Interview

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, this journey, this part of your life, is coming to an end. You’ve traveled more than any other secretary of state. You have spent considerable time and hours on a lot of issues, from China to Russia to – from Asia to Latin America. But principally, you spent a lot of time on Israel and Palestine and you spent a lot of time on the Iran nuclear deal and you’ve spent a lot of time on Syria and how many hours you had negotiated with Sergei Lavrov.

Let me talk about Iran first.

SECRETARY KERRY: Sure.

QUESTION: How do you view that now? Is that the primary legacy for John Kerry?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I don’t think there’s any one thing, if I could say, respectfully, that is – that is the legacy. I think the – I think the legacy is several-fold. I think it is – I mean, to the degree there is a legacy.

But these four years have been defined by a world around us that is going through massive transformation. Some people confuse that transformation with sins of omission or commission by an administration, but in fact there are forces that are at play that we can’t necessarily stop or shift direction of – we have to manage. And I’m speaking specifically of something like the Arab Spring, for instance. We couldn’t have stopped the Arab Spring. We couldn’t keep the lid on that. Nobody could. That happened. And it happened because of a combination of new communications, aspiration, modernity, the tensions that had been created because of the invasion of Iraq, which had left Shia and Sunni with a new definition and contest; it happened because of aspirations of young people, above all, because of bad governance, failing states. So there are many forces that are unleashed right now and are driving --

QUESTION: And social media contributed.

SECRETARY KERRY: Beg your pardon?

QUESTION: And the social media contributed to the acceleration of it.

SECRETARY KERRY: And social media contributes significantly to that. Of course it does. And so the task for any administration is to tame the worst manifestations of these forces to try to put together a strategy for how the United States can, in fact, advance its values and protect its interests in the mix of that transformation.

Now, I believe we’ve done a pretty darn good job of managing more of these crises that have come simultaneously than at any time in recent memory. And I mean, if you look – I mean, I have said to many people and I will stand by this, and it’s completely legitimate – that the United States of America in the last four years has been more engaged more proactively in more places with more crises of different kinds and with positive impact than at any time in American history.

And you can look in Africa, where we’re on the cusp of a generation being born – of kids – free from AIDS, where we stopped Ebola, without the million people dying that they predicted; or the South China Sea, where we asserted the rights of navigation; or Ukraine, where we stood up against Russia’s incursion and put sanctions in place and held Europe together; or Iran, where we got an agreement to get a country we hadn’t talked to in 35 years to stop its nuclear weaponry program and to – assuming that that’s, in fact, where they were going – and join the international community under the IAEA to live up to standards.

We had a trifecta with respect to the environment – unprecedented. If we’d just done the Paris Agreement, that would be a huge deal. And we sent a signal to the global marketplace about clean energy and alternative renewable energy. But we didn’t just do that. We got the airline industry together, which altogether is the size of the 12th largest emitter in the world, and we have them reducing their emissions under a new agreement, under ICAO. We got the – about 200 nations came together in Kigali, in Rwanda, and there we managed to phase out refrigerants which are a thousand times more potent than carbon dioxide and which could, in and of itself, save the planet a half a degree centigrade of warming.

So I mean – and I’m just starting to describe the things. I mean, in Afghanistan, we held the government together that was in – threatened to implode completely with the Afghan effort completely shredded as a result because of a bad election. So we put a unity government together and we’ve kept that.

So I can go from place to place, Charlie, where I think the United States has offered leadership, and it contradicts completely this notion of retreat or retrenchment, that the United States is somehow pulling back, which is a false narrative that has been advanced by people with different interests.

QUESTION: Well, let me come to that very point too. Do you believe that because of the events of the last several years that there is a new world order emerging? You have a China that’s more aggressive. You have a Russia that’s more aggressive. You have a Europe that’s in the process of a populist revolt --

SECRETARY KERRY: Here’s what --

QUESTION: -- because of migration. You have terrorism as a fact throughout Europe and around the world. How do you see where the world order is? And to come back to the accomplishments, if you please.

SECRETARY KERRY: Clearly, there are strains because of this transformation that I’ve referred – talked about. Now, for many, many years, the United States and Americans have been able to, at times, win even when we made bad decisions because we were really the only power standing for a long period of time after World War II. As the order emerged and as we had Bretton Woods and as we created the UN, all these things emerged, which is the order as we have referred to it, and NATO, and so forth.

The United States has been critical to the development of all of these structures, but increasingly other countries are more powerful inherently.

QUESTION: And want to participate.

SECRETARY KERRY: And they want to participate and they don’t want to simply sit there and take orders from us or simply be passive about the choices that we are making in the context of those institutions.

So China, 1.3 billion people, second largest economy in the world, which will be automatically the largest economy in the world at some point in time, wants to play differently. They want to be more determinative of their future and protect their interests. Likewise, other countries. Russia – if you have a leader of a country like Russia that – whose leader says the most tragic moment of the 20th century was the fall of the Soviet Union, you can have a sense of where that person is coming from as he moves in response to things that the United States (inaudible).

QUESTION: He wants to restore Russia’s influence.

SECRETARY KERRY: Wants to – wants to restore a level of respect and acceptance, and perhaps even more than that with respect to --

QUESTION: And did we give him that? We want to respect you and we want to give you a level of acceptance. After all, you have the world’s largest collection of nuclear weapons.

SECRETARY KERRY: I think it’s important and it’s clear from the diplomacy that I pursued – I think it’s very important to talk to Russia, and I think people need to take note of a certain reality. Russia, when brought into the process and respected in the conversation and dealt with, actually produced. And we were able to cooperate even as we know that they have a different attitude about certain things. They have a different worldview. They have a different outlook. And we’re not going to be easily walking hand-in-hand in some Kumbaya fashion down a road that brings us together because of the differences of that worldview and other interests.

Russia doesn’t like NATO. Russia doesn’t like the expansion of NATO. Russia doesn’t like the ballistic missile defense. Russia doesn’t like what we did in Libya, where they believe that we reached beyond the UN resolution. Russia doesn’t like color revolutions. They don’t like what happened with Yushchenko in Ukraine. I mean, there are a bunch of things that they react to.

And so we’re going to have to work through those kinds of things in the relationship. But look, when we had to get chemical weapons out of Syria, Russia was the cooperating party that helped to make that happen, and without them it probably wouldn’t have happened.

