World traveler, leading businesswoman.

0:00 Speaker 1 What us today is Lolly Weymouth and a truly international woman and her family controlled and owned the Washington Post for a long time. Well, Lollie, how are you today?

0:17 Speaker 2 I’m good? John?

0:18 Speaker 3 What about you?

0:20 Speaker 1 I am okay, I am good. Now. Tell me you have gone to almost every country? I know? How many countries? Do you think you have been to?

0:33 Speaker 3 Quite a few? Oh?

0:36 Speaker 1 Well yeah, I mean you’re going around interviewing UH prime ministers, interviewing foreign ministers for the Washington Post, and and is there one that you would never go back to?

0:53 Speaker 2 Well, I wouldn’t love to go back to Hungary.

0:58 Speaker 1 Really. I did a tough a tough city, a tough country or man.

1:04 Speaker 2 The the head of Hungary is very tough. I mean, I think I did a good interview, but it was a very difficult interview.

1:12 Speaker 1 There’s some controversy because I understand President Trump has has invited him to go to Maro Raga and he’s had.

1:20 Speaker 2 A lot of I think I think President Trump is making a big error.

1:27 Speaker 1 And the Europeans A Madison, Yeah, they’re right, And that tell us.

1:35 Speaker 2 I mean, well, he’s a really bad guy.

1:40 Speaker 1 It’s a national woman’s day. Does he treat women writers? He treat women wrong.

1:46 Speaker 2 Well, I think he treats all forces for democracy badly. And it’s really funny because if you go out into the street in the main square, it used to be called Franklin Roosevelt Square, but he struck out the name, so there’s a big X through the name Franklin Roosevelt’s Square, and now it’s named after some nationalist hero of his.

2:12 And so start there, and then of course you know that’s news.

2:16 Speaker 1 I don’t think anybody knows that. I mean I didn’t know that.

2:19 Speaker 3 No, they do.

2:21 Speaker 1 But tell you what else? What other What countries were you proud to go to? What countries were you scared to go to? You tell us you’re the international woman.

2:38 Speaker 2 Well, I was very excited to go to In twenty sixteen, I got the first interview with.

2:46 Speaker 3 Well, no, I’m wrong.

2:47 Speaker 2 On the year when she first got out of jail, I interviewed Ansan Soucci, who was in jail for years in Manmore and the Washington Post actually campaigned in editorial pages that she should be freed, and she was finally freed, although she’s back in jail now unfortunately, and the generals are ruling and it’s a very unfortunate situation that I

3:14 think people should know more about. Actually, she’s an incredibly impressive woman.

3:20 Speaker 1 I mean, how often do you do Now you’re doing a column of your own column in the Washington Post, even though Jeff Rizos owns it. How often do you do a column?

3:31 Speaker 2 Well, no, I’m not doing a column. I’m doing the same thing. I’m doing interviews with heads of state, and so you just have to obviously, you have to persist. I did a recent interview with the Foreign Minister of Ecuador when I was at the World Economic Forum, and Ecuador is having.

3:50 Speaker 3 A very bad situation.

3:51 Speaker 2 Is law and order is disintegrating, gangs roving around, and so she described that situation.

4:00 Speaker 1 Understood. And what was the scariest situation you’ve ever been into? Where you said, where you said to yourself, Oh my god, why did I come here?

4:13 Speaker 2 Well, I think maybe I interviewed Melosovich, which was a big interview in Yugoslavia, and I didn’t know if I would get it. Actually I thought it was kind of fifty to fifty. And they examined me for days. They would take me to museums and so on and so forth.

4:30 So eventually I did get the interview after a lot of persistence, and he was really tough. But he was a great interview because you could say you could basically insult him to his faith and he would just answer and he wouldn’t kick you out.

4:46 Speaker 3 But he was really off. And I knew the war was going to start with the United States.

4:51 Speaker 2 They were going to start the war against him immediately after I left, more or less, not that I left, the war they were going to start immediately thereafter or against him.

5:02 Speaker 1 What year was that?

5:03 Speaker 3 To god, it was years ago, I don’t know.

5:09 Speaker 1 Well, I helped them get elected in nineteen was it ninety one? When was the big election?

5:19 Speaker 2 I don’t know the election, but it was a very very big interview.

5:24 Speaker 1 Understood. What else would you like to tell women about the women’s rights in the world? The countries is better or is it getting worse?

5:35 Speaker 3 I mean in what country around the world?

5:38 Speaker 1 Around the world were you know countries that is getting better? Countries is getting worse?

5:44 Speaker 2 Well, I think it’s a mixed it’s a mixed record. In some places it’s getting better and some places getting worse. In Taiwan, for example, I interviewed the sim the first woman to be elected president, and she is quite impressive.

6:01 She’s now out of office, you know, so there is getting better obviously that I mean a woman. It was elected in the Baltic republics. Several presidents have been elected, I would say. I mean, there’s one prime minister in Italy.

6:19 As you know, I went to a country called Moldova where a cousin called Maya stand. It’s right on the border of Ukraine. So it’s a very important country because the Russians are thought to be maybe going to invade that country if they succeed in Ukraine. So people who want to think about Ukraine or say it’s not important

6:41 should think twice. And she’s an example. She’s tremendously brave, I would say, understood.

6:50 Speaker 1 So we talked about the one that you were scared going, and we talked about the one that the Saudi Arabia, and are women making probless you know.

7:07 Speaker 2 I’ve been to Saudi Arabia once, but I hear they are making progress, and I know their ambassador who is a woman in Washington, but I haven’t actually been there recently, but I understand they are making progress. And they’re ambassador whose father I actually knew. It’s quite an impressive person.

7:26 And I just saw her last night, actually make a speech yesterday in Washington.

7:31 Speaker 1 And you, I know you went to Davos this year. Were there a lot of women there and were you Were you impressed by them? Well?

7:43 Speaker 2 I think that now, Yes, I think that women are very impressive. Now there’s a I mean here in America. I mean there’s a woman headed the New York Stock Exchange. I think the women all around the world. I was tremendously impressed last fall by the President of the U European Commission, Arsu Levon thunder Lyon, who’s a very powerful

8:04 woman in Europe. Christine Legard is amazingly a powerful woman in Europe. So I think, you know, contrary two years ago when men ruled supreme, that women have really come a long way.

8:21 Speaker 1 Understood me? Anything else? You want to tell a teuple of.

8:25 Speaker 3 People, Well, what would you say? What would you say? John?

8:32 Speaker 2 I think that people say rightly so that there’s a lot of progress to be made. But I think if you look back, you know, fifty years or I can’t look back fifty years ago, but if you look like even twenty years ago, women have made a lot of progress.

8:51 Speaker 1 Well, LOLLI weavert the Washington Post. Thank you so much for coming on speaking on women’s rights, and we’ll catch up again yourself.

9:00 Speaker 2 Thank you, John,