By Ray McGovern and Robert Scheer / Original to ScheerPost
In this week’s episode of “Playing President,” Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA veteran and briefer of five presidents, continues to make sense of the world to “President” Scheer, who prepared for this role through his decades as a journalist, including in-depth interviews with five presidents from Nixon to Clinton. In the universe of “Playing President,” however, Scheer is not a journalist, but instead plays the President of the United States attempting to navigate the geopolitical landscape of governance and media with the help of his trusty daily briefer from the CIA, Ray McGovern.
This week, McGovern briefs the President on the foreign policy and domestic implications behind the assassination attempt on President Trump.
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Transcript
White House Intern
Mr. President, Ray McGovern is here to brief you
Ray McGovern
Morning, Mr. President, good to see you.
POTUS
Good to see you, Ray. You know, what a week, what a week. I thought we hit it out of the park with NATO there. And then next thing you know, Trump, he just owns television, doesn’t he? rising from the dead with his fist and fight on, damn it. He, you know, whatever else you want to say. Sure, I don’t want to see anything like that happen to him. But he makes everything turn his way. It’s incredible. But anyway, what’s, what’s the news here? I mean by what?
Let me just answer. Ray, one thing bothered me. He just got off the hook here with that judge he appointed in Florida federal judge on the classified documents. Now, you know, you guys in the CIA, I was going to make some joke, you’re not involved with the assassination attempt and but I do want to know, do you know anything I don’t know? There’s a lot of speculation. But about that, that judge down there, they’re saying now, well, every president had classified documents. Blah, blah, blah, you’re in the classified document business. Is that true?
McGovern
Well, most presidents have classified documents. The problem with Trump is the way he absconded with them and wouldn’t account for them, and apparently advertise some of their content to unauthorized people. But if you’re asking about the assassination, I can, I can truthfully swear that I know nothing more about what my former colleagues on the other side of those turnstiles that I talked about in the past may have known about it, or perhaps even helped it. This is the real question, Mr. President, and it injects a note of uncertainty, uncertainty and unpredictability into the strategic equation.
The Russians are trying to figure out who’s in charge here. And frankly, there are a lot of people saying, Oh, the President has and I’ll quote you here. Let the FBI do their job with a thorough, swift investigation. End quote, Mr. President, with all due respect, that has been said many times over the last decade, and the FBI has not come up with any accurate results for these thorough and swift investigations, and they go right down the line. I could cite you chapter and verse. So a lot of people sort of skeptical about this, and others saying, My God, with this new iconic Trump like this, like Iwo Jima statue, for God’s sake, with the American flag, what will the Democrats do now that this assassination attempt has made Trump so much a victim and so much more likely to succeed? And I’ll finish up by saying that the Russians were acutely aware that in the past, presidents have used hostilities abroad. You know, whether it’s in Africa with a chemical trap, they divert attention with a with a false flag attack? And the Russians are hyper sensitive to that, particularly during these next four months. And so I want you to be aware of that, because this has, this has these kinds of…
POTUS
But if you guys had done it, or your buddies on the other side of the turnstile, they wouldn’t have missed, right? I mean, like, I was just reading something that some paper somebody had at that Lumumba that guy there in the Belgian Congo that got killed there. He was popular in Africa, and we didn’t like he seemed neutral. I don’t think he was pro-Russian, but he got knocked off. But, but they get there guys, right? They this, this is, I don’t know how you just hit the ear, but, you know, I could get in a lot of trouble, but I know you’re here a long time, and, you know, I’m just thinking this kid, if he did it, and if he’s what he says, and there were, you know, you never know.
25 years from now, people keep speculating, but how do you just hit the ear and, you know, if he and now for Trump, that’s the best of all worlds. I hate to say it, he pops up like he’s, you know, full of vigor and energy. Forget, he’s almost my age, and he suddenly, he can survive anything. And here I’m being given… And this was my best week. This was NATO, and they all, 50 of them are, you know, praising me and everything. And I don’t know, sometimes I wonder whether there aren’t forces like what some people call the deep state, that are messing around here. Now you know you’re part of it. You spent 27 years with the deep state there, right? Whether the turnstiles are or not, you. You’re no fool, you’re no lightweight. So okay, I’m not going to go down and give me your briefing. Do whatever you want. Well, Mr.
McGovern
President, motive always is all important here. There are lots of details that raise suspicions, but Kui Bono. I mean, who has the most incentive to take Trump out of the scene here? You know, I’ll let let perspicacious people answer that for themselves. That’s one thing. The other thing is,
POTUS
Wait, but wait my bite your tongue there, because I’m getting a lot of heat. What was it? January 6 or something, I said something about he should be on the bull’s eye. You know, I don’t even remember saying it, but come on, even I don’t know if you’re making a joke here, you’re not suggesting anything that we would have something to do it. Come on, that’s very dangerous here,
McGovern
Mister President, you know, in all due candor. You could be the last to know. Do you think that President Kennedy knew about the plans to do in Lumumba? You think President Kennedy was informed well beforehand of the plans to assassinate Ngô Đình Diệm in Saigon? The answers to those things are probably you don’t think that because they’re not true. So when we look at this, we see that there was a incredibly bad situation there, with respect to the Secret Service. They didn’t secure the area. They should have been up on top of that roof. Now there’s one uniformed officer who has now come out and said, My God, he says I was ready to shoot that guy before he got those shots, and permission was withheld by the Secret Service until after he took the shots, and then they said, All right, now do them in. My God, that guy’s name is available. Where is he? Let’s hope that he’s in protective custody, and not necessarily in the in the arms of the protective custodians of the FBI.
