Joe Rogan Experience #1763 - General H.R. McMaster

Narrator 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

H.R. McMaster 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Ready to go?

H.R. McMaster 0:13 Yeah, ready.

Joe Rogan 0:13 All right.

H.R. McMaster 0:13 Ready. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Well, thank you, sir. Very nice to meet you. Cheers.

H.R. McMaster 0:17 Hey. Joke. Cheers, great to meet you.

Joe Rogan 0:18 Great to meet you. (glasses clink) Mm. I always wanted to smoke a cigar and have a scotch with a national security advisor.

H.R. McMaster 0:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:27 So here we go.

H.R. McMaster 0:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:29 All right. All right. I always wanted to be in one of them smoky rooms.

H.R. McMaster 0:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:33 Where all the, all the shit goes down.

H.R. McMaster 0:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:36 What... Is there a moment... 'Cause every, every person, every, you know, civilian wants to know, is there a moment when a president gets into office, where someone like you has to sit him down, they just got elected, someone like you has to sit him down and go, "All right, buddy. Here's what's going on in the world."

H.R. McMaster 0:55 Yeah, I, I think so. I mean, I... You know, we, we were facing a number of challenges and opportunities, and a, a new president, you know, I think suddenly realizes that he's responsible for how we respond to those challenges and opportunities. So I think, you know, of course as a national security advisor, you know, that's kind of your job, right? Your job-

Joe Rogan 1:10 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:11 You're, you're the only person in the foreign policy, national security establishment who has the president as his or her only client, right? So it's your job to help the president succeed, uh, in the area of foreign policy and national security.

Joe Rogan 1:25 And wha-... That job ve-... Y- you have to kind of be like a psychologist as well as a national security advisor, right? Because you... Especially if you're dealing with someone like Trump, who's a-

H.R. McMaster 1:35 Right, well-

Joe Rogan 1:35 ... big personality. So.

H.R. McMaster 1:36 Yeah. And, and of course, you know, every, every president is different, right?

Joe Rogan 1:40 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:40 And, and receives information differently and has a different set of priorities. And so I think it's really important to ensure that the way you interact with that president is consistent-

Joe Rogan 1:50 Mm.

H.R. McMaster 1:50 ... with the way that president receives information, you know, thinks all, you know, him or herself about, about the world, and help them evolve their understanding of these challenges and opportunities that we face internationally, and then give options, right? As national security advisor, like your job is not to determine foreign policy. Nobody elected you, right?

Joe Rogan 2:10 Right.

H.R. McMaster 2:10 Your job is to give that elected president the benefit of the best i- information, intelligence analysis available, and then to tee up options, right, and, and have forums for discussion where he can not just listen to you, 'cause you're not omniscient, right? You don't... You're not an all-knowing national security advisor. You should help convene groups that can help the president make the best decisions.

Joe Rogan 2:30 We always have... On the outside, we always have this idea of what a president says they wanna do when they're running and then once they get into office, oftentimes they, they change or they abandon a lot of their policies, a lot of their ideas. And the, the speculation is always like, "I wonder what they learn." Because, you know, p- people wanna say, "Oh, they're just liars. They were lying the whole time." W- and I'm always like, "Maybe, or maybe they get in there and they learn that there's some serious issues that they were not aware of and that there's some top secret stuff that the general public is not privy to, and they get briefed and then it's a 'Whoo!'"

H.R. McMaster 3:11 Yeah. Well, the key is, the key is to think through the long-term costs and consequences of any decision. And often that involves a decision to take an action, but also not doing something is a decision, right? So-

Joe Rogan 3:23 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 3:23 ... I think what a national security advisor should do, uh, any of the president's advisors should help the president think longer term and to recognize, right, that, that we are involved in complex competitions, right? The future doesn't depend on what we decide to do. It also, it also depends on the actions o- of others, oftentimes, you know, adversaries, rivals, and enemies. And that interactive nature of foreign policy and national security competitions is sometimes lost. And, and this is what I write about in the, in the book is this, is this idea of strategic narcissism, right, the tendency for leaders to think that what they do or decide not to do is decisive toward achieving a favorable outcome. That's actually a pretty arrogant way to look at the world, right? Because you have to, you have to recognize the, the agency, the influence, the authorship over the future that others have.

Joe Rogan 4:10 But if they decide something that's incorrect or something that's correct, it kind of does have a, a large impact on the world, right?

H.R. McMaster 4:18 Oh, ab- absolute- absolutely, right? I mean, if you think of just, you know, decisions in, in, in recent history, right? Decisions to either engage or not engage, right? How about, you know, for... Everybody wants to talk about, for example, the invasion of Iraq, right? That's been the big debate over the last couple of decades. Should we have done it? Should we have invaded Iraq? And I think what we ought to debate more often is who the heck thought it would be easy and why did they think it would be easy, right?

Joe Rogan 4:42 Do you think they thought it would be easy just for- because of the first Gulf War?

H.R. McMaster 4:46 I think that's a, that's a big factor. You know, I, I write about this in Battlegrounds. I start... you know, for... It's an odd thing to start a, a book out on, but I, I write about our tank battle in Desert Storm. And I write about that in context of our cavalry troop, the same cavalry troopers who were patrolling the border between East and West Germany from Camp Harris in Coburg, Germany in November of, of 1989, uh, when, when the wall came down. And, and of course, that, that event, I think, was significant in terms of bolstering our, you know, our confidence, right, our optimism about the future with good reason, right? I mean, you know, the East German government faded away, the Berlin Wall came down, right, the Soviet Union broke apart. We won, we won the Cold War, right, without, without firing a shot. And so there was a sense of optimism then going in to the Gulf War as well. And so our troop was training, you know, in, in August of 1990 when Saddam in- invaded Kuwait. And I brought the whole team together, you know, it's, uh, 140 cavalry troopers and I said, "Hey, we need to make the most out of this training because the next operations order I give you will be- probably be in the desert of Saudi Arabia." And then, of course, our experience during Desert Storm was a lopsided victory. We destroyed a force, you know, much larger than us. We s- suffered no casualties. It was one lopsided victory in a war that was full of these lopsided victories. And what, what happened in this period of time, Joe, is we bought into some assumptions about the future that were overoptimistic, right? And I think those assumptions were that, hey, you know, that, that an arc of history...... had guaranteed the primacy of our free and open societies over closed authoritarian systems. The second is, hey, great power competition, that's, that's a relic of the past. You know, how'd that work out? Look what's going on right now with, with Russia and-

Joe Rogan 6:26 Right.

H.R. McMaster 6:26 ... and, and China. And then third, and this is what I think you're alluding to, is that there was this idea that future war would be fast, cheap, efficient, right? Waged at standoff range with our advanced technologies. And what we forgot, I think, is this interactive nature of war. I mean, there are two ways to fight, and you, you know this from ju- (laughs) jujitsu, you know, is, is, you know, you know, asymmetrically, where you use that person's strengths against them, or stupidly. I mean, Saddam fought us stupidly, and we also had a very narrow political objective. Hey, turn Kuwait back to the Kuwaitis. Now fast forward, okay, to the wars af- after 9/11, uh, the, the, uh, invasion of, of Afghanistan 2001 and then in Iraq in 2003, I think we went into those wars under this assumption, the short war assumption, right? We could just do this quickly and kinda, you know, almost take the George Costanza approach to war and just leave on a high note. When, in fact, war has always been e- an activity that involves the consolidation of gains, to get to a sustainable outcome consistent with what brought you there in the first place. And, and so this idea, uh, in, in, in battlegrounds of strategic narcissism, right? This tendency to not consider, you know, the interactive nature of war.

Joe Rogan 7:41 The interactive nature of war and the, the consequences of each and every single decision that you have to make.

H.R. McMaster 7:48 Right. Abs- absolutely. And, you know, I, I, I had this, this gr- wonderful experience in the Army across 34 years, right? And, and, uh, and what, uh, in, in recent years, you know, the last couple of decades, I was on the receiving end of, of plans and strategies and policies developed in Washington that made no sense from where I was. (laughs) You know, in, in places like Iraq and, and, and Afghanistan.

Joe Rogan 8:11 So, how does that work? Like, who, w- w- well, so if a person like you is a national security advisor, like, and, and a general, what, where, who, who comes to you with these ideas and plans?

H.R. McMaster 8:22 Well, it's your job to kinda convene the, you know, the, the president's cabinet, right? The Principals Committee of the National Security Council. And, and you know, Joe, I, uh, you know, I, I, I wrote about this in, in the book, I, I, uh, I, I walked into that office really unexpectedly obviously, right? You know, I'd, I had been walking down Walnut Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on my way to, to a think tank. Uh, my job at the time was design, design the future army. So I'm an active duty lieutenant general, and I was, I'm, I was gonna brief this think tank community, get their thoughts on a study that we had commissioned, uh, t- almost a two-year-long study on Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, and Russian new generation warfare, and what it meant, right, for developing the future army and the future military. And my phone rings, and it's a partially blocked number from, you know, from the, you know, from the, from the White House.

Joe Rogan 9:13 Oh, boy.

H.R. McMaster 9:13 And they say, "Hey, uh, hey, the president would like you to interview for the job of national security advisor at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday."

Joe Rogan 9:18 It says partially? Partially blocked?

H.R. McMaster 9:19 So it just says 202. It's just 202. There's no-

Joe Rogan 9:22 That's it?

H.R. McMaster 9:22 That's it, yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:23 Oh, boy. That's some, like, Batman shit.

H.R. McMaster 9:24 So (laughs) that's-

Joe Rogan 9:25 (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 9:26 ... so that's why (laughs) , that's why I answered it. Typically I wouldn't answer my phone on the way to a meeting, but I, like, "Maybe I ought, I ought to answer this one." So, so, uh, you know, it came, it ca- came out of the blue, and so that was a Friday, right? And Sunday I'm interviewing for the job.

