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Amanpour
Interview with The Tree of Life Chair of the Board Michael Bernstein; Interview with Brookings Center for Universal Education Director and "The Disengaged Teen" Author Rebecca Winthrop; Interview with "Dead Outlaw" Composer David Yazbek; Interview with "Strangers in the Land" Author Michael Luo. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired June 02, 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)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The initial callers indicated that there was a man with a weapon and that people were being set on fire.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: A horrific attack on Jews in Colorado, the latest in a string of anti-Semitic assaults in America. We have the details.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: A brilliant operation was conducted on the enemy's territory against military targets only.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- a daring drone strike inside Russia. Military Analyst Cedric Leighton joins me as new talks get underway in Istanbul.
Then the A.I. Student Revolution. Education Expert Rebecca Winthrop on navigating the U.S.e of this powerful tool in schools.
Also, ahead, "Dead Outlaw." Composer David Yazbek on his fascinating play about a dead man taking Broadway by storm.
Plus, Author Michael Luo talks to Walter Isaacson about his book, "Strangers in the Land," about America's ugly history of Chinese exclusion.
Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
What was meant to be a gathering to support Israeli hostages held by Hamas turned into a crime scene in Boulder, Colorado Sunday when a man attacked
Jewish attendees, including a Holocaust survivor with Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flame thrower. The images from the scene are disturbing.
At least eight people were injured. Witnesses say the suspect was heard, shouting against Zionism, yelling, free Palestine, and saying, you all
deserve to die.
The suspected attacker was arrested and the White House says the man is believed to have overstayed his tourist visa. This is just the latest
heinous assault on Jewish people in America, and it comes after two Israeli embassy employees were shot dead in D.C. And the April arson attack on
Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro's official residence.
Michael Bernstein is chair of the Board of the Tree of Life, a nonprofit organization started by community and congregation leaders in Pittsburgh
after 11 Jewish worshipers were brutally gunned down in 2018. And Michael Bernstein joins the program now. Michael, thank you so much for taking the
time.
I think back to 2018, the Tree of Life massacre. I covered it. It was the worst attack on Jews in American history. And when you talk about how
antisemitism morphs from one headline, one degree, one corner of politics to the other, that was a right-wing attack focused on immigration policies.
And yet, once again, targeting Jews.
And here we have this attack in Boulder, Colorado coming as these hostages every week are being remembered in Israel, some 58 of them. And I'm
wondering what reflections went through your mind when you heard about yet another attack on Jewish Americans.
MICHAEL BERNSTEIN, CHAIR OF THE BOARD, THE TREE OF LIFE: Well, thanks for having me. And unfortunately, happy to be here today to talk about this
because we're starting to get to the point where if we're not careful this is going to be normalized violence and it's just not acceptable.
My hearts go out to the Boulder community, just as they did to the D.C. community because we know what happens when an attack like this shattered a
community, especially people who are just doing what they wanted to do to support the hostages coming home. They're not there politically.
So, in any event I feel like what we're seeing is just this incredible rise in violence against a group of folks, people, Jews, predominantly, for
reasons that cross all political ideology and spectrums. And it's important that all Americans recognize that this has to stop. This is threatening
what it means to be an American.
And so, yes, our heart, my heart, our hearts of our community I know are aching right now.
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GOLODRYGA: I always start this sentence as a proud Jewish American who came to this country as a refugee to say, there's no other country I'd
rather live in and worship as a Jew in here. But I do have to say, over the last three years and just as a journalist covering the spike in
antisemitism much longer, going back I believe that ADL says it's at its highest level since they've been keeping track for over 50 years.
What should the Jewish community do in this country to address this, to not normalize it? Because at some point, just beefing up security doesn't seem
to be the answer.
BERNSTEIN: It's a great question and it's not something that the Jewish community can do alone. In fact, this is an American problem. It's not a
Jewish problem. And so, the story of Pittsburgh and what happened in the days following the Tree of Life attack is the community gathered together
and said, this is not acceptable, that an attack on one group is an attack on all of us. And the community held us. That's what has to happen. It's an
all of society approach.
Because today, it's the Jewish community, but we know this doesn't stay a Jewish issue. I mean, whether it was Buffalo and other places, this hateful
ideology or a belief that a small group of people are somehow controlling elements of society, it comes after everybody. It's not just Jews.
GOLODRYGA: I was just talking to Ted Deutch at AJC in the last hour and the fact that, you know, I don't remember, and growing up in a different
state, obviously years before this particular war began, I don't ever remember setting foot in a Jewish house of worship or an educational
facility or a JCC that didn't have armed guards in police around it. And that always stood out from my non-Jewish friends and their houses of
worship and their schools. And this has been something that's been accepted in society as a way of protecting Jews.
