Return to Transcripts main page
Amanpour
Interview with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock; Interview with "Dream Count" Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Interview with The Atlantic Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired April 03, 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.
A major blow to the world economy. U.S. allies and adversaries react as Donald Trump launches a global trade war. I speak with the German foreign
minister, Annalena Baerbock.
Then master storyteller Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is back with her novel "Dream Count," a tour to force of women love and friendship.
And more fallout from the Signal heard around the world. Walter Isaacson talks to the accidentally invited journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg.
Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
The world is now in a trade war. America fired the first shots. The White House imposed tariffs of at least 10 percent across every country, with
steeper rates on those having a higher trade deficit with the U.S. One economist says, we haven't run this experiment in living memory.
China, which is hardest hit calls, their 54 percent tariffs unilateral bullying. But U.S. allies aren't exempt either. The E.U. was slapped with
20 percent. Here's the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): I believe the latest decision on tariffs by the U.S. president are fundamentally wrong. This is
an attack on a trade order that has created prosperity all over the world, a trade order that is essentially the result of American endeavor. The
entire global economy will suffer from these ill-considered decisions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Ill-considered decisions. Analysts predict higher prices in the United States and warn of a global recession. The Dow plunged 1,500 points.
On opening, markets around the world also fell sharply. The response from the White House, we got this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump.
HOWARD LUTNICK, U.S. COMMERCE SECRETARY: Let Donald Trump run the global economy. He knows what he's doing. He's been talking about it for 35 years.
You got to trust Donald Trump and the White House. That's why they put him there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Indeed, Trump is betting big that his voters will take the economic pain as he sees it for the greater gain. As the world struggles to
respond, even the methodology and the math don't often add up. Lesotho, for instance, one of the world's poorest countries, faces a 50 percent levy.
And even this obscure uninhabited island somehow made the list.
Germany's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, is at NATO headquarters today. She join me from there with the message that Europe does have
economic power.
Foreign Minister Baerbock, welcome back to the program.
ANNALENA BAERBOCK, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Thanks for having me on your show again. That's really an honor.
AMANPOUR: Are you in shock? I mean, it just seems like the whole world has been slapped around with these tariffs, including Europe, up to 20 percent.
What is your immediate reaction?
BAERBOCK: This is not a good day for world economy, and it's definitely not a day of liberation for American consumers, but rather a day of
inflation. But for us, Europeans, frankly speaking, it's a day of unity because we have set up in the past three years measures to protect our
people, to protect our economy. Our jobs actually meant towards China because they were threaten us, our economy, they were threatening the free
trade. And therefore, we set up measures against coercion, but we believe in free trade and we believe in partnership. And this is why the commission
president, Ursula von der Leyen has made clear that we don't want a trade war because everybody would suffer from a trade war. And the only actors
who would win would be those fighting the free world.
[13:05:00]
But in case that free of trade is not possible with our best friends and best partners anymore, then we are prepared to protect ourselves. But I
mean, we have shown that we are not only NATO allies, security allies, but even in the NATO treaty, there is a paragraph in the beginning of saying
that also a free economy between partners is securing our common security. And therefore, I believe working together is the best answer in these days
where the ruthlessness is taking all over and democracies have to be strong together.
AMANPOUR: That's really interesting. And especially as you mentioned the NATO aspect, because you're at a NATO meeting at headquarters in Brussels.
Your Norwegian counterparts said that this action from the United States could violate that. I think he said Article 2 of NATO, that calls for a
common, you know, economic strength policy.
Now, in America, people like the commerce secretary, Lutnick, people like the White House spokesperson, they're basically saying, trust Trump.
They're saying, Trump -- let Trump run the world economy. He knows what he's doing. Does this reassure you?
BAERBOCK: Well, we know that in these times of social media, of quick news, the question of like, what you believe is a difficult question
because it's in human nature that you believe in what you're feeling yourself. But if we are looking what made us strong in the past is a
partnership between the free world, democracies and we are having here at our NATO meeting, also guests from the Indo-Pacific, Australia, New
Zealand, Japan, and Korea. And we Europeans, enlarged in the last years, actually with those partners, free trade agreements like Australia for
examples, because we had the situation that raw materials in the past went from Australia to China, and then China was threatening us Europeans to
sell them very expensively towards Europe.
And we have understood and actually learned also from Americans that the best protection for ourself would be if we have a free trade between and
with our partners. So, we just started a free trader dream and for example, with Australia, and this makes us altogether stronger. And I deeply believe
that in a situation where partners are working against each other, the only actors who will win in the end is those who are fighting free democracies
and free trade. And therefore, we believe that the best thing is to work as partners together in these times.
