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The Rest Is Politics: Leading
189. Rahm Emanuel: China, Technology, and the Future of the Democratic Party
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- [00:01]
Rory Stewart
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- [02:12]
Rahm Emanuel
America has wasted 12 years trying to recreate a past that's not coming back. We're in a existential battle with China, a country three times our size. Nothing China does scares me. It's what America's not doing that scares me. I think 2028 will be a fight about the future and not just the ideas, but who's got the strength to get it done.
- [02:35]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is presented by ig Sell in May and go away. Maybe a weird saying in finance, but as many politicians know, a pithy phrase isn't necessarily an effective strategy.
- [02:46]
Rory Stewart
And looking into FTSE 100 performance shows that this maxim would only have worked for two of the last 10 years.
- [02:53]
Alistair Campbell
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- [03:07]
Rory Stewart
Search IG.com to find out more and check out their latest welcome offers.
- [03:12]
Alistair Campbell
IG Trade Invest Progress. Your capital is at risk. Other fees may apply. Welcome to the Restless Politics Leading with
- [03:28]
Rory Stewart
me Rory Stewart and with me Alistair Campbell. And we're very happy to be joined by Rahm Emanuel. Rahm has worked closely now with the last three Democrat US Presidents and he's now eyeing up the prospect of possibly becoming a US President himself. He's 66 and he is not short of CV material for the job. Back in the 90s he was fundraising for President Bill Clinton, but he was also an advisor, including on the Middle east at the time, the rather happier time of the OS Oslo Accords, then an elected Congressman and mastermind of the Democrats winning 2006 midterm campaign. So we could maybe see whether the lessons for the Democrats today from that then chief of staff to President Obama before getting back into elected politics as a two term mayor of Chicago. Then during Joe Biden's term as President, Rahm became Ambassador to Japan, adding to his foreign policy expertise of someone once attacked as a self hating Jew by none other than Benjamin Netanyahu. So we have a lot to get through. Can I start Ram first by thanking you for being here, but also can we start with the Jewish background, first of all how important it is to you and secondly how your family came to move from Europe to the United States.
- [04:49]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, it's two parts, so one part and also around the same time my dad's family leaves Odessa 1907 turn of the century leave, flees the pogroms and goes to Palestine according to family lore, sets up the first Jewish pharmacy which had been the family business for generations in Jerusalem. Don't know if that's true or not, but that's family lore. My older my uncle, my dad's older brother by 17 years, first name is Emmanuel and he dies of a leg wound in the 1930s. And the family, because my dad at that time was five years old, a family name going back generations. And there's A story about how we know this, but the name Auerbach. So my grandparents, who I, I never met, my grandfather switched the name from Auerbach to Emmanuel to honor my uncle who died in a land campaign fighting for the creation of the state of Israel. The other side, my mother's family, which is a more typical American story. My grandfather, Herman Smolovitz leaves Eastern Europe, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Mova, depending on which period of time you want to use the map leaves and goes to. He sent 14 years old by his mother to Chicago to meet his father. And there's a famous street in Chicago called Maxwell street where the Jewish peddlers are. And he is. Well, you wouldn't look at me and say, how did I get the DNA? I didn't have his DNA. He was 6 5, very tall, very big. He was a boxer, meat cutter, steel worker, truck driver. And he makes his way. And my mother is a nurse. My uncle is a police officer in Chicago. My other uncle is a truck driver. And my other two aunts are accountants, et cetera, office managers. But that's, you know. And then within a generation, his grandson becomes the mayor of the city of Chicago, chief of staff. And my mom and dad meet at Mount Sinai Hospital. My mother's a nurse, my dad's a pediatrician. They meet after a week, my dad of dating my dad proposes and they get married and the rest is history. And then I would also say which is kind of the most influential part of our family. In our family room, my mother and father put the little purse that carried my grandmother and my two great aunts passports and the passports. And then on either side of the wall was my grand, my father and my mother's family's members who never made it to America. And it was a reminder to us that we had a responsibility because we won the lottery of life being Americans to make the most of our lives. So it's a classical immigrant story within a generation and the aspirations of that. The only twist of it is my dad's side of the family that goes not to America, but to this place called Palestine in the turn of the century. I mean, Theodore Herzl's vision of Zionism is only about depending on when you put it, but 20 to 30 years old at that point. 30, rather 40.
- [08:12]
Alistair Campbell
Ron, maybe we start there.
- [08:14]
Rahm Emanuel
Do you think we only got an hour? We're going to go 150 years later.
- [08:18]
Alistair Campbell
Well, we're going to jump 150 years forward and reflect a little bit on where you think Israel is today and what your grandfather would have made of it and what you made of it and how that original vision of Zionism has gone.
- [08:30]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, so why don't we just dive into the deep end of the pool and see without my water wings. Why don't we go. Look, this is my take and I don't want to. My grandfather, who I love dearly, if I start talking about my kids, always says, dad's going to start crying in a second. So he lived with us, we never had kind of a quote unquote nuclear family. There was always room reserved for whoever. My grandparents on my mother's side, my grandmother on my dad's side, aunts, uncles, cousins, stray dogs, everybody moved into the house at different times. So at one level, if you look at it today, Israel's the most secure it has ever been. But it is the most isolated it has also ever been. I should actually pivot. One side note, my grandfather was a typical. He was a socialist and Franklin Delano Roosevelt made him a Democrat. And in our family, being a Democrat was one of the ten lost tribes. Okay, so there was a Levites, the Cohen's and the Democrats and you were not allowed to. There was no place for independence. There was no place for. There was no place for independent thinking. You just got a whack across your head and you know, when he comes to the end of his life, my grandfather, Herman Smolovitz, by my mother's side, he wants to die in Israel. And so they leave Chicago and they move to Israel and they die there, Mount Olives. My uncle Manuel Auerbach is buried and I see his cemetery and his gravesite every year. So one level they would be proud that Israel's secure. At another level they would hate what has been done in the name of Israel and the isolation because they believe Israel will fight for its security, but also fight for peace. They were true to Ben Gurion alike among nations, which was the inspiration of the state of Israel. Not just a nation among nations, but a light to other nations and a moral clarity because it comes out of the ashes of Auschwitz, Dachau, Volkendwell, Treblinka, and it would be a home and a safety and it's for Israel and Jews. But the idea that you would have people, settlers terrorizing Palestinians, burning their homes, burning the farm, that is not in the Jewish ethos or the state of Israel ethos, not only for my family, but that's as I remind everybody when I say these things, I'm saying everything that leaders of the Israeli Defense Force say. What is being perpetuated in the name of Israel's security by settlers and not just by settlers with encouragement by the government is not in the ethos of both Israel's security and in the Jewish ethics.
- [11:21]
Rory Stewart
When Bibi Netanyahu wrote his own memoir, you were one of a very small. He might have been the only person that he kind of personally attacked. What was the. Just tell us what was going on in the Oval Office at that time. And I mean because Netanyahu has been around for a long, long time.
- [11:36]
Rahm Emanuel
17 years.
- [11:37]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So what happened there? And, and yeah, how did you soak it under his skin that he complained to Obama?
