Ben Rhodes

I think that's good.

I also think, you know,

I do think he approaches hostage negotiations like you just said, like it's a good thing to get these Americans home period paragraph.

I will never forget kind of the feeling of when Bo Bergdahl, a U.S.

service member who had been held for five years by the Taliban, came home.

And it's evolved into such an ugly partisan fight in a way that shocked me.

Now, some of it was, you know, service members who served with him expressing their anger about the situation, his walking off their base, put them in.

So, I mean, I think that's totally justified.

But I also fear that, you know, the next time a Democrat's in charge, that we might see some of the same sort of partisan, you're weak attacks from Republicans.

But I'm trying to be hopeful that that won't happen.

Yeah.

Well, it's a welcome and need a change.

That's for sure.

Um, I just want to close with your talk about your work on press freedom.

It's very difficult out there for journalists.

I mean, the international federation of journalists says that 128 journalists and media workers were killed in 2025 alone.

Uh, on this show, we've highlighted the Jimmy Lai conviction in Hong Kong.

We've talked about all the journalists who were killed, uh, covering the war in Gaza, Gazan journalists.

That is, um, among many other stories.

Uh, there's the gutting of the Pentagon press core here at home.