Amanpour & Co. - June 26, 2024
Russian historian and author Nina Khrushcheva discusses Evan Gershkovich’s trial in Russia. Columbia professors Ari Goldman and Gregory Khalil discuss the fraught discourse surrounding Israel and Gaza and how they are trying to teach their students to disagree with respect. New York Times columnist David French his dismissal from an event for the Presbyterian Church in America after criticizing Trump.
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00:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour and Company. Here's what's coming up.
00:09The trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich begins in Moscow. We have the latest then.
00:18My son died before my eyes, and I couldn't do anything, she says.
00:21A special report on the Palestinian family caught in the middle of a hostage rescue operation
00:26in Gaza. Also ahead, after anti-war protests divided Columbia University, I'm joined
00:35by the Jewish and Arab professors teaching students there how to disagree while also
00:41seeing each other. And the fact that I had turned against Donald Trump and had criticized
00:46Donald Trump was a bridge too far for them, and they turned on us in our own church.
00:53New York Times columnist David French tells Michel Martin how turning against Trump got
00:59him canceled by his own church.
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01:42Ku and Patricia Ewan, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities,
01:48Barbara Hope Zuckerberg. Additional support provided by these funders
01:54and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.
02:02Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. After 15 months in a Russian
02:08prison on trumped up charges of espionage, the American journalist Evan Gershkowitz is finally
02:13facing trial. His family, his paper, the Wall Street Journal and the U.S. government all express
02:19outrage, calling the charges false and cynical. The 32-year-old reporter faces up to 20 years in
02:26jail if convicted. Gershkowitz has appeared in a court in a remote part of Russia where proceedings
02:32got underway behind closed doors. Apart from a brief photo op today, Gershkowitz is unlikely
02:38to be seen again until the process ends. Matthew Chance has the details.
02:45This is the first glimpse of Evan Gershkowitz for months. Cameras briefly allowed into the
02:50courthouse about a thousand miles from Moscow where his trial for espionage is finally underway.
02:58His head shaved, the 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter looked calm but he faces a
03:04sentence of up to 20 years if or likely when he's found guilty. In a statement the editor-in-chief
03:12of the journal wrote this bogus accusation of espionage will inevitably lead to a bogus
03:18conviction for an innocent man. Hi Matthew from CNN. Are you holding up all right? No questions.
03:26For nearly 15 months Gershkowitz has been held under tight security in Moscow's notorious
03:32prison. He his employer and the US government will vigorously deny the spying allegations against him
03:39but Russia appears determined to press ahead despite official US objections. A new statement
03:47from the US embassy in Moscow says Evan did not commit any illegal acts and should not have been
03:53arrested at all. This trial isn't about the presentation of evidence due process or the
03:59rule of law we're talking about the Kremlin using American citizens to achieve its political goals
04:06the statement adds. With the conflict raging in Ukraine Russia began a crackdown at home
04:13on free speech silencing dissidents or forcing them into exile. It's against this backdrop
04:20that Gershkowitz was arrested on a reporting assignment in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
04:26This is video from the website of the tank factory there where Russian prosecutors
04:32allege Gershkowitz acted quote on the instructions of the CIA to collect secret information although
04:40no evidence has been made public. The trial will take place in the city which is about a thousand
04:45miles from Moscow amid an outcry. Journalism is not a crime. Journalism is not a crime. Some of
04:54the most prominent journalists in the United States are calling for his release and Tucker
04:59Carlson even appealed directly to Putin in his recent sit-down. And I just want to ask you directly
05:05without getting into the details of it or your version of what happened if as a sign of your
05:09decency you would be willing to release him to us and we'll bring him back to the United States.
05:15We have done so many gestures of what good will out of decency that I think we have run out of
05:27them. But they're not running out of Americans in Russian prisons far from it. I'm innocent of any
05:35child political kidnapping. Former Marine Paul Whelan is serving 16 years what US officials
05:42say were trumped up spying charges. Dual citizens Ksenia Karelina an amateur ballerina from LA
05:49and journalist Alsu Kermasheva are also in custody. As are Gordon Black a staff sergeant
05:55in the US Army and US schoolteacher Mark Fogle. Critics suspect the Kremlin is collecting US
06:01citizens as bargaining chips for a future deal. With his trial for espionage now underway
06:09Evan Gershkovich is one of the most valuable in the Kremlin's hand.
06:15Matthew Chance reporting there. Now let us get more on this with Nina Khrushcheva a Russian
06:21historian and author who also is the great-granddaughter of the 20th century Soviet
06:25leader Nikita Khrushchev and she's joining me now from New York. Thank you for being back with us
06:31on the program. You know so much about the dynamics and what happens there. This is the first time
06:38Nina Khrushcheva that an American journalist has been accused and now put on trial under these
06:44specific charges since the end of the Cold War since the end of the Soviet Union. Give us just
06:50just at this point the context of what makes this so unique and why now? Thank you. Yes it is
07:00um has not happened uh since the Cold War. Uh unique it's it's the beginning of the process
07:10of complete animosity because well it's 15 months so it's not really unique at this point. Uh it is
07:1720 years in prison he's facing 20 years in prison. I don't want to predict uh but I would imagine
07:23that uh Evan Gershkovich may get 20 or even more just because he needs to be a very valuable
07:30uh person to potentially get exchanged and so he would be as much prosecuted as possible.
