0:03

Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpour. Here's

0:05

what's coming up. The

0:08

wider Middle East war is officially underway

0:11

and we get every angle first. How

0:14

will the Netanyahu government respond to

0:16

Iran's Salvo? Former Israeli

0:18

Prime Minister Ehud Barak joins us.

0:20

Then military pressure can at times

0:23

enable diplomacy. Of course military pressure

0:25

can also lead to miscalculation. How

0:27

will the US try to calm

0:29

this conflict? Can it? I

0:31

ask Andrew P. Miller, former State

0:33

Department official and Biden policy critic.

0:37

And did Iran get checkmated? I ask

0:39

Iran expert and senior fellow for

0:41

the Carnegie Endowment Karim Sajapur

0:43

about its ballistic missile volley.

0:45

Plus on another front, Israel's

0:48

ground offensive against Hezbollah. We

0:50

get the view from the

0:52

Lebanese foreign minister. Welcome

1:14

to the program everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour

1:17

in London. The Israeli Prime

1:19

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that

1:21

Iran quote will pay after firing

1:23

around 200 ballistic missiles at military

1:26

targets last night. Iran said

1:28

it was in response to a raft

1:30

of assassinations by Israel against its proxies

1:32

and members of its own armed forces.

1:35

Israel says along with its allies

1:37

it intercepted almost all the incoming

1:40

and three military bases that were

1:42

struck are already up and running again. When

1:45

it comes to retaliation, the US President

1:47

Joe Biden says he does not support

1:49

an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. Meantime,

1:53

on its northern front, Israel is sending

1:55

in more forces to fight against Hezbollah

1:57

in Lebanon. The IDF says at least

1:59

eight of its troops have been

2:01

killed since their ground offensive began, while

2:04

Lebanon says a thousand people have been killed

2:06

in the past two weeks, with a million

2:09

displaced. Almost swept

2:11

from the headlines is Gaza, very

2:13

little mention of the remaining Israeli

2:15

hostages there, or the nearly 90 Palestinians

2:18

killed in the enclave just last

2:20

night alone. We'll get crucial perspective

2:22

from this throughout the region, but

2:25

first, let's focus on Israel and

2:27

we are joined by former Israeli

2:29

Prime Minister and former Army

2:31

Chief Ehud Barak. Welcome back to

2:34

our program, Prime Minister. So

2:36

I want to ask you, what

2:39

are Israel's options now? What would

2:41

you be thinking about? Were you

2:43

still in position? I

2:47

prefer to try to explain what the

2:49

options, not what I would have been

2:51

doing if I were Prime Minister now.

2:55

I think that Israel has a compelling

2:57

need to respond. No

2:59

modern country suffered twice within

3:01

several months, mid-April, and right now

3:04

a salvo

3:06

of 200 ballistic missiles

3:08

aimed at its territory.

3:12

So there will be an Israeli response.

3:15

It probably will take several days. Probably

3:17

there is a need for coordination with

3:19

neighboring countries. We cannot reach Iran without

3:22

causing another two neighboring countries and with

3:24

the United States, who is heavily deployed

3:27

in order to back us defensively. But

3:30

I think that if you want

3:33

to have an idea what might

3:35

come, look at the Yemenites, the

3:37

Hodeidah, the Houthis are

3:39

about the same distance as Tehran

3:42

from Israel. And we,

3:44

the Israeli Air Force, tried twice

3:46

in the recent months or so,

3:49

and always kind of the

3:51

major port, oil refinery,

3:54

or probably power plants. And

3:57

that's the most probable targets in

3:59

Iran. Iran is sensitive, it's

4:01

economic, it hurts them painfully.

4:04

And we can do it, we can do it

4:06

more than once. But

4:09

that's mainly, I think the

4:11

reservation that Biden raised about

4:14

hitting the nuclear

4:17

military plan will be taken into

4:19

account. But I

4:21

cannot tell you that Israel

4:23

will not try to hit

4:25

or touch these subjects

4:27

as well. And

4:29

basically, I think that the

4:31

Iranians will keep doing it,

4:34

but they showed a strategy

4:36

developed for 15 years,

4:39

a ring of fire around

4:41

Israel to cover the distance

4:43

from Israel. So they had

4:45

the Hamas in the south, the Hezbollah in

4:47

the north, probably

4:50

some other kind of Iraqi

4:52

militias, the Houthis, and

4:54

even certain cells within

4:57

the West Bank. So

5:00

all this ring will be activated

5:02

probably more forcefully. Okay, so let

5:04

me just take two things. Do

5:06

you think that you

5:09

need to escalate to deescalate? I think what

5:11

everybody is saying, oh my goodness, we've got

5:13

to try to deescalate, but from the Israeli

5:15

side, no idea of deescalation,

5:17

it's actually escalate. Do you, is

5:19

that what you think is on

5:22

the table? Nobody's looking in your country

5:24

to deescalate. You're

5:27

saying I think that

5:29

the two,

5:31

I think if 200 missiles

5:34

from a neighbor, 1300

5:38

miles from you would be fallen

5:41

on the British capital or

5:43

on the UK, the

5:45

British government would immediately

5:47

respond very forcefully and any other government

5:50

would do the same. So we are

5:52

not escalating. We are responding to something

5:54

that you cannot avoid responding to. And

5:57

since I don't think that we can...

5:59

the fault spending 200 missiles on

6:02

Iran, we will have to set

6:04

our air force, which is superior

6:06

to theirs, and it

6:08

can do the job as

6:10

proven under somewhat different conditions

6:13

in Yemen. So

6:15

there will be a small. Are

6:18

you surprised, how do you assess as

6:20

a former military chief, essentially

6:23

the failure of Iran's missiles to

6:26

do the damage that I

6:28

don't know it wanted to do or not? Or how

6:30

do you assess it? Is

6:33

the weaponry useless? Are they

6:35

incompetent? Is it just

6:37

because Israel had such a sophisticated, you

6:41

know, air defense system plus sophisticated

6:43

allies helping? How do you assess

6:45

that? We

6:47

are working for more than 30 years now,

6:49

and especially in the last 20 years, on

6:52

what we call multilayer

6:55

anti-missile system, all type,

6:57

from Iran down

7:00

for the lower range, David

7:03

Sling for the middle range, and cruise

7:05

missiles, and the arrow and

7:08

super arrow, and this

7:11

branch for the out of

7:14

space kind of interceptions. And

7:17

we are supported in identification

7:19

of the threats by the

7:21

Americans, and we are even

7:23

supported by the United States

7:25

government, the UK government, and

7:27

enables in identifying what's happening

7:29

in intercepting. Most

7:32

of the buildings fell this time on the

7:34

Israeli air defense, and we

7:36

did it very, very successful at that

7:39

time. Another question. It's

7:41

not used, but it's very costly even

7:43

for Iran. Right.

