Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
What's Up Something Bill ProQuest Love Supreme on this week's classic, which revisited May thirty. In twenty eighteen interview with journalists and author Ronan Pharaoh, he dropped out and talking about his first book, War on Piece. The chat left to talking about family most of and Roman's Pursuit of the Truth. Episode eighty six.
Enjoyed Supremo Son Son Supremo roll call, Supremo Sun, Supremo roll call, Suprema Sun Supremo roll call Suprema Sun sub Supremo roll call.
I am for real, Yeah, I am so down.
Yeah.
Ronan Pharaoh, expose these class.
Supreme So Sun Supremo, roll call, breama something something, Supremo role.
My name is Fante. Yeah, I can't play the word lizzer.
Yeah.
I never had a bar MINSI. Yeah, congrats on that pool Litzer.
Suprema Suprema roll called Suprema Son, Suprema roll call.
My name is Sugar. Yeah.
When I heard Pharaoh, yeah, I was like, oh Eve, yeah, not again.
Suprema role called Suprema Son So Suprema.
Roll called Bill.
Yeah, and life is hard Yeah when you live inside. Yeah, House of Cards.
Suprema Son, Suprema roll called Suprema Son, Suprema.
Roll em Yeah, and Pharaoh everything he says, yeah, yeah I follow, Yeah me too, Yeah.
Supp.
Roll, I'm rolling row, I'm here to stay.
Yeah. I can't free style, but I got a yeah roll.
He started the crooning. That was amazing.
Guys ring definitely need another take, but there's promising stuff there.
You are a one I love.
I was outside and I saw the I had a new bars. I saw the word lips outside.
I was like, like like Pulitzer soul.
Yeah, yeah, if you were all the revelation comes after roll call, before call.
There is nothing we can think of that you know that rhymes with the word that we intended you.
Do that every time that's exhausted.
What what episode is this? Like like.
Congrats on your eighty something? The episode that means.
Each each freaking roll call has been somewhat customized, all mind saved.
You're a lie?
Oh yours?
Okay?
Like off topic because I like to be as topic as positive.
This week because this well, this is the one. Yours is always political.
No, matter what. Like even if we have like like.
You know, the food episode, you'll talk about what happened in the news that week, So you're like our.
Political conscious but not really.
I was going to try to do a non political one this week because it's political to fuck with you all. But yeah, I was like, you better stick to way special guests. There is a today say the word high.
She's very My goal is to get her to open up.
Yeah.
We are literally yeah we in place of bost Bill uh Ziah, one of my seven managers is here.
Maybe we can get into it later because.
It's not about me our special guests, you know, I will say probably one of the one of the one of the hardest things to to do, uh, I think in terms of David and Goliath is taking a stand and calling people out, sticking to the truth, especially when terms like fake news gets thrown around a lot, and you know, there are a certain few that still don't
know who to believe. You know, I guess anyway, this this man has in my opinion, uh, he's leading the charge and he's a mighty David to the world's good life.
His new book just got released, War and Peace. Thank you. I want to talk about.
That hell out of that, guys, welcome. Yeah, that how cool.
I saw your speech last night. That was really incredible. How you picked up your mom.
For it, you know.
Yeah, you know, look I brought with me actually, uh, one of the first women who went on the record in these stories I wrote about Harvey Weinstein. And you know there's a reason for that. I really I was there because of her, and I feel like we have all benefited so much from the example of how brave these women were. And you're right, my mom was there too, and she is a super brave woman who has gotten a lot of flak for standing up for her daughter and for women's rights, and I owe a lot to her.
I gotta say, even like news news of you writing the New Yorker piece and your work before. Of course, we at one point worked in the same building at thirty Rock, what I call thirty Rock University.
I'll just say that you graduated.
You kicked out, you know. Well you're talking about that later, yeah, you know, but you were. You definitely had a cooler layer in thirty Rock than I did.
Yeah, but you guys, really know it all is man, and you know, I was always a big fan of the third floor, all all the cats that ever.
Yeah, yeah, there's some great reporters there.
But I'll say that, even though I believe maybe the first time I met you, I recalled, did you guys ever attend a show with Most?
I know at the time when he was doing be kind Rewind?
Yeah, wow, that is a piece piece of obscure IMDb trivia. My mom co starred with Most in this Michelle Gontrey movie, right yeah, and she loved Most. She was like, this guy is the salt of the earth. She thought he was so sweet, he was so supportive.
One point that you guys, that was going to be like the the adoption thing, like Most.
Was just going to be like the latest addition to the Pharaoh family.
Exactly would that I saw, even I don't know if it's you or your siblings at one of his shows that I happen to be.
At, totally possible. I mean I'm a big fan of his.
Okay, So but I'll say that my my true introduction introduction to you was your your Twitter feet, which was super fearless. At first, I didn't I didn't even know you were journalists. I just thought, yo, your singers are.
I'm glad you liked them. They have gotten me in trouble.
I was going to say, how how did your Father's Day?
I don't know if this is the White Elephant or room whatever, but your Father's Day tweet was rather interesting.
I had some spicy tweets in my day.
Yeah, but you know, how how did you deal with that?
Because usually I get a lot of clot back from you know, yeah inner circle.
Yeah, I mean, you know, but you just always has that.
Always been you, like, I'm going to call it out if I see bullshit, I'm gonna call it out.
For sure, for sure. I think when you're calling out bullshit through careful investigative reporting, you do have to then be careful about like being glib on social media. So it's a delicate balance. You know, it depends on the topic.
So you can't be yeah, you're you're not.
I think, you know, while I'm in the middle of such sensitive stuff and I'm so under fire from some pretty nasty people that I've exposed, you know, I still get a little in edgewise.
And at last, you know, a few I want to say weeks.
Yeah, during those period.
Time, these things, it's like, Okay, your Twitter might go more PG.
Now it's a little more PG. Yeah. I also think, you know, Twitter has changed, like our cultural moment has changed. There was a period where like I'd go on with you know, Jimmy, and he'd like read his favorite tweets of mine. And I don't think we do that anymore. Like the novelty of Twitter wore off, and it's now more for me anyway, like a rolodex of fellow reporters, rather than like a joke medium.
