podcast
The Axe Files with David Axelrod
David Axelrod, the founder and director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, and CNN bring you The Axe Files, a series of revealing interviews with key figures in the political world. Go beyond the soundbites and get to know some of the most interesting players in politics.
Ep. 582 - Leon Panetta
The Axe Files with David Axelrod
Jun 6, 2024
When Leon Panetta was growing up in Monterey, California, his Italian immigrant parents often invited soldiers training at nearby Fort Ord to holiday dinners before they shipped out to World War Two battlegrounds. Later, as Secretary of Defense, Panetta’s thoughts returned to those service members when deploying young men and women to war. He sat down with David to talk about his long political career, his thoughts on the war in Ukraine, the intelligence lapse around the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and what Israel is doing wrong in its fight against Hamas.
Episode Transcript
Intro
00:00:05
And now from the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.
David Axelrod
00:00:16
During his more than half a century of public service, Leon Panetta has had more titles than the King of England. Sixteen years in Congress, where he rose to become chair of the House Budget Committee, federal budget director and White House chief of staff under president Bill Clinton, director of the CIA and later Secretary of Defense under President Barack Obama. Son of Italian immigrants, Panetta has not only been a witness to history during his long and distinguished career, he's helped write it. I sat down with him last week to glean some of that wisdom at the Panetta Institute in Monterey, California, the program he and his wife Sylvia founded to inspire a new generation of leadership. Here's that conversation. Secretary Panetta, it's great to see you, my friend.
Leon Panetta
00:01:07
Good to be with you, David.
David Axelrod
00:01:08
And especially in Monterey. You you are like the civic treasure here in Monterey. You basically, other than your time in Washington, you spent your whole life here.
Leon Panetta
00:01:20
Born and raised, a son of immigrants, Italian immigrants who, thank God, managed to make their way to Monterey. Actually ran a restaurant indowntown Monterey during the war years. My earliest recollections were washing glasses in the back of that restaurant. My parents believe child labor was a requirement in our family. But I've.
David Axelrod
00:01:42
Now, did John Steinbeck, come into the place. Was he?
Leon Panetta
00:01:45
Well, actually, I think Steinbeck was around in those days. Cannery Row was jumping because of the sardines. But we also had Fort Ord, a military reservation that was training young men for the battlefields of World War Two. And Monterey was their last stop with civilization before going to war. So you can imagine what kind of action was taking place in downtown.
David Axelrod
00:02:11
I bet you they looked at you, the kid washing the glasses, and said, that guy's going to be secretary of defense someday. But when you looked at them, did you think about where they were going?
Leon Panetta
00:02:21
Absolutely. I, you know, when I became secretary of defense, I remember my parents inviting some of those young men to our house for the holidays. And I was thinking to myself, they're here for the holidays, but they're soon going to be at war. And I never forgot that, because probably the toughest responsibility I had as secretary of defense is to deploy forces into harm's way, and I never I never forgot the sight of those young men who were going into the battlefields of World War Two.
David Axelrod
00:02:56
Yeah, well, I, you know, having worked in the White House, I remember how sobering and disturbing it was for the president to go out to Dover, greet the families and caskets of returning service people was the worst days of his of his presidency, I think, or certainly the most sobering days of his presidency.
Leon Panetta
00:03:22
Yeah. No, it's, you know. We we sometimes spend so much time on just the, you know, the issues and the paperwork and responsibilities you have to deal with that you, you you sometimes don't realize that these are young men and women who put their lives on the line for the country and are fighting and dying for our country. And, when you go to Dover and greet those caskets and meet the families, it is a very, a very sobering experience, because it really does remind you of the kind of sacrifice that made this country what it is.
David Axelrod
00:04:04
I remember when President Obama and you do too, I'm sure, made his decision relative to sending more troops to Afghanistan, and he announced it and went to West Point. And when he came back, he said, you know, I plunged into that crowd of cadets and and I couldn't help thinking that some of them were going to go and they weren't going to come back on my orders.
Leon Panetta
00:04:26
When I was secretary and would go to the battlefields both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then I'd always meet with the troops and always either pass out coins or talk to each one of them. And I looked at these young men and women who, so many of them reminded me of our own sons, and thought to myself, they're willing. They're here. They're willing to fight and die for our country. And I used to ask myself, you know, maybe, maybe if elected leaders had a little bit of that courage to make the tough decisions that are made, our democracy would be a lot better off.
David Axelrod
00:05:08
You mentioned that you come from an immigrant family. And I read a story about your grandfather, your your mother's father, being shipped out of here to, I guess, San Jose or somewhere during the war because he was Italian. And we were at war against the axis and. But. And that was painful.
Leon Panetta
00:05:31
It was very painful because I was I was a young boy. My grandfather, my nonno, as we call him in Italian, came to visit my mother in 1938. And was was here visiting when the war broke out. And, they would not allow him to return back to Italy. And so he. And thank God he was around, because he basically babysat for me while my parents were working in the restaurant. And I got very close to my grandfather, who didn't. He didn't speak very much English. I had to learn Italian very quickly in order to be able to, to eat. And, I got very close to him. And then, it was about 2 or 3 years into the war that the order came down, that if you're an Italian alien, you have to move away from the coast. And I. Even at that time I was familiar with what happened to the Japanese, but I never expected that it would have happened to Italians, as well. But it did. We had to move him to to a home in San Jose. And, I, as a young boy, I, I, I really I was struggling to try to understand why why that was happening. And, you know, my my nonno was not around.
David Axelrod
00:06:56
I want to ask you about the larger issue of immigration. I'm the son of an immigrant, as well. And, it is such a charged issue these days. And, you know, I know my family, your family, a lot of families come here because they want to work, and they want to support their families, and they want to build their dreams. And that is sort of what made America go generation after generation. And I'm trying to picture what this country would be like without that quality and without being the country that everyone in the world wants to come to.
