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Narrator
This is the story of the 1. As head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on.
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Bianna Golodryga
That's why he works behind the scenes.
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Narrator
Ensuring every light is working, the H Vac is humming, and his facility shines with Grainger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces.
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Bianna Golodryga
Plus 24. 7 customer support.
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Narrator
His venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just stop by Granger.
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Nadav Ayal
For the ones who get it done.
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Bianna Golodryga
Hello everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up as Israel's ground offensive in Gaza begins, a UN Inquiry alleges the country is committing genocide. We have the details then.
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It's a difficult situation.
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Hari Sreenivasan
No medical treatment, no food. People are suffering a lot in Al.
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Bianna Golodryga
Fashir, Sudan's spiraling civil war. I ask regional reporter Declan Walsh and Sudanese analyst Kulut Hair about the desperate choices people are facing there.
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Also ahead, it's going to spread everywhere. People are going to share it. People are going to watch it.
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A murder watched by millions. In the wake of Charlie Kirk's shooting, New York Times reporter Shira Frankel tells Hari Srinivasan why violent videos go viral. Plus the passing of a Hollywood legend. We revisit Christiane's 2018 conversation with the late Robert Redford. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Goldriga in New York, sitting in for Christian Amanpour. Israel's long threatened ground offensive into Gaza City has begun. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed across the enclave in less than 24 hours. That is, according to local health authorities. Shaken by an intense night of airstrikes, many residents are now carrying what remains of their belongings as they attempt to flee further south. It comes as a United nations independent inquiry has concluded for the first time that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Israeli government rejects the findings, maintaining that it's acting in self defense against Hamas. But in the face of global anger, Prime Minister Netanyahu admitted that the nation is sliding into isolation on the global world stage, an isolation that could worsen as he presses on with a ground incursion that put 1 million Palestinians at risk. Israeli journalist Nadav Ayal joins me now from New York. Nadav, you call this the most controversial operation in the history of the idf, the military brass and leadership and their opposition that perhaps had been vocal behind closed doors had now been made public. Even today, the IDF spokesperson said the IDF chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, has responsibility to speak the truth. Amid his opposition to the Gaza City offensive How unusual is this division given that this operation now is ongoing?
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Nadav Ayal
Look, Biana, this is not unusual for Israel's military brass to show their concerns or even debate the government. They don't do this usually on the record, and they're not doing this on the record right now. But what they are doing, which is very unusual, is voicing their concerns again, again and again. You know, the chief of staff, besides standing in the main square in Tel Aviv and basically making a speech against this operation in Gaza, has basically done everything in his power, spoken with members of Knesset and the relevant committees, spoken with the Cabinet Senate several times. And it's definitely not the recommendation of the IDF to go through with this operation in Gaza. The IDF in Israel. The army in Israel, of course, is under the government and the dictate comes from the government. So they are doing that. But they're also voicing their concerns mainly for the hostages, but not only for the hostages.
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Bianna Golodryga
You mentioned the hostages. Noah Argamani, who was one of the hostages rescued last summer, just posted on X. Something that I want to read for you and our viewers. I cannot breathe watching the fighting inside Gaza City. As a former hostage, I know exactly what these moments feel like. The booming blasts, the gunfire, the walls shaking, the helplessness and despair that take over. The emotions come rushing back all at once, and it is unbearable. And she speaks not only as a survivor and former hostage. Her boyfriend also remains held hostage in Gaza, one of 48 there. We heard from President Trump today, once again threatening Hamas that there will be sever consequences if they use hostages as human shields, as so many are worried as this operation is unfolding, talk about the risk to these hostages and the concern among the Israeli public about that.
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Nadav Ayal
So the Israeli public, again and again, according to the polls that we're seeing, and I don't know if any polls that say differently, say that the return of the hostages is the most important thing. And even if they are asked to prioritize, this is their first priority. And in terms of what the defense apparatus is telling the government, they're saying that in such an operation there are chances, and unfortunately good chances, that hostages will be hurt, will be used by Hamas. Families of hostages have said to the Israeli media that hostages have been moved to Gaza by Hamas to serve as human shields in Gaza. And of course, as you said, Bianna, we've heard President Trump reacting to that, threatening Hamas not to do so. But one can only imagine and not grasp the feeling of the hostage families right now. Their loved ones have been tortured in these dungeons of Hamas for two years. There's a possibility for a deal on the table and they're seeing this operation in Gaza. And this is why this operation in Gaza is so controversial within the Israeli public. Although I need to stress that it's not controversial, that it's first and foremost the responsibility of Hamas to make sure that these people are returned back home. And Israelis are not blaming their own governments according to the same polls, with this war, they are still blaming Hamas?
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Bianna Golodryga
No, of course. And these threats, though, from President Trump publicly against Hamas, one has to question how effective they will be because obviously Hamas has stood by for nearly two years and watched how many of their own civilians have been slaughtered as well and still deciding it's not time to end the war. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that there would be additional routes open to enable faster aid to get in for the civilians in Gaza. Notable that he didn't mention the hostages in the last few minutes as one of the stated goals. I do want to get your reaction to this UN Commission report that officially accuses Israel of genocide. That is the harshest accusation yet. Israel has called this false and fake. Here's what one of the panel's leaders said to CNN earlier today.
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I expect them to challenge our factual findings in that way. Instead of that they make personal attacks. They are now repe what has been said about us from the time we.
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Christiane Amanpour
Issued the first report.
