Eli Nachmany

An article by Eli Nachmany ‘22: On September 18, 2019, Robert O’Brien took over as President Donald J. Trump’s National Security Advisor.[1] In so doing, O’Brien became the fourth person to hold the position in President Trump’s Administration, following Michael Flynn, H.R. McMaster, and John Bolton. Flynn’s tenure was brief: his 24-day term in the role was the shortest in the history of the presidency.[2] Both Bolton and McMaster served as National Security Advisor for far longer, making significant marks on the National Security Council (NSC), as did O’Brien, who served as the National Security Advisor through the end of President Trump’s time in the White House. The proper role and structure of the NSC is an open question, as evidenced by the vastly different philosophies of Flynn, McMaster, Bolton, and O’Brien. This essay will tell the story of the NSC under President Trump and explore the ways in which the Council’s structure and operations differed under each National Security Advisor.

In this episode of Third Degree, Elie Honig is joined by Harvard Law student and former Trump administration speechwriter Eli Nachmany ‘22 to discuss the Manhattan District Attorney’s growing investigation into former President Trump’s financial records, and how history will remember former Attorney General Bill Barr.

An article by Eli Nachmany ‘22: From the military to the technology sector, various American institutions and industries play a role in maintaining U.S. economic and national security. While the finished products associated with defense and technology, like aircraft engines and LED TVs, capture the public eye, the supply chains for the materials needed to produce these goods often garner little attention. A set of minerals, known as critical minerals, constitute a key part of the supply chains for these important sectors. In recent years, however, U.S. competitors such as China have come to control supply chains for the critical minerals themselves—raising questions about the effects of critical mineral supply chain insecurity on U.S. national security. Critical minerals are key in the manufacture of all kinds of important items, like armored vehicles, precision-guided weapons, batteries and night-vision goggles for the U.S. military. An inability to develop these minerals domestically creates a reliance on foreign nations that can hamstring a country in a pinch. In the early 2010s, for example, China placed export quotas on a subset of critical minerals known as rare earth elements, which sharply increased prices and disrupted global supply chains for various minerals. The U.S. responded by bringing a World Trade Organization dispute resolution case against China about the issue, ultimately winning before the global arbitrator. In recent months, critical shortages during the coronavirus pandemic have prompted lawmakers to reconsider the strength of the U.S. medical supply chain—but the robustness of the supply chain for critical minerals has also come into question. In September, Senate Republicans included critical minerals-related provisions in their coronavirus relief bill proposal. These provisions were adopted from the bipartisan American Mineral Security Act, introduced in 2019 by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Joe Manchin and others; the bill would have promoted mining of critical minerals in the U.S. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has worked to address the vulnerabilities in U.S. critical minerals supply chains.

An article by Eli Nachmany '22: As the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted many universities online for the upcoming fall semester and dramatically increased the number of individuals enrolled in online-learning platforms such as Coursera, one thing is clear: The way we approach higher education in the United States is changing. And President Trump’s recent executive order directing the federal government to consider skills as well as degrees in hiring employees is a big win for those who want our federal workforce to keep pace with that change. To keep the American workforce competitive in the 21st century, we need to be deliberate about how our nation finds and develops talent. In the post-pandemic economic recovery, leveraging all of the educational tools at our country’s disposal is not a luxury, but a necessity. And to that end, the Ivanka Trump–led American Workforce Policy Advisory Board has spearheaded the administration’s advocacy for apprenticeships, online learning, and vocational training as cornerstones of educational reform. We cannot, of course, discount the importance of liberal-arts education. To take one example, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon noted last year that the ability to write well is increasingly rare, even at his firm. He praised liberal-arts institutions for equipping students with the communication and interpersonal skills necessary to succeed in the professional world. Any national workforce policy must recognize the importance of these “soft skills.”