John Kerry on Iran, Israel, and Diplomacy

Summary

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The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer

Episode: “John Kerry on Iran, Israel, and Diplomacy”

Date: April 16, 2026 | Vox Media Podcast Network

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Long Game features a wide-ranging conversation between hosts Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer—both former senior Biden administration foreign policy aides—and former Secretary of State John Kerry. The episode centers on U.S.-Iran relations, the legacy and lessons of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), the complexities of diplomacy in the Middle East, the evolution of U.S.-Israel relations, climate change as a geopolitical issue, and the recent Hungarian elections. Throughout, the tone is candid, insightful, and often sprinkled with anecdotes from years of high-level experience.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Iran Nuclear Deal – Origins, Negotiation, and Aftermath

[03:57–17:21, 23:21–29:25]

• Background and Strategic Decisions:

  • Kerry, as Secretary of State, spearheaded the negotiations resulting in the JCPOA. He describes building trust with hardline Iranian leaders via backchannels, notably with the Sultan of Oman ([08:07]).
  • The deal’s intent: “to put the coffin, put the lid on the coffin of their capacity to have a nuclear weapon. And then we will go to each of these other areas, missiles, etc. That could not have been more clear.” (Kerry, [27:21])
  • The process required patience, multi-national cooperation (including Russia and China), and navigating skepticism from both Iran’s IRGC and U.S./Israel hawks.

• Tough Diplomacy and “Almost Fisticuffs”:

  • Kerry recalls a turning point in Vienna where tempers flared: “At one point, you know, Minister Zarif got up and started to walk out screaming at Lavrov. And I had to literally get up and stand between the two of them or it was going to come to, you know, fisticuffs. But... in that golden moment, literally it came together and we shook hands.” ([14:05])
  • Sullivan: “So one minute, it’s almost a fist fight, the next moment, shaking hands: Iran nuclear deal.” ([14:52])

• Deal Strength and U.S. Withdrawal:

  • Kerry: “It literally is the strongest nuclear agreement the United States or the world has ever seen because all of our intelligence community...told us this deal will allow us to know what they’re doing. And indeed we did. And when President Trump decided to pull out, even Israeli intelligence was saying to him, don’t pull out. They are in compliance. So this is a war that absolutely never had to be fought..." ([00:31], [16:00])

• Diplomatic Lessons & Advice:

  • Respect is crucial: “You need to have a level of humility and respect for their own history... you can’t just run by that.” (Kerry, [18:22])
  • On verification: “We built the strongest verification capacity you could conceivably build... I can sit here today and say we had the greatest insight, visibility, transparency, accountability of any agreement that I’ve ever seen since I’ve been in public life.” ([18:56])
  • Criticisms addressed: Kerry robustly refutes common criticisms—on expiration clauses, regional proxies, and enrichment levels, emphasizing the deal was meant to be the beginning, not the end, of diplomacy. ([23:41]–[29:25])

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2. Congress, Executive Power, and the State Department

[30:44–36:13]

• Congressional Abdication:

  • Finer notes Congress’ reluctance to check executive war powers. Kerry laments partisanship: “It’s just a matter of fact that the members of the party in the majority have been unwilling to hold the president accountable. And I find that... really, really sad, truly sad.” ([31:42])
  • Anecdote: Kerry retells his Vietnam-era Senate testimony—“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” ([31:01])
  • Truman story on senatorial disillusionment brings levity ([33:52]).

• State Department’s Role:

  • Critique of current administration (Rubio as SecState/NSA): "I’ve been surprised that the Secretary hasn’t been more front and center... It takes a building process. It takes a lot of personal diplomacy back and forth... I don't see the relationship building going.” (Kerry, [36:13])
  • “I still believe they’ll get to an agreement for the simple reason that both parties need one.” ([36:59])

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3. Israel, Palestinians, and the Peace Process

[37:00–47:02]

• Security-First Diplomacy and Two State Solution:

  • Kerry describes granular efforts (“two roads on either side of the Jordan River... 24/7 patrols so that not an ant, a scorpion could cross that without you seeing it”) ([39:19]).
  • But recognizes that Israeli PM Netanyahu “is in fact 100% and has said so publicly and reiterated it recently that there will never be a Palestinian state while he is prime minister.” ([42:08])
  • Finer: “You said in 2016, an irreversible one state reality is taking hold...” ([42:26])

• October 7th’s Impact and Future Prospects:

  • Kerry: “I think that October 7th changed Israel and I don’t think there is a movement in Israel right now... There’s not a lot of space right now in people’s minds for saying, okay, let's just set up a state next door...” ([44:05])
  • Emphasizes need to rebuild Palestinian Authority and the long road ahead: “You literally do not have... a partner today. And so we’ve got to be realistic about how we define that roadmap.” ([45:23])

• U.S.–Israel Relationship Evolving:

  • “Young people in the United States are overwhelmingly now concerned about the Palestinian issue and really angry about some of the things that have played out... That 40 person vote in the United States Senate is reflective of that.” ([47:02])

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4. Climate Change as Geopolitical Challenge

[47:02–52:13]

• Energy, Climate, and Policy Change:
  • Kerry insists: “The narrative has to change on climate... we are going to suffer massive implications in foreign policy, in global relationships, in economies, by what is happening now on a global basis.” ([47:33])
  • Sees positive trends: “$2.1 trillion has moved into investment in renewables, alternatives, energy and $1 trillion into fossil fuels... The transition is now unstoppable.” ([49:15])
  • Examples: UAE’s nuclear and solar expansion, Texas embracing wind and solar ([50:03]).
  • Project optimism about technological solutions, especially geothermal and battery advancements: “We’re really moving fast and effectively.” ([51:14])

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5. Looking Ahead: Optimism and Worries

[52:17–57:16]

• Threats to Democracy, Global Shifts:

  • Kerry: “…there’s a battle globally between democracy and illiberal democracy and authoritarianism. And if you don’t step up and define more clearly the benefits... you’re playing in the hands of the authoritarians.” ([52:40])

• What Gives Kerry Hope:

  • “I’m a huge optimist. I think there will be casualties along the way, but we ultimately will move on things. And I can find 100 different things where good people are working diligently to make good things happen. And generally speaking, America, that’s who we are.” ([53:02])
  • Celebrates innovation, resilience, and the American spirit: “Our allocation of capital... generally speaking, in our country is better than anywhere else in the world.” ([53:30])
  • “I think we can show people that you can do this and do well at the same time, do good and do well at the same time. So that’s what gives me confidence.” ([56:12])

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6. Hungary’s Shock Election and Global Authoritarianism

[58:19–73:58]

• Details of Viktor Orban’s Defeat by Peter Magyar:

  • Sullivan and Finer dissect Hungary’s surprise election, where long-serving, right-wing PM Orban was ousted. Magyar’s movement formed around anti-corruption and economic grievances (“refrigerator issues”). ([61:06]–[65:17])
  • “It was an election that was a collision of the television and the refrigerator...” ([64:35])
  • Discussion of parallels with US politics—the backlash to autocracy, the power of new media, youth voters, the risks of overreading each country's specifics.
  • Noteworthy: “His [Magyar’s] last name, Magyar, literally means Hungary. So it’s like we had a presidential candidate in the United States whose name was Joe American.” (Sullivan, [66:10])

• Geo-Strategic Implications for Europe and Ukraine:

  • Removal of a pro-Putin obstacle to EU action: “Peter Magyar is saying now that those funds will be released, Ukraine will get that money.” ([72:21])

• Far-Right Politics, U.S. Involvement, and “Patriotic Parties”:

  • Critique of U.S. administration figures endorsing Orban: “...this is the literal living out of the national security strategy... where in that document they say we are going to support what they call patriotic parties, literally meaning these far right parties in Europe...” ([69:29], [70:05])

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “This is a war that absolutely never had to be fought. Did not have to be fought.”
  — John Kerry ([00:31])

• “At one point, you know, Minister Zarif got up and started to walk out screaming at Lavrov. And I had to literally get up and stand between the two of them or it was going to come to, you know, fisticuffs. But... in that golden moment, literally it came together and we shook hands.”
  — John Kerry ([14:05])

• “The Iran nuclear deal was not meant to be the end. It was meant to be the beginning. The beginning.”
  — Jake Sullivan ([28:25])