07:39But I think at this point we cannot really talk about uniqueness anymore. I think they are uh as
07:44Matthew Chance pointed out I think correctly uh the Russian state is taking prisoners of also
07:52all kinds and Americans particularly just because the Russians or Putin but Putin feels that if uh
08:01America is all out hybrid war with Russia uh helping Ukraine uh arming Ukraine uh maligning
08:09Russia all over the world damaging Putin's reputation at all times talk to him and uh as
08:15he always says in inappropriate inappropriate terms so all bets are off so the Russians can
08:20do whatever they they can do but let's remember that Putin also a descendant of the KGB uh former
08:28operatives of he himself is a former KGB operative so he does act in this kind of tough tough-nosed
08:35national security uh way national security agenda when they collect as many prisoners and they don't
08:41really uh they're not apologetic for that in in any way possible. Well you know even even you know
08:50more sort of direct I'm going to play you another clip of Putin uh in that conversation with Tucker
08:56Carlson in which he basically outlined the parameters I mean of a swap so so let's just
09:02play this. There is an ongoing dialogue between the special services this has to be resolved in a
09:09calm responsible and professional manner they are keeping in touch so let them do their work.
09:17I do not rule out that the person you refer to Mr. Gershkovits may return to his motherland
09:24by the end of the day it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia
09:29we want the U.S. special services to think about how they can contribute to achieving the goals
09:34our special services are pursuing. We are ready to talk moreover the talks are underway.
09:43Uh I mean there's just no doubt he's just laying it out this is a a bargaining chip as
09:49as we've all said now he also Putin implied that the person they want back in return for Gershkovits
09:56is Vadim Kraskov an FBS FSB operative who is serving a life sentence in Germany for having
10:05been convicted of killing a Chechen emigre that was back in 2019. Do you know anything about this
10:12type this fellow I mean is he the worst of the worst why would Putin be holding
10:18Evan a very highly valuable American for this person? Well and Vadim Kraskov has been mentioned
10:26numerous times and Putin himself talked about him uh because and Putin basically you know basically
10:32he said that Kraskov is a hero because he was avenging the motherland he was avenging Russia
10:38and that uh person that Chechen emigre uh who he killed uh was the one who was going with the
10:47tanks over the Russian bodies during the war in Chechnya so he was one of those
10:52uh Islamic fundamentalists that uh that of course were supposed to war bringing harm to the Russian
10:58land so Putin was quite explicit about that that Krasikov is a hero and if America wants
11:04Gershkovits back they really need to discuss it with Germany and they know we know they did
11:09in fact when Alexei Navalny whom you and I uh spoke a lot about his his his death and his life
11:17when there was information that Alexei Navalny perhaps could be exchanged Krasikov was also
11:25Krasikov was also mentioned and when Navalny died in February then apparently the conversation
11:32uh sort of stopped but I think Krasikov will come out and one last thing Sergei Rybkov one of the
11:38Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials in fact yesterday or today said very pointedly that the
11:44conversation about exchange is going on so that was a message uh in uh in relations to uh Evan
11:51Gershkovich's trial is that we are eager to do that we the Russians are eager to do that but we
11:57need to have good conditions from the other side. In the meantime they're going through with this
12:02process and Gershkovich who is not going to be seen we understand it's now in secret can't get
12:08American consular officials into the court can't get family or others in uh certainly not his own
12:14uh his own his own bosses um what is it going to look like do you think because the statistics show
12:22that there doesn't seem to be a presumption of innocence in a Russian trial unlike in the west
12:28and that there's a 99 percent conviction rate uh according to certain figures what do you think
12:35this process will look like? Well I mean it's a closed process because it's an espionage case and
12:42we see more and more that uh Russian trials are being closed not even espionage just you know
12:49any trial they can close saying that uh you know those who accuse um the those who accuse the
12:58criminals the technically criminals uh they're being threatened because they speak the truth so
13:03they can do anything I mean there is really no legal system in Russia so that's that's not even
13:09an understatement it's just no such thing it is a closed trial we don't know how long it will last
13:14we don't know what the decisions would be I would think that uh uh Gershkovich is going to get as
13:20much uh as much prison sentence as possible because that would make him even more of a
13:26valuable target so I cannot really not know what's going to be but it's going to be tough precisely
13:32because it is a message to the Americans. And and because this one is directed at the Americans it's
13:37slightly uh different than the other broader crackdown on dissent um that seems to be well
13:45that is going on in Russia particularly since uh the war. I want to ask you to respond and to to
13:50talk about yet another first of its kind since the collapse of the Soviet Union and that is the
13:56arrest and and and trial of two women who are in theater the director and and the playwright
14:03of a popular play that apparently was approved by all the authorities that was on stage and I think
14:09got an award before the war started and now these two women have been rounded up they're in jail for
14:15for for the better part of a year what is that about? Well and that's another uh another kind of
14:23when I mentioned the closed trial actually their trial uh this is the uh theater director Eugenia
14:31uh Berkovich and the uh playwrights Svetlana Petrichuk who was originally from uh Belarus
14:37and they the play that they uh they put put on stage is called The Phoenix the Falcon it's it's
14:44it's actually I haven't seen it but I read the play and it's really very interesting is how