Then there’s another fellow who a redheaded Trump supporter who is outside and watch this fellow with the rifle climb up the roof and try to shout to all the police and the Secret Service people around, look, look at that guy. Stop them, and that nobody stopped them. So there are all kinds of anomalies here, and that was a major failure by the Secret Service that can be said. It’s not being said. You know, I was a little bit surprised that it was mostly gratitude that was expressed to the Secret Service and the FBI. And I was reminded of President, former president, Trump, calling you out for never firing anyone. If you permit me a personal observation, I think everyone from the head of the Secret Service, maybe from Mayorkas, our boss, okay, everyone down to the head of the detail that was supposed to secure that site, they should be at least put on administrative leave because they were derelict in their duty at and that’s the charitable that’s the charitable explanation.
POTUS
You know, you sound that a little bit like Oliver Stone, with that movie JFK and everything, and that guy Garrison. I mean, look, I mean, with Bobby Kennedy, there was that, that girl in the pink polka dot. I mean, is this going to be there’s some crazy ass conspiracy theories that’s going to spin around. I mean, what is disturbing here, you know, even, you know, I feel that, and I want to back these guys, but that was the most obvious site from which to shoot somebody. How in the world? I mean, I’m worried, because I’m going to be out there, maybe somebody wants to shoot me, you know.
And you got a building that gives you a line of sight, they tell me it’s like the what, the M2 rifle or something is an equivalent weapon. And in order to use that in the army, you got to be able to take someone out from that distance, you know, that’s their standard test. Didn’t require a great marksmen and and this guy comes within the ear of killing him. I, you know, I’m not going to feed those rumors, because I would have nothing to do with that. That’s the last thing I wanted. But you know, yeah, you got to ask questions about to see what am I supposed Well, it’s not your business what I’m supposed to do now as president, but you know, you know. Maybe you know is this one of those inconvenient troops one doesn’t want to go after or what’s going on here? I don’t know, but you say you know nothing. So I got to talk to some other folks about this. Get on with your briefing here Ray, what’s, what’s the world thinking? And that’s what you know about. What are people making of this? It makes us look like a banana republic? You know?
McGovern
Well the Russians, for example, are playing it very straight. They say, you know, there are some conspiracy theories, but who knows? And this happened, and, you know, this is just awful, and we’re not going to, we’re not going to call Trump and express our regrets or anything so people waiting for other shoes to drop, and those of us who watch these kinds of things in the past, where the FBI has been put in charge of investigations, you know, are pretty much convinced that this thorough and swift investigation is certainly not to come to any conclusions until after the election. And so that’s something that will have to be dealt with by everyone, people in the world, outside in the world, as well as people in the United States.
So who did this? Who had the motive, who had the opportunity, and who had the the timing? I mean, after all, today begins the Republican National Convention. I mean, in some in some respects, you could say, well, it’s our last chance, for God’s sake, before this guy becomes the candidate. Let’s see what we can do. Now, I’ve been accused of being a conspiracy theorist on Iraq. I said there were no weapons of mass destruction on russiagate. I said there was no evidence of Russian hacking of the DNC on both of those conspiracy services. I turned out to be right. So I’m just trying to warn you, Mr. President, I really do think you would be the last to know, but there are associates around around you that are clearly really bent on making sure you don’t lose this next election because of what will happen to them personally if Mr. Trump comes into office.
POTUS
You know, Ray, sometimes I think you’re just an old coot, and I’m keeping you briefing because of our years, and I know you’ve been the brief, what? How many presidents did you briefly,
McGovern
Three: Nixon Ford and Reagan, yeah.
POTUS
I mean, so those guys, Reagan, Reagan, you must have had to wake up there. But never mind. Let’s not go there. I mean, the fact that about is, I’ve been around a lot, and I know, I mean, there’s no knowing what people are doing, you know, but you gotta believe me. I believe in this country. I believe in tomorrow. I want just to be straight with you all jokes aside, this bad time to be making jokes. And, you know, was I making a joke about that Vice President and Kamala Harris and, you know, all that stuff, and Trump advisor. I can’t even follow this, you know, it’s such a tight game. Now, you see one little thing wrong so, and this is nobody, where’s that White House intern?
Get him off this whole thing. You know, scoot. Get out. I don’t want anybody to hear this this is not being taped. You know, right now, I want to be clear about this. Yeah, go. I mean, tune out. Okay, I want to, I want to be clear about this. I love the country, and I don’t think killing a candidate, if it’s my opponent, is the right, I mean, ever the right thing to do, you know, let’s just be clear about that. And even if I did lose half of my consciousness or brain, you know, Alzheimer’s, or whatever part I don’t know what they’re claiming I have, I’m pretty. I’m clear about that. It’s not that’s ugly. It’s I said it publicly, I believe it privately. You know, however I’ve been around a block, I know now I don’t call it the deep state, but I know we got a lot of people there who get away with a lot of stuff. And to this day, frankly, I don’t know whether Lee Harvey Oswald did it. I’ll never tell anybody except you. And I don’t know you know really, what happened to Bobby? I don’t know what happened to Martin Luther King. For God’s sake, he was on the 24/7 FBI surveillance. They were out to get him, or at least destroy his reputation, and he gets knocked off, you know? And so, yeah, we got all these mysteries in our history. I stupidly the other day said, Oh, this is a real surprise in America. Well, it’s the norm in America, you know.
