 Well, good evening. This is Patience on the News, another edition we'll be going on now for 14 years. We've had many of the most famous public figures in Maine and also beyond Maine on this program. And tonight we have one of the most famous and talented figures in the Maine political world and beyond. William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, former Maine Senator, former Maine Congressman, Mayor of Bangor, Maine, and member of the School Board. We won't forget that. Welcome, Secretary Cohen. Harold, it's so good to be with you. Thank you for inviting me. And did you like the fact that I remembered you were on the Bangor School Board? Yes. And I forgot to mention I was an assistant county attorney. That's the only thing, that's the... Oh, I did forget that. Well, I want to just, for some of the younger people that are watching tonight, I just want to briefly summarize in a minute or so a couple of minutes your history with this state and this nation. Secretary of Defense Cohen is a graduate of Bangor High School and Bowdoin College at both places. He was an outstanding student and an outstanding athlete and an all-state basketball player. So, you know, those of you who like basketball keep practicing because you too might become a United States Senator and a cabinet member. He's a Republican and he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the Congressional Campaign of 1972, took office in January of 1973. And among his other assignments, he was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee. Everything is important in this world. And the House Judiciary Committee a year later was in the midst of impeachment hearings. Question was whether President Richard Nixon should be impeached. And so the House Judiciary Committee was considering that question. He was, the committee did vote to recommend his impeachment and Secretary Cohen was among seven Republicans in those days and it was quite different than it is today. In those days, party had less precedence than the party had less importance than the country and what's one's conscience told them. So political party wasn't everything in those days as it seems to be today. In any event, he was one of the seven Republicans voting to recommend impeachment and he made this statement. And I think all of the young people watching this program should keep this in mind. He said he was asked to assess the conduct of the President of the United States, a President who he believed to be the best man to lead his country, President that he voted for. And he said he was turned out to be a President who allowed the rule of law and the Constitution to slip under the boot of indifference, arrogance, and abuse. So keep in mind what Senator Cohen said nearly 50 years ago, someone he voted for, someone of his own political party, who he said allowed the rule of law and the Constitution to slip under the boots of indifference, arrogance, and abuse. In 1978, he was elected to the United States Senate, serving as one of Maine's two senators and he served there for three terms. And those were the days when there was much more comedy and perhaps he'll talk about that a little later in the U.S. Senate. Our other senator for most of that time was a Democrat, George Mitchell. The two of them are friends. They've written a book together. These things don't happen anymore. But they did then and maybe Senator will comment a little while about where the difference lies and why. Among other things, while he was in the Senate, he was selected to be a member of the committee that invested the Iran Contra scandal. In 1996, President Clinton, a Democrat, appointed William Cohen, a Republican senator as U.S. Secretary of Defense. One of the two most powerful positions in the United States government. Mr. Secretary, many in our audience are familiar with Bill Cohen, the famous Republican politician from Maine. But don't know about your life over the past 20 years since you've left the Senate. Maybe actually more than that, 24 years since you've left the Senate. Tell us about the Cohen group, which is your business. Now a little bit about your post political life. Well, Harold, thank you for that very elaborate recitation of some of the things that I've done with my life. I appreciate the generosity you've shown in that regard. Since I left the Pentagon, I started something called the Cohen group. Oddly enough, the name came quickly to mind. But it was something I actually had planned to form as soon as I left the Senate. I had made arrangements to lease a building or office building downtown Washington. I had just two of my staff members who were going to join me. I thought about linking up with Senator Sam Nunn on a part-time basis. He was going to devote a third of his time to academics in Georgia, a third of his time to public service, and then a third of his time with me. Well, that got interrupted when President Clinton asked me to serve as the Secretary of Defense, but I had always planned to have something called the Cohen group and to deal with international law policies. And so today, I left the Pentagon, I guess it was January 20th, the new time, all the Secret Service personnel, those who were assigned to me, pulled out all of the equipment out of my apartment, and I was on my own. So I took one day off, and the next day after that, we opened up the Cohen group with Bob Tyra, Jim Bodner, and H.K. Park, and that was it from my days at the Pentagon. And we just started not knowing what we'd be able to do. And since that time, we have grown from the