7:46

You have heard your own prime minister

7:48

talk in terms of regime change. You've

7:50

heard a former prime minister, Naftali Bennett,

7:52

very clearly last night say to CNN,

7:56

basically Israel has its

7:58

greatest opportunity. in 50 years

8:01

to change the face of the

8:03

Middle East. We must act now

8:05

to destroy Iran's nuclear program, its

8:07

central energy facilities, and to fatally

8:09

cripple this terrorist regime. We have

8:12

the justification, we have the tools,

8:14

there are times when history knocks

8:16

at our door and we must

8:18

open it, this opportunity must not

8:20

be missed. Do you support

8:23

regime change? Is that what you think

8:25

the government should attempt now, your government?

8:28

Look, I would love to see

8:30

regime change. The Iranian people is a

8:32

great people, they suffer very bad, I

8:34

have told at the top, but

8:37

I'm probably older and probably

8:39

more realistic, a little bit,

8:41

and Bennett is a great

8:43

guy, and I hope

8:45

we wish him all success in Israeli

8:47

politics in the coming round. But

8:50

I think that if

8:52

you have seen Netanyahu in the UN

8:55

with these two maps, the

8:57

alliance of blessing, I

9:00

believe that in order to run

9:02

a full scale attempt to

9:06

change the Middle East, we need

9:08

all these alliances of

9:11

blessing led by the United States,

9:13

having the Sunni autocracies around us,

9:16

Israel, and backing by

9:19

Western Europe and the EU

9:21

and like-minded countries in North

9:23

America, in the Far East,

9:26

we need this wide alliance

9:28

of moderate that Biden proposed

9:31

11 months ago and repeatedly

9:34

raised something that our

9:36

military and defense

9:38

establishment proposed to Netanyahu all along

9:40

the way and strongly fought for

9:43

reasons that is kept

9:45

by Netanyahu, kind of not

9:47

fully explained, he rejected it

9:49

all the time, except for

9:51

in his speech in the

9:53

UN. This

9:56

is the way Israel is very

9:58

strong, Israel cannot really... We arrange

10:00

the Middle East on its own. We

10:02

need this alliance

10:05

to be with us, and

10:07

it needs trust, it needs

10:09

building trust, it needs coordination,

10:12

cooperation. Even

10:14

the rejection, even the failing missile

10:17

attack will help by this de

10:20

facto under the surface alliance. We need

10:22

them in the open. And

10:24

a question about Benjamin Netanyahu, who as

10:26

you all know and you all talked

10:28

about, essentially on October 7th

10:31

it was the zero

10:35

point, I guess, of his career

10:37

presiding over what terrible, terrible attack

10:40

happened inside Israel. And

10:42

a lot of people were talking about, you know, writing

10:45

his political obituary, except now

10:48

the talk is that he is triumphed,

10:50

he is winning, and you

10:52

even have your ambassador here in

10:54

London saying, we have defeated Hamas,

10:57

we have defeated Hezbollah, and we

10:59

will defeat Iran's capabilities against us.

11:02

Assess for me one year later, OK, tell

11:05

me about where you are with Hamas and

11:07

Hezbollah. Look,

11:11

the last two weeks were

11:13

very, very good for

11:15

every Israeli. They

11:18

resumed the sense of self-confidence,

11:20

the trust in the capabilities

11:22

of both our intelligence and

11:25

the operational forces,

11:28

and especially the air

11:30

force. The series

11:32

of the last two weeks from

11:34

the pagers event, through

11:37

the elimination of Nasrallah and

11:39

a major part of the

11:42

leadership of Hezbollah, combined

11:44

with the successful air

11:46

force attacks, both

11:48

in Lebanon and in

11:51

Yemen. And

11:53

even in the memory of Haniyeh,

11:55

kind of disappeared somehow in the

11:58

IGFC, guest house inside Tehran. Iran.

12:00

That resumed the

12:03

trust and even raised a lot

12:05

of respect, probably strengthened the deterrence

12:08

of Israel. But having said that,

12:11

I think that, you know, I happen

12:13

to be in wars most

12:15

of my life. That's like

12:18

a roller coaster. After any

12:20

kind of peak of euphoria

12:22

come some painful moments we

12:24

probably have now in the

12:26

last 24 hours. Our relatively

12:29

small forces who entered into Lebanon

12:31

just to the first two

12:34

miles or three miles behind the border

12:36

in order to dismantle infrastructure

12:40

that was similar to what the Hamas

12:43

had in the

12:45

south by the Radwan of Hezbollah.

12:48

Even this little operation

12:52

already got its own price. Right.

12:54

Right. They say eight soldiers so

12:56

far. Yeah. I would not be

12:59

dragged into euphoria. You should be

13:01

realistic and cold-headed all along the

13:03

world. The

13:06

public could afford this

13:09

joy of emotions,

13:11

not the leaders. Yeah. So,

13:13

you know, Hanier mysteriously disappeared. Most

13:15

people believe that Israel had him

13:17

assassinated inside Tehran, which the Iranians

13:19

said was one of the reasons

13:22

for the retaliation. But you

13:24

talk about, well, you

13:26

know, the Gaza War seems to have

13:28

fallen off the map. Ninety people there

13:30

were killed overnight, according to authorities there.

13:32

The hostages are not even being mentioned,

13:34

which is a tragedy. And

13:37

many of your friends, including American

13:39

friends like Dennis Ross and the

13:42

others, are saying this military achievement,

13:44

whatever it looks like, must also

13:46

be in the service of

13:48

some kind of political achievement.

13:51

So I see you nodding. And so I want

13:53

to play a

13:55

sound by it from Foreign Minister of Jordan, one of

13:58

the nations that has a peace treaty with you. you,

14:00

here's Eamon Safadi last week at the

14:02

UN. Do

14:21

you agree that there is the

14:23

idea of a peace process that you championed

14:25

yourself so hard has been now killed off?

14:30

I don't believe it's killed, it cannot be killed, but

14:33

I listened to the whole speech of

14:36

Eamon Safadi. I think he deserves

14:38

being heard carefully by Israelis.

14:40

It will help to understand the

14:43

region in spite of the fact that

14:45

there is also his speech is only

14:47

half of the truth. It's not the

14:49

whole picture. But I can tell you

14:52

the following. The founding father of Israel,

14:54

Ben Gurion, set a stream max in

14:56

for going to war. Always

14:58

have a superpower on your side,

15:01

make the war very short,

15:03

aggressive, assertive on the enemy's

15:06

ground in order to end

15:08

it quickly so you can

15:11

still have legitimacy and carry

15:13

with the achievements in the

15:15

battlefield be translated into diplomatic

15:18

and political ones. Number

15:20

three, always before,

15:23

during, and after war, hold

15:25

firm your grip on the moral

15:27

high ground. Israel is not alone

15:30

in the world. We are strong,

15:32

but not only potent. We need

15:34

the world. We need North America.

