Strike First, Explain Never

Summary

Podcast Summary: Radio Atlantic – "Strike First, Explain Never"

Date: October 30, 2025
Host: Hanna Rosin
Featured Guest: Nancy Youssef (Atlantic staff writer, national security)
Other Voices: Senator Mark Kelly, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Rand Paul, Admiral Alvin Halsey

---

Overview: Main Theme and Purpose

This episode of Radio Atlantic unpacks the recent and controversial U.S. military strikes against boats in the Caribbean, purportedly as part of the Trump administration’s effort to stem the flow of fentanyl into the country. The discussion, led by Hanna Rosin and national security writer Nancy Youssef, interrogates the factual basis, legal justification, and broader strategic and democratic implications of these acts. The episode serves as an attempt to clarify a rapidly evolving situation marked by military escalation, a press clampdown, and an apparent shift in how the U.S. understands (and deploys) military power.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Strikes: What, Where, and Why (00:37 – 04:38)

• U.S. military strikes began September 2nd on boats leaving Venezuela, killing at least 60 people across 14 vessels, with justifications tied to anti-fentanyl and anti-narco terrorism efforts.

• Official explanation:

  • The administration claims the boats are involved in drug trafficking, specifically carrying fentanyl.

• Skepticism and contradictions:

  • Fentanyl doesn’t enter U.S. through the Caribbean:
    “According to the DEA and DHS, most of the fentanyl trafficked into the US comes from Mexico… despite what Trump says about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, fentanyl does not come through the Caribbean.” (Hanna Rosen, 01:47)
  • The targeted boats also appear to be small fishing vessels, unlikely to make it to the U.S.

• Lack of transparency:

  • There are no clear answers on who was on the boats, why these particular boats were targeted, or what intelligence justified their destruction.

2. Military Escalation: Arrival of the Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier (03:19 – 04:38)

• Deployment significance:

  • The USS Gerald Ford, the largest aircraft carrier globally, was deployed to waters off Venezuela, signaling potential escalation from boat strikes to possible land strikes.
  • “By early next week [we’ll have] more ships than we've had since the Cuban missile crisis.” (Nancy Youssef, 03:42)

• Message vs. Action:

  • While such deployments are sometimes mere “messaging,” the lack of recent precedent in the Caribbean raises expectations of actual military action.

3. Political and Policy Underpinnings (04:38 – 06:34)

• The Trump administration’s motivations straddle anti-drug, anti-Maduro (regime change), and anti-immigration objectives.

• No comprehensive policy speech has clarified the real drivers behind the strikes.

• Senator Marco Rubio:
  “Maduro regime is not a government. It's not a legitimate government... they are a criminal enterprise...” (Marco Rubio, 05:26)

• Anti-immigration perspective:

  • Administration figures see destabilization in Venezuela as a key source of migration toward the U.S., blending drug war and migration control rationales.

4. Unusual Use of Military Force and Shifting Language (06:34 – 09:55)

• Lack of due process:

  • No evidence the destroyed boats presented an imminent threat justifying military force over law enforcement means.
  • “Isn't this the equivalent of, say, a police officer sees someone dealing drugs and kills them?” (Hanna, 09:07)
  • Nancy Youssef: “In some ways, yes, because there's no due process in all this.” (09:20)

• Change in language:

  • Shift from “criminal” to “terrorist” or “combatant” rhetoric justifies extraordinary action.
  • Most prior anti-drug activities were law enforcement operations, not military interventions.

5. Press Restrictions and Information Vacuum (09:55 – 12:42)

• Pentagon restricts reporters:

  • New rules force journalists to sign agreements not to publish unapproved or “potentially threatening” (even unclassified) information.
  • Most of the press corps walked out in protest:
    “To sign that would be to say, we're no longer journalists, but stenographers.” (Nancy Youssef, 10:10)

• Culture of fear:

  • Pentagon employees now fear repercussions for talking to press; there are no press conferences; all information is controlled and often delivered only via official tweets.
  • “Reporting to me is being in a very large room with a very small flashlight ... the app aperture has shrunk.” (Nancy Youssef, 11:36)

6. Pushback and Congressional Dissent (12:42 – 15:12)

• Military resignation:

  • Admiral Alvin Halsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command, resigned a year early after clashes over the legality of the strikes.
    • “...it's been an honor to serve, but he didn't say why he was retiring.” (Admiral Halsey, 14:02)

• Congressional concern:

  • Senator Rand Paul and others raise alarm about legality:
    "You cannot have a policy where you just allege that someone is guilty of something and then kill them.” (Rand Paul, 14:21)
  • “If one out of four of the boats don't have drugs on them, what kind of person would justify blowing up people when one out of four boats may well not have drugs on them?” (Rand Paul, 14:29)

• No successful Congressional intervention yet:

  • Objection votes failed to pass; behind closed doors, tension remains high.

