Here in the zoom chat, members of the georgetown community, but also the broader public who is following us on social media or other channels. This is a really timely conversation, i think, as we look at the world and the state of our politics right now, and the number of crises that were all dealing with, much of it falls at the doorstep of the oval office to be dealt with. And so to help us sort of sort through how president s think about this, we thought who better to convene than a group of former chiefs of staff who have been there on the front line, working arm in arm with the president of the United States, with the last four president s of the United States in tackling various crises. These crises have come in all shapes, sizes, and forms, whether were talking about military action, whether were talking about economic crises, terror attacks, natural disasters, or global pandemics. The guests on our panel tonight have seen it all. So were very fortunate to have them join us. Were going to jump into the conversation in a moment, but one peefs housekeeping, for those of you here on zoom, members of the georgetown community, youll see at the bottom of your screen a q a tab. Thats where you can go ahead and submit your question. Feel free to start submitting your questions now and throughout the entire program. Our team will be monitoring that tab, and about halfway through the program, after identify had a chance to talk with our panel for a little bit, were going to invite you to join the conversation. So submit your questions of the tab below, keep an eye on the chat. Our team will let you know through the chat when were ready to call you up, and then youll get a chance to ask your question directly. And so, with that, i want to thank all of our panelists again. We talked about each of you, each of the president s you serve has to deal with very, very different crises. Also, each of the four of them, they had very unique and different leadership styles. And so lets just start there. From your perspectives, having seen them up close and personal, what are the most important Leadership Qualities a president needs in order to deal with crisis . Why dont we start with mack. First of all, im delighted to be with you, my fellow chiefs here this afternoon, and georgetown is special, because our older son, mark, graduated there in 1995, a true hoya, were proud of that. So im very pleased to be here today. I think in terms of crisis, in terms of president ial leadership, at least with president clinton, my sense was we had what tom brokaw used to call u. F. O. , unforeseen occurrence. Some people would kind of zoom in, totally unexpected. I think president clinton was, first of all, he would grasp that this was a serious issue, if not a potential or maybe immediate crisis, something that had to be dealt with. At the same time, he wanted to get the facts quickly and mobilize a plan to deal with that. And he had a good ability to keep a broader perform, to keep the broader agenda moving, because of each of the other very distinguished, accomplished families today know thats the essence of any white house. Youve got to keep the broad agenda moving forward while dealing with these issues. But i would say those are the real qualities that president clinton had in times of a major event or major crisis. Andy, how about from your perspective . Ndy, i think youre on mute. The president has to be to be an optimist, not a pessimist, and has to have the courage to make decisions. If theyre a pessimist and they get up and make a decision that said follow me and things will get worse, no one will follow them. So you have to be an optimist and believe that youre making the right decision. But in making that right decision, understand that you cant do it alone. And if youre making a decision by yourself, chances are people will stop following you pretty soon. So optimism, having the courage to make tough decisions, and counsel and o seek advice, and dont just ask an echo chamber to bounce back to you what youve already said. Make sure there are contrarians, people who will challenge you in the group, but have the courage to make that tough decision and do it optimistically so that people have the courage to follow you. You know, a president doesnt get to implement any decision they made. It must be implemented by other people. So they cant just make a decision and walk away from it. They have to make a decision, be optimistic about it, so people want to implement the decision and carry it out and help bring it, so that the results live up to the president s expectation. Denis . Thanks. Let me draw in mack and say its great to be with everybody. How are you reading me . You read me ok . Yep, youre great. Ok. Its really great to be with andy and with scommack mick, and i want to apologize in this public setting what i just did in privately for making them wait for me, so thanks, guys, for that, and apology. Id say four things about crisis, mo. You got to know when youre in one, and thats sometimes a challefpblgt youve got to know what are the multitude of problems that any president can confront in any day or week is actually one thats a crisis. So you have to be cognizant of just how much damage a particular challenge will present, thats one. Two, you got to be really scompleer communicate with the country what you know, and importantly, what you dont know. Youve got to make decisions, as andy says, the president esnt get to implement the decision that he makes, and in fact, oftentimes hes trying to empower individuals to make decisions for themselves decision that he makes, and in fact, oftentimes hes trying to empower individuals to make decisions for themselves. And so the challenge is communicating to them best that really comes down sed on to assignments for the chief to make sure that youre not playing a game of five year old soccer where everybody is chasing the ball down the field. In fact, youve got the field covered. Youve got the ongoing work against other challenges fully underway. But you also have the best available resources on the crisis. So those are the things id say, and again, its really good to be with everybody at georgetown there on the hill. Thanks, denis. Then well