-Welcome back to the show. -It's great to be back.
-Thanks so much. -It has been a while since I have seen you.
I... The last time you were here on the show was,
I guess, maybe three days before the presidential election.
Did you see any of this coming?
Anything that we're living through right now?
(laughter)
I kind of did see it coming.
Not what we're living through now, but the possibility
that Trump could get elected as I-I write about in the book.
-Right. -But, you know, those times...
Just think back.
It was a time before we were all losing our mind
-on a daily basis. -Those were good times.
It was, like... It was normal.
-Right. -You know?
And now, gee whiz.
Or Jesus Christ, more accurately.
Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.
I mean, you know, in the... in the book,
you-you talk about your personal life,
and I want to get into that.
But-but when you look at the-the White House today,
you get these stories coming out all the time
of, you know, uh, officials speaking out,
saying, "This is a crazy environment to work in.
Things are freaking me out."
Is that par for the course?
Is that what happens in a White House?
Is it just like a manic environment?
Or is this a special time,
and-and a strange White House America's experiencing?
-This is not normal. -(laughter)
This is beyond strange.
I mean, yes, the White House is an intense place to work.
-The jobs are tough, blah, blah, blah. -Right.
But, you know, people aren't crazy.
And... you-you don't wake up
thinking that, "Oh, my God,
tomorrow everything could just literally fall apart."
So this-this...
It's important for Americans to understand
that this is not normal.
That's part of what I hope
people will get out of this book
is that, you know, there is a way
that national security decision-making
-is supposed to be made. -Mm-hmm.
There's a way a responsible White House is supposed to work.
There's a way policy gets made
that is actually supposed to be conducted
-in the interests of the American people... -Right.
rather than the interests of one man
for his own personal political or financial gain.
We are in totally...
We're in the Twilight Zone.
Wow.
(laughter)
Wow.
The book, Tough Love, tells your story
in a way that I think you've never told it before.
You know, many people have seen you
in positions of power.
Many people have seen you advising President Obama
or working on the Clinton side of things,
but-but this story is-is... is really personal
in a way that I... I don't think I expected.
I mean, you-you talk about your parents being divorced
and how that affected yourself, your life,
your-your, you know, your-your decisions you made growing up.
I mean, you talk about, for instance, being hung over,
uh, and then having to brief President Obama.
And, like, you didn't expect this,
and now you're in the beast.
And all of a sudden, it's, like, your vacation's cut short.
It's, like, you're briefing them.
Like, why did you choose to share some of those stories,
-especially the hungover one? -(laughter)
Well, Trevor, I wanted to tell my story in my own words.
And I... I felt, you know, while I was in government,
particularly after Benghazi, where I was characterized
and mischaracterized by both sides,
that I couldn't speak for myself,
because I was still representing the United States,
-I was still... -Interesting.
speaking on behalf of the president.
So when I had the opportunity to tell my own story,
I wanted to do it honestly.
It's interesting that, yeah, you say that as well,
but what I liked, if I may interject,
is that you also said...
you said: Depending on what news people are watching,
they either vilified me,
or they created this idea of me being a hero, and then...
And you said neither is true. I found that really interesting.
Why did you say that?
Because neither is true. They're unin...
they were uninformed by who I actually am.
I mean, to understand me... it's really important
to understand my family and where I came from.
And that's why I spend some time in the beginning
talking about how I'm the granddaughter
of immigrants from Jamaica who came to the United States
in 1912 with nothing
and went to Portland, Maine, and educated all five of their kids,
who went on to be very successful professionals,
and how, on the other hand, on my father's side,
I'm the daughter of the descendants of slaves,
and... my father, who grew up in the most, you know,
brutal part of Jim Crow segregation,
and then had to fight and serve in...
World War II at Tuskegee,
as part of the Tuskegee Airmen,
and, you know, he couldn't get served off base,
but yet, German POWs were getting served off base.
-Wow. -So this-this...
all of this background informed who I am.
And you talked about my parents' divorce.
I mean, having to go through that, and, as a kid, intervening
when they were, you know, fighting in a violent fashion
to try to, you know, calm them down
and protect my little brother and all this stuff.
So that all informed who I am.
So... if I was gonna tell my story, the only way to do it
was to be honest.
And I did, you know, I gave everything that I could in that.
Now, talking about being hungover,
that wasn't that hard to include.
-I mean, first of all... -(laughter)
we're all human, right?
And this was the... one of the very l...
it was actually the last night
of President Obama's last foreign trip.
-We were in Lima, Peru, -Mm-hmm.
and, you know, Trump had won,
you know, we had to execute this transition,
and the Obama team...
knows how to party and knows how to celebrate.
(laughter)
And... we...
(cheering, applause)
We took over this club in Lima,
took over the top floor,
drank more pisco sours per capita
than, you know, than most people could do,
and then just danced to R&B and hip-hop
-until about 3:00 in the morning. -That is hilarious.
I got back to my room, crashed.
