David Sanger

speaker

478 appearances 12 recordings 4 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 22 Jun

David Sanger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 12 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 10.

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Fresh Air · Is the U.S. headed toward military conflict with Iran? · 26 Feb 2026 podcast

So as my colleague Anton Troianovsky and I wrote about a week ago, this is a fascinating experiment in diplomacy without diplomats.

And you're absolutely right.

And, you know, Terry, I guess I would say that there are some upsides and downsides of this.

The most effective diplomats I've seen in four decades plus of covering this kind of thing for The New York Times is that the diplomats are viewed as having the confidence of the president.

And since all decisions in these affairs go straight to Donald Trump, they're not churning through the State Department bureaucracy or the National Security Council, which is now shrunken to a fourth of its previous size.

I think there are some in the Middle East who are perfectly happy dealing with Mr. Kushner,

And Mr. Witkoff, because they know they can get the president on the first ring and have great influence with him.

So that's the upside.

The second is they're true dealmakers.

As you point out, they both spent their life in real estate, not in diplomacy, and they are looking for compromise.

Now, in a case where you're just trying to get to the middle, that may make sense.

In a case like Ukraine...

or perhaps even Iran, where there are huge human rights issues at stake, that may not be an advantage because

in putting together a deal, any deal with the existing regime, they could end up actually propping up the regime.

Let's say diplomacy wins here, that they come to an agreement on the nuclear program or the nuclear program alone.

I think many of the protesters in the ground are going to say, what you've just done is help cement the current regime in place for another couple of years.

Thanks a lot.

Interesting question.

In the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, President Trump had this line where he said he wanted to praise the man who Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff report to.

Marco Rubio.

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