Book Recommendations and Closing

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I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place. That's the kind of leadership I ight Now Israel and Gaza feel to me like they are becoming the center of a similar rupture The thing that started here for me was a few weeks ago, Brian Schotz, who is a Democratic senator from Hawaii. He's often talked of as maybe the next Senate Democratic leader after Chuck Schumer, so a guy with an incredible sense of the pulse of the party He tweeted I'm not into blacklisting anyone from future work in their area of expertise, but I do think it's fair a whole new crop A whole new crop of foreign policy staffers in the next Democratic administration It's not like the same hundred and twenty people are the only people who know anything Then Senator Chris Van Holland Again, very well respected in the partarty, very much someone in its mainstream. He wrote an opinion piece for the Times, laying out how different he thinks the Democratic Party's policy on Israel needs to be badly thinks the Biden administration's policy failed And then he went on to say Primary voters won't trust any Democratic presidential candidate who does not have a record of moral and strategic clarity on these issues, especially if as a legislator, He or she voted to send Mr. Netanyahu bombs even as his government imposed a total blockade on Gaza Nor will they support a candidate who plans to re enlist the senior Democratic decision makers who whitewashed the truth during the Biden administration and refuse to acknowledge their complicity. Ipllicity is a strong word in Inn to seeing Democratic fight here Then we've seen a number of Democratic primaries beginning to split over Gaza It has become an essential issue in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary where Abdul Alah leads in many of the new polls. You're watching Democrats bend over backwards in the most pretzel like way o justify the war. They're like, this is an illegal war. but if they ask me I'd fund it. If you don't have the courage to call out the moral abomination of a genocide, then what do you have the courage to call out in the first place? This is a moral Rorschach test for our party. It was very present in the New Jersey House primary that Adam Hamawi, a doctor who had treated the injured in Gaza just one. I was running on something very simple is that we should be spending on health carere not bombs. We should be spending on our communities here you know, in New Jersey in America and not funding bombs overseas for You know, atrocities and genocide. We should not be funding the endless wars that we're seeing. It's been at the center of the House primary in my district in New York, where Bradlander is running against the incumbent, Dan Goldman M of Lander's attack is centered on Goldman's support for Israel. Representative Goldman does not view what's happening there as a genocide. I've been fighting against Israel's occupation of the West Bank in Gaza since nineteen ninety. I've never heard him say the word occupation. in that context. Lander two is well ahead in recent pulse. Into all of this comes Trump's war in Iran, a war he has fought alongside Israel And just the general failure of his tariff and foreign policy. And so it's made this moment a moment when something new really could emerge. The Democratic Party is not going to go back to Bidenism. It is not going to try to replicate Trumpism So what would something different actually look like Beyond just Gaza, though of course, including Gaza, Would it do differently A us is the Executive Vice President at the Center for International Policy He's worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for American Progress He served as Senator Bernie Sanders's foreign pololicy adviser And he's advised representative Alexandroo Cascio Cortez, Dus is really at the center of foreign policy thinking among the elected left I want to have Mon to explore a question that I think might come to define the twenty twenty primary What would a left foreign policy? look like. what would it actually try to do in the world As always, my email has reclinine showow at NYtimes. com us, welcome to the show Thank you So you heard a piece in the nation recently, saying that Democrats can't avoid a reckoning I'm Gaza What is that reckoning Well I think first it involves understanding that we're not going to sidestep Gaza as an issue as the party moves forward. I do think the Gaza debate, the Gaza debacle, the Gaza genocide stands for a lot that is wrong with our politics. And I think if Democrats are going to be able to offer a compelling alternative vision of how they're going to govern They really need to have a discussion, have a debate, have a reckoning with what the Biden administration did, not just with the policy, but with the campaign of what I think was clearly disinformation that accompanied that policy. And that's going to involve some very tough conversations. That's going to be putting a spotlight on some key officials who served in the Biden administration And some of whom probably hope to serve again and probably should not get to. What do you mean by a campaign of disinformation? I mean, I'm looking at, you know, the way that the Biden administration talked, the White House, the you know the State Department, you have this constant refrain of, o, we're not seeing that. We've not made that assessment. We have not made an assessment or drawn the conclusion that they are in violation of international humanitarian law when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance into Gaza given the nature of Hamas's track record of co locating itself with civilians using civilians as human shields, we're unable to make a conclusive determination as it relates to violations of international humanitarian law. We at this time have not made an assessment that there that the Israelis are in violation of U. S. law It was clear that they were choosing to see things that were happening. Everyone else in the world could see these things were happening. Palestinians themselves were reporting these things were happening. Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups international NGOs were reporting that these things were happening. This is one of the things that I really I think underlines this disconnect here is the Biden administration made an assessment Within a month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in february twenty twenty two, within a month Secretary of State Blinken came out and made an assessment that Russia is committing war crimes. Yesterday President Biden said that in his opinion War crimes have been committed in Ukraine personally I agree The idea that they could not make a similar assessment of a military into whose operations the United States has vastly more visibility, I think is just it's just not See you know many of the people in the Biden administration, You've talked to them What do you think And when askking it in a very specific way, what do you think were the set of commitments or values becausecause these people see themselves as having deep commitments and deep values that in your view went wrong and led to the policy that we had. Yeah. I mean, I think first this really does come down to Joe Biden, not only Joe Biden, but Joe Biden I had a very particular conception, both of how US policy toward the Middle East, how US. policy toward Israel should work. And he had a very serious confidence, I would say, misplaced, but he had great confidence in his own judgment about how to use US. foreign policy. He had a view of the US Israel relationship, which he said many times, there should be no daylight If there were differences in opinion, differences in policy, those should be expressed privately, whereas in public, the United States should remain essentially in lock step with whatever the Israeli government was doing. And I think he has had that view for a very long time H hisis view was this, okay, know we're going to express some differences with what Israel's doing here and there, but we're not really going to put any real pressure on them to change policy. As a former staffer myself, I know that once the boss has kind of laid down the parameters, of where he or she is willing to go and not go. I think staffers start to tend to shape you know, you stop arguing and you say, okay, this is these are the guardrails and you start to shape policy within those guardrails. And Biden made clear repeatedly. and he made clear actually during the twenty twenty primary when Senator Sanders kicked off a debate about conditioning military aid to Israel. I mean, Biden at the time called that a preposterous idea There may there was that one time when he withheld one shipment of two thousand pound bombs. But other than that, there are really no consequences for what the entire world could see was an ongoing set of atrocities. I have a question about this that maybe you know the answer to because it's always confused me I think it's fair to say at this point for the left, Gaza exists as A if not the central failure of the Biden administration. And I agree with you that much of that comes down to Joe Biden himself When Biner is being pushed to step down The some of the strongest people fighting effort trying to keep Biden in place where Bernie Sanders and AOC. And I never quite understood why. you know them better than I do. Given like the centrality of Gaza now, and obviously that was true in twenty twenty four What was going on there I mean, I can say what I know. what from my perspective, I think their view was They knew Biden, obbviously, they disagreed with the Gaza policy. They were two of the most vocal critics of the Gaza policy But they knew that when it came to other policies in domestic economic policy, trade policy, They at least had an ear in the White House. Joe Biden and his team had been willing to talk with, engage with them on a whole range of issues beyond foreign policy But I also I gotta say, I feel like There was also, I think, a pragmatic sense. and this is just my suspicion. I'm not, you know, this I don't have any inside information. I think it makes sense like listen, if someone's going toush Joe Biden out, it's not to be the progressive left very aware, I think all progressives in the Democratic Party are aware that we have a centrist establishment that is always looking for reasons to call us, disunifying wreckers. So I think that kind of played into their hesitance as well. Let me then ask you about the way the policy year is changing. As you say that in the twenty twenty campaign Bernie Sanders kicked off the deate on coitioning aid which is something that has been anathema in the Democratic Party for a long time All of a sudden, it's not The op ed by Senator Chris Van Holland Was it pretty significant? moment. I mean, he's a an establishment figure who's been very outspoken on Israel for a long time,'s worthre saying Let me ask it directly, what in your view, S the Democrats position? towards Israel what is the right policy here? Well, I think first of all, it's to end aid. It's to end, I mean, Israel is a wealthy country. There's really no need for American taxpayers to continue to subsidize their defense budget. I mean, that's a position that was put out there by AOC. and I think about five minutes later, Rahmanuel came up right behind. So very interesting. these are two people who kind of represent different polls in the party, but I do think we're getting close to