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Speaker 4: See it as shit. International anchor and host of The
Speaker 4: Amenpor Hour, Please welcome to the program, Christy on Ahmanpor Hello.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hi, I wanted to have you. Want to talk
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 4: The world is ending, well it seems that way.
Speaker 5: Yes, That's why the eclipse was so beautiful today because
Speaker 5: it looked like it was ending, and yet it brought
Speaker 5: so many people together in this incredibly divided country.
Speaker 3: Honestly was very emotional. It was very emotional.
Speaker 1: So just the answer to this is we just got
Speaker 1: to do this every day now? Yeah? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: can't we just protect people? Put something over it and
Speaker 1: just block it on there?
Speaker 4: What is happening? What is the frustration you're working over it?
Speaker 4: A what is the name CNN?
Speaker 3: CNN the big red letters? I've heard you know, really
Speaker 3: most trusted news.
Speaker 4: What that's a new brand? Let me ask you this.
Speaker 4: We see it on air and everybody's working so hard.
Speaker 4: What are the journalists behind the scenes talk about as
Speaker 4: their frustrations, What would they like to see covered, How
Speaker 4: would they like to see it covered, or are they
Speaker 4: executing it in the manner at which they think they're satisfied.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 5: You know, you've been talking a lot about Israel, obviously
Speaker 5: about Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Our major problem covering Israel.
Speaker 5: Gaza right now, this phase of it, which has been
Speaker 5: going on for six months, is that we can't get there.
Speaker 5: This is an unprecedented situation. Journalists are not on the
Speaker 5: ground in Gaza, and it is.
Speaker 1: Well, they're journalists on the ground there.
Speaker 3: You're right, You're right.
Speaker 5: I'm talking about independent Western journalists are not able together
Speaker 5: or anybody else, except for those people who are absolutely
Speaker 5: risking their lives every single day media workers, journalists. Almost
Speaker 5: one hundred have been killed according to the CPJ, in Gaza,
Speaker 5: West Bank and Lebanon in six months. It is an
Speaker 5: unprecedented situation and it goes beyond the horror of what's
Speaker 5: happened to those people and their families. It's about telling
Speaker 5: the story of Gaza, telling the story of the Palestinians.
Speaker 3: You know, actual local journalists would.
Speaker 5: Tell you about a people, right, a people, not just
Speaker 5: you know, dehumanizing numbers or.
Speaker 3: The like, but a people.
Speaker 5: And when we go to do our job, and I've
Speaker 5: been doing this pretty much since the first Golf War,
Speaker 5: we go there to be the eyes and ears of
Speaker 5: everybody who can't go from who's not a local.
Speaker 1: But we're not able to get this.
Speaker 4: That's an American problem, because it's greatly problem.
Speaker 3: They won't No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I don't mean that.
Speaker 4: I mean that we in this country might not be
Speaker 4: getting the information. But on social media, on various things,
Speaker 4: or with Al Jazeera, the world is certainly seeing a
Speaker 4: very different picture than what Western journalism is showing.
Speaker 3: That is very true.
Speaker 5: And you know, if this terrible law goes through to
Speaker 5: throw out any organization from Gaza, including Al Jazeera, it
Speaker 5: would be a terrible thing, yet another chilling effect on
Speaker 5: trying to tell the truth in this raging war. So
Speaker 5: this is a real, real problem, and it is true
Speaker 5: many people do get you know, daily news from social
Speaker 5: media from actually, as I say, the very brave camera
Speaker 5: people who are there with their phones and with their cameras,
Speaker 5: and we're feeding things.
Speaker 4: It is remarkable you were covering these types of events
Speaker 4: from nineteen eighty three. We all remember that was the
Speaker 4: occupation in southern Lebanon.
Speaker 3: It was right the Israelis invaded Beirut. They were after
Speaker 3: the PLO.
Speaker 4: And then there was eleven civil and the rise of
Speaker 4: Hesbal in that occupation, there was the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Speaker 4: We're watching these stories play out redundantly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there's two things.
Speaker 5: Obviously, one is that you know, history is not always
Speaker 5: a great teacher.
Speaker 3: But the other is that.
Speaker 5: You know, leadership matters, and we are in a crisis
Speaker 5: of leadership around the world, I genuinely believe. And even
Speaker 5: as bad as it was in the nineteen nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 5: in the eighties and all that, there was a period,
Speaker 5: let's say, in this part of the world, in the
Speaker 5: Middle East in the nineties, where there was.
