International Human Rights Lawyer Jared Genser

Summary

Podcast Summary: Amanpour — International Human Rights Lawyer Jared Genser

Host: Christiane Amanpour (CNN International Chief Correspondent)
Guest: Jared Genser (International Human Rights Lawyer)
Date: January 9, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Amanpour explores the expansive implications of a tumultuous week in global politics, most pointedly the U.S. military capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Christiane Amanpour interviews international human rights lawyer Jared Genser to scrutinize the legality and morality of these actions under international and U.S. law, the precedent involved, and what it means for the future of international norms. The episode also features conversations with actor Ethan Hawke about his new film Blue Moon, and journalists Carol Lennig and Aaron Davis regarding their investigative book on the U.S. Justice Department under Trump.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Breaking the Rule Book: U.S. Intervention in Venezuela

[00:54–04:59]

Main Discussion Points

• Trump’s Intervention: President Trump captures the Venezuelan leader, seizes oil tankers, threatens to take Greenland, and the administration justifies its actions by “might makes right.”
• International Law Perspective:
  • The UN Charter allows military intervention only for self-defense or with Security Council authorization (neither applied here).
  • Treaties like the UN Charter are the “supreme law of the land” under the U.S. Constitution.

Quotes & Notable Moments

• "What took place was illegal as a matter of international law."
  — Jared Genser [02:47]
• "This approach cannot be something that becomes the norm under international law."
  — Jared Genser [00:07]/[14:32]

U.S. vs. International Law

• U.S. claims action as a “law enforcement arrest” or in the interest of enforcing arbitral awards against Venezuela. Genser rebuts that neither justification legally sanctions removing a head of state.

• Maduro claimed head-of-state immunity, but Genser explains the U.S. precedent (Noriega, 1989) shows courts defer to executive recognition; thus, nonrecognition of Maduro means immunity likely doesn’t apply.

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2. Legal Precedents and Political Prisoners

[05:26–09:20]

Maduro’s Status & Head of State Immunity

• U.S. did not recognize Maduro’s regime, making head-of-state immunity murky.
• Noriega case (Panama, 1989) is the closest precedent—Noriega’s immunity arguments were rejected.

Case Prospects & Human Rights Context

• Strong case against Maduro for criminal charges (drug trafficking, corruption), with expected witness testimony from regime insiders.
• Genser tempers expectations: “Predicting what the outcome is going to be is definitely very tricky.” [08:16]

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3. Congressional Notification and War Powers

[09:36–11:31]

Missed Congressional Protocols

• Administration justified not notifying Congress before the operation due to security.

• War Powers Resolution requires advance notification, at least to the "Gang of Eight"; not optional, even for secrecy.

• "The law is very clear. There has to be advance notice..."
  — Jared Genser [10:26]

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4. Human Rights in Venezuela and Policy Contradictions

[11:31–14:03]

Discussion Points

• Traditional U.S. rationale for intervention—democracy and human rights—is absent here.

• U.S. officials reject elections, ignore opposition leaders, while crackdowns intensify in Maduro’s absence.

• Genser criticizes the lack of emphasis on human rights grounds and calls for parallel prosecution for crimes against humanity (possibly via international or hybrid courts).

  • Cites Kosovo as analogous case: “...might have been morally justifiable but not legal...” [12:28]

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5. Implications for Global Norms

[14:03–15:04]

Concerns over Precedent

• The “might makes right” doctrine sets a dangerous precedent—if the U.S. ignores the law for expediency, adversaries may soon follow.

• “I don't think we're going to like it in the reverse.”
  — Jared Genser [14:32]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Legality:
  “What took place was illegal as a matter of international law, but of course, that's just the beginning of the conversation.”
  — Jared Genser [02:47]

• On the Role of Congress:
  “The law is very clear. There has to be advance notice not to every member of Congress, but… the ‘Gang of Eight.’”
  — Jared Genser [10:26]

• On ‘Might Makes Right’:
  “This approach cannot be something that becomes the norm under international law.”
  — Jared Genser [14:32]

• On Human Rights Abuses:
  “Nicolas Maduro… has committed gross human rights against his own people, in fact, crimes against humanity. … I would have hoped that in addition to laying out a law enforcement reason for taking him, that there would have been a focus on the human rights abuses as well.”
  — Jared Genser [12:28]

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Extended Segments

Briefly: Blue Moon with Ethan Hawke

[17:27–36:43]

• Hawke discusses his transformation as Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, the artistic pain of “creative divorce,” the intersection of ego, pain, and artistry, and the personal pride in his own children’s showbiz successes.
• Quote:
  “It’s a moment, I think, a lot of us can relate to, of when you fully absorb your own irrelevance.” — Ethan Hawke [18:47]

Carol Lennig & Aaron Davis — On Justice Department Politicization

[38:12–53:25]

• Investigative dive into the DOJ and FBI’s vulnerabilities, the slow pace and hesitance under AG Garland, and the devastation of professional norms by Trump’s interventions.
• Quote:
  “Centuries worth of experience and expertise have been kicked out the door… That is the stuff of kings… hallmark of a dictatorship.” — Carol Lennig [51:19]

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a timely and sharp critique of America’s recent foreign policy actions through the lens of international law, highlighting the tension between moral expedience and legal norms and raising alarms about the global consequences if leading democracies discard the established rulebook. The same themes of power, legitimacy, and the endurance (or instability) of democratic institutions echo in the investigative look at the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Time-Stamped Guide to Critical Segments

• [00:54–04:59]: Legalities of U.S. intervention in Venezuela
• [05:26–09:20]: Recognition, immunity, and prosecution prospects for Maduro
• [09:36–11:31]: Congressional war powers and executive secrecy
• [11:31–14:03]: Human rights considerations neglected in U.S. strategy
• [14:03–15:04]: Dangers of normalized international law violations

For listeners, this episode is a crash course in the fragility of the rules-based order, the slippery slope of prioritizing power over principle, and the real-world stakes for global human rights and democracy.

