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- [00:01]
Bloomberg Narrator
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- [00:19]
Scott Anderson
I would say that Iran probably has a better chance of actually emerging into a democracy than most countries in the Middle East. It has at least a parliamentary tradition, even though that parliament has largely been a rubber stamp for certainly for the
- [00:34]
Jascha Monk
past century and now the Good Fight with Jascha Monk. There are some events in the world that fill you with great hope and also some amount of dread. This is always how I feel when people are courageously streaming into the streets to protest against a brutal dictatorship. It is awe inspiring that people are seeking that freedom and you cannot help but hope that the aspirations will be fulfilled. At the same time, you know that if a regime uses all of its force to beat them back, death at a significant scale of the most courageous people may be the consequence. That's how I've been feeling for the last days as I've seen the growing and growing and growing protests in Tehran and all around Iran. And so we have pushed the episode we had planned for today in order to record an emergency podcast about Iran. Now, this podcast has two halves. In the first half, I have invited Scott Anderson to tell us about the current events in the country. Scott is a contributing writer for New York Times Magazine who has reported as a veteran war correspondent from many countries around the world and is the author of King of Kings, the Story of the Rise and the Downfall of the Last Shah of Iran and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which is the winner of the 2025 Kirkus Prize for Non Fiction. In the first part of this conversation, we are talking about whether we should get our hopes up, what it would take for the Iranian people to win against the regime of the mullahs, what kind of role the Revolutionary Guards are likely to play in any new political system, whether there's genuine hopes for democracy, how that would transform the role of women in Iranian society and the Middle east as a whole. It is a deeply informed, really interesting update on what is going on in Iran today. In the second part of this conversation, which was actually recorded in July of last year, we talk about Scott's excellent book King of Kings. We delve deeply into the history of Iran, into a surprisingly more modern origins of the monarchy, into the way in which Ayatollah Khomeini was able to topple it, into the complex revolution driven by a broad coalition of forces, many of them with hopes for modern, secular Iran and how it got captured by the mullahs and about the fate that Iran has suffered under that regime for the last 20 or 30 years. Well, the first part of the conversation is a topical update on what's going on today. The second part of the conversation is the deep guide that will help you understand this country and help me understand the country much, much more deeply. To access the second part of the conversation to support this podcast, to make it possible for us to do things like jump in the last moment onto an important event like this and offer you a deep conversation about it. To stop hitting this paywall and deal with annoying ads, please become a paying subscriber and I'm continuing to offer the steepest discount at the moment. Go to writing yashamung.com 2026 writing.yashamung.com 2026 to support what we're. Scott Anderson, welcome back to a podcast.
- [04:35]
Scott Anderson
Thank you. It's nice to be here.
- [04:38]
Jascha Monk
So we recorded a wonderful deep historical dive into Iran in, I believe, July of last year, and I was really looking forward to releasing that episode and thought perhaps we can wait for some topical hook that'll make that episode more relevant. And boy, did we get a topical hook over the last days. There are these wonderful inspiring pictures, pictures that also make me a little bit scared about what may be around the corner from Iran, with just huge numbers of people taking to the streets to call for the end of the regime of the mullahs in a more open and more concerted way than probably at any point since 1979. What's your read on the situation in Tehran and so many other cities around Iran today? Should we get our hopes up for an end to this regime?
- [05:32]
Scott Anderson
I think more than probably ever in the last 45 years, the regime is in serious, serious trouble. There have been moments in the past when it was in somewhat trouble, but what's different this time with these protests? The regime in the past has always been very adept at playing one segment of society off against another. The religious against the more secular, the rural against the urban. The women's freedom protests of three years ago, they were able to talk about it being, oh, she was a Kurdish woman, the woman who was who was killed by the morality police to kind of play the ethnic card. This time that's not going to work because this is an economic collapse that has happened with the devaluation in Iran. So everybody is affected. Playing off one side against the other is just not going to work. This Time. The second thing that's quite different is you now have an Iran president, Pujestian, who's come out in sort of solidarity or at least in sympathy with the protesters. He doesn't have an awful lot of genuine power, the Supreme Leader Khamenei does, but what he has is a voice and that voice cannot really be shut up. So you have, you have a very different dynamic taking place now than you've ever had before.