Oh yeah, it's more like it's like the morning papers. Now it's like the morning papers.
Yeah, yeah, right, it's more of just a news aggregator for me.
Hashtag is a thread, you know it, Threa.
Nothing's funny anymore?
Yeah, nothing, but well you guys are still funny. That works.
So just as a young person were when did you realize that this is bullshit and I have to stand up for something or were you Were you the tattletale of your siblings?
Like what, I was not a snitch on her I because it's.
Weird just from where I came from, Like I was raised Okay, one time I used to be the cousin that TOLDE job right, But I was raised like you. My uncle would punish the guilty party and then punish the snitcher.
Everybody it's like, what did I do? It's like you're supposed to stick together, which it's like, that's that's kind of weird.
We at a young age, I'll say that at least culturally, black people were slow to call things out, and then maybe by their teens, then it's like to tell it like it is thing because then you just realized that this is bullshit and I gotta stand up. So I mean, at what point where did you feel like on my own two I gotta.
I was always raised with a really strong spirit of public service and justice, and I think a lot of that flows from my mom being like a recovering Catholic schoolgirl who you know is still really was inculcated with that kind of save the world attitude and and I think, you know, speaking the truth and cutting through bullshit, even when it means putting a lot on the line is
a big part of that. But what's interesting when you talk about snitching is, you know, my day job as an investigative reporter requires both a lot of telling of hard truths and also a lot of keeping of secrets, right because you're dealing with all of these anonymous resources. Yeah, and you know, even when people go on the record, you know, you have to be very careful about parsing out the parts they want to say the parts they
don't want to say. And one of the most important things I do is respecting people's privacy.
Well, let me make clear snitching is at least inculturally for us. Snitching is like when you're part of an operation and then yeah, Evan, you rat everyone else out.
No, be cool, because boss bills not here. And I want you guys to choose this podcast.
Does this take some calls and you know, to on the micro yes, sound effects, all this stuff. But so I would not necessarily say, I mean, keeping a secret is necessary in your line of business.
And I feel that's not.
You walking back.
No, I never. I mean, like.
Interesting point.
That's why I was super interesting.
I wanted you to go back to what you said about him and your brothers and sisters, because when you came in here, you were already talking about your brothers and sisters.
How many do.
You have and were one of fourteen? Okay, it's a lot.
And your last name is not Johnson.
And where are you in this game of the fourteen, there are four younger than me. Ten of my siblings are adopted, and most of them have, uh, you know, really traumatic difficult backgrounds of various kinds. You know, adopted from terrible situations of poverty and abuse. You know, many of them adopted older at a point where basically they would not have found a home otherwise. And you know, those are the people I love most and I grew up with, and it really gave me this incredible sense
of perspective. It's hard to like sop into your soup about anything when you have so many of the world's challenges read at your doorstep.
So from the gate being one of fourteen, like you're automatically taught community service and that sort of. I mean, it wasn't a silver spoon situation. Then you decided, because there's some people that like they grow up privileged, rich, and then they realized, like, yo, this is we'll sit I got.
And you know, I'd never like complain of hardship in that respect, because lord knows, I've reported on and seen plenty of real hardship and I didn't have that. But you know, I was raised by a single mom who was at that point, you know, not working all the time, and it was very clear that we all had to strike out and make a living as early as possible. And you know, not everyone could go to private school. It was it was merit based, and you know, we
were really fortunate. I was supported through my whole childhood, but it wasn't opulent. And you know, the flip side was that there were all these very real traumas and often really just physical challenges that I saw my siblings go through, So I was I was exposed to that from an early age.
You said something interesting, you said, going to private school was merit base.
Well, you know, a lot of my siblings had the benefit of like wonderful public schools in our in our towns that we grew up in. In Connecticut, we moved around a little bit. Was New York, Connecticut.
Born in New York.
I was born in New York, and then I spent my teens in Connecticut. And it was kind of I think it was an individual decision for each person, like, Okay, what are they going to benefit from most? You know, how good is the local school? Uh, you know what makes sense? Are they really going to get a lot out of some kind of a specialized program, you know, whether they either you know, need more attentive education because they've got special needs, or because they're excelling in a
particular way and that needs to be tended to. I'm not allowed to work.
For your mom like that unbelievable work.
She was an incredible mom, and I saw her shoulder this huge burden all by herself. Did you get to do any of you guys have kids?
Yeah? I got the two boys seventeen and twelve.
So you know, what a handful. It's a lot. It's a lot, and I can't imagine doing that all alone, you know, while making a living with so many kids. It's a lot to bite up. I definitely grew up knowing that I didn't want to adopt ten kids, but I also grew up really admiring the hell out of it.
Is it? Yeah? How is it?
Fighting for your own space and your own voice and your I would assume that you have to be diplomatic, and you know, the biggest vote wins and we get to watch this.
Channel and you know, yeah, a lot of early negotiating skills. I hadn't thought of it in that way, but that's probably true. I mean a lot of fighting over food. You know, we were like we were a dark meat family when it came to chicken, and the darkness was always gone, you know, never enough drumsticks to go around.
Yo, son, your last name is John.
No, we just had a whole conversation about good hair and whatnot.
And it's funny because that that was my next question to you, like breaking down the diversity of your brothers and sisters, because that provides such a different understanding for you, you know, especially.
As a totally different understanding. I mean, look, I'm still a white guy, and I would not claim to understand what it's like to grow up as a black woman in our society. But I can claim to understand what it's like to grow up, you know, with a bedroom next to the bedroom of a of a black young woman. And uh, that's a lot, that's a whole. I mean, I want to be careful because I was telling you before, like I have you know, the black siblings. Yeah, I
have black somebs. I have Asian siblings. We were we were real like United Colors of Beneton. I know, you know I have uh you know, there are black women in my life who are very disapproving of the Chris Rock documentary that you just mentioned.
The good hair, Yes we're talking, was going to put you in Yeah, an interesting conversation.
It is an interesting conversation that people have about that. And it's not really for me to say, you know, how sensitive he was or not, because I'm not in
that demographic. But but uh, certainly I got a taste of the hair traumas of honestly the childhood of just about any girl of any color, because as I was telling you earlier, my Asian siblings were like getting perms and wanting curly hair, and you know, my black sister was like, you know, going through the whole rigamarole of like strainers, relaxers and you know, going out in the rain, and it's all ruined. So God bless anyone who finds equilibrium on their hair, whatever color that may be.
