What’s next for Jake Sullivan, a Minnesotan and Biden’s former National Security Advisor

It’s been three weeks since President Donald Trump took the oath of office and former President Joe Biden boarded a plane out of Washington, D.C.

A Minnesotan also left the White House as part of the outgoing administration. As National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan helped shape Biden’s foreign policy agenda and was involved in the U.S. response to events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.

Years before that, he was a champion debater, student council president and most likely to succeed at Southwest High School in Minneapolis. He joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about his tenure at the White House.

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Editor’s note: this conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

How did your upbringing in Minnesota shape or make you gravitate toward foreign policy?

I grew up in Minneapolis towards the end of the Cold War. It was a time when young people like me and my friends at Fulton Elementary School and Susan B. Anthony Junior High and then Southwest High School were thinking about these big questions of freedom versus communism. We were watching Red Dawn and Rocky IV and my imagination was really captured by the idea that the United States, at its best, could be a force for good in the world.

I always felt that even though Minnesota’s in the middle of the country, it has a deep view of itself as being connected to the larger world. It's true of our companies. It's true of our universities.

It’s true of the fact that we’ve got the Sons of Norway and other civic organizations that are tied to countries across the Atlantic or the Pacific. I thought, I want to be part of not just the U.S., but part of working on issues that will impact the whole world.

When you first got to Washington, were there any attributes or even stereotypes about Minnesotans that you felt like you had to adjust your behavior around or that you feel helped you?

It’s funny, because people definitely view folks from Minnesota as being “aw, shucks,” nice, friendly people from flyover country. And you do have to overcome a little bit of the, “Oh, it’s so cute, you’re from Minnesota,” to show you can be friendly and kind and considerate but also have some steel in your spine.

I also found an incredible community of people in D.C. from Minnesota. I feel like we punch way above our weight here. There’s a real, practical sense that we care about coming up with solutions that will actually help people, and we're not fussed about where those solutions come from.

They could come from a Democrat or a Republican. They could come from the most senior person or the most junior person on the team. I think there’s something deep in the Minnesota ethos that just gives us, in my view, a leg up in making a positive contribution in Washington.

Everybody brings a unique background and set of experiences to Washington. I’ve heard that you’ve defined your approach and former President Biden’s as ‘foreign policy for the middle class.’ Can you describe what that means to you?

At a basic level, what it means is that when we’re in the Situation Room dealing with a major foreign policy issue, we have to always pose the question, “How is what we do in response to this issue going to make lives of middle-class people, working people in the United States better, safer and easier?”

That can sound so obvious, but the thing about foreign policy is that if you don't have the discipline to ask that question, you can easily end up in abstractions. And then fundamentally, it’s about delivering security and prosperity to the American people.

If you look at our approach to China, I feel very good about what we did over four years to improve the American capacity to build and innovate, to get ahead in the race for advanced technologies, to ensure that China was not taking our manufacturing away from us. These are the kinds of things that lie at the heart of foreign policy for the middle class.

President Donald Trump calls his stance and his approach to foreign policy ‘America First.’ He’s acted very quickly in these last few weeks to dismantle USAID. What effects do you think this could have on Americans and the middle class that you speak of?

I actually think that the question of USAID, which is the American aid agency that provides development assistance globally, I can understand why someone might say, “well, wait a second, why should we spend the money over there? We should be spending it here instead.”

But I believe that Minnesotans deeply understand that if we can improve stability and security overseas, we can enhance our own stability and security here at home. That’s been true across Democratic and Republican presidents. John F. Kennedy started USAID. Presidents like Ronald Reagan carried it forward. This should be a bipartisan issue.

We can invest very, very, very tiny percentages of the U.S. federal budget in these kinds of investments, because they ultimately redound to a more secure world, which leads to a more secure America. People in our state, I think, fundamentally understand the importance of this.

I hope that the Trump administration, after these opening weeks, recognizes that cutting off all of our forms of assistance to the rest of the world is only going to harm us in the long run, and that they will restore some of the funding that they have frozen.

It’s been three years almost since Russia's invasion into Ukraine began. You had a big role in crafting some of the policy around that conflict. When you left office, where do you feel like the conflict was at and where do you hope that it goes under this next administration?

First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of incredible savagery and brutality, and it's led to the loss of an immense amount of life. But I think people need to remember back to those early days in 2022. The world expected that Ukraine, the country, Kyiv, the capital, would fall within days, within a week, and that Russia would be in a position to basically wipe Ukraine off the map.

Three years later, Ukraine still stands. Kyiv still stands. The Ukrainians are proud and free, even as they have to fight day in and day out to hold off the onslaught of the Russian invaders. And Russia is suffering grievously.

