Former Canadian Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff

Summary

Amanpour – Former Canadian Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff

CNN Podcasts | January 27, 2026
Host: Bianna Golodryga (in for Christiane Amanpour)
Guest: Michael Ignatieff, former leader of Canada’s Liberal Party and president of Central European University

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rapidly shifting global alliances and the perceived unraveling of the US-led world order, focusing on recent trade negotiations involving Canada, Europe, China, and the US. Michael Ignatieff joins the discussion to reflect on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s warnings about the decline of the rules-based international order, the rise of great power rivalry, and what it means for so-called "middle powers" like Canada. The episode weaves in the context of American domestic politics under President Trump, Europe’s strategic recalibrations, security questions, and the immigration debate, offering a broad and candid survey of the geopolitical fault lines shaping today’s world.

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Main Topics and Key Discussion Points

1. Cracks in the Rules-Based International Order

• India and the EU have finalized a sweeping trade deal; Canada is forging a strategic partnership with China, triggering threats of US tariffs under President Trump ([01:12-02:30]).
• Mark Carney (Canadian Prime Minister) at Davos: "If we're not at the table, we’re on the menu" ([02:32]).
• Ignatieff echoes Carney’s urgency, calling this a “rupture, not a transition” in global affairs ([02:45]).

2. The Plight (and Strategy) of Middle Powers

• Ignatieff: The global system is breaking into three blocs – US/Western Hemisphere, China/East Asia, and Russia/Europe ([03:40]).
• Most countries are "middle states" with limited power; their best survival strategy is to diversify alliances, trade among each other, and play major powers off one another ([04:00-05:00]).
• Risks and hopes in Canada’s current approach: While striving for stability and economic strength through diversification, Canada must avoid provoking US retaliation ([04:30-05:50]).

3. US-Canada Tensions and Carney's Defiance

• President Trump claimed, “Canada survives because of America” following Canada’s China deal, threatening a 100% tariff ([05:51]).
• Mark Carney’s forceful reply:

  “Canada doesn’t live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian.” ([06:37], Ignatieff delivering Carney’s words)

• Carney judges that America's own economic interdependence with Canada (energy, lumber, aluminum) could force Trump to negotiate, despite hostile rhetoric ([07:39-09:57]).

4. Middle Powers: False Choices and New Realities

• Ross Douthat’s NYT column argues middle powers risk falling under China’s sway if they assert independence from the US ([09:57-11:23]).
• Ignatieff’s response:

  “I don’t think…our choice is submission to one power bloc or another…the world has changed much more than…Ross Douthat understands.” ([11:23])

• Points to emerging powers (India, Brazil, Africa) and the possibility of “middle powers” working in concert to resist both US and Chinese hegemony.

5. NATO, European Security, and Trump

• NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte defends continued European dependence on the US for security, praising Trump’s “good stuff” ([13:28-14:08]).
• Ignatieff: Europe may need to “think very new and slightly scary thoughts” about self-reliance (France and UK have their own nuclear deterrents), especially if US security guarantees evaporate ([14:20-16:10]).
• The "Greenland debacle" revealed growing rupture and unity among US allies in defiance of Trump’s overtures for US acquisition ([16:10-17:45]).

"Americans need to understand just how deeply this crossed every line that Europeans can live with…” ([16:39], Ignatieff)

6. Trump’s Foreign Policy: Me First, Not America First

• Later in the episode, Thomas Friedman joins Walter Isaacson to reinforce that Trump’s decision-making is driven not by strategic calculation or national interest but by his personal moods and “superstitions" ([38:41]).

“It’s entirely driven by the moods, attitudes, and superstitions of a president who is more unbounded than any president we basically had in the modern era.”
– Michael Ignatieff ([38:41])

• The Trump administration's unpredictability and lack of institutional checks have left allies uncertain; markets and the wider world are beginning to push back ([41:02-42:32]).

7. The Role of China and the Future of Alliances

• Canada’s new trade opening to China is interpreted as both pragmatic and risky ([42:32]).
• Ignatieff: China and Russia would love to see America lose its global alliances – the real American "secret sauce" ([42:47]).
• “We have allies, they have vassals.” ([43:35], Ignatieff)

8. Globalization, Populism, and Immigration

• Despite criticisms of globalization’s uneven rewards, Ignatieff argues it’s produced unparalleled prosperity, especially lifting India and China from poverty ([46:22-48:21]).
• Immigration: Calls for a “high wall with a big gate”—that is, robust border controls combined with strong legal immigration ([48:39-50:30]).
• The politics of division, as practiced by Trump in places like Minneapolis, threaten consensus and stability ([50:30-52:40]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the End of the Rules-Based Order

• “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
  – Michael Ignatieff ([02:45])

• “The strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.”
  – Mark Carney, paraphrased by Ignatieff ([06:12])

On Middle Power Survival

• “Most states are middle states… These middle states then have to get together, begin to trade with each other, begin to play one big power off against another. And that's a strategy for survival.”
  – Michael Ignatieff ([03:40])

Pushback Against US Bullying

• “Canada doesn’t live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian.”
  – Michael Ignatieff channeling Carney ([06:37])

On Trump’s Governing Style

• “It’s entirely driven by the moods, attitudes, and superstitions of a president who is more unbounded than any president we basically had in the modern era.”
  – Michael Ignatieff ([38:41])

