#399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East
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The following is a conversation with jared krista, former senior adviser to the president during the Donald tromp administration and author of breaking history, a White house mama.

He's one of the most influential and effective presidential advisers in modern history, helping conduct negotiations with some of the most powerful leaders in the world and deliver results on trade, criminal justice reform and historic progress towards peace in the middle east. On thursday, october fifth, were recorded conversation on topics of warm peace, history, power in the middle is and beyond. This was about a dana half before the hamster attack on israel.

And then we felt we must sit down again on monday, october night, and had a discussion on the current situation. We open the podcast with the second newly recorded part. My heart goes out to everyone who has and is suffering in this war. I pray for your strength and for the long term peace and flushing of the israeli and palestinian people. I love you all right now.

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It's hard to do. These bad reads from being honest is i'm thinking about everything that's happening in the middle east today and all the people who are suffering israelis in the palace. Ini ans, i've tried to that region recently and I will return to that region.

And if there's any one thing I could say about those travelers, I got to see just how beautiful people are, and I got to see as good as on my sound, the common humanity, the culture might be different. The perspective might be different, but the hole in the pain and the anger and the love and the four spectrum, the human condition, was all there in their eyes, in the eyes of israeli and eyes of palestinians. So my heart goes out to the people suffering there.

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We did a lot of this conversation before the humoredly ack on israel, and we decided to sit on again and finish the discussion to address the current situation, which is still developing. If I may allow me to summarize the situation as a stand today. It's morning, monday, october night on saturday, october seven, that six thirty A M.

Israel time, haas fired thousands of rockets into southern israel. The rocket attack served as cover for a multipronged infiltration tion of visual territory by over one thousand hamas militants. This is shortly after, at seven forty A M, the house militants went door to door in border towns, killing civilians and taking captives, including women and children.

In response to this, israeli air force began Carrying out strikes in gaza, also fighting on the ground in israel to clear out homos militants from israel territory, and preparing to mobilize is daily troops for potential ground attack on homos in gaza. Now, of course, this is what IT appears to be right now, and this, along with other things, might change because the situation is still developing. The idea is ordering civilian residents of gaza to evacuate their homes for their safety.

Benjamin, in yahoo, declared war in several statements and warned israeli is to brace themselves for a long and difficult war. Just today, israeli ministers ordered equal complete siege of gaza, interrupting supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel from israel to gaza. As of now, october ninth, the death toll is over twelve hundred people and over one hundred thirty hostages taken to gaza by homos.

Uh, so as I said, the events are rapidly and folding, so these numbers will sad the increase. But hopefully our words here can, at least in parts, speak to the the timeless, underline current of the history. And uh, as you write about the power dynamics of the region, so for people who don't know, gazza, twenty five miles long, six miles wide strip of territory along the mediterranean, IT brought israel on the east and north and egypt on the southwest.

It's densely populated, about two point three million people. And there's been a blockade of gaza by israel and egypt since two thousand seven, when homos ck power. I could just summarize that homes is a postman, ian melton group, which rules the gaza strip.

IT originated in one thousand and eighty eight, and he came to power in gaza in two thousand six as part of his charter is swarmed to the destruction of israel. And IT is designated by the united states, you paying union, U. K. And of course, israel as a terrorist group. So given that context, what are your feelings as a human being and what is your analysis as the former senior adviser to the president onto the trump administration of the current situation, israel, gaza?

So I think you did an excEllent job of summarizing A A lot of the the context, but watching what's involved over the last forty eight hours has been truly heartbreaking to see. We're still in the early stages of what's developing.

But seeing the images uh, on x of you know militants, a terrorists going door to door with machine guns gunning down innocent civilians, seeing beheaded israeli soldiers, seeing, uh, Young twenty old at a rave, uh, a dance party to celebrate peace with the militants flying in and then you know, shooting machine guns to to kill people in discriminating, seeing a Young children captive and and held prisoner, seeing eighty old grandmothers, a holik survivor also being taken captive. Uh these are just images and actions that we have not seen in this world since a nine eleven. This is a terror attack on the scale of which are we have not seen and it's been incredibly hard for a lot of people to comprehend.

Um my heart goes out obviously to uh all of the the families of the victims uh to the families of those who are held h in captive now and to all of israel because one of the beautiful things about the state of israel is that when one israeli is hurting, the entire nation comes together. Ah it's a shame that it's taking an action like this to unify the nation but I have seen uh incredibly uh beautiful signs over the last forty eight hours of a country coming together are the jewish people have been under oppression before. H the jewish people know what it's like and seeing people rally together to fight for their homeland to try to restore safety.

Uh, is, is, is a very beautiful thing to watch. I wish IT wasn't something we had to watch, but IT is. With that being said, though, the backdrop i've been speaking of friends over the last couple days, i've one friend I spoke with last night who was saying that, you know, a good friend message him, saying i'm going in where can do some Operations to try to free some the hostages helped him. One of the key buses message him the next morning he was one of the first through the door to try to free these hostages, and he was killed by a mos militant.

And sadly, we're going to be hearing many, many more stories of brave israeli soldiers trying to get these terrorists out of israel, trying to free innocent civilians unfortunately, are risking their lives to do IT and um they're all heroes but some will have a less good faith than others sadly so it's a very, very heartbreaking moment and I do think that is very important at this moment in time for the entire world to stand behind israel. I think that hamas has shown the entire world who they really are. I think what their aim is, what they're willing to do um and you know all of the uh strong security that israel's put in place over the last years, which in some instances was criticized and is now being validated that that there was a real threat that they were looking to the term so um short answers is my heart is broken.

Praying for peace, praying for strength, praying for um praying for israel to do what he needs to do to avoid being in this situation again which is either eliminating or severely degrading homos is capabilities there there cannot be peace in israel, in middle east while there is a terror group um that is being funded by iran that is allowed to flourish and is allowed to plan Operations that are going to aim to kill innocent civilians. And so as somebody who was formally in this position, who was intimately involved with israel with h the strategies to to minimize attacks from her mos and to try to turn the region around, and I think we did do a very substantial job under president trump. Middle east went from one of the most chaotic regions in the world.

You had a is in two thousand and sixteen ISIS had a caliph, the size ohio. They are beheading journalists. They were um they were, they were killing Christians.

Um they controlled eight million people. They were planning attacks uh all over the world from there the coalition they were uh using the internet radicalize people. We had to sand burn dino shooting in america, we had the pulse nightly b shooting a in in orlandi and there was real threat.

And then you had iran, which was given one hundred and fifty billion dollars in a glide path to a nuclear weapon. And they, we're using their new file riches to fund hamas. The hot.

These are different. Rebels are all over through the region. They were looking to destabilize further. Syria was in a civil war where five hundred thousand people were killed, yemen was destabilized, a libya was destabilized, and IT was just a mess in all of america's allies had felt betrays president trump into power.

We rebuilt the the trust and relationships with all of our traditional allies, and we were able to eliminate, this is the territorial caliph, and then we're able to project strength in the region, really go after a rands wallet. We're able to stop a through through crushing sanctions, a lot of their financial resources, which they were using to fund all these terror roup. And so we're left the middle east with six p steals and in a fairly peaceful world. So seeing what's happening, think IT was completely avoidable. I think it's horrible to see that it's occurring, and I pray that those empowers will make the right decisions to uh to to to restore safety but also to potentially create uh a Better paradise uh, for peace in the future.

So I have a lot of questions to ask you about the journey towards historic progress towards peace would have a course, but first on the situation to step back, and some, the history. Is there things about the history of homes and gaza that's important to understand what is happening? now? Just your comments, your thoughts, your understanding of a moss.

I think you did nex ellon job likes of really giving the summary just a couple things. Maybe a lad to IT is that her mos was originally founded from the muslim brotherhood egypt um which is a group that caused a lot of issues in the region. Um they've they've attacked israel many times in the past. There's a lot of discussion about how israel is an occupying power. Well in gozen two thousand and five they withdraw motherland and then they say israeli an apartheid staple.

Israel then gave governance of the region to the palestinians and then what's happened is is the palestinian people's lives have now gone down, not up since then I will say that under um how mosses leadership uh in in gaza, the people have suffered the most of the palestinian people and I see I i've watched cries throughout and my time in government from people saying we want to see the palace anian people live a Better life. Agree with those people I think that the palestinian people on gaza are essentially hostages in in gaza you have basically two point you know two million people they're being held hostage by thirty thousand homos a terrorist and that's really the problem. And I would just encourage people to uh to push their attention and energy in this moment and their anger towards him as those are the people who are killing innocent civilians who are murdering and discriminative and those are the people who have held back the palace ini ans from having a Better life.

And just finally, what I would say is, you know, what we saw with a moss was that if you go back to two thousand and seven, they basically had just one plan that they did over and over and know we are very careful to try to monitor very closely and stop the iranian money in the resources from coming in. And again, we took a little bit of criticism from the international community from keeping the border tight. But unfortunately, every time you'd allow construction materials to go into gaza, they use them to build tunnels, not homes.

You would have equipment that would come in to build pipes. They turned IT into bombs. So he was very, very hard to figure out, how do you get the resources and to gaza to help people have a Better life, while the same time the leadership in gaza was taking all those resources and turning IT into military equipment to attack israel.

What world is around plane in this war, in this connection to homes? Can you speak to the connection meeting homos on iran? That's some point. Understand especially as this most recent attack unfolds?

sure. So the correlation, I mean, there's reports that iran is behind the attack. Hamster has thanked iran for their support and um and it's been very well known that iran supports the destruction of state of israel.

And I won't say iran as a country, i'll talk about iran in the leadership. There's actually a beautiful thing. I saw the internet where one of the soccer games and around they were trying to you know rally support for the homos uh terror attacks. And a lot of people in the crowds were chanting, no fu to the regime, because I think the iranian people, the person people generally are peaced loving people who don't want to see this focus on destruction and an isolation.

But you saw this in two thousand fifteen, two thousand and sixteen when iranian government had resources, the region was less safe and since, you know, now there's been more resources allowed to go to the iranian regime by lack of enforcement of sanctions and as a result, uh ran is funding hesba h hama's. Um they were funding the hood these now there's little bit of the town between saudi, iran, which is LED to that going down which only further proves that a ran was behind the hood is which is what the saudis had been saying for years and iran was denying. So there was a very strong relationship between the two. And we always knew that the way that iran fights wars or fights conflicts is never directly, as usually through its proxies. In this case, a homos has been A A proxy for iran who wanted to obviously see the destruction of israel, but also does not want to see the israelis and the saudis come together for a peace agreement.

So the name of this Operation, the hamas Operation, is alex a flood referred to the alex a mask. How much of this attack is about the alex a mask?

In actuality, I don't think any of IT is but the alex m mosques is something that um all of the uh sha ji hotz have used for years in order to justify their actions that are aggressive towards israel. So h this is something out maybe you can take a step back and go through. When I was working initially in my first year on the peace plan, I was doing a lot of listening, and quite Frankly, a lot of what people were saying to me didn't make sense.

And the reason why I was trying to figure out they were toying about sovereign a locks, a mosque, the ox a mosque is a mosque that's built in the holy of holes, the harm sherif, uh, in israel where the the jewish ta make dosh. H the holy temple was built in a very religious place about after the temple was destroyed um then there was A A big mosquitoes and it's one of the more holy places in islam now so so the big think everyone was saying is what you do with this land where you've a mosque built over a very big juice ice de. And I was hearing all of the experts and you know I go to say experts with quotes because only in washington can you work on something for a decade and continue to fail and then you basically even are considered an expert um but that's one of the problems of washington which maybe we can talk about later but the notion here was I went and I said, let me try to understand what the issue is with the israeli palatine.

Ian, conflict with the people, right? I we felt the politicians were little disconnected so I commissioned several focus groups, one in in a moon, one in caro, one dubai and one in rama, and I asked you people, muslims, what is this? What is the israeli palestinian flick about? And time and time again, the most popular thing that they said was that israel was not allowing access to the mosque for muslims to pray.

And what was interesting was is that israel's policy is to allow anyone who wants to come and pray peacefully at the sites to come and pray. Sometimes they have security issues when there's provocations. The byan large since one thousand nine hundred and sixty seven, when israel was able to take back to Russell m.

In a defensive war, just be very clear, they were attacked in the south, and they were tacked 啊 from from the east， and they are basically able to be back the Jordanians and the egyptians, and then reconquer the old city of jerusalem. And during that time, immediately after, israel then passed the protection of holy places law, which was, they basically took resources, didn't have, and they said, we're gonna restore the Christian sites, the muslim sites, the jewish sites, and they've worked to allow everyone access to the mosque. So today any muslim who wants to come can come and pray the mosque ah the mosque is um uh israel's acknowledge that king of dolla, uh the king of Jordan uh is uh is the custodian uh of of the mask.

And as long as people want to come to the country and pray peacefully, very able to do that. But if you look at a lot of the propaganda that's been used by ISIS or ran to to recruit um uh terrorists or to justify their incursions, they often say they're doing IT in the name of liberating the alex a mosque. But from an Operational and pragmatic perspective today, any muslim who wants to go to the mosque, you can bulk flight this world now through dubai I because there is flights betwen his room dubai.

And if long as your country has relations with this real though, except your passport in there, you can come in prae. And that's what is role wants, is role wants jerald to be a place where all religions can come and celebrate together. But you've a lot of actors that look to find ways to use these religious tensions in order to sow division and justify violent behavior.

I wonder how it's possible to lessen the effectiveness of that propaganda message that a lot of the war, a lot of the attacks about acto the alex a mask. Is there something you can speak to why that message hasn't disseminated across them? The air world.

So israel is good at a lot of things. They're not very good traditionally with public relations. Um you know after the April have accords, we made the first labor hama ords deal in August twenty twenty and then we made five other deals. We first to united rates, then we did to deal with bahrain, then we did deal with um kosovo, then we did a deal with um with sudan and we did deal with marco, and then we got the gcc deal done as well the the detention between guitar saud U A E egypt and barra in and that was allowing us to create a pathway to then pursue the israeli saudi Normalization.

So we had so much momentum than that the goal was just keep getting more countries to Normalize relations with israel once you create the connection between people and create the ability for people do business together, the ability for flights to fly between, then you should start naturally having people coming. And everyone has a smart phone today so they can then post and combat the uh the misinformation that's been out there. But this miss information is not something that's new you know one of the characters who played a very big role in in spreading the anti in the violence and uh in israel the thousand nine hundred twenty years was a guy named high Jamie who sani, who is known as the grand mufty of ju slum, he was very close with hillern muslin I and he was working with them to try to get some claims to middle ast once the jewish were annyways ted.

And what he did a for a very long time was he did the same stick, only IT was before yet, smart phones and youtube, where he would say, the mosque is under attack. These imperial scientists are coming in to try to destroy the mosque. And he would use that to raise money from indonesia, from pakistan all over the world, and then use that that threat to justify recruiting groups of Young, vulnerable, all muslim men, and then, you know, getting them in the name of of religious rights to go and kill people, which is not, which really is more of a perversion of the religion than, I think, the true essence of what islam is.

I think islam, ma, is core, is a peaceful religion. And I think that's where a lot of the great leaders in islam want to take IT. But the people who use. Islam or the the mosque as a justice action for violence uh those are people who I think are are really um they are disrespecting the island religion.

As you said, you helped make major strides towards piece in middle east with the braham accords. Can you describe what I took to accomplish this? And maybe this will help us understand what broke down a little to the tragedy this week?

Yeah, so you know, I always believed in foreign policy. I learned very quickly that the difference between a political deal and a business deal is that in a business deal, you have a problem that you come to a conclusion.

And then if you buy ourselves something you either have more can assure you have a company to be more, to do less, to do political problems that is very different, where you know the conclusion of a problem that is essentially the beginning of a new paradise. So when I would think about how do you, how do you move pieces around the board, you couldn't say, let me just solve the problem. You have to think about what happens the day after the signing and how do you create a paradise that has positivity to IT.

So the biggest piece of what president trumped during his four years in office was he really strength in the relations with israel. Number one. And he did things like, uh, recognizing jerusalem as the capital of a israel.

He moved the embassy to jerusalem. He recognized the goal on heights. He got out of the iran deal. Um we did an economic conference in bahrain where we brought israeli to meet with know saud and memorable and cati business men and everyone came together and and each one of these instances were unthinkable previously. And everyone said that if you did IT, the world was going to end.

And every time president trump did one, the next morning the sun rose, the next evening the sun set and things moved on. And so by doing that, what president trump did was he he slaughter a lot of the sacred cows of these, these false barriers that people had erected and showed people that the vast majority of the people in the middle ast, whether they are jewish, muslim, Christian, whatever religion they are, they just want to live Better lives. And so what we basically did was create a paradise where the voices for peace, the voices for together, now finally had a forum in where they're able to do IT.

And we did that in the backdrop that we were able to be successful was we severely limited the resources of iran, and they were focused more internally and they couldn't cause the trouble that they were causing everywhere else since we've left. Ed, obviously the dynamics have changed, but um the way you get to piece is obviously number ones through strength. The number two, by finding a way for people to be Better off tomorrow than they are today. And what I found was that most of the voices looking for violence or trouble were people who were just focused on what happened two years ago, twenty years ago, seventy years ago, one thousand years ago, people who are trying to solve those problems in that context, often where we're looking more to use those past grievances as a justification on for their power and for the bad behavior that they were looking to perpetuate.

So managing as we, I talked about extensively, managing the power dynamics of the region and providing a plan. This is something you did with the economic plan titled peace, prosperity of vision to improve the lives of the postini an and israeli people. Can you first all describe what's in the plan? sure.

So this was something I took on A I was working on the political framework between the israeli is in the palestinians and trying to understand what we're the issues and the issues where we're not very many basically was you had a land dispute.

You you had to figure out where do you put board is ultimately you had a security of paradise, which I was much more favorable to israel's perspective on a and obviously the events of the past forty eight hours fully justified that um that that bias um and then in addition that you had to deal to religious sites, but I felt Operational that wasn't actually as complicated as people made IT because you want to to just leave IT open for everybody. Then I went through and I I felt that the palsy ian leadership was fairly distinct tivy to make a deal because there was just this paradigm for the billions of dollars coming into the international community. And I think that they feared red, that if they made a deal, they would lose their relevancy internationally and the money would stop flowing into the country.

So what I tried to do is to say, you, my approach, when I would get into hard problems, say, how do I understand all the different escape patches? How do I try to eliminate them and then build the golden bridge? That becomes really the the only, but also the most desirable pathway for the decision makers to walk through.

And IT wasn't always hard and since as you have to go hold their hand or you tried to pick him up and walk across, but but, but a lot of these leaders are very reluctant to change. And the dynamics of the palestinians also were such that I think they were fairly stuck where they were. So we developed a business plan for gaza, the west bank.

We threw some, some improvements for Jordan, egypt as well. I was spaced IT off of the vision twenty thirty that they didn't study rabia, which I thought was a visionary document. I went back through this process and I studied basically every um economic project in the post world war two periods.

So we looked at what they did in south korea, why I was successful with some strong industrial planning. We look at japan, we look at singapore, we looked at pole and why I was successful. We spend a lot of time on the ukraine plan for the country and why IT wasn't successful. And that was mostly because of governance and corruption, which actually resembles a lot of what's gone wrong with the palestinians, where there's no property rights, there's no rule of law.

And what we did is we built a plan to show you, it's not that that hard, right in the sense that tween the west bank and gaza at five million people and and we put together a plan, I think that is about twenty seven billion dollars we got together a conference I had to head of attack. We had Steve swartz from black known came which was very gracious of them with all the leading arabic business men, the leading builders, leading developers and the general consensus of that um of that of that a of that conference was that this is very doable. You know, we think that for goals in particular, would cost maybe may be seven to eight billion dollars to rebuild the entire place.

We felt we could reduce the poverty rate, and half we can create over million jobs there. Um the only thing that people said was hosting a back wasn't israel. What was holding a back was governance.

And people wouldn't have confidence investing there with with the rule that that homos was was perpetuating. So I encourage people actually to look at the plan that was very thoughtful, one hundred eighty one pages. We went project by project.

Uh h project is cost IT out ah it's a real plan that could be implemented. But you need the right governance. And all of the different arab c countries are willing to fund IT, the international communities willing to fund IT because they're just been throwing so much money at the palestinians for years.

That's never been outcomes based. Their condition based has just been you know, entitlement money. And unfortunately, IT hasn't really achieved any outcomes that have been successful.

So it's a great business plan. IT just shows to rebuilding gaza. H could be easy. But like I said, you know, the problem that held the palestinian people back and that made their life terrible in gaza has not in israel. It's really been hamster leadership or lack of leadership, and they are desired to focus on trying to kill israelis and start war with israel over improving the lives of the apostle ian people.

And the current approach of a mos, the more violence they perpetrate, the more they can hold on to power verses improving the lives of people. So as you said, maybe you can comment on, they do not propose economics plan.