Leon Panetta
00:07:29
David, I, I remember asking my parents, like, why did you come all that distance to this country? They came from a poor area in Italy, but they had the comfort of family and friends. Why would you leave all of that to come thousands of miles to a country, you had no idea where you were going, or what was going to what was going to happen? Why would you do that? And I never forgot my father's response, which was that my mother and he believed they could give a better life to their children in this country. And I believe that to be the American dream. And I've had the chance to live that dream. But more importantly, I think that's what America is all about. America has been built because of those willing to come to this country to work hard and to achieve the American dream. And it's made us stronger as a country because of that. And, you know, I just I find it very difficult when there are people who are now attacking immigrants who who are trying to come to achieve that American dream, because, frankly, the Statue of Liberty is really a statement to the world about this country and what we're about. And in many ways, when you attack immigration, you're attacking the Statue of Liberty and all the things we stand for.
David Axelrod
00:08:51
But it is a it is a motivational issue for a lot of people. And the situation at the border is obviously what's driving a lot of this. Two things can be true at once. One is we need an orderly immigration system and the other is we need immigration. I mean, it seems that those two principles can live together. And yet, we've been trying for years, including when you were in the administration, to deal with reforming the immigration system. We we're still trying. And it it seems like, as on so many things, people would rather have the issue than the solution.
Leon Panetta
00:09:36
Yeah. No, it, what what really disturbs me is that, you know, when we elect people to Washington, we elect them to come back to Washington to govern, not to fight each other, not to try to attack the institutions of our democracy. And I, you know, fortunately, I often say, in my over 50 years of public life, I've seen Washington at its best and Washington at its worst. The good news is, I saw Washington work. I saw Republicans and Democrats willing to work together on big issues facing this country. And it was during the Reagan administration, frankly, when, Democrats and Republicans came together to, and I was part of that negotiation, on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. And we came, we we worked it out, took a long time. We cut deals. But we passed immigration reform on a bipartisan vote. We passed Social Security reform on a bipartisan bill. We passed tax reform on a bipartisan vote. We were able to work together to be able to deal with the problems facing our democracy. And today we know the immigration system is broken. We know it has to be repaired. It should be done comprehensively. We've even seen a bipartisan effort to come up with a reform bill that basically went nowhere. Nowhere, because there was a decision that the issue was more important.
David Axelrod
00:11:14
Well, that was the proclamation of donald Trump. President Biden and, and Democrats in the Senate negotiated with James Lankford, a very conservative Republican. After months, arrived at a solution that was that was not really pleasing to all Democrats and. But and it would have passed, it would have passed but for Trump's intervention. And he was very clear about it, that we need the issue. We don't want Biden to get credit. So let's let the problem fester and then we can do something about it. And, kind of, tragic, really. You talk about your 50 years of public service. You actually started your career working for a Republican senator from California in the days when there was something called liberal Republicans, which are now, you can go to the Field Museum now and, and, or the Museum of Natural History and you can find them. But, talk about that, about Senator Kuchel and your experience.
Leon Panetta
00:12:19
I got out of the Army. I was in the Army for two years, and I got out and I was able to get a job with Senator Tom Kuchel, who was,a Republican from California. But he was a Republican guy in what we call the Hiram Johnson tradition. Hiram Johnson was a Republican.
David Axelrod
00:12:39
Progressive Republican.
Leon Panetta
00:12:40
Was very progressive and believed in civil rights and labor rights and education and a lot of other issues. And so when I went back to Washington, Kuchel was actually the minority whip. And the reason he was the minority whip is because there were a large number of moderate and progressive Republicans. And my experience in those days was that they were working very closely with Democratic statesmen like Humphrey and Jackson. And that was the tradition I was raised with, is that you have a responsibility to work together to solve issues. Yes, you got politics. Yes, you're going to fight each other in elections. But you're there to try to solve problems. And that, frankly, when I got elected to Congress, Tip O'Neill was the speaker and had a great relationship with Bob Michael, who was the minority leader from Illinois. And they to believe that even though they had their differences, that both Democrats and Republicans should work together on the big issues facing this country.
David Axelrod
00:13:41
That was precisely what Newt Gingrich prosecuted Michael for, for being too close to Democrats. I mean, that was sort of a line of demarcation in our politics when Gingrich basically deposed Michael and became a leader and the message was, these are not our friends. These are our enemies. We have to defeat them.
Leon Panetta
00:14:04
Yeah, no, it changed dramatically. But there were also people like Tom Foley, you know, from Washington, who just he had he had this real sense of a responsibility to govern.
David Axelrod
00:14:16
He was the speaker.
Leon Panetta
00:14:17
And he became speaker, was went up, worked his way up. And there were Republicans who were basically the same. And, and the system worked well. And, what what Gingrich was really striving for had nothing to do with trying to solve problems in the country. It was purely about power and the ability to gain power.
David Axelrod
00:14:40
So I want to talk to you about sort of the transition in our politics, not just the inability to work together, but the changing nature of, of the parties and particularly the Republican Party, because you mentioned you were there at a time when there were liberal Republicans. You also were there right after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and, and race and civil rights was a huge, hugely polarizing issue. And you mentioned before that you were interested in civil rights. I gather your experience in the service was part of that.
Leon Panetta
00:15:20
It was I mean, I you know, obviously as the son of immigrants, you know, you recognize, you know, elements of discrimination just because of who you are. And, and I, I really developed a real interest in, in promoting civil rights and as, as a legislative assistant to Tom Kuchel, I actually worked on the historic civil rights bills at that time. And that was totally bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats working together, and then.
David Axelrod
00:15:56
With a southern Democratic president.
Leon Panetta
00:15:58
With a southern Democratic president. And, when I was, when Kuchel got defeated, I was offered a job at what was then HEW as director of the office for civil rights. And the primary responsibility of that office was to enforce, you know, equal education requirements and deal largely with a dual school system in the South following on Brown versus the Board of Education. And it was a challenging job, but I really felt that it was an important effort to try to promote equal education for kids, for all kids. And I, it was in the Nixon administration. And little did I know that Nixon had made a deal with Strom Thurmond to basically back off of civil rights enforcement. And I kept getting pressure, obviously, to try to back off a little bit. And I just, I decided. Having.
