Former Obama AdministrationNational Security advisor and un ambassador susan rice discusses her life and career in american diplomacy and foreign policy. Shes interviewed by the new yorker columnist robin wright. After words is a Weekly Program with guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest works. Welcome, susan rice to after words. After thank you. Its great to be with you. It is a fascinating book. So it is a personal tale and a chronicle of your professional life and threw a wide array of crises and challenges, but lets begin with the Current Crisis that the United States faces. As you know, President Trump had a phone call with the president of ukraine in july, a whistleblower reported on it in august. It was released last week. What do you make of the whistleblowers complaint . What did i tell you, what struck you . What is so extraordinary about this is that we have now in blackandwhite in the president s own words evidence of the fact that when hes conducting business, supposedly on behalf of the United States, with foreign leaders come hes actually only conducting his own personal business. In this case from his personal political business and in other instances it may be something else, financial or what have you. But if you read the transcript of the phone call, not once did the president of the United States raise anything that is of National Significance to the United States, nothing about the sovereignty of ukraine and how its been a violated by russias invasion nothing about the sanctions in their effort to continue to old russias feet to the fire, nothing about the need to provide economic and security support to the ukrainians as a matter of u. S. Policy. It is a bizarre conversation. All the president asked for is that the president of ukraine and trump gave personal political favor by digging up dirt on his adversary in the case of joe biden he looked into bogus allegations that have been debunked alleging that he did something wrong as Vice President but there is no evidence to that effect yet he wants the information presumably to try to use it against joe biden politically. Then he asked for more debunked information that suggests ukraine rather than russia was somehow involved in meddling in the 2016 the election. Its incredible. And what is most disturbing about it is in addition to its a clear case of the president putting his own personal interest above the National Interest is that if you read the whistleblower report you will learn that not only did the president do this, but that his team tried to hide the fact that he did it by storing the transcript of this conversation on a very supersecret server and let me explain that just for a second to your audience. When we have president ial phone calls, there are no takers takers to that sit in the situation room, usually a two or three of them taking notes. Policy staffers coming usually including the National Security advisor or another senior representative and the expert staff are also in the room taking notes and advising the president if theres anything to react to. And if that seemed to happen in this case in terms of the experts being in the room. There were no takers and the notes would normally have been stored on a classified, secure server thats always the case. But then theres the separate server that is only for the most sensitive, highly compartmented information that the government has. Ive never even, myself, seem server. Ive received reports from occasionally beforehand carried me in an envelope and had to be hand carried back. That is how sensitive the material is on that server and it somehow, somebodyyet somehow, somebody in the white house decided that even though this conversation which we can now read wasnt classified they hated it allegedly on that server to prevent anybody but the most narrow circle from having access to that knowledge. That is deeply disturbing. So, why was there no tape recording or for those that were not alive in 1934. Guest i dont know the historical origins of how the decision was made. When they had nixon and the watergate tapes and all that stuff, after that, you decision somehow by some one someone was taken not to actually record the president ial phone calls but theyll carefully meticulously recorded in real time by multiple notetakers to then make sure the final transcript represents their best take on what was said. Who gets the transcripts of these conversations . Or do they go to the state Department Intelligence community, embassies abroad, how likely are they distributed . Normally come into giving speaking from my experience in prior administrations which i think on a bipartisan basis handled things the same way. I cant speak with certainty about what is happening in the trump administration, but normally what would happen is in small groups of policy staffers at the nsc and in addition to the National Security adviser they would receive these transcripts on a need to know basis. If you have a policy need to know for example in ukraine and if you worked in the European Office and keyword is possible but it wouldnt be disseminated within their department. So now lets talk about a number. You said a few and there is the same but there were enough people who were witness to a. Of two to five staffers listening on the call policy staffers and the two the to do for two to four notetakers and the situation plus or minus one either side had access to the call and then there might be a slightly larger circle as i describe people that have the need to know, so we are not talking about a lot of people. So my guess that ten to 15 on a normal call should he or she testified this is a case where the president of the United States is the leverage of appropriated funds for the National Security purpose to protect ukraine from the