7. Context: U.S. Intervention in "America's Backyard" (15:12 – 15:42)

• Familiar history:
  • The U.S. has a long if controversial track record in Central and South America.
  • Scale and force posture in this case stand out as unprecedented.

8. Strategic Possibilities and Risks of Escalation (15:55 – 18:51)

• Range of U.S. options:
  • Minimal action: show of force only.
  • Possible actions: air/sea strikes on shore, campaign against cartel infrastructure, but not likely a ground invasion.
  • Analogy to the campaign against Houthis in Yemen, or U.S. airstrikes on Iranian sites.
  • Primary apparent goal among regime change advocates (e.g., Marco Rubio) is to generate enough pressure for defections in Venezuelan leadership, as seen (unsuccessfully) in 2019.
  • Risk: Internal instability reminiscent of post-Gaddafi Libya, should the regime fall without a plan for unified governance.

9. The Military’s Changing Role at Home—And Abroad (18:51 – 21:38)

• Testing new uses of the military:

  • Military was also deployed recently in U.S. cities and National Guard in D.C. (suggesting a trend).
  • Nancy Youssef:
    “What has made the United States so unique is it's a large, powerful force designed to protect the United States from external threats... Now we're seeing a military that is more inwardly directed, or at least more directed towards this hemisphere.” (19:23)
  • Worry that the military is becoming “less representative of the American public” due to leadership signals on diversity, and departures of minority and female officers.

• A fundamental shift in civil-military relations:

  • “It portends of a force that looks less like a representative of the American public and more like a representative of those who support the president.” (Nancy Youssef, 20:36–20:54)
  • Hanna: “That is a real fundamental shift ... do you think of yourself as potentially covering a fundamentally different military than you did at the start of your career?”
  • Nancy: “Yes. Because how can you not when you're seeing it deployed in such a different way?” (21:13)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Nancy Youssef on information blackout:
  “Reporting to me is being in a very large room with a very small flashlight. And you're just trying to figure out what am I seeing and what can I take from it? And to me, the app aperture has shrunk.” (11:36)

• Senator Rand Paul questioning legality:
  “You cannot have a policy where you just allege that someone is guilty of something and then kill them...” (14:21)

• Comparison to police violence:
  “Isn't this the equivalent of, say, a police officer sees someone dealing drugs and kills them?” (Hanna Rosin, 09:07)

• On military shift:
  “It portends of a force that looks less like a representative of the American public and more like a representative of those who support the president.” (Nancy Youssef, 20:36–20:54)

---

Timestamps for Crucial Segments

• Breaking News and Start of Strikes (00:37 – 01:16)
• Skepticism Over Fentanyl Claims (01:47 – 02:15)
• Aircraft Carrier Deployment & Military Escalation (03:19 – 04:38)
• Administration Motivations & Venn Diagram (04:38 – 06:34)
• Questioning Legality and Lack of Information (06:34 – 09:55)
• Pentagon Press Restrictions (09:55 – 12:42)
• Military and Congressional Dissent (13:34 – 15:12)
• History and Scale of U.S. Interventions (15:12 – 15:55)
• Potential for Further Escalation (16:06 – 18:51)
• Changing Military Role Domestically and Abroad (18:51 – 21:38)

---

Conclusion

This episode scrutinizes a potentially game-changing use of U.S. military power in the Western Hemisphere, not only for its facts and legality but for what it might portend about the broader relationship between the military, American society, and democratic oversight. Through tight reporting and pointed questions, Rosin and Youssef illuminate a story as much about missing information and broken norms as about missiles and boats, urging listeners to consider whether a new chapter in U.S. civil-military relations is underway.