I mean, her mos has been running IT now for sixteen years, and they don't have a lot to show forward. And you know, our posture with them was basically a very simple deal. And if you think about what's the end stating gaza, it's actually not that complicated.

It's there's no territorial disputes, right? The borders, the border, there's no religious issues there is well, you know you're not dealing with rusalem. You're basically just dealing with the fact that um you know israel wants to make sure that there is no threat from gaza.

So it's A D militarization or some kind of security guarantee from a credible source where israel doesn't feel like gaza can be used to stage attacks into israel or to fire rockets and israel by the way, these are things I was saying no three, four years ago, that that was the objective, and that was really the fear. Now that's been proven. Unfortunately, the fear has has manifested and exchange.

You can rebuild the place and you can give the people a much Better life. But homos is not shown desire for that or a capability for that. And I don't think there's enough trust to allow them to do that, which is why you know into the term circumstances, if you do want to have peace there, homes has to be either eliminated or severely degraded in terms of their million military capabilities.

I would like to ask about leadership, especially on the outside united states, what is the the current administration administration on different and the trump administration as you understand ah that may have contributed to the events we saw this week.

So all I can talk about our are where we left them, right? We left them a place where they had tremens momentum in middle east.

I met with them during the transition and said, look, we even got the um the guitar a sauty conflict done which was a big no peace eee his own si would have been possible without that we even got that done in in our lame duck period and um and they came in and they said, look, we want to focus on the three seas which is code climate change in china I so that's that's great. But the middle east, we have an amazing place right now. stable.

There's momentum. Iran is is basically broke. We put such crippling sanctions on iran that they went from about.

But there was two point six million burials a day of oil they were selling to two, about hundred thousand under trump. So there they are, foreign foe currency reserves were basically depleted and they were broke. Uh, seeing with palestinians we stop the funding to uh to to the to to una, the U.

N. Agency, which is totally corrupt. It's it's we've put ten billion dollars in there.

Over time I did a poll um in middle east in gaza to say, you k we've invest ten billion dollars here as a country are very popular, right? The U S. Had a seven percent approval rating.

U S A I D. Had a seventy percent approval rating, but IT just felt like a waste of our taxpayer dollars. And again, we want to make a conditions base. The by administration came in a number one, they they started insulting neo saudi in russia. Oil Prices went up at the same time.

What they did was they stopped a domestic production uh of oil uh they made IT the distinctive vied uh a lot of oil and shale uh uh production ah with regulations. They stopped pipelines. Oil Prices went up.

Um they stopped enforcing the sanctions against iran, probably to get that oil Prices lower to make up for what they were doing. They ran ran to try to make a deal. They started funding the palace and again, right away and I even said if you're going to fund them, if that's your policy, I respect that again, elections have consequences and um you can take a different policy.

But what I would recommend this, get some conditions, make them do some reforms, make them, uh, give property rights to people, make them, you know, do real economic investments for people, but they just want IT right away. So they were funding the palace anian, non enforcing the sanctions and then overall, just projecting a lot of weakness in the region. So a one of the the most um embarrassin examples is what happened in the united armbands.

Again, an amazing pride, one of america's best allies over the last twenty thirty years. They fall with us in in afghanistan. They were the first muslim country to stand up and do that after nine eleven, because they didn't want to be a war of the west against against the muslim, muslim religions.

They joined the fight because they saw as a fight between right and wrong, they have rocket shot into their country, uh, from from, from, uh, from, uh, from from the hoods. And they basically don't get a call from the U. S.

For seventeen days. They need their equipment that they buy from the U. S, which creates job and us, they need to restocked. We don't call.

So they've severely degraded the trust that we had to rebuild with our alas, I think they've been working now to get IT back. They, after two years, started working with with saudi and israel. A, which I think was good.

You know, I think that they realized after A A stint, that may be the the process that president trump had created the region with the right policy. And keep in mind, president trumps policy was that I was working on was very strongly criticized. Uh, during the first three years before we were able to achieve the results because I was departure from the failed policies of the past.

And so first there was returned to those policies of peace, iran, let's criticize sati arabia. Then they started embracing and working on the israel sady deal, which I was was, was really exciting. I think we're all very excited about IT, but they did IT in public. And I think that that also was something, and I didn't have access to their intelligence. So I assumed that by doing IT so publicly, they thought that they either had a deal with iran because they were letting them get all this revenue or on wouldn't a problem.

But one of the reasons with the Abraham cords, we kept IT so quiet during the whole time was because we always felt like the trouble makers in the region, particularly iran, who we thought would be disadvantaged by having, uh U A E saud isle altogether, is, well, uh, a nuclear power, know other strong economies. Iran seeks instability. They seek looking to create division in the region.

And if you can create that economics sphere, we have security from hifa to moscow, t from israel to, among all the way through a saudi, Jordan, U A, E, qatar, a egypt. That's an incredibly powerful block. If you can make IT secure and then get economic migration, that really could be middle east that thrive.

So iran obviously wanted nothing to do with that and that's why they they ve been working to disrupt. So I think the administration has they took an incredibly stable situation with momentum. I think they underestimated um the the the way that iran would approach the region to undermine. I think they gave way too much rope to iran, and I think that they didn't seize when they had an opportunity of strength with the palestinians to try to drive to a conclusion that I believe could have prevented us us being where we are today. Not to mention that, no, even just three weeks ago. I mean, it's a bad look that they they just basically gave six billion dollars to iran in exchange for hostages and then iran's basically funding these terror attacks are killing american citizens of israel and and it's just it's it's a heartbreaking situation, again, totally avoidable and one that I think has been very badly mismanaged. The date.

if trump is currently president, you were still working with him on this part of the world. Would actions would you take? What conversations would you have? What ideas would you be working with in order to unite the the various allies that you mentioned in the middle east over this tragedy, and not let IT be a thing that divides the medal spot.

uh, make IT a .

thing that city's es progress towards peace, further progress towards peace.

So I want to say one thing, like have a lot of friends who fans of trump, not fans of trump, but one thing I want to say with absolute certainty is that if president trump was in office, this never would have happened. And when president trump was in office, anyone who supports israel uh or who wants to see you know jew h people not be innocence ally slaughtered uh he would never allow that to happen.

He did not happen when he was in power and I hope people I recognize that as as something that's that's very, very true um how I would play the ball where IT lies right now. Keep in mind we transfer the ball. IT was on the Green now it's almost like it's gone back you know hundred and fifty yard and it's in the sand trap.

I think the way that I would play the ball right now is number one, as you have to show strain that actually think present bidden words with the right words. And I see that they're moving aircraft Carriers to the region again, the purpose of having a strong military ah I believe obviously you if you get into a war, you want to win the war, but the purpose of a very strong military primarily is to avoid a war. I don't know what kind of credibility the by administration has a to show the strength, but right now you have to um support israel completely.

You have to really um let people on the region know that they'll be consequences if they, uh if they if they try to escalate again we saw a little bit rockets skirmish from lebanon from but again, this is the type of thing that they have to know. We'll be severe consequences if h they make this multi party fight. And I think sending a strong message to around, I think that they have to see some consequences from this and know that they're not gonna be allowed to have a free rain to cause instability and that, you know, an doesn't usually find face to face, they usually do at your proxy um but let's just all be honest about where this is coming from and let me know that there will be a consequence if they um if they instigate these actions.

And again, at least with the bite administration, they've had contact with iran, they've been talking with iran. But theyve a lot of ran aman again at the number I saw last year. I think another trump, the number was maybe like four or five billion dollars a oil revenue in in total, I think last year with something like forty five billion dollars in revenue this year, I think it'll be even more that's a combination of than driving a oil Prices but also allowing much more sales. You would think that they would find a way to get them to behave and allow them to to have this happen. Or if that's not the case, then be tough, go back to be tough, that's we have to do.

Building off of aham accords, as you mentioned, israel sadi nor mal ization, there's been a lot of promising progress towards this. What did they take to not allow this tragedy a damage? The progress towards israel, saudi Normal ization.

I think right now, it's probably not the best to think about that. I think that we want to think about that after whatever is gonna en is going to happen. Now I think right now, the number one priority for israel has to be to, uh, fully regain a security in the country.

And the number two is to figure out how you can I like I said, eliminate or degrade the homos capability or other iranian threats to make sure that you have your security apparatus. I think that the israel leadership right now should proceed uh with that and I don't think that they should be thinking about a Normalization was sauty at this moment. Um my instinct that i've been watching this israeli saudi un mizan play out, obviously just speaking with people and seeing what i've been reading um and watching with great excitement, I think that would be a game changer for the region.

I think it's it's one of on's worst nights res to have israel, saudi and you're link together. They could be great for the saudi people from a security perspective. What they're discussing with amErica would be very strong.

The ability to you get different elements across would be incredible. So but I would say with that is that the industrial logic um healthy yesterday and I think I will hold again tomorrow. So um I always expect countries to act in their interests.

I think that, uh, the deal that's on the table right now between saudi, israel and amErica is in saudi's interest, is in america's interest and it's in israel interest. What's going to happen now though is the political dynamics are gona shift. And I think that knows we've seen with political dynamics, they come and go.

I think um let's get through this moment um and then I hope at the right time that those talks will be able to resume and conclude in an appropriate way. And you know it's funny like when I was working on the U. S.

Mexico, uh, agreement for the trade, you know, we would have every day there be a you know a tweet that would go out or there would be an issue. Mean, people forget how how intensive was between amErica and mexico. And I would speak to my counterpart of mexico after a rough day, and we are working on something.

We are making progress if get lown up. And I speak to and say, you know that, look, they're not move in america. They're not moving in mexico.

Let's just but stop for the day. Let's pick up tomorrow. Let's find a new way to bring this forward.

So I would just encourage everyone working on that, not to give up, to keep working hard at IT and to find a way. But like I said, I would take a little bit of a pause for the time being. Let's let the current situation play out and then hopefully, it'll be a way for you to move forward.

I just hope there's still people on the U. S. Side picking up the phone and calling U E sadi ababa just as human beings, as friends, as allies and just keeping that channel going because, uh, maybe you can correct me, but I just feel like there's just simple human dynamics that play out here. The divisions conform and just run away from you over simple misunderstandings, over just inability to see a tragedy from the same perspective because of conversations that could have happened but didn't happen.

I think they'll definite be communication. But you know, words on phone calls, this is only worth so much. It's really trust between people and power. And obviously, when you're in a position of power, you represent your country and your country's interest. But the ability to have trusting relationships where people feel like they're OK taking you know more risks to help each other ah that's actually what's most important. So communication I hope for, but uh you know deepening interesting relationships, uh, that's what I believe makes progress and keeps people safe.

And we talk quite extensively about the value of trust and negotiation and just working with leaders, which I think is a fascinating conversation, and you've talked me a lot about that. Let me ask you about the end here. What are the various trajectories this work can take in your view? What are some of the end states, as you've said, which are desirable and are achievable?

I mention this earlier, but whenever I would get a problem set in government, I always think through, from a first principle perspective, what's the logical outcome, right? And forget about all the reasons why can happen. That's what everyone in governments always rush to talk about.

But I do think here, number one, israel has to have a secure environment where they don't feel threatened from from from guta. And number two is the people in gaza need to have an environment where they feel uh like they can live a Better life and have opportunity. So that's the end state. And so I think that the international community should come together.

I do think that the people who are usually putting blame on israel should now realized that maybe they have been a little bit of harsh share and that homos I has been a bigger threat, if not even even bigger thread and israel has been saying and I do think that if the international community comes together and you behind israel and really forces homos and the iranian backed ers to stop hostilities, to stop save rattling, to stop um misrepresenting uh the history uh in order to justify their violent behavior and if they say instead we want to hold you accountable, no more money and they all say that they're going to stand behind israel's efforts to eliminate uh their national security threats um and then we will all come together and only fund again into a framework that we believe can be a long term solution where the palestinian people really have a chance to live a Better life. That's really the best way to get there. There's tons of complicated and factors, but that's the end state that the global community should be looking to come together. And it's very achievable. It's very, very achievable.

So there's a as we stand here today, there's a lot of different ways that this work can evolve if the ground invasion happens by israeli forces of gaza and if the number is correct to one hundred thousand israeli soldiers, do you worry about various trajectories that can take uh of the consequences that might have of of an unprecedented ground tw attack?

Ah so ah I think there's a leader, you know you can change yesterday, but you have the ability to change tomorrow and that's a very important fundamental.

I mean that that's true all of us, not just leaders but you know we saw ve with with nine eleven how amErica was caught off guard h by terrorist attack um we acted um you know somewhat rationally, somewhat emotionally which LED to a twenty years war with trillion of dollars lost you know that but I think almost a million lives lost, not just american but all lives and IT was a total tragedy what occurred I think right now the temptation is to to be strong I think that that's that's an necessity. I do think eliminating risk is the right objective. I think the goal should be to stay very clear about what the objective is.

But also this attack was very well planned, not to walk into another trap. I think you have been very smart, very cautious. I've been happy to see that ah what you've been doing in retaliation so far has been somewhat measured and they have taken their time to try to assess, uh, what's achievable.

Again, I don't have access to the intelligence and we're talking at a very early stage in this conflict. So a lot had happened even by the time this is published. But um but my my hope is that um they'll just stay very fox on what the objective is and try to make sure that there acting appropriately in order to do that.

I will say this to that this has been different than what i've seen in the past and that the um the the attacks were so um haines and so so disgusting that i've seen the international community rally around israel more so than I ever have. And I hope that israel continues to keep the moral high ground and continue to communicate what they're fighting for, why they're fighting. And I do hope that the international community supports the objective and they can work together to achieve IT.

Benjamin, in ahoo. Bb, somebody i've gotten to know well in negotiation, in conversation, uh, he has made a statement, his declared war. He has a spoken about this potential being a long and difficult AR.

Ah, what have you learned about the mine in bedding em at yahoo? That might be important. Understand here in this current war.

bb is definite a historic figure. Uni meet with a lot of different world leaders, and some of I would say they are the very, very special transformational figures. And some, I would say how the healthy person running a country and B, B, somebody who has has done a lot with the state of israel.

He has a tremendous understanding of the security apparatus. He has tremendous global relations. So for a crisis like this, I think BBS the leader you want if you're israel to be to be in that seat, I think he's um he's ambitious and what he's gonna to achieve um he understands his role in history as somebody who's helped strengthen in israel economically military.

And I don't think he wants to see his legacy be somebody who left his room more vulnerable IT had to be so I think in that regard held be incredibly strong. But I also think that he'll hopefully be calculating in the rist that he takes um and not um create more risk than than needed. And that's easy to say you the two of us sitting here having a conversation when you're sitting in that chair is a leader in the fog of war.

It's a very very um it's a very hard decision to make. He's been here before. He, he, he knows the way to the situation.

I'm sure he knows the moment. And I pray that that he'll do what's right here to bring the best out. impossible.

I wonder if you can comment on the a internal political turmoil that B B I has been Operating in and how that relates to the a the tragedy that we saw.

On the one hand, the political turmoil is um it's a sign of a viBrant democracy. I think it's been um actually nice to see how people have fought for their country in their beliefs in a democratic way. You compare that to the palestinians where there is no democracy, there's no free speech um there's no free press um you know you can disagree with with the leadership.

You know in israel if you want to be if you want to be homosexual, you can have a um you can have to go to a parade and live your life in hot in gaza thell throw you off a building and kill you with so so in israel you have the freedoms which I think make IT a special place and you have a very viBrant democracy. With that being sad, you know the times in jew's history where the jewish people have been most vulnerable have been when there's been division and that's when the temple is destroyed. But that's not just with the jew's people with israel.

That's in all society. So I definitely believe that this division has left them less prepared for the situation than I would. I do think there is real lessons we should be taking from this here in america, where where in a time were very divided. But I do think that ah IT be very wise for our leaders to find the areas where we do agree and find ways to know, secure southern border order to make sure that we know who's in our country, what risks 啊？ 吴 耀 飞， and I do think that the division definitely creates risk for countries.

Let me swish gears here in just a zoom out and look at our society, in our public discourse at the moment. What do you make of the scale and nature of the palestinian support online in response .

the situation this is something i've observed over the years since I gun involved with a the israeli palestinian issue um with a lot of interest um I think a lot of the people who are pledging support for the palestinian people, I think that they want to see the palestinian people live a Better life. And I actually agree with them in that regard. Unfortunately, I think many of them are incredibly ill informed as to the facts on the ground.

I think all of the people who are advocating online for the palestinian people, who who are know going to these marches and support of them ah， I think the'd be Better served if they really care about eventuate the outcome of joining with uh with this role right now and directing their anger towards the homos leadership. I think that it's very clear that the group that's responsible for the palestinian people living the lives that all these people are angry about is a mos. And if they direct their anger towards a moss and put the attention on the fAilings of a moss and put forth vision for what the'd like to see leadership in goa do, and they respect that there's a real fear that israel has, and any country would have, of having a group of terrorists next to them that's calling for their destruction. I think that that recognition of finding a way for israel to be secure and then having a an opportunity for the palestinian people live a Better wife is the right pathway to try and pursue.

So to you, there's a clear distinction between homos and the post ian, people in that harasses, the enemy of progress and the flourishing of the palestine, an people hundred percent.

It's very, very clear. And I think that if people were honest about the situation, if they spent a time to really understand IT again, you know, if you follow the conference I did of our rain, we had all of the leading businessmen there, and they said, we can rebuild gaza very easily. We all want to the lead.

Our business man, leading american business man. Everyone wants to. They're just held back by him, moss. And so I do think having an honest conversation about this at this point in time has really only one logical conclusion. And my hope is that maybe this conflict leads to that conversation being had. And if IT is, then maybe that brings more unity and understanding, and we kind of get to a conclusion Better that could improve the lives of the past in indian people.

Magmatic question about the future, do you hope Donald trump winds in twenty twenty four in how can his administration help bring peace to the midday east?

I think when Donald trump was president, we had a peaceful world. Everyone said if he was elected, we would have world, world three. Meanwhile, he gets elected.

And he not only is the first president in decades to not start any wars, he's making peace deals. He's making trade deals. He's working with our allies, getting them to pay their fair share.

And nato, he's, you know, having a dialogue with china, with russia. He is weakening iran. And so I do think that the job he did as a foreign policy president was tremendous. I think you know, now more, more people are starting to recognize that again, under president biden, this is the second war that's broken down the world and when you have a weak american leadership, the world becomes a less safe place and so my hope and prayers are are that um that the president trump is reelected and that is able to then restore uh order and calm and peace and .

prosperity to the world from .

a place of strength let's the only .

way he knows how to do IT what gives you hope about the future of this region of israel .

and of the middle of the middle for twenty years was an area of conflict. They spent all their money on bullets and bombs. Um you have Young leadership now in sadi rabia A U A E and guitar.

And there is a much more ambitious agenda now for the region to make IT an economic superpower and hub of the world. Israel is one of the most burgeoning and exciting tech economies in the world. And if you think about IT, it's almost like having a silk valley not connected to california.

The thing that held the region back for all these years has just been the conflict and the division and the lack of connectivity. But if you have that region, if we can all come together, if you can create a security architecture, you have an incredibly Young population, you have a lot of wealth and resources and a lot of capabilities and and know how. And so I think that if it's managed correctly and a iran is is is able to be restrained and suppressed with their ambitions to cause um this stabilization.

I don't mean around the country, I mean the iranian regime. Because actually once you have this economics fear, if you could bring a rq into IT, if you could bring a ran into IT, that makes IT even bigger and stronger. And the person people are incredibly an incredibly industrious.

So I do think that the region has tremendous potential. It's just been held back by bad policy, bad leadership, bad objectives. And again, you know, when president trump left office and you know two thousand and two thousand twenty one, the midday east was really on a very, very positive trajectory. And if the right things happen, IT can continue to be so. So i'm praying at this moment in time that ah we navigate the current crisis that the important objectives are achieved of eliminating the terrorists and their threats and then allowing the leaders who are focused on giving their citizens and and their neighbor's the opportunity to live a Better life are able to work together, really dream and be ambitious and find ways to create a paradise where humans can flourish.

What is the best way to defeat hate in the world?

Hates is a very powerful force, and it's much easier to hate people you don't know. Um it's funny when I was working on prison reform, one of the most interesting people I met was A A reference actually down in texas who negotiated the first uh truth between the bloods and the crops are two of the notorious games in amErica in prison.

I was very excited to meet him and when I met him, I said, well, well, had you do IT and he says, is very simple. He says, I got all the guys together and I I had a tremendous matt, a barbecue brought in, he says, and I got the meeting is no drinking. Drinking sometimes gets people a little bit war against each other, he says.

But I got a meeting and they started sitting down together and they started saying, you know, you're just like me. And all the sudden, they started finding areas where they were more together. Look, i've traveled all over the world now.

I, I, i've been very fortunate to meet people from different states in america. I've different political persuasions, different ages, different classes. And what I found is that there is a fundamental driving amongst all of us where we all want to live a Better life.

