Tony Blinken
speaker
101 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Tony Blinken’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
That's exactly what... I worked for President Obama for eight years. He called that the sweet spot. The sweet spot?
For which I thank you. Tim, there's so much that goes into this, even into the domestic side, that we could probably talk about for a long time. But I think it comes down to something very fundamental that we see both at home and we see around the world. And that is this notion of dehumanization.
this notion that someone you disagree with or have a profound difference with is somehow not only your enemy, but basically isn't human. And we saw that in the dehumanization in the Middle East in all directions. We see that in our own country in terms of dehumanization of one's political adversaries.
And for me, that is the most potent poison in our commonwealth because once dehumanization sets in, Everything bad becomes so much easier and everything good becomes so much harder. And I think we saw that in the debates are the wrong word. You know, the horrific things that people were hurling at each other in the context of this tragedy in the Middle East.
But we also see it poisoning our politics in profound ways. If we can't find a way to pull back from that. We have a massive, massive problem that I think will be maybe the biggest challenge we face. Never mind China, never mind Russia, never mind Iran. That really is at the heart of what ails us. And that's what we've got to figure out.
Tim, I think you put your finger on something that's very important and probably right. There's a big difference between the ability to do the job effectively and the ability to sell the job you're doing. I think he might be one of the first to acknowledge that
We were not as effective, and he was not as effective, arguably, as he should have been, could have been, in actually conveying to the American people everything that we were doing for them, and very, very successfully. And it was a big, big frustration.
So much so that I think, to some extent, people couldn't somehow connect all of the good things that were happening with what the administration was doing. And if you don't have that connection... It's obviously not going to redound to you in a positive way politically. And yeah, it is part of the job. And I think it's also the reason why, ultimately, he decided not to run again.
It wasn't about doing the job in the moment. It was the ability or foreseeing the ability to be able to do the job for another four years, including this notion of communicating effectively with people.
As you say, you go back in the DeLorean machine, hindsight's always 20-20. And on just about anything or everything you do, you always think there's something I could have done a little bit differently or maybe more than a little bit differently. But here's the thing. First, every decision that we made, every judgment that we made, every policy we pursued, that was him. That wasn't someone else.
That wasn't me. That wasn't any of the other advisors. Everything that we did was the product of a decision that he made and an informed decision through discussion, debate. argument that he was more than fully engaged in. So you can say, I don't like the results of those policies. That's fine.
But you can't say that he was not the person responsible for them, who decided them, who made those decisions, made those judgments and got those results. And that's fundamentally the bottom line. I think that's the bottom line that he saw. Now, again, coming back to your point about, well, did we communicate that effectively? I think the answer is no.
Does that mean he could be confident about being able to do that same job, making those decisions, making those judgments? for another four years with advanced age, that's something different. But these decisions about what he should have done, when he should have done it, what difference might that have made in political outcomes? Yeah, it's easy to prognosticate about that, but no one knows.
One of the things that I've learned too over working for three presidents over the course of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations is, you know, keep whatever counsel you gave to the president to yourself.
Trandaragua, yes. I haven't seen the evidence. It sure would be good to see it. And again, I know this is rapid fire, but this is not about immigration. It's about the Constitution, and it's about due process, and it's about the rights that everyone needs to be afforded. Because when you short-circuit those rights for one person,
you're going to wind up short circuiting for lots of other people, including people who may be listening to this podcast.
Well, that and all of my Chicago Bulls memorabilia and, you know, shirts. I'm obviously giving those to Goodwill.
I have to say I'm originally from New York, so I'm really a Knicks fan.
Yeah, tough. I know. I know. But keep the faith.
I mean, look, I'm stuck in the 70s and a lot of classic rock. There are a lot of people that I love today. Let's see. Maggie Rogers. Love Maggie Rogers.
Showing 81–100 of 101 · page 5 of 6
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