14:48women who are disillusioned in life they end up in Syria and fighting for terrorism and then
14:55because they're disillusioned then in in that kind of life they go back to Russia and then being
15:00tried as as criminals so it's a very tragic uh tragic and beautiful story against terrorism and
15:06in a very Russian fashion uh they got two awards very very popular awards called the Golden Mask
15:15Awards uh this play was written was read in prison and female prisons all over Russia because it was
15:21supposed to prevent this kind of terrorist or or disillusioned uh actions out of spite to to the
15:28state uh and so suddenly in a complete reversal these women are now deemed as terrorists they
15:35promote terrorism they've been testimony of every important theater related literature
15:41related person in Russia in their defense and there's one horrible person who's who is a secret
15:48secret informer who said oh that seemed to be Russian men are presented in bad light and
15:54therefore uh this play is against Russian men and so that the the trial was closed so we are not
16:00going to see how it's going to develop and and play out but this is sort of the Russia today's
16:06that uh you know the foreign agents we also discussed this this topic I think there is about
16:11800 foreign agents in Russia now and even a year ago two years ago for sure they were people who
16:19were supposedly getting money from uh from western states and by potentially maligned
16:26uh malign Putin now it's anybody who disagrees with Putin so it is going to increase as long
16:32as Putin stays in power the more totalitarian state it's going to become well you've you've
16:39you've wrapped that up very cleanly and and clearly for us all so on the one hand this
16:43crackdown on dissent and creeping totalitarianism and on the other hand our colleague Evan is a
16:50as a political pawn in a cynical game of of swapping operatives uh Nina Khrushcheva thank
16:56you so much indeed for joining us now we turn to the war that continues to rage in Gaza early this
17:03month the Israeli military rescued four Israeli hostages there it's been hailed as a daring
17:09success for the IDF but now the dust has settled another perspective is emerging in this report
17:15correspondent Paula Hancox pieces together the evidence to see how the military's rescue
17:20operation had a deadly impact on some civilians and one Palestinian family facing further unbearable
17:27loss by the time Israeli forces leave this house in central Gaza
17:38one woman and three children have been shot a 12 year old boy clings to life this is the
17:45story of one Gazan family caught up in the June 8th rescue of four Israeli hostages being held
17:50in Nusra when Abdul Raouf the grandfather and owner of the house saw tanks and special forces
17:58arrive on their street he says his family of 14 hid in one room in the top floor apartment
18:04what happened next has been relayed to us by seven members of the same family in multiple interviews
18:10Mohammed Mata father of four says he heard the soldiers screaming shooting and throwing stun grenades downstairs
18:19this IDF video shows troops inside the house
18:23it appears heavily edited but you can hear what sounds like shots fired
18:29they came up to the apartment the father adds shooting and saying who's here
18:33we told them we are civilians children and women are in this room
18:37the boy's aunt says the Israelis came and started shooting at us I heard someone groaning in pain
18:48this is the blood of my son Yaman says Rasha he was bleeding here as soon as the Israelis
18:53entered they shot him there were bullets in his leg and stomach
19:0012 year old Yaman later died from his wounds
19:07my son died before my eyes and I couldn't do anything she says
19:12he was looking at me saying mum hold me I'm bleeding
19:17Rasha says another son Mumin 16 was shot in the shoulder and stomach she wanted to help but she
19:22says the soldiers threatened to kill them if she did another shot grazed the third son the bullet
19:27striking his aunt in the leg the family home is over a kilometre away on a likely evacuation route
19:34the Israeli military used to extract the hostages from Gaza the IDF says the battalion was there to
19:41secure the area during the operation inside the house the grandfather says he and Yaman's father
19:50were taken to the corridor hands tied behind their back gagged and blindfolded pointing out the
19:55plastic head cover left behind the father says a soldier warned him tell me where the resistance
20:04fighters and weapons are or I will break your heart for your children and he did it he went to
20:09the room a minute later and I heard the gunshots it's not clear if any of the family members were
20:15hit in the second round of shooting CNN has reached out to the IDF but they have not responded to the
20:21specific allegations the family's testimony matches evidence CNN saw at the scene we've
20:27shown images of the bullet casings on the ground to weapons experts who confirmed they are Israeli
20:32manufactured the grandfather points to multiple bullet holes in walls doors and furniture on
20:40different floors of the building the family says Israeli troops were in their home for around 45
20:46minutes one soldier applied a dressing to Moomin's shoulder wound before they left
20:56outside the grandfather tries to call an ambulance he's told they cannot reach him
21:01so the boys are loaded into a car and rushed to hospital where Yaman is pronounced dead
21:10Gaza health officials say more than 270 people were killed that day
21:16no breakdown of fighters versus civilians but this hospital footage shows women and children
21:22in every corner Israel says the death toll is far lower blaming Hamas for hiding hostages
21:29within the civilian population one family's story one small window into a day of hell for the
21:39residents of Nusrat Paula Hancock's reporting there in the United States President Biden has
21:45condemned what he called a violent attack on a Palestinian American child in Texas where a woman
21:51has been charged with trying to drown a three-year-old girl at a neighborhood pool this is
21:57the kind of rank hatred that has caused such turbulence around the world since the savage
22:02events of October 7th in Israel and the ensuing war on Gaza campus demonstrations at American
