FRIDAY, 12/13/2024

It’s been a busy week. With rightful scrutiny of Trump’s cabinet picks continuing as well as stunning advancements by Syrian rebel forces, there has surely not been a lack of news.

The Middle East is rapidly changing. It looks like the combination of pressure from the North but also from the South finally came to a head in Syria, where over 12-13 years ago during the Arab Spring, this opposition really manifested itself. In 2011 everyone said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was done for, and obviously he wasn’t. It may well be this time his luck will have run out. It certainly looks very grave.

The real question is whether a combination of Russian or Iranian assistance can prop him up, or whether we’re coming face to face with some very significant questions about the future of Syria.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW >>

Driving the Week: I wrote for the WSJ, detailing my concern with Kash Patel’s nomination as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The president’s constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” requires evenhanded action in the national rather than his personal interest, a distinction Donald Trump doesn’t grasp. His oft-stated intention to seek retribution against opponents, if implemented, facially contravenes the Take Care Clause.

Too many of Mr. Trump’s personnel selections evidence his assiduous search for personal fealty, not loyalty to the Constitution, and Kash Patel’s nomination squarely fits this pattern.

Rep. Devin Nunes pushed Mr. Patel for the National Security Council staff after Republicans lost the House in 2018. Notwithstanding Mr. Patel’s lack of policy credentials, the president ordered him hired. NSC staff has long been divided into directorates responsible for different policy areas. Charles Kupperman, my deputy, and I placed Mr. Patel in the International Organizations Directorate, which had a vacancy.

Some five months later, we moved him to fill an opening in the Counter-Terrorism Directorate. In neither case was he in charge of a directorate during my tenure as national security adviser or thereafter, as he contends in his memoir and elsewhere. He reported to senior directors in both cases and had defined responsibilities. His puffery was characteristic of the résumé inflation we had detected when Mr. Trump pressed him on us. We found he had exaggerated his role in cases he worked on as a Justice Department lawyer before joining Mr. Nunes’s committee staff. Given the sensitivity of the NSC’s responsibilities, problems of credibility or reliability would ordinarily disqualify any job applicant…

READ THE FULL OP-ED

I then joined Kaitlan Collins to continue discussing.

I also wrote for the Daily Telegraph explaining how Trump’s looming inauguration bodes for Western security interests. Spoiler alert: it will not be good.

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