• “I think that October 7th changed Israel... there’s not a lot of space right now in people’s minds for saying, okay, let’s just set up a state next door...”
  — John Kerry ([44:05])

• “The narrative has to change on climate... we are going to suffer massive implications in foreign policy, in global relationships, in economies... The transition is now unstoppable.”
  — John Kerry ([47:33], [49:15])

• “You go back to de Tocqueville… Americans are good people. They do charity, they take care of each other… Life is better in so many different ways for people... we have great options, better than any other people on the planet. We’re very lucky.”
  — John Kerry ([54:00], [56:12])

• On Hungary’s election:
  “His last name, Magyar, literally means Hungary. So it’s like we had a presidential candidate in the United States whose name was Joe American.”
  — Jake Sullivan ([66:10])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Iran Nuclear Deal Negotiation & Origins: [03:57]–[17:21]
• Addressing Critiques of the Deal: [23:21]–[29:25]
• Congressional and Executive Power: [30:44]–[36:13]
• U.S.–Israel Relations / Peace Process: [37:00]–[47:02]
• Climate Change as Foreign Policy Issue: [47:02]–[52:13]
• Kerry’s Optimism and Global Challenges: [52:17]–[57:16]
• Hungary Election Analysis and Implications: [58:19]–[73:58]

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Additional Insights and Tone

• The episode is both wonky and accessible, blending insider process stories with broader policy explanations and historical perspective. Kerry is reflective and committed, never shying from direct answers or admitting shortcomings in the U.S. or international process.
• Both hosts push for candid, actionable lessons—not just “what happened,” but “how to do it better next time.”
• The conversation closes on notes of hope, resilience, and the importance of sustained diplomatic engagement, practical optimism, and learning lessons—both from failures and unexpected successes.

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For Further Listening

Skip to:

• [14:05] for Kerry’s Vienna negotiation showdown story
• [23:21] for direct rebuttals to Iran deal critics
• [44:05] for discussion on Israeli/Palestinian prospects after October 7
• [49:09] for how climate change and energy transition are shifting geopolitics
• [61:06] for Hungary’s landmark election and its wider meaning

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This summary provides a comprehensive guide for listeners and non-listeners alike, capturing the spirit, substance, and strategic lessons of a conversation with one of America’s most persistent diplomatic figures.

Transcript

[Jake Sullivan]

Does anyone really know what goes on

[John Kerry]

behind closed doors at the Supreme Court?

[John Finer]

Four years ago, I got a tip about the court and I was not in the market to cover it whatsoever.

[Jake Sullivan]

But this tip was about a secret

[John Kerry]

influence campaign that had been carried out inside the court.

[John Finer]

As you know, the very idea of that is outrageous.

[Jake Sullivan]

I'm Preet Bharara, and this week, New York Times investigative journalist Jodi Kantor joins me to discuss her expose on the court's shadow docket. The episode is out now. Search and follow.

[John Kerry]

Stay tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. It literally is the strongest nuclear agreement the United States or the world has ever seen because all of our intelligence community, the Russian, the Chinese, the European, our own, told us this deal will allow us to know what they're doing. And indeed we did. And when President Trump decided to pull out, even Israeli intelligence was saying to him, don't pull out. They are in compliance. So this is a war that absolutely never had to be fought. Did not have to be fought.

[Jake Sullivan]

Welcome back to the long Game. I'm Jake Sullivan.

[John Finer]

And I'm John Finer. Today we're going to be focused yet again on the conflict in Iran, negotiations, blockade, possible return to war. To come back at the end and talk a bit about a major election that took place in Hungary with serious international implications that led to the defeat of Viktor Orban, close friend of the current US Administration who will now be heading out of office. But before that, and importantly, we have a special guest, and it feels a bit odd for Jake and me to introduce John Kerry to an audience that is focused on foreign affairs because many of you, if not all of you, are probably more familiar with him and his career than you are with us. But in the spirit of Henry Kissinger, who, who once said something like, not everybody needs an introduction, but people tend to like them, we're going to go ahead and give it a shot. So Jake and I both worked with John Kerry across two US Administrations. I had the honor personally of serving as his chief of staff at the end of the Obama administration. He will hate this line, but it's still worth saying it. John Kerry has served our country in various capacities for at least 45 years during his career. And during that time, he's had an almost Forrest Gump like connection to the most consequential issues the country has faced, from his decorated service in Vietnam to coming home from that war and protesting against it to try to get it to end, to landing on Richard Nixon's enemies list as a result of those Protests to serving for decades.

[John Kerry]

I thought you were gonna say landing on the Moon.

[John Finer]

Not yet, but, you know, these days,

[Jake Sullivan]

that could still come.

[John Finer]

Artemis 3, you've got time, you've got some years to devote to that decades of service in the U.S. senate 2004 presidential nomination and his tenure as President Obama's second term Secretary of State, which included both the Iran nuclear deal, which we will obviously dig into during this episode, and also the Paris Climate Accord, which I know was both a passion project and a consequential one for the world. And then later serving in his last government role as Joe Biden's climate envoy. In addition to the Iranians, he has negotiated with Israelis and Palestinians to try to end their conflict with Afghans, to try to avert a civil war in that country, with Russians on the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and with Senate Republicans to try to get them to agree to put a price on carbon emissions. So he knows a thing or two about trying to solve hard problems with hard people. And he earned a reputation for extraordinary patience, relentlessness, and empathy for those across the table, which are underrated traits, I think, we think, for a top diplomat. So, John Kerry, welcome to the long game.

[John Kerry]

Thank you, guys. I'm really happy to be here with you.

[Jake Sullivan]

We're incredibly grateful that you're here with us.

[John Kerry]

It's really great to be here.

[Jake Sullivan]

So, Mr. Secretary, we are gonna dig in to negotiating with the Iranians, the current state of play with respect to the diplomacy between the Trump administration and Iran. But there's another actor here in the middle of all this, which is the Pakistanis. And John mentioned all the people you negotiated with. You also had the opportunity to negotiate with them on a mission that President Obama sent you on when you were still in the Senate to try to recover the remains of the stealth helicopter that went down as part of the bin Laden raid. And so you've been there in the room with those guys. It's kind of an unusual thing that the Pakistanis are sitting here as the peacemakers, given their historic role in the region. But could you talk for a minute about that experience and how you see their role in all of this as the US And Iran try to come to some understanding?

[John Kerry]

Well, as you guys know better than most people, foreign policy is a combination of things, and it's largely representing your interests and understanding the interests of the people you're dealing with. And to the degree you can build a personal relationship, so much the better. So in Pakistan, we had a lot of problems, as you guys remember, with the ISI their intelligence service, which played a lot of different angles and games, and you never quite could be certain you were getting a truth or the truth. But on the other hand, there were moments where they could be really helpful because of the relationships they had sort of under the table and on the side. And as we were wrestling with terrorists, the. The Pakistani Taliban, and they were constantly playing in Afghanistan, and that was really problematic. So you have to find, you know, to be really careful to know you weren't being led down the primrose path and lied to or misled or, you know, a decoy. But they also had an ability to be able to be helpful. And where things were practical, I found that we were able to get some things done, like getting the helicopter back and those kinds of things. I mean, I spent hours with General Kayani, who was then, God rest his soul, the powerhouse in the country. And really the ISI was calling a lot of the shots. There was a certain disorder within the government which made things very, very difficult. But in the end, you've got to go to the people in the places where you can leverage behavior, and that's exactly what they're doing now. I think it's for the better. I'm delighted that the Prime Minister has stepped in. I think whenever Pakistan can find a moment to prove its. And this sounds a little condescending, I don't mean it that way, but to really show that the government's coming together and the government is prepar. Actually work, because often it is not. And it's a disparate group of interests. So I hope this can work.

[John Finer]

So let's get right to the nuclear talks. I think the first time the three of us were all in the same room together was probably in the early days of the negotiations around the jcpoa, either in Geneva or Vienna or one of those European capitals. Probably Geneva, I guess, for the. For the first round, you started working on Iran, actually also before you became

[John Kerry]

secretary, when I was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

[John Finer]

And then you and President Obama made a sort of strategic decision that we had this problem with Iran's nuclear program too close to the potential of getting a weapon for comfort for the United States against our interests. And that the best way to deal with that was through a diplomatic deal. Not a deal that would be negotiated over one day or even one week or even one month, but over multiple years. Can you just describe that project? You know, what the Iranians were like as negotiating partners? And when you started, did you realize you were going to be launching on this extended saga that would take up probably more of your time than anything else as Secretary of State.

