Read Full Transcript EXPAND
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. And welcome to AMANPOUR AND COMPANY. Here is what’s coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Protesters stormed Brazil’s Congress, but how did this happen and how far will they go? We have a special report. And.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: As the 118th United States Congress gets off to a rocky start, I am joined by Illinois Freshmen Representative Delia Ramirez.
Then, Prince Harry flies solo dropping bombs about his family, his war with the UK tabloids, and the depth of his grief. I speak to Anderson Cooper who
interviewed him and to award winning British journalist, Emily Maitlis who did that interview with Prince Andrew. Plus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN JEALOUS, FORMER NATIONAL PRESIDENT AND CEO, NAACP AND AUTHOR, “NEVER FORGET OUR PEOPLE WERE ALWAYS FREE”: People were coming together for a
full century before we had racism tearing us apart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: A parable of healing. Civil rights leader, Ben Jealous talks to Walter Isaacson about his new book on the lessons from Americas past.
Welcome to the program everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London where British leaders have joined the global condemnation of the assault on
Brazil’s democratic institutions by insurrectionists.
On Sunday, they stormed the country’s Congress and the Supreme Court. They also marched on the Presidential palace in the capital Brasilia. Eerily, it
happened around the January 6th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. capital.
The insurgents are supporters of the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who in turn has modeled himself on Donald Trump. U.S. President
Joe Biden sent a message to the country’s elected leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, saying that Brazil’s democracy has Americas full backing.
Hundreds have been arrested since the attack, and Lula da Silva vows that all those responsible will be held accountable. Correspondent Rafael Romo
has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAFAEL ROMO, SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Brazil boiling over. Supporters of former Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed key
buildings in the country’s capital, Sunday, breaching security barriers and temporarily occupying the country’s Congress, Presidential Palace, and
Supreme Court.
Masses of protesters flooded the country seat of power. Many dressed in the colors of Brazil’s flag, yellow and green, fueled by anger and distrust
over Bolsonaro’s defeat in a runoff election last October where he lost by less than two percentage points by current President Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva. Protesters threw objects and scaled the roofs of buildings while clashing with police who responded with tear gas. At least, one protester
was seen sitting at Brazil’s Congress president.
CNN Brazil reports the floor of the Congress building was flooded after the sprinkler system activated when protesters attempted to set fire to the
carpet. By evening, police began dispersing the rioters from buildings and arrested hundreds of people who were detained in buses before being taken
to the police station. President Lula da Silva, who was inaugurated just a week ago, described the events as barbaric and vowed to punish the people
responsible.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA, BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Those people we call fascist, we call them everything that’s abominable in
politics. They invaded the government headquarters and they invaded the Congress like vandals, destroying everything in their path.
ROMO (voiceover): President Lula da Silva also blamed his predecessor for the lack of security in the capital where Bolsonaro’s supporters have been
camped out for over a week. Bolsonaro, who is currently in Florida, denounced what he called the depredations and invasions of public buildings
in a tweet. Adding that peaceful and lawful demonstrations are part of democracy. But critics say that Bolsonaro may have stirred up the crowds by
repeatedly saying, without evidence, that he questioned the integrity of the country’s electronic voting system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, that was Rafael Romo reporting. And from Brazil, we hear that Bolsonaro supporters have now all been disbanded from that area.
Now, the parallels, as we said, between Brazil’s January 8th and America’s January 6th are striking. Even now, two years after the capitol building
was stormed in Washington, the 118th American Congress commemorated the day with yet more chaos. Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, struggling through
15 votes to get the speaker’s gavel. His victory finally came after he made yet more concessions to a hardline group of rebels.
It is sparking fears of a dysfunctional Congress while the United States faces urgent challenges. Challenges like immigration with President Biden
highlighted on his visit to the southern border before traveling on to Mexico. It is a very real issue for my first guest tonight. The Freshman
Representative from Illinois, Delia Ramirez.
Welcome to the program Congresswoman from Washington. I just want to ask you, south of the border, you saw what happened in Brazil to the point
that, you know, an insurrectionist was sitting in the speaker’s chair there just as they did in Nancy Pelosi’s chair on January 6th, 2020. Do you think
that there is a sort of retrenchment of democracy in the United States or do you think that there are still, you know, issues.
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ, (D-IL-03): There is certainly still issues and — Christiane, first thing, thank you so much for having you with me today. As
I watched those images, it was triggering. What happened in Brazil is deja vu to what we experienced here two years ago. But truthfully even as we
waited three or four days to be able to finally be sworn in, feeling like our Congress was held hostage by rebels who wanted to negotiate away
rights, democracy in our own Congress, in our own speakership role, all of that feels like we have not really surpassed where we were two years ago.
AMANPOUR: So, you are talking about your own swearing in which was delayed by the endless votes to get Kevin McCarthy in the speaker’s office and
holding that gavel. So, here is veteran, you know, Washington Journalist Margaret Carlson, who said, McCarthy will be made miserable by the same
nihilists who forced him to crawl on glass to win. He will have to face the job he debased himself for.
