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Amanpour
Interview with Former French Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin; Interview with "Tomorrow is Yesterday" Co-Author and National Security Council Former Head of Middle East Desk and Former U.S. Middle East Peace Negotiator Robert Malley; Interview with "Tomorrow is Yesterday" Co-Author and Former Adviser to Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas Hussein Agha, Interview with The New York Times Magazine Staff Writer Jonathan Mahler. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired September 22, 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)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is about the world saying enough is enough.
KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I pledge to the Palestinian and Israeli people that there can be a better future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: More Western allies recognize a Palestinian State. I speak with France's former Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, about how the
diplomatic tide is turning.
Then, as Gaza City feels the force of Israel's offensive, what can we learn from failed peace talks of the past? I ask veteran negotiators, Hussein
Agha and Robert Malley, about their new book, "Tomorrow is Yesterday."
Also ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN MAHLER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Are we just going to concede the fact that we are going to, you know, essentially
surrender the war on cancer?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Millions of lives on the line. Jonathan Mahler from the New York Times Magazine tells Hari Sreenivasan about the real cost of Trump's cuts.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York, where world leaders are gathering for the U.N. annual General Assembly
meeting. It comes at one of the most turbulent times in its 80-year history amid global polarization and emboldened Russian leader, rapidly advancing
technologies and an overheating planet.
The future of Israel's war in Gaza is top of the agenda. The U.K., Australia, Canada and Portugal have led the latest push to formally
recognize a Palestinian State, with France set to join them today. At a summit, French President Emmanuel Macron is convening alongside Saudi
Arabia. The hope is to revive a two-state solution that seems as distant as ever.
Israel's assault on Gaza City is intensifying and tens of thousands of Palestinians are scrambling to flee, many with simply nowhere to go. So,
can this flurry of international recognition push past symbolic gesture into actual lasting solution?
Let's bring in the former French Prime Minister, Dominique De Villepin, joining me from Paris. Welcome to the program.
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN, FORMER FRENCH PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Prime Minister, can I ask you, do you believe, I assume you do as your, you know, French leader, that this will revive a two-state
solution process, or do you think it will just get massive backlash from Israel and the United States which doesn't recognize this move?
DE VILLEPIN: Well, we hope that it is going to be a new departure. This decision to recognize the State of Palestine comes because of the failure
of previous peace processes. We've seen the Oslo process, the Camp David process, the Taba process, the Annapolis process, they all failed.
And the idea today is to reverse the former process, not to have the recognition at the end of the day after solving all the difficulties, but
starting with the recognition, which is a very strong gesture toward Palestine and toward the Arab world. And of course, try now to tackle all
the different problems that we are facing, but starting with the recognition.
Behind the recollection -- the recognition, there are two principles that are concerned. The first one is the respect of international law, self-
determination for every people. And the second principle we want to recognize is a principle of justice. We see the drama, the ongoing drama in
the region. We see the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. We see the policy of colonization and annexation of West Bank. This has to stop.
[13:05:00]
And we are sending a very strong message to Israel and to the United States, whatever you do, the principle of the recognition of Palestine
cannot be erased. It is part of the international world.
AMANPOUR: Mr. De Villepin, you know the Israelis and in fact the United States say that this is a reward for Hamas. It comes very close to the
second anniversary of October 7th. And they say -- well, Netanyahu himself has said, and by the way, this is never going to happen. First address the
Hamas issue.
DE VILLEPIN: Well, it's a very important issue. And I think that nobody who knows the file can say what Benjamin Netanyahu is saying. It is exactly
the reverse. This decision of recognition that will start today is the end of a long process. We have taken the declaration of New York, the New York
declaration, following the summit in July. And mid-September, this declaration has been adopted by a vast majority of states in the General
Assembly. And this declaration says very clearly that Hamas has to be put on the side. Hamas has to be demilitarized.
So, this recognition has a starting point, which is to put away Hamas and to say very clearly that all the Arab states are willing to build up a new
political situation in Gaza and for Palestine. So, in no way there is any kind of reward in the direction of Hamas. It's exactly the contrary. And we
must remember that from the beginning, from its creation, Hamas has not been looking for the creation of a Palestinian State. On the contrary,
Hamas has been looking for the destruction of Israel. So, today is an important step for the recognition and the normalization of the place of
Israel in the Middle East.
And the risk, if we don't go forward in that direction, is that the ongoing war in Gaza, the ongoing fight in West Bank will end up as a religious war.
