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- [00:04]
A
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up. Two weeks that shook Iran with thousands of protesters killed in a bloody crackdown and Trump pulling back his threats. For now. I asked Nobel Peace laureate Shireen Ebadi if the regime will survive, then I.
- [00:25]
B
Think God was on my side.
- [00:27]
A
A Holocaust survivor and legal titan, 95 year old judge Theodore Moron joins me with reflections on his life's work pursuing international justice. Plus, eat your ice cream. Advice from Dr. Zeke Emmanuel, who tells Walter Isaacson the secrets to living a long life. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. The Iranian people's call for freedom was heard all over the world. But has a bloody crackdown crushed the uprising? President Trump appears to think the situation has calmed after he threatened the regime and promised to send help to the protesters. It appears military action may be on hold for now, but thousands of protesters are thought to be dead. Given the government's Internet blackout, information is scarce and the real numbers could be much higher. These demonstrations started out over the cost of living and developed into something much larger, a call for basic freedoms and new leadership. While the deposed shah's son, Reza Pahlavi is trying to position himself as a potential next leader under the former shah. Shireen Ebadi was Iran's first female judge but was demoted following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But she kept advocating for women and human rights. And in 2003, she became Iran's first Nobel Peace Prize winner. Now, more than 20 years later, she and her fellow female Nobel laureates around the world are standing in solidarity with the people of Iran. Shireen Abadi, welcome back to our program. So we've talked many times when there have been uprisings. I want to know what you think of this one in terms of the history of modern Iran and the uprisings there.
- [02:33]
C
The recent uprising shows that the Iranian regime no longer want the regime. What has happened in Iran is a tragedy and the number of those killed is far more than those killed in the previous unrest. And I'm very saddened to see the world has shut its eyes to the killing of our young people.
- [02:59]
A
Why do you say shut its eyes? This is top news all over the world. Even President Trump threatened to go to the rescue, the help of the protesters if the killing continued. It's very much in the spotlight around the world.
- [03:15]
C
Of course, in the news, yes, as you say, it's top news and it's been reported. However, they don't see the real picture of what is happening in Iran, they see a much milder version what is happening. And the people's requests and demands have been ignored. We have urged Europe to expel their ambassadors from Iran, to downgrade their diplomatic relations from Iran, from ambassadorial to charge d' affaires level. Moreover, we have urged them to force the Iranian government to stop the killing of the people and also the corruption and the number of the high number of executions and the embezzlements that go on by this regime in this country. For how long is the world going to turn a blind eye to what is really happening in Iran? And we cannot do that single handedly. We cannot deal with a regime that is armed to the teeth. We urge the west for help. For five days there's been an Internet blackout. We have asked them, just as the Iranian regime has managed to impose an Internet blackout so that the Iranian people cannot access the outside world. We urge you, why can you not do the same thing? Why can you not shut down the Iranian telecommunication towers? Please shut down the Iranian media, state media. Do not allow the voice of the government to be heard outside their propaganda and their mendacious reports to reach the outside world.
- [05:39]
A
There seems to be selective Internet. Obviously members of the regime can use it whenever they want and the people can't. So that's a fact because they go and they talk. You talked about executions and other crimes that you listed by the regime. I mean, you're talking about that over the last several years. Do you believe the foreign minister when he went on Fox News this week and said there will be no hangings and that we now have the situation under control, there'll be no executions, no hangings, and the basically the killings have stopped, the protests have stopped. Do you believe that?
- [06:23]
C
No, I do not believe the words of the foreign minister because he is not in principle an honest person. He doesn't have any power. If the supreme leader tomorrow orders further killings, of course they will carry out the killings.
- [06:45]
A
Do you think that President Trump was right to promise to help the protesters and then seeming to agree with what he said? He's been told that the killings have stopped, that there will be no hangings, and we don't know if military action is still on the table. Do you think Iran should be liberated, in your view, by external action, like military action, either from America or from Israel?
- [07:19]
C
No, we are against military strikes against Iran because that will just lead to the killing of more people. But the people have urged for so many on so many occasions, just as they managed to target Ismail Haniyeh and kill him in one spot. Why can you not have the same targeted assassination against the Supreme Leader of Iran and the current commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps? Or why doesn't the European Union not expel Iranian ambassadors from their respective countries? These are very easy actions that can be carried out, but unfortunately, no one seems to be listening to the Iranian people. Our young people are getting killed on the streets.
