Trump is an Aspiring Dictator: Eugene Vindman

Eugene Vindman:

Donald Trump is a petty dictator that aspires to one day be a major dictator. His role models are folks like Kim Jong Un, Xi, Vladimir Putin, who he has some sort of love fest with. I've never taken him particularly seriously. He thinks that he's funny when he makes some of these claims, and he likes to test the waters, but what he's talking about is deadly serious.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn The Boats, a podcast about big decisions. My guest today is Eugene Vindman, a former army colonel and prosecutor who is running to represent Virginia's seventh district in 2019, while serving as the National Security Council's Senior Ethics Officer in the White House.

Eugene's twin brother Alex, who served on the NSC and has been a guest on this show, alerted him of Trump's infamous call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. And together, Eugene and Alex Vindman reported that call, that incident led to Donald Trump's first impeachment, and both of the Vindman brothers were fired for blowing the whistle.

Eugene, welcome to the show.

Eugene Vindman:

Thanks, Ken. Glad to be here.

Ken Harbaugh:

Did you ever imagine that your oath to the constitution would require you to stand up to the president of the United States?

Eugene Vindman:

No, Ken, I was just kind of an army officer, and I sort of ended up in the White House a little bit by happenstance. Alex had sort of had the career that led to his position on the National Security Council staff naturally.

For me, I got a phone call about three weeks before I was supposed to report to another assignment. And at that time, it was an assignments officer that was calling me. I thought, “Okay, here we go. It's going to be Iraq or Afghanistan, or something like that.”

And he asked me, “What do you think about the white House National Security Council?” And I was like, “Wow, that's really interesting. Never even thought about it.” And he said, “Okay, well, let me know what you think, and you got 15 minutes.”

So, I took a chance. I said yes, I figured it would be great for our commute. Alex and I live four doors down from each other so we can commute together. We did that working at the Pentagon. And the rest is sort of history.

Ken Harbaugh:

What did you think when he first approached you about this phone call? It must have felt surreal in the moment.

Eugene Vindman:

Well, I mean, when he told me about the phone call, we both recognized the gravity of what the President had attempted to do, the extortion, the criminal behavior frankly, in my perspective, as a lawyer. We didn't understand necessarily all the effects to us personally and how this would play out. But we knew that this was extremely serious.

Now, the call itself obviously was not a surprise. It was on the books. In fact, before the call was scheduled, Alex and I were discussing, the president had indicated there was some reluctance. He didn't call Zelenskyy when Zelenskyy won the presidential elections. He did end up calling him after the parliamentary elections.

And there were also some rumors in the White House that there were some machinations going on, but we didn't know what the parameters were. The policy had not shifted. And that was from the National Security Advisor on down.

So, we knew it was serious. But when Alex described to me what he heard, frankly, we didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what we needed to do. I sometimes wonder, though, if he had gone into another lawyer or somebody else and that person had said, “Hey, let's put a pin in this. Let's think about this for a day or two. Don't report it yet.” What would the world have been like?

Would Donald Trump be in a second term? I mean, the first impeachment led to a second impeachment. I mean, there were some quirky behavior to put it kindly before that from the former president.

But the election interfering and all of the major misconduct started to occur after the first impeachment. But we didn't spend much time. We knew we had to report it. We had a duty as army officers, I as a lawyer with professional responsibility obligations. And that's what we did. We reported up the chain.

Ken Harbaugh:

You instantly recognized the gravity of what the former president had done trying to blackmail the president of Ukraine. When did you begin to realize how large the consequences of your reporting it would be? Did you have any sense that this would result in an impeachment?

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah, I think, we understood very quickly that if this ever became public, that it would've resulted in impeachment.

But when we reported the call to the chain of command, I had a few follow-up conversations because I was a legal advisor, and I remember distinctly the senior lawyer in National Security Council, John Eisenberg, who frankly probably bears some responsibility for this. He could have prevented this. And he failed to do that. He failed to do what he should have done as a lawyer.

We sat or he sat, I stood behind him and we were looking up code sections under U.S. code that the president may have or likely violated. So, we had a sense of how serious this was. But it was also the National Security Council.

So, every day, I mean, right after the phone call, Alex had meetings. I had meetings, we made the report. There were a couple of follow-up engagements with the lawyers. But I went immediately into the next round of meetings, and we kept working. And this thing actually didn't become public for several weeks after we were reported. And we didn't know that it was ever going to become public.

Ken Harbaugh:

Remind me how your and Alex's role became public, because you weren't whistleblowers, you operated … and that's not a disparagement against whistleblowers, but you operated within the chain of command, you reported it to your superiors. In no way were you looking for attention. That was, I imagine, very unwelcome when it came. How did that unfold?

