Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer on turning foreign policy into a podcast

0:00You know, AOC was asked a question about whether the U.S. would come to the defense of Taiwan. This is the hardest question that there is, I think, because, and we've dealt with this up close and personal with the president who, you know, we advise maintain strategic ambiguity. He went out and was just like, I'm going to answer a hypothetical question with a straight yes or no. And he said yes.

0:28Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore, where we are talking to all of the most important and interesting people shaping our new media age. I'm Max Taney. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore. And with me, as always, is our editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. This week on the show, we are talking to Jake Sullivan and John Feiner. These days, they are lowly podcast hosts just like us. They host a show called The Long Game, which is a podcast about foreign policy for Vox Media. But before that, they had slightly more important jobs. Jake was the national security advisor for Joe Biden, also worked under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

1:07And John Feiner was the deputy national security advisor for Joe Biden and also was formerly a journalist for The Washington Post, had a previous life in media. Ben, you know both Jake and John pretty well through your times covering Washington. What are you interested in asking them about on the show today? Yeah, you know, I think they and, you know, Jake was really running American foreign policy at this moment of just such dramatic change in media and communications. And whether it was, you know, the run-up to the Ukraine war or the Israel-Palestine conflict, Like a lot of what he wound up thinking about, I think, was media.

1:42And then, you know, got to watch Donald Trump, who has a rather different communication style. But I am very curious what he's learned and, of course, like why he's making a podcast. What are we doing here? Yeah, you know, it is pretty interesting going from being one of the people shaping global events and outcomes across the world to, you know, doing host-read ads and doing collaborations with shows such as ours. I think that that's an interesting career trajectory. Are you saying it's a downward career trajectory? No, I said it's interesting. I didn't say it was downward at all. I think that what we do is very important and very much on par with making global decisions that impact the outcomes of countries all over the globe.

2:20That's why we do this show. Naturally. So it's worth mentioning also that because this is a media-focused show, we really wanted to ask Jake and John mostly questions about the media. There's a lot of questions that could be asked about various foreign policy decisions that look good, maybe that don't look so good, depending on your perspective. And they've given interviews and talked about that on other shows. Just for the purposes of this show, we wanted to keep it really focused on media. Well, we have a lot that we want to get to with John and Jake, but we have to take a short break. And we'll be right back with hosts of The Long Game right after this.

3:27Thank you.

3:37Jake, John, thank you so much for joining us. Really excited to be here. Thanks for having us. Yep, great to be here. Welcome to the podcast, Trade. It occurs to me that it used to be that kind of officials like you, senior government officials, would leave office and would have some prestigious chair at a think tank or would like write like a thick biography of Winston Churchill or something. Two years ago this time, you were basically running the world, Jake. Now you're hosting a podcast. Is that kind of a letdown? Well, I'll tell you, it's a big weight off the shoulder. That's for sure, because I can say just whatever I think without having to worry too much as to whether it conforms to the president's policy or is going to move markets or anything else.

4:17So obviously, it's very different to be a podcaster than to be sitting in the seat as national security advisor. But there are some definite advantages. And the medium, as you guys know, gives you an opportunity to really go deeper on issues and also to talk like an actual human being as opposed to a talking points machine. I mean, that's actually been a bit of an adjustment for me especially, but for John, I think he can speak for himself to a certain extent as well. And getting to grapple with these issues and talk about them in absolutely plain English actually gives you, I think, a little bit of a healthier perspective on them.

4:50And maybe will make us better practitioners and policymakers one day in the future. Has the process of being a podcaster, has that given you more respect for your friends in the media who, when you're in a position of power, you think, gee, these guys are just saying whatever? and they have the freedom to do so. But now you actually are kind of seeing how hard the technical nuts and bolts are. You know, those ad reads aren't as easy as maybe they seemed when you heard them versus when you have to read them yourself. I'll just say I actually started my career in the media. I came to government in large part from the experience of having covered what I considered to be either failed or bad policy decisions and got very curious as to how they were made.

