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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone and welcome to “Amanpour.” Here’s what’s coming up. Starving Gazans are, quote,
“walking corpses” says the head of the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestinians. Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority Mohammed Mustafa
joins me for an exclusive interview.
Then, “Ava: The Secret Conversations,” actress Elizabeth McGovern tells me about her new play on Hollywood’s Golden Age and superstar Ava Gardner.
Also ahead, “Murder the Truth,” Trump’s war on facts according to author and New York Times Deputy Investigations Editor David Enrich who joins Hari
Srinivasan to discuss his new book.
Welcome to the program everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London. Gaza is suffering from a man-made mass starvation. That stark assessment comes from
the World Health Organization as vital aid gets caught up in Israel’s blockade. A 113 people have already died from malnutrition and all 2.1
million people in the enclave now face food insecurity, Gaza health officials say. So where do efforts to end this war currently stand despite
a new push by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, there is yet another delay.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office is recalling negotiators from Qatar for further consultations after Hamas responded to the latest ceasefire
proposal, indicating gaps remain. In just a moment, I will speak to the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. But first, correspondent
Jeremy Diamond investigates reports of Israeli fire killing more than a thousand desperate Palestinians near Gaza aid sites in the last eight
weeks. And of course, the images in this report are disturbing and difficult but important to see.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, JERUALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cradling the body of his 13-year-old son, Mohammed Massoud (ph) cries out in agony. Ibrahim
(ph) has just been struck down by Israeli gunfire, which is still crackling overhead.
Moments earlier, Mohammed (ph) and his son had arrived here in the hopes of getting flour for their family from a World Food Program convoy. But as
soon as the crowd surged toward the trucks, the World Food Program says Israeli tanks and snipers opened fire on the crowd. Ibrahim (ph) is one of
more than a thousand Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli fire near aid sites and convoys in the last eight weeks, according to the Palestinian
Ministry of Health.
Nearly every day since late May, hungry Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food for themselves and their families, from one person
killed on June 5th to 87 on June 17th. But Israeli gunfire has been the through line in this nightmarish game of survival. In almost every single
incident, local health officials and eyewitnesses say Israeli troops often firing from tank-mounted machine guns opened fire on the crowds.
Have mercy on us. Enough. Enough. This man’s brother was among dozens killed near a Gaza humanitarian foundation site on June 24th. We have no
food or drink and they shelled them with tanks. They sprayed them with bullets. This month, 461 people have been killed while trying to get aid,
99 were killed on Sunday alone, the deadliest single day of aid related violence.
That day, most were killed while crowding around U.N. convoys, as they did here on Tuesday. In these eight weeks of carnage, 1,062 people have been
killed trying to get aid, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. That’s one out of every five people killed in Gaza during that time.
In a world where the quest for survival can turn deadly, none has been deadlier than trying to collect aid through the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation, a private American organization backed by Israel. Sixty percent of all aid-related killings since late May have taken place near GHF sites,
according to a CNN analysis of Palestinian health ministry data. GHF rejected what it called false and exaggerated statistics and said there is
violence around all aid efforts in Gaza.
The bullets crackling over this hunched crowd are among countless fired at Palestinians trying to make it to this GHF site in southern Gaza. Satellite
imagery captured the next day, three military vehicles can be seen parked between a crowd of people and the GHF site. Tanks and troops have been
posted near all four GHF sites that have been operational at different times since late May. It is a militarized aid distribution system that the
U.N. warned would turn deadly.
A CNN investigation into one the first GHF-linked shootings in early June pointed to the Israeli military opening fire on crowds of Palestinians. The
Israeli military denied it then. The military now regularly acknowledges that troops have opened fire on Palestinians heading to aid sites, often
describing the shootings as warning shots. But Israeli soldiers described a, quote, “killing field” near the GHF sites to the Israeli newspaper
“Haaretz” last month, saying they were ordered to fire at unarmed crowds.
Where I was stationed between one and five people were killed every day, one soldier told the paper, they’re treated like a hostile force. No crowd
control measures, no tear gas, just live fire with everything imaginable. Heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. In the wake of that
firepower, Mohammed Massoud (ph) is left to mourn his son Ibrahim (ph), remembering a boy who was always eager to help, joining his father on a
hunt for flour so that he could help feed his grandmother and neighbors.
But as soon as they started moving toward the trucks, Ibrahim suddenly fell to the ground. I didn’t see any blood on his body, but then he started
bleeding from his mouth. I started calling his name, Ibrahim, (ph) Ibrahim (ph). He said, take me to my mom. Take me to my mom. Please, dad, pull me
out. A son’s last words before the final breath that shattered his father’s world.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Jeremy Diamond with that report. Now, even of the starvation has ended, a ceasefire deal is reached, hostages are freed, what would the day
after in Gaza look like and who would take control? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to back the idea of Palestinian authority
returning to govern there. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has also approved a major Wes Bank infrastructure plan which far-right Finance
Minister Smotrich says would implement, quote, “de facto Israeli sovereignty over the territory.
