Former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

Summary

Amanpour – July 21, 2026

Episode Summary

This episode of Amanpour, guest-hosted by Bianna Golodryga, presents an expansive survey of high-stakes geopolitical, humanitarian, and philosophical topics. The central focus is an in-depth interview with former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on the spiraling US-Iran war and its regional/global consequences, followed by a humanitarian lens on Cuba’s crisis under US blockade, a report on extreme weather’s link to climate change, and a philosophical discussion on the true meaning of liberalism in politics.

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I. US-Iran Conflict and Strategy (00:55–14:39)

Main Theme

Bianna Golodryga sits down with former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for a candid conversation about the US-Iran war’s current status, strategic missteps, Congress’s role, and the wider implications for US foreign policy and global stability.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Casualties and Exposure ([00:55])

  • Golodryga: Three US service members killed in recent Iranian missile strikes. The scale of US deployment—50,000 troops—has left forces exposed.
  • Hagel: "When you start a war with no strategy, these kinds of things happen." He highlights the lack of planning reminiscent of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan:

    "We've got to start listening to the diplomatic core. How do we get out of this? … This isn’t just a war with Iran and the United States anymore and Israel. This is a war with the Middle East. It is connected to the world, the economy." (03:10)

• Failed Diplomatic Opportunities and Escalation ([04:04])

  • Discussion around Iran breaking the 60-day Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for sanctions relief in exchange for ending hostilities.
  • Hagel:

    "What we have produced in Iran today over the last more than four months is a regime much more difficult to deal with, much more militant, less inclined to deal with us or to resolve these issues… Actions have consequences, inactions have consequences." (04:48)

  • Critique of retributive strategy: “You can’t conduct anything like this on a retribution basis. You hit us, we’ll hit you more. And this goes on and on and on. Somebody’s got to start thinking a lot deeper and wider…” (05:44)
  • Memorable Ribbing:

    "You, you’ve got two real estate people who are in charge of the diplomatic efforts. This is not a real estate deal."

• Targeting Civilian Infrastructure and Regional Fallout ([06:15])

  • Question over US strikes on Iranian water plants and Iran’s retaliation against civilian sites in neighboring Gulf states.
  • Hagel:

    "You’re creating generations of new terrorists. … Five months ago, the Strait of Hormuz was open and we’ve made it worse." (07:01)

  • Emphasis on nuclear negotiations: “The Obama administration answered this thing in 2015, had a very smart program plan that everybody was abiding by … That’s what we need to get back to…”

• Nuclear Facilities & Ground Operations ([08:25])

  • Trump administration signals Pickaxe Mountain—an ultra-hardened nuclear site—may be the next target.
  • Hagel pushes back on overconfidence:

    "If you really want to accomplish what he says that he’s going to accomplish … you’re going to have to put troops on the ground. … We’re just getting deeper and deeper into this hole. The Iranians are not going to give up." (09:37)

  • Warns of overextension given US support for Ukraine and stressed military inventories.

• Congress, Funding & Accountability ([10:48])

  • Senate testimony and requests for additional war funding; lack of consistent briefings.
  • Hagel criticizes Congressional absence:

    “Where the Congress has been has been, I mean, truly unbelievable to me. And it’s let down the American public." (11:52) “The Congress, again, is the one body that can stop it.” (12:52)

  • On Transparency:

    “We hear the president every day, but everything he said is just basically not true. … There's been no transparency; nobody from the administration.” (13:20)

  • Golodryga: “Transparency is the name of the game here…” (13:59)
  • Hagel: “The people who fight the wars… There was no transparency there either [Vietnam].” (14:16)

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II. Cuba’s Humanitarian Crisis Under US Blockade (16:37–28:15)

Main Theme

After months of a tightening US oil and goods blockade, Cuba’s infrastructure is collapsing. Congressman Mark Pocan shares observations from his recent trip, sharply criticizing US policy and its impact.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Scope and Impact of Blockade ([17:41])

  • Pocan: “It’s a complete blockade… intensified so that it’s really a boot on the neck of the Cuban people. Their electric grid has failed multiple times… They can’t even have kids in school right now…”
  • Denounces humanitarian impact:

    “We claim we’re looking out for the Cuban people against the Cuban government. And instead, we’re actually hurting the Cuban people.”

• Motivation, Observations, and Historic Comparison ([18:58])

  • Sister city ties to Madison, Wisconsin.
  • Drastic changes observed: power outages lasting 42 hours; hospitals improvising surgeries with cell phone flashlights; garbage piling in streets.
  • Notes the contrast with improved conditions when US-Cuba relations thawed under Obama:

    “Americans went to Cuba to vacation. They were thriving, and quite honestly, they loved America. And… there was no ill towards our country by doing so.”

• Small Business and Private Sector Realities ([20:42])

  • Blockade undermines US-pushed private sector reforms:

    “One gentleman had bakeries—he had 400 employees. Now he’s got 12 because of the US blockade… We are setting up a false narrative.”

  • Argues for a policy return to Obama-era rapprochement.

• Sanctions: Regime or People? ([21:38])

  • Pocan: “Again, it’s fantastical. That’s why, if you want a good read, you can’t sleep. Read the State Department report. It’s pretty ridiculous… Cuba doesn’t cause everything." (21:50)
  • Asserts that real suffering is due to US policy, not solely government mismanagement.

• Concerns Over Political Expression ([23:28])

  • Pocan admits concerns about civil liberties but reiterates the blockade as the primary cause of humanitarian hardship:

    “If you don’t allow medical parts from the US, that’s not the Cuban government’s problem. That’s our problem.”

  • Describes scenes of Cubans using rolling blackouts as opportunities to cook, shower, and get water.

• Washington’s Approach and Broader Agenda ([25:43])

  • On US support for dissidents:

    “We don’t blockade [other nations] as a nation. … The way we support the Cuban people is allow the access of trade… If we believe in our system of government, which I do, then allow the free flow like we did under Barack Obama.”

• Appetite for Policy Change in Congress ([27:10])

  • Pocan: “Not enough visuals come out of Cuba… but I can tell you this has been absolutely the worst it’s ever been. And it’s more directly related to what the US is doing than anything else.”
  • Expresses intent to raise issues in Congressional committee, warning:

    "This is nothing more than a blueprint for an invasion. And we just can’t have another quagmire on top of Iran…” (27:58)

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III. Extreme Weather, Wildfires, and Climate Change (28:25–38:37)

Main Theme

Coverage on extreme heat and unprecedented wildfire seasons, with Columbia University climate professor Radley Horton providing scientific context for intensifying global fire activity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Record Wildfires and Climate Context ([29:34])

  • Horton: “What we can say is that there are very strong upward trends… 2023 was twice as bad as any prior year. 2025 was the second. … This year is off to a really rough start.”
  • Attributing upward trends largely to rising air temperatures due to human activity.

