Jane Harman: Confronting our National Security Problems

become a sustaining member of the commonwealth  club for just ten dollars a month join today hello everyone and welcome to today's virtual  program with the commonwealth club of california   i'm melissa kane i'm a journalist and attorney  and your moderator for today's program with former   congresswoman jane harmon the commonwealth club  has of course shifted from in-person events to   virtual events during the pandemic but  we're so grateful for the support of all our   virtual viewers now we appreciate you considering  making a donation to the commonwealth club and if   you want to do so you can click the blue donate  button at the top of the youtube chat box or   you can visit the commonwealth club's website at  commonwealthclub.org also we want to remind you   that you can submit questions via the chat room  next to your screen there on youtube and we will   get to as many as possible during today's program  and now it is my pleasure to introduce jane   harman she's a distinguished fellow and president  emeritus of the wilson center a highly regarded   non-partisan forum for global issues former she's  a former nine-term congresswoman from california   and she's the author of a new book called insanity  defense why our failure to confront hard national   security problems makes us less safe in her tenure  as a democratic congresswoman from california she   served for six years on the house armed services  committee and eight years on the intelligence   committee in her new book she says america  has used the same tactics to solve defense and   intelligence issues since the end of the cold war  and many of these strategies haven't worked and   the united states has become too self-satisfied  as the lone superpower in global politics and so   today we're going to have a conversation not  just about our national security challenges   but about reforms that she believes can help to  rebuild american leadership and bipartisanship   in government to get us to a safer future welcome  congresswoman harmon thank you melissa and it's   nice to be back in san francisco even virtually  i was thinking about this this is my third   appearance at the commonwealth club the other two  were actually and san francisco obviously is a a   very special place to be my parents lived there  in their last years my brother lives in marin   two of my faves and still in politics or dianne  feinstein who were who was elected same year i was   she to the senate and i to the house it  was the so-called viewer of the woman   imagine and uh nancy pelosi i got one  on a regular basis in washington still   and so uh it's it's a great city and lucky you  i assume you're all there actually you know   i'm physically here it's a beautiful cicada-free  day and go ahead and punish me the cicadas are out   in force in washington and they make even much  more noise than the united states congress i'm   not sure they get any further than the members  of the united states congress these days but   i'm sure we'll talk about that in a minute if  only congress met every 17 years that would be   i don't know maybe we'd be better off but i want  to start by uh by asking you about the timing   of your book um you you did leave congress  in 2011 and and you know there's some great   insights about what was happening with regard  to national security and defense at the time   but um but why why now why wait until 2021 well i  didn't wait until 2021 i was elected to congress   as i mentioned in 1992 which was the first post  cold war class and in addition to serving on   armed services and uh and intelligence i also  served on homeland security i was there on 9 11   and when i left congress in 2011 i left because i  was offered a job to head a really extraordinary   think tank in washington named after woodrow  wilson the president who was an international   visionary uh and it was nonpartisan and it  welcomed all points of views and and of you and it   focused on policy issues uh in ways that  congress is not very capable of doing lately so   this this book which i started actually after i  left congress is a policy memoir on where we've   been for 30 years i've lived through these  and i've had a front row seat to a lot of   the decisions some good some bad and where we  need to go it also includes prescriptions for   how to fix how to confront some of the hard  national security problems that we have not solved   we're going to we're probably going to get  a lot of questions about what's happening   with current events so i'm just gonna hold off on  that for a moment and just really get back to the   and sort of start with the book now you write in  the book that you arrived in washington dc as a   newly minted congresswoman right around the end of  the cold war and how that um and how that shaped   your perception of our national security and what  it was like to be in washington uh in that moment   well uh it's a little the back story's a little  bit longer i grew up in los angeles public school   kid went east to college and law school and  moved to washington dc you know back in the   dark ages in another century and lived there  much of the time uh before i ran for congress so   it's not that i came to washington in 1992.  that's why i'm clarifying this because i saw a lot   some of which is in the book in the early 70s i  worked for one of uh california's senators john   tunney the other one was alan cranston and i  became his uh legislative director and chief   counsel this is at a time when there were  almost no women uh in staff positions or in   elected positions in congress and then after that  i went to the carter white house for two years as   the deputy cabinet secretary and then after that  i practiced law but a lot of time in washington   before returning to california to run in the  area i grew up and i was elected to congress   first elected office i had sought since  junior high school treasurer which i lost   uh but i was elected to congress as i said in 1992  the so-called year of the woman when we doubled   the number of women in congress uh and uh it's  it's a lot higher than now than it was then which   i think is a very good thing but at any rate uh  i had a lot of background in washington and i and   you know we can go into the politics of how i got  elected in the lean republican seat and all the   rest of it but but um what i found there was uh at  the time a place that was becoming more partisan   when it became hard partisan was two  years after i was elected in 1994   when i barely survived that election won by 811  votes but newt gingrich came to power and he   as the speaker of the house and he determined  and he would tell you this because i just had a   conversation with him on his podcast he determined  that uh the place had to be more partisan or the   republicans would not have kept the majority which  they had secured for the first time in 40 years   oh wow well i know and i certainly didn't mean  to imply that you uh had never been to washington i just meant that you know that you were in office  in a really important time um in american foreign   policy um certainly modern american foreign  policy with the end of the cold war and and   and in a moment where it might have been a good  idea to to do certain things that that maybe   we didn't do or could have done better that's  right and one one of the things i described was   uh being a newbie on the house armed services  committee in those first two years the chair   of the house on services committee was  ron dellums who many may know or remember   was the