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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour.” Here’s what’s coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
- GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, THREE STAR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY (RET.): You cannot get enamored with the fact that the White House will deploy troops in a
state without talking to the government. That cannot be normal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: A warning to America from one of its best-known army generals. Russel L. Honore tells me why he believes the Trump administration is
testing the limits of democracy.
Then —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EUGENE KOROLEV, CHEF, SINO: The idea was — came up just to show more about Ukrainian cuisine and culture as a kind of soft power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: — fighting for Ukraine’s future from the battlefield to the kitchen. I speak to the team cooking its way to cultural independence.
Plus —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It so excites us that we are the product of a revolutionary moment where the world turned upside down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To believe in America is to believe in possibility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: — “The American Revolution.” Famed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns tells Walter Isaacson about his most important project yet.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.
And this week, America and its allies celebrated the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting their country and the ideals of
freedom and democracy. And as many Americans gathered to celebrate Veterans Day, they did so at a time of political upheaval and division.
From the nation’s capital to cities like Chicago and Portland, soldiers policed their own streets, their own people. And my first guest is now
sounding the alarm. Lieutenant General Russel L. Honore served his country for more than 37 years, eventually rising to commanding officer of the U.S.
First Army. He is a familiar face to many after coming to national prominence during Hurricane Katrina, when he was sent to command military
relief efforts in New Orleans. That fiasco was a deeply troubling time for America, and yet General Honore says, never before have I been as concerned
for our democracy, we’re being tested. And this is a test that we cannot afford to fail.
Here he is speaking to Freedom Watch media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
- GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, THREE STAR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY (RET.): They’ve stated out loud, the idea of the elimination of habeas corpus and allowing
soldiers under the Insurrection Act to be able to arrest citizens. Waiving the Posse Comitatus Act by setting up this scenario that the nation is
under attack. Well, Los Angeles wasn’t under attack. We don’t do that in America. It’s not only not normal, it’s against our Constitution.
That would just destroy our Army if we start using our Army and our Marines to shoot Americans or to arrest them. This will be the beginning of the
ending of democracy in America as we know it.
That’s not the America I grew up in. And I grew up in America with a black water fountain and a white one. You with me? We’ve been through this –.
And I didn’t feel as violated doing that because I didn’t know different. You with me? But I sure as — feel violated today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And Lieutenant General Russel Honore is joining me now from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Welcome to the program, General Honore.
So, look, you have commanded troops. You have been based in Korea, obviously in New Orleans, during the Hurricane Katrina cleanup. You got
your bronze star in Operation Desert Storm, the first war I covered. But you’ve now written an op-ed, an essay, where you are saying that you have
never before been so concerned about the survival or the future of American democracy. The kinds of things you fought for all your life and career.
Why? Why now?
HONORE: Well, if not now, then when? I spent 37 years, three months and three days in the service of our nation, supporting the Constitution and
obeying the orders as directed by the National Command Authority.
And to see some of the disruptions that’s happening in our democracy and looking at all the goodwill our nation has done over the last century,
creating global goodwill around the world to be squandered in almost 11 months now, that goodwill that was based on the service and sacrifice and
blood and treasure of the American people, to see that squandered with this concept of America first and the cruelty of what we do. It’s not what we
do, it’s how we doing it, Christiane, that is most concerning to me as a veteran.
AMANPOUR: So, can I ask you then, let’s just put aside for a moment the deployment of American troops inside the United States. But what about, you
said, the cruelty, the way things are being done. What specifically are you referring to?
HONORE: Well, we can look at our immigration policy. Everybody wants strong borders. Everybody want people to be here legally or go through the
process. But then we go to an indiscriminate deportation where we disregard the rules and the laws as laid out in the Constitution and we start picking
people up based on how they look or how they speak, or we’re checking people coming into the country, checking their phones to see if they’ve
said something that’s disagreeable with the State Department concerning our political positions in America.
We don’t do that kind of stuff in America. It’s not normal. And I think it puts us in a bad light with our allies when we indiscriminately run tariffs
based on Twitter feeds in the middle of the night, based on things the country or someone in the country may have said or done that’s disagreeable
with the White House. We don’t do stuff like that in America. We are destroying goodwill when we deny food and medicine to the poor.
AMANPOUR: So, let me then bring it back to what you started by mentioning at the beginning, and that is the way immigration is being enforced and
deportations are happening. And on top of that, the ICE roundups and also the president deploying, for other reasons, the National Guard to American
cities.
Now, from what I gather, almost all of those are Democrat-leaning American cities, often over the objection of the sitting governors. And, of course,
lawsuits are stacking up over whether these deployments violate posse comitatus. Can you tell me what is your view of using the National Guard
internally like that? And what is posse comitatus?
HONORE: Well, our National Guard is a primary instrument of the governor of the states. They are the commander-in-chief of the state National Guard.
