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Amanpour
Interview with Governor Jay Inslee (D-WA); Interview with "Disclaimer" Executive Producer and Actress Cate Blanchett; Interview with "Disclaimer" Director and Writer Alfonso Cuaron; Interview with American Institute for Boys and Men President Richard Reeves. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired November 11, 2024 - 13:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
World leaders reckon with a warming planet and a second Trump term at COP29. I'm joined by the Democratic governor of Washington State, Jay
Inslee, who staked his legacy on the climate issue.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: she needed to feel it. She needed to suffer, as I had.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- a shattering revelation that changes everything. It is the series finale of "Disclaimer." More of my conversation with creator Alfonso
Cuaron and star Cate Blanchett.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD REEVES, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR BOYS AND MEN: I think this is much more a story of neglect than of sexism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- Why men turned out for Trump. President of the American Institute for Boys and Men Richard Reeves tells Hari Sreenivasan why he
thinks that demographic was a blind spot for Democrats.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
It's in full swing, world leaders game planning for a Trump 2.0 new world order. In Europe, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has called for
high level meetings with fellow leaders to discuss Ukraine, NATO, and trade, calling the new political landscape a serious challenge.
In Saudi Arabia, Middle East leaders are gathering to discuss their region and a potentially much more favorable tilt towards Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies, like under Trump 1.0. And in Azerbaijan today, global delegates trying to mitigate climate change at the
annual COP summit remember with dread Former President Trump's pulling out of the landmark Paris climate accords, and he spent this campaign promising
to drill baby drill. Even in his victory speech, he enthused over how much oil or liquid gold would be produced under his leadership.
It's recently been announced that yes, 2024 has been the hottest year on record. Like last year was. And probably, like next year, will be, too.
Just look at these pictures from Pakistan and India today. So, much toxic smog that it's even visible from space.
So, we are joined by the Democratic governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee. He is dubbed the greenest governor of the United States, and he's
dedicated much of his political career to mitigating the climate crisis. And he's joining me now. Governor Inslee, welcome to the program.
GOV. JAY INSLEE (D-WA): Thanks for talking about this most important topic. We appreciate your leadership.
AMANPOUR: So, look, it's super important. It's something that you have really dedicated your time in office too. But I want to start by asking you
about what President Trump said, even on his victory speech, because that obviously is hanging over what may or may not be possible in the future.
Let me just play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: Leave the oil to me. We have more liquid gold, oil and gas. We have more liquid gold than any country in the
world, more than Saudi Arabia. We have more than Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, what do you make of that? I see you giving the thumbs up. What do you make of that? Governor Inslee, can you hear me? Oh, we have a
small problem.
So, we are going to go to another segment and we're going to come back to Governor Inslee. So -- is he there? Governor Inslee, are you there?
INSLEE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Oh, excellent.
INSLEE: Christiane, is that working now?
AMANPOUR: It's working brilliantly.
INSLEE: OK. Let's try it again.
AMANPOUR: Go ahead.
INSLEE: Listen, the election of Donald Trump, certainly has been a shock to the international efforts to defeat climate change. But this is just --
this is not the end of the story. And the reason I'm actually taking off to Azerbaijan this evening is to assure the world that the United States is
not done in our climate fighting efforts. We're just in the middle of this effort. And the reason is we have broad swaths of the United States, over
60 percent of the U.S. economy belong to the U.S. Climate Alliance, 24 states that are fighting climate change, we will not be stopped by Donald
Trump. Each one of our states, in our own way, is fighting climate change and building a clean energy economy.
[13:05:00]
In my state, just last week, we defeated an anti-climate fighting initiative, 62 to 38. We had our own landslide in favor of action against
climate change. So, I will be going to Baku to share the message, the bugle call that states should not give up on the United States. We still have
states, governors, and legislators that are leading on this subject. And this move to cleaner fuels is not going to be abated, it's going to
continue because of the continued duration of entrepreneurship, technological genius, and policies in at least 24 states that really lead
more energy transition. So, that's good news we're going to share in Baku.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, when you're in Baku and people say to you, that's all well and good, governor, but this is what happened last time around, he
pulled you out of the Paris Climate Accord. Do you think that's as important as what you're doing on the state? What is the negative impact of
pulling out of the Climate Accord by the U.S. government?
INSLEE: Well, I think it is a signal, unfortunate that we have a climate denier in the White House and that unquestionably will retard what
otherwise would happen on a federal level. But the point I want to share with people, even in 2016, it did not slow me down in the State of
Washington.
We continued reducing our climate emissions and building clean energy economies unabated, and we did it because of our own policies, our own
investment of state dollars and our own entrepreneurial zeal. So, we are going to continue making progress on fighting climate change, Donald Trump
or no.
Now, is it unfortunate that he will not have the continued investment, increased investment that we might otherwise add? Yes. But we have as much
climate change fighting that we are capable of advancing on the state level as the federal level, and that's going to continue because as these
tragedies unfold today, both coasts in the United States are on fire, Valencia, Spain is under six feet of mud, Nashville, North Carolina was
flooded. So, as these continued to mount, there will be increasing support as there has been for climate action, just as indicated by the 62 48 38
landslide we had last week in my state.
