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- [00:05]
Christiane Amanpour
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up.
- [00:09]
Walter Isaacson
Most people say it's already been won.
- [00:11]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
It's just a question of when. When do we stop?
- [00:15]
Christiane Amanpour
Trump claims victory even as the war escalates and the new supreme leader promises revenge. I'll ask journalist Ronan Bergman. If the US And Israel are still
- [00:24]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
alive, then it may be a friendly
- [00:28]
Walter Isaacson
takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover.
- [00:30]
Christiane Amanpour
Trump sets his s on Cuba next. With the country on the brink of economic collapse and humanitarian disaster, where will that lead? I'm joined by Jeffrey De Laurentiis, America's man in Cuba. After diplomatic relations were restored under Obama,
- [00:46]
Audie Cornish
there has to be kind of a reckoning, and the longer it takes, sometimes the worse it is.
- [00:51]
Christiane Amanpour
Streetwise. Walter Isaacson speaks to Lloyd Blankfein, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, about his rise from the public housing projects of New York to the top of the financial industry and why he believes the next economic crisis is coming. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. A vow of revenge from Iran's new supreme leader. In a statement attributed to him and read by Iranian state TV using a stock picture, Ayatollah Mojtab Al Khamenei's first proclamation pledges retribution for the death of his family. It also said the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed and called for US Bases in the Middle east to be shuttered. He has not yet appeared in public since his appointment. Meanwhile, Iran is escalating its attacks on global energy supplies and its neighbors in the Persia Gulf. With the price of oil soaring, President Trump insists that he's already won the war on Iran, saying now it's simply a question of when do we stop? There are no signs of imminent collapse of the regime, though that is according to US Intelligence, while Israel continues its heavy bombardment of both Iran and Lebanon. So are the US And Israel still completely aligned in this war? Let's bring in Ronan Bergman of the New York Times. He has studied and reported on Israel's military strategy for years and of course, this conflict, this war. So welcome back to our program, Ronan.
- [02:36]
Ronan Bergman
Thank you, Christian. Please to be here.
- [02:38]
Christiane Amanpour
You know, we all made everybody made a big deal about how this was the first joint, highly integrated US Israeli military war. But now there's more and more writing and talking about how potentially they may not be on the same page as they seek. Well, the U.S. seeks some kind of exit strategy. What can you tell us?
- [02:59]
Ronan Bergman
So, first of all, I think we need to be cautious because at the top of the relations between the countries, of course, the relations between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. And in spite of all the predictions that in a certain point Trump will just be tired or pissed off with Netanyahu, with Mr. Netanyahu, they continue to be aligned. And Mr. Netanyahu was able to I think bring Trump or at least influence President Trump to get to the exact point where Mr. Netanyahu thought that he should bring Trump and the US to I remind all of us that he was able to get Trump's blessing for the Israeli attack on 12 June that convinced Trump to join that attack and now fulfilling his long term dream to have a joint Israeli US Strike that for the time being is done in most cases, in most areas coordinately. I would say that the Israelis this is also a first time Israeli military leaders fully accept the principle that there will be only one person who shuts down the war and until he doesn't say anything else, they will continue. And this person is not Mr. Netanyahu, not his government, but Mr. Trump and surprised they are paying for this alignment. We see some differences in few topics. One of them is some, I would say tension on the issue of Lebanon. The Israeli leaders thought that they have full free leash to do in Lebanon whatever they want. And there were some American officials who expressed sort of inconvenience. The second thing is of course American rage over the bombing of the oil depot. They claim that it was not coordinated with them. The Israelis say something else. But now it is an American order for the Israelis not to strike anything from critical infrastructure to storage of oil or gas without getting a free permission from the the U.S. well, that's. And at the end of that. Yeah, and, and at the end, and at the end of that also I think that there were Americans and still this would of course means time and further reporting. But the Americans were under the impression that Israel has, or some Israelis have a different intelligence assessment about what is going to happen once they strike, that their regime is much more fragile, that the protests are going to be reignited, start again. I don't know what they. What was the assessment that led anyone to think that this will happen, but that there is a real chance to a regime change. And to an extent, I think part of the reasons that convinced Mr. Trump to go for this attack is the prediction that this, except for attacking these people, assassinating the supreme leader, destroying these missile launches, but that besides that this will lead that even today we would have been in a very different place and it didn't work. I think this could lead to frustration.
- [06:20]
Christiane Amanpour
So let me then dig down a little bit. I reported what has been publicized, that according to people familiar with the latest US Intelligence findings, they're saying there's no weakening or no imminent collapse of the Islamic regime. And as you say, this is something that I guess Israel and Trump thought was going to happen. Others say, in fact, it's done the opposite. It's consolidated the regime around a much harder line core in that the Revolutionary Guard are in the driving seat. And Mujtab Al Khamenei, if he's in fact, you know, around, is very much aligned with the irgc. What do you make and what have your sources told you? Do they think Mujtaba is alive and well? Because clearly this statement was not read by him, no picture of him. You could say that, you know, that's because they don't want to show him because they know he's got a target on his back. But what do they think in Israel?
