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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Former Secretary Of Defense Chuck Hagel; Interview With "Who Is Government" Editor Michael Lewis; Interview With "Who is Government" Contributor W. Kamau Bell; The "Scam Compounds" Running On Slavery; Interview With "The Sound of Music" Actress Julie Andrews. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired March 29, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:34]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone. And welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: War plans, lies and security breaches as Team Trump blames the messenger for Signal gate.

Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel joins me on how it should have been done.

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Is this gross incompetence? Is it recklessness? Is it both?

It's certainly confusion.

AMANPOUR: Then as Musk slashes thousands of government jobs, the untold story of public service. Michael Lewis and W. Kamau Bell discuss their new book, "Who is Government?"

And a remarkable report from Myanmar. Ivan Watson on modern day slavery, the billion-dollar scam industry.

Plus, 60 years since the hills came alive with "The Sound of Music", legendary actress Julie Andrews, with some behind the scenes gossip.

JULIE ANDREWS, ACTRESS, "THE SOUND OF MUSIC": It's not just red carpets and tiaras and glamor. It really isn't.

AMANPOUR: Also, while Trump's foreign aid cuts halt the critical Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam, from my archives its devastating effects during that war on the local population and American vets.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

And sad to report that it's been a week of fear and loathing coming from Washington to Europe and its allies.

First, Signal gate revealed not just a stunning breach of classified information, but also what the Trump folks apparently really think of Europe.

Pathetic, freeloaders -- according to the Veep and Secretary of Defense.

And then Trump hits them and everyone else with a massive 25 percent tariff on all imported cars, ratcheting up the global trade war.

In shock, but still diplomatic here's how the president of the European Council responded when I asked him about fraying relations with the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIO COSTA, EUROPEAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT: We must cherish this long- standing relationship because it is a very good relationship for Americans and a very good relationship for Europeans. It's a win-win alliance. And then we need to work on this and improve on this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So win-win. But now more on the Trump national security team revealing its inexperience and, as critics say, its incompetence.

"Atlantic" journalist Jeffrey Goldberg has been doing the rounds on exactly how he came to be invited into that Signal messenger chat, which detailed war plans for U.S. strikes in Yemen.

Democrats and some Republicans have demanded answers and accountability.

Here's Colorado Senator Michael Bennet grilling the CIA director at a testy intelligence briefing before Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): Did you know that the president's Middle East adviser was in Moscow on this thread while you were as director of the CIA, participating in this -- in this thread? Were you aware of that? Are you -- are you aware of that today?

JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: I'm not aware of that today.

BENNET: This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And there's no question that this was classified information according to people who have plenty of experience in these matters.

Former Republican Senator for Nebraska, Chuck Hagel was U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Obama. And he joined me on this from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to our program.

Do you agree with Senator Bennet, Democrat from Colorado? This is unacceptable. This is a whole load of other words that he used there. What's your reaction?

HAGEL: Well, I think Senator Bennet's comments were appropriate. My reaction is its amazement. Astounding. Is this gross incompetence? Is it recklessness? Is it both? It's certainly confusion.

[11:04:41]

HAGEL: And when you've got confusion at the top, with the very -- most important national security institutions that defend our country and protect our intelligence and have relationships with other countries, we've got a problem.

And I don't think Senator Bennet or other senators in that hearing overstated anything. I think they were right on it. And in addition, what "The Atlantic", Mr. Goldberg released just backs that up.

It was just truly astounding that we would see that released in the form of a non-secure government channel. And I just have never heard of that before. I've never seen that before.

AMANPOUR: When you were a Defense secretary, how would a battle plan have been discussed with the principals? What is the operational, you know, efforts or rather the operational, you know, security that needs to be in place for that?

HAGEL: Well, we would discuss it within the Pentagon in secure surroundings, in secure rooms. We wouldn't text each other or go on the Internet and discuss it with 15 people. We would have secure rooms in the Pentagon. That would be the Pentagon piece of it.

But when you would branch that out, which you always have to with the president, national security adviser, State Department, attorney general, it'd be in the Situation Room, in the White House.

That's where those discussions took place. In the top-secret Situation Room in the -- in the white House. I don't ever recall using any kind of a vehicle outside of secure government networks to discuss any of this, anything like this.

AMANPOUR: Hegseth has insisted, and he's basically denied I didn't text -- we didn't text any war plans.

