Implications around the world. And we are lucky to have mr. Denis mcdonough, former white house chief of staff. Cabinet rank, we have broken the cabinet rank ceiling here. Former Deputy National security advisor and former advisor to the n. S. C. He is someone who has sat at the nexus of Foreign Policy, u. S. Politics and communication and he knows a Little Something about northeast asia as well. The pride of stillwater, minnesota, he currently is a professor at notre dame and i , think he microing mores the st. Johns University Athletic department from afar. I see the football helmet in the background there, an institution alum. Ch he is a proud he holds a masters degree from Georgetown University and most, i think, notably for those with follow entertainment, played by john hamm in the movie the report. Not many people can say that. Welcome, mr. Mcdonough, to the excellent. Great to be with you. Been looking forward to this conversation and happy to see victor too as well. Finally, someone using my usual title. Lets go to our usual panelist, victor cha. Professor at georgetown, former bush n. S. C. , welcome back victor. How did notre dame get , mcdonough . What happened to the hoyas . Seems like the recruiting game was off. What is going on at georgetown . Victor this is a real problem. We have to figure out how to rectify this. Im going to say right here and now well give dennis the job at georgetown, how about that . Well just do it. Lets just do it. Emergency faculty meeting after. This welcome back, victor. Last but certainly not least, dr. Sue mi terry, former n. S. C. , former Columbia University and currently advisor here at csis, and sue i think you overlapped , with dennis at the obama n. S. C. And welcome back to the show. Sue thanks. fun jon hamm fact, i didnt know that lets get into it as they say. Im going to turn to mr. Mcdonough, our special guest, as we always do. Mr. Mcdonough you served as key , advisor to the obama campaign, the obama transition, in addition to other government positions you held. And right now theres lots of , machinations here in washington. All of us have been fielding questions from friends in all corners of the world about whats happening. Can you just share your expertise and your analysis from the place you used to occupy in tells of Foreign Policy, government experience, communications and i mentioned, i should have mentioned too a Longtime Health staffer as well. Walk us through whats happening in washington. Denis thanks so much. Its good to be with you guys. And i hasten to add that most of those things that you generously cited in my bio i did with you or because of you. Or because of you. And so its really good to be , with you and to be reminded of our long professional careers together and the many kindnesses , you have shown me along the way, and the valuable friendship we have developed along the way. Its really good to see you. Look, theres this period in the United States called transition. Its the period from the election in the first week in november, until inauguration on january 20, per our constitution, at 12 01, the point at which the president elect becomes the president of the United States. At that moment hes addressed by , the chief justice of the Supreme Court as mr. President. And when that happens, the former president goes off to the rest of his life. And its all been men so far, thats why im saying his. And the president elect then becomes the president of the United States. That transition period is a period at which time people like you, and like victor and sue, People Like Us work, you know, if were coming in with a new team, we work with the Outgoing Team and we work importantly with the existing professional career professionals in the government to get ready to understand what the best available intelligence on what is happening for example, in , north korea, whats the status of personnel in important agencies . Where are there vacancies that need to be filled . Where are there planned retirements . And then, looking at the budget. How much money is remaining for the fiscal year to do this thing that has to be done, as soon as the president and his team become operative on january 20 at 12 01. There is a very particular thing that has to happen for all of that work to start, mark, as you know. Which is, the little known head of a little known agency called the General Services administration which basically staffs and provides Office Supplies and support to all the other federal services, the head of that agency, by law makes the , determination for purposes of the transition when the president elect is indeed the president elect. Its called ascertainment. When that ascertainment is recognized, all the things we just talked about can begin. You know, you going in to talk to victor and sue at the white house or in the agencies about getting ready to govern, as we did in late 2008 and early 2009. But if ascertainment is not recognized, then that whole process is on ice. Nothing is happening. And so thats a space we find ourselves in right now, which is basically a moment of suspended animation on when president elect biden, Vice President elect harris and their team can begin the preparations for governing. And one very concrete example is something that we know very well, which is, we were assigned to stick with president elect obama when he took the president ial daily brief every morning starting two mornings , after the election. President obama got the brief on that thursday morning, then took it six days a week. Not on sundays, not on holidays until january 20, 2017. , so took it basically