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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour.” Here’s what’s coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons and they’re going to be paying for them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: With the NATO chief at the White House, Trump hails a new weapons boost for Ukraine and he appears to be souring on Russia. We look
at the risks and rewards of deepening U.S. support per Kyiv.
Then Iran expels half a million Afghans. Journalists Zahra Nader joins me on one of the largest force migrations in decades.
Plus —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM TANENHAUS, AUTHOR, “BUCKLEY”: What would WFB, William F. Buckley Jr., have done on Twitter? And I said, he just would’ve burned it up. He
would’ve had more tweets out there than Donald Trump and Elon Musk combined.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: — the life and legacy of William F. Buckley. Biographer Sam Tanenhaus talks to Walter Isaacson about his deep investigation into the
conservative icon.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Donald Trump is putting the pressure on Russia today. The president announcing a new weapons deal for Ukraine alongside NATO Secretary General
Mark Rutte at the White House. He says NATO countries will buy American weapons and then send them to Ukraine. He also threatened President Putin
with punishing trade consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I’m disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would’ve had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get
there. So, based on that, we’re going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days. It’s very simple. And they’ll be at a hundred
percent. And that’s the way it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Now, it all amounts to a remarkable about-face and the president’s attitude towards Ukraine. In particular, Trump’s relationship
with Vladimir Putin, which appears to have soured considerably. Putin, he said on Sunday, talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening.
Well, here to discuss our David Shimer, former director for Russian Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council under President Biden and Ivo
Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO. Welcome both of you.
David, let me start with you. So, what signal do you think this new policy of selling U.S. weapons to Europe to then find their way to Ukraine? What
message does that send to Moscow, given how this president, just months ago, was so hesitant to do just that?
DAVID SHIMER, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR RUSSIA AFFAIRS, NSC: So, I think it’s a good positive step with many details still to be worked out and followed
through still need to be had, but the core objective here should be to convince President Putin and should be to convince Russian leadership that
time is not in their side in this war, that the U.S. and Western support for Ukraine will persist. And therefore, that it is in Russian interest to
agree to a ceasefire, which Ukraine already has agreed to.
Hopefully, through this new arrangement, which more details still need to be learned of, with weapons from the United States flowing to Europe,
flowing to Ukraine, that will aid in shifting Russia’s perceptions of the trajectory of this war and will help push them to engage in meaningful
negotiations instead of just slow walking negotiations, which is what they have been doing to this point.
GOLODRYGA: Is there anything, David, from what you heard about the weapons announcements, and I think Patriot missiles, a number of defensive weapons
the president touting the strength of the U.S. weapons industry as a whole, which are, in his words, and I think most military analysts would say,
unmatched and potentially even offensive weapons. Do you think that changes the calculus for Putin at all at this point?
SHIMER: So, it’s worth recalling of course that the Biden administration provided more than $60 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine. And so,
there is a well plowed path to providing Ukraine with this type of support. The key question now is whether Trump will maintain that level of support,
which hopefully he will through this new avenue of providing arms through Europe to Ukraine to help Ukraine defend itself.
But there are questions that need to be answered. For example, will the Europeans be put at the back of the procurement line for these
capabilities, which can stretch on for years, or will they be prioritized and be able to purchase capabilities on an expedited basis to get them to
Ukraine more quickly would be point one.
Point two would be whether the United States will do additional drawdown from U.S. stocks for Ukraine, and then the Europeans can reimburse for
those drawdown packages, which would enable the rapid flow of arms from the United States to Europe to Ukraine.
And so, much detailed still to be worked out, but it’s definitely a positive step forward in making sure that the United States continues to
flow needed capabilities to Ukraine.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And the president said in the Oval Office, some of these weapons will be in Ukraine within just a matter of days. And yet, Ivo, you
write that there’s reason to be skeptical about this change in President Trump’s positioning and policy towards Ukraine and his skepticism about
Vladimir Putin really being serious about ending this war. Why?
IVO DAALDER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, because the record suggests that Donald Trump has, from the very beginning of this conflict,
seen Ukraine as much a problem of what’s happening as Russia. And in fact, until just the last few days he always believed that he was the one who
could work with Vladimir Putin to end this war.
He’s shifted. Clearly, the rhetoric has shifted. And now, the policy is shifting. And we’ll have to see how long that lasts. You now a 50-day
deadline for a ceasefire, it used to be two weeks. And the sanctions that he’s talking about, the tariffs are going to be put on other countries, not
on the Russians.
But all of that said, I’d much rather be where we are today than even last week when he was hesitating about sending Patriots. He said, you know, we
need them as well as Ukraine and there aren’t a lot there. Clearly, there is now a pathway forward to providing the weapons that only the United
States has that need to be sent to Ukraine. And I hope that pathway will be quick, rapid, and fulfilled for the Ukrainians and that the sanctions and
the tariffs that are being threatened will also start to follow through.