[John Kerry]

No, I didn't know how long it would take. But, I mean, Jake played a key role in the very beginning there when I. I remember going to President Obama as chairman of the committee, and I said, look, you know, I've won a friendship with the Sultan of Oman, who was actually quite sick at the time. He had cancer. But we became really friendly. I mean, we just struck up a terrific relationship. In fact, later on in his cancer, right before he died, I was the only diplomat in the world who went to Badgastein and met with him and talked about the track we were on. And he helped. I was able to persuade him, actually, because the Ayatollah, the word we were getting from the Omanis was, they don't trust you. They're not going to talk to you.

[John Finer]

They're the Iranians.

[John Kerry]

They're the Iranians. And the Ayatollah particularly, you know, has a beatus bonnet about it. And of course, the IRGC would keep pushing. You can't negotiate with the Great Satan. There's no way they will deliver. You know, you can't trust them, et cetera. And so I had this intermediary who was sort of working the file in Oman, and I persuaded the Sultan to take a trip to Iran to meet with the Ayatollah in order to kind of convey to him his sense that our bona fides were good, that we were prepared to be honest. We were prepared to be fair brokers. We were prepared to try to get a fair deal. And that played a role in his giving permission to these talks to even take place, because, frankly, they were bitter enough about the U.S. you know, antipathy to them that it was really hard. There was no clarity of the fact that the Ayatollah was going to let anybody really negotiate. In the end, he became a force for closing the deal. He and now killed, you know, now he died. And then you had the subsequent ayatoll come in. But they were supportive of this idea, the people who wanted this, the nuclear weapon. And there were people in Iran who wanted nuclear weapon. Israel is not incorrect to say, okay, we need to be wary of what's happening. But it primarily came from the irgc, and they opposed.

[John Finer]

Who are now closer to power maybe, than they were before.

[John Kerry]

Closer to power than they were before. And they opposed having any talks or going into any limitations on the nuclear program. So actually, there were. There were some sort of. I don't know if you. It's fair to call them moderates, but there were people who had a different opinion in Iran who wanted to move, to negotiate with west, to actually bring people together and see if they could open themselves up to the world. And this was the great benefit of what we were trying to do. We didn't just want to have a short deal, oh, do this, put this in the package, put the, you know, put the, the, the, or the nuclear weapon into the refrigerator, so to speak, and let it sit. We wanted to go further and had a theory of the case about regime change that ultimately would come as they were exposed to the world and taken down a different path and could see the benefits of it and that people could see the benefits of it. In this instance, Israel. The prime minister came over here, sat in the Situation Room and said to the President of the United States and the assembled folks there, you know, there are four things that can happen. You can bomb them and we can end their nuclear capacity and the people will rise up and there'll be a change of regime, et cetera. But Israeli intelligence folks will now tell you they had no plan. They had worked the process. So, John, going back to sort of how we began, we had to build serious blocks here. And I remember going to Hillary, says Secretary Clinton, with Jake in the room, and we met and I talked about this intermediary and about what was being proffered and whether or not we could try to advance this. And in the end, Jake went over with Bill Burns, I think it was, and they sort of sketched out an outline to what might or might not be able to be done. And we built off that. I mean, it became sort of, you know, there were huge hurdles, as you remember, in between and tough negotiations. I mean, one thing I found is really tough negotiators and slow and slow negotiators dragging it out and finding things. I mean, there's a. I can tell you a funny story. It's half funny. Towards the end of the negotiations, we were In Vienna after three weeks of steady negotiating and 19 days, I think

[John Finer]

the longest an American Secretary of State had ever been out of the country in one place, maybe in American history, but certainly in a long time time.

[John Kerry]

And negotiating every single day.

[Jake Sullivan]

Were you guys going stir crazy? I mean, 19 straight days.

[John Kerry]

19 straight. We celebrated the Fourth of July. The hotel put on a big Fourth of July thing. It was great. But here's the point I want to make is that we thought they were sort of stalling and not pushing, and Lavrov was growing impatient.

[John Finer]

The Russian Foreign Minister.

[John Kerry]

Russian Foreign Minister.

[John Finer]

Still the Russian Foreign Minister.

[John Kerry]

Still the Russian Foreign Minister. Sergei Lavrov, who is a very experienced and very smart and very capable diplomat. We obviously have disagreements with the positions he has represented, quite a few, but he. He knows how to argue for his country and he's smart cookie. So he came to me and said, I'm. We're going to be leaving here. We're going to get out of here pretty soon, and so forth. So we kind of had a showdown in the hotel room where I brought in Mogherini and I brought in Lavrov,

[Jake Sullivan]

and Mogherini was the.

[John Kerry]

Mogarini was the European diplomat who was

[John Finer]

working part mediator, part negotiator.

[John Kerry]

Yeah. And. And of course, we had Sergei Lavrov and Zarif, you know, Jabad Zarif, the minister of Iran. And there were some hot words exchanged. Really hot. And at one point, you know, Minister Zarif got up and started to walk out screaming at Lavrov. And I had to literally get up and stand between the two of them or it was going to come to, you know, fisticuffs. But that confrontation and the presence of Lavrov and sort of the pressure of this moment saying, look, are we going to do this or aren't we going to do this?

[John Finer]

And Lavrov, the Russian, almost pressuring Zarif to do that.

[John Kerry]

Now's the time to make this. And in that golden moment, literally it came together and we shook hands. The deal, you know, the deal's going to be done now.

[Jake Sullivan]

So one minute, it's almost a fist fight, the next minute, next moment, shaking hands. Iran nuclear deal.

[John Kerry]

They. We had the Iran nuclear agreement done.

[Jake Sullivan]

Yeah.

[John Kerry]

And what's important from all of that, I think, Jake, is that, you know, Russia was in the room. Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, was not in the room at that moment, but he was involved directly in helping to move things. I flew to China a couple of times, you'll recall, met with President Xi, solicitous help, particularly on dealing with the nuclear materials. How are we going to do. How do we have confidence they're going to be, you know, so these folks all joined in this. What I think is critical to this moment historically is that China, Russia, Germany, France, uk, United States, UN Were all at the table, all signing off an agreement that absolutely for certain took a nuclear weapon off the table, at least for a year. Our goal was for. We've gotta have a year of. Before breakout time.

[Jake Sullivan]

Yeah.

[John Kerry]

And we achieved that. We actually were above One year. And so that agreement was entirely enforceable. It came with the greatest level of scrutiny, the greatest level of penetration of on site inspections, of human redundancy in that process, of any nuclear agreement we've ever done. It literally is the strongest nuclear agreement the United States or the world has ever seen. Because. Because all of our intelligence community, the Russian, the Chinese, the European, our own, told us, this deal will allow us to know what they're doing. And indeed we did. And when President Trump decided to pull out, even Israeli intelligence was saying to him, they're in compliance. Don't pull out. They are in compliance. So this is a war we're now in that absolutely never had to be fought, did not have to be fought, and it's questionable now, will we even get back to where we were, or are we in a situation where we had a war where the deal was broken and we won't have necessarily the kind of insight that we had through that deal? It's shocking. I mean, it's really a stunning reversal of common sense, of stubbornness, of ideology, or just shooting from the hip.

[Jake Sullivan]

Well, after all that shooting from the hip and after all that literal shooting and bombing, the Trump administration seems to have come around to the view that, hey, we actually gotta do some diplomacy with these guys. And we had one round, 21 hours, apparently in the room, doesn't quite match the 19 day stretch that you guys did right at the end. Now, J.D. vance, it looks like, along with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and others, may end up in another round of diplomacy. If JD Vance called you up, not that he's likely to, but call any of us up. But if he did and said, hey, what did you learn? What advice would you give me for how to deal with these guys? One of whom, Abbas Arakchee, the current Foreign minister, was in that room for

[John Kerry]

all that time, we got to know him very well.

[Jake Sullivan]

So if he said to you, Mr. Secretary, what advice would you give us? What did you learn from this? What would you tell us now to do, to try to get out of this jam, this pickle that we're in, to actually get to something useful, what would you say?