5:30Mostly I was working overseas. So I think I came in with some inherent sympathy or empathy for what the media tries to do. I then, you know, like every other government official, got massively frustrated when coverage seemed to be inconsistent with what I thought it should be and probably took it out on my reporter friends too often. But yeah, it's nice to be back on the other side of the firewall here. Can I just say on that point, one of the things that I have a better appreciation for now is that a big part of the job of being a journalist or a commentator and observer is trying to make sense of events, not just the what, but the why.

6:06And then the what then, okay, so why should people care about it? And actually, that's kind of seemingly obvious when you're making policy, but when you're on the outside trying to interpret policy decisions, it's more challenging and actually is a really interesting intellectual exercise that is something that we've come to over the course of the weeks, but we've been doing the pod. You mentioned a second ago that it's kind of changed your thinking on some of these issues. Obviously, these are things that you've thought very, very deeply about. But can you think of any specific examples where, you know, you've changed your mind, you know, now having to be an interpreter rather than a player in some of these decisions?

6:45Are there any specific examples that kind of come to mind here? I guess for me, it's a little bit less have I flipped on a policy issue, like gone from believing X to believing Y, and more that the discipline of having to explain to people why something matters to a broad general audience makes you have to sharpen your thinking about what are American interests? What are the stakes? How do I make this real and not just something that's kind of received wisdom or natural muscle memory? And, you know, we've done pods on everything from the use of U.S. military force and like how do we sharpen our thinking about, you know, what are the criteria for when we should and should not do that to U.S.-China relations?

7:31And like, how do you explain to people why do these semiconductor export controls actually matter? That wasn't, we just kind of were going with that in a way when we were in government, not just riding a wave or whatever, but you didn't have to stop and say, how do I explain this? How do I contextualize this? And in so doing, am I really pressure testing, you know, the ideas and the priorities that we're putting on things? I think it's actually an exercise that makes for better policy or will help us make for better policy or at least policy communications going forward. Because one thing that people like us, I think, have not done as effectively as we should have, not just over recent years, but over recent decades, is stop taking for granted that people in the United States see things the way we do or understand the importance of things the way we do, especially things going on in the world.

8:23And one of the things that I think the Trump phenomenon has taken advantage of is a disconnect between people making policy and people who are digesting policy just out in the world, who aren't marinating in this stuff all day, every day. And so he's been able to come in and say, well, why aren't things working this way? Why does the United States do these sorts of things in the world? Why does the United States care about things like, you know, these abstract terms like the international system or alliances and can drive a truck through the gap that we and others, you know, have left between what we consider to be just fundamentally important and the appreciation of that by many of the American people.

9:02So it does kind of force us to be disciplined about explaining why these things matter. Yeah. Is that the reason why you guys decided to do this? And also, just to take a step back, how did you decide to do this podcast together? Who approached, did Vox approach you guys? Had you guys thought, you know, during your time in office, man, I can't wait to get out of here so I can do a podcast explaining foreign policy from the outside to people? How did this actually come about? Well, Max, when I was a young man growing up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I thought one day I will be a podcaster. I saw it coming long before.

9:35Everybody does. Actually, I don't know if John has the exact same recollection I do, but after we left, like a week, 10 days after we left, we went skiing out West with some friends. And then we went hiking in Bryce Canyon in winter hiking, late January, early February. And it was on that hike that we were like, hey, maybe we should do a podcast. We kind of talked through, A, that we thought there was room for a foreign policy podcast that wasn't about hot takes and wasn't super partisan, but that was actually just trying to explain the why, you know, it put things in context. And the title of the podcast is The Long Game, Talk About a Longer Term View, a Longer Term Perspective.

