Summary Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East | Lex Fridman Podcast #399 (Youtube) youtu.be
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Speaker 0 The following is a conversation with Jared Kushner, former senior adviser to the president during the Donald Trump administration and author of breaking history, a white House memo memoir. He's 1 of the most influential and effective presidential advisors in modern history, helping conduct a negotiations with some of the most powerful leaders in the world and deliver results on trade, criminal justice reform and historic progress towards its peace. In the Middle East. On Thursday, October fifth, we recorded conversation on topics of war peace, history and power in the Middle East and beyond in This was about a day and a half before the Hamas attack on Israel. And then we felt we must sit down again on Monday, October ninth and add a discussion on the current situation.
Speaker 0 We opened the podcast with the second newly recorded part. My heart goes out to everyone who has and is suffering in this war. I pray for your strength. And for the long term peace and flourishing of the Israeli and palestinian people. I love you all.
Speaker 0 This is a le treatment podcast. And now to dear your friends, here's Jared Kushner. We did a lot of this conversation before the Hem hamas attack on Israel, and we decided to sit sedan again and finish the discussion to address the current situation which is still developing. If I may allow me to summarize the situation as it stands today, it's morning Monday, October ninth, on Saturday, October seventh at 06:30AM Israel time, Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Southern Israel. The rocket attack served as cover for a multi pronged infiltration of a 0 territory by over 1000 Hamas milton.
Speaker 0 This is shortly after at 07:40AM. The Hamas Milton went door to door in border towels, killing civilians, and taking captive, including women and children. In response to this, Israeli Air force began carrying out strikes in Gaza, also fighting on the ground in Israel to clear out Hamas Militants from Israel territory and preparing to mobilize Israeli troops for potential ground attack on Hamas and Gaza. Now, of course, this is what it appears to be right now and this along with other things might change because the the situation is still developing. The Idea is ordering civilian residents of Gaza to evacuate their homes for their safety, benjamin netanyahu declared war in several statements and warned Israelis to brace themselves for a long and difficult war.
Speaker 0 Just today, Israeli ministers ordered a quote, complete siege of Gaza, interrupting supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel. From Israel to Gaza. As of now, October ninth, the death toll is over 1200 people and over a hundred 30 hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas. So as I said, the events are rapidly unfolding, so these numbers will sadly increase to But hopefully, our words here can at least in part speak to the the timeless. Underlying currents of the history and as you write about the power dynamics of the region.
Speaker 0 So for people who don't know, Gaza is a 25 miles long, 6 miles wide strip of territory along the Mediterranean sea. It borders us Israel on the east and north and Egypt on the southwest. It's densely populated about 2300000.0 people and there's been a blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt since 2007 when hamas power. I could just summarize that Hamas is a palestinian milton group, which rules the Gaza strip. It originated in 19 88 and it came to power in Gaza in 2006.
Speaker 0 As part of his charter, it sworn to the destruction of Israel and it is designated by the United States, You're paying Union, Uk, and of course, Israel as a terrorist group. So given that context, what are your feelings as a human being, and what is your analysis as the former senior adviser to the president under the Trump administration of the current situation in Israel Gaza?
Speaker 1 So I think you did an excellent job of summarizing a lot of the the context, but watching what's unfolded over the last 48 hours has been... Truly heartbreaking to see. We're still in the early stages of what's developing, but seeing the images on x of you know, militants, terrorists going door to door with machine guns gun down innocent civilians, seeing beheaded Israeli soldiers, seeing young, 20 year olds at a rave, dance party to celebrate peace. With militants flying in and then, you know, shooting machine guns to to kill people ind permanently seeing young children, captive and and help prisoner seeing 80 year old grandmothers, a holocaust survivor, also being taken captive. These are just images and actions that we have not seen in this world.
Speaker 1 Since 09:11, this is a terror attack on the scale of which we have not seen and it's been incredibly hard for a lot of people to comprehend. My heart goes out obviously to all of the the families of the victims to the families of those who are held. In captive now and to all of Israel, because 1 of the beautiful things about the state of israel is that when 1 Israeli is hurting, the entire nation comes together. It's a shame that it's taking an action like this to unify the nation. But I have seen incredibly beautiful signs over the last 48 hours of a country coming together, the Jewish people have been under oppression before, the Jewish people know what it's like and seeing people rallied together to fight for their homeland to to to try to reestablish safety is is is a very beautiful thing to watch I wish it wasn't something we had to watch, but it is.
Speaker 1 With that being said, though, the backdrop, I've been speaking to friends over the last couple days. I've... 1 friend I spoke with last night who was saying that, you know, a good friend messaged Him saying I'm going in, we're gonna do some operations. To try to free some of the hostages. Held him 1 of the key, messaged him the next morning.
Speaker 1 He was 1 of the first through the door to try to free these hostages, and he was killed by Hamas Militant. And sadly, we're gonna be hearing many, many more stories of brave Israeli soldiers. Trying to get these terrorists out of Israel, trying to free innocent civilians. Unfortunately are risking their lives to do it, and, you know, they're all heroes, but some will have a less good faith than others sadly. So it's a very, very...
Speaker 1 Heartbreaking moment. And I do think that it's very important at this moment in time for the entire world to stand behind Israel. I think that Hamas has shown the entire world, who they really are. I think what their aim is, what they're willing to do, and, you know, all of the strong security that Israel's put in place over the last years, which in some instances was criticized, think is now being validated that that there was a real threat that they were looking to deter. So short answer is my heart is broken, praying for peace, praying for strength, praying for...
Speaker 1 Praying for Israel to do what it needs to do to avoid being in this situation again, which is either eliminating or severely degrading hamas those capabilities. There there cannot be peace in Israel and in the Middle East while there's is a terror group that is being funded by Iran that is allowed to those flourish and is allowed to plant operations that are gonna aim to kill innocent civilians. And so somebody who was formerly in this position who was intimately involved with Israel with the strategies to to minimize attacks from Hamas and to try to turn the region around and I think we did do a very substantial job under President Trump, the Middle East 1 from 1 of the most chaotic regions in the world. You had Isis in 2016. Isis had to caliphate the size of Ohio.
Speaker 1 They're beheaded journalists. They were they were they were killing Christians. They control 8000000 people. They were planning, attacks. All over the world from their their Caliphate.
Speaker 1 They were using the Internet to radical gl people. We had the San Bernardino shooting in America. We had the Pulse Night nightclub shooting in in Orlando. And there was real threat, and then you had Iran, which was given a hundred and 50000000000 dollars in a glide path to a nuclear weapon, and they were using their newfound riches to fund Hamas hezbollah Ba, the H these different rebels, all over the region that we're looking to destabilize further. Syria was in a civil war where 500000 people were killed Yemen was destabilize.
Speaker 1 Sir... Libya was destabilize, and it was just a mess. And all of America's allies had felt betrayed. President Trump came into power. We rebuilt the the trust and the relationships with all of our traditional allies, and we were able to eliminate Isis, the territorial caliphate, and then we're able to project strength in the reach and really go after Iran's wallet.
Speaker 1 We're able to stop through through crushing sanctions, a lot of their financial resources, which they were using to fund all these terror groups. And so we left the Middle east with 6 piece deals and in a fairly peaceful world. So seeing what's happening. I think it was completely avoid. I think it's horrible to see that it's occurring and I pray that those in empower will make the right decisions to to to to restore safety, but also to potentially create a better paradigm offer for peace
Speaker 0 in the future. So I have a lot of questions to ask you about the journey towards this historic progress towards peace, with the Abraham accord. But first on the situation to step back and some of the history. Is there things about the history of Hamas and Gaza that's important to understand. So what is happening now, just your comments, your thoughts, your understanding of hamas?
Speaker 1 I think you did an excellent job Of of really giving the some reach. A couple things maybe I'll add to it is that Ham hamas was originally founded from the Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt, which is a group that's caused a lot of issues in the region. They've they've attacked Israel many times in the past. There's a lot of discussion about how Israel is an occupying power. Well, in Gaza 2005, They withdrew from all the land, and then they say Israel's is an apartheid staple.
Speaker 1 Israel then gave governance of the region to the Palestinians And then what's happened is is the Palestinian people's lives have now gone down not up since then. I will say that under Hamas leadership in in Gaza, the people have suffered the most or the Palestinian people. And I see I've I've watched cries throughout my time and government from people saying we wanna see the Palestinian people live a better life. I agree with those people. I think that the Palestinian people in Gaza are essentially hostages.
Speaker 1 In in Gaza, you have... Basically 2 point, you know, 2000000 people that are being held to hostage by 30000 Hamas, a terrorist, and that's really the problem. And I would just encourage people to to push their attention and energy, in this moment and their anger towards Hamas, Those are the people who are killing innocent civilians who are murdering and discrimination, and those are the people who have held back the Palestinians from having a better life. And just finally, what I would say is You know, what we saw with Hamas was that if you go back to 2007, they basically had just 1 plan that they did over and over. And, we are very careful to try to monitor very closely and stop the iranian money and the resources from coming in.
Speaker 1 And again, we took a little bit of, you criticism from the international community from keeping the border tight, but unfortunately, every time you'd allow construction materials, going to Gaza, they'd do them to build tunnels, not homes. You would have equipment that would come in to build pipes. They turn it into bombs. So it's It was very, very hard to figure out how do you get the resources into Gaza to help people of a better life. While at the same time, the leadership in Gaza was taking all those resources.
Speaker 1 And turning it into military equipment to attack Israel. What world is around play this war in this connection
Speaker 0 to Hamas? Can you speak to the... And connection between Hamas and iran that's important to understand, especially as this most recent attack unfolds,
Speaker 1 Sure. So the correlation, I mean, there's reports that Iran is behind the attack. Hamas has has thanked Iran for their support. And and it's been very well known that Iran supports the destruction of State of Israel. And I won't say Iran as a country.
Speaker 1 I'll talk about Iran in the leadership shift. There's actually a beautiful thing I saw on the Internet, where 1 of the soccer games in Iran, they were trying to, you know, rally support for the Hamas. If terror attacks and a lot of people in the crowds were chanting, you know, ef to the regime because I think the Iranian people, the persian people generally are peace loving people who don't wanna see this focus on destruction and annihilation. But you saw this in 2015, 2016 when the Iranian government had resources, the region was less safe. And since, you know, now, there's been more resources allowed to go to the Iranian regime by lack of enforcement of sanctions.
Speaker 1 And as a result, Ran is funding hezbollah, Hamas. They were funding the Who. Now there's a little bit of a d tau, between Saudi and Iran which has led to that going down, which only further proves that Iran was behind the H, which is what the Saudi have been saying for years and Iran was denying So there's a very strong relationship between the 2. And we always knew that the way that Iran fights wars or fights conflicts is never directly. It's usually through its proxies.
Speaker 1 In this case, Hamas has been a a proxy for Iran who wanted to obviously see the destruction of Israel, but also does not wanna see the Israelis and the Saudi come together for a peace agreement. So the name of this operation of the Hamas operation is a flood referring to the mosque. How much of this attack is about the mosque? In actuality, I don't think any of it is, but the Mosque is is something that all of the Shi Ji have used for years in order to justify their actions that are aggressive towards israel's. So this is something upper maybe even take a step back and go through when I was working initially in my first year on the peace plan.
Speaker 1 I was doing a lot of listening, and quite frankly, a lot of what people were saying to me didn't make sense. And the reason why I was trying to figure out they were talking about. Sovereignty over lo of Mosque The mosque is a Mosque that's built in the holy of H, the Har S in Israel where the the Jewish Bay Mig, the holy temple was built in a very really religious place about after the temple was destroyed, then there was a a big mosque built there. And it's 1 of the more holy places in Islam now. So so the big...
Speaker 1 Thing everyone was saying is what do you do with this land where you have a mosque built over a very big jewish site. And I was hearing all of the experts, and, you know, I always say experts with quotes, because only in Washington, can you work on something for a decade and continue to fail and then you basically leave in are considered an expert but that's 1 of the problems with Washington, which maybe we could talk about later. But the notion here was I went and I said, let me try to understand, what the issue is with the Israeli Palestinian conflict with the people. Right? I always felt the politicians were a little disconnected.
Speaker 1 So I... Commissioned several focus groups, 1 in in Oman, 1 in Cairo, 1 in Dubai and 1 in Rama. And I asked, you know, people, Muslims what is the what is the Israeli palestinian conflict about.
Speaker 0 Mh.
Speaker 1 And time and time again, the most popular thing that they said was that Israel was not allowing access to the mosque for muslims to pray. And what was interesting was is that Israel's policy... See is to allow anyone who wants to come and pray peacefully at the sites to come and pray. Sometimes they have security issues when there's provocation. See But by and large since 19 67 when Israel was able to take back to jerusalem in a defensive war.
Speaker 1 Just to be very clear, they were attacked. In the south and they were attacked from from the east, and they basically were able to beat back the Jordan damien and the Egyptians and and then recon conquer the old city of Jerusalem. And during that time, immediately after Israel then passed the protection of Holy Places law, which was they basically took resources didn't didn't have. And they said we're gonna restore the Christian sites, the muslim sites, the the Jewish sites, and they've worked to allow everyone access to the mosque. So today, any Muslim who wants to come can come and pray at the mosque, The Mosque is is israel's acknowledged that King of abdullah, the King of Jordan is the custodian of of the Mosque.
Speaker 1 And as long as people wanna come to the country and pray peacefully, they're able to do that. But if you look at a lot of the propaganda that's been used by Isis or Iran to to recruit terrorists or to justify their incur. They often say they're doing it in the name of liberating the Mosque, but from an operational and pragmatic perspective today, any Muslim who wants to go to the mosque, you can book a flight israel now through Dubai because there's flights between Israel and Dubai. And if as long as your country has relations with Israel, they'll accept your passport in there, you can come and pray and that's what his Wants. Israel wants, Jerusalem to be a place where all religions can come and celebrate together, but you have a lot of actors that look to find ways to use these religious tensions in order to sow division and justify violent behavior.
Speaker 0 I wonder how it's possible to lessen the effectiveness of that propaganda message that a lot of the war, a lot of the attacks, about access to the alexa mosque. Is there something you can speak to why that message hasn't dis across the the air world they're So Israel's is good at a
Speaker 1 lot of things, they're not very good traditionally with public relations. You know, after the Abraham accord, you know, we made the first Abraham accord deal. In August 20 20, and then we made 5 other deals. We first did United Arab Emirates, then we did a deal with Bahrain, then we did deal with Kosovo, then we did a deal with with Sudan, then we did a deal with Morocco. And then we got the Gcc deal done as well.
Speaker 1 The deal... The the tension between tar, Saudi Uae, Egypt and Bahrain, and that was allowing us to create a pathway to then pursue the Israeli Saudi, normalization. So we had so much momentum then that the goal was just keep getting more countries to normalize relations with Israel, once you create the connection between people and create the ability for people do business together, the ability for flights to fly between. Then you would just start naturally having people coming and everyone has a smartphone today, so they can then post and combat the the misinformation that's been out there. Bo, this misinformation is not something that's new.
Speaker 1 Know, 1 of the characters who played a very big role in in spreading the anti antisemitism and the violence. And in Israel. In the 19 twenties was a guy named H I mean, Hussain, who was a known as the Grand Mu of Jerusalem. He was very close with Hitler and Mu and he was working with them to try to get some claims to the Middle East once the Jewish people were annihilate. And what he did for a very long time was he did the same stick only the it was before yet had smartphones in Youtube where he would say the Mosque is under intact, these imperialist zion are coming in to try to destroy the mosque, and he would use that to raise money from Indonesia from Pakistan all over the world, and then use that.
Speaker 1 They're that threat to justify recruiting, you know, groups of young vulnerable bald muslim men and then, you know, getting them in the name of of religious rights to go and kill people, which is not which really is more of a per version of the religion than I think the true essence of what Islam is. I think Islam core is a peaceful religion. And I think that's where a lot of the great leaders in Islam wanna take it. But the people who use Islam or the the mosque or as a justification for violence, Those are people who I think are are really... They disrespect the the Islam religion.
Speaker 0 As you said, you helped make major strides stories peace in the Middle East with the Abraham accord. Can you describe what it took to accomplish this? And maybe this will help us understand what broke down a led to the tragedy this week.
Speaker 1 Yeah. So, you know, I always believed and foreign policy, I I learned very quickly that the difference between a political deal and a business deal is that in a business deal, you have a problems... Set you come to a conclusion. And then if you buy or sell something, you either have, you know, more cash or you have a company. So be more to do less to do that political problem set is very different where, you know, the conclusion of a problem set is essentially the beginning of a new paradigm.
Speaker 1 So when I would think about how do you how do you move pieces around the board? You couldn't say let me just solve the problem. You have to think about what happens the day after the signing, and how do you create a paradigm that has positivity to it. So the biggest piece of what president Trump did during his... 4 years in office was he really strengthened the relationship with Israel, number 1.
Speaker 1 And he did things like recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem. He recognized the go on heights. He got out of the Iran deal. We did an economic conference in Bahrain where we brought Israelis to meet with, you Saudi and Mri and Qatar qatar businessmen and everyone came together and each 1 of these instances were unthinkable previously.
Speaker 1 And everyone said that if you did it, the world was gonna end and every time President Trump did 1, the next morning the sun rose, the next evening sunset and things moved on. And so by doing that, what president Trump did was he he slaughtered a lot of the sacred cows of sunset these these false barriers that people had erected and showed people that the vast majority of the people in the Middle East, they're Jewish, Muslim, Christian, whatever religion they are, they just want to live better lives. And so what we basically did was create a paradigm where... Whether the voices for peace, the voices for together now finally, had a forum in where they were able to do it. And we did that in the backdrop.
Speaker 1 The way we're able to be successful was we severely limited the resources of Iran, and they were focused more internally. And they couldn't cause the trouble that they were causing everywhere else. Since we've left obviously, the dynamics have changed. But the the way you get to piece is obviously number ones through strength and number 2 by finding a way for people to be better off tomorrow than they are today And what I found was that most of the voices looking for violence or trouble were people who were just focused on what happened 2 years ago, 20 years ago, 70 years. Ago, a thousand years ago.
Speaker 1 People who are trying to solve those problems in that context often were were looking more to to use those past grievances as a justification for their power and for the bad behavior that they were looking to perpetuate.
Speaker 0 So managing as we have talked about extensively managing the power dynamics of the region and providing a plan. This is something you did with the economic plan titled peace prosperity of vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people. Can you first of all describe what's in the plan?
Speaker 1 Sure. So this was something I took on. I was working on the political framework between the rallies and the? Palestinians. And trying to understand what were the issues.
Speaker 1 And the issues were were not very many. Basically was you had a land dispute, You know, you had to figure out where do you put borders ultimately you had a security a paradigm, which I was much more favorable to Israel's perspective on. And obviously the events of the past 48 hours fully justified that that that that bias. And then in addition to that you had to deal with religious sites, but I felt operationally that wasn't actually complicated as people made it because you wanted to just leave it open for everybody. Then I went through, and I I felt that the Palestinian leadership was fairly dis to make a deal because there was just this paradigm where for the had billions of dollars coming in from the international community.
Speaker 1 And I think that They feared that if they made a deal, they would lose their relevancy internationally and the money would stop flowing into the country. So what I tried to do is to say, you know, my my approach when I would get into hard prompts, say, how do I understand all the different escape patches? How do I try to eliminate them and then build a golden bridge that becomes really the the only, but also the most desirable pathway, for the decision makers to walk through. And it wasn't always hard and sometimes you have to go and, you know hold their hand or you try to pick them up and walk him across. But But but a lot of these leaders are very reluctant to change and the dynamics of the Palestinians also were such that I think they were fairly stuck where they were So we developed a business plan for Gaza, the West Bank.
Speaker 1 We threw in some some improvements for... Jordan in Egypt as well. I was based it off of the vision 2030 that they didn't Saudi Arabia, which I thought was a a visionary document. I went back through this process and I studied basically every economic project in post world war 2 period. So we looked at what they did in South Korea, why it was successful with some strong industrial planning.
Speaker 1 We looked at Japan. We looked at Singapore. We looked at Poland why it was successful. We spent a lot of time on the Ukraine. Plan for the country and why it wasn't successful and that was mostly because of governance and corruption, which actually resembles a lot of what's gone wrong with the Palestinians where there's no property rights, there's no rule of law.
Speaker 1 And what we did is we built a plan to show, you know, it's not that that hard. Right? In the sense that to the West Bank and Gaza you had 5000000 people. And and we put together a plan, I think it was about 27000000000 dollars We got together a conference. I had the Head of At and T.
Speaker 1 We had Steve Schwartz from Blacks stone came which is very gracious of them. We had all the leading Arabic businessmen. The leading builders, leading developers. And the general consensus of that of that of that of that conference was that this is very doable. You know we think that for Gaza, in particular, it would cost maybe maybe 7 to to 8000000000 dollars to rebuild the entire place.
Speaker 1 We felt we could reduce a poverty rate in half, We can create over a million jobs there. Mh The only thing that people said was holding it back wasn't Israel. What was holding it back was governance. The And people wouldn't have confidence investing there with with the rule that that Hamas was was per. So I encourage people actually to look at the plan.
Speaker 1 It was very thoughtful. It's a hundred and 81 pages. We went project by project. Each project has costed out. It's a real plan that could be implemented, but you need the right governance And all of the different arabic countries are willing to fund it The international communities is willing to fund it because they've just been throwing so much money at the Palestinians for years that's never been outcomes based.
Speaker 1 There are conditions based. It's just been, you know, entitlement money. And unfortunately, it hasn't really achieved any outcomes that have been successful. So it it's a great business plan. It just shows to rebuilding Gaza, you know, could be easy.
Speaker 1 But like I said, you know, the problem that's held the Palestinian people back and that's made their lives terrible in Gaza has not been Israel. It's really been Hamas leadership. Or lack of leadership and their desire to focus on trying to kill Israelis and start war with Israel over improving the lives of the Palestinian people.
Speaker 0 And the current approach of Hamas, the more violence, they per, the more they can hold on to power. Versus improving the lives of people. So there as you said, maybe you can comment on, they do not propose an economics plan.
Speaker 1 I mean, Hamas has been running it now for 16 years, and they don't have a lot to show for it. And, you know, our posture with them was basically a very simple deal And if you think about what's the end state in Gaza, it's actually not that complicated. It's, you know, there's no territorial disputes, right? The borders the border deal. There's no religious issues there as well.
Speaker 1 You know, you're not dealing with Jerusalem. You're basically just dealing with the fact that, you know, Israel wants to make sure that there's no... Threat from Gaza. So it's a demi denuclearization or some kind of security guarantee from a credible source where Israel doesn't feel like Gaza can be used to stage a attacks into Israel or to fire rockets into Israel. And by the way, these are things I was saying, you know, 3, 4 years ago, that that was the objective, and that was really the fear.
Speaker 1 Now that's been proven you know, unfortunately, the fear has has manifested, and in exchange, you can rebuild the place and you can give the people a much better life. But Hamas has not shown desire for that or capability for that, and I don't think there's enough trust to allow them to do that, which is why, you know, under under the current circumstances, if you do wanna have peace there Hamas has to be either eliminated or severely degraded in terms of their military capabilities. I would love
Speaker 0 to ask about leadership, Especially on the on the side of the United States, what is the the current administration, the Biden administration done different than the Trump administration as you understand that may have contributed to the events we saw this week.