Speaker 3: An actual peace process.
Speaker 5: Now we can pooh pooh it, we can laugh at it,
Speaker 5: we can say that it failed, but it failed because
Speaker 5: the people responsible for enacting it didn't do it and
Speaker 5: actually sabotaged it.
Speaker 3: So there have been instances.
Speaker 5: Where peace can be forged, where both sides can come
Speaker 5: together and it depends on the leaders, you know.
Speaker 4: But this will take more than both sides. This isn't
Speaker 4: even both sides. This will this will have to be
Speaker 4: a regional piece. Yeah, this is a grinding war with
Speaker 4: no real I mean the idea is what we're going
Speaker 4: to do this until we eliminate hamas well. So you're
Speaker 4: going to just kill everybody? Like what what does that?
Speaker 1: Even?
Speaker 3: Two? Is there two things? Right?
Speaker 5: Israel was attacked on October seventh, the worst single day
Speaker 5: massacre in its history, and it has the right to
Speaker 5: defend itself. But right the issue is you stay within
Speaker 5: the guidelines of international law. So now you heard, you know,
Speaker 5: America is getting very frustrated and concerned.
Speaker 3: We're very concerned.
Speaker 1: If Christian if true.
Speaker 6: You know, you know we aren't concerned, do you know.
Speaker 5: It reminded me of something that happened at the State
Speaker 5: Department during the Rwanda genocide when a journalist asked the
Speaker 5: State Department a spokesperson in nineteen ninety four, thirty years
Speaker 5: ago this week how the woman said there have been
Speaker 5: acts of genocide committed in Rwanda and the reporter said, well,
Speaker 5: how many acts of genocide does it take for you
Speaker 5: to call it a genocide, and she said, I'm not
Speaker 5: able to respond to that position you're taking.
Speaker 4: So, you know, a genocideologist, we have we have an
Speaker 4: issue with calling what's happening.
Speaker 3: Certainly back then.
Speaker 4: We have no issue roundly condemning or being very clear
Speaker 4: with our moral issues and the other side of it.
Speaker 4: This isn't about the ability to defend yourself. It's not
Speaker 4: even about the moral issue. It's about efficacy. It's about,
Speaker 4: you know, after nine to eleven, the vindictiveness in me,
Speaker 4: the bloodlet like it certainly rose up, but very clearly
Speaker 4: our response was flawed in its efficacy.
Speaker 1: We made a mistake.
Speaker 5: And you know that President Biden said that to Prime
Speaker 5: Ministerness and yeah, who when you went there, So did
Speaker 5: Lloyd Austin.
Speaker 3: So did many mistake.
Speaker 4: He was in a position to say that to America
Speaker 4: after nine to eleven, didn't say that. That's not the
Speaker 4: position that he took then, and the position was, yeah,
Speaker 4: let's go into a rhe's going to Afghanistan. You know, it's
Speaker 4: easy in that retrospect, which is why it feels as
Speaker 4: though the world order has failed in this moment and
Speaker 4: I'm surprised at and maybe this isn't really the case,
Speaker 4: and I'm misrepresenting this, but the passive nature of the
Speaker 4: Arab States, well.
Speaker 5: Look that is a big issue because they have now
Speaker 5: all rushed to make peace and certain accords with Israel.
Speaker 3: The UAE, Morocco, Saudi Arabia was apparently on the verge
Speaker 3: of doing it, still is working on it.
Speaker 5: And I actually have spoken to a lot of Arab
Speaker 5: leaders and I've said to them, look for all these years,
Speaker 5: since nineteen forty eight, when the Palestinians left the Nachbar,
Speaker 5: when they were forced out, when they were chased out,
Speaker 5: when they voluntarily left, all that what happened, and that's what.
Speaker 3: That's what Vagaza is right, the refugees from nineteen.
Speaker 5: Forty eight, When are you going to stand up also
Speaker 5: and take ownership of this problem? Because the Arab states
Speaker 5: have had Palestinian refugees for you know, pretty much seventy
Speaker 5: five our is and they've navigating them, I mean, has
Speaker 5: probably a larger citizenship.
Speaker 3: None of them have, because.
Speaker 1: Look, they're all terrified of hamasen has Bollot.
Speaker 4: The dirty little secret over there is the Islamists that
Speaker 4: they helped foster through Madrasas and all those other actions.
Speaker 4: They're scared shitless of They just are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they would like to see Hamas get a
Speaker 5: bloody nose, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: But people the leadest thing on.
