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- [00:01]
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- [01:03]
Christiane Amanpour
Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpur. Here's what's coming up.
- [01:09]
Nick Peyton Walsh
We are most likely dealing with the large scale provocation.
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Senator Elisa Slotkin
This message says that there is a.
- [01:15]
Matthew Cole
Rogue player in this region.
- [01:17]
Christiane Amanpour
Two wars, two crises. NATO member Poland shoots down Russian drones inside its airspace. Also, how should America respond to Israel's shock attacks on Qatar and the negotiating process? I ask Senator Elisa Slotkin. Then we the people. Historian and journalist Jill Lepore warns the elites have now taken over the US Constitution.
- [01:41]
Matthew Cole
Plus, these are essentially the hardest missions that the government has or asks its soldiers to do.
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Christiane Amanpour
The secret American mission in North Korea that went badly wrong. Investigative journalist Matthew Cole tells Hari Srinivasan about his quest to uncover the truth. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Two major conflicts now at risk of spinning out of control. The Polish prime minister says his country is the closest it's ever been to open conflict Since World War II after NATO fighter jets were forced to take out Russian drones which were fired into its airspace. Take a listen.
- [02:46]
Nick Peyton Walsh
We are most likely dealing with the large scale provocation, but at the same time we're in consultation with our allies. I am in constant contact with the NATO secretary general. This is so that we can respond to this type of threat as effectively as we did tonight.
- [03:05]
Christiane Amanpour
And his foreign minister, Radislav Sikorski, said Poland has no doubt that drones flying into its territory were not an accident. Russia denies that. And after another massive aerial bombardment of Ukraine, Ukraine's foreign minister warns Putin's sense of impunity keeps growing. Meanwhile, Israel's unprecedented attack on Doha, targeting Hamas negotiators, is being questioned at home and condemned abroad. Here's President Trump.
- [03:35]
Matthew Cole
I'm not thrilled about the whole situation. It's not A good situation.
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Christiane Amanpour
But I will say this.
- [03:42]
Matthew Cole
We want the hostages back, but we are not thrilled about the way that went down today.
- [03:48]
Christiane Amanpour
Qatar's government might have hoped for a stronger condemnation from the us. They call it a flagrant violation of international law. And in a moment, we will dig into all of this with Senator Elisa Slotkin. But first, let us turn to Poland and Nick Peyton Walsh, who's following the story and filed this report.
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Nick Peyton Walsh
Behind me here is a meeting of what's called the E5 top European defence officials. The Polish Defence Minister meant to be had to rush back to deal with the crisis in his own country. The French Defence Minister actually now the Prime Minister, but still, still a message here of unity they're trying to give out. The UK Defense Secretary John Healey, calling this a new level of hostility from Russian President Vladimir Putin and saying that the actions taken by NATO jets, Dutch aircraft scrambled to intercept these drones marks the first defensive action of its kind since Russia invaded Ukraine. What we know is that during the night, 19 intrusions were recorded by Poland into their airspace. That may not mean 19 separate drones, but certainly four of them shot down, according to some initial drone Polish official reports and indeed damage done to civilian infrastructure from that debris falling. Extraordinary to see some of the video, the noises we've become accustomed to hearing over Ukraine now, now over NATO territory. Russia's Ministry of Defence, referred to for answer on this by the Kremlin, have said they did not intend to target Polish sites. That's not the same as saying they didn't intend to send drones into Polish airspace. But they're also saying they're open to dialogue with Poland or on this matter, Polish airspace closed during the bid to counter these drones. Extraordinary to even imagine, frankly, this moment of NATO's eastern flank security being in doubt this far into Russia's invasion of Poland, a significant escalation by Moscow. Whether they try to suggest this was potentially a navigational error or the result of GPS jamming or something, as they may do in the days ahead. Clearly a designed move here to test NATO's response. So far, when I stepped out of here, we have not heard of concrete measures potentially from NATO to respond to this, or the UK Defence Minister did say they would be instructing UK forces to look at ways of bolstering Poland's air defenses. But a real moment of test here, certainly for the White House as well. I should remind everybody that on Sunday, when asked after her pretty horrific record assault against Kyiv, President Trump was asked if he was ready for the next wave of sanctions against Russia. He said he was, he said he talked to Vladimir Putin very soon. He said indeed that European leaders would be going to D.C. to talk with him about that. None of that has happened now on Wednesday, and he said those visits would occur by Tuesday. So a lot of questions now as to Trump's response, whether there will be a unified NATO response, including the US to this extraordinary, unprecedented violation of Poland's airspace. I should point out there are many concern that this may just be the beginning, that Russia may be trying to test and see what pushback it gets from NATO from trying something like this and then may again try to violate Poland or other eastern NATO members airspace. And indeed, I should also point out everybody that this was part, it seems these drones launched as part of another substantial attack against Ukraine. 400 drones launched that same night. The fact that some of them strayed into NATO airspace, a remarkable sense that the Kremlin feels buoyed, feels potentially after the summit in Taijin that it had in the beginning of this month that it has increased support from China and possibly India. And certainly we've seen over the past 48 hours with 24 pensioners killed in a single strike in Donetsk by a Russian aerial bomb, Moscow upping its aggression rather than the opposite.