Come on, let’s be talking to an old buddy like you. But what I’m really worried about now is that we, we pissed away this great victory we have with NATO, you know, where we show unity, where we expose both China and Russia. We’re expanding into the Pacific. NATO’s, yes, I’ll say it right to you, NATO is the new UN you know, but it’s the UN heavy, not the UN light, and we’re bringing world order. We’re on the cusp of a great victory here. And so I’m worried that, first of all, I’m worried I’m going to lose. And this guy, Trump, he doesn’t even believe in NATO, you know, who knows what it’ll do with them? Who knows who will invade or what it’ll do? You know? But anyway, take it. Me, what are people thinking? Where are we and what’s all this nuclear bomb stuff and threat? You know, I tell you, I’m more afraid for this world right now than I think I ever been. You know,
McGovern
Mr. President, let me try to reduce it to its simplest terms, the war in Iran is going very, very, very badly for Ukraine.
POTUS
You said, the war in Iran, you’ve been making the mistakes that I make. Hello? You said the war in Iran. Ukraine, you met, yeah, okay, yeah, you got the same problem, my guy, you’re no kidding yourself. You know, that’s how people make mistakes when they get older. Okay, yeah, I’ll give you a pass, because I wish the public gave me a pass those kind of mistakes. But go ahead.
McGovern
Well the war in Ukraine is going down the tube. Okay, the Russians are advancing. It’s just a matter of time before they decide how far to advance. Maybe, yes, maybe Kyiv, maybe Kharkov, and this is going to happen in the next couple of months. I’m sorry to tell you, Mr. President, before the election. And so what do you have to respond? You don’t have anything to respond with, because those that money and those weapons that were pledged back a month or two ago will not get there on time. So what’s the alternative? The alternative is whether the Russian proposal, the Russian terms, are worth, worth discussing less worst happen, and with [inaudible] going around the world. Last time we met, I suggested, however subtly, that since he had met with Zelensky and Putin and Xi Jinping and even Erdogan in Washington,
POTUS
This is the Hungarian leader, the Hungarian guy?
McGovern
Yeah, the Hungarian Prime Minister? Yeah, he was, of course, I’m sure he tried to get to talk to you, but he didn’t. And so what he do? He went down to Mar-A-Lago talk to Trump. Okay, so these are opportunities that, in my view, are being missed, and I dare say that the Russians are looking on this, and particularly the decision to put Intermediate Nuclear Weapons in Germany, the bilateral agreement announced, in coincidence with the with the summit, that this expecting the worst and worst still, Mr. President, I have a little factoid that I want to present to you in a little bit of detail, because you need to know it, and that is that the Russian early warning system of an intercontinental ballistic missile attack or attacks from submarines or from bombers is not as good as ours.
They don’t have they don’t have geosynchronous satellites that can detect a missile firing anywhere in the world, Antarctica, North Pole, anywhere else. Okay, they don’t have that. Worse still, Ukrainian drones have attacked it, have attacked some of their early warning sites. What’s that all about? So the Russians are very suspicious that that hot heads in the United States, I don’t know where they might be, State Department, the National Security Council, Defense Department, they don’t know either, but they’re worried, and that’s why you had the defense minister in the Kremlin call General Lloyd Austin just five days ago and say, Look, you know this NATO business, you know.
Make sure, you know. Make sure you tell the President that we’re going to have to, we’re going to have to react and react swiftly if they put Intermediate Nuclear Forces, weapons, missiles in in Germany. I hope he relayed that message to you. I was not not privy to the transcript, but the readout made it very clear that in the wake of that decision in the NATO Summit, the Russians wanted to be in direct contact with you through not blinking, but through Secretary Austin, with whom they think they can deal in a more manageable way. I dare say they’re probably right about that.
POTUS
How did this happen? Because, you know, the whole idea was they’re supposed to be able to see if a missile is coming, if it’s the real thing, and not a mistake or a blip or a decoy. And I was remember, I remember Ed Markey when he was in the house. Now he’s a senator there from Massachusetts. He ain’t a whole bunch of people used to argue, we got to share this with the Soviets, this old Soviet Union, that they should know if a real thing is coming so they don’t fire and destroy all of us over nothing, didn’t we do that?
McGovern
No, and that’s the problem Ted postal, whom you know, argued strongly, and…
POTUS
What’s that? That guy used to be in the Navy. Some there intelligence…
McGovern
Chief intelligence advisor and weapons advisors, the Chief of Naval Operations, the head of the Navy.
POTUS
And he did some stuff around the Senate or the Congress or some, well, I don’t remember.