for eight years and six weeks. Now, Vice President biden or president elect biden is not afforded that courtesy. So, one comment, im worried about that. Because we have ongoing intelligence issues around the world that im hoping that him and his team can get up to speed on and hopefully that begins , soon, because ascertainment will be recognized. Sorry for the long answer there. Mark no, thats great. I was just going to say, to to your true to your former playing days as a free safety you beat me to the spot of the , ball. What i was going to come in and ask you, how serious is this . Let me ill editorial myself and provide historical reflections, as you referenced the transition felt short to me. , a lot of work, not enough time. Number one. And number two, we, like the biden team, faced some pretty urgent crises especially the , financial crisis unfolding all around us. But there was iraq, there was afghanistan, there was terrorism a whole host of things. , in this case, you have the pandemic, right, you have Economic Issues associated with stimulus and or recovery in , addition to the issues you mentioned, not getting the p. D. B. , north korea. How serious is this . And whats likely going to happen to break the stalemate here . Denis its a really good question, mark, on whats going to happen to break the stalemate. It looks to me like theres an effort in two ways to try to address this and then ill get into the seriousness. An effort in two ways to address it. One is, i think the president elect and Vice President elect and their teams are doing everything they can under the circumstances to get ready. So it looks like theyre consulting really aggressively with nongovernmental experts. Obviously the president elect is , Going Forward with the traditional congratulatory calls with foreign leaders, providing readouts of those calls handling , those calls in appropriate fashion. That is to say, taking the calls from our close allies first, getting into calls with our competitors and adversaries later. So theyre doing as much of the work as they can absent access to the government offices and information and personnel. The second thing that others around them are doing, you know, members of congress on the hill, the press, and others, is trying to urge the g. S. A. Administrator , who determines ascertainment, to make that determination. So you could call that pressure, you could call that efforts to promote transparency around that process but those are the two , ways theyre trying to address it. And then the question, how serious is it . Maybe the best way to address itsriousness, address address its seriousness, mark, is to go back to that issue you highlight which is the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Think for a second back to the campaign, you remember that when you and then senator obama were on the road campaigning. He came off the road campaigning , to go to the white house for a meeting on the financial crisis after the fall of lehman brothers. And that began a process of, lets call it a warm handoff from victor and his teammates at the white house and in the federal agencies to the incoming president elect obama team and president elect obama and Vice President elect biden. To kind of crystallize that even more clearly, remember that the secretary of treasury designated by president elect obama was tim geithner. And i remember, you and i saw him in the chicago Transition Office and we both saw this guy , who looked like hes about 30, and we were wondering who he was. Somebody kind of straightened it out for us a little bit later. Ends up being a very critical appointment. He has a relationship with secretary paulson, because they worked together when paulson was at the treasury, geithner was at the new york fed. Not only do they have a relationship, but president obama had been in close consultation with the Bush White House on these questions. And then the Treasury Department , itself, personnel there, welcomed the Obama Transition Team into the building. So that meant that throughout the month of november, december and january, there was coordination on the Big Questions in the Global Financial system, such that that handoff from secretary paulson to secretarydesignate geithner ends up being pretty smooth. Notwithstanding the fact, obviously the economy is still significantly, but clearly it would have been worse , had there not been as effective a handoff. And i think thats a question we have to ask ourselves now. Handoff from secretary mnuchin to whoever his backfill is, at the moment does not appear positioned to be as smooth and as kind of transparent as that last one. And so that gives me some concern. Mark i would add too that it also facilitated, as i recall, this is 10plus years now so, recollections are fading, but it allowed the Obama Transition Team to launch secretary albright and then representative leach to the g20, i think in an observer role, to begin at least facilitating theres only one president at the time, but to collect information in coordination with the outgoing Bush Administration on the global response. So thats the global picture, that is the laydown. Let me bring it a little more to northeast asia and from a different perspective, and thats over to sue. Sue, you were, i believe, in the white house as a career official detailed to the nsc. If im right on that, can you talk about what that looked like from your end, two, thoughts about whats happening now, especially from a north korea National Security purview that is your specialty . Dr. Terry i was with the cia to the nsc during the Bush Administration, and