- [07:37]
Christiane Amanpour
So, Nick Peyton Walsh laying all that out for us, and how will NATO respond to this major escalation by Russia? And will the US Start using its unique leverage with Israel? Our next guest is calling for just that. Even before the latest attack in Qatar, Michigan Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin said, it appears that the Netanyahu government thinks that there are no limits to what they can do while still receiving US Support. So I do believe a message has to be sent. And as a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, she's well placed to answer how NATO should respond to Russia's escalation as well. Senator Sotkin joins me now from Washington. Welcome to the program, Senator.
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Senator Elisa Slotkin
Thanks for having me.
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Christiane Amanpour
So I want to ask you, as an American rather than a Democrat or Republican, you are a Democratic Senator, but this surely is a moment of truth for America and its alliances. And I want you to pick which issue to take first. I can't tell which is more important or more dangerous. Israel's, you know, unprovoked unprecedented attack on, on, on negotiators in US Ally Qatar without even telling the US Or Russia's major escalation into NATO airspace.
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Senator Elisa Slotkin
Yeah, well, I certainly think the Russian escalation is the, is the newest item. But it is kind of interesting and ironic that all of this is happening at the same time, I think, with Russia. I mean, if you just review the data points, you know, from Trump rolling out the red carpet for Putin. You know, we know he wants to win the Nobel Prize for his work on bringing an end to a war there and in the Middle East. He rolls out the red carpet. He cozies up to him. And the data points since then are basically like a thumb in the eye to Trump. Right? He puts Putin goes and does this big event with the Chinese leadership. He launches the largest assault on Kyiv since the beginning of the war, and now is testing like a toddler the sort of NATO limits by sending drones over. And I'm glad that the polls have called for consultations. I'm glad that we're having these conversations. I personally think we have to send a strong message back to Putin because he is clearly walking all over President Trump. And, you know, I don't think a Nobel Prize is in his future for the president. So it is an interesting development that we need to respond to.
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Christiane Amanpour
So calling for consultations is officially known as Article 4. That would potentially lead to Article 5, which, Senator, you remember at the time, President Biden and all the NATO leaders in the early years of this war kept saying not one inch. If Russia strayed 1 inch inside NATO territory, whether by air, land, or sea, then it would trigger a full NATO response. I mean, look, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. I know nobody wants to go to direct war with Russia. But on the other hand, what is the signal then that you say needs to be sent now?
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Senator Elisa Slotkin
Yeah, well, certainly, I think the President has been dragging his feet on a bipartisan proposal on another round of sanctions. The bill is ready to go. It's co led by both a Democrat and a Republican. We could do that tomorrow. And the President has been reluctant to do that, thinking he can be the one who kind of convinces Putin to think, to listen to his better angels. I think the other thing that's extremely important is that we have to have all of our NATO allies right there on the eastern flank with a much stronger military posture. And the Poles did a decent job of trying to react when these drones came, came from two different directions into their territory. They need to be on higher alert and just start shooting anything down that comes over their airspace. I mean, as long as it can be safely done. And so a more aggressive defense posture at a minimum. But sanctions for me are. This is the moment in my mind that we actually do what we've been proposing for the last eight months and do another round of sanctions on the Russians.
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Christiane Amanpour
And actually President Trump put out on Truth Social, I think, you know, his condemnation of Russia invading Poland's NATO airspace there. So it will be interesting to see if he finally stops giving extended deadlines to Putin and actually does something to stop him. You know, obviously, it's all about Poland is the transit place for NATO weaponry and equipment into Ukraine. Ukraine has suffered incredible, as you say, uptick in targeting, including of a lot of government targets, US Targets inside Ukraine, European targets inside Ukraine, civilian targets. So do you think apart from sanctions, it's also calling out for massive infusion of air defense systems again?
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Senator Elisa Slotkin
Well, certainly, I think that, you know, the, the, if you're the Ukrainians, if you're many NATO members, many people here in the United States States, we think we have a responsibility to help a democracy defend against the invasion by an autocracy. So I think that there's a strong support for that, certainly in a place like Michigan with as many Ukrainian Michiganders as we have. You know, I think the last administration struggled with this because America is not looking to get into a hot war with Russia. But there's certainly more we can do to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. And by the way, they've been absolutely impressive in how that they've gotten creative, how they've adapted commercial technology, how they've taken risks and gone bold inside of Russia. I mean, you have to give them credit. And I think a lot of militaries are learning from what they've been doing. But I think there's more the United States and NATO can do. Again, the president of the United States runs our foreign policy. He has to make that decision, that turn. You know, he told his base that he was going to get out of the war, that he was done with Ukraine, that he was going to quickly bring it to an end. Putin is literally dangling in front of his face this challenge, and the question is, what is he going to do about it? And, you know, obviously I hope he has a change of heart and he helps the Ukrainians in a very serious way. But to me, this is a very open question. Putting out a tweet is one thing. Actually changing your posture towards Putin would be something very different.
