Chapter 1: What insights does Susan Rice share about Trump's leadership style?
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The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this.
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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.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the best people podcast. This week's guest is a woman in Florida for she served as the United States ambassador to the United Nations. She served as President Barack Obama's national security adviser. She served as President Joe Biden's head of the Domestic Policy Council. She's written about her personal journey to all those powerful places.
in a way that shares more humanity than most people in public life. Without any further ado, this is The Best People Podcast, and this is Susan Rice. Thank you for being here. It's great to be with you, Nicole. Thank you. I think of you as sort of the proverbial badass who's done it all and seen it all.
But I also think of you as someone who has written about what it feels like to be in a position of power and what it feels like to have a family divided by our politics and someone who really doesn't just observe our polarization, but is sort of seeing what it's doing to every corner and facet of American life.
And before we get to your thoughts and your counsel and your wisdom, what are you feeling in this moment?
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.
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Chapter 2: How does Susan Rice describe the current state of American democracy?
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.
You write in your memoir about polarization being a national security vulnerability for our country. Will you explain?
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. So that's just one example of how the polarization is a vulnerability. Another example is looking at what Russia...
and China and others have done to interfere in our domestic political processes, our electoral processes. They can get on social media, hiding as bots and foreign trolls, and put forth misinformation and disinformation that's designed to inflame our existing differences. Any issue that
that might be a point of difference or friction, and turn Americans against each other and exacerbate those differences. There's nothing that our adversaries want more than to weaken us from within. And we're doing a hell of a job of making that easy for them.
And to your point, and Russia's a perfect example of how they're braided together, because I may have worked for the last... sort of Russia hawk when I worked for John McCain. It was something he cared about a lot. And there wasn't a big divide. President Obama had a similar worldview. The idea that now one of the country's two political parties is not only not repulsed,
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Chapter 3: What examples does Rice provide of Trump's foreign policy decisions?
they have taken a pass as Trump has dismantled every facet of our soft power, such as USAID, such as Voice of America. And they have taken a pass as Trump has sold the, or allowed to be sold the most sophisticated AI chips to China when we ought to be trying to slow down China's artificial intelligence progress, which is quickly rivaling our own.
I mean, I could go on and on, but there are so many ways in which this president is taking actions that are antithetical to the national security interests of the United States. And I'm sure that at least half of the Republican caucus in the Senate knows it. And they've been very reluctant to criticize, much less thwart. many of these steps.
Now, we have an interesting moment now as we're confronting Trump's threats to Greenland and worried to follow through on those threats. It would be the death knell of NATO and the greatest possible gift that anybody could give to Vladimir Putin because Putin has desperately wanted for decades to weaken and ultimately dismantle NATO.
And here we would be handing it to him on a silver platter without a bullet being fired. One can only hope and pray that Trump will not go to the extreme and try to use force to seize Greenland. He's said that of late, but we also know that he can say something one day and do something different the very next day. So nobody can rest easy.
But the damage to NATO has already been done, Nicole, because our closest allies now know that the president of the United States does not care sufficiently about the strength of that alliance, the importance of that alliance, that he is willing to threaten NATO. are allies for standing together, consistent with Article 5, against the threat to a NATO member?
And what is his response is to threaten them with politicized tariffs. So there is economic warfare, security warfare, and all of this is happening within NATO. And I don't know how we unring that bell.
Do you think he understands the history of World War II?
I have to believe he has a good understanding of the history of World War II. I will say a number of things about Trump. I don't think he's stupid. I do think he's venal. I do think he's self-interested and corrupt, but he's savvy. And I don't think these threats to Greenland are coming from a whim or the rant of the week.
I think he has serious, ill-founded imperial designs, including against Greenland. And I think we need to take that seriously. And I think, unfortunately, our European allies have come to the same realization that it has to be taken seriously. And I also think we have to understand that That Trump knows that were he to take Greenland by force or by extreme coercion, that that would shatter NATO.
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Chapter 4: How does polarization affect national security according to Susan Rice?
And I think he also knows that shattering NATO would be a great gift to Vladimir Putin. And so were he to take those steps, I think the logical conclusion is he is doing it knowing that what he is doing is of ultimate greatest benefit to Putin and Russia. And that should give us all great pause.
