Why Rahm is on the Rise in April's "8 for ’28" Rankings, Plus Iranian Journalist Reveals Trump Strategy Next Steps

- Hey everybody, Mark Calpert here. It's glad to be back with you all, you next to us, and new next to us, grateful for you reconvening here. Mark Calpert and Edron and Chief of the live video platform,

two way, big show for you today. We've been in the midst of a war and we're gonna talk about it around it. But a lot of people missed there. But we're gonna start off with the April installment

of my patented eight for 28 rankings of which Democrats are most likely to become their party's nominee in the next presidential. Done some updates here, move some people around. There may be some controversy about some of the things there,

but I've done my usual reporting with sources, mostly Democrats, but some Republicans, to figure out who's gaining some momentum over the last month, who may be slipping and the state of affairs for the Democratic Party.

After we do that, we're gonna bring in two brilliant people to tell me what I got right and what I got wrong here in Skelton,

“and you must see, but while I will be here”

to talk about their view of who I ranked high, who I ranked low, and who might be off the list, who should be on there looking forward to hearing their feedback there. And then we're gonna talk about Iran

with someone with an extraordinary story, a journalist who was a political prisoner in Iran and tortured and treated horribly. And now has a very interesting and very complex view. Not just of his home country,

but about President Trump and some of the Reddit he's used in the last few days. Omeed Memorand, Omeed Memorand will be here and looking forward to sharing his perspective with you on what is a serious and fast-moving story.

He's now the director of communications and senior Iran analyst at democracy for the Arab world now, group is called Don. And again, I think you'll enjoy meeting him and spending time with him.

Important conversation related to the fast-moving Iran conflict.

But first, we're gonna go to the big board

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This is by April edition of 8 for 28. The Democrats most likely to be the party's nominee in 2028.

Gotta remind you always the usual caveats.

It is early. Although it's not as early as it was even last month. We'll talk about that. This is just the chance of being the nominee. You don't need to send me a lot of messages saying,

not in these people could win a general election or these are all horrible people I hate them. Those really aren't the issues.

“The issue is who's going to be the Democratic nominee?”

And I factor in pretty heavily whether people are going to run or not. A lot of people on this list are on there because I have a higher degree of confidence that they'll run than not. You can't be the nominee if you don't run. So Michelle Obama will never make the list because she'll never run.

Okay. So as the caveats, now one big caveat is about or not caveat, but one big thing is how do you get to be the nominee? And a lot of what I based my reporting on and talking to my sources and my own analysis is, I look at history.

I look at who's become the nominee in the past. Now the party has changed. Technology has changed. The party has become more liberal. It's more liberal than it's ever been.

But there's still some fundamentals. And one big fundamental is who can do well in the early states.

We still don't know which states are going to vote first.

So that's a big variable that will come into play later in the process. We can make guesses now. But we've got to see how candidates start to do when they do travel to the early states. Okay. With those caveats, there's two big developments that I want to talk about,

that are really coming into sharp focus as metrics of possible success. And both of them are prisons through which to look at the current field, you know, a potential field. And so in a lot of my reporting, I focused on these two issues. The first one comes from David Plough.

And we'll get to the list in a second, I'm building up a little suspense here. But I want to lay the predicate of how they're reporting for this episode was done. David Plough was one of the smartest operatives in either party. He ran Barack Obama's campaign in 2008. I've got great experience.

And has done a lot of work in the private sector for the last few years. He's really largely at a politics and more doing corporate work.

And in the last few presidential cycles, maybe going back maybe for even a quarter century really now.

“The smartest people in politics look a lot at what happens to the corporate world.”

What happens in technology, what happens in communication technology that is done routinely in the private sector. But maybe not done it on politics. So David Plough had an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times. And he says that there's been a big change that affects everybody in thinking about running. And how they should think about it.

And what he says is that the old way of the old way of campaigning won't cut it anymore. Okay. What does he say the old way isn't what's the new way that he's saying candidates have to do. Reading now from David Plough's op-ed piece. Many candidates daily campaign schedules today look very much as they have for most of my career.

Speech is to community groups, interviews with journalists, fundraising events and meetings with local party activists with lots of driving in between. That won't cut it anymore. The successful campaign in 2026 must operate like a full-time production studio. Okay. David Plough goes on and writes this. Candidates and incumbents should center each day on content creation.

That does not mean uploading the same video to every platform. It means creating output tailored specifically for TikTok or Instagram or YouTube. It means several hours a day filming in campaign offices. Even candidates homes offering a message that buttresses the argument that they're trying to land. It will still be a punishing schedule just with less driving on roads and more driving of messages.

Candidates still need to do the traditional stuff to stay in touch with voters concerns. But to extend to their schedules, include speeches, events and interviews. They should be there only because they fit into the content calendar. This is an extremely important change that's been going on for a while.

“And it's a challenge for candidates who aren't good at media, right?”

But what David Plough is arguing is that it is inefficient to try to communicate on a retail level. And that the way to communicate is by making great content. That's true in my business too. And what he says about being a different platform for different content. That's true in my business too.

You've got to have even if you're dealing with the candidates who's not that great a communicator, maybe you buttress them with supporters or surrogates. But the point is you've got to be creating content and you've got to be any creating content that's compelling. And they can reach a lot of people because that's where voters are particularly younger voters, but not just younger voters.