David Axelrod
00:16:59
You were in your 20s at this time?
Leon Panetta
00:17:00
I was in my 20s. Late 20s. 26. 27. And I kind of made that kind of fundamental decision that I often tell the students at our institute, you're going to face a decision between whether or not you're going to do something to improve your career, or whether you're going to do what you think is right. You'll face that kind of decision somewhere along your way. And I faced that decision. And I remember telling Sylvia, my wife, I said, you know, I said, if I keep doing what I'm doing, if I keep enforcing the law, I'm likely to lose my job. And she said, you have to do what's right. Thank God. You know, it really kind of gave me the courage to kind of keep going forward.
David Axelrod
00:17:38
And you lost your job.
Leon Panetta
00:17:42
I did lose my job. And it's a it's an interesting story. It was. The Washington Post appeared on the front steps of our house, and there was a story that said Panetta resigns as director of the office for civil rights. I hadn't resigned. But there was the story. So I remember going and talking to Bob Finch, who was the secretary of HEW, and saying to him, look, I haven't resigned. There is this story. I'm denying it, of course. And he said, no, no, just keep denying it. It's, you know, it's one of these rumors that goes into into the newspapers. But then, Ron Ziegler was asked the question at the presidential briefing.
David Axelrod
00:18:22
President's press secretary.
Leon Panetta
00:18:23
Press conference. And he was asked the question, what about this story that Panetta has resigned? And Ziegler, without blinking an eye, said, yeah, it's true. He has resigned. So I finally figured out.
David Axelrod
00:18:37
That you resigned.
Leon Panetta
00:18:38
I got the message and resigned.
David Axelrod
00:18:42
'We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more of the Axe Files. And now back to the show. You went up to New York and work for John Lindsay. You know, you talked about Italian-Americans being sensitive to discrimination and so on. But there was a pretty big backlash in the Italian-American community in New York to the Civil Rights Acts, to race generally. And Lindsay lost the Republican primary in 1969, won on the Liberal Party line. So you sort of had a close in encounter with the changing nature of the Republican Party.
Leon Panetta
00:19:34
Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. When I, when I was working in Congress, there were a lot of Republicans who had been involved in civil rights. And then when the Nixon administration came in, there began to be this kind of move away. And I could sense it. And you could see the split in the Republican Party now taking place. And that, ultimately, is what made me change my mind and become a Democrat, because I said, I have principles that I live by. And the Democratic Party was, you know, as Tip O'Neill used to say, a big tent party. And it was willing to accept those kinds of views, and, and really encouraged them.
David Axelrod
00:20:15
You, you mentioned Tip O'Neill. He came out. You ran in 1976, which was a propitious time to become a Democrat, because it was the election after Watergate. And Democrats had a banner year that year. But Tip O'Neill came out and campaigned for you and he, which must have pleased you, all but the fact that he didn't he didn't say your name right.
Leon Panetta
00:20:38
That's right. He was he didn't say Leon. He said Leo Panetti or something like that.
David Axelrod
00:20:46
I had it written down Leo Minetta. He he confused you with Norm, Norm Mineta.
Leon Panetta
00:20:53
'That, that's right. Because, for for my whole career, we had problems, Norm and I, trying to get it straight. His name was Mineta, a Japanese-American from San Jose, and mine was Panetta. We kept getting confused. As a matter of fact, during the Carter administration when the Japanese prime minister would come to Washington, I got invited to the White House. And when the Italian prime minister came, Norm got invited. And so we finally decided to put together a baseball team, both of our offices. And Norm said we played under the sign of the rising pizza.
David Axelrod
00:21:31
One of the touching stories that I read was the night that you got elected to Congress, and you were living with your parents, and you got to walk over and tell your father, who was who was old, that you had been elected to the U.S. Congress, which must been quite an experience for a guy who came over here penniless from Italy to build a future.
Leon Panetta
00:21:57
'Yeah. No, I never forgot that. I was running against a Republican incumbent and, who'd been in office for, I think, about 15 or 16 years. And the district had been basically Republican going back to before World War Two. So here I was, young Democrat running. And I was able to win, I think, by about 3 or 4 points. 50-52, 53 was the number, I think I remember, in the election. And, so we won. And when we got home, I walked over to see my dad. And he just had this, you know, this look of somebody who is very proud that here he was an immigrant, and the son of immigrants had now been elected to the Congress of the United States. I never forgot that moment, and it stayed with me a long time.
David Axelrod
00:22:54
'My dad was long gone when I served in the White House. But we went to Russia. And so, remember, we were in Red Square, and they played our national anthem, which I always found moving when our national anthem was being played on foreign soil. And, it was the night, the eve of what would have been my father's 99th birthday. And I found myself standing there listening to this anthem and thinking about what it took for my father and his family to make it to the US. They escape from the pogroms. It was a terrible experience. And here I was as the senior advisor to a president of the United States who was African-American. I mean, it's really an extraordinary story. And, I was just, I had tears in my eyes. And I wish my dad had been around to see me in that office.
Leon Panetta
00:23:45
There. You know, there's great moments when I. I remember when I was elected to Congress and I would be walking over to the Capitol. And you've seen the Capitol at night?
David Axelrod
00:23:57
Yeah.
Leon Panetta
00:23:57
I'd look at the Capitol and I'd say to myself, my God, here I am, the son of immigrants, walking over to vote in the Capitol of the United States. And later, when I got a job in the Clinton administration and I became chief of staff, sometimes I'd be alone in the Oval Office waiting for the president to get there. And I'd say to myself, I'm I'm at the center of power in the world. I'm in the Oval Office of the United States, and I'm the son of immigrants here. And it was that that sense that we really do live in a special country.