- [07:22]
Ronan Bergman
So, first of all, he has a target on his back. And you don't need sources. You just need to listen to the Israeli Minister of Defense who even before he was elected said that he is a tar. So you just open sources and far my great colleague at the New York Times and myself, we published a story about the possible reasons why we have not yet seen Mujtaba Khamenei. One is, of course, security. But this doesn't explain the absence of a video that could be taken separately in a safe location of him giving a blessing or answering the congratulations for him being elected. And the sources, both Iranian and Israeli officials are saying that he was injured probably in the leg or the legs, maybe the stomach in the first day of the war. But some sources do not identify his location in the compound of the Supreme Leader where his wife and his mother and his father, children were killed. So we, we don't, we're not sure where, but I think we are quite certain that he was injured and now he's being taken care of in some kind of a, of a, of a medical facility. But if you listen to the Israeli international Defense, it needs to be a secret because otherwise they will, they will kill him, which could be also a contradiction to any kind of attempt of the US to close the deal. If he's killed, then the chances, of course, are going to be even slimmer.
- [08:55]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, that's interesting. So listen, you know, you and others, I think you and maybe Farnoz and other colleagues wrote an article about the miscalculations amongst you Know the Donald Trump camp as they went into this war because many have expressed surprise at Iran's, you know, furious retaliation and wider than they thought. I don't think they really thought that they could or would close the Straits of Hormuz or, you know, attack, you know, quite a wide array in the Gulf states of targets. I mean, do they, do they, do you stand by that, that they were taken by surprise? And what do you think they're going to do? Does Israel care that the states, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, or is this just an American and more global issue with the price of oil?
- [09:46]
Ronan Bergman
Well, there are some very prominent Israeli private businessmen who control much of the traffic, much of the tankers and much of the cargo ships. So it has an effect, it has an impact, but it's most about that effect on American economy and on President Trump and the pressures that he's underway. And with the understanding, I asked one senior officer, how would he knows and the IDF or Israeli defense terrorist know that they won the war? Like, what's the, what's the statistics? What's the barometer? What's the, what's the bar? Where's the bar? And he said, well, it's not, it's not really up to us, meaning it's up to President Trump. I think that what the Israelis are, the Israeli officials are trying to do now is to get as many targets hit as much as they have more targets. And they say that they have many targets, especially now the military industry complexes, and this is a very big country. They're trying to get as many hit as many destroyed because they know that this is on a limited time. And I think that the assessment now in Israel is that it will not be more than seven to 10 days until President Trump will call this off with either some kind of an agreement. We reported last week that there is a secret channel through the CIA, through the Ministry of Intelligence of Iran and a European country, some kind of a back channel between the US And Iran that so far did not deal with anything will either declare victory or go to some kind of, of an agreement. I think that there are only two things that really can change the war. One is if they are able to secure the rich uranium.
- [11:41]
Christiane Amanpour
Now, let me ask you about that, actually, because you reported earlier this week that American intelligence had found that Iran or maybe another group could retrieve Iran's primary store of highly enriched uranium at Isfahan. But, you know, they told us, the US and Israel, that this had been entombed during the 12 Day War. How Important or how much of a goal is that now? You know, because they say they've obliterated Iran's ability to continue its nuclear program. But there is that highly enriched uranium, which is pretty dangerous stuff if it was used.
- [12:18]
Ronan Bergman
Yeah. So both leaders, at the end of the June war, President Trump said that the main Iranian nuclear sites were obliterated and Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they removed both the nuclear threat existential threat and the missile existential threat for decades now. Both of them lied. This is not true. Iran has 10 sufficient quantities so it can make 10 nuclear bombs of highly enriched uranium, very close to the degree needed for a warhead that Iran claims is stored under the ground in a place that was bombed by the US Military in, in June. They say that it's basically buried there. But US Intelligence satellites discovered last few months a lot of digging taking place there. And they believe that the Iranians found the, the way or carved the way or dig the way that they can actually send someone and they are keeping very close tab of the, of the site to say, to make sure that the Iranians are not taking. Now there are some speculations of US planning or US and Israeli planning to go and take the enriched uranium. If this happens, it fully decapitates Iran's ability to go for a bomb if indeed all the uranium is retrieved for a very long time because the massive industrial enrichment cycle has been destroyed. What they have, they have. If it's taken away from them, they cannot continue. And they need to start from, from the beginning. But it's very, very, of course, dangerous, complicated. And I'm not sure that everybody asserted that it's all stored in one place, or maybe the Iranians, of course, were clever enough to spread that in other places in Iran in case some someone comes in and knock on the door of the bunker, say, please hand us the enrich stuff.