And you know people don't want to fight naturally, but it's easy to fight when you feel wrong or you feel like somebody disrespected you or somebody did something um from hatred and and hatred leads to more hatred with sometimes just pushes that cycle further and further. So I believe that each and every one of us has the power to stop that cycle. And we don't do IT by you being on twitter and Young at people.

We don't do IT by just being critical. We do IT by finding the people we disagree with, by listening to them, by asking questions, by sitting with them. And then if we each take responsibility to try to make the world Better, then I think that there's no limits to the incredible place that this world can be.

So as you've said, you travel all across the world. You think most people are good. Most people have love in their heart.

I do believe that you have some bad people. I mean, you have some real leval people. I mean, a big part of the work I did was on a prison reform. And you know, previously, the mentality was as that the prison should basically be a warehouse for human trash.

And if you ve made a mistake in this world, then we're going to throw you out and we're going to make the rest of your life incredibly difficult because you're to have a criminal record. You're not can have access to jobs. But what I found is when I would sit with people in prison, the people I met through my father's experience, and if I met along the way, is that no, people make mistakes, are all human.

I think it's the right thing from religious perspective to give people second chances. Um I always believe you shouldn't dge people by the worst mistake they make in their life. Unfortunately now the area of social media people will say one wrong thing that sticks with them rever they get cancelled or or they get put out real humans.

We grow from our mistakes. We learn from our mistakes. And I think that um some people are just just evil. There are some evil people. But I do think the vast, vast, vast majority of people are good.

Um and I do think that people sometimes also can be in a bad place and the society can push them to a worse and worse place. But we all the power to make them feel love, make them feel heard and and I think there's also tremendous power that we have as people to a to help people get to a Better place. And so you know my wife and I, we've always tried to be a force for good.

We've always tried to be um know we've always try to provide a place where people can discuss with each other. When we were in washington, we would host dinners at our house all the time where we would have democrats and republicans sitting together. You know, we just had, I saw a senator, fine steam just passed away.

We had a great dinner at her house when he was a senator, or her, her husband, and mark metals when he was on the freedom caucus. When we are actually a fascinating discussion about iran, mark was much more hard mine than me. I would actually bite my tongue.

I was impressed that how much he did was fancy her husband. We're like, super in tub. You know, they knew the iranians well. They thought they were peaced loving and IT was an incredibly robust and respectful debate.

And so um I don't think we may be concluded anything that night, but I was interesting for people to get together having a dinner in my house where had a dict derby. Know the number two ranking democrat in the senate, lenny gram and Stephen Miller, who's known to be a very hard line and immigration, discussing what immigration reform could look like. I mean, they left that dinner.

Thank wow. We hadn't spoken to people on the other side and we actually agree on like eighty five percent of things, like maybe something possible. And so I believe that we should always be trying to pushed to make the world a Better place. And you only do that by by listening to people and and connecting with each with people and by respecting people.

And finally i'll just sound this is that you know I meet people all the time who have so much confidence in their perspectives and um i'm very jealous that that these people are able to be so confident about every single thing because for me I have to some degree of confidence in the things that i've studied and what i've learned but i'm always trying to find you know people who disagree to kind of sharp in my perspectives and to help me grow and to help me learn further. And so I think that kind of the beauty of the world is that, you know the knowledge base continues to grow, the facts continue to change and was possible tomorrow, uh, continues to become different. And so uh as humans, we have to continue to to thrive to to learn and to grow and to connect. And if we do that, everything possible.

Well, gee, thank you for your compassion, first of all, but also your wisdom today in this very difficult, this tragic set set of advance. These difficulties for the world is a big honor to speak with you again. H every time I speak you ah I learned a lot about the world and I I deeply appreciate, like I said, that you humility and your understanding of the details uh of all the complex power dynamics and human dynamics that are going on in the world once again, thank you for talking today.

Thank you and likes if I could say just one final thing, which is that my thoughts and prayers are really with all the people in israel and and the innocent civilians as well on the palatines inside and my prayers are with the idea of soldiers that they should be safe and they should be um really watched my god, to accomplish whatever mission will enable to make the world a safer place .

thank you for listening to this newly record segment of the conversation that addresses the current situation in israel, gaza and now we go on to the second part of the conversation recorded on thursday, october faith, giving your experience and negotiating with some of the most powerful and influential leaders in the world. What's the key to negotiating difficult agreements in jail politics? And start with a big question.

If I look back on the different negotiations I had when I was in government, either with leaders of countries, with representatives of leaders, or even with members of congress to pass legislation, the most important thing I would draw back to would be trust, I think getting to know each other, understanding what was motivating the other party to get to the outcome, and making them feel like you weren't going to use whatever information they gave you to benefit yourself at the expense of them is probably what I would call table stakes to have a shot at accomplishing anything that was hard in negotiation.

After that, I would say taking maybe a first principles approach to what the outcome of whatever problem you are looking to solve should be. Now you have different kinds of negotiations. I always try to create a framework in the negotiation where IT wasn't me against due.

IT was always, let's agree on what the outcome is that we're trying to accomplish. Let's all sit on the same side of the table and say we want to get to this outcome. How do we get there? Really trying to create a road map.

And so once you understand the destination, you want to get to the end point, then you'd have to work backwards and really try to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand what were their motivations. Mack road, most of the time, yet to assume that a leader's primary objective was to stay in power. And so all decisions made would be made through the framework of what they would take to to do that and how would impact their ability to do that.

And then finally, I would just say that in any negotiation, you have to understand the power dynamics as well, and you have to then weight your approach in order to manuvre pieces to accomplish the objective. And so in areas where we had stronger power dynamics, I always look at IT and say, what are the potential escape routes where a politician would say, this is just the reason why we can't get there. And I always think, how can you try to eliminate those escape routes or make them a charter to accomplish? Then ultimately, think about what's the golden bridge that you want to create for them in order to get to the other side where they were motivated to get there.

Because I was in their self interest to get there, but also because IT helped accomplish the different objective. And I have many examples that, that I live through with that, obviously negotiating in congress for for prison reform. I had to form a lot of trust with a democrats weather rose who kem jefferies or dick derbin.

And then also on republican side with um I had mike lei at lenny gram, I had tim Scott h senator grasses and then also duck Collins in the house was tremendous. And you every time we manuvred something we would get attacked either from the left know there's a time we ve were being attacked by you know Nancy polloi, john Lewis ah for not being you know inclusive enough. And then there were times that we do for that we'd be attacked from the right for maybe going too far.

And ultimately we'd had to find just the right place where we can get IT done. And the same thing happened with, uh, U. S, C. A, where we were negotiating the biggest trade deal in the history of the world, which was one point three trillion dollars an annual trade between mexico, canada, the united states of america.

And we are able to form good trust with the other side and try to say, how do we create when, when outcomes, and ultimately, we'll able to do something in a record time that people thought was very a hard to do in both of them. In a divided time of the trump administration. We're by partisan wins with with big, big vote in the senate, in the house.

You have A A lot of story of this kinds, sometimes a soft approach, sometimes a heart approach like this. I think the story, where would bb? There was a potential like a dramatic election coming up, and you had to say, no, no excuses, no delaying.

You have to, we have to make this agree. I know bb cares about is a more than the particular dynamics of the election. I get to draw hard line there. Yeah.

but unfairness to like know for him during the time that we were dealing with him, he was always in election verse election and the election. And you know, what he was saying wasn't wrong, and I think he was more expressing his concerns given the dynamics. And we never held those concerns against him.

We just said those are real concurrency had we respected those concerns, but then we helped him prioritize to help accomplish the right things. And that's ultimately what the partnership is right up. My job is to represent america.

His job is to represent israel. And you had other parties representing their own interest. And as long as you assume that, you know, people are acting mostly in good faith, you able to navigate areas where you didn't have complete overlap of priorities and objectives.

Just to go back to the trust thing, you sometimes see that with leaders, whether kind of IT looks like they're trying to score over the other person when they're talking. And so not having that, I think, is a really powerful thing for earning trust like that. People actually can believe that the results driven and are working towards a certain end.

Is there like a skill to that? Like what is that genetics you're born with that? Or is that something like you develop? So basically, IT requires you to look at the game of politics and not have a kind of cynical m about IT. Whether body's trying to manipulate and actually just going with a come out, open mind and open heart, actually speak truthfully to people like gna basic human level.

I would say that I always would think about how can I be a partner to others like I would want somebody to be a partner to me. And a lot of IT comes from just my different experiences in business. I've had great partners.

I've had terrible partners. My father, uh you know again, a lot of my my childhood was I was exposed to business. My father, um you know on sundays you would take us to to job sites into the office with him instead of the football games like my friends and fathers would do.

And so we were exposed to business. And what he would say about his father, who was immigrant to america, came over with nothing and no formal education. But he would always say, a good deal with a bad partner will always be a bad deal. And a bad deal with a good partner, you'll figured that out. And so going through some of the chAllenges and that I had in my life early on, whether IT was the issue with with my father of that will i'm sure will talk about uh or even going through some you know tougher financial times during the great financial crisis, I really learnt a lot about partnership. And I always thought, how can I act in a way where I could be the type of partner or friend to others that I wish others would be to me?

So when you look for a good partner, don't you think there's the capacity for both good and bad in every person? So when you talk, when you negotiate with all these leaders aren't like multiple people are speaking to inside one person that you're trying to encourage city's like the goodness and the human yeah.

So so the leaders are generally chosen by their country. And so my view was, if I had an objective, I ddt, get to choose who is the leader of other countries. My job was to deal with that leader, understand their strange, understand their weaknesses, understand their power dynamics as well.

You know, one of my greatest takeaway, I grow up. I read the newspapers about all these powerful, famous people. And then as I got older and have the chance to meet them and do business with them, and then ultimately interact with them in government, as I realized that they are just like you and me, they wake up every morning and their kids are pissed at them.

Their wife doesn't want to talk with them, you know. And they've got, you know, a set of advisers around them, one saying you, let's go to war. One saying, let's make peace. One saying, do the deal. One, don't do the deal.

And they're all thinking, where do I get advice? How do I make decisions? And so understanding the true human nature of them, and then the different power dynamics around them, I thought, was very key. And so I didn't have a choice to deal with them or not. IT was a function of how do you deal with them effectively in order to find areas where you have common interest and then work well together to pursue those common interest in water to achieve a certain goal.

You visual, you're incredibly well. Red, i've got to know you and i've got to know of ala, and the book recommendation list is just incredible. So first all, thank you for that.

You told me about the guns of August by Barbara talk. Man, it's a, it's a book on world one. And I went down the whole rabbit hole there.

I an incredible historical. Anyway, there's a bunch of stuff you learn from that. But one of the things you told me is IT influences a general approach to diplomacy of just picking up the phone and giving IT a try. So, as opposed to planning and a strategizing, just pick up the phone.

So, so this was a book I read, uh, way before the notion of serving in government, uh, was ever even on my mind or a reality. And I remember thinking about IT reading, get in thinking how world or one started where you had somebody was assassinated, and then you had all these different alliances that were created. And then in order to accomplish objectives, IT triggered.

All of these are people getting in bed with everyone else because of documents that. Were created without the intent of going to a massive war. And I think in the course of world, world one was one of the greatest uh, atrocities is that we've seen as humanity, we've had sixteen million people killed in the war.

And I was, I was reading the book. I remember thinking to myself, even though, you know, things are set in a certain way, go sit with somebody, go talk to them and say, this doesn't make sense. This is wrong.

How do we create a Better pathway? And as a civilian, all my life, I would read the newspapers. I I would, I would, you know, observe how different leaders would act.

But when we had the opportunity to serve in government and have the position, you realize you're not a civilian. You don't have the luxury of sitting back and letting the world happen the way it's happening. You have agency and you have, uh, the potential to influence the outcome of things.

And one thing i've seen as most political progne stickers are wrong. Anyone who tells you what's going to happen really is no clue and it's not because they're bad or they're not intelligent. It's because no body knows.

And at the end of the day, the outcomes in the world are usually driven by the decisions of of humans. And if you're able to come together, form relationships, listen to each other, uh, you can do that. And one of the great examples that I speak about the book is with north korea, whether, if you remember, in two thousand and seventeen, IT was very intense when present, obama was leaving office.

He told president trump that the single biggest fear that he had, and this is the time when the world was a mess, you had the middle east was on fire. ISIS was the padding journalists and killing Christians. That to califano size of ohio, liba was the stabilized, yeah, was the stabilized theory, was in a civil war, or five hundred thousand people were killed.

The ran was on a quite path to a nuclear weapon. Yet the single bike sphere he had was north korea. Then he got compounded by the fact that we gan to office, and president and trump brings his generals around, and he, you know, learning how to interact though the generals, and says, okay, what are my options and I said, come down where we've been using over ammunition in the middle east.

We don't have enough ammunition to go to war over their interest. Let's not let that be. Do public. Let's try to restock and come up with the plan. And at the time, there is a lot of banter back and forth and you know, was able to I got ta call from a friend who was a little business contact who actually had done business in north korea.

And he said, you know, i'd love to find a way to self this not going call from friends at the time thing i'm trying to go hawaii for a vacation, should I not be going is is not safe. I mean, we forget, we forget the psychology yeah of how intense that was at the time. And then through the interaction, he called some of his context in north korea.

Then we eat LED with the CIA, open up a back channel that ultimately LED to the the d escalation, the meeting tween trump in kendon und which LED to A D escalation. So that was really the mindset, which was when ever there is a problem, just pick up the phone and try. And I think president trim had a very similar approach, which was, let's let's give you a shot.

And he wasn't afraid to go after the hard ones too. And i'll say one final thing on this, which is that in politics, the incentive structure is just much different than in the real world, right, in the sense that you have a hard problem. And if you try to solve a hard problem, the likelihood of failure is great.

Wherein the business world, if you're going up to a hard problem, we celebrate those people. We want our entrepreneurs and our great people to go after solving the big hard problems. But in politics, if you try to take on a hard problem, give a high likelihood failure, you'll get a lot of criticism on your path way of trying to accomplish that if you fail, and that if you fail, that has a higher probability of leading to you losing your opportunity to serve. And so is just one of these things where people want to play its safe, which is not the notion that that that really was taken during the time that president trump s in office.

You think he has to be that way? I think I think there's something in in the human spirit, like in the public, that desires politicians to take big, take on the big bold problems, right? Like why? Why is the opposition be so afraid of failure?

I don't think IT has to be that way. And that's, I think, one of the great lessons from the time and of the the trumpet administration. He brought a lot of people from the business world into government.

Uh, the business people have a much different mindset than government people, and there is a lot of resistance. And I think part of why there is so much resistance was because I think about IT. My personal sense was that if I was successful with no traditional qualifications to do diplomacy, IT meant that all the people with traditional qualifications and diplomacy didn't necessarily inde those qualifications in order to be successful.

And that same, that same sentiment manifested itself in many areas in government and and I think that in the business world its its outcome oriented, its results oriented. And you know what we would see in in new york is there they would step you in the eye and dc, they would step in the back. And they just became a whole different dynamic of of how you work through these different areas.

So the answer is IT doesn't have to be that way. You just need the right courage of leader. And that's why i'm so optimistic about what the future of amErica in the world could be if you have the right people in power who are willing to take on the right chAllenges and do IT in the right way.

So if if we just link the north korea in the description, the meeting, what's the trajectory from, this could be the most astrop hic thing that destroys the world to you find back channels, you start talking and start ranging the meeting. Is there some insights you can give to how difficult is to do in that in in the north korean case, which seems like to be one of the more closed off parts of the world? And any other cases that you work on?

Ah it's it's always very chAllenging and especially when you're going against the grain of what's established, right? We did something different to think that an old business contact that I could then do IT me. That's the type of thing that if the press knew what we were doing, they would have no derided IT and criticized IT in every which way.

But that was one of the benefits of Operating very much below the radar, is that we were able to trial these different things. And not all of them work, but some of them did. And if that is what's amazing about the world, right, this could be the biggest story on the front page of every paper.

And they're exciting fear and everyone. And it's not a legitimate fear. I mean, there were missile test, you know, over over japan. I know you had a lot of a very chance, big chAllenges with that file and then all the sun, we make contact, we go through negotiations to set a meeting. There's a meeting between president trumps, kim jung gn and then all the sudden there's there's a framework um to try and move things forward um and again, I think that there's a lot of possibility there for what could happen if it's worked in the right way.

I want to know like how you word that first email or text message, like what emogene to use, like the hugging mog. I is just personally i've got to know a lot of powerful and a rich people and just is funny that they're all humans, just like you're saying. And like a lot of the drama, a lot of the promise can be resolved just like a little Candy, a little kindness, a little like just actually just reaching out.

We're all human beings, and people want to be successful and people want to be good. And and you're right to there's there's way more emotionally involved in diplomacy than I ever would have expected.

But in every letter, i'm sure has their favorite emote. This is also, I learned about people they use like that everybody has there go to M O G. Like as you go to the heart very quickly, they're mog. There's some people to go to hugging, whatever that what you are like to the hugging thing. Anyway, this conversation quickly turned to the ridiculous.

But to do another book reference, you mentioned the book thirteen days in september by allowance, right? Well, in discussing all the work you've done in in israel in the midst east, I just want to ask you of the interesting aspect of that book, which is the influence of the personalities and personal relationships on these negotiations. You kind of started to lue to that with the trust. But how much do the personality y's matter in this to go from north korea to the middle last year to within congress on all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, completely in every way. I mean, that's an incredible book and it's a very entertaining read that obviously a lot of good historical context on some of the key player is whether is on more sada or an okba, an a jyne Carter and savant and a lot of the others who were involved with those negotiations. And the thing that I kind of took from that experience was just how personal was. And and you get to one of my favorite stories from that book was how on where dot, who was a big, big leader, he had a amytis, who was, according to this book, again, history. I I like reading IT, but I always, you know, realized that you have to notice that this is just the perspective of given author that's writing IT.

But the way that they write this book was that he hadn't advisor who is a myke and the mistake was having a back channel with the israelis and the mystic told a dot, if you go to israel and you make a speech at the connect, bacon is ready to give you the sign I and so um he goes to is really, really set this whole thing up he goes and gives the connected they go for their meeting after and said, that is okay. Well, we gna do this thing and being is, what are you talking about? Am I giving you an inch of of our land? And IT was just one of these things.

Where is a missing unica that brought about the symbolic visit of unorthodox israel? And that was one of these notions that just made everyone think that something was possible, that they thought was impossible. A moment before and actually we had an example like that during our time in government when we did the Abraham accords.

Uh the first step of the accords was really a phone call between president trump, prime minister and and yahoo and humid benz I had at that point with the crown prince and the fact a ruler of the U. A. E.

But all we had was A A phone call and then a statement that was released. And what was interesting after that is we said, okay, well, how do we into great countries? Nobody's done this in a long time, and we are trying to figure out all the issues.

And there is big communications with israel in U. A. E. And we are navigating through all the issues. And so after a couple of said, you know, i've got to go over there and try to sort through this issue so we make a plan to go to israel and go to ua and then a Young gentleman worked with me named Bobby berk.

T says, well, for flying for miserable UI, instead of flying on a government plane, why don't we see if we can get an L, L. Plane and will do the first official commercial flight? And so I said, that's a great idea.

Let's call, you know, basotho A U if who was a tremendous play on the abram accords, working behind the scenes in a day and night, and was really a big, a big catalyst. He calls you. So he said, sure, no problem.

Give you a shot. So, so we can. We do IT.

He says, if we can work at these issues, what will do IT? So we go to israel, we do our meetings, we get everything back into a good place. We set up this, this this trip over.

We find an oil plane we filled up at the time I was during cover with a health delegation. We had the financial ministry because we have to open up, you know, banking relationships, they aware money between countries, uh, we want to get, you know, health partnerships. And we just had a lot of legal things and national security things we want to start putting together.

So we do this flight and we end up landing in U. A, E. And the picture of us coming off the plane being greeted by um you know embodies and tubes with A L L plane with this reality flag on IT just captured everyone's imagination.

And so as one of these things where it's like you work so hard on the details in the negotiation, I mean, hundreds of hours to kind of make sure everything perfect than the one thing that you do, kind of, you know, we will give you a shot. That image ended up capturing everyone ee's hard. So going back to the dod, that visit was very critical.

And what was interesting was, is according to this book, IT happened because of a missing unicef's. That was the first part. The second part of the book is just amazing theater. And actually the book was based on a play, was just going back and forth with all of the the different methodologies that they tried that failed, but they kept trying out IT and then ultimately seeing how the personalities raped of fine ways to make the compromise. That ultimately was a very, very big thing for, uh, more stability in the middle east. And so amazing book I would hardly recommended, a very entertaining read and and something that at least gave me encouragement to to keep going when the task I was pursuing seemed so.

so, so large. And if you just linger on the personalities you write in the book that words matter, or you write in the context of saying in the diplomacy business, words matter, and then you said that where in the results business is a bad airline. But but if we just stick to the diplomacy business and words mattering IT seems like one of things you really highlight, that individual words can really have, like you can fight over individual words. So like, how do you Operate in the world where like single words matter?

