Amanpour & Co. - June 28, 2024
Back in 2020, Francis S. Barry set out to prove there is more that unites us than divides us. He bought an RV and made his way across the U.S., speaking with people from every walk of life. The author and Bloomberg columnist joins the show to discuss his new book, “Back Roads and Better Angels,” in which he chronicles his cross-country quest to bridge the partisan divide.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour & Company.
00:07Here's what's coming up.
00:09What in the world to make of Trump's falsehoods and Biden's fumbles?
00:14We examine that contentious presidential debate with Democratic political strategist Simon
00:19Rosenberg and Trump's former special assistant, Mark Lotter.
00:23Then, Iran decides.
00:25As the country heads to the polls, Fred Pleitgen brings us the latest from Tehran, and I'll
00:30discuss what's at stake with The New York Times reporter and Iran expert, Farnaz Fasihi.
00:36Also ahead...
00:37We wanted to explore what holds the country together.
00:40A journey into American democracy at stake in the November election, author Francis Barry
00:46tells Walter Isaacson about his new book, inspired by a cross-country road trip via
00:52the Lincoln Highway.
01:11Amanpour & Company is made possible by the Anderson Family Endowment, Jim Atwood and
01:18Leslie Williams, Candace King Weir.
01:21The Family Foundation of Layla and Mickey Strauss, Mark J. Bleschner, the Philemon M.
01:28D'Agostino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, Charles Rosenblum, Ku and Patricia Ewan, committed
01:37to bridging cultural differences in our communities, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.
01:43Additional support provided by these funders and by contributions to your PBS station from
01:50viewers like you.
01:51Thank you.
01:54Welcome to the program, everyone.
01:55I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
01:57In a televised presidential debate, optics are everything, but the devil is also in the
02:02detail.
02:03Last night, a fumbling Joe Biden faced serial liar Donald Trump in the first live debate.
02:09Today, Democrats are in damage control mode and Republicans are jubilant.
02:13But speaking to supporters in North Carolina after the debate, President Biden appeared
02:19unfazed.
02:20The choice in this election is simple.
02:23Donald Trump will destroy our democracy.
02:25I will defend it.
02:27So, folks, are you with me?
02:34Donald Trump's the first president I've heard of that's stood up there and running for president
02:42having been one for one term saying America's a failing nation.
02:46Where the hell does he think he is?
02:48I'm serious.
02:49A failing...
02:50I don't know a president wouldn't trade places with America in a heartbeat.
02:56He's dead wrong.
02:57America's not a losing nation.
02:59America's winning.
03:00As I stand here today, I can honestly say I've never been more optimistic about America's
03:04future in my whole career.
03:05I don't know what you did last night, but I spent 90 minutes on the stage debating the
03:10guy who has the morals of an alley cat.
03:14Did you see Trump last night?
03:21My guess, he said, I mean it sincerely, a new record for the most lies told in a single
03:26debate.
03:28And he's right.
03:29According to CNN's fact check, Donald Trump was responsible for more than three times
03:34the number of falsehoods than Biden.
03:36So as the dust settles, and with four and a half months out till the election, what
03:40happens next?
03:42America now faces a choice, a visibly aging man who failed to live up to that moment,
03:47or an authoritarian-leaning convicted felon facing even more courtroom trials ahead.
03:53According to a post-debate CNN SSRS poll, 81% of voters said the debate didn't affect
03:59their vote choice.
04:01Few people are as well-placed to discuss the current moment and the momentum going into
04:05this summer's conventions than veteran Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg and Mark Lotta,
04:12who served as special assistant to President Trump and was director of strategic communications
04:17for his 2020 campaign.
04:20Gentlemen, welcome to the program.
04:23You were in Atlanta, you are in Atlanta, where the CNN debate was held.
04:27You were in the rooms watching to be able to talk to us afterwards.
04:31So from your perspective, Mark Lotta, how did your candidate do?
04:37I thought Donald Trump did great.
04:38He was talking about the issues that matter to the American people and offering a vision
04:43to fix the problems that have been largely caused by Joe Biden.
04:47I think he showed strength, which is something that the American people have always sought
04:51in their presidents, contrasted to Joe Biden, who really struggled and showed a lot of weakness.
04:57So Simon Rosenberg, you know because you're there that the Republicans are very, very
05:01happy with the way their candidate did.
05:03How about the Democrats?
05:05And you are a not just an advisor, you're a key strategist.
05:10Yeah, listen, I think Joe Biden has been a very good president who had a very bad night
05:15last night.
05:16And, you know, how consequential this will be during the course of this long campaign,
05:21we'll find out.
05:22But I think the other thing we saw last night, in addition to Joe Biden and being able to
05:27make the case for his presidency, which he struggled with a little bit, no question,
05:31is that we also saw in Donald Trump a person who's a bad man, who's a terrible candidate
05:36and would be a disastrous president for the United States.
05:38I mean, the level of lying and falsehoods last night that we heard from him was shocking,
05:43even for somebody in the business who's been following Trump.
05:46Virtually nothing he said was true last night.
05:48And so I don't think it was a great debate for the American people.
05:51I don't think they learned very much that's really going to help them make this decision,
05:55as your own polling showed.
05:57But I do think this was a better night for Trump than Biden.
06:00And it means that we've got work to do in the coming months.
06:03So let me ask you, Mark Lutter, because everybody who was watching and people who take notes
06:08and who fact check basically know that there was this, as I said, fire hose of falsehoods.
06:13This is CNN's particular fact checker.
06:16So Daniel, what stands out to you?
06:19What stood out was the staggering number of false claims from former President Trump.
06:23On first count, Erin, I counted at least 30, 30 false claims.
06:27I guess the question, Mark Lutter, is, does it actually matter to your side and to your
06:32candidate when he consistently makes these false claims?
06:39And in this case, obviously, the point was not to fact check in real time.
06:44Ultimately, I think the American people aren't following the gaffes or the misstatements
06:49by either candidate.