McGovern
At MIT was, yeah, yeah, yeah, there, and Stanford, Al, and you name it. Yeah. He’s got credentials that won’t quit. And he’s very upset, because he tried to get permission for the US to tell the Russians, look, we know that your early warning system is inadequate. We see mutual benefit making sure that you have the technology to make it adequate, and we’re willing to share that with you. It’s to a mutual advantage. Of course, he got the back of his hand. So it’s Ted Postel who’s really trying to raise the alarm here and say, Look, if the Russians don’t know, if they can’t be confident that they are aware of an incoming missile, then Armageddon by mistake is likely to happen, and I think we’ve, as we’ve talked about before, I was privy to a couple of really near misses.
The most recent one that I observed was in 1983 when some colleagues of I, of mine have persuaded director Casey to go down and call off White House participation in an exercise, a strategic forces exercise called Able Archer. The Russians thought it was the real thing, and we know that in spade. So that saved that one. How many, how many courageous analysts in the CIA or in the Pentagon remain, and are they able to to recognize this danger? I dare say it may not be as good as it was back in the day when my friend Mel Goodman and two of his colleagues went to Casey bypassing Gates, and said, Hey, look, tell, tell the NSC National Security Council to knock it off, and Casey did, thank goodness. So what’s in case
POTUS
Casey was no pinko, I mean, Casey was no dove, or he was a tough character.
McGovern
Well, it was tough. Yeah, he believed that the
POTUS
Well, where did Gates? Gates is the guy who he approved going in Afghanistan are riled up, and then he said he didn’t like it, and it was against it. And Gates was a complex understanding.
McGovern
Gates was what?
POTUS
Complex guy he came out of. He wrote a book I remember, and he I talked to him once or something. He thought we were making a mistake. But when he was in power, he made mistakes, and then he wrote the book. He said we made a mistake. And I think going into getting the Russians to go in to Afghanistan, the Brzezinski business, I think he’s the one that blew that open. Yeah. Anyway, we’re just, we’re getting distracted here. My time is limited. You know, Trump’s going to be Trump speaking? Uh, who knows? Who is he going to pick? This whole thing is a bloody miss, but we don’t want the wrong signals going out there, and you’re telling me that we’re not taking care of that.
McGovern
Well, just a word on Gates. Uh, Mel Goodman, whom I just mentioned, served with Gates under my leadership as Branch Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch in the early 70s. Now, he learned very early that if you sniff the winds blowing, and you were a wind sock, and when Casey came in, you saw a Russian or Soviet under every rock, you got promoted, and he was head of all analysis. And so at the end, when he was director of all analysis, it was then that Mel Goodman went up and said, Look, Bobby, for God’s sake, tell the White House to knock it off. And Gates said, as he says in his book called “Duty,” it’s never been on top of my to do list to make the Russians comfortable or happy or at peace. Whoa. So he said no.
And to their credit, they went around gates, went right to Casey and said, Look, please call the National Security Advisor, kind of like this thing off the Russians thinks of the real thing. And Casey did to Casey, the Die Hard Russian expert who picked gates yeah at the end of his tenure after having advised that not only the surge into Iraq to save bush for being elected the second time, and the surges, three of them into Afghanistan. Okay? He addressed the military cadets at West Point on his way out, and he says, you know, if I were advising a president of the United States, I would tell him what Douglas MacArthur said, don’t ever get involved in a land war in Asia. Personal file, Oh, that’s great advice! So well, one sock for Gates. And you have lots of people around there that that really see the writing on the wall and see it really as productive professionally to be.
POTUS
You know, I like chatting with you and everything. There’s a lot going on this morning, but there’s an irony here. I got that right, right irony. I got to watch my language. Every word, you know, right? But you know I’m not. I’m not as sharp as I used to be, I’m not as good a speaker as I used to be. I’m not, but I know, I know about the danger of nuclear war. What I’m worried about is, do these other folks, younger people, around? Because we don’t. They’re not plugged in that way. I don’t know. It’s a big shift, you know. Maybe you got to be older, you know, to remember, you know, and it’s interesting, I saw that Oppenheimer movie, and that kind of made it sound almost like a love story and an ego and this.
But, you know, people didn’t come away from that more afraid of nuclear war, then you hardly hear anybody. Nobody says, Oh, wow, we could. Why did we build a bomb? What can you do about it? Why didn’t we control it? You know, so and not going to give a pitch for myself, but can you imagine, if Trump’s president, that’s why I’m hanging in here. Ray, you know, you know, I’m a good guy now, maybe sometimes I get things mixed up. And, you know, I interview introduce Zelensky as Putin. I mean, okay, you know, you get tired. It’s a lot of things happening. You know, he knows who I was introducing. I knew Putin wasn’t in the room. You know, come on. But one thing I’m clear about, I know something about nuclear weapons. You know that, right? And this guy, Trump, if he’s not in the employer, right? You say it’s all made up that Russia gave but if he’s not, they don’t got something on him. You trust him with the bomb?
McGovern
Well, Mr. President, you’re quite right about the generational gap here, and I would include people like your National Security Advisor Sullivan. Everything he exudes shows an aura of superiority, of exceptionalism, of indispensability. And I doubt Mr. President whether he is familiar with what really happens when you when you detonate just one little low yield mini nuke, just to stop the Russians before they take over the whole of Ukraine. I don’t think he appreciates that, and I think that’s the problem. And again, it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what Putin and his advisors think.