And as required, traditionally, normally, the president of the United States, through the National Command Authority, would mobilize those
National Guard troops, but to mobilize them to respond to national disasters and or to send them overseas in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
And they play the enormous role throughout our history.
But to use them as law enforcement is a violation of the Constitution, particularly sending them into a state without asking the governor, as was
the case in California, Illinois, and in Oregon. That is a violation of what we understand is using the imposing — bypassing the Comitatus Act,
which basically says we do not use military — U.S. military, for law enforcement.
We have used them successfully in the past to help with civil disturbance or riots, as was the case in Los Angeles, where they successfully went in
with the Army and the Marines and dealt with that situation. But by and large, we have not used our military to do law enforcement. And there’s
even been words by the deputy White House chief of staff, the waiver of the Posse Comitatus, using the Insurrection Act, and the waiver of habeas
corpus, meaning they could stop people on the street and arrest them, just as ISIS is doing, based on racial profiling.
That scares the hell out of me. Because when we cross that line and we use our military for that purpose, I think we will have slipped out of our
democracy and slipped into a Viktor Orban type of government.
AMANPOUR: You’re talking about the self-declared illiberal prime minister of Hungary, who is a very close political ally and friend of President
Trump’s. So, I just want to ask you, because actually a few months ago, when this was really at a height, ICE, you know, gathering people off
streets, taking them, often wearing hoods and masks. People didn’t know who they were being arrested by.
And there was a thought that ICE might become or might be being groomed to be the president’s private militia or the administration’s or the current
power structure in Washington’s private militia. Do you think that’s fantastical, or do you think you’re seeing those signs?
HONORE: Well, just look at the actions on the street. The judges are constantly going after ICE, as was in the recent days in Chicago. When what
we see, not what we hear on television, where ICE agents run up to a priest and shoot him in the head with a smoke grenade-type weapon, we don’t do
that in America. We understand that what the president’s objective was initially to pick up the hardened criminals that are here illegally. But
when you shoot a priest in the head and it’s documented, or when you grab a grandmother on the street and throw her on the ground and handcuff her,
that’s not the America that we know and grew up in.
And many of these people running through cabbage fields and lettuce fields in California, running down the very people that’s picking our crops,
that’s very un-American. We understand you want to enforce the law. Again, it’s not what they’re doing, it’s how they’re doing it in a very cruel and
unusual way. And they will tell you that’s their objective, is to be cruel, to force people out of the country.
Many of those same people will put the roofs on after another hurricane or pick up the debris. The very people we need to be able to build our economy
and sustain our economy, they’re being very cruel to people.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, General, because you have direct experience with being deployed to restore order in a civilian situation after the Hurricane
Katrina wracked New Orleans. And there is video of you going through the streets at one point, you saying to your troops on the ground, put your
weapons down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HONORE: Put those damn weapons down. (INAUDIBLE). Get those goddamn weapons down. Put those weapons down, damn it. Hey, weapons down. Weapons
down, damn it. Put the weapons down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HONORE: But you also say that the governor had said something quite extreme that you had to challenge her on.
HONORE: Yes, Thursday afternoon, what we call Katrina Week, the governor had a news conference, God bless her heart. She was a respected governor,
Governor Blanco. She has since passed. But she did a news conference, and she was being pressed by Washington and the conservative media in
Washington to do something about looting. And on Thursday afternoon, we haven’t even evacuated the people out of the convention center yet, and she
said, I’m telling my police and National Guard to shoot to kill to stop looting.
And when my staff called me from Atlanta and told me that, I called her and said, Governor, we don’t do that. We don’t order our troops to shoot our
own people. And she sank in her response, said, oh, General, yes, I shouldn’t have done that. But she was responding to political pressure to
deal with an issue that wasn’t an issue. People were going into stores to get food and water, not looting, as we know it. They were in a survival
mode.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
HONORE: And we worked hard after that to make sure the troops know not to point their weapons at the people.
AMANPOUR: Yes, it’s really interesting because it leads me to my next question. What would you say to military commanders or ordinary, you know,
men and women in the military when they are confronted with maybe that kind of an order or something that crosses a red line and an illegal order?
Now, Tom Nichols recently wrote in The Atlantic, quote, “Trump clearly wants to use military power to exert more control over the American people.
And soon, top U.S. military commanders may have to decide whether they will refuse such orders from the commander in chief. The greatest crisis of
American civil military relations in modern history is now underway.”
First of all, do you agree? And what is a red line and what do you do about it when you see it?
HONORE: Well, all of our officers have been trained and educated in our professional development system that you follow legal orders. To deploy
some way, you go do — you deploy. But if given an order, as was the case or the discussion in the White House during the Black Lives Matter, where,
you know, the leadership of this nation said, well, why don’t we just shoot them in the leg? And we got the response we needed from our leadership at
the time, Secretary Esper and General Milley, no, we don’t do that. And subsequently, they both lost their jobs.
