April Ryan has a holiday treat for us: a special Tea session with none other than policy extraordinaire Susan Rice! Ambassador Rice sits down with April to expound her expertise on the subjects that mattered most to Americans in 2025.
No stone goes unturned as Ambassador Rice and April tackle all that transpired this year. The U.S. military marched in American streets, unemployment choked the public and private sector, and longtime U.S. ally South Africa was painted an enemy. As Amb. Rice states in this interview, Trump's mission for America is to “shrink from a global … to regional power” in a quest to dominate the western hemisphere. The desire for dominance, however, bled into American democracy. Rice calls on all Americans to wake up and show up.
Listen to the full interview to hear Amb. Rice and April’s assessments on ICE, domestic economic policy, AI, foreign policy, and more.
Susan Rice is a former domestic policy advisor, national security advisor, and UN Ambassador. Rice is currently the Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow at American University’s School of International Service.
The following transcript has been modified slightly for formatting purposes.
April
Welcome back to a special edition of The Tea with April on The Contrarian, and I’m so pleased to have a friend with me. Yes, a friend. About 30 years long. Her name happens to be Susan Rice. Her positions are various. She has worked in the State Department, she was ambassador to the UN, she’s been so many things, and she was also a domestic policy advisor, in the Biden administration. I met her way back during the Clinton years, and she just keeps coming back. She won’t leave. I don’t know why, but she doesn’t… Hello, Susan, how you doing?
Susan
Hey, April, good to be with you.
April
Thank you for joining me and sipping some tea with me. We’re at the end of 2025. Can’t believe it, and there have been so many major things. You hit international, you hit domestic, you hit everything, pretty much. Everything touches everything you have worked on. And I want to get your, first of all, general assessment of the year that’s passing us by.
Susan
An abomination.
April
Wow.
Susan
an abomination. I mean, in less than 12 months, we have seen the burden on Americans go up in terms of their cost of living. Healthcare costs are skyrocketing, housing and energy costs remain very, very high, and there’s no relief in sight, despite Trump promising on day one that, he would end inflation. Meanwhile, if you look at what is happening throughout our country. the basic rights and freedoms that we’ve been accustomed to enjoying are evaporating, and Trump is marching us with extraordinary speed and efficiency towards a very serious authoritarianism. And he’s targeting his enemies, he’s destroying the federal government and ruining, the healthcare and public health system, you know, poisoning our kids. It’s just one thing after another. That’s… That’s just on the domestic front. So, an abomination, an F-, if there’s such a grade to be given. And then on the international side, just to shorthand things, if you read the President’s national security strategy that was just released a couple weeks ago, and you watch what he’s been doing, he clearly is on a mission to shrink the United States From a global superpower. to a regional great power, like in the 19th century, where the great powers have their own spheres of influence, ours supposedly to be the Western Hemisphere, including Canada and Greenland. Russia can do what it wants on its flank and in Europe. China can do what it wants throughout Asia, in the Indo-Pacific, and we’re committing superpower suicide.
April
So, also… Superpower suicide.
Susan
An abomination, April. F-minus on foreign policy as well.
April
Okay, an abomination domestically, F-, and superpower Suicide. Boy, you know how to start off an interview, don’t you? Oh my gosh. So, I mean. with all of this, with this failing, failing grade, not just a failing grade, and you are absolutely right, because the receipts are Susan Rice, the fact that his poll numbers are in the 30th percentile range, low 30s, you can’t come back from that. And… what does that mean? Okay, we’re talking about 2025. Is there hope for 2026, as old acquaintance will be forgotten and never brought to mind?
