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Amanpour
Is The White House Under Siege; Christine Lagarde Is At The Helm Of The Global Economy And In The Crosshairs Of Trump's War On Trade; White Fragility. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired January 04, 2019 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour."
During the holiday season, we're dipping into the archive and looking back at some of these years' highlights. So, here's what's coming up.
An extensive conversation with the most powerful woman in the Trump administration. Kellyanne Conway opens up about her personal story, the
president's tensions with the press and her work to stem the opioid crisis.
Then, I speak to another powerful woman on the world stage. As head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde is at the helm of the global
economy and she's in the crosshairs of President Trump's trade war.
Plus, White Fragility and the racism we hide even from ourselves. Our Michel Martin talks to author Robin DiAngelo.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in Washington at this hour where crisis continues to disrupt the Trump administration. And
if Democrats retake the House in November, buckle up for endless investigations and ever more bitter partisan fights.
It is in this contentious atmosphere that I sat down with the Presidential Counselor, Kellyanne Conway. She is the most powerful woman in the White
House and one of the few senior advisers still standing some 600 days into an administration of revolving doors.
Conway is best known around the world for her combative defense of the President and for introducing the phrase, alterative facts to the lexicon.
But she has a major policy role as well, overseeing critical initiatives from the opioid epidemic ravaging this country to working with veterans and
military spouses.
Now, instead of getting into the ring with Conway, instead of debating and wrangling and wrestling, I really wanted to probe and get real answers and
explore issues that her job is responsible for, including the relationship with the press.
So, we started by talking about the personal when we sat down in the Eisenhower Executive Office building next door to the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
AMANPOUR: Kellyanne Conway, welcome to the program.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, PRESIDENTIAL COUNSEL: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Let me start by just digging a little bit into what it means to be the most powerful woman in the White House -- that is who you are
professionally. But personally, you are a wife, you are a mother of four. How do you do it all? Are you living the "I have a dream have it all"
feminist ideal?
CONWAY: I think I'm living the feminist ideal without calling myself a feminist and without being anti-male --
AMANPOUR: That would be too radical.
CONWAY: Or pro-abortion which seems to be what some people think is the entry fee, the definition of being a feminist. I consider myself,
Christiane, a product of my choices, not a victim of my circumstances.
But in some ways, as blessed as I am and fortunate as I have been in my life, thank God, my life is a very common experience. It's a very
pedestrian, everyday example of the American dream come true, in that I was raised by a single mom, my father left when I was three years old. And we
have a great relationship now. He has a great relationship with me and my family and my children.
But my mom figured it out in the 1970s with her high school degree, never expecting to go back into the work force and she just figured it out as I
think as so many women have. I was raised in a house with my mom, her mom and two of my mother's unmarried sisters.
So, these four Catholic Italian women raised me in a small house in South Jersey between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Never had a single
political conversation that I can remember. We had pictures of the Last Supper and the Pope on the wall, not of John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan.
AMANPOUR: I just want to ask you, how did what you described as your circumstances affect you and shaped the way you are as a woman -- as a
professional woman? I mean, did you face obstacles climbing the proverbial professional ladder? You are a successful political consultant. You've
done books. You're on television. You're now the senior counsel to the White House, to the President. Did you have to face your own misogyny
moments, your own sexism, your obstacles and adversity?
CONWAY: Yes, actually, but it didn't let it define me. I didn't let it stop me. I let it help me to be -- to shape me and to help me grow and
know who I am. I'm self-deprecating. I'm self-aware. I know what all my weaknesses are. I didn't need men to point them out for me, although many
tried along the way and failed.
But remember, too, I was in political polling. I was in polling -- corporate and political polling in the Republican Party, in some ways, in a
microcosmic level, that's like being in an elks' club meeting in a locker room on a golf course. It's very, very male dominated and male-centric,
and there were many times, Christiane, as you can imagine, even when I had my own company and I was a paid political analyst on CNN 22 years ago when
there were very few of them, they gave me my first shot on TV, even then, it would be --
CONWAY: -- let's let the girls do the focus groups, the men will do the polling. Which looking back, only men, let's put her on the airplane for
three days away from home, and I'll sit here on my behind in Washington and look over the numbers.
But that's okay, because I got on the plane. When they say, "How's it playing Peoria? What's going on in Lubbock?" I get on the plane and I talk
to the people Peoria and Lubbock and I worked, literally, physically, in all 50 states. So, I've had such a privilege for decades now of literally
going out and talking to Americans and that helped me when Donald Trump on August 12, privately -- it was announced five days later -- asked me to be
his campaign manager, August 12, 2016.
One of the things I had seen in his rise vanquishing 16 or 17 other qualified men and woman in the Republican side is that he had a connective
tissue with Americans and I had heard so much about it in focus groups and in open-ended questions over the years in the polling that he was
connecting with them. They did feel invisible. They did feel left behind. They felt forgotten.
AMANPOUR: Christiane, Kellyanne, obviously, you work for the President, you are a senior counsel, you're a true believer. I wonder how you have
been affected then by the storm of new writings, books, Bob Woodward, the op-ed in the "New York Times." Do you feel a under a sort of sense of
siege at the White House?
CONWAY: No.
AMANPOUR: Or do you feel sort of relief that maybe some of this is out in the open, and you continue serving the President as these people seem to
say, also tried to put a break on some of the quote, unquote, "whims."
CONWAY: I feel neither of those, Christiane. I am glad you asked. I guess, my first feeling would be disappointment and its disappointment in
whoever has authored this op-ed. It's ironic because, come forward, because I think it's pathetic, not patriotic, that you would hide behind
anonymous. For what reason? The "New York Times" said they granted anonymity to protect that person from losing his or her job. That's odd
because --
AMANPOUR: You think that person is inside the White House?