Joe Rogan 9:37 Wow.

H.R. McMaster 9:38 He hires me on, you know, President's Day Monday. I fly back to Washington, right? You know, on, on Air Force One.

Joe Rogan 9:44 And you were interviewed at Mar-a-Lago?

H.R. McMaster 9:46 At Mar-a-Lago.

Joe Rogan 9:46 So you're having, like, shrimp cocktails and-

H.R. McMaster 9:48 (laughs) Hey, hey, I didn't know how to get food there, man. So when-

Joe Rogan 9:50 (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 9:50 So and af- after the first interview, right, they said, "Hey, the president would probably like to talk to you again." So I, I stayed, they, uh, they kept me there for the rest of the day. I went into the military aides office, you know, 'cause I know, uh, know those guys and every, uh, that were on, on the military. So I'm hanging out in their office, I'm doing emails from my regular job, and, you know, of course calling my wife and, and calling Katie and talking to her about it. And, and there's, there's no foo- I didn't know how to get food.

Joe Rogan 10:13 (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 10:13 So I ate everything that those guys had. I ate their pistachio nuts, man. I, I, I, and I left 'em a note, "Hey, sorry guys, I'll have to replenish your supplies."

Joe Rogan 10:20 You can't ask Trump, "Hey, buddy."

H.R. McMaster 10:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:22 "Where, where's a man get a steak around here?"

H.R. McMaster 10:22 No, I probably coulda gotten some meatloaf or something or some-

Joe Rogan 10:25 I'm sure.

H.R. McMaster 10:25 I'm sure I could have.

Joe Rogan 10:26 (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 10:26 Missed opportunity. But, but so, so anyway, it, that, that Monday I go, I fly back to, to DC, and, uh, I didn't even live in DC, so they had these Osprey aircraft waiting to take me back to my house in, in, in, in Tidewater, Virginia. I packed a bag and I started on Tuesday, man.

Joe Rogan 10:42 Wow.

H.R. McMaster 10:42 I mean, so, so it was quick, but I had this, you know, I had this great gift that the Army gave me, which is the opportunity to study history, you know? And, and so I walk into, to me, McGeorge Bundy's office, the guy who was national security advisor when Vietnam became an American war. And I wrote a book called Dereliction of Duty about how and why Vietnam became an American war, and identified all of the deficiencies in the decision-making, policy-making process, right, in, in, in Washington. So, I resolved at least, okay, I'm not gonna make the same mistakes, right? And, and so those, one of those mistakes or what you're alluding to is, you know, they, they didn't spend enough time thinking about the nature of the problem, right? They didn't frame out the problem, use kind of design thinking to think about it, right? So, when I, when I came into the job, you know, we, we, uh, you know, we established, you know, what I thought were the, the top 16 challenges to our security and prosperity in the world, right? And, and then we organized a framing effort around those, and we put together a meeting called a Principals Small Group Framing Session where the president's cabinet, right, the secretary of state, and defense, and the, all the heads of the intelligence community, um, uh, you know, come together to, to, to really approve how we've described the problem associated with China's Communist Party aggression, with Russian aggression, with Iran and Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon, with North Korea and North Korea's nuclear pro- program, and, and, uh, and the other threats from North Korea. Uh, s- threats that, that are, that are occurring more frequently and are, are more con- consequential in cyberspace for example. And, and, uh, so I, as I came into the job, I was grateful for the opportunity to-... studied it from a historical perspective, anyway.

Joe Rogan 12:22 Well, you're, you're famously non-partisan. You were, you were a guy who didn't even vote while you were in-

H.R. McMaster 12:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:30 ... active duty. You, you decided a long time ago that that was, uh, the best course of action to stay completely unbiased and to concentrate entirely on the goals and objectives of the military.

H.R. McMaster 12:42 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 12:43 So, when you're with a guy like Trump, you're gonna be associated politically.

H.R. McMaster 12:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:48 Like, if- if you're a part of the Trump Administration, it's like-

H.R. McMaster 12:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:52 ... you're immediately associated with Trump, and then with, uh, all of the good and the bad-

H.R. McMaster 12:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:57 ... that comes with that. So, wa- was that a shock to the system? Like, what was that like to go from-

H.R. McMaster 13:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:02 ... you get this phone call from this weird number. All of a sudden, you're in Mar-a-Lago trying to find some food.

H.R. McMaster 13:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:08 And then, uh, you're the National Security Advisor.

H.R. McMaster 13:11 Well, you know, you know, uh, I really think it was a benefit to stay on active duty. You know, and, and, and I, I, I really think that... I, I mean, I know like you do. I, when I look at the polarization in our society today-

Joe Rogan 13:20 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 13:21 ... this partisan politics, I think, "Okay. Why can't we just talk about what we can agree on?" So, I think in the area of foreign policy, that ought to be an area where we could agree. Like, who wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon?

Joe Rogan 13:30 Right.

H.R. McMaster 13:30 Who wants the only hereditary Communist dictatorship in the world, you know (laughs) , the Kim family regime in North Korea-

Joe Rogan 13:36 Right.

H.R. McMaster 13:36 ... to have the most destructive weapons on Earth? Who wants Russia to intimidate all the countries on its periphery, develop destabilizing nuclear weapons, try to coerce us like they're doing now? Who wants China to eat our lunch economically? Okay, let's talk about that across partisan lines, right?

Joe Rogan 13:50 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 13:50 These shouldn't be partisan issues. So, I, I think, you know, uh, Donald Trump was the fifth, the fifth commander in chief I served in uniform, right? When I took the Oath of Office at West Point, the oath at West Point as a, you know, as a, as a plebe there, you know, in, in, uh, gosh, the summer of 1980, right? Reagan was president, right? So, it didn't matter to me who the commander in chief was. I was gonna do my best to, to fulfill my oath, which was to, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, right? And to bear true faith and allegiance to the same, you know? And, and I felt like I could serve Trump well by, you know, by helping him determine his agenda. He's the guy that got elected, right? And then, and then once he made decisions, to help orchestrate the sensible implementation of his decisions, and that's the, that's the job I, I took on.

Joe Rogan 14:39 It's such a weird time politically, and just socially in this country, because everyone is so polarized. It's, it's so u- uniquely polarized that even a good decision, a decision that if someone takes that's the president that is good for America will get attacked by the other side.

H.R. McMaster 14:58 Right.

Joe Rogan 14:58 Just universally. No one from the right is gonna look at anything that Biden does and goes, "That is a great move for America. Kudos to him."

H.R. McMaster 15:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 15:06 It just doesn't happen anymore.

H.R. McMaster 15:08 I know. And, and we've got to try to get back to that. And I think the only way to do it is for, like, your audience, you know, for people to demand better-

Joe Rogan 15:15 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 15:16 ... from those we elect and say, "Okay, hey, stop compromising our principles and our future to score partisan political points."

Joe Rogan 15:23 Right.

H.R. McMaster 15:24 Right? And, and, uh, and I, I think you, you see some, you see some inklings of that. I mean, there's a little bit of a consensus, I think, on, on the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, for example, and that's a big, bold shift we put in place, uh, in the early days of the Trump Administration, uh, you know, when we pulled together that principal s- small, you know, this small group, you know, framing session on China. I read an excerpt from the, the existing policy toward China and made the observation, "Hey, we're about to affect the biggest shift in US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War."

Joe Rogan 15:55 What was the-

H.R. McMaster 15:56 Right. Uh-

Joe Rogan 15:56 ... what was the original poli- like, from the Obama administration? How did they approach China, and what was the difference between the way Trump approached it-

H.R. McMaster 16:03 Well-

Joe Rogan 16:03 ... or the Trump administration?

H.R. McMaster 16:04 Yeah. Well, it was, it was a series of administrations, and of course, when the... there's the opening to China in, in '78, right? And, and really even before that with Kissinger's trip, right? But then the opening to China was really based on our view of China in the context of the Cold War. So, we saw China as a potential balancer against the Soviet Union. And what Kissinger and Nixon put together was this idea of triangular diplomacy. We would endeavor to have a closer relationship each with Russia, with, or Soviet Union, and with China than they had with each other, right? And, and so that was the Cold War generated policy. But then after the end of the Cold War, hey, we thought, again, great power of competition's over, right? Arc of history, guaranteed primacy of democratic governments. And, and so a series of, a, a series of administrations, you know, really took this approach to, to China that was based on a fundamentally flawed assumption. And that assumption was that China, having been welcomed into the international order, would liberalize, right? As it prospered, it would liberalize its economy and that it would liberalize its form of governance. And what we didn't consider is the degree to which emotions and ideology drive and constrain China's Communist Party leadership. We underestimated the degree to which, you know, the party is obsessed with control, maintaining its, its, its exclusive grip on power. And, and the party from the very beginning saw themselves in, you know, I mean, from the beginning of this assumption period in the '90s, in an ideological competition with us, but they were smart about it, right? They took a, a hide-and-bide approach. There's, there's a, um, there's a good book out recently by, uh, Ros D- Doshi, uh, about, about the long game, about how the party took this as a long game, and that there's a lot of continuity even between Deng Xiaoping in the '90s, right, and the opening up and Xi Jinping, although Xi is... Xi Jinping, the current chairman of the Chinese Communist Party has taken it to the, to the next level in terms of aggression against us. So, that was the, that was the, the dynamic was this assumption. President Bill Clinton, you know, advocated very hard, you know, for allowing China into the World Trade Organization, even though it was a state-directed economy that had uh, all kinds of unfair competitive advantages like state support for their main state-owned enterprises and so forth.And, uh... And- and- and when asked about, you know, "Well, what's going to happen in China?" He said, "Well, the Chinese Communist Party is gonna have to liberalize, right? Uh...

