National Security Developments in Trump 2.0: A View From the Media

Have a question for our guest or panel? Submit your question at: https://myumi.ch/4rPZ4

As President Trump enters the second year of his second term, a number of significant national security developments are unfolding across the Western Hemisphere, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, as well as within the U.S. departments and agencies in Washington, DC responsible for implementing the administration's strategies in these regions.

To help the Ford School and the broader University of Michigan community better understand these evolving issues, the Weiser Diplomacy Center will host a special conversation featuring longtime New York Times national security reporter Eric Schmitt and veteran intelligence and national security journalist Sasha Ingber.

The discussion will be moderated by Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice at the Ford School and faculty affiliate of the Weiser Diplomacy Center.

Drawing on decades of experience covering the U.S. military and intelligence community, Schmitt and Ingber will share their insights on the most pressing national security challenges facing the United States today.

From the Speaker's Bio:

Eric Schmitt:

Eric Schmitt is a veteran national security correspondent for The New York Times, where he has reported on the U.S. military, intelligence community, and counterterrorism issues for more than three decades as part of a 40-year career at the newspaper. He has covered every major conflict involving the U.S. military since the 1991 Persian Gulf War and has reported extensively from Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, and the Middle East, writing widely on security developments across the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Europe. Schmitt has shared in four Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting and is the co-author of Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda. He began his journalism career covering local education at the Tri-City Herald in Kennewick, Washington. Schmitt holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Williams College, studied in Madrid, and was a journalism fellow at Stanford University. He was born in Minneapolis and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sasha Ingber:

Sasha Ingber hosts SpyCast, the International Spy Museum's flagship podcast on global intelligence, espionage, and covert operations. She is also the founder of HUMINT, where she explores the intelligence community through its people and the emotions that drive them. She has taken audiences inside a Chinese police station hidden above a ramen shop in New York, to a secret base in Ukraine where police officers were trained for the front, and to Qatar as hostage negotiations were underway. She was the national security correspondent for national TV network Scripps News, as well as a reporter at NPR, National Geographic, and Smithsonian. A Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grantee, she has also told stories on the ground in Bangladesh, Iraq, and Cuba. She has been a guest on PBS NewsHour and The History Channel, and her reporting has been picked up by media outlets that include CNN, MSNBC, Breitbart, and Politico. Sasha holds a Master's degree in nonfiction writing from Johns Hopkins University. Before starting a career in journalism, she worked in the U.S. State Department, debunking disinformation after Russia illegally seized Crimea from Ukraine.

Faculty Expert

Javed Ali

Associate Professor of Practice

Ali is a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, with over 20 years of professional experience in national security and intelligence issues in Washington, D.C. He served in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he also held senior positions on joint duty assignments at the National Intelligence Council, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the National Security Council.

Staff Expert

Nayab Ali

International Diplomacy Programs Administrator, Weiser Diplomacy Center