Ali Mamlouk

You know, you're conducting a 360 negotiation.

And when people want to know, like, hey, what was it like talking to Maduro or Ali Mamlouk or, you know, the Iranians? I'm like, man, that's the easy stuff.

The hardest stuff is the 360 degree negotiation, getting everyone in the U.S. government aligned and willing to put forth a proposal.

Because by the time you finally get to your opponent, whether it be a dictator or an intelligence service, that's actually

I think President Trump at the time was probably willing to do something, but he needed to have some sort of assurance that they were gonna negotiate in good faith, and we just could

never get there.

So you're trying to work this at the highest level, meeting with someone like Ali Mamlouk.

And you've made clear in earlier interviews that it's important to kind of engage at that presidential level and senior figures in government.

And we'd also-

Was it Ali Mamlouk?

Indeed, Ali Mamlouk.

Who was the, like, head of all intelligence.

Correct.

But I have to think that he's probably the one that gave a lot of the orders that resulted in the deaths of well over 100,000 Syrians.

And so I was sitting across from a person who, you know, was probably not the nicest guy.

Ali Mamlouk is one of President Assad's most trusted men, deep inside his inner circle and central to Syria's intelligence state.