I mean, I guess I start there because the legacy of who we are is so knitted into the greatest generation. It has been until now beyond politics and beyond debate to go to Normandy and honor those sacrifices. And it seems that the enthusiasm for destroying NATO, which is a through line. I mean, he's been indifferent about NATO. I mean, I remember his first foreign trip in his first term.
I mean, obviously, H.R. McMaster and Dina Powell couldn't get him to publicly commit to honoring our commitments to our allies when we're the only people that have ever called in a chit from NATO. I mean, and so I often wonder if he understands why we're in NATO and what we get out of it. And the speech in Davos makes clear that if he understands it, he either doesn't believe it or doesn't care.
Yeah, I think it's a lie. And that's nothing that's unfamiliar to Donald Trump. It is a lie. And I think he knows it's a lie when he says that we have done everything for NATO and NATO has done nothing for us, that he doubts that they would come to our defense.
He is not ignorant enough or stupid enough not to know that the only time Article 5 has ever been invoked, the only time that NATO has ever been asked to and actually come to the defense of a member state was when NATO came to our defense after 9-11 and fought and died with us for years and years in Afghanistan. It's inconceivable that he doesn't know that.
He's choosing to ignore it and to lie about it.
Where do you see our government orienting itself to deal with his rhetoric? He reiterated in Davos, we must have Greenland. He said in an interview with the New York Times, it's a quote, it is for me psychologically, we need to own it. How are we orienting ourselves around what he said is a personal psychological need to own Greenland?
The reality is we have somebody in the White House who has a ceaseless thirst for power and wealth. And who is openly justifying actions that would be absolutely antithetical, detrimental to the national interests of the United States by his hurt feelings. He... He didn't get a Nobel Prize, except the one that Machado gave him. He didn't get a Nobel Prize.
Therefore, he no longer has to care about peace.
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Chapter 5: What concerns does Rice express about Trump's relationship with NATO?
His psychology would be hurt if he doesn't get Greenland. It's like a three-year-old child in a sandbox.
And he's saying it like what's crazy about covering him this time is you would worry about someone saying, oh, Trump derangement syndrome. Like these are his words. Like I sit down every day and just write down all the things J.D. Vance said about him. If I ever feel like I want to know, I could never insult him as brutally as J.D. Vance and Mitch McConnell and Bob Corker did.
And then the things he's saying about his rationale, I could never ascribe more lunacy than he cops to on the record in interviews.
And every day it's something, and he's clearly diminishing. Yeah. You know, he sat up in Davos and, I don't know, five or six times confused Greenland and Iceland. Yeah, poor Iceland. And never caught himself. Yeah, poor Iceland. But the reality is that we have in the White House somebody who feels unconstrained by law, by the Constitution, and by anything.
And the tragedy is the Article I branch of government and the Republicans in Congress have decided they don't care enough to exercise their role and function and do their jobs. 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. Explain that.
Well, until a year ago, the United States was unquestionably the world's leading superpower. And among our...
greatest strengths were not only our economy, but our national security, our defense, our development assistance, our diplomacy, and our greatest asset, arguably, on top of the traditional hard power assets, was our network of alliances and partnerships, which is what China and Russia have long envied. No matter how powerful China becomes, no matter how aggressive Russia becomes, neither of them,
have ever had in Europe and Asia the network of alliances and partnerships that the United States has enjoyed and nurtured since World War II. It is in many ways our superpower. And what Trump has done methodically is to undermine and deconstruct the strength of those alliances.
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Chapter 6: How does Susan Rice view the implications of Trump's actions on civil liberties?
What holds those alliances together are shared values and trust. And trust has been broken, and Trump has evinced no commitment to our traditional values, to international law, to the rule of law, domestically, to any of these things. And at the same time, his national security strategy is essentially about...
retreating from the competition and indeed the pushback that is essential against China and Russia as the two leading threats to our national security, and basically said our priority, our focus, Our sphere of influence is going to be the Western Hemisphere. And we really don't care that much what China does in the rest of Asia, what Russia does in Eastern Europe and beyond.
He wants to take us back to the 19th century. where great powers had their spheres of influence, where they could act with impunity and exercise their will and extract resources without any consequence. And as long as we have ours here in the Western Hemisphere, which he likes to define as including Greenland and Canada, as well as all of Latin America, Then let China do its thing.
Let Russia do its thing. So we have shrunk from a global power and a global superpower influencing and exerting events around the world and acting in a way that advances our interests vis-a-vis our traditional adversaries, China and Russia. to basically saying, let them have their space and we're going to just take our space. And we don't care if China wins the AI race.
