Return to Transcripts main page
Amanpour
Interview with Democratic Strategist James Carville; Interview with International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi; Interview with "Warriors" Co-Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda; Interview with "Warriors" Co-Creator Eisa Davis. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired November 12, 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]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: We're going to fix our borders. We're going to fix everything about our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: The Trump team assembles. I asked Veteran Democratic Strategist James Carville what went wrong for his party, and how the result could
upend the world order.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISAAC HERZOG, ISRAELI PRESIDENT: I take this opportunity to express gratitude and admiration to the 46th president of the United States, my
dear friend, Joe Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- Israel's president Isaac Herzog comes to Washington. I get the latest from reporter Jeremy Diamond.
Then the nuclear question, what Trump 2.0 could mean for a deal with Iran? IAEA Chief Rafael Grossi joins me as he heads to Tehran.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, CO-CREATOR, "WARRIORS": The newcomer and the fan of the original don't know where it's headed, and that's very exciting to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- from a cult classic film to a new star-studded album, Lin- Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis talk to Hari Sreenivasan about their new project, "Warriors."
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
Now, it's said that personnel is policy, and with his cabinet picks, Donald Trump is laying out his agenda. Hardline on national security and foreign
policy, including Ukraine aided skeptics like Senator Marco Rubio, who's tipped to be secretary of state, and Congressman Mike Waltz, who's been
selected as national security adviser. Deregulation on environmental protection measures with Congressman Lee Zeldin picked to lead the EPA. And
a stepped-up crackdown and deportation at the southern border, as Stephen Miller, Trump's extreme anti-immigration adviser, will wield important
influence as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy.
Elections, as they say, have consequences. And as the incoming Trump administration rapidly fills up with loyalists, can Democrats do any more
than watch it all unfold? Allies overseas are also buckling up and seeking favor with the new administration while also trying to Trump proof.
And who better to offer advice than longtime Democratic Strategist James Carville. He's the architect of Bill Clinton's decisive victories in the
1990s. He popularized the line, it is -- it's the economy, stupid. Carville seems to have an instinct for winning, although he failed to predict the
Harris loss. Now, he's the subject of a new documentary on Max, "Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid." And he joins the show from New Orleans.
James Carville, welcome to the program.
JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, thank you. Glad to be here with you.
AMANPOUR: So, as you say, winning is everything, stupid. And it does look, from where you sit, that Donald Trump won everything. He has won the
popular, the electoral, the Senate, potentially the House. He dominates the Supreme Court and has really made inroads with demographics that used to be
overwhelmingly for the Democrats.
So, how do you explain, particularly for an international audience, the biggest swing to the right in the United States since Ronald Reagan?
CARVILLE: Well, first of all, winning is everything. And it's everything, it's above loyalty. Without winning, there's nothing. And of course, the
country wanted change. And the vice president's campaign decided they would not offer that. They asked Vice President Harris, how would -- what she
would have done different than President Biden? And she said she can't think anything.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, hold on, because I have that. I have that and I want to play it. James, hold on because I'm going to play it and then you can
describe it. Let's just play this bit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A flood of illegals, skyrocketing prices, global chaos, and Kamala wouldn't change a thing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: There is not a thing that comes to mind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing will change with Kamala.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, James Carville, that was a Trump ad. Would you say that was, you know, decisive and extremely effective?
[13:05:00]
CARVILLE: I do. I think that answer was the decisive moment of the entire campaign. But, Christiane, we should not over interpret it. This is not a
1980 realignment election. He's not going to get 50 percent of the popular vote. The House, they'll probably win it by a razor, razor thin minority.
So, we don't need to over -- it was a bad night. People wanted change. We resolutely refused to give them a different direction than they wanted,
which we could have done. We could have had an open primary process, and we have staggering talent in the party. We could have demonstrated that. We
chose not to do this.
I mean, a lot of these decisions were made at the high-top level of Democratic Party, and they were not very wise decisions.
AMANPOUR: James Carville, you say don't over think this, it's not as big a swing as 1980, but Trump can genuinely claim a mandate from the American
people. I mean, let's face it, the convictions, the impeachments, all the other things that have been going on for all this time. And he can say --
and the assassination attempts, I survived all of this, and I'm here. He can take it as a mandate if he wins all levers of government, can't he?
CARVILLE: Well, he can take anything that he wants but the Democrats need to do is be an opposition party. And opposition, like, starts right now.
Because I can tell you, this transition and the inauguration is going to be like everything else in Trump land, a giant grift. It needs to be exposed
and it needs to be exposed pronto, and Democrats have to have a mechanism in place to do that.
But I don't know how you claim a mandate if you don't get 50 percent. You can say I won the election, and you can certainly say, I told people I was
going to do all of this and a majority of them voted for me anyway, but I would be very reluctant to swing the M word around here. I would say he won
the election, but I'd be -- OK. Go ahead.
AMANPOUR: No, no. I understand what you're saying, but as you said, you know, Trump has shown us that he can create a reality. And what he's done
with this mandate that he apparently thinks he has is so far, you know, put all the loyalists in and it's a very -- you know, it's a huge sort of
signpost to the very hardline policies that he said he would do. Well, what can the Democrats do about it?
