podcast
The Assignment with Audie Cornish
Every Thursday on The Assignment, host Audie Cornish explores the animating forces of this extraordinary American political moment. It’s not about the horse race, it’s about the larger cultural ideas driving the conversation: the role of online influencers on the electorate, the intersection of pop culture and politics, and discussions with primary voices and thinkers who are shaping the political conversation.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Next Act
The Assignment with Audie Cornish
Nov 13, 2025
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led her country through some of its greatest crises: the Christchurch mass shooting, a deadly volcano eruption, and a global pandemic. A new CNN documentary takes an intimate look at Ardern’s political career, filmed over seven years. Audie met Ardern at Oxford University to talk about the film, parenting in the spotlight, empathetic leadership, and what’s next.
CNN Films will broadcast the television premiere of “Prime Minister” on Sunday, November 16 at 9pm ET/PT on CNN. “Prime Minister” will be available to stream the next day for subscribers of CNN’s All Access streaming offering.
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This episode was produced by Madeleine Thompson and Osman Noor
Senior Producer: Matt Martinez
Technical Director: Dan Dzula
Executive Producer: Steve Lickteig
Episode Transcript
Audie Cornish
00:00:01
I'm Audie Cornish, and this is The Assignment. And at this point, it's common to hear people, especially women, talking about having imposter syndrome. I know I've done it, but I did not expect to hear that from a woman who was once a head of state.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:00:17
You worry. You worry about being exposed. You worry about failure. You know, I think probably what I've learned over time is it doesn't go away.
Audie Cornish
00:00:25
This is the Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand. She's basically like the Barack Obama of New Zealand. But imagine if Obama took office at age 37 and then had a baby in office. So Ardern had a lot of doubters. She was essentially forced to turn doubt into a source of power.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:00:46
You know, because what do we do to overcome a confidence gap? We prepare. We seek advice, we talk to experts, and actually that can lend itself to being more decisive in your decision making, having more clarity when it comes to the moment of taking on a role and having more humility. So over time I've come to learn that it's actually bought me traits that I found incredibly useful in my leadership.
Audie Cornish
00:01:09
Like Obama, Justin Trudeau and other progressive leaning world leaders, she's now out of office, but not out of politics. The last few years she's been teaching a new generation about leadership at Harvard and at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government, where I met her for this conversation. I'd watched her new documentary called Prime Minister. She's also published a memoir this summer called A Different Kind of Power. And so that's what we talked about. In an era of strongman politics, what would a different kind of power even look like?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:01:45
So if you're used to seeing kind of a bold, brassy, defiant, I'd say sometimes not just confident, overly confident, you know, a bit of ego in there, then if we see someone who is not doing that, then we think that person will not survive.
Audie Cornish
00:02:02
How she did survive after this. If you don't remember much about Jacinda Ardern's tenure as prime minister, here are the cliff notes. There was a mass shooting at a mosque that killed 51 people.
News reporter
00:02:22
Behind me this pile of flowers being left by people who are here to mourn here to grieve, a sign above those flowers reading this is not New Zealand.
Audie Cornish
00:02:32
She responded with a massive gun ban.
News reporter
00:02:35
'And already before all of the victims have even been buried, the government has announced a ban on semi-automatic weapons, on assault rifles, on extended magazines and on the parts that can modify a weapon to make it more lethal and allow it to shoot more rounds more quickly.
Audie Cornish
00:02:55
A deadly volcano eruption and recovery.
News reporter
00:02:59
The retrieval operation comes five days after the volcano erupted on the island, causing plumes of steam, ash, and rocks to pour out onto the crater, where dozens of tourists were enjoying a day trip.
Audie Cornish
00:03:11
And, of course, the pandemic. She went zero tolerance, closed borders, and faced major backlash. That included a brief activist takeover of Parliament.
Protestors
00:03:21
You serve us! You serve us! You serve us!
Audie Cornish
00:03:27
Oh, and she had a baby.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:03:30
Somewhat unusual announcement. Clarke and I are really excited to share, as you already know, that in June we're looking forward to welcoming our first child. We still have to get used to saying that out loud because of course we've been keeping it to ourselves for quite a long time.
