Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

A portion of this interview aired on January 15, 2025 and was previously transcribed and released.  The following transcript reflects the Secretary’s interview, as-aired on January 16, 2025, in its entirety. 

QUESTION:  Ben Gvir and his ilk – they are extremist firebrands that even the U.S. has sanctioned in the past.  They want settlements.  They say that they want to stay in Gaza.  The infrastructure that the IDF is creating in Gaza points to a permanent stay there in some parts.  Are you sure, is USG sure that Israel will pull out or that it will stay for, I don’t know, months, years afterwards?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  What I can tell you is this, Christiane:  First, it’s our policy and it’s been our policy very clearly, including principles that I laid out months ago at the very beginning of the conflict in Tokyo, that there can’t be a permanent occupation of Gaza, that Israel has to pull out, that the territory of Gaza shouldn’t be changed.  And of course, it obviously can’t be run by Hamas, who uses it as a base of terrorism.

The ceasefire deal itself requires the Israeli forces to pull back and then, assuming you get to a permanent ceasefire, to pull out entirely.  But that’s what’s so critical about this post-conflict plan, the need to come to an agreement on its arrangements, because there has to be something in place that gives Israelis the confidence that they can pull out permanently and not have Hamas fill back in and not have a repeat of the last, really, decade.

QUESTION:  I want to ask you in the broad picture, because I was actually quite, I don’t know, stunned that I saw President-elect Trump retweet a position by a former U.S. official, Jeffrey Sachs, as you know very well.  He basically called Benjamin Netanyahu a mean, rude SOB, dark and all the rest of it, and then alluded to the fact that it’s him running the show and not USG.  USG, the biggest, biggest backer of Israel, has not been able to change the dynamic in any appreciable form.

(A), what did you think of President Trump?  Would you think that’s a message that he plans to be harder than maybe you?  And also, do you think that the tail has often been wagging the dog, that no matter what you’ve said about respecting international law, getting humanitarian aid in, all of the rest of it – your clients have ignored you by and large.  So I’m wondering whether you think it’s time to re-ask the question that former President Trump did during particularly fraught negotiations –

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  So –

QUESTION:  – when he said:  Who is the effing superpower here?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  So first, I focus less on personalities and more on policies.  What is a given country actually doing?  Doesn’t matter who the individual is.  What are they actually doing?

Second, I think that what’s been misunderstood around the world is ascribing to one individual or maybe a small group of individuals the policies that Israel is pursuing that many people don’t like.  I think this is a reflection of 70, 80, 90 percent of Israelis following the trauma of October 7th, and ascribing this to any one individual, I think, is a mistake and actually leads you to maybe draw the wrong conclusions.

This is where the country is, and the policies that the government’s pursuing are really a reflection of the country, even – even many people who don’t like the prime minister.  So that’s one thing, and it’s important to understand that.  You have a traumatized society, just as you have a traumatized Palestinian society because of the horrors that children, women, and men have had to endure in Gaza, caught in this crossfire of Hamas’s initiation that they didn’t start and are powerless to stop.

QUESTION:  I’m not going to ask you the genocide question because I’ve heard you answer it.  You don’t believe that that’s what Israel is doing, although the leading U.S. Israeli scholar on genocide and Holocaust studies has told me he believes, after a year of studying this, that it does fit that description.

But I’m going to ask you about your own officials here in the State Department.  More than a dozen have resigned, and they are very, very deeply concerned that the actual American laws governing the use of military aid have not been followed.

And furthermore, I’m going to ask you about the Israelis themselves who talk about war crimes.  Moshe Yaalon, the former defense secretary for Netanyahu, a Likudnik, not a bleeding-heart liberal – ethnic cleansing and war crimes are taking part, and he’s doubled down on that.

The truth warriors at Haaretz who’ve discovered what Israeli soldiers have been saying, that they have in the recent past – recent present been even considering children who come to a certain area as terrorists; that the brave soldiers from Breaking the Silence are taking the confessions of IDF coming back and who – many of them, some of them, concerned about what they have been doing.  Are you prepared to say that war crimes have been committed by Israel?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  I can’t speak to individual instances.  I can say, obviously, we’ve had concerns – more than concerns – about the way Israel has conducted itself, understanding, first of all, that this is a unique environment, one we haven’t really seen before, one where you have a population that’s trapped inside of Gaza.  In virtually every other situation in the world, people are able to get out of harm’s way.  They become refugees in a neighboring country.  That’s not a good thing, but it’s better than being caught in the middle of this kind of maelstrom.

