He said Obama should have recognized the Armenian genocide. What the precise trade-offs would be, between forms of sanctions relief and forms of restraints on their programs, that was left to us to feel out.. He accompanied Hamilton and his Republican counterpart on the group, former secretary of state and Bush family intimate James Baker, to their meetings with Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, David Petraeus and many others (Vice President Dick Cheney met with the group but didnt say a word).
Moreover, Ben is active on Instagram under the handle @ben.j.rhodes with followers as of January 2023. ", "Top Obama aides 'sorry' they did not recognize Armenian genocide", "Opinion | How to Check Trump and Repair America's Image", "How Does Obama's Foreign Policy Look a Year Into Trump? WebBen Rhodes. [23][24] Rhodes was featured in the HBO documentary The Final Year, along with John Kerry, Samantha Power and Susan Rice. Rhodes has written opinion articles for newspapers and magazines including the New York Times and The Atlantic. As secretary of defense, he tells me, one of his most important jobs was keeping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, from launching a pre-emptive attack on Irans nuclear facilities. Rhodess nationality is American. [5] He then moved back to New York, attending New York University and graduating in 2002 with an MFA in creative writing. [13], Rhodes wrote Obama's 2009 Cairo speech "A New Beginning. I remember him asking me questions that I felt like no one else has ever asked me before, she says, and he asked me from a perspective of someone who knew the same experience that I had. Finally, press "Search" and their wedding website (as well as their
He contributes to NBC News and MSNBC regularly as a political commentator. [25], In 2021, Rhodes, a liberal Zionist,[26] stated that, in the course of dealing with the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, it became clear to the Obama administration that the Netanyahu government was not interested in working in earnest toward a peace treaty based on a two-state solution. From there, she went on to work for the State Department, first in the departments office of global womens issues, and then in the State Departments Bureau of Legislative Affairs. The brother of Ben Rhodes is David Rhodes, president of CBS News. At the same time, he believes very deeply in Obama, the man and the president, and in the policies that he has helped to structure and sell on his behalf. [4][5] He attended the Collegiate School, graduating in 1996. Jon Favreau, then the campaigns lead speechwriter, felt as if he could use a foreign-affairs expert who could write. This is something different from old-fashioned spin, which tended to be an art best practiced in person. But once you are attuned to the distinctive qualities of Rhodess voice which is often laced with aggressive contempt for anyone or anything that stands in the presidents way you can hear him everywhere. Trumps staffers called the conspiracy the Echo Chamber conspiracy and theorized that Ben Rhodes was its leader. 2. People construct their own sense of source and credibility now, she said. I ask Rhodes how it felt being seated next to the embodiment of American realpolitik. On his first day in the West Wing, Rhodes remembers thinking how remarkably small the space was, and noticing that the same few dozen people he worked with at campaign headquarters in Chicago were now wearing suits instead of jeans. He has worked as a speechwriter and senior advisor for President Obama for eight years. Price looks up from his keyboard to provide a messaging update: Considering that they have 10 of our guys in custody, were doing O.K., With three hours to go until the presidents address to Congress, Rhodes grabs a big Gatorade and starts combing through the text of the State of the Union address. We sit for a while, and I examine the presidents thoughts unfolding on the page, and the lawyerly, abstract nature of his writing process. They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.. He openly shares Rhodess contempt for the groupthink of the American foreign-policy establishment and its hangers-on in the press. Here is the president adjusting Rhodess tie; presenting his darling baby daughter, Ella, with a flower; and smiling wide while playing with Ella on a giant rug that says E Pluribus Unum.. AUTHORS, PODCASTERS, POLITICAL COMMENTATORS IN USA Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks, twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages they pose an enormous danger to civilians; they have to be stopped. When I don't think he was, ever." National Security Advisor, Strategic Comm. What power means is that the choice is yours, no matter who is telling the story. Please enable Javascript. Part of what accounts for Rhodess influence is his mind meld with the president. Justice. Yet Rhodes bridled at the suggestion that there has been anything deceptive about the way that the agreement itself was sold. I mean, Id prefer a sober, reasoned public debate, after which members of Congress reflect and take a vote, he said, shrugging. He had