But there are some orders that you might get — it’s worth losing your job because you have sworn yourself to the Constitution and to serve the
American people, not to obey what is a legal order, shoot Americans in the leg because they are protesting. We don’t do that in America. They do that
in Russia, North Korea and China. We don’t do that in America. And our leadership stood up.
And I hope those officers in command today will follow their orders, but if given an illegal order, that they stand up and say no, protect their
troops, maintain control of their formation, but don’t do things like shoot people in the leg. And that was a conversation that’s been documented that
happened at the White House.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you about a recent summons from the current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to all the American commanders at home and around
the world to come to Quantico and basically get what they talk — I don’t know how they describe it, a pep talk, how to embody the, quote/unquote,
“warrior ethos.” What did you think about that and what was that all about?
HONORE: I think that will go down in history as, for future secretaries of defense, don’t do that. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t logical. It was a
show of dominance over the formation. He’s still in the process of purging the military and looking for people who might push back on his policy, as
we recently lost a South Com commander over what’s going on in the Caribbean, as has been postured by many.
But it was unnecessary. It was a show of force that we in the military respond to our civil leaders. And he is a senior leader in the Department
of War, as we call it now. And he wanted to impose his will that, as a 45- year-old, he could bring all these generals in who’ve spent their time, their entire adult life in uniform and their sergeant majors to Washington,
because he could do it, and he told them to do it. It was a function of dominance over them and to show them who’s in charge and to look in their
faces and see who might be sending nonverbals back. That was a test.
But it didn’t make sense and an entire waste of money that could have been done over a videoconference, as is the case when we normally talk to the
chain of command around the world from the Pentagon.
AMANPOUR: General, finally, I want to ask you a question of something that was really very uplifting. This past weekend, and of course, you know, this
week, we’ve been celebrating and remembering all the service people who fought and died and who continue to fight. Former President Barack Obama
surprised a group of veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam on one of these honor flights as their plane landed in Washington ahead of
Veterans Day. I’m just going to play this little bit of how he addressed the troops.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. As we approach Veterans Day, I wanted to stop by and just say thank you for your
extraordinary service to you, your family. The sacrifices that all of you made to protect our country is something that will always be honored. And
we are very grateful, and we also happen to welcome you with a 70-degree day in D.C., which doesn’t always happen around here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a joy, a joy in my heart today to see all these people. It’s good. We still got patriotic people in our country, and that’s
good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Your reflection?
HONORE: Absolutely. And my hat’s off to former President Obama for doing that. And the challenge to our other former presidents to stand up and
recognize the significance of Veterans Day is not to talk about your accomplishments, but to thank those who have served and that are serving.
And my hat’s off, and I challenge our other living presidents to do the same, to step up and to help preserve our democracy and recognize the
sacrifice that America is not great just because we’re rich, we’re great because we’re willing to fight for ourselves and for our allies.
And that was done on the shoulders of those who have preceded us and the previous generations that have kept America free and went forward on the
battlefield to secure the freedom of our allies. And these people that he recognized are just a small group of those who were ready to give all and
many that never returned home because they were willing to give up to sacrifice and do honor to our nation.
AMANPOUR: Well, that’s a rousing way to end our conversation. General Russel Honore, thank you very much for joining me.
HONORE: God bless America.
AMANPOUR: Coming up, the chef who joined the Ukrainian army and how he’s using cuisine as soft power for his nation. That is after a break.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: On Ukraine’s front lines, the situation has worsened significantly this week, that is according to the army chief. As Russian
forces move further into the key strategic town of Pokrovsk, brave Ukrainians continue to fight for their freedom and for their country’s very
survival.
Among them is a chef, Eugene Korolev. Just after Russia’s full-scale invasion of 2022, he left his thriving restaurant in Dnipro and enlisted.
Now, he’s here in London and he’s fighting a different kind of war to protect Ukrainian culture in a world where Russia wants to erase its very
existence.
I went to meet Korolev at his all-Ukrainian restaurant, SiNo. He joined me along with the restaurant’s founder, Polina Sychova.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Polina and Eugene, welcome to our program. Thank you for having us at your restaurant. What does this restaurant mean to you, happening
here in London?
EUGENE KOROLEV, CHEF, SINO: I think it was — the idea was — I mean, came up just to show more about Ukrainian cuisine and culture as a kind of soft
power.
AMANPOUR: Your contribution?
KOROLEV: Yes, and where I’m strong. So, I think that was the best idea, like what we want to do and in the right time.
AMANPOUR: You are partner in this and you’re responsible for a lot of the design and the infrastructure.
