YouSaid · the spoken record

David Ignatius

lines on the record: 63
first: 2024-05-16
most recent: 2024-05-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, so it was just Mother's Day. I was with two of my daughters and three of my grandchildren. And so I mean, yeah, there are great things in the world.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I do think about China a lot. China could decide tomorrow to attack Taiwan, Taiwan's ability to resist despite all the things we say is pretty limited. I think the Taiwanese might well, looking at Ukraine say, usually we don't want our country to be obliterated, so make a deal. We need to think carefully about how we'd respond to that. We need to think about what I write about in this novel. We need to think about space war. We need to think about somebody saying we can cripple the United States if we act now against what they have in space and think as the characters of my book do, what will we do about that?”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Invasion into the United States. It's actually operatives on the ground, but I'm actually going to write a novel before that about US-Chinese intelligence wars. So the Chinese did something that people don't really understand, which is that 10 years ago they ripped apart the networks that the United States had built of agents in China. And one by one killed them. They killed about 40 people. And we really don't have much left in terms of human sources in China. So the question of how they did that and how we might begin to push back is the subject of the next novel that I'm ready. It was serialized, a short version of serialized in the post-last summer, but I'm going to try to finish that up in the next year.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is unfortunately one of those situations where all you can do for now is fight and hope to hold your ground. You're not going to win this year, but you can hold on and just believe that next year you'll be in a better place.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then they can negotiate a settlement that I think would be in their interest that they would want to accept. Right now, Russia has no interest in negotiating, and they're so weak that any deal they make would be terrible. So they have to wait to get to.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then, well, and then no, and then fight, and then really begin to bang our Russians next year, and then from a position of strength”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then the weapons begin to arrive. And again, I don't think Ukraine should try again this year for counteroffensive to drive Russia out the way they did last year. I think they should consolidate their lines, hold, protect their people. I mean, the blood that's been spilled in Ukraine breaks your heart. They need a breathing period. They need to recover. They need to think how to get through the next winter and Russian missile attacks.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So this year's task for the Ukrainians, as they tell me, is to hang on the head of Ukrainian military intelligence real character, scariest guy I think I've ever met, said that he is expecting a Russian offensive around now. He was talking June, but it's May, in precisely the areas that we're seeing, trying to capitalize on this moment between American aid shipments. And the Russians will try that. Ukrainian alliance may pull back a little bit. I don't think that the Ukrainian lines will collapse in a way that would make the big cities vulnerable. They may lose Kharkiv. That would be unfortunate, but not the end of the world. The Russians want to consolidate the East. They still don't have those two provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk, but they're close to having them.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Feeling of whether it would work. I don't know. Whether it would work, I'd say, seven out of ten. It's not 10 out of 10. My feeling about whether what they're doing now will work would be three out of 10.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Done a lot of reporting about what people in Gaza think about Hamas, they're ruthless, they rip stuff off, they steal you, start a pharmacy and they basically steal your stuff and the man attacks. So I think Palestinians are ready for something different and there is a pathway for it. It's not pie in the sky. It needs systematic IDF type general some new prime minister who's got those chops to say this is what we're going to do this is what's going to be more secure at the end. Let's get started. Let's get on with it.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“See the solution. I can describe it for you pretty simply. So you need better leadership in Israel that thinks more strategically about the long run. You need to think about the security force in Gaza that eventually the West Bank that can provide security in a reliable way, working with the Israelis. They won't have heavy weapons that can threaten Israel, but that can keep order in Gaza City and Rafah. And you need to have a pathway toward a Palestinian state. So people feel that there is something at the end of this that's better, that's worth being part of.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Enough, but it's also strategically right. You're not going to win the war if you just push people around like their pieces on a chessboard. It's not going to work.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Watched as thousands of Palestinians walked out of Gaza city south because Israeli bombs had devastated. There wasn't, you couldn't see a building that hadn't been shattered, walked south towards Rafah, towards what they were told would be safety, and by the thousands and its over a million people now, a million and a half people walked that way south, thinking they would have security. And now they're about to blow the hell out of Rafah. And the United States is saying, you can't do that. You cannot, these people are so desperate, some of them close to starving. You can't just march them somewhere else without clear planning about where they're going to go and how you're going to take care of them. You can't do it. And I think that's right. I think that's, it's not just morally right.