hey everybody welcome back to the find out podcast uh we have a great great guest for you today someone that has the experience of many people all all wound up into one person uh she was the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and I actually believe was the youngest Assistant Secretary of the State Department ever. She was also the 27th Ambassador to the United Nations. She was the 23rd National Security Advisor, and I believe the second one for President Obama, and then went over and was the 22nd Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House under Joe Biden. This is Ambassador Susan Rice. Thank you, Ambassador, for joining us today. It's great to be with you guys. So you are one of the few people who have sort of sat at the top of government in both foreign policy and domestic policy. So we want to talk about on the domestic side first, you know, and getting your thoughts on everything that is happening with ICE and with these insane masked agents coming and snatching people away. Did you ever in your life imagine that the U.S. government would be used in this way? Honestly, no. I mean, what we're seeing is, you know, American federal law enforcement acting like Gestapo and literally busting into American citizens' homes, ripping people out of their beds in their, you know, underwear, throwing them out onto the street, often beating their heads in in the process by masked men. And then throwing them in cars and disappearing them where they can't access their lawyers, can't communicate with their families. Nobody knows where they are or ripped out of their cars or shot dead in the street for exercising their First Amendment rights. I mean, it's absolutely insane. So, no, you know, I, you know, I am a realist and I understand that, you know, we in the when the American people sent Donald Trump back to the White House, that it was going to be very, very bad. And, you know, he was explicit. He said, you know, I'm going to use the military against the enemy within. So maybe we haven't seen the worst of this yet. That's what I was going to ask, actually, is my first question every time we start talking about things like this is, do you believe we're on a path more to get substantially worse or that maybe we're doing enough to sort of stop them in their tracks and this is the worst it will get? I think it's going to get worse. Wonderful. Sorry. That's okay. That's our, I asked the question. But the good news is that I think the American people are waking up. Nobody voted for the Constitution to be violated on a daily basis and used as a weapon against the American people. You know, some people thought they were voting for lower egg prices or, you know, you know, sealing the southern border. But nobody thought they were voting for Americans being stripped of their ability to assemble, to speak freely, to carry a lawful weapon, to have their homes protected from illegal search and seizure, Fourth Amendment. Like they're violating every single one of the Bill of Rights almost. And people are pissed and they should be because, you know, nobody wants that, you know. So I think, you know, Minnesota and the people of Minnesota and particularly in Minneapolis have been extraordinary in their coming together peacefully, you know, on a sustained way to say, no, that's not what we're for. And I hope and I'm starting to believe that, you know, around the country, people are waking up to the crazy. Vicious, illegal actions of ICE and Border Patrol. So there's there's one question. I think that's all exactly right. There's one question that we keep hearing from from MAGA supporters in particular that are saying, well, you know, Obama deported three million undocumented or I don't remember what the number was. And that's way more than Donald Trump. Can you, for our audience as an expert, explain the difference between the Obama immigration policies and what the Trump administration is doing today? Well, I will try. But to be clear, I did not work as national security advisor or as UN ambassador to the two roles that I held under the Obama administration on immigration and immigration enforcement. But I think the bottom line is that what President Obama did was to go after people who had committed crimes and violent crimes in particular, people for whom there was a final order of removal after they'd gone through a judicial process and remove them. And frankly, I think that's what we should be doing. We do need a secure border. Absolutely. And we do need to enforce our laws. And when somebody has had the benefit of going through all of their asylum claims, all of the legal process and have been found after an extended process, which frankly takes years often, that they do not qualify to be here and they're issued final orders of removal and or they have committed a violent crime, they should be removed. But that's in a very targeted, specific way with the authority of a court and with a proper warrant. That is not what is happening today. What is happening today is literally profiling people based on their race or based on their language or based on their perceived place of origin. And they're just, you know, sweeping people up and disappearing them without any form of due process. And many of the people who happen to be swept up are American citizens or people who are in this country lawfully, you know, who are granted legally the right to be here and yet they're being disappeared. And, you know, when you see kids, you know, being taken off the streets and put in the horrible detention centers