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Amanpour
Interview with The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg; Interview with One of the Exonerated Central Park Five and New York City Councilmember for Harlem Yusef Salaam; Interview with "Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions Co-Author John Grisham; Interview with "Seize The Summit" Director Arwa Damon. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 25, 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)
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: Take a moment to think about what that means. That Trump said,
quote, "Hitler did some good things."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: As Donald Trump confronts accusations of fascism, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, reports on Trump's disdain for the
military.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YUSEF SALAAM, ONE OF THE EXONERATED CENTRAL PARK FIVE AND NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMEMBER FOR HARLEM: How could the system run over us with the spike
rules of justice and then run over us again and lay us out flat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- the exonerated five accused Donald Trump of defamation. We revisit Christiane's conversation with Yusuf Salaam, once wrongfully
convicted, now a New York City council member.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN GRISHAM, CO-AUTHOR, "FRAMED: ASTONISHING TRUE STORIES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS: There's no room for the death penalty. in this country, the
way it is applied the way it's used.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- a bestselling writer also confronts the spiked wheels of justice. Walter Isaacson talks to John Grisham, author of "Framed:
Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions."
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be an amazing journey.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Seize the summit. From director Arwa Damon comes an inspiring story of hope and the human spirit.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour. Well, as the presidential race reaches its
final days, warnings from Donald Trump's closest advisers about his preoccupation with dictators are making their way into Kamala Harris'
closing argument. At a rally near Atlanta yesterday, Vice President Harris said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: This is not 2016 and it is not 2020, including -- because just
a few months ago the United States Supreme Court told the former president that he is effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House.
Now, just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, he who will claim unchecked and extreme power if he is re-elected.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Kamala Harris plans to keep driving home warnings about Trump's authoritarian proclivities in more high-profile events. Tonight, Beyonce
performs with the vice president at a rally in Houston.
Meanwhile, the polls remain deadlocked as observers question whether voters are swayed by these allegations against Trump.
The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote the article called, "Trump, I need the kind of generals that Hitler had" that is getting so
much attention in these waning days of the campaign, and he joins me now from Washington. Jeffrey, always good to see you.
And you know, there are so many angles that one could cover in following Donald Trump. And you've spent a lot of time writing and trying to
understand his misunderstanding of the U.S. military. And in this piece, specifically, you talk about how he intends to wield his power over the
military in a second term. Can you walk us through some of the findings in your in your piece here?
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ATLANTIC: Sure. The -- I think a lot of the people who worked for Donald Trump in his first term, and these
are the people that he referred to as quote, "my generals," and that category included both the ex-military leaders like Jim Mattis and John
Kelly, who worked in his cabinet administration and also, the actual generals at the time who were running the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Armed Services and the combatant commands.
He had an expectation -- and he couldn't be dissuaded from this, he had an expectation that in the American system, the generals -- oh, their loyalty
to the president, to the commander-in-chief. Now, according to the American system the commander-in-chief does issue commands and the generals are
meant to follow them, except if they're illegal or immoral commands.
And American generals, all American officers, for that matter, swear an oath of allegiance, not to the president, but to the constitution, to a set
of ideas. And so, he would find it very, very frustrating when a general would say, well, I can't do that.
[13:05:00]
I mean, the most obvious example of this is 2020, in the George Floyd unrest, when, according to his former secretary of defense, Mark Esper,
who's also a former Army officer, Donald Trump repeatedly asked Esper and Mark Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, why can't you
just shoot demonstrators in the legs? Just shoot them. And they would explain, well, that's not what we do here in America. And he would then
express to people inside the White House, and not for the first time, he would say, why can't you guys be more like the German generals? They listen
to Hitler, whatever he told them to do.
In one famous case now he said this to John Kelly, his former chief of staff, former Marine general, and John Kelly was kind of almost teasing him
and saying, well, who do you mean the, you know, Bismarck's generals from the Franco Prussian war? No. Do you mean the Kaiser generals? No. And then
Kelly said, surely you don't mean Hitler's generals? And Trump said, yes, Hitler's generals.
Kelly explained to Trump that Hitler's generals, I mean, some were obviously obedient, some tried to kill Hitler. There are repeated attempts
to kill Hitler. And Trump did not accept that as a reality, as a true historical Fact.
So, it all grows from a frustration that the presidency in the American system is not quite as powerful as Donald Trump would like it to be. And
what we can tell in a second theoretical second term for Donald Trump, he would try to exercise maximum power in the style of dictators who he
admires. And apparently, he admires aspects of Hitler's reign of power.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And it would be unimaginable for a scenario like that in any other administration for a president not to be in a career ending
situation if a headline like that came out, especially from someone as revered and respected as a four-star general who served as his longest
serving chief of staff.
But of course, you have people now questioning the timing of John Kelly going -- coming forward with this, given that these instances happened
several years ago, now that we are just on the cusp of election here, just several days away.
You spoke with John Kelly, The New York Times also has audio released from an interview with John Kelly, where he said that in his view, Trump did
meet the definition of a fascist. Why do you think he is choosing now to speak out finally about this and his concerns? Was it the fact that just a
few days ago, we heard a new line, a new threat from Donald Trump, saying that he wants to go after the enemies within, his political opponents here
in the United States?