Because, as David rightly says, this war won’t end until Vladimir Putin understands that he will not be able to achieve what he set out to achieve,
which is the subjugation of Ukraine. And now, that the United States has finally, after six months, come to the understanding that it is in
America’s interest for Putin not to succeed and for Ukraine to succeed, we may be starting along a path — a long path. I fear longer than 50 days,
towards a resolution of this conflict.
GOLODRYGA: What has been quite notable is the effectiveness that the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, has had thus far in trying to convince
President Trump that this was the right direction to take in cultivating their relationship, they’ve known each other for years, but since the
president has come back for his second term, Mark Rutte has taken on the role as NATO secretary general.
He was criticized for being a bit too sycophantic at the NATO Summit, calling the president daddy. But this seems to have worked in this meeting.
And I’d like to play for our viewers the basic nuts and bolts of how this policy would work as laid out by the president and the NATO secretary
general.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We’ve made a deal today, and I’m going to have Mark speak about it, but we’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons
and they’re going to be paying for them.
MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: But it’ll mean that Ukraine can get its hands on really massive numbers of military equipment, both for air
defense, but also missiles, ammunition, et cetera, et cetera.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: David, I’m wondering now, as you laid out earlier what the Biden policy was in just providing these weapons to Ukraine and knowing
that at some point, given congressional approval, given the question about even procurement, how long that support could have lasted.
What do you make of this shift where the president seems to be really focused on his base as well and placating them by saying, the U.S. isn’t
going to be spending any money, in fact, we’ll be making money, we’re going to be selling weapons to our European allies, who given where things are
right now and the concerns they have about their own safety, are willing and able now to buy these weapons? Would that have been a better plan? And
what do you make of it going forward?
SHIMER: So, I think that in the context of the Biden administration, a clear judgment was made that the benefits of supporting Ukraine, including
covering the cost of military aid, far outweighed the costs, given that supporting Ukraine is so fundamentally in U.S. interest, and given that the
security assistance we provided to Ukraine actually enabled us to rejuvenate, fortify, and invest in our own defense industrial base.
Moving forward, given the politics of where we are today, I think it makes sense for the Europeans to help pay for the provision of military aid from
the United States to Ukraine so long as, again, that that provision of aid is still made able to be done rapidly. Because if what we’re talking about
here is months or years long’s delay, which would be different than what was described in the press conference, but we should be mindful of that,
would be damaging and would undercut Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.
And so, I think that if the United States is able to create a mechanism by which through the Europeans, we’re able to deliver security assistance on
an expedited basis on top of sanctions meant to increase economic pressure on Russia, particularly its energy sector, which in my view should be done
in sooner than 50 days, but that’s the timeline that’s been laid out.
And then, also, seeking to work with the Europeans to realize and utilize the value of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets, approximately 300
billion of them, inside of Europe to help pay for all of this, that that recipe together over time, which will take, as Ivo said, longer, most
likely than 50 days to affect Putin’s calculus, push them to the table, this will take sustained work, sustained effort. But hopefully, will
eventually lead to an outcome that ends this war on terms that are acceptable to the Ukrainian government.
GOLODRYGA: So, Ivo, what do you make of the sanctions that President Trump threatened? They’re not quite where Congress is in a bipartisan bill that’s
making its way through both the House and the Senate with overwhelming majority approval, it is that there would be sanctions, secondary sanctions
leveled against countries like China and India that purchase oil and gas from Russia at some 500 percent. The president announcing that sanctions
will be 100 percent and will take effect in 50 days. Were you hoping for something sooner? And what message does that send to Vladimir Putin as it
does appear Russia’s moving forward with their summer offensive?
DAALDER: Yes, I would have hoped that we had put these sanctions in yesterday rather than tomorrow. But today, would be fine as well. I think
the — if you really want to demonstrate, as President Trump seems to want to demonstrate, that he’s now had a different view, both of the war and
who’s at fault and how to address it, which includes more support for Ukraine and more pressure on Russia, then doing that now rather than in 50
days makes a lot more sense.
Why wait 50 days? What is it that he’s going to get in 50 days that he’s not going to get if he pushes the sanctions on now? I mean, the hundred
percent or 500 percent, both of them are big numbers. The big difference between what Trump is saying now is that he wants to do it unilaterally
rather than as a mandate with Congress. And indeed, the big debate on Capitol Hill about the sanctions bill is exactly about this. Is this
something that Congress mandates or is it something that Congress says the president has the right to do whatever he wants to do?
We know where Donald Trump stands. He made very clear he wants to be this at his option, both to turn on and turn off the sanctions. My sense of his
record on these issues is that I have my worries that he doesn’t have the staying power, the willingness to continue to push as hard as he can. He
will also have to think about how — if he’s going to put sanctions on countries like India and China for buying energy resources from Russia,
what is he going to do about the U.S. purchase of Russian uranium that continues until this day? The Japanese purchase of LNG gas from Russia, and
the European continues support — supply of gas — Russian supply of gas to Europe?
