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Quest Means Business
Trump on Talks: I am the Opposite of Desperate, I Don't Care; Sources: Iran fortifies Kharg Island, Braces for U.S. Assault; OECD Projects U.S. Inflation to Hit 4.2 Percent This Year; Higher Fuel Costs Poised to Ripple Through U.S. Economy; Uncovering a Global "Rape Academy" Online; "The Interview" That Led to the 2014 Sony Hack. Aired 4p-5p ET
Aired March 26, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:20]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": The closing bell is ringing on Wall Street. Global X may be doing the business, but I
am afraid the business is not looking very good on the markets, down and I think we might be at the lows of the session. In fact, I can't make that
from that graph, but somebody -- and a one, and a two and a one, two, three, four. And the worst losses are on the NASDAQ. I will go into all the
details as we move on.
It could become obvious why there is all this red. Those are the markets and the events that have led to it.
Oil prices are jumping as President Trump says he doesn't care about making a deal to end the Iran War.
The OECD is warning the conflict could send U.S. inflation above four percent this year.
And the former chief exec of Sony Entertainment tells me about the biggest mistake of his career and what he learned from it.
As always, we are live. Tonight, we are in New York. It is Thursday, March the 26th. I am Richard Quest and yes, I mean business.
Good evening. I want to start showing you the Dow graph again, if I may, and you'll see. Look at that.
If you want to know the reason why. Well, one of the large reasons was a lack of information on talks, and President Trump, who says he doesn't care
if the U.S. reaches a deal with Iran.
He was at The White House and he said he is not desperate for an agreement and there are no targets he wants to hit before the fighting ends. His
claim comes despite rising economic pressure.
The organization for economic development, the OECD, is warning of a sharp increase in inflation. We will talk about that in a moment. President Trump
says that they are in serious negotiations with the Iranians, and he told us more about the gift from the regime that he referred to earlier in the
week and said was worth a lot of money.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They said to show you the fact that we are real and solid and we are there. We are going
to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil.
I guess they were right and they were -- they were real. And I think they were Pakistani flagged. And, I said, well, I guess we are dealing with the
right people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Well, they may have been the wrong people, but the markets didn't like it. The progress remains so unclear. Investors sold off. The NASDAQ
fell two percent, and the S&P is at its lowest level in six months. So, we've not only given about the gains of the year, but we are well into last
year as well.
And U.S. crude -- we are showing you the U.S. blend. Later on, we will show you the Brent blend because that's the more relevant one in a sense. That
is what West Texas did.
Stephen is with me, Stephen Collinson in Washington.
If the President had hoped the market was going to recover and looking at the comments over the last few days clearly didn't happen. I can't work out
what is going on here.
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: I don't think you're the only one, Richard.
That Cabinet meeting there did not give a picture of a President or a Cabinet that have a clear idea or strategy of where this war is going and
how they're going to get out of it. The President kept saying, as you said, I don't even want to deal. I am not desperate for a deal. Iran is desperate
for a deal.
Well, I think he doth protest too much because everything the President has done in the last few days has made it look like he really does want to get
a deal, because he wants to get out of this conflict, because the consequences are piling up every day.
And I think right now, he is in a little bit of a box. Iran does not seem to be responding to his conditions for ending this war. It looks almost
like Iran believes it is now in the driver's seat and has the initiative, notwithstanding the massive U.S. and Israeli military onslaught.
And if the President can't get talks going, he is therefore created a new redline for himself of a military escalation, which could make his
situation and the global economic situation much worse. So, it is very hard to see right now how he gets out of this.
QUEST: How -- is there any talk in Washington about how much time they think they've got? Because the uncertainty on the economic front, which we
will talk about in a moment, is the key issue in terms of long term damage, inflation costs and the like.
[16:05:03]
Obviously, everybody where you are must realize that the escalation to attack, for example, the Kharg Island with Marines and troops would take it
to the stratosphere.
COLLINSON: Right. And so there are a couple of things going on here. There are two detachments of Marine Expeditionary Units. One would be on station
towards the end of this week, the other one is coming from the U.S. West Coast. That would take another two or three weeks. They've sent a thousand
U.S. Airborne troops into the region. That's fueling speculation, well, perhaps he is going to go after Kharg Island.
The White House is still talking about the four to six-week time frame of this conflict. Well, we are well now into the fourth week. But I think the
global economic pressure is also going to grow.
