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Amanpour
Trump's Crackdown From Migrants And Tariffs, To Universities And Diversity; What To Expect From The Next Round Of Iran Nuclear Talks; Survivors Mark 80th Anniversary Of Auschwitz Liberation. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired April 18, 2025 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. MAURA HEALEY (D-MA): This is about a classic move out of an authoritarian playbook. And I don't use those words lightly.
AMANPOUR: Trump's crackdown from migrants and tariffs to universities and diversity. How Massachusetts is feeling the impact and fighting back. The
state's Democratic governor, Maura Healey, joins me. Then --
CYRUS NASSERI, FORMER IRAN NUCLEAR NEGOTIATOR: President Trump is rightly thinking about giving diplomacy a much higher chance to proceed.
AMANPOUR: What to expect from the next round of Iran nuclear talks? Tehran and Washington want a deal. Can they get it across the line? I asked Cyrus
Nasseri, a former Iran nuclear negotiator. Plus --
SIMON SCHAMA, HISTORIAN: As we reach a moment when the last survivors are passing on, it's now up to US historians to make sure that the full
enormity of what happened will always be remembered.
AMANPOUR: The "Holocaust 80 Years On," historian Simon Schama 's deeply personal journey to Auschwitz. He joins Hari Srinivasan to talk about
creating his PBS documentary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. The age of America being seen as a bastion of free and fair
democracy is on hold, that's the message from American liberals, some traditional conservatives and even America's once overseas allies.
When Donald Trump reentered the White House less than three months ago, he began with a flurry of wide ranging executive orders. And now the impact of
those policies are hitting home hard. Take just one state for an example, Massachusetts.
People with no criminal records have been deported to foreign prisons without warning. ICE agents are breaking the car windows of migrants and
pulling students off the streets. And the world's leading universities being threatened with funding cuts if they refuse to comply with the
President's mandate to cut diversity, equity and inclusion.
Meantime, the tariff fallout continues. One think-tank estimates that they will cost Massachusetts alone three and a half billion dollars a year in US
import costs. So how does anyone navigate this? Well, our next guest says Americans must stand up for what they believe in.
Maura Healey is the Democratic governor of Massachusetts an influential voice in her party. Her state is being targeted. And she joins me now from
Boston. Governor Healy, welcome to the program.
HEALEY: It's good to be with you.
AMANPOUR: Is that about right? I mean, overseas, we are feeling that this is not the America that has always projected itself as a shining light.
HEALEY: No, it's not. And, you know, I can tell you that every day we see things that the Trump administration is doing that are just really counter
to a true America first agenda, true American values and freedoms, and the reasons why so many people come to America, and study here, and research
here, and start companies here. I mean, there's a reason that America, since Post World War II, has led the world in scientific discovery, in
innovation, in knowledge, right? And with that, tremendous economic growth.
But what Donald Trump has done from day one, two states like Massachusetts in this country and world markets, is do everything to dismantle that.
AMANPOUR: So let me ask you, because not only are there the tariffs, which no doubt you have to deal with as a state, but there's also the financial
crackdown on not just universities, but research centers. They're not just academic institutes, as we might know them. They're not public schools,
they are research centers that the world has come to rely on for all the innovation that comes from Harvard or MIT, or anywhere in your state, what
is the impact of that?
AMANPOUR: Well, let me hit tariffs and then move to your university's question. Tariffs remember, Donald Trump ran on an agenda to lower costs.
And every day he has done things that are more inflationary, that are raising costs.
As governor here, I have been focused on, number one, I cut taxes. Number two, I passed the largest housing bill in history to build more housing.
Where do we get our lumber from, Canada. Where do we get other products from, Mexico.
[13:00:07]
So he's raising housing costs, he's raising energy costs. He's raising the price on everything. That hurts our economy, it hurts the American economy.
When you talk about colleges and universities, remember that a place like Massachusetts, we have 100,000 foreign students who come to Massachusetts
colleges and universities to study, to do research, to engage in efforts to right now do clinical trials and develop the cures and treatments to cure
cancer and Alzheimer's, and all these things.
We have a number who've won Nobel prizes from here. And also importantly, these are our entrepreneurs. These are people who are starting AI
companies, robotics companies, life science companies that are so important to cybersecurity and defense.
So what he's done is, in some instances, try to disappear people from our streets. I mean, literally grabbing a graduate student with no cause, with
no due process. And I say that, Christiane, as somebody who is a former prosecutor and twice attorney general, that's happening.
And then he's cutting off funding and he's threatening. And, you know, it just -- it doesn't make any sense because right now, as we speak, we have
had people in Massachusetts whose labs have been shut down, people have been laid off, people who are in line and receiving clinical trial
treatment for cancer and all sorts of other diseases are completely shut down.
