Mark Halperin

There are a lot of things that we've done with drones and with AI.

But there are still reconnaissance and, you know, things that you need just to have boots on the ground and people on the ground verifying sources, verifying information, etc.

Yeah, I had this discussion with I had a discussion with Border Patrol a couple of years ago when I was down there.

And, you know, they're talking about using drones and just verifying herds or people are crossing over.

And then they send out personnel or people on horses to find out, you know, it's wild animals or, you know, that their intel is bad.

So if you're talking about on that.

scale of damage and uh the threat would have to be pretty imminent or or pretty serious in order to put boots on the ground though okay but i'll give you a hypothetical i'm trying i was trying to look up the name of the country uh the fake country in the marx brothers movies it's like fredonia or whatever it is some country uh sends a terrorist the united states kills 2 000 people okay and they're located in in eurasia somewhere

I don't think any president today would think the right way to respond is to send the army on the ground.

Again, special ops is different for intel and all that.

I think they'd just bomb them.

What would the mission be?

Because we're not going to go in there, take over the country and nation build.

See what I'm saying?

It just seems off limits.

I get your point that Americans have a lot less appetite for democracy building in parts of the world.

However, if you're talking about a direct attack on our country and on Americans, which can be directly linked back to a government entity, I think that changes the calculus.

You've got to remember how –

You know, I remember this.

Natalie was too young.

The swell of patriotism that came after 9-11.