GOLDBERG: I mean, I don't know, the question itself sounds like -- I mean, he's obviously speaking out because he's worried about the future of the
country and there's an election in two weeks. I mean, it's not that surprising.
What -- the only thing that's surprising is that some of these former Trump officials, especially people affiliated with the military, haven't said --
haven't spoken publicly before. They say that the reason they don't do that -- I mean, I think there's some nervousness about it, generally for their
own security and their families and so on.
But the reason that they don't do it generally is because they don't think that the military, in the best of all possible worlds, should be
politicized. But I don't think there's anything nefarious here, like everybody else in the country, he has an opinion about Donald Trump and
he's sharing his opinions.
And I think there are a lot of people who worked for Donald Trump the first time around, and I include in this category Rex Tillerson, and Kelly, and
Jim Mattis, and H. R. McMaster, and National Security Adviser John Bolton, another of his national security advisers, Mark Esper, secretary of
defense. I think they can't quite believe that Donald Trump is on the cusp of becoming president again. They thought that after January 6th in
particular, that OK, that America would have moved beyond this man and his obvious threats to what we would consider to be the traditional
constitutional order.
So, I think they're just reacting the way reacting the way they think would help educate certain, you know, swing voters about what they consider to be
the nature of Donald Trump.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, and I'm just relaying to you what I'm sure you've heard as well, a lot of pushback to this piece from those who are supporting Trump
and saying, listen --
GOLDBERG: Yes. It's not on the level.
GOLODRYGA: Right. Yes, of course.
GOLDBERG: It's not on the (INAUDIBLE). Yes.
GOLODRYGA: It's saying, on the one hand, they respect John Kelly. He's never lied to them. They can't imagine him lying. But then say the man was
burned by the president, so thus, he has an axe to grind. I guess that's the only argument that they can make at this point.
[13:10:00]
But let me pick up on this issue of fascism, because the ABC News came out with a new poll today asking registered voters who they didn't -- I never
thought I'd ask this question -- in the United States in 2024, but here we are, who they think is more of a fascist. Donald Trump, 44 percent, nearly
half the country -- or half of those polled, and Kamala Harris at 18 percent.
On the one hand, you could view that as reassuring for Democrats who say there you have it, in bright contrast, somebody that the majority of
Americans view as a fascist versus someone who less than 20 percent do.
On the other hand, this race is neck and neck. So, what does that tell you? Just about the country right now and some of the more pressing issues that
I guess most Americans are worried about, because it doesn't appear fascism is one of them?
GOLDBERG: Yes, I mean, the 18 percent of people who identified Kamala Harris as a fascist might not understand the --
GOLODRYGA: The meaning.
GOLDBERG: -- definition of a fascist. But you could always get people to say yes to outlandish things in polls, right? The -- you know, this isn't
that difficult. And what I'm about to say is not a partisan -- I don't believe it's a partisan in the sense of supporting one party or another, a
partisan observation.
One of the two candidates, one of the two major party candidates in this race tried to overthrow the government. And the other one didn't. I mean,
it's not that complicated. Donald Trump, for the first time in the history of the American presidency, did not -- only did not accept the outcome of a
legitimate election, tried to foment his followers to physically prevent and physically attack his own vice president from certifying his own the
election. I mean, this wasn't that long ago.
So, if I look at this race, I see there's somebody who fomented an attack on the Capitol and on the constitution and then there's someone who's
running who didn't. So, if you're asking the question, who's a fascist or who's not? You know, like a lot of people, I'm not sure I'm tracking
entirely what is motivating -- or I'm not tracking what certain voters are ignoring or why they're ignoring certain facts that are pretty clear.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
GOLDBERG: And we all watched the same things a number of years ago.
GOLODRYGA: Jeffrey, we've established that people like John Kelly, Mark Milley, Mattis, his first defense secretary, who all served as sort of a
guardrail in the first administration for Donald Trump. I'm just wondering, in a second Trump administration, who would these military and national
security advisers be? I mean, we hear the name Kash Patel, I know that Keith Kellogg, another general, is someone that Donald Trump has reportedly
remained close to or speaks to regularly. I mean, are you worried about that and who these people may be that he surrounds himself with?
GOLDBERG: I mean, yes. I would say that there are obviously people, including patriotic men and women who served in the armed forces with honor
and were honorably discharged, who obviously have a very different opinion about Donald Trump than Jim Kelly, Jim Madison and -- John Kelly, Jim
Mattis and so on. And I'm not going to cast aspersions on them. And I don't think that Jim Mattis and Mark Milley and all the rest are casting
aspersions on them.
The larger point is that there's always someone who wants to serve in administration. There are people, obviously, Michael Flynn, the first
national security adviser who became a kind of a QAnon figure, is someone who's in that mix. That's obviously disturbing for any number of reasons.
GOLODRYGA: He served for maybe a few weeks, if even that.
