The David Rubenstein Show: Condoleezza Rice

[Music] well president Trump called you and said I really need you to come in and help your country what would you say I'm really happy to be doing what I'm doing now you negotiated with the North Koreans when I first heard that the president had on the spot accepted Kim jong-un's invitation I thought oh my goodness what was he doing and then I thought you know nothing else has worked so fine OTT now on the Iranian agreement I did not support that agreement let's talk about Vladimir Putin I know him well he liked me what are the qualities that you think great leaders actually have a sense of humility about what they can achieve would you fix your time please well people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixable okay just leave it this way all right I don't consider myself a journalist and nobody else would consider myself a journalist I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though I have a day job of running a private equity firm how do you define leadership what is it that makes somebody tick well president Trump called you and said I really need you to come in and help your country what would you say I would say mr. president there are so many wonderful people who can help our country and here's my number in Palo Alto and do give me a call if there's anything you want to talk about I'm really really happy from time to time your name has been mentioned as a vice presidential candidate and a presidential candidate and can you say for sure that you're not likely to run for the I can say that with even more certainty because you have to know your DNA and I don't have the DNA of a politician I love policy don't love politics it is just innervating for me you grew up initially in Birmingham Alabama and a segregated south and some of your friends were in the terrible Birmingham Alabama church bombing did you ever think that from a segregated south beginning that you would ever rise up to how these kind of positions that you held never occurred to me but more because I thought I was going to rise up and be a great concert pianist I know and what my parents were people who had me convinced that even if I couldn't have a hamburger at Woolworth's lunch counter I could be President of the United States if I wanted to be so I in my family you were going to achieve you were going to go to college a David I'm not even the first PhD in my family your father had appeared but my father and my aunt Theresa my father's sister and I always say if you think what I do is kind of weird for a black person she wrote books on Dickens of all things so you were an only child I was the only child so your parents obviously focus a lot on you yeah definitely and you had all the lessons that you can have you were a ballerina every lesson known to humankind some of which I was good at and some of which I wasn't but they kept me going I had French lessons my mother decided that every well-bred young girl should speak French so at nine years old I was dragged off to French lessons on Saturdays I had ballet lessons we had etiquette lessons I was of course a pianist so yeah my parents be very very busy now your mother was a schoolteacher my mother was a teacher and also a musician one of her students I understand was Willie Mays my mom taught Willie Mays in was he a good student or I asked him once he said oh I remember miss ray he said she told me now son you're gonna be a ballplayer so if you need to leave a little early you go ahead and do that and I thought doesn't sound exactly like my mother but that's a great story so I'm gonna hold on to it now your father was a Republican yes he was in the early 50s in in Birmingham in Alabama then where we weren't many Democrats many Republicans so the way that it happened was my father and my mother before they were married went down to register to vote and the pole tester looked at my father big tall ban football player and said so how many beans are in this jar and of course my father couldn't answer the question so he said you don't pass the test so my father went back to his church and he asked his this he was telling this story to a man who was one of his elders and mr. hunter said all Reverend don't worry about he said I'll tell you how to get registered he said you go down there and there's a clerk who's a Republican he said now she's trying to build the Republican Party and if you'll just say you're a Republican she'll register you so my father went down and he said he was a Republican he got registered he never forgot it he remained a Republican the rest of his life you took up piano when you were 15 three-three yes right the great advantage to learning to play that early is that I could read music before I could read it was like a native language and so I've always been a really good sight reader because it's just natural for me to read the notes you've played with yo-yo ma what is that like I was national security adviser and my secretary came in and said yo-yo ma is on the phone view I said you mean the greatest living cellist and she said yes and he was getting the National Medal of the Arts and he wanted me to play with him and so we played for 2,500 people at Constitution Hall and it was wonderful one of the highlights of my life I wasn't confused I didn't play with yo-yo ma cause I was the world's greatest pianist I played with yo-yo ma because I was the National Security Advisor who could play the piano so it came together what he held up he held up his end of the bargain yes you went to University of Denver and when you went there Mellon Albright's father who had been a very famous international political scientist was your he was the one who got me into