Do you think it's something that should be viewed as normal? I mean, as we were trying to think of solutions to combat antisemitism, the fact that
this is just accepted around the world, but let's stay here in the United States specifically.
BERNSTEIN: It's an unfortunate tax that we pay as a Jewish community. I was at an event this past Wednesday evening for a local Jewish
organization. At least half of the event were attended by non-Jews, but yet, the security we had to have there was a cost and an expense that most
others don't.
So, we have to secure our spaces, but we're not going to solve this problem with security. And again, I think until everybody recognizes that this is a
challenge around the fabric of our society, the core of who we are as people that we do not allow political ideology to stem into violence, we do
not allow other ideologies to stem into violence, otherwise, America is no longer safe for anybody. That's the only way we're going to stop this.
Jews, unfortunately, have been the canary in the coal mine of many societies over time. And when antisemitism rises and conspiracy theories
rise, we can be certain that the society itself is sick. And so, this has to be a wakeup call for all good Americans to say, not in our town.
GOLODRYGA: And these attacks have been indiscriminate against Jews. I mean, even you go back to the October 7th attacks themselves, the fact that
Kibbutzim and Israel were attacked, some of the most peace loving, pushing for two-state solutions, you know, taking their Palestinian neighbors to
get their cancer treatments. I mean, these were some of the initial victims of October 7th.
You had elderly in Colorado who were marching peacefully. These marches, by the way, the March for Life, they happen around the world. And they happen
all over cities in the United States as well, marching for the remaining hostages and their memories and the pursuit to bring them home.
The fact that there was a Holocaust survivor among those victims, and we're wishing all of them well right now, we know some of them are in critical
conditions. I mean, that has to really hurt more than typically these headlines do.
BERNSTEIN: Well, I think that's the confusion for most of us. You know, Jews are not a monolithic group by any stretch of the imagination. And the
overwhelming majority of Jews are the ones who really care deeply and passionately about human rights and freedoms. And so, whether it was the
folks attending the Capital Jewish Museum, who are focusing on how to bring more humanitarian aid in areas of conflict or the folks simply marching to
get their hostages home.
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You know, for people to view Jews as a monolithic cabal working to somehow do negative things to America, it's puzzling beyond belief and it's
frustrating because many of us, I think, care deeply about these issues at a human level and are aligned, I think, with wanting to see the pain and
suffering end where it can.
GOLODRYGA: And violence is never acceptable. I mean, we should note, as a caveat, as an asterisk, obviously for anyone's political perspective and
political views. Never.
Michael Bernstein, I'm sorry that we have to have this conversation yet again, but I really do appreciate you taking the time and your perspective
and stay well. And please give your community our regards.
BERNSTEIN: Thank you so much.
GOLODRYGA: Well, Ukrainian and Russian officials met today in Istanbul for ceasefire talks, just one day after one of the most audacious attacks by
Ukraine of the entire war. Facing an intensified assault by Russia on the battlefield, Kyiv surprised the world with an unorthodox coordinated attack
on Russian airfields. Having smuggled drones into Russia, Ukraine hit multiple air bases, including in Siberia and claimed the dozens of
aircrafts had been hit.
Here now is military analyst retired Colonel Cedric Leighton. Cedric, just your reaction when you heard -- I mean, this is estimates of some $7
billion in unrecoverable damage to these Tupolev Bombers that predate Russian independence. I mean, this was really the Soviet aircraft that were
targeted. Ukraine says as many as 40, that number may be in question, but Russia didn't have more than a hundred. And the significance here is that
these were capable of carrying out long-range ballistic missile attacks into Ukraine. How big of a setback is this for Russia?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST AND U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, this could be a huge setback for Russia, Bianna. And one of the key
things about this is that the mechanisms that -- we'll call them mechanisms for a second here, these aircraft that the Ukrainians hit, the Tupelov 95
and 22 aircraft. They are not only the aircraft that were used to attack Ukraine using cruise missiles but they're also part of the nuclear
deterrent that the Soviet Union and then Russia created not only for the Cold War, but in the post-Cold War period.
And that's a significant thing because, basically what the Ukrainians have done is taken now probably about a third or so of those aircraft from the
Russian inventory. And that makes it very hard for the Russians to continue to prosecute the war like they did. The one other thing that they did was
they took out an A-50, which is a so-called mainstay aircraft. That's an AWACS-like aircraft. That means command and control. So, now command and
control is much more difficult for the Russians to exercise while they attack Ukrainian targets. So, this is a very significant development.
GOLODRYGA: I know that it took about 18 months to plan. And the lieutenant general, who's head of Ukraine's main Security and Intelligence Agency, the
SBU, said that these were ordered specifically from President Zelenskyy.