So, all is not lost. That's my message. I think it was John Paul Jones said, don't give up the ship. We continue this battle, and I hope this --
the rest of the world will join us.
AMANPOUR: So, let me just ask you what you make of this. In May, The Washington Post reported that Trump told oil executives that if they raise
a billion dollars for his campaign, his administration would give them carte blanche to shape his environmental agenda.
So, on a federal level, what guardrails are in place to protect climate policy and prevent it being sold to the highest bidder? People are already
panicked at the EPA. I mean, basically, they're saying it's the end of the EPA. And you remember what happened last time, so much deregulation in the
climate sphere nationally in the United States.
INSLEE: Well, what we have is reality, and the reality is, is that we are building jobs all across the United States, including in red districts. And
Donald Trump is going to learn a lesson, which is that when you try to kill jobs in a congressional district, the members of Congress don't take kindly
to that. And what is going to happen is he's going to be full of bluster as usual. But if he actually tries to remove, for instance, investments in the
Inflation Reduction Act, those Republican members of Congress are going to rebel against that. They've already had 18 of them basically said, no way,
you're not going to take jobs out of my district. He's going to run into a wall of resistance because we are building jobs across the United States.
So, it's like many of the things, he makes a lot of noise but can't progress. And that's going to be a good thing for us, but he's not going to
be able to dismantle the investments of the Inflation Reduction Act. And I'm happy to say that, because in my state, like many states, or all
states, we're building jobs like crazy in advanced battery manufacturing, infusion energy. It's just rocking our economic development. And so, I
think he will largely fail in his effort to reduce current levels of investment.
Now, will he be as aggressive moving forward on regulatory measures? No, he clearly won't. Will we try to repeal some of our regulatory existing
measures? Yes, but we still have a filibuster in the Senate available to stop senatorial support for some of those efforts.
So, this is a moment both to be -- to pick ourself up, dust yourself off and get back into this fight because, again, we got a lot of potential wins
here.
[13:10:00]
AMANPOUR: OK. So, why you mentioned the IRA, the infrastructure -- or the Inflation Reduction Act and all the investments that the Biden
administration made on this and two, you know, many so-called red states as well. Why do you think that didn't resonate with people creating jobs? I
mean, there's been a lot of jobs created, including in this sphere under the Biden administration, why didn't that resonate on the sec -- you know,
last week?
INSLEE: Well, listen, there were some historical trends working against the Democratic nominee this year that I don't believe are going to be
repeated. One is the significant inflation that took place that, as you know, was a worldwide phenomenon. Fortunately, it's coming down. And
unfortunately, Donald Trump's policies could accelerate it. These massive terrorists he's talking about, mass deportation. A failure to enforce
antitrust laws, giving this away to the gist of the billionaires, all of those would have inflationary tendencies. So, unfortunately, it could come
back because of his policies.
Unfortunately, most, I believe, or many of the policies aren't going to be enacted because of the reasons I talked about. We had an immigration
situation that was very troublesome to Americans. Unfortunately, he was successful torpedoing the bipartisan solution to the border crisis, and
that political gambit, which means self-interest hurt the country, but helped him politically.
So, we have two things going on that surmounted some of these actions that otherwise would be important. But going forward, I really do believe you're
seeing an unstoppable transition to cleaner energy. The investment in renewable energy in the last year almost doubled the investment worldwide
of fossil fuel industries. Solar panel farms are going crazy. Wind farms are still increasing. We have fusion energy on the horizon. This is an
unstoppable force, but we need to accelerate it.
And that's why I'm glad that our state can do that with our state-led investment, like in my state, this law we just protected creates $3.5
billion of investment in clean energy. Just in my state alone. So, this revolution is going to continue. We need to accelerate it every chance we
get.
AMANPOUR: I want to come back more to the climate, obviously, but I do want to probe a little bit more on this, you know, election post mortem.
Because, frankly, the whole world and our audience is really interested to hear from the losing side. I mean, you won. You're -- you know, in your
state. You're stepping down anyway. But as you -- as we all know what happened for the -- to the Democrats last week.
So, one very important Democrat who bucked the trend was in your state, the Washington representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, also in Michigan, Elissa
Slotkin. And I think she was in a very red area. And they basically said that, A, the story of the -- you know, what the administration had done was
not told right. And, B, you know, they managed to win by telling and keeping them on message in the local -- you know, their local races, and it
was very hard fought.
What do you think -- you know, because others have said, you know, the Biden administration or Harris or whoever was too condescending, you know,
too elite focused? What do you think was -- if you had to say, was the main reason for the drubbing of last week?
INSLEE: Well, I don't like postmortems. I'm always looking forward rather than backwards. But I'll give you just my -- had we not had a crisis on the
border, I believe the results would have been opposite. And if we'd not had a situation where we had to change horses just a hundred days before the
election and really didn't have a chance to have open primaries, I think those things conspired against us.
