Were at a moment where our democracy is at stake, our leadership role in the world is at stake, the lives of tens of thousands of americans are on the line, lost to incompetence and callous leadership that could care less. We have got to change that. Good afternoon i am jonathan, their opinion writer for the Washington Post, welcome to Washington Post life, this is a special live recording of my opinion podcasts. In former president barack obama firstterm, this is the United States ambassador to the united nations. In the second term she was Obamas National Security advisor, today bryce is a private citizen, the author of tough love, my story of the things that we are fighting for and under serious consideration to be joe bidens Vice President ial running mate. Welcome back for the third time to the podcast ambassador susan rice. Thank you so much, it is great to be with you. One minute before we came on air, there was breaking news that the Trump Administration dropped plans to import International Students to online classes in your reaction was to applaud. It was such a misguided stupid decision that they took in the first place, International Students are a critical part of our university structure, our college campuses. They bring talent, diversity, resources and to lock them out simply because their campuses have decided by virtue of the pandemic that they need to conduct Classes Online in the fall was callused and extraordinarily counterproductive. I am not a chance to read in detail the reporting on it but it looks like the Trump Administration saw that their effort to defend this policy in court was unlikely to succeed and they back down and it seems to be a victory for our colleges and universities, our students are crossed this country and across the world. So much of our appeal and competitiveness and soft power depends on the people around the world wanting to come here to learn and study them bring their skills and talent. This is a good day. Lets keep talking about Foreign Policy, originally i was going to start with an interview talking about the election and poland in the news of the reelection of polands president and he is an ally of President Trump in a supporter of the right wing justice party, he has been condemned by the un democratic watchdog, i am wondering how if you think President Trumps behavior in the Foreign Policy space, his support for leaders has contributed to the rise of nationalist and autocratic regimes around the world. Certainly legitimized the rise of elected autocrats. We see that increasingly in parts of the world, poland is the most recent example and it is unfortunate because poland is an important part of nato and the eu but it is moving in a direction where its values and its approach are completely out of step with the other members of the alliance. It suggest that particularly when it comes to that you their position could be in jeopardy down the road, if there is a further move toward antidemocratic policies and structures. Ambassador, is it possible for the alliance to survive if the superpower in the alliance, the United States does not even bother to champion those small d democratic ideals that have been the cement for the alliance for more than seven decades . The Nato Alliance is under duress, almost entirely because of President Trump. His callous disregard for the purposes and the interest of this alliance, our alliance with nato is built on common values but also built on interest that we stand together as north American Allies in north atlantic allies and atlantic in europe broadly to counter threats to our sovereignty and territorial integrity as an alliance at which comes from washington. And when the United States question the value of our alliances and turned into a transactional arrangement, when President Trump decides to unilaterally withdraw a third of our forces from germany without consulting the German Government and coddled our adversary from russia to china to north korea while putting our allies in a very typical position it does great damage to the alliance. Thats when in mint many reasons we need change. I do not think nato in our leadership role in the world can withstand four more years of donald trump. That is why we need change and we need leadership in the form of joe biden who comes out of the bipartisan and understanding who are friends are and who our adversaries are in their leadership and strength in the world is enhanced when we can bring partners and allies with us. We will talk more about joe biden in a moment but lets talk about russia, you mentioned russia and we were talking for a little bit about the news that broke that the u. S. Had received intelligence saying russia paid taliban fighters to kill american troops in afghanistan, heres what you wrote in an oped with the new york time. At best our commanderinchief presiding over a dangerously dysfunctional National Security process that is putting our country and those who wear the uniform at great risk at worst, the United States is being run by liars and catering to a president who is actively advancing our arch adversaries in the theory is interest. My question to you, is it incompetent or treason . They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But i did not use the word treason. But my point is that one of two things, maybe both are happening at once, we have a president who could care less about extraordinary intelligence in the Intelligence Community deemed credible enough to put in the president s Daily Briefing, the most porn and exclusive conflict that they create, it indicates that the russians