Focus on the Mission, with Mike Pompeo

>> Peter Robinson: Keep them or abolish them, department of agriculture?

>> Milton Friedman: Abolish.

>> Peter Robinson: Gone. Department of Commerce?

>> Milton Friedman: Abolish.

>> Peter Robinson: Gone. Department of Defense?

>> Milton Friedman: Keep.

>> Peter Robinson: Keep it. Department of Education?

>> Milton Friedman: Abolish.

>> Peter Robinson: Gone. Energy?

>> Milton Friedman: Abolish. I'll accept that energy ties in with the military.

>> Peter Robinson: Health and human services?

There is room for some public health activities to prevent contagion. We'll eliminate half of the Department of Health, okay one half, there we go. Department of Justice?

>> Milton Friedman: Yes. Keep that one?

>> Peter Robinson: Keep that one. Labor?

>> Milton Friedman: No.

>> Peter Robinson: Gone. State?

>> Milton Friedman: Keep. Keep it. Transportation? Gone.

>> Peter Robinson: The Treasury?

>> Milton Friedman: You have to keep it to collect taxes.

>> Peter Robinson: All right.

>> Bill Whalen: it's Friday, November 22, 2024, and welcome back to GoodFellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast examining social, economic, political and geopolitical concerns. I'm Bill Whalen, I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow, I'll be your moderator today. Glad to announce that I'm joined by Hoover's three wise men, our GoodFellows, as we call them.

And that would be the historian Niall Ferguson, the grumpy economist himself, John Cochrane. And former presidential national security adviser and bestselling author, Lt Gen. H.R. McMaster. Niall, John and H.R are Hoover senior fellows gentlemen, we're going to talk about the change going on in Washington. The last days of the Biden administration and the nascent Trump administration.

We're going to focus on some appointments and also a surprise policy choice by the Biden administration last week. And joining us for this conversation is a gentleman who served in the first Trump administration, former US Secretary of State, former Director of the CIA. And former Congressman from the great state of Kansas making his GoodFellows debut, Mike Pompeo.

Secretary Pompeo, welcome to GoodFellows.

>> Mike Pompeo: Great to be with you, Love the poster over your shoulder, I grew up in Southern California, Nixon historian extraordinaire.

>> Bill Whalen: Thank you very much. So one thing about your remarkable biography that we have to mention is that you were first in your class at West Point.

You graduated in 1986, that would put you two years behind one H.R. McMaster. And here I want you to set the record straight, Secretary Pompeo, we've been doing this show for almost five years. And we've been laboring under the assumption that HR McMaster is a warrior with a heart of gold, you won't find a nicer guy.

Let's go back 40 years to West Point, and if you want to tear the mask off this guy and explain what HR McMaster is really like, please go ahead.

>> Mike Pompeo: That's for another day, he was a great colleague in the Trump administration an amazing soldier.

>> Peter Robinson: But we all have our shortcomings and someday at a bar, I'll let you know what they all are.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, let's get on with the show here, Secretary Pompeo, and I want to focus on a couple of appointments. I want to get your thoughts on Marco Rubio doing the job you once had. It strikes me that it is a great challenge to be the lead diplomat with a president who shall I say, not always diplomatic.

But let's first focus on the Pentagon and Trump's choice of Pete Hegseth. I look at this position and I see at least five matters that the Secretary of Defense has to address. One, he or she has to have the ability to manage a vast bureaucracy in a global operation.

He or she has to have the judgment regarding America's quasi involvement in two hot wars and whatever is to come with China. The Secretary of Defense has to understand the changing nature of warfare given what we're seeing in Ukraine and Israel. The Secretary has to have a vision as to how we should modernize the military and the political chops to deal with Congress that maybe doesn't want to spend the money.

And then finally the Secretary has to deal with DEI within the Pentagon, within the branches. Now you look at Trump's choice of hex that he clearly is interested in that last matter DEI, so let's bend the conversation with this question. Do you like the choice of Hegseth and all of those matters, all those qualities I mentioned the sec def, which one do you think matters most?

>> Mike Pompeo: Goodness, I think what in the end matters most is the capacity to lead. When I became CIA director, it was the largest organization I'd ever run by far, I'd been a small business guy, four or five hundred people.

>> H.R. McMaster: Platoon leader man, don't say.

>> Mike Pompeo: Platoon leader with 16 scalpel to leader when I had 30 or 40, and then, this was a step up in class for me.

I went to State Department, 70, 000 people, a massive step up in class in organizational requirements and leadership. And Pete has very little experience doing that, there's no doubt about that. He hasn't run a big organization, certainly not a big governmental organization, which I think adds and HR, you'd agree with us.

I think a half twist to the triple gainer in terms of leadership challenge, right. This is even greater difficulty, and it will require Pete to put together a really good team. It's what I tried to do at the agency, I brought in a career professional to help me understand the building and lead.

I brought in a great West Point buddy of mine who was a great executive leader guy named Brian Bulatao to round out that ability to drive that. And then to your point, there are many lakes to the stool, the other one is this idea of what should the military look like, 25 years from now?

How is it you put in place those structures? And Pete will need a bunch of help, I guess as we all do, to think through those strategic, complex issues. And I hope he's up to that challenge, I'll stop my comments there. At some point a lot of folks were talking about me potentially in that role, press and chose to go a different direction.

I intend to try and help whoever it is ends up occupying that seat be successful. It matters an awful lot to my family and to everyone who's listening to this podcast.

>> H.R. McMaster: Mike, can I do a follow up with you on this? On the last issue the last sort of focus for the Secretary of defense, that bill, that bill mentioned.

