November 18, 2025 • 20 mins
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joel Rubin joins host Jack Gaines to unpack the gritty realities of legislative diplomacy—from Benghazi testimony to budget battles.
Rubin shares hard-won lessons on navigating Congress, shaping foreign policy, and building political will inside the State Department. This episode explores how political space becomes policy—and why human capital may be the missing link in America’s foreign affairs strategy.
One CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership. We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to the ONE CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines.
ONE CA is a product of the CivilAffairs Association and brings
in people who are current or former military diplomats,
development officers, and field agents to discuss their
experiences on ground with a partner nation's people and
leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone
interested in working the last three feet of Foreign Relations.
(00:25):
To contact the show, e-mail us at ca.podcasting@gmail.com or
look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at
www.dubbacivilaffairsassociorg. I'll have those in the show
notes. It's great to have theories on
foreign affairs, but at the end of the day, they're useless
unless you find ways to make them become practical,
pragmatic, and to work in the real world.
(00:47):
And making things come together between Congress and the State
Department is the most practicalway to to convert political
ideas into real world policy that affects America and our
standing ground world. Please welcome Joel Rubin,
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for House
Affairs. We discussed the State
Department's Legislative Affairsoffice and Joel's testimony at
(01:09):
the Benghazi hearings. Well, let's get started.
I was looking at the background on your estimated for Benghazi
and that had to be a tough day. You had had surgery.
You personally knew Ambassador Stevens.
So both you're recovering and you got to death a friend.
You're sitting there facing Congress trying to answer
questions on a politically charged issue.
(01:32):
No doubt all the layers that you're talking about were right
on in terms of what was going through my mind.
I got asked to do this to go andtestify about 5 days before the
actual hearing because nobody inthe State Department wanted to
testify to the Benghazi Committee about the failure to
provide documents to the Benghazi Committee.
Imagine why not members like JimJordan and Trey Gowdy's.
(01:54):
They knew how to get at the witness.
And what was fascinating about that experience is that I also
had written about it. I've been critical of the
politicization of the killing ofChris Stevens, who was a friend
who was our ambassador. Several other diplomatic,
security, military personnel were killed.
It was a horrible national tragedy.
(02:15):
It was politicized right away during the 2012 campaign.
I kind of spoke out. So in the prep beforehand, we
were talking about how do I address the politicization
question I was criticizing others for.
And I said, look, I'll just speak to myself.
I'll say, look, he was a friend of mine and I took it
personally. They were politicizing the
tragic death of an American patriot overseas when you do
(02:38):
legislative affairs, and that was my job.
I was the legislative affairs deputy assistant secretary for
the House, and when you do as your fares, typically you're
behind the witness. But now I was the star.
But the irony here is that, of course, all the staff sitting
behind the members of Congress were people I was friends with
and had worked with. And I could see them looking at
(02:58):
me as like, what is going on? It was surreal.
Did you feel like the film Benghazi was reasonable?
I didn't watch the film. Oh.
It didn't seem to have anything beyond the pressures put on the
security team to protect everyone.
You're getting at a really important question here, which
is like the on the ground factual reality of the
(03:22):
nightmare, the crisis that happened to those people there
in Libya and the country in turmoil with an organized,
coordinated attack against them.That was real.
And what I looked at was the question of how did we respond?
And then more importantly, when I was doing testimony, what were
the efforts that were done to try to get at this crisis so it
(03:44):
could never happen again, so that we could harden our
security so that people who may have failed were disciplined so
that we could have proper oversight and resources.
And I fear that's what was lost,and that's the danger of
politicizing national security and foreign policies, that you
end up having a partisan dynamics overtake the best
(04:05):
thinking of how to protect and support our men and women who
are serving in harm's way and advancing American interests and
policies. And so there were very good
Accountability Review board reports and other reports where
there was a lot of work done to try to protect and prevent
crises like this from happening again.
(04:25):
And that, like, got short shrift.
It was like sweat guns in the rug.
And it completely failed the diplomats, that whole political
process. And I think that's, to me, what
we need to try to avoid. We have to have hard political
questions about issues, but we have to protect our people who
are serving in harm's way. You think part of the problem
was the department struggle withlegislative engagements?
(04:48):
I'm going right to the teeth on this.