Speaker 5: They don't want to count people for people think another thing,
Speaker 5: and the people are essentially very upset.
Speaker 3: The people in that part of the world and over
Speaker 3: the world are very very long.
Speaker 4: Tell me why this is naivel wrong that the Arab
Speaker 4: states form a DMZ to immediately de escalate this problem.
Speaker 4: How do they not step in and form some type
Speaker 4: of guarantee the security of Israel in that moment, guarantee
Speaker 4: the security of the palesting is and stop this carnage.
Speaker 5: So there've been certain plans floated at the moment, the
Speaker 5: Israeli government wants none of it. It doesn't want the UN,
Speaker 5: it doesn't want the Arab countries. The only thing that
Speaker 5: the Prime intery.
Speaker 4: Does it not see it's isolation in the world.
Speaker 5: That is what its allies are trying to tell it
Speaker 5: that you had the moral high ground and you are
Speaker 5: very close, if not having lost it. And this is
Speaker 5: a problem for Israel because the truth is, as all
Speaker 5: these people on my show tell me, all the you know,
Speaker 5: the experts and the analysts and the leaders that if
Speaker 5: this is actually isn't solved politically, then unfortunately, it will
Speaker 5: keep happening, this vicious cycle in.
Speaker 4: The future of this As you look at when you
Speaker 4: talked about leadership, then who is the leader that emerges.
Speaker 4: It's clearly not net Yahoo.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the Israeli situation is really interesting because
Speaker 5: you have two contrasting facts. The overwhelming majority of the
Speaker 5: country supports the war. They also want their first priority
Speaker 5: to be their families to come back. They need a
Speaker 5: ceasefire and you know, a deal to bring their families back.
Speaker 5: But the overwhelming majority of the Israelis do not support
Speaker 5: Benjaminett and Yahoo. So what the Americans are saying now
Speaker 5: and you sort of Senator Schumer and others that there
Speaker 5: has to be another election at some point, God forbid,
Speaker 5: we would.
Speaker 3: Be you know, meddling in another country. But nonetheless there
Speaker 3: has to be electionist by the way.
Speaker 1: That's against the rules based world order this thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then and then potentially hopefully open up another
Speaker 5: real possibility of a negotiated solution that's backed by the
Speaker 5: Arab States, as you mentioned, by the United States, by Europe,
Speaker 5: by all the vested.
Speaker 4: But why is this not the top priority of Why
Speaker 4: is this not the only session that's going on at
Speaker 4: the UN? Why is everybody not stopping whatever the hell
Speaker 4: they're doing and hammering this.
Speaker 5: Out, because as you know, the Security Council, there's a
Speaker 5: lot of people with vetos and things like that. It
Speaker 5: hasn't got to that point yet. And the big big
Speaker 5: issue right now is famine stalking Gaza and the told
Speaker 5: that's mounting and mounting and mounting. And you know, even
Speaker 5: Josey Andres, the chef who you know so well, after
Speaker 5: the killing of seven of his you know, workers, he said,
Speaker 5: I spoke to President Biden and I said, how can
Speaker 5: you also send weapons and also call for respecting life
Speaker 5: and the end of this famine. So there's so much
Speaker 5: that's just.
Speaker 4: And how can we only respond to this tragedy when
Speaker 4: it's seven Western aid workers that are killed. When you know,
Speaker 4: when I heard the figure of children over ten thousand unprecedent,
Speaker 4: I've never.
Speaker 1: Heard anything like that.
Speaker 3: Pictures, I mean, of.
Speaker 4: Course they're haunting and I'm listen for Jews. This is
Speaker 4: heartbreaking because you know, I don't necessarily have that much
Speaker 4: of a connection there, But there's this idea that like
Speaker 4: they're sticking it out for all of us because we're
Speaker 4: not safe anywhere in the world, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: if that's the issue, that's kind of a larger problem
Speaker 4: to begin with.
Speaker 5: I think for Israelis, for Jews, for Palestinians, right, crucial
Speaker 5: is that there has to be real leaders who come
Speaker 5: once and for all and create a piece. And the
Speaker 5: most important thing also is to be able to converse
Speaker 5: and discuss. There is nuance and diversity within communities that
Speaker 5: is not allowed.
Speaker 4: But why is that not allowed today?
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea and means what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: But you always you're always in the thicket.
Speaker 5: But I have all these diverse opinions on my program.
