July 16, 2025 • 44 mins
Former National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has held some of the highest national security and domestic policy roles in the U.S. government — but her defining strength may be her ability to lead with both head and heart. In this special live episode recorded at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Ambassador Rice sits down with Emily for a deeply personal and urgent conversation. She opens up about transitioning from foreign to domestic policy, her proudest policy wins in health care and drug pricing, and her disappointment in seeing progress rolled back. Ambassador Rice shares how she navigated professional pressure while caring for her aging parents and raising children — and why she never hid the personal decisions that shaped her career. She also emphasizes the importance of rebuilding trust in government and sounds the alarm on the future of American democracy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Susan Rice (00:00):
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Ambassador Susan Rice.
Emily Tisch Sussman (00:13):
Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk
with women who dare to pivot out of one career
and into something new and explore how their personal lives
impacts these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today
(00:34):
we have another special candid conversation recorded live here at
the Aspen Ideas Festival. Maybe you can hear the Aspen
trees and streams behind me where I'm sitting down with
some of the world's foremost leaders, innovators, and creators. Today
is my conversation with Ambassador Susan Rice, former Domestic Policy
(00:54):
advisor under President Biden, former National Security Advisor under President Obama,
and former US Ambassador to the United Nations. I'm so
excited she Pivots as one of the inaugural audio first
media companies to partner with the festival. It was invigorating
to be among brilliant leaders and thinkers from around the
(01:15):
globe to discuss and hear the ideas that'll shape tomorrow
and help us understand today. Over the next few weeks,
you'll hear live candid conversations from inspiring women recorded here
at the festival. From geopolitical issues, to economic issues, to
cultural issues and beyond. Each interview connects to the larger
(01:36):
cultural moment we're in, and of course, interreeves their personal lives.
I hope you walk away feeling as inspired and determined
as I did to continue to share our stories and
experiences to change the cultural landscape for a better tomorrow.
Let's jump right in. I'm delighted to be here at
(02:00):
the Aspmen Ideas Festival with Susan Rice, former National Security
Advisor and US Ambassador to the United Nations. She has
been at the forefront of some of the world's most
complex and important issues. She is a mother, wife, scholar, diplomat,
and fierce champion of American interests and values. Welcome, Susan,
(02:22):
Thank you. How did you like that introduction of yourself?
Did we miss anything?
Susan Rice (02:26):
You know, a lot that I was domestic policy adviser
Joe Biden, which is.
Emily Tisch Sussman (02:31):
A really important part.
Susan Rice (02:32):
Okay, and I think the only person to ever have
been National security advisor and domestic policy advisor.
Emily Tisch Sussman (02:37):
I think that is true. How did you find that transition.
Susan Rice (02:40):
Interesting and invigorating? Actually?
Emily Tisch Sussman (02:46):
Yeah, in what sense? Well?
Susan Rice (02:48):
Having spent twenty five years in national security policy making,
including his national security advisor. I understood how to make
policy processes work, how to make decisions, to make government responsive,
and to implement decisions that have been made effectively. But
had done that primarily in the national security realm, and
(03:10):
so the opportunity to bring those skills and experience and
familiarity with structured process for policy making to the domestic side,
where frankly there's been less structure historically, was really interesting.
So I had had all the muscles, and I had
to learn the substance, and there were some aspects of
the substance that was more familiar than others. But you know,
(03:32):
health care policy, which incredibly technical, aspects of immigration law,
which is incredibly technical. My portfolio ranged from you know,
healthcare and veterans affairs, to education policy, to agriculture, to
rural America to housing. You know, it was expansive, and
so it was really fun. I learned a lot. I
(03:53):
feel like we got a lot done, and I really
enjoyed it. Actually, it was a refreshing transition.
Emily Tisch Sussman (03:59):
Refreshing is not where I was going, But I feel
like people just weigh in more on domestic they do
the national security they do. Yeah, was that.
Susan Rice (04:07):
A yeah, that was an adjustment.
Emily Tisch Sussman (04:12):
Everyone's got an opinion.
Susan Rice (04:13):
No, that was an adjustment. In national security. We had
to engage Congress affair, but particularly the national security committees,
and there were certain constituency groups that had strong opinions
on matters you might imagine, but it wasn't a constant barrage.
When you work on domestic policy, it's not a nice
to to listen to and consult with outside groups. It's
(04:35):
an absolute necessity and they're instrumental in informing the debate.
And so I spent a lot more time on zoom
meetings or in person meetings with a myriad of different
constituencies and interest groups, from the private sector to the
nonprofit world, of all stripes. Everybody had a viewpoint and
(04:56):
opinion and they all needed, I guess, and deserved you
listened to.
Emily Tisch Sussman (05:01):
Was there anything in this role that you brought such
a unique background to your point? I think you're the
only person who had moved from national security into domestic policy.
Was there a moment that you felt like, yes, it
is because of my experience that is different than everyone
else in the room, that we had this win I.
Susan Rice (05:19):
Think there were a lot of issues where you know,
we were able to bring different perspectives and different agencies
together in a way that may not have been common
practice previously and that you know, could result in important
and breakthrough changes. Just a small example that unfortunately has
(05:40):
been rolled back and undone as much has been but
you know, we were able to gain agreement and put
in place a rulemaking process to basically phase out menthol cigarettes,
which would you know, save millions of lives long term.
(06:00):
Menthol cigarettes have typically been marketed by Big tobacco to
communities of color, to the LGPTQ community, to young people
as pathway to locking people into lifelong addiction, and it's
one of the more pernicious forms of Big Tobacco's efforts
to suck people in. And we gained agreement through a
(06:24):
process that was rigorous involved all the relevant agencies to say,
you know, no what, we're not going to do this.
We're going to actually save lives, even if it angers
Big tobacco, even if it angers Frankly, some African American constituencies,
who many of whom were being funded by Big tobacco
to be shills for menthol cigarettes, who came up with
(06:45):
a bunch of I think largely baseless criminal justice related
arguments for not taking action that would have saved millions
of lives. But you know, it didn't ultimately come to fruition,
and that's that's another story, but you know, a product
of our own side actually.
Emily Tisch Sussman (07:05):
Not following through. Oh that's interesting.
Susan Rice (07:08):
So we had the opportunity to finalize that rule, which
we're now getting into technical administrative procedure stuff, you know,
in the last year of the Biden administration, after I
had left the administration, and I think because there was
concern about blowback from certain segments of the African American community,
again those primarily who were on the pay roll of
(07:30):
big Tobacco, as opposed to the bulk of the leadership,
which very much favored the rule, the administration decided not
to finalize it. Now I'm confident that had they finalized it,
the Trump administration would have tried to roll it back
because they don't seem to be particularly interested in public health.
But I was disappointed that the Biden administration didn't follow
through at the end.
Emily Tisch Sussman (07:50):
Either. Were there other examples of that that you felt
like were in progress that you wish you could have
seen through to the end, or you wish someone had
picked up for.
Susan Rice (07:57):
You lesser things. That one was one that I was
particularly disappointed in.
Emily Tisch Sussman (08:03):
Yeah, well, ask the flip side. What were you particularly
proud of that you were able to bring over the
finish line?
Susan Rice (08:07):
A lot of stuff in the healthcare realm. You know,
we were able to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care
Act in a way that made healthcare accessible and affordable
to millions of Americans. We brought the uninsured rate down
to the lowest level in American history, only eight million
Americans uninsured. Now when they passed this big beautiful piece
of shit, you know, we're going to have seventeen million
(08:30):
or fifteen to seventeen million people lose their health insurance.
We were able to get legislation through to negotiate down
the price of prescription drugs for the first time, which
was something that we'd tried and tried and tried for decades,
and we got it done. And as a result, some
of the most expensive medications that people rely on are
(08:52):
now going to be at prices that people can afford.
And we capped out of pocket medical costs for the
insured for prescription drugs at two thousand dollars a year
and brought insulin down to thirty five dollars a month
or less. So there are a whole bunch of wins
in the healthcare sector that I'm very proud of, among
(09:12):
other things. What frustrates you in this administration? And I
understand we don't have a podcast long enough.
Emily Tisch Sussman (09:17):
For that, but things that you had seen move forward
in progress that now are moving backwards, or maybe even
that they're taking credit for it. To be honest with you,
I think there's some of that too well, I.
Susan Rice (09:30):
Think, I mean, there are many of those things. I
think that's not the big picture. The big picture is
that we have an administration that is systematically undermining the
rights of large segments of the American citizenry, women, minorities,
LGBTQ people, rural people, veterans, the list goes on and on.