I apologize. But in between, Dan spoken, he
said about ledge affairs being famously bad and the 2024
Commission for reforming the State Department.
There is an underlying theme that there needs to be a better
relationship between state and Congress.
And you were acting Congress, right?
So you saw it from both sides. I did.
(05:10):
I worked in the Senate as a national security advisor, and
then I also worked in the executive branch as a career
officer on hard issues, on military affairs and nearest and
affairs and those bureaus on those issues.
And then later on as an appointee as the legislative
liaison and the senior point of contact to the House for
Secretary Kerry. So I've sort of worked all
(05:33):
around the circle. And then I also did a number of
years of work as an advocate andnonprofit policy sector.
So Integrate worked it and saw how they all interact with each
other. Two major institutions, Congress
and the executive branch, that are continually banging into
each other. Executive is doing something and
(05:54):
Congress is saying don't do that.
And Congress saying you got to do this and executive saying we
can't do that. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
And where they hit, that's the legislative affairs office.
That's the one that gets hammered and has to navigate.
Because you're right there in the middle, because Congress was
mandated originally to be the lead on foreign policy, but that
they have advocated it to the executive office with the State
(06:16):
Department. You've run that aspect, though.
There's still that back and forth between a State Department
and the NSC are going to run foreign policy, but it's still,
there's a lot of Congress that says no, actually, we align the
budget to what best policy should be, and we're the ones
here to determine it. So yeah, you're the bloody one
through the wall, aren't you? Totally.
Let me tell you something about organizational culture.
(06:38):
And in the case of the State Department, agency culture that
the legislative affairs office have to deal with was almost
like a microcosm of Congress versus the executive branch.
Because the culture of the StateDepartment, in particular the
Foreign service, is that the less Congress knows, the better.
And this is not partisan. It doesn't make a damn
difference if it's a Republican or Democrat in charge or in
(07:01):
either direction. If the state Department of
Foreign Service, generally speaking, doesn't want to be
bothered by oversight and they get nervous about Congress and
they don't want to be exposed and go to the public and explain
themselves, they have to go to the Senate more than the House.
They have to go to both for money.
But what they really care about in many ways are confirmations
(07:22):
of positions in that role. The House has no say, the Senate
does. So they have to pay attention to
those senators. And so organizational culture at
the State Department is one of less, is more.
So when you're in the State Department Bureau for
Legislative Affairs, not only are you dealing with the
incoming from Congress, right, where they're asking for 1000
things, you're then going insidethe State Department and saying,
(07:45):
please give us this or what do we do to rebut?
But we need your help to send the witness.
We need the information. So you're constantly fighting in
both directions. When 1 looks at the legislative
affairs function, it's not purely the legislative affairs
office that drives how an agencyoperates on the legislative
timetable. It's that organizational
(08:06):
culture. And so that means you need a
secretary who cares about Congress and makes it a
priority. And then you change your
organizational culture into thinking we better be
responsive. And that's where the political
people generally are much more responsive than the career
people when it comes to Congress.
And you typically have SecretaryClinton, Kerry, Rubio, they've
(08:29):
all served in the Senate. Tony Blinken was a staff
director in the Senate. So they get it.
When I worked, even Colin Powell, his deputy Dick
Armitage, sent out a note to allstaff saying get to know your
counterpart in Congress. If the leadership doesn't make
it a priority, then the Asians doesn't make it a priority.
You also. The only time they cooperate is
when confirmations are due. That is the best driver that
(08:52):
really is. I got to get that
ambassadorship. That's my next step.
I better not understand buddy. They don't even know my.
Name. What do I do?
Oh, I'm the guy who stonewalled us.
We'll just give it a few months.And they can do that in the
Senate. When I went to work there, I had
a mentor and he said, just remember in the Senate, all 100
senators are kings, are Queens, but they're all kings.
(09:13):
They all are in charge. They're all equal in the House.
And you got rank and layers and whatnot.
But that means they can shut down the Senate floor like that.
And that means on confirmation, they can just put a secret hold
on somebody and you know they'll.
Never know, it just sits there. Don't know why, just got held up
process. Oh, and by the way, I'm glad you
mentioned DoD, because it's not as if state lives in a vacuum.
