October 31, 2023 • 44 mins
It’s almost that time of year for holiday gatherings with family and friends. And with that comes lots of eating, maybe lots of cooking, and, for many, a growing list of topics that are off the table for discussion, as they run the risk of derailing an otherwise festive occasion.
Of course, there are times when we need to have difficult conversations, and to be able to disagree with others without threatening our connection to the people we love, or the vital work we need to get done.
On today’s episode, Hillary speaks with Sarah Stewart Holland and Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, two people who are highly skilled at navigating difficult conversations, and can share stories and offer advice from the front lines.
Sarah is a progressive Democrat who ran for office (and won!), and is raising three kids, in the very red state of Kentucky. On the Pantsuit Politics podcast, she and her more politically conservative co-host Beth Silvers have been tackling challenging conversations since 2015. They’ve written two books to help others do the same, including the book club favorite I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversation.
Linda, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, has been engaged in high-stakes, complex negotiations for decades. Over the course of her 35-year career with the Foreign Service, she served as U.S. Ambassador to Liberia, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, as the Director of Human Resources, and held posts abroad in Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, Switzerland, and elsewhere.
You can read the full transcript HERE.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is you and me both.
I know you may not want to hear this, but
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and with it comes
lots of cooking, lots of eating, and at least in
some households, lots of warnings about what topics we can't
bring up with guests around the dinner table. You know,
(00:23):
now more than ever, disagreements over everything from climate change
to what books kids could read, to you know, just
name it. Everything seems to derail what should be you know,
pleasant festive gatherings. So what are we supposed to do?
Talk about the weather all night? Fortunately, there are people
(00:46):
out there who are highly skilled at navigating difficult conversations,
and today we're going to hear from two of them. Later,
I'll be speaking with United States Ambassador to the United Nations,
Linda Thomas Greenfield, who's been doing the incredibly delicate.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Work of diplomacy for decades.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
But first, I'm talking to a mom of three kids
from Paducah, Kentucky, who co hosts a podcast that's all
about tackling divisive topics. Sarah Stuart Holland started the Pantsuit
Politics podcast with Beth Silvers back in twenty fifteen. When
(01:28):
they began, Sarah was a self described progressive Democrat and
Beth was a registered Republican. Now together they've waded through
the last two presidential elections, the COVID pandemic, Harrius culture wars,
sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, but always bringing honesty and empathy
(01:51):
to the conversation. They've also written two books. The first,
which has become a book club standard, is called I
Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening, A Guide to grace
filled political Conversation. They followed that one up with now
What How to move forward when we're divided basically about everything.
(02:15):
I happen to know Sarah because she was an intern
on my first presidential campaign, and I'm delighted to be
speaking with her again.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Sarah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
We know each other because you interned on my two
thousand and eight campaign for president. Then you went on
to work for a United States senator. But then you
left Washington, DC for your hometown in Kentucky. I've been
to your hometown. You and I have seen each other
(02:51):
there in Paducah, Kentucky. First, what led you to move
back there and Secondly, can you describe Paducah For people
who've never been there, have no idea where it is.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Well, first of all, everybody should come visit. It's a
fabulous place. Paduca sits on the confluence of the Ohio
and the Mississippi River, and so we you know, I
can be in Illinois, I can be in Missouri, I
can be Tennessee at any moment. And Paduca is a
very interesting place. So I know, you know some of
this history. We had a gaseous diffusion plant built in
(03:24):
the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
That really changed our community. It brought in a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Of workers to build the plant, and then it brought
in a lot of higher educated people to run the plant,
and you know, they sort of demanded these parts of
the town that didn't exist before, Like we have a symphony.
This tiny little town in Kentucky has a symphony. And
those factors really I think changed the fabric of the
town over time. The plant has now been closed down,
(03:51):
as you know, it's the long, decades long process to
close up something like that. And in the nineties, I
think because of some of those those affinities from the
plant were closing, they had this artist relocation program where
they would offer artists from around the country a chance
to move to Paduca and buy a house for a
dollar and people said.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yes, I would like to do that.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
So we had this influence of artists. We have a
big quilt festival that happens every year, and they really
changed the town. I think that was seen as like
a transactional thing, and there is not this anticipation that
you invite an artist community into your town. And in
the same way the plant changed the town, they changed
the town. And so we are in a very red state,
(04:31):
but Paduca proper, the city itself is pretty blue. And
you know, when I moved back, I think your book
It Takes a Village was way ahead of its time.
I really feel like it's having its moment now. But
that's what I wanted. I wanted a village. I wanted
to have children, and I wanted to feel that support.
I grew up with great grandparents and grandparents and you know,
(04:53):
church community just wrapping its arm around me and rooting
for me my whole childhood.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
And I wanted that for my children. And so I
was like, you.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Want to move back to Paduca And he was like,
I don't know if I do. And I was like, well,
I'm gonna go, so I hope.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You joined me, and he did. He did.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I moved back six months pregnant.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Was he also from Paducah?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
No, he's from Atlanta, Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
And so we moved back in two thousand and nine
when I was six months pregnant with my first son, Griffin.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, you're an eighth generation Kentuckian, but you're also a
progressive Democrat. And as you say, you're living in Paducah, which,
as we have seen all across the country, more urban
areas are often blue in a much larger suburban, exurban
rural region that is red. And so you differ politically
(05:43):
from you know, a lot of your fellow community members,
even members of your own family. You've talked about, you
know the fact that your father is a Trump voter.
And how have you navigated your political differences with somebody
that you really love? Has anything changed in your views
or his?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's been a long journey, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
I think the zenith of our difficulty was definitely the
twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Like you live that too, it's obviously.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Yeah, I remember that, yeah, for sure, And I think
it was a lot of people's experience, right. I mean
at one point he tried to unfront me on Facebook,
and I said, We're not We're not going to do that.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
We're not going to do that.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We're going to stay in relationship with each other. And
that's what we talk about all the podcast, and you know,
that's what we work through with our listeners, like this
is a long game. We are trying to influence each other,
not shame or in one conversation, debate each other into agreement,
because it never works like that. I tried it for
so long, for twenty years. I tried like sending the
Atlantic long read in the policy paper and being like, see,
(06:45):
this is how it should be, and thinking that's what
was going to convince people. With my my dad, you know,
my dad is loving and supportive, and he was thrilled
that I was coming on this podcast to talk to you,
Like it's just you know, he thinks I think he
is so proud of me, which which fuels that connection
and keeps the trust and keeps us focusing back in
(07:05):
on each other because politics is not the entirety.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Of our relationship exactly, and it shouldn't be the entirety
of anybody's relationship, But of course that requires either both
individuals or both groups of people to do what you
and Beth advocate, which is spend time with people that
you don't agree with, try to develop trust between you,
(07:28):
find other ways of relating.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But it's hard.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It is hard in it.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
You know, we get listeners and people in our community
and you can hear like, just can you just tell
me the math equation for when it actually is okay
to unfriend my uncle on Facebook? Like can if he
comments this thing and he says this word, is it
okay for me to cut him off?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Right?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
And we always say like, we can't give you that.
You know, we wrote I think you're wrong, but I'm listening,
and I joke like people would go okay, but I
listened and I still think they're wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Now what do I do?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So our other book?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Now, what is when we really try to say okay,
but what are we talking at? What relationship are we
talking about? Are we talking about a stranger you're fighting
with on Facebook? Are we talking about your dad? Are
we talking about your coworker? Because all that different context
of connection really matters, and we don't want it to.
We want like the overarching thing to fuel the whole conversation,
(08:21):
and we'll just debate it and obviously this is what's
wrong or you're wrong, and it just can't be like that.