- [11:44]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, well, two things in his book. I give four distinct mentions not in a very favorable light. Two, as you noted, we have this kind of infamous confrontation of which he called me a self loathing Jew. Now I want to paraphrase beforehand and, and the reason for that is because of our disagreement about his initiative for housing in the west bank passed the Green Line, which would undermine both the sovereignty for a Palestinian state and the security for the state of Israel. And I don't think they're. I actually think they're heads and tails of the separate coin rather than two different initiatives. Now he could say that to me. I know from as Marsha Emanuel and Ben Emanuel's son, he I'm being true to how the values that they raised me and to the interests they raised me. And so anyway there's this confrontation that everything that was going to be done on housing in the west bank was going to undermine the very fabric and roots of a two state solution. I happen to think today, given where things are you should be for a 23 state solution meaning that the Arab League recognizes Israel, every country in it, not just Egypt, Jordan, but all 21 if Israel and the Palestinians come to an agreement in sense. So there's a value beyond the two state that Israel then would be a nation of nations, as Ben Gurion said and a light to other nations and you'd actually have peace and et cetera. I can fill that out later. But we have this unbelievable confrontation. There's a story I don't know. The president is on the phone with him a different time and he's trying to the president Obama's trying to talk about a two state solution, the peace process getting the pieces aligned and Netanyahu, the prime minister keeps criticizing me, saying Rahm hates me, Rahm is undermining the relationship, etc. And after about a half hour where the president can't get him onto the topic finally says, look, Rahm doesn't hate you, but calling him a self loathing Jew probably did help your cause. And I just for the record, if you don't know, you didn't say that in all the My middle name is Israel and it's Israel because I'm born on November 29, the same date, different year that the United nations recognized Israel as a state. So my middle so that's the funny joke that Obama and I have all the time and et cetera. But I it's a confrontation over a different view. And I do not believe like what's happening today where elements of the settler movement, I shouldn't say to the settlers because it's not right. Elements of the settler movement are given a permission slip to act as terrorists and terrorizing Palestinians and they're given a permission slip by the government. And the Israeli Defense Force leadership is opposed to it because it's undermining not only the morale, the ethics, but it's also a drain on the security capacity. As the head of the IDF said the other day, there are 30,000 troops short of the obligation, which is why you have this unprecedented suicide rate both among reservists and active duty IDF officers. This is not in Israel's either security interest or as I said, in the ethos of what it means to be a democratic Jewish state. And nothing I said here hasn't been said by former Prime Minister Omar, Prime Minister Ehu Barak, Yitzhak Rabin. But you know, different elements. And I want to say something. Every step Israel takes on the journey of peace, which is a painful step, the United States would stand on that journey for peace and recognition. Every step, as many tomorrows as it takes for that security. And I understand and appreciate the cynicism that from Oslo accords, within weeks there's buses being blown up in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, that after 1999, 2000, when President Clinton at Camp David is working through an agreement where you get 98% of what you want and you say no, and then Omar seven years later does basically the same thing, I think it's 98% and you still say no. So I understand and appreciate the Israeli public's perspective. We try to make peace and all we got was buses blowing up. I get it. But the alternative cannot be what you're pursuing. That idea, security, safety, the sovereignty of Israel as a Jewish democratic country, that will be the partnership America has acting in another way beyond that, in the way that elements of society are being given the green light to act and Terrorize Palestinians that live on the West Bank. That is not what America signed up for. And you're not going to drag us into that. And we're not going to be a partner or a silent partner to that. And that's where basically the prime minister and I broke rights. And I told. And let me say one last thing, since I'm on a senatorial tirade here. I told it to his face. A lot of American politicians would whisper things over the last 20 years. Twenty years ago, I said this. I didn't need this war to realize what that policy inevitably would lead to the destination.
- [16:55]
Alistair Campbell
And yet I guess he would say he was right and you were wrong, that he could do all these things and the United States would be with him all the way. And all those threats that you made 20 years ago, and that whole story, you sold him. From Netanyahu's point of view, he's played, he's bluffed, he's won, he's won again. He can do whatever he wants.
- [17:11]
Rahm Emanuel
Let me say one other thing, two things to that. One is I should have added in the litany from 98 Camp David to the buses blowing up, literally within months after the Oslo Accord, you sign an agreement which you hadn't given up on terrorism, et cetera. You know, also what happened on October 7th where more Jews had died in any one incident. And I'm a partner and I supported in many different ways the women's report about the rape and sexual molestation that happened to these Jewish women. And I've supported all the professors. And in fact, when Japan was head of the United Nations Council, the UN, which ignored all this, the international body, because they were Jewish women, I actually helped make sure that there was a hearing to that case. And the professors in Israel, the women professors, who took it on themselves to get that. So there is a level, I understand and appreciate the sense that Jews are treated and violence against Jews are treated different. Your comment about the prime minister is right and wrong. And then the wrong part is, yes, Israel is secure in a way that it has a strategic capacity that in 1965, you never could have visioned. In 1982, you couldn't see. But you're more isolated than you've ever, ever been. You're not a nation among nations. I mean, think about this. You're in England, you just had recently, three days ago, synagogue terrorized. Your policies have lost Europe, lost America's public opinion. And in the last two years, you've only picked up Somaliland diplomatically. My grandmother would say Such a deal. You lost the American public, you lost Great Britain, you lost the public opinion of Europe, and you've got Somaliland. That's what this is about. And I would say so, I would say to you, Netanyahu may say that, but when your academic leadership, your technological leadership, your cultural institutions cannot travel anywhere in the world, that's not a nation among nations. And I said, I'll give you another example. What I think is the best of Israel. I don't know if you know this. Do you know the new head of hardware for Apple?
- [19:25]
Alistair Campbell
No.
- [19:25]
Rahm Emanuel
Okay. He's an Israeli Arab from Haifa. He goes to the Technion in Haifa, studies, heads up both intel and Apple in different parts of his life in Israel as an Israeli Arab and a full citizen of Israel. And he heads up their operations. And now he's the head of hardware and one of the most technologically sophisticated companies. That is the best of what Israel could explain to the world of why it is a light to other nations. As an example, one example, there's hundreds of other things you could say, but the head today of Apple Hardware, which is not exactly, as my grandmother would say, a pish or job. Okay. Is an Israeli Arab that grew up in Haifa, where 30% of the population in Haifa is Arab Israeli. And he studies in the universities that Israel has, the Technion, which in Haifa is one of the prominent technology universities around the world and is now one of the most important players in the technological revolution. That tells you what is the potential of the state of Israel to offer the world. And today, under Prime Minister Netanyahu's policies, that technical capacity, that contribution to the betterment of society is being isolated. So I don't think he got away with it.
- [20:49]
Rory Stewart
I guess one of the factors behind Rory's question, though, is that when it comes to your current president Donald Trump, Netanyahu does feel that he has him. And I was watching an interview you did with Tommy Vita on Pod Save America a few months ago at the time of the initial attacks on Iran's nuclear program, the kind of 10, 12 day thing, and you were broadly supportive. Broadly supportive. I'm not saying, you know, we can argue over the nuances, but what about this particular.
- [21:19]
Rahm Emanuel
That was the, that was the June 22nd.
- [21:22]
Rory Stewart
Correct. But now that we've advanced to the Trump Netanyahu bigger attack, what is your view on that and what's your view from your experience down the years of how, how we the world get out of it?