• Direct Effects of Human-Caused Warming ([30:46])

  • “Air temperatures going up is the most direct effect of climate change and the human burning of fossil fuels.”
  • For every degree Celsius of warming, 7% more water is drawn from vegetation, priming forests for major fires.

• Evacuation Challenges and Policy Gaps ([32:30])

  • Need for improved warning systems, infrastructure, and preparedness:

    “The single biggest long term thing that we can do is to profoundly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the way to lower the temperatures and take a big step towards making these events so much less likely and so much less deadly.” (33:29)

• Forest Management – US vs. Canada ([34:00])

  • Against the Trump administration’s blame on Canada for poor forest management:

    “Much of Canada has no history of forest management… This is really a story more about higher temperatures making fires... much more extreme.”

• Disinformation and Public Perception Gap ([37:40])

  • On the gap between understanding and acknowledging climate threats:

    "There has been a large disinformation campaign—especially focused on the US—continuing to undermine these very basic, well understood scientific principles that go back over 100 years."

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IV. What Is Liberalism? A Philosophical Discussion (39:47–54:29)

Main Theme

Walter Isaacson interviews author and columnist Adrian Wooldridge about his book The Revolutionary: The Lost Genius of Liberalism, exploring the roots and modern contestation of liberal political philosophy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• The Essence of Liberalism ([40:38])

  • Three pillars:
    1. Individualism

       “A political philosophy that starts with the individual and works upwards and outwards.”

    2. Tolerance

       “We must be tolerant of other people's opinions… through open debate.”

    3. Skepticism about Power

       “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely… you need to divide it and limit it and to enumerate rights…”

• Size of State: Not Central to Liberalism ([44:08])

  • “You can be a liberal and support a big state. You can be a liberal and support a small state. … Keynes was a liberal, wanted a bigger state. Hayek was a liberal, wanted a smaller state.”
  • The real threat today is not the size of the state but the rise of autocratic, anti-liberal actors globally and domestically.

• Threats from Right and Left; Tolerance Under Siege ([45:19])

  • Wooldridge:

    “There are two big threats to liberalism… The right, which believes in power … [and] the left… obsessed with racial, gender, biological categories… In some ways, there are similarities between the threats…”

• False Equivalency Debate ([46:15])

  • Isaacson challenges: Are left-wing campus "illiberals" really a danger on the scale of a president who undermines democratic elections?
  • Wooldridge acknowledges: "There is a bigger threat from the right than from overzealous college professors," but still warns against intolerance on either side.

• Immigration, Assimilation, and Liberal Values ([48:04])

  • On past faith in open borders:

    “The biggest threat to liberalism is coming from the public reaction to very high levels of immigration… Liberalism should be capable of reinventing itself and changing itself when the world changes.”

  • Cautions against “overliberal” policies fueling backlash movements.

• Historical Reinvention of Liberalism ([51:33])

  • Compares 19th-century liberalism’s laissez-faire approach and eventual embrace of the welfare state and antitrust to today’s challenges with tech monopolies and social inequality.
  • “To save capitalism, but also in order to save liberalism, a society based on the individual, we need a more active state.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chuck Hagel on Strategy in War:

  "When you start a war with no strategy, these kinds of things happen." (02:53)

• On US Response:

  "You can't conduct anything like this on a retribution basis. You hit us, we'll hit you more. And this goes on and on and on." (05:44)

• On Iran's Resilience:

  "The Iranians are not going to give up. I mean, you've got the entire, like I said, Middle East involved now..." (09:37)

• Mark Pocan on the Blockade:

  "It's intensified so that it's really a boot on the neck of the Cuban people." (17:41)

• On Small Business Impact:

  "One gentleman had bakeries—he had 400 employees. Now he's got 12 because of the US blockade." (20:42)

• Radley Horton on Fire Trends:

  "2023 was twice as bad as any prior year. ... This is a very direct effect." (29:34, 30:46)

• Adrian Wooldridge on Liberalism’s Core:

  "The three essential things are tolerance, skepticism about power, and a commitment to individualism." (40:38) "Now we're in a different world. ... The biggest economy in the world, by some measures, is an autocratic power. You have Trump in the White House, who ... doesn't agree with a lot of things that George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush would have thought were absolutely essential." (42:48)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:55] — Hagel on US-Iran war casualties and strategy
• [04:48] — Hagel critiques US-Iran diplomacy, overreliance on “retribution”
• [06:15] — Impact of targeting infrastructure, risks of sowing extremism
• [09:37] — Feasibility and risks of targeting Iran’s nuclear sites
• [11:52] — Hagel on Congress’s abdication of wartime oversight
• [17:41] — Mark Pocan on Cuba’s humanitarian collapse under blockade
• [20:42] — US policy undermining small business reform in Cuba
• [21:50] — Pocan ridicules the State Department’s accusations against Cuba
• [29:34] — Radley Horton: historic North American wildfire trends
• [30:46] — Fires, climate change, and atmospheric science explained
• [33:29] — The case for greenhouse gas reduction as the core solution
• [40:38] — Wooldridge breaks down the foundations of liberalism
• [44:08] — Big state vs. small state: liberalism beyond fiscal argument
• [48:04] — Immigration policy and public backlash in liberalism
• [51:33] — Liberal reinvention in response to tech and economic change

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Conclusion

This episode weaves together urgent analysis of war, humanitarian crisis, climate catastrophe, and political philosophy. It features direct, unvarnished critiques from government veterans and experts—offering key takeaways for listeners trying to understand American policy, its global impacts, and the philosophical underpinnings of our political debates.

The tone throughout is frank, often critical, questioning, and concerned about both the moral and practical direction of US and Western policy at a time of broad global upheaval.

Transcript

[Bianna Golodryga]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up.

