It’s not an easy walk to the exit for Antony Blinken. With exactly eight days left as secretary of state, he has just wrapped up what is likely to be his last trip around the world, with meetings in Seoul, Tokyo, Paris and, finally, Rome.

Blinken has traveled more than a million miles on the job. “Every minute, every hour, every day of the time we have left, we are focused on getting results,” he said.

“Sunday Morning” flew with him in early December – three times ago – from Washington to Brussels for the last meeting of NATO foreign ministers. The main topic of conversation was Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“We have a new NATO strategic concept,” Blinken said. “It recognizes Russia as the most direct threat to the alliance.”

But there were also a lot of good wishes. Blinken stood right in the middle of the so-called “family photo” and also photo-bombed the portrait of all the female foreign ministers.

Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, NATO’s secretary general, told Blinken: “You have been a faithful ally and people love you very much.”

All this ceremonial showing and telling could be seen as subtle value messaging to the incoming Trump administration grooming alliance – the “together stronger” argument. Blinken said, “The instruction I got from President Biden on day one was, get in there, rejuvenate, re-energize and even re-imagine our alliances and partnerships.”

This was another opportunity for Blinken to raise the Biden administration’s foreign policy credentials… and his own. He explained: “If the United States is not engaged, if we are not leading, then probably either someone else is (and probably not in a way that reflects our interests and our values), or perhaps just as bad, no one is. What we have done in the last four year is that we engaged again.”

Regarding Ukraine, he told reporters in Brussels: “All in all, the US has provided $102 billion in aid to Ukraine, our allies and partners have provided $158 billion. This is perhaps the best example of burden sharing that I’ve seen in the 32 years I’ve been doing this. “

Critics fear that President-elect Trump wants to end Russia’s war with Ukraine not in favor of Ukraine. Ever the diplomat, Blinken won’t say he’s trying to prove to Trump a possible outcome. “For any of us to really speculate at this point, I don’t think there’s much point,” Blinken said. “What makes sense is to make sure that we give the next administration, we give the incoming Trump administration, the strongest possible hand to play around the world, whether it’s Ukraine or anything else.”

Sixty-two-year-old Antony Blinken was practically born to be Secretary of State. His father, financier and philanthropist Donald Blinken, was ambassador to Hungary. His stepfather, international lawyer and humanitarian Samuel Pisar, survived the Holocaust from Poland. “He was on a death march from the camp, and he and some friends managed to escape the death march itself, they hid in the Bavarian forests,” Blinken said. “They saw a tank with a five-pointed white star on it. The hood opened, and a very large African-American GI looked down into it, fell to his knees, and said the only words he knew in English that his mother had taught him before the war: ‘God bless America’. And GI raised him in a tank, in freedom, in the United States. Those are the stories that I heard and made me feel that there is something special in our country.”

Blinken grew up in Paris. He went to Harvard, Columbia Law School, and in 1993, during President Clinton’s first term, he began his diplomatic career at the State Department. During one administration after another, Blinken was always in “the room where it happens.” There he is (right, in the background) in the famous picture when President Obama killed Osama bin Laden.

Blinken was national security adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden. The two are extremely close. “One of the things that was a tremendous privilege was to have a relationship where he would seek my advice,” Blinken said, “and I always felt able to speak my mind with him.”

In Bob Woodward’s recent book, “The War,” it was reported that after President Biden’s volatile debate last July, Blinken met with the president and asked him to consider whether he “wanted to do this for four more years?”… adding, “No I want your legacy to be threatened.”

Blinken’s and Biden’s legacies are inevitably linked, for better or for worse. Blinken defended the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan as they watched, reminding the world that the first Trump administration made a deal with the Taliban, forcing them to withdraw.

On their volatile relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the destruction of Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Netanyahu’s seeming disrespect for the role the United States is trying to play (and has helped finance) in its support for Israel, that calls to protect and feed people ignored, Blinken had this to say: “The fastest way, the most effective way to get people what they actually need is through what we’ve been trying to achieve for many months, which is to cut fires, with hostages coming home, massive aid coming in.”

Even this late in the game, Blinken hopes a deal can be reached before Inauguration Day. But if not? He said, “When that deal is reached, it will be based on what President Biden has put forward.”

And who will get the loan? “You know, ultimately, it doesn’t matter,” Blinken said. “What really matters is whether the United States can bring about real change, real change in people’s lives.”

It still sounds idealistic. There is something a little pure about Antony Blinken. After all, he’s the guy who promoted musical diplomacy by performing Muddy Waters’ blues standard, “Hoochie Coochie Man,” in a suit and tie:

What will he do now? He is vague on that point. When he left NATO headquarters for the last time as Secretary of State, I asked him, “You can’t help but have strong feelings knowing that you’re leaving this building?”

“Sure,” said Blinken. “Look, there’s always going to be a moment. Someone says something to you, there’s some generous recognition and for about 30 seconds you feel it. You take it to heart. But then I go back to work. That’s really my focus . . . Now, talk to me 21 . January.”

WATCH: Secretary of State Blinken on the US role in Syria (Web Extra)

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Story produced by Ed Forgotson. Editor: Remington Korper.