The Negotiator

Autocracy in America

The Atlantic

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.8 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the fight to save democracies from the grips of autocrats, defenders of democratic values must partner with people who would otherwise be their political opponents. In this episode, host Garry Kasparov seeks to demonstrate this lesson by welcoming former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as his guest. Their long-held and many disagreements aside, Garry and Jake find common ground in standing up to the forces that are working to undermine the rule of law and endanger American democracy. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener.Garry chairs the Renew Democracy Initiative, publisher of The Next Move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	At L'Oreal Group, we reached 97% renewable energy for our sites at the end of 2024,
0:06.0	and we aim for 100% by 2030.
0:12.0	This is how we create the beauty that moves the world.
0:20.0	In a fight as important as the one to save American democracy
0:25.7	from the grips of would-be autocrats and dictators,
0:29.1	we must partner with people who would otherwise be our political opponents.
0:33.2	We must welcome them to the cause and put aside other disagreements,
0:37.3	at least for the time
0:38.1	being.
0:39.2	This is a lesson dissidents in unfree places understand well, but not one that comes easy
0:44.4	to Americans.
0:45.6	It is a lesson I hope to personally demonstrate in today's episode.
0:50.2	From the Atlantic, this is autocracy in America.
0:54.1	I'm Ger Sparoff.
1:03.5	My guest today is Jake Sullivan, the former national security advisor for President Joe Biden,
1:10.3	and before that, a top advisor to Hillary
1:12.3	Clinton when she was Secretary of State and when she ran for president.
1:16.7	My disagreements with him are too numerous to detail in full, but I will offer this summary.
1:22.8	Sullivan and the presidential administrations he has worked for have too often failed to understand and predict the threats
1:29.9	facing the world and misjudged what those threats mean for America and its democracy.
1:35.8	They have been flat-footed time and again in Afghanistan, in Ukraine, in the Middle East.
1:41.5	The list goes on.
	...

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