What Everyone Gets Wrong About Iran, with Clarissa Ward and Lyse Doucet (Part One)(Part One)

Summary

Intelligence Squared – “What Everyone Gets Wrong About Iran”
With Clarissa Ward and Lyse Doucet (Part One)
Date: July 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This insightful live conversation, hosted by Lyse Doucet with CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward, explores the misinformation, complexity, and misunderstood realities surrounding Iran and the recent war involving the country. Drawing from frontline reporting and deep regional expertise, Ward and Doucet discuss the destabilizing effects of conflict, media challenges in today’s digital landscape, and personal reflections on the costs—both human and professional—of global wars and journalistic decline.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Declining Trust, Shifting Media Landscape

• Trust in Institutions and Media: The episode begins by acknowledging a world marked by declining trust in established institutions and mainstream journalism, alongside the erosion of the post-1945 world order.
• Rise of Social and AI-driven News: Lyse Doucet references a recent Reuters Institute study showing over half of people now get their news from social media or AI rather than traditional outlets (05:45).
• Journalism in Crisis: Ward expresses concern over journalism’s existential crisis, compounded by AI deepfakes and public confusion about what is real—“The level of expertise and sophistication with these images and videos being manipulated using tools of AI has literally driven this man to the point where he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and has moved to Vermont because he can't handle it anymore.” (04:40, Clarissa Ward)

2. Reporting from Crisis Zones: DRC and Ebola

• Assignment to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): Ward recounts her experiences covering Ebola in DRC—an underreported story surrounded by severe misinformation.
  • Misinformation about Ebola: Local and international misunderstandings about its transmission were widespread.
  • Suspicion of Western Intervention: Some Congolese believed Ebola outbreaks were perpetuated for Westerners’ profit—“A lot of people on the ground are convinced that it's western aid workers who are profiting from what they call it, the Ebola business...” (11:00, Clarissa Ward)
  • Barriers to Coverage: Bureaucracy and access issues make reporting from DRC especially challenging (13:49).

3. The War with Iran: Misunderstandings, Motives & Realities

• Challenges of On-the-Ground Reporting: Ward details her decision to report from Iraqi Kurdistan rather than Iran or Israel, due to access and dynamics at the border—“I thought that at least if I went to Iraqi Kurdistan, I could be right at the border if, God forbid, you were going to see some kind of a mass exodus...” (18:55, Clarissa Ward)
• Kurdish Uprising Plan: Ward reveals intelligence plans to arm Kurdish groups to spark an uprising in Iran, insightfully critiquing the idea’s feasibility:
  • “Through some excellent digging from my US colleagues, [we found that] the CIA had already entered into a plan to arm the Kurds... which would then result in the overthrowing of the regime... We were like, this is the craziest idea I have ever heard.” (21:44, Clarissa Ward)
  • This was traced to Israeli/Mossad strategizing, with phase one focused on destabilization but lacking a coherent phase three.

4. Western (Mis)conceptions about Iran and Strategy

• Faulty Assumptions about Regime Collapse: The US administration and allies believed that killing Iran’s Supreme Leader would cause the regime to collapse rapidly—“The idea that once you assassinate the Supreme Leader... then the regime would collapse like a house of cards...” (24:59, Lise Doucet)
• What Actually Happened: Iran absorbed enormous losses but survived and even used the war to strengthen regional leverage (e.g., Strait of Hormuz).
  • “When you look at Iran taking on two armies that are conventionally superior to fight to a stalemate is a pretty good result.” (26:27, Clarissa Ward)
• Impact on US Politics: Ward discusses the domestic fallout, highlighting that the war is unpopular even among Trump’s base and that it has created divisions and undermined isolationist campaign promises.

