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Amanpour
Interview with The New Yorker Staff Writer Susan Glasser; Interview with Former U.S. Special Middle East Coordinator "Statecraft 2.0" Author Dennis Ross; Interview with "Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction" Author and UC Davis School of Law Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law Mary Ziegler; Interview with "Can't Look Away" Director Perry Peltz; Interview with Social Media Victims Law Center Founder Matthew Bergman. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired April 28, 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]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Donald Trump has got to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Souring on Trump. The president's approval rating plunges after nearly 100 days in office. We'll dive into the numbers and what they mean.
And Israel strikes Beirut, while Qatar hails a bit of progress towards deceased fire in Gaza. What is Netanyahu's ultimate goal and how much
influence does Washington really have? I ask former U.S. Mid-East Envoy Dennis Ross.
Then, "Personhood," Professor Mary Ziegler tells me why she thinks the next frontline and reproductive rights will be fetuses and embryos.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many more children have to die?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Hari Sreenivasan looks at the dangers of social media with lawyer Matthew Bergman and filmmaker Perry Peltz, the duo behind the new
documentary "Can't Look Away."
Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in London, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
41 percent, that's President Donald Trump's approval rating according to a new CNN poll, as he nears 100 days in office. It's the lowest number for
any newly elected president at this point in a term dating back to at least Dwight D. Eisenhower.
And it's a steep drop from Trump's support just before the election. The poll finds the president underwater and sinking across nearly all major
issues he sought to address during his time in office. Most notably, perhaps his marks for handling the economy are down five points to a career
low of 39 percent.
So, will these declining ratings spell doomed for the rest of the president's term, or are they just one more ride on the Trump
rollercoaster? Susan Glasser is a staff rider for The New Yorker. Welcome back to the program, Susan.
So, Donald Trump, that we've known, historically, pays close attention to poll numbers. He seems to be taking these poll numbers and not just CNN's,
I mean there've been New York Times', across the board. He is underwater with the majority of Americans on the majority of issues that are most
important for them. What do you make of his dismissive, and I would just say not very concerned at this point, reaction thus far?
SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, the polls that Donald Trump has always cared about the most during this extraordinary nine-year
ride in public life have been those of his own Republican Party. He's been a president of the United States for the base, as he calls it, for Red
America. At times has almost defined the enemy as that part of America that opposes him.
And so, for him, it would be losing support among Republicans and his core voters that would be the biggest crisis, that really hasn't happened yet.
We have still seen enormously strong support from Donald Trump. Of course, he also lives in a media ecosphere that is louder than ever among his far-
right allies and supporters. So, he's still hearing positive reinforcement there. He hasn't had Republican members of Congress really break with him
yet. In fact, they've almost rolled over as he has usurped many of the powers of the Republican dominated Congress.
So, that's a key moment that hasn't happened yet. But of course, Trump cares about the markets. We all know how he crows when the stock market is
up. It must pain him that it's going down and down as a result of his economic policies. But I think for Trump, again, it's his own team that he
cares the most about.
GOLODRYGA: And you're right to point that partisan views of Trump remained broadly very polarized. 86 percent of Republicans approved thus far. 93
percent of Democrats are disapproving. But his poll numbers among independents have gone down. And what should be concerning perhaps to even
Republican supporters is that a lot of these policies from the tariffs to even border issues and immigration have yet to be fully implemented.
Do you think that there is cause for concern within this White House in the months to come, specifically as it relates to the issue of the economy and
increasing red blinking lights about a looming recession?
[13:05:00]
GLASSER: Yes. I mean, I think it's very notable that you're hearing the White House, as it hits the 100-day mark, wanting to talk a lot more about
immigration, which they still see as Trump's strongest issue, certainly the most motivating issue for his supporters, they're talking about that and
immigration and illegal immigrants and how they're getting rid of them and deporting them from the country more than they want to talk about the
uncertainty surrounding the U.S. and the global economy right now as a result of the, quote/unquote, "a Liberation Day policies."
It's very notable, I think, Bianna, that Trump's polls really started to go south as soon as he made that marquee speech on April 2nd, his,
quote/unquote, "Liberation Day." And you know, it's hard to see him really pulling back, given that tariffs are probably one of his only fixed
principles for a man who's been very malleable when it comes to almost any other ideological subject.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, and he's been a fan of tariffs going back decades from his time running his family business as well. On the issue though of inflation,
approval for him is down nine points to 35 percent on tariffs. It's down four points to 35 percent. Even as we noted, immigration overall, 45
percent approved now down six points from March.
Let's turn to something you and I discuss a lot, and that is foreign policy, because even on foreign policy you have a lot of the majority of
respondents here unhappy with his approach to the wars in Ukraine and many closing -- the closing of many foreign aid programs. Can I get you to
respond to this latest back and forth between Ukraine and Russia?
You saw the president meeting with President Zelenskyy in -- at the Vatican in Rome over the weekend at the funeral for Pope Francis, where he came out
and, really, for the first time, suggested maybe, hey I've been played all along by Vladimir Putin, maybe he doesn't want this war to come to an end.
All of a sudden you have Vladimir Putin announcing that there's going to be a temporary pause starting next week to the war. Do you think that's in
direct response to what we heard from President Trump?