GOLDBERG: Yes, he served a very short period of time. But nevertheless, that was Donald Trump's first pick. It wouldn't surprise me to see him come
back into the mix in some form or fashion. And look, the point is, is that you could always find people to serve. People are looking at the White
House as their main chance, but you're not going to have the, quote/unquote, "grownups," the same level of competence and intelligence
necessarily as you had the first time. So, I believe it will be a more dangerous world because of that.
GOLODRYGA: Jeffrey Goldberg. There's a sobering way to end this conversation. I appreciate it.
GOLDBERG: Sorry about that, but that's --
[13:15:00]
GOLODRYGA: No, it's a fascinating piece and that's why it's so important to talk about it now with the election just days away.
GOLDBERG: Thanks.
GOLODRYGA: We appreciate the time. It's really good to see you.
GOLDBERG: Good to see you. Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, this week, a notorious miscarriage of justice returned to the headlines in the wake of the presidential debate. In September, Donald
Trump was unrepentant over his past call for the death penalty for the so- called Central Park Five, the teenagers who were wrongfully convicted over the rape and assault of a female jogger in Central Park in 1989.
Trump said the five pled guilty and badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately, despite the fact that after being coerced into falsely
confessing, the five pled not guilty and the victim was not killed. The five men were eventually exonerated and released from prison and this week,
have filed a lawsuit over Trump's comments, calling them false and defamatory. Trump's spokesperson says that it's just another frivolous
election interference lawsuit.
Among the five is Yusef Salaam, who is now a New York City council member. So, we wanted to take this opportunity to revisit Christiane's conversation
with Salaam back in April.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yusef Salaam, Counselor Salaam, welcome to the program.
YUSEF SALAAM, ONE OF THE EXONERATED CENTRAL PARK FIVE AND NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMEMBER FOR HARLEM: My pleasure, and thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: I was a journalist based here in New York when all of this happened, and I covered some of what happened to you. And I want to know
whether you ever thought that you would get from that point of the worst time in your life to being an elected city council member in New York?
SALAAM: I think that that perhaps was the furthest thing from my mind. You know, as a young 15-year-old child, having been run over by the spike
wheels of justice, I was -- I thought that that was the end of my life. I thought that my life would never be the same. And of course, it has never
been the same, but to be an elected official, wow. Never imagined.
AMANPOUR: And you asked, in your first hearing as chairman of the Public Safety Committee, you pressed the NYPD to explain how it prevents wrongful
convictions. Now, you were obviously wrongfully convicted along with the other four. Did you get an answer?
SALAAM: I'm speaking from a person who experienced the full brunt of the police department and the individuals that interrogated us weren't
beginners. They weren't neophytes. These were officers, in fact detectives, that had at least 20 years on the job. What I know about the detectives
that interrogated us, they knew that they were getting inconsistent and incorrect stories. They knew that what they were hearing as false
statements just to save the lives of us who were trying to figure out how to get out of the nightmare that we were now in.
AMANPOUR: So, you were trying to just tell them anything to get them to stop whatever harsh treatment and get yourself out?
SALAAM: Well, so I didn't make a false confession, but four of my comrades did. But I'm saying that when you listen to those confessions, every single
one of them were different. I never forget, you know, in the Central Park Five documentary, Raymond Santana reads his false confession.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAYMOND SANTANA, ACTOR: I observed the male, Black Kevin, with a scratch on face, was struggling with a female.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SALAAM: And he stops midway through, looks up at the camera. And I remember being in the audience, watching with the audience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANTANA: A 14-year-old boy doesn't talk like this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SALAAM: And it was -- you could hear the audible gasp in the room. It was almost as if everyone had realized that they'd been tricked too. And, you
know, I know that there's a way forward. And the way forward is to not have the wrong person in prison. Because when you have the wrong person in
prison, oftentimes the real criminal is out committing more crime.
AMANPOUR: As what happened to you all because you were wrongfully imprisoned and then finally this other person admitted to it, submitted
DNA, admitted to it. Do you remember how the prison officials reacted to you, or the police, or the law enforcement? Was there shame? Was there
shock? Was there regret for what they'd done to you?
SALAAM: You know, for me, my experience in what I call the womb of America, I know oftentimes in our community they call it the belly of the
beast, was different. There was a knowing of sorts from many of the officers. They knew that I wasn't supposed to be there. And they gave me
grace and mercy. They allowed me to read books and draw and just kind of be still.
AMANPOUR: I wanted to just ask you, where did you get the courage, the strength, the fortitude, the resolve not to sign a false confession like
your other four comrades did?
[13:20:00]
SALAAM: A lot of it was my faith. You know, I, for one, just like the others, I'm sure, we kept telling the officers what happened. And for me,
it was just this strange nightmare where they kept saying, well, is this where you got the jogger? I didn't know what they were talking about.
I heard them beating up Korey Wise in the next room, and sometimes they would come into the room that I was in and tell me that I was next. And so,
I was very afraid, and I didn't know what was going to happen, but I knew that I hadn't raped a woman. I knew that -- you know, I was thinking that I
was the good guy. I was going to go to the police department, tell them what I saw and I'd be home before my mom got back.
I came home seven years later. And because Korey Wise was with me, he came home 13 years later. But look at God. Because Korey persevered and was
stick-to-itive in his innocence, the real perpetrator met him again in prison.