congressman from berkeley california  his successor is barbara lee who used to be   on his staff and he was an unusual combination  of a former marine and a uh a representative of a   of a place that was very very much and he would  have said that he was a very liberal district uh   that was uh uh happy that the cold war was over  and predicting uh uh you know let's hope decades   of peace uh but it was jealous who said on  the committee i remember when he did it when   he said it he said you know we don't have a plan  uh for the post cold war we don't have a road map   we need a road map and that's that is really the  frame of my book we never had a road map we were   sufficiently um full of ourselves  that we thought we won russia lost   uh everybody wanted to be us uh and that's  all we had to do was enjoy being super power   and it didn't turn out that way china didn't want  to be us the terrorists wanted to take us out   and then came 911 which was a uh a huge  uh inflection moment for our history   and you write about how there were some people in  the republican party some conservatives who wanted   a pax americana who wanted to take this moment of  sort of russian weakness and and really sort of   create an unparalleled uh american point  of leadership with lots of defense spending   and other kinds of another kind of shoring up of  our military is that what we should have done and   if not what in retrospect should we have done in  that moment it seems like it was it was kind of   a unique moment and hard to know what to do well i  agreed that it was unique and hard to know what to   do but we actually did both things when the cold  war ended and we won we downsized the procurement   budgets for defense and intelligence we did  this before i was elected to congress this is   uh in the budget cycle that really hit  uh as i was being elected so we had   less dollars to spend on procuring stuff now uh  was that good or bad we didn't have a plan uh   that was bad uh we were not in in a war so maybe  you could argue it was good we were going to   have a peace dividend and uh spend it  in constructive ways uh domestically   but i represented uh and i put this in the  book uh the area of california where most of   our intelligence satellites are made it's in los  angeles just south of santa monica along the coast   uh west of the 405 freeway everyone at the  commonwealth club knows where the 405 freeway is   or maybe but anyway uh all the major defense firms  were there and with the procurement budgets cut   uh here they had these triple phds who had won the  cold war who as i used to say were out in the cold   they couldn't afford to employ them anymore and  so what did we do uh this is the you know part   one pete wilson was governor of california and  i worked closely with him on this topic not on   every topic but this one on coming up with uh dual  use strategies so a satellite company like hughes   electronics which was the largest industrial  employer in california at the time it's since been   acquired uh by boeing and some of the other firms  but anyway hues uh could make satellite buses   those are the containers for satellites they're  sort of the the outside uh and used them both for   commercial uses and defense uses so in other  words they could put the same factory to work   making dual use satellite buses and we came  up with some other ideas like this to keep   the workforce employed why would we want to do  that well first of all i think everybody supports   employment but second of all why would you want to  destroy the aerospace industrial base just in case   you may need it later so part one was downsized  part two was upsizing just what you're talking   about and there was an increase in spending in the  90s and then a huge increase in spending after 9   11. and one of the arguments i made in the book  that i i think is true is that we over militarized   our response to 9 11. we should have gone after uh  those who attacked us on 9 11 every single member   of congress except for one barbara lee of berkeley  supported an authorization to use military force   that's a congressional resolution against  those who attacked us mostly al-qaeda   mostly in afghanistan but what happened was we  did that pretty successfully and ultimately we   actually took down osama bin laden but we stayed  and mission creep and we're still there and now   comes uh joe biden's decision which i am for uh to  uh move our troops not not our on our connection   but our troops out of afghanistan and well one of  the things you write about in the book is that um   so george h.w bush bush 41 um was part of this  it was during his administration that we had this   both sort of constriction of of the military  of the military spending but also engaging in   you know other kinds of um foreign entanglements  that may or may not have really you know really   put america at issue but he also had a really  strong foreign policy background just like i   won't say exactly like but joe biden also has a  really strong foreign policy background does that   necessarily translate into doing the right  thing in light of what we saw with with bush 41   well i i think bush biden is the first president since bush 41  with serious foreign policy chops the four   presidents between bush 41 and now  clinton bush 43 obama and trump had   virtually no foreign policy experience  when they were elected and i think that   uh biden who chaired let's understand this the  senate foreign relations committee for years   has traveled to every part of the world was in the  senate for you know decades and decades uh bring   something that that the others didn't and and sees  foreign policy i think in a way that's strategic   which bush 41 did and the other since him really  didn't comment on on bush 41 remember uh he went after sodom hussein who had invaded kuwait  and this was a limited mission uh and he went in   they they got sodom hussein out of kuwait and then  a whole bunch of people were pressing well let's   let's take him out let's do regime change in iraq  and bush 41 against that pressure said no we've   completed our mission and we're not doing that um  hmm then see what we did with iraq a decade later   and so do you think ajobot you said  you approve of joe biden's moves on   afghanistan to sort of reduce the military  presence and increase the humanitarian or   political presence um what do you make of his  response to um recent issues in um in israel   well let me explain just one more sentence on  afghanistan we we don't have any good options in   afghanistan uh the taliban is back the taliban  has been trying to overrun uh girls schools   uh the taliban creed is very anti-female and uh  i don't applaud that in any way and i i frankly   don't applaud them uh but over 20 years when you  look at what we've really achieved uh it's quite   little uh we have uh sort of put our finger in the  dike and prevented worse things uh but we've lost   thousands of troops uh many more have been wounded  there are many more thousands of afghans and   others there's a coalition force there who have  lost their lives we've spent trillions of dollars   and we can't prop up a 300 000 person military  forever so i mean what i am for is surging the   the the soft power that we have uh diplomacy  and aid uh and training in afghanistan but   trying to be sure they want uh their country peace  in their country more than we do we can't want it   more than they do so that's my my position on  that uh what what is my view you asked me of   of biden's actions a response to the issues  in gaza and israel yes oh well