We see that Hamas is a religious, is an Islamic terrorist movement. And Israel, we see that at the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the people
that are taking the lead are the messianic representative of Israel, if we let these forces together, we will end up in an even bigger war between
religion, which will be the worst for the whole region.
AMANPOUR: Let me just play a little bit about what your president, Emmanuel Macron, has said about the stages of this recognition. And let me
just play it and we'll go through it in a minute.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: So, we will announce a recognition, which is the beginning of a political process. And a peace and security
plan for everybody. So, right after this recognition, we have a first phase, which is, I would say, the emergency phase. Ceasefire, release of
all hostages, and third, restoring the humanitarian roads and the stabilization of Gaza.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, Monsieur De Villepin, he's laid out the phases. What do you think will be the pragmatic? You've explained the geopolitics, the
idealistic, you know, desire for justice and a state and sovereignty and security for everyone. But the pragmatic next steps, what happens next?
What will be the immediate effect of this recognition, if Israel and the U.S. doesn't agree?
DE VILLEPIN: Well, the first phase should be the political phase with the ceasefire, which will allow the freedom of hostages, which is a key step.
We need to end this enduring horror that the hostages have been going through for almost two years.
For this, there are two conditions. The first one, to create the global atmosphere to get the ceasefire. And the second thing that we do need is
Israel, the government of Israel agreeing on that. The question is, how important today for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu releasing the
hostages? Is it a priority or it is not the priority?
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My fear is that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is pursuing another goal, and the main goal of Benjamin Netanyahu is the greater Israel, is the
deportation of the Palestinians of Gaza, outside Gaza, in order to be able to achieve what has been set as the goal of the Trump administration and
the Israeli government, which is the great trust plan.
There is a plan to go forward to have all the Palestinians out. And on the other side, they are looking for the annexation of the most, the biggest
part of the West Bank, 60 percent. The sea part is the objective of the current government of Netanyahu discussing with Marco Rubio how possible is
it to achieve this goal.
So, I'm afraid that the hostages might not be at the top of the agenda, and what we need is to put pressure on the Israeli government and to create the
condition of this ceasefire. We have been seeing the mediators, Egypt and Qatar, working very hard, and it seems that today there is on the table an
agreement. How much the Israeli government is going to seize this opportunity, or are they going to look for a bigger political strategy,
which is the one we know as the greater Israel?
We have to understand that today we are in a completely new situation after these two years of war. Israel is dominating the region. Every single --
almost every single objective of Benjamin Netanyahu has been achieved. And now, since 1836, the domination of Israel, and we have to go back to the
Ottoman Empire to have such a domination, they want to transform this domination in the perspective of the greater Israel.
Of course, we have to understand there is no way Israel is going to maintain its domination through force. We need to transform it politically,
because if we don't do that, Israel will never be secure in its own borders. So, we need to pressure the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to
accept a long-lasting peace that will secure its own country.
AMANPOUR: How do you pressure then, because, you know, every country, certainly many Europeans, before Trump came along, to an extent the Biden
administration was trying to get it to, you know, abide by the rules of the road and international law in its war against Hamas. Spain now has pledged
a permanent ban on the sale of weapons to Israel. Belgium announced a plan for a ban on imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
But how do you actually pressure Israel to do this?
Because as I say, while the United States is standing by, you mentioned Marco Rubio, President Trump has had endless discussions with president --
with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the result seems to be, OK, this is just a decision for Israel, they're free to do whatever they want.
DE VILLEPIN: Well, as a matter of fact, we have very clearly to look at the picture. The Europeans, they have not done everything they can to put
pressure on Israel. They have not decided to adopt sanctions on Israel. We have an E.U. agreement -- association agreement with Israel, which is very
important for the Israeli economy. If we suspend this agreement, it will take weeks or maybe very little months for Israel to be in the obligation
to react. Concerning the United States, they have done nothing but to accompany the willingness of Israel to go forward on its political project.
So, we need to open the eyes on what is going on, both in Gaza and in the West Bank. There is an ongoing genocide. This is the responsibility of
every citizen of the world to feel responsible for what's going on. And the Trump administration cannot forget its own responsibility. And we must put
the necessary pressure, so it's through international pressure and action.
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What will be decided in the General Assembly is, of course, very important. We may consider it's very symbolic. And that's why the Arab states, the
European states, the Trump administration must realize that if we want to stop the tragedy in Gaza, with all the risk of an extension of war, because
we have to understand that the consequences might be more terrorism for the region and elsewhere around the world, and more nuclear proliferation.
