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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Former White House National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster; Interview With Actor Sir Ian McKellen; Interview With "The New York Times" London Bureau Chief Mark Landler; Interview With Writer, Broadcaster, Author And Professor Afua Hirsch; Archive: Interview With Historical Fiction Writer Hilary Mantel. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired August 31, 2024 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:46]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone and welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LT. GEN. H.R. MCMASTER (RET), FORMER U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: People would play to Trumps ego.

AMANPOUR: From the trenches. Why serving in the Trump White House was Gen. H.R. McMaster's toughest mission.

MCMASTER: He wanted to be regarded the way he thought people regarded strong men.

AMANPOUR: Also this hour, legendary actor Ian McKellen on why he'll never retire and the fat suit that saved him.

SIR IAN MCKELLEN, ACTOR: As I landed on someone in the front row I head myself screaming, help me, help me.

AMANPOUR: Then quick-fire conversation with journalists Afua Hirsch and Mark Landler on the week's biggest stories.

MARK LANDLER, LONDON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Should Elon Musk worry about being arrested the next time he goes to France? It's not an inconceivable notion.

AMANPOUR: And from my archive holy ghosting, the divine disconnect that reshaped Britain and why my conversation with the author Hilary Mantel is more relevant than ever.

And finally -- the Afghan women defying the Taliban's latest draconian laws by singing for freedom.

(END VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

And we begin with a career soldier whose experience has spanned decades in the trenches and in the halls of power. General H.R. McMaster has seen action in some of the most significant wars of our time, from Iraq to Afghanistan.

But little did he know that a deployment much closer to home would prove one of his toughest missions ever.

McMaster was named Donald Trump's national security adviser in February 2017, thrusting him into a tumultuous hotbed of impulse and ego.

Now, he's lifting the lid on what went down in the Oval Office in his new book "At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House".

It's a firsthand account of an insecure leader prone to pitting people against each other and yet also having some valuable gut instincts.

General McMaster talked to me about the good, the bad, and the ugly and Trump's strongman obsession that he says made it all but impossible for those trying to serve America's best interests.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: You talk about your tour of duty during the Trump years when you were, for a period of, I think, about a year, his national security adviser.

You say, discussions of Vladimir Putin and Russia were difficult to have with President Trump. And you felt it was your duty to point out to Trump that Vladimir Putin was, quote, "was not and would never be Trump's friend."

Talk us through that. Why did Trump think he would be and what sort of raised red flags to you?

MCMASTER: Well, you know, I think President Trump, you know, suffered under the same conceit that George W. Bush had suffered under and President Obama earlier in their presidencies.

Remember when, you know, George W. Bush looked into Putin's soul and saw somebody who really cares about his people. And then you had, you know, the reset policy under the Obama administration and the belief, you know, that they could change Putin's behavior, you know, if they just allayed his security concerns and they could get -- what President Trump would call like a big deal, right?

President Trump has a lot of confidence in his deal-making abilities.

And so I -- it was my job to point out, hey, Mr. President, this guy is the best liar, the best deceiver in the world. And by the way, Vladimir Putin has aspirations and objectives in mind that go far beyond anything that's in reaction to what we do.

And so what provokes Putin -- and this is the message that I would try to give the president, and I think succeeded for a time in giving the president, is that what provokes Putin is the perception of weakness.

And this is what led, you know, President Trump to put more sanctions on Russian entities and individuals in the first year of his presidency than the previous eight years of the Obama administration.

[11:04:44]

MCMASTER: He closed two consulates, he expelled, you know, scores of Russian undeclared intelligence officers, and he provided defensive capabilities to Ukraine in the form of Javelin missiles.

But of course, you know, the audio didn't match the video a lot of times with what President Trump was saying --

AMANPOUR: Right.

MCMASTER: -- about that -- about Vladimir Putin. And that was -- that was frustrating to us who thought Putin needed to be sent, you know, a clear, unambiguous message, you know, that we would impose cost on him that went far beyond the cost that Putin considered when he decided to take aggressive actions against us and our European allies.