- [13:48]
Christiane Amanpour
And now what about the other escalation where the US has direct leverage, doesn't need to get into a war to do this, but it has direct leverage with Israel, which is its, you know, because it's its major financial and military backup. And apparently, and Trump alluded to Being very upset about this set off its attack on a residential building in Doha where negotiators were studying apparently the latest peace or whatever cease fire proposal. The US didn't know, they were informed apparently as this thing was underway. What should the US Posture be now?
- [14:28]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Well, certainly I think we should recognize that this is also a change. I mean to review the bidding. The United States asked the Qataris years ago to set up an office so that they could engage with Hamas. Right. Years and years ago it was Israelis and others needed a place where they could negotiate. We needed a place where we can have these conversations and we asked the Qataris to set up a location in their own country. The place of the attack today was in a well heeled neighborhood, an apartment or attack yesterday, excuse me, a well heeled neighborhood 18 miles from El Udaid Air Force Base where we have 10,000Americans where the Qataris just helped defend against Iranian ballistic missiles just a couple of months ago. So this is a partner in Qatar that we work with quite a bit and depend on for the safety of our American soldiers there. So it is definitely a big moment. We haven't had Israel take military action, overt military action against a Gulf state to my knowledge, ever. And certainly using fixed wing aircraft. It's a major decision. You heard a pretty strongly worded statement from the president today about, you know, not approving the strike, not knowing and this not moving us anywhere positive towards peace. It took out, I think from what I understand, some low level members, but not leadership. And so, but the idea that we're going to have a negotiated end to this war now seems further off than certainly it was. And the United States again has some decisions to make. I can only imagine what the conversations have been between, between the White House and Bibi Netanyahu since. This puts President Trump again in a really tough spot. He said he was going to solve this crisis like in day one again. He wants the Nobel Peace Prize to solve this longstanding problem. And we seem much further from that today than we did two days ago.
- [16:17]
Christiane Amanpour
So let me ask you though, I mean presumably. Well, I'm going to ask you, do you condemn this fixed wing, unprecedented Israeli strike on. Some say that again?
- [16:27]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Yes.
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Christiane Amanpour
Ok.
- [16:27]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Yes. I mean it just, it does nothing positive. It opens up sort of a new chapter in the militarization and conflict in that region in general. And it's with an American partner that we have real equities with. So I think that it is a bare minimum, just not supportive of the goals that certainly the United States has And I hope that we're would hope that Israel would have. And I think it's right that the president has been pretty vocal today publicly with the Israeli leadership also adding that.
- [17:00]
Christiane Amanpour
Of course the hostages have to come back. And of course, everybody believes that that should happen. And that's what was under negotiation. One mother, one Israeli mother said of this attack on Qatar, Netanyahu has executed my son. Now, that is, you know, the anguish of a mother who's very afraid of what might be the fallout from this attack on Hamas. So, again, the US has leverage. You believe it should put sanctions on Russia for what Putin's doing. Should it, as you said you would have voted to do in July, suspend offensive weapons to Israel? What should it do? Because President Trump, while wanting to end the war and wanting, as you said, the Nobel Peace Prize, he's also allowed Netanyahu to his, you know, he's given him the reins, he's given him the space to essentially do what he wants.
- [17:52]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Mm. Well, look, Israel and the United States are long term allies. And we typically have tough conversations in private. Today you saw those tough conversations happen in public. And I hope that that is an important moment for this president, President Trump, to start using some of that leverage in private conversations. To be honest, you know, voting on it in the Senate, it's something that we can do. But the president of the United States directs foreign policy in the United States of America. And we have tremendous leverage to have really tough conversations with both allies and adversaries. And I think, to me, the president should be using some of that leverage. Everyone wants a final hostage deal to bring people home, all the hostages, all at once. And Hamas could end this war tomorrow if they just gave up, did the right thing as leaders and said we're not going to continue the suffering of Palestinians by, you know, dragging this out again for a further, you know, we're two years into this right now. They could end this immediately. But I also think that going after and taking military action in a partner nation that's trying to host these negotiations, it just takes us further away from peace.
- [19:03]
Christiane Amanpour
So you voted to, you would have voted to suspend offensive weapons. You said, because of the humanitarian crisis, even before this current crisis, the starvation, et cetera, in Gaza. Do you think the US should do that now? The Senate should vote. The president should do that.
- [19:23]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Again. The president of the United States could solve this problem by having firm conversations with Bibi Netanyahu. Tomorrow. The votes come up here because that's our only hook into foreign policy, to this issue whatsoever but the tools are at the Pentagon, at the CIA, and at the White House in terms of the things that we share. Those conversations can be happening tomorrow if the President is actually going to follow up his words from today with Bibi.
