Tangle - Trump welcomes Saudi Arabia's crown prince.

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is visiting the United States this week to discuss U.S.–Saudi security partnerships and business relations. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump welcomed MBS to the White House for a private conversation and Oval Office meeting where they took questions from the press. The next day, MBS met privately with Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and Trump spokeat the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum. Throughout the visit, Trump and MBS expressed optimism about future U.S.–Saudi relations, including Saudi Arabia’s participation in peace negotiations in Gaza and the potential for bilateral business agreements.Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: How do you think U.S.–Saudi relations should advance? Let us know.Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Will Kaback and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. I'm your host today, senior editor Will Kayback, and we are going to be talking about the crown prince of Saudi Arabia's visit to the United States and his time with President Trump over the past week. A lot of major deals that were signed, some significant announcements, potentially some progress towards Middle East peace deals. There's a lot to get into. And so we're going to break all of it down and then I'll be giving my thoughts on how the meetings and the visit went. Before we jump in, a plug for tomorrow's

Friday edition, which is going to be a good one. In the newsletter, the headline for this promotion is just, if I ran for president. To give you a little bit more context here, Isaac is going to be writing a piece tomorrow that is asking the question, what would a presidential campaign that was built on broad, under-discussed consensus actually look like? He's going to be drawing on some of the themes that he's talked about before, intense political polarization in the United States, Americans expressing dissatisfaction with both parties. And so we started to think about how, despite all of this negativity that we hear about in the news, there's actually quite a bit that Americans all agree on.

So in the Friday edition tomorrow, he's going to essentially build a hypothetical presidential platform for that candidate who can address that middle band of the country talking about economic policy, immigration, foreign policy, and more. It's a great exercise. He has some really compelling ideas that he's putting forth and we're excited to share it with you. So be on the lookout for that tomorrow. If you are not a premium podcast listener and you want to hear the whole thing, you'll have to become a member to access it.

So if you're interested, make sure that you have upgraded your membership before tomorrow. And if you miss the window, you can still upgrade and listen to it after the fact. All right, for now I'm going to hand it over to John to get into today's topic. And then I will be back to read my take. John, over to you. Thanks, Will, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted Democratic Representative Sheila Sherfellis McCormick on charges that she stole $5 million in federal emergency management agency

overpayments and used a substantial portion of the money to fund her congressional campaign. Number two, President Donald Trump said that he will meet with New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdami at the White House on Friday. Number three, the House voted unanimously to repeal a measure that creates a legal avenue for senators to sue the government if federal investigators access their phone records without their knowledge. The provision was part of a funding bill passed last week to end the government shutdown. Number four, the Justice Department told a federal judge that not every member of the grand jury that indicted former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director

James Comey saw the final version of the indictment, raising the prospect of the case being thrown out. And number five, the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. trade deficit fell by nearly 24% in August, primarily due to President Trump's tariffs. Imports of goods and services dropped 5% from July to August. We have an extremely respected man in the Oval Office today and a friend of mine for a long time, a very good friend of mine. And I'm very proud of the job. he's done. What he's done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else. Trump announced he's selling Saudi Arabia, one of our nation's most powerful weapons,

the F-35 fighter jet, and as the Trump family has multiple projects in the works in Saudi Arabia, including Trump Towers and Trump Plaza. It's a remarkable return for the Crown Prince, his first visit in the U.S. in seven years following a global condemnation when the CIA found him responsible for orchestrating the murder of Washington, Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, something the kingdom still denies he had anything to do with. Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, is visiting the United States this week to discuss U.S. Saudi security partnerships and business relations.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump welcomed MBS to the White House for a private conversation in Oval Office meeting, where they took questions from the press. The next day, MBS met privately with Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and Trump spoke at the U.S.-S.-Saudi Investment Forum. Throughout the visit, Trump and MBS expressed optimism about the future of U.S. Saudi relations, including Saudi Arabia's participation in peace negotiations in Gaza and the potential for bilateral business agreements. Multiple diplomatic endeavors were announced during the visit.

