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Amanpour
Interview With California Attorney General Rob Bonta; Interview With Representative Norma Torres (D-CA); Interview With Lead Prosecutor At The Trial Of Slobodan Milosevic And Human Rights Lawyer Geoffrey Nice; Interview With Tulsa, Oklahoma Mayor Monroe Nichols. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired June 11, 2025 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): We do not want our streets militarized by our own armed forces.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Unrest grows at Trump's deployment of National Guard and Marines. Protest spreads from L.A. across the United States. California's Attorney
General Rob Bonta joins me and Congresswoman Norma Torres to discuss Trump's crackdown and what this means for American democracy.
Then dozens more Palestinians are shot to death near the Gaza Aid site as pressure on Israel mounts both at home and abroad. I speak to former
international war crimes prosecutor Sir Geoffrey Nice about what's going on in Gaza and how America is targeting the ICC.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MONROE NICHOLS, TULSA, OKLAHOMA MAYOR: It destroyed what was perhaps the greatest example of black excellence in economics and entrepreneurship that
the country had seen at the time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- road to repair, healing from the dark legacy of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Michel Martin speaks to the city's mayor, Monroe Nichols
about his new justice initiative and his plans for a $105 million reparations package.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London, where the world watches as the most powerful democracy deploys its military
against citizens to enforce its political agenda. In the United States, protests over the Trump administration, sending in the National Guard and
having U.S. Marines on standby to assist in its immigration raids are spreading across the country, from Los Angeles now to New York, Chicago,
and other key cities.
In this extraordinary scene at Fort Bragg, President Trump is literally rallying the troops.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: What you're witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order. We will liberate Los Angeles
and make it free, clean, and safe again. It's happening very quickly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Legal and military experts warned that this could threaten American democracy. California Governor Gavin Newsom calls it a brazen
abuse of power.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. He's taking a wrecking ball. A wrecking
ball to our founding father's historic project.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: But despite a fierce backlash from citizens and lawmakers alike, Trump is doubling down. As the situation escalates, it's also fueled by
rampant misinformation online with old and misleading videos and images being shared. Governor Newsom and the state attorney general, Rob Bonta,
are suing the president to remove the troops from their streets. Bonta says, mobilizing 700 Marines is a, quote, "unnecessary escalation." And
he's joining me now from Alameda, California. Attorney General, welcome to our program.
ROB BONTA, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Thanks for having me. Honored to be here.
AMANPOUR: Can I just first ask you what the situation is now President Trump and his administration said that they sent in this military show of
force in order to preserve the peace and as he said, to liberate California? what is the current situation on the streets?
BONTA: Well, because of local law enforcement's important work, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, the CHP,
and local sheriffs and police departments that provided assistance as needed in targeted areas, everything's under control and it always has
been. And there were some flare ups, but that's not uncommon. That's what law enforcement agencies do, they tackle crime, they respond they put down
and quell problems.
The National Guard was never needed. The National Guard's presence and the Marine's presence now only stokes the flames. It is inflammatory. It is
provocative. It escalates unnecessarily the situation and increases tension.
So, the calm and the peace that we are working towards with local law enforcement successfully is being disrupted by the president's unlawful, I
want to be clear about that, his unlawful deployment of the National Guard and mobilization of the Marines. So, it is highly problematic and it is a
manufactured problem created by President Trump.
[13:05:00]
And unfortunately, it seems that he wants the provocation, he wants the escalation. But we want -- in California and in L.A., we want peace, we
want calm, and our local law enforcement are fully capable of providing that.
AMANPOUR: So, as I mentioned, and I think there's a hearing today, you as attorney general, the State of California is suing to get these forces and
this militarization off your streets and out of your state at the moment. But you say unlawful. President Trump is using, and I'm going to read this,
a law basically that they have deployed against, I think, insurrection. Now, they've called it insurrection, some of the administration members.
But you are saying that the law states, in clear and unambiguous language, what? I mean, there is this law that he is using.
BONTA: He is citing a law that does not give him the authority to call in the National Guard. It is called 10 U.S.C. 12406. It requires for the
president to be able to call in the National Guard the existence of either one, an invasion. There's no invasion. Two, a rebellion. There's no
rebellion. Three, the inability of the federal government to execute the laws of the United States. That does not exist either.
It also additionally requires the consent of the governor of California, which he absolutely and clearly and indisputably does not have. The
governor has objected to the calling in of the National Guard. So, just citing a law doesn't mean you can do the things that you want by citing it,
you have to actually follow the law and the elements that are provided therein, and he clearly has not.
The Marines being called in is additional escalation. The law is different as to them. What is important is the Posse Comitatus Act from the late
1800s, which basically says that there shall be no military law enforcement of civilian law. So, the military can't come and enforce civilian law on
American soil in American neighborhoods and streets and neighborhoods. And that's exactly what the Marines appear to be on site in Los Angeles to do.