AMANPOUR: And yet, you say that you went back one night and you said to your wife, I don't know what Putin has on Trump, because Trump was constantly, at least in this anecdote, the report, trying to send congratulations, trying to send thank yous, anytime he thought Putin had praised him or flattered him. And you said, basically, you're not going to do that.

Well, what do you think? Why would Trump do that? And what do you think Putin had on him?

MCMASTER: Well, I don't think he had anything on him. I really don't, Christiane. I think he had a hold over him, I think is what I've said. You know, I can't -- I couldn't understand, you know, Putin -- I don't regard Vladimir Putin as a charming person, you know?

So -- but I think President Trump saw in some of these authoritarian leaders, you know, he saw -- he wanted to be regarded the way he thought people regarded kind of these -- some of these strong men.

And I think, also, you know, again, he had this faith in his ability to make a big deal, you know. And you know, if you read, you know, kind of his approach to deal-making he would always try to separate, you know, the personal relationship from the negotiation at hand.

And you saw that, you know, that's the kind of way he approached Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Erdogan. But what I was trying to explain, you know, and I think, you know, he was successful in doing so at times, is that Vladimir Putin has to be confronted with real costs, you know. And you know, we did have some major confrontations with Putin. You

know, he didn't get the sanctions relief he wanted. He didn't get the foreign policy decisions he wanted until President Trump, I think, disastrously reversed his Afghanistan policy and initiated what became under the Biden administration a humiliating, you know, self-defeat and deadly, you know, retreat from Kabul.

So I'll tell you, Christiane, I mean, I couldn't figure it out, you know, but I think it has a lot to do with President Trump's, you know, desire to get like a big deal.

AMANPOUR: Yes. But you also --

(CROSSTALKING)

MCMASTER: And what he described himself is like -- he described himself as this affinity that he has for these -- you know, these so- called tough guys.

AMANPOUR: But you also talked about -- you know, I think this is the sentence, there was a competition for sycophancy. In other words, within the White House and the advisers. And he just liked that kind of -- that stuff, from whether it's from dictators and autocrats or whether it's from you guys who are around him.

MCMASTER: Right. So you know, I mean, it's no surprise that, you know, people try to influence the president of the United States, right?

You know, the most powerful leader on Earth. And that's people within the administration who might be in the administration to advance their own agendas rather than to help the president, you know, determine his policies and determine his agenda.

And then, of course, this relates to foreign leaders as well. And, you know, hey, it's no surprise that, you know, people would play to Trump's ego.

And in writing the book, I thought, you know, should I put this in the book? I wasn't sure, you know, but I thought, hey, well, Vladimir Putin understands how he would try to press President Trump's buttons.

If I write it, maybe if President Trump does get re-elected, he'll be less susceptible to this kind of tactics.

AMANPOUR: I wonder what you think about Trump in a second term because he defends himself and many of his former policymakers, defend his time as no new wars during his period and there will be no new wars during a second Trump term.

MCMASTER: Well, you know, I think, of course, who wants war, right? But I think what will be important is, you know, how President Trump reconciles some of the opposite views that he holds in his mind at times. And, you know, he believes in peace through strength. He talks about peace through strength. He talks about strengthening the military, which I think is very important at this moment, Christiane. I think we're on the precipice of even wider wars. We had these cascading conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and they could cascade further in the Indo-Pacific.

Look how aggressive the People's Liberation Army Navy is being against a treaty ally of the United States in the Philippines. You know, so I think what President Trump, you know, I think would need to reconcile is that instinct, you know, towards peace through strength and his impulse to withdraw from some overseas military commitments that I think are essential to deterring war.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And General McMaster's book is out now.

Coming up next on the program, actor Sir Ian McKellen on being born again and the fat suit that saved him when he fell off stage at the age of 84.

Also ahead, why social media bosses should be scared after Telegram's founder is charged for alleged criminal activity on his platform.

[11:09:54]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

And now for our "Letter from London".

He is truly a giant of the stage and screen. He's known for indelible roles from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" to Gandalf in "The Lord of The Rings".

[11:14:50]

AMANPOUR: His career spans over six decades. It's earned him countless awards and accolades, including two Oscar nominations.

And this week Sir Ian McKellen came here to our London studio to talk about his new movie, "The Critic" in which he plays a scheming theater reviewer trying to conceal his homosexuality at a time when it was illegal here in Britain.

He told me about being a born-again gay man in real life. And how wearing a fat suit on stage saved him from serious bodily harm.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Ian McKellen, welcome back to our program.

MCKELLEN: It's very nice to be with you, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Listen, I hate to acknowledge, but you just had a prang. I mean, you fell off the stage in "The Player Kings".

MCKELLEN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: How are you feeling?

MCKELLEN: Recovering. The last time we talked, you wormed out of me what my next film was going to be, which was to play Falstaff, Sir John Falstaff.

Shakespeare's iconic character in an adaptation of the plays in which he is in (INAUDIBLE). And here we are at the end of that run, which for me ended when I fell off the stage.

It was a bit more dramatic than that. There was a lot of -- in the battle scenes, a lot of rubbish, garbage thrown onto the stage, including old newspapers and bits of old chair. And one evening, I got my foot caught in a bit of chair.

AMANPOUR: A bit of a chair.

MCKELLEN: And -- yes. And kicking it off, the other foot like a skateboard, glided across the stage, inevitably toward the audience.

I could see it happening. I thought it was the end of -- I didn't know what, but it was the end. And as I landed on someone in the front row, I heard myself screaming, help me, help me.

AMANPOUR: Really?

MCKELLEN: I'm sorry. That was the next thing I said. And the third thing I said, where did this come from? I don't do this. That's what I shouted to the audience as they left the theatre.

(CROSSTALKING)

MCKELLEN: So here I am, that was two months ago and --

AMANPOUR: So the recipient of Sir Ian McKellen, was that person shocked or did they catch you well.

MCKELLEN: No. I sort of bounced. Fortunately I was wearing a fat suit because Falstaff was huge.

AMANPOUR: Well that is fortunate.

MCKELLEN: And that protected my ribs and my extremities and -- but you know, everybody trips. We all trip. It's only when you get into your 80s that it becomes dangerous.

AMANPOUR: What can I say? I was going to say that, which is probably what gave you the fear, the amount of fear that you had.

Anyway, here you are,

MCKELLEN: I am here.

AMANPOUR: In fine fettle.

MCKELLEN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Probably a little bit of pain still, and promoting a new film.

MCKELLEN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: "The Critic".

MCKELLEN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: What is it about this film that attracted you? Because, you know, from Falstaff to this film critic, Jimmy Erskine, who's a pretty, as they said in one in one review, waspish fellow.

MCKELLEN: That's putting it mildly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEMMA ARTERTON, ACTRESS: Over the last 10 years, you've compared me to livestock, creatures of the sea, and an extinct bird. You've said my voice is fluting, grating, girlish, and manly. You've described me as plump and emaciated. Which is it, damn you?

Last season, "Her Mrs. Ealsted (ph) is glamorous but ungainly. She doesn't seem to know how to walk." How to walk?

You've been dishing it out to me for a decade, and now it's going to stop.

MCKELLEN: Oh, are you retiring?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Do you think, I mean I'm just talking about you now, do you think critics have too much power.

MCKELLEN: They don't have any power these days.

AMANPOUR: No. But then.

MCKELLEN: Yes. And I've always had an easier time with critics because they get, to know you. You do a number of plays and you give a performance they approve of them. And they'll (INAUDIBLE) on your side. They look forward to the next thing you do.

They're inclined to watch you --

AMANPOUR: And you obviously had that because people really love you.

MCKELLEN: Well, I did have some absolutely stunning reviews and they were extremely helpful.

AMANPOUR: And you have said and I'm going to quote a little bit, you know, when you came out in 1988, almost overnight everything in my life changed for the better. My relationships with people, my whole attitude towards acting changed. You said you began noticing difference in your work. So this a lot -- it's a bit art imitating life this -- this plot.

MCKELLEN: Well, there is a connection absolutely, yes.

AMANPOUR: So, how did it change for you?