15:36

We need Western Europe. We

15:39

need the like-minded countries, altogether some

15:41

40 countries on earth. And

15:44

never, never forget it.

15:48

So, Netanyahu behaves as if

15:50

he rejects aggressively all these

15:52

three maxims, one by one

15:54

in the running of the world. That's

15:57

why in spite of the strength

15:59

and he will... take some of the credit

16:01

of Richard that's different of the

16:03

of the last two weeks, but

16:05

he also will always be responsible

16:07

for the tragedy on 7th October

16:10

for running the most failing

16:12

war since then. We're still

16:15

in Gaza. The hostages

16:17

are still there, as you have mentioned,

16:19

and the right way had been and

16:21

is still the same to

16:23

put an end to the to

16:25

the whole story in the south

16:27

to rescue the hostages to

16:30

come into this alliance to bring

16:32

into other force into the Gaza

16:34

Strip. The

16:37

real victory over the

16:39

Sinoir is not

16:42

to kill all his terrorists or

16:45

to kill more Gazans innocent Gazans.

16:47

It is only if he is

16:49

replaced by someone else and death

16:51

was neglected by Netanyahu from

16:54

day one. The same applies in the

16:56

north. We can enter, we have to

16:58

do something, we cannot

17:00

pretend to conquer Lebanon

17:04

or whoever, total victory in Lebanon

17:08

against Hezbollah. It should

17:10

be, it will end

17:13

with certain internationally arranged

17:15

political, diplomatic arrangement. And

17:18

there is a German saying, if

17:20

you don't know which port you want to

17:22

reach, no wind will take you there. That's

17:24

exactly what happened to Netanyahu and that's the

17:26

tragedy of Israel. Well, Gino, I'm going

17:28

to raise those questions with my next

17:31

guest, former State Department official. Ehud Barak,

17:33

thank you so much indeed for being

17:35

with us. I'm

17:40

CNN's John King. Join me for the

17:42

podcast all over the map, where I'm

17:44

traveling across the country to find out

17:46

what American voters think, what frustrates them,

17:48

what gives them hope, and

17:50

what may motivate them to go into

17:52

the voting booth. Nevada is not just

17:54

a battleground in this presidential election. I

17:57

know that Hispanics have made a difference in

17:59

our lives. of elections. The

18:01

economic anxiety that you find all across the

18:03

country, well, you will find it on steroids

18:05

right there. Listen to All Over

18:07

the Map wherever you get your podcasts. So

18:11

let us get the view from

18:13

the United States. Andrew P. Miller

18:16

was, until recently, the U.S. Deputy

18:18

Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian

18:20

affairs. And in a new

18:22

article for Foreign Affairs magazine, he argues

18:25

that, quote, America needs a new strategy

18:27

to avert even greater catastrophe in the

18:29

Middle East. And he's joining me now

18:32

from Washington, D.C. Andrew Miller,

18:34

welcome to the program. You

18:36

probably heard Prime Minister Barak sort of

18:39

lay out the three pillars as

18:41

laid out by Ben Gurion all those years ago,

18:44

and how Israel needs, actually, to pay

18:46

attention to its place in the world

18:48

and to its allies and to its

18:50

surrounding nations. And he's

18:52

saying that Netanyahu is doing none of those, despite

18:55

what is deemed as current military

18:57

successes by Israel. What

19:00

do you think, just before I get to

19:02

the U.S. position on this, what do you

19:04

think about Israel's place

19:06

in the world in this last year?

19:10

Well, thanks for having me, Christian. I

19:14

tend to agree with former Prime

19:16

Minister Barak's assessment that none

19:19

of those criteria in Ben

19:21

Gurion's three maxims has

19:23

been met—or the one that has

19:25

been met has been superpower support

19:27

in the form of U.S. support,

19:30

but it's important not only in the

19:32

short term, but maintaining that support over

19:35

the long term. And as we've seen

19:37

within the United States domestically, there is

19:39

growing resistance, growing discomfort with U.S.

19:42

support for Israel or U.S.

19:44

support for certain types of Israeli policies.

19:46

Israel's global reputation has

19:49

clearly deteriorated over the past year. That's

19:53

unfair at a certain

19:55

level, given that Hamas was responsible for starting

19:57

this war in the first place. We

20:00

need to remember a year later just what an

20:02

atrocity October 7th was. But

20:04

the reality is much of the world, in particular

20:07

in the global south, has an increasingly

20:10

dim view of Israel. And

20:12

in terms of the actual conduct of the war,

20:14

this has not been short. This has not been

20:17

precise. We

20:19

are now almost 12 months into the

20:21

war. It's expanding. And

20:23

there isn't a clearly articulated end

20:26

state, either militarily

20:28

or politically, for Israel's trying

20:30

to achieve. So that,

20:32

I thought, the Ehud Barak laid out

20:35

really cogently. I mean, he's been there.

20:37

He's been a military commander. He's been

20:39

a prime minister. He offered a very,

20:41

very far-reaching peace agreement to the Palestinians,

20:43

which they did not take up in

20:45

2000 at Camp David. But I want to

20:48

know, in your period, as

20:51

the key official on this issue

20:53

at the State Department, did you

20:55

ever war game this

20:57

kind of multi-front battle

20:59

that is happening right now?

21:02

And did you and do you believe that

21:04

the United States would be

21:06

the indispensable wingman, so to speak, if,

21:09

for instance, Israel was going to go

21:11

and strike targets in

21:13

Iran and all the rest of it?

21:15

Barak seemed to indicate that, yes, they have

21:17

the US support. But I didn't get

21:19

to ask him whether he means actual military

21:22

wingman-ism, so to speak. Right.

