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Amanpour
Interview with Senator Chris Coons (D-DE); Interview with International Crisis Group Andes Project Senior Analyst Phil Gunson; Interview with The New York Times Magazine Domestic Correspondent Nikole Hannah-Jones. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 01, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Maybe you blow them up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: The president again threatens Iran as this war drags on. And from the A.I. race with China to Russia causing serious problems for NATO,
a myriad of foreign policy issues for Americans. I speak to Senator Chris Coons as we count down to the midterms.
Then, as Democrats question Trump's oil deal with Venezuela, how is the country fairing under the thumb of the United States? I'm joined by expert
Phil Gunson from Caracas.
And --
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NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES, DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Those who wrote about the systems of segregation, when it came to their own
choices for their kids, they actually made choices that benefited from that segregation and inequality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: The schooling decision sparking fierce debate about education. Nikole Hannah-Jones tells Michel Martin her and her daughter's story.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
The long odds of diplomacy, President Trump saying that he does not think, quote, "You could ever have peace with Iran." That was in a wide-ranging
interview with Time Magazine in which he also threatened to again attack the country after the midterms.
Meanwhile, Russia hit a school in Kyiv today in broad daylight. Luckily, the children and staff were sheltering and unharmed. But as Ukraine's kids
continue to live under the ferocity of Russia's missiles, America is standing by, instead choosing to exclude key allies like Britain, France,
and the Baltic states from an upcoming NATO meeting next month.
And of course, the A.I. race with China continues apace. Here's President Trump speaking this week.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're leading by a lot, and we don't want to mix it up too much either. You know, somebody said, oh, let's do a joint
venture. Let's work together with China. But if we do that, we're going to be giving a lot of secrets that, that we have that they just would want to
have, or anybody else. And frankly, there is nobody in third place. I mean, it's all between us and China.
And President Xi was here. We talked about it. Not that much, because I didn't want to do anything. We're leading. So, why would I want to do
anything? And a lot of people said, let's do it together with China, but then they're going to be able to immediately gain access to things that we
know that they don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, as the midterms approach at home, voters have some serious questions about grappling with the world. Let's ask Senator Chris Coons,
who is of course on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, welcome back to our program.
SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Thank you, Christiane. Always great to be on with you.
AMANPOUR: So, there's a whole load we've just laid out. I think everybody's really looking at the superpower competition, or whatever you
want to call it, between China and the United States. So, we had this sumptuous welcome for President Xi last week around the U.N., and then
today is China Unity Day. On the eve, President Xi spoke again about advancing the great cause of national reunification.
Now, is this throwing down a gauntlet, or is this just standard speak by a Chinese president? What do you make of that right after his meeting with
President Trump?
COONS: Look, Xi Jinping continues to make clear in every possible setting that reunification with Taiwan by force if necessary is his principal goal.
And by failing to be clearer and stronger about our views on Taiwan and on our competition with China, I think Trump is encouraging Xi in the same way
that he's encouraging Putin and his aggression against Ukraine and his adventurism in testing NATO by being insufficiently clear and tough.
When Trump came into power again for his second term, there were in place export controls on advanced A.I. chips that were very bothersome to China.
He's now moved to allow NVIDIA chips to be exported to China. He's not standing up for America's best interests in constraining China's advance in
A.I.
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In the same way, he rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Anchorage and has taken both sides of this war, encouraging Zelenskyy to make concessions
to give up territory and refusing to provide the sort of tough sanctions and ongoing military support that I think Ukraine deserves. So, President
Trump, by the way, he's been acting with regards to both of these aggressive authoritarians, Putin and Xi is encouraging aggression.
AMANPOUR: So, let's take Taiwan first and let's throw a little devil's advocate at you because while Xi pressed Trump to say that America actually
opposes Taiwan independence, President Trump did not take that bait. Has Xi got what he wants and where does the $14 billion arms package for Taiwan
stand, which has been frozen since the May summit in Beijing?
COONS: To the best of my knowledge, Christiane, it's still frozen and steps like reducing our annual military exercises with South Korea, not
strongly defending the Japanese prime minister when she faced abuse or aggressive speeches, remarks by Xi Jinping and not releasing this next
round of arms sales to Taiwan. All of those send a signal that Trump is trying to cozy up to or at least not accelerate the tensions with Xi
Jinping.
Yes, he did not take the next step in terms of our rhetoric around Taiwan that Xi Jinping asked. Trump did not say that as a country we actively
oppose Taiwan independence. I think the decades of strategic ambiguity over our views on Taiwan independence are a positive and I don't think Trump
should have given that away.
