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Amanpour
Interview with Former Israeli Consul General in New York and Former Adviser to Israeli Prime Ministers Barak and Peres Alon Pinkas; Interview with Palestinian National Initiative President Mustafa Barghouti; Interview with Journalist and Historian and "Watergate: A New History" Author Garrett M. Graff; Interview with "Autocrats vs. Democrats" Author and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 29, 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.
More than 100 Palestinians are killed in Israeli strikes despite a ceasefire after Netanyahu accuses Hamas of killing an Israeli soldier. I
speak to former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas and Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The corruption of this presidency is unparalleled in American history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: From building ballrooms to demanding money from the Department of Justice, historian Garrett Graff explains the flurry of ethical issues
coming out of Trump's White House.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL MCFAUL, AUTHOR, "AUTOCRATS VS. DEMOCRATS" AND FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: It's going to be an inevitable tension, that's a
good word, but not an inevitable war. There's a difference.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- "Autocrats vs. Democrats," as Trump tours Asia, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, reflects on the changing world order.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
And we begin in Gaza, which has seen its deadliest day since the ceasefire began just over two weeks ago. At least 104 Palestinians, including dozens
of children, were killed in a wave of Israeli strikes on Tuesday night, that's according to the health ministry there. The director of the Al-Shifa
Hospital described the health and humanitarian situation as catastrophic.
The strikes come after Israel accused Hamas of an attack that killed an IDF soldier and allegedly staging the discovery of a deceased hostage. But
Hamas said it had no connection to the attack, and it says it's committed to the ceasefire deal, so does Israel say that and so does President Trump.
And then they did it again. Tonight, the IDF said it had conducted a precise strike against terrorist infrastructure in northern Gaza.
So, will this fragile ceasefire hold? To discuss, we turn now to the former Israeli diplomat, Alon Pinkas, who joins me from Tel Aviv. Welcome to the
program.
ALON PINKAS, FORMER ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL IN NEW YORK AND FORMER ADVISER TO ISRAELI PRIME MINISTERS BARAK AND PERES: Thank you, Christiane. Always
good to be with you.
AMANPOUR: Thank you. And I do want to ask you, because you've actually been in the room, you've advised not only, you know, conservative, but also
labor politicians there and prime ministers. What do you think is going on? Does Israel actually want this ceasefire to hold, or is it sort of a la
carte intervention when they want to, and then saying that they're committed to the ceasefire deal? I'll ask our Palestinian guests about
Hamas, but first to the Israeli perspective.
PINKAS: Yes, I think both premises of what you said are correct. Israel does not want the ceasefire, well, at least Mr. Netanyahu does not want,
but he treats it, I'm sorry, as a la carte, as you suggested. And that has to do with the fact that he doesn't know -- he really doesn't know whether
or not President Trump is committed to this, or whether or not, as, you know, past patterns have indicated, he will, you know, distance himself
from this and disengage in two weeks.
Now, look, let's not forget, Christiane, this is an agreement that Mr. Netanyahu did not want. This is an agreement that President Trump basically
cornered him and bullied him and made him endorse almost under, well, diplomatic, at least, duress. And he made all these promises to his extreme
right-wing coalition partners, not that he's any different from them, but at least in terms of the composition of the coalition, of the government,
that he cannot reconcile with endorsing the plan.
So, what he's trying to do right now is say, well, look, Hamas hasn't disarmed. This, of course, prevents the further implementation of other
phases or further phases in this program. But he's saying to himself, and quite possibly to President Trump, don't worry about it, we could still do
one more major military offensive in Gaza without this undermining the further implementation of the plan. Now, I think he's dead wrong about
this, but this is his thinking.
AMANPOUR: I just want to pick you up on what you said, he doesn't -- this is Netanyahu, doesn't know how intensely Trump is going to be engaged. But
just to state the facts, Trump sent his vice president, his secretary of state, his son-in-law and negotiator, Jared Kushner, his main envoy, Steve
Witkoff, all in the last week or so to insist to Netanyahu that this ceasefire has to hold. And Trump himself says nothing is going to
jeopardize the ceasefire.
[13:05:00]
Why do you then think, and you were consul general in the U.S., I know it was a long time ago, but you get the politics, why do you think Netanyahu
then is doubtful about Trump's continued attention and focus?
PINKAS: For two reasons. One is he's looking at Trump's modus operandi in Ukraine. And then secondly, he's looking at Trump's notoriously narrow
attention span. And he's saying, OK, he got the accolades, he was showered with the praise for the release of the Israeli hostages and for the
ceasefire. But the next phases are much less attractive, are much less ritzy-glitzy and are much less rewarding as far as Trump is concerned. And
so, Trump has a vested interest in maintaining the ceasefire, but not necessarily maintaining the same level of commitment and engagement in the
further stages. That's one way of looking at it.
