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John Kelly · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly stepped down as President
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Trump's Chief of Staff at the end of eighteen after
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: more than a year spent managing the daily operations inside
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the West Wing. Kelly spent most of his entire adult
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: life serving the nation. He wore a Marine uniform for
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: more than forty years. He was briefly retired before joining
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration, and June, General Kelly spoke with David Rubinstein,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: co founder of the Carlisle Group and host of the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg television show Peer to Peer Conversations. So let's talk
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: about first what it was like to be chief of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: staff to President Trump. Was it all that you thought
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  Speaker 1: it would be in terms of the difficulty, more difficult
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: than you thought, or and you pleased you did the job.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: It was certainly amongst the hardest jobs I've had in
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  Speaker 1: my life. But I would say this as well, after
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  Speaker 1: as much time as I had in the military, it
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: was the most important thing I ever did. For eighteen months,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a staff the president the way I think a president
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: should be staffed, presenting him options, presenting him the experts,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and with him to talk and hash things out. That's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: what the chief of staff does. That was vitally important,
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  Speaker 1: and for eighteen months I was there. I think who
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  Speaker 1: staff the president very effectively. So was it the hardest
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  Speaker 1: job you've ever had, the most memorable job, the most
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  Speaker 1: enjoyable job, or just another very interesting job? Now, it
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  Speaker 1: was very very hard, but very meaningful. Uh, not very enjoyable,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: but you know, I mean it's it was it's staff
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  Speaker 1: in the president United States. I mean you're trying to
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  Speaker 1: bring together not only a White House staff, but the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: entire federal government to help him make the kind of decisions,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: whether it's economic decisions, social decisions, or you know, life
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  Speaker 1: and death wartime decisions. On Washington. It's often said that
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: people stab you in the back, but also sometimes they
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: stab you in the front. And that's the job that
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: often the cheapest staff is said to have. You get
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: criticized by everybody. So did you feel that the criticism
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: by people were the hacks on you just for any
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: reason something that was unfair or not tolerable? You just
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: got used to it, Yeah, I would. I would tell
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  Speaker 1: you I wasn't used to. One of the things that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: struck me right away that I was not used to
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  Speaker 1: coming out of the military was the intense personal ambition, um,
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  Speaker 1: that that people have. And because if that gets out
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  Speaker 1: of hand, which I think it was out of hand
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  Speaker 1: certainly before my time, and it continued a bit while
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  Speaker 1: I was there. Uh, people start to do things like
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: leak to the press things that are untrue, half true,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: not just towards people at the top like me, but
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: their their their colleagues. One of the things I did
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  Speaker 1: very early on at the when I took over the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: White House. Who's got all of the staff together, and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of them. So I had to do
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: several sessions and just said, you know, nowhere in the
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  Speaker 1: oath of office that you take to you know, support
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  Speaker 1: defend the Constitution United States. Nowhere in there does it
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  Speaker 1: say that you should be talking to the press unless
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that's part of your job and authorize. Nowhere does it
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  Speaker 1: say you should be stabbing your colleagues in the back
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: so that you look better you serve the nation, um.
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  Speaker 1: And if if you take the o seriously, you've got
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: a job, and I want you to stay. If you
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: if you can't do that, find find another place to work.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: When you're in the military and you tell people you
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: do X, Y or Z, they jump over there in
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  Speaker 1: trouble or they're going to be court martial or something.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: When you tell people as cheaper staff that they should
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: do X, Y or z and they don't do it,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: what can you really do about it? Well, let me
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: go back to your original stame. In the military. If
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you tell someone to do X, Y or z, um,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: we expect people to question orders, to push back. So
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I can't as a commander know everything in
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the White House. U, your right is not. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you could fire people, and I had to fire a
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  Speaker 1: few people, but very very few. They were very disruptive.
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  Speaker 1: But I had good people. The vast majority of the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: people David that worked there of good people. They just
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  Speaker 1: need some direction. So when Donald Trump was elected, you
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  Speaker 1: were already retired from the military. I had retired from
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the military. Uh less, well and about eight months at
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: that point, never wanting to work again. Okay, And did
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: you know Donald Trump at any point? But not in
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  Speaker 1: anyone like that. So did you met you met him
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  Speaker 1: in the transition. I assume I received a phone call
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in late November on a Saturday, and uh, they asked
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  Speaker 1: me if I wouldn't consider coming up to Bedminster to
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: meet with the President elect, and uh, talked to him
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  Speaker 1: about going into the administration. My wife after the phone call,
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  Speaker 1: asked me, you know, what was that all about? And
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  Speaker 1: I explained to her and I said what he thinks?