that has been   uh you know part four in a very long movie or  depends how you count but uh i'm pleased that   there is a ceasefire but i don't think  uh long term that that is a strategy   that is a uh you know a cessation for the moment  of violence it doesn't resolve the issues uh with   the palestinians and it also doesn't resolve the  issues in israel let's understand that israel has   had four elections uh in the last year plus uh uh  uh for prime minister bibi netanyahu was unable to   form a government in in those four rounds other  people have been given a chance there are eight   days to go for yer lapid to form a different  coalition in israel so israel has a kind of a   uh you know government in free fall at the moment  and pal the palestinian authority was supposed to   have an election which mahmoud abbas uh the  leader of the palestinian authority postponed   uh allegedly because the polls showed that  he might lose to a faction of hamas which is   not the government of the palestinian authority  hamas is a we think and i would agree a terror   group based in in gaza so uh where are we now and  what's biden doing biden has properly taken some   credit for the ceasefire he didn't do it alone  egypt intervened and uh and was very helpful and   uh we played a support role there he had many  many calls with bibi netanyahu and mahmoud   abbas and i think that's good tony blinken is  in the region now but where where should we be   going um i that's the question i always ask  insanity defenses about doing the same thing   and expecting different results where should  we go and what's the the non what is the   more sane approach here well i would say working  with our allies in the neighborhood we should   be trying for a reset here apparently there's very  little support for a two-state solution something   i i am still for i don't see any other solution  that would be better for the people on the ground   but they have to want it more than we wanted same  point i was thinking about afghanistan it's their   country and and they have to want that so if we  can't get anywhere with that we have to do some   of the things we're doing at the moment which  is helping with reconstruction of dasa through   international organizations and helping uh mahmoud  abbas and the palestinian authority become more   effective governors of of the palestinians it's  tricky because there's a big worry and i think   it's fair that our aid reconstruction aid to  gaza may be siphoned off by the hamas folks   to build more rockets a lot of the underground  tunnels where they've done a lot of this work   have been destroyed but so has the above-ground  houses i mean the tragedy here is people on both   sides lost uh maybe they're you know hamas gained  some advantage and maybe netanyahu gained some in   vanish but the losers were uh you know average  citizens and especially uh kids huge number of   kids were killed in this in the fighting do you  think he should have gotten in earlier or sort of   you know sort of taken a big stand early it  seemed like he waited at least several days   after the fighting at least to be  public maybe there were back channeling   you know things happening right away but it  seemed that publicly the calls for a ceasefire   didn't happen until there was already so much  damage well there were calls for de-escalation and   we can go parse all the semantics uh i think there  were a lot of back channel conversations i'm for   that i don't think you can negotiate everything  uh in public and so i i'm for that but again the   status quo ante in my view is not where we need to  go we need to go to a better place and with both   countries in the ones not a country with the with  israel and the palestinian authority in the middle   of elections at least you could imagine that  maybe the coalition in israel and whoever wins the   election in the pa could be people who want peace  want want a more permanent peace on the ground and   so i think biden's uh carefully threading a needle  here and i think he should let's understand too   two other things happen that were new in  this fighting uh and both of them horrible   i think one is that uh inside israel uh the  palestinian the the arab israelis who have been   citizens of israel for years started fighting with  their neighbors uh so israel turned on itself in   certain ways and similarly the democratic party in  the united states where there has been for years   a wing that has called israel the occupier used  the a word apartheid and all of this but was in   a minority is gaining some traction so i think the  conversation both places should change this is not   to say i don't support uh israel as a jewish state  i strongly support israel as a jewish state my own   father had to wear the yellow star in germany when  he attended medical school and was lucky to be a   refugee to america in 1935 but i do support that  but i also support israel as a pluralist democracy   which was part of the dream and certainly part of  the zionist dream and i would love that to happen   and so you're confident that biden at least so  far has been to your point threading the needle   as a in a way that you think is that you  approve of to this we all know what's going on   and also let's understand uh is uh  his foreign policy is articulated   now includes in addition to worries  about china and russia which are proper   includes worries about climate domestic  terrorism and the pandemic and those are   really core issues threatening the united  states i'm not saying israel's irrelevant   i think israel is you know certainly in my heart  and something many americans care deeply about but   israel also has a a surging economy and as  israel always says the ability to protect itself   and i think i'm not saying it's not an interest  in the united states but in terms of threatening   the the lives of everyday americans biden is  trying to put together a foreign policy strategy   uh that connects foreign policy to the  the core threats against our country   well yeah so you point out the biden was the  chairman of the the foreign relations committee   but he was also chairman of the senate  judiciary committee during robert bork's   supreme court nomination hearings which you point  to as something that at least republicans will   say that's where bipartisanship really started  to crumble where things got uh while whatever   you think of mr bork's um you know judicial  philosophy it got really personal uh and that   is something that that even joe biden was involved  in i mean are you confident that he'll be able to   uh to act in a bipartisan way or be able to bridge  some of the divides even though he was you know a   long-standing fixture in washington and certainly  there at what cert certain people would point to   as really the moment where um you know civility  broke down well i i think civility did break down   in the late 80s i wouldn't attribute the whole  thing to the board hearing as unpleasant as that   was uh but i would also say that uh the negative  ad the negative political ad was developed was   invented by a republican consultant named lee  atwater and when i was running for the first time   in in 1992 everyone said oh you got to go negative  against your opponent i didn't do it i never did   that um i i had comparative ads from time to time  but the negative ad the whole concept of that   why the other guy's terrible not with not  not why you're good but why he or she is bad   i think has been enormously destructive force  in our politics and then you add to that uh the   work hearing which as you point out