- [19:48]
Christiane Amanpour
So let me ask you, because you have written a major new paper about your vision, and let's not forget you were a pen, a CIA analyst, you've been in the field, you understand these things, and you're on that Senate Armed Services Committee. A new sort of idea for a new foreign policy. Three big things. Just let me know, let us know what your vision is.
- [20:13]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Yeah, well, look, we've been talking about military activity for the first couple of minutes here, but I think when I took a breath and said, you know, look, there's a lot of fighting in Washington. We're not dealing with the strategic issues. We should be. If I'm queen for the day, what would be the foreign policy and the national security approach that I would do and how would it be different? I really went back to basics and the military stuff that we're all talking about is part of the issue. But national security has changed because the world has changed. We now have. Economic security, for me, is the number one issue in the United States States, the shrinking middle class is the reason we're having this fractious authoritarian moment in our history right now in America. And if we do not strengthen and grow that middle class, we're in trouble as a diverse nation. Number two, we gotta have. We have to understand that we are in a tech arms race already. The technology, particularly AI, are gonna completely change what we mean by warfare, cyber attacks, which are already affecting everyone that I know, but attacks on our infrastructure. The change is in our country, in our world, from cryptocurrency, it's already happening. And AI is going to be a bigger change to our economy than the Internet. So we need to get a handle on that and understand we're in this race. And to me, things like setting up a Manhattan Project for AI or something that I'm proposing, get the greatest scientists in the world, just like we did in the Manhattan Project back 80 years ago. A lot of immigrant scientists, foreign scientists who helped us win that race. We need the same thing on AI and then we need to set up something like the Atomic Energy Commission to go through the rules of the road of how we deal with this very brand new technology. And then because warfare is changing, because it's economic and based on tech, it means the victims, the people on the battlefield are different. It's not Soldiers very far away. Right. It's our only citizens who are being. Who are the victims of these cyber attacks, who are at risk if our infrastructure goes down. We need to rethink how we define homeland security and rearrange our government to protect people here, not just the way we did 80 years ago. That's a Cold War model, but something new. So I've called for a rewriting of the 1947 National Security Act. Everything you know about the US government and how we do security is based on something that's 80 years old. It needs to be rewritten. And those were some of the. Some of the ideas in the speech.
- [22:36]
Christiane Amanpour
And yet there are a couple of challenges there, because you've talked about foreign engineers and people like that. Well, instead of that, there's deporting, there's denying visas, and there's rounding up the workforce of an allied nation, South Korea, from a country who wanted to invest in the United States. So there's that, and then there's deploying the US Military and National Guard as domestic, you know, law enforcement in various cities. It looks like Chicago may have escaped that threat, according to the White House. But another, you know, another. Another city might not. So who do you think you could convince? Because there'll be a lot of shape shifting from the current policy to do what you suggest.
- [23:23]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Yeah. Well, first of all, you have to be able to manage daily crises, the Ted things that the Trump administration is announcing every single day. But also give the future a seat at the table and think outward. And that's what Washington isn't doing right now. Trump is flooding the zone, giving us 10 things to think about and talk about and tweet about all day long. So we're not thinking five years out, 10 years out, 15 years out. And I think the job of leaders is to not just deal with the daily grind, but actually think around corners. So that's what I was trying to do. In the meantime, the president is doing things that I think contradict the values of our democracy. Right. Putting uniform military in our streets is about as contrary to our personal history. Right. With no offense to the Brits who are watching, our entire identity was shaped around a foreign military occupying our territory and treating and abusing, treating badly and abusing our citizens. So to have the risk of our National Guardsmen, our uniformed military in our cities is, to me, a very, very dangerous strategic problem for our country. So we can't stop working on that. We have to react to that. We have to push back on that, but we can't just ignore the future threats because they're here. They're upon us now.
- [24:36]
Christiane Amanpour
Senator Eliza Slotkin, thank you so much for joining us and stay with us because we'll be back after the break.
- [24:46]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
America is changing and so is the world.
- [24:50]
Christiane Amanpour
But what's happening in America isn't just.
- [24:52]
Nick Peyton Walsh
The cause of global upheaval.
- [24:54]
Christiane Amanpour
It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [24:58]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [25:00]
Nick Peyton Walsh
Tristan Redman in London. And this is the Global story.
- [25:04]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [25:10]
Nick Peyton Walsh
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:21]
Christiane Amanpour
From masked ICE agents grabbing people off the streets to deploying the National Guard in Democrat run cities, many of Trump's moves raise serious questions about constitutional rights and limits. The US Constitution is among the oldest in the world. And my next guest has been exploring its history and its place in these troubling times. In we the People, historian Jill Lepore makes the case for constitutional amendments. And she's joining me now from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Welcome to the program.
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Jill Lepore
Thank you.
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Christiane Amanpour
Jill Lepore, you know, from the beginning of this administration, everybody in the sort of legal field and those who are experts who were asking what would create a constitutional crisis in the United States based on things that President Trump had said before he even took office for the second time. So what do you think will cause a constitutional crisis? What element right now do you think could, would or not?
