Date: 2025-08-20 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028910
Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files: Could Epstein Files Cost Trump? | Christiane Amanpour Presents
Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQeTUZYreQ0
- 0:00
- I have to say that as we sit here and um faf around about how we're going to start Jamie, I cannot believe we're
- talking about Epstein. Uh I have not been into it as a, you know,
- international anchor. I haven't been really paying that much attention thinking it's just a typical crazy MAGA
- US conspiracy theory uh Russion that will soon blow over. But clearly it
- hasn't blown over. So, we're going to um do what we can on various issues around
- it uh in this episode. Here's our take on it.
- So this week we're going to ask Yep. we are diving into the Epstein uh situation
- and we're going to ask not to go over the nitty-gritty of what's been dominating the media for the last week
- or more, but what does the focus on this mean in terms of our wheelhouse, which
- is foreign policy, and how we actually keep the focus on a lot of other things that matter as well. And more
- 1:04
- importantly, for those who have extreme views of Donald Trump, whether pro or or against, is this something that is going
- to affect him in the short, medium, and long term? All those who dislike Donald
- Trump are hoping that this collapses him and it's the one thing um that he can't get over. all those who really like him
- are hoping that this is going to blow over and he's going to survive this like he survived just about every other, you
- know, slings and arrows and darts and and charges and cases that have come his way. Um, so we're also going to be
- looking beyond that into the rise of conspiracy theories more generally from QAnon, Pizzagate, uh, even the
- assassination of JFK. And later in the program, we will return to our wheelhouse and we'll ask where exactly
- is the Ukraine uh situation right now? Where has Trump gone on this? Is it sufficient that he's turned a little bit
- 2:01
- frustrated with Russia? And most importantly as well, what about the Israel Gaza war? Every time we look at a
- newspaper, look online, do some reporting, we see that it's getting worse and worse for the people of Gaza
- with no end in sight and no hostages being returned. So, let's get started.
- Hello everyone and welcome to Cristiano presents the XFiles with
- Jamie Rubin. I'm a senior official in the State Department. I was under
- President Biden and I also was under President Clinton. and I've been a longtime foreign correspondent for CNN
- and I now host my own show where I interview world leaders on all sorts of issues and relevant people but I haven't
- yet done it on Epstein in my uh in my program on CNN and I wasn't going to do
- it but here we are because it is dominating the news and to an extent
- international uh news as well. So part one of our conversation, where are we
- 3:03
- today as we record? I thought this was going to blow over. A lot of people did.
- It's true that a lot of MAGA base have come back to Trump because they don't want to see their, you know, their
- emblem grievously wounded, but it's also true that Trump can't get past this yet. to
- the to the point that as we speak overnight Jamie he has posted a blizzard
- but I mean a blizzard unlike many that we've seen before on truth social on everything except for this on trivial
- stuff on stuff that he wants people to focus on after his six months in in office just a blizzard to try to change
- the subject but it doesn't seem to be changing that's Donald Trump's uh actually his
- strength is by constantly and repeatedly and in a dramatic way talking about
- every single thing that happens in the world. He keeps uh the media and the world moving to the next subject time
- 4:00
- after time after time and the specifics of any one subject get lost in the in
- the mess. And that is the horror of Trumpism where uh substance is lost.
- It's all about what Donald Trump thinks today, what President Trump thinks tomorrow. And that's how he hopes to
- change the subject. But it may not be working in this case. So I have to say as a journalist I just
- want to pay tribute to the actual journalists over the years and it started in the mid uh you know two
- 2010s. In other words, around 2008, a phenomenal journalist by the name of Julie Brown, working for the
- investigative uh team at the Miami Herald basically broke the scandal
- around the Epstein story in which she discovered that he had used all his
- contacts in in in in the law, in amongst prosecutors, in business, in all sorts
- of things to pretty much get a a pretty lenient sentence. The first time around
- he was allowed to plea to uh and I'm going to get this right. He was allowed to plea to um two counts of
- 5:07
- prostitution, one with a minor, which essentially was essentially got him an
- 18month uh jail sentence which was a very very also in itself a lenient jail
- sentence because as Julie Brown reports, he essentially got him got his chauffeer to pick him pick him up from the Miami
- jail every day and bring him back at 10 p.m. at night. he spent the night at jail, but was able to pretty much live a
- um a de, you know, a free life. So, she's the one who reopened this case and
- put it on the map also by going after the testimony of the victims and that
- was incredibly incredibly powerful. And then it moved to New York and then we know what happened. He got a much
- stiffer sentence. He went to jail and during Trump's first term he committed
- suicide in jail and that started the really important sticky
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- I don't think we know whether he committed suicide that's one of the issues actually the conspiracy theorists that are
- generating that's conspiracy theorists but there's been so I just don't think we know
- that he was murdered we assume it but it's that's one of the issues Look,
- but that's one of the issues amongst the conspiracy theorists and that's why we're discussing this today. I don't know. You're not a conspiracy theorist,
