At the end of this book i realized after a long period of thoughtfulness and i went into the wilderness. Is that america goes through these divisive periods roughly every 40 years. Why . We are a very dynamic country. Socially, economically. We are constantly reinventing ourselves. Not just as individuals but as a nation and government by its nature, its a status quo institution. This is how weve always done things. We will do things the same way again. Its people will then gets dark. America is set up to have these revolutions. Political revolutions. We had one in the beginning but ever since then, weve mostly had the revolutions that have played out and thats what we are in the middle of now. One of the things you said in the beginning of your book. You said without definitions, we are talking past each other or more likely just screaming at each other. Before we spoke, we had a conversation about the idea we can have constructive dialogue across the aisle. Which might make for good tv but certainly the more productive conversations we can have are based in common ground, civility and understanding each others differences. Can you explain what you mean by nationalism and populism and how it might be different than others definitions . Nationalism and populism and then either leaders him and globalism. I was always for decades i had jobs in those administrations. Over the last 10 or so years, i came to reject a lot of the thinking i had before about globalism. Globalism in my mind is the idea that because its an sophisticated economy, the world is flat. The National Boundaries arent as important. National boundaries are not important when you think of the internet and you think of finance and people. Foundries are less important because its the free flow of information, ideas, individuals, finance, business. So thats in internationalist or globalist things, thats in the world. So we really dont need to think so much about the National Laws and regulations. We need to have global institutions that apply to anybody. The second part stems from again, a complicated world and society. The awith those two together, when borders dont matter and expert to do. And a lot of these leaders are people who think if we only have this International Group of enlightened people, they could better govern the world and we would be a friend happy place. Thats sort of where i was 1015 years ago. Im not there anymore. For a couple reasons. One, the latest on taking care of all the people. And the American People, i really believe the American People are suffering. Not some selfselected group of experts. Bureaucrats, aristocrats. Its the American People who have the right to choose their leaders. Dont like them, through the mount. I think we have spent far too long wishing the world was as it should be. In the world work to, we were a dominant country in the world. What we did was, we were very generous to our former allies. And even to former adversaries. We entered into security agreements by multilateral security agreements as well as trade agreements to our disadvantage. We put up 75 percent. For nato, for example. The trade agreements were very lopsided. A lot of them at the expense of the american industry to encourage economic developing in the devastated nations. So thats how things were for 5070 years fighting think that makes sense anymore because that had changed. We did the same thing with china and around 2000 where we said to ourselves, we will give china a helping hand. Help them economically developed because they demand will be like japan or europe. They will be our trading partners. We will play by the same rules and they will be our friends. It didnt work out the same way with china. Thats why i broke with globalism and elitism well before donald trump came along. I was already there by 20142015. The reason i was is i went around the country. I am an elitist. I live in a nice bubble in new york. As i went around the country, i knew something was happening. So i did my own informal polling. I would say how many of you think the economy isnt where it was. That you will have opportunities for your childrens generation. I said if you think america is losing its place in the world, getting kicked around by pipsqueak countries, have to has one. I said how many think the values of america we think of as american values. Selfreliance, ingenuity. Many think that those are kind of flittering away. 75 percent had their hands up. Then i said how many think its washingtons fault, everybodys hand run red went up including the guy running the sound equipment. That is the people we were talking to, womens groups, Foreign Policy experts. They were all doing really well for the most part. They werent suffering. But they knew something was very wrong in the country. Thats why billy had an awakening and conversion. Decided the ways the country has kept the peace had governed it so for decades, just want working anymore. I became a committed nationalist, my version of it. Before donald trump came on the scene. But i would say, to me, nationalism is imposing a phobic kind of nationalism where you hate the other guy. Populism isnt a well, we dont have to do anything. Lets give everybody everything. Its not that kind. For me, its getting back to americas. What i appreciate when you talk about elitism is you are selfaware. You talk about your education experience and i can sense tension. When you talk about your time in the white house and im interested in talking to you about not. Some of the people you called on including people like fiona hill and was a journalist at the wall street journal. Is there a tension between the need for expertise and the place like the white house we are dealing with the worlds most complex problems. Meeting people who are educated who have experience whos been on the