four of us. I think there are roughly almost 75 people in the firm now. We have offices globally in China, in Australia, also a small office in London, and a main office here, and so that's about another office in India. So we're in India, China, Australia, London, and basically here in the United States. What we do is we represent major companies who do business globally. We help them to understand the nature of the countries that they're either already in and want to expand or want to enter, and one of the barriers to entry and try to understand them. So all of my travels during the time that I was served in the House and the Senate, I was able to establish relationships with various government officials, many of whom rotate out of power, so the Rolodex gets old pretty quickly in this day and age, but as a result of all the travel I've done over the years, I have been able to build friendships. And so as a result of those friendships, I'm able to understand the countries in which these multinational corporations want to do business in. And that is what we do at the international level, and we also represent American companies here. In the process, we represent foreign companies who want to do business in the United States, whether they were from China, India, Australia, the EU, wherever they are, we have a pretty active Latin American practice right now as well. And so I have many, a number of Spanish and Portuguese speakers. And in each of the countries we are, we have nationals who speak the language in the country that we're in. So it's a really, it's a wonderful firm. I've got some of those talented people, I think, in the world. I've had four and three star generals in the firm have them now. I have four of the best former ambassadors. And I chose generals and ambassadors because they had a world vision and understand the dynamics of the world, economics, trade, and strategy. And have had major budgets, certainly as a four star general, General Joe Ralston, former Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former Supreme Allied Commander. We've had Nicholas Burns, who was number three at the State Department, and Ambassador Mark Grossman, number three at the State Department. And so I picked these individuals who look at the world and understand that we need to build alliances. We need to have friends. We need to develop strategies. Both at the strategic level, but also at the economic and diplomatic level. And so that's what I basically am engaged in. And I do commentary from time to time. I have an arrangement with BBC, and I do weekly commentary with BBC. And I go on MSNBC and CNN quite frequently as well, but mostly dealing with international affairs and military affairs. What do I think about what is taking place in Syria or Iraq, or the tensions we now have with China? How do we build a better relationship, a strong relationship with India and Australia? And these are the issues that I deal with, both on the economic side of things, business side of things, but also on the strategic. And you just hired somebody that our audience would be very familiar with, just come to work for the Cohen Group, General Mattis. General Jim Mattis has joined us. He was a young colonel when I was at the Pentagon. He was a young colonel in my office. I could tell how talented he was then. I also knew he didn't like being at the Pentagon. He wanted to be out on the field. And so he is a man of action. And I know he was chafing at the notion of being in the Pentagon, dealing with all the issues that one has to deal with from presenting matters to Congress, just the day-to-day management of affairs and the Secretary of Defense's office. And so I met him then. I admired him then. I watched his career grow. And then when he left service in the Trump administration, I asked him if he would join me. And he did. And so it's been a great addition to the firm. But he has joined General Paul Kern, who's the former head of the command dealing with all of the equipment and resources needed by the Army. I have three stars from the Air Force. And so we've had actually two stars, three stars, but four stars who are dealing with us now, including Jim Mattis. And you have Ambassador Tom Pickering, also a very famous ambassador, who's like you, a Bowdoin College guy, right? He is. He's not with me. He is with Madeleine Albright. Tom and I are great friends. And we've worked from time to time on issues together. But he's with Madeleine. Okay. Here's the competition. All right. Well, I have some other subjects that I'm sure all of the people in the audience want to explore. From 1972 to 1996, you will remember the United States Congress. And it wasn't in those days, those of us who remember, so contentious. And it certainly wasn't so nasty as it is now. So any thoughts on what's changed, why that's happened, a lot of people wonder about that. Why can't these members get along? Well, you have to remember that, you know, this is not always Shangri-La back during the days that I served. When I went to the house in 1973, I didn't go through politics as a background or profession. I went directly from the city council and mayorship of Bangor directly to Congress. And as a lawyer, I was really interested in the law, the subject of the law. And I wanted to be on the Judiciary Committee. And interestingly enough, everybody tried to say, don't go on the Judiciary Committee. It doesn't do anything. It will deal with abortion and prayer and public school. And those issues are volatile. It's not going to help you get reelected. So stay