To discuss all of this, let’s bring in the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammad Mustafa, who joins me exclusively from
Ramallah. Prime Minister, welcome to the program. Can I first get your reaction to our colleague’s report about what’s happening in Gaza and the
apparent shoot to kill process that’s going on by the IDF against people trying to get food? Have you raised objections? Have you talked to the
Israeli government? What is your reaction?
MOHAMMAD MUSTAFA, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRIME MINISTER: Well, our reaction is outrage. We are very outraged about what’s going on. Our people deserve
dignity, deserve to live normally, deserve to get food, to get water, to live normally. And I think these actions are not going to help anyone in
this region. We therefore have been talking to everyone around the world, including the United States, Europe, our Arab partners and brothers. But
clearly, Israeli government has still to deliver on this.
We believe that wars will not bring peace to this region. And these actions will only bring hatred and anger to this region. Displacement, starvation,
annexation, and occupation are a recipe for disaster. We need the world to look at this very seriously this time. This is not going to be good for
anybody whatsoever, including the Israeli side. This is way too far, way too far.
AMANPOUR: Mr. Prime Minister, let me also ask you about starvation.
First and foremost, the U.N.’s World Food Program, headed by Cindy McCain, the widow of the former U.S. Senator, late U.S. Senator John McCain, says
the hunger crisis in Gaza has reached, quote, new and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in
a row. You are not in Gaza. You have been essentially, from what I gather and you can explain, barred by the Israeli government from taking any sort
of day after or governance position there. What are you hearing about how ordinary civilians, ordinary individuals, men, women and children are
faring in the ability to stave off hunger?
MUSTAFA: Well, why we are not obviously in Gaza today, but we have workers, we have employees, and we, of course, have partners in Gaza.
They’re doing their best under the very difficult circumstances being created by the Israeli army. This morning, earlier today, I had a good
meeting with a lot of representatives from international partners. When we have been — we’ve talked to our partners and our employees in Gaza about
the situation. Things are extremely difficult. Action is needed, especially in terms of opening the border crossings.
This is the first thing needs to be done so that aid can come in as soon as possible. There’s a lot of aid waiting at the gates. Gates are closed by
the Israeli government. This got to change. This is the first priority. Now, talking about governance, obviously, what the Israelis say is their
business. But the whole international community is united on the day after. The day after is Gaza, West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are parts of
the state of Palestine. And only the legitimate government of Palestine will be responsible for governing Gaza as well as the West Bank.
We will be working together with the international community so that we can make this possible. We will work with international partners, especially
international NGOs and United Nations agencies on the humanitarian side of things. We will work with Egypt, Jordan, the international community on
stabilizing force for the region, for Gaza and beyond in the day after. We will work with our international partners on governance and how we can
reintegrate the institutions of Gaza with the West Bank and also already working in preparation for Gaza reconstruction conference with Egypt and
the United Nations so that we can rebuild Gaza in the day after.
AMANPOUR: Okay.
MUSTAFA: So we have the plan, we have the partners, all we are looking for is the end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza as soon as possible.
AMANPOUR: I’m going to get more detail about that, but first I want you to react because you’ve said a whole load of things there that require you
know, buy-in from the Israeli government as well, and there is none. They don’t even deal with you, with the Palestinian Authority. I’ll get to that
in a moment, but their official spokespeople basically say there is no starvation, no hunger crisis. In other words, nothing that they’re created.
They blame the U.N. for not distributing the food. Here’s what the spokesman has just said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID MENCER, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON: In Gaza today, there is no famine caused by Israel. There is, however, a man-made shortage engineered
by Hamas. This idea of famine and starvation has been thrown at us consistently on a weekly basis for the last two years now. It has never
come to far past. So these are false warnings which come from these aid organizations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, I mean, there you have a particular set of facts believed by one side and a set of facts that are occurring on the ground. How do you
even, you know, get beyond that for basic humanitarian assistance? As you know, as we all know, even in war, there are rules and stopping and
besieging civilian populations and forbidding aid from going in is against international law. But if the government is officially denying that there’s
even a problem that they could alleviate, I mean, what’s the next step? How do you think this starvation issue, the hunger issue is going to be
resolved?
MUSTAFA: Well, as I said, I mean, there are a lot of people on the ground, international organizations, U.N. agencies, our own staff, are willing to
continue to work if the supplies were allowed to come in as soon as possible. The biggest challenge is the siege enforced by Israel on the
border crossings. This is the problem. I think the priority, therefore, is for the international community to pressure Israel, seriously pressure
Israel to open the borders and allow food in.