So, respond to that in terms of whether there is even going to be a stable Congress. Because it appears that he can be thrown out by even one rebel at
any time.
RAMIREZ: That’s correct. That is correct. I mean, this is someone that, at any cost, and it didn’t matter what he had to give away or sell out to just
to become speaker. This was — this obsession, I want to be speaker, I want the title, even if it means that it strips all my powers and my authority.
What we saw in the last four days and we’re going to continue to see, even as we go in to vote on rules tonight is no real governance. And, in part
mostly because Kevin McCarthy decided to just give everything up to these rebels who are going to threaten and attack our democracy at every single
corner in Congress.
AMANPOUR: So, no real governance and there are many, many issues including, obviously, economic issues but also immigration issues, which
the President Biden is highlighting today. He has been to the border, he’s got — he’s in Mexico City with the President there.
For you, this is extremely personal. I mean, literally you are a first generation — I mean, literally you came to the United States in your
mother’s belly. She was pregnant when she had to swim across the river to get through. Tell me about how that personal story put you where you are
today.
RAMIREZ: I mean, for me, my mother escaped poverty. My mother did not wear her first pair of any shoes, sandals for that matter, until the age of
seven when she bought them herself after selling coffee that she cut in coffee plantations back in our town.
And so, to be able to see where we are and the crisis that we see across the country, but particularly what we are seeing at the border of people
seeking life, survival. I think of my mother nearly dying in that border, nearly dying crossing a border in Rio Grande in her first trimester,
pregnant of me. And how much she risked and things that we won’t even know that she went through crossing that border so that her daughter can be born
here and today be the first Latina to go to Congress from the entire Midwest.
It is certainly a moment of gratitude for me, humility, personal as we talk about immigration, but also a sense of urgency and responsibility as that
daughter.
AMANPOUR: And I believe she came from Guatemala, right? That was your home country?
RAMIREZ: She did.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
RAMIREZ: So, she crossed all of Guatemala. My family is from the border of Honduras in El Salvador. So, it was crossing all of Guatemala and all of
Mexico to be able to finally get here.
AMANPOUR: So, there have been — there has been a lot of issues with refugees trying to get to the United States, trying to claim asylum, all
the rules and regulations have made it incredibly, incredibly hard for them. And again, this is personal for you. Your own husband is a so-called
“DREAMer” under the DACA Program. He’s not yet a citizen. I mean, you obviously are, you were born in the United States.
So, how urgent is it for you to get some kind of rational immigration policy?
RAMIREZ: It’s urgent for me, but it’s urgent to so many people. When we think about “DREAMers”, DACA recipients, they’re no longer children. They
are 35, 36. In my husband’s case, 37 years old. They have over 300,000 American children in this country. They are essential workers. They’re home
health care workers. They work in the health care system.
And we have been talking and debating about a pathway to citizenship for so long on both sides of the aisle. And I think that we have reached a place
that we can’t continue to have conversations that lead to nothing. We need to get to a place of real negotiation, real coordinated conversation that
leads to a pathway to citizenship to people that contribute billions of dollars to this country every single year.
People that are my husband, my brother-in-law who is also a “DREAMer”, my best friend from high school who has been here since she was five years
old, has raised three children and put them through — and put at least one of them through college. They are the essence of this country and we cannot
continue to politicize this issue.
AMANPOUR: Congresswoman Ramirez, I want to ask you about how often many in the public and many on the political right, certainly, essentially talk
down immigration, those who call for a rational policy. They say your, you know, you’re open borders and you don’t care about security, et cetera.
Today, or whenever he was at the border, the Texas governor handed President Biden a letter. Partly it says, you have violated your
constitutional obligation to defend the states against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws. How do you respond when you get that
kind of — you and others get the kind of — and President Biden, get the kind of criticism that they are not being tough enough against refugees,
migrants, asylum workers?
RAMIREZ: I find that to be completely hypocritical. This country has always been a country of immigrants. Quite frankly, a country that will
cease asylum seekers, that is part deeply entrenched in who we say we are as a nation that cares for others, that loves on others, that receives
those that are seeking an opportunity to survive and to be able to thrive.
Kevin McCarthy in his opening speech as he became speaker of our House said that it was a moment for him of history as a son of immigrants was now
becoming the speaker of the House. Well, what’s different? He is a — he is the grandson of immigrants from Europe. Are we now going to make
classifications, which is exactly what we have done? That it depends on where the immigrant is coming?
Asylum seeking is asylum seeking. And I think it’s very hypocritical to call this invasion. We are a country. A country that is made up of everyday
people, immigrants that have created the economy, the power and ability of this country. Denying asylum to people who are crossing, risking their
lives. The number of women that are being raped in those borders just to be able to get here.
Tells us that people are not just waking up in the morning and saying, I think I’m bored here in Mexico, in Honduras, in Guatemala, and El Salvador,
I will risk my life and nearly die to get to the other side and sleep in concrete. The reality is that no one would be crossing that border if it
weren’t because it is the last opportunity for survival.
