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- [00:00]
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- [00:58]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Quick reminder, it's Wednesday, so I'm also over on the next level feed. Sarah's back from vacation and I'm going to make her talk about that New York Times article about the a gays in the Trump administration. So, you know, if you want my views on that, make sure to check out the next level. But on this show, got a new guest. Delighted to welcome him. He was National Security Advisor to Joe Biden. It's Jake Sullivan. How are you doing, Jake?
- [01:24]
Jake Sullivan
I'm doing okay. Thanks for having me on.
- [01:26]
Tim Miller
Just. Okay, that sounds. Right. That sounds. That's a good answer. I was told you asked to come on the podcast because you wanted a platform to formally endorse Donald Trump's campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize. Is that. Is that right? Do you want to do that right now?
- [01:38]
Jake Sullivan
You know, I thought long and hard about it, but no, I definitely do not want to do that.
- [01:43]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [01:43]
Jake Sullivan
Also, I feel like after yesterday's Cabinet meeting where everybody went around and played the part of a Kim Jong Un documentary, we've just run out of praise for Donald Trump. It's all been done, it's all been given, so nothing more.
- [01:57]
Tim Miller
Any of your past bosses desperate for recognition at this level kind of begging you to get them peace prizes or like, put their picture on the side of buildings or anything? Is that something you ever encountered?
- [02:07]
Jake Sullivan
Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. And it's. There is a kind of ludicrous, humorous quality to it, but it's also a little bit scary because it's.
- [02:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [02:17]
Jake Sullivan
You know, it reflects something deeper and dangerous about the president's autocratic tendencies and the fact that these people around him are just so slavish that I don't think they would stand up to him on anything at any point. And without those kinds of guardrails, I think it's bleak what we may be facing here in the coming days and months.
- [02:38]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree. I mean, even that sliver of Trump supporters who don't want autocracy, I think if you got them drunk and were like, hey, do you think that this crew and the Cabinet would stand up to him if he decided he wanted to stay in three years? I don't even think they would say yes. And so that's a pretty bad place to be. I mean, obviously, as national Security Advisor, you dealt with a lot of countries sliding towards autocracy that were already in autocracy. Are there parallels you're seeing? Are there things that alarm you in particular as you compare to what you saw around the world?
- [03:11]
Jake Sullivan
Absolutely. I mean, you can just go institution by institution. Trump's effort, basically, to coerce and silence the media, these efforts to get these big settlements and to push them off of too much criticism, his taking on law firms, his taking on universities, his taking on anybody who he perceives to be either speaking out or financing civil society to speak out. This looks a lot like Erdogan. It looks a lot in Turkey, it looks a lot like Orban in Hungary, but with one big twist, which is, in both of those cases, it took a long time for them to play out their strategy. We've been at this now for seven months, and you just look at the breakneck speed with which Trump is moving to try to break down the various guardrails of our democracy. It's extremely concerning. And then layer on top of that, this redistricting effort to try to lock in permanent majority in the House, which I think Democrats are trying to mobilize to fight back against that. And next week it'll be something else, and the week after something else. This is a very concerted effort, and many of the elements of it come straight out of the playbook that other elected officials wanted to become autocrats have used in other parts of the world through history.
- [04:32]
Tim Miller
Yeah. So a lot to choose from here. A lot of things to be concerned about in the first seven months, as you mentioned. I guess I'm just wondering for you, you use the word dangerous. What do you think's been the most dangerous policy move of this administration so far?
- [04:48]
Jake Sullivan
I guess what I think is this may not be the most dangerous, but it's the one that really set the red flag flying, waving hard. And that was the move against the law firms, because what that tells me is something deeply structural, which is that if you can basically scare, coerce, intimidate the legal profession as a concerted strategy, that's structural. That goes to so many different elements of the system, so to speak, being able to stand up and push back against your autocratic tendencies. But, you know, I actually haven't racked and stacked all of them to rank them in order because there's so many disturbing things, and the accumulation of them, one after another after another, they end up having a compounding effect. So each additional move is, in a way, not just incrementally worse, it's decisively worse because it's layered on top of so many moves he's already taken.
- [05:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah. A couple in particular I want to get your take on just because of your experience and, like, relationships. I feel like the purges from the administration have been a little bit underplayed, particularly at DOD and the intelligence agencies. At State, we've lost FBI, we lost a lot of expertise over the course of the first seven months. The director of the DIA out, Air Force Chief of Staff Tulsi getting rid of the intelligence. The people that did the intelligence reports that simply said that Venezuela was not invading us. I assume you know a lot of these people and worked with a lot of these people. Just talk about what your concerns are there, and if there's anything that's been particularly striking or alarming as far as people getting pushed out.
- [06:33]
Jake Sullivan
Well, first, what we're talking about here is a group of incredibly honorable, dedicated, capable public servants who have tried to devote their life to this country, who work for little pay and take a lot of grief because they're in the public eye and face a lot of stress. And they do it because they love America. And Donald Trump trashing them in the way that he has, I think is just an absolute abomination. And there should be more people speaking out against that in a very personal way about these people and what they are going through. But then there's the broader implications of it. And the thing that worries me the most is that a through line here is that anybody who basically tells the truth, who doesn't put spin on the ball, who simply provides the intelligence assessment or the defense assessment or the diplomatic assessment and calls it as they see it, they get shown the door. That is Xi Jinping stuff, in my view. That's the kind of thing that a dictator does when they don't want to hear bad news. And what President Trump seems to have done is set up an entire apparatus where his henchmen or hench women, for lack of a better term, are essentially executing this playbook for him. And I think where it's going to leave us is, is less capable from the point of view of intelligence to assess and identify threats to the United States, less capable to be able to respond to them effectively, either through the Defense Department or the State Department. And America's national security will suffer as a result. And I think that these chickens are going to come home to roost in terms of the lived experience of the American people. It's quite disturbing.
- [08:15]
Tim Miller
Are there any people that you know that like listeners might not know that you're like God? I mean, that was somebody I worked with. They've been in government for 30 years, weren't political and now they're leaving the.
- [08:25]
Jake Sullivan
Top people at the National Security Agency, the basically America's cyber warriors, the folks who are responsible at this vital moment with the advent of artificial intelligence and the acceleration of cyber threats, these are some of the most incredible lifelong non political public servants kicked out with nobody really seemingly coming in behind them. And so I think we do have a massive gap in America's cyber capabilities right now at exactly the wrong moment.
