Former CIA Ops Chief: Trump's Iran Strike Was Big Win

seems to have abated here. We might be at the tail end of that, but let's get some color on the Middle East in general and what's going on between us and around. There's nobody better to do that with than our friend Jack Divine, Jack's founding partner and president of the ark And Group, was also the former chief of CIA's worldwide operations, and it's also the author of a great book, Good Hunting, a Spymaster Story, which I do recommend. Jack. Thanks so much for joining us here

in our Bloomberg Interact their Brokers studio. So the past few days have been very event all the US, Iran give us your sense of what President Trump tried to do when he took out this general, right. I think the first thing I would say is this is the really the first real challenge in the foreign policy arended that the president his face, the stakes were as high

as high as you got. Um. The other thing that I would note is when you look at the decision making process, there was a process where people did input, He made a made a decision. I think the turning point, and particularly for him, was when the embassy was charged. Right now, whether the ronny has actually thought they were going to get as far and they planned, but that was where the red line was really covered. When I saw that, I knew there was going to be a

major kinetic response by the president. And I think in the end, so the money was just on the list and he moved up for a long time. Many of the people in intelligence military area, we're hoping somebody would authorize his removal. Now he's been around a long time. It's not that he's a bad guy. You're really talking about the core of terrorism for Iran for the last

twenty five years. So that was a major blow. And um, I think as I read the paper today, when they went to the hill, Um the intelligence community, UM said on the balance, take him out. When you were listening to President Trump's announcement about the events and basically declaring victory, although not doing a victory dance, his first comments were about not having nuclear weapons in Iran. Why was that

so important to you? I think it's the most important part of the speech because the time, by the time he stood up on the podium, that we had already deescalated. Ranny said this is the end of it. And once they said that made it possible to move on. I think the key point here, and if you're sitting in to run, the key sentences you will not have a nuclear weapon, all right. That is as hard of a

red line as you can get. So, as I mentioned offline, and I have a lot of respect for the run as I used to run around in operations in the mid eighties, they are very very good, very smart at negotiationing, finding the right line, and I think what they did

demonstrated their sensitivity to it. If I were in to run and heard the first sentence, I think the conclusion is would be, you know, we're not going to have nuclear weapons, so how do we turn this into an advantage, and that is why don't we act like we're getting a nuclear weapon and get back to the table and

negotiate away something we're never going to have anyway. So I think there's a real possibility here that in the weeks ahead there will be some movement towards returning to negotiations and a back off of this, because I think at the end of the day, I think Trump did demonstrate that, you know, we're not just looking to go to the war. They're finding the cruise missiles should be a reminder you know, this is not going to be

a bloodless event. So Jack, you know, part of the administration's I guess reasoning for UH doing this operation against this general was that there was evidence of an imminent attack. Do you think that's accurate. I don't know if it was accurate. I think it's the wrong question, not from you, but from the world. I would have asked, is he going to stop what he's been doing for twenty five years?

If you go back and taking down bombing our embassy, kidnapping a CIA official torture, I mean, when was it going to stop A thousand I think people ustimator that kind of racist question, why now is it? Well, I think the impeachment sitting there looks awful convenient, and we've

seen it before from presidents President Clinton. I think the trigger was actually the assault on the embassy that okay, they backed off with what happens tomorrow, and there was not going to be Benghazi, so it was I'm not saying this is a fact because I don't know, but my assumption is the threat was considered so real that we were vulnerable. The only way you back them off. And I would make this this one point. We here in the United States often underestimate, both in the policy

arena in the private community, what power means. In the Middle East. You really have to exercise. And I'm not saying you have forced issues, but it is very much respected and it should be used audiciously. If you don't use it, you also open up Pandora's box. There's a question here. If this was a true de escalation that we've seen and it's done, then it's being perceived by yourself included as a big victory for President Trump. Some people say, look over to North Korea, what message does

this send to Kim Jong un? It's a it's a win for America, and I think we need to look at that. I mean, this is a big setback for terrorism and put a new red line down. I mean, this is important to us. The second thing is one of the problems we have an international relation is how we roll in the war is when we have misjudgments about each other. That's why I like dialogue in private as well as public, so that we never misjudge each other,

or we have read phones that we can communicate. But in every capital of the world after this, there was a recalibration, I promise you. In in in North Korea, they're sitting there saying, okay, there there are new red lines. And you should realize that America and this administration is prepared to use power in ways that have not been used for some time. What would you say to somebody who said that that Kim Jong is actually emboldened to create a nuclear weapon now in order to prevent a

drone from taking him out. Well, he has nuclear weapons. That's the that's the challenge in this equation. Um, and once you have one, uh, it put you a new ball game. Was none of us Well, I'm just worldwide, no one can withstand a single nuclear attack, it changes the way the world will look at itself going forward. So he has to be dealt with differently than UH

