Ben Rhodes graduated from New York University in 2002 with a master’s degree in creative writing, before moving to Washington, DC, “to be part of the nation’s response” to 9/11. Soon after, he became speechwriter for the vice chair of the 9/11 commission, and later found his way onto Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Rhodes then spent eight years in the White House as Obama’s deputy national security advisor, a period chronicled in his 2018 memoir, The World as It Is (memorably nominated by Perry Anderson as an archetypal “spin-doctorate of the equerry”). Though he was formally a strategic communications adviser, Rhodes enjoyed a much wider political brief in practice, which included leading the administration’s negotiations with Cuba.

These days, Rhodes lives in Southern California, and cohosts the tellingly titled podcast Pod Save the World, part of a successful media company founded in 2017 by a trio of fellow Obama speechwriters and “strategic communications” cadres. He remains close to Obama, and rarely ventures the slightest criticism of his boss, mention of whom tends to be cringeworthily hagiographical.