David Axelrod
00:24:36
I hope that's still allowed in a year. Listen, I never lost the sense of awe when I walked into that building and when I walked into that office.
Leon Panetta
00:24:49
You got it.
David Axelrod
00:24:49
And everyone who works there, should have that. You spent 16 years in Congress in productive years, and you talked about some of the things that you did. You were the chair of the budget committee the last few years. And that led you to be the, budget director.
Leon Panetta
00:25:05
OMB director for.
David Axelrod
00:25:06
For the Clinton administration. And you were part of the group that crafted what would lay the foundation for the first balanced budgets and the last.
Leon Panetta
00:25:17
Yeah, it's something I keep telling people when when they always ask me about a $34 trillion debt and the fact that, you know, we worked on that when I was in the Congress as chair, and then as OMB director and.
David Axelrod
00:25:33
Not on accumulating the debt, but reducing.
Leon Panetta
00:25:35
Reducing the debt. As chair of the budget committee, it was during the Bush administration, and Bush actually ultimately put together a summit at Andrews Air Force Base where we sat down, Republicans and Democrats sat down, for I think it was about 2 or 3 weeks, basically fashioning a budget agreement that reduced the deficit by $500 billion, 250 billion in spending savings, 250 billion in tax increases. And then when I became OMB director, President Clinton felt committed to keep working on reducing the deficit. And we put together a very similar budget approach, 250 billion in spending savings, 250 billion in tax increases. Not easy. Tough to pass, but we passed it in. The combination of those two budget agreements is what ultimately led to a balanced federal budget.
David Axelrod
00:26:30
We should point out that George H.W. Bush wrote in his diary when he signed that bill that he probably had sealed his fate. And he may have.
Leon Panetta
00:26:40
He may have.
David Axelrod
00:26:41
He deserves credit for what he did. But you mentioned where we are today. A, can you imagine a scenario like the one that you describe? I mean, we we had some stab at it during the Obama administration, thing is much more profound now. Do you think it's still possible to. And tell people why you think it's important. Because there are a lot of Americans out there who, you know, have other priorities and are struggling, and, you know, they don't want to sacrifice for balanced budgets. And they think there are a lot of people who are quite wealthy who ought to sacrifice more.
Leon Panetta
00:27:20
Yeah. You know, I can remember when I was, I think I was budget chair at the time and George Bush the first got elected and he called me to the vice president's house to talk about the issue. And I said, I said, you know, Mr. President, I just have to tell you that ultimately you have to deal with this issue, because I don't care what your priority is, whether it's defense, whether it's education, whatever it is, if you allow these deficits to grow, you won't have the resources to commit to any of your priorities. That's the bottom line. And that's the problem today is that with a $34 trillion national debt, what is happening is the interest payments alone on that debt are now more than the defense budget. It's really getting close to $1 trillion in interest payments. And what we're doing is basically taking away the resources we need in order to focus on on the issues that and Americans are all about. So so Americans are paying the price for the failure to to discipline our budget. And, you know, Bill Clinton taught me something that I think is important, which is that you can make these tough decisions on entitlements, on defense, on taxes, but you can also invest as a result of that. And he invested in education. He invested in research. He had his priorities to invest in. But it was right to basically do it in a disciplined way rather than just borrowing and putting that on on the backs of children for the future. So it is important that we try to get back to to discipline in the budget. I mean, the biggest problem right now, David, is that neither Democrats or Republicans, frankly, want to confront this issue and make tough decisions. I understand that's tough. Tough to deal with entitlements, tough to deal with spending, tough to deal with defense cuts, tough to deal with taxes. But they have a responsibility to try to be able to do what's necessary in order to begin to control this runaway spending and be able to do it in a balanced way so that everybody in this country has to make some sacrifices in order to make sure that our children have a better life.
David Axelrod
00:29:47
Talk to me about Bill Clinton. And, you've worked for a few presidents, two in particular. Tell me about Bill Clinton. Tell me his strengths and weaknesses, because I should add that for your good works as budget director under the heading of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, you got drafted to become White House chief of staff when the White House was sort of at its nadir, at the lowest point of the Clinton administration in '94 when his numbers were bad. Midterms were awful. So tell me about your. You spent three years as his chief of staff.
Leon Panetta
00:30:21
It was interesting. I mean, I, I think I met him the first time when I was in Congress, and we talked about budget issues then. And then he appointed me as OMB director. And that's when I really first got to know him. And it was really a wonderful experience because he had been a governor, he'd worked with budgets, and he was very bright, asked great questions. I mean, we went through the budget line item by line item, and he knew every program. I think it was because he was governor of Arkansas and that he was working with budgets all the time. But he focused on that and and really, you know, made some very, very good and very tough decisions. But more importantly, he enjoyed the office of the presidency. He enjoyed the politics. He enjoyed, kind of understanding where people were coming from. He was somebody who listened very carefully. But he also did something that I think sometimes is missing today, which is the ability to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and understand where they're coming from. I mean, he he knew every congressman, he knew their district. He knew the politics of that district. He knew the senators and the politics of each state. And frankly, when he met with foreign leaders, he had the ability to understand where they were coming from.
David Axelrod
00:31:49
He was a, he was at once a brilliant policy mind and a freakishly good politician.
Leon Panetta
00:31:56
Absolutely.
David Axelrod
00:31:57
While you were there was the transition from a. He really made a shift in his politics, because he concluded that he had moved too far left and paid a price for it in '94. And there were guys who then joined the operation, at least the political operation. Dick Morris, Mark Penn and so on. What was it like as chief of staff as all of these? You had one group of consultants sort of on one side of this divide, the others on another. You're trying to manage this process. You don't know who he's talking to. What was that like?
Leon Panetta
00:32:39
Well, it was interesting because we had Harold Ickes, who was dealing with the, the politics in the White House.
David Axelrod
00:32:47
Comes from a left tradition.
Leon Panetta
00:32:48
What I did when I became chief of staff was I established two deputies. One was Harold. The other was a guy from North Carolina.