22:09colleges got out of hand after the Columbia University president called in the cops which
22:14brings us to our next guest two Columbia University professors one Jewish one Palestinian who are
22:21co-teaching a course on religion in the region it's part of the journalism schools program where
22:28crucially students are learning how to disagree while also seeing each other Ari Goldman and
22:34Gregory Khalil welcome to the program it's really good to have you here and I want to know given
22:41everything that you know we've been trying to make sense of over the past nine months what is it
22:47that brought you together how did you meet how did you decide and why to teach this particular
22:53course let's start with you Ari sure sure well I've been teaching this course for decades and
23:00I just want to get down that the core principle of the course is empathetic objectivity
23:07journalists prize objectivity right we look for facts we look for maps we look for data look for
23:13history we want to know what happened but that takes us only so far we need empathy we need to
23:20be able to hear the other person and in particular when it comes to covering religion if I can give
23:25a very quick example the if you walk into a Catholic church and people are taking communion
23:31and you say they're having bread and wine objectively you've told the truth that's what
23:37they're having however if you are empathetic and you try to see it from their point of view
23:43they're taking the body and blood of Christ so the idea that objectivity takes us only so far
23:51is my core principle in teaching this course we all come to teach and we all come to into life
23:58with our own perspectives I've been teaching this course I'm an American Jew I have strong ties to
24:03Israel I have many family members in Israel I love Israel I support Israel and I've been teaching
24:09this course from pretty much from my perspective and then six years ago I had a guest in the class
24:18Greg Khalil who my a friend had told me was a good would be a good guest to talk about
24:26Christianity in the in the Holy Land and I said let's do this together because I want to be sure
24:33that not only my perspective is reflected with my students but yours is too and we've had a very
24:40fruitful partnership I really enjoy working with Greg even though we disagree all the time
24:46let me ask him yeah I mean it really does sound so interesting because you have different
24:51perspectives as obviously we know you both have huge numbers of family you in Israel are you in
24:58I believe in in the West Bank and even in Gaza Greg Khalil tell me what you take from this
25:06co-teaching course do you also you hear and see Ari and you also I guess feel seen and heard
25:15um yeah the short answer is yes but I think you know the reason why I'm doing this course that
25:20we do have a strong friendship that lasts six years is because I think what's missing in the
25:25public square is an ability to talk about really difficult issues in particular Israel Palestine
25:33as somebody who's Palestinian and I was born and raised here but I've lived there I have a huge
25:38family there some of them are experiencing absolutely atrocious realities right now
25:44um Palestinian perspective is never heard it's rarely heard I think you know on your last segment
25:51about the hostage rescue of course you have to be happy for hostages who are rescued but 270
25:57Palestinian civilians killed there's a different value of life here because imagine if those
26:04hostages were held in Tel Aviv or in New York there's this there's this reality that that for
26:09Palestinians it's it's like well you're human shields that means you're legitimate human targets
26:14and that's not fair that's not right so my objective is not simply to platform Palestinian
26:20perspectives rather it's something larger than that I don't think my story is the only story
26:24Ari's story isn't the only story if we want to deal with complex issues in the world we have
26:29to be able to understand the multiplicity of deep truths that exist at the same time
26:34and be held accountable to the actual facts the facts on the ground so in teaching this course
26:39together we're hoping to allow for a better more robust debate about reality and not slogans
26:45in the public square so to that end did your because I believe you have a friendship you're
26:51not just uh co-teaching for the last six years so many people were shaken family friendships broke
26:59up you know just just there were everybody was in their own corners after October 7th and what's
27:04happened since did that affect your friendship I think it made it much deeper actually you know
27:13one of the components of our class that's so critical is we take an immersive trip so it's
27:18not just talking about a multiplicity of perspectives it's not Ari's story my story
27:23flattening everything out it's holding it accountable to a shared set of facts and
27:27uncomfortable experiences so Ari and I have actually grown quite a bit together over the
27:33years and being in being in places that have made us and our students quite uncomfortable
27:38so after October 7th we already had he knows where I stand on a variety of issues
27:43we're radically transparent with each other we're not mean when we disagree but it's important for
27:48us to speak proactively what what we think about particular issues and so I think our class after
27:55October 7th strangely in some way while I was being quite active and will continue to be in
28:00the public square I mean this has to stop now I think it provided a safe haven both for us and
28:07our students I think that is so yes Ari go ahead I was going to ask you yeah how also the students
28:14see you agreeing on some things disagreeing on other things particularly in this incredibly
28:20heightened environment so this idea of empathetic objectivity of having being using your
28:27journalistic tools but having empathy is something that I use and I teach as a reporting tool in
28:33other words you should go out and you're talking to someone who has a different point of view
28:37listen to them try to get and understand the world from their perspective I'll give an example
28:44even someone saying from the river to the sea Palestine should be free may sound innocuous
28:49to some people but to other people it is offensive and anti-semitic so you may not think