We continue to be in a difficult trade war with China, but I'll remind you one of Trump's own choosing and initiation. On so-called liberation day,
Trump launched double digit tariffs against not just the PRC, but most of our close allies and partners around the world, including Canada and
Mexico, Australia and the U.K., as well as the PRC. That produced a sharp response from China, which used their dominance of critical minerals and
rare earths to exercise leverage back against Trump. And ever since then, he's been hesitant of doing anything to further escalate this needless
tariff war with China.
AMANPOUR: Part of that is over A.I. You heard, I hope, what the president said about it, you know, when we let into that, no, I can't give away
everything because this is about we two. It's either U.S. or China who's going to win. And we right now are in the lead. But did the summit produce
anything that made you think that there may be some guardrails or what the tech industry itself is calling for and what increasingly the American
people are calling for? There was talk about some hotline. What do you think was actually achieved there?
COONS: I did discuss that with the Chinese ambassador at a recent public event here. We were both at a memorial service for Alan Greenspan on
Monday. And I was encouraged by press accounts that there is at least an open line of communication because the number of alarms that are being rung
by A.I. leaders in recent weeks are raising my level of concern and anxiety and that of many of my colleagues here in the Senate.
I do think that we can continue to be the world leader in frontier A.I. research and expect reasonable guardrails. Last night on the floor of the
Senate, I tried to pass by what's called unanimous consent, an A.I. whistleblower protection bill that Senator Chuck Grassley and I have
written and introduced. Senator Ted Cruz objected, but said that he will work with us in the coming weeks to try and narrow it and get it passed
when we return in November.
There are lots of other bipartisan bills here in the United States Congress. I introduced another one with Senators Langford and Britt and
Shatz that would compel transparency about the safety measures being taken by A.I. companies, what they're doing to test them for their potential
threats to children and more broadly to our society.
But President Trump is the one really setting the tone here. And as you said, Christiane, when he publicly announces there's no need for us to put
any guardrails on A.I. systems, what he's doing flies in the face of dire predictions from technology leaders like Bill Gates or the current CEOs
like Dario Amodei or Sam Altman.
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So, I think it's long past time for us to be tougher on our on our control of advanced chips, which help fuel China's race towards frontier A.I. and
to expect reasonable guardrails from the industry and to work in a collaborative bipartisan way to deliver those guardrails.
Look, every major technology from jet airliners and automobiles to banking online and nuclear energy has guardrails in place, has whistleblower
protections, has federal inspectors, has a federal regulatory agency. We should expect no less of this rapidly developing and potentially dangerous
technology.
AMANPOUR: You know, there are others in the tech world who don't agree and think that this is all doom mongering and scare tactics. But, you know, I
wanted to know what you how worried are you? You sort of outlined it, but you try to introduce legislation. You had Senator Cruz not go with it for
the moment. Do you think that the Senate, will you pick it up again after the midterms, even if the Democrats don't win? Will you do what the people
are asking, and that is to protect them from unbridled A.I.? Do you think even Republicans might take that up after the midterms?
COONS: Yes. I had lengthy and serious conversations with Republican senators on the floor last night. We were here voting for several hours.
Members of the Intelligence Committee, members of the Commerce Committee, members of the Armed Services Committee.
Because while I see the very real positive potential of A.I. to help with curing diseases or with clean energy or to contribute significantly to our
national security, if any of the major alarms being raised by business leaders in A.I., if they're at all true, we have one last chance to get
this right before A.I. gets away from us. None of the technologies that I just referenced, nuclear power or automobiles or jet planes, is capable of
improving themselves without human engagement. A.I. increasingly is.
As you well know, Christiane, and your viewers probably do as well, there was an alarming incident recently where A.I. agents built by OpenAI broke
out of their containment system, went out onto the internet, and found and attacked another A.I. company called Hugging Face. They did things that
their creators didn't expect they could do or would do, trying to conceal what they were doing, inventing a language to communicate between these
hundreds of A.I. bots that humans can't understand.
The folks who are developing and leading this race towards A.I. are increasingly alarmed because A.I. agents are capable of doing things and
doing things that they didn't expect and they can't explain. That's never happened. If we get this wrong and it genuinely gets away from us and
begins designing things to hurt people, it will be the last mistake we ever make.
I recently watched a powerful movie called "The A.I. Doc," a documentary about how to balance apocalyptic and optimistic views of A.I. I'd recommend
it to your viewers. It is a survey of the thinking of all the major leaders in this space, and it left me both optimistic and terrified.
AMANPOUR: Well, point taken. You're talking about the apocalyptic potential nature of this, and of course in a bygone era and even now, the
apocalyptic nature of a nuclear threat and the inability to work with Russia, particularly over the current situation in Europe and the constant
attacks on Ukraine, which are getting worse and worse.
