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A
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up.
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The most important thing right now is to guarantee peace and security for the entire population of all of Mexico.
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Violence and unrest in Mexico following the killing of cartel leader El Mencho. I ask political scientist Viri Rios about the operation and its aftermath.
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Then, the Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing.
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Trump announces more global tariffs after America's highest court deemed his previous ones illegal. What does this mean for existing trade deals and consumers? Yale Budget Lab President Natasha Sarin weighs in.
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Plus, we will not bow down in the face of these difficulties.
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As Washington puts pressure on Tehran ahead of more nuclear talks this week, protests are reigniting in Iran. We get the details.
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Also ahead, the main thing in jazz is listening. We spend most of our night listening
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A
and trusting nearly four decades of jazz. At the Lincoln center, legendary musician Wynton Marsalis reflects on his career with Walter Isaacson. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Goudrega in New York, sitting in for Christian Amanpour. We start this hour with major breaking news from the UK Former British ambassador to the United States, Peter Mendelsohn has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has been accused of passing market sensitive information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while serving in government as business secretary. Two of his properties have been searched by police. Of course, this comes just days after the arrest of the king's brother, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He was also arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Both men have previously denied wrongdoing in connection with Jeffrey Epstein. The release of the Epstein file is clearly sending shockwaves through British society. We'll have more on this story later in the program. But now we turn to fire, smoke and chaos in Mexico as gang members there retaliated against the killing of a most wanted cartel boss in El Mencho. They torched buses and businesses, clashed with security forces and set hundreds of blockades across 20 Mexican states. The United States says that it provided intelligence for the operation in Jalisco State and the State Department is urging American citizens in parts of Mexico to shelter in place. Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum told the country this morning that peace and security is being maintained and stressed the key role that Mexico's military played in this operation.
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The operations were all planned by national forces.
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There was no planning by US Government,
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but we did have intelligence cooperation. Certainly intelligence and information exchanges were substantial, but all the operation right from the beginning was the responsibility of the armed forces of Mexico and the National Defense.
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El Mencho had been part of Mexican cartels for decades, having built up the Jalisco New generation cartel, or CJ, into one of Mexico's strongest. The US had offered $15 million for information leading to his arrest. Let's go now to Mexico City and Vera Rios, a Mexican scholar and editor of the Substack Mexico Decoded. Vera, it is good to see you again. So just talk about the significance of this operation. One can only compare El Mincho to the capture of El chapo back in 2019.
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That's correct. The capture and killing of El Mencho is probably the biggest blow to cartel leadership in many, many years. The Jalisco Cartel is currently the largest and the most powerful criminal organization in Mexico. And it is now much stronger than the Sinaloa cartel, as you mentioned, once led by El Chapo Guzman, who is currently serving time in prison. Now, the capture and killing of El Mencho brings, I would say, mixed consequences to Mexico. In the short term, of course, this is positive because it weakens the cartel. However, on the short term and on the medium term, the experience shows that violence often rise after a top leader of a cartel is removed. The problem is that Mexican cartels tend to split into rival groups that frequently fight each other for territorial control. The main issue here is not only to capture drug cartels, but to go to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is that the US has not invested enough in having a public health system that is capable of reducing illegal drug use within the US and as long as consumption and demand exist in the U.S. mexico will continue to suffer from the presence of criminal groups. Another critical issue here is arms trafficking. This morning, the Mexican officials identified that 80% of the weapons used by El Mencho came from the United States.
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A
And so in response to this operation, successful operation in taking out El Mencho yesterday, Mexico's Defense Minister described this as a success, saying that there was a low casualty fallout from it. And he praised the operation and the Mexican armed forces that conducted it. Here's what he said.
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I'd like to acknowledge the effort of
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the military staff which carried out a
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very successful operation from many points of views. And I think that really showed the strength of the Mexican Republic.
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A
Is he right there? I mean, is it time and is it warranted to view this as a victory lap? I would imagine that in their cost benefit analysis and plan, playing all this out and the response that you would see from the CJNG that this reaction was expected? No. To see these types of attacks throughout multiple States in retaliation.
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B
Yes, the reaction was expected. And this is precisely the cost that Mexico is going to have, a cost that the US Is not necessarily going to have in its own territory. The raid was carried out by the Mexican authorities with support from the US Intelligence. I would say that this is a success of the bilateral relation. Overall, what we observed is that 15 cartel members were killed during the operation and also one member of the Mexican armed forces died while confronting the cartel. Now, as you know, I'm talking to you from Mexico City and I can tell you that overall, in the whole country, life is slowly returning to normal. After the operation, as you mentioned, cartel members reacted with violence. We had plenty. Many like up to 250 roadblocks in 20 different states. All of them have now been cleared, particularly in the state of Jalisco, which is where the operation happened. Public transport and also classes were suspended. But the country is expecting life to return to normal entirely tomorrow.
