Ben Rhodes

Ben Rhodes
Born	Benjamin J. Rhodes 1977
Birthplace	New York City, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Writer, political commentator, podcaster
Title	Former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications
Known for	Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications under President Barack Obama

Ben Rhodes is an American writer, political commentator, and former government official who served as Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. During his eight years in the Obama White House, Rhodes was one of the president's longest-serving and closest aides, helping to shape and articulate U.S. foreign policy on issues including the opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Iran nuclear agreement, and the administration's response to the Arab Spring. Since leaving government, he has emerged as a prominent voice in American political and foreign policy commentary, co-hosting the podcast Pod Save the World on Crooked Media and contributing analysis to major news outlets on issues ranging from U.S.–Iran relations to the condition of the Democratic Party and American democracy more broadly. He is the author of two books: The World As It Is (2018), a memoir of his years in the Obama administration, and All We Say (2026), which examines American identity through fifteen defining speeches in the nation's history.

Early Life and Education

Rhodes was born in 1977 in New York City. He pursued graduate studies in creative writing at New York University, where he trained as a fiction writer before pivoting to politics and policy work. His background in literary writing shaped his later role as a foreign policy speechwriter, combining narrative craft with the demands of diplomatic communication. He joined the Obama campaign in its early stages and subsequently moved into the White House as a senior National Security Council official upon the start of the Obama presidency in January 2009.

Career

Obama Administration (2009–2017)

Rhodes served throughout both terms of the Obama presidency in senior roles at the National Security Council, ultimately holding the title of Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting. In that capacity he combined two functions that were often kept separate in prior administrations: drafting the president's foreign policy speeches and helping to coordinate the public messaging of the administration's national security agenda. His dual portfolio gave him an unusually broad influence over both the substance and the public framing of U.S. foreign policy across eight years.

Among the most significant policy initiatives in which Rhodes was involved was the negotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 multilateral agreement that placed verifiable limits on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. The agreement, reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, represented a central diplomatic achievement of the Obama administration's second term. Rhodes helped coordinate the public communications strategy surrounding the deal and served as one of its principal advocates within the administration. He has discussed his role in the agreement in numerous public appearances since leaving government, framing the deal as an attempt to resolve a nuclear standoff through sustained diplomacy rather than military confrontation.

Rhodes was also a principal speechwriter for President Obama on foreign policy matters, drafting or contributing to major addresses delivered abroad and on occasions of national security significance. The combined speechwriting and strategic communications portfolio made him a central figure in the public presentation of the Obama administration's foreign policy, and his tenure of nearly eight years placed him among the longest-serving senior foreign policy aides in modern presidential history.

The World As It Is (2018)

After leaving the White House in January 2017, Rhodes published his first book, The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, in 2018. The memoir offered an insider's account of the Obama administration's foreign policy decisions, written from Rhodes's perspective as one of the president's closest advisers. The book drew on his eight years at the National Security Council to document the internal deliberations behind major decisions, including the Iran nuclear negotiations, the opening to Cuba, and the administration's handling of the Arab Spring. It was widely reviewed and became a reference point for subsequent discussions of Obama-era foreign policy.

Political Commentary and Podcasting

After leaving the White House, Rhodes became a regular contributor to American political and foreign policy commentary. He co-hosts Pod Save the World, a foreign policy podcast produced by Crooked Media, the media company founded by several former Obama administration communications staffers. The podcast features interviews with policymakers, journalists, and analysts on global affairs and has established itself as a venue for substantive foreign policy discussion aimed at a general audience.

Rhodes appears frequently on cable news and in print media to comment on U.S. foreign policy. In May and June 2026, he was a recurring commentator on the renewed conflict between the United States and Iran during the second administration of President Donald Trump. Appearing on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, he discussed recent U.S. approaches to Iran across multiple administrations, contrasting the Obama-era diplomatic framework with subsequent strategies of maximum pressure. On CBS News, he revisited the 2015 nuclear agreement in light of the Trump administration's military actions against Iran, placing the conflict in the broader context of decades of U.S. policy toward the country and the trade-offs involved in negotiating with adversaries. In an interview with Yahoo News, he characterized the Trump administration's military approach as producing exactly the kind of conflict that Obama-era diplomacy had been designed to forestall, arguing that the strategy had backfired. Speaking with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, he discussed the state of American political discourse in connection with the themes of his 2026 book, stating that "we've lost that ability to talk to and listen to one another."