ground in afghanistan or have written extensively about issues that concern us. Absolutely. That is why you have a president. You get the best advice and then decide whether you want to take it or not. I have known her and read her books, for many years. I thought the only hill would be an important addition. Ownership and agree with me and a lot of things. But i thought that what he had said on the campaign trail that he wanted to improve relations with russia was not in the least bit nacve. They have been doing bad stuff for a long time. Mucking around in our elections for decades. I thought doctor fiona hill would be a good advisor because i hope to get some good into negotiations with putin and i wanted her to be able to say to him, lets have the back story here. Lets drive a harder deal. Sadly its not how it worked out because of the rush investigation but i thought she would be a very good advisor. I thought he would respect her views. I think he did. ais not the way it worked out. As well as matt, ive known him for decades. What i thought was good is yet realworld experience in the Business World as well as the journalist world. He wanted to take a much tougher stand on china which i knew trump wanted to do. Lets talk about china. You have been clear in your book that demonstrations have not recognized china is the challenge for this coming century. Im interested in your thoughts on the shes xi pingflex where do you want to start . Lets talk about the imbalance or asymmetry between a capitalist country like america and the state run economy with the president like xi ping. He has essentially like the Chinese Communist party has, has said to them give us all the power. You dont have individual rights. But give us the power and we will promise you you will have prosperity and peace. That would be the glue that held the country together. Especially in the last 20 or so years where communism has faded away as an ideology. Theres no religion that has held it together. Its authoritarianism and maybe historical pride with the chinese history. Thats what they start out with. Its worked out great since 1980 or 90. Prosperity has increased. The other thing is to look at regeneration. Its not like in america or the west or you might have an old person and a young person and are both in the senate together. An old candidate and a medium age candidate. In china, you advance with your generation. You start out and maybe identified as really smart, someone we want to nurture. The chinese advance with their age group. By the time they get to be president of china, theyve seen all the leaders there now dealing with in their government bureaucracy and Foreign Policy and military. Theyve been working together for decades. You move with your cohort. You dont move with your age group. You move with your age cohort. Or the people around china today . People in their 60s. Where were they in the formative years of their lives . In the middle of the cultural revolution. So in the 60s up to 1972 and three, thats when these guys were in their late teens and a lot of the leadership had been students storming universities were tearing down leaders. It was the wrong kind of populist revolution but they went wild and took a lot of the Senior Leaders of china and put them in jail. Xi jinpings father was one of these people. A lot of them have been in the top positions when they were young and they live the good life in beijing. All of a sudden they were sent to the countryside along with their families to be punished and beaten. I think when xi jinping and his group, to them, thats the worst that could happen. People going crazy, order breaking down. A revolution of the wrong kind. What they want to do at all costs is to make sure china doesnt go there again. Think that drives their position in the world. And then like we do, revolutions are good things and individual freedoms. They dont this order and prosperity. Everything was going along nicely. The United States was really trying to help china sort of modernize. Just like japan and korea and a happy world. But it didnt happen. Because the chinese needed to, they were coming from so far behind. And they are very conscious of that. They had people who were in starvation situations 20 years ago and now theyre building modern cities. So the United States, we enables their success. We dont resent their success. At least i dont. But we enabled it. We dont treat china like a third world country. The time has come to retrigger that relationship. Do you have concerns about one way and the buying up of ports. Throughout africa. This concern do you have a concern about a new set of colonialism and chinas rise in displacing the United States as the predominant power in the global order. For years the chinese have said, we know youre in charge. The big brother. I think their rhetoric and their positions have changed in the last decade or so. The things i would point to is their refusal to renegotiate these deals. But theyve also done three things geographically and militarily the have gotten me nervous about that one is the South China Sea. That is the one way through which the majority of the world trade flows. All goes through the South China Sea on its way to china, philippines and japan. They have aggressively moved to say, that the internal chinese we will build them up. The chinese attempt to take the countries. With trade one from china to europe to the middle east. The chinese have attempted to recreate that with china in charge. Its called one road, one belt. They will build this physical highway but they will also build the virtual highway by going to these countries. Building things to chinese standards. Not unlike the roman stood. The final thing as their maritime ambitions. So theyve looked up pakistan and the east coast of africa. They said we