Hello there. I'm Kristen Welker. I just stepped off the Meet the Press set where I interviewed Secretary of State Anthony Bligen, former Unbasser Nikki Haley, a Republican presidential candidate, and Congressman Matt Gates. We, of course, talked about Israel, which now finds itself plunged into war with Palestinian militants in Gaza.
For Israel, this comes after months of domestic turmoil rocked the nation over Prime Minister Netanyahu's planned judicial reforms. And there's also chaos back at home as Congress waves into the uncharted waters of a sneakerless House of Representatives with the government shutdown clock ticking once again and potential aid to Ukraine hanging in the balance. For more analysis on all of this, I'm sitting here with the great Peggy Noonan, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Peggy, welcome to Post Game.
Thank you for being here. It's wonderful to be here, Christian. It was just great to do the show. We had fun.
We did, and it was so fantastic to have your takeaways and your insights. And I the war in Israel, this crisis in Israel. I just interviewed the secretary of State who had this stunning revelation that, yes, they're looking to reports that US Citizens are among the dead and those taken hostage. What did you think when you heard that?
I was so taken aback. First of all, it hadn't occurred to me. Second of all, he said it because you asked him about it. You said very directly, is there, do we know if there are any Americans, US Citizens among the hostages?
And he looked startled to be asked, and he said, that is possible, essentially, they must be getting in word. But if there are American citizens or a citizen among the hostages taken by Hamas in the events of yesterday, that does bring this whole drama to a different level for the American people. Something else that is. So, you know, at a certain point, you reach a certain age, there's fighting in Israel and you think, there's always fighting in Israel.
You do not recognize it as a. It's hard to see gradations of the story. You can, you can infer it after a while, but you're not alarmed and shocked, oh, my God, there's fighting in Israel. What is so different about this and interesting, is not only that it appears to have been large and well planned and sophisticatedly planned under the nose of US Intelligence and Israeli intelligence.
So that's startling enough. But the other startling thing is Hamas, the warriors for Hamas went largely for civilian targets and largely for civilians. They hit Israeli troops and Israeli installations, but they quite deliberately went for citizens on the ground, which yielded horrifying stories. Horrifying Reports on Facebook, horrifying videos, just.
Just a whole horror thing. And I think something to lower this. I mean, you just got to feel compassion and sympathy and a certain amount of human shock. Another thought I'm having is that I, I cannot escape the thought that part of this, when we apportion blame, you don't blame in the first day or the second day, but eventually you say, hey, who was I blame here?
And I think you are going to see an intelligence failure and a security failure that you have to pin on the Israeli government. But I also think beating Netanyahu, being an old political hand and, you know, being as tough as political figures get, I think he will think I'm about to get blamed. But I'm about to give peerless leadership and what I've decided is a war, and I am there going to reap the rewards of peerless leadership and war. So I think that's how he's thinking.
And, you know, just being a regular citizen and seeing how they think, meaning politicians, it always disturbs you. Well, it's an interesting point for you to bring up. I mean, and you're right, the images have been so horrifying and obviously have had an impact on people here at home. And one of the other things I asked the Secretary State about was the fact that DHS announced yesterday they are fortifying religious sites around this country.
The secretary was very clear. We don't know of any threat here. But the intelligence failure, the clue that he did not acknowledge, by the way, he wouldn't go so far as to say, yes, there was Israel intelligence failure. Clearly, Peggy, you have to think that's where the conversation goes next.
How on earth could this have happened without their knowing it? Tom Friedman Garrett brought up today. Tom Friedman had something interesting in his New York Times column. He reported that Israeli military personnel had been seeing Hamas make certain moves down there in the border of Gaza, but they thought that Hamas was just playing with them or taunting them, not being serious.
That speaks of something, a bigger thing or as big, I think, Kristen, is the sense of a security failure. Meaning is once they started to realize something bad is happen, it appears their response. I may be over my skis in saying this, but so far it looks to me like the Israeli military response was more ad hoc and maybe more. More sort of messed up in a way which I cannot help but associate with this gap and this tension between the government of Israel and the military of Israel.
Well, and so you bring me to my next point, which is the backdrop to this. This instability that we saw, that we have been reporting on and watching in recent weeks in Israel, protests in the street over Prime Minister Netanyahu's proposed judicial reforms. And this sense, this big question looming over this crisis. Did Hamas decide to strike now because they felt like Israel was weak and splintered and because military was not completely unified?
Netanyahu in this extraordinary moment. And here we are in this country dealing with an historic moment of discord in our own Congress. Congress in the state of paralysis. I spoke to Congressman Matt Gates, who's of course, the center of it.