I think you have to be respectful to the craft that you're in where words matter, but then realized that they don't matter as much, and then also focus on the fact that, you know, the actions are actually what's gona matter more than the words. And so you have a difference between leaders and politicians. And politicians are there to say the right thing and to hold the power.

Leaders are people who are willing to do things that will be transformational from my perspective. And so when I would think about diplomacy, words without actions or without the threat of actions, and that was something that president prompted very well, was that people knew that he was willing to take action. He was very unpredictable and how he would act, and that made our words much more effective in what they did.

So it's all a combination. But you know coming from the private sector, we are all about results, right? If you're in government, you can work on something for ten years and fail and then retire.

And they consider you an expert in the private sector. If you work on something for ten weeks and you don't have a success and you're unemployed, you know. So it's a different kind of notion. And and I was just understanding the mentality and trying to adjust and and bridging the divides between the different trainings.

Is that the biggest thing you took from your business backroom is that just be really result focused.

IT was just the only way to be, I mean, if I was giving up a nice life into york and if I was giving up the stuff that I really enjoy, the company that I had help build and the the life that I was enjoying in order to do government, I was going there to make a difference. And we had to focus on at the other skill sets. So there was a couple skill sets that I found were quite efficient in government.

Uh, first of all, there was a tone of amazing people. I mean, people talk about the bureaucracy. What I found was as you had incredibly committed, uh, passionate, intelligent, capable people all throughout the government and what they were waiting for, the was direction um and then cover in order to get there.

And so there are a lot of tasks that I worked on, whether IT was building the wall, the southern border where I was able to work with um know customers, border control, um you know army core engineers, uh military D H S professionals, D O D and we basically all came together. And then once we had a good project management plan, we were able to kind of move very, very quickly. I think we built about four hundred and seventy miles of barter barrier run about two years basically.

And that was very that worked very well because we basically brought private sector project management skill sets, which uh which were quite often missing in government. The second one is just we spoke about negotiation earlier. I would say that most people in government is just a different form of negotiation that you see in the private sector and way less effective in that regard, which is why I think it's good.

The more we can encourage more people with private sector experience to do a stinting government and to really try to contribute and serve their country that our founders mean, to which washington and all the the founding fathers they feel working on their farms, they they left their farms serve in government and they went back to the farm. And that was kind of the design of, you know, the representative government. IT wasn't a career political class. IT was now people coming in to, you know, show gratitude for the freedoms and the liberties that they enjoyed and then do their best to have you know, help others have those same opportunities that they had and then they go back and live their lives. And so um so I think that there's a lot of opportunity with our government of people with more business mindsets who we're going to think about things from a solutions uh perspective, go and serve.

Is that one of the main problems? There's you. You also mention the book the great degeneration by a neel ferguson and awesome historians. But on this podcast, IT helped to understand the inefficiencies of government regulation. I'd love IT if you can give an insight into why government is so inefficient at times. And when IT is inefficient, when IT doesn't work, why is that the case? The bureaucracy that you spoke to, the negative aspects of the remote racy.

So we don't have enough time on this podcast to go into IT, but it's look, there's there's a lot of aspects that work as well, right? But I do think we've gotten too big nels's book that you mention.

No one of the things that I took from that I read that I think in in two thousand and twelve, right, kind of in the middle, the great financial crisis was he was talking about how government regulation often was put in place to deal with old crisis, right? So was never going to solve future problems. IT was more to kind of create to solve problems that had happened in the past.

And I remember thinking about that. One thing I was very proud of of the work of the trumpet administration was that you had four years consecutively where there is a net decrease in the cost of regulations. So give you context.

In last year of obama, two thousand and sixteen, there were six million man hours spent by the private sector complying with new federal regulations. And that's not really what the intent of our government was, right? If we have rules or regulations, they should be legislated by congress.

They shouldn't put in by, you know, by bureaucrats who are basically saying, I want to follow the objectives, so using kind of the power of the pen in order to do that. So the deregulation effort was actually very critical to trumps economic success that happened to the beginning of the administration. And then what I saw with regulation was any time either there was legislation or regulation coming, the people pushing forward were usually the people who would benefit from the regulatory captures.

So you had these you know, you look at, you know, the great financial crisis, where you have these big banking reforms, or what happened during the big banking reforms, then you had a big reduction in the manner banks that occurred in. The big banks became even bigger, whereas I don't think that was the intention of the legislation. But the people who are writing the legislation and influencing IT had a lot of the constituencies from those larger institutions.

And then what happened as a result of that? A lot of the smaller institutions didn't have the ability to be as competitive. They are more restrictions, more cost.

They became less profitable. But these were the banks that were serving small business, which is the biggest creator of jobs in our country. And then as a result, the bigger banks come more powerful.

And what happened in the country as a result of the the regulations that they put in place. The wealth gap in the country grew IT in shrink. And so I think of often times what they say these regulations are intended to be, the result often becomes the opposite.

And so you know what? What president trump did in his administration was they did a massive deregulation effort, and I think they pledged that for every one regulation they put on, you do need some regulation in an economy and in a society they would take off to. And in the first year, they eliminate eight regulations for everyone.

And so, so that was just something I took from IT, which which was, I thought, very interesting. And you had to really, I think you have to think through what are the consequences going to be if the different actions you take? And often government gets IT wrong by taking an action that feels right but has big negative consequences down the road.

Let's go to some difficult topics. Are you wrote in the book by your experience with some very low points in government? Um you've been attacked quite a bit of one of the ones that stands out as the accusations of collusion with russia. And you tell in the book in general this whole story, this whole during on a personal level, on a sort of big political level. Uh can you tell me some .

aspects of the story? sure. So to give the listener some context um and people remember this now it's been kind of swept away a because IT turned out not to be true was that after president trump p uh one the election two thousand and sixteen instead of the media saying we were wrong because again, everyone thought he had zero chance of of winning, they said, okay, well, we couldn't been wrong.

You must have been the russians who worked with him. And so at first, when they started coming up, I thought this was ridiculous. I mean, I was very intimately involved with the Operations of the campaign.

I was running the finance of the campaign, I was run the digital media of the campaign, I was running the, the, the, the schedule for the campaign. And I knew that on most days we are trouble, like working in coordinating with ourselves. You let us load collaborating with another government and colluding as they called IT.

And so um we did a great job, I think, as an underdog campaign very inly staffed. And then they said that, no, we were working with the russians. And so um at the time, I didn't take IT too seriously because I knew there was no truth to IT.

But IT was amazing to me to start seeing all of these institutions, whether I was nn, the washington post in new york times, these renews organizations that I grew up having a lot of respect for taking these accusations so seriously and then working themselves up in order to um in order to discover IT for two years and then as result at a special council you had a house investigation, a senate investigation and I personally spent about think over twenty hours just you know testifying before these different committees and can spend million dollars of at my own pocket on my legal fees to make sure as well we represented and the reason I did that was because I saw washington I was like a sick game, right did so almost like even though there was no underlying problems to the accusation um I felt like this is one of those things they're going to try to catch you. And then if you step on the line, they catch you with one this representation, they're try to put you in jail or worst, if you know and then so for me that was, uh, a big concern. So, and I was amazing, me, my poor mom, and I told her to stop not reading whatever, as I promise you, we ouldn't doing the grow is good.

But know, he called me, say, well, know, our friends were on the upper. We're talking with chuck humor as jazz going to jail. We know for sure that he called ed with the russians.

And this is like a leading senator saying things like this. And so IT was just interesting for me to see how a whole world could believe something and be talking about IT that I knew with one thousand percent certainty was just not true. And so seeing that player was very, very hard.

Obviously, I was accused of a lot of things. There were times in washing I was radioactive. I remember one weekend um was all over CNN. You know, the people, the panels on CNN, like the news organization that I grew up thinking, was like the number one trusted name for news in the world.

Talk about how i'd committed treason because I met with an ambassador and said, we'd like to hear your perspective on, what do you think the policy should be in syria, where there was a big civil war happening. And I is in a lot of things. So he was quite a crazy time in that regard.

But luckily, again, we were able to fight through IT. IT was a major distraction for administration. I think we were able to kind of stay focused on the objectives in the policies. Um but IT was a crazy time, and I learned a lot from that experience.

It's crazy. House acquisition can be violent and can just go. One of the things that worries me is the effect in your mind, the psychology of IT, to make sure, doesn't make you cynical, like people are trying to do stuff, those kinds stories that can destroy their mind. So one of things i'd love to to understand you who can roll in from business for, and also in the entire world, from CNN to everybody's accusing of, including with russians, like what you are like when you're sitting at home, how do you keep a calm mind, a clear mind, not optimistic, one that doesn't become signal and actually just keep trying to push on .

and do stuff in the world? Ah so IT was a surreal experience, I would say number one, as I I felt very confident that I had done anything wrong. So I do always tell my lawyer like, you know, the good news is i've got a good fact problem, right? Like I need a good lawyer to get me through IT, but it's it's much easier to be a good lawyer if you have a very innocent client.

And so you know the fact that I knew that I didn't have I didn't believe that I had any legal liability help me kind of intellectually separate the chAllenge I need to do to fight through IT from that. And then I just basically said, like i'd had hardship earlier my life when I dealt with the situation with my father. And what I realize there is that you can't really spend energy on the things that you don't control.

All you can do is spend your time and energy worrying about what you can control. And then how do you react to the things that you have there. And so IT took a lot of uh, a lot of discipline. IT took a lot of strain.

Then I going to give my wife, va a and even Donald a lot of credit for um you're kind of having my back during that time and and and you know encouraging me just to kind of fight through IT. And then I also had to make sure that I didn't allow that to distract me from my job. I felt like I had an amazing opportunity in the White house to make a difference in the world.

And if I would spend all my time playing defense in politics is a time duration game. In business, you have whatever duration you set for yourself. In politics is time duration.

We had four years. Every day was sand through an hour glass. My mind set was, I need to accomplish as much as I can in these four years. And I guess the traditional game that's played in washington is whether it's the media, the opposition, their job is to distract you and then try to stop you from being as successful as you want to be.

And so just what through IT and wasn't always fun, but we got through and and then god, it's um it's something people don't talk about and IT has been amazing to me, just the lack of self awareness and and reflection of a lot of the people who hide this up for for two years. They don't think there is anything wrong with that that interesting. But you know my view is we got through IT. It's good. So it's in the past and then I started moving into the future and that's really .

yeah but I want to link on IT because to me, that is a really discouraging effect on anyone who's trying to do positive in the world like these kinds of attacks are intense. Mean, you say one of the lessons you learn that really have to be perfect, but I hate that to be the lesson. Like, I feel like you should be able to do super Sophia, big risks, like people celebrate the big risks and not try to weave jagging tic stories over nothing.

They this is, want to understand the two aspects of this, how to not have such stories of so much legs. And the other is how to stay psychologically strong. You kind of waited off.

They can have a fact problem, but IT just have affecting your psyche. Yeah, you seem to be pretty talk about the whole thing, but like how I just have a psychology site. How do you take a calm and not become cynical? We can continue to do stuff and take big risks.

I didn't have a choice.

What you mean?

I mean, I could spend every day feeling sorry myself for complaining or same. Things aren't fair. But the general way I looked at IT was that in life, every opportunity as a cost.

And you could look at this and say, maybe this was a massive of cost, either in in dollars or in time, or in reputation, or in, or in or in an emotional drain. But you could also say that, you know, I had an opportunity to work in the White house, and I had an opportunity to work on some of the hardest chAllenges. And you talk about how that's not celebrated.

That is something very different in the private sector. When you take on big chAllenges that is celebrated in government, when you take on big chAllenges, people wants to see IT fail, or they want to criticize the people who are trying to take that on. And I think that's wrong.

And I think that, you know, as a country, we should be thinking big. We should be dreaming big, and we should be encouraging our politicians to trying to fail more and to to go into uh to take on big things, knowing that there's risk of feeling Marks will want to to succeed, not to fail. But let's take on the big things.

Let's try to do that. Um so I think it's just very basic that know you're in a situation. I made decisions.

I can go back and change decisions in the past. I still felt you know very blessed to be in the position I was in. And I knew that I just had to work through IT. And like I said, I was very lucky to have a support for my wife and for my family and from good friends. Again, I I think I chose en very good friends in life, and my friends were with me.

I had one friends who who, my lowest moment, you know, gotten the plane, you lived in arizona, gotten a plane and came, just have dinner with me to say, just, just pick your head up. I know you're down now. You're gonna fine.

Just just fight through. That meant a lot to me. And again, I I always think in my life, you you don't learn as much from your successes. You don't learn as much from your high points. You learn the most about who you want to be and how the world works from your lowest moments and at those lowest moments that just that made me Better and taught me had to be a Better friend to people who are in tough situations um and I tried to just get get tougher and I try to .

just get Better and work through IT yeah you said that you invoke this this intense time are you to together and helped you kind of deal with the intensity of the case at all?

So I think IT was just number one knowing that you had a partner and knowing that you had somebody who who loved you and believed in you, I think that was definite, by far the biggest of anything. And love is the answer. Love is very important.

But then there's also a lot that i've learned from her always. You're getting me up to read different books or learn different things, which I love. But she's also, I think, an amazing role model.

And I I go through our time in washington where uh there were so many people who were, I thought very um nasty to her unfounded dly. And i'm not talking about individually because again, know, most people interacted with her or super kind. But I would see people on twitter, different places go after you.

Owe stayed elegant, and I felt like that was something that SHE never stepped down to a lower level. SHE kept her elegance the whole time, and SHE really went to washington wanting to be a force of good. And I see all the time that SHE SHE follows her hard.

He does what's right. And SHE has a very strong moral compass and and I I feel very lucky to have as a partner. And I I respect her tremendously.

yeah. SHE asked the fire with Grace, I would say. And she's recommending a bunch of amazing books to me.

And SHE SHE has an incredible of fascinating mind. So but one thing I jumped out to me is you both love diners. Jery diners.

So I I lived in philly for a while and you know I traveled quite a bit in travellin from boss and on the film maybe to dc. You can drive through jersey, something about jersey. I know what that is.

You listen to Bruce brings Lucy gays a bit where I think it's part of criticizing cell phones today, where people are too much on their phone that I M just sit there are be bored. But he's uses that story to tell where he just driving in a boost brinks. This song comes on and he just wants to pull over to the side, the road, and just like weep for unexplainable reason.

I think that's true because life is difficult. Life is full of suffering or struggle of chAllenges. Sometimes it's always boost brinks in. But like some kind of song like this can really make you reflect on, like that millions a feeling. But that millions a feeling is the other side of the happiness coin, where if you just allow yourself to feel that pain, you can also feel the highest joys as the sort of the point lusia max.

And there's something about jersey with the diners often late at night that there's several dining experiences, I should say, okay, there's like the family friendly and there's a nice wage and this is sweetness, a kind of like sweet heart, that kind of thing. There's also like the three am dinner where you're like the ones that are open twenty four hours. That has a romantic comment when you're a Young man, a Young woman, you like traveling.

The loneliness of that all of IT the american diner is like for like jack herron represents something. Not sure what that is, but it's like a real beautiful experience. And the food itself, too.

always fresh. The thing with dinners, there's so much to love, a Better. And I grew up oba sly, new jersey.

When I go, you know, with my father to to business, to stop, we need that a dinner late night. I become back to my friends. We we stop at a diner and it's a tradition that of organize love doing as well.

And uh, I think there there's a notion of it's very egalitarian and and that, you know, people from all places are there. You can order basically whatever you want to mean. The men use that.

The dinners look like the phone book, and it's amazing how they keep, you know, so much fresher, greedy. And to do, at least the good ones do. I'd love as a jersey guide, you get much realistic CS and an anomaly, you know at any hour of the day because most more open twenty four hours and that's basic.

I welcome. I go to we'd row N A milk shaker too as well. But for me as a kid, you know, my father would take me sometimes I sit with him in the meeting, sometimes I be at the table next to him.

He gave me a bunch of quarters to put the the music machine that they would have on the the wall. And I was just a great experience, uh, doing IT in jersey. And I joke that, you know, if you grow up in jersey, you grow up with just, just enough a chip on your shoulder, and then you have to go and make something of yourself in life.

It's a, it's a special place. I had an amazing childhood there and very, very proud to be from the state. And I will just give a little bit of a plug now because the state has now actually turned the corner and and they had a ten billion dollar budget surplus for many years, you know, was a state that was basically bankrupt and and now actually under a pretty progressive democrats governor, a film Murphy, he's turned the state around.

And it's actually has a very bright future ahead. And it's it's probably one of the best places are to raise a family in the country, right? It's got very low crime, one of the best public school systems in the country, a pretty good health care system, a lot of Green parks.

People know the turnpike, but it's got a lot to IT. That's really great. Some a big, big vana jersey like .

this is the first for this political power cast. You literally give a plug to state so new jersey everybody .

where it's at the south jersey .

is nor James. I mean, all kinds of jersey too. I mean, the whole thing just and don't .

let me start on the jersey shore like that's that's .

and i'm not time .

about the snecky part. I'm talking about the real nice parts with great food.

Great people mean nice parts. It's all beautiful. The full range of human characters that are in new jersey, all beautiful. I agree with that.

And every time my trial across the world, there's always that means somebody for you as you give a lot of a deep understanding, the creative aliza menu. Okay, so back. I don't know how we ve got there.

Oh alright, go back to the the low points. Imagine your father if you could just return. There are even just a personal story of, uh, your father of that you write about that all the betrayal that happened in his life and then he responded to that betrayal and he was after that arrested. Just tell the story.

sure. So my father is an amazing person, and we grow in new jersey. My father was a big developer, uh, great entrepreneur, a built an amazing business.

Um he gone to a dispute with uh, two of his siblings and through that dispute they basically took off the documents in his company, went to the U. S. A, turn his office and and turned into from A A civil dispute into a real public dispute. My father did something going wrong in that process.

And you know, when he got arrested for that, he basically said, you know, what I did was wrong and he he took his medicine and he he did IT h like a man and he said, i'm going to go to prison and and he did that for a year. And so, uh, for me, ah that was a very chAllenging time. H in the family, obviously, you know if IT was a shock, IT was a total change.

And when I grew up, my my childhood was, I think, a very nice childhood. You know my parents, who I said no in school or card, was very um very focused on my athletics. I was camping the baseball teams, camping the hockey team around a marathon.

My father and I was always about pursuing, and to harvard, with hours that was in, and why you pursuing a law degree and a business degree, and I was working at them and and district to turn is office at the time, actually thinking, I wanted to go to public service. My father always taught us, we always surrounded by politicians, and he always said, you know, my parents came to america, they lived in the land of opportunity and they had these opportunities ah, because this is the progress country in the world. And so you should, you know, be successful, work hard, don't ever let you opportunities become your disadvantages because you have advantages in life.

You have to work harder. And that's what he installed in myself and my brother, and always pushed us to make the most of ourselves. And when we did that, you know, everything changed overnight when my father got arrested. Obviously, it's very embarrassing for a family when you're on the front page of the papers, I would the newspapers writing all these things about my father that I didn't think we're representative of the person that I knew um I was A A big change for our family and you know was angry.

I was angry, I said and I could be angry at that the prosecutor, I could be angry at my father's brother, like be angry at my father's lawyers, like be anger er at my father for for making this mistake and then I kind of said that's not going to change anything. And I had a real shift. And I I do think that that was a turning point in my life where I basically said, let me focus on the things I can control.

Let me focus on the positive things I can do. And from that moment forward, I said, how can I be a great sun to my father? How can I be a great h older brother is slashed, you know, substitute father for my, my two sisters, my Younger brother.

How could I be there for my mother? How could I be there or for my father's business? And I just went into to the battle mode, and I put my, my, my put my armor on, and I just, you know, ran into IT.

And for the next two years, I was, every day was painful. And I was dealing with banks. I was dealing, the company is still open. I was still in law school. I I did tell my father, I want to drop out of law school, business school, but said, please don't.

So I would basically go to law school one day a week, or maybe I skipped most days, and I go to his office every day. And my friends would joke that if my professors wanted to find me, the law professor would have to give me a test that had four pictures and say, circle who your professor is, you know but I would basically take a week off. I read the books and I did well and I got my degrees um and IT was just a very, very chAllenging time.

But like I said you before, is that you learn the most about life and you learn the most about humanity, that in yourself, when you're in your most chAllenging periods. And i'll say that know that experience also changed. You know, the people I interacted with spending weekends with my father down in in a prison and alabama, I met the other inmates.

I met their families. Um I spend time then trying to advise the children of other people who were going through the same experience that i've gone through. I had a navigated you know correctly and you just learn a lot about the world, and you see that, you know, in life, everything you get taken from you, your status, your money, your friends.

I saw that certain people were very displode. My father at the time, who he thought were friends, he was only a handfull. But again, I learned from those people, how can I be a true friend to people, how can I be Better? And I learned a tremendous amount, uh, through that experience.

