Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview

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Speaker 6 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

Speaker 5 Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Speaker 5 The announcement earlier this week of a ceasefire deal in Gaza is maybe the most hopeful news from this terrible conflict since the October 7th attack.

Speaker 5 Now, it has to be said that even with the possibility of a ceasefire, there are many reasons for caution here, not least, that far-right elements in Israel may well try to undermine the deal.

Speaker 5 After the initial and horrific attack on October 7th, the war in Gaza has left tens of thousands dead and Gaza itself a near ruin. Israeli hostages remain in captivity.

Speaker 5 We'll see if they're released soon. Hezbollah has been decimated.
Iran is weakened and isolated. So maybe, after so much suffering, this is a moment when change is possible.

Speaker 5 That at least is the position of Anthony Blinken, the outgoing Secretary of State.

Speaker 5 He's been President Biden's chief partner in attempting to manage the many global crises of the past four years, including the invasion of Ukraine and China's continuing threats toward Taiwan.

Speaker 5 We spoke about all of that last week as Secretary Blinken was on the verge of turning over the State Department to Marco Rubio and the Trump administration, and just before the announcement of the ceasefire deal.

Speaker 5 Secretary Blinken, thanks for coming to the New Yorker Radio Hour. And this turns out to be your absolute exit interview.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 5 I think we can acknowledge that in the position that you have, that sometimes you have to stick to talking points or formal language.

Speaker 5 But with all due respect, I'm hoping that we can peel aside some of that, at least some of that caution, and confront some serious and even contentious questions more directly than before.

Speaker 5 Aaron Powell,

Speaker 2 I'll do my best to take on my deep-rooted instincts of caution and sticking to talking talking points. Exactly.

Speaker 5 So let's start with the Middle East, which is always a good place to

Speaker 5 begin.

Speaker 5 Before October 7th, your colleague, the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, wrote a 7,000-word essay for Foreign Affairs magazine.

Speaker 5 And he wrote, although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is far quieter than it has been for decades.

Speaker 5 He even congratulated the administration for having what he called de-escalated the crises in Gaza. Now, this went to print on October 2nd.

Speaker 5 How did the Biden administration, seemingly before October 7th, get things wrong?

Speaker 5 Look, I think when

Speaker 2 you look at where we were before October 7th, and I think what Jake was talking about or writing about, rightly so,

Speaker 2 were the efforts we were making and I think making real progress on

Speaker 2 to bring countries together, not to try to change the nature of the regimes or the systems, but to try to change the relationships among them to integrate the region. And the fact is,

Speaker 2 up until October 7th, we were making good progress on that, building on the Abraham Accords that the first Trump administration initiated, bringing disparate countries together.

Speaker 2 everyone from,

Speaker 2 in one case, the UAE,

Speaker 2 Israel, India, and the United States on common projects,

Speaker 2 working with the Abraham Accord countries to actually do things together, concrete things that would deliver results for people in each of those countries.

Speaker 2 And what we were really focused on in that moment was kind of the ultimate

Speaker 2 culmination of the Abraham Accords, and that was normalization. between Saudi Arabia and between Israel.

Speaker 2 And in fact, David, on October 10th of 2023, I was scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia and Israel to try to

Speaker 2 work on resolving some of the remaining.

Speaker 5 Your critique of the Abraham Accords was that it was missing a very vital piece, and that was what to do with the Palestinian question. Yeah,

Speaker 2 that's exactly right. Actually,

Speaker 2 that's exactly what I was going to the region to focus on in the context of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Speaker 2 We knew that for us and also for the Saudis, getting to normalization required also having a credible pathway toward a Palestinian state. We saw it

Speaker 2 as essential, not just to normalization.

Speaker 5 Are you saying that the Israelis were prepared to make a very serious accommodation?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 this was and remains

Speaker 2 an incredibly important question because even as we speak today, even with everything that's happened since October 7th,

Speaker 2 I believe that there is

Speaker 2 a possibility, an opportunity to actually

Speaker 2 move forward on integration, to move forward on normalization. But it requires two things.
It requires an end to Gaza, and it requires a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.

Speaker 2 I've sat with the leader of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, on many occasions, before and after October 7th.

Speaker 2 And before October 7th, having that credible pathway for a Palestinian state was important.

Speaker 2 but since then, since October 7th, the price has gone up. And it's more than important society.

Speaker 5 What do you mean the price has gone up?

Speaker 2 Meaning that I think for the Saudis, let me put it this way: on one of these occasions when I was meeting with Mohamed Salman,

Speaker 2 he reminded me that about 70% of the Saudi population is younger than he is, and that's saying something because he's very young. And before October 7th, they were not focused on

Speaker 2 Palestine, on

Speaker 2 the cause of Palestinian self-determination. Since October 7th, they've been fixated on it.
And in order for him to be able to proceed with normalization, it's very clear that he has to have

Speaker 2 at the least a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.

Speaker 2 And that I think is more deeply felt, more strongly felt now than it was before October 7th.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing that I think is why this question remains so important. First, I've also had many opportunities to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 when the conversation comes to normalization with Saudi Arabia,

Speaker 2 that's the point at which he sits up, leans forward, leans in.

