And he was assistant to president obama and Deputy National security adviser to Vice President biden and deputy secretary of state for president obama. And now senior Foreign Policy adviser to the biden and great to have tony blimpingen. And jerry is executive editor of the wall street jourm and writes a column which i read and all of us should read. Jerry has had an extraordinary career and for the journal. He covered the white house at the end of the Reagan Administration and Bush Administration and interviewed every american president and part of a team at the wall street journal that won the pull iter prize and book coming out on august 25, we should have seen it coming about the conservative moment and will be coming out. And sure to have jerry tony here. Welcome to both of you. Lets start with the scenario. Joe biden walked out of the white house in january of 2017 as Vice President. Lets say perhaps he walks back into the white house of january 2021 as president. How will the world have changed . How will he have changed in the intervening four years . Thanks for having me. Virtually. Jerry, what has changed, in a word, pretty much everything. The Vice President has talked about this. If he is elected president he ill have a world in disarray and they are linked because our own ability to be a force and protect and advance our own prosperity and values depends on the democracy at home. And that is a challenge. But globally we have a time of extraordinary economic demographic and geo political change. Just over the past four years, technology and transformation has shifted. Nd among nation states and growing challenges that have affected governance within them. What has changed is the need, we have to approach this with humility and confidence. We face the most challenge and most International Landscape and we cant flip the switch. But confidence because it remains within our confidence to shape a Better Future in which our people are more prosperous and opportunities are safeguarded. The big thing, the elephant in the room is covid19 and that is the greatest change that the United States has faced since world war ii. And killed more americans than ied in world war i and every war since 1945 and 9 11 combined. The recession unleashed represents the deepest down turn. Millions of americans unemployed and threatening sectors of our economy and it could wag the covid dog. And more upheavals, more otection nism and xenophobia can go back to the United States. I think in the sense the most acute change driven more is the central dilemma. On the one happened, this should be a wakeup call that our own faith in the United States is linked to events beyond our borders. Hen we have bankers, and interdependence, we have to find collective and global responses. We have eroded faith in government, diffuse of power and resurgent in competition making that cooperation making it difficult to achieve. So we have a lot of work to do if there is a biden presidency. And i would say a couple of quick things. I think the Vice President believes through security for our people requires investing in them, investing in our democracy and solidarity with the rest of the free world and our global leadership. E have to start to rebuild the strength, reinvigorating alliances and partnerships. And that in turn becomes the core for collective defense and high Standards International cooperation across the whole range of policy issues and give us a leverage and the attractive pull of strengthened democracy to shape more responses to these very, very big challenges. Tends to ignore International Rules and advance its own nterests that averts unfounded maritime and territorial planes and represses its own people and democracy in hong kong. This is a huge, huge challenge. But heres the heres what we have to start from. We have to put ourselves in a position of strength from which to engage china so the relationship moves forward on our terms, not theirs. And the problem is this. Right now, by virtually by every key metric, china is stronger and ours is weaker as a result of President Trumps failed leadership. Think about this. The president has in effect helped china advance key strategic goals, weakening america alliances. Leaving a vacuum. Check. Iving beijing a green light to trample human rights. Check. And maybe worst of all, attacking its institutions, its people and values virtually every day and we see its apell with regard to the competition with china and that is checkmate. So the problem is this. I think we have to think about it this way. In many ways, the challenge posed is less about their strength than it is about our selfinflicted weaknesses. This challenge is about us, the competitiveness of our workers and democracy and our alineses and partnership and our values, all of which i believe President Trump has undermined and all of which are under our control. What would a joe biden though . Make sure we are investing in ourselves and technology and workers rment. And show the attracttiveness and working with our partners and putting values back in the center of our Foreign Policy. Thats how you engage china. And that is the best basis to advance cooperation with china where we have true concerns whether climate change, Global Health or nonproliferation. It is nt too late. One of the items that was supposed to fill the vacuum with the democrats walk away from it and wasnt sent. And President Trump has ditched it, what is the Biden Administration do . Does it come back in its current form or relaunch it . And the Vice President said if we were going to reengage we have to see the world has moved on and