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Narrator/Host
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
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- [01:04]
Interviewer/Anchor
Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
A Russian drone above the Ukrainians open fire.
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Interviewer/Anchor
An escalating war in the skies as Kyiv deploys its largest attack on Moscow in a year. Is Ukraine turning the tables on the battlefield? We have a report from the front lines, plus analysis from a former Ukrainian official.
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Narrator/Host
Then it's a failed nation.
- [01:31]
Guest/Expert
It's a totally failed nation.
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Interviewer/Anchor
Cuba under pressure with the nation preparing to defend itself from potential US Military intervention, I asked former White House official Juan Gonzalez about the ongoing tensions.
- [01:45]
Narrator/Host
Also ahead, he's one of the most
- [01:46]
Guest/Expert
educated men in the country, not black men.
- [01:51]
Interviewer/Anchor
W.E.B. du Bois, Rebel With a Cause, a new documentary on the life and legacy of a civil rights pioneer. Director Rita Coburn speaks to Michelle Martin. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Biannica Ladriga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Armanpur. Lethal records are being set almost daily in Ukraine's war with Russia. At least three people were killed near Moscow over the weekend after Ukraine launched more than 500 drones. The attack was the largest in over a year, according to Russia's state news agency. It follows a huge wave of Russian strikes on Kyiv late last week, the biggest prolonged drone attack since the war began. At least 25 people were killed there. Even as the air war expands, the tide on the ground may be turning. Last month, Ukraine managed to liberate more land than Russia seized, the first time Moscow suffered a net loss of territory since 2024. In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned Russia to expect more attacks
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
today.
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Interviewer/Anchor
The activity indicators show that our proactive
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Narrator/Host
operations per day are higher than those
- [03:14]
Reporter/Field Correspondent
of the Russians and This is a very serious result.
- [03:17]
Narrator/Host
We will increase all forms of supply for our army.
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
Drones, ground robots, shells, all resources to
- [03:23]
Guest/Expert
maintain proper and our active frontline operations.
- [03:27]
Interviewer/Anchor
On the political front, Zelensky is playing defense. Ukrainian authorities named Andrei Yermak, his powerful ex chief of staff, as a suspect in a major corruption probe. We'll have more on that in just a moment. But first, correspondent Nick Payton Walsh gets a firsthand harrowing look at the new warfare reporting from eastern Ukraine.
- [03:48]
Reporter/Field Correspondent
They call this the road of life, but it's about survival, not living. It is safest on foot under skies ruled by tiny killer drones targeting any vehicle. The nets trying to block the horror from above. If you can make the robot your friend, your porter. Though machines are normally the enemy here, this now pretty much all over the front lines. Tiny bits of fiber optic cable used to connect drones to their controller and go on for tens of kilometers. Stopping the jamming before. A Russian drone above. The Ukrainians open fire.
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Narrator/Host
Follow him.
- [04:55]
Reporter/Field Correspondent
Stay in the doorway. They hit it. That's the impact. And you have to split out because the drone will try and target groups of individuals sometimes 1, 2, 3, you find. We're doing Sasha and Bogdan's usual walk along this road between two Ukrainian positions. But it takes five hours and we are buzzed by attack drones 14 times. The threats change every month. Here looking for loitering drones. They hover low and wait for you. A radio warning. The trees aren't just a place to hide, but somewhere the drones cannot fly. Russian drones circle, targeting vehicles, but also dropping explosives on troops. You have to keep moving or they may swarm around you. The battlefield has completely changed in a
- [06:10]
Narrator/Host
matter of a year.
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
Nobody drives cars on this road unless you have to. Nobody drives in tanks. That's outgoing artillery. These robots used for resupply. Up ahead we can see people repairing the nets are kind of key protection. But these used to resupply food, ammunition. All around the front line. Gunfire means run again. This is a pretty constant. And the only move is to hide into the trees. But there it lands. Not far. You might be thinking, why not walk inside the nets. This is part of the problem here and that after an hour of this you don't quite get numb to it. But they see something here. You get slightly too comfortable and tired. The next one is right on top of us.
- [07:30]
Narrator/Host
There it is.
- [07:31]
Reporter/Field Correspondent
There it is. They hit it.
- [07:48]
Narrator/Host
I'm interested.
- [07:49]
Reporter/Field Correspondent
That gray streak and it falls, worming down, But it hasn't detonated. Debris drifts. There's been no blast. So we are alive. It May have been a recon drone, but flew like a Russian attacker. Down the road is the Konstantinivka front, where the Kremlin's advance has been slowed to a crawl at the enormous cost. Across the front of 35,000 Russian dead and wounded a month, says Ukraine. This is the 10th attack. They caught sight of the briefing and it appears to be coming closer now. Actually intense fire can hear it.
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Timofey Milovanov
Maybe that bear could have exploded.
