Robert O’Brien Talks Global Threats

Robert O’Brien, former U.S. ambassador and national security advisor to President Donald Trump, joins Klon ...

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Robert O’Brien, former U.S. ambassador and national security advisor to President Donald Trump, joins Klon Kitchen for a discussion of international politics from a bird’s-eye view. They discuss his time working for the former president, and the job of national security advisor. Plus: How can the United States protect itself from Chinese economic espionage? China’s threat to Taiwan? And what is the future of the war in Ukraine?

Show Notes:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I was pleased to see/hear Klon doing this interview. The part about Taiwan was the most interesting and potentially disturbing. I don’t like O’Brien’s Trumpiness, but he is right about the hostages. The one thing I will say is that the Trump admin got Otto Warmbier home. One guy on my hall in first year dorms was in the same frat as Otto.

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  2. Jenny Balon

    Is dereliction of duty a crime?

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    Amy

    Great topic and conversation. Very informative

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  4. James

    Extremely frustrating softball interview. No pushback on unsourced claims about Antifa "bricks" and no pressure to actually answer questions about Jan 6? I love nearly everything The Dispatch does, but this was an extremely unfortunate interview and It's hard to call this journalism.

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  5. dscott

    I was disappointed. This was the most softball interview since Chip Roy a year or so ago. I think Klon has some very important insight, and valuable knowledge to share, and hoped O'Brien could give a clear-eyed view of the successes (yes, there were some!) and shortcomings (some of those, too!) of the last administration, and thoughts as the country moves forward. Instead, as others have noted, we heard an audition for a Trump second term cabinet position that was unchallenged.

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  6. Niku

    I felt like there was a lot of revisionist history from O'Brian and I was taken aback by his philosophy of not second guessing or advising. I would hope leadership would chose NSA/NSC personnel specifically who DID have an opinion and were not afraid of voicing it. Who was it that abandoned Bagram AFB again Mr. O'Brian? Who was it that held aid to Ukraine hostage to political favors? I did agree that labeling extremists left or right is a fools errand, but I has the distinct impression Mr. O'Brian was dissembling and hoping people weren't really listening.

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    Adam

    Man he *really* didn't want to talk about 1/6, did he?

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  8. Stephen Nielson

    I find it interesting as it seems like the US has some cards it doesn't want to reveal to stop China if they invade Tawaian based on what I was hearing in the talk. Now it could be that the measures would be ineffective due to the shear scale of the assault that china could launch but there are several classified things that the US has up its sleeve assuming china hasn't stolen them anyways. I could totally see a democrat administration asking if we could stop the taiwanese invasion, being told by defense and NSC that yes the military can stop the invasion and the president deciding to cancel a bunch of expensive military programs that they viewed as unnecessary.

    I think the key element that the NSC and Defense failed on in the Obama administration is likely then of convincing the administration that its very unwise to reveal your strategies if you don't have to use them as then people can copy them, or mitigate against them.

    I can totally see the two perspectives, but do think we need to re-invest in more military technologies while also shrinking some of on the ground footprints if we can. Its hard to fathom how very MUCH we spend on our military. That said, I'm not in the position to see classified intelligence so its hard for me to argue for more targeted spending when I don't have all the facts on the ground.

    Overall interesting podcast, learned quite a bit, found some of the discussions around Trump's modus operandi to be silly but I understand as the guy was #4 after having 3 prior NSC advisors axed so its like he could be the wall to stop Trump and ultimately people get what they elected. I'm surprised he still leans in so heavy into MAGA and I wish more follow up conversations had been explored around this as I feel it heavily is going to impact our domestic national security with the issues we are dealing with election integrity.

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  9. R. Philip

    Valuable episode, but I was surprised that Klon provided no pushback to the debunked 'antifa pallets of bricks' garbage and other baseless points. Important to hear the perspectives of good faith actors on all sides, but I feel even more relieved we escaped a second Trump term after hearing O'Brien here.

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    Will Roberts

    O'Brian sounds like he is auditioning for a position in the second Trump administration.

    And Kitchen sounds like he is okay helping him do that.

    A lot of these were soft ball questions that allowed O'Brian a lot of wiggle room to not say Trump is a madman.

    Apparently he may believe that. But still disappointed by the questioning. This felt more like a paid advertisement than journalism.

    Though I was interested to hear that we have some things up our sleeves to stop the invasion of Taiwan.

    I hope those things are space lasers. Of the Gentile or Jewish kind is okay with me.

    We have the high ground China don't try it.

    You Underestimate my power.

    And China ends up like Anakin.

    As a minister I am generally for loving your enemies. But sometimes that means a good butt kicking.

    And I also love lasers.

    So let it be lasers Lord. Let it be lasers.

    Amen.

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