that But then moving from that, I think It's not just aid, it is sales. and we do have laws on the books. I mean, this is why I found the whole conditioning aid, conditioning arms sales debate so bizarre the way it was treated as some kind of kind of weird punishment. We have laws on the books that condition aid to every country, according to a set of prinples, whether it's Ley law whether it's the arms export and ro Act There are existing laws that you prohibit or restrict the sale of arms to militaries or military units that have a proven record of human rights abuses. We have simply not upheld those laws. Multiple administrations have simply simply ignored them. And again, this is what I was saying about the Biden administration. I have a question for you. Would you say we follow those laws in general and make an exception for Israel or do we not follow them in general. I think there are certain countries, Israel being one, Egypt, others countries that we have Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia. Yes. I mean Listen, the arms the arms lobby is an extremely powerful one. There is a strong incentive to just kind of push these sales through. Do I think it comes from the arms lobby or do you think it comes from the American foreign policy establishments or the president's feeling that the alliances with these countries are important for other reasons. I think it's all those things. I mean, in some cases, it might be one more than the other, but I do think this gets to a much bigger problem is that the security state, the military industrial complex, whatever word we're going to use now, I mean, this is a real problem. This is how we part of how we ended up in this ridiculous war with Iran. But getting back to what the Democrats position should be on Israel, I think, yes, first of all upold our existing laws when it comes to arms sales, but also let's really tee up a policy that empowers you the best actors in Israel and Palestine rather than the worst ones. because unfortunately, as I see it, that is what our policy has been doing for the past twenty plus years. Can you describe how it's done that and then what the alternative would look like? Right we've had policy Basically all the consequences and disincentives and punishments and sticks, so to speak, have been focused On one side Not entirely, but mostly. That's on one side, the less powerful side, the Palestinians. There's always some kind of new condition that's placed on them to receive aid. you know, and again, some of this is legit. Obviously, we should impose consequences for terrorism. I mean, that is true. But at the same time, there are zero consequences that are imposed. any real meaningful consequences that are ever imposed on the war powerful side, the Israeli side. And I think this dynamic has really given Israel a very reasonable belief that they can just press forward with de facto annexation, which is ongoing, as we speak, with entrenching their control over all of the land of Israel and Palestine in perpetuity and to weaken and diminish the Palestinian national movement to just you know a completely, you know, controlled subject population within a greater Israel. That's the situation we're in right now And the reason this keeps ticking in one direction is because there's no reason for it not to. I mean, there are no consequences for more and more extremist leaders in Israel to raise and implement more extremist policies at the same time You know, Palestinians look at that and they look at their own kind of ineffective corrupt leadership and They're like, what is this? They see only more occupation and it empowers extremist voices who are saying, no, the way to get our freedom is through the gun. And that's what I mean when like we have pursued policies that have empowered some of the worst actors who don't want peace be specific for me. what are these policies and what would their alternative or opposite look like. Yeah. I mean, I would say, first of all, let's look at Gaza You need first of all, governance basic, you know, Gaza as as I'm sure your listeners know, I mean, it's a ruin now. It's still it's a series of tent cities. But the way to bring order, the way to bring services to people, the way to bring real control is to have it governed by Palestinians. That's ultimately the only way that you're going to be able to that include Hamas I think it has to include some kind of tacit agreement with Hamas. As we all know, Hamas remains in Gaza. It has not been destroyed. So they continue to be a relevant force. But I think what we have to come around to is just understanding that you know the Disarmament of Hamas will never happen under a situation of occupation It will only conceivably happen under a situation of legitimate Palestinian self governance. And what does it look like on the other side? What have these policies been? and what would they be towards Israel I mean, first off, let's start to create disincentives for these policies. Let's state plainly that the settlements are illegal, that officials who support them and facilitate their growth should face consequences, they should face sanctions. I think, one of the very few good things that the Biden administration did on Israel Palestine was, you know sanctions against violent settlers, but I think that's just the tip of the iceberg But I think it will start to shift the dynamic once you show that there are real costs for these policies. Let me ask you about a tension here. Something Biden administration officials often told me was including on the show at times. was that There was only so far they could push or restrain Net Yyahoof. and they thought it was better to remain in conversation to remain with some leverage over the Israeli government. It's funny when you were talking about why AOC and Bernie might have wanted Biden to stay. ticket despite deeply disagreeing with him on Gaza Well, they had his ear. And, you know, even right now, there is huge amounts of criticism from the Israeli opposition. that Netanyahu is listening too much to Donald Trump and not launching the scale of assault on Lebanon that he has promised and that they want him. So like even The incredibly modest level of u concession that now appears to be making to Trump has become a political liability fr him in Israel. So there is some tension here between kind of maintaining you know, the line of communication and the possible you know, influence over Israly decisions but then you' complicit in them arguably. Yeah. How do you think about that? Yeah, well, I would say three things. One is First of all, even if you don't change their behavior at all, you are at least no longer providing arms for a genocide I count that as a win in and of itself. Second of all, this idea that, okay, they could just move forward without us. I don't, I mean we have enough know Israeli security officials, not just recently, but going back many years saying, listen, without U S support, we could not, we simply could not continue. I mean, that is what the Israeli security echelon believes. And third, this idea that they were just staying engaged to have influence I don't buy that And the reason I don't is I'm going to go back to, I believe it was twenty nineteen. This is when I was working with Senator Sanders a war powers resolution on Yemen. The United States was involved in support of the Emmiradi and Saudi War on Yemen, massive humanitarian crisis, at that time, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. And Senator Sanders, and along with Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Mike Lee, offered a warar Powers resolution which basically says the president has taken the United States into a conflict without the appropriate authorization from Congress. And at the time, a number of former Obama administration officials published a letter, which we really appreciated saying that they had made a mistake because this war started under the Obama administration. And initially President Obama and his team reported it for exactly the reason you just said in Israel, which was to say, okay, we don't necessarily like this war on Yemen, but staying engaged and staying supportive of what the Saudis and the Emiratis are doing will give us some influence in how this war is conducted. They said in that letter, that was a mistake We were not able to have meaningful influence. And in fact, what we did was just give affirmation to a terrible war And some of the people who signed that letter went on to serve in the Biden administration and are now out here offering the exact same argument. For why it was better to continue supporting Netanyahu and Israel and Gaza and I don't by The other argument you'll hear, this sometimes from Democrats, very often from Republicans, is Israel is an American ally. We stand with our allies. Israel is a important strategic partner. in the region and intelligence and cooperation and other things And so there is an American strategic interest, more of a realist take than a values based take in maintaining a tight alliance. Do you buy that What I mean Are we benefiting from our relationship to the Middle East right now? What's happening? Are we benefiting from this relationship? I mean, yes, I hear this argument a lot. It's kind of almost It's like a holy writ in Washington But I do question it. Yes, it's good to have allies. It's good to have democratic allies. I think the United States should work with allies to defend their legitimate security interests. I think what Israel has been doing is not remotely legitimate. when I hear people bring up, oh like they have this cooperation on technology on tech and my answer is well, well, for what You know, obviously, this is very, very good for Israel. This alliance has been very, very good for Israel. But when I look at the costs and benefits, both strategically, ethically, morally, politically, diplomatically, to the U.S. Israel relationship, I don't think it works out in the U.S's favor I think thought that is up to a larger foreign policy debate that is happening right now about what should drive American foreign policy When I listen to some of the people, some of whom you have advised who are articulating this on the left, AOC Bernie Sanders, people like Chris Murphy and Jason Crow, Cgressmen. Something they center. is that our foreign policies should be based on values Hear a lot of talk of interest, but they will talk a lot about values. What values? what does it mean to have a values based foreign policy? Well, I would say democracy is one, self government, a government that delivers, you know for its people. And that sounds simple. It is, but I would kind of take things back to some very first principles about what foreign policy is for Any country's foreign policy is meant to advance the safety and the prosperity of that country's people. That's what American foreign policy is for. I think As a progressive, I would add the word solidarity to that. I mean, I want to be in solidarity not only with people in my country, but communities outside our country. And I feel like even though we don't have the ability to fix the world, I think what we can do at the start is to do less harm There are places where the United States has done and is continuing to do enormous harm. That's not the entire story of our foreign policy by any means. I think the United States has done enormous good over the past decades. I think there's enormous good we can do into the future. I would also say and this is something you've heard, you