The Steady State Sentinel is produced by the
Steady State, a community of former national
security professionals who spent their careers
safeguarding the United States at home and abroad.
Today, we continue that mission by staying true
to our oaths to defend the Constitution, uphold
our democracy, and protect our nation's security.
Join our expert hosts as they interview field
-tested guests whose unique experiences shed
light on the crises and challenges facing our
nation. Hello, I'm Peter Mina, a civil rights
and federal employment law attorney, as well
as a former Department of Homeland Security official
who worked to integrate civil rights and civil
liberties protections in the department's national
security programs. And you are listening to the
Steady State Sentinel from the Steady State.
We are facing an existential threat, growing
autocracy in the United States. The Steady State
Sentinel is a place where we and our distinguished
guests use our national security expertise. to
discuss and analyze the decisions and acts of
this administration that feed that autocratic
slide and threaten to supplant the pillars of
our constitutional democracy. Today, we're talking
with Jim O 'Brien, the chair of the board of
the steady state and a former State Department
official about our organization, its role in
protecting democracy, the rule of law and national
security. We'll also talk to Jim about the president's
transactional foreign policy and what it means
for. both for folks here at home, as well as
our traditional partners abroad. Welcome to the
show, Jim. Thanks for having me, Peter. All right.
So I think, you know, where I'd like to start
is basically your origin story. So tell me a
little bit about why you got into public service
in the first place. Look, I just think the career
government service is one of the great innovations
of the last couple hundred years. The idea that
there are people who are expected to become expert
in some areas and to offer their views over long
careers is, I think, a key part of what keeps
us free and keeps us safe. It's a real step away
from personalized bureaucracies, court politics
that typified a lot of certainly European politics.
you know into the middle of the 19th century
so that i think explains both where i came from
and why i'm with the steady state i had all i
grew up in nebraska for the most part a little
bit elsewhere in the midwest and i always loved
reading the stories of people who were working
to make life better whether in whatever sector
but especially some of the the the folks in the
government, whether working in foreign policy,
which is the field I ended up in, justice, which
was the field I was trained for, or other agencies
making food safer. You know, I'm from an agricultural
state. So all of that stuff just struck me as
a really honorable and exciting way to lead a
life. As I made my way through school, trying
to decide if I wanted to teach or if I wanted
to work. Once I decided that I was going to work
maybe as a lawyer, I was really only interested
in doing it as a career government official.
Well, and as a lawyer as well, obviously that
story is near and dear to my heart too. But what
especially drew you to, and you made obviously
reference to your illustrious career in foreign
policy, but what drew you to national security
and diplomacy in particular? Yeah, some of it
was just the normal accidents. I had a couple
of professors who had worked in the field and
felt that it presented a lot of really interesting.
questions and one of them said to me i think
you'd like the fact that this is a field that
is collaborative i mean you're often arguing
against people but you're always working with
a lot of people so it's not just at the state
department where famously you have both people
with substantive expertise and regional expertise
who have to be involved in every decision but
then i'd be working with people from across the
intelligence community My second day on the job
at the State Department, I had to go visit the
CIA and work on some arrangements that they were
looking to put overseas. And my second day was
nine days before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
That tells you how long ago this was. And, you
know, so I just came to love getting to know
people from around the government who were working
on real problems that matter to Americans. And
that, I think, is the real tradition of the...
of the career service. And so we've been talking
a lot about the career service, and I was a career
servant as well, as are many of our members.
But you also had the opportunity to serve as
a political appointee. And I was wondering if
you could talk a little bit about the dynamic
between careers and political appointees and
what it was like to make that transition. Yeah,
and it sort of happened organically at first,
and then as a result of an election with a long
gap. So I was a career civil servant. I started,
as I said, 10 days before the fall of the Berlin
Wall. I was going to stay a year in government,
then go off probably to be a law professor somewhere.
And instead, I stayed because the work was interesting
and I thought important. I became the... State
Department lawyer on the laws of armed conflict,
a subject that's been on the front page of the
news in the last few days, working with some
enormously talented lawyers from across the government.