off that committee. But I felt I wanted to be on it. And I went to a very new program that was put up by Harvard. And they selected four new members of Congress. And we went to Harvard for about two or three weeks. And there I had Professor Moynihan, who then became Senator Moynihan. But Professor Moynihan is one of my professors. And John Kenneth Galbraith is another professor. And really, I don't recall anything of substance except the person who was running the program who has since passed away. He said, look, when you get to Washington, they're going to ask you which committees you want to be on. Make sure the committee want to be on a list that you put down some four or five committees, put it last. And I thought that was totally counterintuitive. And I said, why not? And he said, because they don't know you and they won't trust you, they're going to make you have two or three terms under your belt before you get the committee you really want. So I listed all the committees that were very attractive. And I put judiciary last. And that's how I ended up on judiciary. And that's a long way of telling the story that even on the judiciary, it was not really geared to contentious issues other than the politically hot ones like abortion and prayer and probably school. But suddenly, we had the Saturday Night Massacre. And then the firing of a resignation rally of Richardson and Del Ruckel's house, the firing of Archibald Cox. And suddenly, we're in the middle of impeachment. During that time, it was very contentious. People may not remember this, but we had bomb threats during the course of our hearings. We had threats on our lives during those hearings. We had real partisan victory during those hearings. But we also had a core group of people. There weren't many, but a core group of people who said, let's just look at all the evidence and see whether or not we can agree on a couple of issues. And we came down to abuse of power. And the other one was obstruction of justice. And so it was very contentious, but approved one thing, that if you're going to impeach the president of the United States, it has to be bipartisan. You have to have members from both sides who agree that something egregious really has been done. But let me just interrupt you. Would you agree in today's atmosphere, there are no Republicans who would ever vote to recommend that the president be impeached on those two things, abuse of power? I would say possibly one or two. But what has happened is that we have moved, both parties are moving toward the end zone of their respective football field. You've got the Republican Party moving way to the right. It used to be the party of the rule of law. And now it's law and order. But when you say law, there must be justice included in that. So it's law and order and justice. And that is what's missing from this dialogue right now, saying law and order, let's crack down, let's crack heads. Well, why are they in the streets? They're demonstrating for the rule of law. And that means justice for those who have been denied it for the last four centuries. And you see it play out day after day in our lives. And some people are protesting against that. And now what we're seeing is something quite different, something you should be troubling to every American, conservatives as well as liberals or moderates. It's not conservative to send people who are not wearing camouflage people who are in military garb as such, camouflage uniforms with no identification of who they are serving, what service they're representing, Homeland Security, United States military, nothing to indicate who they are, whisking people off into unmarked vehicles, taking them to jail without charging them. That's not the mark of a democracy. That's a mark of a dictatorship. And so I think we have to be very, very careful what we're seeing take place under the rubric law and order and you have, I would compare it to what Russia has done in Ukraine. Russia sent military men who had no identification that they were Russians or that they were Ukrainians. They had no insignia, but they were Russian soldiers. They sent them into Ukraine, into the Crimea area and they helped to actually annex Crimea from Ukraine. And so I think they call them the little green men because of their outfits that were green in color. And I think there's a real comfortability here. We've finally identified these people as being federal employees from Homeland Security. But what they have done is they have now, they are dressed as military personnel with high power weapons that they are prepared to use, shooting rubber bullets, which can kill and firing tear gas, which has been outlawed in most cities and countries into peaceful protests. Some of them have been violent and they have to be dealt with seriously, but most of them are peaceful. And when you saw the White House and the president come out of the White House and go into Trafalgar Square and over to the church and clear out peaceful protesters and clear them out with violence for a photo op, that should be troubling to everyone. If you take away the right to protest, then you're really not living in a democracy because fundamental right is First Amendment, the right to protest, to bring our grievances to the government. And as long as it's peaceful, as Martin Luther King has shown, John Lewis who's lying in state, they went against the established law and order to demonstrate for the right to vote, the right to be seen as an equal basically. So we have to be careful where we characterize this as conservatives