QUESTION: But as soon as you say that, I mean, you have been in a – what had been a unsuccessful effort to get them to help form a transition government. You have given I don’t know how many days and how many hours and how many seconds trying to get them to help form a transition government so you can transition Assad out of power. And instead of doing that, what they have done is supported Assad on the ground, and he is now stronger than he’d been in a very long time.

SECRETARY KERRY: He is stronger than he has been, Charlie.

QUESTION: Because of their support --

SECRETARY KERRY: Because of their support --

QUESTION: -- and because you couldn’t get them to --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, no, that’s not completely the way it played out. There are a number of reasons why the ceasefire didn’t work, and there are a number of reasons why we weren’t able to move to the Geneva thing at this point in time. One of the reasons was our own internal division here in the United States of America, where we had some folks who simply didn’t want to talk to Russia, didn’t want to deal with Russia, thought it was wrong to have any kind of engagement with Russia, and put their distrust of Russia ahead of any effort to try to find a way to the table.

Now, the fact is this – hard, simple, real fact: There will be no political solution whatsoever to the crisis of Syria without dealing with Russia.

QUESTION: Yeah, but at the same --

SECRETARY KERRY: And – let me just finish real quick.

And the fact is that what we’ve succeeded in laying out in the course of the International Syria Support Group meetings and the UN resolution is the outline of how that political solution is going to look and how it’s going to come about. Now, I guarantee you there will be ultimately some kind of negotiation, because there has to be, and it will follow the framework of what we laid down. I’m confident of that.

So while we didn’t get there yet, none of that diplomacy was wasted. None of that time to have a ceasefire, which we had several times for a period of time, was wasted because it saved some lives. It got some humanitarian assistance in and it has established a framework which ultimately will work.

Now, the Russians made a decision that because of our own challenges here, we weren’t able to deliver the separation of Nusrah. Remember, one of the deals was we were going to separate Nusrah,

QUESTION: Right.

SECRETARY KERRY: But we didn’t separate Nusrah. It couldn’t be done. It wasn’t able to be done under the circumstances. So I think that --

QUESTION: Separate them and bring them into some kind of --

SECRETARY KERRY: No, separate them out because they are al-Qaida and there’s no dealing with them. They represent al-Qaida. But unfortunately, the opposition that we were supporting got enmeshed with them, and it was very hard to distinguish who was who, which gave --

QUESTION: And they ended up with American supplies, it was argued.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yes, in some measure, in some places. But also because it allowed Assad to continually bomb people and fight, pretending he was simply going after al-Qaida when, in fact, he was actually going after the opposition and never really went after ISIL or Daesh.

So this is more complicated than meets the eye, and meanwhile you have a major amount of proxy pressure being put on people. For instance, Turkey had proxy interests. You had Saudi Arabia. You had the Qataris and so forth. And those proxy efforts complicated what people were willing to do and what you could actually hold accountable.

QUESTION: Two things about this very point. You said there were divisions in America. It is said that there were divisions within the Administration, that the Secretary of State – you – wanted to do more on the ground to give you more leverage, and you could not bring the President to that point, and therefore you had less leverage to deal with Russians and to deliver than you wanted.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well --

QUESTION: Speak to that because it is history.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, it is history, Charlie, but it’s – the Administration has another few days and I’m still here and I’m not going to be going backwards yet. I’m really not in that regard. It’s no secret that there were many debates within the Administration and there were different concepts of how to try to deal with it.

QUESTION: But you supported the 51 diplomats --

SECRETARY KERRY: But you do --

QUESTION: -- who said you can’t negotiate without a --

SECRETARY KERRY: You need --

QUESTION: -- equivalent force on the ground.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, you need to have some leverage in order to negotiate.

QUESTION: Right, and you didn’t have it.

SECRETARY KERRY: It’s very difficult to negotiate when you’re not – where the other side doesn’t feel compelled to be accountable or to do certain things. But that’s neither here nor there now. The point – the important thing – is that while Syria has been frustrating for everybody, including President Obama, the fact is that we’ve, I think, managed to marshal a major initiative within the region that has strengthened our allies in the region, partly in response to the Iran nuclear agreement but beyond that, because there are legitimate threats.

QUESTION: You mean – you mean Israel? Do you mean the Sunni --

SECRETARY KERRY: Listen, Israel --

QUESTION: -- the Arab states? Who do you mean, our allies?

SECRETARY KERRY: Everybody. I mean Israel. I mean the UAE, the Saudis.

QUESTION: The Sunni Arabs.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yes, very much so. And we had a major summit at Camp David where they all came in. We strengthened the military support structure, the training, the flow of weaponry that they felt they needed. We have enforced measures against Iran that fell outside of the Iran nuclear agreement but which regarded UN resolutions on arms trafficking, on state sponsorship of terrorism, and so forth.

So I think we’ve managed to make it clear that the United States has been solidly engaged. Look, we put together a 68 coalition – country effort to defeat Daesh. How can people suggest that we are retreating when ISIL is moving across Iraq threatening Baghdad, black flags flying, Toyotas all around, people being beheaded, and the President of the United States immediately moved to put our aircraft in the sky and begin to take them on, begin to retrain the army, rebuild the army? And now we have liberated 65 percent of Iraq that was taken over by Daesh, 35 to 40 percent of Syria, and we are beginning to surround al-Raqqa, we are in the liberation of Mosul, and I am telling you without any question in my mind Daesh/ISIL is going to be defeated sometime in the course of this next year, and I --

QUESTION: In the next year, ISIL will be defeated --

SECRETARY KERRY: Sometime – next year, the year after --

QUESTION: -- because Mosul will have been conquered and Raqqa probably will be conquered?

SECRETARY KERRY: Over the course --

QUESTION: And driving them out of those two power centers.

SECRETARY KERRY: I absolutely – well, it’s more than that. Just driving them out of those power centers is not going to fully deal with the problem. Now, it could go into the next year. I’m not going to get precise about the year, but it’s within a measurable period of time that is – that I am confident we are going to be able to liberate the rest of those areas.

QUESTION: But in just the way that ISIL, which came out of al-Qaida, the al-Qaida in Iraq, won’t there be some other terrorist organization --

SECRETARY KERRY: There will be --

QUESTION: -- that will be worse than they are that will follow ISIL? I mean, where are we in the long struggle against terrorism?

