← Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
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- [00:00]
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Jamie
This is a Global Player Original podcast.
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Christiane Amanpour
Putin is not just making mistakes, he's also provoking. All he has to do, Putin, is to dare NATO to sort of do something in Moldova or in Romania and just dare them to respond.
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Jamie
Europe feels under threat. Russia seems intent on threatening us. And it's pretty frightening stuff.
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Christiane Amanpour
They're beginning to think that actually the president doesn't quite know what he's doing about this and how to actually get a proper negotiation done.
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Jamie
He's running out of soldiers. He's running out of confidence in his country.
- [01:08]
Christiane Amanpour
It's alarming. When do you think Article 5 gets triggered? Hi, everyone, it's me, Christiane Amanpour. With this episode of the X Files in Paris. Given that it's America's 250th birthday, I decided to come here to the statue of Benjamin Franklin, who, who was a founding father and America's first diplomat. His great success here on mission in France was to persuade this country to support the new republic with weapons and all sorts of other help to fight off the British. It became America's war of independence. And given the fact that we are right in the middle now of a dire necessity for decent diplomacy coming from the United States, given all the wars and all the chaos that is abroad, the. That's really shaped up under the Trump administration. We thought we'd talk a little bit about what successful diplomacy can look like. And actually we're gonna open this cause it's super important with the lack of diplomacy and the clear and catastrophic, frankly, negotiating progress. All these wars that Trump said that he would finish in like a day are still raging. And I think we should discuss it because he does so much negotiating in public. He does so much, you know, truth social instead of actually the hard work of getting the professionals to sit down and negotiate, whether it's on Iran or whether it's on Ukraine or whether it's on the Middle East, Lebanon, and all these things that are kind of in weird states of stalemate neither here nor there, and there's no end in sight so, Jamie, it hasn't gone unnoticed that President Trump constantly tries to tell the world that it's all going well, we're going to get a great deal. If we don't get a great deal, we'll bomb somebody else. You remember last week he said he's going to bomb Oman over the Iran thing. He said, you know, we're going to make this deal and then we're going to get all the Arab countries, the Muslim countries to join the Abraham Accords. And then he's saying one thing about Putin and one thing about Zelensky all the time. What's going on? Let's face it, he has gutted the State Department and he has outsourced his negotiations to friends, whether it's Witkoff, whether it's Jared Kushner, his son in law, whether it's Tom Barak, who is his old friend, who's now head of the Middle east negotiations, he's ambassador to Turkey and has that whole Syria, Lebanon, all that file. What is going on?
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Jamie
Well, I think there's two things going on. One, President Trump has decided to use the power of the presidency to take advantage of the role the president can play on foreign policy and has tried to play a role on almost every single issue because I guess he thinks this is the most exciting part of his presidency because passing legislation getting the economy moving again is a much more difficult task. So this is his idea of fun. Remember, I remember as a young man first hearing about Donald Trump thinking that he could be saying he could be a better negotiator on arms control than the Nixon and Carter and Reagan administrations, thinking that he could get a better deal. And that was always his premise. But I think what we've seen both in the last term and this term is that he can talk diplomacy very well and he's very good at talking to leaders that sometimes Democrats don't even want to talk to. And he didn't mind having sessions with the North Korean leader and talking to Putin and talking to Xi Jinping without all the worries about giving these leaders too much credit or credibility, something that Democrats are often worried about, perhaps too much. But then in the end, nothing much, very significant happens. And I think there's two big reasons for that. One is he's trying to do too much, trying to change things too much. Number two, he doesn't have the support of allies. And it's with allies that you get the power of the United States brought to bear. And he's trying to do these things himself. Yes, with some aids and yes, you're right, these are not professionals. It's a lack of expertise, a lack of, of an over focus on his own capabilities and perhaps an overemphasis on the power of the United States to do things without allies by its side.