are full of law and order. Conservatives believe in the rule of law and they should be worried that any one person, and this is in our constitution, the constitutional founders knew that power has to be entrusted to someone, but no one can be trusted with power. And that was the whole purpose of having checks and balances to make sure no one person, no one agency, no one branch of government gets too powerful. And that's a conservative principle. It's not a liberal principle. And so I know that conservatives standing strongly behind President Trump on this, but we need to go back to the founding of this country to talk about what does the rule of law really mean? And the founders resented and were really worried about one person becoming so powerful that democratic checks and balances were completely eroded and we ended up with an autocracy or I would call it a dictatorship. So you were a very close friend of the late Senator John McCain. Yes. I think you were actually the best man at John McCain's wedding. Right. And very close to him. And people in his own party led by the president have insulted him, have said terrible things about it. You must get upset to hear those things about a man you admire. I was upset and frankly, that's one of the reasons very early in the game of this politics I should say, I became upset with President Trump. I became upset when he went on television said that John McCain was not a hero. Now, I was very close to John. In fact, I included him in a number of novels I've written. I used a character based on his character. It was one of my main figures in these writings because I admired what he went through. He was in prison for five and a half years. He was beaten almost daily. He was shown in the prison with a cracked hip and broken arms and a cracked collarbone. And he was tortured during that entire time. And yet he refused to be released early. His captors discovered that he was the son of the Admiral, Admiral McCain, who was conducting the war against them from the city. And they thought, well, if we let him out early, perhaps that will solve our problem with Admiral McCain. And John said, no, I'm not leaving until my time in order comes. And so he stayed there enduring all of that punishment years longer than he needed to in order to do it the right way in his mind that he would not take advantage of his father's position to gain any favor ahead of his colleagues. Now that to me is the mark of a real patriot. That's the mark of a character that we don't see very often in life. And for the president to say, well, he's no hero of mine because he got shot down. Well, what does that say to all the persons of war? What does that say about people who were wounded? Oh, you got wounded, so you know, hero? And so that was the first thing. And then the second thing that bothered me that he diminished and I think denigrated a Gold Star family. They were from Pakistan. They had moved to the United States. Their son fought for us, died for us. And yet the president just dismissed them. The third thing was I saw him mocking a disabled reporter. I said, this is not the conduct of a person who's going to heal us. A whole, this diverse country together. And I felt just seeing that take place it told me what I could expect. I think everything I expected and suspected what happened has happened. But Mr. Secretary, the interesting part about all of this is that all the polls show that 85, 88, 90% of people who self-identify as Republicans are big supporters of the president. They're the people that voted for you. Voted for you. And then we're your base too as a Republican member of Congress for me. What is this all about? I mean, this guy is not a guy of character. The president, he's mean, he's nasty and they love him. What causes that? Well, a number of things have happened. I just wish the Republicans who continue to identify as conservative members of the party would look at what's happened to our country not only here domestically. I mean, the president has said by way of example that he's a wartime president because of the coronavirus. What would a wartime president do? A wartime president would say, let me gather all of the governors in this country. Let me gather all of the federal agencies in this country. Let me gather FEMA. Let me gather DLA, which is the Defense Logistics Agency. Let's marshal all of the forces that we have, be able to distribute what we need in terms of PPE and other ventilators. Let's do it together as a nation rather than saying each state is on its own, when in fact a virus doesn't recognize state borders. A virus doesn't recognize continental borders. A virus is only a handshake away. A virus is only a plane ride away. And so the notion that somehow states you're on your own isn't a wartime president. It's an abdication of presidential power. It's a dereliction of duty in my judgment. Now, why do they still follow the president in this manner without question? It's because I think he operates out of fear. As far as the political figures, people in the country don't necessarily fear him. They mostly agree with the image that he projects. I think it's a false image as far as what he's doing to this country. But in terms of the political figures, I think they fear him. They fear his power that he can put out a tweet and suddenly they've got thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of attacks coming in over the internet. So I think he governs by fear. And as far as the people are concerned, they see him as a strong figure. Then they think that