On Monday, Trump announced that he planned to approve the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. The president said on Tuesday that the two countries had struck a major defense deal and security deal, elevating Saudi Arabia to major non-NATO ally status and removing existing impediments for weapons transfers between the countries. Also on Tuesday, Trump expressed hope that Saudi Arabia might join the Abraham Accords and move toward normalizing relations with Israel. In a speech at the U.S. Saudi Investment Forum, Trump mentioned that MBS had encouraged him to intervene in the ongoing conflict in Sudan. The president said the conflict wasn't on my charts, but added that we're

going to start working on Sudan. The defense and security deals come as Saudi Arabia. Arabia has pledged to increase its investments in U.S. industries. The White House announced that the kingdom would invest $600 billion in the U.S. when Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia in May. After MBS's visit, the White House announced the kingdom would increase its planned investments to nearly $1 trillion. Congressional reception for MBS's visit was mixed. Days before his arrival, a planned larger meeting with senators was canceled over disputes about which senators would be in attendance. However, MBS met with select Democratic and Republican House members and senators in receptions hosted by individual members. MBS's visit marks the first time the Saudi

Prince has visited the United States since the 2018 killing of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence determined MBS had personally authorized an operation that led to Kishoggi's murder and dismemberment, chilling relations between the countries and drawing widespread international condemnation. In the Oval Office press conference, a reporter questioned MBS on Kishoggi's death. Trump appeared to defend bin Salman's role. Whether you like Kishol or didn't like him, things happen. But MBS knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that, Trump said. MBS called the story painful and said Saudi Arabia had improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that happens again. Today, we'll examine this visit with

perspectives from the left, right, and Middle Eastern writers. And then senior editor Will Quebec will give his take. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right. First up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right is mixed on Trump's approach, with some saying he should pursue a close partnership with the Saudis. Others suggest the relationship should be limited and transactional. In the Washington examiner, Tom Rogan wrote, Trump rightly fetes Muhammad bin Salman at the White House.

Bin Salman is an authoritarian leader who was almost certainly responsible, for the brutal October 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Just as he absurdly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Russia engaged in no interference related to the 2016 U.S. elections, Trump is wrong here to reject the abundant evidence to suggest that bin Salman did indeed order Khashoggi killed, Rogan said. Still, leaders must ultimately pursue the policies that best serve the nation's interests. Judged on that metric, Trump's red carpet treatment of bin Salman is warranted. Future Middle Eastern stability depends greatly on bin Salman's domestic reforms.

While he is paranoid and impulsive in his restraint to perceived domestic challenges, the Crown Prince has nevertheless embarked on a bold and crucial domestic reform program, Rogan wrote. Trump should be judged against a prudent assessment of the varied interest at stake here. Chinese leader Mao Zedong killed tens of millions of his own people in the crazed pursuit of industrialized communism. Still, President Richard Nixon was right to Fet Mao in an effort to draw China away from the civil. Soviet Union. In the American Spectator, Doug Bandao argued, America shouldn't fight for the Saudi throne. The U.S. should seek to maintain a civil relationship with the kingdom, which is an important Middle Eastern power. However, the relationship should be transactional based on shared

interests, not U.S. submissiveness. Saudi Arabia will sell oil to America and to the West, even if Washington stops exempting MBS from the norms of civilized society, Bandao said. Moreover, America's energy revolution, along with the burgeoning international market, has reduced Riyadh's ability to manipulate oil supplies. More than any other region, the Mideast deserves a dose of America first. The president has spoken of his determination to run the world. Better to leave most countries to handle their own affairs, especially in the Middle East, Bandauret.

After their dinner, the president should send MBS and his oversized travel party on their way. It's time for the royals to stop treating the U.S. armed forces as a modern janissory Corps tasked with their protection. Let the crown prince convince the Saudi people that his rule and the monarchy are worth defending. All right, that is for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left argues that Trump has whitewashed MBS's human rights violations. Others say Trump's approach to the Saudi relationship is short-sighted. The New York Times editorial board wrote, No, Mr. President, we cannot leave it at that.