So, there is obviously a lot of stereotypes about Russian food, Ukrainian food. Sorry to say the same thing in one sentence. But tell me about the
stereotypes that you’re trying to bust. I mean, I know borscht and cabbage and dumplings and things like that. What is it that you want to tell about
Ukrainian food?
POLINA SYCHOVA, FOUNDER, SINO: You know, I think initially our mission when it comes to the restaurant, it’s because the world and, you know, even
Ukrainian people, they have this perception that Ukrainian traditional food is the food that comes from Soviet Union, which we really want to move away
from because Ukrainian food is actually food that has been, you know, cooking for centuries and there’s history and it’s actually sophisticated.
It’s elegant, it’s layered. It’s much more than, you know, what we know about Ukraine generally. So, what our main mission in a way, you know, we
want people to learn what a real Ukraine is.
AMANPOUR: Was there such a thing as Ukrainian food during the USSR or was it subverted to a general Russian food?
SYCHOVA: It was the food that had a purpose. You need to feed people. And, you know, it was heavy, it was rustic. It was quite a lot of things, but it
wasn’t about, you know, what Ukraine is.
You know, it’s not about seasonality. It wasn’t about agriculture. It was something much more simple.
KOROLEV: When the Soviet Union was breaking down. So, I think that was the moment when we realized that we need to develop Ukrainian cuisine and
culture from — I will not say from zero, but we need to restore it because many years that was damaged by Russia and by Soviet Union. And then what we
are doing now and the time we are living now is just we are trying to be creative with the products and putting our culture and time — through the
time and put it all on the plate.
AMANPOUR: So, your story is actually really interesting because you were a chef. You worked outside Ukraine for a while. Then you went back to Ukraine
and you had a restaurant in Dnipro, correct?
KOROLEV: Yes.
AMANPOUR: What was that like and what happened when the war started? How did your restaurant get transformed? And then you yourself went to the
front.
KOROLEV: Yes, we just opened the restaurant in December 2021. So, three months before the war was started. And yet, from day one, I decided to join
the army and we decided to transform the restaurant and cook it for like for army, for hospitals, for National Guard, because at that moment, the
country was really like united and people really — like wanted to show how strong they are in every aspect.
AMANPOUR: How did you meet Eugene? Did you know the restaurant in Dnipro?
SYCHOVA: No, no. So, when the war had started, that’s when the idea of restaurant came to my mind. And that’s —
AMANPOUR: Why? That’s a weird time to think about starting a restaurant.
SYCHOVA: So, actually, you know, the night when the war started, I actually just had my first baby. And I’m never going to forget that night
when, you know, when you’re sitting and feeding the baby and it all just went upside down. And my family back in Ukraine is like hiding in the
basement.
AMANPOUR: So, you were out of Ukraine?
SYCHOVA: Yes. Yes, yes. I was already living in London for a long time. So, obviously, you know, you sit in there in a comfort with a baby and then
you have, you know, your family who is hiding in the basement. You have this a very quite global contrast in a way. And that’s when I think as
every Ukrainian at that time, you have this, I wouldn’t say mission, but a feeling of doing something. You have to somehow say for it there.
And I’ve always been involved in some way with Ukraine, even whilst, you know, I lived almost like 15 years here. So, but somehow my life always
touched Ukraine. And that’s where this idea I’ve started thinking, you know, there must be a way. And I’m very passionate foodie. And back in the
day, there wasn’t a thing as Ukrainian restaurants in London, you know. And even the understanding of what Ukrainian food is, everyone would put it in
a basket of Eastern European food.
So, that’s when I came up with idea and I’ve started looking for chefs, started communicating with the Ukrainian teams. And that’s how we came
across.
AMANPOUR: That’s how you met.
SYCHOVA: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And I hear that you treated Polina to a 12-hour tasting menu.
KOROLEV: Yes, there was a lot. Yes.
SYCHOVA: There was a lot of food.
AMANPOUR: How do you survive that?
SYCHOVA: That was delicious. I can do it anytime. That’s for sure.
KOROLEV: But it was good. I wanted to show as well because I know that, like, I have a lot to show. I want to show a lot and different, like,
techniques, combinations, products and some unique Ukrainian products. Because, yes, basically there was like an interview through the food,
through the plates. Yes, and we wanted to show, like, as much as we can.
AMANPOUR: So, you were, in the meantime, on the front lines. That must have been pretty scary. And yet, I’ve read about how you were lying in
trenches and you would pick a little bit of a herb and do a little tasting. You know, when you weren’t firing weapons or doing defensive maneuvers.
KOROLEV: Yes. So, I think I would start with the word that I was not a cook in army. So, I was in different team. And sometimes when I have an
opportunity to cook somewhere or to meet chefs, like army chefs and talk to them. So, I did it, of course.
