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- [00:04]
A
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up.
- [00:08]
B
You know what? The Republicans have to get tougher. If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want.
- [00:14]
A
Trump ramps up pressure on his party over the shutdown stalemate while millions prepare to vote in local races across America. We'll have the details then. Farmers under attack. A special report from the west bank on the settler violence targeting the region's olive harvest. Also ahead. If they don't kill you, the thirst will kill you, the hunger will kill you. It's humiliation devastation in Sudan as survivors and satellite images tell stories of an unfolding massacre.
- [00:46]
C
Plus, it would be a huge mistake to say, well, the world's gotten polarized, so we have to pick a side. No, the world's gotten polarized. We need to describe that fairly.
- [00:55]
A
The seven rules of Trust. Wikipedia co founder Jimmy Wales discusses his new book and how his site's success can inform our increasingly partisan world. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm beyond Rodriguez, New York, sitting in for Christian Amanpour. It's the start of a week that could have major consequences for President Donald Trump's second term. The government shutdown is inching closer to becoming the longest in history, with the effects being felt by millions facing frozen paychecks and reduced food aid. Yet the president is resisting pressure to ease the burden on vulnerable Americans while indicating that he sees few ways out of the stalemate. Take a listen. Sounds like it's not going to get solved, the shutdown.
- [01:52]
B
It's going to get solved, yeah. Oh, it's going to get solved. How we'll get it. So eventually they're going to have to vote.
- [01:57]
A
You're saying the Democrats will capitulate?
- [01:59]
B
I think they have to. And if they don't vote, that's their problem. Now, I happen to agree with something else I think we should do the nuclear option. This is a totally different nuclear, by the way. It's called ending the filibuster.
- [02:13]
A
An idea firmly rejected by Republican leaders, we should note, wary of ending a rule that gives the Senate minority a vital check on majority power and fearful of what it could mean under a future Democratic majority. Meanwhile, voters are preparing to cast ballots in a series of key elections taking place tomorrow. The first real test of the nation's political mood and a moment that could finally shake up the sudden impasse, the shutdown impasse. Well, to get all of this, let's bring in Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governor's editor for the Cook Political Report. Jessica, it is Good to see you. It's interesting because tomorrow may be an off year, but it feels significant and it feels like it's getting a of attention. We've got two major states, gubernatorial races to watch, a mayoral race here in New York, redistricting on the ballot in California. Just talk about how significant you think tomorrow's election will be.
- [03:10]
D
Well, I mean, these states are voting at a unique time when we're, as you mentioned, we're approaching the longest government shutdown and across the board we are expecting that Democrats will have a good night. You know, in our ratings here, we rate the race in Virginia and both open seats in New Jersey and Virginia favor Democrats. The Virginia one, slightly better chances for Democrats there and a little bit more competitive in New Jersey. But you know, neither of these are also states that President Trump carried any of the three times he's been on the ballot. But you know, Virginia especially a state that's uniquely affected by the shutdown. And so that sort of closing message, especially with home to a disproportionate number of federal workers that had already been targeted and attacked by doge cuts and different things. And of course, it comes as we're also seeing polling that, you know, an NBC News poll yesterday by 10 points showed that voters are blaming Republicans for the shutdown, which again runs counter to that message that we just saw that President Trump tried to say in his CBS interview. He it's Republicans that control all levers of government. And we often see that these off year elections occurring right after a presidential election are a backlash to the party in power. And that's what I think will show once the polls close tomorrow night.
- [04:35]
A
Food assistance for millions of vulnerable Americans was set to expire over the weekend and two judges now ruled that the administration had to pass pay these benefits. The Trump administration today saying that they will fund snap partially. What does that suggest to you? They didn't capitulate and fund it fully, but they're saying they're willing to fund it partially.
- [05:00]
D
I think that they did. At least some people in the White House realize that this could be, it could be a really big backlash to them, that this could certainly help Democrats and you know, trying to, trying to argue for an end to the shutdown. But I think for Democrats, the biggest thing that they have in there working in their favor right now is that they've honed in on this Obamacare subsidy message so much and that sort of sticker shock of rising price for, for premiums and different things that also happened on November 1st. So with Snap taking up less of the conversation. Perhaps now for Democrats, they can focus more on that health care messages that they really feel like is sort of their silver bullet when it comes to advantages for the shutdown. And again, but, but they have to have, it has to be a bipartisan measure in the Senate because as you played in that clip earlier as well, Republican leaders do not want to use the nuclear option. They do not want to get rid of the filibuster because John Thune, the Senate GOP leader, knows very well that at some point Republicans will be back in my, in the minority and that they will want that protection, minority protection that the filibuster allows them.
- [06:10]
A
How long do you think or how far do you think Republicans are willing to stand up like John Thune to President Trump who continues to push this nuclear option and doing away with the filibuster? He made clear that he understood some of the concerns from Republicans here, but nonetheless, he said in 60 minutes that it was worth pursuing. Right now we haven't seen Republicans really stand up to the president yet. Do you think this will be the issue that they won't be willing to bullied on?