[John Kerry]

Well, first thing I would say is, you've really got to know who you're talking to, and you've got to have respect. It's a word you always hear in dealing with the Chinese. Mutual respect. You need to have a level of humility and respect for their own history, which in their case is several thousand years. Ours is 250 years, and they're very proud of that. And, you know, you can't just run by that.

[Jake Sullivan]

So saying things like, you must agree to our terms or unconditional surrender, walk

[John Finer]

in and say, or civilization will die tonight. For example.

[John Kerry]

Not a, not a good. You know, also it's a little bit difficult to sit there and be ordering people or, or putting, you know, mandates in front of them when you've just killed the ayatollah, you've killed the wife, you've killed the daughter, you've killed the bro, the brother. I mean, and, and, and then, you know, I, I think. And we saw this flare up of pride on occasion. I mean, I remember once we were having a real hard, tough argument about making sure that we were able to see what they were doing, and we had to make that fail safe. Reagan said, trust but verify. We with President Obama said, don't trust, but verify. And we built the strongest verification capacity you could conceivably build. So we have redundancy of people of, of process. We had radio seals on the centrifuges. We had them destroy the vast majority of their centrifuges, keeping only the oldest ones. We had television cameras in the facilities where they would manufacture. And in contrary to the distortions that have been thrown out there about this agreement, it did not end in 15 years or 25 years. There were certain items which changed, but the fundamental capacity to be able to have a demand inspection and enforce that demand inspection and go back to all of the sanctions and have the ability to be able to leverage a challenge inspection. That whole process was laid out. And so literally, I can sit here today and say we had the greatest insight, visibility, transparency, accountability of any agreement that I've ever seen since I've been in public life. And unfortunately, in just pulling out, we reinforce the worst fears of the Ayatollah who said, you can't trust the Great Satan. And indeed they don't trust. They didn't trust us. So I think that if Jared and Steve and company, the vice president go in there and really work at making sure the Iranians understand that you understand some of their own difficulties and challenges here. And I believe they can get, I personally believe we will get an agreement. I think there's going to be an agreement forthcoming of one kind or another. I think the world needs that. I think we desperately need to calm things down. We need to, you know, the commonality of interests in that region, the Middle east, are just staggering. And there's so much that we could be working towards with all of those countries it came close. You came close. You were working hard to get Saudi Arabia on board. I am convinced. I don't have the intel to show it, but I am convinced that one of the reasons October 7th happened, which is so egregious and did traumatize Israel, all of us need to recognize how, how horrible that day of racism, of. Of sheer fury and misogynistic and all the horrible things that were done that day that would change any country. And. And so Israel is now a different nation than it was before that. But you, by the work that was being done to give life to the Abraham Accords and have Saudi Arabia join and then ultimately recognize Israel, that Hamas suddenly said, oh, my God, we better take center stage here. And so it underscores the great complication of that region and of how difficult it is. But our Iran nuclear agreement spoke to all of those challenges, and it provided a roadmap for how you could ultimately try to have a peaceful outcome. Now, if Iran did what we all suspected it might do, which is why we made it so tough in terms of visibility, if Iran decided, oh, okay, we're going to cheat, we're going to go after this, we had one year.

[Jake Sullivan]

Yeah.

[John Kerry]

During which we could put to them, hey, guys, we know what you're doing. And if you don't stop it, they're going to be serious implications, then you would act with Russia and China and everybody else who had an interest in the viability of this agreement.

[John Finer]

You've laid out, I think, a very strong case for the deal, you know, one that we believe and share. But there are also a number of criticisms of the Iran nuclear deal. So I just want to put those on the table and get your reaction to them. So people say a number of things, that it failed to constrain Iran's bad behavior beyond the nuclear program. The proxies.

[John Kerry]

I'm glad you asked that.

[John Finer]

Second, that it expired at some point 10 to 15 years after it was implemented. Third, that it allowed Iran to enrich uranium at all. And fourth, to your point about the world being represented in the room, there were some parties, I think, who believed they should be represented in the room and were not. The countries in the region, the Gulf countries primarily, I think, believe they were left out. What do you make of those criticisms and the argument, by the way, that the critics make, which now feels a bit hollow, that they didn't want war, they just wanted a better deal.

[John Kerry]

This agreement had a 15 year or a 25 year, for instance, the television cameras were going to be watching every Ounce of uranium that was mined and milled and put into yellow cake and then ultimately controlled as waste was accounted for every ounce. So yes, there were a couple of things where we knew it didn't make a difference in our ability to 100% track what was happening. We did give them a 15 year cutoff of one thing or another. But remember, the enrichment process limited them to enrichment of 3.67% of highly enriched

[John Finer]

stockpile they have now.

[John Kerry]

Stockpile. Stockpile now is allegedly. The buried stockpile now is about 440 kilograms of 60.

[Jake Sullivan]

60%.

[John Kerry]

Right. And they had several thousands when we were beginning. Yep, we took that away. We left them with 1 or 2% of what they had and that was highly accountable. But here's what's important. Iran is a signatory. Unlike some other nations that possess nuclear weapons. Iran is a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty. And that treaty has an additional protocol that was added to it partly because of what happened in North Korea and partly because people felt, you know, we needed greater insight. So that has challenge capacity. You can challenge, you can say, we want to inspect this building. We believe something's happening there. And if Iran doesn't give you access to that within a very short period of time, boom, sanctions come back and you can decide, okay, we have to use self help here, we're going to have to bomb or we may have to enforce. So zero expiration on their membership in the mpd, which they could decide to get out of, in which case we would have probably gone to war. But absent that, they had to live up to that agreement and we had the capacity to enforce. And that was for lifetime. Lifetime. There was no cutoff of their responsibility to live up to the Additional Protocol, to live up to the restraint on amount of enrichment and so forth. Now on the other issues, I mean, it's almost insulting to us to suggest that, yeah, we weren't taking note of what was happening with Hezbollah, what's happening with the Houthi, or what's happening with missiles that they're bringing in and building and pointing at Tel Aviv. We all understood obviously deeply the threat to Israel. And I don't think there was better friend than, than President Obama during that period of time when he put serious money on the table. I think it was about $38 billion. A memorandum was signed. We put everything on the table to make sure people understood we supported Israel and they weren't going to be threatened. You know, so the question was, how do you get where you want to go? That is take the Nuclear weapon off the table, and also address the missiles and Hezbollah and support for the Houthis and the envelopment, so to speak. This crescent, as it was referred to by many of our Arab friends, there was a, quote, Shia Crescent growing around Sunni world. And that threatened people. So we made it clear, yes, we have to negotiate those issues, but first we need, because they're about two weeks away on breakout capacity, we've got to put the coffin, put the lid on the coffin of their capacity to have a nuclear weapon. And then we will go to each of these other areas, missiles, et cetera, that could not have been more clear. And obviously the plan with the administration, Jake, you're more than familiar with this, obviously, was to rely on President Clinton, Hillary, to immediately move, to take those next steps. That was the plan. And needless to say, you know, the vote was different and there was different outcome and that never happened.

[Jake Sullivan]

So I, I remember, well, you telling us at the time, as all of this was being debated in the Congress and the Israelis were coming over and making their case, Netanyahu speaking before that. One thing people don't understand about the Iran nuclear deal is the Iran nuclear deal was not meant to be the end. It was meant to be the beginning. The beginning. And that diplomacy necessarily is a series of negotiations and a series of agreements. And indeed, the Iran nuclear deal could have had follow on elements just on the nuclear program itself, extending various things or whatever, and then these other issues could get negotiated as well. And it's treated as this kind of. Well, you only had one shot to do everything with Iran. It had to be in this deal. And that's just not at all how diplomacy works. And frankly, I think the Trump administration is gonna learn that right now, because I agree with you, they're likely to get to some form of deal, but that deal is gonna be the start of more negotiations with the Iranians that'll come down the road.

[John Kerry]

I mean, look, we negotiated, I was negotiating with them for at least four years plus.

[Jake Sullivan]

Exactly.

