Arash Azizi and Jodi Kantor: Iran Has the Leverage

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The first up, I've been wanting to get this guy

on for a while to educate us on what's happening in Iran and the view from Iran. He's a writer and historian. He's a lecturer at Yale and contributing writer at the Atlantic.

His books include what Iranians want, women, life, and freedom. He's an upcoming book as well and Israel and Iran.

“It's a rush as easy. How you doing, man? Have you wanted to do this for a while?”

Great, great to leave it, you. Thanks for coming. We have a ton of news to talk about, and then I want to do a little big picture stuff on Iran as well. But first, for listeners, viewers who have not

had the pleasure of following you on X or at the Atlantic,

could you give people a little first date, you know,

what's your backstory? Just tell us about yourself a little bit. So my name is Arash, I'm from Iran. I've been out of Iran now for about 18 years, but from the originally.

Yeah, I'm a historian and I write about Middle East politics. And you're living in New Haven now? I live in New York. I commute in New Haven to teach at Yale. Okay, smart, I was going to say you've come to America.

I don't want to, I don't want you to have to suffer Connecticut full time. Connecticut has many little delights here in there, but yes. I want to go through the state of play, and it's going to take a second. So bear with me, because a lot has happened since yesterday's podcast, and get your kind of reaction to where we are now.

Last night, Trump pleaded that based on the request of Pakistan in other countries and the tremendous military success we've had during the campaign in Iran, we have mutually agreed that while the blockade will remain in full force and effect project freedom will be paused.

So project freedom lasted about 24 hours. That was the project to get some boats out of the Persian Gulf into the straight. And Iranian official told Jeremy Schaehill that that post was relevant with falsehoods and project freedom failed completely. Taznim, I guess you can tell me if this is right, but I guess the IRGC's

preferred outlet described the deal as Trump backtracking. And city is lying to cover up his failure. Pakistan said both sides are closer to starting in negotiation process to could last many months.

And then this morning, the ACCS is reporting for like the 70-second time

in 60 days that you asked and go shit or say there's a deal right around the corner. The supposed one page of agreement is a phase rollback of naval restrictions during the negotiations sanctions really for Iran, a long-term freeze on Iranian uranium enrichment, and maybe Iran agrees to remove its stockpile of uranium.

Say it, Marandi, his Iranian professor tweeted that ACCS is a tool for the White House. And the Iranic Republic is prepared to launch a major attack before Trump's visit to China. Other reports on Iran kind of indicating that maybe they are interested in some kind of deal.

If that clarifies things at all, that is what the both sides are saying about the deal.

“What is your sense for kind of where things are at?”

Yeah, you know, I know there can be a bit of a fog of war and, you know, Marandi, you know, that it's a bit of a clown. So he says this thing's, you know, that that's not to be taken seriously. Look, I mean, the set of play is it's somewhat clear despite, you know, the spread all the fog, which is that both sides are quite reluctant to return to full war, right?

Which is why even though we've had the excermishes the last few days, they haven't really gone full on and they've went out of their way not to do it. I mean, Iran, at the end of the day, attack UA repeatedly, and yet the U.S. said the ceasefire is in place. And at the same time, U.S. attack Iranian boats sunk, you know,

a few and Iran basically said it didn't happen. We'd also said we didn't attack UA, which was kind of crazy. So they don't, they don't want to return to full war. And they do want to deal. It's just a matter of that they're basically trying to hold out.

I mean, the former prince mentioned, they're trying to hold out as much as they can to get the best kind of deal that they can.

But it is, it is basically true.

“I mean, there are these messages being exchanged.”

Now, the estimate of how close you are to a deal, is just like when you put an offer on a house, you know, and work in threat to you, think it's very close. So it's a bit of what you feel about it, right? So that's a bit subjective.

But the offer is a serious, the negotiations are serious. And the contours are pretty much the same.

Like what the access report that the contours have always been quite the same.

Suspension of enrichment, you know, Iran getting some sanctions relief, war ending the block, the straight opening. So I guess my question for you is like, well, the contours of the deal that, you know, we've allegedly been close to for weeks now, have remained the same.

I guess I'm interested in your perspective on, you know, how Iran sees their leverage in the moment. You know, if the other news item from this morning is about Iran launching this Persian Gulf straight authority, they call it, which is ships must email the authority, fill out forms and then pay a toll, and then they'll get permission to pass through the straight of our moves.

And so I could at this point, you know, it seems like that. I could control the straight and having financial opportunities is, you know, a key for Iran as far as dragging this thing out, making sure they'll have that control. At least that's my perspective.

“What do you think is their POV on what is needed to move this forward?”

So their leverage is that what they've been able to do to the straight and to the global market, their leverage is that they think Trump is reluctant to return to the war and it considers that sort of unpopular war, which it is, and their leverage is that they can make energy infrastructure in the region unsafe, they can sort of cause havoc there. That's the kind of leverage that they see they have.

I was talking on yesterday's pod about the guys at FDD, which has been this advocacy group that's for overthrowing the Iranian regime and now has one of their members as part of the negotiation team.

You know, they were basically saying, you know, in eight to nine weeks, the Iranian economy will collapse,

you know, after blockade continues. And so I do think that is kind of the big question here, which is from the Iranian perspective, how long can they hold out and like what are they trying to get out of it, you know, with regards to using that leverage in the straight? They can hold out a lot longer, depends on how we define holding out.

That, you know, Iranian economy is terribly hurt now.

“Born among many jobs have been lost, things are terrible, they're getting worse by the day,”

they're logistical problems in tons of sectors, but that doesn't mean economy will collapse. One of my favorite things about all of this is that we all use these different terms, like the weakening of the regime, you know, the collapse of economy. What does it really mean? If it means that people go out and there is no bread to get and they'll die out of hunger,

no, that's not going to happen, right?

One is a country of 90 million.

It has tons of borders, different countries, it has different sort of resourcefulness methods. It will be able to keep something going on for nine years, just nine months. I mean, you know, whatever blockade you have, the longer it holds, the more cracks go find, the blockade has been terrible, but is it terrible enough that something magically will happen and the whole place collapses?

That's not going to happen. Now, is it enough that you put so much pressure on the powers that be that they'll either turn on each other or give unprecedented compromises or, you know, those things are possible, but also not so easy to achieve and find nature unpredictable, which is why, you know, it's very interesting.

President Trump talks like he's found some genius methods. It's like if he just comes and attacks everybody and kills all the leaders and put this, okay, they'll all capitulate. You know, if governance and estate who then warfare was so simple, everybody would have, everybody has big planes and they would just don't.

But it's not so simple precisely because it involves all these little details and unpredictable consequences. Iranian regime will not capitulate so easily and the economy will not collapse at the point of it, you know, the country becoming unlivable suddenly. I don't want to put you in the position of being, you know, petroleum engineering experts,

that's not your background, but I just, from the people you follow, just on that, on the discrete question of, I get seems like the blockade strategy is premised on this notion that the Iranian's oil infrastructure, you know, that whatever the rigs will continue to get filled up to such a, you know, there won't be any room left and then the rigs will get ruined and then, you know, future ability to export the oil and make money will be hampered and like

that is really the pressure point. You know, I've seen mixed reports on the extent to which that is true. Like what, what is your sense on that question? I mean, I've read widely on different experts talking about this and my assessment is that

but it's overplayed. It's not in this way that it will be like an immediate game changer.

“These are problems that Iranians had thought about before. It's not like they had never”

predicted this could happen, right? And they're not as stupid. I mean, you know, they're, you know, they're very social people. So they've caught up different ways of dealing with this.