- [06:39]
D
I do think that Thune has, you know, he's someone that knows the Senate. He and he and other Senate leadership understand that this really could change the trajectory of years to come. So I think that you're going to see Thune making that case continue to the White House. But I think that President Trump, he likes a sound bite. He likes saying that, look, I'm fighting and that we are going to do this if Democrats stand in our way, that we will do this unilaterally. But you know, the Senate is different from the House in this regard and that there is the minority protections in that. And so I think removing that limit in a way that 60 vote threshold would just make the Senate more like the House. And we've seen how polarized the House has gotten and that's a place where they really have not really stood up to Trump in any instance. So I think that Thune is, is going to use his guidance and experience there for as long as he can.
- [07:36]
A
Returning to the races tomorrow, we have Virginia Abigail Spamberger running as a moderate in a purple state. She is likely expected to win New Jersey with Mikey Sherrill, also a moderate Democrat, is more of a toss up. But we had President Obama campaigning for both of them recently over the past few days. Then you have candidates like the social Democrat, far left progress, Zoran Mamdame here in New York City expected to win as well. If we see all three win, if we see Spamberger in Virginia, Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey and Mondami here in New York City, what does that say about the direction that the Democratic Party is headed in and should be headed in?
- [08:25]
D
Well, I think that you're going to have Republicans that are going to point to Mamdame in New York City and say look here he is the future of the Democratic Party. If you want a Democratic socialist and if you want these far left policies that are outside of the mainstream, here's who they are picking. But at the same time, I expect again we rate the New Jersey race with Mikey Sheryl there as lean Democrat. We rate the Virginia race as likely Democrat. That Democrats are national Democrats are going to want to put, want to point toward people like both Sherrill and Spanberger. Remember they were elected in the 2018 midterms, the first backlash to President Trump that saw in his first term at the ballot box. These are both, they're women. They have, they were part of this cohort of national security Democrats that were elected. Spanberger is a former CIA operative, Cheryl is a former Navy fighter pilot. And so they're going to point toward them that, that have these more centrist qualities. And I'm not sure that the future of the Democratic Party is going to be decided tomorrow night. I think that they're in for a year long fight almost of which types of candidates that they have for the 2026 midterms. The difference to me having covered 2018 and now is that Democrats are not unified in a message and they're not unified in the types of candidates that they are pushing. Someone like Mamdani fits New York City well, but he would not be electable in a suburban swing congressional district. But the question becomes, do Democrats fall in line behind some of the candidates that their leaders want for these key Senate races, for instance, like Governor Janet Mills in Maine, or do they get behind a more progressive candidate like Graham Plattner, who's had a lot of oppo dropped against him recently but is still getting sort of the grassroots Bernie Sanders types excited. Which candidate becomes the story of 2026? I think we just don't know yet. But, but I think that winners, likely winners of all three of these races on Tuesday night give both the opposition and the different factions of the Democratic Party someone to point toward.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah, among the oppo campaigning that you're referencing when it relates to Platner was also a Nazi tattoo that he said he didn't realize what the meaning was behind though he's had for many, many years. Let me ask you about Mondani specifically, because the Washington Post has an evidence editorial today titled Zoran Mandani's Success is a warning. And its editors are calling Mandani's success a warning to business friendly Democrats that they'll have to do better. Do you agree with that assessment in takeaway? Is this a warning to moderate Democrats or is it more to what you said, sort of an anomaly where there had been weaker or, you know, the field in New York City had opened the pathway to someone as energizing as Mandani and maybe an outlier the party?
- [11:36]
D
Well, I think when the biggest alternative to Mamdani in the Democratic primary was a former governor who had to resign based on sexual harassment charges, I don't think this was a perfect example of a Democratic primary that there was. Again, it was such a crowded primary and Cuomo took up so much oxygen, I think it only allowed for one candidate to get through. I think if national Democrats had realized, as they should have in retrospect, that Cuomo was so damaged in this regard that it could have allowed someone like Mamdani to surge there at the end. I mean, polling was very clearly off in that race too, though it did measure, you know, that he was surging and did not measure the gap that he would end up thereby. So again, but I think we also have to remember this is happening in one of the bluest cities of America. And, you know, I think that where the battle for the House next year is going to be won or in much more competitive areas. And I don't think a candidate like Mom Donald, if they are nominated in the swing area, then that would be certainly really bad for Democratic chances in those areas. So I think it just, you know, does he reflect more of New York City values? I think so than he does, you know, more of a, you know, a swing area or a suburban or rural.
- [12:57]
A
District and a very divisive candidate even within New York City as well. I think we're expecting to see record turnout. Let me move west now. In California's Prop 50 redistricting vote, which could really reshape the national map. Governor Gavin Newsom following through on his threat to do what was done in Texas, where they rewrote five districts there, he's saying, listen, we're going to do the same. In California, there had been some pushback from Democrats and Republicans, most notably former Governor Schwarzenegger saying this is not the path that anyone should be headed down Nonetheless, I think also it is expected to win tomorrow this proposition. Where do you see this specific issue going and which party has the upper hand?