SECRETARY KERRY: We’re at the beginning of that struggle, which is going to go on for some period of time. I said today at the United States Naval Academy that I think it’s a generational challenge. And it’s a big challenge. There’s Boko Haram. There is al-Shabaab. There is Lashkar e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. I mean, you can run the list of these people --

QUESTION: From Africa to Indonesia to --

SECRETARY KERRY: -- from South Central Asia – yes, indeed. And so where I think we need to go, where I think the world has got to put more energy and effort, is into a – call it – I mean, it’s not the best name in the world, but it’s legit because people can imagine immediately what it is – we need a new Marshall Plan. We need a greater engagement not just by the United States but by all the developed and near-developed world, need to come together more effectively to deal with this astounding youth bulge in many parts of the most difficult parts of the world, where you have young people who in many places they’re not going to go to school, they don’t have opportunity; and if all that we do – all of us collectively – is to leave them to the devices of radical religious extremists who grab those young minds, everybody is going to have a problem going forward. So in terms of foreign policy, it is a mistake for somebody to say we’re not going to deal with over there.

QUESTION: But you can’t --

SECRETARY KERRY: There is no “over there” anymore. Everywhere is in the same place.

QUESTION: But you can’t deny, I don’t think, that – because you’ve heard these retorts – that after – that after the so-called red line was crossed and there was not an American reaction, although you will say the reaction was to get the chemical weapons out, others expected more and were prepared for more, and I think so were you.

Secondly --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well --

QUESTION: We can talk about that specifically, but let me make the other point. And after what happened to Assad – I mean happened to Mubarak, many people believe that our allies had real questions about where the United States was and could they count on it, and the United States had to go to those nations and reassure them.

SECRETARY KERRY: Absolutely fair to say that some people drew a message from the departure of Mubarak and --

QUESTION: The red line.

SECRETARY KERRY: I’ll come to the red line. But on the Mubarak thing, that is, I think, erroneous because, in fact, Mubarak already by virtue of the decision of the Egyptian people coming out in the streets in the tens of millions, it was clear Mubarak wasn’t going to survive that. Egypt wasn’t going to. So President Obama simply made clear publicly what was already clear on the ground to anybody.

QUESTION: That he had to go?

SECRETARY KERRY: That he was gone, fundamentally. And that got hung on – somehow on the President, became this moment of doubt.

Now, to the red line with respect to Syria. The President of the United States Barak Obama never, ever retreated from his position that he was going to strike. He announced that he would strike, he announced we were going to take action, and he went to Congress to ask Congress for the permission to do that. He did that after David Cameron, the prime minister of Britain, had gone to parliament and been turned down. And I was on the telephone call with – I mean there were probably about a hundred congressman, I think some senators but definitely congressmen I remember, many of whom were saying, “You’ve got to come to us, you’ve got to come to us, we need to be part of this.”

So the President decided to go to Congress. Now, in the intervening time while Congress was deliberating – and by the way, Congress became far more difficult to persuade than anybody thought they would be. But while that happened, I was asked at a press conference in London, “Is there any way that Assad could avoid being bombed?” And I said declaratively, “Yes, he could get all the chemical weapons out of Syria.”

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called me within a couple of hours and said, “I heard what you said in London. We need to work on that.” And the fact is President Obama and President Putin had actually talked about it. We then went to work on it and within a matter of days we came to an agreement to get all of the chemical weapons out of Syria.

So we, in effect, Charlie, in reality, we achieved far more by having said we’re going to bomb, getting all the chemical weapons out, but people interpreted the President going to Congress as an avoidance of the bombing. And I will absolutely confirm to you right here, yes, it did hurt us. It took hold. Somehow there was this perception that the President had backed off, but he never --

QUESTION: Well, the perception is if you say there’s a red line, if you cross the red line and you say you’re going to attack if you cross a red line, and then you don’t --

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah. But what was --

QUESTION: -- even though --

SECRETARY KERRY: I understand that, Charlie.

QUESTION: -- even though you got the chemical weapons out.

SECRETARY KERRY: But what was – what was the reason for the red line?

QUESTION: To get the chemical weapons?

SECRETARY KERRY: The reason. No, no, not just that. It was to tell them don’t use these.

QUESTION: Right.

SECRETARY KERRY: And we’ve got to try to get – what was the best way for him not to use them? Take them away. So we actually accomplished the goal exponentially beyond what we would have by bombing. But I concede the fact of how it played out created this mythology and this perception that somehow the President wasn’t willing to do that.

QUESTION: Well --

SECRETARY KERRY: And I just don’t think it was real. But it did cost us. I know it cost us because I heard it and I felt it and I had to argue it with many, many people.

QUESTION: And you had to convince them it was not the reality, that you were not there to back them up and support them.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, that’s one of the reasons why we built up what we built up with Camp David, with the assurance program, with the training, the increased efforts on the ground. I mean, a lot was done in terms of reassurance.

QUESTION: Can I speak about this? I mean, as you remember, I was there talking to Assad like a week before that, and he said to me at that time that he would give up the chemical weapons if there was no strike because he thought it would be good to avoid war. And I remember you in London and looking at that and how timely it was.

There was also this in terms of history: the famous walk around the White House lawn with a man I interviewed yesterday, the chief of staff for the White House. It is said that the President came back from that walk and announced that he would not attack and that he did not --

SECRETARY KERRY: He never announced – I never heard an announcement he wouldn’t attack.

QUESTION: But in fact – in fact --

SECRETARY KERRY: He announced he was going to go to Congress --

QUESTION: But – but --

SECRETARY KERRY: -- to get the permission to attack.

QUESTION: There was nothing discussed and no decision made as a result of that walk? This is history. I’m asking you because you were there – without consulting with the Secretary of State, without consulting with the National Security Advisor, without consulting the Secretary of Defense.

SECRETARY KERRY: No, he took the walk, Charlie --

QUESTION: He took a walk, and that was a decisive moment in his own confirmation --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well --

QUESTION: -- of his own thinking.

SECRETARY KERRY: Did the chief of staff tell you the President made a decision not to strike, or did he tell you he made a decision to go to Congress? Because I got a phone call at 9:30 that night from the President of the United States saying, “Here’s my thinking.” We spent half an hour --

QUESTION: This was that night after --

SECRETARY KERRY: That was the night after the walk. And the President said to me, “I think we have to go to Congress to get permission.”

QUESTION: Right.

SECRETARY KERRY: He never said to me, “I’ve decided not to strike.” And he went to Congress to get permission to strike. In fact, the Foreign Relations Committee voted something like 13 to 7, I think, to do – to permit the strike. So we were still on a track to strike.

QUESTION: So the decision was not to go to Congress at that point.

