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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour and Company.” Here’s what’s coming up.
The mass kidnapping that shocked the world. We revisit Nigeria’s Chibok girls 10 years since their lives were changed forever.
And —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YUSEF SALAAM, ONE OF THE EXONERATED CENTRAL PARK FIVE AND NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMEMBER FOR HARLEM: Having been run over by the spike wheels of
justice, I was — I thought that that was the end of my life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: — the unbelievable life story of Yusef Salaam. Imprisoned as a teen for a crime he did not commit, the exonerated Central Park Five member
tells me how it felt to win a seat on the New York City Council.
Plus —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIETTE KAYYEM, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, DHS AND PROFESSOR, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: There are large groups and
organizations that are preparing to continue the fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Is America prepared for political violence? Homeland Security expert Juliette Kayyem tells Hari Srinivasan, the government needs to get
serious about potential election reaction.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in New York.
In his criminal trial and now in death, he takes up so much oxygen. O.J. Simpson has died from cancer at the age of 76. The former NFL star was the
center of American attention in the mid-1990s, accused of brutally killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. The TV trial
gripped the country and his eventual acquittal was a pivotal moment in the American cultural landscape.
However, two years later, a jury in a civil trial found O.J. Simpson liable for their deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages. Simpson’s
trouble with the law did not end there. He was arrested in 2007 in Las Vegas and found guilty of 12 charges, including kidnapping and armed
robbery. He was released from prison in 2017.
Joining me now on this is the criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Joey Jackson and also with us, Ann Olivarius. She’s an attorney who
specializes in anti-discrimination cases, including sexual harassment and abuse. So, welcome to you both.
I want to turn to you, Ann Olivarius, first. The victims here were two white people, a white woman, and you, in fact, tweeted today on the news of
the death that, Nicole Simpson did not die at 76 years old in bed surrounded by children and grandchildren, as apparently O.J. did.
What made you do that? What’s your relationship to this moment, to this case?
ANN OLIVARIUS, ATTORNEY: Well, of course, you know, I’m 69. So, I was there watching that trial as much as I could when it went on. And so, I was
very much caught up in that, and like many people, was hugely surprised at the verdict in that case. And so, I followed his life since.
And I do a lot of work now on sexual assault and discrimination and, of course, domestic violence. And what we see, much like we saw with the Amber
Heard trial in Britain when Amber Heard was first in a case against her ex- husband, Johnny Depp, she won that case, and there was a very esteemed judge, Nicol, who found that there were 13 acts of physical violence done
to her by Johnny Depp.
She goes to, you know, has to take up the same issue in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and of course, she loses the case there, and there it’s a huge
media fiasco with a judge who perhaps, one might say, is not in control of the courtroom and is a case where a celebrity can buy social media bots and
where she’s destroyed outside of the courtroom which invades the courtroom.
O.J. Simpson, again, is a media — you know, a celebrity himself. Here he is in trial. Judge Ito, many have criticized, as not being in control of
that courtroom, of wanting the publicity very much. The trial goes on for nine months. It’s wild.
And, again, O.J. Simpson prevails, and one might think that against the evidence that was there, that was an outcome that was surprising.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, Joey, because you talk about this — you know, you’re on our air a lot talking about this. You obviously are so familiar
with the whole story.
This was a case, though, about a black hero, a sports hero, having been accused of these two terribly violent murders that divided the nation,
divided black and white America. Take us back to that moment.
JOEY JACKSON, LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, it was a pivotal moment, and I think a very historical one. And certainly, what should never be lost is the fact
that there are two victims and their families, I’m sure, are ailing to this day, and will always ail at the fact that they were dead, right? The issue
is at whose hands.
And I think it will be controversial until the end of time, whether or not O.J. Simpson is responsible. Many were shocked. If you go back and you
evaluate what cameras caught where various groups and organizations who were watching the verdict, remember the world stopped to watch the verdict,
you’ll see various reactions. Some people in shock. Are you kidding? A jury got it completely wrong. Others in complete joy and jubilation over a jury
that got it right and finally did justice for a member of the African- American community.
So, it will be controversial forever, I do believe, and that’s why we had the civil case. And in the civil case, what you saw was a family attempt to
bring accountability. Now, civil cases are not criminal in nature. They determine whether or not there’s liability, that is responsibility for the
issue at hand, which is the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and, of course, Mr. Goldman, and then the issue would then be what monetary damage is. And
as you asserted already, Christiane, it was a $33.5 billion verdict finding him responsible.
But going back to the criminal verdict, I think you have to look at the context of the times. There was also something very pivotal that happened
in America in 1992, and that was the beating of Rodney King. Rodney King was a black motorist who was pulled out of his car, and the videotape was
seen everywhere, I would say internationally of the fierce beating he got and then the acquittal of the officers of the LAPD thereafter.
And then you have the O.J. Simpson case where the defense in that case, the defense team made up of lawyers who are just historical, F. Lee Bailey, you
have Johnnie Cochran, right, you have Barry Scheck, you have Alan Dershowitz, just attorneys who were just exceptional at their craft that
really came together. And I think what they were able to do was to deflect the issue and not make it just about the killings, right, of two precious
souls, but to make it about the LAPD and the racism and the historical alleged racism.