28:56it is but try to understand the other perspective and that's really what what we've tried to do
29:02and it started as a reporting tool in other words this is a great way to report but we soon realized
29:08that it was a human relations tool that we relate to each other and understand each other when we
29:15say okay what does this mean to you and and all too often people speak and they wait and then they
29:22speak again what we're trying to teach our students is to speak listen and then speak again
29:31so and take in their experience and try to reflect their their humanity I love the fact that this is
29:39part of the journalism school because many journalists in the United States and around
29:43are really struggling with how to do this right so it's a very very valuable course I think for
29:48the young people who want to be journalists I just want to ask you because you know you are on
29:53Columbia it we all know what happened on campus with the with the protests you mentioned some of
29:58the slogans Ari and you say Greg that you're in the public square how do you think the university
30:06handled the protest in the fullness of 2020 hindsight Greg how would you have done it
30:12differently did you agree with with what happened no I think the university made a number of
30:20failures and it's on a long and growing list but I think 20 years from now the story isn't going to
30:26be about the university's failures or the student protesters breaking a couple rules even two years
30:31from now it's going to go back to the atrocious realities on the ground in Gaza there is no good
30:37future for any Israeli or Palestinian without a good reality for every Palestinian and Israeli
30:44and we are moving over the brink on the ground there and as long as this continues to escalate
30:50out of control this could go this could have large regional implications things won't become
30:55on our campus right now so I think the story with the protesters and the students I think
31:00the administration will look very bad in hindsight this didn't happen with the encampments
31:05and the administration failed the university community I think for many months even before
31:10October 7th the students were saying long before October 7th hey we don't want our 14 billion
31:16dollars to endowment to be invested in what they and most human rights organizations including
31:23many Israeli organizations see as apartheid we don't want them profiting off of what many call
31:28an active genocide today and I think sadly um or not sadly but they will be they will be looked on
31:36as being on the right side of history despite the very many problems that we saw on our campus
31:41and sadly we'll see again and what sort of view do you have Ari okay well um I disagree with the
31:47use of those words um apartheid genocide I feel um that these are are not fair accusations to make
31:57against the Jewish state um the Jewish state is far from perfect um but it's also um not a
32:04genocidal state I feel that we have to um but but I also want to go to the to the to the campus
32:13before I talk about the um the facts of uh on the ground and and the campus um I am sympathetic to
32:21the administration of Columbia um Manoush Shafik the president became president I think on October
32:264th and then she had a basis on October 7th um she has addressed the the the problem of
32:32anti-semitism on campus and she's done um some some good things even though um she's um I I
32:41have trouble with the presence of police officers on the campus um especially initially yeah but I
32:47need to like I'll let Greg push back yeah yeah I like the fact that you're disagreeing um and
32:53agreeing you know as agreeing to disagree so to speak um but I also want to know
33:00what other conflicts do you teach what other places have you taken your students
33:06is there a context in which you can put what's happening now Greg absolutely I mean I think
33:13these are universal principles um I this this year we had to pivot we could not um go on take
33:20the students on the trip to Israel Palestine as we'd planned we still taught Israel Palestine
33:25because of our expertise and our backgrounds but we also taught Ireland Northern Ireland and the
33:29same principles apply there and interestingly in Ireland so much of this conflict like in the
33:35United States has been imported into the local culture and politics so we didn't leave Israel
33:41and Palestine far behind I do just want to push back a little bit Christian if I might on sort of
33:45what what Ari said um you know there was an environment on the campus that was really quite
33:50toxic for some time and I don't I think the administration did a poor job at fighting
33:56anti-semitism um but also they weaponized it and there was a lot of anti-Palestinian speech
34:01and bigotry but there were some important there were some important stories that were missed out
34:06there I remember one day the third night of Passover I was at Pulitzer Hall where we teach
34:11the camp was right next door I heard the faint call of the Muslim uh call to prayer from the
34:16encampment I walked over I saw about 20 students standing in a large rectangle holding up bedsheets
34:22protecting fellow Muslim students from the prying eyes of cameras just an hour and a half later it
34:29was the start of of Passover the third night and there was an interfaith meal hosted by a number of
34:35Jewish students sizable minority there and so something important is happening with the young
34:40people and I can empathize with your um discomfort with the charge terms of apartheid and genocide
34:47those are very powerful terms but the reality on the ground in which one people is ruling over
34:52another what I said is the the opinion of human rights organizations around the world and so
34:58it's important if we are practicing empathetic objectivity to root it in that reality not just
35:04sort of our reactions to this terminology and I think increasingly I hear you I hear you and
35:10I hear you both on this and I I really understand and appreciate the explanations from both
35:15perspectives but but particularly Ari and I've only got time for one one more question um one
35:21of you said to one of my colleagues that you know that too many students who come in with too many
35:28exclamation points and should have more question mark in other words your students come in with
