I'm Brian Lehrer.

This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Friday, September 3rd.

One way to look at the moment where in leading up to the 20th anniversary of 9-11 is through a question society has been

asking ever since that my next guest who's about to come on might have the very best

answers to of anyone. It's the question of how do we get people off of violent extremism

and prevent it from taking root in the first place. And unfortunately,

we can look at how relevant the question still is. The Taliban just won in Afghanistan, right? Maybe

because their radical devotees wanted it more than we did. But wait, the modern, allegedly more

moderate Taliban of today, if that's what they are, got

attacked in the middle of the evacuation, along with Americans and other Afghans, by an ISIS-K,

suicide bomber willing to die to make fleeing to safety go awry. And of course, there was January

6th, still coming into focus. This week's headlines include a Republican

member of Congress saying if there are more rigged elections, he thinks there are rigged elections,

there's going to be bloodshed. Never mind there was no rigged election. How does society

de-radicalize people like him? Or people happy to vote for somebody who would say that.

Apparently, there are ways.

So with me now is Carla Power, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist for her previous

book, if Oceans were Inc. An unlikely friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran,

her new book is called Homeland Security,

de-radicalization, and the journey back from extremism. Carla, thanks for your work and thanks for

coming on. Welcome back to WNYC. Thanks so much for having me. Let me start on a connection

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