Because the only message that we are sending for the countries of the region is that if you don't have a nuclear capability, you are not
protected. So, it is more violence, more tensions, more inhumanity that will develop in this region. And I think it's time to take responsibility
for what is going on.
AMANPOUR: You know, you stood up in the U.N. General Assembly. You remember it well. Many people remember it well. In 2003, you gave a speech
just before then George W. Bush's administration wanted to go to war in Iraq. And it was about so-called weapons of mass destruction. France had a
different idea. It did not believe in the rush to war. Here's what you said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DE VILLEPIN (through translator): No one today can claim that the path of war will be shorter than the path of inspections. No one can claim that it
would lead to a safer, more just, more stable world. For war is always the sanction of failure. Would this be our sole recourse in the face of the
many challenges at this time? So, let us give the United Nations inspectors the time they need for their mission to succeed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: You were foreign minister back then, and I also interviewed your president, Jacques Chirac. He said the very same thing, give them more
time, the inspectors. And in the end, he was right. The war was a disaster. There was no weapons of mass destruction. And we know what that war did for
the Middle East. And in fact, all the blowback, it happened.
But France was isolated back then. And I wonder what it felt like being isolated when you were trying to tell your friends, the U.S., to think a
little bit, to spend a little more time thinking about this, like people are trying to tell Israel. Remember, Joe Biden said to Israel, right after
October 7th, don't do what we did in Iraq.
DE VILLEPIN: Well, of course, it's hugely painful. I'm afraid among the main reasons for Benjamin Netanyahu to follow this policy, there are many,
many domestic reasons, personal reasons, and a strong ideological stand, which is through force you can get security and peace, which is the biggest
mistake any country can make. Everything we learned in the last 25 years shows us that force, without a strong political strategy, can get you
nowhere, but more violence and more terrorism.
And we know already for sure that after two years of a long fight against Hamas in Gaza, there is almost the same number of people belonging to
Hamas, 25,000, than previously. That means terrorism -- you cannot kill terrorism just by killing soldiers. You need to fight the ideology through
another way. And you have to give hope to the people of Palestine. If you don't give hope to the people of Palestine, how will they understand that
they have to disregard the Hamas messages?
So, the responsibility for Europeans and Americans today is to choose the path of responsibility, to take the lessons of history. And I think it's
very important for the U.S. administration today to understand that everywhere the credibility of the U.S. diplomacy is tackled.
In Ukraine, the U.S. administration is showing powerlessness. In the Middle East, the real boss is not Donald Trump. The boss is Benjamin Netanyahu.
And Donald Trump has to follow, even when he doesn't want to do so, like in Iran, he has to follow Benjamin Netanyahu, who is playing with him. At the
end of the day, this is not creating a stable world.
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: One last question, because you mentioned Ukraine, and it's really important. This is also a turning point moment with Russian fighter
jets. The latest is that they went into Estonian airspace and spent 12 minutes in Estonian airspace. This is after breaching Polish and Romanian
airspace with drones. Here is what the British foreign secretary said, take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YVETTE COOPER, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: And to President Putin, I say, your reckless actions risk a direct armed confrontation between NATO and
Russia. Our alliance is defensive, but be under no illusion, we stand ready to take all steps necessary to defend NATO's skies and NATO's territory. We
are vigilant. We are resolute. And if we need to confront planes that are operating in NATO airspace without permission, then we will do so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: We have about 30 seconds left. I want to ask you, given that speech, what Putin is doing now, testing, testing, testing, do you think
NATO should do what Turkey and NATO nation did a few years ago, shoot down the Russian planes that entered its airspace without any permission? Is it
time to do something like that?
DE VILLEPIN: We should advise very clearly President Putin that he's taking a big risk and we will respond. And I think President Trump would be
well advised to send strong messages and not find excuses to President Putin while President Putin is trying to play with the country of the
region. It's time for responsibility for all of us. This is a very, very serious matter. And the name of our country, the name and the interest of
our people is at stake.
AMANPOUR: Indeed. Former Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin, thank you for joining us from Paris. And stay with us because we'll be right back
after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: So, let's dig a little deeper. Is the two-state solution still feasible? Our next guests have had front-row seats to that pursuit in the
past. Former peace negotiators Hussein Agha and Robert Malley are sharing what we can all learn in their new book, "Tomorrow is Yesterday," and they
both join me now. Welcome to the program and thank you for joining me.