And the life on the front line. I mean, sometimes when you’re just, like, lying on a position or, like, holding position and you just keep watching
something. Anyway, it’s like kind of life and we’re not, like, stopping our life there. So, of course, we’re joking. We’re talking about something.
And, yes, there was one thing, like, what I was supposed to talk about if I’m chef. So, I will tell everything, like, my funny stories from the
kitchen. What’s, like, how looks these herbs or how they taste like or what’s the combination with it. So, there was, like, normal life behind
what’s going on, yes.
AMANPOUR: I mean, I think a lot of civilians don’t understand that there’s also occasional moments of normal life, even when you’re on the front line.
But how did you get your commander to let you leave and join Polina and the restaurant abroad? Because the thing that we hear about all the time is the
desperate need for recruits. And, as you know, even now, I mean, literally people are being stopped in their cars and pretty much taken off to the
front.
KOROLEV: Yes. Yes, that’s not, like, a secret or something.
AMANPOUR: No, no.
KOROLEV: So, everybody knows that I’m a chef. And I was talking about, like, food and my dreams. And, like, yes, I will be number one in the
world. And we’ll open the restaurant. We’ll be very successful. And we’ll show everything to the world, like, how beautiful Ukrainian kitchen is. And
then I went to my commander, just went to him and said, like, look, this is opportunity for me. I think that’s the best one. It’s not, like, local,
like, something to open in Ukraine, I mean, London is — I think, the best place where we can show the Ukrainian cuisine to the world and put it on a
gastronomical map. And that’s what I was explaining, like — this is like a last chance for me. And he said, look, I had, like, opportunity to leave
the army because of my mom. And she’s disabled.
AMANPOUR: And you’d been on the front for a couple of years already. How long?
KOROLEV: There was — one and a half year.
AMANPOUR: One and a half.
KOROLEV: One and a half, yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: When you think of what’s happening back home now, what are your feelings, nearly four years, the war?
SYCHOVA: You know, we all want one thing. We want this to be over. And it’s been a long time. Lots of things have happened. And, you know, as you
can imagine, the longer it goes on, people, you know, you look at Ukraine, people adapt. People still live. People keep going. And that’s partly very
scary because, you know, we as human beings adapt to the most terrifying things.
And partly it gives us the power. You know, we see how strong Ukrainians are and what they do even within, you know, those quiet, scary times. So,
yes, of course, we want this terrifying moment to be as over as possible, as soon as possible. However, we also see a power in what’s happening right
now.
AMANPOUR: And, Eugene, what do you think about the way the war is going right now?
KOROLEV: Well, we still have a lot of friends there and family. And, of course, sometimes you are thinking, am I doing right or should I, like, do
something other? I mean, come back to Ukraine. And then we — as Polina said, I think we took this mission to show not only Ukrainian cuisine on a
high level and use it as a soft power, but we decided to support all, like, Ukrainian craft makers, suppliers.
So, everything what we can order, not from here, we are doing it from there. So, all our plates, tables, lightning, everything. So, we are trying
to — in this, like, way to support them. And then, like, when we see what we are trying — I mean, what we achieve here, I think then we realize
that, yes, we are on the right way, what we are doing. And we do it very nice. So, we have a good team and we are over-motivated to make it happen.
And I think yesterday was one of the small achievements for us.
AMANPOUR: What happened?
KOROLEV: There was, like, a small victory when we realized we are really on the right way. So —
AMANPOUR: What’s the victory?
KOROLEV: Yes, there was news yesterday that we got to Michelin Guide.
AMANPOUR: You’re in the Michelin Guide?
KOROLEV: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: Fantastic.
KOROLEV: And there was — yes, we’ve been selected. So, now we are there. Not too many Ukrainian restaurants are there. There is one in Chicago
called Amelia, and we are number two.
AMANPOUR: That’s amazing. Congratulations. And I wonder whether you think, as you’re telling me this, as you know, Vladimir Putin and the Russians say
Ukraine doesn’t exist, that it’s just a subplot of Mother Russia. So, that’s a victory.
KOROLEV: That’s what we are trying to say with the cuisine, with what we are doing here. There is a lot of things about Ukraine, about designers,
about craft makers, and the world, I think, didn’t recognize it yet, how beautiful things we can do in Ukraine, how beautiful food we can cook here
in SiNo.
And, yes, there is a lot of stuff like this, and this is one of the ways how we can destroy Russia, propaganda, and show the world how beautiful
Ukraine is. We can show them and tell them, look, you are not what you are telling about, and we are much, much stronger, and we’ll show you, and
we’ll — yes.
AMANPOUR: What is your favorite dish that we could eat here in this restaurant? What would you recommend?
SYCHOVA: It’s so hard to choose.
AMANPOUR: They’re all good.
SYCHOVA: They’re all good. I think the most special one that has a special, you know, place in my heart would be honey cake.
AMANPOUR: Honey cake, so that’s a dessert?
