CLAY: We just talked in the first hour about Nancy Pelosi going to China with President Trump, who was right here with us for the first hour of the program, if you missed it. Here is what Chinese state-affiliated media just tweeted in the last hour.

If US fighter jets escort Pelosi’s plane into Taiwan, it is invasion. The PLA has the right to forcibly dispel Pelosi’s plane and the US fighter jets, including firing warning shots and making tactical movement of obstruction. If ineffective, then shoot them down. https://t.co/V7LhrXgXoM

— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) July 29, 2022

Trump mentioned that he was concerned about China’s relationship right now with Joe Biden and also as a proxy, the larger nation here and said World War III could be a danger in the event of something occurring with Taiwan. Buck, you were in the CIA. He also said — we’ll play this audio maybe in the third hour — that the challenge once the news got out that Nancy Pelosi was gonna go to Taiwan is, if you don’t go, you look weak. And if you do go you further provoke. You don’t really have good options here. What do you think about this Chinese state-affiliated media putting this message out regarding Pelosi’s potential trip to Taiwan?

BUCK: This is a particularly volatile moment. The Chinese economy is doing terribly right now. You don’t hear a lot about that, but China internally there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with where things are going. Xi Jinping has played his hand poorly, I think, recently when you look at how China’s doing coming out of covid. They’re actually still going back into full-on lockdowns. I think even Wuhan, the original —

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: — location just went into another lockdown. So, why is all that tied together? Well, because when you’re effectively a — you’re effectively running a Mafia state, I mean, it’s a Communist Party state, but really there are about a thousand people in the Chinese Communist Party who matter in the decision-making process there and the one who matters by far more than anybody else is the dictator, Xi Jinping. He’s not doing well with control inside of China. People, there is dissatisfaction. And on this issue especially given the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you’ve gotta think to yourself, everyone’s been talking about Taiwan already.

It seems to me like they want to force the issue one way or the other of U.S. policy and strategic ambiguity which, you know, we made fun of a lot of Obamaisms. He talked about leading from behind under the Obama administration, they talked about strategic patience, right, leading from behind in Libya, and then the strategic patience with regard to the Pacific Rim, I believe it was, and China, which is another way — a fancy way — of saying, “Wait around, right?” Well, strategic ambiguity is all well and good until they decide to push and see, what does that actually mean? It’s worth noting that under the Budapest memorandum the United States signed with Russia and the United Kingdom. We were supposed to defend the territorial integrity on paper of Ukraine.

CLAY: Didn’t go well for Ukraine. It’s also, Buck — you know this. Biden has stumbled all over that strategic ambiguity line publicly as president where they’ve had to come back at least twice that I can think of and say, no, no, no, when Joe Biden said that, he didn’t actually mean it we’re not changing policy. In CIA when — in your experience there, what do you think the reaction is when that tweet from Chinese state government threatening Nancy Pelosi goes out, how much of a five-alarm fire would that set off? What does the reaction look like?

BUCK: So much of what the intelligence community does is respond to the requests of the policy maker and try to get them the best information they can under the circumstances, right? So CIA doesn’t tell Biden, “Hey, you know, you better…” They actually get very angry about that. You never want to have… You’re never gonna have people who feel like they’re telling the top of the executive branch what to do from anywhere in the intel community —

CLAY: Unless it’s all these damn covid scientists who feel like they have to be followed.

BUCK: Right. A little different with the health bureaucracy than the way it is in the policy community on foreign policy stuff. But my point in bringing up the Budapest memorandum is just we are gonna be forced at some point to have a real gut check moment here as a country. If China were to invade Taiwan, are we sending in a carrier group? Are we shooting Chinese planes out of the sky? We really gonna do that? Because we haven’t said we would do that. We’ve said maybe. But we’ve let it be implied that that could happen if China decided to forcibly take Taiwan.

Now, that would take a period of time. There would be… It’s not the something they could do overnight, at least doesn’t seem that way. So, what would the U.S. response actually be? And when you see that our response in Ukraine has been to provide weapons and munitions, okay. Would that be the U.S. response to Taiwan? Or are we actually gonna start shooting Chinese planes out of the sky and then we’re at war with China? You realize you can only get away with the strategic ambiguity point for so long before they’re gonna force your hand, and that’s what I think — President Trump was talking about the fear of World War III, based upon the realities of China and Taiwan right now.