I wonder if you listened to Dominique De Villepin of France talking about why this recognition was absolutely necessary. Robert Malley, from the
American perspective, and you've been, you know, in the room where it all happened, I know you've written the book about it, but is this a good thing
and will it be pragmatically useful for peace in the Middle East, this recognition that we're seeing at the U.N. this week?
ROBERT MALLEY, CO-AUTHOR, "TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY", FORMER HEAD OF MIDDLE EAST DESK, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL AND FORMER U.S. MIDDLE EAST PEACE
NEGOTIATOR: So, first, thanks for having us. I listened to the former prime minister. I have huge respect for him. I think, as you showed, the
role he played against the war in Iraq. But I think if you listen to what he said, there's one big gap. I mean, he said we need to turn the situation
around. Rather than first resolve the conflict, let's first recognize the state and then resolve the issues. But you still have to resolve the issues
and he hasn't given us a clue and neither -- none of the parties that are recognizing the Palestinian State are telling us how it's going to come
about.
[13:25:00]
So, I understand the support in Europe and some Palestinians, I'm sure, feel quite happy that at least people are paying attention to them after so
many years of ignoring them. But how is recognition going to change anything on the ground? There have been many other instances, let's not
forget, where the United States was pushing for a two-state solution on paper. We remember the role that the United States played in that. We
remember for peace, which not just the United States, but the Palestinians and the Israelis agreed to during the presidency of the second President
Bush.
So, there have been time and time again, where there's been support on paper for a two-state solution, but none of the obstacles have been able to
be overcome. And so, now, recognition of the Palestinian State, what is France, what is Saudi Arabia, what are others going to do when Israel
objects, when Israel continues what it's doing, the massacres in Gaza, when it continues to expand its footprint in the West Bank?
And let's not forget, since October 7th, settlers in the West Bank have increased the territory under their control, the territory -- three times
the size of Gaza. So, what are they going to say when that continues? What are they going to say, even if they were to get to the table, which seems
unlikely at this point, to overcome the problems that have bedeviled the pursuit of a two-state solution in the past? The inability to reconcile
Palestinians' demands for justice, for the rights of the refugees, for a real sovereign state. And Israeli demands for absolute security and for
recognition of a Jewish state and for normalcy. How do you reconcile those?
What do you do about 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and in Jerusalem? What do you do about the millions of refugees who still want
their rights to be respected? So, those are the problems that have shown that in the past have made a two-state solution impossible. Everything has
gotten worse since that time.
AMANPOUR: Well, then, let me ask your collaborator, Hussein Agha, in this book. If it's not a two-state solution, Hussein Agha, what is it? What is
the solution, then, for Palestinian independence and sovereignty and security as a Jewish State for Israel?
HUSSEIN AGHA, CO-AUTHOR, "TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY" AND FORMER ADVISER TO YASSER ARAFAT AND MAHMOUD ABBAS: At this stage, there is no solution. At
this stage, we have to redefine the conflict, find out where we went wrong. Remember, this conflict did not start with '67 or with the Oslo process.
And it's been going on, the idea of a two-state solution, for over 80 years, and it has not worked. And nobody has stopped and looked and said,
why did it not work? We had the partition plan.
Before that, they had the commission, the white paper. And then, we had the Palestinians recognizing Israel and asking for a Palestinian State in 1988.
And then, we had Oslo. And then, we had Camp David. And then, we had the Olmert-Abbas dialogue, the Annapolis process, the Kerry plans. And they all
did not work. Nobody has stopped and looked and said, why did they not work?
AMANPOUR: And why did they not?
AGHA: And to be able to move forward. They did not work because they misconceived what the conflict was about. They looked at it as being just a
territorial conflict that can be solved through drawing lines on maps and saying, you know, this side is Israeli or Jewish, and this side is Arab.
And that's it.
But all the messy issues at the heart of this conflict, feelings, emotions, yearnings, dispossession, dispersal, aspirations, well, always -- you
always recognize that they are important, but you never discuss them. You say, these do not lead you to policies that are well-defined and
applicable. So, you go for the easy option of looking for neat kind of workouts that will work out, and they don't work out.
AMANPOUR: Robert Malley, it does sound that both of you are very down on this idea. You know, we've seen the history. I think some of you have
written that certainly other negotiators have said one of the issues was that America often acted too much, not like an honest broker, but like
Israel's lawyer. And I just wondered, what are your creative solutions then or do you agree, have you both come to the conclusion, like Netanyahu just
said, that this is never going to happen, a Palestinian State is never going to happen?