They look at your advisors and they realize they’ve never worn a uniform. They don’t know anything about war. They think that these little nukes, these many nukes, could be little toys. And worst of all, Mr. President, as many, many people warned you a year ago, there’s no choice that you have between defeat in Ukraine and using nuclear weapons to prevent that. And your advisors have a very deep personal stake in preventing losing in Ukraine, losing in the election, and then perhaps losing their freedom. If this other fellow comes in, because he has the book on them, I just would remind you about that, Mr. President,
POTUS
Say Ray, again, we’re going right out of time again. But every once while, you say things to me that just seem ridiculous compared to what I’m hearing. And you keep talking. You did it a few weeks ago. You do it all the time that the Russians that they could advance right now, and I saw that statement by Zelensky, but I see it from others. We got them stalled. They’re not making advances. They’re very tiny, and we’re now pulling out our new stuff. It’s finally getting I blame Trump for keeping it from them. You know that that was going to be one of my big is going to be one of my big campaign themes, but we’re getting it there. And I hear now, and we’ve given them permission to go further with their targeting and hit targets in Russia itself and what have you.
And I hear that we got them stalled, not that we can advance now, we the Ukrainians, but they can’t. And so. Why do you keep giving me this stuff that seems really not to correspond to the facts? Are you just advocating? Are you just brainwashing? What are you doing here? I mean, I have to defend bringing you in right because you’re supposed to be in semi retirement or retirement, and you know, maybe you’re not getting the right briefings. But what I’m seeing right now, there are reports in the papers, or some of the remaining, I don’t even know if we have any papers anymore, but you know, the Wall Street Journal, few others that, in fact, Ukrainians, they got a new draft, going to get more people in their army. So why don’t you hear any of that stuff?
McGovern
Mr. President, this isn’t an old problem. I’m quite used to it. It’s not very popular to be bringing bad news, and some presidents have shot the bringer, not literally, but figuratively. But I have to tell you that.
POTUS
Wait but just so we don’t start a whole nother. You mean figuratively, right? Right, right? You don’t have some knowledge I don’t have. Yeah, okay, no, no, this is no time to kid around about stuff like that. People believe anything that damn internet guy, life was easier without it. You just go. Brought the New York Times bureau chief here, told him what to say or what the limits were, and everybody observed it. You know, it’s crazy, right? Just to, you know, not to wander off, but you know, they think at me from my gate. Can’t even know what the hell gate is, but if I’m walking wrong or I’m tilting. Roosevelt, he was in a wheelchair with polio that he conquered or got over, but they had to carry him up in a segregated navy.
You had the black guy carrying the white President up to the ship, and then he gets up, he gives the speech, and nobody knows the guy’s any been near a wheelchair or been carried, he’s carried like a baby up, you know, up to the ship. Nobody knew that. They knew it. Some people in the media, they knew it, but the media was responsible. They never would have created a word about that. Now, every time I make a little stupid error in grammar, get this from, you know, something like that, boom, you know, they’re off to the races, you know, and they’re going to let Trump by, by attacking my grammar. That’s what they’re doing.
McGovern
Well, Mr. President, I’d like to just deduce some proof that you might want to seek outside counsel, as you’re doing right now. The same people are telling you now that Ukraine can prevail, or can at least stave off the Russian offensive, are the ones that told you exactly a year ago that Putin had lost this war and had suffered a strategic defeat, the same ones the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, who told you the Russians were running out of ammunition and had no indigenous capability to produce what they’ve lost, That was a year and a half ago. So, you know, records really matter. Kind of review the record here see if these same people might be wrong again.
Because everyone I know, and I’m in touch with some very, very responsible military analysts, and I was one myself, realized that Ukraine is on the march. Now the other thing I just make sure that, you know here, that I wanted to make sure in this briefing, is that despite the NATO’s attitude that they put the Chinese in their place, you know that they realize that Chinese are to blame for a lot of what the Russians are doing Ukraine. Well, China didn’t get the message, Mr. President, because they’re exercising with the Russian fleet now out on the Pacific and Chinese troops for the first time. I know it’s the first time in six decades. I think it’s the first time in six millennia, the Chinese troops in Europe and Belarus exercising with a Belarusian. So just a reminder, a tangible reminder, Mr. President, that it’s two against one. It’s China and Russia against us.
POTUS
You keep saying that, Ray, we got 50 nations on our side. We got most of the world on our side. What are you talking about?
McGovern
Well, the Pacific Islands, who are all always included in that 50 nation not going to help us very much, Mr. President, neither are our NATO allies in Europe, because the military has been shot. Why has it been shot? Why is it so ineffectual? Because there was no need to build them up. There was no Russian threat until we overturn the duly elected government of Yanukovych in Kyiv in 2014 then there was a Russian threat because the Russians saw NATO advancing toward toward Ukraine. They saw the new regime we installed there.