If we want to work on each other, that's what
we're doing. We're not trying to change each other. We're
just trying to work on each other. And I have
My dad has worked on me, and I have worked
on him. What if my like most intense moments in
the pandemic is when he decided to get vaccinated, which
he was vehemently opposed to.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
But it wasn't just me.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
These circumstances of his life were working on him right,
But he knew I was there to say this is
the right thing. Like when he made that call for himself,
he knew he could call me and I would say,
I'm so glad you're doing this right.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
We're taking a quick break, stay with us. What do
you think that people on both sides of this divide
get wrong about the other? You know, people whose experiences
(09:21):
are more like yours and mine? What do we get
wrong about people like your dad and so many others
who are good, decent, honorable people. I'm putting aside the
malicious ones, the bad actors or bad actors, and what
do those folks get wrong about people like us?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
We all know the stereotypes that democrats are elitist and
overly intellectual and judgmental and don't really care. And then
I always say on our podcast, we all just sort
of default to you don't care if the other side dies,
Like that's like the that's where.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
We go immediately. You don't care about it. I don't
care about that. Like that's how we know.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
We've gone off the cliff is because suddenly we're all
psychopaths and so we you know, we do that with
each other, and I, living where I live, cannot do that.
Like back to the twenty sixteen election, there was a
woman in my child's daycare and she loved my baby just.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It brings to yours mud.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
She loved my baby, you know, well, she loved Donald Trump,
just loved him so much. I could not decide what
she was and put all that characterization, that two dimensionality
that we do on her. It was impossible to me
because I was handing my child to her into her
loving arms two days a week.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Right, But I couldn't do it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
And I think that's what happens when you live in
a place where where everyone politics are not closely aligned
with your politics, because you just don't have that luxury
of saying everybody feels this box.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
In twenty sixteen, I was on the ballot too. I
ran for my city commissioner race and I won. It
was a very very bittersweeted night that election night, and
I thought, I know, there are people who voted Republican
and then went down the ticket and voted for me, knowing.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
My politics, because they knew you, they understood where you
were coming from.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
What you just said reminded me of one of the
interviews that my daughter Chelsea and I did for our
Apple TV plus program Gutsy. We interviewed a African American
woman firefighter in the fire department of New York. There
aren't very many of them, and there sure aren't very
many who are African American, and we just absolutely adored
(11:37):
her because she was funny and smart and very clear
about why she was doing what she did and how
she was trying to break down barriers for other women
to come behind her. And she said to me one time,
she says, you know, I've been in the FDNY for now.
(11:57):
I think as I recall like fifteen sixteen years and
I've moved up the ranks, and I'm in firehouses where
I'm the only woman and often usually the only black person,
And you know, I hear things and I see things.
But I'll tell you one thing, if I or anybody
else was ever in trouble, these guys would break down
the door to save me or anybody anybody.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And so part of.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
This is trying to hang on to the understanding that yes,
we have different political views, but we are all human
beings and we've got to make sure that doesn't get marginalized.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
And that's what you try to do in your podcast.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
You know, for our listeners who may have family members, friends,
co workers who they disagree with politically or have had
a disruption in their relationship because of politics. What are
some of your tips, What are some of the ways
that you can try to restore some grit to your
(13:01):
relationships and conversations.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Well, you know Beth Silver's this is the best Silver's original.
She always says, just remember you do not have to
leave the Thanksgiving table with draft legislation, like let's just
lower the expectations for these conversations, like, no one's looking
for that from you and your coworkers or your family members. Right,
So there's a lot of phrases that we've used that
you know, I think really just helped to keep in
(13:26):
your pocket. And this is another Beth original. Or she'll say,
can you tell me more about that? When you're just
in it and you're like, have we stepped into another planet?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
What's happening?
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Because that's a question we get a lot. This all
sounds lovely. What if we can't agree on reality?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
What do we do then?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And what we always say is just say that, say
isn't it interesting that you and I grew up in
the same home and we can't even agree on this
basic reality?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Isn't that interesting? Not that makes you bad and me good?
Isn't that interesting? Because it is interesting if you're a
student of human nature, that is interesting.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
How did that happen?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
What are the reasons? Right?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
You know, one of the biggest issues caught up in
political debate is of course abortion, and this is such
a difficult, hot button issue for most people. So how
do you talk about that in you know, conversations with neighbors,
people in your community, people at church.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
What I have learned for my time in Paduca. And honestly,
the story I really always tell people is when I
knocked on doors, on on five thousand doors in the
election of twenty sixteen, which is an exercise in humanity,
a lovely one. I had such little negative to extra.
It's a great experience, it really, and you know what
I always tell people, it is the building blocks of
mental health. You are outside, you are moving your body,
You're engaging with humans exactly. But everybody thinks it's so scary,
(14:47):
but I'm like, it's not. But obviously I was a
nonpartisan race in theory. In reality in twenty sixteen, everybody
wanted to know who I was voting for, and I
would say, well, I worked for Hillary Clinton, and that
wasn't It just diffused it because what are they going
to say, No, you didn't right, No you didn't like
I guess I did. So that experience, and that's absolutely
(15:08):
my experience with talking about abortion. So often when I
get in conversations about abortion, I either talk about my
time working for a Planned Parenthood or I talk about
my own pregnancy loss where I had a pregnancy at
twenty weeks where the fetes didn't have a heartbeat. Oh
and I wrote a post actually before, right before the
election in Kentucky where we defeated an abortion amendment that
(15:29):
I said, like, if this, you know, this was not
that long ago, but if it had happened now, I
don't think I would have been able to get the
surgery I got. I would have had to get sick first,
you know. And it and I think women have gotten
so open and transparent because of the work of generations
of people, including yourself, making this conversation more open, making
(15:52):
this conversation more transparent. And there's so many women standing
up and saying, this is what happened to me. You
can't argue with this, This is what happened to me.
Would you want this to happen to you?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That is so well said.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
You know, I can tell what you're going to answer
to this question, but I'm going to ask it because
I feel it's important for people who, like so many
right now, are confused, unsettled, angry, worried, all of those emotions.
(16:27):
But based on your experience day to day in your community,
do you feel optimistic about the future of our country.
You know, I do, I know, but I want everybody
else to know you do.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I I feel like this is a conversation I have
with my thirteen year old all the time. You know,
I jokingly say, when I got pregnant, I said, no,
alex Pekeaton's allowed.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I did not expect to become the Alex pe Keaton.
That is what happened.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
He went further left of me, and he gets so,
you know, in that way that you do when you're young.
It feels like how this is all terrible? Like how
is any of this gonna get better? We were just
having this conversation about climate change, and I said, hey,
we just passed once in a generation climate change legislation
that matters, and I know we don't feel it instantaneously,
(17:21):
and that this work is long, but I you know,
I believe in the beloved community. I believe that I
drink from a well that I did not dig, and
that people on the other end in front of me
will hopefully benefit from things that I'm doing that I
don't get to experience, and that connect. That's It's back
to what we were talking about from the beginning. That connection.
I believe in that. I feel it every day. I
(17:42):
have seen it play out in the lives of others,
including you, and I just try to tap that as
much as I can, to be present with people and
not try to talk them out of what they're feeling.