Susan
Well, look, I think it’s unwise to discount Trump. He is a wily politician. Of course, he achieves his aims through complete deception and self-interest and corruption. But I don’t think we should… at all assume that he’s down for the count, or certainly that the Republicans are down for the count. Yes, their poll numbers are sliding, yes. In the 2025, recent elections, Democrats, performed much better than, obviously, they had in 24, and then some expected. But we cannot be complacent. We cannot assume, that the midterms will be a route for Democrats, and in fact, we have to be very cognizant of the fact that the Republicans are doing everything they possibly can, through hook or by crook. to avoid losing the House of Representatives and to retain the Senate, whether it’s, you know, absolutely egregious redistricting efforts, whether it’s demanding that states hand over their voter rolls to the federal government for God knows what, nefarious purpose. It’s dismantling the infrastructure for election security and protection. in the Department of Homeland Security and installing a January 6th lunatic to run that infrastructure. There are all kinds of ways what, you know, they’re desperately hoping that the Supreme Court will rule on voting rights in a way that, favors, Republicans and wipes out scores of minority seats, and that they do it before, you know, in time for the midterms. I mean, they’re prepared to do anything. And then you have to ask, you know, what is the expectation? What kind of… what kind of predicate are they trying to set by routinely deploying U.S. forces, U.S. military troops, into our cities? Is that going to ultimately be used to intimidate people at the polls, to try to suppress voter turnout, or for something even worse?
April
So… I don’t think…
Susan
April, bottom line, Democrats should not be… Complacent. People who are worried about the rule of law in this country and our democracy should not assume, that, you know, everything is gonna be normal, and that even if it were normal, and a level playing field, which it is decidedly not already, that Republicans will lose, and that Trump is down for the count. I do not discount them.
April
I love talking to you, but your reality and your truth Sometimes scare me. Your description of… The current state of… The threat to voting sounds like a third world country. It sounds like we’re in a third world country. Something that…
Susan
First of all, not a great term. Secondly…
April
Not a great term for you, but we’ve heard about…
Susan
But second, April, what we’re experiencing is not a phenomenon that’s unique to developing countries. It’s a march towards authoritarianism, which we have seen in places from Hungary to Turkey, to many other… India, Israel, many other parts of the world. And we are not… But we’re not a developing country. We have developed a real world leader. Nor are those countries that I just named. And yes, we are the world’s, you know, leading power. or we were. I hope we can still be. We are, you know, we have been a beacon of democracy, not without our flaws, obviously. But… As I said, you know, we are shrinking internationally, shrinking as I said, committing superpower suicide and going to be a little great power with our… in our backyard neighborhood. But at the same time, we are… Following in the footsteps of many other countries that have elected leaders that have been you know, engaged in authoritarian, types of power grabs. And… You know, what Trump is doing is straight out of Viktor Orban’s playbook in Hungary. You know, squelching civil society, declaring his opponents to be, terrorists, going after universities, discrediting science, cowing the private sector. You know, intimidating law firms, you know, going after the freedom of the press, going after free speech, utilizing the military for, you know, improper purposes. You know, it’s all out of a play, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t stop it or slow it, but we need to recognize what this is, and wake up and recognize that we’ve got to fight not only at the ballot box. and in the judiciary, but we’ve got to be using our… exercising our First Amendment rights, to free speech, to protest, and to do it on a… on a mass and sustained scale, peaceful, nonviolent protest. Just like… April our forebears did during the Civil Rights Movement.
April
And you know, Mary Frances Berry says this is worse, because they’re taking back rights. They’re pulling people, or trying to take our power. received, elections that have… well, we’ve had elections where people won, and we… people of color are in place, and now they’re trying to roll all that back with these new redistricting laws. Look at Louisiana versus Calais, and what could potentially happen with redistricting, in this nation next year. But I want to get back to this issue. of… Military in the streets. Military in the streets, that… we heard these terms, posse comitatus. It was against posse comatatus, where the U.S. military is not supposed to police, our own. But now, as you said, you know, there are ways they’re trying to get around things. And the way I understand it, if I am correct, according to some lawmakers that I’ve been told, that A lot of cities may wind up getting federal agents, not the National Guard. That’s their way of getting around having the National Guard in cities so that they can police.
Susan
But April, importantly, I just want to point out that the courts have… you know, very much constrained the President’s ability to lawfully use the National Guard, whether in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Oregon. He’s got, unfortunately, a different degree of freedom in the District of Columbia. But, you know, the courts have constrained that, and… Yes, indeed, we’re seeing, all forms of federal law enforcement, you know, particularly those in the immigration space, ICE, the Border Patrol, but now Homeland Secur… HSI, Homeland Security Forces. FBI, DEA, they’re basically robbing the entirety of the domestic law enforcement apparatus and turning them… putting them in masks and turning them against people in this country. Some of whom may be here unlawfully. Illegally, very few of whom are criminals, and a significant number of whom are here fully lawfully. And some are U.S. citizens that are literally having their windows smashed in on their cars, being hauled out of their cars, thrown on the ground, you know, beaten. arrested, disappeared into detention without the ability to contact their lawyers, or their family for hours, and in some cases, days. This is happening to American citizens on a regular basis. And, and this is happening. Don’t say a small American citizen, for God’s sake, or, you know, a Latino-American citizen.