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Christiane Amanpour
Yeah, and you mentioned arms control. Well, it's a fact that right now under his second term, there are no more arms control deals in effect right now. They've all run out, they've all expired. The ones between the United States and Russia for sure. And neither Trump nor Putin is working to make them actually happen. So I'm just going to read you a little bit from the Atlantic. Really interesting article because it essentially, basically contends that Trump keeps getting rolled in negotiations is by David Graham. And these are a lot of things that I've covered, for instance, over the last nine years. So that includes his first term. He's got just taken to the cleaners by his counterparts in these exchanges. For instance, I remember covering the high stakes exchanges with the North Korean leader Kim Jong on and we did think, oh my God, you know, a little bit of the madman theory. He's going to try something, maybe he will get it over the, over the, over the sort of threshold. And he didn't. Russia now, Russia again, China, China again, you know, first term, second term, he keeps giving them the power. And it's very, very strange because here we are in a situation where whatever, it's hard to tell what he thinks. I mean, a lot of people are just being, getting very, very anxious. Not just the people in this, the current wars, Putin and Zelensky, but you know, Iran, let's say maybe Israel as well, and the Gulf Arab allies and others. They're beginning to think that actually, actually the President doesn't quite know what he's doing about this and how to, how to actually get a proper negotiation done. I mean, you saw what happened over the weekend with Iran. First at the end of last week there was, oh yes, we're very close, we're, I need a couple of days to think on it. Boom. Over the weekend he changed the terms. It's alarming.
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Jamie
And I think the same article you mentioned, I think it was in there, asks a very important question which is the most experienced, the most trusted and the most, I think, sensible of the various advisors around him is Marco Rubio. He's got the power as national security advisor and Secretary of State and yet he doesn't seem to be the one doing the actual diplomacy. He stays behind the scenes, he stays with Trump and obviously that served him well. As winning Trump's confidence and the President's confidence. And that's certainly part of the job. But if you're going to be Secretary of State, the chief diplomat of the United States, we'd like to think that you're out there doing that diplomacy. And instead we have people doing it who don't seem to capture when nuances arise that could be useful, who don't seem to be able to close an agreement. And instead you have, you know, third parties like Pakistan essentially running the Iran negotiations through a variety of different countries.
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Christiane Amanpour
And another thing to, to remember is that this whole thing was meant to be about Iran's nucleophile, but the negotiations seem prepared to kick that down the road in order to fix what didn't need fixing before the war, that is, to liberate the global economy from the stranglehold on the Straits of Hormuz and the Trump counter blockade. In other words, all this time since the ceasefire was declared in mid April has been devoted to just trying to get back to status quo ante before the bombing started on February 28th. And who knows what they're gonna, where they're going to land on the nuclear issue, but they seem to be content to push it down the road. So now, Jamie, let's talk about a bit of a worry that hasn't actually got to a lot of press coverage. Maybe people are hoping it'd just go away, but in the last few days, Russia basically sent drones in its ongoing, you know, fight against Ukraine. And as he's been doing Putin over the last couple of years, several years, been breaching NATO and other European airspace. And here you had drones going in over the Romanian border and actually crashing into a building and causing casualties and damage. A residential building. And Romania is part of NATO. So what happens next, Jamie? It's like the, the mantra is not one inch. If Russia dares to affront one inch of NATO terrain, then NATO will have to respond. So Romania did enact Article 4. Tell us what that is.
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Jamie
Well, that's really a consultative mechanism to say we need to talk about this. I, I don't want to get my facts wrong here, but I do believe there is an assumption on the part of the Romanian government itself that this was not an intentional attack on Romania. But the result of Ukraine's defense against the Russian drones that led one of them to go off course doesn't change the fact that Romania's borders were violated, doesn't change the fact that across the board, we do believe, we, the west, do believe that does believe that, that Russia is trying to conduct this kind of middle ground warfare, something short of actual use of force, something greater than just intelligence spying that used to go on this kind of hybrid warfare it's called. Most recently, the British intelligence services leader said that there is a great evidence that the Russians are recruiting mostly criminals now. And you know, this is what's interesting about it, because over the war has gone on so long, so many of Russia's diplomats who are actually spies, you know, spies being, pretending to be diplomats, have been evicted from all over Europe. They don't have a lot to work with, so they end up trying to use the Internet or other social media devices to recruit criminals. And one of the things that happens when you recruit non professionals is you don't exactly control their behavior. And so there's been a lot of arrests of people conducting, you know, sabotage of some kind or, you know, basic chaos of some kind. And often it turns out that these are local criminals who've been enticed into doing so by the Russians through, through these new media. All of which is a way of saying that Europe feels under threat. And I keep coming back to the incredible statement by the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte. Europe need to be ready for the possibility of st. Piling equipment and supplies because Russia seems intent on threatening us. And it's pretty frightening stuff.