- [08:54]
Tim Miller
The rationale for that was what they didn't say that the 2020 election was stolen. Was that the rat? What was their stated rationale? I don't even know.
- [09:02]
Jake Sullivan
I actually don't remember what the asserted rationale was. But this is classic purge loyalty test. It's just insufficient loyalty to dear Leader, can't be trusted. Gotta go. That seems to be the through line in all this. Whatever the particular stated rationales you mentioned.
- [09:20]
Tim Miller
The China and the AI stuff, an issue I wanted to talk to you about. I don't feel like he gets enough shit for being weak on China. I mean, like he's sort of, I don't know, bipolar on it or something. Like in some ways they want to like project and there are people in the administration who are like deep China hawks and kind of want to project. Kind of a great power struggle with them. On the other hand, you know, when you guys were in, you were blocking AI chips to Deep Seek. They've now changed that based on what appears to be kind of a corrupt deal to me. Trump was popping off yesterday about how there'd be 600,000 students from China. And I'm kind of, for Chinese students at colleges, a reasonable amount, but doubling that amount from what was here a couple years ago I think is a strange policy choice for this administration. What do you think's happening with all that?
- [10:13]
Jake Sullivan
Well, first Just think about the trade war. This phrase, Taco Trump always chickens out. I think it's a kind of a brilliant turn of phrase, but it's particularly apt when it comes to him launching a trade war against China and then turning around and backing down. Remember, he slapped 145% tariffs on, basically said, I hold the cards, China's going to have to fold. And China made him fold. So that gave China a sense that, hey, we actually can push this guy around a bit. And that's basically what we've seen since then. Second, as you said, in the Biden administration, we blocked the highest end, microchip semiconductors, from going to Chinese entities that are tied to the pla, the People's Liberation army, basically, so that our most advanced technologies can't be used against us and our allies. President Trump basically called in the CEO of Nvidia, talked to him for a while and decided, no, no, I'm just going to go ahead and ship these chips to China. It's one of the few areas where you've actually seen a few Republicans come out and say, what the hell is going on here? That makes no sense. Why would we give China this capability that they can use for national security purposes against us?
- [11:19]
Tim Miller
What do you think is going on here?
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Jake Sullivan
I think this is just kind of classic. Trump listens to the last person who's in the room and he let somebody who had a financial interest in selling these chips to China convince him to do it. And he doesn't see.
- [11:35]
Tim Miller
He also folded on the TikTok thing, though, and there are a lot of Chinese investors in his crypto. I don't know, I just. There's a lot of there that is eyebrow raising.
- [11:44]
Jake Sullivan
Well, the TikTok thing I do think is kind of straight up. He thinks that it helped him politically and I think he has friends who have a financial interest in it and he's just blatantly violating the law. There is a law on the books that says TikTok has to be divested, and President Trump is simply ignoring that law. I think that one is very much about personal and political gain. But, you know, it's interesting. Not long ago I was talking to somebody who had just been in China and seen senior Chinese officials and they were saying, you know, it's very interesting to watch President Trump because we've had a long term strategy to basically try to weaken and divide America's alliances to set America's allies and America against each other. And President Trump is just doing it for us. So all we have to do is sit back and watch. If you're a leader in China right now, you're watching the United States basically become less appealing as a place for talent to come cut down on its own research, development and scientific innovation agenda, start trade wars with its allies, all things that are core to America. Totally gutter. And then sell us these chips. And to top it all off, telegraph on the rare Earths issue. Hey, we can't. We just can't deal with that. We're going to have to. China's got so much leverage over us that we've got to fold. You put all that together, and I think it's not surprising that actually in Beijing they're sitting pretty comfortably right now, feeling like they're in a good position. And that was not the case a year ago where I think China felt that the United States had aligned. The rest of the world was taking tough competitive actions and their economy was struggling. So that's been a big reversal based on decisions this president has made.
- [13:33]
Tim Miller
And I think, I think this is objectively true. Shouldn't Democrats talk about that a little more? I know that one of your old colleagues, Ron Klain, was big on this during the Biden administration because I talked to him about that, about how Democrats should talk tough on China and be tough on China in various ways and point out the ways Trump has folded to Xi kind of undermines his bravado or whatever. But it feels like there's a little bit of hesitation sometimes with Democrats. They don't want to sound like they're the hawkish ones.
- [14:01]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah, I think there are two things going on here. One of them is just the sheer number of targets. And every day there's something different in the news and there tends to be a little bit of running to the soccer ball. And this China issue is more of a long term structural issue, less of something where you have like a Putin, you know, Trump summit kind of thing or whatever the case may be. But then the second is what you just said, which is, I think Democrats are a little bit hesitant to sound like uber hawks on China. And I get that to a certain extent, we do not want a new cold war here. What we want is just to compete vigorously, effectively, in concert with our allies, so that we are shaping the world and China's not shaping it to our disadvantage. So I think there's a huge space here, and I hope that there will be more voices who step up and speak out on this without taking it, obviously, too far, because I think the indictment here of Trump is extremely powerful. And you need look no further than the Chinese leadership itself, who's sitting there going like, hey, this is awesome. This is working out quite well for us right now.
- [15:09]
Tim Miller
I assume you get calls from, I don't know, assume you had grappa or whatever with people at NATO summits or had some.
- [15:16]
Jake Sullivan
You think it's grapple?
- [15:17]
Tim Miller
I don't know. What are you doing? Some fancy wines with the Norwegians or whatever. I assume you got buddies around the world from all your travels. Now, what do our allies, people that are still involved in foreign policy and national security in Europe and elsewhere, like, what do you hear from them right now?