06:51They want someone who's going to deal with inflation, deal with gas and grocery prices,
06:55secure the southern border and deal with the wars that are raging in Europe and Middle
06:59East all on the watch of Joe Biden.
07:02So, you know, when when people remember back to the Trump administration, they remember
07:06we had a strong economy, no inflation, a secured border, and all of the problems they face
07:11right now fall at the feet of Joe Biden.
07:14So I think so many of the voters out there look at these kinds of debates through that
07:18prism.
07:19And if and if and if a candidate on either side makes a misstatement like Joe Biden saying
07:24no troops died on his watch, despite the fact that 13 Americans were killed in his botched
07:29Afghanistan withdrawal, they're probably going to wash a little bit of that under the rug
07:34for both sides because they're unscripted, without a teleprompter, recalling all of this.
07:39The bottom line, who's going to make my life better and the world safer?
07:43You know what?
07:44I actually I was going to go on to a little bit more of the optics, because obviously
07:46optics and perception are a huge point of this.
07:50But I do want to ask you about the economy, both of you, because that is clearly top of
07:55mind, not just for voters in the United States, bread and butter issues, cost of living, but
07:59all over the world.
08:00So Donald Trump, as you said, Mark, made strong claims.
08:04But listen, 16 Nobel Prize winning economists have warned that a second Trump term would
08:09reignite inflation.
08:11They say Joe Biden's economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump's.
08:16Also, as you know, Mark, and I'm sure you've been reading these, he, Donald Trump, had
08:21a meeting with executives just in the last few days, and they said remarkably meandering,
08:26couldn't keep a straight thought and was all over the map.
08:29And it's also been pointed out by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld at Yale that not a single person
08:34among Forbes 100 CEOs has donated to Trump's campaign.
08:39So these are facts.
08:41How does that, Mark, make him better on the economy?
08:44Well, the Nobel laureates were wrong when they predicted that he was going to ruin the
08:48economy in 2016, 2017.
08:51I put their value about the same as I do with the 51 intelligence officers that lied to
08:56cover the Hunter Biden laptop story.
08:58Look, people know that the Trump economic policies worked.
09:02They actually lowered people's taxes.
09:04Real hardworking middle class Americans saw their taxes go down.
09:08They saw the amount of revenue to the federal government go up.
09:12We saw jobs coming back.
09:14Obviously, we were recovering from the pandemic as the election took place.
09:19And we had no inflation, 1.4% when Joe Biden took office.
09:24Gas was a little over $2 a gallon.
09:27Those are all realities that they can't change.
09:29And I get it.
09:30You get a bunch of liberal Ivy Tower elites who want Joe Biden to be president, American
09:36people aren't buying it.
09:37Yeah, look, I think you and I both know that most CEOs are not liberal.
09:42They might be elite, but there's certainly many, many of them have backed former Republican
09:47presidents.
09:48This is the first time a Republican candidate has received so little backing from them.
09:53But I want to put that question to you as well, Simon.
09:56Truly, American people have been, you know, really suffering, cost of living, inflation,
10:01all the rest of it.
10:03Biden said, yeah, the economy was great for rich people during Trump.
10:07He lowered rich people and corporate taxes.
10:10But what about his own record?
10:11He didn't, in fact, defend his own economic record at all.
10:14Yeah, I mean, first of all, Donald Trump's economic record is among the worst in American
10:19history.
10:20I mean, he was the first president to have job loss on his watch since Herbert Hoover.
10:25And this idea that he was the economy performed stellar under him is an unbelievable falsehood
10:31and lie.
10:32The second thing is that the economy under Joe Biden, we're actually going through one
10:36of the greatest periods of economic growth in American history right now.
10:39We've had GDP growth over 3 percent.
10:41As you know, it's been far higher than any other G7 country in the world.
10:44We have the best job market since the 1960s.
10:48Inflation last month was zero, right?
10:50Prices did not rise.
10:51And it's now down.
10:52And today's PCE number, it's now down to the basically where the Fed wants it to be, making
10:57interest rates far more likely to be cut this year.
11:01Joe Biden has had a stellar track record on the economy.
11:04And I think the question you asked is about going forward, their proposals.
11:08We have a booming economy now.
11:09I mean, The Wall Street Journal literally just had a story a few days ago saying that,
11:13according to American economists, the American economy is the envy of the world today.
11:17What Donald Trump is proposing would raise, dramatically spike inflation, would cripple
11:22the economy, create massive work shortages in the United States, and create far larger
11:29deficits.
11:30I mean, it is one of the reasons that CEOs are staying away from him, is because they
11:33view his economic plans as being dangerous and reckless in a time when America's booming
11:38and we're breaking records in the stock market.
11:39I want to play, Simon, and indeed, Mark, a video and sound of President Biden after the
11:47debate, after he got off the stage.
11:50Look to me like a different guy.
11:52I can't think of one thing he said that was true.
11:55No, I'm not being facetious, but look, we're going to beat this guy.
12:01We need to beat this guy, and I need you in order to beat him.
12:07You're the people I'm running for.
12:12We're the finest nation in the whole damn world, and nobody's close, but let's keep
12:18going.
12:19See you at the next one.
12:22I guess both of you might think that if that person had turned up on the stage, it would
12:26be a different dynamic.
12:28But Simon, where was that person?
12:31Listen, Joe Biden had a bad night.
12:33I mean, there's just no way to get around that.
12:35I mean, as I said earlier, I think he's been a very good president.
12:38He's got a strong case for his re-election.
12:40He didn't do that.
12:41He wasn't effective last night in making that case, but it's just one moment in a long campaign.
12:47We've got a long way to go here.
12:48We're in the very beginning.
12:50Our elections are long here in the United States.
12:52We're in the very beginning stages.
12:53This in many ways was really the beginning of the general election, but we've got two
12:57conventions coming up.
12:59We've got a major moment in the next few weeks was Donald Trump's sentencing, where he could
13:04be sentenced to prison in the next few weeks.
13:07So there are going to be a lot of other moments.
13:08But we are clearly coming out of this knowing that our job got a little bit harder and we've
13:13got a lot of work to do ahead of us.
