EU Blame Game

Summary

AMANPOUR: "EU Blame Game"
CNN Podcasts | August 4, 2026 | Guest Host: Bianna Golodryga

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

This episode explores the European Union's crisis talks following a mass migrant surge into Spanish territory, investigating the complex geopolitics and misinformation that fueled the event. It then pivots to debates surrounding public trust in health officials after Anthony Fauci’s recent congressional testimony reignited COVID-19 controversies. Later, the show highlights a new memoir chronicling the imprisonment of Iranian poet Mafash Sabet, revealing resilience and hope in the face of religious persecution. The program concludes with a deeply personal conversation about migration and the American dream, through the lens of filmmaker Karla Murthy's exploration of her father's immigrant journey.

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I. EU MIGRATION CRISIS & THE BLAME GAME (00:03 – 13:27)

Main Segment:
Host Bianna Golodryga speaks with European foreign policy expert Natalie Tocchi about the surge of approximately 70,000 migrants unexpectedly crossing from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, leading to a bloc-wide political crisis.

Key Discussion Points:

• Not a Migration Crisis, But a Manufactured Political Event:

  • Natalie Tocchi: "Friday it looked like this was a migration Crisis... it soon turned out to be fairly clear that this was a different kind of story." (02:48)
  • Most migrants returned to Morocco within days, suggesting manipulation rather than a genuine mass migration.

• Role of Misinformation:

  • "All sor informations, or rather mis and disinformations being circulated... based on false facts." (03:20)
  • Social media (notably X) accelerated rumors that migrants would be instantly regularized in Spain.

• Geopolitical Underpinnings:

  • Ongoing Spanish-Moroccan tensions and Morocco’s rivalry with Algeria over Western Sahara.
  • Speculation that Morocco permitted the crossing as retaliation for Spanish diplomatic moves toward Algeria, as well as broader U.S.–Spanish friction, especially during Donald Trump’s previous presidency.
    • "One explanation is basically it was a bilateral Moroccan lashing out against Spain and weaponizing migration… But then, of course, I think there's this bigger plot ... with Donald Trump and Trump's basically despising of Pedro Sanchez's Spain." (05:57)

• Domestic Pressures in Spain:

  • Despite accusations, Spain’s economy is strong and its migration regularization policies are tightly controlled.
  • Tocchi: "Spain has been extremely strict in terms of returns of irregular migrants... much, much higher in Spain than in Italy." (09:08)

• Political Response & Manipulation:

  • Initial EU ministers' panic and knee-jerk calls to suspend Schengen free movement were stoked by vivid images and political rhetoric (including Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State).
  • Tocchi: "They understood... that they had actually been played... they fell right into a trap. And what they tried to do today is gradually crawl out of it." (11:42)

Notable Quotes:

• "It is images like that ... that Trump statistics that we've just played and the numbers that you've just laid out yourself?"—Golodryga (11:00)
• "There is a story about images and about narrative and about panic, and then there's a story about facts."—Tocchi (11:42)

Memorable Moment:
Donald Trump’s comments comparing the Spanish border incident to a potential U.S. “invasion” should Republicans lose power:

"It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people. And that same thing is going to happen to us if the Republicans don't get elected." (08:11)

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II. MISTRUST AND MISINFORMATION: FAUCI, COVID-19, & VACCINE DEBATES (13:47 – 25:18)

Main Segment:
Bianna Golodryga interviews Dr. Ashish Jha (former White House COVID Response Coordinator) about Anthony Fauci’s recent testimony, declining trust in U.S. public health, and ongoing vaccine debates.

Key Discussion Points:

• Plummeting Trust in Health Authorities:

  • Trust in the CDC dropped from 85% in March 2020 to 47% today (16:10).
  • Americans still trust their personal doctors (83%) despite skepticism toward institutions.

• What Went Wrong in the Pandemic Response:

  • "The biggest thing in my mind was that there was at times too much certainty in a moment where we actually didn't know everything..."—Jha (16:29)
  • Need for more honest communication about uncertainty in evolving science.

• Origin of SARS-CoV-2 Controversy:

  • Discussion of shifting assessments on lab leak versus natural spillover origins.
  • Jha: "We should not have cut off debate on this. We should not have said, if you think it's a lab leak, somehow you're spreading conspiracies." (18:46)

• Transparency & Accountability:

  • Calls for the Chinese government to release more data about the Wuhan lab.
  • "The real issue is that the transparency has to come from the individuals who are running the lab." (19:56)

• Lessons on Measles Outbreaks and Vaccine Hesitancy:

  • U.S. faces worst measles outbreak in 35 years; vaccine skepticism fueled by public figures.
  • Jha criticizes the HHS Secretary for not taking responsibility, misleading on the role of lockdowns in outbreaks, and failing to vigorously advocate for comprehensive vaccination. (22:43)

Notable Quotes:

• "March 2020 was probably the hike. I mean, it was a time when the whole country was rallying behind the CDC. So. But there's no question that there has been a decline." —Jha (16:29)
• "The health secretary has also, for 25 years, undermined people's confidence in vaccines..." —Jha (22:43)

Memorable Moment:

• Insightful exchange on the importance of transparency and evolution of scientific opinion:

  "My own evolution... I saw more evidence, I saw more data. The circumstantial evidence behind a lab leak got stronger and stronger over time... When evidence changes, people's views should change as well." (18:46)

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III. "OPENED WIDE THE DOORS" – IRANIAN POET MAFASH SABET'S MEMOIR (25:18 – 36:39)

Main Segment:
Interview with Bahia Nakshavani, editor and co-translator of the memoir documenting Mafash Sabet’s imprisonment due to her Baha’i faith.

Key Discussion Points:

• Creation of the Memoir Under Duress:

  • Sabet wrote the bulk of her 750-page memoir on tissue scraps and smuggled pieces out over her decade-long sentence.
  • The published book covers just the first 9–10 months, focusing on solitary confinement and resilience.

