Earlier today, I received an important letter from President Zelensky of Ukraine. The letter reads, Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians, he said. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.
I'm Christina Ruffini, and this is One Decision. This week, we had President Trump's first address to Congress of his second term. Technically not a State of the Union in the first term, but let's be real, that's pretty much what everyone calls it anyway. And in the I was today years old when I learned category, states of the union, and I'm assuming that's the plural here, like attorneys general, were not always spoken. I found this from the Congressional Research Service.
Presidents George Washington and John Adams delivered their message to Congress in person. But President Thomas Jefferson abandoned the practice as monarchical and time-consuming and decided to send written messages instead. This precedent was followed until President Woodrow Wilson personally appeared before Congress in 1913, and it went over so well and was so popular, presidents have repeated the custom ever since. Now, the speech originally was called the President's Annual...
message to Congress, which, let's face it, is just not as snappy as State of the Union. So we've got my co-host, former CIA director and SecDef, Leon Panetta, is here with us. Mr. Secretary, you've been chief of staff. You know what goes into speeches like this. through the process inside the White House? When does it start? Who gets involved? And how much of this sucker does the president really write himself, usually? Well, let me preface all this by saying we should go back to Jefferson.
after the last few State of the Union speeches, which are... All for show. Your pro-written statement. You say return to the OG. Just put it in the mail and let us all move on with our email. Absolutely. I mean, instead of putting 100 people in the gallery. and introducing all of them and going through basically what I think have been divisive State of the Union speeches, both from Biden as well as from Trump.
I just don't see a lot of good coming from it. It is not, frankly, a very frank or direct presentation of just exactly. what the State of the Union is. It's not a good picture because it doesn't show the country coming together. It shows it being even more divided. As to your question, what happens in the White House? I can tell you there's a long prep that goes into it. I mean, if you're a working administration, usually what you do is you reach out to your cabinet members.
and have them all submit ideas for the State of the Union. So they all submit, you know, areas that they believe the president should cover. Obviously, then between the National Security Advisor. and the domestic advisor, whoever that is, and your speechwriters, they all sit down and begin to work on drafts. begin to put those drafts together. Then there are a number of sessions where the president sits down with the various drafts.
works through them, makes edits to them, adds things, detracts things. Does it ever get spicy? Is there ever a row between what the president wants to say and what his staff wants him to say? Oh, yeah. No, no. There can be arguments because... You know, sometimes the speechwriter or the communications director will say there's a certain line that will do this or appeal to this group. It can be a line that doesn't really fit.
with what the president, you know, is all about. And you'll have a real debate over whether or not it's going, how it's going to be viewed by the press and whether or not it will hurt rather than help. The way Clinton did it, and I think it's true for... some of the recent presidents, is there is a room they can go to where they can set up teleprompters and whatever.
And they actually go through practicing that speech. And as they practice it, obviously the different aides will have things to say. Don't do that. Stop. Stop there. It's an applause line or whatever. There are a lot of people that kind of contribute to that. The way Bill Clinton approached it is he wanted to touch enough of the issues and enough of the points that would appeal to a very broad...
cross-section of America. He wanted both sides to stand up and he wanted both sides to be receptive. And obviously that's changed lately. I can tell you this. that after going through all that process, I remember being with the president in the car, driving up to the Capitol for the speech. And the president continued to make revision on the copy. He wanted to keep making revisions. And obviously, we had to put that into the teleprompter. I mean, we got up to the Capitol.
And the speaker and everybody else came out of the steps to greet him. And he was still in there making changes to the speech. And I said, you know, Mr. President, we've got the leadership waiting for you. Rushed the copy to the teleprompter.
I don't know if you may recall, but the teleprompter didn't have the speech for a while or it had the wrong speech or something went wrong. And the president, to his credit, basically was reading it from the binder. Usually you have a binder with the speech. Nobody looks at it because you're basically working off the teleprompter. But he managed to be able to speak, and we finally got the teleprompter.
to catch up and we were able to get it done. It's one of those moments when you're not quite sure whether everything is going to go to hell or whether it'll actually come together and it came together. One of the things that was interesting about this Trump speech is President Trump is definitely reading some of the remarks off the teleprompter, but there does seem to be a fair amount of.