- [06:55]
Jascha Monk
What would it actually take for these protests to topple the regime? A lot of the time political scientists assume that as long as the regime stays united, it can be deeply unpopular, it can constitute a small portion of a population. It is able to see off challenges to it. And it does feel as though the reason why I said earlier that it's all inspiring and hopeful, but what I'm also afraid is that you could imagine the Revolutionary Guards starting to fire in even more massive ways than they already have in the last days on protesters and using simple brute force to crack down on this movement. The question is whether or not cracks start appearing within the regime. The president semi claiming to be on the side of a protesters might be one sign of that. Sources defecting greater numbers would obviously be a key sign of that. What do you think it would take and are we seeing the signs of that happening?
- [07:53]
Scott Anderson
Well, I think the great unknown quantity here is what the Revolutionary Guard does, the defenders of the regime, the, the military. Rather like Egypt or mainland China. The Revolutionary Guard is a force unto itself. It's an economic force, it's a corporation. So what you have is you have a military that is not just supporting regime for philosophical or theological reasons, but for economic reasons. Their bread and butter at sting here. So I really think that what you could, you could see an end of the theocracy, but I fear what, what could replace it is a military dictatorship. And I think it could get very, very bloody because I don't think the Revolutionary Guard are going to accede to stepping aside peacefully. This could get very, very ugly.
- [08:51]
Jascha Monk
So the Revolutionary Guard have this weird double nature and you know this better than I do, so correct me if I'm misd, sort of among the vanguard of the revolution. They were the people supposed to protect the revolution to ensure that it succeeds and that it can't be overthrown. They were supposed therefore to have in the Iranian contrast context, this deeply religious mission. But as you're pointing out, they are now effectively running large parts of the Iranian economy. And one of the main reasons why somebody may have aspired around 2005 or 2010 to become a senior member of Revolutionary Guards is that that comes with a huge amount of material and other privileges in society. And so even as this is supposed to be a deeply theocratic institution, it is also run by a lot of people who may simply be social climbers, materially ambitious people. I mean, is it imaginable that the revolutionary God kind of rebrands itself as a military caste more similar to a place like Egypt where the military tends to have a more secular bend? It's a little bit hard to imagine, but you're right that perhaps an incentive based perspective would say they're simply going to guard the material interests. What they really don't want to give up is a cushy lifestyle and perhaps they're willing to, you know, overthrow some of the religious pieties. It's a little hard to imagine, but is that what you think?
- [10:27]
Scott Anderson
Yeah, I mean, much like, you know, I mean Egypt is actually a good case study in that, you know, that when the dissent against Mubarak reached a certain point, essentially the military stepped in and forced him to leave. And then they went through elections, but they stood in the wings waiting for the Muslim Brotherhood to kind of fall on its face and then you step back in again. I think all through that brief period between, between Mubarak being overthrown and General Sisi coming back in, the military was just waiting, awaiting its, its time. And I think you could see something very similar now in Iran that I don't. If, if the price for the, the Revolutionary Guard is getting rid of Khamenei and the Ayatollahs around him and putting in some sort of a military regime or a Muslim light regime, I think the Revolutionary Guard would do that. I don't again, I think that I just think money corrupts. And I think when you have this incredible economic power that the Revolutionary Guard has, hierarchy has harnessed over these past four and a half decades, I just don't see them stepping aside on that lightly. So there may be a shell game played like there was kind of in Egypt, but barring that, I think it's going to get very, very bloody very quickly.
- [11:59]
Jascha Monk
So listeners will enjoy our deep conversation we had a few months ago that really gives you a sense of how the Shah fell and how this religious regime rose. One of the key moments was when it became obvious that people were so afraid of a revolution that the top people started to flee. And we are not quite at that point yet. On Friday morning or early afternoon Eastern time, as we're recording this but there are rumors of this being about to happen. There are rumors that the spiritual leadership may be seeking refuge in Russia or at least making arrangements to be able to seek refuge in Russia if time comes for that. Are there any echoes between 1979 and the situation in Tehran today?
- [12:50]
Scott Anderson
You know, I'm finding the echoes just astonishing in a way. Similarly, what you're seeing Is you're with with 7879 demonstrations against the Shah. It started with young men primarily, and then it developed into people of all ages. Children are now marching, attacking government buildings. That was a hallmark of Iranian Revolution of 78, 79. And what is bizarre is the reports of people chanting, bring back the Pahlavis. Bring back the Shah. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that's probably the opposition is chanting that, because that's the only kind of opposition, the recognizable opposition, they can think of. But there are eerie similarities to 78 and 79. And I don't know how you bottle this thing back up at this point.