are paying Taliban Forces were taliban affiliated forces to kill american servicemen and women in afghanistan. What does the president of the United States do, first of all he does nothing when the information was brought to him and i believe it was brought to him both in written form and perhaps earlier by one of my successors john bolton. But even today, two weeks or so after the information first came to public light, President Trump had said and done nothing critical of russia, did not indicate any sense of concern or urgency for the safety of our forces in battle, has not to anybodys knowledge it initiated any action to respond to russia in fact they said we dont believe its true so we will not bother with it. But the Intelligence Community, i assure you believes its true or they would not have put in the briefings and even more so into a product called the wire which is the most widely disseminated piece of daily intelligence that the u. S. Government produces. It goes everywhere including to capitol hill staffers. This had to be a piece of information in which they had a good degree of competence even if not 100 certainty which is never the case. And President Trump has done nothing. He has left our forces vulnerable and bear. Either he is doing that out of some mysterious motivation to serve prudence interest for which we have seen desperate pieces of evidence over the course of the last four years but no overarching explanation. And or he is running a National Security process where the people around him are so scared, so incompetent that they are unwilling and unable to bring the information that he has two serve effectively as our commanderinchief and protect our forces in the field. Either way you look at it its a disaster. Either way the message to Vladimir Putin this you can attack americans anywhere in the world with impunity. And then get invited to join the g7. I just want to be doubly sure, you anticipated a question i was going to ask. Is it possible at all that the president of the United States was not briefed, did not know about this intelligence and judging by the answer you gave, its virtually impossible that he did not know. Here is what i believe. I believe it was put into the president ial Daily Briefing. I believe he often does not read and maybe always does not read his president ial Daily Briefings. Any National Security advisor were him or herself would have read the Daily Briefing even if your boss does not and when they saw the information done as what i wouldve done walk directly into the oval office and brief the president of the United States orally if they knew he was not going to see it in writing. And say to the president , mr. President we have a deeply concerning information about russia, im going to work with the Intelligence Community to run it to ground and validate and in the meantime i will work with the other agencies in the principles to pull together options for you to respond and i will keep you posted. If the current National Security advisor did not do that, that to me would be an ad vacation of his most basic responsibility. And if he did do that, then the president of the United States is lying again. But what i also believe, john bolton who has hinted that information similar to this came to light in 2019 while he was still National Security advisor, we would certainly not have been so intimidated not to bring that information to the attention of the president. I believe one way or another the president knew and chose not to act. Ambassador rights my followup question, given everything that you said in its entirety a response to this. Is a president of the United States and National Security threat to the United States . I think by virtue of his du duty, his failure to protect americans whether on the battlefield, in afghanistan or here at home in the face of a grave threat from coronavirus. And his very bizarre pensions for cozying up to our adversaries in doing vladimir putiprudence bidding is in fact acting against the interest of the United States. And that is is about as plainly as i can put it. We have a president who is acting against the interest of the United States. We also have a president who likes to spin conspiracy theories and disseminate conspiracy theories. One of them president obama and the Obama Administration spied on his 2016 campaign in an interview with a Christian Broadcast Network in june he said it is treason, when i came out a long time ago they were spying on my campaign, they have been taping and that was, a modernday version of taping, its all the same thing but a modernday version that they were spying on my campaign. Did that happen . You know and i know most of the American People know it did not happen. That is false, that is another life designed to deflect from the president own very bizarre relationship with russia. To distract from the much validated reality that russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit donald trump. President trump is in some sort of dream about the Obama Administration when we try to do to execute despite the Trip Administration or Incoming Administration reluctant the most responsible transition that we possibly could. I presided over a process at the National Security council where we prepared over 100 individual briefing papers for the incoming National Security advisor i spent 12 hours in four separate sessions briefing my successor on all of the important issues that might arise in that were on the table ranging from russia, china to pandemic preparedness. So our effort was despite the bizarre nature of the election despite President Trumps strange behavior before, during and after and our approach was to do the utmost in a responsible handoff from one administration to the other just as president bush had done for barack obama. One of the papers on pandemics, one with the 69 page paper that when we spoke in april, you described as a pandemic for dummies. And you said, when we spoke in april, you said the idea of a pandemic was keeping me up at night because we had not begun to hit the top of the curve. As for the president , you said and he bragged, if we had not done anything, maybe 2. 