You you had a problem with good hair.
No, I thought, not me, she was. But I saw the point of it.
I saw the point in the problem because I was saying, at the end of the day, Chris Rock is a man, and so it was from a perspective a man, and a lot of things were left out.
That's what we're talking about Oh okay, now I watch again, see I.
Mean white people, I know loved that documentary cause I feel I'm so full of insight now yeah, and I was kind of surprised then, you know, you talked to black women about it, and it's a little more split down the middle, where like you found things to respect in it.
And I mean I certainly enjoyed it, and I just that it.
Was done and his intentions and doing it when it came to that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did not know that.
Okay, where did you go to high school? Did you all go to the same high school? Well, you're all not the same.
Age, so yeah, I mean there's a huge age span. I actually did not go to high school.
But you went to college and like sixteen years eleven.
Oh wait, you deal with it.
As you graduated it like you graduated.
I was at fifteen, right, Yeah, whoa time out? This about me? I'm here.
I did not know this about you? And wait, time out? Explain your schooling.
I we missed that. We missed the Ron Ferro plan.
Look, I don't know if it's a good idea, but it's what happened. I I was super nerdy and was bored in school, and I was lucky enough to uh get like a you know, brochure for this JOHNS. Hopkins program where you can take college courses as a kid.
John Hopkins like nothing.
They have this thing. It's so embarrassed. It's called the Center for Talented Youth. I'm so sorry, guys. Yeah. So anyway, I and these fellow nerds would get together and like take college courses in the summers. And this would have been like, you know, from age nine or ten on. So, so the the way you get into that summer camp is you take the SAT. And so I took the SAT and I got a score where people were like, oh, okay, you should just go to college. So I just I did.
Wow. And this is at nine years old.
So the SAT, you know, I took it a couple of times in that period. You had to retake it to get it. This is more detail than needed, but anyway, I got a like a baller s a T score kind of.
I did.
I got a perfect. No one is ever going to want to be my friend, I don't. No, no, no, okay, this you will be my only friends.
No, but peep it, peep it, all right, So.
Maybe I don't know if I tell the story of my birth doctor or not, but like he was trying to get my parents to think, you know, I was born in the early seventies and there was like a new way of thinking and all that stuff, and he was trying to get my parents to kind of go out of their their uh boundary comfort zone when it came to raising me. Now they geared more towards entertainment
and whatnot. So he told them like, you know, when he wants to write on the walls, let him write on the walls, let.
Him anything in a black and even in the plastic covert.
Yeah, let him jump on the good sofa and yeah, right, all by leader all this stuff.
But that's how became a drummer. After a while, it was like, Okay, he's destroying too much furniture, what do we do, Get him a drum set. And then that's like around two. But he definitely said, like make sure before the age of five you let him just you know, he's going to be curious about a lot of things, like, of course, if it's a fork to the socket stopped, Yeah, but let him draw on the walls, let him play in his food.
So would you raise any kids you have that way? Hell no, you don't want to lose those couches.
But you see, I feel.
Because of I've seen the result, and I have cousins that were or under a strict like this restrictive lifestyle, and I've seen the results of being too restrictive what that does once they're teenagers and you rebellicans. Like TV was taken away from me in my formative years, but as a result as an adult, like, I'm totally addicted to CV, you know what I mean.
So it's sort of I actually had the same evolution on video games where we were a new video game household and then I became like a real nerdy gamer as a result.
What do you gang? What's what's your jointe?
Oh man, I've got four I'm a PS four guy Paul's college. I'm sure, yeah, but kind of, you know, I was so I was so subversive that, you know, I was the kind of kid where when I was told you can't get a Nintendo, I was like, here are all my arguments on why this is an important art form and writers of my generation are going to
be going into video games and telling important horizon expanding stories. Yeah, but also there was something about and then I would like, you know, rig up emulators on my computer to get the Super Nintendo games and the sixty four games, like you know, just terribly like hacked together versions I'd download, but so I could play them. I'm not at getting piracy and emulation here. I'm just saying it was.
You just built your own videota. So what's so?
Yeah, I have a PS four. I'm I'm a I grew up on partly as a consequence of that ban on consoles, computer games which were allowed, which are a little more cerebral, like do you remember like Missed from the Night, Missed as My Jam? And there's actually now that, similar to some of the transitions in the music industry, there's much more of an indie scene in gaming right now because you publish declined inside for four. Inside is a beautiful working art.
That's crazy.
It's like Scandinavian game I think, right, maybe Danish and uh it's like black and white. Yeah, we got to go deeper on this. We're losing the rest of them. This is a side of him that I've exposed.
Yeah. No, we were very much a rabbit hole show.
Yeah, so I love the kind of the lineage of those mist adventure games and other kind of artistic games that are a little mysterious and make you think. And Flower Love Flower Love Journey, that's ny Journey's great. Yeah, there's a game from PS four called Soma, which you should one hundred percent play, like best writing, best story seen.
These choose your venture games.
Nah, Like Inside is is just a game where you're a kid and it just drops you in this world and you just it's a side scroller game, so like you die, so yeah, it's like Mario and you can just die in so many different ways. And it's these puzzles you have to figure out and.
But it's it's a very evocative, beautiful backdrop of like a kind of an Orwellian like repressive society. So it's much more about like the experience than the puzzle.
Natural.
Yeah, and then Flower is like if pm don designed a game. Flower is like you where you are a pedal of a flower. It's amazing, how dude. It's you're a pedal of a flower and you play as the wind, so you have to direct the pedal to go through this garden to pick up more flowers and they the music.
I want to. I don't think.
Yo, I didn't, but my homies, it's a beautiful game.
And like on Weed, it's even better.
I love to hear this gentle soul. You love this gentle stone.
But I play too, though, so I like.
And Last of Us. That's like a screenplay for sure.
I hear the new God.
I got it. I purposely. I haven't downloaded.
I haven't started yet because I got work to do, and I know once I started.
First of all, hats off for Afro picks. Off to you for your for your your your New York piece.
Thank you what.
