bush appointed for instance brent scowcroft who was in the government for a long time, former air force general, no one ever doubted that scowcroft would submit things to the president he served without saying this is what this guy says, he's an idiot. this is what i think you should do. >> in terms of the appointments that have been made so far, we've gotten an announcement about national security adviser general flynn as being seen as outside the mainstream, not just in terms of national security thinking but also in terms of temperament and how willing is he to engage with people who either know to not be true or is a conspiratorial nonsense. his chief of staff who also is his son would regularly sort of tweet stuff from the infowars conspiracy theory website. he sort of traffics in that territory. >> right. i think we would call him a little bit of a partisan. >> partisan. although -- or registered democrat for most of his time as an adult life. >> very strong views. >> yes and now we've got a fox news analyst who has got an interesting past of her own, brought on as the deputy nati

buzz scowcroft.l: two months ago scowcroft said, donald trump achieved something i thought was impossible. i said, what's that? he said, he is making me support clinton. i feel good about it because he is so dangerous. i think there are a lot of national security types who feel that way. he has not offered any coherent national security policy. but also, some of the people around him. there is no one who gives some great confidence. charlie: yet despite all of this, he is within, perhaps, three points in the national poll. three points. al: he is within three points, charlie. if things break way, which they don't very often, but sometimes they do -- in 1980. charlie: you and others have said there is a bit more momentum and enthusiasm, and that counts for something. al: he does. the offset is whether this great clinton analytics data get out the vote effort, whether that is an offset. newwrote about that in the and times this morning sasha eisenberg, who works for bloomberg politics, has followed thi

. >> general scowcroft. >> brent scowcroft. >> was a very good national security advisor.orce general. >> absolutely. >> so maybe general flynn has that potential in him but you're expressing your doubts. >> i'm not expressing doubt, i'm just saying that's a role he'll have to broaden out his skill set in terms of managing the military department or agency but he'll have to manage a lot of competing interests that may be adverse to his own philosophical versions of what needs to be done. >> he doesn't have to go through confirmation as the national security advisor. you were a senator. senators like to confirm their brothers and sisters in the senate. let's remember the experience of chuck hagel, he became secretary of defense but not without a great deal of controversy and certainly not with a unanimous vote. so i think the issues will be raised of senator sessions will be what is really your opinion about waterboarding. do you subscribe to the notion we should engage in torture. do you subscribe to the notion we kill families of suspected terrorists. members will have to

this has been a collection in this job of people who have been both military leaders like general scowcroft and academics like heb ri kissinger, and mcgeorge bundy and i think he will do well. >> in terms of consensus building and that, jeffrey, do you have any concerns based on what you heard from general herting? >> that's a valid point the general makes. i really think he will adapt. this will be his job. he will have to do it and i'm sure he will. >> the comments that reza pointed to? >> look, this is an issue that's certainly a hot button in the campaign. in term of president obama not talking about radical islam, et cetera. i think there are a lot of people in this country that have that point of view. it will be at the table. there will be people with other points of view and they will be there, as well. >> general, based on the things he mentioned is that a concern for you? >> it is a concern for me, anderson. i'm very concerned. i've read mike's book. it was concerning to me some of the things he said in the books. i've seen some of the tweets he's tweeted out as well. i think it i

there are those who have played that role in the past -- general powell, general scowcroft, others.d sandy berger, classic democrat, had his own democratic philosophy, but he made sure i was always heard, and if i had a difference with the administration on policy i could go directly to the president. katty: when you see these early personalities for mr. trump, do you think the scenario you are describing is going to work in this white house as well? mr. cohen: i'm skeptical, but i'm hoping that can be the case. i think it will be critically important that there be some -- there will be some diversity by the nature of different agencies having different views. it will be up to the national security advisor to make sure he limits the number of issues that has to go to the president for decision. that should be one of the goals of the national security advisor. thank youliam cohen , for joining us. welcome back. just a short time ago, the new york attorney general announced that a $25 million settlement has been reached to resolve three lawsuits over trump university. students claimed

and i'll tell you, that proposal from congressman hamilton and general scowcroft is a absolutely sound way to in an orderly fashion address all of the concerns that you properly are raising. >> we had hamilton in. we sat there with the chairs of the authorizing committee. we put together a nuclear waste policy for this country, which was voluntary. we went through three chairs of the energy committee working on this, oh, from new mexico, bingaman, widen, murkowski. murkowski worked with us all along. we've got a bill in there that's the two appropriators, the two authorizers all support, and it sits in committee, and the nuclear waste industry does nothing to help pass it. why? i mean, i don't understand this. and we see the accidents take place. it's a kind of madness to build stuff and not be able to properly dispose of the waste. >> pass the bill. the other thing i want to say -- i think it was, now, california. i want to turn to california for a minute. may i say a word about california? >> sure. >> which i know little about, except that i have now two grandsons living in palo alto