- [21:35]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, you've asked like seven questions here, so let me Try to pick each of them. And June was different in the sense it was limited, it was strategic and it was also, remember at that point you had pushed Hezbollah back and it was on its back heels without leadership and showed a capacity integration. Syria, another sponsor of Iran's octopus strategy had been the Assad regime. And you're, and you're literally taking in and owning Syria and Lebanon, making them shells of themselves as a homes for the Hezbollahs and a home for terrorists that had been destroyed. So two weaknesses from the President Obama's policy, which was the kind of threads of terrorism that had been basically eliminated and pushed back from Israel's border. And in June you had not ended, but you had seriously degraded the Iranians and they were not only on their back heel, but this massive rupture between the Iranian people and the Iranian government emerges now. One fact doesn't mean I went and checked it on Google and Claude. In the last 12 years there have been civil disruption in Iran every two and a half years. And every disruption has led to more and more and greater violence by the Iranian government on its own people. You know we have a rule in politics. When your opponent's in the middle of a night fight with themselves, don't get in the way. Iran, you had an 89 year old cancer ridden head of state with no tradition or real policy. In 40 plus years of transitioning, the government had become a occupier of the Iranian Persian people who wanted to be part of the world economy and wanted to go back to their trade. And for the first time ever in those dozen years, the youth of Iran and the merchants of Iran opposed their government. That's as good a playing field as you can get in politics. And the Iranian government was a serious threat. And every president from Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden had in one way or another maneuvered in different tools and different instruments to isolate Iran. And they were on their back heel. Now on this effort you can't unring a bell. I would not have rung this bell. And you have a situation. I think that given where we are, as I said, it was a war of choice and a bad choice. And you went in to deal with, quote, unquote, the nuclear capacity of Iran and they found out in this process they have a nuclear option. It's called the Strait of Hermus. So I have a short, medium and long term one president's policy. I articulated it before. It was, I think he was like always because there's no strategic thinking going on in this administration way too late either all boats out and in or nobody. Medium term, if you're trying to secure a deal, have the United Nations International Maritime association monitor the Strait of Hormuz, charge a toll where the revenue is split, but it doesn't go to Iran. It goes to Iran, Kuwait, uae, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, all the countries affected. It's an international toll. If you wanted a toll only because it's part of the negotiations, but it's not managed, organized by Iran, the Strait of Hormuz will not be your little lake. And then long term, since the Iranian goal is to push America out of the region, use the Abraham Accords to becoming a funding vehicle to build pipelines for the Gulf countries around to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz. Not only is it good economics, not only is it good energy policy, but it says to the Iranian government, we're not going anywhere. Your goal to get us out of the region, and they said it just yesterday, again, get this foreign government out of here. So it would say to them, we are a permanent Middle east power. And it would remind our allies both on energy, economics and security, we're going to be your partner. That's what I would do.
- [26:00]
Alistair Campbell
Rahm, one of the things we're interested in talking to you is you're a potential U.S. president. And I guess one of the questions people might have.
- [26:09]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, we haven't decided that the American people haven't potential. Let's just use a capital P on that.
- [26:16]
Alistair Campbell
Capital P. Potential capital P. President, do you feel that in some ways your candidacy is stronger and in some ways weaker than it would have been in another period? Right. We're in a world in which we hear about aoc, we hear about Governor Newsom. We're looking, of course, at President Trump. These are lots of different. We look at Maamdani in New York, we're looking at many different styles of politics emerging. It's a different world from the world of Bill Clinton. Very different world. Right. So what do you think in this new world? Let's start with you being honest about where your weaknesses and limitations might be, and then where your strengths might be in this new world.
- [26:56]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, one thing I know, in life, as in politics, by whole life, all your strengths are your weaknesses. So as I jokingly say, but I'm serious about this for the Democrats on day one, you have to have somebody that knows something about the family room, something about the classroom, something about the boardroom, something about the break room, and something about the situation room, not just the bathrooms across America, which is where the Party's been day one. And not only that, this is a party known as weak and woke. And nobody looks at this as weak and woke. Every time I've had a fight. When the president, President Clinton wanted to get kids health care, 10 million children, somebody by the name of Rahm Emanuel got the bat and ball when he wanted somebody to take on the National Rifle association to pass the assault weapon ban. Somebody by the name of Rahm Emanuel got that bat and ball when President Obama wanted to get financial reform and universal health care. I got that call. When it came to taking our public school system in Chicago, which was Secretary Bennett under Reagan called the worst in America. And then Sean Reardon at Stanford at the end of my tenure called it the single best of the top 100. We took a graduation rate from 56% to 84%. Two thirds of our kids were going to college. In a very system with more than a majority, 84% of our kids are from poverty in the city. So I've taken on every battle and anybody that's walked into the arena with me has walked out with a bloody nose.
- [28:24]
Rory Stewart
Sounds to me like you're running Rome.
- [28:26]
Rahm Emanuel
No. Well, let's just finish one question before the next Brit jumps in the middle of it, okay? This is not the Emanuel dinner table. Okay? But you asked me a question. Now do I have that experience? Yeah. The question is, do you want that experience put to work for you? Again, I want to be clear. I haven't decided what I'm going to do now. Has politics changed? Yeah, it's changed and it also hasn't changed. Okay. And I know one thing that wasn't in your question. I'm laying out, as you know, one of the few people your FT paper and other. I'm winning the ideas primary. I agree with President Clinton. Ideas are the most underappreciated thing in politics. I'm laying out a very clear distinction on education, social media to kids. You can go through how I would tax predictive markets, online sport, gaming, to go into our science and technology and doubling it, et cetera, without going through every policy. What I also know about politics, if you want somebody that can tell you about clicks, I'm not your guy. You want somebody to make sure your kids know calculus. That's what I work on. You want somebody that can be really cool on social media posts, go for it. I want to make sure that tomorrow's kids know something about social studies. That's what I do. And I know one thing for sure about these ideas that we don't have a data waste or a person to overlook or a community to ignore. We're in a existential battle with China, a country three times our size. We've had two presidents, President Biden and President Trump, who have spent their entire tenure of the last 12 years debating the past that's never coming back. I think 2028 will be a fight about the future and not just the ideas, but who's got the strength to get it done. And we'll see. And the good news is you're going to have. Unlike in 2024, unlike in 2020, you're going to have a choice. 31 flavors. And I'm going to be rocky road in this. So you want to go into a course that. Okay. Is also. Look at him. He's got a great TikTok. I'm not the guy. You want to make sure that you get health care. You want to make sure that kids who go to college don't end up in their parents basement. You want to make sure you're not one sickness away from going into bankruptcy. I know how to get that done and make it happen. And I know how, in this period of time that you cannot have an American dream where only Rahm Emanuel's kids and some other people's kids get access to it. My whole life has been fighting for that, and I've made opponents. Now, I don't agree with you about where the party is. I happen to think something different about where the Democratic Party is. But we'll test it, and if not, I'll go fly fishing the rest of my life. That's okay with me. I'm gonna tell you what I think needs to get done. I'm not gonna sit here and just tell you what you wanna hear. I'm going to tell you what I think needs to get done. If you like it, great. If you don't, okay. Cares.