A lot of these analysis and sort of advocacy in DC is always based on, you know,

desired outcomes, which, you know, leads into sort of optimistic analysis from their side, optimistic and, and that's one example. It's not going to be an overnight game changer, they'll find ways around it. What about this question of whether there is major disagreements within the Iranian regime and that makes it hard to negotiate? You wrote about this. Like some of the conventional

wisdom in American press has been, you know, that there are multiple factions. So there's a lot more hard line, IRGC faction and a more amenable negotiating team and that even if they come to a deal, maybe they can't actually come to consensus. You port a little bit of cold water on that theory and the Atlantic recently. Like what's your sense of the state of play inside Iran among the leadership? My beef feed is an office or my counter is that yes,

there is infighting. There's certainly something fighting. There is this hardcore ideologues who are opposed to people like Marandi actually speak for them. They say, "No negotiation with the US and we should go to the fight and, you know, we should fight them." The clarifying fact is that even most powerful people in the regime, powerful factions of the regime don't belong to

this hard lineers. Because if the revolutionary guards, the RGC, which to be clear, are basically

the country. I mean, they're running most of the economy and much of the security, you know, much of the politics, they really are regime in many ways. Although with the caveat that they're not one thing, they're kind of decentralized themselves. But if they'd really took this hard line attitude, that would be just the attitude of the regime. But it's kind of actually the flip side. I, these hard lineers are minority and the regimes, main bodies are actually pretty cohesive.

So this myth of what we don't know who to make a deal with is not really true because they've been

“pretty impressive and managed together. And what are some of the evidence I have for this, right?”

We should always ask people for evidence by the way, because there's always analysis always and you ask them, "How do we know this, right?" And it's kind of goes to one leaked from one outlet. Right? Okay, but what is my solid analysis? Test name, for example, which we know is run by the RGC, has attacked the hard lineers. I back, front on attacked the hard lineers. And we saw there was a sort of a letter in the parliament, 261 MP signed that, I mean, support of the negotiating team,

the hard lineers and signed it. Some hard lines are signed. So yes, there is in fighting, but there is significant regime cohesion for their own interest. They realize that if they don't have too much in fighting, they'll collapse. So they've banned it together. And the hard lineers are minority. And you know, why they're minority? Because the positions are ridiculously unrealistic, basically. You know, it's like, oh, fight America, fight Israel. I mean, they're not

doing the fighting, actually, right? So they do give his speeches, and they mobilize people on the streets. That's the kind of thing they do. But they're not the one actually doing the fighting. So they have unrealistic fighting proposals. And just for clarity, when you're talking about the hard lineers and that context, we're talking about the hard lineers and negotiations, people saying don't negotiate with America, continue the war. Like obviously the folks that are

less hard line in the negotiation context at the IRGC are still extremely hard line when it comes to internal politics, you know, like how to manage the country, et cetera. It's not like they're their moderate to domestic. It's used to be the Iranian political inside the Iranian regime. They were reformists. They are they exist, but they're incredibly marginalized, reformists who are Democrats with their democratizers. They believe in the democracy.

“They want Iran to democratize. And that's why they've lost, right?”

Then there are centrists who don't want democracy, I call them centrist, moderates at the time they use themselves actually. But they are vests facing, they want deals with the West and all that. So these IRGC guys that we're talking about are neither of these, they're neither reformist nor centrist. What they are is basically pragmatists. The pragmatism borne out of the actual church because they understand, okay, we can't fight

and destroy the United States. You can't write articles about doing that, but actually do it. So as a result, we need to negotiate, obviously we need to get a deal. But important point also, on domestic issues, a lot of them are also what I would say liberalizers, not in a political sense,

but in the religious sense, are they understand that you can't enforce the most important part

of this mandatory hijab, the mandatory vailing, they understand you can't enforce it.

authoritarian, can be pretty brutal, but they are amenable to deal with the West and to social liberalization. I mean, as I say, they, you know, borne out of this because the parliament and all the IRGC guy is an embodiment of this attitude. It's right now that we're kind of a strongest man in Iran. Speaking of that question, since the parliament's figure is the strongest man in Iran, it's because I guess the new eye at all a comedy. Do we know what his status is?

I mean, it appears that he's medically unwell, basically, like he's not doing so well,

but here's what I think about the set of the play. I think the way it works at this point is that

he's basically not being hands on. He lets olive off on the national security council run things. And for very important things, including this deal, there probably won't go get his signature, but he probably is amenable from what I understand to, to give me this signature. And look,

“I'm a cautious guy by which I mean, there's a lot of people who say a lot of things. That's why I say,”

you know, you should ask them, how do you know, like there are articles about, Moshtava is more hardline than his father or what, how do you know, like, what's the evidence? This is someone who's never spoken publicly. What we know is complaints of different people who've been victim of the security services who believe they were in contact with Moshtava. That's

basically the entirety of what we know Moshtava before he became leader. It's that, right?

It's that they arrest people and they're like the security forces took me and I know Moshtava greenly. But what I do know, based on a speaking also to folks inside Iran, which I do, I mean, folks in the security apparatus and regime, is that he clearly is giving some leeway to Hollywood and others in the national security council to do their thing. So that's my assessment at the moment that, you know, we don't know a lot about him, but he's not hands on, even if he wanted to,

I don't think he could force, you know, force a decision on disguise who are actually running things from his little hospital bed, right? It would take a long time for him to like become a

“supreme leader that actually is running things. If he ever gets to do so, when I think he might never”

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spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com/bowlwork rules and restrictions banquets. So you talked about how you talked to people inside you're on. You wrote maybe a month ago now in the Atlantic about how you were talking to folks inside that internet access is totally shut down by the regime right now. There are some people that said to you that there were fears. I have one of the headlines or sub-headlines was don't leave us with most of us, like this notion,

that we had up there was a little bit of excitement that the regime was being overthrown. Distrust of the Americans, but maybe excitement that the regime was being overthrown and then as things developed, it kind of a fear that they're going to be left with most of the regime essentially intact. What does this say to play now? Can you talk to people inside around? Do people still feel the way that they did when you wrote that a month ago? What are you hearing

from inside around? It's possible to talk to people inside around. I mean, there is a total ton of shutdown, but there are funds, people get around, internet shutdown somehow, and there's this domestic apps which are unsafe because they're controlled at the regime, but it is possible to talk to people who won't mind basically being monitored, frankly, which is a surprisingly high number of people. Yes, there were some people who had this,

what I understand to be naive idea that the war will collapse the regime. You know, when you say FTV or others present Trump himself figures in Iran a position, they all say this to people,

people who believe them. They turn on the TV, they're like all these most powerful people in the

So many people did believe it and it quickly sourd basically because they saw this not happening.

“Right now, honestly, I think people are dealing more than anything with this gaping”

economic catastrophe. I mean, can you imagine you're anything in Iran today? On it's you actually just have money. You know, if you're a minority who's just rich, and I know people like that, they're living their life. They don't actually, you know, they have crazy parties, because the idea is like apocalips like maxing, right? They're like, there might be a war. Everything might get destroyed. We might as well have fun.

Wait, hold on. I'm sorry. You said that there are people in Iran that there's a notion going around of apocalypse maxing, where we might as well just have orgies and parties. Basically, I mean, they're like, you know, they're like things are shit and they might be another

war. We might all die, you know, we might as well have fun while it lasts. So if you're preaching

enough, I mean, even if you're not rich enough, some people, yeah, people are trying to leave their lives. I think what people really forget about like Iran and others is that these are people who are just trying to leave their lives. They're not trying to have a geopolitical analysis. You know, like the rest of us, like most of their lives, they just want to leave their lives. But look, for anybody who has to work for a living or run a business, I mean, can you

imagine how terrible things are? There's no internet. People don't have money. You can't plan for anything. Like, you know, it's very hard to plan for anything. How can you plan for something for two months when you don't know, will there be peace? Will there be war? Will there be collapse? And Iranians have been living like this for a long time now. I mean, for years, and then there was already electricity cuts. You know, there's serious energy cuts, right? So, you know,

I talk to people who do tons of different things. I mean, I talk to someone who like sells kind of semi-electric coffee in Iran, like not in a coffee shop level, but the beans are the stuff. You know, well, this is this business, but it's like my son ridiculous. It's like who looks for electric coffee in the midst of a war. But this is how he works. And he has many workers. This is their only job. They have to be laid off. You know, what can they do? Imagine someone has

planned their wedding. Can they get married now? Thinking, they might not have money to swipe. So, it's a society in limbo, and in this terrible feeling that they don't control their faith, and they're in the midst of a crashing economy. Honestly, so it's beyond politics, really. It's a terrible feeling what they have. And this to me kind of does tie to the geopolitics of the negotiations, because, and obviously there's going to be a ton of corruption in the regime,

and who knows how much money gets back to the people. But it feels, you tell me if I'm wrong, but it feels to me that among the Iranian leadership, they sense that maybe there's an economic opportunity out of this, right? And they end up with more control out of the state than they thought, more sanctions relief than they would have imagined, because Trump wants to get out of this so bad, and that, like anything else, you know, a lot of this comes down to money.

