U.S. elections: Thomas Friedman to talk with NIF Australia
With just over a month before the US elections, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman will join NIF Australia to discuss the Trump presidency and what’s at stake in the November elections.
Thomas L. Friedman
The internationally renowned author, reporter and columnist will tease out the scenarios and choices ahead for a divided America. Is the US looking at four more years of President Donald Trump or will Democratic candidate Joe Biden win?
In a year like no other, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist will consider what the outcome will mean for America’s role as a global superpower, and for its relations with Israel and the Middle East.
“We are thrilled to be in conversation with Thomas Friedman about such an important topic,” said NIF Australia executive director Liam Getreu. NIF Australia hosted Friedman a few years ago and 500 people in Sydney flocked to hear what he had to say. “While we would love to host him again in person this online webinar gives our supporters across Australia a chance to hear his insights,” he added.
It was a visit to Israel with his parents during Christmas vacation in 1968–69 that stirred Friedman’s interest in the Middle East, and it was his high school journalism teacher who inspired in him a love of reporting and newspapers.
Friedman earned his BA from Brandeis in 1975 and was awarded a Marshall Scholarship by the British government. This took him to Oxford, where he completed an M.Phil in Modern Middle East Studies at St. Antony’s College. In 1978, he began his journalism career with UPI on London’s legendary Fleet Street. After serving as a Beirut reporter for UPI for two years he was hired by the New York Times in 1981, where he served as the Beirut bureau chief, Jerusalem bureau chief, chief diplomatic correspondent, international economics correspondent and, since 1995, its foreign affairs columnist.
Friedman is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, From Beirut to Jerusalem, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Longitudes and Attitudes, The World Is Flat, Hot Flat and Crowded, That Used To Be Us (with Michael Mandelbaum) and, most recently, Thank You For Being Late.
The free event is on Thursday 1 October at 8:30pm. Register here:
https://www.nif.org.au/friedman2020
