My guest tonight
is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist
who writes for The New Yorker
and is the author of the new book
War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy
and the Decline of American Influence.
Please welcome Ronan Farrow.
(cheering and applause)
-Hello. A pleasure to be here. -Welcome to the show.
You are an overachiever in the journalistic world.
So many people talk about all the stories
that you're breaking.
I mean, the #MeToo movement
was broken by your story.
Like, I mean, it's what sparked a movement.
Well, there were very brave women who were sources.
-There were great activists who preceded that. -Right.
But I'm honored to have been a conduit
for some of those stories. They were tough to tell.
They were tough to tell for the women involved.
They were also tough for you to tell as a journalist.
Like, we read all these stories about Harvey Weinstein
and these people that he was hiring,
and w-were you ever afraid?
Is that a point where you go like,
"Maybe I shouldn't break stories.
"I'm just gonna tweet ten most likely things
that people want to click on"?
I mean, I'll do that, too.
-Cat listicles are the future, guys. -Right.
But, uh, but it is true.
You know, look, there was intimidation.
There was a system designed to shut down these stories,
and that affected not just me,
but a whole range of brave journalists
going up against this thing.
And sure, like, the moment when you find yourself deciding,
"Do I go home tonight 'cause I'm getting staked out?"
And, like, if I do go home, I go in with my keys,
and I'm, like, looking under the bed
-and pulling back the shower curtain. -Right.
It's like, "Okay, either I'm crazy
or actually the story is stranger than fiction."
And, as it turns out, what we were able to break
is he was hiring, you know, former Mossad agents,
-combat-ready operatives -Right.
that were, in fact, following people around
using false identities.
The news that you just broke today, for instance,
or that just broke today,
is a story of how the Trump administration
was secretly hiring an Israeli team of spies
to dig up dirt on people who worked on the Iran deal.
-Is that correct? -In fact, the same Israeli spies
from a firm called Black Cube.
The same as the Harvey Weinstein?
That Harvey Weinstein hired.
Uh, and in some cases
using the same false identities and front companies
that I heard from
when I was getting stalked by-by these guys.
Wait, so, explain to me just a little bit of the details.
So, they were hiring these people
not to undermine the deal itself,
but to undermine the people who put the deal together. Why?
So, that's the surprising part of this.
These are policy wonks, you know?
These are Obama advisors.
And, you know, we don't have all the answers yet.
But sources close to this and documents that we obtained
at The New Yorker show very clearly
there was a seemingly political in focus, uh,
operation designed to smear them,
seemingly all connected to their work on the 2015 Iran deal.
It's interesting, because this sounds less like a story
you would hear in a first world country
or a country that claims to be pro-democracy
than you would in a country that's totalitarian.
You talk about this in the book, War on Peace:
The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence,
it really speaks to, in a way,
what's happening with the Iran deal.
It seems like Trump and his people do not care
about the diplomacy that America conducts in the world.
It's now just become war or no war, talking or no talking.
Why do you think that's happened?
Yeah, these stories all connect.
Look, these are individuals fighting desperately
to save a deal because they believe
if we unilaterally, as a nation, back out of the Iran deal--
for all its imperfections, it's worked in its narrow goal
-of containing them for a time-- -Right.
and if we back out, their fear is it drives a wedge between us
and our allies and it potentially sends a message
to North Korea and other rogue states
that we don't want to be sending,
that they shouldn't come to the table.
And, as you suggest, this is all connected.
-They are getting smeared and intimidated. -Right.
It's in a context, as I outline in War on Peace,
where their profession is in danger,
where people who make our deals and negotiate
and hopefully secure, uh, options
for addressing conflicts around the world
that don't involve going in guns blazing,
uh, they are under attack.
They are getting fired en masse.
People don't understand what they do anymore.
-Right. -And more and more, that work is being outsourced
to the military, to our spies, to the intelligence community.
That's interesting, because you-you spoke
to every living secretary of state
and you spoke about how America's diplomacy
has been on the decline.
This isn't something that started with Trump,
but it may be accelerating now.
Is this a sustainable way
to conduct one's self i-in the world,
where it is military first, diplomacy second?
Well, what I chronicle in War on Peace is,
in place after place, when we sabotage opportunities
for political settlements and peaceful ways out
and we go in shooting first,
it-it really comes back to haunt us, Trevor.
Uh, again and again, we see situations
where we end up lying down with warlords and strongmen
and unsavory characters, and then we have no leverage
over them, because we have fired all of the diplomats
-who could negotiate and play hardball in that way. -Right.
And if you... if you look at the current situation,
there are countries where America doesn't have a diplomat
right now, there are countries where there is no one handling
that high-level negotiation.
What happens in that... in that case?
Yeah. So you're exactly right.
This is happening to a new extreme right now.
Uh, Donald Trump has unceremoniously fired,
basically, you know, ambassadors across the world,
uh, assistant secretaries that run some
-of the most sensitive regions in the world. -Right.
So we have an-an understaffed, unmanned diplomatic operation.
There is precedent for this before.
We've seen other administrations,
Democratic and Republican, sort of sideline diplomats
-and see how disaster it is... disastrous it is. -Right.
But this is new, in terms of what an extreme it i-is.
And when you look at the consequences,
we see, uh, situations where there are active opportunities
to make peace and we just give them up.
We see situations where you could bring people
to the table, potentially, and spare brave servicemen
and women going into the line of fire and we give those up.
It's a real problem.
And-and I'd also point out,
for people who kind of don't want to think
about those high-level talks,
these are also the people that screen
dangerous interlopers from coming into the United States,
-that stamp your passports, -Right, right, right.
that, uh, save you if you're kidnapped abroad.
This is unglamorous work, but it's lifesaving.
It's lifesaving, it's integral, and it's currently crumbling.
It's a fascinating book. You're a fascinating man.
-Thank you so much for being on the show. -Thank you, Trevor.
-Pleasure to be here. -I really appreciate it.
War on Peace is available now.
Ronan Farrow, everybody.