Audie Cornish
00:03:48
She gave birth to her first child in June of 2018, only the second world leader ever to do so while in office. That's about the same time I had my first kid. And so we talked about all of this, motherhood, imposter syndrome, leading with empathy, and governing in chaos. So first I want to say, Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern, thank you for joining me, appreciate it.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:04:15
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Audie Cornish
00:04:16
That's a title.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:04:17
'Jacinda is just fine. Just fine. Otherwise we'll use half the podcast with-
Audie Cornish
00:04:23
'Well this is like- the ladies always want to be called by just their name. Yeah. We shouldn't do that.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:04:29
Well, I wonder if for me, it's a little bit, I imagine it's cultural for me as well.
Audie Cornish
00:04:33
Oh, really? Say more.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:04:34
Although I haven't dug deep on that question. You know, I come from a place which is very egalitarian. And whilst those titles come from serving New Zealand, I think that's also one of the reasons why I carry a little bit of discomfort because it was a role of service.
Audie Cornish
00:04:57
I feel like both the doc, your memoir, and also your time in office, is you reconciling those instincts. Like I'm just Jacinda, but also I need to run a country. You know what I mean? And that there are aspects of performance and how you carry yourself in leadership that have come to be required in a way. And is that at odds with your nature?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:05:24
I think I have reconciled those things. And in a way, what I hope the documentary does in particular is raise an expectation that you can be a human, that you could be a person who is flawed and makes mistakes and will really grapple with decisions but also be a leader.
Audie Cornish
00:05:48
And do you still feel that way?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:05:50
I do.
Audie Cornish
00:05:52
'One of the things that's going to be interesting about this interview is I don't want to be the person who asks you about your family, okay, and having a baby in office. However-
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:06:04
Oh, you know what, I was the only the second woman in the world, you know, I, I feel no, I harbor no grudge over the fact that I talk about these things. I think it comes naturally with there being so few. I'm the only living leader to have had a baby in office.
Audie Cornish
00:06:23
And we had our children around the same time. I think I had one in 2017 and you were 2018. And not to say it's the same, but if you're in a job where you travel a lot, have to be in the office a lot. If you just, you have this moment where you're like, okay, this is happening. I just don't know how it's going to happen. And did you have that moment?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:06:48
Yeah. I mean, I remember thinking, um, just I can do as much planning as I like, but I don't really know how this is going to work. And I think that's the same for any new parent. You don't really know, you can plan, you can lay everything out. You can set your expectations, but you just really don't know. Uh, and, uh,
Audie Cornish
00:07:12
And it was your first.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:07:12
It was my first.
Audie Cornish
00:07:13
Now, once you give birth, now you're doing the job and also doing the part of newborn and baby. I remember with those days, you know, you're trying to like pump breast milk in a closet.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:07:25
Yes.
Audie Cornish
00:07:25
You know, and the doctor's like, look at a picture of your baby on the phone. And I'm like, this is not working. Yes, You know, it's just straight up, like you don't want anyone to think you can't do it.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:07:36
That's right.
Audie Cornish
00:07:36
But the worst part is you're doubting yourself about whether you can. Yes. I don't want to spend this whole interview projecting, which is clearly what I'm doing. But I guess I'm wondering, what were the doubts? And what were the complications about being able to ask for help?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:07:55
My first problem was I had this unrealistic expectation of how it was meant to be. And, you know, because I had a bit of a plan and I really needed that plan to work, that when it wasn't working, I felt like things, you know how was I gonna keep it all, hold it all together? And that plan simply was, I wanted to be a breastfeeding mother, you know I felt that was what I was meant to do. Uh, and when that wasn't working out, it added this extra layer of logistics to everything, uh, that became really difficult to manage, but actually on reflection, no one else was putting that pressure on me. No one else were saying, this is absolutely the way that you have to do it. It was me. Uh, as soon as I started letting go of some of that expectation, it got easier and what I didn't expect was actually how much easier it would be for my partner Clarke had to try and live by the routine that I was trying to set. And he did, he didn't complain about it. He didn't question it. You know, he would, he wouldn't have even, he would come and go on, on the schedule that I set. Uh, but I think that, that he didn't have too much autonomy because of it. Um, so actually in the end, it was our daughter who decided. She was like, nope, four months in, this isn't working for me anymore.