• Faith as a Source of Strength:

  • Sabet’s writing is marked by compassion for other prisoners, guards, even interrogators.
  • Nakshavani: "She just flips all the misery and turns it into a magnanimity towards others... She absolutely refused to be a victim all through this period." (30:16)

• Baha'i Persecution in Iran:

  • Sabet's timeline: Fired as teacher in 1979, imprisoned for a decade from 2008, re-arrested in 2022, and placed on medical furlough under a travel ban.
  • Iranian authorities have repeatedly targeted Baha’is, especially women.

Notable Quotes:

• Sabet (via Nakshavani, read aloud):

  "The spiritual power to overcome the fears and defeats that surround us all. These marvels I unearthed in the silence of the solitary cell... It was my decision whether to accept it consciously or to merely endure it in turmoil, resentment, and growing terror. The choice was entirely mine. I was Free to do as I willed." (33:58)

Memorable Moment:
Nakshavani describes her awe at Sabet’s humor and joy on release—a striking break from the tragic tone expected of such memoirs.

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IV. MIGRATION AND THE AMERICAN DREAM: “THE GAS STATION ATTENDANT” (37:51 – 53:09)

Main Segment:
Hari Sreenivasan interviews filmmaker Karla Murthy about her documentary “The Gas Station Attendant,” chronicling her Indian immigrant father's hard-won but complicated American experience.

Key Discussion Points:

• Personal Reckoning with Family History:

  • Murthy’s decades-long recorded phone calls with her father form the narrative backbone.
  • She sought to understand his life choices, shaped by childhood poverty and constant displacement in India.

• Challenging Stereotypes & Myths:

  • The film subverts the "model minority" and “rags to riches” tropes, foregrounding economic hardship, job instability, and financial mistakes as common, relatable immigrant experiences.
    • "We're often defined by the work that we do... I really wanted my film to show someone, to invite people to get to know this person and to see the expanse of their life and not as like a narrow window..." (45:22)

• Universality of Migration:

  • Murthy: "Humanity is fundamentally a story of migration… I just wanted people to understand that this is a history that goes far back. This is part of who we are as a human species is to be migrating." (50:35)

• Intergenerational Dialogue:

  • Murthy emphasizes the importance of families sharing struggles—including taboo topics like debt—to foster understanding and empathy.

Notable Quotes:

• "As I was making this film and trying to understand his life... I was having those moments a lot when I was making this film and thinking about, like, how can you see this film in a much more universal way?" —Murthy (50:35)
• "We just need a lot more empathy in this world right now." —Murthy (52:25)

Memorable Moment:
Murthy recalls listening to her father’s stories layered over the ambient sounds of his gas station job, giving new depth to familiar family narratives.

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V. FINAL NOTE: FRENCH WILDFIRES & UKRAINIAN SOLIDARITY (53:11 – 53:54)

Highlights:

• France contained catastrophic wildfires with international help.
• A 70-person Ukrainian firefighting squad, the largest foreign team, assisted despite ongoing war at home—a testament to transnational solidarity in crisis.

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SUMMARY & TONE

This episode skillfully unpacks how global crises—migration, public health, religious persecution, and displacement—are shaped by both political maneuvering and personal resilience. The tone, mirroring Amanpour’s signature approach, is probing but empathetic, blending hard-edged analysis with poignant human stories. The program consistently challenges prevailing narratives and urges listeners to seek nuance amid polarization and misinformation.

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SELECT TIMESTAMPS FOR QUICK REFERENCE

• 02:48 – Natalie Tocchi: “Not a migration crisis, but a manufactured event.”
• 05:57 – Spanish-Algerian-Moroccan geopolitical explanation.
• 08:11 – Trump: “It looks like an invasion of a country…”
• 16:29 – Dr. Ashish Jha: Reflections on eroding trust in health authorities.
• 18:46 – Jha on lab leak v. natural origin and evolution of scientific debate.
• 22:43 – Measles outbreak analysis, criticism of public health leadership.
• 33:58 – Mafash Sabet (read by Nakshavani): On freedom and resilience in solitary.
• 45:22 – Murthy on the dignity and complexity of immigrant labor.
• 50:35 – Murthy on migration as a universal human history.

End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up. EU holds crisis talks after Friday's migrant surge into Spanish territory. We discussed the fallout with European foreign policy expert Natalie Tocchi and mistrust and misinformation. As Fauci's congressional testimony reignites debates over COVID 19, we explain what went wrong. Then open wide the doors. A new memoir documenting the devastating incarceration incarceration of Iranian poet Mabash Sabet. We hear from the co editor and translator of the book plus the gas station attendant, an immigrant father searching daughter and the American dream. Director Karla Murthy tells Hari Sreenivasan about her new movie. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Godriga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour. The European Union held an emergency meeting today over Thursday's surge of migrants into Spanish territory. Around 70,000 people unexpectedly crossed into Ceuta on Africa's northern tip, with dozens dying. Most migrants have been returned to Morocco. But the incident has revived Europe's immigration debate and fears of far right exploitation. Although Spain's interior minister told reporters today that member states recognize Madrid's quote, immediate and efficient response, some European leaders were threatening to suspend free movement from Spain despite the crisis occurring off of the European mainland. Some are also blaming Spain's liberal migration policies as a factor, while others accuse Moroccan authorities of facilitating the crisis. Natalie Tocci is an Italian foreign policy expert and former Advisor to the EU's foreign policy chief and she joins Natalie, welcome to the program. So there seems to have been sort of a confluence of events that led to this perfect storm where we ultimately saw these incredible images of thousands of Moroccans fleeing into Ceuta on Friday. And let's just go through a few of them. You had Spain's Supreme Court ruling that migrants arriving by sea can't be summarily expelled. Word of that spread like wildfire throughout Moroccan social media. And then on July 30, that was a public halt and Moroccan guards reportedly stopped patrolling. Just talk to us about some of the factors as you see it, that led to what we saw Friday.