And we have foreign students opting to go elsewhere. It's a terrible situation. And for somebody, Donald Trump, let's remember, he talks about
America first. This isn't America first. If you want to re shore manufacturing, if you want to bring talent here, then don't drive talent
away, because that's what he's doing, by targeting life sciences, by targeting NIH funding, by targeting our colleges and universities.
You have people who are forced to leave, who are fired from positions because the universities and research institutes can't fund them. And you
know what you have, and this is what the public needs to understand what Donald Trump is doing. He is giving away America's intellectual assets.
Because right now, because of what he's doing, China, countries from the Middle East and elsewhere, are on our campuses, in our state. And by the
way, they're not just recruiting here, they're recruiting in states around the country because this is impacting all states. They're recruiting our
talent and saying to our scientists and researchers, come to China.
We'll give you a lab. We'll give you 90 staff people. And why would the President of the United States allow China to come and take away our
talent? Talent that is developing the cures and treatments, pioneering the technology, starting the new companies that are going to change the world,
it makes zero, zero sense economically and in terms of who we are as a nation.
And certainly we just continue each day with Donald Trump at the helm to lose our competitive advantage in the world.
AMANPOUR: You know, you say that, and I have to bring up what a Brown University professor of political economics recently said, it was quoted in
one of the newspapers, that the world, the world where we are, is waking up every day realizing that the Trump administration doesn't know what it's
doing. So I wonder whether you think there is a reason.
But I also want to ask you about the rule of law, because America stands for the rule of law. And that's very important, not just in human rights
and individual rights, but in business, you know, practices. So when you see Senator Van Hollen going over to El Salvador to try to get one of his
constituents out of their, you know, gang jail there, he was exported or deported with no due process.
This administration says, too bad. You know, yes, it was an administrative error, but we're not getting him back. This constitutional crisis that we
were told would happen when the administration, if it did challenge or refuse the Supreme Court or higher court order, it's here now, right?
HEALEY: It is. It is. And it's in -- it's really quite unbelievable where we find ourselves. And just so folks understand my background, I was
attorney general. In fact, I served alongside Pam Bondi for a time as the attorney general here in Massachusetts.
I'm also somebody who has investigated, prosecuted, and put away members of drug cartels, including folks who are not here lawfully. So I have
extensive experience when it comes to going after and apprehending those who are a public safety threat and those who have caused harm and need to
be held accountable.
[13:10:12]
I also know that what we're seeing is something we've never seen before in this country. The weaponization of the Department of Justice, the launching
of completely false, false, investigations under false pretenses, the refusal to comply with the rule of law, the refusal now to comply with
orders from the United States Supreme Court. We've not seen a president of this country ever do this.
And we're on the eve of celebrating 250 years of this great American experiment here right this weekend in Massachusetts, in fact. Never in the
course of history has a president so refused to comply with the rule of law. It's bad for our people, it's bad for our democracy, it's very bad for
business.
Look at the way in which the Trump administration is choosing to weaponize all of the regulatory agencies, the IRS and the US Department of Justice.
And, you know, this is something that I am going to continue to speak out about and speak up against. I think it's very important, Christiane, in
this moment that we continue to see people push back on these efforts that are illegal, that are unconstitutional, that are wreaking tremendous harm
on markets, on America's world standing.
And for me, on the people of Massachusetts and everyday Americans across this great country, so as governor, I'm going to continue to focus on what
I can. How do I lower costs, I cut taxes. I'm building more housing.
I'm looking to push and support innovation, including investments in education, in our workforce, and to continue to talk to our foreign
partners. You know, I've met recently with many of our partners from Canada, from Mexico and from elsewhere to say, come to Massachusetts,
continue to do business with us as a state.
We're a business that is part of an important global economy, and we support that global talent and we support the work that we can do with
other nations. But we're up against an administration that is doing everything to isolate America from our allies, to do things that are
incredibly destructive to the economy. I mean, the loss of wealth is something, I don't know that people could have imagined that we'd see this
loss of wealth in such a short part of time.
And I'll tell you the other thing. The fear is real. I've heard from people here who have been green card holders from countries like Canada and
Germany, and other European countries who are in the process of natural. The final step in their naturalization interview, they don't know whether
they should show up for that for fear of being arrested and hauled off to some gulag somewhere in El Salvador. That's the reality.
And that's why it is very important that people stand up. It's very important what Harvard University did and said enough is enough. And, you
know, on that note, I just want to be clear as well, there's no place for anti-Semitism, no place at all. In fact, as governor, I set up anti-
Semitism commission task force to study this and to identify more things we can do.
There's no doubt that Jewish students on campuses have been treated poorly in this country and colleges need to change. And Harvard has already taken
steps to do that. I've also said that's not what this is about.