was when uh  civility broke down uh that was a problem and   uh uh it it uh uh i think set a tone that just got  worse and um i i have never i i think biden has   defended his role there there's some certainly  some things that that he did that were uh   impr you know good but and then came the anita  hill clarence thomas hearing that came next uh   anita hill was the alleged uh woman who was  uh uh uh assaulted by uh uh uh clarence thomas   and she was the searing image in the in the  election that i ran in uh and uh the right to   choose and all of that was was what sent many  women including me to congress so um joe biden   did he was that a you know would we  give him an a would he give himself an a   it would be nice to ask that but over his  years in congress he uh it seems to me did a   a very good job of building bipartisan coalitions  and i remember one in particular which was   when he was in the chair and john  mccain uh was on the floor and a uh   a cancer bill passed the senate and and mccain  looked up and said mr chairman or whatever   i asked unanimous consent to change the  name of this bill to the bo biden bill   and this was just after joe biden's older son  beau had died of brain cancer actually the same   cancer that killed john mccain a few years  later no ironic and you could see the tears   welling in his eyes and i thought yes as as  toxic as the partisanship is in washington   just occasionally uh these relationships work and  there was one that was really working well your   book you cite so many instances especially in in  the national defense arena of bipartisanship i've   getting nostalgic a little reading your book  about about all the across the aisle work that   that you all did um uh you know to to shore up  the night the nation's defenses or at least try   uh the best you could uh in congress at  the time now we in terms of of this kind of   of a sort of tragedies spawning that kind of  cooperation what do you make of the covid relief   bills that's the sort of first thing that comes  to mind when you look at sort of something that   both parties or at least lots of folks in both  parties were able to to come to agreement on   well i you know can't can't we all get along is  i don't think this pandemic is selecting us by   party registration i used to say the terrorists  aren't going to check our party registration   before they blow us up and and coca-19 is a form  of terrorism so uh it makes no sense to me zero   uh to split along party lines i understand there  are disagreements about how to target these bills   and the cost of these bills and there's certainly  a disagreement about the debt and deficit while i   was in congress that was something i focused on  with a a group in congress that were called blue   dogs long story about where the name came from but  it in 1997 on a strong bipartisan basis many of us   supported a balanced budget and really thought  that things would change and there was a budget   surplus imagine for 10 minutes and then came 911  and uh forget about it but but i'm what i'm saying   about these bills is and including the next one  on infrastructure who's against infrastructure   absolutely no one is against infrastructure the  issue is how do you define it what do you fund   what over what period of time and how do you pay  for it and those are conversations we need to have   and there is no corner on wisdom and i strongly  believe we'd have better conversations if we could   uh not fight it out in the press he's wrong so on  she's wrong uh but actually sit down and and and   work on it and i think that's joe biden's instinct  i i if you're gonna ask me how well is it going   it's hard but his predecessors  gave up on it and the good news is   he's not giving up at least as far as as as i  can tell and it would be wonderful wonderful   to have bipartisan agreement on  a good strong infrastructure bill   well how much and this is part one of the  audience questions here um to what degree are um   folks to biden's left in in the in the democratic  party and even outside of the democratic party but   but on the left uh influencing or preventing  uh his ability to make the kind of deals   that need to be made to get an infrastructure bill  passed for example well they're democrats too and   they got elected the same way everybody else did  and their voices deserve to be heard and some of   their views are right maybe some are wrong i mean  i i always had opposition on the left uh from   uh democrats of my last three races i did uh i'm  very progressive on social issues i can't think   of one that that anyone would would criticize me  for on the left but i'm less progressive if that's   the way you want to see it on on defense and  economic issues and um and i believe that we need   uh you know a i need to we need the right ways to  protect our country uh from from attacks and i'm   you know i'm not for defunding police and i'm  i'm for reforming police things of that nature   but i think that biden has listened to people on  the left i think some of that he is appointed to   his cabinet uh are on the left i think a lot  of his climate strategies are mostly reflect   contributions from the left and i agree with him  and i agree with them that climate is a real risk   and especially in california where i gather we've  reached drought numbers now that are as high   as uh july drought numbers and you know the place  is a tinderbox uh and it's it's extremely scary   every year it seems like we are breaking records  every year it's the most the biggest uh fires and   yeah and drought and you know the lowest snowpack  and it just it seems like um there's a once in a   century event every year these days yeah well  i live my official residences on venice beach   where i'm going later this week i can't wait  get away from the cicadas but uh it's a tsunami   zone i mean it's a flat area and just think  climate you know and and extreme climate also   prompts storms and and and and so forth and it  is very worrisome how exposed all of california   is and then that overlay that with earthquakes  i was certainly there i was in congress for the   northridge earthquake uh and was in living then  in marina del rey in southern california and you   know the bookcases broke and the ground shook and  it's landfilled there so it was pretty vulnerable   and lots of people have gone through all these  challenges in california the good news is   i'm totally unbiased it's still paradise  it's still the best place to live   it's still pretty great well especially if you're  if you're spending summers um or even just part of   the summer in washington dc which i'm from the  east coast um i'm from atlanta originally and   so um that whole southeast um even up through the  mid-atlantic summertime is really not something i   miss the weather is so crazy now one one of  the viewers has asked here what would your   first international priority be if you were  in congress right now uh i think it would be   this making us healthier at home uh not just  the pandemic but uh creating a a more equal uh   form of capitalism in america because if we're  not strong at home we can't be strong abroad   i also have a second priority which i think biden  articulated in his national security strategy that   uh secretary of state lincoln uh unveiled about  a month ago which is to take the foreign out of   foreign policy make foreign policy relevant  to average americans foreign policy for the   middle class and that includes a focus on on real  threats like russia and china but also a focus on   the pandemic climate and and domestic terrorism  which