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Amanpour
Interview with Former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary for International Security Affairs Celeste A. Wallander; Interview with Republicans Overseas U.K. Chair Greg Swenson; Interview with "Everything is Tuberculosis" Author John Green. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired March 19, 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.
Trump, Putin, and their heavily hyped call. After hanging up, Russia attacked Ukraine overnight. I asked former Pentagon official Celeste
Wallander Why she thinks Putin rebuffed Trump's ceasefire.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I never did defy a quota.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- the president pushes the constitutional limits, calling to impeach a judge who ruled against him. Greg Swenson, from Republicans
Overseas, on the reaction to Trumpism from over here.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN GREEN, AUTHOR, "EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS": We can reduce tuberculosis by another 50 percent or 99 percent if we want to, but we have
to decide that we want to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Author John Green tells Hari Sreenivasan About his new book, "Everything is Tuberculosis." And that despite millions of deaths per year,
the world's deadliest infectious disease could be eradicated.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London when everybody in Europe is trying to digest what happens in Europe next.
Because when the president of the United States of America commits to quickly ending a vicious war on the continent and then has a long phone
call with the aggressor, the world rightly holds its breath.
When the result of Donald Trump's heavily hyped negotiating session with Vladimir Putin is nyet to an end and an unconditional ceasefire, well, are
we back to the drawing board?
Russia immediately launched air attacks overnight, and so did Ukraine. During his state visit to Finland, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr
Zelenskyy, said Putin's words are at odds with reality.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): After Putin's conversation with the U.S. president, Donald Trump, when Putin said
that he was supposedly given the order to stop the strikes on the Ukrainian energy sector, there were 150 drones overnight, including targeting energy
facilities. The strikes were on transport. Unfortunately, two hospitals were hit on ordinary urban infrastructure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Moscow did agree to exchange more prisoners of war with Kyiv, 30 in all today from both sides, and the U.S. says more talks are planned --
that's 300, rather. At the Pentagon, Celeste Wallander oversaw U.S. military assistance to Ukraine during the Biden administration, and in her
latest foreign affairs article, she says, that with uncertainty hanging over American aid to Kyiv, Europe and Ukraine have more leverage than they
think. And she's joining us from Washington, D.C.
Celeste Wallander, welcome to the program.
CELESTE A. WALLANDER, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANT DEFENSE SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS: Thanks so much, it's great to be here.
AMANPOUR: So, are you also scratching your head, or do you have a certain amount of clarity on what actually happened in that call between Putin and
Trump, or the result of it?
WALLANDER: Well, we don't have a full readout of all of the details, but we do have the two characterizations from the White House and from the
Kremlin. And what's clear is that President Putin accepted almost nothing that was put before him in order to achieve an immediate ceasefire. The
same deal that had been proposed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he accepted.
All that Putin accepted was the idea of an immediate cessation -- mutual cessation of both sides on attacks on energy infrastructure, not energy and
infrastructure as the White House had hoped, but simply energy infrastructure.
But even that very, very small concession, as you noted, Christiane, was completely overwritten by Russian actions and continuing attacks on
Ukrainian energy infrastructure, but also civilian targets, like hospitals and apartment buildings. So, I think the answer is, not much has been
achieved and there's still a lot of work for the White House to do.
AMANPOUR: From what we gather, you know, just to drill down, why do you think Putin couldn't even stick to that minimal thing that he, I guess, he
was trying to give Trump something and not say no to everything? And the readout, I think, from the Kremlin was that Putin had instructed the
military to not, you know, do what he had agreed not to do. Why do you think almost immediately that was broken?
[13:05:00]
WALLANDER: This is absolutely how Russia, under Putin, conducts itself all the time. The Russian media and Russian statements already are saying that
no, no, no, those drones were not attacking energy infrastructure as President Putin said they would not. They were attacking military targets.
So, already they're shaping the narrative, which is a nice way of saying lying about what Russia is doing.
And so, I think the reason what you're seeing is Vladimir Putin didn't want to give President Trump absolutely nothing. He wanted to be able to say,
sure, I'll work on your desired peace agreement. Let's do a ceasefire while we get to what I really want, which are my terms. He wasn't going to just
say no, because he doesn't want to be blamed. And so, he did just enough to then try to obfuscate the fact that Russia was never going to implement
even that small step and try to shift the blame to Ukraine.
AMANPOUR: So, just what does it mean in terms of geopolitics and international negotiating and leverage when the highest -- I mean, the
leader of the free world or the most powerful country in the world, Donald Trump, goes straight to a call with Putin. I know that the secretaries of
state had some meeting in Saudi Arabia.
But -- so where is the -- where are the pressure points anymore if we've had a great big nothing burger so far?
WALLANDER: Well, the -- it is a fact that in the Russian system, only President Putin can and will decide when and if to agree to a ceasefire, to
agree to a peace settlement and to instruct his government to implement it. So, in the end, the conversation does have to happen with Putin. And, you
know, that's just the way the Russian system works.
But President Trump has made clear, repeatedly, and his team has said both publicly and in various backgrounders, that if President Putin does not
step up, does not move forward on a peace negotiation that is meaningful and will end the conflict, that the White House is ready to impose
additional costs on Russia to pressure Putin to come to the negotiating table in good faith. That could be, and should be, additional economic
sanctions and it should be continued and even enhanced military assistance to Ukraine so that the Ukrainian military can continue to defend its
country but also bring the pain to Russia as we've seen the Ukrainian armed forces do.
