SITREP Pod: Free Trevor Reed, American and former US Marine held in Russia | Pod Hostage Diplomacy

SITREP Pod: Free Trevor Reed, American and former US Marine held in Russia | Pod Hostage Diplomacy  

SPEAKERS

Daren Nair, Joey Reed, Paula Reed

Daren Nair: 

Welcome to Pod Hostage Diplomacy. We work to free hostages and the unjustly detained around the world. Together with their families, we share their stories every week and let you know how you can help bring them home.
 
 I'm Daren Nair, and I've had the honour of campaigning with many of these families for years. These are some of the most courageous and resilient people among us, people who have never given up hope, people who will never stop working to reunite their families. We will be right there by their side until their loved ones are back home.
 
 Thank you for joining us. Now, let's meet this week's guests.
 
 Welcome to Pod Hostage Diplomacy. Trevor Reed is an American citizen and a former US Marine from Texas. He has been wrongfully imprisoned in Russia for over two years. The current US Ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, has stated that Trevor Reed is innocent and that this is a gross miscarriage of justice. The current US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, spoke to his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Lavrov, and called on Russia to release Trevor Reed so he can return home to his family. President Joe Biden raised Trevor's case with President Vladimir Putin when they both met at the Biden-Putin Summit, and said he's going to follow through with that discussion and he's not going to walk away on that. Members of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate have passed bipartisan resolutions, calling for the immediate release of Trevor Reed and for him to be allowed to return home.
 
 In summary, the White House, State Department, Senate, and House of Representatives all agree that the Russians must release Trevor Reed immediately and allow him to come home to the United States.
 
 Now, Trevor is not the only American and former US Marine unjustly held in Russia at the moment. [(2:00)] Another American and former Marine, Paul Whelan, has also been detained in Russia. Trevor' detention is not an isolated incident as there appears to be a pattern of wrongful detention by Russian authorities, targeting American citizens who are former US Marines.
 
 Trevor's parents believe that he's being held by the Russian government at the request of the Russian security agency, the FSB, so he can be used as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from the United States. This would be hostage diplomacy. The FSB is Russia's federal security service and is one of the successor agencies of the Soviet Union's KGB.
 
 We had the honour of interviewing Trevor's parents, Joey and Paula Reed, in September. We have also interviewed Paul Whelan's sister, Elizabeth Whelan, twice. If you haven't already, please do check out these episodes on your podcast app or visit podhostagediplomacy.com. We always tell the families we interviewed that we'll be campaigning right by their side until their loved ones come home, and we mean it, so we'll keep you up to date with their campaigns through SITREP Pods like this one or Breaking News Pods.
 
 We're joined today once again by Trevor's parents, Joey and Paula Reed. I'm sorry, it couldn't be under better circumstances. Thank you for joining us.
 
 Paula Reed: 

Thank you for having us. We appreciate it.
 
 Daren Nair: 

You're welcome. Thank you for coming back on. Now, for our listeners who haven't listened to our previous episode, can you please give them a summary of what happened to Trevor?
 
 Joey Reed: 

Well, it's a long story. I'll try to make it short. He had been dating, he met a young Russian woman, younger than him, Lena, back in, I think, late 2016, and they met on vacation in Greece. They started dating and she spent a couple of Summers here with us when she was on break from law school in Russia. She spent one or two [(4:00)] holidays here with us. Trevor had traveled to visit her parents in Russia in January of 2016 for a couple of weeks. In the Summer of 2019, on college break from UNT, University of North Texas, he decided to go to Russia and spend the summer with her so they could decide whether they wanted to go further, maybe get married, and also take Russian lessons for his international studies degree at University of North Texas.
 
