On March 27, 2015, two days into the Saudi-led war on Yemen, Barack Obama’s deputy national security advisor publicly defended the US-backed military operation. Ben Rhodes, then thirty-seven, had begun as a speechwriter to the Obama campaign in 2007 before rising in the administration’s ranks. He assured the press that, although the situation was complex, the administration was more than able to handle it. “We are always very careful to sort out who are the groups that actually pose a threat to the United States,” he said, as recorded in an NPR clip.

By the time that clip aired, at least thirty-nine civilians had been killed in a war that would within a year become — on Obama’s watch — “probably the worst humanitarian situation in the world,” according to Adnan Abdulfattah, the head of UNICEF’s office in Hodeidah, Yemen. By 2018 the UN was also calling it the worst, seemingly running out of ways to warn the world that the combination of air bombardments and naval blockades was cutting off food and medicine — and pushing the country to famine.

Throughout 2015 and 2016, as the US-Saudi coalition bombed weddings, hospitals, funerals, factories, and a school bus, Rhodes went on press calls and media interviews to defend US political and military backing of the war, while issuing vague assurances the Obama administration was doing what it could to protect civilian lives.