Speaker 3: That's what I try to do.
Speaker 5: I try to bring Israelis, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, all the
Speaker 5: interested parties in this particular conflict onto my program to
Speaker 5: talk people who've lost family members, whether it's in Israeli
Speaker 5: or a Palestinian.
Speaker 3: You know, people who've waged peace, who've tried.
Speaker 5: To wage peace, whether it's an Israeli mother or a
Speaker 5: Palestinian mother.
Speaker 3: I have them on my program.
Speaker 5: Young people who still believe in the peace process, even
Speaker 5: though it's evaporating before their eyes. They come onto the program,
Speaker 5: so there is hope. They have to be empowered, these people.
Speaker 4: And where's the discussion so much more robust in that
Speaker 4: part of the world. You know, it's always you can't
Speaker 4: talk about it in America, but you know where they
Speaker 4: talk about it Israel.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes they do, but to be fair, to be fair,
Speaker 5: they do. There's very robust arguments going on. But even
Speaker 5: they on their television are not seeing the full horror
Speaker 5: of the civilian.
Speaker 3: Casualties in Gaza. Is just not They're just not.
Speaker 5: So it's very traumatized, as you know. Relatives of the
Speaker 5: hostages tell me it's still a very traumatized society. And
Speaker 5: yet I promise you this incredible woman, Sharon Liftshire, she
Speaker 5: said to me, we Israeli. Sometimes the Arabs look at
Speaker 5: us as if we're all the same.
Speaker 3: We're not.
Speaker 5: And we cannot look at Palestinians as if they're all
Speaker 5: hamas they are not. And for a woman whose parents
Speaker 5: have been held hostage to be able to say that,
Speaker 5: and how we must make friends with our enemies otherwise
Speaker 5: we will keep dying.
Speaker 4: But we cannot keep putting the onus on these individuals
Speaker 4: that governments and nations have to step up and step
Speaker 4: in because it is all slipping away very rapidly.
Speaker 5: And Ukraine is the next one you have to do,
Speaker 5: because that's a big one. We cannot take our eye off.
Speaker 1: No, I thought that was fixed. I think that's I
Speaker 1: think you check.
Speaker 3: I think done, Speaker Johnson.
Speaker 4: Maybe I can't even tell you how many times I've
Speaker 4: called that. Let me let me tell us so, Speaker Johnson,
Speaker 4: they were doing. There's you know, the Afghan Adjustment Act
Speaker 4: where they're trying to bring in we were trying to
Speaker 4: help them get interpreters who helped American troops in Afghanistan,
Speaker 4: and it was going into this omnibus bill that was
Speaker 4: going to keep the government open. And I can't tell
Speaker 4: you how many times I called that office and left
Speaker 4: messages on them going, hey man, dur to the Daily Show,
Speaker 4: really just want to make sure that Afghan Adjustment next. Still,
Speaker 4: then we get some visas and all that, and and
Speaker 4: you know what he said when he called back, He
Speaker 4: didn't call back. You got me air Saturdays on CNN
Speaker 4: and I'm important company airs weeknights on PBS.
Speaker 1: Christian, I'm a poor thank you, so much. We're back
Speaker 1: to the Daily Show.
Speaker 4: My guest tonight a world renowned i'm best selling author.
Speaker 4: His new book is called Knife Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Please,
Speaker 4: welcome to the program, Salmon Rushdie.
Speaker 1: So nice to see you.
Speaker 6: Nice to see you.
Speaker 4: First question, obviously, how how are you? This was obviously
Speaker 4: a traumatic experience. How are you feeling?
Speaker 6: I'm okay, you know, I mean, surprisingly yes, But sometimes
Speaker 6: there are good surprises.
Speaker 1: This was one.
Speaker 6: I'm pretty much recovered, I.
Speaker 4: Have to say, and I know this, it's it sounds
Speaker 4: peculiar to say this because of the traumatic experience that
Speaker 4: you endured.
Speaker 1: I love this book.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's a beautiful work of introspection. I feel
Speaker 4: like I know now how your mind works. You know,
Speaker 4: I read other of your books, but you really do
Speaker 4: a wonderful job of taking us through how you think.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's weird how I think. I mean, I have
Speaker 6: this kind of free associating mind which goes from the
Speaker 6: moon to a movie, to a book, to a piece
Speaker 6: of mythology to a joke.
Speaker 4: I had to read this book with another book next
Speaker 4: to me to get just some of the references.
