Lawrence Wright has been friends with Jamal Khashoggi for nearly two decades. In a new documentary, The Kingdom of Silence, he tells the complicated story of America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia through the lens of Khashoggi’s life—from his youthful enthusiasm for jihadis to his years serving the Saudi royal family and his eventual embrace of the Arab Spring.

On the latest episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and Lawrence Wright, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and staff writer at the New Yorker, talk about why the United States and Saudi Arabia have maintained an uneasy partnership for so many years, and how a new U.S. administration should deal with the Saudi royal family. The podcast also discusses Wright’s prescient thriller about a global pandemic and his groundbreaking reporting on scientology.

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Email: goodfightpod@gmail.com

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Podcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca Rashid

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Why Is America Still Friends with Saudi Arabia?