AMANPOUR: It's incredible, that story.
SALAAM: And told the truth.
AMANPOUR: It's just incredible. Did you ever find out what motivated the real rapist to tell the truth?
SALAAM: I think his words was that he had started going to church. He started to try to atone for the crimes that he did. You know, at the very
end of his crime spree, he was trying to kill all of his victims. The last victim, a young woman named Lourdes Gonzalez, as he tells it, he comes into
her home, brandishes a knife. She's pregnant. She's big pregnant. And she pleads with him, can you let me put my babies in the next room?
And of course, he said, yes. She puts them in the room and locks the door. And I can only imagine, she's probably thinking, this is going to be the
worst thing that ever happened to me, but I'm going to get through it. Her husband wasn't there. She was there with her children. She's pregnant. He
then rapes her and then he stabs her to death. Killing her and her unborn child.
Now, when I think about that, this is months after the Central Park Jogger case, she could have been alive today, had the detective said, something
isn't adding up. These guys are telling false narratives. This is not how it happened. Something else is going on here. Let's go back to the drawing
board and look at this case with new eyes and new information.
AMANPOUR: You're a religious person and you were sworn in, you put your hand on the Qur'an. Tell me the story. I asked you to bring it because I
find it really emblematic of your whole experience. Not only is the Qur'an there, remind us who gave it to you, but also there's a cover, and remind
us how that cover came into play.
SALAAM: Yes, absolutely. This Qur'an is 35 years old. This is the very first Qur'an that I was given to -- given by my mother. She gave this to me
and I was able to -- if you look at the old photos of me walking in and out of the court room, this is the Qur'an that I had with me as I walked in and
out of the court room.
I was able to take this with me into the prison and I read it for the first time from the front, from the beginning. And I read it from cover to cover
over and over and over again. I put it in this cover, I actually created this cover.
I hand sewn it while I was in prison because what happened, this Qur'an is very worn, as you can imagine. Oh, it really is worn. This is a Qur'an that
I had with me as a walk in and out of the courtroom. I was able to take this with me into the prison. And I read for the first time, from the
front, from the beginning, and I read from cover to cover, over and over and over again.
I put it in this cover. I actually created this cover. I hand sown it while I was in prison because what happened, this Qur'an is very worn, as you can
imagine.
AMANPOUR: Oh, it really is worn.
SALAAM: This is a Qur'an that -- the spine is already splitting.
AMANPOUR: Oh, wow.
SALAAM: But all throughout this Qur'an, you would see my hand -- I would underline things, I would fold pages, I would, you know, highlight things,
I would write things in the spine. This is -- this was a true study of faith. But more than that, I think it was me trying to understand how can I
grow through what I'm to go through.
AMANPOUR: And you read a lot of Mandela, I understand.
SALAAM: Oh, my goodness. You know, he said to be angry and bitter is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die.
AMANPOUR: It's brilliant.
SALAAM: I had to digest that because I was angry, I was upset. I did not understand how could the system run over us with the spike wheels of
justice and then run over us again and lay us out flat. I couldn't understand it.
I wanted to have someone -- even when we were found innocent, we were hoping for an apology. We were hoping that a person who became the future
president of these United States would equally say, you know what, I took out a full-page ad in 1989 calling for your death. I'm sorry.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: Instead --
SALAAM: I'm going to take out a full-page ad and call for an apology for you all. Instead, he doubled down.
AMANPOUR: This is Donald Trump. And again, we all remember these ads in the newspapers in New York calling for a reinstatement of the death
penalty. He doubled down. They admitted their guilt.
SALAAM: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And now, I don't know what you think, whether it's karma, faith, or whatever. But this is a twice indicted fellow -- impeached rather. He's
got four indictments, 91 charges. What do you think?
SALAAM: This is a very crafty individual. I say that because there's been a love affair of sorts with Donald Trump. I remember one of my most
favorite artists, Nas. He said in one of his songs, I want to be rich like Donald Trump and Marla Maples, when he was married to Marla Maples. No, he
came into the room and, oh, this is Donald Trump, the real estate mogul. His name was everywhere and on everything, you know? But I think that for
him to craft what's going on with him by saying, hey, I'm just like you, I'm indicted, too.
AMANPOUR: That's what he's saying now --
SALAAM: That's a slap in the face when you think about all of the things that happens with the injustice that we experience. When you hear him say
things like, hey, listen, I got some gold sneakers that you can buy, as if we can put these sneakers on and click our heels and somehow walk down the
yellow brick road.
These are all distractions that pull us away from what we are supposed to be focused on. These are the shiny apples. And I think when I think about
all of this, all of it, we have to say to ourselves, what we deserve as a country is a United States of America and not a divided States of America.
AMANPOUR: Yusef Salaam, thank you so much indeed.
SALAAM: My pleasure. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Well now our next guest sits on the board of two organizations dedicated to the helping people like Yusef Salaam who were wrongly
incarcerated. The Innocence Project and the Centurion Ministries. John Grisham is a bestselling author and a household name around the world. And
he channels his real-life passion for justice through his legal thrillers.