CONWAY: Most of us don't think that. the President just yesterday said he believes it's somebody in National Security. But what I do believe is that
who has said that ought to come forward and say it or ought to resign because the loyalty is not to the President only or at all, it's loyalty to
the Presidency, it's loyalty to the Constitution, it's loyalty to serving an administration that has views on issues, wants certain positions to fail
and others to prevail
So, I didn't work in President Obama's administration. I didn't work in President George W. Bush's administration. People who did, I would think,
although they all didn't, I am not saying otherwise, believed in what was happening there at the time.
And so, the disappointment I really feel is for the 62 million Americans who voted for President Trump and the over 300 million on whom he governs -
- 330 million or so whom he governs as President.
AMANPOUR: So, what do you think then of President Trump saying that the "New York Times" should hand over this person to the government, of Senator
Rand Paul who is a big advocate of the President saying there should be a lie detector test inside the White House or inside the administration to
try to ferret this writer out? Is there -- and others have said this hunt for the so-called culprit. Is that happening in the White House or in the
administration?
CONWAY: I'd much rather see an investigation of all the high-ranking people at the FBI who were trying to fix an election for --
AMANPOUR: We'll just get through this one --
CONWAY: I'm not interested in an investigation of this. I guess, those who are investigating, great. I really hope they find the person. I
believe the person will snuff himself or herself out though because that's usually what happens. People brag to the wrong person. They brag that
they did this or they did that because I assume part of this isn't the goal here, not with the op-ed potentially is, Christiane. Isn't the goal here
really to try to sow chaos and get us all suspicious of each other --
AMANPOUR: And is that what's happening? Are you all getting suspicious of each other?
CONWAY: No, that isn't what happened. It never happens. What happened at the beginning of this week when Bob Woodward's book came out and then the
anonymous op-ed came and this happened and that happened and if you go back to look on Twitter, it's embarrassing, but what isn't -- for many -- not
all, not even most in the press corps. So many people, I have screenshot at them for my amusement, yes, I'm so happy.
So many people -- by the end of this week, there will be a massive purge. There will be an exodus of people who will leave. How many times have we
heard this? They don't -- what worries me is that people who have the privilege of being in the media industry or really just being in almost any
industry that are covering the White House don't still understand how Donald Trump got elected and why and they're still not understanding who
elected him and what they heard from his message and how they contrasted that to the loser's message and wondered what he ran on to prevail.
AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you because it's obviously clear that we have to get to this point, and that is this, I mean, I don't know what to call it -
- distrustful, dysfunctional, really destructive relationship between the Presidency and the press at the moment. I wonder whether there's a way to
get out of it? I'm really interested in exploring it because it is the pillar of democracy.
I mean, the fourth state is a vital pillar of our democracy in civil society. You yourself, I don't believe, thinks that we, the press are the
enemy of the people? Do you believe that?
CONWAY: I don't. I said that, no.
AMANPOUR: You don't believe that.
CONWAY: I don't.
AMANPOUR: Then, do you try to weigh in with the President on this issue? Of course, he has his views and he makes it clear all the time. But you
know that a couple of -- or a month ago, there was some 300 US newspapers that tried to gather the group to defend the press themselves against this
enemy of the people slogan, and shortly afterwards, there was the arrest of a man in California who had taken this to heart, who had threatened to
shoot "Boston Globe" reporters in the head.
I mean, at what point is there a red line for you, personally, in the rhetoric causing potential danger and having consequences?
CONWAY: There is a lot in your extended statement. So, let me just say this. I don't think the press at large is the enemy of the people. I do
find the press often in their coverage of this White House and this administration and this President to be the enemy of the relevant, to be
the enemy of what Americans are telling the press and the presses on polling is relevant to them.
They don't cover what's in their own polling, so a major outlet will do a poll and they'll ask Americans what's the most important issue to you and
let's just say, in some fashion, the top three or four issues are the economy and jobs, healthcare, immigration, foreign policy, education. They
don't cover those issues day after day. And they say, "Yes, we do." And they don't.
If you do a content analysis, they simply don't. They want to cover the messenger, not the message. They want to cover palace intrigue and
personnel and not principles and policies, which is what people around the kitchen tables are talking about.
AMANPOUR: And to an extent --
CONWAY: It's going to -- it's going to be a little tough for me, and I would think some of my colleagues here who have been forced to have either
Secret Service protection or security, and really just change some of our lifestyles at times, it's going to be a hard thing for me to swallow that
the only people under threat or under assault are reporters at this newspaper or this person.
If certainly reporters feel that way, why do they go on late night TV? Why do they have agents they pay a percentage to? Why do they write books?
Why do they give speeches for tons of -- I have probably two speeches we'd all make in the White House in a year. So many people want themselves to
be public figures.
AMANPOUR: I am not entirely sure of the logic, but --
CONWAY: Well, I think people watching will be, not the press.
AMANPOUR: Right, but no. I'm serious about trying to figure this out because I've put my life on the line most of my career to tell the truth.
CONWAY: And you have.
AMANPOUR: To tell the truth, and I just wonder whether, again, you feel that there is a potential consequence. I understand that there is some
hate groups --
CONWAY: It goes both ways.
AMANPOUR: -- there are some hate groups directed towards some of you in the White House, however, there are also all sorts of despicable and
undemocratic leaders all over the world who are taking seriously President Trump's permission to demonize their own press, not to mention us, but to
demonize their own press to put them in jail, to often do worse to them.
CONWAY: Christiane, that didn't happen in the last 20 months as you full well know.
AMANPOUR: I do also know that actually --
CONWAY: You have had awards as a journalist who has gone around the globe.
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: But it has got worse in the last few months.
CONWAY: Well, I think --
AMANPOUR: And people are using the fake news slogan to justify the unprecedented amount of imprisonment and violence directed towards
journalists around the world.
CONWAY: I see things every single day that are just not true. People will call, even in the press in the coms shop and people will call me and ask a
question, and I'll say that's not true. People will actually do a story about my state of mind and I'll say that's not true and they will write and
then -- well, we have two sources. Two sources who aren't me about what I think.
AMANPOUR: Could you accept what I just posited as --
CONWAY: What I want to you is --
AMANPOUR: The reality.