[B]

So indeed, you know, Friday it looked like this was a migration Crisis. I mean, 70,000 people crossing into European territory over the course of only a few hours really sort of echoed back to the 2015 migration crisis. It soon turned out to be fairly clear that this was a different kind of story. In fact, today, and it's only a few days on, there isn't a migration crisis anymore because those 70,000 people have actually returned all of them in almost as rapid a timeframe as they came in back to Morocco. And the fact that indeed there were all sor informations, or rather mis and disinformations being circulated, including, for example, the fact that indeed, you know, these people would not be returned to Spain, including the fact that Spain would have regularized their presence. And this was really based on false facts, right? Because it is absolutely true that Spain, over the last months, announced the fact that 500,000 migrants would be regularized, but made it quite clear that that would only apply to people had reached Spain and had lived in Spain for five years and had reached Spain prior to January of this year. So it's fairly obvious that these people would not have been naturalized. And so the next question then becomes, why is it that this social media bubble exploded the way it did, really, you know, sort of risking the lives. And, of course, as we know, tens of people did die of human beings. Right. And the story really, really here leads to what I think the underlying plot was, that is that this is not a migration crisis at all, but it's rather been a manufactured political crisis, which is regional in nature in the sense that there's a Spanish Moroccan dynamic there. But I think perhaps even more importantly, there's a broader global dynamic, given the way in which the Spanish US relationship has obviously been a fairly complicated one under Donald Trump, and the way in which platforms, and in particular X, that is Elon Musk, have been manipulating this precisely to spread that myth and disinformation.

[A]

And you mentioned the dynamic between Morocco and Spain, where there is some underlying tension. The arch rivalry, though here is really between Morocco and Algeria and a longer history over disputed territory in the Western Sahara. And it was just 10 days ago that Pedro Sanchez visited Algeria and announced, quote, a new phase in Spanish Algerian relations. He appeared to have already burned Algeria in 2022 by backing Morocco's view of the Western Sahara autonomy plan. So how much of a role does that play in what transpired?

[B]

I mean, of course, it's all speculative, right? Because, I mean, what we're doing here is we are assuming, I think, correctly, that Morocco basically sort of, you know, gave a nod and a wink for this to happen. It probably would not have happened had there not been, to an extent, Moroccan complicity. So then the question is, why is that complicity? Why was that complicity there? And I think there are sort of two sort of possible explanations that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One has to do, indeed, with the fact that, you know, Sanchez had gone to Algeria 10 days ago. And while traditionally Spain, largely because of the migration dynamic with Morocco, has in fact been siding with Morocco, particularly as far as the Western Sahara is concerned. Basically you see Spain partly trying, I wouldn't say to rebalance the relationship, but at least to mend fences with Algeria, given that especially the energy relationship with Algeria is extremely important, not just for Spain, but more broadly for Europe. So one explanation is basically it was a bilateral Moroccan lashing out against Spain and weaponizing migration in order to do so. But then, of course, I think there's this bigger plot which probably is even more important, which has to do with the Moroccan relationship, particularly with Donald Trump and Trump's basically despising of Pedro Sanchez's Spain. I think that unless we get that broader global picture in, probably the Algerian story alone is insufficient to explain why the happen now. Right.

[A]

And Morocco is a stable investor, friendly, very close US partner, co hosting the 2030 World cup, tens of thousands of its young people swarming to the fence has many questioning how can a country that is relatively successful and stable be enduring something like this. I want to play sound. You mentioned the relationship and you mentioned President Trump. He was asked about these images. Let's play some sound as to his view on it.

[C]

You know, I saw Spain yesterday and I watched the catastrophe that took place.

[D]

It was a.

[C]

It looks like an invasion of a

[E]

country by hundreds of thousands of people.

[C]

And that same thing is going to

[E]

happen to us if the Republicans don't get elected.

[C]

If we're not in office, our country

[E]

will be invaded at levels that made Spain look small time.

[A]

And his secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has accused Pedro Sanchez of deliberately facilitating mass migration into Europe. You mentioned the amnesty projected at some 500,000 people. Applications have hit over 1 million, as you know. And his own interior minister, Sanchez's interior minister, warned last year that the regularization act could act as a pull factor. So how much pressure is Sanchez actually under at home? He's facing elections next summer.

[B]

Well, I mean, there's. There is obviously pressure, but I actually think that Spain in many respects is the envy of Europe. This is a country which is growing at 3%. Right. It's basically sort of, you know, top of the ranking in terms of growth, bottom of the ranking in terms of energy prices, largely because of the strides forward made in terms of renewable deployment. This is basically, you know, Spain is doing well, right? And it's regularizing migrants precisely because it's doing well, or it's doing well also because it's regularizing migrants. Now I think the interesting aspect of this is that just how false some of the things that we've heard. You know, you were mentioning Rubio's statements. Actually, Spain has been extremely strict in terms of returns of irregular migrants, right? So on the one hand, it has regularized migrants that have been living in Spain for many years and have been working and paying taxes in Spain. And on the other hand, if you compare progressive Spain and far right Italy, my own country, actually, the number of returns of irregular migrants is much, much higher. It's something like three times higher in Spain than in Italy. Right? And a country like Italy has not been announcing regularizations. But actually, if you look at the number of how many migrants in Italy have been regularized, it's more or less, you know, it's hundreds of thousands, basically. So let's pull up, because this is what the economy asks, let's pull up

[A]

some data that sort of backs up what the point you're making here. Frontex says illegal crossings into the EU overall, actually fel 37% in the first half of this year alone. Arrivals to Spain fell more than 40% last year. That is by Madrid's own figures.

[B]

And yet.