Speaker 1 So all I can talk about are are where we left them. Right? We left them a place where they had tremendous momentum in the middle East, I met with them during the transition and said, you know, look, you know, we even got the the Qatar Saudi conflict on, which was a big... No piece between his own Saudi would have been possible. Without that.
Speaker 1 So we even got that done in in our Lame Duck period. And and they came in and they said, look, we wanna focus on the 3 c's, which is Covid, climate change in China. I so, that's that's great. But, you know the Middle East we have an amazing place right now. It's stable.
Speaker 1 There's momentum, Iran is basically broke. We put such crippling sanctions on Iran that they went from about, I think it was 2600000.0 barrels a day of oil. They were selling. To to about a hundred thousand under Trump. So their their foreign current foreign currency reserves were basically depleted and they were broke same with the Palestinians.
Speaker 1 We stopped the funding to to to to the to to Un, the Un agency, which is totally corrupted it's... You know, we've put 10000000000 dollars in there. Over time. I did a poll in the Middle East in Gaza to say, okay, we've invested 10000000000 dollars here as a country. Are we popular?
Speaker 0 Mh.
Speaker 1 Right? The Us had a 7 percent approval rating. Usa id had a 70 percent approval rating. But it just felt like a waste of our taxpayer dollars. And again, we want to make a conditions based.
Speaker 1 The Biden administration came in. Number 1, they they they started insulting, you know Saudi and Russia, oil prices went up. At the same time, what they did was they stopped. Domestic production of oil. They made it they dis, a lot of oil and shale production, with regulations.
Speaker 1 They they stopped pipelines, oil prices went up. They stopped enforcing the sanctions against Iran, probably to get the oil prices lowered to make up for what they were doing, They ran to iran to try to make a deal. They started funding the Palestinians again right away. And I even said, you know, if you're gonna fund them if that's your policy. I I respect that again, elections have consequences, and you can take a different policy.
Speaker 1 But what I would recommend is get some conditions, make them do some reforms, make them give property rights to people, make them you know, do real economic investments for people, but they just went right away. So they were funding the Palestinians, non enforcing the sanctions, And then overall, just projecting a lot of weakness in the region. So 1 of the the most embarrassing examples is what happened. In the United Arab emirates again, an amazing, probably 1 of America's best allies over the last, you know, 20 30 years They fought with us in in Afghanistan, They were the first Muslim country to stand up and do that. After 09:11 because they didn't want to be a war of the West against.
Speaker 1 Against the muslim Muslim religions, so they joined the fight because they saw it as a fight between right and wrong they have rocket shot into their country from from from from from from the H. And they basically don't get a call in from the Us for 17 days. They need their equipment that they buy from the Us, which creates job in the. They need to stocked, We don't call. So they've severely degraded the trust that we had to rebuild with our allies.
Speaker 1 I think they've been working now to get it back. They after 2 years started working with Saudi and Israel, which I think was good. You know, I think that they realized after stint that maybe the the process that President Trump, had created in the region with the right policy and keep in mind, you know, President Trump's policy was that that I was working on was very strongly criticized, during the first 3 years before we're able to achieve the results because it was departure from the failed policies of the past. And so first there was return to those policies Pis iran. Let's criticize Saudi Arabia, then they started embracing and working on the Israel Saudi deal, which I was was really exciting.
Speaker 1 I think we're all very excited about it. But they did it in public. And I think that that also was something and I didn't have access to their intelligence. So I assumed that by doing it so publicly, they thought that They'd either had a deal with Iran because they were letting them get all this revenue or Iran wouldn't be a problem. But 1 of the reasons with the Abraham accord, we kept it so quiet.
Speaker 1 During the whole time was because we always felt like the trouble makers in the region, particularly Iran, who we thought would would be disadvantaged by having... Uae, Saudi, Israel altogether, Israel's is a nuclear power. You have other strong economies. Iran seeks instability, they seek looking to create division in the region. And if you can create that economics sphere where you have security from Hai to Musk Scott from Israel to Oman all the way through with Saudi, Jordan, Uae, Qatar, Egypt, that's an incredibly powerful block.
Speaker 1 If you can make it cure and then get economic integration, that really could be a Middle East that thrive. So Iran obviously wanted nothing to do with that, and that's why they've been working to disrupt. So I think the administration has... They took an incredibly stable situation with momentum. I think they underestimated the the the way that Iran would approach the region to undermine, I think they gave way too much rope to Iran, and I think that they didn't seize when they had an opportunity of strength with the Palestinians to try to drive to a conclusion that I believe could have prevented us being where we are today, not to mention that, you know, even just 3 weeks ago, I mean, it's a bad look that they they just, you know, basically gave 6000000000 dollars to Iran, in exchange for hostages and then Iran's basically funding these terror attacks or killing American citizens, you have in Israel and and it's just it's a heartbreaking situation.
Speaker 1 Again, totally avoid and 1 that I think has been very badly managed to date.
Speaker 0 If Trump was currently president, you were still working with him on this part of the world, what actions would you take? What conversations would you have? What ideas would you be working with in order to unite the the various allies that you mentioned in the Middle East over this tragedy. And not let it be a thing that divides the Middle East, but make it a thing that catalyze progress towards peace for the progress towards peace.
Speaker 1 So I wanna say 1 thing lacks. I have a lot of friends who are fans of Trump or are not fans are... Trump, But 1 thing I wanna say with absolute certainty is that if President Trump was in office, this never would have happened. And When president Trump was in office, anyone who supports Israel or who wants to see, you know, Jewish people not be innocently slaughtered he would never have allowed that to happen. It did not happen when he was in power And I hope people recognize that as as something that's that's very, very true.
Speaker 1 How I would play the ball where it lies right now. Keep in mind, we we transferred the ball. It was on the green. Now it's almost like it's gone back, you know, hundred and 50 yards and it's in a sand trap. I think the way that I would play the ball right now is number 1 is you have to show Strength.
Speaker 1 They actually think president biden words were the right words. I see that they're moving aircraft carriers to the region. Again, the purpose of having a strong military I believe, obviously, you know, if you get into a war, you wanna win the war, but the purpose of a very strong military, primarily is to avoid a war. I don't know what kind of credibility the Biden administration has to show the strength. But right now you have to support Israel.
Speaker 1 Completely. You have to really let people in the region know that they'll be consequences if they if they if they try to escalate, again, we saw a little bit of rocket ski from Lebanon from Hezbollah. But again, this is the type of thing that they have to know they'll be severe consequences if they make this a multi party fight. And I think sending a strong message to Iran. I think that they have to see some consequences from this and know that they're not gonna be a allowed to have of free rain to cause and stability in that.
Speaker 1 You know, Iran doesn't usually fight face to face. They usually do it through proxies. But let's just all be honest about where this is coming from and let them know that there will be a consequence if they if they ins integrate these actions. And Again, at least with the Biden administration, they've had contact with Iran. They've been talking with Iran, but they've out Iran.
Speaker 1 I mean, again, I the number I saw last year, I think under Trump, the number was maybe like, 4 or 5000000000 dollars of oil revenue in in total, I think last year it was something like, 45000000000 dollars in revenue. Last this year, I think there'll be even more. That's a combination of them driving up oil prices, but also allowing much more sales. You would think that they would... Find a way to get them to behave and allow them to to have this happen or if that's not the case, then be tough, go back to being tough, that's what you have to do.
Speaker 0 Building off of Abraham accord as you mentioned, Israel saudi normalization. There's been a lot of promising progress towards this, what does it take to not allow this tragedy damage the progress towards Israel Saudi normalization.
Speaker 1 I think right now, it's probably not the best to think about that. I think that we wanna think about that after whatever is gonna happen it's gonna happen now. I think right now the number 1 priority for israel has to be to fully regain security in the country. And then number 2 is to figure out... How you can...
Speaker 1 Like I said, eliminate or degrade the Hamas capability or other iranian threats to make sure that you have your security apparatus. I think that the Israeli leadership right now should proceed with that. And I don't think that they should be thinking about normalization with Saudi at this moment. My instinct and I've been watching this Israeli Saudi, normalization play out, obviously, just speaking with people and seen what I've been reading and watching with great excitement. I think it would be a game changer for the region.
Speaker 1 I think it's it's 1 of Iran's worst nightmares to have Israel and Saudi and inter linked together. They could be great for the Saudi people from A security perspective, what they're discussing With America would be very strong. The ability to, you know, get different elements across would be incredible. So what I would say with it is that the industrial logic held yesterday and I think it will hold again tomorrow. So, you know, I always expect countries to act in their interests.
Speaker 1 I think that the deal that's on the table right now between Saudi Israel and America is in Saudi interests. It's in America's interests and it's in israel's interest. What's gonna happen now though is the political dynamics are gonna shift. And I think that, you know, as we've seen with political dynamics, they come and go, I think Let's get through this moment. And then I hope at the right time that those talks will be able to resume and conclude in an appropriate way.
Speaker 1 And, you know, it's funny, like, when I was working on the Us Mexico agreement for the trade. You know, we would have every day there'd be a a tweet that would go out or there would be an issue. I mean, people forget how how intense it was between America and Mexico. And I would speak to my counterpart part of Mexico after a rough day, and you know, we're working on something. We're making progress of get blown up.
Speaker 1 And I speak to him and say, you know, look, they're not moving America. They're not moving Mexico. Let's just, you know, let's stop for today. Let's pick up tomorrow, Let's find the new way to bring this forward. So I would just encourage everyone working on that not to give up to keep working hard at it.
Speaker 1 And to find a way. But like I said, I would take a little bit of a pause. For the time being, let's let the current situation play out. And then hopefully, there'll be a way for it to move forward.
Speaker 0 I just hope there's still people on the Us. Side, picking up the phone and calling Uae, Saudi Arabia, just as human beings, as friends as allies, and just keeping that channel communication going. Because I... Maybe you can correct me, but I just feel like there's just simple human dynamics that play out here. The divisions can conform and just run away from you, over simple misunderstandings over just inability to see a tragedy from the same perspective because of conversations that could have happened, but it didn't happen.
Speaker 1 I think they'll definitely be communication, but know, words on phone calls is is only worth so much. It's really, you know, trust between people and power. And obviously, when you're in a position of power, you you represent your country and your country's interests, but the ability to have trusting relationships where people feel like they're okay taking, you know, more risk, to help each other. That's actually what's most important. So communication, I hope for, but, you know, deepening and trusting relationships, That's what I believe makes progress and keeps people safe.
Speaker 0 And we talk quite extensively about the value of trust and negotiation and just working. With leaders, which I think is a fascinating conversation, and you've taught me a lot about that. Let me ask you about the end here with what are the various trajectories this work can take in your view. What are some of the end states as you've said, which are desirable? And are achievable.
Speaker 1 I I mentioned this earlier, but whenever I would get a problem set and government Always think through from a first principles perspective, what's the logical outcome. Right? And forget about all the reasons why it can't happen. That's what everyone in governments always rush to talk about But I do think here number 1, Israel has to have a secure environment where they don't feel threatened from from from Gaza. And number 2 is the people in Gaza need to have an environment where they feel like they can live a better life and have opportunities.
Speaker 1 So that's the end state. And so I think that the international community should come together. I do think that the people who are usually putting blame on Israel should now realize that maybe they've been a little bit of harsh here and that Hamas has been as big a threat if not even even bigger threat than Israel has been saying. And I do think that if the international community comes together and unites behind Israel and really forces Hamas and the Iranian backers to stop hostilities to stop saber rattling to stop mis the history in order to justify their violent behavior, And if they say instead, we wanna hold you accountable, no more money, and they all say that they're gonna stand behind Israel's efforts to eliminate their national security threats, and then we will all come together and only fund again into a framework that we believe can be a long term solution where the Palestinian people really have a chance to live a better life. That's really the best way to get there.
Speaker 1 There's tons of complicated factors but that's the end state that the global community should be looking to come together and it's very achievable. It's very, very achievable.
Speaker 0 So there's a... As we stand here today, there's a lot of different ways that this work can evolve. If a ground invasion happens, by Israeli forces of Gaza and if the number is correct of a hundred thousand Israeli soldiers. Do you worry about various trajectories that can take of the consequences that might have of of an unprecedented ground troop attack?
Speaker 1 Yeah. So I think as a leader, you know, you can't change yesterday, but you have the ability to change tomorrow, and that's very important. Fundamental. I mean, that's true for all of us, not just leaders. But you know we saw with with 09:11, how America was caught off guard.
Speaker 1 By terrorist attack. We acted, you know, somewhat rationally, somewhat emotionally, which led to a 20 year war with trillions of dollars lost, you know, that I think almost a million lives, lost, not just American, but all lives. And it was a total tragedy, what occurred. I think right now, the temptation is to to be strong. I think that that's that's a necessity.
Speaker 1 I do think eliminating risk gets the right objective. I think the goal should be to stay very clear about what the objective is. But also, this attack was very well planned. Because not to walk into another trap. I think you have to be very smart, very cautious.
Speaker 1 I've been happy to see that what they've been doing in retaliation so far has been somewhat measured and they've taken their time to try to assess what's achievable. Again, I don't have access to the intelligence and, you know, we're talking at a very early stage. In this conflict. So lock it happen even by the time this is published. But but my my hope is that they'll just stay very focused on what the objective is and try to make sure that they're acting appropriately in order to do that.
Speaker 1 And I will say this too that this has been different than what I've seen in the past and that the the the attacks were so, heinous, and so, so disgusting that I've seen the international community rally around Israel more so than I ever have and I hope that Israel continues to keep the moral high ground and continue to communicate what they're fighting for, why they're fighting, And I do hope that the international community supports the objective and they can work together to achieve it. Benjamin netanyahu yahoo Bib, somebody you've gotten to know well in negotiation in conversation. He has made statements, His declared war. He has spoken about this potentially being a long and difficult war. What have you learned about the mine and benjamin and yahoo that might be important to understand here in this current war.
Speaker 1 Bib is definitely a nice. Historic figure. You know, I meet with a lot of different world leaders and some of them I would say they're they're very, very special transformational figures and some I would say how the hell this person running a country. And b b somebody who has... Has done a lot for the state of Israel.
Speaker 1 He has a tremendous understanding of this security apparatus, he has tremendous global relations. So for a crisis like this, I think B b's, the leader you want, if you're israel to be to be in that seat. I think he's he's ambitious in what he's gonna look to achieve. He understands his role in history as somebody who's helped strengthen israel economically, mil momentarily. And I don't think he wants to see his legacy be somebody who left Israel more vulnerable than it had to be.
Speaker 1 So I think in that regard, he'll be incredibly strong. But I also think that he'll hopefully be calculating in the risk that he takes and not create more risk than than needed. And that's... Easy to say, you know, the 2 of us sitting here, having a conversation when you're sitting in that chair as a leader in the fog of war. It's a very, very it's a very hard decision to make.
Speaker 1 He's been here before. He... He he knows the weight of the situation. I'm sure he knows the moment. And I pray that that he'll do what's right here to bring the best outcome possible.
Speaker 0 I wonder if you can comment on the... Internal political turmoil that Bb has been operating and and how that relates to the the tragedy that we saw.
Speaker 1 On the 1 hand, the political turmoil is it's a sign of a vibrant democracy. I think it's been actually nice to see how people have fought for their country and their beliefs in a democratic way. You compare that to the Palestinians where there's no democracy. There's no free speech. There's no free press.
Speaker 1 You know, you can't disagree with with the leadership, you know, Israel, If you wanna, you know, be, you know, if you wanna be homosexual, you can have a you can have a go to a parade and live your life and in in Gaza, they'll throw you off a building and kill you. It's... So so in Israel, you have the freedoms which I think make it a special place and you have a very vibrant democracy with that being said, you know, the times in Jewish history where the Jewish people have been most vulnerable have been when there's been division. And that's when the temple is destroyed, but that's not just with the Jewish people and with Israel. That's in all societies.
Speaker 1 So I definitely believe that this division has left them less prepared for the situation than it would. I do think there's real lessons we should be taking from this here in America where we're in a time we're very divided, but I do think that it'd be very wise for our leaders to find the areas where we do agree and find ways to... Know, secure our southern border to make sure that we know who's in our country, what risks we all face. And I do think that, you that division definitely creates risk for countries.
Speaker 0 Let me switch gears here and just Zoom out and look at our society and our... Public discourse at the moment? What do you make of the scale and nature of the Palestinian support online in response to the situation?
Speaker 1 This is something I've observed over the years since I got involved with the Israeli Palestinian issue. With a lot of interest. I think a lot of the people who are pledging support for the Palestinian people, I think that they wanna see the Palestinian people live a better life. And I actually agree with them in that regard. Unfortunately, I think many of them are incredibly ill informed as to the facts on the ground.
Speaker 1 I think all the people who are advocating online for the Palestinian people, who are who are, you know, going to these marches and support of them. I think they'd be best served if they really care about effect the outcome of joining with with Israel right now and directing their anger towards the Hamas leadership. I think that it's very clear that the group that's responsible, for the Palestinian people living the lives, that all these people are angry about is Hamas. And if they direct their anger towards And put the attention on the failings of Hamas and put forth a vision for what they'd like to see leadership in Gaza do and they respect that there's a real fear that Israel has, and any country would have of having a group of terrorists next to them that's calling for their destruction I think that that recognition of finding a way for Israel to be secure and then having an opportunity for the Palestinian people to
Speaker 0 live a better life is the right pathway to try and pursue. So to you, there's a clear distinction between Hamas and the palestinian people. In that Hamas is the enemy of progress and the flourishing of the Palestinian people. Hundred percent.
Speaker 1 It's very, very clear. And I think that if... People were honest about the situation. If they spent a time to really understand it. Again, you know, if you follow the conference I did at bahrain rate we had all the leading businessmen there and they said we can rebuild Gaza very easily.
Speaker 1 We all want to. The leading arab businessman, the leading American businessman, everyone wants to, and they're just held back by him hamas. And so I do think having an honest conversation about this at this point in time has really only 1 logical conclusion, And my hope is that maybe this conflict leads to that conversation being had. And if it is, then maybe that brings more unity and understanding. And we kind of get to a conclusion better that could improve the lives of the Palestinian people.
Speaker 0 Pragmatic question about the future. Do you hope Donald Trump wins in 20 24 and how can his administration help bring peace to the Middle East?
Speaker 1 I think when Donald Trump was president, we had a peaceful world. Everyone said if he was elected, we would have World war 3. Meanwhile, he gets elected, and he not only is the first president in decades to not start any wars. He's making peace deals. He's making trade deals.
Speaker 1 He's working with our allies, getting them to pay their fair share in Nato. He's, you know, having a dialogue with China with Russia. He's weakening Iran. And so I do think that the job he did as a foreign policy president was tremendous. I think, you know, now more and more people are starting to recognize that.
Speaker 1 Again, under president Biden, this is the second war that's broken out in the world. And when you have a weak American leadership, the world becomes a less safe place. And so my hope and prayers are are that that that president Trump is reelected and that he's able to then restore order and common and peace and prosperity to the world
Speaker 0 From a place of strength.
Speaker 1 That's the only way he knows how to
Speaker 0 do it. What gives you hope about the future of this region of Israel and
Speaker 1 of the Middle East. The Middle East for 20 years was an area of conflict. They spent all their money on bullets and bombs. You have young leadership now in Saudi Arabia, and Uae and Qatar, and there's a much more ambitious agenda now for the region to make it an economic, superpower and hub of the world. Israel is 1 of the most burg and exciting tech, economies in the world.
Speaker 1 And if you think about it, it's almost like having Silicon Valley not connected to California, the thing that's held the region back for all these years has just been the conflict and the division and the lack of connectivity. But if you have that region, and if it can all come together, you can create a security architecture, you have an incredibly young population, you have a lot of wealth and resources and a lot of capabilities and and and know half. And so I think that if it's managed correctly and if Iran is is is able to be restrained and and and suppressed with their ambitions to cause des stabilization, I don't mean around the country, I mean the iranian regime because actually, once you have this economic sphere, if you could bring a rack into it, if you could bring a iran into it, that makes it even bigger and stronger and the Persian people are incredibly entrepreneurial and incredibly ind, So I do think that the region has tremendous potential. It's just been held back by bad policy, bad leadership, bad objectives. And again, you know, when president Trump left office in, you know, 4021, the Middle East was really on a very, very positive trajectory.
Speaker 1 And if the right things happen, it can continue to be so. So you know I'm praying at this moment in time that we navigate the current crisis that the... Important objectives are achieved of eliminating the terrorists and their threats and then allowing the leaders who are focused on giving their citizens and and their neighbors, the opportunity to live a better life are able to work together and and and really dream and be ambitious and find ways to create a paradigm where humans can flourish.
Speaker 0 What is the best way to defeat hate in the world?
Speaker 1 Hate is is a very powerful force and it's much easier to hate people. You don't know. It's funny. When I was working on prison reform, 1 of the most interesting people I met was a reverend, actually down in Texas who negotiated the first truce between the blood and the crypt. 2 of the notorious gangs in America and Prison.
Speaker 1 I was very excited to meet him. And when I met him I said, well, well how'd you do it? And he says, it's very simple. He says, I got all the guys together. And I I had a tremendous amount of barbecue brought in.
Speaker 1 He says, and I got the meeting, says no drinking says drinking sometimes gets people a little bit war against each other. He, but I got a meeting and they started sitting down together and they started saying, You know what? You're just like me. And all of a sudden, they started finding areas where they were more together. Yeah.
Speaker 1 Look, I've traveled all over the world now. I've... I've I've been very fortunate to meet people from different states in America. I've different political persuasion, different ages, different classes. And what I found is that there's a fundamental driving amongst all of us where we all wanna live a better life.
Speaker 1 And you know, people don't wanna fight naturally, but it's easy to fight when you feel wrong or you feel like somebody disrespect you or somebody did something. From hatred and and and hatred leads to more hatred which sometimes just pushes that cycle further and further. So I believe that each and every 1 of us has the power to stop that cycle, and we don't do it by, you know, being on Twitter and yelling at people. We don't do it. By just being critical.
Speaker 1 We do it by finding the people we disagree with, by listening to them by asking questions, by sitting with them And then if we each take responsibility to try to make the world better then I think that there's no limits to the incredible place that this world can be. So says as you've said, you traveled all across the world, you think most people are good. So most people have love in their heart. I do believe that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 And you have some bad people. I mean, you have some real evil people. I mean, a big part of the work I did was on, prison reform. And, you know, previously, the mentality was is that the prison should basically be a warehouse for human trash And if you've made a mistake in this world, then, you know, we're gonna throw out and we're gonna make the rest of your life incredibly difficult because you're gonna have a criminal record, You're not gonna have access to jobs. But what I found is when I would sit with people in prison the people I met through my father's experience and who I met along the way is that you know, people make mistakes.
Speaker 1 We're all human. I think it's the right thing from a religious perspective to give people second chances. I always believe you shouldn't judge. People by the worst mistake they make in their life. Unfortunately, now in the era of social media, people will say 1 wrong thing.