MALLEY: So, listen, as Hussein said, we're not right now in the business of saying, here's a solution. And both Hussein and I have participated in
many instances, Hussein, for a long time. I did it under three -- two U.S. administrations. We failed, so it's not up to us now to say, oh, we have
the solution. Here's the blueprint.
[13:00:00]
In fact, anyone who has a blueprint, I'd love to see it. We're all ears, because it's very hard to see how go from where we are now to a peaceful
outcome for both peoples.
But one thing that we try to point out in our book is that this is -- we're not in a new situation. This is very reminiscent of where Israelis and
Palestinians were decades ago, before the ISIL process, when they were searching for some common horizon, some common language. And it started
with Israelis and Palestinians meeting privately, quietly, courageous Israelis, courageous Palestinians, exploring ideas. And maybe that's what
needs to happen today, so we get to go back to the drawing board, which is very frustrating, given I understand people want to just reach to the shelf
and find the first convenient solution. And it's a two-state solution, because we haven't spoken about anything else for so long.
But if it hasn't worked under far better circumstances than today, I have to repeat that, I mean, the situation on the ground is far superior in the
'90s, in the early 2000s, even 10 years ago, five years ago. And the support on both sides was much greater, and the level of animosity was
less. So, we're in far, far worse situation today.
So, rather sort of like a wind-up doll and say two-state solution every time we don't know what else to say, every time people feel they need to do
something, this is a time where the first priority should be the end, the carnage in Gaza, and that should be where all the focus is. And then take
some time and think more creatively about how these two peoples can live in peace with their aspirations satisfied. That's not going to be easy, and I
certainly don't have the answer sitting here today.
AMANPOUR: As you were talking, we saw the famous handshake on the White House lawn in 1993 cementing the Oslo process. We saw all these invited
guests clapping and cheering. But in the book, you say, on the Oslo Accords, the world celebrated a text it equated with an irrevocable one-way
path to peace. Ambiguity about the destination made the agreement possible, and its undoing inexorable.
Hussein Agha, take me through that again, because you talked about how, you know, the negotiators, they didn't focus on a lot of the, as you called it,
human issues, the emotion. It was all done in terms of the word security and not in any other terms. Walk me through about why you think that, even
back then, the ambiguity about the destination meant that it was inevitable that this Oslo was going to fail.
AGHA: The Israelis had a view of Oslo which was different from the Palestinians. The Palestinians thought that Oslo would lead to a
Palestinian State. The Israelis thought that Oslo was a mechanism through which they can secure the Palestinian population under their control
without really expending Israeli resources, because they tried to do it via themselves, it did not work. So, if there is a Palestinian agency that's
willing to take over and perform this task, then they are welcome, and thus Oslo.
If -- this was never discussed as such at the time. The Palestinians never said that we are not here to subcontract Israeli security. The Israelis
never said that, you know, this is about a Palestinian State. So, they were moving in parallel lines all through. That's why you could not get them
together to agree to anything. And they tried, and there are good people on both sides who wanted to have some kind of resolution. But if you misread
the situation, if you have different intentions, you cannot reach the same destination.
AMANPOUR: Just before I go back to Rob for a last question, I just want to ask you, because, of course, you were an adviser to Yasser Arafat and to
Mahmoud Abbas. Do you think that Arafat missed one of the only real chances when the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, laid it out in chapter and
verse about what he was willing to, you know, trade for peace? That was land, that was, you know, sharing Jerusalem. It was a lot.
AGHA: That's a myth. Show me what Ehud Barak presented Arafat with, and Arafat said no, too. It does not exist. It does not exist. As a matter of
fact, when Barak returned from Camp David, he said, I am the only Israeli prime minister since Begin that has not given or offered the Palestinians
anything. So, there was this myth created about Camp David and about this generous offer that Arafat rejected.
[13:35:00]
And anyway, Arafat knew before going to Camp David that the situation was not right. And he told President Clinton that this is not going to work out
and you're going to blame me. And then Clinton told him, no, I will not blame you, even if it doesn't work out. And lo and behold, it did not work
out. And Clinton came out and blamed Arafat.
So, Arafat is not the villain of the peace. I don't think even Barak is the villain of the peace. The situation was such that it could not have
resulted in anything else.
AMANPOUR: You know, I always struggle with that, I have to say. And Rob Malley, do you agree that Barak offered nothing? I mean, what was all that
stuff that we were told about then? And he keeps saying it and Clinton keeps saying it. And Clinton is still angry, as you very well know, that
Arafat turned it down only to accept it when it was too late as Clinton was leaving office.
