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00:00Before we get into domestic policy and foreign policy, I want to ask you about this speech that the president's
00:03going to deliver tonight.
00:04Reportedly, it's going to center on 2020 and election interference.
00:08One of your many jobs was in the White House as chief of staff.
00:10You had to think through putting together speeches like this one.
00:13And I wonder sort of how you're thinking about this speech that the president's going to give tonight, again, centering
00:19on what happened now six years ago.
00:20Well, my view is I'd like to give him an extra 30 minutes.
00:24Because anything that's retrospective, that's not prospective for America, where they are today, where their children are going to be
00:29tomorrow,
00:30is going to get basically put on mute.
00:32And, in fact, I think so. I think the president's making a massive strategic mistake.
00:37It will come across interpreted as self-serving for him.
00:41And I'm saying exactly what Republican strategists are saying to him.
00:44But the White House doesn't want it because this is mental health for the president.
00:47That's exactly what's going on. So my view, don't limit yourself to 15 minutes.
00:51Take as much time as you want, Mr. President. Spend a lot of time on 2020, not 2030.
00:57We're going to talk about the political terrain, midterms, general election after that.
01:00But before we get there, I'm curious of how worried you are about this issue of election integrity, seeing what
01:05the president has been doing,
01:06what his advisors have been saying publicly. How worried are you about the integrity of these next elections?
01:11Well, I'm kind of on the right-left mind. One is I'm very focused on, I think, for Democrats winning.
01:17What does it take to win? There is a part less on the periphery, but at the other side that,
01:23you know, let's assume the Democrats win
01:25seven seats net. Get a majority. Every election, David, you have three or four seats that are 200, 300, less
01:35than 1%.
01:36Some states have automatic recount, others don't. The speaker showed that when it came to the Arizona race, he wouldn't
01:42seat the member.
01:44And I worry a little, and it's growing, that the January 6th that was on the steps of the Capitol
01:53will be driven inside the Capitol.
01:57Because the Constitution is very clear the speaker has the right to call, organizes the House.
02:01So you've got to seat members to have a new election. And I think they're going to basically, until those
02:06elections are decided, say no.
02:07And they're going to say there's no majority, there's no clarity. And they're going to postpone actually beginning anew.
02:12Let's talk about a pair of speeches you've given recently, centering on foreign policy.
02:16You went to Israel and spoke in Tel Aviv. This has been characterized, I think, kind of clumsily as a
02:20critique of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
02:22But it was a larger speech than that. It was not just criticism. You laid out a plan for peace.
02:26At least you heard the quote. I listened to it.
02:28You didn't get it. The show stopped. Yes, I think the prime minister led Israel into basically a dead end.
02:34Here's what I would do to get out of that status, because I have concern for the alliance.
02:38And more than that, Japan, an ally, very popular in the United States. NATO, very popular in America.
02:44We have a critical ally who is dropping precipitously in America, dropping precipitously in Europe, Canada, Australia.
02:51You have to have a breakout moment that actually establishes support for the country, not just a particular prime minister
02:59or government.
02:59What did you make of the reaction to it, the response to it?
03:02Again, it has been kind of distilled into something that it wasn't entirely.
03:05What does it say about the way that we talk about U.S.-Israel policy?
03:08Well, people that work on it, like, without characterizing them sensitive, you know, President Clinton and I talked.
03:14You know, Hillary Clinton put out a comment. I know I've talked to Hakeem Jeffries.
03:18So, one, I view the pariah status, the isolation of Israel strategically, diplomatically, militarily, economically,
03:26as a real threat to Israel. Big article today about The Economist, what this is endangering.
03:32So, I laid out a strategy. You know, the Saudi Arabia, which is kind of the crown jewel,
03:39was a sponsor of the 2013 proposal by the Arab League for a 23-state solution, basically.
03:45All 21 nations would recognize Israel if you came to some settlement agreement between sovereignty and security, the Holy Grail.
03:55But Saudi Arabia, now, post-October 7th, won't go singularly.
03:59But there's a comfort in numbers with all 21. Game on.
04:04But you don't get to sit on the sideline, Arab League.
04:06You have to stand up a Palestinian authority because they're three strikes and out.
04:11They got three times offered sovereignty, three times said no, and returned violence.
04:15So, you've made a cynical Israeli partner.
04:18That's not how you build trust.
04:19So, I'm going to give you a chance to get out of jail card, a fourth chance.
04:22But everybody in the Arab League has got to stand up that partner.