- [15:36]
Jake Sullivan
You know, I'll tell you something that's. That's pretty depressing, actually. You know, over the last four years, we spent a huge amount of time aligning with our European allies and our Asian allies on a collective strategy to de risk from China, reduce our exposure on supply chains, reduce China's ability to dump products that, you know, kill our jobs and our workers, that kind of thing. When I go to these places now or I talk to leaders there, what they're talking about is de risking from the United States. They now see the US as the big disruptor, the country that can't be counted on. And you see this show up in opinion polling now, public opinion polling globally. China has moved ahead of the United States in popularity in a whole lot of countries, and that was not the case one year ago, where countries now are basically saying the US Brand is in the toilet and China is looking like, actually, in a bizarre way, a more responsible player. So that's one of the big things that I hear from my friends who continue to work in these governments in Europe, in Asia. Take a look at India as another example. I mean, here's a country that, on a bipartisan basis, we were working to try to build a deeper and more sustainable relationship with. And the China challenge loomed large in that. Now you've got President Trump executing a massive trade offensive against them, and the Indians are saying, well, shit, I guess maybe we have to go show up in Beijing and sit with the Chinese because we got a hedge against America.
- [17:12]
Tim Miller
And you've got Scott Bessant out there threatening the Indians instead of the Russians. That's the. That they're using in the Russia negotiation. It's like, well, we're going to make sure India doesn't buy your oil anymore. It's crazy.
- [17:24]
Jake Sullivan
Exactly.
- [17:26]
Tim Miller
Hey, y', all, I warned you. I warned you. Our Toronto show has sold out. The Canadians love Sam Stein so much that, you know, There are lines around the block to get tickets to it. But the good news is we still have tickets left for our live shows in Washington, D.C. and in New York coming up in early October. So go get those tickets now@thebullwork.com events. I'm missing LSU versus South Carolina for you guys. I'm going to be in New York for that. And so assuming that's an afternoon game, I might have a couple bourbons in me by the time we get on stage on Saturday night. So that one could be a rowdy one. So if you're looking for an excuse to get to the Big Apple, see, you know, go see a show Friday night, come see us Saturday night. Could be a fun little weekend. Go get tickets. Like I said, thebork.com events theborg.com events see y' all soon. To the Russia, Ukraine negotiation. Negotiation. I don't know if you want to call it that. Summit. Do we call it that? I don't know what we call it. I want to get your biggest picture thoughts, but I'm obsessed with the red carpet and the soldiers rolling out the red carpet and being on their knees in front of the Russian plane. How do these things get planned out? I've never been in a room for this. It doesn't feel like that was an accident, really. There was a discussion, I would imagine, between the Secretary of defense, I guess maybe whoever is in your job. And it's like, what are we going to do? Will Trump meet him at the tarmac? You have to call in the red carpet people. I guess you got to figure out where they are.
- [18:53]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah.
- [18:54]
Tim Miller
How did that happen?
- [18:55]
Jake Sullivan
So the way this goes down is there's a team at the White House called the visits team, and they work closely with the protocol office at the State Department. And that's folks whose full time job is just to think about the staging of these kinds of events. And that goes for everything from, you know, when a foreign leader comes to the Oval Office, what's that going to look like? Who's going to be in there? How does the press come in, you know, how does the president greet the leader, all of that to these big summits. Now, what made this one unusual is it took place on a military base that, that very rarely happens. Usually you'd find some venue. The last time President Biden met President Xi on American soil, it was at this old gold baron's house in Woodside, California.
- [19:45]
Tim Miller
You know, Sunnylands in Palm Springs or Sunnylands.
- [19:49]
Jake Sullivan
Right. These places have these great looks. It's really rare to do it on a military base. So you would never have soldiers around doing the red carpet thing. Like, we don't. We don't have a detachment of Marines who just are at the. Ready to go roll out red carpets. This was unique to this. And what I basically think happened is they didn't think it through. They didn't think, oh, the normal way we do this, where we have State Department protocol, people put down a carpet. So last minute, they were like, who's around? Okay, get out there. You got to go do it. And I think they didn't recognize the just absolutely terrible optics of it and that image.
- [20:26]
Tim Miller
But the choice there, they had to think through the fact that Trump would sit there waiting for. And that's the other thing. They didn't have to do that.
- [20:33]
Jake Sullivan
That's unusual, too. You rarely see that from an American president.
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Tim Miller
Trump clapping. I mean, Zelensky, when Zelensky came to America, he was not. And Trump waited for him at the White House. You know, they did greet him once he got to the White House, but he walked off the plane. He didn't have a cheering section for him.
- [20:48]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah. One thing Trump does seem to do, though, is he does stand at that front door of the White House right when people roll up. I think he somehow sees this as a. A power move. Like he's standing there, but it's like.
- [21:00]
Tim Miller
A hotel guy, Hospitality industry.
- [21:02]
Jake Sullivan
General manager.
- [21:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah, general manager. The Trump Hotel kind of thing.
- [21:07]
Jake Sullivan
Maybe that is what it is.
- [21:08]
Tim Miller
Welcoming VIPs. You know, if a famous person was coming to the. To Mar a Lago, he'd want to be there. Welcome, welcome.
- [21:13]
Jake Sullivan
Let me show you the facilities. Yeah, exactly. Spas down this way. No, I think that may be right now. That's. That does seem distinctive and unique to him. This kind of. He goes out and stands there to do the greeting, but the overall vibe of the literal rolling out of the red carpet, the soldiers on their knees, the President clasping. Vladimir Putin. I mean, this guy who is a blatant and brutal aggressor, a thug, a tyrant. I think it sent kind of shockwaves through our allies, sent shockwaves through the Ukrainians, and frankly sent a message to Putin, hey, actually, I'm in the Capride seat here. And that's basically how Putin played it from that moment forward. I think he walked out of Alaska feeling pretty damn good about himself, because he thought basically he'd walk Trump off. What Trump had gone in to do, which is to try to get a ceasefire or impose consequences, and Putin left no Ceasefire, no consequences. I'd call that a pretty big win for him out of Alaska.
- [22:17]
Tim Miller
They don't even have. They're barely even threatening any consequences. There's no concessions. I guess they've threatened some economic consequences, but they're not even asking Putin for any concessions. As far as I can tell. You guys weren't really. Were not negotiating with them, I guess. Is that fair to say?
