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Amanpour
Interview with American University of Beirut Professor of Urban Studies and Planning Mona Fawaz; Interview with Climate Policy Expert at University of California, Santa Barbara Leah Stokes; Interview with Former Representative Bob Inglis (R-SC); Interview with Actress Meryl Streep; Interview with Former Afghan Lawmaker Fawzia Koofi; Interview with Former governor of Bamyan Province Habiba Sarabi; Interview with "The Revenge of the Tipping Point" Author Malcolm Gladwell. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 04, 2024 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and a warm welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
A desperate and chaotic situation in Lebanon as Israel escalates airstrikes across the country. I speak with Mona Fawaz, a professor at the American
University of Beirut.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Nobody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore, at least I hope they don't. They must be brain dead if they
do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: -- Hurricane Helene is sweeping away homes and killing hundreds of Americans. But is either candidate for president taking the climate crisis
seriously enough? We discuss with climate policy expert Leah Stokes and Former South Carolina Congressman Bob Inglis.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERYL STREEP, ACTRESS: A small number of determined armed men can control an enormous population.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: -- part two of Christiane's conversation with Hollywood A-lister Meryl Streep and Afghan activists Fawzia Koofi and Habiba Sarabi about
their fight for women's rights.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MALCOLM GLADWELL, AUTHOR, "THE REVENGE OF THE TIPPING POINT": I thought I would start afresh.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: -- "Revenge of the Tipping Point." Malcolm Gladwell tells Walter Isaacson why he's revisiting his bestselling book to make sense of the
contagions of the modern world.
And a very warm welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Paula Newton in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Lebanon has become a place of fear and chaos as Israel continues to escalate in the south and in Beirut. The latest strikes, according to an
Israeli official, targeting a potential successor to Hezbollah's slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah. And Hezbollah is answering by sending projectiles
into Israel, though with no casualties reported at this point.
Now, within Lebanon, about a million people have already fled their homes, and desperation is reaching such a fever pitch that some people are
crossing into Syria. All this as the world awaits Israel's response to Iran's strikes on Tuesday and any further escalation.
Now, for those in Lebanon, it is, of course, a terrifying and uncertain time, and unfortunately, one that is all too real. To understand what life
is like right now, we want to go straight to Mona Fawaz. She is a professor at the American University of Beirut. And we thank you for giving your
insights as you continue to live this out hour by hour.
The escalation of the war in the last couple of weeks has been, of course, devastating. I mean, think about this, it is the most intense aerial
campaign outside of Gaza for two decades. So, a logical question is, how is everyone coping? I mean, what does every day look like right now?
MONA FAWAZ, PROFESSOR OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT: Hi, Paula, and thanks for having me. Really, I mean, as you've
described it, our days are full with anguish. There's a lot of fear. Fear for our own safety, fear for the safety of our children, for their future.
We're stranded. Schools are closed. And in your everyday life, you're afraid to go to the supermarket because you're worried that this will
somehow become a target.
Just to give you an example, I have a broken foot. I have to go see the doctor. I'm scared to death to go to the hospital because they've become
the iconic target of the Israeli army in the last year. So, there's a lot of anguish. Our lives are suspended, and we try to fill our time doing as
much solidarity as we can. But the truth is, really, there's a lot of fear, and that fear is for a very good reason.
I mean, if you look at just the numbers in the last week, we've had almost 2,000 people dead. That is more than the entire 2006 war on Lebanon. We've
had 1 million persons displaced. That is about one in five Lebanese or Syrian refugee in Lebanon. Because we're a population of 5 million.
And then, the demolition levels are already reaching the level of 2006. So, there's a lot of fear in the country, particularly because it comes in the
heels of what has just happened in Gaza, which we can talk about. I mean, for anyone you ask in Lebanon today would tell you that for the last year,
if you heard Israeli politicians, in general, promised them that Lebanon or Beirut going to become the next Gaza.
[13:05:00]
And they've watched, one after the other, the hospitals in Gaza, the homes, the buildings, the schools be demolished, and they've seen the world's
greatest superpowers actually call this self-defense and continue to send weapons to Israel. So, we are afraid that the same thing is happening here.
NEWTON: And, Mona, indeed, we have heard from people on the street, from our correspondents, speak to people, and they invoke Gaza with that sense
of palpable fear. You know, you have been through tough times. You grew up during Beirut's civil war. In an opinion piece in August, you actually
mentioned that then you had this aching sense of silence, signaling in your words a readiness for the next round of violence.
Now, in recent months, of course, that violence, probably even you would tell me in recent days, it seeped back into everyday lives. What
similarities do you see in the escalation? And do you think, though, that this is going to be a watershed, something that no one could have imagined
would happen in 2024?
FAWAZ: I'm really afraid that's the case, and that's what everyone is saying. And there's so many signposts for this. I mean, this is a
combination of what Israel called in 2006 the Dahiya doctrine, which is the doctrine in which they flatten neighborhoods and destroy people's lives so
that people get upset with Hezbollah and basically, they undermine the party's control.
And it's on top of this, the Gaza playbook. And that's not my words. This is the recognition of the head of the U.N. population fund today and many
other responsible international figures that are pointing to this. It is basically a state that has gone rogue and that is -- has a belligerent
posture and it's emboldened because it has the support. And so, yes, that silence is a silence of deep fear.
