Leon Panetta

You know, Erin, as CIA director, I had an awful lot of intelligence on Putin and his background, and his trustworthiness. And the bottom line is that it was clear that we could never trust Putin's word.

The secretaries of defense feel that there have to be hearings to oversee just exactly what took place and what standard this administration is going to use.

Well, it certainly is concerning. You know, having been to the Munich conference a number of times, usually when a vice president or president goes to the Munich conference, he discusses the importance of security between the United States…

The president, as commander in chief, has the power and responsibility to determine America’s future security.

Mr. Trump has always prided himself on being a dealmaker, pledging in his campaign that he would resolve such conflicts in the first few days of his presidency.

If he is careless with that awesome power, the United States could very well find itself in another world war.

Autocrats that once operated in their own spheres of influence have now joined together in an axis of mutual support and aggression.

I think it's a -- it is something we've got to pay attention to because I think this is a dangerous moment. If we're facing other lone wolf terrorists in this country.

I don't like the idea that former soldiers who served well, uh, at least during the time they spent in the military, uh, that somehow there was something that happened that then turned them into terrorists.

I think it was Walter Mondale when he was asked about the legacy of the Carter administration, said something like, we told the truth, we followed the law and we preserve the peace.

this is a real terrorist threat that must be taken seriously by law enforcement. The goal of ISIS is to attack the U.S. and they will recruit and train those who have conducted successful and failed attacks around the world. This is a 911…

It just -- it strikes me that what the chairman was trying to do perhaps was to try to send a wake-up call to both the Speaker and his Republican colleagues, that Russia still remains very much a threat to the United States.

I think the House, both the Speaker, the Republicans, the Democrats, have to come together to now move this supplemental. It is critical to the message we send to the world about U.S. world leadership.

Well, look, I think one of the worst messages the United States is sending right now to the world and to Russia is, our delaying the supplemental request in terms of military aid to Ukraine, to Israel, to Taiwan, and what's essentially…

That just adds to the concern because now, you've got former president of the United States inviting Putin to attack another NATO country if they aren't somehow fulfilling their 2 percent pledge, it's crazy.

Make no mistake about it, that would be an act of war because it would threaten our national security.

We really have not seen any firm intelligence that there is real interest among the Taliban, the militant allies of al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda itself, the network of Jalaludin Haqqani, Pakistan-based Tariq-e-Taliban, TTP, other militant groups…

You have my commitment to work on this in a systemic way and a bipartisan way because it shouldn't matter who sits in this seat.

The message that we send to Putin, frankly, has to be the same message we send to Xi, with regards to Taiwan.

It's going to be tough to do, I would think but, you know, obviously, it would be -- it would be good to be able to find out who in the White House made that call, because that could add to the theory that the White House was very involved…

Well, it just adds to the evidence that Mark Meadows was obviously trying to find ways to implement President Trump's desire to be able to set aside the election results and have him be able to be elected.

Obviously, officials, out of the Trump administration were taking steps to make sure that potential evidence involved in January 6 would not be there. I really do think that the Justice Department has to investigate the loss of this kind…

I don`t think there`s any question that when you go from agency to agency and find out that key messages have been deleted, something`s going on here that resembles very clearly a conspiracy.

The most important mission right now is to do whatever is necessary to provide the weapons to the Ukrainians so that they can stop the Russian advance in Donbas.

I think the most important mission right now is to do whatever is necessary to provide the weapons to the Ukrainians so that they can stop the Russian advance in Donbas.