Speaker 1 It sticks with them forever, they get canceled or they get put out, roll humans, we grow from our mistakes. We learn from our mistakes. And I think that some people are just just evil. There are some evil people. But I do think the vast vast vast majority of people are good.
Speaker 1 And I do think that people sometimes also can... Be in a bad place and then society can push them to a worse in worse place, but we all have the power to make them feel love, make them feel heard, And and I think there's also tremendous power that we have as people to to help people get to a better place. And so... You know, my wife and I, we've always tried to be a force for good. We've always tried to be...
Speaker 1 You know, we've always tried to provide a place where people can discuss with each other when we were in Washington, we would host dinners at our house all the time or we would have Democrats and Republicans sitting together, you know, you know, we just had I saw a senator Feinstein passed away, we had a great dinner at her house when she was a senator with her her husband and Mark Meadows when he was on the Freedom caucus and we actually a fascinating discussion about has Ran Mark was much more hard line than me, I to actually bite my tongue. I was impressed at how much he did whereas, you know, feinstein senior her husband where, like super into, you know, they knew the Iranian well. They thought they were peace loving. And it was an incredibly robust and respectful debate. And so I don't think we maybe concluded anything that night, but it was interesting for people to get together, having a dinner at on my house right head, Dick Du urban in, you know, the number 2 ranking, Democrat and the Senate, Lindsey Graham and Stephen Miller, who's known to be a very hard line in immigration discussing what immigration reform could look like.
Speaker 1 I mean, they left that dinner saying, wow. You know, we we hadn't spoken to people on the other. Side and we actually agree on, like, 85 percent of things, like maybe something is possible. And so I believe that we should always be trying to push to make the world a better place and you only do that by by listening to people and and connecting with each... With people and by respecting people.
Speaker 1 And finally, I'll just sand this is that, you know, I meet people all the time who have so much confidence in their perspectives. And I'm very jealous that that these people are able to be so confident about every single thing because for me, I have, you know, some degree of confidence and the things that I've studied and what I've learned, but I'm always trying to find, you know, people who disagree to kinda sharpen my perspectives and to help me grow and to help me learn further. And so I think that's kind of the beauty of the world is that, you know, the knowledge base continues to grow. The facts continue to change and what's possible tomorrow continues to become different. And so as humans we have to continue to to thrive to to learn and to grow and to connect.
Speaker 1 And if we do that, everything's possible. Well,
Speaker 0 jared, thank you for your compassion, first of all, but also your wisdom today and this very difficult this tragic set of events. These difficult days for the world. It's a big honor to speak with you again. Every time I speak to you, I learned a lot about the world, and I I deeply appreciate, like I said, that your humility and your understanding of the details. Of all the complex power dynamics and human dynamics that are going on in the world.
Speaker 0 Once again, thank you for talking today.
Speaker 1 Thank you. And Alex, if I could say, just 1 final thing, which is that my thoughts and prayers are really with all the people in Israel and and the innocent civilians as well from the Palestinian side. And my prayers are with the Idea soldiers that they should be safe and they should be really watched by God to accomplish whatever mission will enable to make the world a safer place.
Speaker 0 Thank you for listening to this newly recorded segment of the conversation that addresses the current situation in Israel and Gaza and now we'll go on to the second part of the conversation recorded on Thursday, October fifth. Given your experience in negotiating with some of the most powerful influential leaders in the world, what's the key to negotiating difficult agreements in geopolitics? Start with a big question.
Speaker 1 If I look back on the different negotiations I had when I was in government, either, With leaders of countries with representatives of leaders or even with members of congress to pass legislation, the most important thing I would draw back to would be trust. I think getting to know each other, understanding what was motivating the other party to get to the outcome and making them feel like you weren't going to use whatever information they gave you to benefit yourself at the expense of them is probably what I would call table stakes to have a shot at accomplishing anything that was hard in negotiation. After that, I would say taking maybe a first principles approach to what the outcome of whatever problem you're looking to solve should be Now you have different kinds of negotiations. I always tried to create a framework in the negotiation where it wasn't me against you. It was always let's agree on what the outcome is that we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1 Let's all sit on the same side of the table and say, we want get to this outcome. How do we get there? Really trying to create a roadmap. And so once you understand the destination, you wanna get to, the point, then you'd have to work backwards and really try to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand what were their motivations macro. Most of the time, you have to assume that a leader's primary objective was to stay in power.
Speaker 1 And so all decisions made would be made through the framework of what it would take to to do that and how would impact their ability to do that. And then finally, I would just say that in any negotiate, you have to understand the power dynamics as well. And you have to then weight your approach in order to maneuver for pieces, and to accomplish the objective. And so in areas where we had stronger power dynamics, I'd always look at it and say, what are the potential escape routes, where a politician would say, this is just the reason why we can't get there. And I'd always think how can you try to...
Speaker 1 Eliminate those escape routes or make them much harder to accomplish. And then ultimately think about what's the golden bridge that you wanna create for them in order to get to the other side where they were motivated to get there because it was in their self interest to get there, but also because it helped accomplish the different objective. And I have many examples that that I lived through with that obviously negotiating in congress for for prison reform. I had to form a lot of trust with Democrats whether it was Jeff or Dick Du. And then also on the Republican side with...
Speaker 1 I had Mike Lee at Lindsey Graham. I had Tim Scott, Senator Grass, and then also Doug Collins in the house was t tremendous. And, you know, every time we maneuver something, we would get attacked either from the left, You know, there's a time we were being attacked by, you know, Nancy Pelosi, John Lewis for not being, you know, inclusive enough, and then there were times that we maneuver it, we'd be attacked, from the right for maybe going too far. And ultimately, we'd had to find just the right place where we can get it done. And the same thing happened with Us mca where we were negotiating the biggest trade deal in the history of the world, which was 1300000000000.0 dollars in annual trade between Mexico, Canada, the United States of America, and we were able to form good trust with the other side and try to say how do we create win win outcomes.
Speaker 1 And, ultimately, we're able to do something. In a record time that people thought was very hard to do. And both of them in a divided time of the Trump administration were bipartisan wins with with big, big votes in the senate in the house. You have a lot of stories of this kind.
Speaker 0 Sometimes a soft approach sometimes a hard approach, like there's, I think the story where would be votes there was a a potential, like, a dramatic election coming up and you had to say no. No excuses or delaying. You have to we have to make this agreement. I know Baby cares about Israel more than the particular dynamics of the election. Like, you have to Mh.
Speaker 0 Draw a hard line there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 But in fairness too, like, you know, for him, it's during the time that we were dealing with him, He was always an election versus election and and then election. And, you know, what he was saying wasn't wrong, And I think he was more expressing his concerns given the dynamics and, you know, we never held those concerns against him. We just said those are real concerns he had. We respected those concerns, but then we helped him prioritize to help accomplish the right things. And that's ultimately what the partnership is.
Speaker 1 Right? I'm... My job was to represent America. His job was to represent Israel, and your had other parties representing their own interests. And as long as you assume that, you know, people were acting mostly in good faith, you were able to navigate areas where you didn't have you know, complete overlap of of priorities and objectives.
Speaker 1 Just to go back to the trust thing, you sometimes see that with leaders where they're kinda... It looks like they're trying to, go over the other person when they're talking. And so not having that, I think
Speaker 0 it's to really powerful thing for earning trust. Like, they... People actually can believe that your results driven or and are working towards a certain end. Is there like a skill to that? Like, what...
Speaker 0 Is that genetics? You're born with that? Or is that something like you develop, like So basically, it requires you to look at the game of politics and not have a kind of cy about it to where everybody's trying to and manipulate you and actually just go in with a kinda open mind and open heart and actually speak truthfully to people, like on of basic human level. I would say that
Speaker 1 I always would think about how can I be a partner to others, like I would want somebody to be a partner to me? And a lot of it comes from just my different experiences in business. I've had great partners. I've had terrible partners. My father, You know, again, a lot of my my childhood was I was exposed to business, my father.
Speaker 1 You know, on Sundays, you would take us to to job site. Into the office with him instead of the football games like my friends, you know, fathers would do. And so we're exposed to business. And what he would say about his father, who was an immigrant to America came over with nothing and no formal education. But he would always say a good deal with a bad partner will always be a bad deal and a bad deal with a good partner you'll figure it out.
Speaker 1 And so going through some of the challenges and that I had in my life early on, whether it was the issue with with my father that will I'm sure we'll talk about or even going through some, you know, tougher financial times during the great financial crisis. I really learned a lot about partnership. And I always... Thought how can I act in a way where I could be the type of partner or friend to others that I wish others would be to me?
Speaker 0 So when you look for a good partner, don't you think there's the capacity, for both good and bad in every person. So when you talk when you negotiate with all these leaders, aren't there like multiple people you're speaking to inside 1 person. That you're trying to encourage, catalyze, like the goodness in the human,
Speaker 1 Yeah. So so leaders are generally chosen by their country. And so my view was is I had an objective. I didn't get to choose... Who is the leader of other countries.
Speaker 1 My job was to deal with that leader, understand their strengths, understand their weaknesses, understand their power dynamics as well. You know, 1 of my... Greatest takeaways. And I grew up, I'd read the newspapers about all these powerful famous people. And then as I got older and had the chance to meet them and do business with them and then ultimately, you know, interact with them in government.
Speaker 1 As I realized that they're just like you and me. They wake up every morning, You know, their kids are pissed at them, Their wife doesn't wanna talk with them, you know, And they've got, you know, a set of advisers around them 1 saying, you know, let's go to war, 1 saying let's make peace, 1 saying, do the deal, 1 saying, don't do the deal. And they're all thinking where do I get advice? How do I make decisions? And so understanding the true human nature of them and then the different power dynamics?
Speaker 1 Around them. I thought was very key. And so I didn't have a choice to deal with them or not. It was a function of how do you deal with them effectively in order to find areas where you have common interest and then work well together to pursue those common interest in order to achieve a certain goal.
Speaker 0 You... First of all, you're incredibly well read. I've gotten to know you and I've gotten to know Ava ivanka. And the the book recommendation list is just incredible. So first all, thank you for that.
Speaker 0 You told me about the guns of August by Barbara Tu. It's a it's a book. World war 1, and I went down a whole rabbit hole there. Is like an incredible historian. Anyway, the...
Speaker 0 There's a bunch of stuff you learned from that, but 1 of the things you told me is it influenced your general approach to diplomacy of just picking up the phone and giving it a try. So as opposed to planning and strat and just pick up the phone.
Speaker 1 Yeah. So so this was a book I read way before the notion of surfing and government was ever even on my mind or or reality. And I remember thinking about it, reading it and thinking how World war 1 started where you had you know, somebody was assassinated and then you had all these different alliances that were created and then in order to accomplish objectives, it triggered all of these people getting in bed with everyone else because of documents that were created without the intent of going to a massive war. And I think in the course of World war 1, it was 1 of the greatest atrocities that we've seen as humanity. We've had 16000000 people killed in that war.
Speaker 1 And I was I was reading the book, I remember thinking myself. Even though, you know, things are set in a certain way to go sit with somebody, go talk to them and say this doesn't make sense. This is wrong. How do we create a better pathway. Mh.
Speaker 1 And as a civilian all my life, you know I would read the newspapers. I would I would I would, you know, observe how different leaders would act. But when we had the opportunity to surf government and have the position, you realize you're not a civilian, You don't have the luxury of sitting back and letting the world happen the way it's happening. You have agency and you have the potential to influence the outcome of things. And 1 thing I've seen is, you know, most political pro are wrong, anyone who tells you what's gonna happen really has no clue.
Speaker 1 And it's not because they're bad or they're not intelligent. It's because nobody knows. And at the end of the day, the outcomes, and the world are usually driven by the decisions of of humans. And if you're able to come together, form relationships, listen to each other, you can do that. And 1 of the great examples that I speak about in the book is with North Korea, whereas if you remember in 2017, It was very intense.
Speaker 1 When president Obama was leaving office, He told president Trump that the single biggest fear that he had, and this is a time when the world was a mess you had... The Middle East was on fire. Isis was the betting journalist and killing Christians. They had caliphate the size of Ohio. Libya was destabilize.
Speaker 1 Yemen was destabilize, Syria was in a civil or where 500000 people were killed. Iran was on a clyde path to a nuclear weapon, yet the single biggest fear he had was North Korea. Then it got compounded by the fact that we get to office and President Trump brings his generals around and he's, you know, learning how to interact with all the generals and says, okay. What are my options? And they said, calm down.
Speaker 1 We're... We've been using all our ammunition in the Middle East. We don't have enough ammunition to go to war over variances. Let's not... Let's not let that be do public.
Speaker 1 Let's try to restock and come up with a plan. Yeah. And at the time, there was a lot of banter back and forth, and you know, I was able to... I got a call from a friend who was an old business contact who actually had done business in North Korea. And he said, you know, I'd love to find a way to solve this.
Speaker 1 And I getting calls from friends at the time saying. I'm trying to go to Hawaii for vacation. Should I not be going? Is it not... Safe.
Speaker 1 I mean we forget we forget the psychology. Of how intense that was at the time. And then through that interaction safe he called some of his contacts in North Korean, and then we were able with the Cia to open up a back channel that ultimately led to... The the d escalation, the meeting between Trump and, which led to a d escalation. So that was really the mindset which was whenever there's a problem, just pick up the phone and try.
Speaker 1 And I think President Trump had a very similar approach, which was... Let's let's give it a shot, and he wasn't afraid to go after the hard ones too. And I'll say 1 final thing on this, which is that in politics, the incentive structure is just much different than in the real world. Right? In the sense that you have a hard problem.
Speaker 1 And if you try to solve a hard problem, the likelihood of failure is great, whereas in the business world if you're going apple. A hard problem. We celebrate those people. Right? We we we want our entrepreneurs and our great People to go after solving the big hard problems.
Speaker 1 But in politics to if you try to take on a hard problem, give have a high likelihood of failure, you'll get a lot of criticism on your pathway to try to accomplish that if you fail. If And then if you fail, it has a higher probability of leading to you, losing your opportunity to serve. And so... It's just 1 of these things where people wanna play it safe, which is not the notion that that that really was taken during the time that president Trump was in office. Do you think
Speaker 0 it has to be that way? I think I think there's something in in the human spirit, like, in the public that desires politicians to take big. Take on the big bold problems. Right? Like, why why is it the politician need to be so afraid of failure?
Speaker 1 I don't think it has to be that way. And that's, I think 1 of the great lessons from the time and of the the Trump administration. He brought a lot of people from the business world into government. The business people have a much different mindset than government people, and there was a lot of resistance. And I think part of why there was so much resistance was because you know, I think about it for my personal sense was that if I was successful with no traditional qualifications to do diplomacy, it meant that all the people with traditional qualifications and diplomacy didn't necessarily need those qualifications in order to be successful.
Speaker 1 And that same that same sentiment manifested itself in many areas in government. And and I think that in the business world, it's it's outcome oriented, its results oriented, and, you know, what we would see in in New York is there, they would stab you in the I in and Dc. They would stab you in the back. And it just became a whole different dynamic of of of how you work through these different areas. So the answer is it it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1 You just need the right courageous leader. And that's why I'm so optimistic about what the future of America and the world could be, if you have the right people in power who are willing to take on the right challenges and do it in the right way,
Speaker 0 So if if we just linger on the North Korea and the dee escalation in the meeting. What's the trajectory from... This could be the most catastrophic thing that destroys the world to you find back channels. You start talking and start arranging the meeting. Like is there some insights you can give to how difficult that is to do in that in in the North Korea case, which seems like to be 1 of the more closed off parts of the world and in the other cases that you worked on.
Speaker 1 Yeah. It's it's always very challenging. And especially when you're going against the grain of what established. Right? We did something different to think that an old business contact that I had.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Could then do it. I mean, that's the type of thing that you know, if the press knew what we were doing, they would have, you know, der decided it and criticized it in every which way. Mh. But that was 1 of the benefit fits of operating very much below the radar is that we're were able to trial all these different things.
Speaker 1 And not all of them worked, but some of them did and fits you know, but that is what's amazing about the world. Right? This could be the biggest story on the front page of every paper and their inc fear. And everyone, and it's not illegitimate fear. I mean, there were missile tests.
Speaker 1 You know, over over Japan. I mean you had a lot of very big challenges with that file. And then all of a sudden, we made contact. We go through negotiations set a meeting. There's a meeting between president Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, there's that there's a framework to try and move things forward. And again, I think that there's a lot of possibility there for what could happen if it's worked in the right way.
Speaker 0 I just wanna know, like, you word that first email or text message, like, what emojis to use, like the hugging emoji. I like... It's just personally I've gotten to know a lot of powerful and how rich people and just... It's funny that they're all human just like you're saying. And, like, a lot of the drama, a lot of the problems can be resolved just like a little comrade a little kindness a little like...
Speaker 0 Just actually just reaching out
Speaker 1 we're all human beings. And and people wanna be successful and people wanna be good and And you're right too, there's there's way more emojis involved in diplomacy than I ever would have expected.
Speaker 0 But in every leader, I'm sure has their favorite emo. This is also I learned about people they use... Like, they... There's... There's...
Speaker 0 Everybody has their go to emoji. Like, as should go to the heart very quickly. Emoji, there's some people who go the hugging whatever that... Where you're like, doing the hugging thing. Anyway.
Speaker 0 This conversation quickly turned to the ridiculous. But to do another book reference, You mentioned the book 13 days in September by Lawrence Wright, well, in discussing all the work you've done in in Israel in the Middle East. I just wanna ask you sort of the interesting aspect of that book, which is the influence of the personalities and personal relationships on these negotiations. You kinda start to allude to that with the trust, but how much do the personalities matter in this so going from North Korea to the Middle East here to within Congress and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Completely in every way. I mean, that... That's an incredible book. It's a very entertaining read.
Speaker 1 It has obviously, a lot of good historical context on some of the key players, whether it it's on more Sad sedan or Men Bacon, and are Jimmy Carter and and and S. And and a lot of the others who were involved with those negotiations and the the thing that I kind of took from that experience was just how personal it was. And and again, 1 of my favorite stories from that book was how on Marc, who was a big big leader. He had a a mystic who was according to this book. Again, history, I I like reading it, but I always, you know, realize that you have to notice that this is just the perspective of given author that's writing it.
Speaker 1 But the way that they write this book was that he had an adviser who was a mystic. And the mystic was having a back channel with the Israelis. And the mystic told Sad if you go to Israel and you make a speech at the Con, Bacon is ready to give you the sinai. And so he goes to Israel, set this whole thing up. He goes and gives...
Speaker 1 Kin, they go for their meeting after and S says, okay, well, we gonna do this thing, and Vegas says, what are he talking about? Am Not giving you an inch of our land. The And it was just 1 of these things where it was a miscommunication that brought about the symbolic visit of An S sedona Israel. And that was 1 of these notions that just made everyone think that something was possible that they thought was impossible, a moment before. And actually, we had an example like that during our time and government when we did the Abraham accord, the first step of the accord was really a phone call between president Trump, prime minister Netanyahu Netanyahu and Mohammed, who at that point was the crown prince and and d factor facto ruler of the Uae But all we had was a a phone call and then a statement that was released.
Speaker 1 And what was interesting after that is we said, okay, well, how do we integrate? Nobody's done this in along? Time. And we were trying to figure out all the issues and there's big miscommunication between Israel and Uae and we were navigating through all the issues And so after a couple weeks I said, you know, I've got to go over there and try to sort through these issues. So we make a plan go to Israel, then we go to Uae.
Speaker 1 And then a a young gentleman worked with me named Da Be says, well, for flying from israel to Uae instead of flying on a government plane, why don't we see if we can get an Ll plane and we'll do the first official commercial flight? And so I said, that's a great idea. Let's call, you know, Bass, Yous, who was a tremendous. Player in the Corps working behind the scenes, you know, day and night and was really a big a big catalyst, so he calls use. And he said, sure.
Speaker 1 No problem. Let's give it a shot. So So we go and we do it. He says, if we can work at these issues, what we'll do. So we go Israel, we do our meetings, we get everything back into a good place.
Speaker 1 We set up this this this trip over. We fly an L plane. We filled it up at the time it was during Covid with a health delegation. We had the the financial ministry because We have to open up, you know, banking relationships, so they could acquire money between countries. We want get, you know, health partnerships, then we've had a lot of legal things and national security things.
Speaker 1 We want start putting together. So we do this flight, and we end up landing in Uae, and the picture of us coming off the plane being greeted by, you know, Emi and tau with the Ll plane with an Israeli flag on it just capture everyone's imagination. And so it's 1 of these things where it's like, you work so hard on the details and the negotiation, I mean, hundreds of hours, to kinda of make sure everything's perfect. And the 1 thing that you do kind of you know, yeah, let's give it a shot. That image ended up capturing everyone's heart.
Speaker 1 So going back to Sad that visit was very critical and what was interesting was is according to this book, it happened because of a miscommunication. That was the first part. The second part of the book that's just amazing theater and actually, the book was based on a play, was just going back and forth with all of the the different methodologies that they tried. It's that failed, but they kept trying at it, and then ultimately seeing how the personalities were able to find ways to make the compromise that ultimately was a very, very big thing for more stability in the Middle East. And so amazing book I would highly recommend it, a very entertaining read and and something that at least gave me encouragement to to keep going when the task I was pursuing seemed so so so large.
Speaker 0 I mean, if you could just linger on the personalities, you use you're write in the book that words matter or you you're write in the context of saying, in the diplomacy business, words matter, and then you said that we're in the results business. It's a bad line. But But if we just stick to the diplomacy business and words matter. It seems like 1 of the things you really highlight that individual words can really have... Like, you can fight over individual words.
Speaker 0 So, like, how do you operate in a world where like single words matter,
Speaker 1 I think you have to be respectful to the craft that you're in where words matter, but then realize that they don't matter as much. And then also, focus on the fact that, you know, the actions are actually what's gonna matter more than the words. And so you have a difference between leaders and politicians, you know, politicians are there to say the right thing and to hold the power, leaders are people who are willing to do things that will be transformational from my perspective. And so when I would think about staying diplomacy words without actions or without the threat of actions, and that was something that President trump did very well was that people knew that he was willing to take action. He was very unpredictable in how he would act and that made our words much more effective in what they did.
Speaker 1 So it's all a combination, but you know, coming from the private sector, we are all about results. Right? If you're in government, you can work on something for 10 years and fail and then retire they consider you an expert. In the private sector if you work on something for 10 weeks and you don't have a success and you're unemployed. You know?
Speaker 1 So it's it's it's a different kind of notion And and it was just understanding the mentality and trying to adjust and and bridging the divides between the different trainings.
Speaker 0 Is that the biggest thing you took from your business back? Is that just be really results focused?
Speaker 1 It was just the only way to be. I mean, if I was giving up you A nice life in new York. And if I was giving up, you know, the the stuff that I really enjoyed the company that I'd I'd help build and, you know, the the the the the life that I was enjoying in order to do government. I was going there to make a difference. And, you know, we had to focus on it.