Speaker 1: It's but it's it allows you.
Speaker 4: You know, sometimes you read an author's memoir and there's
Speaker 4: a certain self consciousness to it.
Speaker 1: But maybe because this is.
Speaker 4: About a traumatic incident, I feel like your defenses were
Speaker 4: down and it was very revelatory.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean there's a subject, right, I mean, it's
Speaker 6: what I felt is that it's starts. There's a love
Speaker 6: story which turns into a murder story, which turns back
Speaker 6: into a love story.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: The love story, by the way, is with his wonderful wife, Eliza,
Speaker 4: who is really the hero maybe of the book.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, I mean she did a huge amount and I
Speaker 6: wouldn't be here in good shape without her. And plus
Speaker 6: she's an amazing writer. Right, is that too, I say,
Speaker 6: with a certain amount of gritted teeth.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: Is there a competition in writerly families?
Speaker 6: Not really. Actually, one of the nice things about this
Speaker 6: is there isn't rely enormously supportive of each other's wook.
Speaker 4: I thought a really interesting part of the book is
Speaker 4: spoiler alert at the end when.
Speaker 1: You go back to Chittaqua.
Speaker 4: Chataqua is the famed community in upstate New York where
Speaker 4: they bring in speakers and where.
Speaker 1: This unfortunate event happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you go back to revisit the scene of it,
Speaker 4: but also the jail where they are holding this person
Speaker 4: that attacked you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a last minute decision. We were actually
Speaker 6: on the plane flying up to because I had this
Speaker 6: desire to go and revisit the scene of the crime
Speaker 6: and show myself that I was standing up where I
Speaker 6: fell down. Sort of important for me. But then in
Speaker 6: the flight up there, I thought, che Talk was a
Speaker 6: really small town, and if he's in the county jail,
Speaker 6: how far is that from the institution, And it turned
Speaker 6: out it was like five minutes drive, so I thought, well,
Speaker 6: let's go to the jail.
Speaker 4: I just it blows my but you didn't have a
Speaker 4: desire necessarily to see this, and I just.
Speaker 6: Want to see the jail, but I don't you get there.
Speaker 6: It's a it's a really boring jail. It's a little
Speaker 6: cell block at a wall with some barbed wire. But
Speaker 6: I thought, you know, he's in there. I'm out here.
Speaker 6: It feels going And what happened is a weird thing happened.
Speaker 6: My feet started dancing.
Speaker 1: You were dancing.
Speaker 6: No, my feet were duds.
Speaker 1: But what does that look like?
Speaker 4: It's just shitting But the body stayed well, wife said,
Speaker 4: stop doing that. I can imagine this gentleman just glancing
Speaker 4: out the window for no apparent reason and going is
Speaker 4: that the guy.
Speaker 6: Like, yeah, he's dad said at the cop park.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 4: You know, you talk a lot about your thoughts about
Speaker 4: this gentleman and whether you wanted to confront him. There's
Speaker 4: actually a really wonderful section of it, almost like a
Speaker 4: Socratic litigation that you do in four parts.
Speaker 6: I make him up.
Speaker 4: You make him up, but you don't make him defenseless. No,
Speaker 4: the litigation that you and the dialogue that you have
Speaker 4: with him is challenging.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well I thought you you know, you've got to
Speaker 6: give the enemy an even break. If you're going to
Speaker 6: have a serious conversation, then it's can't just be me
Speaker 6: yetting get him, telling him what a bad person he is,
Speaker 6: which I think.
Speaker 1: Yes, but he wasn't.
Speaker 4: It makes you wonder about you know, you spent since
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty nine, this fatois is put upon you, and
Speaker 4: it's these fundamentalists, and these are religious extremists who have
Speaker 4: decided they're going to punish you for whatever their reasoning was.
Speaker 1: You righte though, that this gentleman is sort of.
Speaker 4: A copy of a copy of a copy of a
Speaker 4: copy of.
Speaker 6: That twenty four He wasn't even born right when this
Speaker 6: thing happened, and he, by his own account, had read
Speaker 6: nothing I'd written, and yet he was willing to commit murder.
Speaker 6: I mean that's stupid, yes.
Speaker 4: But it's I wonder if you think of it, does
Speaker 4: it strike you as a change in fundamentalism? You know,
Speaker 4: you say he was radicalized by iman YouTube, that he
Speaker 4: watched YouTube videos. And do you think this attack had
Speaker 4: more to do with like John Lennon's attack or with
Speaker 4: a religious attack.
