chiefs association president. host: thanks for joining us. i m the police chief in texas and i m honored and happy to visit with rosa brooks, the author of an interesting book about policing. thanks for being on and having me and as i look forward to the conversation i ve got to start with just one pressing question. what in the world made you leave the confines of the classroom and home and go on and get police officers in the streets of washington, d.c.? if you asked my family they would say insanity. i was just curious. that was probably the driving force. the reserve officer program where you are not just directing traffic but where you can become a sworn armed police officer i thought no way. that s crazy. you re going to give a gun to a law professor. good idea. and the other thing as you know very, very well, policing has been in the spotlight for some years now. and if you want to change something, i think you need to understand it and it does seem like a very rar
interviewed by georgetown university professor author angela stent. host: welcome, everyone to what will be a fascinating and probably disturbing conversation. joby warrick is the washington post national security correspondent and a two-time pulitzer prize winner, once for journalism and once for general nonfiction in the book category. he covers the middle east, terrorism, intelligence and other national security issues, and his book red line, tells a powerful story about how the united states worked to destroy president bashar al-assad of syria to destroy his arsenal of chemical weapons. and it really does read like a thriller in many places, except it s a very compelling book and i m sure you will get a lot out of reading it. i published a book a couple of years ago where i accepted the conventional wisdom that russia and the united states worked together on chemical weapons, but of course if you read joby warrick s book, you will see they ve done a lot to obstruct
chemical weapons. and it really does read like a thriller in many places, except it s a very compelling book and i m sure you will get a lot out of reading it. i published a book a couple of years ago where i accepted the conventional wisdom that russia and the united states worked together on chemical weapons, but of course if you read joby warrick s book, you will see they ve done a lot to obstruct it and that is a whole another story, so i m going to begin with the first question. can you tell us why you decided this. guest: i m honored to be with the experts in this country. it s terrific and i couldn t have recommended it highly enough. why i do this book is for several reasons, but as a storyteller, story uses the courtesy of our trade and this is amazing as tragic as it is. all of the drama of trying to get this stuff out and then having the syria policy collapse around it so that was part of it and then the more i got into the subject, the more complicated and fasci
distraction . he s also a columnist for the wall street journal where she s a children s book reviewer and host of the podcast which is the greatest thing for a podcast. she s previously worked as a foreign correspondent and is a graduate of bowdoin college joining us from bethesda maryland please welcome meghan cox gurdon. hi, i m sorry we re not among the cactuses together. i had looked forward to that but this is second-best and sometimes that s what we can take. we will send some sunshine and warm your way to the east coast but it s such an honor tospend time with you today . i m delighted to be with you veronica, let s get into it. before we dive into the book can you give a little bit about your career? going from a court foreign correspondent to becoming a book reviewer at the wall street journal are two different areas of expertise . did you come into this role and what is interesting about it? life is funny sometimes. i d worked as a foreign correspondent
red line tells a powerful gripping story about the united states work to destroy present bashar al-assad answer to destroy his arsenal of chemical weapons. and it really does read like a thriller in many places and so is at very compelling book. i m sure you will really get a lot of out of reading it. i published the book a couple of years ago where i accepted the conventional wisdom that reisch andd the united states could wok together to disarm syria of its chemical weapons but, of course, if you read this book you will see the russians did a lot to extract it and that is itself is another story. i m going to begin with the first question to joby warrick. and you tells why he decided to write this book? guest: first of all, thank you so much for doing this. i m honored tois be one of the premier russian expert in this country. anyone who hasn t seen putin s world, it s terrific and i could that possibly recommend it highly enough. so thank you again soo much for doing t