“Yeah, I mean, that's why they're negotiating. That's why they negotiate with Trump from the beginning.”

Let's not forget, Trump's second term, your energy even negotiating is in pretty willingly.

Even though harmony gave us features, same we want to negotiate, they immediately after an negotiated in the name. You're on the infinity minister, wrote an update in the Washington Post and called Trump a man of peace. He has started writing the Trumpish tweets in which he attacked team Biden and praised Trump effectively. And this is the same Trump who had killed the Iran's top general four years before that. So obviously there are many who taught Trump is an opportunity,

and they could, you know, they could use it. Yeah, and there are many who are interested in the economic opportunities that a reopening could bring, you know, it's a mix of a character and a stick, is that the character can be huge. You know, you can have huge economic benefits, but they also understand the alternative is discontinued economic ruination that I spoke about. The question is, if they're bold enough to pursue it and to get a deal, and if the other side

“is flexible enough, but I always say, this is the thing that we need to remember,”

the United States will be fine. If it deals with Iran, if it doesn't deal with Iran, you know, it will fine. It's the United States. I mean, has tons of other issues and problems, but it's not like whether it has ties with Iran or not, it's like a central big issue for it. But if this is Iran's life really depends on it, this is that he's historic moment to Iran, one of the most historic moments in 2,500 years of Iranian history, right? It's how it could

come out crowded out of this. And on one side, it could become a country that is integrated into the region, economically doing much better. It would be the biggest economic sort of frontier, since the fall of the Soviet Union, if it opens up, that's one vision. And I'm not even talking about democracy, but just economic opening. The other vision is, fail the state, civil war, you know, ruin the economy. I mean, these are two extremes, and often it could be

think about, oh, well, Trump didn't give us all we want to not. This takes a really high. And if you know something while Iran and history, estates have often been high when Iran has been faced, you know, in 1st World War, and the 2nd World War, you know, through which Iran was invaded, and then other sort of grand moment, the Cold War, and Iranian leaders, often, to have been risen up to the occasion to try to safeguard Iran's sovereignty. And that's really what we need

right now, and unfortunately, I'm not sure the level of the issue in Tehran is up to the task. Why? I mean, besides the obvious, but Expand the mess. There are two answers. For so long, under Ayyidol Ahamani, he was Iran's leader from 1989, TV was killed earlier this year. You know, he very wronged to this ideological Islamist vision. You know,

“how many I always tell my students the best way to think about him is not like Islamist on the”

mentalist. It's like he pees in the 60s. You know, he was this revolutionary ideologue who came out with his very osteovision, and he held power, and he held onto it. And he was also, is a worse mix of things revolutionary rigid, but very technically cautious and almost cowardly.

So he wouldn't make big decisions. He held on for this grand vision that would never come through.

So he really brought around to the bad place. That's one reason. The number two reason is that there are, even though I said, you know, the regime does have some cohesion, but there are different sort of factions with their own military and economic interests, and they really need to come together and make some bold decisions, and that's not always easy to make. Ayyah, I'm still somewhat very cautiously optimistic that they this will happen.

Like, I think at the end of the tunnel, we will have American Iranian normalization. We will have

“Iran's return to global economy. We will have Iran's regional integration. I think that's”

still the most likely outcome. Which, not to think about this in stupid American, you know, action movie terms or, you know, school yard bully fighting terms. But if that happens,

it's basically a win for Iran in the process. It's a great, and it's a win for both sides.

It's a win for both sides. It's a win for both sides, and if the Iranian regime is still in charge, and they have economic, more economic opportunity, and they're totally in the straight. In what way is that a win for Trump? We ended up hurting our own economy, losing military military material for nothing. Yeah, exactly. So it's not a win in terms of the war reaching its goals. Got it. But it is what Trump said back in 2017 when he first took

office. He wanted to negotiate with the regime and get a deal like this. I think the war was a huge mistake frankly. By any, and I think it would be hard in the future to where it would be seen differently. And you know, we knew all of this thing. You know, it's like, you know, it's not like nobody had thought of going to war with Iran before, right? Everything that resulted from the war is exactly what, everybody. I mean, if you talk to Obama era officials or Biden era officials,

I mean, they knew exactly these things that happened is exactly what they thought would happen.

“Right? That's why they didn't do it. It's an interesting insight when you just think about the”

negotiations that are going to be ongoing. Like just this huge gap, as you said, between

for America, like this is basically meaningless. Like Trump's ego is involved in this and the

ego is an negotiators are involved. Like for the broader contours of what happens in the future of America, this matters basically zero. And it is one of the biggest moments in the history of Iran. Right? And it's like that gap. I think like you think about it through that prism. I think that tells you a lot about where the leverages and what the structure of the negotiations. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's kind of the how it works with superpowers. Although it's also true that

so it, you know, Trump has made it a big issue for himself. Well, he has sort of some face saving to do. Then the global economy is hurt and that in First America. But when you really think about it, I mean, the gas forces are up. Yes, it hurts the pockets. But, you know, it's like, I don't know, if you even if you check your retirement account was going down a little bit, but then it's okay, right? People find way to establish these things. Whereas in Iran, we're really talking about, you know,

entire destruction. And as I said, there is a danger of Iran become a failed estate if this continues long enough. Just because I said, the regime can sustain to charge, you know, doesn't mean the other option is not on table. Not to mention that Trump might go toward that crazy options that he talks about and really do destroy important parts of Iran and save it infrastructure, which will take years to make every view.

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Two more big picture questions for you and they're really big so feel free to give me the long sermon if you want. But as I mentioned back to your book on what Iranians want, you hear all of the propaganda and the West about this. Listen to what Marco Rubio says and it's like there's no bigger gap in anywhere in the world between what the people want and what the regime wants and you hear the opposite version of that case being made by Islamists, etc.

What is your sense? Like for listeners who like really have no, don't know anybody from Iran, you know don't have any context and they're all getting this information mediated through other people who have political interests. Like what's your sense? And obviously it's a huge

country 90 million people but like at the broadest level, what the answer is to the question of your book.

“I think I can't answer it and hopefully people who follow my work will see that I'm usually a”

clear eyed guy. I say what I think it is. I don't say what I would like her to be. You know, it would be a very different world if it was what I like her to be. And they're really easy huge gap. So I don't think Rubio is wrong there in some of it. There is a really huge gap between people and the regime. And in most people really despise so much about the regime. And you know the reasons for this are actually not that hard to fat them. So the Islamic Republic since 1979 tried first about to bring

about 10 Islamist Puritans society in which everybody is good Muslims and upstairs all rules of Islamina. And let me tell you this, there's no way this would ever work anywhere, it has never worked ever in history. If you try not force anything done, people's roads for so long, you will have a reaction against it. Even if it's your most fervent belief, whatever it is that you love, right? You know, like if you love rock music, if someone forces you to wear rock music,

he shirt every day and listen to it every night, you're not going to like it, right? So that's

basically what has happened in Iran that people hate this kind of imposition. So that's one big gap.

The other big gap is that basically the Islamic Republic has told people, have your standards of living fall, be in international isolation, be purer in favor of Iran fighting some global fight against Israel and America. No country in the world will take that deal. Nobody will take that deal, right? All these most fervent like anti-Israel anti-America folks here who love praising Iran, they wouldn't want to pay a personal price out of that. You know, what personal price would they give?

