Welcome to Off Message. I'm Isaac Dover. Today's guest, General David Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, of the coalition forces in Iraq, and the director of the CIA.

That is, until he had to resign through that very strange scandal five years ago, which took everyone by surprise.

He was having an affair with his biographer and had shared classified information

with her. She started sending threatening emails to a third woman. The FBI got involved and it all came

tumbling down. We spend a lot of time talking about what the truth is these days. My guess is that

most of us know what the truth is, if we're being honest with ourselves, at least most of the time.

And most of the time we know deep down when a politician is putting a shine on things or saying something is one way that just happens to benefit that person or that party.

Not always, but most of the time.

Petraeus is an interesting person overall, but he's also an interesting person to talk about this question with.

When he got caught in that scandal, he didn't tell the truth to the FBI about what had happened.

You'll hear, by the way, just how unhappy it was with me when I brought that up.

His point is that his was a minor thing and a technicality, a much different situation, for example, than what happened with Michael Flynn, who's now pled guilty to

lying to the FBI in an interview in his office in the West Wing as President Trump's

national security advisor.

There was a lot to talk about, but two things that I wanted to get Petraeus to address,

and that he did.

What does he make a President Trump saying we're winning the war against ISIS?

What does he make of President Trump saying is he did to troops in Iraq and a call for Thanksgiving that previous

administrations weren't letting you win? His rule from being in command, he said, was to, quote,

be first with the truth. Insurgents would rush out information, claims of soldiers killed or atrocities

they said troops had committed, or victories achieved, and people all over the world would start running with it.

Sometimes there'd be doctored videos or partial information.

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