5. The Deal-Making Fallacy and Political Spin

• New Nuclear Deal Realism: Skepticism about the feasibility of negotiating a new arms agreement within 60 days is voiced, noting the complexity of the original JCPOA—“The idea that we're going to magically come up with a new agreement in less than 60 days... I'll buy everyone a drink if it doesn't get extended.” (28:35, Clarissa Ward)

6. Journalism Under Attack: Safety, Gender, and Trust

• Weaponized Rhetoric Against Journalists: Ward and Doucet reflect on President Trump’s overtly hostile rhetoric, especially toward female journalists (31:01).
  • “He called the Bloomberg reporter piggy. Shut up, Piggy. I mean, are you kidding me?” (31:01, Clarissa Ward)
  • The conversation pivots to the spillover effects on global press safety: “I honestly think that part of that is a trickle down effect of basically just declaring to the world, do what you want with journalists. They're terrible people. They're liars.” (32:20, Clarissa Ward)
• Dealing with Abuse and Misinformation: Ward shares her strategies for handling online abuse and staying out of information silos (33:36).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• AI Deepfakes & Journalism’s Crisis

  • “There is a huge amount of disruption. There is a real lack of clarity as to where this all goes... I have very deep concerns about... this industry in a moment of protracted decline... existential.”
    — Clarissa Ward (03:10)
  • “The level of expertise and sophistication with these images and videos being manipulated using tools of AI has literally driven this man to the point where he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown...”
    — Clarissa Ward (04:40)

• On Western Fantasies for Regime Change

  • “We were like, this is the craziest idea I have ever heard...”
    — Clarissa Ward (21:44)
  • “It was just about massive destabilization. Like, the Israelis just wanted to see Iran fundamentally destabilized.”
    — Clarissa Ward (24:23)

• On Journalism’s Precarity

  • “There's never been a more difficult or dangerous time to be a journalist, depending on where you are. And even if you are privileged enough to be a journalist here in the UK or in the US, it's incredibly challenging.”
    — Clarissa Ward (32:55)
  • “[Trump] weaponizes our journalism.”
    — Lise Doucet (30:45)

• On the Consequence of Political Narratives

  • “We're no longer talking about the details of the Iran deal. We're talking about what ridiculous insult the President... has just lobbed at some journalist who is just doing their job. And not only that, I really think... when you look back to the first Trump administration and everybody was kind of reeling as we understood just how different this presidency was going to be... I understood in that moment that this was going to have a huge impact on our work. But not to the extent that I see so clearly now.”
    — Clarissa Ward (31:01)

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Introduction & Trust in Journalism: 01:21 – 05:45
• AI Deepfakes and the Challenges of Truth: 03:10 – 05:45
• Field Reporting in DRC/Ebola Outbreak: 07:40 – 13:49
• Personal and Local Misconceptions about Ebola: 10:58 – 12:43
• Decision Making in Conflict Reporting: 13:12 – 13:49
• The Iranian War – On-the-ground Reporting: 17:39 – 23:00
• CIA/Mossad Kurd Plan Revealed: 21:41 – 24:23
• US/Israeli Strategy and Misconceptions: 24:02 – 26:27
• Iran’s Survival & Consequences: 26:07 – 28:35
• Deal-making Skepticism/Journos Under Attack: 28:35 – 34:10
• Abuse/Bullying of Female Journalists: 30:44 – 34:10

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Conclusion

This episode foregrounds the complex realities beneath simplistic media narratives about Iran, the fragility of truth in an age of deepfakes and social media, and the escalating dangers—including gendered attacks—facing journalists worldwide. Clarissa Ward’s firsthand experiences expose the layers of misinformation, miscalculation, and the persistent human cost of conflagrations too often misunderstood from afar.

Transcript

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18

[Mia Sorrenti]

welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm senior producer Mia Sorrenti. What happens when the world order begins to break down? Today's episode is part one of our recent live event with CNN's Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward. Ward joined us at Conway hall as part of Our World in 2026 series to discuss the human cost of war and a rapidly changing world order. Drawing on her reporting from the front lines of conflicts across the Middle East, Ukraine and beyond, Ward reflects on the escalating war involving Iran and the wider forces reshaping global politics. She also what conflict means for civilians caught in its path and what it costs in human terms when international order begins to unravel. Let's join our host Lise Doucet now live at Conway Hall.

[Lise Doucet]

I have to say it's a great honor to be here with you Clarissa, a friend and fellow traveler. Please welcome Clarissa Ward. Do you know with you I always I think of that Johnny Cash song I Been everywhere man, all around. I mean when there's. I suppose that's the job that we do. Wherever something is happening, we have to be there. And I think I speak for all of us. We meet at such an extraordinary time we're told that trust in institutions is declining, Trust in traditional journalism is declining, that the post1945 world order is over. Artificial intelligence is about to take over our job jobs. The rules of war are being violated every day. How are you, Clarissa?

