Return to Transcripts main page
Amanpour
Trump Declares Public Health Emergency; Interview with Jane Goodall. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired October 26, 2017 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Tonight, after promising for months, President Trump puts America's deadly opioids epidemic front and center.
Chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta reports from the front line for us. Plus foxes in the henhouse, the war within of Trump's Environmental
Protection Agency. And .
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
JANE GOODALL, BRITISH PRIMATOLOGIST: We have this one planet so how is it that the most intellectual being to ever walk the planet is destroying its
only home.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
AMANPOUR: The woman who revolutionized everything we thought we knew about being human with her groundbreaking work on chimpanzees, Jane Goodall joins
us. Good evening, everyone and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
Today is the day after months of saying that he would tackle America's opioids epidemic the U.S. president is finally taking action. Freeing up
funds to deal with the crisis. Drug addiction is tearing communities apart and the numbers are shocking. Half a million Americans have died because of
this between the years 2000 and 2015, most because of opioids addiction and overdose.
Indeed these deaths are actually even lowering the overall life expectancy in the United States by about two and a half months. Our chief medical
correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has spent months looking into it. And, in New York he's met people taking controversial steps towards a solution.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONNA PRINCE, HEROIN ADDICT"S MOTHER: It's a living hell. OK, you worry day and night. You try to do other things but it's always in the back of your
mind. Twenty years my son's been a heroin addict.
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Donna tells us there's a good chance Taylor (ph) is here at the Corner Project in Washington
Heights. It's a needle exchange but also has this, one of the most controversial bathrooms in the country. A place where people, like Taylor
(ph), come to use drugs but are also monitored and can be saved with a medication called Naloxone or Narcan which can reverse an overdose.
When Taylor (ph) first told you about the bathroom, what were your first thoughts when you heard about that?
PRINCE: He's going to do it whether he wants to or not. Whether he's going to do it under the bridge where they go or if he's going to go in my
bathroom and do it. At least there I know that people are watching over him and if he does overdose he's not going to die because they're going to be
able to save him.
GUPTA: Hector Mata manages the Corner Project's bathroom program.
HECTOR MATA, WASHINGTON HEIGHTAS CORNER PROJECT: This is how actually our clients will do when they come in. They will sit down, they'll put all
their supplies here to make sure they're preparing the heroin or cocaine or whatever substance they are going to inject. This is a cooker we've got in
there for people to use it to filter the heroin or whatever they are injecting.
GUPTA: You got an intercom in here so you can talk to somebody, check on them. You've got a timer so you can sort of keep an eye on the time
(inaudible).
MATA: Yes.
GUPTA: What you're seeing is a particularly provocative way of trying to reduce death from heroin overdose. Some see it as condoning drug use but
others see it as a logical solution to a big problem. In a year more people in the United States die from drug overdoes than from guns or car
accidents.
MATA: When overdoses happen in our bathroom, people are not dying. I've reversed 25 overdoses in this bathroom myself.
GUPTA: Twenty-five?
MATA: Twenty-five. Yes.
GUPTA: You reversed 25 overdoses?
MATA: In this bathroom, in this space.
GUPTA: Three of those times he saved the life of Taylor Prince (ph). Today at least Donna knows where Taylor (ph) is. And, on the day we visit the
Corner Project, she finally gets to see her son again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: So, Sanjay Gupta is with me now. Sanjay, welcome to the program.
GUPTA: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: This is quite a radical step towards trying to cure a little bit of the problem. What is the legality around it?
GUPTA: It's very gray, Christiane. I mean they have certain provisions to allow these medications like narcan which can reverse an overdose to be
present in a place like the Corner Project, but having a designated safe space - some call it a consumption room - whatever it is called, it's a
gray area.
I will tell you in other parts of North America, they do have these sorts of safe spaces, and they've had a lot of success. They've modeled what's
happening in New York after and existing precedent.
AMANPOUR: So from what know, what we kind of have seen over the decades of this so called war on drugs, America is quite puritanical when it comes to
these kinds of issues. So do you think this is something that will take off in the United States, and what do you think that President Trump's
declaration on this - the money he promises on this - where it will be best spent and use?
GUPTA: Yes, well with regard to consumption rooms and the safe spaces I think it's a provocative idea. I don't know that it will take off in the
sense of being ever thought of any kind of panasia (ph), but what I will say, Christiane - and you've done a lot of reporting in this area, I know -
but harm reduction is often seen as a binary thing. If you have harm reduction you're doing that instead of everything else. And these are smart
people who've been in this area for a long time.
