Jake Sullivan: The legacy of the Biden White House
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stephen Sackur is in Washington D.C. for an exclusive interview with Jake Sullivan, who was National Security Adviser in the Biden White House. From Afghanistan to Ukraine to Gaza, he faced a series of rolling crises. Did the failings of the Biden administration prepare the ground for Trump 2.0?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk from Washington with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today in an exclusive interview |
| 0:06.8 | recorded on the 12th of February has had less than a month to get used to normal life after |
| 0:13.4 | four years in one of the most stressful and consequential jobs in the world, serving as national security advisor to President Joe Biden. |
| 0:24.5 | And Jake Sullivan's tenure was certainly not the best of times. |
| 0:29.9 | It began with the messy American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. |
| 0:34.6 | Then in 2022, the focus turned to the eastern flank of Europe and Vladimir Putin's |
| 0:40.2 | full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While that, grim conflict continued, another took center stage. |
| 0:47.6 | In October, 2003, Hamas' assault on southern Israel from Gaza heralded a spiral of conflict which brought devastating |
| 0:57.4 | humanitarian consequences and threatened a multi-front war in the Middle East. How well did the |
| 1:04.4 | Biden team handle these rolling crises? Donald Trump claimed the Biden years left America weakened and vulnerable. Did |
| 1:14.1 | team Biden's failings prepare the ground for Trump 2.0? Well, Jake Sullivan joins me now. Welcome to |
| 1:22.5 | Hard Talk. Thanks for having me. It's great pleasure. Donald Trump is back in the White House, and it's already |
| 1:28.8 | clear there is going to be a radical reset of U.S. foreign and national security policy. |
| 1:35.2 | How much of a watershed moment does this feel to be to you? I think it's too soon to tell. |
| 1:41.3 | It feels like it's already been a lifetime, but it's been just over three weeks since Donald Trump took office. |
| 1:47.0 | And obviously there's been a flurry of activity. |
| 1:49.0 | But the real question is how much discontinuity will there be on the major files? |
| 1:54.0 | Take China, for example. We could end up in a circumstance where Donald Trump strikes some grand bargain with Xi Jinping, |
| 2:00.0 | or we could end up with him |
| 2:01.7 | continuing down the road of intense competition with China. So I think we have to wait and see what he |
| 2:06.3 | actually does and not just look at what he tweets and says. I want to unpick the various specific |
| 2:11.9 | foreign policy areas in a little while, but before I do that, do you just have an overwhelming |
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