21:27

That's certainly a critical question. Israel

21:31

does not need our active

21:33

military support for a

21:36

retaliatory response to

21:40

the fuselage launched against Israel

21:42

by Iran yesterday,

21:46

depending on what target it chooses. If

21:48

Israel does want to go after nuclear infrastructure,

21:51

that would require some additional help

21:53

from the United States. And

21:56

President Biden, as you mentioned earlier, has said

21:58

that he... He does not support

22:01

such action. But in

22:03

the long term, if this is

22:05

a regional war, if

22:07

it does expand, Israel

22:10

could prevail in that conflict

22:12

without active U.S. participation, but

22:14

it could not prevail at

22:16

an acceptable cost. And

22:18

what I mean by that

22:20

is the number of casualties

22:22

that Israel would sustain Israeli

22:24

civilians as well as Israeli

22:26

soldiers would be prohibitive. And

22:29

Israel's power projection capability

22:31

is quite impressive via the air,

22:34

but they don't have the

22:36

same expeditionary capacity with the IDF

22:39

ground forces. The idea of

22:41

the IDF deploying in large numbers to

22:43

Iran or to Yemen is

22:46

something that is well beyond anything

22:48

Israel has ever contemplated. We

22:51

have thought about these scenarios. And from the

22:53

very start of the war, one

22:56

of our primary objectives was preventing the

22:58

war in Gaza from metastasizing into

23:01

a regional war because of

23:03

the immense level of risk

23:05

that's involved. Unfortunately, and

23:07

despite efforts to prevent it from spreading,

23:09

we seem to be closer to that

23:11

point, if not at that point, than

23:13

ever before. And managing

23:15

that escalation risk while ensuring that

23:18

we're not creating incentives for Iran

23:20

or other actors to join in

23:22

the fray is going to be

23:25

a very difficult balancing act. And

23:29

you have essentially written about the

23:31

U.S. needs another strategy. I

23:33

think you sort of describe the

23:35

U.S. being essentially in the passenger seat

23:38

right now, even though it's

23:40

Israel's biggest ally and provides it with the

23:42

wherewithal to conduct these military operations. What

23:45

should and what could the U.S.? I

23:47

mean, we've seen endless shuttle diplomacy. We've

23:50

seen efforts to resolve at least

23:52

somehow the situation between Hamas and

23:54

Israel, get the hostages back, do

23:58

the swaps, get a ceasefire, et cetera. It

24:00

hasn't happened and it's been a year.

24:02

What should the U.S. do? What more leverage does

24:05

it have? Well

24:09

I think two caveats are important.

24:11

One, the administration has made efforts

24:13

to try to shape and

24:16

to influence Israeli

24:18

military operations over the past

24:21

year. It has

24:23

not been extraordinarily successful. There have been

24:25

some instances in which we've

24:27

had an impact. I think the

24:29

Raffa campaign, while destructive, was

24:32

ultimately less destructive than it would have

24:34

been had Israel executed its original plans.

24:37

There were some changes to humanitarian

24:39

aid at different points in time,

24:41

but that's relatively limited

24:45

compared to having a real impact

24:47

on the course of the war.

24:49

The second caveat is it is

24:52

going to be more difficult to

24:54

influence Israel now than it was

24:56

at any point prior to this.

24:58

In part because of what you

25:00

raised with the former prime minister,

25:02

which is Prime Minister Netanyahu is

25:04

in a stronger position politically now

25:06

than at any time since this war

25:09

began. The polling indicates that he's up

25:11

to 40 percent approval, which isn't great

25:13

on an absolute scale but is much

25:15

better than where he was. And even

25:17

more importantly, he's been able to expand

25:19

his coalition in the Knesset to bring

25:21

an additional right of center members. Now

25:26

it's at 68, which makes it much

25:29

more difficult to engineer a vote

25:31

of no confidence. In terms of what the

25:34

United States should do, I think it's—there are

25:36

two things. One is the United States needs

25:38

to define what its objectives are

25:40

for these wars. One of

25:42

those objectives is Israel's security,

25:46

including the release of the hostages, which,

25:48

as you mentioned, has fallen off the

25:50

radar since the recent escalation has taken

25:52

place. But what is in

25:54

the U.S. interest? What do we want

25:56

to see come out of this? We've, of course,

25:58

talked about the U.S. interests. the two-state solution,

26:00

we would like to see a functioning,

26:03

stable government in Lebanon where

26:05

the monopoly of force is possessed by

26:07

the government and not by a militant

26:10

group. We would like to see stability

26:12

amongst our partners throughout the region. We

26:15

certainly want to ensure that international

26:17

commerce is continuing, not just oil

26:19

and gas, but a lot

26:21

of other goods. All of those are

26:23

part of what we need to achieve,

26:26

and we need to assess what's happening

26:28

against those rather than simply evaluating what's

26:30

happening against Israel's own

26:32

standards, which are not exactly

26:34

the same as ours, and we may

26:37

have differences of opinion as to what

26:39

is in Israel's interests or not. How

26:41

you do that, I think, is you

26:44

need to reach an understanding with Israel

26:46

regarding what the parameters

26:48

of these campaigns are going to be. And

26:51

I always think back to the

26:53

Atlantic Charter, when the United States

26:55

supported Britain during World

26:57

War II and ultimately joined the war, President

27:00

Roosevelt was able to get Prime Minister

27:02

Churchill to sign a charter saying, this

27:04

is what we're trying to achieve in

27:06

this war, and it includes the liberation

27:09

of colonies, which obviously Prime Minister Churchill

27:11

was not particularly keen about. So

27:13

we do have precedent. It is reasonable, given

27:15

U.S. influence, to shape that.

27:18

In terms of tactics, I

27:20

think we need to apply more political

27:22

pressure on Prime

27:25

Minister Netanyahu in particular

27:27

and his coalition. And

27:30

you've even written in your latest,

27:33

Blinken, i.e. Secretary of State, would have

27:35

to persuade Netanyahu that he has something

27:37

to lose by spurning the U.S. and

27:39

so far that message has

27:41

not been telegraphed. We

27:43

would love to keep this chat up, but

27:45

we will have you on again, and we're

27:48

moving on to our next guest. Thank you

27:50

so much, Andrew Miller, for joining us. Now,

27:53

Iran analysts and

27:55

Israeli officials alike have used

27:57

terms like checkmated to describe

28:00

the position Iran finds itself in today.

28:02

How did a regime that doesn't want a full-scale

28:04

war with Israel and considers regime

28:07

survival its highest priority get

28:09

into this place? Joining

28:11

me now is Karim Sajapur, an expert

28:13

on the ruler Ayatollah Khamenei and a

28:16

senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for

28:18

International Peace. Karim, welcome

28:20

back to our program. Thank

28:23

you, Christiane. Do you agree first

28:26

and foremost with that terminology that

28:28

Iran is right now checkmated? It's

28:32

too soon to say, Christiane. Certainly Iran is

28:34

probably in one of the most difficult positions

28:36

it's been since the 1979 revolution.

28:40

This is a regime which is deeply committed

28:42

to its ideology, but as you mentioned, also

28:45

deeply committed to its survival. And

28:48

I don't think right now you could argue

28:50

that it's on the verge of collapse. But

28:54

this Israeli retaliation, which we're

28:56

all anticipating, could be the

28:59

most serious external attack on

29:01

Iran since 1979, especially it

29:04

goes after Iran's oil

29:06

facilities, its nuclear facilities,

29:09

military installations and critical

29:11

infrastructure. The regime will definitely

29:13

be in crisis mode. So

29:15

what do you think when you look

29:17

at it, you must be talking to

29:20

sources and things, what is

29:22

the most likely? Because people have

29:24

talked about proportional retaliation. But

29:27

that seems to be off the cards, if

29:29

you listen to the Israelis, that it has

29:31

to be a lot more than that in

29:33

order to force

29:36

a de-escalation, so to speak. Do

29:39

you think that it would be oil infrastructure,

29:41

nuclear infrastructure, et cetera? And yes,

29:43

it would be the hardest strikes. How do

29:46

you think that would play out in Iran?

