The NPR walkout is John Kiriakou’s account of his last appearance on National Public Radio.
The booking
Kiriakou had just published an op-ed in the Washington Post about Gina Haspel, describing her, in his phrase, as the mother of the torture programme. He was invited on a Saturday morning to discuss it, and says the invitation was framed as “please come on Saturday morning, it’s going to be great.” [1]
He recalls the host having spinal stenosis and therefore standing throughout, leaving Kiriakou looking up at him, which he notes would have been invisible on radio but felt strange in the studio. [1]
The interview
As soon as they went on air — live — the host attacked. In Kiriakou’s account he attacked the op-ed, said that ProPublica had written an article based on it and had then retracted one of the sentences, and asked whether Kiriakou did any due diligence. [2]
Kiriakou answered that he had published in the Post what the CIA permitted him to publish in the Post, and that he was not the fact-checker for the Washington Post or for ProPublica. When the host kept coming, Kiriakou went back at him, asking where NPR had been when he was blowing the whistle on the torture programme; saying he did not remember NPR calling the CIA or the Bush administration to task; and asking where NPR had been when he was arrested, and where it had been for the other eight whistleblowers arrested during the Obama administration. His answer to his own question was “nowhere to be found.” [2] [3]
He then stood up, told the host never to call him again, and walked out. The booking had been for the full half hour; he was in the studio for five minutes. [3]
Afterwards
Kiriakou has said his telephone blew up as soon as he left the building, because all of his friends and acquaintances listen to NPR on Saturday mornings. He also says he guaranteed at the time that NPR would never call him again, and that it has not. [4]