The State of the Gaza Ceasefire With Akbar Ahmed. Plus, the Demands of the “No Kings” Protest and the Ghost of Social Media’s Past. | Higher Learning | The Ringer

Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.8 • 11.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 116 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rachel and Van start the show by talking about the “No Kings” protest, the goals of the protest, and the “blatant hypocrisy” from the reaction of the far right. Then, they talk about two controversies concerning offensive past social media posts, one from Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner and the other from Grammy winner Tyler, the Creator. Last, they go over the Gaza ceasefire deal with Huffington Post senior diplomatic correspondent Akbar Ahmed and the violations that followed it. 00:00 - Welcome! 09:12 - The “No Kings” protest 44:16 - Joe Rogan declines to debate Gov. Gavin Newsom 49:36 - Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner apologizes for past social media posts 1:03:49 - Tyler, the Creator’s social media past brings current backlash 1:23:21 - Akbar joins the show! 1:41:23 - What do we do about the Stephen A. thing? 1:52:39 - Thanks for watching! Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Akbar Ahmed Producers: Ashleigh Smith Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Yeah, yeah, yeah, thought warriors.
0:03.6	What is up?
0:04.8	I learned as on as I Van Lately Jr.
0:07.1	And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay.
0:10.4	Okay.
0:12.3	Okay, there's something that I have to, you're not going to like this.
0:16.6	Ooh.
0:17.4	Let me tell you what I don't like is this is how we're starting off the podcast.
0:21.1	I'm in Dallas.
0:22.1	I'm feeling good.
0:24.4	So how are you about to ruin my day?
0:27.1	I think that I was in the commercial.
0:30.9	The Trump commercial?
0:33.1	No, not a Trump.
0:33.9	What Trump commercial?
0:34.9	What are you talking about?
0:35.6	I don't know why my mind went to the one that Charlemagne was in.
0:38.7	And I was like, wait, what?
0:40.2	What commercial?
0:44.1	Now, this is going to be me being vulnerable with everyone.
0:51.3	Okay.
0:52.5	I believe in different realities through the television. Okay. I believe in different realities through the television.
	...

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