Audie Cornish
00:09:17
Were you sad? I was sad. Mine was like underweight and it felt like a failure. I was just like, I'm struggling at work, meaning I don't feel like I'm holding myself to my own standard at work. Everyone at work thinks you're doing fine. But you're like, I'm not keeping up the way I want, I am not ahead of the game I want. And now this baby has looked me dead in the face and said, you're not doing this right either. And I'd like a bottle. Yeah. Yeah, and I was sad.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:09:42
Yeah, I was sad and I was said in part, because, you know, I thought if I'd been able to, you know, if I've been able dedicate more time to it, maybe I could have more. But I think the thing that I felt the saddest about was I no longer had any reason to have it with me. You know, when you're breastfeeding, it was it was a reason I could have her around.
Audie Cornish
00:10:07
Because it's unquestioned. Yeah, right. When you were watching the film and looking back on that period, what were you, what did you think?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:10:13
I remember how it felt, I remember how hard it felt but I also just wish that I could have told myself that actually it'll be easier from here, you know, it'll be okay and this is not your first test as a mother and you haven't failed it. There'll be a lot, there's a lot more tests to come but yeah, you haven't failed or you know because that's how sometimes it can feel so I wish that I could just tell it to myself. But with hindsight, I see it. Yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:10:48
Yeah, that's a nice feeling. One of the things you talk about very early in the film is having imposter syndrome. I hear this term a lot and what what does it mean to you and what did it mean for you then? Because I'm sure things might have changed a little bit now.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:11:04
Or maybe not, you know, imposter syndrome, I think is, it's a spectrum, you know, and it's ultimately a way to describe a confidence gap and that can manifest either consistently, you consistently question whether you should be in the role you're in or have the, have the tasks that you have and whether you're up to it or it may just be at a specific moment in time when someone asks you to take on the next step or the next challenge and you worry. You worry about being exposed, you worry about failure. I think probably what I've learned over time is two things. One, that it doesn't go away. And in the past, I would have thought then was a failure of sorts. That it should be something to be overcome. But over time, I've realized that all of the traits that come with having that confidence gap uh, can actually be beneficial, you know, because what do we do to overcome a confidence gap? We prepare, uh, we seek advice, uh we talk to experts, uh and actually that can lend itself to being more decisive in your decision making, having more clarity when it comes to the moment of taking on a role and having more humility. So over time I've come to learn that it's actually bought me traits that I found incredibly useful in my leadership.
Audie Cornish
00:12:28
I want to go back to your early days of politics, just for a little bit, to help understand because I'm hearing words like humility over and over again, right? So you sort of started to establish a thinking about what leadership means. Who is the first person you witnessed exercise power?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:12:45
My father. Who was a police officer, yeah, and look, there are significant differences in the way that the policing, for instance, in New Zealand versus the United States, you know, policing in New Zealand is built around the idea of policing by consent, that you will always be outnumbered. So therefore, you need the support of your community to be effective, you need to serve your community. And so I watched in a very small town, my dad lived by live by those values. He of course held power as a police officer and I remember being aware of that. And I remember having a very childlike view of what that was meant to look like and having my dad correct me a few times. You know, that actually his ability to talk to people would always be his most powerful tool, for instance. And so when I sat down to write, it really occurred to me that he was my first example of seeing the way people can execute power with care.
Audie Cornish
00:13:46
Because that really stays with us, I think, as kids, the first time you see somebody who yells, or who talks someone down, or can send a chill in a room, it's like a weather system. You can't really understand what's happening. But you know, something has changed, and this person has something that other people don't.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:14:04
It's always interesting in people's lives and how they came to be, you know, where they were. And I think when you are a policy maker, that's exactly where we should start every time. How are we here?