MALLEY: So, the first point I'd make is just echoing what Hussein said, listen to Barak and what he said afterwards. And he makes clear that he was
there to expose and unmask Arafat. Put that aside. Listen to the words of the then Israeli foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, who says if he had been
a Palestinian and he had heard the ideas that were expressed at Camp David, he would have rejected them.
I mean, it is true. And we say in the book very clearly that Ehud Barak moved in terms of the ideas that he was prepared to share and the abstract
ideas he shared with President Clinton and President Clinton shared with Yasser Arafat beyond what other Israelis, leaders have done, no doubt about
it. But the measure of whether a deal is serious is not how far Israel has moved from its initial position, it's how close the two parties are. And
they were huge gaps.
I think if you speak now to almost any American member of the team, including many Israeli members of their team, they would say that this was
not organized. It was not a serious effort to reach a peace deal. There was no piece of paper with a proposal. The gaps were too great. There was no
agreement on territory, security, Jerusalem, refugees.
So, it was a great brainstorming. We all learned a lot about their respective positions, but we never were close. And to say that that was the
opportunity, I think, says a lot about how few opportunities there have been over the years.
AMANPOUR: Well, listen, it's a sad situation. Your book, "Tomorrow is Yesterday," is a really interesting read. Thank you to Rob Malley and to
Hussein Agha. And we'll be right back after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, about 40 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with a type of cancer at some point in their lives. It's an alarming statistic, made
even more so by the fact that cancer research itself is under threat in the United States, with the Trump administration continuing to slash millions
of dollars in vital funding and leaving countless families scrambling for options.
Staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, Jonathan Mahler, is investigating just what kind of impact these cuts are already having across
the country. He joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss his findings.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Jonathan Mahler, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote a piece in The
New York Times Magazine recently, and it's titled, "Trump is Shutting Down the War on Cancer."
And you take so many different approaches in this piece. Let's, I guess, start with the first. What do you mean by this? Give me the scale of the
war on cancer and what he's shutting down.
[13:40:00]
JONATHAN MAHLER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Yes. So, I mean, the war on cancer is something that we started, launched in this
country, you know, back in 1971, President Nixon actually signed the legislation, the National Cancer Act. And really what it was a commitment
to make a sustained, large investment in treating cancer and improving our treatment of cancer.
And over the decades, that investment has grown steadily. And now, we've reached a moment where we're -- you know, we're poised for even greater
breakthroughs, at the very moment that the Trump administration has decided that we're spending -- apparently decided that we're spending way too much
money trying to cure cancer.
And the, you know, war on the war on cancer, it's happening both in terms of the cancellation of individual grants, so individual projects that were,
you know, dedicated to discovering new treatments, or, you know, kind of adapting new treatments. It's happening in terms of freezes in funding to
research universities that depend on NIH money to keep their labs running, are suddenly finding that money frozen, not appearing.
And then it's happening in an -- on a kind of a larger, even larger scale. And this is something that's still a little bit, you know, to be
determined, but the president's proposed budget for next year, which is, you know, still before Congress, is calling for a 38 percent cut to our
cancer research budget, which is, you know, $3 billion. I mean, it is -- this is a lot of money.
SREENIVASAN: Give me an idea or give our audience some perspective here and set the level. OK. This has been happening for decades. How successful
has that war been? I mean, you know, we're spending billions and billions of dollars every year. I get that, but like, is there a way that you can
measure what a dollar gets us?
MAHLER: Yes. So, I mean, my favorite statistic is, which was published recently in the journal of Clinical Oncology is that about every $300 that
the government spends on cancer research extends someone's life by one year. So, that feels like a pretty modest investment to me as, you know, as
someone who lost his mom to cancer, seems to me, you know, pretty worth it.
To say nothing of the fact that there are enormous economic benefits to this investment too. I mean, the biotechnology industry, the pharmaceutical
industry, all of these, and all the investors in these companies have all made an enormous amount of money off of, off of the research that began on
this basic biological level funded by our government.
SREENIVASAN: And so, when somebody gets a cancer today versus perhaps our parents' generation, what is the likely outcome? Are we more likely to
survive it? Are there fewer cancers that are kind of untreatable?
MAHLER: Our ability to treat cancer has been, you know, dramatically transformed, particularly since the 1990s. So, really, if you, you think
about how this whole war on cancer has unfolded, the first, you know, 20 plus years were really a period where scientists were mostly grappling with
how much more complicated this disease was than they had realized.