13:15So Mark, by contrast, then, do you think your job got a little bit easier, even though your
13:19candidate does, in fact, have challenges ahead?
13:23Yeah, well, we went into this with the wind at our back to begin with.
13:26I mean, there were two polls earlier this week from New York Times, Siena and Quinnipiac
13:31that both showed Donald Trump leading Joe Biden head to head nationally by four percentage
13:36points at no point, by the way, in the 2019 or 2020 years, did Donald Trump ever lead
13:41Joe Biden even before the pandemic last time around?
13:45So it shows you what a challenge they have.
13:47You also have Donald Trump campaigning Friday in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
13:52Has it been Republican in 20 years?
13:54Minnesota is now in play.
13:55So the swing state map is growing in Donald Trump's favor.
14:00The polls are all shifting in Donald Trump's favor.
14:03We we and Donald Trump have to just keep talking about the issues that matter to the American
14:07people.
14:08Joe Biden last night made his job even more difficult, and it was already a Mount Everest
14:14sized hill to climb.
14:16Simon, Simon, I see you, you know, shaking your head.
14:19But if you look at columnists across the spectrum, Thomas Friedman, for instance, Joe Biden is
14:25a good man, a good president.
14:27He must bow out of the race.
14:29Yeah, I do want to say that this idea that the polls are shifting towards Trump is not
14:34true.
14:35I mean, there have been dozens of polls taken and the majority of polls have the race shifting
14:39two to four points to Biden over the last few weeks.
14:41And this idea that Virginia and Minnesota are going to be in play are just absurd.
14:45I mean, it's a it's a you know, it's a psychological game.
14:48The Trump campaign is playing.
14:50These are not going to be competitive states in the election.
14:53The election is very close and competitive today.
14:55We'll see if this debate has an impact.
14:57But neither candidate is at, you know, enough isn't is leading in states getting to 270.
15:04It's a toss up race today.
15:05But this I think this debate is going to have an impact.
15:07We'll see what it does.
15:08We'll know soon.
15:09Listen, there's going to be a debate.
15:10There is there's no question that the the the question that whether, you know, Joe Biden
15:17should step down is going to be debated now.
15:19I mean, it's we're past that point, given what's happened.
15:22You know, I think I my view is that he's our nominee and I'm going to fight like hell
15:26every day to make sure he gets elected, because whatever his challenges are, he's going to
15:30be a far better president than Donald Trump.
15:32And so we've got to stay focused as Democrats put our head down, do the work.
15:35It may got a little bit harder, but I still think we're going to win this election.
15:39Mark, Donald Trump's performance was strong, as we've said, however, given given what's
15:45going on, why is it that you think, for instance, Mike Pence, one of your former bosses, should
15:51say it's come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year.
15:55Defense Secretary Mark Esper, James Mattis, Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security
16:00Advisor H.R. McMaster, all other highly placed Trump administration veterans are not backing
16:05him.
16:06They denounce him as unfit to serve.
16:08You know, why would Mike Pence not endorse him if he was so fit to run?
16:13Why would all these people not endorse him after being in the room with him for four
16:17years?
16:19Well, I think all of those people, including a lot of people that I admire and still continue
16:23to consider friends, misread what happened in 2016, misread what's happening right now.
16:29The American people are sick and tired of being told who they have to vote for by New
16:34York and Washington, D.C. elites.
16:36We've seen it time and time again.
16:38They want someone who's going to fight for them for the issues.
16:41And yeah, Donald Trump says things in a different style than people are used to.
16:45But the American people are responding to it because they want a fighter.
16:49And so that's what you see.
16:51That's why you see Donald Trump basically steamrolling the Republican nomination over
16:57all of those more experienced and basically career politicians.
17:02That's why you still see so many people out there willing to fight for him.
17:05And right now, that's why you see him winning, because people are hurting.
17:10They're struggling.
17:11They want someone to deal with it.
17:13And they know that Donald Trump is the guy to do it, not the guy who got us into this
17:16problem in Joe Biden.
17:18It's his fault in the first place.
17:20Let me ask you about an issue and talking about hurting and struggling.
17:24Many, many millions of women in the United States have seen their fundamental human rights
17:29overturned by the Supreme Court.
17:32And Donald Trump, he brags about it.
17:34He says, look, I put in these three fine conservative justices and they overturned Roe versus Wade.
17:41And there's a big dilemma for so many, many women in the United States over this.
17:47I'm going to play the abortion exchange between the two candidates during the debate.
17:52A doctor should be making those decisions.
17:54That's how it should be run.
17:55That's what you're going to do.
17:57And if I'm elected, I'm going to restore Roe v. Wade.
18:00So that means he can take the life of the baby in the ninth month and even after birth
18:05because some states, Democrat run, take it after birth.
18:09Again, the governor, former governor of Virginia, put the baby down, then we decide what to
18:13do with it.
18:14So he's willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill
18:20the baby.
18:21Mark, because that is such offensive language, I'm just going to make a fact check here.
18:27Abortions after 21 weeks are uncommon and represent 1 percent of all abortions in the
18:32United States.
18:33The idea of killing babies after birth is just so offensive.
18:37Nonetheless, there is a major abortion conundrum in the United States right now.
18:43And in the midterms, you could see that Democrats or women voted on this case.
18:51What do you think is going to happen in this upcoming election on this issue?
18:56Well, I think the fact of the matter is, is that no matter who the president of the United
19:01States is, it's not going to change this issue because Congress is never going to pass anything.
19:07Democrats can't get their 40 weeks taxpayer-funded abortion on demand bill passed.
19:12They tried.
19:13They failed.
19:14Republicans can't get any kind of common sense, reasonable limitations on abortion because
19:19you're not going to get the 60 votes in the Senate.
19:21And what Roe v. Wade, the overturning of Roe v. Wade did, was it restored democracy.
19:27Because now the people's elected representatives are the ones who get to weigh in on this matter.
19:32And if it's state by state, which is what we're seeing right now, we're seeing some
19:35states that may go too far to the right.
