Searching for America with Robyn Curnow

Gorani Street, Aleppo, Syria is where Hala Gorani's family lived for generations. As an American-born child of Syrian immigrant parents she and her extended family across the world are watching what is happening in Syria with a personal interest. As a journalist, Hala is reluctant to make predictions on how a post-Assad Syria will play out because she says disappointment is baked into the Syria expat experience. Hala Gorani and Robyn Curnow were correspondents and anchors together at CNN for over twenty years. When Hala left CNN she wrote a memoir called You Don't Look Arab and other Tales of Unbelonging. Now she is an NBC correspondent and avidly watching events in Syria. Robyn and Hala talk about about covering the Middle East, Hala's great, great grandmother who was kidnapped as a child and raised in a Constantinople harem and why they're both happier since leaving CNN. http://www.x.com/halagorani http://www.instagram.com/robyncurnow http://www.x.com/robyncurnow http://www.searchingforamericapod.com http://www.robyncurnow.net  

Is there going to be a Balkanization of Syria after the fall of Assad? Robyn Curnow, who has covered Syria since the rise of ISIS, argues that even though President Trump doesn't want America to get involved there are opportunities for the US and allies like Israel, the Kurds etc in a post-Assad vacuum. Will the country break up and how will fragmentation play out? How many backchannel conversations have there been with US forces in Syria and the rebels now in Damascus? What games are being played out behind closed doors? http://robyncurnow.net http://www.searchingforamericapod.com http://www.x.com/robyncurnow http://www.instagram.com/robyncurnow  

Robyn Curnow covered all the previous US President's trips to Africa. She says Joe Biden's sleepy, whistle-stop trip to Angola is symbolic of U.S. weakness on the continent during his presidency. She interviewed President George W. Bush in Zambia, President's Carter and Clinton in South Africa and First Lady Michelle Obama in Botswana. She was there when President Obama attended Nelson Mandela's memorial service in Soweto and present in the White House Rose Garden when President Trump welcomed Nigeria's former President. Biden's legacy on the continent is so bad, she says a second Trump term can only do better. http://www.x.com/robyncurnow http://www.searchingforamericapod.com http://www.robyncurnow.net http://www.instagram.com/robyncurnow

War photographer Lynsey Addario captures moments in history that are difficult to witness. She talks to Robyn Curnow about being an American during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and what it is like to face danger head-on. Her path to the frontlines was an unlikely one; her parents were hairdressers and she grew up in a small Connecticut town in a large Italian-American family. http://www.robyncurnow.net http://www.searchingforamericapod.com http://www.x.com/lynseyaddario