he is redressing grievances that we've had that no one else has addressed. And he's doing this by pursuing an America first, or I would say America alone. And then I look around the world and other countries will look at us and they're shaking their heads. They're saying this is not the America that we came to love and respect and admire. If you look now what they say is they're pitying us. I mean, whoever thought the United States would be a subject of pity by anybody. And yet that's what the surveys are showing. They're saying how could a great country like the United States be overwhelmed by this virus that other countries are contending with because they're taking an all government national attitude toward it. So I think part of it is the Republican support him because they think he reflects the resentments they have. He reflects the notion that there are, there's a culture war taking place and there is. He reflects the racial war taking place and it has been going on for a long time. I mean, we really have never ended the civil war. It continues to be played out. The whole notion that it was a war of non-aggression. No, it was a war over slavery. That's what the war was over. And those in the South continue to say, oh no, it's about state's rights. State's rights to do what? State's right to keep people in chains. State's rights to keep people working with free labor under extraordinarily harsh conditions. So I think we need to have more education on who we are, what our history is, and then start to look at a leader. I think President Trump could have from the very beginning. He could have said, look, I campaigned in this fashion. Yeah, I'm a little bit crude at times. Yes, I can be nasty, but I want this country to heal. I want to heal the division between the right and the left. I want to find common cause. That's what the art of government is compromised. I mean, anytime you have more than two people in a room, you have to compromise. I write to swing my fist stops where your chin begins. I write to drive a Lamborghini 90 miles an hour stops where you have Volkswagen or your Ford, the little car over here begins. We have to reach compromise because we have so many people and we have so many of diverse backgrounds, which has been the energy and the vitality of this country. So compromise is not a bad thing, it's a good thing. And that's what I did, what Senator Mitchell did, what Senator Muskie did, what Olympia Snow did, Susan Collins, try to find the middle. Find that you can live between the 40 yard lines. If you start to put your flag in the end zone, each party does the same, very little gets done. It's when you come together, you say, okay, I can't have everything that I want from my party, but if I can get 60%, 70% or whatever the formulation is gonna be, okay, we start from there and we'll continue to work on it. But I think the danger is that we become so polarized and we become so ugly in the process of name calling, of diminishing people, of reducing them. And I mean, the names that are given out for people and again, it's a racial conflict. It's a virus that we're dealing with, combating. It's economic and it's international at this point. We have a trade war with China. We have the economic war with even with the EU. I mean, so you start looking at all the conflicts take place, you say, we need to have somebody who's going to try to heal this and John McCain believed in alliances. He and I traveled the world together trying to make sure that we had friends. We said, make your friends before you need them. Make our friendship so that when we really need them, they are there. Now, when I was in the Pentagon, working with President Clinton, a Democrat, his mantra for us was multilateral whenever we can, unilateral whenever we must. Now that's been totally turned upside down. And so now it is unilateral whenever we can, multilateral whenever we must. So the other countries look at us and they say, you know, we can't count on you anymore. I guess we'll have to pursue our own interests. I guess we'll have to develop systems on our own or link up with countries who we will trust. And that is the key element that I think we have lost track of. If countries don't trust you, they will not support you during times of strife, during times when you really need them. And so I think we're in a dangerous period for all of the reasons I mentioned. And I hope that in this next election, we say, let's select the person that can bring us together as best we can. I think it's gonna be hard. I think if you had to look at it, Biden is ahead more than how in some of these states, but I think the President of the United States still has a very good chance for a winning. And let me take you back a step to something you said about the cultural war in the United States. I know so many people, decent people who get very offended at the slogan, Black Lives Matter, and they always say, and you've heard them, we've all heard them. Wait a minute, what about white lives? White lives matter. And so there is this defensiveness among people. And part of it also is, well, I'm not a racist, and everybody denies being a racist. I think they'd like to think they're not racist, but they are. Now, would you comment on that? Sure, just think about Amy Cooper. Amy Cooper was the young woman in Central Park who didn't have her dog on a leash. I take it that she's a liberal, and you would think that as a liberal, she would be racially sensitive, so to speak. And what did she do? A black man who was an avid bird watcher who was out