“Will they accept like a 300% pay card for the next year? Because that's why the Iranians have”

had to go through, right? So because of this, they're isn't in the huge gap. They basically their face to the regime that has been trying to repress them. It's super corrupt on its own terms. Brought them international isolation, poverty, declining economy. I know to put the cherry on top, Iranians are kind of a very patriotic people and this regime doesn't even sort of, and he has no understood and tries to speak more in the language of Iranian nationalism.

But it has made them involved in Israel, Palestine, for example, that is not a core Iranian national issue. And we actually very different, if it was a regime that was involved in nationalist adventurism. Iranians could see, but it's, and this is also hard for outsiders to believe, you know, Iranians had no clue about the Iranian policy and conflict. Like if you ask people,

you know, I'm an expert in this issue, I'm a Middle East politics guy, I'm always amazed.

I talk to you on Iranians, even though the regime, every day I talk to a Palestine for so long, they don't know anything. Like they don't know what's the difference between 96 to 748.

“They don't know because this is not a topic that they felt close to. And by the way, that's how”

it's very funny. People on the American left understand that about America, right? They understand very well why many Americans are like, we don't want to be involved in Iran or the Middle East. But they somehow can't understand that Iranians vote, they'll feel the same about Palestine,

So this confrontation with Israel in the United States has cost them a lot. So there is indeed a very huge gap for reasons that I said, and yes, Iranians are very diverse. There is a very hard core regime supporter that exists, 10, 15% that really support the regime. And they're the ones who come out. But vast majority of Iranians are sick of these conditions,

“but they want what they call themselves a normal life, right?”

You know, it just went far up in there. Like, what would the Iranian nationalist version of it look like? Like, what would their concerns be? I mean, that's a very good question. And it can have different visions. But I would say, if you look at long sorts of Iranian history, right? What is Iran's history? Iran's

story is that it's a, it's one of the only countries in the world to never have been colonized.

But it's very strategically isolated, by which I mean, Iran is a country in a region full of either Arab's torques or Sunni Muslims. And Iran is neither of this, right? It's a sheer majority country. It's, you know, as if it has a mixed population, it has its own sort of civilization. So I think Iranian foreign policy would safeguard Iran's independence, and basically be non-aligned. It would not take sides in between it, European territory, between Israel and Palestine,

“between China and United States. And historically, that's what all Iranian governments have done.”

You know, the Shah, unlike the, you know, the popular imagination is that he was the US lucky. If you read the actual foreign policy experts on Iran, they call it de facto non-alignment. So yes, he was on the side of the US in the Cold War. But he was remarkably independent, and, you know, had relationship with Soviet Union, had relationship with China, had relationship with tons of countries in Africa. So Iran needs to be guardedly sort of independent and non-aligned.

And look what Islamic Republic has done. Iran supported Russia against Ukraine. You know, Iran, the regarded Israel's destruction as its goal, Iran adopted this crazy anti-American sentiment, and they've to America. I mean, they're just very bad for Iran and national interest. You mentioned Israel's Palestine conflict lasting on Ashki about, and I'll link to the article of folks who don't read the whole thing. But I did just want to pick your brain briefly about

something you wrote a while ago. I thought it was interesting, called understanding Zionism. And you're just like speaking to somebody, you know, from the left who also understands the Middle East region, who thinks that there's a kind of a misunderstanding of Zionism. And you put a frame on it that I thought this kind of worth people exploring and reflecting on. So this was wonder if you could just talk about that briefly. Yeah, I mean, your Zionism, I think, is often misunderstood or seen as very

exceptional of any dissent, you know, in the 19th century, and then early in 20th century, nationalism was a very common movement. And the basic idea of nationalism was that a people needs to have some sort of a sovereignty in its homeland. No, nationalism had different versions. A democratic version would say, yes, we'll form a country called Polan where Pols live, but they're tons of non-pols live there. Doesn't mean we're going to expel them. We'll give them

equal citizenship, but the language we Polish, this would be a Polish country, but everybody

will have equal democratic rights. I didn't work out so bad in practice. There was the second

Polish Republic, for example, or 50% of its population, I think were non-polish, but many of them did have many rights, but there were tensions and others. So Zionism, of course, was the idea, well, what would, what would the Jewish people do, because they're not majority anywhere. So if they are to have a place in this nation's framework, they need to move somewhere and build their own country. And that's what they did in Palestine. Now, there's a long issue of how they did, obviously,

they faced a lot of resistance of the Palestinian Arab majority. But at the end of the day, they reached a sort of numerical number, like they reached a numerical strength that was enough to form a state. And United Nations gave them a mandate to form a state and they formed a state. So I guess

what I think about Zionism is, first of all, a couple of things historically, it's interesting to

see how pragmatic it had been as a movement that was able to adapt to very different circumstances,

“working within the international law, at different periods. That's why it was so important for”

it to get a mandate from the UN. And we're going to bring that mandate and come magically. It worked very hard at it. The same was not true of the other side, for example. The Arab Palestinians basically said after you won, you know, we don't care what the UN is, right? Which is fine enough, you can say, you don't believe in it, but it's going to have material consequences for you. So I think this pragmatism is lost. And also as I said, the unacceptable, so yes, it is exceptional

in a way that, you know, there was large settlement and migration, which is not exactly a unique, it has existed in other cases. But the point is that it's a national movement for Jewish people,

claim and a stake for having a Jewish estate in Palestine. To want to have a Jewish estate, hey, it does not mean a state that is Jewish supremacist and that non-Jews should have no rights. In theory, this doesn't mean that. Now, sometimes in practice, it has meant that. And I think critics are right to point it out. You know, this does not make it as I said outside the bounds of

“a modern history. It makes it very much a big part of it. And if you want to understand that,”

you know, you should view this history. And then you'll see that Zionism, basically my one line is

every nationalism, right? Has different versions. If you regard every form of nationalism or ethnic nationalism as the often called, I think it's kind of superfluous world in a way, because nationalism has ethnic in it. If you consider every form of it as fascism and exclusion and supremacy, you miss out to this diversity that has been their real-life experience of nationalism. What is your sense for how, you know, kind of the region ends up reacting to Israel. And once

the dust settles and Iran in the years to come, I like there was, I do think that there was kind of this moment where with the Abraham Accords, a lot of people felt like, you know, maybe things would settle down and it's possible that kind of backlash to that is what brought about October 7th.

And I think that obviously there's a lot of hard feelings in the Middle East about the way that

Israel's conducted that war at the same time, like the leadership level of, you know, UAE cutter, some of these other places, maybe more moderating sense of what their relationship should be. What do you expect for what's to come? Israel is pretty isolated regionally. So UAE is an exception in a way that works with it. And UAE itself is kind of isolated from other countries in some way. And also on the sort of a street level, not just in the Middle East, but around the world.