into international politics I actually went to do you as a piano major but graduated with just enough units to be a political science major if you look at my transcript I've got a hundred units of music and forty-five in political science all right so you then went to Notre Dame to get a masters and then you went to Stanford later I went to Stanford on a one-year fellowship the arms control and disarmament program learning the physics of nuclear weapons and how many warheads could dance on the head of an SS 18 I learned something very important from that experience Stanford was looking to diversify its faculty and it engaged in what I think is a very smart way to do affirmative action and to this day I believe affirmative action is still necessary which means you look outside of your normal channels to find people they had in their midst a young black woman who was a Soviet specialist and they offered me a job they said very very firmly when it comes time for your reappointment which is after three years the fact that you came through this appointment will mean nothing at all I remember saying oh three years that sounds about right that'll give me time to see if I like you and time to see if you like me which I don't think a Dean at Stanford had ever heard from a perspective was that you were a classical music performer as well they had none of those as well especially in political what would you say is the chances that North Korea and the United States and South Korea can come to some agreement well the president I first heard that the president had on the spot accepted Kim jong-un's invitation I thought Paul McKenna's what was he doing and then I thought you know nothing else has worked so why not why not give it a try [Music] you were recruited to come to the George Herbert Walker Bush White House right I went to be the White House Soviet specialist and got lucky enough to be the White House Soviet specialist at the end of the Cold War so you were there when the Berlin wall I was down and did you go into the president's a let's jump up and down I was one of the people the minute that the Berlin Wall fell bunch of us went over to the Oval Office mr. president you have to go to Berlin you have to go for Kennedy you have to go for Truman you have to go for Reagan and he looked at us and he said what would I do dance on the wall he said this is a German moment not an American moment and I'll never forget that because it was just so much George HW Bush self-effacing modest us great sense of humility and it was the right thing he was absolutely right you saw him recently you were at the Barbara Bush funeral and did you have a chance to talk to him at that good I did I had a chance to talk to him and and tell him how much I loved him and loved mrs. Bush they that's a generation that's going to be missed they were people who understood kindness and humility and gentility they made their mistakes most certainly but when you think about that family and what George HW Bush's did as a public servant it makes you think of a wonderful time for our country Bill Clinton came along and in the 1992 election he defeated your boss right were you shocked by the outcome I was I'd already gone back to Stanford I became Provost I was surprised but he had done what he needed to do and I don't think there will ever be a full accounting of how much it was the way that he did the diplomacy at the end of the Cold War with respect for Gorbachev never humiliating the Soviet Union not dancing on the wall one of the last things Gorbachev did before he went out to sign the paper that would collapse the Soviet Union and allowed poor Shelton to become Prez Russian Federation he called George HW Bush and he said we did good things didn't we history will judge as well and I said to President Bush do you realize how extraordinary he is well he was George HW Bush she said well I never thought about it I said that the president of the Soviet Union in his last act before the collapse of the Soviet Union called the American president essentially to seek his affirmation that was a very big deal but that's the way he was another member of the George Herbert Walker Bush family decides to run for president george w bush we become the national curry advisor the first woman to be nash pretty advisor yes so you're there and then 9/11 happens yes so where were you on 9/11 9/11 I was at my desk you'll remember that President Bush was actually at that event in Florida the education event and just to show you our pre 9/11 thinking I did not go with him that day my assistant came in said a plaintiff hit the World Trade Center first we thought it was an accident I called President Bush then a few minutes later we learned the second plane had hit the World Trade Center we knew now it was a terrorist attack and then just a procession over the day and really the next several months of just Hobbes and choice stuff there Hobbes and choice after Hobson's choice for the President of the United States the United States had not been attacked on its own territory since the war of 1812 we had no structures no institutions for internal security for the country it was flying without without a compass subsequently President Bush decided to invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein so in light of hindsight and have you known that were no weapons of mass destruction would you have still gone forward well you know I always say to people what you know today can affect what you do tomorrow but not what you did yesterday and we simply believed as all the intelligence agencies around the world did that he had weapons of mass destruction that he was reconstituting them that he was doing it quickly and it was on that