- [31:26]
Rory Stewart
Okay. Anyway, what I was interrupting you to say was it sounds to me like you're running, but that's for you to know. But Rory and I interviewed Gavin Newsom when he was over in the Munich security conference. And he said. And I'm not convinced that he was telling the whole picture, he basically said his wife and his kids, they would. The. They would get the only vote on this as whether he's going to run or not. Now he's running. Right. But with you, what are the factors that you're weighing up?
- [31:50]
Rahm Emanuel
Look, I mean, I've been around. I've run six or part of six national races, two for president Clinton two for President Obama. And when I did it to take on the Republicans and Tom DeLay and get Nancy Pelosi to be speaker and took back the house after 12 years of being out. I've been in five national races. I have won them or been part of winning teams. And I've run my and put my name on the ballot six times and I'm six for six. So what I know about politics is do you have the ideas to move this country forward and the strength and what you're offering is that scratch the itch that's there for the American people. That's it. And B, your head, your heart and your gut have to be aligned. And if they're not, you shouldn't do this because it's a brutal process.
- [32:37]
Rory Stewart
So where's your head, heart and gut now?
- [32:39]
Rahm Emanuel
Okay, well, wait a second. I'm at a point. When I first ran for Congress, my kids were 5, 4 and 3. And then throughout my career, you know, when I ran for mayor, my three kids, high school, seventh grade, fifth grade, they're all through college now. Zach just finished being a Navy intel officer after ucla. He's now a reservist in the Navy and he's launched his career. My daughter Alana is also a Navy reservist and she's going to graduate school for law and business degrees. And Leah, having left Princeton, is a consultant to the Pentagon on national security and climate change. So my real thing isn't about me. My thing is my family will support me, but they also know I have to think about not just myself, but them. And so it's kind of a different place now. My head, my heart, my gut, more aligned it is today than it was a year ago. But I'm under no illusion. This is just the flirtation period. Once you say yes, you guys and the colleagues of yours, this is pot shot time. So the question is, do you is this what you want to do? And I don't. I never like in life saying woulda, coulda, shoulda.
- [33:56]
Rory Stewart
Okay. Rahm, Rory, quick break and then back for more.
- [34:03]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome back. Welcome back to THE RESTLESS POLITICS Leading
- [34:06]
Rory Stewart
with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. And we are with Rahm Emanuel. Let me ask you this. You've we've I mentioned that you work for very, very closely for three presidents.
- [34:14]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah.
- [34:14]
Rory Stewart
And you've talked about your own strengths and weaknesses. What did you see as their strengths and weaknesses if you go through them one by one? Clinton, Obama, Biden.
- [34:21]
Rahm Emanuel
Let me zoom out and say something about having been a mayor and Then in and out. When you add off all the time, eight years in and out of the Oval Office. It's true about being mayor, at least of a big city. The only decisions that get into the Oval Office, that get into the fifth floor of city, Chicago, which would be also true about New York. If you're trying to do big things, I'm not talking big things, is bad and worse. And you have to have the judgment, the character, the inquisitiveness to distinguish between bad and worse. One point out of history in the United States, you had the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. If history had been different and they'd been reversed, God knows where this would go. But Kennedy takes the Bay of Pigs, which is not a success, and is honest, and learns something about himself, the people around him and his capacity. There's other intervening, there's Vienna, there's other things that happen. And so you're going to ready? Breaking news. If I ever ran and I was successful, I'm going to fail. Do I have the capacity to learn from it? Do I have the capacity to know who I trust and who I don't, whose judgment is important? And do I have the discipline to be inquisitive, et cetera? Now, to both President Clinton and President Obama's. And they had different styles, et cetera, different temperaments, and I learned a lot from both of them. They were not scared to be challenged by people, and I wasn't scared to challenge them. There's a infamous story between President Obama and I on the difference between healthcare or banking and financial reform, which goes first. They weren't scared to have smart people around, have thorough debates sometime, to my impatience, way too long at debates. But they had those discussions and they had the ability to ask tough questions of themselves and the people around them, because what happens, whether it's in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, et cetera, you don't get good and bad, you get bad and worse. And I'll give you an example from my Obama years. I wanted to do financial reform after the banking financial meltdown. First, I thought the country needed to see the President fighting the bankers and fighting the insurance company and executives who had caused 7 million Americans to lose their homes on a thing called liar loans. If you didn't start healthcare immediately, you were going to probably endanger the ability to get health care and to do health care. The lesson out of Bill Clinton's tenure was the pharmaceutical, the health hospitals, the insurance companies, the doctors, all the interests had to either be neutralized or on your side of the table rather than the other side of the table. That's the only way to get it done. Now he picked. The good news is we had a thorough debate. I gave my two cents, went to work to get what he wanted done. In the end of the day, the American people got health care. If you had pre existing conditions, you got for the first time in America the ability to have insurance. But we also got a tea party. So you got to understand this, that in politics there isn't good and bad. There are trade offs between equities and losses. And every leader has to be able to know why they're doing what they're doing and then the strength to get it done. It's not good enough to have a good idea, but the incapacity and it's not capacity just to have strength, but no knowledge of where you're taking the country and where you're leading it. And I also think they both shared one other thing. I think President Obama said it probably a little slightly more eloquently or rhetorically. You run your race, you hand off the baton and the next individual runs their race. And hopefully between the time you picked up the baton and you hand off the baton, you've picked up the pace and you've improved the competitiveness and the posture of your relay.
- [38:21]
Alistair Campbell
Rum. Can I come in and you can do whatever you want.
- [38:24]
Rahm Emanuel
It's your pocket.
- [38:25]
Alistair Campbell
Thank you, that's very sweet. I really appreciate that. That's generous of you.
- [38:28]
Rahm Emanuel
I don't think I'll listen to you, but you can do whatever you want.
- [38:31]
Alistair Campbell
You could pretend to listen or you could just.
- [38:33]
Rahm Emanuel
I can. Don't tell my wife that I did that. She doesn't think I do a very good job of that.
- [38:39]
Alistair Campbell
Rum. Listen, we felt when Trump 1 came in, in Europe, maybe this was an anomaly and that America being able to turn away from its traditional allies and weaponize our dependency on the United States was something that was just happening once and we didn't need to worry about it very much. Trump comes back a second time and the whole world changes. Nobody's going to trust you in the way they can again. You can come in, Rahm, you can be president. You can be like, ah, it's all over. Don't worry about it. We're all friends again. The post World order is operating. We believe in the United Nations. We're not going to whap tariffs on you every time we feel like it's. We're not going to weaponize the dollar. We're not going to exploit your dependence on us for defense and trade. So what happens? I mean, we basically feel at the moment as though we are an abused partner in a house owned by the United States, with the United States saying to us, you can't afford to leave. You got to suck it up.