I was one of the few people who had to really get up early,
'cause I had to be with the president
-when he started his meeting. -Right.
Got out of bed, and literally, my knees buckled.
And I thought: okay, this is not about being hungover,
this is about having done too many low moves
-on the dance floor. -(laughter)
Uh...
and I could barely walk to the shower.
By the time I hobbled into the limousine--
known as "The Beast"-- to see the president, he asked,
as he always does, "So, you know, what happened last night?"
And I said:
Mr. President, you missed a hell of a party.
And none of us are gonna be in top form today.
(laughter)
And, you know, he always, he always wished
that he could have a little fun,
but he had to stay in his hotel room
and act presidential.
Let me-let me ask you this about that.
One thing that I did pick up in the book is
there was definitely a personal relationship
between President Obama
and all of the people who worked for and with him.
It's an interesting relationship because there's a respect
that seems mutual, and then there is also
a level of understanding who's in charge
and what needs to be done.
I've been particularly interested
about what's happening in the Trump White House.
You know, when it comes to leaks, you know,
regardless of whistleblowers, but just, like, the leaks.
Some people say the leaks are holding Trump back
from being a president,
because a White House cannot function effectively
if you're leaking every step
of what is happening along the way.
Do you think the leaks are a good thing?
Do you think they're a bad thing?
Do you think people should have blind loyalty?
How do you think it should work when you're working
with a president in the White House?
Well, first of all, if you talk to journalists,
and I have a number of friends who cover the White House,
they'll tell you that Trump's the leaker in chief.
He's the one putting out a lot of this stuff.
And then you've got, you know...
-So he leaks to journalists, just to confirm. -Yes.
-So he-he's the leak? -Yeah. He is a big...
So when they go, "A source in the White House... "
-He is... -they're talking about him.
He is... Yeah.
He is reputedly the source of a lot of leaks.
Now, I'm-- There are others.
-I'm not suggesting there's not. -Right, right, right.
But what's also so... depressing
about the Trump White House,
as somebody who's worked in the White House,
these are hard jobs.
And yet, everybody there is stabbing
everybody else in the back.
Nobody can trust the guy in the office
or the woman down the hall
not to be screwing them to the press.
And th-there's this sort of sense of, you know...
-...everybody trying to destroy everybody else. -Mm-hmm.
And Trump being the one that y-you don't know
if you're gonna come into work one day and, you know,
halfway through the day he tweets that you're gone.
-Wow. -So think about that.
Uh, so, look, I don't like leaks.
I think leaks are a bad thing.
And when I was national security advisor,
you know, I got really pissed if people were leaking stuff.
And they didn't do much because we had a tight ship,
and we were loyal to each other,
and we had each others' backs,
and that made those tough jobs much, much more tolerable,
and often, a whole lot of fun.
The Ukraine call is an interesting one,
because part of the argument coming from the Democrats
has been it was particularly suspicious
because Donald Trump and his team place this call
on a code-word server, a more secure server
that isn't regularly used for calls,
regular calls that don't have, um, sensitive information.
But the Trump team has said, "Yes, it's not regularly done,
"but we get leaked on so much,
"that we have to find a different way
to keep this information away from people."
So is there merit to that argument?
No. Let me explain why.
First of all, the regular
National Security Council computer system
is highly classified,
up to top secret level and beyond.
-That's the regular one. -That's the regular one.
-Got it. -So this one we're talking about
is super, super-duper secret.
-Got it. -Okay?
-Uh, that's a technical term. -Yes, I'm with you.
So, um, there are two ways to manage it.
-You put it on the regular server, -Mm-hmm.
-and you can still limit distribution. -I see.
You know, you don't have to hide it
on a super secret server to limit distribution.
That's... You know, normally,
the people who get a copy of the transcript
are the people who have a reason
to know what happened on the call.
-Mm-hmm. -So, that's a limited circle in the first place.
I think the Trump people made a mistake, frankly,
at the very beginning of the administration
where they didn't know how the system worked.
And they, I think, blasted call transcripts
across the entire National Security Council.
So they just, like, hit "reply all"
-with every call. -It's something like that.
-That's what you're saying. -That's what I'm saying.
And then they got burnt.
But they didn't need to go to that extreme
-to solve that problem. -Right. Right, right.
Let me ask you this.
If you were-- and I know this is a crazy question...
Don't even go there. I know where you're going.
-(laughs) -Come on, man.
If you... if you were...
if you were advising in this White House--
not about the politics of, like, you know...
Not-not the Trump side of things,
but let's talk about, like, for instance, Syria.
If you were advising in and around Syria
-and the military decisions that are being made right now. -Okay.
Donald Trump has been blasted from all sides, right?
Republicans have come out
-like we've never seen them before. -Rightly so.
Democrats have come out. The Kurdish forces have come...
People have all said, "Donald Trump, what have you done?"
Except Putin, Assad and Turkey.
-Funny, that, eh? -Right.
-So... -(laughter)
Do you think that he betrayed the Kurdish forces
if his argument is, "I didn't have a deal.
