Chris Riback's Conversations

Nicholas Burns: 'I Don’t Think He’s Fit for Office'

Well, that was quite a week. And no doubt, in the few hours between my recording this intro and when the podcast drops, another extraordinary week will have passed.

How to make sense of it? To fashionably employ the double negative – it’s so good to see grammar finally get its due on the world stage – I don’t think it’s unfair to ask: Where are we as a nation?

For guidance, I turned to former U.S. Ambassador and current professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Nicholas Burns. Without exaggeration, I don’t think I could have found anyone better.

A full rundown of his bio could be a podcast on its own. Just some highlights:

·     Served or participated under five presidents

·     U.S. Ambassador to NATO – including on 9/11 – and Greece

·     State Department Spokesman

·     National Security Council, where he held roles covering Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia Affairs, and the Soviet Union

·     Onsite service at the American Consulate General in Jerusalem and U.S. Embassies in Egypt and Mauritania

And don’t get me started on his 15 honorary degrees, Presidential Distinguished Service Award, Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award – all of which, I bet, Burns would rank below his true claim to fame: Life-long member of Red Sox Nation.  

Brian Abrams: Understanding Obama

It feels like a lifetime ago, I know. But so much of what’s happening today – the divides, anger, insults, policy realities – have emerged as a reaction to the Obama years. To understand today, it helps to understand what came before.

Brian Abrams makes an important contribution to the process. Abrams specializes in oral histories – talking with key players and letting their words, almost exclusively, tell the story.

Done well, this approachthoughtful narrative. That’s exactly what Abrams did his new book “Obama: An Oral History.”

It’s a rare opportunity to relive and understand the Obama years, from the inside. Brian talked with many of the key players, Democrats and Republicans. He joined me for a terrific conversation – just what you’d expect from a great storyteller. I think you’ll like it.

Dan Pfeiffer: What Comes Next for Democrats

So here’s the timeline: Two days ago, I spoke with Dan Pfeiffer. As you surely know, he’s President Obama's former communications director and senior advisor and co-host of a podcast you might have heard of: Pod Save America. Then yesterday, Dan’s new book -- Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump – debuts at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. 

Co-incidence? I’ll let you decide. All I can do is accurately portray the facts.

The other thing I can do: Tell you that the book is a terrific read, and the conversation was even better. He’s got a great sense of humor. That comes out in the book, too.

We also discussed the serious side of politics today: I asked Dan about Democratic messaging for the midterms and beyond – what should their message be and can they possible overcome all of the noise? As well: Who’s the elected Democrat who can best lead that narrative? We also discussed the ways in which he feels the Barack Obama’s election helped lead to Donald Trump. 

Steven Brill: The Fifty-Year Fall of America

In the face of jailing immigrant children, questions about capitalism amid tariffs and possible trade wars, and concerns about democracy as we reject western allies and warmly welcome authoritarians and dictators, a lot of us are wondering not just who are we, but also, how in the world did we get here?

Steven Brill feels he has an answer.

You likely know: Brill is a serial ideas entrepreneur. He founded, among other ventures, American Lawyer and Court TV. He has taken on some of our biggest issues and institutions – Law, Journalism, Healthcare, Schools. Now he’s at it again, and the topic is no less than the American decline.

He has written it all down in “Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall--and Those Fighting to Reverse It”

Tailspin is a vital and complicated story that Brill simplifies like this: About five decades ago, the core values that make America great began to bring America down.

The story’s also complicated because, as you’ll hear, Brill himself is a beneficiary of the very system that seems to have gone haywire: Meritocracy. That well-meaning approach to success – where we all get judged by what we can do rather than from where we came – has been turned against itself. As the knowledge-based economy grew, those at the top have pulled up the ladders. We live, he argues, in a country of moats.

Scott Jennings: What's Happening to the Republican Party?

For many on the right and left, the question has been “what’s happening to the GOP?”

• Free Trade? Gone.
• Budget deficits? No problem
• Free movement of labor? Not so much.
• Military war exercises? Who needs’em?
• Russia as outlaw state? How about Russia in the G8?

I think a more fair – and probably more relevant question: What is the GOP?

And frankly, the question comes more from the right than the left. Bob Corker basically asked it this week on the Senate floor. Conservative writers ask it in columns and tweets. GOP voters ask it, particularly as they primary established conservatives like South Carolina’s Mark Sanford and, perhaps, Alabama’s Martha Roby.

Today I’ll ask it.

Scott Jennings is a political strategist and co-founder of RunSwitch Public Relations in Kentucky. You’ve seen him on CNN, where he is resolutely polite and Republican. Among many roles: He served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and Deputy White House Political Director. He worked for Mitt Romney in 2012 and Jeb Bush in the last election. He also has worked on numerous campaigns for his home state Senator, Mitch McConnell. Just this spring he was a Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

Harry Litman: Does President Trump Think He's a King?

Does President Trump think he’s a king?

