Ben Rhodes: The Warren and Anita Manshel Lecture in American Foreign Policy

February 6, 2025 4:30–6:00pm Tsai Auditorium, Cambridge, MA "American Foreign Policy in the Trump Era" Speaker Ben Rhodes, American writer, political commentator, and a former deputy national security advisor for strategic communications and speechwriting under President Barack Obama. Chair Melani Cammett, Center Director; Chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Identity Politics. Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, Department of Government, Harvard University. Biography Ben Rhodes.Ben Rhodes is a writer, political commentator, and national security analyst. He is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made and The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. He is currently cohost of Pod Save the World; a contributor for MSNBC; a senior advisor to former President Barack Obama; and chair of National Security Action. From 2009–2017, Ben served as a speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama. In that capacity, he participated in all of President Obama’s key decisions, oversaw the president’s national security communications and public diplomacy, and led the secret negotiations with the Cuban government that resulted in the effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba. His work has also been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. A native New Yorker, Ben has a BA from Rice University and an MFA from New York University. Illustration: Kristin Caulfield. Original image of Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore, Flickr. All other portraits from Wikimedia Commons.