are going to build support. Just like the South China Sea which is about fishing. We want to sell and trade chinese goods through these ports. But in fact, some of those ports are being militarized. So the chinese are building a maritime route, a land route and theyre trying to control the world Global Commerce routes. In addition to that, theres something called made in china 2025, where the chinese leaders have said they will to dominate the 10 technologies of the future. Theyve gone for making tennis shoes to all the way up to computers and high technology. But theyve identified technologies of the future. Such as robotics, technology. We want to be the leaders in those and we will do it however we have to. We will buy american countries. We are going to steal intellectual intelligence if we have to and we will demand that companies that want to do business in china have to turn over intellectual property to us. So thats another way. Plus a much more aggressive attitude and talking about it. I think the chinese no longer wants to be americas little brother. But they look at the world and say we are going to dominate the world. The commerce of the world with our international 5g global network. Dominate the communication and then we will rewrite the rules according to our specifications. Is that not the case for multilateralism and that it will be usa and rest of world versus china. Not to say that this would be an overtly aggressive start. America and a dozen states in and around the pacific rim decided to make treat agreements so they can constrain chinas abilities to trade with those companies. You talking about the transpacific partnership. Trump understood if you rebuild the American Economy to make it the strongest economy, you have a lot of leverage. And the energy world. And also because we are the recipient of purchasers of most countries goods. Others makes the and sell it to us. They need to sell it to us. So trump understood those things in life if you can fix the American Economy. Get us off of middle east energy, he could use trade wars to renegotiate the agreement with china and japan and south korea. There will be one with britain soon, mexico and canada. Put the United States in a far better position with much more leverage and then start negotiating. My advice to him is that now that you have china with the phase i trade agreement. A trade agreement with mexico and canada and japan. Youll probably get one with the brits at the end of the year. But we now and have a consortium and a trading block. Then we could go as a block led by the United States and say, we demand a new deal. We dont want to keep you down but we want you to stop exploiting the generosity weve given you over these decades. To talk to you about tech americana when we speak about china. It has given us to some extent a world of these although weve seen american interventions in iraq and afghanistan which you have seen as a complete waste of american lives. An american treasure. How do we extricate ourselves from iraq and afghanistan. We know there will be a vacuum. There are concerns with isis and al qaeda. How can we focus energy and resources at home . I think like childrearing, you pick your fights and you have priorities. To me, the big priority right now is china. While isis is a problem, you dont want to lose track of the real problem. Was really great understand whats the real game here . Its the soviet union and the United States. And its Nuclear Weapons. Lets not get sidetracked with this other stuff because it might prevent you from dealing with other issues of your time. We have gone intofour years, net Energy Importers to exporters within a short period of time. Once we can get off of their energy. We dont have to get sucked into those psychodrama is that theyve been fighting for thousands of years. Tribal warfare, we dont need to be in the middle of them. We can probably replace their oil. That to me is one of the important things. The other stuff you mentioned. But its not as important if it distracts you from dealing with important things like asia and china and the 5g Global Technologies of the future. So i was critical im not going into afghanistan. We should have killed the people who went after us but we kind of did that after three months. We should not have stayed around to rebuild afghanistan and rebuild these countries that dont want to be rebuilt. You cant just make a democracy and create a government. It will have to come from the countries we want. You talk about the invasion being the right thing but staying being the wrong thing. Ive appreciated you had your candor with the president s tweeting for example. Im interested in your thoughts on the importance of institutions in this country as the backbone of democracy. The Administrative State which i know youre not a big fan of but on the other hand, perhaps at the judiciary. Weve seen a president who have attacked the judges and needling in some of the terms of speaking about judges in charge of trials with people that are associated with him. Can you talk to me about the importance of institutions both at home and abroad . I guess the first is the First Amendment is freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The reagan headmistress understood that the press is going to be against them. I would argue that. Some president s get and george washington. [indiscernible]. I think trump has understood the same way they can do and on our great revolutionary presence did that have to find a way to get directly to the American People and jump over the heads of those, the press establishment. Reagan did it by going around the country and speaking in cities and towns across the country. Fdr. He did my fireside chats directly to the American People. He understands the Washington Press corps is not going to like him. He understands they will hate him and lie about him, a close. He has found a way to reach directly to the American People. Tweeting. I dont like the tweets. Some of them make my skin crawl. On the other hand its been very effective for him to get through to the American People. Thats an institution that he and reagan and fdr, id say lincoln have preserved. The free speech of the american leaders to talk directly to the American People. How do we find that balance. Freedom of the press is also in the First Amendment. We wouldnt have watergate, the wall street awashington post reporters. Where is the balance between a press mob getting in the way of president and someone asking the questions that matter to give answers to the American People . Theres always going to be a tension. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out, you and i talked about this at the beginning of our conversation recent a lot of people just cream at each other. Its like trying to reason with a tired twoyearold child. Youre never going to break through. So what happens, you realize eventually those people become irrelevant. And thats the ultimate proof. Im a real believer in the common sense of the common american. Those voices trying to strangle or refuse to listen, theyll eventually go by the wayside because no one will listen to them anymore. Am i worried about the balance, yeah. It will get out of whack here and there. At the end of the day, it seems to find its center. Im so excited to talk to about nuclear issues. [laughter] professional women in midtown manhattan and you want to talk to me about Nuclear Weapons. How cool is that . And it struck me the way you talked about eads and that there are certain information or policy that the average american doesnt get access to. Or nuclear strategy. Average americans dont feel they have agency that issue. It doesnt come up in politics or debates. One question straight out of the gate is should the president sign new a bilateral treaty with russia that is basically a nonproliferation agreement. Putin has said he will sign with no preconditions. What are the pros and cons . I worked in the Nixon Administration where we had agreements with the soviet union. When we so where are we now . At the beginning of the trump administration, one of american policy. What was the Obama Administration and where are we now . One of the things that was pretty clear was that the russians had been cheating for years. On this class of weaponry called intermediate weapons. It was also clear that the chinese were developing them. My advice was let us get to where we need to get to. I think it was the right thing to do. We did learn with reagan and what i belonged with trump is you have to have chips to play in the game. Youve got to have leverage and where is your leverage if you dont have that class of weapons . Reagan was able to go to the soviet union and say lets cancel this and that. We had a lot of leverage. Economic leverage, technological leverage and the threat of a Defense Missile system. That they knew they could build and i thought we might be able to. I think trump has gone to the right place. Doesnt mean you never have these agreements but you negotiate them from a position of strength. Moving on to north korea. We have had this sort of cycle and you explained this beautifully in the book, the cycle of committal and noncommittal and promises of north korea. At least since the early 1990s when we were they were building a Nuclear Weapons program. What are your views on whether this is a solvable problem . Will we have to live with the idea that north korea will have north end Nuclear Weapons . 75 percent of north koreas food, fuel, transportation, comes as gifts from china. You get the chinese to help you. We had other things going on with china so i think the chinese may have said my stuff like we are going to help you, but they never did. The other thing is that, trump has done this all on his own. All those experts he was getting advice from, they didnt understand as a negotiator understands that with trump and with kim jongun, it would always be personal. Kim doesnt care about his people. He will let them starve. He doesnt care about his generals. He cares only about him and his ego and maybe theres a little bit about being a greater later than his father or his grandfather. So i think trump has found that way to play to his ego. His welcome term. He said i dont need you in singapore. Was very carefully chosen. I was gone from the administration by then. Singapore is the most modern city in the world and if done it in about 30 years time. Thats a demonstration that this could be you. The next meeting was in hanoi. We were mortal enemies when we fought the vietnam war. America used to hate vietnam. We were at war with each other. Look how close we are now. I think those are carefully calibrated to show kim these are the possibilities. The other thing that trump did, he did this trailer. Like a movie trailer to show, this could be you. Showing him what modernization and the modern economy could look like. How do you solve a problem like north korea. Anyway, i think that was the right thing to do. If you have a different relationship with china going forward, i think everything is interconnected. You have trade, sovereignty, a domestic politics. You said about the president , watch what he does and not what he says. Im interested in your thoughts on how that has borne out. And id also like to ask about once around the border wall. Lets start with what he does and not what he says. I was trying to figure out, what drives trump. Most president s have a lot of analysis about what makes them tick. Save the atrump will have a whole library about what makes them tick. Having worked closely with him is he wants to win. Its all about winning. And