Jonestown | Why Do People Join Cults? | 6
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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal. In November of 1978, the world was stunned by the news emerging from Guyana, a country on the northern coast of South America.

Over 900 Americans living in a communal settlement carved out of the jungle had lost their lives. Adults, children, and even infants lay sprawled out on the ground, while several miles down the road, a United States congressman, along with members of his entourage, had been shot and killed.

The tragedy at Jonestown left many wondering how a religious group founded with progressive political ideals could have come to such a gruesome end. Jim Jones had founded the People's Temple with the goal of advancing economic and racial justice, and over the years, Jones and his congregation had earned widespread praise and even forged alliances with powerful politicians in the furtherance of their social goals.

But as the full picture emerged from Jonestown, the outside world learned how Jim Jones had transformed his church into an abusive cult, one where hundreds of his followers were willing to carry out his most extreme command. The tragedy at Jonestown prompted a national conversation about cults and their potential to damage lives. Yet despite this widespread attention, cults did not disappear from American life.

There are still an estimated thousands of these groups currently operating in America. And according to my guest Rachel Bernstein, cults are continuing to proliferate with the advent of social media and the decline of traditional religious organizations.

Bernstein is a marriage and family therapist who spent over 30 years working with survivors of cults and people whose family members haven't yet walked away. She's also the host of the podcast Indoctrination, where she speaks with former cult members and other experts on the topic. In our conversation, Bernstein explores how almost anyone can be vulnerable to joining a cult, and she reveals how these groups have begun taking on new and surprising forms across the country. Our conversation is next.

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Help Dell make a difference and shop AI-ready PCs powered by Snapdragon X-series processors at dell.com slash deals. That's dell.com slash deals. Rachel Bernstein, thank you for speaking with me today on American Scandal. It is a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

So in our everyday use in casual conversation, we toss around the word cult often. We talk about a cult-like experience at a company that might sell exercise equipment or a cult that is in reference to smaller, lesser-known religious groups. So why don't we establish what a cult actually is?

Right. That's really important to do because a lot of cults will say, fine, call us a cult. You look it up in the dictionary. It doesn't look too nefarious, does it? And it doesn't in the dictionary. But in my field, we have a definition and it's important for people to know what it is. And I'm actually happy that people are using the word now because they're learning about the fact that this really exists and in so many forms. So what makes something a cult to begin with?

is that the follower or followers have unquestioning devotion to the leader, to the beliefs. If you question it, there's something wrong with you. So it's absolute.

And then there is absolute and unending power that the leader has over the members. The leader is always at the top of the pyramid. Everyone is below. No one is above the leader to the leader answers to no one, meaning there are no safeguards for you when you get involved in a cult.

It also operates independently. So that also makes sure that there are no people watching. There's no larger organization with an ethics board watching out for you and watching out to see if the leader is breaking laws. It also has an us versus them mentality. There is this sort of undercurrent of paranoia and divisiveness and fear within cults.

This is the thing that's going to protect you when nothing else will. Or we're the only ones who really love you. Or this is the only place that has the answers. Or if you leave us, your life will be in ruin. And you can't trust anyone out there. You can only trust us. And no one else loves you. Only us.

It also becomes your entire life. So you can't be in a cult and also be doing other things and have other friends and have other interests. It becomes all of you. And you can't have any boundaries when you're in the cult. They need to have access to every part of your life, every emotion, every thought. And...

that they're never done with you. So they might say, oh, just take a workshop or just come to this class or come to this service. And that's it. Just show us that you're interested even just once. But that's the very beginning and they will want you for life.

What's notable in your discussion of what a cult is, is that you really didn't mention religion. No. So cults can be anything. Right. Isn't that interesting? I mean, a lot of people will get involved in, let's say, a religious cult and then leave it and then get involved in another cult because they're still looking for something that has the answers for them. They won't know to look for it in other places. Right.

There are cults based on horseback riding, on running. There are cults based on selling products. There are cults based on belief in UFOs. There are cults that are political. And so you need to know that you have to look beyond the trappings, the fact that there is a theology to make it a cult that is not at all necessary.

I would imagine that most people would never think themselves able to be victimized by a cult, let alone a horse riding one. So let's figure out what the scope of the problem is. How many cult members are there in America currently?