Those things are one offs. They're not going to happen again. I'm proud to be a Democrat. And we got some great candidates one you mentioned of Marie
in our state and I'm proud our state was one of only two that actually got bluer. So, what I can speak of is from a place of being proudful of the
efforts we're making, and again, this job creation around clean energy.
If you want to speak to working class American, those who have great careers that may not require a college degree, this is probably the
strongest argument to make for those people who are building wind turbines, electricians who are wiring for solar farms. That's why in my state, the
entire working labor community embraced our action about these policies because they're such job creators for non-college educated folks who could
still have great careers.
So, if you're concerned about that, get on the clean energy bandwagon because this is a winning message to talk to that community of people. And
next week, I will be issuing an executive order in my state too that will eliminate a college requirement for a lot of our state jobs.
[13:15:00]
So, we've got winning messages once we get underneath this cloud of inflation. I believe that we're going to rise again.
AMANPOUR: OK. I want to ask you about that, because most of the analysis has been -- you say it won't happen again, but they say that, look, 2016
everybody thought was an aberration, now 2024 has solidified what 2016 started. And that furthermore, the Democrats have lost their traditional
working class voters. And even some, you know, black voters, Latino voters, basically their traditional constituents.
So, why do you think that this won't happen again? And do you think you are still the party of the working class?
INSLEE: You know, again you're dragging me into a postmortem, which I don't like, but it -- because I honor you so much, Christiane, I will talk
about what I think happened here. OK. Number one, when you said solidified, nothing is solid in politics. This -- the tide goes in and the tide goes
out. I lived through a drubbing Democrats took in 1994 when everybody thought Newt Gingrich was going to be the permanent emperor of the United
States. 1998, I went back to Congress, I was thrown out of Congress in '94, and now I've been a three-term, 12-year, Governor of the state of
Washington, which is becoming bluer over time because of the policies we've embraced.
So, we will be back. That's the nature of history that it -- there are -- there's nebs and flows. But this issue about somehow losing the working
class, I do not buy that. And I'll tell you why. Look, we did have losses last night, but there wasn't just the working class, it was up and down the
income level. It was suburban and rural. And my assessment is that was largely because the inflation that we suffered.
Now, that's interesting because, as you know, incumbent parties both from the left and the right have lost internationally because of inflation that
was caused by the COVID epidemic largely. That was a one off. We hope we'll not see another COVID.
But our message of job creation around clean energy, our message of increased health care for people, our message of respecting the rights of
women, our message of opportunity for all, I believe will, will rise again. I believe that's going to happen. I've seen it during my lifetime and I
look forward to it.
AMANPOUR: So, let's get back to you being dubbed the greenest governor. And you mentioned that you had won in this election on -- in local action,
like, you know, your state upheld carbon tax. So, Washington state voters upheld this tax on carbon emissions. It's a measure on the state ballot
that would have canceled the tax law, that proposal was defeated by an overwhelming margin.
How do you account for that? I mean, I know you've conditioned your state to understand that actual, you know, mitigating the climate is not just
good for their health, but good for their pocketbooks as well. How do you account for how you won that?
INSLEE: Well, first off, this is a cap and invest program. It charges pollution -- polluters to pollute. It takes that money and then recycles it
back to Washingtonians for ways to help them prevent carbon emissions and deal with climate change. With EVs and heat pumps and free bus rides and
issues to try to protect their health. That's what it is.
And Washingtonians rejected it, by the way, in a tidal wave, a tsunami, an avalanche of 62 48 drubbing, these people who tried to take it away,
largely because it would have taken away the benefits Washingtonians are enjoying. Washingtonians were not happy that it would remove the ability to
get heat pumps for lower income people. Washingtonians were not happy that it would have canceled free bus rides for everybody under the age of 18.
They were not happy that it would have canceled the ability for schools to buy air filtration systems so our kids can breathe when we have this forest
fire smoke.
And so, this took away benefits that we have found we can help Washingtonians on both to reduce and fight climate change and help people
deal with it -- with the inevitable results that are occurring. And so, it was rejected out of hand. And I'm proud of my state.
Now, the other thing, my state's a very scientifically literate state. It's not a climate denier state. And we've suffered horrendous forest fires.
I've seen two whole towns burn down while I've been governor of the State of Washington. We've had massive floods. We're losing 40 percent of all the
glacial ice on Mount Rainier. We get it in Washington because we understand science.
AMANPOUR: OK.
INSLEE: So, I think that's going to spread ultimately. So, good news is on the way.
AMANPOUR: So, last question, as we mentioned, this is your last term, you're handing over to a Democrat. And I just wondered if you think your
legacy is exactly that, the power of the local, city, state government to affect and to hang on to these vital issues, whatever the president in
charge does or doesn't do.
[13:20:00]
INSLEE: Well, my legacy is not particularly important. I'll be forgotten in about 72 hours. But the legacy of 24 governors, I want to reiterate
this. I, with Jerry Brown, former governor of California, we established the climate alliance several years ago when we saw what was Trump was going
to do. We now have 24 states that are in this alliance and it is a legacy for all those governors of great clean energy job creation. We now have
represent 60 percent of the whole U.S. economy, and that 60 percent is moving forward on climate, and all of those states and governors are part
of that happy legacy. So, I'm not alone in this. That effort is going to continue, and I'm very happy about it.