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A
It's important to highlight that both the United States and Mexico say that this was an operation that was led by Mexican authorities with the help of United States intelligence. Specifically because there had been many threats from President Trump in particular about taking unilateral action and going after these cartels since he has labeled them terrorist organizations. At one point he even said that Claudia Sheinbaum was, quote, very frightened of the cartels. Given the fact that she authorized this successful operation, do you think that this has bought her or allowed for more of a reconciliation between her and President Trump on this particular issue?
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B
Well, I would question whether President Trump truly wants to reduce fentanyl overdoses in the US because many of his actions point in different directions. Let me give you three very clear examples. One is he recently pardoned the former president of Honduras who was accused of trafficking drugs into the U.S. second, he cut billions of dollars for programs that fund addiction treatment within the US which is precisely the type of policies that we need to control this problem. And third, he also rolled back support for homeless populations, which, as you know, are closely linked, unfortunately to substance abuse. So, yes, he's pressuring Mexico to do new operations against drug cartels, but as long as the US does not do the part that corresponds to the US this problem is never going to really get completely tackled.
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A
Yeah, I think it's fair that you point out some of the contradictions in the President's statements and policies and his own actions. Of course, he ran on eliminating fentanyl imports into this country, and that's been, at least up until now, one of his leading support policies. From his voters being closing the border and stopping illegal drugs coming in to the U.S. the timing of this is interesting as well, given that we have the World cup games in just a few months time and a crucial spring break period, which is pivotal for Mexico's tourism industry.
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B
Yes, this puts a lot of pressure into Mexican authorities to control the violence that may emerge after the capture of El Mencho. Capture and kill of El Mencho. But here, the critical issue for American voters and for people listening to us today is to understand that it doesn't really matter how many cartels Mexico kills, there will always be someone else ready to take control of the business of supplying illegal drugs to American consumers as long as there is a demand for that substance. So the problem of American drug consumption cannot be solved from abroad. It needs to be solved from within.
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A
Right, and you mentioned just how many illegal weapons have been seized as well. And as you noted, 80% of them have a US origin. I also will leave this segment by noting that you wrote in El Molenio that the real test isn't necessarily this capture. It's whether authorities can contain the violence that will follow. We've already seen some of that violence in the hours immediately after his killing. Viri Rios, thank you so much for your time and expertise. Really appreciate it.
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B
Thank you so much.
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A
All right, returning now to our top story. Former British Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Let's bring in correspondent Max Foster, who has the details from London. Max, we saw the video of that arrest earlier today, just a few moments ago, not necessarily a surprise following the arrest of former Prince Andrew Mountbatten Windsor last week. Nonetheless, a huge development here.
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Yeah. So the investigation into Mandelson started on February 3rd. They started searching his homes, including this one here in North London, his other one in Wiltshire as well. They clearly completed those searches and found evidence that they now want to present to him to the point where they're able to arrest him, in fact, take him away for interviewing. He hasn't been charged. He denies any wrongdoing, but they will be questioning him today and they could release him and rearrest him. Depending on the progress of those interviews. He may decide to say nothing, but this is part of the process that they have to go through. But there's clearly enough here for the Metropolitan Police to be taking this extremely seriously. This is sending alarm bells through Westminster because this is a central figure to Westminster politics. For decades now, he has had senior positions in government and these allegations actually go back to his Time as a business minister, as a senior government minister under Gordon Brown in particular, where he had public office and misused that public office allegedly to share government secrets, market sensitive information with Jeffrey Epstein. Now, last year he was fired from his position then as US Ambassador by the Prime Minister when it emerged that he had a much deeper relationship with Epstein that went on much longer than anyone knew. And he even described Epstein as his best friend. So he was fired at that point. And that, of course, Bjarne has raised questions about Starmer's premiership as well. It's really dogged him.
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A
Yes. And this has gone from perhaps questioning someone's character, judgment and who they associate with to now some real political hurdles and legal hurdles, specifically for Peter Mandelson, as he is being charged with the misconduct in public office and handling of sensitive information. And just remind our viewers that this dates back to the global financial crisis between 2008 and 2010 and what he is accused of sharing with Jeffrey Epstein.
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E
So this is a time when, you know, the world economy was trying to rebuild, particularly the Western economy, and there were lots of plans in place, Europe in the uk, to try to rebuild the financial system. So there are lots of discussions about how to do that. And it's alleged that he shared some of that information, which you can understand now why it's market sensitive. We don't know the specifics here, but if, for example, it was a bond release that was coming on later in the day, then that's certainly something that Epstein would be able to trade on. So this is why it's seen as such an affront that Mandelson was doing it at this time, because his role is to serve the public interest and it would have undermined the public interest if he was leaking that confidential market information. So it's a massive allegation against him and it will no doubt raise the pressure on the Prime Minister again, because his judgment has been called into question because he hired Manelson knowing that he had a friendship with Epstein. And there are big questions about whether he went through the right vetting process or whether he just gave Mandelson a quick pass into that very high profile role that's currently being investigated by Parliament. And we're going to get the first findings from that in March. So I don't think Keir Starmer's through the woods on this yet. And there will be other people implicated as well if we find out that there are more people that knew things about Mandelson's conduct at the time which they didn't reveal.