- [39:32]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah. Well, let me say this. About six weeks ago, I write for the Wall Street Journal, I wrote a column of what I call a first draft of a new national security policy. Because one, having been in the Oval Office for eight years of my life, there's no reset button at the Resolute desk. You just don't go in and hit, oh, rule of law, trust, allies, alliances. If you think that, you're a fool. Two, you also don't appreciate the sentiment behind Prime Minister Carney's There's a rupture. You don't just walk around squeezing superglue on this broken pottery. It's too stupid. So you have to rethink and re evaluate. And this is a generational battle because you're going to approach next time with buyer's remorse from last time. Now, do I believe that alliances are a strength of the United States? 100%. Do I actually think Russia, China, North Korea, Iran are trying to harm us? 100%. And when I say us, I mean us in the big capital U us not just the United States. We're the target of it. You guys are also the target of it. Not just Great Britain, but Europe and our Asia allies. So I look at this and I and I said, there are four instruments of your national security. These are the tools in the toolbox. Not the toolbox. There's military power, economic statecraft, political persuasion and cultural attraction. Every region of the world, we have to assemble those four things into a different order of prioritization as it relates to Europe. Not limited to, but these are my first three things that I would put front and center. One, if everything west of the Rhine river from American troops in NATO, if it's not nailed down and you can't describe essential move it east into Lafia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Czech, and I would challenge the rest of Europe, follow suit and whatever. In belgium at headquarters, 10% cut it. Move it to the front line as an active deterrence, saying to Europe, our allies, we are going to be part of of a rebooted deterrence. Second, NATO needs to promulgate a set of real rules and guidances that communicate to the Russians we're done with these gray zone attacks. If you do this, it's Article 5 or if we do this here's what happens. Third, forget tariffs and forget what we've done on the economic statecraft. Here are the supply chain choke points we know of that affect all of us. Here are the emerging technologies from quantum computing to fusion to life sciences. And that's an economic agreement to work together on ameliorating the known and future supply chain choke points. And these are the technologies that are going to keep the western world in a dominant position. Your universities, our universities are prominent and we're in a scientific technological cold war with China. And we want you to be part of muscle enough. Now there's other pieces to it, but those are my top three. And I think if we showed that executed on it and showed respect not you're not going to snap back in because you're always going to be jaundice. You should be. But our alliance, I believe in the alliances and then you have to have a set of actions that reinforce on that philosophy and et cetera and we will hopefully earned again strength of the alliance. Now, two things I would say I would add to my position on this. One I don't want to go through. You guys can say what we did bad. You know, the truth is how many times over 20 years did we say get the 2% of GDP to defense and how many times basically the European NATO countries outside of those on the eastern side ignore it. So while you can say, okay, you did this Trump, so I'm not interested in doing we all screwed up in the past. We told you not to get dependent on Russian oil and gas. You didn't listen. You want to sit here. I don't want to debate the past. We both, all of us come with the culpability. I want to talk about the future and what do we got to do and what do we got to invest in and what do we got to be a part of? The truth is European countries were freeloading. The truth of the matter is alliances are also important. They're good for America.
- [44:08]
Alistair Campbell
Sorry, I don't really follow this. What is the connection? What's the connection between the fact that Europe didn't spend enough on defense and was too reliant on Russian gas and America thinking it can threaten to take Greenland, intervene in Iran without consulting with us? What's all this got to do with it?
- [44:24]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, because your comment was about Donald Trump and what's wrong with America. My point is both sides have a culpability of what happened in the past. If I decided to run, throw my hat in and I get through the primary and General election, you said, okay, what would you do? And you know that Europe and the United States is mainly Europe is going to be pretty cynical about our politics, etc. So my attempt was to lay out a prospective agenda A and B. Also appreciate the fact that yes, President Trump has his challenges. He likes to punch down and suck up, as I like to say, when it comes to Putin and Xi, he wants to be admired by them. As it relates to Great Britain, France or Germany or Canada, he likes to punch down. We have to get past that and set up an agenda that I think starts to rebuild the relationship. I do believe while you were critical of President Trump, and trust me, I'm also critical of President Trump, Europe has some culpability in the last 20 to 30 years that also weakened NATO to the point that Emmanuel Macron eight years ago called it a paper tiger.
- [45:38]
Rory Stewart
I don't disagree with you about the European NATO spending point. I think what we find particularly confusing at the moment is the fact that you just mentioned that Trump wants to be admired by Xi and by Putin. Is very hard to escape the notion that Trump is actually on Putin's side when it comes to Ukraine. Yeah, you mentioned the troops west or east of the right. When J.D. vance says that the thing he's proudest of is stopping American funding, he's basically saying I'm supporting Russia and I don't mind that they've taken sovereign territory and they're killing kids and bombing hospitals and all the rest of it. And so I actually would be hopeful if the Trump and Vance, let's say Vance disappeared with Trump that that something maybe Democrat would be, would come better. The cynicism could be worn down fairly quickly. But from your vantage point, what are we to make of an American president who as per just recently had a phone call with Putin, comes off the phone and says I'm thinking of pulling the American troops out of Germany. Why did he say that? Because Putin asked him to.
- [46:40]
Rahm Emanuel
I'm not for Donald Trump. I don't think I need to say that.
- [46:45]
Rory Stewart
I know that. I know that.
- [46:46]
Rahm Emanuel
Okay. And I don't think his strategic actions are in America's self interest, let alone his national security interest. No, I think as I said, he punches down, doesn't realize the value of allies express in the straight of Hormuz, which is that you didn't come to our defense. Well, you didn't consult and more importantly, having spent a year and a half degrading people and punching down on them doesn't make them really want to. Forthcome and be stretch and do I think he is an and both in awe and appreciate and admire President Putin? Yes, I do. And I think he does it for all the wrong reasons because he loves the fact that President Putin got wealthy in this job as President Trump has gotten wealthy in this job and sees power in the same way.
- [47:32]
Rory Stewart
He's jealous of him.
- [47:33]
Rahm Emanuel
And then to put the two questions that both of you have posed to me together, my point is there's a lot of finger pointing going on. I don't agree with Donald Trump's approach and I don't agree with President Biden saying, America's back. We all have new challenges. NATO has to be modernized. The EU and America's economic statecraft has to be modernized. Our understanding of the challenges around the world have to be modernized, and we have to embark on a joint effort. Do I think you're going to turn around and say, we're going to follow America today because Donald Trump has gone and a Democratic president, whether it's me or somebody else, no. So my goal is here's the agenda that gives you trust and confidence that if we embark on this, I appreciate that you have a real threat called the Russian bear. And we not only appreciate it, we think it's a threat, which is here's how we're going to activate our deterrence on the economic front, the political front, the military front, because you need to the one thing Ukraine. There's a lot of things Ukraine showed, but one of the most important things, and I'm writing my new piece for the Wall Street Journal on this. America set up militarily to fight two wars simultaneously. Post Ukraine, Russia, post Iran. America has to actually be in a position to fight two different types of war simultaneously. Neither Ukraine or Iran have a navy and they both control their waterway. That tells you everything you need to know about the future. And that means okay to NATO and everybody that's part of this, not just what amount of money you're spending, how do you spend it, how do we deal with gray zone attacks, how do we have active deterrence? How do we have a conventional, unconventional military? And in that process of working together, consulting together, training together, doing strategic thinking together, we will renew their friendship in the alliance.
- [49:25]
Alistair Campbell
Ram on AI what sort of effects do you expect over the next time?
- [49:31]
Rahm Emanuel
You guys are making me feel like I should go back to the swimming pool.
- [49:33]
Rory Stewart
Leslie, it'd be worse if you're president. It'd be a lot worse if you're president.
