constitution center in philadelphia. >> we are at the point that i don't think the current justices will be as brave as justice kennedy. i will fully predict, unlike my adversary here, this court is prepared to overrule roe. >> wednesday, new year's day come on c-span. we want to welcome back peter bergen. the author of the book "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos". good monday morning. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me on. from northhreat korea and u.s. officials on high alert. how concerned should we be? guest: i think we should be concerned. we are back to where we were in early 2017 where north korea was testing missiles that theoretically could reach the united states. koreansats that north

are making, this should be taken seriously, when taking about sending a christmas present to donald trump. i don't think that is a box of chocolates part they will probably test a long-range missile in coming days. they have ramped up the rhetoric. there has not been much agreement between the two sides. president trump has met three times with kim jong-un. not much has come of that. sidesly because both fundamentally disagree about what they want from each other. the united states is looking for a total denuclearization. kim jong-un will not denuclearize. he might offer some more inspections but he wants sanctions limited. host: president trump has said he likes to sit down and talk face-to-face. yet previous presidents have said we will meet but only if we

have an agreement to begin with. trump,i think president and i say this in my book, one of his advisors i quote, president trump puts an emphasis on interpersonal relationships, they can certainly be helpful. ultimately, diplomacy is about a country's interest. if i have a friendly relationship with you, that is great. but if we are in a negotiation over fundamental things toward me, that will not make me throw out my own interests. the north koreans will not give up their own nuclear weapons. they never have. we need you think about the kind -- is it an situation where we allow more intrusive inspections? they want the sanctions to be lifted. the north korean economy is hurting. there is something we can negotiate about.

hammered outs is before the leaders meet and there is a photo op. presidentdo you think should respond? guest: how should he respond and how will he respond are two different things. i would just talk about the will. i think that is unpredictable. one thing i say in the book is president trump has been lucky with no foreign policy issues on 9/11, no saddam hussein invading kuwait. president trump is afforded that. a real escalation with north korea would qualify as a major foreign policy crisis. what are your military options? the military options are somewhat limited. you could imagine a small special operations attack directed at their leadership. the point is the north koreans

have a giant military, south korea is across the border, 25,000 american troops and american citizens and all of the citizens of south korea. as bannon was leaving the white house he said something along the lines of, explained to me what ifcan avoid a war, they're dozen seem to be a military solution? that was the time the military tensions were at their highest. you could imagine going into 2020 the thing is really and thing up. host: this is a quote from john tells the source the idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on north korea is not true. he said the administration has more of a rhetorical policy that

it is unacceptable north korea to have weapons. nose at the his u.s., he hopes he would say we have tried, the policy has failed and we are going to make it clear what we say about it being unacceptable, we are going to demonstrate we will not accept it. guest: i'm not quite sure what the policy -- i think the wections with john bolton, the united states together with the united nations ramped up the unit -- the sanctions. together with the russians and the chinese being on board, that industry,heir coal their seafood industry. for bolton is often calling regime change.

that does not mean we should resort to a military option. president trump as i lay out in the book is reluctant to use military force. and appropriately so. host: a developing story this morning, a headline from the new york post, the five individuals linked to the death of jamal khashoggi have been sentenced to death, three others facing prison and the saudi crown prince denying any involvement in the death of jamal khashoggi. you knew him. guest: i did not know him particularly well but i knew him well enough to know some of the portrayals of him after he was murdered not make sense. some people try to describe him as a muslim brotherhood follower. to osama bin laden when he was a young man, he covered him journalistically, back in 2005, he changed.

more liberal in his views. he moved to the united states, two of his kids were american citizens. the fact that the saudis sentenced these five guys to death, i think justice is being served. the crown prince who oversaw this, there is no smoking gun. lindsey graham said there is no smoking gun, there is a smoking saw. factng directly -- the that it was his group of guys who did this and one person who has not been indicted is one of whomost important advisors, appears to be walking free in saudi arabia. host: why would they want him dead? scene,there is a great dispute and ata

one point he says to his knights likemeone said something this guy is kind of a pain. people interpret that as, bring him back to re-add and if he puts up a struggle, we will kill him. they did it in a saudi consulate in istanbul. if you were going to organize professional spy organization, he would've had an unfortunate fall off the building that was deniable. this is the opposite of deniable. there was a lot of evidence. have --is book, "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos",

when donald trump was elected he famously said i love the generals. what happened? guest: president trump went to a military style boarding school in new york. it was an experience he enjoyed. one of his favorite movies was patton. this is the first american president in history who neither served in public office or in the military. the other point is about 100 leading security heavyweights in the republican party basically took themselves out of consideration. when a new administration comes in, there are people that are ready and willing to serve. in this case, most of the people he wasesident trump, if elected, certain military officers retired. certain did not sign the letter.