April
And also, African Americans, they’re starting to move into the African American community, and unfortunately. So many of us meld… our looks meld into other communities, and many of us are trying to have, with us, on our person, either a real ID, driver’s license, or a passport. And it’s gotten to that point. But let’s dig a little deeper on this. When a lot of these people are arrested, they’re deported to where? War-torn places like the Congo. Hello? I mean…
Susan
Yeah, I mean, it… and often deported in defiance of pre-existing court orders. Now, this is lawlessness, April, and you know, when you say that we are entering a period, or we are in a period, where the rule of law is being abused. What folks need to understand is that this is not just a problem for Those who are undocumented. This is not just a problem for people of color. This is a problem for anybody.
April
and everybody.
Susan
If anybody who’s a U.S. citizen can be pulled off the streets by masked men. who don’t identify themselves, and detained, than anybody can be. And there’s no recourse. And if that’s where we’re headed, then this is a very different, you know, context and very different United States of America. And the reason why I think it’s so important to focus on this is I think that there’s a… A tendency by some, as horrific as all these real images are, to say, well, this can’t happen to me.
April
That part.
Susan
It can happen… if it can happen to you or me, as U.S. citizens, it can happen to my white husband, it can happen to, to anybody.
April
My children.
Susan
Oh my god.
April
my husband, my children, yeah. And it’s… and that is the truth.
Susan
Yeah.
April
And historically, and I’m gonna bring a historic context. You and I both are people of color, okay, in this nation. And historically, what happened when people rode into communities with hoods on, that was something like those Klan rides. This is not… Hypothetical, this is not myth, this is not conjecture, this is real. In 2025. As we’re waiting for the ball to drop. To refresh our souls and our spirit. This is the reality of America. Susan Rice is with us, my dear friend. on the special edition of The Tea, on The Contrarian, Susan Rice, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, former, domestic policy advisor. What other titles did you have.
Susan
Now, National Security Advisor.
April
That’s right, I forgot! You’ve held so many hats!
Susan
Come on, man, that’s just…
April
You are a Black woman who saved the world! That’s right. How can I forget? Oh my gosh. You’ve been around.
Susan
That’s after we worked together, as you mentioned, in the Clinton years, when I was working on Africa policy, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs at the State Department.
April
Yeah, and I remember… I remember one funny time… Not how old you are. Anyway… So look, I remember one trip, we went to Africa, Janet Reno was on the plane, Al Gore was on the plane. Andrew Cuomo was on the plane. Remember? And we did the booty call with, the booty call with Al Gore on the plane. Because he kept doing the Macarena. When we were coming back from South… it was the vice… it was the Tobel and Becky… it was the Becky Gore Commission. You don’t remember.
Susan
Warren Becky, yep, yep.
April
And Alexis Herman was there. And that was in… That trip was so meaningful for me, in a lot of ways, not just that, but it was so meaningful for me because… is… the continent… of an afro… Play… heavily. first time during the Clinton years, really understanding the depths of Africa. Africa plays with, on the front of oil, energy, minerals, national security, and the economy, trade. And right now, this president… did not go to the last G20 summit in South Africa. What does that say to you?
Susan
It says a lot of different things. First of all, it says that the United States, under Donald Trump, is not committed to playing on and competing on the global stage, and is ceding the playing field to our adversaries like China. The G20, is a gathering of the, the, The most powerful and Wealthy countries in the world. And we were… we were absent. And Trump didn’t even send a substitute. And, you know, that just left the stage open for China, for… Russia, for anybody but us to exercise influence. Secondly, it just underscores how ignorant… no, sorry, they’re not ignorant. They’re racist and deliberately willfully dishonest. Now, South Africa has its challenges and flaws, like every country does, but there is no… systematic effort to steal land from white farmers and commit what Trump has called genocide in South Africa. That is a bald-faced lie. Well, and instead of… Understanding what’s going on, recognizing that.
