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