There are actually millions, which is a surprising number for a lot of people. I think because there's always going to be that personality out there that needs people's undying loyalty, and there are people searching for the answers, there will always be cults. Most people who get involved in cults do leave, but a lot of them get involved in yet another cult. So it's a very dynamic number, but it's safe to say it's the millions.

You mentioned just now that because people will always be searching for answers, there might always be cults. I think that's an obvious and ingrained human trait, but not everyone is susceptible to cults. So who might become a victim? Who are the most vulnerable? It's an interesting question because there's a two-pronged answer to that. The kind of person I see a lot

is the kind of person who is open-minded, who wants to learn, who wants to be able to have a sense that what they're doing has meaning. Cults will often offer you a sense of meaning.

And people also who are not very suspicious. People who have had a life where they could trust the people around them to a certain degree, or they believe someone's message when they say, you can trust me, because they haven't learned how to discern who's trustworthy from who's not. People also who were raised with very controlling people or with narcissistic parents are just...

so conditioned

to be in a relationship where they forfeit a sense of self to please somebody else. People also who feel isolated emotionally or they feel that they're different in some way and they haven't found their place in the mainstream world and they're looking for kind of a parallel universe, a place where they can fit in and be with like-minded people. And I've also noticed that there are a lot of people who have some level of anxiety about

And that's why they're looking for something that gives them this absolute formula to follow so they don't have to worry about making a mistake, even though the formula is never accurate. But still, it's a formula. The other prong to this, the other part of this answer is that it's not only a who question.

But it's a when question because there are a lot of people who are very susceptible, but only at certain times in their life. It's when they are away from home for the first time or they suffered a loss and

And now this cult gives them a chance to talk to their dearly departed. It could be when they're feeling isolated, they just went through a breakup or a divorce, going through a transition. That's why cults do so much recruiting on college campuses, counseling centers, prisons. They know, unfortunately, how and where to market their skills, but

for the timing that people are going through during that time where they're really looking for something, or at least they're open to it in a way they wouldn't have been before. Well, let's talk about recruitment. It seems like it is such an active and necessary portion of a successful cult. Is there a playbook that they go by? Is there a common pitch or appeal that cult leaders make?

Right. So, so much of what I do is so interesting because I come across all these different personalities and cults that are very different from each other, but there, there are some parts of it that really repeat themselves. And recruitment techniques are one of those things. It's like they have read a similar manual for how to get people in. What you have is that cults will often use people who are dynamic and

and who are attractive to recruit others. Someone who seems very appealing, someone who someone would be drawn to, someone who also knows not to take no for an answer. So they will do a high sales pitch, very intense sales pitch to get you in, making you a lot of promises.

and finding a way just to get you in to make just a little step, a little commitment, because that's a way that they can get you in without it seeming like they're going to be putting too much pressure on you because you don't know what's going to be happening next.

The other part of the playbook is that they will do love bombing. This whole idea of, you know, you just seem like such a special person. I don't want you to miss this opportunity. I sense something in you that's so wonderful. And I think you'd be perfect here. And I know so many people who would love to get to know you. That is an incredibly appealing pitch. And it works for so many people. And

And the other part is this idea of meaning and purpose. People don't realize how much information they're giving to a recruiter to educate the recruiter about what techniques to use on them. And so if somebody says, what are you looking for? What do you feel like you're missing? And you start sharing, they will promise you that they have a group that will provide you with that information.

Now, the companion to recruitment is retention. So once you're in the door, are there also similar moves to keep you inside? Yes, there are. So this idea of love bombing, it is something that really draws people in. And it can make you feel like you're receiving something there that you haven't gotten before or that you won't get again if you were to leave it.

And they will also let you know that this is your new family. A lot of the times the word family is used to describe a cult.

And so there is this connectedness that you feel that this is your new family. The leader is your new parent. And then you also don't want to disappoint this group of people that is calling themselves your family by leaving. There's also the carrot, the carrot that's being dangled, where the things that you've been promised are right around the corner.

So there's this idea of sunk cost fallacy that I've put in so much time now and I've put in money and I've recruited people and I've given up school and I've given up my relationship with someone outside to be involved in this. I've done so much that I can't leave now.

