Elizabeth Becker began reporting for the Washington Post in 1973 from Cambodia. She covered the Vietnam War and the rise of the Khmer Rouge for the paper. In December 1978, together with two other Westerners, she interviewed Pol Pot, the genocidal leader of the Khmer Rouge.

Elizabeth is the author of When the War Was Over, a modern history of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, and was an expert witness in 2015 at the international war crimes tribunal of senior Khmer Rouge leaders. She is also the author of You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women rewrote the Story of War about three female journalists who reported on the Vietnam war, breaking barriers and taboos and blazing a trail for women in media.

In this episode, Elizabeth outlines the story of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and we discuss some of the ways that Washington D.C. under Musk and Trump resemble Phnom Penh under Pol Pot.

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

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