Transcript

[Christiane Amanpour]

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

[Jared Genza]

This approach cannot be something that becomes the norm under under international law.

[Christiane Amanpour]

In a whirlwind week, we've seen President Trump capture the Venezuelan dictator, seize tankers and threaten to take Greenland. Is international law dead and buried? I asked the international human rights lawyer Jared Gensa then.

[Ethan Hawke]

It's a moment I think a lot of us can relate to, of when you fully absorb your own irrelevance.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Blue Moon traces the tragic decline of the famed Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart. My conversation with the film star Ethan Hawke.

[Carol Lennig]

Plus, this is a three act tragedy, a play with a lot of sad moments. But perhaps the saddest is the ending.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Injustice. A new book by Pulitzer Prize winning journalists explores how politics and fear vanquished America's Justice Department. Welcome to the programme, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour. In Lond in a stunning week, the world has watched as the United States captured a foreign head of state, boarded oil tankers and threatened military action against more countries. President Donald Trump has ripped up the rule book and his lieutenants insist that might makes right inside Venezuela. Trump's main interest appears to be oil and he says there won't be democratic elections anytime soon. Hundreds of political prisoners are still behind bars there and there are reports that the security forces still in power are are still cracking down and hunting for anyone who might celebrate Maduro's ouster. Plus, international law experts are accusing Trump of violating the UN Charter by seizing Maduro. To make sense of all of this, I'm joined by an international human rights lawyer, Jared Genza, who has extensive experience working against dictatorships and has been called the extractor for his work freeing political prisoners. Jared Gensa, welcome to the program.

[Jared Genza]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Christiane Amanpour]

So I set all that up. You know, nobody's shedding any crocodile tears really for Maduro. Many people are saying it was a morally right thing to do, if not potentially legally sound. So as a human rights lawyer who's got such extensive, you know, experience in Venezuela, especially with the opposition, what do you feel about the removal of Maduro?

[Jared Genza]

Well, I think I would begin by saying that he was of course a dictator and a thug and responsible for egregious crimes against his own people. But at the same time, the UN Charter is quite clear. You can only, you know, invade or intervene in a foreign country in two circumstances. One is when you're exercising your right to self defense, which wasn't present here because there was no attack on the United States. And the second is if the United Nations Security Council authorizes the intervention, which also didn't happen. And so as a matter of international law, it's quite straightforward. The UN Charter is a treaty. It's a treaty that was signed and ratified by the United States under the US Constitution. Treaties are the supreme law of the land equivalent to domestic law in the United States. And what took place was illegal as a matter of international law. But of course, that's just the beginning of the conversation. There's much more to come from there.

[Christiane Amanpour]

But let's just drill down on what you've just said. Does the United States, despite being a fully paid up signatory to the United nations and the Charter, does it? Does a nation like the US have to obey an international law or can a nation's law take precedence? For instance, the United States is not even talking about regime change in this case, it said it's executing a law enforcement arrest warrant.

[Jared Genza]

Yeah, I mean, there would be two potential justifications that the US could put forward, and in essence, they're doing both. One is that this is somehow a law enforcement action. But again, the US Constitution is quite clear. A law enforcement action doesn't change the U.S. constitution, which says that any treaty that's been signed is the supreme law of the land. So to my mind, this is not a valid legal argument. The second argument you could put forward relates to the oil of Venezuela. People have not talked as much about this, but actually, US Oil companies under the prior regime of Hugo Chavez expropriated billions of dollars worth of U.S. assets in Venezuela. Today it's estimated about $30 billion total expropriated. But even though ConocoPhillips, for example, has $10 billion in an arbitral award, you know, this isn't an award given to the United States of America. And even if it had been, the US doesn't have the right to remove a head of state simply to enforce an arbitral award as well.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Okay, I'm going to get to the award first and then to the head of state. So are you saying the US Expropriated or Venezuela expropriated?

[Jared Genza]

Yeah. No, yeah. No, no. Venezuela expropriated what's estimated to be about $30 billion worth of assets and of property rights of U.S. oil companies.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Okay, and then they have been rewarded, or a lot has, by international arbitration. Correct?

[Jared Genza]

Correct, Exactly.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Okay, now onto the head of state. Because the other thing they say is, well, actually we never recognized him, you know, the last two elections at least, most definitely, the last one was decisively. Won and provably won by the opposition. And we always said that, you know, Maduro stole the election. That's the view of the United States even before Trump and the view of much of the rest of the democratic world. So talk to me about that, because Maduro himself has claimed, through his lawyers, head of state immunity.

[Jared Genza]

Yes. So there are two aspects of that issue. The first is what does international law have to say? And the second is what does US Law have to say on the international law side? The fact that a government like the United States did not recognize Maduro as a legitimate leader of his country is for the United States as a sovereign nation to decide. Every country in the world decides what leaders they recognize. But just because a country decides not to recognize the legitimacy of a ruler, and indeed, you know, Maduro and his regime did in fact steal the last election, that doesn't give you the right to intervene militarily and to remove them as head of state of that country. As a domestic law question, and this is, of course going to be the central question in New York at the trial of Nicolas Maduro right at the very beginning, is whether the fact that, you know, that the US did not recognize him can be overcome by the ordinary assumption built into U.S. law that heads of state are, in fact, immune from prosecution. And the precedent for that case, of course, is looking back to Manuel Noriega and Panama in 89, where the United States removed him from power under similar kinds of circumstances. He made all those arguments in court in the United States. The US Back then did not recognize Noriega, just as it doesn't recognize Maduro today. And ultimately Noriega failed in that legal argument. And that's really the precedent that's on point. So I wouldn't expect a US Court to rule that he is somehow immune from prosecution because US Courts historically defer to the judgment of the executive branch of the United States when determining what foreign leaders are recognized as legitimate leaders of their country.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Okay, so on that issue of Noriega, Noriega came to power in a coup. He wasn't even elected. And then afterwards there was an election and that person was recognized. But the question also then is the law enforcement aspect of it. Some people think that it'll be a slam dunk case, and the Southern District, I think it is, will be able to easily convict. Others say, oh, I don't think so. It's going to be really tricky. Again, Maduro is calling himself a prisoner of war. You're a lawyer. What do you think? Does the United States have a good, solid law enforcement case to make.