[Ari Shapiro]

Iran has been very, very badly damaged.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Trump vows to make Tehran pay after American service members are killed in conflict. Where could the war go from here? I asked former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. And cut off from fuel, cut off from power, how the U.S. blockade is crippling Cuba. I speak to a U.S. congressman who just return from the island. Then fire, smoke and extreme weather wreak havoc across the world. Columbia University Professor Radley Horton joins me on the harsh realities of climate change.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Plus, the three essential things are tolerance, skepticism about power, and a commitment to individualism.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Adrian Wooldridge tells Walter Isaacson about his book the Revolutionary the Lost Genius of Liberalism. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Galadriga. New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour. Donald Trump is vowing revenge after American service members were killed by Iranian strikes. The US President says that Tehran will pay, quote, many times over. As the Pentagon is acknowledging, nearly 100 US servicemembers have suffered from some level of injury in the past two weeks, most of them minor. Meanwhile, in Iran, President Mahmoud Pezechkin has told his people that they are engaged in a full scale war. And the Iran backed Houthis in Yemen are vowing to blockade a second critical shipping channel, further threatening global oil supplies. Despite Trump's past predictions that the Iran war would soon be over, it continues on. And his administration is lobbying Congress for tens of billions of dollars more to fund the fighting. Chuck Hagel was US Defense Secretary under President Obama and he joins me now. Secretary Hagel, thanks so much for joining the program. Let's start with those three casualties, those service members that were killed over the weekend. Of course, our thoughts are with their families right now as their bodies are being transferred over to Dover air Force base. Three Iranian missiles had hit that Georg base in just 24 hours. They targeted and they hit a gym, a hangar, and then housing units where soldiers slept. What does this pattern tell you about how exposed some 50,000 US service members may be in the region right now?

[Chuck Hagel]

Well, when you start a war with no strategy, these kinds of things happen. And of course, casualties always happen in wars. And you have to factor that in when you talk about taking a nation to war and committing our men and women to that kind of combat and possibility of casualties, what, what we've got to do here in this, this endless war that we got ourselves into, kind of like three wars that we didn't have any strategy or connection to understanding. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. We've got to start listening to the diplomatic core. How do we get out of this? We've got to listen to what's going on in the Middle East. This isn't just a war with Iran and the United States anymore and Israel. This is a war with the Middle East. It is connected to the world, the economy. So the whole world is involved in this in some way as a consequence of what we started.

[Bianna Golodryga]

So the enemy, as it says as it goes, has a say here as well. And in terms of where Iran views things diplomatically, they had an option, an opportunity really that many thought was the best opportunity they could have and perhaps a bad option that the United States laid out on the table for itself and that was the 60 day MOU. Sanctions would be lifted, the strait would be opened, the war would end. Iran, despite having all of those opportunities, chose to once again break that MoU and attack ships going through the strait. So what does that tell you about where they are right now in terms of a diplomatic off ramp?

[Chuck Hagel]

Well, what we have produced in Iran today over the last more than four months is a regime much more difficult to deal with, much more militant, less inclined to deal with us or to resolve these issues. And that's the reality and the consequence of the action that we started with not thinking through this. Actions have consequences, inactions have consequences. And, and I don't know what's going on strategically inside, but when the President said continue to attack them and go to war on the basis of retribution for them killing our soldiers, that's not the way to conduct the war. You got to go deeper than that. And I don't know if they're doing that. I don't know what they're doing diplomatically. That's the only way it's going to get resolved. Or at least the beginning of resolution here is, is through that process. You, you've got two real estate people who are in charge of the diplomatic efforts. This is, this is not a real estate deal. This is not a deal. And you, you can't conduct anything like this on a retribution basis. You hit us, we'll hit you more. And this goes on and on and on. Somebody's got to start thinking a lot deeper and wider than what we're seeing now.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Well, we're now in 10 days of back and forth strikes, the US focus is on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. And that's where a number and the majority of these targets have been in attacking Iranian infrastructure. But we have seen attacks on critical civilian infrastructure as well. U.S. strikes hit Iranian water plants. Iran retaliated with strikes that damage desalinization and power facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain as well. Does targeting basic water desalinization facilities, civilian facilities, or at least facilities that function perhaps in both ways, civilian and militarily, does that get the United States to a place where it has leverage here?

[Chuck Hagel]

No. And if for no other reason than what we're doing here, it's the same thing Israel has been doing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon is. You're creating generations of new terrorists. You're creating generations of new anti Americans. Look at what's happening with the Houthis in Yemen threatening to close down that waterway coming out of the Red Sea. I mean, this is what happens if you're not smart about this. And where do you want to go and what do you want to accomplish? Five months ago, the Strait of Hormuz was open and we've made it worse. And so we've got to start thinking beyond just that. I mean, we hear a new explanation every day what this war was about. Well, it was supposedly first about Iranians not having nuclear capability and capacity. I mean, the Obama administration answered this thing in 2015, had a very smart program plan that everybody was abiding by. And in fact, all the nations of the world, including Russia and China, signed onto it. The United nations signed onto it. That's what we need to get back to, to resolve this. But I don't know if this, this president or this administration has capacity to do that. So this is going to go on.

[Mark Pocan]

Yeah.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And on the other side, there's nobody to say who in this Iranian, the current Iranian regime that would be able to negotiate a deal at this point as well. And on that specific issue of Iran's nuclear program, the president today made a number of newsworthy comments. One was that the next target perhaps would be Pickaxe Mountain. This after there had been reports that Israeli intelligence provided to the United States showed that centrifuges had been moved to Pickaxe Mountain, which is considerably deeper than even Fordeau. After the strikes last year, the 12 day war between between Israel, the United States and Iran, President Trump saying that would be the next target. And he said the only reason he's announcing that is because there's nothing that Iran could do to stop it. So your reaction to the President saying there's nothing Iran could do? Perhaps very optimistic that their defense systems have been decimated. And also, would the United States, even with bunker buster bombs, be able to penetrate pickaxe?

[Chuck Hagel]

Well, let's start with the fact a couple of months ago the president said we have totally emasculated the Iranian capabilities of their armed forces. Well, not quite right. I mean, if you want to do what he's talking about doing here, and you can, with our capabilities, you can bomb them, you can strafe them, you can do all of that, but you're going to have to put troops on the ground. If you really want to accomplish what he says that he's going to accomplish and what he said we accomplished two months ago or three months ago, that's where this is going. That's again, going back to my original point. Where is this going? We're just getting deeper and deeper into this hole. The Iranians are not going to give up. I mean, you've got the entire, like I said, Middle east involved now, and you've got another war going on in Ukraine, and we've got capability issues with our inventories of our weaponry. That's now becoming very clear. The Congress has got to get in this. I mean, where's the Congress been absent on that point on any policy here

[Bianna Golodryga]

on that point of Congress? Secretary Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Kaine will be testifying today before the Senate asking for more funding for the war. It has been three months now. It has. It's been since May, since we last had a briefing from both the Secretary of Defense and he would jointly stand there and brief the public and the media with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. It's been May since their last briefing. The New York Times initially reported, and then the Pentagon then followed up by announcing that some 100 servicemembers have been injured over the last few weeks. Dozens. We haven't had a real uptake update on how many have been wounded until now. You've sat at that witness table as Secretary, asking for more supplemental funding. Can Congress do more at this point? In terms of the questions you're asking right now, where is this war going? Where is this money going?

