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Amanpour
Interview With Former CNN President Tom Johnson; Interview With Painter Adam Cvijanovic; Interview With "What Is Free Speech?" Author Fara Dabhoiwala. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired September 26, 2025 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM JOHNSON, FORMER CNN PRESIDENT: We must continue to ask the tough questions of the leaders that are in power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: As the right to free speech faces an uncertain future, I speak to CNN's former president Tom Johnson about his memoir, "Driven," how the
modern media can survive.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAM CVIJANOVIC, PAINTER: As an artist, you always dream of having a stage, having a conversation with people. And this is a big stage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Celebrating New York's immigrants, I visit artist Adam Cvijanovic and his new mural at St. Patrick's, one of America's most visited
cathedrals. Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FARA DABHOIWALA, AUTHOR, "WHAT IS FREE SPEECH?": This is much more than just an attack on free speech.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: First Amendment Princeton historian Fara Dabhoiwala tells Walter Isaacson what we can learn from centuries of censorship.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York.
It wasn't just the annual U.N. Summit in town this week, but a raging debate over free speech and the Jimmy Kimmel show dominated the space this
week. Even in the halls of power, in the face of Trump's diatribes and threats, you could sense the trepidation, don't poke the bear seemed to be
the prevailing wisdom.
For the media, the threat is all too real, even after talk show host Jimmy Kimmel came back on air. A chagrined President Trump was talking about
launching new lawsuits at ABC, adding fuel to a fire that has been burning for months.
Our first guest tonight is someone who helped shape the legacy media landscape and worked in the White House during the most contentious period
the Vietnam War, civil rights and the counterculture of the 1960s. As president of CNN throughout the 1990s, Tom Johnson had a front row seat for
many of the moments that define the late 20th century, from the Gulf War to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Now, he's sharing his memories in a new book, "Driven: A Life in Public Service and Journalism from LBJ to CNN." And he joined me to reflect on how
things have changed and the state of media today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Tom, welcome to the program.
JOHNSON: Thank you, Christiane. It's an honor to be with you.
AMANPOUR: Well, I can't believe I'm interviewing my former CNN president during my most important years at CNN. But I want to start by asking you
what motivated you to be a journalist? You had this inspiring sort of setup when you were sort of a wannabe. What helped you really get through it?
Also, you didn't really have the money to pursue a lot of your studies and internships and things.
JOHNSON: At age 14, I needed a job. There were two places to work, first in grocery stores and newspapers. They were both areas that permitted a young
person to work. I was so fortunate to get a job on a newspaper where the reporters and editors cared about me. That newspaper provided me with
scholarships to attend journalism school and then to attend Harvard Business School, all on financial aid. Along the way, I fell in love with
journalism. I was then and I am now a real news junkie.
AMANPOUR: I'm going to skip forward before I get to the, you know, detour you took by going into the LBJ White House. A news junkie, eventually you
became president of CNN. And I -- honestly, to this day, I just laugh my head off every time I read or I hear how you got your first interview with
Ted Turner and you weren't feeling so well. Give us a little -- you know, give us the short version of that fateful night.
JOHNSON: My first interview with Ted was actually in Los Angeles. We had a dinner with Ted and Jane Fonda, my wife Edwina and I. I was feeling badly.
On the way to the restaurant, I could tell that I was becoming nauseous. And I also -- by the time we arrived at the dinner, I was going to the
bathroom to throw up from time to time. Ted and Jane were totally oblivious. They were so in love. I mean, they were like teenagers. But in
any case, Ted offered me the job. And I told Ted that I had to think about it a bit.
[13:05:00]
Anyway, it was a wonderful dinner. On the way home, I was feeling even worse. I asked my wife to pull over. She did. I got out on the side of the
road and was very sick. Anyway, Edwina said, you know, we'll go ahead and take you back to the hotel and to Jane's place. As Ted was leaving, he
shouted, you've still got the job if you want it. But it was a very embarrassing night. And yet, it's one of those unforgettable evenings.
AMANPOUR: I mean, I just think that's so funny. You know, Ted and Jane in the car and you throwing up on the side. In any event, you became president
of CNN. And it went on for 10 or 11 quite glorious years, really important, because it was when CNN kind of hit the global stage running with the first
Gulf War.
Just again, remind me and remind everybody what distinguished us and what technology. And you talk about Robert Wiener, the great producer, and the
four-wire box that put us, you know, ahead of the whole gang in Baghdad.