- [13:49]
Jascha Monk
Is this something on which you've changed your mind? So in our conversation in July, I think we briefly talked about Reza Pahlavi, and you said that it seemed very unlikely for him to come back. This is something that, knowing much less about Iran, I shared. It just seems like having been the legitimate pretender to the throne since 1979 and spent his entire life in exile in, I believe, the suburbs of Maryland, the suburbs of D.C. i believe, in Maryland. And the idea that you would go back and take office in Iran just seems absurd. But it is striking that that is the charm that you're hearing in the streets of Iran. And that, of course, because there's so little of an organized opposition movement, because of the depth of oppression within the country and because the exile community of Iranians is very split, he is, in a sense, the most natural focal point. And so just to run to play devil's advocate here, I think you'd be unlikely to return as a dictator or as a ruler. But constitutional monarchies have a pretty good track record in the modern world. And there are lots of modern countries like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and Denmark and Sweden that have constitutional monarchs. And I think that ambitious a man for Reza Pahlavi may be, if you told him the dealers, you come back and you oversee the democratic transition, you get to be a national hero, a little bit like Juan Carlos of Spain until his latter years and various scandals diminished his reputation. That seems pretty appealing for a man in his, I believe, mid or perhaps late 70s. Is it still unimaginable?
- [15:31]
Scott Anderson
It's not unimaginable now. I have to realize I have to contradict almost everything I said back in July. The situation in Iran, Iran has changed so dramatically, really, in the past two weeks. I was talking with people. I've been talking with people in the opposition in Iran all summer, in the fall and winter. And as I think I mentioned back when we talked last, there was a real feeling of despondency among the opposition in July after the American and Israeli bombings of Iran that had produced this tremendous rallying around the. The flag effect. And what opposition people were telling me then was, you know, if we go to the streets now and demonstrate against the regime, we're going to be painted as lackeys of the Americans and Israelis. So they were. They really felt that the opposition movement had been kind of set back, and they were. They were estimating a couple of years. What's different this time is with the economic collapse, it is spread all the way across the. All sectors of society have been affected by this. So the thing of playing off one against the other is not working. I was talking to people in Iran as recently as three, maybe four days ago now, can't talk to them now. All communication's been cut off. But they were getting more and more hopeful. And I think that now with the events of the past 48 hours, again, I have not spoken with anyone in the past 48 hours, but I can imagine it's, you know, exponentially more so going to Crown Prince Reza. And again, talking about the parallels to 79, I think, of Khomeini. Khomeini was in exile as Reza is now. He was kind of seen as an unlikely. Khomeini was seen as the unlikely leader of the country, but he was seen as the person who could kind of as the kind of spiritual guide that he was the figurehead that everyone could rally around. And of course, Khomeini had other plans once he got back to Tehran. But it's fascinating to me that the crowds that 45 years ago were chanting long live Khomeini are now calling for the Shah to come back, for the Shah's son to come back again with this idea that somehow he would be the figurehead while a democracy took hold. I don't think that Crown Prince Reza could pull off Khomeini. He's not going to take absolute power. It would not work. Yes, he may come back as a figurehead if this all plays out in that scenario, but I don't see him wielding real power.
- [18:15]
Jascha Monk
Let's dream for a moment. Let's imagine for a moment that the regime is toppled. Let's imagine for a moment that they managed to work out some kind of deal with the military that gives a military a nice status in society without keeping its complete stranglehold over the economy. And civil military relations are managed to such an extent that you actually have a space for a genuine democracy. What would that democracy look like? How much of a democratic history does Iran have? To what extent has the country secularized? Obviously, I think there is a segment of the Iranian population that is deeply resentful about the religious diktat from the top. There's a very low fertility rate in Iran. I believe women are more likely to have university degrees than men. Young women at least. It is in many ways a society that has secularized, I imagine. But it's also deep pockets of genuine, not just religious feeling, which is of course compatible for democracy, but allegiance to the theocracy and hostility to secular democracy that also exists in Iran. And then, of course, there are the kind of fault lines that exist in many democratic countries in the world that make it hard for democracy to take place, including regional differences, ethnic divisions, and other kinds of things. If Iran were to have free and fair elections in 2027, do you think there's a realistic hope that that democracy in a country that is relatively affluent by comparison to other countries struggling to be democratic, that has this bottled up longing for a more secular, democratic set of institutions would stick? Or do you think that Iran would likely end up like the countries of the Arab Spring, the last of which has just seen its democracy die in Tunisia over the course of the last years.
