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Amanpour
Interview with British Future Director Sunder Katwala; Interview with "Burn Book" Author and "On" and "Pivot" Podcast Host Kara Swisher; Interview with "The Room Next Door" Director and Writer Pedro Almodovar; Interview with Palantir Co-Founder and 8VC Managing Parter Joe Lonsdale. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired January 10, 2025 - 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)
KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We've seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Stay out of our affairs. European leaders fire back at Elon Musk's trolling. We'll discuss what his meddling means for democracy.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ingrid, do you think I need to say goodbye to my closest friends?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think you should do whatever you want to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- "The Room Next Door," filmmaker Pedro Almodovar tells me about his latest work and its focus on friendship and difficult
conversations about death.
Plus, tech billionaires for Trump 2.0? Walter Isaacson speaks to one about the big Silicon Valley switcheroo.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Ten days until Donald Trump re-enters the White House, and by his side will be
the world's richest man, Elon Musk. From over here, Musk's latest relentless political interference is raising ire and eyebrows.
Here in the U.K., he has stoked the flames of far-right anger and misinformation. He's apparently developed a fixation with Britain and a
vendetta against the current prime minister, Labour's Keir Starmer.
In a barrage of posts on X, Musk seems to have only just become aware of a two-decade old harrowing child sex abuse scandal, in which thousands of
young, mostly white British girls were exploited by grooming gangs of largely British-Pakistani men.
Posting a poll asking if Starmer's quote, "tyrannical government" should be overthrown, Musk has caused a political firestorm here, with opposition
Tories jumping on his bandwagon call for another national inquiry.
But it's not only this. Politically, Musk has thrown his full weight behind one of the most disingenuous dangerous far-right agitators in the U.K.,
Tommy Robinson, who's currently serving a prison sentence. And before the holidays, Musk sought to interfere in Germany's upcoming elections,
posting, the only thing that could save that country is the AfD, referring to Germany's far-right extremist anti-immigration party.
So, what is going on? And how long will President Trump tolerate Musk hogging all these headlines? Joining me to discuss is the longtime tech
journalist, Kara Swisher and Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think tank focused on integration and immigration. Welcome both of you to
the program.
Mr. Katwala here in the U.K. and watching closely what's happening. How influential is Musk here? How -- you know, how much trepidation should
Labour, the government and others be feeling about Musk's interference?
SUNDER KATWALA, DIRECTOR, BRITISH FUTURE: They're feeling a big dilemma about how to respond to him. He won't have the level of influence in
British society that he can have in American society, because if you're on Donald Trump's side in America, half of America is with you, and half of
America doesn't like you.
It's a much smaller group over here that likes the politics of Donald Trump, but that makes it difficult as well because he's so connected to the
American president. The British government is hoping to have a business-as- usual relationship with an American government led by Donald Trump. And so, Musk's ability to drive the news agenda here was difficult. They'd like to
laugh him off. If he's calling on the king to dissolve the parliament and hold an election, that's not going to happen.
AMANPOUR: Well, basically it can't happen. It's constitutionally ignorant.
KATWALA: It can't happen. Yes. And so, you can ignore that and not feed the troll, even if he's a billionaire. But once you get into the grooming
issue and Tommy Robinson and the kind of things that stake the rights in Britain in terms of online misinformation, they took the view that the
prime minister had to respond to defend his own record on grooming, to defend his ministers in terms of what their role had been. And so, they've
reluctantly had to engage with Elon Musk.
AMANPOUR: What is the percentage approval of Musk here?
KATWALA: Well, it's about 20 -- 16 to 20 percent. But a lot of people on the fence when he bought Twitter. 40 percent of people would don't know.
And it's now two-thirds of people don't like Elon Musk, a sixth to a fifth of people like him. And so, the more people in Britain have heard of Elon
Musk, the more they disapprove of him.
[13:05:00]
You might think he was very impressive with his cars and his rockets, but the Elon Musk that supports Donald Trump is not popular in Britain. He's
got the same kind of appeal as Donald Trump has got in Britain, and only a sixth of Britain wanted Donald Trump to be president.
AMANPOUR: So, as you said, a lot of what he issued about Starmer were -- was basically lies and misinformation, and Starmer felt he had to react,
and we're going to get into the specifics of the grooming scandal, which was two decades old, in a moment.
But I want to ask Kara Swisher, who has been interviewing Elon Musk, probably one of the first to do, so many in depth interviews with him, over
so many years. Why do you think he's developed this fixation and is really, as we all know, using lies and misinformation in this case?
KARA SWISHER, AUTHOR, "BURN BOOK" AND PODCAST HOST, "ON" AND "PIVOT": Yes. I mean, during the election, he was seen to have created most of the lies
on Twitter. You know, a lot of studies were showing that what Elon was saying. I think he's just -- it's worked in the United States. So, he's
taking his act on the road, you know.
And he feels -- he has a particular fixation with pedophilia. If you've noticed, he got into that lawsuit. He calls people that. And so, he fixates
on it quite a bit, and he finds it an effective tool when he's attacking people. And what he does is he does it in mass, in floods of it. I think
there were dozens and dozens of posts in one evening about the topic. And he does it late at night, and you can read into that anything you want, but
he does it in sort of a manic frenzy. And he thinks it's effective.
And he gets very dramatic. You know, if you don't vote for this person, all hell will break loose, the world will be over. And so, this is his style,
and I think he's been emboldened by the success of the United States. And unfortunately, some of this stuff seems to work overtime as people start to
hear misinformation mixed in with facts.