You can't talk a thirteen year old out of how
they're feeling. I don't know if you've tried. It is
not a worthwhile endeavor. And so I just say, hey,
I understand. I felt that way at times too, But
(18:03):
I'm here with you and I'll stay with you, and
we're on the same team, and I feel that way
about humanity for the most part, and we will keep
taking steps together and we don't know where it's going
to go, but I do believe that we'll keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Amen, Amen, you and I are on the same page
about that, and I am thrilled to have this chance
to talk with you.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
And you are welcome on Pantsu Politics anytime.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
You know what, let's add that to the list. I'd
love to.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Listen to the Pantsuit Politics podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
If you think talking to your uncle or your next
door neighbor is challenging, wait until you hear from my
next guest, Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield has represented the interests
of the United States in some pretty difficult places, from
(18:59):
Liberia to Afghanistan, and as we'll hear about now in
her seat on the Security Council of the United Nations
as our Ambassador to the UN. Over the course of
her thirty five year career with the Foreign Service, Linda
has served as Ambassador to Liberia, Assistant Secretary of State
(19:21):
for African Affairs, Director General of the Foreign Service, and
Director of Human Resources, and held posts abroad in Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria,
and Switzerland, to name a few. I know how difficult
diplomatic work is, the delicate balancing of knowing when to
(19:42):
listen and learn and when to push back. And I've
seen Linda in action, and she does it masterfully. She
has great stories to share from her experience on the
high wire of international diplomacy, but she also offers us
all an example for how to handle difficult interactions in
(20:05):
our own daily lives. I'm so delighted she could join
us on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Welcome Linda, Thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
I'm delighted to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well I've been looking forward to this, and I want
to start by talking about your work at the United Nations,
because I know that maybe some of our listeners don't
know what does the US Ambassador to the United Nations
do on a daily basis.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
You know, first and foremost, I represent America to the world.
At the United Nations. There are one hundred and ninety
three country member states there, and I have to engage
with all of those member states because when it comes
to voting in the General Assembly, it's one country, one vote,
(20:55):
and so I spend a lot of my days in
aging with every single country. But also I attend meetings
of the General Assembly and meetings of the Security Council,
and then I do things like what I'm doing with
you today.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, I know how important it is to have that
one on one personal contact, building those relationships between you
representing the United States and the representatives of other countries, because,
as you say, oftentimes.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
We need votes.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
We need votes to do things that we believe are
in our interests and furtherance of our values and obviously
protecting our security.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So let's take a step back.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You were born and raised in Baker, Louisiana, north of
Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
How did you end up.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
In the foreign service as a diplomat representing our country?
Was there somebody who inspired you or something you learned
that made you interested in international relations?
Speaker 5 (22:00):
You know, every time I'm asked that question, I recall
something different and new that I didn't recall before. And
most recently, I've talked about the fact that when I
was in eighth grade, Peace Corps came to my community.
There was an old HBCU Leland College and it closed
(22:20):
down and Peace Corps came there in the mid sixties
to train volunteers who were going to Somalia and Swaziland,
and that was my first engagement with the world outside
of Baker, Louisiana. They reached out to the community, it's
a poor rural community and invited young kids from the
(22:40):
community to come over and learn the languages that they
were learning, and I started to learn Suswati wow when
I was in eighth grade. I can't repeat a word
of it now, but it was interesting to me. And
then fast forward, I ended up going to the university
was Constant Graduate School, and one of my graduate classmates
(23:05):
was the Siswati teacher Glory Mamba, and so I kind
of rekindled that interest. I'd gone to Madison to get
a master's degree in public administration. I didn't have any
interest in international relations, but that moment rekindled that interest
in learning more about the world, and I ended up
(23:27):
in the PhD program studying African politics and got the
amazing opportunity to go to Liberia, where I met people
who worked at the embassy. One of them happens to
be my husband, and that's all she wrote. I took
the Foreign Service exam, and here I am. Forty years later.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You joined in nineteen eighty two. You started representing the
United States, and you've had one of the most interesting,
impactful careers that I personally know of. But when I
was Secretary of State, you served as Director General of
the Foreign Service, which is a very prestigious post within
(24:13):
the State Department, and you also served as the director
of Human Resources, so you had a lot to do
in stewarding the global workforce of seventy thousand personnel. In
your view, what makes a good diplomat.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
You know, first and foremost, you have to love what
you're doing, and the most important skill is the ability
to listen to people. It's communication skills. So we teach
people they have to write well, and that's important. We
teach people to develop contacts. But in developing those contacts,
they have to develop relationships. And if you develop those relationships,
(24:55):
you can be a good diplomat no matter where you
are assigned, because you develop the relationships that help you
to understand where other people are coming from, even those
people you might not agree with.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I was wondering if there's also either teaching or role
modeling about what to do when you're asked to execute
a policy you don't agree with personally, because you know
you serve different presidents. Obviously, you know there's different policies
depending upon who's sitting in the oval office. How does
(25:31):
a diplomat come to be professionally able to say, Okay,
I disagree with this, but I serve the president and
the country.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
You know. It takes experience and it also takes a
commitment to the profession. I had an experience early in
my career when I questioned whether I wanted to be
in the Foreign Service and whether I could continue to
serve give a particular policy, and it related to Liberia.
(26:03):
I was in Liberia in the late seventies. I left
Liberian seventy nine after some very violent Rice riots, and
in nineteen eighty there was a bloody coup and the
person who carried out that who committed atrocities beyond our
imaginations at that time. And I joined the Foreign Service
(26:24):
in eighty two, and one of the first meetings, I
think maybe in eighty three that I was aware of
the White House having was a meeting between President Reagan
and Liberian President Doe, who'd carried out this horrific and
very bloody coup. And I thought it was wrong for
the President to meet with this guy, and I voiced
(26:44):
it to a more senior officer, and he said, Linda,
if you quit today, nobody will pay attention. If you
want to make a difference, you have to be in
a position where your voice is heard, and right now
your voice will not be heard. And I will tell
you later in my career I was in a position
(27:06):
where my voice made a difference in our policies and
I was able to affect change. And I very much
appreciate the advice that I was given at an early
age that just quitting will make me feel good, but
it will do nothing for our government. So that's advice
that I give to young people today.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I think that's such important insight and advice because you know,
our conversation today is really focusing on how do you
talk to people you disagree with? And I think it's
fair to say you and I have a lot of
you know, a lot of time shocked up to trying
to do that. But if you don't listen to people
(27:49):
with whom you disagree, there is absolutely no chance of
finding any sliver of common ground. You still may not
find it, but you've got to start from some point
of understanding what does this person, what does this government want?
And is there any way to reach some kind of
better outcome.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I want to talk to you about two areas that
you really have fascinating experience in one in Liberia.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Tell the listeners a little.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Bit more about when you went back and it was
still a very violent, conflict ridden country.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
You know, I went full circle. I started in Liberia
in seventy eight, seventy nine, and then went back to
Liberia in two thousand and eight as the ambassador, and
Liberia had just come out of a horrific era of
civil war. In two thousand and six it had elected
(29:02):
the first woman president and it was extraordinarily challenging for
her and for the entire country. And I remember going
in the Secretary of State at that time was Kandie Rice,
And as you know, you give us a secretary's letter
(29:24):
of instruction to go into a country, and my letter
of instruction to Liberia, it's said a lot of things,
but one thing stood out. Your job is to help
this country to succeed. And so that was the approach
that I took. When I arrived at my embassy, I
shared the letter of instructions with the entire embassy and said,
(29:46):
this is what we're here to do. We're here to
help this country. Then, through decades of civil war and conflict,
people are traumatized. We have a president who started out
with a budget of sixty million dollars to run a country.
It's pocket change for most countries. How do we help
(30:07):
her to succeed? And my approach to her, and I'm
still friends with her, is mana president, I'm going to
be the one person who will always tell you the truth. Yes, right,
even when it's not something you want to hear. You
can trust that I will always tell you the truth
about the people around you, about you. But I also
(30:29):
engage with everybody in the country, the good guys and
the bad guys. I spoke to everyone. I went into communities,
I spoke to market women, I spoke to unemployed teachers.
I got to know the country from the grassroots so
that I could be in a position to help the
country succeed, inform our own policies about what we needed
(30:52):
to do from the Washington side, but also advise the
president and her government on what they needed to do.
And I found it to be extraordinarily effective. One thing
that happened the first year I was there, the local
newspapers vote on the diplomat of the year, and I
was voted the diplomat of the year, but called the
(31:14):
people's ambassador. And that was extraordinarily important to me because
people recognize that they would see me in the markets,
they would see me in the coffee in tea shops
talking to unemployed youth. They would see me in rural
areas talking to local people, farmers and getting a sense
(31:35):
of what the country needed to survive and help the
country to succeed. And I think we did an extraordinarily
good job. And two of my successes, Madame Secretary, was
to get you to come to lib Aurea twice.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
I know.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And as I was listening to you, Linda, I thought
about going to president to Ellen Johnson, Sirleive's second inaugural
after or she'd gotten herself re elected, which was equally amazing.