[A]

And yet I have to ask you, Natalie, it is images like that, and we've seen more of a conciliatory approach today from the eu, but you mention how the response has been from countries like Italy, your own and Georgia Maloney's. I mean, this issueta is not even part of the Schengen. And you have these leaders saying that now they should suspend, they should be suspended. Spain should be from the Schengen. That's what they said on Friday. So do images like the ones we saw, sort of Trump statistics that we've just played and the numbers that you've just laid out yourself?

[B]

Well, I think that, you know, initially, then and there, it really felt like this is a migration crisis. Oh, my God, you know, an invasion. The fact that the ministers today meeting struck a very, very different note, right? And it was all about solidarity with Spain and how effective Spain had been, you know, with dealing with this is because I think that they understood perhaps a few days too late, that they had actually been played. And this is why I think, you know, there is a story about images and about narrative and about panic, and then there's a story about facts, right? And on top of it, there is the political manipulation of this, particularly by external players, be it, you know, transit countries, origin, countries like Morocco, or in fact, we could be talking about Tunisia or Turkey or Libya or Egypt. Be it global powers like the United States that have jumped onto this right in order to sow that division, sow that fragmentation within Europe. I think that the ministers today, the European governments today that had that knee jerk reaction, you know, three days ago understood that they were actually being played and they fell right into a trap. And what they tried to do today is gradually crawl out of it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And they may have some egg on their face as well. And it wasn't just some of the more right leaning ministers as well. Denmark center left prime minister was also saying all options should be considered. And it does make you wonder if you're sitting in Moscow or Minsk right now and you're looking at how quickly we can get this type of response from these leaders, maybe it could be weaponized again. Natalie Tocchi, thank you so much for joining us and help break it all

[B]

down for US Banking.

[A]

And later in the program, the fallout from Anthony Fauci's Senate hearing last week as debates around COVID 19 reignite. That's after the break.

[E]

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy.

[A]

This week on the podcast Terms of Service, schools across the country are considering a big shift to their tech policies. No students, cell phones in classrooms. I visited Philippa Schuyler Middle School in Brooklyn during one of the final weeks of the school year.

[E]

There, students placed their phones in a locked box in their homeroom classroom at the start of the day and retrieved them at the end of the day. I sat down with Principal Janice Bruce

[A]

as well as a group of 6th through 8th grade students to get their

[E]

reactions to the phone ban. Once you get used to the band for a while, you're actually going to

[B]

realize how connected you were with your

[A]

phone and how addictive it was.

[E]

What was your first reaction when you

[A]

heard that this phone ban policy would be going into place this year? I was kind of expecting it.

[E]

Yes.

[A]

Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever

[E]

you get your podcasts.

[A]

Now, intense debates about the COVID 19 pandemic have resurfaced after Anthony Fauci's controversial congressional testimony last week. After obtaining Fauci's private diary, Senator Rand Pa placed the blame squarely on Fauci and other public health experts, alleging a cover up at the highest levels. Fauci pleaded the fifth, noting Paul's desire to see him behind bars. But how much are the experts to blame and what did they get right? Dr. Xijia served as White House COVID 19 Response Coordinator under President Biden and joins the show to discuss more. Dr. Jha, welcome to the program. Great to have you on. You were on this weekend with my colleague Dana Bash, following her interview, which got a lot of pickup. It was a lengthy interview that covered a lot of ground with the HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And I want to talk about what he said in a moment. But the overall picture is not a good one in this country when it comes to trust in public health and information coming from public health services as well. If you look at the numbers in March of 2020, March of 2020, of course, that was just the start of COVID 85% of Americans, across both parties, we should note, said that they trusted the CDC for health information. This is according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Today, that number has been cut drastically in half. There you see it, 47%. However, 83% of Americans still trust their own personal doctors. So how do you assess those statistics? What did public health officials perhaps get wrong that personal doctors did not?

[C]

Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me back. Obviously, it was a bruising pandemic around the world, and we have seen a real decline in trust in institutions. March 2020 was probably the hike. I mean, it was a time when the whole country was rallying behind the cdc. So. But there's no question that there has been a decline. It is true. People still trust their physicians. There's still a lot of trust in CDC scientists, and there's still a lot of trust in specific public health experts, including, actually, Dr. Fouch, who still gets pretty high remarks from a large part of America. The bottom line is that there were things that public health officials got wrong. There were things that I think a lot of experts got wrong. The biggest thing in my mind was that there was at times too much certainty in a moment where we actually didn't know everything that we needed to know. I think acknowledging uncertainty in those moments is very useful. Felt like too many public health people didn't do that. And I think in the long run, that ended up undermining a lot of confidence.

[A]

I mean, one can be sympathetic. I remember in those early days and covering and having you on time and time again to help speak to Americans who were concerned about the latest numbers and how it would impact their families. I remember early on the mask debate and when Dr. Fauci and others were saying not to wear masks. And at the end, it came out that in those early few weeks, there was a lot of concern about PPE and getting it to those first responders and into the hospitals that needed it most. That made sense. But when it came to what became more of a political issue and a PC kind of discussion about where this actual COVID 19 virus came from. That's where I think people started to get very frustrated. And you told Dana over the weekend that you went into the White House in April of 2022 thinking that Covid was almost surely naturally, was surely natural. And now you've come out over the weekend and this made a lot of headlines as well, saying that you think that it was a lab link. So just talk about that. And why, looking back, was that such an egregious thing or conclusion to make at the time?

[C]

Yeah. So, first of all, I think the key point is we didn't know, and we still don't know for sure. The reason I thought it was more likely to be much more likely to be a natural is because most spillover events, most pandemics have come from spillovers from animals. So it stands to reason that that's probably what happened. That was my view. But what's really important and underlying your question is we should not have cut off debate on this. We should not have said, if you think it's a lab leak, somehow you're spreading conspiracies. I think people did that, and I think that was very unfortunate. My own evolution in this has been the way I've evolved on a lot of issues where I saw more evidence, I saw more data. The circumstantial evidence behind a lab leak got stronger and stronger over time. I was in on a lot of briefings and walking out of those, I thought, boy, it's probably a loud. Am I sure? I'm not sure. We don't know for sure. But I think that kind of evolution is good. It's natural. When evidence changes, people's views should change as well.