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
See it up. Drones also target heavy gunfire. Their friend, a lieutenant, killed when this car was hit just two days ago. We are nearing their bunker position. There are moments here to rest. See the trophies of drones that failed. But we have to get back. As soon as we emerge, they are above us again. This is the new warfare. Hide, shoot at the sky, run, fire, drones back. The impacts just as deadly as shelling. The accuracy horrific. Have to walk in, but also walk out. The buzz stays with you, ringing in your ears for hours later. No respite. The gray smoke. Perhaps it hit. That was close. Loud. You could hear the shrapnel landing on the tarmac, clearly targeting that armored vehicle. It is hard to see how this grind is a win. But it is Ukraine on foot, robots in support, Automation replacing scarce, troops holding ground. The drones never stop, but neither does Ukraine adapting, learning, engineering this new warfare and hoping any edge sustains long enough to put Russia in reverse. Nick Payton Walsh, cnn, Druzhyvka, Ukraine.
- [11:26]
Interviewer/Anchor
Fascinating look at modern day warfare. Thanks to Nick for that report. Well, now for a closer look at the latest military and political developments. Timofey Milovanov was Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Minister for Economic development, and he joins us now live. Timofey, it's good to see you again. Let's go back to the drone attacks that we saw over the weekend targeting the Moscow region, specifically refineries, airports. Russia saying over 500 drones were intercepted. And yet it's clear some made it through. How significantly in your opinion, does bringing the war directly to Russia's capital impact Vladimir Putin's thinking about where this war goes next?
- [12:13]
Timofey Milovanov
I think Russia is the mafia state, or at least the ideology is there. And with mafia, you have to bring the fight home to them, otherwise they can keep sending troops. And in Russia, Moscow is different from Russia. They keep sending troops, infantry to die, basically from other regions. And as long as Moscow is safe, the war can continue. So I think it's fundamentally important to bring the war to Moscow.
- [12:40]
Interviewer/Anchor
And so what does this mean? How does Putin's calculus change from Kyiv's perspective? If we see more long range attacks like this specifically in Russia's capital.
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Timofey Milovanov
My expectation, I might be wrong, but my expectation that it will expedite negotiations and some form of the end of the hostage hostilities, that's the most effective way to bring the war to an end. And I've been actually on record about this since the beginning of the full scale invasion.
- [13:12]
Interviewer/Anchor
Yeah, I think you've mentioned as much here in interviews with us as well. So the question, I guess, is not the lethality of Ukraine's reach, but how sustainable it is in terms of scaling this to become a constant for Russia, the same way that it tragically is a constant for Ukrainians, especially those in Kyiv.
- [13:39]
Timofey Milovanov
So it is scalable, the tech is there and Ukraine has reached the capabilities. It's hard to believe, but only a year and a half ago, maybe about two years, that was the first time Ukraine deployed deep strikes, the first drone. So Ukraine has developed its. I think what it does, it leads to a stalemate. You know, sort of no movement in the air defense, air fight. They attack us, we attack them. We intercept 95%, they intercept 95%, we can go on forever. What's the point?
- [14:16]
Interviewer/Anchor
And yet it is something that Vladim Volodymyr Zelensky says that the country is still in desperate need of, and that is Western interceptors. So when you say this back and forth without a greater number of Western interceptors, how long can Ukraine sustain this? Because I would imagine you will likely be seeing more strikes now from Russia.
- [14:40]
Timofey Milovanov
Oh, absolutely. I think the weak spot in all of this discussion is ballistic missiles. We do not have any reasonable way, at least at this point, to intercept them. And they do real damage. They kill people and they destroy critical infrastructure and whatever Russia chooses to do, I mean, some of them miraculously get intercepted, but that's a problem. And the US Tech, the Western tech, is important for that.
- [15:08]
Interviewer/Anchor
And so how likely is it from Kyiv's perspective that the United States will continue to provide these interceptors? We haven't heard President Trump say as much. I mean, it was only last year where there seemed to be an agreement where weapons would be sold to Europe and then Europe would provide the needed weapons for Ukraine. That seems to have been backtracked, if for no other reason reason now than the war in Iran, which has required a great deal of U.S. resources.
- [15:40]
Timofey Milovanov
You're absolutely correct. In fact, you know, okay, so they are still being provided, but the situation in the Middle east in Iran has increased demand for interceptors and now also in the states around the Gulf. So that is a pressure point on Ukraine and it is a substantive, it's a meaningful pressure point.
- [16:07]
Interviewer/Anchor
Russia fired more than 1400 drones and missiles at Ukraine's power grid over the winter. And it is fascinating that Kyiv was able to restore electricity and enter the spring now with renewed optimism both on the battlefield and with restoring its electrical grid. Can Ukraine though realistically secure that grid? Because it has been hundreds of millions of dollars in restoration that it's required as we then approach what will sadly be a continuation of the war, perhaps now into its sixth year and winter.