GLASSER: Yes. I mean, look, what I'm really struck by is that a lot of this process is not what you would really call peace negotiations in any
normal sense of the word, but a lot of it has been Donald Trump negotiating with himself and offering Putin unprompted concessions while asking very
little or nothing of Russia and putting enormous pressure on Zelenskyy, our ally. All of that remains murky and unclear.
A hundred days in, Donald Trump's braggadocious claim that he was going to end the war, even before he took office, or in 24 hours. Obviously, what
he's seeing is Putin and Zelenskyy and Ukraine resisting his efforts to do that.
I think that we've seen nothing from Putin that indicates that he's willing to accept the concessions that Trump has offered. He seems to still be
insisting on all of the main points that he was insisting on, frankly, back in January before Trump got involved in this in the first place.
So, right now, hopes for a meaningful piece are dim and even those efforts at a ceasefire that have been talked about four months have not really come
through. I mean, that's the thing. Russia has not given any evidence of Goodwill to make even baby steps toward a peace deal at this point.
GOLODRYGA: And remember, this is a conflict that President Trump ran on saying that he could bring to an end on day one. And obviously, here we are
approaching day 100 and the war continues. And just now, the president seems to be acknowledging, or at least on one day, acknowledge what so many
experts, yourself included, have been stating all along that Vladimir Putin is in no rush to end this war right now, perhaps just buying time for
himself.
I'd like to play sound from Secretary of State Marco Rubio from over the weekend, because for the last two weeks, we have heard both the secretary
of state and the vice president warn that if there isn't a resolution to this war anytime soon, the United States is out. Here's what the secretary
of state said just yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This is going to be a very critical week. This week is going to be a really important week in which we have to
make a determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in, or if it's time to sort of focus on some other
issues that are equally, if not more important in some cases. But we want to see it happen. There are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons
to be realistic, of course, as well. We're close, but we're not close enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Susan, how do you interpret that statement that this is a very critical week? What makes this week different from the past three plus
years of this war?
[13:10:00]
GLASSER: Nothing except Donald Trump is desperate to show that he's made any progress. And I would note that that is a very different tone that we
heard there from the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, previously until he entered the Trump administration, a self-proclaimed strong supporter of
Ukraine.
But that's a very different tone that Rubio struck than Donald Trump, who just a few days ago, before he went to the Vatican, was saying with no
evidence at all that this was true, we have a deal with Russia. I think we have a deal with Russia. It's just Ukraine that's proved more difficult.
And so, that just tells you there's been a lot of puffery, number one. Number two, that the timeframe that has really been dictating a lot of this
is Donald Trump's own political timeline back here in Washington to show some results. And that number three, what I'm curious about is this
apparent threat to walk away from the table that you've heard from Rubio, Vance, and others, just who is out of threat to, at this point.
My guess is that many supporters of Ukraine would be kind of relieved to have Donald Trump with his sort of bullying and bluster back away a little
bit, if that is that the U.S. continued military and intelligence support, especially for Ukraine continues. They have not specified what walking away
would mean.
And so, I think, for me, that's a big question mark. Does walking away mean walking away but leaving the status quo otherwise untouched, or does it
mean actually walking away in a concrete and specific way from Ukraine as well?
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And that is a big question, are they going to continue to provide intelligence and weapons to Ukraine? We saw them pause both earlier
this year. And it's yet to be determined what that actually means, walking away from what, as you note.
Quickly, something else that Secretary Rubio said in those comments to "Meet the Press." He said, we could actually walk away for issues and focus
on other issues that are equally, if not more important. I would assume that's related to foreign policy. We see another round of talks with Iran.
Is this sort of the next big issue the president's hoping to resolve within his first few months in office?
GLASSER: Well, I think that Trump opening up these talks with Iran was a bit of a surprise, certainly to some of his more traditionally hawkish
Republican supporters. They are very dismayed, frankly, and many of them see this as sort of a betrayal. But you know, putting my Trumpologist his
hat on, I would say this is Donald Trump out there in search of a big deal, any big deal.
You know, Trump has made no secret of his desire to claim a Nobel Peace Prize for mediating and brokering some deal. So far, he doesn't have any
big, beautiful deals to brag about. We remember in his first term in office, he was so eager for a deal back then. He claimed that he had
managed to somehow denuclearize North Korea and it was the biggest, most important deal ever. Of course, not only was there no deal, but there was
no Nobel Peace Prize forthcoming from that either.
So, I think the Iran talks, maybe he'll go back to the well between Israel and Hamas. This is -- he might restart talks with North Korea, by the way.
This is Trump --
GOLODRYGA: Yes. There've been reports on that. Yes.
GLASSER: -- looking -- his legacy. Exactly.
GOLODRYGA: Susan Glasser, not even a hundred days in and a lot to cover. Thank you so much for joining us.
GLASSER: Great to be with you.