[A]

Should that evidence have been made more readily available to the public at the time when you saw it?

[C]

Yeah. I have always felt that as much transparency as possible is really important. Some of that information, I think, has become more public. I think there's probably more information that could be made public. But at the end of the day, the real issue is that the transparency has to come from the individuals who are running the lab. Look, if this was not a lab leak, the Chinese government could put this to rest more or less immediately with a lot more information and transparency about what was happening in the lab in the weeks and months before the outbreak began. They have not done that. At the end of the day, that's where the accountability lies.

[A]

So six years on now, what leverage does the United States Have. And what would you like to see President Trump do in terms of getting that information from China?

[C]

Well, I mean, the president was in China not that long ago. I think he certainly could have asked for it. I mean, we have ongoing conversations with the Chinese. There are specific things that we could ask for. But also we need to start preparing for a future where we're going to see both natural outbreaks and, and lab leaks, because there are so many more labs out there in the world today. So while I still think it's important to sort out that origin, it also, on some level, is not the single most important question, because the single most important question in my mind is how do we get prepared for the future, no matter what the source of the next pandemic is?

[A]

Right. And that is something that we sadly didn't hear in those hearings with Anthony Fauci, not just because he pleaded the Fifth, but because there were no real questions that we're forward looking to how to prevent future outbreaks, what lessons have been learned, and to make sure that more pandemics like the one we saw, perhaps even more serious and deadly, can be handled differently. Let's talk about the current right now, because we've got a plethora of issues that we're dealing with here in the United States. And the HHS secretary was asked about this as well. Let's start with measles. Right now, we're well over 2,000 cases. It's the worst in 35 years, 37 outbreaks. The elimination status that the country has held since 2000 is now genuinely at risk. Dana Bash asked the HHS Secretary directly if he takes any responsibility, and he said no. He says the communities that are suffering from measles are almost all religious communities. And he also went on to blame these outbreaks on communities that were under COVID lockdown and thus those children were not immunized, even though the numbers sort of don't back that up because those children are now five and six years old. Half of this year's cases are five to 19, and nearly a third are adults over 20. So just break down what you heard from the secretary and where you may disagree with him.

[C]

Sure. So the secretary said, and the part I agree with is that, of course, America is not alone. There are other countries that are experiencing outbreaks as well. But let's be very clear. America is experiencing the worst outbreak it has had in 25, 30 years. This year is the very worst. Last year was the worst. Until this year. The idea that the health secretary and our government has no responsibility for it, to me, just defies logic. The health secretary has also, for 25 years, undermined people's confidence in vaccines, has questioned the efficacy and safety of these vaccines. I think that is a major contributor to. To what is going on. And it makes zero sense that somehow the lockdowns, which were, you know, for a few or few weeks in some places, a couple of months in other places, would be causing this. We're seeing outbreaks in South Carolina. We're seeing in a lot of conservative states. They were not locked down for years. So I just think he is trying to blame the COVID response for a lot of things. For he actually. And the current administration has a lot more personal response.

[A]

Dana did get RFK Jr to look in the camera and say the parents should vaccinate their children for measles. He said that is an effective and efficient vaccine, one that has been studied, even though we can go into the lengthy studies that have been conducted on a number of other vaccines that he does not think are safe. That's for a separate conversation. But as it relates to the measles vaccine, which he said parents should immunize their children for, you were heartened by that. But aside from his spoken words, what more would you like to see the administration do on that front?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So first and foremost, he also said a lot of things that were just not true about other childhood vaccines. I want to see a health secretary who actually reads the data fairly and advocates for what is clearly evidence based recommendations. I've gotten all my kids vaccinated on schedule, on time. My understanding is he himself got his kids all vaccinated. He should be advocating for that much more readily. And then CDC should be much more proactive in helping states get these outbreaks under control. And the best way to do this is to increase our vaccination rates, which the secretary actually has a lot of capability with a bully pulpit to advocate for, not just grudgingly saying it once on national television.

[A]

Yeah. He also recommended the childhood schedule to be cut from 17 diseases to 11. And I know that's something that you disagree with as well. Dr. Ashisha, thank you so much for joining the program. Really appreciate it.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

We turn now to Iran, where the domestic crackdown is only intensifying. Rights groups say executions are rising, political prisoners are facing harsher treatment, and dissent is being met with an even heavier hand. One of those prisoners is the acclaimed Iranian poet Mafsa Sabet, who has spent years behind bars because of her Baha' I faith, her powerful new Memoir Opened Wide the Doors recounts the first months of her imprisonment. And joining me now is its editor and co translator, Bahia Nakshavani. Bahia, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a very powerful book and I want to get to your participation here and how you became involved. But let's just talk about how it was written because wrote the book Inside Mashhad and Evan Prisons. Just take us into how you got a hold of this book. How was this transcript even able to leave the prison?

