and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. ♪ david: if president trump called you and said i need you to come in and help your country, what would you say? condoleezza: i am happy to be doing what i am doing now. [laughter] david: you negotiated with north korea. condoleezza: when i first heard the president accepted the invitation on the spot, i thought, nothing else has worked, so why not? david: on the iranian agreement. condoleezza: i did not support that agreement. david: let's talk about vladimir putin. condoleezza: he likes me. i know him well. david: what are the qualities you think great leaders have? condoleezza: a sense of humility about what they can achieve. >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way. alright. ♪

david: i don't consider myself a journalist. and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. i began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job running a private equity firm. how do you define leadership? what is it that makes somebody tick? if president trump called you and said i need you to come in and help your country, what would you say? condoleezza: i would say, mr. president, there are so many wonderful people who can help our country. here is my number, give me a call if there is anything you want to talk about. but i am really, really happy. david: your name has been mentioned as a vice presidential and presidential candidate. can you say for sure you're not likely to run? condoleezza: i can say that with more certainty. you have to know your dna. i don't have the dna of a politician.

i love policy. i don't love politics. it is just innovating for me. david: you grew up in birmingham, alabama in the segregated south. some of your friends were in the terrible birmingham, alabama church bombing. did you ever think you would rise up to hold these kind of positions you held? condoleezza: it never occurred to me, but because i thought i would be a great concert pianist. my parents were people who had me convinced that even if i could not have a hamburger at a lunch counter, i could be president of the united states if i wanted to be. in my family, you were going to achieve, you are going to go to college. i am not the first phd in my family. david: your father had a phd. condoleezza: my father and my aunt. my father's sister. if you think what i do is weird for a black person, she wrote books on dickens. of all things. david: you were an only child.

your parents focused a lot on you. condoleezza: definitely. david: you had all the lessons you could have. you were a ballerina. condoleezza: every lesson known to humankind. some of which i was good at, some of which i was not. they kept me going. i had french lessons. my mother decided every well-bred young girl should speak french. at nine years old, i was dragged off to french lessons on saturdays. i had ballet lessons. we had etiquette lessons. i was a pianist. my parents kept me very busy. david: your mother was a schoolteacher? condoleezza: my mother was a teacher and a musician. david: one of her students was willie mays. my mom taught willie mays. david: was he a good student? condoleezza: i asked him once. he said she told me son, you are going to be a ballplayer. if you need to leave early, you go ahead and do that. [laughter] that doesn't sound exactly like

my mother, but that is a great story and i will hold onto it. david: your father was a republican. condoleezza: yes, he was. in the early 1950's in birmingham, alabama, there were not many republicans. the way that it happened is my father and mother before they were married went down to register to vote and the poll tester looked at my father, big, tall man, football player, and said, so how many beans are in this jar? my father could not answer the question. he said, you don't pass the test. my father went back to his church and told the story to the man who was one of his elders, and he said, reverend, don't worry about it. i will tell you how to get registered. he said there is a clerk who is a republican. he said she is trying to build a republican party. if you say you are a republican, she will register you. my father went down and got registered. he said he was a republican. he never forgot it.

he remained a republican the rest of his life. david: you took up piano when you were 15? condoleezza: when i was three. yes, right. the great advantage to learning to play that early is i could read music before i could read. it was like a native language. i have always been a really good site reader because it is natural to read the notes. david: you played with yo-yo ma. what was that like? condoleezza: i was national security adviser. my secretary said yo-yo ma is on the phone for you. i said, you mean the greatest living cellist? she said, yes. he was getting a national medal of the arts and wanted me to play with him. we played at constitution hall before 2500 people. it was wonderful, one of the highlights of my life. i wasn't confused, i didn't play with him because i was a

was national security adviser who played the piano. so it came together. [laughter] condoleezza: he held up his end of the bargain. david: you went to the university of denver, and when you went there, madeleine albright's father was your teacher. condoleezza: he got me into international politics. i went there as a piano major, but graduated with just enough units to be a political science major. if you look at my transcript, i have 100 units of music and 45 in political science. david: you then went to notre dame to get a masters, then stanford later? condoleezza: i went to stanford on a one-year fellowship in the arms control and disarmament program learning the physics of nuclear weapons, how many warheads could be on an ss 18. i learned something important from that. stanford was looking to diversify its faculty. it engaged in what i think is a smart way to do affirmative action. to this day i believe our affirmative action is still necessary, which means you look outside of your normal channels to find people.

