WHO’S NEXT?: President Trump says “a lot of great people” would like to be his national security adviser, but he’s narrowed the list to five candidates and plans to pick one by next week.
“I have five people that want it very much. I mean, a lot more than that would like to have it, but there are five people that I consider very highly qualified, good people I’ve gotten to know over the last three years,” Trump said yesterday. “And we’ll be announcing somebody next week, but we have some very highly qualified people.”
YOU’RE FIRED: Trump insisted he had “a very good relationship” with John Bolton, who he “actually got along with very well,” but said he didn’t play well with others. “I told him, John … you’re not getting along with people, and a lot of us, including me, disagree with some of your tactics and some of your ideas, and I wish you well, but I’d like you to submit your resignation, and he did that.”
“I’m sure he’ll, you know, do whatever he can do to, you know, spin it his way,” Trump said. “So I wish John the best.”
SIDING WITH KIM: Trump also insisted he fired Bolton over his missteps on North Korea as much as anything else. “He made some very big mistakes. When he talked about the Libyan model for Kim Jong Un, that was not a good statement to make … and it set us back,” Trump said, siding with the North Korean leader over Bolton.
“Take a look at what happened to Gadhafi with the Libyan model. And he’s using that to make a deal with North Korea? And I don’t blame Kim Jong Un for what he said after that.”
‘MR. TOUGH GUY’: Trump also mocked Bolton’s hard-line stands as not so much tough as stupid. “That’s not a question of being tough; that’s a question of being not smart to say something like that,” he said in reference to his North Korea comments.
“You know, John’s known as a tough guy. He’s so tough he got us into Iraq,” Trump continued. “John wasn’t in line with what we were doing, and actually in some cases he thought it was too tough what we were doing. Mr. Tough Guy.“
IS POMPEO THE NEXT KISSINGER?: In 1973, President Richard Nixon appointed his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, secretary of state, and Kissinger performed both jobs for two years. The Washington Examiner’s Steven Nelson reports that as the president considers replacements for Bolton, “sources close to the administration say it’s possible Trump will make an unusual pick and ask Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to fill the role.”
One of those sources believes Pompeo will “pull a Kissinger,” which “would work perfectly for him since he wants to be the only one Trump sees.”
‘WE HOLD OUR BREATH’: “It appears the president watches a certain cable channel, and if someone makes a good impression on that channel, he says that’s the man to lead the national security policy of the United States,” said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin on CNN yesterday. “We hold our breath now to see who might follow.”
“This president does things impulsively, inviting the Taliban, a terrorist organization, to come to Camp David, for goodness’ sakes. This notion that he can sit down with Kim Jong Un and North Korea and solve a problem that we faced for decades, and clearly that exploded in his face,” Durbin said. “You need some grown-up in the room who will tell this president that just doesn’t work.”
Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Kelly Jane Torrance (@kjtorrance). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
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HAPPENING TODAY: The Senate Armed Services Committee takes up the nominations of Ryan McCarthy to be Army secretary and Barbara Barrett to be Air Force secretary this morning at 9:30.
Barrett made the rounds on Capitol Hill yesterday and picked up the endorsement of committee member Sen. David Perdue, a Republican from Georgia, who called her “a well-respected aeronautics expert with years of international business experience.”
“Without a doubt, Ambassador Barrett’s experience as both a pilot and astronaut will be a tremendous asset to the Department of Defense as we work to develop our capabilities and counter global threats,” said Perdue in a statement.
STILL DEAD: Asked about the possibility of restarting the peace process in Afghanistan, President Trump said he’s over the Taliban. “The talks with the Taliban are dead,” he said.
“And I’ll tell you one thing, we are hitting the Taliban right now harder than they’ve ever been hit. And what they did was horrible,” Trump told reporters yesterday. “I said that’s the end of them. Get them out. I don’t want anything to do with them. And they’ve been hit very hard.”
In remarks at the Pentagon’s 9/11 memorial, Trump had a message for the Taliban and referenced the canceled invitation for talks at Camp David just days before. “I called them off when I learned that they had killed a great American soldier from Puerto Rico and 11 other innocent people. They thought they would use this attack to show strength, but actually what they showed is unrelenting weakness.”
“If, for any reason, they come back to our country, we will go wherever they are and use power the likes of which the United States has never used before. And I’m not even talking about nuclear power. They will never have seen anything like what will happen to them,” Trump said.