Transcript

[Bank of America Announcer]

You're cut from a different cloth. And with bank of America Private bank, you have an entire team tailored to your needs, with wealth and business strategies built for the biggest ambitions like yours. Whatever your passion, unlock more powerful [e-mail] what would you like the power to do? Bank of America official Bank of the FIFA World Cup 2026 bank of America Private bank is a division of bank of America, NA member, FDIC and a wholly owned subsidiary of bank of America Corporation.

[News Anchor]

We come on the air tonight with breaking news. The US has launched a military strike against a boat in the Caribbean, killing 11 people on board.

[Nancy Youssef]

So starting on September 2, the United States started striking boats in international waters as they were leaving Venezuela.

[News Anchor]

The President says the boat was part of a cartel operation carrying drugs from Venezuela and heading right towards the US.

[Nancy Youssef]

The way the United States justified it is that they said these are narco terrorists that pose a threat to the United States, that the way to combat the fentanyl overdose problem in the United States is to take out the source of it, which is these boats.

[Hanna Rosen]

This is Atlantic staff writer Nancy Youssef, who covers national security.

[Nancy Youssef]

The problem is we don't know who are on these boats, why these boats versus others are being targeted, what was on those boats. In addition, fentanyl doesn't come from that part of the Caribbean.

[News Anchor]

We want to keep fentanyl out of the United States. And I don't know how widely known this is, but those routes through the Caribbean are predominantly used to bring cocaine to Europe.

[Hanna Rosen]

That was Senator Mark Kelly and he's right. According to the DEA and dhs, most of the fentanyl trafficked into the US comes from Mexico. And the boats that we've seen sunk, they look like small fishing vessels that would struggle to make the thousand mile journey to the US despite what Trump says about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, fentanyl does not come through the Caribbean. So why is the Trump administration killing.

[Nancy Youssef]

People over it if fentanyl is not coming from there? And you've declared that that is the problem drug, and the boats can't reach the United States. I'm having a hard time understanding what legal justification there is. I'm not saying you have to let them all go, but to use military action to put that threat down rather than using the law enforcement measure, that's what I'm having a hard time from. The use of military force should be exceptional and should be for threats to the country and should be for threats that we as a country agree need to be Addressed with militarily. To me, none of those standards have been met here.

[Hanna Rosen]

I'm Hanna Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. Since the strikes began two months ago, the US has blown up at least 14 boats and killed almost 60 people. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the largest aircraft carrier in the world, the USS Gerald Ford, to waters off Venezuela. And now Trump is talking about striking targets on land.

[Rand Paul]

Something very serious is going to happen, the equivalent of what's happening by sea. And we're going to Congress just to tell them what we're doing.

[Hanna Rosen]

Nancy, there have already been a number of boat strikes in the Caribbean. So why is the arrival of this aircraft carrier significant?

[Nancy Youssef]

The arrival of the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group essentially allows the United States to potentially strike ashore.

[Hanna Rosen]

So.

[Nancy Youssef]

So we'll have by early next week more ships than we've had since the Cuban missile crisis. The carrier strike group is particularly notable because we only have 11. And so when the US commits one to the region, it really signals something about its commitment to either support an ally or for potential military action.

[Hanna Rosen]

Got it. So it's a message. And it could be just a message, or it could be more than a message.

[Nancy Youssef]

Yeah, I mean, the reason we're all thinking it would be more is because we haven't seen a carrier strike group in that region in such a long time. So I'll give you an example. One place where we often see the carrier sent as messaging is in the Middle east, where the US Will send it as a form of, for example, deterrence message to Iran or to show support for Israel when it faces potential threats. So I think there's more expectation that something will happen in the Caribbean because we haven't had one there in so long.

[Hanna Rosen]

Okay, got it. But to step back. Why is the Trump administration doing this in the first place? If fentanyl isn't coming into the US From Venezuela, but for Mexico, why are these boat strikes even happening?

[Nancy Youssef]

So I think of this as a Venn diagram where the strikes kind of are in the middle. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long supported the Venezuelan opposition groups and seen Maduro as authoritarian, as a tyrant who has been unwilling to leave, and that the US should be supporting that opposition to bringing democratic reforms to Venezuela as a potential means to not only stabilize Venezuela, but potentially reshape parts of the region.

[Marco Rubio]

Maduro regime is not a government. It's not a legitimate government. We've never recognized them as such. They are a criminal enterprise that basically has taken control of national territory.