- [20:28]
Scott Anderson
I would say that Iran probably has a better chance of actually emerging into a democracy than most countries in the Middle East. It has at least a parliamentary tradition, even though that parliament has largely been a rubber stamp for. Well, certainly for the past century. You have two elements of society in Iran that would. This is going to sound elitist, but that do give hope for a kind of a democratic outcome. One, you have this enormous Iranian diaspora, you know, millions of Iranians of the wealthy and the upper middle class who left Iran in the wake of the Shah's departure. And you also have a similar class of society within Iran today. You have. You do have a very educated, very wealthy or affluent kind of upper class who travel, they go back and forth to Europe and other countries around the world, come to the United States. So you do have this kind of educated elite that could steer the country towards a democratic outcome and you, you know, some one that you wouldn't have in say a Syria or an Iraq. So I think, I think there is a chance that it could be, there could be a democratic outcome. But I, I go back to I, I think the huge question mark right now is what the Revolutionary Guard does. Let's, if we just play out the scenario, let's say the, the ayatollahs go and the military kind of steps in and says we're going to maintain order, we're going to stay in power until we can maintain order and that becomes a dictatorship. Then what happens to the opposition that are in the streets right now when they're not going against a fossilized theocratic regime but against a big business army? And I think that that could get very, very nasty
- [22:38]
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- [23:08]
Jascha Monk
I have the same fears, unfortunately. Let's talk a little bit about what the situation of women in Iran would be under those different scenarios. Obviously there's a scenario in which the Ayatollahs don't lose power and it probably is still the most likely scenario. And they might decide that in order to regain power they have to repurify the country and reimpose the hold of the norms they believe to be holy with even greater vengeance than over the last years. And you could imagine that the tiny spaces for self expression that exist in that society today might be lowered. You could also imagine them saying, all right, perhaps we need to make certain kinds of concessions and we loosen the obligation to wear a headscarf in certain ways or something like that. The second scenario I guess we should think through is the Revolutionary Guard scenario. The Ayatollahs flee, the Revolutionary Guards keep power. I guess in that scenario you wouldn't have democracy. You may still have a very corrupt economy. But the thing that it might be easiest for them to give on is some of those personal liberties that might be the easiest thing to sacrifice from their point of view. But perhaps I'm not thinking through that in the right way. And the third question, of course, is what do you think would happen to women and how do you think Iranian women would be able to realize their aspirations if we did have a genuine transition to democracy?
- [24:34]
Scott Anderson
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to imagine that, you know, Iran is much more liberal now, certainly when it comes to social interchange than it was even five years ago. The regime so far has been, I mean, I say adept in kind of knowing when to relieve the pressure a little bit. You know, for example, just with the Shador, women do not have to wear headscarves now, at least in most major Iranian cities. They're not harassed like they were even just three years ago. That is all very difficult to roll back, I think, at this point. But, and as you said, you have this enormous educated class of Iranian women. I, it's, I just don't see the, the society, the system as it is even now continuing to hold what you've always had in Iran or certainly in the last 10, 15 years. You know, people at the, people at the educated class, people at the upper class, they're not the people taking bullets from the basijis in the streets. They're. They're not being clubbed, they're not being beaten to death and by the morality police. Those people have always had certain immunity from the theocratic regime. And I think that that is what is collapsing now that, you know, you can say in a way, that segment of society was sort of bought off by the regime. And I think with this economic collapse that you're seeing now, that's just, I mean, that's not working. A few days ago, the regime announced that they were going to give everybody $7 of a remittance to help with the 40% inflation. Well, $7 is not going to solve the regime's problems.