they have worked an agreement with china. And many of the provisions were negotiated out. That is usually problematic. The idea behind p. P. E. And the high standards, the race to the top agreement in which the rights of workers, the environment, transparency are all front and center. Even in its , if organization conception, it would require china to take steps to undo the steps. So thats positive. And i think the other idea behind it that would have to be realized in a different way is china needs to face a choice. G. D. P. Is50 of world together in a high standards race to the top agreement, then china has to agree whether it wants to be part of it. It would have to adhere to those high standards. At this point, given where we are, Something Like that would have to be renegotiated and whether thats possible, i dont know. Cancelling of the temporary benefits for American Families they got from the tax cuts. Farm bankruptcy were up 20 last year. Farm income was down. And even taxpayer funded subsidies and recession that was wreaking havoc even before the pandemic. You do that and at the same time, you alienate the countries that should be working because they are similarly agreed by china by starting tariff wars and insulating them or do you work with other democracies to set the highest possible standards and take that weight and apply it to dealing with chipe. The answer is selfevident. One more china question. In the middle east where i used to live and work, people were talking about facts on the ground. And artificial islands and territorial claims. Can those be rolled back . I dont think its it. But it is a big challenge, but i think again what you have to do is a few things and reset the foundation to be able to approach china. That requires in the first and ce investing in ours reinvestic in our own alineses. You recall that the rebalance to obamabiden he administration deployed 60 of our assets to the region. And then i think you have to be very clear, very direct and make your views and what you are going to be known. Let me give you an example. During the owe baum ave administration, china declared air identification zone and airplanes flying to identify themselves to the Chinese Government. Vice president went to beijing and saw president xi and said we will not identify that zone and fly our planes through it and thats what we did. And similarly with the Vice President was a strong advocate. If you back up your words with deeds, the government of beijing will respect that. Lets turn to iran, the jcp omp a. Is it back on . Lets think of where we are first. There is a lot of digging out to do. When President Trump walked away, an agreement that was effect ahe promised an better deal and said would make iran less dangerous. Unform, the less has happened. Iran is doing it. And iran now admits to enriching uranium and using more centrifuges and by the calculations i have seen necessary for iran to have enough Nuclear Material has decreased for more than a year now. Andful of months inspectors have been blocked. All of this under President Trumps watch. And at the same time withdrawing, the president has isolated us from our closest partners and encouraged russia and china to move closer to iran and we need to check iran beyond the nuclear file. The president promised that pressuring iran would stop its aggressive behavior in the region. What did we see . It became more aggressive and responded to them targeting oil tankers in the gulf and u. S. Troops in iraq, do you understand an american drone and all of this, President Trump brought the United States pretty close to a possible war with tehran on several occasions and september Additional Forces to the middle east at the time we should be ending these wars and after iranian backed attacks on the Saudi Oil Facility after the death of an american contractor, there was a attack. That has to be done in the context. Iran launched missiles at a u. S. Base and traumatic brain injuries. The bottom line, by walking away nd acting aradically and the Nuclear Program is actually now advancing instead of being stopped which brings us to what is happening right now. This is going to be are important. That is the arms embargo which expires in october. Secretary pompeo says the u. S. Will stepped it indefinitely. As best i know today and maybe this will change, but as best i know, not a single ally has that. And russia and china can keep it. And the Administration May compline about the sunset about the embargo but it was a main element of that embargo was negotiated and put in place by the obamaBiden Administration through the hard work of discipline and diplomacy. Insisted. Snapback needs to be invoked by a participant to the Nuclear Agreement and in pulling out, the administration literally head lined its press release ending its participation in the jcp omp a. Legally, it seems to be on shaky grouped in using the snapback provisions we negotiated. There is a lot of irony, plaming the Obama Administration for the sunset of the poigses and that was put in place and we couldville probably extended those prohibitions from inside the deal through unified fronts with our allies. And there are implications for north korea. So thats the long back drop and the foundation. If joe biden is elected president , he would seek to build on the nuclear deal to make it longer and stronger if, f iran returns to strict compliance. And then we would be in a position to use our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies and strengthen and if he cantively push back against iran because we would be united with our partners instead of isolated. If you