AMANPOUR: Governor Jay Inslee, thank you very much. Congratulations. And, of course, all that you've done --
INSLEE: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: -- for the people of your state as well and the example you're showing to the rest of the country and the rest of the world. Thank you.
Next, beware of narrative and form. That's the warning at the start of the Alfonso Cuaron Apple TV Plus series, "Disclaimer." It's based on the book
by Renee Knight, and it's a psychological thriller that explores the devastating effects of a posthumous novel, claiming to detail how
celebrated journalist Catherine Ravenscroft, played by the award-winning actor Cate Blanchett, apparently seduced a teenage boy on holiday before
watching him drown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have concealed parts of yourself from the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To a beacon of truth. Somebody who inspires me every day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'll keep everyone in the dark to maintain a balance. And you think you have succeeded, until now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, that the final episode has dropped, we can reveal that none of that was true. So, here's part two of my conversation with both Cuaron
and Blanchett, who shared their thoughts on the surprise ending. And just to note, if you haven't seen the end of "Disclaimer" and don't like
spoilers, watch this interview once you've binged the lot.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back, Cate and Alfonso. When you read the novel, were you as shocked or just bouleverse as just about everybody about the ending?
CATE BLANCHETT, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND ACTRESS, "DISCLAIMER": Well, I -- the first -- my first interface with the story was the script. And so, I
hadn't read the novel. But yes, I'm -- I think I made the same set of judgments about the character and all the characters as the audience did. I
didn't see it coming.
But as I, I read sort of the last few chapters, I thought, that's not where it's going, is it? I couldn't have missed that, could I? And so, I -- it
wasn't that I -- it's like I didn't want to know that I had made the judgment I'd made. I didn't want to look at that judgment. And I was -- so,
I was -- I felt quite a bit of shame actually by the end.
AMANPOUR: That's fascinating. And you, when you read the novel, obviously.
ALFONSO CUARON, DIRECTOR AND WRITER, "DISCLAIMER": I had a very similar experience when I read the novel. And because until that moment, you know,
I was entertained. I was falling through. I was -- I jumped into the wagon of, OK, yes, let's hate this woman. And then, when that happened I --
actually, I didn't finish reading the whole -- that whole scene when I put the book down and I had to -- yes, I feel very strange about having allow
this to happen. It was a really interesting moment and is the moment in which, in that moment, the whole -- is when it triggered in me this whole
idea of the narratives of how we create -- I was creating my own narrative based upon my judgment.
AMANPOUR: All throughout until you got to the last reveal.
CUARON: Until that reveal and I said, OK, it would be great to try to do a piece in which it's about the audience, it's about the audience judgment.
What is filling the blanks that are not even blanks. Are there. Is what you choose or choose to see or ignore.
AMANPOUR: And did you feel that that structure was what made you want to do your first TV and your first multipart, multichapter as you call it?
CUARON: Well, it's what it makes --
AMANPOUR: Because that's what it lends it itself.
CUARON: It is what it made sense for me in that moment. So, I finished reading that and the -- now, it was clear that we were going to deal with
some thematic elements that are kind of -- that are very difficult, that we had to tread very carefully. And it's something that Cate was very adamant
from the very beginning.
[13:25:00]
It's about how -- because Cate was involved in the endless rewrites from that moment on. And -- of --
AMANPOUR: And you have a co-executive producer title.
BLANCHETT: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
BLANCHETT: I mean, yes --
CUARON: Well, because she was executive producer.
BLANCHETT: But it's -- no, but I think I was more a sounding board. I mean, it's a -- it's sort of a -- it was a deep night of the soul in terms
of that.
CUARON: More than that, but yes.
AMANPOUR: Let's just talk about what happened. So, essentially, now, I just want to talk about the men. So, there's your husband, played by Sacha
Baron Cohen, who has -- becomes so angry, he's cancelled you as well, basically. Your son has practically cancelled you because of this book,
because -- you know, because of what the father of the young dead boy played by Kevin Kline, incredibly, unbelievably well. He has taken this
whole thing and made it revenge to try to punish your character for the death of their son.
BLANCHETT: I mean, I've -- just something's interesting about what you said about Sasha, who plays my character's husband, has -- it's -- the
cancellation of her, the eradication of her from his life because of what he felt she has done, which has not -- wasn't -- anyway, so hard to talk
about it, that it's given him license to speak to the worst side of himself, his fears, his insecurities, all of the things that lay dormant in
a marriage of many, many years, decades, that he can now feel entitled to act and behave and to own and to celebrate in a way.
So, I think that the -- what you project onto another person and what you choose to believe often reveals far more about yourself than it does
another person. And I think what is interesting, and I found confronting in the series, is that we -- I totally leant into and didn't look at those
photographs in any other way than I -- than on the surface.
And so, what was -- what we all assumed was pleasure was in fact an act of violence. And that -- I think there's -- what I was really, really
confronted by and found difficult to live with was the overwhelming dampening that that silence can do to the person who has lived through an
abuse or trauma. And that, in fact, if one is not believed, that that can be as harrowing as the initial trauma when you're not believed by someone
who you have finally tried to confide in.
AMANPOUR: So, I'm going to just say it now --
BLANCHETT: And that person in her husband.
AMANPOUR: -- you said in the film, you say to your husband, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, and I'm paraphrasing, because he hugs you and he -- you
know, in the end, he's trying to --
BLANCHETT: He said, why didn't you tell me?
AMANPOUR: Why didn't you tell me? And you said something to the effect of, you feel more sympathy towards me or better towards me because I've been
raped, than had I just had an affair with a younger man.
BLANCHETT: Yes, you find that easier to deal with.
AMANPOUR: You find that easier to deal with, I find that really revealing and really extraordinary.
CUARON: Well, but I think that all Cate's performance was leading to that. And what I was saying about, she was very careful about how she was going
to build the development of all this -- of the character throughout the show, in which she's actually, all the time, trying to speak. She's trying
to articulate. She's trying to -- and that's something that -- it was -- as we were going through the whole thing, what was going to happen at the end,
she never lost -- you never lost the compass that was guiding everything and it was what everything was about.
So, the way in which you -- you're trying to articulate and there's so much pain that it come -- it cannot come through. The -- it's filled all the
time with little cues until there's a moment in which she speaks, as you tell Stephen, not because -- because you forced me to speak.
BLANCHETT: Yes, it's interesting --
AMANPOUR: Even being the father played by Kevin Kline of the young dead boy.
BLANCHETT: Yes, who delivered the book. And I think it's -- because in a way, it's a very strange, surreal scene, that at that particular moment in
the drama when her son is in hospital, on life support, that she would go and spend the time to tell her story. And I think it's something about
needing to get it all out because everyone's saying, well, why didn't you speak up before? And he's -- and Kevin Kline's character says in that
scene, why didn't you tell my wife when you saw her then?
[13:30:00]
And it's -- this is the thing about abuse is that you process it and you think, well, she -- and what happens to the rage in there? I mean, that's a
big question for me about female rage and that she didn't -- that the -- her -- the perpetrator of the abuse died. So, there was no outlet for that
rage. And what was the point in unearthing it? Because I can see that this woman has cancer, and if I tell her that her dead son was a rapist, is that
about me, or is that about her? It was a deeply empathetic moment between the two women, but when you watched it earlier on, you just thought, what
is this woman running from? This poor woman with cancer?
You know, it's -- so, you -- it makes you reframe everything. And I think that's the thing about people who survive abuse, one of the many things.
Unfortunately, I'm not one of them, is that you have to -- you live -- you don't realize how heavy the burden is of the silence that you think you're
moving along life as, you know, incorporate the same way we incorporate grief. But once that burden begins to lift, the rage and the -- that you
relive the -- those moments. And finally, she had to -- I said, I'm going to tell this story to someone who I really don't want to be telling it to.
I wish I could have told it to my husband or to a therapist, but I've not unlocked it until now.
AMANPOUR: In a way, you, as the director, as the male, you know, in this organization of this story you're also shining a light on the real trouble
for women all over the world, on being able to tell their truth in this case. And you're a vehicle.
CUARON: Yes, but I'm --
AMANPOUR: Do you ever think of that?
CUARON: -- I think -- no, because I -- in that front, I put myself in the hands -- I -- to be honest, I put myself in the hands of Cate.
BLANCHETT: But it's -- also, it's not just about that abuse. I think it's about what we choose to believe. And this sort of -- this lack of
collective empathy that we have for the complexity of the truth and that all -- everyone's perspectives are alive in making that truth live and
breathe. And it -- part of it is the rape, but it's also about the way we consume information. No, I think.
CUARON: Well, but definitely the --
BLANCHETT: But that's the -- that is the --
CUARON: But definitely the -- I think that the deepest confrontation is about that moment in that scene and -- you know, and -- but I think that
the troubling thing is what happened to me when I read the book for the first time is that not unlike the characters during the show that all of
this is just revealing their own insecurities and their own --
BLANCHETT: Biases.
CUARON: -- biases and their own hidden angers, that's what happened to me when I read the book. And I was fell into the same thing because -- but
that was a rise -- it was a rise of my own -- arisen by my own judgment. Because I was just seeing what I -- at the end, what it unleash, what --
BLANCHETT: We're conditioned to see? I don't know.
AMANPOUR: What were you about to say? You had another point of view.
BLANCHETT: Oh, no, I'm saying that it's also what happens to Catherine. But for me, one of the biggest things is the photograph that Kevin's
character sees in the fire. Because at the heart of the story are two young boys with very different fates. And Kodi Smit McPhee, who is one of the
great young actors.
AMANPOUR: Amazing.
CUARON: Amazing.
AMANPOUR: Amazing.
BLANCHETT: Yes. I'm about to work with him in "The Seagull" and as Constantine, I'm playing his mother again.
AMANPOUR: That's amazing.
BLANCHETT: But I think what happens -- and his performance is so beautiful in "Disclaimer." But what we see that he saw, I think for me, is one of the
most painful things as a parent, particularly when my character, his mother, has been trying to protect him from trauma, you know, children
absorb their sponges that way.
AMANPOUR: I mean, you know, talking -- and I wonder how you both have personally been affected by that story. I mean, I get a little bit of it
obviously from talking to you. How did it affect you? And -- because it's a long shoot. I mean, it's not like you did this in a couple of months and
we're able to move on to something else. And are you doing different things now? Are you doing something lighter, something less traumatic?
CUARON: I think I speak for myself, but I don't think that Cate's journey was so different. It was a traumatic experience.
BLANCHETT: And we've got creative PTSD.
[13:35:00]
CUARON: Yes, it was tough. It was co-existing with the story for a long time. And also, the thing is that you -- whatever you're doing, you're
driving it to a destination and you know what destination is. And you cannot be an avoidance. So, that whole thing taints the whole experience.
So, it was -- I can -- I would be lying if we was saying that it was a joyous -- joyful journey. So --
AMANPOUR: But it was really profound and really important and incredible watch.
BLANCHETT: Yes. I mean, I think -- just to answer your question, I think I've been left with an enormous feeling of how privileged I am to have the
right to speak, to express myself and to not have my voice silenced or to live in a society where I have access to avenues or in groups of people and
communities that I can process things publicly or privately with. And I felt very -- I felt that privilege very profoundly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Actor Cate Blanchett and Director Alfonso Cuaron on the series "Disclaimer," which you can watch on Apple TV Plus right now.
Gender was always going to play a vital role in the U.S. election. And while black women turned out in force for Democrats in last week's
election, the Harris campaign had perhaps mistakenly banked on all women doing so. Our next guest believes Democrats missed a huge opportunity to
fight for young male votes.
Richard Reeves is the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, and he joins Hari Sreenivasan now to discuss why Gen Z men swung Trump-
wards in record numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Richard Reeves, thanks so much for joining us. You have been talking about
the changing pressures on boys and men in America for a number of years now, and it really played out during this election for people in a
surprising way. Men supported Former President Trump by a 13-point margin. That's up from eight in 2020. But throughout the demographics, especially
young men, seem to tilt so much more for the president. How did you see this coming?
RICHARD REEVES, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR BOYS AND MEN: We did see it coming, Hari. We saw in the polling in the run up to the election that
men and especially young men were moving very strongly into the Republican camp.
What we didn't expect was that actually the young women would also move away from their levels of support. And so, the gender gap actually didn't
change very much. But the reason for that is because while young men moved to the right, so did young women. Now, of course, the gender gap remained.
But any story about this election has to take into account the fact that the move wasn't just among men.
The real danger here is that -- particularly because we had a female candidate on the Democrat side and such a sort of performative masculinity
on the Republican side, that the move of men and especially young men will be falsely attributed to sexism or a backlash or misogyny. And I think this
is much more a story of neglect than of sexism for the problems that many men feel they have in employment and education just really weren't being
talked about reflected on the Democrat side.
And whilst I don't want to overstate the policy substance that was on the Republican side, it's certainly true that many young men felt more
welcomed, more seen, more heard on the Republican side, and sometimes politics boils down to who likes me, who likes the stuff I like, that
cultural element of the election. I think just -- you know, the Republicans put out a welcome mat for men, especially young men. They also met young
men where they were. I mean, literally, in the case of the Joe Rogan podcast and other podcasts, but also just met them in terms of saying to
them, reflecting that we get it, the you're struggling right now. Where that leads in terms of policy is another matter.
SREENIVASAN: Let's talk a little bit about that well, that welcome mat idea, right? I mean, where the president went was somewhat uncharted
territory in terms of presidential campaigning. He stopped by a lot of podcasts and he talked to influencers, so to speak, who were kind of in the
spheres where young men are today, whether it's on Twitch channels, watching video games or playing video games or, you know, kind of political
rallies on campuses.
REEVES: Yes, that's a communications shift that I think we need really need to catch up with, especially if the goal is to reach young men. If the
goal is to reach young men, especially you have to go where young men are, and that is on these podcasts, these very long form, informal freewheeling
podcasts, you saw three hours with President Trump on Joe Rogan, three hours with J. D. Vance, that's just a completely different world in terms
of election strategy and communication strategy.
[13:40:00]
And I think the Democrats didn't follow that strategy, but that's not just because -- like they -- it's not that they didn't know there were numbers
there, it's not that they didn't know that's where young men were, it is because the Democrats believe that they didn't need the votes of young men
because they were going to get sufficient votes among young women and women generally.
So, the reason that the Democrats didn't win the battle for young men's votes is because they didn't fight for them. They didn't really contest for
them. There was no strong policy outreach. There was no communication strategy. And so, they essentially ceded that ground thinking that it's
ground they didn't need. That turns out to have been a fatal miscalculation.
SREENIVASAN: You know, what were the struggles that the right was able to tap into? To -- what were the things -- what were the issues animating men
and young men that President-Elect Trump seemed to hear, care about, or in some way connect with?
REEVES: I think at some level it was incredibly basic. It was, we see you, we like you, we don't hate you. The other side hate you. We are never --
we're never going to lecture you about toxic masculinity. We are never going to say that you are mansplaining. We're simply going to say, we like
you and we like the things you like. We're also going to approach with a bit of a sense of humor around some of this stuff. We're going to go to a
UFC fight, et cetera.
And none of that amounts to policy substance. That is not a policy to tackle the fact that the suicide rate among men under 30 has risen by more
than 40 percent since 2010. That is not the policy strategy for dealing with the fact that we have bigger gaps, gender gaps on college campuses
today than we did in the '70s, but the other way around. That doesn't affect the fact that working class men haven't essentially had a pay rise
for decades.
And so, the substance is not there on the Republican side. The irony is that there's more policy substance already on the Democrat side, the
infrastructure bill, for example, mostly help working class men, Hispanic, black, and white working class men, but you couldn't find a single Democrat
who would have said that because they falsely assumed that talking about the things they were doing to help boys and men, acknowledging the very
fact that there were problems for boys and men would undermine their appeal to women.
That was a big mistake. It was zero-sum thinking, and as a result, they not only lost ground among men but among women. And so, the message to
Democrats, I think, coming out of this election has to be don't move too quickly to the explanation of sexism. Instead, consider hard that this is
the effect of a long run neglect on a policy front of the issues of boys and men.
SREENIVASAN: You know, we've seen his support among men overall stay relatively steady of male voters. I mean, it inched up a little bit. And as
I look at these numbers, you know, 60 percent of white male voters went with him this time versus 62 percent say in 2016. But what's really
fascinating when you start breaking down the support among men by race is what happened with both black male voters as well as Latino male voters.
And then he went from 19 to 21 percent support in black male voters, which is better than last time, but from 36 to 55 percent. What accounts for
that?
REEVES: Well, the first thing to say, of course, is that the overwhelming majority of people were not voting on the grounds of their gender or of
their race. This was an election dominated by economic concerns.
Nonetheless, the loss of support among black male voters, as you point out, but especially Hispanic male voters should I think be a sign that unless
there's a strong economic agenda that is crafted in a way that will appeal specifically to men, as well as to women, then the Democrats will continue
to lose ground among those constituencies.
So, this is a place where I think class and gender and race are all overlapping with each other. And what you're seeing is a number of men,
especially men, but Hispanic women, as you know, also swung really strongly towards Donald Trump, although remaining supportive of overall of Kamala
Harris, which is that not only do you need an economic message and need to be talking about the economy, but you also need to be talking about that in
a way that is particularly going to land with men.
And so, to the extent that that there was a policy discussion on the Republican side around bringing -- around manufacturing, some skepticism
perhaps around higher education, some of that does seem to have landed with men particularly.
[13:45:00]
SREENIVASAN: I think there are quite a few people who are surprised that, I guess as a collective society, we used to hold the role of or the person
who filled the role of president as a role model for the whole country, somebody we want representing us on the world stage. And in the case of
young men and boys we saw a president -- or we have a president-elect now who has been found liable of sexual assault, he's been accused of that by
several women in his life. And I wonder, how were men and young men able to set those things aside?
REEVES: Well, because -- well, for one thing, as we said a moment earlier, the motivating factors for a lot of men were around the economy. And so,
you heard a lot of focus groups, men would be saying, look, I don't like him particularly, but I want the economy that he delivered for me. I like
the idea of lower taxes. I like the idea of a job. I like the idea of manufacturing coming back.
And so, it is perfectly possible that many of these men voted for Donald Trump, not because of some of the issues you just raised, but to some
extent, despite them. And I think that's a very, very difficult thing for people to get their head around, which is that people are able to hold in
their thought contradictory ideas about a candidate, which is like, I don't like certain aspects of this guy. But I think I'm going to be better off.
And I think he's -- he sees me a little bit more than some of the other candidates do.
But I do think that there's a vacuum here, particularly on the center left around a willingness to just accept that there is a positive version of
masculinity and the role of men. At some level, a lot of these young men, especially, they're not sure what the message is to them about whether we
like them, whether we need them and what their role in society is going to be.
And whatever you think of the way in which the Republicans talk about the importance of men and the role of men and the signals that they had about
being friendly to men, this -- that's going -- the danger is that will be silence. And so, I worry a little bit that people say, well, how could men
be attracted to that role model of masculinity when there wasn't really an alternative being put in front of them?
And so, that -- again, it's that sense -- you even saw in the final stages of the campaign where young men in particular being urged to vote for the
Democrats if they love the women in their lives, and that's not good enough. It's not to say that, of course, we don't care about the other
people in our lives but if you're essentially asking men to vote for Democrats because the Democrats stand for women, that's a pretty flawed
political strategy again.
SREENIVASAN: What was the role of, I guess, Tim Walz as a potential role model for masculinity? And was that too late? Did that not land?
REEVES: Of course, everything was done pretty late. And so, that's a broader question for the campaign. But I will say that I was extremely
disappointed not to see better use being made of Tim Walz. And in particular of his biography. Tim Walz was the first career public school
teacher to run for such high office. But not only that, a coach. And you had his own students coming out talking about this of service-oriented kind
of masculinity that he had demonstrated.