(09:52):
The program cuts and the policies are going to kill
millions of Americans, and meanwhile Trump is arrogating power to himself,
completely ripping up the rule of law and due process,
and putting every one of us at grave risk. I
believe because when you deny due process to some, and
(10:13):
it's not just non citizens. But obviously non citizens matter,
particularly when they're here legally and lawfully. But now they're
rounding up American citizens and locking them up for no reason,
with gestapo like people and playing clothes and no identification masks,
ripping people off the streets. I mean, that's the big picture.
(10:36):
So I'm less worried about the rollback of individual policies,
which is obviously, in normal times, would be the right conversation.
But I'm much more concerned about the wholesale destruction of
our democracy and our basic human rights.
Emily Tisch Sussman (10:52):
I worry. Didn't know we're going to get this deep
in this podcast so quickly, but I do legitimately worry
that this is the end of American democracy, and I
don't know that we're going to know when we will
have hit the moment that we say, well, now it's gone.
You have a global perspective on this. Are there countries
it has happened that countries have had democracies and essentially
(11:13):
lost them or actually lost to them. Do you see
examples of other countries having gone through this process that
they had a democracy and then it slipped away that
you think that we are following the path.
Susan Rice (11:23):
Of Hungary, for one Turkey, which arguably wasn't fully a democracy.
Those are just a couple of examples.
Emily Tisch Sussman (11:32):
What are the markers there that you think that we
are following.
Susan Rice (11:35):
Well, I just I mean I mentioned a number of them,
but one that I haven't mentioned is the wholesale capitulation
of major institutions, takeover of universities. What just happened to
the University of Virginia, And you know, Columbia capitulating law firms,
capitulating big corporations, cow telling, to falling over themselves, to
(12:01):
ingratiate themselves with Donald Trump. You know, those are examples
of patterns that are very slippery slopes to authoritarianism. You know,
so that we're in a moment I believe of grave danger,
and I think it's going to get worse before it
gets better.
Emily Tisch Sussman (12:20):
Worse How and will we know when we've hit authoritarianism, Well.
Susan Rice (12:25):
We're getting there. I don't know, if you know. It's
going to take plenty of people calling it out. But
when the you know, basically a Supreme Court has said
the President of the United States, this was before Trump
took office, can do anything he wants in office and
as above the rule of law. That was their decision
last year. Now they say only the Supreme Court, if
(12:46):
and when it decides to engage, can protect individual rights
or collective rights nationwide. That was the injunction ruling very dangerous.
And you know, I think the Trump deministration is doing
its utmost to try to create a pretext not just
to call out the National Guard and uniform military in
(13:10):
our cities, but to invoke the Insurrection Act and turn
the military against the civilian population. And in that context,
you all bets are off. He could declare martial law,
he could suspend habeas corpus, And at that point we're
completely over the edge.
Emily Tisch Sussman (13:27):
When you say that people need to call it out.
What are our levers as individual people, as individual citizens? Like?
How do what can anyone do well?
Susan Rice (13:35):
I think, first of all, speak up, tell their stories
of how they have been impacted adversely by Trump's policies.
We got to create a chorus of people making it
plain that you know, Trump claims to be helping Americans,
making us all great. Instead his cuts, his tariffs, his
(13:56):
ripping up of healthcare, his ripping up of veterans support
and benefits, the harms he's doing to small businesses, to
communities is hugely detrimental. So we need a groundswell of
people telling their own stories. I've been part of an
effort by an organization called Home of the Brave, and
you can go to thee Brave dot org, which is
(14:17):
a group of people telling their stories and short videos
about the harms that they've suffered. That's one thing I think, frankly,
we need more peaceful, nonviolent protests, and it needs to
reach a scale and a scope and a regularity that
has an impact. And we need leadership that is unafraid
(14:38):
to be very forthright and plain about what is at
stake and what is happening, And frankly, I think be
interested in your perspective on this. We need, you know,
leadership in the Democratic Party that is not fractured and feckless,
but is bold and unified and clear in opposing all
that Trump is doing, and with and clarity and real
(15:02):
unity of purpose, all peacefully, but much more cohesively than
we've seen today. What do you think?
Emily Tisch Sussman (15:09):
I struggle with this. I struggle with what to do
with how do we how do we do something that
feels really effective? I feel like I spent almost twenty
years designing campaigns federal campaigns to move federal policy forward,
and essentially almost all of my levers of power are meaningless.
And part of the reason that I ended up leaving
(15:30):
Center for American Progress, where I ran issue campaigns in
the middle of the first Trump administration, was because I
had designed and run the campaigns there. We had been
successful at the beginning of the first Trump administration with
preventing the Affordable Care Act appeal everyone remembers, you know,
like that John McCain thumbs down moment or repealed it.
That came as a result of town halls around the countries.
(15:51):
When Republican members of Congress went back to their districts
for town halls, the people, even in Republicans district their
constituent showed up and said, do not take away my healthcare.
The numbers of how many people would be uninsured and
lose their health care had come out of my think tank.
So we had successfully crunched those numbers by district and
gotten them to people. They had used them in the
(16:11):
town halls. We think that pressure is what prevented Congress
from repealing it at that time, and we kept trying
to replicate it and for the next year and a
half we kept trying to replicate that kind of pressure
and that kind of moment, and we couldn't do it
again because what we basically realized was that the administration
was not interested in people's opinions like they were like,
(16:32):
there was really almost no kind of pressure that we
could put on them to change what they were going
to do. And so in that time, I had two
kids in eighteen months. So balancing those things and thinking
should I keep showing up at this job where I
feel like I'm not making an impact anymore? I eventually
left and so now I really think about, like what
does help One of the things this is for me personally,
(16:52):
I don't work on legislation anymore. I do this show
where I tell individual stories, and you know, sometimes we
tell later stories, and sometimes we tell stories that we
feel like really need to be told the personal impact
of how these things like, we take it out of
the numbers, which is when I work in federal policy,
it was numbers. It was show that it's big, it
was show that it's scary, And now I take it
(17:15):
as small as possible, like to one person, and we
tell their individual stories. We told the story a couple
of weeks ago. A woman, Caitlin, who lives in a
Republican state with an abortion ban, and she is a
married woman with a child who wanted the pregnancy, and
because of the confusion of what is considered abortion care,
which was outlawed, versus healthcare, she was sent home from
(17:36):
the er twice to die Wich State, Louisiana, and we
kept it out of the policy. We kept it super
personal to her to put a name and a face
on it, and that is personally what I feel like
keeps me feeling engaged. Recently. We actually just learned this
last week from iHeart who we run the show with
(17:58):
that look. I'm very open about the fact that I
spent my life working on Democratic campaigns. I worked on
the Obama campaign, I work in Harris's campaign. This year,
sixty percent of our audience is Democratic affiliated, forty percent
of our audience is not, twenty percent of our audience
is Republican, thirty percent of our audience is independent. And
at first I thought, what Republican wants to listen to me?
I can't believe they're listening to this show. But it
(18:21):
did make me feel recommitted to the idea that when
we tell stories individually regardless of party affiliation, people can
connect and even for myself, like not even a brothers out,
I don't know what the next step is. I feel
like I'm watching authoritarianism rise every day and I don't
know what the next step is.
Susan Rice (18:41):
Well, we got to stop watching. We got to start doing,
because we could watch this thing disappear before our very eyes.
And people keep saying, well, we just got to wait
till the midterms or twenty eight. We may not make
it to the midterms, and twenty eight we may not
have elections. If you know, we have mortial law. And
I think every sign points to Trump doing his utmost
(19:03):
to consolidate power disable any checks, whether it's the media,
the Congress, the courts, civil society, education institutions, his political opposition,
and the way he succeeds is if we all just
throw up our hands and say it's too complicated. I
don't know what I can do. We all need to
(19:25):
be figuring out. And I do think storytelling is important.
What I'm interested is in his story telling at scale,
and I know that's hard in our current media environment,
but the reality is that in all corners of the country,
in areas rural, urban, and suburban in red states and
(19:47):
blue states, people of all backgrounds and stripes, rich, poor,
people of color, people, white people. Everybody knows somebody who
has a story, whether it's somebody who is in a
cancer trial, has had there, you know, their NAH program
completely canceled, and now they can't access the care that
they were depending on for themselves or a family member.
(20:10):
Veterans who can't get their calls answered on the hotline
because you know, we've cut back staff and now they
want to take eighty thousand people out of the VA.
Cuts to healthcare and VA people who aren't going to
be able to get basic nutrition because of what's in
this big beautiful piece of shit as I like to
call it that you know, SNAP is going to be cut.
Millions of people are going to lose food assistants, millions
(20:32):
of people are going to lose health care. And these
are real, approximate, no kidding harms. The tariffs are causing
small businesses to you know, to reel because they can't
make business decisions, they can't predict what's coming next. Their
costs of goods have gone through the roof to what end,
and there you've got, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Who's actively every day trying to think about how many
(20:54):
more Americans he can kill.
