Hi, my name is Ram Emmanuel, and I feel a tremendous amount of self-loathing about being Conan.

O'brien's friend. Okay, and I hate to say this because you're an ambassador. You've served in many positions for our government, but you prick. How dare you? How dare you say that to me? Fogness will, hilly-ow, back to school, ring the bell. Brand new.

Shoes, walk and lose, climb the.

Fence, books.

And.

Pens.

I can tell.

That we are going to.

Be.

Friends. I can tell that we are going to.

Be friends.

Hey, there. Conan O'Brien here. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. No Matt Gordy today. He's got the flu or so, he says. I picture him water skiing right now. Yeah, I don't believe him. Yeah, laughing and drinking a margarita all at the same time. But, Sona, you're here. I am. I'm here. Yeah.

No.

I'm not going water skiing. No, you're with me because you believe in me and you have faith in me. No, it's because I couldn't go water skiing today. Oh, yeah, right. You tried really hard. I really wanted to go water skiing. All right. Well, we have a show today where we're not going to do a lot of chit chat first because our guest happened to be in town and we ended up talking about a lot and we went long. So I think we're going to get right into it. My guest today, as an American diplomat and former mayor of Chicago, served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, and he now serves as the United States ambassador to Japan. This gentleman has a very unique perspective on what's happening in the world right now. And I thought it might be valuable to check in with him and get his take. Ambassador, Ram Emmanuel, welcome.

This.

Was a mistake. It was a mistake having you on. It was a mistake.

We got to that conclusion in 42 seconds. Let me give.

People a little bit of background, which is a couple of years ago, I do a week of shows in Chicago. And you, as the mayor of Chicago at the time and you've held many posts, you agreed to come on and give me the Chicago citizenship test. I'll be remembered as huge laughs, huge laughs. Went over very well. The rest, that's all I remember his laughter. I don't recall much else, but you did us a solid. You did that for us.

And I also want to explain- It was also your best ratings, if I remember correctly.

Let me look that up right now. It's our only rating ever, apparently.

That Nielsen thing is really coming handy.

It really is coming handy. Also, we have a connection, and I like to be upfront about that, which is-.

I thought we weren't going to talk about that on the show. We are going to.

You have a brother. Rumor has that. You have two brothers. Of course, one is an incredible brainiac physician, man of the world, Zeke. And then your brother, Ari, has been voted the most evil man in the world many times by Evil Magazine, and they really know their shit. Ari Emmanuel technically represents me, but I thought this wasn't technically, it's really his friend that does most of the work. And I thought it was okay to still have you on even though there's a conflict of interest because Ari has not answered my phone calls in about 15 years.

Oh, wow. You're like his brothers. Exactly. Let's come into that this thing. Wait a second. But first of all, when you do get up on the phone, yeah. Okay. No. Yeah. That's it.

He doesn't listen. And ever since-.

Ari actually knows only two pronouns and one adjective, so that's all right.

So you come from this family. We'll start with the family because you, Emmanuels, are quite a group. You are three supercharged human beings that have come into life. And I come from a large family, and I wouldn't say that that's true of my brothers and I. What happened? What did your parents instill in you that turned you into these, well, semi-ferile, incredibly potent, powerful beings? Tell me what was the secret? Growing up in the Emmanuel House, were you hit with a cane?

What was happening? Well, I don't remember it being a cane. My dad actually did say, What do youa schmuck? And then hit you. And that was his way of saying, I love you. So you got to understand you guys right there.

That is a form of love. I get that. It is.

What are you? What are you? There's a real similarity. I'm going to do it for you, ready? Vut, are you a schmuck?

Schmuck.

It's.

Funny. Yeah, go ahead. You get the same thing, right?

Yeah. The Irish, I've always.

Thought- If you want to love a child, you don't hug it, you hit it. Exactly. Over the head, in the back of that, with what are you? A schmuck.

There's such a similarity and a kinship between the Irish and the Jews. And I have found that all my life. So many of my friends are Jewish because I feel like they understand me because growing up Irish and growing up Jewish feels like it's almost the same thing.

Here's the one rule of politics. When somebody introduces another ethnicity, you stop and you're pulled back because it can only get you in trouble. I'll just believe what you just said. I'm not touching it after this. I'm going to stay within the tribe, the Jews.

You're afraid to comment and maybe insult the Irish? Is that what you're afraid of? The great thing about being Irish is that you can't insult us. When someone tells an Irish joke about the Irish being drunks or stupid, everyone in the room laughs at every other ethnicity, and no one laughs louder than the Irish. Sona, how many times have.

You come in.

Just- Actually, actually. -streaming about what a- Daily. Daily. I'm coming- Yeah, potato eating, beer chugging, lout, you.

Call me. She's clearly never run for office because I'm not touching it in the city of Chicago, not a chat. That's smart. I do think, actually, this is a very serious subject given what's happened to the American family. And so let's put the Emmanuels aside. And there's this great. I just did it for you. Mark Twain has this great comment, At 13, I concluded my father was a fool. By 18, I was shocked what he learned in only five years. I would say this is a father now with three children, two in the Navy. One just graduated Princeton and is teaching yoga and has co-authored a book on national security and climate change. And I can't say it was a straight line to there.

But.

I totally am against this old quality time and all this crap. You built a house of love and the value of education and the rest is up to the children. You tell them. Second is, even when I was mayor, chief of staff, I used to say this when I was chief of staff, White House is family-friendly to the first family, and it's like a mess. But we set up rules. When Amy and I did this together, the family will have time and the work will then get scheduled around the family, not the family around work. And you make priorities. Simple things. We had every Friday night, Shabbat, we had dinner as a family. And whoever did the best grade that week in the reports got to invite a friend. Second, we had three nights the rest of week, Sunday and two nights during the week. Lunch as a family, all electronics out. Second, mid-December to early January, we went on a family occasion just as a family. Third, we used to go for walks on the beach as a family and stuff like that, or I take individual to kids. I name you did the same thing.