aggression 400 million in a matter related assistance the president of the United States held up to use as leverage to squeeze the ukrainian president to do him a favor that was purely political in nature. I am not aware so aware swing upgrade to a lawyer so im not quick to characterize the vitality we are interested in eliminating corruption in ukraine which is what happened to the. They were engaged in some kind of manipulation or reality at the white house at the time, what is your response . Guest let me take a few minutes to explain. That joe biden was misusing his office and interactions with the ukrainians to benefit his son. Lets back up. The fact of the matter is it was clearly defined in the u. S. Policy at the request of president obama. When Vice President ial biotin was pressing for the removal of the prosecutor general the prosecutor general himself was corrupt. He was failing to corrupt the appropriate investigations are that needed to be conducted. This wasnt just the Obama Administration view, it was congress the view shared by the International Monetary fund, which like us and the europeans were providing economic assistance to ukraine and it is a view widely shared by the European Union and the corruption because you are right it is a problem. When the Vice President was making his push to head back he was doing so transparently and openly in support of the policy. Wasnt doing it for personal gain in fact the prosecutor general was sent there at the time. The prosecutor general stepping in and they were not investigating. So this is all classic case that we see so often unfortunately out of this administration when they try to create a story that doesnt exist. There was nothing improper that im aware of where that has been demonstrated that they did anything improper. They carried out the policy openly and transparency, talked about it publicly and directed the conversations by phone i can assure you are not hiding that nobody can access. It is true that he did profit financially. He became a board member. Guest it is a very interesting and professional scale. What was interesting is the heritage you have on your mothers side, your grandfather was a janitor your grandmother a seamstress and made and they put in children that one became a president of the university and your mother went to radcliffe. It was quite extraordinary and then on your fathers side your father became a renowned economist to the world bank and the board of the federal reserve, so you came from unusual circumstances in your life in many ways as the american dream. Im interested in your title. Guest first of all bigger deeply indebted to my family and grandparents as described and made quite extraordinary for them and then installed the importance of education and excellence bringing back to the community. However, not sure that is the mantra with which i was raised whether to the immigrantwith her to the immigrant side of my family in 1912 was nothing and then to send their kids to college and see them succeed. My greatgrandfather was a slave fought in the union army during the civil war and after the civil war and manually in the Technical Skills to be able to be employed but also to go to college so again Education Service is a commitment on both sides. Its also how i tried to raise my kids and tried to serve the country. There was no blowing smoke to pump up my ego. They told me i could do whatever i set out to do and if i did my best, they would be with me no matter what and if i didnt do my best, if i were slacking or in some other way not taking my response ability seriously they would give me a hard time. I also, as i described in the book they have very painful challenges about the time i was seven to the time i was 15 or 16. I know my parents loved me and my brother is very much and they were committed devoted parents but they were not suited for each other and frankly in my view had no business being. And when they split up in a manner that they split up, that was another experience for me and my brother and we had no choice but to decide we were going to persevere and get back up despite having been knocked down by their experiences or stay down coming into that wasnt in our culture and upbringing. We had to get back up. So that was another aspect of tough love and i have a now 22yearold son and 16yearold daughter. They could be different from one another and they know that when mom is around, they are not going to get that committed was thatlovethat they will get it straight and there is no playing games are getting away with murder in our household. Host . You played point guard in basketball in high school. Guest somebody that is handed the ball and sets up the place and that was the playmaker and that is the position that i had in graduate school. Explain how point guard came both to be your name and also the philosophy of what you were doing guest i read about this in the book analogous to that of National Security. The National Security adviser isnt the personadvisorisnt the person that is seen taking the glory shot a. Of the person and the National Security card who helps behind the scenes are often. They are produced as a goal, passing the ball off to the star player whether the secretary or the president or Vice President to do the public signing or whatever it is come up to the National Security advisor does behind the scenes in that committee as to how to proceed to so later that analogy because it is an act and Important Role that it isnt the glory position and it was making the team trying to perform together. Host lets go through the various positions that you have had in the issue and the first one when you read the National Security counsel under president clinton you had the crisis in of somalia and the famous case of black hawk down and then the crisis