So, that is unlawful.
And we're asking for an order from a court. There's a hearing tomorrow to invalidate the president's order calling in the National Guard and to
restrict the Marines only to lawful activity and operations.
AMANPOUR: So, they haven't actually joined the National Guard operations yet is what I'm hearing from you. But so, let me just state for our viewers
that this is the first time in 60 years that the National Guard has been deployed without the specific request of the governor of a state, that was
President Johnson, way back when. He ordered them in to protect civil rights advocates and activists who were marching across the Selma Bridge
and who were coming under attack from civilians and local law enforcement.
I mean, there is a big difference between that and what's happening now. But do you expect your suit to be successful?
BONTA: We do expect the suit to be successful. We think we have the better of the argument, the facts. We think the law is pretty clear and ambiguous
about what is required in order for the president to call in the National Guard. And the requirements that the law demands are not present here.
And you're absolutely right that, in the past, the Insurrection Act has been used. And I just want to be clear, the Insurrection Act has not been
invoked at this time. The president calling in of the Marines and of the National Guard is not consistent with and pursuant to the Insurrection Act,
it's pursuant to 12 -- 10 USC 12406.
And so, when the Insurrection Act has been used in the past, it's been used to protect Americans from having their rights deprived, such as their civil
rights or their right to peacefully protest. But the 12 -- 10 USC 12406 has only been used once in the history of the United States. It was used when
the post office workers went on strike. And the constitutional requirement for a post office and an operational postal mail system it was not being
able to be delivered. And so, the National Guard came in to deliver the U.S. mails.
AMANPOUR: OK.
BONTA: That's kind of an example of when the executive -- when the federal government cannot execute the laws of the United States, but that does not
exist here. And so, we believe we will prevail in our case.
AMANPOUR: So, what do you think is going on? Why do you think this is happening? On the one hand, also, the administration says that you all have
these unconstitutional sanctuary city laws, and you can see that they say that they're going to -- you know, ICE is going to plan more raids in more
parts of the country.
[13:10:00]
Now, what we've been told is that all these raids are happening in Democratic led states. We don't see anything happening, at least we haven't
yet, in let's say South Dakota, which is the home state of the secretary of homeland security, a Republican, a member of the cabinet. What do you think
is actually happening?
BONTA: You know, the president has a very difficult and complicated relationship with the facts and the law. He has said, I'm not a lawyer.
When asked a very simple, straightforward, constitutional question, and that is painfully obvious that he's not a lawyer. His command of the law
and the facts is poor.
And he calls things, uses words that do not apply. He says that things that are not a rebellion, are a rebellion or not an insurrection or an emergency
are an insurrection or an emergency. Because those are the trigger words and statutes that would allow him to get what he really wants.
What does he really want? More power, more authority. When there's an emergency, when there's an insurrection, when there's a rebellion, the
president gets more authority. But you can't call a burning vehicle a rebellion or an invasion or an insurrection when it's not. There actually
was an insurrection on January 6th and he refused to call in the National Guard.
Now, he's trying to call in the National Guard potentially because of an insurrection when it's just some violence among mostly peaceful protestors.
The irony is very thick. But we think he might be on his way to invoking the Insurrection Act. If you look at the language used by Stephen Miller
and Donald Trump and others, they keep using the word emergency insurrection rebellion. They're trying to socialize an idea and lay the
groundwork. But they can't create facts that don't exist. There is no insurrection. So, the Insurrection Act would be invoked improperly if
invoked at all.
AMANPOUR: So, you recall, obviously back in Trump 1.0, he did bring out the National Guard. There were protests, there was a situation outside the
White House. And at the time, military officials were involved and then they quickly regretted it and made statements against it. And after his
resignation, the chairman of the joint chiefs, Mark Milley, said the following.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK MILLEY, FORMER CHAIRMAN, U.S. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Take an oath to a king or a queen, or to a tyrant or a dictator, but we don't take an oath to
a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that it's America and
we're willing to die to protect it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Attorney General, do you think that spirit of the separation of powers, and as he says, oath to the Constitution and not to an individual
still exists, even amongst the military, even those who've been deployed?
BONTA: I do. I have the deepest faith and confidence in the American people. Their commitment to upholding the constitution, our democracy, the
rule of law. The president certainly is a repeat offender when it comes to breaking the law and violating the Constitution. We've sued him 25 times in
20 weeks because of his consistent and frequent, brazen and blatant violations of the law.
But I do believe that members of the military, our leaders in public service every day Americans are completely committed to our Constitution,
the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the essential singular element that the Constitution stands for, which is that we shall never have
a tyrant. We shall never have a monarch.