with disease and, you know, all kinds of, you know, lack of support and resources, it's horrific. Families being separated. The American people have been clear that if you look at every single poll, that this shit has gone way too far. Yeah, we saw there was the measles outbreak, right, in the Dilley facility in Texas, where Liam Ramos was being kept despite having no deportation order for him or anyone in his family. Susan, I want to ask you, because you've had experience in the executive branch before and after the creation of DHS and ICE. And that, I think, is really remarkable. remarkable. It's very important for people to recognize how young ICE is. And when you look at the tactics you've described, when you look at the rights that they've trampled, and then you look at, I think it was a federal judge in Indiana ruling, Indiana or Illinois, ruling on the Minneapolis occupation or invasion, she wasn't sure if she had the power to require them to leave. So my question to you is, when you look at what ICE is doing, I don't know if you're an abolish ICE or a reform ICE person, but is there a foundation that can work for ICE in the United States, given our federal laws that have been passed by Congress and that have been vetted by the Supreme Court? Or is ICE fundamentally built on a broken foundation, and does it need to be abolished? I don't know if it's built on a fundamentally broken foundation. I think it has been abused by Donald Trump in both of his terms and turned into something that it hasn't been and needn't be. You know, people weren't, you know, freaking out about ICE for the most part, you know, during the the Obama administration, during the Biden administration, you know, yes, there were those who said, you know, they're still deporting people. Well, you know, there are people who need to be deported. When people commit violent crimes, when people have final orders of removal, you know, there is a, they have then exhausted their legal remedies and there needs to be some targeted ability to remove them, but remove them with basic respect for human rights and human dignity, consistent with the rule of law and a court order, consistent with the Constitution. And none of that is what's happening now. And that's why it's, you know, and what Trump has said, a tone at the top, and he's put, you know, crazy, cruel people like, um, Christie Noem and Stephen Miller, uh, in charge of this very powerful apparatus, they put millions of more dollars into it. Uh, and basically said, you can do what the hell you want. He literally said Trump, uh, that these people have complete immunity. Well, there's no such thing legally as complete immunity, but what he has given them in effect is complete impunity. And that's the problem. And now he's also recruited people into ICE without proper vetting, obviously without sufficient training. And, you know, some of these folks I'm sure are, you know, proud boys or the equivalent. Yeah. And so that is the problem. The problem is not in my opinion necessarily the institution of having a portion of federal law enforcement dedicated to enforcing our laws you know but these people are not doing that they are being lawless themselves right and and you know so that's our answer yeah no thank you for that this is because this has been on my mind it's like is ice fundamentally broken or Or is there something that's salvageable? You've seen. Let me just be clear, how we salvage it now is a challenge, right? Because it's been so permeated by this culture of impunity and by people who really have no business being part of any kind of federal law enforcement. Sorry, go ahead. Well, no. And so the follow up question was more like we had immigration enforcement and national security before DHS and ICE. We had different organizations, right? ICE came around and DHS and ICE were created after 9-11 and, you know, the beginning of the war on terror. And I think people are conflating the existence of ICE. And I'm not in this conversation, but I think people think like you have to abolish ICE or you have to have what it is now. And if we abolish ICE, we have no immigration enforcement or we have no laws that, you know, we have no other way of dealing with this. But you've seen firsthand. I mean, you worked in the Clinton administration. But not on this issue. Again, I was not happy to be fair. So, you know, I can't claim an apples to apples experience. But we've had national security. I mean, we've had to deal with this before. It's just it just looked different. So presumably it could look different in the future, whether we call it ICE and we replace it with new policies. We need an arm of the federal of federal law enforcement that that does what we call interior enforcement. Right. But that interior enforcement needs to be targeted. It needs to be focused on people who have committed violent crimes or who have whose legal process has been exhausted and they have final orders of removal. That's not what we're dealing with here. Yeah. I have a question on this too, actually, because one thing you often hear is Republicans behind closed doors are very unhappy with this, but out in public, they'll keep backing Trump on this stuff. You've been in federal government for a very long time. I'm sure you've amassed a number of relationships with Republicans. do you have that same belief system where most Republicans are actually against what's going on, but they don't speak out about it? Because I think that speaks to Rich's point of, well, can we salvage this and turn this into something