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah, so technically there's a legal definition to whistleblower, and I think we did qualify because we were privy to or had learned about a violation of law and then reported it. And it doesn't matter whether you report it up the chain or not, but we kept it internal to the organization, which was our obligation. And we didn't disclose it to anybody that was not cleared.

But in the classic sense of, when you think about a whistleblower, somebody that goes out to the public and says, “Hey, I have this thing, I have to make sure that the entire world knows,” that is not what happened. And it wasn't until a number of things occurred behind the scenes.

For instance, there was a whistleblower out of the Intelligence Committee that came out and had learned about the call and then reported it.

And then the IGs, there's all these processes that work through the system. The inspector generals of different agencies got involved. And ultimately there was a requirement for the Inspector General based on statute to report it to Congress.

There were attempts to bury it actually. There's significant history here of folks trying to overrule that determination by the Inspector General and other folks that it didn't have to be reported.

Ultimately, it was reported. And when Congress got ahold of it, they obviously immediately recognized this attempt to extort our ally, our friend that was engaged in war with Russia for the personal, political gain of Trump.

Ken Harbaugh:

You clearly understood immediately the legal implications of what the President had tried to do. When did it sink in that there were geopolitical implications, strategic implications that affected ultimately the security of our nation, but immediately the security of our ally.

And we have seen that now play out with an emboldened Russia invading and all of that. Did you have an appreciation for just how dangerous, not just to the law, but to people's lives, the president's actions were that day?

Eugene Vindman:

No, not really. I mean, until it became public, and all of these events started to unfold and there were impeachment hearings and then the senate trial, which unfortunately acquitted the former president, which then led to other events and the ultimate invasion of Ukraine.

You can't anticipate how something like this will play out in the real world. On the match is lit, where the fire goes is impossible to figure out.

But lighting the match, obviously the phone call itself is a critical moment and significant in and of itself. If you light a match in a tinderbox, which is exactly what the president did, you could anticipate there will be serious results, whether it burns down the barn or burns down your house or whatever. You may not be able to tell. Part of it depends on how fast the firefighters get there.

Ken Harbaugh:

Do you think, just to make it explicit, that Vladimir Putin was emboldened by Donald Trump's, former President Trump's extortion attempt against President Zelenskyy?

Eugene Vindman:

100%. I have zero doubt in my mind. Putin made his decision to invade based on a number of different factors. There's no one single factor, but he clearly recognized that he had caused a political firestorm. The second one, after he had interfered and supported Donald Trump in his initial election in 2016.

He recognized basically that Ukraine had become a political third rail, that support for Ukraine was going to be highly politicized. And between that and what was unfortunately a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, his belief that the U.S. January 6th, the attack on the Capitol, the fractured support in Europe and NATO.

He made a number of miscalculations and frankly, his miscalculation about the relative strength of his forces with the Ukrainian forces. All of these things kind of built a picture in his mind that it was the time to attack Ukraine. But there is no doubt in my mind that the call played a role and was one of the earlier dominoes that set that reaction going.

Ken Harbaugh:

Once those dominoes began to fall in our country, when the impeachment inquiry kicked off, when it led to the impeachment, did you think that accountability would finally be arriving for the former president? Or were you as cynical about the senate's cowardice as I and a lot of other people were? You were on the inside. So, how did it feel at the time?

Eugene Vindman:

I guess I was naive in that regard, Ken. I had high hopes. I had high hopes that when members who I thought were ultimately … they put the interest of the nation and national security ahead of politics, saw what the president was doing, that they would make the right choice.

But what we saw was the politicization of a national security issue and how that ultimately caused a major war and negatively impacted U.S. national security.

And we've seen continued politicization of national security issues, whether it's the holding up of nominations, and finally, that saga is over, having achieved nothing but causing pain and damage to national security, to the holding up of aid to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel, foreign policy, national security issues that continue to be politicized.

And Donald Trump, I don't know that he opened the door, but he made it okay. He made it okay to politicize national security issues, politicized the military, and that is extremely damaging to our national security.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, once those taboos have been broken, it's almost impossible to reestablish them. And I'm thinking about these holds that you just referenced for context, a lone senator, a former football coach from Alabama, decided on his own, even though he knew he could not get support from his own caucus within the senate to create a policy change when it came to healthcare for women in the military, he decided to hold up promotions of senior military officers to grandstand on this issue.

It dragged out for hundreds of days, and he finally conceded after having gained nothing except disrupt the lives of hundreds of incredibly dedicated military officers. Give the military itself a black eye, hurt our national security around the world, because for months Fifth Fleet didn't have a commander.

