Christian Amanpour (3:39)

And Lieutenant General Russell Honore is joining me now from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Welcome to the program. General Honore. So look, you have commanded troops. You have been based in Korea, obviously in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina cleanup. You got your Bronze Star in Operation Desert Storm, the first war I covered. But you've now written, you have written an op ed, an essay where you are saying that you have never before been so concerned about the survival or the future of American democracy, the kinds of things you fought for all your life and career. Why? Why now?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (4:18)

Well, if not now, Then when? Spent 37 years, 3 months and 3 days in the service of our nation, supporting the Constitution and obeying the orders as directed by the national command authority. And to see some of the disruptions that's happening in our democracy and looking at all the goodwill our nation has done over the last century, creating global goodwill around the world to be squandered in almost 10, 11 months. Now, that goodwill that was based on the service and sacrifice and blood and treasure of the American people, to see that squandered with this concept of America first and the cruelty of which what we do, it's not what we do, it's how we doing it, Christiana, that is most concerning to me as a veteran.

Christian Amanpour (5:11)

So can I ask you then let's just put aside for a moment the deployment of American troops inside the United States. But what about you said the cruelty, the way things are being done. What specifically are you referring to?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (5:27)

Well, we can look at our immigration policy. Everybody wants strong borders. Everybody want people to be here legally or go through the process. But then we go to an indiscriminate deportation where we disregard the rules and the laws as laid out in the Constitution and we start picking people up based on how they look or how they speak. Or we're checking people coming into the country, checking their phones to see if they've said something that's disagreeable with the State Department concerning our political positions in America. We don't do that kind of stuff in America. It's not normal. And I think it puts us in a bad light with our allies when we indiscriminately run tariffs based on Twitter feeds in the middle of the night based on things the country or someone in the country may have said or done that that's disagreeable with the White House. We don't do stuff like that in America, we are destroying goodwill when we deny food and medicine to the poor.

Christian Amanpour (6:46)

So let me then bring it back to what you started by mentioning at the beginning. And that is the way immigration is being enforced and deportations are happening. And on top of that, the ICE roundups and also the President deploying for other reasons the National Guard to American cities. Now, from what I gather, almost all of those are Democrat leaning American cities, often over the objection of the sitting governors. And of course lawsuits are stacking up over whether these deployments violate Posse Comitatus. Can you tell me what is your view of using the National Guard internally like that and what is Posse Comitatus?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (7:30)

Well, our National Guard is a primary instrument of the Governor of the States. They are the commander in chief of the state National Guard and as required traditionally, normally the President of the United States through the National Command Authority would mobilize those National Guard troops. But to mobilize them to respond to national disasters and or to send them overseas in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And they played an enormous role throughout our history. But to use them as law enforcement is a violation of the Constitution, particularly sending them into a state without asking the governor, as was the case in California, Illinois and in Oregon. That is a violation of what we understand is using the imposing, bypassing the Computator Status act, which basically says we do not use military, US Military for law enforcement. We have used them successfully in the past to help with civil disturbance or riots, as was the case in Los Angeles where they successfully went in with the army and the Marines and dealt with that situation. But by and large we have not used our military to do law enforcement. And there's even been words by the deputy White House Chief of staff, the waiver of the Posse Comitatus using Insurrection act and the waiver of habeas corpus, meaning they could stop people on the street and arrest them just as ICE is doing based on racial profiling. That scares the hell out of me because when we cross that line and we use our military for that purpose, I think we will have slipped out of our democracy and slipped into Oban Viktor o' bon type of government.

Christian Amanpour (9:31)

You're talking about the self declared illiberal Prime Minister of Hungary who is a very close political ally and friend of President Trump's. So I just want to ask you because actually a few months ago when this was really at a height, ice, you know, gathering people off streets, taking them often wearing hoods and masks, people didn't know who they were being arrested by. And there was a thought that ICE might become or might be being groomed to be the President's private militia or the administrations or the current power structure in Washington. Private militia. Do you think that's fantastical or do you think you're seeing those signs?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (10:10)

Well, just look at the actions on the street. The judges are constantly going after ice, as in the recent days in Chicago, when what we see, not what we hear on television, where ICE agents run up to a priest and shoot him in the head with a smoke grenade type weapon. We don't do that in America. We understand that what the president objective was initially to pick up the hardened criminals that are here illegally. But when you shoot a priest in the head and it's documented, or when you grab a grandmother on the street and throw her on the ground and handcuffed her, that's not the America that we know and grew up in. And many of these people running through cabbage fields and lettuce fields in California, running down the very people that's picking out crops, that's very un American. We understand you want to enforce the law. Again, it's not what they're doing, it's how they're doing in a very cruel and unusual way. And they will tell you that their objective is to be cruel, to force people out of the country. Many of those same people will put the roofs on after another hurricane or pick up the debris. The very people we need to be able to build our economy and sustain our economy. They are being very cruel to people.