I saw a report today that The Philippines, I think they said they had about a month's worth or 45 days' worth of oil reserves, and then they were going
to run out. A lot of the ships that were able to leave the Gulf before the war broke out, now, they are getting to their final destination. All of
those ships that are inside the Gulf and can't get out through the Strait of Hormuz, that is going to create, I think, big economic conditions that
are going to weigh on the President in the next few weeks.
That, I think, is why he is so keen to get out of it. But how does he get out of it without an escalation? It is the perennial question of American
presence in modern wars, who all find themselves forced into an escalation to find a way out because they went into the war without an exit strategy.
QUEST: Stephen, I am grateful. Thank you.
The escalation that Stephen is talking about, Kharg Island and the speculation of a potential operation to capture Kharg Island, it handles
around 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports, 20 miles or so off the coast, crucial for China's oil imports.
CNN's Paula Hancocks reporting from the region at the U.S. Marines in action.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is what an amphibious assault looks like, a U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU
storms a beach with the forces and equipment needed for battle.
This was a joint exercise with South Korean Marines three years ago. An actual assault is more likely to take place at night. Two MEUs like this
are on their way to the Middle East, officials tell CNN, their mission not revealed.
In the skies above this drill, attack helicopters, Osprey transports and F- 35 stealth fighters 30 nautical miles out to sea. An amphibious assault ship, the USS Makin Island, bringing together all the components needed for
a self-sufficient attack.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): And as to this, commander-in-chief --
HANCOCKS (voice over): Some within President Trump's circle are pushing for the U.S. military to take over Iran's Kharg Island to force the opening of
the Strait of Hormuz, a tiny island off the coast of Iran, that 90 percent of the country's oil exports passes through, considered its economic
lifeline.
The U.S. says it has attacked its military defenses, the oil infrastructure remains intact.
If President Trump does decide to take Kharg Island, a Marine Expeditionary Unit would be ideal. Around 2,200 Marines and sailors prepped for ground
combat and air combat with a logistics command, considered the Swiss Army knife of U.S. Military capability.
Paula Hancocks, CNN, Dubai.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Now, the OECD expects U.S. inflation to rise above four percent because of the war. The higher price of oil and fertilizer, it all feeds
in, known as input costs, into the production and it all weighs on global demand. The group said its models assume energy prices will begin to ease
in the middle of this year, and it warns if disruptions continue, well, obviously then all bets are off.
For the moment, it did not make a major downward revision on growth. Ruchir Sharma, the chair of Rockefeller International, in his recent column, he
says, it is the only fact that it is the U.S. economic strengths that bailing it out, the President's policies.
And, you know, I guess, Ruchir, to put it -- allow me to put it in crude terms. Your fundamental point is the U.S. economy is doing well in spite of
the President's policies.
I am going to use that famous line. Yes, you're muted.
RUCHIR SHARMA, CHAIRMAN, ROCKEFELLER INTERNATIONAL: Yes!
QUEST: There we are. Now, we can hear you.
You know, I always say -- I always say, yes. I always say we are all going to go to our graves with somebody sort of saying to us, you're muted.
Go ahead, sir. Go ahead.
[16:10:07]
SHARMA: Yes, Richard, I think my point here really is the fact, which is that even though all the actions seem to come out of America, whether it
was the tariffs last year and then all the attacks on the Fed's feds independence, and now we have the Iran war, the U.S. economy has been
relatively resilient.
And the reason for that is that you have these other factors which overwhelm what the President has been doing.
Last year, it was the A.I. boom, and just now, it has got to do with the energy independence. The fact is that this war hurt the rest of the world
much more than America and that is the irony of the actions being taken by President Trump.
QUEST: So, the OECD says four percent, 4.1 percent inflation for the U.S. I guess my first thought is, well, all right, four percent, but we were at 12
percent a few years ago. Four percent is, you know, is that really something that we need to get hot under the collar about?
SHARMA: Of course we should. You know, affordability is the number one issue for most Americans, and they've got elections coming up. So I think
that President Trump and the Republican Party were on a weak ground anyway, going into this war and this further exacerbates the problem. So I think
that's the reason why you're seeing President Trump now trying to find an off ramp as far as the war is concerned.
But I think that doesn't take away from the fact, and I find that this is the sad situation that a lot of the economies of Europe and Asia find
themselves in, that this was not a war of their choice, and yet they are the biggest victims of what is going on.
I think that is the fundamental point I try and make in my column. Yes, go ahead.
QUEST: But does four percent -- is that a number that triggers the Fed to do more than warn or jaw-jaw? Is the four percent, 4.1 percent, obviously,
inflationary expectations and it is still in the future, is that enough for them to raise rates? There you are, I've said it. I've used the R word,
raise rates.
