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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa; Interview With Oscar-Winning Filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov; Interview With "Ava: The Secret Conversations" Actress Elizabeth McGovern; Afghans Suffer In Wake Of U.S. Aid Cuts; Korean War Legacy Still Fuels North Korea's Hatred Of U.S.; 250 Years of U.S. Postal Service. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired July 26, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[10:59:51]

(CROSSTALKING)

KMELE FOSTER, PODCAST HOST, UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And mine is perhaps entirely too serious. But I keep hearing people talk about misinformation and algorithms doing all sorts of bad things. I'm pretty confident that we spend way too much time talking about that, and not the crisis of evangelical certainty that we actually seem to be enduring.

People believe things in this rabid way, and they go out and they look for the confirmation. They have this confirmation bias. They're looking for evidence to support beliefs they already have.

We worry too much about people lying on the Internet, and not enough about people who are desperate to believe lies.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: That's a good point. I think they're probably -- yes, that's -- they're the problem. The people who are believing the lies but don't know that they're lies.

FOSTER: And sometimes are us.

PHILLIP: All right.

Everybody, thank you very much.

And thanks for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern with our "NEWSNIGHT" roundtable. And any time, of course, on your favorite social media X, Instagram and TikTok.

In the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.

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

Here is where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: As hundreds of Palestinians die in search of food, my exclusive interview with the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa.

Then -- "2,000 meters to Andriivka", the Oscar winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov on his new documentary capturing the ferocity of Ukraine's fight to survive.

Plus, a journey into the past.

ELIZABETH MCGOVERN, ACTRESS: So how do you want to start the book?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do I want to start?

MCGOVERN: Yes. How do you want to start?

AMANPOUR: From Downton Abbey to Hollywood's Golden Age, actress Elizabeth McGovern on her new play about Ava Gardner and the men who loved her.

Also in the program, the United States says no one has died from its aid cuts. But in Afghanistan, the reality is impossible to ignore. And we have a special report.

And inside North Korea --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll teach you a word, ok, friend. Friend.

AMANPOUR: As the armistice with the secretive state holds 72 years later. From my archive, what North Koreans told me about America.

And finally, as the U.S. Postal Service celebrates a landmark birthday, how the letters it delivered changed the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London where here pressure is growing from across the political spectrum to do something now about the appalling scenes out of Gaza. Right now, starvation is knocking on every door in the enclave. Those are the words of the U.N. Secretary General this week, who called the level of death there without parallel.

Palestinians desperate for food are being killed while seeking aid almost daily by Israeli troops. But while devastating scenes of Gaza's destruction continue, talks about who governs the day after this war, much less a Palestinian state seem to have completely vanished.

The destruction of Gaza has left it with no governance as Israel continues to sideline the legitimate Palestinian Authority.

So here's my exclusive interview about what next with the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammed Mustafa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: Prime Minister, welcome to the program. Can I first get your reaction about what's happening in Gaza and the apparent shoot-to-kill process that's going on by the IDF against people trying to get food?

What -- have you raised objections? Have you talked to the Israeli government? What is your reaction?

MOHAMMAD MUSTAFA, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRIME MINISTER: Well, our reaction is outrage. We are very outraged about what's going on.

Our people deserve dignity. They deserve to live normally. They deserve to get food, to get water, to live normally.

And I think these actions are not going to help anyone in this region. We therefore have been talking to everyone around the world, including the United States, Europe, our Arab partners and brothers. But clearly, the Israeli government has still to deliver on this.

We believe that wars will not bring peace to this region. And these actions will only bring hatred and anger to this region. Displacement, starvation, annexation and occupation are recipe for disaster.

We need the world to look at this very seriously this time. This is not going to be good for anybody whatsoever, including the Israeli side. This is way too far, way too far.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Prime Minister, let me also ask you about starvation.

[11:04:34]

AMANPOUR: First and foremost, the U.N.'s World Food Programme, headed by Cindy McCain, the widow of the former U.S. Senator, the late U.S. Senator John McCain, says the hunger crisis in Gaza has reached, quote, "new and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row".

You are not in Gaza. You have been essentially, from what I gather, and you can explain, barred by the Israeli government from taking any sort of day after or governance position there.

What are you hearing about how ordinary civilians, ordinary individuals, men, women and children are faring in the ability to stave off hunger?

MUSTAFA: Well, while we are not obviously in Gaza today, but we have workers, we have employees, and we, of course, have partners in Gaza, they're doing their best under very difficult circumstances being created by the Israeli army.