CARVILLE: What you do is -- you know, he knows no better than anybody. You live in a place where you have an opposition party, you act like an
opposition party. You do not have power. So, you do research and launch investigations. You make talking points. You get people out front. You
organize the opposition. You point out the weaknesses of what they're doing. And they're going to do things that people never dreamed of.
And when they do, you have to be there with an alternative. But you're an opposition party. Opposition parties do not have power. We need to get over
that. But we can -- we have the power to expose. We have the power to propose alternatives. We have power to be different. We have to exercise
that power.
But I can't sit around and mope around about an election that's already over. I got to think about the next election, like 2026. And we've got to
think about how do we organize this opposition. What is the rallying point? Where does the opposition start? I mean, there's a lot of unanswered
questions here that need to be answered and answered pronto.
AMANPOUR: So, with that in mind, can I ask you about one of the issues that was brought up by the Trump campaign and some, you know, Democrats
were also uncomfortable with it, the idea of woke and the culture wars, right? This was most definitely, again, ads by the Trump campaign.
But Jon Stewart, who does a little digging, as you know, put together a very interesting compilation of quite a few Democratic candidates' ads. And
he said, I didn't see anything woke here. I'm going to play it for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JON STEWART, HOST: I only have one problem with the woke theory, I just didn't recall seeing any Democrats running on woke (INAUDIBLE). These were
the commercials I saw for the Democrats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sherrod Brown is working to fix our border crisis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mondaire Jones is working to secure our border.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pat Ryan is restoring order at our southern border.
REP.-ELECT LAURA GILLEN (D-NY): I'm Laura Gillen and I'm here at the border of Nassau County. We're 2,000 miles from Mexico but we're feeling
the migrant crisis almost every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, what do you make of that compilation and was woke overdone?
CARVILLE: Well, I'll tell you exactly what I make of it. It was in the Sunday New York Times that no one -- that a lot of people read, that I'm
sure you read in Maureen Dowd's column.
[13:10:00]
I said, I'll give Harris credit, she didn't use any of the woke language, but this is like trying to wash clothes that's got smoke all over them, you
can't get the stench out. And you could ask, Senators Manchin, Senator Casey, Senator Brown, Senator Testa, if they don't think that defund the
police had an adverse effect on attitudes toward the Democratic Party, my God. You're right, it was so stupid, no one wanted to bring it up. You
know, three years later, but the residue of it just stuck with us.
And you got to read exactly what was said, exactly what I said, and it's going to take more than one cycle to get this stench off of the Democratic
Party. And it's a stench of the highest order. Let me tell you.
AMANPOUR: I'm going to ask you about the stench in a moment, but I first want to say because you brought up Maureen Dowd, and there is also an idea
that America is still not ready for a female president.
But last spring you said, you know, a suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females dominating the culture of the Democratic Party. Do
you stand by that, females?
CARVILLE: Would you look at our male vote? Would you -- would somebody just take a look at how we did with males and how we did with nonwhite
males and tell me that the Democrats don't have a messaging problem, that their message comes across as too feminine? I mean, of course I was right
when I said that. I don't think -- there's not a person in the world I've talked to that doubts that I'm right right now.
AMANPOUR: OK. James --
CARVILLE: I mean, I say provocative things to get a provocative reaction.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
CARVILLE: But are you really -- somebody going to really tell me we don't have a problem with male voters?
AMANPOUR: Well, that's really interesting because --
CARVILLE: But if you do, you tell me something I'm completely unaware of.
AMANPOUR: No, I'm going to read you the stats as -- well, you know the stats. One in three voters of color voted for Trump. Trump carried Hispanic
men by 10 points. Trump improved his support with younger voters compared with 2020. And you're right, he did win the male vote.
So, I just need to understand this. Because what are you saying, then, that Democrats need to do about the so-called gender gap? What should they do?
CARVILLE: Well, first thing, they could have done a lot of muscular economic messaging that we didn't do. We could have increased the minimum
wage to $15 an hour. We could have talked more about raising taxes on incomes above $400,000 and using that money to help young people buy a
house. We can certainly shovel the entire identitary -- identity politics about 50 feet in the ground and bury it. I mean, you can start by doing
things like that.
You could have got out in front of the crime issue, which by the way, the crime rate in United States is down historic about, about 30 percent. But
we were not able to talk about crime because the woke police would not allow that, and one of the great accomplishments of the Biden-Harris
administration.
So, there's a lot of things you can do, and you can change your language around. You know, don't use coded language, and it's going to take -- like
I said, it'll take one cycle before we can wash the smell off of our shirt. But I think it'll be good chance -- if we act correctly, it'll be gone by
'26, it'll be long gone by '28 But please know anybody like infer to me that we did well with males, because we did not.
AMANPOUR: No, that's not what I was inferring. I was trying to dig down on what you said about the preachy female thing.
CARVILLE: I know, I know.