[John Kerry]

And there's no way you're gonna resolve all these other issues without that. And needless to say, we have to friends, right? I mean, uae, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, these folks have to all be at the table helping us to shape this longer term future. And, and they have obviously a huge stake, needless to say. Yeah, and we owe it to the entire region to do this in a way that's going to be successful. Not, you know, not in a haphazard kind of starting a war where you're asking people to rise up against the, you know, against the regime who have already seen whatever numbers of thousands of people killed because they were demonstrating.

[Jake Sullivan]

Yeah.

[John Kerry]

And all of a sudden you say, oh, my gosh, they didn't rise up. What happened here? Well, there's Israeli intelligence that's now becoming public, which articulates that the Israelis didn't do anything in their part, and we certainly didn't do anything to build the capacity to know who might be the leader, how that process might unfold. You don't just, you know, you don't start a war sitting there saying, well, we hope they rise up. And that literally is the way, apparently, you do. You do. You do. Yeah.

[John Finer]

So can we ask you about two of your former workplaces and their role in. In this conflict? One is the U.S. congress. You know, you famously testified in the U.S. senate, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, toward the end of the Vietnam War. You asked this famous question, how do

[John Kerry]

you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake

[John Finer]

trying to get the Senate to act to constrain the US Administration at that time? The US Congress has not played much of a role in constraining the Trump administration, even though there are many members, it seems, who are uncomfortable with the fact that the United States has gone to war without asking for congressional authorization. Even Republicans, I think, privately, have some of these concerns. President Trump obviously ran under a very different theory of American power, saying, we would not go back to these misadventures in the Middle East. What would your advice be to your former colleagues in that body about what they should be doing in this moment when it feels like they are not doing all that much?

[John Kerry]

It's very difficult when you don't have either House, when you have the White House and both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the hands of one party. Traditionally, the Senate has always, you know, pull back a little bit when that situation. I know some of my former colleagues there, you know, good friends, are deeply, deeply frustrated. But truly, I mean, it's just a matter of fact that the members of the party in the majority have been unwilling to hold the president accountable. And I find that. And I think it's really, really sad, truly sad. I love the institution. You know, we all, I mean, if you get to go to the United States Senate, allegedly the world's greatest deliberative body, and you're able to debate the great issues of your time, it's. It's a pinch me moment in life. And sadly, it's not living up to it today. So I think that you know, Harry Truman, quick story, Harry Truman, a young senator sitting in the back way over in the corner where you sit when you're 99 or 100 or whatever was where I sat when I first got there in seniority. And he wrote a letter home to his mother frequently. He was always writing his mother. And he wrote, dearest mother, I'm here in the Senate looking across. It's late at night. We're debating the great issues of our time. I see the ghosts of Webster and Clay and, you know, and I pinch myself and I say, God, how the hell did I get here? And about three months later, he's working his, you know, another debate, and he's there late at night, says, mother, I'm here again. It's late at night. I look across the aisle, see my colleagues, I pinch myself and I say, how the hell did they get here? So look, it's, it's politics. And you have to, you know, find a way to break through.

[Jake Sullivan]

I'm Mitch Purse, two time indwisl champion,

[John Kerry]

championship MVP and forward for the US Women's National Team.

[Jake Sullivan]

Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think.

[John Kerry]

Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset, and unseen battles on the path to greatness.

[Jake Sullivan]

So take a seat and learn from the Confessions of an elite athlete on

[John Kerry]

YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jake Sullivan]

Hey, I'm Matt Buchel, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your fyp and starting a brand new podcast. Wait, Don't Swipe Away, it's called that

[John Kerry]

sounds like a lot.

[Jake Sullivan]

I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world, and then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. That sounds like a lot. Part of the Vox Media podcast network, Your other workplace, the State Department. You were Secretary of State. I don't know if you felt while you were Secretary of State, hey, I got plenty of time to also be National Security Advisor. That's what Marco Rubio has chosen to do. I can certainly say from my side no, but I could see from your perspective as Secretary of State, hey, it'd be kind of good if there wasn't any National Security Advisor there, not to

[John Finer]

have one at all.

[John Kerry]

The Kissinger model.

[Jake Sullivan]

Yeah, exactly. What do you make of all that? And also he's taken two jobs, right? National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. But if you go down the big ticket negotiations, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Gaza, you look around the world now, a number of others as well. You were at the heart of all of that as Secretary of State for whatever reason, Secretary Rubio, even when JD Vance is over there negotiating this, he's at a UFC fight in Miami. How do you look at the State Department right now, that role, the way that this administration conducts?

[John Kerry]

Well, I don't think this, I think a lot of it is ad hoc.

[Jake Sullivan]

Yeah.

[John Kerry]

You know, there's no piece of paper that says, here's the responsibility designation for this person over here. It's sort of a grab bag.

[Jake Sullivan]

Yeah.

[John Kerry]

And I can't speak to that because I don't know who's deciding what or what's in somebody's mind. I've been surprised that the Secretary hasn't been more front center in some of this negotiating. It's not done by one meeting. You guys know that. I mean, it takes a building process. It takes a lot of personal diplomacy back and forth. Shuttle, as you did. And John, you've done it. You're familiar with that. And I don't see that. I don't see the relationship building going. Maybe it is behind the scenes. I still believe they'll get to an agreement for the simple reason that both parties need one.

[John Finer]

We want to ask you about a couple of the other actors in this conflict. And maybe first on someone you've mentioned in a country, you've mentioned Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel, there's been obviously a lot of reporting about the Israeli role. This is a joint venture, after all, between the United States and Israel. This, this war they're fighting alongside each other, but also in their role in, in generating this conflict in the first place. You probably spent as many hours with Prime Minister Netanyahu as any American official. I was there with you for, for a lot of that. During the war, Israel has also expanded its invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. Going after Hezbollah violence in the west bank by, by settlers has increased substantially. You know, you gave a speech at the end of your time as Secretary of State, foreshadowing, warning about some of this to come and basically signaling, now, this was 10 years ago that the two state solution was in jeopardy. So talk a little bit about both the Israeli role in this conflict, but also this issue that's been close to your work for many years, the effort to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians, which seems more fraught than maybe it's ever been.

[John Kerry]

Well, I think it is, I think it's life support. If even I would not have spent that kind of time, John. I mean, I'm not a blind, wishful kind of operator who's going to go out and just be hopeful about outcomes. The Prime Minister was very clear to me about his desire to try to find a solution and to work seriously to do it. And for a period of time we pursued that, I think diligently with John Allen, General John Allen, who had been our, you know, commander of forces in Afghanistan for a period of time. Very capable. We put together a team of about 150 people from the DIA, from the CIA, from the Homeland Security, from the FBI and into every intelligence entity to measure with precision how can we put a plan on the table that's really going to do the job of providing for Israel's security? Which we made number one, you know, if you don't. And, and Netanyahu was very clear, I want security, I want Israel. And we said, so do we, and we're going to give that to you. So security was front and center in this. So we had, God, we had, we. I got King Abdullah to agree to have two roads on either side of the Jordan river with two fences with 24, seven patrols so that not an ant, a scorpion could cross that without you seeing it. Two Idris balloons up in the, in the air, tethered balloons with, you know, which can track 350 targets simultaneously. Airport built that had a sliver of its airport in, in Palestine, but also in Jordan, managed by Israel with Israelis present in that facility to make sure every egress and was, was, was covered. I mean, all the imaginative things we could do to create it. And we had a secret meeting in Aqaba at which President El Sisi came, King Abdullah came. I was there representing the U.S. john Allen was there. And we had maps that showed what was happening to the west bank, that if you were going to have a two state solution, which was still the announced policy of all of Europe, the United States and allegedly Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel saying, yes, we support two state. A famous speech he gave at Balal University.

[Jake Sullivan]

In my vision of peace in this

[John Kerry]

small land of ours, two free peoples

[Jake Sullivan]

live side by side in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other.