SECRETARY KERRY: The decision was --

QUESTION: The decision was to get permission from Congress.

SECRETARY KERRY: Correct. That’s as I understood it anyway, and I don’t know anything different to this day.

QUESTION: Well, I assume you’re right. But much has been made of that walk, as you know.

SECRETARY KERRY: I know much has been made of the walk because it was a walk about whether he was going to strike on Saturday, literally, or whether we have to go to Congress. And one of the reasons why I think people felt compelled that the Congress then made sense was because David Cameron, our close ally, the British parliament refused him permission to strike. And so if this democracy and ally had been refused permission to join in this, would – was the President on weaker ground, therefore, to go ahead and strike notwithstanding? Or was it wiser to go to Congress in our democracy and get the affirmation of the American people?

QUESTION: There are people who say you did not – there were those who argue you did not have to go to Congress.

SECRETARY KERRY: Sure, we – it wasn’t a question, though. We weren’t arguing, Charlie, whether we had to go. We knew we could have – the President had the authority constitutionally to do the strike. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was should he go, was he wiser to get the permission and buy-in of the American people for use of force, and many Congress – members of Congress had argued that he ought to do that. I think that was the gravamen of the decision that he made.

Now, in the deliberations of the National Security Council, I will tell you – and I think it’s important to have this clear on the conversation – the vast majority of people there – and it may have been all but one person or two people – felt that Congress would absolutely give permission and do it pretty quickly. And it was with that in mind that the President made the decision to go. Turned out not to be something Congress was ready to do very quickly. And I think that added to this notion that that was the escape hatch, but it was not put forward in that fashion, to the best of my recollection – and it’s pretty good.

QUESTION: Two things about this: One, where is Syria today? And what would it have taken to have a better result?

SECRETARY KERRY: Syria is a colossal catastrophe and a horrendous humanitarian situation today. It pains me. I hate what I see. It’s painful to watch – children being bombed, whole historic communities being destroyed, the passions of revenge and hatred being stoked, and harder and harder and harder to put back together as a nation. I personally believe that if the Russians had felt some pressure or if Assad had felt some pressure, that we would have had a greater capacity to --

QUESTION: What kind of pressure?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, any kind of pressure. I mean, you can imagine – you run the gamut. I just think that what happened is the Russians wouldn’t put pressure on him. The Russians never held him completely accountable. Putin should have said to him, “You don’t go to the table and we don’t do X, Y, and Z, we’re out of here.” But there was a permissiveness to Assad’s actions which raised everybody’s hackles about Russia’s own approach to this.

QUESTION: Has Assad won?

SECRETARY KERRY: No, not at all.

QUESTION: Has he won temporarily?

SECRETARY KERRY: No. He’s in a stronger position. He’s in a dominant position today. But there is no victory without a political solution.

QUESTION: Is there any strong --

SECRETARY KERRY: There is no military solution to Syria, just isn’t. There will continue to be suicide bombings and car bombs and insurrection and low-grade insurgency for a long period of time if you don’t resolve the fundamental, underlying questions of the future of Syria.

QUESTION: Just for history and this conversation, are there things that the United States should have done, could have done that would have made a difference so that we don’t look at the situation we look at today – both in terms of the strength of Assad and the destruction of Syria and its people?

SECRETARY KERRY: Charlie, there’s a lot of viable debate about what should have or should not have been done.

QUESTION: And where was the Secretary of State on the debate?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I – it’s not the appropriate time for me to be talking about deliberations that are a part of history because this Administration is not yet history. So I’m not going to do that while I’m a sitting Secretary of State. Now, when I’m finished and I’m out, I will, to the best of my ability, analyze and talk about, from a policy point of view, how we might have made some things different or done something better or what the options were. But I think that it just doesn’t serve a purpose.

QUESTION: Okay. But was it a failure not to do them?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, that’s the judgment people are going to have to make.

QUESTION: Well, what’s your judgment?

SECRETARY KERRY: There’s plenty of debate. I think there’s a fair debate about whether or not certain things should have been done or not done, and we had that debate. I was part of that debate.

QUESTION: Because your friends tell me – your friends tell me you’ve anguished over this more. I mean, the President has said --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I --

QUESTION: -- there’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t think about it. The Secretary – I mean the chief of staff says there’s not a day that I don’t think about it. But I mean, you have had – your anger --

SECRETARY KERRY: But that’s the intensity of the debate.

QUESTION: Your anger at the Soviet – at the Russians is palpable. You say it in words.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, because I think the Russians have engaged in a use of weaponry and a sort of blind support of a despot that is ugly. And I think it’s a stain on --

QUESTION: Shameful?

SECRETARY KERRY: -- the public’s conscience. I think it’s – yeah, in instances, of course. I mean, if they know Assad is using gas --

QUESTION: And we were --

SECRETARY KERRY: -- and nevertheless they’ve sort of turned their back on those reports and they go to the UN and they try to stop the UN from dealing with a resolution on use of gas, or they turn a blind eye to his ability to drop barrel bombs on children and torture people and so forth, yeah. But we have to deal with what we have to deal with. In diplomacy, you don’t have the luxury of just sitting there and moralizing. You have to find practical ways of trying to get some things done so that you can move the diplomatic ball forward.

QUESTION: Is it the most disappointing aspect of your Secretary of State-ship, Syria, because it is so visible as --

SECRETARY KERRY: I think Syria writ large --

QUESTION: -- an act of inhumanity and the destruction of a civilization?

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, but I don’t view it as --

QUESTION: And it’s over.

SECRETARY KERRY: But let me be clear: I don’t view it as sort of our failure. I think it’s a collective failure. I view it as a failure of everybody who has touched it and been involved in it – that the international community could not come together and unite around a standard of decency and behavior as is expressed within the UN and the UN and international community with respect to war and laws of war. I object to the fact that we were not able, as an international community, to prevent the carnage of Syria. And the things that might have been done or that weren’t done or weren’t considered are a fair subject of debate once we’re finished and we’re out.

QUESTION: Well, I hope to talk to you then.

SECRETARY KERRY: You will.

QUESTION: I mentioned Iran and then I want to talk about the Israeli – all the hours you spent on Israel and trying to get a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the speech that you made against settlements and on behalf of a two-state solution.

But first, the Iran deal: Many people thought that was such a towering diplomatic achievement – others didn’t – that it almost deserved or did deserve a Nobel Prize for you and the foreign minister of Iran. How difficult was it? Tell us how you did it. What was the essence of all those hours and all that talk and all those people who had their own interests?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, leaving sort of myself out of it, just as an observer of the --

QUESTION: But there was no person more central to it than you.