04:25You've got to recognize not only the state of Israel, but its historic right.
04:29You've got to stop rewarding terrorists for killing Israelis because they're Israelis.
04:33And stop teaching your children to hate Israelis.
04:35Now, Israel has got to stop undermining, and a classic example of this government.
04:40This government undermined the Palestinian Authority, but they allowed Qatar to send $6 billion to Hamas.
04:47Hamas was not sending, using that $6 billion to build McDonald's franchise in Gaza.
04:52They were building tunnels, and you knew it.
04:54That was a strategic failure of this government.
04:57The second, as you can see, I recommended the IMEC, India, Mid-East, Europe, Economic Corridor.
05:06Cables, ports, energy.
05:08You've got to get around the Strait of Hormuz.
05:10It puts Israel's technological prowess at the center of the most important trade route.
05:14So, both economically and strategically, making Israel, as David Ben-Gurion, the founding father, said,
05:20a nation among nations.
05:22Second important is, and the critique, every country has four tools in its security toolbox.
05:30Military power, political persuasion, economic statecraft, cultural attraction.
05:35The prime minister has atrophied three of them to the point they're non-existent, and relied on only one.
05:41That is not acceptable if you're trying to be, and have actually security.
05:46Example of that, and I'll pay the calling cards.
05:48You can use my AT&T calling card.
05:50You have a Syrian government today that said Iran is our common enemy.
05:55Syria is the Highway 66 for Iran to Hezbollah.
05:59You can cut it off.
06:01And he wants to, he said, the president is Syria.
06:05I want to come to a security agreement with Israel.
06:07The United States is now building, or facilitating, a building of Iraqi oil through Syria.
06:13The pipeline, yeah.
06:14Call the Syrian president.
06:17It's not even a peace agreement, a security agreement.
06:19The people in the northern Galilee of Israel would get security, and you would actually knock out the trade route
06:27from Tehran to Beirut suburbs that fund Hezbollah.
06:33That's it.
06:34Use your diplomatic tools.
06:36The prime minister likes to say he was raised with English.
06:39Learn the letter D.
06:40It starts, first letter, in the word diplomacy.
06:42Try it.
06:43It works.
06:44You have a long professional familial history with Israel.
06:47Your sense of the kind of reception that your speech got there, as they look at their elections coming up
06:53here, is there an appetite for what you kind of proposed in that speech?
06:56Well, I do think so.
06:57I mean, look, there was a big interview on Channel 12 with Yonit Levy.
07:03Nahum Barney, who is the premier columnist in Israel, wrote dedicated three full pages in the cover on a Sunday
07:11story, which was, Israel, are you listening?
07:14Rahm has a message.
07:15We need to hear him.
07:17So, now, again, I didn't bust out of the country.
07:20I didn't make it up to Kirashmoni in the north or Beersheba in the south.
07:22But I was in the kind of Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor.
07:26But everybody knows an example of this.
07:30One hundred Israeli generals did an open letter that what's happening on the West Bank, they called it.
07:36I did not use this term.
07:38Those hundred generals plus Shinvet leaders called it Jewish terrorism and said it's undermining Israel's security.
07:45Nothing I said of the criticism has not been said by leaders of Israel's own security, Mossad, Shinvet, as well
07:55as IDF.
07:56Nothing.
07:57And I never referred to it as terrorism.
07:59Their own generals and Shinvet members in an open letter to society.
08:04This is what the prime minister is doing.
08:06And I have a long history going back to 2009 when he publicly, I didn't need a war to know
08:11what Israel was doing.
08:12I told him, what you are doing on housing in the West Bank will isolate Israel and lead to perpetual
08:18conflict.
08:18If there was a conclusion I wanted to be wrong on, that was it.
08:23He then publicly accused me of a self-loathing Jew.
08:26Now, I believe opposing the settlements and encouraging the President Obama, which he did, to fund the Iron Dome are
08:36not contradictory, but actually complementary to Israel's security.
08:39They go ahead and their heads and tails are the same coin.
08:43I want to move to domestic policy now, if we could, and look ahead to the next election.
08:47You've said you're thinking about running.
08:48You haven't made a decision yet.
08:49What are the factors that you're weighing?
08:51You've characterized this as a Baskin-Robbins primary in the Democratic Party.
08:54There will be 31 flavors, and I'm curious if you're lining up to be one of them.
08:57As I said, well, in 2024, the Democrats, unfortunately, didn't have a primary, didn't have a choice.
09:02I think that was bad for the party.
09:04And I think it's bad also for the electoral outcome.
09:06And the truth is we didn't really have one in 2020.
09:08I do believe in 2028.
09:10I said it's going to be like Baskin-Robbins in 31 flavors.
09:13And if I decide to do it, I plan on being Rocky Road.
09:18I look at the travel that you've done, yes, to Israel, yes, to Europe to give a speech on NATO.
09:22But you've been to Mississippi.
09:23You've been to New Hampshire.
09:25Yeah.
09:25Talk about what we can draw from the places you visited, sort of what you're looking at here, again, perhaps
09:30in the interest of you running in the next election.
09:32One is America faces a series of challenges.
09:37But everything that ails America can be answered by what's working in America.
09:41So look inward, you say.
09:42Yeah.
09:42Well, I don't, by way of example, I don't believe, like I went to Mississippi where they're moved from 49th
09:52to 9th on reading.
09:53If you actually test for other things, they're number one in America.
09:55I don't need to go, by way of example, and look at Manchester, England.
10:00It's right here in Mississippi.
10:02I don't need to go overseas.
10:03It's working here.
10:04How do we scale it?
10:05I'm going to assume, and in New Hampshire, they have their own examples.
10:09In La Crosse, Wisconsin, I don't need to go to Luxembourg.
10:14La Crosse, Wisconsin's community college system and their high school system and their industry is an example of what's working
10:20in the integration of economic growth and educational opportunity.
10:24I will soon, after Labor Day, make a trip to Louisiana.
10:28They're the only states whose math and reading scores are now pre-COVID numbers.
10:34They have figured out the combination to the law.
10:36Now, I passionately care about education.
10:38I cannot believe the country has become complacent where 50% of our kids can't read at grade level.
10:43There is no getting from here to there for that student if they cannot read, cannot do math, cannot not
10:48only graduate high school, but go into the armed forces, vocational ed, community colleges, or go on to a four
10:53-year institution.
10:54So, my view is I'm going to go down to Louisiana, learn what they have done.
10:59I've read this report from both Stanford and Harvard and from a Tulane professor I talked to yesterday.
11:05And I want to highlight what Louisiana has done, as every other 49 states are struggling.
11:11Our math and reading scores are anemic, and I don't think we as a country can give up on a
11:17single child in this country.
11:19Now, if you figured out the combination to the lock, I want to take Louisiana to all 49 states, and
11:25that's how we're going to reboot the Department of Education to actually do something for the future.
11:31Now, there is no getting from here to there ever when only a third of your citizens are reading and
11:38doing math at grade level.
11:39If you look at the four great moments of American economic growth, land-grant colleges, universal high school education, GI
11:46Bill, science and technology, Sputnik challenge.
11:49The one through-lining constant is when you invest in Americans, America wins.
11:53That's what I believe in.
11:54Just a question about your party, the Democratic Party, going back to these 31 flavors.
11:58Do you see it at all problematic that there is such, I guess, debate or discord within the party right
12:04now when it comes to the issue of U.S.-Israel policy, when it comes to all of these issues?
12:07Is it productive, as you see it, to have conversations about policy?
12:10Look, I grew up in a family where dinner table conversations represented the gladiators.
12:16So I actually, I'm for, I think one of the things, this is my analysis of the party.
12:21We come out, and I'm as guilty as anybody else.
12:24In 2008, President Obama wins, and we were running around going, demographics is destiny, look at his coalition, the future
12:31is ours.
12:33Now, we became, in my view, as a party, intellectually flabby.
12:37And we're paying a price for that, both on the political grounds and the policy grounds, and ultimately not just
12:41us, but the country, because we're not kind of sharp and rigorous.
12:46So I happen to think a debate is way, way overdue.
12:50I happen to want, I think we should engage in a policy debate.
12:53Look, somebody else has another education idea that doesn't agree with mine.
12:57Great, game on, let's go.
12:59You agree, I said you serve two years national service, we'll give you the money for a down payment.
13:05You have another idea on how to solve that?
13:07Bring it forward.
13:07I believe, as I stated, a 10% tax on the prediction markets and online sport gaming goes into an
13:15innovation fund for the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, and the DARPA, double our research dollars.
13:21You have another way to advance research and development?
13:24Bring it forward.
13:25Let's have this debate.
13:26We'll be a better party to better serve America's future.
13:29My view is that the party has spent too much time just focusing on fighting Trump.
13:34I want to prove to the country, the majority of America, we know how to fight for America, not just
13:41fight against Donald Trump.
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