Emily Tisch Sussman (20:56):
Literally, Yeah, the vaccine thing is insane.
Susan Rice (21:00):
Yeah, it's not just vaccines, you know. Now we're not
going to put out research on how to prevent HIV eights,
you know. So, I mean the list goes on. We're
cutting funding for black lung disease in Coal country. Those
are Trump's constituents. All of us are Trump's constituents, but
those are people in his base. We're killing the hotline
(21:22):
for lgbt Q kids who need help with suicide prevention.
What is the point of that. It's literally killing Americans
on a daily basis. So it's more than the vaccines.
Although that's you rightly gotten a lot of attention.
Emily Tisch Sussman (21:38):
Why do you think they're cutting all of these programs
that will impact It doesn't seem to me that they
are looking for broad support like they really seem to
only be I call it transactional, like looking to support
the people that support them.
Susan Rice (21:53):
But they don't even support the people who support them exactly.
I mean, look at these that's the irony of the
of the Medicaid US and the snap cuts. You know
that Trump's base is now substantially people who rely on
government support, and yet he's going to cut it and
then lie about the fact that did he did it.
(22:15):
He's going around saying there's nothing in Medicaid is going
to change. That's a bald face lie. And Tom Tillis
and Holly and all these posts. They know it, these
Republican senators who know what's going to happen to their constituents.
But that's why the storytelling, the truth telling, is so important,
because in our fractured media environment, you know, if Trump
(22:36):
says no changes to Medicaid, which bald face lie, the
Senate bill cutting it one trillion dollars now from medicaid,
but people will believe it if they listen to to
right wing news sources.
Emily Tisch Sussman (22:51):
After the break, more from Ambassador Rice.
Susan Rice (23:08):
Because in our fractured media environment, you know, if Trump
says no changes to medicate which is bald face lie,
the Senate bill cutting a one trillion dollars now from Medicaid,
but people will believe it if they listen to to
right wing new sources. But that's why the storytelling, the
truth telling is so important, because in our fractured media environment,
(23:33):
you know, if Trump says no changes to medicate which
is bald face lie the Senate bill cutting one trillion
dollars now from Medicaid. But people will believe it if
they listen to to right wing new sources.
Emily Tisch Sussman (23:46):
Well, that's what I'd say, is that the facts. It's
very hard at this point to understand for people to
understand what is fact because the framing changes depending on
basically the perspective, our opinion of who's giving it and
it is. It's very difficult. Okay, I want to bring
it back to you. I thought, yeah, this interview really
is about you. Okay, yay, Yeah, we're still getting now.
(24:10):
I want to bring it back to you personally. You've
had so many incredible and accomplished phases of your career.
Did your metric of success change throughout your career? Was
it always was your goal to always be the domestic
policy advisor? Was your goal to all? Okay, I'm getting
a real no, no, no. How did your goals change
as you were moving through your career?
Susan Rice (24:31):
I mean, my fundamental goals have been consistent since I
was a kid, which is to have a positive impact
on people, particularly the most vulnerable, and to make policies
that served that benefited the American people, our national security
or domestic security and domestic prosperity. All of that has
(24:52):
been where I've come from from childhood. But I didn't
have a set, consistent view of how to achieve that.
When I was ten years old growing up in the
District of Columbia, which to this day has no voting
rights in Congress. You know, I wanted to be United
States Senator from the District of Columbia. Obviously that's not
(25:12):
been my path yet, and well, you don't have voting
rights in Congress exactly. But you know, I knew I
wanted to be involved in the public sphere. That has
been the constant. But I never had a job that
I said I have to be the X, Y or Z,
or I'm going to feel like I haven't succeeded.
Emily Tisch Sussman (25:30):
Did you make decisions around education, placement, profession to try
to get you closer to what you thought was the
way that you were going to execute on that change yourself?
Susan Rice (25:42):
No, well, yes, and no, I mean I you know,
I went to undergraduate at Stanford. I was a history major,
and again always interested in public issues. My expectation at
that point was I'd go to law school eventually and
be some kind of public interest lawyer, and you know,
I serve, you know, people who needed a voice, and
(26:04):
maybe from there get into progressively into political and elected office.
I had an intermediate stop by the opportunity to go
to a graduate school in Oxford, England, right after college,
and decided, thinking still that I was going to go
to law school, that I would take this time in
(26:25):
England to study international relations, which is something that I
hadn't studied, but thought would be useful to know a
little bit about if I were going to go perhaps
into elected office, and that took me on a completely
different path. I initially was only going to get my master's,
decided to stay and get my doctoral degree, decided I
was not going to law school. And while I spent
(26:47):
a couple of years in the private sector, really my
early career at twenty eight began in the White House
in the Clinton administration, working on the National Security Council staff.
And you know, I had a choice at going to
the Clinton administration in the White House is you know,
when I go into the Economic Policy Council or the
National Security Council. I actually was really lucky to have
(27:09):
job offers on both sides at an early age, and
I kind of any meaning mining mode and did a
little bit of probably ignorant analysis and decided in a
way it was interesting because I've always had an interest
in both domestic and international. But I thought back at
that time, and I don't know if I was right,
that it's probably easier to go from foreign policy to
(27:30):
domestic policy than from domestic policy to foreign policy. And
that probably was right, but it was just a gut instinct.
I had no basis for making that decision. Anyway. I
went into foreign policy national security, and literally one thing
led to another. I started as the expert level on
the National Security Council staff. Within two years, I was
(27:51):
promoted to a more senior job. Clinton second term, I
was appointed to a Senate confirmed job at the State
Department to be responded for the Bureau of African Affairs.
And then literally one thing led to another the un
National Security Advisor. I didn't have a clear cut plan
that I'm going into national security and I'm going to
try to be national security advisor. That wasn't how it worked,
(28:14):
nor did I have any expectation. After I left the
Obama administration, that I was going to go back into
government at all, much less into domestic policy and run
you know, a similar sort of set of processes on
the domestic side.
Emily Tisch Sussman (28:27):
How did that come about?
Susan Rice (28:29):
Well, President Elect Biden, with whom I'd obviously worked closely
over the years, most closely when he was vice president
and I was National Security advisor. You know, we saw
each other almost every day and work together on national security.
And then also when he was in the Senate he
chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, he would chaired the committee
(28:51):
when it Yeah, when I was up for my confirmation,
and so I've known him for years, he came to
me through through his team, saying, you know, I want
you to join the administration. And in fact, I'd been
among the people he had considered for vice president in
twenty twenty, so he wanted me in. The question was,
you know what, in what role? And frankly, after having
(29:15):
spent all that time in national security, I was up
for something new and different, something that would enable me
to learn and grow. And so we talked about this
and a couple other things, and I think we both
thought that this would be the best fit. And I
think he really was interested in my bringing my experience
(29:35):
in leading and running policy processes at the cabinet level
in the national security realm, which has a set of
what it had before Trump, you know, rigor and structure
and real norms, sort of importing that to the domestic
policy side, which in different administrations has been run differently
but with less structure than we have done it historically
(29:57):
on the national security side. So I think he w
me to bring those skills in, that experience and work
on the wide range of domestic issues that he was
passionate about.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:07):
Really, my reason for starting this show was because, as
I shared, and I had been in this job from
the world that we come in, or you come from
a much larger world than me, but you know from DC,
from federal policy, where personally you always have to be
projecting strength. Professionally, you never want to tell anyone that
you can't you're not up for the job that you're doing,
You'll never get the next job. And when I had
(30:28):
two kids in eighteen months, I was not up for
the job that I was doing, and so I didn't
want anyone to think that I wasn't up for the job,
and so I told them that I was just ready
to move on and start consulting and do my own thing.
I came up with a professional narrative for why I
was moving on to the next thing, when really it
was the personal reason that I was leaving. It doesn't
have to be a negative thing. But were there any
decisions in your career trajectory or the path that you
(30:50):
took that you made four personal reasons?
Susan Rice (30:54):
Yeah, But I'll give you a couple of examples. When
I left the Clinton administration in two thousand, I had
a three and a half year old son who was born,
you know, while I was at the White House right
before I was going to take over as Assistant Secretary
(31:14):
of State for African Affairs, where the job requires you
to travel, as you might imagine, to Africa often. That
was really hard with an infant child, and you know,
and I was breastfeeding at the time and all of that.
So when the Clinton administration ended, we wanted to have
another child, but we also I wanted very much to
(31:36):
be in a role that enabled me to be present
and engaged as fully as I wanted to be in
the life of our son, and so I made choices
that at that point that enabled me to do that.