And in addition to the task of smuggling the drones into the country, they followed later by small wooden mobile cabins, people familiar with the
planning said. And then the drones were concealed underneath these cabins where the roofs ultimately retracted after months of just sitting there.
And we've seen some of the video of these drones then flying out and striking these air facilities throughout Russia. And, you know, it's
important to highlight the size and scale of Russia and where these aircraft were located.
The impact that has now in terms of how safe and secure the Russian Air Force and the Russian military, in general, feels about where they store
their military equipment?
LEIGHTON: Yes, this is a significant vulnerability. The Russians clearly thought that they were going to be safe, especially in Siberia. Although,
there have been some indications that other air bases that the Russians have once closer to Ukraine were much more vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks.
And that's kind of obvious from a geographic standpoint.
But what the Ukrainians did was they, in essence, opened up Russia to this so-called first person viewed drones. And these drones don't have a very
long range, but the very fact that they were able to, in essence, subvert the Russian trucking system to get these drones in those -- into those
wooden houses, and then kind of do a James Bond-like retract the roof, you know, type system where they actually moved the roofs back when they were
ready to launch. That really shows a very high degree of planning, a very sophisticated planning effort.
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And you know, those 18 months or so that it took to plan this was basically 18 months very well spent. Because they not only looked at the target on
the Ukrainian side but they assessed exactly what it would take to go after all of these different targets, all of these different air bases that they
hit.
And these air bases included, you know, places in Siberia like we're seeing here, and then also places as far north as the Murmansk region and on the
Kola Peninsula in Northern Russia, above the Arctic Circle. So, these are the kinds of things that the Ukrainians did. And the planning was
masterful. It's basically on the scale of what you would have seen in World War II when Winston Churchill told his version of the SBU, the Special
Operations Executive, in his case back in 1940, he said, set Europe ablaze. Well, the Ukrainians have set part of Russia ablaze and it's a very
significant development.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. I can't help but think of President Zelenskyy now in the Oval Office, going back to that disastrous meeting in February when
President Trump and J.D. Vance famously, you know, said to him, you don't have the cards. And knowing that he had at least this card up his sleeve
and had been in the works for months. Could any of this happened, in your view, without the aid of U.S. intelligence?
LEIGHTON: Yes, it could have. I mean, there are certain things that the Ukrainians certainly benefited from when it comes to U.S. intelligence. But
the fact is that, you know, there's satellite imagery available through private open sources such as Maxar Technologies. So, they don't necessarily
need the U.S. to do this. They could have also gotten some intelligence from the Europeans.
But the Ukrainians have a very extensive intelligence network within Russia and they've kind of proven that by conducting operations like this. And one
thing we have to note is what President Zelenskyy said when he said that the, quote, "office," unquote, meaning the, I guess, operational
headquarters of at least part of this operation was right next to one of the regional headquarters of the FSB, the Russian State Security Service.
So, they were doing this right under the noses of the Russians and that is certainly a very, very significant development from an intelligence
perspective as well as from an operational perspective. Now, it will, of course, depend on how long the effects are. You know, this might not be as
long lasting a thing as the Ukrainians would like, but I think the effects are certainly there psychologically. Kinda like the Doolittle raid, you
know, to use another World War II analogy, where we, you know, attack to the Japanese and did it off of aircraft carriers and the Japanese weren't
expecting that at that particular point in time. So, the Russians clearly weren't expecting this. And that's -- this is the result that we see right
now.
GOLODRYGA: I would imagine screenwriters are already busy working on spider's web and how they could turn that into a film as well. Cedric
Leighton, thank you so much.
LEIGHTON: You bet, Bianna. Always good to be with you.
GOLODRYGA: You too. And later in the program, how is artificial intelligence affecting college campuses and how will A.I shape the job
market students enter into? We talk to an education expert.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Next to A.I and the distributions happening in the world of education -- the disruptions happening in the world of educations, rather.
A.I companies are eagerly targeting students. hoping to embed themselves into the habits of young people. But these companies could well be pushing
on an open door.
[13:20:00]
A recent piece in New York magazine argued that everyone is cheating their way through college, giving a litany of examples of undergraduates using
ChatGPT to write most of their assignments.
So, how should educators respond? Rebecca Winthrop is an education expert and director at the Center for Universal Education at Brookings. Rebecca,
it is good to see you. Yet another challenge for educators. The last time I spoke with you and spent time with you was during COVID and the impact and
challenge that posed to educators across the country.