Israel has lost a lot of credibility and sympathy because of the way that's conducted in Gaza. And the look, the reality of the matter is this that Israel also continues to occupy this Palestinian territories. It continues to have no plan to give any sort of rights or sovereignty or citizenship to the people living there. And continues to have this really hubrisic attitude toward most countries in the region. So Saudi Arabia says, look, yes, historically Arab countries wanted

Israel to get destroyed and not be there and all that. But we gave this up in 2002. I told you, if you end the occupation, we'll give you full recognition. And we brought all Arab countries to say this too. And in fact, we brought all Muslim countries, including Iran, signed on the dot, although Iran didn't really practice in reality, but it's time and the thought of the organization

“Islamic countries endorsement of the Arab peace initiative of 2002. So I think that countries like”

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others have this attitude toward Israel that look, you're rubricistic, you know, you occupy a different country in the region, you act. And Israel has really, I mean, look at the very Israel has acted to Turkey actually. It's a good example of being sort of a crazy hubrisic policy. Turkey has done so much for Israel. Turkey is still throughout this world and everything keeps delivering oil to Israel. Turkish intelligence forces

have worked closely with Mazzad to dispel so many sort of things like this. But because politics is now done on Instagram and Twitter all the time, Israeli leaders talk about Erdogan and Turkey as if this is like some crazy Islamic state like that. It's trying to destroy Israel every day. It's just not true. So why would you, and if you look at Israeli history, it was anything but it was the exact opposite. Israeli diplomats, you know, they would go talk to a country which had

said 80% anti-Israel things, 20% monitor things. They would latch on the 20% thing and also thank you and UltraRiderExpand, guys on that. From that you've gone to a place where Israel is, you know,

“I improvised to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, to others. So I think it's a very concerning situation”

and that has potential with, with kind of there is also national Israeli coalition in Israel, as potential for further classes. I am hopeful though that the next government in Israel, after Netanyahu, it would be more focused on Israel. It would try to sort of put an end to Netanyahu and in sort of pragmatic grasping of its own national interests, we'll try to make pragmatic dealings with different regimes in the region. And there I think it's entirely possible to get to

some sort of a peaceful settlement of major estate conflicts. And for Israel, finally, you know, it would be the real full film and have the Zionist stream in a way. For Israel to become a

country, define its borders, recognize by other countries in the region. Israel has never been

better place to bring that about, but it needs to do something about the occupation of Palestine. It needs to do something in fact that the state of Palestine is recognized now with most countries in the world. And it means to do something, you know, you can win arguments on Twitter against people.

seven, eight million people over whom you're going to rule and you're going to give them no rights.

And that's just because it's defensive and you're going to do it for 200 years because this is

“the only way you can, you know, no other no self-respecting Arab country is going to become”

mince of that in the long run. And you know, even the UAE wouldn't become mince of that. I mean, you know, they'll rush. Yeah, they know that for a while, but it's not like they're going to actually endorse it. So they're going to need to do something that will bring you about a lasting solution. I really appreciate this, Raj. This is very helpful and educational blisters do as well. And let's check in again soon, right, man? Of course. Thank you so much. We'd love to be back. Thank you.

Thanks so much to Raj. Up next, Jodi Canter. Don't miss it. All right, I'm delighted to welcome a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter at the New York Times in 2017. She broke the story of decades of sexual abuse allegations against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, which helped ignite the Me Too movement. Now she's

“the author of the new book, How to Start Discovering Your Life's Work. It's Jodi Canter. What's”

up, Jodi? Thanks for having me, Tim. Happy to do it. I'm excited to get into the life advice. I've been begging people in the mail bag to send me life advice questions. And I don't get as many as I want. I don't know why. I feel like that you would, that would be the natural person to come to for life advice. But I guess I would think that. And so now your book is giving us an excuse to explore it together. So we'll do that. Glad I'm glad to give you the experience. Yeah,

we can we'll do a little news first though. In addition, writing the book, you know,

you have a day job in New York Times and time in the Supreme Court. We talked about one of your stories yesterday, with Melissa Murray. And that was these memos about the Shadow Docket. And I said to Melissa, I was like, it seems like the Shadow Docket is kind of in a way that's just parallel with the fellow Buster. Whereas like this tool that was used, kind of an emergency situation from time to time. And then all of a sudden, over time, it started to ease more and more

than all the sudden it was like used all the time constantly. And you cite like this moment in a 2016 when this kind of started and you have the documentation to back it up to talk about like that story and why why that matters. Sure. So what's really unusual about this story is that Adam Laptack and I obtained 16 pages of the Justices private correspondence, like not something like the Dobbs League, which was an opinion that was meant to eventually become public. This is stuff

that we weren't supposed to see for generations. And we published this in the New York Times. And it's a mementa set of papers because it allows us to see the kind of pivotal moment when the Shadow Docket was born. I mean, it evolved over many years, but this was a signal moment because happened during the Obama years. It was a 2016 case. The court halted President Obama's signature climate initiative and they leaped in front of the DC circuit, which was supposed to hear the case.

And so what you get to see at these papers is that the Justices behind the scenes kind of backing their way into a new way of doing business. They're having an argument about whether it's okay for the court to do this or not. And the Democratic appointees very much object to it. They're very concerned. The Republican appointees want to go ahead. And the Chief Justice is really the person who leaps out from the memos and is the sort of most indelible character in the drama.

Yeah, that's interesting because Robert's does have a reputation as being more of an institutional list. And he's picked his fights. You know, he hasn't been as much as the fire brand as like

“a leader and Thomas thinking about the Bush nominees or appointees rather. So I think it's kind of”

important insight into how the court has moved so much more aggressively to push a bunch of stuff that has given Trump more powers and taken away powers from Obama, as you mentioned. Under his urging, basically, even though his public posture doesn't maybe reflect that as much. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you say, the Chief Justice, we see in public, like speaks in kind of magistral tones, that has cultivated a reputation for being

conservative, but very cautious and even handed. And you get a different Chief justice in these papers. He's pushing really hard for the court to do something really fast

to go to a place that's never gone before. And when his colleagues

recirious objections, you know, they say, I'm worried about this. This is weird. This is a regular.

do it because this regulation is so expensive. And then, you know, the other striking thing is the

contrast between what the court put out publicly, which is like almost nothing. Like these, some of these shadowed occupations are not really opinions. They're just orders. They're like a paragraph or two. They contain no legal reasoning. And then in the memos, you get to see what

“the justice is. We're really thinking. The timing on this, you know, I think a lot of times”

the court wants to make it seem like, you know, they consider things in due time. You know, the decisions come up when they come up. And I mean, this is particularly relevant now as you look at this, you know, voting rights act case, which is, you know, had they held it to the end of the session, as I often do in big cases like this, like there wouldn't have been time for Louisiana. And these other states to do stuff. And I do think that there is kind of a parallel

there between like what you are seeing in those memos and the shadowed document, like what we saw this week. I mean, you know, I'm sitting here in the New York Times conference room talking to you. And I have to tell you, the times has really expanded and built out our Supreme Court coverage. We now have a five-person team, including our editor Adam Lipdack, Ross Helderman is the editor and Maramel, Abby Vance Sickle. And the reason we're doing it--

I know Ross was there. Tell her I said, oh yeah, I will. I definitely will. Part of the reason we're doing it, Tim, is that we don't know the answer to really basic questions about the Supreme Court, right? Like, how part is in her the justice says? Like, as you just asked,

“how do they judge the timing in these cases? Is there any, you know, political calculation to it?”

Who's really doing the work? The clerks are the justices. How do they age in these jobs? What does

it mean to have power for 20 or 30 years at a time with basically no accountability? What are

their relationships like to one another? There's a lot of debate about the Supreme Court now, but it's hard to have a really good debate about an institution that is so secretive. And so we are trying to bring just some basic facts about the place to light. You mentioned kind of about Robert now, the way that he's different behind the scenes on his public receptionist. You also wrote recently about Amy Coney Barrett. And she's been such an

interesting character on the course, right? And she gets nominated and the rhetoric about her from Professor of Opponents was like, basically, this is Handmaid's Tale type situation with Amy Coney Barrett. And now that she's got on the court, and she's had a couple of, you know, decisions that were when against what Trump wanted, and now you have the MAGA folks, a lot of really nasty stuff

“that are out there, often the MAGA right. Like, what did you make of her when you were writing that profile?”