MESSAGE FROM AL QAEDA: On the Sept. 11 anniversary, As-Sahab, the media arm of al Qaeda, released a video featuring the group’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calling for attacks targeting American. Israeli, European, and Russian interests worldwide, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, a terrorist monitoring group.
“If you want jihad to be focused solely on military targets,” Zawahiri says in the video, “the American military has presence all over the world from the East to the West. Your countries are littered with American bases … attack them there and show us your defect-free jihad. … British, French, and NATO forces are present worldwide especially in Muslim countries, so attack them as reprisal for their crimes in Palestine and their support for Israel.”
He went on and encouraged Muslims to target American forces and their allies in Somalia, Russian forces for their involvement in Syria and other conflicts in Central Asia, Indian forces for “occupying” Kashmir, Chinese forces for “occupying” East Turkestan, and Israeli embassies and interests around the world.
MEETING ROUHANI?: President Trump was noncommittal about the possibility of meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, one day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the two leaders could meet with “no preconditions.”
Asked if he was looking to arrange a meeting with Rouhani, Trump replied, “I’m not looking at anything.” On Tuesday, Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin unveiled new sanctions on groups including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“The president has made clear he is happy to take a meeting with no preconditions, but we are maintaining the maximum pressure campaign,” Mnuchin said.
“I do believe they’d like to make a deal. If they do, that’s great. And if they don’t, that’s great too, but they have tremendous financial difficulty, and the sanctions are getting tougher and tougher,” Trump told reporters. “And if they’re thinking about enrichment, they can forget about it, because it’s going to be very dangerous for them to enrich, very, very dangerous, OK? So you can spread the word to Iran.”
U.S. APPROVES F-35 SALE TO POLAND: The State Department has approved Poland’s request to buy 32 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft for an estimated $6.5 billion, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced yesterday.
Poland, a NATO ally, said earlier this year it wants to replace its aging fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29s and Su-22s with the top-of-the-line, stealthy American F-35s.
The prime contractors will be Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Fort Worth, Texas, and Pratt & Whitney Military Engines in East Hartford, Connecticut.
GOOD TO GO: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ former speechwriter has been cleared by the Pentagon to release his tell-all memoir with minor redactions after a brief legal fight.
Lawyers for Guy Snodgrass, a former fighter pilot, claimed victory two weeks after filing a lawsuit alleging the Defense Department was slow-walking approval of the book.
“Complete legal victory. DoD had NO leg to stand on,” attorney Mark Zaid said in a tweet.
The complaint filed by Snodgrass and his lawyers claimed the Pentagon was “unreasonably” delaying the publication of Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon, which had been set for release Oct. 29, to benefit Mattis, whose own book was released earlier this month.
They also accused the Pentagon of delaying the approval of the manuscript as “a retaliatory and punishing tactic, particularly with the consent and apparent approval of former SecDef Mattis.”
“DoD, if you try this again, I will be there once more to sue. Each–And–Every–Time,” Zaid tweeted.
THE RETURN OF RUMSFELD AND BUSH: Former President George W. Bush, 73, and his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 87, returned to Washington to take part in the Pentagon ceremony honoring those killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush, who had been president for less than nine months at the time of the attack, laid a wreath at the Pentagon’s memorial for the 184 people who died when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the west side of the building at 9:37 a.m.
After “Taps” sounded, Bush greeted and chatted with the crowd of victims’ families and survivors.
TRUMP’S 9/11 MEMORY: Here’s President Trump’s memory of the Sept. 11 attack in New York, from his speech yesterday at the Pentagon’s remembrance ceremony:
At first there were different reports. “It was a boiler fire,” but I knew that boilers aren’t at the top of a building. “It was a kitchen explosion in Windows on the World.” Nobody really knew what happened. There was great confusion.
I was looking out of a window from a building in Midtown Manhattan directly at the World Trade Center when I saw a second plane at a tremendous speed go into the second tower. It was then that I realized the world was going to change. I was no longer going to be — and it could never, ever be that innocent place that I thought it was.
Soon after, I went down to Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could.