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A
Yeah. And a quick correction on my part. Mandelson has not been charged with any crime, yet he has been accused of wrongdoing. He has from the beginning claimed that he is innocent. Max Foster, thank you so much. Really appreciate the time and do stay with cnn. We'll be right back after a short break.
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I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the
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Chasing Life podcast, Hibernation.
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We've all heard the truth and might
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D
even think we know what it means.
- [16:31]
C
Bears and squirrels, other animals hunkering down for the winter only to emerge when the warmer weather of spring arrives.
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A
But what if hibernation itself was more
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C
complicated than we realized?
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A
His heart rate will go from about
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D
three beats a minute to upwards of
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A
400 beats per minute in about 10 minutes. That's incredible.
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C
And what if hibernators had superpowers that
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D
could one day be tapped for humans,
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A
for things like cancer, heart attacks, depression,
- [16:59]
D
and even space travel?
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C
Those are the questions researchers and scientists
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A
all over the world are getting closer
- [17:05]
F
to answering every day.
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D
Listen to Chasing Life Streaming now, wherever
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you get your podcasts.
- [17:19]
A
Now to the United States, where President Trump is still fuming over the Supreme Court decision on Friday that ruled his tariffs are illegal. Today, writing on Truth Social that the justices did a great job for the wrong people, Trump now insists that he'll raise global tariffs to 15% using a different law. Meanwhile, there's still major uncertainty over tariff refunds. The issue was sent back to the lower courts. Natasha Sarin is the president of the Budget Lab at Yale University and has been the expert voice on all things tariff related. Natasha, great to have you back on the program. As we see with the US markets today, I think down over 800 points, there is a lot of concern about what this means in terms of stability. And the uncertainty question does loom large. But you wrote that President Trump all along had said that if the Supreme Court ruled against these tariffs, quote, it would literally destroy the United States. You argue that's an overstatement because these tariffs only make up about 10% of US GDP. So if the tariffs alone aren't such an existential threat, why so much concern about the response now? Even this message that they have created with so much uncertainty now, I think
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G
the tariffs alone are bad and detrimental to the US Economy. The idea of having tariff rates that we haven't seen in the last century being pursued along the lines of the most inflationary policies of our lifetimes that are likely to translate into, you know, 1500, $1800 of price increases for the average American family. But Even more than the level of, of tariffs, the sort of volatility associated with this trade regime strikes me as really problematic. You've seen the effect of tariff rate change more than 60 times so far in the second Trump administration, and that includes three times since the Supreme Court ruled on Friday. And so I think part of the challenge and part of what you're seeing markets react to is the fact that we're in a bit of this tariff doom loop now. We're using different authorities now that IPA has been deemed unlawful to try to effectuate tariffs that essentially the same rates they were before the Supreme Court decision. Those authorities will then be challenged. This will be rounds of litigation about who gets refunds if there are refunds where the tariff rates are ultimately going to land. And that makes it really hard for businesses to plan, for consumers to plan, but also really difficult on the international stage with respect to negotiations around what trade policy is going to be. Because, and you've heard it from Europe this weekend, the nature of the chaos coming out of this administration makes it very, very, very challenging to try to see how the negotiat negotiations should take place.
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A
Yeah. And it's interesting that we had Justice Baritch, who ruled with the majority agree with the other justices, who some ruled with the minority in upholding these tariffs, saying that this would create a mess nonetheless. And if these refunds, then ultimately at some point after months, if not years of litigation do go to corporations, what is the likelihood that consumers will ever see some of the money back that they've actually had to spend more of?
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Yes.
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Sort of the eternal question, where is my tariff refund? It was really interesting in oral argument where you heard Justice Amy Coney Barrett say, won't effectuating these refunds ultimately create a mess? And that same sort of sentiment of create a mess was echoed by Justice Kavanaugh and his dissent to the court's decision on Friday. And the Supreme Court was silent on the question of if there will be refunds, let alone how those refunds might ultimately take place. And ultimately this is going to be an issue that lower courts are going to decide. But the thing that's really important from the perspective of the American consumer is something between about $140 billion of tariffs have come in through these IPA authorities that were declared unlawful in the last year. Something between 50 to 70% of those have been passed through to consumers in the form of higher prices. And so as you even if we do ultimately refund these hundreds of billions of dollars to these corporations, the question that you're asking beyond is to what extent are those actually going to pass through to consumers who have ultimately borne the burden of this trade policy? And I think there are a lot of reasons to suspect that consumers aren't likely to see those gains. And but to the extent there are refunds, those refunds are likely to be absorbed by the firms that are the ones who are receiving the payments from the government.
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A
And we've heard the government say from the minute this ruling came down that they have a plan B in place, that there are other tariffs that they can enact, and that is section 122, section 301, 122. The President, I think, went from a blanket now 10% tariff to 15% tariff that he can hold now for 150 days and then we'll see whether or not Congress then keeps those tariff. But given that he's had these options, why do you think he ultimately didn't just go there first like his predecessors would have?