[Chuck Hagel]

Well, of course they can. They control the funding, the power of the purse. That's one of the constitutional requirements that the Congress has. And only Congress can appropriate money. That's number one. Also. Where's the Congress been on any kind of a vote? Are we in favor of this? Are we not in favor? What's going on? What do we know? What do we don't know? I mean, where the Congress has been has been, I mean, truly unbelievable to me. And it's let down the American public. I mean, you know the numbers on this, the Polling numbers. And I think a lot of that is because there's no support for this war, because people are unsure, why did we start it? Where are we going? And the longer, as I've said, the longer you go with this, the deeper you get into this. And the Congress, again, is the one body that can stop it.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And do they have the backbone to do that?

[Chuck Hagel]

They've got. They have not had the backbone. They've got a constitutional responsibility. But even more basic than that, the Congress has responsibility to the people of this country who fund the taxes, who fund those wars, and who have jurisdiction, literally, over decisions made. Because we are a republic. Nothing starts until there's an election. And the people of this country, we're a republic, decide when you send a senator or congressman to Washington, you send them because they're going to protect your interests. What are we doing? Maybe it's a just war. Maybe everything we're doing is just. How do we know that there's been no transparency? Nobody from the administration. We hear the president every day, but everything he said is just basically not true. And then he changes his approach the next day. So the Congress has got a very, very significant responsibility here, and they've not fulfilled it.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah, maybe this is a just war, but you're right. Transparency is the name of the game here in terms of what Congress has owed the American taxpayers and most importantly, those families of the 17 service members that have lost their lives since this.

[Chuck Hagel]

That's exactly right. The people who fight the wars. And I was in one of those wars in Vietnam in 1968. There was no transparency there either.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah.

[Chuck Hagel]

And we lost almost 57,000 men and women in that war because no one had the courage on the political front in the Congress and the presidency to step forward and be honest about it.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Secretary Hagel, we really appreciate the time today. Thank you so much. Well, later in the program, Cuba is in the grip of a deepening humanitarian crisis after months of a U. S. Imposed oil blockade. After the break, I'll speak to a U.S. congressman who just returned from the island. I'm Audie Cornish.

[Ari Shapiro]

I'm Ari Shapiro. And it's engagement party. And we get to talk about what we're obsessed with, what we're engaged with, what we need to process with a friend, your favorite love island. Young people are actually gathering in person in public places to watch it as if it were, I don't know, the World cup or something.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah, yeah. The takes are coming in hot and fast, but not as hot and fast as the takes coming in for Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey, which is crazy because this movie, it's only just now coming out. Follow Engagement Party wherever you get your podcasts. I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service are virtual wallets on the way to replacing the classic billfold? And as a tech reporter, I cannot help but wonder what are the risks of storing so much personal information in one place on our phones? Thankfully, Consumer Reports investigative reporter Lisa Gill spent months trying to answer those questions. She joined me to talk about her own digital wallet journey and how to keep your financial data as secure as possible.

[Mark Pocan]

Google Wallet, Samsung Wallet, and Apple Wallet tell you that they do not hold funds. They merely facilitate a transaction. Your information is stored on your phone, not with them. PayPal, Cash App and Venmo actually do hold funds, and they, in my mind, act a lot more like a bank.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts. For six months, Cuba has been suffering under a US Imposed oil blockade, causing havoc and suffering that is only getting worse. Its national grid has collapsed multiple times this month, with Cubans racing to charge their phones or pump water whenever the power comes on, even if it's in the middle of the night. And the Trump administration isn't letting the pressure up. This month it leveled further sanctions on the country, this time targeting its tourism industry. In recent weeks, several Democratic lawmakers made the journey to the island and have denounced the suffering that they saw. Among them was Congressman Mark Pocan, who joins me now from Washington, D.C. congressman, thank you. Welcome to the program. Thanks for joining us. The State Department today calls Cuba the, quote, capital of 21st century communism, still exporting instability across the region. You walked the streets of the island. What did you see?

[Mark Pocan]

Yeah, so I saw that report. I have a copy of it with me by the State Department, just came out yesterday. To call it fantastical would be probably the best definition. Look, I saw what the US Blockade is doing and it's not just an oil blockade. It's a blockade of food, goods, medicine. Even in war, we allow medicines and medical devices to travel. It's a complete blockade and it's really an involuntary global blockade because any country that does will face sanctions from the United States. So what we're doing is for 65 plus years we've had some sort of blockade almost continuous on the Cuban people. But right now we've intensified it so that it's really a boot on the neck of the Cuban people. You know, their electric grid has failed multiple times for long periods of time. They can't get any medicine or parts for medical devices, for their hospitals. They don't have food. They can't even have kids in school right now because the power situation, and it's just something that we claim we're looking out for the Cuban people against the Cuban government. And instead we're actually hurting the Cuban people. And that's the real problem.

[Bianna Golodryga]

What was the impetus for the trip? Have you been before? Did you decide to go following this blockade? And is this something that your constituents have prioritized?

[Mark Pocan]

Yeah, we have a sister city, Madison, Wisconsin, with Kamague, Cuba. So it's something that people back home do care about. And I've been there 30 years ago, I've been there three and a half years ago, and then just again last week. And I can tell you the difference as I saw it, you know, with no fuel, not only did they go 42 hours without power, we had an hour and a half of power, and then it went back down again. But that means you also don't have garbage trucks to pick up garbage. It's literally piling up in the streets. We don't have, you know, they have one of the best medical systems and they export doctors throughout Central and South America, and they can't do that. In fact, they have to. When the power goes out, surgeons use their phones, lights, to finish a surgery. This is all because of our blockade. It just doesn't make any sense. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Here we are doing this when in reality, under Barack Obama, we opened up relations. Americans went to Cuba to vacation. They were thriving, and quite honestly, they loved America. And guess what? There was no ill towards our country by doing so. But this report by the State Department, I think is setting up a military action. We're already in a quagmire in Iran, but I think this is Marco Rubio's personal South Florida pet project, and he wants us to go into Cuba in a way that I don't think the American people support.