AMANPOUR: As your mother herself found, again, she was yanked, you know, out of the, you know, the jaws of death by somebody who came to rescue her,
seeing that she was being —
RAMIREZ: That’s right.
AMANPOUR: — you know, taken away by the very stiff current. So, how would you because we hear now that President Biden will be talking to the Mexican
President, it’s all about numbers. Who’s going to take what? How it is going to, you know, shape up? You know, you also have the example of
Canada, the Canadian prime minister is in the room as well.
Canada seems to have a rational immigration policy. They are able to deal with, you know, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria,
from Afghanistan, those are the very latest. And have all the, sort of, implementation in place to ease their way and assimilate into the country.
Do you have actually any hope that that can happen in the United States? And what grade would you give President Biden so far?
RAMIREZ: I would not be here in Congress if I did not have hope that we can get to a place of comprehensive immigration reform. And I certainly
believe that we could be doing a much better job in so many, so many levels.
The reality is that my uncle who has been in this country for 35 years, seeking every single moment to be able to legalize this process should not
have to wait 35 years for a case because we have back case logs. or because we have a system that has not really defined a process for immigration
reform.
We have to do that work. But the reality also is that up until 2023, we did not have enough people, like me who actually exemplify how personal the
situation is and the impact that it is having on an entire nation. I have hope that with the number of us, particularly the freshman Democrats coming
in, that the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, that the Haitian Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, and even the Congressional Black Caucus can come
together in a courting effort to move the needle legislatively and in Congress.
While also work in partnership with the President, but hold the administration accountable when it seems to be also backing away from this
work. Look, we need to end Title 42. We should not be expanding it. And that is what it feels like we are doing in this moment.
AMANPOUR: And that of course —
RAMIREZ: We have to make sure —
AMANPOUR: — that was the —
RAMIREZ: Yes, go ahead.
AMANPOUR: I mean, system put in place to sort of regulate numbers during COVID, but I hear what you are saying. Can I ask you one final question?
You know, you say, you know a big incoming class of Democrats. But in the House, obviously, they have a slight majority, your opposition. And they
seem to be weaponizing, basically, governance.
And this is not new. We’ve seen it under the, you know, the Trump administration, it goes all the way back to Newt Gingrich. I mean — I
guess, again, what space, do you think, there will be in this 118th Congress for you all to work across the aisle and legislate on big issues
like this, which seemed to be existential to the Republicans?
RAMIREZ: Yes, that is correct. Look, there is going to be a lot of defense, it’s just the reality of what we saw these last four days. I was
hoping it would not have been this bad. We all saw three or four rounds, McCarthy gets elected, we start working. They allowed it to be four days
where constituency services could not be provided. Where we were not able to be sworn in and actually start doing the work.
This has told me that we are going to have to be in defense, most of the time. But I also have to say that the fact that they barely won the
majority tells us that there are a number of Republican members of Congress who are in districts where they have to actually consider the possibility
of moving to the left, moving more moderate. I find that in those places, there might be an opportunity to build some kind of partnership if it is in
housing and childcare, and maybe even in a conversation about immigration.
AMANPOUR: And of course, homelessness is a big issue of yours as well. Congresswoman, Delia Ramirez, thank you for joining us.
Next, to a seismic royal eruption on both sides of the pond. From self- imposed exile in California, Britain’s Prince Harry is making waves with deeply personal revelations about his own family, the so-called firm of
gray bureaucrats that run Buckingham Palace, and especially about his own deep and lasting trauma since his mother’s death with the voracious
paparazzi in hot pursuit of her car. In a handful of interviews to promote his new book “Spare”, the duke a Sussex is accusing his family of having an
unholy alliance with the British tabloids. This is what he told Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes” last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRINCE HARRY, AUTHOR, “SPARE”: You know, the family motto is, never complain, never explain. But it’s just a motto and it does not really hold
—
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: There’s a lot of complaining and a lot of explaining.
PRINCE HARRY: Endlesss.
COOPER: Private — being done through leaks.
PRINCE HARRY: Through leaks. They will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent and that correspondent will literally be spoon-fed
information and write the story, and then the bottom of it they will say that they’ve reached out to the Buckingham Palace of comments. But the
whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting.
So, when we are being told for the last six years, we cannot put a statement out part to protect you, but you do it for other members of the
family, there becomes a point where silence is betrayal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Well, Anderson joins me now from New York. Also, with us from London is the award-winning British journalist Emily Maitlis, co-host of
“The News Agents” podcast. In 2019, her incisive interview with Prince Andrew for the BBC dealt a body blow to him and the crown.
Welcome, both of you to the program. Anderson, what he just said to you at the last bit of that snippet was at some point, silence is betrayal. So,
they and he is saying that I have to break this institutional silence in order to be able to get to the truth. Do you think he is being successful
in that? What’s your, I guess, observations since interviewing him and reading the book?
COOPER: You know, look they’re — obviously, people are very divided on Prince Harry, on his wife Meghan, on the royal family in the United
Kingdom, in Great Britain, around the world, in the United States.