Christian Amanpour (11:38)

Let me ask you, General, because you have direct experience with being deployed to restore order in a civilian situation after the Hurricane Katrina wracked New Orleans. And there is video of you going through the streets and at one point you saying to your troops on the ground, put your weapons down.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (11:59)

Put those damn weapons down. Not going to play your game. God damn it. Get those goddamn weapons down. Put them down. Don't do it, son. Let those weapons down, damn it. Swing them. Hey, weapons. Weapons down. Damn it. Put the weapons down.

Christian Amanpour (12:33)

But you also say that the Governor had said something quite extreme that you had to challenge her on.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (12:42)

Yeah. Thursday afternoon, what we call Katrina week, the governor had a news conference. God bless her heart. She was a respected governor and Governor Blanco, she has since passed, but she did a news conference and she was being pressed by Washington and the conservative media in Washington to do something about looting. And on Thursday afternoon, we haven't even evacuated the people out of the convention center yet. And she said, I'm telling my police and National Guard to shoot to kill, to Stop looting. And when my staff called me from Atlanta and told me that, I called her and said, governor, we don't do that. We don't order our troops to shoot our own people. And she sank in. Her response said, oh, General, yes, I shouldn't have done that. But she was responding to political pressure to deal with an issue that wasn't an issue. People were going into stores to get food and water, not looting as we know it. They were in the survival mode.

Christian Amanpour (13:44)

Yeah.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (13:44)

And we worked hard after that to make sure the troops know not to point their weapons at the people.

Christian Amanpour (13:49)

Yeah. It's really interesting because it leads me to my next question. What would you say to military commanders or ordinary, you know, men and women in the military when they are confronted with maybe that kind of an order or something that crosses a red line and an illegal. An illegal order. Now, Tom Nichols recently wrote in the Atlantic, quote, trump clearly wants to use military power to exert more control over the American people. And soon, top US Military commanders may have to decide whether they will refuse such orders from the commander in chief. The greatest crisis of American civil military relations in modern history is now underway. First of all, do you agree and what is a red line, and what do you do about it when you see it?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (14:38)

Well, all of our officers have been trained in educating our professional development system that you follow legal orders to deploy, some way you go, do you deploy? But if given an order, as was the case, or the discussion in the White House during the Black Lives Matter, where the leadership of this nation said, well, why don't we just shoot them in the leg? And we got the response we needed from our leadership at the time, Secretary Esperance and Gerald Milley. No, we don't do that. And subsequently, they both lost their jobs. But there are some orders that you might get worth losing your job because you have sworn yourself to the Constitution and to serve the American people, not to obey what is a legal order. Shoot Americans in the leg because they're protesting. We don't do that in America. They do that in Russia, North Korea and China. We don't do that in America. And our leadership stood up. And I hope those officers in command today will follow their orders, but if given an illegal order that they stand up and say no, protect their troops, maintain control of their formation, but don't do things like shoot people in the leg. And that was a conversation that's been documented that happened at the White House.

Christian Amanpour (15:56)

Let me ask you about a recent summons from the current Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. To all the American commanders at home and around the world to come to Quantico and basically get what they talk, I don't know how they describe it, a pep talk, how to embody the quote, unquote warrior ethos. What did you think about that and what was that all about?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (16:25)

I think that will go down in history. As for future secretaries of defense, don't do that. It didn't make sense. It wasn't logical. It was a show of dominance over the formation. He's still in the process of purging the military and looking for people who might push back on his policy as we recently lost to a SACOM commander over what's going on in the Caribbean, as has been postured by many. But it was unnecessary. It was a show of force that we in the military respond to our civil leaders. And he is a senior leader in the Department of War, as we call it now. And he wanted to impose his will that as a 45 year old he could bring all these generals in who've spent their time, their entire adult life in uniform and their sergeant majors to Washington because he could do it and he told them to do it. It was a function of dominance over them and to show them who's in charge and to look in their faces and see who might be sending non verbals back. That was a test, but it didn't make sense. And an entire waste of money that could have been done over a video conference, as is the case when we normally talk to the Cheney command around the world from the Pentagon.

Christian Amanpour (17:46)

General, finally I want to ask you a question of something that was really very uplifting this past weekend. And of course, you know, this week we've been celebrating and remembering all the service people who fought and died and who continue to fight. Former President Barack Obama surprised a group of veterans From World War II, Korea and Vietnam on one of these honor flights as their plane landed in Washington ahead of Veterans Day. I'm just going to play this, this little bit of how he addressed the troops.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (18:18)

Hello everybody.