35:33certainties or with what some people call clicktivism and not enough curiosity and intellectual
35:41investigation Ari what are you seeing are you are you are you able to combat that even by your
35:47partnership I I hope so um that is a problem I think it's rooted in social media you've got to
35:55take a position on every issue and then you get stuck in that position and then you're at a rally
35:58and you're on one side and you don't listen to the other side so I I'm I'm very much um in favor
36:06of um of the question mark and I think people in in college you know in graduate school should be
36:13in a questioning mode not in a such certainty I will say myself even watching the video that
36:19you showed earlier um I have all these questions I have a lot of I'm I'm my position isn't certain
36:26on any of these issues um except that I love Israel and I want Israel to survive um you have a
36:32lot of guests on who can debate apartheid or genocide or anything else we're not here to do
36:39that we're here to say that it's important for us for society and especially for young people
36:47to stop and listen and try to understand the other I really appreciate you both Ari Goldman and and
36:52Greg Khalil for being for for being with us and for doing that course at the journalism school at
36:57Columbia really important thank you so much and as U.S. voters gear up for the election in an
37:05increasingly divided country the merging of faith and political identity often contributes to further
37:11polarization it's something our next guest has personally experienced New York Times columnist
37:16David French was recently dismissed from an engagement for the Presbyterian Church in America
37:22after facing backlash for his criticism of Donald Trump he joins Michelle Martin now to discuss his
37:28latest article the day my old church canceled me was a very sad day David French thank you so much
37:35for talking with us thanks so much for having me I appreciate it so David just just for people who
37:40just don't know your sort of full biography I'd just like to ask you to start by how you came to
37:46identify as a conservative and what does that mean to you right well you know I'm a cold war
37:52kid I was born in 69 I came of age really politically in the Reagan era and I came of age
37:58sort of as that Reagan Republican Cold War conservative more libertarian leaning in my
38:04outlook very much interested in America's global role very immigrant friendly for example you know
38:11the Reagan was famous a lot of people forget this about his legacy that he was famous for
38:17welcoming immigrants and showing that the the attraction and appeal that America had to people
38:22abroad was a symbol of for example our superiority to the Soviet system so I really came up as a
38:29Reagan Republican that would be my story and I'm also evangelical I was raised in the
38:35evangelical church so I was a evangelical Reagan Republican and fit very well culturally both
38:43within the Republican Party and within the evangelical church basically my whole adult life
38:50until June of 2015 when Donald Trump came down the escalator who signaled a break from all kinds of
39:00Republican traditions that I had appreciated and respected not merely a break with Republican with
39:07Reagan ideology but also a break with Reagan's character in any really any emphasis on personal
39:14character at all do you remember when it is that you started to see not just
39:21Donald Trump and as a candidate as a figure himself but his effect on the party
39:26the party and the conservative movement on the whole do you remember when you saw that
39:30oh I can get it down to the month September of 2015 is when I began to see and there was a
39:37Republican debate at that time in which not just Donald Trump but also some of his fans online were
39:45echoing white nationalist alt-right talking points and so I remember I was writing at the time for
39:52National Review and I vividly remember writing just a very short post where I was condemning
39:58these white nationalist talking points I was condemning their presence and saying they have
40:03nothing they have no place in the Republican Party they have no place in the conservatism
40:07that I know and love and then what happened next was we received a hurricane just a hurricane of
40:16online harassment directed at me but far worse than that directed at my youngest daughter who
40:22at the time was seven years old she was adopted from Ethiopia and the racist attacks on her
40:29were a deeply disturbing and be terrifying in some ways they were you know at one point
40:37some people put pictures of murdered black Americans in the comment section of my wife's
40:45blog she was a writer for a religious website called Pathios at the time literally you know
40:51clearly threatening photoshopping pictures of my daughter into gas chambers online yeah horrible
40:59stuff horrible stuff and so it was it was disturbing it was terrifying and we turned
41:06as we've always had in our in our history and in our lives back to our church community
41:11for support and for comfort and to be sure there were pastors who supported us there were close
41:17friends who supported us but all of a sudden for some people the fact that I had turned against
41:23Donald Trump and he had criticized Donald Trump was a bridge too far for them and they turned on
41:29us in our own church and this is something that began in 2015 and just kept continuing for some
41:37people politics is like sports you know they go there to yell at people right they go there to
41:41boo at people like you know I don't you don't have to love it you might think it's stupid
41:45but church is different so I'm just thinking just what's your take on what happened there like what
41:52happened you know I will just speak personally I'll say I underestimated two things uh when when
41:58I was thinking through the state of Republican politics in 2015 and evangelical politics
42:03specifically in 2015 and 2016 number one I underestimated the antipathy that existed
42:10toward Democrats I underestimated how much there was this raw hatred and or fear of Democrats on
42:16the part of so many Christian Republicans I even though I was a Republican uh actor I was a
42:23Republican delegate to the 2012 convention a Mitt Romney delegate I was a longtime religious
42:27liberty lawyer and pro-life lawyer but I always had close friends who were Democrats I never saw
42:34politics as that deal breaker on matters of faith and friendship but I underestimated how much many
42:40of my co-religionists had real raw antipathy for Democrats and I also underestimated how
42:47fundamentalist so many of them had become and by fundamentalist I mean where there's this zone of
42:53absolute religious certainty they had extended into politics so that if you were not going to
43:00support the Republican standard bearer that was not seen as a political mistake that was not seen
43:05even as an honest mistake it was seen as a sign of apostasy as departing from the Christian faith
43:11itself and that blindsided me that took me totally by surprise so it's the combination of antipathy
43:19and rising fundamentalism that ties the politics of conservative Christianity to the faith itself
43:27so closely that I didn't see that coming and that's what blindsided me and both of those
43:34trends have only gotten worse in the ensuing you know eight nine years since Trump came down the
43:39escalator so then here you go and you're scheduled to speak at a an event being sponsored by your
43:47church which you have loved and has loved you yeah and your family what happened so what happened
43:54is that my wife and I had been members of a church called Presbyterian Church of in America for a
43:59long time more than 15 years and it had become but unfortunately over the course of the eight or
44:05nine years of the Trump era it had become not hospitable to us now again not everybody our
44:11pastors were with us close friends were with us but we kept having deeply disturbing confrontations
44:18at church I mean people would say remake grotesquely racist remarks people an elder said to me about
44:26my own wife keep can't you keep your wife under control about her opposition to Trump when she was
44:32kind of question when they were having a post-church discussion I was confronted at communion table
44:38uh by somebody who's a Trump supporter and and this is just a very very partial list of the
44:43things that happen now again when I say my pastors kept supporting me the church actually took
44:49disciplinary action against this person to prevent them to try to prevent them from doing this ever
44:54again but one of the things that happened is people just kept confronting us and even the
44:59most well-meaning pastors could not shield us from the sense that if we're arriving at church
45:05there's a good chance when we get there that somebody's going to confront me or my wife or
45:10one of my kids over Donald Trump and so we began attending a multi-ethnic church in Nashville that
45:17has no trace of that kind of MAGA Christianity in it but my prior denomination did reach out to me
45:25and invite me to come speak at a panel at the annual general assembly of the denomination
45:31and the reason why they reached out is precisely because I had confronted so many opponents and
45:37there had been so many people and the whole purpose of the discussion was for me to help
45:42people navigate polarized times I've gotten criticism from left and from right right and I
45:48was going to talk to people who also get criticism from both sides about how to navigate that
45:53right but then as soon as my name was announced the really hardcore MAGA wing of the denomination
45:59just rose in outrage they printed articles that were deeply misleading uh you know tweeted vicious
46:07things about me calling me names uh somebody even wrote a silly parody song insulting me
46:14and so the next thing you know the denomination starts to get cold feet and decides to cancel
46:21the panel and then they issue a statement throwing me under the bus where a an official basically
46:27says well had I known about David French's prior writings or the way people had interpreted them
46:33you know then the clear implication was he never would have issued the invitation
46:37but had he known it's not like I'd kept my opinions under a bushel what they said was
46:43that the concerns that have been raised about the seminar and its topic have been so significant
46:48that it seems wisest for the peace and unity of the church not to proceed in this way well how do
46:55you how do you what do you make of that you know it let's just be really clear when they talked
47:00about peace and unity um people got very angry and made personal attacks against me they had
47:09personal attacks against my wife they published misleading and sometimes outright false things
47:15about the things that I've written in that I've said they engaged in just the most gross personal
47:20insults and then they turned around the administrator the the denomination turns around
47:26and says well for peace and for unity we have to yield to those people and exclude
47:33me and so the price of peace what what peace was was actually capitulation to the loudest and
47:40angriest voices not to the majority of the denomination certainly not to the majority
47:45of the denomination but to the people who are the angriest faction and that's not peace that's
47:51capitulation that's exclusion and this is one of the reasons why so very many people right now
47:57don't even feel welcome in many of the churches that they grew up in you think this is a minority
48:02of churchgoers who have been engaging in this conduct yeah I do believe strongly it's a minority
48:09of churchgoers engaging in this conduct because the majority of churchgoers are not that all to
48:15be honest that are not that politically engaged most people politics is very downstream from the
48:22the daily rhythm of their lives but for the small minority for whom politics really is an extension
48:28of their faith they have really adopted trump with an extraordinary zeal and what they've been very
48:36very effective at is telling is is using personal insults to warn the majority away from dissenters
48:44so rather than dealing with my arguments they'll call me a heretic they'll say that I'm a wolf
48:49they'll say that I'm demonic and so then when somebody says something I read this from David
48:55French they'll say he's a heretic and the immediate recoil is oh I don't want to read something from
49:00heretic or he's a wolf in sheep's clothing or he's demonic and so the passivity of the majority
49:07is really enabling that minority because they don't do any additional work to determine whether
49:14or not the accusation is true and that's one of the things most dispiriting again about this
49:19cancellation from the PCA there was a hurricane of misleading and cruel commentary about me into the
49:25public square and the good people and the quote-unquote good people did nothing to determine
49:32the veracity of it all or wouldn't even really evaluate the morality of the way in which people
49:38attacked us they just wanted the pain to stop they wanted the controversy to stop and so that
49:45meant capitulation and this is a pattern that is repeating itself in institution after institution
49:51after institution within American Christianity you know there are a lot of people would say well how
49:56could you have missed that strain of intolerance before is it because it wasn't directed at you
50:03or anybody who was important to you and therefore you missed it because it you know what I mean I
50:08mean there's a part of you that thinks well didn't come out of nowhere well right you're correct I
50:15mean so first there is an element of this that is just mea culpa there's stuff I should have seen
50:22that I didn't see and I have been feeling guilt about that for years quite frankly and so some of
50:29that is absolute mea culpa part of it is also a very human reaction when you're very happy in a
50:36place and where it seems loving and warm and embracing to you it doesn't you're not exactly
50:42looking for reasons not to like it you're not out there searching for all the reasons why this is
50:46actually bad right right and then when things turn bad then all of a sudden often the scales
50:52fall from your eyes it's very human doesn't mean it was right doesn't mean that's the way it should
50:57have been but that's the way that I was there's another writer he's written for USA Today he's
51:02written a bunch of books he's written for the Post his name is Steven Petro basically a lot of
51:06his public work has been about helping people understand each other right so one of the things
51:11that he wrote when Trump was first elected which is it's not that I think that everybody who voted
51:15for Trump is a racist is that his racism that his racism doesn't bother them okay or they're in
51:21denial about it they're in they're absolutely in denial about it so what has happened is you have
51:26an entire community of people who've been sort of conditioned to believe that any accusation of
51:31racism is false right and and so they they will deny and often because their consumption of media
51:38is entirely right-wing media entirely they don't hear uh know about some of the worst things that
51:46Trump has said and so they live in denial they're often protected by their own trusted media figures
51:52from the truth about Trump so they you know there is a a moment in my church that's very indicative
51:59when a woman an older woman in the church came up to me and with sincerity and kindness said
52:05David I don't understand why you oppose our president can you tell me and this is during
52:10Trump's term and you know I didn't have time to give the whole brief against Trump and I just
52:15tried to very nicely say I just wish he lied less and that was just my first answer and she looks at
52:23me and with 100 sincerity says you mean Donald Trump lies it's very difficult to sort of
52:31understand if you're outside of MAGA country how much the vision of Donald Trump as a human being
52:37that has been created within that MAGA bubble is so contrary to fact it is so contrary to reality
52:45they see him as sort of a heroic and virtuous figure in a way that the rest of America is
52:52mystified by just mystified so I'm gonna ask you to predict and say where do you think this goes
52:59like if you and I were are to talk again and I don't know five years or so what do you what what
53:04kind of conversation do you think we'll be having you know to be quite frank I think a lot depends
53:08on what happens this November I I don't think people are outside of evangelicalism understand
53:14that if Trump wins in 2024 the zeal of evangelical support for him will be even greater than anything
53:22that we've seen because it will been seen as a as divine intervention as a miracle that this man
53:27subject to all of these indictments and now a conviction and a sexual abuse finding and all
53:32of fraud findings and all of this that it will be interpreted as the world came against him but God
53:38protected him and made him prevail that will be a narrative that will lock into a big chunk of the
53:44church in a way that will lead to zeal that I think is on a scale that's even greater than we've seen
53:50and will also create I think a model going forward this is how you win elections is with
53:56Trump like figures if Trump loses I'm not so sure that we would have a fever break moment so much as
54:04a fever fade moment you know people forget that a lot of Republicans still really liked Richard
54:10Nixon when he was forced out in 1974 they did and then what ended up happening was there was sort of
54:17this fade not so much a fever break but often a fade and so I think you would see more of a fade
54:23but that mega populist reactionary element isn't going anywhere it's perpetuated not just by Donald
54:30Trump but by people with giant social media platforms and their five million six million
54:36followers are not just going to disappear into the ether if Trump loses this is a movement that
54:41I think is going to be relevant and dangerous in many ways in American politics for a long time to
54:48come but nothing compared to the danger of if Trump wins again and in 2024. David French thank
54:56you so much for speaking with us today. Thank you so much for having me. And finally religious
55:02extremism in Afghanistan comes in the shape of misogyny women and girls there love cricket but
55:09they have been banned from playing any sport since the Taliban seized back power from the United
55:14States in 2021 but Afghanistan's men's cricket team has brought joy to a beleaguered nation
55:22reaching the world cup semi-finals for the first time ever beating Bangladesh and knocking out the
55:28favorites Australia in the process they picked up the game amid a war and now they have made history
55:34playing it and that is it for our program tonight if you want to find out what's coming up every
55:40night sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org slash amanpour thank you for watching and join us again
55:46tomorrow night