We've talked to our partners and our employees in Gaza about the situation. Things are extremely difficult. Action is needed, especially in terms of opening the border crossings.

This is the first thing that needs to be done so that aid can come in as soon as possible. There's a lot of wait -- a lot of aid waiting at the gates. Gates are closed by the Israeli government. This has got to change. This is the first -- the first priority.

Now, talking about governance, obviously, that what the Israelis says is their business. But the whole international community is united on the day after.

The day after is Gaza, West Bank, including east Jerusalem, are parts of the state of Palestine and only legitimate government of Palestine will be responsible for governing Gaza, as well as the West Bank.

We will be working together with the international community so that we can make this possible.

So we have the plan. We have the partners. All we are looking for is the end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza as soon as possible.

AMANPOUR: I'm going to get more detail about that. But first I want you to react because you've said a whole load of things there that require, you know, buy-in from the Israeli government as well. And there is none.

They don't even deal with you with the Palestinian Authority. Their official spokespeople basically say there is no starvation, no hunger crisis. In other words, nothing that they're created. They blame the U.N. for not distributing the food. Here's what the spokesman has just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID MENCER, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON: In Gaza today, there is no famine caused by Israel. There is, however, a. man-made shortage engineered by Hamas.

This idea of famine and starvation has been thrown at us consistently on a weekly basis for the last two years now. It has never come to pass. So these are our false warnings, which come from these aid organizations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So I mean, there you have a particular set of facts believed by one side and a set of facts that are occurring on the ground. How do you even, you know, get beyond that for basic humanitarian assistance?

As you know, as we all know, even in war, there are rules, and stopping and besieging civilian populations and forbidding aid from going in is against international law.

But if the government is officially denying that there's even a problem that they could alleviate, I mean what's the next step? How do you think this -- this -- this starvation issue, the hunger issue is going to be resolved?

MUSTAFA: The fact that an Israeli government spokesman wants to say otherwise is just very unfortunate and very sad. The truth is children are also being -- starving, being allowed to die starving. Journalists are being targeted. Aid workers are being targeted.

So this got to end. There is no reason to continue this war. We need first the border crossing to open, aid to come in, United Nations and international organizations be allowed to do their job, a ceasefire to take place, and then Israeli forces to leave Gaza.

And then, with the support of international partners, the Palestinian Authority is more than willing and able to do the job. So there is no need for additional excuses for staying in Gaza.

AMANPOUR: Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, thank you very much for joining us from Ramallah.

MUSTAFA: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And coming up later on the show, award-winning Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov documents the raw and relentless reality faced by soldiers on the Ukrainian frontlines.

Also ahead, "Downton Abbey's" Elizabeth McGovern transforms into Hollywood superstar Ava Gardner in a powerful off-Broadway debut.

[11:09:39]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

We now turn to Ukraine -- the not to be forgotten war where mass anti- corruption protests erupted this week in Kyiv against President Zelenskyy's government. It was a first.

But as the country fights for its survival and its weapons supply continues to dwindle, politics is a luxury for the men on the front lines. They cannot indulge in that.

One Ukrainian filmmaker is capturing the brutal reality they actually face.

[11:14:48]

AMANPOUR: Mstyslav Chernov, whose Oscar-winning film "20 Days in Mariupol" earned international acclaim, has made a new documentary. It's called "2,000 meters to Andriivka". And it was filmed during what turned out to be Ukraine's failed counteroffensive of 2023.

This time, he's embedded himself with the Ukrainian platoon on a harrowing mission as they slog their way through 2,000 meters. It took them a long time.

I sat down with him in London as Russia continues its summer offensive now and there's no ceasefire in sight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: Mstyslav Chernov, welcome back to our program.

Here you have made yet another magnificent film, really gritty. You can really feel -- because you were -- what's going on the battlefield.

I didn't really realize until the end and I saw the credits that a lot of the video, a lot of the footage is from the actual soldiers' helmet cameras.

And I'm like, oh, my God. How did he get so close? What is he doing? I can hear breathing. Is it Mstyslav breathing? No, it's the soldiers.

What was it like?

MSTYSLAV CHERNOV, DIRECTOR, "2,000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA: When we started working on this story, when I started looking through the footage that platoon, that the brigade has shot through their body cam footage for the battlefield analysis purposes, I was thinking how to put that all together into one story, how to connect that, how to tell the story of those three months that they were trying to reach Andriivka.