Joe Rogan 18:26 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 18:26 "... because of the internet and information that's available to the Chinese people." He said, "Trying to maintain control by the party in China would be like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall." Well, how's that working out?

Joe Rogan 18:37 Th- they're pretty good at nailing Jell-O. (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 18:38 They're pretty good... (laughs) They're pretty good at nailing Jell-O. Uh...

Joe Rogan 18:41 Di-... Was there any anticipation at all, or- or, uh, d- did anybody predict that what China's done today is they've developed a sort of unique hybrid, uh, economy, where they're still communist...

H.R. McMaster 18:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:55 ... they're still run by the Communist Party, but they're very much capitalist.

H.R. McMaster 18:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:58 I mean, there's- there's billionaires in China, famously, and they walk step-in-step with the orders of the Communist Party. And that's a very unique form of government and a very unique, inexorable connection between the big businesses and the corporations and the government. They all work together. That- w- that seems, at least tactically, to be a unique advantage that they have, uh, economically and militarily over the United States. Because we- w- we- we have conflict between our business and our government. There's conflict, and there's manipulation...

H.R. McMaster 19:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:33 ... and influence, but it's not seamless. What they...

H.R. McMaster 19:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:37 ... seem to have is, like, seamless power and control over their corporations. If you are involved in any sort of large business, electronics, military, whatever, you work with the government.

H.R. McMaster 19:49 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:49 You work together. You follow their orders.

H.R. McMaster 19:50 You have to, or you're better, right? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:51 Yes, you have to.

H.R. McMaster 19:52 Or you'll be disappeared.

Joe Rogan 19:53 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 19:53 Right? You know, and, uh...

Joe Rogan 19:54 And that's what's wild about that country, that they...

H.R. McMaster 19:56 Well...

Joe Rogan 19:56 ... they do that.

H.R. McMaster 19:57 A- and we have to recognize, right? We have to recognize that this is an authoritarian regime that is determined, right, to succeed at our expense, right?

Joe Rogan 20:05 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 20:05 Xi Jinping just said it, like, last week. He just ca-... He just... He was talking to the provincial chiefs, and he said, "Hey, make no mistake about it. We're in an ideological competition with the United States and other democratic and- and- and free market economic countries and systems." And, um... And we have- we have to acknowledge that, right? Uh, there's a national security law that- that requires every single company in China, you know, whether it's a state-owned enterprise or, like, a pseudo-private company, to act as an arm of the government.

Joe Rogan 20:33 Right.

H.R. McMaster 20:33 It's a requirement. And if you stray from that, he's gonna reel you in, right? Look what he did to the tech sector.

Joe Rogan 20:39 Right.

H.R. McMaster 20:39 Look what he did to the education sector. That- that was a, uh... You know, that was a, you know, $60 billion a year industry. It's completely gone, right? Look what he's done to, you know, to s- to many of these- these executives, w- they just disappear for months at a time.

Joe Rogan 20:51 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 20:51 Jack Ma, you know?

Joe Rogan 20:52 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 20:52 And, you know... (laughs) Joe, what I think what happened there is, I think he l-... He looked at, uh, you know, at- at Dorsey and- and- and others, you know, and- and, uh, Mark Zuckerberg, and- and saw what they were doing (laughs) to Donald Trump in the (laughs) United States and said, "Hey, man. That's not gonna happen here," right?

Joe Rogan 21:08 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 21:08 And so Jack Ma disappears. You know, the tech sector crackdown is ongoing. Uh, and- and, you know, I- I think we just have to begin to alter our behavior and factor in this geopolitical, geoeconomic risk into our business decisions. What- what kills me, Joe, is... I- I think that we are, in many ways, underwriting our own demise, right, by the- the huge financial flows and investment flows into China that is giving them the resources that they need to com-... to compete unfairly with us under programs, the programs, uh, that are... have names like military-civil fusion. There is no difference, right, between their development of military capabilities and what their civilian companies are doing in the area of artificial intelligence, but even their hardware, you know, even their fighter jets and their... and their navy... their- their- their- their, uh... you know, their- their naval ships. I mean, companies, Chinese companies, that develop those military capabilities list on the US Stock Exchange. I mean, it's- it's nutty.

Joe Rogan 22:05 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 22:05 US pensioners, teachers, and policemen, and firemen, th- their- their retirement funds are being invested in China in many of these companies that- that are developing capabilities to compete against us, right? I mean, uh... I- I mean, it sounds trite to say this, but- but it's almost as if these pensioners are underwriting and helping the Chinese develop weapons that the Chinese may use to kill their ch- grandchildren, right? (laughs) If they... if they...

Joe Rogan 22:31 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 22:31 ... succeed in- in maintaining the party's grip on power, so... So I- I really think it's important for Americans to all wake up to the multidimensional aspect of this competition, the military dimension, the economic dimension, and the informational, uh, dimension, the influence dimension o- of, uh, of the China threat.

Joe Rogan 22:48 I'm glad you said that because I think that- that's a real concern, and I think that most Americans aren't aware of this. I mean, I think the- the general population probably isn't totally aware of how the government and the businesses work together...

H.R. McMaster 23:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:02 ... and that there is no escape, and they are exactly the same. But when the supply chain got hit during COVID, I think a lot of people woke up to realize that, first of all, most of our medicine is made over in China.

H.R. McMaster 23:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:14 Um, a lot of our conductor chips...

H.R. McMaster 23:16 Right.

Joe Rogan 23:16 So- so much of our electronics and so much of w- what we need for day-to-day life... Like, we can't buy an American-made cell phone.

H.R. McMaster 23:23 Right.

Joe Rogan 23:23 Like, that seems crazy to me...

H.R. McMaster 23:25 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 23:25 ... that we have the- the biggest cell phone manufacturer, Apple, the number one in the country, uh, number one in the world, and it's made in China. We...

H.R. McMaster 23:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 23:32 We don't have the ability, we don't have a plant, we don't have the capabilities to make the- the core components of our day-to-day lives, our computers, our electronics...

H.R. McMaster 23:42 Right.

Joe Rogan 23:42 ... electronics in cars. There's a shortage. Right. Can't buy a Ford F150...

H.R. McMaster 23:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:47 ... you know, if you try to buy a Raptor. The- the... You can't get 'em 'cause the- the chips...

H.R. McMaster 23:51 Right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:51 ... the- there's an overseas problem with the, uh, supply chain. That seems crazy to me that we have somehow or another lost our manufacturing in America to the point where essentials, things that we need to run our society, we have to rely on foreign countries to create.

H.R. McMaster 24:05 It i- it is crazy. And if you think about it, it's gonna get worse before it gets better because you mentioned semiconductors and microelectronics and the degree to which that is dis-... that is the critical point, right, the... the- the- the, uh, the point of failure in- in many supply chains. But as we transition to, you know, renewable energy and green energy, so much of that supply chain is also concentrated in China. So- solar pan- me- panel manufacturing, but also what goes into that, rare earth metals and rare earth metal refinement, battery manufacturing, and so...... what we have seen is an artificial concentration of a huge percentage of the world's manufacturing in the southeastern portion of China. That's unnatural, right? So, I think businesses that get ahead of this, that recognize it's time to adjust, it's time to make supply chains more resilient, it's time to onshore, nearshore, diversify, uh, they're, they're gonna be ahead of the game. The ones that are doubling down on their bets in China, look at what Xi Jinping is doing, right? He's completely doing everything he can to extinguish human freedom, right, and, and any inkling that any Chinese person might have that they might, you know, deserve a say in how they're governed, for example, right? You see this with the extinguishment of, of human freedom in, in Hong Kong now, uh, and, and, and the, you know ... (laughs) you see this with Peng Shuai, the tennis star, uh, you know, who disappeared. But you see it in a, in a, in a genocidal campaign in Xinjiang. There's no way, there is no way to say that it's not genocide, right? It's a campaign of slow genocide. You know, Uyghur birth rates in, in certain areas are down, down 60%. Right? I mean, so I, I think it's im- important for us to ev- all take a stand now, you know, and demand better from our leaders, and demand better from your pension funds, demand better from if you, if you c- contribute to universities, right, that they're aware of the threat of, uh, of, of, uh, China's sustained campaign of industrial espionage against us to, to steal sensitive technologies and, and, uh, and intellectual property. I, I mean we, we really have to wake up to the competition.

Joe Rogan 26:02 We have done some things like ban the use of Huawei cellphones in the United States.

H.R. McMaster 26:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:07 They, they, they came very close to selling, I believe they had a deal with AT&T and some other, uh, providers and they decided to cut that off at the ... And China's phones are ... th- that's another thing is, like, technologically, they're, they're at the peak. Like, those Huawei phones are, like, fantastic phones. And especially back then when they imported, that ban, like, a lot of people were very excited about them, like technophiles.

H.R. McMaster 26:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 26:30 But w- is there something that the government can do to impart to the general public and to put pressure on some of these, uh, technological corporations-

H.R. McMaster 26:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:43 ... to let them know, like, "We're ... You're in a quagmire here." It's a bad situation because you're doing what you're doing because it allows you to maximize your profit by utilizing these plants and using, you know, the p- places like, uh, you know, the, the, the plant that makes, uh, cellphones or iPhones-

H.R. McMaster 26:58 Yeah. Right.

Joe Rogan 26:58 ... for China that famously has the nets around it to keep people from suiciding-

H.R. McMaster 27:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 27:02 ... themselves? Like, w- w- there's go-

H.R. McMaster 27:04 Well, right, I mean, like, like, Nike, right?