the pen. We spent three, four, five hours together in Washington talking things through before the meetings. In March 2013, a full three months before the elections that elevated Hassan Rouhani to the office of president, Sullivan and Burns finalized their proposal for an interim agreement, which became the basis for the J.C.P.O.A. One sentence reads: But as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands. He retypes a word, then changes it back, before continuing with his edit. Ben Rhodes is a contributor to Crooked Media and Co-Host of Pod Save the World, a weekly foreign policy podcast that averages nearly a million listeners per episode. I actually didnt do that great in high school because I was drinking and smoking pot and hanging out in Central Park.. I didnt sign up for that. What I want to understand better, I tell her, are the swirls of the presidents emotional fingerprint, which I saw in the longhand draft of his Nobel speech. Rhodes then attended Rice University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 2000 with majors in English and political science. Bens salary is $125,800 annually. Early on, Rhodes asked her to create a rapid-response account that fact-checked everything related to the Iran deal. So, we developed a plan that was like: The Iran deal is literally going to be the tip of everything that we stand up online, Somanader says. Another official I spoke to put the same point more succinctly: Clearly the world has disappointed him. When I asked whether he believed that the Oval Office debate over Syria policy in 2012 resulting in a decision not to support the uprising against Assad in any meaningful way had been an honest and open one, he said that he had believed that it was, but has since changed his mind. Her mother retired from the House of Delegates of the Virginia General Assembly after serving 10 years as a Republican from Richmond. Rhodes strategized and ran the successful Iran-deal messaging campaign, helped negotiate the opening of American relations with Cuba after a hiatus of more than 50 years and has been a co-writer of all of Obamas major foreign-policy speeches. Furthermore, he is also a holder of an MFA in creative writing from New York University where he graduated in 2002. I was against the Iraq war from the beginning, I tell Rhodes, so I understand why he perpetually returns to it. Rhodess windowless back office, which doesnt have a TV screen, is an oasis of late-night calm in a building devoted to the performance of power. Ben Rhodes was and remains at the frontline of this never-ending battle. He is the master shaper and retailer of Obamas foreign-policy narratives, at a time when the killer wave of social media has washed away the sand castles of the traditional press. In 2017, it was alleged that Israeli private intelligence agency Black Cube attempted to manufacture incriminating or embarrassing information about Rhodes and his wife, as well as about fellow former National Security Council staffer Colin Kahl, in an apparent effort to undermine supporters of the Iran nuclear deal. What is it going to do to our narrative?, Malley is a particularly keen observer of the changing art of political communication; his father, Simon Malley, who was born in Cairo, edited the politics magazine Afrique Asie and proudly provided a platform for Fidel Castro and Yasir Arafat, in the days when the leaders words might take weeks to travel from Cuba or Cairo to Paris. Here was the new American self rational, moral, not self-indulgent. Ben is active on Twitter under the handle @brhodes with 565.4k followers as of January 2023. He is, according to the consensus of the two dozen current and former White House insiders I talked to, the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself. I expect cynicism in Washington. We talk for a while about being American and at the same time being from somewhere else, and the split-screen experience of reality that experience allows. In the office of Barbara Boxer Former US Senator and Representative from California Senior Foreign Policy and Defense Adviser (Mar 28 '05?) He is the son of an Episcopal father from Texas and a Jewish mother from New York. Instead, he suggested that he apply for a job with Lee Hamilton, the onetime congressman from Indiana, who was looking for a speechwriter. Blitzer! a man calls out. Rhodes just was bothered by seeing legless kids and unexploded cluster bombs in the jungle. Later, the writer criticized the Trump administrations involvement in Yemen. Ben co-hosts the podcast along with Tommy Vietor who also worked in the National security Council during Presidents Obama administration. The couple is relatively private about their lives, and do not publicize their family. WebTop 3 Results for Greg Rhodes in MD. Far away. We talked about what it was like to be children, and how we played with children who had totally different backgrounds than our own but you would find something in common. She recalls her very first dinner together with the new fianc of her protge Michelle Robinson. Rhodes said of the incident, "This just eviscerates any norm of how governments should operate or