We shall never have a king. That's -- America was created and constituted because we never wanted to have a monarch or a king. Power has been
dispersed throughout the different branches of government and between the states and the federal government for exactly that reason.
So, the president's attempt to consolidate authority in the executive branch. There's three branches of government. He wants one. There's checks
and balances, he wants none. But his efforts, I think, will be stymied by the patriots who continue to be committed to our Constitution. The
separation of powers, checks and balances. And so, I think that's a very appropriate comment that you just played. And I believe that it's
widespread throughout the United States.
AMANPOUR: Well, Attorney General Rob Bonta, thank you very much. And frankly, the whole world is watching this. So, we will keep an eye on it.
Thank you so much.
Now, listening in from Washington, D.C. is California's Democratic congresswoman, Norma Torres, whose constituents are in the administration's
dragnet. Congresswoman, thank you for joining us. First, can I just ask you, I slightly underplayed, there have been some arrests in some red
states, but the bulk of the crackdowns are in blue cities, major blue cities. Is that correct? Am I correct now?
[13:15:00]
REP. NORMA TORRES (D-CA): Well, what I can speak to is the violent arrests that have occurred in Southern California, particular in the Los Angeles
County area. We are not opposed to, you know, arresting criminals when ICE has a warrant. The problem comes when they come violently raiding schools,
raiding businesses, raiding just community centers. This is what we are against them doing, and this is what has caused the instability in the City
of Los Angeles currently.
What the administration is pretending to do in red states is very different than the reality of what is happening in Los Angeles and blue states.
AMANPOUR: So, you yourself being, you know, a congresswoman, your constituents are implicated in all this. This weekend you were blocked from
entering a federal detention center for immigrants who had been detained. Why were you trying -- tell me why you were there, why you were blocked
from going there. Was it your right as a congresswoman to be able to go in?
TORRES: Absolutely. We specifically wrote law to ensure that members of Congress would have the ability to do their oversight their due diligence
on what is happening when it comes to government organizations. You see, we learned from the last four years when Trump was in office.
What occurred that morning, Saturday morning, it started at 8:00 a.m. There were no protestors when we arrived. We were in contact with officials
inside of the detention center. They -- at one point, they moved us to the side where they told us to hold. We showed them our identification. We
provided the names of the four members of Congress who were there. How they responded was by refusing entry and then deploying a chemical agent on
members of Congress. Our staff and attorneys that were present to visit their -- the detainees that were inside.
And this chemical agent wasn't just deployed once or twice, it was deployed three times. We have witnesses of the first two times. The last time we did
not get a witness because everybody was a bit overwhelmed.
AMANPOUR: Congressman, you know, you just said they're coming to workplaces and schools and the other places that you listed. We read that ICE is
having -- or the authorities who are meant to be arresting and deporting and all that, is having some trouble getting these mass deportations and
getting these -- you know, the numbers that the administration apparently wants. Is that what you're hearing? Is that's what -- is that what you
think is going on?
TORRES: That is a fact. As a matter of fact, the previous ICE director was fired because he was unable to meet the quota -- the Trump quota that was
being demanded of him. So, we have a new director. And indiscriminately they are going out targeting people simply because of how they look, the
color of their skin. And within those raids, they are detaining and arresting veterans, a U.S. marshal, a pregnant woman in the last stages of
giving birth. And these were American citizens that they detained.
But look, the worst offense here is the fact that they have no warrants, that they're not targeting specific people, they are refusing to even read
them their Miranda rights, and then they are disappearing them by refusing to include their information into a searchable database where their
families can find them, where attorneys can locate them, where medication can be brought so that these people are taken care of.
AMANPOUR: You know, obviously, there's a war of words, a war of politics going on, and you yourself have been criticized by the right-wing media for
a video that you posted and you basically said -- I don't think I can say the whole thing, but you said, I should get the et cetera out of L.A. so
that order can be restored. Do you think that was inflammatory? Should you not have said that?
TORRES: Absolutely not. When I said that I was on a plane from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, and I was watching the violence unfolding of the
violent approach encounters between ICE and people in the streets, like I said, indiscriminately targeting people.
So, I stand by my words for ICE to get the F out of Los Angeles so that the locals that understand these community groups and, you know, Los Angeles is
a very diverse city. It is like a world -- like a little world within a community. No one knows that community better than the LAPD, the local
leaders and their elected officials, and they ought to be given the opportunity to restore order and to bring back some community peace and be
able to have the conversations that they need to have.
[13:20:00]
That can't happen while ICE continues to suffocate the community with the violence that they continue to erode our constitutional rights.
AMANPOUR: And, Congresswoman. Lastly, you know, when I hear about U.S. marines, for me that's a war zone. I mean, I've covered wars with Americans
deployed for most of my career, and marines are usually deployed in that certain situation. So, what I want to ask you is with these, you know,
trained military, you know, highly trained military coming to the streets, facing off with some young protestors, I mean, do you -- are you concerned
that something bad could -- I mean, even worse could happen, that there could be fatalities, that things could get out of control if this standoff
isn't ended?