Speaker 1 The other skill set. So there was a couple skill sets that I found were quite efficient in government. First of all, there was a ton of amazing people. I mean, people talk about the bureaucracy. What I found was is you had incredibly committed, passionate, intelligent, capable people all throughout the government.
Speaker 1 And what they were waiting for though was direction, and then cover in order to get there. And so there were a lot of tasks that I worked on, whether it was, you know, building the wall the southern border where I was able to work with you know, customs border patrol, you know, Army corps of engineers, military, Dhs professionals, Dod, And we basically all came together. And then once we had a good project management plan, we were able to kinda move very, very quickly. I think we built about 4 70 miles of... Border barrier in about 2 years basically.
Speaker 1 And that was very... That worked very well because we basically brought private sector project management skill sets, which which we're quite often missing in government. The second 1 is just, you know, we spoke about negotiation earlier, I would say that most people in government, it's just a different form of negotiation than you see in the private sector and way less effective in that regard, which is why I think it's good, the more we can encourage more people with private sector experience to do a stint government and to really try to contribute and serve their country. That's how our founders mean, Torch Washington and all the the the founding fathers. They they're working on their farms.
Speaker 1 They they left their farms, servant government and they went back to the farm. And that was kind of the design of The representative government, it wasn't a career political class. It was, you know, people coming in to, you know, show gratitude for the freedoms and liberties that they enjoyed. And then you know, you know, do their best to kind of, you know, help others have those same opportunities that they had, and then they'd go back and live their lives. And so So I think that there's a lot of opportunity with our government of people with more business mindset who are gonna think about things from a solutions perspective.
Speaker 1 Go and serve. Is that 1 of the main problems here? So you you also mentioned the book, the great generation by Neil Ferguson an awesome historian.
Speaker 0 He's been on this podcast. It helped you understand the inefficiencies of government regulation. I'd love it if you can... Give an insight into why government is so inefficient at times. Like when it is inefficient, when it doesn't work, why is that the case?
Speaker 0 The bureaucracy that you spoke to? The negative aspects of the bureaucracy?
Speaker 1 So we don't have enough time on this podcast to go into it, but it's Look, there's there's a lot of aspects that work as well. Right? But I do think we've gotten too big. You know, Neil book that you mentioned, you know, 1 of the things that I took from that. I read it I think in in 2012.
Speaker 1 Right? Kind of in the middle of the great financial crisis was he was talking about how government regulation often was put in place to deal with all crises Right? So it was never gonna solve future problems. It was more to kind of create to solve problems that had happened in the past. And I remember thinking about that.
Speaker 1 1 thing I was very proud of of the work of the Trump administration was that you had 4 years consecutively where there is a net decrease in the cost of regulations. So to give you a context in last year of Obama in 2016, there was 6000000 man hour spent by the private sector, complying with new federal regulations. And that's not really what the intent of our government was. Right? If we have rules or regulations, those should be leg by Congress, they shouldn't be put in by, you know, by Bureau who are basically saying I wanna follow this objective.
Speaker 1 So using kind of the power of the pen in order to do that. So the der regulatory effort was actually very critical to Trump's economic success that happened at the beginning of the administration. And then what I saw with regulation was any time either there was legislation or regulation coming. The people pushing forward were usually the people who would benefit from the regulatory captures. So you had these know, you look at, you know, the great financial crisis where you had this big banking reforms.
Speaker 1 Or what happened during the big banking reforms, then you had a big reduction in the amount of banks, you that occurred in the big banks became even bigger, whereas I don't think that was the intention of the legislation, but the people who are writing the legislation and influencing it, had a lot of the constituencies from those larger institutions. And then what happened as a result of that. A lot of these smaller institutions didn't have the ability to be as competitive. They had more restrictions more cost. They became less profitable, but these were the banks that were serving small business, which is the biggest creator of jobs in our country.
Speaker 1 And then as a result, the bigger banks got more powerful. And what happened in the country as a result of the the regulations that they put in place, the wealth gap in the country grew, it didn't shrink. And so I think it oftentimes what they say these regulations are intended to be, the result often becomes the opposite. And so, you know, what what President Trump did in his administration was they did a massive der regulatory effort. And I think they pledged that for every 1 regulation, they put on, you do need some regulation in an economy and in a society, they would take off And in the first year, they eliminated 8 regulations for everyone.
Speaker 1 And so so that was just something I took from it, which which was I thought very interesting and you had to really to I think you have to think through what are the consequences is gonna be of the different actions you take and often government gets it wrong by taking an action that feels right, but has big negative consequences down the road.
Speaker 0 Let's go to some difficult topics. You wrote, but in the book about your experience with some very low points in government. You've been attacked quite a bit. 1 of the ones that stands out is the accusations of collusion with Russia and you tell in the book, in general, this whole story. Whole journey.
Speaker 0 On a personal level on a sort of big political level. Can you tell me some aspects of this story?
Speaker 1 Sure. So to to give the listeners some context. And people remember this now, it's been kinda swept away. Because it turned out not to be true was that after president Trump won the election in 2016, instead of the media saying, we were wrong. Because, again, everyone thought he had 0 chance of of winning.
Speaker 1 They said, okay, well, we couldn't have been wrong. It must have been... The Russians who worked with him. And so at first when this started coming up, I thought this was ridiculous. I mean I I was very intimately involved with the operations of the campaign, I was running the finance of the campaign, and I was running the digital media of the campaign, I was running the the the the the the the schedule for the campaign, running And I knew that on most days, we had trouble, like you know, working...
Speaker 1 Coordinating with ourselves, you know, let a alone, you know, you know, collaborating with another government. And are c concluding as they called it. And so we did a great job, I think as an underdog campaign very lean staffed. And then they said that, you know, we were working with the Russians. And so at the time, I didn't take it too seriously because I knew there was no truth to it.
Speaker 1 But it was amazing to me to start seeing all of these institutions whether it was Cnn, the Washington Post, New York Times. These were news organizations that I grew up having a lot of respect for taking these accusations so seriously and then working themselves up in order to in order to just cover it for 2 years. And as a result, you had a special counsel, you had a a house investigation a senate an investigation. And I personally spent about I think over 20 hours, just just know, testifying before these different committees again spent millions of dollars of out of my own pocket on my legal fees to make sure I was well represented, you And the reason I did that was because I saw in Washington, it was, like a sick game. Right?
Speaker 1 It's almost like, you know, even though there was no underlying... Problems to the accusation, I felt like this is 1 of those things where they're gonna try to catch you. And then if you step on the line, they catch you with 1 miss representation, they're gonna try to put you in jail or worst of, you know, bid bid. And so for me, that was a big concern. So And it was amazing to me, my my my poor mom, you, I told her to stop, you know, reading whatever I I promised you.
Speaker 1 We didn't do anything wrong and it's good. But, you know, she'd called me and say, well, you know, our friends were, you know on the upper side, we're talking with Chuck Schumer Is Jared going to jail. You know, we we know for sure that he concluded with Russians. And this is like a leading senator saying things like this. And so, it was just interesting for me to see how the whole world could believe something and be talking about it that I knew with 1000 percent certainty was just not true.
Speaker 1 And so seeing that play out was very, very
Speaker 0 hard.
Speaker 1 Obviously, you know, I was accused of a lot of things there were times in Washington I was radioactive. I remember 1 weekend, you know it was all over Cnn, you know, the people, they panels on Cnn, like, the news organization that I grew up thinking was like the number 1 trusted name for news in the world, talk about how I'd committed treason because I met with an ambassador and said, we'd like to hear your perspective on what you think the policy should be in Syria where there was a big civil war happening and and and Isis and lot different things. So it was quite a crazy time in that regard, but luckily, again, we we were able to fight through it. It was a major distraction for administration. And I think we were able to kinda stay focused on the objectives and the policies, but it was a crazy time.
Speaker 1 And I I learned a lot from that experience.
Speaker 0 It's crazy. How was just an accusation can be viral and can just go. 1 of the things that worries me is the effect in your mind, the psychology of it. To make sure it doesn't make you cynical. Like, people that trying to do stuff, those kind of stories that can destroy their mind.
Speaker 0 And 1 of the things I'd love to sort of understand you kinda rolled in from the business sport. And all of sudden, the the entire world from Cnn to everybody's accusing you of including with Russians. Like what do you, like, when you're sitting at home, how do you keep a call mind, a clear mind, Optimistic 1. That doesn't become cynical. And actually just keep trying to push on and do stuff in the world.
Speaker 1 Yeah. So it was a surreal experience I would say number 1 is I I felt very confident that I done anything wrong. So, you know I'd always tell my lawyer, like, you know, the good news is I've got a good fact problem. Right? Like I need a good lawyer to get...
Speaker 1 Through it, but it's it's much easier to be a good lawyer if you have a very innocent client. And so, you know, the fact that I knew that I didn't have... I I didn't believe that I had any illegal liability, help me kind of intellectually separate the challenge I need to do to fight through it, from it And then I just basically said, like, and I'd had hardship earlier in my life where I dealt with the situation with my father. And what I realized there is that you can't really spend energy on the things that you don't control. All you can do is spend your time and energy worrying about what you can control.
Speaker 1 And then how you react to the things that you have there. And so it took a lot of a lot of discipline. It took a lot of strength. Then again, I give my wife. Ivanka, and and even Donald a lot of credit for, you know, for kinda having my back during that time and and and, you know, encouraging me just to kinda fight through it And then I also had to make sure that I didn't allow that to distract me for my job.
Speaker 1 I felt like I had an amazing opportunity in the White House. To make a difference in the world. And if I would've spent all my time playing defense. You know, in politics, it's a time duration game. In business, you have whatever duration you set for yourself to And politics it's time duration.
Speaker 1 We had 4 years. Every day was sand through an hourglass. My mindset was I need to accomplish as much as I can in these 4 years. And I guess the traditional game that's played in Washington is whether it's the media, the opposition, their job is to distract you and then try to stop you from being as successful as you wanna be. And so just fought through it.
Speaker 1 And wasn't always fun, but we we got through and and thank god. It's it's something people don't talk about it. And it has been amazing to me. Just the lack of self awareness and and reflection of a lot of the people who hype this up for for 2 years. They don't think there was anything wrong with it.
Speaker 1 And and that's interesting. But, you know, my view is we got through it. It's good, so it's in the past. And then I started moving into the future and that's really where I spent
Speaker 0 Yeah. But I wanna link on it because to me, that a really discouraging effect on anyone who's trying to do positive in the world. Like, these kinds of attacks are intense. Yeah. That mean, you you say kind 1 of the lessons you learned is that you really have to be perfect.
Speaker 0 But I hate that to be the lesson. Like, I feel like you should be able to do stupid stuff take big risks and like people celebrate the big risks. And not try to weave gigantic stories of over nothing. They just wanna kinda understand the 2 aspects of this, how to not have such stories of so much legs. And the other is how to stay psychologically strong.
Speaker 0 So you kind of waved it off that you didn't have a fact problem, But it can just have a effect your psyche? Yeah. You seem to be pretty stoked about the whole thing, but, like, how... I mean, I... Just on the psychology side, how did you stake...
Speaker 0 Calm and not become cynical where you can continue to do stuff and take big risks.
Speaker 1 I didn't have a choice. What do you mean? I mean? I could spent every day feeling sorry for myself or complaining or saying things aren't fair. But the the general...
Speaker 1 Way I I looked at it was that in life, every opportunity has a cost. And, you know, you could look at it and say, maybe this was a masked... Of cost either in dollars or in time or in reputation or or in in emotional drain of But you could also say that, you know, I had an opportunity to work in the White House and I had an opportunity to work on some of the hardest challenges. And you talk about how that's not celebrated. That is something very different in the private sector when you take on big challenges that is celebrated in government, when you take on big challenges, people wanna see it fail or they want to criticize though people who are trying to take that on.
Speaker 1 And I think that's wrong. And I think that know, as a country, we should be thinking big, we should be dreaming big and we should be encouraging our politicians to try and to fail more and to, you know, to to go into to take on big things, knowing that there's risk of feeling. Officers want them to succeed, not to fail, but but let's take on the big things. Let's try to do that. You So I think it's just very basic that, you know, you're in a situation.
Speaker 1 I've made decisions. I can't go back and change decisions in the past. I still felt, you know, very blessed to be in the position I was in. And I knew that I just had to work through it. And like I said, I was very lucky to have...
Speaker 1 You know, support for my wife and from my family and from good friends. Again, I I think I'd I chosen very good friends in life and my friends were with me, had 1 friend who who, you know, my lowest moment, you know, got in the plane. You lived in Arizona, got a plane and came just have dinner with me to say, just just pick your head up. I know you're down now. You're gonna be fine, just just fight through.
Speaker 1 That meant a lot to me. And again, I I always think in my life, you know, you don't learn as much from your successes. You don't learn as much from your high points. You learn the most about who you wanna be and how the world works from your lowest moment. And at those lowest moments, it just...
Speaker 1 It made me better. And it taught me how to be a better friend to people who are in tough situations. And I tried to just get get tougher and I tried to just get better and work through it.
Speaker 0 Yeah. You said that you and Ivanka, this this this this intense time but you... To together and helped you kind of deal with the intensity with the chaos of it all.
Speaker 1 So I think it was number 1 knowing that you had a partner and knowing that you had somebody who who loved you and believed in you. I think that was definitely by far the biggest of anything and
Speaker 0 Love is the answer.
Speaker 1 Love is very important. But then there's also a lot that I've learned from her. Always. You know, getting me to to read different books or or learn different things which I love. But she's also I think an amazing role model.
Speaker 1 And I I go through our time in Washington where, there were so many people who were... I thought very nasty to her un undoubtedly, and I'm not talking about individually because again, you know, most people interacted with her were super kind, but I would see people, you know, on Twitter, different places go after, and she always stayed elegant. And I I felt like that was something that she never s down to a lower level. She kept her elegance the whole time, and she really went to Washington wanting to be a force of good. And I see all the time that she she follows her heart.
Speaker 1 She does what's right. And she has a very strong. Moral compass, and and I I feel very lucky to have as a partner and I I respect her tremendously.
Speaker 0 Yeah. She walks the fire with Grace. I would say, and she's recommended a bunch of amazing books to me, and she's she has an incredible a fascinating mine. So... But 1 thing that I jumped out to me is You both love diners.
Speaker 0 Jersey diners. So I I lived in Philly for a while and have, you know, I I traveled... Quite a bit and traveling from Boston and don Philly maybe to Dc. Mh. You can drive through Jersey.
Speaker 0 It's something about Jersey. I know what it is The best. You listen to Bruce Springs. There's Lucy K is this bit where I think it's part of criticizing. Cell phones today where people are too much on their phone.
Speaker 0 They don't just sit there, be bored, but he uses that story to tell where he's just driving and Bruce Springs song comes on. And he just wants to pull over to the side of the road and just like weep for no unexplained reason. And I think that's true because life is difficult. Life is full of suffering or struggle or challenges so. There's some sometimes It's always bruce brings.
Speaker 0 But, like, some kind of song like this can really make you reflect on life that mel call feeling. But that mel feeling is... The other side of the happiness coin, where if you just allow yourself to feel that pain, you can also feel the highest joys. Mh. That's the sort of the point Lucy cam makes.
Speaker 0 And there's something about Jersey with the diners. Often late at night. That there's several diner experiences I should say. Okay. There's like the family friendly and there's a nice waitress and this is sweetness, a kindness like hello sweetheart.
Speaker 0 Mh. That kind of thing. There's also like, the 3AM diner where you're... Like, the ones that are open 24 hours. Mh.
Speaker 0 That has a romantic helmet when you're a young man and woman, like, traveling the loneliness of that. All of it.
Speaker 1 Mh.
Speaker 0 The American diner is like, from like, Jack Ke on represents something. I'm not sure what that is, but it's like a real beautiful experience. And the food itself too.
Speaker 1 Oh, always fresh. Yeah. The the thing with diners there's so much to love about it, And I grew up obviously, in New Jersey when I'd go, you know, with my father to to business, you'd always stop. We need at a diner. Late night, I'd become back with my friends.
Speaker 1 We'd stop at a diner and It's a tradition that Aka and I love doing as well. And I think there's there's a notion of... It's very egalitarian and that, you know, people from all places are there. You could order basically whatever you want. I mean, the the the menus that the diners look like the phone book.
Speaker 0 That's great.
Speaker 1 And it's amazing how they keep, you know, so much fresh ingredients to do it at least the good ones do. I love as a Jersey guide you get Mozzarella sticks and and an omelette, you know, at any hour of the day, because most of them are open 24 hours, and that's Basically, by by Ivanka might go to, we'll throw in a milkshake or 2 as well. Yes. But for for me as a kid, you know, my father would take me, sometimes I'd sit with him in the meeting. Sometimes I'd be at the table.
Speaker 1 Neck. To him. He gave me a bunch of quarters to put in the the music machine that they would have on the the wall, and it was always just a great experience doing it. In Jersey And I joke that, you know, if you grew grow up in Jersey, you grew up with just just enough a chip on your shoulder, you have to go and make something of yourself in life. It's a it's a special place.
Speaker 1 I had an amazing childhood there. And very, very proud to be from the state. And I I will just give a little bit of a plug now because the state has now actually turned the corner and and they had a 10000000000 dollar budget surplus. For many years, you know, was a state that was basically bankrupt and and now actually under a a pretty progressive Democrat governor or Phil Murphy, he's turned the state around and it's actually has a very bright future ahead. And it's it's probably 1 of the best places to raise a family in the country.
Speaker 1 Right? It's got very low crime, 1 of the best public school systems in the country, pretty good healthcare care system. A lot of green parks, People know the turn, but it's got a lot to it. That's really great. So I'm a big fan of Jersey.
Speaker 1 Public know, like, how, this is a first
Speaker 0 for this particular podcast. You literally gave a plug to a state. So in New Jersey, everybody,
Speaker 1 you know it's where it's at.
Speaker 0 The south jersey, he's No jersey. I mean, the all there's all kinds of jersey he's too. I mean, the whole thing. It just...
Speaker 1 I... And don't get me start on the Jersey Shore Le. That's she sure
Speaker 0 that well.
Speaker 1 And I'm not talking about the sn part. I'm talking about the real nice parts, where there's great food, great people. Mean, nice parks.
Speaker 0 It's all beautiful. The full range of human characters that are in New Jersey are all beautiful.
Speaker 1 I agree with that.
Speaker 0 And every time Trial across the world, there's always a meet somebody from new jersey you kinda give a nod of under... A deep understanding. The cradle civilization menu ways. Okay.
Speaker 1 So back, I don't know how we
Speaker 0 got there. Oh, alright. Going back to the the low points. You mentioned your father if it could just return there. Even just the personal story of your father...
Speaker 0 Of that you right about that of the betrayal that happened in his life and then how he responded to that betrayal and he was con after that arrested. Can you just tell the story?
Speaker 1 Sure. So my father is an amazing person, and we grew up in new Jersey. My father was a big developer, a great entrepreneur, built an amazing business. He gone to a dispute with 2 of his siblings. And through that dispute, they basically took all of the documents in his company, went to the Us attorney's office, and and, you know, turned into...
Speaker 1 From a a civil dispute into a real public dispute. My father did something, you know, wrong in that process. And, you know, when he got arrested for that he basically said, you know, What I did was wrong and he he... Took his medicine, and he he did it like a man and he said, I'm gonna go to prison and and he did that for a year. And so for me, that was a very...
Speaker 1 Took challenging time in the family. Obviously, you know, I it was a shock. It it it was a total change. I, I grew up. My my childhood was I think a very nice childhood, you know, my parents always said, you know, Do good school work hard.
Speaker 1 You know, I was very very focused on my athletics. I was captain the basketball teams. Captain the Hockey team, you know, ran a marathon, my father, and it was always about pursuing went the went to Harvard, graduated with honors, That was in Nyu pursuing a law degree and a business degree. And I was working at Manhattan district attorney's office at the time. Actually thinking I wanted to go into public service.
Speaker 1 And because my father always taught us. We always surrounded by politicians. And he always said, you know, my parents came to America. They lived in the land of opportunity, and they had these opportunities because this is the progress country in the world. And so you should, you know, be successful work hard, don't ever let your opportunities become your disadvantages because you have advantages in life, you have to work harder and that's what he instilled in myself and my brother and, you always pushed us to make the most of ourselves.
Speaker 1 And when we did that, you know, everything changed overnight, when my father got arrested. It obviously, it's very embarrassing for a family when you're on the front page of the papers. I would see the newspaper writing all these things about my father that I didn't think we're representative of the person that I knew. It was a big change for our family. And, you know, I was angry.
Speaker 1 I was angry. I said, know I could be angry at at the prosecutor, I could be angry at my father's brother, I could be angry at my father's lawyers. I could be angry at my father. For for making this mistake. And then I kinda said, that's not gonna change anything.
Speaker 1 And I had a real shift. And I I do think that that was turning point of my life where I basically said, let me focus on the things I can control. Let me focus on the positive things I can do, And from that moment forward, I said, how can I be a great son to my father? How could I be a great older brother slash, you know, substitute father for my my 2 sisters, my younger brother. How could I be there for my mother?
Speaker 1 How could Be there for my father's business? And I just went into to to battle mode and I put my my my my... I put my armor on, and I just, you know, ran into it and for the next 2 years. It was... Every day was painful.
Speaker 1 I, I was dealing with banks. I was dealing the company still at subpoena. I was still in Law school I I tell my father I want to drop out of law school and business school, but he said please don't. So I would basically go to law school 1 day a week or maybe I'd skip it most. And I go to his office every day and my friends would joke that if my professors wanted to fail me, the the the law professor would have to give me a test.
Speaker 1 He's that had 4 pictures and say, circle who your professor is, you know, but I would basically take a week off, I'd read the books and I did well and I got my degrees. And it was just a very, very challenging time. But like I said to you before is that you learn the most about life and you learn the most about humanity. And yourself when you're in your most challenging periods. And I'll say that, you know, that experience also changed, you know, the people I interacted with, spending weekends with my father down in in a prison in Alabama.
Speaker 1 I met the other inmates. I met their families. I spent time then trying to advise the children of other people who are going through the same experience that I'd gone through and how to navigate it, you know, correctly. And you just learn a lot about the world and you see that you know, in life, everything could get taken from you, your status, your money, your friends, I saw that certain people were, very dis distilled my father at the time, who he thought were friends. It was only a handful.
Speaker 1 But again, I learned from those people. How can I be a true friend to people? How can I be better? And I I learned a tremendous amount through that experience.
Speaker 0 You're right that your father told you about being humble I'd love to ask you about this. That in life, sometimes we get so powerful that we start to think where the dealers of our own fate. We're not the dealer is god as the dealer. Sometimes we have to be brought back down to Earth to get perspective On what is really important. What do you think he meant by that?
Speaker 0 What did what did you learn from that? Experience.
Speaker 1 What what the way I interpret at the time and those were very, very memorable words, and it occurred. That I was down after I picked up my father from the arr, I drove him down, I drove the car, and my father and I very, very close and he didn't say word for the whole time. And I think he was processing number 1 what was happening to him. And I I couldn't even imagine. But I actually think the bigger pain for him because my father is such a committed person to the family?