there called her and said, look, the dog is not on a leash and it needs to be on a leash. That's the law. And what did she do? She picked up her phone and she called the police and said, what? There's a black man and he's threatening me. Now, take that phone call in the context of all of the young, unarmed black men who are being shot by the police. And I could list them down the line how many there have been. They have, and so what she knew in her heart of hearts that if she called the police and said, there's a black man and he's threatening me, they would come and they would take her a version of the story as opposed to his. His life would be put in jeopardy because we've seen that take place. From every, the gentleman got shot while he was jogging. George Floyd, who was crushed to death under the boot in the heel of the police officer. You start going down the list of what's happened in this country from the time that this country was formed. They said, well, we're not racist, but we are racist. We formed this country. What did Tom Cotton, Senator Cotton say just the other day? Senator Cotton said, slavery was a necessary evil. It was an evil to be sure, but why was it necessary? Why was it necessary to bring human beings, put them in chains, drag them all the way across the Atlantic in chains in the bowels of ships where half of them had to be thrown overboard because they couldn't make the trip and keep them in chains for several hundred years? Why was it a necessary evil? Why weren't white people willing to do the work? So these are the things that we have to discuss to say we treated human beings as animals. We treated them as a burden of beast, beast of burdens I should say. And that has happened for hundreds of years in this country. And so when people say, well, I'm not a racist, no, but everything that was built in this country was built on the backs of this quote, necessary evil. And that's what people are speaking out against. They say, okay, stop killing us. Stop shooting unarmed black people, men, women and children. Think about the woman who was driving in Texas. The police officer didn't like the way she came too close to the center line, pulled her over and he didn't like her attitude. She was angry or she was smoking a cigarette. He ended up threatening to taser her, hauled her out of their vehicle, put her in solitary confinement where she's found dead three days later. I mean, this cuts across men, women and children. Kids as young as 12, Tamir Rice, 12 years old, shot when police arrived at a playground. He had a toy pistol and within two seconds, three seconds of the time they arrived they shot him to death. I mean, so there's a lot going on and I think we just have to be very sensitive to that. This has not been an equal country. It did not treat people equally in terms of their race, in terms of their religion, in terms of their ethnicity. And what's great about this country is that we can speak about it. We can say this needs to change, this is not fair. So what we believe, we pound our chest with the greatest country in the world and I believe we are. But we're great because we're allowed to fix our mistakes. We're allowed to become better than we have been in the past. That's what makes this country so great. So we have a president who disagrees with everything you say. And in fact, all of the bad things that you're talking about, he stokes. I mean, he knows what these people want. If you look at these rallies that he had, just look in the faces of the people. He knows that they hate people, they resent people and he likes the fumes, he throws the gasoline. And that's happened before in human history. I've been reading over the past six months, every book in my bookcase about the third right. And I read something recently, the end of democracy, Germany 1933 to 1945 and how it happened because the Germans are decent people. I've spent a lot of time in Germany. Nice people, they're like us, we're all human beings. And they went for this and it destroyed their country and it was in rubbles. And in 1933, they didn't have the slightest idea that would happen. There were very few people that thought, hey, wait a minute, this is bad. And then when Hitler started talking about the grievances, they said, gee, he's smart. He's gotta figure it out. Now, do you think that there's any thing to history and should we be looking at that? Sure, well, what did Hitler really want? He wanted to purge the Germany of all Jews. He felt that the Jewish people had co-corrupted Christianity. And therefore, the only way to have a redemption, a spiritual redemption was to get rid of every Jewish person, not only in Germany, but throughout Europe. That was his goal. Now, what's happening in this country is President Trump doesn't say it exactly, but he's doing it through his actions. He calls black people, black lives matter in particular, thugs. Why are they thugs? Because they're out demonstrating in the street. What if they were white people as they are more and more becoming? Are white people thugs when you're demonstrating on behalf of justice for equal treatment? When he criticized Colin Kaepernick, who took a kneel during a football game when they were playing the anthem. Now, was he kneeling against the flag? No, he's saying, I'm using my position to try and call attention, have the police stop killing him, stop shooting unarmed people. And what the president said, he's an SOB, throw him off the team, he should be thrown out of the country. But what happened? President Trump goes to Helsinki and