(09:38):
There are other agencies that have equities that oftentimes
overlap. And then there's a thing called
the White House, which also doesoversight of the bureaus and the
agencies. And so there are legislative
affairs staff at the different agencies who meet with and get
coordinated by the NSC, the White House, national security
staff. And so when you do briefings
that require multiple agencies, you have to coordinate with them
(10:01):
and get the rivalries all over the place.
I mean, this is when they say small G democracy, like this is
really it. Like this is the process is
extraordinary. It's not automatic.
There's not some AI machine, youhit the button, you get the
right answer and it goes forward.
When people come in with that attitude about Washington and
government, they quickly learn how wrong they are, and they
(10:23):
fail quickly. It is about navigating,
negotiating, knowing people and systems and respecting lanes and
roles and a constant churn of information flow.
It's fascinating. Well, and that brings up
something that we had discussed earlier that I would love for
you to expand on. It was your discussion on the
(10:44):
art of the possible and understanding political space
and political will and when is that moment, that spark where
you can take interest in an issue and actually get action is
that had to be part of your driving force with advising
state as a wrestling competitor with Congress is helping them to
(11:06):
understand the political environment, the conditions that
are going on and when to actually forward a mandate or an
option that would then be palatable to Congress.
Can you talk a little bit about how you get that foresight, that
kind of practice? There are a couple sort of
bumper sticker lines that I liketo use and people should, you
know, maybe having back their mind.
(11:27):
The first one is that the calendar matters.
Do you have a continual calendarcycle of operations and
advancing your policies? For example, when the budget
becomes the priority and you want to get more funds, you have
to develop it, send it to the OMB, They send it back in
(11:48):
November. It gets rolled up into a
president's budget request. It gets sent up just after State
of the Union in February. Then there are hearings and the
appropriations in April. Then you have the bills going
through like there's a cycle in the process.
What you have to do during that time is build the argument and
build the political space and the political support, a budget
(12:10):
that you're aiming for. And I would always say this to
the team, a sanction to what theadvocates who benefit from the
issues you're working on. For example, if you work on
counter narcotics policy, pay attention to what people are
saying in the world that focuseson countering drug addiction.
People, folks in the world, Latin America policy, what are
the think tanks saying? What are they producing?
(12:32):
What's the political environmentout there for that issue?
And so that's the political space environment.
And then that's where it drives your lobbying.
And in many ways, they like to think of it as a campaign.
That's the other bumper sticker.You're always in a campaign, so
you set up meetings with key members.
If you're alleged affairs, you bring up the officials to brief
(12:55):
proactively. You don't wait.
You're like a lobbyist basicallyfor the agency.
And that fully engenders and possibly gets you to the point
of political will where a decision is made in Congress
where the chairman decides, yes,we're going to include that
request of 300 million. We're going to boost it to that
300 million rather than 250 thatwas out last year.
(13:17):
And they've made the political decision.
Why? Because the political
environment is creating the opportunity.
There's been enough support in the outside.
There's been enough conjoin bipartisan building that you've
created to get them to the pointof having the political will to
make the decision that you want.And that is based upon
calendars, it's based upon repetitive motion, it's based
(13:39):
upon engaging the outside advocacy and constituency groups
to have better tell and awareness and knowledge of what
they're saying and doing. And that's how you craft
successful legislative affairs program.
Even with staff work inside an organization, you always have
your opposition or you have people that have objections to
(13:59):
what you're trying to do. So not only are you curating
your relationship with the people that support what you're
trying to do, if you're trying to feel out those who are going
to object or resist it and figure out what those objections
are, try to overcome them. And do you have any tips on that
kind of engagement? Do you go directly to them?
Do you try to use intelligence to pull what they're really
(14:22):
trying to do, what their true intent is to use leverage?
I'll be above. There are a lot of levers that
one can use to try to get changein the thought process.
What I like to think about it ishow do you find a way to build
up enough of political support within your opponent so that you
(14:45):
can either neutralize them or flip them?
And that means understanding what motivates them.
That means understanding their constituency groups.
That means understanding their own personal interests.
A major part of legislative affairs is understanding what do
they care about. What did this member of Congress
run them? What did they say about foreign
(15:05):
policy? Who were their big campaigns
owners, quite frankly. So get a better feel for their
risk reward calculations as well.
