Heather Nauert, journalist and former State Department spokeswoman, joins the podcast this week. She shares what she learned from her service in DC, the challenges women face in taking on high-profile, public roles while balancing a family, and the role of women in advancing constructive dialogue with the goal of solving our nation’s greatest challenges.
Heather is an accomplished leader in business, communications, and the political arena. Having worked successfully in high-stress situations, internationally and domestically, her accomplishments include crisis management, risk mitigation, and leading teams to communicate and execute objectives for the State Department in conjunction with the White House, National Security Council, and other agencies. She is also an internationally known journalist and broadcast anchor who appeared on Fox News and ABC News.
Transcript
Beverly:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg. And on today’s episode, it’s an honor to have on Heather Nauert, journalist and former state department spokeswoman. We’ll get into what she learned from her service in DC, the challenges women face in taking on high-profile public roles while balancing a family, and the role of women in advancing constructive dialogue with the goal of solving our nation’s greatest challenges. But before we bring her on, a little bit more about Heather. She is an accomplished leader in business, communications, and the political arena. Having worked successfully in high-stress situations, internationally and domestically, her accomplishments include crisis management, risk mitigation, and leading teams to communicate and execute objectives for the state department in conjunction with the White House National Security Council and other agencies. She is also an internationally known journalist and broadcast anchor who appeared on Fox News and ABC News. Heather, it is a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.
Heather:
I really thank you so much. Thrilled to be here.
Beverly:
And I know many people know your work from what you did at the state department, also your work at Fox News. I thought we could just start is going through your journey up this career ladder. How did you get to the highest of highs at the state department? What did your journey look like?
Heather:
Sure. Well, I think it really first started out with a desire to learn things about the world, about people, about different industries that I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about. I was always just a very curious child and young adult. Many years later, the head of Fox News at the time gave me a chance. And I asked the executives at Fox News to give me a chance and allow me to be a reporter. And that may sound really far-fetched, but I think that’s one of the most important things that women can take away, young women in particular, when they’re starting their careers, ask someone to take a chance on you. And I did just that. Prior to that, I’d been a contributor at Fox News, which basically means when they put on experts to talk about a political issue or some industry issue.
So I had spent some time on Fox as a guest, and then I basically begged them to make me full reporter and they did. And part of the reason they did that is I let them know, them being the executives know, that I wanted to do things the right way. I wanted to really learn how to be a reporter. So I went to Columbia Journalism School, got my master’s in print there. And when I graduated with that degree, and it’s something that’s not needed to do that job in the media, but it was something that I wanted to do and gave Fox the ability to hire me. They brought me on as a young cub reporter right out of journalism school. And I worked really hard and not long thereafter, sadly 9/11 occurred. And that changed the entire trajectory of my career and opened up my scope of vision so much and really started learning about the importance of international and foreign affairs in the days following the 9/11 attacks. And that’s kind of driven my career in a sense ever since.
Beverly:
And you talked a little bit about just begging the Fox News executives to take a chance on you. Of course, you’ve worked hard. What is that balance of begging, I’ll use the word that you use, but also realizing there is a fine line? What do you encourage people to do? How much do you pester them?
Heather:
Yeah, no, it really wasn’t pestering it at all and begging is probably an exaggeration. But somebody without a lot of experience at that time, although I had been a guest on Fox News for several years then, asking them to take a chance and make me a reporter was a big ask. At the time when they brought on their reporters, those reporters had come up through the ranks in small markets and medium-size markets. Some had been on-air professionals at competitors. And I didn’t have that experience. I came from the opinion side of things where I had been a so-called talking head. So I asked them to try me out. I told them I was smart and willing to learn and ask a lot of questions and work hard and just try me out here and they were willing to do it. And I think it showed how serious I was that I was willing, and it was my idea, frankly, and learn journalism from the ground up.
Beverly:
And even like you said, working the long days, having the long hours and putting all that work behind you, there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it and being willing to fill in on weekends and holidays and all of that in order to get the role that you want. I want to move now to just your transition to the state department and how you transition to the state department. What was it like going from a media career to moving into this governmental role? Obviously, you worked in communications for the state department, so there’s going to be some similarities, but I’m assuming there’s a lot of differences as well.