[Nancy Youssef]

I think Stephen Miller sees this as an anti immigration measure, and that if you can stem the instability in Venezuela, you can stop the flow of migrants. The President has signaled, first of all, his particular frustration with Maduro dating back to his first term, and that he wants to see the military used in a more law enforcement kind of way. And so in the middle are those strikes. And I think there's an overall feeling that if the US Strikes boats, even boats that might not pose a preeminent threat to the United States, that others will see it and it'll be a form of deterrence. So I think that's what's going on. But having said that, we haven't had like a policy speech, we haven't had a press conference at the DoD to answer these questions. So we're trying to put pieces of this opaque puzzle together to kind of figure out what's happening.

[Hanna Rosen]

I want to break this down. There are two separate questions. One is, do we know if these are drug boats or fishing boats? Like, do you feel certain about that? Does anybody feel certain about that?

[Nancy Youssef]

And the short answer is no. We have tried to find relatives of those who've been killed to get a sense of who they are. The President of Colombia said that one of them was only carrying a fisherman. We don't know. Is it possible some of these boats are carrying fishermen who decide to sort of take a shipment to sort of make extra money? We just don't know. The US Says that it has intelligence that it's been tracking these boats for a long period of time. But again, without any specifics, it's very hard to say anything for certain because we don't have names, we don't have any details about why these boats are being struck. And so you can sort of see large cargo on these boats sometimes, but certainly not enough to make a solid determination that they pose an imminent threat. So much so that they required a US Military strike rather than an interdiction or other response.

[Hanna Rosen]

Okay, so there's a question mark over. Are they drug boats or fishing boats? Whether they're drug boats or fishing boats, how unusual are these kinds of military strikes?

[Nancy Youssef]

I would describe them as unusual. The US in the past, when they have faced these kinds of boats coming, let's assume they're drug boats. When they've seen drug boats that they think pose a threat to the United States, it has been treated as a law enforcement issue. What is happening here is that the United States is taking lethal strikes on these boats in international waters and saying that this demands military action, that this poses an imminent threat to US national security requiring military intervention rather than law enforcement intervention. And really using a lot of the same language that we heard in reference to the global war on terror, rather than criminals are being described as terrorists, for example, they're combatants. They're not drug traffickers. There's been a lot of change in language, and that's important because I think those who have questions about it would note that Al Qaeda, isis, some of these terror groups that we heard about for so years, stated that their mission was to destroy the United States, whereas those trafficking drugs have not indicated that that is their aim. What they have indicated is that they want financial benefit. Their aims are not ideological, they're financial.

[Hanna Rosen]

I mean, I see what you're saying about the language being important, because if they are drug traffickers, maybe this metaphor is too blunt. Isn't this the equivalent of, say, a police officer sees someone dealing drugs and kills them?

[Nancy Youssef]

In some ways, yes, because there's no due process in all this. I don't know why that person had to be killed with a military strike. I don't even know what kind of strike is being conducted. I don't know why this requires a sizable portion of the United States Navy assets in the region. I don't understand why this is such a threat that we're pulling resources away from support for our allies, for example, and we're not getting answers to those questions. And Congress isn't getting answers to those questions. And so if you believe that the authorization for war has to come from Congress, or at least they have to be notified, that's not happened here.

[Hanna Rosen]

You mentioned an absence of information. We don't really know who's on these boats. We don't have a lot of information. This is also coming at a time when the Pentagon has barred reporters. Can you tell us about that change?

[Nancy Youssef]

The Pentagon is a unique place for reporters. People think of the Pentagon as this big building of, like, war planning and everything else, which I guess it is. But really it's an office building. There's a CVS there, there's a Popeyes there, there's a Taco Bell there, there's a shoe shine. There's a dry cleaners. It's a little mini city and filled with offices, hundreds, if not thousands of doors in that building. And we, as reporters, because of the way the building was sort of physically configured, were allowed to walk anywhere in the hallways of that building, and obviously not in secure spaces. And we'd done so since it opened in 1943. The current Secretary of defense decided that if we wanted to continue to be able to report from that building. We had to sign rules that said that we would not ask for information or publish anything that was not approved by the department and that we would agree that any information, even unclassified information that was published, could pose a potential national security threat. And so the majority, the vast majority of the press corps decided that they couldn't sign that, because to sign that would be to say, we're no longer journalists, but stenographers. It's not our job to simply report what the department wants us to report. And so we all walked out collectively. The intersection with Venezuela is. It is much, much, much harder for us to get basic information. And we're all feeling it in the sense that there's been excellent journalism since then.