Joe Rogan 27:06 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 27:06 Ni- Nike who, who caved, you know, to the, to the Party and apologized for saying, making the bold statement that we don't wanna use materials that are (laughs) based on slave labor, right?

Joe Rogan 27:15 Right.

H.R. McMaster 27:15 I mean, and then you have, you have, you know, the, you have VW also, you know, with a plant in Xinjiang as well. And, you know, there's, there's, uh, I think, uh, there, ev- I think companies are now coming to this realization, right? Look at how they cracked down on the tech sector. Look at how they cracked down on apparel manufacturers. Look at how they cracked down on Marriott, the NBA, right?

Joe Rogan 27:34 Right.

H.R. McMaster 27:34 The NBA who had, I, I don't think any backbone, right, to, to, to, to stand up to defend Daryl More, who is now in, in a good spot in the Ph- Philadelphia 76ers. You know, I'm from Philadelphia, so I'm glad to see him land (laughs) there, the former general manager of, uh, uh, for Atlanta. So, I, I think, you know, I think we have to, you know, we have to demand better in, in, in, from corporations, you know? The big issue on corporate boards these days is ESG, right? En- environmental, sustainability, and governance, and there are a lot of, there, there are a lot of, you know, concerns now that, that, uh, the companies, you know, behave in a way that, that, that promotes, you know, equity and, and, and so forth. And that's all good, but how is genocide not an-

Joe Rogan 28:16 Right.

H.R. McMaster 28:16 ... ESG issue, right?

Joe Rogan 28:17 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 28:17 It, it should be.

Joe Rogan 28:18 It certainly should be. And, and is, is there a problem also in, with the, the corporations in America is that, you know, they're all publicly traded companies, so they all have, uh, an obligation to their stockholders.

H.R. McMaster 28:31 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:31 So, if they make a big, bold move to start opening up plants in America and those plants aren't as profitable or at, at least the, the profit margin is not as high-

H.R. McMaster 28:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:43 ... like, what, what can we do to-

H.R. McMaster 28:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:45 ... incentivize them or is it something the government can do to make the general public aware so maybe the general public puts pressure-

H.R. McMaster 28:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:53 ... on these companies to start some plants and to start manufacturing in America? Things, the essentials like cellphones, laptops-

H.R. McMaster 29:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:01 ... things that we're, we're 100% gonna need?

H.R. McMaster 29:03 Right. So, so that kind of supply chain assessment is happening now, and I, I think this is where the Biden administration should get a lot of credit, right? I mean, they're doing a complete assessment of, of critical supply chains. If there's a star in that, in that administration, I think it's the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo. She's phenomenal in what she's doing there. And, and, uh, and I think we're just not doing it fast enough, right? This is where people should be coming across the aisle in Congress and, and, and passing the Strategic Competition Act and, and, and the, and the legislation on chips-

Joe Rogan 29:30 What is the Strate- what is that? Strategic Competition Act?

H.R. McMaster 29:32 Strategic Competition Act is to invest, get, to, to match government investment in sectors that, in which we are unfairly disadvantaged by China's authoritarian status economic model, right? And, and so computer chips is one of those, right? And the CHIPS Act is part of this range of legislation on the Hill, which, you know, I, I hope gets passed here soon that will help us return to arenas of competition that we vacated. You know, Joe, what happened is under this assumption, right, that Ch- China would liberalize, it would play by the rules, we just stopped competing, right? And if you're not on the field, you know, you're gonna get your ass kicked (laughs) , right? So, a lot of what we're doing is reentering competitions that we'd s- that we'd stopped, right, under this false assumption. And so I, I think the supply chain issue is, is, is, is a big part of this and the assessment of vulnerabilities, and, you know, we're in a race 'cause it takes, you know, it takes, like, five, six years to develop a fab, you know, to generate semiconductors. There are big investments happening now in, in Phoenix. You know, for example, Phoenix is, is gonna be the site of a, of an, an, a, uh, you know, a big, a TSMC, uh, uh, big fab. TSMC is the, is the chip manufacturer that's based in Taiwan, right?

Joe Rogan 30:42 Mm.

H.R. McMaster 30:43 Which is, you know, a single point of failure almost, you know, for big parts of our supply chain internationally. And of course, the reason that's significant is it's in, it's in, it's in a place that's under threat by the Chinese Communist Party as well, so-

Joe Rogan 30:54 Yeah, I think they're making a Samsung plant, a chip plant here in Texas as well.

H.R. McMaster 31:00 They are. They are.

Joe Rogan 31:00 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 31:01 Right, and in Austin. It's outside-

Joe Rogan 31:02 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 31:02 ... of Austin, yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:03 That's, uh ... It's just terrifying to think that we have to catch up in six years-... because six years in the world of tech is, uh, that's, uh, a hundred years, it's an eon.

H.R. McMaster 31:14 It is. Well, there's, there's a lot you can do even before that, and I think it's starting to happen in terms of the shifting of supply chains elsewhere. You just saw Intel is gonna invest a lot in Malaysia. And you might think, "Well, why in Malaysia?" Well, I think the key is, it doesn't all have to be in the United States. It has to be in a number of places so it's resilient, right? If say, what if there's a, a natural disaster?

Joe Rogan 31:34 Right.

H.R. McMaster 31:34 A power at it- outage, right? You want multiple sources. And, and of course, you know, a- as you mentioned, the reason this became apparent to all of us was at the beginning of COVID.

Joe Rogan 31:42 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 31:42 Right? When you couldn't get PPE and pharmaceuticals and, and so forth. So I think, you know, I think we're just waking up to this competition, and this ought to be one of those areas where we all come together, right?

Joe Rogan 31:53 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 31:53 This oun- this should not be a partisan, uh, issue.

Joe Rogan 31:55 At all.

H.R. McMaster 31:56 At all. And it should be a multinational issue, right? The, the reason the subtitle of the book is The Fight to Defend the Free World is we need others to come with us, right?

Joe Rogan 32:04 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 32:04 We need the European Union and the UK and Japan and Australia. I think that's starting to happen as well, right? Because, you know, the, you know, look at what Xi Jinping has done just since the pandemic, right? Foisted the pandemic on the world, you know, crushed anybody who was trying to ring the alarm bells about it. These are reporters and, and doctors, right? Then added insult to injury w- with this wolf warrior diplomacy, which I know you've talked about on, on the show here as well. Uh, and then, and then a range of aggressive actions, like, you know, bludgeoning Indian soldiers to death on the Himalayan frontier, right? Scores of overflights into, into Taiwanese, uh, air defense identification zone. Weaponizing islands in the South China Sea, and if they, if they succeed, there will be the largest land grab, so to speak, in history. And that's, you know, by the way, an area across which one-third of the world's surface trade flows, right? You know, the intimidation towards Japan, a massive campaign of economic coercion against Australia and now Lithuania. And so what I would often hear, you know, from friends, you know, in, in Southeast Asia and beyond, you know, these are my counterparts when, uh, who I was engaging when I was National Security Advisor, they would say, "Hey, don't, don't force us to choose," right? "Don't force us to choose between Washington and Beijing." And what I, what I would tell them is, "Hey, that's not the choice you face," right? "The choice you face is between sovereignty and servitude," right? And, you know, the, the United States is on the side of sovereignty. China wants servitude, because what Xi Jinping wants to do, and the party's clear about this, is they want to establish exclusionary areas of primacy across the Indo-Pacific region. And excluding who? Us, right? As the first step in, in really being able to rewrite some of the rules of international commerce and political discourse and, and then to isolate their, their regional rival, Japan, right? And so I, I think it's, we're at a critical moment where we have to compete effectively, and this is not, this does not mean that we have to, we're on a path to confrontation. Actually, I think, Joe, because we had vacated these competitive spaces, China became more and more emboldened, and we were actually on a path to confrontation. When now, I think this idea of transparent competition is, is the, is, is what we ought to really pursue with China.

Joe Rogan 34:17 So do you, do you think that that makes us less likely to be in competition with China in terms, or, or less likely to be in conflict with China if we can change our whole, uh, economic profile here in terms of tech, in terms of manufacturing?

H.R. McMaster 34:32 I, I do. I do, because I think really we have to recognize what China's trying to do, right? So we, and people, people talk about decoupling all the time, and you alluded to this a little bit, like, hey, you know, businesses have to make a decision, right? I mean, they, they've got responsibilities to their shareholders, they, you know, and, and so forth. So the whole idea of a complete decoupling, that's always been kind of like a red herring, right? That's not what we're talking about. I mean, what we ought to do is, is ask businesses, take a Hippocratic Oath, right? Don't do any hurt or harm in three areas. First of all, don't help the Chinese Communist Party gain an unfair differential advantage over us militarily or in the emerging data-driven, you know, uh, global economy. Second, right? I mean, don't help the party, you know, do, do, don't, don't help the party, uh, perfect its technologically-enabled Orwellian police state, right? Don't help them do that. Don't invest in Chinese AI companies, right, that are extinguishing human free- freedom and weaponizing peoples' social networks against them and everything. And then the third is, don't compromise the long-term viability of your company in exchange for short-term profits, right?

Joe Rogan 35:40 Right.

H.R. McMaster 35:40 And so many companies have been through this, right?

Joe Rogan 35:42 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 35:42 I mean, and, and, uh, and, and so I, I think that's a way to think about it, and to think about it in light of what the Chinese Communist Party leadership wants, right? So what Xi Jinping talks about is a dual circulation economy, right? Where, where they get a grip on critical supply chains internationally. I mean, if you want to look at human rights abuses, look at what they're doing in, in the DRC, in the Congo, right? Uh, in terms of extracting, at a horrible humanitarian price, the, the, the rare earths that they need, uh, to continue their, their manufacturing of, of microelectronics, for example. Um, and, and, but what he wants to do is get a grip on those supply chains and then create enough domestic demand that he doesn't need anybody else, right?