That's a massive change. And so when you're thinking about who's likely to be the Democratic nominee, you've got to think about who can make great content. Now, some people are hitting myths. I think about AOC.

Sometimes your content is great. Sometimes less so I would say. But she's got game. She's watchable.

“She's got a team around her that can build stuff.”

But that's an important thing. Now what David also argues though is you still have to have a message. Right? You still have to have a message.

And that brings me to the second development of the week I want to talk to you back.

This is a guy who not as well known as David Plot, but in a very smart Democratic strategist who has been spending time listening to all the podcasts of all the perspective democratic candidates. And there's a lot of them. His name is Jesse Leerick. And he's starting his own podcast, but he's got a media tracker that's pretty cool.

You take a look at it here as five. He basically just listens to them. I think he listens to him. He walks on double speed or one and a half speed. I forget what he said.

But he listens to him fast. And here you can see scrolling by if you're watching the program, not listening to it. Candidate name, the date, the name of the podcast. And he's got links to him also.

You can join him in his quest to listen and watch all these things. But some of them have their own podcast. Some of them go on other people's podcast. And that's fitting with David Plot says, right? You can make your own content.

You can also go on other people's shows. But the point is he says you got to do high volume. But he makes another point. It's kind of the the mirror image of David Plot in terms of what his concern is. After listening to hours and hours of these Democrats.

And this is an issue I've raised for you before. But I talk about this is a weak democratic field. A lot of what I'm saying goes to the point that that Jesse Lerick makes here.

Here's what he says at the end of an interview.

He did an interview in Politico. A 12, please. Adam Renn. I told you before. Adam Renn is one of the best political reporters in America today.

Rights for Politico and he occasionally writes the playbook. And on Saturday, Adam Renn wrote about this guy. He says one man, 1,000 hours of 20, 20, 8 hours. 1,000 hours listening and counting to these podcasts. Here's what Adam, here's what Jesse said to Adam at the end of the right up of this interview.

This is let's see what numbers this.

Here's what here's what Jesse Lerick said.

After listening. He says, in his own continuing quest to define the directors of the Democratic Party through his intense listening habits, Lerick has also realized what he sees as the field's glaring weaknesses. Glaring weakness. And there's the money line folks.

They don't all have a post-Trump vision for the future, or a sense of their own part in it quite yet. Maybe the answer is like we got to get past the midterms and it's too early. But there are a lot of Democrats that, to me, still feel like they're trying to calibrate what the electorate wants, rather than having a clear sense of what they believe and where they think we should go.

“I'll read it again, because that's so key.”

They're trying to calibrate what the electorate wants rather than having a clear sense of what they believe and where they think we should go.

And I've told this story many times. I once was meeting with a leading presidential candidate pretty early in the process around the same time as we are in the cycle. And he said, "What do you think I should run on? What do you think my platform should be?" And I said, "Well, number one, I'm not in the business of advising candidates, but number two.

In my experience, the people who run and become nominated and run and win typically run for a reason. They don't run because they're ambitious and they want to try to figure out the mood of the country. They run because they run on what they believe in. And I don't need to listen to quite as much as Jessica Lyric has to know that that is the fundamental weakness of this field. Now in part, that's because the party is so opposed to Donald Trump now.

That you spend a lot of bandwidth just finding different ways to say, "I'm against Trump." Okay.

“But this is a challenge because you can't make this up this can't be synthetic.”

And somebody says, "Well, I heard Mark Calperon talking about Jesse Lyric or I heard Jesse Lyric. I read his interview with Politico. Yeah, I should figure out what I want to run on. Too late. This has got to be organic. This has got to be why you do it." Right now, you'll see in a moment when I run through the April ratings.

The people who are doing well, the people who are moving up, the people who my sources are higher on. Not in all cases, but at least some, are the ones who are paying attention to both of what David Plough and Jesse Lyric are talking about. Right? Plough emphasizes you got to make a lot of content and not do the traditional stuff. But he says you got to have a message. Lyric is focused on how they're communicating in media. But his big thing is, he got to start with the message.

They're both right. You need him both. So when we talk about ramen manual, when we talk about Kamala Harris, okay? We're talking about two people who seem to get both sides of that equation and are aggressively going forward. That may be given the stage that they're doing well because they don't have jobs.

The third person who's doing well that I moved up P. Buttigieg also doesn't have a job, right?

It helps right now not have a job. It helps to be free to do this full time.

“I talked about how some people won't run and in the end and that's why I don't rate them high.”

And what we've seen in the last month are indications of the two reasons why people don't run in the end most commonly. But I call the two F's. Family and fundraising. You don't run because you got young kids. You don't run because they're stuffing your closet. That would be skeletal that you just don't want to risk having come out. Or you don't run because you sit down with the people who need to raise the money for you.

And they say, this is a gargantuan task. Now you don't know how much the person who raises the most will raise. But you know what table stakes is, right? There's three ways to raise money. You can raise money into your campaign. And that involves having a lot of so-called bundlers who can have parties for you. Where people write max type checks of about three grand a piece. You can raise money online. Some candidates can do it. Some can't.