All of those questions, the details of which is what will make this policy a success or not. But the most important thing happened is that we now have
a different perspective from the president who used to be on Putin’s side and now clearly has decided that Putin is the problem. And therefore, the
pressure needs to be on him. And that is finally the right place where we all have to — ought to be right now. Should have been there a long time
ago, but I’m glad it’s today.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, there are risks for leveling sanctions, secondary sanctions, we should note, against Russia. What will the retaliation be
from China? What will the response be from India, who the U.S. is trying to pull more into its orbit as it’s trying to separate and isolate China? And
I think you make an important point that many of our viewers may not know that United States continues to purchase uranium even three years into this
war from Russia at this point still.
David, there also is the factor of President Putin still thinking no matter what is thrown at him, if that’s more weapons, if that’s new sanctions, A,
he’s weathered the sanctions thus far, and B, he still believes and is being told that he is winning on the battlefield and continues to be told
that he can win this war. And it’s only when Ukraine is weakened enough to come to the negotiating table that perhaps he will be earnest in wanting to
bring this war to an end as well. As one Russian expert noted, he will not sacrifice his goals in Ukraine for the sake of improving relations with
President Trump. So, how does that factor in?
SHIMER: And I think President Trump is starting to understand that based on the press conference that was given today. I would say that President
Putin, as a first point of order, will likely test whether President Trump is willing to sustain the posture that was described today.
And so, if President Putin were to offer some sort of direct face-to-face meeting over the future of the war, or were to offer some sort of half
measure that’s meant to indicate that he’s willing to take an off ramp without actually doing so, would that cause Trump to waiver, push a 50-day
deadline to a hundred to 150 days? And then, suddenly the war’s ongoing, the attacks on Ukraine are ongoing and the economic costs haven’t been
realized. So, that is risk number one.
Point two to yours is that the Ukrainian military on, its own two feet, is a fierce fighting force. The Russian military is suffering extraordinary
costs every single day. Ukraine now has a defense industrial base that is producing millions of autonomous systems every year, drones and otherwise,
that can be used to counteract Russia’s invading forces alongside the support that they’re receiving from other countries.
And so, if we are to stand with the Ukrainians, provide them with the aid they need, increase the economic pressure on Russia, over time it is
possible to reach a conclusion inside of Russia that in fact they should negotiate in good faith. But to get there, it will take work. It will take
time, and it will take effort.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Russia also stepping up its defense industrial base, but point made and you lay it out brilliantly and quite thoroughly in a new
Foreign Affairs piece where you talk about Ukraine’s fast-moving drone industry, even outpacing that of the West. What can Washington, beyond just
this war, take away from what Ukraine was able to accomplish?
SHIMER: So, I believe very strongly that the United States has an opportunity to learn from Ukraine’s innovative defense industrial base.
I’ve had the opportunity in Ukraine to tour its drone factories, to meet with its manufacturers, and they’re on the cutting edge, producing
adaptable, innovative systems that can be iterated upon rapidly to overcome Russian countermeasures and produced at scale and at speed.
And so, we, as the United States, lack that capability currently can learn from what Ukraine can do from their intellectual property by co-producing
these types of capabilities inside of America. And we can then use those capabilities both to shore up our own national security, but also to
support other partners and allies around the world where they to face similar threats in the future.
GOLODRYGA: Ivo, final question to you in the minute that we have left it. It is notable that the president unlike Mark Rutte, is still not able to
unequivocally say that he thinks Ukraine wants peace. We heard that from Rutte. He reiterated that. The president said, I think they do, I’m not
sure, which raises your earlier concern about how committed the president is to this new policy.
What does seem to have really changed is the president’s comfort with NATO, picking up more of the slack here and really investing in their own
defense. Are you hearing any reassurances from your contacts in Europe suggesting the same?
DAALDER: So, there’s a reassurance that the president now seems to understand that Russia is a problem rather than part of the solution. That
is a reassuring. The worry however, and in fact this deal that is being made where NATO countries are going to pay for equipment that the United
States would sell them and then give to the Ukrainians, the worry is that that money will therefore not be available for defending and bolstering the
defense of their own militaries, something that they committed to do in the Hague Summit, just a few — just a month ago.
And so, there is a tradeoff here. The United States is walking away from a three-year long, in fact, a 10-year long effort of helping Ukraine to
defend itself. And it is no longer willing to do that. It’s willing to sell weapons to others to provide to Ukraine, but is no longer willing to be
part of it. That means that by definition there’s going to be less resources in Europe to bolster European and NATO defenses than would
otherwise be there. And that’s negative, and I think people in Europe are worried about that.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And that’s forcing the Europeans to step up their own weapons procurement at rapid speed as well. Ivo Daalder, David Shimer,
always good to see you. Thank you so much.
SHIMER: Thank you.
DAALDER: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: And stay with CNN. Thank you. We’ll be right back.
GOLODRYGA: Half a million people in 16 days. Iran is carrying out a massive expulsion of Afghan refugees from the country and back into Taliban
controlled Afghanistan. That’s according to the United Nations.
Tehran had for months said that it planned to remove millions of undocumented Afghans from the country who often work low paid jobs there,
as our Nick Paton Walsh reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice- over): One of the largest forced migrations in decades, Afghan migrants pushed out
of the rock of Iran and its menial, low-paid labor, to the hard place of Taliban, Afghanistan, and the economic horrors they fled in the first
place.
