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Amanpour
Interview with Former Hostage Negotiator and "The Negotiator" Author Gershon Baskin; Interview with "The Apprentice" Director Ali Abbasi; Interview with Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy Associate Research Professor and "Invisible Rulers" Author Renee DiResta; Interview with "Want" Editor Gillian Anderson. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 18, 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]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: That's a major achievement. And it opens a major opportunity for progress.\
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: With Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar dead, is an end to the war in Gaza any closer? I asked former hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's never been anything like this, of this magnitude, this quality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- "The Apprentice," director Ali Abbasi on the film that charts the rise of a truth challenged Donald Trump.
Plus, "Web of Lies." Author Renee DiResta talks to Hari Sreenivasan about troubling trends in the world of misinformation.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GILLIAN ANDERSON, EDITOR, "WANT": That is what we receive from women around the world. And incredibly raw and honest and open and brave. And
yes, revelatory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- award-winning actor Gillian Anderson tells me why she's sharing women's sexual fantasies in her own new book, "Want."
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York City, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Make this moment an opportunity to seek a path to peace. That is the message U.S. President Joe Biden says he has given Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Take a look at this edited drone video released by the IDF yesterday, which it says shows Sinwar's final moments. As these images are digested across
the region, many are watching to see how his death could influence the course of this war.
Israel is not yet showing signs of changing tact despite calling it the beginning of the day after Hamas. Netanyahu says that, quote, the task
before us is not yet complete, referencing the need to secure the return of the more than 100 hostages still in Gaza.
To understand what Sinwar's death means for those hostages, for the Palestinians still suffering in Gaza, and what Hamas might do next, I'm
joined now by someone who has firsthand experience of dealing with them, long time hostage negotiator, Gershon Baskin, who is joining us from
Madrid.
Gershon, thank you for joining us. Welcome back to the program. You have been a reference for us for us, an expert voice throughout this horrific
year since October 7th and those attacks. The mastermind of those attacks, as we noted, is now dead. I'm wondering how these factors into where you
see the path to a potential ceasefire and hostage release deal.
GERSHON BASKIN, FORMER HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR AND AUTHOR, "THE NEGOTIATOR": Well, it is a moment of opportunity. I hope, but it could also be a dire
moment for the future of these hostages. There is a rumor spread by Hamas that Yahya Sinwar gave orders to the people holding hostages that should he
be executed, should he be killed, that they should kill the remaining hostages. We don't know if this is true.
At the same time, it is a moment of opportunity and I appealed last night to the Israeli government to spread leaflets around the Gaza Strip from the
air saying that anyone who's holding a hostage and is willing to give them up that they will be granted safe passage for themselves and their families
out of Gaza with a bundle full of money. So, that they could start a new life somewhere else. This might be a way to save some of the hostages.
And I also call on the Israeli government to notify Egypt and Qatar that they are willing to immediately renew negotiations and to speed them up,
not on the deal that's been on the table now for four months, but on the deal that Hamas told me they would accept, which is a three-week deal to
end the war, free the hostages, release Palestinian prisoners. And my understanding is that Hamas is willing to give up governmental control over
Gaza as well to a civilian professional technocratic government, which they are not a part of.
GOLODRYGA: Was this deal that you speak of now, that you say Hamas was willing to sign off on, was that signed off officially by Yahya Sinwar
himself? Because as you know, you don't even have to speak for the Israeli government, it was the Biden administration that up until his death said
that he was the biggest impediment at this point, as of late, for a peace deal.
BASKIN: Right. I heard from two different Hamas sources, two members of the political view of Hamas, one of them, a member of the Hamas negotiating
team that the entire leadership stood behind this deal. The problem was that they were not willing to come out and say it because as Hamas
negotiates, and I know this from 18 years of negotiating with them, anything that they present at their initiative is seen by themselves as a
concession and weakens their position in negotiations.
[13:05:00]
So, we've been stuck for more than a month now, where this deal has been on the table. President Biden has seen it, as well as Brett McGurk, his
emissary, and Bill Burns, the head of the CIA, the prime minister of Israel has seen it, the head of the intelligence in Egypt and the prime minister
Qatar all know the deal is on the table, but it's been almost impossible to get verification on it, which has caused us to be stuck for quite some
time.
I'm hoping that this killing of Yahya Sinwar might be a turning point, where maybe the Hamas leadership, which is primarily based abroad now, will
make a decision that its primary interest is to end the war. And of course, Mr. Netanyahu, who has to make a decision that his primary interest now is
to declare victory and bring the hostages home.
GOLODRYGA: Let's talk about this leadership vacuum that has been only widened now since the death of Yahya -- the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the
only remaining figurehead inside Gaza that we believe still to be alive is his brother, Mohammed Sinwar, and he oversees the group's day-to-day
military operations. All other remaining leadership remains outside of the country, the majority of them exiled in Qatar, Khaled Meshaal, Khalil al-
Hayya, who was Sinwar's deputy.
Do you think any of these three men are in the position to be more flexible about negotiating at this point and coming up and agreeing to a deal that
sees the war stopping and the hostages coming home?
BASKIN: There are still members of the Shura Council, the Hamas leadership that are in Gaza, who are not so well known to the International Community.
And of course, Mohammed Sinwar, Yahya Sinwar's brother, is in charge of military operations. He's not a political leader. So, he won't have a say
in the decision.
