Susan Rice in 2020 Vice Presidential prospects
On Abortion:
Disagrees with son: she's pro-choice, he's pro-life
On abortion: "We agree, for example, on the importance of the United States playing a responsible, principled leadership role in the world," she said of her son. "We agree on the importance of having strong alliances. We agree we have to be cleareyed
and strong in dealing with adversaries like Russia and the threat that China may pose. We disagree on things like choice. I'm pro-choice. He's pro-life. That's the kind of difference that we ought to be able to respect."
Source: NPR news website on 2020 Veepstakes
Aug 4, 2020
On Principles & Values:
Against divisiveness; Americans sink or swim together
"One of the critical reasons why we are in such a difficult spot, whether with respect to the pandemic or economy, national cohesion, racial justice issues is because we are now burdened with leadership in the White House
that thrives on dividing us and pitting Americans against each other," she said. "We absolutely have to move past that to a point of a recognition that we are all in this boat together, we sink or swim together."
Source: NPR news website on 2020 Veepstakes
Aug 4, 2020
On Civil Rights:
Confident black women inadvertently intimidate certain men
Some of Rice's defenders say criticism of her no-nonsense manner smacks of sexism. In her book, Rice writes about the challenges of pushing her way upward in a man's world of high-level policymaking: "The combination--being a confident black woman who
is not seeking permission or affirmation from others--I suspect accounts for why I inadvertently intimidate some people, especially certain men, and perhaps also why I have long inspired motivated detractors who simply can't deal with me."
Source: Foreign Policy magazine on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 29, 2020
On Civil Rights:
Senate blocked police reforms & new Voting Rights Act
Congress has yet again missed the moment. The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would institute carefully calibrated reforms, but it was blocked in the Republican-controlled Senate. After failure to
pass a pale substitute for the House bill, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, seems eager to move on. He refuses to allow Senate consideration of a new Voting Rights Act or of funding to ensure safe voting during a raging pandemic.
Source: New York Times on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 29, 2020
On Education:
Free public college for families earning under $125,000/year
In education we should invest in the full spectrum of learning -- starting with universal prekindergarten, competitive teacher salaries and reliable broadband in both rural and urban digital deserts. To expand access to postsecondary education,
it's time to provide no-debt access to community colleges, scale up apprenticeships and Pell Grants, and make tuition free at public universities for all families earning under $125,000 annually.
Source: New York Times on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 29, 2020
On Homeland Security:
Prepared "pandemic for dummies" playbook for successors
Former Obama national security adviser @AmbassadorRice to @TheView: "We prepared the [Trump] administration with a pandemic for dummies playbook.
So the fault here, the tragic loss of 150,000 Americans and counting [to the coronavirus pandemic as of July 2020], is on Donald Trump and his gross mishandling of this pandemic."
Source: Twitter posting @AmbassadorRice on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 29, 2020
On War & Peace:
Withdrawal of troops from Germany is special gift to Putin
A special gift to Putin and a blow to NATO: @realDonaldTrump is not playing on America's team.
US to withdraw nearly 12,000 troops from Germany in move that will cost billions and take years - CNNPolitics
Source: Twitter posting @AmbassadorRice on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 29, 2020
On Welfare & Poverty:
1994: Regrets no U.S. intervention in Rwandan genocide
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Rice was the NSC director for international organizations and peacekeeping under National Security Advisor Anthony Lake in the Bill Clinton administration. Both Lake and Rice later expressed regret about failing to
advocate U.S. intervention, and Clinton himself called it one of the biggest mistakes of his presidency."Everyone who lived through that feels profoundly remorseful and bothered by it," Rice told me in an interview in
2008, though she said she was too "junior" at the time to have affected decision-making very much.
Even so, Rice later came under criticism for her relationship with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who was supplying
and financing a brutal Congolese rebel force known as the March 23 (M23) Movement. While Rice did criticize M23, she avoided linking the group to Rwanda and Kagame.
Source: Foreign Policy magazine on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 29, 2020
On Homeland Security:
Russia may have helped stir up violent protests
Rice has blamed the violent protests that rocked major American cities on "foreign actors," and even suggested that Russia could be involved in stirring them up. "I'm not reading the intelligence today, or these days -- but based on my experience,
this is right out of the Russian playbook," Rice said. "But we cannot allow the extremists, the foreign actors, to distract from the real problems we have in this country that are longstanding, centuries old, and need to be addressed responsibly."