john kelly, the chief of staff said publicly he would serve hillary clinton. i think there was a strong component of duty. none of these guys did not know president trump. john kelly said not only did he not know president trump, he did not know anyone who knew president trump. spot,ered the job on the same with the national security advisor who was a military officer at the time. over time, the programs between the generals and president trump fizzled. often this is what happens in a relationship with president trump, you are the world greatest person until you are not. this was a very impressive group of people he brought on board.

including the head of his council on economic advisors, who had been the chief operating officer at goldman sachs. over time, the policy differences with the president began to add up. there is an opening scene where they meet at the pentagon during a story conference room or fdr made plans. meeting on onee side, steve bannon, on the other side is rex tillerson, and others who represent the internationalist wing of the party essentially laying out american commitments overseas. 190,000 troops around the world, why do we have trade agreements? trump end, president blows up and uses a lot of words

i can't use on c-span. this is not what we are going to do, our allies are ripping us off. overextended, we are overcommitted, trade deficits with china really matter. we stopped winning wars. in the sacred space of that room, it is unusual for the president to take on his generals. steve bennett goes back to the white house with jared kushner after the meeting and says this is like lincoln and his generals. the point he was trying to make generalsoln fired his when they were not fighting well during the civil war. here was president trump laying out his america first plan and saying basically you can stay on the bus or if you don't agree with this, you can jump off or i

will push you off and really laying down the law in front of his cabinet. host: there is another moment in the book i want to get your reaction to involving the vice president and mcmaster, saying they plan for a wargame so they can better understand the military operations they had in north korea. request sored their the session never happened. mcmaster also one of the u.s. navy to provide options about north korean ships that might be sanctioned. mattis refused because he thought they might lead to widespread conflict. tillersoncmaster, rex and john kelly. mattis, i quote him as

saying we have to make sure reason is not trump impulse. his view of donald trump is this is an impulsive guy. in some cases, i will not provide them, as is the case of the wargame. you can't have a wargame if the pentagon does not provide war planners. mattis refused to provide military options. house began to realize the pentagon was slow rolling, which the pentagon does with all sorts of things. in this case, it was clear. tis was concerned about getting into a war with iran and the middle east. even though he had been an iran skeptic, he thought the iran nuclear deal should stay in place not only because it was working but because we negotiated with her allies. the french and the germans, we should keep our word as united

states. similarly with north korea, it is a fact that wars can happen inadvertently. a small incident can spiral into something much bigger and he did not want to take the risk. host: on iran, the planes were leaving when the president called off the mission. the president tweeting 10 minutes before a strike, i stopped it. brinkpulling off from the of conflict okayed by john bolton. guest: i think this is where jim mattis might have misunderstood the president. we were close to using force against iran. iran is not iraq. the population is three times larger. iran has ballistic missiles. it has a relatively capable military. iran wouldtion with

be problematic. the united states has overwhelming military superiority but trump called it back. he is pulling back in afghanistan and syria. he has been known to ramp up tensions with north korea, let's see how he does in the coming weeks. overall, this is a president who has not been quick to use american military power. --also host: our guest is peter bergen. previously he taught at harvard, johns hopkins university and nyu . he is a former contributing editor. our phone lines are open. is our line for

-- message or tweet. bloomfield, west virginia is first up. good morning. caller: thank you. about what our future will be. i think i need to begin by saying that most people recognized that trump was sort china shop,ll in a but they also recognized the china shop was a very corrupt and self-seeking oligarchy. increasing its power at what might be considered next

potential rate in terms of controlling people. and limiting democracy. expect this was part of what they feared when they set up the constitution so a particular beulated section would not able to roll the majority -- to rule the majority of the country. host: do you want to phrase that is a question? caller: you mentioned a number of things of which i agree. , as iondering if you feel trial, which i from a lowers the bar .riminal prosecution