are real threats as well well yeah one   thing that has really brought the issue of not  necessarily state power but certainly foreign you   know power from a foreign country is the recent  hacking of the colonial pipeline and you guys   you know felt it more on the east coast but um in  terms of hacking and again whether or not state   sponsor that's that's maybe a little iffy but  um what do you think that the the nation can do   about something like this when we've got all  these businesses and um and sort of service   providers that are all very different how do  we you know go about attacking the regulations   there making sure that they're all shored up  so we don't have vulnerabilities like this well   a new york times reporter named david  sanger writes a lot about cyber security   and he wrote a book recently at the wilson center  which as you know i headed for the last 10 years   called the perfect weapon and sadly cyber in  various forms one form which is ransomware which   is the one that was used against colonial pipeline  which is extortion is a a very effective weapon   against private sector firms government  entities state entities everybody and   uh these hackers in this case it was a criminal  syndicate we think uh based in russia uh are are   uh enormously effective and uh yes what happened  was a ransomware attack against uh colonial pipe   pipelines uh uh it systems the information  about i guess its employees and account and   and its customers was uh ransomed in other words  it was it was stolen basically and if colonial   wanted to get that back it had to pay money and it  ended up paying money uh five million dollars but   in order to i i'm not exactly sure why this  decision was made but they decided at the   same time as they were negotiating this that  they would shut down the distribution of fuel   to the east coast and it turned out this  was about 50 of our fuel distribution in   this country and it led to runs on gas stations  and and was it if we didn't have a wake-up call   400 times before you know hello people long  lines at gas stations just a couple weeks ago   uh gas prices uh going up about 25 should be  yet another one so what can we do about this   uh it has been proposed that this would  ransomware would be an area where we might   try to have an international agreement uh to  try to curb it because lots of countries and   entities are afflicted not just the united states  and i think that's a good idea short of that uh   we have to invest more heavily as we are doing in  government capability there is now going to be a   cyber czar in the white house mandated by congress  that's something congress actually got done   there is more capability in the homeland security  department to find try to prevent cyber attacks   and to respond promptly but the other piece  has to be a seamless connection between the   private sector and the government because a lot of  these entities are private like colonial pipeline   and congress has just uh pat i don't know if it's  passed yet but it's passing it will pass i think   a law that no i'm wrong it wasn't times it was  joe biden uh issued an executive order that   says that any private entity that deals with the  government that's a long list it's not everyone   uh has to notify the government when when it's  the subject of a ransomware attack so we can   find out sooner and make sure that we know the  entire universe at risk and that the response is   more uh prompt and more effective what do you  think about regulating or trying to regulate   bitcoin or some of these cryptocurrencies that  allow these kind of ransom payments to be made and   i don't know if that would end everything but it  seems like it allows um from my very rudimentary   understanding that it allows the it's a pipeline  that you sort of allows the money to transfer   without the traditional banking um tradition  you know restrictions and and tracking   um would that be something that at some point we  might have to do to prevent all this money from   flowing back and forth well uh i don't know that  that would prevent everything as you just said but   uh bitcoin is often dark money money that that  travels that we don't find out about until it's   too late it is often funding for terrorist  organizations it's also used uh you know   in the open uh elon musk who's just left  california for texas uh has suggested uh   buying his cars with bitcoin so um  i i'm not enough of an expert to   to be sure but i certainly think it should  be looked at i don't i think you're not wrong   and at least the bad the the downside of bitcoin  should be in some way regulated or exposed   right it just seems like we should make  it a little harder have to pay the ransom   uh one of the things your book talks about is  um and this is really just sort of a core issue   is about congressional oversight with regard  to foreign policy we've got this very unique   system where you have the president with the um  the military reporting up to the president as   commander-in-chief and sort of being the executive  function sort of being you know the top of all of   the the defense departments etc but then you have  congress that's supposed to have oversight and the   fact that congressional oversight to the extent  that it even exists really depends on information   from the thing they're supposed to be overseeing  so what do we do about this structural issue   that seems to be preventing more congressional  involvement well it's it's that's a big part of   the book the the last chapter is entitled the  incredible shrinking congress uh and you know   back in the day uh our founders envisioned  the separation of powers our constitution   um sets up three branches of government article  one one one is the legislative branch which   makes the laws hello makes the laws and funds the  government article two not one next the executive   branch which carries out the laws uh and congress  has an oversight role there in making sure they're   carried out faithfully and appropriately article  3 the judiciary which makes sure that the laws   and the actions of the executive comply with our  constitution so it sort of kind of worked this way   for a long time and there was this old adage  that uh foreign policy stops at the water's edge   and usually there was some unanimity between  congress and the executive on foreign policy   well oops you know as civility ended that  ended too and uh what really changed at least   to me and i i make this argument in the book is  after 9 11 dick cheney was vice president don   rumsfeld was secretary of defense and uh between  them they and others enablers articulated this   notion of unitary executives and their argument  was that the president is commander-in-chief in an   emergency that's true that's in the constitution  but that they under the president's commander in   chief powers uh could basically run our response  to 911 and and our policies in a dangerous world   without consulting congress and based on legal  opinions written by the justice department which   congress didn't see and there i was in these  senior roles in congress trying to find out   well what are black sites these were these  interrogation sites in foreign countries what are   we doing to people i actually was briefed on these  so-called enhanced interrogation procedures and   tried to find out if there had been any white  house guidance never got the information uh and   uh etc surveillance is another uh issue it's in  it's in the book congress passed a law in the 70s   called the foreign intelligence surveillance act  but it turns out