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G
Such a good question. And you know, by the way, the tariff rate, currently my colleagues at the Budget Lab of Yale have estimated with the Section 122 tariffs in place, the 15% level before the Supreme Court's decision on Friday, we had effective tariff rate of about 16%. And now we're back to something like 13.7%. So you're pretty close to where the administration, administration started with the SIEPA authority. Why? I suspect they didn't go to any of these authorities. First one is these authorities are going to be challenged as well. There is sort of section 122 is about balance of payments deficits. It's hard to make the case. And in fact, the Trump administration's Department of justice said explicitly that this type of authority really doesn't have anything to do with what the president has been claiming with respect to national exigencies that resulted in those IEPA tariffs. But the second thing is all of these other authorities that the president could choose to deploy, they have a lot more process associated with them, as you're pointing out. You know, they're term limited 150 days unless Congress authorizes or they require investigations to try to demonstrate the importance of why these type of tariffs are necessary in different circumstances, in different sectors, with different countries. And so all of that makes it much more difficult to kind of like dictate by pen what the tariff rate should be on a particular country if you don't like their policy or you don't like a commercial airing on their airwaves. And I suspect that's going to throw some sand in the gear with respect to the administration's trade policy. But again, I think we're likely to see tariffs around with us for quite some time and a fair degree of volatility where these rates ultimately land.
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A
Yeah, the president said that that's his favorite word. So I would imagine that he's going to double down on these tariffs when we hear more from him at his State of the Union address tomorrow. Just bigger picture, Natasha, when countries who have now come to know these leaders have known President Trump now for a number of years, they clear clearly did not want to irk him or have him attack them directly if he didn't like the actions that they took and not follow through on his demands. They balanced that between how they would have expected the Supreme Court to ultimately rule. Most legal experts expected that the Supreme Court would strike down these tariffs. And now these countries and companies are put in quite a position, are they not? Do they continue then to try to win over the president and stay on his good side and keep some of these tariffs in place or where they are, or do they really go fight them because they're facing pressure at home as well?
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G
Yeah, and I think it's really challenging from if you look at kind of the international allies and adversaries with whom the Trump administration has been negotiating on these trade dimensions, I think something that's really hard. It was always, as you point out, not really clear what type of legal authority was being deployed in order to effectuate tariffs. These levels that we haven't seen in a a century. But they are dealing with an administration that has been highly volatile with respect to these negotiations. And I think something that I worry about reverberating in the longer term, even beyond any particular president or any particular administration, is the United States has been for quite some time the safe asset of the world and the dollar, the place where investors want to invest because of the stability of our regime and the belief that when promises are made, promises will be kept with respect to our international part. And something that's happened over the course of the last 13 months is that you've seen a lot of those norms with respect to our role on the international stage really start to wear down. And some of that sort of fabric of what makes this country in this unique posture, relish with respect to our allies and kind of at the center of the geopolitical negotiating space, some of that has started to fracture. And I think you started to hear Mark Carney say a version of that in his speech at DAVOS and I worry that those types of consequences of that fracturing are likely to reverberate for many months, for many years past any particular effective tariff rate that we have in this country.
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A
Yeah. The lasting impact of some of the president's policies could be here lingering for many, many, many years to come. Natasha Sarin, thank you so much for explaining it for us. Really appreciate it.
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G
Thanks so much for having me.
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A
Now, will he or won't he or is it when not? If speculation about whether President Trump will strike Iran continued apace over the weekend, further talks are due to take place on Thursday. Here's special envoy Steve Witkoff on the president's current thinking on Iran.
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I don't want to use the word frustrated.
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It's almost because he understands he's got plenty of alternatives. But it's curious, he's curious as to
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why they haven't I don't want to
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use the word capitulated, but why they haven't capitulated.
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The US now has enormous amounts of naval and air assets in the region. Meanwhile, inside Iran, there were anti regime protests over the weekend, some of the first since that brutal crackdown that killed thousands last month. Let's bring in former State Department official and Iran expert Vali Nasser to the program. Vali, good to see you again. So Iranian officials as well as many US Current and former officials on or off the record, will say that the they expect some sort of strike or kinetic action from the United States in the next week or a few days or so. And yet, and yet new talks are set again in Geneva for later this week over Iran's nuclear program. So if confrontation seems inevitable, why go through the motions of talks?
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C
I mean, first of all, I think President Trump really doesn't want to strike Iran because he understands that there's risk, risks that this will not be simple. It would not be like Venezuela or the attack on Iran in June, one strike and out and get what you want, that this can become a much larger war and he wants to avoid that. So he's still hoping, as Steve Witkoff said and you just showed it, that somehow the Iranians would capitulate from Iran's side is that they are preparing for war, they are expecting war, but they're going to nevertheless test the waters and see whether there's any possibility at all to have a diplomatic breakthrough. I think the way Steve Witkoff put it, namely that the United States is threatening war, preparing for war, expecting Iran to capitulate is not going to work because Iran is not looking to surrender and if the President Trump's aim is just to get Iran to surrender, I think we're going to see war. Yeah.