There has been this attempt by the Biden administration to push a social agenda.

>> Milton Friedman: I guess the self described progressive political agenda in the military, I don't think they've succeeded, Mike. I don't believe that the military is woke and certainly I don't believe the far left narrative that the military is extremist or something, it's crazy.

So I've seen this tendency though right, in recent years. I think taken to a new level in the Biden administration to try to suck the military in to partisan politics would be so destructive to our military. What advice would you give Secretary Hegseth or whoever becomes a secretary on how to transcend the partisan politics?

Because I have a big concern Mike, that whatever is administered as a corrective, could be just as bad as what the Biden administration was doing.

>> Mike Pompeo: Yeah, no HR, I think that's a really important thought, my wisdom would be focus on mission. When you see institutions that begin to falter or come unwound, it's almost always because there's a political agenda being pushed.

But it's almost always driven by the fact there's a secondary mission that is different from the core obligation and responsibility, and I'd say the same thing for the United States military. I hope you're right, I worry that some of the leaders, maybe it was because of the climate they were operating in.

But you've got big departments working on climate change, okay sign me up for clean air, safe drinking water, protecting the next generation. But goodness gracious, we're supposed to break stuff and kill people and deter our adversaries. And when you spend a disproportionate amount of time on things unrelated to that, you see lots of challenges.

The recruiting problems that they're facing today, shortfalls that will be with us for decades, right. HR you know this to grow an E6 right to grow at E8, these are 10 15 year propositions. And so this will move through the military for quite a while, this recruiting challenge.

And if you go back to mission young men and women across America, I think they're just as patriotic today as they were 5, 10, 25 years ago. 40 years ago when you and I signed up, I think we'll see them come back and say, yep, that's what I wanna go do.

I wanna go serve, I wanna go gain skills, and we can get this thing back in the right direction. I don't want it to be conservative, I don't want it to be liberal, I don't want it to be libertarian, I don't want it to be progressive. I want the military to be focused on its mission set, and when it does that, we get great leaders and presidents get the capacity to deter aggression around the world as well.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I agree completely Mike, I mean, that's so well said, thank you.

>> Niall Ferguson: Can I ask a historical question? Sometimes when these big jobs are under discussion, it helps to ask, who's done it really well in the past? I've been reading Max Boot's revisionist biography of Ronald Reagan, and I've been struck quite forcibly by the parallels between the election we just saw and the election of 1980.

And if you think back to the early Reagan years, they were characterized by a really significant events buildup, a successful reassertion of American deterrence after a period of perceived weakness. And a key role was played in all that by Caspar Weinberger, as Secretary of Defense. Now I wonder how you assess him, Mr. Secretary, and also who else in the pantheon of Secretaries of Defense should we look to for inspiration, ideas?

Who did this best? I don't think, with all due respect to him, Lloyd Austin is gonna be near the top of great secretaries of defense without wanting to put too fine a point on it, but who would you put up there?

>> Mike Pompeo: Goodness, it's a great question. I'd probably put Weinberger from modern times, at least I put Weinberger at or near the top.

Think about too, the team that he had around him, and it moved, not as much as the team moved during the Trump administration, but lots changed then too. But you add Bud McFarland, John Poindexter, you had some legendary figures, George Schultz, hanging around the hoop, right always. You had people who had a deep set of experiences and understandings, by the way, from different backgrounds, right?

Schultz had spent time in the commercial sector, but people who brought organizational knowledge, some historical grounding and a deep focus on mission set. And understood where America's place in the world, the responsibility that America had to lead. Not, by the way, when I say that sometimes people think, you do that so that the people of Bangladesh can be happier.

No, America has to lead so that Americans can be more prosperous and secure. And then the corollary benefit flows to people around the world as well. And Cap Weinberger understood that, Dick Cheney, everybody's got their own views on him, but he canceled some big programs, politically difficult programs to cancel early on in that administration, I think that was important.

Maybe the programs, I don't want to get into the pluses or minuses of the particular programs, but his willingness to go oxes and to say, no, the resource allocation is wrong.

>> Peter Robinson: We're gonna go focus it for the things that we need moving forward, is something that this next Secretary of Defense is gonna have to do.

We've got huge programs that in my judgment need really strong analysis. And I don't think they're supportable given where we are today, but smarter people than me on military strategy should evaluate that. And I hope that whoever's in charge will have the political temerity and the support of president Trump to say, nope, we're gonna cancel it.

And watch whomever it is, Boeing, Lockheed, GD, all the downstream supplier base, watch them scream because they will, and make sure that we get that right. Not only should we not be woke, we shouldn't be wedded to an industrial complex that's not serving the true needs of the next generation war.

>> John Cochrane: Let me ask the economist question then since Niall asked the historian question, I'm fascinated by this discussion. I'm an economist, I have, as they said once of a Chicago politician, never run anything but my mouth. So, how one runs a large organization like this is something I'm fascinated by.

And most of our listeners have not run anything particularly big either, particularly with the challenges of Washington. So you go in, you're the new guy, not just defense, but in many of these other agencies, you're the disruptor, you wanna change things. What are you facing? You're facing an entrenched bureaucracy, maybe partisan of the other side, who's gonna try to fight you at every step.

How do you get around that? You're facing whole of government initiatives, like you mentioned, the military being told to fix the climate. You're facing what you just mentioned, an entrenched in the military's case, industrial complex, the one that built things. How in the world do you be effective with that?

Then in Washington you're facing the dispersion of 15 other agencies, at defense, you gotta worry about state, NSC intelligence agencies, 15 others who have different ideas about what to do. And you're either working as a team or you're fighting each other for the president's attention. Wow, what a job.