 Just before he was due to return, they had been to a party and he was toasting vodka with all the people from the law firm, it was a law firm private party in a park, and became very intoxicated. On the way home, the people they were riding with stopped to let him out to get sick. He got sick and then he became disoriented, and he wouldn't get back in the car. One of the people called the police, which you don't do in Russia, and the police came, and realizing he was an American, knew that he would probably have money. They said, "Well, let's take him to the police station," which is against police policy in Russia. They take drunks to the hospital, otherwise, their police stations would be overflowing, because everyone drinks vodka in Russia. Even Putin admitted in an interview, everyone does this in Russia. They took him to the police station. They asked for a bribe, which is pretty much standard operating procedure. The girlfriend, being a new lawyer, said, "We'll take care of this," didn't agree, disagree. She said she'll come back and pick him up at 9:00 when he sobers up, because the girlfriend and the other people followed them to the police station. They said, "Follow us." She came back at 9 a.m. with her mother, and the FSB was there. Someone had discovered on his visa application that he was a Marine. You're required to put that on there. After the FSB interrogated him for a couple of hours about his Marine Corps [(6:00)] experience, the police came back in and said, "You're under arrest for endangering the lives of police officers. You grabbed the arm of a driver on the way to the police station."
 
 Through a long trial in the middle of COVID lockdown in Russia, I went there to be a part of the trial and meet with the attorneys for 14 months. It was beyond any doubt that it was completely bogus. We had video evidence that was shown in court and analyzed by Russian government officials that said the police lied. All the video from inside the police car and in and outside the police station was denied to the defense even though everyone, the police station supervisor who investigated, everyone admitted there was a video and they had seen it.
 
 The short end to the story, they sentenced our son to the longest sentence in modern Russian history. They gave him nine years on a possible 10-year sentence, and other Russians who stabbed and shot police officers and nearly killed them had only received eight as the maximum sentence, and only a dozen or so of those in the last 20 years. No one was hurt. There was no evidence of anyone ever being hurt or that anything happened. The police changed their testimony four times in the courtroom, on the record. He was sentenced to nine years.
 
 Within a month of that time, he was sent to a Russian prison camp out in the forest in the Republic of Mordovia. Since that time, they have not allowed him to call us. It's been about 214 days. They have allowed him to make several calls to his girlfriend in Moscow, but they will not let him call the Embassy or us. Most of that time, our son has been in solitary confinement, either alone in a very small room or with another prisoner in a slightly larger room. He's been placed there [(8:00)] because he's refusing to work. He says, "I'm not going to work for my hostage takers and make money for them." The prison, apparently, is violating Russian rules where there's supposed to be a special barracks for prisoners that refuse to work. It's called a more hardened regime, but apparently, they don't operate that one at this prison against the rules, and they just place all the non workers into solitary confinement. He has a hole in the floor for a toilet, a bed that folds down from the wall, has two chains, a metal frame, and he lays on that for 10:00 at night until the sun comes up. That bed has to be folded up during the day, and there's a small bench on the wall, where he's apparently supposed to sit. Other than that, he can only stand. He violates the rules and he lays on the floor next to the hot water pipes because that's the only way he can stay warm in the freezing temperature, where he ceases breath all day. He drinks untreated water from a faucet, and the food's obviously not the best when you get potato soup two or three times a day, maybe some cabbage, and occasionally, [inaudible]. That's where we're at.
 
 Daren Nair: 

I'm sorry to hear that. I think the key thing for our listeners, the US government has classified Trevor Reed as an American who has been wrongfully detained in Russia. The US ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, has stated that this is a gross miscarriage of justice. As I said at the beginning in the monologue, the White House, the State Department, the Senate, and the House of Representatives have all called for Trevor Reed's immediate release.
 
 Since we last spoke in September last year, there have been some worrying geopolitical developments, mainly Russia about to go to war with Ukraine. Obviously, with Trevor being held in Russia, this is a great concern to you. Can you just elaborate further?
 
 Paula Reed: 

Of course, we're [(10:00)] concerned that once Russia invades Ukraine, if they do, then any lines of communication between the United States and Russia will be closed because we're going to be enacting sanctions upon Russia according to President Biden. Those might hurt Trevor's chances for negotiating to come home.
 
 Daren Nair: 

What is it you need the US government to do?
 
 Joey Reed: 

Well, we need them to negotiate some sort of an agreement with the Russian government. We believe, and then was actually publicly confirmed yesterday by National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, on the Jake Tapper CNN programme, State of the Union, he said that they have been in communications with the Russian government over this issue, which, again, both President Putin and President Biden both publicly said in press conferences following their meeting that they were open to discuss this between the Foreign Ministry and the State Department. Apparently, something has been going on, and we just hope that they can continue that. We believe that we have at least some idea of what the Russian government wants. They basically said in press conferences and through their media that they would like at least two of their Russian citizens, who are in our prisons, returned. We think maybe the big holdup is that our government is reluctant to exchange two tourists for these criminals that were arrested in foreign countries.
 