know, from people like Congressman Crow from AOC, obviously, from Bernie, from Senator Murphy, the people he mentioned is You know, we need a foreign policy that really delivers for America's working families. I think we need to take things down to the wheels, so to speak. And you know I'm not in the habit of really complimenting Trump all that much, but I do think he has provided an opportunity or at least revealed an opportunity by challenging some of the very basic kind of preconceptions of you post war unipolar moment American primacy that is enabling us to have a debate and we have to have it I'm Jonathan Kight and I'm the general manager of New York Times Games If you play our games, you probably know there's something a bit different about them. Just like there are writers behind the articles you read in the Times, there are creators behind our daily puzzles Tracy Bennett cururates the day's Wle solution to keep it lively and varied When Aloo creates each connections board, including all those categories that try to stump you Samazzerski combs through every last letter, word, and pangrram and spelling bee so that loyal players of all skill levels enjoy it puzzles are human made every day with the standards you'd expect from the New York Times And this matters because when you choose to spend time with our games, it should be time well spent solving puzzles that are challenging, surprising, and joyful. puzzles hand crafted for you We think that's something worth investing in and something worth paying for Subscribe now for a special offer on all of our games at nYimes d. com slash join games So I want to explore what that foreign policy would look like. and I think a good place to start is a speech that Congressman Crow, who's from Colorado, former Army officer gave at the Center of for American Progress. I think it was last October. I want to play a clip of it here. The biggest divide that I see right now and how we view This problem is those who believe that Donald Trump is the cause of it versus those who believe that Donald Trump is a symptom And that requires looking back over the last thirty years. and looking at it through the lens of the people that I grew up with, and a working class town in number Midwest thoseose who I fought with and those who I now serve In those last thirty years, we've had Over twenty years of failed military interventions Three trillion dollars Three million comombat tours Over seven thousand of our own dead, tens of thousands Of others dead And what's not in those numbers is the unequal burden Born by the working class He goes on to say in that speech We often mistake the core debate here for being a policy conversation. But what is is a conversation about trust and that the foreign policy establishment has lost trust at his broken faith. So you're sort of half in and half out of that establishment I think a good place to start is how do you see this question of trust How was it lost if it was and buuilt it. Yeah Well, again, I mean, what Congressman Crow said right there about the key divide those who see Trump as the problem and Trump as a symptom, I think is right on. I think that explains a lot of the debate right now. I'm very much on the symptom side. And I think you know the lack of trust, I mean, it really does come down to this one line from Trump that others have used, and that is the system is rigged Trump gets traction with that because he's right. The system is rigged. Americans can see it. they can feel it in the lack of control that they feel over their own lives, economic lives, political lives, social lives. They feel I mean, I think confronted by technology that is designed to entrap them. They feel kind of exploited by different cost, you know, you know to extract the maximum amount of wealth of every step they take, every symptom of every disease, every, you know, every game that their kids play in sports. And I think that attaches to foreign policy because one of the big You know, whether it's, you know, the war in Iraq which was, you know Again, sold to the Americans on what people understand now are misstatements or outright lies you had the inter financial crisis in two thousand eight, which again, not necessarily a foreign policy crisis, but I think it's global impact and certainly it's domestic impact. All of these things add up to you know, an elite establishment that either doesn't know what it's doing or is simply looking after its own interests. And I think one of the speeches that I've referenced a lot is the speech that JD Vance gave at the Republican National Convention in twenty twenty four, where he talked about his own personal story. as Congressman Crowe did there, but JD Vance, I think spoke very, very effectively about someone who grew up in rural America as he did and what communities de industrialized communities suffered The lie that was told about you know, neoliberal trade economics, NAFTA, the war in Iraq that he served in. He laid out a whole story of elite failure of lies that were told to working people like the ones that he grew up with. In small towns like mine in Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan In states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war And somehow real estate developer from New York City the name of Jonald J Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong. And I think what Democrats really have to do, and I think what Congressman Crow was starting to talk about in that speech, what I think was a really good speech is, you know Democrats need to come up first of all, with an acknowledgement of the real problem that connects with the one that Americans are feeling, but offer lling vision, Okaykay, this is how we're actually going to govern in a way that can change your life and make it better You mentioned JD Vance in the twenty twenty four campaign. I mean, Vance ran that campaign, very much articulating a view that Donald Trump was the anti W war candidate that Donald Trump meant an end to these kinds of foreign entanglements These dumb worars Now obviously, We are invest in Iran It turns out that Donald Trump lies. U That is one of the things that happened, but you're right. I mean, both Vance and Trump in the months and especially the weeks before election day twenty twenty four leaned in hard on this anti war message. Trump was a pro peace president. We were going to get out of these dumb endless wars. That's actually something he ran on in twenty sixteen as well And you know, I think it is very interesting. if you go back every election since the end of the Cold War in every election, including starting with nineteen ninety two, with the one exception of two thousand four, the more anti war candidate has won I'm not going to say that they won because they were anti war But I do think that is a very interesting set of data, which I think says at the very least that there is an audience for a much less militaristic vision of America's role in the world. I mean, even Joe Biden, in twenty twenty, he ran on a pledge to end the forever Wars. He ran on a much less militaristic platform that he ended up teeing up for Kamala Harris in twenty twenty four. And Trump took advantage of that Democrats just abandoned the anti war lane and left it wide open for Trump. And again I didn't I said then and I say now obviously no one should believe Trump. But I do think he had at least the political intelligence to recognize that that was an attractive message. And I think Democrats really need to understand that Let me try to make the case for the other side of this, right? Putting aside the question of who performs ectorially because I think that's kind of tricky why they perform You take Biden as an example Biden thought he had learned important lessons. And one thing that his people always bragged about Was it he was the first president in some time who have not committed American troops to new wars. They ended the Afghanistan war. People hated the way that looked att the very least. That's when Biden's approval rating fell beneath fifty percent and never recovered then It wasn't Joe Biden who invaded Ukraine. It was Russia. I mean, you named earlier the very first value that a left foreign policy should based on democracy, right? You have Russia invading a democracy Biden, I think is trying through this period to calibrate a response to that that does not enmashed American troops, but nevertheless does not abandon Ukraine to Vladimir Putin Hamas attacks on october seventh It's another thing Biden responds to as opposed to something he is creating. What do you think about those from this perspective, maybe not where the Gaza warar eventually went. but these are early moments because a lot of foreign policy is not What the president decides to do, It is something has happened And now he has to make a decision. right. I mean, let's take all of those. You know, first, yes, I mean, personally, I think all things considered his response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a good one. He's gotten, you know criticism from his right, those who believes they should have just given Ukraine all the weapons immediately. some on the left who say no, invvoking Russia. I mean, my own view is like, yes, Russia what invaded Ukraine, it was reasonable to help Ukraine defend itself I think there are legitimate, you know, criticisms that the Biden administration should been more willing to, you know, get into talks with Putin along the way. I'm still unconvinced that Putin was ever interested in ending this war. I don't think he's interested in it right now. Obviously he gets a key vote. But I think Comparing that to Gaza, and I think he made a huge mistake in twinning Ukraine with Israel in the speech he gave in October of twenty twenty three. Hamas and Putin represent different threats But they share this in common. They both want to completely annihilate in neighboring democracy, completely annihilated Because yes, the precipitating factor for the Gaza warar, what became the Gaza genocide were the attacks of october seventh But that war did not begin on october seventh, as you know I mean, it did it did not come out of nowhere You know Israel was not just sitting quietly minding its own business. There was an ongoing campaign of expulsion, of ethnic cleansing, of violence that existed in the Palestinian territories and had done so for many years. Biden came into the Middle East, having promised to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal. He came in and more or less kept Trump's policy in place. We're going to keep pressure on them to try to get a longer and stronger deal And I think this was based on a belief of the need to maintain the US's position as the regional security guarantor in the Middle East And I think that was a huge mistake. So I don't think it's quite right to say just that he was responding to the events of october seventh. I think his administration had taken steps that led to october seventh Obviously, Hamas deserved That's a big claim. Say more what you mean by that when you say they took steps that led to october seventh. I do think by buying into the idea, I mean, let's understand the Abraham Accords were about a number of things, but one thing they were about was sidelining the al iss Do you just want to describe these quickly because they started under Donald Trump, notooeiden. That's right. So the Abraham A acccords were announced inugust of twenty twenty. an agreement first between Israel and the UAE brokered, I guess, to some extent