We don't care if Russia threatens its neighbors. That's not our concern. And surely, except for the oil and the money that comes out of the Middle East, that's not our concern. And, you know, that's his view. And that has never been
In the post-World War II international construct, how the United States has operated, we have been to our great benefit, a economic and national security superpower with an unmatched collection of allies and friends and partners that has enabled us to uphold a rules-based international order that has benefited us, made us more secure and made us more prosperous. And he's thrown all of that away.
I think that's right that that's how he sees the world. Marco Rubio has a long record in front of cameras of advocating almost the opposite worldview. What do you think it is in a human that makes them reverse themselves and go along with that?
Nicole, I don't know Marco Rubio well. I certainly don't know J.D. Vance well. But both of them have demonstrated a really remarkable ability to change their stripes. They're, you know, classic chameleons. They are very different people, it would seem, or at least they are acting as very different people.
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Chapter 7: What are the potential consequences of Trump's foreign policy on global alliances?
than they did just a few years ago. And when people do that in the context of trying to ingratiate themselves to an authoritarian type leader, you have to assume that it is for power and influence and personal ambition. I don't know what else explains it.
We'll pause here for a quick moment when we're back much more with former Obama administration National Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. Stay right here. As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with the MSNOW newsletter, Project 47.
You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people.
The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this.
Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at ms.now slash project47. I watched Rubio. Like he was walking on a hot roof, right? After the double strike was revealed and the campaign in the Caribbean started to be covered and received some bipartisan condemnation, questions about whether or not war crimes had been committed.
Let me ask you, is a double strike that kills shipwreck survivors, in your view, something that should be investigated as a possible war crime?
It would seem to me to be worthy of investigation as a war crime or a potential war crime. I'm not an international lawyer, but I do know that there are rules of war and there is international law. And I don't know a single reputable international lawyer who would argue that. based on what evidence we have so far, that the second strike was legally justified.
In fact, many question whether the initial strikes are legally justified. But certainly the second strike raises enormous questions that I think merit investigation. Of course, they won't receive investigation. any more than the ICE officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis who killed Rene Good be investigated as he should be and as that incident should be.
So, you know, we have a culture of cover-up, which is convenient domestically and internationally. And I think that is one of the many concerning things about what has become a culture of impunity domestically and internationally.
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Chapter 8: What actions does Susan Rice recommend for Americans to protect their rights?
Now, they could run to change the laws, but the laws as we understand them, the laws of war have in their own book the example of striking shipwreck survivors as meeting a definition of a war crime. The conduct of ICE. I mean, we are all cautious and I think reflexively protective and defensive of the mission. of law enforcement, and that is a good thing.
But the conduct of ICE that is happening in front of our eyes on the streets of American cities is not in any book or manual or training for any domestic law enforcement organization in this country ever. I mean, it is all insane. And I wonder if you think that the idea that
There's impunity now because Trump is the president and he's pardoning everybody, even people his own DOJ has prosecuted and convicted, is creating paralysis.
What we are confronting, you know, you had J.D. Vance and others assert that. completely falsely, for example, that all ICE officers have, quote, complete immunity. There's no such thing as complete immunity. It's a legal fiction. But what they are granting them is political impunity. That is, first of all, extremely dangerous. But secondly...
as you suggest, not going to be legally viable when Trump leaves office. These people will still, many of them, within the statute of limitations, be subject to criminal investigation. Now, Trump has exercised his pardon powers in ways that
exceed anything that is rational or moral or just and surely he will go out the door in a flurry of pardons but there are too many people and too many apparent crimes that are being committed that will merit investigation These people are people who took an oath to serve and protect, to defend the Constitution.
I certainly think in the ranks of the military, and I hope the majority of law enforcement take that oath seriously. But apparently there are more than a few that don't. And so to them should be accountability.
What do you think happens just at a human level? This has become my burning question. Like, how does a human being... I mean, and Renee Nicole Good was a mom doing the drop-off run. I mean, that hits so close to home for so many people I know still doing the drop-off run.
And people all over the country have become ICE watchers, warning their neighbors and communities that there's ICE activity, enforcement activity in their neighborhood. And what is in our face is something that is not going to age well in terms of conduct that Americans accept from any law enforcement. Right.
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