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it goes like it's going now. I mean, it's been seven months. It could be another X number of months. And you have this mess gets worse and worse at some point, you know, it escalates and it does become a regional war. So Israel, I think, is right in saying Hamas should never run Gaza again. But that doesn't mean you're going to kill every Hamas fighter, that you're going to, you know, that takes time and it takes careful strategic long-term planning, not convulsive. It doesn't have to be done next week, but it has to be done. But it doesn't have to have to be done next week. Let me give you a very simple explanation of why Biden and Blinken are right when they say, be careful about Rafa. So I was in Gaza. I was in Gaza city. So I watched, I was there the first day Israelis left correspondence come in.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably you can play that short term to his advantage. It's such a weird situation, Kara, because on the other side of this war, if Israel can find a way to de-escalate, stabilize Gaza, the thing that Israel has dreamed of since it was created, which is acceptance by the Arab world, there is a de facto military alliance between Israel and all the Arab states against Iran. Those countries are ready to help rebuild the West Bank and Gaza. They're ready to train the people who will provide security without threatening Israel. They need some help. They need Bibi to say, yeah, okay, I get it. A demilitarized Palestinian state is not going to threaten it. Okay, we'll support that. And the minute he does that, he begins to unlock doors to a future that I think is...”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The United States should help Israelis. Some people in the work cabinet in particular who are ready to take responsibility. And I think that's appropriate. We in the world have so much at risk. Israelis have to decide in the end who they want, but all the polls suggest they don't want Netanyahu. He is just, he is clinging to power with ever, ever greater costs.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the reason you have to be careful by cutting off all military support for Israel is that Hezbollah in Lebanon stands poised to attack Israel, has already attacked the northern part of Israel in a way that would be absolutely devastating. And I think the United States does have an obligation in Israel, which is our ally, which is a democracy, to make sure they're not vulnerable to threats from Hezbollah, from Iran. So a total weapon's cut off. I don't think it's a good idea. I think Biden is trying to thread the needle, find the way to bring pressure, without totally alienating Israeli sentiment. Israel needs a new prime minister. Nanyai was not popular. Nanya was seen as having, in some ways, been derelict in the months before October 7.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How do you So fortunately. The United States has Arab allies that feel about all this stuff pretty much the way we do. They don't like Hamas. They hate Hamas. Hamas is illegal in pretty much every Arab country. They have no use for Hamas. They think that Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PA, has been ripping them off. It's been stealing Saudi money, stealing UAE money. They're sick of them. They want something different. And they'll work with us to help build those. There are so many smart young kids in the Palestinian territories. I meet them all the time. I spent a week in the West Bank. I can't tell you how many people are there ready to be part of something sane. And the Israelis just don't seem to see it. I don't get it. But we're on a road to unending difficulty for Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. The West Bank, you know, I mean...”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's a jerk, but the whole point is the US has been thinking, how do you create a different PA that's not corrupt, that has good leaders, has good training, that has discipline, that has metrics to measure performance since before this began, but certainly since October 7, and nobody in Israel wants to hear about it, and we're now at the point where that mistake is demonstrably obvious when Israel thinks it's cleared a place like Gaza City, it hasn't. There's still people there.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The security force for a future Gaza that will make Israel more secure as much as it will make Palestinians more secure needs to be built now from the first day of the war needed to think Netanyahu need to think how where am I going what am I going to build toward the answer is actually pretty obvious the Palestinian Authority has security force trained by the CIA we have a three-star general who's responsible for overseeing their training that could be amped up right now you should be working with them to build a new security force and they haven't why because BB hates the Palestinian Authority you know he thinks it's the enemy”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So great question inevitably from Jen. So to me, the biggest mistake that Netanyahu has made is he's been fighting a war for seven months now without thinking about how it ends in a more stable Gaza that's not just a crazy place. I mean, he is creating, as I've written a bunch of times, he's creating Somalia on his borders. He's creating an utterly lawless, destroyed place for bandits and thugs. One problem for getting humanitarian aid into the desperately suffering Palestinian people is when you drive the truck in, a guy with a gun shows up and tries to rip it off because there's no security.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In that column wrote about countries that were heading toward decline, that reversed it in some moments when that happened. I mean, America after the Gilded Age was a mess. It was corrupt. Its political institutions were rotting. They were terrible people at the top of government and business. And along came Teddy Roosevelt, this kind of You know, hearty, goofy guy, and he was a rich guy from New York Republican, and he created a move of it, progressive movement that systematically began reforming different aspects of American life. And you could argue, you know, he saved our country, got it back on course. So we need Syakbat back.