You have Mark Fuhrman who was an investigator who they asserted and were able to prove use the N word. And so, I think that deflection really turned
the tables from a case about just two people who died to an institutional system that had historically discriminated against African-Americans. O.J.
Simpson being an African-American celebrity and there you had now a jury that made a determination. I think that was very broad. And that broad
determination is, we’re not going to Stanford anymore.
And I think he was largely acquitted because of, really, a referendum on an LAPD, right, that had run amok as opposed to whether he committed those
crimes. So, you have look at it in the context of those crimes, did they get it right, did they get it wrong? We could debate that day and night.
Different people will disagree. But if you look at what was happening in America at that time, the jury was grappling with so much.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
JACKSON: And I think in grappling with so much, that’s why they may have reached the determination, Christiane, that they ultimately did finding him
not guilty.
AMANPOUR: And of course, the years have passed. And actually, viewpoints have changed. And we’ll get to that in a moment. But first, I want to go
back to you, Ann Olivarius, because here was a woman, his his ex-wife, by this time who had on multiple occasions called the police, called hotlines,
was desperate to be helped from what she alleged was a violent former husband.
She basically said that, you know, she was afraid of him, he beat her. In the aftermath of the crime, calls to shelters and help lines, as you know,
exploded. She was very afraid. At one point, she said, you know, he’s going to kill me. The police came around here. She had a split lip and a black
eye, and she alluded to pass calls to the police saying to the officers, you never do anything about him, you talk to him and then leave.
He eventually pleaded no contest to battery charges, et cetera, spousal battery. Put that in the context of how women like Nicole Simpson were
disbelieved in those days now all those years back in the ’90s and before, all the way back before, you know, the MeToo Movement.
OLIVARIUS: Yes. Well, Christiane, all that’s been said about racism and the backdrop, it’s true. There’s no question about it. But what doesn’t get
said still are the are the points you’re raising that women and women’s truth, they get forgotten about, that this is not the lead piece of this
story is shocking to me.
She had pictures that were in her safe of her being battered by him. They were grotesque pictures, utter proof that she was a punching bag for this
man. And, you know, we say back then, well, we didn’t listen to women or their truths or their testimony, but the fact is with Amber Heard, we
didn’t listen either. And she’d already had Johnny Depp convicted in Britain in a very fine and — before an educated judge and a very careful
opinion.
So, are we still, has it changed? Still, when people look to racism, which is a serious problem without a doubt and with total respect, I bow to that.
But the aspect, still, that in the coverage, even today when this is broken, the fact that her voice was not heard, the fact that she was a
deeply battered woman, a total punching bag for this man, and there’s no respect given to that, it’s barely mentioned, it’s like, OK, it’s a minor
piece, sure.
But why isn’t that the central story? And why does domestic battery still go on? And we saw it with Amber Heard. It’s still continuing and we’re not
paying attention. We don’t do something about it.
AMANPOUR: Which is one of the reasons why that was my first question to you. But I want to go back to Joey as well, talking about not just the
racial divide, but also the celebrity status. O.J. Simpson was a celebrity, like so many celebrities who are generally given the benefit of the doubt.
But Joey, I want to ask you this, because, you know, in the many years, even beyond, when he was found civil libel for their deaths, in 2014, even
before the landmark documentary, a CNN/ORC poll found that 53 percent of black people surveyed said the murder charges against Simpson were either
definitely true or probably true. He continued to maintain his innocence and he’s never apologized or come close to it.
Joey, what do you think happened in those intervening years? Explain the psychology, the beliefs, the evidence maybe, that got so many of the black
community to shift to a majority who then believed that he was in fact probably guilty.
JACKSON: Yes. So, there’s a couple of things that are very important. And before I do that, I mean, Ann raised some very critical and important
concerns. And the concerns are that domestic violence is an issue. And, you know, there needs to be people who give voice to that. And certainly,
people who are the victim of that need to be heard.
I think the defense relating it to this particular case, Christiane, was very adept at really deflecting and again, changing the narrative from
that, right, to the narrative of a referendum on LAPD. So, I just want to be clear that everything Ann says with respect to domestic violence and
abuse and hearing women needs to be heard and is very valued. But I think as it related to this particular case, the defense really deflected
masterfully from that issue and made it about something else.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
JACKSON: To the core of your question, Christiane, in terms of the shifting of movements and the shifting of views, I think, number one,
there’s always been a view, right, in the African-American community that we have a criminal justice system that may not be as fair, that may police
African-Americans and other people of color in a different way than they do others in other communities that are more affluent, potentially.
And so, I think that the African-American community in the O.J. case took this as an opportunity to sort of, you know, look for justice by them
making it, right, the defense team a referendum on that.
The other issue is that O.J. Simpson, you know, you can argue and debate whether he’s really been a child of the African-American community or
whether he just was when it was convenient as it related to this case. And I think as people have learned more and perhaps over the years, right,
people’s views always change about other matters, people become enlightened for a variety of different reasons.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
JACKSON: But I think that back then, the context of the times there and so much racially going on, I think it was — it’s hard to ignore the racial
component. I think as time goes on, people look anew. Perhaps they have a – – you know, a new evaluation of how they see this.