The realities of geopolitics have long required the United States to ally itself with foreign leaders who commit terrible deeds. Saudi Arabia is a classic example of such a country today. It both has a disturbing human rights record and is a legitimately valuable American partner encountering Iran's aggressions and building a more stable Middle East, the board said. But working with imperfect partners

does not mean that the United States should cover up and lie about their misdeeds, as President Trump did when receiving Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. Mr. Trump embraced the prince's implausible claim of innocence in the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and journalist, and berated Mary Bruce of ABC News, for asking about the killing. It suggested that the truth was irrelevant, and it discarded the hard work of American intelligence in trying to determine that truth, the board wrote. The role of the news media in our democracy is not to flatter foreign leaders or, for that matter, American ones. It is to pose important and sometimes challenging questions and publish the facts.

As president, Mr. Trump repeatedly shows contempt for this principle. In Bloomberg, Andres Cluth said, the U.S. is treating the Saudis as it should treat NATO. Donald Trump is about to repeat a mistake he has been making with America's partners all over the world. He keeps confusing the proper uses of clarity and ambiguity in foreign policy, using one when the situation calls for the other, Cluth wrote, hosting the Saudi Arabian crown prince in the White House, tomorrow, for example, the U.S. President will add clarity to a relationship that would benefit instead from remaining ambiguous. By contrast, he has introduced unnecessary ambiguity into relationships that were or need to be clear, with NATO, South Korea, and Japan, among others.

If a security guarantee is given to buy Saudi support for the peace process in the Gaza Strip or normalization with Israel, it's unnecessary, because those steps are in Riyadh's interest, too. If it's meant to keep the Saudis from fraternizing with the Chinese, it will fail, because As the Crown Prince wants to hedge his bets with all major powers, Cluth said. What it will do instead is commit an overstretched America to yet another hot spot of conflicts, possibly encouraging Riyadh to take more risk in its neighborhood and preventing the U.S. from pursuing its own national interest. All right, that is it for what the right and the left are saying, which brings us to what Middle East writers are saying. Some Middle Eastern writers see MBS's U.S. trip as a significant diplomatic victory.

Others say the two leaders have shared interests that can be used for peace. In the Middle East eye, Muhammad al-Masari wrote, Bin Salman's Washington comeback delivers sweeping gains for Saudi Arabia. The meeting signified a shift in the Saudi-American relationship with the two countries agreeing to unprecedented levels of cooperation that could shift the power dynamic between them, El Mouseri said. Saudi money already lines the U.S. from Wall Street to Hollywood, but Tuesday's visit will inject a lot more of it.

But such massive investments, even if only partially fulfilled, shift the American Saudi power dynamic at least to some extent. While the U.S. has long enjoyed the leverage of advantage over Saudi Arabia, the latter's increased influence over the U.S. economy arguably shifts the balance in its favor. The Crown Prince has now fully emerged from the Khashoggi murder affair, and Saudi Arabia has purchased influence in the American economic, political, and defense spheres. He can return to Saudi Arabia showing tangible progress on his vision 2030 aspirations, which involves strengthening Saudi military capacity and diversifying the national economy.

away from oil, El Mastry wrote. Trump will be able to point to hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investments, likely significant job creation and the strengthening of ties with an important ally. But a wide range of onlookers will be dismayed at what took place in Washington. In Arab news, Abdul Rahman al-Rashid explored the importance of the Trump-MBS meeting. Saudi Arabia manages its regional relationships with the goal of preventing broader collapse, starting with the Beijing brokered agreement with Iran and continuing through Riyadh's revival, of the two-state solution. That proposal triggered a wave of regional and international support,