And so the only way I saw it could be done is to actually embark on a journey with them and to walk with them through that forest, through that 2,000 meters they were fighting through until the end, until their final goal.

And so, you see in the film, you see two storylines. One storyline is Fedia, the protagonist, who is carrying the flag to raise over the liberated village. And on the way, we keep talking to some of his platoon soldiers, just human talk, nothing big, you know.

But that's what connects people together. Talking about wives, talking about cigarettes, talking about universities. We have a rivalry in our university.

So, connecting audience to those human stories. And while doing so, we flash back into months and months of fighting to tell how that was going, that battle was --

AMANPOUR: So, I want to play this sound. You're talking about wives and personal lives and, you know, the banality of life really. So, there's one of the soldiers who's called Shiva (ph). I believe he had a good position in the military police or in the Ukrainian police, and he left it to go to the counter offensive.

And you were asking about it and here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Today, I understood my wife. How she worries about me. Because today, I started worrying about her. I started to worry about her because she's worries about me. She goes to work, does her job, then helps the children and our grandson. How much strength goes into all that worrying. I'm worried that she needs to bring water into the house by winter.

After all, with a small child. Also, I need to fix the toilet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: I almost smiled there because I could see that this is just an ordinary man who's thinking about ordinary things, and yet he and the others are called to do extraordinary, extraordinary things.

And it just showed the clash between what's actually demanded of everybody in Ukraine right now, in a nation that doesn't really have a conscription, that people, a lot of them are volunteers.

CHERNOV: All the men you see on screen in this film have volunteered and went there to protect their land -- the land that I call home, the land of my childhood, the mutilated, destroyed forests and fields and cities. You know, they go and liberate and protect them.

But they're actually just civilians who made a decision and went to fight, so their children will not need to fight.

And when I'm listening, all the very important talks, international politicians arguing what Ukraine has to do, what Ukraine has to give up to achieve peace or what are the casualties daily, what is the Russian gains or losses in land -- all this is so abstract, you know.

I know you know that is not just numbers because you've been there. And I know too because I am there all the time, but I want that experience, that reality to be in the rooms and in cinemas, on the screens to shorten that distance between abstract talk about --

[11:19:51]

AMANPOUR: And what's really going on --

CHERNOV: Yes, and --

AMANPOUR: -- because even if you're in Kyiv, I mean, certainly not now, because it's being bombarded.

CHERNOV: Yes.

AMANPOUR: But when this was shot in 2023, it was the counteroffensive, there was a certain calm in the capitol and in the big cities.

CHERNOV: There was.

AMANPOUR: And the bloodletting was right there in Andriivka and the other villages and towns on the eastern front.

So, I want to end with playing actually a little bit of what you said in voiceover in the film. Let's just play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOV: The village is 2,000 meters ahead, 35 seconds for a mortar shell to fly, a two-minute drive, a 10-minute run.

But here, time doesn't matter, distance does. And it's measured by pauses between the explosions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: I find that, you know, you are very calm and rational in your delivery and you say things that are actually really very meaningful. But at the same time, we are seeing overhead footage of, as you say, this forest littered with bodies still. I mean, littered.

And you really see the cost of what this war is. And I just wonder how much longer you think anybody can tolerate it.

CHERNOV: Well, if you're fighting for your survival, you will tolerate it until you're safe, and especially if you're fighting for survival of your family.

And it's very, very clear that -- why those men are fighting. I think this is -- this film is so timely right now because it just reminds people of motivation, of the reality of motivation of the Ukrainian civilians and soldiers and volunteers and medics and journalists. Why they're there.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

CHERNOV: And that they do have an agency.

AMANPOUR: Well, it's really powerful and you make great films.

Mstyslav Chernov, thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And "2,000 Meters to Andriivka" opens in New York this weekend and in cinemas here in the U.K. and Ireland from 1st of August.

Coming up, actress Elizabeth McGovern on leaving "Downton Abbey" and taking on a new role as Hollywood siren Ava Gardner.

[11:22:08]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

And now for a little Hollywood, a little Broadway, and a last word about "Downton Abbey". Actress Elizabeth McGovern was launched onto the scene with roles in Oscar-winning films like "Ordinary People" and the acclaimed "Ragtime". But it was later that TV made her a household name, bringing some glorious period dramas to life, capturing hearts as the compassionate lady Cora Grantham in Julian Fellowes' mega-hit "Downton Abbey". Now she's turning to another era -- Hollywood's Golden Age, capturing the trials and triumphs of the legendary actress Ava Gardner in her new show, "Ava: The Secret Conversations" which McGovern herself wrote.