[Bianna Golodryga]

The doctors that you saw sort of improvising in the dark Havana, and you briefly touched on this, has sent thousands of of doctors overseas to bring regime hard currency back home. Is this an embargo problem, then? Or is this the Cuban regime choosing to prioritize their funding differently?

[Mark Pocan]

Well, no. I mean, there's a lot of different funding. One of the things the US Government claims we want to see is private enterprise. And we met with some people who had small businesses. One gentleman had bakeries he had 400 employees. Now he's got 12 because of the US blockade. So here we say we want private sector development. They just did 176 reforms that the small business owners told me will be good for having a small business in Cuba. And yet we don't recognize those because we are setting up a false narrative about what's actually happening. So the bottom line is they want to have the US Invest, they want to have small businesses. They've told us that over and over. Small business owners, the government, people in the nonprofit sector. But we're not allowing any of it through having the most total blockade that any country on the planet faces. So we've done this for 65 years. It hasn't worked. I just think it's time to maybe go back to what we had under Barack Obama and try to develop a different relationship.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And every administration that has imposed these sanctions say that they are sanctioning the regime, not the people. From what you've seen, from what you've heard, does that distinction hold?

[Mark Pocan]

No. I mean, again, it's fantastical. That's why, if you want a good read, you can't sleep. Read the State Department report. It's pretty ridiculous. It's kind of like the excuse the dog ate my homework. It's about as credible, right? The dog doesn't eat everyone's homework. And Cuba doesn't cause everything. In the US they literally are trying to blame Cuba for Black Lives Matter, for ICE protests, you name it. This is a small country that's very impoverished, that can barely do anything right now, given the blockade, and yet somehow they're still the mastermind. To me, that smells of a rat. Right? This doesn't pass the smell test. I think this is really being set up to do something. What we saw in Venezuela was partially directly related to Cuba. And I just think that this, the American government, unfortunately, is lying to the American people about Cuba. So not many visuals come out of Cuba, as you well know. So I think part of what we're trying to do, when we go to a delegation like this, come back, speak the truth, and just make sure that we don't wind up in another potentially disastrous military intervention like we're right now in the middle of in Iran.

[Bianna Golodryga]

So, as you know, the administration, the State Department in particular, has accused Cuba of housing both Russian and Chinese intelligence operations. And the counter to everything you've just laid out is that Cuba's economy has been mismanaged to the ground by a state that controls everything and has for decades and has crushed private business and enterprise. So isn't blaming the embargo itself sort of taking away any agency that the regime has and how much they own of the current situation there?

[Mark Pocan]

Look, they have a very different government structure. I can point out things that we raise with them, that we have concerns about people's civil liberties.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah. What did you raise with them?

[Mark Pocan]

Some of the people that have been imprisoned five years ago for speaking out. But again, we have people who speak out in the United States as well. But we think you have a right to do that. However, it's very clear that if you don't allow medical parts from the US that's not the Cuban government's problem. That's our problem. It's our blockade. And we even allow that, again, in the situations of real war. So it is our total blockade that's really causing this, and it's ultimately felt by the people of Cuba. That's when you talk to folks, you know, if they happen to get power during these rolling blackouts at 2am they go to their windows and bang on pots and pans to wake everyone up because that's the only time you could take a shower. One woman with us hadn't had any water for eight days. That's when they cook their food for the day. But of course, they can't use the refrigerator because they have no power. That's not mismanagement. That's directly because we don't allow you to bring any oil in from another country. And if you do, we'll sanction you. So again, it goes back to US Policy and the fact that they do have, over my visits to Cuba, far more of a private sector trying to grow. But again, they can't grow because we won't allow anything through because of the blockade. So everything I see really comes back to this. Total blockade is not working at least how we claim it's supposed to. And I think that's where the focus has to be.

[Bianna Golodryga]

You mentioned the lack of freedom of political expression. So many locked away in prisons there, not because the power is out, but because the regime doesn't allow for dissent. There are continued concerns over that very issue. Prominent dissident Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara has just arrived in the United States after years in prison. And here's what he said.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

For me, Cuba's future is the result

[Mark Pocan]

of the work of many people over

[Bianna Golodryga]

a long period of time.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

The fact that the US Government is supporting us right now is good, but it also remains in the hands of Cubans who have to rebuild and Build everything that's needed. Cuba's future depends on us, the Cuban people.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Is Washington doing enough for dissidents like this man was and that are currently being jailed in Cuba?

[Mark Pocan]

Yeah. So they have released a lot of the prisoners. They say they're going to release some more as part of the conversations that we had because it is of concern and should be. But of course, we know there are scores of countries that we also have concerns with on this front. But we don't blockade them as a nation. We don't stop medicine from coming in. We don't make it so that they're still CT scanners and their MRI machines don't work because they can't get parts from the United States. So I think whatever we're doing is we're handling the blockade as more than a hammer to the Cuban people. The way we support the Cuban people is allow the access of trade. If we believe in our system of government, which I do, then allow the free flow like we did under Barack Obama. And you'll see not only the US be able to take advantage of a neighbor 90 miles away off our shore by vacationing and enjoying aspects of the country. You're going to see the country thrive and improve the relations. But, you know, nothing happened bad to the United States during that period because so much of this is old Cold War arguments. In fact, about two thirds of this report is about the 60s and 70s. And all of a sudden they jump to today and say, cuba did it. It's so ridiculous. It's probably the dumbest report I've read in my 14 years of being here. And whoever wrote it should be embarrassed.

[Bianna Golodryga]

What are your colleagues there in the Senate, in Congress? What do they say about this? Is there an appetite for a different Cuban policy, or is this sort of a lonely position that you and a handful of other of your colleagues have at this point?

[Mark Pocan]

Jim McGovern, who wasn't part of our group, has some legislation to help lift the blockade. I believe Ms. Velasquez from New York has a bill about a War Powers Resolution in case we're trying to come in and do any kind of intervention. So there's a lot of people that aren't part of the group. I think the main thing is you don't get visuals out of Cuba. There's just not enough coming that people can see what we saw. And having been there three times, I can tell you this has been absolutely the worst it's ever been. And it's more directly related to what the United States is doing. Than anything else. And given that it is my responsibility not just as having a sister city from Madison in Wisconsin and Cuba, but also as someone who serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee to care about this. And I'll be raising some of these issues tomorrow with the US Ambassador in a committee.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Have you spoken, have you final question. Have you spoken with the Secretary of State directly about this?