What are their constituents in DoD?
They do just in space. What are the jobs created from
certain weapon system programs that are seeing expenditures in
District X when it comes to state?
(15:28):
Problem with foreign affairs is that by and large, the money is
spent on people who are not American citizens, or it's spent
to move them or ship them on behalf of our interests and our
values and make sense of the world by telling the American
people this is good for us. And that's about as far as it
gets, right? It's a lot harder.
And so you have to try to appealto what is of interest to the
(15:52):
member of Congress on a personallevel, what is of interest to
them on the practical level, andthen, of course, cultivate them
in a way that makes them feel like they are a decision maker.
It's the best part about foreignpolicy is that you have a
constant churn. It's not a scientific discovery
kind of dynamic. You can bring members of
(16:13):
Congress to the table for all across the board who are
influential and get them thinking differently and shape
and move policy to support the president just through
convincing an argument. It might be the last place left
where just pure argument can actually win the day on policy.
And that's an encourage anythingwell flipping so many.
(16:33):
No position to a yes position isa miracle.
Well, let me give you an example.
Foreign aid, it's really basically been devastated by the
Trump team. They just cut it and killed in
many directions. In many ways.
They face very little political resistance.
And that was a shocker to the system.
And it shows how frail the political underpinnings are for
(16:55):
foreign affairs. Because for about two decades,
going back to the Bush administration in particular,
there was a massive effort across party lines to support
foreign aid, bringing in 3rd party validators from the
military community saying how important foreign aid is.
The more foreign aid you put in,the less likely we'll have to
put in military aid or soldiers get killed, to put a bluntly.
(17:15):
And so I'm just looking and talking to people like where was
the political support and sustainability and the point it
wasn't there. So while it was elite and it's
your change elite opinions, it wasn't popular in a sense of
there wasn't a massive uprising of political opposition in the
public. It struck me as you were talking
that it's really the thing that's missing is the human
(17:37):
capital portion of State Department's role in foreign
policy. Because if they did more of
bringing people in from that congressional members district
that are diplomats to come and talk to them about.
I lived in Solvang, you live in Fresno.
We both know this person and nowI'm over in Slovakia trying to
(17:57):
build up our relationship so we can have better trade and
agriculture or something. I just don't see that human
connection to where State Department people, when they're
coming back off road overseas rotations are going back into
their district. They talk to colleges, but they
don't talk to the press, do rotations into public service
organizations and talk about therole that they have and how and
(18:20):
also inspire people in those regions than those constituent
groups to go to college and actually join us overseas and
help build a better relationshipbetween the United States and
its partner nation. And so it's that use of human
capital as a constituency builder to Congress.
And that's in many ways why I'm writing my book and why I'm do
public speaking on this and podcasting and go on TV to talk
(18:45):
about foreign policy. Because it does matter and
Americans care about it. But the best validators are the
people who, as you point out, serve and who know what it's
like overseas to know how havinga great relationship with France
is helpful, but also a great relationship with Egypt is
helpful. And This is why.
And this is what we get, and this is how it opens up our
(19:05):
markets and keeps us secure. I was a Peace Corps volunteer
after college to start my careerin public service.
And Peace Corps was founded by President Kennedy, and it had
three goals. And the first goal was to help
basically the people there and developing their communities.
Second one was to build bridges.And then the third was to bring
back the lessons from overseas to the American people.
(19:29):
And that was like the ethic of it, because we as Americans who
have had the privilege and honorof having served our country and
served our country overseas, have the experiences that we owe
the American people A gratitude for having us to go and do that,
right? Like I was there on the nickel
(19:50):
of the American taxpayer and B, it would be greedy of me to keep
it just for myself. And it's good for the United
States have these relationships.Like I'm still in touch with the
village I served in in the PeaceCorps in Costa Rica.
They will ask me what's going on.
I will ask them what's going on.There are bridges built at that
micro level. And it also makes us smarter and
(20:13):
more effective. And so for state.
The incentive of getting on, speaking to Americans and
getting more Americans engaged is one that I think there's
still a lot of work that needs to be done.
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like
and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast
platform. Also, if you're interested in
(20:33):
coming on the show or hosting anepisode, e-mail us at
ca.podcasting@gmail.com. I'll have the e-mail and CA
Association website in the show notes.