You write that your father told you about being human. I love to ask about this, that in life, sometimes you get so powful that we start to think where the dealers of our own fate, we're not the dealer, is got as the dealer. Sometimes we have to be brought back down to earth to get perspective on what is really important. What do you think he meant by that? What did you learn from that experience?

What the way I interpret at the time? And those were very, very memorable words. And IT occurred that was down after I picked up my father from the man. I drove him down, I drove the car, and my father and I very, very close, and we didn't say word for the whole time.

And I think he was processing, number one, what was happening to him and I I couldn't even imagine, but I actually think the bigger pain for him, because my father is such a committed person to the family, is like, did I let my family down? Did I let my kids down? And I do think he felt at that moment like his life was over.

He couldn't really see past what this chAllenge was going to bring, and if there would be a life for him after IT. So I could see that he had a lot of fear and he really wasn't say much, and then I didn't know what to do. And so I just stood by him and stood close.

And you know later that that that day or the next day he got him started walking, get a nal monitor, for whatever reason, the prosecutor was such a so aggression that he was a flight risk. So they made and wear an ankle monitor. They were very, very gressier and nasty. And at the time, my father was the biggest donor to democrats.

The prosecutor was the republican IT was a very political thing and um and what happened was is he was walking around the pool and I just started walking with him and he said to me, our jared, in life, sometimes we get so powerful that we believe that we're the dealer but we're not the dealer gods. The dealer and we have you know, come down to earth understand, like you said so what what I took from that was that my father, with all this success, had started to believe that that may be certain rules to apply to him. And I think that that's we made a mistake.

And I think he had a lot of regret that he made the mistake. And, you know, my father's a very humble person, is a very moral person. You know, for me, with my humility, my, my brother and I joke that we give our quit for being humble, never one to being match fans because every year you've a lot of promise that I never ends up paying off.

Although now is Steve coin hopefully run a different trajectory. But the other things also our mother you our mother really raised us um to be very humble to be know we had we knew we had a lot but every sunday morning my mom was they are clip in the coupons. The cereal way in our house was based on you was based on and what was on sale versus what we like.

You know, when we would have a problem with our teachers in school. And i'd say, teacher isn't like me sh'd say, well, not call them, is your job to make the teacher like you? And so my mother gave us a lot of that.

My father gave us a lot of the grounding, and I think during that time my father was just realizing that maybe he had gotten disconnected from the the grounding in the values and and again, I think he also accepted. Maybe he could have you blame others for acting and appropriately, but I respect the fact that he took responsibility himself and said, I can control the actions of other people. I can control what they do is right wrong.

I can just control my actions. And um as I go on the next journalist in my life and I I go to government, I go to washington, I mean I I even think through the the craziness of going from you know visiting my father in a prison to ten years later sitting in the office in the White house next to the present of the united states. And like I think about that story and that it's it's a story that my god could write and I I really believe they have have a lot of faith because the low and the highs are both so extreme and unbelievable that I feel like those low moments in some ways allowed me to keep my grounding and to understand what was truly important life for when I ended up going through those other moments.

Your father was betrayed, perhaps over money by siblings. Um is there some deeper wisdom you can draw from that? Have you have you seen money or perhaps power cloud people's judgement?

No, one hundred percent hundred percent.

Is there some kind of optimistic thing you can take from that about human nature of how to escape the clouding of judgment? When you're talking about leaders, when you're talking about the government, even business, as you mentioned, there's a power dynamics to play when you negotiating. Is there a way to see the common humanity and not see the sort of will to power in the whole thing?

definite. You know you mentioned about power, money corrupting. There's a great a quote. I heard a friend of mine says a guy, a Michael Harris, who was one of the founders of death row records, and he was being interviewed recently, and they asked him about what happened with shock night.

And his line was, you know, money just makes you more of what you already are which I thought was a very elegant way of saying IT and I I would see this time of time and again in the White house where you had people who were now given a lot of responsibility and power and I went to their head and they they acted very crazy and um maybe I didn't act in a way that I thought was always conducive to the objective. So I think it's a very big problem that you have, whether it's it's something that's solvable. I thinks about having the right leaders and and hopefully the leaders having good friends.

And i'm still friends with a lot of the people I interacted with when I was in government. And you know, the number one thing I try to beat to them is just a good friend. I try to be somebody who they can talk about things with. I don't go in trying to tell them what to do on different things or um no and I think that that's a big things that people just need friends and they need conversation. And if they have that, then hopefully that allows them to keep their head in the right place.

I think this is a good place to ask about one aspect of the fascinating work you've done, which is on prison reform. Can you take me through your journey of hoping that the biodiversity bill get past just working on prison reform in the White house in general, how you make that happen? How you help make that happen?

sure. Um so um we passed the a law called the first step act, which was the largest prison criminal justice reform bill that's been done maybe in thirty, forty, fifty years in the us. And so what IT basically do with two things.

Number one is IT took the present system and IT took a certain class of offenders and allow them to become eligible for earlier release. If they go through the certain training that will allow them have a lower uh, probability of going back. So you know, stepping back, you look at the prison system, you say, what's the purpose? Is IT to punish? Is IT to warehouse? Is IT to reabsorb? And I do think that you know where a country that believes in second chances.

I saw the first hand a when my father was a client of the system, how inefficient IT was and how much Better IT could be. And you know, when my father got out, we didn't run from that experience. He started hiring people from micros island and and new different prisons into the company, into a second chance, a program which were very, very proud of doing.

And what we saw through our micro experience was that if you give people mentorship, if you give them got job training, a lot of people who leave their addiction issues um and they can find housing. And so, you know, people leave prison with a criminal record, and they are less likely to go back and reintegrate society without help from, from, from different institutions that can help them do that. So we model the reforms of what they didn't, texas and georgia in other states, where they basically put a lot of job training, alcohol, an addiction treatment programs in the prisons, as a way to incentivize the prisoners to work on themselves, whether they, in order to allow them to reenter society, turned to be very successful.

So far. They just had a report that showed that. The general population has had a forty seven percent divisa rate, meaning that people who leave federal prison, half of them go back.

And people who have now taken this program, only twelve percent of them go back. So number one, you're making community, say, for because if people are going to now get a job and into society instead of committing future crimes, your avoiding future crimes. In number two, um you're giving people a second chance at life and so that was the first part of IT.

The second thing we did was there is a rule past in the nineties that basically penalty, zed, uh, crack cocaine at hundred times the penalty of what, uh, uh, regular cocaine was. And I think a lot of the motivations, what people say in retrospect was that crack was more of a black g drug and cocaine was more of a White drug. And so there is a really racial disparity in terms of what the application of these sentences were.

So um they they then revise that to make IT eighteen to one. And what we did in this bills, we allowed IT to go retroactive to allow people who were in prison with sentences under the the, what we thought was the racist law, to be able to make an application to a judge in order to be dismissed. And he was based on good behavior, you know, being rehabilitated in the fact that they would have a low probability of offending in the future.

And so that was really the meet of IT. And there was a couple other things in there we did as well, which were also quite good. So we did IT um worked very closely with the democrats.

Republicans are to do IT. At first, president trump was a little bit skeptical of IT because he's a big, strong lawn water supporter, but he made me work very hard to put together a coalition of republicans. And democrats are in law enforcement.

We had the support from uh from the the the policeman. We had the support from the acl u ultimately we were able to get IT together. And I was an amazing thing.

We ended up getting eighty seven votes in the senate. Um you know this was happened for me at a time. Um was while the russia investigation stuff was still happening, a new chief of staff came and john Kelly.

He basically marginalized me and the Operation. So I had kind of less day to day responsibility, ie. S in the White house. And so for me, this effort became one of my full time efforts, along with negotiating the mexico trade deal and along with the middle efforts.

And the reason why that was great was because IT didn't have a lot of support a from the republican caucus originally, and people thought there was no way that would happen. So I really was able to be the chief executive, the dw executive, the low executive, the intern. And through that process, i've really got an education on how congress works, on how to pass legislation.

I was negotiating text. I was negotiating back forth, and I built a lot of trust. Again, I deal with whether is a team Jeffery's or search richmond, that we built lot of trust.

We would speak three times a day. These guys had my back the acu again. I never thought they're suing our adminstration every day or every other day on something.

But for whatever reason, we build trust and we're able to work together and um and then also with real conservative groups because there was a lot a big part of the conservative base that felt like we should be giving people a second chance and in addition, that this will keep our country safer and I will reduce the cost of what we spend on prisons. And so IT was a great effort, and I was very, very proud that we're able to get that done. And the president trump.

how do you converse? Republicans, so that was scaped first I were talking about, like just phone conversations gone out to lunch, just the back to the emotion es.

or what hand to hand on that meetings? You know, like the cool thing about this says, so everyone know, he says, I always get frustrated when I hear a lawmaker and say, oh, the same is not what I used to be, your congress is and what he used to be. Things are broken today.

I don't think that's true ah I think you know going through the process, I think that our founders were were totally genius in the way that they designed our system of government. And what I saw as you just have to work IT so everyone knows the power of their vote. Some would give IT to me easily.

Some wouldn't give IT to me easily. Some were traded for other things. Some would with halted because they were pissed about other things.

And IT was just hand to hand combat. So just making calls using the phone, go and walk in the hall, go on a launches. You know, hosting dinner at my house. I was just there was a nonstop lopping effort.

And either that was also a judicature sues in making people feel like they were heard hearing their issues and then trying to find solutions that you don't put something in the the tips off where you lose, you know, a whole coalition. So we was really balancing acosta, an amazing thing, and I are very close in that with a van Jones and jasa Jackson, who also gave me a lot of help on the left. And and IT was an amazing mazing thing, had a great team too. So you .

mention the importance of trust and the very beginning of the conversation from the outside of perspective is that may be a dark question, which is like how much trust is there in washington? How how much did the flip side that how much backstab is there? Can you form like long term relationships with people on a basic human level where you know you're not going to be betrayed, screwed over, manipulated for, again, go back the old money and power.

the answers yes. And the answers no. So I made some incredible friends, lifelong friends, through my time in washington. But the way I think about IT from politics, I think in geopolitics as well as I would say that politicians really don't have friends. Politicians have interest.

And as long as you can follow that rule, you should be able to know how to rate where your relationship with the given person falls in the spectrum. But I do think I was the exception. I I did make some tremendous friends.

And again, i'd go back to what I said about negotiation, where when you're in a situation where there's really nothing in IT for any of you personally, but you're in a fox all together and nobody in washington to get anything done by themselves, so you have people coming from all different backgrounds, all different experiences, all different geography coming together, agreed on an objective, creating a plan and then everyday rolling together in order to get IT done. It's a beautiful thing, and you really learn what people are about. And so when you go through an experience like that, you learn who's IT for themselves, you learn who's IT for the cause.

And you have for every you know thing you read about the press of a fight I had with somebody, because we were at odds, know if you know, one hundred people who have become lifelong friends, because I respect the way that when we run fire together, they got Better, they were competent and they were there to serve for the right reason. And so so I guess the answer is yes IT IT IT is possible. You have to be careful because there are a lot of mercurial people.

They are always say that politicians are like latin ors. Um I didn't have as much respect for politicians, so I got there. But if you think about IT, everyone has got a congressional seat or a senate.

There's twenty five people back at home who want their job. We think they're smarter than them who are trying to backstop them. And so I would say that the political dynamic, it's like in the private sector, you're standing on on flag ground.

You choose which fights you take on when you take them on, how you fight them in politics, it's like you're standing on a ball. And what you have to realize is that there maybe like ten things you have to do, but there's a potential cost to taking on each one that might destabilize you. You fall off the ball and then you you lose your opportunity to pursue those. You have to always be kind of marking everything to market and going through your calculations to make sure you can accomplish what you want to without falling off the ball and losing your opportunity to make a difference.

I guess people like power.

and I just .

feel like to be a good politician, you should be willing, like good meaning, good for humanity, be willing to let go of power. You try to do the right thing if there is somebody back home that does manipulative stuff, screwed you over and takes power from you. So K, I feel like that on a humilities is required to be a great leader. And I feel like that's actually a good way to have long term power because carma has a viral aspect to a just doing goodbye. Others I feel like is a i'd like .

to say that's true. relax. I think it's just way more complicated.

And you look what happened this week with with Kevin mcArthur. He did what he thought was morally right. Um he thought, you know he did a bipartisan deal. He was told that they would have his back and then the moment things got tough, they cut him loose.

So again, I don't know if that that if that was the right thing or the wrong thing, right? I ve also seen leaders on the other end say i'm going to do things that are short term or selfish, but the way they justify to themselves is to say, I believe that myself, staying in power is existent to the greater good. So I will do things that maybe are not in the greater good now because I believe that my maintaining power is and so it's it's complicated in an idealized world. I'd love to believe that the case, but it's just way .

more complicated than that.

Yeah I wish I wasn't.

but IT is yeah many. I do just wish people zoom out, people in party zoom out a bit and just ask themselves, what are we all doing this for you? Like sometimes you can get like a little bit lost in the game of IT. If you zoom out, you realized like integrity, way more important. Then like little gains of money here.

A little gains of power in the long term is when you look yourself in the mayor at the end of the day, and also how history remembers you, I just feel like people do some dark stuff when they're like in that moon, when they're losing power and they try to hold out too hard. This is when, this is when they can do really dark things, like bring out the worst and themselves. It's just sad to see.

And I was was a kind of machinery of government would. Inspire people to be their best cells in their last days. Where is the war sells.

right? When that system gets advances, you'll share with me what IT is, but it's look, let me give you another way to frame IT, which is and this was kind of the revelation we spoke before about everyone. I was getting my butt kicked by the russian investigation in all the different areas.

But kind of the basic framework I looked at was, I said, OK, you know, this all feels tough, but I said, the games is the game. The games been here way longer, no way before I came, and I will be here way long after I leave. And so I have two choices.

I can complain that the games tough. It's not fair. It's not moral. I can go, and I can try to play the game as hard as possible. And I think that there are two different things, right?

You have people who are willing to kind of sit in the stands and they're going to yell at the players or make their, their, their points known. Or you of people are wing to suit up and get the arena go play. And I have a lot of respect for the people who who suit up and go play.

And then again, some of you, I wish they would play for different means. But the fact they're willing to put their name on the ballot, make the sacrifice and go put on the fads and get hit and hit others, I think that you need those people. I wish more people who had maybe the moral wiring that you discussed would be putting on a helman and go to play because target tart.

I agree with you. I just would love to fix the aspect of the the russia collusion accusation, the vary, the power acts. That's a really discouraging thing for for people maybe is the way has to be, but is that seems like a disincentive to people to .

participate IT. But give you again an optimistic side of IT that you know what you're seeing now with social media. As I do think with what's up happening at acx, there is now more of a reversion towards more egalitarian right and galitch ism of information.

And so for many years, the media publications were the gatefold ders. They were the gatekeepers. And then you had these social media companies that grew, they became so powerful, but then they were telling the scales why they were doing IT. You know, we can go through long explanations for that, but if they are truly is a real forum and a democracy zone of of information, then you would think that the marketplace of ideas would surface the real ones and discredit the not real ones.

And I think that as a society, we're starting to kind of come to grips with the fact that the power dynamic is changing and that some of these institutions that we used to have a lot of faith and don't of our faith, and some of them, you know, will actually reform and maybe real in our faiths. So I think that there, there, there could be an optimistic tone again, the years of trump. I think that, you know, he was an outsider and you know, he represented something that was existent.

Al, for to the system, right? You think about for the thirty years before you, either part of, you know, the clinton dyna sty or the bush dyna sty, I think a lot of people in the country felt like that whole class, whether you are in a red shirt or blue shirt, wasn't representing them. And trump represented a true outsider to that system. And I do think that as he went in there, there is a lot of norms that were broken to try to stop him from changing the traditional power structure. So I think that we're at a time where maybe there will be an optimistic breakthrough where you will have institutions that will allow for a lot more transparency into what truth really is.

I'd love to go back and talk about the middle is because there are so many interesting components to this. Let's talk about how durability. And first let me ask you about N B S.

How member someone, the complaints. So you've got to know pretty well you become friends with him. What's you like as a human being, just to basic a human level. What's you like?

So for listeners, mohamed and salmon is now the crowd inside of saud ababa. He recent that position over the last couple of years, and he's been a tremendous reformer for the country. He's gone in and he's uh really modernized the economy.

He he's put a lot more investment into the country. He's uh marginalized the religious police and he's really done a good jo B2Bring mod ernization, a lot of reform. So he's been a great reformer.

What he's like as a person is he's very high energy. H he's got a uh tremendous uh, candle power, very, very smart. H incredibly well.

Red, when he was Younger, uh, his father would would give a book a week and make him report on IT on on the weekend. Uh, he was trained as a as a leader and as a politician really by his father. He's not western educated, so he grew up in the sauty culture and he's a real saudi nationalist.

He loves their history, loves their heritage, uh, has a deep understanding of the tribal nature of the region and um you know his father was actually known to be a tremendous politicians so when he was governor of iod, people who speaks to today about him say that if that up a full election he would have won in the landslides. Every time somebody went to the hospital, he was the first person to call. Anytime there is a funeral, he was the first person to show up.

Is a very, very beloved leader mahbin slam. He was a business man before he got into crown prince. So he thinks really with a business mindset uh about how he runs the country and he's brought I think a different mindset energy uh to the middle. Ast, you know one thing i'll we'll say maybe that comes to here is that I remember early on um talking with him about all of the different initiatives he was taking on.

He's building a big city called neo in in the desert in a place where there really was nothing on the red sea and a lot of people are criticizing the ambition of the plan and I was sitting with him one night and I said, know why? Why are you taken on all these things? Now you've got a lot of different programs, but you know, what most politicians do is they set lower expectations, and then they exceed the expectations.

And he looked at me without hesitation. He says, jered, you know, the way look at IT is that in five years from now, I said five goals and achieve five goals and achieve five things. If I said one hundred goals and I fail at fifty of them than five years, accomplish fifty things.

And so it's a very different mindset as a leader. The way I got to work with him was saudi arabia. I was a big uh, topic in the campaign. President trump was basically saying during the campaign that know we're going to know we've got ta pay for their affair share, which they have been a great partner in in the region, very critical of saud. And then during the transition, I was asked by several friends to meet with a represent of saudi river.

I want to meet with them, but I came over and I met and they said, well, we want to make changes and I said, well, you have to make changes. Know how you treat women and women can drive the garden ship laws as he got to start working with israel. Um you know you have to be paying more of your fair share and you have to be you stopping the hoops.

M um that that's being spread again. And i'd know knowledge these were just kind of the traditional talking points about saddam. S, so the guy always worth basically said as a guy thought out to, and he was a very respected minister there.

He says, jari says, you don't know much about sdi raby do I said, no, I don't just really what I really what I i've kind of been told her, what I read and he says, okay, let me, let me do this. We want to be great allies with america. We we've traditionally been great allies with america. Can I come back you with a proposal on ways that we can make progress on all of the different areas where we have joined interest? And keep in mind, at that point time, the whole east was a mass.

And by the single biggest issue we had um after ISIS was the ideological battle if you remember in two thousand and sixteen there was the pulse night club shooting a in orlando you at the sandburg dido shooting and people were being radicalize online with the extremism and then there was a lot of crimes that were being that were happening because of that and was a big topic in the campaign and so that when I was thinking about you are talking different generals and what capabilities the us. Had to really combat the extremism and the ideological battle, what we realized was that saudi abia, as the custody of the two holidays sites in islam, the meca a that that would be the best partner to work with if they were willing to. But for years, they really hadn't been willing to kind of lean into this fight.

So I said, sure, give a proposals that they come back, give proposals, and they said, look, if you make president trumps first trip to sadi arabia, we will do all these different things, will increase military spending and CoOperation, will counter all the Terry financing. Unbelievable layer. So I took the post, I went to the national, and I was general, and I said, if sai rabbi a did these things, would this be considered a big dust? unbelievable.

But IT will never happen. I said, what are telling me? They want to do these things having no foreign icy experience.

I'm just saying i've got somebody telling me they want to do IT and that's kind of wear. We started began to office. I don't think much more about IT.

And then I think I was like a baby a month and the president trump has a call with king's so on and before the call, win the oval office and the present basically saying, well, this is what we want to go through and I have a secretary mattis and secretary Taylor son, the minister of defense and the secretary of state, basically saying, um you have to deal with ambient. Ambient is is the guy who's been our partner for all these years. He's the head of intelligence and he's been a great partner.

I said all, he's been a great partner. And why all these problems that you guys are complaining about with sauty? I said, i've been told that we have this proposal from mbs as the deputy crown prince and that who we should be dealing with on this.

And so phone call starts and present trumps into both of us. And on the phone call with king so on um present trumps. Ys, okay, we'll through all these things, these are the things we want to get done and he is what who should we deal with and kick someone to deal with?