he takes a knee to President Putin. I'm not talking about this. You think about this. Here is President Putin that our entire national security team, my friend, Ann Coates, Senator Coates, a former ambassador. A conservator from Indiana representing the intelligence community. He said, we have it across the board here. Unanimously, Russia interfered with our election system. President Trump goes to Helsinki, he meets with President Putin privately, then comes publicly. He said, oh, I asked him and he denied it. And I have no reason to not believe him. He threw our entire intelligence community under the bus for President Putin. And he's done it systematically. He's done it in Syria. He's done it everywhere. We have an interest in President Putin as a different interest. He yields to him. Now, you have to ask why? Why won't the president release his tax returns? I asked this question a week after he was elected. I was on CNN at that time. There was a wrap up with all the coverage of the inaugural. I said, the president, here's what I would like to know. What does the president own? What does the president own? And to whom does he owe it? Those three questions would relieve a lot of doubt in my mind in saying, are we really indebted? Is he really indebted? Is family indebted to the Russians? To the point that he doesn't dare say a word of criticism to President Putin, who has caused the mischief of all of the globe. He will criticize the French, the British, the Australians, the South Koreans. He'll criticize everybody but Putin. He even goes easy on President Xi. He's making China the object of our contest right now. But Kim Jong-un, my best friend, my good friend Kim Jong-un, one of the worst killers in the world history. So something is going on that we don't know about and his refusal to release his taxes tells me something, he's hiding something. Oh, I don't know what it is. But then my imagination starts to speculate. Exactly now, I couldn't agree more with what you just said. He's hiding something. But why is it that those 85% of the Republicans who love him aren't at all concerned about the fact that Putin is the only person in the world that he's not insulted. Nobody else is insulated from his insults except Putin. But I have a couple of quick questions. We're running out of time and one of them is you talk to people, you know people in Washington, you know politicians, and you know a lot of Republican politicians, say what, your colleagues, and you serve with them. Don't they see what the president is trying to do to this country? Don't they, are they just oblivious to it? They don't understand it. They disagree. No, they think he's doing a wonderful job. What is it? Or is it just they keeping quiet? Well, I mentioned it before, there are two things. Number one, there is fear. Every Republican who has spoken out in any way being critical of President Trump has lost. They've either lost or retired because they would be facing defeat. And the other issue is that they have to agree with it. If they're unwilling to speak out, then it's either fear or they're complicit, one or the other. Now, earlier you asked, what's the reason for this? I think social, the rise of social media has contributed to it. And the internet, social media, it's all really extraordinary technology, the ability to communicate on a ubiquitous basis instantaneously. And so I think of the internet as being a river of ideas. It's also a sewer. So you have the river that's flowing with new ideas, new concepts and good things. It's also a sewer because you have information that's going out over the internet, especially social media, which has no basis in fact, which are complete distortions, which are used by the Russians, the Chinese and other countries in order to distort our system. So if you look at, if I went down Putin's list, if I had Putin's bucket list, what would I want? I would want to undermine confidence in NATO, okay? Check. I would like to undermine the US confidence in the EU. Checkmark. I would like to undermine the US confidence in the integrity of the media. Checkmark. I would like to undermine our institution, checkmark. Those are all things that Putin wants for the United States and we're doing it. We're allowing it to be done. So I can't account for the 85% or even 90% of the American people, the Republicans, who think that's a good idea. What I think is a good idea is we come back to our original basis that we believe in the rule of law. We believe in equal justice for all. That we believe that no person stands above the law, including the president of the United States, that we're all subject to the same rules. And we get back to that and then start talking about fiscal responsibility. This is a core argument and theology for Republicans, fiscal responsibility. And we're just racking up the national debt to a point where our kids and grandkids will never be able to pay it. So fiscal responsibility, having a respect for our institutions, rule of law, fairness for all. Those are the issues that we need to bring us back together. So you've touched on financial matters, the management of the government and so forth. The president is certainly not a deficit heart. He could care less about it. He doesn't have any ideology. Would you agree? I agree. Listen, the president is, he's an opportunist in the sense that he's a, he believes in transactions. I don't believe he has a coherent strategy in terms of a worldview. I think his worldview is, I'm gonna do whatever benefits America and the rest of the world can take care