And she asked me to speak to the Parliament. Remember that,
and she told me, she said, now I need you
to go speak to the Parliament, but you're gonna be
(32:12):
standing in front of an audience it includes war criminals, coupplotters,
all kinds of you know, very uh dangerous and difficult people.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
And my job was to keep you from taking a
picture with idioms.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, I know, I know it.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
But that's like a perfect story, Like, Okay, you had
been spending your time day in and day out talking
to everybody, including you know, people that maybe we would
not choose to, but that was part of the mission.
And then I was speaking to a full audience that
included some of those same people. But it just goes
to remind us that you don't make peace or progress
(32:54):
just with your friends. I mean, you've got to have
a big enough tent that you bring all kinds of
people of influence in a society together. And one of
the most fascinating parts of your career, Linda, is you
were among the very first Americans ever to meet with
and negotiate with the Taliban. And that happened, you know,
(33:18):
not in the last couple of years, but back in
the nineties. Could you just describe the circumstances you were
in Pakistan, what happened that made you cross the border
to meet with the Taliban.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
So I was the refugee coordinator in Pakistan, and the
refugees in Pakistan all came from Afghanistan. And when I
was sent out there, I was sent to basically close
the refugee camps and start supporting people returning home. I
got there in August of nineteen ninety six and the
Taliban came in in November, and that changed my job description.
(33:55):
So I was engaging with the Taliban on the issues
of women's education, on issues of human rights, on issues
of the poppy and drug trade. It was not my intention.
I literally was going in to assess the work of
(34:15):
the NGOs and the UN the work that they were
doing in Afghanistan because we were the largest funder. So
my initial goal was to work with those organizations, but
those organizations were having difficulty working with the Taliban, and
I recalled in one meeting with the Taliban minister of
(34:36):
health who'd made a decision that women could not work
in hospitals, they could not provide medical care and lock
any access of women to medical assistance. And I went
in to meet with this guy. I had a very
lightly covered veil on and as I started to talk
to him, he said, you are trying to impose your
(34:58):
culture on me on us, and I said, this is
not my.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Culture, pointing to your head with her into.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
My head with the veil, and I removed the veil.
I said, I wore it out of respect for you,
but this is not my culture. And all the angos
were like up in arms because I'd remove my scarf,
but I said, I need to understand your culture. So
if I understand correctly, when women get sick, the only
(35:27):
outcome is that they die. So if your mother, your sister,
your wife, your daughter all gets sick, they have no
access to a doctor because they can't see a male doctor,
and you're blocking them from seeing a female doctor. And
he sat there, he didn't say anything and Finally the
(35:47):
meeting ended. Everybody was upset with me because they thought
I'd been a little pushy, a little over aggressive. And
I discovered that his mother was seriously ill and he'd
been pushing for one of the NGOs to fly his
mother to Pakistan for medical treatment.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
And he thought that I knew that.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
And the next day he made the decision to allow
women to go back to work. It was not I mean,
we rejoiced at the decision, but they also had to
have a male relative accompany them, and the male relative
could be their two year old son, right, but women
were allowed to go back into the hospital to work.
And I thought, you know, I engaged him. I didn't
(36:32):
think I was being aggressive. I was like, I need
to understand your culture. Good for you, Linda, and I
engaged regularly with Afghan women. And one of the things
that women told me which really impacted me, is you're
pushing for our girls' education, and we want our girls
to be educated, but you have to educate our boys too,
(36:55):
because if you don't educate our boys, they're going to
be forced to marry ignorant men. And it changed my
approach as well, because I began to understand yes, we
have to demand that girls be educated, but we cannot
ignore the education of boys, because otherwise these boys will
(37:15):
be become taliban who don't understand how to support the
rights of women.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I think that's such an important story because so many
people in our country today don't want to talk to
anybody they disagree with, whether it's the right, the left, red, blue, Democrat, Republican,
whatever it might be. Yeah, I mean that is diplomacy
kind of in a nutshell, and yet it often seems
to move so slowly. It takes a lot of patience.
(37:44):
How do you keep the resilience? You know, I have
a little bit of experience of getting knocked down, having
things not work out, and you do have to call
on something deep inside. And I know that in your
career you've had to do that time and time again
because you've been in some very challenging positions. So talk
a little bit about what it takes to keep talking
(38:07):
and working under difficult circumstances as you have.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
You know, you always have to approach any of these
discussions with an unrealistic.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Degree of hope interesting.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
That you are making a difference, and that even when
you fail, you achieve something and so I approach situations
that are clearly very challenging, very difficult, that I probably
know in my hard hearts that I'm not going to
(38:43):
win on. But something is going to come out that
will make a difference, will make a difference in the
lives of people who who are engaged, or people who
just need to see the US there. They want to
see us at the table, and when they see us
at the table, it gives them strength. So it's also
(39:05):
about giving others the strength to engage on these issues.
And I just know every single day, and this is
that unrealistic part of me. Every single day I know
that something I'm doing, although it may look like failure
to everybody else, is making a difference to someone somewhere.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I like that because I think that is a way
that people like you and I do keep going. Is
that somehow this ripple effect is going to mean something. Yes,
And before we close, do you have any reflections about
how some of what you've learned through your forty years
of diplomacy could be applied in our own country, which
(39:51):
seems so divided, so at odds with each other, where
people are more interested in scoring points than solving problems.
Do you have any advice you want to give our
listeners and others who are trying to figure out how
do we get back together, how do we have hope
that we're going to work our way through all of
these controversies and problems.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
You know, what I see and what has worked for
me and what I see not working now is people
have lost their sense of compassion. They've lost their sense
of kindness, they have lost their sense of respect for
other people's differences. So I can sit with someone that
(40:32):
I have differences with and listen to them long enough
to find a common thread. And sometimes it takes a
lot of patience to do that. It's sitting and listening
to somebody spout off something for two hours that you
totally disagree with. But suddenly a light goes off and
there's this thread and you find a connection with that person.
(40:58):
And so we've lost our sense to patients, yes as well.
So my advice is listen, respect, show kindness, and look
for the commonalities that are there that if you didn't
have the patience to wait, you wouldn't find those commonalities.
(41:18):
It may be that you have grandchildren who are the
same ages, and you spend fifteen minutes, a very valuable
time talking about your two grandkids. And then I can
use that bring it back around to say, if you
want a future for your grandchild, then you need to
(41:39):
rethink what you're doing here. And so it does take
patients because you go into these meetings. You got thirty minutes.
Lucky if you got sixty minutes and you got three
pages of talking points and everybody waiting for you to
go through each point because ten different entities within the
government want.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
You to make their point.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
Yes, right, and so you have to go through the
talking points, but you also have to listen, and you
have to connect with the person. So I always start
my meetings connecting and so then you've established that relationship
that allows you to reach back to that person again
(42:21):
and again and again. And that's when you know you've
succeeded as a diplomat when you have those relationships that
work even when you disagree with each other.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Boy, amen to that, Linda, Well, you could give a
masterclass on diplomacy. And you have given us a lot
to think about in this conversation. And I'm just so
appreciative of your taking your time, but more than that
of your steadfast, stellar devotion to the work you've done
(42:54):
on behalf of the United States, and I just hope
your words resonate with our lis and beyond so that
people will talk about that.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
Well, I'm not going to let you in with that
because you have been such a role model for all
of us, and during your term as Secretary of State,
you really gave us the guidance and the support that
we needed that allowed us to do our jobs, and
you gave us the example that we needed. So I'm
(43:24):
going to thank you for what you have done as well.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Well.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Thank you so much for everything. It means the world
to me.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
You and Me Both is brought to you by iHeart Podcasts.