Speaker 6: Well, I think it's I think in some ways it's
Speaker 6: a very American attack. Right, he spent four years in
Speaker 6: a basement playing video games and watching videos and it
Speaker 6: kind of messed with his head. And also, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean he's born and bred in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Slow down, I think I know where this is going.
Speaker 6: Well, then you know you're ahead of me. But you know,
Speaker 6: we live in in America where people kill each other
Speaker 6: every five minutes, right, you know, And I think maybe
Speaker 6: in his New Jersey brain.
Speaker 4: Yes, that is how we describe it as well. By
Speaker 4: the way, it's got that New Jersey brain exactly. Do
Speaker 4: you think that there is a shift. You know, we
Speaker 4: think of fundamentalism as primarily a religious artifact. Have the
Speaker 4: algorithms made fundamentalism something different from that?
Speaker 6: I think maybe they have. I mean too, I'm too
Speaker 6: old to know, really, because I don't. Algorithms don't know
Speaker 6: what to.
Speaker 1: Do with me, right, give them a chance.
Speaker 6: No, I do, but they don't know what to do.
Speaker 6: So I'm not algorithmically influenced. Right, But people are, people
Speaker 6: are all the time. And yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 6: he was. Something happened in him which made it possible
Speaker 6: for him to decide to murder a total stranger, right,
Speaker 6: And that has to be brainwashing of some kind, right,
Speaker 6: whatever you want to call it, but I call it brainwashing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: As I read the story, I started thinking, you know,
Speaker 4: we're so used to this idea.
Speaker 1: That of violence with a cause, this.
Speaker 4: Idea that these you know, there is something deep inside
Speaker 4: them that can almost be.
Speaker 1: Noble or understandable.
Speaker 4: This is not that it struck me more as more
Speaker 4: in common with the school shootings we see or the
Speaker 4: other things that you were just this thing he saw.
Speaker 6: And you know what's so strange about it is, first
Speaker 6: of all, he must have known that he was messing
Speaker 6: up his own life as well, right, you know, not
Speaker 6: just mine at twenty four. At twenty four, and you know,
Speaker 6: the last thing he did before he got on the
Speaker 6: bus from Fairview, New Jersey to Chautauqua. Last thing he
Speaker 6: did he canceled his gym membership.
Speaker 1: Because he knew that he had weights.
Speaker 3: He wasn't coming.
Speaker 6: He wasn't coming back, and why should he keep his
Speaker 6: starting order?
Speaker 4: Going wow, So he's going through it and going like,
Speaker 4: I don't need serious radio anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't exctly.
Speaker 4: So this was he suicidal or was he?
Speaker 6: I don't know. I mean, maybe we'll find out if whenever,
Speaker 6: if this trial happens, we might find out more about him.
Speaker 4: But do you dread something like that? Is that something
Speaker 4: that still visits you?
Speaker 6: No? I mean I think you know, if I they
Speaker 6: if they need me to testify, I'll go testify and
Speaker 6: I'll be in the court with him. But my view
Speaker 6: is he should be scared about being in the country
Speaker 6: with me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 4: Do you wonder sometimes you know, and this is not
Speaker 4: not not to get but you and I are both
Speaker 4: getting older, and you write a lot in the book
Speaker 4: about fran saddle Down. I was just on jury duty
Speaker 4: by the way. I don't have you saw picture of
Speaker 4: my doppelganger, but there is there's mortality. You write about
Speaker 4: Martin Amos and Paul Ausler and people that you've lost,
Speaker 4: even during the writing of this book, lost to esophageal cancer.
Speaker 4: You had a cancer scare in the middle of rehabilitation.
Speaker 6: In the middle of all this repair work. Suddenly apparently
Speaker 6: I might have prostate cancer. I thought that's not fair.
Speaker 4: No, well, you write, he writes, he goes to the doctor.
Speaker 1: Well you can tell.
Speaker 6: I mean I went to the doctor, and the examining
Speaker 6: your prostate is not fun.
Speaker 4: Again, speak for yourself. It's it depends on if you
Speaker 4: have a Jersey brain.
Speaker 6: Anyway, the first examination, they thought they found a bump
Speaker 6: on the prostate, and then I had to have an
Speaker 6: MRI scan. An MRI scan, you know, it grades from
Speaker 6: one to five, and five is really bad, and I
Speaker 6: came out at four. It said cancer probable. And then
Speaker 6: it turned out that it was not probable that it
Speaker 6: was had this bump on the had been caused by some.