[Hanna Rosen]

But.

[Nancy Youssef]

But it's been harder to get answers to basic questions because it's not just that we're not allowed in the building, but there is a climate of fear in that building. People are afraid to talk. The Secretary has threatened or polygraphed top officers and created a sense that there's real repercussions for engaging with the press. And so at a time when we're seeing a real ramp up of the US Military presence in the Caribbean Sea, we can't get information. There are no press conferences that are held. We're learning about things like the deployment of the USS Gerald Ford by tweet. And there was no opportunity to ask a follow up question. When does the Ford get there? Why is it going there? Why this carrier? Will it be followed up by other carriers? How long will it be there? What is the mission? There's no opportunity to ask those questions. And so it's made it much harder to provide the American public the kind of answers to the questions that you're asking. You know, reporting to me is being in a very large room with a very small flashlight. And you're just trying to figure out what am I seeing and what can I take from it? And to me, the app aperture has shrunk.

[Hanna Rosen]

So the administration is using the military in new and unusual ways and limiting the press's ability to track that. Is anyone pushing back? That's after the break. To summarize, the US Is killing people in seemingly extralegal ways. They're using the military in situations where they used to use law enforcement. That's unusual and we're not sure how far they can stretch that. At the same time, there's a vacuum of information. Is there any debate or dissent? Nancy, what do you know about members of Congress or people inside the military questioning these actions?

[Nancy Youssef]

Well, we do have some indications of frustration. I'll start with the military. Then on the Hill, Admiral Alvin Halsey, who is the commander of U.S. southern Command, which is responsible for all military operations in that region, unexpectedly submitted his resignation one year into what was supposed to be a three year job. We know based on our own reporting, there had been tense conversations between him and his civilian leadership about these strikes and some of the legal questions around them.

[Admiral Alvin Halsey]

In a statement, Admiral Halsey said, it's been an honor to serve, but he didn't say why he was retiring. It comes just after President Trump floated the idea of strikes against cartels inside Venezuela and that he authorized covert action there.

[Nancy Youssef]

On the Hill, we've seen a growing number of Republicans express concern. I think Rand Paul's been one of the most vocal.

[Rand Paul]

You cannot have a policy where you just allege that someone is guilty of.

[Nancy Youssef]

Something and then kill them, raising questions about the legality of these strikes.

[Rand Paul]

We interdict ships all the time off the coast of Miami, off the coast of California. And the Coast Guard statistics say that about 25% of the boats that we stop to search don't have any drugs. So if one out of four of the boats don't have drugs on them, you know, what kind of person would justify blowing up people when one out of four boats may well not have drugs on them?

[Nancy Youssef]

We know that there's a quite a tense meeting between a top Pentagon lawyer and the Senate Armed Services Committee in which even Republicans were getting frustrated because they couldn't get specific answers. There was a vote recently to sort of indicate Congress's objections to these strikes that did not pass. So we know that there are concerns.

[Hanna Rosen]

Nancy, this isn't the first time that the US has policed Central and South America. You know the term America's backyard. So this setup is somewhat familiar.

[Nancy Youssef]

We haven't done it with this kind of forced posture. We've done things like training and I mean, we've done things, don't get me wrong. And by the way, our interventions haven't always gone so great.

[Hanna Rosen]

Right. It's a very spotty history of intervention in Central and South America, but it's a familiar history.

[Nancy Youssef]

Yeah. What stuns me is the size and scale of it. The US Administration's stated goal of moving away from forced posture in other parts of the world towards the hemisphere also has me thinking about it in these terms.

[Hanna Rosen]

And what are the options for engagement? Like, what do you see as totally outside the possibility and what seems in the Realm of the plausible in terms of escalation.

[Nancy Youssef]

So the most minimal engagement would be none at all. That the carrier is there as a show of force to signal the United States commitment to going after drug traffickers. That's sort of one end of the spectrum. Possible seems unlikely, given the amount of power you're bringing to the region. The other extreme would be a ground invasion. Again, possible, but not likely, based on our reporting and the indications we have so far. Because you don't bring in a navy for ground war. Right. If we saw the 82nd Airborne deploying as well, then I'd be making a different assessment. But having said that, I can't tell you specifically what it could be. Could it be a series of strikes over a period of days or weeks, something akin to what we saw in the campaign against the Houthis in Yemen? Could it be a salvo of strikes one day like we saw against the nuclear sites in Iran? Could it be something totally different? I think what the carrier opens up is the possibility for strikes ashore on Venezuela, on infrastructure supporting drug cartels or maybe, you know, houses owned by some of these narco groups.