- [26:25]
Jill Lepore
You know, I think a lot of scholars are quite cautious about the language of constitutional crisis with regard to this administration in particular, because the language of crisis and emergency has been so galvanizing for the administration. It is the assertion of the proclamation of emergency declarations and the use of those to take on emergency powers that has lain behind so many of the actions the administration has taken that the courts are finding and likely to continue to find to be in violation of the Constitution. So I think in that, I think that accounts for some of the reticence to use the LA in some way sense that it participates in the emergency politics that we are in. And I share some of that hesitation. I'm, as a scholar, someone who takes a longer view. And I think we are in a kind of rolling constitutional crisis in the sense that there have been concerns raised about the legitimacy of a Constitution that lies beyond the power of the people to amend it, which is a foundational idea of American constitutionalism, that commitment to the people's power to amend the Constitution.
- [27:36]
Christiane Amanpour
I'm going to get to that in more detail, but because, you know, some of the justices have been speaking, you know, quite unusually, there's a recent interview with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. She's got a book out and she was asked what would constitute a constitutional crisis. Here's what she said.
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Senator Elisa Slotkin
I don't know that I could give a definition of constitutional crisis, because I don't know that we've really faced one in this country. We faced a lot of tumult in the country, but we have always survived. And America's coming up on its 250th anniversary. And I think we can be proud of the way that the Constitution has held.
- [28:14]
Christiane Amanpour
And your response to that? It has held.
- [28:19]
Jill Lepore
It has held. And I think, you know, we rightly celebrate the 250th anniversary, not just of the Declaration of Independence next year, but of American constitutionals. And the first state constitutions were passed in 1776. But we certainly have had constitutional crises. I mean, you know, as people said about the Civil War, the Constitution doesn't come in 500 miles of addressing the question of slavery, like the loss of 750,000American lives in a four year war over the battle to end slavery and settle the question of the right of states to secede from the Union as a matter of historical record, is a constitutional crisis. I think there's a kind of strict definition that involves the gears of the mechanism that is the Constitution becoming locked. Right. It's designed in the Age of Enlightenment as a machine that is supposed to work as perfectly as possible. It's like a clockworks with weights and balances. And so much of the genius of the Constitution is the precision of the separation of those powers. We are now witnessing a kind of constitutional change that really is not seen across American history, which is a role played by the executive simply declaring a new constitutional interpretation. So this White House appears to believe that if the President believes it's constitutional, it is constitutional, that the ultimate arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution is the executive branch, not the judicial branch, and certainly not Congress or the people. And there's no provision for that whatsoever in the Constitution. Nothing is further from the balancing of forces that the Constitution was designed to set in motion.
- [30:06]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, so in your book we the People, you discuss obviously in depth, what you're talking about now, some dysfunctional in this constitutional system and how to amend it. And you argue that the Constitution was designed to change and grow and regularly and continually, but it's not how that's working. So why not and what's the cost of that?
- [30:29]
Jill Lepore
The US has one of the most difficult constitutions to amend in the world. It's also the most influential Constitution in the world. It's of great significance. But other constitutions, including the state constitutions in the United States, are very regularly amended. American states have held hundreds of constitutional conventions, in many cases just simply replace their constitutions is very common around the world. So it is a distinctive feature of the American Constitution that we have never had another convention and that the Constitution, only 27amendments have been ratified at a very low rate compared to thousands across the states where the amendment rate is something like 75%. So it's distinctive. And there are many people who would say that is because the Constitution is so great. It hasn't been changed very often because it was so well designed and perfect from the nearly perfect from the beginning. And you know, that's a good faith argument. I see more that the amendment, many of the amendments have been crucially necessary. Certainly the Civil War amendments and the Progressive Era amendments were absolutely essential. And many of the failed amendments have had dire consequences. I think the failure of the Child Labor Amendment, which was passed by Congress in 1924 and sent to the states and was never amended, was a problem in the 20s and 30s. It remains actually a problem today. The Congress passed the Equal rights amendment in 1972. It has not been ratified. I think we could, I think most Americans would agree there's something, a kind of political settlement that's never really quite been made that is with us in many ways. So what has happened in place of Constitutional amendment, which was the design, it's written into the Constitution. That you can amend the Constitution by way of popular ratification is that the Supreme Court enacts constitutional change by interpreting the Constitution differently. That's a power that the Court has largely assumed. It's not essentially written into the Constitution. And I think it's a practice that is well established and respected, but it really has replaced in the long periods, decades of American history where there have been no amendments efforts. It's because the Court has been particularly active.
- [32:37]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, so, and I, and I sort of asked you, so what's the cost of that? I mean, you basically believe, I think if I'm getting it straight, that the Constitution is a living document that needs, as you've laid out, amendments by the mechanisms that it is provided. But you remember in 2013, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued that it's not a living document. He said, quote, it's dead, dead, dead. You know, they believe people like that are called originalists. So how do you get. And you've said it's in the hands of the elites now to amend or not to amend. How do you jog and jiggle?
