Arnold Punaro (00:00):
The biggest mistake nominees make is lack of preparation.
Eric Wilson (00:07):
Welcome to the Campaign Trend Podcast where you are joining in on a conversation with the entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts who make professional politics happen. I'm your host Eric Wilson. Our guest today is retired major general Arnold Perro of the United States Marine Corps. For decades, he served on Capitol Hill, including as the staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Today he runs the Punaro Group consults for a broad array of Fortune 100 companies and has been recognized by Defense News is one of the 100 most influential individuals in US defense. He's also the author of If Confirmed, an insider's view of the National Security Confirmation Process. In this episode, general Punaro takes us behind the scenes of the confirmation process from shortlists to nominations to vetting to hearings and Senate votes, everything that's happening right now on Capitol Hill. So if you want to survive a Senate confirmation hearing someday, take some notes. General Pinero before someone's name even makes it onto a short list. There are years of preparation that go into a career and national security to even be in that mix. So what does someone listening to us today need to do or not do for that matter if they want to become Secretary of Defense or CIA director someday?
Arnold Punaro (01:25):
Well, Eric, it's a privilege to be with you and your listeners on this really not only critically important topic, but extremely common topic because as you know right now we have lots of cabinet nominations, lots of senior nominees in the national security field pending in the committee and pending on the Senate floor. The point is in the Department of Defense, we have 65 positions that require presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. We have five that relate to the Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Program and we have the head of the CIA. We have the Director of National Intelligence, a lot of key confirmations required in the intelligence area. So these are all fundamental to our overall national security and these positions in terms of their importance run from the Secretary of Defense who runs the largest most complex organization in the world to the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, who's in charge of over 420 billion a year in government spending to the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of the Air Force.
(02:28):
So these are incredibly consequential programs. The DOE Nuclear Weapons Program is a 30 billion a year. So you basically, to get to your point, you really do need to have incredible amount of background and experience. And if you look at most administrations including this one, they're nominating people that basically have that requisite set of capabilities and experience for the jobs to which they've been nominated not a hundred percent of the time, but I would say 98% of the time. And so for example, if you're going to be the head of the National Nuclear Administration and Department of Energy, you're going to need to be someone typically that's got an advanced degree in a scientific or technical area that relates to the production of very complex, highly technical things. You're going to have to serve in the nuclear labs or you're going to have to have served in a previous lower position in the Department of Defense or Department of Energy, worked in industry basically in the nuclear field, et cetera.
(03:30):
And so basically when you look at the various jobs, for example, pending in the Senate right now is the nomination of Bridge Kobe to be the undersecretary of defense for policy. Bridge is an individual that served in and out of government for decades. He's worked at think tanks, he's written books. He's a very knowledgeable person and he's going to be running the whole if confirmed by the Senate running the whole policy establishment at the office of the Secretary of Defense working daily with the National Security Advisor and even senior officials. And so it requires people, a lot of staffers that have worked on the Hill go into the Pentagon and they go into areas where they've been the leading expert in that particular area on the Senator House Armed Services Committee or to the Defense appropriation committee. For example, in the military departments you have an assistant secretary for financial management. They're going to want someone in that position that really understand profit loss and spreadsheets and how to manage money. And so basically these jobs are so critically important and so consequential typically you're going to have to spend for the most senior positions, you're going to have to spend a lifetime getting ready for 'em. So long-winded answer, but basically you need to be highly qualified.
Eric Wilson (04:49):
Yeah, very little on the job training for these really important jobs. It reminds me a lot of the Olympics you prepare for a lifetime, albeit you're on the younger end of your career, but you prepare for a lifetime for that sort of one moment every four years when your name could be called up.
Arnold Punaro (05:06):
Yeah, and for example, you'll have people that are going into the government now that years passed in a previous administration, they maybe were the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and the Pacific, or they were the deputy comptroller lower levels. And so you see people that move up through the food chain over the years in different administrations. So again, lots of background and experience for the individuals going in government and my judgment in the national security field, and frankly, we're very blessed because it's been more of a bipartisan approach than you see on the domestic side where they're just going to always have knockdown, drag out fights because there is such disagreement on the policies and the processes. But in the national security area, it's been pretty consistent from administration to administration, and so we're blessed to get really qualified people for the most part.
Eric Wilson (05:59):
That's good. And so let's jump forward to the point where someone is on that short list of possible nominees, and as you know and our listeners know, usually those lists get leaked, maybe floated as a trial balloon or as you might say, run up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes it. What is happening in that phase of the process and what does a potential nominee need to do to survive?