of ad lib uh in there what's your take on that and and what kind of complications does that create for staff and cabinet members and people trying to execute his policy elsewhere I sensed and it was happening as the press was kind of leading up to the speech itself, there seemed to be a struggle going on as to whether or not Trump could really work out something on Ukraine.
in the last few minutes so that he would be able to use it in the speech. And I think there was a big push to try to nail down either the minerals agreement or some kind of ceasefire or what have you. I have been getting quite a few concerned WhatsApps from some of the folks we spoke to over at Munich, leaders, former leaders, defense ministers, foreign ministers, basically saying.
a more diplomatic version of what the hell is going on over there. And this, of course, escalated even further after that somewhat catastrophic meeting between Zelensky and the president and oddly the vice president in the Oval Office. You know, he didn't even get his lunch. basically kicked him out of the White House, the White House that announced they were stopping all aid to Ukraine. The last couple of days, there have been reports out that they've stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv.
And there's another one out today that the UK government has been told it cannot share US intelligence with Ukraine. I'm wondering, as someone, you know, who headed the CIA. How does one go about cutting those lines of communication? Is it as easy as turning that switch off? And can you ever remember something like this happening before with an ally? No, never, never. This is extremely unusual.
Usually in intelligence, you've got a lot of partners out there that you work with. Intelligence is developed not just by our own sources, but developed by their sources as well. There's a lot of sharing that goes on with regards to intelligence, particularly with Great Britain and what's called the Five Eyes, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. Everybody really does partner very closely.
And so for something like this to happen, A, I think it takes a while because you really don't want to undermine. I mean, I don't think Britain wants to undermine Ukraine at a critical time, even though the United States seems to want to do that. Can the U.S. even tell another sovereign nation's intelligence service what it can or cannot do with information that it has?
Not really. I mean, they can say to hell with you, you know, if they think that their national interest is involved here and they want to be able to do what they think is right to do. I give a lot of credit to Britain and to their prime minister because he's leading the charge to try to get European countries to support Ukraine in a strong way.
so that Ukraine can, in fact, stand up and be able to fight back against the Russians. I'm very concerned because, you know, what happened in the Oval Office. was tragic. First of all, because it happened. What I couldn't understand as a former chief of staff is that somebody allowed that to happen. That should never happen. President's meeting with a guest.
Yes, you bring the press in, they make some nice statements, and then you get the press the hell out of it. Why somebody didn't do that just strikes me as very unusual. And the fact that... that nobody in the cabinet, he almost had the entire cabinet there, for God's sakes, nobody stood up and said, Mr. President, I think we should have the press leave the room. Nobody was willing to do that.
I think if Rubio sunk any lower into that couch, they were going to become one. You almost felt ashamed at what was going on at that moment. In many ways, it kind of... took 80 years of U.S. foreign policy and turned it on its head. Because for 80 years, Republican and Democratic presidents alike, even though they may have had some differences, all stood for the same thing when it came to our national security.
The United States should provide world leadership, that we should support our alliances, particularly NATO, that we should stand up for democratic values, the ability of people to govern themselves. Those are all...
strong democratic values, and that we stand up to tyrants. We stand up to tyrants. We've backed away from those very important positions. I'm not sure where U.S. foreign policy is headed now because The message that went out, both to our allies and to our adversaries, is that the United States' credibility is not to be relied on, not to be relied on.
I think what you're seeing is a very nervous Europe believes that the United States would not stand behind Article V. And that's why Europe is trying to pull together in order to... try to build up their own defenses and obviously support Ukraine, and try to be able to send a message to Putin that regardless of what the United States' position is, Europe is not going to allow Russia to invade.
sovereign democracies. And that, frankly, is what the message from the United States ought to be as well. What really bothers me is I think, you know, the president keeps saying he wants to be a peacemaker. If you want to be a peacemaker. There are some important realities you have to deal with if you really want to be a peacemaker. One is the truth. And rather than using Russian talking points and rather than saying that Russia was not the aggressor.
And rather than voting with Russia to say they didn't invade Ukraine, the truth is Russia invaded a sovereign democracy. Putin violated assurances, not once, but three times.
and then took 300,000 Russian forces and invaded a sovereign democracy. And because the Ukrainians were willing to fight courageously because NATO and the United States... uh supported their fight uh they were able to stop the russians that's the truth russia is the the aggressor here not ukraine number two if you want ukraine
to go into negotiations, you got to give them leverage. They can't operate from weakness. Why should you go into negotiations if you don't have the leverage to basically be able to... to get at least some of the things that you want in a negotiation. When you take their military aid away, when you take their intelligence away, you're weakening Ukraine. You're weakening them rather than strengthening them.