Half a million in just 16 days, according to U.N. figures, a peak that began at the end of the conflict with Israel, and 88,000 in just 48 hours
of the past weekend before a deadline to leave expired on Sunday. You can see the scale here but not feel the heat.
MIHYUNG PARK, CHIEF OF MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN, IOM: There are dozens of people under the sun. And you know how hot Herat can be. It’s quite dire.
Last week it was about 400 separated, unaccompanied children.
WALSH (voice-over): Parrisa is 11, but this year was told she couldn’t go back to school. We spent six years in Iran, she said, before they told us
to apply for the exit letter and leave. We did have a legal census document, but they told us to leave immediately.
They’re often arrested on the street and deported without a chance to collect their belongings, sometimes from years working in Iran for better
wages.
Basheer is in his 20s and was removed from Tehran. First, they took about $200 from me, he says. Then they sent me to the detention center, where I
was kept for two nights, and they forced me to pay another $50. In the detention center, they wouldn’t give us food or drinking water. There are
about 200 people there. They beat us up and abuse us.
For Iran, it’s a matter of pride. The music here sets the mood of how state TV presents the expulsions. And Tehran police release images of the
manhunt: chasing Afghans, interrogating their employers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Why did you hire the Afghan? It’s against the law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I know. But I have to pay them so they can go back. They want to go and are waiting to get paid.
WALSH (voice-over): The answer to why now? Why, when Iran should be recovering from a brutal 12-day conflict with Israel, would it choose to
focus on undocumented laborers? Well, there have been accusations Afghans spied for Israel, like these alleged confessions in state media. The
evidence may be lacking here, but the messaging is clear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): That person contacted me and said he needed information on certain locations. He asked for them, and I
provided them. I got $2,000 from him.
WALSH (voice-over): Iran decided to do this months ago, but perhaps never imagined this pace. And Afghanistan, already struggling, perhaps never
imagined this new challenge of returnees.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Our Nick Paton Walsh there. For more on this, let’s bring in Afghan journalist Zahra Nader, who spent time in Iran as a child. Zahra,
thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for bringing light to this important story and your really relevant reporting as well.
As we saw in Nick’s report, half a million people swept up in just 16 days. Some of them just picked up off of the street. What do you make of the
timing here? Now, Iran said they’re going to start deporting Afghans back in March, but we’ve really seen this escalate following this 12-day war
between Israel and Iran. Iran even accusing Afghans of collaborating with Israel. Tell us what you’re hearing and what you’re learning.
ZAHRA NADER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, ZAN TIMES: Thank you so much for having me, Bianna. And I think to tell you why this is happening with this
intensification is Iran has always been using Afghan refugees as a scapegoat for its problem. But particularly, in the past — in the 12 days
between Iran and Israel, we see that Iran was being shown as a very big country.
And this escalation of deportation of Afghan refugees is a way to take away the public criticism that’s coming from the Iranian, but also to blaming —
you know, the accusation of (INAUDIBLE) is not something easy. That is not something that Iran would deal easily with it.
So, this is a way to force Afghan refugees to blame that the war in — between Israel was in fact being done or supported by Afghan refugees,
which is totally baseless. But to tell you how that really feel — fit within the Afghan — within — sorry, within the Iranian public, is that
there is a long history of racism against Afghan refugees in Iran, and I grow up in Iran as a child refugee. Here I was denied the right to
education because I was Afghan and I was called out every day on the streets nasty Afghan, go back to your country.
So, it’s no surprise for us that we are seeing a huge support from the Iranian public when the government is mass supporting Afghan refugees and
blaming them for the war.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, tell us more about your story. Because I think it’s so important for people to hear firsthand what you experienced, you and so
many other Afghan refugees who were in Afghanistan at the time of the Taliban, fled to Iran. You lived there and obviously experienced, as you
noted, horrific treatment there and were called horrible names while you were in Iran. You went back to Afghanistan following the fall of the
Taliban. And then after that, with their return, you then finished your education and took refuge in Canada.
So, give us just a brief description of your life in Iran. And then I want to talk about Afghanistan a bit later too.
NADER: Sure, sure. I think the way the message I hope to convey is that the — being a refugee in Iran is a trauma that I am reliving, you know,
two decades later. I was in Iran in the late ’90s when the Taliban takeover, and the treatment I experienced there, maybe I didn’t know as a
six-year-old child, I did not know who I was Afghan. It was the Iranian, the public there who told me that who I was is the source of shame that I
was a nasty Afghan, that I needed to go back, that I was using their resources, that I should not have been there in the first place.
So, telling that to a child I think it’s the brutal thing you can do. And my job as a child, I was — I used to go to the bakeries and buy bread. We
— even Iranian adult women were pushing me down and cursing me and abusing me. So, that was the environment I grew up.
And what I see right now in Iran is that many bakeries stopped selling dry bread to Afghans. Plus, that they are — you know, in Iran you have to pay
a deposit in order to rent a house. Many Afghans, including my own relatives, is telling me that they are unable to get their money back.
