Good afternoon. I am margaret talev, politics and widest editor at axios, ad by half of the Texas Tribune, welcome to the festival and to our one on one with susan rice. We have an hour together. Thats going to include at least 15 minutes for time so your questions and answers so youre 45 minutes to think at some killer questions. Im looking forward to hearing them. You all know ambassador rice. She served as president obamas u. N. Ambassador and the National Security adviser, and previously as assistant secretary of state for African Affairs under the bill clinton administration. And you may also know that shes got a book coming out soon. Its tough love my story of the things worth fighting for. Its not actually out officially for another week or so, we can have but you can get it today and she will be signing copies of it after were done here. I think thats at the festival at 800 congress. They asked me to let you know. You do that after this. This book because none of you have read it yet, let me give you a preview is really a book in three parts, its a book about her personal story, her family life. Its a book about her experience in government and then its a book about the Obama Administrations, policies and her explanation and kind of thoughts in the Rearview Mirror about the policies. To me one of my favorite parts about this book was the personal chapters and want to spend some time talking about that bit because its friday, a very historic, i think a way to start off a conversation by talking about the developments this week with ukraine, the houses action on opening an inquiry towards impeachment and all about. And then give us some time to talk about the book. You closely followed everything thats happened this week, and the transcript and the whistleblowers complain. I guess im curious based on the information thats now publicly available, what would your next set of questions be . What do you want to know that we dont know yet . Welcome thank you, margaret, so much for doing this. Good afternoon, everybody. Its great to be back here. Im really delighted to come back to the Texas Tribune festival and thank you for the very generous introduction. What a week and what a set of revelations. I think the most striking thing from my Vantage Point is is is yet another particularly stark indication that we have a president who cares nothing for the National Interest and is all about his personal political and financial interest. And it is there in black and white in that remarkable transcript. So just to put this in context, as you know, ukraine has for five years been suffering from an invasion, and occupation by russia. That war is still going on. There are ukraine soldiers being killed every week. And the United States as a leader in the west and an adversary of russia at this stage, my choice of putin, frankly, has been supporting ukraine economically, politically, and militarily with assistance to help it combat this russian aggression. And what President Trump did, it appears, is to withhold congressionally appropriated funds, almost 400 million worth of military assistance that the ukrainians desperately need, in order to, it seems, to extort information for bogus investigation that he could use against his political opponents domestically. Its an extraordinary interference in our democratic process, sponsored by, encouraged by, solicited by the president of the United States. And nowhere in that phone call does he talk to the new ukrainian president about the issues that have long concerned the United States, russian aggression, sanctions, how to support the ukraine government. None of that. Its all about what zelinsky, the president of ukraine, can do to help donald trump advance his partisan clinical objectives. Do you believe that it is within a president s purview to use military assistance as a lever to prod policy actions . Yes, if its policy action in service of u. S. National policy interest, policy goals. The United States has leverage. We employ sanctions sometimes. We give a come we dont give aid. Aid. But we dont do to advance a president personal political interest. And then we dont hide it. We do it openly and transparently every communicate to the world and to the government in question why we may be providing or withholding assistance. So what is so striking about this is that it was not utilized to advance our National Interest. It was utilized to advances personal political interest. And, frankly, this is part of a pattern. It may check to go back and review very carefully what we learned about 2016. And it makes you wonder about all of these other interactions that it seemed somewhat dubious, whether its with mohammad bin salman of saudi arabia or any number of leaders from kim jongun to other adversaries that he has praised, and wonder whats underneath all of this. That are integral transcripts are notes for almost all of those calls or meetings, if not all of them. As a former National Security adviser, im assuming you always advocated the importance that a president and other foreign leaders being able to have a modicum of privacy in their conversations so that there can be room for actual conversations to happen. How do you balance of those interests, the precedent of the need for president s and for leaders to have internal deliberations that are not entirely shared with the public versus what youre talking about here . Are you advocating for the transcript or the notes of President Trumps calls with mbs, with putin, with cc to all be released to congressional investigators were to the public . Book, obviously in normal times there is utility in the communications between foreign leaders have the image of confidentiality. These are not normal times. What is unprecedented is the president of the United States who is abusing his office. Thats whats unprecedented. I care about all these