[Jared Genza]

Yeah, I think if you put aside the fact that what took place with Maduro may well have violated international law as a domestic law question, and based on the facts and the evidence described in the indictment, it does seem like the United States has a lot of evidence and information to put forward. You know, it seems clear from the level of detail being provided and what prosecutors are saying that there are a number of people that are close to him that have turned against him that will provide direct evidence on all these points. We honestly won't know until all of that evidence is made public. So I think right now predicting what the outcome is going to be is definitely very tricky. I don't think the case will be dismissed because, you know, he was a head of state, given that the US did not recognize him as such. And I would think from all I know about the regime, and I've worked on Venezuela related issues for more than it does years, that there should be a lot of evidence that he did, you know, a lot of terrible things relating to drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and, you know, narco terrorism, you know, but ultimately we'll have to see what the evidence, you know, shows and ultimately what a jury would do.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Okay, I'm going to get to some of the human rights issues, which is also your area of expertise. But first, I just want to play a sound bite from President Trump and Secretary Rubio about the whole business of not notifying Congress. So here's what they said.

[Ethan Hawke]

We called members of Congress immediately after. This was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on. It was a trigger based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night. We watched and monitored that for a number of days. So it's just simply not the kind of mission you can call people and say, hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days. I could add one thing to that. Congress has a tendency to leak. This would not be good if they leaked, General. I think it would have been maybe a very different result.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Obviously, everybody always worries about leaks. Even we journalists have to agree not to report things in real time when we get notification that something might be happening. I remember in the first Gulf War that was the case. We didn't leak. But the question is, is Marco Rubio right that there's a hair trigger situation that you can't be notifying Congress? That's not happened in the past, has it?

[Ethan Hawke]

No.

[Jared Genza]

I mean, not in this kind of a high profile example. Not to my knowledge. You Know, I think to me US law is quite clear on this. And this happened after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was the first real major military intervention of the United States in the Vietnam War that Congress adopted in the President's signage law, the War Powers Resolution, which says that if the U.S. is going to attack another country with military force, that in advance of that happening, Congress needs to be notified and then subsequently Congress needs to be continually briefed about what's going on. And Congress has the power to, you know, if it adopts a law saying so, to stop a military intervention coming from the United States. So while I understand why there was concerns about leaks and there are reasonable reasons in light of this kind of an operation to have those kinds of concerns, that doesn't change what the law actually says. And the law is very clear. There has to be advance notice not to every member of Congress, but what's referred to as the Gang of Eight, which are the leaders of the, the key committees that relate to war powers in the US Congress, in the House and the Senate respectively.

[Christiane Amanpour]

And it's only in retrospect since the operation that you know that they are going to be doing a whole Senate briefing. But here's the thing. What about the people of Venezuela? The thing that's really mind boggling and difficult to try to figure out, the logic of all of this is that, you know, usually Americans talk about democracy and human rights and that's why they're toppling dictators not just for their narco terrorism or whatever crimes, but to relieve kind of criminal activity on the people. And in this case it's just not happening. And that's not what the administration is saying. In fact quite the opposite. No to any democratic elections anytime soon. No to the actual tried and tested democratic leaders who did win the last election, at least so far. And yes, the current regime is still in power. Maybe Maduro's gone and they are continuing their very vicious crackdowns on the people. Who, what recourse do the people have?

[Jared Genza]

Yeah, I mean, look, I have to say I'm a little surprised because you know, when one looks back at past interventions done for human rights grounds that might not have been legal. And I think what comes to mind most clearly is the NATO intervention in Serbia attacking Slobodan Milosevic to protect the people of Kosovo, which didn't have UN Security Council authorization and was at the time and subsequently, you know, evaluated by international law experts as something that might have been morally justifiable but not legal as a matter of international law. I would have thought that the Trump administration would have taken advantage of the enormous volume of evidence that Nicolas Maduro, you know, isn't just a dictator, but in fact has committed gross human rights against his own people, in fact, crimes against humanity. You know, he's accused of having committed more than 20,000 extraracial killings, imprisoning thousands of political prisoners and torturing them, starving large parts of his population where he wasn't politically popular. Right. And I would have hoped that in addition to laying out a law enforcement reason for taking him, that there would have been a focus on the human rights abuses as well. It's not too late, of course, on that score. In my view, the International Criminal Court has been very slow to act and has not issued indictments against Maduro, which it should have done. But the US could play a role in setting up a hybrid court like was done in countries like Lebanon and Sierra Leone and Cambodia, and also in parallel, put Maduro on trial for crimes against humanity. And this would at least get to the underlying heart of why the Venezuelan people have been, you know, suffering for so long.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Jared, we've got literally less than a minute. What about the issue of more of this? Stephen Miller has been endlessly quoted as talking about, you know, targeting other countries. That might makes right. That is all about power and strength. Now from the United States that they own the Western Hemisphere, but they're also looking at Iran. You've had a lot of activity there with trying to, with getting people released from jail. What does this mean? Is the United States now untrammeled and nothing can keep it adhering to the law?