The leadership, which is outside, primarily in Doha, but also in Istanbul and in Beirut, really need to make a decision if Hamas is going to survive
as part of the political framework of the Palestinian National Movement. And this is the decision which I believe they need to make now that their
military struggle is over, they need to have a political struggle. Hopefully, they can transform themselves into a nonmilitary political party
within the Palestinian arena.
The question is if they do make an agreement with Israel, do they have the power and the ability to enforce it in Gaza? Can they ensure that the
Israeli hostages will be released? And this is not known, this will have to be attest once there are advanced negotiations and agreement is reached,
and then we'll see if the people in Gaza are going to release the hostages or not.
Of course, Israel's going to have to pay a price as well. So, in Israel, we'll have to release Palestinian prisoners, and this will be the quid pro
quo here that will be tested in real-time as Israel agrees to release prisoners. Hamas will agree to release hostages. And then we'll need to see
if the war does, in fact, end. Because without ending the war, this won't come to a pretty picture either.
GOLODRYGA: You talk about the price that you say Israel will still have to pay. We know since the beginning of this war, Prime Minister Netanyahu laid
out goals that many viewed as unattainable, unrealistic, and that is overall victory. Killing Yahya Sinwar is right up there, but releasing
Palestinian prisoners does not, to me, in how we've been covering the inner workings of his government, especially among some of the far-right members,
that that does not suggest a victory according to them. Do you think this is something that he would ultimately agree to?
BASKIN: I don't think he has a choice if Netanyahu is really interested in bringing the Israeli hostages home. There are many people in Israel who
believe that Netanyahu has put the hostages second or third place in terms of his overall goals, where his primary goal is political survival. And
ending the war for Netanyahu is challenging because there will be a call for a commission of inquiry on what led to October 7th, what happened on
October 7th, and what's happened since.
And while Netanyahu is spiking right now in the polls because of military successes in Lebanon and the killing of Yahya Sinwar, overall, the people
of Israel do not forget what happened on October 7th and hold Netanyahu responsible.
So, releasing prisoners is not just the matter of not having the total victory, but it's also questioning not to know his ability to stay in
power. But there will be no deal with Hamas without ending the war and without releasing Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas, while they are severely weakened, have the ability to continue to kill Israeli soldiers every day. And then the question is, what is the
price that Israel is willing to pay to remain in Gaza? Is having our young soldiers killed every day or not? And what happens to the concept, the
ethos of Israel, that we don't leave anyone behind? If we do leave people behind, if they are sacrificed, this will be a blow to Israeli society that
I'm not sure that we can ever recover.
[13:10:00]
GOLODRYGA: Can I ask you a final question on that point? Because I really was taken by a constant line, a theme that I would hear from my time
speaking with Israelis going to Israel since October 7th a number of times now, and that is that the country cannot heal until these hostages are
brought home, until there's resolution here.
A year has passed, a year and more. And now, we've seen this war only expand. Do you think that that same line of thinking exists for the
majority of the country at this point?
BASKIN: I think it does, and the polls speak to that as well. In -- there's very much a sense in Israel since October 7 that we are a very sad
country. There is no one that you can ask the simple question of how are you without people stopping to think, how should I answer that question?
Because we're all in pain. We're all in trauma.
We're still in shock from October 7th, and the healing process of Israeli society will only begin when this hostage catastrophe is finished, and the
people who are dead are brought home to be buried, and the people who are alive are brought home to be taken care of in serious therapy, then we're
going to begin being post traumatic, but we're still deep in the trauma.
GOLODRYGA: And by the way, they're deep in the trauma in Gaza as well --
BASKIN: For sure.
GOLODRYGA: -- with so many thousands of civilians --
BASKIN: No doubt.
GOLODRYGA: -- there continuing to suffer and not knowing what the death of Yahya Sinwar means for them and when this war will eventually end so they
can start rebuilding their lives as well.
BASKIN: This really has to be the last Israeli-Palestinian war. We cannot keep doing this to each other. We've been killing each other for way too
long and both people deserve the right to live.
GOLODRYGA: That is true. Gershon Baskin, thank you so much for joining us.
BASKIN: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, as Election Day looms, there's one film that Republican candidates and Former President Donald Trump does not want you to see. "The
Apprentice" charged Trump's rise in the 1970s New York under the tutelage of notorious lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn, starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy
Strong. Trump has attacked the film as, quote, "a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job." Christiane sat down in London with the
film's director, Ali Abbasi.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Ali Abbasi, welcome to the program.
ALI ABBASI, DIRECTOR, "THE APPRENTICE": Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: So, we are going to talk about your film "The Apprentice," which is a movie, but it's also become a political minefield. So, first and
foremost, it is the story of Donald Trump's beginnings.
ABBASI: That's right.
AMANPOUR: Way before he had the presidency in his eye. It takes place between 1973 and 1986. Why did you want to do this movie?
ABBASI: Everyone has an opinion about him, right? Everyone thinks that they know him, they -- you know, is a very polarizing figure. And it's
really exciting to sort of dive back and say, oh, he was not the person you think he was. And he'd gone through a sort of a major transformation.
And look at that, and look at that sort of colorful '70s and '80s New York with these large life characters. But also, as someone, you know, as an
outsider to -- you know, United States and American society, that's my chance to look at the power structure of America, the legal structure and
the sort of the social Darwinism that has created some of these, you know,
AMANPOUR: What would you describe him as at the time of this film? When that set -- he's not the character he is now, you say, what was he then?
ABBASI: I think he was a striver. He was someone who sort of as a young man wanted to become somebody, do something. And he wasn't like exactly
obvious what to become and what to do. But he wanted to ascend. He was an ascender. He was looking for a purpose, looking for a place.