I mean, it's not true. It's untruthful. Would you agree? And this is the current Defense Secretary of the United States. HAGEL: Well, it is untruthful. And I'm sorry to see that for obvious

reasons, because this is a baseline. This is a new administration that's barely been in office two months, and our allies, our friends, relationships that we've depended on for years and years to share intelligence not just NATO, but countries all over the world. When they see this, they lose trust. They lose confidence in us.

And I hear from ambassadors all the time. What are we going to do? What should we do? What are our alternatives if Americas is doing this?

And then they see this, this kind of incompetency that's public and reflected and pretty clear, that just goes deeper into their mistrust and lack of confidence in us. And there are consequences for that. There'll be significant consequences for that.

And what you're doing here by saying these kinds of things, in moving in this direction, you are undoing the foundations of that world -- post-World War II world order. And that will create, if that if that happens, matter of fact, that will that will create a world order that that is fractured and there will be a vacuum in the world and there will be new leaders.

And I don't like the alternatives here and the options. I don't think this president and this administration understand the consequences of where we're headed if we withdraw from our western alliances and NATO and the president's talked about pulling troops out of South Korea, out of Japan.

It's because of our relationships that we've been able to project power around the world.

AMANPOUR: So when you say the consequences will be -- I mean, I think I'm interpreting you right, America will gradually lose its leadership of the world. You talked about a vacuum, and there will be new leaders.

So you're talking about China? Is China a fear for you as like taking over world leadership?

HAGEL: I think China is probably sitting back, not only delighting in all of this, but probably saying, I mean, this is such good fortune. How have we been so lucky that this is all happening?

Because what China -- China is doing, and I hear this from ambassadors, by the way, and other people around the world. They are all over the world saying to these countries, well, you see where America is, you see where America is going. You can't trust them.

[11:09:50]

AMANPOUR: Ok. So what about accountability? Whose head should roll, if anyone?

HAGEL: Well, there has to be accountability. There always must be accountability in anything, especially government, especially at the highest level of government, and especially in those institutions represented at that table yesterday, plus the Department of Defense, plus the State Department.

And to have leaders of those institutions say what they said and deny what was actually in the transmission that we now know of, I mean, that's what I was referring to earlier. There's either gross incompetence here, certainly confusion here. Recklessness.

I mean, didn't they even read or read those transcripts or they're just straight-out lying?

And so there has to be accountability. Absolutely. And the Congress, I hope, is going to continue to pursue this.

AMANPOUR: Secretary Chuck Hagel, former senator, thank you so much indeed for being with us.

HAGEL: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And coming up next, the honorable men and women slashed by Trump and Musk, now profiled in "Who is Government: The Untold Story of Public Service". Journalist and author Michael Lewis and comedian W. Kamau Bell joined me to discuss their new book.

And later on the program, an extraordinary report from Myanmar. Ivan Watson tells us the story of modern-day slavery that's also a giant scam operation when we come back.

[11:11:26]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Now, in the latest crackdown on free speech in America, Trump's Department of Homeland Security has detained a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University. In security camera video, masked ICE agents are seen arresting her there in plain clothes with a plainclothes car.

A DHS spokesman alleged she supports Hamas as the reason for her detention. In March of last year, she co-wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper calling on the college to divest from Israel and acknowledge genocide.

I asked Vincent Warren, executive director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, whether this administration is mixing up its Middle East policy with the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VINCENT WARREN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: With her case and with Mahmoud's case, these are people that are in the country legally. And the only reason -- the only reason why the government is detaining them, and frankly, trying to disappear them and deport them is because of their defense of Palestinian rights and calling out the genocide and killing that's happening in Gaza. That is the only reason.

And they're making claims that these are somehow connected to Hamas, which they are not; that these are connected to anti-Semitism, which they certainly are not. This is core disagreement with government policy.

This is one of those moments in authoritarian regimes where people say, well, some people will say, well, if we just keep our heads down, maybe it'll go away. But that actually doesn't happen in authoritarian regimes.

If we don't continue to resist and push back, we are allowing this country to turn into an authoritarian nightmare that we may never come out of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now, in addition to the assault on basic rights, it's also become fashionable to diss government workers, as we know, the highly qualified force that does the often unseen, unglamorous job of, well, governing.

In the words of the late President John F. Kennedy, let the public service be a proud and lively career.

But Trump and Musk have made it their first order of business to gut this group and upend livelihoods.

Now, these civil servants and the vital services they provide are the subject of a new book. It's called "Who is Government: The Untold Story of Public Service". Two well-known contributors, best-selling author Michael Lewis and satirist W. Kamau Bell, told me why they got involved.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: What made you think of this? Because you did it before this administration was inaugurated and started this current wave of purges.