The other part is that along the way, while they are giving you lots of promises about what this group can be and what you can do within it that you can't do anywhere else,

They're really making you feel more fearful of the world outside of the group, making it a place that's not at all appealing for you to want to be anymore. They'll also rewrite your history a lot of the time. They'll ask you very personal questions about your history and then reinterpret what that meant. Oh, well, that means that your parents never loved you because if they did, they

They wouldn't have ever let that happen to you, etc. And so you start to really reevaluate your relationships and wonder, can I go back to these people? Because maybe I can't trust them. Maybe they never loved me. Maybe only these people do. And what also happens, which is interesting within a cult, is that cult leaders will often do this intermittent gratification. They'll make you work for their approval.

That is very dependency making because we want to please the person in charge. And we see the people around us wanting to do the same sort of scrambling like puppies to please. And that leader becomes harder and harder to please. So we know if we devote ourselves more, if we sacrifice more, if we do whatever they say, maybe we'll get a smile. Maybe we'll get promoted.

And so people get very much into working to please the leader, forgetting about the rest of their life, forgetting about the things they were promised that still have yet to come true because the leader and pleasing the leader become their sole focus. That's a lot of the reason that people stay. And then the really pivotal piece is

that I talk to a lot of people about is they will say, I became so unhappy and I could see they were lying to me. But I also could see that as soon as people left, they were dropped. This was a conditional environment.

These friends who say they're going to be my best friends forever, the only true friends, my true family, I see how they don't talk to people anymore who have left. I don't want that to happen to me. I can't do it, especially because they've taken away everyone else in my life by making me not trust them. So I have to stay here if I don't want to be totally alone.

One of the things that startles me about cult leaders and their ability to manipulate so effectively is that it seems like they have studied

the methods of psychological manipulation, or else they are just enormously talented on alighting upon these techniques. Can you just expound on, are these naturally manipulative people or do they study? Okay. So it's been very interesting to learn about particular cult leaders. And when people I talked to were very close to particular leaders, they'll talk to me about the books that were on their shelf.

like books about Hitler, books about Mao Zedong, books about social psychology, wanting to learn how to control people en masse. So sometimes they've learned from the unfortunate masters we've had to deal with in our world. What's also true is that there is a particular personality style that fits most cult leaders, not all, but most, which is the malignant narcissist.

The person who needs ultimate control, ultimate kind of compliment, being surrounded by people who are the yes people in their life. And the malignant part is they don't care about who they've hurt and they will just destroy you. They're kind of parasitic in my mind. They'll just suck you dry. There are also these...

Interesting parts that I've seen from other cult leaders. These are kind of a smaller percentage of cult leaders, people who started out okay, but then got drunk with their power. They saw that people did whatever they said. They saw that they were Pied Pipers. They saw people followed them.

And there are actually some people who came to me and said, I have to be careful. When I talk, people listen, and it makes me scared. So can you help me actually remember to not become a cult leader, which is interesting because they have a conscience that gets in the way of their magnetism and their charisma. But a lot of other people don't like the Jim Jones of the world.

They start as street preachers, love the fact that people will do whatever they say, and then it goes right to their head and it becomes dangerous. And then there's also this other percentage, much smaller percentage of people who are delusional and who are still charismatic. People listen, but they really believe their delusion.

They, like in groups, like in Heaven's Gate in San Diego, think he really believed that the mothership was coming. But still, they wound up all dead. So it doesn't mean that it's any less dangerous. But within those environments, you don't have malignant narcissism. You have what we call in the field a folia de, a shared psychosis. People jump into the psychosis of the leader and join them there.

And so what I find, though, that is the same about a lot of these cult leaders is that they don't have day jobs. I don't know how else to say it. Like they would not survive in the world without people feeding them, without people paying their bills and giving their ego what they need. They have this ultimate power and ultimate skill.

which is to siphon power off of other people, to kind of knock people down and stand on their backs to lift them up. I don't think they'd survive otherwise. American Scandal is sponsored by Audible. Ever notice how a whisper can be more captivating than a shout? It's because your mind races in to fill in the blanks. Listening doesn't just inform, it invites in your imagination. And that's why Audible is such a great place to let your imagination soar.

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You mentioned that many of these cult leaders believe their delusions. The case of Jim Jones is interesting, though, because his delusion, if he had one, was that a socialist utopia, a righteous society, could be achieved. He nominally did a lot of good work. And this is a tension between the ultimate and tragic end of his cult and then the benefit to society that he provided. How did he do that?