- [49:36]
Rahm Emanuel
Well, let me say this. If I was president, I Wouldn't be doing this interview.
- [49:39]
Rory Stewart
You might be. You might be.
- [49:41]
Alistair Campbell
That's true. That's true.
- [49:42]
Rahm Emanuel
Rum.
- [49:42]
Rory Stewart
You never know when you need it.
- [49:46]
Rahm Emanuel
Hope you remember one day.
- [49:47]
Alistair Campbell
Okay. What's it going to mean for jobs in the us what's it going to mean for productivity in the us? What's it going to mean for American power in the world? How's it going to change the world in the next five, ten years?
- [49:58]
Rahm Emanuel
I have consulted with leaders of AI, Dario, Sam, Altman, everybody. I've come to the conclusion they don't know, not because they haven't thought about it, but there isn't just a glass half full and a glass half empty. It's both. It's not one or the other. And it's going to be revolutionary. Well, we have to make sure what I call is democratizing AI. You just can't have five bros who are all taxing each other in a court case right now, decide for everybody else and get all the upside and everybody else gets the downside and the downdraft. That's the lesson of China and that's the lesson of the Internet. Not happening now for us in the United States, which I also think is true for Great Britain and rest of Europe. Our government set up, we issue a regulation, and we wait 25 years to see the result. That's not going to work. We're going to have to have a total change. You're going to need a new board made up of industry, made up of academia, made up of both Democrats, Republicans and House and Senate, and then made up of what I would call more than just business, but also consumers or citizens that actively is making regulations and oversight in real time with the technology. I don't want to live in a world and this world won't. The political system won't accept it that one CEO decides not to produce and distribute a product because he's worried. I'm thinking of Dario and Mythos for Manthropic of the consequences. That should have been a board that made that decision. And he was so much of a bell ringer that the Federal Reserve and the secretary treasurer told the financial system, you guys got to get on top of this. So I'm not living in a world where one CEO and I appreciate that Dario acted with some ethical guidance here. What if they were trying to in the battle between anthropic and OpenAI, given they all trying to do up each other, what if they decided to release it because it was going to be important for the ipo, but yet unleash a cyber capacity and an attack capacity that would bring our health care, our financial and our economic system totally grounded to a halt. So you need a board set up by the president with all the representatives that is making decisions, not one regulation pause, wait 30 years, see result decisions in real time that give guidance. Now, I do think we're in a competitiveness with China, but I also think it's an opportunity because China's scared of this, of collaboration and cooperation. I don't think it's either or either. I think we're competitors and we need cooperation, collaboration. I think the idea that you're going to say no to everything is also unacceptable. So we have to find a way through policy and government that we have one national and slash international type of working, but one national set of rules and regulations made in real time and not made for the benefit of just four or five wealthy individuals who are, as far as I can tell, trying to kill each other. This has to be a technology that you actively regulate that works for more people in real time.
- [53:14]
Rory Stewart
Rah. My final question, if I can, as I said in the introduction, you spent final. Well, Rory will probably have three more final ones, but it's my final one for now. I can have another final one, then maybe a couple more. But anyway, this is my final question. Relates to your time as ambassador.
- [53:31]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah.
- [53:31]
Rory Stewart
You said in one of the interviews I read that you said you learned more about America in three years in Japan than you expected to. What did you learn about America and what did you learn about China? Two nice small questions for you.
- [53:43]
Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, I appreciate. Final thoughts for the next three hours. Yeah, look, I said, I wrote this piece that I learned a tremendous amount about Japan. Learned a tremendous amount. I laid out what I learned about the Indo Pacific and China specifically in it. But being 8,000 miles away from America and 12 hours away, I had a distance that gave me some perspective of both our, you know, to quote the movie the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Let me sum it up this way, because this is like a 20 hour discussion. So nothing China does scares me. It's what America's not doing that scares me. China does not decide whether we're complacent as a country. That 50% of our kids cannot read at grade level, a 30 year low, that's on us. And if you think you're getting from here to there with 50% of your kids not reading at grade level. Let me just give you one comment. Kids drop out of college in third grade. You're not going to be Take on a country that's three times your size and population, with only 50% of your kids reading at grade level. China does not decide whether, like our president, we cut the funding for the National Institute of Health, the National Science foundation at darpa, going back to Ben Franklin, this country has been on the cutting edge of science technology, which is why I said a 10% tax on predictive markets, online gambling, and the $50 billion a year goes into additional funding for National Institute of Health, National Science foundation, and our defense new technologies. I want to win the war of science and technology in the future, and I want Europe to be part of that. Third, China doesn't decide whether we put all our eggs in fossil fuel. They did all the above. Of President Obama's strategy, we're the ones that abandoned it. I want to modernize our distribution, transmission and our energy sources, not just around new energy, although I believe that's a promising thing. You have a 21st century energy and digital infrastructure, then the 21st century economy can prosper. It's now operating on the 20th century. And so my look at this was we have divisions. We have a president who never misses a day to exacerbate those divisions. Xi's top political philosopher spends years in the United States, and he comes away and his one lesson is, America is hopelessly divided. So when you said what I learned about America, nothing that meets our challenges. If we have a purpose, a singularity, a focus, and start to invest in our future and more importantly, invest in the people that will make and populate that future Beijing. Game on. Let's go. I'm ready. But if we don't, and we spend our time fighting each other, thinking our politics is nothing but the Game of Thrones and Braveheart, and we sit here and decide to cut our science and technological advantage, decide to declare wars on our universities as part of the cultural war that the President's brought on, then we're going to basically be living on fumes that will come to an end. Now, I happen to think China is a real threat. I happen to think what we developed when the United States, Japan, and Korea, which I was prominent in a coalition that was a good day for America, a good day for our allies, and a really bad day for China, because their entire strategy is built on Korea, Japan and the United States never getting on the same page. And we push that with the quad, we push that with Aukus, we push that theory with the United States, Japan and the Philippines. Isolate the isolator. They are trying to dunk our heads in the toilet. They do engage in intellectual property theft. They do engage in active cyber attacks on the United States infrastructure. You know, as we joke, paranoid people have enemies too, you know, so they are trying to do us harm. This president loves Xi. I don't love Xi. I don't hate Xi, but I'm not in admiration of him. He doesn't have a win win. China has a theory. Their theory is everybody will be dependent on us and we will be independent of everybody else. We have a different theory and the unfortunate is we have a President of the United States who wants to adopt the same theory that Xi has when it comes to allies, when it comes to economic event. So I believe America has wasted 12 years trying to recreate a past that's not coming back. That 2028 will be the first election about the future. I'm going to, if I decide to do this, lay out a vision of that future. We don't have a person to waste or a community to overlook, which we did in the past. And I am not complacent about 50% of our kids not able to read a grade level. I am not complacent to the fact that we've decided only one energy source. It is a strategic asset. Amer has a lot of capacities and a lot of capabilities to leapfrog China. I am not happy that we have a President of the United States and a Congress complicit with cutting our scientific and technological advantages. So those are the kind of things I could go on for hours on this, but I think you get the flavor.
- [58:49]
Rory Stewart
We get the flavor. Thank you.