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Christiane Amanpour
It is.
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Jamie
I think being ready will prevent it. I don't actually think Putin will do this anytime soon. But the only way to be sure that he doesn't do it or to increase the chances that he doesn't do it is to be as ready as possible.
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Christiane Amanpour
Every time something like this happens and breaches a NATO whatever airspace or actual physical space, everybody wants to bend over backwards to say it wasn't intentional and did he really mean it? And oh my goodness, if he does, we'll have to do something about it. But it's worth just saying, look, you know, drones, missiles, jets have entered NATO airspace often since the start of the Ukraine war. Poland, the grain corridor missile, repeated Baltic and Scandinavian airspace violations. Putin is not just making mistakes, he's also provoking. And okay, so as you said, something that may not have been deliberate happened in Romania, a NATO nation. And Romania, you said we have to be prepared, which is true. Not just with our own physical defense and counter offensives, but what are we going to do to push back this bully who's constantly provoking and probing and stunning, I think thinks that the west won't actually challenge him or keeps daring the West. So when does, you know, when do you think Article 5 gets triggered? If it's. I mean, I guess maybe a drone into a building may not be, but. But what is it? Or maybe it's not even triggered. Just the fact that this debate is going on that, oh, my God, should we, shouldn't we? And that in itself really sort of shaves the strength and the edge off the notion of Article 5.
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Jamie
Well, I'm one who believes that the best way to deter Vladimir Putin is to help the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on the battlefield. And by defeat, I don't mean rush into Russia, but I mean prevent Russia from winning. And I don't think that the result of that is going to be escalation. I know some people do. I don't. I think at some point, the more defeat that Russia suffers on the battlefield, the more determined the West End the world is to prevent that success on the battlefield, the more pressure it puts on China. And here's a real example of where it really matters to stop helping Russia just fight out indefinitely with technology and support. You know, the North Koreans were even in there for a while. I guess they're not there so much anymore. He's running out of soldiers. He's running out of confidence in his country. I think it's one of those things where determination to defeat his attempt to take over Ukraine is the best way to keep Europe safe and the best way for us all to stay ready. Because we're watching someone actually conduct a land war and there's nothing more dangerous for the people of Ukraine. And by focusing on stopping it, we can keep ourselves alert and ready for whatever we may need to do if he does go beyond Ukraine.
- [15:46]
Christiane Amanpour
You know, again, it's all sort of guesswork. The FT today had a. Not today, this weekend had a really interesting statistic. As you say, he's stressed and he's strained and he's, you know, underwhelming. Underwhelming performance right now, including. Russia overspends on conflict by $28 billion. It's exceeded its planned budget deficit for this year, military costs are mounting, and he's again barely gaining on the battlefield. So I don't know, does this force him to go to the negotiating table? So far he hasn't. Or what does it make him do? I mean, what should Trump be doing when he sees this kind of statistic which basically is not good for Putin and doesn't make Putin look like he's got all the cards? And at the same time, Jamie, you know, the Ukrainians are digging or firing deep into Russian territory and making quite a lot of damage there close to Moscow, on all their. Not all, but on their. Their economic centers as well, their oil and gas, you know, depots. It's quite big.