- are you? No, I'm not. But we're trying to address the fact that conspiracy theorists were
- behind the Trump presidency and they are upset by the way he's handled Epstein precisely because they don't think that
- Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. I assume he did. I don't know any better. But uh the issue is to what extent were
- uh Jeffrey Epstein's information uh suppressed and that's where we get to the question of journalism. To me you've
- given credit to one journalist and they deserve credit but there journalism is and to all the journalists who then
- 7:02
- followed that reporting absolutely all of them deserve credit but journalism is one of the most important
- elements of a democracy. Thomas Jefferson said it's the most important of the uh bill of rights, the freedom of
- the press. So that means we hold journalists to a high standard and I hold them to a high standard and I think
- in the current situation they are not meeting that standard and I'll tell you why. Um there is an author who's won uh
- awards for a national magazine award, who's written books, who was a regular on national television and quoted widely
- in journalistic mainstream media, who's suddenly not able to publish, not able
- to appear on television, not able to tell the world what he knows. And that's a man named Michael Wolf who says that
- he uh interviewed Jeffrey Epstein for a hundred hours of tapes that he's got on
- tape of Jeffrey Epstein talking uh about himself to try to get Michael Wolf to
- 8:00
- write about him. But in those tapes, that is official. Those are tapes. This isn't hearsay. This is someone who's got
- it on tape who says, and two things about it jumped out at me when I listened to Jeffrey Epstein discussed by
- Michael Wolf. one uh that he believes that Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump
- were the best of friends, that each of them was their best friend over their lives because of what they did during
- the 80s and 90s, chasing women, hanging out in fancy parties, flying planes,
- making money, all of that. That's interesting to me that the man, as as Wolf puts it, who's considered the worst
- person on the planet, Jeffrey Epstein, who ended up thinking that Donald Trump was worse than him. That's interesting.
- And you know that because you you heard that in the tape. I heard uh Michael Wolf describe his 100
- hours of conversation. Michael Wolf was good enough to go on television over and
- over again during previous eras on mainstream media across the board. But
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- when it comes to this subject, he himself says he can't get attention. He was interviewed by David Remnick, the
- editor of the New Yorker magazine. I listened to it. Um, and he says one
- thing, what I just said about best friends, and two, he says that Jeffrey Epstein showed him pictures uh that he
- was keeping in his safe because Donald Trump and he had broken and that these were embarrassing pictures. these were
- pictures that were embarrassing to Donald Trump and that's why he kept them in his safe and that those pictures were
- taken by the FBI in 2018 and that they give the only plausible explanation I
- can see for this confusion where prior to office Donald Trump wanted everything
- released and now they don't. Okay, so let me ask you this. Let me ask you this because this is the Fiori,
- right? That Trump ran and all the well, a lot of the people who populate his
- cabinet and his deputies like the deputy FBI, uh, Bonino, like Pam Bondi, like a
- 10:00
- whole bunch of people, uh, ran with this Epstein conspiracy. A, the client list,
- which now Pam Bondi, the AG, says doesn't exist, that it was on her desk, she said, for review, but now she says
- there was no client list or at least there's no there there. Bonjino, the deputy FBI uh uh director who was a
- podcaster, went on and and and also really ramped up this conspiracy theory,
- went on Fox uh at the height of this and was quite tearful and he said, you know,
- now that I'm part of a cabinet, I actually have to do things that are considered best for my country. and as
- as as a way to to try to dodge MAGA fire because MAGA is saying how come you guys
- said that you were going to you know unleash all this stuff and now you say there's no there there and then the
- other question which which people have raised uh is that if these
- whatever pictures documents whatever you're saying Michael Wolf has were in the possession of the FBI they were
- 11:02
- there since 2018 that means they were there during the Biden administration why Wouldn't the Biden administration in
- some way or another have used them for their own political uh That's easy to answer, Christian. That's
- easy. The Biden administration uh adopted the normal procedure for a president and a justice department. And
- that is to not interfere, to not tell them what to do, to not act like the FBI
- and the Justice Department or just lawyers who work for the president can do whatever he says. In fact, Joe Biden
- gave Merrick Garland, the uh attorney general, a pretty wide swath. So much so
- that Garland uh is the person Biden most regrets hiring because he gave such a
- wide swath and didn't do many things that people in the Democratic party thought were appropriate, namely begin
- the prosecution of the January 6th protest against our government when an
- attempt was made to interfere with our government by taking over the Capitol
- building. And he didn't investigate that. He didn't pursue that. He didn't do that until Congress led by some brave
- 12:06
- leaders including uh Liz Cheney on the Republican side and other Democrats on the who had hearings in which they
- demonstrated for all to see the crimes that were committed on January 6. So that was Garland's approach to the
- Justice Department. So it's not it's very easy to explain why Joe Biden didn't order the release of damaging
- photographs of Donald Trump because he didn't abuse his power. He didn't use government as a tool to uh to you know
- penalize those who who's against him and support those who are for him. That's not what government is designed to do.
