Cliff Sims

And look, I don't know anything about the idea, like maybe it'll work, maybe it won't work, but he was willing to put himself out to the point that after the meeting, other business leaders were kind of poking fun privately amongst themselves about Elon coming in with this harebrained idea that he had.

Well, you know what else was a harebrained idea?

Tesla, SpaceX, you know, go down the list of these things that Elon Musk has been able to bring to fruition.

And I think there's a little Trump in that too.

Going back to him being willing to endure all the criticism on all the decisions that he made.

I find myself wanting to explain myself a lot.

when people misunderstand me or criticize some of the things that I have done or said publicly or whatever, because I wanna say, no, no, no, hear me out.

I have good intentions here.

I'm trying to do the right thing.

Let me tell you why I think that.

And I think that that can become debilitating if you spend all your time wanting to be understood by people, where if you're gonna truly do anything of any magnitude and significance,

you're gonna make enemies, you're gonna have critics.

And if you spend all your time trying to, oh, no, no, no, please understand me, you're not gonna be able to keep a relentless focus on the mission, on the thing that you're trying to accomplish.

And I think Elon has proven an ability to focus on the mission in the midst of people sniping at him left and right that I found really stuck with me after I left the White House.

Seeing him not just endure that from the public, but even from...

his peers, so to speak, of like these big business leaders in the cabinet room.

Yeah, so nuclear football, for people that don't know, if you ever see a picture of the president, chances are a few meters behind the president will be walking a military aide holding a briefcase, a leather briefcase.

And it was nicknamed the nuclear football because it's, you know,

with him everywhere in case something happens, and we need to launch a nuclear war, he can crack that thing open and get it going.

So it's another one of those things I was very curious about when I got there, like, well, what's in the nuclear football?