And then finally, since you just brought it up, would you be willing to name a couple of those programs that you think you need scuttling? Cuz that's gonna be the big leadership. How does the person in charge of a big organization not just put out fires every day and then achieve that strategic motion he needs to do?

>> Mike Pompeo: John, you ask an important question, and one that if you look back at the four years of Mike Pompeo, you could argue he failed at epically. And so I say this with enormous humility, because the challenge is really, really tough, it's big, and you need time, and time is something that is not on your side.

When you talk to corporate CEOs about culture change, they'll all talk about five, eight years. And I had a year and a half at the CIA. I had two and a half years at the State Department. We were in our infancy and actually getting these things underway. So I would say three things in response to this.

First, you have to prioritize. When I came to the State Department, my colleague and I, Brian Bolto, we had eight things we wanted to do. And about week nine, he came in and said he was under Secretary for management was his title, coo. Essentially hey which came in and said, hey, which three of those do you wanna try?

With the reality hit us smack in the face, and we did. We sort of cooled it down and prioritized and tried to focus on those and go deep rather than leave something that was cursory, ephemeral, and broad. So I would argue, pick a handful of things where you think you can actually make step change, difference and spend a lot of your political capital.

And that means really your time and energy and attention on those things. Second, these institutional barriers are real. They are more difficult in the government than they are in the private sector. For example, the State Department had 100% of its employees covered by collective bargaining agreements, in addition to the civil service rules.

So we had a union mindset buried inside, you know, the GS system, inside the United States government. So the personnel issues are a bear. Hard to promote, hard to reward, hard to incentivize, hard to get people to take risk. All those things are true. And it doesn't mean you shouldn't go drive at them.

You still have to go try and instill that I spoke about almost every day as the secretary of State or restoring swagger. And you could, I was mocked, The New York Times mocked me. But I wanted people to understand, like, we're, like, the mos. We're, like, the baddest dudes in town in America.

And our culture should reflect that. And I hope that I could then use that to drive the organizational. Essentially the ethos inside the organization. We can argue about how much progress I made. The last thing is, you're right, you're not on an island. You're, by the way, you're not the President of the United States, you're a cabinet official and you have many others, including national security advisors who have a vision for themselves as well.

>> H.R. McMaster: And not me Mike, unless you are talking about somebody else, man.

>> Mike Pompeo: Not only that, they are often in the West Wing, right? The National Security Council, they're a repository of enormous wisdom. Most of the people who work those places are on loan from someplace else, right?

They're on loan from the CIA, they're on loan from State Department or Department of Defense. So they come with a bias that's built into that as well. You should welcome that wisdom and you should have the meanest, nastiest, hardest conversations you can possibly have. Because it's only in that way can you sort out how to get to good and deliver that good, that best set of recommendations to the President of the United States.

One of the things that happens, certainly happens at the deputies level and I think HR would agree even beneath that, assistant secretaries and the like, is they try to stovepipe come in their own. They think they can hide, they can win this Washington turf war, and I tried to remind my teams like these are the friendlies.

And I know it doesn't feel like that some days, but these are the friendlies like coerce, co-opt, negotiate, work with, don't try and crush them. And I'm sure some of my team didn't adhere to that and we didn't accomplish it. But in the end I always believed you could get best outcomes by working alongside those partners.

We were all in the Trump administration because we shared a common vision. The execution of that vision wasn't always shared perfectly. But to try to drive to those best outcomes was an imperative. And so I give those three thoughts for how to manage what is an incredibly unwieldy, difficult challenge.

And despite all of that, 250 years of American success, how about that?

>> Bill Whalen: So meanwhile there is still a Biden presidency, and he first of all surprised us this week with the decision to allow Ukraine to deploy American made long range missiles, so called atacms. It stands for Army Tactical Missile Systems, they can fire about 200 miles to Russian territory.

And he is still busy in the Middle East. And I'm gonna read to you a quote from a State Department spokesman. Quote, we will continue to pursue an end to the war in Gaza, an end to the war in Lebanon, the surge of humanitarian assistance, and that is our duty to pursue those policies right up until noon on January 20th.

Secretary Pompeo, how is the last two months of the Biden administration going to play out?

>> Mike Pompeo: It's remarkable, we're, we're coming on a half hour into this podcast, and that's the first mention of President Biden. By the way, that's not true of just this conversation. It's true of every conversation in Europe, every conversation in the Middle east, every conversation in Asia, no one's talking about President Biden.

The Trump administration is in effect, as a practical matter. I got it, the levers of power still sit, the nuclear keys still sit in President Biden's hands. But as a practical matter, this thing's over, so what does that mean? That means when Vladimir Putin launches the first intercontinental ballistic missile ever fired against a sovereign nation in the history of civilization.

>> Peter Robinson: That was not an attempt to influence President Biden and Secretary Blinken, but rather to send a message to President Trump and his incoming team. And we should just be mindful that President Trump talks about ending this war in 24 hours in Europe. Well, we're already on and so the clock is running.

That is these negotiations, these conversations, these strategies are already pretty well developed. Everyone's talking to everyone except, folks that are in the Biden administration today. And so when I see statements from the Biden administration about the Middle East, I think, yeah, well, fantastic. Nice press release. But in the end, the drivers, the incentives, the risks that nations are prepared to take to resolve that conflict are all going to be sitting on top of the next administration and not this one.

I don't know, HR if you agree with that, and, Niall, you may have experience where history has done this in transitions before, but it's a risky moment when the guy with the power has none.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, hey, Mike, I do agree with that, and so I do, and we've talked about this on the show a couple of times, that we are in a period of considerable danger during this transition.