Or you can have a super pack where people can write unlimited checks to you. And you also need a big network. People are going to start doing the math pretty soon. And a lot of people don't run. We'll run through some combination of family and fundraising the two F's. Okay. Now, lastly, before I unveil for you, the April ratings.

I want to show you four guys who are just below the line. And when you've got to field this week for some people, there's no difference between slots three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And really no difference between the people just below the line. I go through all my reporting again, talk to more than three dozen people as well as my own analysis and looking at history. And did my best to put the right people on the list.

But plenty of my sources would say that these four guys belong to the list. Instead of someone I put on the list. Here's the four. Rokana, Democratic Congressman who's been on the list. Andy Beshear, Kentucky governor, Ruben Gaiagov, Arizona senator, and Westmore, Maryland governor.

Why haven't I put them on the list? Well, Rokana, I think, will run probably.

Hard for a house member to run in with, number one, and other issues we've talked about here.

Andy Beshear, I just don't see how he's going to raise the money. I just don't see how he's going to be dynamic enough in content creation.

“If you go listen to his podcast as I have done, I think you'll see what I mean.”

Ruben Gaiagov interesting. He, like his fellow Arizona senator, Mark Kelly is now openly talking about running. Here's an NBC News headline. Number eight four, please. He's got a very attractive bio, a military veteran, young, Hispanic. Here's the headline, Ruben Gaiagov considers a 2028 president to run. We have to look at it.

Interesting. I need to see more though about whether he can actually build this. I need to see more whether he's willing to put his young family through the Raiders of a presidential campaign. And then rest, rest more. He said he won't run. He's done things that make it seem like he might run. I still don't think he's going to run and I still think he hasn't addressed the biographical issues.

That might keep him out of the race or make it difficult for him to run in win. All right. Lastly, before we unveil the list, here's the list, the last month, the March 8 for 28. And it's an interesting list. Here it is. Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, one and two.

They've been one and two from the start. JB Pritzker, Illinois Governor number three. So three governors at the top. Then Kamala Harris, AOC, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigieg, Rama manual and Mark Kelly.

That was the March list. And so I went to my sources and I said, aren't I?

“I'm scrambling some stuff around. What do you think?”

Here are the changes.

Here's what here's where we are now.

This is the April list. And interesting. Top two are still the same. Not all my sources feel that way. But that was the consensus.

Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro, one and two. This is going to be controversial for many. Pete Buttigieg. I got a lot of sources who say, don't put them on the list. But I believe as I have and I wanted to make him higher last month and I didn't.

I resisted. I moved. I flipped them up to number three from number four. I just believe a guy who's one of primary and a caucus who's done very well. He's got the experience of running for present.

Who's smart.

There are no perfect candidates.

People are going to tell me a party won't nominate a gay man. You're going to tell me if they think he's boring. Whatever you want to say about him. But I feel quite strongly that he right now is number three. And and I might move a mile.

Might move a mile. We'll talk about that. And he's moved up in the polling. Kamala Harris, again, I've got two really great sources, very experienced very smart people. They say she should be number one.

And by the traditional metrics of what someone should be ranked by. She should be number one. She she's got name ID. She can raise money. At least online.

She is. I wonder though about a super back for her and we give to that.

“Strength with the Democratic Party constituents, right?”

Black women massively important. South Carolina will certainly be important on the calendar. And if you look at her recent schedule on her upcoming schedule. She's following what David plus says she's producing a lot of content. She's going on a lot of new media shows.

She's not spending a lot of time. Cording. Leeds including in the media. But what she is doing is talking to voters. She's still talking to voters.

And she's used her book tour phases of her book tour to reach out. I have one source who said to me and I'm really been thinking about this as I put the rankings to you. I put the rankings together. He said the establishment, the people inside the Beltway, they don't like her. They don't get her.

But they're missing her strength. And he said she should be number one. And he said it without ambiguity. And some of my other sources too. But I say also I've got sources who say she shouldn't be on the list.

Some of you have pretty price during strong feelings about it. I'm equal to eager to hear what you think. Number five, Rama Manual also moved up to controversial maybe because Rama Manual is a favorite of the establishment. He's doing all the things David Plots said you shouldn't do. He's coordinating the media.

He's spending a lot of time thinking about how to raise money. I can't tell you how often I'll talk to a democratic elite. A member of Congress, a big donor and activist. And we'll be talking about it for 28 or something else. And they'll say, oh yeah, just Ramp called me the other day.

He's working it. And he's coming up with policy ideas. He's the only one of the specific policies. And he's the closest I think right now to Jesse lyrics idea of why you're running. Yeah, is it about power and a grand diesement, self-aggrandizement or is it about changing the country?

So Rama Manual, some people don't think he has a chance. Other people think he should be higher than five. I'm comfortable with the mid five. AOC, I moved her up one spot as well. I still am skeptical about her running.

I still think it this phase in her life. It's going to be a more complicated endeavor than she wants.

She'll become a senator and she's got plenty of time to run.

But because she's so great on social media. Because she can raise a lot of money online. And because literally there's no one else on this list right now. Who fills the Ben Bernie Sanders lane. I put her at number six.

Mark Kelly. My sources are very high on him. I'm still skeptical that he'll run in the end. I still don't see what his message is. I still don't see why he'd run for president.