MICHAEL LEWIS, EDITOR, "WHO IS GOVERNMENT?": So, what interested me in the first place was Trump's sort of neglect of the government his first time around, which provoked me to go in and write a book about just kind of what the government did.

And in the course of doing that, I was just shocked by the quality of the character inside the government. That -- just these like mission- driven experts who got nothing but grief from the society they were serving and whose mission was sort of like unknown to the outside world.

And there was this -- so, I had this sense that like, ok, there's a stereotype of the civil servant that sort of infected the American mind, and it's the thing that Elon Musk is peddling.

It's the sort of, they're wasteful, they're fraudulent, they're abusive, or they're the deep state, or they're bureaucrats. And the actual person was so different and actually such good material that I thought, let's like do this big.

[11:19:47]

LEWIS: Let's drop -- let's -- let me hire six writers who I love and I'll -- and along with me, we'll parachute into the place and we'll find stories and just tell them as a way to kind of counteract the stereotype. And the goal was to explode the stereotype because it's dumb and increasingly it's deadly.

AMANPOUR: So cue W. Kamau Bell, you are one of those writers and you've done a lot, and certainly, for CNN, in your travels around the country, and you've met a lot of people, presumably also government workers.

What did you find that maybe, you know, changed the stereotype when you explored the civil servants?

W. KAMAU BELL, CONTRIBUTOR, "WHO IS GOVERNMENT?": I mean for me, when Michael approached me and said, do you want to write about the federal government? I said yes, because it was exciting to collaborate with Michael. And I had this thought, I was like, wait, doesn't my goddaughter work in the federal government?

So, one -- over Kwanzaa celebration at my house, I asked her about her job without talking about the book. She works in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. And she exploded with so much excitement about a thing that I had never thought of as being excitement, that I really was like, oh, this is great. And I get to just talk to -- hang out with my goddaughter that I don't do often enough.

AMANPOUR: Is she still committed? Is her life or rather her job secure because there are also purges there?

BELL: Well, she is a paralegal. Her job was only going to be for a few years because it's a thing that law school students do before they apply to law school. So, she knew that she was going to leave and she's applied to law school.

But the interesting thing is that when I talked to her in the summer about this before Trump was in office, she said, I don't know that I would come back basically because I may end up with so much law school debt that I can't afford to be a government employee, which is another issue we need to talk about.

And -- but over the course of everything happened with Trump, she is more committed to coming back because she really feels like the government needs people like me who are committed and who know that the government -- that we need committed employees here who are on the right side of history.

AMANPOUR: Oh, that's amazing.

But why do you think, Michael, it was so easy to demonize federal workers, and that's lasted until now?

LEWIS: No, and it's obviously been amped up now. And it is a really interesting question, because it's been going on for 50 years. And they've wound up in the same bucket as immigrants and trans people in the Trump mind, right? It's like people who you can say almost anything about and no one will stand up and defend them.

And I think there are a couple things going on. One is, the nature of the institution, it's run -- although, there are 2.3 million civil servants who aren't in the military, there's a top layer of political appointees who run the place. And the communications operation is run by the political people.

So, the civil servants don't really have much ability to tell their story or defend themselves. And there is also this reflective -- this reflexive fear because, essentially, every time they're noticed, it's bad. You know, there's been no culture of sort of recognition except when something goes wrong, someone gets hauled out and has their head whacked off. So that they themselves have kind of learned the best thing to do is lay low.

And so, when you're not telling your story, and that's what's -- that's the problem, right? The stories just don't get told, and that's the reason for the book. But when you're not telling your story, then some other story rushes into the act (ph).

AMANPOUR: So, I don't know what you make of Russell Vought, but as you all know, he's Trump's OMB, Office of Management and Budget director. And he taped a speech or he had a speech that was taped and released by ProPublica.

And I'm just going to play it and get you both to react to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSELL VOUGHT, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. We want -- when they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work. Because they are so -- they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Oh, my goodness. It's hard to listen to it actually. And it's hard to listen to those people laughing and tittering in the audience.

I see you shaking your head, Kamau.

BELL: Yes. I mean, I think about the DMV. We all think about the people who work in the DMV as not being nice people. And so, therefore, when we go in there, we don't treat them like nice people, which means they don't act like nice people.