by the Trump administration, although they always like to take more credit, I think than they really deserve. quuickly joined by Bahrain, but they were significant because these were The first agreements in a very long time that normalizeed relations between Israel and regional Arab governments. They were presented as know major peace agreements, despite the fact that UAE had never really been at war with Israel still The fact that this relationship between Israel and the UAE, which had gone on for years under the surface, was now public was an achievement. There's no doubt. But from Netanyahu's perspective, and I think from Netanyahu's supporters perspective in the U. S, part of why of this was a success is that it kind of kind of demonstrated their longstanding argument which was that we don't need to solve the Palestinian issue first. As many have claimed, we can kind of just push this to the side and move forward and have normal relations with the rest of the region. And I think it's pretty clear that even though the Abraham Accords weren't like the precipitating factor for october seventh, it was one of the factors that led to Hamas's thinking about why they needed to take Um action, horrific action, no doubt to kind of put the Palestinian issue back on the regional and global agenda So to stay there for a minute, although I want to ask broader questions about this What do you think the Biden administration should have done immediately after october seventh? Because I mean that attack is a. I mean, it is a more than horrific attack.. It is a genuine act of absolutely war is war crimes And done to an American ally, certainly at that moment What should the response have been I mean, I think the response initially was the right one, which was to show strong support for Israel, for the people of Israel, for I think Joe Biden going there himself But he didn't use that credibility to do what I think he should have done, which was very quickly within weeks, certainly, I would say by the middle of November, It was abundantly clear that this just was not an act of self defense anymore. This was a series of atrocities meant to just obliterate Gaza and to kill civilians. I mean, I think this is kind of the core understanding is that you know the way that the Biden administration and many in Washington talk about this issue is that they treat civilians suffering civilian casualties as if it's a regrettable you know kind of consequence of an overall just objective. It is not Civilian suffering is part of the policy. and I think that became very, very clear certainly by November I think by the end of Biden's presidency, The feeling many Americans have about him is not so much that they dramatically disagree with any one of his decisions. public opinion on Israel and Gaza is split at that point. It's not like a winning issue in one direction or another Ukraine is a kind of complicated issue. It's a that They don't like the way America seems focused on these places that are not important to them. Prices are high here And yet we're spending all this money arming Ukraine were engaged in somehow this war in that Israel is waging in Gaza. that seems like a mess It seems horrible that you're seeing on your phone, the atrocities of In some way, I think what people hated about Biden is and by the end Was that the world felt out of control There's something Chris Murphy, Senator Murphy wrote on his substject just recently. he wrote We would be misreading a lot of the essential elements of Donald Trump's foreign policy. if we just said it was about jingoism or xenophobia. Because a lot of what he talks about is really about power His message is that these global forces that we are endlessly told are just out of our control can be inside of our control. I think this is actually a pretty importantort insight becausecause I think one of the tensions of American foreign policy and particularly the American public opinion towards foreign policy is on the one hand, we do feel a sense of responsibility. We don't want bad things to happen elsewhere in the world and particularly some set of them we feel that we should engage in them On the other hand we don't want gauge too much. And then when we do engage and it turns out we cannot control them at an acceptable cost or maybe, as we found in Iraq or Afghanistan at any cost We get angry about that And this tension of wanting control but not having it is I think a real knot the center of the politics of foreign policy here And I'm curious how that lands for you. Yeah. I mean, I do, you know, I think Senator Murphy has really He' he's one of these, you know, obviously he's a strong voice on foreign policy, but as you noted there, I think he always he also has a very strong compelling theory of the deeper case the problems in our politics right now. And I would agree with that. Although I think part of this, you know, the tension between wanting to do good, wanting to have control and losing control, I mean, that's going to keep happening as long as we have this foreign policy that is driven by, you, sustaining American primacy, by trying to sustain America's role as a global You know, heedgemon, What do you mean by that? Because the things we're talking about here I actually don't buy that what we were doing in Ukraine is trying to sustain America's role as a global hegemon. I don't buy that in Gaza, what we were trying to do is sustain America's role as a global heesmon. I don't think that's how the Biden administration justified it to themselves I don't think that's how they thought about it. So Either, do you disagree that that's what they were really trying to do? I would agree with you a bit more on Ukraine. I do think there were habits of mind, especially from Biden you know, who's not even a person, not a creature of the post Cold War, iss creature of the Cold War. So I do think that you know this idea of the U. S helping to confront Russia was something that was kind of deep in his foreign policy DNA. And I think part of what we saw in Gaza and what led up to it. as I was saying, was driven by an effort through the Abraham Accords, through this proposed U. S. Saudi Israel peace aggreement, which would involve security guarantees with Saudi Arabia, was based, in my view, on sustaining America's role as a regional security guarantor and also to box China out of the region I mean, because that was the kind of the overriding focus of Joe Biden's foreign policy. And if we remember going back to I think it was it june twenty twenty one where he had a summit with Putin. The goal of Biden's Russia policy initially was to be like, all right, let's just park Russia and Putin over here. We're not going to have a great relationship with them, but we want to kind of bring some predictability to the relationship so we can focus on the real problem, which is China. And I do think that China focus, you know, the kind of obsession with strategic competition with China I do think that what underlies that is an effort to sustain America's, you know global primacy. So I do agree with that. I agree with this on China I think all these are a little bit different. I think the reason this distinction might be important is that Obviously, people's goals matter. and the way I read D different events invvolvements is The reaction of the Russian invation was really a view about Ukraine and Europe what America's role was in that and not wanting to allow Putin just begin taking territory because that would be destabilizing for the world. and we had to do it because nobody else could I think if it was the case that Europe was more capable of being the munitions factory for Ukraine. Amerark would been happy to have let them do it at least to some degree I don't know. I hope they are doing that now. I mean, I mean, I hope they're doing that job Yeah because ultimately, that's where this needs to go On Israel, I think a lot was driven by Joe Biden's actual commitment Israel whichich is something sort of you said earlier as well. And then China, I think there's a different set of questions that are very real there about American promacy The reason I'm focusing on this for a minute is that I think that there is a difference gets conflated often in foreign policy and we move on different sides of it. between is what we are trying to do uphold responsibilities that maybe No, we don't really want to be doing, the American people don't really want to be doing, but in the long term, it's better for the global system than somebody is doing it versus actually trying to dominate the system re bring it in our favor. competitors from rising up. Those are sort of two different problems because On the one level if you say, we should stop just trying to ensure American Hejmonani, which I think is also a little bit different than primacy, right? Hejmonani is a control. Primacy is a leadership I think a lot of people like not and agree and I probably not and agree And on the other hand I just think say Ukraine is a hard problem and that we don't really want to be doing this, but a lot of things happen in the world that we don't like and we have to kind of make of tough decisions around them But I'm not sure that you know, in some of these cases that a president Bernie Sanders is a president AOC, a presresident, Chris Murphy, be free from the pull of American responsibility, the sense that if we don't stop something from happening at all. and then we will be blamed both, you know they we hear being this imaginary administration by either the American people who don't like what just happened Or bad things will happen in the world, which will eventually end up on our doorstep. I think that's all. I mean I agree with that. I mean, there are certain things that are beyond the US's control. It's not I've never said and I don't believe that it's all part of some grand plan. There were a lot of contingencies that popped up, a lot of unforeseen events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the Biden administration certainly did not want to happen And as I said, I think Ai is considered they respond to that pretty reasonably But I do think that when you look at the sweep of Biden's foreign policy, you know, kind of captured in you know, one of the things that he said upon taking office when he went to Europe, America' back You know, we've gotten past this brief little hiccup with this weird old Donald Trump, and now America's back doing America things and everybody can chill. and America's back in the business of helping the global system run. And I think we had already moved beyond that, both in terms of what America was capable of, what oers in others in the world were interested in So yeah, I would certainly agree. there are times when only the United States, as of right now, certainly, the United States has the capacity, whether it's in arms, whether it's in convening capacity, whether it's influence, whether it's an economic power, whether it's in diplomatic power, to help solve and address certain problems. But I think the debate has to be okay What are those situations and what tools should we deploy in those situations take the American global Has you have any question from a broader perspective You said that the American foreign policy establishment often as a question How do we better sell continuing American global military hejmoney to the American people rather than hearing that Americans just aren't that into it Americans, you said, are just not that into global military hejmoni, because it's destructive, it's wasteful, it increases inequality, it steals money from the working class, and it funnels it upward to a tiny, unaccountable elite. I think it's broader than Ukraine or Gaza, or even China. I think there's a broader view on the left America's view of its role in the world and what it puts into maintaining that role in the world is destructive. So make that broader case to me and what it would look like to turn away from that in our foreign policy. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know Americans want their country to be strong, to be powerful, to play a major role in the world. I think any country's people do. Um And more than that, I'll say I think Americans want their country to do good in the world That's how I feel. I think that is that's broadly shared But I do think we have to look, really, really take a very, very hard look at what this what global military hegemony, global whatever term you want to use for it, is actually delivering. And this is where I would go back to JD Vance's speech Uh at the at the twenty twenty four RNC We've had just multiple wars. We have them ongoing right now. They're not as big as Iraq and Afghanistan were. but we have many American troops deployed around the world on counterterrorism missions. Do we actually need all of this to keep us safe? How much are we spending on this? And to whom are the benefits really accruing I think the question a lot of Americans ask when they, you know, they see their communities having been de industrialized, their children face a worse future than they do is, okay, I want America to do good. I want America to be strong. But again, as you said earlier in the conversation don't understand how these conflicts and our engagement in them is actually doing that. I'm Paul Tonorio. I cover soccer for the athletic. And I' Amy Lawrence. I cover football for the athletic Whatever you call it, the biggest competition in the sport is happening right now, and the athletics World Cup coverage has everything you need to follow the tournament. We've got more than seventy obsessive reporters on the ground. If you're eager to know more about the teams, the matches, all the stories on and off the pitch, we've got you sorted. Throughout the tournament, you have free access to all the coverage in our app downownload the athletic app and see there You this line that elite impunity is at the core of our political crisis. Tell me what you mean by that I mean, the sense that The wealthy, the powerful, the well connected, the influential don't pay a price. They operate according to a different set of rules than the rest of us. I think this is it's part of political corruption. It's part of the loss of control. It's a reflection of the system being rigged So there's that broad version of it, but you've also made this point and I've seen others begin to make this point around the foreign policy establishment and around People in Democratic politics, people in Republican politics, Brian Schotz, the senator from Hawaii recently put up this tweet where he said, Look, I'm not trying to blacklist anybody But I think that the next Democratic administration should have sort of a full turnover in its foreign policy staff know I've seen you sort of connect this to the need for a reckoning around Gaza So what does it actually imply I mean, I think there's two things about that. One is Um, you know, from from Senator Shatz's comment, I think there's a sense that there has been just this kind of of group of deemocratic foreign policy professionals that tend to cycle in and out of deemocratic administrations and they move up to the next job. and that we need to reach out to a much broader pool of talent. There are a lot of very smart young foreign policy folks in Washington and beyond who want to get engaged, need to be we need to draw them in the process so we don't keep repeating and you regurgitating the same policies and the same approach. But I think there's also a second piece of it. and I think Senator Chris Van Holland to it a bit more sharply in the op ed that he wrote in the New York Times a few days after Senator Schatz's tweet That had to do with specific actors inside the Biden administration, who he said should not serve in future administrations. And I think this is part of accountability as well. We're going to have policy disputes, policy disagreements, policy debates I do think that the Biden administration's Gaza policy was beyond just a policy dispute. It was a policy of supporting genocide And I think if you know part of restoring accountability is making clear that the senior officials who carried out that policy should not work in government again So does Gaza here become, is it becoming? I mean, I'm sort of watching this in primaries, and I think it's a pretty important thing happening right now. You see it in the Michigan Senate primary. You see it here in New York where Brad Lander and Dan Goldman are running against each other. You saw it in New Jersey essional primary Des guys here become sort of like the Iraq war in the Democratic Party? or Democrats more divided on that than they were on the Iraq War? I mean There is this question of Do Democrats split over this? In the same way that I wonder about this for Republicans after Donald Trump, I mean Israel and support for Israel. really seems to me to be a question that is splitting both parties internally I hope it doesn't become like the Iraq War because I don't think anybody really paid a price for the Iraq War, att least you know, the officials who carried it out I want to see some consequences for the people who carried out the Gaza policy. I mean, in terms of the debate,, you know, I do think, yes, this is becoming a litmus test your position on Gaza You know, it really does go to credibility. the way someone chooses to talk about this. For example, you know, Kamala Harris Um The way she you know the language she used, o too many civilians have died and we're pressing for a ceasefire, just it didn't convince anyone Even for people who perhaps didn't care about the issue all that much, they could tell that this was not genuine. And I think, you know the reverse is true, I think, for Zora Mondani The way that he didn't raise Gaza by the way. I mean, Gaza was raised by his critics because they thought it would be an effective way to weaken and criticize him. And they did that because they don't know what time it is. He stood firm on a set of principles under fire. And I think even for people who probably don't know or maybe care about the issue as much. They saw that And that added to his credibility. So I do think, yes, for a lot of Democratic voters, many of them care about the issue. They want their leaders to be on the right side of it, but it also gets to a much larger idea of can I trust this person? Are they for real? or are they just going to regurgitate the usual set of established talking points So I want to play here something that Congresswoman Ocasio Cortez said at Munich So I don't know if it's necessarily that we were in a post if we are in a post rules based order I think possible that we were in a pre rules based order. And we have an opportunity to explore what a world would look like if we upheld Dmocracy, human rights trade that actually centers working class people instead of accruing Overwhelmingly the benefits of trade to the wealthiest Tell me about that idea that we were actually in a pre rules based order Right. I mean, I think it' it's a great line. I mean what I've You know, when in conversations about the so called rules based order, I've often referred to, you know, I think it was Gandhi's comment when he was asked what he thought about Western civilization. He said, I think would be a great idea. That's what I think about a rules based order. I think that's what the congressman was getting at there Yes, there is a lot about the post World World War II orrder that is That's very optimistic. There arelements elements of it that we definitely should try to revive and save. I think the international you know the United Nations and all the various organizations that work under its umbrella are very important. Having you a global center where people can talk about their problems rather than fight over them is hugely important as a concept. y gotten to a point where the double standards and the hypocrisies had gotten so stark that the system has just lost legitimacy. And you know, what about the international system? C we really revive and strengthen? Um such that we can use the term rules based order unironically. So you've been bringing up Shade events and I think one interesting difference between way, even skepticism of the foreign policy of the past twenty or thirty years emerges on the right and the left. is on the right It has taken shape as a critique of rules. And Donald Trump, I think, in particular, holds to the view that America should not be bound by rules should not be bound by institutions. To the extent we always just create our own that we dominate in a more thorough going way. I think Jie Vance has certainly been supportive of Donald Trump and his project to do that I think on the left, there's more of this idea that actually the rules might protect us more than we think they do that allowing oursel to be bound by them would be better than where we have ended up, that it would have kept us out of Iraq, right? Be we couldnot in fact get the UN to go along So I'd like you to go a little bit further with this when you say, okay, like if we did try this rules based order, if we were bound by rules in these slow frustrating multilateral institutions where Russia and China can veto things on the UN Security Council There is a tension between Positive restraint And then being subject to the agendaas is about actors. How do you think about it? Yeah, I mean, I think what you just laid out there is right. It's basically a zero sum critique versus a positive sum critique. I mean for Trump, for Vance, as you said, it's all about America should be able to do whatever we want. If we're getting a good deal, others have to lose and vice versa But also this is the kind of positive sum kind of principle that kind of undergirded the creation of the international system. The idea that countries, including the United States will agree to be constrained by a set of rules. And that ultimately makes us safer. I mean, I think that's it right there Um, but the process and the project of reacrediting concept of international order, the concept of international rules. I think is one we have to undertake. It's not going to be one administration. and in order to do that, I think we have to reacredit it with the American people. So I hope that we'll have candidates and you know hopefully a president. Is that possible to do? I mean, here I'm mindful of what Murphy said because this to me is one of the deep contontradictions here I don't think people, I don't think Americans want what we've ended up doing. And also, I mean, I was around in Washington at a time when the rules based interternational order was stronger, let's call it.. And it was many was very unpopular. I mean, we got here on a pathway that comes, I think, from in the nineties people feeling that the UN and others made it almost impossible to respond to genocides and you know, Rwanda and Yugoslavia U It goes to to sort of George W. Bush after nine eleven and the feeling that America just has to do whatever it needs to and it can't be held back and that, I think was obviously a terrible mistake There's a