treat their predecessors and their families. He was extremely good about immediately getting to a phrase or a way of getting the message out that just made more sense, Kreikemeier remembers. Sneak peek! Learn more about Honeyfund's simple cash-powered wedding registry. Ben Rhodes is an American author, political commentator, and former White House Staffer during the Obama administration. [35] Rhodes was number 13 on Fortune magazine's "40 Under 40" list of the most influential young people in business in 2014. But thats impossible.. The documentary portrays the events of Obama's final year in office, with a focus on his foreign policy team. And thats what its like to work in the U.S. foreign-policy apparatus in 2016.. Furthermore, he later worked as a Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting and also as a senior advisor during Obamas administration. One might with some The reason the president has bucked a lot of establishment thinking is because he does not agree with establishment thinking. Anne Gregory Rhodes, the daughter of Anne J. G. Rhodes and James T. Rhodes of Richmond, Va., was married there yesterday to Benjamin Cordt Huneke, the son of Ruth R. Huneke and John H. Huneke of Summit, N.J. I think theyve approached these major foreign-policy challenges as campaign challenges, and theyve run campaigns, and those campaigns have been very sophisticated., Rhodess innovative campaign to sell the Iran deal is likely to be a model for how future administrations explain foreign policy to Congress and the public. His New York City prep-school-kid combination of vulnerability, brattiness and passionate hatred for phonies suggests an only slightly updated version of what Holden Caulfield might have been like if he grew up to work in the West Wing. May 5, 2020. He was easily underestimatable, Samantha Power recalls, of Rhodess arrival on the Obama campaign in 2007. Furthermore, Ben has a YouTube channel, Ben Rhodes. Connections are made between two opposing ideas that were not apparent in the meeting. Dep. The person whom Kreikemeier credits with running the digital side of the campaign was Tanya Somanader, 31, the director of digital response for the White House Office of Digital Strategy, who became known in the war room and on Twitter as @TheIranDeal. Contact Ben & Theary via e-mail or via phone at 503-724-1076. He was born on November 14, 1977, in New York City, New York, in the United States.
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Favreau, then changes it back, before continuing with his edit from New ben rhodes ann norris wedding University he!In addition, the writer was instrumental in the conversations that led to Obama reestablishing the United States diplomatic relations with Cuba. Since leaving their jobs in the government, they have had another child. Moreover, the writer wrote Obamas 2009 Cairo speech A New Beginning. The New Yorker says that the Israeli plan, code named Black Cube, was deliberately targeting people who had been proponents of the Iran nuclear deal. All information on this site is provided "as is", with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or of the results obtained from the use of this information. Would I make that same assessment now? he asks. Anne Gregory Rhodes, the daughter of Anne J. G. Rhodes and James T. Rhodes of Richmond, Va., was married there yesterday to Benjamin Cordt They call us to explain to them whats happening in Moscow and Cairo. First, go to TheKnot.com and hover over the " Wedding Websites" tab on the top menu bar. We are honored you will share in our special day. WebSpring 2020 Fellow, Center for the Political Future. Therefore, Ben is a man of above-average stature. Anyone can read what you share. Greetings! But it usually is combined with a lot of knowledge To be cynical and ignorant and to spin those two things into a virtue? from Rice University We have teamed up with the gift and wedding registry experts at Bridge Shop Local to offer you you a premium registry experience. He co-founded National Security Action in 2018 and began contributing to Crooked Media, NBC. The question is important to her. WebAnn Norris. In May, the New Yorker reported that a group of Israeli Operatives was collecting information about former Obama officials, in an effort to discredit them. The first conversation we had over dinner, when we first met, was about what it was like for both of us to live in countries that were predominantly Muslim countries at formative parts of our childhood and the perspective it gave us about the United States and how uniquely excellent it is, she says. Now the most effectively weaponized 140-character idea or quote will almost always carry the day, and it is very difficult for even good reporters to necessarily know where the spin is coming from or why. So we knew the tactics that worked. He is proud of the way he sold the Iran deal. Rhodes said, He is invisible because he is not an egotist, and because he is devoted to the president. Obamas particular revulsion against a certain kind of global power politics is a product, Rhodes suggests, of his having been raised in Southeast Asia. Then he drives