Joe Rogan 36:25 Right.

H.R. McMaster 36:25 That he can write the terms to everybody else, that he has everybody else, you know, uh, i- in a position that, uh, of, of where he can use coercive power. And, and what, what I describe in Battlegrounds is this strategy, this, I think the, uh, the easy way to think about it is co-option, coercion, and concealment, right? Co-opt you, co-opt businesses, co-opt elites, right? With the lure of short-term profits and access to the Chinese market, right? Be it, you know, uh, uh, Chinese investment. And then once you're in, right, to use that, that influence for coercive purposes, right? Look at what they're doing to Lithuania. Look at what they're doing to Australia, right? Look at what they did to Marriott, MBA, you know, all, you know, uh, US and international companies. Um, and then, and then, and then to conceal all of this, say, "Oh, this is just normal business practices."

Joe Rogan 37:13 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 37:13 Well, it's not.... normal business practices, right? If you look at, at One Belt One Road, right, which is their ... They have three main strategies, right? Military-civil fusion. I dis- and I describe all of these in the book. Military-civil fusion, then they, then the, then, the, you know, the ... Associated with that is Made in China 2025, which is part of this dual circulation economy becoming completely, you know, un- uh, no longer dependent at all on any external sources of, of, uh, advanced technologies, for example, or s- or, uh, aspects of supply chains. Uh, and then, and then finally, One Belt One Road, which is an effort to create servile relationships with companies by overly indebting them.

Joe Rogan 37:53 Mm.

H.R. McMaster 37:53 Right? And so, the new vanguard of the Chinese Communist Party, (laughs) you know, is, is a Chinese Communist, uh, Party official accompanied by a Chinese national bank guy with a duffle bag full of cash, right? And, and th- th- they get the most traction in corrupt governments. You know, and then once they indebt them, for generations, right, then they can trade debt for equity or they can use it for coercive purposes. "If you say one cross word about the Party, we're gonna call back all your debt and you're gonna go broke." Right? So, so I think we just have to recognize co-option, coercion, concealment, defend against it, but then of course, you know, as we look to the future, how do we, how do we maintain and expand our competitive advantages? Because we have tremendous competitive advantages in this country, right, that we ought to be aware of and, and we ought to accentuate. And especially, I would say, you know, the unchecked, unbridled entrepreneurial spirit, right? I mean, if you look at China's centralized control, do you really think that's gonna work in the long term, you know, compared to the freedom that we have here? You know, I, I don't think so.

Joe Rogan 38:55 The ... What- what concerns me is that they're utilizing our entrepreneurial spirit by co-opting these companies, by g- getting involved in these companies, by making these enormous investments, and, and getting them to give up whatever it is, semiconductor chip technology, AI technology, and then it's theirs.

H.R. McMaster 39:13 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 39:13 I mean, uh, Saagar Enjeti from, uh, Breaking Points did this, uh, brilliant piece on ... I forget the name of the company, but there was a, uh, an American company that d- sold a, a large percentage of what they were to China, and then the Chinese people that they were communicating with stopped communicating with them back, renamed the company-

H.R. McMaster 39:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 39:34 ... and completely took all of the technology and then proclaimed it to be Chinese technology, and they're gonna utilize that technology for AI.

H.R. McMaster 39:43 Ab- absolutely. I mean, and you see this in so many areas, right? In, in solar manufacturing, in, in wind turbines. You've seen it, uh, I mean, if you've seen it with, um, you know, with, with, uh, you know, other, uh, industries as well, like, like battery manufacturing, right? I think, I think, uh, I think (laughs) Elon Musk, who I know you've had on, I mean, uh, I think he's, uh, in for a wake-up call sadly there, you know, I think he's-

Joe Rogan 40:01 In China.

H.R. McMaster 40:01 In China, yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:02 Yeah, because he's very high on China. He, he, he-

H.R. McMaster 40:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:05 You know, he said, "China's awesome," and he goes over there and he's make ... And a lot of people are criticizing it because, uh, you know, where, uh, he's p- put this showroom is, uh-

H.R. McMaster 40:15 In Xinjiang, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:16 Yeah. And a lot of people say, like, "Well, look what's happening there."

H.R. McMaster 40:19 Right. And of course, you know, the dilemma is, right, what people say and what he says, I'm sure he believes this, is, "Well, you know, do we really wanna give up all engagement with China?" Right?

Joe Rogan 40:30 Right.

H.R. McMaster 40:30 Uh, and, and then, and drive them even more, uh, in- into sort of a, you know, into, into a, uh, y- exclusive competition with us and, and really mask opportunities for cooperation, right, and maybe a, a breakdown of the, of the hostility of the Chinese Communist Party. But what I would just say is, what we have to recognize is, the Party is shutting down so many of those opportunities, right? I mean, academic exchanges, think-tank exchanges. Look at what they did in the education sector. You know, uh, I, I really think that, that we have to recognize the nature of the Party.

H.R. McMaster 41:01 We oughta try ... I, I believe we oughta try to, to advance areas of cooperation. Like I for one, Joe, I think we oughta ... Every Chinese national who comes here for a graduate-level education in, in a key area of science and technology oughta get a green card stapled to the diploma, right? I mean, stay here and work for a US company. Now, you know, you have to, you have to be careful, right? But-

Joe Rogan 41:25 Are they able to do that? Like, when they get sent over here, I mean, w- do we know what the motivation is-

H.R. McMaster 41:30 No.

Joe Rogan 41:31 ... of a lot of these g- guys? I mean, have they been courted by these Chinese corporations and the government? I mean-

H.R. McMaster 41:37 A- a- absolutely many of them have. And what we were s- ... We were so complacent. You know, I, I work at the Hoover Institution and we have a program there called the China Global Sharp Power initiative. I, I recommend going to the website. It's g- there's great material on there and one of these is a, is a study of Chinese espionage within research facilities, in universities, in, in, uh, in, in, uh, in, in, y- uh, US labs and so forth.

Joe Rogan 41:59 How prevalent is it?

H.R. McMaster 42:00 Oh, it's, it was, it was terrible. It's getting better, right? And, and what we did in, uh, you know, in the early days of the Trump administration is we stood up the, you know, the, the China division in the Department of Justice. And I'm telling you, they did great work. They did really good work at, at really starting to focus on this problem. What- what's happened is once we focused on it, and there are investigations and some prosecutions, now the, the Ministry of State Security, their intel arm, and the People's Liberation Army, who also is in charge of a big part of the infiltration of our, uh, sensitive technology and research, they had to back off, right? So, a lot of, a lot of those people who were here under false pretenses as academic researchers or associated with private companies, they have been pulled back. And so, what we need now is a better effort at counterintelligence, right? You don't wanna turn, you know, Stanford University, where I am, into the FBI, right?

Joe Rogan 42:53 Right.

H.R. McMaster 42:53 But the FB- the FBI's gotta do their job. But also, you have to just do some, you know, decent due diligence, right? And, and if you especially are taking US government money from the Department of Energy or the Depart- (laughs) or the Department of Defense, hey, I think it's, uh, I think it's pretty reasonable to say we shouldn't have People's Liberation Army scientists in those programs, for example, right?

Joe Rogan 43:12 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 43:13 And, and what's happened in universities in particular-... Chinese students are a cash cow. Uh, I mean, you know, they pay full price, right? They, uh, for, for, for tuition. And, and a lot of universities have become dependent-

Joe Rogan 43:26 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 43:26 ... on Chinese international students. Now, I think we should have ... I would welcome more Chinese students here, right, but with more diligence, and to make sure they get a really good experience in terms of understanding the American system, American democracy, and maybe expose, right, uh, that as a contrast to what they hear from the Party, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:45 Right.

H.R. McMaster 43:45 In terms of democracy is a failed system, and, you know, the Party is superior, and you don't really need a say in how you're governed, and freedom of speech is overrated. And, you know, I, so I, I think, you know, I, I, I think that, that we, that more students here is a good thing as long as they're, th- they are not working for the PLA and the MSS and infiltrating our, our, you know, our m- our sensitive, uh, our sensitive research.

Joe Rogan 44:07 How-

H.R. McMaster 44:07 And this is biomedical too, is another area where this has been a, a big problem.

Joe Rogan 44:11 How does one vet that? Like, how do you find out ... I mean, y- you know, if you have a student that comes over here from China, how do you know if it's just, uh, a student who wants to go to Harvard and, and-

H.R. McMaster 44:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:22 ... learn at the, the best place in the world versus someone who has been indoctrinated in the Chinese Communist Party, and they're sent over here specifically to learn things so that they can aid the Party. And then once ... And then also infiltrate and get all sorts-

H.R. McMaster 44:39 Right.

Joe Rogan 44:39 ... of secrets and wha- whatever-

H.R. McMaster 44:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 44:41 ... they could possibly get, and then bring it back to China, particularly, like, if their family is still over in China, which I'm sure has influence over them over here.

H.R. McMaster 44:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:49 Like, uh, you mean, you can't do a, a detailed, in-depth investigation on every single Chinese student, can you?