sort of amazing moment in the Obama administration where he says there's a red line if in Syria, Assad uses chemical weapons And then the last minute he says, I want cononggressional authorization if I'm going to do this And he doesn't do it? and I supported that. I thought he made the right call But I think certainly in Washington He got an enormous amount of ongoing criticism from it, including, by the way, from Donald Trump for being weak And this goes to this broader point of like the fight over control because what you're kind of saying to people is you will get better outcomes by giving up control Binding yourself and the power you have to these rules and these institutions that you do not have full authority over. And you might end up not being able to do things that you think are a good idea, that you were elected to do and teeth of this moment where we have a completely, I think, unaccountable president acting wildly erratically recklessly All of a sudden there's a lot of interest in, you know, should we should Congress retake its war powers shouldould we, you know reinvest energy in the UN and the World Bank and, you know, all these organizations But it feels like we just end up a little bit on this pendulum And this pendum I think is very much again about control How do you sell people on the idea that binding American power in rules that will bind us even when we don't want to be bound Good idea I mean First of all, you have to show people that they have to be able to feel that it's true Um, and let's be honest, I don't think u an election is necessarily going to be won or lost on this argument. You know, it's, you know just Since you mentioned the redline comment Um That gets to a lot of what we're seeing right now in terms of Congress taking control and taking responsibility Um You know, there are some as we see, most if not all Republicans are fine with letting Donald Trump just carry forward. I mean, they have had multiple opportunities to vote for war powers resolutions, whether it's on Venezuela, whether it's on Iran, whether it's now on Cuba. I mean, they're choosing not to take ownership. And I think this goes to a much deeper problem. It's not a problem of one president or one administration I think it really goes to the deeper political problem of how we've just you know the use of military violence has become just such a regular occurrence. and I think people do have an kind of I think, an innate understanding that it is not supposed to be this way because it is not. This is something that Congressman Crowe really emphasizes in that speech he gave at Cap that I think is really correct. The first question You should ever ask a member of Congress before they ever start talking about foreign policy is Are you willing to reclaim your foreign policy powers Our founders believed that Congress had fundamental role in our foreign policy. From trade The treaties to war powers and to appropriations For decades, Congress has ceded and given up many of those powers Our founders knew that these things were too important to be entrusted simply to the executive because it needed accountability to those closest to the people I think, I mean Let's preremise here the Iraq War is an absolute unmitigated catastrophe And I think about the debate that led to it and the absence of debate that led to it, Iran and I think that given how little support there was for Iran, you could not have gotten that vote through Congress And so I'm not saying that H haaving Congress will always stop you from making dumb decisions. Ultimately, Congress did give Bush power to go to war in Iraq. Nevertheless, it at least forces, it slows things down and forces a debate and forces a process that I think is valuable I think F foreign policy can often seem very L hard to pin down because, well, it's Ukraine, it's Gaza, it's China, it's Venezuela. I mean, all of these are different uh, situations I think something connecting many of them is they're operating without process that restrains the president, it's very strange to me How little the president can do on most domestic policy right now, given the filibuster and a polarized Congress and much else. And then we give him all this power On foreign policy, which, of course also creates an incentive for the president when he can't get much done domestically to start trying to create a legacy through ambitious foreign policy adventurism and That feels to me L a like in interesting place where something could really change. And I've seen it from Bernie Sanders, from Rokana, from AOC, from others, a real focus on Congress should you know, reclaim its role here because at least forcing that through the more representative body where the American public has more say in the moment it you can imagine that as a kind of more procedurally based order that at least as, you know, to the extent it binds us, it binds us. Domestically I mean, I think that's right. It's not the whole story. Let's not you know put too much into the process. The process matters, but I do think that the criticism that some have made of arguments around war powers and I tend to agree is that, you know, for example, the problem with the Iran war is not that Trump failed to file the appropriateap paperwork. It is a manifestly stupid idea from the beginning. And I think keeping that second part in mind is really important.ers I want leaders. yes, it's important to reassert Congress's constitutional authority over military violence, but we need leaders out there articulating why this is just a horrible idea. But this is your whole argument. I mean, I agree that we need leaders articating why it's a horrible idea. But I think your whole arrgument, at least some of the rules based argument is it's sometimes youre going gonna have stupid ideas. and sometimes you're going to have stupid leaders. Yeah And the point of having rules and processes is because you don't believe you will always be governed by the wisest of philosopher kings. Absolutely That's right The other dimension of a lot of The foreign policy arguments I've heard from people like Gosi and Sanders is the idea that you need a foreign policy that centers working class and that foreign policy is domestic policy on some level. this kind of division we've created is not real Now Joe Biden also said that. He said he was going to have a foreign policy for the middle class That was a big way that he and Jake Sullivan and others express themselves as having a pivot from what had come before So What is different in the way that you and others more on the Democratic Party's left flank are imagining this compared to what Biden and his team are doing when they sort of announced this transformation. Yeah. And I do think that the foreign policy for the middle class, I think was good. I mean, that's something I really think that deserves praise, like to the shocked everyone by winning in twenty sixteen, and I think that the foreign policy for the middle class kind of represented a real effort to a real self critical effort to say, what have we missed about what Americans believe and don't believe about foreign policy? I mean, in the language of recovery, the first step is admitting you have a problem. And I think that that effort was a recognition of the real problem. It's it's kind of um Conclusions were represented in a speech that Jake gave at Brookings in april twenty twenty three. And this was interesting because it was the national seecurity advisor offering essentially a speech on the global economy, America's trade policy, and it represented a turning of the page, so to speak, from the old neoliberal era. So recognizing, first of all that a lot of the theories that underlie that era, the idea that, okay, if we just get rid of taxes and we kind of let free trade people trade and make money and kind of constrain states from imposing restrictions and regulation Um then you know, rising td will lift all boats, so to speak. That was an important recognition that, yeah, you know, that turns out that's not really true. It's produced a lot of very bad consequences that have led us to this moment. But I think the question is having acknowledged that, And having come back to the idea that, yes, it is right and appropriate for governments to play a major role in shaping and guiding the economy, the question is to what end And I think obviously one of the main ends is to benefit the safety and prosperity of the American people, but Im going back to what we've talked about with China being the kind of guiding focus of the Biden administration's foreign policy Um, you know, I think there are a couple of ways you could have gone from that speech. One is how do we really invest in a genuinely more equitable global trade order? How do we invest build an order that protects workers not just in the United States, but empowers workers around the world, including in China and does not pose American workers and Chinese workers as in a kind of zero sum competition with each other And then there's the other path, which I think they took, which to say, okay, now we're getting back involved in the economy because we are in this strategic competition with China and we now see trade as yet another weapon in a toolbox to kind of assert America in this competition. And I think that was the wrong choice. I think we need to go with option A. So what would Option A have looked like in practical terms? what would they have not done that they did Or what would they have done that they didn't do? I think certain ideas, I mean, the global minimum corporate tax is one thing that they worked on. I think discussing a global minimum wage is another thing, just for an example, that's something that Senator Sanders has proposed for starters Be I think part of the challenge that we face is, you know, we have, you know a developing world, if we can whatever term we want to use Global South, you know That is, you know, has veryy young populations. They are already engaged in shaping the global agenda. The United States needs to have a relationship with these countries. Obviously, China has done a lot of work to build its own relationships in these countries. I don't want to treat these countries as simply an arena for US and China competition, but I think we need to approach this positive some. What would the global minimum wage look like? How would you apply that to a country? I was in Kenya a long ago hugeount ofenyas in the infformal economy country where much of the country is very poor, right? and certainly not the poorest country in Africa When you're imposing a global minimum wage on these countries, presumably with some of the stick being American trade opportunities What does it actually look like Yeah, I don't know what it looks like. But I'm saying, D Un job is us Yeah I mean, I mean, getting the United States to propose this and putting the United States in the position. But I'm asking is it a good idea? You have to know what it would look like to know if it's a good idea Yeah, okay, fair question. still still working on what it exactly looks like. But what I'm saying is proposing putting the United States in the position of we are not just there to extract wealth. We're not just here to empower the people that have been dominating and exploiting you. I guess maybe the question I was getting at' interesting to me where you went with that. I think the question I was getting at there is, is the global minimum wage an effort to protect American wages or to raise other countries' wages? becausecause