On Alliances vs. Vassals

• “They have vassals, China and Russia. And we have allies.”
  – Michael Ignatieff ([43:35])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:32] – Carney’s Davos warning; “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
• [03:40] – Ignatieff: The new world of blocs and middle power coordination.
• [06:12-06:48] – Carney’s “defiant” rhetoric and reply to Trump.
• [07:39-09:57] – Strategic logic behind Canada’s diversification and Trump’s tariff threats.
• [11:23] – Ignatieff disputes US-centric, binary models for middle powers.
• [14:20-16:10] – Military alliances, European self-defense, and consequences of US disengagement.
• [38:41] – Ignatieff on the personalism and unpredictability of Trump’s leadership.
• [43:35] – Comparison: US has allies, China and Russia have vassals.
• [46:22] – Globalization’s effects and the populist backlash.
• [48:39-50:30] – Immigration policy: “high wall, big gate.”

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Additional Content Highlights

• Documentary Feature: "The Tale of Siljan" follows a Macedonian farmer’s relationship with migrating storks as an allegory for economic migration and resilience ([28:21-36:24]).
• On-the-Ground Reports: Updates from Iran ([18:48-20:09]) and Syria ([22:01-25:43]), illustrating the ripple effects of American foreign policy shifts.
• Holocaust Remembrance: Survivor Tova Friedman shares her testimony on the importance of telling stories to warn against resurgent hatred ([53:50-54:29]).

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Conclusion

This episode delivers an incisive analysis of a world at an inflection point, where the collapse of decades-old certainties paves the way for new rivalries, strategies, and narratives. Michael Ignatieff’s and Mark Carney’s perspectives frame a sobering discussion on sovereignty, alliance-building, and democratic resilience in the face of abrupt power shifts and nationalist politics. For listeners, it’s a compelling entry point into understanding the profound recalibrations underway in both global power and the Western political imagination.

Transcript

[Bianna Golodryga]

What is it about Australia that just hits different Australia is where we shared our first kiss, where we fell in love. That was 18 years ago now. And this is what, your fourth trip back.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Australia has this incredible way of drawing you back.

[Bianna Golodryga]

The ocean, the people, the oysters. So good, so briny and delicious. And the possibility of exploring something new. Learn more about Zach and Laura's [e-mail] or and start planning the vacation of a lifetime. Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up. The EU seals a trade deal with India and Canada begins a strategic partnership with China. Was Mark Carney right about our world order rupturing? I asked former Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff. Then. The Tale of Siljan, a new documentary following a farmer who found solace in an unlikely companion. I speak with the Oscar nominated director Tamara Kotcifska.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Plus, it's entirely driven by the moods, attitudes and superstitions of a president who is more unbounded than any president we basically had in the modern era.

[Bianna Golodryga]

New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman tells Walter Isaacson why he thinks Trump's politics are not America first, but me first. Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Bianna Go Rodriguez in New York, sitting in for Christian Amanpour. Now a spate of new trade agreements show how America's global partners are hedging their bets against Trump's volatile tariff policy in New Delhi. India and the European Union finalize what they call the mother of all deals. And Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer heads to China today on a four day mission seeking new investment deals there. Canada is also negotiating a new strategic partnership with Beijing and President Trump isn't happy about it. He threatened Canada with 100% tariffs. In a post on Truth Social. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney saw all of this coming. Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, he called for middle powers to prepare for the end of the rules based international order warning, quote, if we're not at the table, we're on the menu.

[Michael Ignatieff]

We participated in the rituals and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Michael Ignatieff is a historian and a politician who preceded Carney as the head of Canada's Liberal Party. He calls Carney's warning a wake up call for Western democracies. Ignatieff is now president of Central European University and he joins me now from Vienna. Michael, welcome to the program so in your opinion, is Prime Minister Carney right, essentially saying that middle powers like Canada and EU members can only survive by now admitting that we're in a world where, as he put it, the strong do what they can?

[Walter Isaacson]

I think he is right. I think we're facing a world divided into three big blocks. The United States and the Western Hemisphere, China and East Asia and Russia right at the border of Europe. And none of these powers, China, Russia and the United States are respecting the sovereignty of other states. And that was the basis of the rules based international order. So we are in a new world. And he's saying, look, middle states like Canada and most, most states are middle states. You know, most states don't have this kind of nuclear power, financial power. These middle states then have to get together, begin to trade with each other, begin to play one big power off against another. And that's a strategy for survival.

[Bianna Golodryga]

So does this strategy then from Mark Carney help stabilize a new type of system or does it help break it down, the current system break down sooner?

[Walter Isaacson]

That's a very good question. I think he hopes clearly that it stabilizes. Middle powers want stability. You know, our voters, our people in the streets want stability. So he's hoping that diversification of our economic links in Canada is going to strengthen our economy. It's not going to put us into conflict with America. Here's, that's the problem. He's hoping that he can do deals with China that don't so infuriate the Americans that they then clobber us with tariffs. So he's playing a game that's full of risks. And I think he's gambled that the old order is gone. He, he's gambling that a free trade agreement with the United States like we had from 1988 onwards is gone. So if the old world is gone, let's try and build a new one. But you're, you're quite right to, to make the point. He wants stability. I don't think he wants to blow. He doesn't want to increase further instability in the global order.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yet he wasn't subtle in terms of speaking directly and responding directly to President Trump. In some of the commentary, the blistering commentary that we heard from President Trump, basically, I'm not even putting words in his mouth. He literally said Canada survives because of America. Here's what Mark Carney then said.