CONWAY: I truly feel for your generation and your elevation of journalists because the media writ large now does not include a lot of Christiane
Amanpours. It includes a lot of people who call themselves reporters because they sit on Twitter all day seeing who wrote what and then they
repeat it even though they don't independently research it themselves.
AMANPOUR: The President accuses people from established high level media organizations including the "New York Times," CNN -- it's not just the --
CONWAY: But they say things that aren't true. Christiane, I assure you, I work here. And I work here because I want to be one small molecule for
change in a country, I love so deeply that has given me and my family so much.
CONWAY: Including freedom and the ability for my three daughters to go to school where girls -- in some places in the world, can't. I can drive. I
can go to college and law school -- the first person in my family. A lot of women can't around the globe. You know that more than anybody.
And so, for me, who's doing that kind of reporting? We see things every single day on TV and in print that I promise you, I swear to God, are
patently false. And nobody calls or they don't believe when we tell them what the truth is.
And my main grievance has always been simple. I said it during the campaign, I said it during the transition when I also said, "Look, the
President and the media are going to share joint custody of the country for the next four or eight years." I will say eight years now. We have to
figure out a way to responsibly co-parent as they say in modern language.
And that goes both ways. But what I have always said, I will continue to say, it's not just biased coverage. That's easy to detect. If you want to
find biased coverage in this or I want to find biased coverage on that, you will find it. It's incomplete coverage. It's that the administration and
the media have two independent but consequential platforms by which to inform the American people, if not the world, to your point, of what's
actually happening here.
The economic numbers are the story -- the greatest story never told. What the President is making good on his promise with respect to trade and
manufacturing, construction. If you are a coal miner, if you're in construction, if you're in manufacturing, if you want to be in a vocational
trade, this is your President. That story is not getting out there because it's not as riveting. And you know what? A lot of policy is tough to
figure out.
AMANPOUR: Almost -- a lot of policies are tough to figure out --
CONWAY: There are some journalist who are liberal, there are some who are just lazy and they don't want to figure out --
AMANPOUR: And there are some who are good at what they do.
CONWAY: -- that's why I said, I feel for a certain generation elevation of journalists because, people, even the most variantly anti-Trump editors
will not allow certain things in their paper if they can't check them for veracity, right? Even if they'd like to, they won't do it.
But the same reporters who can't get away with doing it there, get away with it through their cable news contracts. They get away with it on
social media --
AMANPOUR: As you know, our cable news organization, if there is a mistake, we apologize, correct and move on very rapidly and very transparently --
CONWAY: Sometimes --
AMANPOUR: We do. What I want to know though is, do you think the President might take a stance of his own to pull back from this? Because
remember what he told Lesley Stahl right after his inauguration, I mean, sorry, after his election, even before he was inaugurated, he basically
said, when she asked him about this, "You know why I do it. I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so that when you write negative
stories about me, no one will believe you."
So, is this a long-lasting strategy or can we see potentially, some way to get out of this thing that doesn't seem to be good for you or for us?
CONWAY: I'll respond in two ways. First of all, I do agree that it's not healthy for the body politics on either side. There is no indication we
have and we -- someone like I and others have tried, the President has tried to turn down the temperature, to give more access. He just gave a
few major interviews to print outlets, he gives interviews on television, but when you see story after story, you hear all the good news not being
covered.
I would give you an example. We talked about the economic reports. I think the media will start covering the economy if it ever goes down. I
think they will start covering the regulation if it ever starts going up again. And I want to say, if this country doesn't know what fentanyl is,
then the media are falling down --
AMANPOUR: Okay, I want to ask you about that --
CONWAY: Thirty thousand American died from it last year. And if you're not talking about that, if you're talking about anonymous -- fentanyl is
not anonymous. My goal is to make sure that the 30,000 Americans who died from the fentanyl overdose last year aren't anonymous.
AMANPOUR: And this is your big issue in the White House. One of the big ones --
CONWAY: One of the --
AMANPOUR: -- the opioid crisis. Do you have personal experience that leads you, like so many Americans and so many politicians, do you know
people who have suffered from this? Do you have anybody in your family? I mean, is it close to you?
CONWAY: I do, but again, I think that makes me like everybody else. It gives me the connective tissue with the rest of the country. I do and I
think everyone does. The President went first here, Christiane. He said, "My brother, Fred, Jr., died of alcoholism at the age of 42." And he will
say -- he said it again recently, I think the pool spray was there -- the press pool was there, he said, "My brother was so handsome, he was so
smart, he was the oldest and it just ruined his life and eventually took his life."
So, he went first in sharing his story. Here at the White House, we have a website, and it's share your story, crisisnextdoor.gov. Because we want
everybody to know, the stigma and the silence that attends to addiction in any form, particularly opioid and drug addiction needs to be blown away,
that people feel like they can come to somebody in their circle of life and share that story.
I have experience with the #MeToo Movement long before there was a #MeToo Movement. I was put upon, I was victimized, and nobody cares because I
work for President Trump.
AMANPOUR: No, people care.
CONWAY: Oh, I don't know. I said it after this thing --
AMANPOUR: What happened to you?
CONWAY: It doesn't matter to me now. But I just want to say, I am 51 years old, so you can imagine. When this was -- I think acceptable and
much more common place behavior --
AMANPOUR: What happened to you?
CONWAY: -- nobody had cell phones. I want to say this. That I said that for the first time after the debate in St. Louis which was two days after
the "Access Hollywood" tape came out and President Trump and Hillary Clinton debated.
And afterwards, I said it on live TV. And they said here's a list of people who thinks Donald Trump should get out of the race. And Republican
members of Congress said -- listen. I said, it's fascinating, I haven't thought about a few of them in a while, but when I see their names, I'm
reminded that they were early, early disciples of the #MeToo Movement. It wasn't called the #MeToo Movement at the time.