AMANPOUR: So, you've written about this. You know, Putin basically said as one of his conditions for any kind of ceasefire, this is just a temporary
ceasefire, not even anything else, that there should be no more any external aid to Kyiv, not from Europe, not from the United States, no more
intelligence sharing.
So, do you think, A, that U.S. military assistance and intelligence will continue given what Putin, you know, has done so far, which is not much?
And do you think, because you've written about this, that Europe can fill the gap?
WALLANDER: So, on the question of whether the United States will continue to deliver security assistance, after that brief unfortunate temporary
pause in delivery, the United States has announced that it has continued to deliver security assistance. These are stocks of capabilities that were
already contracted with -- for and that were being produced by American defense industry for delivery to Ukraine through 2025. So, that is one kind
of bucket of capabilities that Ukraine can use and has used over the last three years to be able to defend its country and bring the fight, in some
instance, back to Russia.
But if that assistance were to be again paused or even perhaps suspended, it's really important to understand that over the past three years, Europe
has ramped up its production. It has allocated financing to be able to purchase ammunition, air defense interceptors, military vehicles, radar
systems on international markets as well as within Europe.
And so, over time, what was primarily a U.S. security assistance delivery early in 2022 with European help has now shifted to, in 2024, pretty much
Europe taking the lead and delivering even more capability than the United States. And Ukraine also can produce much of its own ammunition and also is
incredibly adept at producing and innovating drone technology and the use of drones, which have proven so important in this fight.
[13:10:00]
So, taken together, if the United States were to pause, and I very much hope we do not, both because Ukraine needs the capabilities, but also to
support President Trump's strategy of bringing Putin to the table, you're going to have to -- Putin's not going to come to the table and actually
make compromises if he is -- has -- is playing the strong card on the military front.
And so, Ukraine has to be able to continue to defend its country for Putin to get serious about the negotiations that President Trump wants.
AMANPOUR: Well, as you know --
WALLANDER: But if the United States we're --
AMANPOUR: Sorry to interrupt you.
WALLANDER: Yes.
AMANPOUR: But as you know, that was a big criticism of the administration that you served that there just wasn't enough, quickly enough to get that
dynamic to shift, to make Putin think that he needed to actually come to the table. So, the question is, yes, they got a lot, but you know the
criticisms. But the question is, what do you think -- what effect did the pause already have, the brief pause, do you think the Kursk pushback had
anything to do with that?
WALLANDER: I think the pause was mostly a political signal to the Kremlin, an unfortunate political signal to the Kremlin, and also, unfortunately,
undermined Ukrainian morale, that the United States was signaling it wasn't continuing to have that leadership role in supporting Ukraine.
On Kursk, the pause may have, on the margins, affected the pace of the Russian operations, but those operations have been underway for months, and
I think what you're seeing is President Putin determined to take back that territory because he does not want to be in a position for that day when
negotiations actually come that he would have to negotiate to have Ukrainian forces leave Russian territory. That is not that is not a move by
a strong Putin, and Putin has ordered his military to take back that territory before negotiations start.
So, there might have been a slight change in pace, but in the end, I think that Putin is going to insist that, first, he controls that territory
before he's willing to seriously get down to any negotiations.
AMANPOUR: And certainly, from Putin's perspective, you can see that makes sense. But people are concerned about whether they're going to push even
further in across the border in the Suomi area, the strategic area around there.
And also, this goes to the heart of the territorial side of any negotiations because Trump said that they're talking about, you know, what
territories, how to divide assets, so to speak, even at one point, you know, nuclear power plant or a power plant.
But I want to play for you what Zelenskyy said about territories. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENSKYY (through translator): As for the territories, this will probably be one of the most sensitive and difficult issues in the upcoming
negotiations. The first step is still an unconditional ceasefire, even if there are some paths that still need to be taken to get there.
For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian. We will not go for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, there -- that was him with the president of Finland. So, it's a red line for us. So, where is the negotiating ability? What do you
think is going to have to happen on territories and what's occupied right now?
WALLANDER: I think that what President Zelenskyy is indicating is that Ukraine would be willing to a peace settlement that is not a final
settlement. And there is precedent for this. For example, the United States never recognized the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, of Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, through the Cold War. There was a pragmatic understanding that the Soviet Union occupied those territories. Certainly,
the Soviet Union claimed that those were territories of the Soviet Union. But the United States never actually recognized those claims.
And then, at the end of the Cold War, it was quite a simple matter for the United States and European countries, and Russia itself to recognize the
sovereignty and independence of those countries. So, quietly, Ukrainians have been working options for what a peace agreement would look like that
did not require them or the International Community to recognize those territories as part of the Russian Federation, playing a very long game for
the day when Russia continues to be burdened by sanctions and has to recognize that it would be better off to work with Ukraine on terms that
Ukraine can accept.
AMANPOUR: It just occurs to me, does it worry you that the United States actually cast a vote on a different issue, but on this whole aggression,
Russian aggression, on the third anniversary, cast a vote with Russia and North Korea, Iran, and all that lot at the United Nations? I mean, when you
talk about recognition, I mean, that's official U.S. vote with Russia.
[13:15:00]
WALLANDER: It is extremely concerning, and the fact that what is apparent to the International Community, which is Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine
did not threaten Russia. We've seen -- you know, Russia is over 10 times as powerful and as large in terms of its economy and its military, not to
mention its size, even more than ten times larger than Ukraine.
The notion that somehow Ukraine provoked the invasion is patently false. And while the White House has claimed that it needs to lay the groundwork
for a positive relationship in order to persuade Putin to come to the table, I think what you saw this week was that positive inducements --
certainly alone, and I would say not very strongly, even as part of a package, are what's going to get Putin to the table.
What's going to get Putin to the table is him doing an assessment that he can't win, because Ukraine remains strong and the United States and Europe
continues to support it. And that's the way to get to a just settlement.
AMANPOUR: Yes. And President Trump is always saying peace through strength. So, you're saying he has to strengthen Ukraine to get this peace,
or at least get it through Putin's head. Can I ask you a different issue? You're, you know, ex-Pentagon. This purging at the Pentagon, anything DEI.
These initials that have become poison, this ability or attempt to level the playing field for women and blacks and people of color is just out the
window.
I don't know whether you saw today that Jackie Robinson, his military service has been purged from the website. He's the first black Major League
Baseball player. The Native American soldier who held the flag on Iwo Jima after it was liberated, he and Native American contributions have been
purged. What do you think of that and in general what these purges are doing, A, on the preparedness and readiness in the Pentagon and on the
morale?
WALLANDER: It's frankly shocking. One of the incredible privileges of serving at the Pentagon is to be part of a culture that values each and
every member of the uniformed military and civilian service and respect them and honor them for their sacrifice, because it is significant
sacrifice, not only in war, but in terms of long days, families having to move multiple times to support their mother or their father who is in
service.
I mean, there is a very, very strong culture in the U.S. Military and at the Pentagon, respecting every single member for their service. And to
dismiss any individual, including very famous individuals well known for their sacrifices, sends a horrible message to the American service members
and future service members.
I think you have to be very worried if you are an American that the future soldiers, the future leaders of the American military, the people who keep
us safe and secure and who sacrificed for this country will begin to ask a question about why would they do that? Why would they serve a U.S.
government that so quickly would dismiss individuals who had made those kinds of sacrifices? And the morale in the Pentagon, in the armed services
is taking a serious hit, and that is bad for American security.
AMANPOUR: Celeste Wallander, former Pentagon official, thank you very much for joining us. When we come back, is Trump threatening the rule of law at
home? I'll ask the chair of Republicans Overseas, Greg Swenson after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: Now, to the United States, where the balance of power is being tested. The White House faces increasing pushback after the administration
defied a judge's order to halt the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. The administration says they're suspected gang members. And Trump
then insulted the independent judge, James Boasberg.
One GOP congressman loyalist even filed articles of impeachment against the judge. This prompted the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts,
into a rare public statement. He said, quote, "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to
disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."
It's just one of many ways that the Trump administration is busting norms and pushing constitutional limits to breaking point. And then, there's the
economic downturn, the arrest without charge of protesters in America, causing deep fears about the end of the transatlantic alliance. That's over
here.
Greg Swenson is the chairman of Republicans Overseas here in the U.K., and he's joining me in the studio. Welcome to the program.
GREG SWENSON, CHAIR, REPUBLICANS OVERSEAS U.K.: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: So, that is quite a list, and I could carry on. How do you defend all this?
SWENSON: Well, I think there's different views. You brought up a couple of issues, but there's just different opinions on that. And so, yes, you know,
President Trump, many would argue, is pushing constitutional limits. But on the other hand, he's well within the sole purview of the executive branch.
And the example, I think, with Venezuela, you know, that's the Article 2 powers that the president has.
So, you know, I think President Trump is one to push limits. That's what we voted for, and that's why he was elected. But, on the other hand, he's
still within his constitutional obligations.
AMANPOUR: So, he said, and he's said several times, I would not defy a court order. But apparently, he has defied a court order. The paperwork was
taken, the planes were told not to take off, and they took off anyway. And then, Trump calls the judge in question a radical left, I don't know,
lunatic or something.
And then, here is a very notable, conservative judge, Michael Luttig, is that his name, Luttig, on MSNBC. This is what he's saying about this, OK?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J. MICHAEL LUTTIG, RETIRED U.S. FEDERAL JUDGE: The president of the United States has essentially declared war on the rule of law in America. And in
the past few weeks, as you explained, the president himself has led a full- frontal assault on the Constitution, the rule of law, the federal judiciary, the American justice system, and the nation's legal profession.
When the president of the United States wages a war on the rule of law and the federal judiciary alley, America is in a constitutional crisis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: I mean, do you agree with that? That is a justice who was appointed by George W. Bush, another very, you know, dyed in the wool
conservative. They're worried.
SWENSON: Yes, I think there's -- look, I didn't see the same complaints from those people when President Biden was -- I hate to be what about-ism,
but I mean --
AMANPOUR: But I'm not sure that he violated the Constitution and defied a judge.
SWENSON: Well, he did. He did, yes. When the judges -- when the Supreme Court, in fact, ruled against the student loan, the so-called student loan
relief, which wasn't really relief, it was taxpayer funding, student loan relief. And he actually bragged about it when he defied that. And --
AMANPOUR: I'm going to have to get some information on that.
SWENSON: Yes. No please. Yes.
AMANPOUR: But let's leave Biden alone, let's ask you whether if you disapproved of that?
SWENSON: Yes. And so --
AMANPOUR: Do you disapprove of this?
SWENSON: I think there was a little gray here when, apparently -- maybe I'm wrong here, but the planes had already left.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SWENSON: And so --
AMANPOUR: Well --
SWENSON: So, that's what I was told the planes had left. So, they didn't turn around midair. But I think President Trump --
AMANPOUR: They were told to though.
SWENSON: -- is consistent --
AMANPOUR: They were told to.
SWENSON: Yes. And I think that's -- you know, this decision was made by the president under Article 2 powers. And so, I don't think anyone voted
for, you know, the judiciary to be supreme. It's the balance of power. And I do think that a constitutionalist court is going to make decisions that
are supportive of the, you know, originalist arguments.
AMANPOUR: Yes. OK. So --
SWENSON: But in the originalist arguments, the president has clear -- the executive branch has clear powers.
AMANPOUR: Yes. But this is the point right now, right?
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So. Yes, I mean the Constitution, I think, gives co-equal power to the three branches of government. So, the executive, the legislative,
and the judiciary.
SWENSON: Right.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: And right now, the executive is perceived and is trampling over the other two, Congress and the judiciary. So --
SWENSON: Again --
AMANPOUR: -- when you sit overseas and your friends must be asking you what's going on, and in a minute, I'm going to wave the newspaper because
it's full of doom and gloom about his economic ideas and you're a businessman.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: But -- OK. Let's put it this way. You're here in England, right? There's a king here, King Charles, who Trump likes.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: It's a constitutional monarchy.
SWENSON: Right.
AMANPOUR: But Trump, and this is important to say because it goes to his character, even referred to himself as royalty recently. As you know he
moved to kill congestion pricing in New York City, and he wrote long live the king.
So, again, this is who he is and his loyalists are not stopping him and they're saying that he has untrammeled power, unrestrained power because
he's the executive and he's the president, and that's a test right now.
SWENSON: Yes, only for thing -- for issues that are in the executive branch. He's not stepping on the Congress' toes. Yes, there are some things
where he'll have to go to Congress.
AMANPOUR: He is, USAID. USAID. He's stepping on the toes of those whose job it is to approve funding, it's called congressionally approved.
SWENSON: But it was -- it started in the executive branch with John F. Kennedy, and it sits in the executive branch. So, he has that right. And if
Congress chooses otherwise, they can opine on it. But, you know, he's not making laws. He's there to execute the laws.
AMANPOUR: OK. Again --
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: -- I just -- a judge today said that he might be -- it might be unconstitutional what Musk and -- I guess and Trump have done over USAID.
This is the Washington Post, President Trump asserts that he can withhold money that Congress has allocated to deport migrants without going through
immigration courts, fire federal workers, and tell the Justice Department not to enforce laws that Congress has passed. And if judges rule against
him, he says they should be impeached. He and his allies justify much of this by saying the Constitution grants the president broad authority to do
it.
But, you know, they're -- this is going to be adjudicated, I assume, when a big case comes to the Supreme Court.
SWENSON: Yes. And I think --
AMANPOUR: Do you think it's correct that the executives should have unlimited power?
SWENSON: Of course not. But only power within what's granted in the Constitution. And so, in this case, I think what John Roberts is saying is,
let's go through the appellate process.
AMANPOUR: So, do you agree with John Roberts?
SWENSON: Well, he's got a point, that -- and unfortunately, that's going to cost --
AMANPOUR: He's the Supreme justice. He's the main --
SWENSON: Well, yes. But I mean --
AMANPOUR: -- chief justice.
SWENSON: You know, it was, I believe --
AMANPOUR: He's got more than a point.
SWENSON: I believe it was 6-4. You know, I know both he and Amy Coney, ACB, Amy Coney Barrett ruled with the liberals on that. So, look, that's
what happens in courts. And you know, this is not a consistently 6-3 conservative court. And that's a good argument for how balanced they are.
They're originalists, not pure conservatives.
AMANPOUR: What do you make of people voting with their presence at town halls, of markets voting with the stock market, you know, reacting very
badly to his economy, but people are showing up, as you know, in town halls, challenging their Republican congresspeople. Here is this, and
there's also a soundbite. We have one man in North Carolina here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes or no, do you support Trump on annexing Canada or Greenland? And do you like the way he treats the premier or the president
of Canada, calling him governor? Is that the way the United States should act to our closest neighbors? Do you enjoy the way he's tried to extort
minerals from the Ukraine? Do you like bullying people that need your help?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: This is going on all over. Sitting here and watching that, what goes through your -- I mean, you're a Republican.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: You're a conservative. Are you a MAGA conservative?
SWENSON: I don't like to define myself as anything.
AMANPOUR: Are you a traditional conservative?
SWENSON: I would definitely argue a philosophical and traditional conservative.
AMANPOUR: OK.
SWENSON: And I think you can --
AMANPOUR: So, does this break the wrong way?
SWENSON: But I think you can -- no, you can be both. And I think what -- you've seen President Trump do is bring in a lot of the traditional William
F. Buckley conservatives into the fold. There's still going to be your never Trumpers in there. And I think there's still, you know, five or 10.
AMANPOUR: There aren't. They've all chosen for loyalty. Come on, they've all had their social medias examined. And loyalty is the litmus test for
their appointment.
SWENSON: I think it's consistent with what President Trump is trying to do. You know, in his first term, there were many people in the White House,
in the administration that were not loyal and that were -- in many ways, were working against him.
AMANPOUR: Well --
SWENSON: And so, some would argue on the right that, oh, the adults were in the room. They -- you know, he had people that will counter, you know,
and control what he's trying to do. And that's really not what you vote for. You vote for the executive. You want the executive to appoint people
who support his issues. And if they don't like it, they can resign. Very much like the system here in the U.K. encourages people to do. So, I think
it's great.
[13:30:00]
And if people want to express their opposition to what's happening good for them. And you saw it -- you see that in both -- with both parties.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, you think it's great We -- you don't see this level of chaos and erratic behavior.
SWENSON: No.
AMANPOUR: You don't? You don't see that with both parties?
SWENSON: It's because this -- it's not a revolution, it's a counter revolution. I think with what happened in the Biden years was so out -- so
much of it was so outrageous it needs a disruptor. It needs someone who's provocative and isn't going to necessarily stay within the traditional
lanes. But as long as it's constitutional, then all good.
AMANPOUR: Again, we're arguing about whether it's busting the Constitution and what will be the Supreme Court decision eventually if a case gets to
the Supreme Court. But, you know, you're a businessman.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: I just have one newspaper, but this is two sides, left and right, with stories of economic woes.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So, just to quote, you know, before the inauguration was Davos. I don't know. You may have been there.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Were you there?
SWENSON: No.
AMANPOUR: OK.
SWENSON: But I follow it.
AMANPOUR: Totally bullish on America. All these Americans and others saying, yes, it's going to be great. Deregulation We can invest business.
Blah, blah, blah. Now, they are just turning in circles because they see erratic decisions on the economy, trade wars, tariffs, yes, no, you know,
et cetera. They see a bit of chaos. They don't know what the plan is and what the reasons are. And they see visibly the stock market going down as
opposed to up, while Europe and Asia is going up.
SWENSON: Yes, the markets are -- it's very clear, markets don't like uncertainty.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SWENSON: And President Trump defines uncertainty. You know, today -- one day it's 25 percent the next day it's 50. He uses tariffs, in many ways, as
a negotiating tool and that's unsettling for markets.
AMANPOUR: I know. But that's what people said at the beginning.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Now, he's using tariffs as tariffs.
SWENSON: Right. But --
AMANPOUR: And as a trade war.
SWENSON: And I think there's a few things to keep in mind --
AMANPOUR: That was 1.0.
SWENSON: -- one is that the -- sustaining trade deficits for the United States is unsustainable right now. So, right now, for generations, we've
had massive trade deficits with our trading partners. And it's because Americans are typically richer and we can buy more things than our trading
partners can buy. However, that's always been funded by the capital markets.
We have the biggest bond market in the world. We have the biggest capital markets in the world. It seemed easy. You just borrowed money to fund the
trade deficit. So, we buy more stuff. We ended up borrowing to sustain that. We have now 36 trillion in debt. 11 trillion of that is new from the
last administration. And interest rates are twice what they were when Trump was last president.
And so, this -- just sustaining the interest payments on that is a trillion dollars a year. It's so much higher than it's ever been. So, we just can't
continue to blindly fund trade deficits. That's just one of the economic realities.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SWENSON: And so -- and I think that has a lot to do with the economy right now. There are headwinds to this economy, not because of the president, but
because of the debt, because of inflation. So, he's inheriting an economy quite different than the 2017 economy.
AMANPOUR: Just going to say that in 2020 during the election -- 2024, sorry, The Economist wrote, the U.S. economy is the envy of the world. It
was doing just fine. I know the price of eggs and gasoline for voters and the cost of living was an issue, but these people are now worried. So, my
question is, how do tariffs -- tariffs are inflationary, tariffs are a tax on the consumer.
SWENSON: Right.
AMANPOUR: And in -- on April 2nd there's going to be a whole other slew of tariffs.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Trump himself is saying, I can't -- you know, I can't rule out a recession.
SWENSON: Right.
AMANPOUR: And they're trying to say, that might be a good thing for our end game. So, it's completely turned the campaign rhetoric on its head.
SWENSON: Yes, yes. Well, he's also realistic. He understands that there are headwinds on the economy.
AMANPOUR: But it's self-inflicted.
SWENSON: No, not at all.
AMANPOUR: No, it's been described as self-inflicted.
SWENSON: Not at all. Yes, and that I disagree with because what you had in the fall, after the election, was just real optimism. And I still think
much of it is there. But it was almost blind because the economic growth in the last few years was the envy of the world. We had growth. And a lot of
the -- the rest of the world didn't necessarily have the same growth, with very few exceptions. However, that was funded by borrowing. This government
stimulus.
So, as a conservative I like the private sector to generate growth. I like to, you know, lower taxes and deregulate, let the private sector allocate
capital. Typically, they're much better at it than the public sector. However, for four years we've had unbelievable borrowing and spending. That
stimulus, of course, generates growth, but we bar -- we stimulated the economy with 8 trillion and we got 6 trillion of growth. That's not
sustainable. That's almost a waste of money. There was none -- none of that Keynesian multiplier effect was actually negative.
[13:35:00]
So, that's what we're coming up against where we've had -- we've enjoyed growth, but the problem is the growth was all driven by government
spending. 63 percent of the jobs created in the Biden years were government and healthcare, which is basically government.
AMANPOUR: So, you are a businessman.
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: All of this, you must have business people who you either have dinner with or you're having meetings with --
SWENSON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: -- and they're saying, we are holding our fire. We're not investing in the United States right now.
SWENSON: Oh, no. It's the -- I've found it --
AMANPOUR: I mean --
SWENSON: -- completely opposite.
AMANPOUR: What -- people are saying?
SWENSON: I mean, you've got a trillion dollars coming from the Saudis into the U.S. markets. Not just the public markets. That's more in the private
capital markets. And it's, again, where you have to -- politicians are funny, when the market goes up, they say it's because of them. When markets
go down, they say it's because of someone else. But there is some merit to the argument right now that there will be pain the public markets because
they were so expensive.
I mean, we've had a great stock market for years. And, you know --
AMANPOUR: But how is it that Trump spent his whole first term using the stock market as a metric for his economic success, and now, he's saying no?
What's the matter?
SWENSON: Well, and I think the difference is the stock market in his first term was driven by main Street. You had 6.8 percent wage growth in 2019.
All of the minority groups, the different demographics, the identity groups that the Democrats are so reliant on, in many ways, did better in the Trump
years, much better than the old Biden years of 2009 to '17.
And so. Main Street was driving that. It's not always just Main Street. It's cheap interest -- you know, low interest rates, cheap money,
speculation. But generally speaking, ultimately, it follows Main Street. What's happening now is they don't -- the markets don't like the
volatility, or more importantly, the uncertainty. And then, you're going to see Main Street. It might take some time, but you'll see Main Street again.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you -- I mean, I'm assuming you are a defender of democracy. What do you think of people like authoritarian leaders around
the world, or Europe, just Europe, Orban, Vucic in Serbia?
SWENSON: Sure.
AMANPOUR: They're using the Musk slashing and killing USAID, including programs that help civil society and democracy.
They're using it, they're basically saying, well if the, you know, most powerful country, the biggest democracy in the world can do it, we can do
it.
SWENSON: Right.
AMANPOUR: There are massive protests going on over corruption right now in Serbia. And the Serbian authorities are harassing these NGOs.
SWENSON: Right.
AMANPOUR: Are you not concerned about the fallout around parts of the world where it's in America's and everybody's interest to strengthen
democracy rather than use the U.S. as an example to weaken it?
SWENSON: Yes. Look, I think we obviously are advocates of democracy. And sometimes democracy yields things we don't like. You know, you might not
have liked the outcome of the election in Germany with 80 (INAUDIBLE) 20 percent. I don't think it's necessarily democratic that they've been
excluded from the process.
Same thing in Romania. You might not have liked --
AMANPOUR: Let's not go to Romania.
SWENSON: Right. OK. That's fine. But I do think that we are very, very obviously massive endorsers of democracy. But unfortunately, if there's
some autocrats like, in China, like in Russia, those are -- it's just real politic, we have to deal with them.
AMANPOUR: Greg Swenson, Republicans Abroad, thank you very much indeed for being with us.
SWENSON: Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: And we will be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
AMANPOUR: Now, a federal judge in Maryland is blocking the Trump-Musk dismantling of USAID, as we mentioned. Author John Green argues the Trump
administration's cuts to foreign aid are making global health outcomes worse, especially for infectious diseases like tuberculosis. Green explains
why TB is still so prevalent in his new book. And he joins Hari Sreenivasan to talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. John Green, thanks so much for joining us. Most of the folks watching this
might remember you from the books that you've written, the young adult classics that have been turned into movies and so forth, but you've got a
new book out, and it is "Everything is Tuberculosis." This is nonfiction.
Why -- I know you've written nonfiction before, but why tuberculosis? What made you want to go after this topic?
JOHN GREEN, AUTHOR, "EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS": Yes, this is certainly a bit of a departure for me, but in other ways, I'm still writing about young
people who are interested in poetry, which has always been my jam.
I wanted to write about this because I met a kid living with tuberculosis, and after that, the disease became undeniable to me, and I came home
obsessed with it. I wanted to understand how it was that I had no idea that TB was still the deadliest infectious disease in the world and why we're
letting a curable disease kill over a million people every year.
SREENIVASAN: You know, the fact that is curable is startling. I mean, what does work? Because we have tried, as you point out, going back in history,
we've tried everything from, you know, bloodletting to animal sacrifice and everything else that we thought was causing this, it has been around for
thousands of years and documented.
GREEN: Yes, I mean, Hippocrates told his students not even to try to treat consumption because it was -- it would make them look like bad healers.
It's always been a very difficult disease to deal with. But today, we have powerful antibiotics. Now, it's not easy to cure tuberculosis. It takes
between four and six months generally of antibiotic therapy in order to cure it, but it is very curable. And often, with drugs that have been
around since the 1950s or 1960s.
SREENIVASAN: Yes. Maybe a simple science question here, but how does one get tuberculosis? How is it transmitted? What does it do to the body?
GREEN: It's an airborne disease. And so, it spreads through the air. And the average person who's untreated with tuberculosis and has active TB will
spread it to between 10 and 15 people per year. So, in that sense, it's a very transmissible disease. It usually settles in the lungs, and that's
where it's transmitted from, obviously, because of coughing and sneezing and the like. But it can also attack any system in the body. There's
tuberculous meningitis, which probably killed Edgar Allen Poe when it attacks your brain.
There's tuberculosis that attacks your lymph nodes. My friend Henry had his lymph nodes erupt out of his skin because he became so sick with
tuberculosis, which is a tremendously painful version of the disease. It can attack the bones. It can really attack anywhere.
SREENIVASAN: And so, what is it that you find weird about this disease? I mean, you call it that. I mean, what makes this so tough to fight?
GREEN: This is a hard disease to fight for a number of reasons, but the biggest reason is a lack of political will and a lack of resources. It's
true that tuberculosis is hard to cure, but my brother had cancer a couple years ago and at no point did anyone say like, oh, I'm sorry, Hank, this is
kind of a tough disease to cure. This is going to require several months of chemotherapy and radiation, and we just don't think it's worth the cost.
And yet, that's what people in impoverished communities hear all the time when it comes to TB.
SREENIVASAN: So, really, we have the medicines, but there's a gap between where the diseases and where the medicines are, and that you're saying is
really just politics?
GREEN: It boils down to politics and a will to actually get the cure to the people who need it. Yes. I mean, I think it also boils down -- I mean,
I argue in the book that tuberculosis is everything and everything is tuberculosis. So, yes, it's politics, but it's also history. It's also
colonialism. It's also strategies of extractive capitalism that just don't work for impoverished communities.
SREENIVASAN: You know, you say, it has long -- tuberculosis has long exploited human biases and blind spots wriggling its way through the paths,
injustice creates. Give me an example.
GREEN: Well, I'll give you a great example. If you or I were to get tuberculosis tomorrow, we would receive the kind of personalized tailored
treatment that everybody should deserve. But my friend Henry in Sierra Leone, when he got sick with tuberculosis, he was told that those
treatments were not available to him because they weren't cost effective.
So, instead, he was put on a secondary antibiotic for his drug resistant tuberculosis that they should have known from the beginning wouldn't work,
but they didn't have the money for good tests either. And so, he ended up hospitalized for over three years, taking over 20,000 pills to be cured of
his tuberculosis. And many of those pills and many of those months were simply unnecessary.
SREENIVASAN: Why did Henry affect you so much?
GREEN: Well, he has the same name as my son. And when I first met him, he looked to be about the same age as my son, although -- who was nine at the
time, although I later learned that Henry was in fact 17. It's just his body was so stunted by malnutrition and TB that he looked much younger.
[13:45:00]
And he's one of those uncommonly charismatic people. I'm not the only person who's unusually charmed by Henry. He was sort of the mayor of LaCa
hospital, the tuberculosis hospital in Sierra Leone, everywhere he goes. And even today, he's beloved by the staff at that hospital.
And so, he just -- you know, sometimes people come into your life, you don't totally understand why, and you end up spending the next four years
obsessed with an infectious disease and writing a book about it.
SREENIVASAN: Yes, yes, yes. You know, you also wrote about an interesting character, Shreya Tripathi, a 19-year-old TB patient in India, and you have
actually called her name out sort of in testimony before she died in 2018. You said, she didn't really die of tuberculosis. What do you mean by that?
GREEN: Well, I think in the 21st century, it's safe to say that tuberculosis isn't really caused by a bacteria anymore because we know how
to kill that bacteria. We know how to cure tuberculosis. In the 21st century, we have to accept the reality that tuberculosis is caused. by us.
And so, the ultimate cause of Shreya's death was, yes, it was tuberculosis, but it was also official indifference. It was also a failure to get this
life-saving drug, Bedaquiline to her in time. All of these things came together to result in Shreya's death.
And so, I don't think it's fair to say that she died only of tuberculosis. I think she also died of human built systems that simply didn't include
people like her.
SREENIVASAN: And in this research, you found kind of historical connections to your own family. What happened?
GREEN: Yes, my great uncle Stokes Goodrich died of tuberculosis. When I told my mom I was writing about tuberculosis, she said, that's what your
great uncle died of. And I had no idea. But I eventually unearthed a memoir written by my great grandfather that talks about Stokes' story. He was a
lineman working at Alabama Power and Light when he contracted tuberculosis, and he ended up dying like so many people in a sanatorium in 1930.
SREENIVASAN: You've -- you kind of point out that, you know, as the title says, the different ways that tuberculosis has impacted society. On the one
hand, it might have led to the beginning of World War I. On the other hand, it might actually be the reason that towns in California sprung up. Give us
a scope of these places that we don't see tuberculosis in the history books, but it clearly played a role.
GREEN: Yes, I mean, from Pasadena, California to Colorado Springs, Colorado, there are so many cities in the American West that were
essentially founded as tuberculosis colonies, because at the time in the 19th and early 20th century, it was believed that heading west or drier air
could sort of dry out the wet lungs of tuberculosis. California called itself the land of new lungs, and the movement of people there rivaled the
gold rush. It was a really significant shift in our human geography here in the United States.
I also argue that TB was a cause of World War 1. And I should say, like, not the primary cause, but both of the young men who actively participated
in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand were dying of tuberculosis and knew they were dying. And as a result, they really wanted to die for a
great cause.
SREENIVASAN: And you pointed out that two or three of the other co- conspirators who didn't have that kind of tuberculosis death sentence they -- well, they chickened out. They didn't participate.
GREEN: Yes. They bailed on the day. They were -- they decided that what maybe wasn't a good idea to assassinate the archduke, which, you know,
obviously given what happened, it wasn't.
SREENIVASAN: You have been online in the past couple of years really active about thinking about tuberculosis and advocating on its behalf, and
you've also, you know, been very pointed in your critique of how the pharmaceutical industry works and why this drug that we've known about,
that this cure that we've had for so long is still not accessible to people like Henry.
GREEN: It is very frustrating for me that we have the tools to deal with this disease. It's not only a problem of pharmaceutical companies, it's
also a problem of governments. It's also a problem of, you know, our nonprofits being as efficient as they can be. But it's mostly a problem of
governments and developing the tools and making those tools available.
And too often we develop tools, but we don't make them available in the places where they're most needed. In 2000, the doctor, Dr. Peter Mugyenyi,
famously said of HIV, where are the drugs? The drugs are where the disease is not. And where is the disease? The disease is where the drugs are not.
And that's very much the case for tuberculosis. The cure is where the disease is not. And that's infuriating to me.
If we really value all human lives equally, if we really believe that every human life has value, we simply have to do a better job of getting these
cures to the people who need them.
SREENIVASAN: I'm assuming for someone like you, you love the unknown fact that kind of makes you think about something differently over and over
again. But what were some of the things that you kind of stumbled upon in this that you ended up including in the book, but also, that just kind of
changed your frame of reference on how you thought about either the disease or the injustices of the world?
[13:50:00]
GREEN: There are so many things I've learned in this journey that have helped me understand contextualize the way that injustice works in our
world and the way that health and equity becomes a form and expression of injustice. I think the most shocking statistic to me is that since
tuberculosis became curable, we've allowed at least 150 million people to die of it. What does that say about us? What does that say about the world
we share and what -- how does it point to a world we might share that might be better for those people?
SREENIVASAN: You know, when you talk about the role of government, in the last couple of months, we've seen an enormous retreat from the U.S.
government in terms of tuberculosis treatment that we help fund worldwide. What do you think the consequences are going to be of these actions?
GREEN: The consequences are already profound, and they will become even more profound over time, unfortunately. The United States has long been the
most generous supporter of the fight against tuberculosis and a key ally in every country that's fighting the disease.
In a country like Sierra Leone, you know, the -- without USAID money thousands of people are losing access to their treatment. Hundreds of
thousands of people are seeing their treatment interrupted, which means skyrocketing risks of increased drug resistance. We know that having drug
resistant tuberculosis circulating in communities is very bad news. It's bad news for individuals, but it's also very dangerous for social orders as
a whole because we can eventually get a form of tuberculosis that no longer responds to the tools that we've developed to fight it.
That's scary. That should scare us. And it is devastating to watch this unfold. I mean, I never imagined I would be publishing this book in a time
where it's so timely. I never thought the world would be talking about tuberculosis, but it is. Because unfortunately, the machinery that we use
to get TB treatment to people has just ground to a halt as a result of these spending cuts.
SREENIVASAN: So, what you're also kind of pointing out is it's not just the fact that we could get a medicine in, but there's sort of this holistic
approach when you look at what makes a person sick. You're talking about, hey, if you decrease your chances of HIV transmission or diabetes, you are
also going to decrease your chances of dying from tuberculosis.
GREEN: Yes.
SREENIVASAN: Now, those are all kind of big societal issues to wrap our head -- arms around.
GREEN: That's absolutely right. We can't separate tuberculosis or really any disease of injustice from its biomedical nature and its social nature.
Both of those interact. I argue in the book that the way we imagine illness is just as important as the nature of the illness itself, because we are
very powerful as a species. And so, how we imagine illness shapes how people live and die of those illnesses. But it also shapes who ends up
living and dying of those illnesses.
SREENIVASAN: And so, what do you see, I mean, as a way kind of forward? I mean, obviously, you know, you're on a book tour right now and you're
talking about this. What do you hope people take away?
GREEN: Well, I hope people feel hopeful at the end of the book, which I know is a little bit hard to come by for a lot of folks right now, but I
really wanted to write a hopeful book because I think the story of tuberculosis is hopeful and that it can be more hopeful.
You know, the year I graduated from high school, about 2.7 million people died of tuberculosis and last year, 1.25 million did. Now, all of those
deaths were needless. But the fact that we've reduced the deaths by tuberculosis by over 50 percent since I graduated from high school should
be a source of hope for us because that progress wasn't natural. It wasn't inevitable. It wasn't always going to happen. It happened because millions
of people, including millions of taxpayers came together to make that happen. And together we accomplish something extraordinary.
Now, we can reduce tuberculosis by another 50 percent or 99 percent if we want to, but we have to decide that we want to. We have to decide that
we're going to value the lives of people who are likely to get tuberculosis just as we would value my brother's life or my life.
SREENIVASAN: The book is called "Everything is Tuberculosis" by author John Green. Thanks so much for your time.
GREEN: Thank you, Hari.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And finally, tonight, some of the strongest overseas reaction to the Trump administration is coming from France. French European Parliament
member Raphael Glucksmann is making headlines for suggesting the U.S. should deliver the Statue of Liberty back to France. Glucksmann says the
U.S. is no longer worthy of the monument, which it got from France back in 1886 as a gift.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAPHAEL GLUCKSMANN, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER, FRANCE (through translator): To the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to
the Americans who say researchers must have this proof of scientific freedom, we're going to say two things to the Americans. First, give us
back the Statue of Liberty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:55:00]
AMANPOUR: The White House swiftly hit back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: My advice to that unnamed, low-level French politician would be to remind them that it's only because
of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now. So, they should be very grateful to our great country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: In fact, one group of people we should all be grateful for is those who fought in the Battle of Britain. John Paddy Hemingway, the last
surviving pilot, has died at the age of 105. He joined the Royal Air Force as a teenager before World War II. Taking to the skies to defend Britain
from the Nazi invasion. A poignant reminder of the sacrifices made in the fight for freedom.
That is it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