[John Kerry]

And so we worked on the presumption that we had a partner, partners on both sides, Palestinian otherwise, who were ready to act, recognizing that increasing amounts of the west bank were disappearing to the settlements. And a U.S. policy under every president, Republican, Democrat, has always been, we're against the settlements until now. But in the oslo Accords of 1993, there were about 100,000 settlers. Now there are over 700,000. And they're pouring in now, being encouraged to go in by Minister Ben GVIR and they're being armed. And there's a lot of violence taking place at what is happening now. And if you look at a map of what has happened to Israel in the west bank, the greater Judea Samaria argument is driving the choices that are being made. And it turns out that the prime minister is not supportive of two states. He is in fact 100% and has said so publicly and reiterated it recently that he there will never be a Palestinian state while he is prime minister. And he has lauded the statesmanship of Israel and putting them where they are today. And so there was a big article I think yesterday, day before in the New York Times talking about sort of the one state solution that is unfolding, which is not really which, by the

[John Finer]

way, you said in 2016, an irreversible one state reality is taking hold in

[John Kerry]

your speech and it's even more so taking hold now. And that's something that the current cabinet, every, every member of whom in the current cabinet has said there will not be a Palestinian state. So the world is now having to figure out, you know, what are you going to do? You have 2 million Palestinians who've been moved from the northern part of Gaza into the south. So you now, we had before the most concentrated gathering of human beings on the planet were in Gaza before the war. Now 2 million more people have been pushed into the south and the north up for grabs. But I suspect that the Palestinians are not going to be in charge there forever. And that's where we're developing. So the longer term prospect for how you're going to manage this area, which has been torn apart by this issue, is very real. And we tried, I tried to elicit from Foreign Minister Javad Zarif whether or not there was space for us to negotiate about Israel. Where could we go with that? He said no, right now. I mean, it's not, nothing's going to happen there. And I think positions are very hardened and it's going to be a very difficult.

[Jake Sullivan]

Do you think there's any chance that if there were a different government in Israel following the next election, which has to take place before the end of this year, that space could open up? Or do you think that this change you described in Israel since October 7 runs across the political spectrum so that it Palestine.

[John Kerry]

Very, very important question, Jake. And I'll be candid with you, and I don't know what kind of response I'll get for doing so, but I think it's important to be candid about this. I think that October 7th changed Israel and I don't think there is a movement in Israel right now. I think Prime Minister Netanyahu knows his politics well. There's a reason that what's happening is unfolding because I think that the body politic of Israel suffered a massive traumatic blow in that moment. And there's not a lot of space right now in people's minds for saying, okay, let's just set up a state next door where these guys could, you know, somehow do that again or something else could, could develop. Now, that ignores the fact that it would be allegedly demilitarized, no weapons, massive, massive joint participation between Shin Bet, idf, Palestinian security forces, US Europe, others. I mean, there are all kinds of ways in which you can structure this. I think you now have to talk in a different time horizon. I think that you could have aspirations for a state, but it's going to have to meet real benchmarks as you move towards it. And there has to be some kind of guarantee about the capacity to preserve sort of a contiguous body of land. Now we approach that with a massive land swap which actually got 95% of all of the settlers into Israel with the swamp. And so that obviates the need for a Prime minister to do what Sharon did, which cost him was painful process of pulling out and just leaving it after all the battles and you know, the way, you know, the difficulties people saw. So I, I think you have to address those longer terms issues and it may take. You've got us now. First of all, you got to rebuild a Palestinian author authority. You literally do not have that oft repeated phrase, we need a partner. You don't have a partner today. And so we've got to be realistic about how we define that roadmap. And I don't think this is the moment that you're going to be able to give it any oxygen at all. It's going to take time.

[John Finer]

So for the U S. Israel relationship, I Mean, we talked before we got on. Forty Senate Democrats voted just yesterday. We're recording on today, Wednesday, Thursday, to withhold weapons shipments to Israel if the reality that you're describing is taking hold. But no near term, let's say no medium term, even prospects of a two state solution. What does that mean for the US Israel relationship going forward?

[John Kerry]

Well, the U. S. Israel relationship, I don't know if everybody's tuned into it, but it has also changed with October 7th and with the response thereto. Young people in the United States are overwhelmingly now concerned about Palestinian issue and really angry about some of the things that have played out in the context of how this war was prosecuted. And you're seeing that manifested in many different places now, globally. I think it's a problem for everybody in their foreign policy. They're gonna have to really think through how do you manage this. But young people and certainly certain segments of the US are just not happy with what we have been supporting. And that 40 person vote in the United States Senate is reflective of that. Do you mind if I raise an issue that I just want to put on the table? Because it's going to be a huge part of the bigger challenge that we face globally going forward. You know, the narrative has to change on climate and I'm sorry to, you know, some people don't want to hear about it, some people sort of pushed it aside, but we are going to suffer massive implications in foreign policy, in global relationships, in economies, by what is happening now on a global basis. The Wall Street Journal had an article about two months ago. The headline was the Energy Transition is now unstoppable. And they laid out why it is going to happen as a momentum of its own. At the World Economic Forum this year, there was an article by Bloomberg in which they said, you know, who believes in climate change? Big letters, the stock market. And what's happened is $2.1 trillion has moved into investment in renewables, alternatives, energy and 1 trillion into fossil fuels. First time ever that there's been that flip in the levels of where it's at.

[John Finer]

Is there a possible silver lining in this war?

[John Kerry]

Absolutely. The great energy crisis of 1973 and then 1979 and China making its own decision in 2019 that, you know, France went to nuclear, Japan went to alternative sources of energy than relying on, you know, oil, gas. And the result is that today they're moving even faster. There's no way a country could look at the world today and say, whoa, the reminder, we gotta be energy independent. And the truth is we're really getting closer and closer to being able to do that in UAE. Now they're building 19 gigawatts of storage. That goes with the four nuclear reactors they brought online and the large, one of the largest solar fields in the world.

[John Finer]

World.

[John Kerry]

So you have the uae, a oil and gas producing country, wants to be one of the first in the world to be able to show we can do 24. 7 firm energy. And that's a monumental step. We're close on fusion. We're seeing batteries become much, much more productive. Texas has become the largest deployer of wind in the United States and of solar. And they're using it to balance their grid. They have a grid of their own in Texas, no surprise. And they are able to deliver cheaper electricity and more stable delivery. And everywhere now there's a rush on the nuclear, on small reactors and other things. This is going to change faster than most CEOs and most people in the country, in the world are actually focused on.

[Jake Sullivan]

You know, it's interesting, there's a real irony that the politics of climate have gotten more challenging in a lot of places. And yet, as you say, at least in this place, in this place, but in Europe too, and elsewhere because of affordability issues and so forth and a lot of the dislocations coming out of the Russia, Ukraine war, but the economics and technology of climate. You're telling a pretty optimistic story here.

[John Kerry]

Let me tell you. We really are. We have a public equities track and frankly, we killed all the indexes. We're doing tremendously in terms of returns there. We also are invested. We have a growth track. We've invested in a company by the name of Furbo. Furbo is geothermal. They had a pilot project in Nevada. They're now building a prototype in Utah. And they're going to be delivering to data centers energy within a short span of time. They're really moving fast and effectively. They've got new technology. 85% of the workers come out of the oil and gas drilling because they know how to drill, they know geology. And I saw that the Trump administration just put $174 million on the table for geothermal.

[Jake Sullivan]

It's interesting to me which renewables they like and don't like. Wind is a no go. Geothermal's okay.

[John Kerry]

It is. It is fast.

[Jake Sullivan]

It's all a well.

[John Kerry]

They don't like windmills. Yeah, right.

[John Finer]

All right, we'll let you get out of here. Thank you for letting me with one last question.

[John Kerry]

Yes, sir.

[John Finer]

Which is this administration's going to end in of 2029, let's just stipulate that. Safe to say the world will have changed even more than it already has by then. What are you most worried about over the next few years? And then maybe to leave it on a high note, you're one of the most optimistic people I've ever been around. What gives you cause for hope at a challenging time?