But that is, I think what's changed for women and what I'm really proud of with President Trump, is I was in Republican polling and politics and I had
a successful business for decades. But it's he who elevated a woman. I was hiding in plain sight to his campaign manager. It's he who has a
female Press Secretary. President Obama had four press secretaries, never a female. He had two or three campaign managers, never a female.
AMANPOUR: But he had a top counsel adviser who was a female also --
CONWAY: And so, that's right. I have her office. She is lovely and she was great to me when we first got here in showing me the ropes --
AMANPOUR: We should speak more about the opioids because Congress has attributed something like $5 billion.
CONWAY: Six.
AMANPOUR: Six now. Good. Some say though it needs about ten times that amount. And that a lot more emphasis needs to be on prevention and against
harm and treatment rather than law enforcement. Do you agree with that?
CONWAY: So, I agree that there is a three-front war on the opioid drug demand drug supply crisis. And when the President gave his remarks and his
policy rollout on March 19th on New Hampshire, he said exactly that.
We need to tackle these simultaneously, not sequentially because they are all important. Treatment and recovery, prevention, education, law
enforcement interdiction. You cannot arrest or punish away out of a drug crisis. That is involving every demographic and geographic group. It
knows no boundaries. It discriminates against no one.
And what the President has done, I will quickly run through them -- what the President has done, he has secured $6 billion in new funding from
Congress.
Now, through that $4 billion that came through the spending bill, of which not a single Democrat voted for. So, I would ask this Democrats to say, we
need ten times $6 billion, why did you vote against the first $6 billion? I am happy to tell you that HR-6, the largest legislative package in our
nation's history on any one drug crisis at any one time, that passed the House, Christiane, 396-14.
Nothing passes the House 396-14. So there is great bipartisanship in the effort to solve. It's now in the Senate. We want it on the President's
desk so he can sign it and tell the country what's in it. So, prevention also means, and education also means of prescribers, of drug companies
because we are now seeing 30 pills in a bottle go down to five or seven.
And I want to make very clear to your audience that we are not talking about chronic pain survivors of which -- excuse me, chronic pain --
Americans who suffer from chronic pain and need pain medication, like my own mother.
We are talking about the collegiate or high school sports injury, we're talking about the dental procedure, the surgery where you go home with
these bottles of pills, and that's when the trouble begins. Opioids are tricky.
So, we are trying to educate everyone. Opioids is tricky because that tiny little bottle bears a label that says "Family doctor and local pharmacy."
And it's been legally prescribed, so it's meant to help someone somehow, and you think trying one won't hurt you and it's becoming a gateway for the
process.
Education is also -- prescriber education. These are addictive. They are mind scrambling. NIH is working on a non-addictive solution. Also, the
Surgeon General put out -- first advisory for a Surgeon General in about a dozen years and it is about Naloxone. This is the overdose reversing drug.
He wants more Americans to be able to carry it around like you would an EpiPen.
AMANPOUR: I just want to get back to -- from where I sit, usually reporting from Europe and around the world, some of the stuff that's come
out in the Bob Woodward book, and in previous accounts of this White House and this Presidency, people are kind of concerned. They don't know how to
adjust and adapt for the Trump factor. They see him sometimes denigrating and pouring cold water over global alliances and the hard work of diplomacy
and negotiations and tending to cozy up -- that's my word -- to more traditional adversaries.
Then they also see, well, the President may say something and tweet something, but the government, the administration, Congress are actually
taking traditional foreign policy positions. Do you buy that? I mean, is this administration doing traditional foreign policy while President Trump
nonetheless --
AMANPOUR: -- says what he wants to say about things and responds to various allies and adversaries in that way?
CONWAY: Well, as Secretary and General Jim Mattis said earlier this week in response to the book, that the idea that he would disparage -- and this
is the key phrase, elected commander or tolerate anybody else doing that. That is the way many people view this President or any president. He is
the elected Commander-in-Chief.
He has a certain view of foreign policy, he thinks this country has been taken advantage for many years. He has said it many times. He said it
many times on the campaign, so it helped him get elected where he says we're getting taken advantage of. He's taken us out of the Iran deal. He
kept the promise of five Presidents -- five Presidents -- to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to recognize Jerusalem as the
Capital of Israel as Israelis do.
He pulled us out of the Paris Accords and everybody said the same thing every single time, didn't they? "Oh, my God, the whole world is going to
fall apart. Our faces will melt off tomorrow."
AMANPOUR: Well, people are still saying that obviously, by the way. But let's talk about Vladimir Putin specifically.
CONWAY: Okay, but if I say --
AMANPOUR: He praises him and yet your administration and Congress keep up with the --
CONWAY: He sanctioned him now. No, no --
AMANPOUR: Sanctions, yes.
CONWAY: He sanctioned -- it's not just the administration, and I'm sorry, I have to push back on that. This President has called for the Department
of Treasury, has called for Congress and others in a position to look at the sanctioning. He has sanctioned and expelled Russians from this
country.
It's not that he's cozying up. I am actually offended by the term -- the verb -- to Vladimir Putin. It's that the President is doing what he always
said he would do, which is if he can join together with other major countries and leaders to work on the big issues on which they agree, he
will do that.
And so, in this case, it may be Syria. It may be North Korea. When he met with Vladimir Putin, they discussed the Middle East, they discussed Syria
and North Korea. Just this week, to get a lot of coverage because Kim Jong-un, I guess, is not anonymous, but it's a major thing that Secretary
Pompeo is continuing these talks to follow up on the Singapore meeting and that Kim Jong-un has said he wants to denuclearize and that they are taking
steps that way.
We are already ahead of the game that way, Christiane, because the Vice President went to Hawaii and received the remains of our brave men and
women in battle from North Korea. The three detainees are back here on American soil with their families.
So, this is a President who has said he is open if the conditions are right and they continue to not put America last or even second, to meet with
different leaders. But let's be fair about all the trips he's had, all the bilateral meetings he's hosted here at the White House, all of the
multilateral meetings that he has attended.
His first trip in May of 2017 was the very first stop was to the seat of the Muslim world. He went to Saudi Arabia, then he went to the Vatican.