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A
And you actually argue that submitting to US Terms is seen in Iran and with the ayatollah there as more dangerous for the regime at this point than suffering a strike at the hands of the United States. Is there a scenario where you think that changes, where the regime begins to prioritize its own economy and the welfare of its people? I would imagine no, given its previous actions. But it is just striking that they would accept that perhaps a strike is imminent.
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C
I think they've always prioritized improving the economy and the welfare of their people. That's why they signed a nuclear deal in 2015, in expectation that by giving up what they did, there would be some degree of sanctions relief. But I think the fact that the President Trump walked away from that deal and is right now not offering them anything solid, it leads them to the belief that there is no diplomatic breakthrough, that even if they signed the deal, there would be no improvement in Iran's economic condition, that what United States is after is not a nuclear deal, but regime change. And if that ends up being their conclusion, then there is no motivation to go to the table. I mean, we're assuming that President Trump would actually lift sanctions, that the United States lift sanctions. But I think the Iranians have come to the conclusion that this is not the case, that whether they sign a deal or they don't sign a deal, there's not going to be any change in US Pressure on Iran. And as a result, they calculate that they're going to end up in a war regardless. They may as well do it sooner rather than later. Yeah.
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A
And there had been this sort of back and forth on exactly what the United states was demanding. U.S. officials were saying zero enrichment. And then Iranian officials were saying that's not what they agreed to between the two sides. In the meantime, there has been reporting suggesting that President Pizeschkian has been sidelined and that Ali Larijani is now the center of power. Has Khomeini, in your view, just effectively abandoned even the optics of a politically elected leader and now turned to full security state mode for the country?
- [31:51]
C
Well, the elected leader is always in charge of running the Iranian government. Foreign policy and particularly nuclear security issues were always in the hands of the supreme Leader. Ultimately, and still, Iran's foreign minister is the main conduit with the international community. He's the one who's going to be meeting with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Thursday. I think what's happened is that the Supreme Leader is preparing for a major war war. It's not about question of optics. It's about question of organizing the state for managing a war. And his national security advisor, who's Ali Larijani, has been given a much greater purview for basically organizing between the military, foreign policy, domestic politics and the various organs of state, from the different councils to parliament and judiciary, in order to prepare the country for managing the world. So President Pezeshkian is still there, but I think he was never in charge of this kind of a management. And I think but previously we didn't have a particular figure that actually stood out as doing this kind of a management. Now Larijani has come to the fore much more as the person that the Supreme Leader has put in charge of managing Iran in this time period.
- [33:14]
A
And this all comes, as we noted in the intro there, that we once again saw students, for the most part university students, take to the streets in Iran over the weekend. Sharif University of Technology, the University of Tehran. And many of them were raising the pre1979 revolution flag. Is this a genuine push, in your view, for the Pahlavi monarchy, or is this a cry for anything but what we currently have have?
- [33:42]
C
I mean, first of all, not all students did. There were also slogans that said that they don't want either a mullah or a king or any form of dictatorship in Iran. Some did call for the Shah's son. But largely what we are seeing in Iran is protest against the regime. I think there's much less convergence of consensus about what replaces it than the deep frustration of various sectors in Iran, not just the students, with not only the Islamic Republic and its record in office, but actually the state of the country. This kind of despondency and anger that has set in Iran and is likely to manifest itself more and more with protests. We don't know how this will play out in war, but I think what Iran is lacking is actually an organized opposition on the ground in the country that actually can rally all of these different voices into a single political movement within the country.
- [34:44]
A
Have any of those potential opposition leaders, are they currently in the country just under arrest?
- [34:51]
C
A lot are. First of all, there are civil society organizations, many of whom were very active in the women life freedom movement a few years ago. There are many civil society and political leaders that are in jail, some of them very prominent. But exactly because of the degree of repression in Iran, it's not possible for them to organize into a single political movement and to basically create the kind of ground game that is necessary to present an alternative that could take over the Islamic Republic, say, when it falters. That doesn't exist in Iran right now.
- [35:31]
A
Yeah. It's just hard to sort of reconcile what the president had initially said after thousands of protesters had been killed, that help was on its way. And now these protests that we saw over the weekend, that their answer would be a better nuclear deal, that that is ultimately what's bringing them to the streets. I don't see it. It seems from all the reporting that we've conducted and we've been reading, that is not their number one demand. But we'll continue to be following all of these developments. Vali Nasser, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. And we'll be right back after this short break.
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C
Tab.
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D
I got news for your ears.
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C
The podcast.
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D
I am your host, Michael Ian Black.
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F
I have nothing to hide. I've been exonerated. Totally exonerated. On Epstein.