You had empty picture frames on the wall in the Pentagon where the joint chiefs should have been incredibly damaging, but the real damage is in the broken taboo. Do you anticipate that this kind of thing is just going to be easier and easier going forward?

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah, well, I guess coach Tommy two step decided to stop playing games, but it was damaging. But you know how you repair this; you elect leaders that actually put values and the people of the United States above political gain and personal gain.

And coach Tommy is not qualified. I mean, he's barely qualified to coach Alabama. But certainly not qualified to be a senator. You need to elect folks that have the knowledge, the experience, the education and training.

You can't start to … and this has been a problem, I think with the Republican party, is that they've attacked education, they've attacked experience, they've attacked qualifications in favor of folks that they think are going to fight or burn the whole thing down. Because I don't know if they've lost confidence in the system, or they have no investment in the system.

I fear that's part of it. There are folks that are hurting out there and we have to understand that or that they've fallen behind economically or in some sense, and we got to address that.

But the solution is not electing officials that are not qualified. It's electing people that have values, people that have experience, and getting rid of the folks that are just in it for themselves or for political power.

And that's why this next election in 2024 is so critically important, Republicans have held the house and it's been the least productive Congress, I think in decades. There was a story in the Times that came out. And the people that I run into in my district, they want a government that works. They understand there's a role for government and they want …

Some of them may think that government needs to be limited, but whatever government there is needs to work. It can't be shut down after shutdown and just useless votes. They want a government that works and electing people that will actually get the job done.

Ken Harbaugh:

I want to talk about your race and the Virginia seventh in a second, but the stakes nationally are just off the charts in 2024. When I think about T1, what I call the first Trump administration, there were a handful of occasions in which a single individual stood between the former president and a major constitutional crisis or lawlessness. You were one of those people.

My fear in a second Trump term is that the people like you, like Mark Milley, like others who stood between the President and doing something like invoking the Insurrection Act, those people will be replaced by vetted Trump loyalists. The constitutionally minded public servants will be gone and the guardrails will evaporate.

I am just incredibly worried that a second Trump term will be so much more efficient in obliterating those guardrails and ignoring the rule of law. And I think one of the first things he's going to do, he has said he would do is exact retribution on his enemies. I would imagine you and your brother at the top of that list. How do you think about that?

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah, I, I have no doubt. And like you said, he's already said what his plan is to have a political purity test for civil servants and to put in loyalists. And it's extremely dangerous.

And if you think about our — and we talked about this in the context of the military, but our government, we have the constitution and we have laws, but sitting on top of that are a bunch of norms that are not written in law. And so, there's a lot of leeway.

And T1, Trump eroded a number of those norms. Whatever he hasn't done in T1 he's going to try to do in T2. And he is going to be completely unconstrained. He said he wants to be a dictator for one day.

I mean, anybody that's read history, studied history knows that you only need to be a dictator for one day to install yourself as dictator for life. And I have a great deal of confidence in the American people and Virginia voters.

We saw it in 2020. We saw it in 2022, we saw it this year in 2023 in Virginia. The American people, the voters don't want extremists. And it's on the left side. They don't want extremists, which I think are also dangerous. I think I need to get that out there, that extremism on either the right or the left is very dangerous.

It's the middle where the vast majority of Americans find themselves that needs to hold. And that middle has been reassuring. And that's why in 2024, I have a great deal of confidence that Trump will get his butt handed to him. And it's going to be a tough fight. I think people are maybe displeased with what they see from the current administration.

But when they go into that voting booth, they're going to think about reproductive rights, they're going to think about safe schools, they're going to think about democracy, which has repeatedly been one of the key issues.

And they're going to look at a four-time indicted former president that is barred in one state at least. And they're going to look at the alternative. And they're not going to vote for the insurrectionist, dictator sort of wacko.

Ken Harbaugh:

You wrote this on Twitter about that Colorado decision, “The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. Donald Trump engaged in the insurrection and should not be on the ballot. He deserves to be nowhere near the White House. And I will stop at nothing to make sure we preserve democracy and the rule of law.”

I've got not only a former paratrooper in front of me here who has sworn an oath to the constitution, but a lawyer and a candidate for Congress. What is your assessment of how this case is going to play out? Because I think it sends an incredibly powerful signal, but this story is by no means over when it comes to barring the former president from appearing on ballots.

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah. So, look, there are two sides that are interesting to this argument. On the one side, obviously the American people have the ultimate decision in voting for Trump. And they voted against them in 2020, they'll do it again in 2024.