[Mark Pocan]

No, but that's part of what we want to do. This report, literally, it was 100 pages. I read it yesterday. Most people don't even know it's out. I'm trying to get people to look at it because this is nothing more than a blueprint for an invasion. And we just can't have another quagmire in the top of Iran in the Middle East.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Keep us posted. Congressman, on your conversations there. We appreciate your time. We appreciate the effort.

[Mark Pocan]

Thank you.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Well, across the globe, extreme heat is getting worse as the realities of climate change make themselves unmistakably felt. In Spain, the largest wildfire of the year is still burning even as another heat wave begins. London is bracing for a six day heat wave, having already endured a record breaking June. And records are also being shattered this summer in the United States with wildfires from Canada creating a brew of toxic air being felt across multiple states. For more on this, let's bring in Radley Horton, a professor of climate at Columbia University. Radley, it's good to have you back on the program. It's not a summer without a conversation with you, sadly, on extreme weather. And here we are again. Let's talk about what we've been dealing with here in the United States in large portions of the Northeast and the Midwest here, and that is the Canadian wildfires. Canada is reporting more than 840 active fires, over 180 of them currently out of control. Put this season into context for us. How unusual is this fire activity in Canada?

[Ari Shapiro]

Yeah. So thus far, it's too early to say whether 2026 is going to prove to be a top year in terms of the area burned. What we can say is that there are very strong upward trends in terms of the area burned by fire In Canada. We have records, satellite records that go back 50 years or so, and we have other records that go back longer. And we can see, for example, that 2023 was twice as bad as any prior year. 2025 was the second. And as you intimated, this year is off to a really rough start with so many fires burning out of control. The numbers aren't huge yet in terms of total area burned, but it's part of this strong upward trend that's directly connected to higher temperatures and global warming

[Bianna Golodryga]

and in fact affecting a huge portion of the population, not just in Canada, but as noted here in the United States as well. Fire expert Michael Flanagan says that the area burned by Canadian wildfires has nearly quadrupled since the 1970s and attributes that largely to human caused climate change. Do you back up his theory there?

[Ari Shapiro]

Generally speaking, I do. What we can say for sure is that air temperatures going up is the most direct effect of climate change and the human burning of fossil fuels. And we've seen that summer fire season in Canada warm by almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit, more than 2 degrees Celsius over the last several decades. Now, what that means is for each single degree celsius of warming, there's 7% more moisture that's basically going to get sucked out of all the trees, sucked out of all the vegetation, simply because a hotter atmosphere demands more water, if you will. So this is a very direct effect. As we see those higher temperatures, you would have needed a lot more rainfall just to sort of maintain the balances of the past. And then we're also seeing more of these individual weather events like this all time highest pressure associated with very hot, hot temperatures over individual days. That is the fuel that takes you from just overall drying and tinderboxes that forests are becoming towards fire weather conditions on individual days that let these things explode. The north shore of Lake Superior, Thunder Bay area, not somewhere we think of as getting incredibly hot, was close to 40 degrees Celsius 103 Fahrenheit Monday when those fires started to explode. Areas further north, 107Fahrenheit. These are really, really extreme temperatures. And while a number of factors can contribute to fire, we can attribute those higher temperatures due to global warming being a critical factor, making them so much worse. We're also seeing more lightning strikes, it seems, which cause a lot of these fires as the planet warms too, due to human activities.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And the pace at which these fires are growing is quite stunning. The community of Collins First Nation was first told that there was no immediate danger to that community. Hours later, residents were fleeing by boat as flames reached the shoreline there. Are our warning systems equipped for these types of fires? Is there anything that needs to be done to update them?

[Ari Shapiro]

Absolutely, things need to be done. It's incredibly challenging, but that's all the more reason why we have to try to do more so as we can anticipate these extreme fire weather conditions. When we see these heat waves coming, we need more precautions. Some communities are going to need to remove some of that vegetation nearby, some of that forest cover that can help these fires jump. But when we get this really catastrophic fire weather, things can happen so quickly. It's such a dynamic, dynamic environment where you see the fires jumping across the canopy over big distances. So it is a huge challenge. But yes, there's so much more that we need to do in terms of warnings, in terms of being ready to evacuate, in terms of having multiple outlet pathways, multiple roads out of communities, and then long term, in terms of changing policy. But the single biggest long term thing that we can do is to profoundly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. That's the way to lower the temperatures and take a big step towards making these events so much less likely and so much less deadly.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Before we get to the broader issue of the Trump administration's views on climate change as it relates to the Canadian fires, as you know, President Trump has accused Canada of poor forest management and has threatened tariffs over smoke crossing over the border. He has said that Carney is poisoning. As a scientist. Does bad management actually hold up here as perhaps an argument as to why these fires have impacted such large portions of the United States?

[Ari Shapiro]

Yeah, ironically, it's really over the Western U.S. when we see the fires there, which we've also been seeing a strong upward trend in, those are the ones that have a stronger link to forest management because the western US has much more of a percentage of forest area that has been managed in the past. Much of Canada has no history of forest management. A lot of the more northern regions where some of these fires are, are too vast, too remote for any kind of forest management or extraction really to be possible. So that's sort of an irony behind these statements. But forest management in some places and even in some parts of Canada is maybe part of the story. But the part that's really due to human activities is this increase in air temperatures. So, you know, if you're living right near a major city in an area that's had a lot of forest management, air temperature trends that I've talked about are going to be a big factor. But you're also going to need to think about trends in ignition. Are more fires getting started by people intentionally or usually not intentionally, and then also that that history of forest management have trees built up, including dead trees, in ways that lead to bigger fires. That, generally speaking, is not the primary story in Canada. This is really a story more about higher temperatures making fires that'll happen naturally be that much more extreme when they happen. Now, there are broader ironies, of course, as well, not just because Canada isn't able to manage a lot of these remote fires, doesn't have a history of any kind of mismanagement, not only because the US has been a source of a lot of smoke and a lot of downstream fire damage, but also, of course, because if you want to take that attribution argument one step further and think about responsibility longer term, the U.S. of course, through such a big role in emitting greenhouse gases, is actually a major player, a major driver globally in the fact that we're seeing more extreme, more intense, more damaging fires.

[Bianna Golodryga]

That's interesting. So you say, given the frequency of US fires, specifically in certain parts of this country, that management should be better than it currently is. And it's more rare to see these types of fires in Canada. I'd like to get to some statistics here. 61% of American voters say they believe extreme weather is getting more frequent. Included among them nearly half the of Republicans. Yet the World Risk Report finds that out of 10 countries, the US has the second largest gap between how many people believe climate change is a serious threat versus how many of their fellow citizens they believed are concerned about them making themselves sort of isolated minorities. What do you think can be done to change that? Because there seems to be a disconnect between how people at home privately are viewing climate change versus how they perceive their neighbors to be viewing it.