turn to our other Foreign Service alum, mick. Thanks mo. And it is really nice to be here, especially with the other folks from the university. Listening to everybody else talk, making some notes, and while all of it rang true, the part that i think speaks to me most, having been through what we went through, was the part about how the president processes information. It was and whoy said, if youre making a decision by yourself, youre probably making a decision that no one else will follow. Theres a corollary to that, which is if youre making a decision by yourself, it creals the chances of making the right decision. And i think if youre talking about qualities that a president or any leader has to have when youre in a crisis, ou have to be not only able to process information from a bunch of different sources, but willing to do so. I think that a lot of us get in circumstances where were tempted to simply react to something in the way we think we should react as opposed to sort of step back say, ok, i need information from this source, this source, and this source. I think some of the things that denis just said is that you are able to sort of irish or actually it was andy, to get folks contrarian to your natural position. So if youre dealing with foreign policy, for example, and your natural position would be, say, neo conservative, do you have somebody else in there giving you the other opinion or another angle on things . One of my favorite stories from history goes to the mistakes of the Kennedy Administration made in the bay of pigs, where they ended up in that classic example of group thinking, where everybody was thinking the same thing and ended up taking them down a road that maybe they would not have gone down if they had input from other sources. The processing of information, while always important to a president or any leader becomes extraordinarily important when youre dealing with crisis, and you have to stick to the process the chief has created, and hopefully the president has empowered, to make sure that the president is getting all of the information they need to make the right decision. I want to ask each of you now to sort of put some of those into practice for us and shed some light on how they were put into practice and ask each of you. You each to deal with a multitude of crises, but im going to list one for each of you and ask you to take us inside the room, to the extent that you can. Take us inside the room and tell us, when crisis broke, and you had to tell the crisis, im curious of a couple of things. One, what was the first question he asked . Wo, what were your initial marching orders . Over the next couple of weeks. And so, mack, im going to come back to you. You have to deal with a couple in the beginning, but i think a lot of people would be well served to remember that one of the very first things you had torksd you were in office for about five wheeks the first find trade centeryou guys bareo light switches. Talk us through that. Happened, what was the first question president clinton asked to the best of your recollection and what were your original marching orders . I think you are right. Particularly when you are coming in a a new administration, you are so focused after the campaign on the president s agenda your priorities set. Be aware that there is inevitably going to be these kinds of dramatic, shocking, unexpected events happen. Only a few weeks after we were in office, that type of event. Anybodyforced, unlike [indiscernible] just trying to get the facts of what happened and report that to the president and a coherent manner. It goes to what others have said you have got to make a broad circle outside the white house, in this case the fbi and Justice Department and other agencies. Briefed thet president , his first question was how many people injured or killed . What do we know about it . Who did this . Are there any anticipated followup concerns we need to address . What is the plan . That was basically his initial response. Quicklyable to mobilize in that regard. I cant remember the exact date, but i think in less than a week the fbi was able to apprehend those perpetrators of this very heinous act. In our case, that was an immediate issue that captivated for 4872 hours. That is the of communication. Exactly what dennis talked about, making sure you are communicating the facts, that you know what is happening, make certain you do not step over the line and get into conjecture. I think we were able to do that reasonably well. In our case, we had a quick resolution of the situation. Thanks. That we all saw the moment the president found out about the Second World Trade Center tower being hit on 9 11 when he was in that classroom in florida and you had to walk to the frontend and whisper in his ear , and he had to sit there. Offstage, retreated to the room you had backstage, tell us about that. What was his first question and what were your in what were your initial marching orders . Lets back up a little bit, when he walked into the told bym, he had been the National Security advisor, navy captain who was in the situation room, she said sir, it appears a small twin engine prop plane crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in new york city. That is what he knew when he walked into that classroom. The principal walked into the classroom, i stood by the door, the door shut after he entered the classroom, i am standing there, that captain tells me sir, it appears it was not a small twin engine prop plane it was a commercial jetliner. A nano second later she says, oh my god, another plane hit the other tower, the World Trade Center. I stood at the door and i had to perform a task that had to perform, does the president need to know . Chiefs ofp staff deal with that all day long. Sometimes you hear something he should know, sometimes you tell them something and he worries about it, sometimes you are wrong and you dont tell him at all and you are in deep trouble. I made the decision to pass on the information. I thought carefully about what i would say and what i whispered into his ear, all i said was, a second plane hit the second tower, america is under attack. I did not invite a question. In fact, i stood back from