AMANPOUR: And you've said it now. But -- yes, yes. But here's the thing, I want to pick up on what you just said. First of all, you can imagine all
the likeminded governments and politicians here in Europe are thrilled to see they have a big champion now again in the United States. I want to ask
you about the messaging, because you just said the Biden administration had many, many successful policies, but they didn't send their message across.
And even here in the U.K., The Economist, which is a center right financial magazine, as you know, called America, the envy of the world. And I wonder
whether you think that there's this very successful conservative media landscape, whether it's on TV, cable, you know, on streaming, podcasts and
all the rest of it, that do a much better job than you do?
[13:15:00]
CARVILLE: Yes. And I -- Michael Tomasky wrote an excellent article in a New Republican. I'm going to have it on my podcast tomorrow. It -- but that
isn't -- the media infrastructure in this country has been, to the large part, taken over by right-wingers. And to some extent, we allowed it to
happen. That's a valid thing. But that's what exists right now.
So, we have to blend and we have to get our messaging across. We have to be three times as good as they are because we don't have the same media power
they do, but we got to go about our business. We can't just sit here and mull on it and stew and despair and talk about how unfair everything is. We
got to get along. We got to get going here. We got to be an opposition party, and we got to criticize and propose and, you know, do all the things
the opposition parties do.
AMANPOUR: And, James Carville, about your film, you know, "It's All About Winning, Stupid." You -- and there's a really nice bit in there about you
and your wife, Mary Matalin, and it's a quote from Paul Begala, a former Democratic strategist as well. And it shows -- well, I'm going to play this
clip, and then I want to ask you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Such a famous mix marriage. She's a devout Republican, he's a reptile. And yet, they've made it work over the years.
MARY MATALIN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I'm really a conservative, he's really a liberal.
CARVILLE: There's three things I ain't changing. I ain't changing wives, I'm not changing sexual orientation, and I'm not changing political
parties. We're going to go to the House with what we got here, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, two incredibly powerful people as a strategist for different parties. Is it too glib to ask you, you made this union work and yet,
America is just so polarized? Is there any route? How do you make it work and what would your message be for Republicans and Democrats now?
CARVILLE: Well, we'll have our 31st wedding anniversary in Thanksgiving with our children. I don't know. I don't really get married to try to be an
example. In fact, I got married because I was in love with a woman, and I'm still in love with the same woman. I would be -- to some people, I find it
interesting, I don't really -- my marriage is what it is. I don't know if it presents a larger lesson to other people. But it's been 31 years,
Thanksgiving.
So, in -- the film, I think did a good job. And I think Mary, you know, really made the film a lot better because of that. But I'll go back to
present it, "Winning Is Everything, Stupid." Winning is more important than loyalty. I hate to say that, but that is the number one objective of any
political campaign, is to win the election. And you can fix everything later.
But I think what happened to Vice President Harris, she was very loyal to President Biden, she didn't want to criticize him, she didn't want to say
how she was different. And that, frankly, was a pivotal moment in the campaign. And when it happened, I knew it, they knew it, it took them, you
know, two hours to get an ad out. Because that was what they were looking for.
People wanted change, and we decided we weren't going to give it to them, and we should have. We should have had an open process. We should have let
some of this talent out of the barn and put it on the racetrack.
AMANPOUR: All right. James Carville, thank you very much for your analysis.
Now, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his far-right allies are conveying their deep satisfaction with Trump's victory, just as the
country's president, Isaac Herzog, meets today with President Biden in Washington.
The U.S. has so far unsuccessfully been trying to help end the war. In the last two days, more than 62 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across
Gaza, according to the health ministry there. And U.N. officials warn that Northern Gaza has turned into a graveyard.
Now, Jeremy Diamond joins me with the latest from Jerusalem. Jeremy, just tell, you know, the viewers what specifically are, as I said, some of the
government officials saying and thinking about how they will be -- you know, be able to benefit from a Trump win?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's no question that there is a feeling inside the Israeli government that a Donald Trump
presidency will be far more favorable to them than a Kamala Harris presidency would have been, and that they will have far more leeway under
Trump than they have had under Biden and they would have had under Kamala Harris.
But -- and that's why we're seeing this move by Bezalel Smotrich, for example, the finance minister who also oversees two key departments, and
the ministry of defense is responsible for settlements in the West Bank, now taking this step to lay the groundwork to try and annex these Israeli
settlements in the West Bank next year.
Now, this is just an initial step that he is laying out. We don't yet know whether the Israeli prime minister is actually on board with this. But he
made very clear that he's taking this step because of Donald Trump's election, and because he believes that President Trump will ultimately
support Israel annexing these Israeli settlements.
[13:20:00]
And there's certainly reason for him to believe that, because Donald Trump's peace plan back -- released in 2020 for the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict called for Israel to indeed be able to annex these Israeli settlements, make no territory swaps with Palestinian territory and
effectively take 30 percent of the West Bank and make it a part of the State of Israel, even as it called for establishing a Palestinian State on
what remained of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Now, it should be noted that there's been reports that Trump then encouraged Netanyahu not to actually move forward with annexation. But
nonetheless, Donald Trump in his presidency, in his first term, was extremely supportive of Israel, toed the line with the Israeli government
in terms of giving them the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital, recognizing the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights, and a slew of
other decisions.