other things you mentioned, but i care more about what we dont yet know about what the the presidf the United States has done behind closed doors that run counter to use National Interest. This ukraine example is a perfect case. And then we call the other problem. The other problem is, according to the whistleblower report, that instead of this transcript, which by the way we have not seen the full verbatim transcript, normally there is a full verbatim transcript that would appear. What they did instead of storing it in the normal system, which is protected and classified, even though there was no classified substance in that discussion, instead of putting it where it normally resides, they hit it on a very highly sensitive, highly compartmented server that very few people in the Us Government have access to in order to bury yet. [inaudible] unless there were legitimately in their content classified. [inaudible] but its rare that a president ial conversation would be classified to that highest level. Its not impossible its very rare, even when there are two leaders discussing classified information. Heres a case where there was nothing classified and it was moved to the most secure, sensitive server. The contents of those notes would never have been moved to the classified system, okay. I want to ask you just another question before we get out of this. To the white house and and in s he ever have concerns about the Vice President dealing, Vice President biden even with ukraine or resent dealing in ukraine . The president now, President Trump has raised this as an issue. Was that ever an issue or serious concern inside the administration . Know, and let me explain why. There was a complete distraction play going on here, which is to try and conflate what Vice President biden did at president obamas behest on behalf of transparent and over use policy objectives, pushing back on corruption in a country where the United States and our allies are providing billions of dollars of economic assistance, and trying to bolster this nascent democracy in ukraine. Vice President Biden made phone calls and took trips in support of that u. S. Policy objective. It was transparent. It was stated openly. It was back our western partners in the imf. There was a secrecy about it. There were no hiding the records with the transcripts. It was all the basic work of diplomacy. And to suggest that there is some equivalence between the president of the United States, this President Trump, extorting a foreign leader to advance his partisan personal interests, and the Vice President or president of the United States in biden or obama pursuing a a policy thats open and transparent and backed by a congress that was pursuant to our interests is completely apples and oranges. Before this past week, speaking about the book, i have asked you if you would take a short excerpt to read since nobody in eits has had a chance to read the book yet. That kind of census in the mood for your experience and the story that you wanted to tell the public. Would you do was the honor right now . Thank you. Id be delighted. Let me explain what this is. As margaret pointed out, the book, its really got four parts. The first is my childhood upbringing, my Family History in part going up in washington, d. C. In the 60s and 70s and the story of my parents and grandparents on the one side, the descendents of slaves in south carolina. On the other side, immigrants from jamaica who came to portland, maine, in 1912. And what they shared in common was this extraordinary commitment to education, to the american dream, for each generation bettering the next. That was the foundation in which i was raised, and then the personal story continues with a pretty bald discussion of my parents very painful divorce and the impact it had on me. Second part is after my education, my early years in government, eight years in the clinton administration, and thats the section from which ongoing to draw an excerpt to read to you. And then the third part is about my time as National Security adviser, all of which includes stories of my family and balancing motherhood and having elderly sick parents and all of that combined. What id like to read is the story that, a small story that occurred when i was assistant secretary of state for African Affairs. Where, in 1998, i was a very young assistant secretary of state. I i took the job at age 32. Most of my colleagues, the ambassadors who reported to me were 2030 years my senior. I was a brandnew breastfeeding mother, and at first blush, not a particularly expected leader of this bureau in the state department. Were on a trip in africa, a small plane with three of my colleagues and were flying from south africa to angola from victoria to rwanda, about a four hour flight. Let me take it from here. Such trips were intense and exhausting as we hopped between distant capitals on small private planes. Commercial Airline Connections in africa were scarce, unreliable, and often dangerous point as an assistant secretary, rather than a cabinet official, i did not rate a dedicated military plane. We often the least four or six seat propeller planes, jets were a rare luxury. Which were vulnerable to whether a mechanical challenges. On this trip we flew on a small quinolyl became a particularly memorable leg from south africa to rwanda, angola, 1500mile journey that required a refueling stop in rural namibia. It was approximately a four hour flights were left south africa early in the morning to arrive in angola by midday, go straight into meetings with senior officials. Along the way we plotted our message to the angolans. The four avocet close, almost toe to toe. Gail and i faced foreword with john and howard facing us. Flying backward on our tiny plane. It made for convenient conversation, but soon was to intimate. About an hour into the flight i started feeling