than Iran, and you have South Korea the neighbor. So I think the challenge here is to get him to not make any more and maybe over time to Amelia to lesson ceful back off. I don't think he'll ever give up the nuclear weapons, but we might be able to freeze them, and that's basically what's been going on in the past year. If we can hold that position, that may be the best that we can hope for. But I do promise you that he's going to calibrate. If he fires a missile, better not be too near

an American chip or that one of our allies. It'll he will calibrate them, do not. I mean, he and the Koreans have been looking at us the way the Uranians do. They study us day and night, and his next move will be just like the assault by Iranians, will be a calibrated one. But I think it's much better for everybody around the world that's in a power position to look at us as if we would use power. It does it reduces tension. I mean reduces UH confrontation,

not increases them. Jack Divine, so great to have your perspective. Thank you so much for being here with us. Jack Divine is founding partner and president of the Arkan Group, former chief of CIA's worldwide Operations who has personal experience negotiating with a lot of it, a lot of the nations that we're talking about, So really a pivotal perspective

here for us to be getting well. We speak to a lot of economists here on this program, and I think the consensus is that as it relates to US GDP growth in maybe two ish, which is still growing obviously, but slower than what we've become accustomed to. But it's often good to talk to the folks in the corporate c suite to get a sense of what their economic outlook is. And our next guest does just that, Sandy Cockerell, Global CFO program leader at Deloitte based in New York City. Sandy,

thanks so much for joining us. I know you guys just came out with your fourth quarter CFO survey. What are some of the key takeaways? So, Paul, thanks very much. Yeah, our fourth quarter survey really kind of centered on three themes that came across. Number one, Um, CFOs are are cautious. Number two we saw a fair amount of pessimism, and

number three really some defensive posturing that's starting to happen. Uh. Of the CFOs expect a downturn to to to hit US sometime by the end of But the silver lining there is only three expect a technical recession. So that's actually improved from when we asked this question back in

the first quarter. It's also buttressed by the fact when we looked at growth metrics that are forecasted over the next twelve months around revenue, earnings, capital spending, hiring, those all those projections were down as well and sit really at near low levels of our history of our survey. I'm wondering whether if you were to do this survey now, it would be different. Do you think so given a fact that we've got some sort of trade truths between the US and China, Uh, they might be feeling a

little more positive. Uh. Possibly in discussions I have with clients and in the marketplace. Um, again, you really hit the nail on the head. The real key is around trade policy, and I think if we could get to a point where we had a deal, especially with the US China trade policy, you'd really see a tail wind here pick up pretty quickly. So send it just to be clear, think there's going to be a recession in

or just a slowing, a slow down, a downturn. So and when we asked this question back in the first quarter at that point expected a downturn by the end of but fient, we're expecting an actual technical recession. That number is now only three per sense, so certainly an improvement.

And what people were thinking nine months ago, did they say anything about the rising costs of commodities for workers as wages rise, how much that's sort of affecting their outlook am paired with the opportunities for them to actually increase profits. Yeah, so in terms of external concerns, trade policies number one. But rising labor and input prices certainly

is something that they've gotten on. The labor type market is just so tight, um and not only is it tight, you know, what we're seeing is the you know kind of really the revitalization the change in workforce for for

holly skilled labor. And that's really on the mind of CFOs, is you really have to pay for that talent, So Sandy, one of the things just thinking about CFOs and and the c suite in general, it's not just the bottom line and delivering results the shareholders, is also seemingly greater demands upon you know, being a good corporate citizen, whether

it's the environment. What are CFOs saying about some of the pressures or some of the responsibilities and demands that are being placed upon them that maybe they didn't have a generation to go right. So this this quarter we ask some special questions around climate change UM and we actually work together with our European colleagues and the surveys

that they execute very similar findings. But over seventy of the CFOs have noted at least moderate pressure coming from employees, investors, customers and boards in terms of dealing with climate change as the CFO and what can the CFO do to help?

Over n of those CFOs have said they've taken at least one action, and that typically has been to really review energy footprints UM, how do they use energy efficiently throughout their operations UH, and then looking to build those kind of governance processes in place to make sure that there's accountability around it going forward. I'm wondering how consider

distant the view out of CFOs really was. I mean, in other words, uh, was the disparity between CFOs and different industries bigger than it has been in the past, or was there more convergence. One thing that we noted UM was was in terms of this coming year, over two thirds of the CFOs expect m and a consolidation in certain industries and technology and manufacturing led that. So that should make the bankers happy. So, Sandy, I know

you're your surveys global. What are you hearing from some other parts of the world as CFOs think about you know, some of these global CFOs think about their global business. Yes, So this survey was was primarily of North American CFOs, but we did ask their views of the European and Chinese economies. UM your Their view of the of the European economy is predismal. Only seven percent felt like the European economy was good at this point and only five