David Axelrod
00:32:58
Erskine Bowles,
Leon Panetta
00:33:00
Erskine Bowles. Who basically handle issues and personnel. Who were both great. And so one day, he came in and told me, he said, you know, the president's talking to Dick Morris, and he and he used a four letter word to describe Morris, because he had worked with him before. And I know, you know, I mean, I think I kind of understood Bill Clinton's thinking, which was he was worried about the politics of what was happening. He was worried about losing. And he was prepared to talk to the devil if he had to talk to the devil.
David Axelrod
00:33:29
Well, good news, he found him.
Leon Panetta
00:33:33
And so he wanted to hear what the devil had to say about how do you improve your chances. And so what happened was that the combination of Bill Clinton's kind of thinking about how to move, because he had a great sense of where the pulse of the country was, he really did. He had a good political sense. He was able to adjust, but at the same time create a vision about where the country needed to go. And when the Republicans started moving backward, and Dole and others were talking about the past, what Clinton did is to say, let's build a bridge to the future. That became his theme. And when he grabbed that message, very frankly, it really gave him the opportunity to develop the kind of agenda that really, I think, sold well with the American people.
David Axelrod
00:34:26
I will tell you that I got called to Washington by Dick Morris during this period, and I met at the infamous suite at the Jefferson Hotel where he got into trouble later. But, he sat down sort of like a mafia don. And he said come, come and sit next to me. He said, we're in a war for the hearts and minds of this administration, he says, and it's Ickes or it's us. Penn was pacing behind him. I said, well, I'm not any, I'm, you know, I just want to help the president. I want the president to win. And he said, well, how do you think he's doing? And I said, I think he's doing pretty well. But, you know, there's still some people, too many people struggling. Then Penn erupted and said, come on, Dick. He's one of them. It was just the most surreal meeting. It was the most surreal meeting ever. You were also you were you were chief of staff. I mean, there's another side of Bill Clinton that obviously was sort of tragic. And you were chief of staff. You weren't there when the whole Monica Lewinsky story broke, but you were there when it happened. That is always going to be a coda or a.
Leon Panetta
00:35:29
Well, we talk, you know, we talk about the great qualities of Bill Clinton. And he and he did have a number of great political qualities. But he was not disciplined. He was not disciplined. And frankly, as chief of staff to the president, one of the biggest challenges I had was to try to maintain discipline and to make sure that, that things were getting done and the president was sticking to his schedule and doing what he needed to do. And it was always clear that he had this side to him. That could always create problems. But, you know, you always felt that he loved the presidency so much that he would never do something stupid. But unfortunately he did.
David Axelrod
00:36:20
We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more of the Axe Files. And now back to the show. When you left the administration, you came home to your beloved Monterey for ten years, probably thinking you'd never go back. And, you started this, the Panetta Institute at Cal State Monterey, which you helped create.
Leon Panetta
00:36:53
Yeah.
David Axelrod
00:36:54
And then you got a call, probably in late 2008.
Leon Panetta
00:36:59
I did, Rahm Emanuel was the one who called.
David Axelrod
00:37:02
Yeah.
Leon Panetta
00:37:02
And I.
David Axelrod
00:37:03
My buddy.
Leon Panetta
00:37:05
Our buddy. And Rahm called and said, you know, that the president's thinking about, you know, your possibly becoming CIA director. And I thought, and I remember I joked with Rahm and I said, listen, you sure you're not talking about Mineta? You know. I said, I'd worked on budgets. I'd worked on ocean issues. I'd worked on all kinds of other things.
David Axelrod
00:37:31
You were an Intel officer.
Leon Panetta
00:37:32
I was an Intel officer in the Army and obviously dealt with intelligence as chief of staff. But I kept saying, Rahm, I said, are you sure, you know, this is the right fit? And he said, yeah, he said, the president really thinks it's a good fit. And so I think it was a few weeks later, the president called. And the president, you know, kind of asked about the role. And I said, you know, Mr. President, I said, I'm honored that you would consider me for this. But you know what, you know, I have a lot of a lot of things I've done in my background, but I haven't spent a lot of time, you know, working on intelligence. And he said, look, he said, the reason I want you in that job is to restore the credibility of the CIA.
David Axelrod
00:38:13
Yeah. You came at a very, very freighted moment for the CIA. There was still a hangover from the intelligence that was wrong about about Iraq.
Leon Panetta
00:38:25
Exactly.
David Axelrod
00:38:26
And then all these controversies about enhanced interrogation techniques.
Leon Panetta
00:38:31
Yeah. No, the Democrats were attacking the CIA, the Republicans were attacking the CIA. And, you know, I understood what he was saying. And.
David Axelrod
00:38:39
You can't say no to a president.
Leon Panetta
00:38:41
You can't. No. If. I'm the type that, you know, if a presidents asks you to do something, you do it. But and I said to the president, I said, you know, I said, I believe that it's important for somebody in that position to speak truth to power. And you will always hear me say what I believe is right, whether you like it or not. And he said, that's what I want you to do. And he says, I also want you to go after Osama bin laden. And I said, I consider that a challenge, as well, in the job.
David Axelrod
00:39:10
I remember a few things early in the administration. One was that dealing with the legacy of enhanced interrogation techniques and whether or not the administration would disclose some of the history of it. And you had some significant discussions with the president, and I think it influenced his thinking on how that would be done.
Leon Panetta
00:39:33
I remember talking to Rahm about this.
David Axelrod
00:39:35
Who was by then chief of staff.
Leon Panetta
00:39:36
He was chief of staff. And I said, look, I said, I'm dealing with a lot of professionals. They go back a long way. They feel like, you know, what they did, even though, you know, they had their own problems with enhanced interrogation, they followed the orders that were given to them at the time. I think it's really important to listen to them and to have the president listen to them. And so, Rahm work with me. And what I did was I brought a lot of the leaders there at the CIA to the Oval Office. And we sat in the Oval Office, and the president gave every one of them the opportunity to say what they thought, which I thought was, you know, probably one of the best examples of presidential leadership was to the willingness to sit there and to listen. And then, you know, he made some revisions. He did some things. And after after he made a decision, he came to the CIA and basically met with everybody again, to talk with him, which I thought was a remarkable example of leadership.