So, what I want to understand from you is what do you understand from something that's been mooted by the Pentagon saying, and let me get it
straight to get the right countries, that there is an upcoming meeting at which Politico reports the Pentagon will hold this meeting in Poland next
month, but has left out Britain, France, and the Baltic states, which are all major defense spenders.
The invited group includes Germany, Poland, and the Nordics. Maybe Denmark after this deal over Greenland, which gives the U.S. maybe a bigger
footprint there. Is that possible? I mean, why? Isn't it Putin's dream to split NATO, or are we reading something different into this?
COONS: You are exactly right that it's Putin's dream to divide NATO internally and to divide the United States from NATO, and President Trump
is hurtling towards that outcome. I was at the most recent NATO summit in Ankara, met with many NATO leaders. I was also at the U.N. General Assembly
just a week ago, and what I'm hearing from our NATO and global allies is real concerns. I was also at the U.N. General Assembly just a week ago.
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And what I'm hearing from our NATO and global allies is real concern about how reliable the United States as an ally and a partner.
Remember, at the end of the day, the Article 5 commitment that's at the heart of NATO is about trust. It's about whether or not our allies trust us
to come to their defense as they came to ours in the event of an attack, and the Baltic states are at the top of the list in defense spending, in
integration into NATO, into being forward-leaning and helping Ukraine, and in being alarmed at the very real possibility that Putin will attack a NATO
country.
Putin's Russian military is doing everything it can to carry out what are called gray zone attacks, hiring saboteurs, sending drones into NATO
airspace and then bringing them back out, conducting cyber-attacks, pushing the boundaries every single day. And as you mentioned, Christiane, the
ongoing brutality of Russian attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine and the fact that our European NATO allies are dedicating tens of billions of their
dollars towards arming and supporting Ukraine leaves all of them wondering what this is about.
Bridge Colby, who is the policy director at the Pentagon, is leading a so- called NATO review. And I met with him recently, because I'm the senior Democrat on defense appropriations, to press him on what they're doing.
It's causing real worry amongst NATO allies that they might be abruptly presented with a withdrawal, with a decision by the Trump administration to
withdraw key American troops and capabilities from NATO exactly at the moment when that would encourage Putin in his aggression against Ukraine
and potentially against NATO.
It's a dangerous game they're playing. The Europeans have stepped up. They have genuinely taken on, as they should have long before, a fair share of
the costs of defending Europe. President Trump, Bridge Colby, Secretary Hegseth, they should take the win and celebrate that countries like Germany
and the U.K. and the Baltic states are spending at a much higher rate than they were before. And if we are gradually going to transition towards a
European-led security for Europe, it should happen over a decade, not abruptly and not without full consultation.
AMANPOUR: Yes, I mean, that was -- there's a lot of questions in that Bridge Colby report anyway from Politico on this. We hope to try to track
them down and pin them down. But let me ask you finally on Iran and the Hormuz Strait. I mean, it is just back and forth reports.
What do you know about whether anything substantive came out of meetings -- you know, indirect meetings at the U.N.? President Trump again says, hey,
wait till after the midterms and we'll go back on the offensive. There's just a lot of mixed messaging. And again, for the people of the United
States, they want to see it ended because, amongst other things, the massive price hikes.
COONS: Look, Americans and Europeans are bearing much higher costs for fertilizer and thus food and groceries, for diesel and for gasoline, even
for helium, which is used in critical medical tests, all of which transit the Strait of Hormuz. There is a steadily increasing volume of unrefined
product of crude oil getting through the strait. But the Iranians continue to launch indiscriminately drones and ballistic missiles at civilian ships
transiting the strait.
And recently, the Houthis, an Iranian proxy group based in Yemen, are striking Saudi ships in the Red Sea and are making advances in territory
around the perimeter of the Red Sea that may allow them to more directly control the Bab el-Mandeb, the strait that leads product in and out of the
Red Sea. This is a mess.
Christiane, President Trump took us into this war without consulting our allies, without consulting Congress, and without making a clear case. When
we go to war, when we ask America's men and women at arms to take up the risk and the sacrifice, we deserve a president who gives us a clear case.
What are the costs? What will the and who should bear those costs?
Just yesterday, the last Americans were withdrawn from Iraq after 23 years. And that's the sort of forever war with an unending cost in blood and
treasure that Americans voted for President Trump because he promised not to do that again. This war with Iran was supposed to be quick, cheap, and
easy, six weeks, relatively few, if any, casualties. And here we are months and months later, and we're paying the price at the pump and the grocery
store.