TORRES: I am extremely concerned to have trained military for the purpose of war. I mean, they are warriors in a domestic setting where there is a
civil dispute. I think that that authority lies on the hands of the local law enforcement. They know these communities, they understand them.
Again, to have military equipment, military personnel involved in these ICE activities is not only wrong, but it's truly we're violating constitutional
rights of the citizens of Los Angeles and the state rights of California and also local government. The City of Los Angeles deserves to be given an
opportunity to do their best at retaining order here.
AMANPOUR: Congressman Norma Torres, thank you very much for joining us. And stay with us. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, to Gaza, where yet again, dozens of people, including children, have been killed in gunfire near the controversial new aid site.
Meantime, sources report a growing rift between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, who reportedly has told his Israeli
counterpart to end the war, and by the way, stop threatening to strike Iran.
Pressure is also mounting inside Israel. Recently, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert publicly denounced his successor saying, quote, "enough is
enough. Israel is committing war crimes." His comments raised questions about justice and accountability. The International Criminal Court still
has arrest warrants out for top Israeli officials including Netanyahu. While the Hamas leaders it had sought to indict have all been killed.
But in the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has attacked the court, calling it politicized, and he's announced sanctions on four of its
judges. Our next guest, international human rights lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Nice, prosecuted some of the world's most famous and villainous war
criminals, including the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic.
And as we approach the 30th anniversary of the genocide in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, Sir Geoffrey joins me here in London to reflect on the
mounting war crimes and the struggle for accountability. So, first, let me ask you, because your expertise is great, and you prosecuted these war
crimes during the post-Bosnia war period.
[13:25:00]
What do you make of the increasing words from inside Israel, actual Israeli officials who are beginning to say loudly and publicly that war crimes are
being committed? And let me just say, the current defense minister, Israel Katz, has openly said that the food blockade on Gaza was, quote, "a main
pressure lever on Hamas." How do you put that into a legal context?
GEOFFREY NICE, LEAD PROSECUTOR AT THE TRIAL OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC AND HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER: Generally, I think people are abandoning the excessive
decorum they showed for a year and a bit in declining to say what was becoming obvious. It has seemed to me from an early stage, it was clear
that war crimes were being committed or to be fairer. There was plenty of evidence to show that war crimes were being committed.
And the responsibility is not on commentators like me, it's on governments. And governments should have been saying, if the evidence was sufficient,
far earlier, these are war crimes. They don't do it for a whole range of very unhappy and unsatisfactory reasons, but that's the people who should
be saying it. Therefore, if we now see it's even emerging from within Israel itself, that's perhaps a further indication that this lag, this
lagging reality from the power people -- powerful bodies that should be saying, this is a war crime, is wearing thin.
AMANPOUR: Sir Geoffrey, I covered and we broke the news when the ICC put out its request for arrest warrants against three Hamas members, the
leaders of Hamas, and against I believe two Israelis. It was a prime minister and then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. And it actually revolved
again then around the issue of the total siege and blockade that Yoav Gallant was talking about, and then the conduct of the war and what they
said was insufficient protection of civilian life.
Describe for us from a legal perspective what I've covered and what you've prosecuted, siege and food and starvation as a weapon of war?
NICE: Well, they are a weapon of war, starvation in particular. And starvation is a weapon of war, not just for the people now, but for the
people to come. And along, of course, with attacks on aid workers and so on. These have to be viewed quite broadly because their consequences are
always so much greater than the instant crime. If you starve people, you starve a future generation or you kill a future generation. If you harm or
kill aid workers, you are also harming or killing those who they would otherwise have been able to use their skills to keep alive.
So, all these categories are very serious categories. And apart from enjoying special protection, one way or another, there's the
proportionality test. And the proportionality test means what you do has to be proportionate, given the known or foreseeable other consequences,
collateral damage as it's euphemistically called and it's very difficult for a country to justify the collateral damage that follows from something
as grave as starvation.
AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you, again, from the legal perspective, forget the cultural, the political, the social, the trauma in Israel and now in Gaza.
What Hamas did on October 7th was a war crime.
NICE: Of course.
AMANPOUR: Some people say it also amounted to genocide because it was absolutely directed at an ethnic group. And you've just talked about
proportionality, and this is important. So, I want you to explain to me why -- how proportionality matters. Because they keep saying it's our right to
destroy Hamas, and there's 56,000 dead in Gaza and that, you know, ignores the number who may be buried under the rubble still.
Now, that's 56,000 according to Gaza authorities. It doesn't distinguish between combatants, but there's thousands of children and women, so they
are not combatants, those children.