[Michael Ignatieff]

We live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.

[Thomas Friedman]

Canada Gets a lot of freebies from.

[Walter Isaacson]

Us, by the way. They should be grateful also, but they're not. They should be grateful to us.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Canada. Canada lives because of the United States.

[Walter Isaacson]

Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Canada doesn't live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Really impressive and memorable commentary then. And even defiance from the prime minister. We should also note, not just a politician, he himself was a central banker. So he really knows what's at stake here. But I'm wondering if the actions match some of the rhetoric, because then we turn to see President Trump threatening a tariffs on Canada after the announcement of new trade deal with China. Now, the president's treasury secretary said that only applied to any free trade negotiations in deals that they made, which Mark Carney said was not the case. Given all of this, though, I mean, do you think this is Canada now really being put on the back foot and having to wonder how these types of threats impact the country's economy?

[Walter Isaacson]

Look, you know, Vienna, we've been under threat really for a year. We were the first country in the line of fire when Trump took over and launched this new tariff offensive that's gone global. So we've had threats of this tariff level, that tariff level. And Carney, I think, is making the judgment that, you know, that he's not clear what's going to stick, what isn't going to stick. I think he's made the judgment and this is a big risk that the old free trade world that we agreement that we had is dead and that he's going to have to negotiate something new. But he's making a further assumption, which is that it's so much in America's interest to have free trade. We're so interdependent dependent. The United States depends on the United, on Canada as much, if not more than Canada depends on the United States is the idea here. We ship a lot of electricity, we ship a lot of oil, we ship a lot of lumber, ship a lot of aluminum. And that's going to feed through into domestic pressure on Mr. Trump. If Mr. Trump, President Trump imposes tariffs on Canada, it has blowback domestically. So Carney is making the assumption that as a politician, Trump will get this blowback and eventually come to a deal with, with Canada. And it's not just an economic blowback. The president is getting huge blowback for the events that are occurring in Minneapolis. So I think Trump, Mr. Carney is making the assumption that Trump doesn't hold all the cards here and that it is possible to get some kind of deal, not free trade, not the old Kuzma, but something that allows the Canadian economy to, you know, keep going. And as he diversifies, you know, Carney has a problem, which is that he needs to diversify. He needs to do a lot to boost our productivity. He needs to make our economy stronger. He needs, you know, about 10 years to get that work done. So he doesn't. He has a time pressure, but he's gambling that Mr. Trump has a time pressure, which is domestic pressure on the president that will force him to make a deal with Canada.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah. And at least publicly, we're not hearing that type of posturing, though, from the president or any of his top cabinet officials. As you saw there in Davos. Basically, all of the officials were saying publicly that the United States is the most powerful, the strongest country in the world, the richest country in the world. And so it's incumbent on other countries to then bow to whatever demands the United States is making, and then that will then enrich their own economies. I want to ask you about an op ed in the New York Times from column conservative columnist Ross Douthat, who claims that Carney's plan for middle powers to work together is probably easier said than done. And let me quote from it. It's worth considering where the logic of Carney's vision of world order might lead. Certain middle powers and economies can sometimes work together against greater ones in crucial areas, though the New World Order is not truly multipolar and its middle powers are ill equipped to bandwagon. Rather, they often face a binary choice in which the more independence they assert from the United States, the more they risk subordination to China. And that does seem to be what's playing out. While you have Canada and the United Kingdom really extending a hand to China and Xi Jinping, it does seem that the EU collectively is being quite a bit more hesitant here. So would you agree with that binary framing from Ross Douthat?

[Walter Isaacson]

I think Ross would say that, wouldn't he? I think it's an American perspective. I think he's forgetting this is a big world. You know, we haven't mentioned anything about Latin America, huge economies. We haven't mentioned the. The enormous importance of Europe as a trading partner. I don't think that you, Canada has a choice, a binary choice between you either cozy up to the Americans or you cozy up with the Chinese. Canada will try as best it can to play one side off the other. Infuriating both sometimes. But we've been at this for a very Very long time. The country is still in, in place after, you know, a couple hundred years next door to the United States. And I think we, we don't believe that our choices is submission to one power bloc or another. And, and I, and I think we have to remember that the world has changed much more than I think Ross Dutad is understanding. I mean, you know, 20 years ago, India was not the economic giant that it is. Brazil was not the economic giant that, you know, looking forward, you can see Africa becoming a tremendously important power. Europe right now is a huge power. All of these are potential markets. All of these are places where middle countries like Canada can do business. And as all of the countries in the middle range face this huge pressure from China and the United States, they're going to have a strong interest in getting together and pushing this pressure back, because no one wants to be a slave to, you know, the new imperial powers of the 21st century. You know, I say this personally, and I was educated in the States, I love the United States, but no one is going to force Canada into a subaltern dependent position on the United States. It's just not going to happen.

[Bianna Golodryga]

So there's the approach that Mark Carney is taking. And then there's the rhetoric, at least publicly, that we're hearing from the NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, who has developed quite a close relationship with President Trump and told members of the European Parliament just yesterday that President Trump was, quote, doing a lot of good stuff. Let's listen to what else he said.

[Michael Ignatieff]

So when President Trump is doing good stuff, I will praise him and I.

[Walter Isaacson]

Don'T mind him publishing text messages.