Audie Cornish
00:14:19
So I think I want to talk a little bit about how that's gotten harder. One of the things I was struck by is how much of what I considered an American style culture war had come to New Zealand after the pandemic and or through the end through concerns about vaccine mandates and things like that and even having people outside your home protesting even some of the aspects that are really uncomfortable and is. Is that how you saw it as well? Was it a little bit of like, wait, what's going on here? Is this how we usually do business or is this the internet bringing another kind of politics to us?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:14:59
Yeah, and I think here I would say, I think we're witnessing a globalization of political culture. So I think what we see in New Zealand is to a smaller degree to what we're seeing elsewhere, but it's present nonetheless, and we're not alone in that. And so that actually means, you know, that we need to think about what is part of now the universal. You know, experience for Western liberal democracies right now that we need to be thoughtful about. I think we've taken for granted that it's one of the really important principles of a strong, healthy democracy is our ability to debate and build consensus. And for that, you need to have some common ground. You need to really agree on what you're debating in the first place, what's fact, what's fiction. Have an agreed set of values about the way that you're going to engage in debate. And some of that has been eroded. Some of that's been challenged. And no one... I can't say that there's any country that's been sheltered from that at the moment.
Audie Cornish
00:16:07
And when I look around the landscape of, you know, obviously people have talked about you as the young liberal ideal leader, cover of Vogue, that kind of thing. And then there was Barack Obama, people talked about him in a similar way, Justin Trudeau, they talked about them in a similar way. And over time, so many Western democracies have turned to populism to turn to more kind of a conservative politics. And that is not just the US that's in Europe as well. Is that a rejection of the kind of politics you were trying to practice.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:16:46
I think there might be more to it than that. You know, and here I...
Audie Cornish
00:16:49
Have you been wrestling with that because I can imagine you're at home reading these news articles as well about various elections and even in New Zealand where people have rolled back a lot of policies that you would put in place.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:17:01
You know, and yet when you look globally, you see a dissatisfaction regardless of who happens to be in power at present. And there is some research now that's telling us some really interesting things about where the public are at. Edelman had this longitudinal survey. So it tells us where people are over time. And we saw massive dips in people's trust and confidence in political institutions during the global financial crisis. Right now we have more than 60% of people who feel grievance. So not just a trust issue, but grievance towards political institutions because they feel like they are worse off than they have been. They don't feel like predominantly that their children will be better off. So that tells us two things in the here and now they're struggling and their hope for the future is eroding. And then you drop down one layer again and you get a portion of people who is a result of that feel that hostile acts are justified in that environment. And that includes spreading of disinformation, even the vandalism of public property, or even at the extreme index of violence. And that lifts to about half when you look at the younger demographic. Now, when we think about that, you can see that playing out in real time. People feel disaffected by their politics. They feel like their financial security is not assured. And we're seeing the response to that.
Audie Cornish
00:18:29
There's also an argument, certainly in America, we call it sort of conservative argument that says, you know, liberal policies, progressive policies, they spend a lot of money, they don't seem to care about outcomes, they don't actually make things better, and that there's a lot promises and that people can be disillusioned by those promises. And you know I want to put this to you directly, not because of American politics, but even in New Zealand, right, like you were focused and had to be on so many other things. You could not do child poverty, right? Like inflation was up 7%.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:19:02
Well, we could, but.
Audie Cornish
00:19:05
But what?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:19:05
And, well, this is, and this is how I would describe the challenge. You know, when, when you are a progressive, you're wanting to simultaneously say here is our goal. But here is the time and steps it's going to take to get there. Child poverty is a great example. And you know, a relatively wealthy country like New Zealand, no child should live in poverty. But you can't get rid of that in a three year cycle, which is how long we have when we're in office. So even though we, for instance, made a dent in it, it was not something that would disappear overnight. The same with our education system. I personally believe in free education and that includes university study. Financially, we could not deliver that overnight, but we could deliver the first year free. And so it's that mix between sharing a vision but also being pragmatic about the steps to deliver that vision. And so you have a lot of conversation now and the likes of you ever is recline around this concept of abundance. You know, my frame of reference for it would be delivery.
Audie Cornish
00:20:05
Which was difficult, and in New Zealand housing became unbelievably expensive, and a lot of people looked at that as something that was sort of a legacy of your term.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:20:16
We'd built more public houses than any government since the 1970s. But did it end homelessness overnight? It did not. So these are there. And yet we also needed to find a way to bring more housing into the private market, which is a really difficult things with the levers that you have in office. So again, these are issues that are at its core that affects people's daily lives. I see housing, yes, as a human right, delivering that quickly in an election cycle where increasingly our public understandably have an appetite for things to be resolved very, very quickly is, I think, one of the issues we're grappling with and one of reasons that people would then pan around and say, well, who outside of these mainstream parties can bring change in my life as quickly as I need it?