He went to Israel the same trip. And that just shows -- should show the entire world that he is serious about bringing peace not war anywhere that
he, as the Commander-in-Chief at a time such as this, the American President can do so.
But he also thinks that we are getting screwed on our trade deals and he is very honest about that. He is renegotiating NAFTA with Mexico and then
with Canada. And he thinks that our trade policy is part of our security policy. If you can have national security of the economic security and
vice versa. And NAFTA is 24 years old, he thinks it's very unfair to our workers. He thinks it's unfair to our interests and that it needs to be
modernized and more reciprocal and equitable to Americans. It's what a lot of Americans agree.
AMANPOUR: And we will take that up with one of the leaders of the global financial community, Christine Lagarde. Kellyanne Conway, thank so much
you for joining us.
CONWAY: Thank you so much. Appreciate it, thank you.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
AMANPOUR: Revealing insights from a formidable Washington insider and as I said, we are taking up some of the economics with another powerful
Washington player, Christine Lagarde. She is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund where she is trying to hold the line against
new American trade moves and keep the global economy humming along.
Lagarde believes passionately that equality is an economic game changer as well. Listen to what she said about the global financial crash of 2007
which was spurred if you remember by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE LAGARDE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND: If Lehman Brothers had been a little bit more Lehman sisters and brothers, you
see, concession here. We would not have had the degree of tragedy that we had as a result of what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And Christine Lagarde joins me now. Welcome to the program.
LAGARDE: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Let's just start with the little Lehman Sisters. I know, it's ancient history, but you know, you've often complained about posturing and
too much testosterone around a negotiating table.
LAGARDE: Well, I'm afraid this has not improved much. We are just actually going to release a study on the financial sector where it's very
clear that there are not enough women in finance. Only 2 percent of bank CEOs are women and if you look at the range of people in the banking and
the financial sectors who are taking decisions, 20 percent at the most are women. So, we seriously have a shortage.
AMANPOUR: And you used to tell me and used to say publicly this is not just a moral issue and just a humanity project, but it's actually a dollars
and cents issue.
LAGARDE: Absolutely. It's more than that actually. It's a dollar issue because generally, firms that have women on their board or on the executive
teams are more profitable. You look at the bottom line, it's very clear and there have been many studies on that front.
But most of the point in finance, in banks that have more women or in supervisory authorities that have more women, it is more stable. It is
safer. It is more secure. There are less risks taken, and, you know, we have had a lot of risks.
AMANPOUR: Well, in fact, we just -- that takes me back into the risky situation right now. You might have heard Kellyanne Conway. She just said
that the United States is getting screwed by many other countries in unfair trade and unfair surpluses and all the rest of it.
And actually, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary told you, yourself, that you need to take a firm hand dealing with some of these global players
regarding their trade surpluses. Are you going to take a firm hand and do buy into that?
LAGARDE: I think it's not because you have a leak in your bathtub that you are going to destroy the destroy the bathroom. And I know, it's a silly
analogy, but that's really where we are. We have international trade and we have been really fueling innovation, improved productivity, reduced cost
of living because of international trade because of international trade.
You know, because of international trade, an American family is able to spend probably about a third more than it would had it not been for trade
and that is particularly true for the low income families.
AMANPOUR: Even the left behind families?
LAGARDE: Yes, absolutely because they are the ones who buy more food, they are the ones who buy more clothes. They are the ones who are going to take
advantage of the good deals that you have on some of those goods that are imported.
So, it has been in the main, extremely beneficial for the consumers and for the economies that have been opened. More innovation, more productivity
that has been really a good deal, but it is true, and I agree with Steve Mnuchin that the system need fixing. But you don't destroy it, you fix it.
So, I think we should collectively, because that's a collective adventure that we are on. We should collectively fix the system and make sure that
the trading terms and conditions that we are operating under are fair. That I completely agree with.
AMANPOUR: So that is what the President says as well. It must be fair, not just free trade, but the new book by Bob Woodward refers specifically
to some of his trade views and they quote, "His staff secretary," and even Gary Cohn, his former economic adviser, asking him about these views after
they saw scribbled on a speech, edited speech by the President, trade is bad.
And Gary Cohn is supposed to be saying to the President, "Well why do you think that?" And he says, "Well, I've thought about it for 30 years." And
Cohn is reported to have said, "Well, I thought I could be a professional baseball player for 15 years, doesn't make it true." How do you get to a
political environment where you can overcome this economic nationalism?
LAGARDE: I think you first of all have to demonstrate that it has been beneficial for nations. And when I tell you that innovation has been
better in the US as a result of trade, productivity has been improved as a result of trade and consumers have had a better deal because of trade, it
goes in that direction. That's number one. Not to mention the fact that hundreds of millions of people have been taken out of poverty because of
trade in other corners of the world.
But what's also really important is to pay attention to those people who have not had the benefit of all that because the jobs were gone, because
their industry was moved out to Mexico, to China, to Vietnam, to wherever because the cost of producing there were lower than the cost of producing
in the US.
So, for those people, special deals need to be put in place, special programs need to be implemented so that they are trained to do other
things, they are supported during those transition periods and that's where I think many of the systems in the world, not just in the US have actually
failed them.
AMANPOUR: Can you make bespoke carve-outs for the people who are losing out, as you suggest? I mean, is the economy that flexible that you can --
and have this globalization and free trade and lifting millions if not billions of people out of poverty and also try to help those who are, by
technology --
LAGARDE: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: -- or migrating jobs, losing out?
[13:30:00]
LAGARDE: Yes, absolutely because some people are of net beneficiaries and others are net losers and you need to find a way to compensate them. I
don't think it's only trade and globalization related. We're going to have a far more difficult challenge to deal with -- with technologies,
automitization, robotization, artificial intelligence coupled with biotechs are going to actually affect the way in which we work. And significantly
and more so women than men.
AMANPOUR: In what way?