- [26:28]
Jascha Monk
Well, it is striking that what ultimately seems to matter most is bread and butter issues when it comes to discontent with the regime. That people will suffer deeply from spiritual injuries, but it tends to be relatively select groups of people who decide to risk their lives in order to address them. It tends to be students, it tends to be intellectuals, it tends to be residents of the biggest cities. And those kind of movements are then relatively easy to beat back. It is when those brave activists who keep the flame of opposition alive for year after year after year suddenly fuse with a much broader economically based discontent where people are angry. Perhaps they also disliked all of that stuff. They also suffered from all of that stuff. They also disagreed with a regime on a million other things. But it's the moment when they feel like, I don't know what to make for dinner for my kids. I don't know that I'm going to be able to pay the electricity bill. I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to heat my apartment in the winter. But they say this is now worth going on the streets for. And that's what feels like the difference between the protests we've seen again and again in Iranian history. Because the very brave Iranian opposition has tried to stand up to this regime. A few years ago with the Women Life Freedom movement around, I believe, 2008 around a rigged election in which there was hopes for a more moderate president and the green movement again and again. But it is now that the living conditions of ordinary Iranians have become so much worse that you see a much broader mass based movement.
- [28:10]
Scott Anderson
No, that's right. And again with echoes of 1978, 79, the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah was basically born on the backs of young, uneducated men from the countryside who had come into the city trying to find their piece of the Iranian economic miracle. And then when the recession hit, they're stuck in these awful shanty towns on the outskirts of Tehran and other Iranian cities. And I strongly suspect it's going to be that kind of same demographic group that is going to, if this does become a revolution, if it does become very bloody, that is going to be the class of people that are going to take the most of the bullets. It's not going to be university students. It's not going to be college professors or intellectuals. It's going to be those people who now have absolutely no future.
- [29:05]
Jascha Monk
Let's take a step back here. After the attacks on the Iranian nuclear program in June carried out by Israel and by the United States, it felt as though they may have set back the aspirations of the Iranian position. As you were saying when you were talking to people in the summer, they felt like if we go out to protest now, it looks like we're on the side of the, the least popular nations in Iran, and that's not going to put us in good stead. From the perspective of today, it does seem as though some of the attacks and some of the sanctions imposed by America over the last year are at least an indirect course of these protests. I certainly am no admirer of the current occupant of the White House. And while I am very happy that Nicolas Maduro is my new neighbor in Brooklyn and is behind bars because like the Iranian regime with which he was very close, he was a terrible dictator. I fear that the outlook for actual improvements in Venezuela seem to be slim. But do US Critics of Trump and the White House have to say their policy of humiliating Iran, of showing the weakness of the leadership, of making it very hard for Iran to thrive economically, of leaving the deal that the Biden administration and before the Obama administration had cut with Iran, is all of that working? Is all of that part of the reason for what's going on in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities today?
- [30:41]
Scott Anderson
You know, in a strange way, I feel what. And again, I'm reminded of, I'm reminded of Jimmy Carter in the 70s. I never thought I'd put Trump and Carter in the same sentence, but when Jimmy Carter came in with his whole emphasis on human rights, and I think that that had a knock on effect throughout the world and including in Iran. It gave, it gave support for people who were opposed to dictatorships and cared about human rights. I think it emboldened the Iranian opposition against the Shah similarly, or Trump's kind of scattershot approach to the world, the kind of Mad Men theory of, you know, you never know what he's going to do next. And that carries a certain power of it, I think is probably, has probably emboldened the opposition inside Iran. That said, you know, nobody likes to have their country bombed by a foreign power. And that's what, you know, that's what I was picking up this summer from opposition. People saying, you know, this, this is, the bombing was the worst thing that could happen to us. It's, it's very difficult to say what is, what is really driving us. How much, how much of it is, is being encouraged by the Americans. Are people sort of seeing what happened to Maduro in Venezuela and seeing hope in that? I tend to feel it's more just this utter economic collapse. I mean, people just, you know, in one week just saw their, their life savings turn to dusk. And I think on top of everything else, all the other problems they've had with the regime, the, the food shortages, the embargo, they've just reached a breaking point.
- [32:32]
Jascha Monk
Tell us a little bit about what the impact of a change in regime in Iran would be on the region. The Iranian regime has obviously been maligned in its ruthless control of Iranian society and its cruel treatment of any opposition leaders within the country. There's also been a very malign influence in the Middle east more broadly with its support of Hamas and other organizations. How would the Middle east transform in A post Ayatollah Iran.