How often do cult leaders resemble Jim Jones in this way, that they are actually perhaps doing good at the same time they're destroying lives? It's a great question because you're going to see that a lot. Because a lot of people who get involved in cults are good people who want to do good things. So the fact that a group is going to be doing good things is the appeal, is the recruitment appeal to a great degree, besides the idea of community and connectedness.

And so there are a lot of cults, I think, also in order to be able to be seen as kind of a tax write-off. They do charitable work. I don't know to what degree, though, the leader actually feels like they care about the people they are helping as much as they want to come across a certain way for PR.

In recent years, over the course of your practice, have you seen a change or a difference in the prevalence or methods of cults in America? I have seen an uptick. I have seen more groups that I'm becoming aware of really every day. And so I think there's some reasons for that.

Because even with, and it's ironic to me, I mean, even with the fact that people are becoming more and more educated about cults, which is wonderful, there still are more now than there have ever been before.

And one of the reasons is that cults now have, the cults that we know about have been around long enough for there to be the next generations of people who will go and start their own branch of that, whatever that is, or a follower who realizes they've learned the skills and techniques of manipulation. Now they're going to take that show on the road and do it their own way. So there are a lot of splinter groups from a lot of original cults that we've heard of.

What's also true is that cults will jump on trends. They will jump on the whole movement of personal growth, of healing, of the whole coaching movement is problematic. Some coaches are really fine and have also had some training and other people can call themselves that and it's a totally unregulated field to another degree. And so there are a lot of titles that

that give people credibility and credence in a way that people then lower their defenses and trust them. The other thing is that cults use moments in time that create anxiety in us. Like the recession during 2008, cults did very well.

offering people a chance to be able to have security or financial security. During the whole Y2K, tons of cults started at the start of the new century. And around COVID, miracle cures, etc. And with political unrest, so many groups and conspiratorial groups sprang up.

But what is really adding to all of this is that so many cults are doing their recruiting online in a way that they couldn't before. And they're reaching millions of people every day. And you can also get involved in a cult and never leave your house.

And I think that there's something also so kind of tied in with people's needs for connection that unfortunately really works for cultic groups and groups that are trying to recruit you and take you over. When you're having a hard time, when you might be feeling alone and you might be feeling anxious, all you have to do is

Pick up your phone or your computer and a whole community that might not really have your best interest in mind but is pretending to is right there with you during your sleepless night. And it feels intimate and it feels caring. And it is ultimately deceiving, but you don't know it at the time.

Early in this conversation, we discovered that a cult has really no necessary relationship to religion, but often cults are of a religious nature. Let's draw a line between what is a religion and what is a cult. So I get asked this question a lot, and so I've had to do some thinking about it because when I come up with these distinctions, people say, oh, but what about this? And what about that? And these are good points because there are some religious groups that

that are more fundamentalist in their thinking, more strict in their ways. And so they're going to mimic a lot of the traits of a cult, but there's still a distinction that I want to make sure to get to. And the one thing that I've noticed that we want to sort of see as a thread here throughout the other characteristics is this idea of deception. When, let's say, uh,

I was going to be needing to get involved in a part of my religion that was more orthodox. I would be told ahead of time what the expectation is, what I'm allowed to wear or not wear, what I'm allowed to eat, not eat, who I'm allowed to marry, etc. And so I would know. So I could make an educated decision.

No one can make an educated decision in a cult. They will never tell you, ultimately, what the rules are and what you're going to be needing to do and sacrifice. Then, within a religion, even fundamentalist branches, there is a focus on family and family

celebrating with families, joining with family, having lots of children within the group so that you can pass this on to future generations. Within a cult, they couldn't care less about your family unless your family is already members. They have no interest in you staying connected to anyone outside. And in fact, as we said, they want to become your new family.

so that you have ties and allegiance only to them. The other thing that's different between a cult and a religion is very often, and even though there have been some huge problems with this and lack of oversight and lack of safety, which can't be ignored, by and large, within a religion, there is a governing body that is supposed to oversee what's happening. And the leader then can't get away with anything.

And can't abuse and neglect the followers like they do in cults. And they can't break laws and go against constitutional rights of their followers like what happens, you know, within a religious group. You're going to be able to, hopefully, and we need more of it.

Have a group that is watching what's going on and a group that you can go to talk to if something happens to you. And what also is true about within a religion is that it doesn't have to become your entire life.

