Prologue: Why midterms matter

Roger Carstens spent nearly five years leading hostage negotiations for the United States. He joins Jason to discuss the high-stakes work of bringing wrongfully detained Americans home—negotiating, at times, with people he fought against during his prior service in U.S. special operations.Carstens explains the role humor, humility and empathy play in negotiations and why authoritarian governments increasingly use detained journalists as political leverage. The conversation turns personal as Jason reflects on his own experiences after being released from captivity in Iran and how they have affected his understanding of freedom.Today’s show was produced by Josh Carroll and Layli Nazarova. It was edited by Ted Muldoon and Reena Flores.Subscribe to The Washington Post here. And watch us on YouTube here.

CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward has spent more than two decades reporting from war zones. She joins Jason Rezaian to explain why firsthand reporting matters—and what the public loses when journalists cannot reach the people living through a conflict.They discuss the threats facing local journalists in Gaza, why Ward has remained committed to journalism despite many harrowing close calls in the field, and the fractured nature of truth in the age of social media.Today’s show was produced by Josh Carroll and Layli Nazarova. It was edited by Ted Muldoon and Reena Flores.Subscribe to The Washington Post here. And watch us on YouTube here.

Jason Rezaian knows the cost of free speech. He spent 544 days in an Iranian prison for simply being a journalist.The world is witnessing the erosion of democratic values. The Freedom Desk video podcast is about what comes next in the global fight for free expression.Every week, Jason talks to one leading voice about freedoms gained, freedoms lost, who's trying to take it from us, and how we take it back. First episode drops September 9th.

Given what we've learned from the 1994, 2006 and 2010 midterms about how partisanship, divisiveness and polarizing presidents all affect both midterm elections and the powers of the presidency, we ask if Democrats can flip the House in 2018.

2010 was the year of the Tea Party, the year of backlash against Obama, and the year of the biggest shift of power in the House in a century. But it’s also the year that Republicans executed a little-noticed strategy that cemented their place in power.

To understand the identity crisis within the Democratic Party, you could look to the 2006 midterm election … and the story of a junior congressman named Rahm Emanuel, who needed to win 15 seats in the House to restore his party to greatness.

Since childhood, Bill Paxon was a diehard Republican – a Nixon fanboy who watched House Republicans lose midterm elections for decades. Then he became a member of Congress. And he was finally in a position to help them get the 42 seats they needed to win.

In the last 60 years, the House of Representatives has changed political control just three times: in 1994, 2006, and 2010. What do those midterms tell us about what it takes to flip the House? And about why midterm elections matter?