that a lot of our surveillance   policies right after 9 11 did not comply with fisa  i didn't know that i kept asking do our policies   completely comply with law answered yes well oops  what law law the legal opinions of the office of   legal counsel in the justice department which we  learned later uh and uh very troubled and and now   a lot of those policies are strictly under  fisa congress amended laws congress reorganized   our intelligence community i played a big role in  that i think that was one of our success stories   setting up the director of national intelligence  uh the way intelligence estimates are written it's   very different from how they were written before 9  11 and before the false predictions of weapons of   mass destruction in in iraq and so uh progress  but uh is it perfect absolutely not well so uh   you know so you write a little bit about the obama  administration and about how even barack obama who   had some you know some more left-leaning of course  views on declassifying documents and and things   like that still was pretty reluctant to give up  his power and secrecy that comes with you know   with the executive in in this area and since biden  was part of that administration are you are you   are you hopeful or are you not hopeful that that  he and his administration might be more open with   congress and allow some more the oversight that  you're talking about well i think uh president   obama who spent very little time in congress  was in the senate for two years and during a   a big part of that was running for president gave  up too early on congress it's it's not an easy   problem i just hope joe biden takes his vitamins  and doesn't give up it's really important to forge   reset that relationship big time but anyway i  think obama gave up on a lot of it and i think did   the things that others before him had done signing  statements to bills clarifying uh his authority   but really what he was going to pay attention  to and what he wasn't going to pay attention to   drone strikes in numerous countries uh even  though congress hadn't authorized the use of   military force weaponized drones or military force  in those specific countries i mean in case anybody   missed this uh congress has acted twice since 911  to authorize the use of military force one was   in 2001 which everyone except one person voted  for to authorize the use of force against those   who attacked us and the second one was in 2002  to authorize the use of military force in iraq   um i full confession throw your tomatoes but it's  virtual so they won't hit me except they'll hurt   me uh i believed that intelligence and i voted  uh to authorize force and it's in the book i came   home uh to tell my uh business mogul husband  that i was gonna vote to authorize the force   in iraq and he said you're going to do what and  i said i have read everything i i not only read   the national intelligence estimate i read all the  backup material i've traveled to london i traveled   to the middle east i've talked to everybody and  i think sodom hussein is increasing his weapons   of mass destruction and and intends to use them  against us and my husband's deathless prose was   uh that's a lot of crap and i said how can you  say that you haven't done any of this he said   you'll see and he was right and you know some  people were right but a majority in congress   uh voted to authorize that and my but my point  is not only it was wrong and we were wrong that's   my my view and i will say that publicly forever  but after that these aumfs especially the one on   afghanistan has been used uh as the  justification for military action in 4400   incidences in 19 countries and that is wrong  congress needs to repeal and replace the 2001 aumf   and either authorize force against some  name groups that didn't even exist in 2001   or authorized use of force only in certain  locations or in other ways exercise its proper   oversight responsibility it's funding these things  it needs to oversee them well though you also   point out there are members of congress who don't  want to be part of this maybe they're burned by   the fact that um they were misled into uh votes on  the iraq war and so you know no one wants to be on   the record anymore um but for whatever reason  they uh you know maybe it seems easier to to   tweet about these things than it is to actually  cast a vote on on certain engagements and so you   actually write about sort of how remarkable  it is that congress is complicit in its own   you know shrinking yes i do uh you know back  to the negative ad it's much easier and it   penetrates better to blame the other guy rather  than stand up for what you believe in and you know   abdicating responsibility comes pretty easy and i  i said in the book that congress some in congress   don't want to own these military actions if they  turn out badly uh it's also true i think that the   business model of congress is broken that doesn't  mean every person in fact i can think of very   impressive people in both parties uh who have  to be frustrated uh but at any rate uh we won't   go there but the business model now is blame the  other side for not solving the problem because if   you work with the other side you're bipartisan  and if you're bipartisan you're possibly going   to get a challenge from the left or the right in  your primary and in many races the primary is the   outcome because districts are drawn in a lopsided  way and obviously one of the ways to change   that is what california has done impressively  which is to have citizen commissions draw the   the congressional lines and also to have this  so-called jungle primary where everybody runs   against everybody where you would uh not be smart  uh to start blaming people um the goal would be   in each case to work with people uh to build a  bigger tent and build more support for yourself   well and one of the the things that  you talk about because you do write   extensively about the iraq war in general but also  about about that vote in particular and about how   misled um you know different people were both  in congress and and outside of congress even   in the defense apparatus itself for the the  intelligence community um as we call it but   there are these moments in history where trust  and government breaks down and watergate is of   course one which you also had a front row  seat but also the the iraq war resolution   may have also played into why and this goes to  actually a question that one of our viewers has   which is why so many people distrust the  government why they don't necessarily believe um   facts uh that they come from the government  i mean did you do you think that that's all   part of this issue or and what do we do  about about this complete lack of trust   well how many hours do we have to talk  about this uh maybe i'll have to come back   in another in a future session but i think there  is a breakdown in trust uh but i don't think it's   all because the government performs badly i think  it's a combination of things i think there is a   breakdown in community if you think about it  uh a guy named robert putnam at harvard uh   kennedy school wrote a book years ago called  bowling alone and it's kind of haunting but his   point was church has broken down neighborhoods  have broken down uh you know the the pta   has broken down and we don't have the the kinds of  of things to knit us together that we used to have   civics is barely taught in school so there's all  that and then you overlay the rise of social media   which i get what here we are on zooming away  here uh what it brings