- [13:45]
D
Democrats definitely have the upper hand here and we do expect Prop 50 to pass. And it was sort of a tacit acknowledgement of that over the past few weeks when sort of the anti Prop 50 folks were, were beginning to withdraw their money from advertising and things. I think that Gavin Newsom, who of course has not been shy about his 2028 hopes, has really solidified himself as sort of the most anti Trump candidate. If voters are looking for someone that fights, then Gavin Newsom will be able to sort of prop up his bona fides in this regard because this is, you know, Texas was the, was the first shot in this really unprecedented mid cycle redistricting, which again just tells me how worried Republicans are about holding their incredibly narrow majority in the House when we typically see, you know, at least a dozen or so seats that would typically switch in a midterm cycle against the party in the White House. So, you know, Democrats have an opportunity here. They had an independent redistricting commission. But you know, Newsom and Democrats are arguing if the playing field isn't even then we have to fight back with what tools we have. So we anticipate here at the Cook Political Report that, you know, it could be three to five seats that Democrats are able to pick up. Not only that, but they shore up some more vulnerable Democrats so that they are able to sort of target more Republican and swing seats in that regard. Now we're also looking at Virginia doing, looking to try to do the same thing. I mean, you've had an Ohio map that just came out where, where it was not as aggressive as we thought that it might be. But then, you know, you have another place like Florida that could try to redistrict in favor of Republicans. So it's just sort of this ongoing cycle of dominoes really in these now redistricting wars that are happening, not when we typically see redistricting happening.
- [15:44]
A
That's true. Usually it's in the census every 10 years. Right. But now it seems to be happening whenever a governor is calling for it and the president as well. Jessica Taylor, thank you so much.
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D
Thank you.
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A
Stay with cnn. We'll be right back after the break. I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of service in the U.S. more than half of adults read below a sixth grade level. That's right. Reading levels among 12th graders have also recently dropped to 20 year lows. Why do you think this is happening? Well, partially. It's Covid Susan Newman. She's a professor and department chair at NYU and a specialist in early literacy development. We see greater absentee rates in our schools like never before, which is extraordinary in terms of just learning about literacy. Listen to CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts. Next, we turn to the Middle East. Turkey today hosted a minister level meeting to discuss fragile Israel. Hamas ceasefire in Gaza as Israel confirms the identities of the three bodies it received from Hamas on Sunday. All three were members of the military whose bodies were taken to Gaza after they were killed on October 7th. One of them was Omer Nutra, one of the two American Israelis still held by Hamas. There are now eight deceased hostages still remaining in Gaza. Meantime, in the west bank, this year's olive harvest is on track to be the most violent in more than a decade. That is according to the United nations, as Israeli settlers carry out attacks on Palestinian farmers and the olive groves they rely on for their livelihoods. Groves that are deeply rooted in Palestinian heritage. As Jeremy diamond reports.
- [17:39]
E
Um Shukri hasn't walked through these olive groves in two years. Now, weaving her way from tree to tree, she assesses the damage. Broken branches, trees dried out, and no olives to be harvested. I am suffocated, she says. Suffocated from seeing my hard work turn out like this. I used to spend so much time here under the scorching heat, tending to the trees. Her son explains that the Israeli settlers living on this illegal outpost are to blame. He says they have assaulted him and threatened his community, making it dangerous to access these groves for two years, all while using their cattle to wreak havoc. He's explaining that the cows came here to graze on these olive trees, basically, and this is one of the ways in which settlers have come to try and disrupt the livelihood of Palestinians in this area and to ultimately try and force them out from their lands. The evidence is all over these fields, but it is just one part of a disturbing picture playing out across the occupied West Bank. For generations of Palestinians, the annual olive harvest has been associated with tradition and a deep connection to the land. But this year more than ever, it's been synonymous with settler violence. Palestinian olive pickers have been attacked at least 259 times since the harvest season began last month.
- [19:06]
D
Okay.
- [19:06]
E
According to the Palestinian Authority, outpacing the violence of recent years, Israeli settlers have carried out the overwhelming majority of attacks, assaulting the Palestinians, attempting to harvest their olives. More than 4,000 trees and saplings have been damaged so far. According to the un, the Israeli military has often played a supporting role to the settlers, forcing Palestinians off their land and restricting access to the olive groves. So this is where you were attacked? After getting a call that his mother in law had been detained while picking olives, Ahmed Shakarna grabbed her heart medication and rushed to reach her. He didn't expect what unfolded next. An Israeli settler grabs and then hits him before two Israeli soldiers push him down to the ground. One soldier hits him with the barrel of his rifle before the settler comes in to land. Several more blows. Shakarna and his mother in law were released without charge. He says he suffered a mild concussion. We experience these attacks every season, a season that has become bloody. We will not abandon it. He says the olive trees existed before the occupation. It is valuable and dear to us. The Israeli military now says that they're actually going to investigate this incident. What do you think would have happened had this not been caught on video? Nothing at all. Even if I was killed, they wouldn't care. The incident would have come and gone. For now, Shakarna doesn't dare approach his family's groves. So this is as far as you're comfortable going because of what the military or the settlers might do to you? Yes, of course. Shakarna says. I don't want to put myself in danger. At Umm Shukri's farm, a group of Israeli and Jewish activists have come to offer the Palestinian farmers their support, using their very presence to deter attacks from settlers and the military. It has given um Shukri the chance to sit beneath her olive trees. 10 years. 10 years of me spending time on this land, refusing to leave, watering and tending to the olives with our bare hands. She says she won't be driven away by this violence. She will see this grove flourish once again.