And here we have a whole new frontier of technological advancements and specifically as it relates to A.I. And just reading in this latest article
on The New Yorker, I mean, you have professors who even are adjusting some of their assignments, not wanting to have A.I really be the go-to for their
students. And yet. it's clear to them that some students, even in writing pieces about themselves or introductory stories, turn to A.I. too. This has
become really like a prop for many young students quite quickly. What are your thoughts?
REBECCA WINTHROP, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR UNIVERSAL EDUCATION, BROOKINGS AND AUTHOR, "THE DISENGAGED TEEN": Well, I think you nailed it. And it's good
to see you again, Bianna. That large A.I companies are pushing on an open door. I have not seen a commercial tech product and rollout focus on
students and education as much as generative A.I.
And we know that young college aged kids, 18 to 24, are the largest active weekly user of ChatGPT, for example. And the tech companies are this spring
putting on a ream of sales. They're giving discounts to college students. They're all doing it. For exam season, come, sign up. We'll give you two
months free. Google's giving you a year's free for Gemini and lots of storage. So, they're actively going after students.
And what's happening is, students are using it. And professors and educators are left scrambling. And everyone I talk to in the education
world is trying to figure out how do I adjust my teaching and learning so that kids can actually learn what they're supposed to do and build the
skills they're supposed to build before they go out into the world of work?
GOLODRYGA: So, where do you draw the line between cheating, using A.I, and using it as an aid the way, you know, many generations have now used the
internet and before their parents said, ugh, you have no idea. I had to go all the way to a library and do all the research myself? Where do you draw
that line?
WINTHROP: Well, I do see there's many motivated and engaged students using A.I to help them study. For example, students say, I take all my notes from
the semester. I flop them in to generative A.I. and I say, create a podcast, and I listen to the podcast two or three times, and then I'm ready
to take my exam. That is a great use of generative A.I. It is augmenting and helping young people learn material.
But the line is when students start using A.I to do the schoolwork that they're assigned for them. So, for example, very common at the moment,
writing an essay. Hey, write an essay about this topic. Students using generative A.I. to write their essay for them. They might put the prompt
in, might say what the class is, might say what the readings are, and then they might even run it through an A.I. humanizer. There's a lot of these
out there, which is supposed to make your essay seem more written by a human.
So, adding typos and making sure that your grammar isn't way out of balance --
GOLODRYGA: And in your own voice.
WINTHROP: -- for your age or -- in your own voice. So, that's really where we start seeing kind of a cat and mouse, between educators wanting young
people to practice writing essays or to do assessments or do tests and young people using it to basically cognitively offload the work. And that
is a problem. That's a big problem. And we're going to -- education's going to have to change.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And here's what you've said in a recent interview. You said, in addition to regulating generative A.I., so it isn't so massively
in students, in young people's hands without being designed for that purpose, I would say these are the two big things we need to do. There's
also a big difference. We need to make a big distinction between A.I. supporting educators and doing what they're doing versus going direct to
young people.
What do you mean about that? Is this the argument that one day A.I. could replace teachers, human teachers as a whole?
WINTHROP: That is something that people are looking at. But I would say that is a very, very bad route to take, mainly because we know young people
need other human beings to learn and grow and to learn well. So, I think there is a big difference between educators, teachers, professors using
A.I. themselves to help come up with creative ways to teach. They can even assign students to use A.I. on a specific task and then share it back and
then sort of grade them on how well they're prompting A.I. and how well they're using the tool. That's one sort of creative way to bring A.I. into
the classroom in a helpful way. So, educators can use A.I.
[13:25:00]
But what big companies are doing is they're definitely going -- they're going after educators, but they're going direct to students. And it's
different for kids themselves to be sitting in a classroom, getting assignments, and then going and doing their assignments at home on ChatGPT
or some other large language model.
GOLODRYGA: We've seen the huge impact that automation has had over the years on the economy and on politics in general when it comes to impacting
blue collar jobs. And now, the same concern has risen when it comes to at least entry level, you know, white collar jobs and students who are
graduating into -- and going -- graduating from college and applying for jobs where it is very, very difficult for them to actually get hired. How
much of a concern is this in your view?
WINTHROP: In my view, this is a really big concern. If you think about the skills gap, we talk about the skills gap in education, which is what are
the competencies, mindsets, and skills that young people are leaving education with, and what do they need in the workforce, and is it aligned?
And we see that there is a big skills gap. Most of it has been, over the last decades, due to automation in the workforce, and this just adds a
whole other level.
If you think about, for example, entry level jobs, I'm based here in Washington, D.C., as you know, Bianna. Congressional interns, entry level
jobs, working for a member of Congress. One of the things that these young people would do was -- would -- to be to, you know, laboriously read
through legislation and pull-out key elements so staffers could analyze it and move forward. That can be done with A.I. now.