29:49

I think those things are all

29:51

in the conversation right now. Now,

29:53

when Israel has taken major action

29:55

in the last weeks and months

29:57

against either Iran or its Axis

30:00

of resistance, meaning when Israel is assassinated,

30:02

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, when

30:04

it assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, there's

30:07

no indication that they checked in advance.

30:09

They got the blessing in advance from

30:11

the United States on that. But something

30:13

of this magnitude, blowing

30:15

up Iranian oil installations, blowing up

30:17

Iran's nuclear facilities, that

30:19

has profound implications for the

30:22

global economy, for U.S. national

30:24

security. I think it's

30:26

unlikely that Israel will take those types

30:29

of drastic measures absent

30:31

some type of a coordination or a green

30:33

or yellow light from the

30:36

U.S. administration. Now, we

30:39

can only speculate how the Iranians would

30:41

react to that. I think that Ayatollah

30:43

Khamenei and the Revolutionary

30:46

Guards abend in this dilemma, because

30:48

by not reacting to things like

30:50

the assassination of Haniya, they essentially

30:53

projected weakness and vulnerability, and they

30:55

feel like in hindsight they actually

30:58

encouraged greater Israeli provocations.

31:00

At the same time, Christian, this

31:03

is an 85-year-old supreme leader,

31:05

Khamenei, probably the longest serving dictator in

31:07

the world. He hasn't left Iran since

31:10

1989. He's

31:12

not well equipped to be a wartime

31:14

leader in a very high-tech

31:16

military and financial war against

31:19

Israel and potentially the United

31:21

States. So

31:23

why do you think then, because he clearly

31:25

had to give his approval, that after a

31:27

huge amount of debate, and including the new

31:30

president of Iran, and I spoke to the

31:32

vice president of Iran, they made it very

31:34

clear, and they used these words, we do

31:36

not want to be, quote, unquote, entrapped into

31:39

a war with Israel. So

31:42

what happened? For

31:44

me, Christian, the president, former

31:48

foreign minister, Zadif, these are essentially

31:50

non-entities. They have no decision-making

31:53

authority. And the real

31:56

balance of power, which is not totally

31:58

clear from afar, is... is the

32:00

relationship between the Supreme Leader

32:02

and his top Revolutionary Guard commanders. To

32:05

what extent is he ordering

32:07

them or are they dictating now

32:09

to him? Because again, on

32:11

one hand there is a Khamenei doctrine,

32:13

which is when you're under pressure, either

32:16

domestically or externally, don't give in to

32:18

pressure. Don't retreat because that's going to

32:20

encourage the pressure. But also,

32:22

as Hannah Arendt said, even the most radical

32:24

revolutionary becomes a conservative the day after the

32:27

revolution because they have a lot to lose,

32:29

they want to preserve something. And I think that their

32:32

calculation is that by not acting

32:34

in the last month or two, the

32:37

Israelis just grew emboldened. But I

32:39

don't think what they did yesterday

32:42

puts this to rest. They're going to

32:44

face a major retaliation now from Israel,

32:47

the likes of which they haven't experienced.

32:49

Yeah, that seems to be

32:51

clear and seems to be being telegraphed all

32:53

over. And it seems to have been responded

32:56

to by Iran. Let me just play this

32:58

little bit of a clip from the IRGC

33:00

commander. If

33:03

the Zionist regime that has gone

33:05

crazy is not controlled by America

33:07

and Europe and wants to continue

33:09

these crimes or wants to do

33:11

anything against our sovereignty and territorial

33:13

integrity, tonight's operation will be repeated

33:15

several times stronger and all their

33:18

infrastructure will be targeted. So

33:21

actually that was the army chief of

33:23

staff, not the IRGC. Are they working

33:25

in tandem? And what could

33:27

Iran do if something

33:29

else happens? Because now twice you've

33:32

had a barrage of several

33:34

hundred missiles, drones, etc. And

33:37

almost all of them have been intercepted

33:39

and it didn't create the damage by

33:42

a long shot that Iran, I assume,

33:44

intended. What do you think they have?

33:48

Christian, this is very uncomfortable

33:50

terrain now for Iran because Iran

33:52

and its so-called axis of resistance,

33:55

they're very good when there's the element of

33:57

surprise. October 7th. were

34:00

sleeping, no one was paying attention. They're

34:02

good at carrying out assassinations in places

34:04

where no one is paying attention. But

34:07

when the world and Israelis are

34:09

on very, very high alert, their

34:12

capabilities are much more limited. As we

34:14

saw yesterday, the only individual whom they

34:16

killed was unfortunately a Palestinian individual in

34:19

the West Bank. Very

34:21

few of Iran's barrage went through.

34:24

And so this is not the type of war

34:26

that they're comfortable fighting. And I think, you know,

34:28

I will say that the parameters for the Iranian

34:31

regime on one hand, if they don't respond at

34:33

all, they lose face, which is not

34:35

a good look for a dictatorship. But

34:37

on the other hand, if they respond excessively, they

34:39

could lose their heads. And I

34:41

think they did respond excessively. And we'll wait

34:43

to see how the Israelis retaliate. And

34:46

finally, finally, the former Israeli prime minister

34:48

Naftali Bennett, and you obviously heard and

34:51

it's been written about, you

34:53

know, he said the leadership of Iran,

34:55

which used to be good at chess,

34:57

made a terrible mistake this evening. He

35:00

was talking yesterday. We must act now

35:02

to destroy Iran's nuclear program, its central

35:04

energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this

35:06

terrorist regime. How

35:10

do you explain this? I mean, everybody,

35:12

you know, they were always thought

35:14

of as the, you know, the negotiators,

35:17

the etc. I

35:19

was going to say the bazaaries, but you know what I mean, and

35:22

capable of playing chess in the

35:24

nation which invented

35:26

chess. But as you say, this has

35:29

gone off the rails or potentially could go

35:31

off the rails. You

35:34

know, the Islamic Republic is

35:36

like a late stage Soviet

35:38

Union. When you

35:40

constantly prioritize ideology

35:43

over competence, you're

35:46

left with a system which

35:48

is ideologically bankrupt, increasingly economically

35:51

bankrupt, and it's totally infiltrated.