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E
Yeah, the exonerated thing, like, it's the word he learned.
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D
And I don't think he even knows what he. Come on. He knows what exonerated means. He's been on trial enough times.
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F
He's been exonerated a number of times. To me, it's the 1980s. Ran for president and won.
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A
Right.
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D
Why isn't the music more interesting?
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G
YMCA Gloria.
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F
I'm gonna say that Gloria's a good.
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D
Michael Crawford receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Have I Got News for your ears. Releases new episodes every Wednesday.
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C
Don't miss an episode. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
- [37:07]
A
Now to the world of music. After nearly 40 years, the legendary jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is stepping down as manager and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The world renowned trumpeter and composer helped found the New York institution in the 80s with a mission to build a more conscious, collaborative and creative world through the art of jazz. Marsalis sits down with Walter Isaacson to discuss his tenure and why he believes jazz is the perfect metaphor of democracy.
- [37:35]
F
Thank you, Beata and Wynton Marsalis, welcome back to the show.
- [37:39]
D
All right. Hey, thank you, Walt.
- [37:41]
F
You just announced that after 40 years, you're going to be stepping down from Jazz at Lincoln Center. Take us back then. I think you're about 25 years old. You had just been recording with your own quartet. I think you did live at Blues Alley. What happened when they got you the phone call?
- [37:58]
D
Well, the thinking was it came from someone from Visitor Services of Lincoln Center. Could we do a summer series of three concerts? Would I do it for no money? And could I call musicians? So I thought, great, in August we'll do three concerts. And we did the first three concerts. And I didn't really think about it because it was a year that I probably did 200 and something concerts that year.
- [38:21]
E
Year.
- [38:21]
D
But I was working with Alina Bloom Garden, and I was working with Darthan Kirk, who was at wbgo. And our go to call was Betty Carter, who was, of course, the great genius of our music and a singer and teacher. And at that time, I didn't think about the fact that it was three ladies. They were much older than me, but they had a vision for the community. And then the next year we did three more concerts. And one of them was a Duke Ellington concert. And the Duke Ellington concert got really bad reviews. And when I saw that those concerts got really bad reviews, I thought, next year we need to do two of them. So we did two of them the next year because the critique was that we shouldn't be playing his music. And that's what galvanized my understanding. It made me really understand how important it was for us to build this as an institution. And then we got a board put around and all the different things. So many people from the community came to help us build Jazz at Lincoln Center.
- [39:20]
F
So when you come there, there's this committee called, I think it's the Lincoln Center's Committee for the Future. And what they've decided right before you've come is, no, we don't need special things for jazz. Jazz doesn't have a real place here.
- [39:35]
D
Right. But George Weissman, who was the chairman of the board of Lincoln center at that time, in our time had been a. He was a submarine commander in World War II, too. And he told me, look, man, I used to take every furlough, every time I got off, I will go see Charlie Parker. This is going to get in. So he loved Bird. And also Irene diamond, who was one of our biggest donors. She had been in Hollywood. She understood, like, how kind of how these systems work and the injustice of things because she, as a woman writing and stuff, her work was stolen. And she had to deal with a lot of different challenges. And she was contributing to a lot of people. And she said, this is going to get in. So we had people and we had supporters, let alone our board. Lisa Schiff, Gordon Davis, you know, the leadership we had and still have, they worked around the clock. And we got in.
- [40:28]
F
And so how important was it to resurrect in some ways, jazz at a time when all sorts of new music is coming along and you were kind of a resistor to that new music. Some of the hip hop, right, it
- [40:41]
D
wasn't just hip hop. It's the whole overemphasis on rock and roll is the national identity. And you take just the whole rock and roll thought of Rebel Without a Cause, kids versus parents, all the kind of stuff that it introduced into the culture, that was good maybe for 10 years. But it's not a 50 or 60 year vision, as we've come to see now, all of these kind of ideas that hip hop became a part of that. But my initial focus was not hip hop. It was what the rock and roll mentality represented once again, not the musicians, because musicians are not. Are not the ones who are mythologizing it in this way. The marketplace is demanding that. And you can go back into the beginning of jazz and understand that the pressure Benny Goodman got when he was trying to deal with integrating the American public space in the 1930s, it was not from musicians, it was from the system that wanted to stay segregated. We didn't in my time, we didn't. We had that, of course, with the contemporary jazz writers. Ironically, they invented, like a warfare between us and some downtown musicians, white versus black. It was all stupid and crazy and it was not grounding any fact. But by and large, we received unbelievable support from people from all walks of the community. You know, get this in here. Deal with our traditions, play our music, develop the orchestra, build your library. And the one thing that shocked me is how much support we got from people all over the community who were not necessarily involved in jazz.
- [42:09]
F
You say support our traditions sometimes, whether it be Preservation hall in New Orleans, jazz at Lincoln center, whatever. You got a tension between preserving the traditions, but then making sure they're not in amber and they can't move. How did you deal with that?