SHARMA: Well it should be, but I don't think they will because of the fact is that this Fed has been quite dovish and the Fed has missed its inflation
target of two percent now for 56 months in a row. Right? So, it keeps missing its inflation target.
And I think that the Fed doesn't have the anti-inflation zeal here to go ahead and raise interest rates. So I don't think the Fed is going to raise
interest rates. It is going to be quite focused on the demand side of the economy, which is also going to weaken a bit if it is for these purposes,
so I don't expect the Fed to raise interest rates in reaction to just an oil price spike.
QUEST: Everyone says it is all about how long this lasts. The OECD's forecast pretty much takes us to -- it says, you know, elevated prices to
the middle of the year. How long do you think we've got before we are seeing real economic damage?
SHARMA: I think it is a matter of weeks. I think the economic damage has already started, it is being felt. Highlighted in your earlier segment like
Asia, the economic damage is clearly being felt in places like India, there are gas shortages, in the Philippines, there is a national energy
emergency, in places like Thailand and people are being encouraged to work from home. And like, take the stairs when climbing up to their office.
So I think that the impact is clearly being felt already. The issue is that when does the impact really be felt in America so that is something that
acts as a check and balance on the President and his actions.
And I suspect that that's still a bit far away. I mean, it is really amazing, Richard, here in America and the focus here is very much on
different issues. It I, you know, for example, the long lines at airports because of the TSA shutdown, it is that kind of stuff which is making the
news.
So the economic effect of this war is yet to be felt in America, albeit for some grumbling over higher gas prices and that's because, you know, it
really haven't gone up that much and because America is pretty energy self- sufficient, it is not feeling the effect of this. But in Asia, the effect is very much evident already.
QUEST: Can I just throw one thing at you? I have just heard in my ear, and I just want to know how you factor this in. The President has just in the
last few minutes on Truth Social extended his deadline to the Iranians. If I recall correctly, it is to open the Strait of Hormuz and he gave the
deadline. It was a five-day, if you remember, and he gave it until Friday.
I will ask Ronan, does he say how far he has extended it to or is he just extended it to -- Ronan? To six -- sorry, so he has extended it.
[16:15:16]
Ten days, I beg your pardon. Ten days.
SHARMA: Yes, so he is trying his best to find an off ramp here. This is very different from a month ago. You know, when, the negotiations are on,
and then he decided that, let's go take a gamble with this. This is a very different reaction function now because we have seen some economic effects
of this.
So I feel some relief, but obviously the uncertainty keeps hanging for a while longer.
QUEST: I am grateful. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for taking the question on. That has just happened, as I say.
Venezuela's ousted president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife appeared in court. They were in New York. The judge says a legal fee dispute won't get
in the way of their charges to being dismissed -- it won't get their charges dismissed.
The question, of course, is how can they pay their legal fees? It is a real legal conundrum. We will get to the details in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: A U.S. federal judge says he will not dismiss the criminal case against Nicolas Maduro. The ousted Venezuelan leader and his wife appeared
in court in New York. The defendants asked that their charges be dropped because they say they can't afford a lawyer.
The Trump administration won't allow the Venezuelan government to pay for their defense. The judge says he will make a decision on the payment
dispute soon.
Kara Scannell is in New York. Not surprised, I mean, that he hasn't dismissed the charges. That was always going to be a bit of a long shot,
but it is this very knotty problem of sanctions and difficulties about, you know, they can't use their own money if they had any, and they can't use
the Venezuelan government money, and I guess, this is a bit beyond a public defender in that case, what are they going to do?
KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's the question that the judge is wrestling with because he was receptive to Maduro's lawyers argument
that Maduro's legal fees should be paid by the Venezuelan government. They said the Venezuelan government is prepared to pay these fees, but the U.S.
government and the prosecutors arguing in court today say that because both the U.S. government -- because both Venezuela and the Maduros are
sanctioned, that the U.S. government is blocking that payment.
[16:20:07]
They say the Maduros have plundered the wealth of Venezuela and that they could get a court appointed attorney in the U.S. to do this. But the judge
said that the breadth of this case, the fact that there would be witnesses that would need to be interviewed in Venezuela and Colombia, that there is
evidence in those countries that it would stretch beyond the scope of a court appointed attorney.
And so he was trying to figure out a way to allow the legal fees to come from Venezuela, despite there being these sanctions. And the prosecutor was
pushed on his heels of why are there sanctions given that there has been more of a normalized relationship now between the countries?
And the prosecutor said that, you know, this is still a national security call and it is for a foreign policy decision, but the judge said the
Maduros are here in the courtroom, in detention, they are no longer a national security risk.