JOHNSON: As Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, then Secretary of State Jim Baker, and then Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq reached an
impasse, President Bush said, this will not stand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: I, along with Ed Turner, went up to meet with Ted Turner. Ted had told me when he hired me that he wanted CNN to be the best network on the
planet. I told Ted if he really meant it, we needed to lease all of the transponders, put portable uplinks in position everywhere we could, outrun
the other networks, and be prepared for war. Ted said, what will it cost? I said, Ted, it could cost as much as $30 million or more. I'll never forget
his exact words. You spend whatever you think it takes, pal. So, when war did come down, we were prepared.
And thanks to Nic Robertson, one of our very junior production technicians at the time, now one of CNN's best correspondents, he put in place a four-
wire technology that permitted us to bypass the Iraqi phone system, the Iraqi power system, so when the bombs did fall, CNN was still up live with
audio and was the only network from Baghdad at that time.
AMANPOUR: That put us on the map, Tom, in a global way, and it was the beginning of my career as well in terms of being a foreign correspondent.
But what I'm also interested in is that the president of the United States, the -- I think the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the defense secretary,
they didn't want any of us being behind the lines, so to speak, behind the enemy lines. What did they say, and what did Ted say? They didn't want
journalists to be in Baghdad when the war went down?
JOHNSON: Yes. My first call came from the president's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater. The next call came from the chairman of Joint Chiefs,
Colin Powell. The third call came from President Bush himself. All three warned me that our staff in Baghdad was in grave danger. They made it clear
that the actions were about to occur without telling me exactly when. And I thanked President Bush for the call, and I then immediately called Ted and
relayed to Ted that I'd had these three calls.
And I'll never forget that moment in time. before I could even tell Ted what the options were, which was to stay in Baghdad, to go back to Amman,
or to go to the outskirts of Baghdad, in a very loud voice, Ted said, Tom, our policy will be those who want to stay can stay. Those who would like to
come out can come out. I relayed that to our magnificent executive producer in Baghdad, Robert Wiener, and that was our policy. Those who wanted to
stay did stay. Unfortunately, those who wanted to come out were unable to get out because the Baghdad airport, the Saddam National Airport, had been
closed.
And to this day, I've never revealed and will not reveal those who wanted out, but stayed and covered it with great distinction and with great
courage.
[13:10:00]
AMANPOUR: Yes, they did. And it was a really huge defining moment for CNN. So, can we also just pause to say that yourself and our boss, Ted Turner,
stood up to the pressure from the White House, the Pentagon, and elsewhere. I think that's important to say at this time in our history.
Let's go back now to the detour you took from being a young wannabe journalist, a journalist, and then getting into the White House. You were
the first class, I believe, or one of the first classes of White House fellows. You worked there under the -- in the Johnson administration as a
young person with Bill Moyers, who was a key advisor and a press secretary. And you kept, you know, moving forward. You were also in the midst,
eventually, of a terrible war, the Vietnam War. What do you remember from then that you then came to the conclusion to afterwards?
For instance, in the book, I couldn't stop but think about what you said. You know, now, I'm, you know, ready to admit that I should never have
wanted President Johnson to run again. In other words, it was such a bad situation. He shouldn't have run again. And of course, he didn't.
JOHNSON: Well, the war was catastrophic. The loss of life, both on the American side and the Vietnamese side, was just almost beyond description.
And I should say that at the time, I was mostly a notetaker in the most confidential meetings that occurred, much of which was about the war. I was
so focused, maybe with almost tunnel vision, about my role and accomplishing my role, rather than, I think, processing the situation. We
were getting reports from General Westmoreland Military Command Vietnam that were unbelievably positive.
General Westmoreland said there's light at the end of the tunnel. However, Peter Arnett, then of the Associated Press and later to be with CNN, was
reporting that the war was not going well. Other reporters, Walter Cronkite, there were others that were reporting that the war was not going
well at all. I saw reports coming back from media and reports coming back from official sources that were so different.
Ultimately, it was very clear that the press got it right. And we were not winning the war. In fact, after the gigantic Tet moment when the South
Vietnamese were overrun by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. And I really regret that there wasn't an opportunity to bring about peace
earlier, say in 1965, rather than much, much later.
The bombing, pauses, the bombing, the pauses. There were those who wanted to really almost bomb North Vietnamese back to the Stone Ages, the view of
General Curtis LeMay. And there were others who wanted us to do whatever it could take to get peace, no matter what. And we should have gone the peace
path.
AMANPOUR: Just as you're speaking, I just want to ask your reflection about, you know, you just said the press got it right in Vietnam and the
military got it wrong. They were giving the wrong information to Rosy, obviously. We know about the 5:00 follies, the Rosy press conferences in
Saigon, et cetera.
What do you reflect about the war of Israel against Gaza? Because we are not allowed to be there. There are heroic Gazan Palestinian reporters
telling the story, but none of us can get there. What do you think would be the trajectory if we were there now or in the last two years?