guest: i wasn't clear what the question was. host: let me take it a different way. how'd do our foreign adversaries or allies view this in the u.s.? an interesting question. in diplomacy, people want to know what your red lines are. the thing that has been confusing about president trump, he changed his mind about things that right now are not valuable. in afghanistan, we are going to stay there for an unlimited time, we will have a troop surge and then start pulling them out. we are talking to the taliban, now we are not, no we are. our afghan policy is unclear. we are going to pull out, that we are not, then we are going to

pull out a few months later, we are not. i think our allies and our enemies are confused about what exactly our policies are. in general, it does not matter a huge amount providing you do not have a foreign policy crisis. but with north korea, we seem to be heading into a period where we might have a crisis. the want to respond to caller in one way. i think president trump came into power because the elites in this country did not deliver on two very important issues. they got us into a war of choice and iran in 2003 and they got us into a financial crisis in 2008. whoever is going to win the next election, weather president trump or a challenger, has to help try to answer the question,

why is the system rigged in the sense that inequality is increasing and that ordinary working people that aren't necessarily feeling the benefits of one of the longest economic expansions in american history. host: did you see the video of the american prime minister and boris johnson at the nato summit in which they were basically mocking president trump? guest: there is an irony because one of president trump's big themes is everyone is laughing at us. when he came into office, people tickets more seriously. booke a great scene in the related to this, which is the first time german chancellor angela merkel comes to washington -- host: let me put this on the screen. our guest is peter bergen.

of 2017, german chancellor angela merkel arrives in washington for her first official visit. they did not enjoy a warm relationship she had enjoyed with obama. trump interpreted the under spending on defense as if he were a landlord collecting rent which drove the germans nuts. trump waived an invoice at youel who told trump, don't understand, this is not real? might notmp understand how nato factors in spending. germany only spent 1.4% on defense spending. her. waves an invoice at it is not how nato works.

the question is does he misunderstand how it works question mark jesse pretend -- does he pretend to not understand? putin, kim jong-un, our allies are actually ripping us off which has been a theme with the president since 1987. he took out a full-page ad saying we were being ripped off. host: what is the cost of chaos? guest: high turnover in the cabinet. the reason it is important because if you lose your better advisors or some of your star advisors and you replace them -- the unitedm states is a powerful country and it does really matter, but you face a genuine crisis. you want a team of rivals, the kind of people who challenge

you. s, johnson jim matti kelly and others have been forced out or reside if they disagreed with the president on substance. the only elected official in the room. on the question of what to do in afghanistan, the generals were mostly in the view we should make a long-term commitment. the president did not agree initially but over time his views changed because he saw the evidence if you just leave tomorrow, it would sink into a civil war and into ,he vacuum would be more isis al qaeda, etc. anyone needs advisors who will disagree with you on the facts or the substance. , think the group in there now they are perfectly competent,

but as i say in the book, he is running the country like he ran his real estate business, a one-man show with a group of yes men and women and family members. that might work for a real estate company, but he will be less successful with national security of the united states. host: four of the last five 43,idents, reagan, bush clinton, obama were all reelected. what is that going to look like if he has a second term? guest: it is hard to make predictions about the future. predict because, let's say, he felt the second term was a legacy building effort. , thei say in the book president could take a position on climate change that

scientific consensus is wrong on climate change, that it is because -- it is caused by human beings. he could say it is happening and i will get behind it. to protectprojects places i know well, palm beach and manhattan. he has not said that. maybe in his second term he would be more prepared to sit at. i just don't know. host: the book is called "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos" and joining us here in washington is the author, peter bergen. edward is joining us from greenbelt, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing question -- how are you doing? no adults in the room in the white house. is, we have chaos

because there are no generals in the room. i wanted to say one thing, points, theof the united states of america should be concern for two reasons. said thatr 45, he person is his best friend. we don't know what transpired with them because trump took the dialogue away from the translator so we did not know what would happen when he was in europe at the time. elected by the electoral college. the intelligence agency in the united states of america found the election was hacked. i am a phd scientist and i worked at the state department. know how the system works. host: thank you for the call.

