==Transcript of HRC with Sec of State, Antony Blinken, teleconference, March 2, 2021
SECRETARY CLINTON: So, Secretary Blinken, welcome. I cannot express how pleased I am to have this chance to talk with you.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you. I could not be happier to be able to spend some time with you. I’ve had the good fortune to have spent a lot of time in these halls with you in the past, at the White House over many years, but it’s particularly fun to be connected via the podcast.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, I agree. So let me ask you, what have your first few weeks as Secretary of State looked like and felt like to you?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, you know this better than anyone. It’s a little bit like jumping onto a treadmill that’s already moving at 10 miles an hour, and partly it’s just trying to hold on. But you know – obviously, because of COVID it’s been a challenge, and there’s a little bit of frustration that comes with that. I remember so well when you became secretary, you were off almost immediately on that airplane visiting with, working with, engaging with our allies and partners and others around the world. I wish I could do the same thing, but we’re grounded.
Now, the good news is I’ve been burning up the phone lines. I’ve been saying that it’s a good thing the department’s on the family plan, otherwise I would have bankrupted the budget. So there’s that. But, of course, you know as well as anyone, better than anyone, it’s just not the same thing. So I’m really looking forward to being able to get out there.
But what’s been so gratifying is because I’ve been doing this for a while – I started working for President Clinton in 1993, and my first job was here at the State Department working in the front office of the European Affairs Bureau, and so I’ve known the men and women of the department for a long time. And the greatest pleasure I’ve had since I’m back is just reconnecting with people that you and I know so well.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes. Well, I can imagine what that’s like for them as well, Secretary, because it’s been a tough four years for our Foreign Service officers and our Civil Service officials, and it’s important to do what you’re doing, which is spending time with them, talking with them, listening to them. I read where you said you felt confident and humble, and I thought that was a really good combination as you embark on this important job.
You run a department with tens of thousands of Foreign Service officers, as I say, civil servant officials, and we have national employees out around the world.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: And you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to make all of that work, especially since I think it’s fair to say you’re facing a deficit, a deficit of trust and a deficit of leadership, that the prior administration left you. So how are you trying to prioritize the myriad of challenges and opportunities that you’re looking at?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, you’re exactly right that, in a sense, the first challenge is actually the building, the institution, the men and women of the department; the Foreign Service officers, the civil servants, and, as you rightly point out, what we call locally employed staff, the thousands – the tens of thousands – of extraordinary men and women from the countries that are hosting us who work with us and work for us.
And so one of the things that’s been so important in this early going is to make it very clear to all of our colleagues that we’re going to be relying and depending on them – their expertise, their experience, their professionalism. And so I think one of the things we’re going to show and people will see in the weeks ahead as some of the senior appointments are made, we’re going to be relying heavily on career professionals. They bring so much to the table, and it would be really to operate with our hands tied behind our backs if we didn’t rely on that and use that.
The other piece when it comes to the institution itself is, and this is something I feel very strongly about, we have to have a Foreign Service, we have to have career professionals, we have to have a State Department, that looks like the country it represents. And that’s been a real deficiency for a long, long time.
So I’m about to appoint the very first chief diversity and inclusion officer, who will report directly to the Secretary of State. We’re going to focus on making sure we’re recruiting effectively, we’re retaining people, and that there’s actual accountability for making progress. If we get the human resource piece of this right, then we’re going to be so much more effective around the world in representing the country and in carrying out the President’s foreign policy.
full transcript at:
https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-hillary-clinton-you-and-me-both-with-hillary-clinton-podcast/
https://archive.is/wip/67exk