[F]

Thank you. Thank you so much Biana, for having me here. It's a real honor to be able to speak about Mav Vash and on behalf of all those who like her, have no voice coming out of Iran at this time, this difficult time. First of all, I'd like to just distinguish between the book that you're referring to, which is her memoir, and the actual bulk of the memoir, which came to some 750 pages by the time my co translator Azita and I had managed to transcribe it and translate it into English. So there is a distinction between what we have published, which is just the very beginning of a ten year story, and what she actually managed slowly, meticulously, with great pain and difficulty to scribble on tiny bits of paper, on tissues. She would split tissue papers, you know, I did one to show you how extraordinary it is. Little scraps of newspaper that she was able to find anything, margins of books and slowly, slowly over the course of the years get these little scraps of her memoirs smuggled out of the prison. Now of course they didn't reach us immediately. Mahvash was first arrested in 2008 and she wasn't actually able to start writing until 2012. And the last seven years of her tenure prison sentence was when she was doing these little scribbles plus her poetry and managing slowly, slowly to get them out. I did not see them until 2018 when Mahvash was released from prison in 2017, she came and visited us the year afterwards and asked me to write a book based on her memoirs. And that's when Azita and I began this incredible job. It was a mountain piana of notes. It was really a huge, huge task. And we had to think of what to do. How can you publish 750 pages? It's impossible. So we had to make a few decisions about where to focus. And that's how we looked at that very early part of the story when she was first in Mashhad, all in solitary confinement and then in Evin, in Solitary confinement. And it was just those first 10 months, nine, 10 months of her 10 year sentence, which is the substance of this book.

[A]

And you just described a Herculean effort there to get this first part of the book published so that readers, everyone around the world can get a sense not only of her bravery, but what she endured and almost exclusively because of her Baha' I faith. And let's give a little bit more of a timeline in her life and put it up against the regimes because they coincide in many ways. In 1979, she was fired as a schoolteacher because of her faith. In 2008, she was arrested as a Baha' I leader. Ten years in prison, as you noted, in 2022, rearranged at the age of 69, broken kneecaps, another decade after a one hour trial. Today, she is 73 years old, recovering from open heart surgery. She is essentially in medical furlough under a travel ban right now. What does her life tell us and her commitment to her faith, about the strength that she carries with her? And from what we've seen thus far in what's been published, there is nothing that stands out other than compassion.

[F]

Yes, that really is one of the hallmarks bjana of this book. It's a prison memoir. And usually prison memoirs are about the individual who is suffering. Mafash absolutely reverses all the cliches. I mean, for a start, she just flips all the misery and turns it into a magnanimity towards others. She really has turned the despair that one normally feels in these circumstances into a kind of hope. And as you say, that compassion that comes out from her towards others so that it becomes a memoir not just of herself, it becomes a memoir about others, about the. The women that she meets in the prison, even about the guards, even. She has compassion towards the. Well, a sort of comic compassion towards the interrogators. She ends up saying she just can't hate anyone. She has this remarkable capacity for switching misery into hope. And that's one of the hallmarks of the book. The other thing which I might mention is that in her style there is a quality of humor. You know, when I met her, I was really shocked for the first time. I met her in 2018 when she came out of prison. I was expecting, you know, when you hear someone suffered in prison, you're thinking of them being in a state of disarray and misery. Not at all. She was full of humor, she was full of joy. She had light in her eyes and full of happiness, and I just couldn't believe it. You know, she was breaking all the cliches. And that quality of hers, which really boils down to one of the hallmarks also of her faith, which is constructive resilience, which is not giving in to a sense of being the victim. She absolutely refused to be a victim all through this period. And that is very distinctive. And this quality that she has, as you put it, of going out of herself was one of the reasons why I'm so happy to be able to speak about her work, because she is truly one of many in Iran who are suffering, as you know, particularly, of course, the Baha', is, but also beyond the Baha' I community, as you pointed out in your introduction. But the Baha', Is, of course, have had an extremely difficult time, not just since the revolution, but since the beginning of the emergence of the Baha' I faith. It's a homegrown faith. It comes from Iran. It was born in Iran in the middle of the 19th century. So for 178 years, the Baha' is have been persecuted as heretics, accused of apostasy. Now it's thinly veiled in the guise of espionage, in being agents of foreign governments, all kinds of egregious lies. But deep down, it's a profound religious animosity towards the Baha' is because of their fundamental beliefs in the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness of humankind. And these ideals seem to be a great problem for the current regime. But of course, that's what's sustained,

[A]

especially women who uphold those ideals. UN experts found more than three quarters of the Baha' is summoned to court or prison were women like Mavshav. I'm wondering if you can read us a passage from this book that you translated.

[F]

Surely it's in a place where she has come to the point where she's beginning. She's looking into herself, and she asks herself, you know, what has happened to her in this condition of spirit of solitary confinement. And she realizes that the spiritual power to overcome the fears and defeats that surround us all. These marvels I unearthed in the silence of the solitary cell. And then, to my utter disbelief, I found that I was not only growing accustomed to solitary confinement, but beginning to appreciate the value of it. In fact, I was learning the meaning of free will in that grey cell. Solitary confinement had been forced on me, yes, but it was up to me how I chose to live with it. It was my decision whether to accept it consciously or to merely endure it in turmoil, resentment, and growing terror. The choice was entirely mine. I was Free to do as I willed.

[A]

That is incredibly powerful. And as you noted at the beginning of our conversation, just a piece of the work that she has written for years and that you thankfully continue to translate as well. You yourself are an Iranian writer. You have spent the majority of your life outside of the country. I don't want to assume that you can speak for Mafsha, but I'm wondering, if she were to speak to the Iranian people right now, what would you guess she would tell them?

[F]

Well, I have a feeling that her book is what she would tell them. She really has offered this book like a gift to everybody, of course, but it's a legacy. She's reminding the Iranian people that they have in their own hands this legacy of seeing hope in despair, of seeing freedom even in prison, of not being victims, but being able to construct in this incredible way with a resilience that will endure through difficulties and. And emerge. That's the gift she wants to give to the Iranian people. I believe that's the message of her

[A]

book, strength and compassion. And we are so grateful to you, Bahia Nakshavani, for translating it and bringing this to us. Thank you so much.

[F]

Thank you, Viana. It's a huge privilege.

[A]

The privilege is ours. We'll be right back after this short break.

[F]

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

[C]

My guest is Dr. Dhruv Kullar.