stayed on through the transition. Everything denis just said is true. I was there. I have to say the transition from president bush to president obama i think was as good as it could get. Of course the obama , administration also propelled the transition from obama to trump [indiscernible] and he just talked about that. But everyone, i remember, cooperated with the Incoming Administration as much as we could, trying to make the transition as seamless as possible which is really the , hallmark of american democracy right . , during the transition period, the new folks that are coming in came into our offices at the executive building, at the nsc. I remember seeing them all through november, december, staff detail, policy memos on what weve been working on. And of course the Intelligence Community also prepared massive rethink books on all these issues for the Incoming Administration. So its really sad now that we are in this situation. You know, as you mentioned, transition time is a chaotic period. Its not enough anyway. Its a short period, even if everythings going smoothly. So its really sad. Also, you have to remember, you want to talk about north korea. You know what north korea loves to do is to greet the new administration with a series of provocations. This happened with the Incoming Administration of obama, in the first four months we saw a series of provocations. We saw this in the second term of obama. We saw this when President Trump came into the office. So we need to be completely fully prepared. , so im very dismayed that what were going to see is the messiest transition in American History given that president is still not conceding and making it difficult and , calling this election illegitimate and so on. So im very concerned. Mark ok, sue, great stuff, as always. Im going to bookmark the north korea piece. Were going to come back to that in just a little bit. Good stuff there. And over to victor. Victor, thoughts on these threads of issue here . Victor a couple of thoughts. So i was i left the government before the transition, but my understanding of it was the same as what sue said. At least as the at least at the nsc, steve hadley was the National Security advisor and it was very important to him that there be a seamless transition and that the Outgoing Team provide as much information as possible to the incoming team. And i only know because, as they prepared those things, they reached back to people who had worked on certain issues to offer their insights for the purpose of providing a good transition book or transition papers or files for the incoming obama administration. And my understanding and you , guys could speak to it better than i, was that that was something that was very much appreciated by the incoming team. I think what is happening now is just an absolute travesty. As sue said, there are many, you know, there are many very important and boiling issues around the world which the president elect and the Vice President elect are not getting the highest quality information on. I mean, theyre relying on People Like Us on the outside to try to help them and they need , that information. And then i want to just emphasize one point that mark made which i had not thought about, and that is for you guys, you were actually in a transition from november to january, mark, you said that felt like a very short period of time. And that makes me even more concerned. Because as sue said, who knows what the North Koreans are doing, who knows what the russians and the chinese are it is we havent even talked about the pandemic. Let alone the pandemic. So from a National Security perspective, it is doing a disservice not just to the , incoming team but to the nation, to be behaving this way. Where the incoming team doesnt have budget, doesnt have office space in the buildings as they sort of get themselves ready. It is just a travesty. Mark and victor and one quick , followup before i get back to denis and resume that thread, because its just been fantastic in his insights already. We want more. But one quick one to you. I saw there was a call between jaein andmoon president elect biden. What should seoul be thinking about . Victor i think for all the allies, it puts them all in awkward positions. Because theyre not able to fully interact with a Transition Team thats fully stood up and will be able to hit the ground running in january. And so yes, we see the Foreign Ministry coming over, there are a lot of Ruling Party Members that are coming over. But without that ascertainment, denis said, it makes it very awkward for all u. S. Allies and partners who want to sort of get to work with the new team. And so its doing a disservice not just to domestic policy and , National Security, its doing a disservice to all of our allies and partners. Mark thanks, victor. Back to mr. Mcdonagh. Round two, coming back to the buffet again in the course of this show. We cant get enough. So lets go a little deeper on policy. You sat as a key Decision Maker in the west wing for eight years. Can you just run us through two really interesting elements here that people ive heard people that people ive heard people ask about. One, the challenges that the Biden Administration will face, especially Foreign Policy comes to mind, and how to prioritize those challenges . And really the subtext for this show, which happens to be in and around government topics in and around northeast asia, will there be enough time and attention and resources allocated to the north korea issue set . Could you address that little bucket of issues . Denis yeah. Just one thing and then before