We're produced by Julie Subren, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
with help from Khuma Abadeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsey Hoffman, Sarah Horowitz,
Laura Olin, Lona Vlmro and Lily Weber. Our engineer is
(44:01):
Zach McNeice and the original music is by Forest Gray.
If you like You and Me Both, tell someone else
about it. And if you're not already a subscriber, what
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to You and
Me Both on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, and I'll see
(44:23):
you next week.
I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is you and me both.
I know you may not want to hear this, but
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and with it comes
lots of cooking, lots of eating, and at least in
some households, lots of warnings about what topics we can't
bring up with guests around the dinner table. You know,
(00:23):
now more than ever, disagreements over everything from climate change
to what books kids could read, to you know, just
name it. Everything seems to derail what should be you know,
pleasant festive gatherings. So what are we supposed to do?
Talk about the weather all night? Fortunately, there are people
(00:46):
out there who are highly skilled at navigating difficult conversations,
and today we're going to hear from two of them. Later,
I'll be speaking with United States Ambassador to the United Nations,
Linda Thomas Greenfield, who's been doing the incredibly delicate.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Work of diplomacy for decades.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
But first, I'm talking to a mom of three kids
from Paducah, Kentucky, who co hosts a podcast that's all
about tackling divisive topics. Sarah Stuart Holland started the Pantsuit
Politics podcast with Beth Silvers back in twenty fifteen. When
(01:28):
they began, Sarah was a self described progressive Democrat and
Beth was a registered Republican. Now together they've waded through
the last two presidential elections, the COVID pandemic, Harrius culture wars,
sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, but always bringing honesty and empathy
(01:51):
to the conversation. They've also written two books. The first,
which has become a book club standard, is called I
Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening, A Guide to grace
filled political Conversation. They followed that one up with now
What How to move forward when we're divided basically about everything.
(02:15):
I happen to know Sarah because she was an intern
on my first presidential campaign, and I'm delighted to be
speaking with her again.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Sarah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
We know each other because you interned on my two
thousand and eight campaign for president. Then you went on
to work for a United States senator. But then you
left Washington, DC for your hometown in Kentucky. I've been
to your hometown. You and I have seen each other
(02:51):
there in Paducah, Kentucky. First, what led you to move
back there and Secondly, can you describe Paducah For people
who've never been there, have no idea where it is.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Well, first of all, everybody should come visit. It's a
fabulous place. Paduca sits on the confluence of the Ohio
and the Mississippi River, and so we you know, I
can be in Illinois, I can be in Missouri, I
can be Tennessee at any moment. And Paduca is a
very interesting place. So I know, you know some of
this history. We had a gaseous diffusion plant built in
(03:24):
the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
That really changed our community. It brought in a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Of workers to build the plant, and then it brought
in a lot of higher educated people to run the plant,
and you know, they sort of demanded these parts of
the town that didn't exist before, Like we have a symphony.
This tiny little town in Kentucky has a symphony. And
those factors really I think changed the fabric of the
town over time. The plant has now been closed down,
(03:51):
as you know, it's the long, decades long process to
close up something like that. And in the nineties, I
think because of some of those those affinities from the
plant were closing, they had this artist relocation program where
they would offer artists from around the country a chance
to move to Paduca and buy a house for a
dollar and people said.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yes, I would like to do that.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
So we had this influence of artists. We have a
big quilt festival that happens every year, and they really
changed the town. I think that was seen as like
a transactional thing, and there is not this anticipation that
you invite an artist community into your town. And in
the same way the plant changed the town, they changed
the town. And so we are in a very red state,
(04:31):
but Paduca proper, the city itself is pretty blue. And
you know, when I moved back, I think your book
It Takes a Village was way ahead of its time.
I really feel like it's having its moment now. But
that's what I wanted. I wanted a village. I wanted
to have children, and I wanted to feel that support.
I grew up with great grandparents and grandparents and you know,
(04:53):
church community just wrapping its arm around me and rooting
for me my whole childhood.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
And I wanted that for my children. And so I
was like, you.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Want to move back to Paduca And he was like,
I don't know if I do. And I was like, well,
I'm gonna go, so I hope.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You joined me, and he did. He did.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I moved back six months pregnant.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Was he also from Paducah?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
No, he's from Atlanta, Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
And so we moved back in two thousand and nine
when I was six months pregnant with my first son, Griffin.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, you're an eighth generation Kentuckian, but you're also a
progressive Democrat. And as you say, you're living in Paducah, which,
as we have seen all across the country, more urban
areas are often blue in a much larger suburban, exurban
rural region that is red. And so you differ politically
(05:43):
from you know, a lot of your fellow community members,
even members of your own family. You've talked about, you
know the fact that your father is a Trump voter.
And how have you navigated your political differences with somebody
that you really love? Has anything changed in your views
or his?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's been a long journey, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
I think the zenith of our difficulty was definitely the
twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Like you live that too, it's obviously.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Yeah, I remember that, yeah, for sure, And I think
it was a lot of people's experience, right. I mean
at one point he tried to unfront me on Facebook,
and I said, We're not We're not going to do that.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
We're not going to do that.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We're going to stay in relationship with each other. And
that's what we talk about all the podcast, and you know,
that's what we work through with our listeners, like this
is a long game. We are trying to influence each other,
not shame or in one conversation, debate each other into agreement,
because it never works like that. I tried it for
so long, for twenty years. I tried like sending the
Atlantic long read in the policy paper and being like, see,
(06:45):
this is how it should be, and thinking that's what
was going to convince people. With my my dad, you know,
my dad is loving and supportive, and he was thrilled
that I was coming on this podcast to talk to you,
Like it's just you know, he thinks I think he
is so proud of me, which which fuels that connection
and keeps the trust and keeps us focusing back in
(07:05):
on each other because politics is not the entirety.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Of our relationship exactly, and it shouldn't be the entirety
of anybody's relationship, But of course that requires either both
individuals or both groups of people to do what you
and Beth advocate, which is spend time with people that
you don't agree with, try to develop trust between you,
(07:28):
find other ways of relating.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But it's hard.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It is hard in it.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
You know, we get listeners and people in our community
and you can hear like, just can you just tell
me the math equation for when it actually is okay
to unfriend my uncle on Facebook? Like can if he
comments this thing and he says this word, is it
okay for me to cut him off?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Right?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
And we always say like, we can't give you that.
You know, we wrote I think you're wrong, but I'm listening,
and I joke like people would go okay, but I
listened and I still think they're wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Now what do I do?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So our other book?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Now, what is when we really try to say okay,
but what are we talking at? What relationship are we
talking about? Are we talking about a stranger you're fighting
with on Facebook? Are we talking about your dad? Are
we talking about your coworker? Because all that different context
of connection really matters, and we don't want it to.
We want like the overarching thing to fuel the whole conversation,
(08:21):
and we'll just debate it and obviously this is what's
wrong or you're wrong, and it just can't be like that.
If we want to work on each other, that's what
we're doing. We're not trying to change each other. We're
just trying to work on each other. And I have
My dad has worked on me, and I have worked
on him. What if my like most intense moments in
the pandemic is when he decided to get vaccinated, which
he was vehemently opposed to.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
But it wasn't just me.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
These circumstances of his life were working on him right,
But he knew I was there to say this is
the right thing. Like when he made that call for himself,
he knew he could call me and I would say,
I'm so glad you're doing this right.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
We're taking a quick break, stay with us. What do
you think that people on both sides of this divide
get wrong about the other? You know, people whose experiences
(09:21):
are more like yours and mine? What do we get
wrong about people like your dad and so many others
who are good, decent, honorable people. I'm putting aside the
malicious ones, the bad actors or bad actors, and what
do those folks get wrong about people like us?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
We all know the stereotypes that democrats are elitist and
overly intellectual and judgmental and don't really care. And then
I always say on our podcast, we all just sort
of default to you don't care if the other side dies,
Like that's like the that's where.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
We go immediately. You don't care about it. I don't
care about that. Like that's how we know.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
We've gone off the cliff is because suddenly we're all
psychopaths and so we you know, we do that with
each other, and I, living where I live, cannot do that.