LAGARDE: That's a new study that we're going to publish soon as well. What we did is we tried to measure the impact on work of robotization,
artificial intelligence, biotech and all of that. Work has been done by other institutions focusing on 30 countries of the OECD. And you realize
that 28 million women's jobs are going to disappear which is roughly 11 percent. You look at the male population, it's only 9 percent. You
extrapolate that to the global economy, its 180 million women's jobs that will go. Now why are women more affected than women? I think that's really
the issue.
AMANPOUR: That's not the story we're hearing around the world. We are hearing that traditional male jobs are being lost, therefore this populous
backlash, this nativist backlash.
LAGARDE: It's not the -- well, there is that and clearly it's an issue particularly in advanced economies and particularly in this country. But
if you fast forward and you look at the impact that technologies will have, you very soon see that those who have repetitive tasks, those who do
routine jobs, those whose, you know, tasks can actually be substituted -- replaced by machines are more women than men. So we need to think about
that now and make sure that women are equipped to actually deal with that and anticipate the risk that they are under.
AMANPOUR: So are you saying this disruption - people call it disruption and chaos from the Trump Administration, up ending the so called post war
global, liberal, political economic world order has its flaws but also has concentrated your mind -- the global sort of economic minders to actually
deal with some of the stuff that he's talking about.
LAGARDE: Well, he certainly has emphasized areas where we need to fix but we don't need to destroy. That's the point I was making about the bathtub
leak and the bathroom that you don't want to destroy.
AMANPOUR: Baby in the bath water some people might say.
LAGARDE: Oh yes, no, you don't want to throw it out, yes. But we live in an international world where problems are of an international nature.
Whether you look at pandemics, whether you look at terrorism, whether you look at financial crisis, whether you look at climate change, all of those
factors that will affect all of us greatly are global by nature. You can't stop any of that. You can't build a wall to stop that. So we need to work
on that collectively, all together and it has to have the rules of law. It has to have order, discipline and ways to implement those rules. In that
vein he has led many of us to concentrate on what exactly needs to be fixed and how do we do it.
AMANPOUR: What about this trade war? Do you believe we've been in a trade war, we're still in a trade war, is there a trade war truce? Where are we
right now with China, for instance, in the EU vis-a-vis Americans and tariffs?
LAGARDE: You know we have seen an escalation of the trade war threats and we have seen implementation of some of the measures; $50 billion worth of
Chinese goods are now subject to additional tariffs. There is a threat that another $200 billion is under the same threat.
AMANPOUR: It's relatively little right compared to the trillions of dollars of the global economy.
LAGARDE: I wouldn't say that it's little. I wouldn't say that it's little because if you look at the global package of total Chinese goods
exported to the United States and if that was under additional tariffs, you are talking about real impact on the economy.
AMANPOUR: And on American consumers?
LAGARDE: Oh, yes. Absolutely. The American consumer is going to pay a higher price because what do you do -- I won't take the American consumer
example, but I'm building airplanes, let's assume I'm Boeing for a second and suddenly the steel need, the aluminum that I need, the titan or
whatever components I need, suddenly prices are higher because they have been subject to a tariff. What do I do? Do I squeeze my margin to keep my
price to compete with Airbus? Maybe but maybe not. Maybe I increase my prices because I want to keep my margins and keep my shareholders happy. So
this is what is likely to happen particularly for products that cannot be easily substituted or that are not in a wide open competition.
AMANPOUR: A second ago you said you can't roll back this internationalization of trade and all sorts of other, you know,
relationships between the world.
LAGARDE: Yes, common change, (inaudible)...
AMANPOUR: And yet, the president is trying to renegotiate NAFTA. We understand he has come to some kind of deal -- a separate deal with Mexico
but Canada still has not come into the fold and the president has tweeted that there's no political reason to want or to have to have Canada involved
in a NAFTA or a three-way deal. Congress has a different view. But is he right that he doesn't need Canada to be part of any kind of North American
trade deal?
LAGARDE: Do you know any country that doesn't need its neighbor? We will need our neighbors and will need to have good relationship with our
neighbor and when you're doing a lot of trade with your neighbor, you want to do it at the best possible terms; fair, reciprocated but it has to be
accepted on both sides.
AMANPOUR: And for Europe, we've heard now from the European trade ministers and others that they're quite happy to try to deal as Trump said,
"Let's just get rid of all tariffs, all barriers on cars and all the rest of it." I mean I'm sort of lumping it all in, but is that a reality that
there might be just a tariff less?
LAGARDE: In trade, that's an interesting proposition. It's one that should be explored. First of all, I would observe that tariffs are already
very low. So going one step further and trying to remove tariffs is to be explored, why not?
AMANPOUR: How do you stay fit, healthy, motivated, upbeat? I know you used to be a synchronized swimmer for your country, for France.
LAGARDE: That's right.
AMANPOUR: Do you still do that?
LAGARDE: I don't do the synchronized part, I do the swimming part on a regular basis, yes.
AMANPOUR: What did it bring you, the synchronized part and the swimming part now?
LAGARDE: Well, swimming develops physical strength, resistance, resilience and the synchronized part of it is the most interesting one. Because it
teaches you teamwork, discipline, coordination of music, athletic skills, and flexibility and you have to hold your breath.
AMANPOUR: Think before you speak and do.
LAGARDE: That's right.
AMANPOUR: Christine Lagarde, thank you so much for joining me.
LAGARDE: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: When it comes to racism, many white Americas have the same visceral response, "I'm not a racist." But our next guest, Dr. Robin
DiAngelo argues simply and sadly that's not true that an unconscious bias exists within even the most progressive of us, white people. She would
note, Dr. DiAngelo says that she was one of them. In her new book, the sociologist describes what she recognized as her own White Fragility. She
sat down to talk about all of this with our Michel Martin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST, AMANPOUR: Why White Fragility and how do we recognize it?
ROBIN DIANGELO, AUTHOR, WHITE FRAGILITY: The fragility part is meant to capture how little it takes to set white people off, to set us off into
defensiveness. So for many white people, the mere suggestion that white has meaning will cause us to erupt in offensiveness. For many of your
listeners, the fact that I'm generalizing right now about white people will set off the defensiveness. Individualism is a really precious ideology for
white people and we do not like to be generalized about.
My response to that is I'm a sociologist, I'm quite comfortable generalizing about groups of people. Social life is observable and
describable in patterned ways. And, yes, I'm an individual, I'm also a member of a social group. I have to be willing to grapple with the
collective messages we're all receiving because we live in a shared culture.
MARTIN: So let's back up a second and talk about how you got interested in this work and in this subject. I know that you're an academic, I know that
you're a lecturer and also you've done what would you call it anti-racist training.
DIANGELO: Yes.
MARTIN: It used to be called diversity training, maybe it isn't called that anymore.
DIANGELO: I think of myself as somebody who came from practice to theory rather than a lot of academics to go from theory to practice. So I applied
for a job and in the early '90s for diversity trainer, that's what we called it at the time. I thought, of course, I'm qualified to go into the
workplace and lead people on discussions of race. I'm a vegetarian. How could I be racist? I had that really classic liberal open-minded kind of
idea about what it meant to be racist, and I saw myself of course as outside of that, and felt qualified and I got the job.
And I was in for the most profound learning of my life. It was a parallel process so two key pieces were one. For the first time in my life I was
working side by side with people of color who were challenging the way I saw the world.
[13:40:03]
And part of being white is that I could get that far in life. I was a parent at that point. I was in my 30s and never had I had my racial world
view challenged, one. Two, definitely not by a significant number of people of color and not in any kind of sustained way. And it worked like a
mirror. I was a fish being taken out of water. I would not have been able to tell you I had a racial world view, because as a white person I was
raised to see myself as just human.
Now, you're a particular kind of human. I'm just human. And if we're going to be talking about race, I expect we're going to talk about your
race, not my race. So most white people have a very unracialized identity, so that was the first thing. The second was going into the workplace,
overwhelmingly white employees who were mandated to be having these conversations and the hostility was off the charts.
MARTIN: You tell some very interesting stories in this book. For example, you talk about leading a seminar where 38 out of the 40 people in the room
were white. And then one of the participants literally pounds the table and yelling, "White people can't get a job." And everybody who had a job
there was white.
DIANGELO: It's a kind of delusion. I mean some people have said when you're used to one 100%, 98% feels oppressive. As a white person, I was
raised to expect the world to be mine in absolutely any field. I see myself represented. I see myself represented in all of my teachers, and my
curriculum, and my heroes and heroines. So just even a suggestion that we need to make sure we're being fair and including other people seems to set
the white collective off.
MARTIN: Tell me some of the things that you saw in these workshops that let you to this theory.
DIANGELO: It's a lot like water dripping on a rock. I didn't get it the first, second, third but it's so consistent and so patterned that it's like
a script and after a while you can just stand in there and say, "I can predict what this white person is going to say right now." And sure
enough, they say it. So I was taught to treat everyone the same. I have people of color in my family. I was in Teach For America. That I marched
in the '60s. I taught in a diverse school.
The evidence that white people give for their lack of racism is very revealing to what we think racism is and everything I do is to try to get
us off the surface which is all of these narratives and get under there to the underlying framework. Because despite all of those narratives, I was
taught to treat everyone the same, I don't see color, our outcomes haven't improved. By virtually every measure, there's racial inequality in this
country and by many measures it's increasing, not decreasing and I think what's really clear, we are not post-racial, right?
So what is happening there? So the question that drives my work is how do we pull this off, how do we insist that our race has no meaning in a
society that is deeply separate and unequal by race? How do we sit, those of us who are white, in such explicit segregation and claim there's nothing
happening here?
MARTIN: One of the things that I think some people might experience as deeply provocative is when you say that white progressives cause the most
daily damage to people of color. How so?
DIANGELO: Well, white progressives are my specialty because I'm a huge white progressive. What I mean by that is not so much Democrat-Republican.
Any white person who sees themselves as not racist, less racist, who's thinking right now of all of the other white people that I wish were
listening to this program right now, because they really need it, that is a white progressive.
I think we do the most daily harm, because we're more likely to be in the lives of people of color and yet our identities are very much rooted in
this idea of ourselves being free of racism. So if racism comes up, we're going to put all of our energy into making sure you see us as free of
racism and really rarely any of our energy into what we need to be doing for the rest of our lives. It certainly includes people who have conscious
intent of harm, but most bias is actually not conscious.
So we have to change our understanding of racism from an individual moment that may or may not have occurred to the system we're in and that is
circulating 24/7 and 365. And that changes the question from is or isn't he or she racist to how is racism manifesting in this context.
MARTIN: You speak very frankly in the book about how you've stepped in it yourself, if I can use that phrase. Can you give example of where you
experienced your own white fragility?
[13:45:05]
DIANGELO: I used to be the co-director of equity for large a nonprofit and my other director was a black woman so we were an interracial team and our
executive assistant was also a black woman. One day the company hired a developer to come in and design the company's web page and she set meetings
up with every team to interview us about what we did so that she could design our page. So she calls the three of us into a meeting with her and
I'll call her Angela and it turns out that she's also a black woman.
So in a room with three black women, two of which I'm very close to, and one that I don't know at all. And she gives us a survey to fill out and
it's tedious to me. It seems kind of template. It doesn't capture the nuance of what we do, so I push it aside and say, "Let me explain. We go
out into these different offices and we do these anti-racism trainings. In fact, Debra here was asked not to come back when she went to such and such
office. I guess her hair scared the white people. She has long black braids."
So I want you to notice what I'm doing, not only I'm making a joke about a black woman's hair which is a sensitive issue and I do know better, but I'm
positioning myself as the cool white person and they're all the clueless white people. And I wish I could tell you that I recognize that I was
doing that, I didn't. The meeting is over. A couple of days later, the assistant, Marsha, comes to me and says, "Angela was really offended by
that joke you made about black women's hair." And I immediately, "Oh, God. Thank you."
And I called Angela and I said, "Would you be willing to grant me the opportunity to repair the racism that I perpetrated towards you in the
meeting last week?" She said, "Yes." We sat down. We talked about it and she said, "I don't know you. I have no relationship with you. I have no
trust with you and I do not want to be joking about black women's hair in a professional work meeting with a white woman
I don't know." "I hear you. I apologize."
Then, I asked, "Is there anything I missed?" And she said, "Yes. That survey you so glibly shoved aside, I wrote that survey and I have spent my
life justifying my intelligence to white people." On that, I apologized and asked, "Is there anything else that needs to be said or heard that we
might move forward?" And she said, "Yes, if we're going to work together, I'm sure you're going to run your racism at me again. So the next time you
do, would you like your feedback publicly or privately?"
MARTIN: Interesting.
DIANGELO: Well, I love her for that. I said, "Publicly. In my case, please. It's important that other white people see I'm not free of this
but it gives me an opportunity to model non-defensiveness. And are we good?" "We're good." And we moved on and one of the things she said to me
was, "This kind of stuff happens to us all of the time. What has never to me before is what you're doing right now, this repair, and I appreciate
it."
And I think white fragility functions as a kind of everyday white racial bullying. We, white people, so often make it so miserable for people of
color to talk to us about what they're experiencing, to talk to us about the inevitable and often unaware racist patterns that were manifesting,
that most of the time they don't.
MARTIN: You said you don't want white people to feel guilty which is exactly what I think some people listening to our conversation will feel
and will think that you want to evoke. So why do you say you don't want white people to feel guilty?
DIANGELO: Well, because you didn't choose your socialization. You didn't choose your conditioning. You were born into a society that set you up in
these ways. You don't need to feel guilty unless you know that and you're not doing anything about it. So I think that guilt is a natural part of
the process, but it's what you do with the guilt. If it becomes your excuse for not engaging any further, then it's just indulgent and you're
just using it to protect your position. If it motivates you to keep going, then it's useful.
MARTIN: I have group of people that are resurgent at the moment and we certainly see them openly discussing their views that they don't want a
meritocracy. They want a hierarchy with white people on top, particularly white males, I want to say. How do you understand that?
DIANGELO: When I think about it, there's not one single thread, there are many threads and it's also what makes us so often irrational on this topic
because there's so many different things going on. Politicians have always been able to manipulate the white collectives through racial animus. Maybe
some of your listeners are familiar with the southern strategy and that coded back in the Reagan days, welfare queens. Those kind of coded terms,
dog whistle. We're beyond dog whistle and now you can just come out at the top of the hierarchy and the highest office in the nation is pretty
explicit of racism.
[13:50:00]
MARTIN: What about ...
DIANGELO: Go ahead.
MARTIN: ... the people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump?
DIANGELO: I think that Obama was symbolic. I think what Obama did was allow us to feel really good about ourselves under very narrow terms. If
the word racism ever came out of his mouth, I don't know what would have happened. He had to be the perfect black man. The safe black man. He's
also brilliant, and clear, and uneducated and also at the same time that allows me to feel good about myself. There's also a little bit of
challenge there in how powerful a black man he is.
I would ask any white person who voted for Obama and sees that as kind of their evidence that they're free of racism to ask themselves how did it
change your life on the ground, how did Obama's presidency change the live experience for black people in this country day in and day out. I don't
think that it did, it was important symbolically but mass incarceration, school to prison pipeline, these things have not diminished. In many ways,
they've increased.
MARTIN: Do you see Trump as a reaction to Obama and if so why?
DIANGELO: I see Trump as a reaction to Obama because Trump gave permission to the resentment that was roiling under the surface.
MARTIN: Resentment of what?
DIANGELO: Of black advancement, of black uppityness, to use a Jim Crow analogy, you will step off the curve when I come down, and you will not
look me in the eye. His racism is explicit, and undeniable and that that wasn't a deterrent I think white people have to look really hard at why was
that not a deterrent to you. In fact, I would wonder if it wasn't actually something that excited you and allowed you to indulge in and not admit it.
MARTIN: Why do you say that though? You're a scholar like where's your data, like what makes you say that.
DIANGELO: There's a kind of glee in the white collective when black bodies are punished. When you think about the way football players are talked
about as how dare they not be grateful, we don't tend to talk about white football players in terms of you should be grateful for what you have.
There's something really deep going on here. And Toni Morrison beautifully argues that white people need black people. There is no white without
black. I cannot be superior if you are not inferior.
And so there's a kind of investment in those positions and it's the bedrock of this country. It's may be buried in a way that it wasn't in the past,
but it sure looks like it's coming back up.
MARTIN: So given that some people who will be hearing our conversation will say, "I would like to do better. I don't have access to these
seminars or these training experiences at my job, but I'd like to do better." What should they do?
DIANGELO: Yes, great. The simplest thing a white person can do that wants to do better and that this is a new journey for them is take the
initiative, break with the apathy of whiteness and go look it up. I'll never forget talking to a multiracial group of people and I ask the
question to the people of color, "What would it be like if you could just give white people feedback when we showed our inevitable and often unaware
racist assumptions and patterns and had us receive that feedback with grace, reflect and seek to change our behavior, what would that be like?"
And I'll never forget this man of color raising his hand and saying, "It would be revolutionary." And I'm just like, "Wow." A revolution that I
would receive it with grace, reflect and seek to change the behavior. That's how difficult we are and yet it's also how easy it is. We just
can't get there from this paradigm that says, "Only bad intentional mean people could ever perpetrate racism."
MARTIN: Robin DiAngelo, thank you for talking with us.
DIANGELO: You're welcome.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: An uncomfortable message but an important one from Robin DiAngelo. And that is it from us for now. Thanks for watching this
special edition of Amanpour. And remember that you can always listen to our podcast and see us online at amanpour.com. And you can follow me on
Facebook and Twitter. Goodbye from London.
[13:55:00]
END