And when you look at the way that he is already starting to fill his cabinet and the top ranks of his administration, every single person there
is someone who's extremely supportive of Israel and not someone who you would expect to bring any kind of pressure to bear on the Israeli
government.
Now, there's no question that Trump wants the wars to end and he has made clear that he effectively wants it to be settled before he comes into
office. But that's now. What happens if those wars are still raging when he does come into office? How does he then handle things then, especially
given the makeup of his administration?
AMANPOUR: Well, I want to ask you just one more question, obviously, and we know that Qatar has suspended its efforts to negotiate an end to the war
and the hostage release. But also, today is the deadline for the Biden administration saying that unless you let aid into Gaza, we will have to
reconsider, you know, sending military to you based on our rules.
Some started to get in today. How do you assess the amount and why? And will that be, you know, the beginning of a lot of aid going in?
DIAMOND: Well, I mean, I don't need to assess it. You can look at the assessment of these eight humanitarian aid organizations who put out a
letter saying that the Israeli government has not only failed to meet these demands by the Biden administration, to improve the conditions to get more
humanitarian aid in, but in fact, that the situation has worsened in the month since the Biden administration sent that letter to the Israeli
government. And these are reputable aid groups like Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Save the Children, who are making this statement.
But it's really just -- it laid out by what happened yesterday in Gaza, 14 aid trucks from the World Food Programme finally got authorization to go to
Northern Gaza. Only three of them actually made it to the city of Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza because of Israeli military activity on the ground.
And then, once they actually made it there, this morning -- they made it there last night, and this morning there were reports that that the Israeli
military moved in near these sites where the aid was delivered, forcing hundreds of people in those very same shelters where the aid was delivered
to flee.
Now, Israeli government officials are still meeting with U.S. officials to try and find ways to, you know, accede to some of these demands that the
U.S. has been making. And I can tell you that Israeli officials certainly have been concerned about this letter, wanted to show a good faith effort
to the U.S., but they're just still nowhere close to the benchmarks that the U.S. has set. And for now, at least, it doesn't appear that the U.S. is
inclined to make any policy changes, despite having threatened to do so in that letter. Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much from Jerusalem. And next, the annual COP climate summit is taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, but many
world leaders are conspicuously absent from this climate summit, and many, of course, are grappling with their own domestic crises and the imminent
arrival of Trump 2.0.
His national security team, as we mentioned, is gradually being filled with fairly hawkish figures, particularly towards Iran. And yet, TThe New York
Times has reported that some within Iran's government are hoping to explore a possible new nuclear deal with the president-elect. It would be a
surprise outcome at such a tense moment when Israel and Iran have exchanged missile strikes. Israel's new defense minister also says that this is the
moment to, quote, "thwart the Iranian nuclear program."
The International Atomic Energy Agency has assessed that Tehran has the materials to make several nuclear bombs if it chooses to do so. And
tomorrow, it's director general, Rafael Grossi, will travel there for talks on their nuclear program.
And Grossi is currently at the COP summit in Baku. He's joining the program from there. Rafael Grossi, welcome to the program.
RAFAEL GROSSI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: THANK YOU.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: So, what is your most urgent, I guess, agenda item going to Iran as you are going to do tomorrow? And just again, in your own words, tell me
what they have, what they could do, and what decisions you think that they're going to make on the nuclear breakout issue?
GROSSI: They have a big, big nuclear program. They have a lot of nuclear materials that could be used eventually to make a nuclear weapon. They do
not have a nuclear weapon at this point. And we have to negotiate and we have to work so that that's not happening. And this is one of the reasons
I'm heading to Tehran in what, of course, will not be my last trip there.
But it's a very important one because of the many circumstances, some of those you were discussing in the show just now. And in the world, we are in
a moment of particular tension. We are in a moment where the -- precisely the possibility that Iran might take certain decisions could trigger
responses from Israel or perhaps some others as well.
So, our job at the IAEA is to relentlessly look for diplomatic, reasonable, strong solutions. And this is what I need to do. It will be my first time
with the new president, Pezeshkian, and the foreign minister, whom I know very, very well. He's an experienced former nuclear negotiator. So, one
that knows this issue very, very well. So, I am hoping that I will be able to plunge straight into the most important matters as I get to Tehran.
AMANPOUR: And you -- I mean, you're hoping obviously for cooperation. You've got these meetings What is your gut? Have you had any -- or not gut,
what is, what information have you had ahead of your visit? Are you getting signals, as TThe New York Times reported, that they are potentially, at
least some members of the government, interested in pursuing another nuclear deal, even with President Trump?
GROSSI: Well, this is not a secret, Christiane. I think since the new government took office, back in the summer, they said it to me in a letter,
the president, that they want to engage, they want to look for solutions and so on. For now, we have not -- I must say, we have not seen fundamental
changes in their behavior, but they continue to profess this idea to reengage in a more substantive way.