Are saying we need to become a member of NATO. That’s when it all started. So the Russians waited, what 14 down to 22 What’s that? Eight years to negotiate. This thing finally became impossible to negotiate, and that’s how they looked at it. That’s why they went into Ukraine. And Ukraine’s not going to get into NATO, and Mr. President. It’s nice to make these promises, but the Russians have the capability, and they have the intention to prevent it. Okay,
POTUS
Let’s cut to the chase. We’re wrapping this up now. I got a country to save. I got a I’m not allowed to say, autocrat, fascist opponent to defeat. But let me just ask you, Trump, he says he could end this in 24 hours. Now, what does that mean? Is he going to give cave in the Putin and give him what those four provinces give him, Crimea and so forth? What kind of negotiation and what could you do now? You know, now, before an election, he’s got me between a heart a rock and a hard place. He says he could end it 24 hours, but if I do anything, I’m going to be attacked by Zelinsky. I’m going to be attacked by all kinds of people for being a sellout, trying to, I mean, I can’t even get peace talks going over Gaza and, you know, I can’t even get Netanyahu to go along in that.
And I’m, some people starting to call me genocide Joe. You know, I don’t want a genocide. You know, I was all for a legitimate response by Israel to punish Hamas, get rid of Hamas. You go back to the stoo state solution as an illusion. Nobody ever thinks it’s going to happen, but at least we could talk about it. You know, humor to Palestinians that, yeah, you’ll have a state of some kind. Well, that got all messed up. Now, I can’t even get a negotiation where I want one over there about Gaza and the West Bank, that’s going to hell. But what am I supposed to do about Ukraine? I you tell me the Russians could be in Kyiv? Well, we are going to use our weapons that we that’s what we got them for. We’re not going to let that happen. We’re not going to let that happen. And just because they got maybe more people in their army and they got old fashioned weapons. We’re going to use some of our modern weapons. I’m not going to talk now about whether we would ever use the tactical but the reason we got these smaller nuclear weapons is to use them. I mean, to be able to use them if we have to. Okay, so that that’s the the deal here. What would you What are you saying? You’re saying I can negotiate with them. What could I negotiate?
McGovern
Well, Mr. President, I can’t answer that unless we give it a try. In other words, the whole world is looking, for example, Viktor Orban. Now, I’m no fan of Viktor Orban. Neither are you, of course, Trump is now he’s traveling around the world telling people, Look, we have to talk, and it makes a certain amount of sense. So Putin has put his terms down. There’s some flexibility there. Your advisors are telling you to give them the back of your hand. That’s some advisors. Other advisors will say, we’ll see what he has to offer. I don’t think personally, and the people I talked to in the agency don’t think that he wants to take over all of Ukraine, much less Poland, the Baltic states. That’s that’s ephemeral. Where will he stop? Well, as I’ve said to you before, he didn’t stop. He did already stop, and that was in March, April of 2022 six weeks into the war, when he was satisfied that Ukraine said, Okay, we won’t join NATO, and he stopped. What happened?
POTUS
Yeah but now he’s got a lot of dead people. I mean, according to Zielinski, it’s unbelievable how many people he’s got there, you know, I don’t know to figure, but there wasn’t going to say to say to the Russian people, we’re having peace now. We’re going to get along. He’s in the same problem that I’m in. You know? How do you how do you declare victory here? Well, that’s always the problem. When you’re losing, you’re losing everybody losing these wars. We all know that you’re no winners. Okay, so how do you make your mutual loss like a mutual victory? I don’t see it around Ukraine.
McGovern
Mr. President, as usual, I stopped at the operations center before I came in to see you this morning. This just in Ukraine’s top commander, Alexander sierski, is ready to lay down arms and capitulate. A lawmaker of Zelensky party has claimed, Okay, seriously and zaluzhnyi, who both oversaw all this stuff, are willing to fold, says the deputy chair of the National Security. Defense and intelligence committee, a woman named Bezlugla. Okay, now the themes are becoming a part here, and the notion that…
POTUS
These guys are now, are still running the Ukrainian military?
McGovern
This is a part. This is a person from…
POTUS
Is this some crazy tabloid or some weird Internet where were you getting this from? Right? Is this?
McGovern
This just comes from the servant of the People’s Party, which is zelenskyy party, and it says that the two, these two generals, are secretly colluding to just stay in power, and doesn’t care. Don’t care about these 400-500,000 people who have been, who have been sacrificed already. Now they say that he doesn’t believe in victory and earnestly thinks that we cannot get an edge over the Russians on our own land, says the Member of Parliament. So there are all these kind of feathers or things in the wind here and the bottom reality is here that your advisors are not able to see this. Whoever told you not to meet with Orban, as I had very subtly suggested last time we met.
I don’t know what they have in mind, but the only option between now and November is the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a Russian complete victory in Ukraine and perhaps a victory for that other fellow in the election. So you don’t want to have that choice. You were warned about that a year ago. You know, you can’t avoid World War Three without using a nuclear weapon. You don’t want to do that. You say you don’t want to have world war three. So you need to get some outside advisors besides me, and talk sense into these young fellow, young fellows who have actually kind of not have a very good record in telling you just a year ago to say in Helsinki, in a very ostentatious way, Putin has already lost in Ukraine. He suffered a strategic defeat. It’s just 180 degrees from that now. And one must reckon with reality, particularly as an election comes near.
POTUS
I probably ask you one last question, because I you know this will, I mean, come on, we can’t even believe you where use a nuclear weapon and nuclear. I mean, what? That’s one good thing about being in in your 80s, octogenarian. Let’s hear it for the octogenarians. You’re not there yet, are you? Oh yeah, you look pretty old. You’re an octogenarian, right?
