Podcast Summary: Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files

Episode: Iran talks, Trump's election interference & ICE 'thuggery'
Date: February 3, 2026
Host: Christiane Amanpour
Guest: Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Episode Overview

In this episode, Christiane Amanpour, renowned international journalist, connects from Australia with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks for a candid, deeply informed conversation. They dissect breaking global headlines—especially US-Iran tensions and election unrest at home—while reflecting on their reporting roots and life’s personal turns. With searing honesty, the show connects the dots between authoritarianism abroad and its echoes within America, exploring the human costs, the media’s role, and how nations like Australia resist division.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Iran Tactics: Diplomacy or Pressure?

• Amanpour unpacks Trump's shifting Iran policy (03:00–08:10):
  • The US is sending an armada to the Persian Gulf, with unclear objectives: is it regime change, nuclear negotiations, or something else?
  • Trump's son-in-law and aides meeting Iranian officials in Istanbul signals a renewed diplomatic push, but trust is low after violent crackdowns and recent US-Israeli-Iranian conflict.
  • Quote:

    “It’s very difficult now to negotiate with the Trump administration because there is blood spilt between us... The so called 12 day war of bombing between Israel, Iran and the United States in June killed people in Iran, officials, civilians and others…”
    — Christiane Amanpour (05:55)

• Question of US intervention in other countries (e.g., Venezuela):
  • Trump’s removal of Maduro yet leaving his regime in place is cited as a cautionary tale for Iranians hoping for US-backed democracy.

2. US Democratic Crisis: ICE ‘Thuggery’ and Election Fears

• Erosion of American norms:
  • Amanpour and Brooks compare the US (notably the ICE crackdown in Minnesota) to authoritarian regimes:

    “It looks like masked thugs on the street dragging children from school gates and shooting ICU nurses multiple times in the street. This is not the America that we believed in...”
    — Geraldine Brooks (12:05)

• Public Backlash & Political Realignment
  • Even conservatives are distancing themselves from Trump’s policies after high-profile violence:

    “You’ve got real conservative politicians even in Florida saying, you know, this is not the kind of, you know, immigration policy that even we want to see…”
    — Amanpour (13:58)

  • Analyzed video footage contradicts Homeland Security’s narrative of supposed “domestic terrorists.”
  • Judges halt deportations of young children amid growing protests.
• Emotional Reaction:

  “It doesn’t make me scared, it just makes me disgusted. It was the most fascistic otherizing I have heard, honestly, and I do not say this lightly, since the propaganda of Nazi Germany.”
  — Geraldine Brooks (18:10, referencing Stephen Miller’s rhetoric)

3. Media’s Role: Murdoch’s Propaganda Machine

• Media complicity in division:
  • Fox News and other Murdoch-owned outlets (in the US and Australia) are condemned for echoing Trump’s line, distorting the truth, and fueling polarization:

    “That news organization is a propaganda arm of Trump in the United States. And here of the right wing, we... are very familiar with his tactics...”
    — Geraldine Brooks (19:37)

  • Contrasts The Wall Street Journal's accountability journalism with Fox News’ influence.
• Stephen Miller’s speech, compared to Nazi Germany:
  • Brooks urges all to “watch it and weep”—the White House is embracing dangerous ‘us vs. them’ rhetoric (21:11).

4. Australia’s Choice: Rejecting Division

• Mandatory Voting and Political Moderation
  • Australia’s system is lauded for preventing the niche targeting and polarization seen in US politics.
• Rejection of Trump-style division:
  • The opposition leader’s attempt to copy Trump’s playbook failed resoundingly in recent Australian elections:

    “He even lost his seat in Parliament. His career was ended. And I think we were all surprised at the vehemence with which Australia rejected that politics of division.”
    — Geraldine Brooks (23:53)

• Public Acknowledgement of Indigenous Guardianship:
  • Amanpour is struck by Australia’s tradition of acknowledging traditional custodians of the land at public events, a gesture lacking in the US and elsewhere (08:17–11:14).