This is about a classic move out of authoritarian playbook. And I don't use those words lightly, Christiane. But when you have a president who is
looking to silence all critics, all opposition, law firms, companies, colleges and universities, everyday Americans, that's the reality of what's
happening.
When you have a president who each day issuing an order, I'm going to take away tax status for colleges and universities, or any organization that's
involved in climate work, or in democracy work, or any organization that's about promoting equal opportunities for people of color or women in this
country. I mean, that's what is going on.
To say nothing of the corruption and what's happened within DOGE and the access to information that Elon Musk and others have had that can
manipulate markets, it's really important that people both understand what's going on and also speak up about it and demand accountability --
AMANPOUR: OK.
HEALEY: -- which at this point is going to come from the American people and from, frankly, Republicans in Congress who, you know, should not have
stood by and allowed all of their power and authority to be usurped by Donald Trump.
AMANPOUR: So let me ask you then, because obvious question is the Democrats appear to seem to still be in the wilderness, still shocked from what
happened in November, can't believe it, what is -- what do we stand for, what should we do.
[13:15:09]
There's your voice, which is clearly one of, you know, fighting for your constitutional rights. And then there are others who have a different view
of how to so-called thread the needle. I know Gretchen Whitmer was sent -- went to the, with the governor of Michigan, went to the White House and
suddenly found herself a prop in some kind of, you know, PR exercise.
And she had to hide her face or she decided to hide her face. Cory Booker did that incredible speech in Congress. But do you see a coherent?
I mean, what we're seeing is that Harvard, as the leading institution in the world, actually led the way and said, we cannot give up our
prerogatives. Do you see any way of banding together, like can the Democrats fight back? You said Republicans, but they're clearly not going
to do it. Who else can do it?
AMANPOUR: Well, Republicans have to be made to do it. And I'm heartened by what we're seeing in some of the town halls in this country where
constituents, including Trump supporters, are pushing back and saying, this isn't what I voted for. I didn't vote for chaos. I didn't vote to continue
to see higher prices at the grocery store or the gas pump than that needs to continue.
What also needs to happen is people like me who are in positions of leadership need to do their jobs. One of the reasons I believe that Donald
Trump won is because of a perception that the Democratic Party was not delivering for everyday Americans. I can tell you, as governor, I'm working
to do that every day.
That's why I cut taxes. I'm the first governor in Massachusetts and we've had multiple Republican governors to cut taxes, to lower costs. My focus on
building more housing, investing in workforce and vocational training, investing innovation and sectors that are going to grow our economy and
opportunity, investing in advanced manufacturing here in our state.
These are the things that we need to continue to focus on and I talk about every day. The reality, I think, for most Americans, you want to be able to
have a home. You want that home to be safe. You want health care when you need it.
You want your kids to have a shot at a good education or career opportunities. And every family wants upward economic mobility. These are
basics, you know, and we need to align around that common purpose and get that done and deliver.
We also need to speak out when things are going wrong, when things are being done that are un-American, that are unconstitutional. Because we have
a system both for the markets and for who we are as a democracy that's predicated on the rule of law, and we've got a president right now who
doesn't adhere to that. And he's surrounded by folks, unfortunately, that don't have the wherewithal to speak back --
AMANPOUR: So let me ask you --
HEALEY: -- continue to come.
AMANPOUR: I want to ask you about that, governor, because you just mentioned Pam Bondi. And I was actually interested because I hadn't
realized that, you know, you had worked together with her in the past.
So Pam Bondi is sitting in the White House when President Trump and President Bukele are there and talking about this guy who's been deported
to Salvador. And Stephen Miller stands up as if on script and on cue and says that, no, he's been viewed as a criminal where there's -- his lawyers,
everybody else says that there's no evidence he's not a gang member. Trump administration itself said it was an administrative error.
When you talk about Republicans, why is it that a Pam Bondi would sit there and let this happen? Do you think she really believes this?
HEALEY: I can't explain it. I cannot explain it because I know that, as a prosecutor, as attorney general, I swore an oath to the Constitution. That
case is so, to my mind, emblematic of what's going on. There's no evidence, it's been days now, weeks maybe, no evidence of wrongdoing.
In fact, more than that, the Trump administration has admitted that there's no evidence of wrongdoing. Bring this poor man home. Focus on real crime,
focus on real corruption. Do the work of the American people. You know, that's what I would say.
So I can't really begin to get my head around what is going on. What I see, the responses, it's certainly not anything that is operating within a
system that is a system of laws and the rule of law in this country. And that has been important to who America is for these past 250 years.
AMANPOUR: And not to mention, of course, those foreign students who are also incarcerated with no due process and no charges. Governor Healey,
thank you so much for joining us. And stay with CNN because we'll be right back after the break.