You can have a job that's separate from your religion. You can have a relationship that's separate from your religion. You can have interests that are separate from your religion. Within a cult, that's never the case. Everything is tied in. Everything is a part of your involvement within the cult. And then the last thing is that within a religion, by and large, they care about you as a human being.

Within a cult, they don't. You don't learn that, though, until you decide to question it and you decide to leave it and you see how much they just don't care about you at all. But within a religion, if you're not well or if you're going through a loss, they'll support you. There'll be a community. If there are millions of cult members and thousands of cults, certainly, obviously, not all of them end in circumstances like at Jonestown or Waco.

So we understand historically the worst case scenario, but what are the more everyday risks of cults? The everyday risks of cults. Oh, it's a great phrase. So when I see people who have loved ones who have gotten involved or people who have come to me who are leaving a particular group, what I see as the detrimental impact of

is that you can be used and kind of pushed to your brink daily within a cult to the point of really being exhausted.

You are supposed to go to every meeting, every everything. You're supposed to use every opportunity, every meeting place, social gathering as recruitment for the cult. You're supposed to talk to people within the cult many times a day. And they will really push you. A lot of times you are not getting enough food. You're not getting enough sleep.

Your health is probably declining and you are developing more mental health issues than you may have had before, or you're just developing new ones, kind of the situational anxiety, situational depression brought on by failing in the eyes of the leader or feeling like something bad is going to happen to you, that you're not doing everything perfectly for the cult.

And you're also anxious a lot of the time because all eyes are on you in a cult. You're being evaluated all the time. You're being criticized all the time. You have to please everyone. And you're also worried about getting kicked out because you've seen that that's happened to other people. So a lot of people within cultic systems are on edge. And it's an interesting thing when I'm working with people after they've been out of a cult for a period of time.

They're so entranced with all of the pressure and they're so anxious and hypervigilant out of necessity that sometimes what I see after a few weeks, a few months, is I suddenly will see once people start to relax that their shoulders go back down. They stop clenching their jaw and the light comes back in their eyes.

But all of those things are tampered with. Your ability to just be present and feel okay in your own body and feel okay in the world, that is all taken from you within a cult. So it's hugely distracting, hugely debilitating.

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Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash wondery. That's rocketmoney.com slash wondery. rocketmoney.com slash wondery. Let's turn to your work as a therapist. Tell us a little about your practice and your work with former cult members. Really about 80 to 90% of the clients that I see are

are former cult members, people who were born in cults, people who came into cults later on, and the loved ones of those who are currently in cultic groups or in relationships with malignant narcissists, because you can have these one-on-one cults, these dyads of kind of cultic environment that's in someone's partnership or marriage.

And also I work with the families, partners of those who got out of a cult where they're noticing there are still after effects. There's still triggers and they want to know how to address them, how to be there for that person, how to help them through those moments.

And so it's interesting to talk to people who are considering leaving. It's interesting to talk to people who thought they were fine 10 years out and something happened where they suddenly went into cult speak or cult thinking and they thought, oh, it is still under my skin.

And so I need to kind of detox from this thought that I didn't realize was still rummaging around in my head. And then I also want to provide connection and community to people outside. So I offer a support group.

For former cult members, there are actually some loved ones who get involved, too, because they want to hear from the former cult members and people who were in relationships with narcissists and controllers, manipulators, to find out what helped them leave, what they're needing since getting out of that. And so there's just it's really nice information.

opportunity for people to not feel alone. It's a very isolating thing when you come out of a cult or you have a loved one in or out of a cult. You're not quite sure how to tell that story to people without being judged. Everyone's an individual, but I'm wondering if there's a general need of someone who's just left a cult. Yes, there are a lot of needs that people have when they first get out.

So just like with anything that you've gone through, you're not an expert in it. You have no idea how to define the well-oiled machine of manipulation that you were just put in and spit out of. And so it's really important for me to start by doing two things.

By giving people a safe place to land where they know I'm not going to be like their cult leader or their narcissistic partner. I'm not going to judge them for what they say. I'm not going to scream at them for being a minute late or even 10 minutes late or not showing at all if they get nervous. I'm not going to shame them and do the public shaming that a lot of cult leaders and narcissistic partners do.

And so I want to give them a space where they can just talk freely. But I also want to educate them about what a cult is or what narcissism is and what are the traits and the manipulative tactics that they were put through. And then they'll understand the after effects they're having.

