U.S. Rep. Adam Smith has been around in Washington state politics a long time.
A moderate Democrat, he’s been in Congress since 1997, and before that, served in the state Legislature. His 9th Congressional District stretches from parts of Bellevue and south Seattle down to Federal Way and Auburn.
Smith covered many topics in an interview this month with the Standard at a Bellevue Starbucks.
But as the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, he’s one of his party’s lead thinkers in Congress on national security issues and spoke at length on that topic and overseas conflicts in the Trump era — from his tepid optimism for peace in the Middle East and his one meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Looking toward next year’s midterms, Smith faces a challenge from socialist candidate Kshama Sawant, a former Seattle City Council member, who has sharply criticized the congressman’s alignment with U.S. policy supporting Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Reflecting broadly on President Donald Trump’s second term so far, Smith did not have much positive to say. “They are the most insular, the most partisan administration that I’ve ever dealt with,” he said. “It’s not just partisan, it’s authoritarian.”
The following interview was edited for clarity and length.
Let’s start in the Middle East. What do you think we’ll most likely see there in the next couple of years?
The most positive thing that’s happened in the last 20 years is the evolution of Saudi Arabia and the [United Arab Emirates] in terms of dealing with extremism.
Prior to 9/11, Saudi Arabia was the foremost exporter of radical extremism, and now they are combating it, and the UAE is as well, because their focus is on stability.
They need stability in the region because people aren’t going to do business if buildings are getting blown up and suicide bombers are showing up all the time.
With Hezbollah weakened, with [former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad] gone, there’s the chance that Lebanon and Syria could become stable countries.
They could focus on governing instead of jihad grievances against Israel. But for that to happen, Israel needs to make peace with the Palestinians. So that’s the great unknown.
What’s Iran going to do? I don’t know, but the region is going to be in a lot better position to unify and put pressure on Iran if we can end the war in Gaza, and if there could be some kind of future for the Palestinian people that involves some element of self-governance.
That’s the real test: Can we get Israel into that type of agreement? That’s what Trump’s trying to do right now. God bless him. I hope he succeeds.
If that goes sideways, then terrorist groups motivated by Israel could become a factor in Syria. They could have militia groups in Iraq that are aligned with Iran, and then these and others destabilize the government in Iraq.
So that’s the big challenge, and as far as how that is going to play out, I don’t know, but it’s going to require a considerable amount of diplomatic skill.
You strongly condemned the U.S. strikes in Iran. With a few weeks’ hindsight, has that feeling evolved at all?
No, it was a mistake. I don’t think it was the right policy. I don’t think it was the right approach.
It seems, for the moment, the risks did not bear out as much as it could have. Sort of like, you drive home drunk and you don’t hit anyone. The lesson from that isn’t that driving home drunk is not a problem.
The bad downside consequences have not yet manifested as greatly as they could have. Iran very easily could have chosen to launch a more aggressive attack. Iran still has the capacity to build nuclear weapons.
You can make a pretty compelling argument that, after being attacked by Israel and attacked by us, it sort of pushes the scale toward, well, ‘Let’s build a damn thing so we can have an adequate deterrent,’ because the deterrent that Iran thought they had clearly was not sufficient.
Are you at all optimistic that a diplomatic solution is a possibility in any kind of near future?
It is a possibility. Optimism is fine, but you’ve got to do the work. If the players in the region and if the U.S. choose to play a constructive role, it’s a possibility.
Have you always felt it’s a possibility over the past two years?
Not really. The big changes, and Israel deserves credit for this: Assad’s gone, Hezbollah is weakened and so is Iran. That is a fundamental shift that I will confess I did not see coming. It creates a greater possibility that we’ll get to a more peaceful outcome, but it’s still a region rife with conflict.
Moving to Ukraine. The U.S. paused military shipments. The president didn’t seem to know and didn’t agree. The situation has evolved. What does that tell you?
Have you seen the movie “Die Hard?”
Yes.
You know the point in the movie when the guy goes in and tries to cut the deal with the terrorist. “I do billion-dollar deals every day. I can handle this guy. Bunch of Eurotrash.” I think that’s the way Trump felt about Putin. “Come on, I’m Trump, I can cut a deal with this guy.”
I think now Trump’s like, “Oh, f---, maybe not.”
And in this case, Trump’s not going to get shot in the head by Putin, but I think he’s beginning to wake up to the fact that, no, he is not someone who Trump’s magnetic personality is just going to magically melt.
On the Armed Services Committee, we are attempting, and this is a very bipartisan thing — Mike Rogers, who’s the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He and I are talking and like, “How do we get Trump to make the right call?” A lot of bipartisan support in Congress for this, but it’s just where is the support in the Trump administration? [Vice President] JD Vance is not going to be helpful. [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio could be. [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth, I don’t think he thinks that sophisticatedly.
So it’s really going to come down to what Trump wants.
He assumed that he could bully Ukraine into cutting a deal, then get a peace agreement that he can take credit for, which showed a fundamental misunderstanding of what was going on.
Russia will take every last inch of Ukraine that they can get away with. The only way to get to peace is to make it clear that they can’t. We actually had some success in that, because the Ukrainians have proved far more tenacious than anyone would have expected, and because the Biden administration put together a 53-nation coalition that helped Ukraine defend itself, that has really driven up the cost substantially for Putin continuing this war.
Have you had any meetings with Hegseth?
I had one conversation [with Hegseth] when Mike Rogers and I were on the phone with him. We had one meeting with what they like to refer to as the Big Eight senators and House members, where Hegseth was at. Then, of course, I ripped into him the one time he testified before us.
It’s not just partisan, it’s authoritarian. They don’t want to deal with Congress. In fact, they don’t talk to the Republicans that much.
Has that been surprising? Were you expecting six months in to be saying it’s more authoritarian than partisan?
It’s not surprising. January 6 happened. It was a failure of imagination, not a failure of will, that stopped [Trump] from overthrowing our Constitution and trying to hold on to the White House.
Trump said what he was going to do. Dictator day one. We should be clear about the fact that Trump is attempting an authoritarian takeover of our government.
Do you feel like you and your colleagues have any power to do anything?
Absolutely. I’m a believer in: “There’s always a way.”
He has done things that are manifestly unpopular, and the power that we have is to make that argument.
Three-step process. One, go after the authoritarian stuff.
Two, go after the way his policies are negatively impacting people.
Third thing is we’ve got to show them an alternative. Democrats got a ton of work to do in that area.
Sadly, we’re locked in a bit of an ideological struggle. Too many people on the left want to prove that the activist left has never been wrong about anything. And you have too many people in the center who want to prove that centrists have never been wrong about anything, and not enough people are just trying to figure out how we all collectively get better so that we can govern better and win elections.
We’re still stuck in that past of wanting to make sure everything’s pre-curated, as opposed to being authentic.
Do you see your own election next year as any sort of microcosm of this debate?
I am downright excited about it because it offers the contrast that I want to offer.
Do you want to sign up for some utopian revolution to tear down everything in society in the hope that some magical left-wing utopia will emerge from it? Or do you want to get to work in the way that true progressives do?
I think Kshama Sawant is a very smart, articulate person. It will be a fair fight from a pure talent standpoint.
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