nearby in rwanda where some 800,000 people were killed in a country the size of vermont. When you learned about dealing with crises, what you learned about the issues under what circumstances. I was 28yearsold and it was my first job in government. In the portfolio on the staff i got oversight and inside into issues in africa and asia and europe so with somalia and rwanda those are also dealing with bosnia and haiti and cambodia. A whole series of major challenges in which the United Nations and peacekeepers were involved. They were particularly formative crises in my professional development. In somalia, black hawk down was the culmination of the administrations decision to try to go after the warlord they were preventing us from completing the mission of providing humanitarian assistance to those that were starting. That is the original mission that we got into at the end of the administration that president clinton carried on. After the tragic shootdown of those helicopters and the loss of the 18 servicemen are servicemen being dragged through the streets of mogadishu. They acted very swiftly and with enormous pressure on the involvement in somalia. It was the decisionmaking process at the Principals Committee that many years later i ended up chairing and needs to be more hands handson in the case where you have American Service members deployed and cant believe that the the lowerlevel deputies or of deputies or the daytoday interagency process. And that is one thing that was a challenge. There are political dynamics that we may or may not fully understand and where it is very hard to separate from the humanitarian issues like the security situation in the nationbuilding challenge. So, somalia was the case of our underestimating the complexities of the intervention. After the Service Members were acquired the last thing on anybodys mind in washington or in congress or the editorial pages with the united united of the United States ought to send their forces back to centralize to replace the people had heard of even less at the time. And what i learned from rwanda is what i saw some months later with the National Security adviser at the time and saw that it was still filled in the decomposing. It was one of the most terrific experiences i ever have. But what i learned from that tragedy is what happens when you dont make the primary decisions about whether or not to intervene. I am sure that American Intervention in rwanda necessarily could have been dispositive becausethispositive because there were killings going door to door and we just learned that the best writing force in the world can sometimes be challenged by warlords on the vehicles with machine guns. But in the case of rwanda, there was never the question called. Called. The decision was never discussed as to whether or not the United States should intervene. Because it was a series of individual decisions taking the team in the moment. We had to get the american south. We had to deal with the question of whether it should be called a genocide and deal with the question of whether to shut down the hate radio. There were decisions taking should do u. S. Alone or with others intervened, and that was the failure of the decisionmaking process. So, in those experiences ive learned youve got to be handson and make a conscious decision. You cant just allow that to slip away from you and i think president clinton has expressed this in public many times that we didnt intervene. He has said at times if we had sent 10,000 troops, it might have made a difference. Im not sure i am as confident in that decision, but i do think that what we should have learned from that experience and that i kind of take with me into my subsequent child is that we have to have a handson active process. Host into this will come back to be a scene later on in other jobs. From the National SecurityCouncil Company went to the state department. There is a wonderful passage in your book. You were very candid about yourself, which is fascinating. This is what you wrote. My reputation from the nsc as i was about to discover had preceded me. Im why was eventually told, i was perceived as smart, dynamic, decisive, and bureaucratically skilled, and if. But also, rash, demanding inpatient, hardheaded and unafraid of confrontation. Also autocratic, micromanaging. So what does that tell us about your backs are they right and what parts were they right about . I think that they were right i had the privilege starting at the staff at 28 megabytes 32 i had been elevated to assistant secretary of state that meant i was responsible for all the seas all the ambassadors and 48 subsaharan african countries. I was probably 20 to 30 years younger than the most senior ambassadors reporting to me. They had come up in the career and they werecurvierand they were mostly male and mostly white and saw me as wrong for the job to put it mildly and insufficiently experienced given their competitive background. They knew i had the skills in terms of intellect and i had the relationships at the white house and at the top of the state department to get things done. But i think they were skeptical of me. And the other thing i just had my oldest child our son. When i started at the state department, he was three months old and i was a breastfeeding mother. Putting all those things together i think i wasnt typical assistant secretary that many of my colleagues expected. And there is the challenge of being breastfeeding on the road road. So the first crisis in the state department, or your biggest arguably, was 1998, the al qaeda attacks on the u. S. Embassies in kenya and tanzania. There was an article published in vanity fair that alleged that i as well as former secretary of state albright and the former National Security advisor in effect were responsible for 9 11 