But we also have laws on the books. And one of them, the constitution, 14th Amendment prohibits or disqualifies insurrectionists and insurrectionists supporters. And factually speaking, there is very little doubt in my mind that the former president had a role, had supported the insurrection. And so, let's look at the facts of what he did. If he's an officer, and I think he is.

Ken Harbaugh:

That’s important because of the verbiage in the constitution, right? An officer of the United States.

Eugene Vindman:

Exactly. And so, I mean, I probably don't need to spend the next 15 minutes, Ken kind of going into the nuance of this. But I will say he meets the criteria for an individual that should be disqualified from running for office because of what he did on January 6th.

And I think the Colorado Court got it right. And this is probably the first of a number of cases that are pending filing. The Supreme Court would probably step in at some point and preempt a number of these cases that are going to be filed across the country to bar Donald Trump from being on the ballot.

But there is no one that is above the law. And Donald Trump has always been treated as this guy who plays by different rules and different rules apply to him. Well, that's just not true. Different rules don't apply to him for stealing classified information and putting it in his closet. Different rules don't apply to him for extorting foreign leaders.

They don't apply to him for any one of the cases for attempting to convince Georgia officials to give him 11,000 and change votes. No, he is a citizen like everybody else. He's going to be treated like everybody else. He's going to be held accountable like everybody else.

And as a prosecutor, I feel very strongly about accountability. And he needs to be held accountable. And if that means a lawsuit that abhors him from being on the ballot in Colorado, because he doesn't meet certain criteria, then that's what it means.

Ken Harbaugh:

And his hostility to the constitution, to the peaceful transfer of power goes well beyond the events surrounding January 6th. He has said he'd be open to terminating the constitution. When pressed, I believe by a CNN reporter, might've been Brian Karem about whether he would honor a peaceful transfer of power. He said, “We'll have to see what happens.” We'll try to pull that video.

And even more recently when people have pushed back on his claim that he wants to be dictator for a day, he stood in front of crowds and said, “I said it. I stand by it. I want to be a dictator for a day.” And as you said, everybody knows that there is no such thing as a dictator for a day. When you get power like that for one day, you keep it.

Eugene Vindman:

Exactly. And this is why I keep coming back to, I mean, he has some folks that are … it's a little bit like in Soviet times or even in Germany, World War II, there's a cult of personality that surrounds Donald Trump and he has this cult and that will support him no matter what.

And he was right when he said he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue in New York City and he would get away with it for a certain group of folks, that is a hundred percent true, but that is a minority of this country.

I think it's somewhere around 35 to 45% at the outside, nowhere near what is necessary to get him elected to president. And as long as their American people go out, they vote. They're motivated in 2024, like they were in 2020. This will be the last Donald Trump election.

Ken Harbaugh:

Tell me about the Virginia seventh, what you're hearing on the ground. I wouldn't imagine door knocking has started but what are folks saying to you about 2024 and the stakes that they feel personally?

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah, so I mean, democracy is a major issue that I hear about. People are concerned about Donald Trump and the return of Donald Trump, but they want a government that works. So, they want to elect folks in the mold of the incumbent who's running for governor. A very common sense, middle of the road, Democrat from a national security background.

She's done a great job for the people in Virginia seven. And frankly, she represents the middle of the district quite well. For middle of the road Republicans and Democrats and progressives as well, like myself are a strong supporter of reproductive brights, high quality, safe schools, infrastructure.

We have the 95 corridor that runs through here. And if anybody's been through sort of northern Virginia on the way to DC, they understand what a nightmare that roadway is.

And so, immigration is actually a big issue here. We have one of the most diverse regions in the country, and so we have a lot of immigrants. Immigration is a big issue. I think like me, people believe that immigration is a strength. Immigration does not pollute the blood of America. It's the lifeblood of America and always has been.

But they also recognize, I recognize that we're a sovereign country that needs to control its borders. I look at this as a purely national security perspective. We need to control our borders. We need to know who's coming in, who's coming out. And it's just that simple.

And so, these issues along with housing, the price of housing is extremely expensive here in Northern Virginia. The price of food, these are the issues that voters care about. And I think, I personally bring a perspective to this that is probably somewhat unique for the folks that are in the field here for Virginia seventh.

So, not only am I a long-time resident here in Northern Virginia, and I've had kids that have gone through public schools, and that means a lot to me. And I have a daughter. So, reproductive rights mean a lot to me. Infrastructure means a lot, all the things I just mentioned.

