Obama staffer Ben Rhodes on Iran negotiations and the battle for American identity
Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Timestamps stay in sync with the live audio
This message comes from the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Foundation. All U.S. citizens abroad may request an absentee ballot to vote in the 2026 election. Visit registrabroad.com to get started.
This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. One year and four months after Donald Trump began his first term as president, he withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear agreement with Iran to That was negotiated during the Obama administration.
Trump had repeatedly called it the worst deal ever. My guest Ben Rhodes was part of the team involved with the Obama administration negotiations. He was an Obama speechwriter and deputy national security advisor. Through that deal, Iran agreed to have all its nuclear grade uranium. removed from the country, but it was allowed to keep uranium enriched just enough to be used for medical purposes.
We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (49 minutes, 7,936 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.
No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.