Speaker 4: Other infection and a medicine that they had actually given you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly. And then a second doctor, the first doctor's boss,
Speaker 6: also examined by prostate more thoroughly.
Speaker 1: They lined up down the hallway. What are we doing here?
Speaker 6: No, this was very thorough and also even an Indian
Speaker 6: doctor was a fad of mine.
Speaker 4: Six nothing more uncomfortable than that extra thorough yes, and
Speaker 4: he said, no.
Speaker 6: I think this might be caused by this other infection.
Speaker 6: And so that to go back and have another MRI
Speaker 6: scout and it said one to five. It's one no concert.
Speaker 6: So I had concer for two months and then I didn't.
Speaker 4: It's so incredible because you face this as you write
Speaker 4: in the book this twenty seven seconds. It was just
Speaker 4: twenty seven seconds. And yet can't do you think about
Speaker 4: and pardon the question, but do you think does it
Speaker 4: matter how you die? As you watched your friends and
Speaker 4: you thought about your fate and your brush with mortality,
Speaker 4: and then to have this cancer scared, did it make
Speaker 4: you think it mattered how you die?
Speaker 6: Do you prefer not to?
Speaker 4: I've got some bad news.
Speaker 6: Its color for all you, bad news for all of us. Yes,
Speaker 6: but I mean I don't know. I've my wife Eliza,
Speaker 6: and I have decided to be planning our hundredth birthday, Pozzy,
Speaker 6: my hundredth births and I think it has to be
Speaker 6: a dance pozzy.
Speaker 4: Yes, so it tries just your feet, though not the
Speaker 4: whole boy.
Speaker 6: So we tried to decide who should DJ, and I'll
Speaker 6: pick somebody.
Speaker 4: But it strikes me because you, whether you've wanted this
Speaker 4: mantle or not, and I'm assuming you don't, you represent something.
Speaker 4: You represent a courage and a freedom of artistic expression,
Speaker 4: of the importance of artistic expression, and of the danger
Speaker 4: that artistic expression often visits upon the people who do it.
Speaker 4: It's a noble shield to carry, but not an easy one.
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not an easy one.
Speaker 6: And in a way, there's bits of me that would
Speaker 6: prefer to be well known for being good writer.
Speaker 4: Well, I have to tell you, I'm pretty sure that's
Speaker 4: in there too.
Speaker 1: Is that in that?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I see. But you know, it used to be
Speaker 6: when I started out as a writer, when people would
Speaker 6: write about my books, they would mention that they were funny.
Speaker 6: And then after the attack on the Satanic Verses, everybody
Speaker 6: stopped saying I was funny.
Speaker 4: Really, And because that book is satirical, it's it's it's
Speaker 4: and people.
Speaker 6: Who read it I get I get two reactions to
Speaker 6: read it now, One is where's the dirty bit because
Speaker 6: we can't find it? And the second is who knew
Speaker 6: it was funny? And I say, people who read it.
Speaker 4: But it's you know, with that on you do you
Speaker 4: feel there's an idea that that you have to wear
Speaker 4: that heroism.
Speaker 6: I don't know the heroism, but I think I have
Speaker 6: to be part of the fight, right, I mean, I
Speaker 6: mean there is a fight about free expression in America
Speaker 6: too at the moment, and I'm I'm I feel like
Speaker 6: I'm in that fight. I have a dog in that fight.
Speaker 4: What do you think that how that the nature of
Speaker 4: fundamentalism has changed, and how that affects artistic expression, Like
Speaker 4: even now when we see all the protests, you know
Speaker 4: up at Columbia University, some students protests as others think
Speaker 4: that's going too far and they're threatening people and we're
Speaker 4: crossing all those difficult lines. You spoke at the Penn Banquet, yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: last year, last year, which is a consortium of writers
Speaker 4: and poets and a lot of people truly defenders of
Speaker 4: free speech.
Speaker 1: I just got a text today.
Speaker 6: They've canceled, they've counseled the prize giving because they're people
Speaker 6: attacking them for not being sufficiently anti ISRAELI will Propellestinian
Speaker 6: or something. R I mean, everybody's so angry right now
Speaker 6: right that nobody can listen or talk to anybody else.
Speaker 6: So people have shouted each other listen.
