JENNIE CARIGNAN — Canada's top soldier earned a standing ovation Saturday morning when she stood up for women in the military. Carignan opened a panel by countering Risch's assertion on Friday that the "jury’s still out" on how to resolve "unique situations" created by women in combat. Risch was responding to defense secretary nominee PETE HEGSETH's recent claim that women and combat don't mix. Can you explain your process in crafting your response to the senator's remarks? I've been dealing with this type of statement for the past 39 years. I don't control what people think and what people are going to say, but what I control is how I respond to it, and the "how" is very important. You need to understand who the audience is. Two days ago, when I was sitting in the room when [Risch] made his statement, I watched the people's faces across the room. The look of dismay. The look of disappointment. Immediately I said to myself, "Well, I probably will have the opportunity to say something about it, and I'll find a time during the weekend to do it." As I looked at the schedule for the next day — ah, I have a plenary session. Not knowing at all what the response would be. Sometimes it falls totally flat, sometimes there's no reaction. The important piece for me was not to leave it as is without a counter-perspective. Pros can read our full conversation, in which Carignan reflects on her lessons learned as a defense chief working with a government driven in part by politics. MÉLANIE JOLY — Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) has recently talked about introducing legislation that would sanction any country that abets the International Criminal Court's intent to arrest Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU and former Defense Minister YOAV GALLANT over alleged war crimes. Canada has vowed to "abide by" the ICC arrest warrant. POLITICO's ROBBIE GRAMER put a few questions on the topic to the foreign minister. What's your response to Sen. Graham? Does it put Canada in an even more uncomfortable position with the incoming administration? Canada will take its decision. Then the U.S. will take its decision. But you could face sanctions from the United States. We abide by international norms, including the fact that we're a founding member of the ICC. Are you saying the U.S. does not abide by international norms in its response? The U.S. is not part of the ICC treaty. But even if you're not a party to the treaty, there is something about international norms here, right? We've worked for decades on the issue of international accountability. We thought that for an international rules-based system to work, we needed an important pillar of accountability, which was the International Criminal Court. My colleague, LLOYD AXWORTHY who used to be the minister of foreign affairs in the 1990s, worked a lot on this issue. For us, it is not a political question. It is a legal question, and it is part also of our own legal system that we respect the jurisdiction of the ICC. Period. Pros can read our full conversation, including Joly's view on whether or not negotiations with Putin can bear fruit in Ukraine. BILL BLAIR — Playbook asked the defense minister about the drumbeat of oft-controversial DONALD TRUMP Cabinet picks — including Fox News personality PETE HEGSETH, who could be Blair's counterpart as secretary of defense; and former Rep. MATT GAETZ, who was briefly Trump's nominee for attorney general. What's it like to learn these names in real time, along with the rest of us, as Trump announced them on social media? I'm not as shaken as some of you all appear to be, and it's because I've worked with the United States through a number of different administrations over decades. I have a lot of confidence in the institutions of America. The Justice Department, the Defense Department, the State Department, the law enforcement community, the national security intelligence community. These are all people that I've worked really closely with for decades, through many different administrations, including the previous Trump administration. We're democracies. We have elections. We have to get to work with new people in different offices. But my trust in those institutions hasn't wavered, and doesn't here either. There'll be some changes. There'll be some new things that we have to deal with, the new people and personalities. But I trust America. Pros can read our full conversation, including the minister's acknowledgment that Canada's northerners transformed his view of Arctic sovereignty.
| 