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Count on everybody. I think you can't minimize the role of elites in shaping opinion. I mean, what are elites? Elites Kara Swisher, they're David Ignatius. They're people in the media. They're just, you know, we don't think of ourselves being all elite, I hope. But I was thinking when I wrote that about Harvard University, which I attended, which I think is just broken. It's so sad to see Harvard and these other elite universities with so much anti-Semitic rhetoric being spewed, so much confusion about what free speech is. I was thinking of, when I think about, you know, the elites mobilizing for the civic good, I think about our great universities filled with people from all over thinking, making the country better as part of our...”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd be surprised if RFK Jr. took more than 10, 12 percent and if that 10, 12% wasn't pretty evenly drawn from the two. So I think it's likely to be a wash. I think there's this lot of self-destructive energy in RFK Jr. The problem, what Democrats need to think about is one reason that people are paying attention to RFK Jr. is he speaks the language of idealism in his own weird way quite powerfully. There are echoes of his father that are just as clear as a bell to me. And, you know, Biden needs to find a way to do that better. But as I said earlier, that's not really going to happen. So other people who are going to speak for this cause and go door to door and just speak with the passion, I think, you know, millions of Americans feel in their hearts. Somehow they have to mobilize that.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not a certainty that Trump will run again. Once they become convinced, he really is running. This isn't just a show. He's going to be president again, that there'll be more motivation. I don't know if that's true. But as I said, surrogates, I think right now are the key to making this a more energetic campaign.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Vulnerability, his biggest vulnerability is that he acts sometimes acts completely nuts in a way that's visible to people. He just goes off on a jag and you can just see it. You watch it. So I've heard people at the top of the Biden campaign who you might think people would be happy to have him in court dozing off, Don Snorlyn, all that stuff. But in fact, they want him out on the campaign trail where he'll be making mistakes and saying crazy things and giving interviews to time where he suggests he's going to monitor pregnant women to make sure that they don't get an abortion. I mean, just completely crazy stuff. And I think that's the other thing that Biden's top pollsters say is that oddly among many people who voted for Biden last time, there is”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's one of the things. I mean, I was just with Karen Mass last week. I was thinking she's always been the person I wish had been chosen as vice president. I was thinking she's really a good mayor. He's really a good candidate. You know, where is she? So anyway, I think the time is running out. All right, it didn't work with me.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Gear and people go, Oh, my God. I thought he was old, but no, he's so young and dynamic. That's not going to happen. So I don't think that Kamal Harris, you know, for whatever reason has failed to get traction with the country, why is that? What can she do about it? If she can't fix that, she shouldn't be, she shouldn't be the democratic vice presidential nominee.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the strategy, I would say, you know, if Joe Biden asked me, you never would, I'd say you need much more powerful surrogates. You need people who will explain the things that your administration can do in a way that you can't in a dynamic way. And they should be young, they should be people from Hollywood, they should be people from all the worlds that excite us, people from technology, people who are world changers. They should go to Carras Wisdom and say, Kara, you care about your country, and you got to put up, take off your microphones and go, you know, so, you know, 100 people like that, because the country is at risk. I think there are people in politics who'd be great surrogates. But Biden, the idea that Biden is going to suddenly find a new...”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Trump sold on the Republican Party is cult-like. It's hard to explain. It is the cult seems to be limited to 30% or so who are the sort of hardcore MAGA wing, and you're not going to convince them that Trump isn't the guy. But you can beat 30% with the right candidate pretty easily. And so I think one of the problems that Biden has is he sort of caught between this desire to be the person who can reach out to independent voters, mainstream moderate Republicans, sort of the guy he is, the guy in the center. And the energy in the party, which is on the left. And so he's trying this odd straddle. And often it doesn't work very well. He's in both and neither at once. You know, I think... The person of put the country back together has got to be somebody who speaks to everybody.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amy Clobuchar, I'd see his president in a heartbeat. But these are people who just been a very good cabinet secretary. So I think that our country is in trouble. We have to face up to that. So the president that we need is somebody who can speak across party labels and get a unified purpose and sense of the danger to the country and then unite the country and move forward. And we need it.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So the first thing to say is that a better candidate would be somebody who physically, intellectually, emotionally represents change. You know, I think one feeling a country has is these two old guys. It's sort of both of them like, are we doing this again? America's changing so fast. Young people feel increasingly alienated from politics. And I just wish that Democrats could serve something more interesting. I know so many young Democratic legislators that I respect Karen Bass is a really good mayor of Los Angeles. I think they're many members of Congress. I mentioned some I especially respect Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan, Jason Crow from Colorado. Oh, goodness, Michael Bennett in the Senate. Doug Mark Warner is an outstanding senator.