2 million wouldve died in 240,000 is a good outcome, and what circle of hell is that a good outcome, thats what you said to me when we spoke on the podcast in april. Is it safe to say three months later, your assessment has not changed . It has changed, it is getting worse. Not only did the president , President Trump waste two months and do nothing in january and february brushing the soft as nothing more than seasonal flu. Not only was he slow to recommend the shutdown of various states when they were in the throes of the first part of the crisis in march and april but then he came behind that and all too quickly in the interest of his own reelection in the interest of his own personal benefit, not the health and safety of the economy of the United States championed the premature reopening of various states and what we are weeping now are the result of the extraordinary irresponsible rush to reopen and we are seeing it tragically in parts of the west in the south which are among the states that were first to reopen. And to do so very rapidly without basic precaution like mandating the use of masks and the like, it has gone from very bad to frankly worse in the numbers bear that out and its frightening to contemplate how high the death toll may go. So as long as donald trump is putting his own interest ahead of the health and welfare and the economic wellbeing of the American People. Now he is championing the reopening of all schools, everywhere with full class sizes in life teaching regardless of the circumstances at the local level. Nothing could be more irresponsible. He is willing to sacrifice the health in the safety of our children, the teachers, the staffs at the schools in order to convey the false reality, the false message that america is back and ready to reopen, if we had done what people in countries in europe did which is to wait until the curve was truly bent until the infection rate had gone down and the number of new infections was close to 0 before beginning the process of reopening, had we done it gradually and responsibly in mandated masks and had adequate testing and contact tracing, we would be in a much better place in our schools and much of the country would be able to reopen with minimal risks come the beginning of the school year. Now they face a horrific choice of opening prematurely and putting all the people in those schools, kids and adults and everybody and their families and communities at enhanced risk or kids will be forced to lose time and quality of learning. It did not have to be this way. Ambassador, given the spikes that have been happening around the country, i take it you dont think schools should reopen. That is pretty clear. I think you have to look at this at a local level. You have to look at what is the disease doing, house passes and spreading, what is the infection rate, what is a positivity rate. There will be places where things are relatively better than other places. In the socalled hotspots of the south and the west when schools are set to reopen sometime in august, it is very difficult to see how they can do so safely and even when they do reopen the cdc guidance before it was manipulated if its going to be manipulated and the advice of experts has been that its very important to be able to maintain social distancing in schools at least 6 feet between students in a classroom and i was the cochair here in washington, d. C. Of our mayors reopen d. C. Advisory group and we work through all of these issues and i was perfectly involved in the educational aspects of her recommendation and the reality is, you cannot reopen safely if you cannot maintain the spacing and most schools do not have the physical space to reduce class sizes by half or more which is what youre talking about to enable students to have the degree of space. In many places, even when the risks are moderate to low, you are not going to have every student in the classroom, all day every day, you have to have some kind of cohoarding or certain amount of days on in a certain amount of days off and on the off days to virtual learning. Then you will have kids who by virtue of their own Health Circumstances with their grandparents and parents dont feel like it safe to return to school. You will need to have continued Online Learning even in those places where its possible to begin to have some version of in person teaching. Christine ambassador, do you think as a nation, as we said earlier in the pin number. Should we lock down again, should we shut down and stay at home again for at least two, three weeks in order to really in the curve . In some parts of the country i think unfortunately we must. I think we see a recognition of that for example in california. Where Governor Newsom ordered the bars closed, the restaurants closed for indoor dining, jims and churches in Major Population Centers and the like, in order to get a better grip on this. Nobody wants to be in lockdown, everybody wants to get back to work and school. But to do so safely and sustainably it requires