When they say we want to reduce harm, we want to reduce debts from overdose, it doesn't mean we don't want the rehabilitation, the counseling,
the medically assisted therapy, all those thing to follow. Sometimes having a safe space like this is way to get - to actually get to some of these
folks who are addicts and who are tremendous need of help who are at real risk of dying.
I think the monies, that they come from the agencies now - reprioritizing the money from the agencies going towards some of these medically assisted
therapies, going towards rehabilitation counseling in patient therapy. There's just not enough resources to care for the incredible scourge of
addiction in this country. It is remarkable.
And I also think we are a huge - we use these drugs in the United States in staggering numbers. 90 percent of some of these classes of opioids are used
in the United States. 90 percent of the world's supply are used in the United States. We're not even 5 percent of the world's population. That has
to be addressed as well that unbelievably scary demand.
AMANPOUR: I mean it really is the way you put those scary figures. You're a doctor, and you know as well as anybody that it's in a way it's a big
farmer issue. There are a lot of these prescription drugs being pushed on patients. And apparently even the directions - the prescriptions - you
know, as directed can addict people.
GUPTA: Yes, I think you're absolutely right, and it's from the pharma companies -- it's from the distributors then to the various local
pharmacies, it's the doctors' prescribing habits - it's all these things. It's been a, in some ways, an orchestrated phenomenon. I mean there was a
lot of people who basically wanted to create this environment where pain pills would not be considered not very problematic at all and potentially
really, really helpful, and we just didn't have the data to be able to say that at the time that message was being pushed out. And we are now paying
the price with these terrible, overdoes debts.
I think that the idea that we would have all these other modalities to treat pain before you'd ever turn to a prescription pad and prescribe
narcotics is going to have to be part of this cultural shift, and that's on all level. Doctors need to take the responsibility here as well because
they're the ones writing these prescriptions ultimately that lead to this addiction, that lead to heroin use, and all those other consequences.
AMANPOUR: Sanjay, our own Dr. Gupta, thank you so much indeed for this reporting. So important.
GUPTA: Got it.
AMANPOUR: And as President Trump declares war on America's opioid prices, he's doing the same thing to the country's environment. Today as Trump
stands to meet with the EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, we look into the billionaires controlling our environment. That's next.
(COMMERIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. The rest of the world watched aghast as the biggest (ph) pulled out of the landmark Paris(ph) accord. The French
president, Emmanuel Macron, has personally lobbied President Trump to rethink that decision. Instead Trump seems to be pulling further away from
climate care. Despite surveys showing that a majority of Americans in every state wanted to stick with the agreement saying among most industry leaders
as well. So who is this minority pulling these strings? I asked JANE MAYER author of Dark Money, the hidden history of the billionaires behind the
rise of the radical right. JANE MAYER, welcome to the program.
JANE MAYER: It's great to be with you.
AMANPOUR: You have been digging into this for a long time now you've written a book, you've followed the money trail. Given this meeting that's
happening with the EPA today, I want to just ask you to react to what somebody told for your book. The president of the Oklahoma Bar speaking to
you after SCOTT PRUITT was nominated. It's the worst thing for our environment, we're in danger, the whole country is in danger, our kids are
in danger. You know the country is being run by, you know, the oil and gas interest. Is it as bad as that?
MAYER: It's pretty bad actually, I mean and that was quite an amazing quote from someone who is the head of the Bar Association that is all the lawyers
from Oklahoma. You know he has a lot of experience doing litigation with and against the oil industry. And he really knows SCOTT PRUITT well because
PRUITT was the Attorney General of Oklahoma. So he was kind of the canary in the coal mind warning the country, wait till you see what happens next
when PRUITT was named.
AMANPOUR: So give us a sense of exactly what has happened since PRUITT was not just named but installed.
MAYER: Oh it's been just an amazing story, I mean what's happened is as the head of the EPA, PRUITT has already rolled back something like a dozen or
more major regulations on different kind of pollutants, air and water pollutants. So you can now begin to see chemicals that the previous
administration was about to ban. Pesticides that were found to cause brain damage in babies and children are now, those bans are being suspended and
you're beginning to see rules that stopped arsenic from being allowed to be dumped in to water streams, drinking water those are being abandoned. I
mean it's a complete overhaul really of the regulations that have governed pollution in this country since the 1970s when the EPA was designed.