(CROSSTALKING)

MCKELLEN: It changed -- I think one of the reasons I became an actor with such enthusiasm was that it was a -- I could escape the real world where my sexuality was a hindrance to normality. And so, my acting had become about not deceit not display, but disguise.

Once I came out, don't care who knows, happy to talk about it, my acting became about revelation, about discovery, about going for the truth of the matter and feeling it deeply.

[11:19:55]

MCKELLEN: Well, that's a better way to act than the former. And as for friends and new friends and old friends not turning a hair, and family saying, thank God you've told us at last. We had been wanting to talk about it and we thought you didn't want to.

All that went. And yes, my life changed. Absolutely. I felt born again. Yes.

You know, people said they're born-again Christians. I'm a born-again gay man. Yes.

AMANPOUR: You've fallen off the stage. You're doing so much work. You're still -- you know, you know, you're hale and hearty and all in one piece. Do you ever think of retiring?

MCKELLEN: No. No, I feel sorry for people who look forward to retirement. What are they going to do? Garden? Travel? Yes, I'm sure you can have a good time.

No, I -- if I'm not working, I get bored and get antsy. I think I wasn't put onto this Earth to sit around and read books.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: The inimitable Sir Ian.

And coming up next on the program, sending a message to social media. Telegram CEO is charged over alleged criminal activity on his app and I'll debate online safety and security with journalists Afua Hirsch and Mark Landler.

[11:24:18]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Time now for our lightning look at the top headlines of the week and some of the stories flying under the radar.

Here to discuss "The New York Times" London bureau chief Mark Landler and the writer, broadcaster, author and USC professor Afua Hirsch.

AMANPOUR: Welcome back, both of you, to the program.

I'd like to start with something that's been water cooler talk pretty much all week.

Pavel Durov, the head of the Telegram online site, arrested, now under formal investigation, $5 million bail. He cannot leave France, he's a citizen of France. And accused of misusing his platform.

Can I first ask what you think about this? What do you think about this moment of accountability?

AFUA HIRSCH, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: I think there are some really important facts to bear in mind. The agency that arrested him is the French agency that deals with exploitation and sexual abuse of children. So, these are really serious allegations. These aren't that there is general nefarious behavior on Telegram. It's the crimes that I think we can all agree need to be policed and for which people need to be held accountable are taking place with no access to law enforcement on Telegram.

That's a very serious allegation and one I think we should be very careful to dismiss.

Obviously, this is being linked to a bigger question about the accountability of tech founders for what happens on their platform. But the reality is, at the moment, nobody is being held responsible for all of the bad actors who have a free reign to use these platforms.

Now, as a journalist. I'm not at all dismissive of the importance of having secure ways to talk to people. I'm sure we've all spoken to sources in countries that rely on platforms like Telegram, the only place they feel safe from their governments to express dissent and share information.

So, that's a really important value. But I think when we start to conflate the importance of free speech with criminal activity, it becomes dangerous.

AMANPOUR: And that's really the point. And, Mark, you know, Elon Musk of X has famously tweeted in the aftermath this, should I worry about going to France? Should Mark Zuckerberg and the others worry?

Of course, in the United States, the tech bros, so to speak, the tech chiefs do regularly get hauled in front of Congress. And they do -- they do say they're trying to do their best. What do you think the tech industry should be thinking right now? The -- you know, the CEOs who are clearly being called publishers and not just platforms.

LANDLER: I think that it's a potentially a kind of a landmark moment for them and one that they are going to have to take very seriously because it really represents the first time they're being held personally, criminally liable in a way that they haven't been before.

And the French may be sort of on the leading edge of this, but this same debate and the same movement toward this is happening in other countries, including in the U.K., for example, in the case of the role that social media played in accelerating and fomenting some of the riots that happened here over the summer.

AMANPOUR: Including Telegram, by the way.

LANDLER: Indeed, indeed. And the prime minister here, Keir Starmer, has not yet said something like this, but he has sort of inched in that direction, saying that publishers, social media platforms are responsible for the conduct -- the content that they host.

And so, I think that should Elon Musk worry about being arrested the next time he goes to France? It's not an inconceivable notion.