that we get the courbet and keep it down. It also frankly requires that each of us as individuals recognize that we have to look out for ourselves but we also have to look out for our fellow citizens. You may be healthy, i may be healthy, my kids may be healthy but that does not mean we cannot give very seriously ill with this disease, nor does it mean were not in a position to infect others that are more vulnerable. We are not coming together with a sense of common purpose and unity of effort that is necessary to defeat the virus. That i blame substantially on President Trump. If we have leadership that was calling on us to come together, preaching science and facts rather than bleach and hydroxychloroquine, if we had sober responsible leadership that put the interest of the American People, our health and our welfare inner economic wellbeing first rather than his personal political ambition to be reelected. We would be in a far safer and better place. Ambassador rice, lets move to another pandemic or epidemic that weve been dealing with in this country since 1619, that is racism. Lets talk about race, have you visited black lives matter here in washington, im also wondering do you think we are at an Inflection Point with the National Protest that weve seen the black lives matter protest in small towns and big cities around the country, are we at an Inflection Point or do you think were having a detour on the road that were used to going down . My answer to that, it depends, it depends on us. I think what we saw on the past couple of months has been extraordinary in the wake of George Floyds tragic murder. And that of many others before him. We saw americans from all walks of life, white, black, latino, native american, rich, poor, and every state of this country, in towns large and small, old people, younger people, babies, all coming together, largely peacefully to say once and for all we live in a fundamentally Unequal Society where people who look like you and me are treated very differently from people who dont. That is unacceptable. And that we have in fact after 400 years of reality that remains a systemic racism. It needs to be rooted out. In this moment which is become a movement results and nothing more than confederate flags being taken down in my hometown Football Team finally changing its name and confederate monuments being put in museums and it will be another moment his moment wasted. That we cannot allow. What we need beyond the symbolism and beyond steps that might be taken at the local level to address particular problems with policing in our respective communities, we need systemic reform to confront systemic racism. That systemic reform can only come through the acts of responsible congress and the president willing to sign the reforms into law in a has to be the justice and policing act and much more in the criminal justice from but we also have to do with educational disparity, health disparity, housing, the lack of job opportunity, environmental degradation and lowincome in communities of color in this country, all of these things in Vice President biden spoke about this today as they did last week about an economic agenda that empowers people who have been left out and takes us into the 21st century economy and puts us at the forefront of days like clean energy. These are things that we can do but we can only do them if we have a president who cares and has a vision and a commitment to rooting out systemic racism and inequality in the congress particular a senate as a Democratic House that is willing to back him up. That is why i say it depends, if we vote for change in the meaning of this movement at the ballot box, yes it can become much more than a moment and much more than symbolism. I want to squeeze in the audience question before i end on asking you about Vice President biden. This is from maryland, he wants to know what do you think about the idea of defunding the police. I think the following, first of all i am not a fan of the terminology defunding the police, its been manipulated and misunderstood by many. I think there is a place in certain local circumstances depending on what is going on in a particular area to reimagine and reenvision the role that police play. To get them out of the work that they customarily do and its more social work than traditional policing. And they must be attached to the community and responsible to the community. There are places that there can be a reallocation of resources but theres no onesizefitsall model, there is no cookiecutter approach that you can apply and i largely agree with Vice President biden and jim clyburn and others that is reimagining and reinvesting in reinvesting Additional Resources in our communities that have suffered in rather than a vague terminology that has been hijacked and manipulated by the right wing. Unfortunately taken the goodwill of people who want to see positive change in turning it on its head through the term defunding. Lets talk about the. President trump likes to beat up people who have called for defunding and say obnoxious inoffensive things about the black lives Matter Movement but yesterday he called for defunding Public Schools that dont conform with his autocratic dictate that they reopen regardless of the health of their students and faculty. So this is how upside down everything is coming out of the white house. Lets talk about this Vice President thing, you work closely with him during the two terms in the Obama Administration and theres a great picture of him giving you a hug after your mother passed away. Do you have the kind of relationship