- [21:33]
A
Jeremy Dimond reporting there. The Israeli military told us that it recognizes the importance of the olive harvest in maintaining the fabric of life in the region, but acknowledged it has restricted entry to certain areas in order to prevent friction. It also added that the IDF firmly condemns all forms of violence which divert the attention of commanders and soldiers from their primary mission of defense and counterterrorism. All right, we turn now to Sudan and the unfolding horror in Al Fashr. Multiple countries are calling for an immediate cease fire as reports of atrocities continue to emerge. In the weeks since the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF paramilitary stormed the city, there have been testimonies of executions, including at a hospital, as well as beatings and sexual assaults. The UN estimates more than 70,000 people have been displaced from the city since the RSF took control. The United Arab Emirates is accused of backing the group and supplying them with weaponry. Something that the UAE denies. The evidence of potential war crimes includes videos uploaded by RSF members themselves, but also satellite imagery that appear to show the aftermath of massacre. It's been something that Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab has been monitoring closely and its executive director, Nathaniel Raymond joins the program from Connecticut, along with Sudan expert Hamid Halafala from Nairobi, Kenya. Thank you both for joining us. Nathaniel, let's start with you and what you and your colleagues at Yale have been monitoring in Al Fashar using satellite imagery and open source data. Obviously, we have had difficulty as reporters getting access to the brutality that has been unfolding there. But just talk to us about what you have been seeing with the satellite imagery.
- [23:28]
F
Well, now we're just over a week out and the picture that the imagery is providing for us is unfortunately very clear and very grim. By the time we reached Monday of last week, we could see rapid Support forces vehicles engaged in house to house killing. They were blocking alleys with pickup trucks with large machine guns on the back. And we could see objects throughout the last neighborhood that was holding civilians called Derazula. We could see objects that were between 1.3 to 2 meters in length, which is the average size of a human body, seen in imagery lying horizontally on the ground around some of those objects. We started to see red discoloration and we believe that is consistent with blood.
- [24:19]
A
When you saw those images, the blood, the bodies, the red discoloration across the city, what went through your mind?
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F
I was horrified. I wanted to throw up. Unfortunately. I wasn't surprised. We've been warning the international community since July 2023 that this was going to happen. It was arguably the most accurately predicted mass killing in history. We briefed the UN Security Council six times. None of this was shocking. We had it down to the day, almost the hour. The only thing that's shocking is the lack of international response.
- [25:02]
A
You briefed the UN six times and there was no response. Hamid, how, in your opinion, did the world did the UN allow this massacre to happen?
- [25:18]
G
It's not only the. Unfortunately, indeed, the UN is definitely complicit and partially responsible for what's happening in Al Fazir, but it's also so many other governments. You know, I. You know, I really appreciate the work that Nathaniel and colleagues at Yale HRL have been doing over the past month and years and so on, but we've also briefed US government, UK Government, European governments about what's happening in fashion and about what's going to happen in Al Fashir because, you know, the fall of Al Fashir was neither, you know, a surprise or unforeseeable. It was anticipated, it was documented, repeatedly warned about. And the level of atrocities that are unfolding at the moment were also very much predicted because we've seen the same pattern take place in Elgineina two years ago. Obviously, the rapid support forces committed so many atrocities wherever they went. But the same pattern was seen in Elgina because of the specific ethnic complexities of the Darfur region. That is very different to what's happening elsewhere in Sudan. And all these governments were, you know, addressed, briefed particularly about civilian protection and atrocity prevention. Yet everyone chose to watch as this happens and unfolds. And now, you know, we get nothing but empty statements of condemnation.
- [26:43]
A
Can you give us more in terms of what has stood out to you as we are getting some of these survivor accounts of the massacre and the atrocities? Hamid from what you're hearing.
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G
I mean, it's every story that I heard was devastating on so many levels. The stories that we are not getting of those who are still trapped inside. One of the recent reports, also by Yale Hrl, suggests that you can't see anyone anymore. People are either hiding or dead in Al Fashir. And those who have managed to flee were chased, you know, throughout the way as they were leaving, they had to obviously flee on foot. Some of them had to walk for 60-70km to reach the town of Tawila. And as they arrived there, they would tell you the most harrowing stories about how, for instance, men and women were separated and children were separated, and then the men were killed, and then the women had to go and walk for 70 km with young children. And while they walk throughout that very long walk, they would see bodies all over the way of people who were either shot or died of hunger or died of different diseases. It's just an unimaginable situation that we have seen coming, but no one did anything about it.
- [28:10]
A
And systematic killings is a term we keep hearing over and over again. Nathaniel I. I was listening to an Economist report this morning, and it was detailing how a hospital there, they believe every single patient in that hospital was murdered. Your latest analysis shows the before and after of a maternity hospital and a former children's hospital and how it turned into a detention site. You also had sources there on the ground who have you've lost contact with. I hate to Ask you, it seems, seems pretty obvious, sadly. But. But what do you think has happened to them? Why have you lost contact with them?
- [28:52]
F
Well, there's been a communications blockade, but we also assume they're dead. On Monday morning, we received word that 1200 had died in Al Fasher by evening, sources said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn't reach them. And then meanwhile, we're seeing a velocity of killing that can only be compared to the Rwanda genocide. We are looking at a mass casualty event that could exceed in a week the amount of people who have died in two years in Gaza. That's the speed of killing we're at, based on what we're seeing with piles of bodies on the ground.
- [29:30]
A
You said you haven't seen violence like this since Rwanda. The velocity and the ferocity of the RSF and their murders, you said, is something you haven't seen in some 26 years of your work. You've also accused the United States and the UK of prioritizing its ties with the UAE over enforcing some serious sanctions and putting more and more pressure on the UAE to stop supplying and supporting the rsf. That is something the UAE continues to deny. But talk more about the pressure you think the United States and the UK should be putting on uae.
- [30:08]
F
Well, we have incredible reporting from last week by Robbie Gramer and the team at Wall Street Journal that have US Intelligence assessments from Defense Intelligence Agency and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at State which confirmed that the UAE armed the RSF and actually confirmed assessments by our team at Yale that the UAE had transferred fixed wing drones to the rapid support forces for the fight on Al Fasher. So the point is here is that the RSF is able to do what they did here in Al Fasher because of UAE support. Press releases aren't going to save those who are still alive. The only thing is a put up or shut up moment from Mohammed bin Zayed and Abu Dhabi to tell them, you stop supporting the RSF or you're finally going to face consequences.
- [30:57]
A
You're going to feel, well, we should note that the International Criminal Court, the prosecutors there, said today that they are collecting evidence of alleged mass killings and rapes from reports from the RSF after they seized Al Fasher. Are you in any way working with the icc? Have they reached out to you in terms of the evidence you've been able to collect?
- [31:19]
F
Nathaniel, I'm going to say no comment for reasons that will be obvious to viewers.
- [31:26]
A
Okay, Hamid, in your words, I would imagine. On the one hand, it's encouraging to hear that Prosecutors are collecting evidence here. Ultimately though, do you think that people who should be held account to account will be at the end of the.
- [31:42]
D
Day.
- [31:45]
G
Honestly, at the moment I'm not, not quite optimistic in any way. And that's for a number of reasons. A, for instance, the processes that the ICC and other, you know, international systems of justice take are very slow and the Sudanese people cannot wait for that. For instance, just a few weeks back, we had finally one of the convicted of the Darfur war and genocide back in 2003, was just now tried in the Hague and found guilty. Almost 22 years after that genocide happened, while another genocide is unfolding in Al Fashir and in Darfur in large. So that kind of timeline does not work. We cannot afford it. But also because of the way peace is being made today, because of the way the international community is engaging and diplomatic efforts have been made, continue to kind of prioritize the warring factions, the belligerence over civilian actors, and continue to appease them in a way that only rewards their violence and only that encourages more violence. Because, you know, the more violence you commit, the more power you get, apparently, as far as peace processes nowadays are concerned. So unless there is a fundamental shift in how we make peace, in how, you know, these belligerence are not rewarded and are held to account, and that peace does not mean sacrificing justice and it does not lead to more impunity, I don't think we are going to see an end to this.
- [33:19]
A
What role, Mohammed, do you think the United States should play here in fostering and pushing for peace in a ceasefire? This is a president who has said that he has overseen now 7 or 8 ceasefire in, in peace deals. What will it take to get this on his radar too?
- [33:39]
G
I think what's very important for the US to do quite immediately is to hold its very close allies and friends to account. The United Arab Emirates, there's, you know, as Nathaniel was speaking, there's more than enough documentation of their support to the rapid support forces and how they have been enabling the atrocities that are happening on the ground. So holding them to account and ensuring that there are no more arms going into Sudan and violating the arms embargo of the UN and of so many other countries that is now only ink on paper, ensuring that actors like the United Arab Emirates, but also others who are supporting other belligerents like Egypt and so on, are held to account. This is something that is, you know, very easy for the US to do. Just pick up the phones and call the heads of these States and ensure that they don't continue this anymore.
- [34:34]
A
Nathaniel, you're speaking to us from Yale. Two decades ago, college campuses helped lead the Save Darfur movement. Now we see that college campuses as it relates to this particular massacre and issue are rather quiet. We've seen what happens when they mobilize in the response after October 7 and the pro Palestinian movement there on college campuses that went on for months. Are you surprised? Why don't you think we're seeing the same amount of turnout and support for those civilians in Darfur and Al Fashr?
- [35:16]
F
Well, I think at the end of the day, the Saeed Darfur movement was unprecedented in terms of the amount of resources that went from all sorts of communities with real pressure from the right, from the evangelical Christian community. It was well funded, well organized. And now I think a generation later, Frederick Douglass point he made about the abolition of slavery. Power concedes nothing without demand. In this case, there was no demand, there was no organization, there was no built in constituency here, as was the case with Gaza, et cetera. And now these people are dying in absolute obscurity.
- [36:03]
A
So what is your message to college students? We've seen how campuses across the world have mobilized, they have attracted media attention, wall to wall coverage. Do you think that they could be equally influential here in terms of this particular crisis?
- [36:22]
F
Well, right now we're talking about a mass casualty event that could rival Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just the bodies we can see on the ground is multiple 9 11s. And so the point is message to anyone, do something we're in a matter of hours or days is the scale of time we're working on here. And so call, call your congressperson, call your senator, do whatever you can now, but we're running out of time.
- [36:51]
A
Hamed, I'll give you the follow the last word.
- [36:55]
G
This is definitely not a civil war inside Sudan that is contained to the borders of Sudan. And this is something that the international actors and audience and so on need to really get right. Particularly for instance in the U.S. you know, this is a very much an international war that is fueled by arms that are provided by actors who are allies of the US including obviously actors who buy arms from the US So it's an international war that the entire world is contributing to in one way or another. So if you think that you're isolated from this in any way, that is not the case.
- [37:32]
A
Nathaniel Raymond Hamid Khalifala. Nathaniel, we were, we will stay in touch with you and really appreciate the important work that you are doing. And we will continue to cover and Highlight the atrocities happening in Al Fasher and Sudan. We appreciate your time.
- [37:49]
F
Thank you.
- [37:50]
A
We'll be right back after this short break. Well, if you've ever been curious about a random tower, chances are you've gone to Wikipedia to learn about it. The site has more than 65 million articles in nearly 300 languages and has been the go to online encyclopedia since its launch in 2001. Well, now it has a new rival, Grokopedia, an AI powered alternative by Elon Musk, who has accused Wikipedia of being too woke. Wikipedia co founder Jimmy Wales speaks to Walter Isaacson about his new book the Seven Rules of Trust and how he believes his Internet knowledge bank will fare in the age of AI.
- [38:37]
B
Thank you, Bianna and Jimmy Wales, thank you for joining the show.
- [38:41]
C
Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
- [38:43]
B
In your book, the Seven Rules of Trust, you talk about creating Wikipedia way back more than two decades ago on a strange whim that everybody could group edit an encyclopedia. And one of the things that struck me is the theory of trust in the book and how that began in some ways with your daughter and her birth.
- [39:08]
C
Yeah, so right at the beginning of Wikipedia, literally just before my daughter Kira was born and she was very sick, she had meconium aspiration syndrome and I didn't know what that was. So I, you know, from the hospital, I sort of tried to, I rushed home and checked the Internet and I found some technical articles and I found some nonsense and I just like I had been trying to create an encyclopedia project and I was nearly ready to give up, but that was when I was like, okay, I have to like, I can't give up. Like this feels like it's really important. And that was when we decided to actually change everything and become a wiki, meaning a website. Anyone can edit and abandon the old sort of top down model to really just say, okay, I've got this group of people and they want to write an encyclopedia. Let's just open it up, like, let's get started, let's start writing and see what happens.
- [40:02]
B
You say abandon the old top down metal. You had kind of started where experts were going to write each piece. It seems like a crazy leap to say, wait a minute, we'll let everybody write.
- [40:14]
C
Well, for a couple of years we had tried a very top down system. There was a seven stage review process to get anything published. I tried to do it to write an article and it was very intimidating and not very fun. They were going to send my draft out to the most prestigious professors they could Find. And I realized, like, this isn't fun, like, nobody's really going to do this. And so we had been talking about, you know, what are some ways. And one of my employees brought me and showed me, like Jeremy Rosenfeld showed me the wiki. I was like, oh, that's interesting. Maybe we should.
- [40:47]
B
And then wiki, just meaning away. People can group at some document.
- [40:52]
C
Yeah, exactly, exactly. The wiki had been around for five years as a sort of underground software concept. I was like, okay, let's try that. Let's try to use a wiki. And yeah, it worked. I mean, we had more work done in two weeks than we had in almost two years because we finally just let our community get started writing and editing each other's work and improving it and so forth. So it was really a breakthrough for the project.
- [41:19]
B
And you say it was based on trust, but in these polarized times where everything, whether it be wearing a mask, you know, during COVID or whatever, becomes politicized, is it harder to do a wikified encyclopedia?
- [41:34]
C
I mean, not really. I mean, I do think that obviously the polarization in the world makes a lot of things harder, and that's unfortunate, the decline in trust amongst different groups of people. You know, the, the idea that, hey, you know, you and I might disagree about this, but I trust that you're like a sensible person. And we've got different background and therefore we've come to different conclusions, but we could probably find a compromise, that sort of thing. That's the spirit of Wikipedia, and that's the spirit that we've kind of lost in the world today. So it does make it harder to some extent. But, you know, there's a lot of great people out there and there's a lot of still, you know, I think what goes on on social media and, and really polarized media of all kinds doesn't really reflect how normal people think and live. And I think most people are still, you know, perfectly happy to say, you know, oh, yeah, I disagree with this person politically, but, you know, they're still my friend. That's okay.
- [42:30]
B
There have been a growing number those have pushed back on wiki in the past year or so, ranging from people in the Republican Party here, or Elon Musk, or even the person who was with you at the beginning, Larry Sanger, saying, hey, you're woke, you're left, you skewed towards the academic. Is that true?
- [42:49]
C
Well, skewed towards the academic might be true. I mean, certainly if you think about something medical related, we definitely prefer the new England Journal of Medicine to a tabloid newspaper.
- [42:59]
B
Yeah, but I'm talking about politics. When you have the Donald Trump entry or the Gaza entry, we have a.
- [43:03]
C
Really strong commitment to neutrality, and that's, like, super important. Do we always hit neutrality in the way that I would like? No, not always, but it's always something that we strive for. And when there are criticisms about neutrality, I think the right answer for us is to say, all right, well, let's. Let's dig into the details, like, what's wrong? Like, how do we fix it? What are the sources that we've overlooked? Because if we don't take that spirit of saying, actually, neutrality is the most important core principle of Wikipedia, always has been, we have to double down on that in these times and say, look, it would be a huge mistake to say, well, the world's gotten polarized, so we have to pick a side. No, the world's gotten polarized. We need to describe that fairly. We need to sort of be thoughtful, kind, understanding, really try hard to present all the sides fairly when there's a legitimate debate.
- [43:55]
B
Well, Elon Musk has been one of the severest critics in some ways. What he calls Wokipedia just launched as, you know, Grokopedia, and it has close to a million entries. Now, a totally different concept. It's not crowdsourced. It's not people writing. It uses AI to gather information from all over the Internet. Tell me what you think when you looked at that.
- [44:20]
C
Well, I haven't had time to see it yet. It sort of just. It launched briefly and then it was taken down. And I'm doing a book tour, so I'm out doing everything. I'd say by tomorrow I'll know more, but I haven't had a chance, really, to look at it. People have sent me a few things. It clearly is going to have a lot of mistakes and errors. I mean, I think one of the things that Elon may be underestimating is how hard it is to do good, quality reference material and to really gather all the sources. And also in our community, we have these really long, intense debates about editorial matters. Like, the exact wording of sentences is often like, they're very carefully crafted by people who disagree to say, like, how can we find a compromise that we can all accept as being factual? And you can't just sort of blithely. And the thing we do know about, you know, about large language models is that they can't really be trusted. They. They make mistakes, they hallucinate. They make stuff up out of thin air. They like to please you and they are, can definitely be highly ideologically biased depending on the how you've trained them. And so, you know, I'm a little skeptical that this could possibly work, but you know, we'll see.
- [45:31]
B
Do you think it's a good idea though to try some large language model that actually takes articles and printed things from the Internet and tries to synthesize it? Might that be incorporated at some point into Wikipedia?
- [45:46]
C
Yeah, I mean I definitely think, you know, this technology is amazing and we are looking, we have a machine learning team looking, looking into this. I've personally, I wrote a script that can take a short Wikipedia entry and look up all the, the sources at the bottom. And then I ask is there anything in the sources that should be in Wikipedia but isn't or is there anything in Wikipedia that's not supported by the sources? Give me some suggestions. You know what, it's pretty good. It isn't perfect and it needs refinement. But I feel like that's probably a path of like supporting the community by scanning over things and suggesting things you can imagine. Maybe two Wikipedia entries have contradictory information. Could a large language model find that and say, oh, this article says Mount Everest is this high and that article says Mount Everest is that high. Hey, let's, let's dig in. And I think that kind of stuff, you know, using technology to help the community improve Wikipedia seems like a perfectly sensible thing to do. But I think it's going to be a long time before you don't need like real human oversight because these AIs aren't that good yet.
- [46:51]
B
I've been using Grokopedia for the past few days and I was somewhat surprised at how it does try to do balance both things, even on controversial things. And I even asked Grokopedia, tell me about Jimmy Wales and tell me about Wikipedia. And what it says is conservative analysts decry Wikipedia's over reliance on media ecosystems for sourcing leading to the underrepresentation of right leaning data. While progressive defenders praise Wikipedia's inclusivity to marginalized narratives as aligning with evidence based consensus. In some ways that reads like a Wikipedia entry giving both sides an argument.
- [47:35]
C
Yeah, no, it does, it does. That's a good summary of the debate for sure.
- [47:39]
B
But it does go on to say that in some ways, even though it has unprecedented scale, it nonetheless has a bias towards the mainstream media Wikipedia does. Is that a fair criticism? Because I think Larry Sanger, who was at there at the founding of Wikipedia with you, makes that Criticism as well.
- [48:08]
C
It's fair. But is it valid as a criticism? I mean, it's of course true that we don't treat fringe sources, random blogs, tweets from crackpots as being the equivalent of fact based, researched information. And I'm unapologetic about that. So, you know, if you say, wow, you know, Wikipedia treats, you know, academic medical journals as being more important than, than random social media influencers, I'm just going to plead guilty unapologetically and say those are not the same thing and they shouldn't be the same thing. Like getting facts right is really important. And you can't treat fringe sources as if they're just the equal of mainstream sources. There's a reason they're mainstream, which is that they are tried, true, tested, etc. That doesn't mean the mainstream is always right, of course. Right. We all know of instances where, you know, the world thought one thing and then over time evidence emerged and the understanding of the world changed. That's also part of the process. But I don't think you can say we're going to do away with all standards and treat every random utterance on the Internet as completely equal. That's crazy.
- [49:21]
B
You talk about neutrality and sometimes these days it's very hard. One of the criticisms I think US Congress even did it is the extent to which you cover Gaza and Israel and South. And I'd like to read you what is the beginning of what's called Gaza genocide in Wikipedia. I just read it last night. It says the Gaza genocide is the ongoing intentional and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, carried out by Israel. And it doesn't say, this is Israel, whatever. Is there some sense that these type of things can happen in Wikipedia where it does have a particular bias?
- [50:03]
C
I mean, they can. I think that's one of the worst Wikipedia entries I've seen in a very long time. I just looked at it myself and I was shocked to see it. It needs to change. I think it's just terrible. It doesn't live up to our standards of neutrality and I think it's very problematic. And it's definitely something that would not reflect on the way Wikipedia should work and we need to fix it. That's all I can say to that. I mean, I wish I could be a PR defender and say, no, no, of course Wikipedia is always perfect, but that wouldn't build people's trust. I think people will have more trust in Wikipedia if I acknowledge, like, you know what? We don't always get it. Right. And actually what we need are kind and thoughtful people to come in and join the community and help us fix anything. That's not really fair.
- [50:53]
B
Because of the entry on Gaza and other things. The Congress has said that they want a subpoena to say who wrote those things. Your people are quasi anonymous. They write under pseudonyms most of the time. Do you think it's okay to give up the names of the people who write for Wikipedia?
- [51:12]
C
I think it's deeply inappropriate for the US Government under the First Amendment to start attacking people for being biased. Like, there's no. Like, it's completely not in the American tradition to do that sort of thing. It's very McCarthy era esque. And so, yeah, clearly we are going to fight against that sort of thing. That's a ridiculous thing for Congress to do.
- [51:37]
B
I once early on had an experience with Wikipedia and it was on the Einstein entry and I was writing a book at Einstein and it kept saying that Einstein had been given a visa by the King Zog of somewhere. And it was totally wrong. And so I went in and I corrected it. And yet the people who were sort of partisans of that kept putting it back in. And finally I cited the things I gave the sources and did, and it stayed. And I said to myself, boy, that proves you need experts doing it. I was bragging, thinking of myself as an expert instead of the wisdom of crowds. And then it occurred to me, I'm just part of the crowd and I was one of the many people contributing. Is that sort of the magic of how that works?
- [52:23]
C
Yeah, and it's also a good illustration of how like, good quality, reliable sources are crucial. Because if it's just random people's opinions up against each other, how do you decide? But if you've got like a source, a historian, documented fact, great, brilliant. That actually moves the conversation forward in a very good way.
- [52:42]
B
Jimmy Wales, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.
- [52:45]
D
Thank you.
- [52:46]
C
Right, fantastic.
- [52:48]
A
All right, that is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can always catch us online on our website and all over social media. Thanks so much for watching and goodbye from New York.
- [53:12]
D
This week on the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish.
- [53:15]
C
There will always be those creators, no.
- [53:18]
G
Matter what happens on the corporate level.
- [53:20]
A
Bram Stoker award winner Tananarive Due is here to help us figure out what it is about this moment, this decade, that's turned horror into the most daring.
- [53:30]
D
Diverse and revealing genre on screen.
- [53:34]
A
What does the box office renaissance of fear, say, about how we feel about.
- [53:38]
D
The world we're living in right now. Indie horror will shine and corporate horror.
- [53:45]
G
Will follow the money.
- [53:46]
A
Listen to the assignment with me, Audie Cornish. Streaming now on your favorite podcast, apparently.