Episode #463 from 2:47:55
Interview advice
I have to ask, because you mentioned that interview, you had a good interview with Benjamin Netanyahu after October 7th, and I've been very fortunate to get the opportunity to interview a few world leaders, it looks like I'll interview Vladimir Putin and others. Want to have a general question about how do you interview people like this? Maybe to put your historian hat on of how do you approach the interview of world leaders such that you can gain a deeper understanding in the hope that that adds to the compassion in the world. So I have a deep sense that understanding people you might hate helps, in the long arc of history, add compassion to the world. But even just to add understanding is difficult in those kinds of contexts, and maybe it's more useful to think about, from a historian perspective, of how you need to interview somebody like Hitler or Stalin or Churchill, FDR during World War II. I think about this a lot, especially if it's a 2, 3, 4, 5 hour conversation. Well, there's a lot of weight on you when you do those conversations, isn't there?
Why this moment matters
I have to ask, because you mentioned that interview, you had a good interview with Benjamin Netanyahu after October 7th, and I've been very fortunate to get the opportunity to interview a few world leaders, it looks like I'll interview Vladimir Putin and others. Want to have a general question about how do you interview people like this? Maybe to put your historian hat on of how do you approach the interview of world leaders such that you can gain a deeper understanding in the hope that that adds to the compassion in the world. So I have a deep sense that understanding people you might hate helps, in the long arc of history, add compassion to the world. But even just to add understanding is difficult in those kinds of contexts, and maybe it's more useful to think about, from a historian perspective, of how you need to interview somebody like Hitler or Stalin or Churchill, FDR during World War II. I think about this a lot, especially if it's a 2, 3, 4, 5 hour conversation. Well, there's a lot of weight on you when you do those conversations, isn't there?