[Hanna Rosen]

But if the ultimate goal is to topple the Maduro government, like if you were Marco Rubio and you were, they are pretty open about wanting regime change, what would be the scenario?

[Nancy Youssef]

So from what we can tell, their hope is that these strikes create enough pressure that either Maduro flees or you see defections inside his military that say you have to go. The challenge is the last time we were in something similar to this situation in Venezuela was 2019, and there were hundreds of defections then. There's no indication of defections so far, given the strikes that have happened. And so if you think of this as, like, how many shakes does it take to tip over whatever it is you're trying to get out of the vending machine? That's the calculation that this will be the shake that'll sort of tip it over. What we haven't heard is an extensive conversation of what follows that. And, you know, there are a lot of groups within Venezuela, armed groups and supporters of the Maduro regime that are likely to react in some way if there's a change. And so to me, it's sort of akin to the fall of Gaddafi in Libya. That's the risk anyway, is that there's minimal sort of outside intervention. It leads to sort of an internal change. But there are so many factions internally that fight for control that it leads to a new kind of instability. That's the risk right now. Now Having said that, the opposition have said that they are prepared to step in, that they have a plan for how to run the country. But that appears to be sort of how the strategy is shaping up in terms of potentially affecting events in Venezuela. If you believe that these strikes are being driven by a desire to see a regime collapse within Venezuel.

[Hanna Rosen]

Right. And we should note that some in the Venezuelan opposition are in favor of U.S. involvement. I think that's important to mention. But, Nancy, I want to expand beyond Venezuela. As you've noted, the administration is using the military in a new way there. But the administration also seems to be testing other kinds of unusual uses of the military, like deploying them in a half dozen cities, the national guard here in D.C. do you connect all these things? Do you see maybe a fundamentally different idea about the military emerging?

[Nancy Youssef]

One thing that I've been struck by reporting in places like Egypt and Libya and Bahrain is that their militaries are there in large part to combat domestic threats. And what has made the United States so unique is it's a large, powerful force designed to protect the United States from external threats that when we have threats internally, that that is to be handled by law enforcement agencies, not military force. And now we're seeing a military that is more inwardly directed, or at least more directed towards this hemisphere. Right. And that's a big shift to me. The thing that I'm watching for is where US Military standing relative to the American public ends up a year from now or two years from now back. Because the other thing that's happening at the same time is that the secretary has indicated that he doesn't see diversity as a strength of the military. He's not enthusiastic about women joining the ranks. And in fact, we've seen a lot of minority officers and female officers asked to leave or deciding to leave, including Admiral Halsey himself. And so it portends of a force that looks less like a representative of the American public and more like a representative of those who support the president. It's a different relationship that it has with the American public. So that's the thing I'm watching. Long term, how does all this shift how we think of our military and how much it's seen as representing being America's military and apolitical force. How long does that hold?

[Hanna Rosen]

That is a real fundamental shift. Like, do you think of yourself as potentially covering a pretty fundamentally different military than you did at the start of your career?

[Nancy Youssef]

Yes. Because how can you not when you're seeing it deployed in such a different way? You know, I mean, how it's deployed is sort of how we see it. And so, and I could be wrong, you know, but you can't help but ask these questions when you're seeing these kinds of shifts happening. It does feel different to me. And it's the totality of it. It's not one thing.

[Hanna Rosen]

Well, Nancy, thank you so much for explaining your work to us.

[Nancy Youssef]

Thank you.

[Hanna Rosen]

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Rosie Hughes and Kevin Townsend. It was edited by Claudina Baid and fact checked by Alex Moronia Porto. Rob Smirciak engineered this episode and provided original music. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio and Andrea Valdez is is our managing editor. Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to the [e-mail] listener. Also, I have a favor to ask. I'm interviewing chef and cookbook writer Allison Roman in a couple of weeks. If you have any questions for her recipe related, biography related, cookbook related, Thanksgiving related, please email them to me at radio atlantic theatlantic.com I'm Hanna Rosen. Thank you for listening.