H.R. McMaster 44:55 No, but what you can do is you can, you can understand the problem better and, and understand what kind of operations are run out of, out of some of these, uh, embassies, right? And, and I think what is, what is most galling and what we ought to be the most upset about is how the Party is extending its repressive arm into our own country and intimidating Chinese students who are here, who are afraid to say anything in class, right? Because others might be reporting on them and reporting back to the Ministry of State Security or into this organization called the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, the CSSA, which is really a front organization for the MSS, the Ministry of State Security. And then, of course, these other, these other organizations, like Confu- Confucius Institutes, which are used as an arm of influence of the Party. I mean, tho- those ought to be shut down, you know, or marginalized. Um, and then we ought to, we ought to maybe take it on ourselves, and I think this is what every university president and provost and, should get behind, is, hey, make sure that no student, regardless of where they come from, are subjected to intelligence collection and intimidation, right? A university campus ought to be a university campus, right, that allows for the free expression of ideas. So, I think there's a lot that we can do that's not controversial at all, right, in, at, at the university level. And in this report I mentioned, uh, on, on the China Global Smart Power Initiative, we, we provide a guide for, like, "Hey, if you, if you run a research, you know, uh, activity, here are just some steps you can take, to just to do due diligence, right? Not to become an investigator, but just to make sure that you're insulating your sensitive technologies and intellectual property from industrial espionage broadly, not just from China, but especially from China, because theirs has been such a massive effort."

Joe Rogan 46:33 Yeah, it's ... When y- I look at it personally, um, with, uh, the entrepreneur- entrepreneurial spirit of, uh, America and the freedom that America provides its citizens versus this connection that the Communist Party has with all businesses, and th- looking at it side by side, it's, it's a very unique and unprecedented competition. It's never existed like this before.

H.R. McMaster 46:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:58 And there's really no roadmap to follow in terms of, like, a historical l- competition that we can look at, like, "Well, this is how this has fared before, and this is where the shortcomings are." We're kind of navigating it in real time. Would you, uh, say that's accurate?

H.R. McMaster 47:12 I think that's accurate, certainly in terms of scale. Now, there ... A- as a historian, you're not allowed to ever say anything's unprecedented, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:18 Right.

H.R. McMaster 47:18 So, (laughs) so I would say, I would say that when we realized the scope of the competition with the, the Soviet Union, which became the Cold War, we did have an assessment like that. You know, there's this idea today that the, the Soviet economy was completely decoupled from the West. It wasn't really, especially in the areas of energy and some other areas. So, there, there, there were some actions taken, and, and, and, um, and legislation passed and regulations put in place that were aimed at restricting the flow of, uh, of technology and competing, uh, against, uh, an authoritarian rival with a statist economy. So, I think you can learn from some of that. We have, we have systems in place, uh, like the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US, right, where, where we look at investments coming into US companies to ensure that those investments aren't, you know, a Trojan horse designed to exfiltrate sensitive technologies that are critical for defense, for example. Um, but what we need now is kind of a reverse CFIUS as well, to look at our investments going into China to make sure we're not enabling ... Or we're not underwriting our own demise, right?

Joe Rogan 48:20 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 48:20 There's a, there's a quotation that is probably wrongly attributed to, to Vladimir Lenin, right, which is that, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

Joe Rogan 48:30 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 48:31 Well, it's actually worse in the case of China (laughs) because we're actually, you know, we're actually, you know, financing their purchase of the rope, so they can hang us.

Joe Rogan 48:40 (laughs) Jesus, that's a crazy way to look at it, but it sounds pretty accurate. It's, uh ... It's interesting that up until the Trump administration, I think, there was a lot of the general public that wasn't even aware that there was this big economic conflict with China. And when he started this discussion of the unfair exchange and the way trade is done with China-

H.R. McMaster 49:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 49:05 ... and how it's unfair, there's a lot of people that were upset about that.

H.R. McMaster 49:08 Right.

Joe Rogan 49:08 I think. But during that negotiation or during that, the discussion of that, when it became a, a public, uh, d- point of, uh, interest-... it seemed like the fog lifted and showed the threat of China.

H.R. McMaster 49:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:22 And I think it's only since 2016 on that most Americans are aware of how deep the rabbit hole goes with China, in terms of what you were saying earlier about like what they're, what they're doing in the Congo and other places to control and extract minerals and, and-

H.R. McMaster 49:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 49:37 ... resources and also to, uh, give loans out that they know can never be paid back-

H.R. McMaster 49:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:43 ... so then they'll dominate these areas and, and, and control them. And strategically, they've been moving these pieces in place at a, at a kind of frightening rate.

H.R. McMaster 49:52 Absolutely. And you know, the, the thing is with, uh, you know, I talked about, you know, co-option, coercion, concealment. I mean, the Chinese were really good at the concealment thing, right? I mean, they, they could just go, "Oh, you know, we're, we're about to liberalize. You know, it's really coming." And-

Joe Rogan 50:04 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 50:05 And, and I'll tell you, we, we have a short attention span, Joe. (laughs) And we don't look at history, you know?

Joe Rogan 50:09 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 50:09 And I think they used, you know, personnel changes and, and administration changes to say the same thing over and over again. Look what they did on cyber espionage, right?

Joe Rogan 50:17 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 50:17 Massive cyber espionage. And President Obama had that Rose Garden session with, with Xi Jinping and said, "Okay. We'll, we'll stop." Well, actually, they ramped it up. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:26 Right. Yes.

H.R. McMaster 50:26 They, they tried to get smarter about not getting caught so easily, and I'm sure he went back and chewed everybody's ass and said, "Hey, you guys have to get better at, at this espionage." But they didn't stop it, right? So-

Joe Rogan 50:35 Right.

H.R. McMaster 50:35 ... so I think that, you know, we have to stop being chumps, right? I mean, we have to recognize the nature of the competition. And I think, again, you know, this is the strategic narcissism idea, right? Define the world in relation to us, and then what happens is when we do that, we fall into all these cognitive traps. A, a friend of mine who's a, he's a great historian named Zachary Shore, it's worth reading anything the guy writes, I mean, but he has this term strategic empathy is what we need, right? We need to see competitions from the perspective of the other. Take time-

Joe Rogan 51:05 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 51:05 ... to look at this from the perspective of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. What are they obsessed with? They're obsessed with the, the fear of losing control. That's why they're extending and tightening their exclusive grip on power, and that's why they're promoting their authoritarian mercantilist model, uh, you know, internationally. And I think once you realize that, you, you, you re- you recognize, "Hey, we have to take a fundamentally different approach." And this is what happened in early 2017, and, and I think we had some of the right people in the right place. I mean, this guy Matt Pottinger, who I got to work with, he was our senior director for China, later became, uh, deputy national security advisor, extremely knowledgeable about China, you know, had studied China, had been the Wall Street Journal reporter in China, uh, had been a US Marine, you know, uh, for a break there (laughs) for a while, and then was involved in, in international finance and private equity. So, he kinda, he saw this multi-di- dimensional competition, and I really helped drive that what we call an inner agency process, right, to, to frame the problem and to begin to develop a strategy, which we implemented. And, you know, the scot- the strategy was largely part of it, a foundational document to it was, was, um, was declassified, uh, right before, uh, right before President Trump left office. It's called the Indo-Pacific Strategy. You can find it on the internet. And it just lays, uh, I, I sent this out, uh, uh, in the, in the form of a cabinet memo, uh, in my last few months in the job as national security advisor. And that, that, that document was meant to turn the ship completely, you know, away from what had been an approach of cooperation and engagement, right? That sounds nice, right? I mean, who doesn't want cooperation and engagement? (laughs) Well, if you're the only ones really cooperating, man-

Joe Rogan 52:42 Right.

H.R. McMaster 52:42 ... you're, you're getting your ass handed to you.

Joe Rogan 52:43 Then you're a chump.

H.R. McMaster 52:43 Right. (laughs) So-

Joe Rogan 52:44 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 52:45 ... so, so, so, uh, you know, that was a big shift, and then, and then, you know, our, the US trade representative, Bob Lighthizer, man, that, that guy's the guy to be reckoned with, man, 'cause, you know, he's extremely knowledgeable, and he'd seen all of these previous iterations, right? So when we started these, early in the Trump administration, we, we started these strategic dialogues, right, with, you know, with, uh, with the Chinese, uh, leaders, you know, how could that be bad? Strategic dialogue, that sounds nice too, right? But all this was was another means for them to string us along, you know, and, and to obfuscate and to, and to really try to avoid any consequences for their unfair practices and really economic aggression against us, right? And, um, and so I, it was, it was a big shift. Some of the right people were in place. And, and, you know, I think it's an area that has enjoyed some bipartisan support. I just hope people don't go soft on it, you know? I hope that they recognize this is a high-stakes competition. We have to remain determined.

Joe Rogan 53:38 It's, it's a high-stakes competition. There's certain aspects of it that just haven't existed before, and one of them is social media. Um, in, in watching what's going on with social media, particularly the use of, uh, troll farms and, and bots and even apps like TikTok-

H.R. McMaster 53:55 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:55 ... when you find the difference between the way China uses their version of TikTok to highlight scientific experiments and athletic accomplishments, and then they shut it off for kids at 10:00 PM.

H.R. McMaster 54:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:08 Like you're not even allowed to use it.

H.R. McMaster 54:09 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 54:09 I mean, meanwhile in America, kids are, uh, drinking piss and lighting their farts on fire and doing anything they can to get likes.

H.R. McMaster 54:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:17 And, and they're rewarded with these likes. And the- there's unquestionably a concerted effort to make these kids more addicted to these apps, get them-

H.R. McMaster 54:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:29 ... more, more viral with the most ridiculous things that they can do.

H.R. McMaster 54:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:33 And it's sort of like the, it's like it's a directed dumbing down-

H.R. McMaster 54:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:39 ... of kids. And it... and this insanely addictive app that when software engineers have back engineered TikTok and looked at how it's operated, it's one of the most invasive applications they've ever found in terms of the way it, uh, ch- checks your use of all other platforms and-

H.R. McMaster 54:57 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 54:57 ... and, and collects data. I mean, it was stunning when they looked at it.

H.R. McMaster 55:01 Yeah, absolutely. I heard your conversation with Tristan on this, by the way.