basis that we decided that you finally had to do what the international community had been threatening to do which was to have serious consequences in retrospect I don't know if we had known what we would have done I will say this I still think the world's better off without Saddam Hussein he was a cancer in the region and while Iraq went through an extraordinarily difficult time and the thing I would do differently is how we built rebuild Iraq I think we made a lot of mistakes post-war but I will say this I would rather be Iraqi than Syrian today and Iraq has a chance now to be a stabilizing element of the new Middle East because they have an accountable government the Iraqi Kurds and Baghdad are finally finding some way of dealing with one another and it's a very different place and the Arab Spring was going to happen and I think Iraq would have made Syria look like child's play so you never know what you prevent it you'll never be able to bring back the lives lost and you'll never be able to deal with the with that but I think in the long long arc of history Iraq will turn out ok and I wish we hadn't left in 2011 the one thing that might have made me think differently about it was to think that we would have not stayed with a few troops in Iraq to help them make the transition President Bush is reelected you become Secretary of State yes so what's it like to go around the world I loved it I loved going out and representing the country every time I stepped off a plane that said the United States of America behind me I just got a chills about it and I I've often said that you know it was a little bit like when when you when I was actually sworn in here I took an oath of office to Constitution as we've talked and once counted my ancestors as three-fifths of a man and I take that oath of office in front of a portrait of Ben Franklin sworn in by a Jewish woman Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who was my neighbor at the Watergate and I thought you know what would old Ben think of this right because it in some ways it shows how far our country had come and I always felt when I was out there that I could speak about the hard road to democracy about the importance of instant it's becoming more inclusive over time to people who were having those challenges because I personally experienced it let's talk about today's situation we face North Korean problem you negotiated with the North Koreans what would you say is the chances that North Korea and the United States and South Korea can come to some agreement well I have to say when the president I first heard that the president had on the spot accepted Kim jong-un's invitation I thought oh my goodness what was he doing and then I thought you know nothing else has worked so why not why not give it a try and I actually think they've set the table pretty well one of the conditions that's different is that once Kim jong-un's programs got to the place that they actually threatened the United States as they have begun to do I think it got China's attention that the United States might actually go to war to prevent a North Korean leader from being able to threaten the United States so I think they've got a chance I would just say three things the first is the North Koreans have a history of when they're under sanctions and they start to bite coming to the table making promises and then not carrying through with them so beware secondly be very cognizant of other countries interests you know Japan has big interests here don't be very quick to try to think about removing American troops because American troops in Korea on the Korean Peninsula are stabilizing not just to the Korean Peninsula but also to the region and finally never forget the nature of that regime I mean this is a regime that murdered an American just a few several months ago reached out and murdered his half-brother with VX gas and Malaysia which by the way was a message to the Chinese he was under Chinese protection word on the street was he was China's favorite son if something happened to Kim jong-un so that was a message to the Chinese not to us now in the Iranian agreement that was negotiated by John Kerry and Barack Obama did you support that agreement I did not support that agreement I felt that it was an agreement that gave the Iranians too much at a time when I think we had the upper hand and could have gotten much more I also thought the verification means were very weak so I wouldn't have signed the agreement but I have said I would have probably stayed in it because once you're in an agreement you don't want to send the signal that the United States just turns its back on agreements that are there but it won't be the end of the world let's talk about Vladimir Putin you've met him yeah does he speak English uh he he was teaching himself or had tutors teaching him English and by the time we left office he could converse a little bit in English but yeah I know him well he liked me actually used to because I was a rush NIST I once was with him and he said condi you know US Russia has only been great when it's been ruled by great men like Peter the Great and Alan sounded second you think okay and Vladimir the great is that the message here but that's who he thinks he is he thinks he's reuniting the Russian people in greatness and re-establishing Russian influence even if he has to do it by military means which is really the only thing they've got going for you you've obviously seen great leaders around the world and the United States what are the qualities that you think great leaders actually have integrity is at the center of being a great leader once you lose people's trust you have no I think great leaders have a sense of humility