I mean, the what gave you.
The nerve or the gall or the audacity to even say, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna go after that, because I would have figured that every editor or every boss of yours would have tried to shut you down.
Yeah.
Maybe the guilt of the Democratic yeah, or the guilt of the Democratic Party, you know, being as he was one of the biggest supporters or whatever like that could have.
Just like a lot of powerful forces trying to shut it down.
Yeah.
And how did you manage to bob and weave your way out of that to something that actually not only stuck but worked.
I'm just so relieved and so grateful because of all those obstacles. You know, the most important answer is that these women who came forward did this incredibly brave and difficult thing. I mean, I worked with them for months, and we had so many tough conversations about the pros and the cons and the threats to their career and
the threats to their physical safety. And you know, as you know, one of the articles I wrote exposed this whole system of hiring like combat ready, yeah, massage and yeah. I mean, like there's real cloak and dagger stuff going on here. And from the beginning, you know, the women involved in the story were warning me of that, and I knew that every single person who had told their story did it because they thought it could help protect the next woman to come along, and because they had
done this incredibly difficult thing. I just wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had allowed it to be shut down, or if I had given up. The other aspect of it is, by the time I got to the decision point of like, Okay, my life is falling apart, I got no more career, Like nothing like this is the maybe ies you know, swung too wide on this. I couldn't go back because I really had,
like I gambled everything. You know, I'd spent a year of my life and all the opportunities I thought I had and was pursuing had gone away, And did you the only choice I had was to stick with it.
Did you feel like your exit at MSNBC was like, was that the end of the world, like when you walked out of that building with your box?
Or I don't know.
I can always tell when someone leaves MSNBC because of certain white box that they carry outside of It's never happy look on their face when they're carrying.
Leaving anywhere where you thought you were building a future is incredibly hard. I was at the time, not at MSNBC. I was on the Today Show. But you know, yeah, I know it all. It's all one news organization. You're right to consider it the same, uh, And you know, I'm really proud of the work the Investigative Unit did on a bunch of stories I worked on there, and yeah, you know, look, things things changed as I was working on this story.
So at the time of the Today Show, did you hear any rumblings of what was happening at the time.
I am going to have to be careful in this conversation about that. You too, You're a you're a tough interviewer. Look, I do think that it's you don't know, but you are the the.
I thought I was asking soft questions like in the past.
Look, I think there's a lot of valid questions out there about how all these things connect together. And you know, I gotta make sure that that story is told in the right way at the right time.
That's what I was going to ask you, because you chose well, obviously this book must have been in the works before it was Yeah, okay, because there must be something in process to tell the story of your process in doing this article.
Yeah, I think further down the line, people are right to hammer me with questions about this and and I will make sure you've.
Talked about Okay, I'm sorry. I just assumed that once the he was done and yeah, that it was like.
No, Look, I mean they I will say, broadly, the story behind stories like this can be important because when something this important and this dangerous stays quiet for this long, uh, that's not an accident. And there's a lot of reasons for that, And I think you know now that we are grappling with the underlying allegations, and it was really important to me that the women's stories be at the center of the conversation. So I also didn't want to
distract from that. But I think as we get further and further out, you know, it will be important to really take a hard look at ourselves in the media and across our society, and and look at the systems that keep these sorts of things quiet.
How long did you research that the Weinstein story?
The big first interview was done in January of last year. The first you know, research and calls would have happened sort of October November of twenty sixteen. Yeah, so about a year.
So your book or my book, my summering book.
What did you first start? Right?
By the way, I love that image of you with war on piece in your lap. I snapped the picture. I'm instagramming that.
It's right here. How long was the process too?
Way too long?
Yeah?
And you had to be fly around the world a little bit too, right?
Yeah? Yeah, you saw there's all sorts of crazy exotic locations in there. It took five years, all told, to write this book, and a lot of the actual writing happened at the end. And part of that was because the Weinstein story like took over my life, and right at the moment where I was supposed to be in crunch mode for the book, I was juggling these two giant things.
Were your editors understanding?
Like, okay, no, no, they were not. They actually they dropped the book and I had to resell it to a wonderful team at Norton, my current publisher.
Serious for a yeah, oh they are mad. They when did they drove?
People are mad? A lot of people are in regret mood.
Now, Yeah, because I need to know when did they drop?
Right at the as the Weinstein story was heating up, This would have been like maybe April of last year. Yeah, you know, there's great, great people over there, and I'm sure they're doing fine. But it was obviously a huge blow to me personally. And there are so many brave whistleblowers that you know, they knew and I knew had gone on the record for this book, and I couldn't let them down either. Because this book is the story of first of all transformation in America's role in the world.
That's really important to all of our safety. And second of all of brave men and women in an unsung career who are really getting pushed out right now and denigrated and who are profoundly misunderstood and abused by politicians.
They're abused by the public because in a way public. It's funny because I was thinking.
To myself in reading, because I didn't read the whole thing, but I've ran through it, and I was like, oh, so now I feel bad about beeping at the guys to get the park anywhere they want to with the diplomat tags, I was like, I'm.
Going to raise in DC, so I'm to get the park he wants to. And now I get it. I'm like, Okay.
You know, these are men and women who turn down opportunities to make a lot more money in the private sector, who go to the most dangerous and difficult places on Earth at times, move their families around every few years, and they do it because they know that their work makes the United States safer. Yeah. I mean they are the first line of defense against dangerous people getting into our country.
Uh.
They are the people responsible when you get into a crisis or take a taken hostage and you've got to get pulled out. And they're the people who, hopefully if we empower them, which we are not, broker the deals that keep our brave service men and women out of conflicts. You know, war should not be the first solution.
Well, you said that people would think that with this current administration that we're quote air quote under that sort of the decline of the diplomacy overseas and other territories. Most of us would think that the the client is starting now, but you actually said that it was this has been going on, like doing the Clinton and doing the Bush Bush one and the Reagan administration.
So there's two things going on here. A lot of the book is devoted to the crisis under the Trump administration. I mean, this is a crazy new extreme where we are literally purging the State Department, just mass firings, hundreds of diplomatic posts, empty.
Empty, right. Can you say the number, It's not.