AMANPOUR: And, Kara, while we're on this subject, I want to know whether you think some of it is also business based, because clearly the British
government has got regulations, and it's -- you know, Europe has regulations about content, Brazil had -- I mean, he's been in a big fight
about this for a while now, and he resents Starmer for some of those regulations that the various parties have tried to bring in. Do you think
that's also part of it?
SWISHER: I think everything is about that. Everything he does across the globe is about -- buying Twitter, everything else has to do with his
businesses. And you can always trace it back to something that will advantage his businesses, any of his businesses. And so, probably the
Online Safety Act there, your version of it, we have one in this country, is -- it probably irks him. I think Twitter -- X has some problems with
that.
Regulation is another thing. He doesn't want to be -- he's unbound. He sees himself -- you know, he's a big video game player. He sees himself as Ready
Player One all across the globe, and he wants a global impact.
Now, what's happened here is he invested $250 million dollars in the -- in Donald Trump, and I use the word invested correctly, and his wealth rose by
$200 billion, and it was already at $200 billion, and now he has more money than ever to do it. And so, he sees it as an acceptable risk to flame you,
to do toxic nonsense, to do misinformation, to put out stuff that people are on edge about, everyone's on edge about child sexual abuse, no matter -
- even if it's 20 years old, and he takes a little grain of that and eats at people, you know, and that's his method.
He did it here about immigration, about gay people, about trans people. He attacks and he attacks and he attacks, and it tends -- it can work in many
instances for him and Donald Trump.
AMANPOUR: And for Donald Trump as well, who's one of his slogans is attack, attack, attack. But here, Sunder Katwala, can we talk about the
grooming scandal, which apparently Americans have a lot of disinformation about, and so does Musk. But it did happen. It's a two-decade old issue. It
-- and I want you to explain it, and I want you to explain Keir Starmer's role when he was head of the crown prosecution, i.e., prosecuting the
pedophiles and the gangs. And actually, in pockets, it continues to happen. So, what is the actual fact?
KATWALA: It is a harrowing story. This society was slow to act on the abuse of children. It happened in lots of different types of settings. It
happened a lot in care homes. It happened a lot in state schools and private schools. It happened in churches, and the archbishop of Canterbury
has just resigned. Local government, police forces, schools, they often cover things up. It also happened in minority communities, and there was
therefore a sort of political correctness concern about saying, might it be divisive to look into this?
But there was also a political incorrectness, really, that vulnerable women, young girls, were not being trusted because they were from poorer
backgrounds, they were not being taken seriously, and things were being swept under the carpet.
Starmer was the director of public prosecutions, and he inherited this issue, and he got the prosecutions going of gangs, because you had to
believe victims, even if they were not particularly credible witnesses, because they were too young to consent. And so, you got the first
prosecutions.
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And when that happened, The Times newspaper spotted the pattern. And we got a national issue out of it, and we got inquiries in Rotherham 10 years ago
that were well reported on CNN and in America --
AMANPOUR: Indeed. and I'm glad you say that because one of Musk's columnies, frankly, is to say the mainstream media, either, i.e., us, and
others, never dealt with it. But we did. In fact, I interviewed the reporter of The Times when he broke this story.
Can you address the issue, Mr. Katwala, of the minority aspect of this? Because, again, this whole anti-immigration frenzy is suggesting that it's
all by and large, you know, Muslim against, you know, Christian white in this country.
KATWALA: The data was very poor, and the inquiry said we needed to collect much data. There are grooming gangs from all backgrounds, and there are a
large number of grooming backgrounds that are British-Asian and British- Pakistani. And the issue is if you're not policing something well, then you might get cultures.
Now, if there are people taking part in group-based individual offending, not individual offending, there must be a cultural practice. That means
that that is allowed to happen. We've just seen the trial in France. There's a culture of sexual abuse and misogyny in France. There's a culture
of sexual abuse and misogyny in traditional British Asian communities that has been challenged by women in those communities --
AMANPOUR: You are of South Asian heritage. Does this --
KATWALA: Yes.
AMANPOUR: I mean, your parents came from India. Does this offend you?
KATWALA: No, but I think we've got to discuss it. Actually, my father's from India. My mother's from Southern Ireland. So, I was brought up Irish
Catholic. When there's scandal in the Irish Catholic Church, there were cultural issues about the way the Catholic Church responded. When there
were scandals in Asian communities, there were cultural issues. Because in every community can sweep things under the carpet.
We need to listen to victims. We support, you know, feminists and women in Asian communities that wanted this dealt with and councils and police
forces were too slow to act. Here's (INAUDIBLE) Asian prosecutor who got the things to happen.
It's actually an ethnic stereotype if you say you're not going to police it to not offend the community. You know, rape and child abuse needs to be
rooted out everywhere. So, Musk has got it the wrong way around. Keir Starmer was the change maker. He brought about changes to prosecute it
better. The whole system has got better now, but we've still got to be very, very vigilant about child abuse in our society.
AMANPOUR: So, Kara Swisher, when Musk is confronted with the truth rather than the lies and the misinformation that he's spreading, what is his
reaction? Does he apologize and correct or not?
SWISHER: No. No. Never. No. Why should he? He's as rich as can be. He can withstand any lawsuit. He's won lawsuits where he attacked the diving, when
he had the diving lawsuit with the person he called a pedophile, who wasn't, obviously. He won. He won that case.
And so, he's very emboldened. He's a -- you know, the positive part of Donald -- I mean, excuse me, of Elon Musk is that he's a risk taker -- the
negative part is that he's a risk taker and he has unlimited funds. He doesn't care. He just moves on to the next slur.
He -- when he -- when Paul Pelosi was attacked in the United States by someone who had real problems, Elon Musk put up a tweet that said it was
part of a gay love triangle. He didn't care. And he linked it. He put up a tweet that linked to a story. He didn't say it himself, but he just did it.