He can talk about all the normal things that people talk about. He says he's an engineer and, you know, he wants to bring the country back. But I still don't associate him with any ideas that are uniquely his or that he talks about in a compelling way. So my sources have me put him in number seven, but I'm skeptical. And then lastly, JB Pritzker.

I moved him down five and frankly, I'd move him off the list.

But a lot of my sources think he should be number two or number three, which is where I've had him. I invested a lot of time over the last month watching him on TV, listing to him on podcast, studying his record in Illinois. And ladies and gentlemen, I know he's a billionaire. I know that he's got a lot going for him in terms of he wants to run.

He's got good people around him. He's ambitious and he's got the money. But I just don't see it. I just don't see his what his message is. And the thing I keep coming back to is when I listen to most of his appearances,

they're all softballs. He doesn't face any truly hard questions. And I do think it's going to be difficult for him to run and win under these circumstances. Okay, that's the eight. Now, I want to talk a little bit about Arama manual.

“I already talked about Kamala Harris and why I think she's doing well.”

And why my sources who think she should be high are right.

She's got a really great schedule. She's going to a lot of red parts of the country. She's building up enthusiasm. And she's appealing to the people who already like her now. Can she win over people who've to sourd on her?

That's that's remains to be seen. The interesting one is Rama manual. He's everywhere. He writes a calm in the Wall Street Journal. writes a calm in the Washington Post.

CNN commentator on lots of podcasts and traveling to states like Michigan. And doing a lot of stuff to put out a policy agenda. He's already got a policy on age limit if Luke and run for public office and policy on kids getting access to social media. Lots of different policies, more specific than anybody else. And here he is recently talking about on a.

The frog more stew podcast talking about whether and why he might run in 2028. This is S2, please show my view.

“I'm going to tell you what I think you need to know now what you want to hear.”

You don't want it. Don't vote for me. If you want somebody knows how it doesn't only knows how to fight Trump, but doesn't know how to fight for America. Doesn't have a single idea about tomorrow in the future.

I am tired of two presidents that have tried to recreate a pass is not coming back. Let's talk about a future. Tough times have to require a tough leader that gets tough things done. Okay. Again, everybody I know in politics knows wrong.

Everybody I know in politics thinks wrong is going to be an active participant on the debate stage that he's going to have a chance to be the candidate who argues that the party needs to move to the center. Everybody thinks he's going to make people, a lot of people are going to steal his ideas. Everybody thinks he can raise a lot of money because that's how he started out in politics. So Romamano and Kamala Harris on paper right now are doing a lot of the things that David Plough talked about

in the case of Romamano talking about what he believes in, why he wants to be present, animating the why with specific policies. It's early for the others.

“They still have time, but I'll say again, when are they going to come up with policy ideas that are animating them?”

Because are already putting themselves out there. Everyone of the people on the list is putting themselves out there. One to one degree or another. Say, maybe I'll run for president. And yet they don't have what Romamano already has put together,

which was here are the policies. Here are the ideas that families can look at and say, yeah, that's something I want. Last, I want to talk about the front runner. Gavin Newsom, he's still the front runner. I've said before, I've talked to him about it on this program.

He may not run. And a big complexity is his wife. His wife is drawing a lot of attention for some social media posts that she's done. Some appearances she's done. Here she is in a recent appearance with Governor Newsom.

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But then she made a video on her own talking about Donald Trump and talking about

“his firing of two female members of his cabinet that is produced a more negative reaction.”

Trust me, I'm not a fan of Pam Bondi nor Christina. But I need to call out that it's no surprise to me that the first two prominent people pushed out of this administration or women. Let me explain. They conserved women that Trump handpicks, who would line themselves within a gender that controls women

restricting our rights, limiting our autonomy, and pushing us back into this straight jacket of femininity that is only in service of men. There's a familiar pattern here. Women are brought in package Myologa style and lifted up as long as they commit to wholeheartedly serving interests of the Patriarch at the top.

No woman is safe in Trump's Republican Party. Unless she's enough wealth or the ability to buy her own job security and safety. And so my friends, regardless of your political affiliation, you might want to wake up and see this for what it truly is. It's a war on all women.

People can have subjective views. Maybe that video doesn't rob you the wrong way or maybe Democrats will like it or love it or not mind it.

But here's what it produced.

It produced a common in the New York Post, the California Post. By Miranda Divine, the conservative columnist, A14, please. And the reason I'm highlighting this is not that Miranda, who I've great respect for, when she speaks for everybody or headline. Gavin's first partner is a new sense as a nuisance and nuisance.

It's because I can already tell, just as my Spidey sense, my experience, that she's going to be a hot button issue. The way Hillary Clinton was to some extent in 1992. That is going to produce controversy now. Gavin News produces controversy himself.

He can say my family's just going to ignore the controversy. But she clearly is going to be out there. She's clearly going to be part of the conversation if he runs. And I continue to believe that even this year before he makes a formal announcement to the extent she's front and center as she's been on occasion and particularly in last couple weeks,

the family's going to get a sense of what it's going to be like. Now, maybe they'll decide, you know, for the sake of America, the family's going to do this together. But as you go through and you have these debates with your friends and family and your colleagues about who the Democrats might pick.

“You have to think about the two F's and the family one.”