because allegedly we were offered intelligence files by the government of sudan that we refused to accept because of her antipathy dash antipathy. And the sudan connection was in the aftermath of the embassy attack. We struck al qaeda. That was in retaliation to the Embassy Bombing and then we struck a socalled pharmaceutical plant according to Us Intelligence was associated with chemical weapons production and osama bin laden. That is where the connection. But quite frankly those people that were behind the defamatory vanity fair story were frustrated by our policy in the Clinton Administration toward sudan they thought sudan did not belong in the state sponsor tear and to be so tough on the government and then you come back under the Obama Administration and you oversaw several crises but i am curious a lot of people dont know what un ambassador does except vote on resolutions you have a very interesting picture whether the ambassador to russia or the ambassador to iran so to explain those curious relationships that you developed who would have thought that could be a very close associate. It was a fascinating and fun job quite candid the. You represent the United States on behalf of the United States whether you Security Council or General Assembly on important policy issues that youre focused on some in my tenure that included sanctions on iran and syria and the palestinian quest for statehood and recognition. I could go on but a whole range of issues but the un ambassador is engaged in very difficult and sometimes very high stakes negotiations with the other major Member States that we call the permanent five members of the Security Council those that have veto power like russia or china or the United Kingdom and france. And then ten other members that is the lawmaking body of the un and of the world so many of the most contentious negotiations happen within the Security Council with those permanent five ambassadors. I negotiated very strong sanctions on north korea and those posed on iran in 2010 were so powerful they led ultimately i ran to come to the negotiating table thats how we ended up with the Iran Nuclear Deal. Is a challenging and intense environment but other ambassadors are human beings you cant just treat them as spoiled its not in accurate but when i was un ambassador i spent more time with those p5 ambassadors than i did with my husband who remained in washington during my tenure. So that relationship for better or worse and it was not easy but that core relationship made all the difference so interestingly i became involved in the intensive lovehate relationship with the Russian Ambassador at the time he was very experienced and was there for years before i got there incredibly charming incredibly obnoxious and we fought like cats and dogs in public and private we could laugh uproariously and go out for a drink and speak some pretty plain truth to each other other. And you invited him to give a speech at your farewell but the iranians on the other hand was different. You would go to their residence the fbi became suspicious but yet you never acknowledged knowing him in public. Again 2010 or 11 before we had the channel to the iranians to establish the context of Nuclear Negotiations there were things we needed to talk about. They took americans hostage. They were bumping heads with us in the persian gulf we wanted to make sure we could defuse a crisis backing militias shooting rockets and missiles into our facilities in iraq so because of the proximity of un ambassador from iran so a private channel at the request of the white house on a number of occasions i would report thoroughly on my conversations we would discuss the issues and i would push to be protected and respected in a way we could not do and you mention when we cross paths in the halls of the United Nations acting like weve never seen each other before and at one point early in my engagement with the iranians with the fbi is doing his job to make sure they know whats going on with our adversaries in the United States became suspicion suspicious why is the American Ambassador talking to iranians and went to the proper channels and then assured it was on the up and up. One of the most contentious developments at the un was libya and a decision whether to intervene after the arab spring as qaddafi was moving his forces closer to benghazi. You got a resolution what was astounding the russians did not use their veto power. And the chinese. But the russians were more important because the chinese follow the russian decisions. That began a sequence of events in libya that plays out to this day the russians were very worried afterwards because it gave the United States a precedent for the United States for the allies to go in using force that was beyond their mandate. The russians knew exactly what authority we were getting when we negotiated that resolution its a very plain statement that i reconstruct in the book before the Security Council i explained United States with our partnership was seeking un authority to protect civilians threatened by qaddafi that means you would use their power not just taking out aircraft but Libyan Forces if they are marching on the civilian target. It was clear that is what we were asking for the russian Security Council heard it there and in moscow. For reasons we can only speculate, and i do in the book. [laughter] the russians did not block the resolution. My speculation is they actually thought we would get so embroiled in the situation it would be to our detriment and their benefit they were trying to give us just enough rope to hang ourselves and we did manage to protect civilians and benghazi and not face the worst Case Scenario that did result in qaddafis removal now the russians in retrospect like to claim that somehow we exceeded the mandate but thats