along with expectations of collective ties with Israel down the line, Al-Rashid said. A series of steps, ranging from Beijing to Tehran, Islamabad, and Damascus, shows the nature of the Crown Prince's approach, balanced relations, de-escalation, and preparing the region for a different phase. Trump has articulated a parallel vision. In his address to the Knesset, he said Israel had achieved all it could through military force and that the time had come to channel its strength toward peace. The crown prince and the president are capable of working together whenever possible to push the region toward greater stability, al-Rashid wrote. The Trump administration is aligning itself with successful economic powers, not just military ones. Saudi Arabia's importance lies in its central

role in the region and the Islamic world, its influence on global energy security, and its emergence as a rising economic force within the G20. All right, let's head over to Will for his take. Thanks, John. All right, Will, jumping back in here to read my take. President Trump, at his core, loves making deals. And Saudi Arabia, a country that is eager to strengthen its ties with the West and accustomed to making splashy investments, provides the ultimate deal-making partner for him.

Trump's meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed B. Salman, who I'll just refer to as MBS from now on, exemplifies the good, the bad, and the ugly of this deal-first approach, and of the blurred lines between the Trump family businesses and the Trump presidency. On paper, there is a lot to like about the trajectory of Saudi relations under Trump. For one, U.S. cooperation has encouraged the kingdom's ongoing modernization, Since MBS first rose to power a decade ago, he spurred meaningful change in Saudi Arabia's culture, economy, and foreign policy.

As Saudi writers have documented, what was once a stagnant and repressive country in the early 2010s has evolved into a more dynamic and modern one today. The Crown Prince has reintroduced physical education for girls, changed laws to allow women to drive and work without a male guardian's permission, stripped the religious police of, their powers, reopened movie theaters, and made the country more welcoming to visitors from all over the world than all religious backgrounds. Now, to be clear, Saudi Arabia is still a place where political rights and civil liberties are essentially non-existent. It's still a very repressive country. And also, the MBS-led reforms will only last as long as he or the next ruler wants them to. But these changes and what they represent are also inarguably positive developments. Now, Trump wants to take advantage of Saudi Arabia's newfound openness toward Western values,

just as Obama and Biden had. In the past few months, he's run up a staggering list of mutually beneficial deals, culminating in this week's announcement of the $1 trillion in Saudi investments in the U.S., the U.S. agreeing to sell the Saudis F-35 planes, and both countries reaching a civil nuclear cooperation agreement. Directionally, I think Trump's approach and all of this is strong and positive. In addition to the potential economic benefits, stronger ties with Saudi Arabia give the U.S. a key partner in the Middle East as Trump works to implement his Gaza peace plan

and normalize Arab-Israeli relations. Under MBS, Saudi Arabia has become a diplomatic power broker and aligning their interests with the U.S. increases the potential for genuine breakthroughs to address regional violence and instability. The partnership can also counter the regional influence of actors like China and Iran. So at first, all of these deals look pretty mutually beneficial, and they appear to be major diplomatic achievements for Trump. But they also come with major caveats that make me think we've given up much more than we've gotten in return.

For one, these deals are far from final, and history suggests that they will end up much more modest when all is said and done. Trump actually announced similar deals with the Saudis in his first term, most significantly a $450 billion investment commitment. But an analysis of those deals found that the investment totaled just $92 billion from 2017 to 2020, which is of course a meaningful sum, but far less than what was promised. Similarly, a 2017 defense agreement initially estimated to be worth $110 billion,

only generated $23 billion in arms sales in the same time span. Saudi Arabia also just doesn't have the money to invest $1 trillion. As the Arab Center in Washington, D.C. has noted, the Kingdom's annual spending rarely exceeds $350 billion, and its sovereign wealth fund has assets of approximately $925 billion only. It's also facing a projected budget deficit of over $67 billion in 2025, and it's already mired in costly domestic projects like it's the line city. Furthermore, MBS has barely moved on his position on joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel, even after the multiple days of lavish treatment in D.C. MBS has softened somewhat on the prospect, telling Trump that he wants to join the agreement if he sees a, quote, clear path for Palestinian statehood. In the past, Saudi Arabia's requirement was the, quote, establishment of a Palestinian state. But the Saudi position on one of Trump's major focuses clearly remains.