35:53

There's such not only popular discontent

35:55

in Iran, but regime

35:57

discontent that I think there must

35:59

be be just tremendous paranoia and

36:02

mistrust about who leaked this information

36:04

that got Nasrallah killed, that got

36:06

Haniya killed. How did American journalist

36:08

Tom Friedman know when

36:11

Iran was going to attack

36:13

probably before Iran's own president, Pazesh Ghion,

36:15

did? And so this is a real

36:18

dilemma that the regime is in. And

36:20

there's no good answers because it's a

36:23

regime which has shown itself incapable of

36:25

really reforming and improving. And

36:28

just 30 seconds, do you think

36:30

the people of Iran will be

36:32

mobilized against the regime if Israel

36:35

attacks? That's

36:37

a very difficult question to answer. My

36:39

sense is that it will polarize society

36:41

along the lines which is polarized now,

36:43

meaning those who are supportive of the

36:45

regime, perhaps 15,

36:48

20 percent of society, they're going to be angered

36:50

against Israel and double down in support of the

36:52

regime. And those who are opposed to the regime

36:54

will be even more angry with them.

36:57

But unfortunately, those people are unorganized and

36:59

unarmed. So I don't anticipate that they

37:01

can suddenly take power away

37:03

from the revolutionary guards who are highly armed

37:05

and highly organized. All right.

37:08

Karim Sajapur, I'm hearing in my

37:10

ear that some people think chess

37:12

was embedded in India. We'll encyclopedia

37:14

that. Thank you so much indeed

37:16

for joining us. Many

37:22

times a day, CNN brings you five stories

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37:35

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37:48

Podcasts. Next

37:53

to the United States, where Latino communities

37:55

have long been overlooked when it comes

37:57

to their contributions to the nation. Yet

38:00

their votes will be some of the

38:02

most important in deciding the outcome of

38:04

the upcoming election next month. Emmy

38:07

winning actor and activist John Leguizamo

38:09

explores this in his new series,

38:11

The Untold History of Latinos. And

38:13

he joins Harry Street of us

38:16

and to discuss what's at stake.

38:19

Christian, thanks John Leguizamo. Thanks so much for joining

38:21

us. First, before we get started in

38:23

the most recent project that you're involved in, a

38:25

lot of people watch the Emmys and you had

38:27

a fantastic speech there. And I just kind of

38:29

want a little backstory. How do we get from

38:31

a kid that's growing up in Queens

38:35

to now a man that is

38:37

doing documentaries about the history, the

38:39

untold history really in a lot

38:41

of ways of Latinos in America?

38:44

It's pretty incredible. I mean, who would have

38:46

thunk? I would have never that I was

38:48

gonna be an activist, a

38:50

spokesperson, an artist, all

38:52

that. Just never seemed possible being a

38:54

young man in America in Queens because

38:58

you never saw yourself. You never

39:00

saw yourself anywhere, reflected anywhere positively.

39:03

So you had a sort of, I said, but in your family and your

39:05

neighborhood, that's all you saw. So

39:07

when I had the chance at the Emmys,

39:09

they gave me an incredible platform and the

39:11

biggest moment centerpiece of the night to

39:14

talk about the lack of Latin

39:17

representation in film and

39:19

how abysmal it is because

39:22

when the founding fathers of Hollywood got to

39:24

LA, Hollywood

39:26

had just been Mexico 60

39:28

years prior and they walked

39:30

into a predominantly Latino culture.

39:34

And yet we were not putting on

39:36

screen ever except in D.W. Griffith's Birth

39:38

of a Nation where we were the

39:41

villains. Thank you, D.W. Griffith. You

39:43

mentioned some kind of anecdotes on stage about really

39:45

the only thing that you were watching when you

39:47

were growing up was maybe Speedy Gonzales or Ricky

39:49

Ricardo, if you were lucky to even see Latin

39:51

representation. But there were studies, I think, out of

39:53

Johns Hopkins last year that said like 87% of

39:55

Latino history is

39:58

really given five sentences or less. less if

40:00

it's even in the history books that kids

40:03

study today because, you know, similar

40:06

to African-American history being American history,

40:08

we don't necessarily see how Latino

40:10

history has really just weaved into

40:12

the history of this country. It's

40:15

incredible how we are kind

40:17

of living sometimes in a parallel

40:19

shadow world, which is crazy because

40:22

we've always been the largest ethnic

40:24

group in America. We're the oldest

40:26

ethnic group after indigenous people. And

40:29

yet we're invisible. The genesis of this

40:31

show was my son was doing a history project

40:33

in eighth grade and I wanted to help him,

40:36

you know, be a good dad and get some

40:38

brownie points from my wife. And

40:40

I saw that there were no Latino

40:42

contributions in his history textbook. So I

40:45

became super sleuth dad and bought all

40:47

the books on Amazon and Latino history,

40:49

went on the sites. And what I

40:51

learned was so mind

40:53

boggling that it changed my DNA

40:56

and my chromosomes immediately. When

40:59

I learned that Latinos fought in every

41:01

war America has ever had, I'm talking

41:03

about the American Revolution, Civil War, World

41:05

War I, World War II, 10,000, I

41:07

know Latino pages

41:09

fought in the American Revolution out of 80,000

41:11

total troops. We

41:14

were one in eight. We funded the

41:16

American Revolution. Cuba, Mexico and

41:18

Spain gave $2 million to George

41:20

Washington. When George Washington was running

41:22

low on cash to pay his

41:25

army, he turned to his Latino

41:27

amigos for help. The Cuban, Spanish

41:29

and Mexican people delivered the needed

41:31

money, making it possible for Washington's

41:33

troops to keep fighting. A

41:37

lot of people donated wedding rings,

41:39

gold and silver churches with chalices

41:41

and deliver it so that they

41:44

pay the militias. Miguel

41:46

Vaz raises this multicultural

41:49

army as well as

41:51

his navy comprised of

41:53

Espanolas, Native Americans, manumitted

41:56

slaves, free slaves, what

41:58

we now consider Guanos.

42:00

Puerto Ricanos, Mexicanos, and

42:02

Guaturianos. We

42:05

helped build the railroads all the way to the

42:07

Pacific after our Asian brothers and sisters were kicked

42:09

out. Then we built the whole infrastructure for the

42:11

West and the Southwest. And then

42:13

I learned the sad parts, where from 1830 to 1930,

42:18

6,000 Latinos were lynched, burned alive,

42:20

and shot. Then we were

42:23

massacred. We were redlined. We were segregated. We

42:25

were experimented on. Our women were sterilized,

42:28

unbeknownst to them in California in the early 1900s. And

42:32

yet, we were the first to fight against

42:35

segregation. In 1911, the Maestas

42:38

family in Denver, Colorado, and they

42:40

won. Sylvia Mendez fought against

42:42

segregation in 1940 and

42:44

won, paid the way for Brown versus

42:46

Board of Ed. We made great contributions.

42:48

Right now, we're at the

42:50

biggest inflection point. After all that oppression

42:53

and tragedy, we contribute $3.6

42:55

trillion to the GDP yearly.