that, ill pile on what both sue and victor said. President obama, both in his current book and in his public commentary over the course of the last couple of days since his book just hit the shelves on tuesday, and as sue also said, Michelle Obama also commented about this in an extensive post that she had in social media the other day, that they were extraordinarily grateful to the existing White House Team and to president bush and mrs. Bush for the many kindnesses that they extended them in the context of the transition in 2008 and 2009. Including, famously now, the bush daughters showing the obama daughters around the residence. Those of us with kids can kind of associate with that. And mark, youve gone through this with euro and family, with the many changes youve gone through with your service to the country, starting your family in seoul and beginning that really important process there, and obviously ensuring even now that your kids are still studying in korean i think is really admirable. But in as much as victor from afar, sue, you know, in the white house, played a role in that, i just want to call that out and say thanks to that. But you were just about to say something. Mark i was going to say, thanks for that. I think youre exactly right. The family piece is really important one. , and two, i dont think the transition would have been as good had victor been at the nsc. He has a reputation. Denis this is an assessment, but i think theres some evidence that he might have been moved before the transition. [laughter] [talking simultaneously] victor thanks, guys. Mark absolutely. No, victor, no, in all seriousness. And, please. Denis this is trite, but this is the most important, critical statement, which is to say the most Precious Resource in a white house is the president s time. And its quite clear both as so take, for example, how they rolled out ron klain last week as the chief of staff. That highlighted two things. One, rons role as ebola coordinator back in 2014, and his role in 20092010 in overseeing the investments in the stimulus as a result of that Great Recession in 20092010. He carried out those functions exceedingly well. As has been acknowledged as such by republicans and democrats, people inside government and outside government. But the reason they highlighted those two things is those will be the first two major priorities of this white house, which is the pandemic and the economic dislocation thats resulted from it. Theyve also been very clear, as you can see on buildbackbetter. Com, the transition website, that the other two major early priorities are Climate Change and Racial Justice here in the United States. So theyve listed those four enumerated those four major priorities. Obviously, the first three that we mentioned do have northeast asia implications. And so i think its important to think about it in that way first. , second, as sue suggests, a very hardlearned lesson, we do have adversaries and competitors who are going to try to force themselves onto the agenda in washington. And so that will require some real discipline from the bidenharris administration, and will require really tight coordination with our allies of the type that victor was just talking about which is why i did , think it was so important that that call with moon jaein happened earlier this week, and the readout was made public so people could see the fact of that call. But then, the last thing, mark, is this is something that i , think we kind of took a little crap for and thats a diplomatic term, took a little crap for, when we were in the white house is, youre going to see a lot of the action on these major priorities early in the administration, in the Foreign Policy area, handled by the cabinet. And i think youll see that the president , really being clear that hes empowering his cabinet and underscoring to his cabinet that he wants to make sure that theyre taking the ethos and the promises he made in the context of the campaign, which is overwhelmingly to reinvest in the alliances that are so important to the u. S. And obviously none more , important than the two critical alliances in northeast asia with korea and with japan. Hell really be pushing on his cabinet representatives to get out there, to make those promises real. And so when you think about the fact, well, is this going to be, you know, on the president s todo list every day . Not necessarily. I mean, in all candor hes going to be dealing with the pandemic and hes going to be dealing , with the economy. But its going to be on his day, inasmuch as hes directing the cabinet members to make real his promises to the allies on behalf of the alliances, to reinvest and reinvigorate u. S. Priority in those. I hope thats mark thats really helpful and really interesting. Let me follow up on one piece and perhaps to suggest also and , tell me if im wrong, its also going to be something that its incumbent on the nsc and others in the cabinet and the National Security agencies to watch carefully, in that you outlined a situation where youve got one of your first points is, the most important resource is the president. And Everybody Knows this. There is no substitute. The leaders know it around the world. The allies know it. So there is no substitute in some regards, right . At the same time youve got an unbelievably huge agenda here that the president elect has made clear he wants to focus on. And empower his cabinet. But on the other edge of that is you have to be mindful of, if im mistaken and correct me if im wrong again, is you dont want to appear distracted, you need the requisite level of engagement, and