controller of policies coming in from various agencies, if you look at the previous lieutenant general's, scowcroft and powell you didn't see a lot of them out there, they were really managing a process and i think what you saw there was a reaction to his perceptions but perhaps that the obama administration wasn't as forward leaning as identifying what he saw as the root cause of the problem that we face with isis and the global terror threat and i think he's going to play -- >> forgive me, mr. ambassador, let me pivot quickly, governor huckabee is standing and talking to the press at trump tower. >> terrific job of looking for the best talent he can find for his cabinet. beyond that i don't have anything to report to you because it's not my job to report. >> are you interested in the position? >> you know, i'm happy to do what i'm doing. my job right now is to listen. it's his job to make those decisions and whatever those decisions are is going to be good. the only person giving out jobs in this building is president-elect trump not me and i would respect that any information about that come fro

security adviser, we had a number over the years, some very successful military officers, brent scowcroftneral colon powell. the role of the national secured adviser is to integrate military intelligence but diplomacy. in fact, a lot of what donald trump will have to do as president is to succeed as a diplomat around the world. can general flynn make that leap to understand the diplomatic side of things? i think those are some of the questions being asked. >> nick, there is a report right now the trump team is thinking of dismantling the officer of the director of national intelligence. it was one of the key directions of the -11 agencies. there have been questions about whether that's too much bureaucracy, under general clapper, i think it was largely successful in coordinating. what do you think of getting rid of all that and again restructuring the intelligence agency? >> i think it's important that they give this some time. >> that the trump team read in, connect with the transition teams at the department of defense, at the cia the state department, other agencies. really think about

you're right to mention general scowcroft as the gold standard. but the important thing, i think, is that he acts as an honest broker, coordinator of the agencies and works well, especially with the secretary of defense and secretary of state. >> what concerns, if any, do you have? you signed the letter with -- among the other foreign policy advisers against donald trump before the election. now, you know, taking a step back, look at what he's done so far, people he's talking to, possiblnikki haley as secretary of state. >> the concerns i have, first of all, i want to see -- i think we would all like to see our foreign policy informed by knowledgeable people, people well-versed in the background. secondly, i think the allies are extremely important. we just watched a press conference between chancellor merkel and president obama. and they were -- they were sending a message to donald trump. we hope you really honor and respect this critical alliance, not only with germany but with the entirety of nato. so, the idea of leaving any doubt in our mind

. >> i remember, phil, when brent scowcroft was made national security adviser to the first presidentin powell was a national security adviser. they both left the military temporarily to go and serve the president of the united states. do you see a similarity between those two generals and this general serving as the national security adviser? >> i do not. they had long and storied histories in u.s. government that were never questioned by anything they did in the national security sphere or the political sphere. in the beginning of the bush administration 15 years ago, you remember almost quickly we had that incident with the chinese, where they took down an american military aircraft and a new white house was charged with dealing with a highly sensitive situation in a major adversary, that is china. this man's going to be dealing with very difficult situations, and my sense of him, watching him on the campaign trail, he doesn't have the temperament to deal with them. >> peter bergen, donald trump says he would bring back water boarding to get information from suspected terrorists to

brent scowcroft, jim jones, they bring to the job the understanding of how to bring the department ofepartment of state into the conversation to give the best advice to the president and i'm certain general flynn would be able to do that. >> and colin powell, let's not forget, he was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, then became a national security advis advisor. david chalian, these decisions that the president-elect makes between now and when he's sworn in, they will have an impact four years and eight years. >> no doubt. it's the formulation of your policy making apparatus. obviously it's not permanent. we see people lose their jobs or new people come in and these jobs can change. but it's the first significant indication we get about how donald trump plans to governor so when we look at his national security picks, you heard rand paul pushing back against john bolton because it gives him a clue about how things may proceed in a trump administration so that's what we assess and why these initial picks are so important. >> and particularly for a trump administration because thi