There is no need to give excuses. The starvation is evident. Everybody on the world can see that. Your report just showed a lot of pain and a lot of
hard feelings and a lot of suffering for our people in Gaza. This is more than clear for everybody who wants to see and listen. So the fact that an
Israeli government spokesman wants to say otherwise is just very unfortunate and very sad. The truth is children are also being starving,
being allowed to die starving.
Journalists are being targeted. Aid workers are being targeted. So, this got to end. There’s no reason to continue this war. We need first the
border crossing to open, aid to come in. United Nations and international organizations be allowed to do their job, a ceasefire to take place, and
then Israeli forces to leave Gaza. And then with the support of international partners, the Palestinian Authority is more than willing and
able to do the job.
AMANPOUR: Okay —
MUSTAFA: So there’s no need for additional excuses for staying in Gaza.
AMANPOUR: Okay, so now about the ceasefire and for all these issues you say, as I said, the President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is in
Europe and apparently heading to the Middle East. But apparently Benjamin Netanyahu has withdrawn or recalled his negotiators from Qatar, saying, I
don’t know what he’s saying in terms of the actual status of this. But what about Hamas’s position? Are you actually in touch with Hamas at all? Do
you? give them instructions or just ideas about how to get to a ceasefire because they also are holding out. So how is this going to end?
MUSTAFA: Well, it got to end. I think it’s very important for the mediators to be allowed to do their jobs. And I think they’re doing a very
good job. We appreciate what Qatar and Egypt and, of course, the United States are trying to do. They’re doing the right thing. Hamas and Israel
needs to cooperate. There’s no reason to continue this war. We already said to Hamas that for the sake of our people, for the interest of our people,
for the national interest, we need to move on. We need to end this war.
And I think they are doing, from what we understand, they are doing the best they can, being as helpful as they can. If they are not doing that, we
invite them to come and do this as soon as possible for the sake of our people. But clearly, the real problem, we believe, is still on the Israeli
side.
AMANPOUR: Okay.
MUSTAFA: So let’s hope that the Israeli side will move on with this.
AMANPOUR: Okay, so I want to know in general what you think they’re trying to achieve and that’s because you’re sitting in Ramallah in the West Bank
and there’s been a huge amount of settler and IDF violence in the West Bank as well. Israel always says that it’s acting against terrorism, Hamas
militants in the West Bank. In June last month, Shin Bet targeted 60 operatives, they say there. Are your security forces trying to get control
of that situation? Because there’s obviously always been and regularly warfare and conflict between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
MUSTAFA: Well, there is no fighting in the West Bank between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian Authority is in charge to the extent
they can. The only challenge for the Palestinian Authority today, to be honest with you, is the settlers and the Israeli army that have been, as
you know, invading cities in the West Bank almost on daily basis, especially in the northern part of the West Bank and Palestinian refugee
camps in Tulkarem and Jenin and other places.
This is the real challenge of our security. We will do our best to keep the place safe. But trust me, the security of the West Bank is probably more
secure than many other places in this region. So this is not an excuse for Israel to continue what they are doing in the West Bank. They have been
doing everything that undermines the Palestinian authority in terms of siege of the Palestinian cities, invading cities, settler terrorism,
financial siege, preventing workers from going to their work.
One thousand checkpoints within the West Bank, between the cities of the West Bank. This is a designed — well-designed campaign to undermine the
Palestinian authority and the Palestinian people. Starvation in Gaza, occupation in the West Bank, settler terrorism in the West Bank, trying to
displace everybody is the objective.
AMANPOUR: Okay.
MUSTAFA: We will not go anywhere from here. This is our country and that’s where we want to live and that’s where our future lies.
AMANPOUR: I just need to this out to you because Special Envoy Witkoff has just posted on X that he too is withdrawing his delegation from Doha for
consultations after the latest response from Hamas. They basically accuse Hamas of showing a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza. They praise
the mediators. But this is their point, and it’s a longer X, but that’s the point.
So you’ve said that the Israeli far-right’s mission is to transfer population. I think that’s what you said, get people to leave. Today, the
far-right finance minister, Smotrich, said, that they have approved a huge budget transfer, $270 million I believe, for investment in transportation
infrastructure in the West Bank, saying that this would quote, implement de facto Israeli sovereignty over the territory.
The investment is part of a clear strategic plan, strengthening the settlements physically and politically connecting the area to the state of
Israel and turning sovereignty into a concrete fact on the ground. They’ve been doing things like that in Gaza. I mean, there’s obviously a lot of
destruction, but also these ministers have called for transfer of population from one end to the next, camps to put them in, you know, the
millions of Gazans. So what is your reaction to this latest Smotrich declaration of total sovereignty over the West Bank?