QUEST: What I thought was interesting was at one point, the judge asked the prosecution, do I have the authority to ask the office involved foreign --
that does sanctions -- to order them to release the money and the prosecutor said, no you don't.
So, we are at the very extremes here of understanding. This is going to end up being appealed, isn't it? I mean, this very issue is going to end up
going further up.
SCANNELL: I mean, it is very likely. I mean, the judge did press the prosecutor on that and the prosecutor is saying, it is not your authority
to do that, but the Maduros want to challenge the sanctions and not getting a license from the Treasury Department's office of Foreign Assets Control.
The way to do that is by filing a lawsuit.
But the judge kind of stopped them there, because that would clearly take too long and go far beyond this process. So the judge is saying, you know,
putting this idea of the dismissal on the table and the prosecutor suggested that maybe they could talk to other parts of the U.S. government
about this license.
So the judge said he would not dismiss the case now, but he did float that maybe he would order OFAC to issue a license. And he said if OFAC refused
and did not follow his order, then maybe they would have a follow-up discussion about potentially dismissing the case.
So the judge said he was going to consider this. He would issue a ruling soon. I mean, I think there is also an open possibility that perhaps the
U.S. government changes their mind and agrees to issue a license here so that the actual merits of this case and the actual prosecution is not in
jeopardy -- Richard.
QUEST: This is a final thought from you, because you're in court. This is a fascinating power play in a sense, the OFAC, as you rightly -- thank you
for reminding me, it is the Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC, basically, the judge is saying, if I read and hear you correctly, listen,
find a way forward, or you might just find this whole thing being blown up out the water.
SCANNELL: Yes, I mean, the judge was struggling of what his authority was. He asked the prosecutors, he asked Maduros' lawyers, you know, what can I
do here? So I think that's why he didn't rule from the bench. He is looking for a way out of this.
But he seemed pretty clear that he thought that the government of Venezuela should be able to pay the legal fees of Maduro, and he was looking for a
way out of this.
I mean, the prosecutors, though, did volunteer that they could go talk to other arms of the U.S. government to try to also address the situation.
QUEST: I am grateful. Thank you. Thank you for joining us tonight.
Now, our breaking news. President Trump has extended the deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Presently, it was set to expire on Monday. He first
of all, then extended it until Friday. Now, it is April the 6th because he says talks are going very well.
The President says Iran's present to the U.S., as you recall, was letting 10 tankers pass through the Straits, as he mentioned a gift from Iran on
Tuesday during the discussions.
The gesture has had almost no impact on Gulf shipping and the crews affected by the conflict, because at the end of the day, which we must not
forget, there are thousands of seafarers who are stranded. Many of them are now coming to the end of long assignments, and some of those ships are
running out of resources.
CNN's Kristie Lu Stout reports from Hong Kong.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Twenty thousand seafarers are stranded in the Middle East, caught in the
crossfire of the U.S.-Israeli War with Iran, and the captain of this oil tanker was one of them.
SAMANTH BAKTAVATSALAM, OIL TANKER CAPTAIN: It was quite intense. We could actually see projectiles and naval and air force services in action.
STOUT (on camera): Wow. How did your crew respond to that?
BAKTAVATSALAM: Initially, crew were in a state of shock because there was something tangible than when we could see something actually flying over.
STOUT (voice over): After three weeks, Captain Samanth Baktavatsalam is now on safe passage out of the region. Iran's selective blockade of the Strait
of Hormuz has impacted thousands of vessels, all exposed to mines and explosive drones.
[16:25:10]
Their vulnerability laid bare when this Thai cargo ship was hit. Rescued crew members returned to Thailand, three remain missing.
Since the start of the conflict, there have been at least seven seafarer deaths and more than a dozen vessels attacked near Iran.
Angad Banga is the Group Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong-based The Caravel Group. Under his charge, the world's second largest ship management
company, looking after dozens of stranded vessels in the Gulf with over 600 seafarers on board.
ANGAD BANGA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE CARAVEL GROUP: There's definitely shortages of food, medical supplies, water. Things need to be rationed.
Everyone in the industry is trying to see how best to reprovision vessels when launch boats aren't available and getting access to the ports is not
possible.
Luckily for us, at the moment, we are okay, but it is something that we monitor every single day.
STOUT (voice over): Seafarers have been caught in crisis before, stranded at sea during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the Russian invasion of
Ukraine and under Houthi attack in the Red Sea. But the war in the Middle East is unprecedented.
