Share
UnHerd with Freddie Sayers
Jake Sullivan: Trump has handed Iran victory
•
In this exclusive UnHerd interview Freddie Sayers meets Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor under Joe Biden and chief negotiator during the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Jake Sullivan co-hosts the weekly national security podcast ‘The Long Game’ with Jon Finer, former deputy national security advisor under Sullivan.
Freddie and Jake analyse the geopolitical and financial implications of the Trump administration's memorandum of understanding with Iran. Could the concessions of the agreement that suspended the conflict to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an unprecedented financial windfall of unfrozen assets, waived oil sanctions, and a controversial $300 billion reconstruction fund mark a significant diplomatic surrender? Or is this another example of the 'art of the deal'? Watch the full conversation now.
You can listen to Jake's podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-long-game-with-jake-sullivan-and-jon-finer/id1850526014
More episodes
View all episodes
Will Pope Leo divide the Right?
48:20|Freddie Sayers talks to The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles and UnHerd US editor Sohrab Ahmari to explore how Pope Leo XIV’s landmark AI encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is exposing deep philosophical and political fractures within the American populist Right over global technology regulation, transnational governance, and the Trump administration's relationship with the Vatican.
John Burn-Murdoch: What's causing the fertility crisis?
29:59|UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to John Burn-Murdoch, the chief data reporter for the Financial Times, as well as Hernan Moscoso-Boedo and Nathan Hudson from the University of Cincinnati, to investigate a controversial new study suggesting that the global proliferation of smartphones and social media since 2007 has drastically altered young people's behaviour, halved face-to-face socialisation, and accelerated a worldwide collapse in fertility rates that cannot simply be explained by the global financial crisis.
Adrian Wooldridge: Why Labour should keep Starmer
53:22|UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with journalist, author, and historian Adrian Wooldridge about the systemic leadership crisis facing the UK, exploring how the rapid decline of Keir Starmer's Labour government mirrors the previous Conservative downfall and reflects a broader decay of liberalism that necessitates a radical reinvigoration of the centrist tradition.
The stage is set for a new WWI
40:16|UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks with Odd Arne Westad – Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University – about his new book The Coming Storm, which argues that rather than entering a new Cold War, we are actually reliving the high-tension multipolarity of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a dangerous era where rapid technological shifts, the collapse of globalisation, and the friction between a rising China and a nervous United States mirror the exact structural conditions that caused the world to sleepwalk into the catastrophe of World War 1.
Orbán's defeat is not a liberal victory
27:20|Freddie Sayers talks with UnHerd’s Aris Roussinos reporting from Hungary about the downfall of Viktor Orban’s long-standing administration at the hands of Peter Magyar, explaining that while the landslide victory for the Tisza party appears to be a win for the European establishment, it is actually a political shift that represents a rebranding of the Right rather than a return to liberalism and serves as a primary example of how the broader European continent continues to drift towards the Right.
Iain McGilchrist: How to escape left-brain thinking
01:06:57|UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with neuroscientist and philosopher Dr. Iain McGilchrist about the psychological and cultural crisis resulting from our modern reliance on the brain's analytical left hemisphere, a perspective that views the world as a collection of inanimate parts rather than a living whole, while making a compelling case for the rehabilitation of myth and religious tradition as essential pathways to a deeper, relational truth that can protect Western civilisation from the dehumanising effects of purely mechanistic thinking.
John Bolton: Trump should finish the job
34:56|UnHerd's Freddie Sayers discusses the ongoing military campaign in Iran with former National Security Advisor John Bolton who delivers a blunt critique of the current administration by arguing that sporadic strikes are a strategic mistake and that the United States must instead commit to a total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the ultimate goal of regime change to permanently neutralise the threat of a nuclear armed Tehran, while simultaneously delivering a scathing personal assessment of President Trump's impulsive decision-making process.
US General: Hegseth will be tried at The Hague
28:58|UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with retired Major General Randy Manner, a highly decorated veteran with over 35 years of service, who delivers a scathing analysis of the Trump administration's floated military objectives in the Persian Gulf, specifically examining the tactical viability and global economic risks of seizing Iran's Kharg Island oil depot and nuclear materials, while also exploring his deep-seated concerns regarding the qualifications of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the potential strain on the military's constitutional fealty.