 Paula Reed: 

We know they're negotiating. We want them to do it more quickly.
 
 Daren Nair: 

I understand. Apart from that, is there anything else that you need any branch of government to do? Congress, SPEHA Office, SPEHA being Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, or any other government branch? Can they do anything else to help?
 
 Joey Reed: 

I don't know what else the SPEHA [(12:00)] Office, the Special Presidential Envoy on Hostage Affairs', Roger Carstens and his staff can do. They are fabulous, and every hostage and detainee family that we're in contact with are very thankful for all the work they've done. Really, they’re research and advisory, they make recommendations to the Secretary of State and probably to the National Security Advisor on what the options are in these situations and the background on them, and they've been extremely... they reach out to us and just ask us what we need, what have we heard, and that we talk to them weekly, if not more often. They've been great.
 
 The State Department, we have some contact with them indirectly. We've met with officials there. We've spoken to the Secretary of State on the phone, and we think it's really at the highest level and that's according to every government official we've spoken to. This is to the President and we just need the President to take some action in some sort of maybe a prisoner exchange or some sort of tit for that tat to get these veterans back.
 
 As far as Congress goes, I think our resolution that was introduced by our Congressman, August Pfluger, had 57 co-sponsors that were both Democrat and Republican from all over the country. There was even bipartisan co-signers on Senator Cornyn's resolution in the Senate, so we've had wide bipartisan support for those resolutions that have passed in both Houses.
 
 Other than our Congressmen and Senators that are familiar with this case, talking to the President directly and saying, "Mr. President, you need to act on this," we don't know how much more Congress could do.
 
 Daren Nair: 

I’ve been following your Twitter feed that's @freetrevorreed [(14:00)], that's your Twitter account, I understand from your tweets that Trevor has come into contact with someone with TB?
 
 Joey Reed: 

Yes. Back in, I think, probably late November or early December, he was in contact with another prisoner. I believe it was a prisoner actually from Cuba who was coughing, had a very progressive cough, and then Trevor, along with, I think, some other prisoners who are kept in solitary confinement, they were sent to a prison hospital, which they do about every six months just to give, I guess, the solitary confinement people a break, and then give them what we call a "fake check-up". They could be missing an arm and they would say, "They're healthy and can work." They went there and Trevor was there for, I don't know, a week and a half or something, and they returned to the prison camp. The other guy was also returned and said, "No, he's fine," and then they said he had pneumonia, and then he came back to the prison, and I guess he got worse. Within a short period of time, they sent him back to the prison hospital, and then word funneled down that he had tuberculosis, had been moved to the tuberculosis wing because tuberculosis is fairly widespread in Russian prisons. It's not as bad as it was 20 years ago, but it's still very prevalent. The word that we've gotten through his girlfriend is that the word in the prison is that that inmate lost a lung and was possibly going to die.
 
 Now, apparently, they've tested... I'm not sure if they've tested the other inmates where Trevor's at, but they're giving them some sort of preventive medicines. To our knowledge, they've refused to test Trevor or give him those medicines. I'm unsure why he's not getting the same treatment that the other inmates are, especially when they rarely give any type of treatment.
 
 Daren Nair: 

I also understand he [(16:00)] contracted COVID-19 in prison, right?
 
 Paula Reed: 

Yes, he did.
 
 Daren Nair: 

How has his recovery been?
 
 Paula Reed: 

I think he's had some lingering coughs ever since. It never cleared up completely. I guess it's kind of hard to tell what's new with his coughing situation and what's left over from before, but it never cleared up.
 
 Joey Reed: 

He's obviously better. He wasn't ever deathly ill, but he had a severe cough in Moscow. That was another thing. My understanding is they sent him to another hospital in Moscow with other people that were in his cell at the time, and they just gave them vitamins. After the 10-day period or whatever, they sent them back to the Moscow Detention Center that he was in. My understanding was he had a prescription or something for a medicine to take afterwards. Once he was transferred to the prison camp, they've never given him any of that medications.
 
 Daren Nair: 

Given that you haven't been able to speak to him, how do you know how he's doing? Is it you getting word through his girlfriend or through Embassy visits?
 
