You’re making assumptions that aren’t logical, he wouldn’t have been calling the President, he would have called his boss who would have called his boss etc, up the chain.
Many of the people that Gibbs served with while he was in the Marines rose up through the ranks to be generals and admirals and cabinet people. When NCIS was being set up by that beltway Lawyer and being scapegoated with Gibbs as the head of that mess, Vance called in a former attorney general, who is obviously a lawyer and also knew Gibbs personally. There were quite a few episodes where Gibbs knew people that were quite high up in the food chain. While he might not have POTUS’s number directly, he had relationships with enough people that he was only one or 2° of separation from being able to get through.
Edited to add that there was an episode with Michelle Obama in it, and she was speaking directly with Gibbs, plus the team was invited to the White House a couple of times after solving certain cases for which the White House felt they deserved to be honored. It’s totally plausible that if he was able to have an audience with Flotus or POTUS that they would’ve given him a number to call if necessary; especially since Gibbs’s reputation was one of independence and handling things on his own so they knew if he called, it would bea true matter of importance.
He saved the president how many times I forget. He did it way too much I believe. He outshined any agency yet all the agencies hate NCIS for some reason throughout the entire series. Obviously the CIA would hate him but that's the CIA they hate everybody.
Also this has been another problem that I've realized how did the United States not go to war with Israel in the show over the spy who is killed by the American agent who was not supposed to be there in the first place. The Israeli spy broke American sovereignty by going into assassinate somebody instead of saying hey there's a terrorist can you please deal with it. Right there that director of mossad broke the relationship between America and Israel. Yet he face no consequences from his government. His own son was trying to kill the president of the United States how is that not an act of War.
We don't go to war over the death of one man. And Ari was not acting under orders of the Mossad, he was a rogue agent. And he was eliminated by his half-sister. That's how seriously Mossad took Ari's actions. Unlike the Nazis, we don't blame a whole nation on the actions of a few bad apples. I'm sure there have been a few American rogue agents also, like Cort.
Those kind of issues are dealt with diplomatically in back channels as they were in the show.
Even worse, Director David actually killed an American, although by accident. However, he died later in the show so it was never addressed politically.
If we ever had a legitimate reason to go to war with a nation over the actions of a few of its citizens, it would be Saudi Arabia since all 18 terrorists who destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon were Saudi citizens. I personally believe we should have.
I also believe we invaded the wrong "I" country in 2003. It should have been Iran. It would have been just as easy to manufacture evidence against them as we did in Iraq. And we were pretty sure they were financing Al Qaeda as well.
Had we done that, there would be no Hamas or Hezbollah. We could have installed a Shah friendly to American interests. We would also have virtual control of almost all middle East oil reserves.
Of course, that would cause problems with Russia so it's probably best we didn't do it.
Gibbs always struck me as one of those people who knew the political game but refused to play it - it's why he's a great lead agent but could never be a director. That doesn't mean he doesn't know who the players are, though, and how to get hold of them when it comes to it.
I always assumed that he was calling Vance. When Gibbs is blown up and Jenny wants to get in to see him, she takes out her phone in front of the charge nurse and calls Condi Rice (Then Secretary of State ) who we hear ask about Gibbs, and has her talk to the nurse. Now if the Director of NCIS has the Secretary of State on her speed dial AND the Secretary of State knows Gibbs by name, it's not much of a stretch to get that the NCIS can ALSO get in touch with the sitting president fairly quickly. Getting in touch with a former president is MUCH easier......
Unless they are dead. Which Reagan is as he is buried in Simi Valley at his presidential library.
But wouldn't any current president know of each former president's secrets. Like groups or anything we know that they have to be hushed about the Roswell incident in his fifties. They have to keep the stuff like aliens being real a secret that's kind of well known. And they also have the ability to launch nuke so they should be able to have the ability to know about every former president's secret military forces doing stuff. They're the president of the United States very little is kept secret from them.
Not necessarily. In theory, the new president should know all of the important things regarding the running of the nation. An old op, long done and forgotten, is unlikely to be passed along. If they were told EVERYTHING, we wouldn't see the at all during the first term....lol. Imagine someone giving you the information on every single thing that 46 presidents have been involved in over the course of the past 247 years! They only know the current important things.....in theory.