10:17So we both thought there's a place for this and we thought this will be fun and we'll learn a lot and stay fresh on these issues along the way. So normally when you cook things up on hiking trips, you don't actually do them, but somehow we ended up doing it. Do I have that about right, John, or is my memory playing tricks up? I think you do. I think the only thing I'd add is somewhat serendipitously, we got outreach from someone saying that Vox was actually looking for content in this space and had initial conversation. And I think they agreed with the theory of the case that we were cooking up on this hike.

10:57And the rest is at least recent history. Who is listening to the show so far? Are you hearing from foreign officials? Are you hearing from, you know, diplomats, people you used to work with directly? Who are you guys hearing from? What's the reception, Ben? So I think both of us have had the experience of, you know, bumping into people as we move around the world or around the country doing other things that we do and having them walk up to us and say, hey, I've been listening to your podcast. And either here's some here's some constructive feedback or I like this or I don't like this, all of which is great and totally welcome.

11:29Now, you know, I think it's also the kind of thing people say when they see you and they know that you have a podcast, whether they're actually listening to every episode. I don't try to verify. Everybody who comes up to me and who compliments me on the podcast is a full-time listener, and they've listened to all of the episodes. By the way, Max, we love your podcast. Thank you. Yes, you guys are huge long-time fans. Faithful listeners every week. Huge fans. Huge fans. But I think it actually is you've hit on something that we're very curious about because we don't spend every day scrutinizing the data and the numbers.

11:57We're trying to get the content right and do as well as we can at this. And I am kind of curious beyond the people who walk up to us or email us or text us, like who out there is actually paying attention. I don't have a particularly granular understanding other than I think our goal is to reach beyond the people who we see interact with, used to work with every day, to others maybe who have not been, you know, as much plugged into this content. And if we can do that, then I would consider it a success. Yeah, we definitely hear from, you know, current and former government officials around the world.

12:31We also just get a mailbag. We hear from people across the U.S., parts of Europe, other places, people writing in, responding to things, asking questions, suggesting topics and the like. We keep thinking about doing like a mailbag segment where we take some of the listener questions and kind of go through them. We haven't done that yet, but at some point here we will. But that's kind of an unscientific way of getting some sense. And I think there's a lot of listeners who follow foreign policy, you know, digest the major newspapers, you know, the international sections of the major newspapers, but aren't like living it day to day who are just, you know, looking for decent content on the topic.

13:12And that's the audience we're going to continue to try to grow. Your sort of description of why you're doing this, you're delivering that with a certain amount of discipline. But it occurs to me that, you know, during the Biden years, Jake, I think you in particular had this idea and talked about rooting foreign policy and the issues of the middle class, rooting foreign policy and domestic issues in some sense. And I think, I don't know if you would accept this, but I think that fundamentally kind of didn't land. It sounds like that's some of what you're reworking now and thinking about. Is that right?

13:39Well, look, I do think that kind of across the board, as the communications and information environment changes, finding a way to make real the kinds of issues we work on for everyday people, for working people in this country, is not an easy thing. And I'm not going to claim that our podcast is going to solve that. But giving us the opportunity to test out how to think about, talk about, frame issues, I think is an important part of being someone operating in this space. It's not good enough just to think about the ideas. You've got to try on a constant basis to speak about them, to communicate about them in a way that can reach a broader audience.

14:20Because ultimately trying to get greater buy-in or greater understanding for what the United States is doing in the world is really important. I do agree with you that on some issues, it was hard to break through or communicate. On other issues, I disagree a little. I think Ukraine is a fascinating example of a case where for people from across all walks of life, all corners of the country, folks instinctively, intuitively got it. And actually, the media pretty consistently underestimated the American people on this. They kept saying, oh, the American people are going to abandon Ukraine. They're no longer going to want to support it.