19:38Abortion tourism is now open for business, and that's too far to the left.
19:43And what we will see is the states come together in a general consensus.
19:47But I do want to clarify one thing.
19:49Donald Trump was absolutely clear.
19:50He would not sign a national abortion ban.
19:54And he supports exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
19:58So Simon, again, 40-week abortion, I mean, it's all so incredibly offensive that we'll
20:05just put that to the side.
20:07But why or do you think Biden successfully defended the rights of women?
20:15And what might happen, you know, and will it play for him, do you think, in this election?
20:20Well, that was actually a strong part of the debate for Joe Biden last night.
20:25And I think that, you know, what is just clear, what's true, because a lot of what Donald
20:30Trump said about this last night was not true.
20:32And he sounded, in this section in particular, like a raving lunatic, frankly.
20:36Is that he, what is true is that Donald Trump is responsible for stripping the rights and
20:41freedoms away of tens of millions of women in America who now have less rights and freedoms
20:46than women do in places like Mexico and Brazil and places all over the world.
20:52And that, you know, and what it's doing is that it's putting the life of pregnant mothers
20:56in jeopardy in the United States.
20:57It's an extraordinary thing that has altered American politics.
21:01I mean, since Dobbs happened two years ago, when Roe was ended by the Supreme Court, Democrats
21:06have continually overperformed in election after election, not just in 2022, but in 2023
21:11and 2024.
21:13And Republicans have struggled.
21:14And I think it's because this issue is a marker of extremism for the Republicans.
21:19And Donald Trump is trying to present his new states' rights position as something that's
21:23moderate or consensual.
21:26But it's actually a reinforcement of his fundamental extremism.
21:28I mean, if he's OK with states like Idaho that have no exceptions, jail time for doctors
21:34and have penalties for parents who bring their minors across borders, if he's OK with Idaho
21:40anywhere, then he's OK with it everywhere.
21:43And what Donald Trump has done is confirmed in recent months that he is the most dangerous
21:47abortion extremist in the United States.
21:50And so I do think this is going to be a very material issue in the election.
21:55And virtually every election that has been contested since Dobbs happened two years ago,
22:00Republicans have underperformed.
22:02We've overperformed.
22:03I still think that's the likely outcome in this election in November.
22:06All right.
22:07There's so much more to discuss.
22:08We don't have time right now, but we will keep coming back to you.
22:11Thank you so much, Simon Rosenberg, for Biden and Mark Glotter for Trump.
22:16Thanks for being with us.
22:17Thanks, Christiane.
22:18Thank you.
22:19Now, of course, America's adversaries, as well as its allies, are taking stock of last
22:24night's presidential debate or at least the American election, because it matters to the
22:28rest of the world as well, including to Iran, where today is Election Day there.
22:34The regime has urged people to vote as a way of legitimizing its rule.
22:38Now, in this snap poll, which comes just a month after the hardline President Raisi died
22:44in a helicopter crash, four candidates who are remaining on the ballot, all were men.
22:50Millions of Iranians, though, have been expected to boycott the election.
22:53Disillusionment with violent crackdowns on protests and women's rights and their own
22:58dire economic situation are forefront.
23:01And for more analysis, let's bring in The New York Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi, who
23:05has covered Iran for decades.
23:07She's an Iran expert and joins me from New York.
23:10Farnaz Fassihi, let me just start by asking you, because I know the Trump debate and Biden
23:15debate went around the world.
23:17And the Iranians do, I'm not even talking about the people, but the regime is constantly
23:23trying to figure out who's going to be president and what they should do in terms of their
23:28policies in the light of it.
23:31Give us a little bit of how much the American presidency matters, even in a place like Iran.
23:35Hi, Christiane, thank you so much for having me.
23:40The U.S. presidential election factor is pretty largely in the Iranian presidential election.
23:51Most of the candidates, when they were speaking at rallies, each other on television, kept
23:56saying that the next president of the U.S. is going to be Trump and I'm the best person
24:01to deal with him.
24:02So there was kind of a rivalry and a foregone conclusion in their minds that Trump is going
24:08to be the next president and Iran needs to have sort of a strong conservative or on the
24:18reformist side, a reformist president.
24:20So President Trump really had a presence in the Iranian debates and election rallies.
24:30And what about the actual domestic situation in Iran?
24:34It was interesting to see that, according to the way they're reporting it from there,
24:39there was one reform candidate who was approved, the rest were conservatives, but the reform
24:44candidate was considered to be the front runner.
24:47Do you buy that?
24:49Well, right now, you know, voting started this morning in Iran.
24:55It's 7, 8 in the evening right now, and their estimate is that the turnout is about 25 percent,
25:04so really low, even though there's a reformist candidate.
25:08As you mentioned when you were giving the summary of the situation in Iran, there's
25:14widespread voter apathy.
25:16I think that the government qualified a reformist candidate this time to make the election appear
25:23more competitive, to bring in the reform faction which had boycotted the parliament elections,
25:28and try to incite people to come out and vote.
25:31But in practice, we're seeing that the majority of Iranians, if we just go by what the turnout
25:37has been, are saying no to the Islamic Republic.
25:41And there's a lot of disillusionment that really change can come through the ballot
25:49box.
25:50Iranians have gone through many presidential elections.
25:54You and I have been on the ground in previous elections where they had hope for change.
25:58They came out and voted, nothing really happened.
26:01And we're seeing that reflection in the polls today, that even the reformist candidate hasn't
26:06been able to really rally the crowds.
26:10And you know, because back in March when they went to the local elections, there was
26:17a record low, it was 41%.
26:19If your figure of 25% holds now, that is catastrophic.
26:25And the Supreme Leader urged them to vote, urged them to show that the republic has legitimacy.
26:36I'm going to just tell you, ask you to stand by, Farnoz, for a second, because we now have
26:41our correspondent in Iran, who is Fred Pleitgen.
26:45I'm going to ask him about the state of play at the ballot box.
26:49Fred, so tell me what you've been seeing.
26:52You're still out there.
26:54Is voting still going on?
26:56Hi there, Christiane.