Look, he will say, you know, after a lifetime spent being talked about and written about often incorrectly, he is trying to set the record straight.
Tell his story. His critics will say, look, he is profiting off, you know, his association with the royal family, which he is also criticizing and
revealing secrets from. I think, obviously, people will see this differently.
I do think his desire to set — try to set the record straight and explain who he is and how he sees things is important to him. And set aside, you
know, the Netflix series with his wife, Meghan, you know the battle that he sees himself engaged in. A battle that he sees that began in, you know,
August 31st, the day his mother in 1997 was killed in that tunnel. He sees this as a continuation of that battle, I think. And he has been — you
know, this is something he feels — he has been focused on for really his entire life.
AMANPOUR: And I’m going to get to the grief aspect because it is fundamental in a second.
But first, Emily, I want to ask you, you are steeped in the way it’s all playing out here. You had that amazing interview with Prince Andrew in
which he thought he had done so well when you interviewed him, only to see his entire, sort of, public persona collapse. What do you think and what do
the British people thinking about Harry’s so-called truth-telling? Does — do you think people here might think that is a betrayal?
EMILY MAITLIS, JOURNALIST/CO-HOST, “THE NEWS AGENTS” PODCAST: Yes, I think I’m probably out of step with what most British people think. I think many
people here are tired of the dirty laundry, the airing of private stuff in public, the making public. All these relationships that have been kept
under wraps for so long. But I think Harry has raised a critical question here, which is about the monarchy’s relationship with what you call the
voracious U.K. media.
And I think what Harry has portrayed is that monarchy is not really a team sport. That they are professionally competitive with each other, even
within this family bond and these relationships and the bit of Anderson’s interview that has, sort of, had jaws dropping here was when he talked
about the bodies, you know, that Camilla had basically made him collateral damage to augment her standing amongst the British public.
And I think just for us to have this glimpse of how that works, if that is how it works, or at least how he felt it worked, is really quite shocking,
you know. That he, sort of, portrayed himself, yes. He has been talking to the media and I guess there’s a lot of people who will say, well, that’s
pretty hypocritical. You are talking to the media. You are writing books. You are doing the documentary.
But he is accountable. You know, his name is on the book and his face is on the documentary. And I think that’s the difference that he’s tried to make.
That he stood there and said, I’m not doing this in briefings. I’m not doing this in darkly lit rooms. I’m not taking media editors out to try and
push my P.R., you know, a little bit higher. I’m standing before you, sort of, emotionally stark naked.
AMANPOUR: That is so interesting that you bring that up because Anderson, I want to play that little bit. Well, you lead us into it. Basically, I
think that he said things about Camilla, that the British press did not pick up on early. And now, in these interviews —
COOPER: Yes.
AMANPOUR: — with you. So, tell me how surprising that was to you and then we will play the little soundbite?
COOPER: Yes. When I read the book, and I read the book two weeks ago as I was preparing for this interview. Obviously, it’s 416 pages. The — what he
says about Camilla, the queen consort, to me was startling and incredibly raw.
And, you know, I — certainly from his perspective, very honest portrayal of the way he viewed her. You know, he referenced Princess Diana calling
her in the third person in the marriage. Talking about, you know, she was – – he calls her dangerous. Dangerous because she needed to rehabilitate her image, and to do that she was willing to trade information, according to
Prince Harry, about other members — about Prince Harry.
And one of the things Prince Harry said, which didn’t make it into our interview, but that idea of him being the spare, for him one of the
downsides of that is that he believes in the British medias mind, and perhaps even in the minds of some people in the royal family, he was
expendable.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
COOPER: Therefore, he was a bargaining chip to be used to better one’s reputation in the case of Camilla. He talks — he writes in the book,
again, not in our interview, but he writes in the book about Camilla, her son apparently had some sort of issue and the tabloids because of
allegations of drug use or some misbehavior alleged. And that she used information about others in order to help protect her own son. And just
that trading of information, to me, was one of the more startling aspects of this.
AMANPOUR: So, to that point, the dangerous thing when he called her dangerous to you because of the relationship she was forging with the
British press, this is the bit of your interview that we’re going to play.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: How was she dangerous?
PRINCE HARRY: Because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image.
COOPER: That made her dangerous?
PRINCE HARRY: That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on
both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was going to be people or
bodies left in the street because of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Wow. Bodies left in the street. It is — and Emily picked up on that too.
COOPER: And he was one of those bodies.
AMANPOUR: Right.
COOPER: He would say he was one of those bodies. And also, I should just point out, it is — it did not go unnoticed by Prince Harry. Again, it
didn’t make into our interview but some that we talked about during our interview that Jeremy Clarkson was invited to the luncheon several days
before he wrote that viscous article or comment piece about Meghan, about the Duchess of Sussex. Saying that she should be, you know, paraded through
the streets naked with people throwing things at her.
That she attend — that he attended a lunch that Camilla had given along with other members of the media. That was not lost on Prince Harry.
AMANPOUR: Yes, I mean, that was just extraordinary. It wasn’t lost on a lot of people in this country. And Jeremy Clarkson himself, with a massive
platform, you know, first Top Gear, then — you know, whatever it is he does on Amazon Prime.