Source: National Review on 2020 Veepstakes
Jul 28, 2020
On Principles & Values:
Trump has displayed utter lack of leadership, incompetence
She continued, "He has demonstrated utter lack of leadership, utter incompetence. And he's been profoundly dishonest about the nature of the threat to the American people by downplaying it, by dismissing it, by you know comparing it to the flu and
having his senior officials do the same, having Fox News do the same. He has misled the American people to such an extent that lives have been lost in the process."
Source: Breitbart.com blog on 2020 Veepstakes
Apr 6, 2020
On Foreign Policy:
Worked to bring allies together to address challenges
Q: What is the Obama foreign policy legacy?RICE: I think we effectively leveraged our alliances and partnerships to address key concerns. Whether it was working to negotiate the Paris Climate Agreement, or the Iran nuclear agreement, or the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the coalition to fight ISIS, or to fight the Ebola epidemic. We effectively brought allies and partners together to address those complex challenges and did so even as we had to confront many of them simultaneously.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Free Trade:
Deal with challenge from China in lockstep with allies
I think that we face a significant and urgent challenge from China, particularly in the economic realm and with respect to technology. China is poised, through its capacity and its policies, to be a major economic threat. I think we're dealing with it
almost altogether wrong. To me, for the United States to be maximally effective in pressing our economic agenda with China, we ought to be doing it in lockstep with our allies and partners--the Europeans, others in Asia, Canada.
China is becoming more and more aggressive and assertive in this whole realm in trying to shut down anything that they don't like with respect to speech and democratization, human rights. They are being extremely extraterritorial about it.
And they are going to punish people. My view is that the companies that are going to succeed--if they are American-based companies or originally American companies--are the ones that aren't going to take that crap, that aren't going to be intimidated.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Health Care:
Ebola crisis: would have resigned if Obama closed the border
This was in 2014, when we were wrestling with the Ebola epidemic. Lawmakers here were freaking out and demanding the closure of the border. One of the proposals on the table wasy to restrict the ability of anybody who had traveled to the three affected
countries to come to the United States. It would have meant that all legitimate travel from that region would have been cut off, which would have been the economic death knell for the countries of
West Africa, plus it would have grossly stigmatized West Africans here in the United States. I said to myself at that moment, if he were to make the wrong decision, this would be a point where I would have to part company.
He did not make the wrong decision. As usual, he applied reason and science and resisted the political pressure. But it was for me a brief white-knuckle moment.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Learned if you're knocked down, how to get back up
I'm the descendent of slaves from South Carolina on the one hand, and of immigrants from Jamaica who moved to Portland, Maine on the other hand. Both sides of my family prioritized education, and prioritized service, and worked to bring each subsequent
generation a little bit higher. I learned a fair bit from my experiences being part of that family. If they've been knocked down, as I have on a couple of occasions, then to know how to get back up.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Give your honest and best advice to whom you're serving
You shouldn't be serving if you're not willing to give your honest and best advice. You probably shouldn't be serving if he or she doesn't want your honest and best advice. I've been privileged to serve secretaries of state in the younger part of my
career and presidents who I think genuinely wanted and expected the best unvarnished advice from their advisors. At the end of the day they'd take their own counsel, make their own decision, and in my experience own their decisions.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On War & Peace:
Fell short in Libya by failing to be engaged in aftermath
Where we fell short in Libya is that the United States working with NATO, working with Arab countries, working with the U.N., did not have sufficient focus and sustained involvement in the follow up in trying to see if we could enable the--or support
the Libyans in building a unitary country. It had never been anything but a one-man show. It didn't have the institutions of state. My critique of what we did on Libya is that we failed to be as engaged as we could have been in the aftermath.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On War & Peace:
Humanitarian crisis: sometimes intervene, sometimes not
What do you do in a humanitarian crisis? Humanitarian purposes can range from combating disease to intervening to try to topple a dictator or proximate threats to civilians. I think the answer in that case is each circumstance is different. Even though
I'd like to be able to think that we have the capacity to act in a manner consistent with our values and principles and save human lives where we can, my conclusion is sometimes we can, at an acceptable risk and cost, and sometimes we can't.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
Page last updated: Nov 01, 2021