And Yugoslavia imploded. So this was in the early
90s. And so the atrocities were a part of the
warfare. And we began to think that this was
something we should maybe recall crimes when
they were crimes. We should gather the information
the U .S. government had. And then ultimately
that we thought that some accountability for
the criminals was going to be critical for there
to be peace. Because the people who commit the
crimes are the people who don't want there to
be peace. Certainly not a negotiated ceasefire.
And that really was borne out. It made me, I
became the lead government lawyer on many elements
of the Yugoslav peace deals in the mid -90s.
Through all that work, I started to work a lot
with then UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright and
eventually went to work on her staff. So when
she became secretary, I was her policy advisor
for her time as secretary. And by the end of
that period, I realized that, in essence, I'd
become much more a policy and political person
than a career lawyer. And I just thought it would
be uncomfortable for me to work in an administration
where I knew I would disagree with many of the
political stances, even if they were not ones
that directly affected my portfolio. So it was
time to leave. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just
going to say, I mean, that's a really interesting
thought because I think about, you know, my own
career where, you know, I was the senior career
official and my immediate supervisor was a political
appointee, you know, from either administration.
And, you know, when I think about the senior
executive service, you know, whether that is
the traditional, you know, civilian staff or,
you know, obviously at the state department,
you know, senior foreign service officers. And
I wonder. If more folks at that level don't have
that similar feeling, I can imagine, particularly
if you are a senior advisor, a chief of staff,
someone who was so close to the political, how
do you make that transition? That is our charge
to that next administration that may have a completely
different viewpoint on your work. Yeah, I actually
thought. You know, we all play different roles
in our lives. And I was felt at the State Department
under the first Bush administration, where I
was a very junior lawyer. And then the Clinton
administration, the role of the career service,
civil servants like I was, or foreign service
officers. The role was to try to explain the
world to the political appointees, what the rules
were, what the possibilities were, what are things
that can be done. And that conversation between
career people and political people, I think,
is the key thing that needs to be preserved.
The career people see these issues over time.
They know how... foreign governments are manipulating,
you know, lying to political appointees, right?
And then now I've seen it from both sides. You
show up as a political appointee from several
years out in the wilderness. You've got all these
ideas. You've got some contacts. You're impatient.
Maybe you had to wait a year and a half to get
confirmed as I did under the Biden administration.
So you show up and you're just anxious to get
stuff done. And the career people say, well,
you know, when this person told you yes, he really
meant no. or he's going to do yes, as long as
you're looking at him. But the instant you get
a new job, and I changed, I was head of sanctions
at the start of the Biden administration, and
then became responsible for Europe. They said,
as soon as you move, this person is going to
stop doing everything that was promised to you.
And hearing that from people, I got to say, as
a political appointee, it's really annoying.
Sure, I can imagine. You sort of hate it. But
at the same time, it's critical. You have to
know that this is what is happening because it
then changes what's presented to the other side.
It changes what you're expecting, the benchmarks,
how often you check back in, what you leave to
your successors. And my hope is that by being
an effective political appointee, you can leave
to the people who come after you some new initiative
or... effort or tool that they can then use productively.
So just here's one example. At the end of the
Clinton administration, I found myself meeting
often with the then head of the Office of Foreign
Asset Control at Treasury, OFAC. OFAC was just
a couple dozen people. It was a very kind of
simple operation at the time. And we hit on the
idea that it would be better for the U .S. to
give up some of our cumbersome trade embargo
type sanctions. I was very focused on the Balkans.
Those tended to create a lot of smuggling, right?
And they allowed the individuals who controlled
the smuggling to become the oligarchs of the
region. We thought maybe a lot of those should
be given up, and we developed a path to give
them up as the policy warranted. But we should
focus on finance and try to find a way to get
at the money. that corrupt political actors were
using to control their political bases out of
the key capitals that were fomenting the war.
And so we began to develop that idea there. That's
what I left when I walked out the door in January
2001. My successors then had experience of working
on financial sanctions that wasn't really a key
feature of sanctions regimes up to that point.