Speaker 1 Is like, did I let my family down? Did I let my kids down? And I do think he felt that that moment like his life was over, He couldn't really see past what this challenge was gonna bring and if there would be a life for him after it. I I could see that he had a lot of fear. And he really wasn't saying much.
Speaker 1 And then I didn't know what to do. And so I just stood by him and stood close. And you know, later that that that day or the next day, He got him and started walking and get an ankle monitor for whatever reason the prosecutor was such a... So aggressive he was a flight risk, so they made him wear an ankle monitor. They were very, very aggressive and nasty.
Speaker 1 And at the time my father was the biggest donor to Democrats. Prosecutor was a republican. It was a very political thing. And and what happened was is he was walking around the pool, and I just started walking with him, and he said to me know, Jared life, sometimes we get so powerful that we believe that we're the dealer this, but we're not the dealer, God's the dealer and we have to, you know, come down to earth to understand like you said. So what what I took from that was that my father with all his success had started to believe that, you that maybe certain rules didn't apply to him.
Speaker 1 And I think that that's where he made a mistake. And I think he had a lot of regret that he made the mistake. And know, my father is a very humble person. He's a very moral person. You know, for me, with my humility, my my brother and I joke that we give are.
Speaker 1 You credit for being humble number 1 to being Met Fans because every year, you have a lot of promise and that it never ends up paying off of though now with Steve Cohen, hopefully run a different trajectory. But the other thing is also our mother. You know, our mother really raised us to be very humble to be, you know, we had we knew we had a lot, but every Sunday morning. My mom was their clip in the coupons. The serial 8 in our house was based on you know, was based on what was on sale versus what we like.
Speaker 1 You know, when we would have Problem with our teachers in school, and I'd say, well, teachers doesn't like me. She'd say, well, I'm not calling them it's your job to make the teacher like you. And so my mother gave us a lot of that, my father gave us a lot of the grounding. And I think during that time, my father was just realizing that maybe he had of got disconnected from the the grounding and the values. And and again, I think he also accepted Maybe he could have you know, blamed others for acting inappropriately, but I respect the fact that he took responsibility himself and said, I can't control the actions of other people, I can't control what they do is right and wrong, I can just control my actions.
Speaker 1 And as I go in the next journeys in my life, and I I go to government, I go to Washington. I mean, I even think through the the craziness of going from, you know, visiting my father in a prison to 10 years later sitting in the office, and In the White House next to the president of the United States. And like, I think about that story and that it's it's a story the only God could write. And I I really believe they have to have a lot of faith because the lows and the highs are both so extreme and unbelievable, that I feel like those low moments in some ways allowed me to keep my grounding and to understand what was truly important in life for when I ended up going through those other moments.
Speaker 0 Your father was betrayed, perhaps over money by siblings. Is there some deeper wisdom you can draw from that? Have have you seen money or perhaps power or cloud people's judgment?
Speaker 1 Hundred percent. Hundred percent.
Speaker 0 Is there some kind of optimistic thing you can take from that about human nature? Of how to escape that cloud of judgment, when you're talking about leaders when you're talking about government, even business. As you mentioned there's a power dynamics at play always when you're negotiating Mh. Is there a way to see the common humanity and not see the sort of will to power in the whole thing.
Speaker 1 Definitely, you know, you mentioned about power, money corrupt corrupting. There's a great quote. I heard a friend of mine say. It's a guy, Michael Harris, who was 1 of the founders of death row records and you know he was being interviewed recently, and they asked him about what happened with Shook Knight. And his line was you know, money just makes you more of what you already are, which I thought was a very elegant way of saying it.
Speaker 1 And I I would see this time of time again in the White House, where you had people who were now given a lot of responsibility and power, and it went to their head and they they they acted very cra. And maybe it didn't act in a way that I thought was always conducive to the objective. So I think it's a very big problem that you have. Whether it's it's something that's sol, I think about having the right leaders and and hopefully for the leaders having good friends, but I'm still friends with a lot of the people, I interacted with when I was in government and, you know, the number 1 thing I try to be to to them is just a good friend. I try to be somebody who they can talk about things with.
Speaker 1 I don't go in trying to tell them what to do on different things or know we're or... And I think that that's a big thing that people just need friends and they need conversation and if they have that, then hopefully that allows them to keep their head in the right place.
Speaker 0 I think this is a good place to ask about 1 aspect of the fascinating work you've done, which is on prison reform. Can you take me through your journey of helping them the bipartisan bill. Get passed. Just working prison reform in White House in general, how you made that happen, how you help make that happen.
Speaker 1 So we passed a law call called the first step act, which was the largest prison criminal justice reform. Bill that's been done maybe in 30, 40, 50 years in the Us. And so what it basically did was 2 things. Number 1 is it took the prison system and it took a certain class of offenders and allowed them to become eligible for earlier release if they go through the certain trainings that will allow them to have a lower probability of going back. So, you know, stepping back, you look at the prison system, You say what's the purpose?
Speaker 1 Is it to punish? Is it the warehouse? Is it to rehab? And I do think that, you know, we're a country that believes in second chances, I saw firsthand when my father was a client of the system, how inefficient it was and how much better it could be. And, you know, when my father got out, we didn't run from that experience.
Speaker 1 He started hiring people from R Island and and, you know, different prisons into the company into a second chance program, which we're very, very proud of doing And what we saw through our micro experience was that if you give people mentorship, if you give them got job training, a lot of people, you know, leave they have addiction issues, and they can't find housing. And so, you know, people leave prison with a criminal record and they're less likely to go back and rein integrate in society without help from from from different institutions that can help them do that. So we modeled the reforms of what they did in Texas in Georgia in other states where they basically put a lot of job training, alcohol and addiction treatment programs in the prisons. So as a way to incentivize the prisoners to work on themselves while they're there in order to allow them to reenter society, it's turned out to be very successful so far. They just had a report that showed that the general population Has had a 47 percent...
Speaker 1 Rec rate, meaning that people who leave federal prison, half of them go back, and people who have now taken this program, only 12 percent of them go back. So rec number 1, you're making community safer because if people are gonna now get a job and enter society instead of committing future crimes, you're avoiding future crimes. And number 2, you're giving people a second chance at life. And so that was the first part of it. The second thing we did was there was a rule passed in the nineties, that basically penalize a crack cocaine at hundred times the penalty of what a regular cocaine was.
Speaker 1 And I think a lot of the motivations what people say, in retrospect was that crack was more of a black jug drug and cocaine was more of a white drug. And so there was a really racial disparity in terms of what what the application of these census were. So they they then revised that to make it 18 to 1 and what we did in this bill, is we allowed it to go retroactive. To allow people who were in prison with sentences under the... What we thought was the racist law to be able to make an application to a judge in order to be just smith.
Speaker 1 And it was based on good behavior, you know, being rehab and the fact that they would have a low probability of offend in the future. And so that was really the meat of it. And there was a couple of other things in there. We did as well, which were also quite good. So we did it worked very closely with the Democrats.
Speaker 1 Republicans to do it at first president Trump was a little bit skeptical of it because he's a big strong law order supporter, But he made me work very hard to put together a coalition of Republicans and Democrats. And law enforcement we had the support from, from the the the the the the policeman. We had the support from the Ac. And ultimately, we were able to get it together. And It was an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 We ended up getting 87 votes in the Senate. You know, this was happened for me at a time. It was... While the Russia investigation stuff was still happening, new chief of staff came in John Kelly, he basically marginalized me and the operations. So I had kind of less day to day responsibilities in the White House.
Speaker 1 And so for me, this effort became 1 of my full time efforts along with negotiating the Mexico trade deal and along with the Middle East efforts. And the reason why that was great was because it didn't have a lot of support from the Republican caucus originally, and people thought there was no way it would happen I really was able to be the chief executive, the middle executive, the low executive, the intern. And through that process, I really got an education. So on how Congress works on how to pass legislation. I was negotiating text.
Speaker 1 I was negotiating back and forth. And I built a lot of trust. Again, I deal with whether it's a team Jeff or Cedric Richmond that we built a lot of trust. We'd speak 3 times a day. These guys had my back.
Speaker 1 The the Ac, again, I never thought they suing our administration every day or every other day on something. But for whatever reason we build trust and we're able to work together and and then also with the real conservative groups because there was a lot a big part of the conservative base that felt like we should be giving people a second chance. And In addition to that, this will keep our country safer and it will reduce the cost of what we spend on prisons. And so it was a great effort and I was very, very proud that we're able. To get it done.
Speaker 1 And they're president Trump.
Speaker 0 How'd did you con convince their republicans? So they were skeptical First. Are we talking about, like, just phone conversations going on to lunch just the back to the emojis or
Speaker 1 what, hand to hand combat, meetings. You know, like, the cool thing about this is So everyone always says, they I always get for us. Trade. I hear a lawmaker say, oh, the senate. It's not what it used to be Your congress isn't what it used to be.
Speaker 1 Things are broken today. I don't think that's true. I think, you know, going through the process, I think that our founders were were totally genius in the way that they designed our system of government. And what I saw is you just have to work it. So everyone knows the power of their vote.
Speaker 1 Some would give it to me easily. Some wouldn't give it to me easily, some would traded it for other things. Some would holt because they were pissed about other things, and it was just hand to hand combat. So it was just making calls using the phone, go and walk in the halls, going to lunches, you know, hosting dinners at my house. It was just it was a non stop lobbying effort.
Speaker 1 And by the way, it was also ad duplicating issues and making people feel like they were heard hearing their issues and then trying to find solutions that you don't put something in and then tips off where you lose, you know, a whole coalition. So it was really a balancing act, but it was a it's an amazing thing and we're very closely in that with Van Jones and Jessica Jackson who also gave me a lot of help on the left. And and it was an amazing thing.
Speaker 0 Had a great team too. So you mentioned the importance of trust at the very beginning of the conversation. From the outsider perspective, just to maybe a dark. Question, which is like, how much trust is there in Washington. How how much did the flip side of the...
Speaker 0 How much backstop is there? Can you form, like, long term relationships with people on a basic human level. Where you know you're not going to be betrayed, screwed over, manipulated for, again, going back the old money and power
Speaker 1 The answer is yes and the answer is no. So I I made some incredible friends, lifelong friends through my time in Washington. But the way III think about it from politics, And I think in geopolitics as well is I would say that politicians really don't have friends, politicians have interests. And as long as you kinda follow that rule, you should be able to know how to rate where your relationship with a given person falls. In the spectrum.
Speaker 1 But I do think I was the exception. I I did make some tremendous friends. And again, I'd go back to what I said about negotiation where, you know, when you're in a situation where there's really nothing in it for any of you personally, but you're in a fox altogether and nobody can walk can get anything done by themselves. So you have people coming from all different backgrounds, all different experiences, all different geographies coming together, agreeing on an objective, creating a plan and then everyday rowing together in order to get it done, it's a beautiful thing and you really learn what people are about. And so when you go through an experience like that, you learn who's in it for themselves, you learn who's in it for the cause.
Speaker 1 And, you know, for every... You know, think you read about in the press of a fight I had with somebody because we were at odds. You know, I've have about, you know, a hundred people who have become lifelong friends because I respect the way that when we run their fire together, they got better. They were competent, and they were there to serve for the right reason. And so so I I guess, the answer is yes.
Speaker 1 It it it is... It is possible. You have to be careful because there are a lot of mer material people there. I always say the politicians are, like gladiators. I didn't have as much respect for politicians till I got there, But if you think about it, everyone who's got a congressional seat or a senate seat.
Speaker 1 There's 25 people back at home who want their job. We think they're smarter than them who are trying to backs them. And so I always say that the political dynamic. It's like, in the private sector, you're standing on on flat ground. You choose which fights you take on, when you take them on, how you fight them.
Speaker 1 In politics, it's like you're standing on a ball. And what you have to realize is that there's maybe like 10 things that you have to do, but there's a potential cost to taking on each 1 that might destabilize you you fall off the ball, and then you can lose your opportunity to pursue those. So you have to always be kind of marking everything to market and going through your calculations, to make sure you can accomplish what you want to without falling off the ball and losing your opportunity to make a difference.
Speaker 0 I guess people like power And I just feel like to be a good politician, you should be willing, like, good meaning, good for humanity. Be willing to let go of power. You know, try to do the right thing if there's somebody back home that does manipulate stuff screws you over and takes power from you. Okay. I feel like that kinda humility is is required to be a great.
Speaker 0 Leader. And I feel like that's actually a good way to have long term power because Karma has a viral aspect to a just doing by others. I feel like is...
Speaker 1 I'd like to say that's true, Lax. I I think it's just way more complicated. I mean, you look what happened this week with with Kevin Mccarthy. Right? He did what he thought was morally right?
Speaker 1 He thought, you know, he did a bipartisan deal. He was told that, you know, they would have his back. And then the moment things got tough. They they cut him loose. So again, I don't know if that's that's...
Speaker 1 If that was the right thing or the wrong thing. Right? I've also seen leaders on the other end, say, I'm gonna do things that are... Short term, more selfish. But the way they justify to themselves is to say, I believe that myself staying in power is existential, to the greater good.
Speaker 1 So I will do things that maybe are not in the greater good now because I believe that my maintaining power is. And so it's it's complicated. I in an ideal world, I'd love to believe that's the case, but it's just way more complicated than that. Yeah. I wish it wasn't, but it is.
Speaker 0 Yeah. I mean, I I do just... Which people zoomed out and people in politics zoomed out a bit and just ask themselves, what are we all doing this for? You know, like, sometimes you can get, like a little bit lost in the game of it. If you zoom all, you realize like integrity is way more important.
Speaker 0 Then like, little gains in money, little gains of power in the long term. So when you look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day, and also how history remembers you. I just feel like people do some dark stuff, when they're, like, in that moment when they're losing power,
Speaker 1 and
Speaker 0 they try to hold out a little too hard. Mh. This is when this is when they can do really dark things. Like, bring out the worst in themselves. And it's just sad to see sienna I wish store was a kind of machinery of government would inspire people to be their best cells in their last days versus the war cells.
Speaker 0 Right?
Speaker 1 When when that system gets invented, you know, you'll you'll share with me what it is, but it's... Look, Let me give you another way to frame it, which is... And and this was kind of the the revelation we spoke before about, you you know, kind of when I was getting my butt kicked by the Russian investigation and all the different areas. But kind of the basic framework I looked at was, I said, okay, you know, this all feels tough, but I said the game's is the game. The game's been here you know, way longer, you know, but way before I came and it'll be here way long after I leave And so I have 2 choices.
Speaker 1 I can complain that the game's is tough. It's not fair. It's not moral. Or I can go and I can try to play the game as hard as possible. And I think that there's...
Speaker 1 2 different things. Right? You have people who are willing to kind of sit in the stands and they're willing to yell at the players or make their their their points known or your people are willing to suit up and get the arena and go play. And I have a lot of respect for the people who who suit up and go play. And and again, some of them, you know, I wish they would play for different means, but the fact that they're willing to put their name on the ballot, make the sacrifice and go put on the feds and get hit and hit others.
Speaker 1 I think that you need those people And I wish more people who had maybe the moral wiring that you discussed would be putting on a helmet and go into play because Hard. Hard.
Speaker 0 I agree with you. I just would love to fix the aspect of the the Russia Collusion accusation. And the viral reality, the power of that. Because that's a really discouraging thing for for people. Maybe it's the way it has to be, But it's it's it seems like a dis to people in to participate.
Speaker 1 It it is. But I'll give you again an optimistic side of it is that, you know, what you're seeing now is social media is I do think with what's happening happening at x, there is now more of a rev version towards more egalitarian. Right? And egalitarian ism of information. And so for many years, the media publications were the gate holders, they were the gatekeepers, and then you had these social media companies that grew, they became so powerful, but then they were tilting the scales.
Speaker 1 Why they were doing it, you know we can go through long explanations for that. But if there truly is a real forum and a democrat amortization of information, then you would think that the marketplace of ideas would surface the real ones and discredit. The not real ones. And I think that as a society, we're starting to kinda come to grips with the fact that the power, dynamic is changing and that some of these institutions that we used to have a lot of faith and don't deserve our faith, and some of them you know, will actually reform and maybe re earn our faith. So I think that there there there could be an optimistic tone.
Speaker 1 Again, the the years of Trump, I think that, you know, he was an outsider. And, you know, he represented something that was existential for the to the system. Right? You think about for the 30 years before you're either part of know, the Clinton Dynasty or the Bush dynasty. I think a lot of people in the country felt like that whole class whether you wearing a red shirt or a blue shirt wasn't, you representing them and Trump represented a true outsider to that system.
Speaker 1 And I do think that as he went in there, there was a lot of norms that were broken to try to stop him from changing the traditional power structure. So I think that we're at a time where maybe there will be an optimistic breakthrough where you'll have institutions that will allow for a lot more transparency into what truth really is.
Speaker 0 I'd love to go back and talk to you about the Middle East because there's so many interesting components to this. Let's talk about Saudi Arabia. And first, let me ask you about Mps, Mah mohammed Salman, the conference prince. So you've gotten to know him pretty well. You become friends with him.
Speaker 0 What's he like as a human being? Just on a basic human level. What's he like?
Speaker 1 So for for listeners, Mohammed Ben Salman is now the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He has risen to that position over the last couple of years and he's been a tremendous reformer for the country. He's gone in and he's really modernize the economy. He's he's put a lot more investment into the country. He's marginalized the religious police and he's really done a good job to bring modernization a lot of reform.
Speaker 1 So he's been a great reformer. What he's like as a person is he's very high energy. He's got tremendous candle power, very, very smart, incredibly well read when he was younger, his father would would give a book a week and make him report on it on on the weekend. He was trained as a as a leader and as a politician, really by his father. He's not Western educated, so he grew up in the Saudi culture and he's a real Saudi nationalist.
Speaker 1 He he loves their history, loves their heritage. Has a deep understanding of of of the tribal nature of the region. And, you know, his father was actually known to be a tremendous. Politicians. So when he was governor of Riyadh, people who has speak to today about him, say that if they had up a full election, he would have won in a landslide, They say every time somebody went to the hospital, he was the first person to call.
Speaker 1 Anytime there was a funeral. He was the first person to show up. He's a very, very beloved leader. Well, Mah mohammed Ben. He was a businessman before he got into crown prince.
Speaker 1 So he thinks really with a business mindset. About how he runs the country. And he's broad, I think a different mindset energy to the Middle East, You know, 1 thing I'll I'll I'll say that maybe that comes to mind here is that I remember early on talking with him about all the different initiatives he was taking on. He's building a big city called Neo in in the Desert in a place where there really was nothing on the Red Sea. And a lot of people are criticizing the ambition of the plan.
Speaker 1 And I was sitting with him 1 day. And I said, you know, why why are you taking on all these things. You know, you've got a lot of different programs, but you know, what most politicians do is they set lower expectations. And then they exceed the expectations. And he looked at me without hesitation.
Speaker 1 He says, Jared, you know, the way I look at it is that in 5 years from now, if I said 5 goals and I achieve 5 goals, I'll the achieve 5 things. If I set a hundred goals and I fail at 50 of them than 5 years I'll accomplish 50 things. And so it's a very different mindset as a leader. The way I I got to work with him was Saudi Arabia was a big topic in the campaign. President Trump was basically saying, during the campaign that, you know, we're gonna...
Speaker 1 You know, they've got pay for their fair share with they haven't been a great partner in in the region, it's very critical of Saudi. And then during the transition, I was asked by several friends to meet with a representative Saudi Arabia. I don't wanna meet with them, you know, but I came over and I met, and they said, well, we wanna make changes. And I said, well, you have to make changes. You know, to how you treat women then women can drive the guardians ship laws so you gotta start working with Israel.
Speaker 1 You know, you have to be paying more of your fair share and you have to be, you know, stopping the w hop that that's being spreading. Again, I'd know knowledge, these were just kind of the traditional talking points about Saudi Arabia. So the guy Always was with basically said is a guy fought Tu, was a very respected minister there. He says, Jar says, you know, you don't know much about Saudi Arabia do. I said, no I don't.
Speaker 1 Just really what I... Really what I I've kind of been told or what I read, and he says, okay. Let me let me do this. We wanna be great allies with America. We've we've traditionally been great allies with America.
Speaker 1 Can I come back to you with a proposal on ways that we can make progress on all of the different areas where we have joint interests? And keep in mind at that point in time, the Middle East was a mess and probably the single biggest issue we had after Isis was the idea ideological battle. If you remember in 2016, there was the Pulse night club shooting in Orlando, you the San Bernardino shooting, go and people were being radical online with the extremism, and then there was a lot of crimes that were being that were happening because of that. And was a big topic in the campaign. And so that...
Speaker 1 When I was thinking about, you know, talking different generals and what capabilities the Us had to really combat the extremism and the ideological battle, what we realized was that Saudi Arabia as the custodian of the 2 holiest sites in Islam, the Mech medina, that that would be the best partner to work with if they were willing to but for years, they really hadn't been willing to kinda lean into this fight. So I said sure, give a proposals. They come back give proposal and they said, look, if you make, president Trump's first trip to Saudi Arabia. We will do all these different things. We'll increase our military spending and cooperation.
Speaker 1 We'll counter all the terror financing, unbelievable layer. So I took the pros, I went to the National, then it was General Flynn. I said, if Saudi Arabia did these things, the Would this be considered a big unbelievable, but it will never happen. I said well, they're telling me they wanna do these things. Again, I...
Speaker 1 Having no foreign policy experience, I'm saying I've got somebody telling me they wanna do it and that's kind of where we started. Again, to office, I don't think much more about it just And then I think it was like a baby a month in President Trump has a call with King Salman. Mh. And before the call, we're in the oval office. And the president's basically saying, well, you know, this is what we wanna go through, and I have secretary Mattis and sec Terry Tiller, the minister of Defense and the secretary of State basically saying, you have to deal with Mb.
Speaker 1 Is is the guy who's been our partner for all the years. He's the Head of Intelligence and he's been a great partner. I said well, he's been a great partner and why Do we have all these problems that you guys are complaining about with Saudi. Mh. He's said, I've been told that we have this proposal from Mb who's the deputy crown prince.
Speaker 1 And that's who we should be dealing with on this. And so phone call starts, I And president Trump listened to both of us. And on the phone call with King Salman, President Trump says, okay. We'll go through all these things. These are the things we wanna get done.
Speaker 1 And he says well, who should we deal with? And King Simon deal with my son the Deputy Crown Prince Mb. And so president Trump on the phone, have him deal with Jared. And because I think he knew that if he would put him with the other guys, they were not believers in what he had the ability to do, and that's how I got assigned to work with him. I get back to my office after that have an email from him spoke to him for the first time.
Speaker 1 And then we just went to work. And, you know, a lot of people were betting against that trip. They thought it wasn't gonna be successful. And they've been betting against him, and he's been underestimated, but he's been doing an incredible job and the whole Middle East is different today because of the work that he's done.
Speaker 0 Maybe it's instructive to go through the mental journey that you went on from, like the talking points, the basic narratives the the very basic talking points understanding of Saudi Arabia to making that human connection with Mb and making the policy connection and it's actually possible to solve problems. Like, what was that journey like why was it so difficult to take for others? And why were you effective in being able to take that journey yourself?