[Michael Ignatieff]

And if anyone thinks here again, that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the US keep on dreaming. You can't. We can't. We need each other.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Okay, So I think he's speaking more from a military, national security perspective. But some of, you know, trade is also a big factor here. Is he wrong in your view?

[Walter Isaacson]

I understand why Mark Ruda is saying this. He's the Secretary General of an alliance that needs, you know, American commitment to European security. So he will say that. But look, you know, we're already in a world now in which Europe is supplying all of the financial assistance and most of the military assistance to keep Ukraine in the fight. That hardly indicates that the United States is the decisive player here. Look, every European hopes that America will continue to make its basically nuclear guarantee of the security of Europe. But if that goes, if Trump basically says, I'm not going to send you know, American troops or, you know, soldiers or anything to die for Lithuania or the Baltic or any of these states in Europe, then Europe will have to face that reality. And let's not forget that, you know, France has a nuclear deterrent, Britain has a nuclear deterrent. You know, we need to think some very new and slightly scary thoughts. But the assumption that Europe cannot defend itself with the United States is we just need to think new thoughts about that. And Canada needs to think those thoughts about the Arctic, about all the security issues. The Americans have to understand that if Trump plays these games, and they're mostly games, then everybody else has to think thoughts that they haven't thought for 80 years. And that's what Trump. That's what Carney was saying at the Davos speech. We have to imagine the world anew, make new trade partnerships, new defense partnerships, beef up our own investment in our own security, because we cannot rely on the United States, period.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And we've heard that from French President Emmanuel Macron over the past few years as well. I'm just wondering what, if any, lessons came out of the whole Greenland debacle? Is it that to your point that some of these middle economies really coming together can stand up to the president, at least to save face and have him walk away from some of these threats, or did it expose more rupture within the alliance?

[Walter Isaacson]

I think it exposes more rupture between the United States and the rest of the alliance. And I think it shows quite a lot of unity on the other side, the European side of the alliance, who simply thought, look, are you telling me seriously, Mr. President, that you want to own territory in a European nation state that's a member of NATO that fought side by side with you in Afghanistan? You seem to ignore the ways in which the alliance has fought side by side with you. Are you seriously trying to do this? Because if you are, we're all pushing back. I think Americans need to understand just how deeply this crossed every line that, that Europeans can live with in their relation to the Americans. And now does this end? Is. Is the story over? We don't know.

[Michael Ignatieff]

We.

[Walter Isaacson]

Mr. Ruta is having discussions with Mr. Trump about a Greenland deal. We still don't know what it means, but it's pretty clear to me that Europe has had enough of this kind of game playing from the president of.

[Bianna Golodryga]

The United States, though Europe is still relying on the United States, as we continue to hear from European leaders and from the leaders of Ukraine that it is really the United States that ultimately decides how and when this war in Ukraine can come to an end. Michael Ignatieff, thank you. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

[Walter Isaacson]

Pleasure.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Well, Donald Trump's challenges to the post World War II international order are raising tensions in the Middle east, where the region is caught up in an anxious waiting game to see if the US Plans to strike Iran. President Trump threatened military action over the regime's crackdown on nationwide demonstrations, saying the military is locked and loaded and ready to go if Iran violently kills peaceful protesters. Well, now the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is in the Indian Ocean prepared to assist in any potential operations. Correspondent Fred Plaikin is in Tehran with the details from inside Iran.

[Fred Plaikin]

Iran's leadership is sending a very strong and defiant message to the United States and specifically, of course, to the Trump administration. You could see it here on this gigantic poster on Revolution Square in central Tehran. The message on this massive poster is if you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind, obviously, meaning if the United States attacks Iran, Iran will retaliate in a massive way, which could, of course, lead to a major military confrontation between the United States and Iran. And that's also something that's on the minds of many of the people that we've been speaking to here as well.

[Bianna Golodryga]

I'm not sure what to say. I think they are all collaborating with one another against the interest of the Iranian people.

[Thomas Friedman]

I don't think Trump dares to attack.

[Michael Ignatieff]

He's more bluffing.

[Fred Plaikin]

All this, of course, comes as President Trump weighs his options on what to do next. The US has pulled together a substantial military force here in this region, but the Iranians also say they've replenished their stockpiles of ballistic missiles and are ready to hit back hard any time now. Of course, all this comes in the wake of those large protests that happened here in Iran in the early part of January. And when you're out, out on the streets here, you can see that there are people who are still traumatized by what happened then.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Lots of people out there in the streets. When I had to leave home, I don't know what to say, but the situation was very bad. Now that the Internet connection is restored, we only now know that so many were killed.

[Bianna Golodryga]

That's senior international correspondent Fred Plaitkin reporting there. And do stay with cnn. We'll be right back after the break. Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper.

[Michael Ignatieff]

On my podcast All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities.

[Bianna Golodryga]

My guest is Yiyoon Lee, an award.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Winning author and a professor of creative writing.

[Bianna Golodryga]

At Princeton, she's written a number of highly acclaimed novels and memoirs.

[Walter Isaacson]

Her latest is called Things in Nature Merely Grow. You don't like the word grief or.

[Michael Ignatieff]

You don't use the word grief?

[Bianna Golodryga]

I don't use the word grief the way people use it. People talk about their grief as a process. It's a state that we're going to.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Be in forever and ever, and I.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Choose to be here.

[Michael Ignatieff]

You choose to be?