It's not a single disease. It's hundreds of thousands of diseases. And each one behaves differently in everyone's -- on every organ and in everyone's
body. And really beginning in the late '90s, you know, what had been basically the only options historically had been, you know, surgery really.
And then, you know, chemotherapy came along and radiation as well. But these are, you know, all -- both radiation and chemotherapy are enormously
toxic and, you know, not always effective.
But what the -- really the biggest innovation and the innovation that we're still really -- scientists are still really building on is what's known as
immunotherapy. And immunotherapy is essentially the use of one's immune system to the stimulation of an immune system to detect the mutant cancer
cells and fight the cells itself.
So, your immune system does the work that otherwise these toxic chemotherapy chemicals would be doing, which people tolerate much better.
So, their quality of life during treatment is much better and it's also much more effective.
So, this is a new -- you know, immunotherapy is relatively new. We're talking about, you know, 15 years or so. And there's still a lot of cancers
where they're just beginning to understand how to use immunotherapy.
SREENIVASAN: To illustrate what's happening kind of in the research ecosystem, you help kind of personalize it by looking at Rachael Sirianni,
a professor at the University of Massachusetts. Her research focuses on an aggressive form of pediatric cancer known as medulloblastoma. Tell us her
story and how it's indicative of what's happening to other researchers, people who are facing grants.
[13:45:00]
MAHLER: She's working on basically a new way to deliver a drug -- to deliver drugs into the interior of the brain to attack this very aggressive
form of pediatric brain cancer, which, you know, kills hundreds of kids every year, medulloblastoma.
And so, she's been working kind of steadily on this for, you know, 10 years now. And she's -- she had three NIH grants to do this work, was making
great progress. Her grants were just -- because they -- you know, they only last for five years or so, were coming up in 2025 and 2026. So, coming into
this new year and the new presidential administration, she was aware that she needed new grants to keep her research going. You know, she runs a lab
of -- with seven researchers and technicians, and it's expensive and time- consuming work running -- you know, running all these studies.
So, she had submitted two grant applications to keep her work going to the NIH. And days after the inauguration, she was informed that the meetings
where her grants were going to be considered had been canceled.
And so, months now went by, she had to start laying people off in her, in her lab. She had to cancel one of her most promising studies. And then she
was informed that they -- in June, that they were not -- that neither project was going to be funded. So, now she's faced with this decision of,
well, you know, what am I going to do? I've been -- this is this important work that I'm devoted to, that I've been doing for years now, and I'm
making great progress.
And she's come to this decision now that she, for the moment, at least, she can't really focus on this work any longer because pediatric brain cancer
work is very expensive. It's expensive because it requires a very specific kind of lab mouse. So, now she's decided she's going to have to just pivot
away from it and start working in some other fields, you know, which is obviously, you know, tragic. I mean, this was a woman who was making great
strides in helping children with brain cancer survive.
SREENIVASAN: Yes.
MAHLER: And I mean, it's hard to imagine, you know, something more worthy to -- for our government to be investing in. And yet, you know, here she is
having to move to other fields.
SREENIVASAN: So, you know, we're in a period now where you said that in the mid-70s, America's five-year cancer survival rate sat at 49 percent.
Today, it's 68 percent. That's startling. Considering how relatively new immunotherapy is, and perhaps some of the work that's happening with mRNA
research that could impact cancer, is this a productive time for cancer research?
MAHLER: Many people whom I spoke with said that this is one of the most productive moments, if not the most productive moment in the history of
cancer research, because we have all of that accumulated knowledge. We have all of this new technology. We have artificial intelligence. There's so
much -- so many sort of forces coming together.
There is -- as you say, there, there are cancer vaccines, mRNA vaccines and other cancer vaccines being developed. There are new studies now to detect
a cancer in the bloodstream, years before you have any symptoms. So, the ability to begin to treat cancer before it even appears.
There's a new radiation treatment in development. It's a flash of radiation that's literally a microsecond, and that's it. And so, rather than a
prolonged radiation treatment, which causes all sorts of damage to the surrounding tissue, it just hits the spot and just in an instant and you're
done.
So -- and as I was telling you before, immunotherapy is this incredibly promising area. So, there is -- there's so much going on right now. It's a,
you know, really exciting time for cancer research, but of course, it's also a terrifying time for cancer researchers.