He does this all the time. He says -- and then I'll say concerning or something like that.
And so, he just puts it out there and he doesn't ever pay the price. He often -- he's very clever about how he does it.
AMANPOUR: Let me quote to you, Kara, something that Baroness Beeban Kidron put out. She's in the House of Lords. She's also very prominent in the
online safety and that whole movement and getting it all past parliament. This is something she said just recently. Musk trolling British politicians
and developing a sudden interest in child sexual abuse victims and Zuckerberg rowing back content moderation to follow X into a vehicle for
the right are performative acts of businesses to curry favor with the new U.S. Administration. Much like the threat to buy Greenland or occupy the
Panama Canal. They're deliberately prosperous, loud, designed to unsettle the world order.
So, how worried should smart people be or how worried should anybody be?
SWISHER: Everybody should be worried. They're -- they have unlimited funds, $400 billion. A single person on this planet has that. There's a
good debate to be had if someone should have $400 billion. But he's -- you know, they've bought adjacency to Donald Trump, the original coin op
president. And he -- they are in positions of power with unlimited funds, a proclivity for litigation. So, to quiet people. And they don't care about
the topics.
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Every single thing goes to some sort of business thing they want in some fashion or that they don't want to pay the price. In Mark Zuckerberg's
case, he doesn't want to police his site. It costs money. He's saving billions of dollars. His stock will go up.
This is all about -- and I don't mean to say they so much want money. They don't want to be fettered and they want to do what they want. They are -- I
often call them, as you know, Christiane, adult toddlers. They want to do - - they're adult toddlers with a huge bank account and a giant ship on their shoulders, especially Musk. And they will do what they want. And it's very
frightening, actually, in many ways.
AMANPOUR: And so, of course, in the United States, Kara, they have used Donald Trump as a vehicle for this business, you know, thing that you were
just talking about.
SWISHER: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So, Sunder Katwala, in Europe --
SWISHER: A partner.
AMANPOUR: Yes, go ahead.
SWISHER: A partner.
AMANPOUR: A partner.
SWISHER: Partner.
AMANPOUR: Right.
SWISHER: You know, I mean, it's a trade. It's a trade. It's a trade of money for influence. Attention for influence. He is very loud on Twitter
and he's made it so that everybody has to listen to him. Also, he's manipulated the algorithm in that way.
And so, it's a really -- it's a dangerous situation that Troika of people, that -- absolutely. And then, I'd add on Putin. I mean, that's who has
control over the information system.
AMANPOUR: I mean, this is so fundamental. And when you just said the algorithm, he actually went and changed the algorithm after he saw
President Biden getting more attention for a particular tweet than he did.
SWISHER: That's correct.
AMANPOUR: He left a game and went and changed the algorithm to have it reflect on him, Elon Musk I'm talking about, to make his tweets more
popular.
SWISHER: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So, here in Europe --
SWISHER: He wants to do more.
AMANPOUR: Yes, go ahead.
SWISHER: Can I add one more thing?
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SWISHER: TikTok is about -- the TikTok case is going to the Supreme Court. It's there this week. And what if he allowed Elon to buy TikTok? Think
about that. What if he got the inside track to buy TikTok in this fight that's going on about who owns TikTok?
AMANPOUR: Wow.
SWISHER: Think about that.
AMANPOUR: Wow.
SWISHER: Just think about it.
AMANPOUR: I'm thinking about it right now. And I want to just bring it back to you, Mr. Katwala, because all of that, but it is having a political
effect, potentially. What he said, for instance, about Tommy Robinson, the far-right guy here, who he's backing against Nigel Farage, who's, you know,
Mr. Right-Wing and Brexit. And what he said about the AfD, the far-right extremist, you know, heirs of a very ugly tradition in Germany. He said
they could save Germany.
Where is that going to lead, do you think, politically overseas here?
KATWALA: I think he's going to struggle to have the impact in Europe, in Britain, in Germany, that he's got in America, because he doesn't know
enough about Britain and Germany. So, when he says to Germans, I don't know why the AfD is extreme, they look like Obama's Democrats to me, then
Germans know who the AfD are, and so, it's Musk that's being isolated.
He's made a mistake in ditching Nigel Farage for Tommy Robinson. Nigel Farage is a polarizing popular and unpopular politician that a quarter of
people might vote for and that they could say Musk's millions might make Nigel Farage Prime Minister and he's always stayed away from Tommy Robinson
because Nigel Farage thinks when you're with Tommy Robinson whose reputation is extremism, racism, football hooliganism then you're a 5
percent politician.
So, Musk has actually taken himself outside of mainstream politics by attacking Farage for not backing Robinson. So, it shows that this attempt
to be the sort of Citizen Kane of the world isn't going to work if you're not credible in the countries you're trying to influence. We could treat
him like a pantomime Bond villain, except it will stoke up violence at the extreme end as the sort we saw in Britain. So, it's not that he's going to
change our government, but he can make our society more dangerous.
AMANPOUR: And very finally, Kara, very short from you. How long do you think Trump is going to put up with this?
SWISHER: Well, that's the big question. I just interviewed Maggie Haberman. She thought Trump is already irritated. And Trump is a one ring
circus, right? And so, if Elon oversteps himself -- the problem is he's very wealthy and he's very useful to be a cudgel financially and from an
information point of view to do that. And so, he's a very useful character.
And by the way, it's interesting because he's fighting with Steve Bannon, who was the last person that was shoved out for taking too much attention,
Elon and Steve Bannon are fighting. And so, you know, this is going to be a really interesting situation. But in the end, the guy with the most money
has an enormous and the most -- the loudest thing. And I would say, I think he could possibly work there.