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  Speaker 1: She said, well, you know, uh, if when nothing else
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  Speaker 1: is a family, we were a family of service. So
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: why don't you go up and at least talk to them?
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  Speaker 1: And so I went up the next day to Bedminster,
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  Speaker 1: talked to the President elect. Bryan's previous was there and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: a couple of other people. We had a short chit chat.
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  Speaker 1: But ten days later he asked me to come up
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  Speaker 1: to New York City to Trump Tower. Went up there
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  Speaker 1: and you offered me the DHS job, And did you say?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I accept right on the spot. And did you feel
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: you really wanted to go into that job again? I know,
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  Speaker 1: up to that point in time, certainly no other you know,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: my lifestyle with service to the nation. Obviously I had
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: to get out of out of the Marine Corps. I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: was getting too old and and whatnot. But the opportunity
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  Speaker 1: to serve was was something I really look forward to,
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  Speaker 1: and DHS was a great job. The men and women
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  Speaker 1: at DHS just phenomenal patriots and they're they're really unsung heroes.
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  Speaker 1: So you did that job for how long before you
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: became chiefest right at six months? I left the job
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: in the thirty one July. But did the President call
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: you a few times before and say I don't not
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: don't like my chief of stafford and make a change.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: How did you get asked to do the chef of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: staff job? It was, it was around It was a
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: couple of days before it was announced. During my time
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: at DHS, I didn't go to the White House a
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: lot did need to. Most cabinet people are busy doing
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: what they do. But he and I had a previous
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: discussion on a couple of things that relative to the staff. Anyways,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: he called me and said, hey, I really would like
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  Speaker 1: you to come on over and be the chief of staff.
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  Speaker 1: I need you to need you in the leadership to
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: UH and put this place in the direction. My wife
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: wouldn't want me to do this. It's a terrible job.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to do this. I said, I really
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: like DHS. The people were making a difference. An awful
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: lot of your agenda is wrapped up in UH DHS.
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  Speaker 1: But he said, I really need you to do this.
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  Speaker 1: So I did it in prison asked, I did it.
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  Speaker 1: I'd like to talk about the job you did as
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: chevas Tap before that I could talk about your background.
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  Speaker 1: So where are you are originally from? I grew up
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: in Boston, UM, and your family was a blue collar family,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: very very blue collar. So your dad was a World
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: War two vet. Um, he worked two jobs in his
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: old life, you know, maileman and railroad greatest man I Avenue. So, Um,
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  Speaker 1: you went to high school where St. Mary's High School
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and just outside of Boston. And when you graduated, what
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: did you do? I went to almost a year of college.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I had the war was graduating. N the war was
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  Speaker 1: on coming from the kind of neighborhoo I came from.
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  Speaker 1: I mean every man in my life growing up as
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: a boy was either a World War Two vet or
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a Korean War vet. That's all they talked about. And
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: so that you know, we had a draft back then,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: it was relatively easy to get out of the draft.
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  Speaker 1: I mean you just had to come in with a
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: doctor's note or go to college and a lot of deferments.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't want to get out, and so when I
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  Speaker 1: passed my draft physical, which would have brought me into
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  Speaker 1: the army, like most of the guys in my neighborhood
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  Speaker 1: went in the Marine Corps. I entered the Marine Corps,
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  Speaker 1: and you became a lieutenant or what was your I
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: became a private. Well, I went from private to private
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  Speaker 1: first class. Ultimately, ultimately I made sergeant as an infantryman
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  Speaker 1: made sergeant. My mother was diagnosed with cancer. So I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: get out of the Marine Corps, but stayed in in
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in a program that continued my training while I was
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: going to college. And as soon as I graduated from
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: college University of Massachusetts in Boston, I got commissioned, went
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: back to the Marine Corps and stayed forever. So the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: highest you can become early as a fourth star general
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: star and you became a four star. John became a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: four star. Did you ever expect when you were just
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: beginning in the Marine corps'd be a four star general? No?