Arnold Punaro (06:24):
Well, first of all, you're going to have to have some affiliation with the administration in power coming into power, and some of that's going to be very extensive going back many years. But let's say typically you want to be an undersecretary of defense and like the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Brad Hansel, Brad Hansel served on the National Security Council in the previous Trump administration. He's been an expert in this area, career special operator in uniform knows this stuff backwards and forwards. So what will happen with him and with his cohorts is the transition team before the administration gets in power from when they're elected in November to January 20th, they're going to have these names and they'll do extensive vetting. They'll do financial vetting, they'll do investigations for each of the nominees in the Senate. They have what's called an FBI full field investigation that typically they want it completed before the president actually makes the decision on somebody.
(07:21):
So in case there's some problem, he doesn't put a name out there and all of a sudden I'm out later, they have to pull it back. So they're going to go through and they have to fill out mountains of paperwork. The SF 86, which is the security clearance form, the public financial disclosure form, they're going to have to go through the Office of Government Ethics Review. Many of them have to divest of holdings, so there's no conflict of interest or a perception of a conflict of interest. And so the background is exceedingly detailed in terms of what you have to do. Then you're going to have personal interviews, and one of the questions they're going to ask you is, have you done anything that if it went public, it would embarrass the president. So there are people that get kicked out, they could be totally qualified, pass all the FBI, be in good shape financially, be in good shape with all the politics that goes with it in terms of supporting the president's priorities and find out, well, wait a minute, we didn't pay FICA wages on our house cleaners, or we did something that was inappropriate, and they'd say, wait a minute.
(08:21):
We're not going to send you up to the United States Senate because like in the Senate Armed Services Committee, you have to give them copies of your last three tax forms. They ask all these kind of questions, your political donations. So in every administration you have these very, very extensive reviews. The other thing they're going to do is they're going to look at your social media and they're going to look at your public statements and speeches to see if you've said or done anything that might be disqualified. Now, we've had in both administrations, people that basically have had tweets that some people or social media postings that people would think was sort of beyond the pale, but they've gotten through the process anyway, you're going to have a few of those coming up here in the near future in the Trump administration. You had a couple of those in the Biden administration, and by the way, there were several nominees in the Biden administration that did not get through the process because of their social media tweets and probably shouldn't have gotten through the process.
(09:16):
I can't speak to what in Trump, but I'm sure there are going to be some that gather some intense focus there. And by the way, the other thing they tell nominees is you live in a fish bowl, everything you do is public record if you go into this position and that this was the complaint about Lord Austin when he didn't tell people he was out pocket on the chain of command, you don't have the right to do that as a senior public official. And so there's a lot that you have to go through to get to the point where the president is willing to nominate you and you're willing to serve under those conditions.
Eric Wilson (09:51):
So we've got this really intense scrutiny. You survive that process. Now you're nominated, then the nominee starts meeting with various senators, and we get those nice photos, those press sprays, but you've been in the room when the doors close and when they happen. What are those meetings like? What are the senators asking a nominee?
Arnold Punaro (10:10):
Well, first of all, one thing we tell nominees for the office, we call 'em office calls. There's nothing off the record in an office call. So you're not in a position to say, well, Senator, let me give you some answers off the record, that doesn't exist because anything you say is on the record. Number two, it's a great opportunity for both the senators and for the nominee to get to know each other better. A lot of times they know each other already and you kind of build on that relationship. But senators are going to have a series of questions. One, let's say, let me start with a parochial. They're going to have questions about things that are important to them in the state. If they have a big defense, like if they're a submarine maker in their state, and this is the nominee secretary of the Navy, John Phalen, they're going to ask him, do you support the Virginia class submarine?
(10:58):
Do you support the Columbia submarines? Do you understand we need to beep up the submarine industrial base? Then there'll be also have policy related questions. For example, there's a big debate going on in the national security. Now, do we need man fighters or can we just go to unmanned systems? Elon Musk has throwing it out there. I'm a war fighter. I haven't found anybody that runs in my circles that think we're in a position to get rid of totally all man systems. And so senators that have fighter production in their state or concerned about that position, they're going to ask the nominee, well, what do you think about what Elon Musk said about whether we can get rid of man fighters? So it runs the gamut from the serious policy. So the policy people that people like Bridge Colby going into policy, his assistant secretary in all the various areas are going to get serious policy question.