[John Kerry]

Well, everything is a challenge now because there's a battle globally between democracy and illiberal democracy and authoritarianism. And if you don't step up and define more clearly the benefits and begin to deliver more effectively, you're playing in the hands of the authoritarians. I think we're almost our own worst friend, so to speak. You know, we're just not getting the job done. We can't even pass a budget in the United States. We have to put the future on the table again. We're not doing some of the great building projects we used to do. You look at Robert Moses. I mean, not all of it was great, but it built, it did things, it kept America moving. So you asked me, why am I an optimist? I'm a huge optimist. I think there will be casualties along the way, but we ultimately will move on things. And I can find 100 different things where good people are working diligently to make good things happen. And generally speaking, America, that's who we are. You go back to de Tocqueville when he visited the US and he wrote Americans are doing well and are great because Americans are good people. They do charity, they take care of each other. There's a sort of historic linkage of people in their communities to the pioneers and how everybody took care looking out for one another, looking out for one another. So generally we've done that, number one. Number two, our allocation of capital is, you know, you can argue about it. There's robber baron capitalism, there's enlightened capitalism. And I obviously. And you all want to support enlightened capitalism. The allocation of capital, generally speaking, in our country is better than anywhere else in the world. And we have the ability for, you know, someone who didn't even graduate from college to go out with a great idea to get people to back it, to build some of the biggest companies in the world out of that and to help people lead a better life. We have big choices coming at us. The AI is going to have a massive impact on the way we do business, the way life is, you know, played out what's available to people and it's going to have jobs impact somewhat in the next two years, big time after that sort of two year demarcation. So I worry, you know, I am concerned, but I'm concerned for the disruption. I'm concerned for the harm that can be done during a transition when you don't do it properly. But I'm not concerned as whether or not they're interested that transition is going to take place. You know, this is so simple, to be honest with you. I mean, you know, some issues, you need a rocket scientist to come in. He's got to work out the algorithm and you can get around the moon and do so forth. This is not that kind of issue. That's the challenge of our energy transition. This is about how we choose to provide energy or move vehicles. We burn fossil fuel but don't capture the emissions. I'm not somebody who sits here and says, get rid of. They gotta go away. No. If Vicky Holub at Occidental can find a way to have direct air carbon capture and make money and do good things with it. Wow, great company. Invest in it. But we can't ignore those kinds of choices and needs to sort of kick the economy into high gear around this transition. And a lot of it I'm now encouraged is just happening naturally because you can make money. And that's why I'm actually working in a private sector firm that's a fund. And we're trying to prove to people we're only focused on things that will accelerate the transition. And it's working. I think we can show people that you can do this and do well at the same time, do good and do well at the same time. So that's what gives me confidence. I think we're living longer than we ever lived before. Cure diseases we never thought we'd cure. Life is better in so many different ways for people. People live longer than ever before. Why would you not be feeling good about those kinds of things? And I think we've just got to calm down and do the business of our country, recognizing we have great options, better than any other people on the planet. We're very lucky.

[Jake Sullivan]

Well said. Thank you. That's a great place to finish.

[John Finer]

Wide ranging conversation. Thanks for being with us.

[John Kerry]

Good fun. Thank you. Well, with this podcasting, thanks so much.

[John Finer]

We miss working with you. Take care.

[John Kerry]

Anyway, well, you know, there's future. All right.

[John Finer]

Anyway, thank you.

[John Kerry]

Thank you, guys.

[Jake Sullivan]

Thank you. So we are 250 years into this American experiment and I'd say it's going okay. I give us like a C. There is no perfect past. But there is also no exclusively negative past. Because humans are gonna human. That's what we do. I think the story of America is the struggle of people who have not been included in the promise of America to expand those principles to include more people. What's gonna determine the next 250 years of America?

[John Finer]

And how do we write a new

[Jake Sullivan]

social contract that can give us the democracy we deserve? Okay, so I'm just gonna be a jerk here because I'm a historian. So we have to have a prologue explaining, you know, we the people.

[John Kerry]

Okay.

[Jake Sullivan]

You know, I do still remember it from Schoolhouse Rock. We the people.

[John Finer]

In order to perform a war, perfect union established justice.

[Jake Sullivan]

What is it? Ensure domestic tranquility. So you're talking about a foundational document. So I'm building a document that will protect America, American democracy. That's this week on America. Actually. Elon Musk spent most of this week sitting in a courtroom litigating some of the most important moments in the early history of the AI revolution. He didn't do a great job. And the ways in which he didn't do a great job may come back to haunt Elon Musk in a pretty big way. This week on the Vergecast, we're talking about what's going on in Musk vs OpenAI and how it might affect the

[John Finer]

rest of the tech industry.

[Jake Sullivan]

Plus the most exciting laptop we've seen in a while and maybe the most exciting game controller we've seen in a while. All that on the Vergecast. Wherever you get podcasts. Secretary Kerry gave us, I think, a very good transition in his answer to the last question where he talked about democracy versus illiberal, democracy versus authoritarianism. Because last week in Hungary we had an incredible outcome of an election where Viktor Orban, the longtime quasi authoritarian, populist right wing leader of Hungary, pro Putin leader of Hungary, was defeated by a young newcomer to the national political scene in Hungary and a new movement that he built. And he was resoundingly defeated. Where this new party won more than two thirds of the seats in the Hungarian parliament. And there genuinely is the winds of change blowing in Budapest in a big way. And it has farther reaching implications as well. So just to set the stage, Viktor Orban has been around, was an ardent anti communist, a real liberal, became a kind of hardcore right winger, almost MAGA before MAGA style politician, began to lock down all of the different elements of government media. The courts in Hungary tilted the playing field in his favor. And it took a kind of combination of pretty magical things to come together to finally oust him. How this started. The guy who beat him, Peter Magyar, 45 year old, was an official in

[John Finer]

his government, kind of a mid level,

[Jake Sullivan]

mid level official in his government who ended up resigning after a scandal where Orban's party actually asked the president of Hungary. And the president of Hungary is essentially a ceremonial position. Orban is the prime minister with all the power to pardon a Hungarian official who had covered up a sex abuse scandal at a boy's home in Hungary. A really tragic, terrible story. And this came out, this emerged, that person was pardoned and then it came out that they had been pardoned despite their complicit role in this God awful sex abuse scandal. And that led Peter Magyar to resign and go on television and start challenging the corruption and the venality of the Orban regime and directly challenge Orban himself. And that set him on a course to build in very short order over a couple of years this political movement that now has swept into power. And I think it's worth us talking about the implications of this for far right parties, the implications of this for the United States of America, because of course, the US played some role in this, which we'll get to the implications for Ukraine, because this is a really significant moment well beyond the borders of Hungary. So how do you see it?

[John Finer]

And there's, there's just a lot of parallels without overdrawing comparisons between one country and another, because Hungary is its own case, its own fact pattern, but right down to the sort of damage that was done by a child sex abuse scandal, which we are reckoning with a different version of in the United States right now, has done some damage to the Trump administration with the Epstein scandal. But to take a step back, what's interesting to me about this election is the deck was completely stacked against Magyar. He was not allowed to go on TV after a certain period of time, he was barely allowed to campaign in major cities. So he took his campaign kind of out to the hinterlands and out to the countryside. And in the same way that the United States, or really the States in the United States have been described, I think it was like a old Supreme Court phrase, Louis Brandeis or something, as laboratories of democracy. Hungary had become almost a laboratory of autocracy. In the Orban years, they had tried out all of these techniques that are now being used by autocrats elsewhere. I hate to say it, including here, going after universities, going after independent media and consolidating control of media in friendly hands, friendly oligarchic hands. So that was going on. Then he internationalized all of this. He started to draw international connections between Hungary and other right wing leaders around the world, by the way, including Vladimir Putin, who Orban became extremely close to, highly problematic from the perspective of European policy towards the Russia Ukraine war, where Hungary was always an outlier, and drew connections closely to the Mago wing of the Republican Party. So you had President Trump endorsing, just in an unprecedented way, almost Orban's presidential reelection, by the way, he was just reelected in a landslide four years ago. So this is quite a turnabout, massive turn. You had Marco Rubio showing up in Hungary and then you had JD Vance just last week showing up on the

[Jake Sullivan]

eve of the election on the campaign

[John Finer]

trail alongside at a rally, an elected autocratic leader saying explicitly, vote for Orban, vote for this guy. He is our.

[Jake Sullivan]

He's our guy.

[John Finer]

So remarkable in all those ways. And this phrase that I've been reading a lot in the analysis of the election, which I think is originally a phrase that came out of maybe the Soviet Union and Russia, but is broadly applicable now to countries around the world, including other European countries, including here, is that it was an election that was a collision of the television and the refrigerator is how they describe it. What they mean by that, I think, is the television was dominated by Viktor Orban. The propaganda that he was able to disseminate around the country tell people what they were supposed to think. But at the end of the day, the refrigerator people's daily lives, how they eat, how they work is what actually elections tend to be about. And Magyar dominated when it came to refrigerator issues, even if he didn't have the power of the television.