And so, the idea being that like, if -- that we're going to get what we get if we don't treat these people like people. So, he is not afraid of his life getting worse because the government shuts down because he's probably got a lot of money and he is got access to people with a lot of money.

But for the rest of us regular folks, if the government workers are traumatized and afraid to show up, our lives are going to get measurably worse. And we can see it no further than the Social Security Administration that if old people can't get their Social Security because people are fired, we don't all have a billionaire relative like Howard Lutnick to support us if we can't get our Social Security checks. I think that is -- he is preaching to a small group of rich people who aren't afraid of what happens if the government shuts down.

LEWIS: I was just going to add to that. The hypocrisy of what's going on now is breathtaking.

[11:24:49]

LEWIS: Tesla gets its start thanks to a loan and loan guarantees from the Department of Energy that without it Elon Musk, back in the day acknowledged, like it never would have gotten off the ground.

AMANPOUR: Well, it's an extraordinary book and it's really timely and it's so uplifting actually.

So, "Who Is Government", thank you both, Michael Lewis, W. Kamau Bell, for telling us some of these stories. Thanks so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANNAVEE SUEBSANG, THAI PARLIAMENT MINISTER: I have seen many people being tortured physically, and many people have been kept in the small room without doing nothing. Many people have been enslaved --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Trafficked and then forced to steal billions. An extraordinary look inside a wild scam operation in Myanmar.

[11:25:30]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Now everyone, of course, is aware of online scams -- everything from crypto frauds to fake romances. But it may shock you to know that sometimes the people behind those scams are victims too. Across the Thai-Myanmar border, a series of so-called "scam compounds"

have sprung up where criminal organizations work to con the world. Their work force, people who have been trafficked, who work in slave- like conditions and are often tortured.

Ivan Watson has this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: One step closer to freedom.

Hundreds of victims of international trafficking released from a lawless part of Myanmar, ferried across a river to neighboring Thailand. A rescue made possible by this Thai lawmaker. He met face- to-face with militia commanders to secure the release of more than 260 people, some of whom, he says worked in slave-like conditions.

KANNAVEE SUEBSANG, THAI PARLIAMENT MINISTER: I have seen many people being tortured physically, and many people have been kept in the small room without doing nothing. Many people have been enslaved for work, anything.

WATSON: The Myanmar border with Thailand is dotted with sprawling office parks protected by armed guards. The U.N. estimates more than 100,000 trafficked people from around the world work here.

JASON TOWER, MYANMAR COUNTRY DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE: There is a trade. In in humans. There's cyber slavery that's going on.

WATSON: They labor in call centers that bilk billions of dollars annually, also from other victims around the world through sophisticated online scams.

For the first time in years, these scam compounds are coming under international pressure. In February, the Thai government cut off electricity, Internet and fuel to the Myanmar border region. And Chinese law enforcement has been involved in a push to repatriate thousands of Chinese citizens released from scam compounds.

The armed groups that control this part of civil war-torn Myanmar have put on their own show, giving guided tours of areas they control and displaying some of the more than 7,000 compound workers that they say they're prepared to release.

The militia commanders deny any connection to alleged human rights abuses committed in their territory. This secretly-recorded video shows captors repeatedly using an electric stun gun on a Pakistani man in a DKBA militia-controlled compound. A punishment several other released victims tell CNN they also personally experienced.

But even the possible release of several thousand trafficked workers is unlikely to put a serious dent in the criminal activity here.

In the 15 months since I was last here, I can see several new buildings that have been constructed in that office park just across the border in Myanmar. It is a well-known destination for victims of international trafficking, who have described having to work in there in slave-like conditions. And it's been growing.

SUEBSANG: I don't think the scams will stop. The scam will try to identify location -- the new locations globally, the place in which they can operate their businesses as usual.

WATSON: For the criminal organizations behind this multibillion-dollar scam empire, business has been very, very good.

Ivan Watson, CNN -- on the Thai Myanmar border.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: We've been warned.

And when we come back, a much-needed moment of joy and song with one of cinema's most magical movies as "The Sound of Music" turns 60. Julie Andrews shares some behind the scenes moments.

[11:34:17]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back. We couldn't let March pass and enter spring when the hills truly come alive, without celebrating something amazing.

This month "The Sound of Music" turned 60. The sweeping musical about a joyous nun who finds love and family in the alps amid the dangers of rising Nazism. Its success really cemented Julie Andrews as the biggest star in musical history, and she has charmed audiences young and old ever since.

When she came to London to promote her memoir a few years ago, I got to speak to my childhood idol. She told me that shooting the movie could sometimes be, well, a little less than romantic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: You did "Sound of Music" --

ANDREWS: Yes.

AMANPOUR: -- which, again, you know, is everybody's favorite film.

ANDREWS: Well, how lucky could a girl get?

[11:39:50]

AMANPOUR: I mean, how many times has everybody seen it? I was fascinated though because that iconic shot of you emerging on the top of the mountain and, you know, the camera pans up.

(MUSIC) AMANPOUR: It was very hard work, wasn't it, because you said it was done by a helicopter?

ANDREWS: Well, it's no accident that I've called this new memoire "Home Work".

AMANPOUR: "Home Work".

ANDREWS: Because I had wanted to show that it's not just red carpets and tiaras and glamour. It really isn't. And as you well know, your business and my business, it's really a lot of work to get it right and try to do it well and long hours and much travel. And I just wanted to show that.

AMANPOUR: But in this particular opening sequence, the helicopter was used --

ANDREWS: Oh, the famous helicopter.

AMANPOUR: -- the famous helicopter was flying around trying to get a shot.

ANDREWS: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And how did it affect you, physically?

ANDREWS: Well, it was just one very small piece of film but it was that moment of walking towards the camera and doing that spin at the beginning of the film.

And so, I started at one end of the field and the helicopter, with an incredibly good cameraman hanging out the side of it with this huge camera strapped to him from the other end of the field, and we approached each other.

It really was the most extraordinary sight to see this helicopter coming at me sideways, sort of crab-like or grasshopper-like or something across the field as it got lower and lower and lower and then I made my turn.

And then the director signaled for another take and another take and another take.

But every time the helicopter went back to his side of the field and I went back to mine, the down draft from those jet engines just knocked me flat into the grass.

So eventually, I was sort of coming up with mud and hay and a few things like that. I kept indicating to the cameraman, couldn't he please make a wider turn around me? And I just got that, fine, let's do another take.

AMANPOUR: Let's do it again.

ANDREWS: Yes. AMANPOUR: And then, extraordinarily, and I didn't know this until just researching. The famous scene in the rowboat on the river in "Sound of Music" --

ANDREWS: Right. Right.

AMANPOUR: -- where you are making a surprise for Captain Von Trapp.

ANDREWS: Well, he's suddenly come home and we didn't realize that he was home.

AMANPOUR: Right.

ANDREWS: And so, I stand up in the boat and say, "Oh, Captain, you're home", at which point, we all tumble out of the boat.

And just before that take on the lake, the assistant director came wading out into the water towards me and I leaned down, I said, what?

And he said, well, can I just ask you something? The littlest one can't swim. So, could you fall forward out of the boat and grab her as quickly as you can?

And I thought, oh, my God, a huge responsibility.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

ANDREWS: And, of course, the boat rocked and rocked and rocked again and I went straight over the back with my feet rather like Mary Poppins and I've never swum so fast in my life.

AMANPOUR: And poor Little Gretl.

ANDREWS: Yes. And she was a trooper. I mean, she really was. She went under a couple of times, poor child.

AMANPOUR: I mean, it is extraordinary. I mean, anybody would let that happen today, right?

ANDREWS: No. I don't think so.

AMANPOUR: I mean, health and safety would be all over the place.

ANDREWS: Yes. I mean, of course, everybody was wading into the water to try and reach her. But they had asked me to try to get to her first.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Yet from all that chaos rose some great art. "The Sound of Music" went on to be one of the most successful films of all time, staying in U.S. cinemas for more than four years and all around the world. It's good to remember the pure joy.

And when we come back, as Trump's foreign aid cuts put an end to the critical clean-up of Agent Orange, the toxic chemical the U.S. military sprayed over the jungles of Vietnam during the war, from my archives, we see the devastating impact on the Vietnamese and American servicemen that lasts to this day.

[11:44:10]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Now, as Elon Musk continues to rip through foreign aid programs, American adversaries like Russia and China are cheering from the sidelines at the opportunities opening up for them. But in the interim, U.S. allies are bearing the brunt.

Despite the Vietnam War, Hanoi is now one of Americas most strategic partners in Asia. Diplomats there warn that Trump's cuts to foreign aid have halted the critical cleanup of dioxin from contaminated soil, in an area where hundreds of thousands of people live.

Now, dioxin is the deadly byproduct of Agent Orange, which you remember American military people sprayed across large parts of Vietnam during that war.

In an effort to right the wrongs of the past, for years the U.S. has been helping Vietnam with the clean-up. But now Trump cuts are jeopardizing some of this most important diplomatic work and achievement, and leaving this important ally vulnerable to Beijing's influence.

[11:49:54]

AMANPOUR: Now, back in 1999, I reported on the devastating toll that Agent Orange had on the local population in Vietnam and on American veterans, a toll that lasts to this day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: A Canadian team of scientists called the Hatfield Group is trying to find out whether dioxin in Agent Orange was as bad for the people here as it was for the trees.

Tom Boivin heads the team.

TOM BOIVIN, MEDICAL RESEARCHER, HATFIELD GROUP: There very well could be increased incidences of birth defects or Cancers or other problems as a Result of the Agent Orange spraying.

What those exact statistics are, whether it's ten times or two times or 100 times, I don't know. I mean, I think we need more data.

Let's go.

AMANPOUR: And that's exactly what Boivin and his Vietnamese partners will be fishing for today at the bottom of the food chain.

BOIVIN: We're going to collect some fish samples from these two ponds. Actually, they look like a couple of old bomb craters.

Ok. That's the biggest grass carp we ever got.

AMANPOUR: According to the Hatfield team, dioxin can be found in the fish, especially around a former U.S. military base. Dioxin in these ducks is three times the level that would close commercial food production in the west.

BOIVIN: Basically, it was use of chemicals in warfare. So chemical warfare is a no-no these days. And no, nobody could ever do that type of thing again, that's for sure.

AMANPOUR: But back then, millions of American servicemen were exposed. They too, were sprayed by Agent Orange. One of them was a 19-year-old draftee from Michigan named Larry Lay (ph).

LARRY LAY, U.S. ARMY VETERAN: It got all over you. It got all over everything. And that's when we -- And then a few hours later, everything it landed on was green. Within a few hours, it was dead and brown laying on the ground.

AMANPOUR: And when you saw the immediate effect it had on the foliage, did you ever wonder what it did to you.

LAY: Not at that -- not at that time. I never -- everybody knew that government wouldn't do nothing to harm us, right. Never even crossed our minds.

AMANPOUR: Until --

LAY: Until I got home and the first child ended up being messed up real bad with spina bifida.

AMANPOUR: For 25 years, Larry petitioned the Veterans Administration to recognize that Stacy's spina bifida was caused by his exposure to Agent Orange. And for 25 years, they said no. Until two years ago, when studies showed that this birth defect may be linked to dioxin.

Stacy receives $1,200 a month, and veterans exposed to Agent Orange can now be compensated for nine other illnesses.

The Vietnamese claim a whole host of illnesses and defects can be traced to Agent Orange spraying, especially along the Ho Chi Minh trail. That famous wartime supply route now leads directly to dioxin victims according to Dr. Tran Manh Hung (ph).

DR. TRAN MANH HUNG, VIETNAMESE DOCTOR (through translator): Even American doctors recognize that this is one of the diseases that is related to Dioxin.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Ho Chinh Chi (ph) was sprayed by Agent Orange during the war.

He now has cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Mr. Kwin Dem (ph) is dying of liver cancer, which has also been linked to dioxin. It's no secret to those taking care of him. They've already prepared his coffin. But the cruelest fate according to Dr. Hung awaits the children who've

been born with learning disabilities and birth defects.

DR. HUNG: This girl is six years old but she still cannot speak. She can't even sit up by herself. Someone always has to hold her.

Areas that were sprayed by Agent Orange have 10 to 20 times more birth defects than normal. But to finish the research, we need help from abroad. Vietnam can't do it alone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: But apparently do it alone they must now. And you heard that reference by the American vet to the VA, which was helping. Well, as we know, the VA is also targeted for mass layoffs under Musk and DOGE.

Next, much brighter foliage from Japan to Washington. The world is in bloom this week as spring has finally sprung. Some of the most gorgeous hues after this.

[11:54:48]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, a powder pink sign that spring has finally bloomed. This week, Japan announced the official start of its cherry blossom or Sakura season, best seen in the ancient capital of Kyoto.

Although the Sakura bloomed early this year, officials only confirm it started after they see five to six flowers blossomed on the benchmark tree in Tokyo.

[11:59:53]

AMANPOUR: But Japan isn't the only one getting in on the fun. The iconic blossom around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. is also blooming this weekend. A glorious way to begin the spring season of renewal. That's what we need.

That's all we all have time for right now. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thanks for watching and see you again next week.