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I've written about Trump and the danger Trump poses repeatedly, my sense, to be honest, is that the great danger with Trump isn't as cognitive issues. He's just a malign narcissistic person. He's a person who's irresponsible in many ways, his age and the signs of age, or at least of it. People were writing this. I'm not like people are making that point. I don't think that's the reason that people should not vote for Donald Trump because he falls asleep in a courtroom if that's true. I don't know whether it's true or not. There are other reasons that are much more powerful. But to answer your question, I wouldn't not write the column about Biden. He thought about it.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wouldn't know the answer to your question no, I wouldn't change it. In the end, they made a decision by administer decision. I'm the only one who can be Trump. I'm the man. You know, his wife, I'm told, strenuously argued that he should stay in the race. Kamal Harris obviously hasn't budged”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ripost at people. So I think that was one reason this column had a lot of effect. People said, David Ignatius wrote that. So it did say that President Biden should consider something like 70% of Democrats believe he's too old to run, to serve another full term. There's an overwhelming feeling in the country that that's so. I also feel at Kamala Harris, who the country just isn't confident would make a good successor. People don't have a good feeling about her, that she similarly should reflect. Is this right? Is this right for the country? Am I being selfish? And the column appeared, the White House was furious. I mean, they really felt, how good David had written this.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that was a hard column to write because I think many of the things that Joe Biden is doing in domestic and foreign policy are really excellent, the things that the country needs. Through last summer, anytime I was with a group of friends, the first topic of conversation would be Joe Biden's age, just people talking and talking to Darby, but nobody was writing about it. I just realized by the end of the summer that we were running out of time to think about this by we. I mean people who don't want Donald Trump to be re-elected president. And so it was the kind of thing that I should write as a column. I usually am, you know, I mean, as you know, I'm a fairly careful person. I don't detonate. Uh...”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why? Because Russia has no other good way, no other way, is not a good way, no other way to stop this total dominance of low Earth orbit with all the systems I was describing. I mean, in every one of Elon Musk's satellites, there are modular pods that could take other things that don't have anything to do with Starlink. Have we tried to put any of these little modular dudes? Well, nobody knows. The Russians certainly don't know. So they decided the only thing I could do was blow the whole thing up and create a debris field in low Earth orbit that would last a generation. It's crazy. What a crazy idea. But it illustrates that there was nothing else they could do. They have no other way to defeat this.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think the greatest asset we've got. It gives us an advantage that the Russians and Chinese can't. So here, here's a demonstration of just how much it worries the Russians. You will have noticed, your listeners will have noticed that back in February, a congressman might turn to the head of the House Intelligence Committee said, whoa, there's a huge Russian National Security threat. I want the whole House briefed. It turned out that threat was a Russian plan to explode the nuclear weapon in low Earth orbit that would obliterate.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People are free to do what they want. And I think the government has tried to find ways to get assurance from Musk that he will stay the course with Ukraine, that he has a contract now with the Pentagon, not simply with the Ukrainians, to try to keep him locked in. But I think this question of the power that entrepreneurs now have in national security for good or ill, for some people would say a lot of Google engineers who think it's poisonous for our company to be as involved as it is in targeting soldiers from other countries. That's wrong. We shouldn't be in that business. But Google's crossed that line. Project Maven is rolling forward. But there's a larger question, I think, which is, you know, what if these entrepreneurs decide they're going to run their own foreign policy? They're going to decide who they want to help. And if that enterprise...”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in my journalism, to some extent this comes through in the novel too, but in my journalism, the question that I've asked is this, what happens if one day Elon Musk decides, I'm sick of this forever war in Ukraine. I've had it. I've got to sell cars and Teslas in China. I've got to build Teslas in China. I don't want to do this anymore. And takes his marbles and walks away from the board, leaving the people who depended on him high and dry. What happens then? You could go down the list of all the brilliant entrepreneurs who are now in this mix of public and private, helping the United States, making the United States strong, you know, their individuals. They can walk with. So I think it's an interesting puzzle. This is our secret. China and Russia can't possibly compete. They just don't have a tech ecosystem like we do. But the condition of our tech ecosystem.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They've done in low Earth orbit is transformative. So a lot of other things about Elon Musk, I don't know, but that company, I'm very positive about it.