us but i also get   what it takes from us and people comfortably  are in their own silo talking to their   their own tribe listening to their own news that  reinforces the the positions they already have   rather than engaging with each other it's the  same point i'm really making about congress   and you put that together and nobody knows what  real facts are anymore and nobody knows uh uh and   there's no real advantage to working across tribal  lines and that is just horrible and so i get   excited when when there are small glimmers of hope  and i think today is the anniversary of george   floyd's murder i think it is today and i actually  i would say um you know what a horrible thing but   glimmers of hope that a broad community of  people not all uh african-american have come   together around that and want to make society  better and you know count me in well one of   the things you also um talk about that sort  of gets into this is this the idea that now   a lot of what we might think of as surveillance  is being done by non-governmental entities these   private companies social media companies and uh  and and others like google um and so what is the   government's role there when you're not you know  when when the first amendment doesn't apply really   anymore uh because you and i think what i'm  asking for is some um some help to understand   that there are things going on in the background  because when you watch the leaders of these   companies when you watch you know tim cook and  mark zuckerberg go to these congressional hearings   um it's embarrassing the people don't know what  they're talking about that members of congress   don't know what they're talking about or they just  want to talk and not actually listen to the answer   and so you just sort of hope that there's  somebody there's some smart people somewhere   that are actually doing the important work of of  trying to figure out what to do in this space ask   someone who spent so much time in congress in  meetings that you can never tell anyone about   um what what can we hope is is actually happening  well uh uh for one thing there is a legislation   the communications act of i think it's 1995 which  is the the law that i think donald trump hated the   most and actually mark warner who was the senior  democrat on uh the chairman of house and of   senate intelligence and was in the tech industry  before also hates which exempts the tech companies   from regulation now go figure they're bigger than  the most governments in the world you know one one   one tech company and the combo many of them based  here is ginormous so uh what would we responsibly   want to regulate well some of them have said  they would embrace amending that law so that   there is regulation obviously if they're all  subject to the same regulation it it eliminates   competitive disadvantage but let's understand  they have an enormous ability to surveil us   and so do credit card companies i mean don't  you get or i do anyway some little uh email from   some some card company saying did you buy this  these tennis shoes in in you know in ohio and uh   possibly i i can't remember but but you know  now that we do everything by mail i definitely   can't remember but back in the day uh the answer  would probably be no so they know what per today   they have algorithms that pop out things that look  wrong and they are able to alert you and they put   holes on your cards this is a public service but  it also tells you oh my god they know everything   i'm doing and uh guess what and and now they're  asking you know you have in order to get this   information you have to agree to cookies on on  certain emails which enables people to see what   you're doing what your tastes are and then you get  a uh you know a notice from some clothing company   that says uh you bought that so wouldn't you be  interested in this and you go oh my god stay away   stay away uh but uh the irony of this and i've  pointed this out many times is while we insist   that the surveillance and we should that that  the surveillance policies in the united states   strictly comply with law in the constitution  uh you know you need an individualized warrant   under the 14th amendment to get get somebody's  contents we give away more information than that   voluntarily or out of ignorance to all  these big tech and credit card companies   what is the way forward well uh it will require  a big conversation which we're not very good at   these days we'll have to come out of our little  tribal tents and mix it up and see uh how much   regulation makes sense uh i support the first  amendment i'm not against free speech but even   the supreme court said you don't have the right  to to cry fire in a crowded theater and so some   speech which uh incites people to violence  is not protected uh and the violence is not   protected and we have to understand that little  gray area i think it's very tricky and make sure   that we are not inciting that some of us are not  inciting ourselves or others to violence in this   country we're having civil conversations about  differences on issues and i've made the point that   we can solve problems better if we uh respect  other points of view and realize we don't   have a monopoly none of us does on on wisdom oh  well that's uh not something you hear every day i have a question here um i want to make i'm  going to re so forgive me i'm just going to   read this because i want to make sure i get this  right because there's a lot of attention these   days being paid to unidentified aerial phenomena  formerly known as ufos are you concerned that   these might be from foreign powers rather than  from outer space uh and indicate possible threats   to our national security that does seem to be  the explanation when you see things and you go   oh that's a baby has a spaceship and they go  no it's just uh a drone which is maybe worse   you know i'm one person who thinks that uh uh  the faa decision to allow for uh drones in you   know the the sail and uh drones uh below 500 feet  and so forth in in civil air space is fine i think   it is not fine i think we're going to end up with  these you know if we if we don't like the cicadas   in washington and i sure don't there's a gigantic  noise level here uh these little buzzy things are   going to be all around and they could be used for  mischief i mean let's understand they could carry   an explosive device or something and uh and or you  know if they got on an airfield which is illegal   uh do something bad to jet engines and all that  so i'm i'm not a fan of that on the ufo thing   i i just don't have enough information to make a  judgment uh i i've been reading lately that some   very credible people think they're actually up  there um but i don't have enough information yet   to make a judgment uh i would say that uh you  know foreign governments and and rogue actors   making mischief is easily done through cyber we've  just been talking about that and you don't have to   fly around up there uh you can fly right into uh  the the the uh uh the back doors of our computer   systems which are ubiquitous so you were never  given the super you probably couldn't tell me   anyway but like the super triple secret briefing  that i think i've read that presidents get   about the potential for ufos new york was you were  in the gang of eight right so you were in that   i don't recall a briefing on that topic  and i can't tell you what i was briefed on   uh and i you wouldn't remember this i don't think  that would be one of them that i was briefed on   it doesn't mean nobody ever was the gang of  