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yes, because the alternative is you forget you are lost people. And I don't want to forget.

[Fred Plaikin]

Talking grief, building community.

[Walter Isaacson]

That's what the podcast is all about.

[Bianna Golodryga]

This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. We turn now to northeast Syria, where tensions remained high between the government and local Kurdish forces as a fragile ceasefire appears to be largely holding and attempts by Damascus to forcibly integrate the Kurds into Syria's military are meeting resistance. Senior international correspondent Ben Wiedemann is there as he assesses the impact of changing US alliances and renewed threats to civilians and detainees.

[Ben Wiedemann]

The men and boys are on high alert, machine guns at the ready at checkpoints around the Kurdish controlled town of Malkiya. They fear the Syrian army, fresh from victories against their fellow Kurds in Aleppo and Raqqa, is coming their way. For years, we were allies, Cesar and then at the last moment, the Americans go with Jolani. With isis. Jolani, the nom de guerre of Syrian President Ahmed Al Shara until a decade ago, a leader of an Al Qaeda affiliate, the US position is that the time has come for the Kurds to integrate into the Syrian army. Next morning, at a school hosting people fleeing the fighting, we found few were buying America's prescription. And the same goes to the UN and the Security Council, says Abu Dhaiyar. He came with his wife, his sons and his grandchildren. Like so many uprooted time and time again in a country ripped apart by nearly 15 years of war, they're beyond the breaking point. Aren't we human? Asked this woman. We moved from Afrin to Shahba to Aleppo to Haseke. Enough. Enough. We're dying. Amidst the violence and chaos lies this desolate camp, home to more than 2,000 foreign women and children who flocked to Syria to live in the Islamic state now guarded by Kurdish forces. Camp administrator Hakimat Ibrahim tells me the atmosphere turned menacing when the detainees heard the Kurds were under attack. They said ISIS is returning, she tells me, and when that happens, we won't leave one of you alive. One of the guards drove us around the camp. We were told it was too dangerous to walk. We went inside the tent of one woman from Britain, afraid to be identified but desperate to talk.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Because I'm different with a person. I'm not dashi. I'm not feeding no one. I just, I'm scared. Oh, my son.

[Ben Wiedemann]

Of course, dashi is colloquial Arabic for someone with the Islamic State. She said the UK Revoked her citizenship.

[Michael Ignatieff]

I don't have anybody anywhere else. My mom, my dad, my brothers all live in England.

[Ben Wiedemann]

The other much bigger camp for ISIS women and children, El Hol, is now under Syrian government control. The US Is in the process of moving the seventh ISIS men who were in Kurdish run prisons to more secure facilities in Iraq. On the defensive, the Kurds are preparing for battle. These young volunteers load bullets into their magazines. They too accuse the US of betrayal. America has always pursued its interests, says this fighter who asks we not show face. As soon as it gets what it wants, America sells you out. That said, for them, it's time to go to the front. Ben Wideemann, cnn, northeastern Syria.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Our thanks to Ben Wiedemann. And we'll be right back after this short break. This week on the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish.

[Thomas Friedman]

The United States is very much the.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Bad guys pretty much across the board right now.

[Bianna Golodryga]

That's Leach. He's a contributing editor at New York Magazine covering sports and film. And the Winter Games are coming up. So Will is joining me to talk about not just the athletes stories, but also the geopolitical tensions at play. I promise it's fun.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Is there a time where the U.S. if things continue on the way they're.

[Thomas Friedman]

Going, they start to become kind of.

[Michael Ignatieff]

The pariah on the global sports stage the way that Russia has.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Listen to the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish. Streaming now on your favorite podcast app. The engagement that broke the Internet. A Taylor Swift wedding is a pinnacle moment of celebrity culture. Could it have a billion dollar ripple effect on the wedding industry? I do. The Taylor and Travis era now streaming on the CNN app. Now we turn to a new documentary telling a story that feels as timeless as a folk tale. The Tale of Celian follows a farmer in North Macedonia struggling to make a living off of the land after his family moves to Germany for work. His loneliness is interrupted when he chooses to take in a stork with a broken wing. Here's a clip from the trailer. The Tale of Celian is directed by Oscar nominated documentary director Tamara Kutzevka. And Tamara joins me now live from North Macedonia. Tamara, good to see you. Welcome to the program. So this documentary follows the story of Nikola, who is a farmer, who is facing the perils of a struggling economy in North Macedonia. How did you come about in finding Nikola and what stood out to you about him that made you want to make this documentary?

[Tamara Kotcifska]

This documentary was primarily inspired by the white storks. I started with the idea of following the white storks, changing their food and migrational patterns, and starting to eat from landfills. A lot of them were staying in the country. They stopped migrating and they were dying out in the landfills. For me, it was interesting to explore the diversity between how they used to feed, which is following the farmers and eating from their land, and how they feed now from the landfills and by following them on the lands where the farmers were working. That's where I met Nicola and his family together with many other families. But Nicola stood out because of just the very special connection he had to his family. The very special and open relationship and love they had. And they were not shying away from camera. And they were just really cinematic characters. So that's why I decided to work with them.

[Bianna Golodryga]

No, they really became sort of mesmerizing to watch as a family. Just as mesmerizing were the storks there. And it's interesting to hear that that was what initially drew you to tell the story. And then you happened to come upon Nicola to be sort of the human voice for the tale of what happens when an economy turns south. And you see these storks going from a life where they were feeding off of fresh fruits and vegetable vegetables, to then feeding off of any remnants and garbage in a landfill. It's also based on a story that. A childhood folk tale that you grew up loving, thus the name Silian. Tell us a little bit about that.