McGovern
Mr. President, please don’t misunderstand. What I’m saying is that…
POTUS
I’m going to praise you now. Don’t get defensive. So you’re an octogenarian. I’m an octogenarian. One thing we do have is some knowledge of the terror, the terrible consequence of using nuclear weapons. You gotta, you gotta believe me on that. I may say something. I may say, you know, we’re not going to be intimidated. You know, that’s the mutual assured destruction, the mad philosophy. But anybody’s had this job when they’ve been briefed, and I’ve been briefed, knows what these weapons do? What? What? I don’t understand, because I do hear a lot of loose talk. You got that Chernobyl there, and that was just a peaceful nuclear power plant, and a some guys got drunk, or whatever happened. They were shutting down the machines. They had this big problem. They continued it pretty much with a dome, but it scared the hell out of everybody there. The lands around it were uninhabitable and all that stuff. So what I don’t understand, and it’s going to be my last question, we got to cut this off. But I don’t understand the people there, Ukraine and Russia, whatever, and sometimes they’re all the same, crystals, other promises that Russians claim they speak Russian there. So what I don’t understand is, why aren’t they afraid?
And the people in Europe. I mean, you couldn’t have nuclear weapons going off with, you know, the Germans used to say owns, you know, without us, they don’t want any part of it. You know, amazing. The Germans, they’re the ones that killed, they committed the Holocaust, so they authored it and everything. And now they don’t care what’s going on anywhere else, and they don’t care about peace anymore. Bring it on. I don’t know it’s crazy, and they say we pushed them into it. I didn’t push them into it. But let me just ask you, I know I’m just, you know, as when they media gets me, my grandma might be slipping, you know, the damn drama Nazis. But anyway, what I’m saying is, so why aren’t people there on the scene more afraid of this. And why aren’t they pushing for negotiation? Because that push for negotiation now with Putin and Zelensky had me for lunch, and hold back Trump.
McGovern
Well, Mr. President, you raise the $64 question, as we used to say. Now it’s a $64,000 question. Why are the Germans so servile? Why? Instead of saying also uns, they say mitt-ons, I actually [inaudible]. They all, you know, God is I
POTUS
Thought it was [inaudible]. Hey, so I corrected you. I had sent it, then the media tears me apart, you know. Okay, go ahead.
McGovern
Okay. So what I’m saying here is this, that the Germans are ruled by a very, a very tentative government. Right now, the greens are so very powerful, but they’re not going to be powerful.
POTUS
But they’re no Greens anymore. They used to be for peace. They want more now. What the hell happened to them? They used to oppose me. I think they still do in this country, right? The Greens are running Jill Stein against me and everything. What happened to the German group? Did you guys buy them off? Did you buy them off? Come on, Ray, you can tell the president. I won’t tell anybody. You guys in the CIA, you got the Greens now,
McGovern
Well, the Greens in Germany are very different, Hugh than Jill Stein and the Greens here.
POTUS
Yeah but it used to be more than Joe’s time, right? They had that woman, Petra Kelly, and that general gas Joan or something, and they, they were sitting in with Daniel Ellsberg everywhere. What did they now want to go in fighting Ukraine, right,
McGovern
Right, that’s right. So, you know the greens are, are now we have about bayaba, the foreign secretary, Foreign Minister, and you have Heidi, who’s running the place. You know, it’s not clear that Schulz is very much in charge, because the greens, who has become as powerful as the SPDs Social Democrats, have this inordinate influence on on what his decisions are. Now, by comparison, if I may, Mr. President, you and I are of a certain age. We are advisedly, deathly afraid of people who might not realize what a nuclear weapon, what the use of even a mini nuke or a low yield nuclear weapon would mean for the world, for our children, for everybody, okay, but if you look at people half our age, Jacob Sullivan comes to mind your National Security Advisor.
Now, he might not have this same outlook on things, and I dare say that when people look like Putin looks at your national security setup, he sees Sullivan and Blinken advising you in such a way as to lead you to make very dubious decisions, as in Ukraine. So looking at it from the Kremlin’s point of view, they see that you might not realize that the only only only option that you might have would be nuclear weapons. And that these two young fellows, we don’t realize it either. That puts them at a very high alert, and it endangers the whole planet, because it is true, Mr. President, you can’t prevent defeat in Ukraine, and the only option you have is nukes, and I hope that that you’re you’re stringent, abiding by not, not wishing for a third world war. I hope that applies. But some people think that you might not be in in the correct frame of mind when they suggest it, then the question is whether Lloyd Austin would obey that and everything I know he would salute smartly, and we and our children and our grandchildren would be no more.
POTUS
I was bummed out when this became real, man, you got me more depressed. But you know what? I think I got to stay in this job, and I got to win this election, because you haven’t answered the big question here, whether you call it the $64 or 64 billion question, oh, God, can you kind of go bigger than that? Yeah, I don’t know. It’s Trump. That’s my whole campaign, it’s all Trump. It’s all Trump, and you got no choice, and I can just promise you that I would not use the big one. Now you tell me, even the small one can’t be used. And why the hell we’ve been building these things? Why are we modernizing the nuclear. Force, if the small ones are not usable to answer that question, Ray that, that’s the 64 what comes after billion?