Like back to the twenty sixteen election, there was a
woman in my child's daycare and she loved my baby just.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It brings to yours mud.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
She loved my baby, you know, well, she loved Donald Trump,
just loved him so much. I could not decide what
she was and put all that characterization, that two dimensionality
that we do on her. It was impossible to me
because I was handing my child to her into her
loving arms two days a week.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Right, But I couldn't do it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
And I think that's what happens when you live in
a place where where everyone politics are not closely aligned
with your politics, because you just don't have that luxury
of saying everybody feels this box.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
In twenty sixteen, I was on the ballot too. I
ran for my city commissioner race and I won. It
was a very very bittersweeted night that election night, and
I thought, I know, there are people who voted Republican
and then went down the ticket and voted for me, knowing.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
My politics, because they knew you, they understood where you
were coming from.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
What you just said reminded me of one of the
interviews that my daughter Chelsea and I did for our
Apple TV plus program Gutsy. We interviewed a African American
woman firefighter in the fire department of New York. There
aren't very many of them, and there sure aren't very
many who are African American, and we just absolutely adored
(11:37):
her because she was funny and smart and very clear
about why she was doing what she did and how
she was trying to break down barriers for other women
to come behind her. And she said to me one time,
she says, you know, I've been in the FDNY for now.
(11:57):
I think as I recall like fifteen sixteen years and
I've moved up the ranks, and I'm in firehouses where
I'm the only woman and often usually the only black person,
And you know, I hear things and I see things.
But I'll tell you one thing, if I or anybody
else was ever in trouble, these guys would break down
the door to save me or anybody anybody.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And so part of.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
This is trying to hang on to the understanding that yes,
we have different political views, but we are all human
beings and we've got to make sure that doesn't get marginalized.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
And that's what you try to do in your podcast.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
You know, for our listeners who may have family members, friends,
co workers who they disagree with politically or have had
a disruption in their relationship because of politics. What are
some of your tips, What are some of the ways
that you can try to restore some grit to your
(13:01):
relationships and conversations.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Well, you know Beth Silver's this is the best Silver's original.
She always says, just remember you do not have to
leave the Thanksgiving table with draft legislation, like let's just
lower the expectations for these conversations, like, no one's looking
for that from you and your coworkers or your family members. Right,
So there's a lot of phrases that we've used that
you know, I think really just helped to keep in
(13:26):
your pocket. And this is another Beth original. Or she'll say,
can you tell me more about that? When you're just
in it and you're like, have we stepped into another planet?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
What's happening?
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Because that's a question we get a lot. This all
sounds lovely. What if we can't agree on reality?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
What do we do then?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And what we always say is just say that, say
isn't it interesting that you and I grew up in
the same home and we can't even agree on this
basic reality?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Isn't that interesting? Not that makes you bad and me good?
Isn't that interesting? Because it is interesting if you're a
student of human nature, that is interesting.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
How did that happen?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
What are the reasons? Right?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
You know, one of the biggest issues caught up in
political debate is of course abortion, and this is such
a difficult, hot button issue for most people. So how
do you talk about that in you know, conversations with neighbors,
people in your community, people at church.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
What I have learned for my time in Paduca. And honestly,
the story I really always tell people is when I
knocked on doors, on on five thousand doors in the
election of twenty sixteen, which is an exercise in humanity,
a lovely one. I had such little negative to extra.
It's a great experience, it really, and you know what
I always tell people, it is the building blocks of
mental health. You are outside, you are moving your body,
You're engaging with humans exactly. But everybody thinks it's so scary,
(14:47):
but I'm like, it's not. But obviously I was a
nonpartisan race in theory. In reality in twenty sixteen, everybody
wanted to know who I was voting for, and I
would say, well, I worked for Hillary Clinton, and that
wasn't It just diffused it because what are they going
to say, No, you didn't right, No you didn't like
I guess I did. So that experience, and that's absolutely
(15:08):
my experience with talking about abortion. So often when I
get in conversations about abortion, I either talk about my
time working for a Planned Parenthood or I talk about
my own pregnancy loss where I had a pregnancy at
twenty weeks where the fetes didn't have a heartbeat. Oh
and I wrote a post actually before, right before the
election in Kentucky where we defeated an abortion amendment that
(15:29):
I said, like, if this, you know, this was not
that long ago, but if it had happened now, I
don't think I would have been able to get the
surgery I got. I would have had to get sick first,
you know. And it and I think women have gotten
so open and transparent because of the work of generations
of people, including yourself, making this conversation more open, making
(15:52):
this conversation more transparent. And there's so many women standing
up and saying, this is what happened to me. You
can't argue with this, This is what happened to me.
Would you want this to happen to you?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That is so well said.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
You know, I can tell what you're going to answer
to this question, but I'm going to ask it because
I feel it's important for people who, like so many
right now, are confused, unsettled, angry, worried, all of those emotions.
(16:27):
But based on your experience day to day in your community,
do you feel optimistic about the future of our country.
You know, I do, I know, but I want everybody
else to know you do.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I I feel like this is a conversation I have
with my thirteen year old all the time. You know,
I jokingly say, when I got pregnant, I said, no,
alex Pekeaton's allowed.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
I did not expect to become the Alex pe Keaton.
That is what happened.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
He went further left of me, and he gets so,
you know, in that way that you do when you're young.
It feels like how this is all terrible? Like how
is any of this gonna get better? We were just
having this conversation about climate change, and I said, hey,
we just passed once in a generation climate change legislation
that matters, and I know we don't feel it instantaneously,
(17:21):
and that this work is long, but I you know,
I believe in the beloved community. I believe that I
drink from a well that I did not dig, and
that people on the other end in front of me
will hopefully benefit from things that I'm doing that I
don't get to experience, and that connect. That's It's back
to what we were talking about from the beginning. That connection.
I believe in that. I feel it every day. I
(17:42):
have seen it play out in the lives of others,
including you, and I just try to tap that as
much as I can, to be present with people and
not try to talk them out of what they're feeling.
You can't talk a thirteen year old out of how
they're feeling. I don't know if you've tried. It is
not a worthwhile endeavor. And so I just say, hey,
I understand. I felt that way at times too, But
(18:03):
I'm here with you and I'll stay with you, and
we're on the same team, and I feel that way
about humanity for the most part, and we will keep
taking steps together and we don't know where it's going
to go, but I do believe that we'll keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Amen, Amen, you and I are on the same page
about that, and I am thrilled to have this chance
to talk with you.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
And you are welcome on Pantsu Politics anytime.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
You know what, let's add that to the list. I'd
love to.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Listen to the Pantsuit Politics podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
If you think talking to your uncle or your next
door neighbor is challenging, wait until you hear from my
next guest, Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield has represented the interests
of the United States in some pretty difficult places, from
(18:59):
Liberia to Afghanistan, and as we'll hear about now in
her seat on the Security Council of the United Nations
as our Ambassador to the UN. Over the course of
her thirty five year career with the Foreign Service, Linda
has served as Ambassador to Liberia, Assistant Secretary of State
(19:21):
for African Affairs, Director General of the Foreign Service, and
Director of Human Resources, and held posts abroad in Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria,
and Switzerland, to name a few. I know how difficult
diplomatic work is, the delicate balancing of knowing when to
(19:42):
listen and learn and when to push back. And I've
seen Linda in action, and she does it masterfully. She
has great stories to share from her experience on the
high wire of international diplomacy, but she also offers us
all an example for how to handle difficult interactions in
(20:05):
our own daily lives. I'm so delighted she could join
us on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Welcome Linda, Thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
I'm delighted to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well I've been looking forward to this, and I want
to start by talking about your work at the United Nations,
because I know that maybe some of our listeners don't
know what does the US Ambassador to the United Nations
do on a daily basis.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
You know, first and foremost, I represent America to the world.