And you prioritize kids. When the kids call at the office, nobody's allowed to answer the phone but me. And if I'm in a meeting, I will tell them, but my staff cannot communicate. The children know they're my priority. My kids, when I ran for office, never once appeared in a commercial. And you build... And what I used to read, let's say I was working after dinner, I would do my work mainly reading, I'm very on the phone in one of the rooms when they're doing homework just because you're present. And being more present than being either a drone or a helicopter is a better thing. And those are lessons I learned from my parents. And I think that because I do actually I have a lot of feelings about this. And I think this is actually a serious subject. Then we'll get to the neuroses. The three Emmanuel brothers live not with love, not with... We live in fear of failure. That's the number one rule. And would bring shame to the Emmanuel name if you failed. And I think that's actually a big motivator of ours beyond the fact that Zeke and I hate Ari, which is also a very healthy thing to do.

We all hate Ari.

And we also have filled with a lot of self-loathing. But I do, I really think this is a very... Because a lot of quality time and people try to buy their kids' love with material things when kids are really emotionally needy. The other thing is I also, as a father of two daughters, they would probably disagree with me. I think a father's relationship with their daughter starting around, while it's always important, starting really in 12 is more important than a mother's. And I took Alana on a bike trip in Europe. Lay and I went to Israel together for her birthday. I think those are really because a daughter then has identity of herself without having to have a boyfriend or another partner to bring that identity. So I have... I mean, I think this is really-.

This is fascinating. I struck a nerve here.

And there's a lot of wisdom here. Because I actually think people don't deal with probably the most important issue facing our country, which is the breakdown of the family. I don't care how many parents, but there is a value here that cannot be dismissed.

I have this theory, a dumb.

It down theory. You didn't want to do this show like this, but this is really what I.

Care about. You seem angry whenever I speak.

No, I'm just angry.

We'll analyze this later. Every time I start to speak, come in with something, but I'm going to fight you back. Yeah, we have that in common. Which is, Ram, I agree with you.

We're not on a first-name basis. You stay with that ambassador. I'll give you permission to get to Ram, okay? Okay.

How about ambassador? And then if we really get justamby.

How about this? Ambassador your excellency. Your Excellency.

Your most real excellency.

Dude, when I let you get to Ram, we'll know, okay? Until that?

Okay. But you're allowed to call me dude. All right, this is fantastic. What a great fucked up relationship this is. I will tell you-.

All in favor say Aye. I have it.

I see how things work in Chicago. You just steamrollered me. No, I agree with you. I agree with you completely that it's dumb it down is my theory a little bit, which is it's time around with your kids. Even when I'm annoying them and being a total pain in the ass, I know that, yes, this is our time together. I'm really bugging this shit out of my kids. This is told in time. I agree with you completely.

Time. I will give you one anecdote when I was mayor. I think.

Lana was- I'm just going to clarify, mayor of Chicago. I'm just going to give everyone the download.

Well, Chicago is the center of the world and center of the country. So let's just go there, mayor, dumb mayor. We went to a Black Hawks game, and she brought two friends, et cetera. I was wearing a flannel shirt at the Hawking game. And the next day, a reporter from a major network says, Well, on social media, you were ridiculed for wearing not wearing a Black Hawk jersey. You were wearing a flannel shirt, etc. And I said, That's interesting. I think it's cool that my daughter at 15 still wanted to be with her father. But I suppose what I was wearing as a shirt was really, really important.

And.

There was this... I think she was willing to go with her friends, with her dad, who's a dork, to a hockey game. That would have been something we would have said, Hey, that's important. And that's a good sign. No, let's talk about my flannel shirt, which was a very nice flannel shirt, by the way. And I wanted to say I got it from rag and bone. I was really proud of it.

Are you getting money from rag and bones.

Right now? No, but I would like to. Okay. I can arrange that. I don't. Wait until the ambassador thing is over, then all gifts are accepted. You can't accept gifts. Here's a great story.

I gave you a gold Rolex when you got here and you put it in your pocket and said, Mom is the word.

Every.

Thursday- You said, Keep it on the down, Lola, Brian.

Every Thursday I get a little yellow folder, and you're supposed to sign these forms for the State Department. I'm going to get fired, right? We only went five minutes in, and it's for gifts above $25, okay? And you have to sign it for Ethics Reform and record it. Right. So one day I come in and there's like 40 forms. And usually it's like four or five. I'm signing, I'm feeling rushed. I got phone calls. I got to get... What is this? And they go, Well, we got a lot of gifts because of this reception. I said, I'm not signing these. They go, Oh, you got to have sign this state department. I said, I'm not signing these. And they go, Would you have to sign? I said, Let me just be really clear. I'm from Chicago. You want to buy me? It starts with seven zeroes. I'm not doing this. If you think I'm selling America out for Croatian sparkling white wine, you do not. I am from Chicago. We have a number, and it starts with seven zeroes. That's incredible. I said, You auto-pen this Ethics Report, man. I am not signing this. I'm not reading it.

By contrast. And America is not going for a cheap Croatian. I mean, I love Croatian sparkling white wine, but it's not going for it, okay?

I could so easily... You could purchase my loyalty with a candied ham. That's why I can't be in politics. I could be bought so cheaply. And later on, when they were having the hearings to take me down, it would be, Did you sell out our government for a ham? A Harrington ham?

I did, Your Honor. I would like to take a rag and bone on November eighth, 2024.

We'll take care of it.

All.

Right. So also I wanted to bring this up because I know this about your family, having done some research, which for me is a lot, and that you were encouraged by your parents when you got to the table to be up on what was happening in the world and discuss so that you.

Could discuss it? Yes.