But I want to know from both of you. And Emily, I want to ask you. He, Prince Harry, he stated several times that not only is he trying to get his
story and the truth out about this unholy alliance, but that he hopes that they can, somehow, things can change, this toxic relationship. You both
know what it’s like to be pursued by the media, to be in the media, to see what the media does two others.
Emily, has — is there a chance in hell that maybe this will cause some rethink in the, you know, boardrooms or the newsrooms of the tabloids?
MAITLIS: No, I don’t think so. I mean, my sense is that Harry and William fell out because they vowed long ago not to let the media do to them, as
brothers, what they had seen it do to their parents, and particularly to their mother. And I think if Harry mistrusted the press when he was
younger, he hated the press after his mother’s death and clearly blames them in part for it.
And I’m guessing that William, probably, turned into the pragmatist. You know, he was going to be the monarch. He is going to inherit the crown. He
works out that you have to have a working relationship with the British media. And Harry, at that point, said, how can you betray what we both know
has happened? That is my sense.
But I think there’s something more fundamental to the message that he’s carrying here, and it’s in the title of the book. Which is “Spare”. And I
guess this goes back to Prince Andrew as well, and to Margaret, Princess Margaret as well.
If you’re looking to see whether this is damaging the monarchy, what Harry is saying, I don’t think it’s immediate. I think what he is trying to do is
signal a warning, it’s like a siren. You have to take care of the second child in these royal families. You have to give them a purpose. You have to
stop calling them the spare. You have to let them know that their life is not, sort of, organ replacement for whoever is their superior sibling.
Because if you don’t, this is going to happen time and time again.
You know, we’ve got a royal family with George that will come into position as king, and Charlotte, Louis, siblings behind them. And if this doesn’t
change, fundamentally, you’re just going to see it happen again and again.
AMANPOUR: That is incredible. I’m going to get to that in a second. But first I want to ask Anderson about the grief aspect, which you just cannot
ignore. I mean, it’s so raw. He is suffering so much still. He talks about post traumatic injury. And here’s a clip, you know, when you were talking
to him about how he even managed to think about his mother’s death in those very early days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: You didn’t believe she was that.
PRINCE HARRY: For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was gone. Part of — you know, she would never do this to us. But also, part of —
maybe this is all part of a plan.
COOPER: I mean, you really believe that maybe she had just decided to disappear for a time?
PRINCE HARRY: For a time, and then that she would call us and we were going to join her.
COOPER: How long did you believe that?
PRINCE HARRY: Years. Many, many years. I don’t think I talked about it as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Anderson, you’ve been very open, especially open, about your own grief. The loss of your brother to suicide. And many other real tragedies
that you have lived through your life. What was it like for you, hearing this boy, you know, talk about such a depth of grief that he is still
trying to figure out?
COOPER: Yes, look, I certainly — you know, you and I have talked about this. I have a whole podcast about grief and loss. I certainly think I
understood that seminal event of, I think for anybody out there who lost a parent, who’s parent died early when they were a child. It fundamentally
changes who you are. It changes the trajectory of your life.
And it certainly has with Harry, and the ripple effects of that are still felt into adulthood. I mean, it is extraordinary to hear him say that up
until he was 23 and visited the underpass, visited the tunnel where his mother was killed, that was the final thing that stopped him having this
magical thinking that maybe she was on an island somewhere and would reappear one day. I think, for — maybe people having been through that,
they think, well, that sounds ludicrous.
But, you know, that’s not an unusual — my mom used to send me pictures of just random pictures. She would find people who she thought maybe was my
brother who died in front of her when my brother was 23. So that is something — that magical thinking is something that people in grief
experience.
But I think it is stunning. I think it is central to understanding who Harry is today and the man he is. How he deals with his children. How he
sees his relationship with his wife. And I think it explains a lot about what we have seen in him over the years.
AMANPOUR: Emily, why do you think that Harry and Meghan received much more warmly, are much more popular in the United States right now than they are
here? And the polls show that their particular poll numbers are dropping. I don’t know what will happen after these interviews, but before these
interviews the polls were showing that, you know, his popularity was dropping.
What does it say to you about the difference between which his home country and his adopted country have received him?
MAITLIS: I think there is a real sense of protection here about the queen. And that was certainly the sense while she was still living, and when Harry
and Meghan left the U.K. There was a sense that they were somehow betraying her by leaving. And I think people who don’t particularly feel anything
against Harry still felt that he was damaging her and damaging the institution and damaging everything that she had done in the longevity and
the sort of grace of her reign. So, I think that was partly it.
And I also think that unless you, kind of, live and breathe the power of the British media here, it’s quite hard to understand. So, when the Netflix
documentary came out, a lot of, sort of, commentators here were saying that there were no real revelations in it. And I think, for me, it became
obvious that that wasn’t — it wasn’t aimed at U.K. audience. It had Big Ben and red taxis. It was aimed at a much more international audience.