[13:20:04]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, it appears both Tehran and Trump want to strike a nuclear deal and talks are expected to continue this weekend. But just because they
want it doesn't mean it'll be easy or even that it'll happen. Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, flip flops on his demands,
while the Iranian Foreign Ministry tweeted that moving the goalposts constitutes a professional foul and an unfair act in football. In
diplomacy, any such shifting could simply risk any overtures falling apart.
So the path is unclear. What we do know is Trump wants to ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon. Don't forget he pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal
known as the JCPOA, and Iran has since been accelerating its uranium enrichment. Tehran wants to avoid a US or Israeli war and get draconian
sanctions lifted.
Our next guest is a former member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team. Now, as a businessman with great connections, Cyrus Nasseri advises informally
and back during Obama's original JCPOA agreement. Ahead of the next round of talks, he joined me in the studio with his view of what's going on
behind the scenes.
Cyrus Nasseri, welcome to the program.
NASSERI: Thank you. And thank you for the invite.
AMANPOUR: You are welcome because we really do want to understand what's going on. You were involved in nuclear negotiations way back when they
first started. You've been informally involved all throughout, including the JCPOA. Do you think there is actually a good chance of a deal being
struck this time?
AMANPOUR: Short answer, yes. Longer answer, I have to then put some content and context into it.
AMANPOUR: Well, the context at the moment is that Trump said in front of the Israeli prime minister that there would be talks, that he sent a letter
to your supreme leader, that he only wants to make sure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, cannot weaponize any of its enriched uranium.
Then, Witkoff went to meet in Oman and the whole thing seems to have taken a U-turn. His latest is that they have to dismantle it all. This is what
your foreign minister said about that, Mr. Arakchi, who will be the main Iranian negotiator.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translation): Different and contradictory statements from US Officials are unhelpful. Real
positions become clear at the negotiating table. If the US brings constructive positions, we hope talks on a potential agreement framework
can begin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Break that down for us.
NASSERI: You know, it's kind of deja vu and deja canu. It's, you know, for Araghchi and his team. They have seen this for the last two decades. Every
time there is an attempt to negotiate with the west.
You may remember this, it started with troika. You were covering this everywhere, including in Geneva. When there was a climax, everything goes
forward. But at some point, then somebody on the Western side, it's usually the Americans. Somebody in the US administration says they have to just
dismantle the whole thing, even though it is known that this is just not going to happen.
AMANPOUR: So after a long time, there was a deal, the JCPOA. It took about two years to negotiate, but it seemed to be working. Iran was deemed by the
IAEA to be maintaining its side of the bargain.
[13:25:10]
You were hoping to get more sanctions relief and all the rest. Then Trump, when he became president, pulled the US out of it, essentially saying that
he could get a better deal, he needed a better deal. And since then, Iran has zoomed to extra enrichment to about 60 percent, which is very close to
how if you wish to make a bomb, you could just turn that key. Why do you think Trump and Iran today are in a position to strike a deal?
NASSERI: Well, on the one hand, at least the way the US is presenting it is that, they consider this to be now probably close to an imminent threat.
And an imminent threat, then perhaps it follows that certain considerations have to be made on the military side and, at the end, at the same time,
probably in parallel to that, a diplomatic initiative. I'm not saying that this is justified, but I'm just saying this is the way things happen.
AMANPOUR: So what you're saying is that Trump has sent an aircraft carrier pre-positioned B52 bombers, Israel is talking tough, but they really also
want to -- well at least the US wants to do a deal.
NASSERI: Sure, the threat is real. I mean it used to be previous administrations, including during Obama period, they were talking about an
option. They always said that there is always a military option available on the table.
This is a real threat this time. It's not just an option, all this preparation that has been made.
AMANPOUR: So just let me be clear. Iran is feeling the heat that this is a active military threat that could actually be implemented, whether or not
it's by the United States or whether they empower allow watch Israel do it.
NASSERI: Well, it's probably another difference between now and 2012 to '15 when JCPOA was forming and putting into implementation, is that it is
evident that Israel has a more of a role. And that, of course, makes it a lot more difficult because Israel's position would be, you know, beyond
even maximalist.
And probably that's part of the reason that these sort of dynamics are happening in Washington where Witkoff goes to Moscow, promises something,
and then he comes back. He openly, you know, says it to the media and then a situation rule, everybody gets together and they would probably have to
step back a little bit.
AMANPOUR: We understand that there's a divided view within the Trump administration. Some believe, including JD Vance, that there should be
diplomacy. Others believe that it needs to be a much harder line, maybe even take out Iran's nuclear facilities, including people like Marco Rubio,
the Secretary of State.