I think that if President Trump hangs in there in support of Ukraine, continues to show the world that we are going to stand on the side of freedom and democracy and against aggression and tyranny, that he will be in a position to negotiate an end to this war on terms that are favorable to Ukraine.

But if he pulls the rug out from under Ukraine, then he's going to end up with a bad deal. This moment is a critical time for President Trump and the current administration to show their solidarity and support for Ukraine, because that's how we're going to get the leverage we need to get an outcome in which Ukraine remains proud, free, independent and rooted in the West.

Later in President Biden’s term came the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the war in Gaza. Is there anything that you would do differently when it comes to U.S. response to the war?

I think it’s a very fair question, because it's such an unspeakable tragedy, the entire war, beginning with the massacre on October 7, the largest loss of life among the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and then the months of conflict that followed in which so many innocent Palestinian civilians were killed.

Hamas really does bear the responsibility for starting this, for continuing it for many months, refusing to come to the table in a serious way for a ceasefire and hostage deal, and for the way they fight.

I do believe fundamentally, our support for Israel — particularly because it faced threats, not just from Hamas, but from multiple different fronts — our push on Israel to allow humanitarian assistance in and our overall effort to get to a ceasefire and hostage deal, which we have now done, this was the right, principled way for us to approach things.

But of course, I will constantly be reflecting on whether there were particular decisions we could have taken differently.

The initial phase of the ceasefire is set to expire in early March and things are changing rapidly. President Trump is suggesting the U.S. would take over Gaza and force Palestinians to leave. Do you think that could really happen?

Gaza is the homeland of more than 2 million Palestinians. They live there. Their community is there. Their homes are there, even if so many of them have been destroyed or damaged in the course of this war. It is hard for me to see how an outcome in which you simply wave away that reality is going to be viable.

I think we need an approach that implements all of the elements of the ceasefire and hostage deal through the various phases and then ultimately get to what President Biden advocated for throughout his time as president, which is a two-state solution, where a secure, democratic Jewish state of Israel can live side by side with the Palestinian state in peace, security and dignity.

A lot of people have said recently that they feel that President Trump’s aggressive approach is what led the movement toward a ceasefire. How do you see that approach as different from President Biden and which do you think ultimately benefits the U.S.?

I guess my view is that the ultimate answer is what are the results that you’re producing in terms of the security and prosperity of the American people? When I look at President Biden’s four years, and I ask myself at the end of those four years, was the United States better off than when we came in?

There has been challenge and turbulence and difficulty and moments of real crisis, but on the fundamentals: stronger friends, weaker enemies, not at war and with the underlying sources of our strength robust, I feel very good about that.

Ultimately [President Trump] too will be judged the same way. Can he sustain and strengthen our alliances? Can he make sure that our adversaries remain under pressure? Can he keep us out of war? These are the questions that only time will answer, and it's a little early to be able to say.

I know that you’ve said that the United States really needs to lead the way in artificial intelligence. What would that look like?

There’s two pieces to this, in my view. One is to be in the lead on the technology itself. Right now, in my view, America is in the lead, but China’s competing very hard, and we have to continue to stay ahead, because artificial intelligence based on an American lead will look a lot different than artificial intelligence based on a Chinese lead.

And then second, we have to be at the head of the table when it comes to shaping the rules and norms around artificial intelligence. What are the uses that we need to put guardrails around, whether it's particular military applications, whether it's around bias and disinformation, whether it's about job dislocation?

I believe that artificial intelligence can be a force for good, but it also could be a force for bad and it’s our responsibility to work with the nations of the world to try to steer it in a better direction.

That’s something that I want to remain part of the conversation about, and I think it's going to be one of the most decisive factors as to whether the coming decades are peaceful and prosperous or create new dangers and threats.

This is a revolutionary technology, and we are at a revolutionary moment. To me, getting this right is the single most important thing that we can do here over the next few years.

You just finished out four years of probably a lot of stress and sleepless nights. What are you doing with your time now and what is next for you?

Going from 100 miles an hour to then just walking out at noon on January 20, which I did, can be a little bit disorienting. But honestly, having the chance to catch up on sleep, having the chance to reengage with friends and family, and then a lot of what I’m doing right now is just giving advice to the young people who left the Biden administration, who are thinking about what they’re going to do next.

And I consider it one of my core obligations to help all of them land very well. And then I will figure out what I'm doing next in due time.

Any chance that we would see you back in Minnesota?

You will definitely see me back in Minnesota. I don’t know about working there full time, but one of the things that I am definitely committed to is getting back as much as I can. Just a few days ago, a group of fellows from the Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota came out to visit D.C., and I had the chance to sit with them. Professor Larry Jacobs was leading the delegation.

I told Professor Jacobs that I was coming back to the U of M to spend some time with students there, so I will make good on that, in addition to getting back to see a lot of old friends.