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Eighteen Americans have paid the ultimate sacrifice and hundreds more have been wounded. And our military facilities and embassies throughout the
region have been struck at a cost of billions. We will be paying for this war for a long time to come.
And Christiane, I'm not aware of any breakthroughs or frankly any progress having been made in the negotiations that happened along the sidelines of
the U.N. General Assembly or through other intermediaries. We're stuck. We're in a difficult place. And I think President Trump needs to drop back
20 yards, consult with his allies, consult with our Persian Gulf partners, and come up with a plan that can work and that doesn't leave Iran
permanently in control of the Strait of Hormuz.
AMANPOUR: And very briefly, because we've got to move on, do you think if one of the houses of Congress goes to the Democrats after the midterms,
that whether it's the House or Senate or both, can Congress people use their leverage to actually demand the kinds of things you're talking about
on this?
COONS: We have actually passed in both chambers War Powers Act resolutions of disapproval. It's clear that Congress does not support this war. And
ultimately, Congress's real power is the power of the purse. And so, when we return, defense appropriations are going to be a central issue on the
table. And I hope President Trump's paying attention to the fact that senior Republican appropriators are saying they're not going to give him
the extra hundreds of billions of dollars he's seeking for this war.
So, I do think that when Congress is in Democratic control, he will not see the funding he needs. We won't leave America's men and women at arms and
lurch. We are concerned about their safety and security, making sure that, you know, the crew of the USS Lincoln, for example, or our troops who are
deployed in the Middle East are cared for.
But some of his wilder adventures, creating a new Trump battleship and Golden Dome, will not get funded. And he will then have to come to Congress
for us to find a way to move forward together, which I believe will include ending this war of choice in Iran.
AMANPOUR: Really interesting. Senator Coons, thank you very much for joining us from Washington Capitol Hill. And stay with CNN. We'll be right
back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Quote, "The biggest oil deal in world history." A Trumpism, of course, but he is referring to the Pentagon deal to take a large stake in a
Venezuelan oil company. Several top Democratic senators sounded the alarm warning that undermines the country's democratic transition. As calls for
elections in Venezuela grow, opposition leader and Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado has been blocked from entering her home country.
So, let's go to Phil Gunson, a journalist who's lived in Venezuela for more than 25 years and who's currently a senior analyst for the International
Crisis Group. He's joining us from Caracas. Welcome back to the program, Phil Gunson.
Let me start by asking you, you've been there, as I said, for 25 years. You've lived through many cycles of Chavismo, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro.
And now, do we call this Chavismo 3.0 with Delcy Rodriguez? How do you term what's on the table right now?
PHIL GUNSON, ANDES PROJECT SENIOR ANALYST, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: Yes, it's a very good question, Christiane.
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How do we define this? For many people, the revolution is over. You know, Chavismo was built as a socialist revolution, as a radical anti-imperialist
experiment. And the fact is that almost everything that they've said over the last quarter century is now being reversed. I mean, not just
rhetorically, but also in practice.
Now, it appears that the government in Caracas is a key ally of the United States. Its political alignment, its geopolitical alignment has changed
radically. It's no longer Iran, China, Russia, you know, that is welcome with open arms here. It's U.S. cabinet secretaries and even the head of
South Com or the CIA. So, how do you define it? I think the revolution is over, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the authoritarian government
that's left in power is going to be leaving anytime soon.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, that's interesting. We'll delve down on the elections. So, for many people, including many Venezuelan exiles, the realignment is
just fine. They would much rather have Americans and business than Iranians and Russians and I don't know who else coming over there. You know, those
who are considered outside the sort of the norm in terms of international rules and norms.
So, what about elections? As I led into you, we basically know from her people that Maria Corina Machado has been basically prevented by land, sea
and air from coming home, even though Delcy at the U.N., Delcy Rodriguez, mentioned the elections would take place, but no timeline yet. What do you
think is going to come? I just want to play for you actually something I asked another major leader in that hemisphere, Brazil's President Lula da
Silva, when I spoke to him exclusively at the U.N.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA, BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The sovereignty of the country has ended. This is not good. It's not good for
the U.S. and it's not good for Venezuela and it's not good for democracy either. The idea is that we should build partnership with Venezuela, so
that Venezuela -- I said the other day, if I was Delcy, the President, I would call for election, national election, so that people could choose
who's going to be the next president of the country. Because the way the U.S. is treating Delcy, it seems that U.S. is Delcy's boss.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, do you also think that Delcy Rodriguez is essentially quasi- abandoning Venezuelan sovereignty, or is she cleverly riding a wave of investment, of getting rid of the, as you said, the revolution is ended. Do
you think she's making a good play for the future health of Venezuela's economy and its people?