And let’s not forget, last point, that as we’ve talked about, he was held accountable, maybe not criminally, but accountable in terms of wrongful
death in these civil cases that proceeded based upon what his actions that that jury deemed to be and that he was responsible for their deaths.
AMANPOUR: And really briefly, Ann, because we’ve got only about 20 seconds, what it did was change the media landscape, particularly on cable.
This is just 24/7, you know, overhead cameras that still exist. Has that been good or bad for society and for justice?
OLIVARIUS: I mean, my own view as the lawyer who litigates all the time, both in Britain and in the United States and in Ireland, I think that the
cameras — unless you’ve got a really good judge, the cameras in the courtroom are not good.
It’s great for democracy to actually be put on screen, but what you do is with Judge Ito and what we found out in the Commonwealth of Virginia with,
of course, the Amber Heard case, you’ve got judges who don’t know how to handle a courtroom, who are not doing their jobs properly, I would say, and
that’s a real problem, and it becomes a media fest, and that’s not good for democracy.
AMANPOUR: Well, thank you both, Ann Olivarius and Joey. Thank you so much indeed for being with us.
And to the point of the system and the unfairness of the system that was a big factor in the O.J. case, years before that, a mass media story here in
New York also caught the country’s attention, but this one showed a true miscarriage of justice against young teenagers, black and Latino.
In 1989, America was shocked by the assault and rape of a female jogger here in Central Park. The police quickly arrested six teens and sent five
of them to prison. They were labeled the Central Park Five and were vilified in the press. Donald Trump even called for the return of the death
penalty in full-page ads across multiple newspapers. But the five teenagers were innocent. And yet, despite multiple glaring failings in the
investigation, they spent years in jail.
Eventually, in 2002, the real attacker confessed, and their convictions were vacated. And this year, one of the exonerated five, Yusef Salaam,
became a member of the New York City Council. He was elected, and I sat down with him here in Manhattan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Yusef Salaam, Counselor Salaam, welcome to the program.
YUSEF SALAAM, ONE OF THE EXONERATED CENTRAL PARK FIVE AND NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMEMBER FOR HARLEM: My pleasure, and thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: I was a journalist based here in New York when all of this happened, and I covered some of what happened to you. And I want to know
whether you ever thought that you would get from that point of the worst time in your life to being an elected city council member in New York?
SALAAM: I think that that perhaps was the furthest thing from my mind. You know, as a young 15-year-old child, having been run over by the spike
wheels of justice, I was — I thought that that was the end of my life. I thought that my life would never be the same. And of course, it has never
been the same, but to be an elected official, wow. Never imagined.
AMANPOUR: And there’s just so much power, elected power, power from the people that you have right now to, I’m going to just use this word, avenge
yourself of what was done to you. So, when you think about the police, for instance, and police reform, what do you think? Cut off their funding, put
them in an accountability box? What do you think?
SALAAM: Well, I think the good thing about my experience is that I get the opportunity to use the whole of it to direct me. you know, being a servant
of the people and being a person who’s not just been close to the pain, but has been in pain.
A lot of the experiences that our community experiences, I’ve experienced firsthand, you know. And so, being a spokesman for the people as an elected
official is different for me because I get the opportunity to really use that in a really powerful way, right?
I never say things like defund the police, because I feel like the police are necessary. But when I think about all of the things that police
departments do and police officers do, I know that there’s ways that we can right-size budgets. We can allow for the right person to respond to the
right situation, and oftentimes that’s not the police, you know.
If there’s someone who’s experiencing a mental health crisis, you know, there’s a lot of organizations that actually work in that space, but they
don’t have the budget. They’re working on a shoestring budget. And so, oftentimes to help to solve the problem, it requires a different type of
thinking. It requires a change from what we’ve been doing to what we could do.
AMANPOUR: And you asked, in your first hearing as chairman of the Public Safety Committee, you pressed the NYPD to explain how it prevents wrongful
convictions. Now, you were obviously wrongfully convicted along with the other four. Did you get an answer?
SALAAM: I’m speaking from a person who experienced the full brunt of the police department and the individuals that interrogated us weren’t
beginners. They weren’t neophytes. These were officers, in fact detectives, that had at least 20 years on the job. What I know about the detectives
that interrogated us, they knew that they were getting inconsistent and incorrect stories. They knew that what they were hearing as false
statements just to save the lives of us who were trying to figure out how to get out of the nightmare that we were now in.
AMANPOUR: So, you were trying to just tell them anything to get them to stop whatever harsh treatment and get yourself out?
SALAAM: Well, so I didn’t make a false confession, but four of my comrades did. But I’m saying that when you listen to those confessions, every single
one of them were different. I never forget, you know, in the Central Park Five documentary, Raymond Santana reads his false confession.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAYMOND SANTANA, ACTOR: I observed the male, Black Kevin, with a scratch on face, was struggling with a female.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SALAAM: And he stops midway through, looks up at the camera. And I remember being in the audience, watching with the audience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANTANA: A 14-year-old boy doesn’t talk like this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SALAAM: And it was — you could hear the audible gasp in the room. It was almost as if everyone had realized that they’d been tricked too. And, you
know, I know that there’s a way forward. And the way forward is to not have the wrong person in prison. Because when you have the wrong person in
prison, oftentimes the real criminal is out committing more crime.