What that means, frankly, is that Putin has nothing to lose by continuing the war because he knows the United States isn't going anywhere. And so he will make certain that he will stand tough. And he'll continue to fight. And that means that Zelensky will have to continue to fight in order to be able to protect his country. It sends exactly the wrong signal. And the last thing I'll say is if you want to be a peacemaker.
You cannot achieve peace at any price. And I get the sense now from President Trump that he's willing to do anything to help Russia to do whatever needs to be done, to do anything. that'll achieve peace. Neville Chamberlain tried that, and it didn't work. It resulted in a war. And the United States is not going to get peace by being weak.
at this point in time. And that's what's happening. This is not peace through strength. It's peace through weakness. There's also reports that they've stopped sanction enforcement against Russia at the DOJ and halted U.S. Cyber Command operations against Russia. Why? You know, when I was OMB director for Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton had wanted to come up with almost $500 billion in deficit reduction.
We did that with Bush. It was a big agreement, $250 billion in spending savings, $250 billion in tax increases. When I was OMB director, we did the same thing in the administration. We had to go line item by line item through the budget. We cut spending for some programs that weren't working. We got rid of some programs. But we did it within the context of the budget. And we presented that budget to the Congress. And the Congress voted for that budget.
And we got it done. And that's the way you're supposed to do it. That's the way it was designed to be, that the president presents his budget, goes through the different items, and the Congress then disposes of the budget and decides what. what they'll accept or what they won't. What you have now is total chaos because you've got Elon Musk coming out of the wall with his chainsaw.
And going after programs, hit and miss, I mean, I don't understand how they're even approaching this. Frankly, it ought to be under the jurisdiction of OMB. OMB is the budget center for any administration. They know the programs. They know what every program is, what each cabinet is or is not doing.
That's where the expertise is located. It's not located in a bunch of yahoos from Silicon Valley who have absolutely no idea what the hell's going on. Okay, but at some point from a national security perspective... When does this chaos start to impact U.S. readiness, right? When does it start to impact the CIA? When does it start to impact the military? It's already impacting. It's impacting. I never...
expected this administration to support cuts in the defense budget. I thought they were going to increase defense. Instead, they're cutting defense. They're cutting programs in other areas, obviously. The whole AID thing, which gives you the ability to be able to reach out and try to touch people who are suffering from hunger, from disease, from other.
That's the one way we compete with China. The fact that we're now backing away from strong support of our partnership in NATO. The fact that we're backing away from Ukraine. The fact that we are now aligning ourselves with a tyrant, a dictator like Putin, who can never be trusted. And by the way, I think President Trump needs to know something.
I assume he does. But in the intelligence world, every bit of intelligence we got on Putin shows that he's committed to one thing, which is undermining the United States of America. undermining our security. That's what Putin is about. And Trump is playing into Putin's hand right now. The first term I covered the secretary of state Pompeo under Trump's first administration and the U.S. pulled out of the INF treaty with Russia. That's that intermediate nuclear missile treaty because.
And this administration said that Russia couldn't be trusted. It was cheating on the terms of the treaty. And we were getting out. And that was controversial at the time. But they were the ones saying that Russia couldn't be trusted. Now they're saying.
to your point, basically trying to bend over backwards to accommodate a peace in Ukraine. I'm wondering how much of an impact do you think this aid pause to Ukraine will have on the war? Could it be catastrophic or do you think if it gets turned on soon enough? they can recover. Well, God bless Europe. God bless the prime minister in Great Britain for doing everything possible to make clear to Ukraine that whatever the United States does, they're going to be there.
That's very important. And actually, Europe, I think, does have the capacity to be able to provide some important aid and some important support. So that is important. There's no question. that it's tough to replace the United States in terms of the quality of weapons that we do provide, particularly when it comes to air defense. You know, we're very good at what we provide. And frankly, the intelligence we provide is very good as well.
in terms of identifying where enemy targets are located. So it's going to hurt. Is it irreparable? No, I don't think it's irreparable. I mean, to some extent, my hope is that at some point, we can put this thing back in the box. in which if Ukraine can agree to some kind of ceasefire, if Ukraine can agree to a minerals agreement with Trump, if in return Trump can at least do what...
should be done, which is provide some security assurance to Ukraine that they will not allow Russia to invade again. My God, that's a pretty basic security. assurance that should be provided. If they can do that, then I think there's hope we can put this thing back on track. If not, this war is going to go on. This war is going to go on. Zelensky is not going to give up.