JAKOB LARSEN, HEAD OF MARITIME SAFETY AND SECURITY, BIMCO: It is an extremely difficult scenario to navigate for everyone. I think the
situation and the level of complexity makes it very difficult to identify one single way ahead in this year's scenario.
STOUT (voice over): The U.N. shipping agency is calling for a safe corridor to protect and evacuate seafarers from the Gulf. Iran now says what it
calls non-hostile ships may transit the Strait of Hormuz on its terms. More vessels are crossing, but the future is uncertain.
STOUT (on camera): Can vessels even cross safely when the entire region is a war zone?
BAKTAVATSALAM: One particular party may say it will allow safe passage, but conditions of safe passage depend on various factors, and parties involved
are too many.
STOUT (voice over): The shipping industry transports 90 percent of all manufactured goods, making seafarers vital to global trade.
STOUT (on camera): And you're the son of a seafarer.
BANGA: I am.
STOUT: So does it take a moment like this for us to realize and to appreciate the essential nature of these workers?
BANGA: I wish it didn't. I wish that we all understood the essential nature of seafarers, given the importance that they have to global trade.
STOUT (voice over): Thousands of these essential workers now stranded at sea and praying to avoid the next direct hit.
Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: As you and I continue, rising gas prices in the U.S. households, how much are they -- in America -- are people paying. It could be hundreds of
dollars a month.
And now elevate years of inflation and possibly more costs, four percent inflation, according to the OECD. There is going to be a nasty backlash,
and we will discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:31:03]
QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest.
As you and I continue this evening, we have a lot more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for 30 minutes more. The former Sony Pictures' chief executive discusses
the mistake that led to a devastating cyberattack, and the energy crisis that's prompting the U.S. Postal Service to seek an 8 percent surcharge on
many of its deliveries, all important stuff, but only after the headlines, because here, this is CNN and in this network, we always have the news
first. You know that.
President Trump says it's Iran and not the White House that's desperate to reach an agreement. During a Cabinet meeting, he told reporters, "I'm the
opposite of desperate. I don't care." He also says he has more targets he wants to hit in Iran before the end of the war.
A U.S. judge has rejected a call to dismiss the federal case against Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Attorneys for the captured Venezuelan leader
had argued that the couple cannot afford to pay legal fees because of U.S. sanctions. Maduro has pleaded not guilty to charges related to drug
trafficking and weapons charges. President Trump says other cases are going to be brought against him.
The International Olympic Committee, the IOC, has adopted a new policy that bans transgender athletes from competing in women's Olympic events. Female
athletes will now need to undergo genetic screening. The one-time test is conducted with a simple cheek swab or a sample of blood or saliva. The IOC
has long deferred to international sports federations on eligibility.
The OECD, we told you, expects U.S. inflation to rise above 4 percent because of the war, and there are now signs of that higher energy filtering
through the economy, exactly as you would expect.
The U.S. Postal Service, for instance, is seeking an 8 percent surcharge on packages and priority mail to offset fuel. Think of the hundreds of
thousands of vehicles. I did have the number once upon a time. It's a quarter of a million vehicles or something the U.S. postal service has, and
that will start next month and last until January.
Mark Wolfe is with me. He's the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, who joins me from Washington.
You are seeing firsthand through your members exactly how this transmits itself through the economy and how now and into the future we're all going
to be paying extra. Correct?
MARK WOLFE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ENERGY ASSISTANCE DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION: That's correct. You know, about four out of 10 American
households are either lower middle class or poor. If a lot of poverty in the United States and millions of families live from paycheck to paycheck,
or they live on Social Security. So increase like for gasoline, it hits these families the hardest.
And what's of great concern is that, you know, the administration, the Trump administration has been saying things like, not a big price to pay.
Well, for who? Maybe not for the upper middle class, but for the vast majority of Americans, these prices cause pain.
Now, the price of a gallon of gasoline is now a dollar more on average than it was a month ago. And so a family that drives or uses about 15 gallons a
week, that's about $60 more a month they were paying before.
QUEST: Right.
WOLFE: And those prices filtered to the cost of food.
QUEST: Right.
WOLFE: So families have to pay more for food on top of that. So this is causing real harm.
QUEST: Because I think the significance, of course, and I'll say now, you know, to viewers watching, the U.S. is in a very enviable position because
it doesn't have a potential shortage of supply.
[16:35:06]
And yes, prices are going up along with everything else because of input costs. But there is still fuel here. Take the Philippines, where there is a
shortage, take those areas. But the problem is how much, from your point of view, at what point does the damage go to the next level and to become,
when I say really serious, I think you know what I mean.