AMANPOUR: And to that end President Trump did sign all this stuff unwinding all the legislation that you mentioned that was done under the Obama
administration and he said the following:
(START VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We have a very very impressive group here to celebrate the start of a new era in American energy and production and job creation. The
action I'm taking today will eliminate federal over reach, restore economic freedom, and allow our companies and our workers to thrive, compete and
succeed on a level playing field for first time in a long time, fellas, in a long time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MAYER: Right. I mean that really has been the battle cry those are the arguments are made by the industry, claiming that they've been held back
and that they can't really thrive with environmental regulations. The truth is I think you'll find no matter what expert you speak to so long they are
actually experts that the coal industry unparticular is going to die out in this country anyway. Other conscious energy that are cleaner and cheaper
are replacing coal but Trump has claimed that it's the regulations that are killing coal it's really not they may have helped (ph) in the end of coal
but coal was going to die anyway.
AMANPOUR: So you have been following those forces, you've been following the money; can I ask what you know in terms of dollars and cents that is
behind this?
MAYER: Well, I mean what you see if you take a look at the money is huge amounts of the campaign donations in the Republican Party come from dirty
energy. From oil and gas and coal. And what they've managed to do is particularly on climate change, they've managed to get the Republicans in
office to very much tow their line and say that climate change isn't real or that science isn't sound or believable.
It's the only legislative body I know of that is the U.S. congress dominated by the Republican Party. It doesn't believe in climate change, I
mean the rest of the world's going in the other direction. And people I interview tell me their only answer for why the U.S. is going in this
direction is money; big oil, coal and gas money.
AMANPOUR: Well you know, it is extraordinary given that polls show that everybody, rather majority around the United States in every state did not
want the president to put out the climate of course. Do you think it's sort of fantasy for President Macron to believe that somehow he can sweet talk
Donald Trump into claiming some kind of a victory, reorganizing the climate of course but still staying in them?
MAYER: You know, I think Trump would go in any direction he thought was a winning direction. It's really congress that is unmovable on this because
all those congressman need those campaign donations to get reelected. And that's what's keeping them in line really. So the public actually is quite
a different place, as you point out Christiane. Almost, you know large majorities in almost every county in the country think that climate change
is real and something must be done about it.
So, I don't know, I think more power to Macron for trying. And who knows, if Trump thought it would help them I think he wouldn't care, but congress
is wedded to these policies so long as their campaign donations come that way.
AMANPOUR: Jane Meyer, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
MAYER: Great to be with you.
AMANPOUR: And when we come back, another not so plain Jane fighting for the environment. She started as a passionate animal lover and ended up
revolutionizing the signs on chimpanzees and humans plain Jane Goodall joins me next.
(COMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine the wilds of Africa when they were really wild. When we didn't know much about chimpanzees, much less what
they could tell us about ourselves until a 26 year old English woman changed all of that. Armed with no university degree, no scientific
knowledge, just curiosity and a love of animals. Jane Goodall, was sent into the bush to watch and learn and report back by the famous naturalist
Louis Leakey, that was 1960 and the rest is history.
Now the world's leading authority on chimps and main defender of our dwindling planet, Jane is the subject of new National Geographic film
called, oh, 'Jane.' Never before seen outtakes paints an extraordinary, rich, and compassionate portrait of her beloved friends in the wild. At
eighty-three, her life's mission is to protect our only home and she told me why this new film matters to her, when she joined me earlier, here in
the studio.
GOODALL: It takes me back, to those days, more than any other documentary I've seen. I am reliving those days, the best days of my life. And it's
because it isn't censored, it's as it was and you know it shows all the banana feeding and the contact with the chimps which today we know that
shouldn't be done, because chimpazes can catch our diseases.
But back then we didn't know that. And I relive that magic time when chimps who had been running away from me, now allow trade with them.
AMANPOUR: Well, we have to bring in the singular achievement of your discovery and that is how close you got to them. For how long you observed
them and you discovered that, no we humans were not unique in a certain aspect, which is about tools. Let's just listen to that.
GOODALL: It has been long thought that we were the only creatures on Earth that used to make tools. Man the toolmaker is how we were defined.
(Inaudible) (It was hard for me to believe what I think) (Inaudible)
AMANPOUR: It is extraordinary what you said there in the end there, that it has never been seen before. You are the one who discovered this, when you
think about that now all these decades later. How does it make you feel?