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Bianna Golodryga
I've only been labeled anti Semitic by these lobby groups. When I became chair of this commission, I was never called antisemitic for the.
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Christiane Amanpour
Six years that I was High Commissioner.
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Bianna Golodryga
For Human Rights, in which six years time I was invited by the government.
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Christiane Amanpour
Of Israel to conduct a mission in Israel because they said that I exercised.
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Bianna Golodryga
Balance in the way I reported.
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So, as noted, Nadav, Israel dismissed this, called this fake, continues to say we have the support of the United States, and essentially that's all that matters. But what does a report like do, like this do to Israel's global standing outside of the United States? Because obviously it's been isolated and been condemned by a number of other countries for its war, including by countries that have been traditional allies.
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Nadav Ayal
So I do think that the Israelis or the Israeli government for now, is denying the isolation that Israel is facing in many corners of the earth right now. And Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that only yesterday he spoke about some sort of isolation. He was blaming China and Qatar for trying to demonstrate this kind of a campaign against Israel. And this report is just another brick in that. Now, the report, as far as Israel is Concerned is completely discredited. Even in the Israeli opposition. You won't find people who are going to follow this kind of a report and these kind of experts, or so called experts that are part of the UN and we all know what's the record of the un, for instance, Human Rights Council. But at the end of the day, there are results in the ground for the Israeli economy, for Israel's presence on the global arena. And again, even Prime Minister Netanyahu, who's spoken yesterday about Israel as being both Athens and a super Sparta, so called Super Sparta, understands that this means something in Israeli politics. This means something in this election year and it's an election year in Israel. Israelis don't like to hear these kind of prophecies of doom and, and they do not want to be a Faria state, the sort that they're labeled right now by some countries or some circles in the world. And that could have an aftershock in Israeli politics.
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Bianna Golodryga
Yeah, and the market as well. There was a significant sell off following today, following those comments yesterday after the market had closed at the time. Let's play that sound for our Completely.
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Nadav Ayal
Erased by an eye. I need to say, is it back?
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Bianna Golodryga
Has it recovered?
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Nadav Ayal
Completely erased and recovered in the same day.
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Bianna Golodryga
Highly unusual for a prime minister to say the country needs to lean into autarky now, given how much pride he took in being at one point the country's finance minister, reviving the economy, turning it into a startup nation, then leading to these words yesterday.
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Robert Redford
We will increasingly have to adapt in some respects to an economy that has autarkic characteristics. We are Athens and Sparta, but we are going to be Athens and super Sparta. We have no choice. At least in the coming years in which we will be required to face these isolation attempts, we will first and foremost need to develop our capabilities to defend ourselves and attack our enemies.
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Bianna Golodryga
Is this kind of language about survival from this prime minister politically, or is this his attempt to rally a beleaguered nation nearly two years into a war?
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Nadav Ayal
Well, first of all, it's mainly a political mistake by the Prime Minister. He acknowledges it and that's the reason that he had a clarification to the Israeli public. And he's going to have a press conference in a few hours from now, Bianna, trying to clarify it to the Israeli public. He was talking specifically about military industry or this is at least the way that he's, you know, trying to radiate right now or trying to spin this right now. I think that at the end of the day, even Netanyahu seeing what's happening globally to Israel's position in the world, needs to start talking about it. He needs to start giving answers. And the answer that he attempted to give yesterday about superstar Sparta was not accepted. Well, not only by the opposition, but generally by the political sphere. And it was a general agreement that if this is the direction, if this is what he's going to sell to the Israeli public, the Israeli public isn't going to buy. And because of that, he's trying to somehow change and have some damage control, internationally speaking and also domestically. But the facts are there. And the facts are that the continuous war in Gaza is causing massive damages to the Israeli position in the world. And some argue within the cabinet room, senior ministers who have told that to the prime minister, that whatever Israel gets in Gaza, it will not equal the type of damages done to its international legitimacy right now. These are not my words. These are words quoted by the Israeli media as to senior ministers in Netanyahu's cabinet.
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Bianna Golodryga
And some of these messages come from ministers after they have traveled abroad, specifically to the United States and expressed what they have heard from some of their colleagues here as well about how quickly this war needs to come to an end. Nadavayal, thank you so much for joining us.
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Nadav Ayal
Thank you, Ben.
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Bianna Golodryga
Well, U.S. secretary of State Marco Rubio is making a short visit to Qatar tasked with convincing the nation to continue playing a role in ceasefire talks just one week after Israel's strike in Doha. It comes after Gulf states gathered in the Qatari capital on Monday, calling on Washington to use its leverage to restrain Israel. Let's bring in Firas Maqsad, Managing director for the Middle east and North Africa at the Eurasia Group. Firis, it's good to see you. So notable that out of this summit yesterday, some harsh words condemning Israel for their actions, but nothing tangible in terms of perhaps a loosening of relationships or anything of that sort between Abrahamic Accord nations and other countries that have alliances with the, with the Israelis. What do you make of the response? Was it weaker than expected?