those are two actually quite different projects. I mean, I think it's based on the idea that Americans security is bound up with the security and prosperity of others around the world I mean, this is not just know a high flown bit of rhetoric. I do think it I mean, as someone on the progressive left, that's an understanding that I bring is that if we can diminish deprivation, disease and suffering in other communities around the world, ultimately, that is going to accrue to our own safety. I agree with that. I think the thing I'm pushing on here is in what way would America imposing wage standards on other countries whose economies it doesn't really understand and certainly does not directly manage Right, you know, when I do foreign economic reporting And probably when I do it from places that are poorer always struck with how maddeningly hard It is to make a poor country Forget rich justust middle, middle income And so It's like, I can see a version of this that is actually you've found another way to talk about a kind of protectionism because we're not going to do trade with countries that can undercut our wages by a certain amount. But that's not going to help those countries. that will hurt them. I think that's right, But ultimately, ideally, this wouldn't be just the United States saying We're doing this by ourselves. This would be something that the United States could work with other countries, including China on But this is also a place where the foreign policy for the middle class ideas that Biden had, some the ones I read from Sanders and AOC and others It seems to me that people don't always define clearly what it is the middle class wants. And one thing I think we've seen in recent years is Yes, the middle class, the working class, the country wants good jobs and good wages. And also they want things to be cheap And people talk about the era of neoliberalism now as sort of a huge failure. And I think one thing we've seen Is it whether it was a failure in some respects or not? And I think in many respects, it was People liked the cheap goods. And being in this extended period where post pandemic and then in the Trump tariff regimes and you the Russia invasion of Ukraine on energy prices and then the attack in Iran People are very angry about goods getting more expensive. and you know, we could have much cheaper electric vehicles in this country if we would let the Chinese electric vehicles in. The Biden administration put huge tariffs on those to make sure we couldn't have those And then also people were very mad about the cost of cars in that same period And so there is this hard balancing of You can do quite a lot actually to protect American jobs and industries by making trade harder or raising the various forms of standards wage, floors, et cetera within our trading regimes Um by walling off parts of the Chinese manufacturing juggernnaut But then you make things here more expensive. And then you get hit from the other side and middle class is like, I feel stretched So how as somebody who's been part of these discussions about a foreign policy for the middle class, do you Balance effort to protect jobs, the effort to raise wages and also the now demonstrated fury that people have. tradeable goods increase in price. Yeah I mean, I think part of is the ide you know people are outraged not just at the rising cost, but they're outraged at the idea they're being nickeled and dimed for everything know, whether it's for health care, whether it's for education, as I talked about earlier, I mean, every step, it seems like someone is extracting some little bit of value from everything that you do. I think in order to address this question, we really have to take a bigger look at our entire social safety net or a lack of one. I mean, I think you that feels to me like a dodge. I agree with you that we need to impro our social safety net and get rid of junk fees and things. But on these questions like trade, you'll have a direct question. L you can make things cheaper by taking down the tariffs on China You could make them more expensive by increasing the tariffs on China Those things might have meaningful effects on American manufacturing jobs and wages the question of what you're prioritizing like feels like like that feels like a fair question. I think it is a fair question. and I don't think it's a dodge because I do think that Part of what we lack right now is a sense of a common project People feel that they're just being victimized and exploited. don They don't have a voice. They're susceptible to demagogues like Donald Trump who come in and say, listen, I will be the instrument of your righteous grievance. Um So again, I'm not going to say that we can tee up a good argument, restore America's the shared sense of the American project and people suddenly won't care about rising prices of goods. But I do think that is part of the answer is just addressing the idea that people just feel like they're getting hit with costs all over the place These problems go back a long time, but I think the crisis that we're in right now is a legitimation crisis. People just don't feel that the systems under which they live are representing their interests, are really delivering for them. And I know this is a much bigger problem than I have an answer for, but I think that recognizing the conversations that we're having about foreign policy, know, we can propose all the good ideas we want for how America should act in the world. But if they're not rooted in an actual durable political consensus, they will fall apart I think one interesting Maybe the sub theme of some of what we've just been talking about is is what You're trying to build here a left nationalism or a left internationalism And and the reason I ask it like that is that there have been some moments where what I've sort of heard is a You know, very much a rising tide ofifts all boats, that, America can be out there making other countries more stable, richer, more prosperous, That would know bebound to our benefit as well U You know, And then there's also a question about our common project There are a lot of policy tools that I think are I mean, it's not all zero su, but some of it is about privileging American workers over in other countes and I think that's a very reasonable thing for a national community to do, privileging American industries over industries in other countries But there are choices on the margin of these two. projecture. How do you see that I see myself very much as a left internationalist, but I also recognize that to develop a durable and solidaristic internationalism, it has to be rooted in an American domestic political consensus. And a lot of Americans, probably most Americans, for very good reason, are mainly interested in themselves, their family, their community in order kind offer a workable foreign policy that people will support. It has I have to show and leaders have to show. We have to show that it is answering those concerns. What does that imply for how America and Americans understand the relationship, the competition, whatever you want to call it with China. You know, you earlier were sort of critiquing the idea that our relationship with China should be built on maintaining American primacy. U But if not that, then what? L what how do you understand? What we want be civic China I mean, first, we have to understand we need to coexist with China. China has a huge economy. It is already a major player on the global stage. And I think there's a school of thought in Washington who believe that China's ultimate goal is to supplant the United States and to reshape the global order in its image Um, I'm less convinced of that. But for me, the question always comes down to, okay, what does the United States want? We're going to need to find ways to cooperate with China. There are going to be areas where we have competition. There's going to be areas where we have conflict. But I think the problem with with defining the relationship as competition is one that eventually will lead to conflict. And I do think it's interesting. I mean, Donald Trump, a lot of people were surprised, including me, given that in his first administration, he is really the one who made China the focus And Washington very, very quickly shifted focus to that. and Biden picked up the ball in his presidency. And interesting Trump when he came back, relelatively little tension on China compared to what a lot of people assume would be the case, given how prominent it was in his first administration. And I think you saw some of that reflected in the recent summit. If anything, you, I think we should be conciliatory. He was very conciliatory because I think has shown him that China has cards to play. The United States simply cannot assert its will on China And that's a real reality that I think Washington needs to to grasp is that we don't get to just set the rules and have China follow them at the same time. I haven't really seen evidence that China just wants to supplant the United States. I see China acting within an order that the United States essentially help develop And I think we can work with that Sould American primacy be a goal The question is, is American primacy necessary to keep Americans safe, prosperous and free? And I don't think it is. I mean, I want an America that is powerful. I want an America that is influential. I want an America that can advance the safety of the American people. And as I conceive of that safety, it involves you promoting safety and prosperity in other communities around the world And then how does that make you think about immigration? You know There's this interview I did many years ago with Bernie Sanders that always goes around where I asked about open borders And's like, no, that's coped by this plot I think if you take global poverty, that seriously, it leads you to conclusions that in the U.S. are considered out of political bounds. thingsings like sharply raising the level of immigration we permit, even up up to a level of open borders about sharply increing open borders openorder.'s coke of this proposal The ide I mean, that's a right wing proposal which says essentially there is no United States. I think people thought that I was asking him that because I support open borders rather than I was interested in what he would say But The reason I asked him that is that I haveve always thought the question of immigration is very hard on the left becausecause if you have solidarity with people in other countries, people who are I' trying to come here because their countries are unsafe.. peopleeople trying to come here because the money is here, because the better jobs are here, because you can make a better life for your family here. And you actually do believe in the equal dignity of all people, it becomes hard to say Well, why shouldn't we let you in? Like the limiting principle of immigration at a moral level is a very difficult one. And I think it's more difficult on the left. when there's less of a kind of bounding nationalism. But I think immigration is a much more central question in our policy, foreign policy than it was and it is very tied up with a foreign policy for the middle class. I mean, and it's also tied up into this question of control. I think part of what people hated about the border under Biden was it was out of control. So what should the last position on immigration be? And I think lesss position should be that you we need a legal and orderly system for people to immigrate here Um, But it's