- [08:17]
A
You remember obviously in June when the Israelis attacked by air and the United States attacked by air, certainly the Israelis took out a lot of the people that you're talking about, the, you know, Revolutionary Guards leaders, various security leaders. They might have tried to get the Supreme Leader, I don't know. Anyway, they didn't. So that's been tried. I guess the question is, do you think that the west has ever paid attention to the human rights of the Iranian people? Whenever we report about Iran, let's say on CNN or elsewhere, it's always about the nucleophile or terrorism or missiles or whatever. Leaders generally don't talk about the human rights of the Iranian people. You're a human rights champion, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Why do you think that is? Or do you think I'm wrong?
- [09:08]
C
Commander, say what you're saying is totally right. They do not care for human rights at all. All they care about is their own security. If they are against Iran's nuclear program, it's because they don't want their own security to be undermined. They are thinking about the national security. They're thinking about their pockets. They don't care about the lives of the people.
- [09:39]
A
What do you think about the opposition? Who do you look at as the people who will lead? What you want to see an uprising, an end to this Islamic regime?
- [09:56]
C
The Iranian people have been calling for one person who is Reza Pahlavi. Of course, I accept that there are many people in Iran who are not pro monarchy. There are some who would prefer a republic. But please bear in mind, first we need to topple this regime.
- [10:19]
B
Then.
- [10:21]
C
The future system can be decided by the people through a free referendum. And this is something that Reza Pahlavi has accepted, and he has said on many times, on many occasions, that the future system must be decided through a referendum.
- [10:41]
A
So.
- [10:47]
C
If the United States has decided to take back its threats against Iran and suddenly decided that it is not going to interfere, it's nothing but a pretext because they want to protect their own interests. The Iranian people can choose their own leaders in a free referendum and nothing will happen once the regime is ousted, there will not be chaos in the country. After the collapse of the regime, we will not allow that to happen.
- [11:34]
A
When we spoke last time on this set, it was around the time of the 2022 Women Life Freedom Upris after the death of Mahsa Amini in government custody, in the custody of the police. At the time, you told me that if the government managed to quell to crush this dissent, it wouldn't be the end, that they will succeed one day. Now, every time there's an uprising, everybody, you, the diaspora, Europeans, the Americans, the whole world thinks this is it. Why is it never it? Why is it always that the regime can crush it?
- [12:19]
C
Because the people do not want to resort to violence. When the people take to the streets with just using their fists in the air and staging peaceful demonstrations, yet they are met with a brutal crackdown to such an extent that the Iranian security forces are using military weapons to kill the protesters, what can they do? But the more people are killed, the gap between the regime and the people will widen even more. And I promise you here that sooner or later this regime will collapse, Just as what happened in Libya, just as what happened during the Arab Spring. In several dictatorial regimes that were toppled, the same will happen in Iran. There was a time when the Syrian people thought Assad can never be removed because he's so powerful. But we've seen that even Assad ended up fleeing his country.
- [13:37]
A
You know, there are a lot of people who would say that those countries ended up worse and under worse difficult dictatorships. But that's for another day. Do you remember? Can you cast your mind back to 1979, around this time, when the Shah's forces were under protest and uprising from people on the streets. What was the difference, do you think? Did the Shah use that much violence? He left, of course. He left the country and Ayatollah Khomeini came back.
- [14:10]
C
I remember very well the 1979 revolution. And unfortunately I was also one of those who protested against the Shah of Iran at the time. And since then I have apologized to the Iranian people, especially to the young people, saying, we made a mistake. But I remember very well that in the 1979 revolution, the number of the protesters killed, not even one thousandth of those killed by the current regime. Such brutality had never been seen in Iran. Unfortunately, we were deceived by two issues. First, because at the time they promised us democracy. But we didn't know at the time that the person who was promising us a democracy didn't even know what democracy meant. And it's only when he arrived in Iran, we realized we were also deceived by religious promises. We thought a religious person is not going to lie. I want to add one thing. In 1979, I believe that the Iranian people had unfortunately decided to throw themselves into a well. And now we've decided to emerge from that well and come out of that. And I promise you one day we will come out of this. We will.
- [16:13]
A
Shree Nebadi, thank you very much for joining us. We'll be right back after this short break. This week on THE Assignment with me, Audie Cornish. I heard a rumor that one of the moms in this news story reached out to you. Ashley, you are the cause of this news story.
- [16:39]
D
I was like, did I cause this?