Speaker 2 He knows that for Israel, too, that would be an absolute game changer. Because think of it this way.

Speaker 2 The one thing that Israelis have wanted from day one of their founding, the one thing that they've sought the most, was to be treated like any other country, to have normal reformation.

Speaker 5 I understand that, but he sits up and takes notice when the Saudi question question comes up with normalization. How does his body language change when the Palestinian question comes?

Speaker 5 Because it seems his interest in normalization there is quite something else.

Speaker 2 Aaron Powell, well, it may well be, but the point is that to get there, to get to normalization, that road leads through

Speaker 2 a pathway for Palestine in the context of two states. So

Speaker 2 he, other Israelis, Israeli society will have to choose. They'll have to decide if that's the path that they're ready and willing and able to travel in order to get to normalization.

Speaker 2 We can't answer that question for them.

Speaker 5 Now, it's hard to count the number of former American presidents and diplomats who've left their posts infuriated by their experience when dealing with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Speaker 5 This has been going on for a very long time.

Speaker 5 In Bob Woodward's most recent book, a book that I think if I learned how to read, has the imprints of the administration's highest level security and foreign policy voices as sources, President Biden is quoted as saying, that son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he's a bad guy.

Speaker 5 He's a bad fucking guy. This was in the spring of 2024.
What is your honest assessment of working with Benjamin Netanyahu? Is he trustworthy as an interlocutor?

Speaker 2 One of the mistakes that I think people make is

Speaker 2 to ascribe to Prime Minister Netanyahu all of the policies and actions that Israel's taking that they don't like or beyond don't like

Speaker 2 profoundly contest.

Speaker 2 And I say that because

Speaker 2 I think what we've seen in Israel since October 7th is a reflection not of an individual prime minister, not of individual members of his cabinet, but genuinely a reflection of 70, 75 percent, 80 percent of

Speaker 2 Israeli society. The trauma, societal trauma, is reflected in its policies and support for those policies.

Speaker 5 But what I'm asking you is, does he deal with you truthfully?

Speaker 2 In our conversations,

Speaker 2 in the moment of those conversations, yes.

Speaker 2 But look,

Speaker 2 you're laughing.

Speaker 5 Why are you laughing? In the moment, then what happens when the

Speaker 5 plane door slams shut and you leave?

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I'm laughing because,

Speaker 2 particularly right now in Israel, given the

Speaker 2 incredibly complicated politics and

Speaker 2 coalition politics that exist,

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 he proceeds in many ways on the basis of what gets me to tomorrow and keeps my coalition together.

Speaker 2 And so if

Speaker 2 he might say one thing to me, And then depending on the audience he's before next,

Speaker 2 maybe that takes a little bit of a different turn.

Speaker 5 A lot of people are dying in the meantime.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, the point is this.
We have

Speaker 2 been laboring to try to get to a better place in Gaza and particularly to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages home, that stops the firing in both directions, that surges humanitarian assistance, that also creates space to get something permanent.

Speaker 2 As we're sitting here together, we're, I hope, finally,

Speaker 2 belatedly, on the brink of getting that.

Speaker 2 And everything that we've done, everything that I've done, everything that my colleagues have done

Speaker 2 these past months has been in service of getting to that point because we believed it was the quickest and most effective way

Speaker 2 to actually end the conflict and get to a better place. So in the course of doing that, sure,

Speaker 2 there are many moments of frustration and more. And

Speaker 2 I can think of a lot of them. But you have to keep your eye on the prize.

Speaker 5 Aaron Powell, Jr.: Now, you've said more than once that what's happening in Gaza is not a genocide. You were asked this by the New York Times, and you simply said no.
You didn't really elaborate.

Speaker 5 So I wonder what your definition of genocide is when the State Department has classified what's gone on in Sudan and with the Uyghurs as genocides.

Speaker 5 I more than realize how powerful a charge that is, maybe not least when it comes to Israel, considering

Speaker 5 its history and the history of Jewish people in the 40s. And yet.

Speaker 2 Simply put, the intent, the intent to erase the population. And that's not what I see or what's going on in Gaza.
As

Speaker 2 horrible,

Speaker 2 as horrific as conditions are for innocent children, women and men who are caught up in a crossfire of Hamas's initiation that they obviously didn't start and that they're powerless to stop.

Speaker 2 As horrific as that is, and as much as one can, and as we have disputed some of the actions that Israel has taken, it does not, by a long stretch, amount to the intent to erase a population.

Speaker 5 Do you think such charges are anti-Semitic?

Speaker 2 I don't want to ascribe motives to the charges that people are making. And also,

Speaker 2 look,

Speaker 2 I more than understand

Speaker 2 the passions that people feel on all sides of this issue.

Speaker 5 Secretary Blinken, you gave sort of a farewell speech at the State Department today addressing the Middle East in particular, and you said something curious. You said that too few people, if any,

Speaker 5 have focused much on the Hamas regime in Gaza and its horrific actions on October 7th.