[Tamara Kotcifska]

The Tale of Silen is the very first tale I got to hear from my farming grandparents. I grew up also with storks around me when I was a child on the fields in the countryside with my grandparents. So it was a very popular tale and it in a way shaped my love to animals. And the white storks have been my favorite animal since forever. But I just never thought about using this tale until very late in this film when actually Nicola found this stork and they started a really strong bond which reminded me of this tale.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah, they started a strong bond after his family, his wife, his daughter, his son in law and their young daughter moved to Germany to find more permanent and stable work. And Nicola was left struggling not only with the farm, but also how to maintain providing resources and finances for the family. Let's play a clip from the film as he's developed this bond with the stork While he's on FaceTime with his family in Germany. Explain to our viewers what dilemma he's already struggling with here as it comes to and relates to maintaining his farmland.

[Tamara Kotcifska]

Well, because the farmers were facing very serious crisis in Macedonia and this is happening for ages really. Many of them are foreign, forced to migrate. So we have one of the strongest waves of economical migration and many of them are forced to sell their lands, one of which is Nikola, where he's facing the internal conflict because he doesn't want to give up on this way of life. He loves this way of life, but in the same time he has to find a way to support his family and he has to find another job for himself to be financially stable. And majority of these farmers paradoxically end up on the landfills because they are in a critical age where they can't find a new profession, a new job, but they also can't do the old one. So usually they're taking this really low key jobs on the landfills or cleaners or things like this. So he ends up being working on the landfill, but he still doesn't want to give up from his land.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And then you see that stork really keeping him company and keeping him grounded as well, giving him another mission to help restore the stork back to, back to health. Watching the documentary, I have to say, Tamara feels like you're watching a feature film. Even the producers, as we were talking about this film in our morning meeting, we said we couldn't determine whether is this really a documentary? Are these actors, and you yourself have previously noted that there's been a certain rejection of traditional documentary filmmaking amongst your peers. So why did you decide to approach this documentary from this lens?

[Tamara Kotcifska]

Well, first of all, I always was very interested in new forms of filmmaking and not staying in one particular box. And for me, even in the times of Honeyland and the films before Honeyland, the short documentaries I've been making before, I was always trying to experiment and find new, engaging ways for audience to immerse in documentaries and to find a greater art in documentaries, not just a journalistic approach or a talking head approach. Now for me, this is the art of cinema, of how to shape reality into the tools that film craft is giving us. So that's why I decided here to follow that.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah, and you mentioned your previous Oscar nominated documentary, Honeyland and the parallels here are the roles that animals play in this film and Chishanova is the country's largest white stork population. How did you manage to film these storks so closely?

[Tamara Kotcifska]

Well, it's been a long research really. We didn't know too much about storks and I had to get engaged with a lot of stork activists and biologists who gave us the secrets of the stork world where we can find them. They gave me and the team the pin locations, about 100 pin locations of nests throughout the country. And we were just going around really and discovering logistics about which nest is the best, how we can position ourselves to shoot. Many times we were approaching people's houses where we see a good balconies on the level where we can see or what kind of technology we can use. And eventually when we decided to use this particular drone, we had to build a bond in a way for the storks not to be afraid of it. So it took some time.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Well, the stork is a beautiful animal and you really come to appreciate it watching this film. I don't want to reveal too much about the film, but it does end on a cautiously hopeful note. It is a very clever, engaging documentary. Tamara Katsievka Kitciewska, thank you so much. Good luck with the film. Really appreciate you joining us. And the tale of Sulian, the tale of Celian is now streaming on Disney and Hulu. We return now to the United States with a closer look at what is happening in the White House and why. From ISIS violent crackdown in Minneapolis and Trump's threats to invade Greenland to the President, 70 minutes speech at Davos riddled with inaccuracies and verbal jabs. It's been a whirlwind of a few weeks. Our next guest writes that Trump's politics are not America first. They're me first. New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman joins Walter Isaacson to discuss this rapidly changing world order with America and Trump at the helm.

[Thomas Friedman]

Thank you. Bianna and Tom Friedman, welcome back to the show.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Great to be with you, Walter.

[Thomas Friedman]

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Davos this past week gave a speech that I think it may be the most significant or one of the Most significant in 80 years since Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech. And it was about, he said, the end of the American led world order. Is that what's happening now?

[Michael Ignatieff]

Walter, you're asking a critically important question. I think it could be happening. I think that there are people within the Trump administration who are acting in ways that will inevitably make it happen. But I don't think we're there yet. And I think there's a lot of pushback against it if from nowhere else in the financial markets because you saw how the market reacted so negatively by Trump seeming to engage in what, what Prime Minister Carney called a rupture basically with the Atlantic Alliance.

