Hi, I'm Anna Marie Cox and welcome to With Friends Like These, a show about what unites

us and what divides us.

This week's show is definitely about what unites us because it's an interview with Nira

Tandon, who I think has been on every other crooked media show, and I want to talk to

her too.

She is a thing that unites the crooked media empire and she is also a consummate DC insider.

So I talked to her about something and only an insider can give a view on, which is what

things are like in DC these days.

How are those conversations going?

I think they've gotten pretty awkward.

And speaking of awkward conversations, a genuinely awkward conversation, I wanted to acknowledge

some of the pushback that I got on last week's episode over the phrase coming out as Christian.

People wrote to point out that the phrase coming out doesn't really belong with the idea

of joining the Christian community.

There's a very specific history to what it means to come out and it doesn't match up

at all with what it means to join the Christian community.

I should have found a better way to phrase that and I want to acknowledge that for a lot

of people, Christianity itself is still an oppressive and fearsome institution.

And I hope that those who are listening, who experience Christianity that way, no, that's

not the way.

I feel about my faith, that's not the way that I want to practice my faith.

And I strive to make this show as welcoming and indeed as safe as possible.

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