I mean it changes all the time, So I don't want to give a number now because it will change by the time we and sometimes it gets worse not better, by the way. Yeah, but it's we're talking about you know, major embassies without an ambassador, major offices around the State Department without an assistant secretary to run that region, and it means that we're flying blind in all sorts of big challenges all around the world. I Bookend War on Peace with the story of this guy, Tom Countryman, which
is his real name. Unbelievably, Yeah, that's not like a stage name, that's his real name. And he is indeed like a patriotic guy you knows, served in all these dangerous places for years and years, and he was the top official on arms control at the State Department. And he got fired within days of Trump coming in. And you think about that, like at a time when we're facing down Iran and North Korea and arms control is one of our biggest challenges. We just gave the boot
to our top expert on that field. So a big part of this is the Trump era. But you're right, you know, when people say this is unprecedented, that's not quite the right word, because there's a lot of precedent you can look at and draw really clear lessons from. You mentioned the Clinton administration. Clinton over the course of the nineties cut spending on development and diplomacy by thirty percent, and we closed all sorts of embassies around the world.
The embassies we had left were short funded. We shuddered two really important government agencies, one on information which obviously we could use that skill set as we go up against ISIS propaganda, one on arms control. And you know, these are lasting pieces of damage that we really felt after nine to eleven when we needed diplomats more and instead, obviously what we've seen is everything gets run through the Pentagon.
Yeah, yeah, book.
It's interesting because number one, I wanted to big you up because the way you kind of explain things as you go and you learn about the State Department and you learn about everybody's role. But it also becomes very scary as you really realize, to dumb it down, that we don't have as many friends in these countries as we used to and when it comes to American representation,
which is kind of scary. And then it goes back to the White House, who we are the only ones really communicating with these outside entities, which is.
Yeah, are you saying in the case of North Korea there should have been way more. Did we ever have representation in North Korea?
At all?
So it's not about wanting an embassy there, you know, I think everyone agrees that, like, it wouldn't be the right thing to recognize them as a state in that way at present until they reform in a whole lot of ways. But what we have had in recent history are really concerted efforts led by really experienced diplomats to have talks with them and other players in the region that can kind of squeeze them and exert pressure, like
the Chinese. So under George W. Bush, for instance, there were six party talks led by this guy Chris Hill, who's a career diplomat who's profiled in this book. And you know, it's too simple to say that he just failed. You know, they worked really hard around the clock for a long time. They got North Korea to shut down some of its reactors for the first time. They got some concessions and some transparency. In the end, you know, it fell through North Korea and followed through to the
extent we wanted. But there were significant inroads made in our ability to talk to China about this. And we've just thrown that all out since then.
And because Trump said he's the reason that we have where China is.
Yeah, yeah, And you know, Trump is trumpeting a lot about the I'm so sorry for that accidental point about this, you know, meeting potentially leader to leader in the North Korea crisis. I just got to say, and this is addressed in the book. What all the experts who have been immersed in trying to crack the North Korea problem for years say is time will tell what that means a meeting like that, because North Korea is really wily. They lie all the time, and there's a real risk
that we get played. If you go into a meeting leader to leader, it can be a way to legitimize them as a nuclear power. They can run around saying, hey, now we're recognized and we can have new because that's one of their key demands. We don't necessarily have a long term strategy in which to embed that meeting. And that's a problem because we no longer have a corps of experts devoted to North Korea at the State Department.
I was like, so this is not going to have a happy ending, because we're still useful too.
There's some hope in this book. I mean, I talk about the fact that there are still these brave men and women doing this work in difficult places around the world, and and I talk about some of the examples in recent history that suggests that if we support them, you can actually turn things around.
So where are so where do you think it's important? And they are there because they've been pulled out of so many places.
I have one quick question there.
I believe that, you know, obviously, in the name of pettiness, I believe the Trump administration this is setting down UH or firing UH at will.
Who he pleases.
What were the reasons or at least between the Reagan and the Obama administration, did you see the decline of diplomacy around the world, Like, what were the reasons of Were they saying that, Okay, this particular place in Zambia or or this African nation, we don't need you know, five diplomats there.
So I'm careful not to oversimplify the problem.
UH.
The State Department bureaucracy is slow moving, it's broken and outdated in a lot of ways. And you know, part of this conversation is people saying, well, we need to cut back because we need to reform, and I think that that's not unreasonable. You know, intelligent reform where we reshape what our diplomacy looks like, is a great.
Idea, but there's no plan.
No, there's no plan. They are cutting.
What's the soul, not fat, what's the idea plan?
Well, you know, the example I would point to is, since you were asking about history, you know, during World War Two, I went back and found a lot of the old headlines covering the State Department then, and they sound a whole lot like headlines about the Rex Tillerson State Department in the past year, people saying we've got a broken State Department. You know, it's not doing its job. You know, we need to throw it out the window.
We need to reform it. And what's interesting is what we did then, which is instead of throwing it out, we really reshaped it for a modern era. You know, mass communication was on the rise. We created all sorts of new offices and new priorities. We cut older offices that were now outdated, and you ended up with a period where we had the creation of you know, NATO and the UN and the World Bank and all of these structures we still rely on. So I think you can reform it.
Is that want this administration, though.
This administration doesn't seem to want it.
This is what I'm saying. It's gonna be empty positions, yes, emptiness.
Yeah, I'm curious to get your take on what you think the role of technology plays in kind of our decline of diplomacy, just because this is the first time I think we're just living in the air where information and misinformation just flies so fast, you know what I mean. And so I'm curious, what do you think, Like, you know, when you were talking about you know, like forty hell not even forty years ago, like during the Bush one, I mean, there was no Twitter, there was no social media.
So now stories can break and you know, it may be all the way source, it may be whatever, but it can just go so off the rails. What do you think the role that social media has played, either good or bad, like in the role.
Of all that.
It's a really good question, and it's something I talk about a lot in the book. The rise of instant communication technology has profoundly affected the role of diplomats. Right, you don't need an ambassador in a foreign land to deliver a message anymore, like that cool kind of magical responsibility that they once had of here is a letter
from the United States. Isn't how it works anymore? And I think that that's part of what allows some of this destructive political rhetoric where there's just the constant denigration of diplomats says, you know, dusty bureaucrats who don't get anything done, which I think is really unfair and short
changes the important work they do. The fact that we don't need letters delivered in person anymore doesn't mean that we don't need experts who understand the most complicated crises on Earth and know how to get American citizens out and protect their interests and cut deals that advance our influence.