- Can we also the justice department Okay. You've described Michael Wolf
- saying that there are at least one, you know, embarrassing picture. He said to David Remnick it was around a pool, you
- know, uh and and whatever. But you're not saying because maybe that's why the
- Justice Department didn't do anything with it under Biden that there's anything illegal. It might be, you use the word embarrassing.
- 13:05
- That's right. Uh but here's the point. Um the campaign manager, Steve Bannon,
- essentially the campaign strategist, uh when he met Jeffrey Epstein, and this was reported again by Michael Wolf
- because he was there when they met. And uh Steve Bannon said to Jeffrey Epstein, 'The only thing I was worried about in
- the 2016 campaign was you and what you could do to Donald Trump.' There is
- something that people in the Trump uh uh orbit are extremely worried about. I I
- don't know what it is. Michael Wolf says it's these pictures among other things. And all I can say is why suddenly the
- people that demanded government release all these information about Jeffrey Epstein, why suddenly they're saying
- they can't. And I think Jeffrey Epstein's explanation and Michael Wolf's
- explanation is the first plausible one I've heard that there are embarrassing pictures about Donald Trump that they
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- don't want to release. Now just to be clear and and I know this
- but also David Remnik you know brought it up in a in a friendly but journalistic you know account holding
- way. He said to Michael Wolf in his interview he said look Michael you have also faced quite a lot of controversy in
- your in your writing. He wrote four books on Trump. I think one was called
- fire and fury. The other one was called siege and then couple of others whose names I've forgotten. But of course, a
- lot of the details have been vigorously disputed, notably by the Trump uh Trump and his allies. But that's one of the
- reasons why in this moment he's probably finding it difficult to tell his
- But here we have an easy answer to that. It's on tape. These are tapes, editors.
- And that's what he says. We haven't heard the right. So it's easy to figure out whether there's something false about
- his charges, his claims, his assertions. listen to the tapes, 100 hours of them.
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- Figure out whether it's really Jeffrey Epstein on the tape and we can do that. There's voice of Jeffrey Epstein in
- court. Uh technology can confirm whether this is really him. Listen to the tapes. Then let's make our judgment. That's my
- point here is that somehow in this case I believe the major media are afraid and
- let's address why. CBS, one of the most powerful institutions in our country.
- They uh own uh 60 Minutes, something you used to work for, one of the the most
- most uh respected news organizations in the country. Uh had to uh bend the knee
- to Donald Trump by agreeing to pay money for not doing anything wrong, just reporting what was said in two different
- ways, both of which were said, and they paid off them off. This was about the
- interview that 60 Minutes did as they do generally with all presidential candidates with Kamala Harris and Donald
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- Trump actually refused to sit for 60 Minutes and then he accused them of manipulating the tape. So yes, and then
- there's the ABC payment and then there's the pulling of funding for NPR and PBS the public broadcast. There's a lot
- there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot. So I believe that I'm watching what happens in a my country when people are
- afraid. Even the major news organizations become afraid. I had
- experiences myself like this where I was talking to law firms about possibly being an associate in some way and it
- happened s shortly after Donald Trump went after the law firms and I watched normally sensible leaders of law firms
- go oh I don't know whether I can talk to you a Democrat I can't talk to you about
- a job right now the the fear is real in our country that's true you heard Lisa Macowski say
- it the senator from Alaska Republican senator That's from news organizations that are
- supposed to uh report without fear or favor. In the meantime, let's talk about
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- troubles me. That's that's troubling and it should trouble everybody in a democracy. And let's just say that that trend is also
- giving comfort and aid and sucker to authoritarians and dictators and
- illiberal democrats around the world. They say, 'Oh, well, if the United States can do that to their journalists,
- well, we can certainly continue doing it to ours.' But Jamie, what about the Wall Street Journal? because it did go ahead
- and publish one of the latest bits of news about this and that was uh
- reportedly that Trump had had written a a a birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein
- um along with a I'm going to I'm going to quote here a boardy drawing of a
- naked woman uh that he sent for Epstein's 50th birthday. Um now Trump
- according to you know media reporters and others even tried to or even did
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- call the editor-inchief of the Wall Street Journal to try to get it not reported. The Wall Street Journal did
- report it and now Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch which is you know talk about a
- cycle. My goodness me. I mean, Rupert Murdoch, who took his own network all
- the way to basically lying about the 2020 election and the voter, you know, machines and had to pay a gazillion, I
- mean, nearly a billion dollars um in restitution to one of those. It was called Dominion. The company is now
- being sued. Oh my god. I don't know where this ends, honestly.
- Well, let's address the whole thing underneath it in our next segment, which is, you know, how did we get to a point
- where conspiracy theories are so relevant to our politics? So, let's just play before we do that.
- Uh Trump so angry with MAGA uh voters who have been pushing him to to deliver
- on what he promised during the election, which is other in other words to to publish all the the so-called Epstein
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- files. Um this is what he said to his own supporters. It was quite astonishing. I don't understand it why they would be
- so interested. He's dead for a long time. Uh he was never a big factor in
- terms of life. Uh I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I don't understand why
- the Jeffrey Epste would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff.