And I should take this invitation they have extended to me and this clear manifestation from the president that he wants to have a conversation as
part of that. Otherwise, I guess he wouldn't be interested in having this conversation. That being said, we have to fill with real content this
conversation, and this is the crux of the matter.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you to set us a baseline in case -- you know, well, viewers do need to know. Remind us where Iran was in the monitoring
mechanism under the JCPOA at the time that President Trump pulled the United States out of that agreement and then, frankly, it collapsed because
it just collapsed without the United States. And where are they now compared to that?
GROSSI: Indeed. That agreement, among the many things it had, it was a very complex technical diplomatic agreement that basically, for the
audience to be reminded, set a number of limitations on the amount of nuclear material that Iran could have, the amount of centrifuges, the
machines with which you enrich uranium to put it at the level you need to have a bomb, et cetera, et cetera, many, many things that were there.
In 2018, the Trump administration decided to leave the -- this agreement. That agreement included a number of additional verification measures, which
means that the agency could see much, much more than normally, because we are inspecting Iran. People should not think that we have interrupted our
work there. We are still inspecting, but what we are saying is that we see that we need to see much more.
So, all those things -- all this machinery was in place. And of course, once the agreement was abandoned by one side, Iran took some time, but
eventually left the agreement as well, leaving this JCPOA perhaps as nominally alive, but actually as an empty shell in a certain sense.
So, now, we are in a situation which is radically different. In what sense? Iran has been enriching uranium at levels that it had not done before. No
non-nuclear weapon state, no country that does not have a nuclear weapon is enriching at these heights.
[13:30:00]
At the same time, they have a number of very sophisticated machines, these centrifuges, which they didn't have in the past. So, the program they have
-- there are more facilities where they are doing all these things. So, the program has spawned. And it is much bigger. So, the thing that we have now
in our hands is a more complex object of negotiation that requires adequate solutions.
And among those, what I'm pleading now, because we are not going to go for a definite agreement, of course we -- the new American administration has
to start, we have to see what their position will be. There would be a number of things. But at this point, at this point in time, I'm not going
there to have just a conversation. I am going there to try to reinforce our monitoring, our verification, mechanisms so that the road to diplomacy is
possible.
And this is very important because without that, we -- I, the inspector, I will not be able to tell anybody, the Americans, the European three, China,
or Russia, all the key players, I am not going to be able to tell them what there is there in Iran.
So, this is why what we are doing now is in everybody's benefit. I'm telling my Iranian counterparts and I hope that I will be able to have this
conversation with the president, this is something that is in your benefit, because if there is going to be any agreement, the new agreement that you
were mentioning or the old agreement in a new format, we need to put things more or less in order.
AMANPOUR: OK.
GROSSI: We need to allow the IAEA to set a baseline, which is not existing at the moment.
AMANPOUR: OK. That's an important point. So, basically, you're saying that when Trump pulled out and said that he would make an even better deal, it
didn't happen, no deal happened, and they continued apace to the enrichment.
Now, that I say, because Israel has muted the notion of potentially bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. A former adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu
says the likelihood of Israel attacking Iran's nuclear facilities has increased. And you may remember that in their exchange of missile attacks
and airstrikes, the U.S. asked them not to hit Iran's nuclear sites.
Now, I'm asking you, what would be the result of a major airstrikes against a nuclear -- whatever, against their nuclear program? What would be the
effect?
GROSSI: Well, there are many -- of course, we are, you know, making our own assessments at the IAEA. There are many facilities in Iran. First of
all, don't forget there is a nuclear reactor, normal, Bushehr, which is a nuclear power plant, like the many we have around the world that has lots
of nuclear material inside. And then, there are other facilities, which, some of which, contain nuclear material, some others do not, but they are
related because, you know, they are fabricating centrifuges, or they are doing things that are ancillary that are necessary for the nuclear program.
So, again, establishing what is and what is not a nuclear facility is not an easy thing.
If you are thinking about installations that have nuclear material inside, uranium, plutonium that existed, et cetera, then you would have, of course,
radiological impacts that would depend -- the magnitude of which would, of course, depend on the nature of the strike.
AMANPOUR: OK.
GROSSI: As a rule, Christiane, as a rule, nuclear facilities, nuclear installations should never be attacked. There's a body of law and numerous
resolutions from the General Conference of the IAEA, even protocols from Geneva in the 1940s saying these things. Even now, in my work in Ukraine
and Russia, I have been before the United Nations Security Council saying that nuclear facilities should not be attacked.
So, what I say, apart from speculations or political positionings that I -- you know, I don't have a view on, just to say that our work there is to
avoid that scenario from happening.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you a question about COP? Because you are in Baku. You've been there. I don't know what the mood seems to be there, but not
many of the world leaders are there. And I just want to ask on the issue of nuclear power.
You have proposed taking concrete steps for decarbonization via nuclear power, but you've also said, you know, to triple the nuclear capacity by
2050 is a goal. And you say it would require $150 million -- sorry, billion of investment per year for a period of time until 2050.
