Ben Rhodes

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My guest today is Jason Rezaian.

He is currently the director of Press Freedom Initiatives at the Washington Post and the host of the podcast 544 Days, which documented his time being held hostage in Iranian prison and all the machinations that it took to get him released.

Jason, for those who don't know his story, we'll get into it in more detail in a second, but he was falsely accused of espionage in 2014 while serving as the Post's Tehran bureau chief.

He also wrote an amazing book about his experience called Prisoner.

Jason, welcome back to the show.

Great to see you, buddy.

So, you know, we scheduled this interview a while back because this week marks the 10th anniversary of your release from an Iranian prison, even prison.

We want to get to that in a minute and your reflections on that period in your life and everything since.

But first, I just have to ask you about these massive protests that we're seeing across Iran.

So we're recording this Monday night, January 12th at about 430 p.m.

Pacific time.

God knows what will happen between now and when this is released Wednesday morning, especially if Trump decides to take a military action.