David Axelrod
00:40:41
You talked about bin laden and talk a little bit about how that evolved, because, you know, I mean, obviously the president valued intelligence, knew he needed intelligence, and ultimately it was intelligence that provided the lead that took you right to the end of the trail.
Leon Panetta
00:41:02
As I said, he mentioned it when we first had a conversation. And then, I remember getting called to the Oval Office and, you know, he reminded me again, he said, I, you know, I really want you to go after bin laden. And, when I went back to the CIA, I asked, you know, the key people to come up to my office. I said, and tell me where this is at. And, and they said, you know, we just, we haven't. The trail has gone cold. We just don't know where he's at. It could be any place. And I remember saying to them, well, who's in charge? And they all raise their hand, which is trouble. So I said, I've got to appoint a task force. And I appointed two people, old hands, to be responsible for nothing else but looking for bin laden. And I said, I want you to report to me every week as to what's going on. And they did that, and they looked at a lot of different options. But the one thing they finally were able to hook onto was the couriers to bin laden. And once they identified them, and we located them in a town called Peshawar in Pakistan. We did surveillance, and we tracked the couriers by using drones. We tracked them all the way to Abbottabad. And it was then when they drove into this compound where it was a huge compound, it had 18 foot walls on one side, 12 foot walls on another side, and a mysterious family living on the third floor. And when all of those pieces came together, I mean, you can imagine that we thought, well, we may have something here. And I remember reporting to the president and, the president, as you know, takes everything very seriously.
David Axelrod
00:42:44
Yes. Measured. Yes.
Leon Panetta
00:42:44
Measure. And and basically said you have to now continue to do surveillance to see if it is bin laden. And so we did. We were never able to catch him, but there was an individual who would come out and walk in circles like a prisoner in a prison yard. And then.
David Axelrod
00:43:02
The pacer.
Leon Panetta
00:43:03
The pacer. And I remember telling the CIA, I said, for goodness sakes, get me a telescope, get me a camera. I need to get a facial I.D. This could be bin laden. And they said, you know, this is just really tough to do, Mr. Director. He's got 18 foot walls, 12 foot walls. We just can't get a good angle on this individual. And I remember telling him, I said, you know, I've seen movies where the CIA can do this, damn it. And we laughed about that.
David Axelrod
00:43:29
You were part of the deliberations as to whether it was a go or no go. And you never had 100% certainty.
Leon Panetta
00:43:38
Never, never.
David Axelrod
00:43:39
Yeah. Talk about that decision.
Leon Panetta
00:43:41
It was, you know, it. The president, to his credit, said, you know, we have to develop an operation. He was worried about leaks. And I remember going to the head of Special Forces, Bill McRaven, and asking him.
David Axelrod
00:43:53
Great guy.
Leon Panetta
00:43:53
Great guy. He put together different, different approaches. And he finally put an approach together that involved sending two teams of seals 150 miles into Pakistan at night to repel down and go after whoever was there. We brought that to the National Security Council, and the president was there, and the president basically went around the room and had everybody comment. And there were, there were differences. I mean, you know, Bob Gates, Secretary of Defense, and he admits this today. He was he was worried.
David Axelrod
00:44:25
Snake bitten about what happened in 1980.
Leon Panetta
00:44:28
He was there when Carter sent helicopters in to get the hostages. And those those copters came down. So he he was nervous about that. The vice president was concerned about it as well. And then, you know, there were those who supported the operation. But he asked me and I. And I never forgot this. I said, Mr. President, I've had an old formula I use when I was in Congress, faced a tough decision, which is to pretend I was talking to an average citizen in my district. And if you knew what I knew, what would you do? And I said, if I told the average citizen in my district we had the best information on the location of bin laden since Tora Bora, I think they would say, you have to go. And that's what I'm saying to you. President didn't make a decision at that point. But the next morning I got a call from Tom Donilon, and he said, the president's made a decision to do it.
David Axelrod
00:45:21
And you live through the heart stopping moment when the helicopter crashed.
Leon Panetta
00:45:25
There's that moment when the helicopter came down. It was hot that day and it stalled the engine. And I remember saying to Bill McRaven, I was in phone conversation with him. I said, Bill, I mean, it's one of those moments when your stomach is in your mouth.
David Axelrod
00:45:37
Right.
Leon Panetta
00:45:38
I said, what the hell's going on? And McRaven didn't miss a beat. He said, don't worry, we got backup helicopters coming in. We're going to go. We're going to breach through the walls. We're going to go ahead with the mission. And I said, well, God bless you. Let's do it. And he did. And we got bin laden. And I was really, really proud of both the CIA people and the Special Forces people, because they really work together to send a message that nobody attacks our country and gets away with.
David Axelrod
00:46:05
You know, you mentioned drones and you served as secretary of defense for several years after your service as CIA director. This still comes up, the use of the drones and civilian deaths. You hear it now when, you know, in this whole back and forth about the war in Gaza and collateral damage,.but you're a defender of the use of those drones. Talk about that.
Leon Panetta
00:46:31
I believe you really have to put together a very disciplined operation in order to be able to use drones effectively. And it involves a tremendous amount of surveillance. We did surveillance of various targets. First of all, we picked who the targets were going to be, and the Justice Department signed off on those targets.
David Axelrod
00:46:52
Let me just interrupt you for a second. You also were constrained because you could not send bombers into Pakistan.
Leon Panetta
00:46:57
'That's right. But Pakistan would not allow F-16s to attack. They would, they wouldn't allow boots on the ground. But here we had people from al-Qaida, Al Qaida leadership, who were basically hiding there. I keep saying with regards to what Israel is facing now that, you know, you can do targeted operations if going after the leadership.
