George Stephanopoulos

‘I learned that I was just passionate about politics’ 

My very first job, when I was four years old, was as an altar boy, holding a lit candle. I come from a family of Greek Orthodox priests: my father, grandfather, uncle, cousins, and godfather are all priests. And for a time when I was young, I thought that was what I wanted to be too. But by freshman year of high school, I knew it wasn’t really for me. Then, at Columbia, I learned that I was just passionate about politics. I had an incredible professor, a man named Charles Hamilton, who taught American political science and American political history, and he made you feel like you wanted to be part of the process. 

After college, I went to Washington to work for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I was very much the lowest person the totem pole, and so I got to deal with some of people who came into the office. One of them was a guy who wanted to abolish nuclear weapons, and he came in several times. And then one day, he drove up the Washington Monument in a van he said was full of explosives. Because I’d met him, I called the police, and then the reporters who were tracking police calls started phoning me. I ended up on Nightline, explaining how I knew this man and what he was advocating for. It ended horribly: he tried to drive away and was shot and killed, and it turned out there were no explosives in the van. It was an intense moment. And then when I applied for a job with Congressman Ed Feighan, I remember he said, ‘Well, if you can get yourself on Nightline, you might be able to help me’ and there I was, working in politics. 

‘I wanted to win, but I’d already lost once’ 

I actually didn’t win the Rhodes Scholarship the first time I applied. The second time, I had the blessing of having worked for two years. So, I wanted to win, but I’d already lost once. I didn’t feel like I had much to lose. And maybe that’s the lesson of it, and one I’ve learned in my professional life many times over: you tend to do best when you let go of the fear of failure.  

So much of getting the Rhodes Scholarship is about luck. And I’ve been incredibly lucky. Whatever I went through, it turned out okay for me. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like to go back and do things differently. There’s a part of me that would love to have the job I had in the White House at the age I am now rather than at 31. I clearly made a million mistakes. But for all that, there are things I stand by and lessons I remember. For example, one of the big arguments I had with President Clinton was over whether he should apologise for something he said about raising taxes. I thought it was crucial for him to do it, and I think generally in life, it’s important to do that. One of the things that confuses me in our current environment is that we’ve moved away from something which seems to me to be a standard human truth. I think that if you’ve done something wrong, you should apologise for it. And if you apologise for it and repent, then that’s the best you can do. Now, especially in our political life, there seems to be much more of a premium on, ‘No matter what you do wrong, don’t admit it, don’t apologise.’  

‘A completely different perspective’ 

At Oxford, I started off studying PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). But it was difficult for me because I had been working in politics for two years, and it was hard to study what I had already been doing. And honestly, I was a little at sea because I had gotten out of the habit of studying. But one of the fundamental gifts of a Rhodes Scholarship is that it gives you time and space and so, I decided to take a step even further back. I took a course in moral theology. It was a way of going back to first principles, looking at most of the same issues I had dealt with in my political work but from a completely different perspective.  

The Scholarship also gave me the chance to do things I would never have been able to do otherwise. My first experience in journalism came when I went to Sudan in 1984 during my first vacation at Oxford. There was a famine, and I volunteered in the refugee camps. Alongside that, I did some stringing for the Christian Science Monitor. And when I went back to Sudan during my next vacation, I got introduced to John Santos (Indiana & St Catherine’s 1979) and the people at CBS. I ended up working with him on a documentary and we found ourselves stuck in Khartoum, in the middle of a coup. It was a crazy, crazy, experience, and fascinating. I couldn’t have had that if it hadn’t been for the Scholarship.  

‘The skill of separating what is right from what will work’ 

I think my time in D.C., before I went to Oxford had already taught me a fundamental skill for politics, namely separating what I thought was right from what I thought would work. You try to align the two as best you can, but they’re not always aligned. The question is, can you take a position now which you believe is the morally right position that has no chance of being achieved, or do you decide to take a path that might work that gets you towards that goal? That’s the balancing act, I think, of politics, every single day. My time at Oxford gave me the opportunity to think more deeply about what was right rather than what would work, and that was a valuable counterbalance.  

For all that, I find it very hard to put what we’re going through now in any kind of context. Everything I grew up with doesn’t seem to hold any more. It’s mind-boggling to me that we’re living in a world where a President can not only be impeached twice, for good and valid reasons, and indicted on 91 different counts, for good and valid reasons, but can also still be a frontrunner for the presidency. I have a book coming out in May 2024 about the White House Situation Room, and it was very hard to do the Trump section. I finally ended up writing a chapter that I just called ‘Postcards from the Edge’, because all the people who worked for him were having to deal with the fact that nothing was normal. Part of the reason I was drawn to writing about the history of the Situation Room is because the people who work there are just heroes. They are quiet patriots, the kind of people who stayed on post on 9/11 when they knew the White House was a target. They serve every President apolitically, in the best way they possibly can. So, it was just a joy to talk to all of them.  

On imposter syndrome and ‘fighting the world’s fight’ 

The criterion for a Rhodes Scholarship, that Scholars should ‘fight the world’s fight’, is one that runs through my mind all the time. Certainly, I felt like I was doing it the best I could in my political life. In my career after politics, I still feel most mornings that I’m doing what I can to give millions of people the tools they need to make decisions about their lives.  I do the best I can to hold powerful people accountable when I have the opportunity. Does that make any difference? I’m not always sure, but I try. 

I would say that I think everyone has imposter syndrome at some point, absolutely everyone. And I don’t trust anyone who never has. One thing I say to my daughters all the time is that, especially when you are in the younger stages of your life, you need to understand that in the best possible way, no one cares. People are largely thinking of themselves. They’re not thinking of you. They’re not looking at you in the way you think they’re looking at you. If you can internalise that feeling, I think that’s a big strength.