- [42:24]
D
We never had that problem because we improvise. We're all writing new music. In the last 14 years, our band alone, we have 10 arrangers. So we've added 1200 new arrangements to our library. And for me and Sherman and all of us who, Carlos Enriquez, who work on music, we come up with new stuff all the time. And I never worried about that because my vision of the music was always improvisation, which means no matter what you're playing, you're adding to it. And there was never a paucity of ideas like, what are we going to do with this? How are we going to write this music? We did so much new music, so many collaborations, wrote, so many ballets, played with musicians from all over the world, knew things that had never been heard. That was never our problem. Our problem was forcing the experts in our country and the so called intellectuals to understand that there was a source of American greatness that came from quarters that they were against, which is a part of the just basic cost of racism in our country.
- [43:20]
F
You talked just now about race and resistance to jazz and the white power structure. How important was that in shaping what jazz became?
- [43:31]
D
Well, the opposition is important because it makes you stronger. But if you let the opposition, because the opposition also is intelligent, it's not just fighting you on the same quarter here. I come to New York, man, I figured I'm getting out of the racism of New Orleans in the South. You come up here and you have people who are not even from your system of segregation and they're worse than the people in the South. What they're going to write and the way they're going to undermine the greatness of your cause. But you also are going to have people of all races, of all walks, every background come together to support this art form and create something great. And that will not be mythologized the way it should have been. So it's our job to continue to talk about it. What we did, how our coalition was, we were all together. It wasn't just black people or just white people. We were all working on it and we all continued to work.
- [44:23]
F
There's been a pushback in the past 10 years against the idea that diversity is our strength and that's where our creativity comes from. Is jazz a refutation of that?
- [44:34]
D
Most definitely. That's why it caused so much problems. But you know, foolishness is always something you have to fight against.
- [44:40]
F
And growing up in New Orleans as you did, big family, musical family, there are a lot of influences that flowed together there, from the French Opera House to Congo Square. Tell me how those flowed together to create jazz and your music.
- [44:54]
D
Well, just in my generation, a lot of those traditions had been lost, but because of. My father was such a great educator and he was always an advocate of doing things and being places. I was able to play in Danny Barker's Fairview Baptist Church Band, which played traditional music. I had a band director who, who was Armenian American and he played in a band of all kind of older band directors. On Tuesday night we would rehearse at University of New Orleans. They played mainly John Philip Sousa marches. So because of him, I would go out and do that. I played the circus or, you know, the. The type of.
- [45:27]
C
Of.
- [45:28]
D
Of influences in the music. Largely we played funk in New Orleans, popular music, but we knew. We knew and learned a lot of different music. French songs, stuff that my great aunt, my great uncle would sing, Mississippi river songs, church music of all kinds. Mahalia Jackson is from New Orleans. The. The soil still produced a wide body of music of all kinds. And remember, we were French and we were Spanish, and we have Caribbean influence. So if you were open, Even in my know, 70s, 60s, 70s, early 80s, you would have had a lot of influences just being there. And I was fortunate to receive a lot of that information.
- [46:07]
F
You learned a lot about improvisation when you're doing jazz. And you say that's the core of how you made things work. How did you apply that to actually being an executive who had to lead jazz at Lincoln Center?
- [46:22]
D
Well, the main thing in jazz is you have to have. Every member must understand the overall form. So if you just take an organization with a budget, whatever your division is, you need to understand your percentage of the budget and how the overall works, what your procedures and your processes, the fonts you use on things, what you repeat over and over again. In jazz, there's a lot of repetition. What you repeat over and over and over again is how you train yourself. And then the main thing in jazz is listening. Listening. We spend most of our night listening and trusting. So the fundamental, the first is just the numeric accuracy of the music. So just the accuracy that jazz demands if you really are going to be on a certain level, can be applied to business and the type of numeric rigor that's required to function as a team.
- [47:12]
F
One of the leadership lessons I sort of take from you is I've watched you play with your orchestra a whole lot. I've watched you at Dizzy and you leave, but you lead from behind. You always stand behind an orchestra.
- [47:23]
D
Yeah, that's democratic leadership. That's like a flock of geese. They make the calls from the back. Right. So you can't. If you really are leading, everybody is leading. Like with our orchestra, my hardest job was we have 15 soloists. So every night I have to program the concert so that all 15 people play at least one. Now that's a challenge. With 10 songs, I knew the orchestra was going to really be great. When our trombonist, Chris Crenshaw, who sits in front of me much younger, he looked at me for the last two songs and started to tell me who hadn't played. I said, okay. So then we all started to look out for Each other. Well, this person has not played. Then we start to negotiate the song so that we all make sure everyone plays.
- [48:12]
F
You know, about three years ago, I went and saw it. You did democracy sweep at Lincoln center, and you said, jazz music is the perfect metaphor for democracy. Tell me what you're feeling about democracy now and what jazz needs to teach it now.