I went to a think tank at the Brookings Institution,
which was you know, a good opportunity to on my
own schedule, brought my sort of intellectual capital. It's very
(32:00):
much a place that is suited when you're a scholar
to you making your own schedule and having some latitude
and freedom. So that phase of my life was definitely
one where family considerations were paramount. We did have another child,
so thankfully we've you know, they're both now grown and
(32:23):
knock on wood, doing well. But that was one phase.
And you know, the other hard period was when I
was you an ambassador, and I was in New York
during most of the week. My husband had a job
and my kids were in school in Washington, and so
I was commuting it something not unlike a member of
(32:43):
Congress in some respects to go up, you know, Monday
morning and try to come back Thursday night or if
I had do Friday. But there were days when you know,
you had to get on airplane on Saturday or Sunday
to get you know, go up to the Security Council
because Kim Jong un had shot off some missiles or
whatever or nuclear test. So you know, that period was
a point in time when you know, I wish I
(33:04):
could have to a greater extent been able to prioritize
kids and family. And when I left the UN and
came back to Washington as National Security Adviser, President Obama
joked at the Rose Garden ceremony when he announced my
appointment that I may be the first National Security adviser
who's going to see more of their kids taking that job.
Emily Tisch Sussman (33:28):
But it was true, and I did stay tuned for
more of Ambassador Rice after the break. Did you in
(33:50):
both of those instances, did you come up with a
professional narrative sort of similar to the way that I did,
of why this was the right job in the right
moment that had nothing to do with your family. Sounds
like you're pretty open with the President about the National
Security Advisor, but.
Susan Rice (34:05):
There may I can't think off the top of my
head of something comparable. I'm pretty you know, what you
see is what you get, and you know, I'm not
really afraid to say things that people might be uncomfortable with.
I'm pretty willing to be honest and say, you know,
family's going to come first here and we're talking about kids.
(34:25):
But you know, I had during my tenure in the
Obama administration, I ultimately lost both my parents, my dad
in twenty eleven, my mom right before the end of
the administration in January of twenty seventeen. But a huge
part of my personal time and attention, in addition to
my kids and husband and you know, immediate family, was
(34:49):
supporting and caring for my sick and aging parents. And
I was very forthright with you know, with the President
and anybody who needed to know that if I needed
to step out of a meeting and go meet my
mother in the hospital, I was going to go. And
or if I need to go to a doctor's appointment,
or you know, whatever it was. And he was enormously supportive,
(35:13):
not only of my caring for my parents, but obviously
for kids, my kids too. But he got it because
you know, he had young kids, right, and he had
you know, he had lost his mom to cancer, and
so you know, I had no hesitation about being forthright
about you know, their times when family has to come first.
And I did it with the knowledge that he supported
(35:36):
and understood that. And I tried to also give my
colleagues and teammates and people working with them for me
the same you know, support and permission to do the
same I really truly believe that one of the most
important elements of leadership is recognizing that the people you
work with and who work you know, for you and
(35:58):
for whom you work, they're human beings too, and they're
dealing with all the crap that we all know. You know, matters,
and there's always somebody who can fill in for you
in a meeting, but there's not somebody who can fill
in for you, you know, on the sidelines of your
kids soccer championship or on the bedside of a dying parent.
Emily Tisch Sussman (36:19):
Did you ever feel like you were taking a career hit,
because maybe not with President Obama, but maybe like by
going to Brookings or something.
Susan Rice (36:28):
No, because I mean, honestly, it's not the most important thing.
You know, the most important thing is being there for
the people who you love and who depend on you.
And you know, I didn't feel like life in a
career is a marathon. It's not a sprint, and you know,
there'll be periods when you're sprinting, and there'll be periods
(36:49):
when you're walking, and you're not going to get there
if you're not taking care of yourself and the people
closest to you. So it just was never that important
to me that I wouldn't, at the end of the day,
face with a binary choice choose the people that matter
most to me.
Emily Tisch Sussman (37:07):
It's very encouraging to hear it was very hard for me.
I was very concerned about taking a career hit for
years that I was very worried about it. But seeing
that you clearly did not, well.
Susan Rice (37:19):
It's not I don't want to make it sound like
it's not a dilemma or that you don't struggle with it,
But at the end of the day, maybe I'm wrong,
but I think that good people with talent and commitment
and integrity and skills will be able to find ways
to contribute. Honestly, I feel badly for people that I've
encountered in my career who have a single goal, a
(37:41):
single definition of success, and if they fail to achieve it,
they feel like they've failed in life, or they just
bitter and they make everybody else miserable. And I won't
name names, but I mean I know people like that,
and they're some of the most toxic people you can find.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:00):
We can go longer if you want to name names.
Susan Rice (38:03):
To read my book. I named them in there.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:10):
So I asked this question of all of my guests,
what is one thing. It can be something we've already discussed,
or something different that at the time you saw as
sort of a low and you weren't you didn't really
see a pathway out of it, and now in retrospect
you see that it really set you up for the
success that you've had.
Susan Rice (38:25):
I did write a memoir in twenty nineteen called Tough Love,
My Story of the Things Worth fighting For, and I
talk a lot about my family and you know, challenges
that I had growing up, but also professional successes and failures.
And the period of my professional life that I think,
in many ways was the most difficult was when you know,
(38:48):
at age thirty two, as a brand new mother, I
was sworn in to be the Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs. That meant that I was responsible for
all all our people, all our embassies in forty eight
countries of Sub Saharan Africa, five thousand people on the ground,
over one hundred in Washington, hundreds of millions of dollars
(39:12):
of budget, and most of the ambassadors and other senior
people who reported to me were men who were in
their fifties sixties, spent their whole career in the field,
mostly white and who were skeptical at best initially and
(39:34):
resentful and more likely of me as their boss. And
I was put in that role by President Clinton and
Secretary Albright, who knew me and knew my capabilities. But
I don't think they and I don't think I fully
appreciated the time, just what a cultural challenge that was
(39:57):
for the people with whom I was working, understandably so,
and now that I'm sixty and I look back on
that and think, I'm thinking, what were they thinking putting
a thirty two year old black woman with a three
month old infant in a job like that? And I
made some mistakes and I came we had some horrible challenges,
(40:18):
like you know, we people may or may not remember.
In nineteen ninety eight, Al Qaeda attacked our embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania and killed Americans and killed many more
Kenyans than Tanzanians, and one of their earliest and most
lethal attacks prior to nine to eleven. And that was
(40:40):
a huge trauma for all of us because those were
our colleagues that were killed. And you know, I was,
you know, leading our team through that trauma and my
natural instinct was, Okay, this is horrible, this is you know, painful,
but we've got to keep on task, focused on the mission,
(41:02):
which was you know, recovering our people, going after the terrorists,
ensuring that our embassies elsewhere on the continent were secured,
you know, rebuilding in Kenya and Tanzia, all these sort
of very specific on point tasks. And I was driving
us to those tasks and trying to keep us all
focused on them. And I remember there was a moment
(41:24):
where the one of the I guess he was a
psychiatrist from the State Department Medical Unit, came to my
office a few days after the bombing and said, you know,
you know, you understand people are very upset. I'm like, no, shit, Sherlock,
I understand people are upset. He's like, well, you know,
you need to be much more mindful of that. I'm like,
(41:46):
you know, don't let the door hit you on the
way out. And he was unhelpful, and you know, Captain
obvious and brought no solutions, but he was he helped
me down the road understand a shortcoming in my leadership
style at the time, which was sometimes you can't just
try to drive from point A to point Z in
(42:08):
a straight line in a hell of a hurry. You
have to you have to be patient, You have to
be understanding of where people are coming from. You have to,
you know, make space for grief or trauma for healing.
And you got to lead with not just intellectual vision
and rigor, but with empathy and compassion. And that was
a lesson I learned early in my career in the
(42:31):
hard way, and I thankfully had mentors who were generous
enough to tell me hard truths, to give me tough love,
as I like to call it. That was invaluable to
me as I, you know, grew up a little bit
and took on more senior roles that like at the
UN in this National Security advisor, so with a little
(42:52):
more gray hair subsequently. But yeah, you know, I think
we all that was just one example. We all have
points in our our lives where adversity and how you
navigate through it and what you learn from it can
be instrumental in making you better.
Emily Tisch Sussman (43:09):
Absolutely, thank you so much for joining us, such a
great conversation.
Susan Rice (43:13):
Thank you, I'm great to be with you.
Emily Tisch Sussman (43:17):
Thank you so much for listening to this special episode.
If She Pivots recorded live at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
To stay up to date with Susan, you can follow
her on Instagram at Ambassador Susan Rice. Talk to you
next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots.
