Amanda Van Dort
Feminist foreign-policy expert and former State Department official (Chief of Staff and Division Chief for Policy, Planning & Public Diplomacy in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues), now Foreign Policy Fellow at Our Secure Future and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS and GWU.
1
APPEARANCES
1
PODCASTS
Aug 13, 2026
speaker_0HOST
Don't, I mean, you know.
Amanda Van DortGUEST
know.No, I do because I, and I think this import- this question is really important because if we want to improve the institution, I think the first thing we have to do is be honest.
Amanda Van DortGUEST
And I think that is part of our community also being credible in talking about the, the, the cuts and the changes that were made is by saying that there were real problems, and there were real reforms that were needed.
Amanda Van DortGUEST
I think the issue, you know, when Americans look at state in- institutions like State Department and they think, "This is really bureaucratic, it's too slow, it's disconnected from the rest of the country," you know, some of those criticisms were, were fair.
Amanda Van DortGUEST
And but I do think that we have to draw a distinction between recognizing problems is not the same thing as fixing them.
11 MINS LATER
speaker_0HOST
So tell us a little bit about h-how your experience and how you, and the way in which you left State Department.