It shall be the policy of this nation
to regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere
as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United
States.
Our government is united in its determination
to take all necessary measures
in support of freedom and in defense of peace in
Southeast Asia.
Late yesterday, I canceled a carefully planned operation,
which was underway in Iran,
to position our rescue team
for a later withdrawal of American hostages.
At 7:00 this evening, Eastern Time,
air and naval forces of the United States launched a
series of strikes against the headquarters,
terrorist facilities, and military assets that support Muammar
Gaddafi's subversive activities. Earlier today,
I ordered American forces to strike Iraq.
Our missiles sent the following message to Saddam Hussein.
When you abuse your own people or threaten your neighbors,
you must pay a price.
At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the
early stages of military operations
to disarm Iraq, to free its people,
and to defend the world from grave danger.
Tonight I can report to the American people and to
the world
that the United States has conducted an operation that killed
Osama bin Laden,
the leader of Al Qaeda.
Those are some of the consequential actions ordered by American
presidents over the last 62 years.
And behind each of those moments were dramatic scenes away
from the press and the cameras in the White House
Situation Room.
That's the topic of the new book titled The Situation
Room,
The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis,
which also gives an inside account of the Situation Room
on January 6th, 2021. With us now the book's author,
George Stephanopoulos. He is, of course,
the Co anchor of Good Morning America and the host
of
ABC's This Week. He also served as a senior advisor,
of course, in the Clinton White House and George.
So man, this is such a thrill to have you
on the show.
Thank you so much for being here.
He was also thrilled to hear you and Willie talk
during the break about 8:00 bedtimes.
It's something we all share.
Yeah. Well, exactly. I mean,
for you, it may be 8:00,
you may be healthier than us.
For us, it's it's 6:00,
It's will of fortune. And then boom,
we're in bed. But, George,
what what excites me so much about this book is
that you weren't didn't have a front row seat
to history. You were a part of history.
You were there inside the Clinton White House.
You saw this happen. You also take readers in a
place where we've never been before,
and that's inside the Situation Room on January the 6th.
Tell us about that and what else we're going to
see
reading this book. Most harrowing story in the book,
Joe, I, I, I, I tracked down a duty officer
a a a White House Situation Room duty officer named
Mike Stiegler who's actually inside the Situation Room on January
6th. And he talks about going in for his 12
hour shift.
Driving in around 4:00 AM and knowing as he was
driving in
to the White House that day,
quite early in the morning,
that something was off in the city.
And he was on duty on watch
when the Capitol was breached.
When the riot broke through a security line at the
Capitol and what he describes happened next is just unbelievable
and stunning.
He was in direct contact with the Secret Service hearing.
How much danger Vice President Mike Pence
was in, Even though, you know,
you have some politicians like Senator JD Vance,
I know you were just talking to about a few
minutes ago,
who now questioned whether the vice president was really in
danger that day,
Mike Stigler says. There was no question that the vice
president was in danger that day and the situation became
so heroin
on Capitol Hill that the White House Situation Room had
to do something that had only been done once before
in the history of the United States.
And that was implement what is called the continuity of
government operations.
That's the whole set of procedures that sets up the
line of succession that was designed originally
by Dwight Eisenhower to make sure the government survived a
nuclear attack.
They had to start to implement these procedures on January
6th,
you know, setting up different situations and was being ready
to move
people in the government to safe locations.
And it had only been done once before on 9/11.
They started to implement these procedures
on January 6th because of what was going on in
the Capitol inspired by the President United States.
Just imagine that, Joe. You know,
the White House Situation room over the course of the
60 years since John F Kennedy created,
has dealt with assassinations of President,
the assassination of John F Kennedy,
attempted assassinations on Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
They've dealt with terror attacks on 9/11,
they've dealt with wars, they've dealt with national disasters.
But here on this day,
they were dealing with an insurrection against the United States
government inspired
by the President of the United States.
And I asked Mike Stiegler
when I spoke with him,
did the president ever called down to the Situation Room
that day?
Not once. Wow. Wow. I guess not surprising,
but still shocking. George, good morning.
Congratulations on the book. Boy,
this is just full, just full of extraordinary new reporting
And as Joe said,
lets us inside A room that most Americans never will
see.
You talked before January 6 about the way Donald Trump,
then President Trump, was viewed.
His Homeland Security adviser, Tom Bossert,
said this. He was the least disciplined,
least organized human I've ever met in my life.
None of his staffers could stop him from constantly undermining
us and making decisions outside the process.
So what did Tom Bossert and others see inside that
room that alarmed them?
George Tom Bosser, who had served in other administrations,
who had served in George W Bush's administration,
he did have several veterans of other administrations like John
Bolton,
who also served in the Trump White House.
And what they say to a person
is that there was nothing normal
about the Trump White House.
And the way the Situation Room was used,
it was used to fire Omarosa.
That had never happened before.
Donald Trump himself didn't use it all that much.