- [22:35]
Jake Sullivan
I mean, it's fair to say that we didn't host any big summits between Biden and Putin, but we had channels to the Russians at senior levels where we could talk to them privately to explore, you know, is there any possibility that we could all sit down together to do negotiations. Now, in our view, that would have had to include Ukraine. We weren't going to negotiate over the head of Ukraine, but those conversations with the Russians always finished the same way, which is they were not seriously prepared to negotiate, which meant that we had to continue to support Ukraine and to try to increase the pressure on Russia. And one area that towards the end of the Biden administration, we turned up the dial was oil sanctions. In the first couple years of the war, it was tough to impose sanctions on Russian oil because the global supply was so tight that if we had done that, it would have spiked the price of gas like crazy for Americans. And also it would have meant that even if Putin was selling a lot fewer barrels, he'd be selling them at a massively high price. So in a way, you wouldn't be taking that much revenue from him. That changed late in President Biden's administration. And so we began imposing sanctions on oil. That is the big lever that Trump has, because right now, the global supply environment's pretty good. And if Trump wanted to, he could really squeeze Putin on oil, and that is the main revenue source for Russia's war machine. That's what he should do, and that's what he apparently is not prepared to do. But I think that would be the logical next step to actually get the Russians in a position where they would be prepared to make some concessions.
- [24:11]
Tim Miller
What were those. Were you involved in any of those conversations? Like, do you. Have you talked to Lavrov? I assume you've talked to him several times. Like, what's it like? What are you looking for in those conversations? How do you read through the Russian style, if you will, which is. Their manner of speaking is, I think, a little less direct than we're used to. What are those conversations like?
- [24:33]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah, I've dealt with Lavrov over the years, going back actually to the First Obama term. Because Lavrov's been around for a very long time.
- [24:42]
Tim Miller
The reset button. Were you. Is that your fault?
- [24:45]
Jake Sullivan
The reset button is not on me, although I was working for Secretary Clinton at the time. That was someone else's innovation, although I was there when that happened. That may have been the first time actually that she met Lavrov. I think it was in Switzerland in 09.
- [25:01]
Tim Miller
Quaint in retrospect was not maybe the best, but in retrospect seems like a rather quaint little controversy. Quaint compared to where we're at now.
- [25:10]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's a good word for it. So as National Security advisor, I wasn't dealing with Lavrov, though, that he was Tony Blinken's counterpart. I was dealing with senior folks at the Kremlin privately by telephone. Not again, to be clear. I wasn't sitting there negotiating with them because that's something we'd have to do with Ukraine. But I was. We could communicate on things like escalation management or threats that Russia was making, you know, in Europe or beyond. And I could also ask, hey, you know, how are you guys seeing the war? And hear from them whether there was any opening to try to launch a serious negotiation. But basically all of that was conducted by secure telephone call. And we did not read out those calls because we kept that channel private during our time in office.
- [25:58]
Tim Miller
On the escalation management side of things, I think my people, the, you know, whatever you want to call us, the neocons, former Republicans. The main critique of you guys, are you a neocon? Am I? They're my people. I don't know that I am really, per se. I certainly am probably a more hawkish neoliberal globalist. How about that? You know, I think to be a neocon, you kind of have to be of a certain age right now. It's kind of now it's just sort of a shorthand for hawks that believe in democracy promotion and expansion abroad. And so maybe I qualify under that definition. But, you know, I guess we have a podcast here, Shield of the Republic, Eric Edelman and Elliot Cohen and those guys, like their main critique of you would have been limiting Ukraine in the beginning, not providing atacms and other long range offensive weapons earlier, shackling them in various ways, being overly concerned about Russian escalation towards nuclear when it was kind of an empty threat. What would your response be to that?
- [26:57]
Jake Sullivan
Well, I'd start by just saying that they've already pocketed the baseline, which is just a massive amount of military aid, intelligence support, Deep integration into helping every aspect of Ukraine's effort to defend itself against Russian aggression. And I think you can't just pocket that. That was a enormous effort. That was not a foregone conclusion by any stretch. We went and got tens of billions of dollars from the Congress. We spent every dollar Congress appropriated. And we went way beyond just providing weapons. I mean, we built ecosystems to support Ukraine in this war. So it really comes down to just a couple of weapon systems. One of them was F16s, where the argument was we should have given them earlier. Well, President Biden authorized the provision of F16s in May of 2023. It's now August of 2025, and Ukraine only has a small number of F16s. Why? Because they just don't have the pilots to build a whole new air force around a whole new platform. So I think that that is not a serious. Like the idea that if we had given F16s a few months earlier, would have dramatically changed the world.
- [28:08]
Tim Miller
Are you ready to see how big of a Hawk I am right now, Jake? Should we have just been providing air support for Ukraine?
- [28:13]
Jake Sullivan
You mean having US Pilots shooting down Russian planes or.
- [28:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, exactly.
- [28:17]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah. So that would have been the United States directly at war with Russia. You know, I think from President Biden's perspective, having the United States directly enter the war where we are blowing up and killing Russians and they're killing us, and then you have two nuclear powers on an escalation ladder, he felt our job was to support Ukraine by providing them the material, but not ourselves enter the war. I think that that was the correct judgment. And frankly, I also think if we were going to enter the war directly, you'd want to go to Congress to get authorization to do that because then you'd be basically fighting Russia. And seriously, do you think the United States Congress was going to approve the deployment of American forces to directly fight Ukraine? I think it's unlikely. A lot of times people say, well, why don't you just have a no fly zone? Just have the U.S. but the problem with that is when you play it out, it is.
- [29:11]
Tim Miller
You're saying a no fly zone is essentially indistinguishable from actually directly involving the US in the war.
- [29:17]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah, I mean, it's. Enforcing a no fly zone means us on Russian direct combat and killing. And then you're off to the.
- [29:26]
Tim Miller
Count me as a maybe on that. But come me as a strong maybe, but okay, let's go through the rest. Let's go through the rest of the. The weapons.