- [33:05]
Scott Anderson
My hunch would be any regime that comes in, whether it's the Revolutionary Guard or a democratic regime or some other dictator, I think that they would immediately. So their proxy forces, Hezbollah, Hamas, you know, forces in the Houthis in Iran, they've all been kind of decimated in the last two years, primarily by the Israelis. So their role as a regional power is already kind of finished. If I were. If I were to become Iranian president tomorrow, the first thing I would do would be to repair, you know, mend fences with the other Middle Eastern countries around me that are run by. Try to get over the whole Sunni, Shia split that has been. It has been so exacerbated by the Iranian regime the past 45 years. I think if they do that, that they would be met with quite a bit of goodwill in the region. If they have been a pariah state and increasingly so as they've stepped up their support of these proxy regimes in the past 15 years. But I think other regimes in the region, certainly the Saudis, would very much appreciate seeing, seeing that Iran cut off their ties to these different guerrilla groups around the region.
- [34:24]
Jascha Monk
Again, I'm very hopeful about the situation Iran. I'm also conscious that there's a very high likelihood that we're getting ahead of ourselves. My hunch continues to be that negative outcomes are more likely than positive outcomes. What should we watch for in the next days? Hopefully, there's going to be more headlines about this. It's been striking how slow world attention has been to turn to this. I think part of this is because there's a lot of other things going on, including Venezuela and the killing of a woman in Minnesota by ICE and all kinds of other things in the world. Part of it is that it's hard to report from Iran, but part of it, I think, is a strange reluctance by, frankly, parts of the left to see this as a cause celebre because they somehow think that the enemy of the United States can't be completely terrible. The BBC World Service has been criticized widely for downplaying the protests and seeming extremely reluctant to pay any attention to it for reasons that I think are partially ones of ideological capture. But I think at this point, we protest scale where they're not going to just go away, and they're either going to have a very positive outcome or a very negative outcome. So as these news reports start to come in, start to probably dominate the headlines and the front pages of our newspapers and news feeds more than in the last weeks, what is it we should watch for in trying to figure out whether there's going to be a good solution. Is there anything that Western governments, Western individuals can do to have a positive influence on the events that are unfolding?
- [36:03]
Scott Anderson
I think that, again, if the Trump administration were smart, they would just kind of stay out of things for all. The first thing I would be looking for inside Iran would be a fracturing of the Iranian military. Is there going to become a reluctance of the military to just wantonly machine gun people on the streets and going, you know, again, it reminds me a bit of Egypt in the Arab Spring. People who know the Egyptian military, the rank and file, not the commanders at the top who, who were the head of the corporation, but the guys they put out on the streets. The Egyptian military has a limited appetite for murdering its own people. I, I don't think you could say the same about, say, the Syrian government or the Iraqi government, Iraqi military. So it's going to be interesting how that will play in Iran if this really keeps on, if the demonstrations get more violent, if the vandalism or the burning of government buildings really takes off, is the Iranian military, the men in the streets, are they going to be willing to just machine gun their countrymen? And that's really what did in the Shah finally, in 78, 79, from the Shah on down, he did not have an appetite for wantonly massacring people. So that is the first thing I would look for, is cracks within the Iranian military.
- [37:31]
Jascha Monk
Scott Anderson, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and giving us this update.
- [37:35]
Scott Anderson
My pleasure, Yasha. Thanks for having me.
- [37:39]
Jascha Monk
In the rest of today's podcast, we talk about Iran's history. We talk about the surprising modern origins our of the Iranian monarchy. We talk about how the Shah lost the support of his people. We talk about the grand aspirations of the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and 1979 and how a bunch of theocrats managed to take control of it. And we look at what they have done to the country and the whole region in the decades that followed. If you want to hear this part of the conversation, please become a paying subscriber. Please support what we do. Go to writing.yashamonk.com 2026that's writing.yashamonk.Com 2026 for 30% off. That means it's really about a dollar a week in order to support what we do. And finally, if you're listening to this message and you already are a paying subscriber, go to writing.yashamonk.com listen and click on Set Up Podcast to make sure that you have your private podcast feed. The little icon should read Premium Feed in the top left and then you won't be hearing me go through this whole spiel the next time. If you can't make that work, please email supportubstack.com and the good folks at Substech are going to help you work through your technical difficulties. Writing.