GUNSON: Yes, I don't think those two things are necessarily mutually exclusive. I mean, I think, yes, she's abandoned sovereignty. She's
abandoned sovereignty in order to stay in power, and maybe to stay personally, to stay out of jail. And certainly, the fact that the Trump
administration is pushing very hard to open up the Venezuelan economy, to bring in billions in investment, particularly from the U.S., may favor
Delcy, in the sense that if it stabilizes, improves the economy, maybe even improves her own personal standing, which is very low among the Venezuelan
electorate, maybe the support from Trump and even the abandonment of long- held Chavista principles can keep her in power.
But I think everybody understands, even probably Delcy Rodriguez and her brother, Jorge, who's the head of the National Assembly, they understand
that if they were to go into a free and fair election anytime soon, they're going to be voted out of power.
So, I think their interest is in dragging their feet, in, yes, making a few reforms here and there, but making it as slowly as possible in the hope of
finding a way to stay in power even despite the call for elections.
AMANPOUR: And what alternative or recourse do you think the Democratic opposition actually has if they can't even land? Now, some people have
come, but not the main one who's credited with having won the last elections. What recourse do they have?
GUNSON: Yes. Well, Maria Corina Machado in particular, who is being prevented from returning. Of course, you know, if Venezuela were a
democracy, Maria Corina Machado would have been in power already for a couple of years. She would be the rightful president. Her substitute
candidate, because she was banned from standing, was the overwhelming victor in 2024. But she can't get back.
And, of course, the more she stays outside the country, the more she's basically being blocked from implementing her electoral strategy, her bid
for power, then the more she's likely to suffer from the syndrome that affects every exiled leader, that over time people forget them, people run
out of power. Then the more she's likely to suffer from the syndrome that affects every exiled leader, you know, that over time people forget them,
people, you know, run out of faith in the idea that they're going to return and come to power. So, she needs to come back very soon.
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But broadly speaking, the opposition as a whole, many of whom are many of the political leaders here, don't agree with Maria Corina's strategy and
don't favor her brand of politics. But the opposition as a whole needs to come together around something that will answer the demands of the
Venezuelan population. And those include not only criticisms of what Delcy Rodriguez is up to in her government, but also criticisms of what Donald
Trump is doing.
The problem that both have, both, you know, the government and the opposition, is that they're both under tutelage. They're both being, you
know, manipulated by the U.S. from afar. It's as big a problem for the opposition as it is for the government, probably even bigger.
AMANPOUR: Let me just play some sound that we've gathered from protesters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Enough already. We want elections, we want our leader, Maria Corina Machado, the next president of
our dear beloved Venezuela.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): To Mr. Donald Trump, we are prepared. We showed it on October 28, 2024 and we remain prepared to show
him that here we have leadership and we have people willing to fight for their freedom. And that we will continue in the streets and the fight.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Unfortunately the hand of Donald Trump is involved here. It is regrettable but that's how it is. We are not
fools. We notice what is happening. They are saying there is a change, my god, what change?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, that was a group of women who obviously, as you heard, want their free voice and their free vote. But how much of a stronghold -- can
you sort of give us a view of how strong -- you just said, of course, that had Maria Corina Machado been there, she would be president. But right now,
what is the percentage vote that the opposition could count on, do you think?
GUNSON: Well, if there were a free and fair election tomorrow and Maria Corina Machado stood against Delcy Rodriguez, she would win by a very large
margin. I mean, there are obviously some people, particularly on the Chavista or ex-Chavista side, who, whilst they may not like Delcy, detest
Maria Corina even more.
So, there is -- you know, Delcy would get a certain boost in an election from not being Maria Corina Machado. But three quarters or four-fifths of
the vote would go to her. Now, of course, we don't know if there will be a free and fair election. We don't know if she will be the candidate. But
overall, people want change. And a candidate promising change is going to have a very, very big chance of winning any election whenever it might take
place.
AMANPOUR: Let's talk about the cost of living, people's, you know, lots of poverty and malfunction of the economy over these past many years. Now,
President Trump and the administration talk about, as I said, these business deals, particularly oil deals. President Trump hailed a very, very
big one that was made with Delcy's government as the biggest oil deal in world history.
Can you tell us what it looks like and how you think it could actually, you know, help raise the standards of living for people there? It's their own
natural resource.
GUNSON: Yes. Life of an ordinary Venezuelan since the 3rd of January, since the U.S. intervention that removed Maduro from power, has got worse.
I mean, it is not true, as Donald Trump says, that Venezuelans are dancing in the streets. If they're dancing in the streets, they're dancing in the
streets from fury and frustration, because inflation remains at several hundred percent a year. Salaries, wages are at rock bottom. I mean,
absurdly low. You can't live on them. Public services are in a terrible state.