CLAY: We can argue about whether our policy response to Russia has actually severely weakened them economically or not. But we don’t even have that ability, I don’t think, with China. What, are we gonna tell Apple you can no longer make iPhones in China? You know, if you think about already the supply chain issues that we have, Russia has relationships globally with the United States. China is the engine of many United States corporations. Are Apple and Nike and all of these major multinational brands going to suddenly say, we’re pulling all of our interests out of China? Are they gonna shut down every KFC, every McDonald’s, Starbucks? It’s easy to do in Russia when it’s a relatively small part of the — easier, anyway, larger global economy. I don’t even think we have that leverage with China to enforce any kind of economic policies that are stringent.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: There is a big story here brewing, surrounding Nancy Pelosi’s potential trip to Taiwan. And, in fact, if she goes, as you just heard me close out the hour, official Chinese state media is saying they will consider it to be an invasion and that they will try to keep her plane from landing, and, if necessary, they will shoot down her plane. And we talked about this with President Trump and the difficult situation that Nancy Pelosi is now in and that the United States government is now in as well. Here is how Trump analyzed it and the idea that this could, could lead to a potential World War III situation. Listen.

BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP

CLAY: Let me ask you this. Everything that’s going on — the border, you were right; crime, you were right.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah.

CLAY: Ukraine, you were right; may end up being right about Taiwan and what China might do.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And it could lead to World War III, by the way.

CLAY: It could.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It could all lead to World War III. Remember that. Remember I said that too, and that’s what’s really —

BUCK: Very high stakes, obviously, yes.

END ARCHIVE CLIP

CLAY: And so as you break all that down, Buck, he said essentially that Nancy Pelosi is in a really difficult spot because if you don’t go, you look weak as if you are bending to China’s will. But if you do go, you potentially are putting your thumb in China’s eye and provoking a very dangerous situation. So, you were in international intelligence for a long time with the CIA. What in the world do you do now given the threats coming from China and the fact that Pelosi evidently still is intending to go? How does this play out?

BUCK: I think that the reality is that Nancy Pelosi knows that she’s got to go at this point or else it will be a huge political misstep for her. But I would be nervous on that plane. I wouldn’t say want to be a part of that delegation given how important this is to China to draw a line here. And what I believe we’re seeing, one, is that the Biden — you notice how President Trump really spent some time and laid into what happened in Afghanistan.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And the way that that all came apart after 20 years, all the blood and toil and treasure in that country the U.S. spent in 20 years and to have it all just fall apart in what could just to be a debacle in real time sent a lot of messages to other regimes and to the oppositional countries, places like Russia, places like China, you can’t help but note that the biggest war in Europe since World War II is occurring on President Biden’s watch.

This could have happened for many years; it has happened on Biden’s watch. But what really Putin decided was that he — Ukraine mattered more to him than it mattered to us and to Europe, right? I mean, essentially, he was willing to have this massive invasion, and what are we really gonna do about it? Now, we’re giving munitions, and we’re sending money, and we asked and we showed the president after, by the way, the photos of Zelensky with… He did not —

CLAY: It is crazy to have —

BUCK: He did not —

CLAY: — a Vogue photo shoot in the middle of a war.

BUCK: He did not think the optics of that were wise. But was Zelensky playing to his base in our country and his base is very wealthy Democrat elites and people that work at, you know, ABC News and places like that, they’re very pro-Zelensky. A lot of other people are sitting here saying, okay. Well, what’s really going on? And why aren’t we ever hearing about a negotiated — an attempt at a negotiated settlement for that country? Who does Taiwan matter more to, the United States or China?

Eventually you get into a contest of wills and what are he really willing to do about the situation. It was just a few years ago when there was a lot of talk about what we’ll do with regard to Hong Kong. Remember? There were people of Hong Kong, residents of Hong Kong were flying — were raising — U.S. flags and singing the Star-Spangled Banner. We stand with Hong Kong. That lasted a little bit until we realized, what’s that really gonna mean, folks? Are we gonna send in 82nd Airborne to get the freedom of the people of Hong Kong? No, we’re gonna do what we always do, you know, pressure campaigns publicly, diplomats, demarches, stuff like that. Guess what? China runs Hong Kong now. China got what they wanted there, because it mattered more to them.

CLAY: A quiet coup. And they did it so smartly during covid when everybody was not paying attention, by and large. And now Hong Kong is essentially under China’s thumb. And it’s a disaster if you believe, as we certainly do, in free speech and democracy. And Taiwan, I just, it feels… The New York Times had a big article, Buck, and they said there’s increasing fear that in the next 18 months China is going to invade Taiwan. And if you were — let’s take a step back and presume that you are in charge of China, everybody out there listening.

You saw how enfeebled the United States was in our departure from Afghanistan. Trump talked about that a great deal ’cause really when Biden — I think for most people, even though those who were tending to be generous toward him, recognized he was not up to the job, right? Afghanistan since then, everything has fallen apart even worse. You saw how bad we were with Afghanistan. You have seen that, really, even though we talk big, we haven’t really done anything to Russia that has had major, incredible danger to Russia attached.

BUCK: Russia is winning that war. You won’t hear people talk about that, but Russia is taking territory and in control of more territory than when they started.