not true but it did lead them to be more cautious subsequently for sure. The most controversial part of your life was when your later Chris Stevens who you knew for a very long time was noble spending a year in benghazi during the uprising you back as ambassador. And he was murdered. You were put out as the face of five tv shows to explain what we knew and that got you in a lot of trouble. A lot of republicans felt you were engaged in a coverup because you said at the time this was the aftermath of protest in cairo and at the time look like it could have been spontaneous what is your side of the story quick. First of all the most important part of all of this as we began we lost four americans in a horrific pair terrorist attack and Chris Stevens was not only a colleague but also a friend that i valued and we all feel the enormous weight of that loss to this day. One of the many tragedies of the talking points drama and the subsequent controversy is that it obscure the important fact we had lost americans we need to figure out how and why and what to do in the future also it soured washington on anything to do with libya so at a time when american policy may have had a positive impact after qaddafi we all walked away. Coming back to my sunday show appearances i described first of all my late mother was an extraordinary force in my life warned me not to go on the shows in a conversation i describe in detail in the book she intuitively thought it was not going to turn out well. I wasnt looking to go as i said i was planning to take my children on that saturday to ohio state to a Football Game so they could see their first big ten Football Game and i kept that promise and i came back and the next day went on the sunday shows the problem is i was asked to provide the best current information that our intelligence Intelligence Community had in classified form i know talking points were prepared it was the best current information we had and i knew it was because i was reading the classified version in real time. So i explained this information was preliminary and could change but heres what we understood to be the case. I laid it out. Presumably or predictably according to my mother, elements of that information change down the road. So within ten days the Intelligence Community issued a statement to say what they had given me and others was the best judgment at the time but then it changed. Long story short, after all the investigations all the information came to light the talking points i was given was wrong and one critical respect that there was no demonstration outside of our facility and benghazi. But the point was this was an Election Year republicans decided to attack me as a liar and is somebody incompetent or untrustworthy because of the information i provided and it spiraled into a personal attack on my integrity. And cost you the job to be secretary of state. I cannot go back i do not say that in the book i do say ultimately it caused me to say to the president i dont want to be considered anymore. Do you ever feel you were the sacrificial lamb youre not the obvious choice to put on when secretary of state clinton or the Counterterrorism Committee somebody from the National Security council you are not the logical choice do you feel you were thrown out there quick. Really quick. I think my mother did. I dont let me explain why. In the first instance i know the administration did asked secretary clinton if she would go on the show. They came to me after she declined i was led to believe she declined because she had an exhausting weekend and did not want to go out they couldve asked other people but this is what they had asked me to do before and i had it was also ten days before the start of the un assembly those issues were just about benghazi that attacks around the world and the upcoming General Assembly meeting so there were a bunch of issues beyond benghazi that was in my wheelhouse but my mistake that my disposition and instinct with the leader of the team asked me to do something i want to say yes i didnt think i was incapable to do the job differently than anybody else what i realize subsequently alert my other colleagues were keeping their heads down because they understood in a crisis situation inevitably will be politicized that the messenger not just the message gets attacked. I learned that the hard way. Is that of becoming secretary of state you went on with the description of the job most days the job of National Security advisor the weight feels like a huge slab of concrete constantly resting on ones torso and then to breathe and function as more were on the slab because i also want to get to the subject of race in america. Edward snowden and wikileaks revealed the United States was tapping 38 friendly countries that led to a real anger whether the chancellor of germany or the president of brazil. You write about how for six months you spent mopping up that mess. What damage did it do . People look at him as a hero. I view him as a traitor. What did you have to do during those six months and what was the Lasting Legacy quick. And that was enormous damage to the united state security. It cost us the ability what we used to keep americans safe. And what i did was to help in the repair relationships of their closest partner. With to be complicated and insensitive interagency process and how we were approaching that into know we had the proper safeguards so to issue a whole new set of guidelines so i cant overstate in particular by rushing into russias arms quite smugly in which he tells his side of the story and from my Vantage Point if you are loyal american you dont steal secrets and put them out in public. You mentioned Vladimir Putin and the call obama had with him. But no call with him was short and it lasted 90 minutes sometimes you keep