He's the one who led the ouster of now former Speaker McCarthy. But he didn't have a plan in place. And now Congress is in a state of paralysis. I mean, I put this down in my interview today.
Does that not make the United States potentially weak and vulnerable? Yes. Even without the horror of what has happened in Israel, it makes us look weak and stupid in the world. We have two major political parties, one this week, yet again allowed itself to look weak and at the mercy of eccentrics and at the mercy of flaky people who don't even understand themselves to be real public servants, who understand themselves to be social media influencers and who do a lot of performance art and who have their eyes well made up before they go on tv, especially their eyebrows, and who don't seem to take anything seriously.
And this is happening within the context not only of what the horror in Israel right now, but also this is a presidential year, right? This is a year when the Republican Party, one of our two great parties, we only have two. The Republican Party is supposed to be putting itself forward as a pair of safe hands for America. You can trust us.
We are not only a talking party, we are a governing party. And we are serious people. We're so serious, we may be a little boring, but boring isn't the worst thing that ever happened to an American citizen. So that's okay.
That's how they ought to be. They ought to be taking advantage of President Biden's political weaknesses. They can't do any of that stuff, make themselves look good or their foe look bad, while they have dissolved into this childish screaming chaos that, again, is kind of without meaning, done by people who are not serious for unserious ends and done in an unserious way. I think you can hear my frustration.
Well, I hear your frustration. What strikes me about it is that I have now talked to voters and you are expressing a frustration that, frankly, people who are sitting at home watching this unfold, they're not as tuned in as you are every single day. But they also feel frustration because of the bottom line, which is that they understand Congress is in a state of paralysis and that there's no governing. The word that you use, I think, is a powerful and important one.
That's why these people were sent to Washington. Yes. And how does that frustration? I mean, you know, I talk to voters about when you stay home on Election Day, who you blame for the paralysis in Congress.
It struck me they kind of said, everyone, we just blame politicians. I mean, to a certain extent, people sit at home and just get frustrated with the big W of Washington. Yes. They're frustrated with both parties.
I mean, you led the focus group. You sat there in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. You couldn't be a more important state than Pennsylvania for these nice, intelligent people of different parties all sharing the same. I think one of your focus group guys, I think the guy with the gray or whitish hair.
Yeah. You said, look, when I ask you for an emotion about how you feel about this election, how do you feel? And he said, depressed. And that kind of depressed me because I know how he feels.
And everybody I know and I know different people from different places is feeling that way. You know, this is the idea of Trump versus Biden for people. It sort of fatigues people so much that I start to cross. It's like we're a nation of 325 million people, and it just comes down to these guys.
Why are they, like the only two guys? We're all feeling that way. So finally, Peggy, I'm curious for your thought as we watch what will inevitably be another dramatic week on Capitol Hill. How do you think this ends this week, do you think?
I mean, Matt Gates seemed very optimistic. They're going to have a new speaker by the end of the week. But that's not what our reporting shows. I mean, do you.
Sure. No, I think that was his line, and I think it's a line that he said because he realized he is suffering blowback for his. For what he did this week, and he's a little embarrassed. So now he's giving you his upbeat.
Don't you understand? I solved your problem. Kevin was bad. Now you get to choose between two other guys.
And it's really wonderful. I wrote down what he said as you interviewed him. He said McDate said he is producing, quote, an invigorated Republican Party. Do you see that?
An invigorated party. Invigorated. And I thought, wow, 99.9 of that party would say to you, please stop invigorating us. He just made them.
He made weak. And you know, when I say this to people, they say, well, what should the Republicans in Congress do? And. And I'll tell you what they should.
They do. They should do something. That's what they should do. They're used to being victims.
They're used to being at the mercy of this small, ridiculous, thoughtless, social influencer quadrant in their party. They're tired of it. They don't know what to do. My feeling is, really, there's more than 200 of you.
You were elected by me, hundreds of thousand millions of people to be a congressman or a congresswoman. You're so smart, you're so intelligent. You're on top of it. You're powerful.
You run committees. Solve this problem. Do something. Stop looking at journalists and wringing your hands and saying in off the record conversations, I just don't know what we can do.
You know what? Get the answer. Do something. We will end it on that powerful note.
Heggy Noonan, thank you for being here. It's always so good to see you and to be with you and I always learn so much. Thank you so much. I'm loving the show.
It was great to be here. I appreciate it. Thanks, Peggy. See you soon.
We'll have you back soon.