I think it would have been a lot worse, Mike, if the election had been close, right? If it wasn't a decisive Trump victory and some Americans were doubting the legitimacy of the outcome. So I think that's in our favor in terms of maybe not having another major crisis between now and January 20th.

But I do worry about the sort of, the lack of leadership at this point,, with a President who's been in cognitive decline for some time. And I think the perception of weakness is what's provocative, Mike, so I agree with you.

>> Niall Ferguson: My concern is that we've been put in a situation, where the Russians are incentivized, to pile on as much military pressure as they possibly can between now and January 20th..

To exploit the obvious strains that Ukraine is under and make the most of the very vulnerable position the Biden Harris administration put Ukraine in. By prolonging the war by encouraging them to undertake an unrealistic counteroffensive last year, and leaving them exposed by supplying weapons and then imposing restraints on their use.

The Storm Shadows, I think, are the most glaring example of this, when Britain and France also supplied really quite powerful weapons. They could have been used to prevent Russia's campaign against Ukraine's electrical infrastructure earlier this year. But the Biden administration restrained President Zelensky's government from using those weapons, until just a few days ago, giving the Russians ample time, of course, to get the most vulnerable targets out of range.

So when I was in Kyiv in September, I was struck by the bitterness of the not only President Zelensky's team, but of the Ukrainian soldiers I spoke to. But it's a very perilous situation Ukraine is in right now. January 20th seems a very long way away, especially if you're a soldier at the front line, you're outmanned, you're outgunned.

How do you think about this in just the narrowly military sense? Do you think Ukraine can hold up between now and Trump's inauguration?

>> Mike Pompeo: I'm very concerned about it, to your point, Niall, look, some in my party had a different view. My view is that the right moment to have allowed this kind of response was at leave March of 22nd, I might even argue October of 21, when we knew this was gonna happen.

And for years, we told the Russians constantly what we wouldn't do. We spent all our time talking about the fear of escalation and the restraints we were putting on their adversaries. If you're the Russian generals, that's a dream for you, because you now know the limits of your counterparty's response.

So it sets in place for you a clear way to think about your strategy and this pressure over the next, what, almost exactly 60 days now.

>> H.R. McMaster: Hey, Mike, I'm reminded of John Sullivan, who we both know and love and respect, who was your deputy and then fantastic job as ambassador to Russia under very difficult circumstances.

He was asked the question, hey, what advice would you give the Biden administration. You know what he said? He said I would tell him to shut up. Stop talking about what you're not gonna do.

>> Mike Pompeo: Exactly, and, Niall, this brings me to another point. Another Hoover guy, Victor Davis Hansen, wrote a piece yesterday or maybe day before talking about the challenges President Trump will face.

I think it is almost certain that you talk about the pressure Putin will apply in these next 60 days. I think you'll see that continue at the front end. I think President Trump will be tested. I think there's this idea that is floating that President Trump won't be tough on Russia.

And so I think it's going to require a real response from this administration early on. Not sending the 82nd Airborne, not sending a Marine Division, but a real response. And this may also be true in the Middle east, where the bad guys will try and task. Was Vice President Harris right?

Is he an isolationist? Is that element of the Republican Party going to dominate President Trump's thinking? And so I think you'll see testing that takes place, pressure for the next 60 days and then testing early on against America during the beginning of the Trump administration. And I think it's a perfect opportunity for President Trump to establish what I think we did pretty good work on HR was making clear that that wasn't the model, that we were Jacksonian in thinking and realist in execution about how it is we secure the things that matter an awful lot America's interests around the world.

I hope they'll get that right in the first months of the Trump administration as well.

>> H.R. McMaster: And hey, Mike, I'd like to ask you just, can I ask you just quickly? There has been a tendency, Mike, among those who are advocating for retrenchment, disengagement from these complex challenges abroad, that, hey, Ukraine's not a big deal, and why support Ukraine?

Could you talk a little bit about how you see the connections between the fight in Ukraine, the cascading crisis that we've seen across the Middle East, and the looming crises, in the Indo-Pacific, associated with China becoming more and more aggressive in some cases against treaty allies of the United States.

>> Mike Pompeo: Yeah, that's an important question. And, John, this begins to move into your world. This has huge economic implications. Often those of us who serve get asked about a particular theater. We get asked about South America or China or the Middle east or Asia or, excuse me, or Europe.

These are all closely tied. You can see, you can see symptoms of that, evidence of that. You can see Iranian drones flying in Ukraine. You can see the Chinese buying Russian crude oil at a deep discount. You can draw actual physical connections. But the ideological and mission commitments are even tighter.

That is, they have a shared objective of crushing our Western way of life. And so to think for a moment that you can allow Vladimir Putin to be victorious in Europe and believe that you're going to push back against General Secretary Xi in Asia is, in my judgment, just hopelessly naive.

And as a practitioner, it's practically impossible because your friends won't trust you and your adversaries will think, I know how to create fissures in the American system, and I know how to compartmentalize risk. And they will begin to move in the places that are more difficult for America to respond.

And so you can't, you can't allow the result of this. However, this ends in Europe. The result of this cannot look like a Putin victory. And when I say that that's, that's for America, it can't be a Putin victory for the United States of America, because the second and third order implications in think, think about this.

In South America, where the Chinese are building ports, in Mexico, where the Chinese, like this is, this is close stuff with Russian ships off of Cuba. Wait, this is, this is not some far away concept. And they are all working together, the Venezuelans, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Russians.