SECRETARY KERRY: No, but I mean, I’m just trying to make a comment about it because I don’t want it to just sound like it’s – I’m building it up and somehow it’s other – this was hard. This was tough. I mean, I’ve been involved in these discussions and these efforts for 30-what-4 years, 32 years, something, 28 years in the Senate plus. And to sit down with a nation with whom we have had no formal high-level discussions for 35 years, to break the barrier of mistrust to be able to get to a table and start working down a road where a country was talking about intrusive inspections, a country particularly as full of pride and nationalism and privacy as a country like Iran, was really hard and complicated. And they had interests, we had interests, and you have to always find a way to thread the needle in a way that could satisfy interests but still get the job done.

And we needed to know that if we got an agreement, we were not putting Israel at risk, putting countries in the region at risk. We needed to know this was not an agreement just for 15 years, but an agreement for life, which is why the Additional Protocol allows a demand inspection at any time in the life of this agreement. So if we see a facility at some point 20 years from now that is being developed and we have cause to believe that enrichment is taking place or that there’s a breakout effort underway, we have a right to inspect. And if we can’t, then we have legitimacy in challenging that particular activity.

So we’re never without recourse in the course of this particular agreement. And it was critical to be able to achieve that for – and frankly, hard for Iran to be able to come to the table and make an agreement to say, okay, we’re doing this for the long haul and we’re not going to have weaponry and we’re prepared to let the outside world look in at our --

QUESTION: And in the end, why do you think you were able to do it?

SECRETARY KERRY: Because we both had an interest in doing it, because it was clear that the supreme leader and the president of the country of Iran had made a fundamental decision that their nation needed to grow, they needed to do better by their people, and because of the sanctions regime – which was a huge success, the – it was – they were simply not capable of doing that. It was impossible.

Now, if they think they have averted an ultimate confrontation of what their program is, they’re mistaken because what is in place will always permit us to know whether or not and to challenge whether or not they’re trying to move towards weaponry. And we will always have the time we need, Charlie, to be able to protect our friends in the region and to protect our own interests.

QUESTION: And you --

SECRETARY KERRY: But they needed to do that and we needed to make sure they didn’t have a pathway to a nuclear weapon. And you combine those two interests and put them together and that was really the bedrock foundation of what would bring the two countries and – not two countries, the seven countries, P5+1, to the table in order to get this done.

QUESTION: And this was an area in which Russia was very helpful.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yes, it was, and people need to understand that. Russia was really – was one of the key players in helping to get to this agreement. And Russia also was a key player in getting the chemical weapons out of Syria. Russia was a key player in helping us to move on the environmental agreements that I discussed. Russia was key to getting the marine protected area in the Ross Sea just a few weeks ago. So we’ve been able to have some cooperation from Russia even as we’ve disagreed deeply and bitterly over Ukraine, over Crimea, over Syria. But we’ve still managed to move some of these other issues.

QUESTION: So --

SECRETARY KERRY: But coming back to Iran, I think if – I think it was – I mean, there were just hours and hours of very detailed and complicated issues. And at one point, we became very much affected by the desire of Congress to pass more sanctions because they didn’t understand where we were in the process, and so we had to come out more publicly.

QUESTION: And if a new Congress would impose new sanctions, what would happen to the agreement?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, they could break the agreement apart, they could kill it.

QUESTION: They could – the Iranians would walk away from it?

SECRETARY KERRY: It could happen.

QUESTION: So far, they have kept the bargain?

SECRETARY KERRY: Iran has definitively kept the bargain. There have been a couple of little things here and there that we’ve had to tweak in order to make sure we’re staying where we are, but we have, in fact, I think set it up now that it’s on a track to be able to move fairly automatically going forward.

QUESTION: Lots of people will applaud you for that part of the deal, which was an Iranian nuclear deal to keep them from building and having nuclear capability. A lot of other people did not want to see it necessarily as part of an agreement, but they want to see America more aggressive about Iranian behavior.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah. Well, we are aggressive about it – I mean, for instance, we intercepted --

QUESTION: It’s what they’re doing in Syria, what they’re doing in Lebanon, what they’re doing in – with Hamas --

SECRETARY KERRY: We intercepted weapons that were flowing down to – towards Yemen. We turned the convoy back, we’ve intercepted weapons, we put sanctions on them for their firing of missiles. I mean, we have continued to have accountability in those other areas. But one thing the new administration needs to understand, and it’s something that’s – it’s not a small thing – just ordering somebody to do something, just telling them you ought to do this or else, with some countries is not a good way to get things done.

QUESTION: Is Iran one of those countries?

SECRETARY KERRY: I think Iran is a very proud nation with a long history – 5,000 years – and they – I think one of the key words that always entered into our negotiation was “mutual respect.” Now, obviously, for some people we know that it’s hard to give that the same meaning when you’re looking at what happens to people or when you’re looking at their engagement in a certain country or blah, blah, – I get it. But at least face to face and in the process of trying to work through differences, you need to be able to talk to each other, and I think how the new administration chooses to do that is going to be very important.

QUESTION: And where do you put hacking, according to U.S. Intelligence Agencies approved of and perhaps directed by Vladimir Putin?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, it’s very serious business. I mean --

QUESTION: At the same time they’re cooperating on Iran and cooperating on climate --

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, but there’s a --

QUESTION: -- they’re trying to interrupt the democratic process in America.

SECRETARY KERRY: Putin alleges that we tried to interrupt his process, as you know. It’s one of the reasons why he chose not to like Hillary Clinton and her candidacy. And he believes that the Obama Administration interfered with the legitimacy of his own race.

QUESTION: And believe that the CIA had something to do with what happened in Kiev?

SECRETARY KERRY: Yes, very deeply believed that we were involved in the Maidan and helping – so you have these – I’m not giving it legitimacy, I’m not saying that’s a reason for us to not believe what we believe, I’m just saying that if you don’t understand where the other person is coming from or the other country is coming from, you’ve got a problem. So you know that that’s – now, that doesn’t excuse anything that he did, particularly after the President of the United States made it very clear to him this was unacceptable.

QUESTION: This was at the G20 meeting in China?

SECRETARY KERRY: Yes, among others, yeah.

QUESTION: And is --

SECRETARY KERRY: I raised it with Lavrov also.