 Paula Reed: 

We get a word through his girlfriend, mostly. The embassy hasn't been able to visit him since November. We also sent a local attorney from the Mordovia area to go visit him, and we send questions and he answers the attorney. That's how we hear back on how he's doing, and things that he needs from us or complaints that he has, that's how we hear about it.
 
 Joey Reed: 

The Ambassador has traveled there, himself, twice. That's an eight-hour drive in an armoured vehicle. He visits our son one day and then spends a night, and then Paul Whelan the next day, and then they drive back. Another new thing that's happening is that we sent a new attorney to visit Trevor this week, this past week. The guards refused to allow Trevor to give written [(18:00)] complaints or notes to the attorney. They confiscated them. I don't remember that ever happening, and it's very unusual. That's one of the very few rules that they actually follow there, is they have access to your attorney and you can exchange written communications, back and forth. The attorney was allowed to read our letters to Trevor, I believe. Anyway, that was the first time that had happened, and apparently, the warden told him afterwards that the guards would be punished and that that would not happen again. We don't believe anything they say.
 
 That's, again, where we've been getting our information. It's either through the two Ambassador visits, local attorney visits, or phone calls to his girlfriend.
 
 Daren Nair: 

I also noticed from your Twitter feed that you had a meeting with National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. I appreciate that a lot of what is said is confidential, but is there anything you can tell us about how that meeting went and how you felt afterwards?
 
 Joey Reed: 

We felt that we're very thankful for the meeting. I know that was something that they really hadn't been doing previously and that he's met with a lot of people since, a lot of detainee families. He was very genuine and compassionate, and said that the President has been briefed several times on what's going on and that they are working to accomplish something. We know that just on our side alone, there's all kinds of different agencies that have to agree on what to do and then advise the President. We just believe that there may be a hold-up, and that hold-up might be the Department of Justice because our understanding is they operate based on the rule of law. They're historically against any of these prisoner swaps that we believe Russia [(20:00)] has been advocating for. Although, I should mention that both the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration made several of these prisoner swaps with foreign nations or groups, and we're just wondering what's the hold-up, especially with war in Ukraine looming. That's where we're at. But again, back to our meeting with him, it was a very good meeting and we're very thankful for that.
 
 Daren Nair: 

Well, that's good to hear. Now, Joey, you're a former Marine, yourself. Trevor's a former Marine and he used to guard President Obama. In order to get that role, you have to be very good at what you do. What can the US Marine Corps do to help?
 
 Joey Reed: 

Well, obviously, I think probably the biggest thing that Marines and former Marines can do would be to write the President, like all other citizens. But when you think about all the people in this country that have been Marines, hundreds of thousands, that one group alone would be a giant lobbying power to get the government to act. Let's face it. All politicians from local to federal, they're concerned about votes. If Marines were to stand up together and say, "Hey, bring these guys home and follow our motto," Semper Fidelis, Always Faithful. Trevor and Paul were being held because they're former Marines. There's no doubt about it. We're surprised at what little support that we've gotten from Marines. We've had some former Marines, that don't know Trevor, that have reached out to us. Of course, all of Trevor's buddies from Camp David and from 3rd Battalion 1st Marines. We understand that the leadership in the current Marine Corps is limited on what they can say, just because of the situation and their positions, but it would be nice if maybe [(22:00)] some former Marine leadership could say something, and it would make Trevor and Paul feel much better.
 
 Paula Reed: 

This time around, for sure.
 
 Daren Nair: 

I remember you saying in our last interview, it would be great if President Obama reached out or said something. Has he done that?
 
 Joey Reed: 

No, he hasn't. It's our belief that he just doesn't want to interfere with anything that's going on now. We believe President Obama's also a compassionate person and just from what Trevor told us about his interactions with him a couple of times that he met him, that he was just a very friendly and kind person. We think that he's probably just not able to reach out to us because it's an ongoing situation and he probably doesn't want to interfere with the current administration's priorities.
 
 Daren Nair: 

No, I understand, especially given the current President, as he's former Vice President. I remember, I've been following your case for a couple years now. I remember at the beginning, you were struggling to get media coverage. Fortunately, now, you've got some very good media coverage, thanks to journalists like Jake Tapper, you've been on Fox News, as well. They've given you great coverage. What more can journalists and the news outlets do to help?
 
