← Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Q&A: Is the US becoming McCarthyite under President Trump?
00:27:12
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- [00:03]
Jamie Rubin
This is a Global Player original podcast. I'm sitting here in Long Island. My jets are cooled. I'm quite calm, good, cool and collected as usual.
- [00:12]
Christiane Amanpour
All right. Hello and welcome, everybody, to the bonus episode of the X Files with me, Christiana Manpour and Jamie Rubin. This, of course, as you know by now, is the Q and A episode where we answer your questions. So thanks to everyone who sent one in so far and do keep sending them in. You can ask us anything from our experiences in the field to encounters with world leaders and beyond. And you can find us, of course, on social media. Our handle is at Amanpur Pod. Or email us. We're@amanpourpodlobal.com so let's get started. Right, Jamie. Hi.
- [00:55]
Jamie Rubin
Hello.
- [00:56]
Christiane Amanpour
Here are the questions. Mahler on Instagram. How much similarity do you see between Joe McCarthy and Donald Trump? Will Trump eventually dig his own grave the same way McCarthy did? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of Roy Cohn do we see in Trump today? Okay, I'm going to give it a try because there is a new play out called Good Night and Good Luck. Now, it's very expensive and a lot of people haven't been able to go to Broadway to see it, but it was streamed or broadcast on cnn, and I'm sure there'll be a way to see it or everybody should go back and see the film in the early 2000s. Why do I say this? Because it's about Senator Joe McCarthy, who, as you all remember, had this red scare during the height of the Cold war in the 1950s and kept waving around lists that were either real or fabricated and ruining people's jobs, their lives, causing a huge number of people to go into exile because he accused them, without evidence, of being communists, by and large, without evidence. So it's a very, very important story for our time because it was a moment where the press had a chance to come out and speak and decide how they were going to treat and cover leaders, elected leaders who were telling lies and really sort of implicating lots of people in a false and fake way. And it was done in the name of national security. And they had a whole load of enablers around them, also elected officials and others who allowed themselves to do it. McCarthy did eventually dig his own grave because he came up against the immovable force of the press. I believe it was the Detroit Free Press who started, or which started to say, we are not going to print anything McCarthy says, that would not stand up in a court of law. And then CBS in particular Edward R. Murrow, who was their star reporter after World War II, stood up and also interviewed him and others about him and essentially outed and revealed his witch hunts. And that eventually led to him backing off, and eventually this ended. But, Jamie, you can weigh in in terms of American history and, of course, the Roy Cohn effect as well.
- [03:12]
Jamie Rubin
Well, I'm glad you used the word witch hunt, because it's worth remembering that one of the greatest plays ever written, called the Crucible, about the witch hunt in Salem, witch hunt trials in the United States, was written during the McCarthy period by Arthur Miller, precisely to show what happens when a society is riven with fear and neighbors turning against neighbors out of fear and when truth and lies get mixed up. The McCarthy era was a dark time in American history. I fear that when historians look back at our time, they will also see this as a dark time because the president and his administration have abused their power in two ways. One, to intimidate and harm individuals. Law firms, universities, agencies that have been destroyed like we talked about, the aid. And secondly, because the Trump family has. Has tried to monetize the presidency. For the first time in our country's history. There have always been scandals around the president's family trying to make a little money here or there, but never before has there been a systematic attempt to monetize the presidency. I'm even told that Donald Trump Jr. When he travels around Europe trying to dig up deals to make his millions, tells people he's got 18 months to get as much done as possible. Now, why does he choose 18 months? Because he knows that a Democratic Congress is coming. And what I don't think people understand is that when that Democratic Congress comes, and I hope and pray it does come, that there will be investigations of what the Trump family has done for the rest of my life. Now, that's a bit of an aside to the question. Roy Cohn taught Donald Trump his politics. Who is Roy Cohn? Roy Cohn was Joseph McCarthy's lawyer and his inspiration for how to approach the media, the law, and society. And. And Donald Trump was trained at the foot of Roy Cohn. He learned how to intimidate, deny, deny, deny, and to lie, lie and lie. And that's what he's done. And I've often told our son and others, when I saw Donald Trump first enter the political life, I said to myself, well, wait a minute. This is exactly what my father raised me. Not to be someone who would brag, who would be using lies to intimidate people, who would brag about everything. And would be mean to girls and women in a crude and disgusting way. He was crass and all of that we knew in New York. What has happened in my country is that the Republican Party has been taken over by Trump and his family. And Republicans have to answer for that. The Republican Party was the party that had Joseph McCarthy. It's not an accident. There's always been in our country a strain of what we call anti liberalism, not liberals, and as in lefties, but liberal, as in the basic constitutional rights of our people, the right to life, liberties and the pursuit of happiness. That's liberalism in its purest form. And there has always been a counter movement. It happened during slavery, it happened during the Civil War, it happened during the know nothing period in our nation's history. Robert Kagan has written a brilliant book about this phenomenon. And it happened again during the McCarthy period, and I'm sorry to say it's happening again now. There are guardrails and we have been able to control it and I do believe we will get through this period. But it is a dark time and Roy Cohn has too much power in Donald Trump's mind. And yes, I hope and pray his comeuppance is coming.