NICE: It's a simple old-fashioned rule, two wrongs don't make a right. The first --
AMANPOUR: Legally, I'm talking about now.
NICE: Legally, yes. Two wrongs don't make it right. Well, the first right doesn't -- a first wrong doesn't justify a second. We must never have one
second understate the horror and wickedness and evil of what was done in October. And that did give a right, obviously, to protect themselves from
further attacks and indeed to recover the hostages if and when they could. It gave them no right whatsoever to attack an entire community.
The only way they could justify attacking a community of people who they couldn't show were Hamas fighters in the course of a conflict is if they
could say, for example, we've aimed at this particular place to kill this particular person who is so important for this reason that unless we kill
him, that unless we kill him, he will cause this, that, and the other damage.
[13:30:00]
And by the way, we accept that killing 50 people or a hundred people who are innocent is proportionate. Now, that has to be their argument. We, of
course, have never seen the argument fully articulated because recall or think about, for example, how when decisions are made, military decisions
these days, they're all properly recorded. They're the subject of legal advice from the top, probably in all circumstances. We haven't yet seen the
documentation of that. And the only an analysis by Israel has been somewhat superficial.
What we need to see is their precise justification with proportionality in mind to justify this number of innocent dead is justified in proportionate
terms by killing this particular person or people.
AMANPOUR: I'm going to play a soundbite from the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and also read a couple more things from Israelis also in the legal
profession as well. Here's Ehud Olmert on our program.
NICE: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EHUD OLMERT, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: What is it if not a war crime? I mean, how can a serious person representing the Israeli government can
spell it out in such an explicit manner that we should starve Gaza and the group of fags which are now representing the Israeli government inside
Israel, and of course the world are committing actions which can't be interpreted in any other way?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, how important is it in the record, if there ever to be any trials, of that kind of statement? And let me add also the former Mossad
chief, Tamir Pardo, who has written an article and called this current war useless, it's not achieving its ends. One Likud MP, MK, called it -- called
the war a deception, saying, they lied to us about its achievements. It's not succeeding in destroying Hamas. Anyway, and then I'll get to the legal
--
NICE: These statements are more important, obviously, to mine or any commentators. They're not as good as the statement emerging from a meeting
of the cabinet that actually makes the decision and says such a thing.
But my goodness, it's pretty valuable to have this proximity or people with this proximity to power and to the understanding of power to be saying
these things. Whether it would amount to anything in evidence in court is another matter. That would depend on the basis upon which they made their
judgment, but it's very valuable.
AMANPOUR: And I want to ask you -- I'm going to quote Pnina Sharvit Baruch, she's a former head of the IDF International Law Unit. She's always
defended Israel in international courts and the media. But in a recent essay that she co-authored, she wrote that Israel is crossing red lines,
even in war against a brutal enemy and without forgetting the horrors of October 7th and the continued captivity of hostages, there are red lines.
Forced displacement of civilians with the intent of driving them out of Gaza is one such red line. Depriving civilians of life-sustaining
necessities and crowding them into areas that lack basic living conditions is another. If the political echelon instructs the military to carry out
severe crimes, these are illegal orders that IDF commanders are duty-bound to disobey.
So, that's -- you know, that's pretty intense. So, my question to you is, what happens? What is the risk that an IDF commander or a soldier carrying
out the current laws under the description that Israeli officials are now putting out, what is the risk to their legal status in the future?
NICE: It's difficult because they are sort of presumed to know the law and to act within it. In reality, it must be very difficult for soldiers if
they're in a platoon or a company, and the ethos of that company moves towards killing people in a way that's unlawful.
What we must hope is the different win. The possibility comes to achieve an accountability of overall, that regard is given to people further up the
chain who create the environment in which the person at the bottom may technically break the law.
AMANPOUR: The famous chain of command, and you have to prove the chain of command. You were able to do that, right, during the prosecution of
Slobodan Milosevic, the former butcher of the Balkans, and what he did in various parts of former Yugoslavia, including, you know, being behind the
Srebrenica massacre through the Bosnian Serbs. Just reflect on the fact that you were able to indict them, and it's 30 years since the Srebrenica
massacre.
Do you believe that the cases you prosecuted, I mean, have stood the test of time, because stuff is still going on?
NICE: That Milosevic trial ended without a verdict because he died.
AMANPOUR: He died. Yes.
[13:35:00]
NICE: Just touching on your earlier point, the chain of command is nearly always there. You can find exceptions, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, but
which private sergeant, lieutenant is going to go against the known culture and orders and put himself at risk, not just for being dealt with
internationally, but indeed for being dealt with nationally? So, the chain of command will be there, it's always a question of just finding it.
