Latest news with #JamieMetzl
Daily Mail
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Democratic security chief claims Kamala Harris lacked the 'courage' to bomb Iran like Trump
A Democratic national security aide to Joe Biden and Bill Clinton has come forward to praise Donald Trump 's 'bold' decision to bomb Iran, and says Kamala Harris lacks the 'courage' to have done the same. The official, former NSC official Jamie Metzl, is no Trump fan – calling him out for 'dangerous and undemocratic' actions. But he says the president took a needed step to try to wipe out Iran's nuclear program. 'I voted for Kamala Harris and have been a vocal critic of many dangerous and undemocratic actions taken by President Trump. But I'm not a blind tribalist and am perfectly comfortable praising President Trump for bold and courageous actions in support of America's core national interests, as he took last night,' Metzl posted online after the military carried out the attack on Trump's nuclear facilities on orders from President Trump. The Democrat wrote about his bonafides and said Trump deserved credit for giving the order despite previous 'undemocratic' actioins.' 'I served on the National Security Council under President Clinton. I was Joe Biden's Deputy Staff Director of the Senate foreign Relations Committee. I voted for Kamala Harris and have been a vocal critic of many dangerous and undemocratic actions taken by President Trump. But I'm not a blind tribalist and am perfectly comfortable praising President Trump for bold and courageous actions in support of America's core national interests, as he took last night,' he wrote Sunday. 'Although I believe electing Kamala Harris would have been better for our democracy, society, and economy, as well as for helping the most vulnerable people in the United States and around the world, I also believe VP Harris would not have had the courage or fortitude to take such an essential step as the president took last night,' he wrote. He landed a booking on Fox News hours after the posting. 'When I see these - I hate to use the Fox word, because I'm a Democrat, but lunatics ... on college campuses' seeking to 'globalize the intifada,' he said. 'Nobody should be rallying for these killers,' he added, speaking on 'The Story' with Martha MacCallum. Metzl is an Iran hawk who has served influential Democrats during Iran's decades-long standoff with the U.S. In addition to his stint on the NSC for Clinton, he was deputy staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when then Sen. Joe Biden chaired the panel. He pointed to Iran's longstanding 'death to America' slogan, and says Iran 'has been at war with the United States for 46 years' and was 'racing toward a nuclear weapon.' In an effort to bring Democrats over the cause, he noted in another post that 'Woodrow Wilson and FDR were both elected on platforms of avoiding war…' It was a reference to Trump's 'America first' second inaugural speech where he said 'our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable.' The speech is getting a new look after Trump ordered attacks on the Houthis in Yemen and the bombing of the Iranian sites. 'I am not a fan of many of Donald Trump's actions, but I will speak openly and honestly when he takes bold steps defending America's interests, as he did tonight,' Metzl posted after Trump's Saturday night speech. has reached out to the Harris camp for comment. Harris, who served four years in the Senate and one term as vice president, is a potential candidate for governor of California. Metzl did allow for the possibility that the situation might go south, although on Monday the U.S. repelled an Iranian missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar. Trump thanked the Iranians for providing 'early notice' of the attack. He called it a 'very weak response.' 'No actions like this come without risks, and I imagine the story will get more complicated over time, but that's why these types of decisions are complicated,' wrote Metzl.