David Axelrod
00:47:20
'I wanted to ask you about that, because that is the question, whether they've been too indiscriminate in using these two-thousand pound bombs where you're almost guaranteed to be.
Leon Panetta
00:47:29
You know, that's exactly right. And and when you're using drones, as I said, if it's a disciplined operation, and it was, they would do tremendous surveillance before. And if they felt they had a target, by the way, it was not just surveillance from drones. We also had spies on the ground to confirm that that was the actual target, which was a another way to safeguard that we were after the right person. And if there were women and children in the shot, we did not take the shot, because we didn't want collateral damage as a result of that. Now sometimes people suddenly get in the way and there are people that get killed. But we were very careful about making sure that we were going after the target and the target alone. I think that kind of disciplined approach is a very good way to use this as a weapon of war, but it has to be disciplined. What I found going to the Defense Department is that they did not have, frankly, the kind of operation that involved the amount of surveillance and care before they would go ahead and take a shot. And we tried to bring that same discipline there, so that they could make sure that we would avoid any kind of collateral damage.
David Axelrod
00:48:46
Let me ask you, from your perspective as a former secretary of defense, about what's going on in Israel and Gaza and also Ukraine, and what your assessment is of both those. I gather from what you're saying, that you you do believe the Israelis should have been more targeted in their.
Leon Panetta
00:49:07
Yeah. No, look, we were the victims of a terrorist attack. They were the victims of a terrorist attack. The key is obviously to go after the leadership that was involved in putting that attack together, because you're not just going to suddenly eliminate all of Hamas anymore than we were going to eliminate all Qaida. But we could go after their leadership. We knew who they were. We knew what was involved. And it took us a while. But the reality is we were able to get most of their leadership. And the result was that we didn't have another 9/11. And I think if the Israeli had done a more targeted operation going after the leadership, that they too could ultimately assure Israel that they would not have another October 7th. And so I do think that it would it would have been important to really focus on that, those kinds of targeted operations, in order to go after the people that were responsible for what happened.
David Axelrod
00:50:05
It was interesting because one of the things that President Biden said when he went to Jerusalem was don't make the mistakes that we made after Iraq. Don't be indiscriminate in response. And that council was largely ignored.
Leon Panetta
00:50:22
Yeah. No, no, it I and, you know, I mean, I've, I've dealt with the Israelis, I've dealt with Netanyahu, and I know, you know, that their, their approach is going to be we're just going to charge in and blow the hell out of everything we see. And I understand where they're coming from. But I also think that when you're when you're dealing with what has to be viewed as what represents victory here, what represents victory is not destroying all of Gaza or, or thinking you could even destroy all of Hamas. It's how do you get those who were involved in that brutal attack? That's victory.
David Axelrod
00:51:04
One of the dangers here is that in, in, in being so brutal in pursuit of those leaders that you have what we have now, you're actually creating the conditions for a new generation of terrorists.
Leon Panetta
00:51:23
And that's the problem. I mean, the problem is, if you're not if you're not targeting those who are responsible and making sure that they never are able to come again to have another October 7th, then what you do is you, you know, you can you can blow the hell out of everything in Gaza. But if you don't have an approach that tells you what's going to happen the day after, how are you going to deal with Gaza? How are you going to provide security? We're going to see what's already happened, which is elements of Hamas come back and start attacking again. And that's exactly what they've been doing. And then you're back at war again. So yes, I understand why they have to defend themselves and why they had to do what they have to do. But there is no, there is no reason why if you're going to make that kind of commitment, you cannot do it in a way that ensures it will not happen again.
David Axelrod
00:52:24
Yeah. And Ukraine. We lost a great deal of time in giving them the equipments.
Leon Panetta
00:52:32
Seven month.
David Axelrod
00:52:32
What is the cost of that?
Leon Panetta
00:52:34
It's been a very high price. I mean, I just, for the life of me, could not understand why the aid was being held up. And I don't think they ever really explained why the hell they held up that aid other than the politics of the House and a new speaker and trying to figure out.
David Axelrod
00:52:52
Well, and Trump's own reticence about it.
Leon Panetta
00:52:54
Well, and then Trump obviously was opposed to it, and that played played a role as well. But that delay basically created a vacuum where the Russians and Putin took advantage of that moment and basically were able to regain the the initiative in Ukraine, which is what's happening now. Now, they eventually did pass the package, thank God. We eventually are getting them the arms they need, but they're now having to regain their own initiative, and that means that they have to put together an effective campaign. I'm glad the president said that they should use weapons if they, if necessary, to defend themselves, even targets in Russia.
David Axelrod
00:53:41
Which apparently they did today.
Leon Panetta
00:53:42
They did. And and made that decision. But that needs to be done, because frankly, David, we cannot allow Putin to be successful. The Ukrainians are not just fighting for their democracy. In many ways, they're fighting for our democracy, as well.
David Axelrod
00:54:00
We're in the middle of this campaign. A place where, the president's numbers sort of took a big dip was in the summer of 2021, in August, with the operation in Afghanistan and withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump had committed to that withdrawal, but the actual execution of it was, I don't know if disastrous is the right word, but it could be. That seemed like an extraordinary intelligence failure as well, because they were counting on the government to hold up during this period. And it didn't. It collapsed and their leaders fled. What was your reaction when you watched all that? I mean, you ran both those, you ran both the DoD and the CIA. So you had an cncredible perspective on all of this.
Leon Panetta
00:54:51
Yes, I was I was shocked because, particularly at defense. The Defense Department plans for every possibility. That's what we do. We have to think about what are the potential consequences here? How do we make sure that those horrible consequences don't happen? What do we do if we're surprised? You've got to prepare for that. That's what defense of the country is all about. And for this to happen and not be prepared to respond to what was then a rout taking place, which certainly was possible, and be prepared to deal with that in an effective way rather than having what happened take place. It just it really bothered me. Not only because of all the blood we've spilled in Afghanistan, but because it really it really sent a message that we had not thought this out the way we should have and been prepared for that, for that option that took place. So I really think that what happened was when the president makes a decision, he made a quick decision here, that it was the responsibility of those, both in intelligence and at the Pentagon, to make damn sure that it would be carried out in an effective way. And that didn't happen.