As to whether the Yugoslav cases have stood the test of time, most of them I think stand as a record of events. If you mean more and relatively
limited number of major controversies arising on the factual findings of the judges. But if you mean they haven't served the purpose of stopping war
or reducing war --
AMANPOUR: Or war crimes, even war crimes have rules, as the --
NICE: It would be a great mistake, I think, to say that war crimes, trials, and convictions stop the next generation. There's no evidence of that.
However, and it's really important to have this in mind, investigations may. And one of the most interesting points, if you just gimme this minute
to say it.
AMANPOUR: 30 seconds.
NICE: One of the people indicted from Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, told me that he was willing to be investigated. They were -- and they gave jurisdiction
in 2015, eight years passed when they were willing to be investigated before the dreadful events happened, which showed their state of mind had
changed.
If the investigation had been fully supported by the West, then Hamas would not have changed from its willingness to be investigated because it would
not have been in its interest. If there'd been publicity and support, unlike Trump trying to kill the ICC right through that period from '15 to
'18, these things might never have happened. The investigation works.
AMANPOUR: Wow that's very sobering. Sir Geoffrey Nice, thank you.
NICE: You're welcome.
AMANPOUR: From your very real operational perspective. And we'll be right back after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, to the crackdown on history itself, from removing museum exhibits on American slavery to paintings over Washington, D.C.'s, Black
Lives Matter mural. Scholars and activists say Trump's DEI purge is minimizing and even erasing black history. And our next guest is acutely
aware of the impact. Monroe Nichols is mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His new initiative, Road to Repair, would grant the city's black community over a
hundred million dollars to address harm's caused by the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. And Mayor Nichols joins Michel Martin to discuss the importance of
confronting the country's past.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks Christiane. Mayor Nichols, thank you so much for joining us.
MONROE NICHOLS, TULSA, OKLAHOMA MAYOR: Absolutely.
MARTIN: So, before we get into the details of the project that you're trying to -- the effort that you're making in Tulsa, I just wanted to kind
of take you back a little bit. You were actually born in Waco, Texas. You moved to Oklahoma to go to college and also to play football, but mainly to
go to college.
NICHOLS: Right.
[13:40:00]
MARTIN: I just wanted to ask you if you remember -- when you heard about the Tulsa race massacre, because this was an historical event that for some
people, clearly not for survivors, and the people who lived through it, but for many people had been kind of lost to history. Will you tell people who
may not have heard of this what happened? And I'm particularly interested in what you first heard had happened versus what you learned later.
NICHOLS: Yes. I mean, what I first heard it happen is just that there was this -- there's this riot in Tulsa where Black Wall Street was destroyed.
That was like the basis of the knowledge, right. And so, I didn't -- you know, didn't have much beyond that. But for the people who were watching
what existed in Tulsa at one time was an entrepreneurial center.
It was almost like a city within a city where you had movie theaters and grocery stores and doctor's offices and attorney's offices and schools and
churches that all thrived and. What was a very segregated society here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Greenwood District would become known as Black Wall
Street because of all the commerce in and out of this part of our community.
On May 31st and June 1st, a 24-hour period, saw a massacre, that saw a white mob come to Greenwood and burned down, burned to the ground about 37
blocks, about 1,200 black businesses and homes and left thousands of people homeless, and some even put into camps. The death toll is believed to be
over 300, although only reported as 36 at the time by local officials. And it is the only documented aerial assault on an American city in our
nation's history.
So, it was a massacre of epic proportions. And it destroyed what was perhaps the greatest example of black excellence in economics and
entrepreneurship that the country had seen at the time. And that's what happened in that 24-hour period from May 31st to June 1st.
MARTIN: And the only sort of minor edit I would make to that is people may remember that there's this -- there was a neighborhood in Philadelphia that
was also bombed by government officials.
NICHOLS: Yes.
MARTIN: You know, there was a sort of a black radical group that had kind of taken up residence there, but that is also seen as a modern atrocity.
But here's the other thing. You said it -- you had initially heard of this as a riot and it has now been known as a massacre, and there's a real
reason that matters. Could you just explain why that matters so much. It's not just a matter of words, that the nomenclature --
NICHOLS: Yes. No, I mean --
MARTIN: -- it's not just a matter of which word, it has real force.
NICHOLS: Absolutely. It has real force. And it was, in some ways, a matter of legality. A riot meant that it was easier to deny insurance claims for
folks who had lost homes and businesses, you know. And honestly, had a lot of people escape any level of culpability. To this day, not one person went
to jail because of, you know, their involvement.
Until this day not one government has repaid back to help rebuild in ways that were directly associated with bringing back what was lost. There were
promises made to do that even directly after the massacre, did not happen. So, naming it a riot all these years meant that there's a lot of people who
got to escape culpability, both on the individual side and the public institutional side. And it wasn't until, you know, more about this came
out, that it was clear this was not a riot. This was a slaughtering of a people. Because we now know the numbers. We now know what was lost. We know
now what was refused to be restored, for example. There was certainly a massacre of epic proportions.