Fox News
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Ex-Clinton official applauds Trump's 'courageous' Iran call, doubts Harris would've had the nerve
A former Clinton-era National Security Council staffer broke with his party and heaped praise on President Donald Trump's successful strikes on Iran over the weekend, while remarking former Vice President Kamala Harris would have likely lacked the "courage" to execute such a mission if she were commander-in-chief. "I am not a fan of many of Donald Trump's actions, but I will speak openly and honestly when he takes bold steps defending America's interests, as he did tonight," Jamie Metzl, founder of the international social group One Shared World, posted to X on Saturday evening. Metzl served on former President Bill Clinton's National Security Counci and was former President Joe Biden's deputy staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he heaped praise on Trump repeatedly on X over the weekend, while also taking a shot at Harris' lack of "courage and fortitude." "But I'm not a blind tribalist and am perfectly comfortable praising President Trump for bold and courageous actions in support of America's core national interests, as he took last night," Metzl posted to X on Sunday morning. "Although I believe electing Kamala Harris would have been better for our democracy, society, and economy, as well as for helping the most vulnerable people in the United States and around the world, I also believe VP Harris would not have had the courage or fortitude to take such an essential step as the president took last night," he added. Metzl continued in his X messages that "Iran has been at war with the United States for 46 years," and was aiming to build a nuclear weapon with the intention of wielding it over the U.S and its allies. "Iran has been at war with the United States for 46 years. Its regime has murdered thousands of American citizens. Its slogan 'death to America' was not window dressing but core ideology. It was racing toward a nuclear weapon with every intention of using it to threaten America, our allies, and the Middle East region as a whole. No actions like this come without risks, and I imagine the story will get more complicated over time, but that's why these types of decisions are complicated," he wrote. Fox News Digital reached out to Harris' office regarding Metzl's post, but did not immediately receive a reply. Metzl's comments are among a cacophony of Democratic elected officials and traditional anti-MAGA voices who have come out to praise Trump since the successful attack on Iran, dubbed "Operation Midnight Hammer." "The destruction of Iran's nuclear program is essential to ultimate peace in the Middle East. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue — dealing with the Iranian threat is central to America's national security. The world is safer because of the actions of our brave service members. I'm praying for the safety of our service members in the region," New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer said in a statement over the weekend, for example. "As I've long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS," Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman wrote on X on Saturday. "Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities. I'm grateful for and salute the finest military in the world." While New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, a frequent Trump critic, wrote in an opinion piece that Trump made a "courageous and correct decision that deserves respect, no matter how one feels about this president," while fellow Times columnist David French also said it was the "right decision" on social media. Other Democrats and frequent Trump critics, such as New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, have slammed Trump over the strikes, arguing they bypassed Congress. Trump announced the Saturday evening strikes on Iran in a Truth Social post that was not preceded by media leaks or speculation that strikes were imminent. The unexpected social media post was followed just hours later by a brief Trump address to the nation while flanked by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance. "A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan," Trump said from the White House late on Saturday in an address to the nation regarding the strikes. "Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success." The strikes "obliterated" Iranian nuclear facilities and backed the nation into a corner to make a peace deal, Trump said. This mission was also celebrated by Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine as one that was cloaked in secrecy and intentionally deceptive to confuse the enemy. "It involved misdirection and the highest of operational security. Our B-2s went in and out of… these nuclear sites, in and out and back, without the world knowing at all," Hegseth said. "In that way, it was historic." The operation included the longest B-2 spirit bomber mission since 2001, the second-longest B-2 mission ever flown and the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history, Hegseth and Caine said during the Sunday press conference. Operation Midnight Hammer followed Israel launching preemptive strikes on Iran on June 12 after months of attempted and stalled nuclear negotiations and subsequent heightened concern that Iran was advancing its nuclear program. Netanyahu declared soon afterward that the strikes were necessary to "roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival."