guest: i did not know where the question was. iif you look it was more successful. isis was largely defeated in 2017 geographically. united states respondent very -- fairly robustly to the use of chemical weapons by assad and syria. trump made a fairly successful speech in riyadh. a process that the national security advisor had, a

more conventional national security process with meetings and options laid out for the president. the nationaln, security advisor come as a competent lawyer but is not have the stature of h.r. mcmaster. there is a competent official who would be under secretary or assistant secretary in a normal administration. acting chief of staff mick mulvaney is certainly not john kelly and has made it clear he wants to leave. guest: mark meadows may take over. yeah, wellmeadows, anyway, the point is this was a group of people who imposed a certain amount of discipline only president, which he does not like. he hates being managed and being lectured to. it is his prerogative to have the people in place that he likes working with. theyhe question is, are

the people who will sometimes challenge him as is necessary when you are president? think about obama and the bin the secretary of defense said we should not do it in vice president joe biden said the same thing. at the end of the day, it was the president's decision, but he wanted to hear from naysayers as much as from people endorsing the raid. when it comes to tough decisions, you want people who will give you a range of device with which you will make your own, rather than just saying, yeah, you're right. guest: if you're listening on c-span radio, our conversation is with peter bergen. anna is next from philadelphia, independent line. caller: i have three questions for your guest. i would like him to comment on an agreement where five countries of the british

commonwealth and britain and share alltes which intelligence, military and otherwise, and it also included israel and singapore as observers. i think this is a foreign entanglement. i would like him to comment on the pattern we have of assuring people if they give up their weapons, everything will be fine. the next thing you know, the leaders are assassinated and the countries are keep i. an -- the countries are occupied. there is an example of that after world war i, which started the horrible mess in the middle east. and how come nobody is covering the fact that the pentagon who refuses a full audit? we do not know where these trillions of dollars are going. i say god bless president trump if he gets us out of any wars, but i think the foreign entanglement has to stop now. thank you very much. guest: final point with regard

to the pentagon as this was one of the reasons donald trump was elected. has done veryagon well under president trump in terms of finances. $738 billion is the size of the pentagon budget that president trump has overseen. ampare that to $600 billion year on average under president obama. in terms of money, the pentagon is getting a lot of money. the defense strategy and national security strategy both critically identified china as competitor that we need to contain. book,nly, as i say in the i think historians say president trump got the measure of china largely right. they might disagree on tactics on the chinese trade discussions but the idea that somehow china would liberalize economically

and then it's politics would liberalize at the same time, that is proven to be not true. china is becoming more authoritarian as it becomes richer. having a robust response to why china is not advocating for any kind of war with china but at least taking that measure. president trump has had more freedom of navigation exercises throughout the china sea. terms of the, in way he has treated the pentagon, he has largely been right. losthere the generals faith with president trump was on his treatment of nato, the most successful alliance in history according to jim mattis. the first thing he did when he assumed office was to call all our allies the day he took office to say we are with you, they know nato allies have

fought side-by-side with us in afghanistan and have lost hundreds of troops, something trump never acknowledges. he never talks about the sacrifice of the hundreds of french and british and german soldiers who have fought and died there. the war was precipitated by an attack on president trump's hometown. on nato and vladimir putin, the generals are skeptical and have said that publicly. guest: new york city is next, michael, democrat's line. caller: good morning. great book. scared the hell out of me, actually. guest: why did it scare you? caller: to realize what is going house and tote reflect all of our lives is frightening. i mean, trump has no care or consideration for the united states of america. he just cares about himself, as

we all know. peter, i have a question, do you feel that we should be able to hadthe call that trump has mbs, basedin and the on what we have heard from that tiny little call with ukraine? bee i thk this is just the tip of the iceberg. in trump, like i said, our national security is at risk every single day. he does not care. we need to know that trump rips up notes that he has with putin. it is all about money, as we know. and this is about the future that trump is trying to set up so hemself and his family

can put his stupid hotels -- it just frightens me that we are in this position with this man. and have new york city known trump, seen him before. the guy is a fraud and we all know it. i just don't understand how the himblicans, the gop, allow to do what he does, to put this nation in jeopardy. host: we will get a response. guest: yeah, so one of the scenes in the book -- you know, some of these calls, there were no transcripts. was murderedhoggi in istanbul, and there were a number of calls with the king of saudi arabia and been salmon, and these calls were tightly held. a transcript was made. trump was publicly supporting the saudi's. said the crown prince,

mohammad bin salman, i have been in tough negotiations but never brought a bone saw to one of them. actually a funny comment. but it was a bone saw used on jamal khashoggi. host: and they never found his body. guest: never found his body. and he said on this issue, we need the body, give it back to the family. mohammad bin salman said we give it to some syrian. trump says skeptically, just some syrian guy walking around istanbul? back toays, i will get you. at the end of the call, president trump says, look, we have your back, essentially. this has basically been his point of view. he is willing to give them a pass pretty much for anything. they invaded yemen. they kidnapped the lebanese prime minister for two weeks. imprisoned dissidents,