- [33:16]
Jill Lepore
So constitutional changes and constitutional change is going to happen one way or the other. Originalists call their method of constitutional change constitutional restoration. It is a method of constitutional change. It's just disguises itself as a method of restoration, but it is a form of change. We've seen a lot of change in the Constitution under an originalist Supreme Court. I think that the broader question is what it means to our understanding of and capacity for self government that we don't exercise the power to amend. It's less that I think, oh, there's a bunch of amendments I wish could be passed. I actually don't have such a wish list. It's that the practice of convening in constitutional conventions, which used to happen in the states all the time, but hasn't happened in the United States since 1986 when Rhode island held the last full dress constitutional convention, was a civic practice. Sort of like jury duty, right? Like you may not think, you may not love jury duty, you may love jury duty, but at some level we believe that it is the right thing to do, that ordinary people should gather, be presented with evidence and deliberate amongst themselves to decide what is true. And if we were to say today, replace juries with AI and just say, you know what, you know, we could feed all this testimony and all this evidence into an AI, we know that it would make a better decision. People are always saying like, oh, you could do that for therapy or doctors and you're going to get a better decision. Even if we thought it would be a better decision, I don't think we would say we should get rid of juries because we understand that is a, a civic practice. That that is where we glue ourselves together as a society, where we agree that we have the capacity to decide what's true together that, that we honor and trust our capacity as citizens. In a democracy, a convention is something like that. We're not ready to have a convention like we don't, we have. It's as if it's as if we haven't had jury duty for 60 years and no one even know. If we had abolished jury duty in 1971, which is the last time the Constitution was meaningfully amended, it would be very hard to bring it back. People would be like, I would not sit in, I would not trust the determination of my guilt or innocence. Were I accused of a crime of 12 random people? I think we don't actually trust one another in that way because we have lost so many of the skills of Democratic deliberation. So I think that less than like, do we have the Constitution I want or you want, it's more that we don't have the capacity to think constitutionally.
- [35:43]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, okay, so how do you see that being rekindled? Your book is called we the People to Vote for Voters to, you know, take back control of their rights. Um, and you have a personal story. I understand that you as a family used to hold regular constitutional conventions around the, I think the dining table.
- [36:02]
Jill Lepore
Yeah, you know, I honestly, maybe I'm just really kooky, but I think a lot of people do this. Or you have to have family rules, right? You have family meetings. You have family meetings. Like. Yeah. So. Well, if you believe in constitutionalism and you also teach it, like, a way to do that is to have an annual Constitution convention with your family. We used to do it the day before school began, like right before Labor Day. And we'd bring out last year's Constitution, which has things like who, you know, chore schedules and who has to do the vacuuming versus who does the dishes, what bedtimes, screen time allowances. And, you know, it's a different year. There's different reasons you want to be on a screen. Kids are a different age. You're going to update the rules, but kids get a chance to petition and.
- [36:46]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Say.
- [36:48]
Jill Lepore
I will agree to walk the dog if I can have an extra half hour before I have to go to bed. Those are ways to teach civic skills the way that they are taught in K12 classrooms all over the country where we understand kids should sit in a room together and kind of argue out stuff and disagree and come to a resolution. I think grown ups don't have that as much anymore as a consequence of our hyper polarized politics.
- [37:13]
Christiane Amanpour
Jill Lepore, thank you so much. Teacher of history and Constitutional affairs at Harvard University. And we will be back after this short break. Now for a major new investigation into a secret mission gone wrong. A New York Times report reveals the details of a botched operation allegedly greenlit by President Trump in 2019, which led to U.S. navy SEALs killing several North Korean civilians. All this while high stakes nuclear negotiations were going on between the two leaders. Journalist Matthew Cole reported on this story and he joins Hari Srinivasan to discuss it.
- [38:00]
Hari Srinivasan
Matthew Cole, thanks so much for joining us. You just recently published a piece in the New York times about a SEAL Team 6 mission that most Americans did not know about. So this is 2019. The administration is trying to figure out how to denuclearize or negotiate with North Korea. Right. The administration, like every party in any negotiation, wants as much of an advantage as possible to try to get an edge. Well, what are they thinking? What are they saying? Let's tap the floor phones. But getting something into North Korea is not that easy. Why did they go with this particular route?
- [38:31]
Matthew Cole
Well, let me just say that, you know, even in our reporting and we're very explicit in the story that there were some details that we withheld because of the sensitivity and the nature of the, you know, listening device or, you know, the capabilities that the US Government has that we wanted to err on the side of caution of. In 2018, the US government saw an opportunity to place a listening device in North Korea in the middle of a series of negotiations. Let's understand and get an idea of what the negotiators on the North Korean side are saying to Kim Jong Un. And secondly, there was a sort of longer term potential for a longer term strategic advantage to get access to North Korean communications, period. And so the question is, is how do you get a device into North Korea? And so the planning and the rehearsing for this went on for months in late 2018. And meanwhile, the SEAL Team 6, the Navy Special Operations, was looking at the place that they were going in North Korea to see when an opening would be, when they could get in, when was the best possible time. And so there was an opening in early 2019. In the winter, the water was extremely cold. And they determined that that was when they were going to do it. And it came days, weeks before the proposed summit in Hanoi. So there was an enormous amount of tension around whether, you know, being able to get in, get out undetected, and whether doing so could derail the possible summit. And so the large submarine gets out into the Japanese sea and eventually makes its way to North Korea. They get into North Korean waters, the deploy these two SEAL delivery vehicles, each with roughly six seals in them, and they motor their way underwater. They're considered wet subs, which means everyone's in a suit with scuba gear and the water is so cold that they had to have neoprene suits that had heating elements to them to keep them from freezing because it was a two hour ride into their location where they were going. The mini subs got about 150 between 100 and 200 yards, meters from their location at the shoreline. And the seals get out and they make their way.
- [41:23]
Hari Srinivasan
They have practiced this over and over again. What just seems like a physically grueling task and a lot of things have to go right. What went wrong.
- [41:33]
Matthew Cole
You're right. So much has to go right. I mean, it has to be almost perfect. There were in the after action several things that the SEALs believe went wrong. We should say, first of all, there is a certain amount of ambiguity and lack of fidelity about what went wrong. Because the nature of the operation started with the first fact that, you know, SEALs and SEAL Team 6 and special operation forces have been since 9, 11, you know, fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Middle East. And during all of those missions, what they had were live overhead cameras. They had video feeds, often in high definition. And so you had the ability to see what was going on above them and communicate with them. Well, there was none of that for this. This is, this was old fashioned, behind enemy lines, no communications. And so they had to make decisions based on the. What they could see in front of them. And so there's a limitation in terms of understanding what may have gone wrong. What may have gone wrong, though, was one of the two mini subs missed its landing mark. It released, it turns, turned itself around. It released the seals. The seals, staying underwater, made their way towards the shore. Both the mini sub and the seals at that point missed the. Any indication that there was a fishing skiff, that there was a small boat on the, on the water. Meanwhile, it's middle of the night, the sea is calm, it's quiet. These fishermen are alone out there. And the mini sub, having missed its mark, turns itself around. And when it turns itself around, there was essentially a theory that in doing so, because the water was so. It was in such shallow water that its engines made awake, essentially, so that from above the water, you could hear or see movement in the water and you. And caught the attention. So as that may be happening, the seals have now made their way to shore. They're on the beach. They're at, you know, waist between knee and waist high water. They're taking off their suits and their gear. And at that point, at least one of the seals sees the boat with three North Koreans on it. And one of the three, two or three North Koreans dives into the water. Now, at that point, one of the SEALs on the mission has concluded that they have these North Koreans who they're not sure. Are they fishermen? Are they security? Are they armed? Do they have a radio to call back for help? That they have discovered the mini sub and that this one who, who's dives into the water is trying to look at the mini sub, right? And so as soon as that person pops back up, that SEAL decides to fire his weapon. And at that point the seals had been under strict orders that had they interacted with any humans, whether it was security or fishermen, that they had to abort the mission. They open fire. The rest of the seals open fire on the people in the boat. They make their way back to the boat to see and inspect. They discover that there's no weapons, there's no radio. It appears to be just North Korean, North Korean civilians, fishermen. And they ditch the bodies in the water and they get back into the mini subs and they call in with a distress signal to the nuclear submarine off offshore. And that nuclear submarine has to come in to shorten the distance but for the route for the mini subs into the, the large sub and get them out. And they were able to, you know.
- [45:35]
Hari Srinivasan
In your reporting you talk a little bit about how this SEAL team was formed in 1980, how it's become kind of this almost legendary unit, in part because of Hollywood, part because of some of their successful missions. But you also go on to write, but among some in the military who've worked with them, the seals have a reputation for devising overly bold and complex missions that go badly. Most of us never hear of any of the risks that they take that did not work out. Give us some examples.
- [46:05]
Matthew Cole
Sure. I mean, you know, it's important to remember that the job that these men sign up for, train for and then go out and do is incredibly risky and hard. And it is by no means, you know, I don't want to leave the impression, and I don't think we did in our circle, that what they're doing is a piece of cake. It's the opposite. These are essentially the hardest missions that the government has or asks its soldiers to do. They do them that said, they're still human and so. And they make mistakes. They've had a series of missions after 911 where, you know, part of it was it's an less about misconduct and more about when they make mistakes. And they have a, they've had a legacy of COVID ups, of lying about trying to avoid scrutiny or accountability for their errors. And so we cited a few operations. One was in Afghanistan, which was a hostage rescue in 2010 of a British citizen who was being held in Afghanistan and sealed accidentally killed her. But the problem was, was that in the hostage rescue after they killed her, they lied about how she died. And the fact that they knew that they had likely done it. And so it led to a very embarrassing moment for President Obama at the time, who had to report to the British government that what they originally said had happened did not happen. More recently, under the first Trump administration, he greenlit a very risky mission into Yemen to go after al Qaeda in 2017. And it was. It led to 30 civilians being killed in a village, lost a lost huge airplane, and a member of SEAL Team six died. And the. You know, the point we try to make in the story is that members of the special operations community and of the military, you know, one of the reasons why they were speaking about this mission was it was sort of twofold. It was not just that the seals, you know, there's a reminder that even among the elite, mistakes are made, but also that these things carry incredibly high risks, and we, as a civilian government, different than the rest of the American public. If the vision and the view of Seal Team 6 are only their great successes, the death of, you know, the killing of Osama bin Laden or saving Captain Phillips in the Indian Ocean from. From Somali pirates is that they are, you know, Superman that can do anything. And, in fact, it's not like that at all. It's incredibly difficult. And so, you know, there has to be more oversight and scrutiny and awareness about what the risks are when. When a president signs off on using these units on these kinds of missions.
- [49:01]
Hari Srinivasan
So getting back to this mission, I'm sure it spurred a lot of different internal reviews. What did they find? Was there some accountability?
- [49:10]
Matthew Cole
Well, not really. I mean, there were multiple investigations, first under the Trump administration, and then when President Joe Biden came into office and discovered that this operation had happened. And what they ultimately came down to was it was just a series of unfortunate occurrences that, you know, at the end of the day, the seals that opened fire on the North Koreans were working with the assumption that they had been compromised. And at that point, the most important thing to do was to protect their lives and get out safely and without being caught. And so the. The deaths were ruled legal. They had operated within the rules of engagement. There was no determination of any kind of misconduct. It was just a. You know, you picked every possible thing that could have gone wrong, it went wrong. I think there is. What we understand is that because there was essentially only the story of the six to eight seals who were on the mission. There was nothing else to go by. And so military investigators had the same issue, because what they didn't have was any kind of overhead video. They had no other ability to know what was happening or what happened. And so the circumstances were so unique. You know, they get the Seals, I think, appropriately get an enormous amount of leeway here. And what it was was, you know, military determined that it was just a series of unfortunate events and there was no one really to blame.
- [50:49]
Hari Srinivasan
So when did members of Congress know about this, hear about this? Because usually these kind of missions, there are select members of Congress who had different committees who are in the loop.
- [51:00]
Matthew Cole
Yeah. Well, one of the most surprising things in the reporting on this story was that the president, during his first first term, never informed Congress at all about the mission before or afterwards. And so the mission was first briefed to what they call the Gang of Eight by the Biden administration. And the Gang of Eight is the top four. It's the top Republican and Democrat in the House and the Senate and then the two leaders of both the Intelligence committees. And so that's. That gets you right. And so they didn't learn about it until at least two years after the mission had occurred. And that we believe may have violated law about notific notifying Congress when a president is required to notify Congress.
- [51:55]
Hari Srinivasan
Your story came out. The president was asked explicitly about this story and he stated, quote, I don't know anything about it. I'm hearing it now for the first time. Yet in your reporting, you point out that this mission had explicit authorization from the president of the United States when that nuclear submarine was close to North Korea. What do you make of his response?
- [52:23]
Matthew Cole
Well, I'm not going to get into the head of the president of the United States, but I can tell you that our sources were, we had plenty of them. And it was very clear that President Trump had approved the mission all the way through, was very well versed with what happened to the extent that he paid attention. We can't spec. I'm not going to speculate. I am comfortable with the report, very confident with our reporting, and I'm sure my colleague Dave Phillips is as well. And I think the safest thing to say is that what the president said in the aftermath was not accurate.
- [52:58]
Hari Srinivasan
Investigative reporter from the New York Times, Matthew Cole. Thanks so much for joining us.
- [53:02]
Matthew Cole
Thank you, Hari.
- [53:04]
Christiane Amanpour
And finally tonight, soaring to victory, a Swiss team has won the world's oldest and most prestigious hot air balloon event. The duo secured the annual Gordon Bennett Cup. After landing in Romania on Monday, 24 teams set off from Metz, France, last Friday, aiming to cover the greatest possible distance from the launch site without any premature landings or intervals. After nearly 1400km and over 67 hours, this Swiss pair claimed their trophy in Gogoshu, Romania. That's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online, on our website and all over social media. Thanks for watching and goodbye. From London.
- [54:00]
Claire Duffy
I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service. When you're texting with someone, it can feel like it's just you, your screen, and the person on the other end. But it's not always ways that simple. There are scenarios where third parties might be able to access your messages, whether it's your employer or law enforcement. So how can you make sure your private conversations actually remain private? To answer this question, I have Rhianna Pfeffercorn here with me. Rhianna is a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence.
- [54:37]
Christiane Amanpour
My hope is that as the use.
- [54:39]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Of end to end encryption has become.
- [54:40]
Matthew Cole
More and more normalized, that we all.
- [54:42]
Senator Elisa Slotkin
Understand better that privacy is a fundamental mental human right.
- [54:45]
Claire Duffy
Listen to CNN's terms of service with me, Claire Duffy. Wherever you get your podcasts.