While through her life, Gardner had an incredible film career, to some, she was best known simply as Frank Sinatra's second wife. And McGovern talked to me about what made her want to highlight Gardner's extraordinary success as an actress, as well as her own career and as a feminist.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Elizabeth McGovern, welcome to our program.

MCGOVERN: Thank you for having me.

AMANPOUR: So you're a first time playwriter -- playwright, what attracted you to this amazing woman? What is it about Ava Gardner? Give us Ava Gardner 101.

MCGOVERN: Ava Gardner was a woman way ahead of her time in the sense that she was a real progressive, a natural progressive, because she wasn't highly-educated, she wasn't an intellect. She just lived life her way.

So I feel as though she's an icon, which has a lot of relevance today. She was sexually very free. She was very forward-thinking in her politics and was a feminist before she had the kind of wherewithal to identify as a feminist.

AMANPOUR: You know, because some people --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: -- some people sort of think of the men with whom she was associated, the most famous of which Frank Sinatra. Do you think that, you know, reduced her own credibility as an actress or she just powered through that, having the agency that you describe?

MCGOVERN: Well, I hope this play and maybe people looking again at her life might rectify that situation slightly because she was such an authentic person.

But yes, I think you're right. She's often associated with a series of husbands she had that were all notorious in their way. And in the play, we look at all those relationships and how she learned and grew from them all.

But I think what it adds up to is a portrait of a really powerful woman that has something to say to us today, particularly about her experience as one of the first major motion picture stars in Hollywood and the impact that that had on her, which was damaging and, of course, incredibly exciting in equal measure.

[11:29:52]

AMANPOUR: And like her, you worked with great actors. I mean, look, Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, Dame Maggie Smith, who famously, you know, was your mother-in-law, I think, in "Downton Abbey". MCGOVERN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: You are Lady Cora Grantham. How would you say -- I mean, that really propelled you -- everybody knows you in the whole wide world now, after all these years of "Downton Abbey", and there's a third film about to come out. What did that series mean to you?

MCGOVERN: It's an enormous opportunity to be able to stay with a character and stay with the relationships of the characters that you're working with over the course of so many years. I mean, what other art form in the world is sustained for so long?

So, to grow in the relationships that I have with my daughters, with my husband, with my relationship to the character, year after year after year, and to actually grow up and grow old together, I think there's -- and to have an audience that you take with you over such a long course of time is such an opportunity.

I mean, there's a kind of built-in depth to the story that is nothing to do with what we do now with it. It's just there because of all the years we've put into it.

And there's no shortcut to that. You just get it by applying yourself year after year after year. So that's really an interesting privilege. It's an interesting thing to experience.

So in this movie that we're doing now, every tiny little plot seems to resonate with the audience because of all the years that we've actually had this leap of imagination that we've been participating in together.

The actors, the audience, the producers, the directors, all of us -- we've created this thing and agreed to sustain it. So it's quite -- it's quite an amazing experience, actually.

AMANPOUR: So what does it feel like to end this era with this -- the last film, the grand finale, hard to say goodbye?

MCGOVERN: It is since there's a lot of tears. Mind you, we've practiced quite a bit because we've said goodbye many times before because it's always been, we thought, the last time.

So I've hugged those girls of mine that play my daughters, I think probably five times as the end and there's been tears. So this time it was kind of like, see you. See you around the corner, guys.

AMANPOUR: Well, it's been amazing. So thank you so much, Elizabeth McGovern, for joining us.

MCGOVERN: Thank you so much for having me. It's really a treat for me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And "Ava: The Secret Conversations" hits off-Broadway at the end of this month.

Now coming up after a break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What would you say to, I mean, there are millions of Afghans who are going to be affected by this.

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): I would say you're going to have to make it on your own.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Kind of cold. The brutal reality of U.S. aid cuts in Afghanistan. A special report from there next.

[11:33:04]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program and a powerful piece of reporting that really caught our eye this week. And it shows the devastating impact of the Trump administrations aid cuts.

Since Donald Trump returned to the oval office, the U.S. has canceled $1.7 billion in aid contracts for Afghanistan, of which $500 million had yet to be disbursed. A lot of it was budgeted for food and health care for millions of Afghans. While other countries, including the U.K., have also reduced their aid budgets, The United States has completely ended USAID, and the impact is now devastating.