GOLODRYGA: And stay with CNN. We'll be right back after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:15:00]
GOLODRYGA: Israel struck a residential neighborhood in Southern Beirut on Sunday saying that it was targeting Hezbollah. It's another crack in the
ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which has largely held since November.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Qatar says that there has been a bit of progress towards ceasefire there, but nothing decisive. And the U.N. says it has run
out of food in Gaza due to Israel's ongoing blockade. But what is Prime Minister Netanyahu's ultimate strategic goal and what influence can the
U.S. exert? Ambassador Dennis Ross served for years as a top diplomat at the State Department, working closely on the peace process and on wider
regional issues. His most recent book is "Statecraft 2.0," which explores the ways America has often failed to align its foreign policy goals and
actions.
Ambassador Ross, welcome back to the program. It is good to see you. We'll get to your book in just a moment, but I'm sure you were able to listen to
my conversation there with Susan Glasser, and we were talking about foreign policy, where the president seems to be quick to make some sort of deal and
resolving a number of these conflicts going on around the world. He seems to now be questioning Vladimir Putin's long-term intent.
And on the issue of Israel, he hasn't spent much time discussing the war in Gaza either he came into this administration and this term, demanding that
all the hostages be released and that this war come to an end. Here we are a hundred days in, the hostages still remain in Gaza, the blockade
continues. Where do you see this president in terms of any leverage that he is putting on Prime Minister Netanyahu specifically to get this resolved
one way or the other?
DENNIS ROSS, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL MIDDLE EAST COORDINATOR AND AUTHOR, "STATECRAFT 2.0": I think it's a really interesting question because you
could also say, just as you were in your interview with Susan, Susan was making the point that you haven't seen the president exert any real
leverage on Putin.
We also haven't seen him exert any real leverage on Prime Minister Netanyahu in the service set of an objective that the president himself
said he wanted, which was to bring this war quickly to an end. The question I think, becomes, will he? We had a kind of interesting indicator of how
President Trump approaches Prime Minister Netanyahu.
On the one hand, it is very supportive rhetorically. On the other hand, he has him in the Oval Office ostensibly to talk about tariffs. Although,
clearly, the real reason was to talk about Iran. He surprises the prime minister in that meeting by announcing he's going to have direct talks with
Iran the following Saturday.
When the issue of tariffs comes up, he makes it clear that he's not doing anything in that regard, and he reminds everyone that we provide Israel $4
billion a year. A not-so-subtle signal, it suggests we're doing plenty for you, don't expect us to give you a break on this.
So, here, he is signaling that he'll do what he wants to do. He's not necessarily applying overt political pressure, but there's a subtle message
there that implies pressure. And I would even say, if you look at his interview in Time Magazine, the president's interview in Time Magazine, he
says about Iran that, you know, I didn't make them comfortable, meaning, I didn't make the Israelis comfortable. I didn't wave off their strike, but I
didn't make them comfortable.
So, these are all indications that, in fact, he might be prepared to exercise leverage. Ut to the essence of your question, we haven't seen it
yet. We certainly haven't seen it on Gaza. Although even in that meeting with Netanyahu, he said he expected the war end soon. And then he said in
the not-too-distant future. So, that implies something could be coming. We just haven't seen it yet.
GOLODRYGA: Right. And this previous, the most recent meeting in the Oval Office between Prime Minister Netanyahu and the president objectively was
viewed as quite an embarrassment for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now, counter that to their meeting prior where it appeared from reporting that President
Trump had just moments before addressing reporters stated that it was the U.S.'s intent of taking over Gaza and rebuilding it, perhaps even
displacing Palestinians there in Gaza.
As we know, as we reported this war continues, the blockade, it continues as well. And President Trump was just asked about conditions there over the
weekend, and here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Gaza came up and I said, you know, we got to be good to Gaza. Those people are suffering. We got to be good to Gaza.
Well, we're going to take care of that. There's a very big need for medicine, food, and medicine, and we're taking care of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:20:00]
GOLODRYGA: It's understandable why people may be puzzled to hear two very different points from the president as it relates to Gaza. You're still
plugged in with many in the Israeli government. How are they interpreting this?
ROSS: I think that they're interpreting it as they have to do something as it relates to the humanitarian assistance. It's interesting, that has not
been the case up until now, because the administration had not been suggesting that Israel had to do anything differently. The Israeli military
has actually prepared a kind of contingency plan for how it would provide security, not for the distribution of assistance, but for the security of
areas where the assistance might be going and where third country groups, presumably some kinds of security contractors, would be responsible for
actually distributing the assistance.
There is a lot of resistance to that within the far-right wing of the current Israeli coalition, the current Israeli government, but it's pretty
clear to me that the -- that Prime Minister Netanyahu will not say no to President Trump. When President Trump says we're going to be taking care of
that in terms of the food and the water, it means to me Prime Minister Netanyahu's going to have to come up with an after answer, and he is going
to have to basically justify it with people like ministers, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich that, look, this is what President Trump requires. We can't say no
to him on this because he gives us so much backing on so much else.
It'll be his use of President Trump as his excuse for why he's now going to do something that he has prevented since the end of the ceasefire, the
resumption of Israel fighting and the denial of any humanitarian assistance going in, the explanation will be what President Trump is putting the
pressure he's putting on him to explain why now they will be providing food and assistance, food and water.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And of course, we've been reporting also that the families of the hostages that remain in Gaza are also wanting to exert continued
pressure on President Trump for this to be at the top of his mind and agenda to get this resolved as well, because they have long given up, or a
majority of them have given up on this being a priority for Prime Minister Netanyahu at this point. And not to mention, you know, the blame lying with
Hamas who hasn't budged either.
Let me turn to the Time magazine with President Trump, where he also said, in talking about the Middle East. that he is pretty confident of Saudi
normalization imminently. How do you read that, especially given the fact that Saudi has said as a prerequisite that the war in Gaza has to be
resolved before there's any talk of a normalization?
ROSS: From the Saudi's standpoint, I'll tell you, the issue of normalizations is not on the table. And as you said, it's not on the table,
at least until the war in Gaza is over and the Israeli military is out of Gaza. What it says to me is that the president still has this as an
objective. He still has a very ambitious desire, this notion of his wanting the Nobel Peace Prize, it's not going to come from Russia, Ukraine, at
least the way it looks now, it's not going to come, I don't think, from Iran.
There may be a deal with Iran, but it will be a framework deal. It won't be a comprehensive deal. The comprehensive deal will have to come somewhere
down the line. So, it brings him back to setting normalization. The expansion of the Abraham Accords.
Here, again, brings us, I think, to what you were raising about Gaza. We may be seeing the president moving towards a point where he will exercise
much more leverage on the prime minister to end the war. For a long time, the Israeli military's attitude has been, we can end the war so that
hostages, all the hostages come out, that should happen. There is no way that Hamas will live up to any deal that's negotiated. They will violate it
at some point. We'll then we'll be able to deal with them.
I think, again, we're going to see that not happening until the president decides that he needs it to happen for his larger objective of wanting
Saudi normalization with Israel, which as I said, is probably his one real pathway to a Nobel Prize.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And between that and finding it also difficult, as everyone had warned, to get the war in Ukraine, resolved justly you have
reporting, as you noted, and we are now four meetings into any sort of talks with Iran over a renewed deal. And the pressure on President Trump is
to make this deal much stronger and tougher than the one he tore apart in 2015, JCPOA, which he spent years ridiculing president Obama for. And now,
there's reporting from Axios that he's wanting to restart talks with North Korea.
[13:25:00]
All of this brings me to your book because those who defend President Trump's approach say, listen, the conventional way has not worked. Look at
what happened even in Gaza when he had the king of Jordan come and offer to sit with the Arab League and come up with their own proposals that he's a
disruptor. And having someone like Steve Witkoff who's not a longtime diplomat, all of this gets people moving and working towards a solution.
Walk us through your thoughts on that and how it relates to what drove you to write your book now.
ROSS: Look, the key to good statecraft is you marry objectives and means. It seems obvious, why wouldn't you adopt a policy where you marry
objectives and means? The reason we frequently don't is because we don't think through our objectives in a way that we need to. We don't ask the
right questions about the objectives. Either our stakes don't justify the kind of means that would be required, or there's political pressures that
it gets us to adopt certain objectives, or we simply don't understand the situation.
When you look at what President Trump is doing, he stakes out very ambitious objectives. Now, staking out those ambitious objectives can
create pressure on others, but if you don't have the means to achieve those objectives, sooner or later, your leverage begins to dissipate.
Leverage is a key. In good statecraft, it's not just that you're marrying objectives, it means you are able to develop increasing leverage or
influence on others because of the means you have on your own or the means you can mobilize from others. Others embrace your objectives because of
your soft power. Others embrace your objectives because you take the initiative and you frame issues in a way that others can accept and follow.
The president does a number of things, but he doesn't tend to follow through on creating a kind of marriage of his means with the objectives. He
doesn't use the soft power we have, which is to attract others. He doesn't tend to rely on alliances because he sees them as more of a burden than in
addition to our strength. So, it's not that he can't disrupt and it's not that he can't get others to begin to respond to them -- to him, but they
won't respond to him over time unless they see that he actually delivers on what he says.
So, when you open up a very big gap between what you're saying, what you're laying out as your objectives, what you're framing as your objectives, and
what you're actually able to deliver, what that will do over time is increasingly diminish the leverage he has. It'll make others less
responsive to him.
One of the reasons he legitimately needs some successes, not just for political reasons here, but to create credibility about the objectives he
stakes out. If he can show he's able to achieve some of them, then he's more likely to create responsiveness. Then he is likely to build on the
means he has. Then he is likely to draw others in. Right now, he needs a success for that. And right now, he doesn't have that.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, it seems to be fleeting at this point. Thank you so much, Ambassador Dennis Ross. Appreciate the time.
ROSS: My pleasure.
GOLODRYGA: Well, next to reproductive rights in America. After the overturning of Roe versus Wade in 2022, the national picture of access to
abortion and reproductive care became a lot more complicated.
In Missouri, for instance, voters approved a ballot initiative last year that enshrined reproductive rights in the state constitution only for
Republican lawmakers to now attempt to undo that result. In Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear vetoed a GOP bill on abortion only for lawmakers to
override his veto.
Amidst all of this, there could be a new fight brewing. In her new book, "Personhood, "abortion law expert Mary Ziegler argues that the next
frontline and reproductive rights will be centered on fetuses and embryos. She joins me live to explain. Mary, good to see you again.
