Speaker 1: Ambassador Susan Rice is an American diplomat, policy advisor, and
Speaker 1: public official. As a member of the Democratic Party, Rice
Speaker 1: served under the last three Democratic US presidents and as
Speaker 1: the twenty second Director of the United States Domestic Policy
Speaker 1: Council from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three, as
Speaker 1: the twenty seventh US Ambassador to the United Nations from
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine to twenty thirteen, and as the
Speaker 1: twenty third US National Security Advisor from twenty thirteen to
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. And she is our guest today. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show, Ambassador.
Speaker 2: It's great to be with you both.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for that. So obviously this.
Speaker 1: Is an incredible time to live through. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of in a scary time. I want to act like
Speaker 1: it's not scary too, you know what I mean. I'm
Speaker 1: living here with you all. But you know, we've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of changes, and it's not lost on us
Speaker 1: that we get to have this commonversation with what we
Speaker 1: consider royalty. You know, you are not just the type
Speaker 1: of person, but indeed the individual that we look up to.
Speaker 1: You know, you've reached heights that once upon a time
Speaker 1: we're unthinkable even in our own lifetimes. And so to eat,
Speaker 1: to meet you means a lot, certainly, to have a conversation,
Speaker 1: To have you as a guest on our show means
Speaker 1: the world. When I talk about the times that we're
Speaker 1: living in, I'm referring specifically to you. Know, this is
Speaker 1: a show where we've discussed quite a bit that takes
Speaker 1: place in the political arena. We are on the cusp
Speaker 1: of potentially nominating a black woman to electing electing.
Speaker 3: Sorry, to the presidency of the United States, and.
Speaker 1: This is something that has caused a lot of excitement
Speaker 1: in a lot of circles around the country, not the
Speaker 1: least of which is black women. And so to have
Speaker 1: a person on our program that has more insight into
Speaker 1: the goings on political goings on in DC, has more
Speaker 1: insight into things like foreign policy, domestic policy, has insight
Speaker 1: into the implications of one administration versus the other, can
Speaker 1: help us to perhaps take what excitement we do have
Speaker 1: and channel that into action to ensure that we get
Speaker 1: the outcomes that we're hoping for.
Speaker 3: Certainly we're hoping for on this show, but.
Speaker 1: Also it might help us to understand how to best
Speaker 1: support the president, how to best interpret policies and understand
Speaker 1: how they might affect our lives on the ground and
Speaker 1: so forth and so on. So this is where that
Speaker 1: comes from. So I don't want to keep talking about why.
Speaker 1: I want to get to the good stuff.
Speaker 4: So I'm really glad to be here, looking forward to
Speaker 4: our conversation.
Speaker 2: Thanks gooks.
Speaker 3: Good fantastic.
Speaker 1: So one of the questions that we were talking about
Speaker 1: this would have been yesterday for us. You know, there's
Speaker 1: been there's been so much said about Donald Trump's Agenda
Speaker 1: forty seven and and you know, Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: more specifically, because we understand the Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: is really something that you know, he's tried to distance
Speaker 1: himself from, but we kind of know better around here.
Speaker 1: His name is mentioned over three hundred times in Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, you understand.
Speaker 2: And all the authors of Project twenty twenty five are
Speaker 2: his closest advisors.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir, exactly. So let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: What are some domestic policy concerns you have with Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five or Agenda forty seven or whatever, And
Speaker 1: then we're gonna ask the same about the Harris administration.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, is you probably know. Project twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five is a nine hundred page document that Donald
Speaker 4: Trump's advisors from his prior administration spent many, many months writing,
Speaker 4: and it covers all aspects of domestic policy, and it's
Speaker 4: really truly quite frightening. Let me just give you a
Speaker 4: few examples of some of the things that I think
Speaker 4: are most dangerous. First of all, when it comes to
Speaker 4: economic policy, what Trump has said is he intends to
Speaker 4: impose a twenty percent tariff on everything that comes into
Speaker 4: the country from another country. So that's our fuel, that's
Speaker 4: our food, that's our toys, that's our liquor, that you
Speaker 4: name it. It's literally everything we import. And you know,
Speaker 4: Trump lies and says, well, the foreign countries will pay
Speaker 4: for that. No, the American consumer will pay for that.
Speaker 4: Because what happens is, if I'm a company that's selling
Speaker 4: into the United States, I'll buy it from France. Let's
Speaker 4: say we're talking about you know, Kanyac, just as an example,
Speaker 4: buy it from France, sell it into the United States.
Speaker 4: But that twenty percent tariff the company has to pay,
Speaker 4: and then it passes on the cost to the American consumer.
Speaker 2: So that's a tax on Americans. The cost of that
Speaker 2: tax is.
Speaker 4: Going to be four thousand dollars for the average American
Speaker 4: family a year on top of all of the other
Speaker 4: economic concerns that we have his tax policy. We're going
Speaker 4: to have a new tax legislation come up for consideration
Speaker 4: in Congress next year. This is the renewal of the
Speaker 4: Trump tax cuts from twenty seventeen. And what he intends
Speaker 4: to do is give massive tax breaks to the richest Americans,
Speaker 4: the billionaires and multi multimillionaires and the richest corporations, and
Speaker 4: do that at the expense of working in middle class Americans.
Speaker 4: So that too, is going to be a huge burden
Speaker 4: on American families. He wants to cut social Security and Medicare.
Speaker 4: Every single budget that he submitted when he was president
Speaker 4: cut social Security and Medicare. Now, there was just a
Speaker 4: study that came out this week that said by a
Speaker 4: very respected think tank in Washington, nonpartisan think tank, that
Speaker 4: Trump's policies on Social Security will ensure that Social Security
Speaker 4: runs out of money in six years time, wow, and
Speaker 4: that the average person will pay one third.
Speaker 2: More for their Social Security.
Speaker 4: So he wants to get you know, cut social Security,
Speaker 4: cut Medicare, and he is pledged to eliminate Obamacare, the
Speaker 4: Affordable Care Act, which has enabled more Black Americans to
Speaker 4: have health insurance than at any time time in our history.
Speaker 4: It has reduced the cost of health care. Now we
Speaker 4: have ninety two percent of Americans with health insurance. That's
Speaker 4: the highest rate ever in our history. And Black healthcare
Speaker 4: coverage has gone way up over the last three and
Speaker 4: a half years under Vice President Harrison and Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: He wants to get rid of all that prompt He
Speaker 4: wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. And then,
Speaker 4: if you're concerned about women's reproductive rights, whether you're a
Speaker 4: man or a woman, your father, a husband, a boyfriend,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump's Project twenty twenty five would impose a national
Speaker 4: ban on abortion and make it harder to get birth control,
Speaker 4: harder to get in vitro fertilization, criminalize doctors who prescribe
Speaker 4: abortion metation through the mail, and require states to record
Speaker 4: and register with the federal government women's miscarriages and abortions.
Speaker 4: It's Orwellian, So all of those rights and freedoms go away.
Speaker 4: And if you have a girlfriend or a daughter or
Speaker 4: a mother who has a pregnancy that for whatever reason,
Speaker 4: they can't go through with. That's all of our problem
Speaker 4: when Donald Trump is president. So those are some examples.
Speaker 4: Let me give you just one other set of examples.
Speaker 4: He wants to eliminate the Department of Education. The Department
Speaker 4: of Education is the department that funds low income schools
Speaker 4: in our country. It's the department that makes head Start possible.
Speaker 4: So if you're a low income three or four year
Speaker 4: old and you want to get the beginnings of an education,
Speaker 4: head Start, which has been so impactful, will be eliminated.
Speaker 4: It will wipe out any prospect of student loan relief.
Speaker 4: The Department of Education under President Biden and Vice President
Speaker 4: Harris has forgiven student loan debt for five million Americans.
Speaker 4: That'll all be wiped out. So when you talk about
Speaker 4: just getting rid of whole departments, you're really talking about
Speaker 4: getting rid of institutions, particularly the Department of Education, that
Speaker 4: benefits Black Americans and gives us the opportunity to get
Speaker 4: an education. So I could go on and on, but
Speaker 4: those are just some examples of what a Trump agenda
Speaker 4: would bring.
Speaker 5: I will not pretend that we don't want you to
Speaker 5: go on. And we were having a conversation off air
Speaker 5: today about misinformation and about there's still being voters that
Speaker 5: are undecided or voting against their own best interests by
Speaker 5: aligning themselves with our former president's agenda and Project twenty
Speaker 5: twenty five and not really processing how those things will
Speaker 5: impact their lives, especially people who are not minority, who
Speaker 5: are not women, who do not feel like anything in
Speaker 5: their lives would change under our former press. In contrast,
Speaker 5: we know, even though they continue to say that she
Speaker 5: does not discuss policy, and we know that this is nonsense.
Speaker 5: Can you highlight some things that are contrary the agenda?
Speaker 5: The opportunity economy is a place that we can start
Speaker 5: with Vice President Harris and things that her and Governor
Speaker 5: Laws want to bring forward that will not just impact
Speaker 5: minorities but all Americans.
Speaker 2: Yes, I can, and I will.
Speaker 4: But before I go to what Harris Wall's administration will bring,
Speaker 4: I just want to share one other thing that really
Speaker 4: is what's in many ways keeping me up at night
Speaker 4: the most about Donald Trump and the prospect of him
Speaker 4: coming back to the White House. He has said, and
Speaker 4: I believe he means, based on what he did in
Speaker 4: his first term, that he wants to be a dictator
Speaker 4: from day one. He wants to terminate the Constitution. But
Speaker 4: what he said most recently and keeps repeating even when
Speaker 4: people who are speaking on his behalf try to walk
Speaker 4: it back, is that he believes that the greatest threat
Speaker 4: to the United States is not Russia, it's not China.
Speaker 4: It's what he calls the enemy within, Yes, his political opponents,
Speaker 4: and basically that's anybody who votes against him or doesn't
Speaker 4: agree with him, or comes from a different party. And
Speaker 4: he said that he is prepared to use the military
Speaker 4: of the United States to go after the enemy within.
Speaker 4: That's running on a platform, a campaign platform of civil war.
Speaker 4: There's no other way to put it. That's what he
Speaker 4: intends to do. That's if he's elected, and if he's
Speaker 4: not elected. I think what he's doing with that rhetoric
Speaker 4: is trying to give free license to his supporters to
Speaker 4: go on a rampage. So that's another, you know, serious
Speaker 4: as a heart attack concern.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: Let's turn to Vice President Harris and what she's proposing.
Speaker 2: She's put out a.
Speaker 4: Very comprehensive set of policy proposals and starting let's start
Speaker 4: with the economy.
Speaker 2: Her basic framework is we need.
Speaker 4: An economy that works for everybody, not just for the
Speaker 4: rich and for some people. And she calls it an
Speaker 4: opportunity economy. And what she's trying to do is give
Speaker 4: people what they need to get ahead, not just to
Speaker 4: you know, scrounge every day and get by. So, for example,
Speaker 4: if you have a good idea and you want to
Speaker 4: start a business, if you're an average person, it's really
Speaker 4: hard to do. It's really hard to go to a bank,
Speaker 4: you know, as just a regular person and be able
Speaker 4: to get the kind of capital that you need to.
Speaker 2: Start a business.
Speaker 4: She's got two really important initiatives for that. The first
Speaker 4: one is she said that she will give up to
Speaker 4: one million loans worth as much as twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 4: that'll be fully forgivable if you want to start a
Speaker 4: business and you're a black man, black woman, or other
Speaker 4: person who's had difficulty gaining access to capital. In addition
Speaker 4: to that, she's saying, right now, our tax code is
Speaker 4: if if you want to start a business, you can
Speaker 4: only get a tax deduction of five thousand dollars to
Speaker 4: start a business.
Speaker 2: That doesn't do anything for anybody.
Speaker 4: She's saying, let's increase that ten times and give you
Speaker 4: fifty thousand dollars tax break in the first year of
Speaker 4: your business to get started. Put those two things together.
Speaker 4: You got a good idea. You know, that's a way
Speaker 4: to start a business. Whether it's a you know, you're
Speaker 4: you know, single owner, you know, sole owner of your
Speaker 4: business with your you know, maybe you're a fitness trainer,
Speaker 4: or maybe you're you know, uh doing a transportation whatever
Speaker 4: it is, that's a business and you can get you
Speaker 4: know what it's what you need to get started and
Speaker 4: then expand it, get some employees. That's you know, one
Speaker 4: thing if you are working for a wage in your
Speaker 4: low income person without a family, or just maybe you're
Speaker 4: by yourself or you're married, there's something called the earned
Speaker 4: income tax credit that you know, we need to expand
Speaker 4: and extend. She's prepared to do that. That's worth fifteen
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a year for every individual who's low income,
Speaker 4: working needs extra money in their pocket. Donald Trump, you know,
Speaker 4: wants to impose this, as I mentioned, four thousand dollars
Speaker 4: tax on every working family.
Speaker 2: She's saying she's going.
Speaker 4: To give a tax cut, a meaningful tax cut, to
Speaker 4: one hundred million working families in this country. So, for example,
Speaker 4: the child tax credit the Child Tax Credit. We were
Speaker 4: able to extend and expand in the first year of
Speaker 4: the Biden Harris administration that cut black child poverty in
Speaker 4: this country in half, but then Congress wouldn't extend it.
Speaker 4: She is prepared to not just renew and extend it,
Speaker 4: but expand it so that your first year, if you
Speaker 4: have a child, you're going to get a six thousand
Speaker 4: dollars tax credit for the first year of that child,
Speaker 4: so you can buy your diapers, you can buy the crib,
Speaker 4: you can get your car seat, you can just get started.
Speaker 4: And then every year thereafter while that child is you know,
Speaker 4: a minor, you would get thirty six hundred dollars a
Speaker 4: year as a tax break for every child you have.
Speaker 4: That's huge for working families if you're trying to, you know,
Speaker 4: rent in a place where like so many cities, the
Speaker 4: rent is just too high and you can't get you know,
Speaker 4: you can't get in. She's talking about tax incentives to
Speaker 4: increase affordable rental housing in this country so that we
Speaker 4: actually have the supply that we need so that the
Speaker 4: prices come down and if you want to buy a
Speaker 4: home home for the first time. She's doing two things
Speaker 4: that are really important. First is building two three million
Speaker 4: new affordable homes, again through a tax credit scheme, so
Speaker 4: that builders have an incentive to build low income and
Speaker 4: affordable homes. And secondly, give you a twenty five thousand
Speaker 4: dollars down payment assistance for your first time home purchase.
Speaker 4: Those are just some of the examples of what were
Speaker 4: in her economic plan. If you got an elderly parent,
Speaker 4: do you know how expensive it is to give that
Speaker 4: person decent elder care?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: Do I've been there too. I wasn't until recently.
Speaker 4: Sadly, my parents passed having young kids at home for
Speaker 4: a period, and elderly parents who were who were, you know,
Speaker 4: in really bad health. She is committed to having Medicare
Speaker 4: pay for home care so you don't have to send
Speaker 4: your mom or dad to a nursing home where they
Speaker 4: may get, you know, not the best care out there,
Speaker 4: but Medicare would help you be able to take care
Speaker 4: of your parents in the comfort of their own home.
Speaker 4: These are the kinds of things that matter so much
Speaker 4: to regular folks. Your grandma or your mom might be
Speaker 4: on Medicare, and under Biden and Harris, if they're diabetic
Speaker 4: and they're on insulin, it used to be that your
Speaker 4: insulin could cost three, four or five hundred dollars a month,
Speaker 4: depending on what kind of health insurance you had. They
Speaker 4: capped it at thirty five dollars a month. You can
Speaker 4: no longer have to pay if you're on Medicare more
Speaker 4: than thirty five dollars a month for your insulin. Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris wants that to be available to everybody, not just
Speaker 4: your seniors on Medicare, because there are a lot of us,
Speaker 4: you know, who are under sixty five who are dealing
Speaker 4: with insulin. And the other thing is under President bind
Speaker 4: and Vice President Harris, they passed a law so that
Speaker 4: now you no longer will have to pay, if you're
Speaker 4: a senior on Medicare more than two thousand dollars a
Speaker 4: year for all your prescription drugs. Now, that's lots of
Speaker 4: people are on these expensive cancer drugs and everything else.
Speaker 4: It can cost ten twenty thousand dollars a year. You'll
Speaker 4: never have to pay, no matter how sick you are
Speaker 4: or what kind of drugs you need, more than two
Speaker 4: thousand dollars a year if you're on Medicare. She also
Speaker 4: will extend that to everybody, not just seniors. So these
Speaker 4: are the kinds of programs and plans that actually really
Speaker 4: matter in people's lives.
Speaker 1: So clearly there are two very different agendas or the
Speaker 1: administrations that we have to choose from. I want to
Speaker 1: go back just a bit because I think that there
Speaker 1: are some things that need unpacking for our listeners. Specifically,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I want to unpack is
Speaker 1: let's talk about the insulin in the insulin cap. Now,
Speaker 1: for our show, we have black listeners and then we
Speaker 1: have allies. We refer to listeners of our show as allies.
Speaker 1: These are people who are allies. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: have to explain that to you, so, but I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that everyone understands the significance
Speaker 1: of insulin in the black community or.
Speaker 3: Of our non black listeners.
Speaker 1: Because diabetes, sugar diabetes, you know what I mean. This
Speaker 1: is something that you know, my grandmother had, She was diabetic.
Speaker 1: Both my grandmothers. One of my grandmother's lost her leg
Speaker 1: from diabetes shortly after coming to the US from Cuba.
Speaker 1: She lost her leg Afro Cuban woman. That's something that
Speaker 1: shapes outcomes, you know what I mean. For these companies
Speaker 1: to be able to price gouge for it to disproproportionately
Speaker 1: affect black families, because diabetes is something that it's a
Speaker 1: human condition, but it disproportionately affects black people. There you go,
Speaker 1: that's something that's significant. I also want to mention the
Speaker 1: Social Security element where you said that Donald Trump's agenda
Speaker 1: would bankrupt it in six years. You can correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. I'm sure you know way more about
Speaker 1: it than I do. But the last time I checked,
Speaker 1: social Security will solvent. I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4: It's currently solvent, okay, And we have a long term
Speaker 4: problem that you know right now with baby boomers and
Speaker 4: everybody else, we're taking more out of Social Security than
Speaker 4: people are paying you and so there's the constant challenge
Speaker 4: that will hit in the mid twenty thirties right now
Speaker 4: unless we put more money into Social Security, and we've
Speaker 4: got to keep it and replenish it. What Trump's proposals
Speaker 4: would do is accelerate, you know, bring forward the date
Speaker 4: whereby it becomes insolved, and in the process require.
Speaker 2: People to pay a third more.
Speaker 4: And that's you know, he's putting out this proposal which
Speaker 4: sounds really good. You don't have to pay taxes on
Speaker 4: your Social Security. Well, not everybody pays tax on sociecurity.
Speaker 4: It's certain people and the certain people who pay taxes
Speaker 4: that goes straight into the trust fund and it keeps
Speaker 4: it solvent. And the other thing that people don't realize
Speaker 4: is all these undocumented people that he's going to deport,
Speaker 4: they pay into the Social Security Trust Fund and they
Speaker 4: don't take anything out, but their wages are are withheld
Speaker 4: to help the rest of us pay for Social Security. Now,
Speaker 4: you know, we can talk about immigration, that's not my point,
Speaker 4: But the point is that, you know, policies have consequences.
Speaker 4: Things that sound good actually have consequences for regular Americans
Speaker 4: who rely on their Social Security and want to know
Speaker 4: that if I'm paying into it today, is going to
Speaker 4: be there for me when I need it.
Speaker 1: Now, there's one last thing I wanted to touch on
Speaker 1: for the benefit of our listeners.
Speaker 3: And this is Headstart.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that.
Speaker 1: One of the conversations that we've had on this show
Speaker 1: is how investment in impoverished communities, low income communities, shapes
Speaker 1: outcomes for people that want the crime rate to drop.
Speaker 1: Head start programs, after school programs. There's a direct correlation
Speaker 1: between crime rates lowering and after school programs and head
Speaker 1: Start programs being incorporated into you know, the community, and
Speaker 1: the being accessible to the people. These are for people
Speaker 1: who can fear for the safety of their communities. These
Speaker 1: are for people who you know, we we definitely have
Speaker 1: an activist element in our show. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: pretend like I'm not a part of that activist element.
Speaker 1: These are people that want to see these types of
Speaker 1: investments in the community rather than and increase display in police.
Speaker 1: This this very program that we're talking about here shapes
Speaker 1: those outcomes, and I think it's important to delineate these
Speaker 1: three things and paint these pictures fully for our listeners.
Speaker 3: Just so that they understand that. Yeah, so I just
Speaker 3: wanted to make sure.
Speaker 2: No head starts critically important. Yeah.
Speaker 4: If the data shows if you can give a kid
Speaker 4: starting at age three or four, you know, the beginnings
Speaker 4: of an education, which is what head Start does, their
Speaker 4: high school completion rate goes way up, their prospects to
Speaker 4: you know, stay out of jail goes way up. And
Speaker 4: you know, we need to invest in housing, we need
Speaker 4: to invest in education, We need to invest in our
Speaker 4: communities so that people have hope and they have opportunities
Speaker 4: and jobs. You know Trump's approach, and he's been very
Speaker 4: clear to go back to what he said his agenda
Speaker 4: is in Project twenty twenty five. He wants to bring
Speaker 4: back stopping frisk and make that, you know, the standard everywhere.
Speaker 4: He wants to give police free rein to do whatever
Speaker 4: they hell they want. And you know who's going to
Speaker 4: suffer most from that, that's us. Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 4: know remember after George Floyd he called the people protesting
Speaker 4: thugs and he said, when you know, the looting start starts,
Speaker 4: the shooting starts.
Speaker 2: That's his approach.
Speaker 4: He said it again and again on the campaign trail.
Speaker 4: Why do you think he's been endorsed by the Fraternal
Speaker 4: Order of Police Because he wants to turn the police
Speaker 4: on our black communities. That's his approach, and we all
Speaker 4: know what that looks like. So you know, it's a
Speaker 4: contrast between you know, somebody who wants as many guns
Speaker 4: in our communities as can possibly be the case, ghost guns,
Speaker 4: you know, three D printed guns, assault weapons. He's for
Speaker 4: whatever the NRA wants, and the more black people killed
Speaker 4: on our streets, as far as he's concerned, the better
Speaker 4: versus Kamala Harris, who knows we need responsible gun safety
Speaker 4: legislation so that we have background checks, so that we
Speaker 4: don't have assault weapons, which are only you know, weapons
Speaker 4: of war on our streets. You don't need those for hunting.
Speaker 4: And she's a gun owner, you know, the we need
Speaker 4: red flag laws so that people are going through a crisis,
Speaker 4: you know, there's an opportunity and they're a danger to
Speaker 4: themselves or danger to somebody else, that their guns can
Speaker 4: be taken away for a period.
Speaker 2: Of time until they're okay.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just the contrasts again, could not be greater.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is a guy who said that the exonerated five,
Speaker 4: the Central Park five, yes, you know, should be executed,
Speaker 4: even after he knew they were innocent.
Speaker 2: That's who he is. He's a guy who said.
Speaker 4: Barack Obama wasn't born in this country, started the whole
Speaker 4: birth of thing. He just despises and disparages black people
Speaker 4: at every.
Speaker 2: Chance he gets.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's how he introduced himself to the political arena,
Speaker 5: you know, by yeah, the birth is President Obama's citizenship.
Speaker 5: We'll only have you for a few more minutes. And
Speaker 5: because we encounter a lot of undecided and apathetic voters,
Speaker 5: and we've heard some of their reasons. Why so, there's
Speaker 5: some things that happened during our last elections and promises
Speaker 5: that were made regarding the John Lewis Voting Rights Act
Speaker 5: and the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act that were
Speaker 5: not as fully addressed as a lot of our listeners
Speaker 5: and potential voters might feel. And amongst young people, the
Speaker 5: United States aid to Israel has been a divisive issue
Speaker 5: with younger voters. Can you, as best you can give
Speaker 5: us some contrast between Vice President Harris and former President
Speaker 5: Donald Trump's foreign policy with regards to this conflict, and
Speaker 5: about some fulfilled promises for black voters as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, thank you for asking about this. Let me talk.
Speaker 4: Let me start with the two pieces of legislation you mentioned,
Speaker 4: the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the George Floyd Legislation.
Speaker 4: President I was working in the White House on these
Speaker 4: issues at the beginning of the administration until last year.
Speaker 4: We worked really hard to get Congress to pass the
Speaker 4: George Floyd Justice and Policing Act and the John Lewis
Speaker 4: Voting Rights Act, And in the Senate, where we did
Speaker 4: not have, you know, the sixty vote threshold to get
Speaker 4: past the filibuster, and we had two Senators Joe Manchin
Speaker 4: and Kirsten Cinema, who refused to allow any reform of
Speaker 4: the filibuster. It was impossible to get those two pieces
Speaker 4: of legislation passed. Now, good news is Mansion and Cinema
Speaker 4: are retiring, and if we can get a majority in
Speaker 4: the Senate, even not a sixty vote majority, just a
Speaker 4: majority in the House. In the Senate, those pieces of
Speaker 4: legislation have a very real prospect of success. But in
Speaker 4: the absence of being able to get the legislation passed
Speaker 4: for George Floyd, what President Biden and Vice President Harris did,
Speaker 4: and I was very much part of this, was to
Speaker 4: write an executive order which was the most expansive and
Speaker 4: comprehensive executive order to reform policing for the federal law
Speaker 4: enforcement that's ever been done. So all the things that
Speaker 4: we were concerned about with George Floyd, banning choke holds,
Speaker 4: you know, banning, you know, all of the most abusive
Speaker 4: police tactics, ensuring that there's a database and a registry
Speaker 4: for bad cops that have, you know, committed crimes. In
Speaker 4: one jurisdiction but then get hired in another. We fixed
Speaker 4: all that at the federal level, and there are hundreds
Speaker 4: of thousands of federal law enforcement, whether it's your ICE,
Speaker 4: your Border Patrol, your FBI, your DEA, those are all
Speaker 4: federal law enforcement and they are now bound by this
Speaker 4: executive order. So it's not as much as what we
Speaker 4: wanted to get with the George Floyd legislation, where it
Speaker 4: would apply at the state and local level, but we
Speaker 4: did do it at the federal level. But there's more
Speaker 4: to be done. And that's why it matters not just
Speaker 4: who's the president, but what kind of Congress we have.
Speaker 4: But I also want to say, you know that you
Speaker 4: point to two pieces of legislation, they are important that
Speaker 4: we're all frustrated.
Speaker 2: Or not law.
Speaker 4: But I think people forget what has been accomplished. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't think people really know that under Vice President
Speaker 4: Harrison and Joe Biden, we have reached the lowest black
Speaker 4: unemployment rate in the history of unemployment rate being recorded
Speaker 4: over fifty years, the highest in health insurance rate of
Speaker 4: Black Americans in our history. Black wealth creation has gone
Speaker 4: up sixty percent in this country since before the pandemic
Speaker 4: We have more black businesses being started under Vice President
Speaker 4: Harris and Joe Biden than in thirty years. So there's
Speaker 4: just a lot of things that people. I've talked about
Speaker 4: student loan forgiveness, five million Americans, not everybody we wanted
Speaker 4: to get because the court's blocked some stuff, but five
Speaker 4: million Americans, you know, are not paying for their student
Speaker 4: loans anymore. So there's a lot that we've gotten done,
Speaker 4: but there's much more to do, and that's what Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris wants to do with all the proposals that I've
Speaker 4: already shared with you. So it's really important that we
Speaker 4: have in the White House people who are trying to
Speaker 4: get the right thing done, and when they're accompanied by
Speaker 4: people in Congress, there is a huge amount we can do.
Speaker 4: We had the first comprehensive gun safety legislation in thirty years.
Speaker 4: We've talked about Medicare and insulin and drug costs. You know,
Speaker 4: Trump wants to repeal all that and take away your ACA.
Speaker 4: There are just so many things that are important that
Speaker 4: make a difference and matters who's in the White House.
Speaker 4: You asked about the Middle East. I think that here too,
Speaker 4: the contrast couldn't be more stark. Kamala Harris has been
Speaker 4: very clear that what happened on October seventh was horrific
Speaker 4: crimes against twelve hundred Israelis who were killed and many raped,
Speaker 4: and that Israel has a right to defend itself. But
Speaker 4: having said that, she is also horrified by the extreme
Speaker 4: suffering of the people in Gaza. That frankly goes well beyond,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, what is strategically necessary or smart if
Speaker 4: you're a friend of Israel. And she's been very clear
Speaker 4: that we have to end the war. We've got to
Speaker 4: get the hostages home, We've got to have a cease fire,
Speaker 4: and we need for the people of Gaza and all
Speaker 4: Palestinians to not just have humanitarian assistance and be able
Speaker 4: to rebuild after what has been tremendous destruction, but have
Speaker 4: a very real near term prospect of having a state
Speaker 4: of their own with dignity and security, living side by
Speaker 4: side in peace with Israel. And so that is what
Speaker 4: she is committed to. Donald Trump is cheerleading Benjamin Netnatu,
Speaker 4: not net Nyahu, to go bomb arounds nuclear facilities, which
Speaker 4: will draw the United States directly into war with Iran.
Speaker 4: Cheerleading Netanya, who to continue the war in Gaza and
Speaker 4: to you know, and to turn Lebanon into a parking lot.
Speaker 4: He is, He's the one who pulled out of the
Speaker 4: nuclear agreement with Iran and had nothing to replace it,
Speaker 4: and now Iran is closer than ever to having the
Speaker 4: capacity to build nuclear weapons. You know, he has no
Speaker 4: commitment to a two state solution, doesn't want to see
Speaker 4: a Palestinian state.
Speaker 2: He's basically saying.
Speaker 4: To net Nya, who do whatever the hell you want,
Speaker 4: kind of like what he said to Putin. So you know,
Speaker 4: that's the contrast. And if anybody who is confused about
Speaker 4: Donald Trump carrying one goddamn about the Palestinian people, then
Speaker 4: look at his record, look at his record. What is
Speaker 4: you know, the situation in the Middle East is heartbreaking
Speaker 4: and horrifying, But the answer is having Someboddy in the
Speaker 4: White House who cares, who understands the stakes, both as
Speaker 4: you know, a friend of Israel, but as a friend
Speaker 4: of the people of Palestine as well as the broader
Speaker 4: Middle East. We don't need more war, we need real solutions.
Speaker 4: And so again the difference couldn't be more stark.
Speaker 1: So this is something that we believe on the show.
Speaker 1: Everything that you said. The nature of our elections in
Speaker 1: this country leaves us with a binary choice. It's either
Speaker 1: this or it's that, and that's those are the only
Speaker 1: two options. You compare one to the other. Often you
Speaker 1: end up and I don't love the way that this sounds,
Speaker 1: but this is a common, you know, conversation that people
Speaker 1: have around the country. You end up with the lesser
Speaker 1: of two evils. On this show, we have elevated Jewish voices,
Speaker 1: and we've elevated Palestinian voices. We consider ourselves brothers to
Speaker 1: many communities, and in order to gain insight for ourselves
Speaker 1: and for our listeners, we've had these conversations. One of
Speaker 1: the things that's happened, and you're just in the best
Speaker 1: position for us to ask. One of the things that's
Speaker 1: happened is that Palestinian folks and people who have aligned
Speaker 1: themselves younger voters, college students around the count you know,
Speaker 1: and we've been to some of these protests. What they're
Speaker 1: seeing right now is the United States funding Israel's attack
Speaker 1: on the Palestinian people. And for those folks, when it
Speaker 1: comes to the binary of this election, they feel that
Speaker 1: they're left an impossible choice. Now again, we have had
Speaker 1: to have difficult, very difficult conversations with people that we
Speaker 1: love on this show about that. So when you say
Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking, trust us when I say that we understand
Speaker 1: that feeling. We've tried our best. Can you offer any
Speaker 1: words that might motivate someone who's caught in the middle
Speaker 1: there that maybe we haven't been able to offer them
Speaker 1: in terms of motivating them to vote. We try not
Speaker 1: to scare people, and I don't think that that would
Speaker 1: be what you try to do.
Speaker 3: But maybe there's.
Speaker 1: Something that some access, some insight that you might have,
Speaker 1: and we have to ask that question because we've had
Speaker 1: these conversations here.
Speaker 4: Well, let me say several things. First of all, you know,
Speaker 4: there's such strong feelings, justifiably so, on both sides of
Speaker 4: this question, and it's what's happening in the Middle East,
Speaker 4: you know, is brutally painful, and so we got to
Speaker 4: take people's concern and passions about this seriously, and I do. Secondly,
Speaker 4: i'd say, you know, Kamala Harris, as she herself has said,
Speaker 4: she's not Joe Biden. She's got a different history, a
Speaker 4: different set of experiences, She's of a new generation, her
Speaker 4: approach to this is not going to be identical to
Speaker 4: Joe Biden's, But as long as she's a sitting vice president,
Speaker 4: there are limits to, you know, what she can say
Speaker 4: or do. She's been clear that she thinks that, you know,
Speaker 4: the United States has a responsibility to support Israel's right
Speaker 4: to defend itself, but she also believes that how they
Speaker 4: do it matters, and that we cannot be indifferent to
Speaker 4: the suffering of the Palestine and people. We've got to
Speaker 4: be There's no dichotomy in the real world between believing
Speaker 4: Israel has a right to defend itself and supporting and
Speaker 4: bolstering the aspirations of the Palestinian people to have state
Speaker 4: of their own, and to ending this horrific war and
Speaker 4: not seeing it expand. The third point I'd say is
Speaker 4: look at the contrast between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: on this issue, and as I just explained, it couldn't
Speaker 4: be more stark. And some people might say, well, hell,
Speaker 4: I'll just stay home or my vote, you know whatever,
Speaker 4: I'll you know it, you know, I'm not voting for
Speaker 4: either one of them. Will not a vote a vote
Speaker 4: for Donald Trump, a vote for Jill Stein or Cornell
Speaker 4: West or not voting at all. Those are all votes
Speaker 4: for Donald Trump. So let's be clear about that, and
Speaker 4: that The final point I'd make is that, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe people have heard this, you know, all their lives,
Speaker 4: this is the most important election of our lifetime. But
Speaker 4: this really is the most important election of our lifetime
Speaker 4: given what Donald Trump intends to do to this country
Speaker 4: and to black people in this country and to our democracy.
Speaker 4: And the difference this time between now and every other
Speaker 4: time we've said it's the most important election of our
Speaker 4: lifetime is that the Supreme Court has said that the
Speaker 4: president of the United States can do whatever he or
Speaker 4: she wants with immunity from prosecution. So, in other words,
Speaker 4: there are literally no guardrails on Donald Trump. If Donald
Speaker 4: Trump wants to use a military against Americans, he can't.
Speaker 4: If Donald Trump wants to you know, sick the police
Speaker 4: on every black person in this country, he can. If
Speaker 4: he wants to you know, round up and deport anybody
Speaker 4: whose skin color he doesn't like, or strip citizenship from
Speaker 4: naturalized citizens.
Speaker 2: He can't.
Speaker 4: So this is really, truly, you know, a consequential moment.
Speaker 4: And as much as you may feel passionately and be
Speaker 4: horrified by what's happening in the Middle East. I don't
Speaker 4: know about you, but I don't feel like I have
Speaker 4: the luxury to make my choice and my vote dependent
Speaker 4: on anyone issue, as strongly as I might feel about it,
Speaker 4: because if I do that, I'm saying to every woman
Speaker 4: in this country that will lose their reproductive freedom, I
Speaker 4: don't care about you. I'm saying to every senior citizen
Speaker 4: who is you know, dependent on Medicare and Social Security
Speaker 4: and has gotten now their thirty five dollars insulin and
Speaker 4: their cap on prescription drugs, to hell with you. I
Speaker 4: don't care about you. I'm saying to every black person
Speaker 4: in this country. I don't care if Donald Trump, you know,
Speaker 4: wants to send us back to Jim Crow. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's just so much at stake here, and yes, the
Speaker 4: Middle East is vitally important, but it is not the
Speaker 4: only issue in this campaign. And I just as a
Speaker 4: I got young kids in college aged kids, and I
Speaker 4: know how you know how firmly and strongly felt this issue,
Speaker 4: but you know they are privileged. There are so many
Speaker 4: people in this country who will suffer immeasurably given a
Speaker 4: Donald Trump presidency. In contrast to a Kamala Harris presidency,
Speaker 4: and I for one am not willing to sell my
Speaker 4: fellow country men and women down there, you know, down
Speaker 4: the river over any single issue, however important.
Speaker 1: Maybe before we let you go, I want to just
Speaker 1: get one more question on just because again, we we
Speaker 1: cover a lot of topics that you know, activists around
Speaker 1: the country feel very passionate about. As someone who supported
Speaker 1: the Paris Agreement, you're in a better position than most
Speaker 1: to help us understand and discuss the differences and the
Speaker 1: two nominees approaches to climate change exactly. So would you
Speaker 1: share with us and with our listeners those different approaches?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: What? What future do we have to look forward to?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Again, the choice couldn't be more distinct. You know, Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris believes that our climate is warming rapidly and dangerously
Speaker 4: do in substantial part to human activity, and that we
Speaker 4: have got to get a grip on this problem. Is
Speaker 4: you know, sitting here in Phoenix, we all understand very
Speaker 4: very well. Oh yeah, yes, or you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: if you're in you know, western North Carolina or Florida
Speaker 4: or Georgia, you know what you know what climate change
Speaker 4: is doing? In terms of flooding. We've got to get
Speaker 4: a grip on this problem. Donald Trump continues to call
Speaker 4: climate change a hoax. He didn't believe it, didn't care
Speaker 4: about it. He invited the the biggest all companies tomorrow
Speaker 4: lago and said, if you give me a million dollars
Speaker 4: or more from my campaign, you know I will make
Speaker 4: sure that we continue to protect big oil and do
Speaker 4: in nothing that big oil doesn't want done.
Speaker 2: With respect to dealing.
Speaker 4: With the climate and climate change, dald Trump doesn't even
Speaker 4: talk about climate change. He talks about the environment, which
Speaker 4: for him means, you know, clean water and clean air,
Speaker 4: except he doesn't want clean water and clean air for
Speaker 4: black and brown communities, so he's he And you mentioned
Speaker 4: the Paris Agreement. One of the first things he did
Speaker 4: when he came into office in twenty seventeen was to
Speaker 4: pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord,
Speaker 4: which we negotiated under President Obama that made every country
Speaker 4: in the world commit to very concrete targets for lowering
Speaker 4: their emissions, and collectively, if countries adhere to those emission
Speaker 4: reduction targets, we will make meaningful progress towards.
Speaker 2: Tackling climate change. Is not enough.
Speaker 4: We need to actually strengthen and re up those commitments.
Speaker 4: But when you pull out the Climate Agreement, when you
Speaker 4: pull out of Paris, which Trump has said he'll do
Speaker 4: again on day one, you know, we are ensuring that
Speaker 4: not just the United States, but the rest of the
Speaker 4: world will not take the steps necessary to address climate.
Speaker 2: Change in a meaningful way.
Speaker 4: So it's this is dead serious, literally, uh and uh.
Speaker 4: You know, under Vice President Harris and President Biden, we
Speaker 4: pass something called the Inflation Reduction Act. It's kind of
Speaker 4: a confusing name, but it was the single biggest piece
Speaker 4: of investment in clean energy jobs and clean energy technology
Speaker 4: that our country has ever made. And you know, we
Speaker 4: are now providing incentives, tax incentives for everything, like if
Speaker 4: you want to you know, buy new uh, you know,
Speaker 4: heat pump for your else, you can get a tax
Speaker 4: incentive for that. If you want to buy an electric vehicle,
Speaker 4: you can get a tax incentive for that.
Speaker 2: And if you're a.
Speaker 4: Company building clean energy, or if you're you know, trying
Speaker 4: to get clean school buses on the streets. You know,
Speaker 4: that's what the Inflation Reduction Act is made possible. Donald
Speaker 4: Trump has said he's going to repeal it. So you
Speaker 4: know again, it's it's kind of you know.
Speaker 2: Night and day.
Speaker 5: The mistakes and importance of this moment are not hyperbolic.
Speaker 2: They really aren't.
Speaker 4: I mean, I wish I wish there wasn't so much
Speaker 4: at stake because it's you know, it makes you nervous
Speaker 4: not knowing how it's going to go and what it
Speaker 4: means is really truly people need to vote, and they
Speaker 4: need to be informed when they vote. They need to
Speaker 4: understand that when Donald Trump, you know, says that he
Speaker 4: wants to unleash the military on Americans, we can't assume
Speaker 4: that's rhetoric. That's what he almost did on January sixth,
Speaker 4: but he had a vice president and others who wouldn't.
Speaker 5: Go along with it.
Speaker 4: There's a reason why Donald Trump's vice president, two of
Speaker 4: his national security advisors, two of his secretaries of defense,
Speaker 4: former chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff, one of
Speaker 4: his secretaries of State, and his White House Chief of Staff,
Speaker 4: General John Kelly, a four star general, have all said
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump is dangerous, he's unfit, and they can't.
Speaker 2: Support him to be president.
Speaker 4: Again, have you ever heard of that situation where people
Speaker 4: who work that closely with somebody, people who are appointed
Speaker 4: by him, appointed by him, said he can't come back.
Speaker 2: He's too dangerous. This is not a joke.
Speaker 4: So people need to vote. They need to get their
Speaker 4: family members out to vote. They need to volunteer and
Speaker 4: knock on doors and make book calls. I mean, this
Speaker 4: thing is, it's all up on this and I really
Speaker 4: appreciate the chance to be able to talk with you
Speaker 4: in your.
Speaker 5: Own bless you forgive there's some time. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's that. One of the things that that Q
Speaker 1: says very often is that you know, when you say
Speaker 1: it enough, it starts to lose it's it's meaning. But
Speaker 1: because in every election, we've always said this is the
Speaker 1: most important election of our lives. And you said it,
Speaker 1: you know, you said it for him, because we've had
Speaker 1: to say that so so often. In fact, we have
Speaker 1: when we leave this interview, we have another like in
Speaker 1: person event that we need to go to where that
Speaker 1: basically is the message that we're communicating to that audience.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming and spending time with us. I
Speaker 1: hope this sounds the way that I wanted to. But
Speaker 1: we're so proud of you. Thank you We're so proud
Speaker 1: of you. And you know this is probably like like
Speaker 1: the highlight of of the show so far, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 3: So thank you.
Speaker 4: It's really nice for you to say that. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: proud of you guys, because you're you're doing something really important.
Speaker 4: You're communicating vitally important messages to people who may not
Speaker 4: get them from other places. And you know, people need
Speaker 4: to believe that that they have a stake in their
Speaker 4: their communities, their country, the world, and they do, but
Speaker 4: sometimes it's hard to just put that in perspective.
Speaker 2: And you all do that so well. So thank you.
Speaker 3: Unless you thank you.
Speaker 1: So much before before we let you go, if you'd like,
Speaker 1: please share any sort of you know, digital content, websites,
Speaker 1: social media, anything like that so people can tap in
Speaker 1: with you, what you got going on with, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: Make sure we leave some connected tissue if you want.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm on I'm on x formerly Twitter at at
Speaker 4: ambassador Rice. I'm on Instagram at at Ambrice. Okay, but uh,
Speaker 4: you know, I I think more important than you know
Speaker 4: my social media is you know, giving people who who
Speaker 4: don't have as much of a voice the opportunity to
Speaker 4: be heard and that's what you're doing, so I'm down
Speaker 4: with that more than Elon.
Speaker 2: Musks X much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well, once again, today's guest is Ambassador
Speaker 1: Susan Rice, American diplomat, policy advisor, and public official who
Speaker 1: served under the last three Democratic presidents.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much,