SYCHOVA: Yes. It’s almost like an ode to buckwheat, which is not very traditional in Ukraine.
AMANPOUR: An ode to buckwheat. And yours, what do you love cooking the most?
KOROLEV: What I like to cook more, I think beef dumplings. So, I love sweets. So — but Polina took my dish already.
AMANPOUR: She’s taken the sweets.
KOROLEV: But, yes, I think beef dumplings because of the complexity of the flavors and techniques, and it looks like we’re —
AMANPOUR: So, you’re a dumpling guy.
KOROLEV: Let’s say, yes. I mean, I love to find a complicated way, let’s say. Yes, I love challenging. And beef dumplings, they just look very
simple and easy. But to make them, one of the ingredients took one month to make.
AMANPOUR: What?
KOROLEV: Yes, there is like fermented liquid from mushrooms. So, yes, we’re bringing mushrooms from Ukraine, and then we start to ferment them,
and it took one month to finish fermentation. And then we put just a few drops on the plate to finish the dish. And there is a lot of things like
this in the dumplings.
AMANPOUR: That’s amazing. And I read about catfish with cherries on top.
KOROLEV: Yes, that’s not traditional Ukrainian.
AMANPOUR: No.
KOROLEV: Yes, my recipe, my vision of modern recipes of Ukrainian cuisine, catfish, one of the most common fish in Ukraine, and cherry. Sour cherry is
like one of the most amazing and beautiful berries, and as well, very common.
AMANPOUR: Eugene, Polina, thank you so much indeed.
KOROLEV: Thank you.
SYCHOVA: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: When it comes to American history, it is the Holy Grail, the American Revolution, of course. But there is still much to be learned. That
is certainly what our next guest thinks, and he should know. Ken Burns has been chronicling American history and culture for decades. He first rose to
prominence 35 years ago with his PBS series on the Civil War.
And now, he’s turning his lens to that much-vaunted American origin story, “The American Revolution,” with a new 12-hour documentary for PBS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From a small spark kindled in America, a flame has arisen not to be extinguished.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We think about independence movements of the 20th century. You don’t always recognize the fact that the United States
actually started that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The American Revolutionary Movement served as a model for freedom from oppression.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America is predicated on an idea that tells us who we are, where we came from, and what our forebears were willing to die for.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Collins said no taxation without representation. The fear was, if we give in to this precedent, what will they do in the future?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Crisis changes people. It gave different people different ideas about what they should be doing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gave them a space to make this democracy real.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And he joins Walter Isaacson to talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Ken Burns, welcome back to the show.
KEN BURNS, CO-DIRECTOR, “THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION”: Great to be with you, Walter.
ISAACSON: You have this multi-part series, “The American Revolution,” that’s coming out. And you say that the American Revolution is the most
important event since the birth of Christ. Whoa. Tell me why you think it was that important.
BURNS: I wasn’t trying to be provocative. I was just beginning to realize that there’s a moment a little bit after the phrase, Pursuit of Happiness,
the great second sentence of the Declaration, where Jefferson says, all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
evils are sufferable. It’s not hard to parse. It just means that heretofore, everybody’s been a subject to an authoritarian rule. And now,
we’re creating this new thing called citizens. The Old Testament says there’s nothing new under the sun. That’s Ecclesiastes. So, there’s
actually for a moment something new under the sun. And I want to rivet people’s attention.
ISAACSON: We all think of the grand statesmen who go into Independence Hall. But your whole show is about the ordinary people, the ones where the
bullet goes thud and it hits their chest.
BURNS: It hits them.
ISAACSON: Or the slave or the woman home spinning. How did you decide to tell it through so many people as opposed to the grand leaders of the
revolution?
BURNS: Well, you know, it — they’re not mutually exclusive. And that’s the problem with our binary sensibilities today. We’re so dialectically
preoccupied. You think you have to then throw everybody out. George Washington had slaves. So, he’s got to go, well, we don’t have a country
without George Washington. So, you’re going to just have to get over that there’s this stuff and there’s this stuff. And the scales of justice and
his creator will deal — has dealt with him in it. But we need to tell all the stories and tell a complicated and dimensional story.
So, when I say the prize of North America, what am I talking about? I’m talking about land. Well, who occupies that land? Hundreds of different
peoples. Not them, but hundreds of peoples who’ve been on the world scene in at least those on the eastern seaboard and the Ohio Valley, they’ve been
on the world scene in trade and in diplomacy for centuries. They know Britain. They know Spain. They know France. They know the Dutch.
It is — they’re — each one of them has a different set. And it’s their confederacies, their union among the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois
Confederacy that inspires Franklin 20 years before the revolution to say, hey, we could do this. We could have a union just like them.