So, walk us through what had been perhaps the wrong narrative and takeaway from what we've seen happen in very conservative state legislatures, and
that is the assessments that Republicans had finally caught up with the car and they didn't know what to do with it. They overplayed their hand and now
you had a strong issue for Democrats to run on and embolden a lot of their voters. We're not even seeing abortion rights and reproductive rights as
one of the dominant issues now that Americans care most about. What do you make of that?
MARY ZIEGLER, AUTHOR, "PERSONHOOD: THE NEW CIVIL WAR OVER REPRODUCTION" AND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. PROFESSOR OF LAW, UC DAVIS SCHOOL OF LAW: Well, I
think that that's due to a couple of different things. Primarily, I think Americans, since the overruling of Roe v. Wade, have been under the
impression that there are ways to circumvent abortion bans, right? And also, to some extent, that the anti-abortion movement got what it wanted.
So, the status quo in the United States, which is one in which people can travel to a different state to get an abortion or order abortion pills
online, I think many Americans believe that will be the status quo forever. And so, if that is the reality and someone cares about access to abortion
as an issue, or access to in vitro fertilization is an issue, there's no need really to prioritize it.
[13:30:00]
But I think that mistakes both what the anti-abortion movement in the United States is doing and the pressure it can exert on the Republican
Party. And also, I think to some extent, misses the possibilities even in a Trump administration that the status quo could change pretty dramatically.
GOLODRYGA: What do you make though, as we noted in Missouri, enacting in year total ban of abortions in 2022, 2024, voters enshrined reproductive
rights in the state constitution. And the fact that I had mentioned in the intro there that Republican lawmakers are now pushing for a new
constitutional amendment to overturn that result. Why do they think they can be victorious here?
ZIEGLER: Well, I think Republicans in Missouri are essentially playing with House money. They don't think they have anything to lose. Missouri,
like many states in the United States, is under single party control. There is no meeting full partisan competition in the state legislature for the
Governor's mansion, at least in those state races.
So, Republicans essentially know that if they force voters to confront this issue again, one of two things will happen, either Republicans will get
their way and voters will roll back abortion rights because they've either been given abortion exceptions now, or because they won't understand what
the new amendment does.
But that even if voters reject Republicans play, they don't think Republicans that they'll lose their jobs. So, essentially, they have
nothing to lose and everything to gain from catering to social conservative donors and activists who expect this of them, even if Missourians have
already rejected it.
GOLODRYGA: And to your point you wrote a piece in the Missouri in an op-ed on the GOP move there specific to Missouri, and you said it presents itself
as a sensible step to the center when it closely resembles the nation's most sweeping criminal abortion laws. Walk us through what that means.
ZIEGLER: Well, so the Missouri law essentially asks voters to say yes to specific exceptions to abortion. So, for example, says, do you think that
abortion should be available in cases of sexual assault and incest in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy? It doesn't say, and, oh, by the way, are you
OK if we ban all of the other abortions that are not on this list? Which is more or less what the Missouri proposal either would do itself or authorize
the legislature to do?
The exceptions that the law carves out are very narrow. So, I think it would be quite possible for a voter who's not really paying that much
attention to politics in an off cycle election to think that they're actually voting to expand exceptions to an existing ban, rather than
realizing that they're in effect authorizing a ban.
GOLODRYGA: So, Republicans, and from the president on down, don't necessarily think then that they overplayed their hand? Am I reading that
correctly?
ZIEGLER: I think that's right. I think Republicans believe that they still have a motivated base of social conservatives who want more, right? Who are
not comfortable with an America where access to abortion depends on your geography and your ZIP code. And on the other hand, I think they believe
that other voters don't really care about this issue.
Again, I think that could be a miscalculation because voters not caring is contingent on where we are in the United States now. If, for example,
Donald Trump were to start using the Comstock Act and Obscenity Law to start prosecuting doctors or people who are receiving abortion pills in New
York, I don't think the reaction would be one of indifference.
So, I don't know if Republicans are misreading the moment, but I do think that there's a pretty deep conviction now among conservatives that they can
push further. And that's, of course, driven by the fact that the anti- abortion movement itself was never really just about getting rid of Roe v. Wade.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And if Roe v Wade and doing away with it, the reversal was a watershed moment, you're actually saying, wait a minute, there's more
here. And this is part of the theme of your book, "Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction." And you argue that the reversal of Roe was
never the U.S. anti-abortion movement's ultimate goal. From its inception in the 1960s, it has always been a fetal-personhood movement.
You go on to say, we fail to understand conflicts over reproduction in the United States if we dismiss the anti-abortion movement's personhood
arguments as nothing but a strategic ploy or see personhood as nothing more than an argument for banning abortion. Why is that?
ZIEGLER: Well, I think one of the things to understand is that fetal personhood is something that has mobilized a lot of conservatives for more
than a half century, even when it wasn't going anywhere, right?
The other thing really to understand about fetal personhood is, what does it mean, right? So, it could mean a lot of things. Listeners probably are
aware, some of them are in Europe, some of them may in Asia. They may have constitutions that say, life begins at conception, or that fetuses have
rights that don't criminalize abortion. But the way it's been conceptualized by the U.S. anti-abortion movement is that fetuses have and
embryos have constitutional rights that would override voter's ability to protect abortion. And not just abortion, but anything else that could
implicate the rights of fetuses or embryos, like in vitro fertilization.
[13:35:00]
So, this is a much bigger movement in that sense. It's also a much bigger movement in the sense that to get to this argument of rights for fetuses
and embryos, you have to rethink in a bigger picture way what liberty and equality mean in the United States for everyone, right?
So, this is a pretty ambitious constitutional project that conservatives are pursuing that would have implications for people who don't see
themselves as abortion seekers, who would never pursue an abortion. And not just for people who are pregnant either.
GOLODRYGA: And could this prevail, in your view, in the courts today, specifically the Supreme Court?
ZIEGLER: It's not likely to prevail today, but it's going to be a very familiar movie for people who followed the demise of Roe v. Wade, right? Of
course, Roe v. Wade wasn't overturned three or four years after its decision, it was overturned half a century later. And that's the playbook
that anti-abortion activists are reading from here. They believe that they have to establish fetal rights in a very stepwise way, in state laws, about
things like child support or wrongful death in state Supreme Courts as they tried to do in -- or they're trying to do after Alabama issued a ruling on
IVF in 2024.
And they're trying to build a case -- an originalist case using the doctrines that conservative lawyers in the United States often turn to,
that they can eventually bring to a conservative Supreme Court. This is not something we're expecting to see happen overnight, but it's kind of the
next Roe v. Wade, if you will. The next Roe v. Wade is conservatives trying to take the decision out of voters' hands and place it in the hands of the
conservative super majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.
GOLODRYGA: And that is fetal personhood that you're talking about.
ZIEGLER: Absolutely.
GOLODRYGA: Let me ask you finally to weigh in on the pronatalist movement and the rhetoric that we're seeing from some elements of the right with
Elon Musk continues to say that an existential threat in the world is not - - is under population and not having enough children. This has sort of been picked up now by J. D. Vance in some of his supporters. Do you see this
gaining traction?
ZIEGLER: Possibly. I mean, I think one of the lessons we've seen from other countries with declining fertility rates is that it's very hard to
tackle the issue or to be pronatalist in an effective way if you were simultaneously making it less appealing for people to have children, right?
So, we've seen this in any number of countries. And as the Trump administration is pursuing a pronatalist agenda, it's also either
considering or co-signing state laws that are making it more dangerous to be pregnant, making it much harder to get treatment for miscarriage, making
it, I think, much harder to get access to certain forms of obstetric and gynecological care and potentially, threatening the health of an economy
that would make it harder for people to have the resources to bear a child.
So, I think whether it's a good thing to have a pronatalist agenda or not, we can disagree on. But I think we can agree that if you want people to
have more children and you make it infinitely harder to raise a child, you're not going to see the results that someone like J. D. Vance would
want.
GOLODRYGA: Mary Ziegler, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you so much for the time.
ZIEGLER: Thanks for having me.
GOLODRYGA: We'll be right back after a short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Now, with every new digital advancement comes a new way to impact the lives of children. The latest, Meta's A.I. Digital companion.
Founder, Mark Zuckerberg, says, it's the future of social media.
[13:40:00]
But now a new documentary, "Can't look Away," exposes the real-life consequences of these kinds of technologies. Filmmaker Perry Peltz and
lawyer Matthew Bergman join Hari Sreenivasan to explain.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. Perry Peltz, Matthew Bergman, thank you both for joining us.
Perry, let me start with you. This is a documentary called "Can't Look Away." You're the director of this film. Why'd you want to make it?
PERRY PELTZ, DIRECTOR, "CAN'T LOOK AWAY": It's a great question because when the topic first was proposed to us, I think like so many people, you
think you sort of know that social media is bad for kids. And we learned through the discovery process, before we started filming, is that this more
than that, these are platform social media platforms, big tech platforms that know what they are doing and they are designing this platform keep our
kids on as much as possible.
And in the process, they are really exploiting our kids and they're doing it with intent so that our kids stay on them. We felt that was a
documentary that needed to be told.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many more children have to die because Snapchat chooses is profits over safety.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I found my son's lifeless body due to fentanyl poisoning. They have the best distribution system in the world and nobody
has stopped.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our children are the casualties. We need to take back the power from these companies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They know the levels of addiction. They know the levels of suicide. They're not showing our kids what they want to see. They're
showing you what they can look away from.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SREENIVASAN: Matt you started the Social Media Victims Law Center. What's the mission of your company?
MATTHEW BERGMAN, FOUNDER, SOCIAL MEDIA VICTIMS LAW CENTER: The mission is to hold social media companies legally accountable for the carnage that
their platforms are inflicting on young people, not just in the United States, but throughout the world.
They have designed platforms that they know are addictive to young people. They have prioritized engagement over safety. And the children and the
families that you see in the documentary are the victims of these deliberate design decisions. And we aim to hold them accountable and get
them to change their behavior and become more responsible corporate citizens.
