Former US Secretary of State John Kerry: We face a special challenge in America

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry: We face a special challenge in America

We face a special challenge in America.

James Naughtie speaks to veteran US politician John Kerry about the state of American politics and his long career at the top of global affairs.

As well as standing for president himself as the Democratic candidate in 2004, he served as Secretary of State in the Obama administration and as Joe Biden’s climate envoy.

Secretary Kerry was at the centre of some of the most significant global crises in recent history from Iraq to Iran and Syria. He still believes one of America’s greatest foreign policy mistakes was invading Iraq in 2003 without first seeking formal approval from the US Congress.

He is forthright in his views on America today, saying he has never seen anything like what the country is living through. He describes politics as defined by greed and insensitivity, and guided by the lowest aspirations. For his Democratic party to return to power once more, he challenges them to face and address the issues the American people care about, including immigration.

Thank you to the Politically team for its help in making this programme. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: James Naughtie Producers: Lucy Sheppard, Giles Edwards Editor: Nick Holland

Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.

(Image: John Kerry. Credit: Reuters)

Episoder(1827)

Ghazi Hamad – Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister

Ghazi Hamad – Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister

The election of a Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi as president of Egypt will have an impact not only on Egypt but also elsewhere in the Middle East. Nowhere more so perhaps than in Gaza. There, Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has ruled for five years. Zeinab Badawi speaks to Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister for Hamas in Gaza. At loggerheads with the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and viewed by Israel as a terrorist organisation, will the new dynamics of power in Egypt better serve the cause of peace and reconciliation in the Middle East or merely exacerbate the tensions?

6 Jul 201223min

Professor Niall Ferguson - Historian

Professor Niall Ferguson - Historian

The British Government has promised action to deal with the scandal at Barclays. The bank has been fined for trying to fix the interest rate at which banks lend to each other - London Interbank Offered Rate - or Libor. Yet again it's the lack of regulation that is being blamed for a financial problem. Sarah Montague talks to Professor Niall Ferguson who argues that the world is responding in the wrong way to the global financial crisis. He thinks the economic chaos which began in 2007 was caused by too much regulation, not too little.(Image: Professor Niall Ferguson)

3 Jul 201223min

Lynton Crosby - Political Strategist

Lynton Crosby - Political Strategist

Electoral politics is a blood sport and some of the toughest fighters in the game are the campaign strategists who hone and sell their candidates' message.Lynton Crosby is widely regarded as a master in the dark arts of political campaigning. He ran winning election campaigns in his native Australia for former prime minister John Howard. In the UK, he twice helped Boris Johnson win the London Mayor's office. Opponents on the left have accused him of using grubby, divisive methods to further a conservative agenda. Is bare-knuckle politics good for democracy?(Image: Lynton Crosby)

1 Jul 201223min

Helle Thorning-Schmidt - Denmark's Prime Minister

Helle Thorning-Schmidt - Denmark's Prime Minister

Stephen Sackur is in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, which for the past six tumultuous months has held the presidency of the European Union. In that time, the number of Eurozone countries seeking an emergency financial bailout has risen to five. On the eve of yet another crisis summit, EU leaders face decisions that could make, or break the common currency. Stephen Sackur talks to Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark's prime minister. Is the dream of a common European future from Scandinavia to the Aegean well and truly over?(Image: Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt giving a press conference. Credit: Georges Gobet / AFP / Getty Images)

29 Jun 201222min

Gehad El-Haddad - Senior Political Advisor, Freedom and Justice Party

Gehad El-Haddad - Senior Political Advisor, Freedom and Justice Party

Stephen Sackur talks to Gehad El-Haddad, an adviser to the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.Mohamed Morsi has made history by becoming Egypt's first freely-elected president, but how much power has he won? The image of tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters savouring victory in Tahrir Square can't disguise the fact that Egypt is still governed by a military clique. With Parliament dissolved, no new constitution written and the generals ringfencing their powers, has Egypt's revolution run out of road?(Image: Gehad El-Haddad)

26 Jun 201223min

Dr. Steve Peters - Psychiatrist working in elite sport

Dr. Steve Peters - Psychiatrist working in elite sport

With the London Olympics just weeks away, athletes are completing their final preparations - and that means fine tuning the mind as well as the body. In elite sport the title 'head coach' increasingly refers to the specialist hired to get inside the athlete's head to instil a winning mentality. Stephen Sackur talks to the psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters - a consultant to the British Olympic cycling team and a highly prized adviser to a host of other famous sporting names. Is winning really all in the mind?(Image: Steve Peters speaks to the British cyclist Victoria Pendleton during the UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classic in February, 2011. Credit: Getty Images)

24 Jun 201223min

Beeban Kidron - Film Director

Beeban Kidron - Film Director

The 2012 Cannes Film Festival was criticised when all 22 films in the competition were directed by men. But Hollywood is not much better - a recent study found that less than 10 per cent of its directors were women.So why are there so few women film-makers? Sarah Montague puts that question to Beeban Kidron, one of the few women to have made the big time. She is perhaps best-known for directing the second Bridget Jones movie, The Edge of Reason. But most of her other films concern far more radical material: a documentary about the anti-nuclear women protesters at Greenham Common, a TV adaptation of the lesbian novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Her latest documentary is about India's sacred prostitutes. Is it women and the choices they make that interests her most?(Image: Beeban Kidron in 2005. Credit: Ian West / PA Wire)

22 Jun 201223min

Chuka Umunna - UK Shadow Business Secretary

Chuka Umunna - UK Shadow Business Secretary

The Greek election in June 2012 has saved Europe from economic and financial meltdown - for now. No-one in Europe believes the combined currency, banking and sovereign debt trauma is over. And right across the continent, politicians are struggling to answer a simple question: how does Europe find a way back to sustainable economic growth?Stephen Sackur talks to Labour's business spokesman Chuka Umunna. He says active government can revive and reshape capitalism. Are business leaders or the public ready to believe him?(Image: Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna (left) with Labour Party leader Ed Miliband. Credit: Chris Radburn / PA Wire)

20 Jun 201223min

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