ISAACSON: Wait, explain that a bit more because it’s key to the — what you’ve —
BURNS: Yes. So, there’s —
ISAACSON: — is they have a federated of the six nations and there’s a federal system. And Ben Franklin says, OK, the Albany plan, we’ll make that
our system.
BURNS: So, he draws a picture of a cut up snake with most of the states. And underneath it is this dire warning, join or die. And he convened seven
of the 13 colonies at Albany in 1754. And they adopt his plan of union based on the Haudenosaunee, the six nations, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga,
Tuscarora, Oneida, and Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederacy. And then they go home to try to sell it. Nobody wants to give up their autonomy. Not a
single colony wants to give up their autonomy. So, the plan dies.
But 20 years later, join or die is a war cry in the most consequential revolution in history. So, you’ve got to center, whatever the common word
is, a Native American experience. Half the population are women. Out of the 3 million people, 500,000 are enslaved or free black Americans. You’ve got
Spanish to the south. You’ve got French licking their wounds. You have British hiring German soldiers. You have backcountry people. You have
educated sort of the elites, we’d call them today, who are trying to sort of figure out, well, maybe we are going to split and we’re going to start a
republic. The dynamism is so intense that you just can’t ignore it.
Let me just take one kid, 15 years old, 15 years old, signs up a few days after the Declaration in July of 1776, Joseph Plumb Martin from
Connecticut. He’s the archetypal grunt you’ve met in every film about the Civil War, about World War II, about Vietnam, complaining about the food,
complaining about the weather, complaining about the orders. And he’s there from the beginning.
ISAACSON: And by the way, you’ve got his letters.
BURNS: We’ve got his letters.
ISAACSON: Explain how those type of things have formed this film.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every private soldier in an army thinks his particular services as essential to carry on the war he’s engaged in, as the services
of the most influential general. And why not? What could officers do without such men? Nothing at all. Great men get great praise, little men
nothing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: Joseph Plumb Martin comes in. He’s bloodied in the Battle of Long Island, which is the biggest battle and a total disaster for the Patriots.
But he’s there at redoubt number 10 at Yorktown that’s being led by Lafayette and by Alexander Hamilton. But he’s leading the charge into this
redoubt with the abatis, the spiked French — you know, the logs of the British positions. And he says, you know, the man at my left was hit with a
bullet and falls crying bitterly, but there was no stopping us.
And it’s — there’s a great famous painting of the attack over redoubt number 10, but it is so powerful that there’s Joseph Plumb Martin, who’s
right behind him, free black soldiers from Rhode Island who’ve been promised their freedom once the war is over. And even Connecticut and Rhode
Island are talking about compensating their owners for the property that they’ve lost as a result of this.
In this one charge, you’ve got a Frenchman, our pal, you’ve got Alexander Hamilton, who’s going to play — who has played a huge role and will
continue to play a huge role in the history of the United States. And this is what we tried to capture and bottle. We followed reenactors for six
years, filming them not to give us reenact this battle, but to collect a critical mass of imagery to offset the fact that clearly, obviously,
there’s no photographs and no newsreels. But that doesn’t mean those people are different than us.
Photographs sort of prove a similarity. And we see the paintings and the buckles and the hose and the breeches and the waistcoats and the powdered
wigs and think they can’t be like us. They’re exactly like us.
ISAACSON: Well, as you say, it’s a tapestry filled with all sorts of people, large and small. But the hero line throughout is George Washington,
the person you’ve mentioned who’s done it all. But you do have to wrestle with the fact that he not only is an enslaver, but a pretty cruel one at
that. He also loses a lot of battles and lots of blunders. And he was ruthless to the Native Americans.
I think you quote Jane Kamensky in episode two, do not look for the gilded statues of marble men.
BURNS: That’s right.
ISAACSON: That’s the theme of what you’ve done is make these people flesh, not marble. But explain how hard that was with Washington.
BURNS: Well, first of all, Washington is so endlessly interesting. Just — but there’s an opacity to him. But as you say, if you can take him all in
all, then he’s dimensional in his failures. He’s also incredibly modest. You know, and so, the letters that he writes. And so, I got the actor Josh
Brolin to play him. And I said, Josh, this man is unknowable. Can you help me understand a little bit about him? Let that leak in a little bit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The unparalleled perseverance of the armies of the United States through almost every possible suffering and discouragement
for the space of eight long years was little short of a standing miracle. George Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: Let’s just put it this way, without Washington’s leadership, we don’t have a country. And that’s the key to this, is that what we do,
particularly in a media culture or a computer culture where everything’s a one or a zero, a yes or a no, a red state or a blue state is we think it’s
just divided that way. But everybody has complication and undertow.
But, you know, you’ve got to be able to understand people in their totality and to celebrate that contradiction. And this reminds us of our own lives,
the own paradoxes within ourselves and the paradoxes we feel to the people that are closest to us, that we love the most, who remain in some ways
inscrutable to us. So, good history is, of course, thinking it might not turn out the way you know it did.