businessmen. qatar,ockaded oil rich their neighbor that is a close american ally with a very important american military base. and he just stood by them through thick and thin. jamal khashoggi, is murder, a "washington post" contributor were two american kids living in virginia, he stood by them on that. there is a heartening example of believing your own propaganda. trump has repeatedly said that we would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in arms sales if we criticize them. that is not true. our arms trade with saudi arabia's long-standing. b, the numbers are not the hundreds of billions of dollars that he thinks. riyadh, thet to

state department physically certified formula dollars in sales to the saudis. nimportant but not hundreds of billions that he thinks he has generated. "st: turning to afghanistan, the washington post" had an extensive 67 part series. another soldier died today and the taliban is taking responsiblity. guest: i was in afghanistan two and half weeks ago. the author talked in a 17-minute video that is on washingtonpost.com. here is part of that documentary. [video clip] >> these are the people in charge of the war essentially saying it was a disaster, and he knew it. i do not see these comments in the report.

why didn't you include those? >> that is the imitation of where we go. as an inspector general, i do not do policy. what all of you quoted were people talking about that policy. >> why did your staff interview all these people i just quoted if they are not going to be used? >> oh, they may well be used. >> but they weren't. that is the whole fundamental reason and questioning why the united states is there. >> the stuff is available. we are still producing these reports. >> we tried to get our hands on it. >> i do not know if quoting the general saying that we screwed up her we did not have a plan would be any more useful than the audits and investigations and other reports that we have, which make the same point. host: that was craig whitlock. "the, "the history --

secret history of the war" is on washingtonpost.com. guest: hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the war. and under the taliban, what remained of the afghan economy disappeared and half the publishing were imprisoned in their homes and cannot have jobs or be educated. was not in this report, which is a very good report in many ways. anybody who knows anything about afghanistan is not surprised by the afghan police are corrupt. there is a big drug problem. what was surfaced in these reports was pretty well known. i think what the post was trying to say is there is a big disconnect between what people were saying publicly in professional testimony and what they were saying privately. host: was it a modern-day version of the pentagon papers? guest: i think they are two very different situations. looking at the

amounts of americans that died in vietnam and then afghanistan, way too large a number, and civilians, but the scale is completely different. was a draft there and much more political pressure. we haven't all-volunteer army -- army.e an all-volunteer signed up new who they could go to an actual war. the situations are very different. the report is accurate in all respects, but it also does not take into account the many things that have gone right. i was in afghanistan just millennialsd the make up 70% of the population.

women make up another 50% of the population. minorities make up 15% of the population. believe me, none of those people want the taliban to come back. they all want the united states to stay. we are there on invitation of the afghan government. situation, you can imagine going forward, which i think president trump is moving towards, whether the small contingent of american soldiers who are not on the front lines there on and advise and assist position and providing intelligence, we're not spending a huge amount of money and where there is a form of life insurance. a general had a contentious meeting about afghanistan and said no one likes to take out life insurance, but you do because it is stupid not to, which is basically the argument of the only thing worse and staying in afghanistan is leaving. look at what happened with

president obama and iraq at the end of 2011. the security services were not at all ready for the threat produced by isis. isis wasmmer of 2014, close to baghdad and take over much of the country. so that is alive in their thinking about what to do in afghanistan, and that was the argument that it persuade the commander-in-chief, president trump, that we should not just leave. host: let me give you the response from tina colonel thomas campbell from the defense department, pushed back from that in-depth series by craig whitlock, saying that there has been no intent by the department of defense to mislead congress or the public. dod officials have consistently briefed the progress and challenges associated with efforts in afghanistan, and dod provides regular reports to congress that highlight these challenges. the information contained in the interviews was provided to the special inspector general for afghanistan for the expressed

purpose of inclusion in the public reports, and most of the individuals interviewed spoke with the benefit of hindsight. us from southg carolina. thank you for waiting period good morning. caller: thank you. mr. bergen, did you actually talk to any of the generals, like mcmaster or kelly or matti s? guest: i talked to about 100 people who worked in the trump in thetration or work trump administration or did business with the trump administration like senior foreign officials and also a range of military officers. most the people i spoke to i spoke on background. suffice to say, i spoke to quite are inr of people who the administration, work with

the administration, or were associated with the military. i also traveled to countries, to afghanistan and saudi arabia, iraq, qatar. so it is not simply me sitting at my desk in washington. i also did reporting in the field. i appreciate the question. some of the people i spoke to i spoke to on multiple occasions. i recorded almost all of my interviews. i also try to be fair. i am very conscious of the fact that people i admire work in the trump administration and half the country voted for him. i try to be as fair as possible. that is probably not satisfying to readers. they want a i hate trump book and hear the reasons why or i love trump and hear the reasons why. it is much harder to do something that is fair. but that was my intention. whether i succeeded or not is something readers can't decide.