I also find that people coming out of cults need to be deprogrammed from feeling that they do not have any rights, that they don't have the right to say no ever. They don't have the right to question. They don't have the right to limit what happens to their bodies and what people are doing to their minds. And I have to introduce, I mean, I've worked with some kids who were raised on compounds and I introduced them to this thing called a constitution. They had no idea.

that there were rights that they had. They didn't know how to define the word. The other thing, though, is that I want people to learn to trust themselves, either trust themselves again if they had a life before the cult and that sense of trust was taken away, or trust themselves just to begin with if they were born and raised in something where they have a sense of things, where they have an inner voice that has been talking to them this whole time and they were taught not to listen.

that they might have good judgment, even though they were told they wouldn't. I mean, people are told this all the time because the cult leader needs ultimate control. It's the ultimate form of gaslighting, actually, to say you cannot be trusted and you can't depend on yourself. All of your ideas are wrong. All of your thoughts are wrong. Only listen to me.

And so I want to gift people back with being able to say, I think I'm actually capable on my own. If you have a friend or a family member who you believe is in a cult or is approaching one, what should you do or not do? I'm so glad you're asking this question. I actually, I did a webinar about this because it gets asked a lot and people are really feeling, hmm,

ill-equipped in that moment. And they come to me after they say they've blown it, they've had the wrong conversation, and they worry that they've pushed the person back into the group or farther away from them. So it's really good to know that when someone is involved in a cultic group, or even after they may have just recently left it,

they still are going to be getting defensive on behalf of the leader potentially. And so you don't want to attack the leader. You don't want to attack the beliefs. A person will hear that as you attacking them because they believed that person or they believed those beliefs. So what are you saying about them that you're putting down what they came to think was true and who they decided to trust?

You also want to make sure that you don't come across like you're judging them.

So many people have said, why didn't you see it coming? We could see it. How come you're so gullible? What is wrong with you? And it's something to never say because you want that person to feel that you see what they're capable of. You don't want to be yet another person in their life who they just experienced who's going to come on the attack and put them down. And

and make them feel that they're less than so they have to prove something about themselves. Instead, you want to come across in a quiet tone and you want to be doing, it's like a stance that I call wondering out loud. Hmm, you know what? I'm curious. I'm curious to hear about your experience within this. I want to hear also what you liked about it, who you liked in it,

and what you feel like you got from it. Be open to the positive. It's a great place to start because when someone then feels that they were able to share the positive, they're much more comfortable than going into sharing the negative. And to then say, I would love to be able to talk to you more about this.

And what's also true is that I probably have information that you don't have. I mean, what people don't realize is that people in cults know the least amount of information about the cult because they're barred from doing research. They're barred from talking to people who have left. So you can say, I feel like I've been able to do some research that you haven't. I would love to share it with you out of respect for you.

Because I think being educated, having the information is going to be important. But this is not to say that I think that you getting involved was foolish because somehow you should have known this. You were actually kept from knowing this. So you made a decision based on the information you were given, which I think is not complete. When would you be open to me completing it so we can really look at this group together?

And to talk about what you respect about that person sitting right in front of you, what you love about their intelligence, about their sense of humor, their wanting to do good in the world, why they got involved, because they wanted to improve themselves in some way. Show all of your respect for that person so that they can safely then be open to what you might be wanting to tell them.

that's going to be hard for them to hear because they know that they haven't been kind of demoted in your eyes, which is ultimately the most important thing. Rachel Bernstein, thank you so much for speaking with me today on American Scandal. It was my absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. That was my conversation with Rachel Bernstein, a marriage and family therapist and the host of the podcast Indoctrination.

From Wondery, this is Episode 6 of Jonestown for American Scan. In our next series, we look at the Dust Bowl, an event that's been called the greatest man-made ecological disaster in American history. In the 1930s, dust storms tore across the central United States, polluting the air, killing thousands,

and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. It was an emergency spurred in large part by reckless government policy, and to undo the damage, leaders in Washington would be forced to carry out a bold plan.

American Scandal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode was produced by Alona Minkowski. Our senior producer is Gabe Riven. Executive producers are Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marshall Louis for Wondery.

What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season. And let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation. And I don't mean just friends. I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox. The list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to Baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.