MUSTAFA: Well, it’s very sad that this coming from an official in the state of Israel. I think this is irresponsible. I think this is a good
message for the international community to hear and listen to the real intentions of the Israeli government. I think this is another proof of our
position that this is an orchestrated campaign against our people, not only in Gaza, not only in East Jerusalem but also in the West Bank.
The objective is not just Gaza. The objective is all the Palestinian issue, the Palestinian cause, Palestinian statehood as a project they don’t want
to see happening. But this will not happen. I promise them that our people will stay the course and work very hard with international partners and
according to international laws to earn our independence and free our country from this occupation.
The whole international community is now united against this continuing occupation and any attempt to displace our people and to continue this war.
We have a lot of faith and a lot of expectations from international community to hold this government of Israel accountable and to help
Palestinians to earn their independence and end this occupation as soon as possible.
AMANPOUR: Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, thank you very much for joining us from Ramallah. Of course, we continue to ask the senior Israeli
officials to come on this program. Stay with CNN. We’ll be right back after the break.
AMANPOUR: Now, a star of today looks back at the life of a star of Hollywood’s golden age. Ava Gardner was a film goddess of the first order,
famous as much for her tempestuous love affairs off screen as she was for her iconic roles on screen. The actress Elizabeth McGovern, star of
“Downton Abbey” and the franchise “Ragtime,” “Ordinary People,” has written her first play, Ava: The Secret Conversations. She stars as Gardner, and
here’s a bit of the trailer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH MCGOVERN, ACTRESS: So how you want to start the book, honey?
UNKNOWN: How do I want to start?
MCGOVERN: Yes, how do you want to start?
UNKNOWN: Ava Gardner, the world’s most beautiful animal and Hollywood’s original femme fatale, looks back on her storied career. Mickey Rooney,
Artie Shaw, Howard Hughes, and Frank Sinatra all fell to her charms as the one small-town girl climbed the Hollywood ladder to become one of the most
recognizable stars of the silver screen.
UNKNOWN: But who would you be without people like me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Elizabeth McGovern uses a book of interviews with her as a springboard, bringing new life to an indomitable personality who always
lived by her own rules. Elizabeth McGovern, welcome to our program.
MCGOVERN: Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: So your first time playwriter, playwright, what attracted you to this amazing woman? I mean, perhaps that’s what attracted you, but you
know, as a performer and to choose to make her your, you know, the subject of your first play.
MCGOVERN: My first way in was the book that Peter Evans published, which is basically a transcript of the conversations he had with Eva Gardner at
the end of his life. It was gathering dust on my bookshelf in my house in London, and I just picked it up one day. And it seemed like such an
intriguing idea to put an old movie star at the end of her years in London having conversations with her, the ghostwriter of her autobiography and the
two of them trying to make sense of her life and what it had all added up to. And the two of them obviously having a relationship of their own, which
is —
AMANPOUR: So for those who don’t know her in her heyday, what is it about Ava Gardner? Give us Ava Gardner 101.
MCGOVERN: Ava Gardner was a woman way ahead of her time in the sense that she was a real progressive, a natural progressive, because she wasn’t
highly educated, she wasn’t an intellect. She just lived life her way. So I feel as though she’s an icon, which has a lot of relevance today. She was
sexually very free. She was very forward thinking in her politics and was a feminist before she had the kind of wherewithal to identify as a feminist.
AMANPOUR: You know, because some people sort of think of the men with whom she was associated, the most famous of which are Frank Sinatra. Do you
think that, you know, reduced her own credibility as an actress or she just powered through that, having the agency that you describe?
MCGOVERN: Well, I hope this play and maybe people looking again at her life might rectify that situation slightly because she was such an
authentic person. But yeah, I think you’re right. She’s often associated with a series of husbands she had that were all notorious in their way. And
in the play, we look at all those relationships and how she learned and grew from them all.
But I think what it adds up to is a portrait of a really powerful woman that has something to say to us today, particularly about her experience as
one of the first major motion picture stars in Hollywood and the impact that that had on her, which was damaging and, of course, incredibly
exciting in equal measure.
AMANPOUR: Let me play a clip then because one of her most famous films was “The Barefoot Contessa.” She plays Maria Vargas. That’s a Spanish dancer
who becomes a Hollywood star, She’s speaking in this clip to a director named Harry Dawes. He’s played by the great Humphrey Bogart. And he wants
to audition her for a wealthy producer named Kirk Edwards. All of this is relevant when we play the clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUMPHREY BOGART, ACTOR: Do you know what a screen test is?
AVA GARDNER, ACTERSS: Yes.
BOGART: We could make it in Rome. Nobody would know. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll have lost nothing. Now, it certainly can’t hurt you to meet
Kirk Edwards. Nobody could accuse you of mingling a business conference with one of the richest men in the world.
GARDNER: Could you teach me to act, Mr. Dawes?