The other way of looking at it has to do with what you just suggested, Christiane, domestic American politics. Look, Mr. Netanyahu not only killed
forever the concept of bipartisan support for Israel by aligning himself completely and comprehensively with the Republicans, but he has done so in
a way that leaves him with zero levers of influence in America.
What is he going to do now? He's going to ask the Democrats to help him out against a Trump administration that is pressuring him? Of course not. He's
going to help his old Republican buddies. They're out of the Republican Party. They're no longer members of the Republican Party. And so, he's been
cornered into complete reliance, dependence with -- at President Trump's mercy.
So, he's sort of cornered in this, and he's pretty much afraid of what Trump can do. But yet, he's banking on Trump saying at some point, OK, I've
had enough. Plague on both your houses. I gave it my best shot. You know, everyone applauded me. I did something that other presidents refrained from
doing that is pressuring Israel, I can't want this more than the parties, repeating lines that you're familiar with, the Clinton administration and
the Bush administration and so on and so forth.
AMANPOUR: So, let me then ask you again, as more devil's advocates here, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were on 60 Minutes after the negotiation,
after the ceasefire and, you know, after they continued to push the Israelis and Hamas. This is what he said about Israel, pushing Israel to do
more for the Palestinians. This is what he said to 60 Minutes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JARED KUSHNER, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON-IN-LAW: The message that we've tried to convey to the Israeli leadership now is that now that the war is over,
if you want to integrate Israel with the broader Middle East, you have to find a way to help the Palestinian people thrive and do better.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you doing with that message?
KUSHNER: We're just getting started.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How sure are you that what you've accomplished so far is going to stick?
KUSHNER: First of all, it's the Middle East, so everyone complains about everything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: You know, a plague on both your houses, as he ended that sort of saying. But, you know, so they're putting the pressure on. I mean, they're
saying the right things. But how concerned are you, for instance, that there is still no consensus on who and what will make up and when it will
happen, this stabilization force?
PINKAS: Oh, I'm not concerned because I know it won't happen. And I'm sorry to sound pessimistic or skeptical to the point of depressing you or
any one of our viewers. This can't happen with this current government in Israel. This can't happen while Hamas hasn't disarmed.
So, we are entering the next phases of an agreement that was signed under duress, that has zero goodwill and zero trust between the sides. You can't
make an agreement work that way.
AMANPOUR: Right.
PINKAS: But this particular government in Israel is not going to entertain any kind of future thinking, forward-looking Palestinian-Israeli
settlement. Without that, you will not have not only Israeli integration into the broader Middle East, which primarily means Saudi Arabia, but also
you will not really have this agreement.
And so, I'm afraid and concerned that the status quo is so tenuous and so volatile that this ceasefire -- we're going to go into this repeated
motion, this pattern of the ceasefire being, you know, infringed on or violated on, you know, every two weeks without anything happening.
[13:10:00]
Surely you -- and you know the Arab world better than I, Christiane, through your journalistic career, surely no one thinks that the United Arab
Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or anyone else is going to invest $80 billion in Gaza reconstruction when Hamas gangs are roaming around, when Israel
hasn't really withdrew, when there is no any -- no meaningful political process. So, sorry to depress you again, but I don't see anything
happening.
AMANPOUR: It is actually very depressing, given the massive loss of life and the destabilization inside Israel and the hostages and all of the rest
of it that's happened over the last two years. But let me ask you, does your kind of dark picture extend to the West Bank? Because it seems like
Israel, the settlers, the IDF are ramping up their control and the tax and all the rest of it on the West Bank. Is this part of the we're not going to
-- you know, we have a different view than the Americans on all of this?
PINKAS: Well, you know, Christiane, here I was saying, OK, depressed, Christiane, on 50 percent of the issues as long as he doesn't mention the
West Bank. Then it becomes 100 percent depressing. Because the West Bank is the next focal point. It is explosive. The friction between the military,
the Israeli military, the Palestinians and the settlers, 500,000 of them, is such that I can't fathom any kind of cohabitation, even without a
political process.
Now, what is happening in the West Bank right now, as opposed to Gaza, which is our natural focus, but in the West Bank, there is a relatively
weak but stable Palestinian authority with which Israel refuses to engage and have a dialogue, a fruitful dialogue with for the better part of the
last 10 years. And that's going to explode. That's going to explode one day. I mean, they are financially on the verge of implosion. And what is
happening is that a one-state reality is being created in front of our eyes.
If you ask Israelis about a one-state reality, of course, they're all against it. Do a referendum now in Israel, Christiane, and 70 percent will
say, what? One-state? Absolutely not. But what if it does happen? What if the Palestinian Authority dissolves voluntarily? What if they say, you want
us, you have us? All we ask is one man, one vote, enfranchise us, one -- you know, one-state, one binational state. We -- I don't want to use
expletives on CNN, but we would be in a very bad situation here.