QUESTION: And they have stopped it because of that? Because you raised it with Lavrov, the foreign minister, and the President raised it with --

SECRETARY KERRY: There are signs – what happened is that the horses were already out of the barn; they’d already invaded WikiLeaks --

QUESTION: Right, right.

SECRETARY KERRY: -- they’d already done certain things, but there was not evidence that other things grew significantly after that, but damage done. And we --

QUESTION: So where is it today?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, we take it very seriously.

QUESTION: No, but are they continuing to do it as far as you know?

SECRETARY KERRY: The President – they are continuing to do it in places, yes. (Inaudible.)

QUESTION: And do we assume we do it to them?

SECRETARY KERRY: They assume that we do --

QUESTION: I know.

SECRETARY KERRY: -- and they think we do, but not the same kind of thing, no.

QUESTION: What’s different?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, there is a lot of cyber back and forth in the world, probing certain governmental entities, et cetera. That’s quite different from, I think – and understanding of defenses in order to be able to protect yourself and so forth. I think that invading the premises of cyberspace of the national party committees is --

QUESTION: Beyond the pale.

SECRETARY KERRY: Way beyond and --

QUESTION: Yeah.

SECRETARY KERRY: -- and clearly the selected leaking with respect to the DNC’s emails and John Podesta’s emails had a particularly malicious --

QUESTION: And now we’ve retaliated, according to --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, the President has made it clear that he will retaliate in ways and in timing of his choosing, and I’m not going to talk about whether (inaudible) or not or --

QUESTION: Whether he has or has not and what it might be.

SECRETARY KERRY: Correct.

QUESTION: There was a meeting between Turkey and – back to Syria just for a moment, because we’re talking about Russia – Turkey, Iran, and Russia.

SECRETARY KERRY: Sure.

QUESTION: Shouldn’t you have been there?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, they’ve been at the table with us the whole time.

QUESTION: Yeah, I know that, but this was not with us. You were not there.

SECRETARY KERRY: And the reason that we were not there is because they perceived that for certain reasons we were unable to deliver on what we’ve said we were going to deliver on.

QUESTION: That’s their perception. And were they right?

SECRETARY KERRY: We didn’t deliver.

QUESTION: Tell me, when you became Secretary of State, what did you think you could do and why in doing something that had been unattainable so far, to bring the Palestinians and the Iranians to an agreement supported by both and supported by --

SECRETARY KERRY: You mean the Palestinians and the Israelis.

QUESTION: And Israelis, I’m sorry. I said Iranians (inaudible).

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah. Well, Charlie, this is an issue that I’ve lived with for, again, 30-plus years. I traveled to Israel in 1986 for the first time as a young senator with 15 or so of my friends in Massachusetts, and we traveled all around the country and I got to know it. And that was my introduction and I love Israel. I think that it’s a beautiful country with a spectacular founding idea. When Herzl and company came together years and years and years ago and Zionism was born, it was born out of this idea of creating this homeland. And after World War II, 1948, it was created. And we recognized it within eight minutes, but the Arab world did not. And so for years, there’s been this question of how do you make peace here? And there’s been an evolution in that process through various presidencies, Republican and Democrat alike, all of whom have opposed settlements. Republican and Democrats alike have continually said settlements are an obstacle to peace. And --

QUESTION: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, George Bush 34.

SECRETARY KERRY: Everybody. Everybody. The policy of the United States is settlements unilaterally decided upon, unilaterally announced, unilaterally built are an obstacle to the two-state solution. Now, in 1993, the Oslo Accords were signed, which embraced this notion of two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security. That’s all we – that’s what we support. And this Administration has been more supportive of Israel historically than any administration. We built – we gave them the Iron Dome. We’ve saved thousands of lives of Israelis because of Iron Dome. A $38 billion, 10-year MOU for the defense --

QUESTION: Their prime minister and their U.S. ambassador have acknowledged that. They have said that.

SECRETARY KERRY: So --

QUESTION: Given more military support and more things in terms of that nature, yet at the same time, their prime minister comes over here and speaks to Congress against the nuclear deal.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, he believed --

QUESTION: The prime minister --

SECRETARY KERRY: He was opposed to the nuclear deal. That’s okay. I mean, let’s go --

QUESTION: Okay.

SECRETARY KERRY: Let me come back to where we are, because this is important.

QUESTION: Right.

SECRETARY KERRY: So the United States has continually – and we – for four years, I have defended Israel in various fora where people have brought delegitimizing and unfair resolutions, whether it’s been in UNESCO or the Human Rights Council or in the UN – we’ve said no and we’ve defended Israel.

QUESTION: Vetoed at every (inaudible).

SECRETARY KERRY: We’ve stopped every single time, we have said no, and either vetoed it or stopped it before it got off the ground. Now, on – why the timing of this, people said, “Well, why did you wait until the end?” Well, we waited because we were negotiating for a year and a bit. We had a negotiation going. And after the negotiation, there was a presidential race. And if we’d have announced something in the middle of a presidential race, both candidates – I guarantee you – would have been forced into opposition and it would have been dead on arrival. So the timing was that we couldn’t walk away, Charlie, and leave people with the sense that this didn’t matter, that there was impunity for the continued building of settlements --

QUESTION: You couldn’t walk away from what had been a principle of American foreign policy having to do with Israel and its neighbors.

SECRETARY KERRY: More important – yes. That, yes, but more than that – that what has been happening because of the continued process is the slow destruction, deterioration, blockage of the possibility of a two-state solution. Now, why is that so important to us? Because, frankly, it’s important to Israel. Because – and it’s important to the Palestinians. Because you cannot possibly have a democracy and a Jewish state and be a single state, a unitary state. So if Israel doesn’t create two states, it’s going to be that unitary state, and guess what? There are more non-Jews today, right now, in that unitary state.

QUESTION: But why don’t the Israelis recognize that? I mean --

SECRETARY KERRY: Some do. Many do.

QUESTION: -- why doesn’t Benjamin Netanyahu recognize that?

SECRETARY KERRY: Many do. He says he does.

QUESTION: That if they create a unitary state, they’ll face these problems.

SECRETARY KERRY: He says he does recognize that. And many people in Israel --

QUESTION: So he says he is still in favor of a two-state solution and is in favor of settlements at the same time.