And one of the things that people are protesting most about right now is the power cuts. The irony is that as the economy does start to grow, and as
the oil production starts to increase, the impact of that on ordinary people is not positive, it's negative, because people are suffering ever
more lengthy and frequent power cuts.
And so, you know, the anger -- if President Trump at the beginning of this year and Marco Rubio were two of the most popular politicians in Venezuela,
without even being here, now that's not the case. There's a lot of anger, a lot of frustration at the fact that promises were made, that everything was
supposed to be much better from the 3rd of January, and of course, it isn't happening for now. And to the extent that it may happen in the future, that
seems a very long way off for most ordinary Venezuelans.
AMANPOUR: And how do you assess these oil deals? I mean, some of the information we have from U.S. officials is that this big one gives
Washington a 35 percent stake in a company that would operate 17 of Venezuela's oil fields. And apparently, a 100-year lease. Is that accurate?
[13:35:00]
GUNSON: Well, no, it's not accurate. Almost nothing of what President Trump said was accurate. It's not a 100-year lease. That's actually
unconstitutional. In Venezuela, the oil fields exist. There aren't 65 billion barrels of recoverable oil, it's probably considered to be less.
And the big question -- well, there are many big questions because this deal has not been made public. We don't know the terms of it. It's a deal
with a company run by a gentleman called Alejandro Betancourt, who's been investigated in many different jurisdictions, including the U.S., for
alleged money-laundering corruption. And it's not clear where the money's going to come from to develop these 17 fields, most of which are either
very underdeveloped already or simply greenfield sites where, in order to begin pumping oil, you'd first have to build a road to the place where the
concession is located, even before you start to build the oil infrastructure, the housing for workers, and so on.
So, tens of billions of dollars are needed. Now, that the company belonging to Betancourt doesn't have it, the U.S. has said that it's not going to
provide it. So, up to now, we don't know where that money's going to come from.
AMANPOUR: And just very quickly, because everybody's also looking to Cuba, and, again, Secretary Rubio issued pretty much an ultimatum to Havana. If
you don't do the reforms we want, you'll face consequences. Everybody saw what happened in Venezuela. What do you think is being planned in Cuba?
GUNSON: Yes, it's hard to say, because there isn't a Delci in Cuba. What they did in Venezuela is not going to work in Cuba. The regime is a
different kind of regime. I don't think President Trump wants to take on another major foreign policy challenge. And let's face it, Cuba is only 90
miles from the shore of the United States. He's not dealt with Iran. He's not finished that.
So, whilst there's clearly a desire to turn Cuba into a U.S. satellite again, for business people, both Cuban-Americans and other Americans, who
would very much like to go into Cuba and invest and turn the country around, of course, economically, the politics of that are not clear at all.
And for now, I don't think we really know. It's something that could go badly wrong.
AMANPOUR: Indeed. OK. Phil Gunson, thank you so much. Stay with CNN. We'll be right back after a break.
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AMANPOUR: Now, the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the 1619 Project, spent her career reporting on inequality. So, when it came time to
send her own child to school, she and her husband chose to live by what she reports. They enrolled Najya in a predominantly black and Latino school in
Brooklyn. And she wrote about their decision in the New York Times Magazine.
Well, now Najya is a young adult and she has her own thoughts about their decision. Michel Martin speaks with Nikole Hannah-Jones about her choices
and Najya's response.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Nikole Hannah-Jones, thank you so much for joining us.
NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES, DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Thank you for having me.
[13:40:00]
MARTIN: So, for people who aren't familiar with your work, you've been writing about race, equality, inequality for some time now, really for much
of your career. So, 10 years ago, you wrote about yourself. You turned the lens on yourself and your family. You just -- you talked about the decision
you made, you and your husband made to send your daughter, Najya, to a predominantly black school, I guess a high-poverty school. Could you just
talk a little bit about, first of all, what drove that decision?
HANNAH-JONES: So, I mean, I would more aptly describe the school as a racially and socioeconomically segregated elementary school and in New York
City in Brooklyn. And I began my journalistic career covering schools in Durham, North Carolina. And so, in my kind of formative years as a
journalist, I was writing about school segregation, school inequality, and really the futility of thinking that we could just test and put high
expectations on schools where 9 out of 10 children lived in poverty, where they often didn't get the best and most rigorous instruction.
And so, I began to like really just think deeply about not just the structures of inequality, but the children who were in these schools who
had been promised that education was going to be the great equalizer. And yet we're in fact facing a system of education that was only cementing
their disadvantage.