So, how is a young person going to be able to skip straight to the analysis of legislation without actually having the practice and knowhow of what's
in it to start with? So, we are probably going to see, I am going to predict over the next decade, higher education institutions moving a lot
more into workforce preparedness to try to fill in that skills gap, and secondary education, certainly in the upper grades, really trying to move
into workforce preparedness. Because I think it's a really big concern over the next five, ten -- five years at least for thinking about the labor
market for young people as they exit education.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, no doubt. And then, there's also regulation. You know, we've been talking about regulating social media companies now for many
years. One could, I think, objectively say that that hasn't been extremely effective. And I would only imagine the same applies when it comes to
regulating A.I. here.
New frontiers all along. But, Rebecca Winthrop, we are grateful to have you there to guide us through it. Really appreciate it.
WINTHROP: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: And coming up after the break "Dead Outlaw." We talk to the composer behind the new musical stunning Broadway and find out about the
unbelievable but true story that it's based on.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: A new musical is taking Broadway by storm with an unusual twist. Its leading man is dead for much of the runtime. The actor propped
up in a coffin. Even stranger, it's a true story. "Dead Outlaw" tells the tale of Elmer McCurdy, an outlaw in early 20th century America.
[13:30:00]
After he was killed in a shootout, his story really began. His embalmed body was put on display and taken all over the country as a sideshow
attraction. In the end, it was discovered hanging -- hanged from a noose inside a long beach amusement park in the 1970s.
It's a bizarre subject for a musical, but one that our next guest couldn't shake. David Yazbek co-wrote the music and lyrics, teaming up with his
collaborators from another Broadway show, "The Band's Visit." It was his idea to take this strange tale on stage. And he joins me in the program now
to explain. David, welcome to the show.
So, my husband and I went to see it on Friday. And I have to say, it was something we continue to talk about through the weekend. In fact, we'll get
to one of the songs that had a very catchy refrain that he kept singing, even as we went to bed. We'll get to that in a second.
But let's just talk about Elmer McCurdy. What attracted you to this story? How did you find out about this American?
DAVID YAZBEK, COMPOSER, "DEAD OUTLAW": This is a story that I was told three decades ago by a friend of mine. Elmer McCurdy has all the
characteristics of a true American in terms of his desires, in terms of the thread that pulled him. He wanted to be famous. He wanted money. He became
a criminal because he also had certain addictions. He became an itinerant. A very unsuccessful criminal. And was shot by a posse at a fairly young
age. And he pretty much got everything he wanted after his death.
He became famous -- very briefly, he was famous as the guy who tried to rob the Osage Indian train, but robbed the wrong train. And then, his body was
exhibited all over the country and ended up being in silent films, then sound films. And he had a very successful showbiz career after his death.
GOLODRYGA: As a corpse?
YAZBEK: As a corpse.
GOLODRYGA: As a corpse. Yes.
YAZBEK: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: For decades to come. And Andrew Durand, I mean, hats off to him. He is the actor who plays Elmer. And most of the rest of the play then
he's actually playing himself as a corpse. What brought about that idea? Because one could argue that he didn't need to be on stage, or he could
have been in a coffin. It would've still told the same story. Was it to make the audience feel uncomfortable or to wait to see if he blinked? I
mean, what was it?
YAZBEK: It's -- you know, the -- Andrew Durand spends the first half singing six banger songs, including one where he pretty much wrecks up the
entire stage. And he just blows you away. And then he is stiff in a coffin for the rest. And that was really our director, David Cromer's idea. He
said, we need him on stage as a witness to everything that happened to Elmer's mummy, basically, after his death. The exploitation, the fact that
his name was forgotten up until the point that he was discovered. Having the actor there as a silent witness to all this stuff is very poignant, it
can also be very funny.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, that's what I was going to say. If you just look at the storyline itself, it's quite dark. Why did you give it the opportunity to
make audiences laugh?
YAZBEK: Because the saddest, darkest stuff is often the funniest stuff. And you know, my background is as a comedy writer, and I tend to see the
humor in almost anything, but also because there are existential questions posed, there's even spiritual questions posed that need the spoonful of
sugar to help them go down. This is a very entertaining show from beginning to end. And without that it's just moralizing or editorializing, you know,
those issues.
GOLODRYGA: And kudos to the rest of the cast. I mean, Andrew obviously deserves a lot of praise, but a number of the other actors play numerous
different characters throughout to the play. Is there one that's a favorite of yours?
YAZBEK: You know, we were just talking about Julia Knitel, who's actually nominated for a Tony this year.
GOLODRYGA: I love her.