[Clarissa Ward]

Honestly, I am exhausted. I'm full. My heart is full to see so many of you who have turned out here despite the football, and also to be on stage with Lise, who, in addition to being a friend and fellow traveler, is really one of my great journalistic heroines. And can we just get a round of applause for winning the women's prize for her book, the Finest Hotel in Kabul? If you haven't read it, you really must. But, no, listen, I think we're living through unprecedented times. I really believe that what we are witnessing is the beginning of, or actually, perhaps we are now well underway with the great unraveling. And there is a huge amount of disruption. There is a real lack of clarity as to where this all goes. As a mother, honestly, I have real concerns about the world that my boys are growing up in. And as a journalist, I have very deep concerns about the fact that this industry is in a moment of protracted decline and is challenged in ways that I think will create opportunities, but is also potentially existential. And not to bum everyone out to the point where you all were like, okay, let's leave. But I read this article yesterday in the New York Times about this professor who has made a career out of being the expert in AI deepfakes. He can look at any video you throw his way, and he can tell you it's real, it's not real. And someone gave him a video during the war in Iran of a Tomahawk missile landing in the school in Manab where more than 165 children were killed. And he spent days and days and days and days looking at this video and analyzing it a thousand different ways. And he could not confidently say whether or not it could potentially have been doctored. He was leaning towards thinking it was real. And by the way, I'm not saying for a second that he was casting doubt on whether the Americans were responsible, but just the level of expertise and sophistication with these images and videos being manipulated using tools of AI has literally driven this man to the point where he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and has moved to Vermont because he can't handle it anymore. Okay? And some days I dream about moving to Vermont.

[Lise Doucet]

I'm not gonna lie. Vermont would love you. And also, I think it was last week the Reuters Institute published a study, it's a digital report. And they said that the first time since 2015 that the dial has moved, that more people, 54%, are getting their news from social media. Different social media platforms from AI rather than from traditional media. The kind of media that you and I do, that they now call mainstream media, msm, which is of course is not a compliment. Just so we know who's out there, how many of you still do? Okay, you got BBC and cnn. We're not going to take sides. You don't have to tell us which one you're watching. How many of you still watch, listen or follow the BBC and cnn?

[Clarissa Ward]

Well, I think this is a self selecting group though.

[Lise Doucet]

How many of you tell the truth when you're asked a question about. But how many of you are increasingly also going to YouTube or Instagram or even artificial intelligence? Okay. And I am too, but with your permission, tonight, what we're going to do is we like to think we were part of the golden days of journalists. And I'm really glad you dressed in gold tonight to make that.

[Clarissa Ward]

Can I also just say really quickly because I know there's some people who are here who are at an event I was at last night. I am wearing the same outfit. I'm not going to apologize for it because it's from Zara and it's new and I really like it. Yes, I did just want to put that out there.

[Lise Doucet]

Princess Catherine makes a virtue of wearing the same outfit more than you.

[Clarissa Ward]

Yes, thank you.

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[Lise Doucet]

Yes, yes. So we're going to go through a bit, some of the stories that Clarissa's covered recently. And then about 8 o' clock I'm going to turn to you so you have a bit of time to think about only excellent questions, please. Very high bar.

[Clarissa Ward]

Ideally, questions that aren't going to get me fired.

[Lise Doucet]

Yes, just that's for the agency. There's no chance of that. And then at about 8:15 we'll open it up because it's really good because I'm sure it should be a conversation. And we're so often we broadcast with the audiences out there and it's a real chance to discuss with our audience and it is a real treat to speak with Clarissa. Those of you who watch your Instagram, you'll notice she's got a whole wall of Emmys and various other awards that she's won. She's also won the National Press Club's Fourth Estate Award and she is also an author on all fronts, the education of a journalist. Sad we don't have any of the books here tonight, but you'll get an email saying that if you haven't already bought the book, that you can still buy it. So let's start with your last assignment was to the Democratic Republic of Congo, drc, the resurgence of Ebola. And this is to a country which hasn't been in the news. It's really dropped off the radar, even though, sadly, at a time when the rules of war are being violated, they're being violated on an industrial scale. In the DRC, you traveled with the head of the whole. Dr. Tedros. What was going through your mind? Because it took a long drive to get there and a lot of taking preparations. So you yourself and your team weren't at risk.