[Ari Shapiro]

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think there's a lot of components there. Some of it has to do with human psychology, but some of it I think, needs to acknowledge that there has been a large disinformation campaign especially focused on the US that it's going on to this day, continuing to undermine these very basic, well understood scientific principles that go back over 100 years. Now, human activities and the burning of fossil fuels are increasing air temperatures. They are causing more extreme events of various types, whether it's really heavy rain events, whether it's exceptional heat waves, whether it's more fires in many areas, for example, and that these are having these huge impacts. So part of it is that disinformation campaign.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah. All right, Radley Horton, thank you so much. Great to have you on. We'll stay in touch with you as the summer continues. Really appreciate it.

[Ari Shapiro]

Thank you.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Coming up for us after the break, author Adrienne Wooldridge joins Walter Isaacson to explain why liberalism has become the most misunderstood term in politics.

[Mark Pocan]

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast.

[Ari Shapiro]

We're going to talk to Dr. Jennifer McIntyre.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

She's a microbiologist and also founder of Food Safety Strategy, which consults with food companies about how to deal with food safety, including cyclospora.

[Mark Pocan]

Also, perhaps most importantly, we'll tell you what you can realistically do to protect yourself beyond the standard guidance to wash

[Adrian Wooldridge]

your fruits and veggies.

[Bianna Golodryga]

If we look at outbreaks that have happened in the past, we usually hypothesize that there was water that was contaminated with raw sewage, including from somebody or maybe a few people who were carrying cyclospora.

[Mark Pocan]

Listen to Chasing Life streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bianna Golodryga]

The word liberal is everywhere in politics, and our next guest argues that liberalism is one of the most misunderstood terms in our political vocabulary. Author and Bloomberg columnist Adrian Wooldridge joins Walter Isaacson to dissect what the term truly means.

[Walter Isaacson]

Thank you. Bianna and Adrienne Wooldridge, welcome to the show.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Thank you.

[Walter Isaacson]

Your book the Revolutionary center is a defense of Liberalism. Liberalism, though, has two meanings here in the United States. It's generally like classical liberalism based on the rights of the individual, stemming from John Locke and others, I'd say. And then there's liberalism in a political sense, which tends to implied big state, big government spending programs. Tell me what you mean by liberalism and why do we have two different definitions of it?

[Adrian Wooldridge]

I would say that the core meaning of liberalism is three things. One is individualism. It's a political philosophy that starts with the individual and works upwards and outwards. You always as a liberal concerned with the rights, duties and self development of the individual. Secondly, it's a belief that starts with that notion of tolerance. We must be tolerant of other people's opinions. And the only way to come to the truth or to eliminate error at the very least is through open debate. And tolerance assumes also a society with plural values, pluralism, different people living in different ways. And the third thing is skepticism about power, saying that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And because it's this dangerous drug, you need to divide it and limit it and to enumerate rights and things like that. Those are the three essential things about liberalism. The issue of whether you have a big state or a small state are secondary things. You can be a liberal and support a big state. You can be a liberal and support a small state. Keynes was a liberal, wanted a bigger state. Hayek was a liberal, wanted a smaller state. Those are secondary things. I'm saying that the three essential things are tolerance, skepticism about power, and a commitment to individualism. And I think in the 1990s we became obsessed with arguments about the size of the state. And you've got people who wanted big states saying the other people were reactionists, and people who wanted small states saying the other people were false liberals. And that was a bit of a deception about what was going on. And I think we were able to have that deception, that confusion in the 1990s, because we were all basically liberal. Everybody agreed about the three big things that I was talking about. That was the era of liberal triumphalism and an era in which we could become citizens.

[Walter Isaacson]

Let me put a pit on that. You think that President Reagan, Prime Minister Thatcher were liberals in that sense, just as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were. Explain that.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Yeah, absolutely, George W. Bush. But there was a big argument about the size of the state. And Thatcher was on one side to some extent, Clinton and Blair were on the other side, but they all basically agreed in liberal values. Now we're in a different world. We're in a world in which you have autocrats on the march who don't believe in individualism, who don't believe in separating powers, who don't believe in tolerance. Putin XI and the rest of it. The biggest economy in the world, by some measures, is an autocratic power. You have Trump in the White House, who I think doesn't agree with a lot of things that George W. Bush or George H.W. bush would have thought were absolutely essential. So I think we have to stop focusing on the secondary debate about the size of the state. And all of us as liberals, whether we're big state liberals or small state liberals, have to agree. There are certain fundamental values that we have to agree to defend. And those values are under attack more now than they have been at any point since the 1930s.

[Walter Isaacson]

Well, you say it's a secondary issue whether you have a really big state or a small state. But that seems connected to liberalism. A very big state, with doing a whole lot taxing a whole lot, would in some ways seem to be counter to basic liberalism. Is that right?

[Adrian Wooldridge]

No, I don't think so. I think that you can have the argument for the big state can be a liberal argument. If you say you need a bigger state in order to give people equality of opportunity, in order to give them the conditions in which they can develop their individual characters, personalities, in which you intervene when people need pensions or need social assistance, if you're doing that to give them the quality of opportunity, to give them the capacity to develop themselves as individuals, I don't think that's necessarily. Now, there are people who believe in the big state who are illiberal because they want to have collectivist values imposed on society, because they want society to march together as a single, disciplined unit. I mean, Xi believes in the big state. He's anti liberal. Putin believes in the big state. He's anti liberal. But I think, you know, Lyndon Johnson was perfectly reasonable liberal. Bill Clinton, you know, was a liberal, Barack Obama was a liberal, because they were doing these things to emancipate the individual and to allow the individual to achieve their destiny.

[Walter Isaacson]

What about the democratic socialists that are arising in the Democratic Party?

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Absolutely not liberals. I think, in my mind, I think there are two big threats to liberalism at the moment. One comes from the right, which believes in power and believes in putting people into certain categories. But the other comes from the left, and that is because there are people on the left who are obsessed with racial, gender, biological categories, who say that you were born into a certain role in life because of who you are, and that you cannot transcend that through self help, self development, and the rest of it. So I think in some ways there are similarities between the threats on the left and threats on the right because they're both in their fundamental conception of society and the responsibilities of the state, anti individualist rather than individualist.