of itself. Well, I want to stop you there. I would say whatever benefits Donald Trump. Well, okay. He does look after his own interests and that gets back to how he's benefiting in office, while he's serving again, talking about how much money he gives up by being in the office. His family is benefiting enormously. And when they start attacking Joe Biden, Joe Biden will have to answer for himself. But when the president takes his family, they go to China, they get trademarks, they get all sorts of benefits. So he's looking out, he wants to send, have the golf tournament in London, at his golf course in Scotland. I mean, the amazing thing's going on in terms of the enrichment of his office. So you were on CNN with Christiane Amanpour recently and she asked you about your view of Donald Trump and so forth. And you talked about you as Secretary of Defense, of course, you spent years looking at the top secret reports about our enemies and Russian spying and so forth. So you're very realistic about that stuff. But you said some tough things about dictatorship and Donald Trump and you said, you were not sure whether America, as we know it, could survive another four years. You still feel that way? I do. Look what's happening with the Justice Department. The president has intervened and arranged for pardons for his friends and punishment for his enemies. That's not the mark of a president acting on behalf of the United States to intervene in judicial matters, to take things away from prosecutors at the last moment saying, oh no, I don't care whether he's pled guilty. I don't want him to be guilty. So let's just cut that out. Firing professional prosecutors, getting rid of people, Sally Yates, who called attention to what Michael Flynn was doing by contacting the Russian ambassador and dealing with the Russians while he's representing a Turkish government. She got fired. Then it was Jim Comey, director of the FBI, who said, I'm not gonna pledge fealty to you. I pledge my obligations to the Constitution, not to you personally. So he gets fired. Then the assistant gets fired. The deputy gets fired. And then you take these individuals who are career professionals and just get rid of them all. You had the career professionals in Ukraine. What did he do? He fired the career professional who's an expert on Russia, gone. Who's he been dealing with? Igor and his friend, Lev. So Lev and Igor were the ones he was using. Using Rudy to go around. Rudy Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani. All I wanna do is get back to saying the United States believes in the rule of law. We believe in treating people equally. We believe in fiscal responsibility. We believe that no man or woman stands above the rule of law, that we all abide by it. And we do not use the presidency to enrich ourselves or our families. That is what I think we have to get back to. So that's what I've lived by. I've tried to live by during my career, long career in public office. And remember, an elected official, the president of the United States, he's a fiduciary. He's a trustee. And what the courts have said over the years, the trustee of fiduciary owes you something higher than the morals of the marketplace. We expect you to be very high in terms of your ethics and your obligation and not look out for your self-interest, only that of the country. That's what I wanna get back to. You've done a lot of politicians in your days. You served with them, colleagues. After all of these decades in public life, do you think that the character of leaders, of political leaders is important or just the transactions, what they do? I know, character is everything. Character is destiny. And I'll tell you why I am still optimistic, notwithstanding everything that I've said, I come into contact with students and young leaders. In my office this summer, for example, we have 15 students who are either in undergraduate or some possessing graduate degrees, some whom had served in the military and come back out. And we unfortunately have to do it through kind of distance learning, but I bring them in every summer to associate with General Ralston, with General Jim Mattis, with General Kern, with Ambassador Grossman, I've said Ambassador Burns, to bring them in and to see how government works or at least should work. And when I see the talent that's out there, when I see the idealism of these young people coming up, we have several, a couple of them from Maine, Colby University, you've had them from Bowdoin, but we have them from all over the country and even international students. And when I see the talent and the intelligence and the ethical standards they have, you know, I really feel good about that, but that's why it's really important that we look to them and try to inculcate in them what the history of this country has been, where we have fallen short, what mistakes we have made, where we have failed to measure up to these noble words that we keep insisting upon that we represent, so that we have life and liberty and pursuit of happiness for everybody, not just for a privileged few. Secretary Cohen, I can't thank you enough for agreeing to talk to my audience and these folks in Maine, many of whom are old enough to have been your supporters, voted for you at one time. You were in fewer, they're still with us. Pure and pure. I hope, I don't want to put you in the spot, but I hope we can get you back on at another time to comment on what's happening in this country. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I'll be there. Thank you very much. Okay.