JOHNSON: It is reprehensible that the global media, including U.S. and international correspondents, aren't on the scene there. There would be
dramatic, really grave dangers to correspondents if they were. But those who wish to go, who are independent, genuine reporters, not reporters who
are acting as cover for either the Israelis or the Palestinians, but genuine reporters, they should be allowed to report there.
We too often now are only accepting the views of the Israeli government press office and have so grave a need, so serious a need to be able to
report independently and accurately.
AMANPOUR: And I want to also ask you about free speech. And obviously, we're talking in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination, the
crackdown by the administration and the FCC on various media, and including pulling the Jimmy Kimmel -- you know, the late night comedy show from ABC.
[13:15:00]
If you don't mind, I want to play something that you were there for because you were president of CNN. Ted was there. I think all these CNN executives
back in '94 or '95, when I was asked to ask a question from the field of then-President Clinton. I just want to play some of it and have you to
react.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, my question is, as leader of the free world, as leader of the only super power, why has it taken you, the United States, so long to
articulate a policy on Bosnia? Why in the absence of a policy have you allowed the U.S. and West to be held hostage to those who do have a clear
policy, the Bosnian Serbs? And do you not think that the constant flip- flops of your administration on the issue of Bosnia sets a very dangerous precedent and would lead people such as Kim Il-sung or other strong people
to take you less seriously than you would like to be taken?
BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: No, but speeches like that may make them take me less seriously than I'd like to be taken. There have been no
constant flip-flops, madam.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Well, I remember that really well. And I just wondered, was there any pressure from Clinton or the White House to fire me or discipline me?
JOHNSON: There was no pressure to fire you. There was considerable unhappiness by the president and by his press office with the very tough
question that you put to him in that forum. I do believe, that is what we must do. We must continue to ask the tough questions of the leaders that
are in power. We must also fight back in every way we can, particularly using our legal resources, hopefully to prevent the type of attacks on
media that we are receiving today from the Trump administration.
AMANPOUR: It's very troubling times. And I agree with you, sort of a joint defense, one for all and all for one is what we and other professions need.
And just another question, what did Ted and yourself and the other executives think? Because you didn't punish me either.
JOHNSON: My view was terrific. I mean, I've always felt that the role of the press is to be the watchdog, not the attack dog, not the lapdog, but to
be the watchdog of government. And you were doing just that, asking the questions that need to be asked, particularly in a democracy, and
particularly because we have the protection of the First Amendment.
AMANPOUR: You know, it sounds very self-serving, but I use that because of the situation that we're in right now. So, I'm glad to hear that you still
feel that way. Tom, can I ask you, because you've been very open about it, all your amazing jobs, your amazing success, your beautiful wife and
family, all of that that came your way, nonetheless couldn't, you know, spare you from a very deep depression that plagued you for quite a lot of
your life.
Tell me the worst of it and how you not got out of it, but how you essentially learned how to deal with it and now speak about it.
JOHNSON: If there is one message that I try to deliver in my book, it is depression is a treatable illness. There are now medications and therapies
that can enable most people to get better. And I so hope that those who are in the grips of depression, as I was, to understand that you can improve.
And I should also say that it was such a dark, dark period of my life. I did seriously contemplate suicide. I really was in the darkness and was
having such a tough time coming out.
I think in part, having a new job, an exciting new job as president of CNN and also having a new psychiatrist and a guy who was doing an enormous
amount of research, Dr. Charles Nemeroff, now of the Dell Medical Center in Austin, Texas, a combination of the two. And I can't overstate the
importance of having a spouse who was able to endure some of the worst of my times. And it was not easy, but she stuck with me.
[13:20:00]
But I also should say that she was the one that demanded that I go to see a psychiatrist then at UCLA or else, and I really think that she meant or
else I'm out of here.
AMANPOUR: Well, you know, I think that's a happy if a little bit sad note but a happy note because it ended up well and you end your book, "Driven,"
with a -- as you say, a love letter to Ed Winner. So, with all of the incredible revelations and there's so much more I want to ask you about,
but thanks for being with us and good luck with this book. You know you were at the helm during a really golden period and I thank you for
everything you did for us and for me.
JOHNSON: During my time at CNN there was no correspondent who was more important to the network to news provided to the world in a more
significant and a more heroic way than from Christiane Amanpour, and I say I'm seriously honored to be on the show with you today.
AMANPOUR: Thank you, Tom Johnson, very much indeed.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: I told Tom I was going to remove those kind words of praise, he told me you'd better not. So, I didn't for the record.
Coming up one of New York's most famous landmarks gets a revamp. We'll take you into St. Patrick's Cathedral to see the mural honoring the city's
immigrants. That's after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, you might not believe it today but America was once proud to be known as the only true nation of immigrants. This week Trump told global
allies that they're all going to hell because of immigration. Arrests and deportations continue here and whole communities are living in fear.
