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