Wednesday, September 21, 2022

The Ed Sullivan Theater, New York, NY

WATCH HERE

STEPHEN COLBERT: Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest is the Pulitzer Prize winning author who spent four years as UN Ambassador and is currently the Administrator of USAID. Please welcome back to the Late Show Samantha Power. Hey, nice to see you again!

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Nice digs!

COLBERT: It is nice digs, isn’t it? Last summer, I guess over Zoom, you and I discussed President Biden's pledge to send COVID vaccines around the world and USAID, of course, is part of the administration and distribution of that. 

What do you make of President Biden saying that the pandemic is over? Do you think he got that right? Because there's been some backpedaling at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and go ahead and throw your boss under the bus right now.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Let's think back to when President Biden entered office. Deaths since then are down 90 percent. The pandemic we all know, we're here, look we're here. Schools are open. I'm not the pathetic homeschooler that I once was during the pandemic. 

COLBERT: Will your children ever recover from you teaching them math?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: No, never, never – the setback is permanent. But I think what he was saying was that COVID, needless to say, is not the disruptive threat that it was and because we have the tools available – everybody should go and get their variant booster and their flu shot at the same time – we're in a position to manage this. Our economy has reopened. We're trying to, as USAID, ensure the same thing happens in even the poorest countries in the world and we have made great headway.

COLBERT: Let's talk about the challenges facing the world right now. My understanding is that one of the greatest challenges that USAID is hoping to help mitigate is the food shortage around the world. And that crop yields are down partially because of global warming, but also the war in Ukraine, which provides 25 percent of the world's wheat. Is this Putin’s fault, this food shortage? Because he's blaming the West. He's blaming us. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Yeah. 

COLBERT: And how hard is – is the UN a place where you can fight that misinformation?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I traveled this summer to two of the worst affected countries in the food crisis – Kenya and Somalia – where basically we're on the brink of famine in parts of both of those countries, and I brought support for fertilizer on behalf of the American people. I brought additional support for some of these seeds so that farmers can plant in the seasons ahead, and of course I brought emergency humanitarian assistance.

Foreign Minister Lavrov came a few days after I did to the same countries and he brought misinformation and lies, which does not feed anybody. And so, the one thing I would say is there's a lot of noise out there and the Russian Federation is trying to turn that noise up on very high decibel. 

My experience in traveling to these countries that are very vulnerable right now is they know the difference. They know that President Putin for a very long time blocked the Ukrainian [grain] that was in Ukrainian ports ready to reach countries like Somalia, Kenya, places like Lebanon, Syria, Yemen. He just blocked it. 

Finally, there was a breakthrough and some of those grains are now moving, but prices had already spiked because of the food shortage that that contributed to. 

I will say the underlying conditions are chronic conditions. Climate change as a chronic condition. The Horn of Africa is experiencing its fourth straight, failed rainy season – that's never happened before in recorded history. 

I was just in Pakistan a couple of weeks ago. Stephen, it was honestly, I felt like I was in the apocalypse. 

I was flying, you know, inland about 200 miles from the nearest ocean. And I was looking down, I was like, “Wait, that's ocean,” and then no, actually a third of the country is underwater. Because of melting glaciers combined with monsoon rains that are five times as intense as they've ever had before. 

And what you see, and you can see like little sort of tops, rooftops, sometimes poking out or twelve meter high trees that you see just the rim of the tree. And that's how much water there is on the ground but you also see the croplands that have just been ravaged by these floods. 

So, you either have too much water or too little water everywhere you look and part of what we want to do – as USAID, on behalf of the American people and there's bipartisan support for this right now, which is wonderful – is not only feed people who've just lost their cropland because of flooding or because of drought, but actually give them the resilience to not be in a position where they're taking humanitarian assistance. 

Nobody wants emergency humanitarian assistance, they want to be able to plant their seeds, take their harvest, and relocate in some cases, so as to be in places that are more hospitable given the changing climate. 

COLBERT: What’s this job like? To say all these different places you are naming. Would you know where you are when you wake up in the morning?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: The trips are great because you get close and you feel the human consequences of the challenges that we're all reading about back here and that many Americans are experiencing in different ways. You see the resilience, the sturdiness, that hunger people have to get back to work and not be receiving assistance. They all want trade not aid. 

I mean honestly, Stephen, the way I do this job is: I was in the Obama Administration, so fortunate, for eight years. It was my first time in public service. Then I had to live the next four years out of government. That you know, powerful as tweets are, it didn't have quite the same impact, potentially. 

The United States is in it for the long haul and is in it in a way that you could – again if you put yourself in their shoes – what would you wish the United States’ response to be? I just feel really lucky to be a part of trying to figure out what that is, since there but for the grace of God, go I. We really are fortunate to be in this position, rather than be living next to Putin.

COLBERT: Well, talking about we got to go here in just one second. Getting the high sign over here. But speaking of the eight years you spent in the Obama Administration, one more of the other people, of course, in that Administration was, at the time, Vice President Joe Biden. Now he's your boss. What was he like as, it’s a bit of a strong word, but what was he like as a co-worker, let's say?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I'll mention to him that he was my coworker as the Vice President. He was – Joe Biden is exactly behind the scenes what Joe Biden is out in grand display. 

And so, we'd be in meetings and I'd be saying something, maybe that might be landing like a lead balloon in the center of the meeting. 

COLBERT: With the then-president. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: With the then president, President Obama. Sparring a little bit, maybe a little again, counter to what others might want to be doing at the time. And I’d just kind of be deflated and feel unjoined. And next thing, somebody would pass me a note from many seats down, because the Vice President is right next to the President. And it'd be a note from Joe Biden saying, “That's exactly why you're here,” “Never be quiet.” There's another note, “Go Irish.” 

COLBERT: That’s dope. Samantha, lovely to see you. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Great to see you, Stephen.

COLBERT: USAID Administrator Samatha Power, everybody. We will be right back.

READ MORE

USAID at UNGA 2022

Samantha Power 2022 Global Food Crisis UNGA 2022 #COVID19
Share This Page