host: general john kelly served as homeland security secretary and moved to the white house as chief of staff. how frustrated was he as chief of staff? he said his best job in the administration was homeland security. guest: i think he very much enjoyed the job and was well for it. he ran southern command south of the border. he served as a marine liaison on capitol hill. he knew how washington worked, familiar with the issues. in the white house, i think he was frustrated because it was marine a very orderly force style general dealing with a chaotic situation and he tried to bring order to it. over time, he and the president stopped speaking to each other. host: which is incredible. guest: yeah, but i think it was a long time coming. president hates being managed.

as soon as he feels like he is being managed, that is it. think -- the other thing, jim mattis resigned at the end of december 2018, right around the same time john kelly left. they were very close. john kelly was the deputy to jim mattis when they lead the marines into baghdad in 2003. that is a very, very tight relationship. with jim mattis gone, john kelly left, as well. host: fall river, massachusetts, andrew. good morning. peter bergen and his new book, "trump and his generals: the cost of chaos." good morning, andrew. caller: trump and his generals is just like the way he runs his business. he uses the string and then when it goes sour, he throws it away. in his business, he owes tons

of money to people, files bankruptcy, and blames it on one of the strings, tosses it out, and puts a new one in. been incompany has business for four or five generations in the family, and trump sits there -- oh, i filed bankruptcy and i am ok. a war herouy insults w like john mccain, and the republican sit on their butts and don't jump all over this clown. host: thanks for the call. let me take his point, the sentiment he has and those who do not support trump, and ask you this question, how did we get here? guest: the election of trump? host: the election and also the presidency of donald trump. he mentioned republican frustration that they allowed the war in afghanistan -- guest: i mean, i think, you

know, americans are looking for -- what is interesting to me is, since 1992, we have only had one president who was kind of a machine president, and that was george w. bush. barack obama was sort of outside of this machine. donald trump is sort of outside of the machine. bill clinton was sort of outside of the machine these are outsider candidates. america was not looking for these insider candidates. they did not want bob dole. so they elected president trump i think to sort out some of these issues that relate to getting into endless wars, which is something president trump -- and president obama. the book shows scenarios between president trump and president obama on the position of getting out of these wars, and both were elected to do that. president obama tried to get us out of afghanistan and was going down to zero in iraq and that was not the right approach.

right now, they are exactly in the same place as afghanistan. a drawdown obama drew down right at the end of his second term, and president trump is about to and i same number, guarantee he will not go to zero because of the physical costs of just leaving completely and then having a terrorist attack that could be traced back to the afghan pakistan region is very large. , in different ways, have relied on special operations forces, drones, cyber warfare, not putting big conventional armies into the middle east for conflicts, so in that way they are similar. of course, there are a lot of differences in rhetoric and iran nuclear deal, climate change, and others. host: who is the most influential advisor when it comes to foreign-policy and national security? first, we will go to mike from anderson, rep -- henderson,

nevada. republican line. caller: good morning. go ahead with your question. -- host: go ahead with your question. caller: i was just wondering, it sounds like to me on why you're writing your book that the generals were more like babysitters trying to keep an impetuous child under control, somebody who had no thought of the ethics behind his decisions, just his normal everyday thought the vergehich is on of sociopathic at times because .f his statement but it sounds like the generals had their hands full not only trying to manage our american -- our military situations around the world, but our own president at home. host: thank you.