And you know, what had been built up in those
sixty years was
a process that was continued across
administrations, Republican and Democrat. Probably the the person who ran
it best and was Brent Scowcroft who did it for
George HW Bush,
President George HW Bush. But everything broke down
in the Trump administration. And in many ways you find
times when I spoke with many situation and duty officers
and and others who were working at the time who
described almost like they were trying to run the government
almost at times
in a way that would keep the policies of the
Trump administration going despite what the president himself was doing.
And you know, most notably on on the issue of
Ukraine where they were trying to send aid and assistance
to the new government and the president was holding it
up because he wanted to,
you know, have have Zelensky investigate the Bidens.
So George, Congrats on the book.
Talk to us about the Situation Room.
The morning of Tuesday, September
11th, 2001. The President of the United States,
of course, was not there.
He was in Florida Education at an education event when
the planes hit the World Trade Center
and more. But take us inside the room.
What happened there and what was the expectation as to
what was going to occur there?
Well, that was it's it's it's an incredible story.
First of all, the Situation Room,
you know, they, they clocked when the first plane went
into the World Trade Center.
But immediately when that second plane went in,
like a duty officer named Rob Hargis said immediately America
is under attack.
He called those words into the sit room.
Director Deb Lower, who was actually traveling with President Bush
that day,
who told them to Andy Card,
who said, who said them?
The president that was became,
you know, the most famous words from that day.
America is under attack. But what's most incredible about that
day,
and the valor and the patriotism we saw exhibited that
day is the way the Situation Room duty officers
reacted #1. Even if they were off duty that day,
they raced in to the Situation Room to be there
#2. You'll remember that after the second
plane hit the World Trade Center,
there were many more planes
in the air and everyone believed
that the White House was a target.
And in fact, the White House was ordered
to evacuate and the sit room duty officers were ordered
to evacuate not once,
not twice, but three different times.
They were ordered to evacuate and every single time they
just looked up and kept on doing their job.
I spoke with one duty officer named Ed Podinsky was
a naval officer who said,
you know this is where we fight from.
They were determined to do their duty
that day. It finally because it became clear they were
not going to leave,
they finally passed around little 3 by 5 cards
and asked each person who was there to write down
their name and Social Security number so they could put
that in a safe space.
It was called the Kill list.
So they would know who might have died in the
Situation Room on that day.
George, having done all this reporting on what the Situation
Room was like under Donald Trump in his first administration,
I don't know the degree to which history can give
us some sense of what might happen next.
But if Donald Trump gets elected in November,
what kinds of things and what kind of usage of
the Situation Room are you imagining in the second administration
it's going to be uncontrolled?
You know, one of the things that I point out
and others have pointed out as well,
but I pointed out in my chapter on President Trump
is the most damning testimony of his confidence and character
comes from those who had the most senior level positions
in the White House Situation Room,
who served under them. From James Mattis,
the Defense Secretary. From John Bolton,
his national security adviser. From John Kelly,
his White House chief of staff,
who all talk about how frightened they are by the
prospect that he would become president again,
apparently with no guardrails, Without the kind of people who
are serving him
in the first term. Instead of having guardrails,
it appears he's going to have a bunch of enablers
like those you see, you know,
sitting with him in the courtroom over the last
several days. And it's something that is is chilling
to many of those who served in the Situation Room
and during the first administration but are no longer supporting
President Trump.
George, I have to ask on behalf of Mika,
who is not here today,
about the Grill Flame program involving her father,
the great Zabig Brzezinski and a briefing he gave to
President and First Lady Carter.
Tell us about it. Just just incredible.
You know, I came across as I was working on
the book early on,
A1 line diary entry in Jimmy
Carter's Diaries from May 8th,
1980 and he said had a briefing in the situation
room on parapsychology
using remote bureaus to find longitude,
latitude, etc. That was the most intriguing line I saw
in Jimmy Carter's diary,
had parapsycology and the situation
room and and you know,
I finally was able to come across the naval officer
who was there that day who gave him
the briefing. And what happened was it was Jimmy Carter
speaking,
Burzynski, you see it's big right there.
And Rosalynn Carter, which was the other reason this was
kind of an unusual
meeting in the situation, was the only one I could
find where a first lady was actually in an official
briefing in the Situation Room
and they had this naval officer who had become an
expert in what was called Operation Girl Flame.
You just mentioned. It was was an actual program in
the United States government in the 1970s and
1980s where they used psychics
to do what they called remote viewing,
to sit in dark rooms and kind of imagine situations
happening around the world
now. Why is that date important?
May 8th, 1980. That was two weeks
after the failed rescue mission for the Iran hostages.
Jimmy, you know, crippled the Carter presidency.
He was fade locked in a reelection race with Ronald
Reagan.
He was losing. He was about to lose.
The economy was flatlining, so he was just looking for
any information he could possibly get.
So he gets this briefing on the parapsychology program,
doesn't say a word at the end of it,
takes out his notepad, just writes one word on it
and slides it across the table.
To Jake Stewart, the word was hostages.
Can you do anything? Wow.