I think it's going to be super important for a lot of these folks,

particularly the ones with young kids, particularly the ones who, whether they've been through screenish as Gavin News's family has or not. It's something you can't ignore. You've got to really be top. You've got to really want to do it.

And that comes back again to what's animating you to run. All right. There you have it. That's the April board. It's now set.

I want to hear what you think about it. Who's too high? Who's too low? Who's not on the list? Who should be there?

Send me your thoughts at next up, Halpernetgmail.com. While you're there on the site, please make sure to subscribe to next up on your YouTube channel. It's the only way to see every episode and full get the exclusive bonus content we post on

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Go to YouTube.com/at next up, Halpern to subscribe there.

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grateful to you for your support for next up. And hope you'll continue to share the show with others. Who you know, you think might be interested in becoming certified next. All right. Quick break down when we come back.

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“The only thing I would say is because of his tenure as mayor in Chicago and how badly”

that ended. One McDonald. Yeah. It's never gone away. There's really no great way to deal with it.

Just want to talk about people's vision and I want to get to the plough thing.

I know all the downsides and obviously he's not going to be the nominee if he can't improve with black voters. But he is working on it because it's not like something you can't fix, at least in the abstract.

Just each of you, you see first, what's your best best argument for putting him as

highest three? Even if you don't agree with that placement, what is what is he doing well in your view?

“He encompasses a lot of what I think Democratic candidates are trying to do.”

He does really well in those outside Democrat media spaces that a lot of folks are trying to figure out. Newsome does it sometimes, but I think Pete Buttigieg has led the way. He can have those conversations on the podcast that Democrats are clamoring to be on. He connects to young men.

I think in a way that dams are also looking to do, it's just coming from Georgia, I just see them running on the wall with him. Yeah, Karen, what's he doing well? I agree with everything, Yamessey said. I think he's also experienced, he's run before, he has a national fundraising base, he's

very attractive to small donors and I think he can turn that around pretty quickly, which goes kind of to the youth point. I think college educated people really like him, and that's a huge determinant of the nomination. I think what David Buttigieg said about content is obviously true. It's true of every CEO as well, right?

You've got to go on other people's shows, but you also have to produce your own content. It's got to be good, and it's got to be tailored to the platform.

“I think part of what was smart of a David said is it's a time management thing to some extent.”

Producing good content takes time, and you can't just post stuff if it's no good, you got to redo it, and most campaigns, schedules aren't structured that way, they're structured more to do traditional things. Karen, if you were advising someone who's thinking about running for present, and they said, "I read plus calm, and I've had peace, and I agree with it."

What are the rules of the road to make sure they get to execute it the right way? You know, in California and YMSC has seen this too, I'm sure now, the governor's candidate

who are putting ads up are really breaking the mold in some ways, and Gavin was the first

to do it with his social media, and he had this young person who just said a couple things. I mean, it wasn't even, you know, it was just capital letters, so it's getting, you know, for me, and stires now using the same person that Fetterman used, and Mendoppy used, and his stuff is, I'll be interested to see how well it plays. It's kind of annoying to me, but, you know, I don't know.

I think you've got to find really a one or two creative people, no more, you know, big firms who produce, you know, you know, very, very expensive, well-tailored stuff. People don't even watch it anymore. They just want to hear a few funny things from social media, that have an idea attached to them.

Yeah. So, yeah. You know, see, funny is, funny is great, and Mendomy, you know, is great at funny. Gavin's okay at funny, maybe, sometimes, but, but what about emotional, and it's emotional content important, it seems to me it should be, but you rarely see people try to do

that. Yeah, it's well, because it's very easy to make emotional look hokey and an authentic, and that's what everybody's scared of. Yeah. But I think one interesting thing, candidates, you can tell candidates are good at digital

when they are involved in digital. A lot of, a lot of candidates get handed a piece of paper that tells them, this is what we're going to film. This is what you're going to say. And you could tell candidates like a mom Donnie, who were directly involved in how it

looks, how it presents. So then it felt like this was an idea he came up with by himself, even though you knew there was a team behind him that, that was the sourcing for this. So in the same way when they do their speeches and they're editing it, and then they're putting in the cell property and giving it, they have to treat digital that exact same way.

So I think people have to shift. I think some people are going to be able to do that easier than others because a lot of

“folks don't care about digital until you have to.”

So yet to staff up, you're going to have to staff up campaigns too. The same amount of speech writers and, and comms people you have, you have to have the same amount of digital people. We'll see who believes that's important. Yeah.

I think if I could just respond to that a second, you said something as to me about that

people are going to have to shift. And I guess what I think is this is really a generational issue. If you're not comfortable with digital, if you're not, if you're not rock on it, if you're not already using it, if you're not on it all the time, it's not going to come off authentic.

I think people just read a piece of paper and it looks like somebody's just handed

“it to him and so I think that this is going to be something that people are good at”

because they know it and they're instinctive with it and they use it all the time. Couldn't agree more. All right. Put up the April list again, Jesse Lerick listened to like a thousand hours of these podcasts.

Now these are some that they go on other people shows some of their own. I'm curious, if you had to listen to a hundred hours of hosted podcasts by one of these eight people over a month, a hundred hours, who would you choose, if you give me a serious answer, which one of those eight people would you be most inclined to survive listening to a hundred hours of them hosting a podcast, Gemssey?