the president waiting just to take the call where he could play scrabble on his ipad. What was the engagement with putin like did you ever feel we could do business with him are constantly undermining him . You left right after discovering the russians had intervene in the 2016 president ial election. No question putin personally and they are antithetical to our interest and our views. There is nothing anyone can say about his objectives that align in a meaningful way now in the interference of our election is the most glaring example. There was occasion from the Iran Nuclear Deal in getting a large tranche of chemical weapons. But to engage with him without trusting him was my judgment and that is what is so worrying how President Trump has engaged with putin he has privilege putins word over our own intelligence but the flipside ironically is that phone calls with putin they were civil and involved and respectful even if adversarial in substance. Of course i had a number of experiences engaging with putin personally and directly when he was at meetings or summits where president obama was attending. I can attest personally he is a creep and that much as it relates to women where he had an opportunity in normandy for a dday anniversary and president obama and i went to an interception a reception in a large room the president was across the room i was by myself with putin and the National Security advisor he made some unwelcome comments about my attractiveness. I was surprised how small he is i was in the lobby and was pushed aside by one of his bodyguards and i could look him in the eye and realized this is a man who has issues. [laughter] i cant say. What are you worried about in the 2020 election . Mimic its important for the American People to understand it has to stop. This is a constant we are very actively involved in 2016 as we saw with the hacking from john podesta and others they try to infiltrate our electoral system putting out false information and then very active on social media pitting people against each other over contention of race or immigration and then to discredit our democracy and cause people to hate one another in turn against one another and to get us from within and they continue to do that not just in the context of every two years of national elections. We have every reason to be concerned they will continue their efforts in 2020 and intensify to learn from the rules we try to get around them and i very worried that congress and majority leader mcconnells leadership has not done enough to help us defend against that threat. Getting back to your personal story, first of all your son is at stanford and despite the politics of your family he has become a republican, trump supporter and prolife those positions in many ways that are very different from yours. Whats that like quick. And also you talk about the debates that you have within the family. We raise our kids to be independent thinkers and have courage of their convictions and we have succeeded our daughter on the one hand is left of us and our son who was substantially to the right of us they are both wonderful kids were loved deeply but it makes for interesting table conversation. They are both bright and engaged in the issues of their day. But with my son in particular there are some pretty stark differences between us. Thats not easy but the good news is personally we are very close and we talk about these at higher decibel levels than others i respect him and he respects me very much. And i learned a lot from him that gives me insights into the values and the thinking of our country. Getting back to race you were born three years before the Supreme Court decision and its very interesting you have grown up in a period where we have seen a real consciousness of Race Relations and challenges on Race Relations you have an interracial marriage as well. So given what we have gone through whether charlottesville or parkland or ferguson or the shootings of policemen of africanamericans so what about the state of Race Relations in the United States in the 21st century quick. Looking at the long arc of history there is extraordinary progress my father was born in segregated South Carolina and had to fight in a segregated army in world war ii with the Tuskegee Airmen and was deeply wounded by the fact pows could eat in restaurants that he could not. So look at the long arc of history and yes after when i was born only then could i marry my husband so we are growing and evolving in a positive direction but we also have enormous internal divides and there are many people i thank you have great difficulty with people who look like me. I dont think it is the majority i think it is a shrinking minority but increasingly vocal and they have been emboldened and encouraged by much of what they hear out of President Trump who has given life to those who hate and mixed messages on antisemitism one of the power of the members of congress but i hope its an increasingly smaller part of society that still has racial prejudice and the barriers structural and economical and social barriers to mobility are real for very people who look like me and not just africanamericans but latinos and others. We have real challenges ahead of us. We cannot declare victory and assume this challenge of race and slavery has been wiped away. It hasnt. But what worries me the most is rather than working together to heal those divisions to understand we are in this together a leadership views it is advantageous to pit us against one each other and i conclude the book with a call for us to come together across political divisions as i must do in my own home but on a National Level in order to strengthen and save our democracy and preserve our global bone global leadership. Good luck with your book to our. Thank you for joining us