with Vice President biden where you can cuss each other out behind closed doors at 9 00 a. M. And be on the same page before the cameras at 915 . Yes. [laughter] it would in with a hug after words because that who he is. Joe biden is what you see, he is warm, hes empathetic, he is decent, he does not use a lot of curse words by the way. But i cannot always claim the same. The reality is, joe biden is the leader who welcomes robust discussion and debate, looks for people who are unafraid to tell him the truth behind closed doors. But then were one team, one fight, once the president makes a decision as barack obama did when joe biden was his Vice President , whether the Vice President had recommended that course of action or not, he was forced was behind barack obama in implementing that policy. Thats what he deserves as his own Vice President whomever he may select to fill the role. Aside from candor what you would bring to the role if you were selected for that role. What is the one other act tribute that you would have that would serve as an Obama Administration well. Your constraining me too one . Hey, have at it. Just one. I think the most important attribute that i have is almost two decades of experience with the executive branch. I understand how to make the government deliver results. I read the process at the National Security council dealing with the complex and difficult crisis that we faced in the world. Whether the available academic where the rise of isis or how to confront china, whatever it is, my job as National Security advisor in particular was to bring the agency together to tackle the problem at hand and thats what were going to need when i hope joe biden is the next president of the United States and will have to tackle pandemic. In economic crisis on the order of nothing like weve seen since the great depression. We will have to renew and reestablish our role in the world. And lead the world through this pandemic in economic recovery. And will have to do with Racial Justice issues that weve been talking about and what i call inequality agenda where we can find it meaningfully and the reforms that are necessary with the systemic inequalities and. One needs to bring it together in common purpose and the understanding of the budget and how to work with congress and how to get the business and the elements of government harnessed towards a shared objective. Jonathan that is what i have done for the bulk of my career. It is predominantly in the realm of Foreign Policy but Foreign Policy is trade, climate, pandemic and global health. Its a wide span of issues. Those skills and that experience translate into making government function whatever the agenda is. Ambassador, last question i mentioned your mother lois rice who is known the mother of the pell grant, your father and it rises in the commonest in the former governor of the Federal Reserve, you come from a storied washington family. I am wondering, what do you think, both of your parents would be saying to you or thinking right now to know that their daughter is being talked about as a possible Vice President of the United States. I wish so much i could talk to them and have that conversation. This is a moment where i missed their counsel in the loving advice more than almost any. I think they would be thinking about their parents in their grandparents and i come from the immigrants who came from jamaica to Portland Maine in 1912 with no education and nothing on my mother side of the family and they saved and they worked as a janitor and sent all five of their kids to college and all the children went on to become professionals. On my dads side he was a grandson of slaves. , he was able to rise out of jim crow and the deepest form of segregation itself killing in the 1920s and to serve at tuskegee and go want to get his phd in economics and during the Federal Reserve board. I think they would look back and say, what a blessing in this country, you can be an immigrant, you could be the descendent of slaves and you can still reek the opportunities of this great country. The reality is, ive been extraordinarily blessed and my parents were extraordinarily blessed and not all of us, far far too many of us dont have the same blessings and opportunities that i had or even that my parents had, i think what they would say now is best i can get, to do what i bowies done is to serve in whatever capacity that makes sense and bring my utmost to it and bring it for the benefit of the country, not for myself or any ambition that i might have but serving the people at a time when we are so divided, when there is so much suffering and loss of life and Economic Hardship and where the integrity of our democracy and are very National Unity are all at risk, this is a moment where i think they would say if you ask in whatever capacity you have to get in there and do your best and give back for all the blessings that you have had and i have had and they have had. Ambassador susan rice, thank you very much for coming back to the podcast, good luck with keeping our eye out to see what happens, thank you very much again for coming on Washington Post life. Thank you for having me jonathan. I want to remind our audience, you should head to Washington Post live where you can register for Upcoming Events including thursday chasing Cancer Program featuring Maryland Governor and actor patrick dempsey. Later on thursday, it will be a special program on Prison Reform and the impact of covid19 on the prison population. Thank you again for watching Washington Post live, i am jonathan capehart. Have a good afternoon