YAZBEK: She just -- she's the only woman in the cast. We have women in the band on stage. She plays -- I think she plays eight characters. And she
gets two or three really, really great songs. And I just love her voice. I love the way she -- I love what she brings to the eight characters there.
It's just a lot of honesty.
[13:35:00]
GOLODRYGA: Yes, one of the characters played Andrew's real-life -- and while he was alive, romantic partner, and then played one of my favorite
roles that she played, and that was the daughter of a producer who she happened to come home from school. He had bought the -- he purchased the
corpse and there it was. And this became sort of her -- one of her best friends. She came home in a confidant, kept talking to him about her life
before she went off to college and lived the rest of her life. No, she is phenomenal.
I do want to get to the song, "Dead," because that is what I said my husband found very catchy and constantly repeated. Let's play it for our
viewers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: The song is played like almost as a motif throughout the show. We hear different iterations of it, different people inserted as being
dead, famous people throughout history. What does the song mean to you?
YAZBEK: It means that we are all -- you know, what do we all have in common? We are -- we will all be dead.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
YAZBEK: And this whole show is kind of a memento mori. It's the idea being remember death because you will -- it's the only way to really live in the
present moment. You know, there are people who are spending their whole lives trying to amass great wealth and put their names on buildings, and
they think that somehow that's somewhere that that's mortality -- immortality. I think that it's a much happier life to live in the present
moment.
And by bringing up famous people, some of whom are dead and some of whom are alive, it immediately gets your mind twisted around it. The whole show
is a zenko on and that song is a zenko on, it's also a banger. And like you said, it's an earworm. And my co-songwriter, Erik Della Penna, and I
really, really wanted every song to feel like a catchy pop or rock song, you know?
GOLODRYGA: Oh, it's catchy. It's dark, as you said, but it is a catchy song. And interestingly enough, "Dead Outlaw" is not the only musical about
a dead character that has been nominated for a Tony Award this year. "Death Becomes Her, "Operation Mince Meet" are also running for best musical. Does
that surprise you? What does that tell you about what audience members are looking for?
YAZBEK: Well, first of all, the one thing that's really important to know is that they're not as good as "Dead Outlaw," those shows. No, just
kidding.
GOLODRYGA: No, of course not. No, no, no. We're not interviewing them.
YAZBEK: There is something in the air, isn't there? I mean, the zeitgeist. I think maybe there's some kind of a -- you know, I don't want to sound
political, but maybe there is something about sort of all these billionaires and what they're after. You ask yourself the question like,
why do you need more than a billion -- you know, why do you need more than 10 million? Why do you need more than any amount? And you think, what's
fueling that? And how can I avoid the sort of being a hungry ghost who's greedy for whether it's money or, you know, food or, you know, just how can
I how can I avoid that? And I think maybe that's part of the fascination with death right now.
GOLODRYGA: And the music style is also unique. It's not what you typically hear on Broadway, Americana type music. What do you want audiences to take
away, aside from the song you're dead?
YAZBEK: I want them to -- I -- you know what I want? I want the -- I want them to listen, to see the show, listen to the album, and think there is
not one filler song in this show. That is for all of my shows. This is my seventh show. That's sort of my mission. I think we pulled it off on this
one. It's helpful that Erik Della Pena is such a great songwriter, and the two of us have a great time writing. And I think -- maybe we pulled it off.
You tell me someday.
GOLODRYGA: Listen, I thought it was great. It was funny. My husband's like, when are they going to have intermission? I mean, what are they even
going to talk about in the second half? And I don't know if it's a spoiler alert. There's no intermission either. So, we really enjoyed it. David, I
think you have a future in this industry.
YAZBEK: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Best of luck at the Tony's. Appreciate it.
YAZBEK: Thank you very much.
GOLODRYGA: Well, now, the recent pause on international student visas is just one of many signs pointing to the Trump administration's hostility
towards diversity in immigrants. But historically, these communities have played a big role in shaping today's America, like the Chinese Americans
whose important role have often been overlooked in history books.
[13:40:00]
Executive editor of The New Yorker, Michael Luo, is hoping to spotlight their story with his new book, "Strangers in the Land." And he joins Walter
Isaacson to discuss the group's more than a century long struggle to belong.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And Michael Luo, welcome to the show.
MICHAEL LUO, AUTHOR, "STRANGERS IN THE LAND": It's great to be here with you, Walter.
ISAACSON: This book about Chinese immigration into America starting in the 1840s with the gold rush is a sweeping history, but also somewhat personal.
You weave your own family's life into it. It began with some incident that happened to you. That's how you started coming to write this book. Explain
that to us.