I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, leave
(43:39):
us a rating and tell your friends about us. To
learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram at
she pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our newsletter
where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content on
our website at she pivots thepodcast dot com. This episode
was produced and edited by Emily at a Velocic, with
(44:01):
sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock. Audio production and
social media by Hannah Cousins, research by Christine Dickinson, and
logistics and planning by Emma Stopic and Kendall Krupkin. She
Pivots is proud to be a part of the iHeart
Podcast Network.
Susan Rice (44:19):
I endorse she Pivots.
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Ambassador Susan Rice.
Emily Tisch Sussman (00:13):
Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk
with women who dare to pivot out of one career
and into something new and explore how their personal lives
impacts these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today
(00:34):
we have another special candid conversation recorded live here at
the Aspen Ideas Festival. Maybe you can hear the Aspen
trees and streams behind me where I'm sitting down with
some of the world's foremost leaders, innovators, and creators. Today
is my conversation with Ambassador Susan Rice, former Domestic Policy
(00:54):
advisor under President Biden, former National Security Advisor under President Obama,
and former US Ambassador to the United Nations. I'm so
excited she Pivots as one of the inaugural audio first
media companies to partner with the festival. It was invigorating
to be among brilliant leaders and thinkers from around the
(01:15):
globe to discuss and hear the ideas that'll shape tomorrow
and help us understand today. Over the next few weeks,
you'll hear live candid conversations from inspiring women recorded here
at the festival. From geopolitical issues, to economic issues, to
cultural issues and beyond. Each interview connects to the larger
(01:36):
cultural moment we're in, and of course, interreeves their personal lives.
I hope you walk away feeling as inspired and determined
as I did to continue to share our stories and
experiences to change the cultural landscape for a better tomorrow.
Let's jump right in. I'm delighted to be here at
(02:00):
the Aspmen Ideas Festival with Susan Rice, former National Security
Advisor and US Ambassador to the United Nations. She has
been at the forefront of some of the world's most
complex and important issues. She is a mother, wife, scholar, diplomat,
and fierce champion of American interests and values. Welcome, Susan,
(02:22):
Thank you. How did you like that introduction of yourself?
Did we miss anything?
Susan Rice (02:26):
You know, a lot that I was domestic policy adviser
Joe Biden, which is.
Emily Tisch Sussman (02:31):
A really important part.
Susan Rice (02:32):
Okay, and I think the only person to ever have
been National security advisor and domestic policy advisor.
Emily Tisch Sussman (02:37):
I think that is true. How did you find that transition.
Susan Rice (02:40):
Interesting and invigorating? Actually?
Emily Tisch Sussman (02:46):
Yeah, in what sense? Well?
Susan Rice (02:48):
Having spent twenty five years in national security policy making,
including his national security advisor. I understood how to make
policy processes work, how to make decisions, to make government responsive,
and to implement decisions that have been made effectively. But
had done that primarily in the national security realm, and
(03:10):
so the opportunity to bring those skills and experience and
familiarity with structured process for policy making to the domestic side,
where frankly there's been less structure historically, was really interesting.
So I had had all the muscles, and I had
to learn the substance, and there were some aspects of
the substance that was more familiar than others. But you know,
(03:32):
health care policy, which incredibly technical, aspects of immigration law,
which is incredibly technical. My portfolio ranged from you know,
healthcare and veterans affairs, to education policy, to agriculture, to
rural America to housing. You know, it was expansive, and
so it was really fun. I learned a lot. I
(03:53):
feel like we got a lot done, and I really
enjoyed it. Actually, it was a refreshing transition.
Emily Tisch Sussman (03:59):
Refreshing is not where I was going, But I feel
like people just weigh in more on domestic they do
the national security they do. Yeah, was that.
Susan Rice (04:07):
A yeah, that was an adjustment.
Emily Tisch Sussman (04:12):
Everyone's got an opinion.
Susan Rice (04:13):
No, that was an adjustment. In national security. We had
to engage Congress affair, but particularly the national security committees,
and there were certain constituency groups that had strong opinions
on matters you might imagine, but it wasn't a constant barrage.
When you work on domestic policy, it's not a nice
to to listen to and consult with outside groups. It's
(04:35):
an absolute necessity and they're instrumental in informing the debate.
And so I spent a lot more time on zoom
meetings or in person meetings with a myriad of different
constituencies and interest groups, from the private sector to the
nonprofit world, of all stripes. Everybody had a viewpoint and
(04:56):
opinion and they all needed, I guess, and deserved you
listened to.
Emily Tisch Sussman (05:01):
Was there anything in this role that you brought such
a unique background to your point? I think you're the
only person who had moved from national security into domestic policy.
Was there a moment that you felt like, yes, it
is because of my experience that is different than everyone
else in the room, that we had this win I.
Susan Rice (05:19):
Think there were a lot of issues where you know,
we were able to bring different perspectives and different agencies
together in a way that may not have been common
practice previously and that you know, could result in important
and breakthrough changes. Just a small example that unfortunately has
(05:40):
been rolled back and undone as much has been but
you know, we were able to gain agreement and put
in place a rulemaking process to basically phase out menthol cigarettes,
which would you know, save millions of lives long term.
(06:00):
Menthol cigarettes have typically been marketed by Big tobacco to
communities of color, to the LGPTQ community, to young people
as pathway to locking people into lifelong addiction, and it's
one of the more pernicious forms of Big Tobacco's efforts
to suck people in. And we gained agreement through a
(06:24):
process that was rigorous involved all the relevant agencies to say,
you know, no what, we're not going to do this.
We're going to actually save lives, even if it angers
Big tobacco, even if it angers Frankly, some African American constituencies,
who many of whom were being funded by Big tobacco
to be shills for menthol cigarettes, who came up with
(06:45):
a bunch of I think largely baseless criminal justice related
arguments for not taking action that would have saved millions
of lives. But you know, it didn't ultimately come to fruition,
and that's that's another story, but you know, a product
of our own side actually.
Emily Tisch Sussman (07:05):
Not following through. Oh that's interesting.
Susan Rice (07:08):
So we had the opportunity to finalize that rule, which
we're now getting into technical administrative procedure stuff, you know,
in the last year of the Biden administration, after I
had left the administration, and I think because there was
concern about blowback from certain segments of the African American community,
again those primarily who were on the pay roll of
(07:30):
big Tobacco, as opposed to the bulk of the leadership,
which very much favored the rule, the administration decided not
to finalize it. Now I'm confident that had they finalized it,
the Trump administration would have tried to roll it back
because they don't seem to be particularly interested in public health.
But I was disappointed that the Biden administration didn't follow
through at the end.
Emily Tisch Sussman (07:50):
Either. Were there other examples of that that you felt
like were in progress that you wish you could have
seen through to the end, or you wish someone had
picked up for.
Susan Rice (07:57):
You lesser things. That one was one that I was
particularly disappointed in.
Emily Tisch Sussman (08:03):
Yeah, well, ask the flip side. What were you particularly
proud of that you were able to bring over the
finish line?
Susan Rice (08:07):
A lot of stuff in the healthcare realm. You know,
we were able to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care
Act in a way that made healthcare accessible and affordable
to millions of Americans. We brought the uninsured rate down
to the lowest level in American history, only eight million
Americans uninsured. Now when they passed this big beautiful piece
of shit, you know, we're going to have seventeen million
(08:30):
or fifteen to seventeen million people lose their health insurance.
We were able to get legislation through to negotiate down
the price of prescription drugs for the first time, which
was something that we'd tried and tried and tried for decades,
and we got it done. And as a result, some
of the most expensive medications that people rely on are
(08:52):
now going to be at prices that people can afford.
And we capped out of pocket medical costs for the
insured for prescription drugs at two thousand dollars a year
and brought insulin down to thirty five dollars a month
or less. So there are a whole bunch of wins
in the healthcare sector that I'm very proud of, among
(09:12):
other things. What frustrates you in this administration? And I
understand we don't have a podcast long enough.
Emily Tisch Sussman (09:17):
For that, but things that you had seen move forward
in progress that now are moving backwards, or maybe even
that they're taking credit for it. To be honest with you,
I think there's some of that too well, I.
Susan Rice (09:30):
Think, I mean, there are many of those things. I
think that's not the big picture. The big picture is
that we have an administration that is systematically undermining the
rights of large segments of the American citizenry, women, minorities,
LGBTQ people, rural people, veterans, the list goes on and on.
(09:52):
The program cuts and the policies are going to kill
millions of Americans, and meanwhile Trump is arrogating power to himself,
completely ripping up the rule of law and due process,
and putting every one of us at grave risk. I
believe because when you deny due process to some, and
(10:13):
it's not just non citizens. But obviously non citizens matter,
particularly when they're here legally and lawfully. But now they're
rounding up American citizens and locking them up for no reason,
with gestapo like people and playing clothes and no identification masks,
ripping people off the streets. I mean, that's the big picture.
