Welcome back to PotSafe the World.

My guest today is Bill Burns.

Bill was the Deputy Secretary of State until 2014, but he is a career staffer of the State

Department, which means he is served under Republicans and Democrats.

He's also served as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, U.S. Ambassador to Jordan.

He's one of the most professional, intelligent people I've worked with.

He's someone I greatly admire.

We talked about Russia, what it means to be a back channel.

When is that appropriate?

When is it not?

We talked about Trump's visits to Europe and his dust up with NATO.

We talked about Bill's efforts leading the Iran talks and what it means to be an ambassador

and to have discretion in an age where WikiLeaks and Twitter is kind of putting it all out

there.

It was a great conversation.

I really appreciate him joining and I think you'll enjoy listening.

Bill Burns, thank you for joining and for all the work you've done.

Tell me, thanks so much for having me.

Well, thank you for making time.

So I was hoping we could start with Russia because you have more experience living in and

working with Russia than most people I'll ever speak to and certainly more than most people

who are on the news talking about the subject.

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