BOGART: If you can act, I can help you. If you can’t, nobody can teach you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So “The Barefoot Contessa” is the story of a poor provincial girl who becomes a major international star. So that film is a little bit
like her own autobiography.
MCGOVERN: Yes, it is. Mankiewicz famously based the part on her. I think they drew a lot from her life —
AMANPOUR: Yeah.
MACGOVERN: — for that character of Maria Vargas.
AMANPOUR: How did she have that, you know, sureness about herself, that agency, that progressive feminist sort of nature? At that time, who was she
surrounded by? Who was her sort pillar of strength?
MCGOVERN: I don’t think she had one in particular. I think she was grounded in a loving family background, but they were unsophisticated. They
were poor. They were, you know, happy to get any dime anyone would throw them, particularly at the beginning, which I think catapulted her into
situations that she just had to think on her feet and contend with.
I think that she was very smart. uneducated, but very smart. And just through the force of her own personality, she made her way. But I think she
was tortured by insecurity. I think she sustained collateral damage from the life she led. I don’t think it would be right to look at her life
without acknowledging that.
AMANPOUR: We talked a little bit about her very famous husband. So Sinatra, a big drama. He left his own wife, his children for Eva Gardner.
They both became reviled as homewrecker. But for each, apparently, this was the love of their lives. And they, unfortunately, simply couldn’t live
together. The marriage ended after six years of a lot of love and a lot of fighting. There’s a line in your play, even Sinatra never stood a chance.
Poor bastard. So what is it about her?
MCGOVERN: You know, I don’t — I think it’s very hard to articulate something like that. The — how can you sum up in words a personality that
just draws people like flies? I think, uh, part of it is she was truly who she was. She was true to herself and that’s a very appealing quality. I
think she was very funny.
I think she and Sinatra shared a width between them. Who knows, you know, what makes these personalities so appealing? I mean, that’s part of why she
works on stage so well. But it’s hard to actually quantify in words. You have to come see the show.
AMANPOUR: Yeah, yeah, indeed. She was propelled —
MCGOVERN: We hope to do it justice.
AMANPOUR: She was propelled to this stardom at a very young age. Frankly, so were you. I mean, you came from a non-showbiz family. Your father was a
law professor at UCLA. You were a college student when you made the incredible Oscar-winning movie “Ordinary People.” That was your debut.
Twenty years old when you starred in “Ragtime.” Do you see any parallels between you and her? I mean, is some of that what drew you to her?
MCGOVERN: I think my own life experience in Hollywood at a very early age gave me confidence to write her story. I mean, I don’t equate myself with
her in the sense that she was one of the biggest movie stars the world has ever known. People don’t know her so much now, but in her heyday, she was
absolutely enormous. And also, cutting the way. I mean, she was one of the first really, really big movie stars.
But I do feel that my experience of being in the business and coming up against what that is all about from a very young age gave me confidence to
write her story and write about the dynamic of the way the machine works to a certain extent. Yeah.
AMANPOUR: And like her, you worked with great actors. I mean, look, Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, Dame Maggie Smith, who famously, you know, was
your mother-in-law, I think, in “Downton Abbey.”
MCGOVERN: Yes.
AMANPOUR: You are Lady Cora Grantham. How would you say — I mean, that really propelled you? Everybody knows you in the whole wide world now,
after all these years of “Downton Abbey,” and there’s a third film about to come out. What did that series mean to you?
MCGOVERN: It’s an enormous opportunity to be able to stay with a character and stay with the relationships of the characters that you’re working with
over the course of so many years. A character and stay with the relationships of the characters that you’re working with over the course of
so many years. I mean, what other art form in the world is sustained for so long.
So, to grow in the relationships that I have with my daughters, with my husband, with my relationship to the character, year after year after year,
and to actually grow up and grow old together, I think there’s — and to have an audience that you take with you over such a long course of time is
such an opportunity.
I mean, there’s a kind of built-in depth to the story that is nothing to do with what we do now with it. It’s just there because of all the years we’ve
put into it. And there’s no shortcut to that. You just get it by applying yourself year after year after year. So that’s really an interesting
privilege. It’s an interesting thing to experience.
So in this movie that we’re doing now, every tiny little plot seems to resonate with the audience because of all the years that we’ve actually had
this leap of imagination that we’ve been participating in together. The actors, the audience, the producers, the directors, all of us, we’ve
created this thing and agreed to sustain it. So it’s quite an amazing experience, actually.
AMANPOUR: So what does it feel like to end this era with this — the last film, the grand finale, how to say goodbye?
MCGOVERN: It is since there’s a lot of tears. Mind you, we’ve practiced quite a bit because we’ve said goodbye many times before because it’s
always been, we thought, the last time. So I’ve hugged those girls of mine that play my daughters, I think probably five times as the end and there’s
been tears. So this time it was kind of like, see you. See you around the corner, guys.