After 9 -11, the focus on the way that terrorists
made and moved their money moved front and center
in the response to 9 -11. That's the kind of
exchange, even between politically opposed administrations,
but it's the sort of thing that the career people
carried forward, the OFAC folks who remained
when I left state. were actually able to be right
in the middle of a really important answer to
the attacks of 9 -11. And there are other examples.
I was involved in establishing the Yugoslav criminal
tribunal. Without that, I think there would have
been no peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, because
it was the criminals who wanted the war to continue.
But it wasn't. in keeping with much of the incoming
Bush administration's kind of core views of sovereignty.
They quickly saw though that it was an important
tool to remove people who otherwise would give
haven to terrorists or would disrupt other countries
and make them safe havens for terrorists. So
they actually took the tool that hadn't existed
since the end of World War II and began to use
it in a way that met a very different policy
environment. That kind of thing can only be done
by career officials. If everyone walks out the
door at the end of every administration, you
don't have that kind of institutional knowledge.
And I really fear that what's going on today
with the attacks on the career service means
we're going to know much less. when it comes
time to face a new situation later in this administration.
Well, so you've given me a perfect segue. So
I think you talked a lot about leaving something
for your successor to build upon. You talked
about the transition to following the money.
And so I guess. I'd love for you to react to
what is currently happening at the State Department
at a sort of dismantling of our relationships
abroad. And what does that mean in the long term?
How do you get back to an environment where you
can have that transition, especially when, as
this administration comes in, rather than looking
to the careers and saying, hey, what's working,
what's not? well, you must be enemies of whatever
the administration is doing. I don't want to
listen to you because you're just going to try
and stop me from doing what I want to do. Yeah,
it's a great question. I think there are a lot
of different approaches. I mean, to me, the start
was the first thing I did, the first thing every
civil servant does is take an oath to defend
the Constitution. And that was always enough.
That's the commitment. This administration has
added a requirement at the State Department of
fidelity to the secretary. I can't imagine having
a requirement to follow any political official
of any party. It should be that you're there
to take care of the Constitution. You do that
by respecting the decisions of the people who
are duly authorized to make decisions. but you
don't express fidelity or worship for a political
official. That's what they're doing. On top of
it, this administration has a core of people
who believe that the career service is the enemy
of their political movement. Why is that? The
ones I've gotten to know, and I spent much of
the last year in Europe and talking to people
there, but the people who come and speak on behalf
of the administration. often say that institutions
like the career service or independent research
organizations, whether universities, civil society,
law firms, that these are sort of incubators
for secular ideas or progressive ideas, and therefore
they have to be attacked. And that viewpoint,
I think, will take us to the dark ages. So the
way that they are doing this is by shutting down
voices of expertise and shutting out the people
who remain. So at the State Department, you see
a couple things happening. Secretary Rubio showed
up and started criticizing the workforce as woke,
as intent on carrying out initiatives that undermine
the security of the American people. All this
barking like a small dog at his own workforce
struck me as very strange. And instead, and now
many of the career people who maybe know the
most about Russia and Ukraine are not included
in discussions with those places. So you have
a situation where Russia and Ukraine are talking
to each other against the backdrop of 30 years
since Ukraine's independence and decades before
of a constant back and forth between Moscow and
Kiev. and between Moscow and the regions, and
Kiev and the regions. So they're having a long
-running dialogue, and this administration is
dropping in people with absolutely no background
or understanding of what's being said or how
it resonates with the people who are actually
fighting. That's a terrible thing, and that's
a choice the Secretary made. I'm going to add
one more element to this, which is they're only
playing with half a deck, because they came in...
committed, the White House committed them, to
an idea that white men should be in charge. And
you have this explicitly from one senior political
appointee, but the idea that white men were somehow
discriminated against. Look, when I walked out
the door, I was in charge of 11 ,000 people in
Europe, and there was a review of the entire
State Department. There were about 75 ,000 people
who were working in the State Department at the
time. 2 ,300 of them are the senior foreign service
officers, the ones who become ambassadors, office
directors, all the key people. But maybe, I don't
know, a third of those people are gone. But at
the time I walked out the door, probably 60%,
two -thirds of those people were white men. That's
the legacy of old State Department hiring. So
the most senior ones have been driven out. The
problem is the next cadre, the group, that has
been in for 20 years or so, hired by Colin Powell,
by Condi Rice, a little bit by Madeleine Albright.
That group is incredibly talented, and it's ready
to lead, to take over from baby boomers like
me. Problem is, that group's really diverse.
It's half, maybe a little more than half women.
It's about a third not white. It represents America
in every good way possible. But when I look at
the State Department website now, I see of the
top 40 to 45 positions, like 37 of them are white
guys. I mean, maybe a couple identifies Latin.
I don't know. But they're not allowing the most
talented part of their workforce to step up into
leadership positions. And that is bad for America.
Because these are the people who are ready to
lead. And then they're promoting a bunch of the
added answer I get when I ask friends of mine
who's doing this or that job often is like a
weird shrug. They say, we don't know. They're
dragging these guys out of obscure positions
and putting them in charge. So we're not going
to have, when this administration ends, as I
believe it will, we're not going to have the
very best people spending this time. learning
how to work with an avowedly America -first point
of view so that they can bring knowledge from
that into the next administration. We're going
to likely have this sharp cut in expertise because
of the people who benefited from the war on woke
are going to realize they're not going to be
around, so they'll take off. And then you'll
have to somehow recreate the cadre that we need
going forward. So much to react to there. I mean,
I think the first thing that resonates with me
as you were talking is, you know, as a senior
career official, you know, sure, I had my own
political views. But at the end of the day, my
responsibility was to execute the mission of
the Department of Homeland Security as best I
could. And to your point about, you know, duly
authorized officials, if my boss decided we were
going to do something that I didn't personally
disagree with. That's not my job to say, no,
no, you've got to do it a different way. My job
is to give the best advice that I can. And then
ultimately, so long as that decision made by
the duly authorized official is lawful, that's
your call. And that's what a career employee
is supposed to do. But we seem to have lost that.
There's no desire to hear. contrary views there's
no pressure testing anymore so we live in this
echo chamber and then i think the other thing
that um that struck me about what you were saying
is you know i i feel like now as someone of color
who was an executive in the government you know
now it's just sort of like oh well you're you
must have been a dei hire um and people don't
even understand what dei means um let alone how
to use it um and i you know i think about What
the president was quoted as saying within the
last week or so, basically that, you know, the
civil, you know, civil rights make it hard for
white people. And, you know, and that's pretty
much all you need to know about this administration.
And unfortunately, to your point, it cuts against,
in my opinion, everything America stands for.
And to your point, it is particularly in the
diplomatic corps. You have to have a workforce,
I would imagine. that reflects not only the country,
but also the areas where they're going to be
serving. And just a different set of experiences.
You know, the old joke about the State Department
was it was male, pale, and Yale. And, you know,
there probably was a little truth of that. When
I started in the late 80s, I could look around
at the people who were the most senior. But,
you know, By the time, certainly when I came
back in to the Biden administration and saw the
people who would begin migrating up, there were
a couple of changes, some of which might be seen
as DEI, some of which were not. One of the most
important changes, and it started a bit under
Madeleine Albright, but it really took off under
Colin Powell, was the decision to hire people
who'd had life experience outside the Foreign
Service. Rather than just taking babies out of
college or grad school and expecting them to
stay for 30 years, you began to take people with
5, 10, 15 years experience in the military or
in another agency or in the private sector. And
that meant suddenly you were taking in from a
range of people who weren't considered for membership
15, 20 years before. The way the room looks is
different and the way it talks is different because
you've got people who sat on trading desks. You've
got people who were in the field as Peace Corps
volunteers, which was always a kind of a career
path. But all of these things contribute to a
rich discussion that simply gets lost in the
way that this tiny group of often avowedly Christian
nationalists. just want to push their agenda.
That'll work for a time, but it's quickly going
to run out of steam. And I think this is the
danger for Americans because a lot of, you know,
Trump is above everything else. He wants to be
active every day. He wants to be the center of
attention and he wants to be doing things. But
a lot of his foreign agenda really builds off
issues that were inherited from the Biden administration.
We had basically... outlined a peace deal in
the South Caucuses. As a lame duck administration,
we couldn't get that done. Trump, to his credit,
brought the two presidents to the White House,
or the president and prime minister to the White
House, got the outlines of a deal. But now he's
moved on, and there's a team working on it, but
he's gone. So I don't know that there'll be what's
needed to really follow through. And you look
across the range of topics he's involved in,
the Gaza stuff was all stuff that people were
working on before he came in. Russia, Ukraine,
the outlines were kind of there. He's kind of
come to the end of that period. And he's got
this tiny group that is really committed to its
issues and won't listen to anyone else. And what
have we gotten out of that in the last couple
of weeks? Venezuela and now Greenland. And I
don't think either of those things. is going
to do much to make it easier for people to find
jobs or to build manufacturing capacity in the
United States. And yet Trump will continue to
be super energetic just based on what this ever
smaller group talks to him about over the next
few years. And I think that's a really dangerous
environment for the U .S. So I think we have,
you know, lots of fertile ground to talk about
based on what you just said regarding Venezuela
and Greenland. Before we get there, I would love
to hear more about the steady state. And maybe
again, sort of as I asked you about your beginnings
in public service, tell me a little bit about,
you know, how you came to join the organization
and then ultimately what led you to become chair
of the board of the steady state? Well, so. I
had known the founders and the kind of initial
people, many of whom came out of the intelligence
community. And we had worked together in different
capacities. So I was President Clinton's final
envoy for the Balkans. And that put me in touch
with a number of people from the Defense Department
and the intelligence community. Then I was President
Obama's envoy for hostage recovery, which was
a... It was a really great organization that
I didn't create. I was just put into it. But
that brought together DHS, the intelligence community,
the FBI, DOD, and others. We managed to get 100
people home in just over a year and a half, about
a year and a half. And so from all those relationships,
when I heard of the Steady States establishment,
I was really interested and participated in it
a bit in the Trump administration. When I came
out this time, I was more convinced than ever
that it was vitally important to have an example
of how trained professionals assess threats and
develop responses to them. I saw that the Trump
administration was trying to hollow out the institutions
that provide decent assessment of what's dangerous
and what are the best approaches to address them.
So I was in touch again with Steve Cash, the
executive director, and really the driving force
of the organization, and with a few other people
who've been deeply involved in it. And as we
started to talk about the organization, it was
clear that they felt it would benefit by having
somebody who didn't come from, say, the harder
edges of national security, right? You know,
I wasn't certainly not undercover, but could
try to talk about how the work that analysts
do plays well into broader political trends.
So I'm really enthused. I think one of the things
the steady state has begun doing is publish an
assessment of American democracy. And this is
prepared by people who for their entire careers
provided assessments of foreign democracies and
have identified kind of key linchpins and the
benchmarks to be used in assessing whether a
democracy is healthy or whether it's under attack.
The first installment of that was out a couple
months ago. Another one is due out in about a
week. So we'll just keep updating that. And part
of what I like about it is it shows people some
of the places they can make a difference. Standing
up for the independence of journalism. That's
just maybe paying subscriptions and using certain
websites. assisting with access of journalists
to cover the news. That's what we're seeing under
attack in Minnesota right now with the way ISIS
is trying to silence observers and harass and
intimidate them. And so identifying those things,
I think, is a great resource. It can be done
best by people who have served at DHS like you
did or elsewhere in the intelligence community.
And then we try to make that available to the
public, but also to reporters and other organizations
that are involved in the fight for democracy.
get informed and stay informed. So to that end,
Jim, imagine you're talking to one of your neighbors
in Nebraska. How would you explain why the steady
state matters? And why should I care if I'm outside
the beltway? I mean, you and I both were in the
government for a long time. There are others
in this community that might be interested, but
if I have no connection and DC is a million miles
away, why do I care? Well, I mean, a couple of
things. Folks in Nebraska are pretty sophisticated.
My sister house sat for Warren Buffett, the guy,
when I was growing up, the guy a few doors down
negotiated the first big grain sale to the Soviet
Union. And so when I talk to people, when I'm
back home visiting family, and okay, Omaha is
kind of a blue dot, but the... The number of
people who say, yeah, I supported Trump, I liked
this or that, but then they start to say, we
sold our soybeans to China and now China's canceled
the contracts. It'd be good to know what China
wants from the U .S. and what it expects to get
from President Trump. And I say, well, there
are people who are responsible for providing
those views, but Trump doesn't want to listen
to them. Or much of the Midwest now, the area
I'm from, it's food industry. And those are overwhelmingly
industries that employ recent migrants, many
of them illegal. So there's a real problem. These
are small towns that survive only because of
irregular migration. And ICE has to decide, is
it going to kill these small towns or is it going
to find some way? to allow the industries to
go forward. And so Omaha for a while, I think
well into the first Trump administration, had
the highest per capita percentage of refugees.
They're not migrants, but of people under the
refugee admissions program. And it's very proud
of that. So you see a society that not only has
maybe 20, 25 % Latin population that wasn't there
when I was growing up, but that is now increasingly
you've got Somali, Ethiopian, a host of more
recent refugee populations have moved in as well.
And so it's a place that's deeply attuned to
the world for the grain markets, which has always
been the basis of politics in the Midwest. There's
a reason the Populist Convention was held, or
the main first candidate was Nebraskan. But it's
also now tied by ties of family, by the ties
of the military base that was there. And those
people, I think, understand, or they say, they
understand the importance of having expertise
and a longer -term perspective on what keeps
Americans safe and what allows us to prosper.
That's, I think, the bit of it, just a simple
respect for people who know things. And that's
what the study states about. We don't know everything.
But we know these things and we're willing to
make those available to our fellow citizens.
Yeah. And I think and I want to get to, obviously,
the president's foreign policy. I think the one
thing that resonates with me that you were talking
about is, I mean, unfortunately, we almost have
an attack on knowledge. in our in our country
these days and that you know that is perceived
as elitist and something that should be discarded
and now i feel like we're in a world for example
you know for all those really savvy educated
folks in um nebraska or anywhere around the country
they're basically being gaslit uh you know in
terms of you know what the realities are versus
you know the version of the truth that you know
the administration is trying to push out and
i think you know as it relates to the you know
the farmers i think that you know there's there
was at least at one point sort of an initial
struggle of you know what do you do do you you
know advance the immigration agenda or do you
let farmers you know run their companies and
do their jobs But now it just seems like that
has been wholly taken over essentially by the
Stephen Miller agenda. But that is probably another
podcast for another day. So let's move on to
talk a little bit about the president's foreign
policy. And, you know, one of the things that
as we were preparing for this episode that you
and I had talked about that I'd love for you
to talk to our audience about is your view that
the president's foreign policy is much more financially
focused, that it is a, you know, sort of driven
by, you know, his relationships with, you know,
titans of industry or, you know, the wealthy
and powerful sort of around the world and why
that. Or I guess maybe how that influences the
strategic decisions that are made. Yeah, well,
the first thing is, this is a very personal system.
It's one guy. And if Trump wakes up and says,
today it's Greenland, tomorrow it's Ukraine,
the day after it's Nepal, that's what everybody
runs and chases. That's a terrible way to govern
the world's greatest country at 350 million people.
Now, his particular quirks are obviously this
focus on carbon energy, on opposition to renewables,
and a real belief that if he can only talk to
a strongman leader, and it is man is what he
looks for, that then he can find some good deals.
But on top of it, he wants to get a piece of
every deal. So NVIDIA gets to sell chips to China.
That's a disaster for national security. There
are only so many chips to go around. He's going
to take them away from new U .S. companies and
sell them to China, which will use them to build
technology that will out -compete the American
companies. But he wants to get a certain percentage
of the sales into the U .S. government. Sometimes
it's more personal. People close to him. are
the ones who get the sales rights. And it's the
combination of having this be rooted in the prejudices
of one guy and his limited knowledge of the world,
and then his need to measure success by seeing
that somebody is getting ready cash. This was
how he ran his business. He wasn't a long -term
build and allow things to flow businessman. He
built things if he got paid or he licensed his
name, got consulting money, took out loans for
construction. And then if he operated a club,
he would get paid the membership dues. It was
always ready cash. That's the only way he understands
that deals are being done. So every one of his
peace initiatives includes some element of an
American firm or potentially firms, sometimes
close to him, sometimes not, somehow involved
immediately in an extractive industry or the
transportation of things, say, across the South
Caucasus. And this is the way in which he measures
success. It's a disaster. Like when America,
in a way, like we had the one... the best resort
in the world, you know, resort and casino. The
way that you make money if you run a great resort
and casino is that people get to come there,
you provide a safe environment, and you get a
small piece out of all the activity that happens.
Trump says he wants a big piece out of whatever
people do, and he doesn't like it when other
people do well. He wants to do better himself.
No wonder he went bankrupt running a casino three
times, actually four, if you count that. But
he doesn't understand the basic point of America
is we do really well when our partners are doing
very well. And for short bursts, some of our
partners may even do better than we do. But that
makes the entire system stable. And then America
does well. And he can't see that because all
he sees is that. There have to be individual
transactions, and he has to know who's making
the money and approve of that person. And you
cannot run a global economy that way. So it's
going to be a disaster, and I think we'll find
that. Essentially, he's spending down an 80 -year
inheritance of American power as a global hegemon,
creating rules that everybody can live by. And
he's just going to spend that down so a few of
his buddies or people he can identify make money,
and then we'll have to recreate a system. And
so, Jim, at the time, you know, we're recording
the, you know, the news of the day is obviously
Venezuela, but you can look at Greenland as well.
You know, there's been discussion of, you know,
our intervention there. You know, there's been
saber rattling about Iran. You know, of course,
there's Gaza and Ukraine. How do you see... The
theory that you just laid out is sort of playing
out in those locations. And then for the folks
that aren't, you know, his supporters, how does
that reconcile with this, you know, proposed
or purported America first mentality? I think
the reality of all this is time. You know, Trump's
an old guy. He doesn't talk a lot about building
a movement behind him or a legacy. He's not like
Xi or Putin. They talk about getting new organs
and maybe living to be 150. Trump doesn't. So
time is the problem for him. He has three years
left. In all likelihood, this year will be taken
up with the expectation that Democrats will win
the House. So he will either need to adjust that
expectation by taking some dramatic anti -democratic
step, or he's going to have to just acknowledge
that his last two years will be spent with a
more difficult governing situation. Now, why
do I go into this? It's because he has three
years. Venezuela will take decades of investment
before any of its oil can begin to reach global
markets in appreciable amounts. At its peak,
it exported three million barrels of oil a day.
That's a pittance. for what the world needs.
And it's a kind of specialty oil that can only
be best used for small purposes. Greenland will
take years, if not decades, before there's a
return on any investments. But he only has three
years. And it's that problem, and you repeat
that in issue after issue, where he wants to
make an announcement and claim that he has done
something that will last 50 years. but he will
not be around to do the work. And he actually
is not trying to do the work. So it's on the
rest of us to decide which of these initiatives
are in America's long -term interest and get
behind those. But to begin saying some of these
things are not, a battle with all of Europe about
rights to Greenland that the United States already
has. because we already have the ability to invest
as much as we want and provide security there.
Denmark and Greenland have agreed to that. So
we could just go and begin doing the real work
to make Americans more prosperous, or we can
have this battle about a Sharpie on a map that
Trump wants to have. That will not, in the time
he has left, that will not produce a single job
or manufacturing opportunity for Americans. And
that, I think, has to become the focus of conversation
as we work through the next year or two. Which
of the many things he talks about can make life
better soon? And which one is he just a salesman
offering a bright and beautiful future that's
on a shining hill far away from here? And that's
the place where I think even people who support
him. ought to start getting impatient to see
the receipts now, not just hear about them from
him. So I think with that, I have, you know,
a couple of things to think about. And then I
want to talk about, you know, sort of what people
should do now in this moment. And so I guess
my thoughts are, how do you see or, you know,
maybe given the realities of the impact of America's
current instability as well as its foreign policy.
So both at home and abroad, what does that mean
for our place in the world as well as for a potential
slide or maybe even a current slide into authoritarianism?
And so, you know, sort of with that as sort of
the backdrop or maybe a little bit of the question
to be answered, how do we meet? How do we meet
the moment? What do we do? I think, I mean, everyone
should just do the bit they can, right? Everything
is helpful. So I think standing up for independent
journalists, because they're the ones who tell
us what's going on. I think helping each other
out. People just ought to help each other, because
we've got a government that is intent on punishing
people it sees as its enemies. And some of them
are migrants, and some of them are Americans
who don't like what they do. That's an environment
of cruelty. You add to it the kind of rhetorical
cruelty that we hear from this administration.
They're constantly abusing people, demeaning
people, posting memes that are polarizing and
divisive. And I think having people see one another
as people and people who need help every so often
is one of the most political acts we can all
take right now. Just to say we're decent folks
who look out for each other. in whatever way
you do that at home. And then the final bit is
just back to this point about what is the steady
state. Steady state are a bunch of ordinary Americans
who went to work because we wanted to work on
issues that mattered to the community as a whole.
The knowledge that's built up in institutions
that give people that mandate is so sacred. I
was talking to a European leader about a year
ago now who looked at the firings of scientists
and the plans to close down parts of the weather
service. Some of that got rolled back. But, you
know, the research into maritime issues and elsewhere.
This is a seagoing nation. He said, most of our
cooperation with you is based on the fact that
you have the best scientists in the world talking
to us about what's happening on the oceans. If
you fire these people, We don't have a reason
to give you priority over China anymore. I mean,
we like you more, but, you know, China is a better
partner in many respects. That's the kind of
slide that's going to come because we're turning
our backs on knowledge, but we're also saying
we don't want to have these institutions of independent
expertise. And so one thing people can stand
up for are the experts in their community, the
local social service office, the local agricultural
extension office. You know, universities that
do the research that have made America so prosperous
and great with whatever problems we've got. So
I think just those three things are things anyone
can do as part of their life. But it all comes
back to just be decent because the polarization
that has given us this government rests on all
of us. And I think it weighs us all down. So
the more we find ways to come together in different
forms, that's the best answer to what we're being
subjected to. Amen. Couldn't agree more. And,
you know, as a proud member, put me in, coach.
So thank you. Why don't we leave it right there?
I think that's a perfect place to end. So thank
you so much for joining us, Jim. What a great
conversation. I think you really educated and
illuminated our audience in so many different
ways. And I was wondering if you could maybe
tell our audience, you know. If there's anything
in particular you're working on as chair or maybe
outside of your role as a steady state that you
might want to tell people about and maybe where
they could find you. As we've all been talking
about, where are you on the socials? Almost nowhere.
Spoken like a true member of the steady state.
There we go. So with the steady state, I think
it's important that we be available as a resource
and shape the discussion, particularly about
how. America should approach threats to our people.
Because we're seeing a government that wants
to victimize the weak rather than focus on real
threats. And I think within the steady state,
we've got some exceptional people who provide
security for leading corporations, leading resorts.
And they look at this and say, you know, we need
a little more help from our government. And so
the steady state. should really be a voice in
how the United States can do this in a way that
keeps people safe and creates opportunities for
our companies. Beyond that, I'm doing a bit of
work with a few think tanks, a group called the
European Council on Foreign Relations and fellowship
at an institute looking at the human sciences.
So I get to run out from just policy. And, you
know, I'll try to figure out how I can have my
own voice in some of these discussions. But again,
I love working in institutions and I'm happy
to be part of an institution that's trying to
put views out in the world rather than just my
own byline. Excellent. Well, so if you like what
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