Communities that are made up of teachers, first responders, veterans and the like.
They inspired our next guest to answer the call to transform a side of St. Patrick's Cathedral into a giant mural.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Did you ever dream that you would have a massive mural in this most important cathedral in New York?
CVIJANOVIC: That would be a solid no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: I visited artist Adam Cvijanovic and his work celebrating the waves of immigrants who made this city, New York, great.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Adam Cvijanovic, welcome to the program.
CVIJANOVIC: Thank you very much, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: What did you feel when you knew that you've got this commission? It's really a massive commission and it's the first time I think they've
done that here.
CVIJANOVIC: My understanding is yes the first time that they've done that certainly in a very long time. And I felt, help. This is a very scary thing
and then I felt this is a -- I mean, it's an amazing opportunity to -- as an artist you always dream, of having a stage having a conversation with
people, and this is a big stage.
So, then, it felt like all right it's a big stage. I've got it. I'm going to do something. And it just began to feel like a tremendous responsibility
and then I tried not to think about it at all, because it wasn't helpful.
AMANPOUR: And what did the cardinal or whoever presented you and pitched you this? What was the mission what was the, you know, the pitch?
[13:25:00]
CVIJANOVIC: I think the mission was to show Knock and to show something about the church's relationship with the Irish and to show how that
continues into the present day.
AMANPOUR: So, Cardinal Dolan who is the archbishop he is Irish himself. Just tell us about knock. Knock from what I understand is a village in
Ireland there was almost a mass visitation, there was a vision, which many people saw the Virgin Mary. Is that correct?
CVIJANOVIC: Yes. They saw the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist, the Lamb of God and some angels.
AMANPOUR: And the connection is that that vision happened just as this cathedral was being, I don't know what the right word is, commissioned or
it opened its doors?
CVIJANOVIC: Yes, and I don't know what the right word is either. But yes, the cathedral opened -- was finished and opened its doors. Because I think
they still had services in here while it was being built.
AMANPOUR: 1879.
CVIJANOVIC: 1879, right.
AMANPOUR: Tell me the size and the scale of it.
CVIJANOVIC: Of the cathedral?
AMANPOUR: No, of the mural.
CVIJANOVIC: Cathedral's the size of a football pitch. It's enormous. The mural is small in comparison to a football pitch but big enough.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
CVIJANOVIC: So, it's in a part of the church which is where the front doors are -- which is actually at the back of the church which is called the
narthex. And so, there are three doors in that space and the space is sort of sheltered to itself, which is really great for doing a painting in
there, on three sides and then it's open to the church on the fourth side. And it is 25 feet tall and the total length is probably about 75 feet.
AMANPOUR: So, it's big. And when the doors are open, it has -- it's a nice day and the right time of day the light is incredible on these people. Who
are the people? Who are the immigrants? Is it a particular group? Is it a particular time when they came in?
CVIJANOVIC: Well, it's sort of divided. The painting's divided into four sections. It's the logic that I had to follow around the doorways that are
in the painting. So, on one section is Knock and underneath Knock are Irish immigrants from the 19th century, and they are actually all 20th century
people from suburban New Jersey. But --
AMANPOUR: Your models?
CVIJANOVIC: Yes, my models. And they're playing Irish immigrants. They're actually playing their great grandparents in a lot of cases. People
actually are Irish who are in the painting and they're sort of -- they all have family stories about who came over or whatever. And so, they all
dressed up in 19th century fashion and such as it was.
AMANPOUR: And what -- you were telling me out there that, you know, successive groups of immigrants went through really difficult times. I mean
the Irish they were fleeing the potato famine. They came over here. But it wasn't like they were embraced. I mean, this is meant to be about embrace,
but they weren't, were they?
CVIJANOVIC: No, they were not embraced at all. They were thoroughly discriminated against in every possible way. And I think they had -- and
that's not just the Irish, that's the Italians, it's the Jews, it's everybody who came in that change.
AMANPOUR: Chinese. I know they came to the west, but --
CVIJANOVIC: Absolutely. No, it's everybody who came in the 19th century who wasn't Protestant, you know.
AMANPOUR: But some -- also, you were telling me you've got some Iranians depicted. Some Afghans. You know, there's a big Muslim population in New
York as well.
CVIJANOVIC: There's a big Muslim population in New York. I have people from the far east who are in the mural. People -- I tried to have it so there's
people from everywhere on the planet because that really is New York. My understanding is that the New York school system has 160 languages in it.
And so, you know, that says something right there.
And people tend to narrow it down and think, well, it's only about Central American or South American immigration to the United States. And there are
parts of the United States where that is overwhelmingly true, but New York is not one of them. New York is a place where people really do come from
all over the place. It has -- it really does have a massive Chinese community here.
AMANPOUR: There are several historic figures who you depict.
CVIJANOVIC: Right.
AMANPOUR: From St. Frances Cabrini, Pierre Toussaint and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.
CVIJANOVIC: Thank you. That's it, Tekakwitha.
AMANPOUR: Tell me who each of those are.
CVIJANOVIC: Well, we discussed a little bit Kateri Tekakwitha out when we were at the painting. And she is Mohawk -- the so-called Mohawk saint.
Really by history not by when she was canonized but by history, she's the oldest American saint. I mean, you can't really beat that. American all
that. And standing next to her is Archbishop Hughes who built the cathedral. And so, he is there for obvious reasons and very dear to the
heart of the Irish American community in New York because he really stood up for their rights in a moment when, as we discussed before, it wasn't so
good.
And then, next to Kateri on the other side is Al Smith. And he's just there because I like Al Smith. No, that's not true. He's there because there was
a moment when I put a paramedic in the other side, I had to balance off the painting. So, he's an added figure.
[13:35:00]
But they proposed various other saints, And I was like, well, you know -- sort of redundant. And then it turned out that the cardinal and I both
liked Al Smith. And so --
AMANPOUR: And there's, of course, the famous Al Smith dinner in New York.
CVIJANOVIC: There is the famous Al Smith dinner.
AMANPOUR: Yes, which brings all the great and the good. But it's secular right because he wasn't a holy figure.
CVIJANOVIC: No, he wasn't but he is a very important Irish figure, first Irish governor of New York, first Irishman who ran for president, first
Catholic who ran for president.
AMANPOUR: Even before John F. Kennedy.
CVIJANOVIC: Oh, yes, back in the 1920s. Now, he got trounced.
AMANPOUR: He got trounced.
CVIJANOVIC: But America wasn't ready for that at all. But he did it and it was really important to a lot of people obviously that he did do that. And
I think given the fact that it was New York you know in the teens and 20s, and we're talking about Tammany Hall at that point and, you know,
corruption was sort of like a natural thing. He was actually pretty good and pretty clean.
AMANPOUR: And Pierre Toussaint, he's a Haitian born philanthropist.
CVIJANOVIC: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: That's interesting that he's depicted.
CVIJANOVIC: Well, he is, as far as I understand, the only non-clerical person who's buried here. So, he's just down the stairs there.
AMANPOUR: Down the hall there?
CVIJANOVIC: Yes, down the hall.
AMANPOUR: Down the aisle?
CVIJANOVIC: Down the aisle, in the crypt. Yes.
AMANPOUR: I like the title of this work. What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding?
CVIJANOVIC: Well, you can thank Nick Lowe for that. That's his title. And then, of course, Elvis Costello did a good cover of it. And the title --
AMANPOUR: Is it your title? You chose that?
CVIJANOVIC: Yes, I did. And I chose it because as I was painting this, I would sort of check my newsfeed and see what you were talking about and I
was like, oh, god.
AMANPOUR: Shoot me now.
CVIJANOVIC: You know, it's awful out there. And here I am, you know, thinking about these catastrophic things happening in the world and I'm
painting angels and saints and everything and I'm like, yes, well, why not? You know, what -- this is actually a good thing. What's so funny about it?
What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? Maybe everyone should just like chill, take a breath. And --
AMANPOUR: Again, a really good maxim for right now. Really, really important. So, it was interesting when Dolan basically told people about
it. He said, look, you know, we live in a political moment where immigration is obviously very -- you know, a bit of a lightning rod. But
this isn't a political painting. And yet, you can't really escape.
CVIJANOVIC: OK. Yes, that's right. This is not a political painting. And whatever my politics are about immigration are not in that painting, except
in that and this is a place where the church and I were kind of in alignment, it's a painting about showing the dignity of all people and I
think that becomes political only in that the dehumanification of people is the first step towards a whole lot of very, very bad things.
And as long as you understand the basic humanity of somebody who is other, the whole dialogue winds up being in a much better place. So, it has
political implications but it itself is not political.
AMANPOUR: And go back, you know, hundreds of years, Middle Ages or less. Popes, cardinals, big figures in the church, let's just keep it to the
church, they were patrons of great painters. I mean, Michelangelo of course, you know, you had the Medici's and et cetera. But you may not be
able to draw a link, but is there some kind of specialness about being, you know, getting this patronage, so to speak?
CVIJANOVIC: This whole project has a specialness to it, which is very strange. And there were patrons who paid for this. This isn't paid for by
the church. It's actually paid for by modern-day Medici's who ponied up the money for it, and that's great that they did that.
And that -- but as an extension of thinking about this thing connected to another time, there was a couple weeks in the studio where I had the
gilders in their gilding and Mohammed was making his stretches, and I had someone assisting me doing a charcoal pounce. This is how you translate a
cartoon, a full-size drawing to the painting to get the outline. You pounce it through tracing paper with charcoal and that is a completely Renaissance
technique. All of this was happening in the day, a natural light. No one was listening to music.
And my wife happened to be there and that evening we were having a drink, and I turned to her, I said, look, Julia, you just saw an amazing thing.
You just saw a Renaissance studio in 21st century Brooklyn with all these people doing this extraordinary level of artisanal work for the Catholic
Church. You know, when does this happen, you know?
AMANPOUR: It is remarkable when you put it that way actually. And I just wonder whether that in itself, that, you know, sort of conditions, the
environment that you're talking about is especially important right now where people don't necessarily have that, you know, the bandwidth to think,
to be alone or to be with a whole load of people but not to be, you know, talking loudly and not to be on their phones, not to be distracted.
[13:35:00]
CVIJANOVIC: It is super special, that kind of space and that kind of time. But the whole act of painting and the whole act of observing painting is on
a completely different time frame. I mean, the idea is that this painting is here forever. Now, forever is a long time. But say it's here for a
period of time that's longer than our grandchildren's lifespans or whatever, then it means that there'll be a point in the future where people
are communicating with this painting and looking at the people in this painting. And all of the big pop stars and great celebrities or whatever
are going to be footnotes in a trivia show, you know. So --
AMANPOUR: Tell me about your own immigrant experience. Because I do think what you just said is interesting, because, you know, every single day, not
only are there the tourists here, but the people who come to mass here, and they're all going out that way. It may not be the front door, but they're
all going out. They're all going to see it. That's quite humbling.
CVIJANOVIC: It is. It is. And my own family's experience is that my father came on a boat, like for real. One of the last people who actually came on
a boat.
AMANPOUR: Through Ellis Island?
CVIJANOVIC: Yes, just before it closed down. So, yes. So, he came in the early '50s, and his whole family came. And so, they were all piled in a
small sort of tenement building in Cambridge, where I grew up before people got a little more prosperous. And I didn't even understand I was in America
until I was about five years old, because all I heard were these other languages and everything, and all the customs in the house were different,
with the exception of my mother, who was vastly outnumbered by my father's family.
But she -- her family came mostly in the 1630s, North Shore, Massachusetts, Puritans.
AMANPOUR: Mayflower-y types.
CVIJANOVIC: Yes, Mayflower-y types. Very stern Protestants, you know, built this country and all that. And I think the lesson that I got from my
mother, which stuck with me when I was making this painting, is that she was a teacher her whole life, but a very serious, like a double master, who
really thought about education. And when she retired, she spent all her time helping immigrants learn how to read English, helping them try to get
jobs, how to try to get green cards.
And somebody asked her once, she said, well, you could be in the DAR, you could be all these. And she was like, I don't want to do that. She said,
these people are just like me. You know, we're all immigrants here, if you're not Native American. And it's just like, there's no difference. And
so, that -- she really saw it that way. And that vision of hers was something that I've always carried with me.
AMANPOUR: Well, that's a great place to end. Really nice. Adam Cvijanovic, thank you so much indeed.
CVIJANOVIC: Thank you, Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: We'll be right back after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Next, a closer focus on the history of free speech. Our next guest says that anyone who thinks this right is uniquely under threat today
is mistaken. Fara Dabhoiwala is a historian at Princeton University. In "What is Free Speech?," he traces it from the pre-modern age to our present
day, and he's joining Walter Isaacson to explain what we can actually learn by looking back. This conversation took place before Jimmy Kimmel's show
came back on air.
[13:40:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Fara Dabhoiwala, welcome to the show.
DABHOIWALA: Thank you, Walter.
ISAACSON: Most recently in the United States, we've seen, with some government encouragement, a network taking off the comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
What do you make of that in terms of free speech rights?
DABHOIWALA: Oh, it's terrible. It's an abuse of governmental power. It's done in a way that really also shows up the power of the private media to
shape public discourse. In this case, private corporation acting in its own interests rather than in the interests of the public has decided,
commercially and politically, it's sensible to bow down to the current administration.
And that's a terrible precedent for independent sources of news, for independent voices, which is one of the foundations of a flourishing
democracy. We need to have independent news media that stand up to power, not just bow down to it.
The other thing about this that is really remarkable and dangerous is that the FCC, like regulatory bodies in other spheres, the Federal Reserve, the
FTC, there are many of them, are all bodies that are set up rightly in the public interest to regulate something that is very important to our
community. It's not about individual rights, it's about the public interest.
And they're supposed to -- all these bodies are supposed to operate on a non-partisan basis or at least a bipartisan basis and not to be swayed,
especially not to be swayed by government diktats. And that system is now being attacked and undermined by the current administration.
It's extraordinary that a single person of the FCC, basically, even though it's the chairman, can make these kinds of pronouncements and wield this
kind of power, there's a complete abuse of what the FCC is supposed to be doing and what it stands for and why it was set up.
ISAACSON: You once had your own experience of being -- having your free speech suppressed. Tell me about that, and what did that make you think?
DABHOIWALA: Well, I had many experiences, because I wrote a book on the history of sexual attitudes in the West. And that's a topic on which
conventions in different cultures differ about what you should say in public and what you shouldn't.
But in particular, I went to China 10 years ago after my book was translated into Chinese. And first of all, my book was censored. The
Chinese have different views on what you can say about sex, even in history. That was trivial. But what really profoundly shook me was going to
China and seeing that the communist dictatorship there had put in place this extraordinary system of censorship, whereby everything that anyone
said in public was continually monitored, scrubbed clean, and forced to toe the party line. So, that is clearly an oppressive dictatorial system that
tramples all over individual rights of expression.
I came back from that visit knowing that this was horrible, knowing that I believed in free speech, and wanting to find out where that idea came from.
Why do we all believe in free speech, and yet, we can never agree on what it means within our cultures, across our cultures?
I'm afraid the bad news is that that -- because it is an essentially incoherent, weaponized concept, and it has been ever since it was first
invented 300 years ago. The good news is, as my book shows, people have been puzzling over this for 300 years and come up with a whole lot of
really interesting additional ideas, tools, theories of how to think about it that we really need to remember and pick up on. Because our current mess
is partly because we think about this in a very simple way, as free speech means just the individual right to say whatever you like, and censorship is
always a bad thing, and it always comes from government. Those are too simplistic set of presumptions with which to approach this very
complicated, very interesting, very important right and ideal.
ISAACSON: So, you've got the book on free speech. Let's go back to the beginning. To what extent is freedom of speech related to freedom of
religion?
DABHOIWALA: It's tangentially related, but there are many ways of arriving at the idea of free speech, and freedom of religion is just one of those.
It happens to be important in the English-speaking world, because the idea of freedom of conscience, which is the core of freedom of religion, comes
out of the Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries, and then people developed the idea, which is radical at the time, that you should be
allowed to speak freely on spiritual matters without being persecuted or put to death.
[13:45:00]
Because, ultimately, human beings don't know the truth about salvation. And so, it's better to discuss this and let God decide whether you're going to
be able to speak freely or not. But that's a very limited idea of free speech. The modern idea that we now take for granted is really about
political speech. It's the idea that every individual has the right to speak out on matters of public affairs -- matters of public concern, and
that's a development that doesn't take off until the early 18th century, and it starts first in England, and it starts there because it's a moment
of communications revolution.
Like our own day, freedom of speech always becomes a hot topic when people are living through new kind of communications circumstances, and the media
revolution of the 18th century is the revolution of print. So, that's where it begins.
ISAACSON: Early on in the United States, even before the First Amendment, there was a sense, and this was true of England as well, that even if you
printed something that was true, if it undermined society, if it undermined the government, it could be called seditious, seditious libel, and that was
fought against both in England the United States.
DABHOIWALA: So, seditious libel lies in the eye of the beholder. That's always the case. That's always the problem with defining freedom of speech
in very balanced ways. And ultimately, you end up with something very subjective. That's why everyone hates and finds it impossible to make
watertight laws, because it's -- you know, communication is exquisitely contextual. It's not just about what you say, it's about who is saying it,
about who the audience is, about all these things that, in normal communication, we can navigate, but once you start to make laws, that makes
it very difficult.
Laws are based on simplicity, transparency, everyone should be treated the same, and that becomes then a giant mess, and we see that around the world
today.
ISAACSON: So, isn't there a problem with laws that try to restrict my own individual free speech?
DABHOIWALA: Laws should be as minimal as possible when it comes to speech. The only thing that I would say is that we do need to acknowledge that
speech can cause harm, not just individual actions, but, for example, the spreading of lies and untruth or libels of whole groups of people. We know
from history that this can cause genocide, that it can really damage communal relations in all sorts of ways, and that's a problem. That's
always been a problem.
And so, if we have guardrails in place, not against offense, not against people, you know, having their feelings hurt, but against real harm, if we
need to -- if we try and define real harm, then it's legitimate to have laws against that, and that's what people are trying to do around the
world.
The real problem at the moment is that public discourse everywhere has become taken over more and more by American online social media companies
that now monopolize discourse, and they are operating from different principles, they're operating, first of all, from American principles that
are more maximalist, more libertarian, but secondly, they're also operating, as all mass media in the past have, not in the public good, but
to make money, and that is a different kind of incentive.
ISAACSON: Do you think that you should force, say, online media companies to act in the public good instead of just acting for commercial purposes?
DABHOIWALA: I think that the minimal thing that we should understand is social media companies are publishers. They're the most powerful publishers
the world has ever seen. They are constantly amplifying certain messages, suppressing others. They are censors on a vast scale, so the minimal thing
that we need as a society to require is transparency about how they're doing that, simple transparency. What are their mechanisms that the
algorithms are using to amplify certain messages and voices and suppress others, and then are they applying this consistency -- consistently? That's
all.
That's not censorship. That's just requiring some kind of responsible transparency about their huge power to shape public opinion in the world
today. And that's what people in Brazil are trying to do, that's what people in the European Union are trying to do with the legislation that's
being put forward there. That's not censorship, that's an attempt to hold these giant corporations to account for the power they wield in shaping
public discourse.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: Let me quote something from your book, which is a paramount purpose of laws and governments has always been to safeguard the public
interest. But perhaps, I'd say, if you went back to the Bill of Rights, which is exceptional in the world, it's not the way other countries do it,
that the paramount purpose of the Bill of Rights was to safeguard the individual's liberty, not just the public interest.
DABHOIWALA: I think those two things are always in tension, and America has a wonderful, noble, proud tradition of individual rights. The First
Amendment has a great history as safeguarding individual rights to political speech and political dissent and attacking the administration,
all the things that are currently being trampled by the current administration.
But on the other hand, you cannot have a society that works if you don't agree on certain ways of living together. The public good is a very
difficult thing to define, but we do need to define it in order to live with each other.
And so, a minimalist understanding of what the public good might involve, for example, not being allowed to spread untruths and lies about really
dangerous things, or that if you're engaged in political debate, you may not in bad faith just make it up as you go along, I think that would be
helpful in just thinking about what free speech should mean and in policymaking as well.
ISAACSON: When you talk about maybe we should balance free speech with what's good for society and political reasons, do you worry that when a
party you may not like is in power, they can use it? In other words, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, saying things like we should crack down on
hate speech, which slightly echoes a little bit of what you said earlier in the show, or the head of the FCC saying, we should look at this?
DABHOIWALA: I think what we're seeing in the United States right now is, first of all, an outrageous, hypocritical crackdown on free speech and on
the accepted interpretation of the First Amendment. That's absolutely a problem, but it's a much bigger problem. We're seeing really an attempt to
undermine independent sources of authority and to silence voices and opinions that the current administration doesn't like. And that's a really
dangerous undermining of democratic process in general.
So, absolutely, at this point, we should be shouting from the rooftops that this is illegitimate, this is not the tradition that we as Americans are
proud of. And ironically, the strong protections of the First Amendment that we currently enjoy come out of the first and second red scares when
something very similar happens. The idea that communists were beyond the pale, that their voices should be shut down without question, that
homosexuals didn't deserve to be governed, all these kind of progressive, anti-progressive government attempts at censorship in the 19-teens and '20s
and 1950s led to the First Amendment protections for political dissent that we currently enjoy.
So, this is really the third red scare, and it's an attempt to not just shut down particular voices, but shut down opposition to a would-be
autocrat who is following the playbook that we've seen in other countries, in Hungary, in Turkey, in India, whereby you don't just suppress voices
that you don't like, you try and cripple independent sources of authority, judges, institutions like universities, the independent working of
scientists. And I think this is much more than just an attack on free speech, and we should be aware of that.
ISAACSON: Fara Dabhoiwala, thank you so much for joining us.
DABHOIWALA: Thank you very much, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Join us next week for my spirited conversation with Jane Fonda, two-time Oscar winner, anti-war activist, and environmentalist. She joined
me alongside her fellow activist, Mela Chiponda, who are not giving up the fight to save the environment, no matter what anyone says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANE FONDA, ACTOR AND ACTIVIST: The fact is that now we're facing two existential crises, climate and democracy. And we can't have a stable
climate unless we have a stable democracy, and you can't have a stable democracy unless you have a stable climate. They're interrelated, and they
have to be solved together.
[13:55:00]
MELA CHIPONDA, DIRECTOR, THE SHINE COLLAB: The climate crisis is not a crisis that can be done by just women in Africa or women in the global
majority. This is a crisis that is global in nature. And therefore, this is the time for all people who care, for people and the planet to come
together and say, we have to do something.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And we'll have much more of that, but that's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs
on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. So, thank you for watching and goodbye
from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