What is it that brought the Iranian ayatollah, Khamenei, to agree to these talks? Having been very clear at the beginning, we can't trust the
Americans, see what they did last time, et cetera.
NASSERI: I'm not a military expert, but let me start with that. Let's say they sit in the situation room. They consider what happened in Moscow. The
next meeting in Muscat is coming up, and they need to prepare for that, because whatever happens there will also be analyzed in Tehran.
Let's say President Trump wants to know, for instance, how far the military option can go. And he would probably ask Secretary Hegseth or the, you
know, operation chief, Mr. Feinberg, OK, what are our options?
I don't think it's sufficient to just target the known targets like Natanz or elsewhere. At the end of the day, what is the core for making a nuclear
bomb? It's a material. It's about 170 kilogram plus of 60 percent enriched uranium.
Then, if we asks, you know, Mr. Feinberg, can your generals give me with sufficient confidence that you can target that, you can destroy it,
regardless of whatever, you know, radiation and other problems that it can cause. You can either snatch it back or destroy it so that, you know,
whatever Iran has been able to create so much so far during all these years, in order to have the material that we consider to -- can be
converted to a bomb, can we take it out?
And I don't think any general can say with sufficient level of confidence, yes. And therefore, the question is, can there a decision be made in
Washington to actually implement a military action? There are doubts about it.
Therefore, I think President Trump is rightly thinking about giving diplomacy a much higher chance to proceed. To me, it seems like probably
Witkoff has been a little bit, you know, considered to be going too soft too quickly.
AMANPOUR: He was just saying what Trump had said.
NASSERI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
NASSERI: Exactly.
AMANPOUR: So now you think they're thinking, oh, crikey, we need to be tough as the negotiations start?
[13:30:02]
NASSERI: I think so. I think it's very likely that at the next meeting, they will come back to a sort of a level of, you know, a platform that can
be at least considered by the Iranian side. Otherwise there'll be no more negotiations.
AMANPOUR: OK. So we've talked about the military threat, but Iran has suffered quite a lot in terms of setbacks over the last year. We've had the
-- we've seen that its ballistic missiles were no match for Israel's Iron Dome and the allies defenses in the two encounters that they had.
We've seen that Israel has taken out all Iran's proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, goodbye Bashar Assad, Syria is gone, et cetera. Does Iran feel that unless
it does this deal with the threats that Trump has said, you know, either a deal or military, that the regime might fall? What pressure is Iran feeling
from inside? Because their protests as well as you know.
NASSERI: I really couldn't contemplate, you know, how the leaders in Iran would think about this. But what I can see is that, President Trump has
very clearly said we have one issue. Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb. And I think attached to that sometimes have said that we need to make sure. Make
sure means what, we need to be able to monitor it, right?
So we are talking about not having nuclear material that is just ready to be converted to a bomb level, plus some sort of monitoring which controls
the situation. On the other side, he knows that he has to do something about the lifting of sanctions. I think the Iranians probably, they look at
the threat.
But if I were them, I would also look at the opportunity, because the difference now between when the negotiations took place with John Kerry and
Obama is that, Obama was really tight fisted. He didn't have control of the Congress and he had to manage to give something without really having the
authority at his level to give what is sufficient to make a proper deal.
Trump, on the other hand, he has the power to manage the media. If he comes to a deal, he will sell it to the American people. And he will be also able
to carry the Congress. That creates a lot of opportunity because it can go a lot further on the lifting of sanctions. But what is important at this
stage is the way Trump is looking at things.
We are talking about ground zero at this stage. OK? Iran is another country, another opportunity. McKenzie, in 2015, was saying that Iran, in
terms of Forex, the balance sheet, it can very quickly become a $1 trillion state. And I think Trump, he likes to aim high and that's the kind of thing
he leaves.
But looking beyond that, sorry, just to explain this, what you said. On a grander scale, you know, let's go to 30,000 feet. What he sees is a China
that is growing and his main aim to be able to bring some sort of geopolitical rebalancing globally, but also in this region. And having Iran
somehow closer and able to work with the United States, I think gives a lot more margin of enough to Trump, and I think that's what matters.
AMANPOUR: You talked about the stockpile of uranium. Under the original JCPOA, Russia took the stockpiles of enriched uranium as part of the deal.
Now, Iran is saying it doesn't want to get rid of those stockpiles because it says, well, we saw us do a deal, then the American President pulled out,
left us, you know, standing. Why should we give up this stuff in case they pull out again?
That's going to be a bit of a deal breaker, isn't it? And also right now, one of your -- Is it Arakchi, or whoever, is in Moscow talking to Putin.
NASSERI: Yes. I think it's just an exchange with Moscow. I don't think anything will be really coming from. I mean, the view of Moscow is probably
important now for the current system in Iran, but eventually it's the Iranians who make a decision on this.