hes from the new York Real Estate world where you either need money that your or you lost. Hes also from the tv world. He created the whole genre of reality television. Washington is much vaguer than that. I think for him, it was all about winning. How you get there, how you make the money. Doesnt really matter. Its getting to where you can win. I think he looks at negotiating positions, trash talking opponents. He looks at those as things you have to do to get to the point where you win. Its a tactic. Every time he proposes a negotiation with somebody. The media goes nuts. The political establishment and says thats just absurd. He probably thinks its absurd too. I think to a certain extent, he says a lot of strange things. He will say for example, one wiki trash talks on twitter like my muscles are bigger than your muscles. Then the next week he says kim and i are sending each other love letters. He does care who he humiliates. Sometimes even himself. He just wants to win. And its been pretty effective for him. One im interested in your thoughts. The southern border wall. 2006 we have the secure offenses act under george w. Bush. It passed with bipartisan support. Now we are in this crazy place where we have Trump Supporters and detractors fighting almost the same thing. I wonder if the difference is the way he talked about border security. He talked about building walls but mexico paying for it. The way hes talked about immigrants and immigration. Do you think his rhetoric gets in the way of the policy that may be beneficial in the end . I will give you a quote. When bush talked about the secure offenses act, he said in the announcement that it still required we honor the Great American tradition of the melting pot. Do you think sometimes the rhetoric gets in the way of the policy . I think you can solve the immigration problem in about 90 minutes but nobody wants to give the other guy a win. Im going back to reagan event. Republicans have a legitimate proposal, democrats dont want to give them a win. I think we are in such a stuck place that how you solve it is pretty simple. Its just that nancy pelosi doesnt want to give President Trump a win. Also didnt invite her to the announcement. I think there is pettiness on both sides. Do you think is worse than before . I was in the white house during watergate. I think the difference now is that we really are in a period where its a revolution. A lot more about trump. Trump want you to think its all about him. But its really not. Its the establishment status quo and the American People whether they are Bernie Sanders supporters or donald Trump Supporters say we want of this is a war that nobody wins. Theres no middle ground. That somebody will be successful and the other side will fade into the background. Its not that the wall itself the wall is a symbol. To me its about get control of your borders. What people care about now . The coronavirus. Airlines are refusing to fly flights into china. If you didnt have a border, this would be a hard thing to do. So they are actually important, knowing whos in your country is important. I dont disagree at all. Interested in the rhetorical argument around it. Have we seen with 2016, election interference. What is the best approach with putin to make sure we retain our predominance and that we dont allow russia to get into it with china and countries that have created access to our global predominance. I think thats one of the great disappointments of american politics today. Could we have found a way of working with russia. I would prefer we would have an agreement of noninterference. But i dont think politically it will happen. I think, who was the next president , and i do think it will be donald trump. Any kind of relationship with russia is possible right now. We are in a very good position of a strong position to deal with russia. The russians have sort of done the same mistake twice. In the 1970s when the price of oil was going up, brush is a big exporter. They really went hogwild. They definitely had a big military buildup. And then when reagan came in, he was able to because of the price of oil going down an american technological superiority and the incompetence, he was able to drive the russians and soviet union into collapse so what did putin do . This is somebody i have spent time looking at. Hes in his middle 60s. When he was coming onto the world stage. Russia and the soviet union was a great nation and a superpower. He could forward to a great future. But then everything collapsed. Putins he wrote a dissertation and he talks about how to make russia great again. That they would use consolidate them under state control and they would go up and be rich again. And russia did become rich get when oil prices started going up. Then it all collapsed after that. It went on another spending spree. Military, social services, so now that the price of oil is down and i dont think it ever goes out to those levels again, its kind of broke. This would be a good time to force a deal with the russians. As reagan did at the collapse of the soviet union. Sadly because of american domestic politics. I would prologue that into the lap of the democrats and the Obama Administration and the intelligence community. They have an effect pushed russia into the arms of china. Which to me is one of the greatest geopolitical threats. The chinese and the russians getting together again like they did in the 1950s and 60s with chinas money. Is that not another argument for multilateralism . We can collectively on a value spaced alliance. Is there another case making sure nato is strong and our alliances are strong and friendships are maintained . Sure. Lets let everybody get their fair share. The United States is handing out goodies at our expense. Ill think thats a Fair Alliance at all. I dont think