AMANPOUR: You know, the Americans, again, Scott Bessent, who's the treasury secretary, has told CNN, I urge Europe, I urge other countries not
to retaliate. I wonder how you take that. And specifically, have you mentioned how you feel and what you might do to the U.S. secretary of
state, Marco Rubio, who's at the meetings with you now at NATO headquarters?
BAERBOCK: Well, we have mentioned that we Europeans feel also a bit of pity for American consumers because all the products, I named now European
countries, but also the countries from the Indo-Pacific, they have also now new trades tariffs, but the trade tariffs are actually extra taxes on
American consumers.
For example, like as I know, many Americans like a lot the beef from Australia. And the beef -- if the beef costs no extra 10 percent or other
products which you cannot produce in the United States, will cost extra 20 percent or extra even 35 percent. I don't really get the logic why to harm
American consumers, and this is why, for our own consumers, we say it would be a win-win situation if consumers, in our democracies, between our
friends over the Atlantic, in the United States, in Europe pay the less prices possibly, which can products can be produced. So, it would be a win-
win situation.
If we would go into a trade war, it would be a lose-lose situation for all the consumers over the Atlantic. And again, I cannot say that often enough
because in countries which are not having a free economy and the state can dictate the prices, they will be the winners. And why should we make
systems to winners who are opposing the free world?
[13:10:00]
AMANPOUR: So, let me then follow up because you are facing a real issue with Putin who is opposing the free world with this now, you know, three-
plus year war in Ukraine, full-scale war. As you know, he has sent his main negotiator to Washington. They've been talking. We don't know what the
results are. Have you heard from your American colleague Rubio how these talks are going? How do you see the communication so far between the United
States and Putin helping to resolve the war? What is your assessment at this point?
BAERBOCK: It was a big success that (INAUDIBLE) talks in jitter also due to the U.S. administration. For the first time, the word peace was on the
table also from the Russian side. And the Ukrainians immediately said, we want to ceasefire now, an unconditional ceasefire because Ukrainians are
wishing for peace since three years.
But we have seen, unfortunately, that Putin is playing time and that he's obviously fooling the world. Because I have just been to Ukraine myself, in
Moldova the last two days. And while I was in Kyiv, in Kherson, there has been a Russian attack on energy infrastructure. So, Putin promised also to
the American team that he will not attack energy infrastructure, but while the German foreign minister was there, there was an attack in Kherson.
And I was speaking also in Kyiv, again, to children who have been deported from Ukraine to Russia. And I would like to underline if an actor like
Putin is speaking about peace, the first step for peace would be to return all the deported children, it's like estimated 20,000 children. And it has
been South Africa, it has been Brazil, it has been the Gulf countries always pushing on Putin that the first step of trust building would be
returning these innocent children. But so far, the opposite is happening again.
And this is why it was so important also here at the NATO headquarters, where I'm right now with all my NATO colleagues, and again, also our
friends from the Indo-Pacific, that we all agreed that peace will only happen through strength, because Putin will only give up this destruction
of the European peace order and the destruction of civilization in Ukraine in the situation when he understands that he cannot win this war.
And this is why we Europeans lifted our engagement for Ukraine over the last couple of weeks, making clear Europe is standing for peace. We
mobilized an extra 20 billion euros just in the last weeks for Ukraine to underline that we want peace, but we stand with Ukraine if Putin is
continuing its destruction of the European peace order.
AMANPOUR: So, Foreign Minister, the president of Finland just spent time with President Trump playing golf, talking about all these issues, et
cetera. And he told the world that it looks like the Americans are getting frustrated with Putin, having given him everything verbally, having
insulted, you know, Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, having taken the whole Kremlin talking points on the war, having shifted away from you
all, the allies, and towards Putin that now maybe they're beginning to realize that actually he's, quote/unquote, "dragging his feet."
Do you think -- and what has Marco Rubio said in your NATO meeting, do they think they can actually negotiate like this with Putin or do they think
they're being played? Do they understand?
BAERBOCK: The foreign secretary underlined here what he underlined also at our G7 meeting just two weeks ago in Canada, like all of us, that NATO is
the most successful defense alliance in the whole world for 75 years. And our strengths and the cradle, one for all and all for one, have made clear
in the world that we are standing for our peace and our freedom all together.
And therefore, especially in these critical times where everybody is watching, whether this is just lip service, also in the situation where a
Russian war of aggression has been forced all over Europe, that we stand to this cradle, making very clear that if an aggressor wins a war of
aggression, that this would just be a motivation for other aggressors in the world.
[13:15:00]
So, if NATO wants to keep this important role of being the strongest deterrence and defense alliance as we have been in the last 75 years, we
have to be crystal clear that Putin and his war of aggression cannot fool this alliance.