43:00

If we were our own economic nation, we'd

43:02

be the fifth largest nation in the world,

43:04

bigger than India, bigger than England, bigger than

43:06

France, bigger than Brazil. Why do

43:09

you think it is, given this long

43:11

history of contribution to this country, that

43:14

there is still a tendency to

43:16

otherize or marginalize the

43:18

contributions, but also just

43:21

the human beings that are American

43:24

based on a whole host

43:26

of different factors? I mean, I

43:28

think it's pretty obvious. It's a

43:32

power grant. Texas,

43:35

we were the majority in Texas, the majority

43:37

in California when it was invaded by the

43:39

US, and we were promised to

43:41

keep our political power and land wealth. And

43:43

yet, when we helped flip all

43:45

those territories to America, they turned against

43:47

us. So we became the enemy very

43:50

early on, because

43:52

we also spoke a different language that we weren't giving

43:54

up. And

43:57

yet we still continue. Who's the essential

43:59

workers in America? who's

44:01

doing all the farming and growing all the

44:03

produce. Latinos, I mean,

44:05

we have been essential laborers and

44:07

workers for America since the beginning,

44:10

aside our black brothers and sisters

44:12

who were in slavery. But you

44:14

see these sort of familiar patterns

44:16

repeating. It's like we don't necessarily

44:18

learn from history. We just sort of end

44:20

up repeating some of its mistakes. And you

44:22

pointed out that, was it President

44:24

Hoover was talking about real jobs for real Americans?

44:27

And you see something very, very close now.

44:31

The first time that we were

44:33

deported in large numbers, it

44:35

was called the Repatriation Act. And he was

44:37

blaming us because the depression that just happened,

44:39

that we were taking jobs that Americans wanted.

44:42

So they deported two million American citizens. 60%

44:44

of them were American citizens and

44:49

sent them back to Mexico when most

44:51

of them had never been, had been

44:53

here for generations. And then they

44:56

did it again with the Wetback Act, which is a

44:58

horrible name in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And

45:02

they deported a million Latinos. A

45:04

majority of them were American citizens. And now again, a

45:08

third sort of horrible deportation

45:10

of American citizens were

45:13

the only ones that this horrific crime

45:15

keeps happening to. You

45:17

have had an opportunity in

45:19

this documentary to go to some pretty amazing

45:21

places. And there's a scene that I want

45:23

to get to. You're

45:25

in a tunnel of a temple that most people are never

45:27

going to get a chance to see. What

45:29

was that like? What did you learn there? Oh my God,

45:31

I went to Teotihuacan. Don't try to pronounce that.

45:34

You'll get hurt. We didn't

45:36

dig the subway tunnels of New York until about 100 years

45:38

ago. Two thousand years earlier,

45:41

the original scientists and rulers of Teotihuacan

45:43

built a series of tunnels, dozens

45:46

of feet beneath the ground without the

45:49

use of machinery or power tools. These

45:52

tunnels connected chambers holding treasures

45:54

long forgotten until they

45:56

were unearthed in 2003. We went

45:58

underground with the they had

46:00

these tombs that were beautiful. They were covered

46:02

in red mercury that is poisonous. You couldn't

46:04

touch the walls. And then they put gold

46:07

and pools of silver mercury. So when you

46:09

came in there with the torches to the

46:11

underworld, it all came to life. It

46:14

was like Disneyland before Disneyland. So that

46:17

was incredible. I was able to be there. These

46:20

are incredibly

46:22

advanced civilizations. The type of math,

46:24

the type of astronomy, the type

46:26

of society, laws, all

46:29

of these different things that they had already established. And

46:31

yet now, hundreds

46:33

of years later, when we look at them,

46:36

we have this sort of reductionist view

46:38

that they needed to be civilized, even

46:41

though they were already that. In fact,

46:43

they were far more so, as you

46:45

point out, compared to the

46:47

European colonizers that came. Yeah,

46:50

well, I mean, you can't rob

46:52

a whole people and all these

46:54

empires that

46:56

are in the world. And then you can have a slave population.

46:58

Otherwise, you'll have

47:01

rebels and rebellions and you don't want

47:04

that. And we had all this wealth of gold.

47:06

Spain and the conquest took 500,000 tons of gold

47:08

from us. That's like an empire

47:12

state building and a half worth

47:14

of gold and basically fueled the enlightenment, the

47:16

later Renaissance, all that gold you see in all the great churches

47:18

in Europe. That's our goal. And then twice as much silver, which

47:21

funds the

47:24

Chinese empires and the Byzantine empire. So all this wealth that

47:26

was taken from

47:28

us, you have to destroy the people

47:30

to take it from them. They melted up incredible museum

47:33

artifacts that we had. 12 foot

47:35

statues of solid gold, beautifully sculpted

47:40

by incredible artisans. We had incredible technology. We had

47:42

the first running toilets. The Aztecs had running toilets

47:44

in the palaces. The Incas have trepanation,

47:51

brain surgery that was much more successful than anything, even up

47:53

to the civil war.

47:55

We had to have this our

48:00

medicines, the Spaniards, Conquisto, said they

48:03

would rather be treated by an

48:05

Aztec doctor than by a European

48:07

doctor. That's how civilized and ahead

48:09

of everything we were. We had

48:11

binary code before our

48:14

computers today. That's how they kept track of

48:16

the population and did the census. I

48:18

mean, these were incredible cultures that were

48:21

completely decimated. One of the kind

48:23

of chapters that's intriguing to

48:25

me was just, I

48:27

guess, how we look at Christopher Columbus, for example.

48:29

You point out that when he arrived in 1492,

48:32

there were 1 million indigenous

48:35

people on Hispaniola. 16 years

48:38

later, 94% of them were

48:41

gone. Columbus basically is the

48:43

Hitler to us Latino indigenous

48:45

people because he started the

48:47

Caribbean Holocaust where 95% of all the

48:50

Tainos in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and

48:52

Dominican Republic and Haiti vanished

48:55

off the face of the earth from very

48:58

cruel treatment. I mean, if

49:01

you tried to run away, he would chop your feet

49:03

while you were alive. He burned people alive. If

49:06

you didn't produce enough gold, he would chop your

49:08

hands off and tie them to your neck. He

49:11

would set dogs onto babies. And

49:14

then he had a prostitution ring of

49:16

nine-year-old Taino girls that he bragged about in his

49:18

journals. He was finally arrested

49:22

in the Caribbean and then finally taken to Spain

49:24

and tried. That's how bad he

49:26

was, that his own people tried him.