It's not a matter of, you know, it's not 01, it's not that. either you give up the whole stockpile or there will be zero and dismantlement. No, there
is a lot in between. There is -- what Witkoff says is, makes -- is -- does make sense. And eventually I think that the deal will be on that basis.
AMANPOUR: Which one?
NASSERI: That Iran can have enrichment up to 3.67 level --
AMANPOUR: 21st --
NASSERI: -- which can be used to, even be sent. And in a cycle, uranium comes in, is converted, is, you know, reached to 3.67. It goes to Russia to
be converted to fuel. It comes back for Bushehr (inaudible), right? That's possible.
And it's been done before. It just has to be done in a different way because Trump doesn't like JCPO. He wants another kind of a deal. They just
need to reformat that.
AMANPOUR: You know, the original JCPOA did not deal with anything except for the nukes. Now we're hearing the administration wants to check
weaponization, look at the missiles, maybe include negotiations over your missiles.
[13:35:12]
NASSERI: No, no. The missiles were dealt with actually in JCPOA, why? Because it was in the UN resolution. And that arrangement was that Iran
will not produce missiles that are specially designed for a nuclear bomb delivery.
AMANPOUR: OK. And --
NASSERI: And therefore, that can be a basis for another understanding. But I don't think Trump's focus is on missiles right now, and rightly so. But I
look at what he does and what he says, and I think is -- it's -- I think it makes a lot of sense to focus first on the issues that have been dealt with
before.
And the main, apparently the main source of concern, nuclear threat, as US sees it, monitoring. And on the other side, the sanctions. Fourth element
is then, if we do all of this time around, not like JCPOA, when the Europeans were going to benefit on the economic side. This time around, how
can us also benefit in being able to enter into this, you know, economic activity and invest in Iran.
AMANPOUR: And finally, you seem upbeat on this, why would you be? And why would the Iranian government be in terms of dealing with a president who
showed that what he did was pull out of the last agreement?
NASSERI: I can't say I'm upbeat about it. There's still a long way to go. It's very difficult to say that there will definitely be an agreement.
But my view is, eventually there will be a sort of a moderate agreement, which I'm not happy about. Because what I like to see is the Iranian people
who have been suffering a lot, they see a change in their situation. And that can only happen if there is really a grand opening of economic
activity and collaboration with Iran from not just from China and others, but also from the West, hopefully including with America.
And that can bring hope to the Iranian youth and other people. You know, the Iranians are very talented. Some of them dominate the Silicon Valley.
But when they're sitting in Tehran, they're isolated from the world. What they like to see is that to be able to sit on their laptop, maybe produce a
source code, a computer, be able to exchange with somebody in California, sell it to them, get the money, you know, these simple things that are
taken granted elsewhere. But in Iran, it just, you know, it's all obstacles.
AMANPOUR: We'll see what happens. Cyrus Nasseri, thank you very much indeed.
NASSERI: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's position is clear. It's well-known that he takes a much more hard line view on Iran, favoring
military action against nuclear sites. And there are also divisions reported within Trump's own national security cabinet about whether to take
the diplomatic or the military route. We'll be right back after this short break.
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AMANPOUR: This week marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. in Germany. This just a few months after
the liberation of Auschwitz was commemorated, the notorious extermination camp in Poland that was the epicenter of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.
These grim anniversaries offer us the opportunity for reflection. And now, in a new PBS documentary, "THE HOLOCAUST 80 Years On," historian Simon
Schama travels across Europe to speak to survivors and better understand this very dark period in our history.
[13:40:13]
As a British Jew with ancestral roots in Lithuania, it is also deeply personal for him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHAMA: All over the world, hatred and Holocaust denial are on the rise. And as we reach a moment when the last survivors are passing on, it's now
up to us historians to make sure that the full enormity of what happened will always be remembered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Auschwitz did not fall from the sky. It comes step by step. Evil comes step by step.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And Simon Schama joins Hari Srinivasan to discuss what he learned on this particular journey.
HARI SREENIVASAN, HOST, "AMANPOUR AND COMPANY": Christiane, thanks. Simon Schama, thanks so much for joining us. Your film, the "Holocaust 80 years
On," will be airing on PBS on Tuesday. I guess, first, why did you want to make this film -- why now?
SCHAMA: Well, two reasons, really. One, there's a painful paradox that we're facing right now, namely, there's never been more Holocaust education
available, whether in schools, museums, memorials. But we're also faced with a kind of eruption of anti-Semitism, very upsetting.
I think it's almost as though anti-Semitism has been normalized, not just in the kind of far left and far right, but when -- it's almost the sort of
result, I think, of people yawning when they hear the word Auschwitz, exactly because they think they know everything there is to know about it.