AMANPOUR: Well, Alon Pinkas, that has given us a lot to think about. And we are going to go to the West Bank now and to Mustafa Barghouti, president
of the Palestinian National Initiative. Mr. Barghouti, thank you. You might have just been listening to Alon Pinkas and particularly what he said about
the West Bank.
Before I get into what's happening in Gaza, can you just tell me and give me your reaction to that prediction that the West Bank is on the verge of
some kind of collapse and that in the end, it may all lead inevitably to a one-state solution reality?
MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, PRESIDENT, PALESTINIAN NATIONAL INITIATIVE: That would be my preference, one democratic state with equal rights for everybody. The
Israelis don't want two-state solution. They don't want one-state solution. What do they want? They wanted ethnic cleansing and they failed. They're
not going to get it. We're staying here.
So, yes, the situation in the West Bank is absolutely horrifying. I mean, everybody speaks about disarming Hamas. Nobody speaks about disarming the
illegal terrorist settlers who are behaving as settler gangs. Terrorist gangs moving around from one city to another, from one village to another,
shooting people, burning houses, burning cars, destroying properties. They've already evicted 60 communities, 60 Palestinian communities and the
West Bank have been evicted by Israeli settlers' terror.
The Israeli army is supporting them, participating with them in shooting Palestinians. More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed or injured
during these attacks. And every night, the Israeli army is conducting massive arrests against Palestinians, including, by the way, some of those
who were freed in the exchange of prisoners in violation also of the agreement.
AMANPOUR: Let me just read some of the stats.
BARGHOUTI: The life in the West Bank is absolutely horrible.
AMANPOUR: Well, let me read some of these statistics, because Israel, as you know, conducted an airstrike on the West Bank on Tuesday yesterday.
That was the first time in months. And it says it killed three militants. But data is showing settler outposts are increasing. The Israeli NGO Peace
Now, says 84 new outposts were established over the past year, compared to 49 the previous year. Also, 757 recorded settler attacks in the first half
of 2025.
[13:15:00]
So, those are the facts that you're referring to. So, then what do you think is going to happen? Because especially with what's happening in Gaza,
do you actually think that this ceasefire is an actual ceasefire? And yes, there's been some violations by Hamas and now by Israel. But the ceasefire
in general will hold. Is that what you think, or what do you think about this ceasefire?
BARGHOUTI: Only one man can decide whether it will hold or not, nd that is President Trump. And given what Israel has done in the last days, either
Mr. Trump is complicit with these Israeli attacks, supporting them and allowing them, or he is being manipulated by Netanyahu around the clock.
In reality, Netanyahu never wanted the ceasefire. He was obliged to accept it. And now, he's trying to change its nature. He wants a unilateral
ceasefire, only from the Palestinian side. But he wants to give his army the full liberty to attack Palestinians every day, every night, if he
could, and to have the total freedom of attacking Palestinians anywhere.
Look, they claim that one soldier was killed. OK, one soldier was killed. We don't know who killed him. Maybe -- I don't know. I don't have a proof
of anything. But why would you go and then bombard all of Gaza, from the north to the south, and kill no less than 46 Palestinian innocent children
and 20 Palestinian women, and in total kill 104 people?
Since the ceasefire agreement, this Israeli fascist government, let me say, has violated the ceasefire 126 times, not only by bombarding and killing
Palestinians. So, far, more than 211 Palestinians have been killed during the ceasefire agreement, and more than 600 have been injured, with live
ammunitions, of course, and bombardment. But more than that, Israel is still refusing to open the Rafah Crossing, refusing to allow people to get
in or out. Israel is still strangulating Gaza, depriving it from humanitarian aid, as they should. And it's not only quantitative. I mean,
they never allowed the 600 trucks to get into Gaza daily.
They are also preventing so many vital things to Gaza, like medical equipment. You know that the whole of Gaza, 2.2 million people, do not have
a single MRI now. Most of the medical machines have been destroyed. Medications is lacking. So, what you are talking about here is
strangulation of the people. And when they speak about the hostages, that they still didn't get the bodies off --
AMANPOUR: OK. Let me just ask you about this.
BARGHOUTI: They don't allow even machines to get in.
AMANPOUR: Right, they don't. Yes, the machines haven't got in. So, I mean, look, you call the government fascist. They call your authorities
terrorists. And we are where we are. But Israel says Hamas faked the recovery of hostage remains, which was one of its casus strikers, so to
speak, casus belli, for this strike. And Trump was asked about that on Air Force One. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The losses are a very small part of peace in the Middle East. And they have to behave. They're on the rough side, but
they said they would be good. And if they're good, they're going to be happy. And if they're not good, they're going to be terminated. Their lives
will be terminated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Right. So, Mr. Barghouti, that is unintelligible because of the airplane noise. But what he's saying is Hamas is a very small part of peace
in the Middle East and they have to behave. They are on the rough side. But they said they were going to be good. And if they're good, they're going to
be happy. But if they're not good, they're going to be terminated. Their lives will be terminated.