We have spoken with another father of three who told us that he was in Iran for 15 years. He was working as a gardener. And when they have given him
the deportation letter, he went to his employer of 14 years. He owed him I think around $5,000 and asked him, if you can give my money, I want to go
back to my country. And he told him that, you have stolen from me. If you ever dare to ask for your money back, I am going to deport you the police.
So, that is the environment that you’re seeing that is very, very difficult.
GOLODRYGA: You still have friends and family in Iran?
NADER: I do. I do.
GOLODRYGA: And have you been able to speak with them?
NADER: The internet is very down. But I have been able to contact and speak with them once a week or so. But they are — most of them, the men
are hiding in the home, but we are also seeing an escalation that we are seeing in Iran right now. It used to be — the deportation target used to
be lone men who are coming to Iran for work, but recently, we are seeing a shift, that Iran has started deporting Afghan families, but also more
focused on women.
So, if the woman is being deported alone to Afghanistan, we are a country, they cannot move alone, even they cannot move to another province by
themselves, by the Taliban law. They cannot get a work. They cannot go to school. That’s the environment. So, we are seeing a shift. And my families,
they are telling me that they are also facing this difficulty of how to get their money back. And without money, how they can go back to Afghanistan.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And in your very important reporting, I encourage our viewers to follow on Zan Times. You talk about the increase in the
deportation of women, of single women, of widows and that women traveling without a male guardian. The word for that is, mahram, back to the Taliban
controlled Afghanistan puts them at even greater risk.
I’m sure Iran is aware of this, the risk that they are putting on these women. So, the fact that this may be a new policy suggests what to you?
NADER: This suggests that they are really intended to deport all the Afghan refugees there have. So, then the woman is being deported, how can
the men alone stay in Iran? You know, they have to come because their wife in Afghanistan cannot survive alone. This is ideally for the families who
have a man in their life.
But look at the situation of women who don’t have a man in their life, who don’t have a mahram in Afghanistan to accompany them. So, on the other side
of the border in Afghanistan, what they are facing, they are facing a system, a government that I can accurately describe as a gender apartheid
where they cannot leave, travel alone without a man in their life. They cannot buy food. They cannot get an education. They cannot get a work. So,
how do you live if you cannot work and earn your living?
And to add to that is that we have reported that women, even women who need healthcare, need to go to hospital, they need a mahram to access hospital.
That is a situation that they will face in Afghanistan, which is very difficult, especially Afghanistan has a very large number of widow and
woman heads of household because during the past four decades many women have lost their husband.
GOLODRYGA: So, what happens when these single women show up at the border of Afghanistan? You talk about the gender apartheid and the fact that so
many of them are unable then to be treated as human beings really, to be able to go to school, to be able to hold jobs, but are their lives at risk
too when they show up unaccompanied at the border?
NADER: Definitely. So, the — first of all, the condition of the camp is very, very difficult. So, we are hearing from the people who are telling
us, both sides of the border, but particularly in Iran, there is so many beating. We have spoken with two eyewitnesses who told us that they have
seen Iranian police beat Afghans to death and their bodies were carried out. So, that’s on the other side. But they are not being given food.
They’re not being given water. We spoke to a woman who was deported with a four-year-old child on his arm, and she told that she went to buy a formula
when the Iranian police arrested her and deported her to Afghanistan.
And to your question about how these women will survive. So, first of all, the question is that they told us they don’t have any basic services at the
border. They cannot travel. They don’t have the money to travel. So, for them it is just like we are living in a very impossible situation. We don’t
know what to do. We are at the mercy of strangers. If somebody offered to help us to take us to a relative or call our relative to come and pick up,
that might be a way.
But imagine for the woman who don’t have a relative, who don’t have a network and services, I worry that they might not make it.
GOLODRYGA: And you talk about the conditions as you report in the Zan Times of these camps and the detention centers, the heat, the lack of food,
as you noted, extortion, children going without milk, families sleeping next to toilets, people fainting in the sun from the dire heat. And then
there is the life that they are met with and the conditions they’re met with when they enter Afghanistan, for all intents and purposes, a failed
state at this point and has seen a massive influx of Afghan refugees coming in forcibly being sent back to their home countries.
About half a million Afghans have left via Iran since June and July 9th. In total, more than 1.6 million Afghan refugees have returned from Iran and
Pakistan this year alone. How is a country that is so plagued with economic problems, obviously political problems, how are they dealing and coping or
able to cope with such a mass influx of refugees?
NADER: So, first of all, we have to understand that the Taliban is very ill-equipped to manage any crisis because there are a bunch of mullahs who
only talk about how to make people pray, how to force them to go to mosque, how to build mosque. Basically, that’s their preoccupation.
For them to treat this influx of refugees that are coming at the border with nothing and considering that the humanitarian aid is being cut, I
worry that this is the beginning, it’s going to turn into a humanitarian catastrophe. Afghanistan was already suffering. It was one of the biggest
humanitarian crises since the Taliban takeover, and I worry this is going to add to that and the situation is even going to get worse than what is
right now.