they had in their midst a young, black woman, who was a soviet specialist, and they offered me a job. they said very firmly, when it comes time for your reappointment -- which is after three years -- the fact that you came through this appointment will mean nothing at all. i remember saying, oh, three years, that sounds about right. that will give me time to see if i like you and you like me, which i don't think a dean of stanford had ever heard. david: the affirmative action was that you were a classical musical performer as well. they had none of those. condoleezza: they had none of those as well. david: what would you say of the chances north korea, the u.s., and south korea can come to some agreement? condoleezza: i first heard the president accepted kim jong-un's invitation on the spot, i thought, oh, my goodness, what is he doing? then i thought, nothing else has worked. why not give it a try? ♪

david: you were recruited to come to the george herbert walker bush white house. condoleezza: i got to be the soviet specialist at the end of the cold war. david: you were there when the berlin wall went down. did you say to the president, let's jump up and down? condoleezza: i was one of the people the minute the berlin wall fell, a bunch of us went to the oval office and said, mr. president, you have to go for berlin, for kennedy, truman, reagan. he said, what would i do? dance on the wall? he said this is a german moment, not an american moment. i will never forget that, it was so much george h.w. bush, the modest, a great sense of

humility, and it was the right thing, he was right. david: you saw him recently at the barbara bush funeral. did you have a chance to talk to him? condoleezza: i did. i had a chance to talk to him and tell him how much i love him and loved mrs. bush. that is a generation that will be missed. they were people who understood kindness and humility and gentility. they made their mistakes most certainly, but when you think about that family and what george h.w. bush did as a public servant, it makes you think of a wonderful time for our country. david: bill clinton defeated your boss in the election. were you shocked by the outcome? condoleezza: i had already gone back to stanford and became provost. i was surprised. he had done what he needed to do. i don't think there will ever be

a full accounting of how much it was the way that he did the diplomacy at the end of the cold war with respect for gorbachev, never humiliating the soviet union, not dancing on the wall. one of the last things gorbachev did before he went out to sign the paper that would collapse the soviet union and allow borris yeltsin to become president of the russian federation, he called george h.w. bush and said, we did good things, didn't we? history will judge us well. i said to president bush, do you realize how extraordinary this is? he said, i never thought about it. i said to the president in his last act before the collapse of the soviet union called the american president essentially to seek his affirmation. that was a big deal. that is the way he was. david: another member of the bush family decides to run for president, george w. bush.

you become the national security advisor, the first woman. you are there and then 9/11 happens. where were you on 9/11? condoleezza: i was at my desk. president bush was at that event in florida. the education event. just to show you our pre-9/11 thinking, i did not go with him that day. my assistant came in and said a plane hit the world trade center. first we thought it was an accident. i called president bush. a few minutes later we learned the second plane hit the world trade center and we knew it was a terrorist attack. and then just a procession over the day and the next several months of decisions for the president of the united states. the united states had not been attacked on its own territory since the war of 1812. we had no structures or institutions for internal security for the country. it was flying without a compass. david: subsequently president bush decided to invade iraq to

topple saddam hussein. so in light of hindsight, had you known there were no weapons of mass destruction, would you have still gone forward? condoleezza: i say to people what you know today can affect what you do tomorrow, but not yesterday. we simply believed as all the intelligence agencies around the world did, that he had weapons of mass destruction and was reconstituting them quickly, and it was on that basis that we decided that you finally had to do what the international community had been threatening to do, to have serious consequences. in retrospect, i don't know if we had known what we would have done. i still think the world is better off without saddam hussein. he was a cancer in the region. while iraq went through an extraordinarily difficult time, and the thing i would do differently is how we rebuilt iraq. i think we made a lot of mistakes postwar. i would rather be iraqi than