Rhodes has also written opinion pieces for The New York Times. In a May 2026 essay, he addressed the condition of the Democratic Party and the broader American political landscape, arguing that the country needed "leaders who tell us hard truths while insisting that the present state of our politics is not permanent." He has also expressed pointed views on intra-party accountability, publicly arguing that Democratic members of Congress who vote to fund military operations while simultaneously characterizing the sitting administration as an existential threat to democracy face a fundamental credibility problem. Rhodes has called for primary challenges as a mechanism to hold Democratic legislators accountable for such votes, particularly in connection with congressional authorizations related to military action against Iran during the second Trump administration. Rhodes appeared at Presbyterian College's Waters Lecture series, where he was described as a "political strategist and bestselling author," underscoring his continued prominence as a public intellectual and commentator on American foreign and domestic policy.

All We Say (2026)

Rhodes's 2026 book, All We Say, examines the United States through fifteen speeches he identifies as defining moments in the nation's history. The selections range from an address by Frederick Douglass to speeches delivered by Barack Obama, using political oratory as a lens for understanding American identity, democratic contestation, and the recurring struggle over the country's founding ideals. In interviews surrounding the book's publication, Rhodes described the project as an effort to use rhetoric to illuminate what Americans have argued about, agreed upon, and aspired to across generations.

The book was reviewed in The Guardian, which characterized it as a serious examination of American history through the lens of its political oratory. NPR spoke with Rhodes about the book's framing of American identity as a perpetual contest over meaning and values, connecting its historical selections to the current polarization of political life. Rhodes discussed All We Say on a number of broadcast outlets in 2026, including CNN and CBS News, consistently connecting its themes about political language to contemporaneous events such as the Iran conflict and the fragmentation of American political discourse.

Commentary on U.S.–Iran Policy

A substantial portion of Rhodes's post-government commentary has focused on Iran. He has consistently defended the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as a diplomatic achievement and criticized subsequent decisions — first by the Trump administration in 2018 and again in the context of the second Trump administration — to abandon diplomacy in favor of maximum pressure and, ultimately, military action. In his June 2026 appearance on Fareed Zakaria GPS, Rhodes contrasted the approaches of successive administrations toward Tehran and argued that the path of maximum pressure had produced more dangerous outcomes than sustained diplomacy would have. In his Yahoo News interview, he argued that the Trump administration's strategy had backfired by producing exactly the kind of direct military confrontation that the Obama-era diplomatic framework had been structured to prevent. On CBS News, he placed the 2026 conflict in the broader historical context of American policy toward Iran, describing the trade-offs involved in negotiating with adversaries as preferable to the alternative of open military conflict.

Personal Life

Rhodes maintains a public profile primarily through his journalism, podcasting, book authorship, and public speaking. He is based in the United States and regularly appears on American broadcast and cable news programs.

Recognition

Rhodes's eight-year tenure in the Obama White House made him one of the longest-serving senior foreign policy aides in modern presidential history, a distinction frequently noted in subsequent media coverage of his commentary. Since leaving government, he has been a sought-after interview subject on questions of U.S. foreign policy, particularly with respect to Iran, the Middle East, and American political communication. Major outlets including CNN, CBS News, NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Yahoo News have featured him as a commentator and contributor.

His 2026 book All We Say received coverage in The Guardian and NPR and was the basis for extended interviews on CNN, including with Christiane Amanpour, in which the book's framing of American political speech was examined alongside contemporary events. He has also been recognized as a public intellectual through invitations to speak at academic institutions, including Presbyterian College's Waters Lecture series.

Bibliography

• The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House (Random House, 2018)
• All We Say (2026)