AMANPOUR: You talk about Keir Starmer, and you have written an article about how Keir Starmer and the Democrats perhaps have stuff in common. You likened it back to the Clinton-Blair years, the famous Third Way. How do you see that right now?

LANDLER: Well, I think what's interesting about the parallel between the U.K. and the U.S. right now is that you have, in both countries, a former federal prosecutor, former chief prosecutor here, turned politician.

[11:29:44]

LANDLER: A figure who was perhaps more to the left of the spectrum and has kind of pulled a little bit more to the center in the person of Starmer and Kamala Harris.

And they are campaigning in a similar environment with a very sort of lively populist movement, Reform U.K. here, Donald Trump in the United States where real questions of law and order are coming under pressure. And that links it to what we were just talking about.

And so, one of the questions, for example, is Keir Starmer within weeks of getting into government, faced these very dangerous riots, he clamped down on them hard. Some on the left might argue too hard, but in a true law and order, defending the rule of law.

If Kamala Harris were to beat Donald Trump in a very narrow election, there's every chance that the U.S. could face that kind of unrest.

So, the question is, would Kamala Harris take a page out of Keir Starmer's book in the way she dealt with it as a former prosecutor? AMANPOUR: And Afua, I want to ask you about Gaza, because actually some -- you quoted in your article, one of the MPs lost his seat, Labour, because of the Labour position on Gaza. And we've just seen -- and I'll read you a little bit of an excerpt of an op-ed in "The New York Times", saying that Kamala needs a reset on Gaza, talking about the context in which they find themselves.

"Palestinian Americans and their allies are bringing a context to this election. They carry a hope for ending Palestinian oppression that feels almost futile, but irresponsible to abandon, and a memory that extends past a few glitzy weeks."

What do you think they have to do?

HIRSCH: I think that actually there's a difference of material, a difference here between Keir Starmer and Kamala Harris. I mean, I totally agree with your analysis, but when I was a barrister, I was in Keir Starmer's chambers. He was one of the reasons I joined that chamber. It's famous for human rights work, for protecting international humanitarian law, for fighting against war crimes, genocide.

And that is his background before he became a prosecutor. It makes the fact that during the election campaign in the U.K., he took quite a pro-Israeli stance, relatively speaking, all the more remarkable because I think people had an expectation that he would be prioritizing the lives of civilians in Gaza, of whom, you know, tens of thousands have died as a result of this war.

So, I think what we saw in the U.K. is a kind of normalization of the idea that Israel's right to protect itself was an acceptable -- that an acceptable price to pay for that was the deaths in Gaza.

Now, it's even less surprising with Kamala Harris because her background is more as a centrist, more as a prosecutor and more as part of the Biden administration that was very pro-Israel.

And I think that that piece that you referred to is so important because while we are all feeling the relief, I mean, I speak for myself and people with progressive politics, the relief of there being a viable alternative to Trump it's almost a bit like an abusive relationship where we've been groomed to expect such a dark and bleak political future that just the prospect of somebody who cares about the suffering in Gaza, who will reference that. He'll say we need to adjust the outcome feels like a breath of fresh air.

But the reality is, there hasn't been any policy indication yet to show us what that would mean in terms of holding Israel accountable. And we should demand that.

AMANPOUR: Ok. Hold those thoughts, we'll be right back because when we return, I want to ask both of our guests about stories below the fold.

Paddle is all the rage here in the U.K., but well pickle ball one day eclipse tennis in the United States.

We'll be right back with some lighter fare.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[11:33:19]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Back now with my panel "New York Times" London bureau chief Mark Landler, and the writer, broadcaster, author and USC professor Afua Hirsch.

We were talking about some really, really serious stuff and this is serious in the sports world. It's Labor Day weekend in the United States and the U.S. Open is in full fling.

There's something going on with pickleball. And apparently the USTA chiefs and the others are very concerned that it could overtake tennis. Do you know anything about it?

LANDLER: Well, as it happens, Christiane, I played my first game of pickleball early this summer on a family vacation. And I discovered that other members of my family are fanatic pickleball players and so I was sort of playing with these zealots who are trying to convince me of why this was such a fantastic new game.