(11:48):
The Senate Armed Services Committee is a policy-based committee. They're a very serious committee on both sides of the aisle. They're very thoughtful and deliberate, and so you're going to get from the parochial stuff for sure, and you're also going to get the serious policy questions. The other thing we tell nominees is civilian nominees do not have personal views. You only represent the views of the app administration. So a lot of times Senator will say, well, look, tell me what your personal view is on this. Well, you're not entitled to personal views. You're entitled to represent the administration's position, whatever that is.
Eric Wilson (12:21):
You're listening to the Campaign Trend podcast. I'm speaking with retired Marine Corps major general Arnold Punaro about the national security confirmation process. Okay, we're working our way through this chain. So we've ideally got a nominee with enough support in the committee and we schedule a hearing. What does the nominees prep look like for that hearing?
Arnold Punaro (12:44):
So the nominee will be the reason. Another reason for the office calls is to find out what's on the senator's mind. So many times senators will say, look, I'm going to ask you this at the hearing, and the office calls can run 30 minutes, whereas at a hearing, you may get five to seven minutes. So the senators can and the nominee will learn, okay, I got to be able to deal with this. Number two, typically as nominees prepare for hearings team, whatever government agency, let's just say the Pentagon, the team basically looks and says, okay, these are going to be the top issues you're going to have to deal with in the confirmation process. So you need to really get up to speed on those issues. And then they'll have what they call, I call 'em murder boards, other people call 'em moot hearings, but practice sessions where people playing the role of a senator will ask a question and see how they answer it and see how they do and see where areas where they need to improve.
(13:40):
And then there's a lot of process type things about how you actually operate a hearing. A lot of nominees have never testified before the Congress, and it can be a very intimidating thing. And so you want 'em to get comfortable with how they're going to testify. Respectful of the senators. We also, and that's why I title my book if confirmed because the Senate Armed Services Committee all ask every nominee, have you done anything to presume the outcome of the confirmation process? You don't get to make decisions. You don't get to pick people that are going to work with you until the Senate actually confirms you. And so we tell the nominees, well, Senator, if confirmed, I'll take a hard look. Senator Dan Sullivan invites every nominee to visit Alaska. And of course you can nominee can say Cerner, if I'm confirmed. Certainly one of my first trips is going to be to the great state of Alaska.
(14:33):
But they spend a lot of time preparing and which is really important because what we've learned over the years is if a nominee does not do well in their confirmation hearing, the people that are in the building are looking at it, the military, it's looking at it, the industry's looking at it, and they don't have a very good impression of that nominee if they don't do a good job in their hearing. And then when they get over in the building, a lot of them aren't that successful. No one expects them to be an expert, a total expert in all these areas. But you certainly need to be knowledgeable enough. The other thing is we train the nominees or ask the nominees if it's an area where they really are not fully informed, and most of them, in fact, all of them don't have classified briefings before they go through the process.
(15:19):
And so in a lot of areas, for example, there's a big debate right now about whether or not we ought to go to a sixth generation fighter to replace the fifth generation fighter of the F eighteens, the Joint strike fighter, things of that nature. And there's a big debate about that, and one of the reasons the previous secretary of the Air Force unfortunately in my judgment postponed or canceled the sixth gen, is he said it really wouldn't map the ret. So if you're the nominee for Secretary of the Air Force or under Secretary of the Air Force, until you actually can get that threat briefing, you're not going to be really in a well-informed enough to know whether or not you want to go ahead and restore the six gen fighter. Now, many people on the Hill think that and are informed and have had the classified briefing, but for a nominee, to me, I always advise, keep your powder dry because that way when you get up to speed, once you decide where you come out, you'll have more credibility. You didn't decide it in advance. So a lot, the biggest mistake nominees make is lack of preparation, and if you don't prepare well, it will show in the hearing.
Eric Wilson (16:20):
So you've been on the other side of the DAAs of this too as staff director. What are the senators and the staff doing to prepare for that hearing? So they've kind of given the questions away in those office calls. What additional prep?
Arnold Punaro (16:32):
Well, they also have the Senate Armed Services Committee has a process called Advanced Policy Questions AP Qs, and I actually started that in 1987 with Chairman Nunn when I became staff director, because there were so many questions that we wanted nominees to answer and we wanted to know what their position is, but didn't have time at the hearing. I said, let's come up with these AP QS and get all these out on the table and have their written answers. Then we can focus in on the hearing on the things that are really, really important. The aqs have gotten quite lengthy, and so you get all that and the senators and the staff get those and they look at those answers, and if they're concerned about an answer that's going to come up at the hearing. Certainly if you'll see, for example, when the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of the Air Force had their hearing before the SaaS, the Army guy already, Dan Driscoll's already had his hearing, did a great job, and he's awaiting reporting out to the Senate executive calendar from the Senate Armed Services Committee.