about what they can achieve humility humility versus arrogance versus arrogance arrogance and hubris are recipes for disaster you to talk for a moment about non foreign policy matters talk about athletics you were one of the first two women to be admitted to Augusta National is that a surprise to you a total surprise came it came totally out of the blue when somebody came and offered me membership and I was so stunned I didn't say anything and he said you are gonna say yes aren't you and I said yeah oh yeah I mean yes were you a golfer are you a good golfer golfer I'm an okay golfer I started late I was competitive figure skater as a kid and then a very serious tennis player I took up golf the summer I was Secretary of State didn't play very much but I loved it and yeah I'm a decent golf or now a good putter now you once said that you wouldn't mind being the NFL Commissioner that's still you're a mess I told Roger Goodell who's a good friend of mine I said you know Roger when I was worrying about the Iranians and the Russians every day your job looked pretty good gonna look so good from Northern California now since you left government you've written four books and a new book about the political risk that business people should take into account when they're making business decisions why is this an important consideration when people who used to think about political risk they thought largely of the socialist dictator who might expropriate your property or your nationalize your in your industry now the sources of political risk are multiple and there's sometimes surprising a person who gets on your airplane and sees your flight attendants treat somebody poorly and has just cellphone and documents in United Airlines that's political risk a supply chain that's deep into China and now there's consideration of a trade war with China that's a political risk and so what we wanted to do was to say there'll all lots of sources of political risk look around corners look at your industry and say what are my sources of political risk you know by the way what's my risk appetite because we didn't want to say don't do things because they're risky and by the way cyber is I mentioned the the Russians cyber is a whole category of risk and and themselves so your point is that businesses when they make decisions are significant should take into account political risk as well and should constantly be surveying the landscape for how those missed risks are multiplying and changing so as you look back on your extraordinary career what would you like people to think of your major accomplishment my government career I just hope that people think that I represented the United States well I hope that people think that I represented our values especially that we stand for people who have no voice for themselves that people who are suffering in jail cells and putting their lives on the line for the very the very rights that we almost start to take for granted you can say what you think and worship as you please and be free from the knock of the secret police at night that we advocated for that and we believed that no corner of the earth should live in tyranny on my academic career okay I I hope that people think that I helped a whole new generation of kids many generations of kids find themselves and recognize that it wasn't ever my job to tell them what to think it was my job to make sure that they thought in a rigorous and systematic way and that may be a few leaders that I trained will take that to their leadership you've obviously seen great leaders around the world in the United States what are the qualities that you think great leaders actually have and the qualities that people aren't great leaders fail to have well integrity is at the center of being a great leader once you lose people's trust you have nothing I think great leaders are visionaries and I mean by that that they see the world as it should be not as it is I think of Nelson Mandela and I think how sitting in a jail cell for all of those years did he not think well when we finally in power blacks are gonna dominate whites rather than thinking of a multiracial multi-ethnic South Africa that would be for all South Africans most importantly I think great leaders have a sense of humility about what they can achieve humility humility versus arrogance versus arrogance arrogance and hubris are recipes for disaster my parents were great people they always taught me that you need personally to do three things if you're going to lead and if you're going to be successful the first thing is try to be twice as good in other words work hard enough to be confident that you've worked hard enough to be twice as good secondly and remember I'm growing up in segregated Birmingham Alabama so they were trying to armor me in some ways secondly never consider yourself a victim because when you think you're a victim you've given control of your life to somebody else you may not be able to control your circumstances but you can control your response to your circumstances and then something that I tell particularly minority kids and women and and others who are from populations that have been in one way or another marginalized my father once said to me you know if somebody doesn't want to sit next to you because you're black that's fine as long as they move in other words don't take somebody else's prejudice on you it's their fault their problem not your not your problem and so don't be disabled by people who [Music]

Channel: David Rubenstein

Views: 92,280

Keywords: Bloomberg, Condoleeza Rice, George W. Bush, Iraq War, Middle East, Secretary of State, Stanford

Id: MWUIfUZoadw

Length: 24min 4sec (1444 seconds)

Published: Wed May 16 2018