eight for anyone who doesn't know that is the   seat is the leadership of congress bipartisan  and the leadership of the intelligence community   uh committees bipartisan uh now before we have  time for just a couple more questions and one   of the questions that that i'm going to tie into  something that an audience member asked about is   the republican party and you actually take great  pains in your book to be fairly uh nonpartisan i   mean you are a democrat of course but um but you  acknowledge you know you give credit where credit   is due um but to either to other side of the aisle  which uh which is actually refreshing as someone   who has to who reads a lot of political books um  and you do talk a bit uh though you don't have   many nice things to say about dick cheney but what  what do you make of his daughter uh liz cheney and   her efforts to detrompify the republican  party or threaten to start a new one   versus uh trump's continuing um support i mean  continuing sort of relevance for the party   well i'm a lifelong card-carrying democrat i got  inspired to go into politics actually i think when   nancy pelosi did we were just talking recently  about how we both were ushers get this at the   democratic convention in los angeles in 1960  when john kennedy gave his acceptance speech   we were both two years old at the time whatever  anyway uh you know i i'm a democrat and i'm not   planning to change parties ever i've been pitched  to do that occasionally and i've always said no   i'm not doing it i think we also need in addition  to a democratic party a vibrant republican party   that stands for things uh not just against things  and that uh is willing to engage on hard unharmed   problems otherwise we don't move the country  forward i think what's happened in the house is uh   to use it a word that maybe we should take out of  the lexicon deplorable and i applaud liz cheney uh   whom i know uh not extremely well but i certainly  know her uh for standing up the way she did   and and adam kinzinger too and the others who have  tried to do this i mean what are they fighting for   they're fighting for a republican party that  speaks about ideas uh and and i think that that's   wonderful and you know regardless of whether you  like donald trump or you don't like donald trump   and obviously a lot of people still like donald  trump i mean deal with it it's true uh i i haven't   seen him put forward ideas lately and or anyone  around him and i think that that is hurting the   republican party as would somebody like him in  the democratic party hurt the democratic party   gotcha okay well we have time for one more  question this is one i've been holding till   the end and you actually alluded to this early on  in the conversation when you talked about um you   some of your first work in washington um   related to the watergate scandal and sort of  being in the room when some of these issues were   happening during the you know the massacre was it  saturday night massacre where where nixon tried to   was looking for someone to fire his attorney  general um and this was a really people forget   i think especially people today forget what a what  a really tumultuous time this was where you were   having there were political us literally actual  assassinations happening there were people being   uh people in places being bombed and now we have  this you know the watergate scandal and you wrote   at the time the country seemed to be coming  apart i expected gunfire in the streets   and yet america's constitutional system  proved resilient once more even in the   face of repeated challenges and abuses does it  still is it still are you hopeful well that was   for me you know a young woman and a young  mother my son had been born my first child i   had four children was born a few weeks before the  so-called saturday night massacre for anyone who   uh has never heard of it it was just what you  said it was uh archibald cox some know of was   a vaunted professor at harvard law school which  i actually attended harvard law school that is   and he was running an inquiry into watergate and  it clearly uh was going to embarrass if not worse   the white house and richard nixon wanted him fired  and that inquiry had been created by the justice   department so we asked the attorney general to  fire an attorney general refused he then asked   the deputy attorney general to fire him attorney  he refused to both of them were fired and going   down the chairs who'd they get to fire him robert  bork that was part of the that was that was then   but at any rate uh it was on a saturday and  there i was on my porch in georgetown expecting   the government to come apart young mother and  so forth and i described that a segue to 1-6   this year this was even more terrifying i  thought and so you asked me am i more hopeful i i gotta believe that this country really  is special i do believe it i want it to be   what ronald reagan not a card-carrying democrat  described as the shining city on the hill   i think many of us hold values it's not just  that our constitution uh says uh there's a   right of free speech there's a right of you  know uh uh to be protected by the rule of law   etc but many of us hold values and and that may  be true around the world but certainly here uh   that uh our universal values people like me the  the daughter of a refugee from nazi germany and   someone uh who mother came from immigrants  from russia seized the opportunities i have   here that my parents and grandparents  did not have so i'm still hopeful   i think a lot of stuff has happened lately  and certainly one six happened uh that could   uh make that will make a deeper scar than  than the saturday massacre and the nixon   impeachment and resignation made and so  how much of this can the country take   well in my book just to say insanity defense  uh how our failure to solve heart problems   has made us less safe i think we could rouse  the political will to solve some hard problems   and one of them is the over militarization of  american power and we can solve that we can have   a foreign policy strategy which we now have we  can have a president devoted to bipartisanship   which we have please don't quit on it please don't  quit on it survival and we can have uh good people   stay in public life and you know let's give  another shout out to liz cheney uh even if   you disagree with her and i do on most issues uh  she's staying she didn't quit public life she made   him fire her she's standing for re-election and  she's speaking out i think that's that's pretty   darn good and i you know uh i think maybe she's a  beacon in a certain way for a reason to be hopeful   excellent well thank you so much for  taking the time to talk with us today   many thanks to congresswoman harmon  distinguished fellow and president   emeritus of the wilson center and author  of the new book insanity defense where our   failure to confront hard national security  problems makes us less safe her book is   available at your local bookstore and of course  online thank you also to all of our viewers   i am melissa kane and now this virtual meeting of  the commonwealth club of california is adjourned you

Channel: Commonwealth Club of California

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Keywords: CommonwealthClub, CommonwealthClubofCalifornia, Sanfrancisco, Nonprofitmedia, nonprofitvideo, politics, Currentevents, CaliforniaCurrentEvents, #newyoutubevideo, #youtubechannel, #youtubechannels, janeharman

Id: b2F7HaNvLTE

Length: 69min 1sec (4141 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 01 2021