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: ‘Strategically confused’: 18 years after 9/11, concern the US still doesn’t know its enemy persists
Washington Examiner: ‘I hated my voting instructions’: Samantha Power defied Obama to block Russia from UN body
AP: Taliban want US deal, but some in bigger hurry than others
Washington Post: A young Afghan pledged to better his country. Then he was shot dead
Financial Times: U.S. Targets Companies With Chinese Military Ties
CNN: Taiwan Warns Citizens Not to Travel to Hong Kong and China After Businessman Detained
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Sanctions Tighten Putin’s Circle, Extend Kremlin’s Reach
Talk Media News: The same sunny skies at the Pentagon as the morning of the attack, as memories and a war continue
USNI News: Marine Who Led ISIS Fight Says Threat Still Remains
AP: 450 miles of border wall by next year? In Arizona, it starts
Stars and Stripes: Poll: In a Russia-U.S. Conflict, Europeans Favor Neutrality Over America
Washington Examiner: Canadian PM Justin Trudeau calls election as Mounties say he’s stonewalling on scandal
Reuters: Colombia’s Armed Forces On Alert Over Venezuela Military Exercises
USNI News: New Carriers Sparking Royal Navy Renaissance
Washington Post: With food supply of U.S. troops at stake and executives facing prison, Kuwaiti company launches lobbying blitz
New York Times: Moscow Mocks Russian Aide Recruited by the CIA as a Boozy Nobody
AP: Russian spy case provides test for news outlets
Calendar
THURSDAY | SEPTEMBER 12
8 a.m. 2401 M Street N.W. Defense Writers Group breakfast, with R. Clarke Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. nationalsecuritymedia.gwu.edu
8:30 a.m. 1777 F Street N.W. Council on Foreign Relations discussion with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, on a progressive foreign policy vision and national security interests in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, with Margaret Talev, politics and White House editor at Axios. www.cfr.org
9:30 a.m. Dirksen SD-G50. The Senate Armed Services Committee holds a confirmation hearing on the nominations of Ryan McCarthy to be Army secretary and Barbara Barrett to be Air Force secretary. www.armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. 1030 15th Street N.W. Atlantic Council discussion on “Political Crisis in Hong Kong and the Future of ‘One Country, Two Systems,'” with former U.S. consul general to Hong Kong and Macau Kurt Tong, partner at the Asia Group; former assistant treasury secretary for international affairs Clay Lowery, executive vice president of the Institute of International Finance; Richard Bush, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House; and Olin Wethington, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. www.atlanticcouncil.org/events
2 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Hudson Institute discussion on “Defending the Baltics: Alternative Approaches,” with Latvian Defense Ministry State Secretary Janis Garisons; Stephen Flanagan, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation; and Tod Lindberg, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. www.hudson.org
2 p.m. George Washington University holds a Korea Policy Forum with the theme “Next Steps in U.S.-Korea Economic Relations,” with Wendy Cutler, vice president and managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Yonho Kim, associate director of the GWU Institute for Korean Studies. elliott.gwu.edu
3 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. N.W. Stimson Center discussion on “Lessons from Taiwan: Disinformation, Cybersecurity, and Energy Security.” www.stimson.org/content
3 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on “Taiwan Goes to the Polls,” with Nathan Batto, associate research fellow at the Academia Sinica Institute of Political Science; Susan Lawrence, specialist in Asian affairs at the Congressional Research Service; and Scott Kennedy, senior adviser, China studies chair, and director of the CSIS Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy. www.csis.org/events
4 p.m. 1521 16th St. N.W. Institute of World Politics lecture on “The Fight So Far,” a “strategic review of the U.S. Government’s efforts against terrorism, both past and present,” with retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Nagata, former strategy director at the National Counterterrorism Center. www.iwp.edu/events
FRIDAY | SEPTEMBER 13
10 a.m. 1030 15th Street N.W. Atlantic Council discussion on “Hizballah and Iran’s Illicit Financial Networks,” with Assistant Treasury Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea. www.atlanticcouncil.org/events
10 a.m. 2301 Constitution Ave. N.W United States Institute of Peace discussion on “The Potential U.S.-Taliban Deal: A Step Forward for Peace in Afghanistan?” with Clare Lockhart, director and co-founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness; Barnett Rubin, associate director of the New York University Center for International Cooperation; Michael Semple, visiting professor at Queen’s University Belfast; Scott Worden, director of Afghanistan and Central Asia programs at USIP; and Nancy Lindborg, president of USIP. www.usip.org
MONDAY | SEPTEMBER 16
4:30 pm. 1740 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies hosts a session titled “American Diplomacy in a Disordered World” with former deputy secretary of state Ambassador William J. Burns and Eliot A. Cohen, dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS. www.eventbrite.com
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“And if, for any reason, they come back to our country, we will go wherever they are and use power the likes of which the United States has never used before. And I’m not even talking about nuclear power. They will never have seen anything like what will happen to them.”
President Trump, threatening the Taliban in his remarks at the Sept. 11 observance at the Pentagon.