- [29:33]
Jake Sullivan
So then the second was the Abrams. And, and on the Abrams and, and by the way, on the F16s, you know, I was an advocate for providing the F16s and think it was right to do. And you know, we have given some and they are not useless. They just have not been a game changing weapon. The Abrams tanks was a big focus in the early months of the war. Our military guys basically said the Abrams is not right for this battlefield. It's got a special kind of engine, trying to maintain it, it's unwieldy, et cetera. We gave them a bunch of Abrams and they never really asked for a lot more. What they wanted were Bradleys, which we were giving them from very early on because Bradleys are a highly effective tool in the war. Now the war has evolved basically to be more of a drone war than a tank or infantry fighting vehicle war. But I don't see how the, the Abrams would have made any kind of difference. And then there's the atacms. And it's true in the early months the concern about long range missiles was, you know, what is the likelihood that this is going to lead us into a potential direct conflict with Russia. But that got set aside reasonably early on and the real issue became, do we have ATACMs? Do we have enough of these things to make a real difference? And the military was basically saying we need to keep the ATACMs we have for our own war plans. We can't give them to Ukraine. And so that was a case that was coming from the Pentagon. And eventually we figured out a way to get more ATACMs so that we could provide them to Ukraine, which we did. And Ukraine was using them for many months. And I think they're a useful weapon, but the idea that they're a silver bullet that would have, you know, fundamentally changed the overall trajectory or outcome of the war. I don't think that that has been demonstrated. And you know, we see now that the single biggest and most important dimension of this war has been the evolution of the drone program. And we were in there on the ground floor helping build that behind the scenes when no one was calling for it, no one out writing op eds like they were about ATACMs. That's what we were building out to put Ukraine in a position where they could hold off this massive military machine of the Russians and impose huge costs, costs both in Ukraine and in Russia, by the way. So my view on this is you can look at any given decision and say, well, you know, should we have calculated that differently here or there I think in the end, what the United States did in mobilizing a massive coalition of countries and a massive military effort to support Ukraine made the difference between Russia overrunning Kyiv and not overrunning Kyiv. And now we have to continue to double down on that support so that Ukraine ends up with a just peace.
- [32:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah. What about your conversations? Like Zelenskyy and his team? I'm just curious if you have any kind of color on that people might be interested in what it was like dealing with them and kind of related, like how you think he got into that just horrific situation in the Oval Office and how he was treated by Trump and Vance.
- [32:49]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, so Zelensky's younger than I am. I mean, he's a young guy, former actor.
- [32:54]
Tim Miller
How old are you?
- [32:55]
Jake Sullivan
I'm 48.
- [32:56]
Tim Miller
Okay, you're looking good. All right. Former actor, younger than you. Got it.
- [33:00]
Jake Sullivan
So think about it like, this is a guy who was not elected as Winston Churchill to. To run a war. He was elected, you know, to try and help bring Ukraine and Ukrainian democracy into the future. And then all of a sudden, here he's facing kind of like a Jesse.
- [33:16]
Tim Miller
Ventura type figure when he was elected in Minnesota, you know.
- [33:19]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah. Or Arnold, maybe.
- [33:20]
Tim Miller
Like Arnold and Armadezer. Arnold, yeah. Okay.
- [33:23]
Jake Sullivan
I'm actually from Minnesota, so I remember very well when. When Jesse Devarti was elected, I'd say Zelensky a little more Arnold than Jesse Arnold.
- [33:33]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [33:33]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah.
- [33:34]
Tim Miller
Good at it.
- [33:34]
Jake Sullivan
I think there was.
- [33:35]
Tim Miller
I think Jesse was on RT actually, for a while, so maybe comparison. I think Jess ended up being a Russian stooge, so we'll call him.
- [33:42]
Jake Sullivan
Arnold is definitely not a Russian stooge. That guy is a freedom fighter. So I think the. The. Yeah, the analogy is that. So there was a real question, I think, in the. In the days leading up to the invasion, how is Zelensky going to react? You know, is he going to become the. The wartime leader? And. And we didn't know, and the Europeans didn't know, especially because in the weeks and months leading up to the war, he was pretty dismissive of the idea that there would be a massive invasion. But, man, in the first 24 hours, he came into his own. And you could almost see, like, a physical change in Zelensky from seeing him in 21 to seeing him after February of 22. Just the way he walked, the way he sat, the way he spoke, he really kind of ended up inhabiting the fighting spirit of the nation. And, like, you could physically sense that when you were in the room with him. And then, you know, for a guy who basically was living at the office working 24 hours a day under the most enormous stress, he was funny and he was calm, and he, you know, was able to converse, like, in a very natural human way all the way through the Biden administration. And he and Biden, you know, butted heads from time to time on things, but ended up having a very good relationship. And they would get quite tactical about the kinds of support that we were providing or a particular initiative that Zelenskyy wanted to pursue, right down to his proposals, his kind of negotiation proposals that he brought in the fall of 24. So that was Zelenskyy, the Oval Office thing. You know, it's. It's interesting because the Europeans were kind of saying to Zelenskyy, you don't want to walk into that, that that's a trap. It's a mistake. So people saw it coming, but I think even the people who saw it coming didn't expect it to be that ludicrous.
- [35:38]
Tim Miller
J.D. vance demanding thank yous.
- [35:40]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah. I think Zelensky thought by the time they got to that moment, he had kind of. You could kind of see it. He had thought, okay, this is. This is okay. It's going to work out okay. It was right towards the end of the back and forth.
- [35:53]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [35:54]
Jake Sullivan
And so I think Zelenskyy thought he was kind of in the clear. And then the hammer just dropped. And I think he was kind of floored and dumbfounded by it. Rightly so, because it's flooring and dumbfounded.
- [36:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah. A little too nice to JD to call him a hammer. I don't know, just condescending prick dropped on him.
- [36:08]
Jake Sullivan
Yeah, good point, good point.
- [36:10]
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- [36:27]
Tim Miller
All right, now we're getting to the fun part. Let's see here. This is what happens when you write for the Atlantic instead of the Bulwark. All right, Jake. October 7, 2023. The Middle east region is quieter today than it has been in two decades. Jake Sullivan, do you think you jinxed us?
- [36:44]
Jake Sullivan
You know what? I actually kind of worry about that. I'm a superstitious person, knocking on wood, black cats, the whole thing. So as an Irishman, never say possibly you're cursed. Make statements. To be fair, I also said for now, and this could change at any time.
- [37:04]
Tim Miller
I don't think you expected, like, later that day to be the time.
- [37:07]
Jake Sullivan
Well, it wasn't that day. No, no, no. That was in late September. I mean, it was close in time. It was not on October 7th that I did that. So I made this statement in a conversation and basically pointed out that you didn't have the wars, the civil wars, all the other things that have been going on essentially through the 21st century. But I noted very explicitly emphasis on for now, because all of this could change. And the two things in particular I pointed to as wild cards were Iran and the Israeli Palestinian conflict. So bad sentence, superstition, jinx. Anyway, obviously I wouldn't say it again.