Heather:
Yeah. Well, if we can back up a little bit, I spent nearly 18 years between Fox News and then also at ABC News. And along the way, in addition to covering the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City, spent time in Iraq and learning about and seeing what took place over there and the U.S’s role in the world. Years after that, I went to Sudan and I went to Sudan with a sister agency to the state department, and that’s called USAID. It’s the United States government’s main humanitarian aid entities. And I went to Sudan with USAID to take a look at a portion of the country that was recovering from a long, long civil war. At the time, there was also a genocide taking place in another part of the country. And I went there to take a look at that.
And as I walked around and I saw all that America was doing to try to help these people who were going through such horrific times, I thought, “Gosh, I am so proud to be here as an American, as a journalist, to tell the story about how America is helping to educate these people, feed these people, close these people, in some instances, protect these people.” And the reason we do that is yes, we’re a very generous nation. We’re the most generous nation in the world. But we also do it because we recognize that countries and regions that are more stable make for a more stable world and helps keep the United States out of wars, from sending our people overseas to fight those wars. And so at this time, it’s 2004. I thought, goodness, if I ever someday in my career, have the opportunity to help tell America’s story about the good work that America does in so many remote parts of the world that America never asks for credit for. That frankly, many Americans don’t know what we engage in. I thought that would be an incredible highlight opportunity and dream.
And so fast forward, many years later when {resident Trump won the election and I was contacted by some of the folks in the transition, they said, “Would you like to come to work for the administration? And if so, what might you like to do?” And so they laid out some of the openings in front of me and I said, “Oh my goodness, the state department, that would be a dream come true.” And so in 2017, I joined the state department first as the spokesperson. And that job really involves explaining foreign policy to Americans and to people all around the world. And one of the most significant things that I learned is foreign governments listen, and they hang on our words. They listen very carefully and very close to the policies that we explained, to tone changes, to all of that, because we are the leader of the free world.
Beverly:
And have you found any specific challenges that you face just being a woman in a high profile job, whether within our own government workers or internationally? Did you face any challenges that men don’t face in this type of role?
Heather:
Oh gosh, that’s a big question.
Beverly:
That’s a big one.
Heather:
I think it’s a challenge, frankly, being a woman and going into a male-dominated industry. It was really a challenge being a blonde woman coming out of Fox News and going to work at the state department. A lot of the folks who worked at the state department were not voting for Donald Trump. And here I was coming in as a woman from Fox News. And how were they going to respond to me? I was naturally concerned about that. And what I found, instead of a group of people who were out to undermine me, was really a group of people that fully supported me. And I loved my time at the state department. My colleagues from the career [inaudible 00:09:23] to my fellow political appointees, it was really a dream come true. And nothing can ever beat, in my view serving, at that level, I got to be a part of bringing Americans home from captivity overseas. And I can’t imagine anything more satisfying and fulfilling than being a part of that kind of service. I absolutely loved it.
Beverly:
And we do thank you for your service in that role. I was hoping we could jump a little bit to just policy and the country of China. China has been in the spotlight for several years now. And of course, in 2020 with the coronavirus, it took center stage and their involvement within that. What do you think about our policies towards China? Are you fearful about the future with them? What would you say was good that this administration did? I think a lot of us are just asking, it seems like such a big problem, what is it that we do?
Heather:
Yeah, well, it sure has been a big problem with [inaudible 00:10:24] many [inaudible 00:10:26] President Trump, frankly, didn’t address and didn’t address that quickly. And not only is the U.S government to blame, prior administrations but also I would fault the private sector. There were so many companies in the private sector that were willing to give away the store in order to do business in China. And as a result of that, a lot of American companies had their intellectual property actually stolen from them. China has been a large producer of some fake and illegal drugs that have been sent to the United States that have been poisoning our communities and our young Americans and older Americans too. So there are a lot of things that China has done that has not been done well, and that has not been done right. Their human rights abuse record is absolutely horrific.
And what President Trump did is he started to call out China on some of these things specifically, let’s make these trade practices fairer. Let’s not allow American companies to have such a difficult time participating in the Chinese marketplace. So this is something that the Trump administration had really been working hard on since the beginning of the administration. They designed something called the Indo-Pacific strategy. And when you hear a lot about what China is doing and other countries, such as taking over port, encouraging other countries to take on a whole lot of debt in exchange for building projects, those are all ways that China will chip away at other countries sovereignty. And so the United States, as a pivot away from China in a sense, has strengthened its relationships with democratic countries like India, for example. We’ve had much stronger relationships with other countries in the region that share our concern about what China has been up to.