[Clarissa Ward]

Yeah. So this is a story. I don't cover a huge amount of global health stories. And so I actually really welcomed the opportunity because as journalists, it's really nice when we cover stories that we don't cover all the time. And we're learning a ton with every single moment and researching like crazy. And everybody, of course, was saying to me, oh, are you sure? Even my husband. You really think this is wise? We have children. This is crazy. It's dangerous. And what that reveals is the enormous amount of misinformation out there about Ebola, and particularly about how Ebola is contracted. It's actually very difficult to contract Ebola for a number of reasons. I won't get into too much of it, but just to give you the brief, first of all, even if you have the virus, if it's incubating within you, if you are not symptomatic, you are not contagious. So unless you are literally shivering, fever, body ache, vomiting, and a bunch of other horrific side effects, you are not contagious. Secondly, it's not airborne. And you would see the minute I arrived in the sort of area, the Ituri province, which is the epicenter, people wearing masks. Well, a mask is not going to help you with Ebola because someone can be standing next to you. And as long as you don't touch them, and as long as they don't spit on you or cough on you or something, you're not going to get Ebola from breathing the same air that they are breathing. So then when you do go into the red zones, into these areas that are direct exposure to Ebola, if you're fortunate enough to go in with professionals, as I did from an amazing NGO called Alima, you are wearing an inordinate amount. I mean, truly, onerous amount of PPE protective equipment. So the risks. Well, of course they're there. They are nowhere near what you would think they might be.

[Lise Doucet]

Because a lot of people messaged you.

[Clarissa Ward]

Oh, people the whole time, what are you doing there? What are you doing? This is crazy. Like, why aren't you wearing a mask all the time? Why aren't you wearing a mask? And it just was interesting. It was also very interesting talking to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and particularly in Bunyan Mong Bualu and some of these areas which are at the epicenter. The amount of misinformation that is out there about how the virus can be contracted, but also who is responsible for. For the virus. A lot of people on the ground are convinced that it's western aid workers who are profiting from what they call it, the Ebola business. And they believe that if you go to a hospital when you get sick, that you will not come out alive. And so there is a push among not everybody, but certain elements of the community not to go to hospitals to seek out traditional medicine. There are literally signs everywhere that the government has put up saying ebola is not a result of sorcery, and you shouldn't go and seek out a traditional healer and you should go to the hospital and listen. We've seen during COVID 19, that very quickly, when you have an epidemic or an outbreak like this and you have that level of panic and misinformation and where even scientists are, like, really playing catch up. Because, by the way, this Ebola outbreak began at least six weeks before it was declared an outbreak because it was a different strain and the testing kits didn't work and 100 other reasons. But all of which is to say it was a real education in terms of better understanding some of the misinformation around covering an outbreak.

[Lise Doucet]

Let's bring people into kind of the thinking that goes on. Because people often say to me, oh, how do you decide what stories you're going to do? Is it you or your editor? When the invitation came, and I'm assuming it was to travel with Dr. Tedros, who's been really good actually, at raising the flag and trying to alert the world to this crisis, what went through your mind? Why did you want to go? Was it because it was an undercovered story? Was it because it was a different kind of story? It's not the war in Iran or the war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine. What was it?

[Clarissa Ward]

I mean, there's definitely an element of that is a different kind of story. And after this year, which has been pretty intense, I felt like doing something a bit different. Also. I have always wanted to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo. I have pitched repeatedly to go to the drc. It's very expensive to get there. It's complex and so I haven't been able to make it happen. I wanted to go obviously when we saw M23 and pushing into Goma and decades of conflict and, and so many things.

[Lise Doucet]

Rwanda back, although Rwanda denies.

[Clarissa Ward]

Yeah, so for many reasons I've been wanting to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo. And this seemed like a way to be able to get there. Although then it quickly became clear that it's very difficult to get accreditation visas. There's like an insane amount of bureaucracy, particularly if you want to go to the red zone, so to speak. So, yeah, then you basically start working out who's the Minister of Communications in the drc, who's the Minister of Health in the drc, who can we message, who can we call? Who has experience covering this? And it's just endless, endless hours, as you well know of days of phone conversations, research, trying to push and prod, trying not to lose your mind when you fill in the feedback 59th form that seems to be the exact same as the other 58, but for different people.