- [37:46]
Tim Miller
It was eight days before. You're right. The Atlantic updated it on October 7th as a nice little favor to you. So that was the date that's on it now. So when it comes to the Israel Palestine war, I think that, honestly, this might be damning you with a faint compliment. I think the bulwark. We are about as supportive as the Biden posture towards Israel in the early months as anybody. Right. I think that you had even more hawkish pro Israel crowd, you know, that wanted you to do more. Obviously, the folks who are concerned about the Palestinian humanitarian issues were going after you for the left from basically the days after October 7th, as you kind of see how things landed. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, like, what would you say would be your top regret about how. How it played out?
- [38:38]
Jake Sullivan
I mean, my. My top regret is just the. The immense human tragedy that is October 7th and everything that followed. The, The. The death, the destruction, the. And it just going on and on. And that's, like, that is hard to sit with. And, you know, I lay awake at night thinking, could we have done something differently? Could we have gotten this stopped sooner? Could we have gotten it stopped in a way where it didn't restart? Because, of course, remember that when we handed things off to the Trump administration, there was a ceasefire in place, massive surge of humanitarian assistance, and a timetable for negotiations to fully end the war. But, you know, could we have gotten it done so that we were handing things off differently? Yeah, I wrestle with that. What else? What if? All the time.
- [39:33]
Tim Miller
But is there, like, a specific thing that you think you should have done with the benefit of hindsight?
- [39:38]
Jake Sullivan
I mean, the case that people make is you should have cut off weapons to Israel sooner, you know, at some point, you know, before the ceasefire and hostage deal was in place at the end of the Biden administration. And, you know, I just without trying to mount a case for the defense. I would just say the thing that we were grappling with throughout all of 2024, which is not the case today, is that Israel was under attack from multiple fronts. It was under attack from Hezbollah, from the Houthis, from Syria, from Iraq, obviously from Hamas and from Iran itself. And so the idea of saying to Israel were, you know, we're not going to give you, you know, a whole set of military tools in that context was challenging. That was a very real consideration that we had to grapple with. But you know, I'm talking to a lot of people about this who worked on the file, both in the US and in other countries. I am reflecting on it, I'm turning it over in my head. I don't know kind of what my ultimate answer is to what specific thing and when should we have done it differently. But it's something I'll keep grappling with because at the end of the day it's a God awful tragedy and it continues now. I think what is happening today is different from what was happening in the early period. And my view is that people who thought this was wrong from the start didn't stare squarely in October 7th. And people who think it's just and righteous today are not staring squarely at what is happening in Gaza right now, you know, with the killing and the starving of innocent people. So, you know, I wrote an op ed for an Israeli paper speaking directly to the Israeli public saying this war has to end, it has to end, it should be over.
- [41:40]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree with that assessment on both points about the initial reaction and where we are today, I guess. So just to kind of go back a little bit more on that question of because you've stopped giving Israel weapons, wasn't there space between what you did and cutting them off as far as leveraging and leveraging weapon sales, pressuring Bibi more in public. And I kind of feel like you guys ended up in the sour spot where you were going to pressure Bibi privately based on reporting that we see and the kind of pro Israel side felt like, well, that was too much actually. And you know, I heard from a lot of back to my neocon friends, you know, who are pissed at you guys for like, for doing that and should have, you know, let Bibi do whatever to respond October 7th. But on the flip side, because there wasn't public pressure and because Bibi was kind of able to do whatever he wanted, like with some, maybe you want to dispute that, but directionally he was able to do whatever he wanted. I think people on the left rightfully were like, well, you guys are fully complicit in this. You guys are fully involved. Was there not a way to be more public about your critiques and pressure him more from a public standpoint rather than going along with where he was taking you?
- [43:00]
Jake Sullivan
Look, I'm open to that argument that over the course of 2024, there was increasing public criticism and statements about what Israel was doing, both with respect to humanitarian assistance and civilian casualties. But I'm open to the argument that we could have adjusted our public posture in some way. I'm not sure if your argument is that if we had done so, it would have dramatically changed the conduct of the war. I find that somewhat unlikely, a change in public posture, but maybe so. I will give that some thought. But I would like to point out one thing that I think is really important, which is, you know, you said Bibi could, could pretty much do whatever he wanted. We're seeing Bibi do pretty much whatever he wanted now with respect to a three month full blockade of all food going into Gaza and then this totally screwed up Gaza humanitarian foundation set up. That was not the case last year. We didn't get enough in as much aid as I would have liked, but we pressured Israel in ways that opened crossings and moved trucks to the point where I believe that we did prevent the famine that was warmed up last year. And the famine we have now is a direct result of a different US policy that has let Israel basically get away with not allowing aid to go into the Strip.
- [44:19]
Tim Miller
So I mean, obviously it's worse now, but there was still children dying from the weapons, but also of starvation and like the efforts to get food in and like the Gaza pier, like just didn't work, was a total disaster. Right. And so, I mean, I agree that it's worse now, but I mean, it wasn't. And you can't say you're satisfied with how it was before.
- [44:42]
Jake Sullivan
No. And in fact, I started by saying I wasn't satisfied and I would or.
- [44:46]
Tim Miller
That'S, I mean, okay, well, not satisfied, but like, that has to be. You have to reflect back on that and say, well, clearly we could have done more to get food aid in. And if the plan was to gossip here like that didn't work.
- [44:57]
Jake Sullivan
The only point that I'm trying to make, because I agree with you with all of that, you look in hindsight and say, not enough. What could we have done to get more. I will fully acknowledge that. My point, Tim, is that you Said Bibi could do whatever he wanted. You guys had no influence on him, no impact on him. If you just look, go month by month on how much aid was going into Gaza from an asserted Israeli position at the beginning of none. We're not going to allow food in to what we did over the course of last year. I'm not trying to sit here and beat my chest about it by any stretch. But what I am saying is that we worked hard and we did impose forms of pressure on Israel to get more food in. And I do think it had an impact. Again, not satisfied, not enough. But I think that that has to be part of a full telling of this story.