14:55They don't want to fund it, etc. But even in the Trump administration, support for Ukraine and support for the United States providing aid to Ukraine has stood up pretty well on a bipartisan basis. So I agree with you to a certain extent it didn't land. And I think but but I think that was more differentiated across issue areas. I personally am pretty surprised by the degree to which the Ukraine issue has landed with the American people and stayed consistent and front of mind. I started my career covering a war that the United States was fighting in as a journalist, the Iraq War. And I found during that time when I came home, trying to get people to like talk about what was happening over there was often like pulling teeth.

15:42People just did not want to engage on it in part because I think it was a highly unpleasant issue in part because I think there were real doubts about whether the purpose, the morality of the actual decision to go in was the right one. On Russia, Ukraine, I think part of what I underestimated is how people are drawn to a narrative where there is a clear perpetrator and a clear victim, as is the case in this conflict. And it made it much more digestible to the average person as opposed to the complexities of weapons of mass destruction or energy markets or some of these issues that have led to conflicts in the past.

16:17Even though we were not a direct combatant, they stayed on it. Because this is a media show, I want to ask a kind of specific media question here. There was one thing that happened kind of early in the war that you guys did that I think was seen by a lot of folks here as savvy, which is that you declassified a lot of these Russian disinformation efforts. You kind of put them out there before they were able to kind of fester and take hold as kind of conspiracy theories. It showed a kind of interesting savviness about the ways in which disinformation and new media worked. But I'm kind of curious how much time you spent thinking about media and the ways that foreign media was shaping some of the things that were happening abroad.

16:54How often was kind of the interpretations of U.S. actions in foreign media being factored into you guys' decision-making processes? Well, particularly when it came to Russia, it was very front of mind because for Putin, owning the information space, being able to define what was happening was critical to his strategy. And what he wanted to be able to do in the Ukraine context was say, Ukraine was the aggressor. Russia was under attack. Ukraine was starting the war. And Russia had no choice. They got dragged in. And so to defeat that strategy, it became essential for us to essentially narrate the war, basically to say, Putin is planning to invade.

17:32He's planning to do it in a couple months' time. He's going to throw up all this chaff about how it's the Ukrainians provoking him. That's all going to be BS. And we needed to lay all that down in advance so that Putin could not successfully, you know, own the narrative of that war. And then equally, you know, in other contexts, you know, we learned a lot from that, you know, in dealing with the U.S.-China relationship. China actually puts a lot of energy and effort into trying to shape the global narrative. One example of that in this whole question of semiconductor export controls, they really want to sell the story, this can't work.

18:12You know, they keep like seeding in the Western press that, you know, China's had another big breakthrough, which just once again proves that the export controls don't work at all. Meanwhile, their diplomats are demanding that we lift the controls, which suggests they are working. And there's a lot of evidence to suggest they are. That's another area where I think the centrality of being able to be engaged publicly in a back and forth in the global media has an impact on the actual policymaking and the actual shape of the strategy that great powers are undertaking. And I think that that is going to be a feature of the landscape going forward.

18:51And anyone sitting in the National Security Council is going to have to think a lot about that. Normally in a crisis, something happens in the world and then you are responding to the thing that happened, some bad act somewhere. This time, Jake and I walked in one morning and, you know, the first page of the president's daily brief, which sits on our desk, you know, every day when we arrive, basically that the intelligence community believed that Russia was very likely to invade Ukraine. And we were like, huh, you know, that that's pretty big deal. And it would have been nice if somebody maybe given us a call to say this was coming.

19:21But, you know, it looks like we've got a few months and we've got to figure out what to do. And so that was the advantage. The disadvantage was when we went around and started talking to our friends out in the world, by the way, including our friends in Ukraine, nobody really believed that we were right. And, you know, there's a checkered history of U.S. intelligence predictions not always playing out the way we say. And so we were up against a pretty steep hill to convince our partners, our allies, the Ukrainians themselves and the public that this was likely to happen. And it led to us pushing the envelope a bit with the intelligence community.