So, you know, fast forward 15 years or so. My daughter, we were in New York. We moved to New York when my daughter was one. My daughter was four
years old and the mayor had just implemented our first citywide pre-K, universal pre-K, and we were looking for a school. And I had decided in my
own head pretty early on that it was important for us to live our values that I had watched through years and years of reporting on school
segregation, those who advocated on behalf of the kids in those schools, those who opposed segregation, those who wrote about the systems of
segregation. When it came to their own choices for their kids, they actually made choices that benefited from that segregation and inequality.
And so, I just made up my mind really even before I had my own child that I was not going to do that when it came to it. So, that's why we chose to
enroll our daughter in the school that we were in, understanding that both segregation is structural, it is created through and maintained through
policy, but that that didn't absolve individuals of the choices that we made for our own kids.
Now, I wasn't planning on writing about it. What happened was as we were in this school, the second year our school became embroiled in its own
integration battle and it made kind of national news because Brooklyn has its reputation, of course, for being very progressive and folks were like,
look at this progressive city with these parents who don't want integration for their kids. So, it really became kind of unavoidable. I felt like I had
to write about it.
MARTIN: So, what was the reaction? As I recall, there was some negativity as well. There are people who just thought that you were crazy. Like, what
are you doing?
HANNAH-JONES: Yes, of course. I mean, I don't know an ambitious work that doesn't have people who feel differently about it. And, you know, the same
response that I'm here to talk to you about today. I certainly saw some of that back then, you know, the same arguments. How, why would you sacrifice
your child for an idea? You're experimenting with your child for an idea. There was definitely some of that. It wasn't most of the response, but that
was the response, of course.
MARTIN: In your latest piece, you bring us up to date on what has happened in those 10 years, both structurally and with your daughter's education.
How would you summarize the experience that you had, that you wrote about in your second piece?
HANNAH-JONES: It was a harrowing experience. My daughter and all the other children in the schools where she attended experienced exactly what I had
documented throughout my entire career. As I say in the piece, we didn't go into this with naivete and yet still managed to feel crushed by the systems
of inequality that created this type of schools in the first place.
MARTIN: You write about this devastating moment when she was in the fourth grade, you get her math work back and you discover that almost every answer
is wrong. And then the teacher, part of the reason it's wrong is the teacher hadn't been checking it.
[13:45:00]
And then you and your husband considered pulling her out then, but instead you fought for help for the whole class. This kind of pattern replicated
itself throughout. Some of the administrators were unresponsive. Some of the teachers were incompetent. There were classes that she was in where the
teacher was sporadic, the teacher's own attendance is sporadic.
So, it's just this one thing after another and your daughter at one point starts looking up the scores and how the school is viewed and what the
statistics are. And she says you put me in a bad school. And would you just describe if you wouldn't mind what that was like for you?
HANNAH-JONES: It was a reckoning. I knew it was going to come. I mean, that's -- I -- again, like if anybody is clear-eyed about what we were
going to be facing, it's someone who has been in these schools for 20 years and has documented them. So, I always knew that my daughter was going to
one day ask us about our choices.
Now, I also hoped, you know, having been in my household and understood our values that maybe she might understand why we made the choices, but she
didn't. She's -- she was 12 years old. And 12-year-olds center themselves, as they should, and she strongly disagreed. She felt she deserved a better
education than she received and she didn't understand how we could have resources and not give her that.
And so, of course, the piece is very honestly grappling with that truth that we made choices that we felt were for the collective and common good.
We tried to live our values and that my daughter bore a cost for that and that she confronted us about bearing a cost for that.
MARTIN: So, fast forward, you said look you and your husband made the decision for her earlier school years, but for high school, you let her
choose and she chose a very different experience. She chose a competitive, I guess would say a selective school where the demographic is very
different and what was that like for her?
HANNAH-JONES: You know, 12 if anybody is parented a teenager, you know that that's the age where they really try to seek autonomy from their
parents. They want to create their own identity, their own value systems. They often tell you everything that you've done is wrong. And so, she was
creating that identity. She was like those are your values, but this is what I want and I had to respect that. I felt she was old enough that she
could pick what she saw for herself.
So, she went on a process of discovery. She researched schools and yes, she chose a school that was opposite in every way of what she had experienced
pre-k through eighth grade and initially it was a struggle for her. This was a school that had a black minority in the school where a lot of kids
are wealthier even, you know, than she is and culturally it was hard and academically it was hard. She had not received the same academic
preparation as many of her classmates. She was getting lots of homework for the first time. She hadn't really developed study skills now.
