Democracy Works9 Jun 2025

Ben Rhodes on America's changing role in a changed world

For our final episode of the season, we present a conversation with Ben Rhodes recorded at in Washington, D.C. at the end of May. Democracy Works is going on summer break. We'll be back with new episodes in September!

The Democracy Group's first live podcast recording featuring foreign policy expert and fellow podcaster Ben Rhodes in conversation with Kamy Akhavan of Let's Find Common Ground and Stephanie Gerber Wilson of Freedom Over Fascism about America’s place on the world stage and how the health of American democracy impacts other democracies around the world. They also discuss how podcasting can shape messaging and narrative in a fractured media environment.

About Ben Rhodes

Rhodes is a writer, political commentator, and national security analyst. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, and The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. He is currently co-host of Pod Save the World. His work has also been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs.

From 2009-2017, Rhodes served as a speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama. In that role, he led the secret negotiations with the Cuban government that resulted in the effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba.

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