CLAY: That’s right. And there’s going to be at some point, I would think, a negotiated settlement there that’s going to end with Russia having grabbed way more land and maybe even cutting Ukraine effectively off from being able to using shipping ports anymore. If you’re watching that and you’re China, why in the world, if you believe that Taiwan is your territory and you want to take it, when is the United States going to be weaker than under Joe Biden over the next two years? You don’t know who the next president’s gonna be, you don’t know what Congress is gonna look like. Joe Biden is going to be, to the extent that he’s been a bad president in the first 18 months, he is going to be impotent on a level that we have never seen before — I really believe this — in the final two years of his administration. Why would you not go now?

BUCK: And you also have to ask, what price is U.S. really willing to pay to ensure the independence and freedom of a foreign country that is not the United States? We’ve seen in Ukraine we take a middle path, right? Ukraine has banned opposition parties and there is a lot of corruption there and Hunter was getting paid 80,000 by Burisma and it’s a country that had problems before the invasion, but obviously the Russian invasion is a war of aggression. And so, we are all rooting for Ukraine, we’re all with them in spirit. But we’ve given them essentially the weapons and munitions to keep it going.

But we’re not… We could do a whole lot more. Remember, there was talk about a no-fly zone, there was talk about training Ukrainian pilots and putting them in U.S. planes — why didn’t we do that? Because we thought the Russian escalation that would come would be something we didn’t want to handle. You think about, what are we really willing to do with Taiwan? To your point about when is it a better time for them to go? If Joe Biden sees… You know, you ask me, “What’s it like in the CIA?”

If the DNI goes running into the Oval Office, you know, late one afternoon and says, “Sir, there are Chinese, you know, transport ships on the way. It’s only a hundred miles from mainland China to Taiwan. They’re on the way right now. We think invasion’s coming,” do you think Joe Biden gives the order? Do you think he says, “Mobilize! Let’s go. We’re gonna go to the mat for Taiwan?” Do the American people want that? To your point about the —

CLAY: Corporate —

BUCK: — economic entanglements and the reality about what a war with China would do to the global economy, never mind what a war would actually look like, which is almost unthinkable, given the size and power and ferocity of those two competing militaries, does anyone really have an answer? I mean, strategic ambiguity I think in part comes from no one’s really thought this thing all the way through or really knows where this goes.

CLAY: They wargame it, Buck, and that’s why I’m just… If I am China, I cannot think of a time when there has been a weaker opportunity in terms of the United States. I don’t think we would do a thing if China invaded Taiwan.

BUCK: By the way, they’re stretching.

CLAY: I know.

BUCK: Ukraine alone is stretching our ability to provide munitions. There are concerns not only Ukraine could run out… When I say this, we’re talking about rounds for small arms but also artillery shells and more precise munitions, we’re not able to just continuously provide all of this even in Ukraine at the current rate. So, what would happen if you were to try to expand a theater of conflict? Are we wanting to do this? Are we capable of doing this? Those are two things that you would have to really think through. And I — to your point about what China sees, would there be a better time for it. You would hope that they would look at the U.S. response and say, “The chance is high enough that they will decide to come to Taiwan’s aid that we won’t do this.” Under the Biden administration, is that the case? Let’s hope so. I don’t know.

CLAY: Look at how cataclysmic for our economy supply chain issues originating much of them out of China have been. Buck, can you imagine if we actually tried to go to effectively economic war with China? I don’t even know how United States commerce can be disentangled. And for everybody out there, just think about it. McDonald’s basically said, “Oh, you know what? We don’t need McDonald’s in Russia anymore.” And they bullied every single brand to pull out of Russia as a result.

We can’t do that if China invades Taiwan even if we want to. And do you feel that Joe Biden, commander-in-chief — after what happened in Afghanistan and after what you’ve seen happen with Ukraine — is going to be able to finesse the line? Buck, you talked about the United States will provide weapons up to a certain level. You can have anti-aircraft weapons, but you can’t have jets. You can have certain materials, but we’re gonna draw the line at how we ship them in.

BUCK: We should be very clear, why are we drawing those lines?

CLAY: Because we think we’d go to war with Russia —

BUCK: Exactly. So, now we look at what’s the situation with Taiwan? You think we’re just gonna roll in there with everything we’ve got? I don’t think so, folks.

CLAY: And I don’t even… This all starts because China’s threatening to shoot down Nancy Pelosi’s plane if she tries to pay a visit, which I believe would be the first visit by a Speaker of the House, if you’re out there and you’re saying, why is this significant? Would be the first visit of a speaker of the House since Newt Gingrich I think in ’94.

BUCK: Look, she’s gotta go. I mean, that’s it.

CLAY: Can they announce that she’s going now?

BUCK: You can’t… If you allow the perception to be that China can dictate U.S. foreign policy, we got big problems. So, she’s gotta go, but it’s gonna be tense, Clay.

CLAY: There is no doubt that we are in an incredibly fraught, perilous time where, as you just heard, President Trump with us in the first hour, we just played the cut again, talked about the possibility of World War III.