Ken Burns (18:19)

What?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (18:21)

As we approach Veterans Day, I wanted.

Eugene Korolev (18:24)

To stop by and just say thank.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (18:26)

You for your extraordinary service. To you, your family, the sacrifices that all of you made to protect our country is something that will always be honored and we are very grateful. And we also happen to welcome you with a 70 degree day in D.C. which doesn't always happen around here.

Eugene Korolev (18:40)

It was a joy, joy in my.

Ken Burns (18:43)

Heart today to see all these people.

Christian Amanpour (18:52)

Your reflection?

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (18:54)

Absolutely. And my hat's off to former President Obama for doing that and the challenge to other former presidents to stand up and recognize the significance of Veterans Day is not to talk about your accomplishment, but to thank those who have served and that are serving. And my hat's off. And I challenge our other living presidents to do the same, to step up and to help preserve our democracy and recognize the sacrifice that America is not great just because we're rich. We are great because we were willing to fight for ourselves and for our allies. And that was done on the shoulders of those who have preceded us, the previous generations that have kept America free and went forward on the battlefield to secure the freedom of our allies. And these people that he recognized are just a small group of those who were ready to give all and many that never returned home because they were willing to give up the sacrifice and do honor to our nation.

Christian Amanpour (20:00)

Well, that's a rousing way to end our conversation. General Russell Honore, thank you very much for, for joining me.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (20:06)

God bless America.

Christian Amanpour (20:08)

Coming up, the chef who joined the Ukrainian army and how he's using cuisine as soft power for his nation. That is after a break.

Claire Duffy (20:27)

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, we are celebrating a special milestone here for Terms of Service. One year demystifying technology, talking about how people can engage with new tools without getting played by them. Amazon just this week that we're recording announced plans to lay off 14,000 employees in part because it's trying to slim down its workforce because it thinks that AI is going to do more of the work in the future. I think we'll look back on this year as a really pivotal moment in terms of the way that AI is going to reshape the world. Listen to CNN's terms of service with me, Claire Duffy. And wherever you get your podcasts.

Christian Amanpour (21:12)

On Ukraine's front lines, the situation has worsened significantly this week. That is according to the army chief. As Russian forces move further into the key strategic town of Pokrovsk, brave Ukrainians continue to fight for their freedom and for their country's very survival. Among them is a chef, Eugene Korolev. Just after Russia's full scale invasion of 2022, he left his THR restaurant in Dnipro and enlisted. Now he's here in London and he's fighting a different kind of war to protect Ukrainian culture in a world where Russia wants to erase its very existence. I went to meet Korolev at his all Ukrainian restaurant, Sino. He joined me along with the restaurant's founder, Paulina Sichova Polina and Eugene. Welcome to our Program. Thank you for having us at your restaurant. What does this restaurant mean to you, happening here in London?

Eugene Korolev (22:08)

I think the idea was, I mean, came up just to show more about Ukrainian cuisine and culture as a kind of soft power.

Christian Amanpour (22:20)

Your contribution.

Eugene Korolev (22:21)

Yeah. And where I'm strong. So I think that was the best idea, like what we want to do and at the right time, you are.

Christian Amanpour (22:28)

Partner in this and you're responsible for a lot of the design and the infrastructure. So there is obviously a lot of stereotypes about Russian food, Ukrainian food, sorry to say the same thing in one sentence. But tell me about the stereotypes that you're trying to bust. I mean, I know borscht and cabbage and dumplings and things like that. What is it that you want to tell about Ukrainian food?

Paulina Sichova (22:50)

You know, I think initially our mission when it comes to the restaurant, it's because the world and, you know, even Ukrainian people, they have this perception that Ukrainian traditional food is the food that comes from Soviet Union, which we really want to move away from. Because Ukrainian food is actually food that has been, you know, cooking for centuries. And there's history and it's actually sophisticated, it's elegant, it's layered. It's much more than, you know, what we know about Ukraine generally. So what our main mission, in a way, you know, we want people to learn what a real Ukraine is.

Christian Amanpour (23:30)

Was there such a thing as Ukrainian food during the ussr or was it subverted to a general Russian food?

Paulina Sichova (23:37)

It was the food that had a purpose. You need to feed people. And, you know, it was heavy, it was rustic, it was quite a lot of things. But it wasn't about, you know, what Ukraine is. You know, it's not about seasonality, it wasn't about agriculture. It was something much more simple when.

Eugene Korolev (23:56)

The Soviet Union was break down. So I think that move was the moment when we realized that we need to develop Ukrainian cuisine and culture from. I will not say from zero, but we need to restore it because many years that was damaged by Russia and by Soviet Union. And then what we are doing now and the time we are living now is just we are trying to be creative with the products and putting our culture and time through the time and put it all this on the plate.