And Mr. Rubio underlined today here at NATO that obviously the United States will stay into NATO, that this is our common alliance together. And
therefore, in our self-interest, it is the most important thing, I would say, to strengthen not only NATO, but strengthen also Ukraine so that Putin
will not win this war. Because at the moment, Putin's Russia is the biggest security threat for the Transatlantic Alliance, not only for Europe, but
for the Transatlantic Alliance in total, and therefore, also for the worldwide peace order.
AMANPOUR: Finally, Israel and Gaza, this war has stepped up to just as ferocious levels as before the ceasefire. Hundreds of people are being
killed, including children, including women, a siege of any international aid, just food, medicine, getting into actual people there. Do you see -- I
guess, what is Rubio saying about that and what can you as Europeans do about that?
Because on the one hand, you hear from the United States that, you know, Palestinians can just move out and on the other hand you hear that, you
know, Egypt and Qatar have expanded ceasefire efforts, et cetera, but there's just no -- we don't understand what's going happen next. Do you
know?
BAERBOCK: We have seen, and what we know for sure is that bringing out the hostages of the hands of the terrorists Hamas is the most important thing,
and that the most successful way was a moment of ceasefire. In the beginning of this war, many hostages came out in a moment of non-shooting.
And again, with American help and due to American negotiations, within the ceasefire period hostages could have been freed.
And the second and third phase of this ceasefire negotiation deal was a withdrawal from the IDF. So, to free all hostages, these steps have to be
taken, as ceasefire is heavily needed. There are still hostages also with German citizenship, and I'm in constant contact with these hostage families
and they are calling for this ceasefire to have a chance that they can get back their beloved ones as well.
So, therefore, Europe is standing for this ceasefire. We are calling for this ceasefire. And we have seen that also people in Gaza, civilians are
calling on Hamas. They are protesting against Hamas. So, Hamas has to be gone obviously. This is what we are working on since months. But with the
further destruction going on, and you had a doctor on your show reporting about the children, and we could just evacuate a girl again with German
relations from Gaza Strip. She has lost all her siblings. She has lost her father. She has lost an arm and a leg. In this kind of situation what we
need is a ceasefire for the humanitarian situation in Gaza for getting all the hostages out of the hands of Hamas. But we made very clear here also as
Europeans that we are extremely worried that with the further escalation of the last days, the chance for peace will move further and further away, and
this is also not in the interest of the State of Israel.
AMANPOUR: Annalena Baerbock, Foreign Minister, thank you very much for joining us.
BAERBOCK: Thank you. All the best.
AMANPOUR: And coming up, a beloved novelist returns, I speak to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: Next to the long-awaited return to fiction for an award-winning novelist. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a literary phenomenon, author of
bestsellers, "Half of a Yellow Sun" and "Americanah." Her long form essay, "We Should All Be Feminists," was equally influential, even quoted in a
Beyonce track. Now, 12 years after her last novel, she is back with a major new work. It's called "Dream Count," and it tells the stories of four
closely linked women as they grapple with a traumatic event that ripples across their lives. The novel takes on key cultural themes while sweeping
us all up in its unforgettable story.
And Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is joining us from New York. Welcome back to the program.
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE, AUTHOR, "DREAM COUNT": Thank you so much, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: So, 10 years, longer than 10 years, why did it take so long? And also, I read in some of the, you know, reviews that you spent quite a lot
of time writing, apparently scrunched up on a low ottoman in your bedroom even though you had a desk nearby? What's the process?
ADICHIE: Well, I think sometimes creativity requires strangeness. And so, one has to bow to the demands of creativity. No, but seriously, I have a
desk, I have a study, but somehow it just seems to work better when I am physically uncomfortable.
AMANPOUR: OK.
ADICHIE: So, I'm scrunched writing. But I haven't -- I'm writing -- I think I'm a slow writer. I've always been a slow writer. But I've become
slower with age. One of the blessings of getting older, but actually, it's been 12 years because I had -- that expression that I really dislike
because I'm superstitious, but I'll use it anyway, I had writer's block for many years. I could not write fiction.
And fiction is my vocation. Fiction is the love of my life. Fiction is what gives me meaning. And so, when I couldn't write for all those years, it was
a really frightening just terrible place to be.
AMANPOUR: Wow. Do you know why you might have had it? Do you know -- because you did write nonfiction, you wrote treaties on grief when your
father died. You -- you know, you did the TED Talk, you did a whole bunch of other things. I'm not sure when that came out, but your mother also
died, and you've devoted this book to her. But have you figured out why somebody with such, you know, prolific ability, why you had that writer's
block?