But I understand kind of the place that the U.S. has in the world as a leader, as kind of the linchpin in security, global security, in a democratic or rules-based world. And when Russia attacked Ukraine going on almost two years ago, oil prices spiked, which means people in Northern Virginia were paying more for the oil at the gas station, at the pump.

Inflation at the grocery store spiked, because so much Ukrainian grain, Ukraine is a bread basket for that part of the world and for much of Africa and other countries. And those geopolitical effects, because we're ultimately interwoven world are our strength, is economic strength, just as it is military strength.

Being able to talk about those issues, understanding the U.S. role, how important it is for us to stay engaged and having been at the White House, having advised on major issues of national security and geopolitics is critically important. Because ultimately, it's a federal office. It's a federal office where you're going to have to be able to understand and function from day one and weigh in on very serious issues.

Ken Harbaugh:

You referenced a phrase earlier in your answer, pollute the blood. And I would love your perspective on the former president's rhetoric around this, because not only are you an immigrant, he's talking about you.

You come from a Jewish family from a country that is experiencing an attempted genocide, Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. You check a lot of boxes. How does it feel when you hear the supposed leader of the free world quoting Adolf Hitler approvingly?

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah, so I mean, Donald Trump is a petty dictator that aspires to one day be a major dictator. His role models are folks like Kim Jong Un, Xi, Vladimir Putin, who he has some sort of love fest with. It's hard for me to understand.

I grew up in New York City, and so Donald Trump was sort of this perennial clownish figure that nobody took seriously in New York City. And so, I've never taken him particularly seriously. He thinks that he's funny when he makes some of these claims and he likes to test the waters, but what he's talking about is deadly serious.

There are attacks all throughout the country on Jews, on synagogues and antisemitism has spiked the extremist right, White supremacists have found a voice, have been bolstered by him. And it's extremely dangerous.

And I've never been cowered, which may not be surprising after 25 years in the army by folks coming at me on social media. But I am concerned, and I actually have a good friend of mine who's a neighbor and he's Jewish and a vet-

Ken Harbaugh:

Sounds like your brother, is it Alex?

Eugene Vindman:

It's not Alex but he's highly skilled and highly trained. And for the last month, he's held post at the entrance to a synagogue where his daughter goes to day school. Because there have been incidents of either bomb threats or attacks, and he's armed. He's got law enforcement officer certification. It would be a terrible mistake for anybody to go to that synagogue and be aggressive. But the fact that he has to do that is very much disturbing.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. It is a dark indicator. And I worry that if we reelect President Trump, all of those groups are going to be further emboldened.

I have a tactical question for you. Vet to vet, I worry about a second Trump administration, T2, pushing the line on constitutional issues, attempting again to force the military or order the military to do unconstitutional things.

The only thing that prevented it last time were certain brave individuals. We referenced Mark Milley refusing to transmit the order to invoke the Insurrection Act. If those safeguards are gone, those failure points for democracy might come down to a captain in the 82nd Airborne on the front lines or a lieutenant flying an SH-60 helicopter.

What can we do to provide those people with the encouragement, the backup needed to choose their oaths of office in the face of a potentially unlawful order from a president of the United States?

Eugene Vindman:

Well, look, a lot of that's being done now. These are great American young men and women that have taken the oath to support and defend the constitution, which means something. And every day they are being ingrained with values. They're living the values of the U.S. military and General Milley demonstrated that at least in that one scenario at the four-star level.

But there are also lieutenant colonels working in offices and in the White House and other buildings that are living those values and those that captain and that lieutenant that you talked about also, they live those values as well.

So, there are always going to be folks that fail to live by those values, but that's the minority. And really the way we prevent that from ever happening is by ensuring that everybody goes out to vote in 2024 and Donald Trump never gets the opportunity.

Ken Harbaugh:

I’m with you a hundred percent. It's great talking to you, Eugene. Where can folks find you and how can they help out?

Eugene Vindman:

Yeah, so I'm on Twitter at @YVindman, X now which is, unfortunately it's a platform. It's not the platform I wish it was with Elon Musk.

I'm also on Threads. I'm on Instagram. My campaign is at vindmanforcongress.com. So, you can find me and occasionally you'll find me on MSNBC and CNN.

Last night Alex and I had a treat. We were on the Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Ali Velshi was hosting, but Alex and I were both on the show at the same time, so it was a good time.

Ken Harbaugh:

Very cool. Well, we will put a link in the show notes. Great talking to you. And good luck, we're rooting for you.

Eugene Vindman:

You can also find me in Northern Virginia.

Ken Harbaugh:

Indeed.

Eugene Vindman:

Thanks Ken. Much appreciated. This was a great time.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

For updates and more, follow us on Twitter at Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.