I have to say it was pleasant, but there were several things about it. It's sort of I had questions about and have become questions more broadly, I discovered when I began looking into it later.

One is the noise. There is a noise factor attached to pickleball. It's the sound of the ball slapping against the paddle multiplied hundreds and hundreds of times that people who live near converted tennis courts where they're playing pickleball are being driven absolutely nuts. And its led to litigation and all kinds of protests.

So the sort of noise pollution question I think is a genuine question.

I think as far as the actual game goes, I sort of doubt that tennis needs to worry about being driven into extinction because I feel like at the end of the day it feels a bit like a glorified ping pong game played on a slightly bigger surface.

[11:39:46]

LANDLER: And I just sort of don't see it replacing the glories of the game of tennis. But I see the appeal. I have to say also as one who may be in this demographic it's not bad for people who are getting up there.

AMANPOUR: And its playable and your below-the fold-choice was you flagged this choice from the north of England. Here's the quote, "South Yorkshire police inundated after asking people to report anyone living a lavish lifestyle without having a job.

What's going on?

HIRSCH: So this attempt of turning the British public into spies on each other totally backfired when they were inundated with pictures of the king. And so when asked, who do you know who appears to have a lavish lifestyle that they don't support through work this week --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: The monarchy would absolutely argue that they work --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: -- to keep this country.

HIRSCH: I'm not disagreeing. Prince Andrew was a favorite. There were others like Tommy Robinson, the far-right agitator.

I mean, it really raised the point that we live in a class society. There are many people who live in -- who live a lifestyle beyond any obvious sign of exertion. And you can't --

AMANPOUR: Exertion is the key point.

HIRSCH: I think exertion is a good word of this.

AMANPOUR: Finally Pavel Durov, Mr. Telegram has boasted that he may be the father of 100 biological children through sperm donation.

HIRSCH: I think that's where he really earns his Silicon Valley tech bro status. Because that then takes us in my opinion into the slightly great replacement theme world where these men, and I would include Elon Musk in this category heavily, seem to genuinely believe that it's their duty given that perceived superiority in terms of genes to populate the earth.

Now, I am totally supportive of people who want to start their family in different ways. I'm not an anti-sperm donation person and also I think it's interesting that these same people like Elon Musk have been supporting a Trump candidacy, which actually promises to crack down on reproductive rights, including artificial insemination potentially.

So it's a very inconsistent ideology, but you know, think about the children of somebody who's fathered 100 babies through -- through sperm

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: There's all sorts of --

(CROSSTALK)

HIRSCH: It's a very complicated identity to have.

AMANPOUR: -- worries about -- you know, subsequent couplings.

In any event, we'll leave it there. I was going to ask you if you had a thought.

LANDLER: I was going to say we went well below the fold with that conversation and I don't have anything useful to add.

AMANPOUR: In that case, Mark Landler, Afua Hirsch -- thank you very much.

HIRSCH: Thank you. Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And when we come back, holy ghosting, the divine disconnect that reshaped Britain.

And we flashback to my conversation with the acclaimed historical fiction writer Hilary Mantel which is more relevant than ever right now.

[11:42:28]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Britain still does love its monarchy, but now we turn to one of the most controversial kings. It was on this day, August 31st, 1533 that Henry VIII was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for annulling his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marrying Anne Boleyn, who he later had beheaded.

Henry's excommunication triggered the English Reformation, the creation of the Church of England, independent of the pope's authority and the chain of religious reforms and feuds that shaped modern England.

From my archive this week, we revisit my conversation with the writer Hilary Mantel. She soared to the top of the bestseller list with her historical fiction about Henry VIII's chief minister Thomas Cromwell.

She also won the Booker Prize twice. With so much of the world embroiled in conflict today, our conversation starting with how Cromwell played peacemaker to a war-mongering King Henry seems more prescient than ever.

I spoke to Mantel a year before her death as she was suffering the debilitating effects of chronic endometriosis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILARY MANTEL, AUTHOR: I suppose Cromwell is an illustration of man who has tremendous personal faith. But he also respected the faith of others and knew that you couldn't bully people in or out of belief.