[Walter Isaacson]

And you say that in the book. You say that the progressive left is as illiberal as the Trumpian right. But look, it seems like a bit of a false equivalence, but push back if I'm wrong. I mean, are overzealous college professors who kind of push back a bit on speech? Are they the same as a president who's refusing to accept the results of an election?

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Well, I think you have a very good point there. I wrote this before the current Trump administration. I should have taken to look at more the results of the election. I think in the first Trump term, we had a president who is in some way constrained until the very end when he tried to overturn the results of an election. In the second Trump term, we have a much more aggressive, self confident, full Trump sort of Trump. And I think that he has overstepped the mark on more and more and more occasions. So I do think there is a bigger threat from the right than from overzealous college professors. However, I do think if you're a college professor or a college student, if you're in that sort of environment, you should be doubly sensitive to the importance of debate, tolerance, a free exchange of views. And to shout people down in a learning environment is extremely destructive and dangerous. And that's Only the beginning. If those people get power, they're more likely, if they start off from a position of intolerance, to become yet more intolerant if they have power. So the logical conclusion of an identitarian left is almost the same as the logical conclusion of an identitarian right. But Trump's never pretended to be a liberal. I mean, these people would claim to be liberals, and they're acting in a liberal fashion.

[Walter Isaacson]

You say part of the liberal revolution of the 1990s was allowing more open borders and free immigration, which seems to be a tenet in some ways. Free movement of people should be a tenet of liberalism. And there was something in your book. I'm going to read it to you, because it was so tough, in which you say, Sweden suffers from the highest rate of death by shooting in Europe thanks to the proliferation of immigrant gangs. The British northern cities that powered the industrial revolution are plagued in their ethnic enclave by cousin marriage, honor punishment and grooming gangs. And that was the result of all these immigration policies. You say don't. Liberal immigration policies. Isn't that at the heart of tolerance or diversity that a liberal should believe in?

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Well, what I argue in my book is that liberalism should be capable of inventing itself and changing itself when the world changes. As Keynes says, you know, when it starts raining, I put up my umbrella. And I think that in the 1990s, the 2000s, there was a common consensus amongst liberals. And I was certainly one of those people who said that immigration could only be good. Good economically because you've got more labor, but good culturally because it led to more and more pluralism of values, lifestyles and things like that. And also it was a liberal thing to do. And I think that what's happening now is that the biggest threat to liberalism is coming from the public reaction to very high levels of immigration, and that those high levels of immigration have sometimes led to very good things, but not always led to very good things. We have a problem of assimilation in the United Kingdom. We have. In Sweden, they have a massive problem of. Of gang violence, which is mainly from ethnic minority communities. And what you get, if you get a sense that society is spinning out of control by. Over liberal policies, over progressive policies, is that you get Trumpism or you get Faragism or you get. In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats, who were originally a neo Nazi party, are part of governments. So there's a practical argument that we need to have firmer control of our borders in order to prevent the bad guys from getting in. But there's also a Bigger argument than that. And that is that society isn't just a collection of atomized individuals pursuing their interests. So it's illogical to have immigration controls. It is also that we need to have certain common values to organize around. So I think that liberalism went a bit too far in one particular free market, free morals direction. And we need to save liberalism by moving it a bit more towards

[Bianna Golodryga]

more

[Adrian Wooldridge]

restraint on the market and particularly with tech, and also more sense of responsibility, not just individuals doing their own thing.

[Walter Isaacson]

Let me take you back in history because more than 100 years ago, we were in a period very much like this one, with huge technological change, probably greater than the tech change we have now. Meaning we got electricity and light bulbs and automobiles and radio and telephones, and it led to disparities of great wealth. It led to robber barons. It also led liberalism to reinvent itself. Tell me how liberalism reinvented itself in the early 1900s and what lessons are for today.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Yeah, this is absolutely central to the argument of my book because I think we're living through in many ways a similar period. It now, in the middle and late 19th century, liberalism was a belief essentially in the free market, in the supremacy of the individual in market transactions, and something that was very skeptical about the state. The state intervention was something that was basically regarded as very bad. And you've got a lot of liberals in both Britain and the United States, Great Cleveland or Gladstone towards the end of his career, who cleaved very strongly to that idea. They hated the notion of state intervention. But other liberals say, well, if we're going to cleave to this doctrine, we may well be on the wrong side of history because what we're getting is the rise of democracy. America had a democracy at that period, slightly limited, but democracy, Britain really didn't. What we're seeing is we're getting the rise of great big massive industries. So it's not just a free market transaction. These corporations are huge entities and we have all the problems of industrialization in terms of sewage and lack of chaotic infrastructure in the streets. So they said in order to save capitalism, but also in order to save liberalism, a society based on the individual, we need a more active state. Roosevelt was very, I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was very interesting here because he said that in order to save the individual, particularly upper class individuals, from corruption, you need to stop them being so inheriting vast fortunes. You need to make sure that they're fit for the battle of life as he saw it. But he also said more fundamentally that if you get giant corporations that control the economy. You haven't really got free markets. You haven't really got open competition. So who's a supporter of antitrust and one of the first people to embrace antitrust in that way? You had in Britain the invention of the prototype of the welfare state, free education in schools, free milk, some sort of pension provision, a more active role for the state with a group of people called the New Liberals in Great Britain. And all of this was predicated on the idea that the only way that individuals could flourish in a mass society dominated by big corporations was for the state to make a more to take a more active role. And I think a lot of those problems are being represented to us by the current digital revolution. And a lot of the solutions also require us to be more active in relation to the state.

[Walter Isaacson]

Adrian Waldridge, thank you so much for joining us.

[Adrian Wooldridge]

Thank you.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And finally, a mom in Brisbane, Australia, has just given birth to identical quadruplets. No fertility treatment was involved. Such a pregnancy is incredibly rare, and a hospital specialist put the odds at 1 in 15 million. She believes it's the first case of its kind in Australia. The family found it equally surprising. They already had four children and hadn't planned on another, let alone four more. All four girls are doing well. We're wishing Emily, Harriet, Alexa and Kathryn a very, very warm welcome to the world, perhaps making history. And we're also wishing mom and dad just a little bit of sleep because they're going to need it. All right, that is it for now. Thank you so much for watching and goodbye from New York.

[Chuck Hagel]

Go inside the sports moments that brought us together and made history. From the underdog to the rivalries and the miracles. The new CNN original series, decades in Sports Watch back to back, premieres August 2nd on CNN. And next day on the CNN app.