Speaker 5 With respect, I don't see that, and not in this publication, not in the best newspapers that I could name, plenty of publications, even as they document the destruction and death in Gaza, have gone a long way toward describing the nature of Sinwar and Hamas.

Speaker 2 Do you disagree with that?

Speaker 2 As I hear it, around the world,

Speaker 2 not just in the region, well beyond, but and also in our own country. There is a chorus of condemnation of Israel.
And again, I understand why

Speaker 2 people get to that point. But I still hear deafening silence when it comes to Hamas.
And I really believe that if there had been

Speaker 2 a sustained, public, vocal demand that Hamas put down its arms, that it give up the hostages,

Speaker 2 that maybe many, many months ago, Hamas would have felt pressured to actually do that, and a lot of the suffering would have been alleviated. But I really hear deafening silence about Hamas.

Speaker 5 Look, you've heard deafening, I mean, I don't mean to be defensive, but even as somebody who's written a 10,000-word profile of Sinoir, deafening silence

Speaker 2 on Hamas? I wish the New Yorker was reflective of

Speaker 2 all of our media, all of our social media.

Speaker 5 Social media is something else. Social media is something that's not a problem.

Speaker 2 Well, but unfortunately,

Speaker 2 social media is what

Speaker 2 we're doing. Yeah, but social media, as we both know well,

Speaker 2 is so much of what drives conversations and drives perceptions.

Speaker 5 At the same time, the politics are such that the course chorus for annexation of the West Bank,

Speaker 5 for potentially resettling, putting settlements back into Gaza, if not expelling more people from Gaza, has grown louder

Speaker 5 and more prevalent in Israeli politics, and not just on the far, far, far right.

Speaker 2 It's grown louder. I don't think it represents the majority, but it's certainly grown louder.
And to your point,

Speaker 2 not just voices, but actions, including on the West Bank, more settlements, more illegal outposts,

Speaker 2 more taking of land, more violence

Speaker 2 against Palestinians by extremist settlers than we've seen at any time in the recent past. But

Speaker 2 I think what's also evident is this.

Speaker 2 Start with Gaza.

Speaker 2 Right now, Israel has accomplished what it sought to accomplish in trying to ensure that October 7th couldn't happen again.

Speaker 2 It has destroyed the military capacity of Hamas, and of course, it's dealt with the leaders who were responsible for October 7th.

Speaker 2 If it stays in Gaza, it's going to get bogged down there. There is going to be an enduring insurgency.

Speaker 2 By our assessment, Hamas has been able to recruit almost as many new militants as have been killed.

Speaker 2 And we see that every day in the north, where Israel has cleared an area. And then Hamas returns.
Israel goes back. That is a recipe for perpetual war.
It's a recipe for dealing with insurgency.

Speaker 5 In your speech today, you gave a lot of time and credibility to and hope for the Palestinian authorities'

Speaker 5 role in this situation going ahead, which is, you know, oh, we're at so, but it's extremely weak and even more unpopular, as you well know.

Speaker 5 And on the Israeli side,

Speaker 5 Bibi Netanyahu continues to dominate the Israeli political scene.

Speaker 5 Anybody that's risen up as a potential challenger to him, either within his party or outside of his party, has the half-life of a loaf of bread.

Speaker 5 And so the prospects for what you are hoping seem to be extremely far off.

Speaker 2 Look, in this moment, David, no one's ready for that conversation. I acknowledge it.
But

Speaker 2 it proceeds in steps. First step is getting an end to the conflict in Gaza.
And again, as we speak, we're on the brink at least of getting an initial ceasefire.

Speaker 2 Then it's turning that ceasefire into something permanent.

Speaker 2 And in order to do that, we have to have understandings, we have to have arrangements for what's going to fill into Gaza for security, for governance and administration, for reconstruction that is not Israel and not Hamas.

Speaker 2 And we've done a lot of work on that over the last six months with Arab partners,

Speaker 2 with others, so that we can hand over a plan to the incoming administration, which it can

Speaker 2 use or not use, look at or not look at,

Speaker 2 to do that. But if we can get

Speaker 2 to that point where we have a permanent ceasefire, okay,

Speaker 2 Gaza is then

Speaker 2 settled down at extraordinary, excruciating costs. But that's one piece.
And then I come back to what we were talking about before, which is, again, why I believe that the road to

Speaker 2 finally resolving the Palestinian question is still there. And that is the prospects for Israel of finally integrating the region, finally having normal relations with everyone.

Speaker 2 We saw powerfully what that can mean for Israel's security when, not once, but twice, Iran attacked Israel, the first time, unprecedented. Hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones.
And what happened?

Speaker 2 Because of countries that we, the United States, put together, including countries in the region,

Speaker 2 Israel was defended. The attacks failed.

Speaker 5 I'm speaking with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. We'll continue our conversation in a moment.
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Speaker 9 It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes.
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Speaker 5 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Speaker 5 At the New Yorker, we're reporting this week on the horrific fires in Los Angeles and the conditions that produced them. In fact, a couple of our riders lost their homes.