SREENIVASAN: Perry, well, Matt might work with thousands of families, you really focus in on a few to tell the kind of stories on the types of harm
that are happening. One of the stories that you talk about is a young boy named Jordan DeMay. Can you summarize a little bit of what that story's
about for our audience?
PELTZ: Yes, absolutely. Jordan DeMay was a high school junior in Michigan, and the captain of the football team, he was the homecoming king. And he
had dropped his girlfriend off at home one evening. Came home. Was on Instagram, sort of swiping through and was DM-ed by what appeared to be a
young girl, probably 9th, 10th grade. And eventually, they were sharing explicit photos.
And very soon thereafter, what appeared to be this young girl said to him in direct, in a DM, you've got three hours to produce a thousand dollars.
And he panicked, full on, didn't understand what was going on. I'll jump through the story. But eventually, what happened is he came back with $300
and she sent that picture out. You know, she threatened to send that picture out to the football team, to the coach, to the parents, to the
girlfriend and he was dead an hour later. He found a gun and he killed himself.
And this is -- it turns out it wasn't a young girl, it was two men who had taken this -- created this this profile. And this is what's happened
unfortunately on Instagram. And Meta is aware of this, aware of what's happening. They're they -- and there's just not enough that's being done to
prevent this from being happening -- from happening. But he was dead within hours of this happening.
SREENIVASAN: Matt, given that you have seen these different types of patterns from so many different families, how -- have you been able to kind
of figure out how it is that social media companies are serving up this content? What is preference, so to speak, in the algorithm, to decide to
allow either direct messages, suggest the types of individuals that should be able to be followed, et cetera, to teens?
BERGMAN: Well, they do that because their profit model is based on maximizing engagement. The more time that a child spends online, the more
advertising they can put in front of their face. So, they focus on showing kids not what they want to see but what they can't look away from. That's
why the documentary is titled that.
And from a standpoint of neuropsychology, content that is psychologically disturbing is more attractive than content that is benign. The other thing
that they do is they take advantage of the social psychology of young people, adolescents, who crave the adulation of their friends.
[13:45:00]
And so, through this gamification, through the like feature or through Snap streaks, they create a situation so that kids measure their self-esteem
based on how many likes they get on a posting or based on how many how -- what their Snap score is, or how long their Snap streaks are.
And again, this is not an accident or a coincidence, this is a deliberate design decision that takes advantage of the undeveloped nature of the
adolescent brain and the immature nature of the adolescent psyche. And as a consequence, kids are in the midst of the worst psychological crisis that
that we've seen in many years.
SREENIVASAN: In response to the film, a Meta spokesperson, Meta is the company that's in charge of Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, says --
Meta said, we know parents are worried about their teens having unsafe or inappropriate experiences online, and that's why we are significantly
changing the Instagram experience for tens of millions of teens with new teen accounts. These accounts provide teens with built-in protections to
automatically limit who's contacting them and the content they're seeing. And teens under 16 need a parent's permission to change those settings.
We're also giving parents more oversight over their teen's use of Instagram with ways to see who their teens are chatting with and block them from
using the app for more than 15 minutes a day or for certain periods of time, like during school or at night.
Matt, does that work?
BERGMAN: It's a start. And I will say the only reason they made these changes was because we've been going after them for two and a half years in
courts of law. This really is evidence to me of why the civil justice system is essential.
You know, I'd say it's a step in the right direction, but it's still a baby step. As long as kids are able to self-identify based on what their age is,
it doesn't do any good. Meta has -- Meta and the other platforms have the technology to be able to use estimated age whatever the self-reported age
is. And yet, they are unwilling to do that.
So, you know, to some extent, they're kind of turning a blind eye and using -- you know, it's a fig leaf. To another extent, these are some significant
changes. I don't want to demean, you know, anything that makes these platforms safer, even if it's a small step is a step in the right
direction.
SREENIVASAN: Matt, the other critique that the social media companies will come back with is, look, we are not legally liable. There's the law on the
books, the 26 words that kind of define the internet called Section 230. It's been on the book since the mid '90s, right? And they've been shielded.
I guess for our audience, what does Section 230 say? Where do you think the line should be drawn?
BERGMAN: Well, Section 230 was drafted in 1996 when Netscape was the largest platform. Social media didn't exist. Google didn't exist, and Mark
Zuckerberg was in junior high school. And unfortunately -- and the internet was in its infancy.
And what it essentially does is shield companies from liability for posting third-party content on their platforms, which, you know, back then was --
were bulletin boards. Unfortunately, it's been broadly interpreted until we started doing our work to shield social media companies from any kind of
liability.
In other words, every other company in America has a duty of reasonable care. And our position is that social media companies should have the same
duty that any other company has. Basically, follow the Golden rule.
So, what we have been doing is focusing on the design of the platform, not the third-party content, and showing that these products are dangerous by
design. And thus far, these arguments have permitted us to move forward and commence discovery and get these cases ready for trial.
But, you know, the argument is that, you know, every other company in America and we're -- you know, we're pro-business, we're pro-capitalist, we
just want social media companies to follow the same rule that every other company does.