You know, Alon Pinkas, former diplomat, said that Netanyahu is banking on Trump not staying focused. My question is, what do you think about Trump's
focus, given that he sent all his top deputies to Israel to let them know that this has to hold? But what do you think he means between Hamas good
and not good? What's the line there?
BARGHOUTI: I really don't know. I mean, you know, President Trump can change his mind every hour. And it's not clear what he thinks. But if you
talk about the bodies of the nine Israeli soldiers who are still there, Hamas says that they can't get them out. They need machines to get the
rubble out. I mean, there are 10,000 Palestinian bodies under the rebel. And nobody can get to them, because they don't have the proper machines.
They don't have the proper equipment.
[13:20:00]
And Israel is not allowing that and keeps talking about the fact that they're not getting the bodies. And by the way, they don't -- they speak
about the nine Israeli bodies, nobody speaks about the 700 Palestinian bodies that are withheld by Israel, including the three people they have
killed recently in Jenin. And by the way, that was a field execution, there was no necessity to shoot them and kill them in this manner.
But look, a mother of a 15-year-old boy from Jenin Camp told me her boy was killed by the Israeli army and his body is held -- withheld for three
years. She told me all I want is a grave to cry on. I mean, why they don't accept us Palestinians as equal human beings?
I want every Israeli body to be handed over to Israel and to their family, I respect that. But why they don't speak about our people, our people who
have been killed? You know that some Palestinian bodies have been withheld by Israel for 50 years now. You know that 33 Palestinian prisoners who died
in Israeli jails, either because of torture or lack of medical treatment, are still withheld because Israel says that their bodies must finish the
term. Who would do that?
I mean, for God's sake, they call us this and we call them that. But in reality, what we face here is the worst system of apartheid, the worst
system of racism, something that no Jewish person that respects the history of the Holocaust should accept. That is unacceptable. It's inhuman. It's
unacceptable in every sense of the word.
AMANPOUR: We have 30 seconds left. Do you think that there will be a stabilization force? Already the Israeli foreign minister is saying, you
know, countries that want to or are ready to send armed forces should at least be fair to Israel, and they're banning Turkey. It's a problem in Gaza
that there's no stabilization force yet.
BARGHOUTI: Netanyahu does not want ceasefire, does not want this force to come in, and he will try to make obstacles. But that force should come in
to separate us from the Israelis. It should be a peacekeeping force to observe the ceasefire and stop Netanyahu from continuing these attacks that
will repeat for sure unless somebody stops him.
AMANPOUR: And somehow Hamas has got to decommission and put away those weapons. And of course, these forces, these people who are being asked to
join the stabilization force don't want to have to do that. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti --
BARGHOUTI: I think I have to say that Hamas has no problem with decommissioning if there is a true process that would lead to the beginning
of reconstruction of Gaza.
AMANPOUR: Let us hope that that's the case. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, thank you very much indeed. Stay with us because we'll be back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: We turn now to the United States and a growing list of controversies. At the center, President Donald Trump, from suggesting he
may demand $230 million from his own Justice Department, and his family members being enriched by international deals, to tearing down the East
Wing of the White House in order to build a new ballroom funded by private donors without any of the normal oversight expected and demanded of
previous governments.
It's worth noting overseas that accountability and the rule of law often extends to the very top. In Israel, the former prime minister, Ehud Olmert,
has spent time in jail. In South Korea, the former president was impeached and arrested for attempting a coup. And just last week in France, former
conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy began his five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy.
[13:25:00]
Meanwhile, back in the United States, our next guest says we're watching a Watergate-level scandal unfold nearly every day. Journalist and historian
Garrett Graff is the author of "Watergate: A New History." And so, how can American institutions hold the president to account? And what should
ordinary citizens be most concerned about?
To answer some of these, he's joining me now from -- where did I say you are, in Washington. Garrett, listen, on the good constitutional news, let's
open this with, the president has said he does not think he can run for a third term and is not inclined because the Constitution says it's not
possible. And the speaker of the House obviously said that the Constitution provides for just two terms. Good news, right?
GARRETT M. GRAFF, JOURNALIST AND HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR, "WATERGATE: A NEW HISTORY": Good news for now. I will believe that that is the final and
settled answer by President Trump when I see him walk out of the White House voluntarily someday.
AMANPOUR: On the other hand, we have Eric Trump, who, along with the other Trump siblings, I think, or at least his brother, they're running the Trump
family business. And he says recently, we are the hottest brand in the world right now. What do you take from that comment, given some of the
things I led into you with, given the deals that are going on overseas between the business and other nations and other entities?
GRAFF: Yes, I think it's helpful to start with a little bit of a history lesson, which is when President Jimmy Carter was elected, he had to sell
his peanut farm for the -- in order to help ensure that there were no visible ethics or sort of legal questions and conflicts of interests for
him as president.
Fast forward 40 years, and we have seen in this administration, the complete collapse of the wall between President Trump, the office and
Donald Trump, the business leader. This is a family that has done an enormous amount to capitalize on the presidential power that he has, up to
and including sort of one of the most remarkable things that we've seen Donald Trump do, which is, as president, sue private media companies for
things that he believes that they said about him that were wrong, and then sort of force settlements and payments to himself or entities that he's
associated with in exchange for sort of the largesse of continuing to do business with these companies on behalf of the government.
I mean, it's just absolutely absurd levels of conflicts of interest that we've seen in just the first nine months of this administration.
AMANPOUR: But what is -- I mean, and what is do you think absurd then about the fact that it's able to happen? America is a country of the rule
of law, constitution, they're very clear parameters around what can and cannot happen. There's a Supreme Court, which seems to be basically, you
know, tipping for him on every one of these controversial decisions so far. There may be others where they decided to rule in different ways.
But what should the American citizen be concerned about right now? As I pose in the lead to you, what can ordinary people do?
GRAFF: Yes. So, I think one of the things that we are struggling with right here is you'll hear the American media talk about this as a
constitutional crisis. And I don't think that that's exactly the right term, because a constitutional crisis implies that there is tensions in
between our branches of government, that there's sort of a power where there is some ambiguity or sort of some sense of question of authority
between the branches and who is answering to who.
That's not what we've experienced so far over the course of these nine months. What we have seen instead is something that I call a constitutional
crash, a crash in the medical sense, where sort of our constitutional system is lying dead on the operating table, that there -- that the two
other branches that we rely on, the Supreme Court and Congress, to exercise checks and balances as co-equal branches of government, have just
completely abdicated their normal responsibilities.
You know, one of the things that has been just so striking this year is that the president has taken upon himself sort of a number of the most
important powers traditionally given to Congress, you know, the ability to decide how funds are spent in the federal budget, the ability to levy
tariffs.
[13:30:00]
Now, in the war -- sort of undeclared war that we are in with Venezuelan drug cartels, you know, the ability to choose who and how the U.S. goes to
war with, and that all three of those are traditional congressional responsibilities, Congress in House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader
John Thune have yet to raise any meaningful objection to how the president is using and usurping traditionally congressional powers. And that to me is
sort of the part where our constitutional system is failing, is that the founders never imagined that the leaders of other branches would put their
party responsibilities above their constitutional responsibility.
AMANPOUR: So, let's deal with a couple of examples and sense of scale. So, the whole business of the Trump family crypto business. Look, I don't know
much about crypto, frankly, but there are pretty big numbers. Reuters reports that the Trump family businesses brought in about 50 million in
2024 before he was reelected president from real estate and branded products, et cetera. This year, the Trump family businesses have earned
$864 million, actual earnings with the lion's share coming from crypto.
So, that's the Trump family business, right? I mean, it's not President Trump, but what does it mean anyway?
GRAFF: Yes. So, this is an area where there's sort of a particularly murky sets of relationships playing out. The crypto world got behind President
Trump in a big way in the presidential campaign last year. And through this year, he has been giving them a number of sort of policy and personal
victories using his presidential powers while sort of collecting payments on the family side from crypto enthusiasts and crypto industry backers.
A couple of examples here. One is he has largely dismantled the efforts of the Treasury Department and the Justice Department to prosecute and
investigate crypto fraud. He has also publicly pardoned using his presidential powers two notable sort of crypto celebrities. One, Ross
Ulbricht, who ran a so-called dark web marketplace where people sort of sold drugs, recruited killers for hire and other criminal deeds who had
been serving multiple life sentences, and he was fully pardoned by Donald Trump and is sort of back out on the crypto industry circuit.
Just in the last couple of days, he also pardoned the leader of Binance, which is a big crypto exchange, also similarly facing criminal charges. And
so, it's an area where you're seeing sort of Donald Trump use the presidential powers that he has in order to help fuel an industry who is
able to pay him directly in untraceable money.
AMANPOUR: OK. Let me just give the White House response to the crypto money situation, and it keeps coming in. Earlier this year, the White House
spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, responded to the question, you know, what we were talking about of hosting events for these crypto customers. Here's
what Karoline Leavitt said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws that are applicable to the president. And I
think everybody, the American public, believe it's absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency. This
president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly. And not only has he lost wealth, but he also almost lost
his life. He has sacrificed a lot to be here, and to suggest otherwise is, frankly, completely absurd.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, you know, she answered that question in the way that they do. And America has seen these scandals and issues before, and you've
written about Watergate, when President Nixon, for instance, tried to weaponize the IRS to go after his political enemies, ordering the FBI to
shut down the Watergate investigation, trading cash for favors with companies like Goodyear, Tire, or American Airlines. What is the difference
now and then?
[13:35:00]
GRAFF: So, I think a couple of different things. One is the media environment in which all of this is happening is much more difficult to
navigate, and much more corrupted by disinformation and partisan talking points. That you sort of can't separate the backsliding in American
democracy from the media environment in which we're living, where people just don't trust government institutions, they don't trust the information
that they are getting, and that they sort of believe these vague and factually wrong talking points like the one you just cited from Karoline
Leavitt at the White House.
The second thing is the way that Donald Trump has personally captured the Republican Party, that Republican officeholders sort of up and down the
ballot, more fear a primary challenge from the right, from sort of a more extreme Trump supporter, than they do their general election victories. And
so, what that has meant is that Donald Trump has just been able to exert control over this party and remake it in his image.
You know, we're 10 years now into Donald Trump basically controlling the Republican Party, and an entire generation of Republican leaders have now
come up through a party that Donald Trump has personally controlled. This is very different than the situation that Richard Nixon confronted, where
he was president amid Watergate, during a moment when Republican Party leaders decided and felt a responsibility to put their constitutional
duties as members of a co-equal branch, holding to account the abuses of the executive branch first, rather than be sort of loyal to their
president's party. This was a moment when Republicans in Watergate chose the country first, and their role in Congress first, and understood that
the Republican Party came second to that.
AMANPOUR: Right. Garrett Graff, thank you for that explainer. It's important because a lot of people are talking about it, looking at it, and
of course the White House -- the East Room destruction kind of focused everybody's minds again on this. So, good to have your perspective and
experience. Thank you very much indeed. And we will be right back after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, has the United States entered a new Cold War with China? The answer, according to our next guest, is not a simple one. But the
question highlights the changing world order and the fluctuating tensions between the two superpowers. As President Trump tours Asia, the world
watches Washington confront a shift where autocracies form alliances and strengthen their influence without America's involvement. The former U.S.
ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, joins Walter Isaacson now to discuss his latest book, Exploring This Power Struggle.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Ambassador Michael McFaul, welcome to the show.
MICHAEL MCFAUL, AUTHOR, "AUTOCRATS VS. DEMOCRATS" AND FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Thanks for having me.
ISAACSON: Your new book, "Autocrats vs. Democrats." It's a great book, but somehow the title now, I'm wondering, are we blurring the distinction
between the two?
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I mean, what do you mean by the Democrats and to what extent does that apply to Western nations, even the United States?
MCFAUL: Well, Walter, I've been working on this book for many years. I wrote most of it, 99 percent of it before our last presidential election.
And most certainly since President Trump won again and came back to office, he is blurring those lines in two different ways.
One, he doesn't frame the world like I do between autocrats and Democrats, right? He sees strong leaders and weak leaders, irrespective of if they're
democratically elected or not. And I just think that's imprudent for American foreign policy going forward. And I'm talking about years and
decades, not just what's going to happen in the next two to three years, but over the course of the 21st century.
ISAACSON: Wait, wait, why is it wrong or imprudent to not say, OK, these are strong leaders, we can have alliances with them? We've done that, as
you know, ever since World War II.
MCFAUL: Yes, we had autocratic allies during the Cold War, and at times they were important to us. But our most enduring, closest allies were all
democracies. And that was a great superpower we had during the Cold War, that we had really strong allies. The Soviets did not. And so, I think in
terms of managing this new period of great power competition, we are better off supporting our democratic allies, number one, and supporting democratic
ideas around the world, number two, because that's another advantage we have over the autocrats.
It turns out, public opinion shows all over the world, it varies from country to country, but most people prefer to choose their leaders rather
than have God, the Communist Party or a soldier choose them. And if we give that away and we just act like the other autocrats, I think we lose that
really vital instrument of soft power.
ISAACSON: You talk about and wrestle with the concept of whether we're in a new Cold War, both with China and with Russia. Let's start with China.
Are we in a new Cold War with China? And what do we learn from the old Cold War, if that's the case?
MCFAUL: Are we in a new Cold War with China? Yes. Let me say that question again. Are we in a new Cold War with China? No. That's why my book is so
long, because I think we've oversaw this debate in the United States is getting too oversimplistic. Either people didn't know what the Cold War was
or forgot about it. And I see elements that are similar and different.
So, with China, two superpowers in the world, they're first among equals. Ideological competition. That is true. They -- both countries, do they seek
to influence the world and not just their region? That's also true. That's like the Cold War. Will it last for decades? Tragically, I think this
competition will last for decades, just like the Cold War did.
ISAACSON: Well, tell me how it's different from the Cold War.
MCFAUL: Well, I actually think the list of differences is longer than the list of similarities, and I won't try to go through all of them, but I
think three are most important. So, one, the most obvious is that the U.S. and the Chinese economy are much more intertwined today than the American
and Soviet economies were during the Cold War.
And we've got to figure out how to deal with that. I think the idea that we just decouple and go our separate ways is not only imprudent, we don't need
to do it, but I think trying to do so, we would fail. So, we've got to figure out a different strategy than what we had for the Cold War for that
set of problems.
Secondly, there is an ideological dimension to this competition. My book, after all, is called "Autocrats vs. Democrats" for a reason, but I don't
think the ideological struggle is as intense as it was during the Cold War. The Soviets wanted the whole world to become communist, including the
United States of America. I just don't see the evidence to support the hypothesis that Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party are doing that,
although that's a contentious debate, Walter, in my circles. Some people believe that. I just don't. I think they're wrong about it. I think they're
overestimating the Chinese threat.
But the third difference is about us. We are more polarized as a society than we were for most of the Cold War. We had some periods, obviously, in
the late '60s, as you know better than I, and early '70s that America was polarized. But I think it's deeper and more enduring now.
And we're also in an era of isolationism. We most certainly, for longer than we were engaged in the world, had an isolationist tradition. We didn't
during the Cold War. Democrats and Republicans basically agreed that we had to be engaged. They agreed to containment as a strategy, although that was
a pretty elastic term during the Cold War. Now, we have these isolationist tendencies, strongest in the Republican Party, but also prominent in the
Democratic Party. And I just don't think that's a strategy for success in the 21st century. But I -- in part, I wrote this book to try to push back
on it.
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ISAACSON: President Trump is in Asia this week, meeting with Xi Jinping, among other things. Xi Jinping will try to pin him down on the Taiwan
issue, which is whether the United States supports independence of Taiwan. What do you think is the best approach?
MCFAUL: So, what I teach at Stanford about history, I teach about events and bigger things like World War II and revolutions and things like that,
but I also remind my students about non-events. Non-events don't get enough attention. The greatest non-event of the Cold War was the war that didn't
happen over Taiwan. Tremendous diplomatic achievement, in my view. And we got to just keep that non-event continuing to happen.
And I think that means two things in terms of the American foreign policy. One, enhanced deterrence to make a war, an invasion of the island, costly.
There are lots of things we can do. I go through them in the book. And there's lots of things the people of Taiwan need to do. But two, resist
what some politicians say when they show up in Taipei, that we support independence. I think that's a recipe for disaster. And I just think
keeping the status quo, however imperfect it is, is the best outcome that we can hope for.
ISAACSON: President Trump, in his trip through Asia this week, did a whole lot of trade deals and alliances from Vietnam to Malaysia and other places.
It almost seems like it's from your book, that we need to create these alliances economically and, in some ways, politically. Do you think that
that's working?
MCFAUL: So, each of those bilateral deals, and I would say other ones that the president has accomplished, those are positive signs for American
prosperity and security. I applaud the president. What I don't like about his strategy is, one, he doesn't believe in trade fundamentally. He
believes in tariffs. I think that is not smart for our long-term economic interests.
Again, one of the great successes of the Cold War is that we united the free world with respect to trade investment, and we used institutions like
the World Bank and the IMF, and later the World Trade Organization, to unite the free world. After the Soviet Union collapsed, I think we went too
fast to bring in the Chinese and the Russians to those clubs, and we paid the price for that.
But generally speaking, uniting us around a common set of principles and rules of the game was a good strategy. What I don't like about the Trump
strategy is it seems erratic. You know, an ad plays in Canada, and suddenly we're putting tariffs on them, that's not a strategy.
ISAACSON: You've said that you think that the rivalry and competition with China is a bit overestimated. And yet, do you feel that the Russian
competition, our problems with Russia, is that underestimated?
MCFAUL: Exactly. I think that we made a mistake there. And I say that as a former Obama administration official. I think we also made a mistake, which
is when you go through the numbers, and I go through all the numbers in the book, I have lots of charts in the book. My editors didn't like that,
Walter. Way too many charts. But I thought it was important to show the data about the balance of power between China, Russia, and the United
States.
And when you do that, Russia looks weak, right? Yes, they have nuclear weapons, so they're a superpower in that regard. But conventional military
power, they're not near China or the United States. Economically, they're way down, right, they're 11th out of the top 15 economies in the world. So,
capabilities-wide, Putin is not as strong as Xi in terms of capabilities.
But when we talk about intentions, which are much harder to measure a priori before power is used, what we've seen time and time again for the
last 15 years is that the power that Putin has, he's been willing to use it for, I think, very negative consequences, right? So, he invaded Georgia in
2008. He went into Ukraine in 2014. He went into Syria with his air force in 2015. And then he launched this full-scale invasion of Ukraine again in
2022. He doesn't have the same military that either the United States or China has, but what he has, he's using in these very imperial, and I would
say destabilizing ways. And I think we've made a mistake in underestimating that.
You know, when I was in the government, we talked about pivot to Asia. So, did Trump. So, did the Biden administration, especially. And yes, we have
to do more in Asia, but we also have to realize that the threat from Putin is real. And these things are intertwined, by the way. If Putin prevails in
Ukraine, that emboldens Xi Jinping with respect to Taiwan.
[13:50:00]
Conversely, if we stop Putin and we at least push him to a stalemate in Ukraine, I think that makes Xi Jinping a little less likely to invade
Taiwan. So, these things are actually, I think, highly intertwined.
ISAACSON: You were a young person in Russia working, I think, for the National Democratic Institute. When Glasnost and Perestroika brought down
the Soviet Union, they opened up more democratic. Was there anything we could have done that would have not led to the rise of Putin and
authoritarianism again?
MCFAUL: Yes, I think we did make some mistakes. I don't think we did enough to help them make the transition to markets and democracy, because
we thought it was all over, right? It was the end of history. And we just thought everybody was going to become democratic. And so, we didn't do with
Russia that what we did do after World War II, Marshall Plan to help the countries become part of the West. I think had we done that, we would have
better outcomes.
Two, I still think it was the right strategy to try to help build democracy in Russia. Like you said, I moved there as a young kid to try to do that. I
don't think that was a mistake, but we should have had a better hedge if it didn't work. And that hedge, in my view, should have been a much more
expansive NATO, much more rapid when Russia was weak.
And two, if we couldn't get everybody into NATO because they didn't meet the criteria, we should have armed them. And I'm thinking principally here
about Georgia and Ukraine. If Ukraine back in the 1990s had the weapon systems from the United States and NATO that they have today, I think that
could have helped keep the peace. And that I think was a mistake. You know, in retrospect, I wasn't making that argument, but I think the plan A was
right, but we should have had a hedge in case it didn't work.
ISAACSON: What should Trump be doing now? He's having such trouble trying to solve the Ukraine issue. Is there any way to solve it easily?
MCFAUL: Not easily. Putin is an ideologue, as I write about in the book. Too many people think he's just a transactional guy that wants to do a
deal. I heard that all the time when I worked at the White House, and I just don't see him that way. I think he is on an ideological crusade to
defend what he calls conservative Russian values against the liberal decadent West. And that's his mindset. And he's also an imperialist. He
wants to be in the history books like Catherine the Great and Peter the Great. So, he's highly motivated by ideas and not transactions.
But I do think we could do more. And it's just -- it's the same thing I've been saying for three and a half years, greater sanctions and more and
better weapons. Wars tend to end in two ways. Either there's a stalemate on the battlefield or one side wins. Right now, neither of those conditions
are present. The Russians are incrementally taking Ukrainian territory, and we have to help Ukrainian warriors stop that progress before, I think,
Putin sits down and talks about doing a deal.
ISAACSON: I want to ask you a big, broad historical question. It goes back to Thucydides. I know you've read Graham Allison and the "Thucydides Trap,"
but let me quote Thucydides when he's talking about rivals in power. He said, what made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the
fear this caused in Sparta. Could we say that right now, that what makes war inevitable is the growth of Chinese power and the fear that causes in
the United States? Is that going to be an inevitable tension or is it something we can overcome?
MCFAUL: It's going to be an inevitable tension. That's a good word, but not an inevitable war. There's a difference. And everything starts with
power. Everything starts with Thucydides. I have three chapters in my book about the rise and fall of power, but I add two more factors to the
equation. I add regime type and I add individual leaders.
So, I don't think we're just destined for war because of rise and fall of power. And sometimes it's happened, but sometimes it hasn't. Graham wrote
about both those cases. We need to remember it's not inevitable. And part of my optimism about that is the Cold War.
We use that phrase Cold War because we didn't have a war with the Soviets. Actually, we had lots of proxy wars and millions of people died. People
forget that, you know, in both -- on both sides of the red and blue teams. But we managed to avoid a great war between them because of leadership.
And especially after 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis when we got really close, leaders on both sides said, we got to manage this competition. And
we developed a bunch of crisis prevention mechanisms to do so. I think those are some good lessons for leaders in China and America today.
ISAACSON: Ambassador Michael McFaul, thank you so much for joining us.
MCFAUL: Thanks for having me. Great conversation.
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[13:55:00]
AMANPOUR: And finally, a splash of hope for the world's most endangered marine mammal. After a pair of vaquitas, the rare porpoise species was
spotted playing off the Gulf of California. Experts reported earlier this year that just 10 vaquitas remained in the wild, prompting the Mexican Navy
and its partner in this protection effort, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to increase surveillance in the area. While there is still a long
way to go, the Mexican government has announced on Tuesday a 96.7 percent decrease in illegal intrusions, making these sightings even more amazing.
That's it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
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