look at the middle east and approach toll President Trumps personal approach, his goal is to slimping the american footprint. On the not the unreasonable logic and what you refer to as endless wars, would the Biden Administration continue that trend line . The numbers have been increased in the greater region. By 14,000, 15,000. It is a string way of saying you want to end these wars by actually increasing our troop presence. At the same time, there have been these erratic actions where seemly on a whim or following a conversation with president ered our and and never mind allies or israel announces a withdrawal of forces from syria, a small amount of forces that are leveraging their presence in very impornt ways to make sure we can not only defeat but keep it defeated. We are already in a headspinning position between what the president says and what he actually does. But i think its fair to say if you look hard at our interests, if you look hard at where the orld is going, we are over leveraged in the region and there are ways of achieving our security and advancing our interests with a lot less. And i think we have to distinguish, jerry, between into coneployments licts to to having a small presences of special operators take onaging 10, 20 who a problem and syria is a good example. We think at its height, we had a couple of special operators and support in country. Nd leveraging, 60,000 and that successful took the fight and eliminated the caliphate. We need to distinguish between those kinds of things. Lets turn to russia. He one of the issues is the renewed agreement to renew the star agreement. China and its advances, those talks not only include russia but chinal as well . Do you agree . There is an issue with china and it is smaller than ours and russias but if we tried to do that and whatever the benefits, it might get nowhere and new start would expire. Nd abide the sfration assuming that russia would be to extend new start. Stability for the huge difficulties in the relationship is a positive. It is good for the United States and should extend it. Is it time for a reset with Vladimir Putin and if so, how do you do it . I was going to read you something very briefly. Quote. And this will be a foundation for answering the question. So, the quote is this, at bottom, at the bottom of the kremlins newer on theic view of world fa affairs is russias sense of insecurity. Russia rulers have sensed that their rule was archaic. As russia came into contact with the west, the fear of a more competent, more powerful and more organized society. For this reason, russias rulers will participate until International Organization where they see the opportunity of extending power or of inhibitting or diluting the power of others. Efforts will be made to disrupt the confidence, to hamstring measures of defense, to increase unrest and stimulate. Plaque against white, young against old, new comers against a president. Tenet and itgeorge sounds like up to the moment. Against that become drop what has been a against that backdrop is russias attitude toward the world that existed in some manifest case before Vladimir Putin and will probably continue after him but that putin has d accelerate ant too accelerant to. We have President Trump standing on the world stage with putin saying he took president putins word over that of our own Intelligence Agency when it comes to interference in the last election. We have the president , of course, taking a two by four, treating it like a protection racket rather than the most vital of our alliances. We of course have maybe the most egregious behavior i have seen and really cant explain, which is when confronted with evidence from the Intelligence Community that russia was placing bounties on the heads of american soldiers in afghanistan, the president ignored it. And maybe even worse than doing nothing, what did he do . Apparently he spoke to president putin half a dozen or so times after this intelligence appeared in the president s daily brief, the most important intelligence the president receives, and by the president s own acknowledgment did not raise the issue once and even invited president putin to washington, tried to invite him back into the g7. So we have a big, big problem here that is almost inexplicable. So what is to be done, to coin a phrase. I think a Biden Administration would first of all confront mr. Putin for his egregious action, not embrace him as this president has repeatedly done. We would not trash nato, we would seek to strengthen it. Strengthen its deterrence. Invest in new capabilities to deal with all sorts of challenges in cyberspace and outer space, under the sea, artificial intelligence, some of which come from russia and others. And provide and ro provide assistance to ukraine, georgia and wen balkans. We would like to impose meaningful costs with coordinated sanctions, exposing corruption. An you need to be clear and specific with mr. Putin about whats at risk. But there also might be incentives as to what he could gain through trade, investment and a seat at the table if russia changes its actions that would help relieve the dependence on china. We would need to build our own resilience by hardening election infrastructure, by getting dark money out of politic, by pushing Tech Companies to deal effectively with disinformation. We knead to extend new start and then we have to look at new ways to engage peopletopeople, support Civil Society, very, very complicated because russia makes society hard but there are ways to do that. There needs to be a comprehensive approach to russia that has much more clarity, much clearer policies an