And I think for them, the understanding that Meghan, particularly, conveys about how online trolling is then converted into front page news would be
really shocking. You know, just to try and understand the power that the media has here, I think we’ve slightly forgotten that. And I, think when
you look across the pond, people are kind of going, oh, my God. You had to put up with that. You had to deal with that. You had to deal with people in
online chatrooms suddenly, you know, making the, sort of, hate mail about you. The front page of a newspaper.
And I think that might sort of indicate the division that we are seeing. That people here feel very protective to the queen and don’t actually
recognize, necessarily, the power of the media that we see every single day.
AMANPOUR: And Anderson, you know, he said in the British interview, I’m not sure whether he said it to you, that if everything else had been equal,
his mother would not have died in that tunnel. Even a drink by the chauffeur would not have had that effect at that speed that they were
going, had it not been for the hot pursuit in which she was. Why do you think the American press and the American people, are welcoming him more
than the Brits?
COOPER: Yes, I mean, there are certainly a lot of people in the United States who, I think, do not believe — I mean, you know, opinions vary
greatly, obviously. A lot of — there are many Americans who saw the Netflix thing. And even if they’re not royalists, they don’t believe Meghan
and some of the things she has said.
That being said, I do think when you are not familiar with the — when you — I think for many Americans, when you look at the British system from a
distance, and the British tabloid system, and realize the cooperation between the palace and the tabloids, I think it just looks very strange
from this distance. And it looks — I think people understand the story that Harry is telling, which is, you know, somebody who lost their mother
when they were 12 years old and the mother had been pursued relentlessly. Had been lied to by even, you know, allegedly reputable journalists who
interviewed her and tricked, it’s now known, with Martin Bashir.
And, you know, we look — I think Americans look at that and think, well, that’s just — who would want to live like that? And I do think it’s —
when you see the British tabloid machine up close, even just reading responses to this interview, it’s very — you can see the distinction
between those who are, you know, commenting in England, in Great Britain, who are have a relationship with tabloids or any publication. It’s a very
different perspective. And there is a viciousness which is really — it’s intense.
AMANPOUR: I wish we could — there’s so much more to dive into —
MAITLIS: I’ll also —
AMANPOUR: Emily, we’ll have you back, because there’s so much more to talk about. Emily Maitlis, Anderson Cooper, thank you both so much —
MAITLIS: It’s been a pleasure.
AMANPOUR: — for joining us.
MAITLIS: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Thank you very much.
So, our next guest is one of America’s most prominent civil rights leaders. Ben Jealous has worn many hats. He’s a scholar, a former president of the
NAACP, and even a former Democratic nominee for governor of Maryland. Now, “The New York Times” best-selling author has a memoir which will be
released in the U.S. tomorrow. Here’s — here he is with Walter Isaacson.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Thank you, Christiane. And Ben Jealous, welcome to the show.
BEN JEALOUS, AUTHOR, “NEVER FORGET OUR PEOPLE WERE ALWAYS FREE”: Thank you, Walter. It’s good to be here with you.
ISAACSON: You’ve had a very interesting career. Starting with the NAACP, moving on to head people for the American way. Now, you’re moving on to the
Sierra Club. And in some ways, it reflects an amazing background. Your family history descended from both confederate soldiers and enslaved
people. Let’s start with your great, great grandfather, Edward David Bland. Tell me about him.
JEALOUS: Yes, my grandmother’s grandfather, Mr. Bland, walked out of slavery on the very last day. He was a teenager then in a family where they
all knew they were cousins to General Lee. And he would go on about 15 years after the civil war, in the early 1880s to lead the Republican Party
in Virginia and to choose, as his partner in building a massive multiracial populist movement, a former confederate general named William B. Mahone.
The two of them were alarmed because the state was trying to crush the free public education system that had been created during reconstruction. And
here with reconstruction having ended and Jim Crow not yet, having begun, in that gap. The old plantation owner class had declared that they could
not afford the future of free public education and the civil war debt.
So, the two of them built a party called the Readjusters. Simple demand, readjust the terms of a civil war debt so we can maintain our free public
schools. They would go on to take over the state government entirely, abolish the poll tax, create the first public HBCU south of the Mason-
Dixon, and make Virginia Tech by radically expanding it the working-class rival to UVA.
What pained me, Walter, while I was researching the book was I had never been taught this history. I don’t think any of us have been taught that
former confederate soldiers and formerly enslaved men ever got together and did anything, let alone take over a state government.
ISAACSON: That was very prevalent for a short while in our country, which is having a populist movement of blacks and whites together. It’s almost a
vision of what we could have become. What happened to that?
JEALOUS: That movement was violently put down during my great, great grandfather’s bid for re-election. Six people were killed. There was vile
disinformation that inspired a lot of that violence. But ultimately, it was resurgent.
I mean, what you’re looking at there, the end of the 19th century is actually the planting of the seeds for what would be the greatest movement
of the 20th century, which of course was FDR’s new deal coalition, and the way that that really led into Dr. King’s. And together defined, you know,
what the 20th century was all about. And it’s what gives me great hope that, in this century, we might just pull it back together too.