Yeah.
So, if we are lacking, or if we're declining, and I don't know how sharp that decline is, I think I know the answer. But who is picking up the slack and who is slow to win? Who's on point right now?
As far as I'm glad you asked that, because one of the kind of the like shadow that is cast over this story in the book is that China is doing the opposite thing right now. And you know, I don't mean to hold up China as some paragon of virtue. I think it's pretty troubling if China is filling the space.
But the fact is, yes, I mean I think there are pros and cons to Chinese leadership, and it varies around the world, but certainly I do think the United States, despite all of our flaws, is still a more sincere and ardent defender of human rights. And I do think that we want American influence, you know, in large parts, despite all the ways in which we screw up and can be a malign influence. I think it is a good thing for the world if we are running things correctly.
And what we're seeing right now is in important places around the world, China is investing in more and more diplomats. And I'll give you an example. You know, I was in Sudan for a while, and in Sudan, China for a long time played the role that we kind of stereotypically think of China as playing, which where they're this interloper that is totally callous about human rights and they're extracting the oil and like aiding and a bedding a genocide. And I wrote about that a lot at the time.
Now China has like a regional envoy who's doing shuttle diplomacy trying to like cut a peace deal there, so they have a whole Yeah, they because they want to ascend to a status of global leadership, and there are kids all around the world growing up with really clear signs of Chinese leadership and development, big infrastructure projects in places where we no longer even have embassies.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of my reaction to that.
That's not learn.
Kinda yeah, we got to do our role. Call a Mandarin next time.
Let me ask, let me ask you. You know, I'll say that at least okay. You know, I still watch Mantle Show, and it's sort of kind of like my my lullaby, like I gotta see what, you know, just suck and sleep at night.
She's great, She's so principal.
Am I am? I? Am I? It is twenty eighteen a pipe dream? Is it? In terms of impeachment, it's no. In terms of midterms, the idea of like do you do you?
Oh man, I'm not going to handicap that race. All I can say is I'm going to keep on telling stories that I hope are relevant to voters as they make informed decisions. And you know, I've been exposing some of these secret election season payments in my latest round of New Yorker Stories, and I think there's a lot to uncover here about the abuse of power and how
powerful people can distort people's perceptions during an election. And it's not my job to project whether that has any impact or to hope that it doesn't impact.
Are you speaking of the Facebook situation or.
The that that's part of the whole soup of things that happened. But the last few stories I did were about secret payments to to silence stories, this practice of catch and kill where there were you know, stories that might have seen the light of day and didn't because of transactions that were covered up at the time, seemingly on behalf of the president.
But it's obvious that people, uh, you know, he wants to make that statement, like I could stand on Fifth Avenue somebody and nothing what happened to me? And I'm almost thinking, like, oh, he's absolutely right, Like his believer is going to believe what they believe.
That's what I was thinking.
But in a case, But but then there's a case of like Sinais Wayne's statement last week where she said that you know, as a Canadian and I know, like there's there's the people that scare me.
The most, She'd vote for.
Yeah, because she felt he told the truth but but the thing is is that I believe that if she truly saw what was happening and was informed, she would know better.
But the problem is, you guys have to get on.
I'm not caping for Shania whatsoever, but this is the person that I know, Like I keep my television on twenty four to seven watching news. Now this is subsequently also bringing down my spirit as a human being? Am I being less productive because I gotta keep I gotta figure out even when I bust into Zara's office, who's not speaking at all?
Right now? For now?
I know, do we get one sound bite?
By the end, she literally like, I wanted you to ask about Mike Pompeiio.
Okay, why don't you ask about what?
Do you want to know what about Mike? I was wondering if you think things are going to get better if she gets in there?
So I would say today things one is, here's what we know about Mike Pompeo's record in terms of his position on the issues. You know, he's extremely hawkish. He has been right there with the President saber rattling about dismantling the Iran deal and stepping away from a diplomatic approach you know, the president sent him right after firing Rex Tillerson to meet with the North Koreans, you know,
while he was CIA director. So he's already been sort of part of this moment where we're seeing the work of diplomats outsourced to soldiers and spies. That said, I've continued to talk to all these whistleblowers whose stories are in war on peace, and hope really springs eternal with them. You know, they in there.
This is not a this is not a first time thing.
Because Colin, they made a mistake of the Clinton right, the Clint administration made a mistake with Colin Powell, and they say that they made a mistake with placing diplomacy.
I think multiple administrations realized they made a mistake on this. You know, late in the game. The Clinton administration, after his first Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, sounded a whole lot like Rex Tillerson defending these deep cuts to the department. Madeline Albright came in and was much more focused on
large scale diplomacy. During the Bush administration, you know, after the disasters of Iraq, condalize rices on the record in this book talking about you know, needing more diplomacy, and that's the period in which they took this run at the North Korea problem, and I talk about that as well.
Often this realization comes too late. There are senior Obama administration officials saying, you know, we kind of expressing regret about the fact that they had an Afghanistan policy that was really overtaken by celebrity generals, and how they tried to course correct and get more diplomatic views in the room later on, and you wound up with the Iran Deal, the thaw in relations with Cuba, the Paris Climate Change Accord. So if you invest in diplomacy, you can get results.
You just have to have leadership. And you know, to circle it back to Mike Pompeo, I think there's a lot of hope right now about him. There's a lot of sincere hope that he will invest in diplomacy and defend that institution and believe in the brave men and women working there, which we haven't seen so far in this administration.
What's going to be the final Jenga cube that you pull that everything's going to crumble down?
Oh man?
Because it seems like do you feel the pressure, because I don't want to put that on you, but I feel like I'm sure you did it before you can do it again. One of you is going to get that. All the presidents men like a movie like not that that should.
Be your motivation. I thought it was going to be stormy day.
It's not. It's not my job to, you know, try to bring down anyone. It wasn't even my job to try to bring down Harvey Weinstein. My job was to make those survivors feel heard, which they hadn't been for a long time. And I think similarly with the reporting I've done on the Trump administration and even the stories I tell in this book. You know, my job is to get as close to the truth as possible and to pull back the curtain on stuff that people haven't wanted you to see.