SREENIVASAN: So, let's talk a little bit about kind of the politics and the motivation of President's cuts on this. I mean, even, you know, as you
describe, if the NIH stopped taking meetings well before kind of DOJ came in, this seems like part of a sort of orchestrated plan on what to do.
MAHLER: This was a very deliberate and premeditated campaign. And it's not an easy thing to do because the NIH and the NCI, the National Cancer
Institute, which is, you know, part of the NIH, which kind of oversees a lot of the cancer research in this country, they were built to be insulated
from politics for obvious reasons.
[13:50:00]
So, if you wanted to make, you know, a sort of politically motivated assault on these institutions, you know, it was going to require some
forethought. And that's what happened. I mean, this administration came in and they knew exactly what to do and how they were going to do it. And they
started freezing grants.
I mean, it's -- you know, it's unprecedented for active research grants to be canceled. I mean, truly unprecedented. And -- you know, and it was
happening by -- you know, by the hundreds. It's unprecedented for universities to have their funding frozen.
So, this administration, they knew how to disrupt this system and they did. And what's puzzling to me is -- still is, you know, you can explain this, I
think, as, OK, this is part of the war on government bureaucracy, on what they would say is government -- argue is government waste. This is part of
the war on research universities that they feel are, you know, too progressive, too left.
This is -- you know, also important to say, this is part of a kind of attack on the scientific establishment, which of course has, you know, lost
a lot of its credibility in many quarters during the COVID pandemic. I get that, but what's your plan? What are you going to -- once you've canceled
all these grants, once you've cut all this funding, what are you going to do? I mean, are we just going to concede the fact that we are going to, you
know, essentially surrender the war on cancer? I mean, or is there a plan that you just haven't told the American people about to build something in
its place? And unfortunately, I haven't seen any evidence of a plan.
SREENIVASAN: You have a statement from the Office of Management Budget. It says, efforts to focus NIH spending will establish a more sustainable and
accountable fiscal path for NIH while ensuring that resources are managed effectively and in a manner that best supports America's biomedical
research enterprise.
You lay out kind of one of the critiques by Joe Lonsdale, a supporter of Elon Musk and the president. And he says, look, this is a, a system that's
grown bloated and bureaucratic, and it's not working nearly as fast as it could. And, you know, they want to change things. So, what's the problem
with that critique?
MAHLER: It is very important to recognize that this is not a perfect system by any means. There are criticisms of it, both on the left and the
right. Any bureaucratic system that has been evolving for, you know, more than 50 years now, it is -- it has gotten big, it has gotten unwieldy. It
has gotten risk averse. There are too many older scientists who are blocking too many younger scientists who have, you know, kind of more, more
potentially game-changing ideas who are more familiar with new technology, et cetera, that are not able to kind of enter the field.
And scientists are spending too much of their time writing grant proposals because it's gotten so competitive. That's a problem. They should be in the
lab. They shouldn't be spending all their hours, you know, writing 120-page proposals for a grant.
So, that is all true. And Joe Lonsdale is correct about that. I think the problem is that this idea that you can just sort of disrupt this system,
like you would, you know, disrupt the technology industry, you know, and replace it with startup companies, that's not how scientific research
works. It's one scientist in one lab making a small discovery that another -- that -- and publishing it in a paper and another scientist reading that
paper and seeing, oh, that's interesting. I think I might be able to like add a twist to that. I might be able to advance that idea a little further.
It's sort of -- it's collaborative, it's incremental. It's very different than, than how the Silicon Valley functions.
So, I would say that, you know, I think his criticisms of the system are, are, are legitimate. I think the idea that it could be replaced by some
sort of, you know, disruption-centered Silicon Valley style approach it seems misguided to me to say nothing of the fact that, as I mentioned
before, we haven't seen any proposal for what's coming next.
SREENIVASAN: Staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, Jonathan Mahler, thanks so much for joining us.
MAHLER: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And finally, freedom for the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah. According to Egypt's state-run media, President Sisi has ordered
the release of the prominent human rights campaigner and blogger. He was first arrested during the 2011 Egyptian uprising, known as the Arab Spring.
El-Fattah has been repeatedly detained since then, and he received a five- year sentence in 2021 for allegedly spreading false news and assaulting a police officer. Human rights groups claim the charges were politically
motivated.
[13:55:00]
His release will be welcomed by the many who advocated for it, including his mother, Leila Soueif, who lobbied the British government and herself,
went on a nine-month hunger strike last September, demanding his release.
That's 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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