Joe Rogan 55:03 Yes.

H.R. McMaster 55:03 Which was great. You know, and he's, he's awesome at the-

Joe Rogan 55:06 Yeah, he is.

H.R. McMaster 55:06 ... on this topic. And, you know, I, I think the point that he makes and the point that's absolutely right here is that, you know, we, we, we made this assumption, right? Hey, the opening up, the, you know, the internet, social media, it's, it's, I mean, it's gonna make authoritarianism untenable, right? There's no way they're gonna be able to maintain control. Well, I mean, the Chinese Communist Party has figured out a way to weaponize social media in a way to extend their grip on power to do what you mentioned, which is really to condition people with certain messages, right, and, and in the US too, right? What, you know, the w- the way that the algorithm presents information is a way to slowly change kind of your opinion of China, Chinese Communist Party-

Joe Rogan 55:41 Yes.

H.R. McMaster 55:41 ... and so forth. But internal to China, it, they've also weaponized people's social networks against them, right?

Joe Rogan 55:48 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 55:48 So that ... So if you say a cross word about the party, then, then those who are in your social circle could get punished.

Joe Rogan 55:54 Right.

H.R. McMaster 55:54 And so they put pressure on you, "Hey, conform, conform." Right? And so it is, you know, it's something beyond Orwell even ever mentioned, uh, uh, ever imagined in-

Joe Rogan 56:03 Right.

H.R. McMaster 56:03 ... '84.And, and so I think what we have to do is we have to recognize, obviously, you know, the negative effects of social media here and, and protect ourselves against it. Because China and Russia, especially, is quite adept at this.

Joe Rogan 56:15 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 56:15 Uh, tries to magnify kind of extreme messages, you know, to, to, to, to polarize us further and to pit us against each other, to reduce our confidence in who we are as a people, right? And our confidence in our democratic principles and institutions and processes. You know, for example, I mean, I don't think, I don't think the Kremlin gives a damn who wins our elections-

Joe Rogan 56:37 Right.

H.R. McMaster 56:37 ... as long as a large number of Americans doubt the legitimacy of the result. Now-

Joe Rogan 56:40 That's important to, to state.

H.R. McMaster 56:42 Right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:42 Because I think a lot of people are under the impression that they wanted one party or another party to win. Their goal is to undermine democracy in America.

H.R. McMaster 56:51 Absolutely. And this was, this is what they did in 2016 and again in 2020. In 2016, remember, I, I went into the... I arrived in the White House at the end of February, right? So, uh, unexpectedly, my, my, my, uh, my predecessor, uh, had, had just left, um, you know, just started the job and left g- early and, uh, quickly. And, um, but, uh, again, you already heard this cacophony, right, of, of, uh, "Hey, the, the election was determined, you know, by the Russians," which I, I believe is untrue, right? I, I really don't think the Russians cared who won in 2016 either. What they wanted to do was to, to raise doubts about it. And, and one of the reasons why I, I conclude that is that if you look at the Russian bot and troll traffic from the Internet Research Agency, this front organization, right, for the, for the, the GRU and the SVR, the, you know, the military and, and civilian intelligence wings who were running this operation. The, the traffic went like way up, you know, after the election, right? And, and, and the purpose of that was, again, to raise doubts about it. The initial campaign that they actually launched and then had to pull back was that... on, on, on the assumption that Hillary Clinton won. I mean, I, actually, I think, I think that the Russians were as surprised as Donald Trump was (laughs) when, wh- wh- when he won the election, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:08 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 58:08 And, and, uh, and so, you know, uh, you know, I, their, their initial campaign was, "Hey, Trump would have won, but it was rigged." Well, then they realized, "Oh, God, Trump won. What do we do now?" And so they changed the message to, "Trump would have won the popular vote if it wasn't rigged." Right?

Joe Rogan 58:22 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 58:22 So they, what they want you to do is believe that the results of the election are invalid. But why is that? Because the strength of our democracy is that we believe we have agency, right? We have a say over our future, right? Because we have a vote, right? That's a beautiful thing, man, that we can, you know, we have the opportunity for self-correction and improvement short of revolution. But if you stop believing that, right, you, you start believing that, "I am disenfranchised, I don't have a say-"

Joe Rogan 58:48 Oh, right. Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 58:49 ... it, it's encourages all kinds of, you know, maybe even violence, right? And, and what you saw on January 6th, for example. So I-

Joe Rogan 58:56 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 58:56 ... I, I really... Or what you saw in Portland and Seattle on the other end of the spectrum. So, what they want is they want more Americans to feel disenfranchised, to feel like they don't have a say in how they're governed. And the main way to do that, "Hey, reduce confidence in our elections."

Joe Rogan 59:09 Did you see, um, Ted Cruz question that woman, I don't remember her name. Uh, she's, uh, from the FBI, and he asked her about agent provocateurs at January 6th and whether or not they, uh, engaged in any activity there? And she said she could not r- answer that. And whether or not they engaged in encouraging violence, and she could not answer that.

H.R. McMaster 59:31 No.

Joe Rogan 59:31 Like, did you see that?

H.R. McMaster 59:32 I didn't see it, but I, I mean, I, I would be surprised if there weren't, right? Now, now, the thing is-

Joe Rogan 59:37 Why do they do that?

H.R. McMaster 59:38 The, the, the... why, why they-

Joe Rogan 59:39 Why would the FBI engage in that?

H.R. McMaster 59:42 Would... Not, not answer. Oh, the FBI wouldn't, wouldn't provoke-

Joe Rogan 59:44 That's what, that's what they were talking about. Agent provocateurs.

H.R. McMaster 59:47 I don't... Not from us, I wouldn't say. Now, now, I would say there might be FBI agents who infiltrate organizations that have a violent agenda, right? We want them to do that. But I, I thought you were talking about the Russians. I think what the Russians-

Joe Rogan 59:59 No, we... But-

H.R. McMaster 59:59 ... try to do is-

Joe Rogan 59:59 But FBI agents that... if, if the FBI agents were involved in January 6th.

H.R. McMaster 1:00:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:05 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:00:06 I... That's... Joe, that doesn't sound right to me. I mean, I don't know. I didn't hear about it.

Joe Rogan 1:00:09 What doesn't sound right? Agent provocateurs?

H.R. McMaster 1:00:11 Yeah, agent provocateurs from the government. I mean, I can't imagine they would do that, you know.

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 Well, why wouldn't she just say no?

H.R. McMaster 1:00:17 Uh, I don't know. I don't-

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 You wanna see it?

H.R. McMaster 1:00:19 Yeah, I'll show... Yeah, I'll take a look at it.

Joe Rogan 1:00:20 Yeah. Let's, let's, let's take a look at it, because it's... there's a... What is the guy's name? Ray Epps? The guy that everyone keeps discussing. 'Cause there's a guy who was encouraging people to go into the Capitol. He was, uh, a guy that was, uh, in multiple videos. And, you know, some people thought he was a Fed, like, immediately and other people were listening to him. But this guy was trying to encourage people to go into the Capitol Building. Here, let's, let's play this, just so you can hear Ted Cruz.

Narrator 1:00:49 I want to turn to the FBI. How many FBI agents or confidential informants actively participated in the events of January 6th? Sir, I'm sure you can appreciate that I can't go into the specifics of sources and methods. Uh- Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th? Yes or no? Sir, I can't... I can't answer that. Did any FBI agents or confidential informants commit crimes of violence on January 6th? I can't answer that, sir. Did any FBI agents or FBI informants actively encourage and incite crimes of violence on January 6th? Sir, I can't answer that.

Joe Rogan 1:01:40 Like, that's disturbing to the American people.

H.R. McMaster 1:01:42 Yeah. Yeah. I-

Joe Rogan 1:01:42 They see something like that, and whether it's-

H.R. McMaster 1:01:45 I don't... I just-

Joe Rogan 1:01:45 ... poor messaging on, on her part or whether it's...

H.R. McMaster 1:01:48 I... just like... It's like Agent Friday, you know, "Just the facts, ma'am."

Joe Rogan 1:01:51 Yeah. (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 1:01:51 Which is like, "Come on, open up a little bit."

Joe Rogan 1:01:53 Da da da da.

H.R. McMaster 1:01:53 You know what I mean? You know, the, the analogy that comes to mind, and I... of course, you know, we'll continue to learn more about this, but... is that, you know, I'm sure there are DEA agents who participate in drug deals, you know, for example.

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 Yes. Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:02:04 Because they're trying to, they're trying to gain visibility of an organization, for example. So I, I... My concern would be that...You know, I- I- I think, I hope that this commission takes kind of a longer view, right? And says, "Why were so many people believing," right? Believing that- that- that- that the election was invalid, and believing that their only recourse was to, you know, to assault the Capitol. And I think, Joe, if you get- if you take a long view of this, it goes back, I think, to the transition of the global economy in the '90s. You know, I think that there are large numbers of Americans who were disenfranchised, left behind by transitions in the- in the- in the economy. And then- and then, of course, after, you know, after World Trade Organization, entry of China, that accelerated, right? A loss of a lot of good manufacturing jobs. I don't know if you ever saw the, uh, there was a great documentary on Dayton, Ohio, like what happened to Dayton, Ohio, like, in this period of time. And then, you- you add on top of that, right? S- you know, you- you add, you know, the unanticipated length and difficulty of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You lay on top of that a financial crisis, right? 2008, you know, 2009, and- and- and so many people who were affected in a profound way, you know, a- a- about- about that. Uh, and then- and then you, how about laying on an opioid e- epidemic, at the same- at the same time? And I think, you know, we, I- I think our society has received these blows, you know? And there are a large number of Americans who don't have faith in their political elites. They feel like they don't give a damn about them. They don't understand them, right? That they're, you know, that they're in this Washington bubble. And so, you know, I- I- I think that that dynamic of disenfranchisement, loss of confidence, also maybe explains some of the far left, you know, uh, you know, uh- uh, violence in- in-

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:03:42 ... Portland and Seattle. So, I think what we have to do is work together, man, I mean to- to restore our confidence, right? Our confidence in who we are as Americans, our confidence in the great promise of this country. We all have to work together to help the younger generation take advantage of the great promise of this country, overcome the obstacles associated with, you know, with education, right? I mean, you know (laughs) , it shouldn't, it- it shouldn't be determined, you know, uh, you know, based on your ZIP Code how many obstacles you have to overcome before you can take advantage of the promise of this country.