- [16:42]
Timofey Milovanov
Unfortunately, I fear the same. I think, however, the grid or the approach to the electricity resilience has been changed. It's now a decentralized grid of a lot of different, smaller power generation Capab. So that's what keeps Ukraine going and that's actually much cheaper because rebuilding the old Soviet technology of huge power plant plants makes no sense. So I think. But Russia will continue to attack and we're preparing for the winter. So the next winter will be very tough. You're correct. But right now Ukraine is full of optimism. It withstood the attacks over the winter. It's warm, you know, it's green, people are happy. And the front line appears to be moving in our favor.
- [17:31]
Interviewer/Anchor
You recently highlighted something that stood out to me and that is that Ukraine's drone and military technology sector is booming because soldiers in part are using their hazard pay to buy directly from startups and bypassing the clunky state procurement process. Can you just explain what that means and what that's resulted in thus far?
- [17:52]
Timofey Milovanov
So that means that the connection between the consumer, which is military, in this case a specific unit, and the producer, which could be a startup somewhere with a new tech, a new technology and innovation is really, really short. It's just one call away and that's legal. You can be a military unit and directly buy, purchase directly from a private company which exists for two weeks now, that generates some risks. And I think it wouldn't be possible in the existing legacy systems in let's say in NATO or in many other countries. But I think it's an innovation in procurement which keeps Ukraine running and provides a fantastic market and funding for the booming defense tech industry in Ukraine. I think it's one of the, not the only one, but it's one of the innovation which keeps Ukraine going.
- [18:45]
Interviewer/Anchor
Yeah, a number of steps ahead perhaps in modern day warfare as drones have proven to be for Ukrainians and obviously the world is closely watching. Let me turn to the political shockwaves internally in Kyiv Right now because President Zelensky's former right hand man and chief of staff Andrei Yermak is currently facinghe's behind bars facing multiple corruption and money laundering charges. We haven't heard much from President Zelensky on this. I would imagine trying to hold up the independence of the criminal justice system there. But given the proximity and the closeness of these two men for years prior to their political careers, how much weight is on President Zelenskyy's shoulders now as more and more is being exposed?
- [19:33]
Timofey Milovanov
I think there are three points really to understand this. First, it is true that there is a lot of pressure on President Zelenskyy. It is true that Zelenskyy is distancing himself. And it is also true that the anti corruption and investigation prosecution said explicitly that President Zelensky is not a part of investigation and he's not on the recordings on the tapes or anything like that. So that's number one. Number two is that there is a very vibrant opposition right now in Ukraine which is trying to use this momentum to bring forward some kind of pressure. Some people hope for elections. In fact some people are opposing it. So it's a very vivid livid debate in Ukraine about what to do. And it's sad and exciting at once because it shows, you know, no one can claim that there is no democracy in Ukraine. And the third point is, I think is that it proves that the Ukrainian justice system is in fact independent. I'm not saying it's a walk in a park or it's pretty this process. No. But it is impossible to imagine in many, even developed countries that you would have a reasonable, meaningful prosecution of a recently top two person. I'm not qualified to judge on the substance of the case and I don't want to accuse anyone or even presume. I'm just merely describing the situation. But it's really a proof that Ukraine is democracy and then the institutions are working.
- [21:01]
Interviewer/Anchor
You can't overstate the power that Yermak wielded in that country for years now. And to see him behind bars, it is really quite stunning. Now let me ask you a broader question. It's more of a hindsight question, but nonetheless I think it is relevant. If the United States under President Biden and President Trump had permitted these deep range attacks by Ukraine into Russia, into Moscow years ago, rather than just pressuring Ukraine to focus on defensive weapons and responses, do you think the front line could look radically different today?
- [21:43]
Timofey Milovanov
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I spoke about this on record multiple times. I think we had this opportunity in the fall of 2022 when the Russian army collapsed. And that was the time where we could have pushed Russians back to the border and that would be it. I think that would have saved lives, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives and the war would have been over. But at the the administration of the United States stopped and encouraged or actually put pressure on Ukraine not to push hard on Russia because they were afraid, I'm hearing, you know, so I can prove it. But there is a direct concerns of escalation, the collapse of Russia, nuclear power state, who will get the nukes and all kinds of legitimate constraints and concerns. But you see where it got us today. You know,
- [22:35]
Interviewer/Anchor
yeah, thousands of lives lost on the one hand, but an innovative industrial domestic defense base, specifically around drone technology, one has to wonder if it would be where it was now had it not been from the United States preventing Ukraine from these types of strikes back then. Timofey Milovanov, always good to see you. Thank you so much for the time and jooste with cnn. We'll be right back after the break.
- [23:12]
Narrator/Host
I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What if I told you that our hair is more than what we see in the mirror? It's something that can actually tell us a lot about our health.