And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field
working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward
US relations, thank you all for what you're doing.
(20:53):
This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great
episodes one CA podcast.
Welcome to the ONE CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines.
ONE CA is a product of the CivilAffairs Association and brings
in people who are current or former military diplomats,
development officers, and field agents to discuss their
experiences on ground with a partner nation's people and
leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone
interested in working the last three feet of Foreign Relations.
(00:25):
To contact the show, e-mail us at ca.podcasting@gmail.com or
look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at
www.dubbacivilaffairsassociorg. I'll have those in the show
notes. It's great to have theories on
foreign affairs, but at the end of the day, they're useless
unless you find ways to make them become practical,
pragmatic, and to work in the real world.
(00:47):
And making things come together between Congress and the State
Department is the most practicalway to to convert political
ideas into real world policy that affects America and our
standing ground world. Please welcome Joel Rubin,
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for House
Affairs. We discussed the State
Department's Legislative Affairsoffice and Joel's testimony at
(01:09):
the Benghazi hearings. Well, let's get started.
I was looking at the background on your estimated for Benghazi
and that had to be a tough day. You had had surgery.
You personally knew Ambassador Stevens.
So both you're recovering and you got to death a friend.
You're sitting there facing Congress trying to answer
questions on a politically charged issue.
(01:32):
No doubt all the layers that you're talking about were right
on in terms of what was going through my mind.
I got asked to do this to go andtestify about 5 days before the
actual hearing because nobody inthe State Department wanted to
testify to the Benghazi Committee about the failure to
provide documents to the Benghazi Committee.
Imagine why not members like JimJordan and Trey Gowdy's.
(01:54):
They knew how to get at the witness.
And what was fascinating about that experience is that I also
had written about it. I've been critical of the
politicization of the killing ofChris Stevens, who was a friend
who was our ambassador. Several other diplomatic,
security, military personnel were killed.
It was a horrible national tragedy.
(02:15):
It was politicized right away during the 2012 campaign.
I kind of spoke out. So in the prep beforehand, we
were talking about how do I address the politicization
question I was criticizing others for.
And I said, look, I'll just speak to myself.
I'll say, look, he was a friend of mine and I took it
personally. They were politicizing the
tragic death of an American patriot overseas when you do
(02:38):
legislative affairs, and that was my job.
I was the legislative affairs deputy assistant secretary for
the House, and when you do as your fares, typically you're
behind the witness. But now I was the star.
But the irony here is that, of course, all the staff sitting
behind the members of Congress were people I was friends with
and had worked with. And I could see them looking at
(02:58):
me as like, what is going on? It was surreal.
Did you feel like the film Benghazi was reasonable?
I didn't watch the film. Oh.
It didn't seem to have anything beyond the pressures put on the
security team to protect everyone.
You're getting at a really important question here, which
is like the on the ground factual reality of the
(03:22):
nightmare, the crisis that happened to those people there
in Libya and the country in turmoil with an organized,
coordinated attack against them.That was real.
And what I looked at was the question of how did we respond?
And then more importantly, when I was doing testimony, what were
the efforts that were done to try to get at this crisis so it
(03:44):
could never happen again, so that we could harden our
security so that people who may have failed were disciplined so
that we could have proper oversight and resources.
And I fear that's what was lost,and that's the danger of
politicizing national security and foreign policies, that you
end up having a partisan dynamics overtake the best
(04:05):
thinking of how to protect and support our men and women who
are serving in harm's way and advancing American interests and
policies. And so there were very good
Accountability Review board reports and other reports where
there was a lot of work done to try to protect and prevent
crises like this from happening again.
(04:25):
And that, like, got short shrift.
It was like sweat guns in the rug.
And it completely failed the diplomats, that whole political
process. And I think that's, to me, what
we need to try to avoid. We have to have hard political
questions about issues, but we have to protect our people who
are serving in harm's way. You think part of the problem
was the department struggle withlegislative engagements?
(04:48):
I'm going right to the teeth on this.
I apologize. But in between, Dan spoken, he
said about ledge affairs being famously bad and the 2024
Commission for reforming the State Department.
There is an underlying theme that there needs to be a better
relationship between state and Congress.