WOLFE: Well, we're getting close to that. We're not there yet. Right now it's only been a couple of weeks. But as this goes on and as prices stay
high, it causes families to have to substitute. We know from surveys they'll buy less food, they'll buy less medicine, anything to pay the costs
of gasoline because they need to go to work. They need to take their kids to school. They need to take their family or their mother, for example, to
a doctor's office. Those are essential uses of gasoline.
QUEST: What about the secondary effects of transportation and of course, fertilizer, which leads to higher food costs? We won't see that for some
time yet.
WOLFE: No, but already we're seeing higher food prices because food has to be delivered from the farm or from the food factory to the grocery store.
And that raises the cost of delivery. We're starting to see higher airplane tickets in the United States. Not everyone who flies, of course, is rich.
Lots of middle class families take vacations. They go on trips to visit family members. Those costs are going up by 20 percent.
So what we're seeing choline, it's the related factors. And then of course that pushes up overall inflation. So you see a number of things going on.
And then within the U.S. there's a big discussion right now about affordability. It's a very political issue. People are saying they can't
afford basic goods and services. Well, this is adding to that discussion.
QUEST: Grateful for you joining us, sir. Thank you. We had a poor line there so I'll end it there. But we will talk more because I think you and
I, well, you would probably agree with me when I say this isn't going away anytime soon and the effects will be with us. So we'll talk more again in
the future. I'm grateful.
It's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS tonight from New York. In a moment this important investigation into the hidden network of men drugging and assaulting their
wives, and then sharing tips with others about how to do it and get away with it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:40:04]
QUEST: A months long investigation has uncovered a hidden network of men who share tips about how to drug and rape women.
CNN's Saskya Vandoorne spoke to women who survived this type of abuse and then tracked down a man who boasted about raping his wife. A warning, the
report contains accounts from survivors of sexual abuse and assault. Those who appear on camera gave their consent and we respect the wishes of those
who requested to remain anonymous.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Emergency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Line connecting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead, what's your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've just heard from my daughter. She's on her own in a house with four children and has just learned she's been drugged with her
son's sleeping medicine.
ZOE WATTS, SURVIVOR: We worry about who's coming behind us walking down the street. We worry about going to our car late at night, but we don't worry
about who we lie next to. I didn't realize I had to.
SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN PARIS BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Zoe Watts may never know if the videos her husband made of her being raped were ever uploaded
online. She met him when she was 17. He's now serving 11 years for rape, sexual assault by penetration and drugging.
WATTS: I knew that he wanted to have a conversation because we'd had a church service that Sunday. He reeled off a list of his wrongdoings to me
as if it was, you know, a shopping list. I've done this, this, this, this, this, this and this. I've been using our son's sleeping medication to put
in your last cup of tea at night to tie you down, take photographs, and rape you. And I think I just went into shock.
VANDOORNE (voice-over): Zoe kept the abuse secret for a few months as she grappled with what had happened to her, speaking out only after a severe
panic attack. Her mother then called the police.
WATTS: There were some times I thought, you know, this isn't right, but what would it mean? What would our -- what would our family look like?
Their children would be without a dad and there would be a reputation. And my boys would grow up having a reputation and they'd know what their dad
was doing.
VANDOORNE: I've noticed you haven't used the word rape a lot. Tell me, tell me why.
WATTS: It just doesn't -- I don't know, it's like one of those things really, I really, I struggle with that, to say that that's what happened.
It's like people can't say it, too, neither. I just don't think.
VANDOORNE: You know you're not alone.
WATTS: Yes, yes. Sadly.
VANDOORNE (voice-over): Huge numbers of explicit sleep videos are being uploaded online by users who claim its non-consensual. One Web site
profiting from this is Motherless.com.
Last year, we began investigating a porn site that gets over 60 million visits a month, focusing on the thousands of videos featuring women who
appear unconscious during sex acts. Most of its users are based in the U.S. It's home to so-called sleep content, with hundreds of thousands of views.
One popular hashtag is #eyecheck, a way of proving a woman is asleep.
We created a fake name and soon got into a private Telegram group dedicated to sharing sleep content with almost a thousand members. One day, a man in
the group we're calling Piotr, not his real name, DM'd me. Piotr admitted to me that he had been crushing pills into his wife's drink to rape her in
her sleep. Without encouraging him, I tried to find out how he was managing to do this. Who was he? Where was he?
Even when women come forward, proving it can be nearly impossible. Some drugs leave the body within 12 hours. Survivors often only realize much
later what happened. And even with the courage to speak out, there are still countless roadblocks when it comes to reporting to police or bringing
a legal case.