 Paula Reed: 

I think right now, especially while it's getting close to a war breaking out in Ukraine, if they would remember that there's two Marines sitting in jail, waiting to come home and ask the questions like Jake Tapper did the other day, "With the war fixing to break out, what will happen to Trevor and Paul?", they need to ask that question so that Trevor and Paul are not forgotten and they're always put on the forefront.
 
 Joey Reed: 

We just need people to do, essentially, what Jake Tapper did yesterday, and while discussing the Ukraine situation, he also asked the National Security Advisor about Trevor and Paul. Quite frankly, this is my recommendation to the American media, is that whenever you're discussing any foreign country, [(24:00)] if we have Americans that the United States government is considered wrongfully detained or hostage there, they should be included in that conversation. Whenever we speak about the close to $100 million in aid to Afghanistan since we withdrew from there, every time that is discussed, they should be discussing, "Where is Mark Frerichs? Why did two administrations not include him in negotiations with the Taliban? Why did we pull out and take tens of thousands of foreign citizens to come here, and we've left Mark Frerichs there, a veteran of the Navy who was there as a contractor in a lot of ways, I think, helping the Afghanistan people?" It could have easily been negotiated, yet for some reason, he's been left behind. We have these situations all over the world with Americans that were there either as tourists or they were working, and they've been taken hostage and either given crazy sentences because they're Americans or mistreated, simply because they're Americans. The media should be speaking out about that more often.
 
 Daren Nair: 

I absolutely agree with you. I've interviewed eight different American families held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas on this podcast, and I've only been doing this for a few months. There's Austin Tice, as well, also a former veteran held in Syria.
 
 Joey Reed: 

Yes, for over nine years and 135 something days, I believe.
 
 Daren Nair: 

What can the American public do to help, or anyone around the world? What can they do to help?
 
 Paula Reed: 

We're asking our friends on social media to go to whitehouse.gov/contact and then write the letter to President Biden, saying, "Bring Trevor Reed," and we always include Paul Whelan in there, as well, "Bring them home." We would ask everyone who are seeing this to please do that, and then post that on your social media and share so that they're getting inundated daily with someone saying free Trevor Reed and Paul Whelan, and bring them home so that that gets the attention of [(26:00)] the President.
 
 Joey Reed: 

It takes about 45 seconds to fill out the online form on your phone or on your laptop to tell the President directly. Now, he's not going to see that message, but I guarantee you, if he gets 3,000 messages today saying, "Free Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed," somebody's going to mention that in a print out to him.
 
 Daren Nair: 

Absolutely. Now, I've spoken to many American families held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas. Last week, I spoke to Veronica Vadell Weggeman. Her father, Tomeu Vadell, is being held in Venezuela. We had an interesting conversation on the support that the government needs to give families like yourselves. Now, it's not easy. It's very stressful, it's traumatic, and it's definitely not without its own financial costs, campaigning to free your son, Trevor. I know you have a GoFundMe, and I know lawyers cost a lot of money. What type of support do you think the government should provide, if any, to families like yourselves?
 
 Joey Reed: 

Well, it's complicated. Let me say this, that first of all, thank you for all of the people, friends and strangers, who've donated to the GoFundMe campaign. We want to let you know that we use that for attorneys' fees, for food and books that we're sending, that he didn't even receive on the last package that we sent, but we're using those funds to help Trevor, and we're very grateful. We had a small retirement, which we've used most of that for my travel there for 14 months and for attorneys' fees and other costs upfront. Quite frankly, we can't even imagine people who didn't have a small retirement to spend or a good paying job where they could pay for attorneys in Russia, and things of that nature. It's a complicated situation [(28:00)]because wrongful detainees could really be broken into multiple categories, but I think that there should be some sort of determination for certain types of wrongful detainees and hostages that the government should maybe help, somehow, when we sit here and we're giving billions of dollars in aid to foreign citizens in need and then you've got Americans who are held in those same foreign countries because they're Americans, and the American government doesn't provide one penny to assist them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not against foreign aid. I think that has many benefits not only for the people in those countries, but for us and for the world, but I think that the United States government's priorities, sometimes, they're screwed up.
 