non-committal. While Saudi Arabia's commitments are projected and probably overstated, ours are more immediate and tangible, which tilts the skills further towards the Saudis. In addition to greenlighting the sale of the F-35s, Trump is bestowing the prestigious non-major NATO ally status upon Saudi Arabia. Add in Trump's surprising step of lifting economic sanctions on Syria in May, a movie credited MBS with facilitating, and you can see the president making a great effort to raise MBS's profile and legitimize his rule on the global stage. And for all the wins we've handed Saudi Arabia, what do we really have to show for it? No tangible progress on the Saudis joining the Abraham Accords and no way to guarantee

follow-through on their investment promises. As an outside observer, you'd be forgiven for looking at these results and thinking Saudi Arabia was the world superpower and not us. Now, that brings me to the ugly, the Trump family's business interests in Saudi Saudi Arabia. This week, the Trump Organization and its Saudi-based development partner, Dar al-Arcon, announced a project that will allow cryptocurrency investors to buy into Trump-branded real estate projects with digital currency. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Erstwhile Middle East advisor, runs a private equity firm that has taken $2 billion from a fund led by the Saudi Crown Prince. And in September, real estate developer Dar Global announced that

it is launching a $1 billion project to build a Trump Plaza in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the second such Trump-branded project in the city. An expanded U.S.-S.-Saudi relationship will invariably benefit those business dealings, and it invites very reasonable suspicion that Trump is motivated to strike these deals for the gain of his family. Just as ugly, Trump's utter disregard for Saudi human rights violations, and its murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. I think it's rational for the U.S. president to make the calculation, that the unjustified and immoral killing of one journalist is still not worth sacrificing our

entire relationship with the Saudis. But that uneasy trade-off does not require papering over or outright denying the evidence that MBS approved the killing. The president's behavior during the press gaggle with MBS in the Oval Office was frankly hard to watch. The chumminess between the two felt odd and uncomfortable, culminating in a bizarre exchange where Trump reached for MBS's hand multiple times and compared his friendliness with the leader to Biden's. It was just one moment, but it deepened the sense of a power imbalance between Trump and MBS. More disturbingly, Trump not only dismissed U.S. intelligence agency's findings that MBS approved

the kidnapping and murder of Khashoggi. He also defended MBS against the charge, referring to Khashoggi as someone extremely controversial, whom a lot of people didn't like. The president then attacked the reporter who asked the question, haranguing. her for, quote, embarrassing our guest. But after that whole outburst, MBS just answered the question and a separate one about allegations that Saudi Arabia assisted the 9-11 attackers. This was an implicit recognition that the question was not only in bounds, but expected at such a meeting. MBS's answer wasn't satisfactory, but it was still an answer, and it was striking to see an

autocrat be more responsive to tough questions from the press than a democratically elected leader. The moment provided another example of Trump needlessly sacrificing leverage. Trump's total willingness to ignore the bad actions of certain allies is not the mark of a sophisticated dealmaker. In fact, maintaining a tougher posture about Khashoggi and other Saudi human rights issues could actually have helped negotiate more favorable agreements for the U.S. Instead, Trump seems focused solely on securing deals with eye-poppy numbers and no strings attached.

Ultimately, a thriving partnership with Saudi Arabia could prove to be able to be able to be a long-term boon for the United States and the Middle East, and Trump will deserve praise if that comes to pass. If the deal's faltered, though, or fail to lead to more concrete agreements for Middle East peace, I think Trump's missteps in these discussions will have been apparent from the start. Above all, this week's treatment of MBS left an accurate taste in my mouth, and I worry that Trump has secured too little while giving away too much, including our moral authority. All right, that is it for my take. I'm going to pass it over to managing editor Ari Weitzman to read today's

reader question, and then back over to John to take us home. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day. Arie, over to you. We'll be right back after this quick break. Thanks, Will. Today's reader question comes from Doug in Goshen, Connecticut, who asks,