Speaker 5 We've looked at the dangers faced by a private fire crew, the crisis of housing in the region, and a lot more. You can find all of that reporting at newyorker.com.

Speaker 5 Our thoughts are with our listeners in or near Los Angeles and anyone who's been affected by this terrible disaster.

Speaker 5 I'll return now to my conversation with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. He's finished his work with the Biden White House, and he's turning the reins over to a new administration.

Speaker 5 Donald Trump's State Department will almost certainly be led by Marco Rubio of Florida, who seems at this point a shoe-in for confirmation.

Speaker 5 How do you feel about the decision-makers that are coming in? You've got Tulsi Gabbard in intelligence.

Speaker 5 Pete Hexeth in defense seems likely to be to make his way to the top at home, domestically, cash patel. How will this team

Speaker 5 serving under

Speaker 5 President Trump, who President Biden has in no uncertain terms and everybody in your administration has described as everything from dangerous to unstable to authoritarian? What is that spell in your

Speaker 5 mind for the future when it comes to a national security issue as enormous and as complex and as dangerous as the Middle East.

Speaker 2 David, as someone who actually worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff for six years, I hate to get ahead of the Senate confirmation process.

Speaker 2 So let's see what actually happens over the course of the next week. But let me look, let me just say this.

Speaker 2 I've had a number of conversations with Marco Rubio, Senator Rubio, who I've known for years, in part because of his service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and at the risk of

Speaker 2 damning him with praise that he might not want,

Speaker 2 we've had really good conversations. And Chelsea Gabbert?

Speaker 2 I don't know her, have not talked to her, but

Speaker 2 I do know Senator Rubio, and I think he's extremely well prepared for the job by his service on the Foreign Relations Committee, on the Intelligence Committee, and he's deeply thoughtful about most of the things we have to confront.

Speaker 5 I want to switch to Russia, if you don't mind. I know you have limited time.

Speaker 5 Do you think Zelensky is inclined to or can sell to his people the notion of a Ukrainian future in which they lose 20 odd percent of their territory for the foreseeable future?

Speaker 5 And can Putin reconcile himself to that future in which Ukraine, the heart of it, the remaining 80% or whatever it is, is in fact free, sovereign, and aligned with the West? Aaron Powell,

Speaker 2 it depends, I suppose, for each how they see the alternative. In the case of Zelensky, he has to be responsive to the Ukrainian people.
And if the Ukrainian people

Speaker 2 feel, believe, desire that

Speaker 2 there be

Speaker 2 a resolution or at least a ceasefire, then I suspect that he'll reflect that in the policies he pursues. But he has to be responsive to them.
Look,

Speaker 2 here's what I think the fundamental issue is going to be, especially for the incoming administration, as they're looking at this.

Speaker 2 If there's going to be a ceasefire, we've tried to do everything possible to make sure that Ukraine could, if that's the decision it made to pursue a ceasefire, they could do it from a position of strength.

Speaker 2 And I think it's also in the interest of the Trump administration to make sure that if a deal is cut, it's a good deal, a strong deal. President Trump prides himself in making the best deals.

Speaker 2 So it needs to be from a position of strength, but there's something else that's critical. One thing that has to be built into any resolution.

Speaker 2 And when I say resolution, I really mean a ceasefire because there's not going to be an ultimate resolution in the near term.

Speaker 2 The question, the status of the territories currently under Russian control, probably won't be resolved for a long time. But if there's going to be a ceasefire, it has to be one that holds.

Speaker 2 And that means that there has to be a credible deterrent because Putin will use any ceasefire to rest, refit, and then eventually reattack.

Speaker 5 Do you think the Russians and the Chinese are thrilled to see a second Trump administration?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 I think they're

Speaker 2 different ways that each of them probably

Speaker 2 looks at it. They probably see some things that they like and some things that they have to be concerned about, too, because

Speaker 2 look,

Speaker 2 a certain degree of unpredictability

Speaker 2 can be useful.

Speaker 2 And it may be that in the case of adversaries, competitors, that's something that does concern them. But the real question is how that actually plays out in practice.

Speaker 2 What are the policies that the administration pursues? What's the effect of those policies?

Speaker 2 That's where the rubber meets the road. So at some point, you actually have to make decisions.
You have to choose. You have to pursue a certain policy.

Speaker 2 So we've got to see how that plays out.

Speaker 5 If China were to move

Speaker 5 to seize and occupy and take over Taiwan, how would the Biden administration have behaved? And how do you think the Trump administration will behave? It seems very different on this issue.

Speaker 2 Aaron Powell, Jr.: We've done everything possible to make sure that it didn't come to that point and that that was not a decision that anyone had to to make.

Speaker 2 And I think we've been very successful in doing that for a number of reasons.

Speaker 2 First, of course, look, I think from China's perspective.

Speaker 5 I'm saying if they had invaded, would you have sent American troops to Taiwan?

Speaker 2 Look,

Speaker 2 we said,

Speaker 2 and I'll continue to say, that we would do everything possible to ensure that Taiwan had the means to defend itself.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 part of that, though, is

Speaker 2 making sure that, and this gets back to Ukraine, among other things.