[13:35:00]
That sounds like a massive amount, and I just wonder whether there's any government receptive to that, whether nuclear power is being seen at this
point as an alternative.
GROSSI: Two things. Nuclear power is doing this. Nuclear power, at the moment, as we speak, Christiane, provides a third of the clean energy
produced in the world today. Half of the clean energy in Europe, half of the clean energy in the United States produced in now, today, without any
doubling, tripling, or whatever.
So, the nuclear energy is playing a role. The idea is that nuclear could be -- in fact, in Dubai, in COP28, the previous COP, there was a consensus,
international consensus, not only nuclear users, saying nuclear should be accelerated --
AMANPOUR: Yes.
GROSSI: -- side by side with renewables. It should be accelerated because we are making the numbers and we see that we are not going to make it --
AMANPOUR: All right.
GROSSI: -- by 2050 without this.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
GROSSI: So, the issue is there. There are many issues, financing, many technical aspects. We are discussing those. And certainly, the trend is an
upward trend.
AMANPOUR: OK.
GROSSI: Whether it is as fast as it's needed. That is another question.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I wish we could talk more but we've run out of time. Rafael Grossi, thank you. We'll check in hopefully after your trip to Iran.
And next, reimagining a cult classic movie 45 years after its release. The "Warriors" is getting the musical treatment from "Hamilton" creator Lin-
Manuel Miranda. The Broadway legend has teamed up with playwright Eisa Davis to create "Warriors," a concept album, which brings together a star-
studded roster of musicians from Lauryn Hill to Marc Anthony, all to honor the 1979 thriller that follows a New York City gang on their journey from
the Bronx to Coney Island. The pair joined Hari Sreenivasan to discuss their love letter to the and its lasting legacy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Lin- Manuel Miranda, Eisa Davis, thank you both for joining us.
Lin, people who are probably familiar with you from "Hamilton," and they're going to say, what's "The Warriors"? And when I try to describe the plot to
people, they're like, this can't be real. So, you know, this was a roadmap of New York for you at a certain time. But for people who haven't watched
it, what is this?
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, CO-CREATOR, "WARRIORS": Yes, you know, I think everyone has that movie they saw when they were growing up and then they
also have the movie they saw without their parents' permission growing up. And "Warriors" was that movie for me.
You know, it's been a touchstone for hip hop culture and New Yorkers, because it's such a snapshot of 1979 New York. It's about, you know, all
the gangs in the city going to a peace summit and truce in the South Bronx. The charismatic leader who calls that truce is assassinated after a really
impassioned speech. The assassin blames the Warriors who are from Coney Island, and they got to fight their way from the Bronx to Coney Island,
which every New Yorker knows is quite a journey.
SREENIVASAN: When you watch that movie, I mean, there are certain things that maybe flew in the '70s that wouldn't fly anymore. There are lots of
lines that are very misogynist, very homophobic in the original movie, and you decided to flip the script.
MIRANDA: Yes. I mean, I think that it's a very aggro movie. It's a very testosterone laid movie, and it's a very 1979 movie. And for me, you know,
I think what artists do is, we try to connect the dots no one else has connected yet. I think that's what our brains do naturally. When Gamergate
was unfolding, I remember -- and people were doxing innocent women and saying, here's their home address. Go get them. Go do what you will with
this information. I connected the dot. I thought, that's such a Luther act.
You know, Luther, in the movie, shoots Cyrus, points at another gang and says, they did it. And then, they're left to fend for themselves for the
rest of the movie. And so, just connecting those two dots flipped the gender of the "Warriors" for me and it also complicated every plot point,
every subsequent plot point for me, like, oh, well, if the Warriors are women, how would they deal with this scenario? How would they deal with
this undercover cop?
And so, it did two things. One, I think we carve out our own lane. This album is very much a love letter to that movie, but it will also never be
confused with that movie as a result of our decisions. And I think it allows us to find fresh terrain in our adaptation. I think in so many
adaptations of work when they're very, very faithful, you either meet the standard of the original film or you don't.
But when you change key things, you know, both the newcomer and the fan of the original don't know where it's headed, and that's very exciting to me
as an artist.
SREENIVASAN: Eisa, this writing partnership, I mean, explain how that sort of artistic creation works. I mean, what do you do? Do you just like record
something, text it back and forth to each other?
[13:40:00]
EISA DAVIS, WARRIORS" CO-CREATOR: You actually -- yes, you got it on the nose. I mean, that was one of the ways that we were working together, is
that, you know, I would like sing some, you know, bass lines or like sit at the piano and record some chords, progressions and just send voice memos to
Lin and say, you know, could this fit into the pot. You know, just providing all kinds of raw ideas, whether they were musical or whether
textual, whether they were structural, and just sort of saying, let's see, you know, how we can just keep exploring every possibility.
Again, will be both reverent to the film and also irreverent to it, you know, and do what it is that we need to do in order to get at these ideas,
these larger ideas around representation and around the cultural purpose, you know, of sound being born.