AMANPOUR: Well, it’s been amazing. So thank you so much, Elizabeth McGovern, for joining us.
MCGOVERN: Thank you so much for having me. It’s really a treat for me.
AMANPOUR: And “Ava: The Secret Conversations” hits off-Broadway at the end of this month. We’ll be right back after this short break.
AMANPOUR: Now, Trump’s assault on higher education landed a big fish. Columbia University has agreed to pay over $220 million to settle their
fight. Meanwhile, his administration’s attack on the media is in full swing, with Congress approving drastic public broadcasting cuts and
lawsuits that keep on coming. Just a day after CBS’s decision to cancel the number one “Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert” sent shockwaves, the
president hit the “Wall Street Journal” with an unprecedented $20 billion libel suit. Hari Sreenivasan unpacks all of this and the state of freedom
of speech in America with David Enrich, Deputy Investigations Editor at the New York Times.
HARI SREENIVASAN, ANCHOR, AMANPOUR & CO, PBS NEWSHOUR: Christiane, thanks. David Enrich, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote a book recently
called “Murder the Truth. Fear the First Amendment and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.” You know, at the core of your book is a Supreme
Court case that most of audience are probably not familiar with, most Americans aren’t familiar with, 1964 New York Times versus Sullivan
encapsulate that. Why is it such an important case?
DAVID ENRICH, DEPUTY INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: In a nutshell, it established that if you’re a powerful person, an elected
official, a billionaire, someone like that, in order to successfully sue someone for defamation, you need to not only prove that you were defamed,
so that someone got a fact wrong about you and that that hurt your reputation. You need to go further than that. You also need to prove that
whoever spoke or wrote that defamatory falsehood did so either knowing that what they were saying was false, so in other words, lying, or they did it
with reckless disregard for the truth.
And the Supreme Court created that high bar, knowing that it was really high, it would be hard to overcome. And the reason was that they wanted
journalists and just members of the public in general to have the breathing room to know that they could criticize or interrogate or scrutinize
powerful people in society without worrying that if they made an innocent mistake, a good faith error, that could subject them to basically
bottomless, the endless liability.
And so the Supreme Court decision in “New York Times” was itself and really opened up this golden age of investigative journalism because it allowed
people — reporters and others to pursue ambitious targets and really try to uncover wrongdoing and hold people accountable without worrying that an
innocent slip up could cause terrible financial damage for them.
SREENIVASAN: You go through a number of different challenges, the cases that have been played out, and you spent quite a bit of time on the case of
“Gawker” and Hulk Hogan. For people a little unfamiliar with that, Peter Thiel, who we think of as a tech titan, was the force that was funding
that. Why was that case so important?
ENRICH: Well, it became really important because Hulk Hogan won this lawsuit, basically bankrupted “Gawker”. And on its face, that was, you
know, you could understand why Hulk Hogan had sued “Gawker”. “Gawker” had published this sex tape of Hulk Hogan, invaded his privacy. Easy to
understand that. It turned out after the verdict that Peter Thiel had been in the background financing this, and he wasn’t financing it because he
liked Hulk Hogan.
He was financing it because he had decided years earlier that he wanted to destroy “Gawker” because he was very unhappy with the website’s coverage of
him personally and of Silicon Valley in general. And the fact that Thiel had masterminded and bankrolled this plot sent real shockwaves through the
media world because it showed that one billionaire with some patience and creativity, here was a playbook for them to basically kneecap news
organizations whose views or whose journalism they didn’t like.
And I think for journalists, that was a very scary prospect that one angry man could basically destroy you. I think on the other hand, people who are
like to file such lawsuits and don’t like the way they’re covered in the media, this was a real moment of celebration and people like Donald Trump
saw this verdict and saw the outcome of it. And it was just, I think, really inspiring to them.
SREENIVASAN: Now, is there this sort of reaction that, well, not just because Peter Thiel did it, but let me go ahead and sue the institution,
because if it’s an institution like the “New York Times,” sure. They’ve got a fleet of lawyers and they can defend themselves. But if it’s a smaller
publication or just a single writer, they probably don’t have the resources.
ENRICH: Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly right. And that’s one of the real things I spent a lot of time tracking as I reported and wrote this book was
that, you know, I sit at the “New York Times,” I used to work at the “Wall Street Journal.” Those are big news outlets that have the resources and
kind of the wherewithal to defend themselves, not only from lawsuits, but from legal threats that journalists often receive before they publish a big
story.
What I found, though, is that these threats and lawsuits are being used increasingly against smaller news organizations and independent journalists
that have a lot less resources to fight back with. And the impact of that – – and first of all, it’s a deliberate effort I found often by rich and powerful people at either the national or sometimes the local level as well
to just shut down critical speech about them and including journalism, but by no means limited to journalism.
