"the following is a conversation with Jared Kushner former senior adviser to the president during the Donald Trump Administration and author of breaking history a White House Memoir he's one of the mos..."

"all this is Alex Freedman podcast and now dear friends here's Jared Krishna we did a lot of this conversation before the Hamas attack on Israel and we decided to sit down again and finish the discussi..."

"increase uh but hopefully our words here can at least in part speak to the the Timeless underlying currents of the history and uh as you write about the power dynamics of the region so for people who ..."

"what are your feelings as a human being uh and what is your analysis as the former senior advisor to the president under the Trump administration of the current situation in Israel and Gaza so I I thi..."

"for a lot of people to comprehend um my heart goes out obviously to uh all of the the families of the victims uh to the families of those who are held uh in captive now and uh to all of Israel because..."

"I've been speaking to friends over the last couple days I have one friend I spoke with um last night who was saying that uh you know a good friend messaged him saying I'm going in we're going to do so..."

"others uh sadly so it's a very very heartbreaking moment um and I do think that it's very important at this moment in time for the entire world to stand behind Israel I think that Hamas has shown uh t..."

"strategies to to minimize uh attacks from Hamas and to try to uh turn the region around and I think we did do a very substantial job under President Trump the Middle East went from one of the most cha..."

"seeing what's happening I think it was completely avoidable I think it's horrible to see that it's occurring uh and I pray that those in power will make the right decisions to uh to to to restore safe..."

"with them to try to get some claims to the Middle East once the Jewish people were annihilated and what he did for a very long time was he did the same shtick only it was before you had smartphones an..."

"really um they are disrespecting the the Islam religion as you said you helped make major strides towards peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords can you describe what it took to accomplish ..."

"president Trump did was he he slaughtered a lot of the Sacred cows of these these false barriers that people had erected and showed people that the vast majority of the people in the Middle East wheth..."

"those problems in that context uh often we're we're looking more to use those past grievances as a justification for their power and for the bad behavior that they were looking to perpetuate so managi..."

"most desirable pathway for the uh decision makers to walk through and it wasn't always hard and sometimes have to go and you know hold their hand or you try to pick them up and walk them across but bu..."

"that between the West Bank and Gaza you had 5 million people and um and we put together a plan I think it was about $27 billion uh we got together a conference I had the head of AT&T we had Steve schw..."

"it's really been hamas's leadership or lack of leadership and their desire to focus on trying to kill Israelis and start war with Israel Over improving the lives of the Palestinian people in the curre..."

"capability for that and I don't think there's enough trust to allow them to do that which is why you know under the Karm circumstances if you do want to have peace there Hamas has to be either elimina..."

"agency which is totally corrupt it's it's you know we've put $1 billion in there over time I did a poll um in the Middle East in uh Gaza to say okay we've invested $1 billion do here as a country are ..."

"you know 20 30 years uh they fought with us in in Afghanistan they were the first Muslim country to stand up and do that after 911 because they didn't want it to be a war of the West against uh agains..."

"deal with Iran because they were letting them get all this Revenue where Iran wouldn't be a problem but one of the reasons with the Abraham Accords we kept it so quiet during the whole time was becaus..."

"but they've allowed Iran I mean again the number I saw last year I think under Trump the number was maybe like four or five billion dollars of oil revenue and in total I think last year it was somethi..."

"with Saudi at this moment um my instinct and I've been watching this Israeli Saudi uh normalization play out obviously just speaking with people and seeing what I've been reading um and watching with ..."

"way and you know it's funny Lex when I was working on the US Mexico uh agreement for the trade you know we would have every day there'd be a you know TW that would go out or there would be an issue I ..."

"still people on the US side picking up the phone and calling uh UAE Saudi Arabia just as human beings as friends as allies and just keeping that channel communication going cuz I uh maybe you can corr..."

"keeps people safe and we talk quite extensively about the value of trust and negotiation and just working with leaders which I think is a fascinating conversation and you've taught me a lot about that..."

"forces Hamas and their Iranian backers to stop hostilities to stop saber rattling to stop um misrepresenting uh the history uh in order to justify their violent behavior and if they say instead we wan..."

"that that's true for all of us not just leaders but you know we saw with uh with 911 how America was caught off guard uh by terrorist attack we acted um you know somewhat rationally somewhat emotional..."

"will say this too that this has been different than what I've seen in the past and that the uh the the attacks were so um heinous and so um so disgusting that I've seen the International Community ral..."

"in that seat I think he's um he's ambitious in what he's going to look to achieve um he understands his role in history as somebody who's helped strengthen Israel economically militarily and I don't t..."