Speaker 2 One of the reasons that our response to Ukraine was so important was because this aggression committed against Ukrainians and against the country was also an aggression against some pretty basic principles at the heart of the international system that everyone looks at.

Speaker 2 And had we allowed this to go forward with impunity, the message to would-be aggressors anywhere is open season. You can get away with it.

Speaker 2 One of the most powerful moments in the aggression against Ukraine was when the Japanese prime minister, half a world away, Kushida, the then prime minister, who stood up almost immediately, put in his lot with Ukraine and said, what's happening in Ukraine today could be happening in East Asia tomorrow.

Speaker 2 That's why this response has been so important, not just for Ukraine, as important as that may be, but because of what it says more broadly. I think China's paid very close attention to that.

Speaker 2 At the same time, we brought country after country together with the proposition that what happens in and around Taiwan matters to them, including countries way far away from Taiwan, because you've got 50% of commercial container traffic going through that strait every day, 70% of the semiconductors made on Taiwan.

Speaker 2 If there were a crisis of China's making over Taiwan, the entire world would be affected. We'd have an economic crisis.

Speaker 2 That's why we got country after country to weigh in with China, with Beijing, to say,

Speaker 2 keep the peace.

Speaker 5 But this will be true, but soon-to-be President Trump has made it plain that his view of China's relationship to Taiwan is of minimal concern to him.

Speaker 2 And I obviously can't speak for him, and I also really can't predict

Speaker 2 what he would do, how the administration will approach this. I think he also rightly, in my judgment, during his first term, put more focus on some of the challenges coming from China.

Speaker 2 That was a good thing. Now, where I disagreed was the way he went about trying to meet those challenges.

Speaker 2 And that is also at the same time, taking it to our allies and partners who we actually need with us if we're going to be effective in dealing with China.

Speaker 2 When we're dealing, for example, with economic practices that China is engaged in that we don't like, undercutting our companies, our workers with overcapacity, destroying communities by flooding in subsidized products,

Speaker 2 doing all sorts of things in their trade and commercial relationships that are unfair, that we don't do to them.

Speaker 2 When we're taking those on alone, we're what, 20% of world GDP. If we're aligned with allies and partners in Europe and Asia, we're 40, 50, 60% of GDP.
And China can't ignore that.

Speaker 2 That's exactly what we've done. David, we've had more convergence now in how to deal with all of the challenges posed by China with Europe, with Asia, than we've ever had before.

Speaker 2 And that's a source of strength. Now, maybe we haven't done a good enough job explaining it, just as with NATO.
People don't want war. They don't want conflict.
Of course.

Speaker 2 Well, President Biden got us out of America's longest war after 20 years.

Speaker 5 Aaron Ross Powell, we're of roughly the same age. We lived in the post-Soviet era when there was the illusion, I think it was an illusion, of American singularity.

Speaker 5 And now every year or so, there's another article about how Pax Americana is over. Is it true?

Speaker 2 What's true is this.

Speaker 2 I think we're living in a period that is in so many ways

Speaker 2 more combustible, more contested, more complicated than any since the end of the Cold War. And as we've seen it, we are moving into a new era, a new phase.

Speaker 5 What's the greatest danger of this new era? Aaron Powell,

Speaker 2 I think fundamentally, look, there are near-term dangers that

Speaker 2 we see playing out in

Speaker 2 Ukraine. There are near-term dangers that you can see anywhere from Pakistan to North Korea.
But fundamentally,

Speaker 2 the larger danger I see is this.

Speaker 2 We did construct an order after two world wars with the express design of preventing another global conflagration. And that order was always imperfect.
It's been tested. It's been challenged.

Speaker 2 But it basically did its job in making sure we didn't have another global conflagration. And with it came a lot of rules, norms, understandings of one kind or another.

Speaker 2 And we now have

Speaker 2 some revisionist powers that are contesting that entire system.

Speaker 2 The core revisionist powers, Russia, North Korea, Iran,

Speaker 2 are testing it in certain ways. China is testing it, I think, in a different way.
It's the one country that has the capacity militarily, economically, politically, diplomatically,

Speaker 2 to actually find a way to change the rules, but in a way that reflects its interests and its values,

Speaker 2 not ours.

Speaker 2 That's the biggest challenge I see,

Speaker 2 and that's the contest.

Speaker 5 China specifically.

Speaker 2 And China specifically, but over many years, and there's not a clear finish line.

Speaker 2 And I think the challenge for us, for any American administration,

Speaker 2 is amplified by this. One of the things, I've been doing this now for 32 years.
I came in at the very beginning of the the Clinton administration. I'm going out at the end of the Biden administration.

Speaker 2 And, you know, and it goes a little bit,

Speaker 2 David, to the business year-in so effectively.

Speaker 2 Back then, 32 years ago, when I went to my office at the White House, or first at the State Department, then at the White House, I did what everyone else does or did back then is you got up in the morning, opened the front door of your apartment or your house.

