Hi, I'm Bill Crystal.

Welcome back to Conversations.

My guest today is someone we've had on several times, always a terrific

interlocutor, to use a fancy word there. Eric Edelman, a longtime foreign service officer,

ambassador to Finland and Turkey, a special, worked in the White House for Vice President

Cheney as his top national security advisor and then number three official in the Pentagon.

So very distinguished career and a wide range of experience and a perfect person to discuss

Donald Trump's trip last week to the Middle East with and some of the implications of what he said

there, what he did there, what he didn't do there, and a couple of side tangents he went on.

So I don't know, I think it was a more newsworthy... what he did there, what he didn't do there, and a couple of side tangents he went on.

So I don't know, I think it was a more newsworthy.

I mean, obviously it was a sort of colorful trip, and people covered it in that way.

The camels, the plane, the sheiks, the business leaders with him.

But it was a pretty interesting trip from the point of view of trying to think about Donald Trump's foreign policy.

What are we now? Four months into a second term. Do you think, Eric?

Well, I agree, Bill. First, it's great to be with you again. And interlocutor is a great

foreign service word, so thank you. I'd like to make Eric feel at home here. We'll use a lot of

terms about the seventh floor of the State Department and what are, you know,

DeMarches, that's always one of my good ones, and Strager da Faire, that's a nice one.

De Marshmallows, as some of my Foreign Service colleagues used to refer to them.

Well, look, the pageantry was a big part of the entire kind of Misencén that Trump orchestrated.

As of the coverage in the New York Times pointed out, if he'd gone almost anywhere else in the world, there would have been protests.

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