5. Personal Reflections: Reporting in Patriarchal, Authoritarian Contexts

• Covering Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War era (25:36–29:16):
  • Brooks and Amanpour trade stories of misogyny, hypocrisy, and restricted freedoms in Saudi Arabia—drawing sharp parallels to authoritarian and militarized policing at home in the US.
  • Anecdote: Brooks describes a Saudi official condemning female journalists on TV but entertaining them lavishly behind closed doors (26:23).

6. Geopolitics: The US Losing Allies & China’s Rise

• US alienates global partners:
  • Trump’s disparaging speeches at international summits, lack of reliable alliances.
• China’s ascendance:
  • Brooks shares an anecdote (31:35) about a biotech entrepreneur relocating from the US to China due to attacks on academic institutions and destabilized research climate.

7. Literature, Grief, & Healing

• On Writing “March” — dealing with war, idealism, and trauma:
  • Brooks reveals she wrote from the perspective of the absent father in Little Women to engage with themes of idealism tested by war, shaped by her own and her late husband’s experience covering global conflict (32:14–34:40).
• Personal loss and “Memorial Days”:
  • Brooks gives a moving account (35:18–37:56) of losing her husband Tony Horowitz, bureaucratic obstacles to grief, and how she found solace through writing in isolation on Flinders Island.
  • Memorable Moment:

    “Suddenly the light bulb went off that you’re a writer, you should write, because writing can be medicinal.”
    — Geraldine Brooks (36:26)

8. Recommendations

• Geraldine Brooks:
  • Recommends “a bushwalk” in Australian wilderness for reconnection with nature and self (39:42–41:07):

    “I particularly love to get out into nature…there’s something in human beings that is meant to be in wilderness…”
    — Geraldine Brooks (40:20)

• Christiane Amanpour:
  • Recommends Brooks’ novel March and nature documentaries by David Attenborough.

Notable Quotes

• On ICE violence:

  “It was like watching schoolboy bullies on steroids. And it’s just indefensible... I was wondering what it was going to take for Americans to really say enough. And it seems like this might have just been the thing.”
  — Geraldine Brooks (15:20)

• On Murdoch media:

  “He has taken what was a once great national newspaper…[and] every day it is a relentless propaganda sheet…They are fighting that [climate change] tooth and nail. They’re totally in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.”
  — Geraldine Brooks (19:37)

• On otherizing and propaganda:

  “It was the most fascistic otherizing I have heard…since the propaganda of Nazi Germany…this is the voice in Trump’s ear every day.”
  — Geraldine Brooks (21:11)

• On authoritarian echoes:

  “What we thought was over there…is right now here…in the United States.”
  — Christiane Amanpour (17:49)

• On healing and nature:

  “There’s something that you can restore to yourself if you can find the time to get out in nature.”
  — Geraldine Brooks (41:00)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:08–08:15: Opening: Iran, US intervention, and election threats
• 08:17–13:27: Australia’s approach to First Nations, US race and violence crisis, ICE crackdowns
• 13:27–18:34: Backlash to ICE violence, role of conservatism
• 18:34–21:45: Media’s distortion, Murdoch and Fox News
• 21:45–24:07: Australian elections reject Trumpism
• 25:36–29:21: Reporting in Saudi Arabia, gender, hypocrisy
• 29:21–31:35: Geopolitics: US alliances, China’s rise
• 32:14–34:40: Brooks’ novel “March” and war’s wounds
• 35:18–37:56: Processing grief, “Memorial Days”
• 39:42–41:07: Recommendations: bushwalks, nature, books

Tone & Style

• Candid, world-weary, urgent.
• Wry, sharp, sometimes acerbic humor.
• Personal and deeply empathetic.
• Rich in specific, insider anecdotes and historical parallels.

For Further Listening/Reading

• March by Geraldine Brooks
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
• David Attenborough’s nature documentaries
• Wall Street Journal reporting on the Trump administration