BENSON BYTE: Dr. Condoleezza Rice - "The American People Are Becoming Impatient With Their Leaders In Washington"

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Now it's time for another Guy Benson Show, Benson Bite, where we bring you the day's most interesting interviews in a bite-sized package. For the full episode, visit guybensonshow.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Guy Benson (0:17)

And with that, let's turn to our next guest. Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube director here at the Hoover Institution. She of course served as Secretary of State of the United States, and before that, she served as a National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush. It is an honor and a pleasure to have you back.

Condoleezza Rice (0:32)

It's always great to be with you.

Guy Benson (0:34)

You know, it occurs to me in giving that introduction that you served in those two key positions in the Bush administration. The current Secretary of State is doing both of those jobs at the same time, and he makes jokes about it, people chuckle, but you actually know what do those jobs entail, how are they different, and what would you think some of the challenges might be trying to do them concurrently?

Condoleezza Rice (0:56)

Well, I think one thing to recognize about the National Security Advisor is it's very particular to the President, and so there's no standard job description, if you will, for a National Security Advisor. Yes, you have to coordinate the government, and yes, you're the President's principal advisor, but Presidents are different in what they need from the National Security Advisors, and my impression with Marco Rubio, who's doing a great job, is that because the President essentially makes a lot of his decisions right there in the Office, that the proximity is very important for Marco to be there and to be able to work through those things with the President, so I think that works for them, and nobody from the outside can micromanage what the National Security Advisor should do. I also think he's doing a good job as Secretary of State.

He is being selective in where he engages. I think he's been very engaged in the Western Hemisphere, which both fits his own background and some of the promotion of the Western Hemisphere is more important in American foreign policy in this administration, but I don't see that he's missed a beat in getting to the NATO Summit or going to Asia with the President, and so I think he's managing it very well. When I was Secretary, we were fighting two big wars, and there was a lot of, I think I was in Baghdad nine times. I was in Afghanistan 11 times or something like that. So it always is different where the Secretary of State has to be and win, and I think Marco is doing a fantastic job, really.

Guy Benson (2:26)

I want to return to diplomacy in a little while. First though, last week there was a major political event here in the country, the midterm elections, of course. You don't delve too much into politics and I understand that. Some of our listeners wish you would, but that is water under the bridge at this point.

There are many patriotic Americans, mostly right of center, who were very distressed by the outcome last week. They're concerned about the future of the country. I wonder if you have any broad thoughts about what we just saw. Yeah.

Condoleezza Rice (2:53)

Well, first of all, American democracy is American democracy and the American people will have their opportunity to change course that they wish in the way that they behave in elections. But I think something else is going on underneath.

Yes, there were questions about the war and particularly the impact on the price of refined products, so gasoline, diesel, etc.

There were questions about how the tariffs were relating to so-called affordability crisis. But there also is something going on in American politics with a kind of windshield wiper. The American people are becoming pretty impatient with their leaders in Washington. So they're impatient because affordability isn't there in the Biden administration, then they're impatient with the Trump administration. That's something that I think we have to look at more closely. So why are the American people not patient enough with governments? It seems to be almost a ideological for certain groups. So when you look and try to understand what were the constituencies, what's the base of either party, it seems to be somewhat scrambled right now. So I just observed that as a political scientist. As I said, I studied international politics because I didn't understand American politics. But that to me may be the real story, is that we're seeing this kind of back and forth. Careening. Careening, right. You didn't solve my problem in the two years that I gave you, so I'm going to go back the other way. And we've been seeing that for a while.