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The Ezra Klein Show

What’s the Left’s Vision for Foreign Policy After Trump?

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

News, Government, Society & Culture

4.314.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2026

⏱️ 94 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Democratic Party is in the middle of a rupture over foreign policy – with Israel and Palestine at the center. In recent weeks, the Democratic senators Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen both called for a break with the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel. Schatz said the next administration needs “a whole new crop of foreign policy staffers,” while Van Hollen went further, accusing Biden’s senior decision makers of “complicity.” And Gaza has become a central issue splitting Democrats in primaries around the country. It’s become such a profound fault line, it reminds me of how the Iraq war remade the Democratic Party years ago. And Democrats face huge foreign policy questions beyond Gaza, too. Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the rules-based order, and the American public has become increasingly cynical about U.S. interventions abroad. Do Democrats want to try to restore what came before Trump? Is that even possible? Or is there a vision for something new? Matt Duss is at the center of foreign policy thinking on the left. He’s the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, previously served as Senator Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy adviser and is currently advising Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So I thought he’d be the perfect person to ask: What would a left foreign policy actually look like? What would it try to do in the world?Mentioned: “The Hard Truth My Party Needs to Face” by Chris Van Hollen “Democrats Can’t Avoid a Reckoning With Gaza” by Matthew Duss “Why We Need a Progressive Foreign Policy” by Chris Murphy “Congressman Jason Crow’s New Vision for American Foreign Policy” by Jason Crow Book Recommendations: Crisis of the Common Good by Chris Murphy From Life Itself by Suzy Hansen Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The

0:07.0

The I think we may be in a moment of foreign policy rupture in the Democratic Party.

0:35.2

It reminds me of years ago when the Iraq War we made the Democratic Party.

0:39.3

The Iraq War, which is why Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary,

0:43.8

changing the course of American politics.

0:45.9

Because I will offer a clear contrast.

0:48.0

As somebody who never supported this war, thought it was a bad idea.

0:51.7

I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset

0:54.2

that got us in the war in the first place. That's the kind of leadership I'm going to provide.

0:58.5

Right now, Israel and Gaza feel to me like they are becoming the center of a similar rupture.

1:05.0

The thing that started here for me was a few weeks ago, Brian Schatz, who is a Democratic senator

1:09.8

from Hawaii. He's often talked of as maybe the next Senate Democratic ago, Brian Schatz, who is a Democratic senator from Hawaii.

1:14.4

He's often talked of as maybe the next Senate Democratic leader after Chuck Schumer,

1:18.0

so a guy with an incredible sense of the pulse of the party.

1:19.3

He tweeted, I'm not into blacklisting anyone from future work in their area of expertise,

1:23.6

but I do think it's fair to want a whole new crop, a whole new crop, of foreign policy staffers in the next Democratic administration.

1:32.0

It's not like the same 120 people are the only people who know anything.

1:36.8

Then Senator Chris Van Hollen, again, very well respected in the party, very much someone in its mainstream.

1:42.7

He wrote an opinion piece for the Times,

1:45.4

laying out how different he thinks the Democratic Party's policy on Israel needs to be,

1:49.6

how badly thinks the Biden administration's policy failed, and then he went on to say,

1:54.9

primary voters won't trust any Democratic presidential candidate who does not have a record

...

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