Oh, the she is a much more complex figure than anybody gave her credit for. And that kind of both the right and the left got her a little bit wrong. As you say, when she was appointed, there were a lot of caricatures of her, but I think the caricatures were both on the right and the left. It's almost like people saw a woman with seven children and decided they knew what that meant. You know, the the right thought she was going to be the savior who was going to complete

the 50-year-old mission of the conservative legal movement and the left villainized her as you say. And she has turned out to be, I think a year after writing that story, I think it's still fair to say, she feels like the most independent of the Republican appointed justices, maybe with a tie with the chief justice. But she has shown some willingness to vote with the liberals, not on the big cases, generally on the smaller ones, but there are a lot of signs she's trying to

stride her own path to some degree as a jurist and truly wants a reputation as trusted and independent. I don't just give anything away if you're reporting, but like how much are they hiding from you? Okay, do you have any access to it? To answer that accurately would be to be God and to know everything. This is what I think. I think the justices are used to being in control

of the narrative about them because they ultimately decide what is in oral arguments and what is in

opinions. So they might say that they're like the most transparent branch of government, but they control how much we see. And so this reporting is meant to challenge that just like

really are surrounded and under pressure as never before. I mean, the security threats to the

“justices, the fact that even just to spare its relatives were targeted last year, means that”

Supreme Court justices have lost some of the anonymity that they used to enjoy in Washington and beyond. If I'm going to ask you to be God, can I ask you? Why don't we know who leaked the down decision? Yes. Oh, I don't agree with you. Like, as an investigative reporter, what I would tell you is that it was very hard for investigators to find out. I don't know if I'll ever know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. You don't think I know. I don't know.

I don't know that it's established that the political reporters knew who their source was. They could have gotten that opinion in a brown paper envelope in the mail. Like, I don't think I don't think they've spoken about it, which is not surprising. I don't like mysteries. Well, I mean, it's the reason I think it's a substantive question and the reason I think you're right

“to raise it is that we can never forget that somebody tried to interfere with one of the most important”

Supreme Court decisions of our time. Like, look, I have put, you know, as we just discussed private material from the justices into the paper, but that was after the decision was made. So, political had newsworthy information. They were right to publish, of course. But there was clearly somebody who wanted to have some effect on something, right? And even if it was a bank shot, they were thinking or hoping that maybe they could impact one of the other justices or maybe

just scenarios. If we want our Supreme Court to be independent of interference, you're asking a fair and salient question. Well, let me just whisper it to me if you think you know afterwards, okay? Okay, I'll meet you. I'll meet you in the ladies' bathroom and I'll tell you everything. Like, you can't do that anymore in the Trump era. So, can't be the ladies' bathroom on your trouble. As I mentioned earlier, the Harvey Weinstein stories of me too, and it led to one of the

more delightful parts of your book, which I don't want to mention, get to that. But first, I'm just,

at the biggest picture, just wondering how you would kind of analyze the state of play now, with regards to me to issues versus in 2017. Because, like, in some ways, I felt like there was this moment where everybody felt like there was all this progress that's going to happen. It was about time that God, and then this other moment happened, where they're like, it's over. We're fucked. It's like worse than before now, you know, particularly after Trump got elected again. And

you know, in the last month or two, we've seen a couple of congressmen go down over, you know, meet two related issues. And I don't know. There's, I wonder if maybe the pendulum is swinging back towards the middle. I don't know. What do you think? I don't think it's a pendulum, but like, that's not my analogy. Because I don't think that's quite how social change happens. But what I will tell you is that those obits for the Me Too movement were premature. You know,

when I'm a reporter, I'm not an activist or a booster for the movement. But if you just look at the facts, what you see is that women are still coming forward. They're coming forward about what happened in Congress. They're coming forward with allegations against Caesar Chavez. It's

like an incredible story reported by my colleagues here at the paper, right? Like a real stunner

that this guy who was regarded as a civil rights icon, all these years treated women this way. You've got Giselle Pelico in France with her head held high coming through this nightmare or deal

“by being very public and refusing to accept any shame. So I do think, I think the Me Too movement”

has been politicized. It was very even handed. At first, you know, there was, it was Harvey Weinstein and Bill O'Reilly and Roy Moore, right? It didn't feel like team Republican or team Democratic felt like team concerned for women for a little while there. That's changed. Obviously, we have a huge backlash led by the president of the United States. But as long as women keep coming forward, which they are, then I think the conversation continues. I think also, by the way,

it's very interesting to me that as we look at the controversy and Congress at this moment, which I think about one Republican and one Democrat, which says to me the learning from this

power of it. Every society, every political persuasion, every economic strata, every culture, every sport, every religion, every country. Why did these problems seem to exist everywhere? And so I

“think it's obviously unfortunate to hear these allegations from Congress. But I think it's sort of”

fitting of like, oh, yeah, one Republican, one Democrat. Like, okay, like, yes, this is, this is a problem for everybody. Can I ask what is your theory of how social change works? Not as an activist, but as an observer. Oh, just that it's just that it's really messy and like they're a private

reckoning that are really important that we never see, right? Like, one of the most important things

that happened during me, too, were long, contemplative conversations that people had outside of the public glare that I think had a nuance and depth to them that sometimes the more public discussions don't capture. I think there were a lot of things that people were confused about. So yeah, I don't think social change is like a pendulum that moves from one side to the other. It's like a

“complicated, organic, ever-changing thing. Part of the book that I referenced was you said that when”

you're speaking to younger women in particular, you're asked a lot about how you managed the trauma of like living to like live in report and and obsess over and know everything about these disgusting men and the things that they did. And one of your responses was that, well, that's true that was challenging with the day you get to confront Harvey Weinstein as the best day in the office ever. And so I want to hear a little bit of that. Exactly. But you got to confront Harvey Weinstein,

is that okay? Oh, totally. Oh, my God, of course. Okay. So it's October of 2017, Megan 2A and I have been working on the Weinstein investigation. We've got 25 years worth of allegations

ready to go. But as you know, Tim, it is critical to be fair to everybody with a story like this,

including, even Harvey Weinstein, who was doing crazy stuff like not only threatening the New York Times, but he hired this Israeli firm comprised of ex-intelligence agents to try to spy and do,

“me and others. So even to someone treating you that horribly, you have to be like very fair.”

And it's really, these are serious charges. You have to give somebody real time to respond. So we have a big debate about how much time we're going to give him because we don't want him to take advantage of us or cause any funny business. And we finally do it over the phone. And we scripted it out beforehand. And I read him most of the allegations that we were preparing to publish. And he hired like a huge PR and legal team. And you know, when you're

being read that, like, your job is so obviously to stay quiet, like your lawyers are like, "Whatever you do, don't say any thing." And Weinstein just could not help himself. He responded a lot in the moment. He responded like even more in his official statements. You know, as a reporter, you get statements, right? Like when you're writing something bad about somebody, they give you a statement. The statement he gave us is I really have to say a classic

of the genre because he referenced like his bar mitzvah and jazzy. And there was like contrition, but also denial. And it was all mixed up with Weinstein's like statements to us personally. He he lectured Megan and I have a lot about journalism. And the course of this confrontation, you know, it's like going from like threatening us to telling us how much he loves the New York Times and can't live without it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So anyway,

it was a very dramatic scene, but you know, even with all of that like drama going on in his response, what you're listening for as a reporter is to see have any substantive challenge to our reporting.

Like Megan and I are sitting there saying, we've got really powerful material here. You

believe that there's a lot of evidence. It seems you're really well-founded, but let's listen out for any problems, right? Like let's listen out for anything in his response that causes us to rethink or want to check something we've reported. And there was nothing. It's something really perfect about a man being told about all the ways in which he's abused women and done all of these

Yeah, we were manned, we were manned, we were we were we were we were absolutely mansplained.

And I'll take that into account, Harvey. Yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you another amazing thing

about that confrontation is we had reported that his people had told his own company that over the years he had had eight to 12 settlements to cover up allegations of sexual abuse. And what's amazing is they didn't have an exact number, like eight to 12, like that's a big difference. Like did you like, did you forget four of those women? Did you not keep a list? Can you not remember? Like how many are there real? There were two Lawrence, you can't remember. It's not separate. All right, well that's

nice. He have those moments in here career, you know, to be able to refer to them. Oh, I mean, they took, look,

“I mean, here's the thing, Tim, like Megan and I had been journalists for a long time at the time.”

We did that, but those moments took everything we already believed about journalism and like underlined them three times and put three exclamation marks next to them because the number of brave sources who really helped us was so small and yet they created dialogue and changed all over the world. It was it was it was an honor and an amazing thing to be a part of. Oh, that okay, to the to the rest of the book. Again, it's called How to Start Discovering Your Life's

Work. I guess it's when you hear you talk about why you wrote the book. Maybe through the context of the Baldwin quote you use as the epigraphic. It's one that I like to click as like that's I'll read it really quick. One has to look on oneself as the custodian of a quantity and a quality

oneself, which is absolutely unique in the world because as has never been here before and will never

be here again. Why the book and why is that the frame for it? So the reason I chose that quote is that young people are being told essentially by this employment market, many young people are being told that they're disposable or interchangeable and that they're not needed. And this quote is all about the fact that every human being has unique value and something to contribute. I mean, since you read the book, you know this book is it's not book I expected to write. It started

about a year ago when Columbia at like the peak of its chaos invites me to give the undergraduate commencement address, which was a huge honor, but also kind of a bad honor. Okay, you had to be like can I do 29? Are you available? Are you open in 29? My college friends, my college friends grew very protective. They were like Colin sick. Don't do it. You know, like you're going to get booed. But something in me was like give me those kids because I really loved Columbia was transformational

in my life and I couldn't stand a thought of seeing this place that's supposed to stand for light and discussion and exchange becoming so toxic. So I zoomed with the students beforehand because I wanted to read the room and they lay down a serious challenge, Tim. They were like, we're done with talking about Gaza, Israel, President Trump, like our own university administration. We don't want you to talk about that. They said we chose you because you're of your career and we want you to answer

“the question, how in this crazy environment are we supposed to find and start our life's work?”

And that struck me as an incredible question. And one that is totally generational. Like I have spoken at college campuses all over this country and young people are asking that at the elite schools, the humble schools and everywhere in between. We have never been in an employment market quite like the one we're in now. It is really tough out there. And I think that there's the sense of like discovering your life's work. I think is also a relevant to this, right? Because it's not just

a lot of hard for me to find a job. It's kind of like it's hard for me to know what career will exist even, right? Especially when you like think about the AI disruption and a lot of folks like

there was, you know, when I was coming out of college, it's always hard to get the first job.

But there's kind of a sense of, okay, well, I know what what industry I want to work in, I don't know if I can politics, I'm going to get the job and then we'll figure it out, you'll go up the chain. And like that is more opaque now than it's been, like in a really long time. Well, and I'll tell you another change that really matters. Listen, do we know what AI is

“going to do to end your level work? No, I think it's too early. Like we can't see the whole thing yet.”

Do we know what it's doing to hiring? Yes, trying to get a job, as you said, has always been

And so like when you and I were seeking jobs when we were younger, it was a social experience filled

“with hand shakes and coffees and meetings and interviews. This is now a digitally mediated”

experience in which like truly like if you have, if anyone listening has never spoken to anyone

who has done an AI interview in which you are interviewed by AI and not by human being, I would really recommend you sit down and listen to somebody's personal story because it's so different than it used to be. And listen, these tools are very efficient, they're very powerful, but the young people I've talked to find them dehumanizing and discouraging. Because there's no recruiter saying like, listen, Tim, we don't have a spot for you right now, but it was amazing to

meet you and I loved your answer about, you know, the pineapple story you started when you were 14 and I'm going to call you when I see the next opening. And it gets in your head. It's crazy

making. Honestly, it's crazy making. Like you sent out three hundred railways, like nobody's

“replying to you. You've talked to three people. Nobody's replying. That's why the word I just keep coming”

back to is lonely. Young people are saying, "Can somebody just give me some feedback on my application? Can somebody tell me if this job even really exists or if it's a ghost listing that is just staying up on this portal?" So, you know, my answer to this in the book and like in life is that we need to bring young people all the help we can. And also that, you know, we could spend like the next hour, and we could do a super extended version of this podcast ever, discussing like

all the negatives to this employment environment. But it's not that helpful because young people

already know the negatives. The interesting question is, what are they supposed to actually do?

Like, what does it look like to have a positive and productive response to what's going on? Can you talk about it, Hal? And I think this is about the job search. But it's about more than that, which is, you're able to know how the culture is swinging towards cynicism and fear. And it's broader than that. And I've talked about young people that wind up kids, also because they're scared of fighting part of that economic part of that is just scared about

the world is going to look like. And part of it is like we have the dumb phones that are

“telling us the worst thing that's happening everywhere in the world and every and every minute”

of the day. And so talk about that, like what your advice was for combating that color? Oh my god, I mean, the entire book is, but there's one paragraph I want to read you because this is like, look, if you don't read this book, fine, but I want you to have this one paragraph, if you are listening to this and have either are trying to start or have a young person in your life who's trying to start. Do not give up before you even start frustration and disappointed

women or certain failure is possible. But if you advocate the search for satisfaction now, you will put it further out of reach. Resist the urge to arm yourself with uninformed cynicism, masking is also wise pragmatism that's really just good old fear of rejection. We do not yet know what the world will offer you. You know, Tim, I don't know about you, but I fell down the rabbit hole of watching all the videos from the, you know, the astronauts who recently went to the moon.

And it was because, like, it was the most positive display of work I had seen in the culture for a long time. It was so refreshing and inspiring. And like, imagine if those people gave up before they started, right? Imagine if they just said like, you know, most people don't get to become astronauts and it's really hard and, you know, I'm fearful that I might fail. You know, I get, I get that things are really bad out there, but I'm not, I don't want young people to

give up. I want to see what they can extract from the workplace despite it all. Yeah, masking your fear and concerns of cynicism is something that I have experienced with. So I know, I know about this and I have cynicism and it's like, man, it's sad to have some linear life that's my, it's in your middle age that is, you know, so cynical that they don't believe they have a chance and I'm trying to pull those people out, but it's like really depressing

when you talk to a 22 year old who's so sentimental about that. I mean, did 22 year old Tim Miller ever think you'd be hosting a podcast like this? No, no. And this goes to one of the things one that I favor piece of advice you have, which is relax about coherence. Yeah. And this was the advice I give all the time, which is like, if you asked me at any point in my life, what

like, I guess, the period between like 20, 11 and 16. I like you could have found a year where

I was right. So who was 22 year old Tim Miller? I was a campaign junkie. And I loved it. I loved doing campaigns. And I also liked smoking pot. And so that was mostly me at 22. I went and joined a random campaign. I went to Delaware. And I was in the closet. And I had no idea what I was

“going to do. And like that guy, I think about this all the time. The guy in that very first campaign”

I ran Iowa's body man, his name was Judge Billy. And it was unexpectedly close campaign. It's like got sent there after I graduated. And like he almost won. And he won. And I was a closet of it, we're doing it real personal now. And I was like kind of dating girls. Like really the one time I've ever dated a girl. And I was like, he won. I might have, there's a whole different life.

I could have won. It's where I was like the advisor to the governor and in the, and in the

clean and straight relationship and the closet going, I don't know, going down the Larry Craig path, who the hell knows what had an out of Vin and Delaware, I would have been a Wilmington man. So I, you know, don't worry, I guess. So you know, I was just like, all that changed and like it changed so much and then obviously Trump changed my life so much. And you know, the advice I gave I was thinking to a class recently. And I was like, you know, it was one of these elite schools.

And he and I was a striver. And I was like, you know, at 28, I looked around the Republican operative class. And I was like, okay, these four people are my competitors for being the secretary for the next Republican president. Okay, I know who they are. And we all competing for the same jobs and we're all going to pick different presidential campaigns. I mind when I'm going to be

“the one in the White House. And it's like none of us won. All, like one of them, I think is working”

for a card dealership now. It's like, you know, it's like fucking Caroline Levitt is the, you know, you know, Sarah Huckabee got that job because Donald Trump wants. So you don't know the future. Like, you can't, it's not, and it's not like the future. And where you go up the, up the ladder at your same company, you know, like my grandpa, you don't like that. No, and also like you don't know the future. And many of us have experienced the passage of, you know, the last few decades

as like a degradation, you know, whether it's climate or other stuff, a time of, you know, gun violence, things getting worse. But in my life, I have experienced some pretty profound come from behind victories and recoveries and reversals that I think have made me pretty optimistic. And you know, I've just been in a couple of profound life situations where it looked like all was lost. And then there was recovery healing and victory. And so I want young people to know that

“that's possible. Like, we were talking about like, how do social change happen? Is it a pendulum?”

No, it's like something much more complicated, right? And, and, you know, is it for or deemed, felt like the countries in decline and that everything's going to fall apart and we're all headed for collapse? I don't think so. Yeah, I know. And it's different every industry. Like, I assume a lot of folks, if they're young and listening to this wrench and politics. And I just think the advice of that, relax, but coherence, try different things, do different things, try about your

friend that wrote the book and had no background in this. And you never would have expected that.

Like, there's not the advice that you get a lot of times from, you know, that. No, this is meant to be a counter to combat the right. You know, one thing I love about your background and tell me if my hypothesis about this is right, but a political campaign is such a great early job, right? Because it's high, it's high stimulation. Like, my, for anyone lucky enough to have a choice of a first job now, which not everybody does, I think you want to be learning instead, like a not just

earning. You know, what is this job going to teach you? And I think the great first jobs are very high stimulation. And the bad ones are the boring ones. Like, prestigious, but boring is kind of a deadly category. Like, don't go work in an art gallery where nobody's going to come in all day. You're not going to learn any side. Yeah, no. This is where our advice is so light. I was in a seeking to class of political strivers a couple of months ago. And, you know, my advice for them was like,

your path is zigzaggy, trying different stuff. Like, you know, go apply for jobs that aren't applied, like write very short emails, annoyed people, bug them. I was like, go work for random campaigns. I go move to the middle of the country and go for a job that's not as competitive. And like, where you'll get to do a bunch of stuff. And, you know, I was, I was giving out this advice and afterwards, I was, I had a, I had a mole in the class who told me that, like, the TA came

back in and was like, now, that advice is a little unconventional compared to what you want. If you want to become a Chief of Staff on the Hill. I don't know, man. I was like, you can be a

that is important. And, I don't know, is it a little too polyan though? Have you had feedback from people that are like, that sounds great? Like, I should go try and do something whimsical and high energy. But, like, I can't even get anybody to return my call. To be honest, I don't want

“it to be about polyana. I want it to be about fight because the only way these young people are”

going to have satisfying fulfilling work lives is if they fight for their ambitions and dreams. Because the environment is so negative, think you do have to take yourself and your happiness and your potential very seriously right now. So, it's not about saying, you know, oh, yeah, man, everything's going to be all right. Like, look, I'm a reporter. And, and also, I reported some of the worst things about the word, like Harvey Weinstein, like, definitely one of the worst bosses

of all time. I also reported a lot about, like, why technological change can be so shattering and dislocating in the workplace, but all of that convinced me that there is a way,

listen, this is a time of struggle. This is a time of struggle. It's always been a life stage of

struggle. It's worse now, but you can struggle badly or struggle well, right? You can get depressed and stay home and watch Netflix and not make any progress or you can meet people and try things and force yourself and test yourself and consider options you've never considered before. And I think there is a better and a worse way to deal with this environment and I want people to choose the better way. What do you say to people who's, you know, okay, that sounds great. There's

so hard to get a job. I found this job. It is a boring job. It's not a high engagement job,

“but it was a job and I needed a job and it doesn't feel like it's my life's work. What do I do?”

How do I find meaning and fulfillment? I think there's a difference between the person who says that, who's like, listen, I'm taking this job because they need to earn a buck. Like, this is a survival strategy versus, and like, how could we ever, you know, tell that person their role? Like, you know,

I would never want to question that person's financial decisions. But I think there's another kind of

person who does that who says, I am giving up on work as a source, a fulfillment or happiness. There are a lot of people, young people, just the way, like you were talking a few minutes ago about kids who kind of give up on the possibility of family happiness. There are a lot of people who are giving up on the idea of work happiness. Therefore, closing the idea of the workplace as a source of satisfaction. And my worry is that by doing that, they're going to put it further out of reach.

And, you know, the problem is that work is how we spend our time. And there may be people out there

who are living happy, fulfilled lives, despite being utterly miserable at work. But I have never met

anybody like that. Have you? I'm one just came to mind, but it's their few and far between, I'd say. Yeah, they're few and far between. They're few and far, they're few and far between. Look, I'm a kid from Staten Island. If you ever told me I would be sitting here doing this work, having this conversation with you, I never would have believed you. Last thing, you gave a cute mentorship story about Michael Kinsley. Oh, yeah. You know, people should read the whole book, but I was, I don't know,

I was getting in my feelings reading it. And so I figured it would be my way to end for you to share

“what happened with Michael Kinsley. The old time, as I remember him, a long time editor of”

his late New York public, a bunch of places. So, Mike was, Mike is and was a singular figure in journalism, kind of matchless columnist on the page, but also this electric television host to help create a jahana and was so witty and so fast. And I came to work for him in 1998 when Slate, which, you know, we now, there's, there's the current Slate, but baby Slate was a startup owned by Microsoft, invented by Michael Kinsley and it had one goal, which was to figure out what journalism

meant on the web. And it was an incredible place to start work because there was like very little hierarchy, young people had a lot of opportunity. It was an environment that was both playful

that like a couple months into me working there, he tried to give me a big promotion. And I was

“living in DC at the time, but the promotion was in Seattle at the Microsoft mothership. And I was”

super excited because I had dropped out of law school and kind of like belly flopped my way into journalism and, you know, my god, a promotion and more money and validation and the boss is

approval. It was completely irresistible. So, I jumped out on a plane to Seattle. I'd never been there

before, you know, when you smelled the Seattle air for the first time, you're like, oh, like, this is how air is supposed to smell, right? Like this, this like freshness, it's incredible. So, the deal is almost done, we're having lunch the last day in the Microsoft cafeteria,

“and I'm 24 years old at the time. And Mike says to be, okay, like, let's go forward. But before”

we do, I want to ask, is there anyone or anything keep a view on the East Coast? And I said, oh, I have a boyfriend. And then I added, but Mike, I'm a big feminist and I don't believe in staying anywhere or moving anywhere for a boy before the age of 25. And I'm 24. So I'm taking the job and I'm leaving the guy and I'm coming to Seattle and Mike to his credit didn't laugh at me, but he said, is there a chance that you might marry this guy? And I said, yeah,

there's a chance. And he said, I am revoking the job offer. I will, he said, I will not be

“responsible for breaking up what might turn into a happy marriage. He said, Jodi, he was like,”

maybe 48 or 50 at the time, he said, Jodi, I've been very successful, but I have been single my whole life. He actually was on the cusp of meeting somebody, great marrying her. But he said,

for people like you and me, they're always going to be work opportunities, but finding someone to

love is the hardest thing. So I didn't take the job in Seattle. Mike Kinsey kept me from breaking up with the guy who's now my husband and we have a 20 year olds and we have a 10 year old. And you know, for going that promotion cost me nothing and taking that job and Seattle would have cost me everything. Who ended there? It's almost all bad news on the board podcast and downers. So I wanted to end with a little cotton candy, you know, little cotton candy of a little lifetime

network. A little lifetime network, but you know, what's interesting, Tim, is that like what he did

was probably illegal and it's all and it's also what made him a great boss. Amazing, Jodi,

can't tell everybody it's graduation season. So it's a good time to buy this book for the graduate in your life. How to start discovering your life's work. Appreciate it very much. Come back and see me again soon. I need to be with you. Thank you for having me. You can tell about how long this was, how much I enjoyed that pot. So I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks so much to Arash Azizie and Jodi Canter. We got a new guest coming up tomorrow that I'm

also excited for. So we'll see you all then, peace. Love you any less. Keep me in your heart for a while. The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Katie Loots and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.