And the Holocaust used a pretext for people who are passionately devoted to Israel, both rightly or wrongly.
So I've known for a while that this isn't the whole story, and that there was much more to it and a different kind of story to tell, both in terms of
timing and also in terms of ultimately, how did this uniquely horrific, catastrophic extermination come about? So we begin the story, as you know,
of horrifying massacres as early as the summer of 1941, and in spatial terms as well.
It isn't just the Nazis and the Germans who managed to bring this about. So our mission to ourselves was notwithstanding, everybody feeling there is
nothing more to learn about the Holocaust. We felt, including myself, I learned a lot while filming it and researching it. There is a lot more to
say and a lot more that urgently needs to be said and shown.
SREENIVASAN: Why start there in Lithuania? What was happening there for our audience?
SCHAMA: Yes. Well, it was an extraordinary, a horrifyingly tragic moment. Almost as soon as the Germans invade Eastern Europe, invade Lithuania, in
this particular case, they are embarking on an experiment.
There is no question that extermination was at the top of Hitler's agenda, but how it possibly could be done while fighting war at the same time was a
matter, it's terrible to talk about it this way, matter of practical strategy. So it was necessary really to test the waters to see if local
populations in Eastern Europe would, as the Nazis correctly guessed, be more than willing collaborators.
So a few days, just a very few days after the Germans occupied, for example, the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius, and we concentrate at the
beginning on Kaunas, terrible massacres occurred, which is where my maternal -- my mother's family originally came from.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHAMA: There were 40 synagogues in Kaunas before the war. And Jews in Kaunas were an amazing community. They're an amazing community. There were
five Yiddish newspapers, there was youth organizations, there was an athletic club, there was every kind of Jewish activity. So it was
flourishing, prospering culturally and in every other way too.
And that's why when a few days after the Germans arrived in the last week of June, the shock, actually, of the hatred that the Jewish community felt
was traumatic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHAMA: There's an extraordinary massacre in a car park at the Agricultural Union in which something like between 50 and 70 Jews are beaten to death
with iron bars. And the whole thing is photographed and filmed. This happens in broad daylight with spectators standing around.
[13:45:00]
There was something -- hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of massacres occur in 1941, before Auschwitz is even thought about as a kind of death
camp. Something like 1.5 million people were murdered by shooting, the so- called Holocauster bullets (ph) in that early stage.
So the Germans have their answer. They have helpers galore right through the whole belt of Eastern Europe from the Baltic States right down to
Crimea. So it's a terrible thing, but part of our mission was that we shouldn't flinch in front of these things, actually. We shouldn't reduce
them to simply numerical data.
SREENIVASAN: Yes. There's this fascinating map that you have in the film which shows, you know, a dot where every one of these massacre. And in my
head, it made me kind of wonder what is it about human beings that we can set aside our humanity to no longer see that person who used to walk the
streets with you yesterday as worthy of life anymore. I mean, there's a scene you mentioned with the -- I think it's footage from a historian who
had interviewed one of the survivors of that area. She's wearing a tooth from a body.
SCHAMA: Yes, yes. Well, actually the woman says she's asked by the interviewer, was people living or dead when you've got the tooth? And she
says with this extraordinary almost gnomic expression, oh, they're very much alive. I think the majority of people were dead.
The answer to your very important question, Hari, and you know, this is what one meditates darkly on in any kind of encounter with the Holocaust,
what is it about us really that can do that. But one of our survivors who we interview at the very end, just before he died, wonderful Marian Tursk,
says very profoundly Auschwitz did not fall from the sky.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIAN TURSK, POLISH HISTORIAN: Auschwitz did not fall the sky. It comes step by step. Evil comes step by step. And therefore you shouldn't be
indifferent. Let's start with reducing hatred and trying to understand other people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHAMA: It takes hundreds of years of utter dehumanization to make people suddenly, you know, realize, well, they're not really humans at all. They
might be living among us, they might have businesses like we do. They might seem like the rest of us, but truly they really aren't.
In the case of the Jews, Jews were thought of, from the Middle Ages, as carrying infectious diseases, for example, as kind of literally pedestrian
vermin. So that when the Nazis many hundreds of years later say, well, this is really a case of pest extermination. People were already primed by
generations of unspeakable hatred, racist memories to do that.
SREENIVASAN: Yes.
SCHAMA: It still is, you know, that's the sort of intellectual explanation, emotionally, for me, after all this time, after all this research, after --
they still doesn't quite compute, because the better part of ourselves doesn't want to make it compute, but it unfortunately does.
SREENIVASAN: One of the things that's fascinating about your film is in the Netherlands, I think not until your film did I see the sort of scale of the
bureaucracy you called it Holocaust with gloves on. What was happening there?