And it's funny because I know for a fact that being a Kennedy ofile, that Joe Kennedy senior did the same thing with his kids. When they came to the table, he wanted them to be aware of what was happening in the world so they could discuss it intelligently. Is that something that... Do you feel that that helped you a lot when you were a kid? That you were encouraged, maybe even forced to read up on what was happening in the world and.

Discuss it at the table? Well, first of all, also don't create a mental image. It was not just mom, dad and the three boys. Right. Grandpa and grandma lived with us. Right. Grandma, my dad, that's mother, moved from Israel to Chicago when we first got born. So it was never like a, quote-unquote, Ossie and Harriet nuclear family ever there. And first of all, it wasn't a discussion. Screaming was the tone in which you had a discussion and yelling at each other. In fact, among the three brothers, we will not discuss the movie, Dear Hunter. It is off limits because it becomes violent between Ari, Zeke, and I. No, we're not going there. Even if they're.

Not there. Why, Dear Hunter? Of all the movies, that's the one you all vehemently.

Disagree on? We vehemently disagree about a lot of things, but that one has become literally taboo. We can't even discuss it now.

This is so great because the next time you're giving a speak somewhere, I'm going to be in the crowd. I'm going to go, Dear Hunter. Dear Hunter. And just watch you lose it in.

Front of everybody on camera. But back to the family. And first of all, the first and most important thing was the fact that we all ate together and we all sat there. But it was actually you had to be prepared starting at a very, very early age. And there wasn't like a kids table and adult table or kids discussion told me. We also had, like in the summer, June first week, you had to write the three books down that you were going to read that summer. And then at the end of the summer, you had to pick the one book and lead a family dinner conversation on that book. Every child, and I still read, Zach, my eldest son and I, we pick books and recommend them. La and I try to read a book with each child, just me and them, and then say, But dinner conversations, the word conversation is deceptive. I would not call it a conversation. You didn't listen to somebody else. You just yelled at them about your opinion. Right. Okay?

Here's a difference. I'm going to positive a difference maybe, and this could be just my family because there are so many similarities between a Jewish household and an Irish Catholic household. But one difference, in my opinion, and this is just my own personal experience, is there was no yelling.

There was all- You guys just went into the colon? Yeah.

I'm not kidding. It went into the colon. And when I had my first.

Colonoscopy- I could also be a doctor. You knew that. That was so quick without examining or touching your abdomen. I knew that.

I'm telling you, everything gets repressed. And yeah, my first colonoscopy, they opened me up and- You know what? My father's screams come out of.

My ass.

From 1969.

Get in here, you.

Son of a... All came out in a torrent.

Here it is, ready? And the reason it goes there as opposed to us- You guys get it out. No, here's the difference. You guys hold it, and then on Sundays, you just tell the priests and it's done. You're absolved and you go another week. We have to hold it all the way to Yom Kippur. And you get a whole year of holding this stuff. So it actually does burst out quicker because a year is too long. You guys just get a week and it's how long you can hold guilt.

But see.

This is interesting because- Don't you think that's true? No, I think the difference.

Between a week and a year. I'm not going to give too much credit to the priests because I would freeze up. When I would get into the confessional and I've.

Talked about this before- There's a lot for it. Let's unpack that.

I would get into the... Watch it, buddy. That's my religion. I told you- I would go into the confessional- There.

Goes my electoral count.

I would freeze up because I would forget all the things that I was mad about or had transgressed, and I would lie. And I'd say, I stole a lawnmower when I didn't. I never did. I would try to make it more interesting than it is. But Sona, you come from, I believe it's Romanian. I've never really delved into this. Yes, you know it's Romanian. I do. Oh, my God, she's so Romanian. But you guys, you scream at each other and you're just having a conversation, right? Yeah. Well, we're naturally very loud. And then when we do talk, we talk over each other. It's the same with your family. So this voice is not recorded for the podcast. People can just hear it.

From the booth. Amy said when she came to her first family mail, my wife, she said, Why are you and Ari fighting? I said, We're not fighting. She's like, No, you were fighting. I go, No, we were talking. We're talking. And so it's very fun. When people come outside, it's very like, This family needs Blue Cross Blue Shield. That's all I was saying. And it has to cover mental health, okay? This show.

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So.

I want to go over your resume very quickly, inform the listeners. You were a very, very early adviser to the Clintons to Bill Clinton back in Arkansas, correct?

I was part of the paint store. There's a group of us that when we first got there, the campaign was in a paint store. That's what we call ourselves the paint store clacks.

And so what year would that.

Be that you- I moved down in October '91, and he announced this in October. Okay.

So you are working very early in the Clinton administration, then Chief.

Of Staff. Senior advisor to Bill Clinton. Yep. I was then a congressman. Second term, I was Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Third term, I was Caucus Chair. Fourth term, I was a member elected for an hour, and then I became Chief of Staff to President Obama's first chief of staff.

And how long were you with President Obama?

Twenty-one months. But if you counted, 21 months, that would be the whole thing from chief of staff. And then when I go out and I run for mayor of the city of Chicago, serve two terms. And then I took a break, and then I'm ambassador for 20 months, although for the Japanese it feels like 20 years, but 20 months.

They're slowly getting used to it. I'm going to say this. Let me jump ahead to the ambassador role. When you were announced or nominated or put forth as an ambassador to Japan, there are many people who thought this is an odd choice because your style is so tout like it is, pugnacious. And people thought this will not be a good mix maybe with Japanese culture. And yet that has not seemed to have been a problem for you. The Japanese people like... Am I getting it right? Yeah. They like your-.