[Jared Genza]

You know, look, I honestly hope not. At the same time, obviously, we're going to have to wait and see. So, you know, my own view is that the president obviously says a lot of things and we'll have to see, you know, what he ultimately does. But, you know, this approach cannot be something that becomes the norm under international law because, you know, this might makes right approach obviously means that powerful countries of all kinds, including those that maybe are adversaries, you know, would be able to do the very same thing. And I don't think we're going to like it in the reverse.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Jared Gensler, thank you so much indeed. Now, later in the program to the golden age of Broadway, I speak with actor Ethan Hawke about his starring role in Blue Moon as the brilliant but doomed lyricist Florence Hart. Doctor Ravi is back in the pit for another shift.

[Jared Genza]

The prodigal son returns, and we're going with him. I'm Dr. Alok Patel, a physician, journalist, and a fan of medical storytelling.

[Christiane Amanpour]

And I'm Hunter Harris, a screenwriter and cultural criticism. And we are the hosts of the.

[Michelle Martin]

Official companion podcast from HBO Max.

[Ethan Hawke]

We'll be here every week to talk.

[Jared Genza]

About each episode with the actors, writers, everyone who helps bring the pit to life. Find us on HBO Max or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Christiane Amanpour]

We turn now to the lights, glitz and glamour of Broadway in the 1940s. Director Richard Linklater's new film, Blue Moon tells the story of a brilliant but tragic lyricist who for 25 years collaborated with the famed composer Richard Rogers. They were a theatrical force until one day Rogers found another partner. It became Rogers and Hammerstein. And of course, that musical duo brought in the golden age of Broadway with the likes of South Pacific and the Sound of Music. Blue Moon is set on the opening night of the new duo's breakout show, Oklahoma. And in the intimate setting of a Manhattan restaurant, we see Loren's heart unraveling.

[Ethan Hawke]

I need a drink. Big smile. We write together for a quarter a century and the first show he writes with someone else is gonna be the biggest hit he ever had. Am I bitter, Larry?

[Carol Lennig]

Yes.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Do you recognize him there? Loren's heart is plays by Ethan Hawke, which critics are calling a career defin performance. He's already bagged a Golden Globe nomination. Ethan Hawke joined me from New York to discuss this poignant and gut wrenching film. Ethan Hawke, welcome to the program.

[Ethan Hawke]

Thank you for having me.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Can I say I'm now seeing Ethan Hawke, as I know Ethan Hawke. When I saw you turn up in Blue Moon, I literally nearly fell off my chair. You were barely recognizable. I mean, no hair, or at least heavily, you know, shaved and all the rest of it. And so short. I'm sorry to bring that up, but it was just so fickle, fixated. By the way you, you know, sort of visualized, you know, Hart's height.

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, it was a big part of his identity. You know, I mean, he experienced the world often as the smallest person in the room and it, it forced him to behave like the biggest person in the room. You know, he's not, you know, there's some people that talk a lot because they're self important or. But he was the kind of person that had to command the room, otherwise he felt like people wouldn't even see him.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Yep, yep. And he really did, because in my notes when I was watching it, I mean, literally the first 30 minutes of this film was all rat a tat dialogue. Right? I mean, he was you, he were Just talking at us for 30 minutes, and it was very interesting. Sort of dance and just tell me a little bit about Loren's heart and what. What made him a person who you wanted to inhabit and you wanted to tell this story.

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, the story is kind of a howl into the night. It's a moment, I think a lot of us can relate to, of when you fully absorb your own irrelevance. And when it's happening from a human being whose ego is huge, it's even more devastating. This is a guy who. You know, Rogers and Hart were the Lennon and McCartney of their era. For 25 years, their music was played on every jukebox in America, and they're being covered by all the other musicians in the world. And all of a sudden, you know, Rodgers is collaborating with the new partner, Oscar Hammerstein. And musical theater's changing, and it's almost like Lorenz Hart has put on a little iceberg that's just floating away as the jazz era ends and this new era of American arts is happening. And he knows he's witnessing his own.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Death, and he does actually allude to it, and we'll get to that in a second, in many, many ways. But I think, you know, given what you just said, I was also very, well, touched, moved, you know, sort of sparked by when he was at. I mean, this. This film says that he was at the party for the opening night of Oklahoma in the famous Broadway bar Sardis, and in walks his erstwhile partner, Richard Rodgers, and the new guy on the block, Oscar Hammerstein. And he accuses in an aside with Rogers a little bit about. Of pandering with this new music, this new American art form. He just couldn't accept that what he could. Considered the height of, you know, musical civilization, jazz was about to be sort of given over for this.

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah, well, you know, I mean, there's a great line in the movie that I find really relevant, but Oklahoma. Is nostalgic for a world that never existed. And it's kind of the beginning of America seeing itself in the third person. You know, we were winning the war, and it was this moment of.

[Carol Lennig]

A.

[Ethan Hawke]

Heightening of the ego, of a national ego. And, you know, Oklahoma. Is rife with the sins of America, but that musical's nothing about that. And that's the kind of thing that's making Lorenz Hart crazy, because he's just wants a little more from art than just to make people feel good. But, of course, the musical's wonderful in its own way.

[Jared Genza]

Right?

[Ethan Hawke]

But it's. It's to Hart's mind, it is pandering.

[Christiane Amanpour]

So I'm gonna play the first of the few clips that we have, and this is about them talking. Rogers has said that he wants to collaborate again with Hart, and this is a little bit of this as they take photos together.

[Aaron Davis]

So are you up for that? You feeling healthy? Is that something you could take seriously?

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah, I'm on the wagon. I'm serious. I've been drinking ginger ale all night. Well, except for this second, because this second we have to celebrate. This is the greatest musical in the history of American theater. No, no, I'm not drinking with you, Larry.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Okay, okay.

[Ethan Hawke]

All right, Ouija, Ouija, shoot this.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Huh?