- [58:51]
Alistair Campbell
Thank you very, very much. Thank you for your time. We really, really appreciate it.
- [58:55]
Rahm Emanuel
Thanks, guys.
- [58:55]
Alistair Campbell
And you, you appreciate that you and Alistair have many, many things in common, but swimming is one of them.
- [59:00]
Rahm Emanuel
All right, well, you're not as so you don't know this. You didn't ask. It's all good. When I was 17, I almost died. And I was in the hospital for seven weeks. And I had five blood infections, two bone infections, and again green. And first 96 hours, 72 hours was touch and go. I had 105 plus fever. And three of my different roommates over those seven weeks died. And the doctor said if it wasn't for your physical condition, you'd have been a goner. And then I become neurotic about it. Not only my exercise, my wife would say neurotic about everything. But I was never going to let a day go to waste. But more importantly. So by way of example, I did one hour of Weights today, swam a mile. And for lunch, I will go do one hour yoga. But it's like now. It helps me balance stress, but most importantly, it comes out of this impetus where I almost, having almost died, I appreciated life a lot better.
- [60:00]
Alistair Campbell
Great. Well, great to hear from you and thank you again. Lovely to see you. Thank you again.
- [60:05]
Rahm Emanuel
And I want you to know this. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. Yeah. If I decide to jump into the deep end of the pool, and if I'm lucky enough to win the confidence of the Democratic primary voters, my first foreign interview will be with you.
- [60:18]
Alistair Campbell
Okay, thank you. That's what we like to hear. That's what we like to hear. We'll hold you to it.
- [60:23]
Rahm Emanuel
All right, guys, thank you.
- [60:24]
Alistair Campbell
A promise not to be broken. Thank you.
- [60:26]
Rahm Emanuel
All right.
- [60:27]
Alistair Campbell
Bye. Bye.
- [60:27]
Rahm Emanuel
You got it.
- [60:31]
Rory Stewart
So, Rory, do you reckon he's got it? One, do you think he's running? And two, do you think he's got what it takes? One, to get the nomination? And two, together, people, he's definitely running.
- [60:44]
Alistair Campbell
And it was a charming final move to try to stop me doing my normal, being rude to our guest by saying that he's going to give us the first foreign interview when he wins the nomination. Listen, I've got my own prejudices about him, but you're a much more experienced person about political communication, so give me a sense what your gut instinct is. How does he compare to Gavin Newsom, Sarah McBride, I mean, any of the other Democrats that we've interviewed recently. What do you think about his or. Or indeed Clinton or Obama? What do you think about his raw political skills?
- [61:14]
Rory Stewart
First of all, what are your prejudices?
- [61:15]
Alistair Campbell
It'll get onto, you know, I'll start grumbling about adjectives. I'll start grumbling about certain kinds of communication. I'll start grumbling about sense of humor and various other things. But anyway, look, listen, put me aside. I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to preempt this.
- [61:29]
Rory Stewart
I said to him beforehand that he said he thought I needed to get out more. After I had my morning swim this morning, I went to school and then I came back. And for the last three hours, I've just been listening to a few podcast interviews that he's done. And quite a lot of the things that he said word for word, were things that I'd heard this morning. And I've got. I don't have a problem. I'm. I'm the Mr. Message Discipline Guy. But I think my sense of him at the moment I think he's running, but I think as he's deciding to make the final leap into saying I'm going for it, which is such a big thing to do because, you know, you're talking about raising ridiculous amounts of money.
- [62:03]
Alistair Campbell
You're talking about billions of dollars now,
- [62:05]
Rory Stewart
billions of dollars to go the whole way. Yeah. And you're talking about incredible stress and all that stuff. So. But I think he is running and I think what he's doing is testing for himself a set of arguments that he's going to use. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if this interview and other interviews are put through a kind of pretty rigorous focus group machinery that basically says, yeah, they really like the fact that you don't like TikTok. You don't see yourself as a tick tock guy. He clearly wants to make education a big thing. I think, look, we're living in a world where Donald Trump has become president twice, including after proving himself to be utterly useless, utterly corrupt and a threat to democracy. So you can't rule anything in or out. Let's say you mentioned Clinton. I said to him, you know, what are the strengths and weaknesses of Clinton, Obama, Biden? I got the feeling he didn't want to say too much about Biden because I think he basically felt Biden should have gone a lot earlier than he did. But Clinton and Obama in their own different ways are truly exceptional political figures. But you asked about communication, Clinton and Obama. Obama's got one of the most beautiful voices in the world. He's got an incredible use of language, his lyricism, the values that come through. And I would argue that Clinton as well is an, is an amazing communicator. Could I see Rahm Emanuel on that level? No, I don't think so. Could I see him on a level that he wins a primary? Yeah. Could I see him on a level that he wins an election? And he was very proud of his own record in terms of winning campaigns. But it's always, I think it's always particularly hard for me. I mean, I know he's been an elected politician twice, but I guess my consciousness of him is very much more as the advisor role. And so I'd be jury out, but jury leaning towards positive. And I definitely think he's going to run.
- [63:54]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. I mean, it's the interesting thing, isn't it? I mean, I wonder what the equivalent is. It's a bit like Jonathan Powell suddenly deciding to run to be prime minister or something. I mean, I guess there's a little,
- [64:03]
Rory Stewart
there are Differences, I can tell you that now, Rory, that is not going to happen. That is definitely not going to happen.
- [64:10]
Alistair Campbell
It's not going to happen. And there might be a reason why it wouldn't happen. But I'm afraid part of the problem for me is, and I came to it, I've met him a couple of times. I went to Chicago as a minister when he was the mayor. I'm quite close to people in Chicago who are close to his campaign. So I've always been very intrigued by him. And there was a lot about his education policy that I liked. And you probably wouldn't have liked. I mean, you probably would have felt it felt quite kind of gove, like the way that he did his education reforms in Chicago. I'm afraid, though, even without having spent three hours listening to the interviews, I'm afraid a lot of the lines did feel a bit as though they had been used in interviews before. And one of the skills of a politician, which I think Clinton and Obama have and even Trump has, is their skill is they may well be repeating what they said before, but it doesn't sound like they're repeating what they said politics before. Maybe that's part of the trick. The tone of voice, the lyricism makes it seem as though they're freshly engaging. I also think in a world that is about attention, I wonder whether he's going to hold attention. I wonder what those focus groups will say. I mean, yeah, there were very effective lines. Of course there are. And he's worked out strengths, weaknesses. But Gavin Newsom would have been much funnier and more self deprecating when you asked about weaknesses, I mean, crazily so. He would have said, well, look, I was dyslexic, I was drunk, I don't know this, that's I'm a disaster. I don't even know where to start with my weaknesses instead of, well, if it's a weakness to care about detail, this kind of stuff. So I wonder. I can't think of an American president really like that probably since Truman, very difficult to think of an American president communicated like that. Maybe. Certainly Reagan wasn't anything like that. Clinton, Obama, George W. Bush, Trump, I mean they, you know, love them or hate them, are, you know, big, extrovert, quick on their feet, self deprecating, highly humorous communicators. So I guess he's. But he probably would say, listening to that, that he's been underestimated all his life. He'd probably say, you know, a bit like Keir Starmer, that everybody's Always said that about him. And yet he's made it. They probably said it when he ran to be a congressman. They probably said it when he went around to be mayor of Chicago. He's also clearly trying to occupy the right of the Democratic Party, isn't he? Surprisingly, some of that stuff about, well, Europe's responsible, too, and I'm obviously not a fan of President Trump, but there's harm on both sides. Feels like somebody who. And that speech, I'm not about the bathrooms. I'm about the boardroom or bathrooms. I'm about the classroom. He's trying to scoop up, I assume, the kind of soft Republican right in the center as well. And he's trying to be tough on national security and be the tough guy, isn't he?