And you were acting Congress, right?
So you saw it from both sides. I did.
(05:10):
I worked in the Senate as a national security advisor, and
then I also worked in the executive branch as a career
officer on hard issues, on military affairs and nearest and
affairs and those bureaus on those issues.
And then later on as an appointee as the legislative
liaison and the senior point of contact to the House for
Secretary Kerry. So I've sort of worked all
(05:33):
around the circle. And then I also did a number of
years of work as an advocate andnonprofit policy sector.
So Integrate worked it and saw how they all interact with each
other. Two major institutions, Congress
and the executive branch, that are continually banging into
each other. Executive is doing something and
(05:54):
Congress is saying don't do that.
And Congress saying you got to do this and executive saying we
can't do that. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
And where they hit, that's the legislative affairs office.
That's the one that gets hammered and has to navigate.
Because you're right there in the middle, because Congress was
mandated originally to be the lead on foreign policy, but that
they have advocated it to the executive office with the State
(06:16):
Department. You've run that aspect, though.
There's still that back and forth between a State Department
and the NSC are going to run foreign policy, but it's still,
there's a lot of Congress that says no, actually, we align the
budget to what best policy should be, and we're the ones
here to determine it. So yeah, you're the bloody one
through the wall, aren't you? Totally.
Let me tell you something about organizational culture.
(06:38):
And in the case of the State Department, agency culture that
the legislative affairs office have to deal with was almost
like a microcosm of Congress versus the executive branch.
Because the culture of the StateDepartment, in particular the
Foreign service, is that the less Congress knows, the better.
And this is not partisan. It doesn't make a damn
difference if it's a Republican or Democrat in charge or in
(07:01):
either direction. If the state Department of
Foreign Service, generally speaking, doesn't want to be
bothered by oversight and they get nervous about Congress and
they don't want to be exposed and go to the public and explain
themselves, they have to go to the Senate more than the House.
They have to go to both for money.
But what they really care about in many ways are confirmations
(07:22):
of positions in that role. The House has no say, the Senate
does. So they have to pay attention to
those senators. And so organizational culture at
the State Department is one of less, is more.
So when you're in the State Department Bureau for
Legislative Affairs, not only are you dealing with the
incoming from Congress, right, where they're asking for 1000
things, you're then going insidethe State Department and saying,
(07:45):
please give us this or what do we do to rebut?
But we need your help to send the witness.
We need the information. So you're constantly fighting in
both directions. When 1 looks at the legislative
affairs function, it's not purely the legislative affairs
office that drives how an agencyoperates on the legislative
timetable. It's that organizational
(08:06):
culture. And so that means you need a
secretary who cares about Congress and makes it a
priority. And then you change your
organizational culture into thinking we better be
responsive. And that's where the political
people generally are much more responsive than the career
people when it comes to Congress.
And you typically have SecretaryClinton, Kerry, Rubio, they've
(08:29):
all served in the Senate. Tony Blinken was a staff
director in the Senate. So they get it.
When I worked, even Colin Powell, his deputy Dick
Armitage, sent out a note to allstaff saying get to know your
counterpart in Congress. If the leadership doesn't make
it a priority, then the Asians doesn't make it a priority.
You also. The only time they cooperate is
when confirmations are due. That is the best driver that
(08:52):
really is. I got to get that
ambassadorship. That's my next step.
I better not understand buddy. They don't even know my.
Name. What do I do?
Oh, I'm the guy who stonewalled us.
We'll just give it a few months.And they can do that in the
Senate. When I went to work there, I had
a mentor and he said, just remember in the Senate, all 100
senators are kings, are Queens, but they're all kings.
(09:13):
They all are in charge. They're all equal in the House.
And you got rank and layers and whatnot.
But that means they can shut down the Senate floor like that.
And that means on confirmation, they can just put a secret hold
on somebody and you know they'll.
Never know, it just sits there. Don't know why, just got held up
process. Oh, and by the way, I'm glad you
mentioned DoD, because it's not as if state lives in a vacuum.
(09:38):
There are other agencies that have equities that oftentimes
overlap. And then there's a thing called
the White House, which also doesoversight of the bureaus and the
agencies. And so there are legislative
affairs staff at the different agencies who meet with and get
coordinated by the NSC, the White House, national security
staff. And so when you do briefings
that require multiple agencies, you have to coordinate with them
(10:01):
and get the rivalries all over the place.