April
You know, the reality…
Susan
is nothing like what he describes. You know, he’s slashing Refugee admissions into this country to nearly zero. And the only people, April, the only people that the Trump administration are letting into the United States as refugees are white.
April
South Africa. Yeah. Afrika. Africaners, white, South African… is it called Afrikaners?
Susan
Well, some are, Apricot… Afrikaans are people who speak Afrikaans. They’re also English-speaking, white South Africans. But, you know, it’s… if you know the history of apartheid, it was particularly Afrikaners who were, the most committed to apartheid. But in any case, you know, that’s just turning reality on its head. And so not only do we not go to South Africa now, Trump is trying to kick South Africa out of the G20. And this is all to play to, you know, the…
April
Elon Musk.
Susan
Elon Musk, David Sachs, all these South African, you know, retreads in his orbit. who are carrying out a race-based vendetta against, South Africa. And it appeals, I guess, to elements… some elements of his MAGA base. But it is… It is willful distortion that does great damage to our national security and our national interests, because we are not playing on the field where important, issues and decisions are being discussed and Carried out.
April
Let’s come home. Let’s come home to the United States again. In this short time that I have with you, my friend. Jobs. Chops. Particularly in a time when this president considers himself, cutting the waste. So many people lost jobs, since the beginning of the year, through the Doge cuts. In the government shutdown, just in general, and then we’re hearing reports that over 400,000 black women lost jobs. What do you say to this as someone who really worked in the Biden administration as domestic policy advisor to keep… keep the nation flowing, jobs going, and keep… When you lose jobs, when you have massive numbers of jobs, it can actually go to a national security issue. But when the economy is off, etc. But jobs are important to the flow of this country. What do you say in this moment?
Susan
Well, you know, it’s ironic, because, you know, Trump ran on… You know, creating new jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
April
Hmm.
Susan
and lowering prices. He has done neither. He has presided over mass layoffs in the federal government, which have disproportionately affected minorities and women who make up a… large share of the federal workforce, as well as veterans. He has, you know…
April
presided over…
Susan
policies that are accelerating Job losses in the private sector. So one thing we haven’t talked about, April, and I think that People are… are… Just beginning to understand Is that as our economy is making a transition, to one that is, Very much influenced, if not to some extent, controlled by artificial intelligence. That we are going to go through a very… Painful period of economic dislocation. And companies are already laying off thousands and thousands of workers, and acknowledging, in many instances, that it’s because of artificial intelligence that they don’t need some of these jobs, whether it’s Amazon or, you know, many of the other, big employers. And if you’re coming out of college right now. We’re entering the workforce. It is so much harder To find an entry-level job. And then…
April
Yes.
Susan
been in recent memory. And that is only going to get worse. And… and the reason is that we are speeding, as fast as we can to… You know, broad-based adoption of artificial intelligence, which, you know, done properly, will have some benefits. But done recklessly, which is the path we’re on. is going to lead to enormous job loss and economic dislocation, and nowhere in Washington, nowhere, is there a serious discussion about the policy measures that are necessary, to To cushion this transition and, enable, people to retain jobs or retrain for jobs, and weather this, this technological, inflection point. And, you know, we can talk about what AI’s doing to our kids, and to mental health, and to, Their ability to learn and read and think…
April
Write a paragraph.
Susan
Correct. We can talk about, you know, the national security, implications of artificial intelligence, but, you know, there’s also the very real question that many AI creators and experts are asking, which is, are we rushing to a place which is known as artificial general intelligence, where, you know, where AI essentially achieves equal or greater capacity than humans across multiple of reasoning. And then there’s what’s known as artificial superintelligence, which is when the AIs would theoretically exceed human intelligence, on multiple dimensions. There’s many who think that that is, not a distant prospect, much more likely than unlikely. And… there is, you know, related to that, April, a concern about to what extent we will be postured to ensure that humans are the ones making decisions about what the AIs do, rather than the other way around.
April
I don’t need a machine making decisions for me, go ahead.