SCHAMA: The most painful thing, and a lot of my life has been spent in researching Dutch history, is that the Netherlands, the Dutch Republic as
it had been, was the most tolerant, hospitable place for Jews to live in Europe between the early 17th century and until the Holocaust arrive. So
particularly upsetting to realize that the Netherlands had the highest rate of massacre and extermination in all of Western Europe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHAMA: I think sort of the dumbfounding thing is that then an entire world of Dutch Jews, more than 100,000, could be made to disappear with
institutional passiveness. You know, Eastern Europe and Auschwitz seems like the Holocaust. But the Holocaust can also come with gloves on, with
gloves on until they're taken off. And that's as horrifying in its own way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHAMA: So when you tackle that and when you look at it, you see two things. You see the genuine sense among the Dutch, especially in Amsterdam,
of solidarity and brotherhood. In the first year of the German occupation, there are all kinds of signs of sympathy and resistance when Jews.
[13:50:08]
When Jews were forced to wear a yellow star, people, this is not just hearsay, people doff their hat in the street. Most remarkably, there was a
massive general strike against deportations that took place in February of 1941. After that, two things happen.
The Germans hit very, very hard. Execute anyone they take to be responsible for the protests. They replace the regular police with people they can
trust who are essentially Dutch Nazis. But the other thing is they create a kind of bureaucratic apparatus.
It's not like Warsaw, it's not like Ukraine, it's not like Lithuania where people are beaten to pulp in broad daylight and carted off into cattle
cars. I mean, the Dutch do get carted off in the cattle cars. But the first thing is a system of information, of identity cards.
There was something you'll recall from a film called the Dutch Map (ph), which showed exactly where a group of 10 Jews were living. And Amsterdam
was such an assimilated and integrated city that this wasn't just in the so called Jewish quarter, it was all over the city. And when that information
is collected, the second in command of the occupation tells his superior, we now have the Jews in the bag.
So the Nazis were very nimble in a way. They could go for full on slaughter and terror or they could rely not on barbaric collaborators in broad
daylight massacre, but on bureaucratic indifference. The institutions, people who did not want to put their head above the parapet, who felt
indeed they were just doing their administrative work in registering Jews which was essentially an accessory to their slaughter.
SREENIVASAN: This also seems to be a film that is a tribute to historians. I mean from Lithuania to Warsaw, you really go out of your way to show the
level of risk that the historians had put in the time of the Holocaust to archive this, but then also to try to preserve this material and to be able
to present it for us.
SCHAMA: Yes, that's kind of exactly right. If I had one brief to myself, apart from showing aspects of the Holocaust that people were much less
familiar with than Auschwitz, it was to kind of honor their sense that they were memory keepers. So many of them actually, particularly when they
resign themselves to the fact it was very unlikely that they would survive. And very few of them did, said over and over again, we want what we are
doing. We want our record, our witness, our testimony, our evidence to survive.
In the case of the wonderful Warsaw group called Oneg Shabbat, the joy of the Sabbath, led by historian with whom, you know, for whom I have
professional reverence, and a man called Emanuel Ringelblum. They hid their archive in milk churns and steel cases, and buried them under a school.
And they were so obsessed with the survival of these documents that only a tiny number of this group, of 60 people, knew at any moment the location of
where those records were, lest they be tortured by the Gestapo and forced to reveal.
SREENIVASAN: I want to ask how much of our collective, I guess, fading memory is because of the sort of general recency bias that we have. And you
kind of just have this tendency maybe to assume, oh, this is history, this isn't today, this couldn't happen now. But, you know, I don't know. I mean,
have we let our defenses down?
SCHAMA: Yes. Well, I think we're in terrible jeopardy because of short attention span, because of the kind of cult of the immediate, if you think
about Instagram and Snapchat. But the young are seduced and fixated by impatience. Impatience is exciting, then bring the next thing on, bring the
next moment on.
This old stuff in faded colors, as you say, in black and white could be as remote as the Egyptians at the time of the pyramids or something. But
that's not how -- that's why historians struggle, as we might continue to persist with the notion that the past lives amongst us. It never really
goes away.
We are the sum of our pasts as well as the hope for breaking free of them in some case and having a better future. But what the past tells us is not
a kind of -- it's not like antique collecting, it's an insurance policy against making the same horrible mistake all over again.
[13:55:14]
And in the case of the Holocaust, the many ways in which evil and catastrophe can pounce on you, from the liberation of horrific violence to
this sinister step by step, sneaky approach, gradual degradation into utter ruin. That can happen at any time and in any place.
SREENIVASAN: The film is called "The Holocaust 80 Years On." Simon Schama, thanks so much.
SCHAMA: Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: And that's our program for tonight. 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. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
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END