26:59We are still out here.
27:00We are actually in a polling station that's inside a very famous shrine in the north of
27:04Tehran.
27:05I'm pointing to you right there, the Iman Zadeh Saleh Shrine on Tajri Square, of course.
27:11As you know, I've been here so many times.
27:13There is a polling station out here, you're absolutely right.
27:14And as you can see at that polling station, there are actually still fairly decent lines
27:19that we can see here.
27:20We can see a lot of people still here lining up.
27:22This is the men's section.
27:23There's a women's section that's also next door.
27:25To us, it seems as though, Christiane, many people are coming out and voting a little
27:29bit later than maybe they did, for instance, in the parliamentary election that was held
27:33earlier in the year, because it was extremely hot today throughout the course of the day.
27:37So I think many people waited for things to cool down.
27:40We are now, of course, past 9 p.m., going on to 10 p.m. here, local time, in Tehran.
27:45The local authorities have already said that they have extended the voting until at least
27:4910 p.m.
27:50They might extend it a little bit further after that.
27:53What we've seen, and we've been at three polling stations here in Tehran, in various places,
27:59in the center of Tehran, a little bit in the north of Tehran as well.
28:03I think, from what we saw, the participation to us from the small sample that we had looked
28:08as though there might have been a little more people actually going to the polls than, for
28:12instance, in the parliamentary election a couple of months ago.
28:15There was, interestingly, one gentleman that we spoke to, who spoke very good English,
28:18and he told us that he was a young voter, he was 28 years old, and he believed that
28:22because there was a moderate on the ballot that he was coming to vote, and he'd actually
28:26brought his friend as well, whom he said that because there's a moderate now on the ballot
28:29that he wanted to also come and cast his ballot as well.
28:33Again, these are very small sample sizes.
28:35There is also absolutely no doubt, and we've been around Tehran the past couple of days,
28:39since Monday, and certainly there were a lot of people who told us that they frankly were
28:42not going to come out and vote at all.
28:44However, the fact that there are sort of at least two different political streams to choose
28:48from now may have mobilized at least a few people to come to the ballot boxes.
28:52Of course, we're going to see that tomorrow when we find out what exactly the turnout
28:56has been and, of course, also the results as well, Christiane.
28:59Fred, before I let you go, just tell me, because you've been there for a few days,
29:02what are people saying about their sense of dissatisfaction or satisfaction?
29:09What are they saying are the main issues?
29:11Yeah, well, so the main issues, I would sum up into two main issues, and they're intertwined,
29:18and it's something that we, of course, have seen in Iran in the past couple of years.
29:21One of them is economic, and the other one is foreign policy, where people believe that
29:24that is obviously a very important issue for them.
29:27As far as the economy is concerned, we know that inflation is high.
29:30We know that unemployment is very high.
29:33Prices have been rising.
29:34It's been very difficult for the government of Ebrahim Raisi to come to terms with that
29:38and any government to come to terms with that.
29:40So that's what voters tell us for them is by far the most important issue, to have a
29:44chance on the job market to be able to get jobs, especially for young people, to get
29:48well-paid jobs, and then, of course, also for things to become more affordable, for
29:52goods to become more affordable.
29:54Now, of course, all of that, as you know, is very much intertwined with the foreign
29:59policy situation, where, of course, sanctions that have been levied by the U.S. and its
30:03allies are a big issue for the economy here in Iran.
30:07The moderate candidate, Massoud Pazeshkian, he has said that he wants better relations
30:11with other countries.
30:12The conservatives say they don't believe in that.
30:14They want to continue the hard-line policies of Ebrahim Raisi.
30:18They have both said, the two frontrunners.
30:21And so those are the two main issues that are really on people's minds here in this
30:25election, Christiane.
30:26Fred, thank you so much.
30:27Glad we reached you in Tehran, and I'm going to put some of that to Farnaz Fasihi right
30:31now.
30:32So, Farnaz, the issue, I mean, it was great to get that report from the ground and really
30:36go, yeah, it goes to what we're talking about here.
30:40You know, some people will say, do elections in Iran even matter?
30:45And on the issue of the foreign policy, you know, the support for militants in the Middle
30:50East, you know, the nuclear brinkmanship that now seems to be continued.
30:57What's your analysis on that?
31:01I think that, as you know, key state policies, such as the nuclear program, whatever concessions
31:08Iran makes, the issue of the regional policies regarding Israel and the sort of forward defense
31:16that Iran has created for itself by supporting and arming and funding these militant groups
31:21around the region, these are all sort of state policies, right?
31:26They are mostly determined by Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, and by the Revolutionary
31:31Guards when it comes to these regional militant groups.
31:36However, we've seen, you know, precedent shows us that different administrations in Iran
31:42make a little bit of a difference.
31:44They set the domestic agenda, and they do have influence over some foreign policy issues.
31:51We saw that, you know, the government of President Rouhani managed to negotiate and sign a nuclear
32:00deal with Western powers and had more of an open approach.
32:04And social things were a little bit eased up, including, you know, enforcement of hijab.
32:10And then when President Raisi came, or when President Ahmadinejad was, we saw when conservative
32:15government comes, there's more of a defiant attitude.
32:18There's more this attitude that, you know, that President Raisi sort of turned away from
32:24the West and pivoted Iran toward Russia and China, and really strengthened those ties,
32:29selling drones to Russia for the war in Ukraine, selling oil at a discounted rate to China.
32:35So there are differences in the way that the administration really takes some things forward,
32:42to some extent.
32:43So now let's talk about the all-important issue domestically of the actual people and
32:47their rights and their frustration and their hardship.
32:51And what about the women's vote?
32:54It was interesting that the candidates, whether they meant it or not, felt forced to put women's
33:00issues at the forefront.
33:01Is that going to make a blind bit of difference?
33:04Well, I think these are, you know, campaign issues.
33:09I think the women of Iran have very courageously been defying the rule of mandatory hijab.
33:16The women who don't believe in mandatory hijab have been, you know, since they've been fighting
33:21this and struggling to sort of define their own terms for the past 45 years.