(10:36):
So I'm less worried about the rollback of individual policies,
which is obviously, in normal times, would be the right conversation.
But I'm much more concerned about the wholesale destruction of
our democracy and our basic human rights.
Emily Tisch Sussman (10:52):
I worry. Didn't know we're going to get this deep
in this podcast so quickly, but I do legitimately worry
that this is the end of American democracy, and I
don't know that we're going to know when we will
have hit the moment that we say, well, now it's gone.
You have a global perspective on this. Are there countries
it has happened that countries have had democracies and essentially
(11:13):
lost them or actually lost to them. Do you see
examples of other countries having gone through this process that
they had a democracy and then it slipped away that
you think that we are following the path.
Susan Rice (11:23):
Of Hungary, for one Turkey, which arguably wasn't fully a democracy.
Those are just a couple of examples.
Emily Tisch Sussman (11:32):
What are the markers there that you think that we
are following.
Susan Rice (11:35):
Well, I just I mean I mentioned a number of them,
but one that I haven't mentioned is the wholesale capitulation
of major institutions, takeover of universities. What just happened to
the University of Virginia, And you know, Columbia capitulating law firms,
capitulating big corporations, cow telling, to falling over themselves, to
(12:01):
ingratiate themselves with Donald Trump. You know, those are examples
of patterns that are very slippery slopes to authoritarianism. You know,
so that we're in a moment I believe of grave danger,
and I think it's going to get worse before it
gets better.
Emily Tisch Sussman (12:20):
Worse How and will we know when we've hit authoritarianism, Well.
Susan Rice (12:25):
We're getting there. I don't know, if you know. It's
going to take plenty of people calling it out. But
when the you know, basically a Supreme Court has said
the President of the United States, this was before Trump
took office, can do anything he wants in office and
as above the rule of law. That was their decision
last year. Now they say only the Supreme Court, if
(12:46):
and when it decides to engage, can protect individual rights
or collective rights nationwide. That was the injunction ruling very dangerous.
And you know, I think the Trump deministration is doing
its utmost to try to create a pretext not just
to call out the National Guard and uniform military in
(13:10):
our cities, but to invoke the Insurrection Act and turn
the military against the civilian population. And in that context,
you all bets are off. He could declare martial law,
he could suspend habeas corpus, And at that point we're
completely over the edge.
Emily Tisch Sussman (13:27):
When you say that people need to call it out.
What are our levers as individual people, as individual citizens? Like?
How do what can anyone do well?
Susan Rice (13:35):
I think, first of all, speak up, tell their stories
of how they have been impacted adversely by Trump's policies.
We got to create a chorus of people making it
plain that you know, Trump claims to be helping Americans,
making us all great. Instead his cuts, his tariffs, his
(13:56):
ripping up of healthcare, his ripping up of veterans support
and benefits, the harms he's doing to small businesses, to
communities is hugely detrimental. So we need a groundswell of
people telling their own stories. I've been part of an
effort by an organization called Home of the Brave, and
you can go to thee Brave dot org, which is
(14:17):
a group of people telling their stories and short videos
about the harms that they've suffered. That's one thing I think, frankly,
we need more peaceful, nonviolent protests, and it needs to
reach a scale and a scope and a regularity that
has an impact. And we need leadership that is unafraid
(14:38):
to be very forthright and plain about what is at
stake and what is happening, And frankly, I think be
interested in your perspective on this. We need, you know,
leadership in the Democratic Party that is not fractured and feckless,
but is bold and unified and clear in opposing all
that Trump is doing, and with and clarity and real
(15:02):
unity of purpose, all peacefully, but much more cohesively than
we've seen today. What do you think?
Emily Tisch Sussman (15:09):
I struggle with this. I struggle with what to do
with how do we how do we do something that
feels really effective? I feel like I spent almost twenty
years designing campaigns federal campaigns to move federal policy forward,
and essentially almost all of my levers of power are meaningless.
And part of the reason that I ended up leaving
(15:30):
Center for American Progress, where I ran issue campaigns in
the middle of the first Trump administration, was because I
had designed and run the campaigns there. We had been
successful at the beginning of the first Trump administration with
preventing the Affordable Care Act appeal everyone remembers, you know,
like that John McCain thumbs down moment or repealed it.
That came as a result of town halls around the countries.
(15:51):
When Republican members of Congress went back to their districts
for town halls, the people, even in Republicans district their
constituent showed up and said, do not take away my healthcare.
The numbers of how many people would be uninsured and
lose their health care had come out of my think tank.
So we had successfully crunched those numbers by district and
gotten them to people. They had used them in the
(16:11):
town halls. We think that pressure is what prevented Congress
from repealing it at that time, and we kept trying
to replicate it and for the next year and a
half we kept trying to replicate that kind of pressure
and that kind of moment, and we couldn't do it
again because what we basically realized was that the administration
was not interested in people's opinions like they were like,
(16:32):
there was really almost no kind of pressure that we
could put on them to change what they were going
to do. And so in that time, I had two
kids in eighteen months. So balancing those things and thinking
should I keep showing up at this job where I
feel like I'm not making an impact anymore? I eventually
left and so now I really think about, like what
does help One of the things this is for me personally,
(16:52):
I don't work on legislation anymore. I do this show
where I tell individual stories, and you know, sometimes we
tell later stories, and sometimes we tell stories that we
feel like really need to be told the personal impact
of how these things like, we take it out of
the numbers, which is when I work in federal policy,
it was numbers. It was show that it's big, it
was show that it's scary, And now I take it
(17:15):
as small as possible, like to one person, and we
tell their individual stories. We told the story a couple
of weeks ago. A woman, Caitlin, who lives in a
Republican state with an abortion ban, and she is a
married woman with a child who wanted the pregnancy, and
because of the confusion of what is considered abortion care,
which was outlawed, versus healthcare, she was sent home from
(17:36):
the er twice to die Wich State, Louisiana, and we
kept it out of the policy. We kept it super
personal to her to put a name and a face
on it, and that is personally what I feel like
keeps me feeling engaged. Recently. We actually just learned this
last week from iHeart who we run the show with
(17:58):
that look. I'm very open about the fact that I
spent my life working on Democratic campaigns. I worked on
the Obama campaign, I work in Harris's campaign. This year,
sixty percent of our audience is Democratic affiliated, forty percent
of our audience is not, twenty percent of our audience
is Republican, thirty percent of our audience is independent. And
at first I thought, what Republican wants to listen to me?
I can't believe they're listening to this show. But it
(18:21):
did make me feel recommitted to the idea that when
we tell stories individually regardless of party affiliation, people can
connect and even for myself, like not even a brothers out,
I don't know what the next step is. I feel
like I'm watching authoritarianism rise every day and I don't
know what the next step is.
Susan Rice (18:41):
Well, we got to stop watching. We got to start doing,
because we could watch this thing disappear before our very eyes.
And people keep saying, well, we just got to wait
till the midterms or twenty eight. We may not make
it to the midterms, and twenty eight we may not
have elections. If you know, we have mortial law. And
I think every sign points to Trump doing his utmost
(19:03):
to consolidate power disable any checks, whether it's the media,
the Congress, the courts, civil society, education institutions, his political opposition,
and the way he succeeds is if we all just
throw up our hands and say it's too complicated. I
don't know what I can do. We all need to
(19:25):
be figuring out. And I do think storytelling is important.
What I'm interested is in his story telling at scale,
and I know that's hard in our current media environment,
but the reality is that in all corners of the country,
in areas rural, urban, and suburban in red states and
(19:47):
blue states, people of all backgrounds and stripes, rich, poor,
people of color, people, white people. Everybody knows somebody who
has a story, whether it's somebody who is in a
cancer trial, has had there, you know, their NAH program
completely canceled, and now they can't access the care that
they were depending on for themselves or a family member.
(20:10):
Veterans who can't get their calls answered on the hotline
because you know, we've cut back staff and now they
want to take eighty thousand people out of the VA.
Cuts to healthcare and VA people who aren't going to
be able to get basic nutrition because of what's in
this big beautiful piece of shit as I like to
call it that you know, SNAP is going to be cut.
Millions of people are going to lose food assistants, millions
(20:32):
of people are going to lose health care. And these
are real, approximate, no kidding harms. The tariffs are causing
small businesses to you know, to reel because they can't
make business decisions, they can't predict what's coming next. Their
costs of goods have gone through the roof to what end,
and there you've got, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Who's actively every day trying to think about how many
(20:54):
more Americans he can kill.
Emily Tisch Sussman (20:56):
Literally, Yeah, the vaccine thing is insane.