At the United Nations. There are one hundred and ninety
three country member states there, and I have to engage
with all of those member states because when it comes
to voting in the General Assembly, it's one country, one vote,
(20:55):
and so I spend a lot of my days in
aging with every single country. But also I attend meetings
of the General Assembly and meetings of the Security Council,
and then I do things like what I'm doing with
you today.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, I know how important it is to have that
one on one personal contact, building those relationships between you
representing the United States and the representatives of other countries, because,
as you say, oftentimes.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
We need votes.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
We need votes to do things that we believe are
in our interests and furtherance of our values and obviously
protecting our security.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So let's take a step back.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You were born and raised in Baker, Louisiana, north of
Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
How did you end up.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
In the foreign service as a diplomat representing our country?
Was there somebody who inspired you or something you learned
that made you interested in international relations?
Speaker 5 (22:00):
You know, every time I'm asked that question, I recall
something different and new that I didn't recall before. And
most recently, I've talked about the fact that when I
was in eighth grade, Peace Corps came to my community.
There was an old HBCU Leland College and it closed
(22:20):
down and Peace Corps came there in the mid sixties
to train volunteers who were going to Somalia and Swaziland,
and that was my first engagement with the world outside
of Baker, Louisiana. They reached out to the community, it's
a poor rural community and invited young kids from the
(22:40):
community to come over and learn the languages that they
were learning, and I started to learn Suswati wow when
I was in eighth grade. I can't repeat a word
of it now, but it was interesting to me. And
then fast forward, I ended up going to the university
was Constant Graduate School, and one of my graduate classmates
(23:05):
was the Siswati teacher Glory Mamba, and so I kind
of rekindled that interest. I'd gone to Madison to get
a master's degree in public administration. I didn't have any
interest in international relations, but that moment rekindled that interest
in learning more about the world, and I ended up
(23:27):
in the PhD program studying African politics and got the
amazing opportunity to go to Liberia, where I met people
who worked at the embassy. One of them happens to
be my husband, and that's all she wrote. I took
the Foreign Service exam, and here I am. Forty years later.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You joined in nineteen eighty two. You started representing the
United States, and you've had one of the most interesting,
impactful careers that I personally know of. But when I
was Secretary of State, you served as Director General of
the Foreign Service, which is a very prestigious post within
(24:13):
the State Department, and you also served as the director
of Human Resources, so you had a lot to do
in stewarding the global workforce of seventy thousand personnel. In
your view, what makes a good diplomat.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
You know, first and foremost, you have to love what
you're doing, and the most important skill is the ability
to listen to people. It's communication skills. So we teach
people they have to write well, and that's important. We
teach people to develop contacts. But in developing those contacts,
they have to develop relationships. And if you develop those relationships,
(24:55):
you can be a good diplomat no matter where you
are assigned, because you develop the relationships that help you
to understand where other people are coming from, even those
people you might not agree with.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I was wondering if there's also either teaching or role
modeling about what to do when you're asked to execute
a policy you don't agree with personally, because you know
you serve different presidents. Obviously, you know there's different policies
depending upon who's sitting in the oval office. How does
(25:31):
a diplomat come to be professionally able to say, Okay,
I disagree with this, but I serve the president and
the country.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
You know. It takes experience and it also takes a
commitment to the profession. I had an experience early in
my career when I questioned whether I wanted to be
in the Foreign Service and whether I could continue to
serve give a particular policy, and it related to Liberia.
(26:03):
I was in Liberia in the late seventies. I left
Liberian seventy nine after some very violent Rice riots, and
in nineteen eighty there was a bloody coup and the
person who carried out that who committed atrocities beyond our
imaginations at that time. And I joined the Foreign Service
(26:24):
in eighty two, and one of the first meetings, I
think maybe in eighty three that I was aware of
the White House having was a meeting between President Reagan
and Liberian President Doe, who'd carried out this horrific and
very bloody coup. And I thought it was wrong for
the President to meet with this guy, and I voiced
(26:44):
it to a more senior officer, and he said, Linda,
if you quit today, nobody will pay attention. If you
want to make a difference, you have to be in
a position where your voice is heard, and right now
your voice will not be heard. And I will tell
you later in my career I was in a position
(27:06):
where my voice made a difference in our policies and
I was able to affect change. And I very much
appreciate the advice that I was given at an early
age that just quitting will make me feel good, but
it will do nothing for our government. So that's advice
that I give to young people today.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I think that's such important insight and advice because you know,
our conversation today is really focusing on how do you
talk to people you disagree with? And I think it's
fair to say you and I have a lot of
you know, a lot of time shocked up to trying
to do that. But if you don't listen to people
(27:49):
with whom you disagree, there is absolutely no chance of
finding any sliver of common ground. You still may not
find it, but you've got to start from some point
of understanding what does this person, what does this government want?
And is there any way to reach some kind of
better outcome.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I want to talk to you about two areas that
you really have fascinating experience in one in Liberia.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Tell the listeners a little.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Bit more about when you went back and it was
still a very violent, conflict ridden country.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
You know, I went full circle. I started in Liberia
in seventy eight, seventy nine, and then went back to
Liberia in two thousand and eight as the ambassador, and
Liberia had just come out of a horrific era of
civil war. In two thousand and six it had elected
(29:02):
the first woman president and it was extraordinarily challenging for
her and for the entire country. And I remember going
in the Secretary of State at that time was Kandie Rice,
And as you know, you give us a secretary's letter
(29:24):
of instruction to go into a country, and my letter
of instruction to Liberia, it's said a lot of things,
but one thing stood out. Your job is to help
this country to succeed. And so that was the approach
that I took. When I arrived at my embassy, I
shared the letter of instructions with the entire embassy and said,
(29:46):
this is what we're here to do. We're here to
help this country. Then, through decades of civil war and conflict,
people are traumatized. We have a president who started out
with a budget of sixty million dollars to run a country.
It's pocket change for most countries. How do we help
(30:07):
her to succeed? And my approach to her, and I'm
still friends with her, is mana president, I'm going to
be the one person who will always tell you the truth. Yes, right,
even when it's not something you want to hear. You
can trust that I will always tell you the truth
about the people around you, about you. But I also
(30:29):
engage with everybody in the country, the good guys and
the bad guys. I spoke to everyone. I went into communities,
I spoke to market women, I spoke to unemployed teachers.
I got to know the country from the grassroots so
that I could be in a position to help the
country succeed, inform our own policies about what we needed
(30:52):
to do from the Washington side, but also advise the
president and her government on what they needed to do.
And I found it to be extraordinarily effective. One thing
that happened the first year I was there, the local
newspapers vote on the diplomat of the year, and I
was voted the diplomat of the year, but called the
(31:14):
people's ambassador. And that was extraordinarily important to me because
people recognize that they would see me in the markets,
they would see me in the coffee in tea shops
talking to unemployed youth. They would see me in rural
areas talking to local people, farmers and getting a sense
(31:35):
of what the country needed to survive and help the
country to succeed. And I think we did an extraordinarily
good job. And two of my successes, Madame Secretary, was
to get you to come to lib Aurea twice.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
I know.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And as I was listening to you, Linda, I thought
about going to president to Ellen Johnson, Sirleive's second inaugural
after or she'd gotten herself re elected, which was equally amazing.