And I mean, honestly, we've never had a day of peace since the State of Israel came to this region. I, as someone who has lived here, have never
had a day of peace because we have that sense that the war can erupt at any point and that belligerence can come your way.
So, that silence that we're accustomed to live with because we're afraid of something happening is very much now the dominant mood in our city.
NEWTON: Yes, I can hear in what you're saying that there is that sense of literally standing on the edge of the abyss and given what's happened in
Gaza that the fears are real. You are criticizing, of course, Israeli policy, but turning to the Lebanese government now you have long detailed
the lack of government response through so many crises in Lebanon.
You know, I looked at your social media feed in a great way. You've been highlighting social media, the grassroots volunteers there every hour that
continue to do the most -- to help the most vulnerable, but that is in the absence of so much government work that needs to happen.
This week, the Lebanese foreign minister was asked on this show about the power and presence of his government. His response, the decision of war was
not ours to take. Is that an acceptable response, as far as you're concerned, given the decades of history here?
FAWAZ: I mean, look, yes, I would agree definitely that we did not take the decision to start a war. We did not take the decision to establish a
north supremacist state in this region and to basically have Israel also have that disposition of a racist bully that does not want to live with its
neighbors.
It's -- I mean, there are so many ways in which can -- someone can imagine that people from this region can live together as equal. But the problem is
we have an ethnonationalist bully that basically does not want and has not wanted for one day to live with its neighbors in peace. So, this means
that, basically, we don't choose war and peace.
That doesn't forgive the Lebanese government, of course, from -- and not this government, but all the successive governments since the end of the
civil war from having continued a policy of neglecting all the aspects of building state institutions. Of course, we are still to date run by
warlords and their allies who bankrupted the country.
So, I will not forgive them. I have actually tried all my life to be an activist and build an alternative. And I have to shout out for everyone in
my society right now that has turned their lives around to support people who are displaced.
NEWTON: And they are indeed stepping up. I do have to ask you, though, it is an incredibly salient point. Hezbollah has really filled the political
vacuum now for so many decades. On October 8th, a day after October 7th, that horrific attack on Israel, Hezbollah's late leader, Hassan Nasrallah,
decided to join the conflict.
[13:10:00]
And in solidarity with Hamas, he -- you know how he engaged in terms of all the projectiles, all the rockets, it has led to at least 60,000 Israelis
having to abandon their own homes. They've not returned. Do you blame Hassan Nasrallah for the situation that Lebanon finds itself in now?
FAWAZ: Look, I said it already, we've never had a day of peace. Hezbollah started in 1983, '84. My mom, who was a five-year-old in 1948, had to run
away from her South Lebanese village with Palestinians because they were under Israeli fires.
As long as the Israeli a posture is one of bullying and not living together as equals in this region, they are the party that needs to be blamed and
their allies who are sending them now weapons and emboldened them --
NEWTON: But does that mean --
FAWAZ: -- so they don't live with us.
NEWTON: But does that mean that you support what Hezbollah did on the day after that savage attack in Israel?
FAWAZ: Look, I -- again, I know I don't think Hezbollah has even created solidarity between Lebanese and Palestinians. What I really -- I don't want
to support any kind of war or aggression, but I seriously ask that people look at who is the aggressor in this case. And the aggressor in this case,
by and far, in the last 78 years has not been Hezbollah.
This border has been hot. I've lived the 1982 invasion of Israel from my village in South Lebanon. I've seen the soldiers walk on us at that time.
So, honestly, I think we really need to widen the historical scope and work towards de-escalation by asking for a ceasefire immediately, by stopping
the flow of weapons to our country.
NEWTON: Mona, I don't have a lot of time left and lord knows you are likely fatigued of trying to really tune into that optimism that I know you
have for Lebanon. Do you see, especially in your work as an urban planner, as a scholar, a future for Lebanon that gets beyond our current crisis, a
good opportunity here?
FAWAZ: Look, we have amazing skills in this country. We have great people. I look at my students who graduate from the American University of Beirut.
They go all over the world. They are building the infrastructure of the Arab Gulf. They are involved in so many great inventions. I have no doubt
that we have the capability to build a great country.
We have to be able to do it, but we need to, once and for all, create some kind of stability at the regional level without inventing those new Middle
East, which every time an initiative comes from Israel, as in 1982 or more recently in 2006, ends up destroying even more the basis of our Lebanese
society.
But I definitely have hope that the kind of students that I see, the kind of colleagues that I have, have an incredible capability to build a better
country. And they don't want war. No one wants war here.
NEWTON: And we will continue to check in with you, Mona Fawaz. Stay safe as the country goes through yet another difficult time. Appreciate it.
FAWAZ: Thanks, Paula. Thanks for having me.
NEWTON: And now, we turn to the United States, where floods and devastation are spread right across the southeast after Hurricane Helene
carved a path through multiple states. More than 200 people now have been killed in this historic storm. Hundreds, though, think about that, still
unaccounted for right across the states. People feel that no matter where they are, they are not indeed safe from the ravages of extreme weather and
climate change. Now, a quick reminder, all the science says this is now the baseline.
So, while efforts to reduce carbon, carbon emissions ramp up, all of those efforts we've been outlining on this program, so too must efforts to adapt
infrastructure meet up this new reality and this new moment. Joining me now to talk about all of this is Leah Stokes. She's a climate policy expert at
the University of California, Santa Barbara and Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, one of the states, in fact,
that has also been hit by this historic storm.
I do want to get to this storm that has just thrown everyone in the United States, even those who felt they were prepared. Leah, how might Hurricane
Helene change the way voters, Americans understand climate and how it will impact them?
LEAH STOKES, CLIMATE POLICY EXPERT AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA: Yes, thank you so much. You know, I know people who live in this
region who have been talking to me and they've asked me to speak up about the links between this devastating hurricane and climate change.
You know, the climate scientists have done these rapid studies, and they show that it's 20 times more likely to have an event like this because of
climate change. The flooding that we saw in Western North Carolina and places like Asheville and lots of smaller towns was huge.
[13:15:00]
We're talking a 1 in 1,000-year rainfall event. The water just kept coming and coming. It inundated the water treatment plant. People have no water.
Entire communities are gone in Western North Carolina, and this is because of climate change.
And we have one candidate running for president, Donald Trump, who said in the wake of this disaster, that the people in Western North Carolina will
be OK, and that climate change was a scam. This is terrible. This is climate change in action, and we deserve leaders who take this crisis
seriously. And so, it will be very interesting to see how the election goes in North Carolina, because North Carolina is, of course, a swing state, and
the -- you know, the polls are very close right now.
My heart really goes out to everybody who is affected by this disaster. The stories that I've been hearing from direct colleagues and friends living in
the region are terrifying and really devastating. And we deserve a government who takes this crisis seriously.
And that's why, I think, you know, a lot of people might be turning towards Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, because they're on TV saying the climate crisis
is real. They're not out there saying that they're not sure if carbon emissions are linked to climate change as ample J. D. Vance did during the
VP debate.
NEWTON: Bob, you have been on the frontlines with your Republican Party and saying it is indeed real. You've done a bit of a mea culpa on this and
yet have been working for years now to convince people that these matters. When you looked at the effects of the storm over the last week, did you
think that this could, in fact, perhaps affect the U.S. presidential election? Maybe a more important question is, do you believe it should?
FMR. REP. BOB INGLIS (R-SC): I think the, you know, experience is an effective teacher. It's often a very harsh teacher. And so, we're being
taught very harshly about climate change. But it has a way of getting through and it could well have an impact on the election.
You know, I live in Upstate South Carolina. I'm joining you now from Utah at John Curtis Conservative Climate Summit, but there's no power at my
house. I've got two daughters that live in Asheville, North Carolina. So, they had to de-camp to our house in South Carolina, but they're -- I've got
a son-in-law that's going up today, again, yesterday. He was up there in a bucket brigade to dip water out of swimming pools, to take to the public
housing complex to flush toilets. They were able to flush about 600 toilets yesterday. My daughter is up there handing out food in one of the very
ravaged communities. These places are absolutely devastated.
And so, to call it a hoax, that shouldn't go down very well right now in Western North Carolina, because I think everybody there realizes this storm
came over very hot water in the Gulf of Mexico, gathered up in its clouds a great deal of moisture. And then, because of that warm water in the Gulf,
accelerated toward Florida, hit there, but then carried that water way inland to a place like Asheville, North Carolina, and then dumped it.
And so, I think the sense of vulnerability is real right now, across the southeast and especially in places like Western North Carolina.
NEWTON: And it is very real, as I hear you, Bob, for you and your family. And yet, do you believe this should be a political issue? And right now,
what's in place right now? Is the government response been effective? I mean, you've just outlined how basically your family is, in some way, shape
or form, fending for itself and trying to help others in the community who have not had the help they need.
INGLIS: Yes. Well, I think is -- just hearing, it's -- it is this problem of the infrastructure. You know, we've got to harden the infrastructure.
But who would have thought, before this, that the French Broad River would be 25 feet higher than expected? So, that water treatment facility, well,
it's going to have to be hardened. And so, enormous effort is going to have to be undertaken in this country to get ready for this reality.
And we are living in climate change. You know, when I was getting tossed out of Congress back in 2010 for the heresy of saying climate change is
real, along with some other heresies, it was basically aggressive disbelief. I don't believe in climate change, and you shouldn't either.
Now, as my friend Katharine Hayhoe likes to say, people have stopped arguing with thermometers so much, and I think folks are going to argue
about the rainfall possibilities now.
[13:20:00]
And so, it's very real. And so -- but there is movement. That's the good news, is there is movement. It's slower than it should be, but, for
example, I'm here in Utah where John Curtis doing this -- Representative John Curtis, likely to be Senator John Curtis, is doing this Conservative
Climate Caucus summit.
NEWTON: Right.
INGLIS: And all five of his replacement parts, the people that are running for his House seat, all five of them agreed that they would join the thing
that he started in the House, the Conservative Climate Caucus. That's remarkable change compared to what I was experiencing in 2010.
NEWTON: I hear you that it is remarkable change. And yet, in terms of hardening the infrastructure, what more has to be done here? I mean, both
candidates, both Former President Trump and VP Harris have been at least to Georgia surveying what's gone on there and the devastation. I want you to
hear now, though, from VP Harris from her tour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: We are here for the long haul. There is the work that we have
done together that was the immediate response, well preparation for and then the immediate response after. But there's a lot of work that's going
to need to happen over the coming days, weeks, and months.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: You know, Harris speaks there of having to be there for the long haul. But, Leah, can people impacted by storms like this, essentially, it's
been a slap in the face for them, is the federal government really equipped for this, especially if we still do not have the cross-partisan support
that really is needed on all levels?
STOKES: Well, what's so interesting is that we actually are having bipartisan cooperation in the devastation of this storm. We have governors
all throughout the region that are both Republicans and Democrats saying that they are partnering with the federal government with the Biden-Harris
administration and that they are getting the help that they need. That is happening from Republican governors in South Carolina and Georgia and
Democratic governors in North Carolina.
And so, you know, this something that we can see bipartisan cooperation over. And I think that's so important because some people are taking this
devastating disaster -- and my heart really goes out to Bob Inglis who is a wonderful person, and I feel badly for his family. And I really value that
he is a Republican out there speaking about the links between climate change and a disaster like Hurricane Helene.
You know, we have good people in the Republican Party willing to speak up. But the fact is that Donald Trump is not one of them. Donald Trump is
saying that climate change is a scam in the wake of this disaster. He is saying that climate change is a hoax. He is saying things like these people
will just be OK.
And I want to remind people that there was reporting just yesterday that Donald Trump, when there were wildfires in California, withheld federal aid
to people suffering from a climate disaster because he didn't think they were voting for him enough. And it was only when somebody showed him that
actually there were lots of Republicans in Orange County, California, that he decided that they should send federal aid. We can't have a president
deciding who deserves help. Every American deserves help in the wake of a disaster, whether it's caused by climate change or anything else.
NEWTON: In fact, Donald Trump, whether it was what happened in Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2019, I mean, he went there and he visited, but it
seemed to take him a while to really grasp the magnitude and the federal help that was needed. And in 2019, he also said that in terms of
authorization and trying to get FEMA to come up with 100 percent of the funds that were needed to recover from Hurricane Michael, he apparently
actually said, they love me in the panhandle, that is according to the state's governor, and that's why he piled in.
Bob, so I have to ask you, there's a very real chance that Donald Trump could be the next president as well. Do you believe politics has shifted
enough at this point, or is this a both sides are to blame kind of situation that Trump will point to?
INGLIS: Well, I certainly hope that he's not elected. That's why I'm voting for Kamala Harris. I'm a Republican who will be voting for Kamala
Harris because of the things that Leah has just said. And so, if he gets elected, it's -- it really is -- it's going to be a reality that he's going
to have to deal with the cleanup, the fix up of all these systems.
Because we're talking enormous sums of money, and Leah can tell us about the studies about, you know, just how we too often talk about how, oh, it's
going to cost so much to invent new energy. Well, no, no, it's costing an enormous amount to continue with the dirty stuff. That's where the cost is.
And so, when you factor that in, you know, you pay me now or pay me later. And so, what we're doing now is paying later, basically in Western North
Carolina, we're going to pay a lot. The American taxpayers can pay a lot for the climate damage that's just happened there.
[13:25:00]
And so, if you count all these storms and wildfires and these things, that needs to go in the economic analysis, and it has with great work that
people like Leah have done, it's there. It's just now we need people to pay attention to it.
Our policy -- our elected officials to -- particularly on my -- in my party, the Republican Party, just have some courage and depart from Donald
Trump's hoaxer-ism.
NEWTON: Bob Inglis, we wish the best to you and your family. We thank you for being here. And Leah Stokes, we will continue to check in with your
research on what is definitely must be a cross partisan effort. Appreciate you both.
Now, with women's rights serving as a key topic in the upcoming presidential election, we turn our focus to Afghanistan once again, where,
as Meryl Streep said at the U.N. General Assembly, a female cat has more freedom than a woman there. Christiane sat down with the actor alongside
former lawmaker Fawzia Koofi, and the nation's first female governor, Habiba Sarabi, to discuss a new documentary called "The Sharp Edge of
Peace," which follows the doomed efforts of peace talks with the Taliban back in 2020. Let's take a listen to the second half of their conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERYL STREEP, ACTRESS: I think that societies that doom their women, that suppress their women are the least successful economically. And I know
money is important to everyone. It's almost like follow the money.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: You work with Jessica, with Margot Wallstrom, you all work together, and one of your
issues is, do not engage with the Taliban, because if you engage, then they have no incentive to change.
When you think about it, and you guys as well, after nearly or two, three years of this, no engagement with the Taliban has made it worse, not
better. Do you think about that?
STREEP: I think about it. I can't speak for the group.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
STREEP: But just as a mother and a grandmother, I don't think anything gets solved by shutting people out of the room, or I think you have to
engage somehow. And whether it's with the compulsion of financial hardship or -- you know, it's very important that we not neglect the Afghan women
right now in working towards an eventual solution.
So, the Frontline Women's Organization is something that is helping get money to the women directly. So, that it's not diverted off into Taliban
hands.
AMANPOUR: And, Fawzia, as a politician -- a former MP, what's your assessment of the attempt to get forced change? I mean, they're not invited
to the U.N. No country, you know, recognizes the Taliban, but they're still there and they're still, you know, issuing the most unbelievable edicts, as
we talked at the beginning, the latest is you can't raise your voice or speak in public. Did you think that it would get this bad?
FAWZIA KOOFI, FORMER AFGHAN LAWMAKER: As per the Taliban promise, no, because they have publicly said on the record that they want women, before
the negotiation, throughout the negotiation. And this was a narrative also promoted by some diplomats in Washington, the Taliban 2.0 and we -- they
have changed. They have become more moderate. I want to see them. I want to know where they are.
I think -- you and I talked when the withdrawal was announced in April 2021 when I say that's a moral defeat for the Americans to leave the way it is.
No country wants a foreign troop in their soil. We, as a freedom fighting nation, we never wanted the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan forever. But I
think the way the withdrawal happened, I think it was a failure of moral from the U.S. foreign policy one after the other. I'm not saying President
Trump did good and Biden did not good. I think it started with President Trump and continued with President Biden.
Nobody actually thought about us, the people of Afghanistan, as their allies. And it continued until now, Christiane. I'm telling you, the world
is actually engaged with Taliban day and night, if I'm not mistaken, the figures, maybe around 10,000 meetings with the Taliban, not Americans, all
the International Community.
And if you ask them, where is women's rights in this discussion? I think in the region, women's rights is number six or seven priority. From the global
community, Global North, I'm not really sure. Because the last meeting in Doha in June, they actually excluded women and they excluded women rights
from the agenda. So, I think the continued engagement with Taliban, without principles, has only emboldened them.
AMANPOUR: But we're going to play this clip about Muslim and attacking your own civilians.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They think the more they shed blood, the better place they will get in heaven. It's really surprising for
me. I am also a Muslim. How can they believe that they can go to heaven by shedding blood?
[13:30:00]
I said you fight against the nonbelievers. Even though it's been a year since you made an agreement with the Americans. No American is being killed
but you are killing your own Muslim Afghan brothers. What kind of Jihad is this?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: We were talking about Islamic nations. There is no other Islamic nation that bars girls from school or from work or from other such things,
this the only one. And we talk a lot about the United States. But why do you think your Islamic brothers and sisters have not come to your rescue?
The countries in the region that have leverage, that surround your country, why do you think they've left you hanging?
HABIBA SARABI, FORMER GOVERNOR OF BAMYAN PROVINCE: Actually, this our question. This the women of Afghanistan question that why our Muslim
majority country, our Muslim brother and sister, not taking part or not being with us very seriously. Of course, there are some countries. There
are some figure that they are supporting us. They have to create debate with the Muslim scholar that -- to challenge Taliban. All women in the
other Muslim country enjoying from their life, from their basic rights and which is not happening in Afghanistan.
AMANPOUR: There are -- it appears that there are two kinds of Taliban. There's the Kabul Taliban, the Haqqani Taliban, which is much more
sophisticated. I interviewed the leader. He said all the right things. And then there's the Akhundzada, the so-called supreme leader in Kandahar, who
has a much more hardline view and is surrounded by a few people who have that kind of view.Is there any way, do you think, to rip that apart, to
separate?
KOOFI: That's something that the International Community, again, tried to portray. And that's what we hope as well. However, how much time we have to
wait for -- you know, for the Taliban to, you know, divide and then allow girls to go to school, allow women to go to work?
It's been three years. Yes, we have lost democratic institutions, but people of Afghanistan did not lose democracy. If this continues, my fear is
that radicalization become a new norm in Afghanistan. Because now they have created 15,000 madrasas across Afghanistan. They have recruited 100,000
madrasa teachers. The question is where do they get that money?
If woman in Afghanistan, dignified woman, having PhD and master degree, is after $20 to feed her children because she lost her husband in the war.
It's heart wrenching for me, Christiane, to speak about all of this after 25 years. I get emotional. Because how long and for why we have to be
sacrifice of all of this? And in five years' time, we will lose the whole generation to radicalization that embraces suicide bombing.
AMANPOUR: You're talking about political violence.
KOOFI: So, that is more dangerous.
AMANPOUR: And I know that that's on your mind as well.
STREEP: Well, I was just going to say that all these madrasas --
AMANPOUR: These are the religious schools?
STREEP: Yes, they teach young boys. They separate them from girls. They don't know how to be with girls. They fear women and girls. This leads to a
rise, once again, of Al Qaeda, of Daesh, of all the mischief makers in the world. And so, it's a global concern about this development.
AMANPOUR: What do you think the effect on the world is, let's just say in Afghanistan, watching the political shenanigans in the United States?
STREEP: I feel that I can't speak for how other people view us. I just know from my own life, in a small town in Connecticut, we had two bad
actors, two bad guys who were selling drugs. They were beating up women, they were -- and everybody in the town knew who they were. And one person
got murdered, and everybody in the town knew who did it. But because they were afraid of this group, because this group was violent. That's a small
number of determined, armed men can control an enormous population in -- all around the world, it's the same story,
AMANPOUR: Which is why I'm interested in what the Taliban are doing to the men now. And it appears that the men are rebelling in ways. A lot of men
are trying to leave. I mean tell me what's happening.
[13:35:00]
KOOFI: So, yes, we talk about woman rights because, obviously, this is a severe human rights violation of our century, what's happening to the woman
in Afghanistan. But I must say that men also do not enjoy a luxury life. If your daughter cannot get out of your home, if your wife, who was the
supporter, contributor, economically cannot work, if your sister is suppressed, and if your beard (ph) is controlled, if you don't have a job,
if -- you know, in the office, you're being supervised by somebody who is not even educated, but he's a Talib, how does it feel?
Obviously, a lot of people either make a hard choice to fight back the Taliban or they leave Afghanistan. And there is a brain drain I feel for my
country because we have invested so much of energy to build that nation. And I see all of these educated young men on taking enormously dangerous
route to go to Europe or other countries, which can actually contribute to a migration crisis.
And that's why we need to actually have a different approach to Afghanistan, a more political approach rather than just humanitarian aid,
rather than just publishing reports about human rights. Because if we do not change the political ecosystem, and this a time, I think, in the United
States because they will have a new government soon.
I think they will consult the Afghan women. They should consult the women. They should make them part of their process of policy review. Listen to us
because we know what's good for our country.
AMANPOUR: Thank you so much indeed.
STREEP: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: Now, you can watch the full interview online on our website. Now, from ending racial segregation to the spread of pandemics, tectonic shifts
in social norms can often be traced back to multiple small actions. Understanding the how and why of this has become the life's work of our
next guest.
25 years now after his groundbreaking publication, "The Tipping Point," social thinker and New York Times bestselling author, Malcolm Gladwell,
speaks with Walter Isaacson, revisiting, in fact, the subject in his latest book.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Paula. And, Malcolm Gladwell, welcome to the show.
MALCOLM GLADWELL, AUTHOR, "THE REVENGE OF THE TIPPING POINT": Thank you, Walter.
ISAACSON: Your book, "The Tipping Point," which came out about 25 years ago, spent eight years on the bestseller list. I mean, that's huge. Why did
you decide to revisit it now?
GLADWELL: Well, it was the 25th anniversary, and I thought -- we thought it'd be fun to just do a revised edition. And I went back -- and I hadn't
read it in 25 years. And I went back and I read it and I said, actually, I think it would be silly to revise it. It's a time capsule. You know, it's -
- it was written in 1999. If I really want to revisit this, I should write a whole new book. And so, I reversed course in midstream and just started
from the beginning again.
ISAACSON: You talk about midstream, was there a tipping point, so to speak, that you -- when you said wait, wait, I got to do a whole new book?
GLADWELL: Well, I wanted to -- you know, there were so many things I wanted to kind of -- I wanted to talk about COVID, I wanted to talk about
the opioid epidemic, I wanted to talk about -- I was -- you know, I had my ongoing obsession with elite schools that I -- you know, I sort of made a
list of all the things that I wanted to talk about and I realized there was none of the original book left.
So, it was kind of -- you know, there was -- that was -- I think the crucial point was the opioid stuff. I really, really, really did want to
try to -- the book begins and ends with the opioid crisis and I -- that was the thing that got me started and I had a lot that I wanted to say about
that and I couldn't find a way to fit that into the architecture of the old book. And so, I thought I would start afresh.
ISAACSON: So, you talk about the opioid crisis and then, of course, the COVID epidemic. And the framing device for the whole concept of a tipping
point, both in your original book and now, is that sometimes social movements or ideas become a tipping point like an epidemic, as if a virus
attacks and they spread virally. So, how did that apply to things like opioid and for that matter, COVID?
GLADWELL: Well, COVID is super interesting because, you know, one of the things we did not realize until very late in the pandemic was that the
COVID pandemic had a feature that is often distinctive of epidemics, which is that it was profoundly asymmetrical. It was being spread by a very small
number of people.
So, we had this assumption going in that everyone who was infected with COVID pose some risk to others and that is spreads, sort of, from person to
person to person to person. And then, what we began to understand near the end of the pandemic was that sort of a very small fraction of individuals,
4, 5 percent, probably at most, for some reason we don't entirely understand something to do with their genetic makeup, were producing
hundreds, if not thousands more viral particles, or exhaling them in their breath and in their speech than everybody else. And that those people were
probably the ones who were doing the majority of the damage in the pandemic.
[13:40:00]
ISAACSON: That idea of a super spreader takes me back to the original book, because sometimes you talk about people who are the super spreaders
of ideas, that small percentage.
GLADWELL: Yes. So, that was that -- that becomes -- I talked about that in the original book, but the idea of the super spreader becomes a very big
part of this book, because it's also what makes -- helps us make sense of the opioid crisis, that when you -- the stage one of the opioid crisis was
driven by doctors prescribing OxyContin. And the question was, you know, how do we make sense of that behavior? Was this evidence of some kind of
fundamental failing of the medical profession?
And when you look closely at how Purdue fomented the spread of OxyContin, you realize they weren't relying on a flaw in the medical profession, they
weren't even relying on the efforts of the majority of doctors. What they were doing was exploiting a very, very tiny number of highly problematic,
highly susceptible doctors who they realized that they only needed a couple thousand doctors to start a national epidemic around OxyContin.
In other words, one doctor who -- there were doctors -- one doctor who could be convinced to prescribe thousands and thousands of pills of
OxyContin was sufficient. You didn't need to convince 100 to prescribe it 10 times, right?
Then it was this exact same principle that drove the COVID pandemic, it was being driven by this very -- a small core. And if you want to understand
why the OxyContin spread as quickly as it did, you have to understand the behaviors of a very selective group of doctors who were deliberately
targeted by Purdue.
ISAACSON: And yet, when you frame these things as epidemics, there seems to be a major distinction, to me at least, between opioids and, say, COVID.
COVID is an epidemic that hits us from the outside. A virus, it comes and gets us. Opioid is something we did to ourselves. Why do you mush those two
together? And I know at the end, you say we have to take responsibility for the ideas and themes that surround us. So, to what extent is this tipping
point idea, this epidemic idea, one in which we have power to control?
GLADWELL: I think we have power to control. I mean, what links those two examples, one is obviously a biological phenomenon. The other is a
behavioral phenomenon. But they -- first of all, they resemble each other in the pattern of their -- of the phenomenon. In other words, they follow
an epidemic curve. These are not problems that rose slowly and steadily over time, they exploded at a certain critical moment in exactly the way
that nonlinear phenomenon like epidemics do.
Secondly, there is this dynamic of asymmetry, which is a powerful indicator of epidemics, that small numbers of people were moving them forward. But
there's also -- there is a contagious element in both. You know, in one case, it's contagion that we understand biological contagion, but with
OxyContin, there was a behavioral contagion that this was something that spread within communities where there was, you know, the exposure to
someone who was an OxyContin user dramatically increased your chance of becoming an OxyContin user yourself.
I think we have to understand that our biological model of contagion is too narrow, that this is -- these are phenomenon that apply very broadly to
behaviors.
ISAACSON: You call it "The Revenge of the Tipping Point." Why revenge?
GLADWELL: Because I was struck in the book by how often I thought institutions or individuals were deliberately using the epidemic principles
to further their own ends. So, Purdue would be the classic example, that's why I spent so much time on that case. But, you know, I have a chapter on
Harvard University. I think that elite universities are playing a similar - - you know, it's not as egregious a game, but they're playing a game around it. They're using epidemic rules to try and manage their culture, their
institutional culture.
So, how do you -- if you're someone who -- you know, that chapter is all about the way sports are used by Harvard and schools like Harvard,
essentially, to maintain a kind of culture, upper middle class privilege culture in their school the way Harvard looks at a school like Caltech that
has had dramatic shifts in ethnic proportions over the last 25 years, and I think makes a very deliberate decision that's not what they want to be.
[13:45:00]
That's what the whole court case last year was about, right? It was about why is Harvard suppressing the number of Asians? So, my chapter is all
about, well, how did they go about suppressing the number of Asians in their school? And the answer is in part that they used athletics. They use
the backdoor that they -- they use an -- they have more varsity sports than anybody else and they create a backdoor for student -- for athletes to get
in a much lower -- with much lower test scores. And that's how they maintain what they think of as Harvard. Now, those -- that is, in a certain
sense, using epidemic principles to control the culture of institution.
ISAACSON: Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, just signed a law sort of stopping legacy admissions, giving favor -- favored status to people
whose parents went to a certain college or university. What do you think of that?
GLADWELL: Oh, my God. So, happy about this. This is the best thing ever. I would have gone further. This not my idea. It's Adam Grant, the
psychologist's idea. Adam Grant says, it shouldn't be that schools are neutral, it should be they should penalize you if your parents went to that
-- to the same institution because you've already received the child of someone who's attended Harvard, has already received the benefits that
Harvard bestowed on their parents, right?
So, they should -- so they've already got their leg up. So, they should be penalized if they want to attend the same institution. Now, that's slightly
tongue in cheek. But I think that legacy institute -- legacy admissions in elite schools were -- I think, it's safe to say, were a stain on American
meritocracy. And I am astonished it has taken us this long for someone like Gavin Newsom to take action against it.
And if this time next year, the schools of, you know, the northeast have not followed suit, I will be appalled.
ISAACSON: When I was growing up, the term the tipping point often referred to racial tipping in a particular neighborhood. I grew up in Broadmoor in
the central City of New Orleans, which was a mixed neighborhood. And there was conscious efforts because Broadmoor Association came together to make
sure that real estate agents weren't allowed to tip the neighborhood, to make it all black or all white, and it remains and still is a mixed racial
neighborhood. How does that notion of a tipping point tie into our race and neighborhood discussions?
GLADWELL: So, the phrase, the tipping point, you're right, actually originates from the 1950s, during the era of white flight. Realtors -- in
fact, it's a -- we know exactly where the -- if you look in the kind of the history of that term, it was first used by realtors to describe this very
thing, the point at which there were so many blacks in a neighborhood that white population would leave en masse.
And you're absolutely right as well that in the '50s and '60s, there were some unscrupulous realtors who sought to reach the tipping point because
they wanted the turnover. That -- you know, that there were landlords who would -- who welcomed the influx of -- who thought they could exploit the
newcomers in a way that -- so, that's where the term originates.
And many of our ideas about behavioral contagion and the applicability of epidemics to social behavior come from that era, right? It was -- you know,
the famous economist Thomas Schelling who writes about -- who did -- produced all kinds of literature on tipping points, spoke -- wrote
explicitly about this, is the same phenomenon.
And one of the things we learned -- when we learn -- and I have -- I talk about this in one of my chapters, one of the things that we learned from
that era was where the tipping point was, that it is not the case that one black family moving into a white neighborhood is sufficient to make the
white -- all the white people leave. There is -- it is a -- there's a number. It's somewhere around 25 -- between 25 percent and a third, where -
- when the outsiders reach that -- the newcomers reach that number, the existing population leaves en masse.
And I describe in the book this fascinating experiment done in Palo Alto, in a community called the Lawrence Tract, where they noted that fact and
they said, we're going to make community rules that say that no ethnicity, white, Asian or black can ever be above a third. So, we're going to try and
police -- we explicitly use the principles behind epidemics to make sure we can maintain racial diversity in our neighborhood.
And what you're describing in Broadmoor sounds like an informal version of the same thing. The people realize that through collective action, they
could keep the fear of white people in check by telling them, we're not going to let this process be taken over by unscrupulous real estate agents
or landlords. We're going to have a -- in the midst of this kind of upheaval, keep a steadying hand on the way that the change works, right?
[13:50:00]
And that to me is -- I love that. I know it's complicated and I know it raises all kinds of questions, but I think the idea of thoughtfully
intervening in these kinds of processes, because you understand the way contagion works is the solution to many of these kinds of social problems.
ISAACSON: I want to apply some of this to immigration. There seems to be a certain point, it's kind of close to the tipping point you talk about,
about neighborhoods, a 15 to 20 percent, where throughout American history or the history of almost any other country, if the number of immigrants is
more than 15 or 20 percent, you have the big backlashes of the 1840s against the Irish or the Italians or Jews or blacks or Haitians now. Tell
me about how -- what you write about applies to our current debate on immigration?
GLADWELL: Yes. So, that's a really interesting question. And I do think there is something to be learned from the literature on tipping points and
apply to immigration. So, if I had -- if I was to wave a magic wand and redo American immigration policies from scratch, what I would rather have
seen, rather than have these surges followed by backlashes, followed by surges, followed by backlashes, a smarter thing to do would be to have a
steady state at somewhere below what we believe to be the tipping point for a kind of -- for social unrest.
So, never have -- and then what -- so you would -- so you could sort of avoid -- you could engineer your way out of these very socially
unproductive and problematic backlashes. Because, very often, the backlash what's going on right now with, you know, Haitians in Springfield, it's
just appalling. I mean, people who come to this country or working, who are here legally, who have revived the community. But -- so, backlashes are
things that we desperately need to figure out ways to avoid.
And I think something, you know, lowering the -- be careful not to exceed the kind of public threshold for -- is it -- would be a very wise strategy.
That being said, you know, I'm a Canadian. Canada has been a country that, over the last 30 years, has quite happily, until very recently, sustained a
much higher level of annual immigration than many other western nations.
So, I wonder -- I would couple that advice with saying, it would be useful to go to countries like Canada and Australia and find out why they have
managed to do maintain higher levels of immigration without that kind of public backlash. That's a very -- I've -- the Canada puzzle, as someone who
grew up there and was an immigrant to Canada, myself, has always fascinated me.
Canada takes way more refugees, and the public support for taking refugees is much higher than almost anywhere else. It's really a -- that has
something to do with the story Canadians tell themselves about who they are, that that story includes a kind of -- that that they're a -- you know,
a big empty country that wants to be filled up with people from around the world, like that's a very powerful story that's been told for 250 years in
Canada, and how they've kept that story alive would be a very interesting thing to investigate.
ISAACSON: One of the big differences between 25 years ago when you wrote "The Tipping Point," now when you write "The Revenge of the Tipping Point,"
is you've had two kids. How does having a couple of kids change the way you look at this and how does the way you look at this new book change the way
you raise your two young kids now?
GLADWELL: Well, having kids means that I will never give parenting advice again. I'm out of that game. I now realize how futile it is to tell anyone
how to raise their kids, since I have no clue myself. You just -- every day confronted with -- I try and track the percentage of times my three-year-
old agrees with me or obeys some command I make. It's now -- I'm now down at like 25 percent and she's only three. So, where will I be when she's 16?
So, that -- and also, I don't know, I've -- I'm -- I've also been pleasantly surprised at how little all of my theorizing about the world is,
how little of it I use in my own day-to-day parenting. I think all bets are off when you're raising small children. So, it has been a powerfully
humbling experience.
ISAACSON: Malcolm Gladwell, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.
GLADWELL: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: And finally, for us, and what is paw-sibly the mightiest contest in Alaska. Brown bears are battling it out for the title of the chunkiest
member of the sleuth.
[13:55:00]
Fat Bear Week, I kid you not, has officially begun. An annual contest where online audiences can vote on their favorite brown bear, broadcast live from
a camera in Katmai National Park.
Now, although the competition was delayed, I have to tell you, after one ursine competitor was tragically mauled by another bear. Oh, dear. Bears
will be bears. Voters are pouring in to weigh their options. We'll inform you about a winner that should be announced on October 8th.
And that does it for us. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can always
catch us online, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
I want to thank you for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