[Thomas Friedman]

And Trump has talked about things that are America first, but you have a column saying he's not really dealing with America first. It's kind of me first for him.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Yeah. You know, I think that if you look at the history of American foreign policy, Walter, which you have going back to your Kissinger book, you would say that the kind of rupture, the kind of 180 degree turn that we're seeing by the Trump administration on foreign policy or attempted turn is the kind of thing you'd only associate with a major war or a huge economic explosion. To the downside, what is so striking about this moment is this is not happening in the context of a major war or some kind of economic collapse. It's entirely driven by the moods, attitudes and superstitions of a president who is more unbounded than any president we've basically had in the modern era. He's a man of extreme views who is basically able to govern at least for these two years with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate and the White House entirely in his hands. But not only in his hands with a Republican Party that is basically chosen to surrender its responsibilities for advice and consent from, from the Senate and spending power from the House to the president. So we've never seen this combination of a president with radical views on foreign policy unbuffered entirely by the administration.

[Thomas Friedman]

When Carney spoke at Davos, he talked about, he took up the cause of Vaclav Havel, who talked about the collaborationist instinct and how systems only work if people go along with things know aren't true. Like they put the sign in the window saying workers of the world unite in the old communist Soviet Union, even though they don't believe it. And he said it's time for the rest of the world, especially middle countries like Canada, to take the sign down and say this is all a fake. We're no longer going to play along. What do you make of that?

[Michael Ignatieff]

You know, Walter, by happenstance, I spoke at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver last week and I was introduced by the director of the school. And in the process of introducing me, she referred to Prime Minister Carney's remarks in Davos, which had just happened the day before or two days before. And the audience just erupted in Cheers. He got a lot more cheers than I did. Okay. And it. It. And my Canadian host, you know, pointed out to me that in their grocery stores now, they have marked with Canadian flags, Canadian made products. This is really not only insulting to them, but frightening to them. But you know the old saying, the enemy gets a vote. Canada is not our enemy. Even if Trump is trying to present them that way. The world will push back. It'll push back through markets, it'll push back by. Look at the price of gold just as a proxy.

[Thomas Friedman]

It.

[Michael Ignatieff]

What is that about? Okay, it's not just people worried about the instability of the moment. It's central banks around the world putting their dollars into gold rather than U.S. treasury bills. So the world gets a vote and Donald Trump can steamroll Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton and his own party, but the world will push back. It will resist.

[Thomas Friedman]

One of the ways Canada is resisting is it created an agreement with China now on more open trade. Do you think we could possibly see China taking advantage of all of this and becoming in some ways a de facto leader of the middle countries?

[Michael Ignatieff]

You know, China will attempt to do that. It has its own problems, though, its own asymmetric economic relationship with so many countries because it's over production. So I don't think that would be easy. I don't think there's any replacing America. But the reason China and Russia, Walter, have always voted Trump emotionally, if not otherwise, is because they actually understand America's secret sauce. They understand our single most important competitive advantage, which is they have vassals, China and Russia. And we have allies. And we have allies because we've had this kind of reciprocal relationship with them or a relationship where we are actually overly generous because we believe to strengthen the system. And when the system strengthened, the biggest country in the system, US Benefited the most. So we have allies, they have vassals. And the one thing they have both tried to do for decades and that they've dreamt of doing is breaking up NATO and breaking up the de facto American alliances in the Asian Pacific. And they never imagined a day where our own president would facilitate that.

[Thomas Friedman]

One of the topics was Greenland, of course. And I never, I thought when Trump was saying we may invade Greenland, I thought that was just his reality TV show thing. And indeed, I don't think he ever was thinking of invading Greenland. But wasn't it important to push our NATO out allies to do more in the defense of Greenland?

[Michael Ignatieff]

We have had a historic relationship with the sovereign in Greenland, the Denmark government in partnership with the Greenland government, that basically has allowed us since World War II to build and stock and deploy both forward radar and whatever fighter jet we want anywhere in Greenland. We've had that relationship. And the notion of that either Russia or China are moving on Greenland is ludicrous. There's no proof of that. There is concern that as the ice melts, there'll be a mineral grab over the Arctic. But the fact is, we have had all the military access to Greenland we need. Now Trump insists, well, because we don't own it, somehow we can't invest enough in it. Well, we don't own Germany and we don't own Japan, but we've had forward bases there since World War II. So the whole thing is just a ludicrous diversion by Trump for whatever reason or obsession. Or obsession. And this notion, I read that, oh, us silly people, we take him literally, not figuratively. What the hell does that mean? When the president United States speaks, you're not supposed to take him literally when he tells you, if you don't give me Greenland, you'll see what's going to happen to you.

[Thomas Friedman]

Let me ask you about the Davos European Internationalist consensus over the past 60 years or so. Didn't it get some fundamental things wrong, including the rewards of globalization not being distributed fairly that has caused this backlash. Backlash. And caused people like President Trump and others around Europe and the world to have a populist backlash against this?

[Michael Ignatieff]

Well, let's see. Last time I checked, more people grew out of poverty faster in India and China than any time, out of absolute poverty than any time in the history of the world. Now, you can say that their growth out of poverty came at the expense of. Of American middle class in the Midwest, in America. And that's true to some degree. As a country, we should have done more to protect these people, to undergird them. But I do think that globalization has its upsides and its downsides. And our job was to take advantage of the upsides and to cushion the downsides. We didn't do enough of that in America when we needed to. At the same time, if you go to a lot of these towns now, they have, in their own way, lifted themselves up and transformed themselves with new industries and whatnot. It's not perfect. It's nowhere near what it should have been. But what's the alternative, Walter? Should we have opted for autarky? How did that work out when the world went that direction before World War I? So, you know, there's an easy straw man at Davos, and there's an easy, comfortable self. Congratulation there both are extremes. But at the end of the day, the fact is that the world that we have today, the world that has been relatively more prosperous, more peaceful than any period in history, is so much a prospect product of America being the way America was and the fact that you had a US China trading relationship in the middle of it. That without both of which, well, I don't want to live to see that world where both of those things break down. Because when that happens, you will miss this period when it's gone.