GOLODRYGA: And so, many countries have been plagued with a problem of whether to perpetuate the humanitarian crisis by withholding aid or what
they feel like is a binary option that they have supporting the Taliban and keeping them in power, both terrible, terrible options.
Last week, the ICC issued arrest warrants for the leader of Afghanistan’s government and its chief justice. Do you see any hope in these arrest
warrants?
NADER: I see a hope in ways that this is perhaps the most concrete action internationally that we are seeing have taken by the International
Community in the past four years. But the question is how that is going to be implemented, that’s a big question.
And to your point about, you know, like the Taliban being in charge of countries or thinking whether they have to withhold the humanitarian aid or
not. We have to also understand that we reported that the Taliban are actually stealing from humanitarian aid. And this morning, I have a meeting
with my team that we are discussing stories that you’re working on, and one of the stories that we get was coming is that people are complaining that
they’re being offered — they’re supposed to get 2,000 Afghani at the border when they enter Afghanistan.
This 2,000 is supposedly coming from the humanitarian aid. But some of these families are telling us they’re only getting 1,000. So, what’s
happened to that one other thousand? We don’t know. And that is barely the cost of travel. They can barely use that money to do — to go to their home
province if they have. So, I worry that the situation is very complicated and there is no one single solution or a simple answer for this.
GOLODRYGA: What more though, can the International Community, can the United States do to address this crisis, not only in handling the internal
dynamics within Afghanistan, which are dire, but also what we’re seeing happen in Iran?
NADER: So, I think what we can see is that there is humanitarian attention, especially money humanitarian aid is needed at the border, and I
hope there should be some mechanism to ensure that that money is not going to the Taliban, but it’s going to the people who are most at need. That’s
at one level.
The other level, I can tell you with the humanitarian cut that was implement implemented by the U.S., which was Afghanistan’s biggest
humanitarian aid provider, is that even organization, small organization like Zan Times, the newsroom that we are running, we have been hugely
affected. So, we are literally punching our — above our weight to be able to report, to be able to assign reporters to do this kind of stories.
Because if we don’t do that, there is — then we don’t hear anything, that doesn’t mean everything is good. That means that we don’t have the means to
understand what’s going — what’s happening really in Afghanistan. And imagine, Afghanistan is the worst country for women.
And what I hope that your viewers understand is that the situation or the women’s rights crisis in Afghanistan is not only about women’s rights in
Afghanistan, it’s about women’s right globally. And if it’s not being seen as that, it means that all of us are losing something, even those who are
sitting in the U.S. Women not having rights in Afghanistan and being even depraved of their rights to education, that will affect your rights in the
U.S.
And I hope that this will bring attention to take some concrete action to push the Taliban to reverse these laws and take some measures to allow
people to leave.
GOLODRYGA: Well, Zahra Nader, keep doing what you’re doing, keep punching above your weight because this is such important reporting that you are —
and your team are doing there. Thank you for your perspective, for sharing your experience, and for sharing your really thoughtful reporting.
Appreciate the time. And we will stay on top of this story too.
NADER: Thank you so much. Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: And we’ll be right back after the short break.
GOLODRYGA: Now, William F. Buckley Jr. is widely known as one of the architects behind modern conservatism in America. As a prominent right-wing
commentator and writer, he was a close political ally and friend of President Reagan and would often feature Reagan on his show “Firing Line.”
Over the course of nearly three decades, author Sam Tanenhaus has been crafting the intellectual’s biography titled “Buckley: The Life and The
Revolution That Changed America.” And he joins Walter Isaacson and to discuss how Buckley’s legacy fits into today’s politics.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And, Sam Tanenhaus, welcome to the show.
SAM TANENHAUS, AUTHOR, “BUCKLEY”: It’s great to be here, Walter. Thanks.
ISAACSON: So, William F. Buckley, is he the founder of modern-day populist conservatism that we now see or would he be appalled by it?
TANENHAUS: He would — he — both. He is a founder of the conservatism we see now. Notice I say a founder, he didn’t do it alone. But I think he
might be a little dismayed by how it looks and sounds now. And by that, Walter, I mean, you knew Bill Buckley. And he was very much a man of
language, arguments and ideas, rigorous debate where you listen to the other side. I’m not sure he’d be so comfortable with how the politics works
today.
ISAACSON: But what about the populism, the anti-elitism? There was, of course, a whiff of all elitism to William F. Buckley, Jr.
TANENHAUS: Well, there you’ve captured the paradox of William F. Buckley. Because he was himself, seemed to almost aristocratic patrician (ph). We
remember the voice, the style, the language, the books, but he was involved with political figures like Joseph McCarthy, who was very close to him. One
of the discoveries I made in uncovering his life, which included many long interviews with him, was how devoted he remained to Joseph McCarthy.
Why? Because if you are an elite patrician, like Bill Buckley, and you don’t just want to be heard, you want to win the battle, which increasingly
looked like a cultural battle, then politicians like McCarthy might be useful for that.