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Firas Maqsad
Well beyond a couple of things here. First, I think the Qataris in particular, but the GCC states more broadly, are very cognizant of the fact that they need not undermine their relationship with the United States in their mind, perhaps the key objective of that Israeli attack against Doha, which we now know because of reporting and multiple citing that President Trump and others in the administration in Washington, D.C. did get a heads up, did have an opportunity to stop an attack by an American ally against another American ally, but did not there is a recognition that an undermining of that Arab American relationship would be to the benefit of Bibi Netanyahu and Israel. So they're very key, those who met in Doha, not to have that come out and play out in the interest of Israel puts them in a difficult position because on one hand, they're doubting that ironclad American commitment to their security, one that costs them billions of dollars, billions every year, I should say, and certainly on the back end of a momentous visit by President Trump, his first, during his second term, to that region where he was in Qatar, but also in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. So that's one thing that they were very much weighing in their mind. They did come out, although with a statement in which they called on these countries that do have a relationship with Israel, the UAE being one of them, Bahrain, Morocco, that key achievement of President Trump in his first term, the Abrahamic Accords, did communique, did call on them to reconsider those relationships with Israel. These countries are going to be hard pressed. My sense is, is that the Abrahamic Accord will bend. It will not break, not just yet. However, if Israel does cross the tripwire of annexing west bank territory, that might be the death nail in the Abrahamic Accords, which are right now hanging by a string.
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Bianna Golodryga
And that is what some members of the Prime Minister's cabinet have threatened to do if in fact, some of these European nations do as they've pledged and recognize a Palestinian state next week here at the United Nations General assembly in the uae, for one has said that would be crossing a red line. We'll continue to follow that narrative in terms of this new operation in Gaza City. How does this affect how Arab nations are viewing the strength or weakness of Hamas's hand at this point? Israel had threatened just this a few weeks ago in preparation and hopefully tightening the screws and pressure on Hamas to release the hostages and end the war that hasn't happened. So what position does Hamas find itself in?
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Firas Maqsad
Well, first, it's very important to point out that there's no love lost for Hamas in any of these capitals. Most of these Arab partners of the United States have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. Many of them have outright condemned the October 7 attacks. And so their criticism of Israel and what Israel is doing and about to do in Gaza City doesn't mean anything in terms of potential affection for Hamas, far from it. And everybody recognizes that Hamas has miscalculated time and again. First, there's the October 7th, which has precipitated a disaster for the Palestinian people. But then when they came back around and they accepted the so called Witkoff proposal, that American proposal for a temporary ceasefire, they accepted it too late. And they gave Benjamin Netanyahu the opportunity to brush it aside. And as we saw with that attack on the negotiators in Qatar, he very much sort of killed any attempt at a ceasefire through negotiations and then wanted to commence with that offensive in Gaza. But where the Arabs are focused is the diplomatic fight. And that's why we are leading up to one hell of a diplomatic showdown next week, next Monday in New York on the sidelines of the UN General assembly, that conference for the recognition of a Palestinian state and support for a two state solution. And what this announced offensive in Gaza is going to do is going to turbocharge that diplomatic showdown next week in which many of Israel's traditional Western and European allies, countries from around the world, are going to stand up in support for the two state solutions and the Palestinians together with many of the Arab nations that would be pushing for it.
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Bianna Golodryga
Yeah, all coming ahead. Really a split screen tomorrow, what's going to be happening here at the United Nations General assembly in New York and obviously what happens in with the offensive in Gaza City. We heard from Secretary of State Rubio really expressing a lack of optimism at this point of a deal happening within the next few days or weeks. He said it's just down to that for a cease fire hostage deal in the midst of this ongoing offensive there. What are you hearing from Arab mediators? Do they think there is still an opportunity for a deal?
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Firas Maqsad
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, not anytime soon. But it's important to point out that there is tension there and there's a difference in timelines and time horizons between what the US Is saying, what President Trump is telling and telegraphing to Netanyahu. If you're going to do this, go ahead, get it done and get it done quickly. Netanyahu and some of those close to him in his circle are saying this will take at least until the end of the year to get this complicated and messy military operation in Gaza City done with. And even then, the fighting will probably go on. There is a no knockout blow to deliver to Hamas. There are the central camps in Gaza, there are other places, and Israel is trying to play a game of whack a mole in Gaza. And we've seen time and again when they take over an area, we see Hamas mushroom and come out in another area. So the timelines are different here. And I think Bibi Netanyahu is vulnerable in terms of his relationship with Donald Trump because of that.
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Bianna Golodryga
Yeah. And some are even saying that an end of the war by the end of the year at this point may be a bit too much optimism expressed. Hopefully that is wrong and it can come to an end much sooner. Firis Maqsad, thank you so much for joining us. Good to see you.
- [20:28]
D.C. politicians want to enact harmful credit card mandates that could take away your cash back and rewards points perks that stretch your budget and make life a little easier. Losing these benefits means less money for your family's everyday essentials like gas and groceries. The perks you rely on could disappear, leaving you with higher costs and fewer options. Tell Congress to guard your card and oppose the Durbin Marshall credit card mandates.
- [20:55]
Robert Redford
Paid for by electronic payments coalition.
- [20:57]
Bianna Golodryga
America is changing and so is the world.
- [21:02]
Robert Redford
But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [21:10]
Bianna Golodryga
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [21:12]
Robert Redford
Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global story.
- [21:16]
Bianna Golodryga
Every weekday we'll bring you a story.
- [21:18]
From this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [21:22]
Robert Redford
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:32]
Bianna Golodryga
Now. Trapped under attack and with little to eat but animal feed. This is the reality of life for at least 260,000 people in the Sudanese city of El Al Fashr. That's according to a new report in the New York Times. The capital of North Darfur is one of the worst battlegrounds in the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary rapid support forces. UN Convoys have been unable to deliver food to the city, facing drone attacks when they try. This is just one chapter in a two year conflict that has seen millions of people displaced, tens of thousands killed and a famine declared. Let's bring in Declan Walsh, chief Africa correspondent for the New York Times, and Khuloud Khair, a Sudanese political analyst. Welcome, both of you. Declan, let me start with you. You spoke with residents of that besieged city in El Fashr. What are they telling you about what daily life is like for them and the extremes that they are having to go through just for survival?