- [16:40]
A
You just heard me Talking to the Dr. Noel Santarelli about the Ashley Tisdale French toxic mom group chat drama and like, yeah, it's celebrity gossip, but this is a real thing. Mom friends and mom friendships. It can be difficult and you're vulnerable. Dr. Noel Santarelli is a clinical psychologist and a mom and she's going to break down to us exactly why the first viral story of the year is striking such a nerve. Listen to the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app. Now with developments in Venezuela and Greenland highlighting the Trump doctrine of might makes right, there couldn't be a more important time to talk about international law. President Trump says there are no constraints on him, only, quote, my own morality. He says he doesn't need international law. And his top aide, Stephen Miller dismissed the longtime world order as, quote, international niceties, saying the real world is governed by force and power. At the same time, active war crimes charges are pending against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as his defense minister. Those accused in Hamas were killed. Judge Theodore Mehran is a Holocaust survivor and legal titan who has dedicated his life towards the pursuit of justice and accountability, including for genocide. Indeed, he was an advisor on the ICC indictments of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Ghana, as well as the leaders of Hamas. Prior to that, he oversaw many tribunals. At 95 years old, Mehran is as clear eyed as ever. His new book, a Thousand Miracles has just been published and he came into the studio to talk about it. Judge THEODORE Moron, welcome to the program. We go back a long, long time. Sometimes I call you Ted. You're a very special person. Your latest book has just been published and it's not just about your life, but it's essentially from Surviv surviving the Holocaust to judging genocide is the subtext. So let me ask you about surviving the Holocaust. You were born in 1930 in Poland. When you were nine, Germany, the Nazis invaded and you lost much of your family in the most of it. Most of your family, thank you for reminding me, in Treblinka, including your older brother. So for a long time you wouldn't speak about the Holocaust. You tried to bury the memories. I know that's a common thing amongst survivors. Why is that, do you think? When you reflect for you personally, you are.
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B
I don't think that speaking about victimhood is something which is particularly useful or noble. The pain was so rough that you try to forget it. You try to start a new life. Mrs. Wilde, the famous French Simon Weil. Simon Weil wrote a book called In French, In Vie the Life. And she tells the story, which was almost mine, that for many years after Auschwitz, she refused to answer any questions about Auschwitz. And then one day she decided that we must live normal life, we must love, we must form families, perhaps have children. And then she started not only talking about it, but wrote such a brilliant book about her experiences. How horrible. In Auschwitz. So this, as you said, it's quite common.
- [20:23]
A
Yes. And you have done the same now. You talk about it now. Plus you had family and, you know, you left Poland, you were able to, you know, be relocated after the war in what was then called Mandate British Palestine, and you became eventually Israeli. Tell me about that. Because you had been pulled out of school in Poland at nine, you spent the next several years in the ghettos and in work camps. How have those did those years influence you and your hunger for a new life and not not only that, for education, as you put it. A hunger for education.
- [21:01]
B
Well, actually, education, the hunger for education became extremely central to my sort of motivations to not to be in school and not to be with children or teenagers your age for so many years leaves a tremendous hole in your cultural background, in your wholeness. And therefore I had this tremendous desire to try to catch up, and I never quite caught up. I think there are things, there are glaring holes in my education which I will not reveal to you today.
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A
Okay. I won't ask you because nobody would imagine it. You've reached the highest heights of your profession, jurisprudence, you speak languages, you still travel, your brain is on firing on all pistons.
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B
I worked very, very hard. And I think that genetically I am in the right place.
- [21:56]
A
Good. So let me ask you this then. One question about the camp, about Treblinka. How do you think you survived?
- [22:03]
B
Well, tremendous amount of luck. And tremendous resilience and tremendous will to survive. But mostly luck. Luck, luck. I think God was on my side. And when my mother and my maternal grandparents were arrested because Jewish resistance was digging a tunnel in our house and somebody denounced what was happening, and they were captured and taken, driven out of town and executed. Had I come home 10 minutes earlier, I would have gone with them. I was 15 odd minutes late in comparison to my normal schedule. But this is one of the very many things that luck played a very favorable role.
- [22:53]
A
And your brother, your older brother, how did you survive his killing?
- [22:57]
B
I found it extremely hard to. In fact, his loss was in a way more difficult for me than the loss of my mother. I always dreamt for years that one day the door will open and he will walk in. But this never happened. And of course, this was augmented by the fact that I knew that he was in resistance. He attacked a Nazi officer before being shipped to Treblinka to be killed. But they did not. They understood that and would not be so kind to him. They decided that he must go. And then he participated in the rebellion and the uprising of prisoners in Treblinka, which was an act of great courage. And I wish we would have seen a bit more of those things. And he lost his life there or immediately after that. It's just he never came back. And he was five years older than I.