David Axelrod
00:56:19
'On the subject of intelligence. One of the cases that is pending against President Trump is the fact that he removed, apparently, a large number of highly classified documents and took them to Mar-A-Lago, where he stored them in boxes, on stages, and in bathrooms and so on. Why should people care about that? What are the consequences of that?
Leon Panetta
00:56:44
Well, what I try to remind people of when it comes to intelligence is you have to think about how that intelligence comes together. And what it involves is usually people on the ground who are spies, who are putting their lives on the line in order to determine what are our adversaries up to. That intelligence is gathered because there's a lot of people put their lives on the line. And it's critical that we protect that information, because in protecting that information, we protect the people that are out there gathering that intelligence. And when somebody gets careless about how he handles classified information, what it does is it basically not only jeopardizes our intelligence, but it jeopardizes the lives of those people who are collecting intelligence. We have to we have to, because our adversaries, when you get a hold of intelligence, you know pretty well where that came from and what the source was. And they go after them. The Chinese have done that. Russia has done that. Others have done it as well. So I think people need to know that it is tremendously careless and irresponsible for presidents or for that matter, anybody. I mean, you and I dealt with classified information. You have to handle that information in a way that protects those who are out there trying to essentially protect our country.
David Axelrod
00:58:12
So in closing, you are, I think anyone who's listened to this conversation will come away thinking, this guy loves the country, guy who loves the institutions of democracy and so on. How are are you thinking about this election both as a pretty damn good politician, but also as someone who has served in in so many significant positions?
Leon Panetta
00:58:37
I really worry for our country. I. I worry that we're at a pivotal point where we're the very future of our democracy is at stake. And I don't say that lightly because, frankly, probably true for you, David. I never thought I would see a mob attack the capital of the United States and bring our democracy to a halt, bring our democracy to a halt.
David Axelrod
00:59:03
Certainly not one pointed there by the president of the United States.
Leon Panetta
00:59:06
NO, yeah. And, you know.
David Axelrod
00:59:08
And yet he is.
Leon Panetta
00:59:10
He's he's now the candidate, the candidate for a party and could very well win again.
David Axelrod
00:59:16
How do you explain that?
Leon Panetta
00:59:18
I, I think. I, you know, I guess what concerns me, David, is that I think there's been a failure here, both by, frankly, Democratic administrations and Republican administrations to try to unify this country and try to bring this country together. Rather, we've created even greater divisions in the country, and there's a greater divide in the country that's taking place. And what that tells me is that rather than reaching out and understanding why this is happening, why are people frustrated and angry? And I think that's really one of the things happening is people are so frustrated and angry, they just want to elect somebody is going to blow things up. I think that's that's the attitude. Rather than saying to themselves, is this somebody who's going to be responsible in dealing with the office of the presidency, or is he going to be as he was when he was president? Simply produce chaos.
David Axelrod
01:00:22
Democracy does rely on the good faith of people in these offices. It relies on rules and laws and norms and institutions and those really are on the ballot here.
Leon Panetta
01:00:35
David, what I tell the students at the Panetta Institute is that in a democracy, we govern either by leadership or crisis. If leadership is there and willing to make the tough decisions associated with leadership that have to be made, even though they may not be popular, then we can control crisis. But if that leadership is not there, then we'll have crisis and we will govern by crisis. And we have been governing by crisis for too long. And I think the failure and the dysfunction in Washington has created a sense in the country that something is not working. And there's the sense that it's not working for them. And so the real challenge is, what is it going to take to elect responsible leadership that is willing to do what's necessary for our democracy? That's the challenge, and I am, what I worry about now is there's a real possibility that somebody who is not a leader, who's basically a, you know, he is somebody who is committed to nothing else but himself and what's in his interests, not the country's interests. He's an he really is dangerous if he's in the office of the presidency. And he's, we know that. He's talked about being a dictator. He's talked about, you know, an imperial presidency, for God's sakes. So we know where that could take us. And look, Joe Biden has his problems. We all know that he's low in the polls, and people are concerned about some of the things he's done. But Joe Biden.
David Axelrod
01:02:23
Also about his age.
Leon Panetta
01:02:24
Yeah. And his age. But, you know, there are fundamental issues here. When presidents get up on Inauguration Day, they swear an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I think. There's a real difference here between one candidate who will support the Constitution and the other candidate who will do whatever he wants to do, regardless of the Constitution. We have a candidate who supports free and fair elections, and another candidate who doesn't support free and fair elections. We have a candidate who speaks the truth. We have another candidate who tells lies. We have a candidate who believes that we have to be a world leader in a dangerous world. We have another candidate who doesn't believe in leadership by the United States in a dangerous world. There are true differences here that could really affect the future of the country. And I think the American people have to think long and hard about their vote and what it's going to mean to the future of our democracy.
David Axelrod
01:03:37
Well, let me just say, Mr. Secretary, I think you're, what, you're coming up on what, your 86th birthday. But 80 is the new 40 now. So Panetta, Panetta '28. I can I can hear the movement coming or maybe. Yeah. So, so good to be with you. Thank you so much.
Leon Panetta
01:04:00
It's good to have you here in my home town of Monterey.
David Axelrod
01:04:03
Great town.
Leon Panetta
01:04:03
Great to see you.
David Axelrod
01:04:04
Thank you.
Outro
01:04:08
Thank you for listening to The Axe Files, brought to you by the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and CNN Audio. The executive producer of the show is Miriam Finder Annenberg. The show is also produced by Saralena aerry, Jeff Fox, and Hannah Grace McDonald. And special thanks to our partners at CNN, including Steve Lickteig and Haley Thomas. For more programing from the IOP, visit politics dot uChicago dot edu.