Speaker 2 picked up a hard copy of the New York Times or the Washington Post or maybe the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 2 And then if you had a TV in your office, if you had a TV in your office, you turned it on at 6.30 and you got the National Network News.

Speaker 2 Now, of course, we all have this intravenous feed of information and we're getting new inputs every millisecond.

Speaker 2 And the pressure to simply react is more intense than it's ever been. And no one has the distance,

Speaker 2 the buffer, to really try to reflect and to think. before you act.

Speaker 2 At least it's really much harder to do that. The speed with which things is happening is much harder.

Speaker 2 The multiplicity, the complexity, the interconnectedness of challenges is greater than it's ever been.

Speaker 2 So I keep joking about this, but my friend Tom Friedman wrote a column a few months ago that I loved because it said,

Speaker 2 parents, don't let your sons and daughters grow up to be Secretary of State.

Speaker 5 Well, Mr. Secretary,

Speaker 5 I assume you're going to give yourself a week off at least after the inauguration.

Speaker 2 Oh, you bet.

Speaker 5 And maybe you'll write a book. And you've been working with Joe Biden for a very long time, a very long time.
And I don't know anybody in government that's closer to Joe Biden.

Speaker 5 And you've spelled out here and in other venues his virtues and what you see as your successes and your analysis of the administration. We are, though, ending this era

Speaker 5 when even very friendly commentators feel that this administration is ending with a central tragedy in that Joe Biden is doing what he never wanted to do, which was to hand the presidency back to his historical foe,

Speaker 5 who he considers a deep danger to matters domestic and foreign.

Speaker 5 And it's quite likely that had he decided not to run a second time, we might not be in this position, and that he made a perhaps understandable human decision, but born of some denial of the human condition and mortality.

Speaker 5 Do you wish wish that he had made a very different decision and not run a second time? And do you think that

Speaker 5 his aging was to some degree overlooked or even covered up?

Speaker 2 David,

Speaker 2 here's what I saw.

Speaker 2 And you're right.

Speaker 2 I've worked with the president for more than 20 years, and it's really been the greatest privilege of my professional career, starting in the Senate, then as vice president, and then as president. And

Speaker 2 do we all change as we get older?

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 When you get to a certain age, are you likely to slow down a little bit? Of course.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 this is the God's truth, because I was in

Speaker 2 the Oval Office and the Situation Room and everywhere else in between with him. for four years.

Speaker 2 Whether you agree or not, whether you like or not, I can tell you that every decision that was made, every policy that was pursued, reflected his judgment and his decision.

Speaker 2 It's not like someone else was doing it.

Speaker 5 It's both sincerely and elsewhere.

Speaker 5 But do you really think he had the capacity to not only finish out this term, but to be president of the United States at the highest level for another four years? Well,

Speaker 2 I think that's exactly the question.

Speaker 2 And I believe that in answering that question for himself, he came to the conclusion that while he was doing the job now, it was hard to say whether he could do it in the same way for another four years.

Speaker 2 And I think that's ultimately what motivated his decision to pull out, to pull back. That's exactly what drove him.

Speaker 5 You'll forgive me, and I say this with genuine respect. What I'm hearing

Speaker 5 mainly is loyalty. And maybe, and it's a very hard thing to grapple with, specifically at this time.

Speaker 2 Am I right? Aaron Powell, no, I think, yeah, I certainly hope

Speaker 2 loyalty, because he's more than earned it as the person that he is and the president he's been. But no, beyond that, look,

Speaker 2 I think if I felt that

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 2 wasn't up to the job,

Speaker 2 you know, that's something that I would have

Speaker 2 had that conversation with. I would have had that conversation.
And you didn't.

Speaker 2 But I saw everything that I experienced myself

Speaker 2 was when it came to grappling with all these issues, when it came to debating them,

Speaker 2 when it came to looking at them from every angle, when it came to making decisions, when it came to having judgments,

Speaker 2 his were strong, his were strong.

Speaker 5 So, when you saw that debate with Trump,

Speaker 5 it was an aberration and a shock?

Speaker 2 It was.

Speaker 2 It was. Now,

Speaker 2 you know, a lot goes into that.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I think, look,

Speaker 2 one of the things that

Speaker 2 I think may have been missed in that period is

Speaker 2 this is not something he said to me, this is just by way of observation as someone who knows him and knows

Speaker 2 his family well. I think that the impact

Speaker 2 in that period of time

Speaker 2 of the prosecution of his son weighed very, very, very very heavily on him.

Speaker 5 To the degree where he performed the way he did in that debate.

Speaker 2 Well, I just think it was a very, very heavy weight, and maybe one that we saw reflected a little bit more visibly

Speaker 2 in those days and in those weeks.

Speaker 5 Secretary Blinken, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 David, great to talk to you. Thanks.

Speaker 5 Anthony Blinken served as Secretary of State throughout Joe Biden's term in office. Confirmation hearings began last week for his likely successor, Senator Marco Rubio.

Speaker 5 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around.