Susan Rice (21:00):
Yeah, it's not just vaccines, you know. Now we're not
going to put out research on how to prevent HIV eights,
you know. So, I mean the list goes on. We're
cutting funding for black lung disease in Coal country. Those
are Trump's constituents. All of us are Trump's constituents, but
those are people in his base. We're killing the hotline
(21:22):
for lgbt Q kids who need help with suicide prevention.
What is the point of that. It's literally killing Americans
on a daily basis. So it's more than the vaccines.
Although that's you rightly gotten a lot of attention.
Emily Tisch Sussman (21:38):
Why do you think they're cutting all of these programs
that will impact It doesn't seem to me that they
are looking for broad support like they really seem to
only be I call it transactional, like looking to support
the people that support them.
Susan Rice (21:53):
But they don't even support the people who support them exactly.
I mean, look at these that's the irony of the
of the Medicaid US and the snap cuts. You know
that Trump's base is now substantially people who rely on
government support, and yet he's going to cut it and
then lie about the fact that did he did it.
(22:15):
He's going around saying there's nothing in Medicaid is going
to change. That's a bald face lie. And Tom Tillis
and Holly and all these posts. They know it, these
Republican senators who know what's going to happen to their constituents.
But that's why the storytelling, the truth telling, is so important,
because in our fractured media environment, you know, if Trump
(22:36):
says no changes to Medicaid, which bald face lie, the
Senate bill cutting it one trillion dollars now from medicaid,
but people will believe it if they listen to to
right wing news sources.
Emily Tisch Sussman (22:51):
After the break, more from Ambassador Rice.
Susan Rice (23:08):
Because in our fractured media environment, you know, if Trump
says no changes to medicate which is bald face lie,
the Senate bill cutting a one trillion dollars now from Medicaid,
but people will believe it if they listen to to
right wing new sources. But that's why the storytelling, the
truth telling is so important, because in our fractured media environment,
(23:33):
you know, if Trump says no changes to medicate which
is bald face lie the Senate bill cutting one trillion
dollars now from Medicaid. But people will believe it if
they listen to to right wing new sources.
Emily Tisch Sussman (23:46):
Well, that's what I'd say, is that the facts. It's
very hard at this point to understand for people to
understand what is fact because the framing changes depending on
basically the perspective, our opinion of who's giving it and
it is. It's very difficult. Okay, I want to bring
it back to you. I thought, yeah, this interview really
is about you. Okay, yay, Yeah, we're still getting now.
(24:10):
I want to bring it back to you personally. You've
had so many incredible and accomplished phases of your career.
Did your metric of success change throughout your career? Was
it always was your goal to always be the domestic
policy advisor? Was your goal to all? Okay, I'm getting
a real no, no, no. How did your goals change
as you were moving through your career?
Susan Rice (24:31):
I mean, my fundamental goals have been consistent since I
was a kid, which is to have a positive impact
on people, particularly the most vulnerable, and to make policies
that served that benefited the American people, our national security
or domestic security and domestic prosperity. All of that has
(24:52):
been where I've come from from childhood. But I didn't
have a set, consistent view of how to achieve that.
When I was ten years old growing up in the
District of Columbia, which to this day has no voting
rights in Congress. You know, I wanted to be United
States Senator from the District of Columbia. Obviously that's not
(25:12):
been my path yet, and well, you don't have voting
rights in Congress exactly. But you know, I knew I
wanted to be involved in the public sphere. That has
been the constant. But I never had a job that
I said I have to be the X, Y or Z,
or I'm going to feel like I haven't succeeded.
Emily Tisch Sussman (25:30):
Did you make decisions around education, placement, profession to try
to get you closer to what you thought was the
way that you were going to execute on that change yourself?
Susan Rice (25:42):
No, well, yes, and no, I mean I you know,
I went to undergraduate at Stanford. I was a history major,
and again always interested in public issues. My expectation at
that point was I'd go to law school eventually and
be some kind of public interest lawyer, and you know,
I serve, you know, people who needed a voice, and
(26:04):
maybe from there get into progressively into political and elected office.
I had an intermediate stop by the opportunity to go
to a graduate school in Oxford, England, right after college,
and decided, thinking still that I was going to go
to law school, that I would take this time in
(26:25):
England to study international relations, which is something that I
hadn't studied, but thought would be useful to know a
little bit about if I were going to go perhaps
into elected office, and that took me on a completely
different path. I initially was only going to get my master's,
decided to stay and get my doctoral degree, decided I
was not going to law school. And while I spent
(26:47):
a couple of years in the private sector, really my
early career at twenty eight began in the White House
in the Clinton administration, working on the National Security Council staff.
And you know, I had a choice at going to
the Clinton administration in the White House is you know,
when I go into the Economic Policy Council or the
National Security Council. I actually was really lucky to have
(27:09):
job offers on both sides at an early age, and
I kind of any meaning mining mode and did a
little bit of probably ignorant analysis and decided in a
way it was interesting because I've always had an interest
in both domestic and international. But I thought back at
that time, and I don't know if I was right,
that it's probably easier to go from foreign policy to
(27:30):
domestic policy than from domestic policy to foreign policy. And
that probably was right, but it was just a gut instinct.
I had no basis for making that decision. Anyway. I
went into foreign policy national security, and literally one thing
led to another. I started as the expert level on
the National Security Council staff. Within two years, I was
(27:51):
promoted to a more senior job. Clinton second term, I
was appointed to a Senate confirmed job at the State
Department to be responded for the Bureau of African Affairs.
And then literally one thing led to another the un
National Security Advisor. I didn't have a clear cut plan
that I'm going into national security and I'm going to
try to be national security advisor. That wasn't how it worked,
(28:14):
nor did I have any expectation. After I left the
Obama administration, that I was going to go back into
government at all, much less into domestic policy and run
you know, a similar sort of set of processes on
the domestic side.
Emily Tisch Sussman (28:27):
How did that come about?
Susan Rice (28:29):
Well, President Elect Biden, with whom I'd obviously worked closely
over the years, most closely when he was vice president
and I was National Security advisor. You know, we saw
each other almost every day and work together on national security.
And then also when he was in the Senate he
chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, he would chaired the committee
(28:51):
when it Yeah, when I was up for my confirmation,
and so I've known him for years, he came to
me through through his team, saying, you know, I want
you to join the administration. And in fact, I'd been
among the people he had considered for vice president in
twenty twenty, so he wanted me in. The question was,
you know what, in what role? And frankly, after having
(29:15):
spent all that time in national security, I was up
for something new and different, something that would enable me
to learn and grow. And so we talked about this
and a couple other things, and I think we both
thought that this would be the best fit. And I
think he really was interested in my bringing my experience
(29:35):
in leading and running policy processes at the cabinet level
in the national security realm, which has a set of
what it had before Trump, you know, rigor and structure
and real norms, sort of importing that to the domestic
policy side, which in different administrations has been run differently
but with less structure than we have done it historically
(29:57):
on the national security side. So I think he w
me to bring those skills in, that experience and work
on the wide range of domestic issues that he was
passionate about.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:07):
Really, my reason for starting this show was because, as
I shared, and I had been in this job from
the world that we come in, or you come from
a much larger world than me, but you know from DC,
from federal policy, where personally you always have to be
projecting strength. Professionally, you never want to tell anyone that
you can't you're not up for the job that you're doing,
You'll never get the next job. And when I had
(30:28):
two kids in eighteen months, I was not up for
the job that I was doing, and so I didn't
want anyone to think that I wasn't up for the job,
and so I told them that I was just ready
to move on and start consulting and do my own thing.
I came up with a professional narrative for why I
was moving on to the next thing, when really it
was the personal reason that I was leaving. It doesn't
have to be a negative thing. But were there any
decisions in your career trajectory or the path that you
(30:50):
took that you made four personal reasons?
Susan Rice (30:54):
Yeah, But I'll give you a couple of examples. When
I left the Clinton administration in two thousand, I had
a three and a half year old son who was born,
you know, while I was at the White House right
before I was going to take over as Assistant Secretary
(31:14):
of State for African Affairs, where the job requires you
to travel, as you might imagine, to Africa often. That
was really hard with an infant child, and you know,
and I was breastfeeding at the time and all of that.
So when the Clinton administration ended, we wanted to have
another child, but we also I wanted very much to
(31:36):
be in a role that enabled me to be present
and engaged as fully as I wanted to be in
the life of our son, and so I made choices
that at that point that enabled me to do that.
I went to a think tank at the Brookings Institution,
which was you know, a good opportunity to on my
own schedule, brought my sort of intellectual capital. It's very
(32:00):
much a place that is suited when you're a scholar
to you making your own schedule and having some latitude
and freedom. So that phase of my life was definitely
one where family considerations were paramount. We did have another child,
so thankfully we've you know, they're both now grown and
(32:23):
knock on wood, doing well. But that was one phase.