[Aaron Davis]

What?

[Ethan Hawke]

Oh, no, no, no. Rogers and Hart together again. All right, closer. Come on, closer. I want 10 copies of that.

[Aaron Davis]

Great.

[Ethan Hawke]

Write me a check.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I mean, it's poignant. By the way, do you even recognize yourself looking at that scene?

[Ethan Hawke]

No, I don't. I mean, that was. You know, I've done nine movies with Richard Linklater, and before we started this one, he told me right when rehearsal started, he's like, I don't want to see you for the next couple months. And part of my job was the deductive process of trying to get rid of all the normal tools I used as an actor and try to find different ones, you know? And I did want to say that clip that you showed is really interesting because Hart did write a few more songs for the revival of Connecticut Yankee, and that was the last time they collaborated. But it's so sad because at the opening night of that Connecticut Yankee revival, Hart was so drunk that he wouldn't stop singing along with the actors on stage to the point where Rogers had to ask police to escort him out. And of course, he drank himself to death shortly thereafter.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I want to talk about Richard Link later because as you say, nine movies with him. What is it about him? And also, you know, they talk about sort of in the film. I mean, the impact is of a creative divorce between Hart and Rogers. And obviously you haven't had that with Link later, you're still working really strong. But tell me about what it's like to work with somebody for so long and to trust them and to both of you make such good work and be so rightly celebrated for it, like those two were, in their case, it fell apart. Do you ever think about that and consider that?

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah, I mean, it's certainly in the subconscious of the film. Rogers and hart had a 20 year, 25 year collaboration and so do Linklater. And I. And what is it that makes artistic intimacy? I mean, it's a very close. When you create together, when your names are associated with each other, when you're pouring pieces of yourself into your art, mixing them with the other person, it's a powerful connection. And I think we wanted to make a film about that. The obvious answer about how we keep working together is we stay out of rehab, you know, or meaning in a lot of ways, the greatest demons in our life and the destruction of our relationships is usually self sabotage. And. And Larry Hart had some demons he couldn't, he couldn't wrangle. And that made it very difficult for him to maintain friendships. And I think that Rick and I, we do try to take care of ourselves and each other.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Yes, well, that's excellent because actually the film really made that clear. And I was very conscious of the self sabotaging that Hart was doing, even as Rogers was saying, let's do a revival of the Connecticut Yankee. And he was just saying everything that Rogers didn't want about, you know, his vision was completely different to Rogers vision. And then shortly thereafter, you know, in the movie, he goes back to the bar and he talks to, he talks to E.B. white, of course, the famous essayist, but he also talks to the barman, and I think he gets that bottle of bourbon or whiskey and he says, this should be named, you know, the bottle that ended my career or something like that. And I just thought that was really poignant. He really got it though. You know, even though he was very, very drunk, he got it that he was self sabotaging.

[Ethan Hawke]

I mean, we do, we know what we're doing. We know when we're hurting ourselves. I mean, it's just, I mean, simply put, the whiskey is a painkiller, right? And he cannot figure out another way to stop the pain that he's feeling. I mean, this is a gay man in 1943 where his sexuality is illegal. There's a lot of easy things to point to that might be causing him suffering, not least of which is Richard Rogers falling out of love with him, you know, and not maintaining that collaboration.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Well, he said they should put my face on that bottle, the whiskey that made Loren's heart unemployable. And then he. Yeah, which I, I think is, you know, it's a great line. Um, then he, he's talking to E.B. white, as I said, the, the famous essayist, the famous, you know, writer, and they talk about the, the sort of for better or for worse life. And they're both Entering their. For worse part of their life. I thought that was just really amazing. And, and I. I'm going to play a little bit of him with EB White at the bar.

[Ethan Hawke]

Okay. Best line in Casablanca. Oh, nobody ever loved me that much. Isn't that magnificent? Six words. Nobody ever loved me that much. And really, who's ever been loved enough? Who's ever been loved half enough? Would you get me a shot, Larry?

[Aaron Davis]

You told me under no circumstances.

[Ethan Hawke]

I'm just going to look at it, take the measure of its amber heft in my hands. You told me just give me the drink.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Well, that was the wrong clip. Ethan Hawke, but do you want to comment on that?

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah, that's. I mean, I'm talking there about Casablanca, which I love. Is that one of the things? Yes. Larry's full of vanity and bitterness and this hurt, but he also has this incredible joy and love of other arts. He can't stop talking about how much he loves Casablanca. And when he does meet EB White later on, he can't stop talking about how much he loves E.B. white's essays and how profoundly moved by them he is. And it gets into my favorite part of why I wanted to play this character, which is this thing that I like to call the correlation of opposites. It's when you see a very large person who can dance elegantly, right. Or when you see Marlon Brando act, he's incredibly masculine and incredibly feminine at the same time. And it's this correlation of opposites. It's like a top that's spinning. You can't take your eyes off it because you're worried it's going to fall. And Lorentz heart was like that. He's the smallest person in the room and he's the biggest person in the room. He's gay and he's in love with a woman. He's self defeating and self loathing and full of confidence. Anytime I had one thing to play in the movie, the opposite was also true.

[Christiane Amanpour]

That makes absolute sense. Can I just ask you whether this is true? The scene between them that I was trying to allude to, where E.B. white is saying that he's now going to write a novel and he's trying to figure out, you know, a children's book. And he's trying to figure out what it should be and what it should be called. And Hart tells him about the mouse that he liberates into Central park every day and that he calls Stuart with a U. With a U. And of course, E B. Weiss, a middle class Mouse. All right. Yeah. And the book became Stuart Little.

[Michelle Martin]

Did E.B.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Wright rip that off, or is that just artistic license in the book?