AMANPOUR: As what happened to you all because you were wrongfully imprisoned and then finally this other person admitted to it, submitted
DNA, admitted to it. Do you remember how the prison officials reacted to you, or the police, or the law enforcement? Was there shame? Was there
shock? Was there regret for what they’d done to you?
SALAAM: You know, for me, my experience in what I call the womb of America, I know oftentimes in our community they call it the belly of the
beast, was different. There was a knowing of sorts from many of the officers. They knew that I wasn’t supposed to be there. And they gave me
grace and mercy. They allowed me to read books and draw and just kind of be still.
AMANPOUR: I wanted to just ask you, where did you get the courage, the strength, the fortitude, the resolve not to sign a false confession like
your other four comrades did?
SALAAM: A lot of it was my faith. You know, I, for one, just like the others, I’m sure, we kept telling the officers what happened. And for me,
it was just this strange nightmare where they kept saying, well, is this where you got the jogger? I didn’t know what they were talking about.
I heard them beating up Korey Wise in the next room, and sometimes they would come into the room that I was in and tell me that I was next. And so,
I was very afraid, and I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew that I hadn’t raped a woman. I knew that — you know, I was thinking that I
was the good guy. I was going to go to the police department, tell them what I saw and I’d be home before my mom got back.
I came home seven years later. And because Korey Wise was with me, he came home 13 years later. But look at God. Because Korey persevered and was
stick-to-itive in his innocence, the real perpetrator met him again in prison.
AMANPOUR: It’s incredible, that story.
SALAAM: And told the truth.
AMANPOUR: It’s just incredible. Did you ever find out what motivated the real rapist to tell the truth?
SALAAM: I think his words was that he had started going to church. He started to try to atone for the crimes that he did. You know, at the very
end of his crime spree, he was trying to kill all of his victims. The last victim, a young woman named Lourdes Gonzalez, as he tells it, he comes into
her home, brandishes a knife. She’s pregnant. She’s big pregnant. And she pleads with him, can you let me put my babies in the next room?
And of course, he said, yes. She puts them in the room and locks the door. And I can only imagine, she’s probably thinking, this is going to be the
worst thing that ever happened to me, but I’m going to get through it. Her husband wasn’t there. She was there with her children. She’s pregnant. He
then rapes her and then he stabs her to death. Killing her and her unborn child.
Now, when I think about that, this is months after the Central Park Jogger case, she could have been alive today, had the detective said, something
isn’t adding up. These guys are telling false narratives. This is not how it happened. Something else is going on here. Let’s go back to the drawing
board and look at this case with new eyes and new information.
AMANPOUR: It’s an incredible story and full of instruction as well for the justice system. What do you want to do with your term in office after
having experienced all this? You’ve got police reform. You’re very interested in trying to get affordable housing. You’re a councilman for
Harlem. What is — is there a number one on your list of legislative priorities?
SALAAM: Absolutely. Affordable housing and more of it, that is top bar none. You know, when I think about affordable housing, I think about a
person who has the opportunity to plan in safety. A person who can afford their rent and not have to make a choice between whether they can feed
their family or for the rent.
The rents in New York City are astronomically high and it’s unfortunate because the pay that people receive has not met up with the times. We need
to be thriving. And I think when we go from a position of survival to thriving it gives us the largest opportunity to dig deep and provide the
very best of ourselves.
A lot of our resources, a lot of our power is leaving New York. A lot of people are saying, I can’t afford to continue in this way, so therefore,
they’re leaving to other places that they can afford. And of course, with them, when they leave, their power leaves.
And so, when I’m thinking about legislatively the biggest thing, the biggest thing that we have to — that elephant in the room, it’s affordable
housing.
AMANPOUR: You obviously were very famous, infamous for a while. What do people — how do people react to you when they pass you in the streets? And
you know, young — especially young kids or maybe older people as well?
SALAAM: I got to tell you, I get a mixed response, but a large part of the response makes me feel like everyone is counting on me to use a magic wand
and just change everything. And I’m trying to encourage our community, our constituents, really, to understand that the miracle is us organizing, us
coming together, us realizing that every part of the puzzle matters and is significant. Even the smallest piece, if you put the puzzle together and
that piece is not there, it’s not a complete picture.
AMANPOUR: You’re a religious person and you were sworn in, you put your hand on the Qur’an. Tell me the story. I asked you to bring it because I
find it really emblematic of your whole experience. Not only is the Qur’an there, remind us who gave it to you, but also there’s a cover, and remind
us how that cover came into play.
SALAAM: Yes, absolutely. This Qur’an is 35 years old. This is the very first Qur’an that I was given to — given by my mother. She gave this to me
and I was able to — if you look at the old photos of me walking in and out of the court room, this is the Qur’an that I had with me as I walked in and
out of the court room.
I was able to take this with me into the prison and I read it for the first time from the front, from the beginning. And I read it from cover to cover
over and over and over again. I put it in this cover, I actually created this cover.
I hand sewn it while I was in prison because what happened, this Qur’an is very worn, as you can imagine. Oh, it really is worn. This is a Qur’an that
I had with me as a walk in and out of the courtroom. I was able to take this with me into the prison. And I read for the first time, from the
front, from the beginning, and I read from cover to cover, over and over and over again.
I put it in this cover. I actually created this cover. I hand sown it while I was in prison because what happened, this Qur’an is very worn, as you can
imagine.
AMANPOUR: Oh, it really is worn.
SALAAM: This is a Qur’an that — the spine is already splitting.
AMANPOUR: Oh, wow.
SALAAM: But all throughout this Qur’an, you would see my hand — I would underline things, I would fold pages, I would, you know, highlight things,
I would write things in the spine. This is — this was a true study of faith. But more than that, I think it was me trying to understand how can I
grow through what I’m to go through.
AMANPOUR: And you read a lot of Mandela, I understand.
SALAAM: Oh, my goodness. You know, he said to be angry and bitter is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die.
AMANPOUR: It’s brilliant.
SALAAM: I had to digest that because I was angry, I was upset. I did not understand how could the system run over us with the spike wheels of
justice and then run over us again and lay us out flat. I couldn’t understand it.
I wanted to have someone — even when we were found innocent, we were hoping for an apology. We were hoping that a person who became the future
president of these United States would equally say, you know what, I took out a full-page ad in 1989 calling for your death. I’m sorry.
AMANPOUR: Instead —
SALAAM: I’m going to take out a full-page ad and call for an apology for you all. Instead, he doubled down.
AMANPOUR: This is Donald Trump. And again, we all remember these ads in the newspapers in New York calling for a reinstatement of the death
penalty. He doubled down. They admitted their guilt.
SALAAM: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And now, I don’t know what you think, whether it’s karma, faith, or whatever. But this is a twice indicted fellow — impeached rather. He’s
got four indictments, 91 charges. What do you think?
SALAAM: This is a very crafty individual. I say that because there’s been a love affair of sorts with Donald Trump. I remember one of my most
favorite artists, Nas. He said in one of his songs, I want to be rich like Donald Trump and Marla Maples, when he was married to Marla Maples. No, he
came into the room and, oh, this is Donald Trump, the real estate mogul. His name was everywhere and on everything, you know? But I think that for
him to craft what’s going on with him by saying, hey, I’m just like you, I’m indicted, too.
AMANPOUR: That’s what he’s saying now —
SALAAM: That’s a slap in the face when you think about all of the things that happens with the injustice that we experience. When you hear him say
things like, hey, listen, I got some gold sneakers that you can buy, as if we can put these sneakers on and click our heels and somehow walk down the
yellow brick road.
These are all distractions that pull us away from what we are supposed to be focused on. These are the shiny apples. And I think when I think about
all of this, all of it, we have to say to ourselves, what we deserve as a country is a United States of America and not a divided States of America.
AMANPOUR: Yusef Salaam, thank you so much indeed.
SALAAM: My pleasure. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And what a hope for unity instead of division. We turn now to Nigeria, 10 years after the Chibok school kidnapping that shocked the
world. When Boko Haram militants stormed a boarding school in the north of the country, snatching nearly 300 girl pupils and sparking a global cry to
bring back our girls. A decade on, the legacy of those abductions is still reverberating. Sadly, many of the children never made it home.
Stephanie Busari and CNN’s “As Equals” makes the journey back to Chibok to meet some who did manage to escape and the families of those who are still
missing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANIE BUSARI, SENIOR EDITOR OF AFRICA (voice-over): The road to Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. 10 years on from the kidnapping of nearly 300
schoolgirls. We’ve come to meet some of the girls who were taken that night in April 2014 and see how the threat of abduction still shapes children’s
lives here.
HAUWA ISHAYA, FORMER CHIBOK SCHOOLGIRL KIDNAPPED BY BOKO HARAM: They’ve come for this way, this one.
BUSARI: And there were many cars, many trucks.
ISHAYA: Yes, they are plenty —
BUSARI (voice-over): Hauwa was just 16 when she was snatched from her boarding school late at night by Boko Haram militants.
ISHAYA: They burned the hall for writing an exam.
BUSARI: So, they burned the hall where you were supposed to write your exams?
ISHAYA: Yes. They burned —
BUSARI: They were really against education that much.
BUSARI (voice-over): The Islamist group took more than 270 girls into the vast Sambisa Forest, though some managed to escape.
Amina, now 27, was also abducted that night, told by Boko Haram leaders that marriage was the only way to avoid repeated abuse by fighters in the
camp.
AMINA ALI, FORMER CHIBOK SCHOOLGIRL KIDNAPPED BY BOKO HARAM: They just say they will take us as a slave and then any time he wants to sleep with you,
he will sleep with you. And then when he is tired of you, he will hand you over to someone else. And so, I just think, I better agree to get married
to one person.
BUSARI (voice-over): She was the first of the Chibok girls to escape after being held in a forest, emerging with her Boko Haram husband, who also fled
the group and their young baby after two years. Now, eight years old, Amina’s daughter has faced stigma for being the child of a Boko Haram
fighter.
School kidnappings are shadow that hang over the education system in Northern Nigeria, with an estimated 1,700 children abducted from school in
the past decade, according to Amnesty International.
Just last month, more than 100 students, some as young as eight, were taken by armed men who stormed their school in Kuriga, Kaduna Province.
In recent years, criminal gangs have created a kidnapping for ransom industry, spanning across the northwest of the country, which successive
governments have struggled to grapple with.
OBY EZEKWESILI, CO-CONVENER, BRING BACK OUR GIRLS CAMPAIGN AND FOUNDER, NIGERIA’S SCHOOL OF POLITICS, POLICY AND GOVERNANCE: The failure of
governance around the Chibok girls’ issue has led to an industry of abduction, a society that has scant regard for human life.
BUSARI (voice-over): Many Nigerian mothers are now too scared to send them to school.
EZEKWESILI: Guess what Chibok girls tragedy did? It made the mothers feel guilty in their mind that what they did by arguing for education for their
daughter was to, say, pay with your life in order to be educated.
BUSARI (voice-over): Fewer than 50 percent of Nigerian girls attend school at a basic education level, according to a UNICEF report, in a country with
5 percent the world’s children by 2030.
The United Nations has said, “What happens to children in Nigeria matters significantly to regional and global development.”
Back in Chibok, for many mothers the pain continues a decade on Yana’s (ph) daughter, Rifkatu (ph), was among the Chibok girls stolen from school and
remains missing along with 81 others.
BUSARI: Do you believe in your heart that she’s alive?
YANA (PH): I believe she’s alive. She is my blood and I believe she’s alive.
BUSARI (voice-over): She’s her daughter’s clothes ready for when she returns.
YANA (PH): This is how we keep it. We always wash the clothes, fold it and then keep it for almost 10 years now.
BUSARI (voice-over): Never giving up hope, despite the agony she and so many parents in Nigeria have to endure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Imagine keeping their girls’ things ready for their hopeful return. Stephanie Busari reporting.
Now, when practiced correctly, law and order is vital in upholding American and all other democracies, as we saw on January 6th, when a violent mob
incited by then President Donald Trump sought to prevent a peaceful transition of power.
So, looking ahead to the 2024 election, some fear another upheaval should Trump lose again. Our next guest is one of those sounding the alarm.
Homeland Security expert Juliette Kayyem argues the government isn’t ready for the violence Trump might unleash. And she’s joining Hari Sreenivasan
now to discuss what President Biden should do to plan for the worst.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks, Juliette Kayyem, thanks so much for joining us.
You wrote an article recently, the title was “The Government Isn’t Ready for the Violence Trump Might Unleash.” What is most concerning you right
now heading into this election?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, DHS AND PROFESSOR, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: So, what’s concerning me is
both the nature and the consistency of threats of violence that are coming out of the Trump campaign, in particular with Donald Trump.
I sort of take as a given that he’s telling us what his intentions are, as he did before January 6th. There’s an elevated threat environment, which
the FBI has already warned us about. He threatens or utilizes the potential for violence, whether it’s on his social media sites or in his speeches,
the language is the language of incitement.
And so, the scenario that I worry about isn’t just sort of our election, but if Trump were to lose, we need to be ready that he needs to create a
narrative about what that loss means. It was stolen, the election was rigged.
And President Biden, not as the candidate, but as the president of the United States who needs to guarantee a peaceful election, needs to be more
transparent on what the preparations are and take some of the advice of the January 6th Committee report to get ready for potentially the next
insurrection.
SREENIVASAN: So, what was some of that advice from that report that bears repeating and bears keeping in mind?
KAYYEM: So, there’s two different pieces of the report, 700 pages are a documentation of what happened on January 6th and a telling of how that was
essentially a state-sponsored insurrection. There are about 45 pages of recommendations, but they are worth following. Some are sort of increased
sentencing, enhancements for the kinds of crimes that we saw around January 6th, those would require congressional approval.
But others sort of direct the federal government to be more organized, more centralized, to share information with state and locals and be prepared in
particular for the time period between November and January.
If Donald Trump wins, then there will likely be an orderly transition of power, simply because we have no reason to suspect President Biden wouldn’t
do that. But if he loses, we certainly know from what Trump has said, and we also know from what the FBI is telling us that there are large groups
and organizations that are preparing to continue the fight.
And that’s — and those are the kinds of law enforcement and preparedness measures that President Biden needs to address now and specifically needs
to be transparent about. He needs to guide this very divided population through the next couple of months.
SREENIVASAN: When you mentioned that Former President Trump is telling us exactly what he’s going to do, what he’s interested in, you know, there’s
always this concern with him about how much of this rhetoric is bluster.
KAYYEM: That’s exactly right. I’ve long taken Trump literally, because he’s — he does signal what his intentions are, whether it was before
January 6th and the warnings that people like me who were following him saying, you know, this is no longer a hint, right? It is a place, it is a
time, and it’s a mission, at least for January 6th.
Now, what we’re seeing in terms of the election strategy, the campaign strategy and what he’s doing on social media, let alone what he’s saying in
rallies that we tend to ignore in the mainstream press is very much the same kind of language.
I want to be clear, most of Donald Trump supporters are not going to go to violence, but what Donald Trump certainly knows is that there are people
who follow him who will be guided by that kind of language. And what he certainly ought to know at this stage is that there is lots of activity in
social media taking his words, taking his language, and then essentially continuing to weaponize it. These are things that Donald Trump is aware of
and does nothing to curb and in fact, further enhances.
It’s not — look, this is really disconcerting. I get it. I get people’s desire to think, no, this time it will be OK. I see no purpose in that at
this stage. We should be guaranteed as citizens, whatever our ideological background, to a peaceful election period and transition to the next term,
whether it is President Biden or Former President Donald Trump, and listen to what Donald Trump is telling us will happen if he loses.
Juliette, how do we have conversations leading up to the election and after with this group of Americans who might believe in, you know, what Kelly
Conway famously made the phrase, alternative facts, who, at this point today, think that Joe Biden is not the legitimately elected president?
KAYYEM: Yes. So, there’s a lot of lessons learned now. I think that maybe if there’s a silver lining to this, we certainly know different strategies.
And I think it depends on who the we is. So, I want to sort of divide up this group of people.
So — and we see polling that suggests a large percentage of Americans think that Biden didn’t legitimately win. Some of that may just be
posturing for polls. So, that poll may not be as big as 30 or 40 percent or whatever the polls are telling us.
We know that there’s a group of people who do believe the misinformation and the disinformation. And what gets them to sort of look at reality are
three things. One is it’s actually their social group, their family and friends. There’s almost nothing the government can pounce on your head. It
is people being alerted or understanding what’s happening to their peer group. You have a mother who, you know, goes into this hole or whatever.
And look, peer groups tend to find like-minded souls. This is not easy.
But if the solution is not going to come from some, you know, talking points from the White House, it is going to come from communities engaging
people in one-on-one conversations. People have trusted family members, trusted advisers, trusted professionals. And we know — first of all, we
know that piece works.
The second is if we’re the media is to essentially not repeat the untruth. Even to say that’s outrageous, right? So, part of it is this understanding
of what’s called the truth sandwich, which is two plus two equals four. Donald Trump said two plus two equals five, that is not true. Two plus two
equals four. That is a way to think about how we package truth.
And then the third piece is, sometimes it’s not words. I have long believed and have written and believe it now that law enforcement and prosecutions
have a role in this. One of the reasons why the insurgency groups are essentially on their knees, it’s hard for them to raise money, it’s hard
for them to recruit is because of these prosecutions.
So, part of it is also letting people know there is a price to pay for unlawful conduct, that this isn’t just words.
SREENIVASAN: So, you know, some of the prescriptions that the January 6th report laid out was in what we do physically to prepare the D.C. area. If
President Biden was to win the election, and we kind of have another rebuilding of forces that want to do something on January 6th or another
day, and the Biden administration says, hey, you know what, we’re going to declare this kind of a national security event and we’re going to have that
kind of security around it.
Does that just make people on the other side go, look, see, look, the fix is in, there’s no way that we could actually express our voice, the state
is exerting so much authority there, they want to make sure that there’s no transition of power because — you know, to Donald Trump that was
legitimately elected in their minds?
KAYYEM: Look, there’s going to be people that will perceive this through a political lens no matter what. And we have to accept that. The more
preparation and planning that President Biden can do in terms of who’s the lead federal agency, what kind of physical protections do you want, say, at
Congress or the Supreme Court or even at the White House, who’s in charge in D.C.?
D.C. is a complicated governance system, as we saw in January 6th between the National Guard and Capitol Police and Secret Service and local police.
Let’s get that organized now. And the reason why I urge that is, one, that no one’s guessing at the moment something happened, as we saw in the
January 6th Committee report, it was that inability to respond in many ways. Who could do what? What were their authorities that made it
difficult?
And I think, secondly, you know, that this organization will actually ensure that peaceful protest, even against, you know, the President Biden,
is allowable. What we don’t want is a situation when, you know, everyone goes to — you know, to their separate sides and then you have a conflict.
And I think President Biden needs to be transparent about it now. I think it’s the only way it would work in order to minimize the kind of politics
that you’re talking about.
SREENIVASAN: Should President Biden now say, look, if I lose this election, here you go. We are going to make sure that we will have a
transition of power. I mean, I don’t know if there is a, you know, fear of missing out for Donald Trump, whether he would say the same thing, but
making clear to the electorate that these are his ground rules?
KAYYEM: Yes, it’s a great point. He absolutely should. In fact, I now think that the question that we often ask Donald Trump or some of his
elected supporters, you know, will you accept the results of the election as sort of a silly question? They can wiggle themselves out of that. The
question we need to start asking is, do you condone violence if your candidate does not win? We need to start shaming this violence and the
threat of violence that has become, you know, part of our democratic process. Our norms are completely stretched right now and we’re kind of not
seeing it.
And so, I think, you know, not only should President Biden say, here’s how it’s going to work peacefully if I don’t win, but we need to get others to
also embrace that word peaceful. We’ll still disagree with each other, but the fact that we’re having this conversation, right, that the risk of a not
peaceful period leading up to the election and then certainly after shows how far, you know, we’ve stretched sort of our understanding of what
democracy is as well as stretch the threat environment, which is increased by everybody’s account.
SREENIVASAN: You know, when you mentioned the threat of violence or the possibility of violence, I mean, there’s polling data. There was one in
October, the PRRI poll, and it said 23 percent of Americans believed that they might have to “resort to violence in order to save our country.” That
is up. It was 2021 when they asked that question last time and it was 15 percent then.
So, it’s — I mean, this is definitely like one of those wrong track indicators. How many — why is it that people feel like they are so removed
that that violence, that last resort is already there in their minds?
KAYYEM: Yes, I think part of it is because we need to be more transparent about what the consequences are. In other words, I think has festered
because we’ve kind of accepted it as a norm of how Donald Trump campaigns and what I’m — you know, as someone who studies terrorism and incitement,
we need to begin the counter narrative now that this is unacceptable, that the norms cannot be stretched this way, that we are ready if people are
willing to take up arms against the democratic system, right? It’s not democratic. It’s against the democratic system.
And begin — as I’ve been saying for a long time, begin to shame this kind of policy or belief. And I don’t mean Trumpism. I don’t even mean MAGAism.
I mean, violence, violence. That is what we have to be collectively against at this stage. It cannot be winked away, or he jokes, or he was just
kidding, or he didn’t really mean it, or, you know, you’re just parsing words from him.
I think I can say with confidence, he means it. And my proof is January 6th. I mean, I don’t need another example. It’s four years later. And I
think we should feel confident saying that. It’s not political. It’s just – – I’m reading the data.
SREENIVASAN: You know, are we in a better position when it comes to Homeland Security from domestic terror groups, domestic terror? You know,
when the FBI or other agencies look out at this landscape, are we in a — are the preconditions the same, better, or worse than what happened to
January 6th?
KAYYEM: I say that they’re different. And that difference doesn’t necessarily make it better. OK. So, one is that the organizing groups, the
ones that we know the names of, say, Proud Boys, those are now essentially — they’re not over, but they’re on their knees. And the reason why is they
have charismatic leaders who are now in jail for serious sedition crimes. They can’t raise money. They can’t recruit. So, that’s good in the sense
that you don’t want organized paramilitary organizations going after democracy.
That doesn’t mean that their appeal is completely over. Look, ideologies don’t end. They only get isolated or decrease. And so, what you are seeing,
as you said, is sort of the to the ground, right, that there are people who are still, as we see, buying into this, who are still believing that
violence is a natural extension of our democratic differences. And those are harder to find, because they’re not online, they’re not organizing,
they’re not meeting.
And I think that, as FBI director Chris Wray said recently in testimony, that’s sort of his — you know, that’s a fear that you know is out there,
but they’re really hard to find in every instance.
But then there’s another part of this post sort of January 6, 2021 narrative, which is the criminal prosecutions. So, criminal prosecutions
have gone very, very far in showing that there are consequences for this kind of behavior.
People know that they could go to jail, lose their jobs, be isolated from their families for even something that they thought was kind of a joke. And
I think that’s an important message to keep, you know, playing out. That’s what the January 6th Committee tried to do. Their memorialization of
January 6th was also a message to those who think that this is acceptable behavior. There are consequences.
SREENIVASAN: Juliette, you and I have been speaking for years, and one of the conversations we had was after you wrote a book, “The Devil Never
Sleeps,” and that was really almost a way of saying, look, we’re going to have, whether you call it a crisis, a disaster, a catastrophe, we know what
happened four years ago. We know what’s — you know, there’s a moment that we can plan better for if there is a failure that we can — what is it that
concerns you? What are the lessons that people need to be thinking about when they look forward to say, how do we just get a peaceful transition of
power?
KAYYEM: Yes. So, I mean, there’s two lessons from that book. The first is just embrace the devil. I mean, part of what I’m trying to do now is we
don’t have to pretend anymore that this is all a joke. I think it’s very important that we understand that violence and the threat of violence are
part of our election process for 2024.
If we can then admit that, then what would you do knowing that that threat environment is higher? You would, you know, prepare local and states. You
would make sure you have lead federal agencies, all of the things that I talk about in terms of, don’t be afraid that this could happen, get ready
for it.
I think the second piece, for me, the thing that worries me, I think the most is what we call situational awareness. It’s a big country. Lots of
things are going to be going on those days. And do we have transparency on what the threat is doing, what they might try to do, and then are we able
to stop them? That worries me just because there’s going to be a lot of activity. We can prepare for that as well.
And in particular in D.C., well, there should be no reason that we are going to be surprised in the District of Columbia. We know people will plan
on rallying and we should allow them to express their First Amendment rights, but also be prepared that should they threaten violence or perform
violence, that they will be prosecuted.
SREENIVASAN: Juliette Kayyem, Homeland Security expert and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, thanks so much for joining us.
KAYYEM: Thank you for having me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Timely reminders and warnings there. And finally, tonight, an artistic feat worthy of a medal, and that’s exactly the idea.
Frenchman Baptiste Chebassier is writing out the name of every single Olympic medal winner since the modern games began in 1896. That is 30,249
names.
He says he’s inspired by the Polish artist Roman Opalka’s work on the passage of time. And he certainly giving up a lot of his own time as he
races to finish the piece before the Olympics start in Paris this July. That is indeed worthy of a medal itself.
That’s it for now. Thank you for watching. Goodbye from New York.