- [23:59]
A
You know, it is extraordinary, maybe or maybe not, that you then put your life's work into getting justice and accountability for these kinds of criminals.
- [24:12]
B
Well, this was, I think, quite natural that this would be the result of that you learned, you had those lessons. The loss of autonomy, the loss of childhood, the loss of school, the loss of company of people your age, the loss of reading. And then you try to say to yourself, is there anything you could do not to eliminate the possibility of those things recurring in the future, but at least reducing that possibility.
- [24:42]
A
So I want to bring you back to when we first met, because we spoke about a recently discovered by the journalist Gershon Gorenberg, the Israeli journalist who wrote in his book about the 1967 war and the resulting building of settlements. And he found your memo from, I believe, September 1967, in which.
- [25:04]
B
Which was designated as top secret.
- [25:06]
A
Top secret.
- [25:07]
B
And I have never gone public on.
- [25:09]
A
That, but you did to me. Well, when it came out.
- [25:12]
C
Okay.
- [25:12]
B
Not before that.
- [25:13]
A
Okay. So that's interesting too. This is one of your most famous things, your most famous opinions, where you found Jewish settlements at the time in the occupied west bank to be illegal under international law. And that you issued to the government at the time to the foreign minister because you was the legal advisory. I'd like to play a little soundbite from our interview back in 2 and 20,000, 2007 for the film God's Warriors. This is then President Shimon Peres, who I asked to reflect on what you.
- [25:45]
B
What does he think of my legal opinion?
- [25:46]
A
Yeah, what does he think of your legal opinion? You're going to see.
- [25:49]
B
I don't think he gave me great high grades.
- [25:51]
A
He didn't. Are you saying Theodore Mehran was wrong?
- [25:59]
D
I don't know if he was right or wrong from a legal point of.
- [26:02]
B
View, but he was wrong from a.
- [26:05]
D
Pragmatic point of view.
- [26:07]
B
You can justify a lot of things on grounds of security, but you cannot settle your population in occupied territories.
- [26:15]
A
No doubt in your mind.
- [26:16]
B
No doubt.
- [26:17]
A
No wiggle room in the law.
- [26:18]
B
Not really.
- [26:21]
A
Pretty amazing watching you watching him. And so what do you think of Shumar? I noticed him very uncomfortable, by the way, because he didn't want to say you were wrong.
- [26:31]
B
Well, Shimon Peres was a very decent person and among the leaders of Israel, one of the. Perhaps more reasonable ones. But the opinion which I wrote three pages is one of the things I am mostly most proud of. I felt that this was. I knew that this was something that the government did not. Would hope, I would not say, but I felt I had a duty to say so.
- [27:01]
A
Yes. And let me just be very clear to actually the heart of your opinion. You concluded that creating Israeli settlements in occupied territories would violate the Geneva Convention. Geneva Convention, period, End of story. Do you think. Did you ever think that had the government then accepted your ruling and done what the international community said it should, don't build illegal settlements, that we would perhaps be, if not in peace, but a lot more close to peace in.
- [27:33]
B
The process of reconciliation? At least I thought about it quite often. And I am particularly sad because had the government at that time followed my advice, we would really have been living now in a different Middle east, in a different Israel, in a different context of relations between Jews and Arabs. I think, who knows, Maybe we would have had few peace then. But things are getting worse and worse. And the current government multiplies settlements without worrying much about the question whether the settlements are or are not established on private Arab property. I am very worried. I'm agonizing about what I see and read about the treatment of Arab villagers on the west bank by Jewish settlers. And this gives me a tremendous worry about the future.
- [28:36]
A
I think everybody is terribly Worried about what happens in that such important land that needs to be shared safely, securely for all of them. But you fast forward to all these years, all those decades later, you served as an advisor to the International Criminal Court, the icc, when the prosecutor there, chief prosecutor, issued arrest warrants for the three Hamas leaders responsible for October 7 and for two Israeli leaders, the prime minister and the. And the defense minister.
- [29:09]
B
Gallant.
- [29:09]
A
Yeah, you have Gallant and Benjamin Netanyahu. And you say the Gaza war has tested the system of international law to its limits. But just before I get to that, you've also called yourself or you've reacted to people suggesting that you might be swimming against your tribe, swimming against the tide, being a black sheep. You came under. Did you come under criticism for being an advisor for this very controversial ruling?