"how people have fought for their country and their beliefs in a democratic way you compare that to the Palestinians where there's no democracy there's no free speech there's no Free Press um you know ..."

"for countries let me switch gears here and just uh zoom out and look at our society and our public discourse at the moment what do you make of the scale and nature of the Palestinian support online in..."

"leadership in Gaza do and they respect that there's a real fear that Israel has and any country would have of having a group of terrorists next to them them that's calling for their destruction I thin..."

"people pragmatic question about the future do you hope Donald Trump wins in 2024 and how can his administration help bring peace to the Middle East I think when Donald Trump was President we had a pea..."

"you have young leadership now in Saudi Arabia and UAE and Qatar and there's a much more ambitious agenda now for the region to make it an economic superpower and hub of the world Israel is one of the ..."

"current crisis that the important objectives are achieved of eliminating the terrorists and their threats and then allowing the leaders who are focused on giving their citizens and and their neighbors..."

"be so as you've said youve traveled all across the world do you think most people are good most people have love in their heart I do believe that yeah and you have some bad people I mean you have some..."

"help people get to a better place and so you know my wife and I we've always tried to be a force for good we've always tried to be um you know we've always tried to provide a place where people can di..."

"only do that by by listening to people and and connecting with each with people and by respecting people and finally I'll just say on this is that you know I I meet people all the time who have so muc..."

"possible well Jared thank you for uh your compassion first of all but also your wisdom today on this very difficult this tragic set of uh events these difficult days for the world um it's a big honor ..."

"segment of the conversation that addresses the current situation in Israel and Gaza and now we go on to the second part of the conversation recorded on Thursday October 5th given your experience in ne..."

"motivating the other party to get to the outcome and making them feel like you weren't going to use whatever information they gave you to benefit yourself at the expense of them is probably what I wou..."

"objective and so um in areas where we had stronger power dynamics I'd always look at it and say what are the potential Escape Routes where a politician would say this is just the reason why we can't g..."

"States of America and we were able to form good trust with the other side and try to say how do we create win-win outcomes and ultimately we're able to do something in a record time that people though..."

"go after the hard ones too and I'll say one final thing on this which is that in politics the incentive structure is just much different than in the real world right in the sense that you have a hard ..."

"way I think I think there's something in in the human Spirit like in the public that desires politicians to take big take on the big bold problems right like why why is it the politicians need to be s..."

"always very challenging and especially when you're going against the grain of what's established right we did something different to think that an old business contact that I had could then do it I me..."

"very quickly Emoji there's some people who go the hugging whatever that where you're like do the hugging thing anyway uh this conversation quickly turn to the ridiculous but to do another book referen..."

"miscommunication that brought about the symbolic visit of Anar sedat to Israel and that was one of these Notions that just made everyone think that something was possible that they thought was impossi..."

"to sadad that visit was very critical and what was interesting was is according to this book it happened because of a miscommunication that was the first part the second part of the book that's just a..."

"diplomacy words without actions or without the threat of actions and that was something that President Trump did very well was that people knew that he was willing to take take action he was very unpr..."

"the second one is just you know we spoke about negotiation earlier I would say that most people in government it's just a different form of negotiation than you see in the private sector um and way le..."

"talking about how government regulation uh often was put in place to deal with old crises right so it was never going to solve future problems it was more to kind of create to solve for problems that ..."

"they say these regulations are intended to be the result often becomes the opposite and so you know what what president Trump did and his administration was they did a massive deregulatory effort and ..."

"to be true was that after president Trump uh won the election 2016 instead of the media saying we were wrong because again everyone thought he had zero chance of of winning they said okay well we coul..."

"years then as a result you had a special counsel you had a a house investigation a senate investigation and I personally spent about I think over 20 hours uh just you know testifying before uh these d..."

"accused of a lot of things there were times in Washington I was radioactive I remember one weekend um you know it was all over CNN you know the people they panels on CNN like the news organization tha..."

"experience um I would say number one is I I felt very confident that I hadn't done anything wrong so you know I'd always tell my lawyer like you know the good news is I've got a good fact problem righ..."

"just the lack of self-awareness and and reflection of a lot of the people who hyped this up for for two years they don't think there was anything wrong with it and and that's uh interesting but you kn..."

"take big risks I didn't have a choice what do you mean I mean I could have spent every day feeling sorry for myself or complaining or saying things aren't fair but the the general way I I looked at it..."

"work through it and like I said I was very lucky to have you know support from my wife and from my family and from good friends again I I think i' I'd chosen very good friends in life and my friends w..."

