• New Year, New World | Jim Sciutto and Robyn Curnow
    Jan 2 2025

    The world is changing and it reminds CNN's National Security analyst Jim Sciutto of the 19th Century. He joins Robyn Curnow to talk about how 2025 will continue to trend towards Great Power rivalry and how that will or will not change with President Trump's reemergence on the global stage.

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    24 mins
  • Xmas cheer for the New Year | Robyn Curnow
    Dec 23 2024

    Christmas Cheer (and Fear) this happy Yuletide! Greetings from the American South where the inflatable Santas are bigger and better and BBQ pork is a seasonal delicacy.

    Robyn Curnow is hopeful that the Trump team's better angels will sing this time around. She's hoping the push and pull between his Disrupters and his Enforcers will create a less chaotic Presidency and lessen the worst instincts of The Don. For various reasons, Americans have trusted Trump with the country - will he leave it in a better place or not?

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    10 mins
  • You Don't Look Arab | Hala Gorani and Robyn Curnow
    Dec 17 2024

    Gorani Street, Aleppo, Syria is where Hala Gorani's family lived for generations. As an American-born child of Syrian immigrant parents she and her extended family across the world are watching what is happening in Syria with a personal interest. As a journalist, Hala is reluctant to make predictions on how a post-Assad Syria will play out because she says disappointment is baked into the Syria expat experience.

    Hala Gorani and Robyn Curnow were correspondents and anchors together at CNN for over twenty years. When Hala left CNN she wrote a memoir called You Don't Look Arab and other Stories of Unbelonging. Now she is an NBC correspondent and avidly watching events in Syria.

    Robyn and Hala talk about about covering the Middle East, Hala's great, great grandmother who was kidnapped as a child and raised in a Constantinople harem and why they're both happier since leaving CNN.

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    29 mins
  • Trump's Road to Damascus | Robyn Curnow
    Dec 10 2024

    Is there going to be a Balkanization of Syria after the fall of Assad? Robyn Curnow, who has covered Syria since the rise of ISIS, argues that even though President Trump doesn't want America to get involved there are opportunities for the US and allies like Israel, the Kurds etc in a post-Assad vacuum.

    Will the country break up and how will fragmentation play out? How many backchannel conversations have there been with US forces in Syria and the rebels now in Damascus? What games are being played out behind closed doors?

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    11 mins
  • Biden's nothing-burger Africa trip | Robyn Curnow
    Dec 5 2024

    Robyn Curnow covered all the previous US President's trips to Africa. She says Joe Biden's sleepy, whistle-stop trip to Angola is symbolic of U.S. weakness on the continent during his presidency.

    She interviewed President George W. Bush in Zambia, President's Carter and Clinton in South Africa and First Lady Michelle Obama in Botswana. She was there when President Obama attended Nelson Mandela's memorial service in Soweto and present in the White House Rose Garden when President Trump welcomed Nigeria's former President.

    Biden's legacy on the continent is so bad, she says a second Trump term can only do better.

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    15 mins
  • War and Peace | Lynsey Addario
    Nov 25 2024

    War photographer Lynsey Addario captures moments in history that are difficult to witness. She talks to Robyn Curnow about being an American during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and what it is like to face danger head-on. Her path to the frontlines was an unlikely one; her parents were hairdressers and she grew up in a small Connecticut town in a large Italian-American family.

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    30 mins
  • Not Havana a good time | Robyn Curnow and Patrick Oppmann
    Nov 19 2024

    Robyn Curnow covered Fidel Castro's funeral from Havana and was in Cuba when President Obama made an historic visit to the island. Patrick Oppmann has lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Cuba for over a decade. Talking to Robyn from his home in Havana, Patrick weighs up what the appointment of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.

    As the son of Cuban exiles, Rubio has always taken a hardline against Havana's leadership. While much of Trump's plans for his second term are still unclear, one definite is that Marco Rubio signals bad news for the Cuban leadership.

    Robyn and Patrick have worked side by side in Havana and talked on air for years. They share a number of amusing stories about the foibles of life in Havana and the Castros. And one sure thing about Trump's foreign policy.

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    26 mins
  • What next, 'Merica? | Robyn Curnow
    Nov 13 2024

    The electoral map is red, red, red. Across America, folks decided that they preferred Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. Why did the Democrats lose so badly? How did Trump get such a wide, and deep, mandate from the American public?

    A South African living in the American South, Robyn Curnow brings her outsider perspective to the conversation about why Trump won (which did not surprise her in the least.) She argues it's wrong to suggest that more than half of Americans have been brainwashed by rightwing media. Nor is every Trump voter racist and sexist. It's not that simple.

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    14 mins