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Declan Walsh
Tales of desperation and heartbreak. Bjana, the people that we reached on these sort of hand of satellite phone connections that are still operating in the city explained to us first and foremost the daily struggle to find food. What little food is available in the markets cost 10 or 15 times more. Many people now have been reduced, as you said to eating animal feed, including malnourished children in the last functioning hospital in the city. It's also a city that people said is under constant bombardment by these paramilitary fighters who have surrounded it for the last 18 months. But they've stepped up the intensity of that siege in recent weeks. And since last May, they've been constructing a large earthen wall around the perimeter of the city. And that makes it very hard for people or supplies of food or medicine to go in or out. So it's truly a dire situation. They described, as they put it, they face an impossible choice. If they stay in the city, they risk being bombed or starved. And if they try to leave, they risk being killed by fighters on the perimeter of the city. Or particularly for women who escape, the only safety is down a desert road about 40 miles long where there have been many, many reports of sexual assault.
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Bianna Golodryga
As you've reported, the RSF has encircled the city now with a 20 mile Bermuda. How close is the city from your reporting to collapse?
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Declan Walsh
It's very difficult to say. People have been predicting the fall of the siege for quite a while now. But what we do know is that the shape of the war is changing. Those paramilitaries, the rsf, they held most of the capital, Khartoum, until last March. They were expelled from the capital at that point, and now they have really doubled down on the province of Darfur, sorry, the region of Darfur, where many of them are from and Al Fashr, is the last obstacle to what would be almost entirely unchallenged control of the Darfur region. So certainly it seems to be, you know, a priority for them. And the folks that we spoke to said that they have advanced further through the city in recent weeks and leaving the Sudanese military and these allied Darfuri fighters really just controlling now about one quarter of the city's area.
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Bianna Golodryga
Khouloud. The UN calls Sudan the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now. And I'm going to ask you a question that I've sadly asked you the previous times, the handful of times we've had you on this very program, talking about this very crisis, about this conflict not getting the headlines and getting the world's attention the way it should be. And I'm going to ask you again, why is that?
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Narrator
I think I'm going to have to give you the same answer I gave you last time, which is that, you know, frankly speaking, the world is pretending that it has all these other conflicts in the world that are on its docket, which is true. But frankly speaking, the world can walk and chew gum at the same time. This is the world's largest humanitarian crisis. It's also the world's largest hunger crisis. It's also the world's largest displacement crisis, and it's also the world's largest protection crisis. There is no good reason other than racism. Frankly, at this point, that means that Sudan is not getting the attention it deserves.
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Bianna Golodryga
There are no good guys in this fight. This isn't a made for TV movie that we are watching here. The US has accused the RSF of genocide in Darfur. Sudan's army is also accused of war crimes. Khouloud, how do the civilians view these two warring factions?
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Narrator
Well, what the both warring parties are trying to do and have been doing relatively successfully is pull civilians into their camps. I mean, when this war started, I was in Khartoum, and much of the conversation that dominated the first few weeks of the conflict was, you know, maybe we should just let them fight it out and let them fight it out somewhere in the middle of the desert and then we'll deal with whatever shape of the security sector is left. Remembering that both SAF and the RSF are part of the same security sector created by the Bashir government that rules for 30 years. But both sides, particularly SAF and RSF, recognized that actually they needed to make it people's problem. And the best and quickest way to do that is to ethnicize the conflict. And we have seen the result of that. And so what is also happening simultaneously is that you have these groups on the ground that are trying to push back against this polarization narrative, trying to push back against the hatred and the ethnicization that is creating these distinctions and these distinct groups, and that is effectively civil society and local responders, mutual aid groups, et cetera. And for those people, they just want the war to stop, but they also want to see the kind of political system in Sudan that stops wars of these kind happening. In all of Sudan's history, there have only been maybe a decade where Sudan has not been embroiled in war precisely because of its militarized political system.
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Bianna Golodryga
Declan, the Sudanese army has accused the UAE of arming, even deploying mercenaries from Latin America to the rsf. The RSF and the UAE have both denied that. But in terms of intervention here, I'm just curious to get your reaction. Is this having even more of a negative effect in stopping this war when you're having other countries essentially choose sides?
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Declan Walsh
That's right, yeah. I mean, to continue on what Khulod was saying, you know, part of the problem is that so many different. This war has become ethnicized within Sudan. But the other factor that's really fueling the war is the involvement of so many foreign countries. You know, you've got countries like Russia, Iran, Turkey, which have supplied weapons to the Sudanese army. But for the rsf, by far and away, the largest foreign sponsor is the United Arab Emirates. Our own reporting has confirmed that and so has UN reports and indeed many parliament or, sorry, congresspeople in the U.S. so, you know, that's just another factor. This is no longer just a fight between two factions or two parts of the security force in Sudan. Now the interests of foreign countries, countries are involved as well. And they're bringing money, they're bringing very powerful weapons. We're seeing the deployment of powerful drones on both sides that are becoming a huge focus of the fight. And it's, you know, it's just making it really, really into this intractable conflict that, you know, everybody says does not have a military solution. And yet the two sides seem to be determined with this foreign backing to continue fighting, you know, right now in Darfur and in the neighboring Kordofan region. And unfortunately, it's civilians who are really paying the price.
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Bianna Golodryga
That is an evergreen statement for any war. But sadly, especially as it relates to this war, it's the civilians that are paying the price. The numbers of the death toll, the number of rapes there, all underreported because it's so difficult, difficult to get any sort of aid groups on the ground to get a number, an accurate number on any of this, that these aid groups are also attacked. We know, and many have died as well in trying to help. Declan Walsh Khulidkar, thank you so much for joining the program. We will continue to focus on this crisis as well.
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Thank you.
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And we'll be right back after this short break. Now, just moments after conservative political activist Charlie Kir was shot, videos of his assassination reached millions across the globe. This is just one example of the alarming spread of violent content. New York Times reporter Shira Frankel joins Hari Srinivasan to discuss this phenomenon and the failure of companies to regulate the issue. And to note, this conversation took place before President Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times beyond.
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Hari Sreenivasan
Thanks. Shira Frankel, thanks so much for joining us. Just last week, within moments of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we saw videos of, of that instant gained so many views on different social media platforms. And I guess the first question is.
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Bianna Golodryga
Why we see this almost every time that there's a violent incident Caught on camera. People want to know what happened, and there's a kind of a morbid fascination to see it for themselves. If the incident happened in public, if there was a moment of violence that happened in public, you can be sure these days that someone was recording. And those videos seem to take less and less time to find their way to social media.
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Hari Sreenivasan
You know, this people opened up their phone and opened and clicked on an app, and then it was just like there wasn't even a choice. It was just there in their face. It was automatically playing.
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Bianna Golodryga
I think what was so important about what you just said was the word choice. People had to choose to watch this sort of content. Even, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you had to navigate to it, you had to select, you had to make a decision to say, I want to watch something violent, and click your way through to that. Even in the earliest days of the Internet, these days, as you said, you just open up a social media media app and it could be Instagram to see what your friends are doing. It could be X, because you want to check a news bulletin. It could be any of these sites and these videos autoplay. Almost all the social media sites have put in a function where automatically, when you're using their platform, videos will autoplay. And they do that because it's good for engagement, it's good for their numbers, it's good for their metrics to have a video just automatically showing in your feed. Unfortunately, in this case, the video was an incredibly sort of gruesome and bloody view of a man's death, of the moment a person was killed. And people did not get that choice to say, I want to watch this or I don't want to watch it, unless you happen to be incredibly quick and navigate away from it. But at least in my case, I know when I opened up X, I didn't know what I was first watching. When the video just, you know, you saw Charlie Cook sitting there and the next moment you. You saw his death.
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Hari Sreenivasan
You know, look, you have covered this for a number of years now and put it, put this in some perspective for us. The context of these kinds of videos, especially on social media, how has it evolved over the years? Because this isn't the first and probably won't be the last.
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Bianna Golodryga
Yeah, as a reporter, I've covered this for going on a decade at this point. And in the very early days of really sort of violent videos making their way to social media, for me at least, my remembrance of that was isis. There was a time when the extremist Islamist Group that was trying to conquer Iraq and Syria were posting very, very graphic footage on what was then called Twitter of beheadings, of shootings, of people being thrown off buildings. And a number of social media companies got together, this was about a dec ago, and said, we're not going to allow this. We're going to put an end to it. We're going to stop violent content from spreading on our site because we don't think that's good and healthy for society. And you heard them very sort of earnestly say that they were going to do something about this type of content. In the ten years since then, I think I've written eight stories about the way that violent footage has spread online after an event, after whether it's an assassination or school shooting or some other sort of tragic event. And every single time the social media companies say they're taking action and we hear a lot of promises, and yet these videos continue to circulate.
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Hari Sreenivasan
So if they've known about this, if they've made public pledges to do better, is there a way to measure whether or not they are? Because most of us see another example of a lack of responsibility, that whatever tool that they built didn't work well enough.
- [34:24]
Bianna Golodryga
So in the cases of some platforms, and here I'm thinking about Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, we have seen in the days following Charlie Cook's death, a number of labels put on these videos. So there's a warning for people saying, hey, this is violent content. And some age restriction has been put in place asking that people are over the age of 18 before they watch that. So we are seeing, I would say, some incremental steps from some of the companies. I would note, however, that the X, which used to be called Twitter, has taken a very different approach. They are not labeling the content. In fact, their owner, Elon Musk, has been sharing a great deal about this moment. And those videos are very widely available on X, where they autoplay and I think have been viewed tens of millions of times at this point. So I think people who study the Internet look at that and say it's not enough for just some of the platforms to be doing something. As long as this lives in one platform that is accessed by billions of people all over the world, it's going to make its way everywhere, it's going to spread everywhere. People are going to share it, people are going to watch it.
- [35:34]
Hari Sreenivasan
So how much of this, I guess, this specific video and its far reach has to do with the politics of the day and whether or not platforms want to be seen as. As censoring content versus letting it run. How much of it has to do with who Charlie Kirk was specifically?
- [35:54]
Bianna Golodryga
It's clear we're living in a deeply polarized moment where people are going to point to this specific tragedy and say, you know, someone was. Someone was assassinated, and that's a tragedy. They're going to point to it and say someone was assassinated. That proves what he had to say or disproves what he had to say. Everyone is kind of looking at this event and saying, drawing a conclusion from it, as it were. I think that, again, I look at psychologists, and especially child psychologists, who speak a lot about what watching violent footage does to our brains. And especially for young people, especially for people who are perhaps not opting to watch this, who it could trigger trauma in them. There's no doubt that psychologists do not think it's good for us to be watching violent content. And that for the people that are arguing that this furthers a goal, that this furthers an agenda on the right or the left, I think those psychologists would say that there should be discussion at this point in time that political assassinations are something we should be really thinking seriously about as a society. But watching a moment of violence is not really going to advance anyone's agenda.
- [36:57]
Hari Sreenivasan
Have any of these platforms chosen to remove the video outright?
- [37:02]
Bianna Golodryga
Some of the platforms, Meta and YouTube, as far as I know, have removed versions of the video, have labeled versions of the video. I think the ones that I saw that were removed were ones which were manipulated to make the footage even more gruesome. And so I think I've only seen a handful that were actually removed. For the most part, they've just labeled them.
- [37:23]
Hari Sreenivasan
I also wonder technologically how feasible that is. I mean, if it's a digital artifact, pretty easy so to speak, to copy and paste it and upload it again. Right. And I'm sure they probably have better stats on how often or how many variations of that same video are being uploaded.
- [37:39]
Bianna Golodryga
Right? I mean, inevitably, whenever one of these moments happens, we hear from social media companies how quickly people uploaded those videos and how many millions of times those videos were manipulated, manipulated or shared or tweaked in some way to make them spread further online. I think that people, when people decide to share content, it's very, very hard for the social media companies to take them down in their entirety.
- [38:02]
Hari Sreenivasan
So is there a, A through line into why people choose to share something like this? I mean, what are the, what are the rationales? What are the reasons why do people think that it's important for it to exist in the digital space or even as an archived moment?
- [38:20]
Bianna Golodryga
I've seen people who post this video online say that they're sharing it because they think it proves their political agenda. What's interesting is I've seen people both on the right and the left make that claim. I've seen people on the left say that it, it shows that the person who decided to kill Charlie Crook was a conservative person, a right winger, gun owner, and therefore approved X, Y and Z about their political views. I've seen on the right say that they're sharing it because they see Charlie Crook as a martyr and because they want his moment of death to serve as some kind of political warning. You know, I think people can justify the sharing of violent videos in, in lots of different ways if they think it furthers their cause.
- [39:00]
Hari Sreenivasan
You know, recently we had the Utah governor, Spencer Cox, say that social media is a cancer on our society right now. And I wonder, as people look at these platforms to try to take more steps to prevent the. This sort of proliferation of this type of video, is there any kind of collective sense of responsibility that they have? Whether the executives that you speak with, because it ultimately adds to their bottom lines, they profit from the virality of these images, these videos increases their, as you said, engagement, the time on site, the metrics that advertisers look for. To see if I should invest in putting ads in a platform platform.
- [39:40]
Bianna Golodryga
I think that depends on how cynically you want to look at the words and the public kind of speeches that have been given by some of these executives at companies like Google and Meta and TikTok. They all talk about how important it is to them to reduce hate speech, reduce disinformation, reduce violent content. And five, six years ago, we even saw them joining global forums to kind of stop this content from being spread. We heard Mark Zuckerberg talk about the thousands of people that were being hired at Meta to try and stop this problem, and yet the problem persists. And then I think you have to ask yourself, well, is it as important to them as developing AI? Is it as important to them as super intelligence? Are they dedicating anywhere near the amount of resources that they spend dedicated to data centers or to something else? And I think, you know, you can pretty quickly come to the conclusion that it's not that the amount of money that have been spent by the tech companies on other projects doesn't come close to what they've spent at tackling disinformation hate speech and violent content online. And so have they done something? Yes, they've applied labels, they've put in age restrictions, they. They've done some work towards, you know, labeling these videos. But you cannot look at this and say that this is a problem that's been solved.
- [40:52]
Hari Sreenivasan
Meta and X have decreased the number of human beings involved in their trust and safety departments. Right. I mean, and maybe for different motivations, but compared to the amount of money that these companies are spending right now on AI chips and data centers, scaling back on the ability for humans to be smart about this and help in the process of taking these videos down seems directly oppositional to what they say in front of Congress.
- [41:22]
Bianna Golodryga
Exactly. I think that all the tech companies have reduced the number of people that work on trust and safety, and some, like X, I think, have gotten rid of them entirely. And so you see where they're spending money, where they're developing resources. I would note that the trust and safety people were typically the people at these companies that were at the forefront of saying, this is good for the platform, this is good for engagement, this is bad for engagement, this is bad for the platform. And they were the ones that were some of the most outspoken kind of opponents to some of the policies put in place by executives that they thought would increase engagement, but perhaps affect the overall health of the platform.
- [41:57]
Hari Sreenivasan
In those hours right after when we don't exactly know what happened, it just seems like there's just so much conspiracy theory in this case help our audience understand what happened, I mean, to different people who were thought to be the suspects, the suspected shooter, even well before that shooter was actually identified, there's always.
- [42:22]
Bianna Golodryga
A bit of an Internet manhunt that happens after these moments in time where people get together, whether it's on X or on Reddit or on Discord, and decide that they're going to be the ones that find the shooter. They're going to be the ones that figure out. And sometimes they're looking at photos of the event and saying, oh, well, that person that looks like a popular YouTuber that we don't like, or that looks like a TikTok influencer. And you see them sort of gather around and you see quite a bit of a witch hunt happening in those moments where individuals are targeted and blamed. In the hours after the crook shooting, we saw this. I think I saw six or seven different people being named as suspects. And some of those people had their, their places of work called, they had their homes called. They of course, had their, their, their, you know, Internet Profiles made as accusations flew that it was them. I would note that in all the years I've been covering this as a reporter, I have never seen an Internet mob correctly identify the person behind a shooting before the police or the FBI were able to do so.
- [43:22]
Hari Sreenivasan
Considering that so many more people are getting their news, or at least some part of their news from social media today, how do the social media platforms see their role kind of going forward?
- [43:35]
Bianna Golodryga
I think it depends who you ask. I think if you look at someone like Elon Musk, he thinks it's a positive that people are sharing, sharing information as they want. He, he considers it free speech, I think is the way he kind of frames it and discusses it, saying that journalists were arbitrators of truth and that he thinks it's good that people share with one another and that there is a, what he calls, I think, a free flow of information. I think there are other people like Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who looks at his platforms and says, well, we're not really a news site. That's not really our responsibility. We don't want to be making the kinds of decisions that a news organization has to make. And I think in general, you're seeing the chief executives of these tech companies veering away from kind of taking the sorts of responsibility that editors and that journalists would have taken and would have talked about taking. When we make decisions about what to show, what not to show, how to discuss an active manhunt, how to discuss a situation in which a political figure has been assassinated, I think there's a lot of thought and experience that goes into how news, traditional news media covers that that isn't necessarily happening in social media.
- [44:44]
Hari Sreenivasan
Shira Frankel, reporter of the New York Times, thanks so much.
- [44:47]
Bianna Golodryga
Thank you so much for having me.
- [44:50]
And finally, Robert Redford, the iconic actor and Oscar winning director has died. He was known for his starring roles in movies such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men and as director for films like Ordinary People and A River Runs Through It. His passion for moviemaking led Redford to found the Sundance Institute, forever changing the face of independent film. Christiane spoke with Robert Redford in 2018 upon the release of the Old man and the Gun, his last starring role. It was during the first Trump term when journalism was under fire from allegations of fake news.
- [45:26]
Christiane Amanpour
Robert Redford, welcome back to our program.
- [45:28]
Robert Redford
My pleasure.
- [45:29]
Christiane Amanpour
We have talked a lot over the years about your amazing, brilliant film career. You've had quite a few outlawish films that, I mean, the best, most famous one, of course, is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And then there was the Sting and you paired up with Paul Newman. But what I was fascinated about reading, you know, a lot of the stuff about you is that you were kind of like that as a kid. You were a bit of an outlaw yourself. You were a rebel.
- [45:54]
Robert Redford
Yes, that's true. As I got older and I went into acting, I was drawn to the idea of outlaw characters. What's really interesting though, that I don't know how many people have picked up in terms of Paul Newman and I, is that when we did Butch Cassidy, initially he was offered the Sundance Kid and I was going to be Butch Cassidy. And then I met with the director and when I met with George Roy Hill, I said, well, yeah, I can do that, but I'm much more drawn to the Sundance Kid. And he got convinced of that. So I played, played Sundance. So they switched the title. It was, it was originally going to be the Sundance Kid in Busch Cassidy.
- [46:31]
Christiane Amanpour
That gave you a whole new exposure. I mean, that was what launched you into the career that, that you're now, you know, apparently retiring from. Are you really retiring?
- [46:42]
Robert Redford
No, I don't either.
- [46:43]
Christiane Amanpour
Is this really your last film?
- [46:44]
Robert Redford
No, I think that's a mistake. I should never have said anything like that. I think just moving into a different territory. I've acted long enough, but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it because I thought that distracted from the value of the film and the cast. It was a wonderful cast that I was working with.
- [47:01]
Christiane Amanpour
So can I just get it straight? Is this the last film you plan to do as an actor?
- [47:07]
Robert Redford
Maybe rather than talking about retiring, you just move kind of slip easily into another territory.
- [47:15]
Christiane Amanpour
And the particular territory that you want to slip into now is which?
- [47:18]
Robert Redford
Directing. Directing and producing. Yeah.
- [47:21]
Christiane Amanpour
There's such a lot of existential questions right now about what does the world have for me, what am I going to do? I mean, part of it is your non acting life and that's about the climate and the environment.
- [47:31]
Bianna Golodryga
Yes.
- [47:31]
Christiane Amanpour
And you are really dedicated to that very much. You've been to the United nations, you've tried very hard to move the world along on this, particularly your own country where the current government sort of denies the Syrian of climate change. Tell me about what you do in your personal and public life to move this along.
- [47:50]
Robert Redford
Well, I think you have to look at where it all started. And for me, it started when I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles and at the end of the Second World War. It was a wonderful city to me. And then once the war ended and money came back into the picture, things changed. And suddenly, suddenly there was development out of control. And it had green spaces that were suddenly wiped out by buildings and so forth. And where Santa Monica Boulevard had a trolley car going down the center of it and it was gone. And suddenly it's a freeway. And I thought, well, wait a minute. What's going on? In order to progress, they're wiping out something really valuable.
- [48:29]
Christiane Amanpour
You know, it just so happens that one of the greatest films you made, all the President's Men, is all about investigating, holding accountable and looking for the truth. What do you think about all the President's Men? And having done that film?
- [48:44]
Robert Redford
I think we're in a similar spot now. I think that the power that's out there has taken us to the brink where you no longer know what the truth is. And so if you don't know what the truth is, how can you talk about what is truthful or not? So I think we're right at that brink. And I guess I see it. It metaphorically is it used to be that two sides would come together. They would cross the aisle, so to speak. They would cross the aisle to work together to achieve something that would benefit the public. And now there's no longer. It's no longer an aisle to be crossed. It's a moat. There's a gigantic chasm between two points of view. And they're not crossing to work with each other. They're getting ideologically rigid and stuck, and we're the losers. And I think that's gotta change.
- [49:32]
Christiane Amanpour
The whole MeToo movement which started in your industry in Hollywood which is, I think, fascinating for the floodgates that it opened. Had you any inkling that this was sort of der egur in Hollywood? That big producers or directors or others were using this power over so many people, including, presumably, a lot of your costars.
- [49:53]
Robert Redford
Yes, I was very much aware of that. I think I probably took it somewhat for granted because it was so pervasive. It was just part of the deal, really. Yeah, I think so. I think it was just there and has been for a long time. I didn't pay much attention to it. I wasn't a part of it, obviously, but I just considered that's what it is. You know, the only thing I was interested in was creating an alternative. That was my ambition. But, yes, I was aware that that existed. Yeah. When did you have the casting couch?
- [50:26]
Christiane Amanpour
Would you mind you have said something if you knew? Because some people say well, if you knew about it, why didn't you say anything about it?
- [50:36]
Robert Redford
Because it didn't come close to home. It didn't come to me. It didn't come to my feet, you know, it just was out there. And I didn't pay a lot of. I just accepted that's the way it was. I didn't like it, but I didn't see it was my job to do anything about it because it was just so pervasive, you know, I just focused on creating an alternative.
- [50:54]
Christiane Amanpour
So do you think now the moment is important, this historical moment?
- [50:58]
Robert Redford
I do. I think it's really important, particularly for women.
- [51:02]
Christiane Amanpour
Yeah, of course. And what I'm interested in also is women who age and who age out of great roles. And obviously women who don't get paid equal to men for the roles that they play. I guess for a man, it's kind of easy. You're heartthrob, you're so handsome, you've had all these roles, and you can go on having roles for as long as you want. But Sissy Spacehead, who's a brilliant actress, and all those people and women of her generation have found it very difficult to keep getting roles.
- [51:31]
Robert Redford
That's sad. If you look at, for example, if you look at European films and you look at actresses like Jean Martin, and you see films like Jules and Jim, and you see older actresses having key roles and they do beautifully and they're aged, they've aged. And I think that's one of the downsides of Hollywood is that at least for a while. It might be changing now, but at least for a while, it wouldn't accept aging. Everyone had to be eternally young. And think of the. Of actors, actors that we lost that could have kept acting if we had followed the European example.
- [52:12]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, I wonder if you learned that in Europe. I mean, obviously not when you were a young man, but you did very, very. At a very young age, you went to Europe and you wanted to be an artist. You weren't thinking about acting at that time?
- [52:24]
Robert Redford
No, no, no.
- [52:25]
Christiane Amanpour
What was it like? Were you accepted as a young American in Europe at that time? Were you? What was it like?
- [52:31]
Robert Redford
No, it was just the opposite, because I wasn't aware that the Suez crisis had happened at that time.
- [52:38]
Christiane Amanpour
It was 1957, just when you got there, right?
- [52:40]
Bianna Golodryga
Yeah.
- [52:41]
Robert Redford
And I wasn't aware of that. I was paying no attention to politics, so I wasn't aware that we were the villains in that, you know. So when I got to Paris, I thought, ah, I'm getting to the place I've dreamed about. And suddenly I was treated horribly because somehow I was. I was symbolic of what had gone wrong. I had no idea what was going on until slowly I realized it was kind of our fault. We had alienated a whole culture and I wasn't even aware of it. I was blind to that because I wasn't interested or aware of politics in those days. But it made me aware was that.
- [53:14]
Christiane Amanpour
The education of Robert Redford, it certainly.
- [53:17]
Robert Redford
Was the beginning of. Yeah, that was part of it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It was a short and it was a shock that I needed. And I'm so glad that I did go to Europe and I witnessed other cultures and how they thought and how they saw the world.
- [53:32]
Christiane Amanpour
Robert Redford, thank you very much indeed.
- [53:34]
Robert Redford
Thank you.
- [53:37]
Bianna Golodryga
What a legendary icon and a gift for all of us, all of us who have been his fans for so many decades. Robert Redford, dead at the age of 89. Actor, director, philanthropist and environmental activist. As I noted, a legend who will be missed. Well, that is it for now. Thank you so much for watching and goodbye From New York.
- [54:07]
D.C. politicians want to enact harmful credit card mandates that could take away your cash back and rewards points, perhaps perks that stretch your budget and make life a little easier. Losing these benefits means less money for your family's everyday essentials like gas and groceries. The perks you rely on could disappear, leaving you with higher costs and fewer options. Tell Congress to guard your card and oppose the Durban Marshall credit card mandates.
- [54:34]
Robert Redford
Paid for by Electronic payments coalition.
- [54:37]
Bianna Golodryga
I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast.
- [54:41]
Firas Maqsad
All of the transformations and changes that I've made in my life have been a consequence of pain. Trying to tell me something?
- [54:49]
Bianna Golodryga
That's my friend, Rich Roll. He is a podcast host and an ultraman who is no stranger to pain.
- [54:55]
Hari Sreenivasan
We're going to get into the science behind this so that suffering does not.
- [55:00]
Bianna Golodryga
Have to be an option.
- [55:01]
Listen to Chasing Life Streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.