And to your point about Philadelphia and other places, I think the other great thing about uncovering our history is that we know about other places
where things like this happen, maybe not at the same scale where you have 300 dead, but Wilmington, North Carolina is another example of a place
where this stuff happened. And I think it's important that as we consider what we're doing with the Greenwood Trust that we find good models for how
you begin to mitigate the harm because it exists.
The legacy of the massacre is very palpable in Tulsa. It doesn't mean that people don't like each other and we -- you know, we have that, but there's
this subtleness about it that still has this community kind of held by the change of division in ways that just prevent you from uniting in the way
that you need to unite, to meet the other big challenges that we face that everybody faces together.
And so, I do think it's really important, even in this moment in our nation's history, that we're very honest about the road that has taken to
get here, and that we find ways to mitigate harm because that's the only way that I think we can appropriately move forward.
[13:45:00]
MARTIN: So, let's bring up to the present moment. There was a lot of attention paid to the Tulsa race massacre on the centennial of it back in
2021, which acknowledged the hundred years after. There are still some people who were sur who'd survived, who were obviously very small children,
you know, at the time. There was a lot of energy around trying to figure out, you know, what to do. But not really happened. I mean, there were
negotiations around, some kind of recompense didn't happen.
Now, we're three years later and you've announced a major initiative to kind of -- I don't know, maybe I'll let you describe it, because it's a
very comprehensive project. What is it that you have in mind?
NICHOLS: Yes. So, just for a little bit of context, you mentioned the centennial back in 2021. And going all the way back to 2001, there was a
state commission that recommended certain things the state should do to address the harm caused by the 1921 Tulsa Race massacre. Since then, we've
had a commission of Beyond the Apology Commission that was created by my predecessor (INAUDIBLE) recommendations.
We have advocacy groups like Justice for Greenwood and the Deep Greenwood Foundation. Where I arrived at was a creation of the Greenwood Trust, a
private charitable trust that I'm going to be going out and raising capital for $105 million reflective of the very specific $24 million recommendation
from the Beyond the Apology Commission, which is made up of descendants around housing and home ownership. A $60 million fund investing direct
directly into cultural landmarks and the surviving entities from the massacre, there are some buildings that still stand.
So, making sure that we're investing in those because they're not always in the best condition for all the reasons that we know. That happens over
time. And then, also, investing in the future by investing in college scholarships and business grants and no interest loans to businesses that
are owned by descendants, so that in the end, not only are we mitigating harm, but we're ensuring that we can begin to have those same families,
those descendants rebuild the district back to where it was.
MARTIN: You said that in the speech that you gave announcing the trust or the -- your sort of plans for the trust. You said, there is not one Tulsan,
regardless of their skin color, who wouldn't be better off today had the massacre not happened, or if generations before had done the work to
restore what was lost. Will you say more about that?
NICHOLS: I think we would've been the exception to some of those things you see all across the country. Not every place had a Greenwood district,
right? Not every place had that kind of example at that kind of scale of where folks had beaten the odds, even in a segregated society. So, imagine
if that had a gone uninterrupted, what it would look like today. Imagine the number of African Americans all across this country now who have some
origins of Tulsa who would've stayed here, but who left after the massacre. Imagine all those who would've been drawn here because of the economic
vitality of this community, and imagine what it would've meant for our city's economy overall. We would have been, in some ways, the exception of
a lot of places all across the country.
And so, I say because of the massacre, because we had the Greenwood District, it certainly should reinforce to us that our problems from an
economic standpoint were manmade brought on by the massacre in a lot of ways, right?
We had the opportunity to close the wealth gap had the massacre never happened. We had the opportunity to close the achievement gap had the
massacre never happened. And we traded that we traded that opportunity to be that shining example of how a city can thrive for everybody on May 31st
and June 1st of 1921. And I still do believe it that there's not one person in the city who wouldn't be better off had that not happened.
MARTIN: Well, you know, it's interesting because the pretext for the massacre was at like so many other instances of a violence directed at
black people was an incident where it was alleged that, you know, white woman was mistreated. OK? But in the sort of the light of history, the
argument was -- has subsequently, some people would argue that the reason that this violence took on this kind of vicious mass quality was jealousy.
It was economic jealousy.
NICHOLS: Yes.
MARTIN: Is it there was a certain cohort of people who couldn't tolerate the fact that black people in Greenwood were as successful as they were.
Those folks have descendants too. And so, the question becomes, do you think you can persuade those descendants that all these years later, even
they will be better off if these initiatives take place?
NICHOLS: Oh, absolutely. I think I would tell the folks who are -- you know, who descend from those families who were more the perpetrator side of
the massacre that they would've benefited a great deal. They wouldn't have the legacy of something so horrible as a stain on their family's history.