For his next book, he teamed up with Centurion Ministries founder Jim McCloskey. The result is framed astonishing true stories of wrongful
convictions. He joins Walter Isaacson to talk about the concept of a fair trial, the death penalty, and the flaws of interrogation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And, John Grisham, welcome to the show.
JOHN GRISHAM, CO-AUTHOR, "FRAMED: ASTONISHING TRUE STORIES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS: Hello, Walter. How you doing? Good seeing you again.
ISAACSON: Pretty good. Pretty good. 50 number one bestselling novels you've written, all fiction. But about 20 some odd years ago, you wrote a
piece of nonfiction called "The Innocent Man." It's about a baseball player wrongly convicted. And now, you've gone back to this again, gone back to
doing a nonfiction book about people wrongly convicted. Why?
GRISHAM: Why, why, why? Same reason as the novels. It's a great story. They're all great stories. Every wrongful conviction is a -- from a pure
storytelling point of view, they're just incredible stories because of the human suffering. Anytime you have great human suffering, you have great
stories and great fiction, great nonfiction.
Because of the injustice, the perseverance, the redemption, maybe a happy ending, all the elements are there, the loss, the sense of loss that these
men have after spending 20 and 30 years in prison, and it was just, the stories are just -- I'm drawn to the stories.
ISAACSON: Are they connected to your fiction? Because your fiction has a lot of wonderful crime tales like that, and redemption is a theme in some
of them.
GRISHAM: You -- I mean, that's where I come from. That's what I'm reading these days. I'm on the board of the Innocence Project. I have been for a
long time. And now, Centurion Ministries and Princeton, two great innocence advocacies.
And so, I deal with these cases. I read about these cases all the time. As Innocence advocates, we deal -- we take on these cases and we all -- we
have cases going on all the time that we work on for years and I get familiar with the cases. If I'm lucky, I'll then meet the exonerees once
they get out, and that's the fun part, is to talk to these guys once they survived the nightmares that most of us cannot begin to comprehend. They're
just incredible people, incredible stories.
ISAACSON: You know, there's some news this week, which is you testified in a Texas case, along with, I think Dr. Phil McGraw. I think it was Robert
Robertson, the case. And you actually have been able to get it so that he wasn't executed.
[13:30:00]
GRISHAM: I didn't do anything. I may have brought some attention to the case. He was scheduled to die last Thursday at 6:00 p.m. October 17th.
We've known that for months. And as the clock counted down, and I got to know the lawyers who were involved, and there was a tremendous flurry of
activity to stop the execution. It was not going to be stopped. We thought the governor may do it. He wasn't going to do it. The A.G. wasn't going to
help. The courts weren't going to help.
And at the last minute, this this House Committee on criminal jurisprudence pulled a fast one, bipartisan committee. Was so outraged at the Roberson
case and the fact that Texas had not stopped the execution that they were having hearings Wednesday and Thursday, and they issued a subpoena for
Roberson, who's been on death row for 20 years to appear before their subcommittee, October 21, but he was supposed to be executed on October 17.
So, they -- it was a very clever move on their part, and it was a Hail Mary, but it worked.
And so, these Texas lawmakers are absolute heroes. They saved a man's life last Thursday night. And now, the execution now is at least 90 days away
and the lawyers are scrambling to get back in court. Just a fascinating story. And then, one more reason to argue that there's no room for the
death penalty in this country, the way it is applied, the way it's used. It's so unfair. And it ensnares innocent people.
ISAACSON: Yes, but you've talked about some people who ended up having committed the crimes others were accused of. Some of them horrendous.
You've just said there's no room for the death penalty the way it's been applied in this country. But do you think there is some rationale for the
death penalty at all?
GRISHAM: Well, no, I think from a moral point of view I'm not in favor of the death penalty. I don't say -- well, if we can all agree that killing is
wrong, why do we allow the state to kill? I don't think there's any room in our society for killing people.
But I'm in a minority in this country and I didn't grow up with that feeling, a belief, and I tell people, my friends who are -- who still favor
capital punishment, you can't favor this system. But if you wanted to do it, if you want to have a truly fair capital punished system there's a way
to design one that ensures that all the trials are fair.
The Robertson case in Texas is a perfect example of a trial that was grossly unfair. He never had a chance, OK, but you can provide for fair
trials. And as Americans, we always still -- we at least pay lip service to the notion of fair trials.
When I was a young lawyer, I always thought we had a fair trial. I lost most of my trials. But I was -- you know, I was fighting for something and
fighting for a fair trial. And if we could ensure fair trials, we would not see so many wrongful convictions. So, I'm opposed to it, but I respect the
opinions of those people who still are in favor of it, I don't agree with them, but, you know, there's a way to do it better.
ISAACSON: Tell me about Jim McCloskey, your co-author. He does Centurion Ministries. How did you hook up with him and how did you all divide up the
role in this book?
GRISHAM: I met him about 15 years ago. Jim founded Centurion 40 years ago. It's not really a ministry, he was a divinity student at Princeton when he
got into this work. And he named it Centurion Ministries, but it's strictly an innocence advocacy litigation group.