And, you know, obviously he comes from money, you know, his dad was, you know, immensely wealthy, but they were, you know, in Brooklyn and Queens
and they didn't have this sort of Manhattan, you know, social life connections, which -- and that's where he wanted to be.
AMANPOUR: He wanted to prove to his father that he could be as good a real estate developer --
ABBASI: Exactly.
AMANPOUR: -- as his father. The reason it's called "The Apprentice" is because he is apprenticed to this very prominent lawyer by the name of Roy
Cohn.
ABBASI: That's right.
AMANPOUR: A Manhattanite who had become very famous during the Nixon administration, before that, the McCarthy hearings, and he was really very,
very extreme, very good lawyer, very, very right-wing, who professed always that his major client was America.
But I want to play this clip because it is essentially what the writer, Gabriel Sherman, says is where Trump learnt what we now know as Trumpism.
ABBASI: That's right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you always win?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's rules. The first rule is attack, attack, attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to be the finest building in the city, maybe the country, and the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rule two, admit nothing. Deny everything.
[13:15:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's never been anything like this., at this magnitude, this quality.
oh, cheese balls over here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want one?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it looks totally disgusting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cheese balls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rule three, no matter what happens, you claim victory and never admit defeat. You have to be willing to do anything to anyone to
win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, the three rules are all broken up with scenes and music.
ABBASI: That's right.
AMANPOUR: But the three rules are deny, deny, deny, attack, attack, attack, and never-ever admit defeat. And you can take that as a straight
line from there to January 6th.
ABBASI: Yes. And you know, basically it's about, like, if, you know, the reality works for you, manipulate it. If it doesn't work for you, just
manufacture the reality you need to.
AMANPOUR: Gabriel Sherman, who wrote the screenplay, basically said, of course, that he had heard Roger Stone, a very close Trump ally, back in the
2016 campaign, say that Trump was winning because he was implementing the lessons Roy Cohn taught him. These three lessons.
ABBASI: Right. And, you know, obviously we -- for dramatic reasons, we try to simplify that. You know -- and, you know, Mr. Trump is -- he's like a
sponge like character and sort of an ideology or way of looking at the world, which is basically comes down to if you win, whatever you win,
however you win, you won.
And then, you can sort of worry about the principles and worry about the aftermath, worry about narrative afterwards. And, you know, he's been very
successful in that, you know.
AMANPOUR: And even if you lose, you win because you say that you won.
ABBASI: That's right, because, you know, the winning happens sort of in the world of media. And the winning happens on the newspaper page. And if
you win there, then the reality would somehow follow, you know.
AMANPOUR: Is this a political film?
ABBASI: It is a political film because it -- you know, we're, you know, investigating power structures. We're investigating, like, the levers of
power. But it's not a party-political film. You know, I don't have a horse in this game, you know, I don't care if Democrats win or Republicans win.
And that's sort of the point of the movie, that there's another structure here which is not -- it doesn't adhere to this sort of, you know, binary,
you know --
AMANPOUR: The movie is very clear, that it takes no partisan politics. And also, you remind everybody that actually, during a lot of the time when it
was set, certainly in the '80s, Donald Trump was a darling in Manhattan. He was on all the media shows. It's a very -- you're showing a different time
of his life.
ABBASI: That's right.
AMANPOUR: Where, you even say, the guy had a sense of humor. He could be charming.
ABBASI: He still has a sense of humor. I think what we try to do here is to capture his humanity, to see him as a complex human being he is, and
also Roy Cohn, and also Ivana, you know, and that's where I think, for me, it's worthy. It's a humanist project, and that is the politics of the movie
in a way.
AMANPOUR: So, as you know, a lot of Republicans have trashed it. We're going to get to Trump trashing it in a moment.
ABBASI: And some liked it too.
AMANPOUR: And some may have liked it too. But a lot of liberals just think you're not being cleareyed enough about Trump. So, it's kind of a
minefield.
ABBASI: Yes. I mean, we've been, sort of, in the middle of, oh you're too soft on him, oh, you're too harsh on him, oh, you're bashing him, oh,
you're praising him. And in a way, I'm thinking, you know, if you have, you know, Roger Stone, you know, liking it, Mr. Trump hating it, Breitbart
liking it, someone else -- MSNBC liking it, hating it, you know, all these different actors, if we're agitating all sides, then we're doing something
right.
AMANPOUR: That's one way of putting it. Let's get to the media and political aspect of it. Because this film premiered at Cannes. It got a lot
of buzz. And immediately, Trump's people and Trump started to attack it. There was a cease-and-desist letter from the producer, the person who had
actually put down the money for this film. And Trump has just recently -- his latest attack on this is on the social media early Monday calling it a
cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job meant to thwart his presidential candidacy. And his -- you know, his spokesman goes on to
say this garbage is pure fiction. Have you been slapped with a with this lawsuit?
ABBASI: Well, not yet. And I doubt that the lawsuit would come because they know they don't have a case. You know, there is no case. There's a
what -- you know, are you going to make a case of us making a movie about a guy, you know, which is thoroughly researched and fact checked? And that --
I'm not saying that makes it a good movie, but I'm just saying there's nothing to -- you know, you can whine about it if you don't like it, but
that's a different thing than having a lawsuit.
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: So, one of the big issues that Trump and his team don't like is the scene where you show him sexually abusing, assaulting his wife, Ivana.
ABBASI: Right.