The Ukrainians are not going to give up. They've spilled too much blood not to walk away from their own country. They're not going to do that. Yeah, more people will lose their lives and more people will die. I think the White House would argue with you. that Zelensky has come back in a tweet and said it's a bit of a capitulation tweet. He wants peace. He's willing to make a minerals deal. People I've talked to at the NSC would say.
There is no wrong way to make peace if your end goal is achieved, that the ends justifies the means. I don't accept the fact that we should get peace at any price. And if you're willing to make peace at any price that basically hands Ukraine to Russia, I think that is asking for more war in the future.
So we're talking about actual war in Europe, but Warren Buffett has used the word declaration of war referring to tariffs and these tariffs that have now been implemented on Canada and Russia. In my conversations with Canadian and Mexican officials,
biggest issue is they're not entirely clear on what the administration wants other than less fentanyl. And they're like, well, we already did stuff. We did stuff last month to help with the fentanyl. No, no, less, less of that. We want less of that. I'm trying to. get my head around why this could possibly be good for Trump's long-term agenda, for his voters, for America. There has to be something here I'm missing, right?
well i think we're all asking that question because it's so obvious what the consequences are going to be of uh imposing these tariffs uh you know when inflation is going to go up when growth in this country is going to slow down, when the markets are going to be impacted. That's not good. That's not good.
It's a pocketbook issue. So you would think that they would think twice about it. I think, you know, my best sense of this is kind of understanding where Trump is coming from, which is that he's got it. He's got to show he's macho. And imposing tariffs is a macho thing to do. Nobody else has done it. Of course not. They haven't done it for 30 years. There's a reason for it.
But again, he's going back on his own policy because the Trump administration threw out NAFTA. They renegotiated it and what's called the USMCA. And this is this thing that has allowed US car manufacturers who until recently were doing very well.
to make part of the car in Mexico, part of the car in Canada. Sometimes an auto will like go back and forth to Canada multiple times before it shipped. That's all a result of this president negotiated in his last term and is now saying that the trade with these countries. is unfair. I'm a believer that we live in a globalized world, whether you like it or not. The most important thing we can do is compete in that global world and that we ought to have free and fair trade.
And very frankly, in terms of our own atmosphere, we have always been able to negotiate with Mexico and with Canada. I mean, these are partners. They're on our borders. They've always been willing to negotiate. If they know what we want, they've been willing to do it, in my experience. And it's produced for a strong relationship, a strong trade relationship and strong economy. Now he's obviously backing away and trying to create some exceptions once he's done it, which frankly...
makes this whole thing look ludicrous. Because you know that even though he's going to show that he's tough by imposing the tariffs, what it's also showing is they're now scared to death. that the politics of this thing is going to blow up in the Republican Party. But where do you see this going? I mean, Trump is not going to let this go. He's even said, he's even admitting openly there's going to be some short-term pain, as he puts it.
Where do you think the breaking point is going to be between these policies and his base of support? Because so far... The question I get from European leaders a lot is, why aren't people in the streets? Why aren't people protesting? You have an unelected official firing people. You have a president doing things no other president has done. Why aren't Americans more upset? Why aren't they?
Things are happening awfully fast. There's a lot of chaos. There's a lot of disruption. The American people are still trying to figure out what the hell's happening. But make no mistake about it. When the American people think that they're getting screwed, they will. respond they will respond yeah people may not take to the streets but the one thing that we have in this country that i think saves us is that no election is forever
No election is forever. If they continue to not be able to deal with the economy, not be able to control inflation, and not deal with these pocketbook issues, that people voted for Trump because of these issues. mistake about it, we're going to see a huge turnaround in the next election.
All right, Secretary Panetta in California, I'm Christina Raffini in Lumi, Washington. Thank you so much for listening to One Decision. For more exclusive content, including that full interview we did last week with Senator Jean Shaheen, please be sure to check out onedecision.com. And hey, we've got a YouTube page, so check out some content on there as well. Until next time, thanks for listening.