- [14:20]
Christiane Amanpour
On the other issue of regime change, I mean, from all the info I can find, I think Israel is still quite committed. They'd like to see this end with the possibility of the Iranian people being able to rise up. I noticed, and it's been written obviously that there was a little shift in tactic or maybe strategy, I don't know. But overnight Israeli drones actually attacked a local Iranian, you know, in Tehran. A security checkpoint, which goes to the heart of the, I guess the apparatus that would be the repressivethe repressive apparatus. What do you know about any of that, about drones being used against all these security personnel?
- [15:12]
Ronan Bergman
So first of all, on drones, one of the Things that drives Iranian security officials really crazy is how is Israel able to maintain a regime of 24, seven fleets of drones flying over Iran all the time? And this is very far away from Israel. It takes a lot of time. The drone is slow. It takes time to fuel it. But Israel has these firing drones all over, hunting for missiles or other targets, shifting them to fire on small targets belong to the regime or the repressive part of the regime. That's part of what Israel is trying to do. It's not saying to lead the regime change, but it's basically saying to the potential protest, we are preparing the ground for you to take over. I think we already saw one tweet from Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that, in short, while we will hand over the, the, the, the, the button to you and you will continue, you will have the, the conditions upon which you, you can start a, a revolution. Quite naive and maybe possibly also used as an alibi for Netanyahu. Later he would say, we prepared the ground. They did not rise up and started protesting again. Of course, you can understand that because they were just butchered in many, many thousands. I think Israel is trying to say that it's helping the protesters. Time will tell if this is indeed an encouragement and a help to the civil society to rise up and go to the streets again.
- [16:57]
Christiane Amanpour
And one last question, because it's clear that your government plans to continue its heavy bombardment. It says just going after Hezbollah in Lebanon and even beyond any end to the Iran war. And sources are saying that Israel is preparing for a significant expansion of attacks on Iran and Hezbollah, et cetera, et cetera. We, and you've heard your extreme right wing say, we're going to turn Nabatiya, I think they said in. Or one of those. Daria, sorry, yeah, yeah. Into Khan Younis. That is, flatten it, one of the Hezbollah strongholds. So what do you think is gonna happen there?
- [17:40]
Ronan Bergman
So, first of all, until now, Israeli officials and military generals are under the impression that while in Iran this is a joint operation. And as, as we discussed before, the US has its own demands and its own orders what to do and what not to do. And Trump, President Trump is the one who will call the shots and will decide when to end them. But in Lebanon, they believe that the US Is giving Israel much longer leash to do, longer, deeper, more extensive. And what we see now is the most extensive operation that happened since the war in September 2024. Hezbollah, or the Lebanese government was not able to enforce its authority on Hezbollah. They didn't risk to go to civil war. And it sort of stayed it this way. Israel, he used the opportunity of Hezbollah basically being convinced by the guards to start firing to help Iran at this time. And Israel reacted with much more force, thinking that maybe it could take the opportunity and finish the problem. It's not working very well for now. Just last night they fired 200 rockets and missiles at Israeli urban areas, Kisbana. So this organization that Netanyahu, the same that he said about the nuclear Iranian project, that it's, it's done, it's finished, destroyed. He also said about Hezbollah and see that they are live and kicking. This could take very long, much longer, unless the US orders Israel to stop. This could just continue for some kind of a war of attrition. And I think that the Israeli military leaders were not planning that. Yeah, this is sort of escalation to something that they were not thinking would open a new front for the, for the country.
- [19:43]
Christiane Amanpour
So let me ask you finally, and in my last couple of minutes, really, you are obviously the author of Rise and Kill First. It's the Israeli assassination program that you've dived deep into. And it's happened, you know, all over. And we've seen it certainly over the last few years since October 7th and of course before and now in Iran. It just seems that this is an endless decades long program that maybe cuts the top of the head off or whatever, but it doesn't change the fundamentals.
- [20:17]
Ronan Bergman
So, you know, it's not. I invest eight and a half years of my life in working, researching for the book and trying to find one answer. Is it good or is it bad to use targeted killing or assassinations? Of course, it's very hard. Also from the moral and legal, legal point of view, I think that Israel after October 7th compiled a list that was authorized by the Supreme Committee of Intelligence and then by the Cabinet. This was late October 2023. A list of something like 100 individuals that are authorized as targets for assassination. Most of them are already dead, the vast majority. And this is pure retribution. Now, of course, your question, Christian, is does it help? Like, is it making the world a better place next day? In some cases it did, in some cases it didn't. When this was, I think that the rule is when this was the target and not the tool that was used in order to reach the target or the goal, it never worked. And this is the, I think the main problem with this war. They went with great intelligence, precision weapon, with a lot of intrusion and infiltration into the enemy ranks. But when you ask the people involved, what is the goal? What is the exit strategy? How do you know? How would you know if you win, what's next except for more and more targets? You understand that if it's not a regime change and it's not the retrieval, security, uranium, two main achievements that are not like this, then it's just saying that Israel won or the US Won and that's it. There's no other fate to do the whole thing.