And in 40 years, Jim and Centurion have walked out 71 innocent people, 71. And they combined -- they spent over 1,500 years in prison. He's a true
American hero. He asked me to come to Princeton for their annual family weekend when all their inmates, all their exonerees come back to town to
celebrate. They bring their families and their mothers and wives and all that. And these men are there to celebrate freedom. And it's very emotional
times, very moving. It's a great weekend.
And Jim asked me 15 years ago to go to Princeton, come to Princeton that weekend and speak and hang out. And I was there with Brian Dennehy, the
actor. We had a great time together that weekend. And that's how I got to meet Jim. He's just a wonderful human being, and one of my heroes in life.
ISAACSON: The first story you tell in the book is that of the murder of Michelle Bosko. And you write of the case that it, quote, "ranks as one of
the greatest train wrecks in the history of American criminal justice." What happened?
[13:35:00]
GRISHAM: Well, she was raped and murdered in her apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. Her husband was a sailor. It's -- all these young sailors lived
in the same community in Norfolk. And the rapist murderer was a man the police should have been on to. He was guilty of other sexual assaults in
the same area, but just right before this one, and right after this one, he never stopped. And he was under their nose.
And while the while the police were actually at the crime scene gathering evidence and doing the proper job with, you know, the technicians and all
that, the crime scene investigators, while they were doing their work in the apartment for hours, they stayed there for hours, and they did a great
job and they decided right then it was -- there was a soul perpetrator, only one person did this, there was semen, there was blood, there was, you
know, a lot of crime scene evidence.
While they were doing that, the detectives outside the apartment were already screwing up the case. They zeroed in on a neighbor, another sailor
who they thought was acting suspicious, and they thought maybe he should be the killer. So, they asked him to come down to the police station for
interrogation. They kept him about 15 hours and verbally -- and they broke him down. And he finally gave this incredible confession that matched with
none of the physical evidence. Classic case of a false confession. That was just the beginning.
They went on and on and on. And when the DNA came back from the original -- from the perpetrator, they ignored that. At one time -- by the time they
finally caught the real killer, there were seven U.S. sailors locked up, charged with capital murder, all of whom had been excluded by DNA, none of
whom had criminal records other than one DUI charge. Most of them were Boy Scouts or Eagle Scouts. These are young 20-year-old sailors serving their
country, and they're in jail in Norfolk, Virginia charge with capital murder. It was just a gargantuan train wreck caused solely by the police.
ISAACSON: And it was caused by interrogation. I mean, this is one of the themes in this book, which you say interrogation is often the lazy cop's
way of solving a case. Why do they get so many false confessions?
GRISHAM: Well, because people can be vulnerable. Not everybody is as strong as you or me, you know, and we all -- we everybody says, well, I
would never confess to something that terrible. But one of the Norfolk four sailors told me years later, once the boys were out of prison and we, you
know, got him exonerated, I was hanging out with him and one of them said during that interrogation that went on for 15 hours with no friend inside,
no lawyer, no nothing. He said, I would have confessed to killing my mother just to get out of the room. It was so horrible.
And that's what these police do, not many, but some police. They know how to verbally break down suspects over a long period of time. All in one
night, all without the benefit of the video camera being on, they break them down and they use all these dirty tricks. They'll say, yes, your two
buddies, your two co-defendants have already confessed and they're blaming you, which is no lie. Cops can lie at will. They could lie excessively.
They can do all the lies they want to lie during an intense interrogation. That's the law in this country. Our Supreme Court has said they can do
that, and they do it all the time.
ISAACSON: A lot of the Innocence Project dealt with DNA evidence coming in, but much of this book and much of what Mr. McCloskey does uses other
types of evidence. Tell me about that.
GRISHAM: Well, there's very few murders actually have DNA. Most murders do not have DNA. Most do not involve a sexual assault. So, you don't have
blood, semen or skin or something, you know, some kind of body fluid left behind, saliva. So, you don't have DNA.
So, what Jim McCloskey did 40 years ago was go back to the scene of the crime. He'd get the police reports, the trial transcripts, immerse himself
into the case so he knew everything that was presented in court, and he would look at the police reports and start finding discrepancies in what
witnesses said. He would then go knock on doors in some of the worst neighborhoods in America and say, hey, I'm so and so. 15 years ago, you
testified against this guy in prison and I don't -- I mean, can we talk about your testimony? And he would start building trust with these
witnesses, many of whom had lied years ago, and he would slowly put together a case. It was remarkable work. It took him years.
[13:40:00]
Jim told me the average case, once he took the case, and Centurion turn -- has to turn down most of them, but it would take from three to five years
to investigate whether or not they would even take the case. And then, once they took the case, it would take 10 more years to win the case, to
exonerate, and spend about $300,000 of money they didn't have. They had to go raise the money.
So, it's very difficult to get somebody out of prison once they're in. It's fairly easy to convict somebody if you -- if the police want to put
together a case involving, you know, jailhouse snitches who are lying and bogus science and things like that, you can get a conviction. It's almost
impossible to get somebody out. But Jim did it the hard way without DNA. He did it with just knocking on doors and building trust.