[Lise Doucet]

I love the way you said. Even my husband was worried. People might say takes a lot. My husband was worried.

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[Lise Doucet]

Then let's talk about the war which has been dominating our headlines. It has been taking up the attention of a lot of journalists and it is a war which is impacting everyone. It's impacting all of us here in this room. The price of petrol at the pumps, the price of food in your refrigerator. The farmers are worried of what they're planting. And, and we understand in a resort in Switzerland on Friday, a framework of understanding or a framework of misunderstanding is going to be signed between Iran and the United States. Let's go back to February 28th, when it all began. You rushed, as many journalists did, to the Kurdistan area of Iraq. So to be on the border, we get back to the thinking at the time. Because let's go to that that night where in the middle of the night, as is often the case, President Trump releases an eight minute video where he outlines what he's going to achieve. He wants to. He wants to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon. He wants to tackle the ballistic missile program. He wants the security forces to rise up. And when the war is over, the people of Iran have to seize their institutions, take their country back. Take their country back. It would be the best chance in a generation. What was your thinking at the time? Why go to Kurdistan and what did you expect to happen?

[Clarissa Ward]

Yeah, I think the first choice optimally would have been Iran. And Lisa is very fortunate to have been to Iran a number of times recently as well. I have not been since 2019, despite my best efforts. So understanding that I could not go to Iran, the next place that a lot of people thought to go to was Israel because it was clear that the Israelis were partners with the US in this attack and that there was going to be a lot of missiles going reciprocally back into Israel as a result. I had done the 12 day war in Israel the year before and I felt like that that was not exactly the heart of the story that I was trying to get at or wanting to get at. And so I thought that at least if I went to Iraqi Kurdistan, I could be right at the border if, God forbid, you were going to see some kind of a mass exodus of Iranians trying to leave Iran. Also I thought it's an interesting place just because there's a very sort of tenuous dynamic with part of Iraqi Kurdistan being very close to the US and part of it being quite close to Iran. And also they were getting smacked too by drones and by missiles as well. So we went there and arrived in the middle of the night and it was very chaotic already. Like half of the airport was on fire. We couldn't actually fly in there. We had to fly to Turkey and then drive for like eight hours or something. And then the next day after being there and we had to keep moving hotels because they all these US military personnel who were staying in hotels because they had been moved off of bases where they had been stationed. So now a lot of these Iran backed militias in Iraq were targeting any hotel with Westerners in them because they assumed that all of us were US military personnel of some sort of. And then the day after we arrived, I had this extraordinary meeting with a group of Iranian Kurds which I thought was going to be not terribly eventful, but interesting and important, get their perspective. And what do you think and where is this going? And this man just told me like, oh no, we're going to go in, we're going to go into Iran. And I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, you know, we're going in, it's all arranged. You can be at the tip of the spear if you'd like. And I was like, I don't think so, but I'd love to hear more about this.

[Lise Doucet]

You were thinking, Yes, I was thinking

[Clarissa Ward]

like, we're all going to die. And so we have this extraordinary conversation. I call my colleagues in D.C. and I'm like, I just had the weirdest conversation ever. And sure enough, it turns out, and through some excellent digging from my US colleagues, that the CIA had already entered into a plan to arm the Kurds with a view that they would then somehow magically go into the Kurdish areas in Iran and foment an uprising, which would then result in the overthrowing of the regime. Now, for all of us who have spent a lot of time covering the Kurds fighting in Syria, in Iraq and other places, and who have spent a lot of time in the region, sure, you had the same thing. We were like, this is the craziest idea I have ever heard.