[Thomas Friedman]

Another reason, I think perhaps for the populist backlash we're seeing in Europe and America was immigration and immigration going too far. It seemed. Did we get some of that wrong and is there a way to try to solve that issue?

[Michael Ignatieff]

I think we got it absolutely wrong. And I think Democrats and particularly the last administration, have a lot to answer for. You know, I've been advocating the same message on immigration now since Trump really made it an issue in his first administration. I'm for a very high wall. I am for a very high wall from one end of the Mexican border to another with a very big gate. Okay. Because unless you can assure Americans that we are controlling our border, you are going to lose a lot of them when it comes to immigration. I am super pro immigration. I'm for the high end, high educated immigration. And I'm for any Haitian who can, can build a boat out of milk cartons and get to our shores. Wow. I want that person. Okay. I want both the high energy and the high IQ immigrants. But we are not going to get them because we will not have a political consensus unless we can control the border. And that's why I urged in my column yesterday, my brothers and sisters in Minnesota, whom I'm so proud of for protecting their law abiding, hardworking, culturally enriching neighbors, even if some of them are here illegally. Okay? But at the same time, it's vital to me that Democrats, if they want to do well in the midterms, need to make it very clear they're for a high wall with a big gate, therefore legalizing immigration. Now, both parties have had challenges on this, but the fact is Democrats came together under the Biden administration with Senator Lankford of Oklahoma with a plan to actually overhaul all of immigration reform to give us what I call a high wall with a big gate. And Donald Trump killed the bill because he wanted to use this as a wedge issue.

[Thomas Friedman]

Tell me, why is it coming apart so badly in Minneapolis? Why has this become the focal point for things?

[Michael Ignatieff]

Well, well, Minnesota is a classic example of a community that had some very rapid demographic changes, maybe too quickly for the state to fully absorb both immigrants from Somalia and more broadly, that tension was there. At the same time, it is a community that has a legacy of, of a real social consciousness and wants to kind of make this work and therefore made itself Minneapolis a so called sanctuary city that wasn't going to arrest or facilitate the arrest easily of illegal immigrants. And Trump knew it was a perfect place to, to try to, rather than calmly sit down, bring together, say, let me create a bill, you know, for legalizing immigration and controlling the border. Let's work together with the people of Minnesota. He saw this as just a great way to pursue his own politics, which is the politics always of division, not addition. How do I divide, divide, divide, divide, divide. And so I win the election by 50.00001%. And that kind of leadership in this kind of hugely complex situation will give you this kind of explosion. But Democrats, just to say one thing, I really emphasize this in my column. Democrats need to understand, though, that there are a lot of voters in this country, and I'm one of them, and independents who are not good with just an open border. In my case, it's because I want immigration, I want more of it, but it's got to be legal immigration. And if we don't control the border, you will not have a national consensus for that, and that would be a tragedy.

[Thomas Friedman]

Tom Friedman, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Pleasure, Walter, thank you.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And finally today we commemorate the 6 million Jews murdered during World War II. The Today marks Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau, the notorious concentration camp. Earlier Tuesday, people gathered outside the ruins of Gas Chamber 4 to pay their respects to the men, women and children exterminated by the Nazis. Someone who experienced these horrors firsthand is Tova Friedman, one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz. She was, she was just five years old when she was taken there and where many of her family members were killed. Back in 2022, she spoke to Christian about growing up in the shadow of such violence and why she felt compelled to share her experience in her book, the Daughter of Auschwitz. Can I just start by asking you. I mean, this is just monumental, the story, the history and the way you have survived to tell it. But what made you, after all these years, decide to put it down in a book?

[Tamara Kotcifska]

I want to let people know what prejudice and the fear of the other can cause humanity, that humanity has to.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Be careful.

[Tamara Kotcifska]

How they behave towards each other other. Because you know, the Holocaust didn't happen in one day.

[Bianna Golodryga]

It had time to get worse and worse.

[Tamara Kotcifska]

And you know the saying, you first burn books and then you burn people.

[Bianna Golodryga]

So it's a warning.

[Tamara Kotcifska]

It's a type, it's type of a warning.

[Bianna Golodryga]

A type of a warning. And with anti Semitism again on the rise in the present day, Tova's taking testimony is an important reminder of the devastating consequences of unchecked bigotry and hatred. Alright, well, that does it for us for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can always catch us online on our website and all over social media. Thank you for watching and goodbye. From New York.

[Walter Isaacson]

Foreign.

[Michael Ignatieff]

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

[Bianna Golodryga]

This is literally Dr. Gupta, a social prescription. The idea of your doctor, your social worker prescribing you something social in your community, like an art class, like bicycling lessons, the same way they would prescribe a pill.

[Thomas Friedman]

My guest, Julia Hotz, author of the.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Connection Cure, has traveled across more than 30 countries to see how this approach.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Is really being used. Isolation and loneliness is some of the greatest social pain we can experience. And it's not just in our heads. Because if you think about it evolutionarily, we needed to have a people, a tribe around us. Listen to Chasing Life streaming now.

[Michael Ignatieff]

Wherever you get your podcasts.