SECRETARY KERRY: Correct. Well, he’s not – what he says – he has to do X number of settlements because his coalition is a coalition which is built up of many people – the majority of his ministers don’t believe in a two-state solution. So in effect, you have a settler movement that is driving those politics and that’s what creates this tension. You have many more people in Israel who by all polls believe in two states. Why did we do this? Why did we push this? Because we support Israel. Because we care about an Israel that can be a Jewish state and a democracy. And unless there are two states, that can’t happen.

QUESTION: But it met a firestorm of criticism among the Jewish community in America.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, some people. (Inaudible.)

QUESTION: Well, but the majority it seems to me, but you tell me.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I don’t think so.

QUESTION: You don’t think so?

SECRETARY KERRY: No, I don’t believe so. Not if you take a look at the polls – (inaudible) polls --

QUESTION: So – and they ask a number of questions --

SECRETARY KERRY: I’ve actually seen polls that show the majority of Jews in America – American Jews – actually support the idea of a two-state solution.

QUESTION: No, I’m not talking about that --

SECRETARY KERRY: And the majority also support --

QUESTION: -- I’m talking about not vetoing the resolution.

SECRETARY KERRY: No.

QUESTION: You can support – you can --

SECRETARY KERRY: I saw polls which showed that about 36 percent supported it, that what we did – about 29 or 30 percent were opposed and the rest were undecided. So I’ve seen polls that actually show this division. It’s not the division that’s important, it’s the policy that’s important. Israel, to be a democracy and a Jewish state at the same time, has got to resolve this issue and make a choice. And the choice is you’ve got to create that state or you give up on the idea of --

QUESTION: But they’ve been trending this way for a while. Settlements have continued --

SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible.)

QUESTION: -- one administration after another administration.

SECRETARY KERRY: And that is precisely why after many, many --

QUESTION: It’s reaching a tipping point.

SECRETARY KERRY: After – yes, and after many, many discussions. Look, I’ve had over something like 375 to 400 hours of conversations with the prime minister of Israel, Bibi.

QUESTION: And?

SECRETARY KERRY: And we’ve considered ourselves friends. I am – I’ve known him for a long time. We get along; we’ve talked many, many hours. We’ve spent some great times together, but I’ve said to him, “Mr. Prime Minister, you are taking your country to a place where it’s going to be increasingly hard for us to fend off resolutions and still be true to our own policy.” Now, that’s the choice we face, and we are a sovereign nation. We are Israel’s best friend.

QUESTION: So what does --

SECRETARY KERRY: And we stood up and said we have to be true to the two-state process. We have to be true to the policy that every administration has supported. And so we voted the way we did. We didn’t support it. We abstained. But we allowed it to go through --

QUESTION: It’s the – it’s the --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, we allowed it to go through, Charlie.

QUESTION: You didn’t veto it, so it went through.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, we didn’t veto it, that’s correct.

QUESTION: Now, would you let it go through --

SECRETARY KERRY: But we also didn’t sit there and say, oh, we agree. Why didn’t we agree with it? Because there were things in the resolution, while they – but --

QUESTION: You think it could lead to the – in a sense, the destruction of the state of Israel as we know it?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, but Israel --

QUESTION: And some people even use the word “apartheid.”

SECRETARY KERRY: Some people have used that word and other words. The point I’m trying to make – and I’m not using that word. What I am using is you will have two different, separate laws. Currently, Palestinians live in the West Bank under military law. Israeli settlers who live in the West Bank live under Israeli civil law. And what has been happening is increasingly there’s been a reverse of the Oslo process. Palestinian homes in the West Bank – built illegally, I grant you that, but built because they can’t get permits. Only one permit was granted for construction to a Palestinian entity in 2014 and 2015.

QUESTION: And how much aid did we --

SECRETARY KERRY: So those have been demolished.

QUESTION: Okay. But how much aid did we give Israel last year? How much? How many billions of dollars?

SECRETARY KERRY: It was 3.1 billion, approximately. Somewhere in there.

QUESTION: Largest donor/recipient --

SECRETARY KERRY: The largest – Israel --

QUESTION: -- donor/recipient of American aid in the world.

SECRETARY KERRY: Israel receives more than 50 percent of all of the foreign military sales support of the United States. And yes, we give them a lot of aid and I’m not bashful about that. I think we should. I’m glad we give Israel a lot of aid. Israel is our ally. It’s our friend. And Israel has been under siege and Israel does need to be able to have the security to protect itself. Part of the guiding principle of how we approach this process was to absolutely make certain Israel could defend itself by itself. That’s a premise that guides us.

QUESTION: But you know what the Israelis say. The Israelis will say to you – and they’ve said it to you a thousand times – the UN is not the way to go. The way to go is negotiations --

SECRETARY KERRY: Yes, it is.

QUESTION: -- between Israel and the Palestinians.

SECRETARY KERRY: You’re absolutely right. And we affirmed that in the resolution. And we have affirmed that every step of the way. The final status issues cannot be imposed by the United Nations. They must be resolved by the parties. We completely support and enforce that principle. And in the resolution that was passed in the United Nations, my friend, there was no final status issue decision that was made. Jerusalem – we made – I put forward principles around which they should negotiate, suggesting that you won’t have a solution to the problem unless you have a capital for each state somewhere in Jerusalem somehow. They’ve got to resolve that. Where’s it going to be? How’s that going to work? But you won’t have a solution without it.

We also said you have to solve the refugee issue in a way that is fair and just and according – along the lines of what the Arab Peace Initiative --

QUESTION: You have to solve borders.

SECRETARY KERRY: You have to solve – correct – borders. And you have to make sure that Israel has the ability to defend itself and, even if things were to change in 20 years or whatever, they could then still defend themselves because they have a right to be able to ultimately respond to that crisis legally, even if it meant they have to push back in the region temporarily in order to deal with it.

So there are all kinds of ways that we have acknowledged that the final status issues must be resolved within – by the two parties. Nothing in the resolution that passed in the United Nations – settlements are not a final status issue. Settlements depend on borders. But building in the settlements is not even a security issue.

QUESTION: Settlements make it more difficult to change borders.

SECRETARY KERRY: They make it more difficult.

QUESTION: Yeah. There are those who ask – I only have one other question on this.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah.

QUESTION: There are those who ask why – you are inexhaustible, inexhaustible. You are a believer that you will – until the last breath, you keep trying and keep trying and keep trying.

SECRETARY KERRY: Sure.

QUESTION: You believe you could do this. You believe that --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I believe you can make peace. I think – I believe in rationality. Charlie --

QUESTION: When everybody else said, “John, you’re wasting your time.”