And if there was any candidate who could have plausibly set out a positive vision for the role of men in society for a campaign to increase the share
of male teachers, to really tackle this mental health crisis we see playing out among young men, then it's hard to think of a better CV, at least, than
the one of Tim Walz.
It was easy to imagine him giving powerful speeches, running really strong advertising campaigns directly targeted at young men with an empathetic,
respectful policy-based message to those young men. None of that happened. So, I think among the many missed opportunities that we saw on the Democrat
side of the campaign, the failure to send Tim Walz out backed by a strong policy agenda to win over the votes of young men will be one of them.
SREENIVASAN: Was there going to be a backlash in terms of how the Democrats were messaging this as an election about reproductive rights at
the center, right, that would be the thing that animates women to the polls? You know, and near the end of the campaign, there was a focus on
trying to get men engaged in that issue just as much. But I wonder what was the -- you know, what were young men and boys hearing throughout the couple
of months that Kamala Harris was campaigning on that issue?
REEVES: The evidence suggests that particularly young men have very similar views on abortion as young women. And that they -- like young
women, thought that the Democrats had the best position on abortion.
[13:50:00]
The problem is that that issue wasn't very salient for those young men. It wasn't what they were voting on. And increasingly, it looks like that was
true for a lot of women too. I mean, to have lost so much ground among young women is something that I think really complicates this story for the
Democrats.
And so, I -- it was definitely not, in my view, a backlash. You will struggle to find any evidence that particularly among young men that they
were somehow reacting against this idea that reproductive rights for women were threatening to them. I think that's a myth that is -- it might start
to circulate on the left. It's simply that abortion wasn't such a big issue in this election, as the Democrats had hoped it would be. And it definitely
wasn't that big an issue for men and young men.
And so, it's not as if they have a very different view about this, it's that -- it's just not as big an issue for them. And maybe you could argue,
well, it should be, and that was kind of part of the Democrat last ditch attempt, was to get men to care more about that issue, but unfortunately,
politics is much more about going to where voters are than telling voters that they're in the wrong place and that they should come to you.
And that's a little bit of what happened here, was that men, in particular. young men, were being told, you should care about more about this issue,
and therefore, vote for us, rather than asking them, well, what do you care about? And it turned out that abortion was much lower on the list.
SREENIVASAN: What are some of the data points that you point to that say, there is this crisis of men, young men, that is being unaddressed?
REEVES: None of the problems that actually face boys and men today are the result of deliberate anti-male policies. That's an idea that's taken hold,
especially on the right. It's not true. This is a story of neglect, of looking away. And the opportunity here is for a political message supported
by policy, which is an and rather than an or message, it is, we are going to continue to work on women's reproductive rights, the gender pay gap, the
lack of representation of women in senior leadership, in STEM jobs, et cetera. And we are going to tackle the growing male suicide crisis and the
struggles of boys in our education system and the difficulties that young men are having entering the labor market.
If we can get past the or and towards an and, then there's a, we have to rise together message. And again, the irony is that actually a female
headed ticket may have more permission to do that than a male headed ticket. Like if Kamala Harris had come out very strongly saying, I have an
agenda for men. Here's my policy platform for men, including more vocational learning, including paternity leave for men, paid leave for men,
including a push to get more male teachers, a coach for America program to reduce the decline in the share of boys in school, and here's my agenda to
help women too, that would have spoken to the mom who is terrified about, for example, her access to reproductive health care, but also really
worried about her son in school, worried about our brother's mental health.
Because actually in the real world right now mothers, fathers are as worried about the men and the women and the boys and the girls in their
lives just for different reasons. And so, we haven't had it yet from either side, but there is space here for a politics and a policy platform that
manages to do two things at once. And that manages to advocate for changes that would help boys and men without doing less for women and girls.
Right now, it feels as if the choices between a Republican Party that in this messaging sometimes feels like it wants to turn back the clock on
women and a Democrat Party that has turned its back on men. And somewhere between those two extremes, there is a constructive non zero-sum politics,
which says, we rise together, and that means that we care as much about the young men who are falling behind as the young women who are struggling to
rise.
SREENIVASAN: President of the American Institute for Boys and Men, Richard Reeves, thanks so much for joining us again.
REEVES: Thanks, Hari.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: So, much to digest there and to think about. And finally, tonight, a trailblazer in the world of dance, the acclaimed dancer and
choreographer Judith Jamison has died aged 81. At a time when few black women were prominent in American dance, Jamison broke barriers training as
a ballerina before joining the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 1965. At five foot 10, she described herself as the antithesis of a classical
dancer and became an international star praised for her performance.
[13:55:00]
She would go on to serve for another 20 years as the company's creative director, transforming it into the most successful modern dance troupe in
the country. And tonight, we leave you with one of Jamison's signature dances, "Cry." It's a solo piece about black womanhood, and in her
autobiography, she said, the dance allowed her to become herself.
Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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[14:00:00]
END
