Annie Jacobsen
speaker
2,389 appearances
6 recordings
5 series
first heard Mar 2024
last heard 4 Mar
Annie Jacobsen’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 2.
Appearances
I have an important thought for this on balance, if I may. and it goes to Denver's question about how I sleep at night. And I, and I'm very, you know, I just really believe that knowledge is, is King or knowledge is queen, because if you know something, then you're at least personally empowered. You're not frustrated by, you know, a giant wall between yourself and a comprehension. And, and,
So I was asked to go to the Vatican in the fall to give, you know, in today's, you know, Pope Francis died last night. I'm not a Catholic, but, you know, what a loss. And I went to the Vatican and I spoke. I was asked to speak specifically on nuclear war scenario to the cardinals. And. this idea of disarmament was the, was the premise of this, the Vatican, of course, being in pursuit of peace.
And so on the golden dome on balance and how do I sleep idea is that as I move through this world and I'm learning new information, I'm always looking for the, the, and the Cardinals taught me to say that I used to say the optimistic and they said, Oh my dear, you're actually talking about hope, right? So the hopeful, right? solution.
So I wonder to my own self, if you can, if clearly the president, the current president, current POTUS is pursuing the golden dome. That is a given the bids are in the money is, is, is moving. Can the current president pursue denuclearization, which is his word that he's obsessed with. I've I believe is what one like myself must focus on. Is that possible? Can you disarm?
To your point, Amy, about the signaling. Signaling is so powerful. You know this. Most people, we laymen don't know it until we're actually, oh, it's just messaging. It's just kind of what you're signaling that you're doing. And that's what you're speaking of. And so can you have the Golden Dome, which is strong defense? Yes. if it's not nuclear in space, if it's just technology in space?
And can you pursue denuclearization, formerly called disarmament, at the same time? And I took that question to colleagues when I was asked to speak at the UN on this book a month ago. I asked them, can these two concepts exist at the same time? There is a treaty at the UN called the TPNW, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
And that is the movement toward disarmament to bring back the spirit of disarmament that was begun by Reagan and Gorbachev in the 1980s. And I believe that those two pathways can be pursued at once. And I would hope my signal to the president, who I know read my book because he said it on a podcast.
would be actively pursuing because we are in deep, deep, deep danger of creating and of ratcheting up the nuclear arms race if the denuclearization path is not pursued.
Mm-hmm. I'm not, I would say that's not my lane and it's, and that's not meant to dodge the question, but I will give you an alternative. Okay. The alternative, because, because my job as a author, as a journalist is, is to write a narrative, write a compelling narrative that people read. And then they say to the person, you have to read this. And then they have a conversation about it.
And then they, Others have conversations about it. So hope may not be an option inside the nuclear command and control, the same as luck is not an option. And I would say that's more of what we've been working with. But for me, just in my own lane, hope is absolutely imperative.
And so that's where I tell, and I believe in the power of the president, unfortunately, like it or not, the American president is so powerful, his EO pen. And we're seeing that now. I mean, I've been writing about presidents since Truman and I'm, and I've been writing about EOs and I've been writing about title 50 and title 10. And I know about the power of the president, but
And, you know, we we've seen this evolve over decades or I certainly haven't. So I'm not surprised that this president is demonstrating power that has always been there. And you can really have a longer conversation. We probably should about back to the church commission when Rumsfeld and Cheney were with Ford. I mean, I've written it. This is where this all. So the path.
So without digressing the power, the presidential pen is powerful. And I do believe that that is where the hopefulness lies. And I'm going to tell me briefly, tell the story, the one hopeful story about Reagan. Yeah, because I'm ready. I believe we can repeat itself. But Reagan was a hawk. He was a nuclear hawk. We all know this. We're old enough to know this. And he believed in nuclear weapons.
He thought more nuclear weapons made Americans more safe. To your point about like, would cyber help all that? He was coming up with all these ideas. His staff was, you know, barraging him with new ideas. And then he watched an ABC television movie called Day After. And his staff told him not to watch it. He did anyways.
And he wrote in his white house journal that he was depressed after watching it, his words. And what did he do? he reached out to Gorbachev because he knew that you had to stop seeing the Soviet Union. It was the Cold War. The Soviet Union, the leader of the Soviet Union was the twirling mustache bad guy to every American. And Reagan changed that. He said that we had to see them as an adversary.
Enemies you kill in war, adversaries you work with so that you don't have a war. And that is why the world went... from 70,000 nuclear warheads in 1986 to approximately 12,300 we have today. Nuclear disarmament, I have learned from my colleagues who work in this lane, is the pathway toward getting those arsenals greatly reduced, which makes all of us safer.
If that's based on hope, I will take hope as an option.
Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for your service. We're all on the same team.
We all are on the same team. That's what you really realize. All of us, all 8 billion of us.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Showing 1041–1060 of 2,389 · page 53 of 120
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