Christian Amanpour (24:34)

So your story is actually really interesting because you were a chef, you worked outside Ukraine for a while, then you went back to Ukraine and you had a restaurant in Dnipro.

Ken Burns (24:43)

Correct.

Christian Amanpour (24:45)

What was that like? And what happened when the war started? How did your restaurant get transformed and then you yourself went to the front?

Eugene Korolev (24:54)

Yeah, we just opened restaurant in December 2021. So three months before the war was started. And, yeah, from the day one, I decided to join the army, and we decided to transform the restaurant and cook it for, like, for army, for hospitals, for National Guard. Because at that moment, the country was really, like, united, and people was, like, really, like, wanted to show how strong they are in every aspect.

Christian Amanpour (25:25)

How did you meet Eugene? Did you know the restaurant in Dnipro?

Paulina Sichova (25:30)

No. No. So when the war had started, that's when the idea of restaurant came to my mind.

Christian Amanpour (25:39)

Why? That's a weird time to think about starting a restaurant.

Paulina Sichova (25:43)

So actually, you know, the night when the war started, I actually just had my first baby. And I'm never gonna forget that night when, you know, when you see sitting and feeding the baby and the world just went upside down, and my family back in Ukraine is, like, hiding in the basement.

Christian Amanpour (25:56)

So you were out of Ukraine?

Paulina Sichova (25:57)

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I was already living in London for a long time. So obviously, you know, you're sitting there in a comfort with a baby, and then you have your family who is hiding in the basement. You have this very quite global contrast in a way. And that's when I think. I think, as every Ukrainian at that time, you have this. I wouldn't say a mission, but a feeling of doing something. You have to somehow say, fought it there. And I've always been involved in some way with Ukraine, even whilst I lived almost like 15 years here. But somehow my life always touched Ukraine. And that's where this idea. I've started thinking there must be a way. And I'm very passionate, not foodie. And back in the day, there wasn't a thing as Ukrainian investors in London, you know, and even the understanding of what Ukrainian food is, everyone would put it in a basket of Eastern European food. So that's when I came up with idea, and I've started looking for chefs, started communicating with the Ukrainian teams, and that's how we came across.

Christian Amanpour (27:03)

And I hear that you treated Polina to A12 our tasting menu.

Eugene Korolev (27:09)

Yeah, there was a lot.

Paulina Sichova (27:10)

Yeah, there was a lot of food.

Christian Amanpour (27:12)

How do you survive that?

Paulina Sichova (27:14)

That was delicious. I can do it anytime, that's for sure.

Eugene Korolev (27:16)

But it was good. I wanted to show as well, because I know that, like, I have a lot to show. I want to show a lot. And different, like, techniques, combinations, products, and some unique Ukrainian products. Because, yeah, basically there was, like, interview through the. Through the food, through the plates. Yeah. And we wanted to show, like, as much as we can.

Christian Amanpour (27:41)

So you were, in the meantime on the front Lines that must have been pretty scary. And yet I've read about how you were lying in trenches and you would pick a little bit of a herb and do a little tasting, you know, when you weren't firing weapons or doing defensive maneuvers.

Eugene Korolev (27:56)

Yeah. So I think I would start with the. With the words that I was not. Not a cook in army, so I was in different team. And sometimes when I have a opportunity to cook somewhere or to meet chefs, like army chefs and talk to them. So I did it, of course. And the life on the front line, I mean, sometimes when you're just, like, lying on a position or, like, holding position and you just keep watching something anyway, it's like, kind of life and will not like stopping our life there. So, of course we are joking. We are. We're talking about something. And yeah, there was one thing like, whatever. What I supposed to talk about if I'm chef. So I will tell everything, like my funny stories from the kitchen. And what, like, how looks this herbs or how they taste like or what's the combination with that? So there was, like, normal life behind the. What's going on?

Christian Amanpour (28:54)

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of civilians don't understand that. There's also occasional moments of normal life, even when you're on the front line. But how did you get your commander to let you leave and join Paulina and the restaurant abroad? Because the thing that we hear about all the time is the desperate need for recruits. And as you know, even now, I mean, literally, people are being stopped in their cars and pretty much taken off to the front.

Eugene Korolev (29:20)

Yeah, yeah. That's not like a secret or something. So everybody knows that I'm a chef, and I was talking about, like, food and my dreams and, like, yeah, I will be number one in the world, and we'll open the restaurant, we'll be very successful, and we'll show everything to the world, like, how beautiful Ukrainian kitchen is. And then I went to my commander. I just went to him and said, like, look, this is opportunity for me. I think that's the best one. It's not, like, local, like, something to open in Ukraine. I mean, London is, I think, the best place where we can show the Ukrainian cuisine to the world and put it on a gastronomical map. And that's what I was explaining. Like, this is, like a last chance for me. And he said, look, I had, like, opportunity to leave the army because of my mom, and she's disabled, and you'd.

Christian Amanpour (30:14)

Been on the front for a couple of years already.

Eugene Korolev (30:16)

How long There was one and a half years. One and a half year.

Christian Amanpour (30:20)

When you think of what's happening back home now, what are your feelings? Nearly four years, the war.

Paulina Sichova (30:27)

You know, we all want one thing. We want this to be over. And it's been a long time. Lots of things has happened. And you know, as you can imagine, the longer it goes on, people, you know, you look at Ukraine, people adapt, people still live, people keep going. And that's partly very scary because you know us, we as human beings adapt to the most terrifying things. And partly it gives us the power. You know, we see how strong Ukrainians are and what they do even within, you know, those quiet, scary times. So yeah, of course we want this terrifying moment to be as over as possible, as soon as possible. However, we also see power in what's happening right now.

Christian Amanpour (31:18)

And Eugene, what do you think about the way the war is going right now?

Eugene Korolev (31:25)

Well, we still have a lot of friends there and family. And of course sometimes you are thinking, am I doing right or should I like do something other. I mean, come back to Ukraine. And then we, as Polina said, I think we took this mission to show not only Ukrainian cuisine on a high level and use it as a soft power, but we decided to support all like Ukrainian craft makers, suppliers. So everything what we can order, not from here, we are doing it from there. So all our plates, tables, lightning, everything. So we are trying to in this like way to support them. And then like when we see what we are trying, I mean what we achieve here, I think then we realize that, yeah, we are on the right way, what we are doing and we do it very nice. So we have a good team and we over motivated to, to make it happen. And I think yesterday was one of the small achievements for us. And what happened there was like a small victory when we realized that we really on. On the right way. So what's the victory? Yeah, there was a news yesterday that we, we got to Michelin guide.

Christian Amanpour (33:00)

You're in the Michelin guide?

Eugene Korolev (33:01)

Yeah. Yes.

Christian Amanpour (33:02)

Fantastic.

Eugene Korolev (33:03)

And there was. Yeah, we've been selected. So now we are there. Not too many Ukrainian restaurants, are there? There is one in Chicago called Analia and we are number two.

Christian Amanpour (33:18)

That's amazing. Congratulations. And I wonder whether you think as you're telling me this, as you know Vladimir Putin and the Russians say Ukraine doesn't exist, that it's just a sub. Subplot of Mother Russia. So that's a victory.

Eugene Korolev (33:34)

That's what we are trying to say with the cuisine, with what we are doing here. There is a lot of things about Ukraine, about designers, about craft makers, and the world, I think, didn't recognize it yet. How beautiful things we can do in Ukraine, how beautiful food we can cook here in Sino. And, yeah, there is a lot of stuff like this, and this is one of the ways how we can destroy Russia propaganda and show them and tell them, look, you are. You are not what you are telling about, and we are much more stronger. And we will show you, and we'll.

Ken Burns (34:15)

Yeah.

Christian Amanpour (34:15)

What is your favorite dish that we could eat here in this restaurant? What would you recommend?

Paulina Sichova (34:20)

It's so hard to choose.

Ken Burns (34:22)

They're all good.

Paulina Sichova (34:22)

They're all good. I think the most special one that has a special, you know, place in my heart would be honey cake.

Christian Amanpour (34:31)

Honey cake. So that's a dessert.

Paulina Sichova (34:33)

It's almost like an ode to buckwheat, which is not very traditional in Ukraine.

Christian Amanpour (34:37)

An ode to buckwheat. And yours. What do you love cooking the most?

Eugene Korolev (34:42)

Would like to cook more? I think. I think beef dumplings. So I love sweets. So. But Polina took my dish already.

Christian Amanpour (34:49)

She's taken the sweets.

Eugene Korolev (34:52)

But, yeah, I think beef dumplings because of the complexity of the flavors and techniques, and it took. It looks like.

Christian Amanpour (34:59)

So you are a dumpling guy, let's say.

Eugene Korolev (35:01)

Yeah, I mean, I love to find a complicated way, let's say. Yeah, I love challenging. And beef dumpling, they just looks very simple and easy. But to make them, one of the ingredients took one month to make what? Yeah, there is, like, fermented liquid from mushrooms. So, yeah, we're bringing mushrooms from Ukraine, and then we start to ferment them, and it took one month to finish fermentation, and then we put just few drops on the plate to finish the dish. And there is a lot of things like this in the dumplings.

Christian Amanpour (35:39)

That's amazing. And I read about catfish with cherries on top.

Eugene Korolev (35:43)

Yeah, that's not traditional Ukrainian. Yeah. My recipe, my vision of modern recipes of Ukrainian cuisine. Catfish, one of the most common fishes in Ukraine. And cherry. Sour cherry is, like, one of the most amazing and beautiful berries. And as well, very common.

Christian Amanpour (36:07)

Eugene Paulina, thank you so much indeed.

Eugene Korolev (36:09)

Thank you.

Paulina Sichova (36:09)

Thank you.

Christian Amanpour (36:12)

Coming up, the most consequential revolution in history. Legendary documentary filmmaker Ken Burns turns his focus to the American Revolution, and he joins Walter Isaacson after this break. When it comes to American history, it is the Holy grail, the American Revolution, of course, but there is still much to be learned. That is certainly what our next guest thinks, and he should know. Ken Burns has been Chronicling American history and culture for decades. He first rose to prominence 35 years ago with his PBS series on the Civil War. And now he's turning his lens to that much vaunted American origin story, the American Revolution, with a new 12 hour documentary for PBS.

Ken Burns (37:07)

From a small spark kindled in America, a flame has arisen, not to be extinguished.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (37:22)

We think about independence movements of the 20th century. We don't always recognize the fact that the United States actually started that the.

Ken Burns (37:30)

American Revolutionary movement served as a model.

Christian Amanpour (37:32)

For freedom from oppression.

Ken Burns (37:35)

America is predicated on an idea that.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (37:38)

Tells us who we are, where we.

Ken Burns (37:39)

Came from, and what our forebears were willing to die for.

Walter Isaacson (37:44)

Collins said, no taxation without representation.

Ken Burns (37:47)

The fear was, if we give in.

Christian Amanpour (37:49)

To this precedent, what will they do in the future? Crisis changes people. It gave different people different ideas about what they should be doing.

Claire Duffy (38:00)

It gave them a space to make this democracy real.

Christian Amanpour (38:08)

And he joins Walter Isaacson to talk about it.

Walter Isaacson (38:12)

Thank you, Chris, John and Ken Burns, welcome back to the show.

Ken Burns (38:16)

Great to be with you, Walter.

Walter Isaacson (38:17)

You have this multi part series, the American Revolution that's coming out and you say that the American Revolution is the most important event since the birth of Christ. Whoa. Tell me why you think it was that important.

Ken Burns (38:32)

I wasn't trying to be provocative. I was just beginning to realize that there's a moment, a little bit after the phrase pursuit of happiness, the great second sentence of the Declaration, where Jefferson says, all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable. It's not hard to parse. It just means that heretofore everybody's been a subject to an authoritarian rule. And now we're creating this new thing called citizens. The Old Testament says there's nothing new under the sun. That's Ecclesiastes. So there's actually for a moment, something new under the sun. And I want to rivet people's attention.

Walter Isaacson (39:08)

We all think of the grand statesman who go into Independence Hall. But your whole show is about the ordinary people. The one where the bullet goes through thud and it hits their chest, it hits that. The slave or the woman home spinning. How did you decide to tell it through so many people as opposed to the grand leaders of the revolution?

Ken Burns (39:30)

Well, you know, they're not mutually exclusive. And that's the problem with our binary sensibilities today. We're so dialectically preoccupied. You think you have to then throw everybody out. George Washington had slaves, so he's got to go, well, we don't have a country without George Washington. So you're going to just have to get over that. There's this stuff and there's this, this stuff and the scales of justice and his, his creator will deal, have, has dealt with him in this. But we need to tell all the stories and, and tell a complicated and dimensional story. So when I say the prize of North America, what am I talking about? I'm talking about land. Well, who occupies that land? Hundreds of different peoples. Not to, not them, but hundreds of peoples who've been on the world scene in at least those on the eastern seaboard and, and the Ohio Valley. They've been on the, in trade and in diplomacy for centuries. They know Britain, they know Spain, they know France, they know the Dutch. It is their, their, each one of them has a different set and it's, it's their confederacies, their union among the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois Confederacy that inspires Franklin, 20 years before the Revolution to say, hey, we could do this. We could have a union just like them.

Walter Isaacson (40:46)

And wait, explain that a bit more because it's key to the, what you said they have a federated of the six nation, there's a federal system. And Ben Franklin says, okay, the Albany plan will make that our system.

Ken Burns (40:58)

So he draws a picture of a cut up snake with most of the states and underneath it is this dire warning, Join or die. And he convenes seven of the 13 colonies at Albany in 1754. And they adopt his plan of union based on the Haudenosaunee, the Six nations, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida and Mohawk which of the Iroquois Confederacy. And then they go home to try to sell it. Nobody wants to give up their autonomy. Not a single colony wants to give up their autonomy. So the plan dies. But 20 years later, join or die is a war cry in the most consequential revolution in history. So you've got to center, whatever the common word is, a Native American experience. Half the population are women. Out of the 3 million people, 500,000 are enslaved or free black Americans. You've got Spanish to the south, you've got French licking their wounds. You have British hiring German soldiers. You have backcountry people. You have educated, sort of the elites we'd call them today, who are trying to sort of figure out, well, maybe we are going to split and we're going to start a republic. The dynamism is so intense that you, you just can't ignore it. Let me just take one kid, 15 years old, 15 years old signs up a few days after the Declaration in July of 1776. Joseph Plumb Martin from Connect, Connecticut. He's the archetypal grunt you've met in every film about the Civil War, about World War II, about Vietnam, complaining about the food, complaining about the weather, complaining about the orders. And he's there from the beginning, by the way.

Walter Isaacson (42:36)

You've got his letters, we got his letters, those type of things that form this film.

Ken Burns (42:42)

Every private soldier in an army thinks his particular services as essential to carry on the war he's engaged in as the service of the most influential general. And why not? What could officers do without such men? Nothing at all. Great men get great praise, little men, nothing. Joseph Plum Martin comes in. He's bloodied in the Battle of Long island, which is the biggest battle and a total disaster for the patriots. But he's there at Redoubt Number 10 at Yorktown that's being led by Lafayette and by Alexander Hamilton. But he's leading the charge into this Redoubt with the abati, the spiked French, you know, the logs of the British positions. And he says, you know, the man at my left was hit with a bullet and falls crying bitterly, but there was no stopping us. And there's a great famous painting of the attack over redoubt number 10. But it is so powerful that there's Joseph Plum Martin, who's right behind him. Free black soldiers from Rhode island who've been promised their freedom once the war is over. And even Connecticut and Rhode island are talking about compensating their owners for the property that they've lost as a result of this, this one charge. You've got a Frenchman, our pal, you've got Alexander Hamilton, who's going to play, who has played a huge role and will continue to play a huge role in the history of the United States. And this is what we tried to capture and bottle. We followed reenactors for six years filming them not to give us reenact this battle, but to collect a critical mass of imagery to offset the fact that clearly, obviously, there's no photographs and no newsreels, but that doesn't mean those people are different than us. Photographs sort of prove a similarity. And we see the paintings and the buckles and the hose and the breeches and the waistcoats and the powdered wigs and think, they can't be like us. They're exactly like us.

Walter Isaacson (44:40)

Well, as you say, it's a tapestry filled with all sorts of people, large and small. But the hero line throughout is George Washington, the person You've mentioned who's done it all, but you do have to wrestle with the fact that he not only is an enslaver, but a pretty cruel one at that. He also loses a lot of battles and lots of blunders, and he was ruthless to the Native Americans. I think you quote Jane Kaminsky in episode two. Do not look for the gilded statues of marble men.

Christian Amanpour (45:13)

That's right.

Walter Isaacson (45:14)

That's the theme of what you've done, is make these people flesh, not marble. But explain how hard that was with Washington.

Ken Burns (45:21)

Well, first of all, Washington is so endlessly interesting, but there's an opacity to him. But as you say, if you can take him all in all, then he's dimensional in his failures. He's also incredibly modest. And so the letters that he writes. And so I got the actor Josh Brolin to play him. And I said, josh, this man is unknowable. Can you help me understand a little bit about him? Let that leak in a little bit.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (45:51)

The unparalleled perseverance of the armies of.

Walter Isaacson (45:54)

The United States through almost every possible.

Lieutenant General Russell L. Honore (45:58)

Suffering and discouragement for the space of eight long years was little short of a standing miracle.

Ken Burns (46:07)

George Washington, let's just put it this way. Without Washington's leadership, we don't have a country. And that's the key to this, is that what we do, particularly in a media culture or a computer culture, where everything's a one or a zero, a yes or a no, a red state or a blue state is. We think it's just divided that way, but everybody has complication and undertow. But, you know, you've got to be able to understand people in their totality and to celebrate that contradiction. And this reminds us of our own lives, the own paradoxes within ourselves and the paradoxes we feel to the people that are closest to us that we love the most, who remain, in some ways inscrutable to us. So good history is, of course, thinking it might not turn out the way you know, it did.

Walter Isaacson (46:57)

So many of your documentaries deal with race, whether it's jazz, whether it's baseball, whether it's civil rights. This one deals with race, too. Explain how you felt race was so. So critical here.

Ken Burns (47:11)

Well, look, it's. It's there in all my other films, because the guy who wrote our catechism, the second sentence of the Declaration, we hold these truths to be self evident. You and I know the story of the word self evident. More complicated than that, that all men are created equal. Let's stop there. Owned hundreds of human beings and didn't see the contradiction, didn't see the hypocrisy, and didn't see fit in his lifetime to free any of those slaves. And set in motion an American narrative not responsible for entirely to Jefferson, but symbolically attached to Jefferson because he gave words to our aspirations, our noblest aspirations. So this is going to play out all through the decades, but no more. So in this moment, when the people, particularly Southern planters and enslavers of a great number of people are describing what they think George III is doing to them as enslaving them. And the liberty talk, as Jane Kaminsky says in our film, is leaky, the people that are serving them are hearing it, and they want it, too. Native Americans want it. Women want it too.

Walter Isaacson (48:15)

You give voice to a lot of enslaved and former slaves. And one of the things that struck me is how they had to choose sides in this revolution. And I think, what, 15,000 or so end up on the British, slave, British side, and less than that, 5,000 end up on the Patriot side. Tell me about having to make that choice.

Ken Burns (48:38)

So the entire British Empire's profit depends on the 13 colonies in the Caribbean that are hugely profitable because it's the work of enslaved people. And our 13 are the least profitable. And only Virginia and the Carolinas, for the obvious reason, have some profitability for the British Empire. But cynically, Lord Dunmore, who owns other human beings himself, says, well, if you're the. An enslaved person of a rebel, please come and get your freedom from me. If you're the enslaved person of a loyalist, by the way, stay where you are. You're enslaved for the rest of your life, right? So you're seeing black families making decisions about what to do, running for daylight. And as it turns out, many of them make a decision to fight with the British or at least align themselves with the British. 5,000 make a decision to fight. We think 20,000 are engaged, age 15, fight for the British. Native Americans are making the same kind of choice, but also all other Americans are too. This is a bloody civil war. There are people who are loyal and saying, all of my good fortune, all of my literacy, my health, the fact that I own land when my family for a thousand years was working dependent land in Wales and Scotland and Ireland and England, never had this chance. I have it here. Why am I going to risk it for this crazy, untested idea when the British constitutional monarchy looks to be the finest form of government on earth, at least in the Western sense of that, and they're not wrong and so we don't make Loyalists bad people. We make them understandable. We have Roger Lamb, an Irish soldier, watching in a lull in the fighting at the Battle of Saratoga. One British soldier. They're trading insults or jokes or whatever. They're happy to have a lull, as all soldiers are. And one just gets up and runs down, jumps in the water and swims midstream. Meanwhile, an American gets down and jumps. And they're two brothers. They embrace midstream. They didn't know. They hadn't talked to each other, seen each other for years, and they were on the other side trying to kill each other in the Battle of Saratoga.

Walter Isaacson (50:48)

Let me read you some of the charges from the end of the Declaration of Independence against the king. And they kind of resonate today in what we, one of us for obstructing laws for naturalization, refusing to encourage immigration, here made judges, dependent on his will, kept among us standing armies in times of peace, quartering bodies of armed troops among us, cutting off our trade with all parts of the world. And he's excited domestic insurrections against us. Every one of those you might notice this could be echoed today.

Ken Burns (51:27)

Yeah. You know, our. Our friend Mark Twain is supposed to have said that history doesn't repeat itself, which of course it doesn't. No event has happened twice. But Twain said it rhymes. And anybody who spent any time talking about the past suddenly realizes in every instance, my first film that was on PBS, you know, back in the early 80s on the Brooklyn Bridge, you know, rhymed with things that were going on. This rhymes in spectacular ways is to tell what happened and to know that it will rhyme, but also to be aware of the fact that you date your film. If you say, isn't this so much like this moment? Because what you want with good history is to have it be durable. So anything that puts my thumb on the scale and says, oh, isn't this like today? Is a distraction. It is always going to be like today and tomorrow as it was yesterday. And we benefit from what's happened over the last 50 years in this increase of knowledge since the bicentennial to the semi quincentennial. That gives us a chance to have a complicated American conversation with, I hope, little shouting.

Walter Isaacson (52:37)

Ken Burns, as always, thank you for joining us.

Ken Burns (52:41)

Thank you, Walter.

Christian Amanpour (52:43)

That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online on our website and all over stock social media. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.

Audie Cornish (53:05)

This week on the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish. It's common to hear people, especially women, talking about having imposter syndrome, but I did not expect to hear that from a woman who was once ahead of state.

Claire Duffy (53:18)

You worry about being exposed.

Eugene Korolev (53:20)

You worry about failure.

Audie Cornish (53:22)

This is the Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand. The last few years, she's been teaching a new generation about leadership at Harvard and at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government, where I met her for this conversation. In an era of strongman politics, what would a different kind of power even look like? Listen to the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast, Apple.