This thing is like the drip, drip, drip of a of a flood that suddenly becomes really problematic, and I think that's what you need to worry about
is they don't like them now but it grows, it is like mold and it grows, and it's very deleterious to your society, even if right now people don't like
it.
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: It's an incredibly important conversation and we can't just dismiss it. Kara Swisher, Sunder Katwala, thank you so much for joining us
and explaining all the ins and outs.
Another issue heavily debated here in Europe, the USA, and now Britain, is assisted dying. Late last year, parliament here voted in favor of a bill to
legalize it in England and Wales. It'll face further debate, scrutiny, and votes before it becomes law. And assisted dying is the central theme in a
new film, called "The Room Next Door" is the latest and first in English from the celebrated, Oscar winning Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar.
Here's a clip from the trailer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The snow was falling, falling faintly through the universe, and faintly falling on all the living and the dead.
Ingrid, do you think I need to say goodbye to my closest friends?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think you should do whatever you want to do. I will not go out in mortifying anguish. I don't know what to say.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm hoping you'll say yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes to what?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Two great actresses starring. And Almodovar joined me from Madrid to discuss this latest work and the incredible social and political
waves that he's been riding and perhaps even guiding since he started in film five decades ago.
Pedro Almodovar, welcome to the program. You are such a legend in this industry and in the cultural world. You're a two-time Oscar winner, and you
came onto the film scene right after the fall of the Franco dictatorship. And you grew up in Spain during that dictatorship.
When I spoke to Antonio Banderas about the film "Pain and Glory" that he did with you, this is what he told me about your role in Spanish history
and not just film history. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONIO BANDERAS, ACTOR, "PAIN AND GLORY": Pedro Almodovar started working and doing movies only five years after General Franco died in Spain. The
country was, you know, very conservative at the time, very monolithic. And so, figures like Pedro Almodovar at the time were needed. Were needed just
to change the mind of people in many different aspects. You know, the morality of the country, sexuality, a number of things.
And Pedro Almodovar has been, in a way, the peak of a pyramid of people who actually collaborated to do so. You know, to do a better Spain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: That's a great tribute. And I wonder if you ever think about that, that your films and your choice and your storytelling was not just
great movie making, but it really moves Spain forward into a more democratic and tolerant reality.
PEDRO ALMODOVAR, DIRECTOR AND WRITER, "THE ROOM NEXT DOOR": I think Antonio is very generous with me. I mean, Spain changed at that moment. So,
I was not the only one working with this kind of freedom and doing things completely new that we couldn't do it before, because we were under a
dictatorship.
I don't want to think that I'm like the leader of this change because it was the whole country changing. And of course -- I mean, the Spanish
society was conservative, part of them was conservative, because they became -- I mean, they came from the dictatorship and they were silent. But
the other part of the Spain that it was, at that moment, bigger was waiting for the change.
So, I was in tune with this new mentality, with this new culture. And but - - I mean, I feel like -- I don't want to be too arrogant saying that I was the leader of that. I was, of course, very visible and my movies really
represent the change that we experimented at the moment.
AMANPOUR: Your latest film, which we want to talk about, is called "The Room Next Door." It's really quite an amazing film. You have two massive
actresses, Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. And it's about death. Why did you choose the subject of death?
ALMODOVAR: Yes. Well, everything started when I read the book of Sigrid Nunez called "What Are You Going Through," in the middle of the book, then
I found a chapter when there is a character, the character of Tilda, Martha, that is very sick. And Julianne Moore, character, Ingrid, goes to
visit her at the hospital.
[13:25:00]
So, that sick -- that part really moved me. And then, I thought it was a good reason to start analyzing this situation. But basically, I made and I
select this novel -- I mean, the adaptation of this novel. When Martha has a meeting with her friend and tells her that she decided just to make
euthanasia and that she both appeal to do it and that she asked her to be living with her in the room next door.
AMANPOUR: It is very profound. And you make Martha, the Tilda Swinton character, who's dying and wants to essentially have the possibility of
ending her life on her own terms, you make her a war correspondent. And we have one clip that we've been given from the production, which goes to the
heart of her character's troubled relationship with her own daughter. I'm going to play that clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are very few women war correspondents. War is a man's thing. You have to sort of become one of the guys, and it was never a
problem for me. I've always looked like a man. Actually, I think what Michelle really missed was having a maternal figure in her life. And in
this, I must admit, she was right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't be so hard on yourself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: What was it about the Tilda character that moved you, the Martha character? And why make her a war correspondent?
ALMODOVAR: I read many books about war reporter, and at the end of the day, it was such an awful experience that men and women, all of them
together, they need to -- I mean, they drink a lot. And if you -- if I can say, they make love a lot. So, that's why I say -- that's why she said
that. And I can understand that.
That is -- I mean, sex becomes like a celebration of life because you are alive. It's a demonstration also for you, that you are alive. And Hilda has
this kind of unique personality of being someone very brave, very peculiar, also that sometimes Martha jokes about her condition.
I mean, this is one character that I could do it in the Spanish, but Tilda was perfect for that. She's physically very peculiar. And also, she has
this kind of sense of humor. And it -- at least it gives me the impression of being someone very brave, very courageous.
AMANPOUR: The film is littered with references to death, not just Martha's condition and what she wants to do, euthanasia, but you've got James Joyce,
you know, referred to his short story, "The Dead." John Huston's final movie, "The Dead." Martha Gellhorn is mentioned, who killed herself when
she had cancer. I want to know how you're feeling about death and mortality.
ALMODOVAR: I feel like a kid, like a child. I cannot accept it and also, I cannot understand it. You know, I don't -- I'm a non-believer. I mean,
Spain is a non-confessional country, but the majority are Catholic, are -- but I'm not. I don't -- I never believed in God.
So, I feel really with -- I mean, I don't have any support because religions of any credo are wonderful for that moment. I mean, I really
would like to believe because that really helps you basically just at the last moments, but I don't have that. I'm an atheist. So, I mean, at this
moment, this is still a problem for me.
It's true that with this movie, I was very close to the Ingrid -- to Ingrid's character, and I also -- I was closer to accept death and to
understand it. But after making the movie, you know, I -- in my -- among the friends of mine, there was a big loss, and then I realized that I feel
the same in front of mortality. I feel that the like -- she said, I don't understand it. And I think it's like a contradiction for something -- that
something that is alive should die.
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: You know, you mentioned your friend and we know because it was reported, and of course we give you our sympathies. Marisa Paredes, who
died suddenly in December. I guess you must be processing her death and the loss of this friend and this person who you worked with so much.
You have her, Penelope Cruz, a group of women I, I don't know, the Chicas Almodovar, who are so identified with you, with your film, with your work,
and who are so faithful and loyal to you and your vision. It's really an incredible grouping, really. How does that figure in your life?
ALMODOVAR: I think I was very lucky because all of them, they are very good actresses. I was lucky to work with the best Spanish actresses. They
are more that I didn't work, but I mean, Penelope, Julieta Serrano, Marisa Paredes, Chus Lampreave, Elena Anaya, many, many, many of the actresses I
was very lucky.
And it's -- you know, we leave our work like in the theater. I mean, you have a company of theater and a stable company. We feel like being part of
one stable company to make movies. So, we still been friends. The -- if there is always a character that they can do it, I always -- absolutely, I
asked them.
And yes, the last of Marisa was, you know, this -- the example that are something that I can't understand. I didn't believe that that she died like
that in one day for another day. I mean -- so, well, I'm working on that, you know, because I don't want to -- because that feelings -- that feeling
make me feel weak. And this is a sensation that I don't want to have. Because I want to -- I mean, to keep on working, and without any fear.
AMANPOUR: I understand. I want to ask you something because I think it's related. You know, this film and what you've just gone through, obviously,
are very deep, very tragic, deals with death. Many of your other films have dealt with, you know, a lot of very, very difficult parts of the human
experience and yet, we always, always, always see you emblazoned in color. You're wearing an incredible sweater right now. Your background is bright
pink. Tilda Swinton was dressed in bright, bright colors.
Tell me about color, because it's unavoidable. We can't avoid commenting about it and luxuriating in it
ALMODOVAR: Yes. You know, I mean, this movie, just because of the subject, I tried to make it very austere in the narrative, but I didn't include the
colors. I mean, I think he's more austere, more sober than the other movie, but the palette of colors are the same, and I kind of -- and this is the
way that I make movies, with bright colors.
And the -- and also, in this case, I want that and not to be dark or creepy because the decision to die is a sign of vitalism. I mean, it is taken by
Martha in a very vital way. So, I wanted to give the impression of vitality in this last period of her life in the house of the (INAUDIBLE), just to
represent the character of Martha.
Because I think, really, that -- I mean, the person should have the honor of our life or his life or our life, but we also have to be the owner of
our death just when -- in the case of Martha, when life only offers you an awful pain. So, I think this is a human right.
AMANPOUR: I wanted to ask you about the human right that you talk about and the political process around euthanasia. As you know, there's a bill --
or you may know, there's a bill on this issue going through the U.K. parliament. There's several states in the United States that allow it. But
in general, it's considered illegal. And of course, in the film, that was part of the issue. Are you also trying to kind of talk about the politics
around this issue?
[13:35:00]
ALMODOVAR: Yes, yes, absolutely. I think it's very unfair. I mean, the problem -- everybody knows that you don't want to see, I mean, your family,
I mean, your lovers, your partner, your friend, suffering. And so, I mean, it's very human to decide it. If you can decide it and you can do it with a
doctor.
But the problem -- I mean, we have a law with Spain of euthanasia, is legal in Spain, but the reality is that sometimes, you know, the doctors doesn't
want to do it with a person that is ill. Conscious objectors, you know. And then, it's the same that happened with the abortion. I mean, some doctors
refused to do it because of their conscience.
So, I mean, when I -- I mean, this is a problem always with religion, because the -- talking about Catholic people. I mean, they think that God
gives you the life and only he can take it away. What I ask -- because this is something that you have to face it in a human way, not in a political
way.
AMANPOUR: And finally, Pedro Almodovar, I want to ask you, what is your next film project? Can you tell us? What are you -- what's on your -- that
amazing mind of yours now?
ALMODOVAR: Oh, thank you. Thank you for the amazing mind. Well, hey, my amazing mind has already wrote a new script. I mean, I did it in just --
the former year. And this case -- it will be, again, about female universe, but they are there will be more male present than in the last one.
It's about something that I always -- in my movies that I'm very curious, I'm very interested, about the creation. In this case, the creation of a
movie or the creation of a script. And in the case of the movie that I'm going to do, is talking about something that you don't know what are the
limits. I'm talking about the auto fiction, self-fiction.
When you talk about your life in terms of fiction, but there are other people that are -- the people that belongs also to your life but it's very
delicate balance. That if you have the right to talk about the others or not.
AMANPOUR: Will it be in English or in Spanish?
ALMODOVAR: In Spanish. It's in Spanish.
AMANPOUR: All right. Pedro Almodovar, thank you so much indeed for this conversation.
ALMODOVAR: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much to you.
AMANPOUR: Now, we've heard a lot of discussion about how Silicon Valley has gone all in for Trump 2.0 compared to the distance the tech bros kept
during his first term. And it's not just Elon Musk. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has made the pilgrimage and the pro-Trump changes to content checking.
And now, Joe Lonsdale, a billionaire Silicon Valley investor, tells Walter Isaacson why he thinks so many tech leaders are making this switch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Joe Lonsdale. Welcome to the show.
JOE LONSDALE, CO-FOUNDER, PALANTIR AND MANAGING PARTER, 8VC: Thanks. Good to be with you.
ISAACSON: Let's talk about the big news this past week, which is Mark Zuckerberg deciding that Facebook is no longer going to moderate content.
All of Meta is going to move away from that. Tell me -- that's something you've been pushing for in terms of free speech. Tell me what you think of
that and what the dangers might be.
LONSDALE: You know, we've been talking about this for years. It's been a battle for the last 10 years, Walter. And this is a huge victory for the
side of free speech. You know, there's a big vibe shift with President Trump's victory, with Elon, he has been pushing really hard on this. You
know, there's been a bunch of us pushing, but he's obviously the biggest champion, and it's great.
Mark's basically given it and said, you know what, I was wrong. And, you know, people do not trust my sensors anymore. We're going to completely
redo it. We're going to follow Elon's lead. So, this was a big debate in our society.
And, you know, it takes a lot of confidence to admit you lost and that what you were doing wasn't correct. And I have to laud Zuckerberg for that.
Obviously, a lot of people are attacking him for only doing it after Trump won, but you know what, he said, this is the will of the people. I've lost
the debate and I want to be trusted again. And I think that's a great thing.
[13:40:00]
ISAACSON: OK. But let's look at some of the potential downsides. Aren't there certain things, even say, financial scams or crypto scams or drug
scams or something, don't those have to be weeded out?
LONSDALE: You know, I think there are definitely weird scams, illegal things, bad things people try to do. You definitely want to try to ban
those accounts for doing scams. And I think X tries to do that as well. This is a very, very tough game to get right. I don't think Facebook ever
got that fully right. I don't think X got that fully right. I don't think other websites have got that fully right. I think everyone's --
ISAACSON: Well, wait, tell me what you mean with X and Facebook haven't gotten it fully right.
LONSDALE: I mean, you're you basically have these very complicated algorithms, right? So, you have billions of posts, probably hundreds of
billions of posts, I'm not in charge, it's a large number, and you have -- no matter how many people you have, no matter how many algorithms you have,
you're going to have to make some tradeoffs, right?
So, even if you're saying you're going to allow free speech, obviously you're going to have algorithms that -- the stop child abuse material,
right, no matter who you are, that's not acceptable, and you have to set these things somewhere. You're going to try to stop people who are posting
spammy stuff all the time. You're trying to -- any account caught doing a scam, you have to turn off. It's illegal, right?
So, you're still following the law. You're still doing your very best. So, no matter how -- no matter what you're doing, it's actually quite a
challenge. It's really fun for us to sit on the sidelines and criticize these guys and say, well, you're doing this wrong. It's really hard to be
in charge of these platforms and actually get it right.
And I'm not -- you know, I (INAUDIBLE) what Elon was doing than what Zuck was doing, but I know Zuck pretty well for a long time. And he would get
attacked from the left, he would get attacked from the right. It's a hard thing to get these things right.
ISAACSON: You've been a fighter, a crusader against the woke mind virus. First of all, I'd love you to explain exactly what you mean by that. But
also, I've never seen or rarely seen a pendulum swing as fast as it has against that type of thinking. Do you worry that the pendulum may swing too
far in some ways?
LONSDALE: So, you know, Walter, I'm worried that the pendulum is swinging culturally, but that we're not actually expunging these ideologies that
have conquered our institutions. And so, if you go around the country and you see what's happened, you know, most of our university departments in
the liberal arts, whether it's history or sociology or education or so many other areas, you know, so many of these parts of our government
institutions, so many of our NGOs were conquered by this woke mind virus, which is very focused on identity politics. It comes from a form of
Marxism. It's very focused on cancel culture. It's very much against the U.S. and it is very guilt ridden. It's very driven by fear.
ISAACSON: I've understood, you know, the vibe shift in terms of the things that you talk about, such as identity politics. And I also weigh that
against things that have been a problem in our society, including racism or the headwinds that somebody in New Orleans here, born black in the Ninth
Ward faces compared to what you and I do. How do we make sure that we don't sort of lose a balance here?
LONSDALE: No, 100 percent, Walter. And there was -- the truth is that there was an extraordinary racism that hurt a lot of communities. These
communities are still damaged from racism that happened, you know -- as far as I could tell, I think the racism was much, much, much worse in the past.
It doesn't mean there's not racism today, but I think it was much worse in the past.
And you know, all of us, you know, should see that and should want people to make sure they have opportunity. At the same time, the answer to racism
is not more racism. And I think that was a huge mistake our society has made the last 20 years. And I think it's actually increased a lot of racial
animus in our country because we started doing things like DEI and like, otherwise, that actively discriminated against white men, that actively
discriminated against people who are successful like Asians and others.
And that's actually, if anything, like, not only has it attacked merit and broken a lot of things, which is terrible. Lots of things with (INAUDIBLE)
are very broken, as we see from the fires going on this week in L.A. based on terrible policy, and as we see from all sorts of messes. But it's also
actually created more racism and more problems for people.
So, I agree that we need to treat everyone right, and we need to not kind of swing away from helping people, but we do not need to keep doing this
racism, because that actually breaks things more.
ISAACSON: Some of your friends in the tech world, obviously most Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and others, are part of this government efficiency,
DOGE program. well named I guess. And you've been involved with all of these people. What do you think's going to happen there? And what's the
goal there?
LONSDALE: You know, our government is the least efficient part of our society. There are literally trillions of dollars wasted on things. You
constantly see, Walter, when we -- you know, tens of billions of dollars for something that never happens with, you know, electric charging
infrastructure, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars for a train that basically just pays money to lawyers, but doesn't actually build much at
all. The list goes on and on and on.
We -- there are so many parts of our society where the cost is going up because government's involved and it's crushing the middle class, it's
crushing the working class, and this is unnecessary. We don't need this waste. And so, what's going to happen there is they're going to go in and
they're going to look at this, they're going to say, like what parts of the bureaucracy are able to be more efficient, what parts of the bureaucracy
have not been coming to work at all, frankly, for the last five or six years, or just getting a paycheck while working on the side, which is a lot
of people and what things can we cut?
[13:45:00]
And by the way, you know, NGOs, non-government organizations, or nonprofits that get a lot of money from our government, a lot of them are radical
ideologues, a lot of them are being paid to teach people to fake asylum. They're being paid to cause all sorts of messes in our cities. A lot of
this stuff needs to be made accountable and it needs to be turned off.
And then -- so a lot of us are really excited to go in there and actually apply merit, apply logic, just fix a lot of this broken stuff.
ISAACSON: Are you going to be involved?
LONSDALE: I have a lot of my really good friends involved, and I've passed them a bunch of ideas, and I'm publishing a bunch of ideas. So -- and I'm
going to keep having conversations with them. I have a full-time job. Running my venture capital firm, building companies here in the U.S. And
we're starting a new university here. So, I'm quite busy, but I'm really excited to be helping my friends because there's a lot to fix and I'm
really passionate about making government work for everyone.
If there's going to be great cuts in government spending of the order that's been talked about, it probably is going to have to come some from
the Defense Department as well. And you are a co-founder of Palantir which is trying to find both machine learning and new ways to do war fighting.
Tell me how you think that's going to play out. Should we get rid of things like the F-35 plane? Should we have a new version of warfare? And will that
save money?
LONSDALE: Yes. So, defense is a huge area that could be a lot more efficient, Walter. A lot -- there's really a battle going on in the
background defense, you know, all these legacy companies merged to form what are called the primes in the '90s and the Cold War ended. And Palantir
and SpaceX were the first two companies to break through sort of become new primes since then. It was very difficult the way the laws were set up. We
had to be very persistent.
There's now multiple new ones coming up to compete like Anduril, Saronic, Epris (ph), things like that. Just really cool new technology, far more
advanced than the old primes. And there's a huge battle because these little primes have set things up to get paid cost plus. And so, their
incentives have been to make things 10 times more expensive than they need to be and then make lots of rules.
ISAACSON: Well, should we just get rid of cost plus contracts?
LONSDALE: You know, I think there are very, very few areas where it makes sense. I think there's very, very specific commodity like areas where it
may make sense, but for anything innovative, for anything with software, cost plus does not make sense. And of course, it's more complicated.
There's all sorts of other areas.
Like between you and me, there's bases that are great for the economy of like local rural areas that clearly don't add to our defense. And so, just
like we have entitlements that are a form of welfare, certain parts of military spending, if we're honest, are a form of welfare. They're not
actually about terrifying our enemies, they're about doing things to kind of help communities.
And I think helping communities is great, but if we're going to have to cut back, we need to be reasonable, which part of defense is scaring our
enemies and is protecting America and which part, you know, has some room maybe to cut, because it's not actually doing the things defense is
supposed to be doing? And these are tough conversations we will have to have at some point.
ISAACSON: You talk about entitlements and that's sort of the really big hunk of spending.
LONSDALE: It's 3.8 -- yes. 3.8 trillion of the 6.5 trillion is the entitlements.
ISAACSON: And so, can that be cut significantly without hurting people?
LONSDALE: You know, there's probably about $300 billion, so the 3.8 trillion, like 0.3 of that trillion is probably fraud. There's a massive,
massive amount of scams in Medicare and Medicaid. There's huge numbers of Chinese spy rings and other kinds of groups claiming things. There's
Mexican cartels involved in this as well. There's all sorts of people illegally getting money for things. There's people who were found to be
dead for years. Their kids are getting the money. I mean -- and we have not applied anti-fraud.
Like in business, Walter, whether when we were at PayPal, all sorts of other companies in Silicon Valley have gotten really, really good
understanding how fraud works and how clever people are to steal money. The government hasn't applied anything.
Ten years ago, I talked to President Obama about this and he agreed with me. He wanted to do it. His staff blocked it because they thought it would
look bad if we spent time, you know, showing off how much fraud there is. And so, this fraud's only grown. So, yes, we could definitely cut a huge
amount of fraud if we let us, and I hope we can do it this time.
ISAACSON: But fraud, even at best, is $300 billion, and you'll, you know, chip away at it. Is there something more fundamental about entitlements
that you think should be cut?
LONSDALE: You know, on the margin, there's things I think everyone agrees with. I'm not sure that millionaires should be getting unemployment
insurance. If I were to lose my job I -- you know, I'll make it, you don't need to give me unemployment insurance, which right now you would, and --
that's kind of actually cost us a lot of money per year. There's a lot of silly marginal things like that tied to entitlements that are easy to fix
along with a fraud.
In terms of the bigger cuts, you know, there's so many other areas right now where I think we could save half a trillion to a trillion dollars that
I think this administration is -- President Trump has said he's going to focus on areas other than court entitlements to fix right now. And so,
that's what we're going to do, and our job is to follow the president.
ISAACSON: What about taking out regulations? To what extent -- let's take healthcare, for example. To what extent could you have a significant impact
with deregulation?
LONSDALE: Yes, the healthcare and regulation is one of my favorite areas. I'm glad you asked. You know, I think everyone agrees you want to have
enough rules to protect people. You don't want some kind of crazy wild west here.
At the same time, what happens in the regulatory state, Walter, is these things just agglomerate over time, where there's tens of thousands and
hundreds of thousands of rules. And you know who lobbies for the rules? It's the giant companies. It's UnitedHealthcare. It's the health systems
who don't want competition.
[13:50:00]
And so, right now in America, we have all sorts of new technologies. For example, if someone has diabetes, there's a really good chance they get
diabetic retinopathy, which makes them go blind. And it turns out, you know, we have a company that -- with A.I. plus a nurse in any rural area
could check that and could stop you from going blind. But there's all sorts of rules stopping people from paying for it because it's A.I., stopping
people from paying for it if a doctor's not present, and that makes it way more expensive.
And so, there's that times 10,000 where health care ends up just getting much more expensive because of all these captured Crony rules, and there's
tens of thousands of those. And so, yes, I'm really excited to force that, to open it up, to let people compete with health systems in ways they don't
want competition. But if we don't do that, the cost is going to keep going up. So, yes, this is a huge issue for our country.
ISAACSON: Palantir has been at the forefront of using technology and machine learning for everything from military uses, government uses,
intelligence uses. I'm -- I was always struck by the fact that you all named it Palantir, out of "Lord of the Rings."
LONSDALE: Indeed.
ISAACSON: Which is a sort of a protection stone. But as you remember from the book, all of a sudden that can go wrong. The bad guys can get it.
LONSDALE: That's the warning.
ISAACSON: Are you worried about that?
LONSDALE: That's the warning built in. You know, Palantir and the book was built 2000 years ago by these like good elves partner with the good humans.
And they clean the land of bad guys. And they had a golden age for a very long time. And what happens is eventually a bad guy gets in charge of the
Palantir stones. And that causes obviously very serious problems.
And that was actually explicitly one of the reasons we built Palantir. It wasn't just to stop the bad guys, which we did, we have to eliminate
thousands of terrorists and we have to prevent huge numbers of attacks. But what we were also trying to do is build into Palantir the audit trails and
the frameworks to protect civil liberties and to create no matter who uses it, people can go back and see how it was used. The people at the top and
watch the watchers.
And you know what, there's no perfect solution for humanity with power, Walter. If you figure it out, you let me know because, you know, by
creating power for the good guys and trying to make it watch as much as possible, trying to let everyone know what the rules are, that's the best
we could do. And it has done a lot of good. And all of us have to be wary of the power of government.
ISAACSON: One of the big differences between the first Trump term and this upcoming Trump term is that this time around, there's a whole lot of tech
innovators, people like your friends and even yourself, who are going to be involved in it. How do you think that's going to make this upcoming term
different than the first term? And what guardrails should there be with around all these ideas?
LONSDALE: You know, Walter, it's funny because I think there's a lot of different ways of seeing things in the technology world. But to be maybe a
little bit obnoxious for a second, the people who are building these technology companies in our generation, these are the most courageous
people in our generation. These are the boldest people in our generation. These are people who are comfortable taking risks, putting themselves out
there, in some cases failing and failing before they succeeded. And that's a really important and healthy thing to have in leadership.
When you have things as broken as they are in our government, when you have regularly tens of billions of dollars lit on fire, when you massive
failures in the Secret Service, massive failures in terms of what the FBI and others were focusing on, when you have, you know, terrorists being let
in on our borders because things are being run so badly, you need bold people, you need competent people who are willing to change things
aggressively.
And so, you know, this is a really important time to go in and fix and change things. And I mean, we have some great leaders going in who have run
big companies, who do know how to put boundaries in place and do know how to, you know, make things work. And I'm really excited to see them there.
ISAACSON: Well, as you know, Elon Musk talks about being a nation of risk takers, and that we have too many referees now, and not enough risk takers.
LONSDALE: That's great.
ISAACSON: But on the other hand, you know, he feels you need some guardrails.
LONSDALE: Of course.
ISAACSON: Are there going to be enough guardrails in the second Trump term?
LONSDALE: Of course. And, you know, listen, America is a great nation because of its frontier mindset, Walter. America has always had a frontier,
whether the frontier is the west, whether frontier is outer space. But that mindset of being able to try things and do things that fail is really
important. And you always have a balance between entrepreneurship and guardrails.
You know, when I first did one of my first companies, I was on a call, I think it was American Express at the time with the late CEO. And there were
I think 22 lawyers on the call and I was just blown away. Like that's what happens when something gets to be too big. You get 22 lawyers to get
anything done. And it's comical, but it's how it works.
And you know, there probably shouldn't be zero lawyers. There probably should be a few of them checking things over, but you probably don't want
22. And he's right, there's way too many referees. Does that mean we get rid of everything and just go crazy? No.
But, you know, Elon -- maybe Elon and I are 21. I wouldn't trust me at 21 doing this and running the country. I wouldn't trust him either 21 because
you're so entrepreneurial. You're on the extreme. You're like, screw all the bureaucrats, screw all the lawyers. I don't want anything.
But, you know, if you've built companies and you've run them for -- and you're in -- you're older and you've experienced this, it's a balance you
want to have. You want to have some people who are checking things, you want to have some really strong entrepreneurial energy. And right now, our
government just entirely lost in entrepreneurial side. It's entirely the team of the thousands of lawyers and we need to balance that out. And so,
this is a great direction we're going right now.
[13:55:00]
ISAACSON: Joe Lonsdale, thank you for joining us.
LONSDALE: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And that's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can
always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media.
Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
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