clammy in week. As my perspiration increased, my stomach turned over, signaling it was quite discontent. I announced to my colleagues, im not feeling well. And reached for the airsickness bag, which thankfully was handy. With muffled apologies i opened the bag apologies to you all as well. [laughing] and threw up voluminously. Suddenly, to my horror i felt my lab growing warm and wet. The bag had a hole in the bottom [laughing] and i was covered in puke. My lightweight right and blue dress with white polka dots come once ready for meeting with the president of angola, was ruined and i would have no time to change before our meeting. And a flash icon howard and john sitting there slackjawed and shocked. [laughing] but can never to gingerly pull back their feet to try to save their shoes. [laughing] from the bomb it pooling beneath us on the floor. As soon as i finished being sick and realized the gravity of the situation, there was only one thing i could do, laugh hysterically. Kindly as friends they all join me in howling at the insanity of the moment, that we still had the problem of the dress, and the leader of our delegation being a smelly, and presentable mess. We landed on a dirt patch in nowhere namibia to refuel as planned. There was a small there is a single gas pump, a waterhole with hose in some rudimentary bathrooms. Admin gave us some privacy, as gail turn the hose on me and my dress. [laughing] sprayed me that until i was thoroughly drenched in the desert. She and i then went into the bathroom to strip down and ensure we washed away all signs of vomit. Confident we had succeeded, all that remained was for me to a dry over the ensuing couple hours. [laughing] [applause] welcome to high style diplomacy. [laughing] sounds fun working at the white house, doesnt it . Vomit on yourself, get hosed down, go back to work. All of your parents died while you were working in the administration. I can relate. Both my parents that parents died when i was coming to administration. When you are working on the book a lot of this was dedicated to putting in the gaps about questions you could ask your parents anymore when you finally able to come up for air. After a long time in the government. Your dad was one of the tuskegee airmen. Your mom was the mother of a pell grant. How hard was it to find that stuff and why did you want to share that stuff with the public . I know that the experience, your experience both going through the tragedy in benghazi as a Public Servant and also your experience with how that played in the media and how Many Americans know your name now, for better or for worse, for right offer wrong, was part of your motivation write the book and introduce yourself to the public. But why did you want to share your personal story with the public . What did you learn that you didnt know before about your parents . Let me begin by sharing what i did this. First of all, with this unusual background that i come from and the extraordinary riblets that ive had to serve two president s and our country extraordinary privilege ive had to serve two president s and a country in to make different context and represent the United States in the world and to keep a safe, i feel like ive learned some things along the way. From my family, from upbringing, from my service that it want to share that i think are valuable broadly to people who are trying to compete and thrive in unforgiving environment. And if they have been not down, to get back up. But also personally, i felt that for the years between benghazi in 2012 when i was characterized by the right as a villain and by the left by some as a victim, that i was really unable intelligence government to do anything other than speak for the United States and the president. I didnt have the ability to speak in my own voice intel and tell my own story. That rubbed me the wrong way because as you might discuss some of the critical lessons i learned from my parents was such a ever let anybody define me for me. That i had to be my own advocate, my own champion, and my own spokesperson. And that overlays with some lessons on race which we can potentially come back to. And so if i was going to comment on story, and i wanted to, i had to be honest. I had to tell not just, this is not a book for selfpromotion, running for office, some of the kind of thing. But i have actually written an unorthodox book. This was a book to tell my story and all of its dimensions and that required talking about the painful step would also enabled me to go back and spend time dissecting and excavating some of these chapters in my life when back to my childhood and my parents divorced in particular. I had just rushed to in order to keep trying to strive and excel and do my best. Painful of course. Very painful divorce, environment and terrifying, ad achieve me in many ways because i was a little sevenyearold firefighter tried to mediate between my parents and protect my little brother. And i had wonderful parents. These were highly accomplished, brilliant, devoted people who gave me and my brother everything we could hope for, that they had no business being married to each other. They broke up in bitter way and put us through that experience in a very bitter public custody battle. Out of that not only did i learn for better or for worse a Little Something about mediation and conflict resolution, but i learned that i i could take a t and keep going. That i wouldnt let something even that painful that early get me down. That was very valuable also down the road. You asked what i learned that i didnt know. Its interesting, i had a childs perspective on my parents breakup. With the process of writing this book, and i heard my parents but i saw the documentary records. We found in my deceased fathers papers the legal depositions that my parents had to provide in the course of their battle, and nobody shoul