my name is daniel chchlt riu, director of brent scowcroft on cyber security. hosted by us and in collaboration with our partners at christian science monitor pass code. this afternoon's conversation is on hacking the vote. i feel like there should be music when i say this. also very timely. a bunch of us were saying oi woke up to a radio story on exactly this topic. it's a particularly timely discussion and we have a group that will examine tradeoffs and threats that are facing our electoral system to paper, current u.s. voting computers to internet-based voting in many countries and many other countries. so really a great panel to help us put this whole story of hacking the vote into some context with some real substance behind it. >> before we dive in encourage you to join on twitter, ac cyber @ac scowcroft and csm pass code. this election year you know we've seen heated discussion about how hacking, data breaches and other crimes could impact voter registration, voting computers, because they are not just voting machines anymore, they really are computers,

the republican party and national security affairs, people like michael chertoff, tom ridge, brent scowcrofteliot cronan, all repudiate trump and say he is, in fact, not qualified to be president of the united states. >> surprise. he's talked about patton and mcarthur, rolling in their graves because we just say everything that we're going to do before we do it. you disagree? >> i totally disagree. because there's a political imperative around the attack on mosul, as well as a military imperative. you know, there's an old strategist, widely quoted, war is politics by other means. so for the iraqi government, there was a political imperative from the very onset to say, we're going to liberty the second largest city in our country, now occupied by isis for two years. and say that repeatedly. and oh, by the way, 99.9% of the forces involved are iraqi. back to the historical metaphor. by the spring of 1944, the germans knew we were going to invade france. it didn't take a genius. and they were, in fact, preparing beach defenses correspondingly. in the pacific, in the spring of 1945, the japanese

and i was fortune enough to work with a national security adviser, brent scowcroft, that we both got along very well and operated quite closely so that the president didn't have to deal with what sometimes is the internal tensions in the white house. so, it was a great relationship with a president i admired greatly. >> and what's your expectation of the importance of the job of chief of staff to a president who is an outsider to washington, who is getting to know the system, so to speak, how the white house and congress are going to be working together, a businessman who, you know, campaigned on being an outsider, not knowing what washington was all about? so, how does that change the role, in your view, of this chief of staff? >> well, i think vice president-elect pence and reince are going to be, you know, the key contacts within the white house to guide, if you will, a president trump over some of the internal pitfalls. you're dealing with giant bureaucracies on the legislative side and giant bureaucracies that the president will preside over on the executive side, and they are b

brent scowcroft and jim baker. [applause] [cheers and applause] and finally a special emphasis with a woman named barbara. [cheers and applause] she has inspired this entire irrigation and i think the country will always be grateful. [applause] but to nightclub is really not a night for speeches one-two cent a young message - - a message to the young people of america. i remain absolutely convinced that we are a rising nation, with extraordinarily difficult periods to not be deterred kept away from public service with the ugliness of politics i will serve and try to find ways to help people die a happy to be in the grandchild business and finding ways to help the others but i urge the young people of this country to participate in the political process and needs your idealism, your drive and conviction and congratulations to governor clinton and his running mate senator al gore and to each and every one of view you have then by my side for every political battle god bless the united states of america. thank you ver

i'm talking, of course, about my national security adviser, brent scowcroft and jim baker. [ applausend my good friend and fellow texan, our secretary of state, jim baker. finally, of course, i want to thank my entire family with a special emphasis on a woman named barbara. [ cheers and applause ] she's inspired this entire nation, and i think the country will always be grateful. but tonight is really not a night for speeches. but i want to share a special message with the young people of america. i am absolutely -- you see, i remain absolutely convinced that we are a rising nation. we have been in an extraordinarily difficult period, but do not be deterred, kept away from public service by the smoke and fire of a campaign year or the ugliness of politics. as for me, i plan to get -- i'm going to serve and try to find ways to help people. but i plan to get very active in the grandchild business. and in finding ways to help others. but i urge you, the young people of this country, to participate in the political process. it needs your idealism. it needs your drive. it needs your convic

i'm talking, of course, about my national security adviser, brent scowcroft and jim baker. [ applause ] and my good friend and fellow texan, our secretary of state, jim baker. finally, of course, i want to thank my entire family with a special emphasis on a woman named barbara. [ cheers and applause ] she's inspired this entire nation, and i think the country will always be grateful. but tonight is really not a night for speeches. but i want to share a special message with the young people of america. i am absolutely -- you see, i remain absolutely convinced that we are a rising nation. we have been in an extraordinarily difficult period, but do not be deterred, kept away from public service by the smoke and fire of a campaign year or the ugliness of politics. as for me, i plan to get -- i'm going to serve and try to find ways to help people. but i plan to get very active in the grandchild business. and in finding ways to help others. but i urge you, the young people of this country, to participate in the political process. it needs your idealism. it needs your drive. it needs your co

brent scowcroft and jim baker.plause] [cheers and applause] and finally a special emphasis with a woman named barbara. [cheers and applause] she has