How how can you okay?
So doubling back to because I realized I didn't, I didn't clear myself up with snill listen.
My point was that I feel as though there are people who their whole thing is I just can't. I can't watch the news. It it kills me inside.
And I understand, you know, it's so overwhelming to deal with your life and then to see what's happening in life there. But it's like, I just I'm one of those people that has to keep an eye even though I'm not totally immersed in it.
And you know, I'm yeah, but you care.
Yeah, And I don't feel as though people don't care, but I I do feel that there are a set of people that because it won't affect them easily as it will others. You know, like I have friends and family that are already affected by the doctor situation. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, that shit affects me. But how do you reach people that are indifferent to watching the news that.
You know, if I can get through a day where I don't have.
To explain to someone and filter it and explaining their language that they understand what's going on. Or sometimes I go in Zarrors room, I'm like, all right, that hour where I'm shooting fallon six o'clock, using my first thing is all right, what happened?
You know?
And based on her face some days she's crying because some shit happened, or you know, it's how how do you how do how do journalists get their groove back where you know, where you're counterattacking propaganda television like Fox.
Can I call them that? I think that is there one person?
Yeah, there are there are individual people at Fox I respect, but I do think that.
Who are they? Who's the two people that you know?
Look, I think Shep Smith does fairly straight coverage. Actually yeah, yeah, you know, he's okay. And I think there are people like uh, you know, I don't want to endorse everything each of these people does wholesale, but like Brett Bair does some sort of more I think, you know, on those straight and narrow news kind of stuff. But but yes, I think overall, you know, that is an organization with some very clear ties to the people that are covering. And how come they do a lot of damage to
the conversation? I do think that.
But how come the world just can't not the world where Americans can't see that?
Well, So, so to your first point, I think you've highlighted one of the most important and difficult challenges we have as a society and as reporters too. Apathy is in a lot of ways the enemy of progress, and it's one of the toughest nuts to crack. I totally get and empathize with the fact that people despair when they watch the news and they just want to turn away.
It's overwhelming to people get overwhelmed.
Yeah, and I do think that the mainstream media deserves some blame for the way the twenty four hour news.
It goes off. Yeah, you have to turn it off, like you have to set your right.
It's alienated and it's the same story, sometimes not the same stories, but yeah, the same stories.
So I think we're part of the problem is systemic where there is a broken news system, where the business model is built around reritting, rereading the same headline over and over again and not offering anything new to the conversation, or doing the other thing that's cheap and easy, which is put people in a room and having them shout at each other. Yea, all of which I think has
conspired to make people tune out. And that's really dangerous because we need people who like all of you sitting here, really profoundly care and are going to be engaged and cry if the new cycle dictates that, and want to stand up and do something. We all need that. And so you know, I hope in the small part that I do to tell stories, I'm doing it in a way where people know, it's not part of just hammering
them over the head with the same old headlines. It's not part of the partisan echo chamber, you know, it's really giving them some facts that maybe they can be armed with as they make decisions.
Has anyone approached you yet about doing movies about any of yourself, like either warm Piece or your Weinstein stuff, because I think that's gonna be when you talk about how you reach people. Yeah, getting over the abbe because I'm one of those people, you know, I'm straight up like yo, all the Trump. So I'm just like, yo, just I'm just waiting for Jerry brook Kamer to make the movie.
And I will choice cast with Trump. That's just party going on.
Yeah, man, Like I'm just waiting because it's just so much information and you don't know what's what, what's allied, what's true. So I would probably fall into one of the category. I'm not just totally apathetic, you know, I stay up to some degree, but certainly it's a point where you kind of have to shut down. Like, look, I got kids to raise. I gotta do my things, so I can't be innundated with it all the time.
But I was curious if anyone has because all this stuff, I mean, just the past couple of years of your life, it's prime ready for us.
There's some crazy stories there. Look, I have a lot of respect for storytelling in different mediums and the power to expand people's horizons with these stories.
If you can, if you can't, give it up, I mean, I get, don't don't fuck up the bad I think.
You know, I understand.
I think you're right. I think that you know. These stories can reach different audiences if you if you tell them right, whether it's in you know, a careful piece of investigative reporting, or a movie or a book or a song. I mean, there's a lot of ways to move people and help them understand important issues we all grapple with.
Because I thought you before, I know, because before, I like before we kind of my prepping for this. I watched The Paternal If you watch the joint on HBO, the Paternal I haven't.
Is it good?
Yeah, it is good, it is good, But it's more so about like the investigation and.
How I should I should be watching that as an HBO Okay, I've got I've got an HBO deal starting soon, so I'll.
Breaking news, breaking news, breaking news.
I'm so crazy right now.
But oh my god, a sample. Yeah, I'll be you know, I'll be turning some of these stories into documentaries and uh, you know, I'll be back on TV. And I think part of that is because you're right, there's there's different ways to get to people and they're all important.
Is there something bubbling under that you're working on? Yes, yo, you said the excavation point at the end of the Okay, So when.
You have a scoop that you know that you have, uh, who's your trusted circle?
Who is your because I don't you know, and.
I don't know the doggy dog world of journalism or whatnot, But when you know you have some ship that no one else has.
So I write for The New Yorker, and I am really happy to say that after all of the challenges of the past year, you know, I landed in a place where there's just some of the best damn journalists on earth supporting me and David I'm Nick who runs The New Yorker, who you should totally have on. I want to hear him in a roll call. That guy is cool as hell and rescued the Weinstein story and
stood by it. When it was under attack. And uh, you know, as I work on upcoming stories, I got a great circle of editors that are circle of trust there and and fact checkers as we get closer to the finish line on each story. And it's a it's a wonderful institution. What people should subscribe?
I mean, can you keep it real? How real are the you.
Know, I always keep it real, but how.
Real are the threats? Like is it barbershop talk or is it some real.
It's it's some it's some real shit unfortunately. But I mean, like you even you, I did, I did move out of my place So.
When you're in a parking lot alone, is it like over the shoulder?
Is it? Yeah?