else? If most Republicans behind closed doors actually feel like this is too much and we could reform ICE, that's one thing. So do you feel like- I don't know. I don't have a good enough feel for what Republicans are thinking and saying behind closed doors. I mean, and the Republicans are not the Republicans that, you know, I, even I worked with in the Obama administration, you know, they're very, very different. Uh, many of them very different, you know, there, there's traditional conservative Republicans who have a respect for the constitution and the rule of law and states rights and believe that the most important thing in many respects is the government staying out of your, your bedroom, your living room, your house, your property. And this is completely the opposite. But, you know, the Republicans have morphed and some of them are chicken. Some of them are immoral. Some of them have no respect for the Constitution. And, you know, others of them believe that this is exactly the right thing to do. And so, you know, what you're basically saying is, you know, how many of them fall into the chicken category? I think a lot. And I think we're seeing, you know, it's hard to segment them, right? That's true. It is hard to segment them. But it's at least most of the traditional conservatives, such as they remain, have been unwilling to speak out on this or many other atrocities. But there are a few. And, you know, you got to give them credit. You got to give Massey credit. You got to give Don Bacon credit. You got to give Tom Tillis credit. You got to give Lisa Murkowski credit. And, you know, I'm running out of. Yeah, I think you hit them all. Well, because I mean, I'm from Maine. And so, like, you know, I notice I did not say Susan. I was going to say don't say Susan Coyne. Well, Madam Ambassador, these guys have heard me scream about this until I'm blue in the face, that there is this myth out there that Susan Collins is some sort of moderate. But she hasn't done anything on this. And in fact, after Minnesota, they went to Maine. Maine, which is, by the way, the whitest state in the country, which you guys have heard me say forever. And I think there was a stat where they rounded up like 100 people. Six of them had criminal convictions. And all it's doing is making the the immigrants that we have in Maine, especially the we have a Somali population in Lewiston, all they're staying, they're shutting their doors, which means they're not going to the corner grocery store. They're not buying things. They're not going to work. It's just it's wreaking havoc. And so that leads me to another question, which obviously you are well-adept at answering is like. Well, now I want to find a way to say this, not so ridiculous, but I'm going to say it anyways. How like the moral question is one thing, right? It is bad. It is immoral. This is not what America is about. It is illegal. But from an economic perspective, this doesn't strike me as making any sense either. And can you speak a little bit about how damaging this could be, not only for our standing as what we represent, but from our own pocketbooks? Well, I mean, you can see it happening real time in Minnesota, right? Small businesses, large businesses, both are suffering. Their employees aren't coming to work. And these are obviously people who are here legally documented at U.S. citizens who may look like me or look, you know, Latino and who are afraid to go into work. You have customers that are afraid to go patronize places that they were accustomed to patronizing. You have, you know, all kinds of, you know, suppliers to these businesses in the same boat. I mean, I think I heard a statistic this morning, actually, where Minneapolis is losing 10 to 15 million dollars a week in business. And it's probably much more than that because it's shutting down everything. You know, so it's incredibly bad for the economy. You know, our agricultural economy depends enormously on immigrant labor. Again, many of whom are here on, you know, temporary work permits that allow them to do agricultural work. You're from Maine, Tim. I'm very familiar with Maine. I've got family ties to Maine. And, you know, I know throughout New England, but also in other places that have a seasonal economy, you know, so many of the seasonal workers are, you know, people coming in again on temporary work permits from, you know, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, all over the place. doing, you know, cleaning hotel rooms and serving in restaurants and doing all the things that the seasonal economy requires. And, you know, they too are, you know, the number of visas being issued to them are down. The risk of coming to the U.S. is now much higher. You know, Canadians are boycotting our country in droves, which affects not just border states, but, you know, you know, snowbird states. I mean, it goes on and on, the economic ramifications. Well, and there's also the fact that, you know, tourism was down dramatically this summer. And because these other countries are frankly afraid to come here. I mean, there was a story. Nobody wants to come. Right. I mean, I'll give you a ridiculous example, but like, we all know the band Queen, while their guitarist, Brian May, came out and said, we will not, I mean, they're old, so maybe they weren't going to do it anyways, but they're like, we're not going to tour in the United States because it's not safe anymore. These are banned, this is with security and everything. I mean, these operations are actually multimillion dollar operations and all these