Susan
Nobody does. Well, some people do. I guess some of these tech bros, that, that stand to, like, Sam Altman and others who stand to gain billions, trillions, might. But even they acknowledge this risk. So, there’s a lot to be concerned about when it comes to the… employment implications of artificial intelligence, along with some of the other implications. But the pathetic thing is that we’re staring down, you know, down a train that’s coming at us at full steam, and nobody in the Trump administration or in Congress seems to be Taking seriously, the kind of policy steps that we would need to take to, mitigate the damage to, In terms of job loss, economic dislocation, among the many other, bases for concern.
April
Susan, this sounds trite, but it’s real. I… kept telling my husband, I said, and this was a couple years ago when we were dating, I said, I am not going through the express line at any store, because there’s not a person manning it. And we are seeing everything now more express, less workers. That’s just my… I mean, it’s trite, but that’s the reality. We are losing employed Americans, employed people, for machines. That’s it.
Susan
But April, that’s happened in the past. We, you know, we had the Industrial Revolution, we’ve had all sorts of things, but we’ve… but this is an order, you know, this is, even more revolutionary. And we… it’s coming far faster, and, you know, the Trump administration is cheerleading this and, you know, cutting deals with their cronies. But doing nothing to, to… cushion the blow toward… for… that average Americans are already beginning to feel.
April
My friend, I know we have a hard stop with you. I’m so thankful that I’ve had this time with you, but is there anything We got so much we can touch, and every time I talk to you… I know, we got so much we can touch, but every time I talk to you, it’s wonderful. But is there anything that you want to say Before you move on with your Christmas holiday.
Susan
I gotta go pick up my kid at the airport, which I can’t wait!
April
That’s right!
Susan
Yes, I want… you know, we’ve talked about a lot of, you know, serious and worrying things, but I think it’s really important that people understand that the response we should have to These developments is not to throw up our hands and say we can’t do anything, or feel helpless, or, you know, stick our heads in the sand. You know, we are the most resilient people on the planet. We are people who have been through very difficult times in our history. And we have the ability to shape our future, and to slow the march towards authoritarianism, and ultimately to stop it, to ensure that we have economic policies that, you know, take account of… artificial intelligence and, and help people manage through this transition. We have the ability, if we were Willing. to ensure that our kids’ minds aren’t melted by, social media and artificial intelligence. But we’ve got to be engaged, we’ve got to stand up, we’ve got to be vocal, we’ve got to be united. We’ve gotta, you know, exercise the muscles that we have, and assert our First Amendment rights. Say what we think. protest, Peacefully, and, and be very… intentional. About fighting to save and improve the country we love. We got a lot of problems. It’s not good enough to save it. We gotta improve it. But we can if we come together, and we have, and we have, forward-thinking leadership, and I’m, April, committed to doing all I can, and I just want to encourage people You know, it’s holiday season, let’s enjoy our families, hold close to people we love, support our communities, and let’s, you know, come out in the new year with renewed energy and resolve, to stand up for and Preserve and defend and improve our circumstances and our society, because with all that we’ve been discussing, we still have the greatest potential of any place on Earth.
April
I’m glad you gave us hope. Because you said 2026, there’ll be more pain. You started off saying, this is an abomination.
Susan
I said 2025 was an abomination.
April
No, 2025 is an abomination. We… Trump has an F- and a superpower suicide in 2026. But I’m glad he gave us that.
Susan
I said we are in the process of doing that.
April
2026 is around the corner.
Susan
around the corner, but we get to shape our future. You know, it’s, As you’ve heard other folks say, and I like to say, and I wrote at the end of my book, Tough Love, My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. You know, nobody’s ever won by betting against the United States of America. And, you know, I wouldn’t start now. But that means we’ve gotta, you know, we gotta step up. And, you know, you know that famous saying attributed to Dr. King, the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. But it doesn’t bend on its own. We gotta bend it.
April
That’s right.
Susan
we’ve got to do the work. So, let’s have a great holiday, everybody stay safe and healthy, and wishing you all a Happy New Year, and let’s come out together strong in 2026.
April
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, National Security Advisor, and Domestic Policy Advisor, Susan Rice, thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for being an exceptional human being in a time of great pain. I appreciate you, and I can’t wait to see what the next position you take in another administration. Or maybe your own.
Yeah, we leaving that alone. Thank you, my friend. Happy holidays.
Susan
Bye-bye.