(17:32):
I guarantee you senators that have interest in their states for the Air Force and the Navy are going to be asking about, well, what about the destroyers? What about the submarines? What about the joint strike fighter? What do you think about that? What do you think about drones and how drones are being used? Or you have a base in your state, it could be one that's kind of on the margins. Well, what do you think about Moody Air Force Base in Georgia? Isn't that one of the most important practical fighter braces in the world? All that. So the parochial, so the staff in their areas that Senators, for example, Senator Wicker has put out this really magnificent reform proposal for the acquisition and requirements area. And he's asking, I'm sure as nominees come both in the office calls and in the hearing he's going to be asking them, well, what do you think about my reforms of the acquisition and requirements? Certainly my Duffy, who's nominated to be the undersecretary for acquisition, he's going to have all kinds of questions for him on that. I mean, I'm not saying this because I have any inside information. I'm just saying it because I know exactly how the process will work. So the senators and the staff, they spend a lot of time too getting ready for these hearing Senate Armed Services Committee is a very, very serious, thoughtful, objective committee, and that's why their 65 nominees really need to be well prepared.
Eric Wilson (18:52):
And it does seem like you're taking a lot of input from people in your state, those bases, all the people who depend on those bases. So we we're now at the hearing, and it's pretty much been an open book test to this point where the questions that you're going to ask, it's always seemed to me that these Senate hearings tend to be like kabuki theater where you're trying to get drama, maybe not so much in the national security area, but what is a senator looking to get out of those hearings? What does success look like for him or her
Arnold Punaro (19:25):
Success? If it's on the merits, it's getting the nominee to support something the senator's in favor of, whether it's a weapon system in their state or a policy they're pushing. If you are in favor of more A for Ukraine, you want to get the nominees to say, yeah, that's right. We got to really support Ukraine, or we got to support Taiwan. We don't want China taking over Taiwan. And so success now, if you are going to oppose a nominee, you're going to try to get stuff on the record that helps you make the case while this person is not suitable and not qualified for that particular position. And so that's fairly rare because if you go back and look, most of the nominees for the national security things, they get through the Senate Armed Services Committee pretty quickly. The problem we've run into in recent administrations is the slow roll.
(20:14):
Once they get on the Senate executive calendar, I mean, we had an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Mankind Reserve Affairs, and the last administration that was highly qualified, no one had any concerns about the individual or his qualification. He took 18 months to get through the Senate. He just sat on the, we had the deputy under for acquisition that was slow roll for a year because one of the senators had concerns about something EPA was doing in their state, and they thought if they put pressure on D-O-D-D-O-D could pressure EPA, which of course never works. So what they try to get out of the hearing is something that basically supports and your home interest, if you've got home interest, they love it when the senator talks about back home and they like to talk about that so the constituents can see that they're representing them. This is what's really so different with the executive branch and legislative branch legislatures are there because the people in their states or their districts elected them and they have to basically represent them. Whereas Executive branch, even though the president was elected at large, none of the rest of the people were elected to anything. So the president and the vice president are only two people in the executive branch. Again, elect. Everybody else gets nominated, confirmed, and appointed. And so there's a big difference in their perspective in many cases.
(21:36):
And the things, a lot of the issues, how much is the top line? What's happening with the Department of Government efficiency? Is Elon Musk really going to be cutting the defense budget and what standing does he have? All these questions will come up. Again, we actually only have, of the 65, we only have one person confirmed in the DOD, which is the SEC death. We also have 16 other nominations pending. Now, only one of those 16 has actually had a hearing. Dan Driscoll to be Army. The others are still in the paperwork process. And so it's not the DODs fault, but they're running behind the administration with the FBI full field and the ethics reviews. And so the Senate Armed Services Committee is quite anxious to get some more hearings going, but the paperwork's not ready.