And you know, the other hard period was when I
was you an ambassador, and I was in New York
during most of the week. My husband had a job
and my kids were in school in Washington, and so
I was commuting it something not unlike a member of
(32:43):
Congress in some respects to go up, you know, Monday
morning and try to come back Thursday night or if
I had do Friday. But there were days when you know,
you had to get on airplane on Saturday or Sunday
to get you know, go up to the Security Council
because Kim Jong un had shot off some missiles or
whatever or nuclear test. So you know, that period was
a point in time when you know, I wish I
(33:04):
could have to a greater extent been able to prioritize
kids and family. And when I left the UN and
came back to Washington as National Security Adviser, President Obama
joked at the Rose Garden ceremony when he announced my
appointment that I may be the first National Security adviser
who's going to see more of their kids taking that job.
Emily Tisch Sussman (33:28):
But it was true, and I did stay tuned for
more of Ambassador Rice after the break. Did you in
(33:50):
both of those instances, did you come up with a
professional narrative sort of similar to the way that I did,
of why this was the right job in the right
moment that had nothing to do with your family. Sounds
like you're pretty open with the President about the National
Security Advisor, but.
Susan Rice (34:05):
There may I can't think off the top of my
head of something comparable. I'm pretty you know, what you
see is what you get, and you know, I'm not
really afraid to say things that people might be uncomfortable with.
I'm pretty willing to be honest and say, you know,
family's going to come first here and we're talking about kids.
(34:25):
But you know, I had during my tenure in the
Obama administration, I ultimately lost both my parents, my dad
in twenty eleven, my mom right before the end of
the administration in January of twenty seventeen. But a huge
part of my personal time and attention, in addition to
my kids and husband and you know, immediate family, was
(34:49):
supporting and caring for my sick and aging parents. And
I was very forthright with you know, with the President
and anybody who needed to know that if I needed
to step out of a meeting and go meet my
mother in the hospital, I was going to go. And
or if I need to go to a doctor's appointment,
or you know, whatever it was. And he was enormously supportive,
(35:13):
not only of my caring for my parents, but obviously
for kids, my kids too. But he got it because
you know, he had young kids, right, and he had
you know, he had lost his mom to cancer, and
so you know, I had no hesitation about being forthright
about you know, their times when family has to come first.
And I did it with the knowledge that he supported
(35:36):
and understood that. And I tried to also give my
colleagues and teammates and people working with them for me
the same you know, support and permission to do the
same I really truly believe that one of the most
important elements of leadership is recognizing that the people you
work with and who work you know, for you and
(35:58):
for whom you work, they're human beings too, and they're
dealing with all the crap that we all know. You know, matters,
and there's always somebody who can fill in for you
in a meeting, but there's not somebody who can fill
in for you, you know, on the sidelines of your
kids soccer championship or on the bedside of a dying parent.
Emily Tisch Sussman (36:19):
Did you ever feel like you were taking a career hit,
because maybe not with President Obama, but maybe like by
going to Brookings or something.
Susan Rice (36:28):
No, because I mean, honestly, it's not the most important thing.
You know, the most important thing is being there for
the people who you love and who depend on you.
And you know, I didn't feel like life in a
career is a marathon. It's not a sprint, and you know,
there'll be periods when you're sprinting, and there'll be periods
(36:49):
when you're walking, and you're not going to get there
if you're not taking care of yourself and the people
closest to you. So it just was never that important
to me that I wouldn't, at the end of the day,
face with a binary choice choose the people that matter
most to me.
Emily Tisch Sussman (37:07):
It's very encouraging to hear it was very hard for me.
I was very concerned about taking a career hit for
years that I was very worried about it. But seeing
that you clearly did not, well.
Susan Rice (37:19):
It's not I don't want to make it sound like
it's not a dilemma or that you don't struggle with it,
But at the end of the day, maybe I'm wrong,
but I think that good people with talent and commitment
and integrity and skills will be able to find ways
to contribute. Honestly, I feel badly for people that I've
encountered in my career who have a single goal, a
(37:41):
single definition of success, and if they fail to achieve it,
they feel like they've failed in life, or they just
bitter and they make everybody else miserable. And I won't
name names, but I mean I know people like that,
and they're some of the most toxic people you can find.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:00):
We can go longer if you want to name names.
Susan Rice (38:03):
To read my book. I named them in there.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:10):
So I asked this question of all of my guests,
what is one thing. It can be something we've already discussed,
or something different that at the time you saw as
sort of a low and you weren't you didn't really
see a pathway out of it, and now in retrospect
you see that it really set you up for the
success that you've had.
Susan Rice (38:25):
I did write a memoir in twenty nineteen called Tough Love,
My Story of the Things Worth fighting For, and I
talk a lot about my family and you know, challenges
that I had growing up, but also professional successes and failures.
And the period of my professional life that I think,
in many ways was the most difficult was when you know,
(38:48):
at age thirty two, as a brand new mother, I
was sworn in to be the Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs. That meant that I was responsible for
all all our people, all our embassies in forty eight
countries of Sub Saharan Africa, five thousand people on the ground,
over one hundred in Washington, hundreds of millions of dollars
(39:12):
of budget, and most of the ambassadors and other senior
people who reported to me were men who were in
their fifties sixties, spent their whole career in the field,
mostly white and who were skeptical at best initially and
(39:34):
resentful and more likely of me as their boss. And
I was put in that role by President Clinton and
Secretary Albright, who knew me and knew my capabilities. But
I don't think they and I don't think I fully
appreciated the time, just what a cultural challenge that was
(39:57):
for the people with whom I was working, understandably so,
and now that I'm sixty and I look back on
that and think, I'm thinking, what were they thinking putting
a thirty two year old black woman with a three
month old infant in a job like that? And I
made some mistakes and I came we had some horrible challenges,
(40:18):
like you know, we people may or may not remember.
In nineteen ninety eight, Al Qaeda attacked our embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania and killed Americans and killed many more
Kenyans than Tanzanians, and one of their earliest and most
lethal attacks prior to nine to eleven. And that was
(40:40):
a huge trauma for all of us because those were
our colleagues that were killed. And you know, I was,
you know, leading our team through that trauma and my
natural instinct was, Okay, this is horrible, this is you know, painful,
but we've got to keep on task, focused on the mission,
(41:02):
which was you know, recovering our people, going after the terrorists,
ensuring that our embassies elsewhere on the continent were secured,
you know, rebuilding in Kenya and Tanzia, all these sort
of very specific on point tasks. And I was driving
us to those tasks and trying to keep us all
focused on them. And I remember there was a moment
(41:24):
where the one of the I guess he was a
psychiatrist from the State Department Medical Unit, came to my
office a few days after the bombing and said, you know,
you know, you understand people are very upset. I'm like, no, shit, Sherlock,
I understand people are upset. He's like, well, you know,
you need to be much more mindful of that. I'm like,
(41:46):
you know, don't let the door hit you on the
way out. And he was unhelpful, and you know, Captain
obvious and brought no solutions, but he was he helped
me down the road understand a shortcoming in my leadership
style at the time, which was sometimes you can't just
try to drive from point A to point Z in
(42:08):
a straight line in a hell of a hurry. You
have to you have to be patient, You have to
be understanding of where people are coming from. You have to,
you know, make space for grief or trauma for healing.
And you got to lead with not just intellectual vision
and rigor, but with empathy and compassion. And that was
a lesson I learned early in my career in the
(42:31):
hard way, and I thankfully had mentors who were generous
enough to tell me hard truths, to give me tough love,
as I like to call it. That was invaluable to
me as I, you know, grew up a little bit
and took on more senior roles that like at the
UN in this National Security advisor, so with a little
(42:52):
more gray hair subsequently. But yeah, you know, I think
we all that was just one example. We all have
points in our our lives where adversity and how you
navigate through it and what you learn from it can
be instrumental in making you better.
Emily Tisch Sussman (43:09):
Absolutely, thank you so much for joining us, such a
great conversation.
Susan Rice (43:13):
Thank you, I'm great to be with you.
Emily Tisch Sussman (43:17):
Thank you so much for listening to this special episode.
If She Pivots recorded live at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
To stay up to date with Susan, you can follow
her on Instagram at Ambassador Susan Rice. Talk to you
next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots.
I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, leave
(43:39):
us a rating and tell your friends about us. To
learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram at
she pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our newsletter
where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content on
our website at she pivots thepodcast dot com. This episode
was produced and edited by Emily at a Velocic, with
(44:01):
sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock. Audio production and
social media by Hannah Cousins, research by Christine Dickinson, and
logistics and planning by Emma Stopic and Kendall Krupkin. She
Pivots is proud to be a part of the iHeart
Podcast Network.
Susan Rice (44:19):
I endorse she Pivots.
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