So, I think the president was spot on, I know some folks didn’t like the tone in which the president spoke about some of these issues, but I think the president was absolutely correct in being concerned about China. China plays the long game. They don’t look at things in four-year increments like many Americans do in conjunction with the election cycle. China looks at things in hundreds of years increments. And so they’re playing the long game for basic sort of world domination of global policy.
Beverly:
And something that China is known for is its propaganda. They mislead their own people. And I think one concern that Americans have in this country is that we’re being misled by media. I thought there was a really good article this week in the Wall Street Journal by Senator Ben Sasse that just talked about even how we self-select where we get our news and that those outlets feed us what we want. And so, as somebody who’s worked both in the political sphere, but also spent so many years in the communication side of things, what advice do you give for people on how they try to find solid news, get away from the propaganda and disinformation? Is there, is there anything at all that you encourage people to do in order to get straight news?
Heather:
Sure. So a couple of issues here, you bring up China and China’s one of the main sponsors of disinformation, but Chinese disinformation looks very different from Russian disinformation, for example. They handle things very differently. China’s far more nuanced. So if we can talk about Russian disinformation for a second and then go over to Chinese disinformation, I think that would help inform everybody how to spot it.
So Russian disinformation looks like just plain old inaccurate untruthful news. When you read something on RT, which is a Russian sponsored network owned by the Russian government, or something that just doesn’t sound right, that sounds so extreme and off, that might be “fake news.” And that started to seep into some of our mainstream reporting here in the United States. And Russia will just flat out lie. That’s how they do things. China handles things slightly differently. China, for example, will try to claim that they’re the good guys and things. So for example, after the pandemic happened, China started sending out all these free masks to governments around the world to look good, to have this big diplomacy campaign. Look what we’re doing to try to save the world from this pandemic, which of course came from their own country. And so China tries to claim that they’re the good guy when really they’re not. And the masks that they sent out and the PPP that they sent out, it was more often than not faulty. Just junky equipment that didn’t work. And so Chinese information and Russian disinformation can look quite different.
Beverly:
And, yeah, just transitioning just real quick with our final question today. One of the things that I think we need to discuss and people have been discussing this is how do we handle the need for us to be able to talk together as Americans? People do get their news from different sources. There seems to be infighting among Americans. We of course saw what happened at the Capitol this week. And I think it saddens a lot of people to see that there is such a polarization going on, and we’ve seen this polarization all year long. Do you have any advice on how Americans can try to talk with each other knowing there are always going to be bad actors out there who don’t want productive dialogue? But do you still have faith that Americans want to discuss and debate issues in a productive way and not even in a violent way?
Heather:
Beverly, when you talk to your friends, they probably, whether they agree with you or not on politics, probably want to have a civil conversation. And I think that’s really who we are as Americans. We’ve really gotten away from that though. And when I was at the state department and would brief a group of journalists and they weren’t always friendly, as you can imagine, one of the things that I would say to that group, even when they would ask hostile questions, I would say, “Look, we can disagree on the issues. We can disagree on the policies, but we don’t have to be nasty about it. And we’re not going to shout at one another either.” So I kind of handled things that way.
And I was teaching a class this fall at Carnegie Mellon University and the young students came into my room and we talked about the difference in the news today versus years ago and sort of this level of disagreement and animosity between those in our country. And we talked about that a lot. And by the end of the class, I think they came away with seeing the Republicans and Democrats actually talking about problems in a really constructive way and ways that we can fix those problems.
Media today, I think really exacerbates the problem. I mean, you see it on Twitter. Retweets go bonkers when somebody says something that’s really catchy. Pundits on TV, when they say something really outlandish, well, that creates more TV bookings for them. And so I think media is really a part of the problem. And a lot of Americans want to get those retweets. A lot of Americans want to try to get booked on those TV shows. And I think that’s just kind of contributes to the overall problem in this country. So I think it may sound boring, but I think we have to get back to a place where we’re having logical, normal, rational discussions that are honest discussions and not just trying to take one another off of at the knees.
Beverly:
Yeah. And I think it’s so hard in the COVID era because we’re using devices so often and can’t meet one-on-one with people. I think it’s that face-to-face connection that can break down some of those barriers. But the hope is that more and more people get frustrated I think with the polarization, that we go back to more conventional means of productive dialogue and debate. And we appreciate the way that you handled yourself, not just in the state department, but also in just your career in covering the news. And we appreciate you coming on She Thinks today. Heather, thank you so much.
Heather:
Thank you Beverly.
Beverly:
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