I'm sure I missed someone in that quick recounting, but it's half a dozen folks working together to deliver really bad outcomes for our kids and grandkids, and a loss in Europe will only accelerate that risk.

>> Niall Ferguson: Looking back on the first Trump administration, I would say that President Trump was rather good at deterrence and certainly a lot better than President Biden has proved to be.

You said something in London a few weeks ago that might bear repeating about why our adversaries find Donald Trump more formidable than Joe Biden. And I'll jog your memory by referring to madman theory.

>> Mike Pompeo: Niall. It's a variation of that. And what I spoke to and what I deeply believe is you need to be clear with your objectives.

But it is good to leave some room for doubt in your adversary's mind. To HR's point earlier, shut up. Don't know if there's many things you're not going to do. Don't tell anybody, and you don't certainly have to repeat them. President Trump came into office as a big unknown, certainly when it came to these matters.

He was a New York real estate guy. President Biden came in with every world leader, having spent time with him at Munich security conferences for 40 years, right? They all knew him. They knew how to play him, they knew what his risk tolerance was they knew how he would think about particular problem sets.

I had the advantage as the Secretary of State for Donald Trump of walking into rooms and world leaders saying, tell me about this guy. And then I could tell them exactly what I wanted to tell them. Always truthful, but I could pick and choose about particular moments. And he had delivered a model which had sufficient variability.

An economist would call it volatility, John, right?

>> Peter Robinson: He had sufficient volatility or unpredictability that neither our adversaries nor markets could predict precisely how he would respond at any given time. And so that created more space for us to engage in conversations that were serious and meaningful and I think caused a lot of second guessing and delivered deterrence.

And then the last thing I'll say, Niall, is that we did take some high level of risk making decisions that were thought to be politically and geostrategically dangerous. Maybe the first one was just move, just the simple statement on a piece of paper and then the physics of moving an embassy in Israel, right?

Six or seven presidents before said they would, World War three, HRU in the meetings, right?

>> H.R. McMaster: World War three,

>> Mike Pompeo: the streets will erupt all over the Middle East. They didn't. When we took the strike on Soleimani, same thing, right? Two previous administrations that thought about taking out the senior military political leader in Iran, they had decided risk was too high.

We were trying to restore deterrence that we were losing, frankly. Our embassy, the American Embassy in Baghdad was under attack almost every night. And we took the strike and, you know, we reestablished Americans willingness to take risk. It's never permanent, it's never full, but it was pretty good.

And then the last thing I'll say gets into the economic model. We've been talking about this in the kinetic and military sense, many tools of power. President Trump was wholly prepared to use America's economic power to achieve what he believed were America's interests. And I think oftentimes our friends thought twice about that as well, because not only would they potentially face a carrier parked off their coast, but they would face economic sanctions that would actually be enforced, potentially tariffs that would impose real harm on their own economy.

Sometimes they cared about that, but create political risk For them, for sure. And so that full scope of American power was brought to bear in a way that I think did deliver that level of risk perception among our adversaries that gave us a better shot at deterring the bad guys.

>> John Cochrane: Let me add just a couple on all these, which has been fascinating. First, you said Putin victory. I think the danger is Putin doesn't even have to have a victory. If it's you grab what you can and then we negotiate. That message sent to Xi Jinping is just as bad as you have to win.

He doesn't have to invade Kiev, he just has to grab what he got this time we stop, negotiate, ceasefire, get ready and do it again. And that's just as bad for our deterrence. This is different, and I wonder if you think this thought might occur to Trump, cuz Trump does change his mind.

And I think that's exactly that volatility is. If you study your game theory, the madman in the corner is always excellent thing to have when you wanna negotiate things. But we could win. It's always struck me that in Ukraine, we have never seen a preponderance of ability. In 1939, we didn't have the capabilities against Hitler that we have now.

We could win this, if NATO went in, we win this in a week. And it's not like Iraq. We would not be going into Ukraine and going into an insurgency who hates us. This time they really would greet us with flowers and thank you. And that possibility, I think is.

Should be at least something that a saber that Trump might rattle. And I've also noticed for the last year and a half it's been, nuclear must not escalate. But both the Russian change in their nuclear doctrine and sending an ICBM and everyone, even the Europeans. Yeah,don't worry about that.

So in fact, that last piece of Russian deterrence seems to be gone. And a last thought the next, when we turn to Asia and the economic battle, I think that is something important to remember. When we think about Taiwan, say an embargo against Taiwan or something sort. We talk often about the shooting war and whether we can win or not.

But the economic consequences of that are going to be tremendous. World trade will fall off a cliff or world financial crisis will erupt. Really, that is what's gonna happen in that war. I worry about jumping too quickly. HR and I have had all sorts of fun on this question of geo economic strategy.

Using tariffs, for example, to throw your weight around sometimes is one of those things like in the cartoons. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Remember how we put in a 25% tariff on light trucks to teach the Germans a lesson about not buying our chickens?

That was 1964. So be careful what you wish for in using tariffs to try to influence people.

>> Mike Pompeo: John, you have two thoughts that I think are relevant. One, tariffs always have to contemplate the game theory. So lots of economists that I've read have different views on who bears the cost of tariffs.

I am not smart enough to know. I think the incidence is hard to predict and shared most likely. But what you have to account for is what the other guy's gonna do and while they respond, what does that mean? Which brings me, and so I think broad based tariffs without an objective, often to your point, miss their mark and don't achieve the stated objective.

Targeted, harshly enforced, vigorously enforced make most sense with the idea of getting something in exchange for releasing those tariffs demanding reciprocity as the central thesis there. I do want to talk about Taiwan when I've heard some of my Republican colleagues say, by the way, I think I'm still the only person who has said that the United States ought to recognize Taiwan as an independent, free nation.

