speaker 2: Your successor. Mike Walls was on the Sunday shows yesterday
Speaker 2: and he said on Ukraine that they will ask Ukraine
Speaker 2: to lower its conscription age to eighteen. Obviously, you had
Speaker 2: similar concerns about their manpar shortage. You never demanded anything
Speaker 2: in terms of dumb changing their laws. Why not? And
Speaker 2: do you think this pressure coming from the incoming administration
Speaker 2: is going to make as the landscape change his mind
Speaker 2: on this now?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, they did change their law.
Speaker 3: Their conscription age not to eighteen, as of a year
Speaker 3: ago was twenty seven. It's kind of remarkable compared to
Speaker 3: how we do things that from eighteen to twenty seven
Speaker 3: year exempt from the draft.
Speaker 1: They lowered it to twenty five.
Speaker 3: They've made a series of other changes to their law
Speaker 3: to facilitate people under the age of twenty five entering.
Speaker 3: But you have to recognize that the manpower issue in
Speaker 3: Ukraine is an issue that has evolved over time. It
Speaker 3: has become more acute over the course of the past year,
Speaker 3: and the need for Ukraine to be able to fully
Speaker 3: populate its brigades and battalions as we have flowed in
Speaker 3: a massive quantity of the munitions and military equipment they need,
Speaker 3: it has grown and we've made no bones about that,
Speaker 3: and we have briefed the new team on that. So
Speaker 3: let's see what happens now on a going forward basis.
Speaker 3: That's ultimately a sovereign decision Ukraine is going to have
Speaker 3: to make. But we have been crystal clear, including publicly,
Speaker 3: that manpower is an acute concern and in something that
Speaker 3: Ukraine will have to address, even as we do our
Speaker 3: part to get them the munitions that they need.
Speaker 2: Of all the things that the incoming president has promised
Speaker 2: to do in the foreign policy and national security space,
Speaker 2: what makes you the most nervous that keeps you up
Speaker 2: at night.
Speaker 3: That's a good question, you know, having watched the president,
Speaker 3: the incoming president in his first term, I guess what
Speaker 3: I would say is, we don't know how rhetoric on
Speaker 3: the campaign trail or rhetoric in a transition will translate
Speaker 3: into reality of policy. And so one of the lessons
Speaker 3: I took away from that is let's wait and see,
Speaker 3: let's actually see what happens. So I am not going
Speaker 3: to lie awake at night kind of waiting. I am
Speaker 3: going to see and assess and then make my own
Speaker 3: judgments on that basis. But I also have sat in
Speaker 3: a very difficult seat for four years and have obviously
Speaker 3: been subject to a huge amount of armchair quarterbacking on
Speaker 3: every issue under the sun. That's just in the nature
Speaker 3: of the jobs. That's by no means a complaint, that's
Speaker 3: just reality on how it should be. The people who
Speaker 3: occupy these positions should be held accountable by the press,
Speaker 3: by the American people. But it definitely makes me someone
Speaker 3: who is going to be way more cautious in criticizing
Speaker 3: anything an incoming team does, because one thing I will
Speaker 3: say is that when you sit in my chair, you
Speaker 3: recognize that national security decision making is imperfect people with
Speaker 3: imperfect information facing very imperfect choices, and so at no
Speaker 3: time are you going to get perfect results. And so
Speaker 3: I will have I will, and I've said this.
Speaker 1: To Mike Waltz.
Speaker 3: I just have a huge amount of sympathy and goodwill
Speaker 3: towards the people who will occupy these jobs, because they're
Speaker 3: coming into the world at a time of profound change,
Speaker 3: in transition, where the post Cold War era is over
Speaker 3: and there is an intense competition underway for what comes next,
Speaker 3: and it's going to be difficult, and it has been difficult.
Speaker 3: And the real question is is America's hand getting stronger
Speaker 3: in our adversary's hands getting weaker. I think the answer
Speaker 3: to that question on the objective evidence is yes. And yes,
Speaker 3: that's what the incoming team's going to have to keep
Speaker 3: working with.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to root for their success because their
Speaker 1: success is our success.
Speaker 2: Looking at the clock and knowing that we're out of time,
Speaker 2: maybe let's leave on this note, and you have to
Speaker 2: be short what are you most proud of and want
Speaker 2: to be remembered for.
Speaker 1: That's a great question.
Speaker 3: I'm both Minnesota and Irish Catholic, and so we only
Speaker 3: like to look at like the darkness and not things
Speaker 3: we're happy about. I also believe that when someone says
Speaker 3: something nice to you, they automatically have to be full