49:28

We need to take down Columbus because

49:30

he's the beginning of the end of

49:33

what could have been the incredible civilization

49:35

that would be today. There would

49:37

be massive powerhouses. Just the very

49:40

facts that you're sharing now about

49:42

Columbus are likely to sort of

49:44

trigger some people in our audience

49:46

watching because we've also lived through

49:48

just in the past couple of

49:50

years this incredible cultural firestorm about

49:52

what type of facts

49:54

are shared in history books, in classrooms,

49:57

and kind of how we

49:59

determine the roots of

50:01

America. It's my European, Euro-Americans that I

50:03

think are having some problems, but I

50:05

don't think the majority. I think a

50:07

lot of white people in America understand

50:10

that America was made by

50:12

a lot of different groups and not just

50:14

white people. Obviously, whoever's ever in

50:16

power gets to control the narrative. As Plato

50:18

said, he who tells the

50:20

stories controls society. So

50:22

that's intuitively understood by everyone. But

50:26

it's time to change. It is really

50:28

time to change the textbooks. Otherwise, the

50:30

American textbooks are fiction. It's

50:32

a fiction. You're not learning the proper

50:34

history until you learn what black people,

50:36

Latino people, Asian people did in this

50:38

country to build it. And

50:41

the narrative that is constructed is to

50:44

maintain one group in power. You are

50:46

able to highlight people that I think

50:48

a lot of Americans have maybe forgotten.

50:50

I mean, we might have heard about

50:53

Cesar Chavez, but more likely than not,

50:56

Dolores Huerta, who you're able to sit

50:58

down with. And the

51:00

contributions that she made to the farm

51:02

workers movement are largely

51:05

hidden from the bulk

51:07

of Americans today. By

51:10

the time I graduated from high school,

51:12

most of my black and brown friends

51:14

at Filipinos, they had dropped out not

51:16

finishing high school, but we call it

51:18

push out. Because they

51:20

have an unwelcome climate the way that you're treated

51:22

in the schools that the kids don't feel welcome.

51:26

And I had this anger inside of me, but

51:28

I never knew what to do with it until

51:30

I learned how to organize. Women,

51:32

Latino women are a strong force of

51:35

nature and they've been activists and

51:37

revolutionaries alongside of us, if not

51:39

leading us. Jovita

51:42

I dar, an incredible Mexican woman

51:44

in the late 1800s or 1900s, was a journalist, ran

51:48

her own newspaper in the Southwest

51:51

and saved Latino children from being

51:53

lynched in the Southwest. Emmettin

51:56

Ayuca in the 1930s was a U.P. organized,

52:00

union organizers. So Latinos were

52:02

part of this union organizing

52:05

early on and there was

52:07

our women, such powerhouses. Right

52:09

now we're in the middle of a

52:11

heated campaign where the

52:13

outcome of the presidency could

52:16

be decided by an incredibly

52:18

small group of human beings, wherever

52:21

those people are in these battleground

52:23

states. What is it that

52:25

you think has to happen to try

52:27

to just make sure that, Latino

52:30

Americans today are motivated enough to

52:32

go to the polls and

52:34

to be part of this decision process, especially

52:36

in a very close race. I mean, we're

52:38

40% of the population in Texas, 30% of

52:41

the population in Arizona, so we're

52:43

massive. But

52:45

they're trying to keep us from voting, coming up with all

52:47

these reasons to have

52:50

birth certificates with you, who has a birth certificate? I

52:52

don't even know what my birth certificate is, to

52:55

show up to vote. It's just

52:57

crazy, craziness, taking away mailing

53:00

boxes, voting, it's nuts.

53:02

But the main thing is, like

53:04

I've said for two presidencies already,

53:06

you need to get Latino experts,

53:08

Latino consultants to help you figure

53:10

out how to talk to us.

53:13

You gotta go to our radio

53:15

stations, WhatsApp. You

53:17

gotta speak in Spanish, you gotta knock on our

53:19

doors. You gotta come to our

53:21

neighborhoods, you gotta talk to us. We're

53:23

winnable, but you have to court us. Obviously,

53:26

the thing that Latinos really care about is

53:28

the economy, because we're at

53:30

the bottom of the economic food

53:32

chain. So for them, food prices,

53:34

gasoline prices, housing, that's their

53:37

main preoccupation. And we recently

53:39

had a conversation on the program about

53:42

a new book called Defectors, and it was

53:44

the rise of the Latino right in America,

53:46

and why in ways the Trump campaign is

53:48

actually more successful than Democrats

53:51

thought they would be. What

53:54

do you think it is about

53:56

the messages that Donald Trump

53:59

is sending? that resonate with

54:01

Latinos who are in support of him? I mean,

54:03

because he lies. He lies. He says, I'm going

54:05

to give you huge, huge tax breaks. I'm going

54:07

to, you know, change the tax. He's not going

54:10

to change any of that. He can't. But

54:12

it works. It works for Latinos, you know, and

54:15

for black groups, unfortunately. You know,

54:17

when President Trump signed those checks with his

54:19

name that no other president has ever done,

54:21

Latinos bought it and believed it. And they

54:23

think if he's president, that he's going to

54:25

be signing more checks for them. And

54:28

obviously there's a huge, very

54:30

Christian Latino group that

54:33

can lean right because they're very conservative.

54:35

So you have that group. You

54:39

know, you got to do a lot of work. You got to

54:42

go out there and work, you know, AOC did it in

54:45

an area that was predominantly Latino, but always

54:47

run by white congressmen and senators.

54:49

And she came in, knocked on doors. My

54:51

mom joined in and her friends and they

54:53

went door to door. She stomped in every

54:55

neighborhood and she won and she will win

54:58

again that way. What do

55:00

you hope that young people take away

55:02

from American history? I mean, because whether

55:06

they're young people that are of Latin

55:08

roots or not, what do you want

55:10

them to remember from this? Well, my

55:12

DNA changed immediately from feeling so small

55:15

in in class and school

55:17

when all the literatures, white people, all

55:19

the all the geniuses in

55:21

the world were white. Everything was

55:23

white a file. And

55:25

then to learn that we had all

55:27

these incredible empires and culture and contributions

55:30

to the making America. And then not

55:32

in history textbooks. When these young people

55:34

see this, they will be changed forever

55:37

and will feel that they can be

55:39

great, that they can achieve greatness because

55:41

they come from greatness. John

55:43

Leguizamo, thank you so much for your time.

55:46

You are the host of in your most

55:48

recent project, Vojez American Historia, the untold history

55:50

of Latinos. Thank you. Thank

55:52

you so much. Thank you. What

55:54

a blast. And finally tonight, a

55:57

historic first for Latin America's biggest

55:59

democracy this week. Mexico inaugurated its

56:01

first ever female president, Claudia Schoenbaum.

56:03

She's a climate scientist, a former

56:05

mayor of Mexico City, and the

56:08

country's first Jewish head of state.

56:10

While to many she represents a

56:13

triumph for women in a country

56:15

deeply scarred by gender-based violence, to

56:17

others she embodies simply a continuation

56:19

of what's been a democratic erosion.

56:21

Leading a heavily polarized Mexico, the

56:24

next six years will determine how

56:26

her turn in the nation's highest

56:28

office goes down in history. That's

56:31

it for now, thank you for watching and goodbye from

56:33

London.