You know, trillions, or whatever you know. Why are we modernizing or and been modernizing on every damn president you know, the nuclear force and getting better nuclear weapons. If you now tell me the small ones. I mean, are the small ones worse than Chernobyl hurting people.
McGovern
Mr. President, I’m sure you know the answer to that. The profiteering on these kinds of manufacturing of these kinds of weapons who hopefully we never have to use, they are immense. And the General Dynamics, and Raytheon and Boeing and all these companies, six of them especially, are making it over the top. So that’s gonna, that’s gonna keep going here, and unless we kind of come to our senses and say, We have to regulate this thing, we don’t want a nuclear war. And, you know, let me add one more thing here, in terms of negotiations, I forgot to mention that Trump, not Trump, but Putin, was asked at a Q A, just
POTUS
You made the same kind of mistake I made. Yeah, Trump, Zelensky, Putin, yeah, you made the same thing. You know and well, you know, they don’t know.
McGovern
I’m just trying to make her feel better. Only kidding. Okay, so here Putin has asked this question, what about Trump? He says he could finish this war in a day. What do you think about his proposal? Here’s Putin: We’re aware of his proposal. We’re really interested in how it is that he might propose to do this, but we welcome it and we support it. End quote, whoa, okay. So in other words, whereas before Putin had said, you know, I prefer you Biden, because he’s predictable. Well, I don’t know if they’ve changed their calculus, but it does matter, and seems to be possible that when they look at what Trump says, Well, let him flush out how he’s going to do this in one day. He’s not going to do it in a day, but there is the prospect he can and he will do it, and that’s what’s going to be wafting around during these next four critical months.
POTUS
Alright, see it at the next briefing and next Monday. And I don’t know, I don’t know what I want you to bring in here, but my gut tells me we’re going to turn this around in Ukraine, and we’re going to turn it around in time for help me on this election. And anyway, people will understand this is the way we expand freedom. This is the way we make it a safer world. And you know, I’m not going to say your cautions are wrong? Is that the right word? Yeah. But I’m going to say I gotta believe that that people in our think tanks and you know, Brookings and all those places, must know that RAND Corporation is still around there.
They must know what they’re doing, because they were the favorite modernization of nuclear weapons. And so there’s got to be these small ones you use to reverse the whole thing. Otherwise why are we building I’ll leave it with that question. Maybe you come back and tell me next week. But we spent a hell of a lot of money, and we’re very good at the science of these weapons, and these are supposed to be usable weapons, but they’re powerful enough to scare the hell out of the Russians and make them back off. That’s the reason I’m going to ask a few other people today, believe you me if that’s true. But you know, I’ve been told that over and over again. I was told that as a vice president, I was told that as a senator, and we’ve been spending a lot of money, and I don’t want to use these weapons, but I won’t take that off the table. We never have. We never pledged, you know, to take them off the table. You know that right, right under any president, do we ever say no first use?
McGovern
Well, Reagan and Gorbachev did say that no one can win a nuclear war. The problem is that many of your top generals and admirals have been saying something quite different. And of course, on on the ground, you have the development of these very, very accurate, very, very, very subtle and very efficacious nuclear weapons. And so onlookers like Putin will say, Well, why the hell are they developing? Don’t we have enough in the way of deterrence already, and would they possibly use one in Europe to prevent a defeat against Ukraine?
Now my judgment is that. Said that’s not likely, but as long as they’re afraid that it’s likely, as long as they’re afraid that Sullivan and Blinken will pull a wool over your eyes and say that, you know, we really need to do this, then that makes a very, very delicate situation. And add what I said before about their early warning system not being as good as ours. My God, I just hope we get through these next four months.
POTUS
Yeah, or be just the cockroaches and beetles left running around on a stool planet. All right, Ray and they think we’re too old to have power. My God, sometimes they scare the hell out of me. I don’t think anybody under-80 should be be allowed to be president sometime. But then, don’t quote me on that, because, you know, people will think they also get angry when I use my low voice. You know what’s wrong with having a low voice? I get reasonable. I don’t shout like that guy Trump and everything. Oh, well, he’s not articulate anymore. But you know, when you start thinking about blowing up the whole world and everything, you better lower your voice. You know, that’s what I’ll say. I think my my brain maybe is wiser than it’s ever been. But you know what an election season you just got to think about winning, particularly when you got this opponent, and then after you’ll fix everything if there still isn’t after all, right, Ray, see you next Monday.
Thank you, Mr. President, yeah.
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Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27 years as a C.I.A. analyst included leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and conducting the morning briefings of the President’s Daily Brief. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer, publisher of ScheerPost and award-winning journalist and author of a dozen books, has a reputation for strong social and political writing over his nearly 60 years as a journalist. His award-winning journalism has appeared in publications nationwide—he was Vietnam correspondent and editor of Ramparts magazine, national correspondent and columnist for the Los Angeles Times—and his in-depth interviews with Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and others made headlines. He co-hosted KCRW’s political program Left, Right and Center and now hosts Scheer Intelligence, an independent ScheerPost podcast with people who discuss the day’s most important issues.
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