LUO: Yes, this was October, 2016. We were just a few weeks away from Trump's election. I wasn't expecting it. I think the country wasn't
expecting it, but you could feel a curtain of nativism really descending on the country, I think. And this was just an encounter I had on the Upper
East Side. There was -- were with some --
ISAACSON: Of Manhattan. Yes.
LUO: Yes. Upper East Side of Manhattan. We were with some friends. I was with my family, two daughters. There was a woman who brushed past us and
was aggravated that we were in her way and she muttered under her breath, go back to China. And we -- this was Sunday after church, but I did not
turn the other cheek. I confessed I kind of got -- ran after her and got in her face a little bit. And essentially, it was like, are you serious? And
we were going back and forth. And then she screamed at me down the block, go back to your effing country in more colorful language than that.
And I was trying to come up with a smart retort and I -- in the adrenaline flow. And I was -- just said very pathetically. I was born in this country.
And I ended up -- and I tweeted about this and it ended up becoming a viral thing. And I wrote a piece for the New York Times, where I was working at
the time. And it was an open letter to her, that actually, the newspaper ended up running on the front page the following day.
And I wrote about this feeling of otherizing that I think is common to the Asian American experience. And I wrote about I was thinking about my kids,
my daughter who was a nurse stroller, the -- my younger daughter and my older daughter was walking next to me. And I wondered about, even though
their two generations removed my parents' immigrant experience in the 1960s and 1970s, whether they would ever feel like they truly belonged in this
country.
And so, that set me on this journey, intellectual journey, really, and a desire to understand this history better, which I actually realized in the
aftermath of this incident, I didn't really know. And I actually think that's common for a lot of people, Asian Americans, Americans in general,
this history, even though a lot of historians have done great work on it is not broadly known.
ISAACSON: Well, the history of America is a history of immigration and also a history of nativism, a backlash against immigration. And one of the
first big immigration waves is the one you write about, which is in the 1840s, especially because of the gold rush, Chinese immigrants coming in.
So, let's start with Gold Mountain. I love that part of your book. Tell me how that began at all.
LUO: Yes. I was looking for -- I dreamed of the finding the first -- the kind of patient zero, how this all started. And there actually is an
account of -- and maybe it's apocryphal. There's lore passed along in the Chinese community of a merchant who had arrived in 1847 and was among the
legions who ventured into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. And he wrote this excited letter home to a fellow villager in Guangdong Province.
And this -- as the story goes, this villager, this -- told other people about and set off himself. Whatever the story, basically this was like an
escalator really of like -- of people coming telling their brothers, sons, fathers to come. They had told these stories of Gold Mountain is what they
called it, Gumsan (ph). And people started just getting on boats and coming. They would use their family farms and land as collateral for loans.
And by 1860, 10th of the population in California was the Chinese.
[13:45:00]
And as you point out, this really was a global migration. And this was an unprecedented experiment in multiracial democracy that was happening, just
as the country was debating and this other issue of race on the other side of the country, there was this other experiment that we had not ever gone
through where there were white Americans, black Americans, immigrants from Europe and Chinese, and there were these also Californians who were -- the
Mexican settlers who had became citizens after California was annexed. It was -- and we didn't do particularly well in this test, that's -- and
that's what the book is about.
ISAACSON: It is interesting because you talk about on the eastern part of the United States, the slavery issue was happening. The West, the issue of
immigration, especially Chinese immigration. And now, you know, more than 150 years later, we're still facing those two things in America. Are they
interrelated in some ways?
LUO: Oh, totally. I think that's one of the interventions of the book. And I think interventions that -- an intervention that a lot of historians are
trying to make nowadays. You need to consider these histories together. This Chinese question, as it was called, the debate over Chinese
immigration coincided with the vanquishing of reconstruction in the south, and the expelling of native peoples and the eradication of native peoples
in the West. And the Chinese question is, is part of that all those histories continue to refract today and they need to be considered
together?
ISAACSON: It seems then from your book that the Chinese immigrants were accepted pretty well at first. What turned it around?
LUO: I think it was the numbers just started to rise. The welcome that you're talking about. Here was city leaders in San Francisco had a public
ceremony that welcomed them in the 1849 and it was organized by civic leaders and in pastors, they were particularly interested in evangelizing
the Chinese.
And actually, the daily newspaper in California at that point, the Alta, the which is the first daily news in California, actually wrote very
positively about these Chinese arrivals, predicting that one day they'd be in the halls of Congress and they'd be voting and just as influential as
other immigrant groups and natural -- who would become naturalized and American citizens.