ISAACSON: You talk in your book about the great antidote for insanity would be understanding our roots better. Explain how that has helped you.
JEALOUS: You know, it’s — race is a burden. My dad is white, my mom is black, and I grew up on a bridge between black and white, north and south,
and even the old-world of the east coast in the cutting edge California, the place might parents move to try to find, you know, a great haven in our
country that really doesn’t exist anymore.
And digging into my family’s past, making peace with the fact that we’re related to Robert E. Lee, we descend from Thomas Jefferson’s grandma, but
also understanding the tribes that we come from both in West Africa and in East Africa, really allowed me to see the diversity of humanity in much
greater relief. And a better understanding that race is something that was imposed on all of us.
But what all of us have is heritage. What all of us have is history. And the further you dig into it, the quicker you find that we are all
connected. That we are all cousins. I even figured out that I was Dick Cheney’s cousin writing this book and, you know, for a guy who once ran for
governor in Maryland as a Democrat that was a hard pill to swallow.
ISAACSON: You talk about racism, and not — it’s not a permanent thing, you say it can be ended. How does your background help you push back
against people who say, no, this is so deeply ingrained, it’s going to be impossible to end racism?
JEALOUS: If you look at the state of Virginia where in 1619, really the — our country, as we know it began, it existed for 100. The American
experiment of Virginia existed for 100 years before the modern ocean of race was created. Race, as we understand it is a caste system that is based
on color. Race as it existed prior to the early 1700s was simply a — taken from an old Italian word for tribe, for a group of people defined by
geography.
And so, they tried to convince us that race is permanent because they say it’s always been this way. It hasn’t. It hasn’t even always been this way
in our country, on this soil. You know, this was something that was created by colonial enterprise that was dealing with European indentured servants
and African slaves coming together and rebelling. And they kept trying to split them. They used the military to split them. That didn’t quite work.
They used new laws to split them, that didn’t quite work.
So, then they reached for culture. And racism is an attempt to use culture to divide people. But what our own history shows, that people ultimately
want to come together. Because their children are facing the same problems, and I believe that that gravitational pull between the working people of
this country will ultimately lead us to overcome racism and finally make our nation what Frederick Douglass said, it was destined to be the most
perfect example of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen.
ISAACSON: Slavery is not much to the constitution, and yet it is woven into the constitution of the United States. So, how can you say that racism
is not in some ways embedded in the DNA of this country?
JEALOUS: Because the country really starts in 1619. Not in 1776 or the 1780s when the constitution was being drafted. And we forget — my
grandmother, one thing she would say — and that it was funny, my first professor in college of politics would say the same thing. He never forgets
that before there were slave rebellions, there were colonial rebellions.
And what they were talking about was there was a moment when European indentured servants and African slaves saw themselves just as that. You
know, people who shared a common predicament of being exploited while coming from different places and being in a slightly different position in
the early colonial experience. But they didn’t see themselves as, you know, the N-word, or the C-word, or the way that we’ve all been dehumanized
since.
And then all of a sudden, you are pouring over the history, because we, with our roots in the south always go back to the history. You keep digging
through the history and you’re like, wait a second. This American experiment started around 1620, and the modern notion of race, this
barbaric idea of a caste system based on color started a century later. Well, that actually means a lot. Because it means that people were coming
together for a full century before we had racism tearing us apart.
ISAACSON: You call out some lies in your book. And one of them, you say, is that racism only hurts black people. And in some ways, you explained
that yes, it makes white people invisible too. Go through that for me, will you?
JEALOUS: Sure. Look at the way poverty is shown in our society. And then look at what happened when we made the face of addiction inclusive in our
country. Back during the great depression, the face of poverty in the United States where poor white people and public support for everything
public was sky-high. After the civil rights movement, it shifted. And the media initial — when they want to depict a poor person, almost always
shows a black or brown person even though there are 16 million whites in poverty, and about eight million blacks.
By making most, the biggest group of poor people invisible, it has definitely hurt public support for addressing poverty. Similarly, we
pretended for a long-time opioid addiction was just a problem facing black people. Certainly, up here in Baltimore that was the narrative.
But when sheriffs across the country became impatient with the lack of action and dealing with opioid addiction as a health crisis that it is,
they literally started publishing, Walter, the faces of people dying from ODs. And a lot of those folks were white too. And suddenly, the public
debate shifted from, oh, this is a great criminal problem, we need to lock all these addicts up, to, oh, this is a health crisis and we need to deal
with their addiction, and make sure that they get rehabbed, not prison. But what happened? The image of who was addicted and who was dying from it, and
the media shifted from black to white.
ISAACSON: You talk about building big coalitions. You talk about bringing people together. As we have done, you know, sometimes in the 400 years of
our history as this country. How did that inform what you did at the NAACP as its leader? And what do you think can be done now?
JEALOUS: You know, when I took over the NAACP, mass incarceration was still on the rise in this country. In a way that was very visibly
destroying black communities. And if you walked into a prison, it was apparent, it was destroying poor white communities too.