Second, uniquely, you have an enemy that intentionally embeds itself within the civilian population in and under apartments, in and under schools, mosques, hospitals.  That does not in any way absolve Israel of the responsibility, the obligation to conduct itself according to international law –

QUESTION:  Seventeen-thousand children –

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  – but it makes it – it makes it much more challenging.

So we look at this very, very carefully; Israel looks at this very, very carefully.  There are hundreds of cases that are within the Israeli system as we speak.  Those cases, I believe and trust, will move forward to assess exactly what you’ve asked, whether individuals have committed violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes, you name it.  That’s the nature of the system.  We need to see it obviously come to fruition, just as we look intensely at any things that are brought to our attention.  But the challenge of doing that, not only in real time but doing it in this unique environment, are real.  That doesn’t mean we don’t do it.  We do, but it takes time to get to the facts.

The second thing I want to say is this.  I more than respect, I deeply value the fact that we have people in this department and in our system who have different views and speak up, speak out.  We have something called the dissent channel in the State Department, where people object to a policy we’re pursuing, they can send me a note, a memo, a detailed brief, and I see it.  I read it; I respond to it.  And I’ve gotten, I don’t know, a couple of dozen when it comes to Gaza, as well as other issues.  That is a cherished tradition in this department, and I wanted to make sure that people feel that they can do that.  And it’s also affected our thinking in many cases, including our actions.

QUESTION:  I want to go to Ukraine, because in the fight for democracy, in the fight for – as you and President Biden have been speaking about, especially as you wind down the administration, that these are the big successes of your administration, that you brought this huge alliance together.  You expanded NATO.  You helped Ukraine survive.  As you know, even within the U.S. environment, people, some experts believe that you didn’t go far enough, you didn’t give them enough weapons, it’s just enough to survive but not enough to win or even enough to bring Putin properly to the table seriously.

I don’t know whether you’re going to answer that, but I want to ask you about what you’ve just written with Secretary of Defense Austin, where you have listed your achievements and then said that this is leverage that we can pass on to Donald Trump and his administration, and if he doesn’t use it and if he just surrenders, that would be catastrophic for everybody concerned.  Do you think that leverage will be used by the next administration?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Of course, I can’t speak to what the next administration will do.  I do know that President Trump often says that he wants and gets good deals, so one of the things that we’ve tried to do is to make sure that Ukraine has, but also the United States has, the strongest possible hand to play if it comes to trying to get a resolution, to trying to get a ceasefire.  And that really depends on two things.  It depends on whether that’s what Ukrainians want to do, and it depends on whether Putin will agree to engage in that kind of process.  So we’ll see; the jury’s out on that.

But Christiane, what I can tell you is this.  Remember where we started.  Putin, who sought to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate Ukraine as an independent country, to subsume it into Russia – this was an imperial project.  That project has failed, and it’s failed because, obviously, the courage of the Ukrainian people, but it’s also failed because we rallied and kept together a coalition of more than 50 countries in Ukraine’s defense.  And every step along the way, we’ve been determined to make sure that Ukraine had what it needed to defend itself.  As the nature of the battlefield changed, we changed too in terms of what we were providing them.

Every step along the way, we not only had to determine whether a given weapons system was something that we were prepared to do, but could they use it effectively?  So did they have the training?  Could they maintain it?  Was it part of a coherent operational plan?  All of those factors went into every decision.  But the fact is Ukraine is standing, and that was not at all what was expected when Putin began this invasion.  It’s standing.  It also has an incredibly bright future as a country that is standing independently, that’s increasingly integrated with institutions in Europe and the transatlantic community, that can fend for itself militarily, economically, democratically.  That is the ultimate rebuke to Vladimir Putin.

QUESTION:  And you know that Putin has no interest, no expressed interest in anything other than total surrender and to completely obliterate Ukraine as an independent, sovereign nation?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  That’s right.