So, it was really amazing. We got to sit at the drama bookshop and just throw ideas back and forth. And we did some retreats together. We actually
did the very journey that the Warriors take, where we went all the way up to the Bronx. It's all the way up for me because I live in Brooklyn. It's
closer for Lin. We went to Portland Park. And we went through -- walked through to Woodlawn Cemetery and then found the train, made our way back
down to the Upper West Side and, you know, Gray's Papaya and the Riverside Park, where the Furies are, went down to Union Square, went down to Hoyt
and Schermerhorn, where they shot a lot of the subway scenes in the film, and then made it to Coney by sunset. So, that was our method experience.
SREENIVASAN: Yes.
DAVIS: But, you know, the whole process has just been so thrilling. And he's an amazing collaborator and artist and person.
SREENIVASAN: So, Lin, your success also gets you access to a very nice Rolodex. People return your phone calls and it looks like, you know, you
had anybody you wanted. You had emcees representing different boroughs here. I mean, this is an all-star list. Chris Rivers for the Bronx. Nas for
Queens. Cameron for Manhattan. Ghostface Killah and RZA for Staten Island. Busta Rhymes for Brooklyn. How did you get in touch with these people and
was it easy? I mean, especially Lauryn Hill. I mean, tell us that story.
MIRANDA: Well, first of all, you're very kind, but even my Rolodex isn't that good. I think I want to give a lot of credit to our executive
producer, Nas. I had been talking to him around -- last year, around the events of Hip Hop 50. He was really one of the key organizers in a lot of
the amazing events celebrating Hip Hop's 50th anniversary.
And he and I were talking about him kind of developing a one-man show around the -- his incredible catalog of music. And offhandedly, he said,
what else are you working on? And I said, oh, I'm writing a Warriors concept album with Eisa Davis, and his eyes popped out of his head and he
said, "Warriors," that's my favorite movie.
And so, his buy in -- because he just really wanted to see it exist, really opened a lot of doors for us, particularly within the hip hop community and
understanding we're looking to sort of create our best sonic love letter to this movie that hip hop culture loves.
And then, you know, there are the folks that, you know, are not necessarily stars yet, but we want to be like a lot of the women playing our Warriors
were really friends of ours. We asked them to come in and do demos of our material. And then there was such a chemistry and magic happening in the
studio that we said, we're not going to top this, we're not going to top whatever's happening here. And so, they kind of fell into the snowball as
it rolled down the hill.
SREENIVASAN: So, Lin, how do you figure out, like, what kind of song and vibe you're going for? Because in the movie, there's these very, very
different gangs. I mean, they're, like, costumed. It's sort of very theatrical.
MIRANDA: Very stylized, yes.
SREENIVASAN: You know, so it's -- I mean, there's certainly a point and an intention that the director had with doing what they did at that time. But,
like, now, here you are reinterpreting it and thinking about, like, what's the vibe that this group would have? I mean, clearly, like, there was no K-
pop in 1979. But here's -- there's a sample kind of in your work here. But how did your brain say, OK, this sounds a little metal to me, this sounds a
little bit of R&B, this certainly is hip hop.
MIRANDA: The most fun we had, was figuring out what is the tempo, what is the genre of this gang. When we talked about Luther, before Eisa even came
aboard, when I was just brainstorming, I had written a couple of rap verses for Luther, the antagonist of the film, but the thinking felt too ordered.
I was like to rhyme like this makes you -- gives us a clue that you have a premeditated mind. And then, Eisa had a great -- Eisa played me a metal
band that she was friends with the lead singer. And as soon as I heard the screamo, I was like, I can feel my Puerto Rican grandmothers in heaven,
like, crossing themselves on my behalf. This is such virtuosic chaos. This is the sound of Luther.
[13:45:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MIRANDA: And you alluded to the K-rap in it, again, the gender flit makes everything more interesting to write about. So, in the movie, they're the
Lizzies. The boys are exhausted when they're the Warriors. They see these pretty girls. They go, oh, pretty girls. And they follow them.
So, we had real conversations about, all right, these women have been running from men trying to kill them all night. Why would they trust these
men? And the answer we landed on is, we're going to create the most beautiful, unthreatening boy band of all time. But not just any boy band,
we want to span the sounds from New Edition through Stray Kids in 2024.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MIRANDA: And so, you've got a -- you know Josh Henry channeling his best Boyz to Men. You've got Stephen Sanchez channeling his best. Justin
Timberlake pick your favorite, you know, sweet white boy from the early '90s. And then you've got Daniel Jikal representing K-rap and absolutely
breaking it down, and with lyrics by our friend Helen Park.
So, it was content dictates form. Each challenge sort of meant we had to kind of rise to that occasion in terms of various genre.
SREENIVASAN: There is something throughout the film, you know, you see these repeated shots of the subway, and even in the album, we hear those
sounds, we even hear the actual voice of the New York subways is doing that voiceover during this. And I'm wondering like, why do you think it would be
relevant today for an audience that's living in 2024 and hearing this story?
DAVIS: I think it goes back to the way that I wanted to look at the film from this 2024 perspective. And I just think that the whole concept of
coming together as a community organization, which is an alternative way to look at a game, and coming together and realizing that there actually isn't
any need for the kind of violence that is there between these community organizations. And that there's a way to strive for, come up with a kind of
peace. And that's truly important to me right now in this world that we live in, to find a way, to do our very best to find a way.