ADICHIE: No, I haven't figured it out. I don't think anyone has. I like to say this to myself to -- in some, ways to cope, and I say to myself, if
creativity is important and meaningful, then maybe it should not be easy. Right. I think that part of the creative process is sometimes that you have
these dry spells.
And so, for me, fiction writing is very different from nonfiction. I can write nonfiction fairly easily, I think. But fiction is more magical.
Fiction I don't have control over, if that makes sense. And so, I could do nonfiction, I just could not write fiction. And I felt that I was separated
from myself. And I think nonfiction is very important, but it's just not -- it doesn't have the magic and meaning that fiction does.
AMANPOUR: So, this novel is about four -- basically four friends, right? It's a study of, you know, their story through these four different points
of view. And I'm just going to list them just so that we all know. So, there's Chiamaka who's a Nigerian travel writer, one might say, you know,
she may be slightly based on you. I'll ask you. Her friend Zikora, her cousin Omelogor, and her Guinean maid, Kadiatou.
So, they have all really different personalities, perspectives, experiences, yet their lives are, you know, intertwined. How do you come up
with it and how did you choose their stories?
[13:25:00]
ADICHIE: I knew I wanted to write about women's lives. I've known that for a while after my last novel, "Americanah," I wanted to, you know, write
about the complexity of women's lives. I wanted to write about women's friendships, how women support one another. But when I'm writing fiction, I
never have a clear plan. So, I have a vague sort of amorphous idea, and then I just go with it.
And so, the characters, there's a wonderful quote I love from Elizabeth Bowen who says, that writers do not create characters, they find them.
Because the characters pre-exist. And I love that quote because it just feels true to me in a way. I find that I find my characters.
You know, so it's difficult for me to talk about how I came up with them in an intellectual way, because there's so much about it that is not
intuitive, almost spiritual, really.
AMANPOUR: So, some of the issues that they embody, each character, are really very -- you know, very front and center in our lives today. So,
Chiamaka, for instance, she's Nigerian writer. You are a Nigerian writer. She lives in America and she talks about her struggles to get published.
And in the book, I'm going to just read this quote of hers, "It suddenly felt delusional to think anybody would publish a light and quirky travel
book by a black Nigerian woman."
You know, she was instead told to write about the horror stories, for instance, in Congo, horrific rapes. And you know, you are highlighting
something that clearly is troubling in the publishing industry.
ADICHIE: It hasn't been my experience, I should say. I think I've been very fortunate. I've been, you know, published well. I haven't -- when I
started out, I did experience some of that, but I haven't in a while. So, you know, I'm fortunate.
But I did want to write, I think in particular in her case, about travel writing. Because it's a field that really doesn't have many prominent black
women. And I think traveling as a black woman is a particular thing. And I think that traveling as a woman is a particular thing, but as a black
woman.
And so, she -- and she's not particularly successful as well, which I think is important, because she doesn't want to do what is considered the heavy
walk. She wants to write funny, quirky things. And she finds that because she's a black woman trying to break into this industry, black African
woman, she's expected to kind of, you know, be the interpreter of struggles.
So, she's asked to write about Sudan and women being raped and she doesn't want to. And I think maybe for me it's a question of allowing a wide range
of possibility for black African women and for African writers, really, that we don't always have to be interpreters of struggles.
AMANPOUR: That's really an interesting point. I was trying to figure out what you meant, it's difficult, you know, for a black woman especially,
but, you know, you've just laid it out, the whole stereotype of what they're expected to -- you know, to have as an experience.
What about Zikora? Now, she is a woman who goes through the whole, you know, gamut of, you know, abortion. Should she have a kid? Shouldn't she
have a kid? You're talking about, you know, the merits and not -- or not of being a mother. And of course, this is very much part of the zeitgeist. We
know that there's a whole movement that, you know, castigates women for not wanting to be mothers.
And this I found really, really interesting. She said, you know -- I mean, you say it should be their choice, but her mother, for instance, let me
read it -- or she said, I am mistress of all I survey. Actually, Auntie Janes, I do like my life. I flail for meaning sometimes, maybe too often,
but it's a full life, and a life I own. I've learned this of myself, that I cannot do without people and I cannot do without stretches of sustained
isolation. To be alone is not always to be lonely. Sometimes I revel in long spells of satisfying sexless, unburdened by the body's needs.
Again, you're making a big point there about what it means to be satisfied as a woman.
ADICHIE: And also, I think, Omelogor, for me, represents that idea that there are other ways to live for women. You know, that it doesn't have to
be one way. I think that there are many women in the world who want to have children, of course, but there are women who don't. And often, there's this
kind of judgment and it's almost seems as though women who do not want to have children are told that somehow you failed at what it is to be a woman
in a strange sort of way.
And so, Omelogor, for me, is a character who just represents that idea. There are other ways to live. And she is -- she's considered kind of
strange by the people around her. And she finds herself wondering whether she does, in fact, like her life after she has a relative tell her that she
doesn't.
And you know, we see her and I think the reader will conclude, but I think she really does like her life. I mean, this idea that when a woman is
alone, she must automatically be lonely, is not true.
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: Yes. And actually, I conflated her with Zikora. She has another very, you know, difficult story. Tell us about Zikora and what she
represents in this story.
ADICHIE: Zikora is very traditional. She has a very conventional dream. She wants the husband, she wants the big Catholic wedding. She wants
children. And so, she's done everything that she imagines she's supposed to do. She's done well at school. She got the job and she imagines that
somehow the husband will follow, but it doesn't. And of course, like many women, she's in -- she's sort of late 30s. She starts to feel this pressure
of biology, really. She knows that if she wants to have children, she has limited time.
And so, she's in relationships with men in which she tries very hard to get them to propose, and they don't. And I'm struck by that idea that there are
many women who are independent, you know, brilliant, thoughtful, and they're in these relationships and they want the relationships to kind of
progress to marriage, but somehow, they don't have the power to make that happen. I've always been very interested in that.
You know, that even in Western culture, this idea of the proposal and how women sometimes are just shocked to be proposed to. And I think it's such a
strange thing because marriage is such an important part of one's life. That's the thing that one doesn't really have full control of when and if
it'll happen as a woman is interesting to me.
AMANPOUR: Indeed, it is. And obviously, I mean there's whole industries around the proposal. But there is a very dark story also, and not a spoiler
alert because a lot of the reviews have mentioned it, but halfway through the book you realize that one of your characters, Kadiatou, she is the maid
of one of them and she's from Guinea and she has suffered a sexual assault. Tell us about why you brought that into the story and why you felt you
needed to in this group of friends and what it was based on in reality.
ADICHIE: So, this character is -- she's inspired by a real person, a real thing that happened, which is a number of years ago I read this story about
this woman from Guinea who had accused a very powerful man of sexual assault. This woman walked as a hotel maid and she'd walked -- she -- and
her story was she walked into a hotel room and, you know, this man sort of ran to her naked and assaulted her.
And I followed the story very closely because I -- you know, for a number of reasons, but mostly because I felt a kind of connection to the woman.
She was West African as I am. And also, because she was powerless. She was not formally educated. She was not a native English speaker. And I was very
upset by how she was covered in the media. You know, I felt that she wasn't given her dignity. And then, her case was dropped.
And her case was dropped because the claim was that she had lied on her asylum application when she came to the U.S., not that she had lied about
the actual sexual assault. And I just felt -- I remember just feeling almost wounded by this, because I thought that it wasn't just about this
woman, it was also about the larger message that women were getting, which is, if you accuse somebody of sexual assault and you expect to get justice,
then you better be perfect. You know, you better not have any flaw in your life, which of course means you're not going to get justice because nobody
is flawless. I mean, we're all flawed. Human beings are flawed.
And so, I felt so wounded by this, but I didn't really plan to write a character based on her. The character, in many ways, revealed herself to
me, and I started writing her and I realized that actually what I was doing, in a very kind of oblique way, was I was trying to give this woman
back her dignity. I was trying to create a human being, and by doing that, I think to remind people that when a woman is in the news and she's accused
someone of sexual assault and she's being demonized, she's a person, you know, she has people who love her, she has dreams, she has hopes. She's
human.
And I just feel that sometimes we need to be reminded of that about women, because it's so easy for the humanity of women in positions of that sort to
become invisible.
AMANPOUR: Well, and you are in America at a time when there seems to be an all-out federal assault on women. The whole removal of DEI, I mean, erasing
women's achievements, erasing the idea of diversity and inclusion and equity in any, you know, company. That, plus the erasure of hundreds of
words that deal in that space, and so many words that pertain to being a woman.
How -- you know, you're living in America. How do you -- how are you reacting to that? How are you feeling?
[13:35:00]
ADICHIE: Oh, I'm not feeling anything. It's sometimes hard to feel. I am - - I think it's a mix of emotions. I'm sometimes quite stunned. Sometimes there's disbelief. But also, there is a refusal to give into despair. I
think that what is happening is frightening. It's strange. I've gone back to read -- I'm reading about 1930s Germany, because I think that I want to
learn from history to better understand this present time. Because in some ways, I'm just unprepared for this happening in America, right?
I mean, when you think about America being the country that, you know, at the end of the war when ordinary Germans were desperately hoping that
Americans would liberate them rather than Russians, and I think even that says something about what America represented.
And I don't know whether they would wish that now, if there happened to be a war, but I'm determined not to give into despair. I really believe that
what is broken and what is being broken will be made whole again. I think that the things that we believe in, the freedom of our imaginations the way
that the human spirit thrives, it's difficult to kill that, I think.
And you know, you can ban words, but you cannot ban -- people will still use them. People are thinking them. And I think -- I try to tell myself
that America is not only about these things, there are many people who feel very strongly about diversity, right, and that -- and I -- it's sad how
that expression has been demonized DEI, when it's really about justice, right? It's really about this idea that for so long America really was a
country of DEI only for white people.
And in some ways, DEI is a way of trying to address that imbalance. And it's not about people who are not qualified or all of the ways it's been
demonized. I do think that there are many people who recognize that.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
ADICHIE: So, my general position is one of refusing to give into despair.
AMANPOUR: Well, sometimes hope can be a strategy. Chimamanda, as you know. "Dream Count," tell us quickly in our last 40 seconds why you named it
that. What does it mean?
ADICHIE: Because it's -- well, it's about dreaming, among other things. So, I'm really interested in that idea of what we dream about, who gets to
dream, what do our dreams mean, and how we sometimes think about the lives that we've led and we wonder, you know, where has my life gone? But most of
all, I think that it's a really universal idea. No matter where we are, who we are, we dream, right? And sometimes we long for things that we know we
will never have. But still, we long. And I find that very beautiful and human.
AMANPOUR: Well, that's a beautiful note to end on. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, thank you very much for being with us again.
ADICHIE: Thank you so much, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Thank you. And we will be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: The White House has declared case closed on the Signal chat scandal, but this story is far from over. Politico is reporting that at
least 20 group chats have been set up on the app by the National Security Adviser Mike Waltz's team. Walter Isaacson speaks to the Atlantic's editor
in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who you all know exposed the original bombshell story after Waltz added him to that chat.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Jeffrey Goldberg, welcome to the show.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE ATLANTIC: Thank you. Thanks for having.
ISAACSON: I still don't quite understand how you got into a Signal chat with the defense secretary and the national security adviser about the
bombing of the Houthis.
[13:40:00]
The national security adviser, Mike Waltz, says he's never met you. He called you scum, and he said that his number got sucked into his phone. Is
it true that he's never met you?
GOLDBERG: Well, it's not true that I'm scum. I mean, opinions differ, right? Check with your doctor. It is not true that we've never met. We've
met. It's silly. I mean --
ISAACSON: Well, wait. Does he know you've met? I mean, is he intentionally saying things that are not true?
GOLDBERG: Believe it or not, he may be intentionally saying things that are not true. Look, you know, according to their reporting by Maggie
Haberman and others Donald Trump is not -- post-scandal or in the middle of the controversy, Trump was not concerned about the Signal breach, the
content of the messages or anything. He was upset because he thought Mike Waltz might be friends with me.
Mike Waltz went out and then said things that are not true about me in our relationship. I'm not going to go into it because I don't comment one way
or the other about people -- public figures, sources. I don't comment one way or the other about anything. I just needed to correct the record and
say, yes, I know him.
Let me frame this diplomatically. Desperation to keep your job can lead some people to say things that are untrue, unwise, and also ad hominem. And
that's all I would say.
ISAACSON: They also said that this wasn't really that confidential, it wasn't that secret, that there was no dangerous information in it. Is -- do
you think that's true?
GOLDBERG: I mean, it's -- that is the Orwellian part of this here. Here's the thing -- here's what's the -- here's one example of what was in the
Signal chat. Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, saying, we -- our F- 18s are launching in a half hour to attack Houthi stronghold targets in Yemen. We all know that the Houthis have anti-aircraft capabilities. If
it's not a secret, if it's not the most sensitive information in the world, that here is the time our fighter -- manned fighter planes, by the way,
piloted not drones, human American servicemen, fighter pilots are heading toward Yemen in the very near future, what is secret? Then what counts as
secret in the United States government? It's absurd.
I'm not dismissing the Hillary Clinton server in the basement scandal. I'm simply going to point out that Hillary Clinton was never putting out on
commercial messaging apps the timing and targeting of American military operations shortly before they launched.
ISAACSON: You've written about it eloquently in The Atlantic, you know, what was going through your mind. But walk me through it, when all of a
sudden, you're invited to this group chat, why didn't you immediately say, no, thanks, I'm a journalist?
GOLDBERG: Well, I said, yes, thanks. I'm a journalist. But mainly -- I mean, look, it's my job to find out what the government is doing, right?
Usually, it's harder than this. I mean, we -- you know, you have done that for years as a journalist. You know, everywhere -- everybody from Woodward
and Bernstein on down, and I'm down that chain, you know, you spend all your days trying to figure out what the government is doing. That's the
role of the press and the free society.
ISAACSON: But did you actually think this was the national security adviser?
GOLDBERG: No, but that's the point. The point is that -- I'll put it this way, I -- talking to colleagues about this. Of course, I thought it was a
disinformation operation. I thought it was a campaign. I thought it was a spoof. I don't know, hoax, whatever, just an act -- you know, deception,
designed to entrap me, to do something stupid or embarrassing. You know, as people do target journalists these days for that sort of thing.
But I did say to a colleague, I said, what are the chances of this is real? And this colleague who knows a lot about this stuff says near zero. Near
zero. And that was my conclusion as well, all the way up to the date of the actual attack. And the reason we thought near zero is because this is too
stupid to be believed.
ISAACSON: But wait, when did it all of a sudden hit you? Oh, wait, this is real?
GOLDBERG: Saturday the 15th, 11:44 a.m. I see a text come over the transom from Pete Hegseth who says that this is when the attack is going to take
place. The first bombs will fall, I think he said at 1350 or 1330. I don't have it in front of me. This is 11:44, around 11:44 that I'm reading it.
And I sort of said, well, all right, then I'll just sit here and wait.
[13:45:00]
And, you know, realize I can go into social media at around 1330, 1330 by 2:00 p.m. by, you know, 1400 Eastern, and find out if bombs are falling on
Sanaa, you know, the capital, the Yemeni capitals, also the Houthis stronghold. If bombs are falling at exactly the time that this person or
bot is arguing -- is saying that the bombs are going to fall, then I know it's real or that I know for near certainty that it's real. If it's not
real, then it's some crazy operation that I don't even understand.
ISAACSON: Why did you not publish the whole transcript right away, and then why did you decide to publish it?
GOLDBERG: I didn't publish the whole transcript right away because I thought that there was information in the transcript that wasn't necessary,
was secret, top secret. Again, I don't want to traffic an operational information when it's a live subject. You know, the campaign against Yemen,
against the Houthis was continuing, and I'm not going to traffic in technical details.
My goal, not to get Americans hurt. OK? That number one goal. And then, so what happened was, and I'll walk you through this, that Monday morning --
you know, I pull myself from the chat. Monday morning, I get in touch with the -- Mike Waltz and Steven Miller, Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, Pete
Hegseth, I send them all texts or e-mails. Mike Waltz, I signaled, obviously. And I laid out what was going on and what I was writing and what
was -- and asked him to confirm, A, that this is even true, that this is a real Signal group called Houthis PC small group, right?
The NSC, Mike Waltz's organization, comes back two hours later and it says, yes, apparently this is a real chain. I was a little surprised that they
confirmed quickly, but they had no choice because it is real. Then we published.
And then, a Trump --
ISAACSON: But you didn't publish the whole transcript?
GOLDBERG: No, not the whole thing. Nothing that -- you know, nothing that I considered sensitive, colleagues who can judge these things even better
than I can thought was particularly sensitive or tactical or operational. We kept, you know, the Hegseth set -- the key Hegseth set text I kept out
because that was just pure operational detail.
Then what happens is Mike Waltz goes on TV and calls me a scumbag and calls me deceitful. And Pete Hegseth says I'm subhuman and that this is a hoax.
And Trump says that there's nothing secret. And I thought, oh, my God. That's like -- that's terrible because we all -- I mean, anybody reading
this knows that it's sensitive, classified, top secret, however you want to call it. I can't categorize it according to the government classification
system because I'm not privy to the government classification system. But it's obviously deeply sensitive stuff.
And so, the next day I said, look, you guys keep saying that it's not sensitive. So, we're going to do this exercise now. I'm going to go to each
agency, relevant agency and ask them, is there anything truly sensitive in here that I should withhold from publication? If you tell me no, then I'm
going to publish it.
We do this exercise over the course of that Tuesday and only the CIA asks us to withhold something. It's funny because the CIA director, Ratcliffe,
says there's nothing secret in -- nothing secret or sensitive in the chain. His own people then asks us to withhold information that was in the chain,
which we did.
But nobody else came in. They weren't a catch 22. They had built a catch 22. They had driven down a cul-de-sac of their own making in the following
sense. By saying that it's not sensitive, they were freeing me to publish. If they had said that it was sensitive or classified or top secret, they
would be opening up themselves to possible charges, you know, at least gross negligence.
So, by downplaying the importance of operational security, by saying this was -- didn't matter, they freed us to go out and say, no, this is what it
is. You judge for yourself. You American citizens, read this now and judge this for yourself. So, that's what we did.
We put it out. We called their bluff. They goaded us in a kind of weird and dumb way to do this. I didn't want to, but when they called The Atlantic
liars, when they called me a liar, and when they said there's nothing sensitive in it, I thought our role as the press is to let the American
people decide for themselves if it's sensitive or not. That's what -- that's our role in society. And so, we put it out and then people made
their own judgements.
ISAACSON: What would've happened if this had gone to somebody other than you?
GOLDBERG: Yes. I mean, I suppose, look, I'm an American journalist, right, not just a journalist. I'm not in this line of work, and I've been doing
this particular national security kind of work for a long time. You know, you make a decision early on, you are not going to share information that
could put. Americans in harm's way.
[13:50:00]
After the fact, you can autopsy a report, you know, you could do a postmortem on any operation. You could criticize as much as you want. I'm
interested in why they do things, how they do things, the ideological disputes, the role of America in the world. I'm not interested -- I don't
need to know, from my perspective, that the plane is taking off at 12:15 and not 12:30. So, there's that.
I mean, if it'd fallen into other hands, I mean, that is sort of a theoretical -- it's a theoretical question, I guess, but it's a nightmare
question.
Here's a scenario. It could have gone to a diplomat whose name was in his phone, and that diplomat might be friends with another diplomat, and that
diplomat be friends with an Iranian diplomat, and that it might have been a game of telephone where information has actually passed, that would've
given time for the Houthis to either rearrange where they were at the time, or even more dangerously, for Americans in the air, they could have
actually prepared an anti-aircraft program that would've been more effective than it obviously was.
From a national security adviser standpoint, it's a complete and total disaster to put out that kind of information into a commercial app.
ISAACSON: What's the true lesson from this? Is it just that they were sloppy, inviting people like you into group chats, or is there some deeper
lesson here?
GOLDBERG: I mean, I don't know how deep you can go. It's -- they didn't take operational security seriously that suggests that they're not serious
people. I think Pete Hegseth there's an interesting -- I think it was almost cosplaying a little bit, like, oh, we're bombing at midnight, kind
of, you know, it's like, you don't have to play secretary defense, you are secretary defense. Like, you don't have to share that kind of information.
Maybe because J. D. Vance was on the chat, they were showing off a little bit. I don't know, you know, showing off for the vice president. I can't
explain it. But the real lesson here is that the keystone cop's quality of this makes America's allies, who are already wondering about our allyship,
makes America's allies wonder, you know, these guys are fundamentally not serious.
And where does that become a serious, serious issue, when they are hesitant? I'm talking about U.K., in Australia and New Zealand and you
know, the Five Eyes group and then NATO and everybody else. When they're -- remember that it turns out, and this is subsequent reporting not my own,
that the Israelis had a spy on the ground of some sort who was giving them real-time information that's been reported.
And so, you're the Israelis and you're like, we're giving you this very sensitive information, and you're talking about it on a commercial
messaging app. So, it undermines national security because it makes us seem less trustworthy.
ISAACSON: You came on the show, we talked in, I think, December of 2023. And let me read back something you said then. Another Trump presidency
poses an existential threat to American democracy. We're now about 10 weeks into this administration. Give me your assessment now. Is that still hold?
GOLDBERG: Yes. I mean, you know, there's a million things going on. We're getting wave -- you know, we're -- there's wave after wave after wave. But
the larger point is, you know, they're firing assistant U.S. attorneys who offended their allies. They're removing FOIA offices where you can like --
where you can get government information, you know, where you can sue for government, private government information. They're dismantling all of --
they're dismantling any operation, any office in the government that could investigate themselves.
The first thing you do if you are authoritarian minded, is you make sure that you neutralize all the people who could investigate you. That's the
prerequisite for going off and doing what you want. We're in that phase right now. Some people in the judiciary are fighting back, but you know,
we're heading toward that crisis moment where they just ignore the judge's order.
But you know, when you put loyalists like Kash Patel in charge of the FBI, what you're basically telling the world is, we are never going to
investigate our own flaws. And that puts you on the road to authoritarianism. And being on the road to authoritarianism means that, you
know, the American experiment, as we understand it, could be coming to an end unless accountability is returned to the system.
ISAACSON: Jeffrey Goldberg, thank you so much for joining us.
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:55:00]
AMANPOUR: Important conversation. And finally, tonight, in difficult times, we can often find comfort from our furry friends. In Bangkok,
Thailand these golden retrievers are providing just that for people whose relatives are still missing after last week's earthquake across the border
in Myanmar. The dogs are multi-talented, offering emotional support during a break from sniffing for signs of life beneath the rubble. Their handler
says they have amazing powers. And our hearts go out to all of those who are still desperately trying to be rescued.
That's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can always
catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