[Lise Doucet]

And history repeating itself and history repeating

[Clarissa Ward]

itself and then dropping on. It was just being used and used and used and used, and I literally couldn't believe it. Anyway, I won't get into all the details, but the one interesting takeaway, that when I did more digging on it, what transpired? That this was really the Israelis plan. This was a Mossad plan, and this was how. This was their idea for phase two. So phase one was basically like, you blow everything up. And we did see that they had blown out a nice hole along the border with these Kurdish areas. Phase two was you let in these Kurdish. Iranian militant groups. And then I don't know what phase three was, because, frankly, phase two was going to be problematic on so many different levels and was going to probably backfire in terms of, like, how people in Iran were going to feel. Not to mention the fact there were 10 different Iranian Kurdish groups inside Iraq at the time with different ideologies. They managed to put together a coalition with six of them. Some of them were communists, some of them were not communists. I mean, there were a lot of problems with this whole scheme. And then one day, Trump, one day he was like, it's beautiful an idea, and what a great idea. And then the next day he was like, no, we're not doing it. And the Israelis were livid because that was their phase two.

[Lise Doucet]

They thought it was a soft underbelly of the regime because of all the different opposition groups in Iran. The Kurds have been very well organized, and they had some kind of a structure that actually come together and formed a group. And it would be the idea, as you said, that would be the tip of the spear. They'd go in and they would start the resistance against the regime, bringing it down sort of region by region. It was the best place to start. Yeah.

[Clarissa Ward]

And I think it was less focused even on how do we get there. Exactly. And what's the. No, it was just about massive destabilization. Like, the Israelis just wanted to see Iran fundamentally destabilized. And I think President Trump, at that stage, and I don't have this, is speculative. I think he could already see the writing on the wall that a lot of things were maybe not shaking out quite as he had thought. And certainly the American public weren't like, wow, we love this war. They were like, why is gas so expensive? And, yeah, so there was, like, a recalibration.

[Lise Doucet]

I mean, journalists now are writing what we call the first rough draft of history. But even now, what happened with the Kurds and the misunderstandings and the missteps, the mistakes, is just one of many, many. For example, the idea that once you assassinate the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which happened on the first day of the war, along with security chiefs, then the regime would collapse like a house of cards, and that Iran would be defeated militarily. As President Trump kept saying, we have destroyed Iran's military and the Navy 100%. And then with the 0% that Iran still had, they were able, in this asymmetric war, to keep fighting back. And so where we are now, if you could just bring us into the thinking about how you feel this is being viewed in the United States, because it's clear that Iran didn't just survive. It's coming out. It believes it's stronger, but it is operationally. The US And Israel did inflict a lot of damage militarily and economically.

[Clarissa Ward]

Absolutely.

[Lise Doucet]

But Iran did more than survived. It took the gift of geography and the gift of the war to take over the Strait of Hormuz, and it still has military capabilities. So how would you cast this where we are now as we in the. On the. Just as they're about to do the signing and it seems, move to the second phase of intended.

[Clarissa Ward]

I think, you know, I think the fact that we're being told to celebrate the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is going to reopen when it was always open before, that was never a thing that Jeannie was not out of the bottle. Pandora's box was still closed, whatever the metaphor is. And now that that's been introduced, hello, who needs nukes, right? I mean, and I think also when you look at Iran taking on two armies that are conventionally superior to fight to a stalemate is a pretty good result. I think that some of the kind of rhetoric around this is a massive victory for Iran is probably overblown, because I do think there has been a huge amount of damage incurred. But the biggest takeaway, I think, is how damaging this has been for President Trump in the US and what the impact will be in the midterm elections. Because it's not a popular war. And it's not a popular war even among many in his base, because, I mean, everybody here already knows this. But, like, President Trump ran on a pretty isolationist agenda, right? We're not doing the forever wars anymore. We're not going to just go and invade countries and spend billions and get bogged down. Like, that's just. We're just not interested. We're going to make America great again. While gas prices have been at record highs, inflation has been huge. And I don't think he's ever really been able to effectively articulate to the American people why exactly they need to be on board and support this war. And even within traditional supporters of President Trump, I'm thinking of, like, the Tucker Carlsons, a narrative has emerged that basically this war was just all about, like, doing Israel's bidding, which has created its own kind of dynamic in the US And a kind of disruptive political dynamic within the US and it certainly hasn't helped President Trump in terms of him trying to frame this as a victory. And now the really hard work starts, Liz. And I mean, you know this better than most because you covered the JCPOA so closely, and it took a year and a half, and it was more than 100 pages, and there were hundreds of experts, and every hotel in Geneva was booked. So now they've got 60 days to actually work out the agreement. And what does that look like? And anyone with any level of knowledge will concede that there were some serious flaws or, you know, issues with the Obama agreement. However, the idea that we're going to magically come up with a new agreement in less than 60 days, although it can be extended by mutual agreement. And remember that, because I'll buy everyone a drink if it doesn't get extended. Okay? And so maybe they're just going to keep punting this into the long grass, at least until the midterms are over, because it's going to be super hard for President Trump once he actually has a written plan to make it a bigger success than the jcpoa, which, of course, he dismissed as, like, a disaster.