We should just make that US policy. Just create the clarity that comes with that. Stop this silliness that's left over from the early 1970s. We still, we don't have haircuts from the 70s. We should adopt a security policy that works for America, not wedded to the 70s. But importantly, your point about the economics in Asia are very real.

The two times I saw exercises in Asia where the Chinese had moved aggressively, circling some island, not always the main island of Taiwan, but something. And there was conflict. Not a single car moves off an automobile line in Detroit in about three months. Think about what that means.

It means the bars in Detroit will be wide open, right, because nobody will be going to work. It's just that the deep ramifications of the economy seizing up in Asia, I think are deeply underappreciated. And so we all ought to be really smart about how we think about responding as the Chinese continue to build up their aggression and we can't let them control this ladder of escalation.

We have to get on top of that. And that is that has a cyber component as a space component. It has a technology and energy component and a diplomatic component, but most importantly has an economic piece to it. And we have to be out in front on this, or you can get a spiral that ends up really bad for ordinary Americans every day.

>> Niall Ferguson: We usually agree about everything. But can I disagree with you about Taiwan? It strikes me, and I based this partly on what was said when I was in Beijing in May, that Xi Jinping might welcome our crossing the red line of Taiwanese independence, because it would give them a chance to spring the blockade at a time when I don't think we're capable of a very effective military response.

Isn't there a danger that maybe between now and January 20, the Taiwan crisis happens and we're not really ready? This is a question that I worry a lot about because it would be far more consequential for the global economy and indeed for US Security than anything in Eastern Europe or the Middle East.

How strong do you think our deterrence is? It seems to me that we're quite a long way away from effective deterrence against a blockade strategy.

>> Mike Pompeo: That may well be true. I think this ambiguity about the American response in this case, net net creates increased risk. That's why I've argued for clarity.

You have to sit across from and say, you're full of it, dude, this isn't yours. It didn't used to be yours. You can't gild the lily here and make him feel good. This is not about Xi Jinping's own self perception of worth. He's made clear, he wants that.

You need to make clear it's not yours. And then after that, that doesn't mean everything. And when we say we'll defend them, it doesn't mean we're gonna, conscript Americans to go, land in Xian, right? It says, no, we're serious about drawing these lines. Where in the end, this is the argument in Europe, this is the one John just made.

Do we care about sovereignty? Does it really matter? Do borders matter? Is it okay for us to actually close our southern border in the United States? Is it okay for the Ukrainians say, no, that's actually not the boundary that the international system drew. I actually think it is.

I think these things matter. And so you should just have clarity about them. It doesn't mean there aren't disputes. It doesn't mean there aren't arguments. It doesn't mean some side doesn't have a different position. But the United States ought to be pretty damn clear about this. I'll give you another example from just the last couple days.

The ICC now says that Prime Minister Netanyahu. Can't travel in many places in the world. And apparently the Prime Minister of Canada says he's not welcome in Toronto. This is absurd on its face to have some set of knuckleheads sitting in the Hague driving the decrease in national sovereignty.

And the United States has this responsibility, just throw, I use a global term to throw the flag or to use a European term, to put the red card out, right? These are from football. These are lines that the United States just can't sit back and go, gosh darn it, and issue a press release from Foggy Bottom on that very day about transgender awareness.

That's actually what happened. Our Middle Eastern friends see that, our Gulf State Air friends see that exact response Netanyahu held in the dock by the ICC and the State Department press release on transgenderism. And they go to their huddle, and they're like, what the hell? This is pretty straightforward for President Trump to get these simple ideas back.

And that's the blessing of this last election.

>> John Cochrane: I wanna follow up on both of the deterring China, it's not just about military. We have to remember you said eloquently what happens in Detroit after the blockade, but we need to emphasize to the Chinese what happens in Beijing.

China is a very export-dependent economy. So the minute they move against Taiwan, they don't export anything. You wanna export solar panels and electric cars to Europe, that's not happening. And we need to make sure we still have allies so that everybody agrees on this. That's not happening. You wanna send stuff on boats to Venezuela or whatever.

You don't get to send stuff on boats to Venezuela the minute you invade Taiwan. I mean, that is, I think, even more credible and really painful to the Chinese. Now, you brought up the ICC, which is a topic that I think it's a good time to pivot to that one.

That really struck me as a moment of clarity that we keep allowing these international institutions. It's not so much about sovereignty. We've known about the rot at the UN. UNRWA has been funding Palestinian terrorism for 50 years, for 70 years. The ICC is just an example of the international institutions that are directly counter to UNRWA and Israel's interests.

I remember in 1975, thinking to myself, I first learned that Palestinian schools run by the UN were just training grounds for terrorism. Occurred to me, why don't they just take over the schools and wait 25 years. Well, it's 50 years later, and the schools are still training grounds for terrorism.

And we support this. It's European money. It's not just Saudi Arabia. And these are not homegrown resistance fighters. These are supported internationally by, yes, the Arab states, but also a whole lot by the UN, by us, and by Europe. How long do we just let this quiet rot go on subverting our own and Israel's interests?

Sorry, you brought up the ICC, and you got the grumpy economist going.

>> Mike Pompeo: No, I couldn't be more with you. Remember, I sanctioned a woman named Fatou Ben Suda. The State Department, under my leadership, sanctioned her, right? She's totally corrupt. So target.

>> H.R. McMaster: And we cut off funding for UNRWA in 2017.