ISAACSON: There's all the physical evidence that sometimes gets used. I think in the Kennedy Brewer case, you write about bite marks. How good is
that as a type of physical evidence and do we have standards for that?
GRISHAM: It's terribly inaccurate. When you deal with bite mark analysis, which has been almost outlawed in almost every jurisdiction, or hair
analysis, or boot mark analysis, or blood spatter analysis, these are all very dubious types of science, it's not really science, but not based in
science, but they've been used for years, like the shaken baby syndrome, used aggressively by U.S. prosecutors for decades. And that's why we have
so many innocent people in prison.
There's been this blood of bad science in our courtrooms. One of the goals of the Innocence Project and also Centurion is to pass a national standard
of forensic science to clean up the courtrooms, to require that experts be based in science, expert opinions be based in science before they can be
shown to the jury. We do a lousy job of screening that ahead of time. And you pay the price for wrongful convictions. In Mississippi involving bogus
bite mark testimony that was proven to be conclusively wrong.
ISAACSON: And what should we all learn from these stories in this book?
GRISHAM: Well, for one thing, if you're -- if you ever suspect that the police suspect you have a crime, call a lawyer immediately. Don't talk to
them. That's the golden rule right there. If you think you're going to be interrogated or suspected, go see a lawyer, call a lawyer.
Beyond that is practical advice, but also, we hope that people can read these stories and realize that there are a lot of innocent people in
prison, that it can happen to anybody. These are not just, you know, street kids who got in trouble. Joe Bryan spent 35 years in prison in Texas, and
he was a high school principal with two college degrees. So, it can happen to a lot of people.
We hope that people read these stories and realize that you need to be suspicious of what we're told by the police and prosecutors. You know,
let's question the authorities. Let's don't just accept what they say, OK? It's OK to be skeptical. And, you know, beyond that, it's just -- it's not
entertainment, but it's -- hopefully, it raises awareness.
ISAACSON: And what changes do you think in the criminal justice system there should be?
GRISHAM: We have a package of legislation that the Innocence Project files every year in all 50 states. We make slow, slow progress. It's very slow.
For example, the huge problem of jailhouse snitches, paid informants, incentivized informants. There's a way to handle those people that most
other countries handle better with separate hearings, investigation into their testimony, but they're a huge curse on the criminal justice system in
America.
Junk science, we could improve our forensic standards. We could require police to video interrogations. The video cameras are right there in the
room. They use them the last 15 minutes when the person finally breaks down. Video, if you don't want people to see it, we should prevent police
from lying and will to suspects during interrogations. The lies are incredible. We should tighten up the eyewitness identification is a huge,
huge problem in wrongful convictions. And there are ways to improve that. And we've got a whole package of ways to improve the system. And I mean,
we're slowly making progress.
ISAACSON: John Grisham, thank you so much for joining us.
GRISHAM: Thank you, Walter. My pleasure. Good seeing you again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:45:00]
GOLODRYGA: And finally, a story of hope from the horrors of war. A new documentary, "Seize the Summit," follows four extraordinary people defying
the odds to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. The climbers are survivors of different conflicts, united in a common goal to stand up to war and share
their message with the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The challenge is to get on top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We are all here to say no to war. I hope by doing this challenge people will better understand how war
can affect people like us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Arwa Damon is the documentary's director. She joins me now from New York. Arwa, it is so good to see you. And for those who have known your
work here at CNN, you spent so much time as a senior international correspondent, then you left to work on humanitarian work. We've seen you
on our air over the last year, obviously doing extensive work, covering the war and Gaza. And now, this is your first documentary. It's your first film
as director and producer. Talk to us about this project and why you decided to do it.
ARWA DAMON, DIRECTOR, "SEIZE THE SUMMIT": Thank you so much for having me on. You know, this was one of those projects where, because I had spent so
many years in war zones, and when you're out there in the field, you witness all these moments and these interactions and these conversations
that take place, and you're never really able to fully capture them on camera. I always felt as if there was something that was missing.
And when the opportunity to film this documentary just kind of emerged in front of me, it was one of those moments of do I take a massive risk and
try and go out and do this, you know, first time, first rodeo, six countries, insane logistics? And ultimately, it was yes, and it was
something of a no-brainer. First of all, because I'm more afraid of living with a regret than I am of taking a risk and failing. But secondly, because
I could see what I hope will potentially be the value in this documentary and in telling the story of what it means to survive war in this way and
have it, hopefully, be more accessible to a broader audience.
GOLODRYGA: I'm so glad you've brought us this piece and these four extraordinary, I mean, heroes, they're survivors is not enough. They really
are some of the strongest people that you will encounter. They're all young. They're all war survivors. They're all traumatized, these four. And
yet, they take on another challenge in climbing Kilimanjaro.
Talk to us about these four extraordinary characters that come together. And then, if you could follow as to why Kilimanjaro.
DAMON: So, these four, you have, Adnan, who was 14 when he was shot in the spine in Syria, and he, you know, has been wheelchair bound since then, and
he has managed to sort of, himself, emerge from a deep, dark depression and really use sports to kind of try and move himself forward in life, and he
has this extraordinary message to the entire world, which is nothing is impossible.
Safa is also from Syria. She was horribly burned, and she ends up -- not to give too much away, but she ends up as she's going up the mountain really
having to confront trauma that she thought she had already gone through. Shaqayeq, who's from Afghanistan, is, you know, coping with having to have
been forced to flee Afghanistan because her mother was threatened and nearly killed by the Taliban. Her mother is a journalist. And Shaqayeq ends
up, when she was just 12 years old, having to walk to Europe from basically Turkey to Germany. And then, finally, you have, you know, Tania, who's from
Ukraine, who spent six weeks hiding out in a vegetable cellar in her village that's not too far away from Kharkiv that is still actually, to
this day, under constant bombardment.
And the thing is, is that when you talk to all of them, even though the world defines them to a certain degree as refugees, because that's what
happens when you flee your country, they are so much more than that. And that was also part of why they wanted to be a part of this, because they
wanted to show that just because you're going through war, just because all of a sudden, you're branded a refugee, your life isn't one dimensional.
Your personality isn't one dimensional. There's so many commonalities that we still have, and it felt very important to, especially now, try to get
that message out there, given how divided the world is at this stage.
[13:50:00]
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And going back to the theme here in climbing Kilimanjaro in taking on yet another challenge, I mean, it's seeing refugees through a
completely different lens. And I'm -- yes.
DAMON: Yes. No, it is. And also, you know, part of that is me. So, I started doing mountains back in 2018, I think it was, as a way to sort of
clear my own head from all of the, you know, war and misery reporting that I had been doing. And I found that, you know, the mountain helped me. And
it might sound a bit bizarre because, you know, the job itself was very psychologically and physically intense, but subjecting yourself to
something like undertaking this level of intense of an expedition it teaches you things about yourself that you didn't necessarily know. It
changes you in one way or another.
And I, in some ways, really actually wanted to give that experience to these four and also have other people be able to witness the power of a
mountain, the power of nature, it's transformative power as well. And, you know, Kilimanjaro, well, you know, it's one of the seven summits. It's a
fairly well-known mountain, and it just kind of came together in terms of the expedition that was also being led that was actually organized by my
charity, Inada, and actually, you know, proceeds from this documentary are going to be going to my charity.
GOLODRYGA: And no doubt you changed these four lives for the better with this experience as arduous as it is. Let's meet some of these extraordinary
people. Let's play a clip of Adnan, who you said was shot by a sniper and that's paralyzed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADNAN (through translator): I was shot in the back by a sniper. The bullet went though my back and out my neck. I've been partially paralyzed since. I
thought to myself, OK, you got shot, you're immobile, but life is going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: I mean, life goes on. You hear it's such a throwaway line, but to hear it coming from him it -- you just -- you take it in completely
differently. And just knowing him from this film he is a very memorable person. Talk to us about him.
DAMON: He really is because he had a choice, and the choice was either sort of submit to the injury or fight the trajectory that the injury had
put his life on, and he chose to fight. But that's not to say that it's easy. That's not to say that it came to him easily. He really had to
struggle.
And on the mountain what he interestingly had to struggle with, because he has sort of forced himself to be so fiercely independent, was accepting
that he needed help from others, and he has really made it his mission prior to Kilimanjaro, but also especially post-Kilimanjaro, to really raise
awareness among people that if you set your eye on something, if you set a goal for yourself, and this is something that we can all relate to, you
know, if you have that determination and willpower, you can do it.
And his message ultimately is, look, look at my past, look at what I've been through. I'm, you know, wheelchair bound basically, but I'm still
setting goals and I'm still going for it. And actually, the message that they all kind of have is, you know, even though life has taught us loss and
heartbreak and horror and fear, we are still alive. We are still living. We still want to live and war cannot take that away from us.
GOLODRYGA: I mean, you had language barriers. The fact that you needed interpreters. The fact that these survivors and refugees didn't know each
other before. And the bonding that you see between them is just something beautiful. And it's -- I think, you know, a small sliver of hope, of the
possibility of other refugees having experiences like this to being seen as human and not just survivors from whatever war-torn country they are from.
Arwa, can I ask you finally what you learned that maybe surprised you from this experience and from these four?
DAMON: So, throughout the experience, I think I learned that I'm actually a lot more emotional and sensitive than maybe I like to publicly admit. I
also learned that, to a certain degree, I perhaps need to respect my own limitations. And they collectively taught me a lot and individually taught
me a lot.
[13:55:00]
But I think if we kind of look at the sort of overarching message, it probably does go back to -- and actually, it's another author's quote, but
the quote goes something like, for happiness, one needs stability, but joy can spring from the cliffs of despair. And watching these four create and
actually live these moments of joy and that they still have that inside them despite everything that they have been through, that also helped me to
a certain degree, you know, recapture some of my own.
GOLODRYGA: Listen, thank you for introducing us to these extraordinary people, Safa, Adnan, Shaqayeq, and Tania. And thank you so much for taking
on this project, Arwa. Appreciate everything, honestly, that you've been doing. Thank you.
Well, that is it for now. Thank you so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