to work in his Beamer, which appears to be the one grown-up luxury he and his wife, Ann Norris, who works in the State Department and longs to return to her childhood home of California, can afford. https://t.co/2aq7xBaDza, The New Yorker (@NewYorker) May 7, 2018. He is also a regular political contributor to MSNBC, NBC News, and Crooked Media. And he understood intuitively that having the pen gave him that control. His judgment was superior to that of his rivals, and he refused to ever back down. The bully pulpit by and large doesnt exist anymore, he explained. Rhodes then became the chief note-taker for the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission that excoriated George Bushs war in Iraq. Youre important., The Boy Wonder of the Obama White House is now 38. I would often just call him and say, Give me a reality check, Malley explained. Thats the only person I can think of who has confronted these questions of, you know, the individual who finds himself negotiating both vast currents of history and a very specific kind of power dynamics. In retrospect, I had no idea what that meant. His mothers closest friend growing up ran the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which then published Foreign Policy. So he hired him on at the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank. Every day he does 12 jobs, and he does them better than the other people who have those jobs, Terry Szuplat, the longest-tenured member of the National Security Council speechwriting corps, told me. At least, he tried. Its the center of the arc, Rhodes explained to me two days after the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was implemented. I think hes always seen his time there as temporary and wont care if hes never again invited to a cocktail party, or asked to appear on Morning Joe, or inducted into the Council on Foreign Relations hall of fame or whatever the hell they do there.. It is clearly time for me to go. It isn't enough for CBS News to mention the relationship as a parenthetical statement as they did in yesterday's coverage. According to Rhodes, the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and other Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East. WebRhodes wife, Ann Norris, was a senior foreign-policy and defense advisor to former Senator Barbara Boxer. He has authored two New York Bestselling books including After the Fall: Being American in the World Weve Made(June 1, 2021) and The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House (2018). In 2017, some of President Trumps advisers circulated a memo suggesting that Ben Rhodes and other former Obama staffers were conspiring to bring down the Trump administration. Kody Norris and his longtime little sweetie, Mary Rachel Nalley, who plays fiddle with the Kody Norris Show, were married on September 21 at their home in Mountain City, TN. Some of Bens colleagues at MSNBC include: Steve Kornacki political correspondent. Month. They were both interested in the answer to the question, Is the president serious? Panetta recalls. One morning I left my house to get my dry cleaning and a Fox News camera literally chases me up the stairs in my apartment building, camera pointed at me going, What about Benghazi? By the way this is like two years after Benghazi. In the narrative that Rhodes shaped, the story of the Iran deal began in 2013, when a moderate faction inside the Iranian regime led by Hassan Rouhani beat regime hard-liners in an election and then began to pursue a policy of openness, which included a newfound willingness to negotiate the dismantling of its illicit nuclear-weapons program. WebHow Old Is Ben Rhodes. She is dyed blond, slim, petite, attractive.You take meticulous notes, she slurs. How many times has Ben Rhodes (White House staffer) been married? Web1997. The memo also refers, briefly to Ann Norris, mentioning that she is Rhodes wife and implying that her position, as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for legislative affairs in the State Department, may benefit Rhodes. But then there are sort of these force multipliers, he said, adding, We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people, and you know I wouldnt want to name them . Rhodes walks me out into the sunlight of the West Wing parking lot, where we are treated to the sight of the aged Henry Kissinger, who has come to pay a visit. Ben Rhodes (White House staffer) has not been divorced. A native New Yorker, mostly-suffering Mets, Knicks and Jets fan, Mr. Rhodes has a B.A. Deputy National Security Ben Rhodes edits President Barack Obama's speech aboard Air Force One (Pete Souza/White House/Flickr) December 28, 2017, As the president himself once asked, how are we supposed to weigh the tens of thousands who have died in Syria against the tens of thousands who have died in Congo? Additionally, he later graduated in 2002 with an MFA in creative writing from New York University. We're lucky to already have a home full of everything we need, so please enjoy browsing our Honeyfund wish list, where you can contribute funds to our dream honeymoon! 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