[E]

He has seen firsthand the effects GLP1s

[D]

can have on addictive behaviors.

[C]

Today we're going to talk about how GLP1s are changing us, changing us as humans. And when the cravings go away, sort of trying to figure out, is there something else that we're losing as well?

[D]

People who had cravings for opioids said that those were being diminished. And so, you know, we thought about these as kind of digestive medications, maybe diabetes medications, but they're actually psychoactive medications, or so it seemed. What was so interesting about that is if you're playing with the reward system, that can have real implications for people's maladaptive behaviors, all sorts of addictions, but also potential.

[C]

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

[A]

Now to an intimate look at family roots and the American dream. Journalist Karla Murthy's father left India for the US in search of a better life. Through a series of phone calls recorded over the course of two decades, her father shared his experiences being a first generation American caught between two worlds. Now these recordings and old footage have culminated in Murthy's directorial debut. And she joins Hari Sreenivasan to talk about what retracing her father's steps has taught her.

[D]

Bianna, thanks. Carla Murthy, thanks so much for joining us. You directed a really personal film with your father. It's called the Gas Station Attendant. And it's just this sort of beautiful look with all these recordings and photographs you have of your life with him. What questions made you want to do this film in the first place?

[E]

I mean, this film was really born out of that need and that desire to really understand my dad and his life and to understand the decisions that he made. And so it was a chance for me to go back to stories that I had heard my entire life of how he came to this country from India. And as a kid, when I heard those stories, it was kind of like, you know, a fairy tale with a happy ending. And I kind of equated to, you know, lyrics of a song that you just memorized as a kid. And then one day you realize what those lyrics actually mean. And I had that moment as I was making this film and trying to understand his life and going back to the stories of what it was like for him to live on the streets of India and how that experience shaped who he was here in this country. And so here I am reliving the past while trying to live in the present. I'm asleep in the picture wondering what it means to be a good father, a good daughter, a good mother. I love you, Dad. How did you get up and keep going?

[D]

So your father, H.N. shantamurthy, he grew up in India. At the age of 10, he runs away from home. He what kind of life did he lead before he got to the US how did that shape his future here?

[E]

Yeah, I mean, and, you know, I was the being able to make this film allowed me to kind of really try and put myself in the shoes of my dad and then trying to kind of, you know, fill in those, make it much more of a visceral experience. And so one of the things that occurred to me as I was making this film is that for him to survive on the streets, you know, he ran away from home when he was 10 years old and was living all over India. And to survive, he had to keep going. And he kept moving from, you know, job to job just to survive. And when he came to this states, you know, he did the same thing. But for me, as a teenager growing up, I was so kind of mystified. Like, I wanted my dad just to have one job, but he kept going from job to Job to job. And I was like, why can't he be like other, you know, dads and just stick with the one thing? And it occurred to me that that was how he survived in India and those experiences, you know, imprinted on him and he, that was just a survival skill that he continued to use. You know, here, you know, there's this

[D]

kind of incredible moment of luck and tell us a little bit about what happens and how that changed the course of his life and led to yours.

[E]

I really wanted to explore sort of these macro micro forces that affected my dad's life in very profound ways. And sort of, you know, the macro forces, you know, that you don't can't control. That kind of forced my family into poverty. In India, for instance, was, you know, during India's independence. And it was a very chaotic, you know, Gandhi was assassinated, partitioned. All of that led my father's family, who was relatively kind of a middle class family, into poverty. They had to leave their home and move to the village. When my dad came to this country, the same kind of thing sort of happened with my dad's first real job as an electrical engineer at Boeing. In the early 70s again, you had a giant company on the verge of collapse and it forced thousands, tens of thousands of people to lose jobs. And many foreclosures happened in that region. So these macro forces. But then also all it took was, you know, the kindness of one couple to completely change the course of my dad's life in a very profound way. And they met him, you know, at a hotel in Delhi and decided over one night that they wanted to take a chance on him and bring him to this country. And so I wanted to show kind of that like there are these larger forces, right, that can really change, you know, thousands of people's lives. But all took was one couple, one person to kind of really also alter someone's life.

[D]

There's so many stories that you hear on tape that you've, you know, in the conversations that you recorded. I mean, you probably as a kid had heard them before. Is it different hearing it, you know, I don't know, 15 years ago where, you know, every teenager is just kind of rolling their eyes and like, oh, dad, this story again versus now when you're kind of combing through the archives and you're trying to construct this story. I wonder if it hit differently.

[E]

I mean, it hit differently right when we started recording the phone calls. So I recorded the calls well, you know, 20 years ago now. Over 20 years ago. And prior to that, I Had known all these stories before, and this was just a way for us to, like, spend time together. You know, he'd always wanted to kind of record his story, so I was like, let's just do it over the phone. I can keep you company while you're working. And. And so he started telling the same story that I knew by heart, almost verbally, like verbatim. But then it was like the interruption of the cash register and sort of the soundtrack of a gas station coming in through these phone calls and through his story started to make me think really differently about what I was hearing.

[D]

I also wonder why you chose specifically to focus on the gas station attendant. Because in a way, it sort of shatters. There's this model minority myth that, oh, well, this must be the story of a successful rags to riches story. The kid was homeless, and here he is probably a tech billionaire now. Right? And that would be very easy for a lot of people to believe about an Indian man.

[E]

I tried not to let my mind go to those dark places, but I couldn't stop thinking how people would see my dad now as a butt of a joke, an easy target. But I kept those thoughts to myself.

[D]

I mean, why did you specifically say, this is the job that we're going to talk about? Obviously you do these recordings while he's working the night shift.