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  Speaker 1: I mean when I was in an enlisted Marine I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: wanted to be hopefully a n c O. Someday that's corporal.
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  Speaker 1: I made sergeant. Fits held. Okay, so we're in the
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  Speaker 1: Marine Corps and as you rise up, eventually one of
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  Speaker 1: your assignments is to go into Iraq after the invasion
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand three, So you were in combat and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you do you expect that you would survive. It was
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: fairly dangerous. Well, it is day. I mean there's a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: lot of shooting and bombs and whatnot, but with marines,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and you take that on as as a as a possibility.
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  Speaker 1: But we were you know, we when we were designing
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the campaign plan, uh, you know, one of the things
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  Speaker 1: we did was to you know, the the understand the
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Iraqi army was nothing is even close to us. But
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  Speaker 1: we designed a strategy that would minimize the amount of
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  Speaker 1: damage to the country, in the amount of death to
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  Speaker 1: the Iraqi Army. We went there in our mindset was
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  Speaker 1: that we were there to We were not there to
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  Speaker 1: conquer them, but to break them. So we didn't want
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: to kill a lot of them, and I mean the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: army obviously, you'd always try to not kill the yet
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  Speaker 1: Rain Corps and the army going in, I think it
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  Speaker 1: would all be over in one or two weeks, and
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that people would be cheering you while they were cheering us,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: which was almost everywhere we went. They come out in
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: huge numbers. But the attack part of it, I mean
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  Speaker 1: was he in a sense was easy. We know where
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna win, We're going to get the bad Dad
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: and you know, enlightening time. And but what we kept
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: asking in the Kuwait desert leading up to the invasion
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in March was who's going to take this over from us?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: You know? Mr Rumsfeld had come out very strong and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: said we are not with the U. S. Military is
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: not going to get involved in nation building. And our
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: question was, Okay, who are we going to turn that
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  Speaker 1: over to? Because we should start thinking about that now.
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  Speaker 1: And so the idea that we were going to leave quickly,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: which we military did start to do, but not have
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: anyone that turned it over. It was really that was
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: caused us great concern as military men. So did men
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: working for you get killed under you? And so what
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: do you do in that situation? You you send a
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  Speaker 1: letter to the next to ken or or how how
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: do you deal with that emotionally? Yeah? Um, well, I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: mean it's it's it's part of the it's part of
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the lifestyle. It's not an easy part of the lifestyle.
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  Speaker 1: You know. When I was when I was a commander there,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: when I went back for a subsequent tour, I was
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the senior marine commander on the ground, and there are
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that you might list that you
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: would be woken up for in the middle of the night,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and I only had two of them. A missing American
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: UM because then we had to go to general courts
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to find that person. Uh, and then a death and
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: people would say, why did you want to get woken
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: up on the deaths? There's nothing you can do as well.
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  Speaker 1: I think I owe the marine sailor soldier in their
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: family at least to be woken up and someone to
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: tell me this young man, this young woman just died
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: in the defense of their country. Let's talk about when
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you after you retired. For a while, before you joined
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration, you were in the business world or
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: what were you doing? Not very much. I started working
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: with the National Defense University UM, which is part of
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: d O D. And then I just started to get
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a couple of opportunities to be on boards. I joined
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: those boards, but almost as soon as I joined them,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I was I was disengaging because I had I was
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: in the process of going to DHS. Right. So you're
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: on some corporate boards for the first time. You're making
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: more money than brazilianly you made in the in the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: marine corps. Not huge money, so, but more than the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Marine Corps. All right, But so going back in the government,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it was actually another cut in salary. But your family
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: didn't say anything about that. I guess what was interesting
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: going into DHS. It was about fifty thou dollars more
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: than I made a year as as a as a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: four star. And then what I didn't know, and my
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: wife said to me after a couple of weeks being
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: at the White House, she said, I think our pay
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: is wrong because the paycheck is quite a bit smaller.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that took a pretty major pay cut
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to be the chief of STAF. Didn't ask the president.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Money is not relevant. So let's talk about your family
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: for a moment. When you're a fourth star, you're often
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: traveling all over the place, so h your wife gets
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: to travel with you and some of your assignments or not.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: How many different places did you have to move as
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a as a general? Well, when I was my wife,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: she loved that question. Um. When I was at in Miami,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: my wife went to UH Guantanamo obey for three years
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: so we could have Thanksgiving dinner with the troops down
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: there at the detention facility. I took her to Haiti.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I took her to Ondors once maybe twice, maybe Honduras
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: in Guatemala one each, and then once to Peru. What
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: about Paris or London? None of that. And so you
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: have three children, uh, your father three children? Right? Your
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: oldest son is in the military still, he's a lieutenant
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: colonel in the Marine Corps, fairly recently promoted, just back
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: from his one of his tours from in Iraq. And
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you have a daughter, daughter, and what is she doing?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But she was with the FBI prior to that, Actually
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: she was. She was worked with these the wounded men
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and women, mostly men coming back from the wars at
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Bethesda Naval Hospital. And then she went into the FBI.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: She was with the hostage rescue team as one of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the support people for several years. And you have another
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: son who lost his life in military combats. Right. He
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: was a started off as as an enlisted Marine and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: then became a second lieutenant and was killed in Afghanistan.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And h did you and your wife say having two
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: sons in the Marines was an awful sacrifice for any family? Now,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: it's our way of life. That may sound strange to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the listeners, but it is a way of life, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: they make their own to make their own decisions. What
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: would you say is the best training to be chief
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of staff in the White House, and particularly with President Trump?
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: What do you think it's the best training? I think one,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you've got to tell the boss the truth when when
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: you don't think he's going down the right road, not
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: in front of a bunch of people, but when you
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: don't think he's going down the right road, to tell
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: him that truth to pol right, someone in the room
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: has got to say at the beginning of every conversation
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and at the end, is this good for America? So
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: let's go forward now to chief of staff? So you know,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the chief of staff sounds like a good title. Everybody
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: presuming in the government is responsive to you. You can
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: call any cabinets secretary and tell him what to do.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Is not the way it works. I would not say
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I'd tell him what to do. I'd suggest, I mean
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they are cabinet members. Uh. You know. The President puts
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: out as you know. I mean, you don't whether it's
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: tweets or just his his time with the press, and
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: he does a lot of discussion with the press. He
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: puts out his feelings on different things. More often than not,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I would get calls from the cabinet people saying, hey,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I just heard him say. This is that a change?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Should we react to it? Um So the President is
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: never hesitant to to pick up the phone and talk
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to his own cabinet members. And would you ever say
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the President, maybe the tweets are too much to keep
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: up with, or maybe you shouldn't tweet as much. Never did.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: The President feels very very strongly, whether you agree with
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: this or not, very strongly that he's not dealt with
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: by the press fairly, and that his tweeting goes around
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the press and gets his his agenda out, his word
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: out to the world without having to rely on a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: press conference. Now, let's talk about a few substance issues.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Early in the administration, when you were at the Department
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of Homeland Security, there was the issue of immigration, the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: ban on immigration and so forth. Were you alerted to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: that when you were there, And how do you think
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that ultimately it is now working out? Just a couple
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: of three days after I became the DHS secretary, the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: EO came out on the so called travel ban. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you know, as a sidebar, I would say that the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: countries and the seven countries involved. Uh in the President's thinking, Uh,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: we're all dysfunctional, you know, I mean around you know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: everyone knows it's a hot bit of terrorism. The other
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: countries were dysfunctional. Uh. The entire population of Muslim population
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: of those countries added up to about the world's population.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: The point is those countries we had, they don't have
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a process that we could bless and say. The people
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: that they say are coming out of those countries to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: come to the United States for whatever reason, there's no
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: way to really tell who they are because these countries
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: are in a state of collapse. It could have been
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: done better. Back to David, the staff process, if that
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: had been when I was there, say several months later,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the idea that the President might want to do that,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: and he has strong feelings on immigration, we all know that. Uh.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: We had run that through this process and uh and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and and at least had a better release plan. When
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you were at the White House, you also had the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: wall issue. President really wanted to build a wall. You
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: were quoted a few times and saying, well, it doesn't
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: have to be a concrete wall, can be see through
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: or something like that. Was there a difference between you
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and the president on that, and do you think the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: wall is a good policy. When I got the DHS,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I went to the experts, the Customs of Border Protection
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: people that that men, you know, the bastion down there,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that man the watched our on the and said do