This is a tactic used against activists, just community members, things like that as well. And it’s not just politicians doing it, it’s big
companies as well. And the tactics are often effective and they lead journalists, news organizations, lawyers to really start pulling punches
because they are faced with a really difficult choice between standing up to these legal threats or these lawsuits, which often are not, do not have
a firm basis in the law, but standing up to them can imperil you financially.
And on the other hand, it’s often easier and kind of financially rational, I think, to just pick a less controversial and a less litigious target. But
the result of that is often that you are essentially engaging in self- censorship. That means that important stories aren’t covered, wrongdoing doesn’t get exposed, people aren’t held to account for their actions and,
you know, that’s the role that journalism is supposed to play in the society going back hundreds of years to the formation of this country. And
so I think it’s a really potentially severe problem.
SREENIVASAN: What has happened in this second Trump administration now? There seems to be tactically a very different approach that the
administration is taking now versus the first time around.
ENRICH: Yeah, I mean, the first administration now looks like a bit of a warm up act for what we’re seeing in the second administration. And Trump’s
rhetoric has gotten increasingly incendiary. But I think more important than that, his actions speak louder than his words and his actions are
really profound in a lot of ways. It’s a whole range of stuff. I mean, he’s suing news organizations. He is threatening news organizations. That’s kind
of the plain vanilla stuff. I mean, he is kicking news outlets out of the White House, restricting how they can cover things because he does not like
their choice of language or the way they’ve written about things.
The White House is asserting control over which news organizations and which journalists can travel with the president, can have access to the
Oval Office. They have gutted — the administration has gutted long standing news organizations like Voice of America. There’s obviously been a
widespread effort, not just in the White House, but in Congress as well to strip organizations like PBS and NPR and their member stations of funding.
And these are all things that I think have been on, or at least some of them have been on the conservative agenda for years, but I do not think
it’s a coincidence that we have a president who, and an administration that is really hell-bent on demonizing the media and avoiding the scrutiny that
the media would normally bring to a very polarizing and controversial administration. And they’re actually getting what they want, not just in
terms of the actions they’re taking, but legislatively as well.
So I think there is a lot of stuff going on here, but it’s clear there’s a lot more substantive and I think from a media standpoint potentially
dangerous than what we saw the first time around.
SREENIVASAN: Just a point of information and full disclosure, the conversation that our audience is watching right now is produced by a
public media station. So we are in ways part of this story. You wrote a fascinating piece recently, not just about politics and the press, but
really just about corporations as well. You focused in on UnitedHealthcare. Tell our audience a little bit about kind of the tactics that
UnitedHealthcare is using now to basically quash public dissent.
ENRICH: Well, UnitedHealth is one of the, I would say, most controversial companies in the country right now. It’s under — they’re facing enormous
criticism for many of its business practices. People are really angry at them. And they have been going to platforms like TikTok and YouTube to
criticize the company. And since the murder of one of their top executives last December, UnitedHealth has gotten much more aggressive in fighting
back against this.
And they’ve done things like send — basically threatened to sue someone, a doctor who posted a video on TikTok that criticized the company. They’ve
gone to streaming platforms like Amazon Prime and Vimeo and pushed those platforms to remove material that was critical of the company. They’ve gone
after local journalists and people working at community news organizations. And the list kind of goes on here. I think one of the things — and to some
extent, these tactics are — indeed work and there are platforms like Prime Video and Vimeo removed things at the request of UnitedHealth.
And it leads to a real kind of rising tide of self-censorship that insulates not just politicians, but also big, powerful companies like
UnitedHealth from criticism and from scrutiny at the exact moment when that scrutiny and accountability, I think, is most needed.
SREENIVASAN: So, you know, for the record, I spoke to a person for UnitedHealth, and your story was quoted saying that truth matters, and
there’s a big difference between criticism and irresponsibly omitting facts and context. When others get it wrong, we have an obligation to our
customers, employees, and other stakeholders to correct the record, including by making our case in court when necessary.
I want to ask specifically about, say, for example, the Walt Disney Company that settled a lawsuit against the Trump administration brought against ABC
News. And now the Paramount Corporation that settled in a different way for kind of a different reason. What are those? Why are those important?
Because technically, you know, you could look as a bean counter and say, this is just part of doing business. I’m just doing a cost benefit
analysis.
ENRICH: Yeah.
SREENIVASAN: I don’t want the administration on my back. So what if I just write a $15 million check to a presidential library versus saying I’m gonna
stand up for press freedoms?
ENRICH: Well, look, I mean, this is a feature for better or for worse of having major companies owning news organizations.