we will get a response. view and imattis' think john kelly's view, a lot of them saw their time in office as defined by what they succeeded in preventing happen like saving nato. they tried to keep in place the iran nuclear deal. theainly they saw that as president was not well-informed and they were trying to inform him about the world, that he was impulsive, and now they are all gone. the president is actually quite comfortable in his own decision-making. a good example of this is he greenlighted the operation that killed the leader of isis in october in syria. that was a risky operation because the special operation

forces had to cross syrian airspace controlled by the russians. president trump greenlighted it, and it was a successful operation. write that what trump did in his office was what he said he was doing when he was campaigning, so it was only a matter of time before trump would kill the deal. mcmaster went to trump twice to present options on the iran deal that included keeping it in place. mcmaster said the u.s. want -- if the u.s. walked away from the deal, the whole conversation would become about americans rather than keeping the focus on iran's maligned activities in the middle east. for the trump national security team, the iran deal, the fact it did not come with ballistic -- did not cover ballistic missiles, did not cover iran proxy forces around the region, those were the weaknesses of the tim. -- of the deal.

defenders of the deal say if trump ever does a deal with north koreans, he would get something that looks like the iran nuclear deal very inclusive inspections. trump, he repeatedly called it the were deal in history on the campaign trail. he was very frustrated that he had to keep recertifying that the deal was working. if you recall, the expectation was hillary clinton would win the election, so republicans put a provision on the table saying that every three months the president had to certify that the deal was working, thinking it would be hillary clinton in the oval office and of course it was president trump. trump hated having to certify that. so it was kind of inevitable that it would end. iranians are now enriching uranium but not up to a high level, but they're pushing back.

on the other hand, the sanctions in place against them will really damage their economy, and you look at people's dying as a result of the protests. it shows how terrible the iranian economy is. will it produce change? who knows. iranians have been around since 1979, the regime they seem to have survived. host: joe in covington, georgia, independent line. you are on the air with author peter bergen. caller: good morning. thank you so much for the very interesting show. i am calling because i have not heard anybody yet talk about the hypocrisy of the democratic house of representatives this past tuesday passing a spending trillion for trump to have with no budget ceiling until september 30, including over $2 billion for the wall.

and we know it has already been approved that he can do whatever he wants with our money. and the very next day they vote to impeach him as unfit for public office. that is so ridiculous, like this impeachment is a cover-up for, you know, a distraction for what is going on. host: thank you for the call. we will get a quick response. andt: i think democrats republicans want to know that congress is working, and a way to show it is working is bypassing this budget authorization. the moving towards passing free-trade agreement with mexico and canada. wants toancy pelosi demonstrate that we can do more than two gum and walk at the same time. host: back to the book in my earlier question, who is advising this president? guest: i think the most

important advisor is mike pompeo. he has been around since the beginning. he has proven to be very loyal to the president. he helped lead the north korean negotiations, which is coming back as an issue. he is obviously a smart guy in the sense that he came from west point. his long-standing tenure in the administration and also by his loyalty to the president, i think it is the most important person in the room right now. host: peter bergen, the book is "trump and his generals: the cost of >> c-span's washington journal. new year's day, we check in with

talk show host around the asking if their audiences is optimistic or pessimistic about the year in washington. watch live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. \ i'm going to go with mistrial. -s-t-r-i-a-l. watch the press versus politicians spelling bee. at seven :00 p.m., a conversation with speechwriters for president bill clinton, george w. bush, and barack obama. >> one of the thing that irks me is when people think we are wordsmiths. we are not just wordsmiths. we are a policymaking team, -- comes toolicy is life unless it is written down

and spoken, especially by the president. >> and at 8:00, abortion advocates and opponents discuss roe v. wade. >> we are now at the point where i don't think the current justices will be as brave as justice kennedy. i will fully predict, unlike my adversary here, this court is prepared to overrule roe. >> wednesday, new year's day, on c-span. normally what would happen is there would be a team of helicopters helping each other, supporting each other to make sure they were safe, but because there was no one else there and it had to be done, o'donnell made the decision immediately that he would rescue these men. so, he went down in the landing zone area and hovered on the ground four minutes -- for four minutes, which in a battle is

eternity. it is a long time to sit vulnerable. but he waited. the reconnaissance team arrived injured, but safe. o'donnell began to pull the helicopter up above the tree line and radioed, "i have everyone, i'm coming out." theresident and ceo of metropolitan museum of art daniel weiss on his book about the life of michael o'donnell, who went missing during the vietnam war. sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a." next, members of the house pay tribute to retiring georgia senator johnny isakson. order. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. scott r. scott: madam chair, i have a lot to say. my colleague, mr. hice, has a lot to do. to mr. hice yield so he can speak briefly and go back to his committee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hice: thank you, madam chair. i thank my good