"very important uh but then there's also a lot that I've learned from her uh always um you know getting me to to read different books or or learn different things which I love but uh she's also I think..."

"I I respect her tremendously yeah she walks to the fire with Grace I would say and she's recommended a bunch of amazing books to me and she's she has an an incredible a fascinating mind so uh but one ..."

"represents something I'm not sure what that is but it's like a real beautiful experience and the food itself too oh always fresh yeah the thing with Diner there's so much to love about it and I grew u..."

"your father if we could just return there uh even just the personal story of uh your father of that you write about that of the Betrayal that happened in his life and then how he responded to that bet..."

"could be angry at uh my father's brother I could be angry at my father's lawyers I could be angry at my father for for making this mistake and then I kind of said that's not going to change anything a..."

"years it was uh every day was painful I mean I was dealing with banks I was dealing the company was still at subpoenas I was still in law school I I tell my father I wanted to drop out of law school a..."

"the world and you see that you know in life everything could get taken from you your status your money your friends I saw that certain people were uh very disloyal to my father at the time who he thou..."

"close and he didn't say a word for the whole time and I think he was processing um number one what was happening to him and I I couldn't even imagine but I actually think the bigger pain for him becau..."

"humble person he's a very moral person um you know for me with my humility my my brother and I joke that we give our credit for being humble number one to being Mets fans because uh every year you hav..."

"of the in and I think during that time my father was just realizing that maybe he had gotten disconnected from the the grounding and the values and and again I think he also accepted maybe he could ha..."

"moments your father was betrayed perhaps over money by siblings um is there some deeper wisdom you can draw from that have have you seen money or perhaps power cloud people's judgment oh 100 100% 100%..."

"leaders having good friends I mean I'm still friends with a lot of the people I interacted with when I was in government and you know the number one thing I try to be to to them is just a good friend ..."

"them go job training uh a lot of people you know leave they have addiction issues um and they can't find housing and so you know people leave prison with a criminal record and they're less likely to g..."

"that was the first part of it the second thing we did was there was a rule pass in the 90s that basically penalized uh crack cocaine at 100 times the penalty of what uh regular cocaine was and I think..."

"the reason why that was great was because it didn't have a lot of support uh from the Republican caucus originally and people thought there was no way it would happen so I really was able to be the ch..."

"congress isn't what it used to be uh things are broken today I don't think that's true I think you know going through the process I think that our Founders were were totally genius in the way that the..."

"friends lifelong friends through my time in Washington but the way I I I think about it from politics and I think in geopolitics as well is I would say that politicians really don't have friends polit..."

"I guess the answer is yes it it it is it is possible you have to be careful because there are a lot of Mercurial people there I always say the politicians are like Gladiators um I didn't have as much ..."

"guess people like power and I just feel like to be a good politician you should be willing like good meaning good for Humanity be willing to let go of power you know try to do the right thing if there..."

"and also how history remembers you I just feel like people do some dark stuff when they're like in that moment when they're losing power and they try to hold on a little too hard MH this is when this ..."

"hard I agree with you I just would love to fix the aspect of the the Russia collusion accusation the virality the power of that that's a really discouraging thing for for people maybe it's the way it ..."

"years of trump I think that you know he was an outsider and you know he represented something that was existential for this to the system right you think about for the 30 years before you were either ..."

"more transparency into what truth really is I'd love to go back and talk to you about the Middle East because there's so many interesting components to this let's talk about Saudi Arabia and first let..."

"understanding of of of the tribal nature of the region and um you know his father was actually known to be a tremendous politician so when he was governor of Riad people who I speak to today about him..."

"way I I got to work with him was um Saudi Arabia was a big uh Topic in the campaign president Trump was basically saying during the campaign that you know we're gonna you know they've got to pay for t..."

"had to really combat the extremism and the ideological battle what we realized was that Saudi Arabia is the custodian of the two holiest sites in Islam the um Mecca Med uh that that would be the best ..."

"get back to my office after that have an email from him spoke to him for the first time and then we just went to work and you know a lot of people were betting against that trip they thought it wasn't..."

"let me go through with it but when I do the planning meetings for the trip nobody would show up because they all thought it was going to be an absolute disaster and by the way they probably weren't wr..."

"so you know it's funny we were talking before about how you know we wish leaders would set big audacious goals and take on big things well that's what he did with vision 2030 you know when he was youn..."

"things he told me about putting that together was he said you know my father's generation they created this country from almost nothing they came here they were a poor country they were BNS in the des..."

"Middle East for the last 20 years has been a sinkhole for for for for arms for death uh for terrorism it's been you know awful it's been a big national security threat for America a big uh place where..."