- [22:23]
Christiane Amanpour
All right. Well, listen, always great to talk to you. Ronan Bergman, thank you very much indeed with all your deep knowledge of the intelligence there. And stay with CNN because we'll be right back after the break.
- [22:40]
Audie Cornish
This week on THE Assignment with me, Audie Cornish.
- [22:43]
Christiane Amanpour
My guest is Megan Cruz, a TikTok
- [22:45]
Ronan Bergman
movie critic who's part of the up
- [22:47]
Audie Cornish
and coming world parasocial critique. She's the perfect person to talk about
- [22:51]
Christiane Amanpour
this year's Oscars because it's been great
- [22:54]
Audie Cornish
for films and weird for discourse. It's a lot of back and forth. Siskel and Ebert definitely like laid a groundwork of what modern film discourse and criticism is. Now because of the Internet, it is incredibly interactive and the audience definitely feels like they are a part of it. And they do in a lot of ways drive the conversation.
- [23:14]
Christiane Amanpour
Listen to the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish.
- [23:17]
Audie Cornish
Streaming now on your favorite podcast app. I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service. Is the AI market a bubble waiting to burst? And if so, how should we all as individuals be thinking about our personal investments and retirement accounts? To help me answer those questions, I have Ross Mayfield here with me. He's an investment strategist for Bayard Private Wealth Management where he helps clients make informed investment decisions. The dot com bubble of the late 90s is the go to example, particularly for today because it's a brand new technology. This also resembles pretty closely the mid-1800s railroad bubble, which this is my favorite bubble. Yeah, it's great, right? Because railroads are such an old school technology, but in the 1800s they were the AI of their time. It was this game changing technology. Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:17]
Christiane Amanpour
Running on fumes. Donald Trump describing the situation in Cuba with the major oil blockade he's imposed causing a spiraling humanitarian crisis, long lasting power cuts, food shortages and a once vaunted health care system now collapsing. Trump is threatening a takeover. Cuba says it's open to talks. So what next? President Obama famously re established diplomatic ties with Castro's Cuba in 2015 before Trump then reversed course. Jeffrey De Laurentiis served as acting ambassador to Cuba for two years, and he's joining me now from New York. Welcome to the program.
- [24:54]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Thanks very much. Good to be with you.
- [24:56]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, so if it's next stop Cuba, according to the administration, do you think. How do you think that would unfold?
- [25:06]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Well, I think clearly it will be the next stop. The president continues to talk about it. The secretary of state continues to talk about it. We hear that there are conversations or negotiations going on between US Officials and members of the Castro family. It feels to me like we're looking at a deployment of the Venezuelan model, talking to individuals. We also hear that suddenly the president of Cuba should step aside or is a problem for the goals the US Wants to promote. So clearly they're looking for change. Personally, I don't really like the notion of using humanitarian suffering as a political tool for change, but this is where we are.
- [26:06]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, so let me just play you what President Trump said this week about this. And you say the Venezuelan model or a little bit like some of the things he's saying about, you know, Iran, too. Here's what he said about Cuba.
- [26:20]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
It may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover.
- [26:25]
Walter Isaacson
It wouldn't matter because they're really in.
- [26:27]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
They're down to, as they say, fumes.
- [26:32]
Walter Isaacson
They have no energy, they have no money. They're in deep trouble on a humanitarian basis.
- [26:41]
Christiane Amanpour
So you spoke a little bit about how a friendly takeover would work. You mentioned Venezuela. How is that working? Just before we get into whether it's viable in Cuba, how is it working now, several months later in Venezuela?
- [26:56]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Well, the idea, I believe, was stabilization, recovery, and then transition. We don't really hear very much about transition, and we don't really hear very much about democracy or human rights. So I think we're just going to have to wait to see how it unfolds. But you mentioned Iran before. Of course, that was your earlier segment, and I see kind of a pattern here. We had the jcpoa, Trump's first administration tore it up. Not too much progress was made between then and now. And look where we are with Iran. Same thing with Cuba. We had a. I thought a good approach underway. Trump 1.0 tore that up as well. And now look where we are.
- [27:50]
Christiane Amanpour
So I don't know it is real. What do you think is the real aim? I guess what I'm going to do is play you the Cuban deputy foreign minister who told this program that they don't represent any unusual or extraordinary threat to the United States. This is what he said.
- [28:10]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Cuba poses no threat to the United States. It's not aggressive against the United States. It's not hostile. It doesn't harbor terrorism, nor sponsors terrorism. There are no foreign military bases in Cuba, contrary to what is alleged, with the exception of the one existing in Guantanamo, the US Base. Cuba has no traffic in drugs or illegal drugs that would harm the United States, nor there's organizing crime in Cuba, nor organized crime uses Cuba as a platform against the United States. So the allegations that they used are not truthful.
- [28:47]
Christiane Amanpour
So do you agree with the description and do you agree that they're not a threat?
- [28:54]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Well, I would say that they don't belong on the terrorist list. We during the Obama administration made a thorough review and found that they didn't belong on the terrorist list. This notion of an unusual and immediate threat, I also think in this exaggeration. But it feels to me like the administration is laying some sort of legal justification. I think the current administration is following a longstanding policy of isolation and regime change, if you will. And frankly, again, not to refer, to, continue to refer to the past. But you know, during the Obama administration I thought we had developed a good approach that was good for the Cuban people and also was good for the security of the United States.
- [29:48]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, so you say good for the Cuban people. As you know, the diaspora will have, you know, will have a lot to say about that because they very fervently believe that what's best for the Cuban people is not to have the Castro regime or the remnants or the, you know, post Castro regime, that they want freedom and the ability to travel and, you know, an economy that can sustain them, which they don't have. So it is a very bizarre set of rules and new process that is unfolding under the Trump 2.0, none of which, as I can see, are actually permitted under either international law or US So again, do you see a, is there anything that might come of an intervention in Cuba and what do you think a friendly takeover or a non friendly takeover, as Trump says could look like?
- [30:44]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Well, look, I think that the, what the Cubans, sorry, what the Americans are interested in obviously is, is some form of regime change. Now I think it's ironic that the Secretary of State is talking about the need for this to move slowly as it is in Venezuela. Let's start with economic reforms, which honestly sounds like a more coercive variant of what an Obama 2.0 policy would look like. But certainly if the two governments are going to negotiate, that's better. That's better than not.
- [31:30]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, But, Ambassador, I just want to stop you there, because actually, this is a problem because the government of Cuba has said it wants to talk to the government of the United States, but it hasn't, you know, it hasn't got the go ahead. Instead, Secretary Rubio's office is talking to a family member of Castro's, of Raul Castro's.
- [31:51]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Right.
- [31:51]
Christiane Amanpour
I don't understand. What's that about?
- [31:54]
Ronan Bergman
So.
- [31:54]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Well, I would say we're getting mixed signals because on the one hand, we have heard that the Trump administration is talking to members of the Castro family, namely the grandson of Raul Castro. I also had heard that there were a couple of members of the Cuban Foreign Ministry who were in St. Kitts on the margins of the CARICOM conference at which allegedly conversations took place between Raul Castro's grandson and UN Officials. So it could be that we're seeing a merger of both. On the other hand, we hear from Cuban American members of Congress that, no, there are no negotiations. It's just a conversation. So it's hard to know. But my guess is that there are conversations underway and we'll have to see where this plays out. But honestly, to me, the biggest concern at the moment is the plight of the Cuban people who are enduring a humanitarian crisis they've never seen before.
- [33:09]
Christiane Amanpour
So give us a little detail, because, you know, today the Kremlin announced plans to provide Havana with all the available political and diplomatic support. But Trump says Cuba is in its last moments of life, you know, on the verge of collapse. But clearly, what does that mean? Give me an idea of what the people there are suffering.
- [33:30]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Well, just on the Russians, I did see a report that suggested that a Russian oil tanker, although flagged under St. Vincent and the Grenadines, arrived in Matanzas a couple of days ago. And it was curious to me that that wasn't stopped. The Trump administration has authorized members of the private sector to import oil, I think because they want to avert a humanitarian catastrophe that is certainly within eye shot. But look, schools have closed. There's no traffic on the road. Garbage isn't being picked up. Life is very, very tough. Food shortages and the rest. And again, as someone who represented the United states for over 30 years to see us contributing to this humanitarian situation, I find very uncomfortable.
- [34:31]
Christiane Amanpour
And what about if there was really regime collapse? And obviously, when there is, there's a huge exodus. People just flee as soon as they possibly can. And there's been a huge number of people leaving Cuba since 21, 2021, roughly a million people have migrated. That's 10% of Cuba's population, which dwarfs anything that happened in the Mariel boat lifts, you know, in the 1980s, etc.
- [34:56]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Right.
- [34:57]
Christiane Amanpour
So I guess the closest they're gonna get is to the U.S. how will the U.S. deal with this? They're in the middle of a historic deportation, you know, coercive deportation program. And yet you're saying that their policies could force the reverse when it comes to Cuba.
- [35:17]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Well, it is an irony, if you will, and certainly the immigration policies of the United States are different. And historically, this has been one of the reactions to difficult times on the island, which is a mass migration. Now, perhaps what's different this time is that there are many different routes to leave. Mexico, Spain, others, although these, of course, cost quite a bit more money. So I think one of the reasons that the administration authorized members of the private sector to bring in oil, and they're talking about increased humanitarian assistance through the church. But this is a drop in the bucket. Now, there are other countries helping. Spain, Mexico, Canada. You mentioned Russia. So clearly the administration is trying to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. But. But again, how to calibrate that between, again, an oil blockade, if you will, and preventing a catastrophe is a very good question, an answer to which I don't have.
- [36:43]
Christiane Amanpour
Yeah. And just very quickly, I have one minute left. Eliot Abrams, Trump's 1.0 envoy for, you know, Iran and Cuba, told me on this program that he thinks the administration wants a democratic transition to happen in Venezuela while Trump is president and even potentially this year. And he says the chances are good. You said you hadn't seen any evidence of that transition even being started. How would you react to Eliot Abrams?
- [37:10]
Jeffrey De Laurentiis
Yeah, I would say it's. I would say it's wishful thinking. You have the entire Venezuelan regime still intact, minus Maduro, and there are going to need to be a lot of changes and twists and turns before we get to that point where there are democratic elections. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
- [37:35]
Christiane Amanpour
Ambassador Jeffrey De Laurentiis, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Thank you. We'll be right back after this short break.
- [37:50]
Audie Cornish
Tav, I got news for your ears. The podcast. I am your host, Michael Ian Black. If you're some cargo ship captain from Kuala Lumpur and you want America to prevail in this war, it is your patriotic duty to send your cargo ship through the Strait of Hormuz and get sunk. Right. And get murdered. And here's the thing, just doing your job. This is a man of his word. Donald Trump will pay for the insurance on that.
- [38:19]
Ronan Bergman
Right.
- [38:20]
Audie Cornish
Just like he paid for all the burgers for everybody last week. That's right.
- [38:23]
Walter Isaacson
Burgers for all.
- [38:25]
Audie Cornish
Have I got news for your ears. Releases new episodes every Wednesday. Don't miss an episode. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
- [38:39]
Christiane Amanpour
Now. As we've seen, the war with Iran is also hitting the financial sector. Tehran has declared it'll go after us and Israel's regional economic centers after one of its own banks was targeted in a strike. This as oil prices continue to skyrocket, sparking fears of a recession. Lloyd Blankfein knows about navigating times of great uncertainty. As the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, he led the company through the 20, sorry, the 2008 financial crisis. His new memoir, Streetwise, looks back on his humble beginnings and his rise to the top of the career ladder. He shares his reflections on with Walter Isaacson.
- [39:17]
Walter Isaacson
Thank you, Chris, John and Lloyd Blankfein, welcome to the show.
- [39:22]
Audie Cornish
Thank you, Walter. Happy to be here.
- [39:23]
Walter Isaacson
In your great new memoir, Streetwise, you talk about 17, 18 years ago, the great financial crisis, how you got Goldman Sachs through it. But you also say we're due for another one maybe. And you talk about kindling being on the ground and a spark could set it off is $90 barrel oil and $4 of gasoline at the pump. Is that the spark that could set it off?
- [39:48]
Audie Cornish
You know, I don't think so, but one never thinks so. That's the nature of a spark. You know, the point is we haven't had a reckoning for a long time, which to me means people. The discipline that one applies after you have a crisis stays with you for a while and then it starts to ebb over time. And usually the crisis of the century in financial markets happens like every four or five years. But this has been an exceptional period. We haven't had it for a while. So usually discipline relaxes. Assets appear on people's balance sheets. At some point there has to be kind of a reckoning. And the longer it takes, sometimes the worse it is. Now, by spark I mean sometimes there's a triggering event that if the kindling wasn't on the floor of the forest, it would have just passed unnoticed. But as you build up all these things, maybe something comes along that triggers it. The nature of a bubble, the nature of a spark is that you don't always predict when it is. So it's hard to tell, but I don't think so. The war itself, which of which $90 hour may be a part of, could be it in the long run, but again, I don't necessarily think so. That's not my base case. In fact, the very severity of the situation means that it's not going to be born for a long time, which means one way or another, this situation won't be allowed to pertain. And by the way, it's not $90 oil. $90 oil. If this does pertain for a long time, you may be talking about $130 oil.
- [41:19]
Walter Isaacson
And could that. What would happen if you got to 130 a barrel for oil?
- [41:24]
Audie Cornish
Well, it raises very difficult questions for people because something like that is just all bad all around, because higher oil prices when it seeps into the supply chain is inflation one hand and kind of recessionary on the other hand, as the cost burdens rise for people. And so the most dreaded term if you're a central banker is probably stagflation, which means the two aspects that you're supposed to accomplish, and usually they're in opposition to each other, are on the same wrong side. Higher inflation and higher and lower growth together is a kind of a very, very bad situation. What do you do? Do you try to remedy the inflation part by raising rates, or do you try to remedy the low GDP side by lowering rates in response to the crisis? And so that's a very poor situation to be in, and one tries to avoid that.
- [42:22]
Walter Isaacson
You know, there's been about 4% growth in the economy in the past, but half of that does seem to be from AI. AI, infrastructure and the complex investment. How much does that worry you?
- [42:36]
Audie Cornish
Well, again, I'm in the worry business. I've always been in the worry business. I think it's something to be concerned about. But I think if you ask me what my base case is, I think it's absolutely terrific. I know there's a lot of concern about AI, whether the expenditures will be justified by the revenue. There's a lot of concern about AI because there's a worry that it'll reduce employment in the country. Look, first of all, once the genie's out of the bottle, it's like you can't unlearn stuff. So we're going to go forward with this, so we might as well reconcile to it. But on the whole, I can't be negative about anything that's making everyone more productive. I understand there'll be dislocation in the short term. Maybe there'll be a lot of software jobs that AI can do very, very efficiently without the numbers of people that have dedicated themselves to learning that there dislocation. They'll have to learn other things, get retrained. Maybe some people won't be able to be retrained and will have to. The political sector will have to deal with the ramifications of that. It'll be up to the political sector to smooth out the difficulties and see that that incremental wealth that gets created gets distributed in a way consistent with our values.
- [43:53]
Walter Isaacson
You title your book Streetwise and I think it sort of has a double meaning. Meaning the really rough street you grew up on in Brooklyn. And then of course, Wall street happens. But let me start. In Brooklyn, you grow up in a housing project, a school that's pretty unsafe. You're scared to go to the bathroom at times. And yet you call that chapter. I think you call it Advantages. What were the advantages?
- [44:19]
Audie Cornish
Well, there's some irony in that name. I did grow up in public housing. I did go to a high school that they shut down shortly after I left as a failed high school. Cause not very many people were graduating. And I would say the advantages of that are low expectations by me and of me and for me. And so it was also produced a lot of motivation to get out. And frankly that my earliest motivation that I can recall, nobody in my family and even my sibling hadn't gone to college. And I didn't know anybody. None of the parents that I knew of other kids went to White Collar Drive. In fact, nobody. I didn't remember anybody having a suit, very, you know, very blue collar, not necessarily that different from, you know, a lot of people. It was very motivating. It was, it was very motivating.
- [45:12]
Walter Isaacson
Wait, so how did you get to Harvard?
- [45:13]
Audie Cornish
My, the, the thing that I was reaching for, the carrot that I was reaching for was to go to an out of town school. And I wasn't contemplating an Ivy League school. Frankly, I wasn't even sure, you know, I can't even recall whether I even knew what that was. But I did go to a college night at a high school in a nicer neighborhood. I went in. Nobody was checking IDs, there was no metal detector in those days getting into New York City public schools. And I went in and there were various booths and I crossed a booth that was occupied by. I thought it was a grown up, it was probably a young guy, but to them, to me it looked like an old guy and he was from Harvard. And somehow they took me, which is why I'm always great, by the way. I didn't get into every school, but I did get into that One, and that was a good one to get into. And it was culture shock when I get there. I really, I'm not sure I. It was a great place for me to go given the adjustments I had to make. But I'll tell you, it was a great place to have gone for all that, for all the doors that got open to you by the. But by the time I was done with four years, I should have started then. I was then prepared to first get into Harvard as a result of my four years there. But there was some acculturation and difficulty. But I label it advantages because, I don't know, I didn't have to source my motivation. I know a lot of, obviously at this point in my life, I know a lot of comfortable and wealthy people who have kids. And there's a lot of to be or not to be anxiety about what should I do. And those are people who have choices. I didn't really have a choice. It was go forward. If somebody paid me 25 cents an hour more than another person, I took that job. I wasn't sitting there wringing my hands about fulfillment and who am I and where do I want to go with this? You know, there's some advantages to having no choice.
- [47:09]
Walter Isaacson
You talk about your dad being a mail sorter in the book, and there's a wonderful scene when he retires and there's a machine wrapped in plastic behind him, which is a machine that can sort the male better. What did you think at that moment when you saw the machine that could replace what your father had done?
- [47:28]
Audie Cornish
You know, by then, when my father was retiring, by then I was, you know, I may have even been in graduate school at that point. So I'd gone on and seen. I'd seen more of the world. I'd never seen his place of business, but I knew, you know, he sat with a battery of people sorting mail. My dad would always, you know, at home he would practice that. He knew the name of every village, you know, this is even pre zip code, every village in Connecticut. And he would memorize these so he could sort the mail. And I never saw it. And he was retiring and so we snuck into the post office. I don't think they have the apparatus for having, you know, going away parties in the, in that part of the government. And you know, he went in, saw his colleagues, was there only not that long. But I said hello to this one and that one and I turned around and said, what is this big hulk hunk of metal behind them that seemed to still be wrapped up and it was an electronic mail sorter that would have done everything efficiently, quicker, never make a mistake. And they just kept it there because it was the government, they didn't lay people off. Which is by my, what, by the way, why my father liked that job because earlier in his life he had been private sector and had been laid off and looked for a job. But what a soul crushing thing that must be to be doing your job in front of a machine that could have done it much better, faster, mistake free. I kind of felt sad for my dad.
- [48:51]
Walter Isaacson
You know, when I listen to you talk about your dad, it makes me think of a really large question we sometimes don't ask, which is what is the purpose of an economy? And some people would say, like ourselves, maybe it's to create wealth and to create growth. But others might say, no, it's to create dignity, it's to create a good society.
- [49:10]
Audie Cornish
What the economy has to do is two things. It has to create wealth. And a good economy has to distribute that wealth in a sensible way, in a fair way, according to the values of that community. I would say at this point we have done a very good job of creating wealth. We're the biggest economy in the world. Usually size and bigness is the enemy of sprightliness and speed and resilience. And yet our economy, which may have been the ground zero for a lot of problems, no one recovers faster or realizes their mistakes quicker and reallocates investment dollars to more productive things. And so we're very good at creating wealth, but at the same time, it's been poor in distributing in that because the wealth that has been created has been mostly because of the accretion and value of asset prices. So people with assets are getting richer and those without assets are at best standing still. But they're not getting wealthier because they don't have the assets that are growing in value. So the gap between the richer and the not rich is expanding. And it's creating the polarization that we see in the economy that also has infiltrated the political economy and the politics of our country. So both of those aspects are true.
- [50:32]
Walter Isaacson
You talk about how the inequalities of wealth that comes from great asset growth and the booming economy, but leaving people behind has led to a populist backlash. But part of that too comes out of the crisis you write about in the book, the 2008 financial crisis, that there was a perception and perhaps a reality that the banks got bailed out. Average person didn't tell me what you think the RAMIFICATIONS of that were.
- [51:02]
Audie Cornish
Well, certainly it contributed to a sense of things being unfair and things being rigged. And in fact, the banks that accumulated lots of bad assets kind of went under. And the people who were responsible for those banks at the end of the day lost a lot of value. But at the end of the day, government doesn't lend money to people and the central bank doesn't lend money to system. The banking system does. And because the banking system was in distress, any money you put into the banks were husband and kept and retained by the banks because they had to increase, by the way, by regulation, they had to increase their reserves that were lost and had become exhausted. The reason why the financial crisis and the recession that resulted from it lasted so long was because it was also a banking crisis and the instrumentality by which individuals get reached and the economy gets stimulated was under stress. And that's why that recession lasted quite a long time.
- [52:06]
Walter Isaacson
You talk about being an outsider, feeling like a real outsider at Harvard. Did you feel like a real outsider the whole time you were running Goldman Sachs?
- [52:16]
Audie Cornish
You know, I said, you know, I started writing that book at a point at which my life in East New York, Brooklyn was a quarter of my life. And yet that quarter your early childhood. Again, I'm not a, I'm not a lot of things and I'm not a child development psychiatrist, but I could tell you, but I am a father and grandfather and I see kids. I think you get stamped at a very early age in a certain kind of way. You can those tendencies and you get formed, you can lean against them, but you never, you never are without them. And so I was stamped a bit as somebody who'd walk into a room and be very, very aware that I was different from other people and what that meant and coming on from the wrong side of the track. My natural empathy is, you know, look, I get into a car and there's a driver in front and then when I get upstairs I wonder, oh my gosh, is he, what's he doing with his time? And is he, did he have lunch? And it makes you think a certain kind of way. And my identification going to be born out of those life experiences. And it's just a very funny thing. Those life experience at a very early age get stamped indelibly on you and they are on me. So the answer that was along with an answer saying yes, even though I could be the CEO of the company and still walk into a room and know that, you know, gee, gee, I'm a little less polished than these people. I'm a little less this and a little more that these people and that's a little bit of a pre, you know, that state that remains a preoccupation for your whole life. I'll take it to my grave.
- [54:02]
Walter Isaacson
Lloyd Blankfein, thank you for joining us.
- [54:05]
Audie Cornish
Walter, thank you very much and I appreciate, I always love talking to you. Thank you.
- [54:11]
Christiane Amanpour
And finally, somehow science always sees the opportunity to innovate almost everywhere. Lately, at the local fish market in Spain, using the scales of readily available fish like carp, Spanish scientists are miraculously engineering tissue from those scales into artificial corneas with an eye on enhancing them for human use. Doctors currently lack options to repair cornea damage with scarce human transplants available. But the promising results from the University of Granada put an accessible and low cost alternative in sight. There is more work to be done before clinical use, but for now, it's giving a whole new meaning to the fisheye lens. That's it for now. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.