[E]

Right. I mean, I think it was exactly that I wanted people. I wanted to invite audiences to get to know this person that they probably see every day in their life and just pass by. The gas station attendant, the convenience store clerk, the taxi driver. And I think there are these tropes. You know, when we think about immigrant narratives, you know, it's like we're often defined by the work that we do. You know, the. The gas station attendant, you know, we get the job done. There's that trope. There's also like the victim trope or the, you know, or the portrayed as saints. And I really wanted my film to show someone, to invite people to get to know this person and to see the expanse of their life and not as like a narrow window, but very new. Like, this is. My dad makes mistakes. You know, he's human, he's flawed like the rest of us. And I wanted you to still fall in love with them and maybe even, like, feel like you could have been his friend by the end of. Of film.

[D]

Hello?

[A]

Dad?

[D]

Yes?

[E]

Hi, it's Carla.

[D]

Hi, sweetie.

[E]

How's it going? Okay, my love. Is it busy?

[D]

Oh, it comes and goes. 11, 30, 12. It kind of slows down. Read A paper and keep myself busy.

[E]

So are you going to try and close the store?

[D]

I don't know yet. We spent some money for the advertisements. You know, they want to work.

[E]

Not even like people from the church. Not even people from the.

[D]

Not even people from the church. One of the things that you talk about, which I don't see many people certainly in our South Asian community talk about, is the financial mistakes that he made, the debt that he incurred that you helped bail him out of. And there's a lot of, I think, just sort of stigma and shame about talking about that. And I'm assuming this was an active choice for you to discuss this.

[E]

Yeah, it was. And I think. I mean, a lot of this film is about kind of reconciling difficult moments that I had with my dad, and that was definitely one of them. But, you know, also, just as I've been traveling with the film, I mean, we premiered last year, and I've now been all over the country with the film with all kinds of different audiences, and so many people are like, oh, that happened in my family too. It is so common, you know, these sort of financial hardships and sort of these difficult money situations within families that no one wants to talk about. And so I feel really gratified for kind of. For putting that in there and just opening up that door for people to kind of talk about that stuff more. Because I think once it's out in the open, then there's. There's so much guilt and shame about that kind of stuff and to keep it, like, just within families. But I feel like, you know, maybe we could have just helped each other out more in those situations, you know, with financial hardship. And I just feel like there's so much room for conversation and dialogue about that. That can be very healing for famil families, too.

[D]

Yeah. What did you figure out was your dad's, I guess, big American dream, and. And maybe what did that teach you about how yours might have been influenced by it, how different it is?

[E]

Yeah, the American dream, I mean, it's a dream. And I think it's, you know, maybe not. I mean, I think, like, you know, the American dream is. Is you get the golden ticket to come here, you work really hard, don't break any laws, and then you can make it pull yourself up by the bootstraps and bam. Model minority. And yes, that's true for some people, but not for many. And I think for me, it was. Understanding the American dream through my dad's eyes was very different. And yes, he did get The. The great golden ticket to come here. But it continued to be a struggle for him and for our family financially. But I think also, I mean, I also just owe a lot to this country. I wouldn't exist. My mother came here to work as a nurse from the Philippines, and I would not be here if it weren't for that opportunity for them to come to this country. My kids wouldn't exist. My husband's family is from Lebanon, and they came here to flee the civil war. So there is this promise of that, of the American dream. And, you know, so I have a very complicated relationship with it.

[D]

When I used to sleep on the street looking at the stars and moon, and always prayed, someday, somehow my life will change. I want to have a family. My wife, I can hold her hands. And my kids. That was my dream. You start the film out with a quote by Laila Lalami. Humanity is fundamentally a story of migration. Why was that important? I mean, because right now there is a conversation about immigration and migration in this country and all over the planet.

[E]

It was one of those moments when I was thinking about the world that my film would be born into. And I really wanted people to see the universal. To be introduced into this film in a very universal way. And to see that my father's life and his story is very universal in terms of, like, immigration and migration. And, you know, I don't know, this is a little bit off, but it reminds me of every time anyone goes up into space and then they have this, like, epiphany that, like, oh, we're all one world and we're all one being. And for me, it was. I was having those moments a lot when I was making this film and thinking about, like, how can you see this film in a much more universal way? And I mean, and it is true, you know, that we are. We are species that is constantly migrating. It is not unnatural. But yet we are having these conversations about borders. And I just wanted people to understand that this is a history that goes far back. This is part of who we are as a human species is to be migrating. And we do this out of need, out of trying to survive, not, you know, to take from other countries, but as a, you know, as a. As a means of survival.

[D]

This was kind of a almost a love letter to your dad and just really to a lot of things that you wanted to get through. But you've said before that, you know, you want us in the audience to get to know him, and by the end of it, you've totally succeeded. And that there is a part of me that comes of grieves for your dad. I'm very happy that I got a chance to even get this glimpse into his life. And it's really remarkable what you've done with it.

[E]

Thank you. Thank you. And I mean, I also want the film to be a call to action to people watching it, to also kind of get to know their parents stories in a very intimate way. And. Yeah. And to kind of open that door for dialogue intergenerationally. And it doesn't even have to be. I'm not even talking about like immigrant history. There are so many things that you can learn from different generations. And to kind of open that dialogue and to really open the door to become just more empathetic with each other. We just need a lot more empathy in this world right now.

[D]

Yeah. Karla Murthy, director of the film the Gas Station Attendant, thanks so much for your time.

[E]

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[A]

And finally, France has been battling devastating wildfires for weeks. And according to the country's prime minister, they are finally under control. It's a feat made possible in part with the help of Ukrainian friends who, despite facing their own crisis at home, traveled 52 hours to the west of Bordeaux over the weekend. There, they joined their French counterparts in efforts to extinguish a massive blaze spanning roughly 42,000 hectares. Among all international partners assisting with firefighting efforts in the area, the 70 person Ukrainian firefighting squad is the largest team deployed, displaying an act of courage and generosity to an ally in a time of need.

[E]

Wow.

[A]

Well, that is it for us today. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online on our website and all over social media. Thanks so much for watching and goodbye. From New York Foreign.

[F]

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