Audie Cornish
00:21:07
'We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, Jacinda Ardern talks about governing in crisis and raising kids in an uncertain world. We'll be back in a moment. We're in a moment where certainly on the left in the US, it's people need to fight fire with fire, that they need to be as aggressive, as direct, as in some cases, mean-spirited, as the politics they feel they are facing. And it feels like something I want to bring to you because you're basically advocating not to do that, do you?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:21:45
Yeah. I am, and look, that's not...
Audie Cornish
00:21:48
I mean, do you see that? Do you hear that?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:21:50
I hear it. Absolutely.
Audie Cornish
00:21:50
Because you were at Harvard for a while, so your students are hearing this.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:21:53
Yeah, and I know some people will probably express this as naivety, but why is it that the things that we try and teach our kids to model in the world, we then completely abandon in our expectation of politics? We expect courtesy, generosity, curiosity, bravery, yeah, and kindness. I know I value that with our children. Why in political leadership do we then suddenly and think that that's weakness. And yet we invest so much time teaching it to the next generation. So that's another reason I push back on these old notions of what leadership should be.
Audie Cornish
00:22:33
Do you hear young people ask you questions about this?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:22:36
Yeah. And, you know, the thing that stands out to me the most is they are not asking about a type of model they should adopt, they're asking how to be themselves. How do I hold onto these values that I already believe in, and that I actually think are part of my personality when it feels like in order to succeed, I need to abandon them? So I don't think this is about teaching people new qualities. It's assuring them they can hang onto the ones they have.
Audie Cornish
00:23:05
Well, the entire system disincentivizes a person to do that.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:23:09
It does. Let's be honest about it. I mean, in politics and democracy, you survive by people knowing who you are by name recognition. And increasingly those with name recognition are more, are those sometimes you might describe as on the fringes or making more inflammatory statements or gaining the attention of the public for reasons that may not advance people's belief in politics.
Audie Cornish
00:23:36
But what I wrestle with is that people want that.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:23:38
Do they?
Audie Cornish
00:23:38
I don't know. Like as a journalist, in a way, you go through a similar thing.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:23:42
Yeah, I understand.
Audie Cornish
00:23:43
'You want to bring a certain kind of news and a certain tone. That's not what is rewarded, right? What's rewarded is the version of it that is very mocking and mean-spirited and that's think people.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:23:58
I think we make a mistake to assume that what people want is what they engage in. You know, I think that we engage, it's human instinct. We engage in those things that cause a human emotion, a reaction, that cause rage. And so I think, that is one of the issues we have. Those things that we click on are the things that then we more will be written about, we will continue to read about. And yet what we miss are those politicians. Who are out there grafting away, trying to solve problems, trying to build consensus. You know, we don't spotlight that anymore. And yet I do still believe instinctively that's what people are looking for.
Audie Cornish
00:24:40
'Um, one of the most difficult things I want to ask you about ties New Zealand together with the US, um, which is the Christchurch massacre, which happened while you were in office, where you had an Australian man coming to New Zealand, um, committing an act of, I think what is now turned as sort of accelerationist terrorism, like trying to send a message on an issue that you're whatever you're trying to do and thinking that that act of violence will draw more violence. And in that case, he attacked a mosque and killed, I think, upwards of 50 people. Since that time, his manifesto has kind of lived on in the internet. And as recently as 2022, there have been shooters in the US who have cited that shooting and that material. Can I sort of- process this with me? Like for you, as someone who even tried to prevent the manifesto right from spreading, that's not how it worked out.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:25:40
'And what we've also tried to do is take the approach of what happened in Christchurch. We don't want to ever happen again, but that includes the fact that it was an attack that was live streamed for 17 minutes. It was uploaded on Facebook 1.5 million times and on YouTube once every second for the first 24 hours. It was prolific. And the manifesto sat alongside that. And so there's been, uh, reactively attempts to try and remove and remove and remove. And so one of the ambitions that we had was to try and prevent in the future anything being as prolific as that was. And we have seen changes as a result. We created something called the Christchurch Call to Action. It's where governments work alongside tech companies and civil society. There are live streaming policies that exist now that did not exist then. There are crisis response protocols that reactively move on a 24-7 model.