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, what that is is really interesting, which is Robert Kaplow, who wrote the screenplay. And it's one of the best screenplays I've ever come across in my life. If you understand Hart's complete life, he had an amazing positive impact on other artists. And he was always offering ideas to people and was often credited with inspiring other people's creativity. And so Robert kind of designed little. Did E.B. white go to Sardis all the time? Yes, he was. He was constantly there. Was he at the opening night party? We don't know. We know Larry Hart was. But Robert just kind of imagined this scene to show how often beautiful ideas just flowed right off of Larry Hart's lips and how much he inspired other artists.

[Christiane Amanpour]

So I want to go back to what you were saying. You know, he was gay, but in love with a woman. And there's a very poignant scene. It's one of my favorites, frankly, of the long talk between Hart and Elizabeth Wieland. She's the. She's the character or she's the person? The name of the person. Here is the scene as she, Hart, is listening to her talk about her unrequited love.

[Ethan Hawke]

I wrote a song once years ago called the Heart is Quicker than the Eye. It's not a great song, but it's a good title. And it's true. I think the head has nothing to do with the madness of love. It doesn't matter at all about worthiness, does it? We invest our hearts in worthless stocks, and we know they're worthless, but we cling to them like little children clutching their little stuffed bears. Oh, Elizabeth, tell me truthfully.

[Carol Lennig]

How do.

[Ethan Hawke]

You feel about me?

[Christiane Amanpour]

Oh, golly, that is so painful because she's just been talking about this other guy who she loves.

[Carol Lennig]

Um.

[Christiane Amanpour]

It's so painful, it's so almost cringy. Right? They would say, now tell me about Elizabeth Whelan. Who was she? And apparently the film. I don't know. I read this. At least it said it on the credits that it's based on their letter.

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, it's inspired by it. Robert, our screenwriter, he came across these letters between Larry Hart and this young student at Yale. And they really teeter on love letters. And he got really intrigued on how Larry Hart would be in love with this young woman. And it was all around the same period of the opening night party. And it's just a little window into his soul that to me, it's the way we often distract ourselves from our real pain. And you make up a smaller pain that you can control. He can't even look at this giant arrow in his heart that is Richard Rogers, because he knows that if he tries to pull that out, he'll die. So he kind of creates this other pain that is slightly more manageable that he, you know, that he can handle. I don't even pretend to understand the psychology of it, but I do know that it felt incredibly human to me and incredibly true. And, yeah, let's face it, we're all pretty cringey sometimes. Whenever you have to ask somebody how they feel about you, you probably shouldn't.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Well, I'm gonna ask you now how you feel about. No, I will. Seriously. It's been a blockbuster year for the Hawk. You have done this, you've done many others. You've done the Lowdown, Black Phone 2, et cetera, all these things. You're getting a lot of critical acclaim. Your son is doing so well in his role, and your daughter, Maya Hawke, is part of the massive zeitgeist right now in Stranger Things. Right? How do you feel about that?

[Ethan Hawke]

It's one of these incredible gifts. I never. I guess you can't understand it until it happens to you to watch your children become themselves. You know, I got to see my son Starr at Lincoln center doing Ibsen's Ghost this year. Maya's not only in Stranger Things, but she was in this beautiful Sarah Rule play, Eurydice here. And to watch them thrive and watch them love each other, their younger siblings, watching these people that were children have their own lives and being so proud of them is exactly. Something my heart didn't know was going to happen. They spend a lot of energy telling you you're going to fall in love someday. But this feeling of watching your children grow up and watching them thrive is not like any other feeling I've understood.

[Christiane Amanpour]

So this whole drama about our company, wbd, and who it's going to be sold to or what, now it looks like they're only entertaining the Netflix bid and fellow actors Leonardo DiCaprio. Others have warned that these streaming giants like Netflix and Disney could spell the end for cinemas. And I just wondered what your opinion of all of this was.

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, one thing is for certain is that the world is always changing and it will change again. I find these. There's a reason why we tried to do away with monopolies a long time ago. It's like, it's not that history repeats itself. It's that it rhymes in the same humanity seems to put itself through the same trials. It's incredibly. Imagine if one publishing company published all the books. It would destroy our ability to have counter point of views and have different kinds of books and different kinds of literature and different kinds of ideas. And we're watching it happen. And what that creates is kind of a great dumbing down because they just want to make it the easiest thing for you to watch as possible. And it's very scary if you love art. It's terribly scary in a way. I don't worry about it because at the end of my life, not the end of my life, I hope at the end of his life, Sidney Lumet. I made his last movie and I was really concerned about the future and things in digital and this. And he was 83 years old and he said, you can relax and just try. The pursuit of excellence is its own reward. And these things. I agree with DiCaprio. I think DiCaprio's incredibly smart. And I think we have to be very conscious and we have to work very hard not to let these things happen. If they do happen, then we need to work really hard to defeat it Once, once it does happen. I mean, it's just, I don't. I'm not a business person. I never have been. I've never been any good at it at all. But I see what's happening and it's in correlation with a lot of other things that are happening in the world. And it's really time for us all to pay as much attention as we can and do the good that we each have the power to do.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I think what you just said was really incredible, quoting Sidney Lumet, that the, you know, the pursuit of excellence is in itself a really worthy activity. So I think it's great to be reminded of that amongst all these dangers that you mention. Ethan, thank you very much for being with us.

[Ethan Hawke]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Coming up after the break, how politics and fear vanquished America's Justice Department. We hear from the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist whose new book investigates the breakdown of the O.J. Welcome to our ugly home.

[Ethan Hawke]

Reddit is back for a historically hideous season.

[Michelle Martin]

It's our 100th ugly house.

[Ethan Hawke]

This place is mayhem. That is impressive. And if these walls could talk. Do you cry a lot?

[Carol Lennig]

I do.

[Ethan Hawke]

They'd have a lot to say.

[Christiane Amanpour]

What? What in God's name is this pit?

[Aaron Davis]

Don't get too close.

[Ethan Hawke]

You've seen the show.

[Carol Lennig]

I'm scared of that.

[Ethan Hawke]

Ugliest house in America. All new Wednesday at 8 on HGTV.

[Jared Genza]

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. We're gonna explore how your diet can.

[Ethan Hawke]

Shape your face, how you can boost your stamina like Olympians, just by how.

[Jared Genza]

You breathe and how your child's nighttime breathing can impact their development. Most importantly, we cover practical and immediately actionable ways to improve our health one breath at a time, even the way that your tongue is currently sitting in your mouth. Listen to Chasing Life streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Next, a deep dive into America's Dream. Justice Department Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Carol Lennig and Aaron Davis have co authored a book examining the internal and external pressures faced by the DOJ and the FBI. The New York Times bestseller investigates how these institutions were weakened by fear, delay and political pressures under the Trump administration. They sit down with Michelle Martin to discuss the shocking accounts of partisans and enablers undoing democracy over the last ten years.

[Michelle Martin]

Thanks, Christiane. Carol Lennick, Erin Davis, thanks so much for talking with us.

[Carol Lennig]

Thanks for having us.

[Aaron Davis]

Thank you.

[Michelle Martin]

So you've written a book where you take a deep dive into the Trump administration's efforts to politicize the Justice Department. But there have been two significant news events that have happened in recent weeks, and both of them speak to the reporting that you did over a long period of time. The first is is the anniversary of the January 6th mob attack on the Capitol, which was an effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. And the second was that special counsel Jack Smith, he testified behind closed doors. He wanted to testify publicly, but he testified behind closed doors. But then ultimately the testimony was released. At least a transcript of a tape of it was released. So the first thing I wanted to ask you if you could remind people who may not remember who was Jack Smith, why was he appointed special counsel and why was his testimony so significant?

[Carol Lennig]

Jack Smith was a kind of legendary public corruption prosecutor in the Department of Justice who had gone on to another career, but was appointed and chosen by Attorney General Merrick Garland to be the special counsel investigating evidence of two potential crimes by Donald Trump and some of his allies. The first, as you know well, was the one about whether or not he had illegally interfered and tried to overturn a federal election. And the second was much more cut and dry and about Donald Trump's efforts that were pretty open to hoard classified records after he'd left office and conceal them from the Justice Department when faced with a subpoena to return them.

[Michelle Martin]

The thing about that you make clear in your book is that Jack Smith was a Vault. I mean, he did not countenance leaks. He was very disciplined. He expected everybody on his team to be very disciplined. So I was curious about what struck you when you first heard him lay out his case in his own words because of this testimony?

[Aaron Davis]

Well, I would say that a lot of the things that he spoke to in that closed door testimony that we got the transcript of on New Year's Eve that echoed some of the findings that he had in his first report that came out last year and kept rubbing up against some of the things in a second report that remains hidden from the public about the classified documents case. And both of those were cases that were very thoroughly investigated in his office. And you're right, he was a vault. We happened to benefit from a little bit of timing in that we were working on this book for two years, but we went on a second book leave after the election and spoke to people who were just, just beside themselves that these cases had never gotten their day in court, that a jury had never had its chance to decide if Donald Trump, you know, had acted illegally and should have been in jail, let alone in the White House. And so there was a point in time when people did talk to us and tell us just how deeply and carefully they had reported or they had investigated these, these cases. And, you know, we try to lay that out in the book.

[Carol Lennig]

I'd add one thing, which is that, you know, Jack Smith in his testimony, said so declarative in a way that no one's ever heard before. But we reported about his team saying this, but he said so declaratively that he had evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict Donald Trump on both obstructing justice and hoarding classified records and illegally interfering in a federal election. And he described Donald Trump as the most culpable for these actions. And also, I think, I think another striking thing, if I can add, was to hear Jack Smith say he found lots of reasons to bring this case, thought he would win if he ever got to trial, and felt very strongly that this had been misrepresented by Donald Trump and by his Republican allies.

[Michelle Martin]

And so the question becomes, why did these cases never go to trial?

[Aaron Davis]

Well, one of the biggest reasons is that they did not use the full four years that they had between January 6, 2020, and when voters went back to the poll in 2024, we go into deep detail about how they really wanted to start. They had a different idea to how to run this investigation, that it would start with the rioters, all the various crimes that were so clearly had taken place on camera at the Capitol. And that was a approach supported by Attorney General Merrick Garland and his senior team. And they thought they would build their way up the way you'd kind of build a mob case almost and kind of kept flipping people until you got to the top organizers. It took a long time before they kind of realized that the things that Donald Trump was doing and those around him regarding trying to push this false narrative that brought people to the Capitol, to the, you know, to Washington on that day was a very different investigation than looking at the rioters who went in and the physical violence that took place that day. In fact, we report that the FBI did not sign off and begin an investigation on the very things that became the heart of Jack Smith's investigation until April of 2022. So a full 15 months after January 6th. And in that time period, Donald Trump's resurgency really took hold. And he knew during that time period that he was not under investigation. He heard no footsteps, none of his allies were getting subpoenas or, you know, there were no search warrants. And so in that time period, we don't know what would have happened if things had gone differently.

[Michelle Martin]

Obviously, Hindsight is always 2020. But why did they approach this from the standpoint of sort of the guy on the street as opposed to the person telling the guys on the street what to do? I don't what was the logic there, especially since, as you pointed out, and so many people have said this is that this was the most photographed criminal event in history. So, Carol, do you want to take that? Why did they take that approach?

[Carol Lennig]

The why was twofold. One, Donald Trump, we discovered, damaged the Department of Justice much more dramatically than we realized. In his first presidency, he had personally individually targeted and humiliated and harassed middle level career public servants and some high, but mostly some public servants who were in the mid career range. And all they were doing was doing their job in the first administration investigating part of the Mueller probe, Russian intervention in the 2016 election. And he went after them so personally that there were people who had scar tissue from that and recoiled from the idea of directly investigating Donald Trump. Again, the second answer to your great why question is that Merrick Garland, upon arriving upon being appointed by Joseph Biden, took it as his mission to restore faith in the Department of Justice after Trump's presidency. And his idea of restoring faith was to avoid like the plague any inference or appearance that he was going after someone for political reasons. The problem was, as his close allies told us, it ended up being a political decision not to pursue the open evidence of Donald Trump's potential crimes without fear or favor, which is the DOJ way.

[Michelle Martin]

So, Aaron, listening to Jack Smith's testimony, he sayshe saysquoting here, the evidence here made clear that President Trump was bywas, by a large measure, the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case does not happen without him having laid that out so directly. Was that obvious at the time? I guess I'm just trying to understand here. Is it that the political leadership of the Biden administration, were they also sort of intimidated by the kinds of things that former President Trump was doing? You see what I'm trying to understand? I'm trying to understand what role they played in all this.

[Aaron Davis]

Yeah, I think one of the kind of heartbreaking moments that people we spoke to in our reporting and then you can see laid out in documents that sometimes Republicans have made public in the months since they retook Congress and the New year here, is that some of the very evidence that the FBI cited in 2022, when they begin their investigation, was known to the public over a year before that. And that includes the, you know, the fake electorate documents, if you will, these documents that where, you know, Republicans in different swing states, states, were claiming that, you know, Donald Trump won the election, and those are being spirited to Congress on January 6 to create the pretense that Mike Pence could say that there's dispute about the outcome of this election and send it back to the states. Those were things that were footnoted in the FBI investigation, opening that investigation in April 2022 that had been discovered and put out in public under a FOIA request, a public records request back in March of 2021. In fact, we know that the, if the, you know, the National Archives had taken their concerns about these to the Department of justice even before January 6th, and they were turned down. You know, Carol really hit on an important point, which is that the idea was that they didn't think that there was, there was a clock ticking when this whole, when this starts back in 2021. And Merrick Gahn wanted to, you know, turn back to post Watergate period, where these decisions would bubble up slowly and organically from the blind prosecutors and the FBI agents on the case. There were, however, times, and there was pushback, especially in this level of the top of the Washington field office and the FBI, where they were very reticent to go directly back at Trump and that was a big roadblock and took a long time to get over. And there was no point in time that we discovered where Merrick Garland or the deputy Attorney general, Lisa Monaco, said, no, we need to go do this now. There's enough evidence to go forward. And then you end up in this kind of situation where Jack Smith is handed the investigation and Israeli has to sprint to try to get where he gets.

[Michelle Martin]

Then here comes Jack Smith and you describe him in the book as moving with real urgency once he was appointed. In contrast to the more than year long delay after January 6th. Did you get the sense that he walked into that investigation understanding that there had been these kind of this institutional hesitation? I'm just curious about why he approached it so differently.

[Carol Lennig]

Smith knew that there was a clock, but he was not, according to all the reporting that we did, all the interviews we did with various people briefed on all of this inside. He was not saying to himself, gee, an election is around the corner. I've got to convict this guy and get him to trial before we're there. He said to his team over and over again, we have a duty. We only have so much time. It's of the essence that we answer the question for the American people and for Donald Trump, did he engage in a crime? Was there evidence to indict and ultimately bring him to trial both for the public and for Donald Trump? He said, you know, this guy's running for office. Why should these allegations be hanging out there in questions? They should be answered by us. And as he said in his testimony, he didn't come in on November 18, 2023, deciding we're going to indict this guy. But he did say to both teams, the classified documents team and the and the election interference team, let's get on this and let's have some decisions made quickly. To the documents team, he shocked them when he said, let's make a decision on indictment within three months. You know, he read every interview, he read all the notes before an interview of a key witness. So he knew that the questions would cover the waterfront and get to the core of what he needed to be done.

[Michelle Martin]

And Carol, stepping back, your book argues that the independence of the Department of Justice really isn't protected by law, but by norms. And if after all that has now transpired, how damaged is that system of norms now?

[Carol Lennig]

Now it's really devastated Michelle. As we describe it, this is a three act tragedy, a play with a lot of sad moments. But perhaps the saddest is the ending and the things that happened even after we put down the pen in April of 2025. And that is twofold. One centuries worth of, of experience and expertise have been kicked out the door. People that protect you and me and intervene when there's a national security threat and a foreign adversary attempting something that really puts us at risk. People that are the masters of unspooling and unraveling criminal conspiracies and protecting us from them. That's one. The second part is the norms you describe are obliterated in that the president of the United States has self described and his attorney general has described him as the chief law enforcement officer for the country, the person that Pam Bondi says she works at the directive of and as we have reported at my new organization, Ms. now in extensive detail, Donald Trump has ordered up the prosecutions of people he does not like and people he considers his critics, is calling for people like Jack Smith to be in jail, and has succeeded in directing and installing the individuals who will indict his perceived foes. That is the stuff of kings. To quote John Keller, former acting head of the Public Integrity Section. This is the hallmark of a dictatorship. And it's going to take a long time for us as a country and politicians on the Democratic and Republican side to sort through. How are we going to shape that department in the future to insulate it as we attempted to insulate it after Watergate, from a White House willing to break those rules?

[Michelle Martin]

Carol Lennig, Aaron Davis, thank you so much for talking with us today.

[Carol Lennig]

Thank you.

[Aaron Davis]

Thanks so much.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Now, impartial justice is the bedrock of a successful democracy. That's it 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 and on our website and all over social media. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.