John Kirby
speaker
187 appearances
5 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 13 Aug
John Kirby’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
It's not just an opportunity, it's an obligation to explain to the American people why you're doing what you're doing and why you're spending what you're spending and for what aims.
I will say that when I watch the Pentagon briefings, and I do pay attention to them, General Cain
And actually, to a degree, certainly Mr. Hegseth, too, have been pretty consistent on the limited objectives, the military objectives that they are trying to achieve.
And they briefed to those objectives pretty consistently.
But what gets confusing for the American people is that the political leadership isn't always consistent.
parroting those same messages.
And the messaging at the political level is a little bit all over the map.
And so that makes it hard.
It makes it hard to develop a cohesive narrative.
It makes it hard for the Pentagon, I think, to make the case that this is, in fact, important in the national interest.
I find it offensive.
We just really—we need to be better than this when we're talking about war and peace, when we're talking about the lives of America's sons and daughters who have been sent to a foreign country to conduct war.
This is serious business.
It's the most serious business that an administration ever, ever does.
And it's the most serious decision that any president ever makes.
And I would hope and I would beseech
them to find a way to communicate what they're achieving, what they're trying to achieve in ways that doesn't trivialize the service and the sacrifice and now the loss and the injury to the men and women that they're sending into harm's way.
I'm reminded of—President Eisenhower said he hated war as only a soldier who has lived it can hate it, only as someone who has known its brutality, its futility and its stupidity.
And that's a man who also occupied the Oval Office, but knew very well the high stakes of national security and of war.
And I would just hope that we could bring a little bit of sobriety back to the job of communicating this conflict.
Showing 161–180 of 187 · page 9 of 10
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