- [45:56]
Tim Miller
You're talking about the forward looking element of this and what you wrote in the Israeli paper. You still talk to democratic politicians, ask you for your advice on foreign policy and what do you think about the Democratic Party evolution on this? I mean, you're seeing many more democratic electeds now saying that we shouldn't provide weapons to Israel at all. Some of the Obama administration foreign policy folks have talked about completely reorienting our relationship with Israel from how it has been in the past over this. What do you think about how democratic politicians looking ahead should talk about this and what the right kind of policy should be?
- [46:37]
Jake Sullivan
Well, I think a couple things. First, I think the case for withholding weapons from Israel today is much stronger than it was one year ago. One, they don't face the same regional threats. Two, there was a ceasefire and hostage deal in place and the ability to have negotiations and it was Israel who just walked away from it without negotiating seriously. Three, there is a famine, a full blown famine in Gaza. And four, there are no more serious military objectives to achieve. It's just bombing rubble into rubble. So I understand why you have an increasing number of Democratic members stepping up and saying my position on this has changed because the situation, the facts have changed.
- [47:19]
Tim Miller
Do you agree with that? Has your position changed?
- [47:22]
Jake Sullivan
Well, I have in fact told a number of members who were thinking about the votes on these resolutions that the situation as it stands today following the breakdown of the ceasefire in March means that a vote to withhold weapons from Israel is a totally credible position. That is a position that I would say support. So but for me, the bigger question you're asking is about the future of the US Israel relationship. And here I think it's it. It comes down to what is the future of Israel? Are we going to be dealing with the prime Minister and a right wing government for years on end or is there going to be political change in Israel, because I think that would have an impact on what the, the nature of the US Israel relationship. What is the democratic character of Israel two, three, four, five years from now will have a huge impact on what the nature of the US Israel relationship will be.
- [48:19]
Tim Miller
If nothing changes in their government, if it continues to be a far right government that continues this sort of policies.
- [48:25]
Jake Sullivan
Then it won't be the Israel as we've known it. And I think a lot of Israelis would say, you know, they wouldn't recognize Israel then. And obviously that should have an impact on the relationship.
- [48:36]
Tim Miller
One more thing on this I should ask because I do feel like when we focused on looking back, for good reason, there was focus on the humanitarian issue. What about the hostages? Again, I understand you guys are working in a very. In a situation that there's a lot happening, there's a lot developing in real time. It's easy to look back retrospectively. Do you think there was a way to focus on getting the hostages out earlier? Do you think it's possible that Bibi kind of didn't even really want that goal, you know, because there was some political advantage? You do hear. You do hear that. I mean, just thinking specifically about the Israeli hostages, is there anything you look back on, on that and think, you know, I feel like maybe that there was a way to do this differently?
- [49:20]
Jake Sullivan
Well, the fact that we didn't get all the hostages out means, you know, we didn't succeed. And, you know, can I point to a particular tactic that that would have produced an outcome that got all the hostages out? I don't know, because the challenge I see or that we dealt with all year last year was, yeah, Bibi was not particularly interested in prioritizing the hostages, but Hamas also was not really coming to the table to do a hostage deal in a serious way, at least until after Hezbollah struck the ceasefire. And that was in November. And that's when serious negotiations really got going. Because before then, Hamas kind of thought, well, the cavalry will come. Iran, Hezbollah, others. Why should we do a big hostage deal? Why should we stop the war? So on that one, I think we were in a tough spot because of challenges on both sides, both the BB side and the Hamas side.
- [50:11]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the Hamas side almost goes without saying. Sometimes it's important to say it, though. Sometimes people forget to say it. It's important to say it. The Hamas side was not interested in providing the hostages either, of course. All right, the fun stuff continues. You said on a panel recently that Joe Biden's debate performance was a Shock to you? Come on, man. Really?
- [50:30]
Jake Sullivan
What?
- [50:31]
Tim Miller
It was a shock. Like, you didn't, like there was no. You weren't worried about it? I was fucking panicked going into the debate. My palms were sweating. I wasn't even working for him. I was like, can this old man make it through this next two hours? And I don't know anybody, any watcher of him was concerned about this. And we would have focus groups where people would tell us that they just want to hold him to make sure he can stand up straight. Like, you were really, you were really surprised?
- [51:01]
Jake Sullivan
Well, Tim, I did not expect what we saw at the debate. If I had or if. Well, you know, I was on the national security side, not the political side. But you think people expected that out of the debate?
- [51:15]
Tim Miller
I mean, I didn't expect it to be that bad, but I wasn't sure. I don't think people were. I don't think people that were observing it were like shocked. They were like, oh, yeah, this is the sum of all fears. Like, I was worried that this might happen. We've seen signs of this. You had never seen anything that made you feel like that type of performance might happen. I will tell you more than me. Yeah.
- [51:33]
Jake Sullivan
And I've said this repeatedly because it's the truth, which is. The Joe Biden I dealt with every day in the Oval Office, in the situation room was someone who was well and faithfully executing the duties of his office. He was making decisions, he was involved in crisis management, he was involved in strategy. And I did not expect by any stretch of the imagination a performance like that at the debate.
- [52:01]
Tim Miller
Why do you think it's happening? Hunter was doing a podcast recently. Hunter hasn't accepted our invite. Hunter is doing a podcast recently where he blamed it on the foreign trip that you were on with him. That was like a week and a half before. It's like, how did it happen then if it was totally a surprise? I don't understand. Like, it was just a one off black.
- [52:19]
Jake Sullivan
Well, I would just put it this way. I mean, on that. Just take that foreign trip as an example. He did a press conference with Zelensky. You know, go back and watch it. That was the Joe Biden I was dealing with. And, and on the, you know, the stops before that, he did a sit down interview with ABC on the, the D Day anniversary. So he was out in public, engaging, meeting with foreign leaders, doing interviews, doing press conferences. And then he turns in this performance at the debate, which was, you know, by his own admission, just terrible, terrible. Everyone could see it. And I think that that had. That people were not expecting to see something like that, which is why it had the dramatic impact that it had. It's not something that was like, oh, yeah, yeah, we kind of expected that. That was not my experience.
- [53:10]
Tim Miller
I'm not saying I expected. I'm just saying that, like, there were signs and he was sh. In other press conferences and interviews, like, he, he didn't do that much and he was out. He was working as president. I just mean publicly speaking compared to other presidents, like, he wasn't out there in a lot of those, you know, public kind of venues quite as much. It defies logic. I don't believe you. That like you. That you were totally surprised that there was not. That you weren't worried about it, that there weren't concerns.