Since then, I've talked to a lot of high school educators who actually say that's very common for ninth graders in general, not just ninth graders who
have come out of higher poverty schools. So, she had some catching up to do and she had some cultural adjustments to make, and in fact, within the
first few weeks, she told me she wanted to transfer out of the school, that culturally she just didn't feel like as a black girl that she fit in the
school. She wanted to go to a selective high-achieving black high school in Brooklyn and I wouldn't allow her to do that.
I felt she had made her choice. She had done the research and she also was going to need to have this experience that all of these experiences are
learning experiences. They build resilience. And so, she stayed. We were able to get her the academic help she needed to catch up. Now, she's in her
junior year and she's absolutely thriving there.
And she told me this school was the right choice for her and then I have to agree. It was the right choice for her. It wasn't the choice I would have
made for her, but it was the right choice for her.
MARTIN: Well, I have to say she is she is her mother's daughter because she made up her mind and she pursued it, but --
HANNAH-JONES: They did.
MARTIN: How do you understand why her school -- her initial schooling experience was as inadequate as it turned out to be? What is your
understanding of why it is that the system remains the way it is?
HANNAH-JONES: We clearly do not value education and educational opportunities as a society for black children and especially poor black
children like we do for others.
[13:50:00]
So, there's clearly nothing wrong with like black kids being in a school together. There's nothing inherent about sitting next to white children
that makes black kids smart. What it does though is it gives them access to the resources. We guarantee for those kids and that we won't for our own
kids. So, what we have seen is yes, we have made tremendous progress in many aspects of civil rights since Brown v. Board was decided since the
1960s.
But the one -- the two areas actually that we've made the least progress is housing and schools that if you actually look at the neighborhoods that the
average black person still lives in and the schools that the typical black student attends, they remain the most segregated group of people in this
country both economically and racially.
So, that's why we see what we're seeing in schools. That's why the demand for integration has really always been about we don't value black children
enough to resource them. So, you know, I'm grateful that you're asking this question because I really came into this interview determined like not to
go through my parenting choices. There's 8,000 words in an essay if people want to understand why we made the choices we made.
My child is one child. We shared the personal story of this one child to illuminate the devastating effects of segregation and inequality that
schoolchildren every day who remain faceless in the discourse experience. There were 300 other kids in my daughter's schools who suffered the same or
worse education as my daughter did.
So, I tell the story of Najya so that we can care about all those kids so we can see all of those kids, right? My privileged child says to me I never
got the education that I wanted and I'm like when she says that she is speaking for all those other kids. We're arguing about why would I choose
to put my child in that school. What we need to be arguing about is why do we allow that education for all those kids in that school when we have the
resources to do better.
MARTIN: So, now that you've written your second piece also an enormous reaction to that. Where are we? I know you got a huge reaction to your
piece, but do you see any reaction to the point that you were trying to make?
HANNAH-JONES: You know, so here we are in New York City, one of the most diverse and progressive cities in the country, but also happens to be one
of the most segregated and equal both racially and economically cities and school districts. We have a socialist, a democratic socialist as our mayor.
He ran on trying to reform some of the things that have caused so much segregation in the schools. He says he is here to change the conditions,
the material conditions of the working class. So, now it's time to see what will be the response.
We have to have different policy. We have to have a policy of integration and equality that is not about language, that is not about rhetoric, but
it's about the children who are in these schools every single day experiencing what my daughter experienced, but they don't have parents who
can pull them out who can pay for private tutoring.
So, I hope that this piece which has gone viral in every way that a piece can go viral that has provoked a lot of outrage about me and my husband and
also about the system that this will lead to another galvanizing moment where we demand more of our leaders so that we can produce more for our
children. Whether we want to believe it or not, they are all of our children and our society bears the impact of children who are not allowed
to transcend their circumstances and to live up to their highest ambition.
We can do better, right? I mean, this was the argument of my first essay. It's been the argument of all of my reporting on this. Nothing is natural
about these systems of inequality. We choose them. We structure them in and so what that means is we can structure them out if we choose that.
MARTIN: Nikole Hannah-Jones, thank you so much for talking with me.
HANNAH-JONES: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And yes, we can all always do better, at least try. And finally, a new standard for cacophony. Two Brazilian contenders for the title of
world's loudest bird. First, a rare-throated bellbird with a call like the blast of a distress signal.
[13:55:00]
Then, the red-legged seriema who sounds like a seagull being tickled, maybe? This video is from a Wisconsin Wildlife Park.
Both birds have a call that may exceed 121 -- 120 decibels louder than a jackhammer. From an evolutionary perspective, it is not clear why these
birds are so loud. The bellbird is polyamorous, looking for as many mates as it can find within earshot, while the seriema are strictly monogamous.
In fact, males and females enjoy singing duets. So, we're no clearer to an answer.
That is it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
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