Three things. One, I evaluated all the advice I was getting. You should know, Japanese are more reserved, more quiet. I realized, you know what? Being inauthentic was not going to work. And I said I can be myself. And I've been in many positions given my titles and the roles I had to do and jobs. I know you have a feel for where the line was. I haven't crossed it. And it was better to be authentic. Second is, and a serious note, obviously big thing about taking trains. I've taken trains my whole life. Japanese do love their trains, and I admire them, and I'm on them all the time. But I did this study. I asked the office to do this. Give me images over the last year of US government officials or pre-COVID of what's happening. We like Americans. Seven black sedans drive up. You get out of the back of the back of the car. There's secret service is running around. You walk into a building. An hour later, you walk out. You don't say anything near the camera. You get in the black sedans and everybody drives up. I said, That's it. We're not doing this.

I said, I'm going to walk to my meetings in the government. We're going to take trains everywhere. And I said, And when people from our government come, like Bill Nelson from NASA, he did a town hall with high school kids. And then you have to do one thing interacting with the public of Japan because we are not going to act as arrogant as we are as a superpower. Our public engagement is going to change. When Secretary Blinkin came to Japan, he landed in Tokyo and took a train to the G7 foreign ministers meeting because you are going to engage the public where they live and we're going to show a different face of America. And then third, I do think the Japanese look at me like, You know what? When a dog slightly hears a different sound and they turn their head, they're looking at me like, We never knew somebody could be this kinetic. They're both repulsed and attracted at the same time by the amount of energy and stuff like that. And it's worked.

So far. I will say there's one caveat. The trains in Japan are awesome. I mean, I would eat on those trains. I would sleep on those trains. I would live on those trains. Those trains are absolutely gorgeous. And they run to.

The second. Want to hear a fact? Yeah. Okay. So the Shanecansan is their high speed, 150, 175 miles an hour. And you put a coffee cup, nothing spills right to the brim. All year, all Shanecansan runs all year. How many minutes are they late? And I said minutes. Three and a half. I mean, no disrespect, I'm a big user of the Chicago Translator 30. That's between the Montro stop and the Irving Park stop, okay? That's on a day for a train. And I'm running down, I think, a great system in Chicago, three and a half minutes. And people get irritated when it's a little late. I said, You guys got to chill, man. This is 10 seconds, but it's that efficient of a system. And there's the world's public transportation system, and then there's Japan. It's in a different class. It's one of the marvels of the world. I'mtrying to say I'm not kidding. It's just an incredible clean, efficient, well run, and respectful of you as a customer systems. It's really great. And now they want to build it to 220 miles. I'm good at 170. We can't get go of five, okay? But it's really an incredible system.

I'm with you.

Wait, 225 miles an hour?

They're building a new Maglev if they want to do it. They're testing it now in Nagoya. It's really incredible.

I'm moving to Japan. Let me tell you something. I'm telling you, when I've been there, I've absolutely loved it. I would love to be ambassador if that'spossible.

I don't think I do. No, no, no, no, no. I don't think.

You can- Oh, come on. I'm the known quantity.

After.

You step down, what.

About it? I don't see the background check working. I just don't.

There's only maybe 35,000 hours of offensive footage. Other than that, I.

Don't see a problem. Let me tell you this. Compared to the US Senator voting on you, you're going to do just fine, okay? I will say it's a process. I'll give you one other thing. And I always say they say, What have you been shocked at? Or whatever. And I came from the city of Chicago as mayor, and this is true of any other big city in America. But I created these safe passage routes so a kid could walk eight blocks straight to school not thinking of their safety, but their studies. We created these routes, deployed people on the south side, west side of city, Chicago. In Japan, little kids, five years old, backpack, they're this big. They're this big in a school uniform, little baseball cap. They walk eight blocks to school by themselves, get on the train, the ones that we love. They put their car down. Their parents get an instant text that their child went through the turnstile. They cross streets and they raise their hand above their head. The car stopped. They know exactly where to cross and they go eight, six, seven blocks to school. When they're let out, they're let out.

The principal is not standing there, 20 parents running around. It's the single most beautiful thing in the world. I always say to the child, You don't see it because it's there every day. You come from Chicago and it stands out with incredible beauty. I mean, when I also got there, a parent, usually the mother is 20 feet, 30 feet ahead and walking and the child is walking behind. She doesn't look, doesn't turn around, not worried about a child being snatched, abducted, not worried about sexual harassment of a child. They have their childhood. It's not stolen from them. It's one of the most stunningly, beautiful, gorgeous things in the world. What do you.

Attribute that to? Is that cultural?

What.

Can we attribute it to? Because obviously different policies and that gets into a whole other conversation about it's a society, you're not allowed to have a gun. But it sounds to me that goes so much deeper than that.

What is that? Yes, they don't have guns, et cetera, but that's not it. I don't think, and this is again, I'm an outsider. I think there's a respect for life and a respect for human beings and also a self-respect, and I think it's a shared sense of community and obligation to each other. That's an outsider who doesn't speak the language, has a translator, I ask people constantly. But my sense is there is a value put on the individual as a part of a community and enshrined into the DNA then of the society. So do the laws help that? 100 %. Do they start there? No. They're an emphasis on top of something more fundamental in the culture. Besides the training the kids, we can't get people in the office by 11:00 AM. They can't get people out of the office till 11:00 PM. I walk home from dinners and people are coming out of the office at 11:00 PM. They work non-stop. The other thing that is really beautiful, or I didn't like it at first, but you go to a restaurant, you walk out and the chef/owner is there and they bow to thank you for coming and they hand you a gift.

No tipping is allowed anywhere. That's their job. And they want to make sure you, not as a customer, but as a client, enjoyed it. It's really stunningly beautiful. Now, they have a challenge. They have a department, a cabinet position for loneliness. Yes. So not everything is perfect.

I'm familiar with this. I did a trip to Tokyo, one of my travel shows. And while I was there, we discovered the concept that you can rent family members because it's a real issue. So I rented wife, daughter, and a grandfather. And then I started, and it's all perfectly legit. They just hang out with you. Nothing creepy happens.

But it.

Was so great because I ended up talking to the grandfather about all the things that bother me about my father. And it was very therapeutic. And he didn't speak English, so he understood none of it, but smiled with his beaming smile. And I felt like it was worth six years of therapy. I left those people and I was like, I miss that guy. I think you scared them. I did probably scare them. Yeah, I think you're really scared. I'm a very strange looking man.

I stand out. Also, the one other thing is you go to a restaurant, they'll explain to you, Oh, this fish is caught in this bay, and this is the only time of year. And I'm like, And the corn is grown or the rice is here or the vegetables. And I said, In America, the big thing is farm to table. I said, You guys have been doing it for 800 years. You may want to market this thing, okay? We think we've discovered something. You've been doing for 800 years.

We came up with it eleven.

Years ago. It didn't exist until somebody grew a piece of corn in the backyard called Farm to Table, okay?

This is a thing because there's something... This is a unique opportunity I have to talk to someone who's had these very different positions of power. And I'm trying to understand. Obviously, the world internationally is a frightening place right now. I maintain it's always been a frightening place, just that we have more access.

To all the information. More frightening people?

Yeah. But it is without a doubt, we're facing all these challenges. And I agree with you. I think you've gone out of your way to identify certain parties because there's a tendency to go, Well, it's gray areas, black, and white, and you are identifying certain regimes, certain parties, whether it's Putin, China, you're saying, Look, these people are bullies, and we have to stand up to these people. And this is a value of the United States of America when I think a lot of people are feeling a little wishy washy about that. Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah. I'm very specific about China and in the recent past, Russia, 100 %. And it's not just they're bullies, but they're also... Look, I don't mean to make a binary, but in this case it is because they've chosen, which is you either can have a rules-based system that applies to all, or you can have the raw exercise of power that applies to the powerful. And I don't think you want to live in a world where the raw exercise of power. Second is Putin and Russia and China have decided to militarize their maps, okay? And they're going to execute those maps, their vision of the world, where the boundaries are, where the lines are by armed forces. That is not the world we want to live in. Now, we are not a perfect judge of the rules. We have violated them. We have been imperfect. But we have more often than not abided by them, and more often than not held other countries accountable when they're trying to violate them. And when you don't have American power, the world does feel like it's office axis as you do right now that we're sitting here today talking.

And that is why we have a responsibility. And then when it comes to situation, I'll give you an example. I have the most recent thing about China. In Japan, the Prime Minister did a cabinet shake-up and announced, I'm going to have a new Minister of Foreign Affairs and a new Minister of Defense. And he announced it to the world. They barely have an armed forces, now they're building it up. China, in that same period of time, the foreign minister and the defense minister both went missing. Gone. And they have 500 nuclear head weapons. I'm sorry, you want to be a world power? China has a lot to contribute to the world. But if you have 500 nuclear weapons, who's in charge? Because then God forbid something happens in the next three weeks. We'd like to know, is it an 800 collect call or who are we calling here? Right. And I'm sorry, this is not the Secretary of agriculture or the head of the environmental agency. This is the two people, two positions that outwardly faces the world. You have an obligation with 500 nuclear weapons. Who are we calling? Are we doing on a zip call?

How are we doing this? Right. And we're going to call it out because this is not... You want to lie about your unemployed youth? You don't want to release the data? You think that somehow the youth are going to feel better? Fine, go do that to your youth. But when it comes to minister of defense, you don't get to say, I ain't telling you. Since China knew that I was doing your show today, they announced he's no longer the Minister of defense because they knew we were doing this show and they were really scared that we were going to be so.

Pressed here. The Chinese are terrified of me and have been for a long time.

That's going to get you ready. That is your opening line for your confirmation, Harry. Okay, there it is. We just wrote that. My name is Conan O'Brien, and the Chinese are terrified of me. Okay? 90-2. There it is. You'll get confirmed. You got to get the two.

To show up. I think someone's going to say there's this footage of you in 1998 jumping into.

Caramel and a thaw. But here's the thing. And my thing is on China, they put a map out. India, official complaint. Indonesia, official complaint. Vietnam, official complaint. Philippines, official complaint. Japan, official complaint. Malaysia official complaint. That is an incredible map to put out, and everybody in the neighborhood doesn't like it. And we have... G has made a decision to have a regis past about China's great past. We've just gone through Putin's desire to be Catherine and Peter the Great all wrapped up in one. And that's the 17th and 18th century. I hate to see if they go back to the 15th century. So forget it. We're going to call them out. And here's the deal. You want to do the raw exercise of power? Fine. We're going to be for rules and guess what? And here's the other thing that Americans have to remember. We have an immigration problem, a refugee problem. People want to be part of our world, okay? But what young men, the future of Russia, Moscow, and St. Peter, they've left. Beijing, Shanghai left.

There's.

A young woman just died, is brain dead in a hospital in Tehran because they grabbed her in a subway. They're dying on the streets. Nobody, there is no immigration problem in Iran, China, or Russia. They have an immigration problem, not an immigration problem. Right. We forget this, breaking news. Freedom is seductive, and people want to be a part of it. And we suck a lot of times because we don't allow a lot of people that live here to be part of that, and we have to work on it. That said, do never lose sight of how powerful this country is and the values we have, and people want to be a part of it. And I'm going to call out China, call out Russia because they need to be called out.

Let me ask you specifically-.

Thank you. Now that felt therapeutic, so thank.

You for that. We're going to play music under it. Okay. Can I get a little- But not the music you want.

I would like piano. No, no, no. A little Philip Glass piece or.

Something like that. No, it's not going to be what you want. Wait a second. It's going to be Jethro-Tall. I can live with that. We're going to call them out. I can.

Live.

With that. Okay. There is something I wanted to ask you about this because something I've been thinking about recently, which is obviously I have very strong opinions that we need to help Ukraine as much as possible and that Putin has to be stopped. That is a very clear issue to me. But as a history buff, and I know you're a history buff, I know that there's something in the American DNA that has always made us very reluctant to get involved. We were very reluctant to get involved in World War I, very reluctant to get involved in World War II when it was clearly a moral imperative.

And we are as a country, the United States has always wanted to say, We want to take our toys and go home. We just want to stay here. Let's not get involved. It costs too much money. When the money involved in helping some of these countries is a fraction of what we spend on other things, which I think are probably less important. What is it about Americans? Do you think that's changing? Or do you think that that's something that's just in the DNA of being an American that we would rather not, given our druthers, get involved?

Well, to go back in history, it goes back 100 years, and you got more than 100 years, rather, to the founding of not being involved in Europe's wars.

Not.

Being involved in other wars. Now, it does change post-World War II, where there's a decision. I just finished this great book on the Max Hasting's books on Korea. I did not realize how significant a drop off post-World War II was there in the defense that clearly you could say from a deterrent standpoint, everybody points to the Atchison speech, but we actually were caught flat-footed and not capable right after World War II, as it related to the Korean War militarily.

Yes, we weren't prepared.

Not only not prepared, but defense-wise, how significant a drawdown that was. So we almost, you could argue, in the first five years, repeated the same thing, mistakes of post-World War I. But Americans, they don't want to be obligated and worried with the rest of the world, but it keeps knocking on our front door in ways. So we start this process of, and we're in the middle right now, the early stages of that process again, post the Cold War, where things were working accordingly and we let our deterrence guard down. And now we're in a mad-dash-rush both in Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific of getting our deterrence back up to where it needs to be so we don't have these types of wars.

Yeah. And I think it's very easy politically for people when there's time to trouble to say, Why are we spending money over there? Why are we spending money on those countries when America should come first? Without thinking a little bit further and thinking, No, this is in our vital interests.

Well, I would go back. I think that's a false choice, which is there are things that we should have been spending money on at home. Yes, I agree. But it wasn't coming at the expense of spending and doing the type of things you need to do at home overseas. And for a long time, we didn't make the type of investment. I'm going to do a plug here for my boss, President Biden, because I do think the type of things that he's doing on whether you talk chips, infrastructure spending in the United States, or for that matter, on climate change type of investments, those are desperately needed for America, desperately needed for our leadership. But they don't come from the same powder resources or somehow mean you can't invest in certain things here when you're making sure that Ukraine does not disappear as a country, a language, a people, and an identity separate from distinct because the best thing we could do to crumble Russia is to show a successful Slavic nation on its border, democratically, politically, society-wise, and economically. And that is what he lives in fear of, is that, in fact, is when you look at Poland and its success, you look at the rest of Eastern Europe, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and then if Ukraine joined that, it would be a house of mirrors for him and all his warts and all would be exposed to the Russian people.

I was shocked that, obviously, he's got things locked down, but I don't know what it would- Not as.

Best as you think.

No, exactly. I would have thought that a recent insurrection by his top military, I would have thought that that would have weakened him more. Maybe it has. I don't know. But I'm stunned that Putin probably, I mean, he does, as you said, admires the Czars. He probably has it set up that he's impregnable.

There's one thing this is true about Putin and Putin. We used to think of this, and we have to update this. We used to think of the gulag you get sent away, they take you out. Because of the phone and technology, the gulag comes to you. You don't go away to the gulag. It comes to your front door into your house and on your phone. You make a phone call, they know about it. You text, they know about it. Not just who, what, and what you said. When you go and you're at a scene, God forbid you're at a scene where there's a protest, they know you were there. So the gulag is not a place you go. It goes with you wherever you are. And that's how they have perfected the state operation. And we have to start changing the way we think about it. And that's why, while I'm not saying they're absolutely secure internally. They have mastered the security system in a way that we've not even begun to think about.

You did come in here with several phones.

Yes, I did. And in fact, I want to make sure that actually the Communist Party is meeting now. Can you speak a little louder, please?

Hi, Conan here. Your greatest fear.

But that's going to be- I got one- When you talk- I have a government and family and another one for my mother. Okay. Someone that's not charged.

That phone is from 1988. It's a giant brick with an antenna.

That's from mom. That's right. You know Chuck Huber has that flip phone? Why do you use that? So his mother can't call him. That's why. I want.

To bring up Israel. Obviously, this is incredibly complex conversation and a complex conversation for anybody who's...

It's generational. Anybody called Ram, Israel, Emmanuel. Yeah, it's a very complicated conversation.

He's Italian.

You're.

Italian whenever you need.

To be. I'm going to give you this. I used to, in the mornings, in the Clinton White House, I would go in and Leon Pinedo was the chief of staff, and I would go in and I'd start 7:00 AM. He and I were the first to get there, and I would scream at Leon. And then my hands are flying at Leon. I go, What are you Italian? I'm not going to go Italian enough to date your daughter goes, You're not that Italian. I just look at you, look up at me, You're not that Italian. Okay, no, you're Italian, but not that Italian. So, Ram, Israel, Emmanuel. That's the name there. So let's talk about this.

So obviously, what's happened in Israel and what's happening right now in Gaza is dreadful. And this has been a passionate interest of yours your entire life. It's part of your family legacy. How are you feeling about things right now?

It's like I have 600 feelings, and I think that's just a good start. I'm amazingly depressed. I'm angry. And my anger doesn't have just one audience. And pained. I don't even think I'm scratching the surface. I mean, I start. One is having worked on the Oslo Accords with President Clinton, the Y Plantation. One of the more memorable times was going to Aqaba, Jordan, watching the Israeli Army and King Hussein and Yusakra being signed a peace agreement. One of the most beautiful things I saw in public life was when they played the national anthem, the Israeli military leadership facing the Jordanian military stood at attention. And when they played Hatikfa, the Israeli national anthem that was reciprocated, I thought it was a stunning way to end a war and end hostilities to see two armies stand at attention and to the other country's national anthem, stand in full honor and respect of that. Now, I describe myself as a security Hawk and a dove on peace. And I think the abandonment by both parties and I think more abandonment by the Palestinians when you look at all the opportunities they could have had by the Palestinian leadership, not the Palestinian people.

I think the Palestinian people, from my understanding, the last to give up on peace. I think their leadership abandoned it. You can't sign a peace agreement or Oslo courts and weeks later blowing up busses in Tel Aviv. You either got peace, as Yoggy Bear said, When you get to a fork in the road, take it. And they didn't do it. Now that said, there are leaders in Israel who also walked away from it. That said, 1,400 citizens of the state of Israel in their homes were raped, murdered, decapitated in a total violation of their rights and what we believe in. No government would allow that to happen to any citizen. I don't think I have a singular emotion. I have not only multiple, I have contradictory emotions. I mean, when I was back in Chicago, it was as you probably saw, a young Palestinian child was murdered, and I called the parents. I reached out to the father and I talked to the father. No parents should have a child killed because of ethnicity. You ache as a human being. That said, a state exists. The first responsibility of the state is the security of its citizens, and you violated that.

And for Israel in that neighborhood, deterrence, we were just talking about it as it relates to the United States, deterrence is your first and foremost responsibility is deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. And I'm sorry, they're going to restore returns. And I get that. And it's unfortunate because there's going to be a lot, a lot of loss to human life. And I also say this, and Israel acquires weapons to protect its citizens. Hamas puts its citizens in front to protect its weapons. That is not a moral equivalent. It just is not. And there's a moral difference here, and you're seeing it play out, and it's going to be horrific. Now, I could go on and on about this, but I will give you one thread of optimism where the world feels on the lost at sexes. I think not immediately, and it's hard to say because we're sitting here on week two of a horrendous moment. If you think about '73 is the Yom Kippur War, '79, Israel and Egypt make peace and disengage. And it's basically since '79 held through a lot of tribulations. I think a couple of things have occurred. One, this fallacy that Israel can have a great economy, make peace with the global area, and ignore the Palestinian, that is not true.

Now, whether a Palestinian leadership wanting to show up and make peace, that has to come out of this. I think that may starting to appear. Second is the idea that you can obliterate Israel, where it's not, from they say, from basically the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean, that also fallacy is off. I think with the right leadership and coaxing, mainly by the United States, but not absent others responsible, you can get to a place not immediately, not the first days, not the first year, to a place where you actually make something of this tragedy and tragic moment. But there's going to have to be a level of deterrence reestablish and a level of security reestablish. That is a thread that there is a better place. And I think out of the rubble, you'll get there.

This leads me to a much bigger question I had for you, which is after all these different positions you've held and you've been in the belly of- The beast. -the beast, you've been in the colon of the beast. You've been in the lungs of the beast. You've been in the heart of the beast. You've migrated from organ to organ in the beast. I always described myself as a 52 % optimist, 52 % to 52 % optimist, which is I understand that the world is a terrible place, but I still think that things are slightly better or could be better and that we are moving very slowly forward. I think President Obama has the same feeling that history does not progress in a straight line, but progresses. Where are you in all that? With your unique perspective?

Well, I mean, as a former ballet dancer, sometimes you take a step forward and sometimes you take a step sideways and sometimes a step back. So I think with human agency, it gets better. Without it, it falls backwards. And there are certain things you can look at, and not just because they're scientific, but other things where it has improved. And so I'm slightly on this side of optimism because if you weren't, you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Yeah. Okay, I am. And going back, at least in this because we're talking about this. When I think back, I mean, I organized the signing on the South Lawn, the day of, et cetera, not the negotiations that was held by the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Was that September 13th 1993? Yeah. You know why I know that date?

Because you're Jewish.

Because I'm very Jewish. You're very devout.

You're a Jew.

Want to be. I am an Orthodox Jew.

Yeah, Jew, want to be.

And that was the day my late night show started. Is that right? And so it gave me the perfect joke for the start of that. And so this is how egotistical I am. I think of that date, that historic date of peace and that photograph is the day I started.

My late night show. You know what? This is so, I always try to say-.

That's.

How sick I am. New York is focused on the world outside. Dc is focused on power and L. A. Is focused on itself. And I was thinking this historic moment, and I brought my father who fought in the War of Independence for Israel, fought in the Urogah, one of the underground, the right-wing underground, and I brought him to the signing. And I remember going with President Clinton to Aqaba for the signing with Jordan, the Y-plantation, we'd helicopter every morning up to the Y-plantation for the negotiations between that and Yahoo, Arafat, et cetera. I wasn't there, but I talked every day to President or nearly every day to President Clinton during the Camp David. It's a struggle, but you thought there was a ticket to a better place. And then you look here and you were pulled back. But in the end of the day, it does get better, but it gets better with human agency. Yes. That's the part you have to... It doesn't get better. There's not a gravitational pull towards justice. It only gets better with human agency and hard work. And it's interesting you say that about President Obama. I've seen him in sometimes where he's a little on the darker side, too.

I'm sure you are.

Not all of us who when you do that stuff, you end the day, you come there, But you have some moments of doubt about this whole thing. What does it?

Neveri didn't realize Sprott Obama was a muffet.

That's a translation in Oval Office.

Trust me, I have always understood that there were days when Mahatma Gandhi came home and.

Was like, Fuck it.

Three.

Things I used to say at the White House. I used to say at the White House, Thank God it's Friday. Two more work days till Monday. You The other thing is a former chief of staff. Now you go from the East Wing to the West Wing, that walk. There's like three oils of George Washington, two of Jefferson. You go next door is the Roosevelt room, you got Truman's over here. You have a couple of Adams over there. I'm like, You know what? We're going to take these down and we're going to put up Philmore, Zach Taylor, and a couple of these up here because I'm telling you that walk, East Wing to the West Wing, the worst walk anywhere in the world because you literally go those 200 feet and they pass Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Monroe, Jackson, Teddy, Rosa, Frank a. What? I don't know. I think Zach Taylor was okay. We can try. I could be crazy on a curve. Let's get Zach Taylor in there. Let's get Phil Moore in there. Then we're doing okay, because by the time they get to the Oval Office, it's a mess. Their head is a total mess.

Better for soap and steam.

You know what they should do? It's not good for the chief of staff. They should have a Soap and steam room.

Let's get back to who this is important. That is not good for the chief of staff at 8:00 AM in the morning to go like, We're going for Mount Rushmore. No, not. No, we're going for a highway here in a high school, okay? We are not going. Can you like, What about high school? Okay, name a high school. That's a win for you today. Do we have to do Mount Rushmore again? It's Saturday at 8:00 AM. I mean, come on. It's the worst walk. Literally, everybody talking about the walk in literally everybody talks about the walk of shame. No, the walk from the East wing to the West wing. It's a horrible walk. Take, Washington, out of here and we're going to put in here, Buchana. Okay? He has a really.

Tough time. Buchana was bad.

I know. All right, I can go back to the.

Original- No, Buchana, Andrew Johnson, put him up. I mean, it's terrible.

Buchana was bad. I'm going to give you something else. So Iy middle one who I love dearly, I love them all. That was the other thing my mother used to say. I used to say, You love Zeke more than me. She goes, No, I hate you all equally. That's also a key point. That's a mother's love right there.

That explains a lot.

About you. I said to Alana, You have to start reading history.

You.

Have to start doing this. I said, Zach and I do this. So pick a history book. She comes back and says, One nation under sex. I said, Okay, you picked it. We're going to read it. It goes through the sex lives of all the presidents. Buchanan, little-known fact. Gay. And it was known at the time, written at the time.

They probably had a different word for it.

Back then. They probably did.

But it's his letters-.

Confirmed gentlemen. His letters to the Alabama Senator, very clear, living together, very clear. It's without a doubt that we actually, when you think of LGBTQ rights, you think of civil rights, you think of women of... We were ahead of our times as a country. People do not give us credit of what happened between 1856 and 1860. We set a standard with James McCann. Now he sucked on everything else, but there he was, God bless him, he was ahead of his time.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you cleared that up. Did you know that? We got a lot of people in here like, Buchanan, gay. And I'm like, look, Bill Burr. I don't have time to get into that right now. Did you know that? I'd heard rumors.

Okay, I'm going to get you.

But I'm one of those people like, I think it's up to Buchanan to reveal it. I don't want to out him. That's his choice.

Well, it's amazing to me it's not only that is that it was talked about openly and in a society that was clearly not as sophisticated as ours. Like, whoa, so I'm going to send you some books on reading because I know you love presidential history.

I like all kinds of.

History, but yeah, sure. I love history. I read it non-stop.

What's your favorite history book? If you had to pick one, Desert Island.

No, I'm not going to do that. So here's what I'll do. On the Holocaust, I love Daniel Mendelson's book, Six of Six Million. Okay. It's a story of the story of finding... You know, in the Pulitzer, it's a great book. On civil rights, there's this great book called The sword and the shield. It's about the history of the relationship between Dr. King and Malcolm X and how they learned from each other. On Lincoln, I still think Gary Will's book on Gettysburg is how he wove the Declaration of Independence into the civil rights, into the Constitution, the fabric of it. I think that was a brilliant book.

Right.

There's like so many good Franklin Delanois Roosevelt books.

I do- You know a book I go back to a lot, and I think I just read it for the third time, was Guns of August, because Barbara Tuckman's book on the beginning of World War I, just because it's all about how humans... This is how humans behave, and this is how humans start a war where millions and millions of people were killed and no one even knew why and no one wanted to go into it. I don't know. I find that always compelling.

Right now I would read Paris, 1919. Yeah, that's a great book. That is a great book. And then I think from military history, I love Max Hastings. I think he's one of the great military historians. I read a recent great book on the Cuban missile crisis, which I think is an important book at this time.

Well, this podcast has always been about getting people to read. Wait a minute. That's a different podcast. How are you doing that? It's not our podcast. Our podcast makes people dumber. But those are great recommendations.

Thanks for taking the time with me.

I really appreciate it. I was against it. I'm still against it. And I'm.

Pretty sure- Let me ask you a question. Does this hour come down to like three minutes? It was a short podcast. Do you guys- We.

Are going to cut this so.

Much that.

You're going to introduce yourself and then you're going to be listing books and then your ass is out.

The door. This has.

Been great.

Wait until I give my mother your phone number.

No.

Either I get the full run, no edits, or my mother gets your phone number. You get the full run.

Okay. Can you imagine? Do you think I would edit a second of this? I am terrified of you and.

Your family. I am thinking of it. I'm thinking you'relifting my mother to Beijing. I think the system will crumble on her. She will be running. She'll be in the hidden city, hiding from Marcia Emmanuel.

Thank you so much.

Ambassador Ron. No, ambassador- Embry Ron.

-no, ambassador-Excellency. You're excellent. You're excellent. You're actually most high. We bow to you. Thank you for being here, for yelling at me, insulting me, but also bringing us your wisdom.

But both of us are better for it.

No, I'm worse. That's all good. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Cessian and Matt Gordley. Produced by me, Matt Gordley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, nick D'Leal, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Year Wolf. Themed song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blaert, and our Associate Talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Eduardo Perez, additional production support by Mars Mellnik; talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Bautista, and Rick Kohn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It, too, could be featured on a future episode. If you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.