CNN's Isobel Yeung has just returned with this distressing but important report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISOBEL YEUNG: We're in the Taliban's Afghanistan, a nation now dealing with huge foreign aid cuts.

The clinic we're actually heading towards was, until just a few months ago, funded by the U.S. government. Now the Trump administration has pulled the funding, a lot of people in this area are left with not even basic health care facilities.

The U.N. estimates an Afghan woman dies every two hours from pregnancy or childbirth. This clinic has now closed.

So this is where women are giving birth.

SAMIRA SAYED RAHMAN, SAVE THE CHILDREN AFGHANISTAN: Yes. You know, this is the only clinic in this area and now it's gone.

YEUNG: Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, right? What happens to these women now that the delivery room is gone?

RAHMAN: It means that these communities don't have access. It means that women are going to be giving birth at home, meaning more and more children are going to die during childbirth.

YEUNG: We were just talking to community leaders who were telling us that seven people have died since this clinic closed, and just a couple of days ago a woman died in childbirth because there was nowhere for her to give birth.

When we followed up, the woman's neighbors and family told us that if the clinic had been open and she'd had the support of midwife, she would have survived.

[11:39:47]

YEUNG: Across Afghanistan over 400 clinics have closed because of U.S. aid cuts. Millions of people were relying on these clinics for health care. Now their only option is to travel hours, sometimes days, to public hospitals like this where there's an influx of new patients.

The U.S. was funding doctors, nurses and essential drugs here but now that's also gone.

YEUNG: Salaam. How are you?

DR. ANIDULLAH SAMIM, NANGAHAR REGIONAL HOSPITAL: This has the capacity for just one baby, and we have under ours three babies here.

YEUNG: Yes, it's crowded.

SAMIM: Yes, crowded, yes.

YEUNG: Is this normal?

SAMIM: Normal? Not normal. When they -- when they cut the aid here our mortality rate about three or four -- three or four percent.

YEUNG: So three to four percent more --

SAMIM: A rise to --

YEUNG: -- babies are dying since the U.S. cut the aid?

SAMIM: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

YEUNG: Wow.

Malnutrition has soared here. Nine-point-five million people are severely food insecure. Several NGOs previously funded by the U.S. are now turning away many people in desperate need of food.

Mohammed Omar (ph) has severe malnutrition and meningitis. The family are poor and were only recently able to bring him the long distance to this hospital.

SAMIM: When did he become like this?

NAZOGUL, GRANDSON DYING OF MALNUTRITION: Early in the morning.

SAMIM: You said it was diarrhea at first and then it got worse.

NAZOGUL: Yes, it started with diarrhea.

SAMIM: Since when has he not been able to eat?

NAZOGUL: It has been a long time since he could eat on his own.

YEUNG: Hi. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Can I ask what your name is?

NAZOGUL: My name is Nazogul. He's my grandson.

YEUNG: How old is he?

NAZOGUL: He just turned one.

YEUNG: What is his situation? What has the doctor said?

NAZOGUL: Doctors say that a microbe has infected his brain. He's unconscious now. You can see that the child's condition is very bad.

YEUNG: In the middle of speaking, we looked over and realized the child had stopped breathing.

YEUNG: Is he breathing? Is he breathing?

He died?

SAMIM: Yes.

YEUNG: Oh my God.

Mohammed's mother returns to the room and the devastating news.

This is just one family of so many thousands of families that have been through this and it's utterly heart-wrenchingly devastating.

It's impossible to definitively blame one single factor for Mohammed's death. He was suffering from a range of serious illnesses. But aid cuts have dealt a devastating blow here.

Canceling aid to Afghanistan has long been a goal for Congressman Tim Burchett --

BURCHETT: $5 billion in cash.

YEUNG: -- claiming $5 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars have gone directly to the ruling Taliban, a designated terrorist group.

But the U.S. government's own watchdog says it's more like $11 million. The vast majority of money goes to those it's intended for.

Are you intentionally misleading the American public when it comes to inflating these figures so that you can get what you want?

BURCHETT: No, ma'am, I'm not. As a matter of fact, $11 million is still a whole lot of money to the average American. If it's one penny going to the Taliban, they'll hate us for free.

YEUNG: What would you say to -- I mean, there are millions of Afghans who are going to be affected by this.

BURCHETT: I would say you're going to have to make it on your own.

YEUNG: Hundreds of clinics across the country have now closed down. I literally watched a baby die from malnutrition.

What would you say to these families who are living through desperate circumstances devastated by the results of your actions?