you have serious Foreign Policy challenges that will force themselves on the agenda early. How do you balance that from your Vantage Point as both white house chief of staff and Deputy National security advisor . Denis yeah, i think you put your finger on it, mark. And i think thats where your team becomes so critical and thats where the relationships with the cabinet become so critical. And then, thats where i think the norms and traditions of things like these congratulatory phone calls are so important. Because i think its really important that, for example, seoul understands that of all the things the president elect has to deal with right now, he really wanted to prioritize that receiving of the congratulations from the president of south korea. Its very important. Its meant to be a very important signal, and i hope its interpreted as that. So one is theres going to be pieces of the job that the president elect and his team and then the president , after january 20, will continue to do those things. Those will be regular interactions, Major International meetings and so forth, one. Two is, it also requires then people like you, victor, sue, who are the president s representatives in the white house, to be engaging not just through state but from the white house, with the embassies in washington and with our people in capitals, to make sure that they understand that through them and their interaction with the president , the president remains vigilant about these challenges. And so when i say, you know, for example, north korea trying to assert itself onto the agenda of the end states, and that requiring discipline on the side of the United States, what i mean there is twofold. One is, it requires the discipline of great professionals like sue and successors inir the nsc and throughout the u. S. Government staying on top of what is happening, coordinating the whole u. S. Government, and then communicating clearly with our allies. But it also means not letting the North Koreans dictate the terms of the dialogue or the debate or the discussion. So thats going to require discipline too. And for all that you need, like, you need a really experienced set of professionals in the nsc as i said, like you or like sue or like victor. S, excellent stuff. Let me take that and you really because,victor well victor, you did that job under the bush 2 administration. You had direct engagement with the North Koreans. You represented the president , the white house in a range of meetings all over northeast asia. You coordinated within the government. Can you just talk about what mr. Mcdonough said in terms of how this translates in the current context to seoul, pyongyang, tokyo, beijing, other interested parties, if you will, in the north korean context, and then writ large asian policy . Victor happy to. So you know, i think i mean, the first thing we have to think about from the perspective of our allies and partners around the world is that when we think about process and policy coordination and interagency, from their viewpoint, nothing really has been normal over the past four years. In many ways, its nothing like they have ever seen. And the United States, which generally tends to be fairly reliablent, fairly when a message comes in or a message gets communicated to their governments, you know, they understand that thats policy, none of those touch stones were there, have been there over the past four years. So all of them are looking for some sense of stability, some sense of predictability, some sense of transparency. And i think this administration, the president elects group, these are all experienced people. Theyve all been there before. You know they know how to do , this. Its just not being given the tools right now to be able to exercise that. One of the first things denis point is interesting about the president is going to rely on his cabinet officials to play an important role, particularly at the outset. From the worker bee level, like denis held the two most , difficult jobs in the u. S. Government, chief of staff and Deputy National security advisor. It is amazing, i dont know how you do both of those jobs and still survive to talk about it. Denis that is how you get the white hair. Mark did jon hamm have gray hair when he played you . Ive got to stop. Victor, back to you. Sorry. Victor i think that is also very important, because the rest of the u. S. Government in a transition is waiting for the leadership to come in so they can understand what the process is going to be like. You know, there clearly are established we used to call them subp. C. C. s, p. C. C. s, Different Levels of meetings across the inner agency. Every administration does it a little bit differently. So theyre all looking for direction in terms of how the professionals can start to organize policy, how they can be helpful, what is important, what is important to the Incoming Administration, and they can sort of read about it on build back better, or in statements that the president makes. But inside the government worker bee level, they want to know what is the next operational step that they should be taking as coordinated across the interagency and as directed by the nsc . So theres a lot of machinery thats just waiting to get started, and were not able to do that right now. The other thing i would say from an allies perspective is, you know, i think were going to be returning to a much more traditional style of diplomacy, where american messages about values and democracies and Global Leadership are going to return. Were not going to be americaisolated anymore. And i think almost