Audie Cornish
00:26:41
It changed the internet, it changed how the companies dealt with the potential for that kind of content.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:26:49
But long term, the challenge is how do you stop people being radicalized in the first place?
Audie Cornish
00:26:53
Yeah.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:26:54
And your response to a violent extremist event is part of that. For instance, when someone, regardless, we know from experts in the field, that when someone engages in violent extremism, regardless of their ideological motivation, they seek generally three things. They are seeking revenge of some kind. They are seeking notoriety and they are seeking a reaction. And as Dame Louise Richardson, who has studied this area a lot, says, you know, after the act you can't, the first is done, but you do have some control over the next two. And when I think about our response in Christchurch, we denied him his infamy and the response that New Zealand had to reject his attempt to try and create retaliatory events. We denied him the reaction he wanted.
Audie Cornish
00:27:50
You said something about the victims, you said they are us and that you reject the ideology of the person who did it. And you said you're not one of us. And rewatching that, I was really struck because I thought about in the U.S. right now, we're facing a rising tide of political violence. OK, we've had a public assassination now of an activist and everybody's first response when there is a shooting is to find out. Race, nationality and political affiliation of the shooter because that somehow will dictate how to respond and whether or not you should feel empathy towards the victims almost. And because you're in this line of work, I wanted to ask you about that. How do leaders, how could leaders respond in a different way?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:28:40
Well, I can only speak to our experience, you know, and if, you know, as I would hope we'd all wish to do, if we want to send a message, and sending that clear message consistently would actually, you now, from what I've observed or seen be in line with what the general public of the US feel, you know, surveys I've seen say up to 90% of people just completely reject the idea of political violence.
Audie Cornish
00:29:06
I don't feel like that's what I see in the politics. Not that they don't reject political violence. I think everyone pays lip service to that. But I had a hard time picturing an American politician getting up and doing what you did and saying, if you did this, if you were part of this, you are not a part of us in our society. I have one more difficult thing to ask. Because and the reason why I want to ask this is because of your emphasis on empathy and how to be an empathetic leader. We're in this moment where the war in Gaza, I think is challenging people's ability to talk about things with empathy. And often, even what I hear in the debate is, well, why are you empathetic to that and not this other thing, right? There's kind of a comparison of like, which is the worst thing to be upset about and therefore to act. What are you thinking in this movement? To you, like, what are you think as people are having this debate over what the UN is calling a genocide, what lots of international leaders are concerned about, but that obviously in Israel is felt as an existential threat.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:30:14
You know, even, I think when I was first asked about this only months after October 7th, and where my mind immediately went to was the importance of remembering our shared humanity. And that can seem so simplistic, and yet ultimately, that's what we need to call upon in our leaders and our decision makers, is not allowing ourselves to fall into this binary thinking that dehumanizes the individuals who are so deeply and tragically affected. The war must end. The war must end.
Audie Cornish
00:30:48
It doesn't feel simple.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:30:51
Well, I think to people on the outside who are feeling disenfranchised by politics, who think we've lost sight of humanity, I think perhaps it does feel simple to them. You stand by while this continues, then where's the humanity?
Audie Cornish
00:31:06
As I said, I had to ask because there's a world of people you want to go out and lead, and they'll have to lead those moments, right? They'll have be the ones to make those choices. And again, like, what do you think is going to equip them for this, right, this kind of scale? That's what being a leader is about.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:31:27
And, you know, what I would say is that, you know, there's no thing that can prepare you for leadership in a way, because, you know, these are any number of challenges that can come your way. But if you bring with you a really strong set of values, you know, that is, that it's going to get you halfway there if you hold onto them.