you just do away with these, you just improve them. I would like to talk about you. Oh dear. Its been interesting to talk about these big ideas. I would like to turn back if we can. But you started with a parttime job as a night shift secretary during the next administration Nixon Administration. The last job you had at the white house was Deputy National security adviser under the 45th president. Tell me about the arc of your life and what youve learned along the way. Im just interested. How did you end up back there . Im in my middle 60s. For me, it was the first opportunity for women to have equal access to education and eventually, equal access professionally. I was from a workingclass family and went to college on scholarships. The first real job i had was my freshman year in college. I was 18 years old and i was the worlds fastest typist so i got a job as a night secretary for Henry Kissinger in 1970. At that time, the most you could aspire to in the white house was maybe to be the aide or assistant or maybe the Administrative Assistant to a man. It was just the way it was. For me and i didnt have some grand plan to be a Glass Ceiling breaker or pioneer. But it turned out that way. But to end my career sitting just a few feet away from my first job as a secretary to end it as probably one of the most senior people in the american government. Studying Foreign Policy and a job that, 18yearold wouldnt even as fire two or think it was possible. To the point that my daughters, they think its routine. Its expected. But then they seen what youve done and a grown up in a place. Its a different country. Opportunities have opened for women. Now in fact, my older daughter is about to have her first child, probably by the time these errors. The fact that there are so many opportunities. I love working with women and talking to women of all ages. But i think the big problem now is how do i have it all . Education, marriage and kids. How do i juggle it . I live my life in chapters. I had a great education. Great career and in my middle 30s, retired. So i retired to be a housewife and mother. I did it for well over a decade. It was some of the most rewarding times of my life. Then got back into things after september 11 and had a pretty good background. It was my older daughter who said mom, i think the country is under attack. You should stop having lunch with your girlfriends and do what youre good at. So it was chapters. I have a wonderful husband of 35 years, five children, grandchildren. What ive also had a great career. Its the american dream. You write about this notion that thats what we all want and deserve and had we get back to a place where there is opportunity for all where we have equality. I say this as a working parent, i couldnt imagine that as im afraid to take time away and losing. Its miraculous you could do that and then go back and do it was your qualifications and possibly your network. I think we are so worried about losing ground that we are just working and working. You really shall you can start at a and and about the with an interesting and solid with a nonlinear pass. For anybody, man or women. Weve had a lot of opportunities. But dont let those get in the way of a fulfilling life. Ive had professional success but ive also got personal fulfillment. I married, i have grandchildren and im proud of every single one of them. If i hadnt been part of their growing up, and had an opportunity to scold them. To do all the normal mom things. Its important. I have quotes from you. It says look around you, the future is in all of our hands. Its not up to a group of elites or permanent government class or a bunch of power grabbing ideological or saviors to reinvent america for the 21st century. His up to average american citizens. We as the people what has to bring about americas next revolution. What can we do to secure this revolution and make sure we can live a life of fulfillment with the rights we are guaranteed under the constitution . How do we make a difference . Participate and get involved. I think one of the things that worries me is 10 years ago, 40 percent of the American People had checked out. They said im not political. I dont get into politics. And what trump has done is that hes taking a group of people who felt disenfranchised. They were neither rich nor powerful nor politically active or influential and he said its your country too. Whatever you say about the policies and politics of it, the fact that more americans now are in the political process. They are in the arena. As long as we are in there together. I think the single most important people things can do is to get involved. Show up at those rallies. They shouldnt govern for you, you govern for yourselves. You like what theyre doing, get rid of them. There were 100 million eligible voters last election cycle that didnt vote. You dont get to have a if you dont do the thing that is guaranteed to you which is of course,. With rights, come responsibility. I think for too long people have said, thats not my responsibility. You bet it is. To choose leaders. Your forbearers have sacrificed so that you have that right now you have the responsibility. I will end with another quote. What i love about this is its a statement about what youve observed in the country. A statement about the themes in the book but also a statement about you. You write, america isnt a fictional nation because it makes this personal reinvention possible. Even more profound is that we also have the power to reinvent the nation. You reinvented yourself many times over. You have served this country. In this wonderful book for someone who is politically many ways opposed to you. Sound engaging. While at about it is that there was common ground. Trump, washington and we the people. Its been a pleasure. Thank you. This program is