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Speaker 5 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
Only one other president was ever elected to two non-consecutive terms. The first was the ever-memorable Grover Cleveland.

Speaker 5 For the world encountering a second Trump administration, It's a kind of whiplash, a radical break from American foreign policy in 2017, and then in 2021, an attempt to restore the old rules.

Speaker 5 And now there are jokes about annexing Canada from the next president. Earlier in the program, I spoke with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken about the complicated world of 2025.

Speaker 5 And I'm joined now by staff writer Evan Osnos. Evan reported for years from China and he's based now in Washington.
He covered the Biden administration closely.

Speaker 5 Evan, earlier in the program, we heard an exit interview with Anthony Blinken as he has one foot out the door of the State Department.

Speaker 5 Now, what you heard from Blinken there, how does it match up with your view of Biden's foreign policy?

Speaker 10 I came through with a very distinct impression of one thing, which was the limits of American influence and power over the last four years.

Speaker 10 And that's either by the force of events that interfered with our ability to achieve what we wanted, or, and this is a very controversial question, the limits of what we were were willing to do, the limits of what Joe Biden was either capable of or thought that the politics compelled him to do in terms of using the leverage of the presidency.

Speaker 10 That's a big and quite contested issue.

Speaker 5 Aaron Powell, Jr.: Every time there's a new administration, the president and his circle leave the White House complaining about Benjamin Netanyahu, how difficult it is to deal with him.

Speaker 5 I, needless to say, asked that question. I got a very, I don't know, measured,

Speaker 5 disciplined response.

Speaker 10 Diplomatic, is a very good thing.

Speaker 2 Diplomatic.

Speaker 5 So what's the real story among people in the White House

Speaker 5 or the Biden administration, as we now historically call it?

Speaker 10 Aaron Powell, there is fury, rage, contempt for Benjamin Netten Young. Really? But yeah, but I will say there's something else, too.

Speaker 5 But what is it? Fury, rage?

Speaker 5 What's the reason for it?

Speaker 10 Aaron Powell, Jr.: Because over and over and over,

Speaker 10 he either ignored what it it was that they asked for or played them, would say, okay, we're going to open up a humanitarian channel and then, of course, would go and do something offensive in three other ways.

Speaker 5 But wait a minute. This goes to the question that I believe it was Bill Clinton who first asked about Netanyahu in his frustration.
Wait a minute, who's the superpower here?

Speaker 10 Aaron Powell, well, David, this actually gets to, I think, something that is at the core of what has limited and what will ultimately tag Joe Biden's legacy, which is Biden fundamentally misread the role of personal politics, both at home and abroad.

Speaker 10 Abroad, he said, Look, I've known B.B. Netanyahu longer than anybody in American government.
I know this guy's deceptions. I know his moves.
I'll know how to get him.

Speaker 10 And he said right after October 7th, this is the perfect moment. I've got him at a moment where he needs us, and so on and so on.

Speaker 10 And he stayed believing, even through all of these moments of betrayal and frustration over the course of the next year plus, he stayed in the belief that he could, just through sheer personal bond, shape that policy.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 it failed.

Speaker 5 Aaron Ross Powell, does this apply to our relations with China in the last four years as well?

Speaker 10 Actually, interestingly, I think he's unencumbered on that relationship precisely because he doesn't have a meaningful relationship with Xi Jinping.

Speaker 10 Xi Jinping, in his way, is canny enough to know personal politics doesn't matter when you're talking about superpower relations. He sees this as a historical, civilizational kind of encounter.

Speaker 10 And I think in some ways Biden was able to navigate the China question a little bit more clearly because he didn't have any illusions that he somehow saw a psychological dimension of Xi Jinping that others could not.

Speaker 5 Aaron Ross Powell, what is the passage that we're about to make in historical terms for American foreign policy? What's going to be the main differences?

Speaker 2 Aaron Powell, the core of it is

Speaker 10 Biden's belief that they could revive the post-Cold War, even the post-World War II set of institutions and understandings.

Speaker 10 Things like the fundamental sanctity of NATO, the power to be able to push back against Russian aggression with it.

Speaker 10 Because what we're about to see is a president and an administration that is either contemptuous of or untutored in all of the kinds of institutions that defined the U.S.

Speaker 10 role in foreign affairs for certainly the last four years and very much the eight years before that.

Speaker 10 This was partly, in fact, a reflection of the Trump years that Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, to some degree, Iran and North Korea came to believe that the United States was this frantic, fading power and that it would provide a natural,

Speaker 10 call it what they see it, a natural enemy in the years to come. And I think that in some ways it's an irony, a kind of

Speaker 10 bitter irony that Biden's time will be remembered as the eclipse of so many of those post-Cold War institutions to which he devoted his decades of life in the Senate, but really believing that those were the bulwark against a world of cruel power in which might makes right, because you now have an administration that is coming in that believes quite clearly in the idea that the larger, more powerful side of any encounter deserves to be right.

Speaker 5 Aaron Ross Powell, what does Anthony Blinken fear going forward, and what could he not say? I asked him, for example, does he think that Taiwan will now be swallowed up by China?