what would it take to get a qualified assessment of President Trump's mental fitness? If it were up to me, I'd say he should take a mental fitness check now and actually release those results publicly. What's the harm in it? As for when Tangle might be vociferously calling for an assessment and saying clearly that Trump may not be mentally fit for the office, I think we're not at that point yet. When we first started showing concern about President Joe Biden's mental fitness and Tangle,

we had two reasons. First, he started to appear in public less and less. Second, when we compared recent interviews to ones from 10 years ago, the contrast was stark. With President Trump, the issue of presence is not at all a concern. Trump is probably the most visible and active president of my lifetime, but when he compare interviews from early in his first term to recent interviews, like one that he did with Fox News's Lori Ingram, he does seem somewhat diminished. He'd always strayed from the initial topic, but he seems to do so now all the time.

He always spun or created talking points to make himself look better, but his now constant focus on self-flattery could also be a sign of mental decline. Not necessarily, but it could. In my personal opinion, though, I think Trump right now appears much closer to the man he was eight years ago than Biden did when Isaac first started voicing his concerns during his presidency. For now, if we start seeing more noticeable differences in Trump's speech, and especially if his public appearances start taking a nose dive, then we definitely have a problem. And the calls for Trump to take a fitness exam and release those results publicly should increase.

But for now, Trump's mental acuity is, for me at least, one of those things that's worth watching, but not an immediate and present concern. Right, that's it for today's reader question. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pot. Thanks, Ari. Here's your under the radar story for today, folks. On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, shared findings from its investigation into the cargo ship that allied with Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March of 2024, killing six. The NTSB found several issues related to the ship's machinery and electrical systems,

including an improperly installed wire that led to the vessel losing power. The compounding electrical issues prevented the ship from recovering control. in time to correct course leading to the crash. Investigators said the loose wire could have been identified during inspections by the ship's operator, Synergy Marine Group, but the company's inspectors had not adequately checked the systems. As a result of its findings, the NTSB said it is now issuing 17 new safety recommendations. ABC News has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description.

All right, next up is our numbers section. Prior to his visit to the White House on Tuesday, the number of days since Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman's most recent trip to the U.S. on March 14, 2017, was 3,170 days. Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product in current U.S. dollars in 2024 was $1.24 trillion. Saudi Arabia's annual GDP growth in 2024 was 1.8%. According to the World Bank, 22% of the female population in Saudi Arabia, age 15 and up, participated in the workforce in 2015. In 2024, that number was 34%.

Saudi Arabia's score in Freedom House's 2025 Freedom in the World report was 9 out of 100. Saudi Arabia's score for political rights was 1 out of 40, and for civil liberties, 8 out of 60. And the number of people convicted in Saudi court in 2020 for crimes related to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was 8. And last but not least, our have a nice day. story. Illustrator and perfumer Michael O'Shaughnessy uses smells that invoke childhood recollections to motivate his art students at Liverpool John Moore's University, and he's bringing that novel

approach to a surprising cohort, prisoners, with bottled and evocative scents, violin rosen, or a locker room. O'Shaughnessy wants to motivate prisoners to more viscerally imagine another life. Some sense take them outside, away from the internal walls of their confined spaces to another world, he explains. And that spark is taking purchase. The more I can imagine my future, the greater the possibility, one prisoner wrote. What does my future smell like? Does the world have a place for me? The past was how I remembered it, how I experienced it. It taught me how to feel. I experienced now through the mirror of the past. How I respond to the past affects my future. Positive news has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description.

All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, go to readtangle.com, where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. As Will mentioned at the top, tomorrow's Friday edition is going to focus on how much Americans agree on and what a presidential campaign built on that broad, under-discussed consensus would look like. A reminder that Friday editions are for members only, so to access it on the newsletter or the podcast, you do need to become a member.

Isaac Ari and Camille will be here with the suspension of the rules podcast, and I will return on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a truly awesome and fantastic weekend, y'all. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Lull. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas.

Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Canuth, and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.