- [67:01]
Rory Stewart
Well, one of the, I mentioned the 2006 midterms where he put together the strategy. A lot of it was about going out and finding candidates who were, like, in the military or police officers. And it was very much seen as a sort of, you know, kind of a pitch to the center. And I also think, I mean, interestingly, the interview he did with Tommy Vitromp, I'd say America, Tommy, basically, I think, felt that, that the Rahm is misrepresenting how the Democrats fought the last election. The truth is, the reason why the trans issue became such a big issue was because the Republicans spent an absolute fortune saying that it was the Democrats issue. And how do you deal with that? So Tommy's point was, look, we're talking about really vulnerable people that people like us should really care for when the right is weaponizing the issue to the extent that they are. And you're right, he's basically saying, no, I'm not going to fall into any of those traps that the Republicans are laying down for me. But it's interesting because, of course, at the moment, I think he's clearly testing the waters. He's finding out what people are saying, what people are thinking. Look, the truth is, if you get the nomination, let alone if you become the president, you have the platform, so you don't have to worry. Trump, yes, is a genius at the attention economy, but you get the attention economy just by dint of your, your position. I think where he sees himself in terms of his style of communication is as in a very aggressive force. And that is. That isn't Reagan in a way. That isn't, you know, that isn't. It's not even Clinton, really. It's definitely not Obama. So it is a. It is.
- [68:39]
Alistair Campbell
It's not. It's it's not that. It's not. Yeah, it's not the happy warrant area, which is since, since. Since Theodore Roosevelt's meant to be the style. It's not a great joyful, optimistic, hopeful. It's quite grim.
- [68:52]
Rory Stewart
Give me a fight, I'll win it, you know.
- [68:54]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, quite.
- [68:55]
Rory Stewart
Gordon Brown, he seemed to, he seemed. I thought, I thought he was. Yeah, I think he's. Look, I, I think it's very interesting what he's doing at the moment. He's definitely testing it and he's giving himself a bit of time to test it.
- [69:09]
Alistair Campbell
I would have. Tell you what, one more, one more thing I would have liked to see.
- [69:14]
Rory Stewart
Pronouns, semicolons, cost of living.
- [69:16]
Alistair Campbell
Oh, yeah, cost of living. I'd like more sense of the ordinary voter stories, people encounters on the streets, sense of compassion, sense of how people are struggling, sense of how much the United States is actually, I'm afraid of disgrace. I mean, it's not just that, you know, when asked about China, he said people aren't graduating from high school with proper literacy rates. And of course that's a disgrace. But the real disgrace in America, I would have thought, is homelessness, poverty, exclusion from health care, lives of real misery. I mean, the European economies are in a much worse situation than the American economies, but our extreme poor are not in the positions of some of the people that you can see in Mississippi or Flint, Michigan. So that surprised me as a Democrat.
- [70:08]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. But on that he's probably, he's probably thinking though, a couple of Brits, you know, they got this podcast, you know. Yeah. They seem nice guys and people seem to listen to him. He's probably not thinking, he's talking to American audience. And I felt, I thought he felt. No, I think he quite put it this way.
- [70:26]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I don't know. Quite a lot of those lines seem to be prepared for. He didn't seem as though he was like relaxing with a couple of foreigners. Quite a lot of those seem polished lines from an American audience. In the interviews you watched, the three hours of interviews you watched, did he talk more about poverty in the United States?
- [70:40]
Rory Stewart
He did, he did. He talked a lot more about education, a lot more about kids, the system being rigged against the poor. He talked a lot more about that. I thought he. I mean, I don't know what he was expecting and you know, we did warn his team that you and I don't over prepare these things. We kind of take the conversation wherever it goes. So he probably thought he was, he was, I think he was a little bit surprised that we started off with sort of 10 minutes on the Middle east. But I, I actually found that in some ways one of the most interesting parts of interview because he's a, he's a very, you know, he's Jewish, middle name Israel and he absolutely hates Benjamin Netanyahu, there's no doubt about that whatsoever. And he does have that feeling. And I quite liked his notion of the 23 state solution. I've not seen him say that in any of the previous interviews, by the way, so. But I think, listen, overall I think he's a, he's a. He's got a lot of experience, he's got a lot of strength. He clearly prides himself on being strong. He's going to go for it. It's going to be a crowded field. He's. I'd say he's in with a shot. As in with a shot.
- [71:39]
Alistair Campbell
Great. Well, it was fun, Alistair. It was fun. And I'm not sure I'm voting for him in the primary, but I don't get a vote anyway.
- [71:47]
Rory Stewart
You're voting for G. You're voting for Gavin. As things stand, I'm delighted with.
- [71:51]
Alistair Campbell
Get an interview. If he wins, I mean, that's terrific. So that's.
- [71:53]
Rory Stewart
He might not. If he hears what you've just said, he might not. He might have break that. That could be the first promise he breaks.
- [71:58]
Alistair Campbell
Well, that's usually the problem with my, my problem slagging everybody off after the interview. All right, see you soon. Bye. Bye.
- [72:03]
Rory Stewart
All right, take care.
- [72:04]
Canva Advertisement
Bye.
- [72:12]
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- [72:42]
Gordon Carrera
Why did we really go to war with Iraq?
- [72:45]
David McCloskey
And did Saddam Hussein really have weapons of mass destruction?
- [72:49]
Gordon Carrera
I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.
- [72:52]
David McCloskey
And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. We are the hosts of the Rest Is Classified. And in our latest series, we are telling the true story of one of history's biggest intelligence failures, Iraq WMD.
- [73:05]
Gordon Carrera
In 2003, the US and UK told the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But they were wrong.
- [73:14]
David McCloskey
This wasn't a simple lie. It was something far more complicated, far more interesting and far more dangerous.
- [73:21]
Gordon Carrera
Spies who believed their sources, politicians who wanted the public to believe in the threat and a dictator who couldn't prove he'd already destroyed the weapons.
- [73:31]
David McCloskey
In this series we go deep inside the CIA and MI6, go into the rooms where decisions were made and look at the sources who fabricated the intelligence that took us to war.
- [73:43]
Gordon Carrera
The Iraq war reshaped the Middle east and permanently weakened public trust in governments and intelligence agencies and its consequences are still playing out today.
- [73:52]
David McCloskey
Plus, in a Declassified Club exclusive, we are joined by three people who were at the heart of the decision to go to war. Former head of MI6 Richard Dearlove, Tony Blairs, former communications director Alastair Campbell and former acting head of the CIA Michael Morell.
- [74:08]
Gordon Carrera
So get the full story by listening to the rest is classified and subscribing to the Declassified Club. Wherever you get your podcasts.