Below is a transcript of an interview with retired Army General Stanley McChrystal, who faced the country on May 18, 2025 in “National Facing Margaret Brennan”.
Margaret Brennan: We are now joined by retired General Stanley McChrystal, whose new book is “About Roles: Defining Life’s Choice.” Good morning.
Gen. McChrystal: Thank you, Margaret.
Margaret Brennan: So, you write down the character as a choice built on our deep faith. It sounds like you really think that lacking it today, we certainly see a loss of trust in many state institutions, whether it is the federal government, the journalism, the courts. How do you describe our current national role and the leaders we have?
Gen. McChrystal: I think it's confusing. If you look at the polls, as you just mentioned the lack of trust, just like the trust that 22% of Americans had in the U.S. government a year ago. Only 34% have trust in other Americans. So I think we all know intuitively that we have a real problem, but I think our national leaders are not the cause of the problem, they are symptoms of the problem. The reason is that we are at a personal level and we are unwilling to consider personality, talk about personality and demand personality. I will also say that we are cured too. We see a symptom, we are distracted by it, we are lying, people are doing all the things we find below us. As a country, our character is our destiny. So what I want to do is convince people to start having a national conversation about the role, starting at the bottom, not at the top. We need to start with what actually happens on the farm and on the school’s farm. We just sent a copy of 240 books to college sports coaches trying to get them to start talking about the role. This is what I'm passionate about.
Margaret Brennan: Well, I admire this effort. You know, it's fun to see where it starts, rather than pinning it to one person. I know you are trying to do this. But, this is a symptom, and in this way we only have more transparency and therefore we have a better understanding of people’s flaws? Why does this seem to be a problem?
Gen. McChrystal: Well, we've been having some evil problems in society and corruption, lack of character, but I think we've seen everything, and now we're normalizing everything. We started to accept the things of celebrities or leaders, and I frankly believe that even a generation, we wouldn't take it. This is our problem. We give people they like on social media, we spend money with them, we vote for them, we know better than that. So, I think the responsibility is back to us again.
Margaret Brennan: You are not the Democrat or Republican you are talking about.
Gen. McChrystal: Yes.
Margaret Brennan: Although you do support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris -
Gen. McChrystal: Yes -
Margaret Brennan: - Last election. Most retired military forces try to stay away from politics and make an argument that they go past rubicon in some ways.
Gen. McChrystal: Yes.
Margaret Brennan: Why are you?
Gen. McChrystal: Well, of course, you're going back to Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses S.
Margaret Brennan: Fair.
Gen. McChrystal: So there are some traditions, but that's not my goal to get into politics. I just feel like we have encountered a period in which we are so lingering in a personality and we accept something that is not as good as we can do. So I made the decision and honestly it was tough because there were a lot of callbacks for peers and outsiders who said you shouldn't be political. But I don't think that the United States should defend its own values, and its character must be political.
Margaret Brennan: In the past, we had conversations with other guests and questioned what the United States represents, and that had something to do with it. On the national scale, there are more changes to pragmatism or what changes have been made to me. This is very important in our politics.
Gen. McChrystal: I think this is a mistake for the country. If you think after World War II we would call it a real help to the United States in the modern era, people would admire the idea of America. They admire American democracy. They admire our society, our culture. They don't like every part of it, they know we have made mistakes as a country, but the nation and people want to be like the Soviet Union or other enemies more like us. As long as we are the role models people want to be, it will give us extraordinary influence and strength. When it becomes traded, when we become someone who only wants them and we don’t want to be generous, when we are unwilling to sacrifice for greater ideals, we lose some moral status, I think of some of our national powers, our powers.
Margaret Brennan: In the Pentagon, we hear a lot about values and culture, contrary to the mission.
Gen. McChrystal: Yes.
Margaret Brennan: Or that's how it is described, right? Secretary Heggs talked a lot about restoring the spirit of the warrior. This is part of his reasoning for eliminating diversity programs or DEIs. Do you think Dei really "harmed the fatality"?
Gen. McChrystal: Yes. I am completely consistent with Secretary Heggs that we need to defend the country, the Ministry of Defense needs to be as effective as possible, and that some kind of warrior spirit is important. We just define it in a different way. In my experience, we tend to understand that everyone can contribute, especially in today's modern warfare. Everyone has to look somehow, have to have a certain size of biceps, have to have a male, straightforward, the idea of all these things is not my experience. In most of my experience in the fight against terrorism, this became elite management. You don't care about the person's appearance, how old is, what their gender is or sexual orientation, because it's so important to get the job done. I now think that America needs to use its talents from every corner of society. I would even say that if we go back to the draft, we can draft people with physical disabilities because a lot of things we do are not a barrier. So I think we need to consider what we need to be the most effective armed forces, and I think frankly, the Dei thing is distracting. This did not help.
Margaret Brennan: As far as national character is concerned, when you command the troops, the NATO-led mission to Afghanistan is the ISAF mission, and you know that country very well. After that, the Taliban took over. We have seen them deprive women and girls of the right to hear voices in public. You have seen them retribution to Afghans who work with our country and put life in danger. Over the past week, the Trump administration has said Afghanistan is safe enough to allow people living here to go back. They deprived them of legal protection, temporary protected identity. They ended some plans that helped evacuate our American allies there. How do you view our role?
Gen. McChrystal: I think it's a disappointment. I personally disagree with this decision, but I also think it will send messages. We ask how people who are allied with us in the future, we ask to work with us, and they look at what happened in the past. Therefore, I think our national character should be bigger than that and we have the ability to become bigger.
Margaret Brennan: General McChrystal, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.
Gen. McChrystal: You're so glad to have me. Thanks.
Margaret Brennan: and your book “About Roles: Choices to Define Life.” We will be back.