percent expected to improve in a year. UM. With respect to China, a teen percent view it is good, but only eleven expect an improvement in a year. And that's pretty interesting because when we ask about where investment focus is going to increase. North America really is kind of the dominant the rough. It still has a s approval writing in terms of being good at this point. But one thing that was quite interesting, Uh, these companies thirty seven percent of them said that they were beginning to

look at increased investment focused in Asia but outside of China. Interesting. Sandy Cockroll, thank you so much for being with us. Sidney Cockroll is global CFO program leader at de Lloyd in New York. Talking about their latest Q four CFO Signals report on what all of those c suite executives are thinking in a year had really interesting, how barish

they sound. It's interesting even as you think about Europe, for example, we've seen the economic data coming out there suggesting that, you know, perhaps it's stabilizing there and maybe about to turn um. But you know, I guess the folks in the C suite that are responsible reporting capital or work, maybe they don't see it quite so much. Yea. And we talked about how much more some of these companies had to pay in wages. Taco bell Is evidently

offering a hundred thousand dollar salaries for restaurant managers. That that really caught my eyes and just how much the fast food industry in the US is changing in the face of low unemployment rates. The hot take on Carlos Gone and his press conference yesterday, Hell, hath no fury like a CEO scorned. The pennment of those lots of that particular line is Jonas Sarah, who's a calumnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and he joins us at this time as

we normally do, get some insight from our Bloomberg Opinion colleagues. Joe, Uh, you were watching yesterday, what was your impression of the Yeah, okay, okay, you know I was I was going to call it a cluster, but uh, you didn't aster risk on air basically carry on, Okay, So um, I thought that he he was Carlos Gone. He was arrogant, he was condescending, he was angry, he was um entitled the expressive eyebrows. Yes,

and hands too, I might have hands. And then you know, then we got the Q and A and it's basically the person who yelled aloud has got to ask the question. It was kind of crazy, but you know, it was a man who clearly viewed his job as getting revenge on the prosecutors who had locked them up all that time, and and a Nissan a company. He feels completely betrayed by um. Whether that's justified or not. I mean, on

some level it is justified. On on some other level, uh, you know, not very many people will get to escape to another country, UM and avoid prosecution. One of the things that I'm learning through this whole process is I'm getting learning about the Japanese indicial system. And I was unaware that they that the I guess the defendant has seems like fewer rights than you have here in the US, and that if you do get go to travelers conviction level something crazy like that. So does he have some

legs to stand on here? His argument about it was an unfair conspiracy. Ah, he Well, that's two different issues. One one is how how do the Japanese treat people that they put in prison? The answer is they call it hostage They don't call it hostage justice for no reason. I mean, the idea is that they're going to extract the confession out of you one way or the other.

They make your life completely miserable. They put you in solitary confinement, lights around all the time, eight hours of interrogation a day, they can re arrest you and re arrest you. And that's what happened to him. So on that count absolutely, On the conspiracy count, we don't really no. I mean, his view is that Nissan wanted to get rid of them, and the way they did it was they went to the prosecutors and conspired with them to to gin up a bunch of phony allegations. That's what

he says. Is that true? We don't no. But I think one of the things that's gonna happen is we're gonna find out because he's gonna put his facts out there, Nissan is gonna put and it's gonna be a war of words for the next six months to a year. Why did Nissan do it this way? I mean, honestly, couldn't they have just paid him to go away? That's what I don't understand. It's that that's the nuttiest thing

of all. It's like there are a lot of See, there are a lot of CEOs and chairman their companies want to get rid of They get rid of them. And by the way, if they think they have misappropriated money, they clawback money or they sue them or whatever. They don't throw them in jail for a hundred and thirty days in salt theiry confinements. So what do you think his next step are is? Is this gonna be a just to hit every TV network, give all kinds of interviews to get his story out there? Is that? How

do you think this might play out? Yes? I do, And I also think he's gonna I also think he's going to show some people some somewhere where he can get some authority. He's gonna really lay out his case. He's gonna show that the paperwork, and he's gonna he's gonna dare Nissan to come up with counter facts. Uh and and it's going to be this war of paper

It's gonna be a war of paperwork. You know, there's a larger question here if I find fascinating the role of the CEO as an entertainer, as a presenter and as sort of an actor showman, because we've seen that with you know, with a host of CEO is something must thank you the late Steve Steve jobs. Um. You know, honestly, even Alibaba's founder Jack Ma has come out in different kinds of outfits and tried to entertain. How important is that the sort of charisma of one of these sort

of larger than life personalities leading companies. I think in a lot of companies it's really important. And look at Carlos Gone, he held he was like Marshall Peito. He