I mean, this is when they say small G democracy, like this is
really it. Like this is the process is
extraordinary. It's not automatic.
There's not some AI machine, youhit the button, you get the
right answer and it goes forward.
When people come in with that attitude about Washington and
government, they quickly learn how wrong they are, and they
(10:23):
fail quickly. It is about navigating,
negotiating, knowing people and systems and respecting lanes and
roles and a constant churn of information flow.
It's fascinating. Well, and that brings up
something that we had discussed earlier that I would love for
you to expand on. It was your discussion on the
(10:44):
art of the possible and understanding political space
and political will and when is that moment, that spark where
you can take interest in an issue and actually get action is
that had to be part of your driving force with advising
state as a wrestling competitor with Congress is helping them to
(11:06):
understand the political environment, the conditions that
are going on and when to actually forward a mandate or an
option that would then be palatable to Congress.
Can you talk a little bit about how you get that foresight, that
kind of practice? There are a couple sort of
bumper sticker lines that I liketo use and people should, you
know, maybe having back their mind.
(11:27):
The first one is that the calendar matters.
Do you have a continual calendarcycle of operations and
advancing your policies? For example, when the budget
becomes the priority and you want to get more funds, you have
to develop it, send it to the OMB, They send it back in
(11:48):
November. It gets rolled up into a
president's budget request. It gets sent up just after State
of the Union in February. Then there are hearings and the
appropriations in April. Then you have the bills going
through like there's a cycle in the process.
What you have to do during that time is build the argument and
build the political space and the political support, a budget
(12:10):
that you're aiming for. And I would always say this to
the team, a sanction to what theadvocates who benefit from the
issues you're working on. For example, if you work on
counter narcotics policy, pay attention to what people are
saying in the world that focuseson countering drug addiction.
People, folks in the world, Latin America policy, what are
the think tanks saying? What are they producing?
(12:32):
What's the political environmentout there for that issue?
And so that's the political space environment.
And then that's where it drives your lobbying.
And in many ways, they like to think of it as a campaign.
That's the other bumper sticker.You're always in a campaign, so
you set up meetings with key members.
If you're alleged affairs, you bring up the officials to brief
(12:55):
proactively. You don't wait.
You're like a lobbyist basicallyfor the agency.
And that fully engenders and possibly gets you to the point
of political will where a decision is made in Congress
where the chairman decides, yes,we're going to include that
request of 300 million. We're going to boost it to that
300 million rather than 250 thatwas out last year.
(13:17):
And they've made the political decision.
Why? Because the political
environment is creating the opportunity.
There's been enough support in the outside.
There's been enough conjoin bipartisan building that you've
created to get them to the pointof having the political will to
make the decision that you want.And that is based upon
calendars, it's based upon repetitive motion, it's based
(13:39):
upon engaging the outside advocacy and constituency groups
to have better tell and awareness and knowledge of what
they're saying and doing. And that's how you craft
successful legislative affairs program.
Even with staff work inside an organization, you always have
your opposition or you have people that have objections to
(13:59):
what you're trying to do. So not only are you curating
your relationship with the people that support what you're
trying to do, if you're trying to feel out those who are going
to object or resist it and figure out what those objections
are, try to overcome them. And do you have any tips on that
kind of engagement? Do you go directly to them?
Do you try to use intelligence to pull what they're really
(14:22):
trying to do, what their true intent is to use leverage?
I'll be above. There are a lot of levers that
one can use to try to get changein the thought process.
What I like to think about it ishow do you find a way to build
up enough of political support within your opponent so that you
(14:45):
can either neutralize them or flip them?
And that means understanding what motivates them.
That means understanding their constituency groups.
That means understanding their own personal interests.
A major part of legislative affairs is understanding what do
they care about. What did this member of Congress
run them? What did they say about foreign
(15:05):
policy? Who were their big campaigns
owners, quite frankly. So get a better feel for their
risk reward calculations as well.
What are their constituents in DoD?
They do just in space. What are the jobs created from
certain weapon system programs that are seeing expenditures in
District X when it comes to state?
(15:28):
Problem with foreign affairs is that by and large, the money is
spent on people who are not American citizens, or it's spent
to move them or ship them on behalf of our interests and our
values and make sense of the world by telling the American
people this is good for us. And that's about as far as it
gets, right? It's a lot harder.
And so you have to try to appealto what is of interest to the
(15:52):
member of Congress on a personallevel, what is of interest to
them on the practical level, andthen, of course, cultivate them
in a way that makes them feel like they are a decision maker.
It's the best part about foreignpolicy is that you have a
constant churn. It's not a scientific discovery
kind of dynamic. You can bring members of
(16:13):
Congress to the table for all across the board who are
influential and get them thinking differently and shape
and move policy to support the president just through
convincing an argument. It might be the last place left
where just pure argument can actually win the day on policy.
And that's an encourage anythingwell flipping so many.
(16:33):
No position to a yes position isa miracle.
Well, let me give you an example.
Foreign aid, it's really basically been devastated by the
Trump team. They just cut it and killed in
many directions. In many ways.
They face very little political resistance.
And that was a shocker to the system.
And it shows how frail the political underpinnings are for
(16:55):
foreign affairs. Because for about two decades,
going back to the Bush administration in particular,
there was a massive effort across party lines to support
foreign aid, bringing in 3rd party validators from the
military community saying how important foreign aid is.
The more foreign aid you put in,the less likely we'll have to
put in military aid or soldiers get killed, to put a bluntly.
(17:15):
And so I'm just looking and talking to people like where was
the political support and sustainability and the point it
wasn't there. So while it was elite and it's
your change elite opinions, it wasn't popular in a sense of
there wasn't a massive uprising of political opposition in the
public. It struck me as you were talking
that it's really the thing that's missing is the human
(17:37):
capital portion of State Department's role in foreign
policy. Because if they did more of
bringing people in from that congressional members district
that are diplomats to come and talk to them about.
I lived in Solvang, you live in Fresno.
We both know this person and nowI'm over in Slovakia trying to
(17:57):
build up our relationship so we can have better trade and
agriculture or something. I just don't see that human
connection to where State Department people, when they're
coming back off road overseas rotations are going back into
their district. They talk to colleges, but they
don't talk to the press, do rotations into public service
organizations and talk about therole that they have and how and
(18:20):
also inspire people in those regions than those constituent
groups to go to college and actually join us overseas and
help build a better relationshipbetween the United States and
its partner nation. And so it's that use of human
capital as a constituency builder to Congress.
And that's in many ways why I'm writing my book and why I'm do
public speaking on this and podcasting and go on TV to talk
(18:45):
about foreign policy. Because it does matter and
Americans care about it. But the best validators are the
people who, as you point out, serve and who know what it's
like overseas to know how havinga great relationship with France
is helpful, but also a great relationship with Egypt is
helpful. And This is why.
And this is what we get, and this is how it opens up our
(19:05):
markets and keeps us secure. I was a Peace Corps volunteer
after college to start my careerin public service.
And Peace Corps was founded by President Kennedy, and it had
three goals. And the first goal was to help
basically the people there and developing their communities.
Second one was to build bridges.And then the third was to bring
back the lessons from overseas to the American people.
(19:29):
And that was like the ethic of it, because we as Americans who
have had the privilege and honorof having served our country and
served our country overseas, have the experiences that we owe
the American people A gratitude for having us to go and do that,
right? Like I was there on the nickel
(19:50):
of the American taxpayer and B, it would be greedy of me to keep
it just for myself. And it's good for the United
States have these relationships.Like I'm still in touch with the
village I served in in the PeaceCorps in Costa Rica.
They will ask me what's going on.
I will ask them what's going on.There are bridges built at that
micro level. And it also makes us smarter and
(20:13):
more effective. And so for state.
The incentive of getting on, speaking to Americans and
getting more Americans engaged is one that I think there's
still a lot of work that needs to be done.
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like
and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast
platform. Also, if you're interested in
(20:33):
coming on the show or hosting anepisode, e-mail us at
ca.podcasting@gmail.com. I'll have the e-mail and CA
Association website in the show notes.
And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field
working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward
US relations, thank you all for what you're doing.
(20:53):
This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great
episodes one CA podcast.
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