Speaker 5 And he kind of danced around that. Aaron Powell,

Speaker 10 he certainly has reason to be afraid of that. Donald Trump has signaled to the Chinese in pretty explicit ways how little he regards Taiwan's integrity and sanctity.

Speaker 10 I mean, he said at one point last summer that Taiwan is something like 9,500 miles away from us and it's right next to China. They pay tremendous amount of attention to comments like that in Beijing.

Speaker 10 I mean, compare that to Biden, who said four times that he would put U.S. troops on the ground if China invaded.

Speaker 10 Now, the administration would walk it back every time and say they never changed policy, but it created at least it maintained a level of ambiguity.

Speaker 10 There is a pretty worrisome assemblage of evidence that Trump is putting forward that he really doesn't care much about protecting Taiwan.

Speaker 5 So, why wouldn't Xi Jinping, why wouldn't Xi Jinping seize the moment in the next four years and do what he's long wanted to do and take Taiwan? What's the risk?

Speaker 10 If he does not, I think that the risks are partly domestic.

Speaker 10 He's dealing with a huge number of problems at home, like the fact that he doesn't have enough jobs for young people, the fact that he has young people who feel demoralized, and you've got wealthy people who are sending their money overseas.

Speaker 10 All of that's to say, sure, he might imagine he could take a flyer and say, well, maybe I can rally people around the flag, pull them out of their depression a bit by some sort of big foreign adventure, but that is a risk.

Speaker 10 He is many things, but he's not.

Speaker 2 How could the risk fail?

Speaker 5 If the United States is uninterested under Donald Trump in defending Taiwan,

Speaker 10 I give you one data point, which is Ukraine. Vladimir Putin thought he would be in Kyiv in 72 hours.

Speaker 10 Xi Jinping does not even have the luxury of imagining that he could undertake a brisk and convenient amphibious assault on Taiwan. It's a very hard thing to do.

Speaker 2 Why is it hard?

Speaker 5 You look at the map and you think, my God, that must be a good idea.

Speaker 10 Look, I don't want to pretend to be a naval officer, but the smart people on this will tell you it's a very hard thing to do, to amass the number of troops, to bring them across the Taiwan Straits at the right time of year.

Speaker 10 There's also the question of how much Taiwan would resist. There's also the question of how ready the Chinese military is.

Speaker 10 One thing to watch for, David, if you're curious about when it might be that Xi Jinping thinks he's ready to attack Taiwan, is will he stop sacking senior generals in his military?

Speaker 10 He has continued to do that, and part of that is because he evidently does not have confidence in the military that they oversee or in his ability to control it.

Speaker 10 So there are a lot of things that Xi Jinping is that are similar to Vladimir Putin. But one difference is in terms of risk tolerance.
And

Speaker 10 Xi Jinping has not tended to take great risks when he doesn't have to.

Speaker 10 And I think for the moment, and this could change any time, but for the moment, attacking Taiwan might be a bigger risk than he needs to take now.

Speaker 5 He went to pains, Blinken did, to

Speaker 5 paint a picture of the incoming Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who will almost certainly be

Speaker 5 win confirmation in the Senate. He went to great lengths to paint him as a kind of normal, serious foreign policy thinker.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 5 Well, what is Donald Trump thinking when he nominates Marco Rubio? What was behind that? Obviously, it's somebody who he's expressed contempt for many, many times over time, but joined the club.

Speaker 10 Aaron Powell, Jr.: Look, Trump has humiliated little Marco, as he called him, at various points.

Speaker 10 One thing he gets out of Rubio, though, is very useful, which is he's obedient, but he's also knowledgeable. This is a thing.

Speaker 10 I wrote a profile of Marco Rubio in the New Yorker some years ago, so I kind of talked to him enough about foreign affairs to do some basic, we'll call it sort of knowledge checking.

Speaker 10 And unlike Pete Hegseth, who in his confirmation hearings the other day was asked to name countries in ASEAN and could not, you know, that was his Sarah Palin moment where it was, you know, has he, you know, I love all the countries in ASEAN, right?

Speaker 10 So he had no idea what he's talking about. Marco Rubio, I don't agree with him on a whole lot, but he knows

Speaker 5 he can name three countries in NATO.

Speaker 10 But, you know, I remember asking Rubio once, you know, what are you reading? And he said,

Speaker 10 I'm rereading William Manchester's biography of Churchill.

Speaker 5 Everything about that sentence rings of

Speaker 2 it at the time. I said,

Speaker 10 nobody reads it. I don't even think Manchester reread it.
It was a thousand pages. But at least he knew what Manchester was, and he knew, you know, he could have picked Churchill out of a lineup.
So

Speaker 2 there's a lot to worry about.

Speaker 5 Such are the qualifications of modernity. Evan Osnos, thanks so much.

Speaker 10 My pleasure, David.

Speaker 5 Evan Osnos is a staff writer, and you can read him at newyorker.com, where you can also subscribe to The New Yorker.

Speaker 10 I'm David Remnick.

Speaker 5 Thanks for listening today, and please join us next time.

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