Antony Blinken

The president-elect had made clear that we will end our support for the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

He has a strongly-held view that we have a strong national interest in doing what we can to advance the future for our hemisphere that is democratic, that is middle class that is secure.

We must show that senators and all other leaders in this country have a duty to stand up for democracy, for the Constitution, for the rule of law.

I very much agree with you.

I am committed to advancing our security and prosperity by building a diplomatic corps that fully represents America.

I think we found that out in practice. Yes, I think there was a broad consensus that economic liberalization in China would lead to political liberalization. That has not happened.

America, at its best, still has a greater ability than any other country on earth to bring others together to meet the challenges of our time.

That's who we are. That's what America represents to the world however imperfectly. Now, we have to proceed with equal measures of humility and confidence.

If you look two things, one, the budget and, you know, show me the money and I'll tell you what your priorities are, clearly, State Department is not their priority.

Well, look, we certainly didn't want to politicize things. And there was concern about being perceived as putting or thumbs on the scales.

We didn't wait, Anderson. First, couple things that are important, when this information first came to light late in the summer, we thought that the primary objective that Russia was pursuing was to actually hack into the elections and…

I think they've handled it appropriately. I wouldn't play this up.

The best way to deal with Raqqa, liberating it is using a force on the ground that's dominated by a Kurdish militia that Turkey hates.

Especially when actually those values are absolutely necessary and central to having the stability that the president and we ultimately want, because in the absence of that, you're actually going to have countries that at least in the…

It has to be a little painful for them. But, honestly, I think Christiane is right. There are two things going on.

Right now, the president, secretary of state, are trying to rally the world to deal with the Syria CW and to, in particular, deal with the misinformation campaign that the Russians are running.

It's kind of impressive to see the enthusiasm with which he espouses diametrically opposed positions.

The challenge now, Anderson, is that we do want to keep our eyes on the prize and that is the fight against ISIL and that fight is going well.

The problem for us, Anderson, is that, you know, successive administration is going back to the early '90s and tried to reign in North Korean nuclear program without succeeding.

There's a clear limiting principal here in upholding a principal. That principal is you don't use chemical or biological weapons.

If we're not able and the Iraqis are not able to affect the conditions that led to the rise of ISIL in the first place, once it's defeated, it won't stay defeated and you will have ISIL 2.0.

The Russians really do need at the end of the day some way out of the Syrian (inaudible).

It is, because if you're -- anything that you do that allows that basic principal that you don't use chemical weapons or biological weapons in our conflict anywhere, that if you're undermining that principal, that's going to be a danger…

If you don't do it, we're going to have to continue to take steps to protect ourselves and protect our allies and partners.

At the same time, the trick is to be tough with Russia, to hold them to account for what Assad is doing with chemical and biological weapons, but not to overplay the hand to the point that Russia starts to interfere with, not help, the…