- [29:34]
B
A little bit. But I must tell you that most of the reactions I had from both Jews, my tribe, as you put it, and the public at large were extremely positive. But in any event, I think we have, and this is something that I felt very strongly when I led the UN War crimes tribunals. We have an obligation as lawyers, as judges, as legal adviser to state the law as it is and not to. And not to play games with it. And we, I was involved in some decisions as a judge and as chief just judge, in fact, which were very unpopular. They involved in some cases of acquittals. I believe that a legal system must show maturity by being willing from time to time to acquit people when we feel that the law and evidence requires not conviction but acquittal.
- [30:39]
A
So you were the president at the turn of the century, frankly, for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
- [30:47]
B
And I also presided the appeals chamber for Rwanda.
- [30:50]
A
Exactly.
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B
And then the subsequent mechanism which succeeded both of them.
- [30:54]
A
Exactly. They both brought alleged war criminals to trial, convicted them, sentenced them, jailed them, particularly over Srebrenica and as you say, the genocide in Rwanda as well. In the interim, the ICC has presented war crimes charges to President Putin and one of his hench women for the war in Ukraine and the way they have forced deported children from Ukraine. There's that. Then you've got us striking boats in Venezuela. I just want to put these together for a moment. And you've got a whole load of world leaders who are, A, not signed up to the ICC and B, don't give a hoot about international law. President Trump recently said, you know, I don't need international law. I've got myself and, you know, my own morality as judge. Do you fear that all this, that you've Given your life to is at a risk right now, the principle of.
- [31:52]
B
International law for the moment, I must admit that we live in a moment of retraction, a retrogressive step for international criminal justice. After Nuremberg, we had a long period, half a century, in which no international courts were created. It's great that because of this temporary detente between the United States and Soviet Union, the United Nations Security Council decided to go a different way and establish the United Nations War Crime Tribunal. And in those tribunals, this is a period of my two decades on the court, the period of life I would never have changed for anything else. I think we were the architects of modern international law of war. We revolutionized the rules pertaining to rape, which were wholly lamentable and inadequate. So we did some great things. We fleshed out rules governing conduct of hostilities and all of that. Now it's to be expected that law will not, or anything else in life will not always develop in a sort of linear way with no ups and downs. I think that now I have to acknowledge we are in a. In what the Bible would say, line years. But I am quite convinced that sooner or later, things will change and there will be a return by world leaders to a more positive approach to international justice. Incidentally, I am the icrc, the International Committee of the Red Cross, with which I have worked now for decades, has been gracious enough to appoint me to an advisory group of how to galvanize political support of governments for respect for international humanitarian law, for international human rights, for international criminal law. And I'm working on it with some. With a very impressive group of people, and I'm very glad to be. To be working that. But sometimes the worst atrocities can produce the most important changes in the law. Take the Holocaust. At that time, the term genocide did not exist, but we in fact witnessed a prime example of what we mean by genocide. And after that, what was the reaction of the international community, the Convention Against Genocide, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the tremendous revolution of human rights on the positive side that we have seen. So I'm hoping that we are perhaps in a bad period now, that in a few years it will change. You cannot be an international criminal judge or an international criminal lawyer without being a tiny bit of an optimist.
- [35:03]
A
Oh, you have to be an optimist. And I believe that if people like you continue to fight for it, it will come back to where it's meant to be. Now, look, A Thousand Miracles has been dedicated to your wife, Monique Jonquet Mehran. She died a Couple of years ago. And I know that you miss her a lot because you've talked to me about it. Can you just talk a little bit about her legacy, her significance in your life?
- [35:27]
B
She was an epitome of integrity. Monique was someone who was really a watchdog of my never, ever cutting corners. And we had some difficult issues. I remember that after the famous acquittal of General Gotovina, I was so much criticized by not only people.
- [35:53]
A
This was in the Balkan war.
- [35:55]
B
That was in the Balkan war. I was criticized by friends as well. And I was wondering whether I should stand down from, at that time, candidature for another term as president or from the court at all. And she said, no, you can't do it. If you step down, you will be. Everybody will say that Mehron realizes that she made a mistake, he made a mistake. If your colleagues want to shoot you down, they can do it, but then you go down with a bank and. And not with a whimper.
- [36:26]
A
Wow. Clever Monique. How wise she was.
- [36:28]
B
So she was a moral compass for me, and she was a very, very close friend. That's why it's so very difficult to manage without her. Fortunately, I had Oxford, who stepped in and gave me a job and a very supportive environment, which I cherish.
- [36:45]
A
That is just so fantastic. Can I ask you to read the poem that you sent me months ago?
- [36:50]
B
Oh, surely.
- [36:50]
A
Called the Things I Dread? It was about life without Monique.
- [36:55]
B
I dread boredom and loneliness A dark empty rooms ghastliness, crackling walls and howling wind not having a nearby can Half finished tasks complaining look Lack of companion that God took An empty bed with cold sheets no human touch and no heartbeats Missing her clutching hand and her love Long sleepless nights grief haunting dreams and sweat of fear Eyes that are fighting tears A dining table with only one chair A life without flare, a brain I could no longer pick Memories ever slowing rhythm. Wow.
- [37:57]
A
Thank you.
- [37:57]
B
Thank you very much for inviting me.
- [38:01]
A
We'll be right back after this short break.
- [38:12]
D
I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast.
- [38:16]
C
Just the whole notion of replacing pieces of ourselves, how do we do that?
- [38:21]
D
Why do we do it? That's one of my favorite science writers, Mary Roach. For years, she's explored big questions about the human body. This time, however, she's turned her attention to humanity's long fascination with replacing body parts. And the book is called Replaceable You. We're gonna talk about what breakthroughs are already changing lives, what's still a work in progress, and what it really means to replace parts of yourself. That work just as well or maybe even better. Listen to Chasing Life Streaming now wherever you get your podcasts, Tev, I got News for your ears. The podcast. I am your host, Michael Ian Black.
- [39:04]
C
Streets aren't safe. Kids can't go to school. Like they're.
- [39:07]
B
Yeah, they shut down schools.
- [39:09]
D
Yeah. For at least a couple days last week because, you know, a block away they're tear down. I've heard of a snow day, but an ice day?
- [39:15]
B
Hey, that's why he's.
- [39:18]
D
That's why he's a panelist on this show. That's how he got the part.
- [39:22]
A
He's so excited to be on camera again.
- [39:24]
D
Have I Got News for your ears Releases new episodes every Wednesday. Don't miss an episode. Follow us wherever you get your podcast.
- [39:37]
A
At a time of such global turmoil, here's some welcome advice. Maybe eat your ice cream. It's the title of Dr. Zeke Emanuel's new book, a Guide for Living a Long and Healthy Life without being too Obsessive about it. Walter Isaacson talked to Dr. Emanuel, a former health advisor to President Barack Obama, about the power of moderation and the recent changes to U.S. health policy under RFK Jr.
- [40:03]
E
Thank you, Christian and Zeke Emanuel, welcome to the show.
- [40:07]
D
It's my great honor, Walter, to be with you.
- [40:09]
E
You have a book now on health and wellness, Eat yout Ice Cream, and it has a wonderful line at the beginning of it that puzzled me because most writers on this subject wouldn't have written this. You say we're all going to die. You can waste all your time trying to extend your life by a few minutes, or you can make the time you have healthier and more meaningful. This sort of distinguishes your book. It's not just about everything you can do to live a minute or two longer. It's about living better.
- [40:38]
D
Yeah. Our goal shouldn't be just living a long time. As a matter of fact, you're a historian and study history. I went back and one of the things you see is in the early 20th century, 1909, there's a big headline in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Live a scientist, say you can live to 150 or 200 years. And it's like you read that headline could be today because everyone wants to live that long. But I think the real thing we say to ourselves is we want quality of life. Well, what's quality of life mean? It means being healthy, not being obsessed about living every extra minute if it's going to compromise your pleasure, your fulfillment, your contribution to other people. And that's the psychology, that's the underlying philosophy, if you will, of the book.
- [41:25]
E
When I was at Time magazine and we weren't having a good year for newsstand sales, we just put a nutrition cover on. And you could do it either way because things kept changing. We could say eggs good for you. No eggs bad for you. Or cholesterol good or bad. Or butter versus margarine. One time butter would be better. Margarine. Why don't we know? Why is it such a random science?
- [41:51]
D
Well, diet is hard to study. For one thing, what you eat today and every day has an impact over years. Those kind of studies are hard to do. That's the first thing. Second, on diet, it's hard to randomize people and have them stick to the diet for five years while you're going to study that. That's one of the complications. But I think we have made a lot of progress and we should undermined it. The studies also need to be big hundred thousand people to really see the effects and then to also unravel what the biological mechanisms of those effects. But let's just go through. We know one, that almost every American gets enough protein and that should not really be an obsession of people. Two, almost every American doesn't get enough fiber. And that should be something that people work on by eating more vegetables, eating more fruits, eating nuts, which are all high in protein. Number three, we do know that dairy is probably net, net not bad for you and probably positive for you. And so we should encourage that. We also know and have discovered fermented foods really, really important. We don't eat enough fermented foods, whether it's yogurt or kefir or cheeses or kimchi or sauerkraut or what your favorite fermented food is. Those are good because of the microbiome. I like to tell people. And this I think always knocks people's socks off. There are 100 trillion bacteria in your gut. That's more cells than the rest of your body. They're there for a reason. Evolution didn't conserve them for no reason at all. And having a big diversity of bacteria in the microbiome, really, really important. So we need to eat fermented items good for the microbiome. We also need to eat more fiber good for those bacteria to grow. And that I think, as we're learning, has a huge impact on our body, on our mental function, on our behavior. And I think that's going to be one of the big stories for the next 10 or 15 years as we unravel A lot of the different bacteria that are affecting.
- [44:00]
E
Let me talk about cognitive health because so many people now, I guess especially my age, worried about dementia, losing a memory. And I've started doing things like I started learning French and suddenly my short term memory is a whole lot better. I think what does work in terms of keeping your short term memory?
- [44:19]
D
There's a very important pivot point around retirement where you stop going into the office, you stop with the social engagement, the schedule kind of slips, you don't have another purpose and the cognitive decline seems to accelerate that, especially for white collar workers. So you have to actually proactively go out and reestablish the schedule. Your social interactions, the challenges that you might have faced at work now, and I recommend to people, as you're going to retire, plan it out, think about where you're going to volunteer, how you're going to do more things, how you're going to interact with, with people. That's very, very critical. I think you're learning French. I totally endorse it. Very, very good idea because it involves so much of the language. It involves your not so much of the language, so much of brain function. It involves learning new words, it involves seeing things and being able to read, it involves being able to pronounce words and it involves talking to someone else, which again, another social interaction.
- [45:21]
E
Every now and then I like to have a drink, a glass of bourbon. I like to do it with friends. Is drinking good for you or bad for you in the sense of what you're talking about, of leading the good life?
- [45:34]
D
That's a complicated. So let's just talk about the physical manifestations. And I think scientists have come to the position that alcohol, while 65 to 70% of Americans do drink, alcohol itself does have health risks. It has health risk as far as the liver, we're well acquainted with that. It has health risks in terms of cancer and in terms of other conditions that disrupt sleep cycles. So that's the physical side. But then there is, as you point out, lots of other aspects to alcohol. Almost every culture, alcohol has been used in lots of ceremonies, but also in routine eating, for celebrations, to be with other people, to lubricate social interactions because it also happens to taste good. And I think when you balance those things out, first of all, we're not going to get to everyone being a teetotaler, so we should be clear about it. And the occasional drink is not going to disrupt your lifespan. But if it increases your social interaction and the meaningful social interactions, it's a net Positive in my view. And I'm not a drinker. My wife likes to imbibe. She is actually very conscious of using it properly. But I think for most people, it is a way of. It's a focus and brings people together. And in that sense, I think net. Net. It's probably a positive for most people. Now, there are things we shouldn't do, right. Binge drinking, bad idea. Drinking alone, bad idea. Drinking to drown out our sorrows or because we're depressed, bad idea. Drinking with other people as a social engagement over dinner or at a club, probably a really good idea.
- [47:19]
E
When you talk about things like that, it should be for interaction. It should be leading a fulfilling life, not just trying to win the gold medal for leading the longest life. It actually goes back in history. It reminds me of Hippocrates, the. The first of your line and then Aristotle. Is this something that's been known throughout history?
- [47:41]
D
So generally, it is the fact that, I mean, the six things I point out, they're not unique under the sun. We have known these for 2,500 years. We have a lot more science about them and how they actually help the body. And, for example, how social interaction actually is good. Mentally, it affects the brain through oxytocin as well as dopamine and serotonin. It also affects by decreasing cholesterol and therefore stress the heart rate, blood pressure. So we know it has physiological interactions. But all of these things, whether social interaction, nutrition, exercise, sleep, they've been known throughout history. What we know more now is their scientific basis, how much you need to do of each of these things. And that is helpful. But again, we've known a lot about this, which is why there's people who've been able to live long and healthy lives before the science.
- [48:38]
E
There are a lot of happiness gurus out there saying, here's the seven ways to be happy, or giving advice on happiness. Is happiness the ultimate goal?
- [48:48]
D
It depends what you mean by happiness. So happiness in our sort of modern lingo is, you know, pleasures sitting on the beach and drinking pina coladas. But happiness in the old Greek and the sense that our, you know, the founding fathers understood happiness as if, like.
- [49:06]
E
The pursuit of happiness, you meant.
- [49:08]
D
Yes, the fulfilling life. And, you know, I go back to Ben Franklin, one of your great heroes and someone you know a lot better than I do. You know, Franklin had sort of three guiding principles, I would say, to his life. One was curiosity. He was endlessly curious about the world, people, social structures, et cetera. The second was moral growth. He was Constantly trying to improve himself, recognizing his failures, trying to overcome them. He didn't succeed. Always. He sort of jokes that he never mastered orderliness in his life. There was always a mess on his desk, as it were. And his last one was be useful. And by useful, he meant try to improve the world. And this was the master of creating social organizations to improve his community. He created the University of Pennsylvania, my university. He created the first hospital in the United States. He created insurance companies, he created fire departments, he created lending libraries, he created learned societies, all to help improve the world. And I think if you have those guiding principles, be curious, keep your mind active, grow, recognize your deficiencies, and try to improve constantly. And be useful in terms of improving the world. That is the kind of happiness that I am sort of suggesting underlies these six behaviors.
- [50:25]
E
Your friend, the former Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, wrote an important report about an epidemic of loneliness. Tell me how that plays into this.
- [50:37]
D
I actually think that's one of the great reports. It goes along with the smoking report from nineteen nineteen sixty four. It'll be recognized as one of the transformative reports from a Surgeon General. Smoking. There is a correlation, because in his report, he reports on the fact that a study from Brigham Young University showed that being lonely is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and that being lonely is again associated with about a 25 to 30% increase in mortality over the subsequent time, also increased risk of depression. And we are going in the wrong direction. Young people are not having as many intimate relationships with the opposite sex and their own sex. They're dining alone. They don't know how to navigate social situations. This is a very bad situation. And actually, when they do surveys, they report fewer close friends, fewer people they can can call and talk to. A large part of that is the cell phone and social media. But that's not all of it. It predates the cell phone and social media. And I think we are not paying enough attention to facilitating social interaction. And part of it is we need deep relationships. We need really those intimate relationships with deep friends who we can reveal inner secrets to. But we also need much more casual relationships. And you notice if you walk around that fewer people are actually talking to other people. One of the contrasts I've noticed is if you go to Europe and you're in a cafe, no one's on their phone. They're talking to each other. In the United States, a lot of people, yes, they might be in a place with other people, but they're not interacting. They're not Talking. And I think that's something we have to put the phone down and engage with people near us.
- [52:28]
E
You say you're worried about the approach to vaccines. Now drill down on that with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy. What do you think of what's being done to the vaccine protocols now you're a doctor?
- [52:42]
D
Well, first of all, I think the worries that are being fomented and the uncertainty and the complications are not gonna help. Over the last 30 years, we've saved at least 1.1 million lives in the United States through vaccination. Everything from measles and chickenpox, rotavirus flu. And we should recognize their value overall. And I have actually a nice, I think, table in my book about how little the risks are of vaccines, especially when you compare them to things like peanut allergies. So we should take vaccines and we should have them. The cutting back of the vaccines to now 11 recommended vaccines, we are way on the outlier risk, as is Denmark. Most countries have between 13 and 16. Canada has, for example, 16. And we should be much closer there. Taking away things like the hepatitis A vaccine from the recommended and from the mandatory list. Not a good direction to go. So I am very, very concerned about that. And I don't think the decisions are science based. If you look at the overwhelming data, and there is overwhelming Data, more than 1.25 million people tested for just autism issues. No evidence that that's true. But we still get this fear, this uncertainty, this pressure, and I think it's going to undercut the public. We've already seen a huge drop in the number of kids getting vaccinated. Two thirds of the counties in the United States now have less than 95% of the children vaccinated against MMR. That's below the herd immunity level. That is not a good place to be if we want to raise healthy kids. Vaccinations is one of those steps.
- [54:33]
E
Zeke Emanuel, thank you so much for joining us.
- [54:36]
D
Thank you, Walter. Been a great interview.
- [54:39]
A
And that's it for now. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.