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Jamie
All of this is going on. Look, I've hoped that Donald Trump would realize this and hope that he would realize that, you know, the only way out is for him to tell the honest truth to Putin, that he can't succeed. And let's just hope that one of these days they want to get a success diplomatically, because they haven't had any, and he gets back together with the Europeans and works together with the Europeans and gets this thing done.
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Christiane Amanpour
I know. Unfortunately, hope, as we always say, is not a strategy, although sometimes it is a strategy to motivate people to get everybody out of their doom and gloom, but not when it comes to dealing with Putin. Hope is not a strategy. And again, you know, speaking with the Czech president, Petr Pavel, who himself is a former military commander, head of the Czech Republic's armed forces, he was a military commander in a very important line of NATO command. He was telling me that he thought, you know, Putin doesn't even to destroy NATO with the help of Trump, who's degrading the trust in NATO. All he has to do, Putin, is to dare NATO to sort of do something in Moldova or in Romania or in these places and just dare them to respond. That's why I keep saying, at what point does NATO need to take a tough line with Putin on all these breaches of NATO frontiers?
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Jamie
One has to think very clearly before one does that invocation of Article 5 and acts on it, there may come a time when we need to do that. And if Vladimir Putin really does make a clear attempt to take a Baltic state or to invade a portion of Poland, I mean, I was very, very intrigued over the weekend to read this incredible story about how welcoming the German troops are in Lithuania. So German troops are being sent to Lithuania, and this is a country where the Germans took over and the Lithuanians are welcoming them. And the German troops are stunned because at home they can't wear their uniforms because Germany's still got conflicted views inside its country about the military. But in Lithuania, they, you know, they get free drinks, they get praised, they get cheered. And that's the way to ensure deterrence, to make Putin know, look, he's threatened a lot of stuff. Let's remember in the early days under President Biden, he was threatening to use nuclear weapons every chance he could. And we stared him down. We told them what catastrophic consequences that would involve. And that nuclear threat has not been brandished as dramatically anymore. So sometimes just standing firm, even as frustrating as it is, as the bully keeps poking, is the best course. And so far that has been the
- [19:53]
Christiane Amanpour
best course, let's hope, because it's really getting very, very dire, this thing. And again with the US unable or unwilling to use its real, and its real influence and not doing so is very, very dangerous. I mentioned at the beginning part of Trump's, you know, saying what a great deal that he was about to make in the Middle East. He said, and all these countries are going to join the Abraham Accords with Israel. But of course all these countries are not going to join the Abraham Accords with Israel unless Israel does something about a Palestinian state. We know that Saudi Arabia won't, we know that Qatar won't. Trump even said, hey, Iran can join too. I'd be honored if Iran joins. Okay, but a lot of Arab countries have just decided not to respond to this whatever claim exhortation invitation by Trump because they just think it's not serious. Which brings me to our segue into our second segment because we are gonna discuss a tricky topic. Actually it is tricky and that is the increasing sentiment in the Democratic Party that something has to change in America's relationship with Israel in order to prevent these constant wars and to try to push Israel and the Palestinians back to the only way out of this mess, which is diplomacy and a two state solution. We'll discuss that when we come back. Now time to thank our partner in this episode, Incogni.
- [21:26]
Jamie
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- [22:55]
Christiane Amanpour
We're back and we're going to discuss a tricky subject. It's always tricky for American politicians how they deal with the state of Israel and what, if any, conditions should be on American aid to Israel. Like there are conditions on American aid to every other country. So the latest, and Jamie, you know, and I'm gonna hold this up, is last week's New York Times op ed by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen. Democrats need to change course on Israel. So he's talking about his own party and essentially he's saying that Democrats and Republicans, but he can only talk to Democrats, have gotten away from what used to inform America's, you know, in the last 30 years anyway, relationship with Israel, which was obviously it's a ally of very, very good standing and strong. And that'll never change. Obviously there is a special relationship. As the British ambassador was caught saying, the most special relationship is between America and Israel rather than between America and the United States. But in the aftermath of October 7th and Israel's response to that and the ongoing wars and the ongoing catastrophe when it comes to Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinians on the occupied West Bank, Chris Van Hollen says that Democrats as well need to accept that they need to be tougher for Israel's good, like good friends get tougher. They say you are driving the ship over the cliff and we don't want you to do that. And Jamie, you remember Senator Schumer was very worried. Remember early on in early 2024, he took to the Senate floor, he's the most senior elected Jewish member of Congress as a whole. And he said we cannot afford to lose Israel, cannot afford to lose American support into Alia, he was saying, because that is what makes it such a special place and that's its main strength in its wars with all the people on the outside. So that's a long introduction to Jamie Tri to ease you in to what you think about this because it is a legitimate debate because also the American people have started to move away from their wholehearted support of certainly this Israeli government.
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Jamie
Well, I think that's absolutely true and I think I commend Chris for, you know, look, debate and challenge is important and we need to be challenged. Something did go wrong in the way that the voting took place, where young people somehow imagined they were better off voting for Donald Trump or staying away from the polls rather than voting for Kamala Harris because of the issue of Gaza. Now, I don't quite understand that, because I think Donald Trump showed that he didn't care at all about the Palestinians. And I can assure you, because I worked with Secretary Blinken and President Biden, that we did care about the Palestinians. Probably not enough in the beginning, and Chris made a very important point there, that in the early days, all the discussions were taking place around the Palestinians. The Palestinian issue was ignored. People were giving speeches about a Middle east doctrine without even using the word Palestinian. And that was probably a mistake that then was exploited by. Let's remember what happened on October 7th and remember why this became so controversial. Because Israel took an incredible hit. Thousands of people were killed and slaughtered, okay? And it was their 9 11, as we called it. And President Biden went over there and showed his respect for them and then told them, please, please don't make the mistake that we made of overreacting to this assault on innocent men, women and children in Israel. And there's no question that Israel has overreacted. And Israel is now incredibly unpopular around the world, not just among Democrats, but all over the world. The support that it had has dried up and is really. People doubt it. And the reason they doubt it is. And this is the part I'd like to focus on, is because Israel is good at certain things. It was good at fighting Hezbollah. It was good at fighting the Iranian leadership and knowing where they were. It showed great success, militarily, intelligent. But then it doesn't do any. The diplomacy that could bring all of that success to fruition. And it all boils down, as Chris Van Hollen rightly points out, to the Palestinian issue. And I have to speak up for myself here, because in the last six months of the Biden administration, that's all I did, was work on a plan that was intended to bring us one step closer to a Palestinian state, to end the war in Gaza and get Saudi Arabia and the other countries to recognize Israel to be part of the Abraham Accords. That's what I worked on with Mr. Blair, with Tony Blinken, the two Tonys. I worked on it day in and day out, but I could not succeed. The Israeli government was not listening to us. And when the election happened, they stopped listening to us at all and waited for Trump. And then nothing much good has happened. They've split Gaza in half. And as we've seen, it's hardly a solution, but there was a brief moment we thought we had a Gaza solution, and it was the very solution that Mr. Blinken and Mr. Blair and I were working on.
- [28:39]
Christiane Amanpour
It's true. I wanna ask you some things, and it will be difficult. I mean, for instance, when President Biden came in, he actually didn't reverse quite a few things of the first Trump era, whether it was about China and about Israel and the US And Israel. For instance, he didn't reverse Trump's decision to move the consulate, move the embassy, do all that kind of stuff from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He didn't reverse Trump's sort of. I don't even know what to call it, but his sort of, I guess, you know, shaving off international law regarding settlements. Trump seemed to put the United States on this, on the side of settlements, and now you see what's happening, and you see that on the occupied west bank, it is a government policy, no matter what they say. The government ministers, Ben gvir, Smotrich, are involved in strangling the west bank and the Palestinian Authority, who you all worked with financially. And the security forces under Ben GVIR are enabling the settlers, the violent settlers, to harass, kill, drive out, destroy, you know, homes and crops and livelihood of the Palestinians. You mentioned Gaza. Nothing is happening in Gaza. It's just still, you know, a stalemate there and the bombings continue. So Chris Van Hollen says, you know, the Biden administration was also complicit, and that's why, despite what you're saying, and you don't need to, you know, repeat it, because it's very clear that you worked hard on this. That's why we're in this situation. And so which. What would you say, Jamie, as a Democrat, then? How does the next presidential candidate campaign, particularly on this issue?
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Jamie
Well, I was just about to agree that we've got to change something now. One of the reasons why it won't be that hard to change something is I do believe Joe Biden is the last of the real Zionist Democrats who's likely to be a presidential candidate. I think he's the last. He was someone who got to know Golda Meir, one of the original prime ministers of Israel. He was a supporter of Israel his whole life. We're not going to have another Democrat like that. That's not going to happen. So the new president is going to have a different attitude. The polls are clear that Democratic voters do not want to see a blank check for Israel. Don't want to see the kind of crackdown on Palestinians that are going on, and some policy changes are going to have to be made. I just want people to understand that it can't always be one thing or the other, that it has to happen. The Israelis are a democracy, okay? They're going to have an election. If we really want to change something in Israel, we have to persuade the Israeli voters to change their government. And I was part of an administration that did that in 1998 when Bibi Netanyahu refused to make peace agreements with the Palestinians. President Clinton authorized his spokesman, including me, to criticize the government of Israel on its own terms, saying, you're not doing yourself any good here. And the result was when you had a democratic president who was popular in Israel, that Ehud Barak was brought into power and Netanyahu lost. So we have to find a way that both reflects our own values about the Palestinians, but talks to the Israelis in a way that persuades them to change their leaders, because that's the only way that's going to change.
- [32:19]
Christiane Amanpour
But nobody seems to be doing that. And actually, Trump is very popular in Israel, and that's a big job to get an American candidate or president or whatever to actually go to the heart and minds of the Israeli people on this issue. And they have really hardened because of October 7th. And many of my Jewish friends, I was at a dinner party this weekend, and a very prominent Jewish man told me, and he's not a pro Netanyahu type, that. Hang on a second. Ehud Barak offered just about everything under the the Clinton administration that you were in to Yasser Arafat, and he refused. And that's true. That is true. So it's a really big job. It's not just to persuade the Israelis, although those are the ones you really need to persuade, because they are the most powerful and they're the biggest democracy. But you also need to work really hard on persuading what's left of a Palestinian Authority that for whatever its failings, is the one that's internationally recognized and is the one that is recognized, is Israel's rights and made that declaration with Israel, but is also being hammered by Israel. So the whole thing needs to be redone.
- [33:34]
Jamie
I agree with almost everything you said there, Christiane. This is a difficult, difficult subject. What the colleague you met with pointed out about Yasser Arafat saying no is a crucial factor. Unfortunately, it's also true that everyone around him wanted him to say yes. Those were the people who ended up being in charge of the Palestinian Authority. And Even he later, I think, said he would change his mind if he could, but he couldn't. But we can't turn history back. But we can remember that in certain circumstances, with the right Israeli leader and the right Palestinian leader and the right American president with the power to influence the Israeli people in a compelling way, maybe, just maybe, we can get back to a point where it's at least clear to the people in the region now that there's a natural alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States and Israel and now Syria with Assad gone, and maybe Lebanon someday, if they can get over the Hezbollah. Humph.
- [34:37]
Christiane Amanpour
Oh, my God. Lebanon is being occupied and bombed within an inch of its life.
- [34:40]
Jamie
I agree. But the Lebanese government, but that's the Lebanese government I'm talking about, that would like to see Hezbollah disarmed. So I know that's complicated. All I'm pointing out is that the ingredients are always there. Whether that magic moment will ever come back. You know, I like to be an optimist. It's harder and harder and harder to believe that it will.
- [35:02]
Christiane Amanpour
I know, I know it is hard. And it's a real problem because it takes us all the way back to the beginning, which is. And this is. I say this, and then my friends, you know, say, you're being naive. I genuinely believe that once. And if the Palestinian, Israeli war conflict is resolved, it'll take a lot of the poison out of the that area and will allow for a much more reasonable set of circumstances there and will deny the troublemakers their cause celebre, their, you know, their war cry, whether it's Iran, whether it's Hezbollah, whoever it might be. And I genuinely, genuinely hope that one day we can get back to that place. But right now, the leaders of Israel do not want a Palestinian state. And they are doing everything, including persuading Donald Trump to keep the war on Iran to make that, to make that not happen. So, inter alia, just endless war. It's very, very, very, very disheartening. Back to the peacemakers and the negotiators and the diplomats. Where are they? I know you can't answer. I can't either. So we're going to take a break and we're going to come back with our recommendations.
- [36:19]
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- [36:36]
Jamie
What?
- [36:37]
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- [37:22]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, everybody, we're back and it's time for our recommendations. Jamie, you go ahead first this time,
- [37:28]
Jamie
especially given our discussion about Israel and the frustration we all feel, I think, about, about the world's lack of stability and the wars going on that don't seem to have any end. I'm going to do one of my funny ones. Not funny, but interesting. Different ones. All right, so in his final book, Leo Tolstoy, the great writer of war and peace. Wise thoughts for every day on God, love, spirit and living a good life. These were the thought, his final piece of writing, which he put together for each day of the week, each day of the year. Thoughts about how to live a spiritual and a good life.
- [38:08]
Christiane Amanpour
Now, is he those Stoics that you like so much?
- [38:11]
Jamie
This. He's not. He. He does refer to the Stoics here and there, but I, I will say he's a very religious man, Leo Tolstoy, as many serious Russian literary people are. I'm not a religious person that way, but I found his thoughts for the day moving and helpful and, and, and maybe some other people will too.
- [38:33]
Christiane Amanpour
Do we have one for Tuesday when the episode drops?
- [38:37]
Jamie
One for Tuesday. I didn't, I didn't pick it up, but it usually.
- [38:41]
Christiane Amanpour
Jamie.
- [38:42]
Jamie
All right, I'll try to remember that for the next time around.
- [38:45]
Christiane Amanpour
Maybe we can. I tell you what we can do. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in our Q and A episode. So go do some studying up. And Leo Tolstoy is definitely not funny. So, you know, just. Just putting that out there. Could I just say that mine is a friend and a colleague. It's Catherine Viner. She's the editor in chief of the Guardian. The Guardian has a brilliant trust in terms of how it is run and paid for. Therefore, it is not beholden to corporate or government pressure or anything like that. She gave a very, very good speech several weeks ago on leadership and on the future of journalism, and she really related it back so well to the concept of hope. Hope that good journalism can actually continue to change the world and make a difference in ways that really matter. Hope that humanity really needs us still, despite all the AI and all the rest of it and all the pressures. So I would like to recommend her speech because I was gripped throughout. It's long, but it's really well constructed and really, really well written and delivered. She's now turned it into podcast form and I'll just say, you know, of course, in the enduring days since we lost Ted Turner, the founder of cnn, Ted Turner's CNN showed why and how independent news mattered. And I'm just going to say that because there's a huge crisis in the United States and around with all this corporate predator raiding of news organizations. So that's it for this, for this episode of the X Files. Jamie and I will be back again on Thursday with the Q and A episode where we really enjoy answering your questions. Keep and as I say, don't feel you have to like or agree with everything we say. Challenge us when you feel you need to, but do keep the love up. Do keep it up because we are very, very much appreciative and this is doing really, really well. So don't forget you can listen to the podcast on Global Player and you can always watch it by subscribing to our YouTube channel. Christiane Amanpour presents the X Files on YouTube. So just go there and that's it for now. Enjoy this episode. I hope you have and we'll see you again on Thursday. Bye Jamie.
- [41:02]
Jamie
Goodbye again from New York. This has been a Global Player original production.
- [41:15]
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