But I -- what you see is in the 1850s and 1860s, you start -- there was -- there were horrific episodes of violence in the mine fields and that kind
of thing. The 1860s -- the story of the 1860s was the building of the railroad, which the Chinese were essential part of, particularly building
the Central Pacific, the western side of the railroad. And for a moment there might have been an opening for Chinese to be welcomed because they
were essential in this gigantic accomplishment. But the there was an economic downturn in the 1870s that really caused the anti-Chinese movement
to take off. And political polarization is a big part of the story too.
ISAACSON: Does that echo today you think?
LUO: Oh. It's all the echoes of history. The -- all those cliches or there are truths, really, you know, that Mark Twain, his -- or whether he said
this or not, that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Yes, like the anti-Chinese movement resembles, in a lot of ways, the MAGA movement. It's a nimbus of outrage of disaffected white workers, but not
just workers, but other people, I think, who felt stuck economically in some way. I think the -- on the west there was this great expectation that
the railroad was going to open up new markets. And actually, that turned out to not be true. That actually ended up opening up more competition.
And so, there's just a number of factors that involve race and the economy. And also, the emergence of demagogue-like figures. There was a guy named
Dennis Carney who gave these giant rallies in the sandlot, as they called it, near City Hall in San Francisco. And he railed against corporate power.
So, there was that populous sort of angle, but he ended his rallies with the rallying cry, the Chinese must go. And it reminds me a lot of the
populism of today.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: Despite the racism and violence directed at the Chinese immigrants, here's something you write in the book, the Chinese and America
were not simply the victims of barbarous violence and repression, they were the protagonists in the story of America. Tell me about some of those
protagonists you found in researching this book.
LUO: Yes. That -- I -- well, what I'm very proud of the way I -- it was a little bit like panning for gold in the archives. The -- as you know, the
archives history is written by the powerful and the powerless are often left out. And so, you have to do some panning for gold for -- in the
archives for the stories of people and characters. And there are incredible stories there.
I think of any number of them, the story of Yung Wing who was the first university student Chinese to enroll at an American university, graduated
from Yale, and he led this Chinese educational mission that brought Chinese students to America. I think of Inkun Chu (ph) who came as a young boy and
converted to Christianity and became a pastor, and then a newspaper publisher, and a spokesman for the Chinese community.
I think of just ordinary stories of immigration and people who built their lives here. They're -- throughout the book. And I think that's what I was -
- I'm trying to do. In the end, I think the book -- in the book, the Chinese, as a collective people, end up as the central protagonist of the
book, and you get invested in them and root for them and get upset for them and sad for them, and -- but it's -- the stories of individual Chinese that
help enliven this history and make it memorable.
ISAACSON: One of the political issues today involves China in a geopolitical sense, a strategic sense, a competition with China, fights
with China over everything from chips and tariffs and things like that. Is that at all connected to the anti-immigrant sentiments that you may have
felt on the Upper East Side from that racist woman?
LUO: I mean, I think so. So, the interesting thing is in this history that I write about, which is centered on the late 19th century and early 20th
century, China was incredibly weak. It was torn by war, internist warfare. It was kind of humiliated with the western powers.
Today, obviously, China is an economic, technological military superpower, and we're in this competition with China for dominance. And I think when
you -- the -- during the pandemic, when there was this -- the blame of China for COVID led to this outbreak in reports of violence against Asians.
Obviously, that moment has subsided.
But the thing that I'm afraid of at this moment, and that what I worry about in the trajectory of the Asian Americans and their experience in
America is, yes, like every time -- right now it's kind of invoked for politicians of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to be bellicose in
their language about China. And I think there are legitimate reasons, you know, for that. But every time I hear that kind of language, I feel the
tender of racial suspicion growing.
And so, the thing I -- a lot of people have asked me about am I optimistic? And I have to be optimistic because like that's the story of America.
That's the story of this kind of push and pull that you've talked about. But I'm worried.
ISAACSON: Michael Luo, thank you so much for joining us.
LUO: Thank you so much for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- it is pride month. And as you can see, thousands took to the streets of Bangkok waving vibrant rainbow flags at the parade, which
featured colorful trucks and dancing drag queens in a celebration of love. Likewise, in West Hollywood, revelers gathered for brilliant performances
as well as passion -- passionate advocacy for LGBTQ plus rights and protections.
[13:55:00]
At a time when many businesses say they're pulling back on pride involvement, one parade goer says it's the most important to be loud and
proud.
And tune in tomorrow for Christiane's conversation with New Zealand's former prime minister Jacinda Ardern. She reflects on the moments that
shaped her from her childhood as part of a Mormon community to the pivotal events of her time in office, and what she's been doing in the two years
since she's left. And she tells Christiane the meaning behind her new memoir, "A Different Kind of Power."
Well, that is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can
always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media.
Thank you for watching, and goodbye from New York.
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[14:00:00]
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