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jamie Metzl and Steven Yates on China, national security threats
(NewsNation) — A Chinese scientist was arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle a dangerous fungus into the country. Author Jamie Metzl and Steven Yates with conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation say China is not taken as a serious threat by the U.S. and it should be. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Do No Harm, Build AI Safely
Yellow warning sign symbol or alert safety danger caution illustration icon security message and ... More exclamation triangle information icon on attention traffic background with secure alarm. 3D render. When it comes to being safe with AI, a lot of people would tell you: 'your guess is as good as mine.' However, there are experts working on this behind the scenes. There's the general idea that we have to adopt the slogan 'do no harm' when it comes to employing these very powerful technology models. I wanted to present some ideas that came out of a recent panel discussion at Imagination in Action where we talked about what's really at stake, and how to protect people in tomorrow's world. In a general sense, panelists talked about how the context for AI is 'political.' Or, I should say, in the Greek sense, where as historians point out, 'the polis was the cornerstone of ancient Greek civilization, serving as the primary political, social, and economic unit.' In other words, how we use AI has to do with people's politics, and with political outcomes. The ways that we use AI are informed by our worldviews, and geopolitical sentiment as well. 'When politics are going well, it's invisible, because business rolls on, art, culture, everything rolls on and you're not really paying attention to politics,' said panelist Jamie Metzl, author of Superconvergence. 'But I'm the son of a refugee. I've lived in Cambodia. I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. When politics goes bad, politics is the only story. So everything that we're talking about, about technology, AI, exists within the context of politics, and politics needs to go well to create a space for everything else, and that's largely on a national level.' In terms of business, too, we have to look at how information is siloed for different use cases. One of the objectives of this kind of thing is global governance – AI governance that sees the big picture, and applies its principles universally. A lot of people, in talking about their AI fears, reference the Skynet technology from the Terminator films, where there's this vague doom attached to future systems that may rule when the robots will be in charge. But some suggest it's not as blatant as all that: that the overwhelming force of AI can be more subtle, and that it's more how AI is already directing our social outcomes. 'It's the algorithms that already today are denying people access to housing, access to jobs, access to credit, that are putting them at risk of being falsely arrested because of how a biased algorithm misinterpreted who they were, and how our legal system compounded that technical error with legal injustice and systemic bias,' said panelist Albert Cahn. Cahn pointed, as an example, to a system called Midas that was supposed to seek out fraud in insurance systems. Instead, he noted, the system went too broad, and started catching innocent people in its dragnet, submitting them to all kinds of hardship. 'When we are talking about the scales of getting it wrong with AI safety, this isn't about missing a box in some compliance checklist,' he said. 'This is truly a matter of people's livelihoods, people's liberty, and in some cases, sadly, even their lives.' That's something that we have to look out for in terms of AI safety. Noelle Russell had a different metaphor for AI safety, based on her work on Alexa and elsewhere in the industry, where she saw small models with the capacity to scale, and thought about the eventual outcomes. 'I came to call these little models 'baby tigers,'' she said. 'Because everyone, when you get a new model, you're like, 'oh my gosh, it's so cute and fluffy, and I love it, and (in the context of model work) I can't wait to be on that team, and it's going to be so fun'. But no one is asking, 'Hey, look at those paws. How big are you going to be? Or razor-sharp teeth at birth. What are you going to eat? How much are you going to eat? Where are you going to live, and what happens when I don't want you anymore?' 23andme, we are selling DNA on the open market … You know, my biggest concern is that we don't realize that in the sea of baby tigers and excited enthusiasm we have about technology, that it might not grow up one day and … hurt ourselves, hurt our children, but most importantly, that we actually have the ability to change that.' Panelists also talked about measuring cyber security, and how that works. 'In carpentry, the maxim is 'measure twice, cut once',' said panelist Cam Kerry. 'When it comes to AI, it has to be 'measure, measure, measure and measure again'. It's got to be a continuous process, from the building of the system to the deployment of the system, so that you are looking at the outcomes, (and) you avoid the (bias) problems. There's good work going on. I think NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of my former agencies at the Commerce Department, does terrific work on developing systems of measurement, and is doing that with AI, with the AI Safety Institute. That needs to scale up.' Going back to the geopolitical situation, panelists referenced competition between the U.S. and China, where these two giants are trying really hard to dominate when it comes to new technology. Russell referenced a group called 'I love AI' that's helping to usher in the era of change, and provides a kind of wide-ranging focus group for AI. 'What I've uncovered is that there are anywhere from 12 years old to 85 year old (people,) farmers to metaphysicians, and they are all desperate to understand: 'What do you mean the world is changing, and how do I just keep my head above water?'' she said. Then too, Russell mentioned, toward the end, the imperative for AI safety and how to get there. it's not a checklist you sign off on. It's not like you said, it's not that framework that you adopt, it's like the way you end up thinking the way you are the way you the way you build software, the way you build companies, it will need to be responsible. These are some of the thoughts that I thought were important in documenting progress toward AI safety in our times.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Is America losing the AI war to China?
(NewsNation) — Jamie Metzl, a former national security council and state department official, tells 'On Balance with Leland Vittert' that the United States has a 'schizophrenic,' codependent relationship with China — which makes our battle to perfect AI especially tense. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