- It's sorted, but it's boring. Well, that was the the nice part of that then because he also called them all sorts of
- names like selfish and this and that and how can you not be concentrating on the
- great stuff that we've done in the first six months of this administration. And I think on that front we should uh just
- I'm going to read the latest poll because the Epstein story is a big liability. CBS Yuggov finds that 75% of
- Americans disapprove of the administration's handling of matters related to Epstein and 89% want the
- Justice Department to release all the information it has on the case which and that's that's probably why uh I I
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- feel a little better this week which is when the polls move you find the cowardly politicians suddenly get more
- uh uh spine and maybe both on the Democratic side and the Republican side, seeing that the country is interested,
- the country won't penalize them for focusing on it. Maybe Democratic senators, Republican senators will lose
- their fear and gain their spines and begin to ask harder questions and demand
- answers and uh we can get just get this thing answered. You know, I served in in
- So, just quickly before we go to No, Jamie, because we're about to go to the next the next the next part, but
- answered. Okay. So, is Trump asking AG Pam Bondi, Attorney General Bondi to
- release grand jury testimony? Is that going to answer? No chance. That's very
- targeted and very simple stuff that is intended to avoid answering all the questions. That's another diversion. We
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- heard Trump, as you said, wake up this morning and try to divert the world by talking about all sorts of other things.
- The grand jury testimony is another diversion. People want to know what's in the files. And uh one of the an author
- who's received uh accolades in journalism says there are embarrassing things in those files about Donald Trump
- who he says Jeffrey Epstein called his best friend or alluded to the fact that
- they were best friends and that that's significant. Jeffrey Epste and Donald Trump best friends. Uh that's
- interesting. That's worthy of news. That's worthy of investigation. And I hope the spine that Democratic and
- Republican senators gain will be uh also uh applied to the leaders of major news
- organizations who haven't shown much up to I I I will say one thing though. Uh the
- doodles, whatever you call them, the drawings that that Trump does do and has done over the years and has auctioned
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- them for actually quite a lot of charity cases in New York in the early 2000s. They're pretty good. He's actually quite
- a good drawer. But that's not the point. Uh we're going to talk more about actually how Trump is a big conspiracy
- theorist himself. You remember uh he was the one who started the whole was Obama
- an American-born citizen all the rest of it the so-called birther conspiracy before the you know before that election
- or around that election. That's when we come back after a break. Okay, Jamie,
- this segment we're going to try to broaden out on the bigger part conspiracy theories have played most
- particularly in uh American history and politics and to an extent also around the world. But in the point question of
- how damaging could this be for Trump this Epstein, you know, kathuffle,
- let's play something that I think all of us were shocked by that Trump said and announced before he
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- was elected the first time. I think it was in 2015 during the first election campaign. My people are so smart. And
- you know what else they say about my people? The polls. They say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? where I could stand in the middle
- of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters. Okay, it's like incredible.
- So, I'll never forget that he was quoting polls, but it was still and it's repeated over and over again this
- statement because up until now, Jamie, he has been teflon really to the extent
- that he was able to deflect everything that a any other politician probably
- would have been failed by and he was reelected. So, what do you think? I
- mean, I don't Do you think this is going to damage him? I don't know. Uh I don't know. I know
- that uh the MAGA base, so to speak, the leaders of the MAGA base, uh are
- starting to say some pretty aggressive things about Donald Trump. Uh you know, you've seen people like, uh Joe Rogan
- 24:00
- and others say things like, 'You're not the Pope, dude. You know, you still need to to be transparent. You need to tell
- the truth to us. Uh, you're not the Pope, bro. Is what Alex Jones said on his podcast. Um, that famous activist
- Laura Loomer uh has said that she thinks this could consume, quote, consume his
- presidency. Um, I don't know. Uh, but I know that the power of Trump flows
- directly from the loyalty of his base, which scares other Republicans from
- doing their jobs. And we've seen that over and over again. They're afraid of being primared, of being targeted by
- Trump. If he loses that power uh that politics uh is based on the power to
- scare his fellow Republicans and to some extent the Democrats, then uh it will
- change uh his presidency. Uh whether it will consume it or whether it makes him
- a lame duck or anything worse than that, I I kind of doubt. But I think it does
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- reflect the fact that Donald Trump somehow took over the Republican party with these crazy conspiracy theories.
- They let him do it. They started changing all their policies across the board on foreign and domestic policy to
- satisfy Trump. Maybe they won't do that anymore. That will change American uh foreign and domestic policy. That will
- change the way our country operates if MAGA starts moving away from total
- loyalty to the president. And that's a big if because
- then who, by the way, who would be the next emblem for for MAGA? That may be what this is about is people
- looking beyond Trump. I don't know. So yeah, I'm I'm not sure that. Well, I'm not sure. Who knows? It's very very
- strange and fickle and beyond. But remember, let's talk about who these people are that power.
- Yes. But then let's talk about the big, you know, the big issue of conspiracy theories because to be fair, Trump did
- start, well, he was a huge proponent of some of these huge uh, you know, conspiracy
- 26:05
- theories like the endless what was it called? Birther the birther uh really
- foul accusations against Donald Trump against sorry uh Barack Obama suggesting
- that he had not well saying that he had not been born in the United States, that he was Kenyon. And I remember being at
- the White House correspondents dinner in whatever year it was, 2010, I think. Were you there too, Jamie? When Obama
- together? Yeah. Yeah. I was with ABC then. Um brought his and I actually actually we
- were on the table and I could see where Trump was. He was sitting with Lai Wemouth who was a
- friend of yours at the time. Um well still the daughter of the late K.
- Graham, who was the owner of the Washington Post, and she Trump was his
- her guest, and I remember being able to look straight down at him, and he was growing white and mottled when Obama
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- really made fun of him. Yeah. And showed him the birth certificate. Finally, Obama had to bring out his birth certificate. But, you
- know, that stuff has a seriously corrosive corrosive
- uh influence because it never dies. And it and it just it just removes trust
- from any, you know, government official. And you know better than I do that the Clinton administration, the first
- Clinton administration was really plagued by so many conspiracy theories
- and special councils and I don't know what on things that turned out a lot of them to be just just that conspiracy
- theories and fake news. Nothing. So I think this is an interesting topic. I am not a an
- historian of American uh obsession Americans obsession with conspiracy
- theories. I obviously was born obviously I was born in 1960. The first conspiracy
- theory that I grew up with was John F. Kennedy's assassination and I actually
- believe that was caused a profound change in our country and the world
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- because John F. Kennedy was so respected and loved by so many when he was shot
- and killed and people didn't believe that Lear V. Oswell did it alone. It
- destroyed a trust in government that had existed prior to that time. Throughout the 50s and certainly after World War II
- and during World War II, government, society, journalism, culture all had a
- certain unity based on the war, World War II, which brought our country together. And frankly, the the long uh
- twilight struggle with communism brought our country together with its excesses on both sides. But there was a unity. I
- believe that unity was destroyed by the conspiracy theories surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination and everything
- that has flowed since that because once that happens, once you think maybe the vice president and the CIA conspired to
- kill their president, uh you lose trust in government. Guess what? That's a
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- trust that can never be regained. And guess what? That was a nifty piece of Soviet disinformation. I just
- interviewed Tim Winer, you know, the the the the wonderful journalist who's been writing and chronicling about the CIA.
- He's got a new book called The Mission, and it's about the CIA post 911. And you remember there were conspiracy theories
- about that, too. Did did America cause 9, etc., etc. But on the Kennedy assassination, you know, of course this
- is FBI purview, but but a a majority of Americans at that time, tens of
- millions, he reminded me, uh basically believe still that the CIA killed JFK,
- which he explained was Soviet disinformation. If I'm not mistaken, they planted it in an Indian
- publication, the country of India. And from there it morphed and and and and and you know became absolutely um and
- and it was but it was it was the KGB who did it in 1967. And the KGB is very intelligent. They
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- use intelligent sounding things. I learned this during my struggle on information warfare in the in the Biden
- administration. They connected the CIA to the mafia. And the mafia and the CIA
- were working together. They wanted to kill Castro. There was a split. They fought. The CIA wanted to fight the war
- in Vietnam. So they hired the mafia to kill JFK because Johnson would fight the
- war in Vietnam in a way I can't even keep up with this. Well, I I can because I saw, you know,
- dozens of movies about it, read dozens of books about it. And of course, that was as a young man something you
- couldn't help but listen to because you wanted to believe in the in the the glory of the Kennedy years, which I do
- and still believe in. And and they were destroyed. And I think the Bertha
- conspiracy, the Clinton conspiracies, all of these conspiracies uh are something that Hollywood uh is
- definitely a purveyor of. Movie after movie after movie is about government's
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- perity, government's lying, government conspiracies to kill, to kill their
- opponents, to kill Americans, things that having worked in government for, you know, almost 16 years, you know, I
- consider impossible. uh but yet most people believe that I still often in my
- personal life run into very intelligent people and I have to persuade them that you know government couldn't do that
- because they couldn't get away with it you know that secrets can't be held and the sad thing is we we just finish
- on on on this the Kennedy thing because it's really unbelievable that all these years later it persists that it was the
- KGB who planted it in ' 67 but Wina likens it to a virus and I think that's
- really interesting you know it's the virus uh and in the absence of good
- journalistic reporting which we're getting drowned out now by all these influencers and social media and
- podcasters and this and that you know it's it's it's really difficult and in the absence of good governance by by
- 32:04
- officials too because sometimes there's bad governance and that leads and lends credibility to conspiracy theories and
- it obsesses people no end and you know of course the CIA and others have had
- plenty for us to obsess about all their interferences overseas and and coups and
- backing of, you know, military hunters and things like that. I mean, so the
- thing that I think is interesting about this one, the Epstein thing and all the other ones is it was kind of explained
- that a conspiracy theory is not just a lie. It's a kernel of truth or
- questioning that then becomes, you know, the obsession of people who believe that
- there's one rule for the elite and another rule for everybody else. That there's, you know, people in high places
- who, you know, help those who are in trouble sort of get out get out of
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- trouble. And there there's there there are real reasons why people obsess about it. They they drag all these little
- threads out of a teeny kernel that they then, you know, they get led led to the
- led to the well, so to speak. What I find uh troubling and interesting and
- worthy of of consideration is the way in which social media and conspiracy
- theories merge their powers. Because prior to social media, the conspiracy
- theorists had trouble meeting each other, talking to each other, and building their own networks of of of
- conspiracy in the in the way in the exponential way that they can. But believe me, they really could even before,
- right? But but I I think you've used the word that I was making the point in the exponential way that they can now that
- the conspiracy theorists can find each other very easily on social media on uh
- you know going back for the last 20 years and that has built up both on the right and the left and more powerful
- 34:00
- more significant more uh you know unified theories of right and left
- conspiracy theories because they can meet each other and they can uh spin each other up and make things more
- significant. So those conspiracy theorists could find each other in the old days, but they weren't as
- significant. And since the social media uh era has damaged the uniformity of a
- set of facts that our country believes in, these right and left people can spin each other up. And that's why conspiracy
- theories have such an impact on our politics because they build the hatred by the right of the left and the left of
- the right. And that's troubles me and that's how it's exacerbated that hatred
- has been built up over many issues but the conspiracy theorists become the most intense like the ones who thought there
- was pizzay and the ones who all of that stuff. Yeah. And for some reason the modern conspiracy theorists are obsessed by
- pedophilia. Now it is really good for people to be really careful about it and
- 35:04
- clearly the you know the investigations and the trials have shown uh what the
- Epstein I mean his horrendous history with minors and his groomings and this and
- that. I mean absolutely horrendous and the victim's testimonies but that is something that really motivates a lot of
- modern conspiracy theories. for instance, as you just said, um the uh the Pizzagate thing and that was directed against Hillary Clinton. Um so
- it's it's just I don't know the answer. I just I really don't know the answer. I don't know whether there is an answer
- actually to somehow there's no answer to ending the conspiracy theory. The connection to our
- work in foreign affairs as you mentioned with the KGB is that in this era with these uh ability to get the right
- fighting the left, the left fighting the right, what the Russians have and the Chinese to some extent have learned how to do is to play into those animosities
- by finding good examples that fit those conspiracy theories and inserting them into the information domain. That's what
- 36:06
- I fought for two years at the State Department and it's very very difficult once those ideas are inserted into the
- information. The only way to fight them is to is to do two things. One, begin to
- talk to each other and listen to each other. Remember the freedom uh the
- freedom uh to to say what you want also in should include the freedom to listen.
- And one of the things we don't do anymore is listen to each other. We talk to each other very loudly, but the
- moment somebody's saying something you don't like, then you turn off. And I think that's one of the solutions is to
- teach kids and parents uh uh to teach their kids how to listen to each other.
- And my favorite story about this is from my friend Christo Gratzv, who's a journalist. I asked him what it was like
- to live in in communist Bulgaria and how did he survive when there were lies told to him all day long and told to the
- 37:02
- people all day long. And he told me, 'Well, when I grew up, my parents told me, whatever happens during the day, if
- something you hear and you're not sure what to think, ask us at the end of the day and we'll talk to you about it.' And
- that's how kids and families dealt with totalitarian uh extreme pressure to to
- conform. And I think it's what we need again today. Families need to talk to each other and and help kids sort out
- their their their thinking so that we can get back to a set of facts from which we're allowed to disagree over but
- what to do about it. But without the agreed facts as Daniel Patrick Morningington said you can have your
- opinions but you can't have your own facts. And one of the ways conspiracy
- theories have ruined our country is because people now do have their own facts. They certainly do in this in this world
- I mean right you know over to vaccines and everything. So look let's take another break and actually let's focus
- 38:01
- now on some of the stories around the world that are perhaps not as much in
- the American attention span. And of course remember this is all also about what some people quote as the attention
- economy. I mean, nobody has any attention span. So, this is just such a
- a way to, you know, deflect and and uh, you know, not focus on Ukraine, Gaza,
- the the terrible, awful things that are happening in parts of the world like Afghanistan and Africa since USA ideas
- has been has been killed. Let's take a break. We'll be back. Jamie, everybody, we're back with the last part of our
- discussion for this episode and that's on basically what's going on in our wheelhouse, which is Ukraine, Israel,
- Gaza, the rest of the world as America seems to be obsessed by the Epstein
- files and whether Trump is going to survive or not, he is going to survive it. That's my prediction. So Jamie,
- last week the president did something. He made a U-turn which we've discussed and that is said that the Europeans uh
- 39:04
- could buy as as you talked about on one of our early podcasts a way out of this no weapons to Ukraine nonsense from from
- the Trump administration could be that the Europeans buy them and then they give them to Ukraine. So that's all well
- and good, but Moscow now is insisting that it's going to achieve its goals for
- Ukraine before any ceasefire talks. Zalinski, the president of Ukraine, is
- saying that he's ready for ceasefire talks now. And the British are in the middle of chairing a a group of allies
- to try to surge weapons into Ukraine in the next 50 days. And that's because Trump has given Putin 50 days to get
- serious about ceasefire talks uh or else face sanctions and they would be secondary sanctions as well on people
- who are buying things uh from Russia. So, what does that mean, Jamie, as Putin
- gets ready to really have this summer offensive with more than a 100,000
- 40:03
- troops, according to reports, mass to try to get as much territory as he can?
- Well, I think it's two things. Number one, Putin's relentless attacks on Ukraine will continue both in the air,
- on the ground uh for the foreseeable future. But we should remember that uh a lot of Russians die for very little
- ground gained. It is relentless. It is damaging. It is terrible for Ukraine,
- but we shouldn't exaggerate the the gains on the ground. They're very small, very insignificant really compared to
- the number of people dead. Remember, we're talking about Russia having lost a million people dead or wounded in this
- war, soldiers. Those families are You know that he doesn't care and you know he
- know he doesn't care, but the Russian point is the is the Let me finish. You're asking a question.
- Let me finish. I know you're trying to say that Putin gives a damn about his I didn't say that. I never even implied
- it and I wouldn't say that and I've never said that and it wouldn't say that. Putin doesn't give a damn, right?
- 41:01
- We can take that as a given. But a million dead Russians or wounded Russians is a significant number. And in
- Russia, there is a thing called the Russian mother. It's a very real phenomenon. It had an impact in Afghanistan. I believe over time it will
- have an impact in Russia. And I think when we talk about Russia's uh military offensive uh we should point out uh how
- much suffering goes on on the Russian side for them to gain very little territory. Now as far as the weapons
- I I want to say how much suffering goes on on the Ukrainian side because they're we all talk about
- yes but it's well known but just like everything else every other story is pushing it off the airwaves right now.
- It's really bad. Of course, it's terrible. But the Ukrainians are determined to fight. They are not going
- to be intimidated by Russia's relentless offensives. And that's what Europeans and Americans need to appreciate. The
- Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying. And they're not going anywhere. All they want is the weapons to defend
- 42:00
- themselves. And finally, at last, the Trump administration has figured out a way to provide some of those weapons.
- Not all that the Russ Ukrainians need, but some. and that yes, they're doing it in a way we talked about on this program
- 10 weeks ago, which is have the Europeans buy those American weapons that the Ukrainians need so much. Um,
- and and that is a result of Putin uh dissing Donald Trump over and over again, talking nicely on the phone.
- Apparently, it's Melania Trump who's reminding the president that after they get off the phone, the Russians launch
- another uh attack on Ukraine. Remember, she's from Slovenia. She probably has some real antipathy towards the Russians
- as most East Europeans do and so she's reminding the president that he's being dissed. That has helped turn him around
- but not nearly far enough. The Europeans are stepping up. I think it's significant that they are doing so. The
- British in particular, the British also, there's a report today that much of the
- uh liqufied gas that's going uh around the world is going on British insured
- 43:02
- tankers. So, the British should do a lot less uh bragging and a lot more focusing
- on the British insurance industry. Do you mean, wait a minute, do you mean do you mean Russian gas?
- Russian gas being delivered all over the world on tankers that are insured by British insurance companies and
- registered under British uh insured companies. And that is something the British can do something about. Instead
- of holding all sorts of meetings about pretending to re-enter Europe as a leader, they can focus. Remember the
- British government is one of the reasons the Russians were able to dominate Europe. Remember we lived in London and
- Russian oligarchs had financed the the industries of tax and lawyers and real
- estate and they had brought great great income into London and the British government turned a blind eye. They're
- suddenly realizing you may seen last week they they're identifying the spies.
- They're putting them in jail. They're they're realizing the extent to which Russia has infiltrated the country.
- 44:01
- Well, here's a concrete example for the UK to step up and stop these uh oil
- tankers and other liqufied national gas delivery uh ships from being insured by
- British insurance companies, which keeps the Russian war economy fueled by money.
- And that would be just as important as organizing the meeting for sending weaponry uh to Ukraine. That weaponry is
- important. and Ukraine will get it. But I think the sanctions that Donald Trump talked about that you just mentioned, we
- need it's it's a cumulative sanctions is a weird thing. It doesn't work until it works. It's frustrating because it
- doesn't seem to have an immediate impact. But one day in some way, somehow the system suddenly can't handle it
- anymore. And the way we do that is by making sanctions enforced. Trump has mentioned one way. I'm giving you
- another way. we talked about on this program sending weapons uh US weapons to
- Europe. Let's get the British to lead a real sanctions enforcement effort and I bet that will have an impact on the
- 45:02
- Russian economy. Of course, the British got very very serious after the full-scale invasion
- and even before you remember the Novich poisonings and I mean they got really serious. Uh
- it's taken a while though to turn around the British economies. But I have to I have to point that out.
- Um cuz Russia actually attacked people on British soil. Now also it is time Jamie for the American
- administration to demand and use all their powers to get a ceasefire.
- Whatever threats, whatever leverage, whatever they can do in Gaza every
- single day now. And it looks crazy. It looks like it's just gone to a to a
- level that we can't even understand. from bombing uh you know a Catholic church you know which then Netanyahu had
- to apologize for last week to now there's reports of of people having been
- killed just trying to get food to at near a border of Gaza to Israel they're just desperate and apparently the the
- 46:04
- reason was there was just too much crowds well yeah desperate people are going to want you know they're gonna
- they're going to want food and it's going to get very very difficult there reports from Gaza from the Gaza
- officials the health officials that at least 20 people have now died of what they say is starvation. And we have a
- new Israeli air and ground offensive into a place called Deerbala, which is
- in central uh Gaza after having been dropped leaflets and told to evacuate. I mean, seriously,
- what is going on? Last week, we talked with, you know, your former boss, uh, Anthony Blinken, who said they, the
- Israelis, have achieved their military aims a year ago, and now they're telling
- starving people that they have to pick up again and move to other overpopulated
- zones. Why? To get a Hamas commander? I don't know. But this is now going completely crazy, it seems. No, where
- 47:02
- are the hostages? And no end in sight for the hostages either. There's an odd silver lining here. Um, I
- saw in one of the more uh odd things, White House officials actually
- expressing frustration about the Israeli government in the sense of their bombing
- in Syria. And I think this could be a way for uh the Trump White House to
- begin to finally realize their problem with Netanyahu is that all he knows how to do is support military objectives in
- Gaza, support military objectives in Lebanon, support military objectives in Iran, and now interfering completely out
- of order with the internal affairs in Syria. Syria is interestingly something
- that Trump is proud of. Remember, he did something that I give him credit for is he met with the new leader of Syria. He
- ignored the leader past history with uh extremist uh terrorist groups and said,
- 'Okay, I'm going to give you a chance.' And he did something that I doubt a Democrat would have done so quickly, which is lift all the or suspend all the
- 48:05
- sanctions on Syria. So, he's now invested in progress in Syria. Trump actually gets credit because as I think
- you know during his first term he saved the last piece of Syria in Idlib when he
- threatened Putin and Assad not to go in there and they didn't and that's from
- the place from which al-Shar came and the and the uh Syrian revolution
- succeeded in overthrowing Assad. So Trump has an investment in a way in in
- Syria moving in the right direction. Israel is making that extremely difficult. What business it is of theirs
- between the D the Drews and the and the uh Syrian government figuring out how to live together and protect each other and
- avoid a civil war? Why are the Israelis interfering in that? They say they're protecting their Drews.
- They're they're loyal Drews. They're just doing what their Drews are asking them to do. That's arrogance. Israel doesn't rule in the Middle East.
- 49:00
- Israel shouldn't rule in the Middle East. They are not the arbiters of what should happen. Yeah, but they've taken that position,
- Jamie. They bombed all over the Middle East and everybody's been praising them as far as I can see. And now they may have done what often
- happens is you take your arrogance one step too far and then you get a comeuppance. And I am hoping because I
- like to find silver linings. Sometimes they turn out to be true. uh that this may be their comeuppance where Trump
- actually gets infuriated with Netanyahu because all they know how to do is to use military force and they're very bad
- at turning that military force into a success through diplomacy. They can't do
- it in Iran. They can't do it in Gaza. They can't do it. The only place they did it was in Lebanon because we
- insisted on it and Biden succeeded in ending the war in Lebanon through intense diplomacy uh that the Israelis
- eventually acquiesed in. Now it has to happen in Gaza. It should be happening in Syria and it should be happening in
- Iran. And maybe, just maybe, this bombing in Syria was a step too far for the Israelis. I'm hoping for in terms of
- 50:04
- Trump. Let's hope that the Trumpies can get angry at that and have some humanitarian
- uh, you know, care and motivation for what's happening in Gaza 20 plus months on. It is now it well it has been for a
- long long time unconscionable and self-defeating and it's it's really it's
- really it's it's and they won't let us in to report it. It's just it's just a
- nightmare for those people. Anyway, that's it for this episode. Thank you
- all for listening. Uh, make sure you're following the feed so that you never miss an episode and we will see you as
- usual on Thursday for our bonus Q&A part of it. Keep them coming as we do like to
- hear from you and we do like to answer you. So email us at ammanporpodglobal.com. Find us on social media at amanpur pod
- and you can listen to Christian presents the XFiles on global player. Download it
- 51:02
- from the app or download it from the app store or go to globalplayer.com. I'm still confused. All right. Well, we're
- doing fine here. We're week 11. We're doing just fine. Yeah. See you next time.
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess