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Amanpour
Interview With International Rescue Committee President and CEO David Miliband; Interview With "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" Author Omar El-Akkad; Interview With Trust For Public Land President And CEO Carrie Besnette Hauser. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired March 21, 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)
DAVID MILIBAND, PRESIDENT AND CEO, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE: In places like Sudan, in places like Syria we are unable to deliver services.
We're having to close services.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: As the legal battle over gutting USAID ramps up, we look at the human cost and the most vulnerable people bearing the brunt. The head of
the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband, joins me. And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OMAR EL-AKKAD, AUTHOR, "ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS": I've spent the last year and a half watching evidence of the worst
things human beings can do to one another.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This." The acclaimed new book, a damning indictment of western complacency amid the
bloodshed of our modern war. Author Omar El-Akkad joins me.
Also, ahead, what can be done to save America's iconic green spaces as mass firings hit federal workers? Walter Isaacson asked the president of the
Trust for Public land.
Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. From HIV to malnutrition, to pandemic prevention, Afghanistan, to Ethiopia, to
Serbia, the damage from the Trump administration's gutting of USAID has been swift and extensive. And this week, the legal battle got underway. A
federal judge ruled against the world's richest man, Elon Musk and his DOGEs. Saying the unilateral manner in which they slashed aid to the
world's poorest is likely to have violated the Constitution.
On today's program a reminder that there are real human lives in the balance, though Musk insists no one has died as a result of the cuts, the
reality on the ground is already painting a very different picture. Health workers in the developing world say people, adults, and children are
already dying from the cutoff. And a new study by the Center for Global Development said millions more could die within a year.
David Miliband is head of the International Rescue Committee, and he used to be the British foreign minister. I started by asking him about the
massive humanitarian catastrophe unleashed on Gaza again.
David Miliband, welcome back to the program.
MILIBAND: Thanks ever so much, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: So, we are talking at the end of a week in which the ceasefire in Gaza has been completely shattered, and Israel's talking more about
returning to war unless the hostages are released. But on the humanitarian front, hundreds of people are reported killed, including women and
children. What are your people seeing on the ground? What can you tell us about what's happening there?
MILIBAND: Well, obviously an absolutely terrible situation in Gaza over the last two months has been significantly improved. Because during the
ceasefire, aid has flowed, aid workers have been able to move much more easily around Gaza. And there's been a significant improvement both in the
humanitarian help that's going in and in the state of the markets and people's ability to buy things. That has indeed been shuttered. That's
exactly the right word to use. Large numbers of people have been reportedly killed.
But also, there's been just an absolute interruption of the aid flows. You'll know that now, for over two weeks, there's been the end of the flow
of basic medical kit. We've got six tons of medical goods waiting to go into Gaza, not able to get in at the moment. Water restrictions,
electricity restrictions, and I spoke to our team yesterday and we've had to suspend activities. Obviously, we keep this under review, but we're
unable to do our work at the moment because of the breakdown in the ceasefire that you've referred to.
So, obviously, there's just dread, sheer dread that exists on the humanitarian side. And obviously, great fear as well that there's no way
the hostages are going to be released either.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you about -- you know, there's another aid worker in Deir al-Balah in Gaza. We heard from this volunteer. This is what he said.
Just take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We've been pulling the remains of children since this morning. There are many injuries and martyrs who have
reached the hospitals. And we're still collecting the remains of people, hands and feet. There was no prior warning. It all happened unexpectedly
and people were in their homes, not even outside.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:05:00]
AMANPOUR: Again, I don't know what the International Community or you can do or say about that. But I want to ask you about the legality of also
cutting off what you just mentioned, cutting off and the government announced it, electricity, humanitarian aid, all of that kind of stuff. Is
it even legal to keep doing that?
MILIBAND: Well, obviously I'm not a lawyer and we are not sitting in a court. Well, what I know though is that this is very, very bad for innocent
civilians who have a right to humanitarian aid and to -- for aid workers who have a right to go about their business.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, let's talk about the bigger picture that you are also dealing with around the world, and that is the impact of Musk's, you know,
I don't know what to call it, dismantling, swinging cuts. I mean, just killing lifesaving aid, USAID. And the vast majority of the projects have
been stopped and defunded, you know, as they are -- were working.
So, from your perspective as the IRC, has that affected some of your projects and what are you hearing from the community?
MILIBAND: Definitely the U.S. has been the anchor of the global aid system for many years. Four in $10 that are spent on humanitarian aid were U.S.
dollars. Now, Secretary Rubio and the new administration have suspended all foreign aid. The secretary has announced that 82 percent of all U.S.
government funding, contracts, and grants have been terminated. And that means that education programs are out. Livelihoods and climate resilience
programs are out. Sexual and reproductive health programs are out. Infection prevention and control programs are out.
We do have waivers from the administration, from the suspension for, quote/unquote, "lifesaving activities." So, if we are running an emergency
health facility or an emergency operating room, we can continue to run that. But a broader primary healthcare center within which that emergency
healthcare operation is run, we're not allowed to run. So, this is fundamental.
It's affected nearly half of the -- more than half of the work that we do. So, we are able to sustain the life-saving activities, but more than half
of our activities have been suspended or terminated. And that means that in places like Sudan, in places like Syria, we are unable to deliver services,
we're having to close services. So, this is absolutely fundamental.
And our message is very clear that, of course, the administration have an absolute right to review the priorities of American aid. It's American
taxpayers' money. We support reform of the aid system and we can get onto that, but what's happening at the moment is that the most fundamental
services are being compromised at a time that this review is going ahead. And so, the consequences are very, very serious indeed.
AMANPOUR: You know, you talk about a review and the serious consequences. Well, first of all, a judge has said in the United States that gutting and
ending USAID is likely unconstitutional. But he also said that USAID has been effectively eliminated. It can no longer do what it was created to do.
We know from our colleagues who are reporting and have gone to see, you know, the results themselves, that it is costing lives, despite what Musk
says, it is actually costing lives. So, from your perspective, A, as, you know, the head of IRC, but also as a former government official, former
foreign minister whose brief also entailed foreign aid here in the U.K., how would you talk about reform versus complete elimination? Let's say
there is some reform needed, what would you do?
MILIBAND: Yes, I think it's really important to get to the guts of this, because we're living at a time, as you've reported well over many years,
when there's more people in humanitarian need than ever before. There's more pressure on resources than ever before. And so, there's more need for
reform than ever before.
What does reform mean? It means innovation so that the aid system predicts crisis and anticipates it rather than just reacts to it. Let me give you an
example of that. The IRC has just been voted one of the most innovative companies in America. We're an NGO, not a company, but it's Fast Company
Magazine. They voted us one of the most innovative companies because of work we do to anticipate climate shocks and support humanitarian work
before the disaster strikes rather than afterwards.
So, there's an innovation part of this. There's a value for money part of this. We've shown how in our malnutrition programs we can get more than 20
percent greater efficiency, which help means helping 20 percent more acutely malnourished kids in the work that we do.
[13:10:00]
Third example, different parts of the aid system. Parts for humanitarian aid, parts for development aid, parts for climate finance, they operate in
different silos with different targets and different bureaucracies. That doesn't make any sense at all.
There are three just practical examples of how we could drive the aid system to serve more people in more innovative ways with greater value for
money for the taxpayer. We also need to make sure that newly wealthy countries in the Gulf and elsewhere are contributing their fair share to
the system. But you can't do that if you're eliminating the system before you put in place your reforms.
Once you've closed programs, sacked people, you're not able to put in place the reforms without significant cost of having to do it all over again. And
so, I think there's a really important principle here, but also a very practical point.
Secretary Rubio, when he was a senator, spoke very eloquently about the soft power that comes from humanitarian aid, but also about the moral
imperative of rich countries doing the right thing by the most vulnerable people in the world. He said he wants to continue with a foreign aid
program for America. That's good. We want to work with him to make sure it delivers maximum impact, but we can only do that if we sustain our
infrastructure.
And there's one other point that brings this home, Christiane, that I think is really important. Even for the programs where we've got a waiver to
carry on delivering our programs for the U.S. government or with U.S. government support, were not yet being funded for that. And so, there's a
defunding across the sector as well as the elimination of various positions and departments in Washington. So, this has very practical consequences on
the ground for our ability to deliver and it puts at risk vital services.
AMANPOUR: And it's unlikely to endear anybody around the world to America, people who are losing their lives, their livelihoods, their safety, their
freedoms are going to have the opposite effect the USAID was created for. But I want to ask you, because you are also -- you know, you also deal with
refugees in asylum.
So, asylum is pretty much gone except at the discretion of President Trump right now. What do you make of, for instance, the wholesale deportation of
people in the United States, whether the latest one that caused a huge rumpus was the plane load of apparently Venezuelans, Trump says gang
members to Ecuador and El Salvador? What is the law around that in terms of international humanitarian law?
MILIBAND: Well, the law is very clear in this area, and I can state it. It's that there's no -- no one should be sent back into danger. That's the
law, and it's very important that's adhered to, it's an American law as well as international law.
We don't know who the people were who've been sent back on the various planes. There is a legal argument -- again, I can't adjudicate on it, about
what the administration did when they did it, what the judge in the federal district court is going to do about it. We don't know the outcome of that.
We also -- but the critical point is we don't know who was on these flights. And so, there are people who are waiting for their asylum claim to
be dealt with in America. And I've been on your show before saying it makes no sense for people to have to wait five years to have their asylum claim
dealt with. They're waiting for their rights to be heard.
There are people who have failed in their asylum claim and who are due to be expelled from the country. That's a different category of people where
it's perfectly legal to send them back to where -- to send them away if they've failed on their test, if they're not in danger where they come
from. There are then a series of allegations about people who've committed crimes, which obviously does lead to deportation.
And until we have the facts of who these people are that are being deported, it's very hard to be able to have a coherent conversation about
which category they're in.
AMANPOUR: Yes. And you mentioned a judge, he had ordered these flights to return and not to proceed, and yet, the administration did, and there's a
battle underway over that issue. But I want to ask you this. You know, I honestly thought I was literally a character in a George Orwell book this
week. Because it was said by Trump supporters that -- and perhaps by elements of the administration, that the Africanas whose ancestors created
the appalling discriminatory racist apartheid policy were being treated to asylum privilege by the United States.
And not only that, because they were the civil rights leaders of their time. What is going on in this administration where somebody and some
conspiracy theories and some lies about what might be happening in South Africa is forming government policy? That's Wellian (ph).
[13:15:00]
MILIBAND: Well, I -- the first political activity that I ever took place in was anti-apartheid activity in the 1980s. And so, this is obviously an
extraordinary situation. South Africa is a democratic country. It holds elections. It's actually had an election where the government was rebuffed
in the last election, has gone into coalition government.
If you want to know what's happening inside the U.S. administration, though, with the greatest respect, you're going to have to ask them,
because I'm not inside the administration, they are, and they'll have to explain to you what it is that's being said. I've seen African
representatives saying, well, we disagree with the South African government about some of the things that they're doing, but we don't want to leave our
country. They don't want to leave South Africa. They don't see themselves as people who have to claim asylum somewhere else.
And I think that it's very important that the administration explained to you, because I've seen some of the headlines myself, I've seen some of the
tweets, but I don't know, I'm not able to explain what it is they think that they're speaking to. Because of course, there remains massive
inequality in South Africa and it's the majority population that is suffering from most of the inequality. So, it's important that you're able
to take that up with the administration themselves.
AMANPOUR: The majority of course, being the black south Africans. Anyway, David Miliband, thank you very much. We will have a lot more to discuss as
this continues. Thank you so much for being with us.
MILIBAND: Thank you very much, Christiane. Take care.
AMANPOUR: Coming up, how will the world look back at the disasters that have already befallen Gaza and elsewhere? Author Omar El-Akkad after a
break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: This week, as we just discussed with David Miliband, the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was well and truly shattered. Israel
launched what it called preemptive strikes against Hamas across Gaza, starting on Tuesday, killing hundreds of Palestinians, including women and
children, and adding to a death toll that's already 48,000 strong since this war began October 7, 2023.
Israelis, including hostage families, reacted with fury and demonstrations, terrified that the renewed war is potentially also a death sentence for
their loved ones still held in captivity. Now, many around the world blame western inaction for all the suffering by allowing this brutal war to
continue unabated.
Rejecting complacency and complicity is the beating heart of the new book by journalist and novelist, Omar El-Akkad. He joined me from New York.
Omar El-Akkad, welcome to the program.
EL-AKKAD: Thank you so much for having me.
AMANPOUR: You've written an incredibly powerful dissertation in this book. You are also a former journalist and you know that the ceasefire has been
broken in Gaza, between Israel and Gaza, and there's a -- they've seemed to have gone back to war. Just your reaction to that after a relatively quiet
period over the last couple of months.
EL-AKKAD: I think it's a continuation of what we've seen, not just over the last year and a half, but over many, many years before this story became
the center of international attention, I mean, there is essentially no real consequence for breaking the ceasefire. And so, we are sitting here, we're
discussing the sort of effect of this, but in reality, I have a very hard time believing that there's going to be any real consequence for this.
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: Let me go back a little bit to the beginning. You are of Egyptian origin, you became a Canadian citizen, you've become a U.S. citizen as well
a few years ago. Tell us a little bit about what pushed your family to the West and what you learned about the West while you were in the west and led
you to journalism and now, to write this very personal memoir/polemic.
EL-AKKAD: So, shortly after I was born in the early '80, Egypt, which has never been particularly free in my lifetime, was under an especially brutal
kind of martial law. And my father was walking home one day from work and two soldiers decided to give him a hard time, and he got lucky. He got out
of it. But I think that was the day he decided that -- and my father loved Egypt. I mean, he marinated in that place. And nonetheless, he decided that
he needed to get out.
It was not so much what Canada was or what the United States was, it was what it wasn't. You know, I could go there and I could take books out of
the library and not worry about someone coming to visit from the government or if I talked about politics or if I appeared on a show like this or, you
know. So, it became this sort of negative space onto which I superimposed everything I needed the West to be. And it was only much later, when I
arrived here, that I had to contend with the difference between what I needed this place to be and what it actually was.
AMANPOUR: Well, you mentioned the ability to speak without fear. Now, you see what's happening right in front of our eyes. Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia
University has been arrested without charge. He's written a letter that's been smuggled out or given out, calling himself a political prisoner and
all of that. The Trump administration is going after him. There are others who may be similarly at risk and a lot because they are talking about, and,
you know, engaging in demonstrations about the situation in Gaza. Are you afraid now at all for your own safety?
EL-AKKAD: I think when you grow up in the part of the world that I grew up in, you tend to see these things in a particular light. You know, when this
first happened, there was this immense burst of outrage, which continues right now, but a lot of it was around this idea that this human being had
committed no crime. But I think the point is that he's committed no crime.
This is effectively -- anyone who's lived under an administration or a form of government that does this kind of thing knows full well that the point
is to do this to somebody who has committed no crime. It's to show that you can do this.
Look, in terms of my own safety, I have no idea what's coming. I can't tell you what's going to happen next week, let alone over the course of the next
four years. But I do think when you're watching a moment like this, what you are watching in reality is a system of power letting you know that it
can get away with anything, that is the point.
AMANPOUR: So, I'm going to get to the title of your book in a moment, but because of what you said earlier, you know, you came to the West, your
parents came to the West, and you had this idea about the values and ideals, and yet, your book clearly is about these ideals having been
betrayed. You feel betrayed by the liberal West, even before the carnage in Gaza, what happened in Israel, et cetera.
And you've dedicated mostly to this, what you call moral bankruptcy of western liberalism. I want to read this quote. "This is not an account of
that carnage. This is an account of a fracture, a breaking away from the notion that the polite Western liberal ever stood for anything at all. What
has happened for all the future bloodshed it will prompt, will be remembered as the moment millions of people looked at the West, the rules-
based order, the shell of modern liberalism and the capitalistic thing it serves, and they said, I want nothing to do with this."
That is very, very dramatic. Tell me about how that was personalized for you. What was the moment you came up with that thought?
EL-AKKAD: You know, I tend to go back to the description that Hemingway has of how his character went bankrupt, you know, little by little and then all
at once. I've spent the last year and a half watching evidence of the worst things human beings can do to one another.
And that in of itself, I think is a life changing thing. But to watch that and to simultaneously watch these press conferences in which a spokesperson
for the previous administration, and I assume now the current administration and administrations to come, will tell you how committed
they are to peace and how necessary and important this all is.
[13:25:00]
I think it creates a kind of threshold of dissociation that I personally can't meet anymore. And so, for me, you know, I understand that this is a
book that barges in through the door that pretending to want to pick a bunch of fights and, you know, the first two reviews online of this book
were a one-star review and a five-star review, and neither person had read the book. And I get that. I get that that's all sort of what I'm in for.
But for me, the sort of defining aftertaste of this book is a deep kind of uncertainty, because for the vast majority of my life, I have been oriented
towards Western liberalism. That's who I am. That's who I have been for all of my adult life. And as a result of the things I've seen, first in my
journalism career, and then over the last year and a half, I've become untethered from that. But that doesn't mean that I know who I am on the
other side of this.
AMANPOUR: Omar I'm -- I've got the book in my hands. It's a very -- it's very vibrant, the cover and obviously the title. And it's very unusual. So,
I'm just going to show it like this because there's a white highlight, which is the main title of the book, and then there's the rest of the
sentence, which is the substance of what you're saying. So, I'm going to read it.
The title of your book is "One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This." But the full title of this is "One Day, When It's Safe, When There's
No Personal Downside to Calling a Thing What It Is, When It's Too Late to Hold Anyone Accountable, Everyone Will, of course, Always Have Been Against
This." I added the, of course for emphasis. What are you saying? I know what you're saying. You explain it.
EL-AKKAD: You know, I tend to think of the world in terms of pattern recognition. And so, I was thinking of patterns related to the end of
apartheid in South Africa, the end of segregation in this country, and how it's very, very difficult long after the fact to find someone who was in
favor of those things. It's much, much easier when it's safe to then sort of change where you always stood on a position, and I think that's what's
going to happen here.
One of the things I've discovered since this book has come out is that people tend to read that title and assume two things on my behalf first,
that when I say one day, I mean next week, which I don't, I mean, you know, we -- I'm a writer, which means I go to a lot of literary festivals and
virtually all those literary festivals now begin with a land acknowledgement related to the displacement and genocide of the indigenous
population on which these countries now stand. That didn't happen a week after. That took a very long time.
The other part of it, I think, is that some people assume that when that day comes, it'll be a celebratory thing. And certainly, on my part it won't
be, because I will be thinking of all the people whose lives were ruined or ended in between when this carnage begins, and when we finally get to a
place where we can call it what it is.
AMANPOUR: I want -- you know, I've chosen several quotes, but you also have a passage that you'd like to read. So, I wonder if you would like to do
that now.
EL-AKKAD: Sure. A chasm has developed these last few months, one of many, but one that cannot be bridged. On one side is a portion of society that
fears nothing more than the discontinuation of normalcy, that believes regardless of what horror each new day brings that what matters most is to
live as one had lived before, answering e-mails and meeting deadlines, and maintaining productivity.
On the other is that portion which having witnessed the horror, is simply unable to continue as before. How does one live hearing the screams,
bearing witness to the bodies? How does anything else matter? The fear of some comfort disappearing collides with a different fear. A fear that any
society who's functioning demands one ignore carnage of this scale for the sake of artificial normalcy, is by definition sociopathic.
AMANPOUR: It's all incredibly powerful. I just want to-- before we carry on with what's happening in Gaza, because a lot of it is aimed at that. Tell a
little bit about where you started to come into -- you know, face-to-face with violence, with war, with the total ugliness of society. You became a
journalist right after 9/11.
[13:30:00]
EL-AKKAD: Yes, I was 19 years old when the attacks happened. A couple of months later, I was working for my student newspaper. All I really knew was
that the world was changing in some fundamental way and I wanted to be there to witness it. And the only thing I know how to do is write. And so,
journalism sort of allowed me the avenue to sort of mix those two things.
It was my first assignment overseas that began to sort of reshape my view of not just the West but my relationship to it. I was in Afghanistan during
the early days of the NATO invasion, and you see things like, for example, the Kandahar airfield, which has an inner wire and an outer wire. And the
outer wire is where all the attacks happened, and the outer wire is, almost without exception, guarded by troops from Afghanistan. So, there's a
hierarchy of whose life is more expendable than whose.
And then you end up in a place like Guantanamo Bay, where I covered the military trials and you watch the other layers of violence. You know,
Afghanistan was my education on the physical layer of violence. Guantanamo was an education in the bureaucratic violence, linguistic violence,
euphemistic violence, going to a place like, you know, Camp 5, Camp 6, the detention camps in Guantanamo, and asking a soldier a question and saying,
so when do the prisoners, and then immediately being cut off by a soldier who says, there are no prisoners here, sir, there are only detainees.
Because a prisoner implies a prison sentence and somebody has to define that. A detainee you can just hold forever.
And so, that was essentially my education on the various kinds of violence in the moment that I was living through. And in their totality, they sort
of reshaped my view of the world.
AMANPOUR: You know, I hear you saying part of your aim as a journalist and as a writer is to humanize those who have been dehumanized. And it appears
certainly from what I'm reading in this current book and from interviews you've had, you know, you're trying to force American readers to think of
Palestinian victims, in this case, not as them, but as us.
EL-AKKAD: I mean, my hope is that we think of everybody as us and that I'm in a position to acknowledge how controversial that sounds in this
interview strikes me as frankly astounding. You know, I have done interviews with people who are deeply angry at this book, and I get that,
and that's what books are for. You know, I fully get that.
But I am constantly fascinated at this situation where I find myself in conversation with somebody who effectively tells me something like, oh, you
don't believe those people should be slaughtered? Who do you believe should be slaughtered then?
You know, this incredible imaginative poverty in terms of something better than this existing, this notion that there are only two roles that you can
occupy. You can either be stepping on the neck or you can have your next step on. I think it's such a destructive mode of being in the world.
And so, you know, if the book comes off as wanting to humanize Palestinians, of course. Of course. But this sort of corollary that's
immediately implied that I'm looking to dehumanize somebody else just strikes me as incredibly destructive.
AMANPOUR: Do you feel that's what I was trying to imply? That you're trying to dehumanize?
EL-AKKAD: No, I don't.
AMANPOUR: No, no.
EL-AKKAD: I've had some bad interviews and I apologize. I'm not --
AMANPOUR: No, no, no. That's OK.
EL-AKKAD: I'm not taking it out on you.
AMANPOUR: No, that's OK. Because it's really interesting because we live actually in a moment where, I don't know, should I say half the world? No.
Maybe the majority of the world is watching and empathizing with the Palestinians, but a huge amount of the world, particularly the Western
liberals, are identifying with the act of barbarity and savagery that happened to the Israelis, to the Jews on October 7th.
In other words, there is a narrative that near the Twain shall meet. And even in Israel, I've been told by colleagues there that you don't -- you're
not getting the story of what's happening in their name to the Gazans. And possibly, at the beginning we were hearing that the Palestinians weren't
getting the full story of what happened on October 7th. All of this to ask you, where's the hope that you can see or not maybe, that everybody's
narrative gets told?
[13:35:00]
EL-AKKAD: You know, I tend to think of this book -- as absurd as this may sound, I tend to think of this book as the most hopeful one I've written.
Now, granted, my previous two were stone cold bummers. So, it's not an incredibly high threshold to sort of pass. But as disillusioned as I've
become about virtually every load-bearing institutional beam of the western world, political, academic, cultural, in some cases journalistic, I have
been so inspired by what individuals are doing, in community, in solidarity with one another, at great personal risk, to stand up for something that is
better than this.
I grew up in a part of the world that was built by migrant labor, and those laborers had no rights at all, none. And so, I grew up with this
implication, this unspoken implication, that there was a group of human beings who were quite simply subhuman. And for the entirety of the system
to function, they had to remain subhuman. You could not care about them in the way that you care about somebody that you consider fully human.
And I think in any situation, in the Gulf countries where I lived, in the United States where I live now, any situation where there is an unspoken
agreement to consider a group of human beings subhuman, you are in a very, very dangerous society. Because, A, it never remains that group of human
beings. Once that impulse is exercised, it cannot remain confined. And B, even if it were to remain confined, that makes it no less evil.
AMANPOUR: So, I want to ask you then, do you feel liberated after writing this? Has it lifted a weight of -- from your shoulders, of having to hold
this in?
EL-AKKAD: The short answer is no, which is strange for me to say because the only thing I know how to do is write. And so, generally speaking, when
I sit with a question that makes no sense to me or when I'm trying to contend with the way the world is working, that makes no sense to me, my
default mode is to sort of put it on the page and make it someone else's problem and then there's a kind of catharsis involved in that.
And in this situation, that wasn't the case. I finished writing this book and I felt no lighter. I felt no sense of relief or removal. I think what
has changed for me is a kind of negation of that. And what I mean by that is that, you know, I don't know if this book is worth a damn. I don't know
if it's going to change anything. I can't tell you that about my own work, but I can tell you that had I not written it, I don't think I would've been
able to live with myself. I certainly would've been -- wouldn't have been able to call myself a writer. And so, that was the impulse. But in terms of
catharsis, usually my answer would be yes. And in this case, unfortunately, it's no.
AMANPOUR: Well, I tell you the title is a challenge to all of us. "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This." Omar El-Akkad, thank you for
being with us.
EL-AKKAD: It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: And the book is out now. Next, are America's iconic areas of natural beauty under threat as Trump slashes more federal funding? We find
out after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
AMANPOUR: Now, to the fight to save America's green spaces. The Trump administration is axing key federal projects. And fears are growing that
public lands, including iconic areas of natural beauty, could be devastated.
In a conversation with Walter Isaacson, Carrie Besnette Hauser, the president and CEO of the Trust for Public Land, explains how these sweeping
cuts will impact America's parks and why every community needs access to these green spaces.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Dr. Carrie Hauser, welcome to the show.
CARRIE BESNETTE HAUSER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, Trust for Public Land: It's so good to see you again, Walter.
ISAACSON: You've just taken over the Trust for Public Land. And I think ever since Teddy Roosevelt, Americans have one thing in common as they
believe that there should be great land for the public, like the park system and things. Tell me what your organization does in working with the
National Park Service and others.
HAUSER: Well, thanks for asking. Trust for Public Land is a little over 50 years old. We're a large national conservation organization that works in
both rural and we're urban communities, which I think is one of the things that makes TPL fairly unique.
And the other thing that makes us unique is a lot of other land trusts and conservation organizations will often work to preserve lands and landscapes
for the benefit of habitat or ecosystems. And one of the things that makes TPL unique is that our entire mission is making sure that we connect people
to those outdoor places for all the health benefits, the mental health benefits and obviously, the ongoing conservation. If you connect people to
those outdoor spaces, hopefully, they also become conservationists. They care about those places and they'll protect them.
ISAACSON: When you say about connecting people, one of the things you've told me and that's on your website is that one out of three Americans
doesn't have easy access to the outdoors.
HAUSER: That's absolutely correct. TPL also has a program called The 10- Minute Walk, and our goal is to make sure that no American is farther than a 10-minute walk from a local park, a green space, you know, a national
park, whatever that might be. And a hundred million Americans are still farther from a 10-minute walk. And that also includes 28 million children.
ISAACSON: You know, we're seeing a lot of upheaval in the federal government and what it's doing. Tell me how you relate to or how it affects
your organization, how you relate to what the federal government does on these things.
HAUSER: It does indeed. You know, Trust for Public Land certainly is a beneficiary of federal grants and contracts. And perhaps more important
though, Walter, is that we are often a pass through to smaller local community organizations or nonprofits that might be building a local park,
might be doing conservation work, whatever that might be. So, oftentimes, we are a conduit to that and certainly partner with those organizations.
We currently have about a hundred projects that are in some form of limbo given some of these pullbacks, some of these stalls in federal grants,
certainly are concerns around layoffs in the National Park Service and in other Public Lands managed entities.
A couple of those, just as an example, we have a very large trail project outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. We have a schoolyard project in Rural
Oregon and we have a very large working forest conservation project, more than 10,000 acres in Northern Idaho, and that's working for us. So, those
are just a couple of examples of some of the projects that are very local and we work very closely with those local communities to activate those
projects. And those are the ones that are at risk of not getting to completion.
ISAACSON: How much of your money comes from private donations and can that make up for things that'll be scaled back by the federal government?
HAUSER: It certainly can, and we're probably at about 75 percent of our budget is private philanthropy. And we also recognize that there's a lot of
other social services and other parts of our country that are at risk right now. And so, asking private philanthropy to fill in the gap for all of
those is -- you know, is pretty significant. So, we're certainly hopeful that the federal government and the current administration will really
recognize that Americans across the board support public lands, they support the outdoors. Poll after poll will absolutely demonstrate that time
and time again.
ISAACSON: People across the board support it and Democrats and Republicans, but even Donald Trump has supported it. He signed, what was it, the great
American Outdoor Act. And I think you once said it was probably the most significant thing since Teddy Roosevelt. So, he signed that. What did it do
and do you think he will continue to care about public lands? He seems to actually be interested in it.
HAUSER: Yes. That was signed in the Roosevelt Room in August of 2020. That was a bipartisan measure, and I would say it was the greatest gesture
towards public lands and the outdoors since Teddy Roosevelt, it was very, very significant.
It -- what it essentially did was it sealed in funding for the Land Water Conservation Fund, which helps with infrastructure for national parks and
make sure that so much of those funds continue to help support so many of our public landscapes and the infrastructure that goes into them. And I
would say, you know, fast forward four years later, just in January, president Biden signed the gr the Explorer Act, which was also bipartisan.
It was unanimously passed through both the House and the Senate, and that also continues to support the outdoors conservation all the things that go
into that. And again, a very significant gesture. It has -- it was supported by members of Congress across the board, bipartisan, and it got
across the finish line in the very final hours of the last Congress by consent.
ISAACSON: And do you think Trump is -- President Trump is now scaling this back, or do you think he might still be an advocate for public access to
the outdoors?
HAUSER: It's hard to tell. I certainly hope he and the administration will certainly listen to the public around their support for public lands and
just the simple dollars and cents around it. I mean, the outdoor economy is a $1.2 trillion a year economic impact to our country. It employs 5 million
jobs across the country. The National Park Service alone, that's a $55 billion economic impact. That's a half a million jobs, and that doesn't
even include national forests, BLM lands. So, this is a huge economic engine.
So, if nothing else sort of prompts support for the outdoors, outdoor recreation and certainly for conservation, just the basic economy should.
And you know, I would maybe give you one more proof point, Walter, and that is that Trust for Public Land, one of the things that we do, Center of
Excellence, is we help local communities, states, local taxing districts run ballot measures locally to fund parks and trails and historic sites and
floodplain mitigation efforts. And we helped with 23 measures in November of 2024, and all 23 of them won.
ISAACSON: Even when Trump winning the presidential election, people were still voting for this.
HAUSER: Absolutely. I mean, we had four measures in Florida where President Trump won in the 68, 69, 70 percent range. And those measures also won by
70 plus percent. And they were climate mitigation, flood prevention, trails building, park building measures, Lake County, Florida being one of those.
So, I think what it says is that when you work with local communities and work with local voters to describe and to sort of engender support around
those measures, they get to the ballot and people can vote locally and they vote for the outdoors. And not only do they vote for it, the outdoors
nature, access to nature, they are willing to help pay for it.
And I think those are really important sort of proof points that I hope that our elected officials and certainly that the president will listen to.
Because this is, again, very local, whether it's a red community, a blue community, a purple community, a large urban center, a rural community,
this is universal. The outdoors in nature is not a controversial topic. It is one very few places in our country where there's actually unity.
ISAACSON: One of the issues, of course, is what is sometimes received as a tension between preserving public lands and conserving it, versus resource
extraction, I'll call it, whether it's taking out oil or logging or things. And the Trump administration now seems to want to do a lot more logging and
oil and gas exploration on public lands. Can you make that compatible or is that an absolute conflict?
HAUSER: Yes. I would say that it's a fairly nuanced question and it's a fairly nuanced answer. And I think I would again say it depends on whether
or not local communities and places where that activity might occur are involved in those activities.
You know, I live in Colorado, I live in Western Colorado, in Chaffee County, that is 80 percent public lands. We are surrounded by national
forest, 14,000-foot peaks. It is a riches of public lands. And we are also always waiting for the next wildfire, particularly in dry climate and
drier, drier seasons.
[13:50:00]
So, if there is a way to work with local communities to do fire mitigation, to have forestry activity that thins those forests and make them safer, but
also protects the ecology and the beauty of those particular places, there probably are some win-wins.
What doesn't happen, and it was certainly what would concern me and concern Trust for Public Land is any form of clear cutting. Anything that would
essentially bring a commercial enterprise into smaller, local, rural communities and take the economic benefit out of those communities. If it
helps support those communities, you know, if it works with local tribes, you know, in particular.
I mean, we -- TPL has done a lot of projects with local tribes. There's a good example in Maine, that that's a partnership with the local tribe.
That's a forestry activity. It maintains outdoor activity. So, there are some examples, as long as it is done in collaboration with local
communities, with local land managers that I think it can work.
ISAACSON: Give me an example, if you have one, of the Trust for Public Land, helping form a collaboration between preservation, but also the use
of lands, sort of logging, oil, gas, whatever it needs to be.
HAUSER: Sure. Well, I mean, in the news today and certainly in the news this week is housing. And that's a really big question, right? Again, I
live in Rural Colorado, in a place where public lands are abundant and places to put affordable housing are not.
You know, Montana's a good example. We have a park project in Bozeman, Montana that we worked on. It was 60 acres, created a local park and eight
acres were carved off for affordable housing for that community. So, there are absolutely efforts that can work, particularly if a local voter is
voting on something that they know will do both.
You know, I think very few of us lack a very top-down approach that maybe doesn't take into the account those local nuances and those local
partnerships. We know best on the -- you know, in our local communities. We know what best can work. These are people that have collaborated for very
long time. And if we start there, I think some of those answers can really emerge.
ISAACSON: You just referred to the idea that public -- that housing could be built on public lands and solve the affordable housing thing. And of
course, there was that announcement together with, I think it was the secretary of interior and the secretary of housing and urban development in
the Trump administration saying they were going to do that. Are you going to be involved in seeing if this can work and do you think it's a good
idea?
HAUSER: Well, I hope we're invited to the table. I mean, I think the best minds and a whole host of organizations that might be helpful to that
conversation will make for better decisions. And certainly, there's not -- I don't think there's absolutes around this. I don't know that I or Trust
for Public Land would support the notion that sort of across the board, you think about public lands for sort of commercial activity or for extraction
or for housing. There may be examples where that could work.
And remember that only about 7 percent of public lands in this country sort of reside near big urban areas where housing is, you know, in the greatest
situation of a crunch. So, it's not quite that easy and there are probably some opportunities and some approaches, as I said earlier, as long as that
is done in an engaging way inclusive to those local communities, it brings the experts together and isn't just sort of some across the board statement
that, hey, we're going to turn public lands into either commercial enterprises or to solve all of our problems.
It's going to have to take compromise. It's going to have to take creative solutions. And I think that they are there and I hope that Trust for Public
Land is at the table when those questions are asked.
ISAACSON: How worried are you about the cuts that seem to be impending for the National Park Service and other related agencies, and what are the
dangers if those go through?
HAUSER: You know, we are worried. I think we join lots of other nonprofit NGOs, government agencies that are really concerned about these cuts. We
are going into the very heavy season of spring break and summer vacations where people will be out. I just came across Washington, D.C., and you can
see the buds of the cherry blossoms starting to come out. The traffic is heavy. You know, that entire Washington Mall are public lands, those are
public spaces. Those are places that tell our history in our country and to not staff them adequately would -- frankly, would be sort of unfortunate
situation just from basic economics. They are huge economic drivers. They're places that create memories for families, for generations and we
need to make sure that they are accessible.
[13:55:00]
And we also need to make sure that they're cared for. We've seen massive wildfires in California. We've seen flooding in Florida, North Carolina.
We've seen all these natural disasters. And one of the things that our public lands do is that they buffer some of those really extreme weather
events. And the more we take care of them, the more that our communities will be buffered from those extreme events.
ISAACSON: Dr. Carrie Hauser, thank you so much for joining us.
HAUSER: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: A reminder that we all have a duty of care towards nature. 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. And remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media.
Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
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