Yeah, I would listen to AOC and she's probably a bit more, I mean, she's, she is a bit more progressive than me, but I have watched her Instagram lives, she's captivating. She can think people on for a good amount of time. And if you, I think if you can keep alive audience moving, I mean, you know, Mark, that's really gold.

And so I think she would do great in a podcast setting, she wouldn't be boring to me. I could listen. Yeah. Karen, who would you choose? I don't honestly.

I think wrong. I mean, he's just, he's quirky and he's honest and, you know, and I like a good effort every now and then. Yeah. No, no, believing.

Um, ladies, thank you for making time and joy to have me on look forward to having you back soon to talk about this stuff and everything else and grateful to you for being here.

“Karen, well, how long is your professureship going all the way through next year?”

So, you know, I'll have to have you out there sometime. Very exciting. Bring me in the embassy and together. We'll do a, we'll do a group class. Okay.

Thank you both. Very grateful to you. Okay. Thanks, thank you. All right.

Next up, we're going to talk about Iran with someone who was born in Iran, was tortured in Iran, lived in Iran and then left Iran and is longing to go back. Omeed, Memarian is here, he's a director of communications, a senior, Iran analyst at Don. He joins us next up. Did you know that high blood pressure is the number one risk factor for mortality?

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We're talking about here. 120 life can now. Alright, next up, we go back to talking about Iran joining me now, Omeed Mauryan. He's a senior, Iran analyst at the group Don with an extraordinary connection to Iran.

Omeed so often when I have people on my shows who are Iranian-American, they've never

been to Iran. They left when they were children or their parents left and came to the United States. You have lived in Iran. Talk to people, just a broad stroke. Where were you born?

How long did you live in Iran and under what circumstances did you leave? Thanks for having me. That's correct. I was born in Iran. I was raised in Iran.

I went to school in Iran. I worked as a journalist in Iran. I was imprisoned by the Iranian government for doing journalism and writing on political and social issues for a while. I was tortured by the Iranian government and I left the country in 2005 to come to the US and

pursue my higher education, I went to UC Berkeley, study journalism and I continued doing

journalism and human rights work and much of that work is basically focused on holding Iranian

officials accountable for their human rights violations and basically shed light on what's happening inside the country. Have you been back to Iran since 2005? It's not a type of business that if you are engaged with a writing against the Iranian government or criticising them, you can go back to the country.

They are not very kind to those who criticise the government. Would you like to go back someday? I would love that. I would love that. There's not a day that I don't think about going back thinking that I'm raising my daughters

here and they cannot see their father's homeland, it's just devastating and it's very heartbreaking. But they run in government, it's very cruel. They know how it's heavy on Iranians who cannot go back to the country.

of going back, I'm not going to be silent, I'm not going to stop criticising the

government or being the voice for those who can't talk inside the country because you know that the price for human rights activists and lawyers and those who seek a real change in Iran and want to input the situation, particularly the human rights situation is the price is huge, the cost of activism in Iran is huge. Many of my friends have been imprisoned, many people have lost their lives as you know.

Just in the last round of protests in January, we all know that what happened, the government killed thousands of people. So we're dealing with a government that is very ruthless and cruel.

Are you able to be in touch since this round of war started or are you able to be in touch

with people in Iran? I've been touched with my family members and friends and my colleagues inside the country on and off because the internet has been shut down, most of the times they don't have access to the internet, those who are savvy enough to find a strong VPNs or somehow get connected to the internet, I've been able to chat and talk on the phone even up to

like two days ago, you know, on and off the day and get a sense of what's happening in the country, what's happening in the internet, and also how the sentiment, how people's sentiment towards the war and what is happening is changing. That has been my main question, how people feel differently from the time that war started to now.

“And how would you summarize how you think it's changed?”

I could see that some people bought the idea that President Trump or BB Netanyahu sold to the public, that there is going to be a war, the war is going to be short but decisive. And after a few weeks of attacking Iranian military leadership or the political leadership, the people are going to rise up, go to the streets and Iranian leaders will live the country and the government collapse and the military people give up their guns and you

know, that would be the fall of the regime, there were people who believed that idea. Honestly, it looked like a very Disney type of scenario for Iran, but President Trump bought the idea from Netanyahu and so many Iranians, but the more we get into the war, particularly in the past two, three weeks, more and more people understand that if the purpose of the attack was the Iranian regime, if the purpose of the attack was to break

the back of the Russian machinery of the Islamic Republic of Iran, some of these bombings

“and targeting some of these infrastructures or places, would it make sense?”

So people are coming to the realization that this is much bigger than supporting the Iranian people for the plight, for democracy or freedom, this is much bigger than that and it's about Iran, it's about becoming Iran as a state, as a nation and I think I've heard that from different people, again, people are still thinking that there is one group in the Republic should go, there is no love lost between the good portion of the Iranian

society and the Iranian regime, they don't want the regime to be in place, but what President

Trump has done over the past six weeks is that instead of basically breaking the regime,

creating mass defections, bringing down the morale of the loyalists of the regime, it has actually strengthened the morale of the regime as supporters and has given them so many reasons to fight back and resist. So I'm going to break down the last thing you said, you've been in my right to say, broadly, you and Donald Trump won the future of Iran, you want the same thing for the future of Iran,

I think that's fair to say. And President Trump and I like the same thing for the future of Iran. You'd like to see a different government in place that lives peacefully with its neighbors

“that doesn't repress its people, that is integrated into the modern world, right?”

You both share that. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is our dream, the question is how? Of course.

Exactly. What is the best way to do it?

So one thing you don't like is that the rhetoric he's used in the last 72 hours, where he's talked about eliminating a civilization, where he's used profanity about the Iranian regime. Talk about what your kind of dark view of why talking about eliminating Iranian civilization is not a threat that might bring the regime to the negotiating table with something darker and less likely to succeed.

Why do you feel that way?

“First of all, I believe that the attacks we have seen over the past six weeks, it was supposed”

to be directed at the Iranian regime. But now it has gone wild and now we are seeing like Iranian structures and civilian infrastructure as being hit, the idea for the future of Iran goes through the path of overthrowing the Islamic Republic. And to overthrow the Islamic Republic, the first thing is to break the cycle of violence,

break the machinery of repression, to create cracks within the regime, to create mass

defections within the supporters of the regime and to push the Iranian military, the revolutionary

guards, the paramilisher of the siege forces throughout the country to drop their guns and to join the people. That, I think, is the pathway to basically go towards a post Islamic Republic of Iran. But what has happened is that when you talk about committing war crimes, you know, going after Iranian infrastructures is as a blatant invitation to committing war crimes.

If when you talk about going after Iran as a civilization, as a unit of identity and as a culture, what it does is that it makes people who, even against the Iranian regime, even don't like the government, even they want the regime to go yesterday, not even today or tomorrow, they think twice in supporting what is happening.

And they basically, basically, what President Trump did was to create cracks within those

people who are against the Iranian regime. Many people now in Iran are against the government, but they do not support the war.

“I think that's the implication of what President Trump has said, and it's going to be more,”

more we are going to see more of that. So whatever you think of their respective policies of Donald Trump's predecessors, they did not weaken the regime to the point that they lost grip of power. Whatever you think about what happened in the uprising, biggest uprising, regime is faced. It did not dislodge them.

You could have imagined a world like Tiananmen Square where it would happen during the Cold War, the Soviet Union, where these uprisings were magnified by the slaughter of protesters.

Instead, they basically squelched it.

And that's part of why President Trump did what he did. If you could turn the clock back to the beginning of this conflict before it began, and President Trump asked you, what you wanted done to try to bring about a better life for the people of Iran, so you could bring your daughters back there. What would you have advised them to do differently than what he's done?

This is not an easy question, but there was a reason that the previous administrations did not choose the pathway of war with Iran, a full-fledged war with Iran. I think there is a reason for that. There was a logic behind that mentality. But the main thing is that they don't want to go after the government in a way that when

they leave the country, the government is a stronger. Over the past few years, over the past 15 years, we have seen people have had achievements. During the 2012-20 to nationwide protest that is named after mass, I mean, women like freedom movement. We see that how the government was cornered, how they gave off some of their restrictions

on the Iranian people, and more and more we saw that the Iranian government was getting weaker and weaker, and people were getting stronger.

“That's why the round of protests in Iran had become closer to each other.”

Like 20 years ago, every three years, five years, we had protests in the past few years. We have had like every six months, every year we had protests inside the country. Strikes by workers, labor union workers, and others. The government was cornered and they were pushed to have massive changes in the society.

We were at that point that the war happened.

“At this point, it's very difficult to say what would be the advice, but I think there”

are many ways to hold the Iranian government accountable and raise the costs of repression for them. Unfortunately, the US has chosen their path of war. This is something that, as you know, in Washington, going to war with Iran, has had followers and fans over the past 20 years.

We have had two camps in Washington. One camp pushed and promoted diplomacy, engagement with Iran, hoping that Iran joined

the international community, hoping that Iran joining the global economy would open spaces

within the country, expanding the middle class, and make the Iranian government more vulnerable towards foreign pressure, international pressure, the pressure by international organizations like the UN. Since you isolate the country to the extent that nobody has any influence in the country, they can do anything to their citizens.

So, right now, we are at a point that those people who advocate it will war for a military intervention, their option is being tested now, we have to see how it's going to go. I, everything you say makes so much sense and again, your perspective on it is not something

that anybody should challenge or, or, or, or, nor, but to, to, to many, the proofs

in the pudding of the lack of fundamental change. You say the government was on the precipice, perhaps a falling, certainly the economy was bad. But these are people with one of the most well-developed terror networks, police states, determination to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons that were threatened to the region and

to the world. And what President Trump has argued and the people who support this would argue is, it wasn't happening. Change was not happening as evidence by the fact that you had the capacity of a government in this day and age to kill tens of thousands of its citizens for expressing their opposition

to the government, that wasn't that wasn't causing the regime to end. So I'll say again, do you have any sympathy from this point of view, or you believe that it's, it's, it's intrinsically destined to fail because it will simply rally the people

“Iran against the United States and Israel and for the government?”

The Iranian government right now has become much more weaker than last month. So we don't know how long they are going to last six months, a year from now, two years from now. The point I'm making here is that the, the people of Iran, what they want is that after this Islamic Republic, there is the democratic society.

We have a, as you mentioned, you know, we have a government that is democratic, has a good relationship with its neighbors, joins the global economy, respects human rights and stuff of that. The pathway that our, our, our, we're seeing right now, you know, that the war has opened the Pandora box for Iranians and the scenarios we are seeing in front of us are very dark.

Some of them are really dark. And none of them, you know, points us at a very good direction. You're going, the, the scenarios, our options are ranges from a civil war to a more radical Islamic Republic if they survive. So none of the scenarios we are seeing before our, our eyes point us at a transitional transition

to a democratic society. And that's the scary part. Talk about what you love about Iran, about Iranian culture, music, food, tourist attractions, tourist sites, what is it when you think about your homeland, what do you think about that makes you feel proud to be Iranian?

“I think more than anything else, I would say the Iranian people and the sense of community”

and belonging and connectiveness and love they have for each other. And I think anybody who has traveled to Iran has tasted this sort of like, the essence of the Iranian people who are very hospitable and kind. And for me, Iran is poetry, Iran is music, Iran is culture, Iran is a sense of respect

And you know, I can't tell you enough, like how much when you are Iranian, you can live for decades out of Iran, but you can still live every second of your life with that sense of identity. In general, it's very hard to describe, you know, it's, of course, the Iranian history

and art culture and all these historic places are amazing, but I would say the people

and their resilience that I have been witnessing myself and I've been a part of that group of people in Iran, the urge to have a better life, the urge and the, what they do to change

“the society, I think for me is absolutely amazing.”

I've seen like many people going to prison on and off, like, my former lawyer, Nascin to the, who is a prominent lawyer, she has spent so many years in prison just for defending political prisoners. The Nobel Peace Laureate Nagas Mahamedi, who has been working to improve human rights situation in Iran, has been many years in prison, but people, the refresh and the violence, the arrest

and imprisonment, these type of tools have not broken the spirit of the, the people of

Iran. I think that's, that's a great point, that's something that I think, you know, at some point would bring down the Islamic Republic or create massive changes in ways that the Islamic Republic would not be the same after. I mean, what you said is so lovely and it rhymes with everything, every Iranian American

I've ever known, when I've asked them a question like that and just talking to them, they cite the same things, all the strengths of the people that you talked about, emphatically true, because because I've heard it so often and yet the paradox to me is how do you reconcile that strong desire for better life, that sense of community, with millions and millions of people living under an oppressive regime for decades and not having the, and again,

I'm not saying it's a lack of bravery because we've seen a, a extraordinary bravery by you and others, but how could it be that a regime, a fanatical, repressive, belief state could be in place for decades, ruling over tens of millions of people who share

“your vision of this strength of the Iranian people, how could that be?”

I would say Iran, there is Islamic Republic that looks like a body with a huge cancer in your body, and to bring that cancer that tomorow out, it needs a very precise and very careful surgery. It doesn't em, you know, a rushed surgery or a rushed attempt to, for example, save the patient, probably would not, you know, would not be the best idea, what is happening

with the present Trump, and you know, the last six weeks war is that rush and very immature way of like dealing with a patient who has a very advanced cancer. And the reason for so many years, different presidents have been careful with this patient, and the cancer has been that, you know, they didn't want the patient to die under the surgery.

“And I think that's the major, major concern for all of us that we want to save the patient,”

not to, basically, in order to, to remove the tomor, kill the patient.

And what the present Trump is doing is shows that, you know, basically, the patient doesn't have much value for the U.S. for America, and I think that's very disheartening to see what is happening. And I think the change in the language and changing the, you know, changing the framework of the war, the conceptual framework of the war to go from, going after, from the Iranian,

to go from, from after, going after the Iranian regime to destroying the civilization of Iran, I think that's, that tells us that, that the whole story. >> I mean, I hope three things, I hope that you're wrong about the degree to which people in the Trump administration care about Iran, and the people there, I hope you're wrong about that.

I hope that when you go back to Iran with your daughters, I get to go with, if not physically, at least spiritually and metaphorically, because I think that's going to be a great moment. >> And I hope that, and I hope that this ends soon, and I hope it ends with a flourishing Iran that can be part of the world community and peace and love and understanding, and a sense that what's happened for the last four and a half decades or more is an aberration

and not the will of the people. grateful to you. Tell folks if they want to keep up with your writing and social media where they can find

>> I'm on X, and you can find me on the line M on X and I'm on Instagram and on the platforms.

“Thank you so much for having me, I'll share all the hopes that you just share with me.”

>> All right, how old are your kids?

>> One six years old, and one year and a half.

>> All right, let's hope we get them back there before they go to college, because we'll lose them forever after that. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much.

“>> grateful to you for making time, look forward to having you back.”

>> Appreciate it. Thank you so much. >> All right, that's it for today's program. You got to see our April installment of April 28th for 28th, grateful to Karen, and

“you have to see an omit all for joining us today.”

We'll be back on Thursday. Another brand new episode. We'll be sure we'll be talking more about Iran and what's going on since then. Subscribe to next up everywhere on YouTube and the podcast platforms.

We love having you be part of the program, and we always want you to know what's coming

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