- [06:59]
Christiane Amanpour
So, of course, Roy Cohen and the Trump relationship was very, very cleverly described and featured in the the Apprentice. It's a feature film and it was out last year. Highly recommend people go and look at it if they want a real, you know, look at it. And I also think one thing, the even though the press did such a great job to essentially, you know, out McCarthy back in the 50s, we are now in an era of not just the press, but of social media and everything else, which is not easy, not so easy to get the truth out. And people have to know where to look. My verdict, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much of Roy Cohn do we see in Trump today? I think 10.
- [07:41]
Jamie Rubin
That's funny. I give him, I give him an eight and a half cuz he's. Trump is a unique figure with all sorts of weirdnesses that Roy Cohn didn't have. You know, his bullying in terms of women and also his braggadocio. I think Roy Cohn was monstrously evil in terms of accusations, but I don't remember him being a braggart.
- [08:01]
Christiane Amanpour
I would just say that his three principles are Trump's three principles, which is deny, deny, deny.
- [08:07]
Jamie Rubin
A larger question. Yeah, somewhere between 8 and 10. Clearly.
- [08:11]
Christiane Amanpour
Never admit defeat, keep fighting, and if it's not true, deny, deny, deny. Make it true. But let's Go on to the next one. Jack on email, asks whether the ICC is redundant now, that's the International Criminal Court. He asked, does the ICC have any real authority in 2025? So the issue, of course, of international war crimes is that we've just passed the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia just this past Friday, 11 July, where up to 8,000 or more Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by the Bosnian Serbs. And in the end, they were the leaders of all of this, were sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and then on for Rwanda. It was a big court that was designed to prosecute these war crimes. And it made a difference because they did finally get them, took a long time in some cases. They did try them, they did convict them and sentence them, and the worst of the lot are either dead or in prison for the rest of their lives. So this is a huge, huge, important thing. But as somebody told me this week, in fact it was David Scheffer, who Jamie knows because he was in the Clinton administration and he was the US Ambassador at large at one point for war crimes issues. And on the 30th anniversary of Srebrenica, because I'd covered the whole of the Bosnia war, I had him on to talk about that. And he said, what we have done is actually enabled accountability, but not impunity, because people keep doing it. It still carries on around the world. Leaders, whether they're militias, whether they're government leaders, whether they're military or even democratically elected, there are war crimes being committed under their authority around the world. So the idea of accountability has been checked. We can say that that does happen, by and large. But still, world leaders today, from wherever, Israel, Gaza, Sudan, you can name many, many places see war crimes being committed under their authority. So this is something that has to be faced up to. And the ICC really does have to be there, as well as the other courts that are tasked with this. We can't have a world in which there is no court system that can actually adjudicate these cases.
- [10:39]
Jamie Rubin
I'd like to make a comment about the ICC if I could. I believed in the war crimes tribunal. Madeleine Albright helped create it when I worked for her. David Sheffer worked for her and helped her create it as well. And it was important in Bosnia, and it was an important element of the accountability for war crimes during the Bosnia and Rwanda disasters. But I think the system of war crimes examination and human rights groups and lawyers and politicians involving themselves has caused the system to Run amok. The ICC is an idea that is not an idea whose time has come. There is so much confusion and so much chaos and disagreement about what is a war crime, how do you prosecute it, what standards should be applied. Everything gets lumped in together, as if, you know, Bosnia and Kosovo are comparable to other places when they're not. These things need to be treated separately. Perhaps that's the solution. But in the case of the Balkans, the system has gone insane. There was an attempt by Kosovar leader and a Serbian leader to make a peace agreement. And just on the verge of their meeting that one of the leaders from Kosovo was indicted and shuffled off to prison on a charge that international lawyers do not believe is justified. David Sheffer's successor, a man named Pierre Prosper, was also the US Ambassador for war crimes. He's defending Hashim Thatchi, the Kosovo leader, because the court that was created for that situation has run amok. They've put someone in prison who has no business being in prison. They've refused to allow him bail even though he turned himself in. And they've taken three or four years to even begin the trial. It's a travesty. And this is what happens when politicians get involved and they think they can use international court system to achieve political objectives. And they didn't want to see this agreement reached between the Kosovars and the Serbs, and they may have intervened in that process. And similarly, they want to show somehow that there's an equation and that the Serbs and the Kosovars were both bad. Well, no, it was the Serbian leaders that conducted the war crimes. There may have been some activities on the part of individual Kosovars. But to try to assign equation between Slobodan Milosevic's power over the Serbs and Hashim Thatchi, a young man who was signing an agreement on behalf of much older men who were telling him what to do and saying he's in charge is madness. I am actually going to testify in that trial as the lead witness for the defense. I've been involved in this for my entire professional life, from beginning in Bosnia. And I started out just like you, Christiane. I wanted to hold these war crime criminals to account. I wanted to track them down. That's one of the ways we met when we talked about all that stuff. And now it's come full circle where the system is assigning guilt to people who have no business being in prison, and they're doing it for political reasons.
- [13:58]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, we really do have to keep politics out of justice, and that's a huge thing that's going on from the United States to Israel to all over the war in various world rather in various ways, politics seems to be intervening and I'm talking about in democratic states, in injustice which are meant to be separate arms of any kind of democratic system. So. Absolutely, and we'll see what happens in that trial. And here to add to that question is John on Facebook. Given the history of warfare between Israel and its neighbors, do you honestly believe there is a solution? So I'm simply going to say that we've talked about this a lot and, and it really does require all parties to be, you know, up for a solution. Even as we talk about a potential ceasefire right now, nearly two years into this war between Israel and Gaza after the events of October 7th, there are number of stories that keep getting reported and deeply reported. For instance, there's a story that the Israeli mission and stated project. Now I don't know if it's a whole government, but certainly the Defense Minister has said that all Palestinians in Gaza have to be moved to an enclave in the south of Gaza, which has terrible connotations and a terrible prospect if that actually happens. So the, the different countries and, and other officials and participants are saying this is what is holding up and complicating the current Gaza Israel ceasefire negotiations. So that's one. And forced transfer, as you know, and besieging people without humanitarian aid are all in the war crime territory. Another issue, and this is important, another very deeply reported and investigated story again in the New York Times, basically shows that even six months after October 7 and after the Israeli response against Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently was willing at that time to go into a ceasefire to get, get, you know, the end of the war, to get the hostages out and to end it then. But the night he was to present it to the whole cabinet, one of his far right extremist religious nationalists who prop him up, the finance minister known as Smotrich, basically, sir, said that we have heard that there is a ceasefire regarding this and this in the offing. And I'm telling you, if there is a surrender, he called it a surrender, smartridge, then this government, your government, Netanyahu, will cease to exist because we will pull out of the coalition. So Netanyahu made a quick calculation according to this report and decided that his political survival was more important than ending the war. And so it goes now for more than a year beyond just that moment. So things are incredibly caught up again. We're talking about all sorts of things Confusing with political and personal survival. Netanyahu, as everybody knows, is undergoing a court case for corruption and other charges. And he doesn't want to, you know, go to prison if he's convicted and doesn't want the court case to continue. The other thing is complicating a peace settlement is that those people who are propping him up actually want. I'm talking about the Israelis now, the ministers Ben GVIR and Smotrich and their ilk. They want to reoccupy Gaza and put back Jewish settlements in Gaza. They were against the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza in 2005. So both ends of the Israeli government are working against each other, much less Israel and its neighbors. So it's very hard right now to see a solution, even though we've talked about what a solution would look like.
- [17:47]
Jamie Rubin
I think all the things you said are true, but there are things worth remembering. Number one, as John McCain used to say, just when it gets very dark, things go black. So, yes, things can get worse, but I think they can also get better. In the government working with Secretary Blinken during the time of the report that you're referring to, it is true that on many occasions we thought we had the agreement of the Israeli government to ceasefire plan. But remember, the plan had to have an end state. It had to have a result that gets the Israeli forces out, that prevents Hamas from coming back ever again. Because Israel, no Israeli leadership, no government, would permit Hamas to return to power in Gaza. And that was the problem. It wasn't so much Smotrich who made Mibi's life difficult, it was to get all the players involved to do the hard things. And that's when peace is made, when great leaders or even normal people make great decisions. And there is a solution. It will happen someday. It's the only solution to get the Israelis out, to put some sort of international force filled, you know, along the borders of Gaza to prevent Hamas from rearming. And that's when a real ceasefire will be a long lasting peace. And if that happens, the situation is ripe for Israel's leaders to achieve the dream of their founders. That is the recognition and security and peace with its neighbors. Think about it. Right now, Israel and Syria are negotiating the arrangements to avoid any future conflict and to bring Syria and Israel into some modus vivenda. That's a dramatic change from the days of Hafez Assad and Israel going to war. So things can change, but it's difficult. And it won't change if the Israeli government is ruled by the men you mentioned Smotrich and Ben gvir. If they have their way, there will be endless war against the Palestinians. There is no end to the war. They want to fight because they want to reoccupy Gaza and that will never be possible. The Palestinians will fight them forever if they try to reoccupy Gaza. That is stupid. Even Ariel Sharon realized the stupidity of that and that's why he pulled out.
- [20:09]
Christiane Amanpour
I always remember that President Biden basically was hoping that Netanyahu would not bring smotrich and Ben Gvir into government. And Netanyahu said, Don't you worry Mr. President, I have my hands on the steering wheel. And he simply, apparently, according to all these articles, does not they do. They hold his political survival in their hands.
- [20:37]
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- [21:42]
Christiane Amanpour
Maytier on Instagram Final question In the context of quote, preemptive strikes in international relations, for example Israel's recent attacks on Iran, how would you evaluate their legal and ethical justifications and to what extent do these justifications differ from or resemble Russia's stated reasons for its invasion of Ukraine, especially regarding claims of self defense or preventing future threats? Well, basically from my perspective, obviously the Russia, Ukraine situation, the way the international community has responded, some people have compared it to the opposite way. You know, regarding Israel, Gaza, Hamas and all the rest of it. And also on Iran, you've heard international officials and legal officials wondering whether in the future one might investigate whether a preemptive strike with no imminent threat. The US Intelligence said there was no imminent threat. Israeli intelligence I believe by and large said there was no imminent threat. There was no bomb on a missile being prepared for launch, that there could be a real question about the international legality under the international law of this strike of Israel and the United States on Iran. And beyond that, we don't even know whether it's had the desired effect, that is to obliterate Iran's nuclear capability. Apparently, according to even the Israelis now and the US Intelligence, it may have set Iran back by as much as, you know, two years. But I would say Jamie here, very, very interesting what Tony Blinken, your former boss, former secretary of state, said on our episode that dropped on Tuesday, that Iran seemed to be willing to come to the table with very far reaching offers regarding a nuclear and other issues to come under a deal with the US Just before the Israeli strike started. So in that round of negotiations with the United States.
- [23:43]
Jamie Rubin
Yeah, it is very interesting. And it does raise the question of whether the Netanyahu government was so afraid of a peace agreement with or a solution to the nuclear problem that was diplomatic that they chose to intervene at that time. Remember, why Trump is able to negotiate potentially successfully with Iran is because he's the only one who can answer the Iranian question of how to negotiate with the United States. If a Donald Trump is going to come in and throw out the agreement in his next term, which is what happened to the Obama agreement. But Trump can say, I'm not going to do that. And the Democrats are, of course, wouldn't do that. So that's one of the advantages of taking wild and crazy positions, is that by being a wild and crazy guy, you can satisfy the other side that nobody is wilder and crazier than you are. Anyway, I think the questioner is, I think making a mistake. There's something fundamentally different between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and remember, the reasons they gave were absurdities, that Ukraine isn't a country, that Ukraine isn't a people, that Ukraine has always been part of Russia, that the NATO enlargements somehow was gonna pose a risk to Russia, even though NATO is a defensive alliance. And Russia didn't think that for 10 years beforehand. So coming up with false reasons for the invasion is not an analogy to what was done in Iran. And remember, there are justifications that are semi legitimate. Right before the strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency had declared that Iran had broken its accord with the IAEA by denying inspectors the right to go where needed to go, by failing to answer the questions and by breaking with the traditions by brandishing their nuclear capability through enrichment of uranium to a very high level that was only necessary if you're going to build a nuclear bomb. So those became the justifications. Now, I think there was a diplomatic solution. I think there still is a diplomatic solution. And Secretary Blinken reported some of the elements of that that are rather remarkable. There is no one standard for what is an acceptable war. If we had standard in the course of history, we wouldn't have so many wars, frankly. The Israeli strikes were not even preemptive. They were what we call preventive. There was no imminent threat, so there was a preventive war. That's something very, very different. And Israel made that decision. The United States joined it. But in the end it may not, it looks like, have solved the problem. Only diplomacy can solve that problem. So I, I guess to the answer of the questioner, I don't think it's a good comparison. The Iran military attacks and a war in Ukraine that involves hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The Russians have lost probably a million soldiers wounded and killed in this war and God knows how many the Ukrainians have lost. However bad the attacks between Israel and Iran were, they were a pittance compared to the war going on in Ukraine, which is the most fundamental violation of everything the world used to be believe in when Russia invaded its neighbor and I think the most defining moment in my lifetime in terms of international security and, and peace.
- [27:02]
Christiane Amanpour
Okay, so that's the end of this bonus episode. Quite a lot of targeted questions on a certain subject, which is interesting because you were able to expand on that through the different questions that came in. So thank you, Phyllis. Listening to this bonus Q A of the X Files with me, Christiane Amanpour and Jamie Rubin. And remember, if you have a question for us that you'd like us to answer next time about something in the news or something we've done during our careers, you can find us on the major social media platforms. Our handle is @amanpourpod. Or email us. We're@amanpourpodlobal.com Our next episode is out on Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, you can listen for free on global podcast. You can download that from the App Store or go to globalplayer.com Bye. Bye. See you next time.
- [27:47]
Jamie Rubin
Goodbye.
- [27:50]
Christiane Amanpour
Go ahead.
- [27:51]
Jamie Rubin
Is that you or me?
- [27:52]
Christiane Amanpour
Pipe up.
- [27:54]
Jamie Rubin
Whose phone is going?
- [27:56]
Christiane Amanpour
Not mine. Pipe up.
- [28:00]
Jamie Rubin
Let me just figure out what's going on here.
- [28:02]
Christiane Amanpour
I don't hear a phone either. None of us heard a phone. Are you hearing things?
- [28:07]
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- [29:09]
Jamie Rubin
This is a Global Player Original podcast.
- [29:13]
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