My son, the deputy crown prince mbs, and so president trumps on the phone, have deal a jard because I think you knew that if you put to put him with the other guys, they were not believe s in what he had the ability to do. And that's how I got a sign to work with him. I get back to my office after that, have an email from him, spoke him for the first time, and then we just went to work and know a lot of people were betting against the trip. They thought I wasn't gna be successful and they're been bedding against him and he's been underestimated. But he's been doing an incredible job and the home middle east is different today because of the work that he's done.

Maybe it's instructive to go to the mental journey that you are on from like the talking points, the basic natus, the the very basic talking points, understanding of sarabia, to making that human connection with B, S, and making the possible connection that is actually possible to solve problems. Like what was that journey? Like why is IT so difficult to take for others? And why were you effective and being able to take that journ yourself?

Maybe some of the came from my own experience um but my desire to listen and hear people. So I had this proposal. I was told that all of these things were good. Then we're trying to schedule this trip and the national security council calls meeting we were in the situation room. And we have, you know, homeland security sector of defence sector state and everyone saying, this is going to be a disaster.

They said, you know, if we go to sadi baby, the saudis never keep their promises in our secretary of state at the time was a gentleman named rex tiller, who'd been the A C. E. O of axon.

So he developed with all these play people very extensively and basically said, in my experience, the saudi's won't come through. And jared, you don't know what you're doing, you're wasting your time. And I basically was at a point where I said, look, guys, but they are saying they want to do all these things.

Shouldn't we at least give a chance to try to do IT? Like, why do we want to predetermine their, their their direction by not giving them a chance to just because things in the past haven't gone the way you want them to, that doesn't mean they can go that way in the future. So we fought the battle.

They basically deferred and uh and let me go through with IT. But when when i've do the planning beings for the trip, nobody would show up because they all thought I was going to be an absolute disaster. And by the way, they probably weren't wrong to think that i'd never planned a foregone trip before and i'd never done any foreign policy before.

So during the planning, I speak tbs almost every day, and I go through all the different details in the things that would be coming up. And I said, look, I really need to get these things in writing. He sent over a guy, doctor assad ibn, uh, who's a tremendous diplomats for them, and he came to washington stay for three weeks.

And we work through all the different details of what we needed. And we ended up coming to an arrangement of what I should be. So, you know, I think about now, in retrospect, CT, why I was so focused on getting things like this done, why I I even believed that they could be possible. But the answer is this, really, the people I was talking to on the other end, we're telling me that these things were possible. And so just because they hadn't been done before and just because others around me didn't believe that they could be done, I wasn't willing to just say, well, let's not try .

IT just seems like that cynical m that takes over it's paralyzing and you something a great I say from from polygram big fan of, I think, explains a lot of your success. This is called how to do great work and people should go definitely S A, there's a few things I can read from. Are some quotes having new ideas as a strange game because IT usually consists of seeing things that were right under your nose.

Once you've seen a new idea, IT has to seem obvious. Why did no one think of this before? Seeing something obvious sounds easy in the empirically, having new ideas as hard, and that the steps you took him trivial, and yet nobody was taking them, or least in the past, was successful.

So successes you've had where as simple as essentially picking up the phone or trying, there's a lot interesting things here to talk about. This aspect of doing is seemingly simple. That seems to be so hard to do.

IT, as pod describes, requires a willingness to break rules. There are two ways to be comfortable breaking rules, to enjoy breaking them and to be different to them. As an interesting distinction, I call these two cases being aggressively and passive, independent minded.

So again, that's to enjoy breaking the rules of being different. The rules, the aggressively independent minded, are the naughty ones. Rules don't nearly fail to stop them.

Breaking rules gives them additional energy for this sort of person to light at the year of a dacy of a project. Sometimes applies enough activation energy to get a started. The other way to break the rules is not to care about them at all, or perhaps even to know they exist.

This is why novices and outsiders often make new discoveries. Their ignorance of a field. Ignorance may be in quotes of a feels.

Assumptions act as a source of temporary, passive, independent, mindless. Asp also seem to have a kind of community to conventional belief. Several, I know, say that this helps them have new ideas. So the aggressive in the passive is such an interesting way of looking at IT. Perhaps some aspect of this, at least in the story you tell us some passive aspect where you're like not even acknowledge ing not even caring that there is rules, just kind of asking the simple question and taking simple l action.

I think that is my that was A S I read and we're doing just a snippy of IT, but I would encourage anyone listening to go and find IT and read the entire thing because it's something that really spoke to me as I was transitioning into my new career now and I just loved IT.

But when we were talking about a why certain people who don't have traditional qualifications are able to come in and do incredible work and solve complex problems that maybe think of that, I say, which is why I shared IT and I I think that in the context of the work that I was doing here, uh, perhaps not having the historical context, uh, became an advantage and obviously went back and then try to study IT. But if you go into a problem, I always find that, especially in the political realm, my favorite political issues are ones where they're contrarian by being obvious and you sometimes they feel very intuitive and so you take them on. There's always a lot of resistance when you go against something that's been accepted as the way that you're supposed to do things.

Um and I came to learn over the course of my time in government that when everyone was agreeing with what I was doing, that I actually made me more nervous because I felt like you have these problems that haven't been solved for a long time. And then if you take the same approach as others, you're going to fail just like they did. So taking a different approach doesn't mean you're going to succeed, but at least if you fail, you're going to fail in an original way.

And so I did like this a lot and I I think that um you know what I saw was the people who are very good at getting things done that hadn't been done before, where people who came with different qualifications, different perspectives and they came in and and really work the problem in untraditional ways. And so I think in the midday east I came in with a very different approach than people before me, not because I came in deliberately trying to do IT differently, but because I came trying to listen and understand from people why the problem had have been solved. Then think from the first principles perspective on what's the right perspective today, not based on what happened fifty years ago or not, based on what somebody's feelings who were heard, but what's the right thing to make people's lives Better, to make the world a safer and and more prosperous place tomorrow.

So if we can go back down P S A little bit um from the person to the vision, there's something called vision twenty thirty about his vision for baby in the future. Can may be look from his perspective, what is his vision for the region?

sure. So you we were talking before about how you know we wish leaders would set big owdacious goals and take on big things. Well, that's what he did with fishing.

Twenty thirty know when he was Young. And again, this is something that was derided. And a lot of people were very skeptical, al of IT. But the people, actually, you picked up in reddit that this is a very thought ful plan that's very achievable.

So he studied this country and said, what's our place in the world? What are our advantages? What are our disadvantages? And then he said publicly, KPI, that he wanted to hold his country too, and then put in place plans and committees and really worked hard to push things in that direction, which was pretty remarkable.

Um I think that it's something when I saw, I thought I was very refreshing. I said weight in america, why don't we o have you know, set goals, why don't we have and I do think that is something that most countries of not all countries should have, right? One of my favorite quotes was from uh the alson wonderland where um the the cheshire at says if you don't know where you're going IT doesn't matter which path you take and so I think that that's something dead really helped set them on a good path.

They've been very successful with IT. One of the things he told me about putting that together was he said, you know, my father's generation, they created this country for almost nothing. They came here, they were a poor country, they were bedrooms in the desert, and then they look back and see what they've one over fifty years.

And they say, it's absolutely remarkable, he said, his generation. They come in and they say, we're very grateful for everything that's been done today, but we have so much opportunity that we're not taking advantage of. And so you know, he's now empowered the next generation to be ambitious and think big and grow with IT.

What that means for his vision for middle east is that the the general architecture that should exist now, there is excited in the discussions with his role that have advanced was the general view of what we thought from a trump perspective should be the new middle east is having, uh, an economic and security corporation all the way from hyphen musard, from amount israel. We're basically you go through and if you can create a security area where people can live, you know, free of fear of of terrorism and of conflict, the middle ast for the last twenty years has been a single for for, for for arms for death h for terrorism it's been you know awful. It's been a big national security threat for america, a big uh, place.

Where are you? Our our treasurer has gone. We've had a lot of our our Young, uh, amazing american soldiers killed in an action there and uh in the same thing for the arb countries as well.

So we can create A A security architecture for that region and then we can create economic integration between all the different countries, mean the amount of innovation happening in israel is unbelievable. Think of IT, like silk valley, not connected to the rest of california. Give a very Young population, a very digital savy population.

Leave a lot of resources. And so if you can get that whole set, the potential ford is unbelievable. I do think that that his ultimate vision is to become a really strong country economically, and then to become a place where you could be funding advancements in science, advancements in humanity and but in artificial intelligence, and and think about ways to be a positive influence in the world.

So a difficult question. A one big source of tension to the united states. And sai is the case of jogi as warning.

If you can comment on what M. B. S. Said about IT to you, you spoke them about IT and what mbs. Has said about IT publicly and sixty minutes and after yeah so what .

he said to me was was no different than what he ultimately said on sixty minutes which was you know as as somebody helping lead this country uh I bear responsibility and um and i'm going to make sure that those who were involved brought to justice and i'm going to make sure that that we put in place reforms to make sure things like this don't happen again. IT was a horrible situation that occurred. What I saw from him after that was just A A doubling and a tripling down on on the positive things he was doing, figure out out ways to kind of continue to modernized society, uh, build opportunity in the kingdom, and to continue to be a Better ally to all the different countries that wanted to be a line with them.

One thing I learned from this cases, how one particular situation, a tragedy, can destroy so much progress, and the possibility of progress and and the possibility of connection between the bridges that are built between different nations, and how narratives around that can take off and take such a long time to repair. And you've work to this in the middle east with israel. So on.

Hu, the history, the narrow of the stories they they cannot have. This moment is so hard to break even when you have new leaders, new blood, new new ideas that come in and is is just sad to see that yes, this uh, tragedy happens. But IT doesn't mean that you can't make progress. And if you have kind of lessons from that, just how much of a dramatic impact that had on creating tension between the other states and side in inDiana, general middle east, like the. That some household is not a friend, but is against the ideals in the values in the next states.

So IT is definite. Created massive attention and I became a very high profile uh, action that actually overshadow a lot of the good work that was being done in the region and a lot of the progress we are making. But when you think about this or you think about the other issues that we've gone through today, I think the general framework that I always try to approach things with this, you can change what happened yesterday.

You can only learn from IT, and then you can change how you deal with tomorrow. And when I think about, you know, the people in power, what do I hope that they're spending their time focused on? Number two, basic things.

Number one is, how do I create, you know, safety and security for for my people and for the world? And then how do I give people the opportunity to live a Better life? And so when things like this happen, obviously, you know, there are certain reactions that are appropriate.

But ultimately you have to think through, how do you not allow the paradise that you're creating in the world to lead to worse outcomes, then what happen otherwise? And so when I would think about foreign policy in general, one of the differences between foreign policy and business is that in business, the conclusion of a problem said, you finish a deal, you either have, you know, a company or a property. If you sell IT, you have no less to do and then more capital.

Hopefully it's successful, right? In a political deal, it's always about paradise. So the end of a problem set is always the beginning of a new paradise, and you're always thinking through how do you create an environment that leads to hopefully the best amount of positive outcomes that could occur verses creating a paradise that will lead to negative outcome. So you know bad things happen um you know a lot in the world and you have to make sure that when this happened, you know people are held accountable for IT. But you also don't want to make sure that in the process of making sure that there's accountability for these actions, you don't set a lot of progress that the world is making back that will lead to worse off situation for many more people.

If you can go back to the incredible work with abram accords in israel in the middle. Ast, first, the big question about peace, why is this so difficult to achieve peace in this part of the world between israel passed, and between israel, the other countries in the least, or any sort of peace like agreements?

If I D give you the most simple answer, I would say that it's structural. And if you go back to the incentive structure of different leaders, this whole peace process between israel and the palestinians um and again, i've gone criticize for saying this, but it's what I believe i'm going to say IT is that the incentive structure was all wrong.

And when I went before the united nations security council to discuss the peace plan that I proposed, which again, was more of an Operational plan and IT was a pragmatic plan, IT was over a hundred eighty pages in detail. And in politics, people don't like putting forward detail because IT just gives a lot of places free to get criticized on. Nobody actually criticized the detail of my plan.

They just criticized the fact that I was coming from us and didn't want to debate the merits of the Operational pieces of IT. So I created a slide where I showed from the asso accords till the day, was there all the different piece discussions. I put a dove in the slide for those, and then I put a tank for every time.

There was a work, there was always scrimmages tweet us and and has belin the palace. And then I showed two lines, and they both went from the bottom of the page all the way up like this. One of the lines was israeli settlements.

So every time, uh, a negotiation failed, israel was able to get more land and every and then the other one was money to the palestinians. I said every time and negotiation failed, the palace anian would get more money. The problem with that money, though, was that he wasn't going to the people, you know, a lot of some of that would make its way down, but most of was going to the politicians.

You had a leadership of the palestinians who were basically, I think, that point in like the sixteen, the year of a four year terms. So I wasn't democratically elected. And a lot of what I try to show was that there is no rule of law, there is no judicial system, there were no property rights, and there was no opportunity, your hope for the people to live a Better life.

And so all of the envoys today, we're basically trained to go and do the same things. And I, again, I got massively criticize by all the previous envoy for not doing IT the same way they did. But I thought the problem structure just didn't make sense. And so I felt like the incentive structure was all wrong. And I took a different approach.

And so what's what's the different approach?

I started writing down a document. These are the, you know, eleven issues, but there is really only three issues that matter. I said, just tell me what you think the compromises that you think the other side could live with that you would accept.

And I was very hard to get them talking about this all go back to go back to, I have go to two thousand and I was just like, I don't need a headache and I don't need a history lesson. Just just, I want a very simple thing here today in two thousand and seventeen, what's the outcome that you'd accept? And I was dealing with their their negotiators their book channel secret and negotiators their double secret.

I also like this whole thing is like it's a process created where nobody wants to talk about a the actual solution. So coming from the business world, I said, okay, let me just write down a proposed solution that I think is fair, and let me have each side react. Like, don't tell me about theoretical things.

Like tell me I want to move the line from here. Here I want to change this words. I tried to make IT much more tactical.

And what I realized was, like the palestinians, they'd worked so hard to get the air world to stay with the line of the airspace initiative. And so I gone back and I read the ap initiative. IT was ten lines and I didn't have any details.

So he was a concept. And so they d like that concept because allow them to reject everything. They keep getting more money.

I mean, b bin in on yahoo, who runs a one of the most incredible economies in the world, who runs an incredible superpower military for the size of of their country. He would fly to washington, to meters, and he'd be taking a commercial l all plane. A boss who runs a refugee organization, refugee group, right?

That claims that they don't have a state that gets billions of dollars in a year. Eight, every year from the global community, would fly in a sixty million dollars boeing B, B, J. So the whole thing was just very corrupt and off. And I do think that that's why IT, I don't think people are incentivize to solve IT, to be honest.

What do you think an actual plan on that part, if you can just before talk about IT everything accords, if there is a peace plan that works between his own house. And what is that? What do you think that looks like?

You have to separate IT into two different issues. And I think that that's actually how we came to the Abraham accords, is that I tell the story in the book. And if I was one of my like favorite experiences, well, during my time and diplomacy, where I went to meet with salt on kabo, who was the sultan of oman, and we fly out there because he'd had a secret meeting with B, B.

And I thought maybe he was open to Normalizing. And this also, after he meets with B, B, he calls me, so I want you to come me, so I go over to see him. And again, I tell the story. That was a crazy you night in all of these different areas. But when I was talking to him, he basically says to me, I feel badly for the palestinian people that they Carry with them the burden of the muslim world and that line, just like stuck with me.

And a couple days later, I was thinking about IT, and I said, wait a minute, who elected the palace inan people to represent the muslim world on the aloha mosque? And so the reason why I felt I had never been solved was was a riddle, a that I believed was not designed to not be solved, but b, you are conferring two separate issues. You had the issue between israel and in the muslim world, which really was the issue of the aloha mosque.

And then you had a just a territorial dispute, which throughout history you have lots of territorial disputes in the usually resolved in different ways. So if you go back to this really palestinian issue, there's just a couple components you need to solve. Number one is territorial contiguity, right? You need to figure out where do you draw the lions. And that's something that you know, you can talk about what people were owed seventy years ago, but it's much more productive to say this is what you can make work today, right? And that's kind of what we did.

I'd be we literally spent months and months drawing a map and we put something out, pride change, a couple lines here there, but by and large, I was a very pragmatic solution that I think could work, and I think you could work for the safety security israel, which was number one um so first issue is drawing a map. Second issue, security israel um and again, this is one issue we were incredibly sympathetic with israel is you can expect you know a prime minister, israel, to make a deal where he's going to make his people less secure them before. So we worked very close with them on a security approach as we laid something out that I think would keep the whole area safer and IT would would make sure israel safe and also keep the past and issue safe, need security.

Number three was the religious sites, and that was one that was actually always made much more complicated by people ah the alex a mosque because you basically have harsh if which is the place where the mosque was built in the seventy eighth century. But originally I was where the the holy of holes were in the beta magdi for the jewish people. So and then compounding by the fact that you have all of the Christian holy sites injury lum, it's a city that should be bringing everyone together.

But in fact, it's become a place where you have wars and and and hatred and a lot of different conflicts that everything because of IT. But what I said was, instead of fighting over concepts of sovereignty, which is interesting, how I got to the notion that this was really the big issue I ve said, just Operationally, why don't we just make IT simple, let everyone come and be able to worship as long as they're being able to worship peacefully. So that's really the controls of IT.

And what the palestinians i've done is they've kind of deflected from a lot of their own shortcomings. And a lot of the arb leaders did that as well, kind of in the preamble or hama ur days by kind of allowing this issue to be so prevalent. So one thing i'll say on the palestinians is that know what we tried to do by the line out of plan was we said, okay, um what are the reasons why the palace and ian people are not having the lives that they deserve? And i'll give you a couple of things.

One is I study the economies of, you know, Jordan, uh, west bank, gaza, egypt, maco h this was no never like two thousand and nineteen. But what was interesting was the GDP capital of somebody living in the west bank was actually the same as Jordan, and IT was actually more than somebody living in egypt. And the debt of GDP that the pale in ian had was like thirty, forty percent compared to egypt, which was out like a hundred and thirty percent. In Jordan y, which was at one hundred and ten percent, and lebanon is at two hundred percent. And so now you're in a situation where a lot of the stuff didn't make sense, but if you draw lines, create institutions were palestinian people can now feel like they have property rights and have ownership over their place and let the money flow past the leadership ranks um you know to the people, let them have jobs of the new opportunity and then let all muslim from throughout the world have access to the mosque and israel, making sure that they can control the security, which I think the Jordanians and a lot of others one is rope to have strong you security control there to prevent the radicals and extremists from coming. You could have piece there very easily.

So there's a lot of things to say here. One is just to emphasize alex, a mask, this holy place, and this is something in our conversations and in my own travels are seen, the importance of frictionless access to those sites from the entirety the mule world. And that's what Abraham accords the big lips on OK.

So we'll talk about that a little bit more uh, but that's kind of a religious component. That's A A dignity in the religious practice and faith component. But then the other thing you mentioned so simply, which is have money flow past the leadership ranks, how do you have money flow passes leadership or ranks in in palestine. So, uh, make sure that the money has invested in alston, the west bank gets to the people.

So today, all of the aid that's been given to the palestinians has been an entitlement. It's not conditions based. It's always just we give the money and there's no expectations.

It's very simple. You make the aid condition space, you fight for transparently. You do IT through institutions other than the P A, or you put reformers into the P, A.

That will allow IT go down that way. P A. Being the part, which is it's not hard to do IT just takes people who actually want to do IT. But I think the mindset of the international community has not been let's solve this problem.

It's like let's just throw a little bit of money, the moneys novae, let's put a little novica e on the problem and let's not have to deal with that. But nobody's ever said, oh, let's do an accounting of the twenty billion dollars we've given them and see how many jobs is done and where it's gone. That just hasn't happened again.

It's, it's, it's an incredibly corrupt organization on run. You think about the post world war to dynamic. You have a lot of refugees, my grandpa, for refugees, post world or two, every other refuge class has been resettled.

And you only have one permanent refugee organization ever created. Why was this done? IT was done to perpetuate the conflict so that a lot of arab leaders could basically deflect them a lot of the shortcomings at home.

And so I think for israel, they view all these things as existent. Al theyve value their safety. They've been under attack for a long time. I do think having a deal where we can say, how do you know the juice and the moslim Chris, come together, I think king of dull from Jordan been incredible custodian for the mosque.

I think everyone in my travels recognize that he's the right guy for that that the king of joran should be the custodian of the mosque. Um we should have some kind of framework to make sure when has access the more countries that have diplomatic relations with israel, the more muslims and arabs that should be able to common and visit. And by the way, the more you have these Normalization, think about what that will do to the economy of the west bank where they'll have you know great hotels, hospitality, uh tremendous tourism industry because of all the Christian, muslim and jewish holy sites that they have there.

So there's a lot of potential there. We just have to like get unstuck. I believe that it's so possible if the leaders want to make tomorrow Better that they can. And unfortunately, the people who suffer the most are really are are just the palestinian people.

And I think that you know in gaza, their hostages to tom s and and in the west bank, they're just they're just held back because their leadership just is afraid or or too self interested to give them the opportunity to change their paradigms and pursue the potential of what they have. And by the way, is an incredibly well educated population. It's an incredibly capable population.

And the right next israel, where the economy, they need everything. And so the potential should be incredible if you can just move some of these pieces. But I began up.

There's still a lot of emotion and hatred you have to work through as well. But I do believe that you're not going to solve that by litigating the past. You're only going to solve that by creating an exciting paradigm for the future and getting everyone to buy in and .

then move towards that and maybe increased the chance of being able to establish an economy where the entrepreneurs can flourish and west bank and so on in alliston once um the relationship across the world is Normal ized.

So so one thing on that which is very interesting is what I got into my job in in, in middle east, all the conventional thinkers said to me the separation in the muslim world between the scenes soni in the sha. And that's really the big divide.

And as I was traveling, I didn't think there was any divide in that regard as the divide that I saw was between leaders who wanted to give a Better opportunity for their people and create economic reforms and opportunity, and leaders who wanted to use religion or fear to keep their stronghold on power. And so if you think about who's not creating the opportunity for their people is the palestinian leadership and the iranian leadership. All the other ab countries were focused on how do we give opportunity for our people to live a Better life.

And there is a big foundation and wish that framework can succeed, which I think is the, in general, the idea of arab zuari Normal. So that's where every ham accords come in. Can you tell the story of that?

So it's an amazing thing. And I said here today, somebody not in government, and every day I see, you know, another flight that goes between, I see you know an israeli student studying at a university in dubai or a new cinna a opening up in naidoo and IT IT just gives me such or bahrain gives me such tremendous pride to see all of the progress has been made how would occur um part of why I wrote the book was to put this down for for histories sake to go throughout the different intentional, unintentional, circumstantial things that occurred um it's why we left government.

There's a lot of you example this is why I I said I was kind of at the middle of IT, and I could even perfectly articulate why IT happened because IT was a, he was an evolution of a lot of things. And I joke that we may peace on plant sea, but only because we went through the alphabet three times, fAiling at every letter. And by the time, but we didn't give up and we kept going .

and we got IT done. And maybe this a good place, also step back and say, what is arab's Normalization? What is the state of things for people who may not be aware before the progress you made?

That's pride, the best place to start. So um what we did is we made up he steal between um israel and united aramark and then israel and bar rain. Then we did a deal with israel and sudan, then israel and kosovo. Israel maroc o were basically countries that didn't recognize each other before and did not recognize each other. All these were muslim majority countries and getting them to integrate with israel was a very big thing. Um the traditional thinking had always been was that muslim h arab countries would not make peace with israel until um the israeli postini and issue was solved and what we were able to do to separate the issues and then make these make these connections which are leading to amazing interaction between joseon muslim. So when I think about kind of obviously you have national security, you have emotional um benefits from these things but the single biggest benefit that i've seen from the accord is that if you are uh an arab, a muslum and you are um and you were willing to say positive things about israel or the jews before this came out, you had been viciously attacked by the media or the horrors of influencers or the a extremists in these different countries. What this did was IT brought out into the public the fact that jusen muslims can be together and they can be respectful, they can have meals together, and that the cultures can live together in peace.

So did just a link that it's it's like a one sutter and a any sense like transformative. So Normalization means you're allow to travel from place the other that has a kind of ripple effect of that. You can now start talking in a little bit more accepting way.

You can start integrating a traveling, communicating, doing business with socializing. So the cultures mix, uh, conversations, makes all of this this kind as a ripple effect on the basic connection between these previously desperate worlds. I don't know there is A A nice way to economy clear why these agreements have such a transformative effect, especially the long term.

I would say the simplest form is, is just the mindset. And it's almost like you're taught all your life where enemies or we can be friends with the tribe. On the other side of the fence.

And then like one day, the leaders get up and say, no, it's okay now. And there was never an issue between the people. The people were just taught different things and they were separated from each other. But again, one of the things that I respect about the work you do is you believe in the power of conversation and the power of human interaction.

And you know, these issues and and gaps between us feel so big when we think about them, when we're told about them, when we read about them, but when we go and sit with each other over the sun, we realized maybe we have a lot more in common than we have that divides us. For me, what i've seen about IT that's made the biggest difference is i've seen people who wouldn't have the ability to be together, be together, and that's now forming a nucleus of togetherness, which is a restoration. So you think about the modern medal east from from post holo costs to now again in one nine forty eight, after that warm independence, U A.

Juice living in baghdad and kai o um then they became so anti jewish that they then expelled all of the jews from all these capitals of the city. So you think about the jew history in back dad, I mean, I think the Thomas was written in back dad. IT was a place where in abalon, where the jewish people thrive, I think in five seventy B.

C, when bullets are conquered jerusalem, he took about ten thousand jews back with him to bail on, because he thought to be good first economy. And during that, that that place the jews actually flourish and had a good life there. So four thousand years before the second world war, the jews and the muslims s lived very peacefully together.

So people say that what we're doing now is, is an apple ation. I actually think it's not nabarro. I think it's actually a return to the time where people can live together culturally. And so this is the beginning of the end of the arb israeli conflict and it's the beginning of together ness, which again, you think about how much war, how much provocation, how much terrorism has been made in the name of of of religious conflict. This is, I think, the start of the process of religious respect and understanding.

We've talked about you being attacked in the press for the russian collusion and other topics. One of the most recent set of attacks comes on the topic of saud public investment fund giving two billion dollars to your investment firm after you left government. So that includes a one point two five percent asset management fee of twenty five million doors a year. Can you respond to these recent set of attacks?

sure. So that government obviously work for four years, A A very action act time. That's why I vote the book. I wanted to put down all those experiences.

I started thinking like what do I want to do next to right? In my previous uh, career i'd been in real estate. I'd worked my brother on some technology businesses that I started and then I gone to government.

So I kind had a career shift right in my previous career, obviously was very successful. But the new york times they violated and y've published my financial um um my financial statements they should making my fifty million dollars a year, the private sector. Before I went to government, I went to government and I know I volunteer.

I didn't take a salary. I pay my own health insurance for four years. My wife and I and then we went and I was thinking, should I go back to my old company, or should I start something new? And my thinking was, is that i'd, through my time in government, i'd met so many people.

I learned so much about the world, I had a big understanding now for how the macro economic picture work. And I did feel like there is a lot more that I could do than just going back to real estate. In the meantime, I was getting a lot of calls from different CEO and companies saying, you know, can you help me with this company? You help me with that company.

Your knowledge could be helpful to help this company navigate this chAllenger to expand internationally. And so I said, you know what, maybe I should create a business to do an investment firm where I can do something different. Where on putting together, uh, geopolitical expertise and traditional private equity and growth investing and figure out how to do that, what I can do, something differentiated, I can invest in, in growing things and help with my navigation skills and relationships.

So that was kind of the thesis of what I thought could make sense as kind of a next step. Um I I call different friends they were very excited to to back uh, the effort uh obviously this was coming off the success that I just had in middle east. I did you six peace deals there and you know one of the notions I want to be able to do with the firm was to be able to take money from the gulf and then to be able to invest in israel to continue to build the economic links between the countries.

Again, if countries have more economic ties, I think war fighting is is, is less likely. And then in addition to that, I wanted to figure out how do you bring the entrepreneurs together from both of those countries? So that was really the mission of what I set out to do.

So far, i've been enjoying IT. It's been a lot of fun. I've been learning a ton. I think we're doing very well with IT.

In terms of the criticisms, I think that i've been criticized in every step of everything i've always done in my life. And so what I would say is, you know, this business is actually an objective metric business, right? It's about return.

So in three, four years from now, five years from now, see how I do hopefull. I'll do very well and judge me based on that in terms of and if the a furious things, you and I haven't been accused of any of violating any laws, and I haven't violated any of the ethics rules either. When I was in government, I every year submitted all my financial to the office of government ethics.

They certified IT every year. And I followed every rule in every law possible. So such my critics, i'll say, criticize me before you criticize me. Now i'm going to keep doing me and gonna keep pursuing things that I think are worthwhile. And i'm very excited about this chapter of my career.

Maybe this is a good place to ask and working closer without trump. What, in your sense, looking into the mind of the men, what's the biggest strength of a dual trust? The leader.

I would say his unpredictably, I think that as a leader he's he consumes a ton of information. He doesn't like to be managed or have his information filtered. So he'll speak to a lot of people to draw information himself.

He's very pragmatic. I don't see him as terribly ideological. I see him as somebody who's about results. I think he wants to deliver results. And I think ultimately, you mean he's an incredible fighter. He's he's a big counter puncher, but he also wants get along with people and that's probably the biggest surprise that people found with him.

I mean, you know, you look at even situations like I would always tell people, if you disagree with him, don't go on television and criticize him to pick up the phone and call him and go see him and he'll talk to about, he may not agree with you. But again, that's what kim kardashian I did when he had a case of climate y with a woman else Johnson that SHE elt strongly about. We went through the case.

I wouldn't had a call if I didn't think he was a legitimate case. So we spent about eight months quietly working through the case, working through the details, to make sure that IT really was a worthy case. I brought IT the president truman said, you know, she's like to come me with you to to talk about this case and he said, parkyn so he came in.

We went through the case and president trump timely granted the clemency to Alice Johnson who was, uh, a woman who is accused of being part of A A drug ing uh SHE had a basically a life sentence uh for doing IT sh'd served twenty two years in prison. While in prison mrs. Basically was a grandmother and SHE SHE was not putting on the person place SHE was mentally, you know Young women in prison somebody who again, there's always a risk, but byan large, had a very, very, very low risk of of committing a crime in the future.

And then IT goes back to the notion of, are we gonna judge people by the worst decision they make in their life? And so president trump was willing to grant the climate in and and I think that IT just goes to the notion of like maybe this goes back to his own predictability in a positive way, which is if you go sit with him and you make your case, he'll hear you, i'll listen to you, and he's not afraid to act, and he's not afraid to be controversial, which I think is a good thing. So from a foreign policy point of view, in particular, his unpredictably just meant that everyone was always on their back foot.

People were RAID to kind across america. And what I would tell people who don't like trump, as I would say, think about how crazy is making you and and his enemies, you know, he did that to the enemies of america. And and yes, so he was a very, very strong president. And I think that a great job.

So in some of these agreements I ve been talking about and and speaking with leaders, how do you think the unpredictably helps?

So in all the agreements that I was negotiating, I wasn't doing IT as a principle. I was doing IT on behalf of president trump, and people knew that I access to president trump, and they knew that I could take, you may say this that we don't like, but I may have to take you back him. And then what? So he does.

And one of the biggest sentences was on the U. S M C A trade deal where um that deal happened because mexico was legitimately concerned and smartly so that president trump was going to impose tariff s on the car industry, which would have been deciding to the economy and by the way, he was ready to do IT. We were holding and back from do IT with every ounce of strength that we could.

So IT wasn't a love I think that what was actually real, but they were smart to read that IT was real. And ultimately we created a great win win deal. Um take a funny story just popped into my mind from from the terms as we did also we used two thirty two national security exemption to protect our steel industry and we put tariff s on steel and aluminum m and again, I thought about this because we also negotiated them with canada.

And there is a very funny phone call where trudeau is calling trump and then they got along decently well and um trude's calling, saying you can't put national security tariff s on us in canada. You're nato ally. We fall wars with you. We do military together and trip system.

Didn't you burn the White house down eighteen, twelve and just that was the fridge just know was the and so IT was just still, like I said, he always keep in everyone on their toes yeah and but he was he wasn't a free. He took very calculated risks. And like I said, you know, everyone was out raise ed all the time with everything.

But if you look at his body of work, people said if he was elected, he would start world war three. Meanwhile, we inherit a world filled with wars. No new wars, right? Three years.

He made p steals. No new wars. He was tough. He was strong. People respected him.

He built relationships and got trade deals done, got peace deals done. The economy was rocking his body. Work, I think, was pretty strong. As president.

like you said, no new words. This makes me think, if I don't jump on the presidency, what the the current situation ukraine would look like but let me just ask you, zoom out and ask you broadly, do you think the one ukraine could have been avoided? And what do you think he takes to bring IT to an end?

But I think one hundred percent IT would have been avoided, not ninety nine percent. President trump, for four years, had no problems with russia. You know, we were, we were arming ukraine, but we were working with russia.

And again, the first two years, we had a little bit of issue working with russia because they were cues of colluding with us since we had to go through that investigation. But but in the second two years, we were trying to focus russia on what are the areas where we couldn't collaborate together. I think russia, you know we thought I was in their street teach c advantage to play A U S.

In china against each other because of the way that everything was done before they were stuck with china but not getting a lot for IT. Um under bush they took georgia, under obama they took crimea, under trump there was no problems and then under bite and unfortunately I think they misplayed a couple of things um which I think provoked you know russia to go forward still no excuse to do what they did. I think that the invasion was a terrible thing and and should not occurred um but with that being said um I think one hundred percent if trump's president there will not be a more in ukraine today.

come into the table and negotiating a piece. Whether is down trump, whether it's by, whether is anybody, what do you think he takes? Do you think is possible? And if you're in the room, if Jerry Christ is in the room, when Robin and vote island sky, what does that take to have a productive conversation? And what does IT take for that conversation to fail? Like, what are the project, tories, that lead to success and failure?

I think we go back to negotiations. Number one is trust, right, both leaders, to have the ability to communicate what an off thrap is without fearing it's going to lead to the public. So if you go to the posture of zysk, I right now, and by the way, president Ellen ski, have a lot of respect for the courage he showed, especially initially.

Um no, you saw what goni did, afghanistan. They were getting attacked by the taliban. He took the cash, got to a there, staying in T.

F. When he did how we did. IT was one of the most brave things we've seen in the long time. Uh, and he has a ton of my respect and admiration for doing that. But now he's promising as people, we're going to win the war and the military action has not necessarily coincided with that sentiment. And so there has to be some form of of of rap, but he can say that publicly.

So for him to be able to work privately with somebody who can help create a new paradise where both leaders can say we're going to stop the blood red, we're going to stop the risk of nuclear war for the world. We're going to stop um what's happening that's really what IT will take, how that occurs. Again, it's not something i'm involved in now.

So I don't know who the right broker is or had to put that together. But essentially, they need somebody in between them who can figure out how do you create a landing zone that that works because neither parties gna jump until the pools filled with water. And if you have to outline what to go forward looks like, because you can just stop IT for them to get worse for both parties.

You have to, you have to move IT forward into what happens next that hopefully can start to turn the tide to benefit both sides where they can focus on the future instead of being stuck into the old paratime of who started what, who's to blame for what, who did what to who. It's just a lot of tough stuff now that that's occurred that can be hard to walk back. And um it's a big test to get IT done for the sake of the world would be amazing if we are about to reach a conclusion .

to that conflict. Just going back to the your earlier mention of north korea, what do you think IT takes to bring viole ent former's lancy to the table together? Leadership so you you think that IT has the U. S. president. IT has to be .

somebody who's willing to put themselves on the line yeah to go and do IT. And you know again, if you're the U. S. President and you're the most powerful nation, the world, you should be trying, but I do think, again, the posture that the U. S.

Has taken is probably been a place where they would be very hard than to get the trust of russia based on the way that they've played their moves to date. I always thought from the beginning that putin would try to bring in president SHE in china to resolve IT, to basically give a big screw you to amErica to say, you know, china's now the one you know in charge of this. But that hasn't seemed to manifest itself today either.

But IT takes leadership. You know, the leaders have to get and say, you know, let's get everyone together and let's try to get this done. Because every day goes wrong, a, more people are dying. A and b, you know, we do risk a nuclear war for the world, which is not a good situation.

Let me ask, since you help set up phone calls between down to put in a kingsley baby at, if I were to interview, for what advice you give on, how to. Get a deep understanding of the human being.

So I didn't deal with russia ton, but in my interaction with with putin and with russia, you I would kind of point out a couple of things. Number one is when amErica is IT with coffee in new york was looking like we're gonna out of ventilators and masks. Russia was the second country that sent us a plain load of supplies.

And they didn't send that because they hate america. They sent that because we were starting to make progress together as countries. And they thought that they want to show good will to figure out how can we start working together? And again, people may attack me for saying that that sounds naive.

Again, the past, you know, fifteen years may show that that's not the case. But I don't believe that countries have permanent enemies, and I don't believe countries have permanent allies. right? Again, you think about the U.

S. And russia. In world war two, we worked together to to defeat the nazis, right? And now we're great allies with germany who basically was, you are great enemy. And in world war ii, we're great allies with japan, who's our great enemy in world war two. So he goes back to the notion we discuss the earlier of you shouldn't condemn tomorrow to be like yesterday if you're unhappy with yesterday.

So so number one, as I would definite ask about that, the phone call that you mentioned was after we did a pretty intense negotiation to create the largest oil cut in the history of of oil production. So during kova, demand to shut off like crazy. And he was he was stopping very quickly sauty.

And russia at that time, we're having a conflict. They created a stint called OPEC, which goes back again history tween the two countries where they had conflicts. And then all the sudden they were working together to try to stabilized the oil markets, but they couldn't agree on the cuts of saudi actually increased production.

So you had two things hitting at once where, starting in russia, about increasing production and the man was dropping. So you were headed for a real crisis. And I was trying to get calls from a lot of the oil industry executives in america.

And you do understand we can't just like flip a switch and turn off our own like we're running out of storage here. And um I so look at present, trip likes lower Prices. So he's not upset about what's happening.

You have to call him and if he gives me permission or the instruction that I can try to intervene but up right now he's not inclined intervene after a little bit. Uh, he said, you know, it's time. Get involved to do IT.

IT was right over. Pass over. This was during covet. I spent three days not stop on the phone with a cruelle meter from russia and with a, with mbs directly.

And I was dealing with damper lad, who is our energy minister, you going back and fourth, and I was like, IT was crazy, and IT was just one of the crazy st. negotiations. We ended up agreeing on the largest oil cut in history of the world.

But the story you and you before, which was pretty funny, was finally make the deal. And we set up a call between kinko m on a lamor putin and president trump to announce the deal. Oh my, got.

This is great. So present trumpington also congratulations. We have a deal and then kicks me as we don't have deal, the mexico has and created their cuts.

And what do you mean is they were part of the OPEC plus? And so I get to note, think you got to go call mexico. I'm calling mexico the thing.

We're not doing any cuts. So why we're hedge to fifty five dollars said, why did he tells that the beginning? So i'm tel the saudis.

So we are working through this whole thing. So meanwhile, we are trying to find the compromise with mexico. I set up a call with with trump and put things they can kind of talk this through.

And he was always trying to play the game of how do we get russia away from china? He always thought that that was not the right strategic framework for U. S.

interest. And again, we had no problems with them during that time. What I would say is that for zelinski input in any conversation with both of them is about understanding their perspective. I think with putin he's A A student of history from the things that I I saw with him.

If you look at rush over the last five hundred years, I think they were attacked by a the polish in early sixteen hundred, I think they were attacked by uh the sweets and in the seventeen hundred and I think they were attacked by napoleon the eighteen hundreds. And then in the nineteen hundred hundreds they were attacked by germany twice. And so from his perspective there is in the early days of russia, uh, they were attacked by the mongo.

They were very vulnerable. And a lot of the geography of russia today is really designed for defensive purposes that they have natural barriers that makes them easier to defend. And rush is a massive lamp is twice as america.

You've eleven times zones in the country. And so I do think that for for flat ameer putin, his biggest concern is how do we create a security paradise in the west of his country that won't be a creep. And I think that there's like two different parts, the mindset, you know, the people who are most cynical, putin will say, well, he's just trying to recreate the U.

S. S. R he's being expansionary and the people want to be sympathetic to him will say, well, if you think about IT, the russian perception of the nato arrangement was that they wouldn't be expanding westword over the last year.

They've included all these countries that they said they promise they wouldn't include. Who knows what the promises were worn. But what I do know from his perspective is allowing ukraine and tonnato was always a red line.

And that's why we never offered IT. We never provoked. We never brought up. We said we're going to ARM. And we both said, just just calm down. We don't want any conflicts that we are bigger issues and bigger opportunities to work from.

So I do think you have to think through what's a paradise that he can accept um and I do think that he'll give the justification for why he's done, what he's done. And then I think the framework for a solution is about how do we move both parties forward. Tough job. I hope you get the opportunity to do IT because I think it's a conversation that will only help the world hopefully find a pathway forward. And I should mention.

because you mentioned geography, one of the one of the many books you ve recommended to me that gives a very interesting perspective of on histories called prisoners of geography by to martial and IT has a very interesting perspective on the geopolitical conflicts and perspective of russia from from my geography perspective, and also for china. And the second chapter, and there's a lot of understanding of why the expensive nato such a concern for russia, because geog, if he still, even in the twenty first century, less and less so because of technology and so on, but I still plays a major role. Conflicts between nations, rivers, mountains and understanding the DNA .

of country said he was one of the most phenomenal books. And I, I just found that on amazon, but but i'd loved every minute of IT. The chapter on amErica is also incredible, going through the of, you know, how we became the country we are, the different acquisitions, the different changes, why we have all these geographic advantages. And it's it's an unbeliever book when anyone is interested in geopolitics.

So have to ask on several aspects of china. First, on the president of the meeting, you hope set up a first call in first meeting between the trump in, in, in. Can you tell the story of that? Because that's also interesting, again, that first phone call, the reaching out the the form in the human connection, which ultimately leads the connection between nations and the possibility of collaboration.

So during the transition, president trump to call from the the head of taiwan and that sent the chinese into a real tail spin. And he didn't do IT, I think, to be provocative to them as much as just as a business man. He felt the answer, your calls, somebody wants to speak to, you speak them like you.

You want have conversations here, their point of view. And but IT was taken as a very big insult, and IT was against tradition and norm. And so that was something that I set us soften in a wrong direction.

My view at the time was that, you know, we are kind of entering A G two world, whether people want to admit or not, and that a lot of these countries, in what I call the middle market countries, we're basically playing this when china was being aggressive with their one belt one, they were based playing U. S. In china against each other.

And I thought that by the two leaders coming together, there were some things they would negron, uh, but there is a lot that they pride could degree on which could lead to um resolutions to a lot of issues in the that was like like my most optimistic view um my my most more pragmatic view is that president trump t had very big issues on trade that he want to get to with china. He felt like china, their trade practices were unfair. They weren't following all the global rules of trade.

He had little bit nervous that they would be provocative with taiwan. And I felt like the two of them getting together would be the best way to try and resolve that. So um the chinese are very proud and a lot of is about face. And so we in order to negotiate for that first call, m, we basically reason what would happen in the calls.

So not less just have a call, say high and nice to meet you as a question of president trump basically agree that he would acknowledge don't want china policy, which he didn't see is a big concession because you could always unacknowledged the next day so yeah acknowledged and they will go and exchange present. He was going to come over to the us. For a visits so they could sit together and they want to do IT outside the White house.

And so we read on our logo, which also thought was good, because president trump always felt much more comfortable when he was hosting h at his properties, and he just felt at home. And so he'd liked having people's his guess, and he d love, he'd loved that. He always felt really relaxed and and he was great.

So that was really what we did. Then the chinese come over very much anticipated visit, and IT was incredible. So they were were supposed to sit together for fifteen minutes um and they sent but about an hour a half together and during that meeting, president trump s that look, let's just set some ground rules to this relationship just not talk about taiwan like don't do anything I don't want to.

People, if he does not enough to do harsh things, I don't want this to be a problem. For four years we got bigger issues. They basically just get you notice, four years of trump administration, no taiwan talk whatsoever. IT was an on issue, started talking about the trade issues. They spent a lot of time on north korea. President trump was trying to get the perspective from, uh, from president c about north korea because that was again considered from obama the biggest national security issue that we faced at the time and and they just had a good feeling for each other.

IT also helped that you know my wife and I we actually had chinese anian teacher in our house and our kids learned fluent Mandan and our daughter actually opened uh when uh a president team president truman together with the with the melanie with uh i'm paying is is um uh my daughter actually seeing them a couple of chinese songs and and I thought there was a nice way to show, you know we're tough but we respect our culture because the chinese have an incredible culture that goes back thousands of years they're very proud in how and how they do and I think that sign of respect also said things often a very warm way for us say my granddaughter speaks chinese and and we're showing you the respect um which I think is very important and he did have respect for them. The next part about the visit mean obviously had a lot of discussions on trade but the part that was probably most impacted to me was president c basically didn't hour monologue at lunch where he just went through uh, chinese history from his perspective and he talked about, uh, with particularly emphasis on on kind of the treated of unequals and then one hundred years of humiliation. And then you go through from now all the way to today and you had, you know, china coming back and rising and you could tell that he was learned the lessons from the past and was very committed to kind of seeing china go through.

So that was a different time, right? So china today is different than wasn't two thousand seventeen and two thousand and seventeen. I remember president SHE was at davos and he was fettered by all the top business people in the world as the Donald trump was the threat to the global world daughter.

President SHE was the champion of free trade and the biggest champion of environmentally ism and and fighting for climate change. And and what occurred was present, trump came in and basically I said, like, I think china has not been following the rulers based order. I took very, very drastic approach with tariff s every time he would do the tariff again.

And I had manual our treasury sector come to, if he does, this is going na crash the whole economy. I mean these and by the way, he believed that, I mean, these were things that people were telling you would be very tough to do you. President trump had a gentleman name, ambassage light tizer.

A Robert light tizer. He was really the the tip of the spear on all of our our trade negotiations. He worked very well, secretary manual.

And they ended up, we ended up increasing terrifying to numbers that hadn't even been thought could happen. So we did the first round of terrace. Then the chinese came back and retaliated very surgically, trying to hit us in all the areas that politically would have been difficult.

And what trumped IT was, instead of backing down, he took some of the revenue from the terra fs, gave IT to the farmers and said, I know that this going to hurt your business. I'm going to make sure you guys are made whole. And then he doubled down and basically went back at the chinese with even more terror.

So what we watched over a year and a half was probably the biggest hand of poker that was ever played. And IT was an amazing experience to be a part of IT. And the role I played was really working for a sector manu gin and ambassador lights or as as a back channel with the chinese to make sure we can just d equate things and get the solutions in a uh in the best way possible and so um so I was a fascinating time. But if you think about the global awareness of the the bad practices that china was putting in place today versus what they were in two thousand and sixteen, I think one of president trumps most successful policies was shifting the way the entire world understood the threat of china, and then putting in place the beginning of a regime to try and rebaLance the world so that we can have more economic parity.

So you mentioned to me the book the hundred year marathon by Michael pills burry when we discuss china. And i've got interest to read parts of IT. And I highly to recommend people read that because there's a few is a definitely eye opening perspective.

I don't know I agree with all that. I don't know you agree with all IT, but certainly opens if IT gives a very intense perspective in china. He said he was instructive to how you thought, how down trump thought about china. Uh, can you described to me this is the book, and maybe with the hopeful view, how is possible? But I have a trajectory of these two superpowers working together and twenty four century a versus fighting against each other.

perfect. So it's a very, very big book, and I think it's a book definitely worth reading. Michael is, is, is, is tremendous. He speaks, flew in Mandarin, so he, he spent a lot of time researching to do the book, so highly recommended to everyone. And he was considered more of a fringe perspective in two thousand and sixteen. But I really, I think, came to represent the underpinning of what the collective thought was of the trumpet administration and and maybe you could argue that IT was even more cynical. The whole thesis of the book was that china, from one thousand nine hundred and forty nine to two thousand and forty nine was working to recall laim their position as the global leader right to the chinese empire.

Um you know one of the things that office is from this book, or a different book that I read that spoke about how in the late seventeen hundreds, basically the emperor of china was offered some of the industrial capability from england, which was basically now becoming an industrial the industrial revolution and basically, no, we're fine where the great chinese empire, we don't we don't need any of these things. We're Better than that. And by rejecting that, the rest, the world got stronger.

China remained weaker. And then you at the the opp m wars, you know the chinese had big open problems to all the trade back and forth and then china from about eighteen forty to the hundred and forty one hundred years where they really, after all these uh treats, we're really a second class a country. And so then you have the people's revolution that comes in.

And he talks about how china, very strategic ics is a very, very poor country, would fight their way back and and build brick by brick, and know he prefers in the book that ny xin didn't go to china open, china was china that actually went to nixon and was able to use nixon in order to open up. And they talk about how, under Carter, they're be able to get the U. S.

To contribute to a lot of there. Uh, they're able to kind of start borrowing. The us. Know how more university systems, from our medical, from our science, more research.

And the whole notion that was the conventional thinking of american leaders was that the more we help china advanced, more, they would become a free market economy. And IT was a great market. The only difference was, was that they weren't allowing us access.

They were making our companies basically give them all of their technical knowledge. They were stealing our intellectual property. They were doing S B N oge to to steal a lot of the patterns.

They were just ignoring our patterns, and they weren't following any any of the rules of international trade. Then they started becoming the world's manufacturing hub. The base week came the world's factory, and then they started this whole initiative called the belt and road initiative in order to start locking in their lines of trades.

They were buying up all the ports everywhere. They were building railways, thinking, how do we we lock in our distribution, that we can maintain the dominance as the world's global factory. And so is a brilliant long term plan that they were doing.

And by raising awareness, by putting the terrorists, trump, slow them down a lot. The real question is if they actually did achieve this full objective of becoming the world, uh, dominant country, what they would have done with IT, whether they would have been a ferial or not. I think for my perspective, even with some of the divisions and issues we have now in america, I still would rather american LED world daughter than a chinese LED world daughter.

Um but the notion was as that they were playing a very zero some game and really going to be the dominant leader in this new world daughter. So um so that really framed the perspective and IT wasn't necessarily. Now people ask me in the chinese, rose fearing, is trump trying to stop our eyes? right? And you have a great book also by grammy elson that he writes about, you know, are we destined for war between the U. S.

In china? And he goes through different historical times where you have a power and arising superpower. And I think, you know, more than half the time that ends up leading to war. So the question is, is what's gonna happen here? And I I do think that trust perspective, and this is my interpretation, because everything was always tactical day to day.

And you know, he was unpredictable to the chinese, which they couldn't deal with, and he was unpredictable even to his teams sometimes because he was playing at day by day and issue by issue, and always changing and adJusting, which is how an entrepreneurs, he respected the job they did by building their county. They move three hundred million people out of poverty in middle class. They did IT at the expense of a lot of other countries are throughout the world, especially america.

But trump's stupid politicians made deals. I respect china after doing what they did. But what I want to do is I want to change the so that for the next twenty years, we can maintain our advantage over, then we can maintain our competitive dynamic.

And know his general view is that amErica is the best private sector in the world. We have a lot of the best minds are in the world. And if we could just have a level playing field with that rules, then amErica should be able to outperform.

And so that's really what we were trying to do. We are trying to kind of get rid of some of their state subsidies, get rid of make them follow some these international rules of trade and um and not allowing them to do predatory um investments that then undercut. Different industries that we had that they can have global market dominance from monopoly and different industries and then have pricing power.

But also um you geopolitical powers, like one of the examples that people talk about now is china for the last twenty years was very advanced on seeing this electrification trend. They went they they subsidize solar panels, a lot of the american solar panel players or put out of business. So now I think it's like ninety plus percent of solar panels in the world.

Are you manufactured in china and all the rare earth that you need in order to make these solar panels and to make these electric vehicles? China has bought up most of them and a lot of the refining capacity in china. So thinking through strategically, how do we create an even playing fields that we're not at the mercy of them and how you can have A A rule based world daughter that was really kind of the thought of what we were trying to work towards.

So there's this essene skit where you fan plays you and you are walking into the office looking cool, wearing wearing shades and a book of vest to the song unbelieved by M. F. I know you've seen IT was pretty epic and then trump says that you travel the world representing the administration, but no one has ever heard you speak. So there's a lot of questions that I can ask about that. But one of them is can you in respect why you choose this slogan approach of kind of Operating behind the scenes and that speaking much of the public, at least at the time you spoken a little bit more and today you spoken for a really long time, which I deeply appreciate.

It's been a pleasure to do this. And and thank you for the opportunity to talk about these things. And so that was a really funny school, and he was funny.

The the thing I got made fun of the most for that was the wardrobe and that came from, uh, after you know, three months in the administration, we would be having dinner with all the generals and they were saying, updating us on the war with ice and a general dumford said to me after, look, the president can come to see how we're fighting this war, but i'd like to invite you to come with me to iraq and come see and which come with me I said, no, that's great. I always learn in business now you can't make decisions from just nine towers. You have to go to the front lines and see what was actually happening.

So I had no problem. I D love to go. Meanwhile, two days before about to go the dock for the White has stops s by my office and says, we need to get your blood types.

So what? My blood types, so you're going to an active warzone, okay. Like I guess go so I didn't really think this thing fully through. So I get on the plane with dumford and we we land in in iraq and he looks like ji joes know a great, great general is very, very well respected in the military and we we go in and we we get on black and helicopter and said, you know, this is a nice day.

Let's take the the sides of and so I get on the plane and there is a guy, a military service officer, who then takes a machine gun, locks IT in to a thing, takes the bullets, puts them into the gun and sitting their thing. We're ready to go. And then i'm looking out there's like three other helicopters with guys and one was an osprey with guy buckled in also with a machine gun looking out, we take off and were flying over baghdad from the airport to the embassy. And as we're going, how sitting in an OpenAIr h elicopter w ith t he c hairman o f t he j ohn c hief s o f s taff, guys with machine guns everywhere.

this is a new experience for you.

You have an exchange experience, like three months ago, you know, and how I am flying over a iraq, and the chairman says that the down, who says palace, I looked down, there's like a big bomb right through the middle. Then you see the area with the two swords in the hands.

I'm saying myself, like, hold, did I get here? Like what is happening? So meanwhile, we end up go to the front lines to be with the service, the iraqi military, which the U.

S. Military, working closely with. And I, A meeting that night with the president of iraq and so I wore what are you wear to the front lines in a battle zone and and also view the president. I put a sport jacket on we land at the um at the front line and they give me a ball provest that's a cushioned on IT I tape IT I just I put IT on and go out and I covered the any yours which just at .

cush I and and I went then I didn't really.

really the picture then actually my brother was at at some society event in new york and uh he ran anded a Jimmy baLance so the two of took a cell e together and josh writes me, says hanging out with my older brother in new york. You know, i'm trying to explain to him what your voice sounds like so so he was good. That was a funny one.

But I think just being behind the scenes are, for me, just gave me more manuvers ly in the sense that, you know, again, IT goes back to trust and people knowing that I wasn't going to try to publicize the things they were telling me. I think IT just gave me more ability to Operate that way. And I also realized to you, like communicating is a very important skill.

Luckily, in washington, this is no shortage of amazing communicators. I think there were a lot of people who are much Better at me than being communicators. So I was very happy that they were willing to do IT because IT wasn't something that I had a lot of experienced with. They're necessarily Y I thought was I was very good at. And so I kind of just did my job and and and just focused on getting things done.

Uh, so let me ask you, you are very interesting life. If you were to give advice to Young folks on how to have such an impact for life, what would you say, career and life, how to have a successful career and a successful life?

Number one is I would say you just have to work hard at everything you do um number two, I would say never stop learning and I always try to say yes more than you should go out of your comfort zone and I think just just you got to work hard at everything you do and and if you're gonna something on do with the best you can you know one of the lessons I write about the book from my was remember was going for a job in your view and he ask me says, well, what time, uh, are you leaving to the job?

Interview is at nine o'clock or leave o'clock. What if the traffic is one drive a thousand times like there's never traffic. So what if there's an accident said I can control that is, is there the only excuse you ever have for being late is that you didn't leave early enough? And I just think it's something where if you want to accomplish something, you know, a lot of people, I hear they complain about what other people do or why it's hard or why it's impossible.

And again, I say, this is somebody who's been so pleased with with with so many things in life. But now when i've had chAllenges with things, things i've wanted to achieve, I just focus and say, what? What can I do? And I I read everything I I can get my hands on if I failed at at one the door closes, i'll try the window.

The window close, i'll try the chimney. Jimmy chose will try to take a tunnels just if you want to accomplish something, you just have to go at IT. And you know, I think the the most important thing i'll says I am kind of thinking my way into the answers is um is just do the right thing.

I think that's also right and I saw that in my career. You know be good to people, be honest, do the right thing. And um and if you do that, I think long term if he does pay off, maybe not in politics, but in in the world that large does in my hope is in politics, he will as well.

I wonder if you can comment on your process of learning in general. He took on so many new interesting problems and approach them with the first principles kind of approach. So what was your source of information? So because you didn't seem to be listening to the assumptions of the prior experts, you're just taken on the problem in a very pragmatic perspective.

So what was how do you learn about the middle east? How did you learn about, uh, china? How did you learn about mexico? How did you, you know, like all of these prison reform, all of this that you've taken on and work extremely affected that .

he really started with just talking to people um I I would try to reach out to people who had been involved in different things and asked them know what they did, what they thought of the problem, who they thought was smart on IT what they read that help them get a Better understanding why they think something had failed and then I would just been to read vacuously on every topic um you know washington.

I was harder to get advice from from humans because I found humans had this weird tendency to talk to the media and so now I talk assembly and ask advice. And then the next thing I know is the washing post recall say charge ity IT does nobody is doing and he's even going to this person to get advice. So like, yeah asking everyone so so books really became an amazing guide for me.

Um vana SHE she's an incredible researcher. H she's just ferocious. And so he gave me some my best box and some incredible advice as as well. But that was really that the process and then think that was kind of the first stage and then the second stage was just constant iteration and we adJusting plan as you continue to get more learning.

And one story I tell the book as well as that on my my first trip to the midday east, where I met with mohammadan ziad, who I spoke Better earlier, the ruler of U. A, E, I spent two hours with him, asking him questions and really going through israeli postini, an issue, the israeli air issue, and he said to me at the end of the meeting, he says, Jerry, I think you're going to make piece here in the middle east. And I have a shock because, I mean, first while he was, but at the time, I think someone of the most respected leaders in the region, somebody who I found to be very wise and.

Super thoughts and experiences. And I said him, why do you say that I was flagged? Red, obviously, but but not certain why he was saying that based on the fact that I didn't know what my plan was, I didn't know I was gonna and I D know pathway to make peace.

And he said, well, the U. S. Usually sends one of three different kinds of people to come see me. He says, the first are people who come and they fall asleep meetings, he said.

The second are people who come and they basically read me notes, but have no ability to interact on the message through here, there to convey. And then the third happened, people who have come to convince me to do things that aren't in my interest. He says, you're the first person who ever come here and it's just ask questions.

He says, why? Why have you done that? I said, because I figure, you know, this problems is going on for a long time.

You live here. I'll be gone. At some point.

You're going to have to live with the consequences of whatever my work is. And the us. Is a lot of power. And my question is, what would you do if you were me? And how would you approach this and help me think about IT.

And again, I wasn't going to take his plan and then executed, but I thought I would be very provocative to understand from the people in the region and instructive how they would use the resource in the power that the U. S. Had to solve the problems that we're having significant impact .

on their lives. Yeah there's a lot of power to the sort of the the simplicity of that human approach or you're just listening.

And one of my wishes for society, as I leave government, know I I was living on the upper side in a very liberal ecco chAmber. I then travel the country. I met so many people who I never would have met otherwise on the conservative side, on the independent side, on so many different issues.

I think that people benefit. If you are such a strong point of view, follow, you know, the johns toward mdt marketplace of ideas and find people who disagree with you and don't call the names, don't say they're a bad person, say, I won't understand why you feel the way you do. Let's have conversations in this country. And I think that that's probably gonna our best way to work through the issues that we have currently.

When you zoom out and look at the twenty first century from a human history perspective, across the time scale of many decades, maybe centuries, what gives you hope about human civilization? Everything you've seen travel the world. You talk to some of the most powerful and influential people, and you look at the future. What gives you hope about this little planet of hours?

What gives me the most hope? Is that anything possible if there there's one lesson that I took from my time in government, it's that people coming together to try to make tomorrow difference than yesterday can succeed. And if the right people on the right places focus on the right ideas, I think the ancel that we can have for human history and for society can be tremendous.

And I think that right now, I see we're at a place in society where there's a lot of what I call sables between countries which are really man versus man issues. And those are resolved as time, right? You know, we've been fighting about porters or religion or or who wrong somebody one hundred or thousand years ago.

And these are what I call more tribal battles. But I do think that as we advances with artificial intelligence, as energy becomes cheaper uh, and it's more readily available, I think we're going to have massive industrial ization. I think we're going to have massive advancement.

I think in medical and science, we're gonna cures for diseases. We have the potential. And ten twenty years from now to enter a dawn for humanity that could be incredible.

We can become multiplying eti. Uh, we can we can explore the wonders of the world. We can find things we didn't know. Um so I think that if if we we put our energy towards finding these advancements that will improve the lives of everyone on this planet, instead of figuring out ways to have these tensions between us, that for me is the most optimistic case for what's possible.

In the reason why I believe it's because because somebody with no experience, somebody who all I really had was was the faith of of a leader, and I had the the courage to try, and I went out there with other people. We took on some of the most hopeless, impossible problems, and we succeeded. And if we were able to do that, then everyone else should be able to do that as well.

Well, there, thank you for having the court should try. Thank you for your friendship, for your kindness, most importantly for your book recommendations, and thank you for talking to day. This is faster I opening. I hope to have many more conversations like this.

Thank you very much. Lux.

thank you for listening to this conversation. Jarred cushier, to support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description and now the millions son words from a hot magni, and I for, and I will only make the whole world blind. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.