>> Mike Pompeo: No, that's right. We had the right end of the stick. We should have done more, too. And I must say, my learning curve when I was at the CIA about these international institutions grew dramatically. I mean, if you look at the things I said when I was in Congress in 2013, 14, 15, are very different than what I think today.

These are broken, they are unreformable. We need to know what the other side looks like. We need to come up with ideas about what it looks like when these things are torn under. And if we do that, we can rebuild something that actually matters, not what we have today.

>> Niall Ferguson: If Trump had won four years ago would any of this stuff have happened? I mean, I remember him saying, I think it was in 2022, after the Russians had invaded Ukraine. If I had been president, none of this would have happened because I said to Putin, if you do this to Ukraine, watch out for those golden domes in Moscow.

And I said the same to Xi Jinping. Now, I have no way of substantiating if Trump ever said anything of the sort, but I kind of agree with the idea that the world would have been a less dangerous place if the second Trump term had been consecutive rather than non-consecutive.

What's your view of that?

>> Mike Pompeo: Look, I think that piece is true. It'd be less dangerous today. I try not to do counterfactuals, so I can't tell you exactly what would have happened, but I do know the facts. These things didn't happen on his watch, right? We didn't bail on Afghanistan.

No one doubts that Donald Trump wanted out of Afghanistan. He tweeted it like 57 times. But we didn't bail on Bagram. We didn't bail on the whole thing. And people were like Mike, but if it had been four more years, he would have. Again, I can't speak to that.

I can only say that there was a rational plan to try to move that forward that was thoughtfully conducted. HR was deep in the center of this as his time as National Security Advisor, and we were trying to draw resources back to a place that made sense. You could say the same thing for about October 7th, the same thing for February of 22 in Europe.

It would have been different. And we can prove that those things didn't happen on President Trump's watch. And I'm, I, I'm confident that the world would have been safer. And I hope, as President Trump retakes office, the world will become less volatile and safer again with a lot of the same theories of deterrence that we tried to put in place for those four years.

>> H.R. McMaster: Hey, Mike, I'd like to ask you a question here, right? I mean, just about what you think about the next Trump administration. You know, President Trump is consistent on a lot of things, right? I mean, border security, reciprocity and trade, burden sharing with allies, deregulation and unleashing the American economy and America's energy potential.

But as we've kind of alluded to, he does have a certain dissonance where he holds two opposing ideas in his head at the same time. Kind of this desire for retrenchment is manifested in Afghanistan, but also, he understands peace through strength, and what I'd like to, what I'd like to ask you is, like, how do you think he's going to reconcile on China in particular?

Because now, of course, Elon Musk is influential with President Trump. And, hey, you live this, right, where you had differences of opinion between the Secretary of the treasury and, yes, U.S. trade Representative, and always. How do you see the trajectory with China given that President Trump loves a big deal, right?

And the Chinese tried to string him out with the prospect of the phase two trade deal last time. So, we'd love to hear your thoughts on what do you think the trajectory is in connection with this most important competition with the Chinese Communist Party?

>> Mike Pompeo: So I think on, on this, it'll be a mixed bag.

I think you'll see on the economic side, real pressure, which I think makes sense. I hope it's targeted appropriately. I hope they get that piece right. To John's point earlier, the Chinese economy is in a very difficult position. And it is our most important strategic advantage to make sure that the Western model continues to thrive.

So I hope they'll use that. I think President Trump understands that, and we'll get that right. And I think the team that he's gonna build on the economic side will appreciate that as well. Look, treasury always is deeply connected to Wall Street, massive investments there. So there's always this resistance about the banking system, the international financial system.

That'll be real. It'll be in President Trump's head, too. You know this. He loves to watch the stock market every day, right?

>> Peter Robinson: He pays attention to those things. And so he'll be. Appropriately cautious, I think there. And then the good news is too, in my judgment, I think he understands that you need a modernized, powerful military.

I think he'll allow us to go back and refresh our nuclear program in important ways as well that you and I were arguing for when we were sitting there and we didn't get far enough. So I think there are deep strategic elements that will convince the Chinese Communist Party that this is a different game and will put us back on the right trajectory as a relative matter with respect to the threats from the CCP.

>> Bill Whalen: I'd like to get your thoughts on Musk, because here we have an innovator coming into government. Lemme read you something that he posted on X the other day. He said this about the Department of Government Efficiency, quote, we need super high IQ small government revolutionaries willing to work 80 plus hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.

Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies and compensation is zero. And he added, what a great deal. Well, will he get a great deal done.

>> Mike Pompeo: He said $2 trillion a year of spending reduced, I would take the under and pray for the over. It's a bear, having served in Congress, I know when it comes to spending reductions, I almost use a bad word, it's really hard.

But it will be creative, it's a set of fresh eyes. It's not the first time that outsiders that come in to try and sort of refocus and reallocate, in the end, it'll turn to President Trump. Are you prepared to go break some things and have some of your friends really pissed off?

That's what it comes down to. Are you prepared to say, no, I'm really gonna go rethink how we deliver healthcare to the United States of America, right? What are healthcare costs increasing at every year? Inflation plus 4, inflation plus 5. It's not as bad as NHS, Niall, but it's bad and we can do that.

But if you're just gonna move around the edges and say, gosh, we're gonna cut 10% from the Department of Education budget, you're looking at interest well in excess of interest expense well in excess of military spending for decades to come.

>> Bill Whalen: And Niall, what is your advice to Musk, given that you have tried to build a university from the ground up?

>> Mike Pompeo: Well, of course, it's very important that as a consequence of the election, higher education in the United States feels a chill wind, a wind blowing against the excesses of so called progressivism. Those excesses have deeply damaged the quality of the established universities and that's what led us to found the University of Austin.