Eric Wilson (22:22):
That is a really interesting insight that I've gotten from our conversation today is that the process seems to really favor people who have been through it before. So if it's just a matter of, Hey, we're going to update your FBI full field over the last four years, while there is a different administration that's going to be a lot easier than, Hey, you're totally from the outside. You've never had this done before the SF 86. You don't have the clear. So it really is, it does seem geared towards someone who's gone through the process before
Arnold Punaro (22:49):
And administrations are more comfortable. They've already been vetted and they've already gotten through the Senate. For example, if you've never been through before and you're doing the SF 86, and let's say you've been in industry and you've traveled all over the world, you have to list everything you've done since you were in high school. You have to list every country you visited. You have to list every person you met with in that country. And then the FBI has to track all those people down. I mean, it is very, very time consuming. And also if you are a current government employee, you probably don't have any money, so you don't have a complex financial situation. That's why we're seeing more and more people from government put in these positions. And you're also seeing in both Democrat and Republican administrations, which I never saw years ago, they're picking career civil servants to be senior political appointees.
(23:40):
Of course, they've lived the government disclosures for years, and so their challenges are not as great as somebody coming in. But some of these, the people that are coming into the Pentagon, God bless them, they're making incredible financial sacrifices to do this, and it's complicated. They have to get through that. And the standard of conduct office in the Pentagon, the government ethics people are quite rigid in terms of making sure you're recused from anything that would be a conflict interest or a perception of conflict interest. So I'm not one that worries about protecting the taxpayer. The protections are there. They're in statute, they're in rules or in regulations, and our Department of Defense is the people that keep up with this and DOD are really, really particular and really keep the pressure on both the government employees and the political appointees. There's a lot going on around now about what Elon Musk's situation is with the Doge, and he now, they said he's a special governing employee. You actually have to fill out a lot of forms to be a special government employee. So I don't have any insights there.
Eric Wilson (24:47):
Talk about a complex financial situation.
Arnold Punaro (24:50):
Absolutely. And he also has government contracts, so he would never make it in a Pentagon position for sure because of all that. But the ones that are going into the Pentagon, the Senate Armed Services Committee has very stringent divestiture rules. You can't own anything in the top 10 over a rolling five year period and other things you have to be accused from. So it's very, very stringent.
Eric Wilson (25:14):
So just to wrap up the process, you kind of alluded to it with the holds that we've seen recently, but once the nominee gets a successful vote out of the committee, they get placed before the full Senate. Are there any cases where someone loses the vote where that vote is not a done deal?
Arnold Punaro (25:33):
That is very rare because typically if you don't have the voting committee, you're not going to get reported to the Senate executive calendar. Now, technically, a committee can, instead of bottling a nomination up that's controversial, in committee, could actually report the nomination to the Senate recommending disapproval and not approval, and the Senate could vote on that. Most of the time, if they don't have the votes and committee, they don't get out of committee. And that certainly there were some in the Biden administration, some in the first Trump administration that never got out of committee. You've had a couple of the cabinet nominees get on the Senate executive calendar. Hgf was a 50 50 and the tie was broken by the vice president, 51 50. And so you don't need a hundred votes anymore. You only need a majority. You need 50 51. So it's rare that they get voted down once they're on the executive calendar.
(26:26):
Now you can get somebody on the executive calendar, and if there's a hold on 'em, either a merit-based whole because somebody thinks you're unqualified or a whole related to something that the nominee has nothing to do with, then the majority leader has to decide whether or not they're going to file cloture on that nomination. Have a cloture vote, which you're going through for all the Trump cabinet nominees. Russell Law got his cloture vote, and then they're post 30 hours post cloture debate that the Democrats are running out the clock and he'll get voted on tonight, he'll get confirmed. It'll probably be a total party line vote. And so that can happen. And then if the majority leader doesn't ever want to bring up cloture on somebody, then they never get through the Senate. There was like 150 pending nominees at the end of the Biden administration on the executive calendar that never got confirmed for various reasons.
(27:15):
Some of 'em came up very late in the process. We had five DOD nominations at the end of the last Trump administration, all highly qualified, got out of the Armed Services Committee on a bipartisan basis, got on the Senate executive calendar, but never got confirmed. It was at the end of the administration and they were just prioritizing judges and getting cloture on judges and not getting cloture on DOD noms. So yes, you can get out on the Senate executive calendar and not get through, but rarely does a nominee that gets out of committee get voted down in the Senate.
Eric Wilson (27:47):
Well, my thanks to General Punaro for a great conversation, obviously not only knowledgeable of the process, but helped make the process for national security nominations and confirmations in the Senate. You can learn more about him in the show notes and I'll include a link to his book if confirmed, which is a great read if you're looking at understanding this process. If this episode made you smarter and I think we learned a lot, all we ask is that you share it with a colleague or a friend and you look smarter in the process, more people learn about the show. It's a win-win all around. Remember to subscribe to the Campaign Trend Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and you'll never miss an episode. Visit our website@campaigntrend.com. With that, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
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