Ben Rhodes

That if you don't – today is the day you became president because you bombed a country or something.

It's –

I think we have to fundamentally change our foreign policy, but we can't do that unless we kind of shift this presumption that we are in control of events.

No, quite the opposite.

Let's engage the rest of the world like grownups.

There you go.

Let's trade with them and have diplomacy with them and fight climate change with them and regulate artificial intelligence with them, like the opposite of isolationism.

Let's actually rejoin the world as a normal place.

And we've spent $6 trillion, $6 trillion on the war on terror.

Like imagine what that could have paid for, just a fraction of that.

So, I mean, that's the part that's just – I think people are ready to hear this, you know, in a way.

I mean, to show a little grace to my former boss, like – Yeah, yeah.

The politics in, you know, around 2009 were still kind of hyper, you know, zero tolerance of terrorists.

I remember the guy – I remember when the guy tried to light his underpants on fire on a plane.

Sure, sure.

And actually, I remember, like, it was Christmas, and this guy gets on a plane.

He tries to light something on fire.

And basically, all he succeeds in doing is lighting his, you know, that part of his body on fire.

Nobody's hurt.

Well, it is a wick, you know, for many people.