ISAACSON: Well, you got Joe McCarthy. You also have Roy Cohn, who’s, of course, the pugnacious lawyer. Two people you would’ve thought would’ve
repelled Buckley. Why did he remain loyal to them to the end?
TANENHAUS: Well, Walter, one of the aspects of the conservative movement that even now we have trouble wrapping our minds around, was how much it
was against rather than for. So, in the famous book bill Buckley wrote with his brother-in-law, “McCarthy and His Enemies,” published at the very peak
of the McCarthy Controversy in 1954. There’s not a great deal about Joe McCarthy. There’s a lot about his enemies and Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy and
others, they included Rush Limbaugh, whom Buckley sponsored in the 1990s. Were on the same side in that cultural battle.
ISAACSON: But the through line is that they’re strongly anti-communist. And of course, Buckley is very — it’s almost his animating force. Did some
of that come from his father, William F. Buckley, Sr.?
TANENHAUS: His father had been — was from the south of Texas. Both Buckley’s parents were from the South. His mother was from New Orleans. And
they raised their children to believe that all — the new deal was a counter revolutionary event catastrophe in America. But earlier still,
Buckley’s father who made his first fortune in Mexican oil, lost it during the Mexican revolution of 1910 to 1920.
And Buckley, Sr., William F. Buckley, Sr., was convinced it was a Bolshevist plot, those were his words, that carried all the way through
into American politics in the 1930s. And then at the time of World War II, when the great debate over intervention began, Bill Buckley, the young Bill
Buckley’s first cause as a teenager.
ISAACSON: You’ve talked about Aloise Steiner, his mother from New Orleans and William F. Buckley Sr., both are very Catholic, but an interesting type
of Catholic because they’re in places where the Catholics are, to some extent, the elite rather than the outsiders. Did that inform the younger
Buckley’s Catholicism?
TANENHAUS: It did very much. One of the amusing lines that runs through the Buckley family’s life is they were always competitive with the
Kennedys. These two very wealthy, attractive families of New England, Irish Catholics and there were differences. Bill Buckley had some funny lines
about the Kennedys, said, I don’t know why people keep comparing us with the Kennedys. Joseph Kennedy Sr. was devoted to Ireland. The first time my
father set foot in Ireland, which you go to the Dublin horse show in 1939.
They pulled a kind of class rank on the Kennedys, which was very amusing once Jack Kennedy was elected president, because now you have these two
powerful families in opposition who came up from the same roots.
ISAACSON: You do a good analysis of “God & Man at Yale,” his first book when he comes out of Yale. I remember reading that book and I couldn’t
figure out, is he a product of Yale or a rebel against Yale?
TANENHAUS: He is both. That’s the genius of it. Walter, many people have been attacking the Ivy League. You’re an Ivy League man. And you know, from
the 1930s, if not earlier, there were attacks on the Ivy League. Oh, from Congress, people in HUAC, the House Committee and Un-American Activities,
from a populist journalist. Some of the attacks we see now. What set Buckley apart was he was the biggest man on campus in his year. And the
year he graduated in 1950.
He was tapped, as I said, for all the clubs. He was the last man tapped for skull and bones, the highest accolade you could achieve. He was voted into
all the best fraternities. He was famous for his work on the Yale Daily News. It’s possible to argue William F. Buckley Jr. was the greatest campus
journalist of the 20th century. He became famous while he was still at Yale writing editorials.
So, all of that made Bill Buckley. And then, he climbed up and that platform he’d built for himself and denounced his professors for being two
left-wing in economics and for being atheists. And the key to the book was not only that he named names in it, a book published at the peak of the
McCarthyism 1951, he had two solutions to the problem.
One is that alumni should step in and fire the faculty they didn’t like. And the second was that donors should stop contributing to fund drives. And
in 1951, all the people around him, including mentors and friends, close associates, said, Bill, do not write that ridiculous last chapter. But
Buckley knew that’s where he would touch the nerve. And lo and behold all these years later, it’s not shocking to hear that same approach. If you’re
familiar with this to the Ivy League universities today, only they’re coming from the president himself.
ISAACSON: One of the things I found really disconcerting in the book and surprised me because he’s such a gentil man was not only that he was a
segregationist, but there was a racism that carries through what he does. In 1957, the National Review, I’m going to quote you something, had an
editorial entitled “Why the South Must Prevail.” He said, white communities in the south — the white community in the south is entitled to take such
measures as are necessary to prevail politically and culturally in areas where it does not predominate numerically, because for the time being, it
is the advanced race. And even after the 64 Civil Rights Act, it was something in the national view. He did negroes intelligence and prejudice,
and he argued for separate education.
TANENHAUS: He did. He did. All the way up and through the — until the late 1960s when something happened to him. He actually got to know some
very charismatic and persuasive black leaders, including the very young Jesse Jackson, whom — one of the advantages, one of the great things about
Bill Buckley was he was open to the argument and the new idea. If you could beat him in debate or even if he won, he still wanted to hear what you had
to say.
