The Burn Bag Podcast

On Thursday, Israel announced that it had killed Hamas' de facto leader Yahya Sinwar near Rafah, a significant development for the ongoing War in Gaza. A'ndre chatted with his old friend and mentor Javed Ali, former Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the U.S. National Security Council, about his reactions to the development and what it could mean for the broader crisis in the Middle East. Javed compares the killing of Sinwar to the elimination of Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, contrasting...

In this re-release of our popular episode from October 2021 (excuse the old theme music!), A'ndre and Ryan speak with George Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author, on what it means to practice a 'conservative' foreign policy. Dr. Will, who has published a twice-weekly column in The Washington Post since 1974, provides his definition of what it means to be conservative, discussing the intellectual conservative movement that prospered in the post-war era. He then goes into his ...

This week, A'ndre welcomes a unique guest: The Most Rev. Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Some of our audience may recall Bishop Curry's captivating sermon during the 2018 Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. He has been an outspoken advocate on various social and political issues, discussing the Episcopal Church's role in policy advocacy amid rising toxicity in discussions about religion and politics.Bishop Curry addresses the church's unique stance on LGB...

Following Israel's targeted killing of Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah, the pager explosions, and the ongoing escalation in Southern Lebanon, A'ndre sat down with Dr. Matthew Levitt from the Washington Institute to discuss anything and everything relating to Hezbollah. Dr. Levitt, who wrote Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God, provides a brief history of the militant group's origins during the 1982 Lebanon War and its linkages to the Iranian regime. A'ndre and Dr. Levit...

The Burn Bag will be covering the Israel-Gaza War over the course of several episodes, sourcing multiple perspectives on the conflict. The Burn Bag does not officially endorse any views expressed by our guests, but rather brings those perspectives to you, the audience, and will continue to provide a diverse array of voices on the program. In this episode, A’ndre introduces Uri Bar-Joseph, professor emeritus at Haifa University and author of the new book Beyond the Iron Wall. Together, they de...

On Saturday, President Joe Biden will host the leaders of India, Japan, and Australia in Wilmington, Delaware, for his final Quad summit. What is the Quad? To explore this four-way partnership and preview the summit, A'ndre is joined by Aman Thakker, an Adjunct Fellow with the Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at CSIS.They discuss the Quad's history, including its inception in 2004 after the Indian Ocean tsunami, its revitalization in 2017, and why it shouldn't be seen as an "Asian NATO." Am...

A powerful U.S. Senator. A leading aide to the New York Governor. A leading Korea expert. All prominent figures in the last several months who have been accused of being foreign agents, working on behalf of foreign governments to influence U.S. policy. To make sense of this all, A'ndre chatted with Casey Michel, author of Foreign Agents and the Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, to understand the history of foreign lobbying in the United States and t...

This week, A'ndre chatted with Eliot Higgins, an award-winning journalist who founded the citizen journalism outlet Bellingcat, a fact-checking platform utilizing open-source intelligence focusing on international affairs. Eliot talks about his initial work studying the Syrian Civil War and the conflict in Libya, and how he was able to identify key war crimes from analyzing open-source and publicly available data. He describes the thought process that led him to found Bellingcat and gives us ...

Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Within hours, the U.S. and allies coordinated a shadow-war – using the tools of economic statecraft – to bring the heat down on Moscow. That shadow-war is the subject of this week's conversation featuring Stephanie Baker, veteran Bloomberg journalist and Russia expert, as she talks about this economic war, how it was coordinated, how it was executed, and how it has continually impacted the Russian economy and politics. Step...

This week, A'ndre chatted with Sara Wahedi, an award-winning Afghan technologist and humanitarian who created Ehtesab, a crisis notification app that has provided Kabul residents in Afghanistan with real-time emergency alerts. A'ndre and Sara chatted on the three year anniversary of the Taliban's takeover of the country, with Sara sharing her reflections on the plight of women since 2021. Sara shares the story of how she developed Ehtesab after surviving a suicide bombing in Kabul, and discus...