also based in understanding that we have long been a nation of immigrants. And I don't think that's just a slogan. Listen, I'm the son of an immigrant. too. This country gave my family a lot this family let, you know, this country let my family in when they were fleeing war. That's true of so many other families right now today. That means a lot to me about, you know, that's part of Being American, as I define it Um In addition, I think there's clear evidence that immigrants are a driver of economic growth. This country is stronger and more prosperous because of immigrants Um So I think we need leaders who are willing to make that positive case while acknowledging, yes, of course, we need to enforce the law. We need people to apply for asylum and you know and migration legally Um Unfortunately, it does it's one of these many issues that seems to have just become, you know, just an issue in the culture war. But I think that I think there are two questions here that are hard and that Democrats are going to have to come up with an answer for. Democrats of all stripes. One is ideally how many people should immigrate here, including legally. You know, in the first term Trump would often fuzz W was he talking about illegal immigration or illgal migration? Cy was talking about all immigration. Yes. rightight. He doesn't want basically anybody coming to this country. Literally nobody, but they have what theyant by seal the bard. White Southfricans are or we. Whiteou Africanans are welc So's that There's also the problem that Biden administration faced. I mean Kamala Harris. took heat when you know, she went and said, like our message to you, I'm paraphrasing here is don't come here right now. No I think that's an actual cook. I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making dangerous track to the United States Mexico border Do not come Do not come And one of the things that I think we saw in the Biden administration was when the broad impression was We were very, very friendly, immigrants coming here A lot of people came, you know And so you know part of how Trump closed the border is a pulse of cruelty, like a constant pulse of cruelty And For the Biden administration, they lost control in part because They I think we're caught between the desire for an orderly border, which it did desire belief in Highness Like that seems harder to balance. No, it clearly is Um, I think part of it is also addressing, you know, the sources of anger and grievance that drive support for dramatic crackdowns on immigration. This idea, know that people believe that these immigrants are coming and unfairly taking what's mine. They're coming in and you know changing the way that I have to live I think there's a way to address that. That has to be part of the debate we have on reordering our immigration system And then I want to end on this because this is already, I think, a very unifying idea for Democrats, but the question of how to make it tangible is harder You, like many others have seen have said that corruption, and probably anti corruption should be at the center of foreign policy that we should understand that as a domestic question, we should understand it as a foreign question and that Democrats, particularly as the Trump erow wears on should find a way to make that core to their vision of the world Do you make that? er vision of the world. What does it look like to center that in the way you've been describing. Yeah. I mean, I think this goes back to the kind of key claim that we discussed earlier, Trump's refrain that the system is rigged And again, this system is rigged. People can see it and feel it. I mean, there are ideas that we have and we've put out there as for like international efforts against kleptocracy, closing down international money laundering, for which the United States is a main destination. I mean, who knew that trusts in South Dakota would be one of the main ways that kleptocrats abroad hid their money,th apparently very popular. But I think Starting here. with campaign finance. And I know that's a tall order. We've got Supreme Court rulings that have you know determined that money equals speech Um But I think seeing up a conversation about what Congress can actually do to change the laws around campaign finance, it may take a constitutional amendment. And again, given our political polarization, that sounds completely unrealistic. But I think Americans will really respond to an argument that really addresses their sense of loss of control. that elites have taken control of the system for their own benefit, not for the of a country the country at large. And I think one of the best messengers on this has been George's John Ossoff who seems to drop an amazing video on this every couple months And I think with something he said know a few months ago that really struck me, he was like even before Donald Trump came on the scene. The United States was the most corrupt modern democracy. And I think that's true And I think, you know, getting out there on that message is a way to start addressing this. And so, but you think the way I agree with you that the way to start in the domestic scene is campaign finance re forform and I also agree that It's hard to change the Constitution, hard to change the Supreme Court You can build the politics as W did on overturning Roe on an extended long term effort to do that and you can eventually succeed And there's a lot you can do on that particular issue in the meantime, too In terms of foreign policy what does it mean to make that? are the people we don't work with? I mean You know, one thing I remember seeing with the Biden administration was that they were holding Saudi Arabia a little bit more at arm's length and then oil prices started to go up. Then all of a sudden they felt they couldn't anymore. And so all the questions of human rights abuses and other things began to dissolve And that often is where I watch our foreign policy shift away from values. People have good intentions, but then there are other things that the American middle class wants, right? The American working class wants, like cheap oil means you're working with autocratic strong men in highly corrupt countries So What happens when the values you want to put forward and center in your foreign policy conflict with the things that you know, you believe the American people want and can only be got at the price they want You know, from working with these countries. I mean, again, it's going to sound like a punt, but Icknowge yeah, there's going be trade offffs. There's going to be decisions you have to make. sometometimes you're going to prioritize those values. Sometimes you're going to have to kind of backfoot them a little Um I guess I'd have to look at the particular situation to give an answer. but I would say internationally For you know, the United States is a major destination for global clipocrats, as is UK I would say the U. S and UK can do a lot. I mean, even from where we're sitting here in New York, you know, a lot of these buildings are just, you know, they're parking spaces for ill gotten gains. the same is true of London. I think the U S. and UK just addressing their own houses could start to have an international impact. I know that's separate from the questionre you're asking, but I do think that that is a way to internationalize an ant corruption policy I think in some of these issues we're talking about, it raises this question of where is the line between domestic and foreign policy Party when we're talking about a foreign policy for the middle class Like how do you think about what falls in one bucket, what falls in the other What's in the wrong bucket? Is buckets even the right metaphor Yeah, I don't have a great answer to it. I think a lot of the things we talk about I mean, I'll say this, I think we talk about foreign policy in ways that we don't often recognize as foreign policy, like when we talk about immigration. There are obviously huge international implications for immigration, climate, obviously, same thing America's foreign policies impact these things, global trade, global economics, jobs here. These are all have a foreign policy component. So and this is again, something that I did appreciate about, you know, when I mentioned the Biden administration's global economic approach They seed that as a part of foreign policy. Trade was not over here and foreign policy over here. Th things are deeply connected. I think I guess the way I would try to answer it is to say whenever we are talking about foreign policy whether it's about the Middle East, whether it's about Russia, Ukraine, at least being mindful of, okay How does this actually serve American communities? Even if every speech doesn't necessarily have to have that paragraph, you need to be able to answer it What do you think about places where I thing about the right way to frame this that doesn't serve American communities but it is important elsewhere. And I'm thinking here about posossibly interventions in humanitarian crises, certain forms of foreign aid. Obviously, the Trump administration has really gutted foreign aid Th about those moments when you kind of can't say ur foreign policy is actually a domestic policy. We're actually doing these things because Morally we think it is good. We are a rich country, we are a powerful country, and we are going to use some of that power elsewhere. Yeah, I think there are going to be cases like that, and we need a president who's able to articulate that strongly to the American people I think a lot of Americans are receptive to that, but they need to hear a convincing argument for why this is doing the right thing, even if that doesn't end with, and here's how it's going to create new jobs in your community. Like I said, I think Americans generally want the country to do good. That doesn't mean we need to get up in everyone's business all over the place all the time, but I think when they're,, for example, I think it's very interesting how Fairly steady support for Ukraine's defense has stayed. Despite Donald Trump taking a very different approach to it than Joe Biden, to say the least, I think there is something about the justice and the morality of helping a country defend itself from the aggression of a more powerful neighbor that Americans get even if they might not connect it directly to how that's good for them and their community and their family I think that's a good place to end. Always a final question. What are three books recommend to the audience? Well, the first is, you know you mentioned Senator Chris Murphy in his new book, The Crisis of the Common Good I've just been reading. and I really I really recommend it because as I said, I think Senator Murphy Um has been one, someone who has really articulated a strong theory of the case of what really ails our politics the loss of a sense of community Um, the idea that these these systems are out of control and they are unaccountable. the idea that just Wealth is being extracted from us at every step and what it takes to rebuild a shared sense of purpose recommend that one. The second one. is by journalist Susie Hansome. It's called From Life Itself. It's a book about Turkey. through just exploring one neighborhood in Istanbul that she's reported on over ten years, how this neighborhood changed, the influx of immigrants, refugees from Syria lookingooking at the country's politics, obviously, the ride of Erdogan in the AKP, how Turkey's democracy has changed and diminished. And the last one is, um