33:27But post the death of Massa Amini in the custody of Morality Police and the Women Live Freedom
33:33movement uprising that sprang in 2022, women have been taking off their hijab, they've
33:39been wearing, you know, whatever clothes that they want in the street, and the government's
33:46been cracking down on them.
33:48And this issue really surfaced to one of the top issues of the debates, where even the
33:53conservative candidates were forced or were saying that we don't agree with the heavy-handed
34:01crackdowns, we don't agree with violence against women.
34:05And I think the women rights activists that I spoke to in Iran said this shows that our
34:10movement has been successful, because they can't ignore us anymore.
34:14Now whether this rhetoric is going to translate into any change of policy, we have to see.
34:20It's unlikely.
34:22But at least they acknowledge that the women's struggle is real, that the women movement
34:26is too big to ignore, and that, you know, Iranian women are not going to stand down.
34:33And that was very interesting to see playing out throughout the course of the campaign
34:39these past couple of weeks.
34:40And in our final minute, Farhanaz, back to foreign policy, and partly following up on
34:46some of what you just said, there is a sort of an anti-American, anti-Western axis that
34:51has developed over the last several years.
34:53It's Russia, it's China, it's North Korea, and it's Iran.
34:57How do you see that?
34:59You're a U.N. correspondent as well.
35:00You're right there, you know, reporting from all the world leaders and their representatives.
35:05How do you see that playing out?
35:09I think in terms of where Iran stands, they really thought that after President Trump
35:16exited the nuclear deal and sort of the European countries weren't able to sort of give Iran
35:24what it wants, its terms, sanctions and whatnot, I think the policy in Iran was that we can't
35:29really trust the West, we can't trust the U.S., and we can't trust Europe.
35:33So we are going to go to what they think are more reliable partners, Russia and China.
35:39With Russia, they forged very close security and military ties, and with China, economic ties.
35:46You know, Iran was invited to be a member of BRICS, the BRICS alliance.
35:52So they're really seeing their role more in the camp, in the global camp that is standing
35:59against the West.
36:00And they think that's a safer place for them to be for survival and for, you know, for
36:06their own interests.
36:07Farhanaz Fasihi, New York Times, thank you so much.
36:11I wish we had time for more.
36:13Always fascinating.
36:14Thanks for your insight.
36:16More than half the world's population is voting this year in elections that our next guest
36:21believes are designed to deepen division and distrust.
36:25And so back in 2020, author and Bloomberg columnist Francis S. Barry set out to prove
36:31there's more that unites us than divides us.
36:35His method?
36:36Buying an RV and making his way across the United States to speak to people from every
36:41walk of life.
36:42Now Barry joins Walter Isaacson to discuss his new book, Backroads and Better Angels,
36:47A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy, in which he chronicles his cross-country journey
36:53to bridge the partisan divide.
36:56Thank you, Chris John and Frank Barry.
36:58Thank you for joining the show.
37:00Thanks for having me.
37:01Until then, the summer of 2020, you decide you're going to take a road trip, I think
37:06starting at Times Square, along the Lincoln Highway.
37:11First of all, tell me about the Lincoln Highway and then we'll get to why you decided to do
37:15it that summer.
37:16Sure.
37:17So the Lincoln Highway is the first road that connected the two coasts of the country, New
37:21York to San Francisco.
37:23It was dedicated in 1913 at a time when it was easier to get to Europe by steamer than
37:29it was to get to California by car.
37:32There were very few roads.
37:33It was the dawn of the automobile age.
37:35And a pioneer of the auto industry said, if we build more roads, people will buy more
37:41cars.
37:42Yeah.
37:43But why take a road trip?
37:44I mean, what was the point?
37:46So we wanted to go out and get away from the 24-hour news cycle and speak to people in
37:52their local communities about national issues, but from a much more personal perspective.
37:58And we wanted to explore what holds the country together.
38:01So at a time when there's so much focus on the divisions, we wanted to ask people what
38:05holds America together and what better way to do it than by traveling the Lincoln Highway
38:10and channeling the spirit of Lincoln, who more than anyone held the country together
38:14during our time of deepest division.
38:17You talk about channeling the spirit of Lincoln.
38:19Tell me, what is that spirit of Lincoln?
38:21You write that that's as important as what he did with the spirit with which he did it.
38:26Yeah, I call it patriotic pragmatism.
38:28It's the spirit that puts country over party.
38:31It's a spirit that argues with reason and understanding, as opposed to rage and righteousness.
38:38It's a spirit that seeks common ground.
38:41Lincoln was never an absolutist.
38:43Lincoln hated mobs.
38:44He believed in the rule of law.
38:47And so that was at a time when people seemed so angry at each other.
38:52It was that spirit of understanding.
38:55And even humility.
38:56There are many points in Lincoln's career where notes of humility creep into his own
39:01speeches.
39:02And that is so important, recognizing that we may not have all the answers and we may
39:06not understand them as perfectly as we think we sometimes do.
39:11You did it in 2020.
39:12Right.
39:13You had COVID and you got an election that followed the Trump-Hillary Clinton election
39:19by four years.
39:21Everything.
39:22How did you pick that moment?
39:24And was that sort of a time, I mean, was that sort of a warped period that wasn't really
39:29representative of America?
39:31It was definitely a unique period.
39:34As you say, the pandemic was going on.
39:35We were traveling in the shadow of the George Floyd protest.
39:39We left New York on September 11th.
39:41The Lincoln Highway begins in Times Square.
39:44We left on September 11th, which is the day more than any other that united the country.
39:48And our goal was to get to San Francisco by Election Day, which should be a day that
39:53unites the country, but of course is dividing us.
39:57So it was definitely a unique time.
39:59But I think many of the things that we found on our trip have only been heightened since
40:05then.
40:06Even though the pandemic has receded, all of the underlying issues that we experienced
40:11in 2020, I think will be even more intense in 2024.
40:15You say we, we, I know from reading the book who you mean, it's you and your wife.
40:20Tell me about the logistics of that and what did she think when you said, hey, honey, we're
40:24going to get into a recreational vehicle and just ride for months?
40:28You'd never driven in an RV before.
40:30We'd never driven in an RV.
40:32We had never really been in an RV.
40:35And she said what you might think she said, which is, that's insane, we're not doing that.
40:41We talked about it and we began doing a little research and she warmed up to the idea.
40:48She's always got an adventurous spirit.
40:50And we've been camping before, but had never been RVing.
40:54And in the end, it was in the middle of pandemic, we were sitting around staring at each other
40:58and thought, well, if we don't do it now, we're never going to do it.
41:01We're both working remotely.
41:02And we both had the freedom to travel.
41:04So it felt like the right time.
41:07You asked, you said the question, wherever you went, what holds this country together?
41:12Well, let me ask you, what do you think holds this country together?
41:16Well, the answers that I got were real varied.
41:20Some people said the constitution.
41:22Some people said love of freedom.
41:24Some people said love, patriotism.
41:28Lincoln famously said it's the moral sentiment in the declaration that all men are created
41:36equal.
41:37And I think there is a lot of truth in that.
41:39But there's also something else that's really important that holds us together.
41:42And that became more and more evident as we traveled.
41:46And that is our willingness to accept election results.
41:50And the willingness of candidates to play the gracious loser and to accept what Ronald
41:57Reagan called in his inaugural address in 1981, a miracle, which is the peaceful transfer
42:02of power.
42:03And that underlies so much of the values, liberty and democracy and freedom that we
42:10hold dear and that we believe hold us together.
42:14None of that can hold us together without our acceptance of election results.
42:19You talk about the acceptance of election results and the peaceful transfer of power
42:23as being the core of what holds us together.
42:26And yet you were down, I think you were down in New Orleans, my hometown, on inauguration
42:32day, when Joe Biden takes over from Donald Trump.
42:37And Trump's not there at inauguration day.
42:39And January 6th has just happened.
42:42And you're there in front of Gallier Hall talking to people.
42:46Was there a sense that America had changed?
42:50No, I think people, everywhere we went, people were deeply frustrated by the nation's divisions.
42:58But there was also an optimism that we would overcome them.
43:01And I think that the fact that the transfer of power took place, that Biden was inaugurated,
43:07was actually a reflection that America is in many ways the same, which is that we overcame
43:14this crisis.
43:15That's the history of the country, conflict over who we are and how we're going to move
43:21forward and the values that we hold dear.
43:25And it's not often pretty.
43:26We fought a civil war over it.
43:28But our willingness, our determination, our faith in democracy is what has really held
43:35us together.
43:36And I think that has remained true, despite the differing opinions that remain over 2020.
43:41Yeah, I'm reminded of Hemingway's line, it wouldn't be pretty to think so.
43:48Do you really believe that now?
43:50I do.
43:51I do.
43:52And I think even people who believe that the election was stolen continue to believe that
43:58they believe in democracy.
44:01And I'm not excusing their belief in a stolen election.
44:06They're wrong, of course.
44:08We know that.
44:10But it is nevertheless important for our leaders to rally people around those shared values
44:17in any which way we can.
44:20You talk about pragmatic patriots.
44:24What are they and where did you find them?
44:26I found them everywhere we went.
44:28I'll give you one example.
44:29I did a ride along of the border in southeastern Arizona in Cochise County with a sheriff's
44:35office.
44:36And the sheriff said to me, we were watching the wall getting built.
44:39There were construction cranes up and workmen there constructing the wall.
44:45And the sheriff said, I know that the wall is not a panacea.
44:48It's not going to solve everything.
44:50We need cameras.
44:52We need staffing.
44:53We need a balanced security plan.
44:55And we also need, he said, more immigrants.
44:58He said we need a balanced progressive plan.
45:00And that was in a conservative county in southeastern Arizona.
45:03And I think most Americans would agree with him.
45:06We've been fighting over immigration for 20 years.
45:08We haven't been able to get there.
45:10And so much of it has focused on the wall.
45:13But I think there's a if you spoke with people and get beneath the polling around the wall,
45:20people would agree.
45:21Yeah, we do need more immigrants.
45:22We need more legal pathways for people to come here.
45:25And we also need a secure border.
45:27Why is it our system doesn't get us to what every majority of people think would be a
45:32common sense solution?
45:33Well, a lot of ways it rewards extremism.
45:35And so candidates in both parties run to the polls, run to the to the far right and to
45:40the far left.
45:41And I visited one place, Lincoln, Nebraska, which is the only state legislature in the
45:46country that has a nonpartisan election system, where if you're running for office, the primary
45:51means you don't just go knock on the doors of Democrats or Republicans, you knock on
45:56everyone's door because independents are able to vote and the election is open to everyone.
46:01And that creates a much different dynamic for candidates.
46:04They've got to listen to everybody.
46:05They've got to seek everybody's vote.
46:08And it has created a more functional legislature in Nebraska than most other states have.
46:14And there's no reason that we couldn't bring that to other states and to Congress.
46:17I say in the book that people, cynics, I think, say we get the government we deserve.
46:22I think we get the government we design and we've designed it for dysfunction.
46:25Tell me about some of the people you met.
46:27There's a guy, Chris Gibbs.
46:29Tell me about him and what you learned from him.
46:31Sure.
46:32So Chris Gibbs is a farmer in Ohio, a cattle farmer, and he has spent his life in Republican,
46:38local Republican Party politics.
46:40Voted for Trump in 2016.
46:43And over the course of the administration, grew disillusioned with Trump, somewhat over
46:46agricultural tariffs and somewhat over foreign policy.
46:50And so he decided to leave the party and become an independent.
46:53And in doing that, something happened he wasn't expecting, which is he lost all his friends.
46:59And that was incredibly difficult for him to experience because these relationships
47:03that he had built up over a lifetime in local politics disappeared.
47:08And that was something that I heard echoes of that from other people as well.
47:13And it's a really disheartening, it's a really disheartening experience to see relationships
47:22disappear over politics.
47:24One of the places you visited, too, was a mosque, the first, America's first mosque
47:30is right there along the Lincoln Highway.
47:32You interviewed the imam and he told you something that stood out to me.
47:37He said in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, he said, suddenly we started
47:42having phone calls, letters, even bouquet of flowers were left at the steps, baskets
47:47of food saying, we know you, you are not like them.
47:52However, also things change a bit.
47:55Tell me about that.
47:57So he spoke very positively about the post 9-11 experience and how the community rallied
48:02around him and the members of the mosque and how much that meant to them.
48:07But it began to evaporate during the Trump years, he said.
48:11And he went out of his way to not be partisan about it.
48:14He said many Muslims are Republicans.
48:17But what President Trump was doing was demonizing Muslims in a way that was inflaming people
48:28to issue threats and to ostracize the community in a way that they had never experienced.
48:36In a sense, it was the opposite of what President Bush did after 9-11, which was to defend Islam
48:43as a religion of peace.
48:45And I'd heard something very similar from the first Muslim woman to be elected mayor
48:50of any town in America in New Jersey.
48:53And she described a very similar post 9-11 experience.
48:56And then when she ran for office about six or seven years ago, she encountered just a
49:02torrent of Islamophobia.
49:03And it was very disheartening for her to experience.
49:08But she recognized that it had been built up over time and that it was being inflamed
49:13and heightened by Trump and what he was empowering other people to say and do.
49:21The divisions you saw in America are not just domestic in the United States.
49:26We're seeing them around the Western world in particular, even with the European elections
49:30recently.
49:32To what extent do you think this populist resentment that we feel in America is related
49:41to immigration, or is it an economic issue, or is it a mistrust of the elites, or to what
49:48combination is it?
49:49I think it's a little bit of all of that.
49:52And I think it's really important to recognize that it's not new.
49:55We have had waves of xenophobic sentiment in this country many times in the past.
50:01And it was certainly the case in Lincoln's day as well.
50:05And so we have experienced this before.
50:08And what I try to do in the book is to draw upon how we got through those times and how
50:15we overcame them and how we didn't succumb to xenophobia.
50:18The Irish and the Germans and the Italians all faced, and the Catholics all faced, waves
50:24of this.
50:25And I think that's a really important part of the American story and a part of the American
50:29success story is acceptance and assimilation.
50:33And it's a story that we need to remind ourselves of, that it's part of who we are as we look
50:39at this latest wave of immigrants and people coming to the border and from all different
50:47places.
50:48So four years ago, you were on the road and there was a Trump versus Biden election.
50:54Now we're entering the summer, a Trump versus Biden election.
51:00You talk about the stakes, and one of the things you say is there's nothing more dangerous
51:04to the maintenance of democracy than the sense that the nation is doomed unless an election
51:10goes a particular way.
51:12What do you see as the stakes in this election, and what do you see as a way that we can remain
51:18unified going through elections like this?
51:20I think it is really important to remember that we've survived so much as a country.
51:27Lincoln had this phrase, he criticized Southerners who threatened to rule or ruin the country.
51:33And I think you can hear a lot of the echo of that sense of rule or ruin in some of Trump's
51:40comments that the country will not survive another four years of Joe Biden.
51:46I think there's enormous resilience in the country's values.
51:50Well, let me say that, don't you think it goes the other way?
51:54People say on behalf of the Democrats that we're not going to survive four years of Trump.
51:58Yeah, I do.
51:59I think there is greater resilience than Democrats give the country credit for.
52:04I think that is true.
52:06The danger is that when we were traveling four years ago, January 6th and Stop the Steal
52:10hadn't happened.
52:12And now it has.
52:13And that is a different level of conflict than we've seen in American democracy in many
52:22years.
52:24But I do agree that there is enormous resilience in the American people and in their faith
52:31in these values.
52:32And I think that will continue to be the case.
52:37And the more that leaders can appeal to that, I think the more attractive they will be as
52:43a candidate.
52:44And I know that has not been Trump's strategy thus far.
52:48But I think he would be—they're not going to take my political advice, but I think there
52:53is something to be gained for both candidates in appealing to that sentiment.
52:58You talk about what the candidates can do, but you've been across America.
53:03What do you think each of us can do every morning when we wake up to say, let's figure
53:07out a way to heal these divisions that our politicians, our media, other things keep
53:12creating in our society?
53:14Well, in our own little ways, in our own communities, there are lots of things we can do.
53:18I spoke with a woman in South Bend, Indiana, who is a pro-choice volunteer at an abortion
53:24clinic, and she talked about how difficult it was to open the clinic and how much opposition
53:30they faced from local residents.
53:33But instead of being angry at them, she decided to do something about it, which was to invite
53:38some of the opponents to her home for a conversation, and she thought that this might create some
53:43common ground.
53:44It turns out it didn't.
53:46They were both unalterably opposed to the other's position.
53:49But she concluded, you know what, that's OK, because something else happened, and that's—we
53:54found we liked each other, and we began a relationship.
53:57And she said the lesson out of that experience was we have to be able to prioritize the relationship
54:03over the politics.
54:04And I think that is something that each of us can do in our own lives, is to remember
54:09that the relationship is more important than the particular political issue that we're
54:15arguing about.
54:16Frank Barry, thank you so much for joining us.
54:20Thanks for having me.
54:21And finally, last night we showed you the acts of resistance that can take place anywhere.
54:27As London ballet students twirled along the Thames in the name of climate action.
54:32Tonight, one of the world's most celebrated ballerinas is also using dance to make a stand.
54:39At 61 years old, Alessandra Ferri is making a point that age is no restriction.
54:45And she's giving her pointe shoes one last whirl as she makes a return to the stage as
54:50Virginia Woolf at the Metropolitan Opera.
54:53Woolf Works is inspired by the celebrated author's life and work, and for Ferri, it's
54:58about defying expectations of what the female body can do at any age.
55:05And that's it for our program tonight.
55:06If you want to find out what's coming up every night, sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org
55:12slash amanpour.
55:13Thanks for watching, and goodbye from London.