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I tried so hard. I used the dead center of it. I can remember going to a conference and running along behind them the way journalists do and say, Elon, Elon, I want to talk to you. I want to talk about space. It kind of looks at me like, what? I want to talk about what about space? Well, you know, satellites and, I don't know, and I finally, in desperation as he walked away with a look of total contempt, I said, I know Walter Isaacson. He was his biographer. He was so pathetic. Here's David. Don't take yours for sure. Pathetic, pathetic. Yeah, well, I just said, I know Karen's witch. No, no. He stopped and turned around. But so I wasn't able to get to Elon Musk. There is a lot of Starlink technology in the book. I think Starlink and SpaceX are really extraordinary companies.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's one of the biggest things the Space Force, this newly created part of the military, is doing is figuring out exactly what's up there, launching close observation satellites that can be little spies in space and can cruise around and look at things and what is it and what can it do. So there's much more of that domain awareness situation awareness. I believe we're beginning to develop attack systems of our own, but that is so classified. I've done reporting on national security now for 40 years. I've never seen anything as classified as this stuff. I mean, it's just, you know, it's all in the black, as they say. Senior defense official once said to me, what worries him is that you can't deter in the black, that our adversary don't know what we've got. And you have to be able to make them know if you tried to do X, we could do Y, but we never talk about Y because”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Identify, target rendezvous, and in space, rendezvous is not a simple thing. It's not like driving a car, then getting, you know, it takes many passes to get in the right orbit. So it's a much more complex battle space, and it took the U.S. a long time to really get its mind around how serious our adversaries were about challenging us.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you know, I have come to think that where we used to think of war as an on-off switch, it's really a riostat. You dial it up from zero to ten, and usually it's most time it's about two. So constantly, certainly in the cyber realm, countries are jabbing each other, they're testing each other's systems, they're planting software that could be turned on if there was a bird crisis. They're preparing the future battlefield. Same thing is happening in space. Chinese are testing weapons in space now that are astounding, that could have devastating effects if we ever came to a war with China. For example, the Chinese have very subtle satellite that in geocentric orbits. but way up there where the GPS satellites are can”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was good that you didn't make that was the sort of the meme was how ridiculous these people are and then they're not ridiculous.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why wouldn't they see it coming? Why wouldn't China? Because they didn't. So, you want to know why there's a Space Force, Kira? Yes. I mean, this was always done by the Air Force. It's because the Air Force blew it. They didn't see it coming. The Air Force was run inevitably by fighter pilots. It had space people, but they weren't focused on this as a military threat. It snuck up on us. One of the things that happened in the Trump administration that I think was absolutely right. Trump, over the objections of the chiefs of staff created a U.S. space force saying, we need a dedicated force that thinks only about space. And I think that was right.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One cheap little satellite that spins around the globe playing the East is red. That's all I can do, right? And he Realizes that the Chinese want to build little things in satellite systems, you know, the ground antennas that receive and beam signals, the routers and switchers that feed those ground stations, just the little things that make up the big systems that they want to get inside them so they'll have access so they can be in a turn off little parts of the system because they know satellites are going to be the future of weapons and the economy. So I think that did happen. The Chinese around that time did begin thinking how can we get inside these systems? By 2007, China is a space power. China tests its first anti-satellite weapon in 2007. Americans are astounded. They just didn't see this coming.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's one of the puzzles in the book as you work through the book that continues to be the case. So why? Why is that? Why isn't anybody answering him? And I don't want to give away a central theme of the book. But that's a first thing. The second thing that I talk about in the book is, again, I think basically true. After that opening scene, we dial back to Volkov's education, which began in China. He couldn't pay his tuition at Moscow State University, so he's at Tsinghua University, great Chinese university. He gave him a scholarship. And at that time, because he's brilliant young scientist, he is drawn into what he soon sees are Chinese efforts to penetrate the supply chain for satellite systems. The Chinese at that time don't have anything in space. It's 1995. They got nothing in them.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He said, Well, Russian, he's not a treasure, he's not a defectory. He's just a responsible person. So he sends a message. There's actually a technical name for it, a virtual walk-in. Once upon a time, people would walk into an embassy now. They can't. So if you go to the CIA website, you'll see very explicit directions for somebody who wants to share information. The U.S. tells them exactly how to do it. So he follows that opening lines of the book, the quotes from the CI website are verbatim. That's what it says. So he sends a message. Saying, you know, your world is about to be turned upside down, north will go to south, everything will freeze, and nobody answers.”
2024-05-16 · On with Kara Swisher · War in Gaza, Ukraine & Space, plus Biden vs. Trump with David Ignatius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT