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This is the interview of the day. It would have been true a month ago, six months ago, it's even more so this morning. Exceptionally important. Rebecca Listener, senior Fellow US Policy that Council on Foreign Relations, her service to the Biden administration is it noted? And Rebecca, we could go on and on today, let me start with every curmudgeon out there, Rebecca saying, college isn't like what it used to be. We had to go to college. We had to read real books. Forget about Furman and X ten.
At Harvard, you survived social studies at Harvard. What was it like sophomore year where with a gun to your head you had to read forty seven full text in history? What was social studies like?
Social studies was a pressure cooker. It was the Harvard students who wanted to apply again to get into an extra exclusive, extra elite concentration at the college and commit sophomore year to writing a senior thesis their senior year. So it was definitely the nerds of the nerves. But you know, a great grounding and how you think about the world.
We should note that Bill Ackman survived this ages ago as well. Rebecca, I want to talk about the machinery at the White House. You have been intimately involved in National Security Council, all the different fancy names for these councils. It seems broken and busted at the White House. Now, who's advising President Trump?
No question, it's broken and busted. And look, I think Vice President Vance advises the president. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio advises the President. Secretary hegsach General Cain, obviously White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilds and her deputy, Stephen Miller. But at the end of the day, it's very clear that the President really only takes his own counsel and thinking ahead to what might
happen tonight with the looming deadline on Iran. Even the White House Press secretary said only President Trump knows what he's going to do.
And Paul I only counted one general when she mentioned this one admiral right, General Kine. I mean compared to the first administration, where generalists is what I call.
It, Rebecca, what do you believe at this stage is a most likely off ramp for President Trump, the US and Israel's or relates to this war.
Well, it's clear he's looking for a way out, but he hasn't quite found it yet. I think that's why we have this really monstrous eight pm deadline tonight where President Trump has said, if Iran doesn't come to the table for negotiations doesn't reopen the straight of hor Moods by eight pm Eastern tonight, he's going to bomb them back into the Stone ages. He's threatened a new infrastructure
Day that takes on power plans and ridges. You know, some would say that these could constitute war crimes, but he's looking for a way to de escalate this conflict because he entered into it with no plan and no strategy and now is having trouble finding a way out.
So my expectation is he's hoping to bridge the gap between what are two very maximalist set of demands that both sides have put on the table and negotiations and try to really open a diplomatic path that helps at least get to a ceasefire that puts a pause on this conflict and takes some pressure off the markets.
Rebecca, it seems you know, for a lot of us that probably aren't that familiar with this part of the world. We now understand how important the Strait of Hormuz is for global oil trade as well as just global trade in general. Is there a solution here that I mean, you have to have Iran basically blessing the opening of the Strait of homers don't you.
That's exactly right. I think that this war has led a very dangerous g out of the bottle.
Right.
Iran now knows that with pretty minimal effort it can close the Strait of Horror Moves, and that effectively the world will tolerate it doing so. So I am very skeptical that we will return to anything that resembles the status quo anti in the Strait of Horror moves. I
think we've entered a new normal. What I think is the most likely outcome looking at these reports that Iran and Oman are now talking about creating some sort of framework for reopening the strait, is that Iran, in the context of negotiations, probably does agree to reopen the strait to transit, but they do so within a tolling system.
That there's a toll that's probably split between Iran and Oman, which of course is the country on the other side of the strait from Iran, and that Iran justifies this by saying it's using its portion of the toll reconstruction after the war.
I want to give some insight here, Folst. Rebecca's written a blistering essay on realism, and this of course goes back advent John Quincy Adams and runs through all of the modern pragmatic realistic effort, maybe codified by John Meerscheimer and sh Cargo. Right now, Rebecca, what is a strategy? Obviously realism is what they're going to say at the White House? Or is it just a busted theory that Henry Kissinger wouldn't recognize.
So the Trump administration has tried to paint itself as realist, as clear eyed, as pragmatic, as being the world as it is right, not trying to transform it in some idealistic fashion. But the problem is that realists properly understood the real realism would dictate a clear focus on the national interest and also a clear focus on great power competition.
It would advise against regime change, wars and getting further bogged down in the Middle East, which is a region that President Trump himself has said in his own strategy documents shouldn't be a top priority for the United States. So the problem is that this war really goes against all of the council that realism would offer, and that's
part of why we're so stuck. But it's also part of why this war is putting the United States at a global strategic deficit, because by further bogging US down in the Middle East and expending all kinds of US munitions and military material in this war with Iran, we're by the day becoming less and less prepared for any future conflict with China and maybe even making it more likely.
Rebecca, the US entered into this war with little to no consultation with our traditional allies. What's the repercussions there?
Do you think NATO's in dire straits? And we even saw the President say yesterday once again that he was thinking about saying, quote bye bye to NATO. And as I've written elsewhere, I think we're in a position now where NATO has become a zombie alliance. It continues to exist on paper. There are bureaucrats and military officials that meet in Brussels, But who now really believes that President Trump would come to the defense of a NATO ally
if attacked. It's a grave situation. It's certainly not what I would have hoped to see. I do think that, coming on the heels of the Greenland crisis and then now with Trump calling on allies to help reopen the strait of Horrormus and them largely declining to do so, we're in a very tough situation.
Rebecca, I got a minute and a half at best. What do you want from Secretary Rubio?
Secretary of Rubio has a very important role to play and his dual hadded national Security Advisor Secretary of State role, and what I hope to see from him, frankly, is moderation of some of the President's worst instincts. The recent reports coming out of the White House suggest that President Trump is quote unquote bloodthirsty, that he's now become the
voice calling for escalation. I hope that Secretary Rubio could be a voice of caution and a voice of reason as the United States tries to find a way out of here. And in particular, I think Secretary Rubio has been rightly focused this whole time throughout this administration on trying to get China policy right. He has an all always have the power to shape it, especially as we have the convergence of this war, plus the president's trip
to Beijing in mid May. I hope that Secretary of Rubio can keep our China policy on track.
We have to run. Rebecca, don't be a stranger. Congratulations have the impact you're having at the Council on Foreign Relations, Rebecca listener uh, their surviving social studies. I love