ISAACSON: So, many of your documentaries deal with race, whether it’s jazz, whether it’s baseball, whether it’s civil rights. This one deals with
race, too. Explain how you felt race was so critical here.
BURNS: Well, it’s there in all my other films because the guy who wrote our catechism, the second sentence of the Declaration, we hold these truths
to be self-evident. You and I know the story of the word self-evident. More complicated than that, that all men are created equal, it stopped there,
owned hundreds of human beings and didn’t see the contradiction, didn’t see the hypocrisy and didn’t see fit in his lifetime to free any of those
slaves and set in motion an American narrative not responsible entirely to Jefferson, but symbolically attached to Jefferson because he gave words to
our aspirations, our noblest aspirations.
So, this is going to play out all through the decades, but no more so in this moment when the people, particularly Southern planters and enslavers
of a great number of people are describing what they think George III is doing to them as enslaving them. And the liberty talk is Jane Kamensky says
in our film is leaky. The people that are serving them are hearing it and they want it to Native Americans wanted. Women want it too.
ISAACSON: Well, you give voice to a lot of enslaved and former slaves. And one of the things that struck me is how they had to choose sides in this
revolution.
BURNS: Yes.
ISAACSON: And I think, what, 15,000 or so end up on the —
BURNS: British side.
ISAACSON: — British side, and less than that, 5,000 end up on the Patriots. Tell me about having to make that choice.
BURNS: So, the entire British Empire’s profit depends on the 13 colonies in the Caribbean that are hugely profitable because it’s the work of
enslaved people, and only — and our 13 are the least profitable and only Virginia and the Carolinas, for the obvious reason, have some profitability
for the British Empire. But cynically, Lord Dunmore, who owns other human beings himself, says, well, if you’re the — an enslaved person of a rebel,
please come and get your freedom from me. If you’re the enslaved person of a loyalist, by the way, stay where you are. You’re enslaved for the rest of
your life. Right.
So, you’re seeing black families making decisions about what to do running for daylight. And as it turns out, many of them make a decision to fight
with the British or at least align themselves with the British. 5,000 make a decision to fight. We think 20,000 are engaged, 15 fight for the British.
Native Americans are making the same kind of choice, but also all other Americans are, too.
This is a bloody civil war. There are people who are loyalists and saying all of my good fortune, all of my literacy, my health, the fact that I own
land when my family for a thousand years was working dependent land in Wales and Scotland and Ireland and England never had this chance. I have it
here. Why am I going to risk it for this crazy, untested idea when the British constitutional monarchy looks to be the finest form of government
on Earth, at least in the Western sense of that? And they’re not wrong.
And so, we don’t make loyalists bad people, we make them understandable. We have Roger Lamb, an Irish soldier, watching in a lull in the fighting at
the Battle of Saratoga. One British soldier, they’re trading insults or jokes or whatever. They’re happy to have a lull, as all soldiers are. And
one just gets up and runs down, jumps in the water and swims midstream. Meanwhile, an American gets down and jumps. And they’re two brothers. They
embrace midstream. They didn’t know — they hadn’t talked to each other, seen each other for years. And they were on the other side trying to kill
each other in the Battle of Saratoga.
ISAACSON: Let me read you some of the charges from the end of the Declaration of Independence against the king. And they kind of resonate
today in what we think. One of them is for obstructing laws for naturalization. Refusing to encourage immigration here. Made judges
dependent on his will. Kept among us standing armies in times of peace. Quartering bodies of armed troops among us. Cutting off our trade with all
parts of the world. And he’s excited domestic insurrections against us. Every one of those, you might notice, could be echoed today.
BURNS: Yes, you know, our friend Mark Twain is supposed to have said that history doesn’t repeat itself, which of course it doesn’t. No event has
happened twice. But Twain said it rhymes. And anybody who spent any time talking about the past suddenly realizes in every instance — my first film
that was on PBS, you know, back in the early ’80s on the Brooklyn Bridge, you know, rhymed with things that were going on. This rhymes in spectacular
ways.
And our job is to tell what happened and to know that it will rhyme. But also, to be aware of the fact that you date your film if you say, isn’t
this so much like this moment? Because what you want with good history is to have it be durable. So, anything that makes — that puts my thumb on the
scale and says, oh, isn’t this like today, is a distraction. It is always going to be like today and tomorrow, as it was yesterday.
And we benefit from what’s happened over the last 50 years in this increase of knowledge since the bicentennial to the semi-quincentennial that gives
us a chance to have a complicated American conversation with, I hope, little shouting.
ISAACSON: Ken Burns, as always, thank you for joining us.
BURNS: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can
always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media.
Thanks for watching, and goodbye from London.
END