Susan Rice

We have in the White House somebody who feels unconstrained by law, by the Constitution, and by anything.

And as long as that persists, we're going to be in great peril domestically, but internationally as well.

We are, Nicole, doing what I have called committing superpower suicide.

Honestly, like many people, I'm feeling angry.

I'm feeling despair.

And I'm feeling deep, deep concern about the direction of our country and our role in the world.

At the same time, I really do believe that we've been through very, very difficult times in our past.

And we are an incredibly resilient country.

And nobody has ever won.

over the long term, betting against the United States' ability to renew and grow.

But we are testing that proposition now, I think, more than any other time in my lifetime.

The problem is, and this is what distinguishes this moment from the past, is we now have leadership in the White House

that is hell-bent and determined to exercise power in a way that bears no relationship to the Constitution and to the rule of law, and that is about pure power accumulation and wealth accumulation for a very narrow elite few, and at the expense of the basic rights and liberties of American citizens.

And so it's a very, very serious moment, and we're not going to get through it simply by, you know,

Watching the news and complaining to our friends, we're going to have to stand up together across the political spectrum, people of all backgrounds who believe in the Constitution and believe in the rule of law and insist that they be upheld.

Yeah, what I was saying, and this was now almost seven years ago, that a country that is so bitterly divided on political lines, on geographic lines, on so many other dimensions,

and has leaders that are willing to exploit those divides rather than try to define common ground, makes us a country far less capable of exercising our interests and defending and advancing our interests on the global stage.

It's very hard to...

Stand up against an adversary like Russia, for example, if we've got leadership and the whole segment of our society that has lionized Vladimir Putin and turned him into some great upholder of Christian values and masculine identity.

and therefore creating the illusion that somehow we should be acting in a way that is consonant with the interests of Russia and against the interests of our traditional allies who share our values.