people are like, nope, I'm not coming here. There's both people who may feel it's not safe and then there are people saying, why am I going to spend my money over there when they're acting in such an abhorrent way? like well the way we treat them right i mean this this greenland thing and i know we want to talk mostly on on domestic stuff but like these these international uh endeavors i guess i don't have a good name to call these things they what did you say adventures adventures yes i think we're all being too kind but like they have real world ramifications not only for our standing globally but then the fact that like first of all all those greenlanders were like hell no we don't want to do this and like we've pissed off all of like europe over this and like we didn't actually apparently there was like some sort of deal but i don't think we ended up getting anything other than just pissing them off and signing a piece of paper that said nothing and now i guess it's over paper's been signed did we get anything i think they pointed at the old papers that were signed after world war ii and they were like dumbass like look at this and he's like no i you know i i think Yeah, what we got was a more a potentially mortal wound to NATO, where the message we conveyed to our NATO allies was that not only can we not be relied on, we are, in fact, you know, a potential aggressor. Yes. And and, you know, you don't only have to worry about Russia and China. Now you got to worry about the United States as well. And meanwhile you know because you have committed to uphold your Article 5 responsibilities an attack on one is an attack on all and said that you would you know support Denmark in its sovereignty over Greenland Trump you know threatens to hit him again with even higher tariffs Right So he just using you know an economic cudgel against our allies for upholding our alliance So I have to ask you a very important question before we Sorry. So so you have worked, I believe, for three presidents. Correct. Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden. Correct. Did any of them ever ask you. Whether you thought we should acquire Greenland. No. OK, just checking. I just wanted it out there. I just wanted it out there. He's obsessed with it. I don't know if anybody saw what he posted on True Social either this morning or last night, but it was very recently. But he posted an AI image of him sitting down in the Oval Office with all these different European leaders across from him and a map behind him. And on the map is the United States flag over America, Canada, Greenland and Venezuela. So he's making it very clear that his aspirations are to advance our territory by any means necessary and just have all our European allies sit there and nod along with it. It's an absurd concept, but he's doubling down on it. I mean, so my question is, what are the odds that you think he'll actually attempt to follow through on any of this? Because he's obviously obsessed with it from a PR perspective. But the- What do you mean follow? What do you mean? Let's be precise. Actually attempt to annex Greenland in some way, shape, or form. Let's start with that. Something like that. I don't mean to be difficult, Zach, but I don't want to answer an imprecise question of this significance. The military getting involved. Do you mean militarily? Yes. What do I think are the odds of him physically invading Greenland? Yes. Not zero. I mean, I'd give it 20%. Oof, that's terrifying. I don't think it's likely. Right. But I but I but primarily because he has said it's not likely. I just I mean, but I don't I don't you can't put these kinds of things past him. No, it's an obvious aspiration. But I'm curious because we hear this. You know, this is a threat that's been made. What does something like that even look like? Like, what is the military functionally doing if he were to execute that 20 percent here and go and do that? What I don't want to get into speculating about. Yeah, it's a terrifying. Like 60,000 people who live there. Right. Like they don't want them. So then it's a then then it's a war. I mean, here's the important thing. The American people don't want it. Right. Of course. Nobody. People are not in favor of using military force to take over Greenland. Not Republicans, not Democrats, not independents. And people do not want to blow up NATO. and that would you know blow up NATO in a heartbeat I think that's something that John Thune and maybe even Mike Johnson uh might act like probably not Mike Johnson himself but I bet John Thune and enough Republicans in the House and the Senate if he tried to draw that line I think they would say no we're not crossing that well they did say if in effect you know and I don't think that was two things I believe have potentially caused Trump to slow his role on Greenland. One was the articulated opposition of a significant number of Republicans in Congress. And the second was the impact on the stock market and the bond market of, you know, of the reaction to this insanity. And, you know, those are two things that, you know, at least the second of the two, which Trump has some history of crediting to some extent. So and then, you know, the third thing is, I think the Europeans said, you know, finally, fuck no way. We're not down with this and we're not going to roll over and play dead. And if you push us on it you want a trade war you get a trade war yeah right well i wanted to get because i i assume you know president macron personally uh the president of france and he there was this stunning text message that got leaked out which i assume they did because i doubt trump would where he literally is like pleading with trump on a whole host of things it's basically like we could do great things in ukraine we could do these things but he's like i have no idea what you're doing and with Greenland like I have no idea which you don't usually see this level of candor and we knew that the Europeans were were frustrated but to me that like the fact that he was like what are you doing just shows the the fact that like there isn't really a strategy here other than to cause chaos but like also why are we why are we pissing off our our allies like this it like it boggles the mind whether it's for trade reasons or for you know assistance in Ukraine or whatever, like we're just raining chaos down all these people, which is going to make us weaker and hurt our economy. It makes no sense to me. But Trump has no regard for our allies and they understand that now. And that's why what he's done is so damaging. Even, you know, if, you know, he never does anything regarding Greenland. You know, he is conveyed to our closest allies that he is a threat to them. Yes, that's true. And it's not just the relationship with the allies from a governmental perspective. It's also the people who follow Trump and their perspective on what's right. I have people in my life who have voted for Trump and I hear them all the time say, who cares about our allies? They don't matter. And it's like that downstream is a very bad, dangerous thing. But Zach, explain to me what their rationale is. I would love to. Because most people get, no, seriously, most people get you're safer with friends than without friends. Like just basic, you know, human nature. Sure. Would you rather have no friends in your life, in your world, or would you rather have friends who, when the stuff hits the fan, are down with you? Yeah, I mean, you're you and I are aligned on that. I think speaking for them, their perspective is they're very nationalist, isolationist folks that they sort of are through the mindset of it doesn't matter if we have allies or not. We can self-sustain, which is not true, especially in a globalized market that we live within the globalized world we live within. It's not true. But I think you're you're hearing I'm hearing a lot more Republicans go, I don't care about any of this because it only matters. It happens to America. They can't conceptualize. But I care what happens to America. Yes, they do. That's why I believe so much in the importance and the power of our alliances. Yes. Like, you know, in a dangerous world where, you know, you've got powerful adversaries like Russia and China. You know, the reason why Russia and China want nothing more than to break our system of alliances is because they know it is like the secret sauce of our superpower. It is something we have that they don't have. Absolutely. And it matters enormously whether we're talking about in Asia or Europe or wherever. And it is because they understand that when we have friends and allies who are willing to be by our side when the stuff hits the fan, like on 9-11, the only time NATO has ever had to invoke Article 5, an attack on one is an attack on all. is when we were hit by Al-Qaeda on 9-11 and the allies came to our defense and fought with us for 20 years in Afghanistan. And so the idea that we are safer, stronger, or healthier in any way, shape, or form when it is, you know, fortress America, isolationist, no allies, and hated and distrusted by everyone else in the world. You know, I'd like to have a debate with whoever you're talking to. I mean, trust me, I spent hours with them. You get nowhere. It doesn't matter how much sense you make. All right. But they're fundamentally- They're wrong. Not thinking rationally. Well, they're not. I mean, look, let's remember, these are the same people that are like, well, Putin's not so bad. It's how they arrived there, I have no idea. So they'll do, I think we have to remember about these kinds of people is they'll do whatever it takes to contort themselves into a position where Trump is still okay. And I think that's a huge percentage of why you see this and they have this whole ecosystem right of media you can go from tv to digital to podcast whatever and you would never leave this right-wing bubble right like they are told that we are all evil you know and they push the horribly racist birther lies that's why trump how trump got as big as he did at the beginning was pushing racial lies about barack obama and it just went from there. And now like I like we all now because we're swimming in the space, like see some of that world. And it's like you it is shocking what people will post and people will believe. But one thing I want to ask you, though, because I think this is where I think we could do a better job of explaining is, OK, we piss off Europe to the point where they want to retaliate against us. Could they cripple our economy if they wanted to? I think, look, Europe is, as a block, our largest trading partner, right? We can do enormous damage to each other that would be mutually destructive. You remember there used to be in the nuclear time of mutually assured destruction? That's what we're talking about. So we can hurt them, they can hurt us, nobody benefits from that. Right, right. Well, that's the crazy part, right? These are our allies. Like these are people that we have stood with since most of them, since World War II or one and most, and then the rest since World War II. But like, you know, like if they were to call our debt, for example, right. Like that could cause like a massive, massive chaos in our economy. Right. Like if they got pushed too hard. And I think, you know, Zach, for Europe, the people that you talk about, like they think of the, like the national security element of it, which is obviously crucial, but they don't make the connection of like, well, Europe is not just this little weak spot over across the pond that speak different languages. And, you know, we don't think are as tough as we are, which is also not true, but like they are vital. Like, and we need to be working with these people because otherwise like they look to, they look elsewhere. Right. Which leaves us alone. Well, that's my question. That's exactly the benefit. Like for China. Right. Yes. That's what they want. Right. Yeah. Well, that, well, that's my other, that's what China wants. China. That's what Trump's giving them by alienating Europe. Why do you think he's doing that? I know I'm trying to make you get into the mind of an absolute madman moron, but like, it just doesn't like it doesn't make any sense other than to just break things to me, at least. I think my summary statement is that domestically and internationally Trump wants to take the United States back to the 19th century You know, where so internationally, that's a world in which, you know, you had great powers with their spheres of influence, you know, and, you know, economic barriers between these these spheres and the great powers ran rampant in their spheres. Now, we are a global superpower, or at least we were until a year ago, meaning that we weren't just playing in one little sphere, regional sphere, which, as Trump defines, is essentially the Americas, including Greenland and Canada. You know, that's what he wants us to be predominant in and let China have its way in Asia and let Russia have its way in Europe, as long as it doesn't, you know, affect my ability to do what I want to do in my sphere. That's a very 19th century concept. But add to it a different 19th century concept of, you know, of robber baron style wealth accumulation. You know, so it is also taking, you know, kleptocracy to a whole new level. But again, I can, you know, I can rape and pillage in my own sphere and the other great powers can do what they want in theirs. And I get mine and it's mine for me and mine for my family and mine for my cronies. So that's what I think this is about internationally. He is not interested in what is serving the U.S. national security interest or the U.S. national economic interest, for that matter, at the end of the day. He's interested in what deals he can cut and what power he can amass in his sphere. I have one quick question. How much, if he continues down this path, how well positioned is China becoming essentially to come in and sort of swoop up what we're, you know, kind of shedding with Trump's terrible policies? Because, you know, to me, I think obviously China has adopted a very different structure of how they look at international relations. They've gone from being very adverse. I mean, it's still adversarial in a lot of ways, but they're capitalizing on being sort of a pseudo communist capitalist state. And they're obviously looking to expand. So how much of this can China really swoop up and put them in a much greater position to just take over as the number one superpower? Well, China can't believe its luck. Right. You know, it goes to, you know, the global fora, whether it's Davos or, you know, the United Nations. And, you know, all of a sudden it is able to portray itself as the upholder of the rules based international order, which is a joke. But, you know, at least they're not physically trying to acquire, you know, other countries, sovereign states around the world with the, you know, except Taiwan. Yeah. But, you know, they they are they are reaping the spoils of, you know, the United States retreat from global leadership, from the, you know, the the destruction of USAID and the voice of America. And, you know, our pullback on so many aspects of our, you know, intelligence apparatus. apparatus. I mean, we're doing a whole host of things that are part of this global retreat. And China is literally filling the vacuum and portraying itself as predictable, stable, respecting the sovereignty of other countries, and lining its pocket with markets that we should be competing in. Right. Yeah. Well, I want to I want to turn to back back to domestic issues here because we only got a couple more minutes with you. But obviously, you know, you mentioned earlier and I think we all agree that most Americans don't want this. Donald Trump's numbers are abysmal somewhere in the mid 30s. We keep seeing over performances of all these special elections across the country. One in Texas. There was actually one in, well, shoot, Louisiana this weekend that was a 38 point swing, a little house seat, a state house seat. But so so for the midterms this year, obviously, things look pretty good for Democrats. But how concerned are you about there being because we get a lot of questions about this free and fair elections in November? I'm concerned. Yeah. And I'm concerned because, you know, Trump is telling us, as he often does, what he aims to do. You know, the effort at redistricting, the effort at trying to steal the voter rolls and the voter information from various states to extort Minnesota for its voter rolls, stealing the ballots from 2020 in Fulton County. You know, that wasn't about the 2020 election primarily. That's about trying to create doubt in the integrity of our elections and use that as an excuse to take over elections and jurisdictions, just as he said, nationalize the elections in some 15 places, because I think they're fearful that they can't win in a free and fair election. Now, so what do we have to do about that? Doesn't mean we give up and say, okay, well, forget it. There's not going to be an election. We just, you know, we have to do two things at once. We've got to compete and win with the best candidates and the best policies that serve the American people, working on and being committed to the things that people care about from affordability, lost health care, housing and rental costs way too high, electricity costs way too high, food prices still way too high. He's done nothing about any of that. And we've got to compete and win those elections and win them with big margins on the one hand, and at the same time, we need to see what it is he's trying to do, understand it as a critical threat, and stand up through the courts, on the streets, you know, and make sure that people have the opportunity to vote in security. It is illegal for ICE to be at polling stations. The law is explicit. You may not have armed military or other armed people within any proximity of a polling site. You know, if they try to do that, we got to defeat it. And we've got to defeat it in the courts and on the streets peacefully and help those who feel vulnerable, you know, to feel safe as they go to the polls. We've just got to we've got to see what they're doing, not be naive about it, understand it, combat it. And at the same time, you know, do what we would normally do, but better than we would normally do it in fight and compete to win in these elections. Susan, I got a question. What the hell was Tulsi Gabbard doing in Georgia? I have no idea. Yeah. Is there any... I can tell you this, it's nothing, nothing on the up and up, nothing on the level. So when you are, you are in, I'm going to do this again, like I did before. So we'll just go with the, with President Obama's term when you were national security advisor, which is not the same job that she has, but is in the same sphere. Did President Obama ever ask you to go into a state and secure ballots from a previous election? No, he never asked anybody on his national security team to have anything to do with domestic elections or domestic policy for that matter. Right. Well, Ambassador Susan Rice, thank you very much. I actually was saving one bit at the end because you won't remember this, but I will. But it turns out you're not such a bad basketball player. And I'm going to tell you, I was at the interior department for five years and I was at the Let's Play. Was that what it was? No, it was a Title IX. Title IX. That's right. Title IX event. And I actually spoke to you briefly. It was 15 years ago. I looked a lot different, but you have not a bad jump shot. Thank you. But guess what? Here's the real thing. this was an anniversary of title nine event right yeah that is that is exactly what it was you did it in the interior department i remember this well and i had with i brought with me uh i believe both my daughter and my niece um kiki rice and kiki rice was like you know tiny back then she's now one of the best point guards in the nation and the starting point guard at ucla wow awesome uh And, you know, a WNBA prospect. She's a senior. And, you know, look her up, Kiki Rice at UCLA. Did she get all of her skills from you? She did not. She got them from her parents, which is why she's good. Well, it was it was it was a fun event. And because Ken Salazar was a basketball player, I somehow was his basketball guy. And maybe on another episode, I'll tell all the stories about him, you know, trying to get Reggie Love, who is the President Obama's body guy who played at Duke. he would bring him over sometimes when we were playing people. That's how competitive he got. Oh, Obama used to play over at Interior. I know. Actually, he played right before I started, and then he used to come with his girls in the winter. So I was the guy with the Secret Service walking them around, but it was on weekends, so I missed my one opportunity. But I did get to play basketball at the White House one time. I guess that court's now been bulldozed over, but it was a fun time. That was actually one of the only atrocities that Obama committed, in my judgment, which was to turn the tennis court, because I'm also a major tennis player. That's my real sport. Into a basketball court as well as a tennis court. So you put all those lines down that screwed up the tennis. That is true. You should have just done what some other people might have done, which is just build a basketball court. That's true. Have both. No, I know. Why not have both? Between the tennis court and the brown suit or the tan suit. Tan suit. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I like the tan suit. I thought it was nice. The basketball court on top of the tennis court was no bueno. Yeah. Well, I'm glad we ended with something good because obviously there's a lot of dark around. But Ambassador, thank you very much for joining us. Where can people, do you want to plug where people can follow you? You know, I'm on Twitter at Ambassador Rice and I'm on Instagram and Substack as well. Great. Well, everybody go follow. Thank you again. Thank you for all your contributions to this country. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Hopefully I'll have you back soon. Thanks, gentlemen. Good to be with you. Take care. Take care.