 Paula Reed: 

I want to say, even though I know you were talking about financial help, support for the families, they're not giving that, obviously, but through the SPEHA, the State Department, stuff like that, they have given us other things, other services that we could seek out if we needed to, like help with the IRS for Trevor when he gets back and trying to set us up with referrals for mental health issues, if we have those, if we need to talk to someone or whatever. They have given us some types of things like that. I think that the financial aspect of it would probably just be opening a whole can of worms, because how do you... do you just give a flat rate? Do you say, "Oh, this person is in a worse situation," I don't know how that would be accomplished, even though it would be nice, but I just don't know how that would happen.
 
 Joey Reed: 

But most of the aid that the federal government through the SPEHA Office has suggested to us or informed us is through NGOs, these non-government organizations, people like yourself that are trying to help detainees and hostages.
 
 Daren Nair: 

Yes, and Hostage US, as well, the James Foley Legacy Foundation, the Richardson Center, have I missed anyone? [(30:00)]
 
 Paula Reed: 

Yes.
 
 Joey Reed: 

Well, there's several. The Amer Fakhoury Foundation. They've been wonderful, too.
 
 Daren Nair: 

You are a strong and resilient family. How have you been coping? Because I know you have to be strong for Trevor and for yourselves, as well. How have you been coping?
 
 Paula Reed: 

It's been really hard. I don't know why, but the last couple of months have been hard, but probably because of the Ukraine situation. For me I'm not sleeping well. I have good days and bad days, but you just got to keep going in. Trevor told his girlfriend to tell me to be strong, so I'm trying to be strong for Trevor.
 
 Joey Reed: 

If Trevor can cope with what he's dealing with, we can sure cope with the stress and all the things that we're having to do with here to support him. That's, I guess, one way that I look at it and I go, "Well, we're having a bad day. It's nothing compared to what he's having to do."
 
 Paula Reed: 

I have to remind myself of that sometimes.
 
 Daren Nair: 

Now, I've been keeping up to date with your campaign by either contacting you directly or following you on Twitter, the Free Trevor Reed Campaign. How else can members of the public keep up to date with your campaign?
 
 Joey Reed: 

Well, the main way right now is Twitter. We post on there, sometimes, multiple times a day, sometimes every few days. We have a website, and I apologize that I have not kept the website updated. On the website, you can actually go on there and it will say, "for more information" or something of that nature. You can plug in your name and email and tell who you are, and then we can add you to an email list and when we send out updates, you'll get a direct email about what's the latest news.
 
 Daren Nair: 

What's the website address?
 
 Joey Reed: 

It's freetrevorreed.com.
 
 Daren Nair: 

Thank you. That's freetrevorreed.com, for those of you listening. Now, Joey and Paula, we're almost at the end of our interview. Is there anything else you'd like to mention?
 
 Joey Reed: 

We'd like to meet with the President, [(32:00)] We believe that he is surrounded by lots of experience and educated advisors, but I don't believe that any of them have ever had a child taken hostage by a foreign country, especially not a superpower like Russia. We think that it's really important that the President hear from us and not just saying, "Oh, please bring our son home," but hear other perspectives of the situation and the possible alternatives to make an agreement with Russia. We'd like to speak to him directly. We think it's just important that he hears all sides, not just all the sides in that room. That's one of the main things that we'd like to add. We appreciate meeting with all the other government officials that have talked to us with this so far. We really appreciate it, but we would really like to speak to the President, himself.
 
 Daren Nair: 

Understood. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. We'd be right here, campaigning by your side until Trevor comes home. Thank you for joining us.
 
 Paula Reed: 

Thank you, Daren.
 
 Joey Reed: 

Thank you. We appreciate everything you're doing.
 
 Paula Reed: 

We absolutely do. Thank you.
 
 Daren Nair: 

You’re welcome, it's an honour to help.
 
 Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Pod Hostage Diplomacy. We're not just a podcast, we're a community. If you are on Twitter and would like to post a message of solidarity to the families or have any questions for us, please tweet it using the hashtag, #podhostagediplomacy, and we'll get back to you.
 
 If you like what we're trying to do, please do consider supporting the show financially. You can do this using the ‘Support the Show’ link in the description of this podcast episode. We are grateful for any contributions, no matter how small. 
 
 Thanks again for listening, and we'll be back next week. Take care.
 
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