him so he could not ask a question. I presume to there was a boom microphone hanging over him and everything would be hurt so i did not want him to talk to me. Unlike matt walking into the oval office, i was not looking to have a conversation with the president. I passed on the information. I did not even know if he would get up or stay there. I was pleased how he reacted. He stayed there. He did nothing to scare those young kids, nothing to demonstrate were translated to the satisfaction of the terrorists. Got to goed because i back into the holding room and get things ready for him. What did he say when he walked into the room . First, what i said when i walked , i said get the fbi director on the phone. Get a line open to the Vice President. Get a line open to the situation room. Get the crew on air force one, we have to get out of here. To the secret service i said get ready to move the motorcade, we have to get out of here. [indiscernible] he has to Say Something to them, but he cant say anything we do not know to be the truth. The president walked in, glommed onuam him, the first thing he said was get the fbi director on the phone, bob mueller. He was only on the job 10 days, but he was on the phone. You have to anticipate what the president needs and get it done. He was very focused. He called the governor of new york, the mayor of new york, he talked to his National Security team, Condoleezza Rice and dick cheney. I worked to be very disciplined. I decided i was going to be cool, calm and collected. Try to prevent people from orting him ginned up emotionally engaged when it would not help. That was that moment. To his credit, he was outstanding at making decisions. He did not rush to make decisions, but he tried to make an informed decision. The first time i remember grimacing is when he was speaking to the audience just before we went to go get in the limousines and leave. I told to be careful with the he opens his comments saying, i am going to have to go back to washington dc, and proceeds to tell them what was going on. I was upset because i knew we might not be going back to washington, d. C. I was a little mad at dan bartlett. It turns out dan did not put in the remarks, the president just said he was going back to washington, d. C. Ie first significant argument had with the president to on 9 11 was on air force one when he said we are going back to washington, d. C. And the pilots that i do not think you should go there. The secret service said we cant go there. We were not ready to go there and we had this tough argument. I kept saying, i understand you want to make that decision, i just do not think you want to make it right now. I kept repeating that. I understand you want to make that decision come i think it is too early. He kept saying, i am making the decision right now. I had to hold my ground endo that i was serving at the pleasure of the president , it was not my job to please him. Mo in the final months of 2012 before the election and you then took over as chief of staff, president obama had to deal with a significant crisis with the attack in benghazi. Your nsc hat, i am wondering if you could walk us through those initial moments. Processedent obama that information, what his first questions were and your marching orders. Thanks thanks. Honorime i have had the story from andy, i am reminded at what a pro he is. Serviceemarkable bit of he has done over the course of his life. In particular those very difficult days on 9 11 and after. Andy, i want to say [indiscernible] i do remember that day quite well. September 11, 2012. Oval whereg to the president obama and Vice President biden were getting meeting withir the joint chiefs. We were getting information developing from benghazi. We were notll that quite sure what prompted the attack on our people in the first instance. To get truthtrying in terms of what was happening, but also start to develop information about motive for the attack and what it might mean for followon attacks both in again against other facilities throughout the region. 2012, the 2011 and time all of what was then called the arabmult of spring, we had several in damascus, under specific threats come under specific threats of violence. We were trying to figure out precisely what was happening in benghazi, but also make sure we understood what was happening, and might be happening against other facilities in the region. This goes back to a point that , inasmuchdy have made as the president was sitting down with the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs, he was in a position then to give clear as you say marching orders, to secondary panetta and chairman dempsey. Made clear that he wanted to make sure we could get as much material and support as we could to benghazi. Ended in most rapid fashion. Aunt in which they did and which we took back to our National Security advisors suite, working with tom we set up the kind of interagency coordinating mechanism that each of the other three chiefs are familiar with. We then coordinated activity for the rest of that evening and into the next day. It is a perfect it is a perfect example of having imperfect information, having come activity with our people, whatltimately being under our what our military calls tierney of distance. In other words, how do we get the best information from the point of crisis, and how do we get best available resources to the crisis. That is what we worked on through the night. Mick, before we go to you i want to hearken back to earlier, denis said which is one of the important things you need to do in crisis is identify when you are in crisis. Looking at the covid crisis we are dealing with now, what President Trump is faced with, unlike the other three we heard from, there was not a single moment that was that it was clear america was under attack. This is something that had been percolating and escalating. Is a slightto you variance from how i asked the other chiefs is, at what point did the Trump Administration no covid had become a crisis and what was that initial information that President Trump demanded, and what were those initial marching orders . I was thinking that when denis was talking, covid we did not know was a crisis at the outset. T