Speaker 1 Maybe some of it came from my end experience? But my desire to listen and hear people. So, you know, I had this proposal. I was told that all of these things were good. Then we're trying to schedule this trip and the National Security Council calls and meeting where we're in the situation room and we have, you know, homeland security, secretary of defense, secretary state.
Speaker 1 And everyone's saying this is gonna be a disaster. If they said, you know, if we go to Saudi Arabia, the Saudi, never keep their promises, at our secretary of state at the time was a gentleman named Rex Tiller, mh.
Speaker 0 Who'd
Speaker 1 had been the Ceo of Exxon, so he dealt with all these plate people very extensively. And he basically said in my experience, the Saudi won't come through, and Jared, you don't know what you're doing, you're wasting your time. And I basically was at a point where I said, look, guys, But they're saying they wanna do all these things. Shouldn't we at least give them a chance to try to do it. Like, why do we want to predetermined their their their direction by not giving them a chance to change just because things in the past haven't gotten the way you want them to, that doesn't mean they can't go that way in the future.
Speaker 1 So we fought the battle, you know, they basically deferred and and let me go through with it. But when I do the planning meetings for the trip, nobody would show up. Because they all thought it was gonna be an absolute disaster. And by the way, they probably weren't wrong to think decks. I never planned to foreign trip before and I'd never done any foreign policy before So during the planning, I'd speak to Mb almost every day.
Speaker 1 And I'd go through all the different details and the things that would be coming up And I said, look I really need to get these things in writing. Sent over a guy Doctor Masa Ib, who's a a tremendous diplomat for them. And he came to Washington, stayed for 3 weeks, and we worked through all the different details of what we needed, and we ended up coming to an arrangement on what it should be. So, you know, I think about now in retrospect why I was so focused on getting things like this done and why I I even believed that they could be possible, but the answer is this really the people I was talking to on the other end we're telling me that these things were possible. And so just because they hadn't been done before, and just because others around me didn't believe that they could be done, I wasn't willing
Speaker 0 to just say, well, let's not try. It just seems like that cy that takes over is paralyzing. And you suddenly me a great essay from from Paul graham. I'm a big fan of. The I think explains a lot of your success that essays called how to do great work and people should go definitely read the full essay.
Speaker 0 There's a few things I could read from it. Some quotes. Having new ideas is a strange game because it usually consists of seeing things that were right under your nose. Once you've seen a new idea, it tends to seem obvious. Why did no 1 think of this before?
Speaker 0 Seeing something obvious sounds easy and yet empirical having new ideas as? Hard. And like, the steps you took seem trivial. And yet, nobody was taking them or at least in the past that 1 successful So the successes you've had were as simple as essentially picking up the phone or trying.
Speaker 1 Mh.
Speaker 0 There's a lot of interesting things here to talk about this aspect of doing this seemingly simple that seems to be so hard to do. It as Paul describes, requires a willingness to break rules. There are 2 ways to be comfortable breaking rules. To enjoy breaking them and to being indifferent to them. It's an interesting distinction.
Speaker 0 I call these 2 cases being aggressively and passively independent minded. So again, that's to enjoy breaking the rules are being different to the rules. The aggressively independent minded are the naughty ones. Rules don't nearly fail to stop them. Breaking rules gives them additional energy for this sort of person delight at the share of audacity of a project sometimes supplies enough activation energy to get it started.
Speaker 0 The other way to break the rules is not to care about them at all or perhaps even to know they exist, This is why novice and outsiders often make new discoveries. Their ignorance of a field, ignorance may be in quotes. Of feels assumptions act as a source of temporary passive independent mind ness. Asp also seem to have kind of immunity to conventional beliefs, several, I know say that this helps them to have new ideas. So the aggressive and the passive.
Speaker 0 Is such an interesting way of looking at it. Perhaps some aspect of this at least in the story you told us some passive aspect where you're like, not even acknowledging, not even caring that there was rules just kinda asking the simple question and taking the simple action.
Speaker 1 I think that it's my... That that was an Sa read, and we're doing just a snippet of it, but I encourage anyone listening to go and find it and read the entire thing because it's something that really spoke to me as I was transitioning into my new career now. And I just loved it. But when we were talking about why certain people who don't have traditional qualifications are able to come in and do incredible work and solve complex problems. It made me think of that essay, which is why Shared it.
Speaker 1 And I I think that in the context of the work that I was doing here perhaps not having the historical context became an advantage. And obviously, went back and then tried to study it, but You know if you go into a problem, I always find that especially in the political realm, my favorite political issues are ones where they're contra by being obvious. And, you know, sometimes they feel very intuitive. And so you take them on, there's always a lot of resistance when you go again something that's been accepted. As the way that you're supposed to do things, and I came to learn over the course of my time and government that when...
Speaker 1 Everyone was agreeing with what I was doing than it actually made me more nervous. Because I felt like you have these problems. They haven't been solved for a long time. And then if you take the same approach as others, you're gonna fail just like they did. So taking a different approach doesn't mean you're gonna succeed, but at least if you fail, you're gonna fail in an original way.
Speaker 1 And so I I did like this a lot. And I I think that you know what I saw was the people who were very good at getting things done that hadn't been done before were people who came with different qualifications, different perspectives, and they came in and and really work the problem in traditional ways. And so I think in Middle East, I came in with a very different approach than people before me not because I came in deliberately trying to do it differently. But because I came in trying to listen and understand from people, why the problem, hadn't been solved and then think from a first principles perspective on what's the right perspective today, not based on what happened 50 years ago, we're not based on what somebody's feelings who were hurt, But what's the right thing to make people's lives better to make the world safer and and and more prosperous place tomorrow.
Speaker 0 So if we can go back to Mps for a little bit. From the person to the vision, there's something called Vision 20 30, about his vision for Saudi Arabia in the future. Can you maybe look from his perspective, what is his vision for the region Sure.
Speaker 1 So, you know, it's funny. We were talking before about how, you know, we wish leaders would set big audacious goals and take on big things. Well... That's what he did with Vision 2030. You know, When he was young, and again, this is something that was der delighted and a lot of people were very skeptical of it.
Speaker 1 But the people actually, you know, picked up and Reddit said this is a very thoughtful plan that's very achievable. So he studied this country and said, what's our place. In the world, what are our advantages, what are our disadvantages? And then he set publicly kpis that he wanted to hold his country to and then put place plans and committees and really worked hard to push things in that direction, which is pretty remarkable. I think that it's something when I saw it, I thought it was very refreshing.
Speaker 1 I said, wait, in America, why don't we have, you know, set goals. Why don't we have Kpis? And I do think that it's something that most countries if not all countries should have. Right? 1 of my favorite quotes was from the Allison Wonderland where the the C cat says, if you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter which path you take.
Speaker 1 And so I think that that's something that really helped set them on a good path and they've been very successful with it. 1 of the things he told me about putting that together was he said, you know, my father's generation, they created this country from almost nothing. They came here. They were a poor country. They were bed in the desert, And then they look back and see what they've done over 50 years and they say it's absolutely remarkable.
Speaker 1 He said his generation, they come in and they say we're very grateful for everything that's been done to today. But we have so much opportunity that we're not taking advantage of. And so, you know, he's now empowered the next generation to be ambitious and think big and grow with it. What that means for his vision for the Middle East is that, you know, the the general architecture that should exist. And now there's excitement in the discussions with Israel that have advanced was the general view of what we thought from a Trump perspective should be the New Middle East is having an economic and security court corridor all the way from Hyphen to Moose Scott from Oman to Israel, where basically you go through.
Speaker 1 And if you can create a security area, where people can live, you know, free of fear of of terrorism and of conflict. The Middle East for the last 20 years has been a sink hole for for for for arms for death, terrorism. It's been, you know, awful. It's been a big national security threat for America, a big place where our, you know, our treasurer is gone. We've had a lot of our our young amazing American soldiers killed in in action there and and the same thing for the Arab countries as well.
Speaker 1 So if we can create a a security architecture for that region, and then we can create economic integration between all the different countries. Mean the amount of innovation happening in Israel is unbelievable. Think of it like Silicon Valley not connected to the rest of California. Give a very young population, a very digital savvy population. You have a lot of resources, And so if you can get that whole set, the potential for it is unbelievable.
Speaker 1 I I do think that that's his ultimate vision is to become. A really strong country economically and then to become a place where you could be funding advancements in science, advancements and humanity, advancements in artificial intelligence, and and think about ways to be a positive influence in the world.
Speaker 0 So a difficult question. 1... Big source of tension In the United States Saudi is the case of Jamal K. I was wondering if you can comment on what Mb has said about it to you? You spoken to him about it and what Mb has said about it publicly in 60 minutes and after.
Speaker 1 Yeah. So what he said to me was was no different than what he ultimately said on 60 minutes, which was, you know, as as as somebody helping lead this country. Ib bear responsibility, and and I'm gonna make sure that those who were involved or brought to justice. And gonna make sure that that we put in place reforms to make sure things like this don't happen again. It was a horrible situation that occurred.
Speaker 1 What I saw from him after that was just a a doubling and a tripling down on on the positive things he was doing. Figure out ways to kinda continue to modernize his society build opportunity in in in the kingdom and to continue to be a better ally to all the different countries that wanted to be aligned with them
Speaker 0 1 thing I learned from this case is how 1 particular situation, a tragedy. Can destroy so much progress in the possibility of progress and and the possibility of connection between the bridges that are built between different nations. Mh. And how narratives around that can take off and take such a long time to repair. And you've worked with this in the Middle East with Israel and so on, How the history, the the narrative, the stories, they they kinda have this momentum, that's so hard to break.
Speaker 0 Even when you have new leaders, new blood, new, new ideas that come in. And it it's just sad to see that, yes, this tragedy happens. But it doesn't mean that you can't make progress. I don't know if you have kinda lessons from that, just how much of a dramatic impact it had on creating tension between the United States and Saudi in in general, in the Middle East, like the... That somehow is not a friend, but is against the ideals and the values of the United States.
Speaker 1 So it it definitely created massive tension, and it became a very high profile action that actually overshadowed a lot of the good work. That was being done in the region and a lot of the progress we were making. But when you think about this or you think about the other issues that we've gone through today, I think the general framework that I always try to approach things with is you can't change what happened yesterday, you can only learn from it. And then you can change how you deal with tomorrow. And when I think about, you know, the people in power, what do I hope that they're spending their time focused on?
Speaker 1 Number... 2 basic things. Number 1 is how do I create, you know, safety and security for for my people. And... And for for the world, and then how do I give people the opportunity to live a better life?
Speaker 1 And so when things like this happen, obviously, and you know, there are certain reactions that are appropriate. But ultimately, you have to think through how do you not allow the paradigm that you're creating in the world, to lead to worse outcomes than would happen otherwise. And so when I would think about foreign policy in general, 1 of the differences between foreign policy and business is that in business, the conclusion of a problem set, you finish a deal, you either have, you know, a company or a property or if you sell it, you have, you know, less to do and and and more capital, hopefully, if it's successful. Right? In a political deal, it's always about paradigm.
Speaker 1 So the end of a problem set is always the beginning of a new paradigm, and you're always thinking through how do you create an environment that leads to hopefully the best amount of positive outcomes that could occur versus creating a paradigm that will lead to negative outcomes. So, you know, bad things happen, you know, a lot in the world, and you have to make sure that when those happen, you know, people are held accountable for it but you also don't wanna make sure that in the process of making sure that there's accountability for these actions, you don't set a lot of progress that the world is making back that will lead to worse off situation for many more people.
Speaker 0 If we can go back to the incredible work with Accord in Israel and the Middle East, First, a big question about peace. Why is it so difficult to achieve peace in this part of the world? Between Israel and Palestine and between Israel and the other countries in the Middle East or any sort of peace like agreements
Speaker 1 if I had give you the most simple answer, I would say that it's structural. And if you go back to the incentive structure of different leaders, this whole piece process between Israel and and the Palestinians. And again, I've gotten criticized for saying this, but it's what I believe. So I'm gonna say it is that the incentive structure was all wrong. And when I went before, the United Nations Security Council to discuss the peace plan that I proposed, which again was more of an operational plan and it's was a pragmatic plan.
Speaker 1 It was over a hundred 80 pages in detail and... In politics, people don't like putting forward detail, because it just gives a lot of places for you to get criticized on. Nobody actually criticized the detail of my plan. They just criticized the fact that it was coming from us and didn't want to debate the merits of the operational piece of it. So I created a slide where I showed from the Oslo accord till the day I was there, all the different piece discussions.
Speaker 1 I put a dove in the slide for those. And then I put a tank for every time there was a work. So there was always ski between Hamas and and hezbollah Milan and and the Palestinians. And then I showed 2 lines and they both went from... The bottom of the page all the way up like this.
Speaker 1 1 of the lines was Israeli settlements. So every time the a negotiation failed Israel was able to get more land. And every... And then the other 1 was money to the Palestinians. And I said every time a negotiation failed, the Palestinians would get more money.
Speaker 1 The problem with that money though was that it wasn't going to the people, you know, a lot of some of it would make its way down, but most of it was going to the politicians. You had leadership of the Palestinians who was basically, I think at that point it's was in, like the sixteenth year of a 4 year term. So it wasn't democratic elected. And a lot of what I tried to show was that There was no rule of law. There was no judicial system.
Speaker 1 There were no property rights, and there was no opportunity or hope for the people to live a better life. And so all of the envoy to date, were basically trained to go and do the same things. And I again, I got massively criticized by all the previous envoy for not doing it the same way they did. But I thought the problem structurally just didn't make sense. And so I felt like the incentive structure was all wrong, and I took a different approach.
Speaker 0 And so what's what's the different approach?
Speaker 1 I started writing down a document. These are the, you know, 11 issues, but there's really only 3 issues that matter. I said, just tell me what you think the compromises that you think the other side could live with that you would accept. And it was very hard to get them talking about this. Oh, you have to go back to 19 72.
Speaker 1 You have go back to 19 82. You have to go back to 2001, you have go to. I was just like I don't need a headache and I don't need a history lesson. Just I want a very simple thing here today in 2017, what's the outcome that you would accept? And and I was dealing with their their their negotiators, they're back channel, secret negotiators, they're double secret and I was, like, this whole thing is, like, it's a process created where nobody wants to talk about the actual solution.
Speaker 1 So coming from the business world. I said, okay, Let me just write down a proposed solution that I think is fair. And let me have each side react. Like, don't tell me about theoretical things. Like tell me I wanna move the line from here to here.
Speaker 1 I wanna change this word. So I I tried to make it much more tactical. And what I realized was, like, The Palestinians, they'd worked so hard to get the air world to stay with the line of the peace initiative. And so I went back and I read the Earpiece initiative. It was 10 lines and it didn't have any details.
Speaker 1 So it was a concept. And so they liked that concept because it allowed them to reject everything. They kept getting more money. I mean bib Netanyahu runs 1 of the most incredible economies in the world who runs an incredible superpower. Mil military for the size of of their country.
Speaker 1 He would fly to Washington to meet us, and he'd be taking a commercial l la plane.
Speaker 0 Mh.
Speaker 1 A boss who runs a refugee organization, a refugee group. Right? That claims that they don't have a state that gets billions of dollars in 8 year 8 every year of the global community would fly in a 60000000 dollar Boeing Bb j. So the whole thing was just very corrupt and off. And I do think that that's why it I don't think people were incentivized to solve it to be honest.
Speaker 1 What do you
Speaker 0 think an actual plan on that part, if you can just before we talk about it Abraham accord. If there is a peace plan that works between israel and palestine that. What is it... What do you think it looks like?
Speaker 1 You have to separate it into 2 different issues. And I think that that's actually how we came to the Abraham accord is that, you know, IIII was... I tell the story in the book, and it was 1 of my like, favorite experiences well during my time in diplomacy where I went to meet with Sol Ka, who was the sultan of Oman. And we fly out there because he'd had a a secret meeting with b. And I thought maybe he was open to normalizing israel.
Speaker 1 So after he meets with b, he calls me as I want you to come see me. So I go over to see him. And again, I tell the story, it was a crazy you know, night in all these different areas. But when I was talking to him, see He basically says to me, I feel badly for the Palestinian people that they carry with them the burden of the Muslim world. And that line just, like stuck with me?
Speaker 1 And a couple days later, I was thinking about it, and I said, wait a minute. Who elected the Palestinian people to represent the Muslim World on the El mosque. And so the reason why I felt like it had never been solved was it was a riddle a that I believed wasn't designed to not be solve. But b, you were con conflicting 2 separate issues. You had the issue between Israel and and the Muslim World, which really was the issue of the mosque.
Speaker 1 And then you had just a territorial dispute, which throughout history, you have lots of territorial disputes, and they're usually resolved in different ways. So... If you go back to the Israeli Palestinian issue, there's just a couple components you need to solve. Number 1 is territorial right you need to figure out where do you draw the lines and that's something that, you know, you can talk about what people were owed 70 years ago, but it's much more productive to say this is what you can make work today. Right?
Speaker 1 And that's kind of what we did. I we literally spent months and months. Drawing a map and we put something out. Probably change a couple lines here and there. But by and large, it was a very pragmatic solution that I think it could work.
Speaker 1 And I think it could work for the safety and security of Israel, which was number 1. So first issue is drawing a map. Second issue is security, again Israel And again, this is 1 issue we were incredibly sympathetic with Israel which is, you can expect, you know, a prime minister of israel to make a deal where he's gonna make his people less cure them before. So we worked very closely with them on a security apparatus. We laid something out that I think would keep the whole area safer, and it would it would make sure Israel was safe and also keep Palestinian issues safe.
Speaker 1 She needs security. Number 3 was the religious sites. And that was 1 that was actually always made much more complicated by people Palestinian the El Mosque because you basically have Ram S, which is the place where the Mosque was built in the seventh eighth century. But originally, it was where the the holy of H were in the Beta Mig dash for the Jewish people. So...
Speaker 1 And then, you know, compounding by the fact that you have all the Christian Holy sites in Jerusalem. It's a city that should be bringing everyone together. But in fact, has become a place where you have, you know, wars and and and and and hatred and a lot of different conflicts that I've risen because of it. But what I said was instead of fighting over concepts of sovereignty, which is interesting how I got to the notion that this wasn't really the big issue. I basically just operationally.
Speaker 1 Why don't we just make it simple, let everyone come and be able to worship as long as they're being able to worship peacefully. So that's really the... Contours of it. And what the Palestinians have done is they've kind of deflect from a lot of their own shortcomings and a lot of the arab leaders did that as well, kind of in the pre abraham accord days by kind of allowing this issue to be so prevalent. So 1 thing I'll say on the Palestinians is that, you know, what we tried to do by laying out plan was we said, okay, what are the reasons why the Palestinian people are not having the lives that they deserve.
Speaker 1 I'll give you a couple things. 1 is I studied the economies of, you know, Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Morocco, and This was, you know, numbers from like, 2019, But what was interesting was the Gdp per capita of somebody living in the West Bank. Was actually the same as Jordan, and it was actually more than somebody living in Egypt. And the death of Gdp that the Palestinians had was like, 30, 40 percent compared to Egypt, which is at like a hundred and 30 percent in Jordan, which was at a hundred and 10 percent then lebanon at 200 percent. And so know, you're in a situation where a lot of the stuff didn't make sense, but if you draw lines, create institutions where Palestinian people can...
Speaker 1 Feel like they have property rights and have ownership over their place and let the money flow past the leadership ranks, you know, to the people, let them have jobs let them have opportunity. Now and then let all Muslims from throughout the world have access to the mosque and Israel, making sure that they can control the security, which I think Jordan and a lot of others 1 is to to have strong, you know, security control there to prevent the radical and the extremist from coming, you could have peace there very easily. The
Speaker 0 So there's a lot of things to say here. 1 is just to emphasize a locks mask. So this is this holy place. And this is something in our conversations and in my own travels, I've seen the importance of sort of frictionless access to those sites from the entirety of the muslim world, and that's where Abraham of course took big leaps on. Okay.
Speaker 0 So we'll talk about that a little bit more. But that's kind of a religious component that's a dignity in the religious practice and faith component. But then the other thing you mentioned so simply, which is you have money flow past the leadership ranks. How do you have money flow past the leadership? Ranks in in Palestine.
Speaker 0 So make sure that the money that's invested and Palestine the West Bank gets to the people.
Speaker 1 So to date, all of the aid that's been given to the Palestinians has been an entitlement. It's not conditions bait It's always just... We give the money and there's no expectations. It's very simple. You make the aid conditions based, you fight for transparency.
Speaker 1 So you do it through institutions other than the Pa. Or you put reformer into the Pa that will allow it to go down that way.
Speaker 0 Pa being the positive
Speaker 1 house authority yeah.
Speaker 0 Which is the leadership.
Speaker 1 It's not hard to do. It just takes people who actually wanna do it. But I think the the the mindset of the international community has not been let's solve this problem. It's like, let's just throw a little bit of money the money's Novo mccain. Let's put a little novo mccain on the problem and let's not have to deal with it.
Speaker 1 But nobody's ever said, oh, let's do an accounting of the 20000000000 dollars we've given them and see how many jobs it's done and where it's gone. That just hasn't happened. Again, it's it's it's an incredibly corrupt organization on, You think about the post world War 2 dynamic. You had a lot of Refugees. My grandparents were Refugees post world war 2.
Speaker 1 Every other refugee class has been reset. And you only have 1 permanent refugee organization ever created it. Why was this done? It was done to perpetuate the conflict so that a lot of arab leaders could base with... Deflect from a lot of their shortcomings at home.
Speaker 1 And so I think for Israel, they view all these things as existential existential. They value their safety. They've been under attack for a long time, gl I do think having a deal where we can say how do, you know, the Jews and the Muslims Chris come together, I think King of Abdullah from Jordans, been incredible custodian for the Mosque. I think everyone in my travels recognize that he's the right guy for that that the King of Jordan should be the custodian of of the Mosque. We should have some kind of framework to make sure everyone has access, the more countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel, the more Muslims and arabs that should be able to come and and visit.
Speaker 1 And by the way, the more you have these normalization, think about what that will do to the economy of the West Bank where they'll have, you know, great hotels hospitality, tremendous tourism industry because of all the Christian Muslim and Jewish holy sites that they have there. So there's a lot of potential there. We just have to like, get un stuck. And I believe that it's so possible if the leaders wanna make, tomorrow better that they can. And unfortunately, the people who suffer the most are really are are just the Palestinian people.
Speaker 1 And I think that, you know, in Gaza are their hostages to to Hamas and and in the West Bank, they're just they're just held back because their leadership just is afraid or or or too self interested to give them the opportunity to change their paradigm, and pursue the potential of what they have. And by the way, it's an incredibly well educated population. It's it's an incredibly capable population and the right next to Israel where the economy, they need everything. And so the potential should be incredible if you can just move some of these pieces. But I began there's still a lot of emotion and you have to work through as well.
Speaker 1 But I do believe that you're not gonna solve that by lit the past. You're only gonna solve that by creating an exciting paradigm for the future and getting everyone to buy in and then move towards that.
