So you were marched out of the State Department two weeks ago. You left involuntarily. And I want to hear why. But first, what did you do there? What was your job of the state? I was a press officer in the New York Eastern Affairs Bureau started September 2024. Essentially, the main bread and butter role of a press officer is twofold.

One is preparing the spokesperson before they go on the podium and do their daily press briefing.

And second, reporters ask questions all the time.

So a reporter with XYZ outlet submits a question and it's our job to use cleared lines or cleared meaning approved lines and send them back to the reporter.

And if you ever read an article and it says a state department spokesperson said X, those are press officers taking those cleared lines and sharing it with that reporter.

Okay. officers taking those cleared lines and sharing it with that reporter. Who clears the lines?

Good question.

So the press officer will draft the lines.

From there, it will go up a ladder, essentially. So there will be desk officers, leadership in the

Indian Press office itself, and then it goes up to the seventh floor, meaning the

secretary's policy planning office, the deputy secretary of state's office. But it's not

themself. Like you're not going to get the deputy secretary of state looking at this,

right? It's going to just be like a staffer who represents that equity.

So it becomes an inclusive process to make sure everyone has eyes on it.

And if there are flags, they'll let you know.

For example, you could be drafting a line on Israel, but it involves Lebanon.

But there's another press officer and a whole other

desk and leadership working on Lebanon that might have an equity that you may not be aware of that they'll edit the line.

So describe the Bureau that you work for near Eastern Affairs? Yes. What is that? It's, well, it's an old school name.

Basically means anything involved in the Middle East.

So it's Morocco to Iran, essentially. The whole Middle East, not just the Levant, like the whole

Middle East. Yeah, near East. Yeah, it's a, they need to update the name. I think people are aware. But yeah, it's the entire Middle East. So they use all these acronyms. So,

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