syrian today. i will say that. iraq has a chance to be a stabilizing element in the middle east because they have an accountable government, the kurds and baghdad are finding some way of dealing with one another, and it is a very different place. the arab spring was going to happen. i think iraq would have made syria look like child's play, so you never know what you prevented. you will never be able to bring back the lives lost and to deal with that, but i think in the long arc of history, iraq will turn out ok, and i wish we had not left in 2011. the one thing that might have made me think differently about it was to think that we would have not stayed with a few troops in iraq to help make the transition. david: president bush is reelected and you become secretary of state. what is it like to go around the world? condoleezza: i loved it. i loved representing the country.

every time i stepped off the plane that said the united states of america behind me, i got a chill. i have often said that it was a little bit like when i was sworn in. here i took an oath of office, in a constitution that once took ifthscestors as three-f of a man, and i take that oath of office in front of a portrait of ben franklin, sworn in by a jewish woman, ruth bader ginsburg, who was my neighbor at the watergate. i thought what would old been n think of this? in some ways it showed how far our country had come. i always felt when i was out there that i could speak about the hard road to democracy, about the importance of institutions becoming more inclusive over time, to people having those challenges, because i had personally experienced them. david: let's talk about today's situation.

we face the north korean problem. you have negotiated with the north koreans. what are the chances north korea, the u.s., and south korea can come to agreement? condoleezza: when i heard the president had on the spot accepted kim jong-un's invitation, i thought what is he doing? then i thought, nothing else has worked, so why not? why not give it a try? i actually think they set the table pretty well. one of the conditions that is different is that once kim jong-un's programs got to the place where they threatened the united states, i think it got china's attention that the united states might actually go to war to prevent a north korean leader from being able to threaten the u.s. so i think they have a chance. i would say three things. the first is north koreans have a history of when they are under sanctions and start to bite, coming to the table, making promises, and not carrying through. so be aware. secondly, be very cognizant of other countries' interests.

japan has big interests. don't be quick about removing american troops. the troops are stabilizing the korean peninsula and the region. finally, never forget the nature of that regime. this is a regime that murdered an american several months ago, reached out and murdered his half-brother with vx gas in malaysia, which was a message to the chinese. he was under chinese protection. word on the street was he was china's favorite son in case something happened to kim j ong-un. david: the iranian agreement was negotiated by john kerry and barack obama, did you support that agreement? condoleezza: i did not support that agreement. i felt it was an agreement that gave the iranians too much at a time when we had the upper hand and could have gotten more. i also thought the verification means were very weak, so i would not have signed the agreement,

but i have said i would have probably stayed in it because once you are in an agreement, you don't want to signal the united states turns its back on agreements that are there. it won't be the end of the world. david: let's talk about vladimir putin. you have met him. does he speak english? condoleezza: he was teaching himself english, and by the time he left office, we -- we left office, we could converse a little bit in english. i know him well. he liked me, actually, used to. i was once with him and he said, russia is only great when it has been ruled by great men. you think, vladimir the great, is that the message here? that is to he thinks he is. he thinks he is reuniting the russian people and greatness and reestablishing russian influence, even if he has to do it by military means. which is really the only thing they have got going for them. david: you have seen great leaders around the world. and the united states. what are the qualities you think

great leaders have? condoleezza: integrity is at the center of being a great leader. once you lose people's trust, you have nothing. i think great leaders have a sense of humility about what they can achieve. david: humility? condoleezza: humility. david: versus arrogance. condoleezza: versus arrogance. arrogance and hubris are recipes for disaster. ♪