19:54But we did it in a way that was hand in glove with them, rigorous in the sense of protecting the sources of that material and the methods by which we obtained it. Because obviously you don't want to just undo your ability to collect intelligence by revealing this stuff. And it allowed us to be ready and Ukrainians ultimately, once they were persuaded to be ready when the war began, because we surged a bunch of weapons in that they could use to defend themselves right off the bat. And we got our European partners ready to impose sanctions on Russia not months after the first day of the invasion but days after.

20:29And had we not been able to kind of present them with this pretty ironclad information, Russia would have been able to do this with impunity in the early days, which they couldn't. One of the aspects of the Israel-Palestine conflict is the media war. How much do you think the public should accept Israeli government claims about the conflict? And on the other side, how much should they accept Palestinian claims? I saw there was recently a report that the Israelis now accept the Palestinian death count. I guess my general view is, you know, when a country is a combatant in a war, it's incentivized to present facts that are advantageous to its position.

21:02That's true of any country, including, you know, by the way, the United States in the wars that we've fought. So I think a good general proposition is not to take any presentation at face value to sort of seek independent corroboration, whether from media, from other governments, from international organizations. And so, you know, I think that is true of the government of Israel, frankly, true of the United States government in the current moment, you know, given some of the presentations that are being made about world affairs, whether in the Munich Security Conference recently or, you know, going forward.

21:35So I think that's just a good general rule as a consumer of media to follow. And just to follow up on that, John started his career, you know, he mentioned he was in media as a war correspondent, actually riding in with the U.S. military into Iraq in 2003. And the U.S. embeds journalists when we, you know, send forces into combat, whether it's in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere. And those journalists are able to get firsthand accounts of things, see them and report on them. As things stand today, I still believe it's the case that Israel is not allowing foreign journalists into Gaza. And that is a significant problem because it means that you're not getting independent eyes and ears on the ground there.

22:22And to John's point, that's true of any combatant in a war, whether it's Israel or Hamas. And the lack of access for international journalists to Gaza, I think, is setting back the cause of transparency. And we should be able to get the full picture by having independent media in there being able to report on it. On the one hand, you know, we've seen a lot of investment in kind of Israeli propaganda, particularly on social media. We know that there's been, you know, paid influencers in the United States who've carried some of this. And then on the flip side, you know, we're curious how important Al Jazeera remains as far as, you know, kind of supporting the Palestinian side.

22:57How did you guys think about both of those kind of entities here? I think there's a larger issue here that even goes beyond this particular very tragic conflict where you're seeing a lot of different governments around the world think about how they invest in sources of, for lack of a better term, propaganda. And I think we have seen the Israeli government take steps to try to press its narrative through a whole bunch of different channels. And we have seen supporters of the Palestinian cause. And Al Jazeera is, I think, an example of an outlet that makes no bones about its perspective in this war, what it thinks of Israel, what it thinks of the Palestinian cause, and has, I think, has had a huge impact on the narrative because of its ability both to generate images.

23:44and have access that a lot of other people don't get. And that goes way beyond just this conflict for Al Jazeera. I think Al Jazeera remains an incredibly potent platform to drive a variety of narratives across the region, some of which upset other countries in the region because, of course, it's based in Qatar, and Qatar has had its challenges with some of its neighbors. But this is something in the U.S. government we had to watch, but we had to watch it not just with respect to these countries and these players, but with many others as well. And going back to previous administrations, there have been efforts to engage the Qatari government on Al Jazeera as it relates to various U.S.

24:23policy actions. We didn't really in our administration have that kind of engagement. We, you know, weren't trying to shape or change Al Jazeera's coverage in any way. You guys were some of the most visible faces and important people in the rooms for some of these discussions, I guess, you know, for better or for worse, do you feel like some of the policy decisions, you know, that you guys made have closed some doors, you know, to you guys in terms of your future within the Democratic Party? Well, look, I guess what I'd say is this issue is unique in some ways in that, you know, close watchers of it, close observers of it often take an extremely zero-sum kind of binary almost approach.