"positive influence in the world so a difficult question uh one big source of tension between the United States and Saudi is the case of Jamal kogi I wondering if you can comment on what NBS has said a..."

"continue to be a better Ally to all the different countries that wanted to be aligned with them one thing I learned from this case is how one particular situation a tragedy can destroy so much progres..."

"don't know if you have kind of lessons from that just how much of a dramatic impact it had on creating tension between the United States and Saudi and in general in the Middle East like the that someh..."

"life and so when things like this happen obviously you know there are certain reactions that are appropriate um but ultimately you have to think through how do you not allow the Paradigm that you're c..."

"be so prevalent so one thing I'll say on the Palestinians is that you know what we tried to do by laying outed plan was we said okay um what are the reasons why the Palestinian people are not having t..."

"of things to say here one is just to emphasize uh alaa mque says this this holy place and this is something in our conversations and in my own travels I've seen the importance of sort of frictionless ..."

"incredibly corrupt organization unra you think about the postor War II Dynamic you had a lot of refugees my grandparents were refugees post World War II every other Refugee class has been resettled an..."

"unfortunately the people who suffer the most are really are just the Palestinian people and I think that you know in Gaza they're hostages to uh to Hamas and and in the West Bank they're just they're ..."

"a better life and there is a big foundation on which that framework can succeed which I think um is the in general the idea of uh Arab Israeli normal ation so that's where Abraham McCords come in can ..."

"also step back and say what is Arab Israeli normalization sure what is the state of things for people who may not be aware before the progress he made that's probably the best place to start so uh wha..."

"in peace so just to Ling on this it's it's like once subtle and uh in another sense like transformative so normalization means you're allowed to travel for one place to the other that has a kind of ri..."

"from uh from post Holocaust to now again in 1948 after uh the that war of independence you had Jews living in Baghdad and Cairo uh then they became so anti- Jewish that they then expelled all of the J..."

"cross America and what I would tell people who don't like Trump is I would say think about how crazy he's making you and and his enemies you know he did that to the enemies of America and um and yeah ..."

"like you said no new Wars this makes me think if uh Donald Trump won the presidency what the the current situation in Ukraine would look like but let me just ask you zoom out and ask you broadly um do..."

"in Ukraine today coming to the table and negoti ating a piece whether it's Donald Trump whether it's Biden whether it's anybody what do you think it takes uh do you think it's possible uh and if you'r..."

"just going back to the your earlier mention of North Korea what do you think it takes to bring Vladimir Putin and Vladimir zalinsky to the table together leadership so you you you're saying like it ha..."

"situation let me ask since you helped set up phone calls between Donald Trump Putin and uh king of Saudi Arabia if I were to interview Putin what advice would you give on how to get a deep understandi..."

"cut in the history of of oil production so during coid demand just shut off like crazy and it was it was stopping very quickly uh Saudi and Russia at that time were having conflict they created this t..."

"I I loved every minute of it the chapter on America is also incredible going through the evolution of you know how we became the country we are the different Acquisitions the different changes why we ..."

"that hadn't um even been thought could happen so we did the first round of tariffs then uh you know the Chinese came back and retaliated very surgically trying to hit us in all the areas that politica..."

"China and you said it was instructive to how you thought how Donald Trump thought about China uh can you describe the main thesis of the book and maybe with a hopeful view how it's possible to have a ..."

"really after all these uh treaties were really a second class country and so then you have the people's Revolution that comes in and he talks about how China very strategically as a very very poor cou..."

"daughter um but the notion was is that they were playing a very Zero Sum game and really going to be the dominant leader in this new world order so um so that really framed the perspective and it wasn..."

"really what we were trying to do we were trying to kind of get rid of some of their sted subsidies get rid of make them follow some of these International rules of trade and um and not allowing them t..."

"you speak so there's a lot of questions I can ask about that but one of them is can you introspect why you choose this lowkey approach uh of kind of operating behind the scenes and not speaking much t..."

"getting things done uh so let me let me ask you you have a very interesting life uh if you were to give advice to Young Folks on how to have such an impactful life what would you say career and life h..."

"of this that you've taken on and were extremely effective that it really started with just talking to people um I would I would try to reach out to people who had been involved in different things and..."

"East and I was shocked because I mean first of all he was you know at the time I think some one of the most respected leaders in the region somebody who I found to be very wise and super thoughtful an..."

"to be our best way to work through the issues that we have currently when you zoom out and look at the 21st century from a human history perspective across a time scale of many decades maybe centuries..."