GOODALL: Well it makes me feel, how arrogant science was to maintain we were the only.they told me that when I went to Cambridge to get a degree,
that only humans had personality. Only humans have minds capable of problem solving, only humans have emotions, how arrogant of us.
AMANPOUR: You were a very young girl, who came and was given this task of observing of the chimps. You were not a university graduate, you were not a
scientist, and come back with this revelation. I mean how did you stick to your guns? Did people say excuse me? Who are you?
GOODALL: The scientist did and fortunately I loved animals all my life, had a amazing, supportive mother and had a great teacher when I was a child.
Who taught absolutely these professors at Cambridge may be very knowledgeable and learned arrogant, but this teacher taught me when it
comes to animal personality mind and emotion, they're wrong and that was my dog.
AMANPOUR: There is a segment in this film, that is enough to make even the hardest heart weep and that's when the elderly female Flo dies eventually.
And her son Flint, just cannot accept that, take the story further.
GOODALL: He was a totally dependent on her, even though he was 6, 7 years old, still riding on her back, still sleeping in her nest with her at
night, still trying to suckle the milk that had dried up.
And so when she died, he just couldn't cope and he like wallowed like a child. Falling into deep, deep depression and in this depression, he didn't
eat and got sick and he died. And it was one saddest times (Ghuddi) watching him, because I had known him since a tiny baby.
AMANPOUR: We're in this environment where the president of the United States has an EPA administrator who's looking to, turn the clock block.
They have scientists who essentially don't believe what you believe that are not looking to protect the environment in the way that you think should
be protected. How much of a mortal threat or a planetary threat do you think we're under right now?
GOODALL: It's a huge threat. We are -- the big difference between us and chimpanzees is the exclusive development of our intellect. So how it is the
most intellectual being to ever walk the planet is destroying it's only home?
AMANAPOUR: I want to rewind the clock to around 1975 or the late 50's when you went to Africa to work for the great primatologist, the great
anthropologist Lewis Leakey. How did that even happen? And how were you employed without a science background?
GOODALL: When I was10, I read "Tarzan" and fell in love and we -- that wretched Tarzan, what did he do? He married the wrong Jane. I was really
jealous but that's when decided, I'm going to grow up, go to Africa, live with wild animals and write books about them.
AMANAPOUR: but then he sent you out on this expedition to observe the chimpanzees. Why you? What did he think you could bring to this tale?
GOODALL: He wanted a mind, as he said, uncluttered by scientific bias. And so he wanted me. He felt that I could do it, and I knew I could do it.
AMANAPOUR: And you're a woman, you were a girl. You were a young girl, there weren't many if any young girls doing that kind -- none.
GOODALL: None.
AMANAPOUR: There is an amazing picture which actually we are looking at right now, and before we went on you said yes there you have my legs.
GOODALL: My cover girl.
AMANAPOUR: Your cover girl legs. There you have my - you said there are my cover girl legs. Where you - going did you get a lot of that guff for your
looks? For your legs?
GOODALL: Yes I did there were some people saying well you know she's only famous because of her legs, and she's a Geographic cover girl and we don't
need to take anything seriously. But then Geographic sent Hugo van Lawick to take the film and so it was proof that I was not telling lies. That
chimpanzees were using tools, they were making tools, they were doing all the things that I described.
AMANAPOUR: And Hugo was the preeminent wildlife photographer at the time. And you fell in love.
GOODALL: We fell in love. And it was not surprising. He was a gentle person he loved animals. He always wanted to film I natural world. And so there we
were together. He was a perfectionist, drove me nuts. I'd say Hugo look nobody believes that the chimps do this. Please film it. No I can film it
because the exposure will be wrong and I --
AMANAPOUR: And what do you hope that this film does?
GOODALL: I hope that it will inspire whole new generation of young people to understand how beautiful the natural world is, how important it is to
save it. And if it's necessary, okay. Learn the science so that you can fight the climate deniers.
AMANAPOUR: On that note, Jane Goodall, keep up the good fight. Thank you very much for being here.
GOODALL: Thank you.
AMANAPOUR: And indeed, if there is one political mission that unifies and mobilizes young people today it is about the environment. And that is it
for our program tonight. Remember, you can always listen to our podcast, see us online at amanpour.com and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks
for watching and goodbye from London.
END