- [23:24]
Interviewer/Anchor
Hair is so core to our identity. It's part of how we see ourselves. It's how we present ourselves to the world. And in evolutionary biology, hair is a sign of vitality, of health.
- [23:36]
Narrator/Host
Dr. Maryann Makritis Sena, She's a board certified dermatologist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who specializes in hair and scalp health. We're going to talk about the different types of hair changes, share some practical tips for keeping your hair and scalp healthy. And my personal favorite, we're gonna bust some pretty big hair myths that you have probably heard.
- [23:59]
Interviewer/Anchor
Listen to Chasing Life Streaming now, wherever
- [24:02]
Narrator/Host
you get your podcasts.
- [24:04]
Interviewer/Anchor
I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, tell me if you've ever felt this way while sitting at your desk at work, eyes burning back and shoulders curled up like a boiled shrimp and feeling cranky. That is how journalist and podcast host Minouche Zomorodi describes the experience of working at a desk in front of a laptop all day in her new book, Today on Average Information Worker. Most of us are information workers. 90% of our time is spent seating.
- [24:36]
Narrator/Host
It's wild.
- [24:37]
Interviewer/Anchor
I mean, it increases the possibility of diabetes, obesity, all sorts of chronic health issues. Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts. Now. Washington's ongoing pressure campaign is making life in Cuba unbearable. Oil reserves that run the island's beleaguered electrical grid are all but spit with months of scorching summer heat ahead. The US Is also ramping up its pressure on Cuba's government, preparing an indictment against 94 year old former President Raul Castro. CIA Director John Ratcliffe led a delegation to meet with the Cuban government on Thursday, a highly unusual visit from the head of an agency that's tried repeatedly to sabotage the Castro revolution. Havana officials stressed that Cuba does not constitute a threat to the national security of the U.S. but President Miguel Diaz Canel warned Monday that a U.S. military assault on Cuba would cause, quote, a bloodbath with incalculable consequences. My next guest keeps a close eye on Cuba and the region. Juan Gonzalez served as the National Security Council senior director for the Western Hemisphere under President Biden. He recently returned from Venezuela. Juan, it's good to see you and let's start there. You just returned from Venezuela. We know that Cuba has heavily relied on Venezuelan oil for years. Now Maduro's gone. Washington is attempting to normalize relations with Caracas. How much of that sudden loss of energy supply has accelerated the economic collapse that we're seeing in Cuba?
- [26:16]
Narrator/Host
Well, it's significant. Cuba is experiencing the worst crisis in its modern history without the Soviet Union or Venezuela to be able to come to its rescue. And right now, US Policy is accelerating that collapse without, frankly, a plan for what comes next. The damage to the tourism sector, that damage has been done that that tourism industry is not going to return if the embargo is lifted. And right now there's also a beyond the oil embargo, the oil blockade, there's been this impact on confidence. So even if sanctions are lifted tomorrow, investors aren't going to go into the country because there's really a lot of unpredictability on the part of the United States. So I think there's been lasting damage that has been done to the Cuban economy. And the question really is not really whether the Cuban system is failing. The question is whether US Policy is designed to produce a transition or whether it will produce a catastrophe.
- [27:09]
Interviewer/Anchor
And it's the Latter that the U.S. says that they are seeking to avoid here. The Cuban government has recently accepted $100 million in aid as a humanitarian situation does become unbearable. Let's listen to some of those residents on the ground describing what daily life is like for them. The children don't have food to eat and aren't going to school. We're desperate. The women, we've already lost £20 and we are anxious because we don't have a way of supporting our kids.
- [27:40]
Narrator/Host
We are demanding the right to have electricity. We have gone more than 40 hours without electricity. I live in a community where there are many elderly people, many of them bedridden.
- [27:51]
Guest/Expert
There are many children.
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Narrator/Host
Food is going bad inside the refrigerators.
- [27:55]
Interviewer/Anchor
The little food that can be obtained. What does that $100 million provide for the island nation now, Juan?
- [28:06]
Narrator/Host
Well, it's not going to be enough. I think right now it'll be basic subsistence. Ideally, as the US Government, Marco Ruby has insisted, it is going to be distributed by others beside the government. But right now, you know, people are having to do without food. And I think there is this danger that if, you know, also beyond the humanitarian assistance, if you have the electricity grid collapsing, the migration crisis is going to land directly on South Florida and the optics are going to be devastating. I think there's this question about whether Secretary Gates, former Secretary Gates gave an interview saying that mass migration could be a challenge. I think we also got to recognize that those Cubans that have enough money to leave have left. The rest really have limited options. And so the Cuban government really has to care about the humanitarian situation inside the country much more than South Florida does because there is a breaking point at some point. And you know, I think the regime will have to deal with the population that's there and that's leverage for the United States if it's smart enough to use it. But I mean, the question is the humanitarian situation right now is dire and any sort of outcome or solution really has to be centered on the well being of the Cuban people at this point.
- [29:13]
Interviewer/Anchor
You mentioned leverage for the US to extract concessions, perhaps from Havana. The US has said that it wants Havana to open up its economy and cut ties with Russia, China, Iran. Do you expect to see Cuba do that?
- [29:29]
Narrator/Host
Well, I'd say to say two points. The administration is really treating Cuba as Venezuela 2.0 and it isn't, you know, Jorge Mas Santos, who was the head of the Cuban American national foundation, wrote an article where he said publicly that Venezuelan playbook won't work in Cuba. And I think when he says that Washington frankly should listen. You know, Venezuela, you have, where I was just there, has, has factional issues to exploit. Cuba doesn't. You know, after seven decades of single party rule inside of Cuba, the state, the party, the military are all fused. So there's no organized internal alternative. There's no Delsey Rodriguez inside of Cuba. And I think maximum pressure without a political strategy is not going to produce a transition or produce a collapse. Now where a potential deal looks like, I think there's an area here where Donald Trump can declare victory and the Cubans can feel like they haven't capitulated and includes, I think, suspending Title two, Title three and four of the Helms Burden act for specific sectors. I think in exchange, the Cubans would privilege U.S. investment, release political prisoners, maybe let the Cubans hire freely and set up businesses without going through the state and force the state owned enterprises to compete. And I think that's, that's not a gift to the Cuban regime. That's a, this is structural reform that, with, with some American fingerprints on it that could lead to a declaration of victory. But now you're seeing some of this rhetoric on the, you know, trying to achieve some sort of a regime change inside of Cuba. What does that mean? Because I think again, the Cuban regime, I think, has more similarities with Iran in that you have an institutionalized Cuban Communist Party than it does with Venezuela, which again, was really about opportunists, graft and factional, factional relationships.
- [31:11]
Interviewer/Anchor
Well, to that point in the message, clearly that CIA Director Ratcliffe's very public visit to Havana was meant to send was a warning against hostile actions. And in comparing the situation there, more to what we're seeing unfold in Iran versus Venezuela, you've argued that external pressure only strengthens the regime's siege narrative. I'm just curious how, given the massive humanitarian crisis on the ground in Cuba right now, what would drive Cubans to rally around the flag at this point?
- [31:49]
Narrator/Host
I think it is, you know, when you talk to Cubans and I talk to a lot of Cuban Americans that have contacts on the island, yeah, they want change. They're sick of the Cuban regime, but they are not going to, I think, necessarily embrace a US Imposed transition. I think particularly when you look at Venezuela, when it looks like the US private sector is taking over the entire Venezuelan economy, I think it'll be much more challenging in the sugar. I also got to give context on the CIA visit Ratcliffe. I think often the CIA is the best messenger because the Ministry of Interior is much more plugged in, has a lot more influence often than the Foreign Ministry. And certainly we have very important interests that need to be conveyed. Particularly I think the messages that Ratcliffe conveyed on the presence of Russia and China are incredibly important. I think we need to recognize that the Cubans have crossed the Rubicon when it comes to cooperation on intelligence and defense with Russia and with China because of pressure for the United States. I think the Cubans would much more want to actually engage with the US on economic and political cooperation. And I think so. Again, I think there's a deal there. The question is, I think when it comes to Marco Rubio, my personal view is he's trying to find a balance between the pressure he's getting in South Florida and what I think Donald Trump would ultimately see as a political win. I think what I've laid out, I think those would be the contours of potential agreement. But again, it has to be something where the Cubans don't feel like they're capitulating. And that's something. Often as somebody who's negotiated with the Cubans, they will cut off their nose to spite their face if they feel like they're being pressured into a decision.
- [33:17]
Interviewer/Anchor
You mentioned Secretary of State Rubio. Obviously, we know that his personal connection to the island, his parents coming to the US as political refugees from Cuba. You yourself say that Cuba shouldn't just be a sanctions file. And there's been this carrot and stick approach from the US Government now for decades. But for the first time we are really seeing public calls for regime change, specifically from Marco Rubio. Let's play sound from him.
- [33:47]
Timofey Milovanov
It's a broken, non functional economy and it's impossible to change it.
- [33:51]
Guest/Expert
I wish it were different, but I believe it's my personal opinion you cannot
- [33:55]
Timofey Milovanov
change the economic trajectory of Cuba as
- [33:59]
Guest/Expert
long as the people who are in charge of it now are in charge of it.
- [34:01]
Timofey Milovanov
That's what's going to have to change because these people are proven incapable.
- [34:06]
Interviewer/Anchor
So what do those comments say to you?
- [34:10]
Narrator/Host
I agree with them entirely. And I think it's important to step back and recognize that the US Policy toward Cuba has been shaped by the political calculus in South Florida, not by a theory of change. The embargoes. Ineffectiveness has been acknowledged for decades, but like the domestic cost of changing course has always exceeded the foreign policy cost of continuing. I think that's true of both parties. It's not which party gets it right, which gets it wrong. It's that really we need to focus on a national security approach. Nothing that, that Secretary Rubio has said is wrong. The question is how do you get there? And so is the United States going to, you know, they're going to indict Raul Castro, are they going to engage in extraction operation to, to take out a 94 year old man? And, you know, I think that'll be celebrated in South Florida. But is it going to lead to an orderly transition? I think some of us that have been following Cuba for a long time worry about the, that Cuba today is more like Haiti in that there's been a brain drain, the security situation, the country has deteriorated. The sanction inspect has been, the impact of sanctions has been lasting and so it's not going to be again it's not a Venezuela where there's an economy that can rev up institutionally has been much more difficult. And I think the question is, is the US willing to actually have more permanent presence inside of Venezuela or inside of Cuba? Is there, is there a situation where there's a, you know, there's enough pressure where the regime cracks and maybe you'll have the US dealing with some sort of combination of actors to try to rule the country perhaps, but they're not going to do anything that is going to negotiate against their own survival. They're going to want to try to keep as, as Raul Castro's grandson has said is capitalism with sovereignty, which to me that means maintaining the presence and the role of the Cuban Communist Party with some changes, maybe Diaz Canel gets pulled out, but you're not going to actually get them to negotiate their own ends basically.
- [35:55]
Interviewer/Anchor
You mentioned the potential indictment. As soon as Wednesday the Justice Department is expected to unseal an indictment against 94 year old Raoul Castro forgering the 19th 1996 shoot down of two civilian planes that were flown by Miami based humanitarians group that killed four people. I guess the question is what would be the strategic value of arresting and capturing a 94 year old man. But yet there is justice that has still been denied. So that is one argument to make. But if I could go back to your point about Cuba's ties with Russia in particular. Axios is reporting that Cuba has stockpiled over 3, 300 attack drones from Russia and Iran with internal chatter perhaps targeting even Guantanamo Bay or Key West. How much credence do you give to this reporting right now? How alarmed should the US be if in fact that is the case?
- [36:54]
Narrator/Host
Yeah, I mean that report also referred to this intelligence actually going as far back as 2023. Look, I'll tell you as somebody who was an active consumer of intelligence, I can tell you that's not the case. You know, it may have been something that was not credible. But you know, as somebody who absorbed
- [37:08]
Interviewer/Anchor
this, what's not, I'm sorry, what's not the case?
- [37:10]
Narrator/Host
Never any report that, that there was talk of acquiring drones as far back as 2023. That's not an accurate, I think, report. But does, Does Cuba have 300 drones? Maybe. Maybe they do. But you got to remember, these guys are so starved for fuel that they're, that their naval patrols are basically running and 300 drones are nothing. I don't think there's any credibility to the suggestion that the Cubans would, would unilaterally or proactively do that. To attack Gitmo defensively, perhaps. But would that, would that actually achieve anything with regard to the United States? 300 drones is nothing. But I don't, I think it's not credible to suggest that the Cubans are actually trying to do this. I think the real story here is that this administration is trying to lay the predicate to an extraction, which is like Ro Castro, I think, not me, an apologist for the regime. It is a cruel regime that is guilty of human rights abuses. It tortures people. The question here is you're not going to actually blockade a country into democracy. You can blockade it into chaos. And I think maximum pressure and even military action without political strategy is really just maximizing the suffering in the country. I think the risk isn't that pressure fails, the risk is that pressure succeeds and there's really nothing to catch the fall. I think this administration has shown way too much improvisation in foreign policy. And Cuba, I think, is no different.
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Interviewer/Anchor
Yeah, that was some of the concern expressed, I think, when you referenced the Secretary Gates interview over the weekend. Juan Gonzalez, thank you for the time, really appreciate it.
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Narrator/Host
Juan, thank you very much.
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Interviewer/Anchor
We'll be right back after this short break. Next we turn to the remarkable life of civil rights pioneer W.E.B. du Bois, a scholar, journalist and activist, famously the first black man to get a PhD from Harvard in 1895. He's now the subject of a new documentary, W.E.B. du Bois, Rebel with a Cause. Here's a snippet from the trailer.
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Guest/Expert
I very early got the idea that I was going to prove to the
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
world that Negroes were just like other people.
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Interviewer/Anchor
Michelle Martin sits down with the film's award winning director, Rita Coburn. They discuss Du Bois groundworking, groundbreaking work and his legacy today.
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Guest/Expert
Rita Coburn, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you for having me. This is an honor and it's an honor to talk about W.E.B. du Bois. Well, such a seminal figure of political activism of the Academy of Sociology, of so many disciplines as a patron of the arts. So just give us the short version. He was born in this small town in western Massachusetts in 1868, after the emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery for what, like 3.5 million, you know, black men and women. But his family was never enslaved. So tell me. Tell me that story. How did he end up there, and what were they doing there, and what was his early life? He was born in 1868, so that's three years after the Emancipation Proclamation. However, because he was in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, there had not been enslavement for several generations there. So his family was solidly placed there. And as a result of that, not to say that there wasn't any racism, but whites and blacks had been living with one another for at least a century by that time. What he did was he was such a student that his mother in particular, sewed into him that that was the hope. The hope was education. So Du Bois had a prep school education, and education was far more classical in that time period and pretty much based on European education at the time. And what they found was, as much as they poured in, he was able to receive. And so I think his intellect and the fact that he was not in the Jim Crow south gave him that expanse. He became the valedictorian of his class. He just was exceptional. He goes to Fisk for his undergraduate education. He then eventually does get to Harvard for his graduate studies. They make him, what, start over again, even though he's the top of his class at Fisk, because what they decided that, you know, a black school wasn't, you know, at the same level. So how does he go? How does he do at Harvard? So you're exactly right. He goes to Fisk, and he loves Fisk. He finds himself as a person there, as a black person. He's with other people that are like himself. And he hasn't been in a group of educated black before. He also becomes very entrenched in the spirituals from the Fisk Jubilee Singers. He feels something about and coins it the sorrow songs. And he really comes to his own at Fisk. He wants still to go to Harvard. And by the time he's able to get the money and to get to Harvard, he is in undergraduate, and he likes Harvard. He loves the Massachusetts social group of blacks that he's met, but he doesn't really feel that much a part of them academically. It's still a very racist place for him. So he is able to petition to go to Berlin, which is where sociology is really starting to begin. And as he gets there, he's able to find what he wants to do from a scientific perspective. And once he does that, unfortunately, he's not able to graduate there. Because his Residency was for two years and it would be three years for him to get his PhD there. So he comes back to Harvard and that that's where he gets his PhD. But he's the first. Do I have this right? Is he the first African American to get a PhD from Harvard? He is the first African American to get a PhD from Harvard. He then took those techniques to Philadelphia, his first kind of job, I guess, after he finished his studies, where he was hired to do a study of the black population of Philadelphia. So would you just describe a little bit about why that was such a unique analysis at the time? Well, the Philadelphia Negro is cited as the first empirical study in sociology of a class in a group. And so he goes to the 7th Ward and he decides he's going to live in the 7th Ward. So he and Nina Gomer, who he's married, his first job was actually at Wilberforce. But although he was doing math and science, he wanted to do sociology. So when this study comes up, he goes, he's not given a professorship. He's just there to do the research and to do this study. And basically what Philadelphia is saying is that we're a border city, pretty much. We're getting so many black people here, and these people are basically ruining our economy. They're living in slum conditions. It must be something wrong with them. There's something wrong with these people. And he does the study and turns that on its head and says, it's not them, it's the way that they're being treated in the society. If they have to walk these many miles to go to school, they're not going to be able to go to school. If black women can't get jobs, jobs, then they're not going to be able to help their families. So what you have is a system that is fighting against people as opposed to people that are fighting you. They are doing the best that they can. If they have to live in cramped housing, they're going to come out in the summer and hang out on the street. If they can't make money, they're going to do things that they wouldn't normally do if they had a fair chance. And he does that all with data charts and graphs. And at this point, he's still bent on the science of the matter, that if I can show you scientifically what is wrong, you as a society, you as a community will accept us. And that doesn't happen. He moves from Philadelphia to Atlanta to become a professor at a university there. This is a seminal moment he quickly gets a reality check about what it's like to be a black man in the South. Will you tell us what it was? You know, when Du Bois goes into the Deep south and goes into Atlanta, he's at Atlanta University, and that campus kind of sits on a hill away from some of the racism in the town, but it's also an integrated university. Most of these universities at the time had a lot of whites that had gone to Dartmouth and Princeton, and they were teaching there, and they were teaching alongside blacks. And so he is in Atlanta, and at the same time, he doesn't understand how bad the south really is until in 1899, Sam Hose is murdered, lynched in a brutal way. And this is his first reckoning with lynching. That's not something that he's seen. That's not something he's been a part of. And the horror of that moment, they burned Sam Hose's body. They cut off his fingers and genitals. It's a horrific moment for him. And it speaks to something that is happening in this country at that time. And he's so appalled by it, he's thinking, I'm going to take a letter to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. And en route, he's told that Sam Hose's fingers and toes are in the window of the meat market. And at that point, he turns around and he decides scientific research is not going to work. I must now tell people what black people are suffering. And he decides that what he's really going to do is become a journalist. That's what he decides he's going to do. He is going to eventually be a person who's the editor of the Crisis magazine. He is going to begin to do studies, and he is going to write.
- [48:49]
Timofey Milovanov
The title was extremely important. The Crisis of the color line was the Crisis of America.
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Guest/Expert
Not only is he going to become a social activist, but he understands the power of the press. He insisted that I have all editorial privilege and power.
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
Nobody will dictate to me what I can say.
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Guest/Expert
And I think what is beautiful about this is that we had Frederick Douglass being the great orator, but you could only reach so many people at a time. We have to remember that it's at this point, point in this country that print takes off, and it is the Internet of that time period. Tell us about the souls of black folk. This is the one piece that a lot of Du Bois that I think a lot of people know. Tell us about where the idea for this book came from and what's the core of it for People who aren't familiar with it. So in 1899, Sam Hose gets lynched. It changes him to a person who's now going to fight for his people, using words, using journalism, making sure people know what is happening. That's 1899, 1900. He goes to Paris, to the Paris Exposition. He takes a group of photographs that shows that black people are living lives beyond digging their way out of Jim Crow. They're living lives that have purpose, meaning they have businesses, they're studying the arts. He wants people to see a broader scope of black people. He comes back. During that same time period, his son Burkhardt dies. He's less than 2 years old, and he dies because no white doctors will treat him. So he's seen Sam holtz die in 1899. He's seen his son die. And at that point, he comes back and he sits down and he wants to write a book that tells people that we are human beings, that we have souls, that we hurt, that we do art, that we have pleasures, that we're people. So the Souls of Black Folks is part of the international and national letters of this country. It's taught in universities and has been since its publication in 1903. He opens up with this concept that has three parts.
- [51:44]
Interviewer/Anchor
Double consciousness.
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
It's a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness.
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Guest/Expert
The sense of always looking at oneself
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Narrator/Host
through the eyes of others,
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
of measuring
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Guest/Expert
one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. Two ness
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
one ever feels. His twoness, An American, a Negro. Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings,
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Narrator/Host
two warring ideals in one dark body
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Reporter/Field Correspondent
whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
- [52:26]
Guest/Expert
And then he says, we live behind the veil. I am blood and bone of those who live behind the veil. At some point, will you let me out? Can I be free? Two more things we have to sort of talk about. The fact that he had beef with Booker T. Washington. I mean, this is something that I think some people may know about, that the two of them, kind of revelation, different perspectives of the kind of the path forward that was ideal for black folks. Could you, just as briefly as you can, W.E.B. du Bois and Booker T. Washington. It's a story in which you have the up and coming and the current person that has kind of been grandfathered into the society. Booker T. Washington was the most powerful black man in America during that time period. And what happens is W.E.B. du Bois is a different sort. He didn't grow up in slavery. Booker T. Washington was a slave until he was six years old. He had a very limited view of what we could possibly do, that maybe we could gain the rights to be good workers and maybe we would find our way that way. W.E.B. du Bois said, no, we need the right to vote. We need women's rights. We need to have an agency about ourselves. And so his sandpaper relationship with Booker T. Washington started with him respecting him and then saying, I'm sorry, I have to part company because this is what black people need at this point. That's why I call him a rebel. He took on seven presidents. He took on books T. Washington. He took on Marcus Garvey. If he did not agree, he did not agree. And he did not agree with Booker T. Washington saying we would be the workers of the South. He really felt that it was time to have the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment realized. Rita Coburn, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you.
- [54:37]
Interviewer/Anchor
Fascinating. The documentary will be Premiering tomorrow night, 9:00pm Eastern on PBS. American Masters and finally, summiting Mount Everest once is an incredible feat, but imagine achieving it 32 times. Well, Nepale Sherpa Kami Rita did just that whilst guiding a group of clients to the top, smashing his own record set last year. What you're seeing here is footage from his 28th adventure up to the top. The 56 year old first climbed the mountain back in 1994 and has done so nearly every year since. He was also born in the same village as Tenzing Norgay, the first Sherpa to reach the world's tallest peak seven decades ago. Amazing story to leave you with today. That is it for us today. Thank you so much for watching. Goodbye. From New York, I'm Eva Longoria and I'm setting out to really experience France,
- [55:34]
Guest/Expert
to savor its world celebrated cuisine and explore the country's rich history. Eva Longoria Searching for France now streaming on the CNN app.
- [55:45]
Reporter/Field Correspondent
Influential journalist Kara Swisher is taking a hard look at the longevity industry.
- [55:49]
Narrator/Host
There's so much bad information that the
- [55:51]
Interviewer/Anchor
really good information gets drowned.
- [55:53]
Reporter/Field Correspondent
The new CNN original series Kara Swisher wants to live forever. Now streaming on the CNN app.