[Jake Sullivan]

It's interesting, the parallels you mentioned, obviously the parallel to Epstein, but you've got this, this aging, autocratic minded leader who's trying to stack the Democratic deck, who's plagued by corruption issues, who's surrounded by a lot of sycophants, who's facing a tough economy where people are really feeling the pinch of affordability. Yeah, the parallels run right down the line. And so it raises some questions. Are there lessons to be learned in the United States for how to counter this movement without trying to overgeneralize? Because every context is itself. Now, I will start by saying I have a reader's vocabulary. I didn't realize until you said Magyar. I thought it was Magyar because I've only been reading it.

[John Finer]

I'm going to confess that I put it into a search engine last night and had Hungarian voice read it to me over YouTube. So I may or may not be right about that.

[Jake Sullivan]

I'm going to tell you my favorite and least favorite thing about Magyar before we continue. My favorite thing about him is that his last name, Magyar, literally means Hungary. So it's like we had a presidential candidate in the United States whose name was Joe American. His name is Peter Hungarian. I mean, that would be pretty good.

[John Finer]

Good name for politics.

[Jake Sullivan]

Not bad. My least favorite thing, he was married until 2023 to the justice minister who actually was sacked as part of this scandal involving the pardon because she had to sign it. They got a divorce. Before they got divorced, he actually secretly recorded her while they were still married while she talked to him about how she was facing pressure as justice minister from political people in Orban's party to go easy on some prosecutions. And he released this tape publicly. I like a guy who's, you know, who's doing a good job of trying to be an anti corruption person. But the whole recording your wife and then releasing it publicly, spoken like a

[John Finer]

good guy who may happen to have a wife who's involved in politics. By the way, I appreciate the moment of candor.

[Jake Sullivan]

Right. I'm the appointed official with the. Yeah, exactly.

[John Finer]

By the way, it's worth saying about Madyar, if we are pronouncing that correctly, this is not some radical leftist who has defeated Viktor Orban. As you said, he came out of the Orban movement. He is right wing on many of the same issues that Orban is right wing on. Immigration, social issues inside Hungary. But in the vein of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here, there is actually a lot, I think, to be optimistic about in terms of how he will govern when it comes to Hungary's role in Europe, Hungary's role vis a vis Russia vis a vis China, vis a vis the Russia Ukraine war. And would he be exactly the politician that we would want to lead a key European country? Maybe, maybe not. Is he massive improvement on what came before? I think it's hard to deny that he is.

[Jake Sullivan]

And there is this element of next generation trying to build a very broad coalition, a heterodox collection of people with different political views, using new media because old media, as you were saying, was denied to him, campaigning in places that you wouldn't ordinarily think he would show up to try to solidify votes, and having a laser focus on two things, one, corruption and two, pocketbook issues, refrigerator issues. I hadn't heard that phrase before. So there are elements here that could be be very Much looked at and potentially with all necessary distinctions.

[John Finer]

Thousand caveats. One last thing on him I think is interesting is how he is looking at the issue of accountability. He is not shying away from a lot of clarity that he is going to go after the remnants of the Orban regime. He went on an Orban controlled TV network that he had been denied access to for years and basically told them, once I take power, he has not yet taken power, I'm gonna come and shut you down. So be ready for that. He has basically said that the president of Hungary you described this largely symbolic role doesn't represent the people, should effectively be removed from office. So he is quite clear that he is not going to, quote, unquote, turn the page in the way that some politicians say they will do when they come to office.

[Jake Sullivan]

Now, one thing that we should spend a minute on is this extraordinary trip by JD Vance. He shows up there, he puts a bear hug around Orban, probably quite literally.

[John Finer]

Have you ever heard of a president, vice president, secretary of state doing this

[Jake Sullivan]

in an election for an elected leader of a democracy? It's not something that I've seen before. And of course, it ends up with big egg on J.D. vance's face. What's interesting to me about it is that this is the literal living out of the national security strategy that we talked about many, many pods ago, where in that document they say we are going to support what they call patriotic parties, literally meaning these far right parties in Europe, and that we believe this is necessary for America because it's the bulwark against Western civilization. And that's how Orban presented himself. Now, what's been surprising to me is some of the other far right parties in Europe, like the AfD party in Germany, have actually started distancing themselves from the Trump administration even before this, because they were recognizing that the bear hug for Trump, even for the voters they're targeting, just doesn't mean what they thought it might have meant a year ago. And it goes to show you how badly the Trump administration's brand has cratered in Europe. And it'll be interesting to see how those parties, the far right in France, in Germany and the UK look at this Hungarian election and say, are we going to have to learn lessons from this now? Of course they're out of power, they're not incumbent, so they're in a different circumstance, but something very much for us to look at. Not just what are some parallels with the US but what does this mean for the broader landscape and for the Trump Vance project. Vance did it at Munich. They did it in the national security strategy to try to propagate this far right movement across all of Europe.

[John Finer]

It's backfired in a number of places. And maybe just to link our first segment and our second, a really tough week for J.D. vance, who showed up in Hungary, campaigned for Viktor Orban, took the L, showed up in Pakistan, spent however many hours, 19, 20, 21 hours negotiating with the Iranians and came out and gave a press conference and said nothing got accomplished. So tough week. While Marco Rubio, the other potential heir apparent to Donald Trump, I think attended a UFC fight with the President and stayed out of the bad news cycle.

[Jake Sullivan]

Absolutely. I think, I think the last thing that we have to register Ukraine and Russia. Orban explicitly said at various points, Ukraine is not a sovereign country. He was very close to Putin, as you just mentioned.

[John Finer]

He actually warned during the campaign about the possibility of Ukraine invading Hungary or going to war with Hungary, which obviously did not resonate with the Hungarian people, but a strange sort of fear mongering tactic.

[Jake Sullivan]

So he had been blocking European funds, very large amount funds, tens of billions of dollars going from Europe to Ukraine to help stabilize their economy. Peter Magyar is saying now that those funds will be released, Ukraine will get that money. He's not exactly what I would call the most forward leaning guy on Ukraine, but he has been clear that he's not gonna be pro Putin. In fact, he said he didn't intend to call Putin. If Putin called him, he'd take the call to tell him to stop the war in uk be a short call. So this is a significant thing because it removes one of these major obstacles to the Europeans being able to act together in support of Ukraine. And that is no small thing, especially at a moment when the United States of America is not to be counted when it comes to support.

[John Finer]

During a week in which not to DWELL Everything on J.D. vance, he came out and said one of the things he was proudest of during the Trump administration is that they had withheld funds.

[Jake Sullivan]

Exactly right. So another L, in a way, because the boomerang on Hungary means that actually Europe will step up to the plate in a greater way. I think this is a good thing. And clearly the Ukrainians are trying to tread carefully, not push the envelope too far. But I do think they feel like they're in a better position. All right, so we'll be back next week. We've got some more good guests lined up and we're going to actually start taking the opportunity to look at the long game when it comes to issues of industrial strategy, China, the future of the US national security enterprise, post Trump and many other things with guests in the next couple weeks.

[John Finer]

Escaping the tyranny of the day to day.

[Jake Sullivan]

Exactly.

[John Finer]

Excellent.

[Jake Sullivan]

Well, that's all for today. We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Long Game.

[John Finer]

We'd love to hear from you. Send us your questions and [e-mail] and

[Jake Sullivan]

subscribe to our feed so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on [e-mail] the links are in the Show Notes.

[John Finer]

That's it for this episode of the Long Game.

[Jake Sullivan]

If you like the show, please follow, share with friends and leave a review. It really helps listeners.

[John Finer]

Find us for updates and more analysis in your inbox. Join the community at staytuned.

[Jake Sullivan]

Substatial the Long Game is a Vox Media Podcast Network Production Executive Producer Tamara Sepper Lead Editorial Producer Jennifer Indig Deputy Editor Celine Rohr Senior Producer Matthew Billy

[John Finer]

Video Producers Nat Weiner and Adam Harris

[Jake Sullivan]

Supervising Producer Jake Kaplan Associate Producer Claudia Hernandez Marketing Manager Leanna Greenway Music is

[John Finer]

by Nat Wiener Word.

[Jake Sullivan]

Your hosts John Finer and Jake Sullivan. Thanks for listening.