And she asked me to speak to the Parliament. Remember that,
and she told me, she said, now I need you
to go speak to the Parliament, but you're gonna be
(32:12):
standing in front of an audience it includes war criminals, coupplotters,
all kinds of you know, very uh dangerous and difficult people.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
And my job was to keep you from taking a
picture with idioms.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, I know, I know it.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
But that's like a perfect story, Like, Okay, you had
been spending your time day in and day out talking
to everybody, including you know, people that maybe we would
not choose to, but that was part of the mission.
And then I was speaking to a full audience that
included some of those same people. But it just goes
to remind us that you don't make peace or progress
(32:54):
just with your friends. I mean, you've got to have
a big enough tent that you bring all kinds of
people of influence in a society together. And one of
the most fascinating parts of your career, Linda, is you
were among the very first Americans ever to meet with
and negotiate with the Taliban. And that happened, you know,
(33:18):
not in the last couple of years, but back in
the nineties. Could you just describe the circumstances you were
in Pakistan, what happened that made you cross the border
to meet with the Taliban.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
So I was the refugee coordinator in Pakistan, and the
refugees in Pakistan all came from Afghanistan. And when I
was sent out there, I was sent to basically close
the refugee camps and start supporting people returning home. I
got there in August of nineteen ninety six and the
Taliban came in in November, and that changed my job description.
(33:55):
So I was engaging with the Taliban on the issues
of women's education, on issues of human rights, on issues
of the poppy and drug trade. It was not my intention.
I literally was going in to assess the work of
(34:15):
the NGOs and the UN the work that they were
doing in Afghanistan because we were the largest funder. So
my initial goal was to work with those organizations, but
those organizations were having difficulty working with the Taliban, and
I recalled in one meeting with the Taliban minister of
(34:36):
health who'd made a decision that women could not work
in hospitals, they could not provide medical care and lock
any access of women to medical assistance. And I went
in to meet with this guy. I had a very
lightly covered veil on and as I started to talk
to him, he said, you are trying to impose your
(34:58):
culture on me on us, and I said, this is
not my.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Culture, pointing to your head with her into.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
My head with the veil, and I removed the veil.
I said, I wore it out of respect for you,
but this is not my culture. And all the angos
were like up in arms because I'd remove my scarf,
but I said, I need to understand your culture. So
if I understand correctly, when women get sick, the only
(35:27):
outcome is that they die. So if your mother, your sister,
your wife, your daughter all gets sick, they have no
access to a doctor because they can't see a male doctor,
and you're blocking them from seeing a female doctor. And
he sat there, he didn't say anything and Finally the
(35:47):
meeting ended. Everybody was upset with me because they thought
I'd been a little pushy, a little over aggressive. And
I discovered that his mother was seriously ill and he'd
been pushing for one of the NGOs to fly his
mother to Pakistan for medical treatment.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
And he thought that I knew that.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
And the next day he made the decision to allow
women to go back to work. It was not I mean,
we rejoiced at the decision, but they also had to
have a male relative accompany them, and the male relative
could be their two year old son, right, but women
were allowed to go back into the hospital to work.
And I thought, you know, I engaged him. I didn't
(36:32):
think I was being aggressive. I was like, I need
to understand your culture. Good for you, Linda, and I
engaged regularly with Afghan women. And one of the things
that women told me which really impacted me, is you're
pushing for our girls' education, and we want our girls
to be educated, but you have to educate our boys too,
(36:55):
because if you don't educate our boys, they're going to
be forced to marry ignorant men. And it changed my
approach as well, because I began to understand yes, we
have to demand that girls be educated, but we cannot
ignore the education of boys, because otherwise these boys will
(37:15):
be become taliban who don't understand how to support the
rights of women.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I think that's such an important story because so many
people in our country today don't want to talk to
anybody they disagree with, whether it's the right, the left, red, blue, Democrat, Republican,
whatever it might be. Yeah, I mean that is diplomacy
kind of in a nutshell, and yet it often seems
to move so slowly. It takes a lot of patience.
(37:44):
How do you keep the resilience? You know, I have
a little bit of experience of getting knocked down, having
things not work out, and you do have to call
on something deep inside. And I know that in your
career you've had to do that time and time again
because you've been in some very challenging positions. So talk
a little bit about what it takes to keep talking
(38:07):
and working under difficult circumstances as you have.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
You know, you always have to approach any of these
discussions with an unrealistic.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Degree of hope interesting.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
That you are making a difference, and that even when
you fail, you achieve something and so I approach situations
that are clearly very challenging, very difficult, that I probably
know in my hard hearts that I'm not going to
(38:43):
win on. But something is going to come out that
will make a difference, will make a difference in the
lives of people who who are engaged, or people who
just need to see the US there. They want to
see us at the table, and when they see us
at the table, it gives them strength. So it's also
(39:05):
about giving others the strength to engage on these issues.
And I just know every single day, and this is
that unrealistic part of me. Every single day I know
that something I'm doing, although it may look like failure
to everybody else, is making a difference to someone somewhere.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I like that because I think that is a way
that people like you and I do keep going. Is
that somehow this ripple effect is going to mean something. Yes,
And before we close, do you have any reflections about
how some of what you've learned through your forty years
of diplomacy could be applied in our own country, which
(39:51):
seems so divided, so at odds with each other, where
people are more interested in scoring points than solving problems.
Do you have any advice you want to give our
listeners and others who are trying to figure out how
do we get back together, how do we have hope
that we're going to work our way through all of
these controversies and problems.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
You know, what I see and what has worked for
me and what I see not working now is people
have lost their sense of compassion. They've lost their sense
of kindness, they have lost their sense of respect for
other people's differences. So I can sit with someone that
(40:32):
I have differences with and listen to them long enough
to find a common thread. And sometimes it takes a
lot of patience to do that. It's sitting and listening
to somebody spout off something for two hours that you
totally disagree with. But suddenly a light goes off and
there's this thread and you find a connection with that person.
(40:58):
And so we've lost our sense to patients, yes as well.
So my advice is listen, respect, show kindness, and look
for the commonalities that are there that if you didn't
have the patience to wait, you wouldn't find those commonalities.
(41:18):
It may be that you have grandchildren who are the
same ages, and you spend fifteen minutes, a very valuable
time talking about your two grandkids. And then I can
use that bring it back around to say, if you
want a future for your grandchild, then you need to
(41:39):
rethink what you're doing here. And so it does take
patients because you go into these meetings. You got thirty minutes.
Lucky if you got sixty minutes and you got three
pages of talking points and everybody waiting for you to
go through each point because ten different entities within the
government want.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
You to make their point.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
Yes, right, and so you have to go through the
talking points, but you also have to listen, and you
have to connect with the person. So I always start
my meetings connecting and so then you've established that relationship
that allows you to reach back to that person again
(42:21):
and again and again. And that's when you know you've
succeeded as a diplomat when you have those relationships that
work even when you disagree with each other.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Boy, amen to that, Linda, Well, you could give a
masterclass on diplomacy. And you have given us a lot
to think about in this conversation. And I'm just so
appreciative of your taking your time, but more than that
of your steadfast, stellar devotion to the work you've done
(42:54):
on behalf of the United States, and I just hope
your words resonate with our lis and beyond so that
people will talk about that.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
Well, I'm not going to let you in with that
because you have been such a role model for all
of us, and during your term as Secretary of State,
you really gave us the guidance and the support that
we needed that allowed us to do our jobs, and
you gave us the example that we needed. So I'm
(43:24):
going to thank you for what you have done as well.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Well.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Thank you so much for everything. It means the world
to me.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
You and Me Both is brought to you by iHeart Podcasts.
We're produced by Julie Subren, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
with help from Khuma Abadeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsey Hoffman, Sarah Horowitz,
Laura Olin, Lona Vlmro and Lily Weber. Our engineer is
(44:01):
Zach McNeice and the original music is by Forest Gray.
If you like You and Me Both, tell someone else
about it. And if you're not already a subscriber, what
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to You and
Me Both on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, and I'll see
(44:23):
you next week.
Host
Hillary Clinton
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