- [53:39]
Jake Sullivan
Well, I guess all I can say is that from my point of view, I expected Joe Biden to go and turn in at least an okay performance in the debate. That's what I expected. And he very much did not do that. Now, does that mean that I didn't see him have moments in his public communications that weren't great? I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that I did not expect the kind of thing to happen at the debate. That happened. And that's what I said to Politico. That's what I believe. And the Joe Biden I dealt with as president was somebody who I thought did a good job as president and handed off a good hand to the incoming president. And I guess the other point that I would just make is that there's a division between two issues that I think have gotten conflated. One is, should Joe Biden have run for reelection? And here he ultimately didn't run for reelection. So that pretty much kind of answers that.
- [54:49]
Tim Miller
The answer is obviously not he shouldn't have run. Right. You can say that now. Like, obviously not.
- [54:53]
Jake Sullivan
Well, obviously he dropped out, so it's axiomatic.
- [54:57]
Tim Miller
But I mean, you don't think that he could have been president in 2020.
- [55:01]
Jake Sullivan
I mean, this leads to the second issue. So there's the should he have run for president? And then there is the did I have concerns about him doing the job as president?
- [55:10]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [55:11]
Jake Sullivan
And the answer to that question is I did not have concerns.
- [55:14]
Tim Miller
I watched him doing the job as president, Halloween 2028. But he's running for a four year term. We had a terrorist attack in August of 2028. You think that he was gonna be at the top of his game.
- [55:26]
Jake Sullivan
But Tim, I'm trying to Divide between should he have run for reelection and did I have concerns. Right. Watching him do the job as president.
- [55:33]
Tim Miller
While it was in the job. Right. But when you run for re election, he was going to have the job still for four more years. You would have had to have had concerns. Did you see signs that would have made you felt like maybe I have concerns about this guy in three years from now?
- [55:46]
Jake Sullivan
I think that what is being cast out there right now, what is being proposed is that somehow he wasn't capable of doing the job as president in 2024. And that is what I am pushing back.
- [55:59]
Tim Miller
Got it. The Havana syndrome thing is interesting for me. I thought it was a. I thought it was a conspiracy theory. And then it seems like maybe it wasn't. When Michael Weins was on, he was telling me that like there was like some reports about how Havana Syndrome, it seems like they were assessed. This was a real thing. It was real attack on some of our folks. And you guys didn't want to put it out or had had cross views on that. What was your thoughts on the Havana Syndrome story?
- [56:24]
Jake Sullivan
We put a huge amount of effort and energy into not just trying to get to the bottom of it. Was there a foreign nexus? You know, was this being conducted by a foreign intelligence service? But also how do you support the people who had very real health effects? And I'm very proud of actually the work we did and we had a coordinator at the White House who was working that. Now ultimately it was the intelligence community, with no political interference whatsoever from the White House that reached certain conclusions about their. From their perspective not being a foreign nexus. Right to the end of my time, I was continually calling folks in to say, let's keep looking at this, we should not close the book on this. So I'm not sure what do you.
- [57:06]
Tim Miller
So what do you think the real story is?
- [57:08]
Jake Sullivan
I don't know. I mean, honestly, I think it's a completely confounding issue. I think people suffered in a real way and those people deserve our support. And we gave it to them, I think in an extremely credible way with support from the Congress, by the way, who provided resources for that. But what the source of all this was, I really don't know. What I believe is that we shouldn't shut the book on it. We should keep looking at it.
- [57:29]
Tim Miller
All right. When I have Democratic foreign policy people. And we end with the pop quiz. Tommy Vitor's done pretty poorly on this. I want to say Ben Rhodes did better when he was on recently. And the pop quiz is Based on the fact that when George W. Bush was running for president, he received a pop quiz from a local reporter that he did not do very well on about foreign leaders. And this was great fodder for Democrats in the ensuing years. And so we get to turn the tables on you. The first question Bush was asked was to name the head of the Chechen Republic. Can you name the head of the Chechen Republic?
- [58:00]
Jake Sullivan
Kadyrov.
- [58:01]
Tim Miller
One for one. Better than Bush. If Ben Stiller made a Zoolander reboot today and was told to kill the prime minister of Malaysia, who would he be targeting?
- [58:11]
Jake Sullivan
Anwar Ibrahim.
- [58:14]
Tim Miller
I feel like when people talk about the threats of Russia going into other countries, there's a lot of countries that come up. One that doesn't ever come up is Lithuania. And given how many great Lithuanian athletes there were, if Putin was really gonna try to bring back the Soviet Union, I feel like Lithuania would be a target. Who would the president of Lithuania be?
- [58:34]
Jake Sullivan
I have to pass on that one.
- [58:36]
Tim Miller
All right, we'll give you one more about Estonia. I think a more common target is Estonia. Our friends in Estonia, our great allies.
- [58:43]
Jake Sullivan
So this is where I'm at, because I'm out of government. It was Kayakalas, who is the prime minister, but she's now the. The chief European diplomat. And the new prime minister is somebody who came in after I left the.
- [58:57]
Tim Miller
She's great. Gaia Kallas. By the way, the new prime minister is Christian Michael. Michal. Michael. I don't know, one of the others. We're to give you a half point on that. Two and a half out of four. You and Ben Rhodes get a tie. I think you beat Tommy Vitor, so congratulations on that. Jake Sullivan. Do you have anything else? I didn't ask you about anything you were hot to trot on any. Any broadsides against Pete Hegseth or Tulsi Gabbard or, you know, anything you want to get off your chest.
- [59:25]
Jake Sullivan
I think we've. We've covered a lot. I look forward to doing it again at some point.
- [59:29]
Tim Miller
All right, Jake, man, I appreciate you coming on the show. And the next time, we're going to pretend like the Biden 2024 campaign didn't happen. So we're not going to talk about anything that happened in 2024 the next time you're on, and I hope you'll come back soon.
- [59:40]
Jake Sullivan
All right, Sounds good. Thanks a lot.
- [59:42]
Tim Miller
All right, we'll see you, brother.
- [59:44]
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- [60:26]
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