And you know, if a company -- if an auto manufacturer can save $50 million a year by putting bad brakes on the cars, they're not going to do that,
even if they're not a socially responsible company because they're going to be subjected to liability. We want social media companies to have the same
calculus. You know, we could have an endless stream scrolling mechanism. Yes, we would make more money, but we would addict more kids and incur
liability. So, we better not do that. We just want that same feedback loop that every other responsible company has to apply to social media.
SREENIVASAN: Perry, one of the characters in your film is a woman named Amy Neville, whose son Alexander died of an overdose after taking a pill he
allegedly bought on Snapchat. Can you tell me a little bit about her and what her mission is now?
[13:50:00]
PELTZ: You know, as you know so well, our stories are only -- can only be brought to life by the people who have experienced these terrible harms and
are willing and brave enough to share their stories. And Amy Neville is certainly one of those people. Her mission now -- her -- just in short, her
son Alexander bought a pill online and it was laced with fentanyl, and he overdosed.
So, many people have said when they watch the film, well, you know, kids shouldn't buy drugs online. And we all hope that our kids aren't going to
buy drugs online. But there are also kids and they experiment. And the question that I always like to raise is, do they deserve to die because
they made a mistake and bought drugs online?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMY NEVILLE: We had all these safeguards in place. And yet, we still in ended up here. Some things I want to point out, there's this -- you know,
we think kids are partying and taking drugs and that's where these things are happening. But Alex died right down the hallway from me. You know, it
was supposed to be the -- you know, you say goodnight and you think your kids are safe, and it's just not the times that we're living in anymore.
We give our kids these smartphones, we let them have these apps, and that is the equivalent of dropping them off in the worst neighborhood in our
area and saying, good luck tonight. I'll see you later.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PELTZ: And what Amy is trying to do, and in my opinion, so bravely, is really point out that this is not the fault of these kids. And that parents
need to be aware of what is happening on these platforms that drug dealers are really coming out and seeking kids in a way that we are not used to. It
gets back to the title of the film, "Can't Look Away." It's not that they're necessarily asking for this, it's what is being served up to them.
SREENIVASAN: You know, the global head of platform safety at Snap had, in part, this to say, we're deeply committed to the fight against the fentanyl
epidemic, and our heart squad to the families who've suffered unimaginable losses. We have invested in dedicated safety teams and advanced technology
to detect and remove illicit drug related content, work extensively with law enforcement to help bring dealers to justice and continue to raise
awareness and evolve our services to help keep our community safe. Criminals have no place on Snapchat.
Matt, you are suing Snapchat for a fentanyl overdose purchased on the platform and a judge ruled that the that case can move towards discovery.
What does that mean? Why is it important?
BERGMAN: Well, it's important because the statement that you just read was false. And Snapchat has known about the fentanyl epidemic arising from use
of its platform for almost five years -- for over five years and has done little, if anything about it. Snapchat has thwarted law enforcement.
Snapchat has failed to crack down on drug dealers that it knows are selling fentanyl on its platform, to the point where one of our clients reported a
drug dealer who had sold her son a fatal dose of fentanyl contaminated drugs. Eight months later, that same drug dealer sold another child a
contaminated fentanyl drug and that child also died.
So, what the court ruling allows us to do is to do our work as lawyers and investigators and show that Snapchat has allowed its platform to be used as
an open air drug market and done little, if anything meaningful to curtail that.
SREENIVASAN: What do you want, Perry, to -- for parents to know to do about this?
PELTZ: That's a really difficult question, and I wish that there was a better answer to that question. But really, what we see is that parents
need to be aware of what's happening so that they can have more engaged conversations with their children and make sure their children understand
that if something goes wrong, that they can come to their parents.
So, if it's a sextortion case, that the embarrassment doesn't matter. They need to come talk to their parents or a trusted adult. Conversation is
really, really important. And additionally, that there be as much control over devices as you can possibly have. There's a big push right now, the
Wait Until 8th. And even trying to delay it even more than that. Getting schools to really control and keep these devices out of the school system.
There's not a tremendous amount that parents can really do other than have conversations and control their kids' use of these devices. But the best
thing that we can say is it has to be regulated. That's ultimately where the answer lies.
SREENIVASAN: Matt Bergman, lawyer for the Social Media Victims Law Center, and Director Perry Peltz, the documentary is called "Can't Look Away."
Thanks so much for joining us.
BERGMAN: Thank you.
PELTZ: Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:55:00]
GOLODRYGA: And finally, it was a day of sweat, tears, and smiles at the London Marathon yesterday as a record-breaking 56,000 people crossed the
finish line. Many supporters turned out to cheer on the runners with some wearing quite extraordinary costumes. But despite it being one of the
hottest marathons on record for London.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian athlete, Tigist Asefa, shattered the women's only world record, winning the elite women's race at just under two hours, 16
minutes. Full disclosure, I was actually amongst the crowd of runners in London. I can confirm it was certainly hot and I came in way over an hour
after Tigist did and I did not look as happy. That's a fake smile you're seeing right there. I was in tons of pain at that moment, but it was fun. I
loved running through New York and the crowds were incredible. And there's my husband at the finish line.
I've been sitting here for three hours. We'll see if I can stand up after that race yesterday. But for now, that is it for the show. Thank you so
much for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