- [48:31]
D
For us to come into alignment with our American mythology, we are far away from it. We can make all the movies we want to make, making the heroes into the one person with integrity. The level of corruption we are seeing now, we always been on the way to what towards it. I'm a nonpartisan attacker of the corruption I see. I've been doing it for 40 years. And what you're seeing in the public space now is the type of arrogance and criminal activity that we were always working our way towards. Now you see it, and the question is, how do the people at large respond to this? Are we going to say no, we can't. The judicial system is not saving us the way it should. Should. There's a level of corruption that we have to wake up and say, we're tired of this, and if we do it okay, if we don't, we're going to be just like all other things that could have been something and it is related to jazz. Because in jazz, you can plug the bass amp in, the drummer can play loud. One soloist can play 400 choruses, and the next one can fight by playing 430. The music breaks down. You have to balance your. Your freedom to improvise with restraint that comes with swinging and recognizing other people. Democracy dies when you do not understand the need for leveling and to create wealth for everybody and to see in your neighbor not an enemy, but a friend. And for elites to manage themselves. That's what I have to do as a band leader. I can't say, well, I'm here. I'm going to solo on every tune, every time somebody plays as me. That's not the solution. So, yeah, we, we, we. We're in trouble right now. But I'm more invigorated about it. You know, a doctor doesn't go into a place where a lot of people are sick and say, man, a lot of people are sick here. You the doctor, man. Come in and help people. So. So let's roll up our sleeves. A lot of talking always goes on about democracy. Let's see.
- [50:21]
F
And so you're the doctor. What are you doing now?
- [50:24]
D
I'm the doctor of democracy. Let's go.
- [50:27]
F
And what do you do with your music to be the doctor of democracy now.
- [50:30]
D
Hey, we get ready to. We have a whole three months that we get ready to dedicate to it. It's called Jazz Call for free freedom. We're putting out three records. We got 12 videos of younger and older people of all generations singing freedom songs about democracy. We announcing some education that we're going to do in Minnesota. We already do it education program called Let Freedom Swing. And we're re releasing an album I did in 2017 or 18 called the ever Funky Lowdown. And if you listen to that, you're gonna think I'm writing the blueprint for right now. It's ever funky and it's low down and you seeing it play out.
- [51:04]
F
So you got a big piece of music you're writing right now?
- [51:07]
D
Yes, sir. I'm writing my fifth symphony. It's called the Liberty Symphony. And I'm late. Like I'm always late, but that makes me give me the energy to stay up day and night. And it's dealing with. It's a celebration of America's 250th and I'm up deal with subjects like I always try to do that are. That are serious, of a serious nature. And let's.
- [51:30]
F
You're dealing with the 250th of the nation called the Liberty Series. How do you do that?
- [51:36]
D
I deal with major American themes and forms and of my whole time of writing music, I'm always dealing with the American mythology as expressed in music. So I got church music, ragtime, use of the blues, American, Anglo, Celtic music. Stuff that comes out of the different vernacular traditions like gospel music, country music, bluegrass, Texas swimming thing. I've studied Afro Latin forms of Afro Latin music. I've studied American music my entire life. And just I put all of these, these things in the chorus format and things we have that make our music unique. And I'm gonna make just a. Just another statement about. About who we are and the possibilities of us. But it won't all just be rah rah optimism, even though it has to be that for me or it doesn't make sense for me to write it. It will be rah rah optimism, but it will also be movements like this you did despite the word of the Lord. It will also be serious because I take all of this very seriously.
- [52:35]
F
Wynton Marsalis, thank you for joining us again, Sir.
- [52:39]
D
Walter. Walter, great to see you, man. Always
- [52:43]
A
two New Orleans legends. Also finally for us as we approach the grim milestone. Four years of war, New Ukraine we honor the brave people resisting from inside Russia. Mr. Nobody against Putin has won a BAFTA for best documentary. Set in a small Russian town, it follows teacher Pavel Tolankin, who stands up to Putin's war propaganda machine by documenting the indoctrination of school children. I sat down with director David Borenstein just a few weeks ago and he spoke of Pavel's bravery.
- [53:16]
F
He's a very normal person and what he is driven by is a commitment to his students, wanting them to stay comfortable, wanting them to stay like, keep on feeling like they have a place to belong. And that drove him to do this.
- [53:31]
D
Over the over two years of working
- [53:32]
F
together, he undertook a lot of risk
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G
to make this happen and he just
- [53:37]
F
followed it all the way through. He never wavered. He shot undercover and at the end he had to flee Russia in order
- [53:44]
G
to get this footage out and put
- [53:46]
F
the film out into the world.
- [53:49]
A
Well, Pavel is no longer Mr. Nobody. He's now an award winning documentary filmmaker. Congratulations to Pavel, David and the whole team on a well deserved win. That is it for now. Thank you so much for watching and goodbye from New York.
- [54:16]
D
President Trump's first State of the Union address of his second term. With the midterm elections only months away, can Trump put his party on a path to victory? Join CNN for in depth coverage and analysis. The State of the union February 24 at 8 on CNN or watch on the CNN app.