Amanda Stanhope didn't know her partner had been abusing her for five years.
AMANDA STANHOPE, SURVIVOR: The police had to look through all those videos.
VANDOORNE: And what did they make of them?
STANHOPE: The one where I was absolutely horrified and he'd performed a sexual act on my face whilst I was unconscious. And it was completely
clear. And the police looked at this one and I thought there's the evidence. And the police said to me, well, we can't use that. That isn't
clear evidence because it looks like you're pretending to be asleep.
[16:45:02]
VANDOORNE (voice-over): Her former partner was charged with multiple counts of rape and sexual assault. He took his own life before the case could go
to court. While talking to survivors, the man I was DM'ing continued to message and send me videos.
It made me even more determined to try and meet him, to get him in person, so I'm going to send him a message now and I'm going to see if he would
meet with us.
(Voice-over): By now, we'd worked out he was in Poland. And we knew roughly where he lived. But he refused to meet, and then a tip. He let slip that he
was planning to attend a party.
That's him. I recognize him. So we're inside the restaurant. And I've just seen him dancing with her, and at the start of this investigation, all of
these men were faceless. And so seeing him tonight has just really brought home the fact that this is happening in real life.
(Voice-over): The man who had been messaging me day and tonight was only a few feet away, oblivious. I'd come to see if he was real. And there he was
with his wife. The same people I saw in the videos. We couldn't approach Piotr's wife without potentially putting her in danger, so we reached out
to police about our findings.
The Telegram group we infiltrated eventually disappeared. But it's a pattern authorities know well. One goes offline, another soon resurfaces.
We reached out to both Motherless and Telegram, but did not receive a response. As campaigns by German journalists to shut down Motherless and
strengthen moderation on similar platforms continue, videos of women who appeared to be abused while unconscious are still being uploaded, and U.S.
Safe Harbor laws largely protect the site from liability.
In the end, it all comes back to Gisele Pelicot, the survivor whose trial shocked France and drew global attention. With astonishing dignity, she has
taken hold of her own harrowing experience.
In reporting this case, we've spoken to multiple survivors who say they were drugged and raped by their husbands, and many of them see you as a
source of strength. With your permission, I'd like to read you some of the messages that these survivors have sent to me to read to you.
One survivor, her name is Amanda Stanhope. She lives in Wigan. "Her strength inspired me to speak out. She broke the silence and shame. So many
survivors are forever grateful to her. I'd love to say thank you. If she can do it, then so can I."
GISELE PELICOT, SURVIVOR (through text translation): You're making me cry.
VANDOORNE (through text translation): It's beautiful.
PELICOT (through text translation): These are testimonials that move me, of course, but it is nice to say to yourself that they have found this
strength. I was able to transmit that to them, it was a win because we must indeed be united with everything that happens because if you stay in your
corner, you will never shift perceptions. And I say bravo, ladies. Bravo. Don't be ashamed of doing it.
All women must be able to do this process even if it is very difficult. Even if it is very complicated in their head. But they're going to get
there. It takes time. It can take months, days, maybe even years. But they will eventually get there.
VANDOORNE (voice-over): Saskya Vandoorne, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Help is available. If you've experienced any of the abuse or sort of issues that we've been talking about in the United States, you call the
National Sexual Assault hotline or chat anytime at RAINN.org. Outside the U.S., U.N. Women and the Pixel Project provide a list of agencies that are
available around the world.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:51:26]
QUEST: The former chief executive of Sony Entertainment, which includes Sony Pictures, says releasing this movie was the biggest mistake of his
career.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES FRANCO, ACTOR: Look at this.
SETH ROGEN, ACTOR: Kim Jong-un wants to do an interview with Dave Skylark?
FRANCO: He's a fan. Look at him. If that ain't a real story, what is?
ROGEN: OK, let's do it.
FRANCO: We're going to North Korea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: It was "The Interview." It was a comedy, Seth Rogen and James Franco, that turned out to be anything but funny in the end. It depicts the
assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and then the trouble happened. North Korea launched a massive cyberattack on Sony because of the
movie. Thousands of computers were fried, tens of thousands of employees' Social Security numbers and sensitive e-mails, embarrassing, humiliating e-
mails about stars and contracts and all sorts of things, all went public.