universally, all of our allies and partners would dearly welcome that. I think theres been so much flux over the past four years that that would be really welcomed. So i think theres a lot of folks out there, both here in the United States, in washington, d. C. , and in capitals around the world that are waiting to work with the new administration. And theyll welcome a return to u. S. Diplomacy. Not that it will be exactly the same as in the past, but certainly the main currents of u. S. Diplomacy as they remember it. Mark great stuff, victor. Im going to go to sue, but to your point, i was going to ask this question and you essentially answered it in your previous answer. There has been an emphasis in the campaign, by the Biden Campaign to be specific, on an emphasis on alliances, democracy, promotion, multilateralism. And in a word, or in a sentence, your answer is, the players in northeast asia, especially our allies, or rather, i cannot talk this morning, our allies in northeast asia will welcome that , and you think more globally, there will be an embrace of that among our likeminded friends, partners and allies . Victor i think absolutely. Theyre like people who have been in a desert for four years that are starved for water. I think theyll welcome it dearly. Mark ok. Over to sue. Sue, coming back to the bookmarked issue of north korea. You heard denis very good comments about not allowing pyongyang to dictate the terms. Thats an interesting thread there. You heard a little bit more about how the Biden Administration might run in terms of president ial time. Obviously that looms large , because we just went through two, 2 1 2 summits between pyongyang and washington that were unprecedented. Can you unpack that thread a little bit, and just talk about implications on north korea and what the North Koreans might be thinking at this moment . Dr. Terry sure. First of all, like glenn close fatal the movie 1980s,on in the late remember that . She said, im not going to be ignored. Right . So north korea is not going to be ignored. We already talked extensively about how north korea historically conducts provocations around the election particularly when washington is , distracted. So i think everything that was said, its Biden Administration obviously is prioritizing domestic venue and ambitious agenda and will have to empower his cabinet and worker bees to ensure north korea does not do what we all think they are going to do. Because the North Koreans are going to force their way in. We just talked about how President Trump himself was ballisticith missiles. That was three weeks after inauguration day. President obama, within four months of his Incoming Administration, a series of provocations. So if north korea tests, and i think initially they will start with a technique of probably a smaller provocation, like a show of a ballistic missile, then slbm, but if they conduct a major provocation like testing this monstersized missile we saw in the october 10 parade, they will probably calculate that the Biden Administration will have no choice but to prioritize north korea, because it will be a big deal. Because that credibility and and reliability of north koreas capability to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon. In a way, i think there was a piece talking about this, why it would be such a big deal, if [indiscernible] to show that they have this multiple reentry capability. So we need to stop that. I think the most important thing would be, the people who are in charge of the north korea policy would have to Work Together and coordinate with our allies, with south korea, with japan, so we can prevent these kind of things that weve seen. And history has taught us a lot. We have learned a lot over the past three decades of dealing with north korea. So, you know. Mark it sounds like youre leaning heavily towards a prediction that the North Koreans will do something in the coming weeks, months, to force themselves back on top of the agenda . Dr. Terry i think what theyre going to do is watch very closely for any kind of signal, any kind of indication that the Biden Administration is interested in an interim deal back to negotiating. , this is what i mean. Its not a foregone conclusion because i think there are things , that we can do to prevent that from happening, instead of just letting north korea dictate by not paying attention to north korea. Theyre watching very closely. This situation is unusual. We have a very strange transition period where trump has still not conceded. We talked about all the economic, domestic faculties north korea is facing. We have the china factor, their relationship seems to be warming up. So there are a number of factors that north korea is considering. I dont think they will immediately turn into a major provocation. Again, start with something smaller, a smaller provocation. But we i think, and the United States, the United States government, the incoming Biden Administration, can take steps to send the right kind of message and signal to north korea. In coordination with south korea. Its not a foregone conclusion. We know where they will be headed if we let six months go by without sending any kind of signal to north korea. Mark great stuff, sue. Ok. Im going to you know, after the show were going to take bets, but you saw im going to come back to you. Im joking. Really good stuff on your point. , just thought it was excellent , we know where this will go unless theres robust policy development and intervention, for lack of a better term. Thats really interesting stuff. Ok. Denis, last word to you. Were almost out of time