And I'm very interested in women's leadership. I mean, that was another huge aspect of how we were approaching this. You know, how do women work
together? And what kind of peace can a woman create from that charismatic pedestal, right?
And so, yes, I mean, that's really the heart of it for me. And also, just making sure that everyone is heard. I mean, we just did our best to try to
voice all of these different New York's, you know, you mentioned like the K-pop that's there, right? And the -- there's a group called the
Hurricanes, the House of Hurricane, right? And that's this queer and trans group, right, that's there.
So, having the Turnbull A.C.s, which are like, you know, these fierce Puerto Ricans in the Bronx, just making sure that everyone has a seat at
the table, even if, you know, it's one of strife in this story that we ultimately can find a place where everyone can live. And that is, I think,
actually in the culture of hip hop. I mean, that's something that we allude to in this, which is that real-life gang truce that happened in 1971 leads
to the birth of hip hop in 1973 in a lot of ways.
And that those gangs become crews that then battle against each other with their art as opposed to with knives or with weapons. And that's something
that was important to me and I think something that is really great for us to look back at from this vantage point.
[13:50:00]
SREENIVASAN: Eisa, our audience might not know that, you know, art and activism have been kind of central to some of your work. In 2009, you did
Angela's mixtape, and this is a reference to a very famous aunt that you have, Angela Davis. What's the role right now of an artist, maybe a role
and responsibility, I guess, as you see yourself in these pretty heavy times?
DAVIS: Well, I think a lot about how -- what art does, is it gives us kind of a -- like it tells us how we are supposed to expect life to be, you
know. It creates our notions of what it is that we haven't yet experienced. And that's where, I think, the responsibility comes in. Because, of course,
I want us, as artists, to be free to do whatever we want to do. And I think we also have to understand where systemic and structural injustices have
occurred and continue to occur.
And so, to play into some of those stereotypes, I think, is irresponsible if you're not doing it in a very conscious, purposeful way, right? That
there has to be some kind of critical engagement with where it is that we are as a society that we can actually dream new ways of being together
through the art.
My aunt talks about that all the time, about cultural work being a prong of what it is that we're trying to do when it comes to achieving social
change. And so, I would never say that an artist has any duty to, you know, say anything that it does not come, you know, full bore from their
imagination. There has to be that freedom at all times.
And I also know that there can be a laziness, sort of an inertia and there can just be a re-inscribing of all of these very harmful notions just
because you wanted to tell a story that entertains a previous version of what we thought our reality was. We get to create new realities. We get to
create new worlds. That's what I try to do and I know that's what Lin tries to do as well.
SREENIVASAN: Lin, you've got a set of lyrics in there, kind of near the end, it says, we're on the same train home. And it's an interesting idea.
You know, if you just want to expand a little bit, maybe give us a couple of those lyrics and why in these incredibly divisive times I wish more
people could hear that now.
MIRANDA: Yes. Again, it's wonderful when you find something in the work you're adapting that resonates so deeply with you. My favorite scene in the
"Warriors" is this wordless moment that Walter Hill shot. Where, you know, the Warriors have finally made that last train that goes all the way to
Stillwell Avenue in Coney Island. They're dead tired and asleep. And this pair of couples come on in kind of disco wear and they're having the time
of their lives. And you can -- and it's very clear they live in a completely different New York than the New York we've been watching for the
past 80 minutes.
And they assess each other. And there's this wordless moment, and Mercy, who has been traveling with the Warriors, starts to feel small. And Swan
grabs her arm and, you know, basically says, assert your dignity. Like, you belong on this train too. And it -- there is no dialogue in it. And so, the
challenge for us became, how do we narrate a wordless sequence on an audio album?
And so, wrote the song called "Same Train Home," which I think just -- it's such a distillation of everything I love about the city, which is that we
all come from all walks of life to be here. I think everyone -- if you grew up here, like, you're figuring out how to be yourself here and find your
New York. If you've come from somewhere else, you've come here to become yourself. And we all share that same subway and we all managed to live
mostly in peace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MIRANDA: What I love about New York, and why I could never, you know, move to places where you have to drive everywhere, is that I am in communion
with New York by virtue of the public transit system all the time. And I think, you know, I love that about our city and I love that -- and that --
and we all share struggles even though it may not seem like that on the surface.
SREENIVASAN: Eisa Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda, thank you both for joining us.
MIRANDA: Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:55:00]
AMANPOUR: And "Warriors" the album is out now. You can listen wherever you get your music.
And finally, an unexpected arrival at the COP Climate Summit is causing quite a splash. Thousands of attendees are gathering around a 52-foot
beached whale in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku. But all is not as it seems. This giant mammal isn't real. In fact, it's an art installation by a team
of eco activists. They hope it will raise awareness of the danger that climate change poses to marine life and the world's largest mammal. While
world leaders are there to find solutions, we hope they do.
That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always
catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