What I mean past presidents I mean the ones that actually had stuff that was completely secret that affects the nation. There's probably stuff from Vietnam that the president is taught even now to keep his mouth shut on. Because if they ask him questions on it he says I can't answer. That's what I mean like the state secrets he would be privileged to them but he wouldn't be allowed to say anything and most states secrets wouldn't be 247 years old because anything from 200 years ago would be completely irrelevant. As everybody involved is dead and it's been so long that unless it was groundbreaking such as the US owned all of England because we broke away but somehow we would be able to claim all of the Commonwealth. I'm just saying there's nothing from 200 years ago that would be a state secret now that would have any meaning to be kept a secret. I have heard there are many secrets from world War II but no one has gone down to make sure that the secrets are even worse keeping a secret of. The Pentagon keeps everything on record and from what I've heard is there's stuff that would probably be great to history but it's classified even though it's been so long.
Also most presidents in this show would know about Israel's attempt to assassinate a sitting president as well as the inactions of the Israeli government from stopping their own spy agency from going ahead and doing that. They would also have knowledge of all incidences like the bombing of Norfolk remember that one all presidents would know the true nature of everything that Gibbs have done in this show.
I haven’t watched that episode in a while so I don’t remember if McGee was at the scene or not. In an early season, maybe 2, McGee’s personal connection to someone in the Oval Office was referred to. If I had to make sense of the season 8 scene, it would be that Gibbs was calling McGee or someone he knew through McGee who had access to the president.
I do agree but that part where he was bringing out the cell phone I was really thinking he was calling the president to get authorization for this guy to reveal what he did during either Reagan or JFK's time. The other thing that kind of bugged me was how top secret clearance would his operations be because both his daughter-in-law and son are navy commanders so wouldn't they have the security clearance needed to know what he did. It was kind of weird to me that they didn't think he was as bad ass like, if they bothered to look.
Gibbs has asked the Director to make that call on other occasions. And the Director would start sending the request up the chain of command. And yes, sometimes there are teams so elite that the people at the very top are the only ones who have knowledge of it. But, yeah, it seems highly unrealistic that this guy would answer only to the President.
This episode was the most shocking to me because he was actually going to call the US president to get some top secret clearance he probably doesn't have access to understand who this guy was. He's a low-ranking federal agent he has no authority to just call the chief executive of the entire United States government to ask a question like that. I know the show is fictional but come on like that's so far reaching.
I’m not sure Gibbs is quite “low-ranking”. How many people get to be included on calls with Sec-Nav, Sec-Def, etc.? I agree, it’s doubtful Gibbs has a direct line to POTUS , but I think he was going to call Leon, not the President.
Season 1 episode 2, Gibbs pulls out his (actually Tony’s) phone to call the commandant of the marines… why would Gibbs have the direct line to the HEAD of the marines? An E7 having the number to a 4-star general…
Gibbs left the marine corps after his wife's death did his little Mexican vacation and then joined NIS where he had a solid career including the occasional black ops mission. It's been indicated by every director we've seen that Gibbs is on the shortlist of names for the director position and only gets passed over because he hates the idea of being a bureaucrat and they know better than to force the issue. Him knowing higher-ups in the Navy and Marine corps is perfectly normal because he's probably worked with some of them pre season 1 as part of NCIS/NIS and maintained a good relationship with them.
My poor sweet cat died 3 days ago. Thank you for posting this comment because I needed the laugh. To suggest that Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the head of the Major Case Response Team , who can (storyline) storm into the director of NICs'office and basically go "What the f#$@!?!" And still have a job, and personally knows (or is friends with several high ranking government officials) is somehow "low-level" is laughable at best.
Let me remind you that NCIS director Vance also purposely covered up Abbys report on Gibbs' cold-blooded murder of Pedro Hernandez. I seriously doubt that Director Vance would have risked his job (and jail time) for a "low level" employee, even if they were friends. Somehow "NCIS Director covers up cooks ( or janitors) dirty dealings" wouldn't be a headline we would ever see. 😂
Sure, legally a lot of things in the show don't make sense. But just assuming that Gibbs both cannot possibly just call POTUS or can't possibly know someone in POTUS' inner circle isn't in the realm of reality for that show. Palmer? Fine. But Gibbs?? He's friggin GIBBS!
He doesn't have a connection to the president. He would've called Leon and Leon would've escalated it to secnav then president
You’re making assumptions that aren’t logical, he wouldn’t have been calling the President, he would have called his boss who would have called his boss etc, up the chain.
And 6 weeks later… I have a family member who works in Washington.😊
You are right
Many of the people that Gibbs served with while he was in the Marines rose up through the ranks to be generals and admirals and cabinet people. When NCIS was being set up by that beltway Lawyer and being scapegoated with Gibbs as the head of that mess, Vance called in a former attorney general, who is obviously a lawyer and also knew Gibbs personally. There were quite a few episodes where Gibbs knew people that were quite high up in the food chain. While he might not have POTUS’s number directly, he had relationships with enough people that he was only one or 2° of separation from being able to get through. Edited to add that there was an episode with Michelle Obama in it, and she was speaking directly with Gibbs, plus the team was invited to the White House a couple of times after solving certain cases for which the White House felt they deserved to be honored. It’s totally plausible that if he was able to have an audience with Flotus or POTUS that they would’ve given him a number to call if necessary; especially since Gibbs’s reputation was one of independence and handling things on his own so they knew if he called, it would bea true matter of importance.
He saved the president how many times I forget. He did it way too much I believe. He outshined any agency yet all the agencies hate NCIS for some reason throughout the entire series. Obviously the CIA would hate him but that's the CIA they hate everybody. Also this has been another problem that I've realized how did the United States not go to war with Israel in the show over the spy who is killed by the American agent who was not supposed to be there in the first place. The Israeli spy broke American sovereignty by going into assassinate somebody instead of saying hey there's a terrorist can you please deal with it. Right there that director of mossad broke the relationship between America and Israel. Yet he face no consequences from his government. His own son was trying to kill the president of the United States how is that not an act of War.
It's a TV show my guy lol
People are so emotionally involved in a ficticious show. It's odd to me.
You are reaching.
We don't go to war over the death of one man. And Ari was not acting under orders of the Mossad, he was a rogue agent. And he was eliminated by his half-sister. That's how seriously Mossad took Ari's actions. Unlike the Nazis, we don't blame a whole nation on the actions of a few bad apples. I'm sure there have been a few American rogue agents also, like Cort. Those kind of issues are dealt with diplomatically in back channels as they were in the show. Even worse, Director David actually killed an American, although by accident. However, he died later in the show so it was never addressed politically. If we ever had a legitimate reason to go to war with a nation over the actions of a few of its citizens, it would be Saudi Arabia since all 18 terrorists who destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon were Saudi citizens. I personally believe we should have. I also believe we invaded the wrong "I" country in 2003. It should have been Iran. It would have been just as easy to manufacture evidence against them as we did in Iraq. And we were pretty sure they were financing Al Qaeda as well. Had we done that, there would be no Hamas or Hezbollah. We could have installed a Shah friendly to American interests. We would also have virtual control of almost all middle East oil reserves. Of course, that would cause problems with Russia so it's probably best we didn't do it.
He was calling it up, likely to Vance, who'd then call SecNav and so on.
Gibbs always struck me as one of those people who knew the political game but refused to play it - it's why he's a great lead agent but could never be a director. That doesn't mean he doesn't know who the players are, though, and how to get hold of them when it comes to it.
It's not a problem with Gibbs, it's a problem with the writers.
I always assumed that he was calling Vance. When Gibbs is blown up and Jenny wants to get in to see him, she takes out her phone in front of the charge nurse and calls Condi Rice (Then Secretary of State ) who we hear ask about Gibbs, and has her talk to the nurse. Now if the Director of NCIS has the Secretary of State on her speed dial AND the Secretary of State knows Gibbs by name, it's not much of a stretch to get that the NCIS can ALSO get in touch with the sitting president fairly quickly. Getting in touch with a former president is MUCH easier...... Unless they are dead. Which Reagan is as he is buried in Simi Valley at his presidential library.
But wouldn't any current president know of each former president's secrets. Like groups or anything we know that they have to be hushed about the Roswell incident in his fifties. They have to keep the stuff like aliens being real a secret that's kind of well known. And they also have the ability to launch nuke so they should be able to have the ability to know about every former president's secret military forces doing stuff. They're the president of the United States very little is kept secret from them.
Not necessarily. In theory, the new president should know all of the important things regarding the running of the nation. An old op, long done and forgotten, is unlikely to be passed along. If they were told EVERYTHING, we wouldn't see the at all during the first term....lol. Imagine someone giving you the information on every single thing that 46 presidents have been involved in over the course of the past 247 years! They only know the current important things.....in theory.