Above all, what he was, was a peace keeper. And he kept the peace for most of Henry's reign. The king was inclined to go to war because for a monarch in those days, it was how you demonstrated your glory.

But the king said -- well, Cromwell said to the king time and again, no, you can't afford a war. Wars are not affordable things. You get into a war and you never know where it's going to end. It can end in your country bankrupt.

Cromwell had been a soldier. He knew the human cost of it. And I think it's this principled and yet pragmatic stance and his skill in negotiation and in balancing interests that still has something to teach politicians today.

AMANPOUR: Do you think because I think you've said that this could be, you know, after the queen, the bigness of the British monarchy, the English monarchy, you know, could sort of gradually fade away?

[11:49:52]

AMANPOUR: In other words, you know, it doesn't have a long time in the future to go. Do you still think that?

MANTEL: I think Charles will be a good king. I think he may revitalize the institution. But I honestly can't see it outliving his children and their children.

It seems to me that it has become in certain ways self-defeating. Not knowing whether to retain this privacy and mystique or open itself up and become a branch of show business. There are perils either way.

AMANPOUR: You've lived a life of chronic pain that I think you've detailed and you've talked about how it began, I think mostly when you were diagnosed -- or misdiagnosed with endometriosis.

And I just wonder whether you would talk us through that a little bit.

MANTEL: Yes, I'm going back now. I'm going back to round about 1971, I think. I was 19. I took myself off to the doctor -- the student health service at university.

And I said, look, I'm tired all the time and I have got really strange pains and I really don't know what's the matter but I'm convinced that something is the matter.

And their reaction was, oh, you're a sensitive young girl. It's all in your mind. And actually they offered me tranquillizers, shipped me off to see a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist's diagnosis was that I was too ambitious.

In other words, I was too big for my boots. And he suggested I go work in a dress shop.

I was a law student at the time. We were in a minority. But I was well on top of everything. I knew what I was doing. I was well capable of the academic work.

And then it was the beginning of a long struggle. I had endometriosis but by the time it was diagnosed, I was 27, and it had destroyed my body. It had certainly taken away my fertility. So I have no children.

I didn't really get the opportunity to think very hard about the issue because I woke up from surgery and the chance was gone together with a number of body parts.

Unfortunately, this drastic surgery didn't prove a cure. And I grapple with the disease for most of my life and also with the consequences of that drastic surgery, which put me into a body that was very strange to me, very unfamiliar.

The pity of it is that women are still going undiagnosed and they're not getting the diagnosis until damage is done. And what we urgently need, because endometriosis is in many ways a difficult disease to diagnose because it can display such a variety of symptoms.

But we need doctors, teachers, nurses to think about it, to think of it as a possible diagnosis when a young woman presents in distress and in pain and not ever to dismiss her symptoms as an outgrowth of an unfortunate personality.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: You can find the rest of our conversation along with all my interviews online at Amanpour.com.

When we come back the Afghan women defying the Taliban's latest inhumane laws by singing for their freedom.

[11:54:10]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, we end with a powerful act of defiance by women and girls risking it all.

Since the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago this week, the Taliban has literally stamped all over women's basic rights.

First, they came for their education, then they came for their jobs. Later, they told them to cover up in public and now they're telling women and girls they cannot sing or read aloud in public.

Despite the risk of being flogged, imprisoned, or worse, Afghan women and girls have been singing anonymously at home and posting videos of themselves online claiming their space, refusing to be erased.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(WOMAN SINGING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: They're saying we are still here. And while the international community condemns this misogynistic and draconian laws, it will take more than talk to force change in Afghanistan and restore the rights these women and girls deserve and had before the U.S. pulled out.

[11:59:53] AMANPOUR: Meanwhile, the first Afghan woman to compete internationally since the Taliban takeover, Zakia Khudadadi (ph) made history again this week. She won bronze in taekwondo, becoming the first member of the refugee paralympic team to win a medal.

That's all we have time for this week. Don't forget, you can find all our shows online as podcasts at cnn.com/podcast and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiana Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and see you again next week.