Early on — in that earlier period you’re talking about, and viewers should understand, when that editorial was written in 1957, that was at the moment
that the first modern Civil Rights Act was being deliberated on in Congress, the one that Lyndon Johnson and Senator Richard Russell tangled
over and was signed under Eisenhower. And what was missing from that bill, as you know very well, was the protection of voting rights.
And Robert Carrow in that wonderful book, “The Master of the Senate,” walks us through all the steps. Buckley and company really believe black people
did not deserve to vote. And he continued saying this for many years without apology. A surprise for me, Walter, is that people were less
shocked to hear that than you might expect them to be.
You would think that a great liberal like Arthur Schlesinger would be appalled by that. No. He would just say, well, Buckley is (INAUDIBLE) the
segregationists on that and move on to the next point. That it is not to justify or excuse it, but to show you in that climate, Buckley could make
assertions like that and not seen a just reputable person.
ISAACSON: So, we’ve established that he was pretty much not just a segregationist, but somewhat racist. He’s very anti-communist. Supports Joe
McCarthy. He’s also isolationist with Charles Lindbergh against Intervention and World War II, even antisemitic in some ways, and yet, he’s
known for trying to purge the conservative movement of its extremists, bigots, kooks, anti-Semites, and racist. How do you square that?
TANENHAUS: Well, he was — for one thing, he learned. He actually grew. And the Buckley of age 40 is not the same as the Buckley of age 30. One
important thing that happened was a mayoral campaign he was involved in. In some ways it was the greatest thing he ever did. It really helped transform
politics when on the conservative line that he created, a conservative party he created in New York in 1965, he challenged the liberal Republican,
John Lindsay, a congressman who decided to run for mayor and a clubhouse Democrat from Brooklyn, A. Beame. Buckley ran as the conservative. Nowadays
we would say, he ran as the base candidate against the rhino, who would be John Lindsay.
And what happened was Buckley was a listener and observer, and he loved meeting people. And as he went out on the campaign trail, he began to meet
all kinds of people, including black voters, and he realized, no, you can’t put them all in a bloc and assume they’re going to vote one way, which was
at a basis, the justification for those early racist editorials. No, you have to take them on as individuals. After all, Bill Buckley is a big
supporter of individualism. So, that means you cannot make assumptions about anyone.
And with his television program “Firing Line,” he wanted to have lively debate. So, I’ll suggest to viewers go on YouTube and watch Bill Buckley’s
conversation with Muhammad Ali in 1967 when Ali was stripped of his heavyweight crown and threatened with imprisonment because he wouldn’t
serve in the Vietnam War, and you hear Buckley very respectfully engaging with Muhammad Ali, not about whether Ali was right to do that, he respected
the courage Ali had shown.
Another debate. Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. Because Buckley found himself defending Malcolm X against Muhammad Ali.
ISAACSON: So, in some ways you call him a performing ideolog, a performative, and that phrase, people pick that up from your book. How does
that relate to today where so many people are ideolog on both sides are simply doing it in 140 characters in a performative way? Is that was what
he was doing?
TANENHAUS: You know, I’m asked what would WFB, William F. Buckley Jr., have done on Twitter, and I said he just would’ve burned it up. He would’ve
had more tweets out there than Donald Trump and Elon Musk combined. He was so facile, so quick, he loved the one-liner. He is famous for his one-
liners.
I think in some way he did create that. And one of the effects that his story has had now that it’s being discussed again, is that it makes the
whole trajectory of the American conservative movement and conquest look very different. Because now, if you think of the touchstones as being
Joseph McCarthy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley, and Donald Trump, what they all have in common? They’re masters of the media. They’re masters of
performance. They don’t so much come out of politics as conquer it. They conquer it from the outside. They’re cultural figures. And culture and
politics intertwined. Buckley was the first to see it.
And with that, all our history and our current politics looks very different. We think we give presidents license to do things the
Constitution does not allow for, and Buckley seemed to feel that’s where things were going. He intuited it. He was a man of perception, with long
antenna that picked up where the culture was going.
ISAACSON: Sam Tanenhaus, thank you so much for joining us.
TANENHAUS: What a pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally, you may have already heard, but this year’s Wimbledon Champion is 23-year-old tennis star Jannik Sinner. Attending the
Champions Dinner last night, Sinner and women’s singles winner Iga Swiatek shared a dance, a celebratory tradition of the championships.
This is Sinner’s first win at Wimbledon. And the 23-year-old star is sure to have a huge future as well. This after he beat two-time defending
champion Carlos Alvarez. Now, his tennis is indeed incredible. But did you also know that he was once an accomplished skier too? Well, growing up in
the Italian province of South Terrell, skiing was his first love actually.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANNIK SINNER: I have my house here, and here is the other house with grandma and grandpa. And they were — and they always cooked for me. And
then after, you know, I had to wear the ski stuff because I went to ski immediately from 2:00 to 4:00, and then twice a week I was playing tennis.
And that was it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: I think he made the right decision there. He actually was a first rank youth ski racer before hanging up his skis for the tennis racket
at the age of 12. Quite a sports talent. Indeed.
Well, that is it for us now. Thanks so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
END