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The NPR Politics Podcast

Trump's Next Foreign Policy Challenge: Syria

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.524.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Syria is in the midst of rebuilding after a long civil war and the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime. What happens next in Syria poses a challenge for the U.S. and the Trump administration's goals, especially as roughly 2,000 U.S. troops are in Syria to help keep the peace.

This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, national security correspondent Greg Myre, and international correspondent Jane Arraf.

The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at
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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:14.7

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0:17.7

Hi, this is Stacy from Tucson, Arizona.

0:20.3

I'm headed out to our chicken coop to see if our hens laid any eggs after taking a few days off.

0:25.5

This podcast was recorded at 105 p.m. on Thursday, February 27th.

0:30.3

Things may have changed by the time you've heard it, but here's hope when our hensden decide to stop laying eggs.

0:36.2

Okay, here's the show.

0:41.2

Okay. open our hensden decide to stop laying eggs. Okay, here's the show. Handy thing to have these days with the price of eggs. Absolutely. You're sitting on a gold mine.

0:45.9

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Greg

0:50.6

Myrie. I cover national security. And NPR's Jane Arraf joins us today for the very first time on the podcast and from across the globe in Damascus. Jane, welcome to the podcast.

1:00.4

Thank you so much. And you're on in part because today on the show, we're going to talk about what's happening in Syria, why it matters and how it could test President Trump's America-first foreign policy objectives.

1:12.6

But, Jane, I want to start here.

1:17.8

There was a civil war in Syria for about 14 years under the government of Bashar al-Assad.

1:22.6

And then suddenly it all just seemed to collapse very quickly back in December.

1:24.3

Who's running the country now?

1:29.4

Well, the guy that had a big part in that collapse is trying to run the country.

1:31.6

His name is Ahmed Ashara.

1:37.3

It's his real name rather than his nom de garre, the name he used when he was an opposition fighter and an insurgency fighter in Iraq for years.

1:42.1

And what he's tried to do is pull together a coalition of different kinds of groups.

1:47.7

As you mentioned, it fell very suddenly.

...

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