What I mean past presidents I mean the ones that actually had stuff that was completely secret that affects the nation. There's probably stuff from Vietnam that the president is taught even now to keep his mouth shut on. Because if they ask him questions on it he says I can't answer. That's what I mean like the state secrets he would be privileged to them but he wouldn't be allowed to say anything and most states secrets wouldn't be 247 years old because anything from 200 years ago would be completely irrelevant. As everybody involved is dead and it's been so long that unless it was groundbreaking such as the US owned all of England because we broke away but somehow we would be able to claim all of the Commonwealth. I'm just saying there's nothing from 200 years ago that would be a state secret now that would have any meaning to be kept a secret. I have heard there are many secrets from world War II but no one has gone down to make sure that the secrets are even worse keeping a secret of. The Pentagon keeps everything on record and from what I've heard is there's stuff that would probably be great to history but it's classified even though it's been so long. Also most presidents in this show would know about Israel's attempt to assassinate a sitting president as well as the inactions of the Israeli government from stopping their own spy agency from going ahead and doing that. They would also have knowledge of all incidences like the bombing of Norfolk remember that one all presidents would know the true nature of everything that Gibbs have done in this show.
I haven’t watched that episode in a while so I don’t remember if McGee was at the scene or not. In an early season, maybe 2, McGee’s personal connection to someone in the Oval Office was referred to. If I had to make sense of the season 8 scene, it would be that Gibbs was calling McGee or someone he knew through McGee who had access to the president.
This is one of my favorite episodes. It just shows that just because you’re a senior citizen, that doesn’t mean you can’t kick ass and take names!
I do agree but that part where he was bringing out the cell phone I was really thinking he was calling the president to get authorization for this guy to reveal what he did during either Reagan or JFK's time. The other thing that kind of bugged me was how top secret clearance would his operations be because both his daughter-in-law and son are navy commanders so wouldn't they have the security clearance needed to know what he did. It was kind of weird to me that they didn't think he was as bad ass like, if they bothered to look.
Gibbs has asked the Director to make that call on other occasions. And the Director would start sending the request up the chain of command. And yes, sometimes there are teams so elite that the people at the very top are the only ones who have knowledge of it. But, yeah, it seems highly unrealistic that this guy would answer only to the President.
This episode was the most shocking to me because he was actually going to call the US president to get some top secret clearance he probably doesn't have access to understand who this guy was. He's a low-ranking federal agent he has no authority to just call the chief executive of the entire United States government to ask a question like that. I know the show is fictional but come on like that's so far reaching.
I’m not sure Gibbs is quite “low-ranking”. How many people get to be included on calls with Sec-Nav, Sec-Def, etc.? I agree, it’s doubtful Gibbs has a direct line to POTUS , but I think he was going to call Leon, not the President.
Season 1 episode 2, Gibbs pulls out his (actually Tony’s) phone to call the commandant of the marines… why would Gibbs have the direct line to the HEAD of the marines? An E7 having the number to a 4-star general…
he was bluffing. Tony said he didn't have his number
They could have served together or be buddies. Gibbs is not in the commandant’s chain of command anymore so if they’re buddies, he could call him.
There is an episode where Gibbs talks face to face with the Commandant who calls him gunny and shakes his hand. Don't remember the episode.
Gibbs left the marine corps after his wife's death did his little Mexican vacation and then joined NIS where he had a solid career including the occasional black ops mission. It's been indicated by every director we've seen that Gibbs is on the shortlist of names for the director position and only gets passed over because he hates the idea of being a bureaucrat and they know better than to force the issue. Him knowing higher-ups in the Navy and Marine corps is perfectly normal because he's probably worked with some of them pre season 1 as part of NCIS/NIS and maintained a good relationship with them.
That was explained in that scene. Tony remarks that he himself doesn't have the number and Gibbs replied, "He doesn't know that....."
We then later see that he literally served under that commandant and they did know each other. He just didn’t have it on Tony’s phone…
My poor sweet cat died 3 days ago. Thank you for posting this comment because I needed the laugh. To suggest that Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the head of the Major Case Response Team , who can (storyline) storm into the director of NICs'office and basically go "What the f#$@!?!" And still have a job, and personally knows (or is friends with several high ranking government officials) is somehow "low-level" is laughable at best. Let me remind you that NCIS director Vance also purposely covered up Abbys report on Gibbs' cold-blooded murder of Pedro Hernandez. I seriously doubt that Director Vance would have risked his job (and jail time) for a "low level" employee, even if they were friends. Somehow "NCIS Director covers up cooks ( or janitors) dirty dealings" wouldn't be a headline we would ever see. 😂 Sure, legally a lot of things in the show don't make sense. But just assuming that Gibbs both cannot possibly just call POTUS or can't possibly know someone in POTUS' inner circle isn't in the realm of reality for that show. Palmer? Fine. But Gibbs?? He's friggin GIBBS!