[13:50:00]
They could talk about openly their family's history with pride. And I think that's something that was also taken from those families. And so, like, I
believe that Tulsa's a much different place. I know Tulsa's a much different place in 2025 than it was in 1921. And I think that's the message
right now, right? Like we are not that far removed from the massacre in a lot of ways. There's still two survivors that live today. I just visited
Mother Fletcher, Mother Randall last Wednesday.
Mother Fletcher is very sharp. She's 111 years old but she is here. The -- you know, these -- you know, sometimes I think we think about history when
you see black and white pictures and you think, oh, my goodness, that was such a long time ago. It wasn't that long ago, right? When we think about
the overarching kind of context of history.
And so, yes, I would absolutely tell those folks, they more so than almost anybody would be better off had the massacre not happened. But I think it
also should reinforce in them this need to do something about it, right? I think when I think about restoration and righteousness, it's also about
getting right with that family history that those folks might have. I don't blame them no more than I blame anybody else. So, it's not a question of
blame, but it is a question of courage. Do we have the courage to do something that's difficult to do at a time where it's difficult to do it?
Do we have the courage to cross the train tracks to talk about the lived experience of our neighbors in the way that we haven't done before?
Because I think when you do that, it makes the Greenwood Trust a very easy sale, right? When you just begin to bind those old wounds, it makes this
stuff very -- it makes stuff incredibly easy.
MARTIN: Mayor, before we let you go, you -- this initiative arrives at a very interesting time when some people would call this a backlash moment to
these kinds of initiatives. Do you see headwinds at this point?
NICHOLS: Significant headwinds, but so much of that is less about the national context because we've had times where one could argue it would've
been a better time to have a conversation like this. But it didn't happen then either. So, there's never really a right time that we found in 104
years to have this conversation.
So, I think you just got to meet it with a whole lot of honesty and transparency and not be afraid to talk about it in certain spaces. Again,
and I said this in the speech last Sunday. This is not an effort to assign blame, this is an effort to address the harm caused by an event that is a
historical fact. And that's the reason why we released the 45,000 pages of unreleased documents that we're sitting on.
That's why we continue the Gray's investigation. because families deserve closure. And I think everybody can understand that. This is not about going
and saying, oh, look how evil certain people are in this community. It's just like, no. People just need closure to know what happened to their
loved one. Even in a moment like this, think about the opportunity for us.
While everybody's having a bunch different conversation about race, imagine if Tulsa, all of us, came together and we made this happen. Just like I
said, we would've been an outlier had the Greenwood District remain uninterrupted, we would also be an outlier nationally know how people who
are all political strides, all different races are coming together saying, this is in our value set and we're going to do what we can, even with the
constraints that we have to make these investments, it actually helps us stand out in ways that I want Tulsa to stand out.
This gives us the opportunity to make sure that June 1st wasn't the end of the story. We get to write new chapters on it in a way that I think we
provide the rest of the country with the pathway, with how you can engage this kind of conversations. So, I think that's an important contribution to
make, but it's also about us getting right with ourselves and making sure we can move this community forward as one, big united city.
And so, if we have to take a look back 104 years, to think about how we go forward tomorrow, that's an investment of time and effort that's well worth
it.
MARTIN: Mr. Mayor, Monroe Nichols IV, the mayor of Tulsa, thank you so much for speaking with us. I do hope we'll speak again. I'd love to hear how
it's going.
NICHOLS: I can't wait to do that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Well worth it indeed. And finally, an art installation that symbolized a reunified Germany has been brought back to life 30 years
later. Back in 1995, artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude, covered the Retag building in over 100,000 square meters of fabric and rope.
Infamously, it was burnt down during Nazi rule and eventually redesigned for the new United and Democratic Germany.
Christo's fabric brought a softness to this monument to power. Now, the Reichstag is getting rewrapped, but this time it's bathed in light, which
cascades over the whole building. A few years ago, I spoke with Christo, one of the world's most audacious and original artists, about his
beginnings as a refugee and what it taught him about freedom.
[13:55:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTO VLADIMIROV JAVACHEFF, ARTIST: I was 21 when I escape. Probably I was in unconscious, but totally eager to do what I do in art. I was art
student or art academy. And I -- still today, I will not move one millimeter of my freedom. This is why everything I do is myself. Nobody ask
us to wrap the podium. Nobody ask us to do the gate. Nobody ask us to do the (INAUDIBLE) here. We. And for that thing, you need to have a total
freedom.
AMANPOUR: So, you are pretty hard line when it comes to freedom. You won't compromise at all.
No, not at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: What a great man. Christo was in London then wrapping what would be his last project before he died on the Serpentine in Hyde Park. He died
in 2020, aged 84.
That's it for now. Thanks for watching. Goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