That was what motivated me, a perception that nothing could be done to remedy the state of the Ivy League. And I hope that the part of the great change that has just happened in the United States, let's not forget how profound a shift this has been that every demographic except white women with college degrees swung to Donald Trump relative to four years ago.

That is a massive political shift and I hope it will affect the higher education sector. But it's not ultimately up to the federal government how universities are run and nor should it be. One of the obvious things that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can do is start getting rid of federal agencies that we don't need.

And Department of Education has to be high up on the list. Peter Thiel once said that rule number one is never bet against Elon, and I've learned over the years how good that rule is. If there's one person who really could roll back the vast sprawling deep state, it's Elon.

So yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: He better get a bigger sink this time, he's gonna need a bigger sink.

>> Mike Pompeo: By the way, Niall, I agree with that, he is perfectly situated to do this. He has the temperament, the capacity, the President's ear. He is absolutely perfectly situated to do this.

And I hope what actually happens is he gets political support from a broad base to execute against this that the American people can see and feel. If he does, maybe you get to the over or maybe you get close to it. And what a sea change that would be for the United States for the decades that follow.

>> H.R. McMaster: And just one other point on this too, Mike, I think he's gonna need reform minded smart people within each of these departments and agencies who can help him apply the ax or the scalpel, whatever's appropriate.

>> Bill Whalen: John.

>> John Cochrane: I'm enormously hopeful in part because as an economist sort of my view is that the main thing holding the US economy back has been the extreme amount of regulation.

Not just the legal regulation, the executive orders, the dear colleague letters, the endless amounts of time you spend. It takes 10 years to get the permits to connect a new solar panel to the grid. So even the lefties are figuring out that this is a problem. But this will be difficult, we don't want to just do all the bad things the government does efficiently.

You need to change what the government does, even if it's a little less efficiently, you want it to be permanent. And that's the big problem, we're getting into this thing where the Democrat issues a bunch of executive orders, the Republican comes in, cancels those and puts another bunch of executive orders, that isn't helpful.

So eliminating whole departments, yes, you gotta kill it that's exactly right. It's like cockroaches, just because you got three of them left doesn't mean that you're done. But eliminating whole departments, you need Congress. And I would encourage marginal revolution today at Great Economics had a quote from Cass Sunstein, who tried to run a deregulation effort.

He said, look, you can't just go in and wax stuff, you gotta understand how this works. You have to know the difference between IFRS, TFRs, NPRMs, FRS, and RTIs. I could name two of those but there is an Administrative Procedures Act. There's a whole bunch of people are gonna try to stop you legally.

So, yes, go in where possible, eliminate, but it's gonna need Congress, it's gonna need understanding how the system works. I think the energy provided by Musk will be wonderful. The amount of resistance he's gonna face is gonna be large. Let's hope for the best. But it does require understanding how the system works.

>> Bill Whalen: Secretary Pompeo, we appreciate your time. Let's continue the conversation. Come back soon.

>> Mike Pompeo: Thank you, sir. HR Great to see you, Dale, great. Thank you, John.

>> John Cochrane: Thank you, it's been great.

>> H.R. McMaster: Take care, Mike.

>> Bill Whalen: Well, with that, we're gonna wrap up this episode of GoodFellows.

I do have a question for the three of you, though, gentlemen. The fourth Thursday in November approaches, that is the Thanksgiving holiday here in America. Neil is smirking because I think Niall doesn't have to cook a turkey this year, or maybe you're gonna celebrate as an expat Niall.

Question for our two US GoodFellows, hw are you gonna spend your Thursday? Healthy or gluttony?

>> Niall Ferguson: Well, I'm actually going to give thanks in a rather distinctive way. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in the United Kingdom, as I'm sure all GoodFellows fans know. But I'm gonna give thanks by flying up to Glasgow and giving a lecture at my old school, the Glasgow Academy on Scottish History in Global Context.

So that will be my thank you to the school and to Scotland, the country that I come from. It's a rather unusual kind of Thanksgiving, but it will be a very profound one for me.

>> Bill Whalen: HR what is Thanksgiving gonna be in your household?

>> H.R. McMaster: Hey, well, we're gonna be with grandkids.

So there's gonna be a lot of playing in the backyard as well as eating. So a combination of gluttony, I guess, and, and exercise and fun with six grandkids all five and below.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, and John Cochrane, you get the last word.

>> John Cochrane: Well, we only have one adorable grandchild produced by that one there.

We are gonna go visit our daughter and her husband and grandchild. Our family is heavier on the exercise than on the overeating. And we have many, many family traditions involving Thanksgiving. We're gonna remember my mother and her Thanksgiving dinners that we always used to have and many traditions and pass those on to Artemisia.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, gentlemen, with that, we're gonna wrap up this conversation. Great job, I enjoyed it very much. Our next GoodFellows will be in early December and this is your episode coming up. We are going to answer your questions. So do us a favor, if you have a question for Niall or John or HR or some combination of that, send them to the following address, hoover.org/AskGoodFellows.

Lemme repeat that again, Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows and we'll do our best to get it on the air. You can ask them anything you want to, I think I would ask Dr. Cochrane, for example, what is that art on the wall behind Tim? But definitely send them in, we'll do that and have a great Thanksgiving.

On behalf of the GoodFellows, Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, HR McMaster, our guest today, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, we hope you enjoyed the conversation. We look forward to seeing you again. Till next time, take care.

>> Presenter: If you enjoyed this show and are interested in watching more content featuring HR McMaster, watch Battlegrounds also available at hoover.org.