david: let's talk for a moment about non-foreign-policy matters. talk about athletics. you were one of the first two women to be admitted to augusta national. was that a surprise? condoleezza: a total surprise that came totally out of the blue when someone offered membership. i was so stunned, i did not say anything. he said you are going to say yes, aren't you? i said, oh, yeah. david: are you a good golfer? condoleezza: i am an ok golfer. i started late. i was a competitive figure skater as a kid and a serious tennis player. i took up golf the summer i was secretary of state and didn't play very much, but i love it. yeah, i am a decent golfer now, a good putter. david: you once said you would

not mind being the nfl commissioner. condoleezza: i told a good friend of mine, roger goodell. i said when you worry about iranians and russians every day, so bad. does not look [laughter] david: since you left government, you have written four books, and a new book about the political risks business people should take into account when making business decisions. why is this an important consideration? condoleezza: when people thought about political risks, they thought about the socialist dictator that might nationalize your industry, and now, the arece of political risks multiple and sometimes surprising. a person who gets on your airplane and sees your flight attendant treat someone poorly and has a cell phone and documents it. united airlines. that is political risk. a supply chain that is deep into china, and now there is consideration of a trade war with china. that is a political risk.

and so what we wanted to do was say there are lots of sources of political risk, look around corners, look in your industry and say, what are my sources of political risk? by the way, what is my risk appetite? we didn't want to say don't do things because they are risky. by the way, cyber, i mention the russians, is a whole category of risk in and of itself. david: your point is that businesses when they make decisions should take into account political risk as well? condoleezza: and constantly surveying the landscape for how those risks are multiplying in changing. david: what would you like people to think of as your major accomplishment? condoleezza: my government career. i hope people think i represented the united states well and hope people think that

i represented our values, especially that we stand for people who have no voice themselves. that people who are suffering in jail cells and putting their lives on the line for the very rights that we almost take for granted. you can say what you think, worship as you please come and be free from the secret police. that we abdicated for that and -- advocated for that and we believe no corner of the earth should live in tyranny. my academic career, i hope that people think that i helped a new generation of kids come up many generations of kids, find themselves and recognize that it was never my job to tell them what to think. it was my job to tell them what i thought and to think in the rigorous and systematic way, and that may be a few leaders that i trained will take that to their leadership. david: you have seen great leaders around the world and the united states. what are the qualities you think great leaders have and the qualities that people who are not great leaders fail to have? condoleezza: integrity is at the center of being a great leader. once you lose people's trust, you have nothing.

i think great leaders are visionaries. i mean that they see the world as it should be, not as it is. i think of nelson mandela and how sitting in a jail cell for all of those years did he not think, when we are finally in power, blacks are going to dominate whites rather than think of a multiracial, multiethnic south africa for all south africans. most importantly, i think great leaders have a sense of humility about what they can achieve. david: humility. condoleezza: humility. david: versus arrogance. condoleezza: versus arrogance. arrogance and hubris are recipes for disaster. my parents were great people. they always taught me that you need personally to do three

things. if you're going to lead and be successful, the first thing is try to be twice as good. work hard enough to be confident that you have worked hard enough to be twice as good. secondly, and remember i am growing up in segregated birmingham, alabama, and they were trying to armor me. secondly, never consider yourself a victim. when you think you are a victim, you have given control of your life to somebody else. you may not be able to control your circumstances, but you can control your responses to circumstances. there is something i tell minority kids, women, and others who are from populations that have been in one way or the other marginalized, my father once said to me, you know, if somebody doesn't want to sit next you because you are black, that is fine, as long as they move. in other words, don't take somebody else's prejudice on you. it is their fault, their problem, not your problem, and so don't be disabled by people who may have prejudice. ♪

alix: sanctions surprise. president trump rattles the market. oil hits a three-year high, and allies consider options. one to the home? by some solar panels. california becomes the first state to require solar panels. the big short, traders are the most bearish on sugar in over a decade. is there any end in sight to the global surplus? i and alix steel and welcome to commodities edge, 30 minutes to focus