And I think it is to a certain extent, the bean counter is making the decision here for a company like Disney that has tens of billions, not
hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, cutting a check for $15 million so a lawsuit against ABC News goes away is quite possibly a rational thing
to do. And same for Paramount, which has a multi-billion dollar merger pending that needs federal approval.
I think the problem is that it sets a precedent that shows journalists that their parent companies do not have their back. And it sends a message to
not only to Trump and his administration, but any other rich and powerful person anywhere in the world, or at least anywhere in the country, that
it’s open season on journalists and that these attacks can work and that they are working and it encourages people to further weaponize the legal
system to crack down on companies, news organizations, and journalists whose coverage is critical or unfavorable.
And, again, I think the most important thing here is that the lawsuits that Trump has been filing against ABC, against CBS, against “The Des Moines
Register,” against the “Wall Street Journal,” most recently, they lack — they appear to lack legal merit based on the substance of the complaints
and the underpinning interpretation of the law. And yet you’re seeing these companies like Disney and like Paramount basically bending a knee to Trump
just to make this stuff go away, and that’s exactly what he wants.
And, you know, when I talk to people in his camp about this, they celebrate these victories and say very openly, I think, that this is emboldening them
and that the tactics are working and that they’re going to keep using these tactics going forward.
SREENIVASAN: Most recently, Paramount, the parent company that owns CBS has “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” They announced that they were
going to finish “The Late Show” with multi-decade long brand. Their rationale for it is that just financially it doesn’t make sense anymore.
And I wonder, you know, now there’s a lot of speculation wondering how much of this is business versus how much of this is, you know, silencing a
critic in Stephen Colbert, especially days after he criticized the very bargain that Paramount struck with the government?
ENRICH: Yeah. And I don’t know what the truth is here, but it’s impossible to ignore the timing of it. And it certainly, at the very least, it’s quite
a coincidence that shortly after Colbert criticizes the settlement with Trump, his show is canceled. And the way I look at it is that CBS and
Paramount have resolved the lawsuit that Trump filed by paying off Trump. But there’s another party to this and they still need to get the FCC, the
Federal Communications Commission, to approve this multi-billion dollar deal.
And it’s pending. And so sending a signal to the Trump administration that you are going to shape programming in a way that will be less objectionable
to the White House, that does send a signal to the White House that you’re playing ball. And certainly Trump has stated publicly since the show was
canceled that he applauds this and he takes credit for it. Now, I don’t know if that’s actually what happened here, but that’s certainly the way
the White House seems to be interpreting it.
SREENIVASAN: Yeah. There is a lawsuit that is now have been filed against Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion against the “Wall Street Journal” for a
story that they published just last week about Jeffrey Epstein and whether or not the president had written this kind of a tawdry birthday note, et
cetera. But my question to you is what happens inside a newsroom considering you’ve worked at both the “Journal” and “The Times” now when
there is a lawsuit like this, at least at a place where you do have a fleet of in-house and outside counsel that can help defend your rights?
ENRICH: Well, I mean, what happens is that you — your lawyers, then basically start circling the wagons and trying to figure out what is
happening, what documents need to be preserved, who might need to be deposed in the future. And on the surface, it’s like not a problem because
these lawsuits tend to lack merit. It’s clear in the “Journal’s” case that assuming they did not make up this letter that Trump supposedly wrote to
Epstein, that they’re on pretty solid legal ground because the truth is always a defense against defamation claims.
But look, being sued by anyone, much less the president of the United States, is a scary prospect. And I don’t know how the reporters at the
“Journal” are feeling, but I can tell you how I’ve felt when I’ve been sued over much lesser things. And it is a terrible feeling. It’s scary, and it
makes you question what you should be reporting on in the future, even if you know intellectually and in your head that this is that you’re on safe
ground.
SREENIVASAN: “New York Times” journalist and author of the book “Murder the Truth,” David Enrich, thanks so much for joining us.
ENRICH: Thanks for having me.
AMAMPOUR: And just to note that Hari and David Enrich spoke just before the news of wrestler Hulk Hogan’s death, who, as they discussed, was
involved in a high-profile court case with the media company “Gawker.”
And finally tonight, guerrilla art, a surprising sight from New York’s sewers where a bright red sculpture of Donald Trump has emerged from a
Manhattan manhole. The life-size artwork showing the U.S. president alongside a tiny sewer, where a bright red sculpture of Donald Trump has
emerged from a Manhattan manhole. The life-size artwork showing the U.S. president alongside a tiny mouse popped up about a mile away from Trump
Tower on Wednesday morning, but it was removed just hours later by maintenance workers.
The French artist, James Colomina, is no stranger to provocation, having previously depicted the Russian President Vladimir Putin in the city’s
central park. A commentary on the invasion of Ukraine, of course in his eye-catching signature color, the color of blood. That’s it for now. Thank
you for watching and goodbye from London.
END