Michael Lynton shared new details about the experience in his book. He told me how it all played out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL LYNTON, FORMER SONY PICTURES CEO: I was on my way to work one day and I get a call from our CFO, and he says, all of our systems have been
hacked. What that meant was 70 percent to 80 percent of all the laptops at the company were fried, meaning they were unusable. They had then
subsequent to that, the hackers or the cyber attackers, had taken out all of the e-mails and were delivering them in these caches to reporters who
had to type in "die Sony," and then all of these salacious e-mails would come forth.
Julian Assange, for a whole separate reason, decided to Wiki all of my information. So it was all indexed and up there was all of my children's
medical records. So it was really bad, really bad. And the studio came to a standstill for at least a month. You couldn't operate anything. We were all
working on a tech trees and things like that.
QUEST: And you get the thing started again and in a sense it takes a long time and there's a lot of residual damage for the company, for the -- but
your -- but this book focuses on what you believe was the mistake, a decision taken without careful consideration or self-awareness that causes
regret.
LYNTON: Right.
QUEST: What was your mistake?
LYNTON: Well, to start with, let me just say I wrote this book so everybody knows that with Josh Steiner. Josh, this was Josh's idea and he came to him
-- he came to me, rather, and we took a walk on the beach and he had, and he said to me, Michael, I know you made a big mistake five years ago, which
was making the movie, "The Interview," agreeing to make it in a moment and not paying attention to the process that we normally would have gone
through.
And I think that it's important not only that we talk about your mistake, but I have a mistake, too. And I think there's a book in this because I
think nobody actually looks at mistakes. And as part of that, over the next couple of months, we came up with a definition. Josh did the most of the
work on this, that distinguished failures from mistakes. Failures are when a bunch of people come together, they take a deliberative, they go through
a bunch of analysis and they make a deliberative choice, which has ambition.
It doesn't work out. That's a failure. Mistake is, as you describe it, it's very individual. It's in the moment. It's driven by your emotion and it's
driven oftentimes by what we call a schema, which is a way that you've developed of seeing the world that comes from a previous part of your life,
and that it crops up every now and again and demonstrates itself.
QUEST: In the case of the green lighting of the movie, the schema was your background, your upbringing, wanting to fit in, et cetera, et cetera.
LYNTON: Right. Right.
[16:55:08]
QUEST: Just to clear up one point, in the cold light of day now.
LYNTON: Yes.
QUEST: Schema aside, would you have greenlit that movie? Forget knowing what you know about the effects. I mean, you might have put in place better
security and all of that thing, but would you still have made the movie?
LYNTON: Probably not, because if we paid attention to the process, the process had we typically when we decided to make a movie, would have
brought everybody around a table, and at that table would have been a public policy person and our general counsel. And they would have reminded
me that we are owned by a Japanese company, and the Japanese have a very complicated relationship with the North Koreans, particularly in that
moment when Abe was trying to make a deal with the North Koreans to retrieve the bodies of the 100 kids who had been kidnaped back in the '70s.
So probably not. Probably that would have been enough for me to say, no, we're not going to do this.
QUEST: The book is not just about, it's also about how you deal with the mistake afterwards, not whether you would have made it in the first place
or how to avoid making it.
LYNTON: Yes.
QUEST: It deals with how you deal with the shame.
LYNTON: Yes.
QUEST: The guilt.
LYNTON: Yes.
QUEST: The gnawing cancer inside.
LYNTON: Yes. So we make the point that all mistakes are sort of three acts. The first act is what happens leading up to the mistake. The schema that
you referred to earlier. The second act is actually making the mistake. And the third act is how you deal with the mistake. And that to me is as
valuable a lesson as anything in the book, because you walk around with a great degree of shame. You sort of -- there's what we call the spotlight
effect, where you're walking around thinking that you have a big thing on your forehead, that everybody is looking at you all the time, and that goes
on for a very long period when, as you and I know very well, that's not the case. Most people have better things to do than worrying about me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: That's Michael Lynton.
We'll have a "Profitable Moment" after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Tonight's "Profitable Moment."
We had two guests I want to pull the strands together. Ruchir Sharma talked about how the U.S. wasn't seeing the effects yet, that the rest of the
world had economic effects of the crisis, inflationary effects, this, that and the other. But the U.S. wasn't, and that there would be no change until
the U.S. did. And then we had Mark Wolfe, the energy economist, who said, ah, we're starting to see the effects in the U.S., higher oil prices,
higher food prices.
Put those two guests together and you start to see potentially the way in which this moves forward. You see more angst, anxiety and annoyance in the
U.S. that eventually puts pressure on politicians. At least that's the theory. But we're a long way from that at the moment. It's just a question
of watching the prices go up.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable. It's
Friday tomorrow. I'll see you then.
END