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, Charlie, that’s --

QUESTION: “Your time is better spent on other issues. You need to be in Syria, you need to be in China, you need to be somewhere else” --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I was.

QUESTION: -- “and this is a fool’s errand to believe that you can change” --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, this is why I --

QUESTION: -- “what everybody else has tried.”

SECRETARY KERRY: This is why I traveled so many miles. I didn’t give up working on any other issues. I’ve traveled how many times – seven times – to China.

QUESTION: So what is that about you?

SECRETARY KERRY: I traveled to many of these places. I worked on the global climate change agreement. I worked on all these other agreements. I’ve negotiated in Afghanistan. I did – I mean, that’s the nature of this job. It’s an intense job and you work hard at it.

QUESTION: Yeah, but you traveled a lot more --

SECRETARY KERRY: Well --

QUESTION: -- in terms of trying to pursue a Middle East peace than Secretary Clinton did.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah. Well, I think maybe some of it has to do with the lessons I learned as a young man – that war is the failure of diplomacy and if countries lie or if countries avoid realities or if countries don’t try, particularly the United States of America, a lot of bad things can happen. And when I came back from Vietnam, I resolved that if I ever had a chance or I was in a position of responsibility, I would do everything in my power to guarantee that I didn’t fall into that pit and make the same mistakes, or lose the opportunity.

We had a saying, we got – my crew and the guys I was with over there, who – we still stay in touch with each other. And those of us who were lucky enough to make it back have a saying that every day is extra. So you go at it that way.

QUESTION: There are those who tell me that – you just went to Vietnam about a week or two ago?

SECRETARY KERRY: No, I’m going.

QUESTION: You’re going in a week or two.

SECRETARY KERRY: I’m going down because we have – we’re going to do something really striking, I think, and important, which is that Fulbright University with free – and with academic freedom, run by us, is going to be opening in Ho Chi Minh City. And they’re going to make the formal transfer, I hope, while I’m there, and affirmation of the land that will be available and the permission to go ahead. And that’s a big deal, Charlie. That’s a huge transformation from the country that I went to with a lot of other young people to fight against communism. It’s not a communist country now. It’s an authoritarian country. It’s a one-party country. We don’t particularly like that, obviously.

QUESTION: But it’s got an economy.

SECRETARY KERRY: But it’s got an incredible economy. It’s capitalist. It’s moving. It’s entrepreneurial. And it’s changing.

QUESTION: And it’s closer to us than it is to China.

SECRETARY KERRY: And it’s closer to us than it is to China. And that’s why I’m going.

QUESTION: Okay. But let me just stay with this last thought. You’re 73, yes?

SECRETARY KERRY: Just.

QUESTION: Just.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, I’d like to shave the margins. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Believe me, it’s not necessary. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY KERRY: You can relate.

QUESTION: I can. Vietnam was the searing experience for you, and you’re at a point now where you’re barely, barely speaking at some of your colleagues.

SECRETARY KERRY: Where?

QUESTION: Well, I mean, they’re not – all the people who served with you --

SECRETARY KERRY: Oh yeah, no, we’ve lost a lot, sure. A lot. We’ve lost more people to loss of life by their own choices and hand – when I say “choices,” drugs, other problems, other things – than are on the wall here in Washington. And that began with too many almost immediately after we came back from the war, in the ensuing years, because of the difficulties people faced. And it’s interesting. Notwithstanding all the passion that was put into learning the lessons, we’re still seeing too many veterans coming back from Iraq and from Afghanistan facing serious challenges.

QUESTION: And we have no larger commitment than to taking care of those who --

SECRETARY KERRY: We need to do better.

QUESTION: -- went in harm’s way for us.

SECRETARY KERRY: We need to do better.

QUESTION: Finally, this: What are you going to do? Today is January --

SECRETARY KERRY: Nine days, Charlie. You know that.

QUESTION: -- 11th. January 20th is nine days.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Where are you going to be on the 21st and where are you going to be six months from now?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I don’t know about six months from now. I know that I’m going to continue to try to contribute. I’m going to find ways to stay in this debate. The climate change, oceans challenge is enormous, and we have an awful lot of work to do. I want to try to be involved with some track two diplomacy and some other efforts. And I want to do some private sector stuff. I’m very, very excited by what is happening in the private sector, the changes that can take place. I think that private sector investment and choices that we make has a huge opportunity to push public policy, frankly, and there are all kinds of investments we could make in countries that could meet some of the challenges that I talked about earlier, about young people and opportunity. So I want to be engaged in that in some ways and I’m going to sort it out.

QUESTION: Our commitment to change, our commitment to the future, our commitment to great universities, and our commitment to innovation and creativity is what’s made us the country we are.

SECRETARY KERRY: And still does, and it’s really exciting. I had a thing – an event yesterday at MIT. We had some of the top minds at MIT and in the surrounding area come together to talk about the workplace transformation that’s taken place, what’s happening with disruptors from technology, and what will the workplace – what are people going to do? What kind of work are they going to do? How are they going to earn more money? How are you going to do better in life and how do you manage these various technological, quote, “advances” of driverless trucks or cars or other kinds of things? It’s fascinating. It’s absolutely intriguing. And the question is: Is the future going to see us with a rate of displacement where you still have better jobs and more pay and ability to grow your economy, or will some of this dislocation be so big and so fast that you can’t keep up with it? And I’ve seen various predictions that you could lose anywhere from 7 percent of the workforce to 47 percent of the workforce depending on what happens.

So how we manage that and get ahead of it, particularly in a policy environment where serious discussions and serious choices are not faring very well in a world of 140-character tweets and of gridlock – it worries me. One of the lessons I’ve learned as Secretary of State is we are indispensable. We are a country that makes a difference.

QUESTION: We are exceptional?

SECRETARY KERRY: We are exceptional, Charlie, but not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things. And we’re not investing in our own future very effectively. We’re not investing as we ought to be to leverage countries to do the things we want them to do. And in this interconnected world we’re now living in, that is shooting ourselves in the foot, frankly. It’s turning ourselves away from our own future. That’s why I believe so strongly that we have to project, we have to be engaged, we have to be out there. The future will not be defined just by what happens within the United States of America. We’ve got to be looking outwards and engaged with the rest of the world and leveraging the world in a direction, and that’s what the United States does well. I want to make sure we continue to do that.

QUESTION: Thank you for doing it.

SECRETARY KERRY: My pleasure.

QUESTION: My pleasure.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, sir.