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 Sure. Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:04:15 You know? So, I- I- I just hope, oh man, I just- I just hope that this- this experience that we've had, you know, in- in recent years can begin to bring us back together. 'Cause the trend has been, it's just, it's driving us even further apart, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:04:28 Yeah, and that's, that trend is d- definitely accentuated by social media, and I'm sure by foreign actors involved in social media as well. Um, but I think when we're talking about the- the feeling of disenfranchisement, when you see something like that, and you think that maybe the FBI was involved in some agent provocateur maneuvers where they were trying to encourage people to do something violent or stupid, and, you know, a lot of those people that went to that January 6th thing, they were morons. And they were e- easily manipulated. And it's scary for people to think, like, the- the Governor Whitmer thing. I'm sure you're aware of that, that most of the people that were involved in that plot to kidnap her were feds.

H.R. McMaster 1:05:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:10 That was revealed. And when people said that, "Well, what's going on here? They're- they're organizing some fake kidnapping attempt on a governor and trying to get people involved to, uh, to do this?" It was, what was the amount of people that were in- it was the majority of the people that were involved in this plot turned out to be undercover agents.

H.R. McMaster 1:05:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 And that- that kind of shit is, uh, uh, it- it does as much to decrease our confidence in the way things are governed as anything.

H.R. McMaster 1:05:40 Well, and that- that's why we have to really put at the top of our agenda strengthening institutions, right? You know, and, you know, no ins- no- none of our institutions are- are flawless, obviously, right? And what you want is- is judicial review, right? For- for warrants. You know, we- we know what happened with the, you know, the abuse of- of, uh, of warrants and wiretap information associated with, you know, the, you know, the Russia investigation and all that, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:06:04 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:06:04 ... back, going back to 2016. Uh, but- but I think that we- we have to put institutional reform on our agenda. If we, if we wanna look at it from a positive perspective, you know? I mean, our founders, Joe, came up with a great system, man. I mean, you know (laughs) ?

Joe Rogan 1:06:18 It's pretty amazing how-

H.R. McMaster 1:06:19 It's pretty-

Joe Rogan 1:06:20 ... much they nailed it, in the 1700s.

H.R. McMaster 1:06:22 They nailed it, man. I mean, separation of powers, right?

Joe Rogan 1:06:25 Mm-hmm.

H.R. McMaster 1:06:25 Due process of law. You know, and- and, you know, representative government. And- and, uh, you know, the- the number one branch in our government is the Congress, right? Because the radical idea of the American Revolution was, "Hey, the people govern. Sovereignty is with the people," right? Now, not everybody was enfranchised, right? It took almost 100 years for us to remove the greatest blight on our history, the institution of slavery. But our country has been always a work in progress, but founded, I think, on- on principles that made those previous abuses untenable over time, right?

Joe Rogan 1:06:56 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:06:56 You know, like slavery, like Jim Crow. And so, I- I think what we saw on January 6th, there's a positive story to it. Not to be Pollyannaish about it or anything, you know, but I- I'm telling you, you know, look what happened. You know, our, every- every case of, you know, of- of- uh, of fraud, of potential fraud in the election was brought before judges, right? And judges heard that. You know, and these were, you know, these, it doesn't matter who appointed these judges, but they were adjudicated. Uh, on that day, you know, I mean, Senator McConnell will never be accused of being a charismatic man (laughs) , you know? But- but he gave- he gave a pretty damn good speech right before the assault on the Capitol. The vice president did the right thing. Our institutions held up even though they were under duress, right? So when, uh, you know, i- I think when we look at our system, we ought to be proud of our system and recognize, okay, it's time for us to really reform it and to strengthen our institutions.

Joe Rogan 1:07:45 Do you think that anything could have been done to prevent what happened on January 6th? Like, could the President have done something? Could- do you think that he could have given a speech or he could have said something?

H.R. McMaster 1:07:55 Absolutely. Yeah, I think, I think a lot of what we've seen in- in recent years, and I would say this is the case of the President and associated with, uh, the events leading up to- to- to, uh, to January 6th, but also politicians on both sides of the- of the spectrum, okay? And this is why I got, this, I think it's import- I- I'm a nonpartisan guy still, right? I mean, I- I don't, you know, I'm- I'm a, you know, I'm a washed-up general, right?

Joe Rogan 1:08:16 (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 1:08:16 (laughs) I don't think washed-up generals should become partisan. Uh, you know, I think that, I think sometimes that can be-

Joe Rogan 1:08:20 Did you vote in 2020 for the first time?

H.R. McMaster 1:08:22 I did, man. I did.

Joe Rogan 1:08:23 All right.

H.R. McMaster 1:08:23 I did. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:24 I won't ask you who you voted for. (laughs)

H.R. McMaster 1:08:25 (laughs) I'm registered independent.

Joe Rogan 1:08:26 You know, yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:08:27 And so- so- so, uh, you know, I think, uh ...... you know, I, I, I think that what we have to do is demand better, right? So you had, uh, I think what you're seeing these days is anti-leadership. It's like the opposite of leadership, right? Leadership should convene people together. It should get to, really, the politics of addition, right? We should start conversations with, "Hey, what do we, what do we agree on here?"

Joe Rogan 1:08:48 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:08:48 And I think if we did that, we could get so much done in so many of these areas, just on the basis of what we do agree on. But so much of politics now is performative rather than formative, right?

Joe Rogan 1:09:00 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:09:00 It's to get in front of the camera, right? It's to do a grandstanding interview. It's to be, uh, it's to, uh, to get your, your name and your party out there and advance your party's interests. How about just th- the interests of the American people? And, and there are leaders who do that, but if you look at, you know, President Trump's behavior, which I think is abhorrent up to January 6th, but also look at some of the statements for then, then-candidate for Vice President Kamala Harris when she said, "I wouldn't take a vaccine from the Trump administration."

Joe Rogan 1:09:25 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:09:25 (laughs) Well, she said that for partisan purposes.

Joe Rogan 1:09:27 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:09:27 Or, or when then, uh, Vice President Biden, uh, before the election said, "Hey, if, uh, you know, if President Trump doesn't leave, the Joint Chiefs of Staff will march him out of the..." I mean, come on.

Joe Rogan 1:09:36 Yeah.

H.R. McMaster 1:09:36 The military has no role. Actually, what's brilliant about our system, Joe, you know, the Executive Branch has no role in the transition. If you look at what happened, right? It was, it was under Article II, the, you know, uh, under Article I, the, you know, the Congress, uh, a- and, and then especially Article III to adjudicate, you know, any of the claims of fraud.

Joe Rogan 1:09:56 Um, this thing with Whitmer, do you, you got that article? Like, wh- 'Cause I've always wanted to ask someone who's deep into government. At least 12 FBI informants infiltrated the alleged kidnapping plot that led to the arrest of six men. Um, so the crux of the case is whether five alleged, alleged extremists, or the FBI, fueled the plan. BuzzFeed reported that the FBI helped start the plot, recruit members, pay travel costs, while the other reporters found one informant even led military training as a part of the plot. Now, I don't know how much of this is real or true, I don't know what's accurate, but why would anybody do that?

H.R. McMaster 1:10:40 Well, you know, the good thing about our system is, you know, we're gonna find out. Because the, what I really like about, about, you know, our, our, you know, that when the FBI gets involved in a case, whether it's a terrorist case or anything, it all becomes public record, right? So as these trials go on, you're gonna be able to read the whole thing yourself, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:10:57 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:10:57 And not rely on a BuzzFeed report or any other report. But I think it's, it's an important question to ask, right? What is the appropriate role of the FBI and did they, did they conduct their role appropriately? Now, I'll tell you, I've worked with, uh, a lot of FBI agents across my career, uh, mainly abroad, you know, uh, in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They're tremendous professionals, right? They know that the reputation of, uh, DOJ and FBI has been sullied by partisan politics. And, and these are people, I mean, who served their whole careers like I did, you know, in the military and, and, and the FBI. They're very concerned about the reputation of the institution, and there's a very strong movement toward reform in a non-partisan, uh, non-partisan direction. And that's what I think we have to demand. You know, from our leaders at the political level who are appointed, you know, Attorney General and so forth, but from the Director of the FBI, who of course is now serving across two administrations, um, you know, and I, and I think that's, uh, I'm sure that's the top of their agenda, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:11:51 So, in looking at this with, uh, giving it the most charitable consideration, w- would you say that this is, what they're trying to do is find people who were trying or actively interested in doing something like this and kidnapping and, and then trying to encourage them to go forward with that? Because then you could infiltrate these organizations? Like, what would be the charitable view of something like that?

H.R. McMaster 1:12:16 Yeah. See, I'd, I'd, you'd have to ask somebody who's done this before.

Joe Rogan 1:12:19 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:12:19 And I know you have some people that you've, that you've had on the show who could speak more knowledgeably about it. But, you know, the, of course something tips off an investigation, right?

Joe Rogan 1:12:27 Right.

H.R. McMaster 1:12:27 You get some kind of report of a crime. Uh, then you have to open a case, you know, and,