here. Want to pick up on one element that sue said in terms of the china factor, not in terms of north korea per se, but, look, this is the largest issue, at least in asia and you could argue globally in terms of the , president s Foreign Policy president elects Foreign Policy docket. Thoughts on where this might go and i just would underscore that obviously seoul watches this very closely, tokyo as well, in terms of the policy development and the direction. So the floor is yours and this , will be the last question. Denis thanks. Look, i tell my students all the time that if you think about kind of the International System that we kind of started our , you know, mark basically the kind of unipolarity around the u. S. , which had just kind of won the cold war, knocked down the walls of eastern europe, relegated the soviet union to kind of its appropriate place, i think the International System our students my students now are , going to be operating in is this one of dominated by competition between the United States and china. And so thats point one. As youre suggesting, i think it is the dominant question in the International System. Point two is, im routinely surprised at how fundamentally the consensus among National Security professionals in washington has changed on the right path on china since we left government in 2017. Its quite remarkable to me that kind of decades of consensus around this question of, broadly speaking, engagement has given way to something much more akin to competition. Which brings me to my third and last point. That changed consensus will be reflected in the biden team. So i dont think youll see substantial change off of current course and speed of seeing china as a competitor first and foremost. I think there are a couple of places where we hopefully can see some collaboration or cooperation, including one of the top four that i mentioned, Climate Change. The other is, i do think that kind of rekindling some of the exchange in and around education, i think, will kind of come off the cold footing its on now. But otherwise, competition in and around trade, competition in and around investment and in and around technology, as well as kind of a perception here in washington of china having broader expansionist or broader concerns in asia is something that i think is going to be front and center for american and i know it is something our japan arekorea and thinking about. Something i am eager to see fleshed out in the kind of alliesonal talks among victor talked about a couple of minutes ago. Itemnk this will be agenda one in those conversations. Great stuff. If i may, i said the last question was the last question. One quick followup. Analysts, government officials who watch the show. Hugeo flesh out some framework, but you are doing a review of china, what are questions you are asking . What are some issues you want fleshed out . Biggest one is what does u. S. Lead china mean for interests. Is a new kind of leader with new kinds of ideas for china. I think we should be very clear id about that. Those are the questions in the broad sense. It would behoove american policymakers. To discuss this from. Say, lets make sure we understand what china is about. All three ofwhy you guys understand, this is why president obama spent the kind of time he spent pressing these questions with president xi. I am not sure we quite answer that question yet, but it is critical to understand that. There are ancillary questions like what are the limits on him . The institutions in china that are going to limit him . Most importantly is, how do our allies see that . That is where i would start. Dennis, we cannot thank you enough for the answers you provided. The insight, we appreciate you being here in the show. We tried to class the place up. It is not every day we get a cabinet rank official. We took out the trash and did sweeping. Best groundas the so she brings the best library. As well as her expertise. We had a great session. Dennis, we cannot thank you enough. I would be remiss if i did not team whoanswer to the will win the korean world series, the deuce in bears duson bears. Hanger. Ning cliff thanks again. We are honored. Victor, fantastic stuff. Great insights, we do appreciate it. Watching closely the north korean piece you underscored. Kia fort, thanks to their sponsorship and support. It was invaluable in the show and it has been insightful and fastpaced two weeks. You are watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Cspans washington journal, every day, we are taking your calls on the news of the day and discuss policy issues that impact you. Sunday morning, the atlanta journals Patricia Murphy talks runoffhe results in the races that will determine Senate Control in january. Then current Cyber Initiative director at the Aspen InstituteGarrett Graff will be on to talk about the white house transition process and implications for National Security, and the former utah governor and george w Bush Administrations health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt discusses the delay in the transition and the potential impact on the coronavirus pandemic response. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 eastern sunday morning. Join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. Next, a conversation with john bolton, the former National Security adviser to President Trump. He spoke about reports the president was going to strike iran, the firing of chris krebs and mark esper, and plans to withdraw troops. This runs 30 minutes. This is half an hour. Good afternoon ira Robert Acosta with the washington post. We welcome