Speaker 4: There was a critic, and this is going to sound
Speaker 4: like a joke, a critic of Taylor Swift's new music album,
Speaker 4: The Torture Post Society. They had to remove the critic's
Speaker 4: name from the critique because of death.
Speaker 6: Threats because he didn't like the record.
Speaker 4: I didn't read it because I love the wreck. Of course,
Speaker 4: I don't want to hear any negativity, but so do
Speaker 4: I jump But it speaks to in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 4: there was an Ayatola and a fatua and a group
Speaker 4: of religious muckety MUCKs who delivered the law from high above.
Speaker 1: And now we're all fundamentalists.
Speaker 6: Everybody's an expert, everybody's got an opinion, and hostility and hostility.
Speaker 6: The level of anger is crazy right now.
Speaker 4: Do you think of you know, you have a dog
Speaker 4: in the fight in that creative How do we and
Speaker 4: I think about this a lot, how do we manage that?
Speaker 4: And is that just a function of the algorithm?
Speaker 6: I might I think to an extent it is. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know. Frankly, I'm glad you asked,
Speaker 6: because I'm the answer, have the answer to the world's problems.
Speaker 4: It's actually on page if I exactly. But you are
Speaker 4: thoughtful enough and you've been through it enough that I
Speaker 4: know you have an opinion.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I just think people have to draw
Speaker 6: to stop having such thin skins. You know, at the moment,
Speaker 6: we're all very easily offended. And what's more is we
Speaker 6: also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for
Speaker 6: attacking something, right, But actually everything offends somebody always always,
Speaker 6: I mean occasionally you.
Speaker 1: What, how dare you? Sir? I am offended?
Speaker 6: You see? And then if you go down that road,
Speaker 6: then we can't talk to each other anymore, right.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: But having groups always had a way of policing language
Speaker 4: or behavior. I think I'm trying to sing. Has my
Speaker 4: perspective changed on it? Or has the dynamic Changeally.
Speaker 6: What's happened is the temperature has got arisen, right, I
Speaker 6: mean yes, of course, people bolways disagreed, and people bulways said,
Speaker 6: you can't say that, you've got to say this that
Speaker 6: that's not new. What's new is the volume and the heat, right,
Speaker 6: and so what do we do about taking down the
Speaker 6: volume and taking down the heat? That's the question.
Speaker 4: I mean, And again not to make you the avatar
Speaker 4: of this, but this is coming from a man who,
Speaker 4: because of threats from fundamentalists, had to basically alter your
Speaker 4: entire life.
Speaker 6: Well, it did certainly have an impact. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 6: mean what it's sad is that I've actually got my
Speaker 6: life back.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 6: I mean, I've been living in New York City for
Speaker 6: getting on for twenty five years.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, you had made a decision I'm going to
Speaker 4: come out of this and make myself.
Speaker 6: And for twenty three years it was fine, right, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, I you know, I mean I was doing
Speaker 6: everything that writers do, book tours, readings, lectures, you know.
Speaker 4: Oh, I know, I'm a writer, don't stop. I've been
Speaker 4: there with the coffee clotches.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And Oprah.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, well I haven't been with Oprah, none of
Speaker 6: us have. But anyway, so it was a shock when
Speaker 6: this thing out of a quarter of a century ago,
Speaker 6: more than that, thirty years ago, sort of came out
Speaker 6: of a crowd at me. You know, it was I
Speaker 6: really was very surprised.
Speaker 4: Do you find yourself now freedom that fear or is
Speaker 4: there still that PTSD?
Speaker 1: Like, what where's your What does that do to you?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean it doesn't, you know, nothing good. But
Speaker 6: it's now been well twenty months or something. I think
Speaker 6: I'm pretty much back to myself at this point.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like you're in that writing rhythm again?
Speaker 4: Has your mind started to dream again? Finish this And
Speaker 4: by the way, let me tell you something and I
Speaker 4: and we don't have people on where I don't either,
Speaker 4: you know, read it articular. It's such a beautiful and
Speaker 4: incredibly interesting and revelatory book. I really thank you for
Speaker 4: writing it because you had to endure something awful, but
Speaker 4: your insight into that experience is.
Speaker 1: Really a remarkable gift to give to other people.
Speaker 4: And I really do it's funny bits, a couple of
Speaker 4: funny bits for a writer, not for a for a writer.
Speaker 4: But it really is a fantastic piece of work, and
Speaker 4: I thank you for doing it. The book is called Knife.
Speaker 4: It is available as we speak. Some'm on rushing.
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