administration? i have to admit that i had the thought in the last few days, i thought about this. if hillary clinton had essentially misplaced a carrier group, deceived about it, essentially used it as a kind of bluffing threat in a game of brinksmanship with a nuclear power and it turned out it was the wrong place, this would be iconic. this would be dukakis in the tank. for decades we would be hearing about it. well, there s no doubt about it. i mean general mattis is a career military officer. one of the problems is he doesn t have any staff because they won t allow him to pick the people that he wants. general mcmaster is a career military officer. what was he doing? he s the president s national security adviser. he should be checking up. when is it going to get there? what kind of signal are we going to send? the president compounded this by talking about submarines. normally we don t know that. i mean it s supposed to be the carrier and, you know, four escorts. the idea tha
though. what s that? it s headed there now. it wasn t headed there last week. that s not what we ever said. we said it was heading there, and it was headed there. i m joined by lawrence korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense during the reagan administration as a retired naval reserve captain. mr. korb, i do not understand how this happened at a basic level, how something as important as the whereabouts and current direction of a carrier group meant to send a signal to a nuclear power was somehow mangled through some game of telephone. yeah. it is incomprehensible, but unfortunately it s very typical of the way this administration makes decisions. the day on april 8th, the commander in chief of the pacific, the combatant commander, said it s on its way up to the korean peninsula. the 11, 12, 13, 14, you had mattis, the secretary of defense, you had sean spicer, you had the president all saying, you know, it s on its way up there.
north koreans were going to have their parade and the missile test. the south koreans are furious. one of the candidates for president is saying, you lied to us. the chinese are laughing at us. so you ended up with the worst of all possible worlds, and you wonder who s in charge in this administration? i have to admit that i had the thought in the last few days, i thought about this. if hillary clinton had essentially misplaced a carrier group, deceived about it, essentially used it as a kind of bluffing threat in a game of brinksmanship with a nuclear power and it turned out it was the wrong place, this would be iconic. this would be dukakis in the tank. for decades we would be hearing about it. well, there s no doubt about it. i mean general mattis is a career military officer. one of the problems is he doesn t have any staff because they won t allow him to pick the people that he wants. general mcmaster is a career
none of them seemed to know. what was general mcmaster, the national security council director, doing? wasn t he tracking it? wasn t mattis? mattis actually met with admiral harris, the combatant commander, before he said this on the 14th. so you ve got the 8th is the first time someone in the chain of command says this, and then you have it move up you know, the commander in dheef and then his spokespeople and then mattis. all these people for eight or nine days while it s moving in the opposite direction. like isn t there a google map somewhere up in the situation room that shows where this thing is? well, you would hope that the secretary of defense and his staff or the national security council staff where know where all our carrier battle groups are because you may have to move them. you could have have some more trouble in the middle east, in syria, for example. yes, you should know. and the fact is that they weren t checking on this given the fact that we needed it there b
of command says this, and then you have it move up you know, the commander in dheef and then his spokespeople and then mattis. all these people for eight or nine days while it s moving in the opposite direction. like isn t there a google map somewhere up in the situation room that shows where this thing is? well, you would hope that the secretary of defense and his staff or the national security council staff where know where all our carrier battle groups are because you may have to move them. you could have have some more trouble in the middle east, in syria, for example. yes, you should know. and the fact is that they weren t checking on this given the fact that we needed it there by the 15th of april, when the north koreans were going to have their parade and the missile test. the south koreans are furious. one of the candidas for president is saying, you lied to us. the chinese are laughing at us. so you ended up with the worst of all possible worlds, and you wonder who s in ch