And, yet the Democratic Party’s principal leaders, state after state, were afraid to deal with the issue. They saw what happened to Michael Dukakis
and the old Willie Horton ads. And they’re unwilling to share — to show courage.
And so, I sat down with General Colin Powell and I asked him for advice. And he said, oh, Ben. He said, in this country it’s easy to figure out when
you disagree with people. Take time to figure out the one thing you can agree on. And what I found, at the time, was that there is one thing that
Grover Norquist, you know, great republican anti-tax crusaders, and I agreed on, was shrinking our prison system. And that Newt Gingrich, at the
time, had the same conviction.
We ultimately — when I was President of the NAACP, partnered literally with Republican governors across the country to shrink prison systems, from
California to Texas to Georgia. Down in Virginia, we had a special problem. That was a lifetime ban and formally incarcerated people voting.
Walter, one of the most shocking moments of my tenure as President of the NAACP was that Tim Kaine wouldn’t help me do it when he was governor of
Virginia. But that Bob McDonald, the Republican conservative who succeeded him was all for it. It wasn’t in the best interest of his party, many would
argue, but it was the right thing to do.
And he understood, as somebody who grew up working class that there were a lot of men who made bad decisions. Women made bad decisions. They ended up
in prison, who redeemed themselves after prison and deserve to be part of our society.
And he was the first governor in the history of Virginia to literally make it his business to re-enfranchise formerly incarcerated people. So, that’s
really the base of my politics. We don’t need to agree on everything. We just got to find the one big thing we can agree on and go get that done
together.
ISAACSON: You talk about your experience leading prison reform, and how that brought together a coalition of left and right, and Democrats and
Republicans. What other issues are there that this country could do that on?
JEALOUS: You and I, Walter, could, you know, walk over to, you know, any polling company and find issue after issue that 60, 70 percent of the
American people agree on, including large numbers in both major political parties. It’s the politicians who lacked courage.
And so, you know, fundamentally, my book, “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free” is a call to the people of this country. To look at each other
no matter what the politicians are doing. And recognize that in the heart of each other, there is more in common than there is not. And there is a
need for us to really control the future of our country and not leave to politicians who profit by dividing us again and again and again.
ISAACSON: What is causing this divide?
JEALOUS: We have wounds layered on top of wounds in this country. Ultimately, when I did the research for my book, I kept digging back into
that. When you get down to is greed. Why would it be so important to keep trying to divide working people at the base of our economy? And who would
have the resources to do that? Well, a small number of people who profit by paying people too little and disempowering them.
And fundamentally, our country is on a great quest from the beginning was a quest against kings and those who would be kings. It was this great dream
of creating a democracy in which we were all equal under the laws, we are all equal in the sight of God. And fundamentally, that’s the unfinished
business of this country, is to really create that democracy that empowers all of us to build a better life for our families. By the end of the day, I
would say, even upstream from racism itself is greed.
ISAACSON: You say that both blacks and whites paid a price for desegregation. Explain what you think it did, in some ways, that might have
harmed the black community?
JEALOUS: You know, it’s funny. I don’t know if you rolled back in your head to, like, Archie Bunker in “All in the Family”, and Mr. Jefferson on
“The Jefferson’s”. In the few episodes that they would both be on the same show together at the same time. It was pretty clear the price that men like
Archie Bunker paid for desegregation.
They believe that by opening up economic opportunity to women and to blacks, that somehow their opportunity shrank. It’s actually, in some ways,
even more clear that men like Mr. Jefferson paid a price. Segregation was an — ultimately a formula for an economy. An economy in which white people
did business with white people. And black people did business with black people.
And when we ended segregation, millions of Mr. Jefferson’s lost their businesses. I had two in my family. Two brothers who owned dry cleaning
shops in the inner city. And their businesses disappeared because they were now suddenly competing against better capitalized white owned businesses
that had unfettered access to the banks. And while there was no more division of the marketplace, there was still discrimination at the banks
that held back, you know, my uncles from seizing their opportunity when the walls of segregation fell.
ISAACSON: So, what should we be doing about that?
JEALOUS: You know, fundamentally, we shouldn’t fear change. We should understand that, you know, when economies transition, there are a lot of
winners and there are a lot of people who lose as well. But we’ve got to be urgent about really delivering our country to that place that Frederick
Douglass, also a civil rights leader who had a white father, a very different one than mine, and a black mother, was so eager to see us get to.
You know, we can be the most perfect example of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen. That’s within our grasps.
But it requires each of us to just step back for a moment. Be a little bit more curious about what is happening on the other side of the street or the
other side of the political aisle. Look into each other’s hearts. We got to turn down the 24-hour news that is yelling at us all the time, encouraging
us to remain divided.
You and I both know that we have, you know, beautiful southern states that are ultimately more impoverished than they should be.
And frankly, discrimination and division and pitting people against each other is a big part of the formula that keeps beautiful states like
Virginia and Louisiana poorer than they should be.
ISAACSON: Ben Jealous, thank you so much for joining us.
JEALOUS: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And that is it for us now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.