AMANPOUR: So, this came from -- well, you tell me where it came from? It came -- we're basing this on Ivana's deposition under oath, in their legal
proceedings through a divorce. And you know, this, you know, came late -- it was later retold in details in a book about, you know, the relationship.
In that the same book there is a disclaimer. The disclaimer goes like this, I know I said, oh, he raped me, but I didn't mean rape in the legal
criminal sense. And I'm thinking, OK, that sounds a bit of a -- like, why would you want to repeat that in detail if you want to sort of, you know,
deny it later?
Also, if you look at their divorce proceedings the -- according to the judge, the reason they got divorced was Mr. Trump's cruel and inhuman
behavior toward Ivana. That's in the case. Trump later, you know, sued, tried to get a gag order against Ivana talking about this whole thing,
which he won. And, you know, this is the same guy who is, you know, accused of many times of sexual assault and all that.
I mean, the latest thing is, you know, he was at the backstage of the beauty pageant saying that, you know, I can go there and I can do whatever
I want because I own the place and they have no clothes and they're incredible looking women, because I can get away with it. But guess what,
you can't.
AMANPOUR: So, obviously, he denies it. He denies what Ivana wrote and said. And then, remember, in the 2015 campaign, she totally retracted it.
ABBASI: Well, that's a --
AMANPOUR: In any --
ABBASI: -- page from Roy Cohn's rule book, isn't it?
AMANPOUR: And he's denied all the other charges against him, including the convictions.
ABBASI: He also denied that he lost an election.
AMANPOUR: Why did you feel it was important to put this scene in?
ABBASI: Well, look, I don't have like a personal vendetta against Mr. Trump. You know, I'm just stating the obvious facts here and some of it is
on Wikipedia and so forth. The reason it was important to include in the movie, because this is a movie about a human being and its complexity, as
important as it was, as annoying it was for my liberal friends to show him being, you know, relatively naive and relentless and smart with his
business, you know, dealings early on in New York. As important it is to show this aspect of his relation with Ivana, which is a tragedy, really.
AMANPOUR: I'm going to play this clip, because we do have a clip of them together. This is when he's trying to get her to marry him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go find someone else. I'm not a traffic watch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to ruin your life if you don't marry me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One second, listen, I'm --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why is that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I'm rich, I'm handsome, I have a great family, I'm going to be the number one builder in New York.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen to me. You're going to have a life you can't even dream of, Ivana, with me. I love you. I love you. OK? I want to have
children with you. I want us to grow old together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABBASI: So, whether you don't like or like these characters, their love story is real. Their love was real. And I think that's the tragic thing,
that what happens in this scene is the rapture of that. And, you know, I think it would have been controversial to exclude that, you know what I
mean, as would be controversial to deny that he was a good businessman in the beginning.
AMANPOUR: You've also said, you think that this is part of the way to counter a rising tide of fascism.
ABBASI: Yes, because, you know, the problem with fascism is that it sells the narrative of, you know, ethnic tension as the -- being the biggest
problem and the solution to all our problems, you know. And I think that what -- this is what the -- sort of the American populist right has been
doing, you know, the American economy is so extremely dependent on all these undocumented immigrants, you know, so is with Europe.
You know, I -- in fact, when Mr. Trump, you know, got into White House 2003, I wasn't surprised because I've been hearing the same anti-foreigner,
anti-immigrant themes from Denmark where I lived, you know. So, I can see how this narrative is unfolding. There's always this myth of the self-made
leader who made it against all odds. And I think when you deconstruct that myth and find a human being --
AMANPOUR: You see where it came from?
ABBASI: Exactly.
AMANPOUR: Ali Abbasi, thank you so much.
ABBASI: Thank you for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And "The Apprentice" is now in theaters across the U.S. Well, with the stakes of communication and public messaging higher than ever, the
spread of misinformation online has become a real-world concern.
[13:25:00]
Sixteen Republicans serving as electors for Donald Trump this year deny the 2020 result. To discuss how false information spreads and the ways to
combat it, Hari Sreenivasan speaks to Associate Research Professor at Georgetown, Renee DiResta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Renee DiResta, welcome back to the program. You study misinformation,
disinformation, and really just how information spreads. And something that's been so disconcerting for a lot of people is just in the wake of
these two horrible storms and these disasters that went through Florida and the southeast, we saw so much fake news, false information, however you
want to frame it. Why did it take off so fast?
RENEE DIRESTA, ASSOCIATE RESEARCH PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN'S MCCOURT SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY AND AUTHOR, "INVISIBLE RULERS": So, one of the things that
happens in any crisis situation is that rumors begin to spread about the response, about the situation, about the reality on the ground. They evolve
over time as more actual information comes out about the circumstances. But one of the things that happens today is that a lot of people get their
information from social media.
And social media is a place where sometimes you get real people who are talking -- you know, they're actually there on the ground, they're actually
able to communicate. In these particular situations, though, a lot of what was happening was prominent influencers had a particular point of view. And
unfortunately, they said things like a friend of a friend told me. And that kind of rumor really tends to go viral on social media, particularly if
they're saying something that sounds very scary or scandalous or maybe implies that a government institution is doing something wrong or failing.
So, that kind of stuff is happening more and more lately.
SREENIVASAN: X seems to be a platform where so much disinformation and misinformation spreads easier because the, you know, owner, Elon Musk, has
taken off kind of the guardrails, removed what would have been structural kind of moderation efforts. And I wonder, you know, they had tried to
replace it with this idea of community notes, that we could all crowdsource a better track of information. If we, you or I saw something that was
false, we could flag it and enough people flagged it, and then maybe the algorithm says, we shouldn't spread this as far and wide. Is that working?
DIRESTA: So, community notes is a really great idea. One of the things that's really great about it is you have people who don't trust fact checks
that come from media, right? Some people don't like CNN. Some people don't like PBS. Some people don't like Fox. And so, one of the problems that was
happening was, Twitter used to have fact check labels where the label on the content would be written by a media outlet.
Now, they were often quite reliable. They would sometimes take a little bit of time to get there, but they were generally quite reliable. But what
began to happen was the enterprise of fact checking was gradually delegitimized. Oh, this is the kind of thing that, you know, media wants
you to think this, and the platform is censoring the free expression of people by putting a fact check on it. Now, I think that's nonsense.
But I love the idea of community notes because it gets at this question of, can the community provide context and help moderate itself, right, moderate
the place where -- you know, where we are. And what has to happen with community notes is people who are on the right and people who are on the
left, as the algorithm intuits it, have to both kind of agree that a community note is fair and that the sources listed in the community note
are reputable. And if that happens, then the community note appears.
But what's begun to happen is two things. One, oftentimes the community can't actually know something in the moment. You really see this happen in
crisis situations. Me sitting on my couch, you know, in California, I have no idea what's happening to somebody in North Carolina. I cannot community
note, fact check a rumor, right? It takes some time to figure out what's happening.
The other dynamic though, is a lot of the time, once the rumor becomes a source of political propaganda, it really gets tied into people's identity.
They don't want to acknowledge or admit that the rumor was false and that, you know, their politician picked it up. And so, you don't see that
agreement happen. And so, the note doesn't appear or it doesn't stay. And this is something that, unfortunately, is a -- it's a failing of community
notes. And what you want to see is both of these things happening, both the fact check and the community note so that however quickly you can get it
there, the information, as it's going viral, has context as fast as possible so people can be informed.
SREENIVASAN: How much does authority factor into it? And I'm asking in the context of politicians that go out and spread misinformation or conspiracy
theories. And there's a couple that I'm looking at here. Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia tweeted out, quote, "Yes
--" again, this is -- I'm going to say this before and after the quote, that this is not true, that, "Yes, they can control the weather. It's
ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done."
Again, I don't have any proof that anyone can control the weather, but -- and it's unclear in this statement who the they is, and she's got a history
of spreading this, but I wonder the fact that she is an authority, she is not common or a normal citizen like you and me, does that supercharge or
give greater, you know, reach to this?
[13:30:00]
DIRESTA: So, two things happen. One, it does get great reach, and that's because she has a very large audience, right? When you have political
elites, political influencers who have massive audiences, they have that power to make a lot of people see a message.
But there's one little difference between an elite and an influencer, as you note an elected official in particular, and that's she does have the
imprimatur of being an authority. Her words carry weight. She is an elected official of the United States government.
And so, it's remarkable to see the extent to which particular political -- you know, particular political elected officials are behaving in this kind
of influencer like way where they just sort of say, well, you know, I'm just asking questions. I'm just saying this thing and you just kind of like
toss an idea out there, and it normalizes the idea for the -- you know, the people who follow her, the people who see her as -- you know, her or
anybody else for that matter, elected officials who are seen as kind of arbiters of this is -- you know, these are the opinions that good
Republicans hold in this particular case or people of my political tribe hold.
And one of the things that you do start to see happen in some of these situations is you have to see the correction come then from other people
who are also seen as legitimate and authoritative within that community. So, it has to be a fellow Republican who pushes back against these kinds
of, you know, they're controlling the weather lies. It has to be right-wing media, right-wing influencers, people who are seen as authoritative and
reliable, because if it comes from a source outside the community, then it's very easy to say, you know, well, you know, the left-wing media lies,
the mainstream media lies, of course, they're fact checking you, they want to silence you. And that's the kind of polarized narrative that we that we
operate in.
SREENIVASAN: You know, I wonder if it's still true that the lie spreads further and faster than the correction or the response or the truth? I
mean, there is -- you know, even in the context of what Marjorie Taylor Greene said, there was -- you know, there was a Republican representative,
Carlos Gimenez, of Florida. He responded -- you know, he said, she should get her head examined for suggesting someone is controlling the weather,
adding that there's no place for misinformation, especially when it's on purpose at times like this. And a few other GOP, you know, members and
local officials have also said that, you know, this misinformation needs to stop, et cetera.
But I wonder if it's too little too late because the platform that she has and the rumor she's able to spread, you know, will this kind of response
get to every nook and cranny that the original tweet went out to?
DIRESTA: Well, I think in the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene, I don't get the sense that she is -- has a wide base of support even among the
Republican Party, right? She's a very particular niche of support. So, seeing other Republican officials come out and say, no, these are the
facts, this is the information, absolutely critical.
We saw this happen in Springfield, too, right? Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, came out and said, nobody is eating the pets there. This is not
a thing. You know, business leaders trusted in the community came out and, you know, did -- PSAs, you know, did video interviews with the media trying
to explain how the Haitian community had, you know, worked in their factories and things like this.
So, it has to be those trusted counter speakers who are putting out this -- who are putting out accurate information, who are pushing back against the
facts.
SREENIVASAN: You know, if you are a fan of the former president, there's really no higher authority than him. And recently, in the wake of these
storms, he said, quote, "They're offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away. And yet, we send tens of billions of dollars to
foreign countries that most people have never heard of. They're offering them $750. They've been destroyed. These people have been destroyed."
But really, the 750 bucks that he's talking about is just a direct payment sent to people to cover their emergency supplies. It is not the value of
their home or the sum total of what they're going to be getting from the federal government. But what did happen in the wake of that? How did that
kind of misinformation take on a different life?
DIRESTA: Well, it's seen as -- again, as you know, a very authoritative statement from a political leader, and for many people, you know, sort of a
hero. And so, this is the statement that he puts out. He puts that out on Truth Social as often than screenshotted and moved over to Twitter,
particularly by -- you know, by his supporter. Sometimes he posts directly to Twitter now, too.
But you see that dynamic of the person who they trust is conveying a certain type of information, in this case, very misleading. It's not that
it's wrong, it's not that it's false, you know, they are getting $750, but it's that it's completely decontextualized. $750 as you then apply for all
of the other aid that you'll be eligible to receive, right?
So, it's a really challenging dynamic. And then, explaining it then requires nuance. There's sort of a saying in politics. If you're
explaining, you're losing. But what you see happen then is that the Harris campaign and others have to -- the Biden administration have to come out
and say no, no, no, he got it wrong. Here are the actual facts.
[13:35:00]
And so, you see then this effort to get the facts out to explain to people who, again, many of whom have lost their homes and they really -- you know,
they have lousy internet, their power's out, their water's not working. They have many, many other things to worry about.
SREENIVASAN: Yes.
DIRESTA: And so, when they're hearing this kind of information, it does impact how they think about the response. And you see this in the context
also of some of the very misleading claims that Trump spread about FEMA, right? And, you know, they are not -- they're not helping Trump supporters
as a -- you know, as a thing that he said at one point, right?
So, you have this dynamic of a trusted official, a trusted leader amplifying these claims for political advantage, just to be clear, right?
That's one of the main motivating factors here.
SREENIVASAN: There was a group that looked into some of this, and they found that just 33 posts on X that were already debunked by various
different sources had 160 million views. And what was also interesting to me in some of their analysis was that, you know, about 30 percent of these
posts contained anti-Semitic hate. And that some of the people, the large accounts that -- who had, you know, multiple millions of followers that
were sharing some of these lies about the storm were also people who were actively engaged in other forms of mis and disinformation.
It's almost like there's this sort of Venn diagram of people who like to do this, whether it's about Hurricane Milton or about the Great Replacement
Theory.
DIRESTA: Well, one of the things that's happening is they've built up an audience base that feels a certain way towards the government or towards
authority figures. And one of the -- you know, events don't happen in a vacuum. Once you have kind of built up your villain, whether that's FEMA or
Jewish people or the government or Biden or Trump, whoever it is, you can refer back to them kind of constantly. So, you can sort of connect the
dots, so to speak, for your audience.
There's a phrase that I've really come to appreciate, conspiracy without the theory, right? So, there's no actual argument for what is happening
here. There's no cohesive, you know, why are these people doing this thing, right? What is the incentive?
But there are these very complicated theories that they go viral because they're phrased in certain ways that connect the dots to a different
conspiracy theory. So, whether it's something like great replacement, new world order, you know, there's so many of these QAnon, these conspiracy
theory communities have a very rich lore.
Then the other thing I want to quickly add, is that now on X, you can monetize that engagement, right? So, it's not just online clout or growing
followers that maybe you can monetize on a different platform, it's that you can actually directly make money from your engagements. The platform
sets an incentive for the type of content that's created by offering people an opportunity to make money on it.
And this is one of the things that's happening. If you can be the first person out of the gate with a wild theory about a hurricane or a natural
disaster or a mass shooting, unfortunately, the attention is going to -- it's going to go to you, whether you have the facts or not. And the -- you
know, the financial perk is also then going to go to you. And so, it really creates a series of, you know, misguided incentives, in some ways.
SREENIVASAN: The other major kind of crisis potential -- potentially looming when it comes to misinformation and disinformation is the election
cycle. And given that, you know, the internet has evolved, there have been new platforms and new technologies that have emerged almost every four
years, what are the threats that you're looking at when it comes to the next couple of weeks here?
DIRESTA: So, since 2020, I'll say the internet has fragmented quite a bit, right? There's multiple new entrants. There's Truth Social. There's
Bluesky. There's Threads. There's Mastodon. People have left Twitter on the left. It is a little bit more of a right-wing platform at this point, or,
you know, sort of seen that way by a lot of the people who are using it for political communication.
So, there's a fragmenting of audiences. There is generative A.I., right? And the question, I think, generative A.I. is it's an enhancer. It's not
that we didn't have propaganda before, right? It's not that we can't be just as effective at spreading misleading information without generative
A.I., but it is a very interesting tool, unfortunately, when it comes to things like creating evidence to backstop a rumor or a claim, right?
So, you have, you know, some shifts. But ultimately, I think it is going to be very much this process of rumors and election officials and political
leaders and political influencers in their communities really using -- taking their responsibility seriously and, you know, taking the institution
of democracy seriously, right? And being out there speaking the truth correcting records as quickly as possible, rebutting rumors as soon as
information is known very proactively speaking. That's what I think that we need to see in this election as well.
[13:40:00]
SREENIVASAN: You were at the Stanford Internet Observatory. That was a research group that was studying the very things that we're talking about.
You're now at Georgetown. But I think for folks in our audience that might not know what happened, what the political pressure was, why that
organization is, in effect, no longer around, what happened?
DIRESTA: So, we ran a project actually looking at election rumors, ironically, and vaccine rumors. So, it was elections in 2020, vaccines in
2021, elections again in 2022. And we just traced rumors. Just to be clear, rumors about voting. We never looked at Hunter Biden's laptop. We never
looked at what candidate A said about candidate B. Totally out of scope for us.
But we looked at rumors about voting, and particularly rumors that alleged that there was fraud. So, this you know, in aggregate, a very steady
drumbeat of rumors kind of, you know, propelled by political influencers on the right to support the claim that the election had been stolen, which was
not true, created a -- you know, led actually to the violence of January 6th, right? Again, speaking of real-world impact.
We did a lot of work to understand how that was happening. We communicated with local election officials. Sometimes we spoke to tech platforms.
Sometimes we said, hey, this seems to violate your policies, and they would choose whether to moderate it. 60 percent of the time they did nothing, 30
percent of the time they labeled it, 10 percent of the time they took it down, right? So, this was the dynamic of our project.
But that was all reframed by some of the very sitting congressmen who denied the results of the 2020 election. And when they got their gavels,
they launched investigations into us and they subpoenaed our data and our information, they demanded sort of closed-door interviews. And then they
wrote reports alleging that our research project and our communication with government or with platforms had, in fact, been some sort of cabal. Had in
fact been a vast conspiracy theory to take down tens of millions of tweets. Utter nonsense.
But again, for the better part of a year, you know, a year and a half now, gosh, it's been -- you know, the institution was under subpoena. So,
ultimately, the institution decided that it was no longer going to do this type of rapid response election rumor work.
And I think that that's very sad. And I think that that's very sad because it is that need to have different stakeholders with different pieces of
information, understanding the information environment to try to get those corrections out there, to try to get that good information out there to the
public. It's actually to enhance counter speeches. It's to enhance and increase the amount of information that the public has.
And so, my hope is that, you know, as this -- even as this continues, that institutions really stand up and say, no, you know, we have a First
Amendment right to do protected research and studying rumors targeting American institutions is an incredibly worthwhile thing for academia to
pursue.
SREENIVASAN: Renee DiResta, thanks so much for joining us.
DIRESTA: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Up next, from the political to the highly personal. Actor Gillian Anderson made her name playing Agent Scully in "The X Files," but a
younger generation know her as sex therapist Jane Milburn in Netflix's "Sex Education."
Well now, Anderson has published a collection of anonymous, candid essays on sexual fantasy in the book "Want". I sat down with her recently to talk
about what drove her to compile it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Gillian Anderson, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about this.
GILLIAN ANDERSON, EDITOR, "WANT": Thank you for having me.
GOLODRYGA: You're new exciting book.
ANDERSON: Very exciting.
GOLODRYGA: People will know you most recently from your famed role as Dr. Jean Milburn on the Netflix show, "Sex Education."
ANDERSON: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: And so, when we talk about this conversation we're having now and what led you to this book, "Want," was it your character from that show
that inspired the subject matter here?
ANDERSON: I think most likely, yes. I started to embrace an aspect that was very much Jean in terms of -- Jean the character, in terms of how she
related to people about intimate matters and how open and inclusive her thinking was.
And so, when I was approached with this idea, I thought, this is interesting. I'm actually really curious whether anything and I assumed
quite a lot had changed since 1973 when Nancy Friday published "My Secret Garden," which was also anonymous letters written in by women in a much
smaller community writing about their sexual fantasies.
GOLODRYGA: So, what did you find? Were you surprised?
ANDERSON: In rereading Friday's book, I was surprised at how raunchy and illicit some of the fantasies were, like I assumed that because it was back
then, and I think of back then as being in black and white, that they would be much more stayed and less explicit.
[13:45:00]
But then, in our book, the thing that surprised me the most is the degree to which shame is still so prevalent for women, not just in whether or not
they can talk openly with their partner about sex, but the idea of expressing a desire or for something different, to be done different and to
receive pleasure in a way is -- there's still a lot of shame around that.
GOLODRYGA: So, let's take a step back. You launched the project, Dear Gillian, and asked for submissions throughout social media. And you write,
I'm curating a book of your anonymous letters to me. Whoever you are, wherever you come from, whether you're 18 or 80, you sleep with men or
women or non-binary individuals, or all or no one at all, I want to know your most personal desires. Let's open up the conversation together and
create something revelatory.
You received over 1,100 letters, 800,000 words. Were you surprised at the reception that your question, your reach out, led to?
ANDERSON: No, I don't. I think because of Gene Milburn and because of how I often present, predominantly on socials, I guess, that maybe we would get
quite a few entries. What did surprise me, actually, was that we had so many people start to write, and not everybody finished their letters. So, I
think in the first short while we had something like 1,800 entries. And so, there were quite a few non-completes. And I've always wanted to ask, you
know, is it cold feet?
What we ended up receiving -- hearing you read that, that is what we got from women around the world. And incredibly raw and honest and open and
brave, and yes, revelatory in a way.
GOLODRYGA: Everything from fantasize about having sex in a church, staring at Jesus on the cross. I'm thinking of the Madonna video, that image. Sex
with sibling heirs to an art fortune, sex with Harry Styles, sex with a robot.
ANDERSON: Yes. Bigfoot.
GOLODRYGA: Bigfoot.
ANDERSON: Tentacles.
GOLODRYGA: How did you cull through what you ultimately were going to put in the book?
ANDERSON: It was hard. It was really hard. You know, at the beginning, you know, the stack was like this, and we were going to start together so that
we could have real-time experience of reading them. And we had the same order. And it was taking so long because we'd stop, we were gasping, we'd
stop and want to share and let me read it, did you read this, no I'm for -- you know.
And so, we then decided to split it into sections. I'm sure there were many left on the table that were as good as the ones that have remained in the
book that we had to then kind of return and destroy that was part of the deal was that anything that wasn't published would be destroyed, which is
so sad.
You know, we didn't want pressure. It wasn't a creative writing course. It wasn't -- we didn't want that pressure on the women who submitted. And you
certainly get that from Nancy Friday's book, is it feels -- you know, it feels unedited and raw and there's something incredibly moving and
beautiful about that in and of itself.
And so, we tried to choose them not based on writing quality per se, but just based on having as much inclusion of different experiences as
possible.
GOLODRYGA: Was including your own fantasy always part of the plan?
ANDERSON: Yes. Yes, it felt like the right thing to do. And, you know, Bloomsbury was, you know, wanted to make sure that they held me to that,
even when I was getting cold feet. I did leave it to the last minute and found it --
GOLODRYGA: That's what I was going to ask. Did you write yours prior to reading other submissions?
ANDERSON: No, I had to hand it over to somebody who then would know which one was mine. So, in the end which was --
GOLODRYGA: Did you get any ideas from some of the submissions that you read?
ANDERSON: I never thought of that. Actually, no. Interestingly, but there's quite a few that, yes, one could easily adopt. But I actually found
it much harder than I had expected to actually put it down. It wasn't necessarily even the fact that I was going to be handing it over to
somebody that -- by then, I knew personally. It was just -- it was certain words, writing certain words.
[13:50:00]
And I'm not -- I do not consider myself -- I don't think I am, I could be in denial, but I don't -- I'm not prudish. I'm not -- there's not much that
I feel like I haven't seen or witnessed or heard about that -- you know, so it's -- I was shocked by my own shyness. It suddenly felt pornographic when
they were words as opposed to images.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Words put down on paper for others to read and not just in your mind.
ANDERSON: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: And prude is not a word people would use to describe you, at least as of late. I mean, at the Golden Globes, you wore a Gabriella Hirst
dress embroidered with vulvas. Last year, you launched a line of sodas called G Spot. You're very comfortable at this stage in your life, whether
you're expressing your sexuality.
But going back to that issue of feeling shame, you said you always -- you haven't always felt comfortable with your sexuality. In an interview in The
New York Times, you said, so much of my youth, at a time when I could have, should have, been as happy as you can imagine, was spent obsessing over
perceived flaws. I know from experience that when one is locked in shame, it's very difficult to experience pleasure. And there's no crack in the
door for it to come through.
And I think that's so relatable for so many women.
ANDERSON: That makes me very emotional.
GOLODRYGA: And they're young in their youth, looking back decades later.
ANDERSON: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: Speaking for myself too. I'm much more confident and comfortable in my own skin today as a 46-year-old than I was in my 20s.
ANDERSON: Yes. Just in my head the whole time. You know, and certainly, could present as an actress and perform differently or show up, you know,
at, you know, award shows or talk shows or whatever and present confidently and certainly in playing Dana Scully, who is incredibly confident in
herself, you wouldn't necessarily have seen that or guessed that, which is almost more sad in a way and makes you think of how much of that is hidden
in the minds of so much of the youth today.
And even more so because back then when I was young there was no social media. And so, it's in the -- you know, perfectionism is in your face all
the time, or that kind of idealization of the human form, and particularly women's female form. Yes.
GOLODRYGA: You mentioned, you know, pushing this message through social media and there are so many positive attributes to social media, but
obviously, the dark side too, and pressure, especially among girls on this very subject of sexuality. And feeling that they're not good enough. All of
that. I'm just wondering how you absorb that in taking to a project like this?
ANDERSON: So, I think to this point, in the conversations that we've been having since the book came out, what I'm hearing from, not just women who
are reading this, is a degree to which not only do they identify with all elements of the fantasies and, you know, shyness or shame or any aspect of
it in terms of desire and fear but also, there's something about even though the women who submitted did so in the cloak of anonymity, they found
that incredibly empowering in the process of adding it to a platform made them feel, seen, and heard in a way that they hadn't prior because maybe
they hadn't shared those thoughts of the vulnerability or the intimacy.
GOLODRYGA: You said playing Stella Gibson in "The Fall" in the 2010s is what inspired you to advocate for sex positively. What do you hope readers
learn from this and for those that are on the same quest?
ANDERSON: Well, it's interesting because I didn't -- I never thought of myself as actually being on that quest, that it's not something that I've
necessarily sought out, but whether it's starting with Stella in "The Fall" and from myself through her experience -- you know, living -- walking in
her shoes and wearing her clothes, and it -- that experience awakening a sensuality in me that I'd been, I think, asleep for a very long time and
embracing that.
But since then, it has become a regular topic of conversation that I am proud to have a platform to participate in. And I guess my hope is that
it's -- the book and the conversation around it encourages women to find their voice and declare what it is that they want, and it's not.
[13:55:00]
I'm not just talking about in bed, I'm talking about, you know, in all areas of their lives. And at the ballot box. This feels like a good moment
to be having that conversation about the power that women can have right now, in this moment to make a difference.
GOLODRYGA: Three weeks away. Gillian Anderson, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us.
ANDERSON: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Well, that is it for now. Thank you so much for watching the show, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