Audie Cornish
00:31:51
One of the things that I found super striking is watching your child grow over the course of the film, right? She's like a toddler by the end of it. And since then, you have this children's book called Mom's Busy Work. And A, I appreciate any person who writes a children's books, because I think they're, people aren't always, if you read a children book, which you usually have to do 1,000 times for a kid, you come to appreciate good writing. And and the ability to explain difficult things, which I'm sure you're going through right now as a parent. How do you think about how to explain the world? Like I had a kid, I have a child who asked me, what does fascism mean?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:32:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:32:38
And it's like, I want to answer that question before they see it in the Barbie movie as a throwaway.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:32:43
I think parents are confronted with some really big conversations, and so I think we're also torn between how do we be open with our children, but not rob them of their childhood? How do we share with them and make sure that they're engaged citizens of the world without overwhelming them? And I think that is a tricky balance to be struck, but I think the one thing I always try and impart is that no one is powerless. You know, no one should feel like they're hopeless, that everything's hopeless in this situation. So there's always something that can be done, even if you're a child.
Audie Cornish
00:33:25
Because they're watching and they're listening to us. If you say a leader is a bad person, I get asked that later, wait, are they bad? And then I have to say, well, they're not bad, but they're in power now. And maybe they're kind of helping some people, but not helping others. I just find myself like, what are you doing?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:33:41
Yeah, yeah, it's hard. It's hard and often in politics, my way of describing thing is, you know, well, they're from this team and, and sometimes I don't always agree with everything that that team does. Um, so I find sporting analogies get us some of the way.
Audie Cornish
00:33:57
That's what we all fall back on in politics, in discussing politics.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:34:00
Rugby in our case.
Audie Cornish
00:34:02
My favorite part of the film is towards the end where your daughter is a toddler and she's going around a room shaking hands and saying, nice to meet you. And I thought that was such a nice moment because for working moms, you just feel like this kid's going to be in therapy talking about me, you know, like this. And I saw it was a kind of moment where you're like, yeah, that's why you bring your kid to work. Like, yes, I want that for her.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:34:26
'Yeah. I feel, um, you know, I feel like actually no matter what you do, everyone thinks, everyone thinks what is a long-term damage I am doing.
Audie Cornish
00:34:39
I blame therapy.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:34:40
And, you know, I, I wonder if sometimes that's part of a, a kind of thinking that is somehow that we curate our children rather than the fact that we're really, we're there really as their support team. You know, we're there to help nurture them, keep them safe.
Audie Cornish
00:35:01
Versus curate. That was the word?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:35:02
Teach them versus curate. You know, I think we have this idea that we, individually, are are the key determinants in who they will be as a person, but they are their own person.
Audie Cornish
00:35:15
This is not a question to sound fawning or fangirl. Why are you normal? Like we have met at least once before and I remember thinking like, yeah, I could have a drink with this person, which I never in my life thought about a politician. And do you get that a lot where people are like, why can I talk to you?
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:35:37
'There are a lot of normal people in politics. There's just not always the incentives or even the belief that you can be yourself. You know, it's a pretty difficult environment. It's pretty cutthroat environment. And for lots of reasons, I think, you know-
Audie Cornish
00:35:58
Our perception is like, power corrupts. You know what I mean? And that's the story Hollywood tells of, like Mr. Smith goes to Washington or whatever, that fundamentally you're gonna go to a place of power, that power will change you, and that that's gonna be the story. And I feel like you're trying to, you're try to go to completely counter narrative.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:36:19
And yet, having been in politics for a long time, I absolutely see the politics as a big branding problem. And yet my experience, certainly in the New Zealand environment, was that the majority of people that I worked with were there because they genuinely believed they could make a positive difference for the place they loved. And we didn't always agree on what that difference would be. And not everyone was like that. But most people I worked with were. So I think the thing that I feel really strongly about now is just not losing people's expectations of politics and politicians, that they deserve better and they should seek better. And for those who are in politics to say, actually all those traits that maybe you believe there was no place for them, there is.
Audie Cornish
00:37:09
Dame Jacinda Ardern, thank you so much for talking with me. I really appreciate the time you've taken out to do this.
Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern
00:37:15
Thank you. Really enjoyed our chat.
Audie Cornish
00:37:18
That was the Right Honorable Dame Jacindra Ardern. Author of the book, A Different Kind of Power, which came out this summer. She's also the subject of a new documentary called Prime Minister. It's produced by CNN Films, debuts on HBO this Sunday, and will be available to CNN All Access subscribers. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week.