I mean it it it It comes and goes. Uh you know. I think there are periods where I'm working on a specific story where it gets very very adversary, where that is very much the vibe of like, okay, maybeing followed. What precautions do I need to take?
Because that national inquiry that was a big deal.
Like I mean, if Stormy's looking over her shoulder, yeah, definitely looking over yours when you say it is love child.
And there was a story in the in the New York Times last night about some of the connections between those allegations of intimidation and you know, people that were getting hired and this is all stuff that will continue to come to light. But yeah, the answer is it's it's real.
Well, I'm just saying that in the sixties, Uh, they handled it, yeah, a certain way. Uh, Whereas I feel as though, because there's cameras everywhere, it's hard to execute that sort of you know.
I hope I got a call.
I mean, I hope you're right that it's harder for people to you know, attack other people because of the surveillance.
Well plus to say house of cars for real, like Ronan, can't anybody just I just can't see.
It is it's I will say, you know, without talking about the specifics of stuff I've reported on I in general terms, I have been startled at how close it is to fiction and how you know, kind of cloak and dagger tactics that I didn't think existed in the real world really are part of the tool set deployed by powerful people when they're on a rampage trying to stop something from coming out.
But almost the thing that I'm marvel at the most is that I don't think that this current administration is truly aware of the power of how technology works. Like I feel like there're so old school, seventies eighties, old school, you know, just keep it between us, not knowing that we're going to find out the information anyway.
Like, I mean, it's this weird dichotomy, right because Trump is also like the king of Twitter and like late night tweets and early morning tweets and tweets with typos.
It's just so obvious that he comes from the school of if you say something enough, they'll believe it, they'll believe it.
Like I can.
Yeah, I can tell you know, a whitewash when it's so obvious and transparent.
Yeah that I guess.
This leads me to my last question, which is do you have hope for twenty eighteen? And if you do, uh, what do you project will.
Have I guess to the extent that I engage with electoral politics at all, it's just wanting to tell stories that arm people with as much useful and accurate information as possible, you know, I truly that's not a cop out. I just I don't think in those terms. I really just think in terms of what's the most important story I can go after? And I hope I think that telling the truth is good for society as a whole, and I hope that that is also helpful for the Electorate's.
Funny on record week.
It's not the world I'm in, you know, I'm not in in.
The world.
Fair enough.
But what's funny is you mentioned Malon Aubright And I was also thinking about what do you think about Malon Abright and people like James Comy like writing these books. I mean, in the season of Born Peace, come your book coming out of.
Alright, she was wonderfully candid, you know, and has a great uh history of public service and is obviously very frank, both in War on Peace and her own book, Fascism A Warning. It's subtitled uh. And you know she's also she's a you know, uh, I don't say this in a disparaging way, but a partisan, so she can talk more freely about so then James Comy, well, James Comy, it's much more I mean, you know, obviously he's like dodging and weaving bullets. And it's a whole careful process.
Anytime you have a government agency reviewing your book, and yeah, I think it was almost inevitable that it was going to be a minefield for him to do a press store for that book.
The wrong time.
I don't know. I don't know. It's not for me to say. I honestly, I also haven't read the book, so I wouldn't want to say it's the wrong time for it to come out. Maybe it's the right time. I don't know. But you know, I think he's definitely trying to navigate those potholes. Maybe oh you wow, you are super disapproving. No, no, no, she's got this look on her face like.
No, no, I'm happy that he came out.
But again, he kind of goes back to what Amir said at the end of the day, like, no matter who comes out, there's a certain population, a certain people.
That they're going to pick the fact.
They don't see it.
They ye something wrong with him.
I believe whoever is wearing the tie says it's true.
Because yeah, I was all hyped about the book, but then I realized, I'm like, I'm hyped with the same people again.
Well, this is this is one of the problems that we have to deal with in terms of the media landscape where the President was clearly able to exploit, you know, both through these catch and kill operations via the Inquirer and also the general co opting of a tabloid media outlet that runs constant headlines that are you know, pro
Trump and anti Hillary Clinton. Well, because it interfaces with that audience that you're talking about, that's not necessarily part of the conversations you're in, but they are seeing those magazine covers on the checkout line. So there's an interesting you know, I'm not a media reporter, but there's an interesting media narrative here, which is this split nation of
we're all in our own partisan bubbles. We go on Facebook and Twitter and it's algorithmically curated, so you only see views you agree with, and then right, and then for the people who don't watch the news, you know, there's this whole other parallel reality of National Inquirer covers and the checkout line at the supermarket, and none of these groups are talking to each other. And that's a real problem. That's you know, bigger than anything I am able to sign it right now, that's.
Weird to me that asteroid Inquirer is still a thing.
Yes, I mean it's not in terms of the media conversation, but it is in terms of grocer's denominator.
Like I'm not saying I've been to the grocery store a few times, but they.
Don't have it that whole food.
The people that whole foods are are the people in your conversation. They're not the people who need convincing, right.
That's again, that's what I'm saying.
Some of the people are.
I don't watch the news, like I work with a lot of I don't know. I think it's I think it's almost dangerous on the whole food side of things, because again I know, and I work with a lot of people who you know, they can afford to turn the other way. Look, you know, and.
That disappoints me.
That hurts me more.
I hope everyone with the power to raise their voice is doing so in an informed way. That's all. This is the apathy that we've been hitting on again and again is a really dangerous and disappointing thing. People got a care.
Yeah, and you made us not to go back to the book.
But Warren Peace made us care about the diplomacy because again, I wasn't even thinking about you.
I hope. So I think the brave men and women doing this work deserve that.
Thanks guys, well, thank you. I appreciate you for coming.
See you guys.
Can we do do the whole?
The whole title is War on Piece, the end of the plomacy and the decline of the American influence.
O Wow, heavy words, Ladies and gentlemen, Ladies and gentlemen, or on behalf of Sugar Steve Zarah's Almond.
Okay, Bill, don't say Boss Bill too, because he thinks he always say we forgive it.
And Boss Bill, of course we get.
We do this on this collection of Green Tea kit cats Hell the worst.
Sorry that was a bad idea. Anyway. This is Quest Love.
You were listening to Quest Love Supreme and be safe everybody, Thank you, Seeal the next one.
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