QUESTION:  A vassal state.  What would the effect of that be on – well, we know what would happen to Ukraine, but Europe, American leadership?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, I think two things are important to keep in mind.  First, when it comes – if there is going to be some kind of ceasefire, it’s essential that that have embedded within it some kind of deterrent to make sure that Russia doesn’t attack again, because we know what’s in Putin’s mind.  Putin, if there is a ceasefire, will, yeah, try to use the time to rest, to refit, and to re-attack.  So there has to be a strong deterrent in place to make sure that that doesn’t happen.  There are different ways of doing that, but that’s going to be critical.

More broadly, you get at what this has always been about.  Of course, it’s about Ukraine, it’s about the Ukrainian people, but it’s about something much broader.  It’s about the fact that Russia committed an aggression against the very principles that are at the heart of the international system, that are necessary to try to keep the peace, to try to preserve stability, to try to prevent war; the notion that you can’t just violate another country’s borders by force, that you can’t simply go in and try to take over another country and run its future.  And we know that had we not stood up for those principles, had Putin been able to violate them with impunity, the message that would have sent to would-be aggressors everywhere – well beyond Europe, all over the world – would have been crystal clear.

One of the most powerful moments in this was early on, when the then-Japanese Prime Minister Kishida stood up and put Japan strongly behind Ukraine and said:  What happens in Ukraine today could be happening in East Asia tomorrow.  That’s why this has been so much bigger than Ukraine, and why it remains so essential that we continue not only to defend Ukraine, but to defend those principles.

QUESTION:  Do you think in the full fading light of this administration, after all that you’ve done, that you wish that you had done more?  For instance, the former Russian foreign minister said to me, in the aftermath of the invasion:  All Putin understands is strength.  The former French president, mild-mannered, François Hollande, told me that the West is afraid of war; Putin is not afraid of war; that’s what gives Putin his advantage.  We know that the U.S. government has been intimidated by the saber-rattling, the nuclear saber-rattling.  Do you really think that he would have followed through with that, and should you have called his bluff as a massive U.S. and NATO force?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, I’ll take – I’ll take objection to one part of your question with the notion that we’ve been intimidated.  We certainly haven’t.  Look at what we’ve been able to do, not only ourselves but dozens of other countries that we brought together and that we’ve kept together, in terms of what we’ve provided Ukraine – and Ukrainians have been willing themselves to carry this fight – and it’s hundreds of billions of dollars in military support and more as well in terms of humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine.

And the losses that Russia has suffered on the battlefield in a meat grinder of Putin’s making, by some estimates, 7- to 800,000 casualties.  That includes people killed and people wounded.  That’s beyond what almost anyone can conceive of.  So certainly Ukrainians, with our support, have more than taken the fight to Russia.

President Biden has a responsibility that none of us ultimately have.  The buck really does stop with the President.  And that’s to make sure, on the one hand, that we provide all the support that we can for Ukraine so that it can effectively defend itself, but also, yes, avoid getting into a direct conflict with a nuclear power.  And he’s managed, I think, to do both very, very well.  We also have a NATO Alliance that’s stronger, that’s bigger, that’s better resourced than it’s ever been.  That’s the best deterrent to making sure that there’s not further aggression coming from Putin.  He does not want to take on NATO, and we’ve seen that time and time again.

QUESTION:  Do you think Marco Rubio and company, who have expressed doubts about supporting Ukraine and have actually prevented aid going there in a timely manner and who have expressed doubts about alliances – certainly the first Trump term was not one that respected alliances like yours has done.  Do you think that they will maintain this alliance that you have rebuilt, or do you think that that is going to – I know you can’t look into the future, but what do you – what is your fear?  What’s your worry?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, yes, of course, my concern is that there will be a move away from what I think is a signal achievement of this administration, which has been to re-energize, to re-engage, to rejuvenate, even to re-imagine our alliances and partnerships, because we believe fundamentally that we’re stronger, we’re more effective when we’re working with others.  And I think most Americans don’t want to see America go it alone, that they understand we’re better off when we can do things in partnership with – with other countries, and that’s been a hallmark of this administration.

The fact that we did that is what enabled us to bring so many countries together in defense of Ukraine, to make sure that they were picking up the burden, not just the United States.  The fact that we did that, made that investment in allies and partners, that’s why we’ve been able now to focus everyone in a very similar way on the challenges posed by China so that we’re all taking on those challenges together collectively, and the weight of that is much greater than if we were just doing it alone.

