If you are looking to have a good conversation with someone who wields great political power,

when is the best time to have that conversation?

The most obvious answer is while they're in office.

But when they're in that vortex, they have strong incentives to not speak candidly or to just promote their

agenda. Another common time for a conversation like this is the exit interview, but the exit

interview can get tied up with exhaustion or relief, regret. Eventually, this person may publish their

memoirs, and they'll do some interviews to promote the book.

But by then, they may be in factory production mode, churning out the same answers in every interview.

So, when is the best time to have a good conversation with a person like this?

Is there maybe a sweet spot sometime after leaving office but before

publishing their memoirs, maybe while they're still writing and spending all their waking hours

sifting through their accomplishments and their what could have beens? Let's hope that is the sweet spot, because that's when we caught Anthony Blinken for the

conversation you're about to hear.

Blinken was Secretary of State for the entirety of the Biden presidency.

He was considered one of Biden's favorite and most trusted allies.

Their time together goes back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Blinken has spent more than three decades working on U.S. foreign policy. He also served in the

Clinton and Obama administrations. Secretary of State is sometimes described as the second

most important job in the world. Past office holders include Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams,

George C. Marshall, and Henry Kissinger, whom Blinken spoke with regularly while Blinken was secretary.

Here's how Kissinger once described the secretary job. Each success only buys an admission ticket

to a more difficult problem.

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