Speaker 0 And maybe increase a chance of being able to establish an economy where the entrepreneurs can flourish in West Bank and
Speaker 1 so on in Palestine. Once the the relationship across their world is normalized. So so 1 thing on that, which is very interesting is when I got into my job and in in in the Middle East, all of the conventional thinkers said to me the separation in the Muslim world is between the scene Sun and the she is. And that's really the big divide. Now And as I was traveling, I didn't think there was any divide in that regard.
Speaker 1 The divide that I saw was between leaders who wanted to... Give a better opportunity for their people and create economic reforms and opportunity and leaders who wanted to use religion or fear, to keep their stronghold on power. And so if you think about who's not creating the opportunity for their people, is the Palestinian leadership and the Iranian leadership. All the other arab countries we're focused on how do we give opportunity for our people to live a better life.
Speaker 0 And there is a... Big foundation on which that framework can succeed, which I think is the in general, the idea of arab early normalization. So that's where Abraham accord come in. Can you tell the story of that
Speaker 1 sure. So it's an amazing thing. And I I sit here today, you know, somebody not in government and, you know, every day I see, you know, another flight that goes between or I I see, you know, an Israeli student studying at a university in Dubai or a new Synagogue opening up in in Abu dhabi and it it just gives me such... Or Bahrain, gives me such tremendous pride to see all of the progress that's been made. How it occurred as part of why I wrote the book was to put this down for for history, sake to go through all the different intentional, unintentional, ci things that occurred.
Speaker 1 It's fine. We left government. There's a lot of people saying, this is why I... I say I was kind of at the middle of it and I couldn't even perfectly articulate why it happened because it was a... It was in evolution of a lot of things, and I joke that We made peace on plan c, but only because we went through the alphabet 3 times failing at every letter, And by the time, but we didn't give up.
Speaker 1 We kept going and we
Speaker 0 got it done. And maybe this a a good place to also step back and say, what is Air is really normalization? What is the state of things for people who may not be aware before the progress you made?
Speaker 1 That's probably the best place to start. So what we did is we we made a piece deal between Israel and United Arab Emirates, and then Israel and Bahrain, then we did a deal with Israel and Sudan, then Israel and Kosovo, Israel, Morocco, where basically countries that didn't recognize each other before, ended up each other, bill all of these were muslim majority countries and getting them to integrate with Israel was a very big thing. The traditional thinking had always been was that Muslim Arab countries would not make peace with Israel until the the Israeli palestinian knee an issue was solved. And what we were able to do is separate the issues and then make these make these connections, which are leading to amazing interaction between Jews and Muslims. So when I think about kind of obviously, you have national security, you have emotional benefits from these things, but the single biggest benefit that I've seen, from the accord is that if you were an arab or Muslim and you were and you were willing to say positive things about Israel or the Jews before this came out, you had been vicious attacked by the media or the ports of influencers or the extremist in these different countries.
Speaker 1 What this did was it brought out into the public, the fact that Jews and Muslims can be together, and they can be respectful, they can have meals together and that the cultures can live together in peace. So just
Speaker 0 to link on this, it's it's like 1 subtle and and in another sense, like, transformative. So normalization means you're allowed to travel for and place together. That has a kinda ripple effect of that you can now start talking in a little bit more accepting way. You can start integrating traveling, communicating, doing business with, socializing, so the cultures, mix, conversations, mix, all of this. And this kinda has a ripple effect on the basic connection between these previously disparate worlds.
Speaker 0 I don't know if there's a a nice way to kinda make clear why these agreements have such a transformative effect. Especially in the long term.
Speaker 1 I would say the simplest form is it's just a mindset. And it's almost like you're taught all your life, where enemies or we can't be friends with that tribe on the other side of the fence. And then, like, 1 day the leaders get up and say, no, It's okay now. And there was never an issue between the people. The people were just taught different things and they were separated from each other.
Speaker 1 But again, 1 of the things that I respect about the work you do is you believe in the power of conversation and the power of human interaction and, you know, these issues and and gaps between us, feel so big when we think about them when we're told about them when we read about them. But when we go and sit with each other, All of a sudden we realized, maybe we have a lot more in common than we have that divides us. For me, what I've seen about it that's made the biggest difference is I've seen... People who wouldn't have the ability to be together, be together. And that's now forming a nucleus of together ness, which is a restoration.
Speaker 1 So you think about the modern Middle East from from post holocaust cost to now, again, in 19 48 after the that war of independence, you had Jews living in baghdad and Cairo, then they became so anti Jewish. That they then expelled all of the Jews from all these capitals of the city. So you think about the Jewish history in baghdad. Mean, I think the Tal was written in baghdad, it was a place where in in Babylon, where the Jewish people thrived. I think in 5 70 Bc c when Nets.
Speaker 1 I mean conquered Jerusalem, he took about 10000 jews back with him to Babylon because he thought it'd be good for economy. And during that that that place, the Jews actually flourished and had a good life there. So for thousand years before the second world war, the Jews and the Muslims, lived very peacefully together. So people say that what we're doing now is is an abe operation. I actually think it's not separation.
Speaker 1 I think it's actually a return to the time where people can live together culturally. And so this is the beginning of the end of the arab is israeli conflict, and it's the beginning of together ness which, again, you think about how much war, how much provocation, how much terrorism has been made in the name of of of religious conflict, This is I think the start of the process of religious respect and understanding.
Speaker 0 We've talked about you being attacked in the press for the Russian collusion and other topics. 1 of the most recent set of attacks comes in the topic of Saudi public investment fund giving 2000000000 dollars to your investment firm after you left government. So that includes a 1.25 percent asset management fee of 25000000 dollars a year Can you respond to these recent set of attacks?
Speaker 1 Sure. So left government obviously, worked for 4 years? I you know, it's a very action packed time. That's why I wrote the book. I wanted to put down all those experiences.
Speaker 1 I started thinking, like, what do I wanna do next? Right? So my previous career, I'd been in real estate, I I'd had worked with my brother on some technology businesses that I had started. And then I got to government. So I kinda had a career shift, right?
Speaker 1 In my previous career, obviously was very successful. The New York Times they violated and they published my financial my financial statements. They showed I making about 50000000 dollars a year. In the private sector before I went to government. I went to government, and I, you know, I volunteered, I didn't take a salary.
Speaker 1 I I paid my own health insurance for 4 years, My wife and I, And then we went, and I was thinking I go back to my old company or should I start something new? And my thinking was is that I'd... Through my time in government, I'd met so many people. I'd learned so much about the world. I I had a big understanding now for how the macroeconomic picture worked, and I did feel like there's a lot more that I could do than just going back to real estate.
Speaker 1 In the meantime, I was getting a lot of calls from different Ceos and companies saying, you know, can you help me with this company? You help me with that company? Your knowledge could be helpful to help this company navigate this challenge or to expand internationally. And so I said, you know what? Maybe I should create a business to do an investment firm where I can do something different.
Speaker 1 Where I'm putting together... Geopolitical expertise and traditional private equity and growth investing and figure out how to do that where I can do something differentiated, I can invest in in growing things and help with my navigation skills and relationships. So that was kind of the thesis of what I thought could make sense as kind of a next step. I I called, you know, different friends. They were very excited to to back the effort.
Speaker 1 Obviously, this was coming off the success that I just had in the middle East I did, you know, 6 piece deals there. And, you know, 1 of the notions I want to be able to do with the firm was to be able to take money from the gulf and then to be able to invest in Israel to continue to build the economic links between the countries. Again, if countries have more economic ties, I think war and fighting is is is less likely. And then in addition to that, I wanted to figure out how do you bring the entrepreneurs together from both of those countries? So that was really the mission of what I set out to do.
Speaker 1 So far, I've been enjoying it. It's been a lot of fun. I've I've been learning a ton. I think we're doing very well with it. In terms of the criticisms, I think that I've been criticized in every step of everything I've always done in my life.
Speaker 1 And so What I would say is, you know, this business is actually an objective metric business, right? It's about returns. So, you know, in 3, 4 years from now, 5 years from now, see how I do. Hopefully, I'll do very well and judge me based on that. In terms of any of the nefarious things, you know, I haven't been accused of any of of of violating any laws.
Speaker 1 And, you know, I haven't violated any of the ethics rules either. When I was in government, I I... Every year submitted all my financial to the office of government ethics. They certified it every year. And I followed every rule in every law possible.
Speaker 1 So so to my critics, I'll say criticized me before, you'll criticized me now. So I'm gonna keep doing me and gonna keep pursuing things that I think are worthwhile, and I'm very excited about this chapter of my career.
Speaker 0 Maybe this is a good place to ask. And working closely with Donald Trump, what in your sense looking into the mind of of the man, what's the biggest strength of of Donald Trump was a leader?
Speaker 1 I would say his unpredictability. I think that as a leader, he's... He consumes a ton of information. He doesn't like to be managed or have his information filtered. So he'll speak to a lot of people to draw his information himself.
Speaker 1 He's very pragmatic. I don't see him as terribly ideological. I see him as somebody who's... So about results. I think he wants to deliver results.
Speaker 1 And I think ultimately, I mean, he... He's an incredible fighter. He's he's a big counter punch. But he also wants to get along with people. And that's probably the biggest surprise that people found with him.
Speaker 1 I mean, you know, you look at even situations like... I would always tell people, if you disagree with him, don't go on television and criticize him, just pick up the phone and call him. You and go see him. And he'll talk to you about it. He may not agree with you.
Speaker 1 But again, that's what Kim Card kardashian did when she had a case of Cl c with a woman Alice Johnson that she felt strongly about... We went through the case. I wouldn't have had her call if I didn't think it was a legitimate case, so we spent about 8 months quietly, working through the case, working through the details. To make sure that it really was a worthy case. I brought to the president Trump said, you know, she'd like to come meet with you to to talk about this case.
Speaker 1 And he said, Para, So she came in. We went through the case and President Trump ultimately granted the Cl to Alice Johnson who was a a woman who was accused of. Being part of a a drug ring. She had a basically a life sentence for doing it. She'd served 22 years in prison.
Speaker 1 While in prison, she's basically was a grandmother and she She was, you know, putting on the prison place. She was mentoring, you know, young women in prison, somebody who... Again, there's always a risk, but by and large had a very, very, very low risk of of committing a crime in the future. And then it goes back to the notion of, are we gonna judge people by the worst decision they make in their life. And so president Trump was willing to grant the climate senior end.
Speaker 1 And I think that it just goes to the notion of, like, Maybe this goes back to his unpredictability in a positive way, which is if you go sit with him and you make your case, he'll hear you. He'll listen to you. And he's not afraid to act and he's not afraid to be controversial, which I think is a good thing. So from a foreign policy point of view, in particular, his unpredictability just meant that everyone was always on their back foot, People were afraid to kinda cross America. And what I would tell people who don't like Trump is as I would say, think about how crazy is making you and and his enemies, you know, he did that to the enemies of America.
Speaker 1 And and, yeah. So he was a very, very strong president and I think did a a great job.
Speaker 0 So in some of these agreements Been talking about. And and speaking with leaders, how do you think the unpredictability helps?
Speaker 1 So in all the agreements that I was negotiating I wasn't doing it as a principle. I was doing it on behalf of president Trump. And people knew that I'd access to president Trump and they knew that you know, I could say, you may say this that we don't like, but I'm gonna have to take it back to him and then we'll see what he does. And 1 of the biggest instances was on the Us mca trade deal where That deal happened because Mexico was legitimately concerned and smartly so that president Trump was going to impose tariffs. On the car industry, which would have been d to their economy.
Speaker 1 And by the way, he was ready to do it, We were holding him back from doing it with every ounce of strength that we could, So it wasn't a bluff. I mean, that what was actually real, but they were smart to read that it was real. And ultimately, we created a great win win deal. Tell you a funny story. Just popped into my mind from from the tariffs We did also we used a a 02:32 national Security exemption to protect our steel industry and we put tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Speaker 1 And again, I I thought about this because we also negotiated them with Canada, and there's a very funny phone call where Trudeau is calling Trump. And again, they got along, you know, decently well. And Trudeau calling saying, you can't put national security tariffs on us in Canada. You know, we're we're we're your nato ally, if we fought wars with you. We do military together.
Speaker 1 And Trump says him. Didn't you burn the white House down in 18 12. And Tristan said, that was the French? No. Was the canadians.
Speaker 1 And so It was just deal. Like I said, he's always keeping everyone on their toes. Yeah. And... But he was he he he he wasn't a...
Speaker 1 He took very calculated risks, and Like I said, you know, everyone was outraged all the time with everything. But if you look at his body of work, People said if he was elected, he would start World War 3. Meanwhile, we inherited a world filled with wars, no new wars. Right? 3 years.
Speaker 1 He made peace deals. No new wars. He was tough. He was strong. People respected him.
Speaker 1 He built relationships and got trade deals done. Got peace deals done. The economy was rocking. His body work, I think was pretty strong as president.
Speaker 0 Like you said, no new wars. This makes me think if Donald Trump won the presidency what did... Current situation Ukraine would look like. But let me just ask you Zoom out and ask you broadly, the Do you think the war you ukraine could have been avoided? And what do you think it takes to bring it to an end?
Speaker 1 But I think a hundred percent it would have been avoided. Not 99 percent. You know, president Trump for 4 years had no problems with Russia. You know, we were we were arming Ukraine, but we were working with russia. And again, the first 2 years, we had a little bit of issue working with Russia because they were accused of c concluding with us since we had to go through that investigation.
Speaker 1 But but in the second 2 years, we were trying to focus Russia on what are the areas or we can collaborate together. I think Russia, you know, we thought it was in their strategic advantage to play Us and China against each other. Because of the way that everything was done before. They were stuck with China, but not getting a lot for it. Under Bush, they took Georgia under Obama, they took Crimea, under Trump, there was no problems.
Speaker 1 And then under Biden, unfortunately, I think they mis misspelled a couple of things, which I think provoked under you know, Russia to to go forward. Still no excuse to do what they did. I think that the invasion was a terrible thing and and should not have occurred. But with that being said, I think a hundred percent if Trump was president, there would not be a war in Ukraine today.
Speaker 0 Coming to the table, and negotiating a peace. Whether it's Donald Trump, whether it's biden and whether it's anybody, what do you think it takes? Do you think it's possible? And if you're in a room, if Jared Kushner is in the room, vladimir putin and vol Z. What does it take to have a productive conversation and What does it take for that conversation to fail?
Speaker 0 Like, what are the trajectories that lead to success and failure?
Speaker 1 I think we go back to negotiations. Number 1 is trust. Right? Both leaders have to have the ability to communicate what an off ramp is without fearing it's gonna lead to the public. So if you go to the posture of Z right now.
Speaker 1 And by the way, President Z, I have a lot of respect for the courage he showed, especially initially. You know, you saw what Gh did in Afghanistan. They they were getting attacked by the Taliban. He took the cash and got the hell out of there. Staying, in Kiev, when he did, how he did, it was 1 of the most brave things we've seen in a long time.
Speaker 1 Mh. And he has a ton of my respect, an admiration for doing that. But now he's promising his people. We're gonna win the war. And the military action has not necessarily...
Speaker 1 Coincided with that sentiment. And so there has to be some form of of off ramp, but he can't say that publicly. So for him to be able to work, privately with somebody who can help create a new paradigm where both leaders can say, we're gonna stop the bloodshed. We're gonna stop the risk of nuclear war for the world. We're gonna stop what's happening.
Speaker 1 That's really what it will take. How that occurs. Again, it's not something I'm involved in now, so I don't know who the right broker is or how to put that together. But essentially they need somebody in between them, who can figure out how do you create a landing zone, that that works because neither party's gonna jump until the pool is filled with water. And you have to outline what the go forward looks like because you can't just stop it for them to get worse for both parties.
Speaker 1 You have to you have to move it forward into what happens next. That hopefully, can start to turn the tide to benefit both sides where they can focus on the future instead of being stuck into the old paradigm of who started what, Who's to blame for what, Who did what to who? It's just a lot of tough stuff now that that's occurred. That's gonna be hard to walk back. And it's a big task to get it done.
Speaker 1 But for the sake of the world, it'd be amazing if we're able to reach a conclusion. To that conflict.
Speaker 0 Just going back to the your earlier mention of North Korea, what do you think it takes to bring Vladimir putin then von lance you to the table together leadership. So you... You're saying like, it has to be a Us president. Keep
Speaker 1 it has to be somebody who's willing to put themselves on the line. Yeah. To go and do it. And, you know, again, if you're the Us president and you're the most powerful nation in the world, you should be trying.
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 But I do think again, the posture that the Has taken has probably been a place where they it'd be very hard for to get the trust of Russia based on the way that they've played their moves to date. And I always thought from the beginning that Putin would try to bring in president Xi in China to resolve it to basically give a big screw you to America to say, you know, China is now the 1, you know, in charge of this, but that hasn't seemed to manifest itself to date ether, but it takes leadership. You know, the leaders have to get it and say, you know, let's get everyone together and let's try to get this done because every day it goes wrong, a, more people are dying, and b, you know, we do risk, nuclear war for the world, which is not a good situation.
Speaker 0 Let me ask since you help set up phone calls between Donald Trump Putin and King Saudi Arabia. If I were to interview Putin, what advice would you give on how to get a deep understanding of the human being.
Speaker 1 Yeah. So I didn't deal with Russia ton, but in my interaction with with Putin and with Russia, You know, I I would kind point out a couple of things. Number 1 is when America was hit with Covid and New York was looking like we were gonna run out of ventilators and masks. Russia was the second country that sent us a plain load of supplies. And they didn't send that because they hate America, they sent that because We were starting to make progress together as countries and they thought that they wanted to show goodwill to figure out how can we start.
Speaker 1 Working together. And again, people may attack me for saying that that sounds naive. Again, the past, you know, 15 years may show that that's not the case, but I don't believe that countries have permanent and I don't believe countries have permanent allies. Right? Again, you think about the Us and Russia, and World War 2, we work together to to defeat the Nazis.
Speaker 1 Right? And now we're great allies with Germany, who basically was you, our great enemy in in World War 2. We're great allies with Japan, who was our great enemy in World War 2. So it goes back to the notion we discussed earlier of, you shouldn't condemn tomorrow to be like yesterday if you're unhappy with yesterday. So So number 1, is I would definitely ask him about that.
Speaker 1 The phone call that you mentioned was after we did a pretty intense negotiation. To create the largest oil cut in the history of of oil production. So during Covid, demand just shut off like crazy. And it was it was stopping very quickly Saudi and Russia at that time, we're having a conflict they created this thing called Opec Plus, which goes back again, history between the 2 countries where they had conflicts and then all of a sudden, they were working together to try to stabilize the oil markets. But they couldn't agree on the Cuts of Saudi, actually increased production.
Speaker 1 So you had 2 things hitting at once where saudi and Russia were both increasing production and demand was dropping. So you were headed for a real crisis, and Was starting to get calls from a lot of the oil industry executives here in America saying, you don't understand we can't just like flip a switch and turn off our oil wells. Like we're running out of storage here. And And I said, look, president Trump likes low oil prices. So he's not upset about what's happening, you have to call him and if he gives me permission or the instruction, then I can try to intervene.
Speaker 1 But... But right now he's not inclined intervene. After a little bit, he said, you know, it's time, get involved, could do it, It was right over passover. This is during Covid. I spent 3 days, nonstop on the phone with K From Russia and with with Mb directly, and I was dealing with Dan Be, who's our energy minister, you know, going back and forth and it was like, it was crazy it was just 1 of the craziest negotiations.
Speaker 1 We ended up agreeing on the largest oil cut in history of the world, but the story you before, which was pretty funny was... I finally make the deal, and we set up a call between Kin salman, Vladimir Putin and president Trump to announce the deal. And Like god this is great. So president Trump us, congratulations. We have a deal and then Kin Must, we don't have a deal.
Speaker 1 Mexico hasn't agreed to their cuts. Saying, what do you mean? So they were part of the Opec plus. And so I get a note saying, you gotta go call Mexico, so I'm calling Mexico You like, They're saying, we're not doing any cuts. So why is it, we're hedge to 55 dollars.
Speaker 1 Said, why do you tell at the beginning? So I'm telling the saudi right? So we are working through this whole thing. So meanwhile, we were trying to find the compromise with Mexico. I set up a call with with Trump and Imp they can kinda talk this through.
Speaker 1 And he was always trying to play the game of how do we get Russia away from China. He always thought that that was not the right strategic framework for Us interests. And again, we had no problems with them during that time. What I would say is that for Z Putin, any conversation with both of them is about understanding their perspective. I think with Putin, he's a a student of history from the things that I I saw with him.
Speaker 1 If you look at Russia over the last 500 years, I think they were attacked by the Polish in early 1600, I think they were attacked by the swedes and in the 17 hundreds, I think they were attacked by Napoleon, in the 18 hundreds and then in the 19 hundreds, they were attacked by Germany twice. And so from his perspective, there is, you know, in the early days of Russia, they were attacked by the mongols, They were very vulnerable in a lot of the geography of Russia today is really designed for defensive purposes that they have natural barriers that makes them easier to And Russia's is a massive lamb mass. It's twice a size of America, they have 11 time zones in the country. And so I do think that for for Vladimir Putin, his biggest concern is how do we create a security paradigm in the west of his country, that won't be a creep. And I think that there's like, 2 different parts of the mindset.
Speaker 1 You know, the people who are most cynical Putin will say, well, he's just trying to recreate the Ussr. He's being expansion is, and the people wanna be sympathetic to him will say, well, if you think about it, the Russian perception of the nato, arrangement was that they wouldn't be expanding Westward over the last years. They've included all these countries that they said. They promised they wouldn't include who knows what the promises were or what or were or weren't. But what I do know from his perspective is allowing Ukraine and Nato was always a red line, and that's why we never offered it.
Speaker 1 We never provoked it. We never brought it. We said, we're gonna arm them and we basically said just just calm down, we don't want any conflicts there We have bigger issues and bigger opportunities to work for. So I do think you have to think through what's a paradigm that he can accept. And I do think that, you know, he'll give the justification for why he's done what he's done.
Speaker 1 And then I think the framework for a solution is about how do we move both parties forward? Tough job. I hope you get the opportunity to do it because I think it's a conversation that will only help the world, hopefully find a pathway forward.
Speaker 0 And I should mention... Because you mentioned geography, 1 of the 1 of the many books you've recommended to me that gives a very interesting perspective on history called prisoners of geography by Tim Marshall. And it has a very interesting perspective on the geopolitical conflicts and perspective of Russia, from a from a geography perspective. And also for China and the second chapter and there's a lot of understanding of why the expansion of Nato such a concern for Russia. Because geography still even in the 20 first century, less and less so because of technology and so on, but it still plays a major role in conflicts between nations.
Speaker 0 Rivers, mountains,
Speaker 1 and understanding the Dna of countries. It was 1 of the most phenomenal books and I I just found it on Amazon randomly. But I I loved every minute of it. The chapter on America is also incredible going through the evolution of, you know, how we became the country we are, the different acquisitions, the different changes, why we have all these geographic advantages, and it's it's an unbelievable book for anyone who's interested in geopolitics.
