Tale Of Survival From Taliban Kidnapping

In November of 2008, the Taliban kidnaped New York Times reporter David Rohde. His driver and a translator. They were heading to an interview outside of Kabul, Afghanistan, when the Taliban captured them held hostage for more than seven months. He finally escaped, climbing over a wall of the Taliban's compound. Rhodes mother lives in Naples and on a recent visit to southwest Florida. I had the chance to speak with him about the experience and how it changed his life. We have an award winning journalist with us tonight, David Rohde, who is the national senior reporter for MBS now and also a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, joining us today. It's such a great honor to meet you. Thank you for having me here. Can you tell us how you first got into international reporting? It actually links to a PBS station, a PBS station in Boston. So when I was in college, I was an intern at WGBH. They had a local show called the 10:00 news. It was local news here. And that's why it's so great this expansion is happening here. After I graduated, I got a job at the Christian Science Monitor, which was also in Boston. And then they needed a reporter to cover the war in Bosnia. This was a long time ago, 1994. And I went to Bosnia and covered the war there. It was an incredible experience. I won a Pulitzer Prize there for helping expose a massacre, and then went on to The New York Times and other news organizations. And there are a lot of people that might know or have heard of your story when you were kidnaped by the Taliban in 2008? Yes. And you were reporting. Tell tell us what happened and what that was like. So I was a reporter for the New York Times. I covered 911. I was in New York that day, and then I was sent over to cover Afghanistan. I cover the fall of the Taliban and then spent several years there. I moved over and was based in the region. I'd been there about this was 2008. So I've been covering Afghanistan for seven years. I was writing a book, and I wanted, as part of my book to have the perspective of a Taliban commander. And I heard about a Taliban commander who'd done interviews with a French journalist and a Greek journalist. I met the French journalist before I went off for my interview, and she said, you'll be more dangerous an American. But, you know, I've met him twice, and he let me he didn't do anything wrong. When I showed up the next morning for my interview was me and an Afghan journalist and an Afghan driver. They immediately kidnaped the three of us. We were right outside of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. They transported us across three provinces and took us into Pakistan. The mountains on the border there. And once we were over the border into Pakistan, U.S. troops couldn't come rescue us. So we were holed total for seven months. I can't imagine what was that like? I was very worried in the beginning that we were all going to be killed. They hated the Afghan journalist and the Afghan driver more than me because they view them as traitors. But as time went by, it was clear that they were just trying to get a very large ransom. They were pretty delusional about what they could get. They, they wanted like 20 million or I can't remember 50 million. And, you know, prisoners from, Guantanamo Bay freed. None of that happened. And I you know, was protected by this Afghan journalist, an Afghan driver. And eventually the Afghan journalist helped me escape. That's what I was going to ask. Can you tell me how did you eventually escape? So we were moved around all the time. There were U.S. drones overhead, looking for us. The Taliban were thought that there was a lot of conspiracy theories. I just want to explain. One they had was that they thought the 9/11 attacks were staged by the CIA and the Mossad to create an excuse for the US and other countries to invade Muslim countries like Afghanistan and convert Muslims to Christianity. None of that was true. They believe that, US soldiers were, forcing Afghan women to work as prostitutes. That was false as well. So after the seven months, we were just so frustrated with these crazy demands and all the conspiracy theories, this Afghan journalist, we moved to a house that was right near a Pakistani military base. And the Pakistani sort of military kind of tolerated the Pakistani, the, sorry, the Taliban. And in the middle of the night, we got up. I had found a car tow rope. We used it to lower ourselves from the roof down onto the street. And this very brave Afghan journalist led me then to this Pakistani base. When nearly got shot, I had a long beard, but the Pakistani officer in charge, you know, was told there's, you know, a radio call this someone saying they're American journalists standing out here and that Pakistani, captain brought me inside and and the Afghan journalist and saved our lives. How has this shaped, how you cover news? It's there's good people. And I was telling all that detail about the brave Afghan journalist that defends me for seven months and then helps me escape. The brave Pakistani captain that brings me onto his base, you know, and they. It was a big there's a lot of people in Afghanistan, even Pakistan, who are proud of being Muslims, but they want to be modern Muslim. They want their country to be more like Dubai or more like Turkey than what the Taliban want. Obviously, the Taliban are in control now, but so I cover the news, trying to sort of look for the good sides, and I worry about too much heated rhetoric leading to too much division and conspiracy theories and and political violence. I've seen where conspiracy theories can lead to civil wars. I saw that in Bosnia between people there. I saw it, in Afghanistan. And so I want to be really fair and factual, and have positive stories also for this country as we now wrestle with our political differences. And tell me about your role, your new role. It. So I'm now I now work in MS Now it was formerly called MSNBC. It's a split off from NBC news. We're an independent company and so I cover national security. I was at the Munich Security conference, last week, where there's a lot of focus on what's going to happen in Ukraine, what's going to happen in Iran, where I'm covering closely this US military buildup in Iran and, you know, waiting to see, what President Trump decides. So it's a busy time in the news business, as you know, and I'm eager to just try to get facts out. We're just in Munich. I was just in Munich, and it was, and there were talks also in Geneva, right after the Munich Security conference. Not much progress in terms of the talks that happened in Geneva, about Ukraine. That was a real disappointment for Europeans and Ukrainians. They were hoping for some progress there. They want more pressure. They they feel on, Vladimir Putin. And then in terms of Iran, it's not clear. I think, President Trump is giving Iranians a chance to just give up their nuclear program. That's been a problem for years. They're waiting for an answer written promises from Iran. I think if Iran doesn't make those promises to get rid of its nuclear program, I do have the sense that the US will attack Iran. It'll be, you know, I don't think in the next few days, but we'll see what happens. David, there are new rules that are in place in the Pentagon for journalists. What is your perspective on these? So it's it's a controversial topic, but most journalists oppose, what was was done. So Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, created a new rule where journalists that were going to cover the Pentagon had to agree to not report anything without the approval of the Pentagon itself. This was a brand new change. The press corps has voluntarily abided about not reporting any information that puts U.S. troops in danger. I embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. I would never report where they were because I didn't want to have an American ever, ever lose a life because of reporting. But these are sweeping restrictions on reporting anything. You have to basically get your stories approved by the Pentagon before you put them out. Every major news organization rejected those new guidelines, and they were forced to move out of the Pentagon. There was a room there that was the press room where every major network worked, and there was agreement. And people talk about the divide in the American media. But Fox News, you know, signed on to this and said, no, we're not going to abide by these new rules. So did NBC news or The New York Times. So there are no longer, any mainstream news outlets working in the Pentagon. They work outside the building and still cover the military. But that was just something where the vast majority of news organizations stood up and said, no, you're not going to control what we report. We want to make sure that service members are getting the support they need the leadership, the equipment, the training because they're risking their lives. The American public. And we want to report that independently as members of the press. And how do you feel this impacts journalism? It's limited access. I mean, we know less about what's going on inside the Pentagon than we did before. And that's that's a big change. Again, we would never report anything that would risk American lives. But we feel we as an independent institutions, you know, we want to make sure soldiers are getting the support, the training and the leadership that they deserve as they risked their lives for our country and transparency. Thank you. Thank you, David, for joining us and for your expertise. Thank you. Thank you.