BURCHETT: I think it's horrific but it's not due to my actions, ma'am. We don't have any more money. We're borrowing that money. And again, these --

YEUNG: But it is due to your actions. I mean, you have been advocating for this for the last couple of years.

(CROSSTALK)

BURCHETT: These are people that -- these are people that have -- no, ma'am. No ma'am. It's not our responsibility. What -- we have Americans in the same position. We have Americans that are having trouble with childbirth. We have Americans going hungry and you want us to borrow money and send it overseas.

YEUNG: With the U.S. turning away, the fate of Afghans is now left in the hands of their own government, the Taliban, who say they're capable of running the country without foreign aid. They denied our request for an interview.

[11:44:52]

YEUNG: But it's the country's most vulnerable, women and children, who stand to lose the most now facing an isolated future without the support of those who once came to their aid.

Isobel Yeung, CNN -- Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And just a note the U.S. State Department has not responded to CNN's request for comment. Important to remember right now that it was Donald Trump 1.0, who negotiated the return of Afghanistan to the Taliban, and it was President Biden who presided over the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from there.

Coming up next, how the legacy of the Korean War is still instilling hatred of America in North Koreans. From my archives, a special report from Pyongyang.

[11:45:36]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Now, after Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities last month, Tehran could choose to pull out of the NPT, the international safeguarding system. And it could take its nuclear program underground, as North Korea did when hardliners in George W. Bush's administration tried to get it to capitulate and surrender back in 2003.

Now, this weekend marks a different war 72 years since an armistice agreement halted the fighting that North Korea started against South Korea back in 1953. It killed millions and it drew in U.S. forces who fought on behalf of South Korea.

While a lasting peace was never reached, North Korea celebrates the signing of the armistice as its victory day, with grand military parades and displays of weaponry for the country's dear leader, Kim Jong-un. To this day, the war remains central to the regimes narrative and its deep hostility towards the United States.

From my archives, my report from Pyongyang on how that war has been shaping minds down the generations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Pyongyang is studded with gigantic sculptures. Commemorating their leaders and the 1950s war against the United States.

Devotion to the nation is taught early on. This young teenager is singing about her dear leader, the song about Kim Jong-il.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

AMANPOUR: We got a rare invitation to her small apartment where she lives with her parents and grandmother. The family points with pride to their most cherished possessions.

Where is your father? Your. Your father?

Pictures of the grandfather with the country's great and dear leaders.

I'll do my best and I'll bring joy to our dear leader. I want to bring a smile to the great leader.

AMANPOUR: She was raised to love her country and hate its enemies.

Do you think America is your sworn enemy?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Why?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My family went through the hardship of the Korean War. The U.S. brought suffering to the Korean people.

AMANPOUR: We heard this fear and loathing of America nearly everywhere we went. People here are taught that the Korean War, which divided their country and their families, was launched by the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We learned the U.S. imperialist is the sworn enemy of Korea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't have good feelings toward the U.S.

AMANPOUR: To understand North Koreas state of mind, you have to understand that it is still technically at war with the United States. It only ever signed an armistice, not a peace treaty, after the end of the Korean war.

And indeed, the policy of the current leader, Kim Jong-il is called Songun, the army first.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now the so-called dear leader, Kim Jong-il died shortly after we filmed that program. But Songun, or military first, that policy still defines the rule of his son, Kim Jong-un. He's the current leader, and he has vowed to continue building the country's nuclear arsenal. He believes they are critical to his survival.

Now, when we come back, neither snow nor rain, nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. the letters that changed the course of history as the U.S. Postal Service turns 250 years old.

[11:54:15]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, happy 250th birthday to the U.S. Postal Service. And thank you for getting so many letters to us all over the world as well.

Now it was America's original social media since Benjamin Franklin kicked it off in 1775, that's a year before the founding of the republic itself.

Since then, it's carried messages across battlefields by the likes of Walt Whitman, no less. It has become a crucial way of tracking the past, and of course, it has changed history itself.

From the warning that Albert Einstein sent FDR about the dangers of atomic bombs, which spurred the U.S. to build one first, to Martin Luther King's blazing letter from a Birmingham jail smuggled out by his colleagues and then posted to publications all across the country carrying his famous words, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".

[11:59:53]

AMANPOUR: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was even a postmaster before loftier ambitions lifted him to higher office.

Today, the service faces new challenges, but it keeps going, connecting the country one letter at a time. Rain or shine, Red state or Blue, it still delivers all over the world.

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

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thanks for watching and see you again next week.