[Lise Doucet]

And he will continue to repeat that because. Doing what? Because one of the main reasons why he pulled out of the what was a landmark multilateral arms control agreement in 2015, a huge achievement of diplomacy, as you say. It wasn't perfect, but it certainly Iran respected It, it didn't enrich uranium beyond 3.67%. It was only after President Trump pulled out. But he will continue to say it was a bad deal. It was the worst deal in history, this Obama deal. So he will continue to spin it. And this is what we'll hear now around what's happening Friday and afterwards. It was much better than what Obama did, much better than what sleepy Joe Biden did. But. And if journalists dare to challenge that, they will get dismissed and mocked and humiliated.

[Clarissa Ward]

Especially if they're women.

[Lise Doucet]

Yes, especially so for cnn, we see, you know, the press conferences. Your Caitlin Collins in Washington. Washington, not only is this a complex situation, but it's hard to cover it in Trump time for journalists because he actually weaponizes our journalism.

[Clarissa Ward]

It's, I think, especially for my colleagues in the US and you think especially women? I definitely think especially women. I mean, if you listen to the greatest hits of what President Trump has said to female journalists. I mean, he called the Bloomberg reporter piggy. Shut up, Piggy. I mean, are you kidding me? Kaitlin Collins, you're so beautiful. Why don't you ever smile? You used to be conservative from Alabama. And she was like, I'm still from Alabama, sir. And I was like, that's my girl. But I mean, it goes on and on and on and on. It's never ending. And the problem is, honestly, Liz, and I'm sure you find it's all such a distraction and that's what it is, it's grand obfuscation. Right, because we're no longer talking about the details of the Iran deal. We're talking about what ridiculous insult the President of the United States of America has just lobbed at some journalist who is just doing their job. And not only that, I really think, you know, when you look back to the first Trump administration and everybody was kind of reeling as we understood just how different this presidency was going to be. And we were being called like literally like ludenpresse, right, the lying press, an enemy of the people. And I understood in that moment that this was going to have a huge impact on our work. But not to the extent that I see so clearly now. And when I look at journalists being killed in all over the world, in Gaza, in Lebanon, I honestly think that part of that is a trickle down effect of basically just declaring to the world, do what you want with journalists. They're terrible people. They're liars.

[Lise Doucet]

Fake news.

[Clarissa Ward]

It's fake news and they're the enemy. And guess what? There's plenty of people around the world who are hearing that and they're like, noted, noted. We can do what we want to journalists. There's never been a more difficult or dangerous time to be a journalist, depending on where you are. And even if you are privileged enough to be a journalist here in the UK or in the us, it's incredibly challenging. There is a huge amount of mistrust, of abuse, of bullying online and the economics of the industry are just, just in perpetual decline. And how do you deal with it?

[Lise Doucet]

Do you block, mute?

[Clarissa Ward]

I try not to block and mute because the problem with blocking and muting is that we all end up in our silos. And so I really try not to do that. I also try not to read the comments that much. Sometimes I have to look at them because people will say such crazy things that if you don't remove them, like you could actually be traumatizing someone. So I will, like on my personal page I'll have like a cursory glance and just make sure no one said something like truly evil.

[Lise Doucet]

But they do say, they do say. They do say nice, nice things to you.

[Clarissa Ward]

Oh, they say lovely things.

[Lise Doucet]

I'm sure everyone here is.

[Clarissa Ward]

But by the way, that's all a distraction too. Like all of it is noise and a distraction.

[Mia Sorrenti]

Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by Connor Boyle and it was edited by Mark Roberts. For ad free episodes and full length recordings, you can become a [e-mail] membership and if you'd like to join us at future live events, you can find our full program and buy tickets [e-mail] attend. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.

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