"That was another deal from a different president.
I didn't have a deal with the Kurdish forces"?
Okay, wait a minute.
-Because Trump and his people... -First of all,
it's not about "I."
The whole problem with Trump is it's all about "I."
It's not an "America first" foreign policy.
It's a "me first" foreign policy.
-The United States... -(cheering and applause)
The United States of America
had an understanding with the Kurds,
which he has honored for two and a half years.
And, yes, it began under President Obama.
We worked with the Kurds.
They did the fighting, in effect, for us
to take out ISIS.
Now we have turned around
because Donald Trump woke up on the wrong side of the bed
or President Erdogan of Turkey promised him something--
and I'm actually really curious to know what it was--
in order for him to sell these guys out
without consulting anybody on his national security team.
And what is going to happen now
is not only, well, we have broken our word
and left these people vulnerable to Turkish invasion.
And these Turks want to kill the Kurds.
I mean, it's that simple.
Uh, but, also,
there's some 10,000-plus ISIS fighters,
terrorists who are...
-The Kurds have been holding in detention. -As prisoners, yes.
And now they have to go defend themselves
without the United States against the Turks.
Do you think they're gonna be paying attention
to those prisoners, or do you think
maybe they're a little bit pissed
and they just might lose the key?
That's 10,000 or more hard-core terrorists
who have the United States and Europe in their crosshairs
that Donald Trump has just let go.
For what?
That's why everybody's so pissed.
This is serious as a heart attack.
Wow.
-When you look at Trump, then... -(scoffs)
-If you have to, and... -It's really...
-It's not my preference. -And-and he says,
and he says, "Listen, I think America was in too many wars.
"I don't want to fight with Iran.
"I don't want to be fighting in Syria.
"I don't want to be fighting anywhere in the--
We fight too many wars."
That's what Donald Trump says.
Do you think that there is merit to that?
Or do you think America is just damned to be
the police of the world?
Well, here's where Trump is misleading the American people.
We've learned in the Obama administration
that there's more than one way to fight terrorists.
We don't have to deploy
large numbers of American ground forces,
-as we did in Iraq on, uh-- -Mm-hmm.
in the Bush administration,
to deal with a terrorist threat.
Or, in that case, Saddam, followed by a terrorist threat.
We can work, as the military would say,
by, with and through partners.
These Kurds were our partners.
They were doing the fighting.
We were doing the advising
and the logistical support and the air cover.
It was a very... economical and effective way to do it.
We're talking about hundreds of troops, not thousands of troops.
But those hundreds were key
to giving the Kurds confidence that we remained with them
and to keeping an eye on ISIS and on those prisoners.
So this was not a case where the president could say,
"I'm bringing thousands of American troops home."
-No. He left our partners hanging. -Mm-hmm.
He put America at much greater risk,
because these prisoners are going to either leave
and come and get us or our partners
or they're gonna reconstitute on the ground
and continue to-to be a presence
that we thought we had put in the box.
Let me ask you this before I let you go.
We got to end on a much more optimistic note.
(laughter)
Let me ask you this.
Writing a book is a really interesting process,
because you almost relive your life,
from the beginning to the day that you put the pen down.
When you looked back on everything that you've done,
everything that you've achieved,
everything that you're a part of,
is there anything you wish
you could've done differently?
(chuckles) Many things.
One thing that you wish you had done differently
in your role in government.
What is one thing where you go, like, "Man, I--
"That thing, I-I wish I could've done that better or differently
"or I would've-- I would've tweaked
the way I saw the world"? What would it have been?
Well, I write in this book about how my mother
warned me not to go on the Sunday shows.
In 2012, when I went on to talk about Benghazi.
-Interesting. -And she perceived what I didn't,
which is that--
You know, I was thinking about-- I'd been-- I'm on the team.
The team has asked me to do it. I wasn't--
That wasn't my plan. Blah, blah, blah.
I was gonna take my kids to the Ohio State football game
-that weekend, and I actually did, -Mm-hmm.
because I made a promise and I wanted to keep it.
But I came back and agreed to do the Sunday shows,
because Secretary Clinton, uh, apparently, had--
was exhausted and didn't feel,
uh, that she wanted to do it.
And my mother tried to convince me.
She literally said, "I smell a rat.
You shouldn't do this."
And the rat was not that somebody was setting me up.
Her perception was that,
when you're in a crisis and you're one--
the first person to go out and share that information,
that information is inevitably gonna change,
and the messenger, uh, will be assailed,
-not just the message. -Right.
And she was right.
And, uh, I think maybe others,
uh, of my colleagues
-perceived that better than I did, too. -Wow.
But so the lesson, everybody, is listen to your mother.
-(laughter, applause) -And... -Whether you're in government
-or at home, listen to your mother. -And...
-and that's what I tell my kids. -Thank you so much. (laughs)
-Thank you so much for coming back to the show. -Thank you
-so much. -Tough Love is available now.
Ambassador Susan Rice, everybody.