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: we need a wall? And they said, or some physical barrier?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: The university said we need more we have. Remember back
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: in I think two thousand six, the Congress authorized over
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: six fifty miles of wall and UH Senators Clinton, Schumer,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and Obama all voted for it. So that was in
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: two thousand six, six hundred fifty miles. What we what
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the CVP people would tell the me is we want
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to improve that barrier, and we can give you if
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you If you tell me I can get miles, I
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: can tell you exactly where to put it. If you
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: tell me I can have a thousand more miles, I'll
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: tell you exactly where I want it. They also said
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that we want to be able to see through the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: wall because we want to be able to track what's
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: going on on the other side. And just as importantly,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: according to them, and they're their experts, we want the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: people that are contemplating jumping the wall to see us,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: because if they see us, they don't do it. Now,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he had a meeting twice. He met twice with the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: leader of North Korea. Did you and I think that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: was a good idea to meet without advanced preparation about
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: what would happen? And do you think the policy of
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: meeting actually usually works or you should always have advanced
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: preparation when you have these summit meetings. There's a lot
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of advanced preparation. There's a lot of advanced preparation, a
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: lot of letters back and forth. People at State and
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: other places have their context there. But I'll applaud the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: President in that he looked back on the last I
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: don't know, seventy years of trying to deal with the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: North Korean leadership and none of that was working. And
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: he's the kind of guy I grew to know that
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to um have tried personally. So I'll pick the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: phone up and talk to the guy I want to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: meet with him and try to develop a relationship. And
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: that's that's who he is. But I think many times
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: it was all the other stuff hasn't worked for seventy years,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: But the heck clicks. Let's give it a try. Some
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: people would say the president was very reluctant to criticize
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Putin for anything, and he seemed overly friendly with him
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: compared to other presidents. Do you think that's a fair
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: comment and why do you think it was? Well, the explanations.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It's much like with Kim I mean, he he things
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: had not been working very well over the last thirty
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: five years, and he is you know, he's again He's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: to pick the phone up and talk to the guy
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: kind of guy. Was it complicated to have the president's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: family in the government at the time. There is an
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: influence that has to be has to be dealt with
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and today if you were I don't mean by no means,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I mean Mrs Trump first, ladies a wonderful person. If
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you had to um advise somebody who's going to be
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: a chief of staff in the future, what would you
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: say is the best training to be chief of staff
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: in the White House? And particularly with President Trump? What
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: do you think it's the best training? I think one,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: you've got to tell the boss the truth when when
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: you don't think he's going down the right road, not
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in front of a bunch of people, but you don't
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: think he's going down the right road. To tell him
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that truth to pop right, someone in the room has
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: got to say at the beginning of every conversation and
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: at the end, is this good for America? So when
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: you tell the president private, I think you should do
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: something different than you want to do. Did he like
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: yell or does he have a discussion on I'd say
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: more often the naughty said okay, let's bring them back in. So,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: if you had to do it all over again, would
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you have taken the job of chief of staff? Are
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: you glad you took that job? Well? Again, that I was.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I was drafted into the job. Um, But knowing everything
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: you don't know, yes, Um, as hard as it was
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: for I feel very strongly for eighteen I don't know
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: what's happened since. But for eighteen months President Donald J.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Trump on every issue was well staffed, It was well informed. Ah,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: we gave him options. Well, I'll just leave a coat.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: As you look back on your career, what would you
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: say you're most proud of having achieved? And did your
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: parents live to see you become a general? My dad did? Um?
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: The thing I well and is many things, I would say,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: The thing what did I achieved. I for over forty years,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I served and served the nation in peace and war. Um,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: it goes with us saying I'm most proud of my
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: family and my kids. But for over forty nearly forty
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: five years, serve the nation in piece of war, served
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: and honorably with integrity. So do you consider yourself retired
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: or are you going to be active in the business world.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to retire, So what are you
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: plan to spend most of them? No idea what I'm
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: gonna do, But I don't know how to retire. If
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you consider the highest calling of mankind private equity, I'm
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: not sure about that. Not sure about that, David. That
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: was former White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly