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Amanpour
House Of Representatives Votes To Present Impeachment Inquiry To Public; Country Before Politics; Two More Diplomats Take The Stand In Impeachment Trial; William Cohen, Former U.S. Defense Secretary, Is Interviewed About Trump's Impeachment; "Pain And Glory," A New Film By Pedro Almodovar; Antonio Banderas Is Interviewed About His New Movie And His Health; Zanny Minton Beddoes Is Interviewed About Brexit And The Economy. Aired 2-3p ET
Aired October 30, 2019 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to AMANPOUR. Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the vote that they're now going to have to open the impeachment inquiry will be very interesting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Democrats get ready on a rare vote on impeachment. I speak to former defense secretary, William Cohen, one of the first Republicans to
vote for Nixon's impeachment about what's at stake today.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): You haven't been a good son.
ANTONIO BANDERAS, ACTOR, "PAIN AND GLORY" (through translator): No?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Spain's leading man, Antonio Banderas, on "Pain and Glory," his new film that's gaining Oscar buzz.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZANNY MINTON BEDDOES, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ECONOMIST: There are important things that needs to changed and that need to be looked at, and that's the
silver lining in this political turmoil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: "The Economist" editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, joins our Walter Isaacson to explain why rethinking capitalism is at the heart of
today's shifting world order.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
After weeks of fact-finding behind closed doors, the House is gearing up to vote on the best way to present its impeachment inquiry to the public, in
what will likely be act two of the investigation into the president's alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine.
The gathering political storm comes amid of flurry of damming testimonies from top officials. Most recently, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Bindman,
the Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who listened in on the phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, Zelensky,
and said the White House omitted details of the calls in its transcript.
Today, two more diplomats take the stand, Christopher Anderson and Catherine Croft. Both worked for Trump's former envoy to Ukraine, Kurt
Volker, who helped the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, contact Ukrainian officials close to President Zelensky.
Now, former defense secretary, William Cohen, has been watching these hearings. He's a member of the Judiciary Committee during the Watergate
hearings. He was one of the handful of Republicans who actually voted for President Nixon's impeachment.
And now, he's calling for politicians on both sides of the aisle to put country before party as they evaluate the current evidence. And he's
joining me now from Washington.
Secretary Cohen, welcome to the program.
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Good to be with you.
AMANPOUR: So, can I ask you, first and foremost, do you think the House and the Senate are, in fact, going to or have they showed any evidence that
they are putting country before politics?
COHEN: I think some of them are. I believe the Democrats who are now leading in the House are trying to get all of the facts as best they can.
I think they've gone about it the right way and that is to have private hearings or secret hearings in order to make sure nothing that is
classified comes out in open testimony.
That's what happened during the Watergate era, where the Watergate committee had private hearings before they went public. And as a result of
those public hearings, it certainly educated the American people in terms of what was at stake. And then it came over to the House of
Representatives.
We conducted almost all of our hearings in private and only went public when we started to debate the articles of impeachment. So, there is kind
of a hybrid here because there was no Senate Watergate committee investigating -- a Watergate type committee investigating the -- President
Trump and his actions.
And so, it's a hybrid now where the House has been required to go and dig out some of the facts before they go public and then they'll go public, I
assume, within the next two weeks.
AMANPOUR: So, it's very interesting that you are really, you know, hammering this fact, that they have been doing their job behind closed
doors because they needed to get all the relevant facts before they could go public.
I mean, I assume you're saying that to answer the chorus of criticism from the Republicans and from members of Trump's base that this is somehow, as
he says, a kangaroo process with everything happening in a nontransparent way.
COHEN: Well, like much of else what is being said is false. Number one, Republicans have been in the hearings behind closed doors. And the
spectacle that we saw last week with 40 or 50 Republicans storming the Intelligence Committee room was just that. It was a spectacle. Because
many of those who were storming the doors actually had seats on the inside and could have sat there if they hadn't at any time during the course of
all of these hearings.
So, I think it was more a show. It had little to do with the facts, and the facts were being gathered by Republicans behind closed doors as well as
the Democratic majority.
[14:05:00]
And so, now, we'll go public and I think it's really important. It is not enough to have Robert Mueller just read from his testimony of what he had
gathered as his findings. It is really important that those who have key information go before the American people, be subjected to critical
examination and cross-examinations so the American public can understand what's at stake.
And what's at stake is the rule of law and whether or not the president has breached that rule, whether or not he has engaged in conduct which, in my
opinion, on its phase is impeachable, namely to call upon a foreign government to dig up critical information or dirt on a potential campaign
competitor in the following -- in the next year's race.
So, I think that is something, which on the phase of it, would be an impeachable offense.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, you mentioned rule of law, that's obviously the fundamental principle of one of the main principles of the United States
and the democracy there. Are you concerned that the rule of law itself is under threat and are you concerned that the consistent attack on
institutions in the United States is having an impact on the democratic process?
COHEN: I am. During the time of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson and others, it was called, you know, watching the president at the beginning. I think
we are present at the end of that process. So, they were present at the beginning of setting up these key institutions in the United States and
elsewhere which helped to maintain, for the most part, peace and stability for the past 70 years.
I believe that President Trump is in the process of knocking down those pillars. And so, he feels that doesn't need any of these other
institutional guards and such to make -- that he feels that he alone can take action without regard to any other institutions which are there to
make sure the rules of law stays intact.
And so, that only I can do this, and that has the sound of, you know, a dictator or a dictatorship where only I can solve this problem. I don't
need you for a consultation. I know more than the generals. I know more than the ambassadors. And I alone can take this action without regard to
you, Congress. I don't need you. I don't have to come to you. And therefore, it becomes one-man rule.
Now, if the president can do that in first term, what would we expect if he has a second term and which has no need to go before the electorate again,
there's no need to go to Congress to say, gee, I am sorry. I broke this rule. There will be no rules that would go unbroken, in my opinion,
because he feels that he is above the law, that he is the face of the law, that he is the face of Justice Department and et cetera.
So, I worry about the future as much as I worry about the president in terms of what is happening. I want the president to abide by the rule of
law and I want Republicans to say, Mr. President, when you step over the line, you have to be held accountable. You cannot go to a foreign
government and ask for assistance against -- dirt on your future opponent. That crosses a line which should not be crossed.
Now, whether the majority in the Senate, the super majority in the Senate, two-thirds of the Senate will vote for removal, I think at this point, is
rather doubtful. But in any event, even if doubtful, it is important for the American people to listen to the facts to say, you may think it's okay
for this president but do you want to set the standards and lower the standards for every other president in the future? Because what is good
for President Trump will good for them.
And I've always believed -- I want to look up to the president. I want to see the president as a shining example of what the rule of law is supposed
to look like in America and why we treasure that rule of law because if you don't have the rule of law, you have the law of rule, and that's something
the president seems really more akin to. He likes President Putin, he like Kim Jong-un, he likes President Xi Jinping, he likes President Erdogan.
He doesn't much does like our allies in terms of paying the same kind of tribute to them that he does to those who have the kind of one-man rule.
AMANPOUR: I mean, you have just laid out a pretty alarming scenario. I mean, if I had to sum it up, you are pretty much saying that potentially
the United States is on a sort of route to anti-democracy, I mean, almost like tyranny, you've just said. And from somebody like yourself who's a
pretty moderate Republican who served the Democratic president, you're not a flamethrower, it's pretty alarming.
[14:10:00]
I wonder whether your former colleague or current members of Congress, whether the House or the Senate, are listening. And you, of course, signed
a letter with 44 other formers, Republicans and others about this issue. And yet, the "Boston Globe" has said, where are you all? Where are you
all? Where are the Republican senators or Congress people who actually did what they had to do according to the rule of law during the Watergate era?
Where are you all apart from you speaking out like this?
COHEN: Well, many of the Republican senators with whom I served feel exactly as I do, they are worried about where the country is heading. I
would ask everyone to go back and read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" 1984 and look at what he was writing about, in a fictional sense, and saying, is that
where we're headed? Where you have a ministry of truths in which you can tell the biggest of lies and you repeat them over and over again until they
are accepted as the truth.
So, you have a situation where the words like war really means peace or ignorance really means wisdom or slavery is equal to freedom and two plus
two equals five. When you -- that's pretty fictional but it is not too far removed when you can have the president of the United States say, yes, I
wrote this letter and it is a perfect letter. And I would say, yes. Perfectly corrupt in the sense you are trying to dig out dirt through a
country that is beholden to us for its security. In order to get that security delivered to them but only if you give us this information on Joe
Biden and his family.
And so, you keep repeating, it's perfect, it's perfect, it's perfect, and people pretty soon will say, yes, it is perfect. So, that's why it is
important to have these public hearings so you can have Ambassador Bill Taylor and Ambassador Yovanovitch. You can have the lieutenant colonel
come forward and say, here is what I heard. This is why it alarmed me and this is why every American should be alarmed about this because this is not
what we do. This is not how we act.
We don't ask Russia -- Russia, if you are listening, come on in. See what you can dig up on Hillary Clinton. If you are listening, Ukraine, come on
in and get some dirt on Biden. If you are listening, China, come on in, we are open for business. That's not something that we can accept or should
not accept. And to the extent of the American feel its OK, then I think we're headed down a very dangerous path --
AMANPOUR: Well --
COHEN: -- one that every American should be concerned about.
AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you about the American people. Because clearly, the idea of an impeachment is a very divisive and traumatic one for the
nation. They have been through it once or twice before, it's rare but it's happened, and it is traumatic. And people will also say as President
Trump's allies have said that it is simply attempt to rob an elected leader of his position. Do you -- are you concerned, given what we're seeing in
polls right now, that this could be even more divisive, even more traumatic than -- you know, than the rule of law being upheld?
COHEN: Well, we had the same arguments we made back during the Watergate. There were people in the streets, we had bomb threats at our hearings. I
had to get special protection for my family as well. And the argument was this will tear our country apart.
And my argument at that point was, no, it will not tear the country apart. There will be a vice president who will take office. Of removing the head
for -- a head of state for actions that are antithetical to what we believe in will not result in tearing the country apart.
What will tear the country apart is if we watch the slow unraveling of the rule of law in the name of power of the president. And when you confuse
the office of the president with the individual president, then his undoing becomes our undoing. And I try to make that very clear. I believe it
still obtains. The president is there as temporary occupant but we have our allegiance to -- it's the office of the president and to the
constitution and to the country.
And so, I know that President Trump was trying to get members like Mr. Comey, the director of FBI. I want you to pledge your loyalty to me. The
answer is no, Mr. President. I don't pledge my loyalty to you, I pledge my loyalty to the constitution. And that's something that has been going on
now, insisting upon loyalty to the person, and it has be loyalty to the office of the president.
AMANPOUR: So, why do you think then -- sorry to interrupt you. But why do you think then so many Republicans are, in fact, not doing what you are
saying, in other words, they are pledging their loyalty to him rather than to the country in your format there?
[14:15:00]
COHEN: Part of it is fear. They fear that because of his popularity with the Republican base, that if they criticize him, they're likely to face a
primary opponent or they are likely to be defeated. That's always a possibility. And given his popularity of the Republican right, that's a
real possibility.
My argument would be, it's more important for the country that you sacrifice your position if necessary, in order to defend the constitution
because that's the oath you took, not to preserve your position in Congress but to preserve the constitution. If you are unwilling to do that, you
shouldn't be there in the first place.
AMANPOUR: And very finally, what is all this doing to America's position in the world? It's the internal politics that we see but is also what
happened with the Syrian Kurds, you saw "The Economist" cover, who can trust Trump's America anymore? What world leaders or the people who you
now speak to on a regular basis, saying about America as a foreign policy behemoth in the world?
COHEN: They have less trust in us than never before in my experience. They don't know what will come next. They can't trust the word of the
president because he changes his words and mind virtually every day.
And so, the need for continuity, the need for predictability, the need for trust is vital in the formulation and the execution of foreign policy.
Right now, a number of leaders that I've talked to don't have that. They're worried about us, they're worried about whether they coach or count
on the United States, will we abide by the agreements or will we tear them up and look for a better deal tomorrow?
So, trust is the coin of the realm, it always has been in human relations. And when you call that into question, then certainly are calling into
question the nature of relationships with -- be they with adversaries or with allies, both will come to distrust your word.
AMANPOUR: Former Secretary of Defense, Republican, William Cohen, thank you very indeed for joining us.
COHEN: Pleasure to be with you.
AMANPOUR: So, that is, very very dramatic up there on Capitol Hill.
And we turn to a whole different type of drama now from Arthouse Spanish cinema to Hollywood megastar, Antonio Banderas, has done it all. Known for
his blockbuster roles in Hollywood films like the "Mask of Zorro" and "Shrek." Banderas has been a fixture in popular culture for decades.
Now, he is returning to his root for "Pain and Glory," a new film based on the life of the legendary Spanish filmmaker, Pedro Almodovar, who also
directs. The role is a study on health, aging and feelings. And is poignant considering Banderas himself only recently recovered from a heart
attack.
Here's a clip of his character, Salvador, receiving a surprising phone call from a long-lost love.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEONARDO SBARAGLIA, ACTOR, "PAIN AND GLORY" (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Salvador?
ANTONIO BANDERAS, ACTOR, "PAIN AND GLORY" (through translator): Yes.
SBARAGLIA (through translator): Is that you? I couldn't have recognized you. This is Frederico.
BANDERAS (through translator): Frederico.
SBARAGLIA (through translator): I'm in Madrid.
BANDERAS (through translator): What are you doing here?
SBARAGLIA (through translator): Seeing lawyers about an inheritance. I'm leaving tomorrow night. I'd like to see you.
BANDERAS (through translator): Same here. But I'm in bed now. Can we meet tomorrow?
SBARAGLIA (through translator): How about at midday? I'm seeing the lawyers in the afternoon.
BANDERAS (through translator): Yes, perfect.
SBARAGLIA (through translator): I didn't ask how you are.
BANDERAS (through translator): Old.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, critics are calling this Banderas' most important role yet. And he's joining me now from Los Angeles.
Antonio Banderas, welcome to our program.
BANDERAS: Thank you. Thank you for having me here.
AMANPOUR: So, let me just ask you. Here you are playing this aging hero really, Spanish film director. How does it feel to see yourself in this
aging role? I'm not sure whether you've ever played somebody so, obviously, older than you look anyway. And what does it mean for you to
come back to your roots? What does this film mean to you?
BANDERAS: I lot because, you know, I am working with a person that I met 40 years ago, and there were some (ph) revolutionary, in a way, in the
Spanish cinematography and in the Spanish society because Pedro Almodovar started working and doing movies only five years after General Franco in
Spain. The country was, you know, very conservative at the time, very monolithic.
And so, figures like Pedro Almodovar at th time were needed, were needed just to change the minds of people in many different aspects [14:20:00],
you know, the morality of the country, sexuality, a number of things.
Pedro Almodovar has been, in a way, the peak of a pyramid of people who actually collaborated to do so, you know, to do a (INAUDIBLE), to be a
witness in that. And from the inside, actually, because I have done eight movies with him, and come at the end of 40 years to perform a character
that he's basically him, in a way, or an alter ego of him is something very special and unique.
AMANPOUR: You know, because you brought up Franco and the times in which Almodovar did his work, I mean, you must have heard the last conversation.
I mean, we are talking about, you know, the rule of law being at risk, authoritarianism rising even within our democracies. I just wonder what
you make as an art world fixture, as a film actor over the fact that Franco is in the news again, his body was exhumed, he's been, you know, moved
again. And this whole -- where Almodovar started, it's kind of backup in the forefront of democratic politics now, this leaning towards nationalism.
BANDERAS: Yes. We are living actually in a very complicated complex world these days. You know, it's true in one side that it was good to remove the
body of Franco out of monuments that was, in a way, symbolic of the old regime, and that is healthy thing just to move the body out of there. The
possibility of parties anyway to do some kind of electoral campaign, you know, using that -- that's a completely different issue, you know.
But in this world that we are living, it's so confusing and so strange in a way, probably the race of population in Spain is one of those countries
where this is happening too, has to do probably with the fact that the traditional parties didn't know how to put an end to endemic problems that
have been, you know, following as for many years now.
The situation, for example, in Africa, the immigration, the -- it's just invading Europe, what to do with this. You know, on one side, you want
just be humanitarian and take them into your country. But -- for example, Spain is a country that has an index of unemployment very high. So, what
do you do with 250,000 people that can get into the country every year? It is very complicated the world in which we are living in.
There are probably solutions. But the solutions to those problems take so many years that actually -- and politicians, they have terms that go from
four to eight years that nobody wants to really do -- not a marshal plan but an Africa plan. For example, they would take 40, 50, 60 years to
present some solutions to the problems of the continent. But they are never going to get a feedback out of that.
AMANPOUR: Right.
BANDERAS: So, nobody wants to get in there. And at the same time, they just may put in the table that it is going to be expensive. But actually,
the price we are paying now is even more expensive, not in terms of money but in terms of human lives. So, yes.
And we artists, we have definitely a certain obligation to confront all of these situations in a way and to express our self through our art, which
is, in my case, my movies.
AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you because you are now making -- well, you've made this movie but you've come back from a heart attack and people just
kind of can't believe it because you look healthy, you were robust in the film. And I'm just trying to figure out how that affected your
performance.
I was struck by what I read that you told the story of a nurse who saw you straight afterward and said, you know, people say I love you with all my
heart for a reason, that that's where the emotions are, that's where the feelings are and you are going to feel sad. And I wonder whether you did
feel sad. And then, of course, Almodovar said that something in you has become more sensitive to certain things, something deep inside you changed
for the better. Talk to me about that.
BANDERAS: Well, first of all, I have to be very respectful to people who have suffered disease like me, in this case, a heart attack.
A heart attack, you know, it can be in many different ways. There are heart attacks that they just take you out like this and there are others
like -- it was very, very, very lucky actually because I had my girlfriend with me at the time and she put an aspirin on my mouth, immediately I
started feeling the symptoms. There was a number of things that happened that morning.
[14:25:00]
But if I say what I'm going to say, many people may think that it's strange, but it's true. This heart attack came to my life as a blessing.
In way, it thought to me -- or reorder, somehow, my priorities. And so, things that I thought that were very important sunk and only the things
that really were important stayed, you know. My daughter, of course, my family, my friends and my vocation. I wouldn't even say my professional
life, my vocation, which is to be an actor. It's just to tell story to other.
But it's true, there was a certain sadness that has do with the fact that you discover that you are very vulnerable. That death is the only
certainty that we have and everything else is absolutely irrelative, including taxes. But death is there, it's perfect.
So, I went to live life in a completely different way. And there was something inside of me that changed. And Pedro Almodovar who is a
perspective person, he saw that and he said, you know, don't try to hide that because I know you, Antonio, you are going to try just to show that
you are fine and you are going to try to be athletic and a number of things in the character, no. This character requires of that kind of solitude,
the kind of suffering that you have experienced. And I want you to apply it to the character. I knew exactly what he was talking about.
And so, that's what I did. I just put in this character things and -- you know, that I never used before. I didn't use the tools that I always use
in -- those things that make you feel secure and safe, you've thrown to the camera.
And when you do that, you just eliminate all of those things, it's feel very -- you feel very insecure. But in that insecurity, I think is where
creation is. Otherwise, you are kind of repeating yourself. This character and this world with Pedro Almodovar opened my eyes to different
possibilities to understand, not only just my professional life, but my life.
AMANPOUR: Well, it is -- it's sort of all turns up in this film. And the idea of expressing emotions and how you control them or not is very central
to this and it kind of art imitating life because your character, you, the director, tell your actor, you have to avoid sentimentality. Control the
emotion. Don't cry. Actors take any opportunity to cry. The better actor isn't the one who cries, it's the one who fights to hold back his tears.
Now, this is apparently real advice that Almodovar gave you. And I just want to play another clip where this becomes relevant and then we'll talk
about it.
BANDERAS: OK. Sure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SBARAGLIA (through translator): Each film of yours was an event in my life and I was proud that you were a success around the world. You're the only
Spanish director my family knows.
BANDERAS (through translator): Your new family.
SBARAGLIA (through translator): Yes.
BANDERAS (through translator): Do they know anything else?
SBARAGLIA (through translator): You mean about us? Lucrecia, my wife. Well, my ex-wife, we're separating. I told her but she doesn't know it's
you, just that I was with a man in Madrid for three years. And I told one of my sons to encourage him. With time, I'll tell him it's you. He's a
real film lover and he'd never forgive me if I didn't.
BANDERAS (through translator): Do you have a partner now?
SBARAGLIA (through translator): Yes.
BANDERAS (through translator): And you?
SBARAGLIA (through translator): No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, this is you reuniting from Frederico, a lover from your past and you are sort of holding back your emotions there. Tell me about how
you played that, what was going through your mind?
BANDERAS: It's very interesting because that particular scene, we shot the mast of night before. And we were rehearsing because Almadovar love to
rehearse, contrary to some of the directors, movie directors that prefer, you know, the freshness of the actor coming from the first time to the
second. But Almodovar rehearsed almost for a month before (INAUDIBLE) photography.
And when we rehearsed that scene, it was -- level of emotions was never like that.
[14:30:00]
I don't know. It's very difficult to express because we shot, as I said to you, the mast of the night before, they have to cut, send us home. And we
came back the next morning and Leo Sbaraglia, the actor who played the other character, said to me, listen, can we do your shot first because, you
know, I am a little bit insecure with the lines.
And I prefer just rehearsal off camera and I said, absolutely. Let's do it like that.
So they put the camera on me and he started just telling me this story. And for whatever reason, to my mind, came the 40 years that I was working
Almodovar. Everything that happened to me, all the stories that we had in FIN Festival, when we used to go to FIN Festival with nothing, with
nothing. We were in the last hotel room. And nobody is was putting attention to me and we saw the American productions coming with all the
agents and everything. And we were there all poor, and then we won those festival sometimes.
So all of those memories is starting just coming to me. And then I remember that reading the script, there is a moment in which I said, what
did I said? You have to contain your tears.
And just the fact that I was trying to contain them, made the whole entire theme almost impossible. I thought that Pedro Almodovar was going to cut
that scene, but at the end, we did -- I think it was one take. The take that is in the movie. He said, no, we're not going to repeat this. We're
going to turn around to build that actor.
The whole entire shooting was provided with emotional information. And that is something that I did encounter. Because, you know, you forget that
the director is actually the character that you are playing. The guy who's saying action and cut is the character. And the whole entire movie is
about reconciliation. It's about coming to terms with your past. It's about even to apologize, to ask for forgiveness to people that you left
behind in your life.
And so that got a very specific meaning for him that was very emotional. And sometimes, when he was directing me, he couldn't even hold, you know,
his emotions.
So that information that came to me firsthand was crucial for me to understand the complexity and the depth of what I was saying and how much
that it affected my character.
AMANPOUR: Yes, it really was poignant and at the very end, you also apologized to your mom because she was, you know, saying that you hadn't
been a good son and all the rest. So you did all that. It was very affecting actually.
But I just want to go to what you said. Here we were in the cheap seats, in the cheap hotels and then we kept winning. How did you break out in
America? I mean, there you are, you didn't speak English. How did you -- what happened? How did that story happen? How did you even learn English?
Then you go to Mask of Zorro and, eventually, you know, Shrek and Puss in Boots, and all the rest of it?
BANDERAS: It happens because we came here to Los Angeles, the first time I came to Los Angeles it was -- you know, because a movie that I did with
Pedro Almodovar called "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown --
AMANPOUR: Oh, yes.
BANDERAS: -- was nominated for an Academy Award. And so they're proud on the produces and the distributors have a time of the movie here. They're
proud for us a number of visits.
And one of those visits where was to an agency of actors. And there, I met a guy who literally -- I mean, he was not an agent at the time. He was
just taking coffees to the agent, but he approached me and he says to me, do you want to be -- you want me to be your agent here America? I didn't
know the guy, but I said, yes, sure. Thinking, he's going to forget about me probably tomorrow.
And so I went back to Spain to make a movie there. I finished that movie and then this person called me and said, you have to go to London. There
is a director from New York who wants to meet you there. He's preparing a movie called, "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love."
And I said, this guy obviously speaking Spanish. And he said, no, no, no, he doesn't speak of Spanish. What am I going to do? Because I don't speak
English at all, he said, we'll just fake it. I said, how can we fake that?
So I went to London and I sat in front of this very elegant man. I think what I did is just to fake that I was a very shy person. I basically was
saying yes and no to everything that he was saying. I couldn't understand a word.
And at the end of this very strange, bizarre dinner, I said, well, whatever you say, I can do it.
And a week after, I was in New York with my lines learned phonetically just doing a screen test. For three days, I was doing that and they were crazy
because they actually signed me to do my first American with Warner Brothers and the rest is history.
AMANPOUR: The rest is history. Let us cut to a clip from Puss in Boots, because I want to talk to you about voice and accent.
[14:35:05]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Puss, can you help us? There's no time to waste.
BANDERAS: I will do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Puss.
BANDERAS: Humpty Alexander Dumpty. We're going to need her. She's kitty softballs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll steal you blind and you'll never even know I was there.
BANDERAS: She is a bad kitty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So there you are with your heavily accented English. And you talked to another magazine about how it is kind of ironic that, you know,
you might have thought that people with accents might have played the villains.
But in your films, actually, you, with the accent with English, played the heroes. Just tell me about that little twist.
BANDERAS: Well, it has to do -- you know, it's interesting because when I did that movie that I was talking about before, the Mambo Kings, you know,
the Spanish actors that were in the movie, they said to me, if you are going to stay in America, you're going to play the villain, you know,
because that's what we do. And the Spanish actors, we are always the villains. And I said but, you know, I mean, it could be interesting, the
villains can be multicolor and interesting to play.
But five years after that, I was with a mask, and a hat, and a cape, a and sword, and I was a hero in the movie played Zorro. And the bad guy was
blondes, he got blue eyes and he got a perfect English. And I thought, oh, something is changing.
And what the change has to do with something that was social more than a distance. And it's the fact that many people from all around the Spanish
world came to this country from situations that were very unfair in the country's social situation, economical, political situations. And they
work very hard for many years, for decades to get their kids university, to just, you know, be better as a community.
And so those kids, they were coming out of universities and now they are architects and they are doctors and they are politicians, so they work in
banking. And, you know, and that affected Hollywood too. And I think I got writing in America. Right when that curve was taken place, when we
start being accepted.
And so -- and then you just talk about Puss in Boots that, you know -- it's very interesting because that movie is also for kids. And it's very
interesting because that diversity comes to the mind of kids in that way. That the hero of the movie has an accent and that is natural. And
(INAUDIBLE) suddenly speak perfect English. That is a good thing in that context.
AMANPOUR: It is. It's heroic indeed.
Antonio Banderas, thank you so much.
And, of course, your new film, "Pain and Glory" has a lot of Oscar buzz too, so we'll see how that transpires. Thanks for joining us.
Now, at a time when experts are being ignored and alternative facts are being touted as reality, publications like The Economist only becoming more
vital.
With the readership of more than $1.5 million, it's at the forefront of the global conversation. Zanny Minton Beddoes is an award-winning financial
journalist who became the magazine's first female editor in 2015.
Currently on speaking towards the United States, she started by talking to Walter Isaacson about the Brexit vote and what it really represents.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, JOURNALIST: Welcome to America, and your tour here. Let's start with Brexit. Why is all this happening? Why did Brexit pass?
ZANNY MINTON BEDDOES, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ECONOMIST: Why did the referendum passed? Well, it was a combination of things. I think there
were a group of people within the Conservative Party who for decades had been unhappy with Britain being part of the European Union and it had being
sort of festering within the Conservative Party.
And David Cameron, the prime minister at the time decided that putting this issue to a referendum would blunts that boil, if you will, and deal with
the problem in his party.
And he and everybody around him was fully expecting to win the referendum. It was not something that was high on the agenda of most people in the U.K.
In fact, if you look at polls before the referendum, it was nowhere near the top, people are worried about the National Health Service, they're
worried about all manner of things, but not Brexit.
But that -- the referendum itself, it came a vehicle through which many people voice profound frustration. It was a protest vote. It was a vote
of anger, not dissimilar to many of the people who voted for President Trump in 2016. It was a vote not necessarily for anything in particular.
It was just a kind of, I'm fed up with the status quo.
And there's an interesting English adage that the sort of constellation of people who voted for Brexit were these generally affluent conservative
voters and then and a lot of blue collar workers who are angry and felt left behind.
[14:40:06]
And so it's often that it was a collection -- it was a coordination of blue workers and red trousers, because there was a conservative types of them
wear red trousers.
But so is this protest vote. But since then, what's really striking is that it's become the fault line in British politics. I mean, it's now --
people identify much more about whether they are a remainer or a Brexiteer, then they do about whether they are Conservative or Labour.
ISAACSON: In Britain, do you think there might be a real alignment somehow since the party's don't represent the political fault line?
BEDDOES: Well, it's certainly possible. I mean, there has already been somewhat of a realignment in the sense that Conservative Party has become
much more of a populist nationalist party than the kind of --
ISAACSON: Which is a little bit like what happened here --
BEDDOES: Which is what like what happened here. The Labour Party has been essentially hijacked by a far left group of people. And, you know, Jeremy
Corbyn, who is the leader of the British Labour Party, is by far, the most left wing leader we've had in the Labour Party, at least since the 1930s.
And he really is a Marxist or close to be. And he's surrounded by (INAUDIBLE). So this is a far left cabal that have taken over, you know,
what was traditionally as sort of center left party under Tony Blair.
And the irony is if you haven't had that takeover at the Labour Party, we probably would have seen the whole referendum debate play out very
different.
So it's because these two earthquakes have taken place in the two parties at the same time, that we have British politics where it is. And I think
you're right that it is possible that we will see a factoring.
Because centrist remain voters. People who are not in favor of leaving European Union, and a centrist really don't have anyone to go right now.
ISAACSON: Well, they do with the Social Democratic Party --
BEDDOES: They did with the -- they do with the liberal Democrats.
ISAACSON: Liberal Democrats. Why doesn't that rise up?
BEDDOES: And it is -- we may see it the next selection a very big rise in the number of seats for the liberal Democrats.
But the problem with the British the political system, which is you know has first passed the post system, it's actually very, very hard to break
through, for smaller parties to breakthrough. So you can get a lot of votes but still not get very many seats.
But when you have all the parties where they are now, which is broadly the mid-30s, the Conservative Party polling, and then the 20s for Labour and he
Lib Dems slightly below that, we could see a very big reshuffling of British politics. It's going to be one -- the next selection is going to
be one of the most exciting elections in modern British history, because you're right, we could throw the whole deck of cards to get something very
different.
ISAACSON: The center isn't holding, as you say, the center is not holding in the United States. Center is not holding across Europe and much of the
western world. What happened to this sort of force that used to keep us gravitating towards the center?
BEDDOES: So really good question. And I think political scientist for the next decades are going to be grappling with this. The sort of simple lines
that we keep hearing is the rise of populism which is true, but I think it's more of a description than it is an explanation.
The fact that this is happening in this country, in Britain, as you say, across Europe, in each case, there is some individual (INAUDIBLE) reasons.
But I think the fact that we have this anger and frustration in so many countries at the same time suggests to me that there are deeper courses.
And I've been thinking about this a bit. And it strikes me that there are four big shocks that we're going through right now in the world economy.
And each of them is enough to make people anxious and worry about the future.
So one is the whole computer revolution, the technological revolution. As you know much better than many, I mean, we are at the beginning middle of
this, probably, huge change in the nature of our economy, of our society from that change.
People are feeling anxious. Majorities of people now across the advance world think that their kids are going to be worse off than they are.
People are worried about the future of works. So that's one big shot.
The second is, I think, we're in the midst of this very big geopolitical shift. The late -- latter half of the 20th century, the U.S. was the
undisputed global leader. Now, we have in the form of China, you know, arising power. It's going to have the world's biggest economy in not too
distant future. And it's in authoritarian dictatorship. The authoritarian regime is becoming more authoritarian, the more it rises.
That's a big power shift, a big challenge to the U.S. that I think is also a second big shot.
Third one is the demographic shock. Populations are aging. We're all living longer. The combination of rising life expectancy and declining
fertility means that the kind of the nature of society is changing as populations aged. The median age is rising pretty dramatically across much
of the world.
And then the fourth one, and this, I think, is -- you know, this country is being a little slower than others, but I think climate change is going to
be the other defining shock of the next few decades, because we're seeing the impact in the form of more extreme weather patterns. We're also seeing
in the younger generation a kind of credo current, for goodness sake, address this.
[14:45:08]
And you put all of those together, they're all profound shocks to the established political system. Those sort of post-war system.
ISAACSON: And the people who tend to read The Economists, tend to at least know about Davos and stuff, they believe it, I think, I did it, and you
did. Although I'm having second thought, that free trade, immigration, and technology are all going to be good for the economy.
And yet, I'm looking at your new cover, you know, Elizabeth Warren's plan to remake capitalism. We're looking at Trump, we're looking at Brexit, it
seems that people have lost faith in capitalism being able to distribute the goods of a growing economy fairly.
BEDDOES: You're right. And I think a lot of people are losing faith and there is a -- there are really big problems that haven't been addressed and
that need to be addressed.
And I welcome both thinking to do that, and we -- as you see this, and that is -- The Economist, we have a long hard look at Elizabeth warren's plan,
which is breathtaking in its scope. And in an area where, you know, there's a lot of policy by tweet. It's incredibly impressive to have a
sort of planned program of that scale.
On balance, I think she probably gets more things wrong than she gets right. She identifies a lot of the right challenges. But overall, her
particular proposals, you know, some of them will be good, but some of them would have quite dramatic negative consequences.
But I applaud the kind of -- I think the bold thinking is exactly what we need to do. I rather have sort of both incrementalism than reckless
radicalism. But hey, it's -- you're right. There is -- there are important things that need to change and that need to be looked at, and
that's the silver lining in this period of political turmoil.
At the moment, we see a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, a lot of scapegoating. And a lot of, you know, snake oil salesman pretending that
there are easy answers.
I don't think tariffs is the answer. I don't think protectionism is the answer. I don't think a draw bridge up kind of mentality is the answer.
But we do need to think about is a positive agenda forward and, what is the kind of positive vision for a 21st Century U.S.?
And over the next few years, I think that's what this country is going to be grappling towards.
ISAACSON: How old is The Economist more than --
BEDDOES: Hundred and seventy-six years. And we find in 1843.
ISAACSON: And in that period, it is always good for sort of the free minds, free markets, free trade, not that ideological but believing in what
are the fundamentals of what I'll call classic liberal, democratic capitalism, free markets. What would you do now to fix that system?
BEDDOES: Well, that's exactly right. We've been -- we stand for the classic English liberalism. And when I -- whenever I use the word liberal
in the U.S., I have to kind of presses it by saying classic English liberalism, because it has a different meaning here. Individual freedom,
economic and political.
I think that we need to have a very hard rethink about what a liberalism in the 21st Century looks like. Actually, last year was our 175th
anniversary. And we marked our anniversary with a cover story and an essay on we making liberalism, which -- and I took -- I actually wrote that essay
and sort of spent some weeks in the summer writing it last year.
And so I went through in some detail, the areas that, you know, were required. And I think the -- part of it is unleashing genuine competition.
And that's actually something that Elizabeth Warren talks about. I'm not sure that her specifics reach it.
But we've got an economy increasingly concentrated in this country. Big business increasingly building motes around. We need to have a renewed
focus on competition.
ISAACSON: So that the anti-trust.
BEDDOES: Yes, a 21st century, antitrust policy. A kind of pragmatic approach to immigration which is not complete open borders. But not draw
bridge up. There needs to be -- I think as we look forward, the under lying demographics of many countries, means that they will need more
immigration. But we need to find ways to make that immigration politically sustainable.
It means, I think, in a geopolitical sense, the U.S. and China reaching a strategic mutually -- strategic understanding that they can work together.
Because one of their great strengths at the post-war order was that the U.S. built up a system which the U.S. led that was the multilateral open
out for looking system that needs to be modified in an area of a rising China. But we need to find what the new equilibrium there is. So there's
a whole load of areas where we need reform voter forms. The welfare state needs to be rethought.
When we're all leaving longer, pension systems need rethinking, tax systems need rethinking. The rich do need to pay more taxes. There are different
ways of doing it, better or worse, but bold rethinking.
[14:50:08]
And I think part of the problem for the economist reader, if you will, is that many people who have done very well out of this system -- out of a
system they considered to be meritocratic, the highly skilled, the highly educated, are actually probably less inclined for bold reforms and they
like to admit that they --
ISAACSON: You talk about the sort of competition between classic, liberal, free market democracy on one hand, and China's rise and its authoritarian
state.
We've seen a lot of pushback recently. Even with the NBA basketball league, pushing back on China's authoritarianism. Do you think that's part
of the future of what the west needs to do?
BEDDOES: Yes. I think that the west needs to stand up for what it believes in. And I think therefore, it's important to call out human
rights abuses. It's important to stand up for, you know, western ideas, even if China is an enormous market. And so I think that there is, you
know, clearly one area of increasing tension, is that China now -- you know, increasingly doesn't -- not only won't continents criticism of what
it does internally. It wants no criticism in the rest of the world than what it does internally.
And I think that is a fault line and it's one way the west needs to stand up for what it believes in.
ISAACSON: How does The Economist deal with China and have to work through its censorship problems?
BEDDOES: Well, our website is bad in China. Our app is often banned. You know, we write what we think is right. And it's, you know, quite often,
they don't like it very much.
ISAACSON: One of the core things about The Economist over the years, is the covers. And there are always clever, maybe even as the British will
take two clever by half and takes your moment to figure them out.
One of the covers that was most striking this year was your special issue on climate change. Describe that cover and that special issue what was
driving it.
BEDDOES: So we decided -- it was the first time we've ever done a special issue where we had in every section of the newspaper, we call it a
newspaper. In every section of the newspaper, we had a piece of our climate change. And we had a big -- we had an editorial, we had a big
explanatory briefing, and it was -- we had a special logo.
The reason we did that was to show that every aspect of our world, so every aspect of what we cover will be influenced by climate change. And it was
not the only thing that we wrote about it. There were other things, but it was infused throughout The Economist that week.
And the cover which was a colleague of mine who suggested the idea was a very bold graphic that showed in through colored stripes how that world's
temperature had risen, so it was the temperature of the world relative to an average, showing that it had kind of warmth quite substantially over the
past 150 years.
And it showed because it was basically blue, blue, blue, blue, red, red, red on the right hand side. It showed very powerfully what had gone on
with global temperature. And it was sort of an unusual cover for us. We don't usually --
ISAACSON: And it was somewhat of an advocacy cover more than The Economist has done in sourcing climate.
BEDDOES: I think it was -- it was pushing the subject. What was -- what was very important to me and if you head the editorial, and you would have
seen is that it was very clearly saying that this is you, the fact that the climate is changing is going to affect every aspect of life on this planet
over the coming decades.
But the dealing with is which requires a profound shift from energy carbon -- energy that comes from carbon to energy that doesn't, that has to, in my
view, the only way we will do that is by harnessing the innovative power of capitalism to do it.
And part of the -- my frustration with the current climate debate is that many climate activists, those people who are more focused on what's
happening with the climate, are also then saying that the evils of capitalism and the evils of economic growth have led to this. And I think
that that is, at some point, are kind of dead end of a conversation.
The only way we're going to, as a planet, address climate change and if we don't, to be clear, it's not necessarily, it's not going to be existential
for the whole planet. But it is going to affect hundreds of millions of people as the earth warms, as we see the ever more, you know, frequent
extreme weather events.
But to counter that, you have to harness the innovative power of capitalism. You have to -- you have to have all of the elements that The
Economist stands for of free markets harnessed to help do that, and we can do that. So it was not an advocacy. It was an explanatory -- and the
whole tone of it and if it wasn't this, then we failed.
[14:55:04]
Our goal was very much to kind of lay out the comprehensive nature of what was happening, but do so in that kind of fact-based, rational, analytical
way.
ISAACSON: Thank you for being with us, Zanny.
BEDDOES: Thank you.
ISAACSON: Appreciate it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And The Economists, factual, analytic, and explaining to us every single week. That's it for our program tonight.
But before we go, let us just leave you with something that we're going to be doing tomorrow night. We're going to be joined by the stars of
"Harriet." The film telling the story of America's legendary Underground Railroad conductor, Harriet Tubman, who shuttles so many slaves to freedom.
Tony Award winning actor, Cynthia Erivo and Leslie Odom, Jr. will tell me how they brought her incredible story to life on the big screen.
Remember, you can listen to our podcast, see us online at amanpour.com and follow me on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks for watching and goodbye from
London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