Speaker 0 So I have to ask on several aspects of China. First on the president, the meeting, you hope set up a first call in first meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Can you tell the story of that, because that's also interesting. Again, that first phone call, the reaching out, the the form in the human connection, which ultimately leads the connection between nations and the possibility of collaboration.
Speaker 1 So during the transition, president Trump took a call from the the head of time Taiwan wan. And that sent the Chinese into a a real tails spin. And he didn't do it, I think to be provocative to them as much as a just as a businessman. He felt to answer your call. Somebody wants to speak to.
Speaker 1 You speak to him, like you, you wanna have conversations here their point of view and it was taken as a very big consultant was against tradition and norm. And so that was something that set us off in in a wrong direction. My view at the time was that, you know, we are kind of entering AG2 world, whether people want to admit it or not. And that A lot of these countries in what I call the middle market countries. Were basically playing this when China was being aggressive with their 1 belt 1 road.
Speaker 1 They were basically playing Us and china against each other. And I thought that by the 2 leaders coming together, there were some things they wouldn't agree on, but there's was a lot that they probably could agree on, which could lead to resolutions to a lot of issues in the world. That that that was, like my most optimistic view to My my most more pragmatic view is that president Trump had very big issues on trade that he wanted to get to with China, You know, he felt, like, China. Their trade practices run fair. They weren't following all the global rules of trade.
Speaker 1 He was a little bit nervous that they would be provocative with Taiwan. And I felt like the 2 of them getting together, would be the best way to try and resolve that. So the Chinese are very proud and a lot of it is about face. And so we... In order to negotiate for that first call, we we basically agreed on what would happen in the call.
Speaker 1 So not let's just have a call say, hi, nice to meet you. Was a question of, President Trump basically agreed that he would acknowledge the 1 China policy, which he didn't see is a big concession because you could always una acknowledge it the next day. So, yeah, I acknowledge it and then we'll go and exchange, president Xi was gonna come over to the Us for a visit so they could sit together. And they want to do it outside the white House and so we agreed on Mar lag, which Also thought it was good, because President Trump always felt much more comfortable when he was hosting mh at his properties and he just felt at home, and so he liked having people as his guests and he loved. He'd loved it.
Speaker 1 He always felt really relaxed and and it was great. So that was really what we did. Then the Chinese come over, Very much anticipated visit, and it was incredible. So they were supposed to sit together for 15 minutes. And they sent about an hour and a half together.
Speaker 1 And during that meeting, President Trump, basically they said, look, let's just set some ground rules to this relationship, like let's just not talk about Taiwan. Like, you know, just don't do anything. I don't want on the table. If it does, I'm gonna have to do harsh things. Mh.
Speaker 1 I just still want this to be a problem for 4 years. We got bigger issues. They basically just... Again, you notice 4 years of Trump administration, no Taiwan talk whatsoever. It was a non issue.
Speaker 1 Started talking about the trade issues. They spent a lot of time on North Korea. President Trump was trying to get the perspective from from President Xi about North Korea because that was, again, considered from Obama, the biggest national security issue that we faced at the time. And and they just had a good feeling for each other. It also helped that you know, my wife and I, we actually had a Chinese Nanny teacher in our house and our kids learned fluent Mandarin.
Speaker 1 And our daughter actually opened when president Xi and President Trump were together with with Melania and with... That I'm paying is is My daughter actually saying them a couple chinese songs. And and I thought that was a nice way to show. You know, we're tough, but we respect your culture. The Chinese have an incredible culture that goes back thousands of years.
Speaker 1 They're very proud in how and how they do it. And I think that sign of respect also set things off in a very warm. Because way for press jump say, my granddaughter speaks Chinese and and we're showing you the respect, which I think is very important and he did have respect for them. The next part about the visit. I mean, obviously we had a lot of discussions on trade, but the part that was probably most impactful to me was president Xi basically did an hour monologue.
Speaker 1 At lunch where he just went through Chinese history from his perspective. And he talked about with particular emphasis on on kind of the treaty of une equals and then the hundred years of humiliation, and then you go through from now, all the way to today and you had, you know, China coming back and rising, and you could tell that he was learned the lessons from the past and was very committed to kinda seeing China go through. So that was a different time. Right? So China today is different than it was in 2017 in 2017 I remember President Xi was at Da and he was vetted by all the top business people in the world as the...
Speaker 1 You know, Donald Trump was the threat to the global world order. President Xi was the champion of free trade and the biggest champion of environmental and and and fighting for climate change. And And what occurred was President Trump Came in and basically said, like, I think China has not been following the rules based order took very, very drastic approach with tariffs every time he would do the tariffs. Again, you know, I had Mnuchin... Our treasury sector come to Ivanka my house.
Speaker 1 If he does this, this gonna crash the whole economy. I mean, these... And by the way, he believed it. I mean, these were things that people were telling it would be very tough to do, You know, President Trump had had a gentleman named ambassador light ties or Robert Light he. He was really the the tip of the spear on all of our our trade negotiations.
Speaker 1 He worked very well secretary Mnuchin and they ended up. We ended up increasing tariffs to numbers that hadn't even been thought could happen. We did the first round of tariffs. Then, you know, the Chinese came back and retaliate very surgical, trying to hit us in all the areas that politically would have been difficult and what Trump did was instead of backing down, he took some of the revenue from the tariffs, gave it to the farmers and said, I know that this gonna hurt your business, But I'm gonna make sure you guys are made whole, and then he doubled down. And basically, went back at the Chinese with even more terror.
Speaker 1 So what we watched over a year and a half was probably the biggest hand of poker that was ever played. And it was an amazing experience to be a part of it, and the role I played was really working for secretary Mnuchin and ambassador Light he, as a as a back channel with the Chinese to make sure we can just dee escalate things and get to solutions in a... In the best way possible. And so So anyway anyways, it's a a fascinating time. But if you think about the global awareness of the the bad practices, the China was...
Speaker 1 Putting in place today versus what they were in 2016. I think 1 of President Trump's most successful policies was shifting the way the entire world understood the threat of China and then putting in place the beginning of a regime to try in, rebalance the world so that we could have more economic parody.
Speaker 0 So you mentioned to me the book, the hundred year marathon by Michael Pills? When we discuss China. And I've got a chance to read parts of it, and I I highly recommend people read it because there's a few... It's a definitely an eye opening perspective. I don't know if I agree with all of it.
Speaker 0 I don't know if you agree with all of it, but opens... It it gives a very intense perspective by China. And you said it was instructive to how you thought How donald Trump thought about China. Certainly Can you describe the main thesis of the book and maybe with a hopeful view, how is possible to have a trajectory, of these 2 super superpower working together in 20 first century versus fighting against each other Perfect.
Speaker 1 So it's a very, very big book. And III think it's a book definitely worth reading. Michael is is is is tremendous. You speak. Fluent Mandarin and so he he spent a lot of time researching to do the book.
Speaker 1 So I highly recommend it to everyone. And it was considered more of a fringe perspective, in 2016, but it really, I think came to represent the underpinning of what the collective thought was of the Trump administration And and maybe you could argue that it was even more cynical. The the whole thesis of the book was that China from 19 49 to 2049 was working to reclaim their position as the global leader. Right? So you had the the Chinese empire.
Speaker 1 You know, 1 of the things Don't know it's from this book or a different book that I read that spoke about how the late 17 hundreds, basically the emperor of China was offered some of the industrial capability from England, which was basically now becoming an industrial the industrial revolution. And basically, no we're fine We're the Great Chinese Empire. Don't we don't need any of these things. We're better than that. And by rejecting that, the rest of the world got stronger, China remained weaker, than you had the the the the Opium wars, you know, the the Chinese had big Opium problems to all the trade back and forth.
Speaker 1 And then China from about 18 40 to to the 19 40 had a hundred years were they really... The After all these treaties were really a second class a country. And so then you have the people's revolution that comes in, and he talks about how China very strategically is a very, very poor country, you know, would fight their way back and and build brick by brick. And know, he profits in the book that Nixon didn't go to China and open China was China that actually went to Nixon and was able to use Nixon in order to open up, and then they talked about how under Carter, they were able to get the Us to contribute to a lot of their. They're were able to kind of start borrowing the Us know how from our university systems from our medical from our science from our research, the and the whole notion that was the conventional thinking of American leaders was that the more we helped China advance the more they would become a free market economy.
Speaker 1 And it was a great market. The only difference was was that they weren't allowing us access. They were making our companies, basically give them all of their technical knowledge. They were stealing early intellectually property. They were doing espionage to to steal a lot of the patents.
Speaker 1 They were just ignoring our patents. And they weren't following any of the rules of international trade. Dual then they started becoming the world's manufacturing hub. They basically became the world's factory and then they started this whole initiative called the Belt and Road initiative in order to start, locking in their lines of traits. They were buying up all the ports everywhere.
Speaker 1 They were building railways, thinking, how do we we lock in our distribution, that we can maintain the dominance as the world's global factory. And so it it's a brilliant long term plan that they were doing. And by raising awareness by putting the tariffs Trump slowed them down a lot. The real question is if they actually did achieve this full objective of becoming the world dominant country, what they would have done with it. Whether they would have been nefarious or not, I think from my perspective, even with some of the divisions and issues we have now in America, I still would rather an American led world order than a Chinese lead world order.
Speaker 1 But the notion was is that they were playing a very 0 sum game. And really going to be the dominant leader in this new world order. So so that really framed the perspective and it wasn't necessarily And people ask me was was... And the Chinese roy fearing is Trump trying to stop our rise. Right?
Speaker 1 And you have a great book also by Graham Allison that he writes about you know, are we destined for war between Us and And he goes through different historical times where you have a power and a rising super superpower? And I think, you know, more than half the time it ends up leading to war. So the question is what's gonna happen here. And I I do think that Trump's perspective and this is my interpretation because everything was always tactical day to day and, you know, he was unpredictable to the Chinese, which they couldn't deal with and he was unpredictable even to his team sometimes, because he was playing it day by day an issue by issue and always changing and adjusting, which is how an entrepreneur thinks. He respected the job they did by be building their country.
Speaker 1 They moved 300000000 people out of poverty into the middle class. They did it at the expense of a lot of other countries throughout the world, especially America. But Trump says look, stupid politicians made deals. I respect China for doing what they did. But what I wanna do is I wanna change the paradigm.
Speaker 1 So that for the next 20 years, we can maintain our advantage over them. We can maintain our competitive dynamic. And know, his general view is that America's is the best private sector in the world. We have a lot of the best minds in the world. And if we could just have a level playing field.
Speaker 1 With set rules, then America should be able to outperform. And so that's really what we were trying to do. We were trying to kind of get rid of some of their state subsidies, get rid of make them follow some of these international rules of trade and and not allowing them to do predatory, investments that then undercut different industries that we had so they can have global market dominance or monopoly on different industries and then have pricing power but also, you know, geopolitical powers. So like, 1 of the examples that people talk about now is China. For the last 20 years, was very advanced on seeing this electrification trend.
Speaker 1 They went... They they they subsidize solar panels. A lot of the American Solar panel players we're put out of business. So now I think it's like 90 plus percent of solar panels in the world are you manufactured in China. Then all the rare earth that you need in order to make these solar panels and to make these electric vehicles.
Speaker 1 China's bought up most of them and a lot of the refining capacities in China. So thinking through strategically, how do we create an even playing field that we're not at the mercy of them and how you can have a a rules based world order, that was really kind of the thought of what we were trying to work towards.
Speaker 0 So there's this S snl kit. Or Jimmy mean... Fallon plays you, and you're walking into the old office looking cool, wearing wearing shades and a bulletproof vest. To the song unbelievable by Am. I don't know if you've seen it was pretty epic.
Speaker 0 And then Trump says that you've traveled the world representing the administration but no 1 has ever heard you speak. So there's a lot of questions I can ask about that. But 1 of them is... Can you respect why you choose this low key approach, of kind of operating behind the scenes and not speaking much to the public, at least at the time. He's you've you've spoken a little bit more.
Speaker 0 And today, you've spoken for a really long time, which I deeply appreciate.
Speaker 1 No, it's been a pleasure to do this. And and thank you for the opportunity to to talk about these things. And as so that was a really funny skit. And, you know, it's funny The the the thing I got made fun of the most for that was the wardrobe, and that came from... After, you know, 3 months in the administration, we would were having dinner with all the generals and they were saying, you know, updating us on the war with Isis.
Speaker 1 And General Dun said to me after, look, the president can't come to see how we're fighting this war. But I'd like to invite you to come with me to Iraq. And come see. And would you come with me? I said, you no, That's great.
Speaker 1 I always learned in business. Now you can't make decisions from just an ivory tower. You have to go to the front lines and see what what's actually happening. So I said, no problem. I I'd love to go.
Speaker 1 Meanwhile, 2 days before I'm about to go, the dock from the white it house stops by my office and says, when you to get your blood types. So what do you might... Blood. You're going to an active war zone and I'm like, okay. So, I guess go to war.
Speaker 1 I I didn't really think this thing fully through. So I get on the plane with Dun ford. Blood and we land in in Iraq. And he looks like Gi Joe. He's, you know, he's a great great general.
Speaker 1 He's very, very well respected in the military. And we we go in and we we get on black hawk helicopter. They said, you know, it today's a nice day Let's take the the sides off. And so I get on the plane. And there's a guy, you know, military service officer who then takes a machine gun locks it into a thing.
Speaker 1 Takes the bullets, puts them into the gun and it's sitting there saying, we're ready to go. And then I'm looking at, there's, like, 3 other helicopters with guys. It 1 was an Os with a guy, buckled in, also with the machine gun looking out, we take off, and we're flying over baghdad from the airport to the embassy. And as we're going, I'm sitting in an open air helicopter with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, guys with machine guns everywhere.
Speaker 0 This is a new experience for you.
Speaker 1 Have an. Mean, I was doing real estate like, 3 months ago, you know? And now I'm flying over a rack and And the Chairman says, that's Saddam hussein palace. And I looked down. There's like a big bomb right through the middle, then you see the area with the 2 swords in the hands.
Speaker 1 I'm saying myself, like, how the hell did I get here? Like, what is happening? So meanwhile, we end up going to the front lines to be with the service the Iraqi military, which the Us military is working closely with. And I had a meeting that night with the president of Iraq? And so I'm wore...
Speaker 1 What are you aware at the front lines in a battle zone and and also you're the president. I put a sport jacket on? We land at the... At the front line and they give me a bold bulletproof vest that says Kushner on it. I tape it.
Speaker 1 I just... I I put it on and go out. And I covered the Nd r. So it just said
Speaker 0 k. Yeah.
Speaker 1 And and I went, and I didn't realize they were taking pictures and
Speaker 0 I think the picture was pretty epic. He was some of us. I think I love.
Speaker 1 Anyway, So that was the funny story behind that. And then actually, my brother was at some society event in New York and... He ran into Jimmy Fallon, so the 2 of them took a selfie together and Josh Writes me says hanging out with my older brother in New York. You know, I'm trying to explain to him what your voice sounds like. So so it was good.
Speaker 1 So that was a funny 1, But I think just being behind the scenes for me, just gave me more maneuverability. In the sense that, you know, I again, it goes back to trust and people knowing that I wasn't gonna try to public size the things they were telling me, I think it just gave me more ability to operate that way. And I also realized to, like, communicating is a very important skill. Luckily in Washington. There's no shortage of amazing communicators.
Speaker 1 I think there were a lot of people who are much better at me than being communicators. So I was very happy that they were willing to do it because it wasn't something that I had a lot of experience with. Or necessarily I thought was very I was very good at And so I kinda just did my job and and and just focused on getting things done.
Speaker 0 So me let me ask you, you have a very... Interesting life. If you were to give advice to young folks on how to have such an impactful life? What would you say? Career and life, how do to I have a successful career and a successful life?
Speaker 1 Number 1 is I would say, you just have to work hard at everything you do. Number 2, I would say never stop learning and always try to say yes, more than you should go out of your comfort zone. And I think just just you gotta work hard at everything you do. And and and if you're gonna take something on, do it the best you can. You know, 1 of the lessons I write about in the book from my father was...
Speaker 1 I remember I was going for a job interview. And he asked me. Says, well, what time are you leaving to the job interview? Is at 09:00. I saw, I'll leave at 08:00?
Speaker 1 He said, what if there's traffic? I said dad. I've done this. Drive a thousand times. Like, there's never traffic.
Speaker 1 So what if there's an accident, I said, I can't control that. He said Jared, the only excuse you ever have for being late is that you didn't leave early enough. And I just think it's something where if you wanna accomplish something, You know, a lot of people I hear they complain about what other people do or why it's hard or why it's impossible. And again, I say this as somebody who's been so blessed with with with so many things in life. But, you know, when I've had challenges or things I've wanted to achieve.
Speaker 1 I just focus and say, what what can I do? And I'll I'll read everything I I can get my hands on. I'll... If I fail it 1... The door closes, I'll try the window if the window closes, try the Chimney If the Chimney chose, I'll try to take a tunnel it's just if you want to accomplish something, you just have to go at it.
Speaker 1 And, you know, I think the the most important thing I'll say, sorry. I'm kinda thinking my way into this Answer is is just do the right thing. I think that's also right. And I saw that in my career, you know, be good to people, be honest, do the right thing, And and if you do that, I think long term, it it it does pay off. Maybe not in politics, but in in the world that large it does.
Speaker 1 And my hope is in politics. It will as well.
Speaker 0 I wonder if you can comment on your process of learning in general because he took on so many new interesting problems and approach them with the first principles kind of approach?
Speaker 1 Mh.
Speaker 0 So what was your source of information? So because you didn't seem to be listening to the assumptions of the prior experts. You were just taken on the problem in a very pragmatic perspective. So what was how'd did you learn about the Middle East? How did you learn about China?
Speaker 0 How did you learn about Mexico? How did you, you know, like, all of these prison reform, all of this that you've taken on and were extremely effective that.
Speaker 1 You really started with just talking to people, I I would I would try to reach out to people who had been involved in different things and asked them you know, what they did, what they thought of the problem. Who they thought was smart on it, what they read that helped them get a better understanding, why they think something had failed, And then I would just, you know, read v on every topic. You know, Washington was harder to get advice from from humans because I found humans had this weird tendency to talk to the media. And so, you know, I talked to somebody and ask advice, and then the next thing I know is the Washington postal call and say, Jared idiot, it doesn't know what he's doing And he's even going into this person to get advice. I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 1 I'm asking everyone. So so books really became an amazing guide for me. Ivanka, she she's an incredible researcher. She she's just v. And so she gave me some of my best books and some incredible advice as well.
Speaker 1 But that was really the the process. And then I think that was kind of the first stage. And then the second stage was just constant iteration and readjust plan as you continue to get more alert. Learning. And 1 story, I tell in the book as well is that on my my first trip to the Middle East where I met with Mohammed Bin Z, who I spoke about earlier, the ruler of Uae e learning I spent 2 hours with him asking him questions and really going through the Israeli Palestinian issue, the Israeli arab issue.
Speaker 1 And he said to me at the end of the meeting, he says, Jared, I think you're gonna make peace here in the Middle East. And I have a shock. Because I mean, first of all, he was, you know, at the time, and I think 1 of the most respected leaders in the region. Somebody who I found to be very wise and super thoughtful and experienced and I said to him, why do you say that? To I was flattered obviously, but but not certain why he was saying that based on the fact that I didn't know what my plan was.
Speaker 1 I didn't know what I was gonna do, and I no pathway to make peace. And he said, well, the Us usually sends 1 of 3 different kinds of people to come see me. He says the first are people who come and they fall asleep in meetings. He said the second are people who come, and they basically read me notes, but have no ability to interact on the message they're there to convey. And then the third, have been people who have come to convince me to do things that aren't in my interests.
Speaker 1 He says, you're the first person who's ever come here. And it's just asked questions. He says, why why have you done that? I said, because I figured, you know, this problem been gone on for a long time you live here. I'll be gone at some point.
Speaker 1 You're gonna have to live with the consequences of whatever. My work is, and the Us is a lot of power. And my question is, what would you do if you were me. And how would you approach this and help me think about it. And again, I wasn't gonna then take his plan and then execute it, but I thought it'd would be very provocative to understand from the people in the region and instructive how they would use the resource and the power that the Us had to solve the problems that we're having significant impact on their lives.
Speaker 0 Yeah. There's a lot of power to the sort of... The the simplicity of that human approach or you're just listening.
Speaker 1 And 1 of my wishes for society is I I leave government. You know, I was living on the upper side in a very liberal echo chamber. I then traveled the country. I met so many people who I never would have met otherwise on the conservative side on the independent side on so many different issues. I think that people benefit if you have such a strong point of view.
Speaker 1 I would follow, you know, the John Stewart middle marketplace of ideas. Mh. And find people who disagree with you, and don't call them names. Don't say they're a bad person, say, I wanna understand why you feel the way you do. Let's have conversations in this country.
Speaker 1 Mh And I think that that's... Probably gonna be our best way to work through the issues that we have currently.
Speaker 0 When you zoom out, and look at the 20 first century from a human history perspective across the time scale of many decades? Maybe centuries. What gives you hope about human commercialization civilization. Everything you've seen. You travel the world, you've talked to some of the most powerful influential people and you look at the future, what gives you hope about this little planet of ours.
Speaker 1 What gives me the most hope is that anything's possible? If there's there's 1 lesson that I took from my time in government. It's that people coming together to try to make tomorrow different than yesterday. Can succeed. And if the right people in the right places focus on the right ideas, I think the advancement that we can have for human history and for society can be tremendous.
Speaker 1 And I think that right now I see where at a place in society where there's a lot of what I call sq between countries, which are really man versus man issues. And those are as old as time. Right? You know, we've been fighting about borders or or or religion or, you know, we're or who wrong somebody a hundred or a thousand years ago. And these are what I call more tribal battles.
Speaker 1 But I do think that as we advance with artificial intelligence as energy becomes cheaper, and it's more readily available. I think we're gonna have massive industrialization, I think we're gonna have mass of advancement. I think in medical and science, we're gonna have cures for diseases, we have the potential in 10:20 years from now to enter a dawn for humanity that could be incredible. We could become multi planetary. We can we can explore the wonders of the world.
Speaker 1 We can find things we didn't know. So I think that if if we we put our energy towards finding these advancements that will improve the lives of of everyone on this planet instead of figuring out ways to have these tensions between us. That for me is the most optimistic case for what's possible. And the reason why I believe it's possible is because somebody with no experience, somebody who all I really had was was the faith of of a leader, and I had the the courage to try. And I went out there with other people and we took on some of the most hopeless impossible problems and we succeeded.
Speaker 1 And if we were able to do that, then everyone else should be able to do that as well.
Speaker 0 Well, Jared, thank you for having the courage to try. Thank you for your friendship for your kindness. Most importantly for your book recommendations. And thank you for talking today. This is fascinating.
Speaker 0 I hope I hope to have many more conversations like this.
Speaker 1 Thank you very much, Le.
Speaker 0 Thank you for listening to this conversation with Jared Kushner. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you some words from a hot Gandhi. An I for an eye will only make the whole world blind. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 0 And I hope to see you next time.