That was the provocative headline to a recent piece by Harry Litman, a former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General. Litman made his argument after reviewing the legal arguments made in that confidential 20-page memo sent by President Trump’s lawyers to the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

I wanted to talk with Litman for many reasons, not least of which: He’s a Constitutional Law expert. We discussed other major legal questions, including Paul Manafort, leaks, and whether a president can pardon himself.

Bill Browder: Vladimir Putin's Public Enemy No. 1

If you know Bill Browder's story already, you surely won’t mind hearing it again. It’s extraordinary. If you haven’t heard it before, get ready. 

Bill Browder very well may be Vladimir Putin’s public enemy No. 1. Why? Remember that “Hillary dirt” Russia meeting that Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort had with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 – the one the White House said was about Russian adoptions?

As you’ll hear, “Russian adoptions” is code for the Magnitsky Act – legislation passed in 2012 that now blocks more than 40 Russian government officials and businesspeople from entering the U.S., froze their U.S. bank assets and banned them from accessing U.S. banking systems. Bill Browder is the force behind the Magnitsky Act.

Everything about Browder’s story is made for a movie – His upbringing, professional career, and especially his life since an early-morning November 2009 phone call informed him that his lawyer, Sergei Magnitzky had been beaten to death by guards on a Russian prison floor.

And as we know from the recent UK poisoning of that Russian ex-spy and his daughter – as well as various journalist killings – sitting in Putin’s crosshairs is, to put it mildly, an uncomfortable place. Just this week – after our conversation occurred, so we didn’t discuss it – Browder was briefly arrested in Spain on a Russian arrest warrant. Turned out the warrant had expired, and Browder was released. But the threat is always there.

Gen. Michael Hayden: Trump's Assault on Intelligence

Of the many institutions that Donald Trump has attacked – Courts, Congress, media, political parties, diplomats, former Presidents – perhaps the most surprising and unnerving has been the relentless attacks on our intelligence community.

Even before that second day in office – the one where he stood before the 117 stars honoring the CIA’s fallen and said we should’ve kept Iraq’s oil, claimed almost everyone in the room voted for him, and, of course, raved about the inauguration crowd size – even before all that, the attacks were there.

Why does he do it? More importantly, what’s the impact on our country and our stability?

Gen. Michael Hayden has written as thorough, thoughtful and complex an analysis as I’ve seen in his new book  “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies.” Gen. Hayden connects our Enlightenment Era roots, philosophy, history, science and our post-truth insanity with the mindfulness you’d expect from a former CIA Director. Oh, and his answer: A resounding nothing good.

Hayden spoke frankly and directly, which shouldn’t surprise. He’s also a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency. He doesn’t mince words.

Amy Walter: Six Months Until Midterms… What Do We Know?

Can we talk politics?

In the last weeks on this podcast, we’ve talked about racism, our shrinking diplomacy, the Mueller investigation, how democracies die, and more.

But we ought not forget: it’s the political elections that deliver the policies that define our democracy. Not happy with how things are going? You might want to vote. Thrilled? Well, you may want to, also.

So where’s our Midterm vote headed? Who’s up, who’s down, where’s the Blue Wave – and how much do particular candidates actually matter, or is all politics today really just about Donald Trump?

Amy Walter is the person to talk to. Amy is National Editor of The Cook Political Report and simply one of best political journalists around. She’s the former ABC News Political Director. Her weekly column is must-read. When she’s not writing, you regularly see her on one of the television political shows. And now, starting in June, she’ll be Friday host of The Takeaway on WNYC. There’s no avoiding Amy.

Mitch Landrieu: A White Southerner Confronts History

Usually we drop these conversations on Friday mornings – you know, something to look forward to since the workweek excitement is about to end.

But we’re posting this on Monday, May 7 because of my guest: It’s his last day as Mayor of New Orleans.

Did you see the speech? It was about a year ago and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu stood up and explained to his city and the nation, really, why he removed four statues that honored the Confederacy: Robert E. Lee; Jefferson Davis; P.G.T. Beauregard; and the Crescent City White League.

In that speech, Landrieu took on race and inequality and history. He asked: “Why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame... all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.”

It was a powerful 20 minutes, and if you haven’t watched it, you should.

For a mayor who had so much else to be proud of – his city: New Orleans has rebuilt itself incredibly since Katrina; and his family: his father Moon Landrieu was New Orleans mayor and HUD Secretary under Jimmy Carter; his sister was a U.S. Senator – the speech brought Landrieu into the national conversation at a time when there was a lot of yelling and not much talking.

Landrieu has written a book about the statues and race in America – it’s called “In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History,” and it’s excellent.

I spoke with Mayor Landrieu four days ago – before term limits meant he would give way to a new mayor. He was gracious with his time – and funny and thoughtful with his words.

I asked him about the speech, the book, New Orleans, and of course the question everyone has about him: What about that running for President thing?