Now, they could move away from that.  I’ve had really good conversations with Senator Rubio, soon to be Secretary Rubio, and he’s someone who is deeply steeped in these issues, long-time service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the Intelligence Committee.  He knows – he knows the issues well.  He’s very thoughtful about them, and I believe – but I don’t want to speak for him – I certainly don’t want to damn him with praise – that he’s someone who understands the imperative of American engagement and American leadership.

QUESTION:  What do you think then would be the consequence if President Trump pulled a Putin, so to speak, and annexed Greenland or invaded Canada or Mexico or whatever?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  This – this is not going to happen.  And so – of course, not a good idea to begin with, but not much point in really spending time talking about it because it’s not going to happen.  We have a very strong relationship, of course, with Denmark, which is, after all, a NATO Ally.  I’ve been to Greenland myself, very early in my term.  We have a military base there that’s critical.  We have important economic relationships, and those can grow deeper and stronger.  That would be a good thing, but not by taking the route that you just described.

QUESTION:  And finally, on Iran, I mean, there’s so much to talk about, but I want to ask you whether the demonstration in the full light of day of Iran trying to attack Israel and it failing completely, do you think that will accelerate Iran’s as yet – they don’t have a nuclear weapon, they’re not building a nuclear weapon, according to the UN – do you think that that’s a worry for the next several years that they’ll conclude that they have to have that?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, we’ve seen two things from this.  One is the nuclear question.  And of course, we had Iran’s nuclear program in a box with Iran nuclear deal –

QUESTION:  And remember, Trump pulled out of it.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  And I think that was a big mistake, especially pulling out and not then moving in with something else.  And since then – Iran was at a point where it would have taken it more than a year to produce the fissile material for a nuclear weapon; that was what the Iran nuclear deal did.  Now, that so-called breakout time is down to a week or two, enough material for a weapon – they don’t have a weapon itself, but the fissile material can be done very quickly.

So Iran is going to have to calculate whether, because it’s lost all of its proxies – Hamas, Hizballah, the Syria connection – it may conclude that in order to defend itself it has to move in that direction.  It may also conclude that no, it’d better strike a deal.  And if President Trump is serious about what he said back then, which is that he wanted a better or stronger deal, well, there may be an opportunity to get one.

There’s something else, Christiane, that’s so important here as well, though.  What’s happened with Iran also demonstrates where the region can go, where Israel can go, where the Palestinians can go if they move down the track that we’ve established for greater integration.  Israel’s profound hope, from the beginning of its existence, was to be treated like any other country in the region, to have normal relations with its neighbors.  We now have an opportunity, they now have an opportunity to do that.

We were – before October 7th, we were working intensely on normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, building on the Abraham Accords, and I was scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia and Israel to try to resolve some of the outstanding issues, including and in particular in that moment, dealing with a pathway to a Palestinian state, because for the Saudis it would be critical, for us as well – critical to have that pathway in order to move forward with normalization.

We’ve seen the benefits of integration for Israel’s security.  When Israel was attacked in an unprecedented way by Iran not once but twice, we were able to pull together a coalition of countries, including countries in the region, to defend Israel.  Israel could see that being part of a regional security architecture, which is what comes with integration, comes with normalized relations, is good for its security.  But two things are required to get there, to have this historic normalization.  One, ending the war in Gaza.  Two, agreeing to a credible pathway for a Palestinian state.  We have done a lot of work on all of that.  The normalization agreements – they’re ready to go.  Ideas for how you would have a credible pathway to a Palestinian state, they’re also there ready to go.  I talked about some of them just this week.

I think we’re handing off to the next administration the possibility of actually moving through this path, moving down a path that they, with the Abraham Accords, really moved forward.  Having this integration, having a region that is focused on working together, creating more opportunity for people in every country, dealing with terrorism, dealing with threats from countries like Iran that want to undermine the order, but Gaza and a pathway for the Palestinians.  Those are the two critical things.

My hope, my strongest desire is that the next administration will be able to move forward with all of those plans, all of those projects.  That can radically change the future of the region.

QUESTION:  Secretary Blinken, thank you very much.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thanks, Christiane.  Good to be with you.